Internet Marketing Magazine by Internet Marketing Magazine

From the Desk of the Editor Welcome to ‘Internet Marketing Magazine’ – the original and leading free magazine designed specifically for Internet Marketers to be delivered on the iPad, iPhone and Android platforms. Internet Marketing can sometimes be perceived as a difficult thing to achieve great success with except for the ‘lucky few’. The team at ‘Internet Marketing Magazine’ believe success online is not difficult once the fundamentals are in place and all the correct boxes are ticked.

‘Internet Marketing Magazine’ will be Bi-Monthly initially, and will provide you with the knowledge of those fundamentals and the boxes that you need to tick to achieve success online. The content will also cater for advanced marketers with leading tips and strategies on what is working on the Internet right now. The panel of writers for ‘Internet Marketing Magazine’ is quite diverse in it’s knowledge base. All the contributing writers are doing Internet Marketing or Direct Marketing and Copywriting on a full time basis, so the experience that we can draw on for the articles and content for you is quite extensive. We aim to deliver you up to date relevant timely information on all facets of marketing on the internet from niche markets through to traffic, conversion optimization, marketing funnels, online stores, social media, eBay and just about anything else you can think of. So sit back and enjoy your first edition of ‘Internet Marketing Magazine’. If you have any questions, feedback, content or advertising requests please don’t hesitate to contact us via our new site InternetMarketingMag.net Wishing you the best of success online

GregCassar

Internet Marketing Strategist & Editor – Internet Marketing Magazine

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5 Steps for a More Profitable 2011 2010 has now come and gone. It was what it was. For you it may have been a massively profitable year with your internet businesses, or you may be at more of a beginner or intermediate stage and still be finding your feet and testing and measuring new things to see what works and what doesn’t. Either way, no matter what your results last year it’s always possible to, and it should be a goal to make this year bigger than the last. Let’s get stuck straight into our 5 steps to make your Internet marketing businesses more profitable in 2011... 1. Speed of implementation This is a concept I can honestly say I really only ‘got’ in the last few months. How it came about for me was that I was doing pretty well online in that I was already a full-time Internet marketer, but my consulting business was demanding more of my time than my other ‘Real Passive Internet businesses’. When I thought about it my real goal was to be in the ‘lifestyle creation business’ meaning that I really needed to get my passive income streams cranking more, rather than adding additional active income streams. I got some advice to go see a man by the name of Richard Bandler, the co-creator of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and get my head right. So I got on a plane to London and did exactly that. As luck would have it on the 2nd day of my Licensed Practitioner of NLP course I got hypnotized on stage by Richard and he made it plainly obvious to me that if I wanted my passive income streams to grow then I needed to focus on those businesses with the same amount or more energy as I was doing for my active income streams. The other big learning was the speed with which I needed to implement to achieve the results that I was after. Following that trip I am now implementing in my businesses at roughly 12 times the rate that I was previously. Now think about this for your businesses. Are you treating your Internet business like a hobby or like a real business with

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urgency? Give yourself tight deadlines, hit those deadlines and make things happen quickly. Effectively you will test and measure more techniques, niches and product offers more quickly. This will dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to achieve the results you are after. 2. Build your list faster When you know what niche(s) you are going to specialize in online you really need to build a list (database) of prospects and clients that you can market to over and over again. The most common way of building your list is to give away something of high perceived value to your target market in exchange for their contact details so that you can follow up with them again via your auto responder software. There is an art to this so that you create a good relationship with your prospects and customers by providing them great information and value, while also implementing enough offers to them so that you make a profit while actively building your list. This point is also closely related to the first one we covered - are you implementing quickly with building your list? Do you have a sense of urgency with it? Ultimately the bigger you build your list and the better your relationship and offers with it the more money you will make in your business. So what can you do in 2011 to actively and rapidly build your list?

3. Work on your mindset Have you ever noticed that people who win the lottery are after broke again after 5 to 10 years? It’s amazing isn’t it? I often thought about how could this be, and then I heard Pat Mesiti say “you can’t stay a millionaire if you have a two dollar mindset”.

This is pretty clever. What it means is that as your wealth creation mindset expands so will your opportunities and your prosperity. It also means that you can do all the clever Internet marketing traffic and conversion strategies etc but if your mindset is not right you will never get wealthy - sad but true.

5. Cut the dead wood

There is no easy way of getting your mindset right, and in many ways it is a journey rather than a destination. For me learning NLP has made a massive difference because I now understand how the unconscious part of my brain works and can control it better rather than letting it run it’s own programs. For you it may be different, but ultimately this mindset area is a field of study that should get as much of your attention as the Internet marketing area in 2011 and beyond.

On the financials in your business, if you take it back to the fundamentals to make more profit you either need to make more sales revenue or reduce your expenses. With this cut the dead wood theme, review your business credit card statement - is there any software tools or other expenses that you don’t need anymore? If so then cancel those services and reduce your expenses where ever possible. In our businesses we review all our expenses quarterly and anything that is not actively being used gets culled. This one technique will save you thousands of dollars over the course of the year.

4. Test and measure like a pro With our Internet marketing strategy and consulting business we get to see the inner workings of hundreds of businesses that do marketing on the Internet. The great thing about this is that we no longer guess about what is going to work online, we can gather data and observations across a number of industries and identify trends and traits of successful businesses online. One thing that we notice about all successful Internet marketing businesses is that they test and measure consistently. There is a saying that “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” and this seems true with Internet marketing 100%. We measure our stats like clicks, opt-ins, sales, conversion rate, cost per lead, cost per sale etc on a weekly and also monthly basis. We have monthly goals that then roll up into annual goals. This works beautifully because at all times there is visibility of what is working and what isn’t and it allows for quick adjustments along the way. The other part of test and measure like a pro is to be constantly working on improving your conversion rates. Google website optimizer is a fantastic free tool to help with this as in its simplest form it allows you to run two versions of the same web page against each other and see which converts the best. You then declare the page that converts the best as the winner and try and create a new page that will convert better again. What this means is that for the exact same advertising spend over time you start to get better and better return on your investment (ROI). Professional marketers do this constantly and you should too. Now think about your business, do you have a spreadsheet with your weekly, fortnightly or monthly stats on it? If not how quickly can you get one implemented? Do you have Google Website Optimizer implemented for the main landing pages of your website? If not how quickly can you get it implemented?

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Over time as you test and measure new products, niches, sites etc you incur both monetary costs and also tasks that require your time.

The other part of cut the dead wood is look at all the different aspects of your business such as the websites and product offerings you have. Are there any there that are taking up a lot of your time but not significantly increasing your profits? If so look at them with a critical eye to see if you can cull them to free up your time and make space for new opportunities to enter your business life. We like to think of it as “run your winners long and cut your losers short”… Treat your business with priority, efficiency and urgency. Implement the 5 strategies above in 2011 and watch your results improve. Greg Cassar is the leading Internet marketing strategist behind the scenes of many of the biggest Internet marketers in Australia and abroad(InternetM arketingDoneForYou. com). You can follow Greg online at his blog GregCassar.com or receive his 21 free Internet marketing training videos (paid membership site now free) at DolDay.com

The Key to Successful Web Sales Copy Article Did You Wake Up this Morning Thinking About this? Well did you? Wake up this morning thinking about J.R. Smith & Associates? They are one of the better builders where I live. So did you wake up thinking about them? Why not? They do great work. Everyone raves about them. Lots of successful and beautiful new homes and renovations... strong guarantee, great logo and corporate branding, always seem busy. Can’t fault them.

W.I.I.F.M. - What’s In It For Me needs to be the acid test for every ad, mailing, email you create for your business. If your prospects can’t immediately see what’s in it for them they’ll turn the page, bin the letter or click delete... sale lost. So remember WIIFM, it forms the cornerstone of effective marketing yet it is so often lost to the time-poor business owner juggling a million and one things at once who wonders why their advertising isn’t working. Don’t be one of them!

So why didn’t you wake up thinking about them?

Of course, WIIFM is just one piece of the puzzle, next you must stand out from all the clutter out there but that’s a discussion for next time.

There are two answers to this question, one obvious and the other contains a powerful marketing lesson for any business. First, the obvious one.

Remember WIIFM... apply it to everything you do and watch your responses soar.

You didn’t wake up thinking about them because you’re not looking to build or renovate, or you don’t live in my area and therefore don’t even know they exist and have no interest in them. Fair enough too. And the second? This runs so much deeper and you must really “get” this as a business owner and marketer of your products or services.

Steve Plummer Copywriter and Marketing Strategist Steve Plummer is one of Australia’s highest paid and in-demand copywriters and is the personal copywriter for Australia’s “Millionaire Maker” Mal Emery. Steve’s marketing and writing savvy have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra sales for many happy clients. Follow Steve’s blog at StevePlummerOnline.com

We don’t care! “We” being the marketplace. This is not a comment on the ills or otherwise of society but is a statement of fact. People are self-absorbed, busy, selfish time poor creatures. Period. And you want to sell them something? No one cares if you’ve been in business for 20 years and your experts have been servicing the local area for blah blah blah... All your market cares about is themselves, so your marketing must focus on THEM and not YOU.

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‘The Big Idea in Your Business’ Article I heard about this story the other day. The simplicity of it is beautiful and it has a powerful lesson. I won’t keep you hanging any longer…

2. Can you “name a process” in your business that you and

I live in a small town in North Queensland (where they bend bananas); there was a serious epidemic unfolding… A real tragedy in the making. Here’s where it started…

3. Never assume that your clients will “join-the-dots” - spell it

At the local supermarket and fruit stores, locals had the choice of two types of bananas to buy. The big, long banana in one bay… and the small puny bananas in the other bay. (If you’ve ever been the small or less athletic kid at school who always gets picked last, then this story will give you hope).

4. Always communicate your biggest benefits (or point of

In short, (no punt intended), the smaller bananas were not selling. To the point where they were going to totally wipe them out all together. Shut down the harvest plants, lay off the workers – the whole deal - Never to be seen or sold again. Until… One smart cookie splashed a creative marketing spin on the problem. It only took two words. Get this…they placed a sign in front of the small banana bay that read this: “Lunchbox Bananas” And guess what happened?… whooooosh… They became so popular that they practically ran out the door. Shopping mothers INSTANTLY made the distinction and changed their buying habit to fill a need. And that need was fitting a banana into a school lunch box. Beautiful.

your industry peers take for granted? Name it. Own it. Think outside the box.

out for them as if you had to explain it to a 7 year old. NEVER ASSUME THE OBVIOUS.

difference) in the best most obvious possible way.

5. Can you use a recognizable word or phrase and marry it

into your message? I saw this the other day when someone was referred to as “The Richard Branson of the Internet”. Here are a few more examples: • The “Entrepreneurial Bible” • The “Ghost Whisperer” • The “Cash Flow Queen”

You get the idea… So can you find your “Lunchbox Banana” story? Keep your eyes “peeled” It could be just around the “bend” Think big. Be different. Bret Thomson Bret Thomson is a master copywriter and profit strategist. You can get a free copy of Bret’s DVD ‘How to Write a Winning Sales Letter’ at www.BretThomson.com

The Lessons from this: 1. You could be just one great ‘big idea’ away from a marketing

(and financial) breakthrough. It could be the media you choose, the new market you tap into, the message, hook, twist or USP (Unique Selling Proposition), your strategy, and the list goes on.

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Creating your business avatar Let me share with a you a very simple, and incredibly powerful exercise (the most powerful ones usually are the simplest). If you master this exercise it has the power to revolutionize your business. Seriously. The concept of an ‘Avatar’ is a term that has been bantered about on the Internet lately. I first heard it from Jeff Walker of Product Launch Formula fame though it is a concept you may also hear of under the term “Composite Ideal Customer”. This is my version and how it relates to my framework for creating a successful internet business, called 4th Dimension Mastery.

What is a Business Avatar? You may be familiar with the movie Avatar? The human researchers take on the form of the indigenous (and gorgeous) creatures on the moon of Pandora. Or you may be aware of the original meaning of Avatar from the Hindu religion where deities / gods take on the form of humans or other creatures. When it comes to business, an avatar is an imaginary person who represents the composite of your ideal customer. They are described in such detail that they almost seem real. Real enough for you to have a conversation with. Well, not a real conversation (they’re an imaginary friend, not a real one OK?). But real enough for you to have a one-on-one conversation with when you write your emails, blog posts and sales letters. They are also the person you are talking to on your tele-seminars and videos. What are the Advantages of Creating a Business Avatar? If you get the avatar right then your ideal customer will truly resonate with every message you make. They will be naturally attracted to you and may even find themselves thinking, “How did she know that is what I am thinking?”. It doesn’t mean you will be excluding others who aren’t your exact avatar but you will get the message across clearly to the majority of your ideal customers.

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This is how it impacts on the 4 Dimensions of a successful Internet Business:

1st Dimension: You After you have created your Avatar think to yourself “Is this a person I want to do business with?” You have a choice you know. If you think to yourself that you’d rather not have their company then you need to look at what type of customers you really want to work with. 2nd Dimension: Your Customer You need to do research to really create your Avatar. At the end of this process you will be incredibly clear on your customer needs and frustrations. An important thing to note is, you may have more than one Avatar, especially if there is one group who want your service (such as children) and another who makes the buying decisions (such as their parents).

3rd Dimension: Joint Venture Partners A Joint Venture (JV) partner is someone who has a very similar Avatar to you. They are already providing a complementary (though not identical) service to them. Once you are clear on your Avatar it is easy to identify potential JV Partners.

4th dimension: Community Engagement This is the dimension where your customer really interacts with you. By always communicating with your Avatar, rather than communicating as if to a blur of many customers, you will attract them, convert them to sales easier and encourage interaction in numerous ways (for example they will be more likely to comment on your blog posts if it feels as if you are talking directly to them).

How Do You Create An Avatar? You can research your current customer base, forums, Facebook groups, and other areas where your target market hangs out to really get a good feel for their frustrations, needs and demographic info. Your Avatar should be very specific and include things such as: • • • • • • •

Gender Age Life Circumstances Income Biggest frustrations History Aspirations

You can even give them a name and find an image to represent them (just like with the Avatar you may choose to represent yourself in a forum or game).

Here’s Mine To give you an idea, here’s one I prepared earlier. This is an Avatar we created after an intensive survey of my customers last year. I was surprised by our findings (mainly their family situation and interests) which is a good thing in my books. Of course, this is not the profile of every customer but writing to this imaginary person makes my sales copy, blog posts etc much stronger. Ready? My Avatar (Jenny) is between 35 and 45. She has children who are close to leaving home. She is a professional in that she has education or experience in a career and is actually pretty smart. She wants a change in her life. She doesn’t find her career as fulfilling as she would like and wants more lifestyle freedom. She wants to build her own business and is quite frustrated because, even though she knows she is capable, she is overwhelmed with how much there is to learn and where to start.

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She wants to build a business on her passions and she is driven by more than money. She wants to make a change in the world in some way though finance and lifestyle is also very important to her. Interestingly, she also has an interest in natural therapies, the environment and personal development. She has access to income other than her business income (through her partner, a part or full time position, or home equity) but knows she can’t rely on this for too long. She’s been learning how to build an Internet business and has taken some action already but is frustrated because she’s not making any money from her endeavours. Sound familiar? Of course, this doesn’t exclude people who don’t fit this profile. After all, 10% of my customers for Wonderful Web Women are men. But it will only attract those who can relate to my Avatar in some way.

Your Turn It’s your turn to take action. Spend time this week to research your Avatar for your business. Then write it down and see if you can refine it further. Ideally you want to get to the same level of detail and understanding of the avatar for your business as I have for mine. So, get to it! Can’t wait to meet your Avatar. Janet Beckers is the host and founder of Wonderful Web Women. An award winning on-line community recognised for generous and honest marketing advice for women on the internet. She is also an international best selling author and multiple award winner, including Australian Marketer of The Year 2009. To learn from the most successful women on the internet through live webinars, masterminds and forums absolutely free, visit http://www.WonderfulWebWomen.com and join today.

7 Steps to Keep Your Ads Alive in Google in 2011 You probably would have need to have been hiding under a rock to not notice Google ‘thinning the herd’ of advertisers over the last year or so. Ultimately Google is trying to provide a better and more relevant search experience for their users. It seems they are willing to do this at any cost, and are not concerned about how many advertisers they get rid of in the process.

So, based our extensive research and experience from our InternetMarketingDoneForYou.com business here are our 7 Steps to Keep Your Ads Alive in Google in 2011… really its about having high quality score!

Google is Currently…

• • • •

• •

Reducing the Quality Score of many campaigns so that their ads no longer show impressions Permanently disabling accounts and Permanently disabling any other accounts disabled users create The trick then to keeping your ads and campaign alive in Google in 2011 is really to know what Google wants and ultimately what they hate.

Here is What Google Wants? • • • • •

Highest quality Ads – providing safe, relevant and high quality experiences for their searchers Easily find what your ad promises Relevance – from your keyword to your ad to your landing page Unique content Clear, easy, Above the fold navigability (menu bars etc)

Here is what Google Hates? • • • • • • •

Get Rich Quick sites Data Collection sites for free items. This is a weird one because their Google Website Optimizer and Google Analytics tools are designed to measure exactly this course of action Poor Comparison/review sites Data Entry Affiliates designed to drive traffic to another domain iFrames Popups – on entry or leave Malware sites

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1. Improve Your Campaigns Relevance Align your keywords, ads & landing pages so that they are all relevant to one another Use small adgroups – ideally 1 keyword per adgroup. Tools like SpeedPPC make this easy for you to achieve Ideally your keywords should be in your ad and also on your landing page visible above the fold Your keywords should be in your meta tags and descriptions etc.

2. Transparency – Provide up front all the information that Google wants to see • • • • •

On your landing page clearly identify the benefit you described in your ad Clearly identify in your sales copy what your business does Ensure your Billing/Pricing not hidden No free + shipping offers with monthly continuity Include a Privacy policy

3. Improve Your Landing Pages Navigation • • •

Add a clear menu above the fold with links off to the other page on the site Build it with Wordpress preferably or any other standards based content management system A good trick is to put your opt-in form on the other pages if you can so that you can keep your opt-in rate as high as possible

4. Build out your site’s Footer • • • •

Have a clear footer section at the bottom of the page Don’t make the links invisible Add the following sections as a minimum to the footer as this is what Google is looking for –> Home, Blog, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Contact Us, Sitemap Name these pages logical names eg. privacy-policy

5. Unique Content • •

From the footer add links to unique articles on your site (don’t put them multiple places on your site) Also add links to blog articles

6. Click Through Rate (CTR) • •

Google thinks this is key to relevance because highly relevant ads get clicked more so split test your ads to get high CTR Sort your campaigns by CTR – tune or delete anything with low CTR

7. Hope and Pray • I say this one as a bit of a joke, but it’s true… Google can kick you out any time for no reason – so don’t get dependant on them as your main only source of traffic and leads. I hope this is beneficial to you and it helps you to keep your Google Adwords account alive and healthy in 2011 and beyond. Greg Cassar is the leading Internet marketing strategist behind the scenes of many of the biggest Internet marketers in Australia and abroad (InternetMarketingDoneForYou.com). You can follow Greg online at his blog GregCassar.com or receive his 21 free Internet marketing training videos (paid membership site now free) at DolDay.com

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Why Would We Choose A Niche Rather Than A Catalogue Store For many people starting out on eBay choosing a market to sell into can be a bit overwhelming when you first look at the possibilities and opportunities. After all, there are over 50,000 categories with thousands of products in each category to choose from. Often a new seller can see so many opportunities they want to try to take advantage of them all. We’ve personally looked at thousands of opportunities on eBay and yet we still only ever set up an eBay store to sell into one niche exclusively. At first it’s so exciting just making sales that you want to do everything and sell everything all at once! While its great to foster that enthusiasm, and also good to build up your feedback at the same time, in the long term, it really pays to find the niche market you want to enter into, and become the expert within that field. If you’re not familiar with the term ‘niche’ it basically means a hot selling, profitable area within a specific category. Some of the biggest eBay successes come from sellers who concentrate on these niche groups. So instead of trying to be everything to everyone as so many other sellers do, choose a niche market and fully concentrate on that market. For Example, John lives in Singapore. He was an architect working the usual long business hours, but he really loved photography and cameras. Not digital cameras, but cameras that still used film and traditional photography methods and cameras. After selling a few of his old lenses and camera equipment on eBay that he no longer needed, John realized that there were lots of bidders for his, (what is now considered old and retro) changeable lenses for a traditional SLR film camera. After trawling through all of the local Pawn shops and second hand stores, he realized that he could buy many items he’d seen up for auction on eBay from the pawn dealers.

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After comparing the prices that those lenses and cameras were selling for on eBay, John realized that he could probably source the same items and sell them for a profit. This interest has now led to a full time business where John actually flies around the world on buying trips, to pick up more traditional photography equipment. And just loves it! Part of John’s success is, knowing that he can source the items cheaper than they would sell for on eBay. He’s also building relationships with many large Pawnshop owners in many different countries. These contacts now look for, and hold photography items for him ready for his next buying trip. John has chosen the niche of high quality cameras. Within that niche, there are also a few different items he could market within that category. He knows his stuff, he knows what the market will pay for it, and he knows how to source it.

Now that’s the perfect eBay business! For example, you may be interested in parrots. You could create your whole business around birds and parrot related products, right down to e-books about parrots. Become an expert in one market so that buyers feel comfortable shopping with you because you are perceived as the expert in your field. We like the idea of niche markets because it’s very simple to automate your eBay business. Say for instance if you sold ‘parrot cages’ and you had a core base of 10 items that you sold 7 days a week. You’d only have to do most of your work once at the beginning because every day as an item sold, it would relist automatically, saving you many hours where you could be concentrating on more important things…like growing your business!

There is so much traffic on eBay that selling into a niche market is very profitable and more often than not offers better returns for your money. So think outside the box, would you rather spend your hard earned money with someone that is selling garden sheds, clothing, photo frames and perfumes or someone that is just selling gardening products that looks like an expert in gardening? Here are 3 steps to help you find your niche on eBay:

1. Decide on your niche market by finding out what’s hot and

what’s not on eBay. Finding this information is relatively easy; you can just visit places like eBay Pulse & Completed Listings.

2. Choose 3-5 products you would like to have in your cluster

of products within your niche and research them to make sure they are selling on eBay

3. Find suppliers for your niche products and then begin

selling with templates.

We’ve now shown hundreds of people all over the world how to sell effectively and profitable on eBay. When people vary from the proven strategy of choosing a niche, (we can completely understand as there is so much opportunity out there) then things can happen slower and often end in frustration. We’ve got plenty more tips and strategies we’ll be sharing with you in our column here at Internet Marketing Magazine but if you want to reach your eBay goals faster you can follow us on our blog at www.BiddingBuzz.com.au. Bye for now and we look forward to hearing of your success on eBay too. Matt & Amanda Clarkson Bidding Buzz…the worlds leading eBay Education Company!

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