Ben Stein once stated, "The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want."
It's the same with your online business – decide what you want your business to be. Make a blueprint for your Internet venture that charts your course into the future.
Before You Start Your Business
Sit down and decide what you want your business to be like in three years, five years, ten years. Have a plan in mind – a blueprint that outlines the design of your online business. This plan doesn't have to cover all those little details. In fact, it needs to be more of a general outline. It shows out what kind of business you're going to build.
In your blueprint, decide what kind of products you're going to market. Decide what kind of image you're going to project. Decide what kind of customers you want to attract to your business.
As Your Business Grows
Keep your blueprint by your side as you work on your business. Use it as a guide to make sure you keep going in the right direction.
As you see opportunities for creating hot new products, consider how they will fit into your blueprint. Will the product take your business closer to your goal, or will it take you out of your way to the goal of the kind of business you want to build? Does the product fit into the image you have been building for your business? Will it attract the type of customers you are building your business for?
Look at the sales letters you write ... the newsletters you produce ... the pricing you set – every component of your online system. How well do they match your blueprint?
Plan For Success
By having a blueprint in place from the beginning, you'll be sure that your online business becomes the business you actually want.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Join the Heart Kids Tag-a-thon. Help spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
For Online Business Success, Add The Human Touch
People want to buy from people, not from corporate entities or shadowy figures masked behind websites. Your online business needs the human touch to resonate with site visitors – and sell them your products.
Longing For The Good Old Days
Unfortunately, the days of walking into your neighbourhood General Store – where old Mrs. Perkins called you by name and knew which brand of fabric softener you preferred – have faded away. The small stores fell one by one, as large department stores – filled with a gaggle of young clerks who all looked the same – took over the commerce landscape.
The thing is, people still like dealing with the same face – someone who they know. We still like to know the person whose product or service we are buying. Why else would you drive 5 miles out of your way to buy produce from that nice family's roadside farm stand? Why else would you pay a little more to get your suits cleaned by that nice old gentleman on 57th Street, who always greets you with an authentic smile and a cheery "Hello"?
Bring Back The Human Touch
There is no reason that any of your websites, sales pages, or other parts of your online sales process have to be impersonal. Stop hiding behind your computer, and let your customers get to know you. Get up close and personal.
Show Your Face
Put your photo on everything in your online business. Greet visitors to your website with your portrait, and a small caption telling them who you are. Put your photo and a message fro the author in all your reports and e-books.
Inject Your Soul
Put your own personality on your sites and in your products. Don't write like a corporation – write like a human being. Be yourself. Write like you are talking to a friend.
On your blog, let your visitors get to really know you. Who are you? What makes you tick? Let your visitors see you as the person you are, not some cold corporation.
By bringing the human touch to your online business, you become Mrs. Perkins – greeting your visitors and steering them to the products that are best for them. No longer are visitors merely landing on a website, and clicking away – they're being pulled into a more personal space, where they can find a person to trust and buy from.
Get personal, and increase your sales.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Tag-a-thon is a Congenital Heart Defects awareness building effort for the Heart Kids Blogathon. Get more details here
Longing For The Good Old Days
Unfortunately, the days of walking into your neighbourhood General Store – where old Mrs. Perkins called you by name and knew which brand of fabric softener you preferred – have faded away. The small stores fell one by one, as large department stores – filled with a gaggle of young clerks who all looked the same – took over the commerce landscape.
The thing is, people still like dealing with the same face – someone who they know. We still like to know the person whose product or service we are buying. Why else would you drive 5 miles out of your way to buy produce from that nice family's roadside farm stand? Why else would you pay a little more to get your suits cleaned by that nice old gentleman on 57th Street, who always greets you with an authentic smile and a cheery "Hello"?
Bring Back The Human Touch
There is no reason that any of your websites, sales pages, or other parts of your online sales process have to be impersonal. Stop hiding behind your computer, and let your customers get to know you. Get up close and personal.
Show Your Face
Put your photo on everything in your online business. Greet visitors to your website with your portrait, and a small caption telling them who you are. Put your photo and a message fro the author in all your reports and e-books.
Inject Your Soul
Put your own personality on your sites and in your products. Don't write like a corporation – write like a human being. Be yourself. Write like you are talking to a friend.
On your blog, let your visitors get to really know you. Who are you? What makes you tick? Let your visitors see you as the person you are, not some cold corporation.
By bringing the human touch to your online business, you become Mrs. Perkins – greeting your visitors and steering them to the products that are best for them. No longer are visitors merely landing on a website, and clicking away – they're being pulled into a more personal space, where they can find a person to trust and buy from.
Get personal, and increase your sales.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Tag-a-thon is a Congenital Heart Defects awareness building effort for the Heart Kids Blogathon. Get more details here
Monday, July 23, 2007
Keep Your Online Systems Simple For More Sales
Nothing is ever as simple as we'd like it to be. Yet, we often succeed in making things even more complicated than they need to be. The problem is, the more complicated you make your online system, the more potential customers you'll lose. For effective Internet marketing, keep every part of your system as simple as possible.
Check Every Process In Your Online System
Take a tour through your marketing system – as a customer. Look at each part of each process through the eyes of a prospective customer. Make no excuses for anything you find along the way. Your customers won't – they'll just click away!
Traffic Generating System
Simplify the process of getting from the far reaches of the Internet to your website. In all your ads, forum signatures, article resource boxes ... make it easy for the reader to get to your site. Don't make them think about it. Just tell them exactly what to do. "Click here for more information!"
Sales System
On your sales page, make it easy for your prospect to become a customer. Make the page easy to read. Create a smooth glide down the page to the order button. Break up large chunks of text with sub-headlines for the skim-readers.
Don't hide the price in some obscure corner of your sales letter, where the reader has to hunt for it. Or, worse yet, force them to click through to your order page to find out how much it's going to cost them.
Again, tell your reader exactly what to do and how to order your product. Give them a strong call-to-action.
Order System
Keep the order process simple. There's no reason in the world your customer should have to fill out a series of forms with their address, phone number, mother's maiden name ... just to get their downloadable e-book.
Make it easy to pay. Although not everyone can use PayPal, the majority of Internet users do. Why make someone get out their credit card and fill in another form, when they could buy it with the click of a PayPal button.
Delivery System
There are a number of scripts and software applications that will automatically deliver your digital information product to your customer – and do it instantly. Don't make your customer wait.
All Your Systems Simplified For The Customer
Make the whole process of buying a product from you as simple as possible for the customer, and you will increase our sales.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Join the Heart Kids Tag-a-thon. Help spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details.
Check Every Process In Your Online System
Take a tour through your marketing system – as a customer. Look at each part of each process through the eyes of a prospective customer. Make no excuses for anything you find along the way. Your customers won't – they'll just click away!
Traffic Generating System
Simplify the process of getting from the far reaches of the Internet to your website. In all your ads, forum signatures, article resource boxes ... make it easy for the reader to get to your site. Don't make them think about it. Just tell them exactly what to do. "Click here for more information!"
Sales System
On your sales page, make it easy for your prospect to become a customer. Make the page easy to read. Create a smooth glide down the page to the order button. Break up large chunks of text with sub-headlines for the skim-readers.
Don't hide the price in some obscure corner of your sales letter, where the reader has to hunt for it. Or, worse yet, force them to click through to your order page to find out how much it's going to cost them.
Again, tell your reader exactly what to do and how to order your product. Give them a strong call-to-action.
Order System
Keep the order process simple. There's no reason in the world your customer should have to fill out a series of forms with their address, phone number, mother's maiden name ... just to get their downloadable e-book.
Make it easy to pay. Although not everyone can use PayPal, the majority of Internet users do. Why make someone get out their credit card and fill in another form, when they could buy it with the click of a PayPal button.
Delivery System
There are a number of scripts and software applications that will automatically deliver your digital information product to your customer – and do it instantly. Don't make your customer wait.
All Your Systems Simplified For The Customer
Make the whole process of buying a product from you as simple as possible for the customer, and you will increase our sales.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Join the Heart Kids Tag-a-thon. Help spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details.
Friday, July 20, 2007
How Do You Woo Your Online Customers To Get The Big Sales?
Getting your customers to buy your big-ticket items takes a systematic sales process that moves your customer ever closer to the big sale. Set this online sales system up properly and your back end sales will take off.
Sales Is A Courtship
When you meet a man or a woman that interests you, you don't ask that person to join you for a week in the Caribbean. The chances of that happening are about on a par with winning the lottery. He or she doesn't even know you ... has no idea what kind of person you are ... is not going to take a chance on you.
The First Step In The Courtship
So, what do you do? You ask them out for a coffee or a cup of tea. It's safe. It's a minor investment of time. If either of you decides that there's nothing there, you can go your separate ways – you're out very little. Your risk was minimal.
Set your online sales system up to approach prospects in the same manner. Don't have it offering your $199 home study course to perfect strangers. They'll balk. They'll run away. After all, they don't know you or your products.
Instead, offer a low-priced (under $10) report. Like the coffee/tea date, this is a low-risk way for your prospect to get to know you. They'll become your customer, but they don't have much invested in the relationship yet. It's safe.
Your report, like a first date, gives your customer an idea of what you're like. They can see what kind of information you give. Decide whether it's worth it to continue the relationship.
The Second Date
OK, you've had a good first date. Now it's time to spring the week in Barbados, right?
Slow down! Are you trying to kill the relationship before it even starts to blossom? A second date could be a nice dinner out, a movie, maybe even tickets to an event. Now's the time to get to know each other better. Start building a real relationship.
Same goes for your sales. Don't have your sales system set up to slam your customer – who just bought a $7 report – with that $199 home study course. They're not ready to make such a commitment to you, yet.
If you're providing a good quality report, your customer will be ready to take that one step up – to a $25-35 e-book or small video series. Have your system present your customers with a slightly higher-priced product that builds on what they just bought from you. The chances of them buying from you again just took a huge leap up.
Wooing At A Steady Pace
Have your online sales system move your customer gently from one price level to another. Don't rush it and you will get that week in the Caribbean. In fact, with a good sales system in place you'll sell enough of those $199 home study courses to pay for a very nice week.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Be part of the Heart Kids Tag-a-thon. Spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details.
Sales Is A Courtship
When you meet a man or a woman that interests you, you don't ask that person to join you for a week in the Caribbean. The chances of that happening are about on a par with winning the lottery. He or she doesn't even know you ... has no idea what kind of person you are ... is not going to take a chance on you.
The First Step In The Courtship
So, what do you do? You ask them out for a coffee or a cup of tea. It's safe. It's a minor investment of time. If either of you decides that there's nothing there, you can go your separate ways – you're out very little. Your risk was minimal.
Set your online sales system up to approach prospects in the same manner. Don't have it offering your $199 home study course to perfect strangers. They'll balk. They'll run away. After all, they don't know you or your products.
Instead, offer a low-priced (under $10) report. Like the coffee/tea date, this is a low-risk way for your prospect to get to know you. They'll become your customer, but they don't have much invested in the relationship yet. It's safe.
Your report, like a first date, gives your customer an idea of what you're like. They can see what kind of information you give. Decide whether it's worth it to continue the relationship.
The Second Date
OK, you've had a good first date. Now it's time to spring the week in Barbados, right?
Slow down! Are you trying to kill the relationship before it even starts to blossom? A second date could be a nice dinner out, a movie, maybe even tickets to an event. Now's the time to get to know each other better. Start building a real relationship.
Same goes for your sales. Don't have your sales system set up to slam your customer – who just bought a $7 report – with that $199 home study course. They're not ready to make such a commitment to you, yet.
If you're providing a good quality report, your customer will be ready to take that one step up – to a $25-35 e-book or small video series. Have your system present your customers with a slightly higher-priced product that builds on what they just bought from you. The chances of them buying from you again just took a huge leap up.
Wooing At A Steady Pace
Have your online sales system move your customer gently from one price level to another. Don't rush it and you will get that week in the Caribbean. In fact, with a good sales system in place you'll sell enough of those $199 home study courses to pay for a very nice week.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Be part of the Heart Kids Tag-a-thon. Spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
How Do You Create Customer Satisfaction That Brings You More Sales
"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." -- Mark Twain
Doing right -- or giving your customers the best possible product -- will go a long way towards ensuring customer satisfaction, and it will also create evangelists who help promote your products. To create a product that gratifies and astonishes your customers, you need to over-deliver.
For your low-priced front-end reports, don't try to get by with a minimum of information. Make the report a truly valuable product that will exceed your customers' expectations.
You Don't Have To Give Away The Farm
To create a truly impressive report, you don't need to give away everything. Of course, you want your readers to have a reason to come back and buy more. To do this, create a fantastic report around one technique or solution, but give a lot of links to other solutions -- provided by your other reports or higher-priced e-books and videos.
For example: You could create a great report that outlines all the steps for researching market niches. Make it a truly remarkable report, by thoroughly over-delivering. After reading your report, your customer will need the next report in your series -- a report about idea generating. From there, it can lead to reports on organizing and creating an e-book, crafting a sales letter, uploading pdf files and setting up an automatic download -- the list goes on.
Take It A Step At A Time
To make your reports shine, give your readers step-by-step instructions to help them achieve their goal or solution. Don't assume that your reader knows a certain step -- cover everything. Imagine taking someone who has no skills or experience in your niche, and leading them by the hand as you explain each step. Point out each little detail.
Give Something Extra
You can add a lot of extra value to your reports by including worksheets. Give your readers something to use with the knowledge you are giving them. Involve your readers. By getting them to take the new knowledge and put it to use right away, they are absorbing the new information -- and they're getting tremendous value from your report.
Be A Superstar
By providing your customers with over-delivered products, you'll be the shining star in their eyes. When they need another information product, it's you they'll come to. When they recommend a product to a friend, it's your product they'll recommend.
Create the best products possible, astonish your customers, and build a great infopreneur business.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Join the Heart Kids Tag-a-thon. Help spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
How To Set Up Your Follow-Up E-Mail Series To Get The Most Out Of Your Lists
Your online business system should have two separate mailing lists - your freebie list and your customer list. These lists are not the same, so don't treat them the same. If you want to get the most sales and long-term profits out of your list, you need to set up your follow-up systems properly.
Set And Forget
With a good autoresponder to take care of signing up subscribers and delivering your series of e-mails, you only need to do the work once. So, take the time to design your e-mail series well. Don't provide any time-sensitive information in your e-mail series, as you want to set it and forget it – let it keep sending out the same information for years to come.
For every new subscriber that joins your list, the information will be fresh and new. As long as you're delivering good information, there is no reason to change it.
Your Customer List
This is your most valuable asset and needs to be treated as such. Set up your follow-up e-mails to deliver a series of valuable tips. Since these are paying customers, make this some good "how to" information. Your series of tips should be so good that, if you bundled them together, you could sell them as a report.
Design your follow-up series around the main subject of your product line. If you create a series of tips that will be useful to any customer – no matter which of your products they buy – you will keep all your customers happy. Carry this same subject into your weekly newsletter, and you'll keep your customers on your list for a very long time.
With your customer list, give them a good amount of great content, to balance out the number of offers you place in their e-mails. You'll be selling more products to your customer list, but if you balance it well with the valuable information you're supplying, your customers won't feel that you are only selling to them.
Your Freebie List
The people on your freebie list have not yet qualified themselves to receive your best information – and it wouldn't be fair to your paying customers to give away the same information to this list. But, you do want to give good enough information to this list, so they'll see the value of buying one of your products. As you did with your free report, give them some great "what to do" information.
With your freebie list, you can also increase the frequency of mailing. Set up your autoresponder to send out an e-mail every day for the next 7-10 days. In each e-mail, you can use the "what to do" information to pre-sell one of your information products. In each and every e-mail, have a link and a call to action to buy one of your low-priced reports.
Your freebie follow-up series has one job – and only one job – to move your free report readers onto your customer list. The way for them to get onto the valued customer list is by buying a product. With a freebie list, your follow-up system must sell, sell, sell.
Two Lists
Treat your lists differently and you'll build a profitable online business. Take some time to design your freebie and customer lists. As you create more products for your product line, you can develop other free reports and freebie lists to feed prospects into your customer list. Above all else, treat your customer list as the valuable asset that it is.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Tag-a-thon is a Congenital Heart Defects awareness building effort for the Heart Kids Blogathon. Get more details here
Set And Forget
With a good autoresponder to take care of signing up subscribers and delivering your series of e-mails, you only need to do the work once. So, take the time to design your e-mail series well. Don't provide any time-sensitive information in your e-mail series, as you want to set it and forget it – let it keep sending out the same information for years to come.
For every new subscriber that joins your list, the information will be fresh and new. As long as you're delivering good information, there is no reason to change it.
Your Customer List
This is your most valuable asset and needs to be treated as such. Set up your follow-up e-mails to deliver a series of valuable tips. Since these are paying customers, make this some good "how to" information. Your series of tips should be so good that, if you bundled them together, you could sell them as a report.
Design your follow-up series around the main subject of your product line. If you create a series of tips that will be useful to any customer – no matter which of your products they buy – you will keep all your customers happy. Carry this same subject into your weekly newsletter, and you'll keep your customers on your list for a very long time.
With your customer list, give them a good amount of great content, to balance out the number of offers you place in their e-mails. You'll be selling more products to your customer list, but if you balance it well with the valuable information you're supplying, your customers won't feel that you are only selling to them.
Your Freebie List
The people on your freebie list have not yet qualified themselves to receive your best information – and it wouldn't be fair to your paying customers to give away the same information to this list. But, you do want to give good enough information to this list, so they'll see the value of buying one of your products. As you did with your free report, give them some great "what to do" information.
With your freebie list, you can also increase the frequency of mailing. Set up your autoresponder to send out an e-mail every day for the next 7-10 days. In each e-mail, you can use the "what to do" information to pre-sell one of your information products. In each and every e-mail, have a link and a call to action to buy one of your low-priced reports.
Your freebie follow-up series has one job – and only one job – to move your free report readers onto your customer list. The way for them to get onto the valued customer list is by buying a product. With a freebie list, your follow-up system must sell, sell, sell.
Two Lists
Treat your lists differently and you'll build a profitable online business. Take some time to design your freebie and customer lists. As you create more products for your product line, you can develop other free reports and freebie lists to feed prospects into your customer list. Above all else, treat your customer list as the valuable asset that it is.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Tag-a-thon is a Congenital Heart Defects awareness building effort for the Heart Kids Blogathon. Get more details here
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Set Up Your List Building System Properly For Success
There are two kinds of mailing lists to develop for your business - the freebie list and the customer list. How you approach and prioritize these lists will make a big difference in your online success.
A Tale Of Two Lists
A freebie list can be built up quickly into an impressively large list, but it can also be a list that buys very little off you. After all, most of the people on your freebie list are there because they were after a free report. They may never be willing to actually part with their money.
Your customer list, although often not as big, is a much more valuable list. Here is a list of responsive, qualified customers. They have already shown their willingness to buy your products - at least once. It is quite likely that they will buy from you again.
Which Mailing List Gets Your Priority?
In my own business, my customer list is bigger than my freebie list. I give a much higher priority to building my customer list, and only have a few systems set up to bring prospects in to my freebie list.
The freebie list is merely a vehicle for turning prospects into first-time customers, and moving them onto the customer list.
How Do You Build These Two Mailing Lists?
For your freebie list, you just create a free report to give away, in exchange for names and e-mail addresses. This report must still be a high-quality report, which gives away some great information and showcases your expertise.
See, your free report is a great advertisement for your business. It's a chance to get in front of your prospects and show them why they should be buying your reports and e-books. Impress them to the point where they are compelled to buy more information from you.
Your free report gives away some great "what to do" information. It gives the reader a clear idea of exactly what they must do to solve a certain problem or achieve a certain goal. What it doesn't do is show them the exact steps to accomplish this feat.
The step-by-step "how to do it" information is in your paid report. This is how you will build your customer list.
Build your customer list by selling low-priced reports - anywhere from $7 to $10 in most cases. This low price tag eliminates the biggest barrier to getting a first-time customer on your list - the price barrier. Once you get customers on your mailing list - and they start seeing more of the valuable information that you can provide - they'll be more inclined to buy from you again. And next time, it could well be one of your mid-priced products, or even a high-ticket home study course.
Treat Your List Well
In the next article, I'll go over how to treat the members of these two lists. You need to set up your follow-up mailing system differently for each mailing list.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Be part of the Heart Kids Tag-a-thon. Spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details.
A Tale Of Two Lists
A freebie list can be built up quickly into an impressively large list, but it can also be a list that buys very little off you. After all, most of the people on your freebie list are there because they were after a free report. They may never be willing to actually part with their money.
Your customer list, although often not as big, is a much more valuable list. Here is a list of responsive, qualified customers. They have already shown their willingness to buy your products - at least once. It is quite likely that they will buy from you again.
Which Mailing List Gets Your Priority?
In my own business, my customer list is bigger than my freebie list. I give a much higher priority to building my customer list, and only have a few systems set up to bring prospects in to my freebie list.
The freebie list is merely a vehicle for turning prospects into first-time customers, and moving them onto the customer list.
How Do You Build These Two Mailing Lists?
For your freebie list, you just create a free report to give away, in exchange for names and e-mail addresses. This report must still be a high-quality report, which gives away some great information and showcases your expertise.
See, your free report is a great advertisement for your business. It's a chance to get in front of your prospects and show them why they should be buying your reports and e-books. Impress them to the point where they are compelled to buy more information from you.
Your free report gives away some great "what to do" information. It gives the reader a clear idea of exactly what they must do to solve a certain problem or achieve a certain goal. What it doesn't do is show them the exact steps to accomplish this feat.
The step-by-step "how to do it" information is in your paid report. This is how you will build your customer list.
Build your customer list by selling low-priced reports - anywhere from $7 to $10 in most cases. This low price tag eliminates the biggest barrier to getting a first-time customer on your list - the price barrier. Once you get customers on your mailing list - and they start seeing more of the valuable information that you can provide - they'll be more inclined to buy from you again. And next time, it could well be one of your mid-priced products, or even a high-ticket home study course.
Treat Your List Well
In the next article, I'll go over how to treat the members of these two lists. You need to set up your follow-up mailing system differently for each mailing list.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Be part of the Heart Kids Tag-a-thon. Spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Build A Friendly Online Sales System And Sell More Information Products
"Eat and drink with your relatives; do business with strangers." - Greek ProverbWith the vast size of our marketplace on the Internet, just about every customer you are ever going to get will be a complete stranger. But, there is no good reason to treat them as a stranger. Turn them from stranger into friend, with a few simple components in your sales system.
Show Your Face
The majority of people landing on your website the first time, don't know who you are or why they should buy from you. The first contact they have with you will be your words on a sales letter. It may convey to them why they should buy your product, but it doesn't say much about you.
This is where you can make things a bit more personal - and increase your sales. Place a photo of yourself on all your websites. Under the photo, place a caption with a short bio about yourself. Now, you've gone from a faceless stranger to someone they can at least see and get a little background on.
Be Yourself
The next contact will be your product. Whether it's a report, e-book, or video this is a place where they can get to know you more. Instead of writing in a dry style that simply gets the point across, develop your own style of writing. Inject a bit of yourself into the product. As your customer goes through your information product, you are becoming less of a stranger to them.
Now, you are not as much of a stranger, but they are still strangers to you.
Reach Out And Touch Someone
Obviously, you can't get to know all your customers - they'll number in the thousands. But, you can get to know a few of them. Some will interact with you - via e-mail, in the forums, on chat. This will give you a good idea of who your customer is. You can't put individual faces on the thousands, but you can put a few familiar faces on them.
When you write your newsletter, keep the known faces in mind. Don't write to a crowd of thousands of customers - write to that one face you can conjure up in your mind. Have a conversation, just as you would with a friend.
Now, you're no longer treating your customers as strangers. Even though you cannot actually meet every one of them, your words are reaching out and touching them.
Friends Do Buy From Each Other
When your customers become your friends, you can virtually eat and drink with them - but, you can also sell more products. Customers are more willing to buy from those they know and trust.
In your online business system, build in friendship and your business will flourish.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Join the Heart Kids Tag-a-thon. Help spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Stabilize Your Sales With A Solid Product Line
It's wonderful when your e-book or video set is selling like hotcakes, but hard on your bottom line when it goes through a sales slump. With any product, you can experience a number of peaks and valleys in your sales - as promotions by affiliates come and go, competing products steal your thunder for awhile, or seasonal sales spike and drop.
You can buffer these peaks and valleys - and create a stable income from your infopreneur business. Build a system that weathers the sales droughts - that won't be affected by slow sales of any one product.
Create A Product Line, But Diversify
As you build a product line, create products that target the same market. By keeping all your products targeted at the same market, you can focus all your energies on building your presence in that market. You'll also be able to keep selling more products to the same customers, on your all-important mailing list.
However, you can diversify the type of products that you sell to this market. Create reports, e-book, videos on a number of subjects that affect your target market. Build a number of diverse product lines.
An Example Of Building Diverse Product Lines
Targeting small retail business owners.
You might enter the market with a small report on effective displays of a certain type of product. Then, follow up with an e-book on store design, and follow that with a DVD that demonstrates customer traffic flows through different store layouts.
Now, you've built a product line around store layout, and it's time to diversify. You could introduce a report on hiring practices that ensure good, trustworthy employees, or a plan to thwart shoplifting, or a guide to finding better suppliers.
You'll establish the beginnings of a second line that you can still easily promote to your current customer list, but will also bring in a lot of new customers. As you build your product lines, you'll also build your customer list.
Build A Network Of Product Lines
Keep building new product lines - one at a time. Get a number of products established in a line before you start building another one. With each new product line, you can take a step further away from your original product line, until you have a number of lines that service different needs in your market.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
This TAG-A-THON post is in support of Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details here.
You can buffer these peaks and valleys - and create a stable income from your infopreneur business. Build a system that weathers the sales droughts - that won't be affected by slow sales of any one product.
Create A Product Line, But Diversify
As you build a product line, create products that target the same market. By keeping all your products targeted at the same market, you can focus all your energies on building your presence in that market. You'll also be able to keep selling more products to the same customers, on your all-important mailing list.
However, you can diversify the type of products that you sell to this market. Create reports, e-book, videos on a number of subjects that affect your target market. Build a number of diverse product lines.
An Example Of Building Diverse Product Lines
Targeting small retail business owners.
You might enter the market with a small report on effective displays of a certain type of product. Then, follow up with an e-book on store design, and follow that with a DVD that demonstrates customer traffic flows through different store layouts.
Now, you've built a product line around store layout, and it's time to diversify. You could introduce a report on hiring practices that ensure good, trustworthy employees, or a plan to thwart shoplifting, or a guide to finding better suppliers.
You'll establish the beginnings of a second line that you can still easily promote to your current customer list, but will also bring in a lot of new customers. As you build your product lines, you'll also build your customer list.
Build A Network Of Product Lines
Keep building new product lines - one at a time. Get a number of products established in a line before you start building another one. With each new product line, you can take a step further away from your original product line, until you have a number of lines that service different needs in your market.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
This TAG-A-THON post is in support of Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details here.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Are You Working Hard? Or Are You Working Smart?
Don't make the mistake of thinking that to make more money, you'll have to work harder. Don't get the misconception that having more money means having to work hard all day, and not have any time for family and friends. No time for fun.
For those who work hard, this is a sad truth. But, for those who work smart, nothing's farther from the truth. For, if you're working smart, you'll actually have more free time to do the things you love, and you'll make more money.
Prepare To Be Free
Making more money - while working less - can be achieved with a well-planned system. You need to create a system that will take care of most of your sales, marketing, and customer service. You need to use systems that automate each part of your business as much as possible. You need to design your business for the greatest efficiency.
This will take some planning. Design your whole overall system and then break it into individual systems. Decide what each system must do, and create procedures for it.
Work Hard To Be Free
It will take hard work initially to get your business running smoothly, and creating a good profit for you. Commit yourself to setting up your systems properly. Put in the extra effort to get everything working smoothly. Keep your eye on your goal of having an efficient online business system - that gives you freedom - and it will be easier to give that extra effort to your business.
Reap The Rewards And Be Free
Your hard work pays off when your system is running smoothly. Your marketing system is effortlessly driving traffic to your system of websites. Your sales pages are convincing readers to buy, and automatically taking their orders and processing payments. Your delivery systems are rushing the products to happy customers.
With your system in place, all this can happen while you are enjoying your freedom with family and friends. You can be making money, while your on a dream vacation. You can be filing your bank account, while you're doing the things you want to do.
With your system in place, it only takes a little maintenance to keep things running smoothly. Instead of long hours of labour, you find yourself putting in easy minutes to keep the money flowing into your mini empire.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
You really don't have to work harder, when you work smarter. And, setting up an efficient system is definitely working smarter.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Tag-a-thon is a Congenital Heart Defects awareness building effort for the Heart Kids Blogathon. Get more details here
For those who work hard, this is a sad truth. But, for those who work smart, nothing's farther from the truth. For, if you're working smart, you'll actually have more free time to do the things you love, and you'll make more money.
Prepare To Be Free
Making more money - while working less - can be achieved with a well-planned system. You need to create a system that will take care of most of your sales, marketing, and customer service. You need to use systems that automate each part of your business as much as possible. You need to design your business for the greatest efficiency.
This will take some planning. Design your whole overall system and then break it into individual systems. Decide what each system must do, and create procedures for it.
Work Hard To Be Free
It will take hard work initially to get your business running smoothly, and creating a good profit for you. Commit yourself to setting up your systems properly. Put in the extra effort to get everything working smoothly. Keep your eye on your goal of having an efficient online business system - that gives you freedom - and it will be easier to give that extra effort to your business.
Reap The Rewards And Be Free
Your hard work pays off when your system is running smoothly. Your marketing system is effortlessly driving traffic to your system of websites. Your sales pages are convincing readers to buy, and automatically taking their orders and processing payments. Your delivery systems are rushing the products to happy customers.
With your system in place, all this can happen while you are enjoying your freedom with family and friends. You can be making money, while your on a dream vacation. You can be filing your bank account, while you're doing the things you want to do.
With your system in place, it only takes a little maintenance to keep things running smoothly. Instead of long hours of labour, you find yourself putting in easy minutes to keep the money flowing into your mini empire.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
You really don't have to work harder, when you work smarter. And, setting up an efficient system is definitely working smarter.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Tag-a-thon is a Congenital Heart Defects awareness building effort for the Heart Kids Blogathon. Get more details here
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Digital Downloads Aren't Foolproof, But A Good Response System Saves The Day
"A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." - Douglas Adams
When setting up your Internet marketing system, you'll take steps to make it as automatic and foolproof as possible. However, things can and will go wrong. By having a good backup system established, you'll be able to quickly solve common problems and give your buyers the kind of stellar customer service that has them coming back for more.
Communication Breakdown
As you rely more and more on sales scripts to handle order taking, payment processing, and product delivery, there is always the possibility of a breakdown in electronic communication somewhere along the line. A customer's computer has an aggressive firewall installed ... cookies are disabled ... a connection times out – and your customer never gets their download.
Since your customer has just seen their money get transferred out of their PayPal account – but they have no product to show for it – apprehension can take over. Did they just make a big mistake? Will they ever receive their product? Have they just thrown money out the window?
First Contact
Provide a contact e-mail on your order page - and all the pages in the processing and delivery system. This gives your customer a course of action and instills some confidence in their buying decision. They know they can easily contact you, and hopefully have the problem quickly resolved.
A Prepared Solution
To speed your response to a failed download situation, prepare a backup folder. In this folder you need to place a copy of each digital product that you sell, accompanied by a pre-written e-mail. The e-mail should apologize for the delay and offer a brief explanation of what probably happened. It will also notify the customer that their product is attached to the e-mail (Never assume that all customers will instantly notice the attachment). Then, thank them for their patience.
Take Quick Action
The minute you receive a complaint from a buyer, you or an assistant can easily remedy the situation. With a system in place, it only takes a few seconds to deal with each failed download – a lifesaver when you are having a busy launch day.
Simply hit "Reply" ... attach the product ... paste in the response e-mail. Instantly, your customer receives their product and walks away with admiration for your great customer service.
Set It Up Today
With your quick response system in place, you won't waste a lot of time taking care of customer support. You'll be able to quickly and efficiently handle a failed download, and create happy customers who spread the word about your quick, friendly service.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Be part of the Heart Kids Tag-a-thon. Spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details.
When setting up your Internet marketing system, you'll take steps to make it as automatic and foolproof as possible. However, things can and will go wrong. By having a good backup system established, you'll be able to quickly solve common problems and give your buyers the kind of stellar customer service that has them coming back for more.
Communication Breakdown
As you rely more and more on sales scripts to handle order taking, payment processing, and product delivery, there is always the possibility of a breakdown in electronic communication somewhere along the line. A customer's computer has an aggressive firewall installed ... cookies are disabled ... a connection times out – and your customer never gets their download.
Since your customer has just seen their money get transferred out of their PayPal account – but they have no product to show for it – apprehension can take over. Did they just make a big mistake? Will they ever receive their product? Have they just thrown money out the window?
First Contact
Provide a contact e-mail on your order page - and all the pages in the processing and delivery system. This gives your customer a course of action and instills some confidence in their buying decision. They know they can easily contact you, and hopefully have the problem quickly resolved.
A Prepared Solution
To speed your response to a failed download situation, prepare a backup folder. In this folder you need to place a copy of each digital product that you sell, accompanied by a pre-written e-mail. The e-mail should apologize for the delay and offer a brief explanation of what probably happened. It will also notify the customer that their product is attached to the e-mail (Never assume that all customers will instantly notice the attachment). Then, thank them for their patience.
Take Quick Action
The minute you receive a complaint from a buyer, you or an assistant can easily remedy the situation. With a system in place, it only takes a few seconds to deal with each failed download – a lifesaver when you are having a busy launch day.
Simply hit "Reply" ... attach the product ... paste in the response e-mail. Instantly, your customer receives their product and walks away with admiration for your great customer service.
Set It Up Today
With your quick response system in place, you won't waste a lot of time taking care of customer support. You'll be able to quickly and efficiently handle a failed download, and create happy customers who spread the word about your quick, friendly service.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Be part of the Heart Kids Tag-a-thon. Spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details.
Monday, July 2, 2007
To Sell More Product You Have To Keep In Touch With Your Customers
When prospects come to your website, do you want them to buy just one product, or do you want them to come back and buy more?
It doesn't take an Einstein to come to the conclusion that making more sales to each customer is going to add a lot more to your profits. After all, if you're using any kind of paid advertising, it's costing you money to get those customers to buy from you. But, once they're in the front door, it hardly costs you anything to sell them a second helping.
So, when you're planning your online business system, don't plan just one product - plan a whole product line. You might not create all the products at first, but do have a plan for adding complementary products to your line.
Starting Off Small
Your first product should be low in price, but high in quality. A report with a price tag of less than $10 is a great start. This keeps the objection to buying low, and gets customers into your sales funnel.
What's a sales funnel? It's a system you build which starts with low-priced products (like $7-10 reports) ... slowly pulls the customer in deeper, to buy mid-priced products (like $25-40 e-books) ... and then down into the depths of the funnel until they're buying high-priced products (like $100-300 home study courses).
Balking At High Prices
A new customer - who doesn't know you or your track record - is very unlikely to buy your $150 set of DVD tutorials the first time they land on your website. You haven't proven yourself to them, and they're not about to fork over that kind of money to an unknown.
However, a $9.95 price tag - on a report that promises to solve a problem for the - is not such a big gamble. The risk is low, and they're much more willing to take a chance on you.
Then, after discovering that your $9.95 report is quite good, they may return to order that $29.95 e-book of yours - which promises to give them even more benefit.
Bringing Them Back For More
To keep your customers around long enough to make that decision to buy a mid-priced product, you need to add a very important function to your online business. You need to install a system that collects names and e-mails. You need to get every customer onto a mailing list.
Then, you must keep in touch regularly - with a newsletter. Your newsletter can highlight your expertise even more - by giving away some valuable bits of information. And, it can pre-sell your mid-priced products - by giving away just enough information to whet the reader's appetite for the "how-to" information that's in your e-book.
Your Winning System
With a good line of related products, and a newsletter to remind your customers of those other products, you'll sell a lot more to each customer. And, those extra sales will make a lot of difference to the success of your online venture.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Join the Heart Kids Tag-a-thon. Help spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details.
It doesn't take an Einstein to come to the conclusion that making more sales to each customer is going to add a lot more to your profits. After all, if you're using any kind of paid advertising, it's costing you money to get those customers to buy from you. But, once they're in the front door, it hardly costs you anything to sell them a second helping.
So, when you're planning your online business system, don't plan just one product - plan a whole product line. You might not create all the products at first, but do have a plan for adding complementary products to your line.
Starting Off Small
Your first product should be low in price, but high in quality. A report with a price tag of less than $10 is a great start. This keeps the objection to buying low, and gets customers into your sales funnel.
What's a sales funnel? It's a system you build which starts with low-priced products (like $7-10 reports) ... slowly pulls the customer in deeper, to buy mid-priced products (like $25-40 e-books) ... and then down into the depths of the funnel until they're buying high-priced products (like $100-300 home study courses).
Balking At High Prices
A new customer - who doesn't know you or your track record - is very unlikely to buy your $150 set of DVD tutorials the first time they land on your website. You haven't proven yourself to them, and they're not about to fork over that kind of money to an unknown.
However, a $9.95 price tag - on a report that promises to solve a problem for the - is not such a big gamble. The risk is low, and they're much more willing to take a chance on you.
Then, after discovering that your $9.95 report is quite good, they may return to order that $29.95 e-book of yours - which promises to give them even more benefit.
Bringing Them Back For More
To keep your customers around long enough to make that decision to buy a mid-priced product, you need to add a very important function to your online business. You need to install a system that collects names and e-mails. You need to get every customer onto a mailing list.
Then, you must keep in touch regularly - with a newsletter. Your newsletter can highlight your expertise even more - by giving away some valuable bits of information. And, it can pre-sell your mid-priced products - by giving away just enough information to whet the reader's appetite for the "how-to" information that's in your e-book.
Your Winning System
With a good line of related products, and a newsletter to remind your customers of those other products, you'll sell a lot more to each customer. And, those extra sales will make a lot of difference to the success of your online venture.
Are you ready to "Live the Life of Riley"? Get your FREE, no obligations, no opt-in copy of Kevin Riley's fantastic new report "Your Online Money Factory". As one delighted reader gushed, "This report is a roadmap showing me the procedures to construct my own Money Factory, each critical element is mentioned." Get it now! Go to: http://YourOnlineMoneyFactory.com
Join the Heart Kids Tag-a-thon. Help spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. More details.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
