28 Juni 2008

STEP ONE: GETTING READY TO SELL ONLINE



jamesmaduk.com

Start Marketing Online!


If you are a small business owner trying to find out how to earn money online, you are going to need something. Good Luck!


Do you believe me?


Do a search on Amazon.com for Internet Marketing for Small Business . You will find six titles with one remotely close to being on target. Why did I look? Frankly, I was embarrassed. As a sales trainer and professional speaker I have been a student of selling for 20 years and until recently have not been able to generate any revenue with my online efforts.


This book outlines the steps that I have researched, tried and tested over the last 6years. I have subscribed to, purchased, interviewed and tested the ideas that top Internet marketers, small business owners just like you, are using today to earn more than a living online. I have taken those steps and mapped out a process that will work for any small business.


They work for me, a small business owner, and they will work for you.


Why for the Small Business Owner?


Because the small business owner has finally wrestled control away from an IT department, we are no longer waiting a month or two for simple changes to show up on our websites. The creative geniuses don t want us to muck up their fancy interface and snazzy graphics.


Whoever is ultimately responsible for generating revenues from the website has the control! If this is not the case in your small business, the time is now. Ask yourself a simple question, If your website were a salesperson, would you fire it?


When businesses really started getting involved with websites it was the information technologists who ruled the roost. Technical gurus worried about web servers, bandwidth, firewalls, feeds and speeds and expensive software solutions to manage all the data and the hardware and software was the mantra of the technical gurus. We need java server pages, and big databases to take care of this flood, let s build a robust technical solution that makes it easy for us to manage. The sales and marketing types were just happy to have a site.


Companies reasoned that the robust technical infrastructure and a logical presentation of all the information would give the smart and well-educated buyers all they needed to make an informed decision.


Larger companies sunk tons of money into preparing for the windfall of traffic and sales. You may have heard a saying in the high tech industry, if we build it they will come .


With the advancing technologies came the web designers with cool implementations of bleeding edge graphics and design. Every site turned into an attempt to do something bigger and better than the competition. Flash animations, landing pages, complex navigation hierarchy and a highly graphical interface became the rage.


A company was often judged by the look and feel of its site, not by the value that it provided. People in the marketing department finally had a say in what happened on the website, except it took a month before they saw anything change. Then it took a creative artist and the technical department to manage the site.


We all know what happened for most Internet businesses that followed the standard evolution.
1. They raised a ton of money.
2. They hired or contracted out a big technical firm or web development shop to build a really cool site.
3. Next, they made sure that the infrastructure was prepared to handle the avalanche of money that would flow from the site.


The companies that did not learn fast enough are gone. The ones that did make it got big enough to turn into a big business with traditional big business advertising and marketing budgets.


And then there are the small businesses.


They do not have the money to sink into large advertising budgets. They do not want to give outside experts control over part of their business. They are willing to experiment continually until they find what works and they have a passion for what they do.


What You Will Need


Forget about Build it and they will come ! I wrote this book for the small business owners who want to earn money with their websites. They want their online businesses to be a vital part of how they sell and market their products and services.


Good Looks vs. Good Results


I am asking you to make a decision right off the bat. You can pay to have a site that looks good and does not sell, or you can follow the steps in this program, create, and manage a website that earns you money.


The first time I went to see a motivational speaker he talked at great length about how some people choose pleasing methods over pleasing results. If you have a goal of earning money with your website then follow the steps. If you are more interested in looking good and being on the bleeding edge of technology then this program is not for you.


Internet marketing is the process of carefully testing the market with measured-results strategies until it clicks and makes a nice profit. When you have the right strategies for your business, you simply duplicate the process over and over and over.


Think of it as fishing. You try different bait until the fish start biting like crazy. Then you stick with what you know is working. At that point, it is up to you to decide how many times you want to cast your line.


Most web developers do not want the sites that they create for you to be measured by sales results. Can you imagine that? A web development and graphic artist wants to win awards for art they created with your time and money that may or may not sell anything. If you think otherwise ask one if they would accept payment through the proceeds of the website sales.


Internet marketing for small business is meant to be effective. It is not designed to win artistic awards. It is simply created to work as your virtual salesperson and make you rich. So the approach that we ll learn in this book is more like this: Build it, then publish valuable information about your area of expertise, send specially formatted e-mail and sell your products and services online.


Your Investment


Selling online requires an investment on your part.


You have to be comfortable around a computer. In fact, I am going to suggest that you learn how to alter and manage your own websites.


You have to invest a little bit of your money. There are some costs involved. Internet marketing is not free. However, it can be inexpensive to start and maintain. We will look at great ways for you to leverage what you already know and do, and convert that valuable information into customers.


You have to invest some of your time. Your website will work 24 hours a day 7 days a week, yet that doesn t mean you have to spend that much time with it. Recognize that the more time you do spend, the faster you learn what works for your business.


Let s Clear Up Some Misconceptions First
1. You have to be technically competent: You do not have to be a technical guru to create, alter and manage your own websites. If you can write a letter with a word processor, you can design and manage your own websites.
2. Everyone is getting rich online: Not everyone is getting rich with Internet marketing. In fact, the opposite is true, especially if you try to follow the footsteps of the big businesses you surf and read about. There is a special Internet marketing process. The business that are actually earning money online use it and that is what we ll cover.
3. You need a web designer to create websites: I have heard it thousands of times. Create a sticky, interactive site to build community and a relationship with your visitors. Make sure the site is interactive. Build a brand and then customers will come to your e-commerce catalog and order online. Rubbish! All you need is a simple, clean content-rich site that captures e-mail addresses and search engines.
4. All you have to do to sell online is become a member of one of those Small Business e-commerce Malls : Your ISP has a large portal with a small business marketplace. As part of your monthly Internet access fee, they give you a free e-commerce enabled spot in the mall. Do not join the mall. The only ones who are making money with online malls are the mall owners. Joining a virtual marketplace with other small business is a no-no. Not only will you be billed for the privilege, not all the traffic that is promised to be in the mall is going to end up in your shop. Do not waste your time or your money.


These are just some of the ideas that we will cover over the next 5 sections. Remember everything that follows is something that I am using in my business or have personally tested. Will it work for you?


Yes! It s a process that can be duplicated and works for sure. Every small business that I looked at used the same steps. How each business implemented the steps was different. That part is up to you. I will provide you with the tools but it is up to you if you want to use them.



27 Juni 2008

Chapter 28 - My Autoresponder Series



jamesmaduk.com

Here is a screen shot of one of my standard campaigns. If you look closely, you can see some of the other campaigns that I run. They include a:



 - 90 Minutes
 - Internet Marketing Virtual Seminar
 - Online Sales Training
 - Canadian Association of Professional Speakers Newsletter
 - Free Online Sales Training Series


The first e-mail goes out and then a number of days after the campaign is started, mail is sent automatically. In the 90 minute campaign, e-mail directs the reader to a stand alone mini-site. Each mini-site sells a single product. The customer has two choices: To buy or leave the site.


These series are set to repeat indefinitely. Once they get to the end, they start again at the beginning. To make sure that someone does not get an e-mail after they have asked for the e-mails to stop, I include a step that asks if the contact is active before an e-mail is delivered. This active/inactive field lets the system know if they still want to receive offers from me.



Chapter 27 - Review the Key Points

jamesmaduk.com
  1. Automate Your Work Whenever Possible - Choose From the Hundreds of Free Tools Available Online.
  2. A Small Business Needs Web Sites!
  3. Identifying Your Specific Niche is Key to Your Internet Marketing Strategy!
  4. Just Because You re Online Doesn t Mean That You Don t Have to Use a Sales Process!
  5. Make Sure There is a Market Which Existing Customers Willing to Pay.
  6. All Internet Marketing is Read by a Single Individual. Design it For One Person to Read.
  7. Customers Only Have Two Real Questions That You Need to Answer Online!
  8. Make Big Fat Claims!
  9. Be Ready to Back up Your Claims!
  10. There Are Only Two Reasons People go Online!
  11. Optimize Your Main Site for Search Engines and Capturing E-mail Addresses!
  12. Set Up a Theme Site as a Collection Point for E-mail Addresses and Search Engines!
  13. Most People Don t Search for What We Actually Think They Search For!
  14. Picking the Right Keywords Can Make or Break Your Internet Marketing Strategy!
  15. Measure the Effectiveness of Keywords With a KEI!
  16. Traditional Web Site Usability Measurements Don t Apply to a Small Business Web Site!
  17. Taking Care of Your Own Site is Important and Cost Effective!
  18. Don t Waste Time or Money on Flash or Fancy Graphic Web Tricks!
  19. Search Engine Optimization Focuses on Meta Tags, Link Popularity and Keyword Density!
  20. Links from Other Web Sites are More Important than Being Popular!
  21. It Pays To Be Dense when it Comes To Keywords!
  22. Information Events Are The Easiest Way For Small Business to Stay Current In The Minds of Their Prospects And the Media!
  23. Blogging Is An Easy Way To Improve Search Engine Rankings!
  24. Use a Site Map as a Search Engine Magnet!
  25. Pop-up s and Pop-under s Will Always Capture More E-mail Addresses Than a Simple Form!
  26. To Capture the E-mail Address You Have To Give the Visitor Something of Value!
  27. Word of Mouth is The Best Way to Advertise.
  28. Use Contact Management Software to Keep Track of E-mails Instead Of A List Server!
  29. Syndicating Content is The Easiest Way to Get in Front of Other Peoples Existing Web Traffic!
  30. People Still Love e-Books, Any Kind of e-Book!
  31. Your Contact List Is More Important Than Your Web Site!
  32. The real reason why links from other websites is more important than being popular!
  33. Membership Does Have Its Privileges!
  34. Members and Recurring Revenues are GOLD!
  35. It s the List, Stupid!
  36. Give Away Something Other Than Your E-zine To Capture an E-mail Address!
  37. You Have To Have an E-zine!
  38. Never Use Your E-zine To Sell Products or Services!
  39. People Who Leave Your List Are a Great Source of Information! 40. Virtual Marketing Isn t Effective Unless You Have a Back End!
  40. There Are Only 6 Real Search Engines!
  41. Don t Use Pay Per Click Search Engines for Your Main Theme Site!
  42. There s A Right Way and Wrong Way to Submit to Search Engines!
  43. You Can Build Your List by Using Other E-zines!
  44. Writing Articles is a Great Way to Grow Your List!
  45. The Quickest Way to Grow Your List is by Co-Registration!
  46. You Can Use the Telephone to Educate Customer s and Capture E-mail Addresses!
  47. Small Businesses Have to Use Press Releases Differently to Be Effective!
  48. An E-mail Pitch Letter is the Best Way to Get Noticed by Your Target Media!
  49. You Can Create A Virtual Sales Team Quickly With the Right Affiliate Program!
  50. Make Sales on Your Direct Sales Mini-site not Your Theme Site!
  51. Domain Names Aren t About Branding Your Company. Use The Actual Name of The Product Whenever Possible!
  52. You Don t Need a Merchant Account to Accept Credit Cards Online!
  53. The Same Principles Found in Direct Marketing Work Online!
  54. Build a Swipe File to Save Time!
  55. The Headline or Headlines of Direct Sales Mini-sites are the Key to Selling Online!
  56. Visitors Are Compelled to Buy When You Pile On Bonuses That Have A Greater Value Than Item Being Purchased!
  57. Guarantees and Testimonials Hold More Value In The Eyes of the Buyer than the Actual Benefits of the Purchase!
  58. Prospects Actually Read the P.S. Before the Rest of the Page!
  59. There Are Only 4 Reasons Someone Won t Buy From Your Web Site!
  60. Sequential Autoresponders Send An Unlimited Number Of Specifically Formatted E-mails Automatically To Everyone On Your Contact List!
  61. On Average, You Have To Touch Each Prospect 7 Times Before They Will Buy!
  62. You Need To Remind People With The Reason For Your Message in Every E-mail!
  63. Use Autoresponder E-mail Campaigns for Every Part of Your Business!
  64. Other Entrepreneurs With Existing Products And Customers Are Willing To Help You Grow Your Business!
  65. Make Sure That Your Payment Service Tracks Joint Ventures Automatically. ClickBank Makes a Joint Venture Easy!
  66. Visitor Conversion Is More Important Than Web Site Traffic!
  67. You Can Run Your Online Business with 6 Key Ratios!
  68. There are Real and Fake Testimonials. Learn How To Use Them.
  69. I' m Sure My Mom Has Never Heard of a Blog!

Chapter 26 - Web Links

jamesmaduk.com

I have added most of the links that I have mentioned throughout the book. At the time of writing, all the links worked. I can not guarantee that this is the case today.


Links to Great Online Resources


Google AdWords Keyword Suggestions:
https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox
 - Lycos 50 http://50.lycos.com
 - Yahoo Buzz Index http://buzz.yahoo.com
 - Good Keywords www.goodkeywords.com/gkw.htm
 - Keyword Counter www.keywordcount.com gives a quick count of the number of times your keyword appears on your pages. You can also compare your keyword density with that of your competitors.
 - Keyword Wizard www.keywordwizard.com does live searches on major search engines and so you can see the Top 5,000 keywords and phrases used by people.
 - MarketLeap http://marketleap.com/publinkpop/default.htm Want to see how many sites link to yours--and how your number stacks up with other sites, including major sites on the web? Just enter your URL (it is free), and the URL of up to three other sites. The system uses the major search engines to count the number of links there are to your site.
 - Link Popularity Check www.linkpopularitycheck.com does the same, and offers to e-mail you popularity status reports on a regular basis.
 - The WEWE Test www.futurenowinc.com/wewe.htm Visit and find out who your site is designed for, you or your customers.


Live Search Results
 - MetaCrawler MetaSpy www.metaspy.com
 -Search.com http://savvy.search.com snoop
 -Kanoodle Search Spy www.kanoodle.com/spy
 -Galaxy StarGazer www.galaxy.com/info/voyeur.html
 - Mopilot LiveSearch http://mopilot.com/index.htm?go=live.php3
 - Yahoo Shopping: What's Selling Now http://st8.yahoo.com/OT
 - Ask Jeeves www.askjeeves.com/docs/peek
 - Pew Project www.pewInternet.org


Web Site Development Tools
 - Jim Tools: Just a great website with tons of Internet marketing Tools http://www.jimtools.com
 - Bravenet Scripts Free CGI Scripts for your website at www.bravenet.net Live Visitor Tracking and Click to Talk www.humanclick.com or www.liveperson.com
 -Web Site Load Testing www.easywebload.com
 - Up Time www.Internetseer.com
 - CGI Scripts www.cgitoolbox.com
 - POLL Scripts www.bignosebird.com/carchive/survey.shtml
 - POLL Scripts www.scriptarchive.com/formmail.html
 - POLL Scripts http://cgi.resourceindex.com
 - Rent a Coder http://www.rentacoder.com
 -ScriptLand http://www.scriptland.com
 - Poll www.zoomerang.com


Other Engines
 - Page Tracking www.trackengine.com
 - Wordtracker Software www.wordtracker.com
 - Copernic Meta Search Engine: www.copernic.com
 - E-mail Tracking Software: www.extreme-dm.com/tracking
 - Link Tracking: www.hypertracker.com


E-mail Servers or Processors
 - MailLoop http://www.mailloop.com
 - GroupMail www.infacta.com


E-mail autoresponders
 - Aweber www.Aweber.com
 - Get Response www.getresponse.com
 - Autoreplying www.promasoft.com
 -RoiBot www.ROIBot.com
 -Follow-up Marketer www.followupmarketer.com
 - Auto Response Plus www.autoresponseplus.com
 - Constant Contact www.contsantcontact.com


Web Site Hit Counters
 - Stats4All: www.stats4all.com
 - WebTrendsLive: www.webtrendslive.com (not free anymore)
 - Extreme Tracker: www.extreme-dm.com
 - Sitemeter: www.sitemeter.com
 - WebStat: www.webstat.com
 - HitBox: www.hitboxcentral.com
 - Statcounter: www.statcounter.com
 - Showstat: www.showstat.com
 -Addfreestats: www.addfreestats.com


Syndication Scripts
 - www.isyndicate.com
 - www.screamingmedia.com
 - www.moreover.com
 - www.syndicatepro.com
 - www.willmaster.com
 - www.thesitewizard.com/netsyndic


Associate Programs
 - www.associateprograms.com
 - www.assoctrac.com
 - www.fusionquest.com
 - www.afftrack.com
 - www.activemarketplace.com
 - www.associateprograms.com
 - www.trackingsoft.com
 - www.affiliateguerrilla.com


E-Book Software
 - www.bersoft.com
 - www.neosoftware.com
 - www.smartcode.com
 - www.webcompiler.com
 - www.ebookgenerator.com
 - www.activebook.com


E-zine Directories and Article Submission Sites
 - www.ezineannouncer.com Software
 - www.lifestylespub.com
 - www.zinebook.com
 - www.e-zinez.com
 - www.goarticles.com
 - www.bestezines.com
 - www.epdigest.com
 - www.expertarticles.com
 - www.ezine-marketing.com
 - www.ezinearticles.com
 - www.ezinesplus.com
 - www.ezine-universe.com
 - www.ideamarketers.com
 - www.marketing-seek.com
 - www.ezadsuccess.com
 - www.ezineaction.com
 - www.eazineadvertising.com
 - www.ezine-dir.com
 - www.ezinelibrary.com
 - www.ezinelocater.com
 - www.ezinesearch.com
 - www.ezinesplus.com
 - www.ezinestoday.com
 - www.ezine-swap.com


Registration Co-ops
 - www.officelists.com
 - www.subscriberdrive.com
 - www.hiplists.com
 - www.officelists.com
 - www.listpartners.com
 - www.worldwidelists.com
 - www.rankyou.com
 - www.profitinfo.com
 - www.leadfactory.com
 - www.tucats.com
 - www.listop.com
 - www.newslettersfourfree.com


Buy Traffic
 - www.guaranteed-hits.com
 - www.buyhits.com
 - www.basichits.com
 - www.spiralhits.com
 - www.exitblaze.com
 - www.startblaze.com
 - www.trafficswarm.com
 - www.solosavy.com


BLOGS Resources
 - www.bloggingsecrets.com
 - www.bloggingforsmallbusiness.com
 - www.free-conversant.com
 - www.weblogs.com
 - www.weblogger.com
 - http://lukwam.com
 - http://cyberian.tripod.com/Blog.htm
 - www.blogspot.com
 - www.groksoup.com
 - www.daypop.com
 - www.blogfinder.com
 - www.bloghop.com
 - www.blogger.com


My Web Sites and Links
 - Main Site www.jamesmaduk.com
 - www.virtualselling.com
 - www.bloggingsecrets.com
 - www.getranked1stongoogle.com
 - www.yourowninfoproduct.com
 - www.salestrainingforsmallbusiness.com
 - www.salespagehosting.com
 - www.jointventuretraffic.com
 - www.buildmylist.com
 - www.Internetmarketingforsmallbusiness.com
 - www.facetofaceselling.com
 - www.multimediaebooks.com
 - www.smallbusinessheroes.com
 - www.webcastriches.com
 - www.parentsguidetoinstantmessaging.com
 - www.onlinesellinguniversity.com
 - www.webmarketingforsmallbusiness.com
 - www.salespagehosting.com
 - www.teleclasspresenter.com
 - www.salespagesecrets.com


Microsoft Products and Add-ins
 - http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2002/producer.aspx


Other Links
 - www.realnetworks.com
 - www.marketingexperiments.com
 - www.tellfriends.com


Contact Management Software
 - GoldMine www.frontrange.com
 - Act www.act.com
 - Maximizer www.maximizer.com


Search Engine Submission Sites
 - www.positiontech.com
 - www.looksmart.com
 - www.yahoo.com
 - www.dmoz.org
 - www.alltheweb.com
 - www.google.com


Link Popularity Services
 - www.linkagexpress.com


Link Popularity/Exchange Software
 -
www.linkagexpress.com
 - www.axandra.com


TeleClasses
 - www.mrconference.com
 - www.learningbyphone.com
 - www.voicetext.com


Press Releases
 -
www.prnews.com
 - www.newswire.com
 - www.prleads.com


Domain Names
 - www.easydns.com
 - www.register4less.com
 - www.dnsstuff.com
 - www.betterwhois.com
 - www.networksolutions.com
 - www.namestick.com
 - www.simpleurl.com
 - www.tinyurl.com
 - http://makeashorterlink.com


Taking Money
 - www.1shoppingcart.com
 - www.quickpaypro.com
 - www.paypal.com
 - www.ibill.com
 -
www.clickbank.com
 - www.2checkout.com
 - www.paysystems.com


Video Production
 - www.sonicfoundry.com
 - www.pinaclesys.com
 - www.ulead.com


Mail Clients
 - www.eudora.com
 - www.microsoft.com/outlook


E-mail Marketing Campaigns
 - www.gotmarketing.com
 - www.e-mailgen.com
 - www.groupmail.com
 - www.constantcontact.com
 - www.topica.com

Chapter 25 - Standard Definitions

jamesmaduk.com

You will be submitting information from time to time about yourself, your website, your e-zines, your advertisements etc. It is a good idea to keep a standard list of entries for all of your Internet marketing forms that need to be filled out.


For E-zine Submissions


Here is an example of my e-zine definition file.


E-zine Title: VirtualSelling eNews.


E-zine Category: Sales, selling Internet marketing, business, motivation, inspiration, self-growth, self-development.


E-zine Description (long): Join Author, speaker, trainer and talk show host James Maduk in his weekly e-zine, Small Business Heroes . Subscribers receive weekly sales, Internet marketing and success secrets taken from James Maduk s Small Business Heroes Radio Show, Entrepreneur Magazine articles and online sales Training Library. Let James show you how to build your business faster and make your solutions irresistible to the right clients. To review back issues and subscribe, please visit: http://www.jamesmaduk.com/news.htm


E-zine Description (short): Small Business Heroes subscribers receive weekly how-to information taken from James Maduk s Small Business Heroes guest interviews, Entrepreneur Magazine articles and online sales training library. James shows you how to make your solutions irresistible to the right clients. To review back issues and subscribe please visit: http://www.jamesmaduk.com/news.htm


Key words: Internet Marketing, Online Selling, Small Business, Internet Radio, How to Sell, Internet Marketing, Motivation, Achievement, Self-Growth, Success and Self-Development.


Sample Issue: http://www.jamesmaduk.com or mailto:join@jamesmaduk.com


Subscribe Information: E-mail to: join@jamesmaduk.com


Article Submissions: If you allow guest articles, provide a brief description of what type you are looking for. An example might be; Articles of between 400- 1500 words on the subject of Internet marketing, Sales Skills and Personal Development/Motivation gladly accepted. Send to: articles@jamesmaduk.com


CLASSIFIED ADS: If you accept classified ads, provide a brief description of what type of ads you allow. Personally, I do not have any outside classified ads in my e-zine. Some of the things required include ad rates, ad deadlines, forms of payment etc.


Publisher/Editor: Full Contact Sales Systems


Contact Name: James Maduk james@jamesmaduk.com


For Web Site Submission


Here is an example of my e-zine definition file.


E-zine Title: VirtualSelling eNews.


E-zine Category: Sales, selling Internet marketing, business, motivation, inspiration, self-growth, self-development.


E-zine Description (long): Join Author, Speaker, Trainer and Talk Show Host James Maduk in his weekly e-zine VirtualSelling eNews. Subscribers receive weekly sales, Internet Marketing and success secrets taken from James Maduk s Small Business Heroes Radio Show, Entrepreneur Magazine Articles and Online Sales Training Library. Let James show you how to build your business faster and make your solutions irresistible to the right clients. To review back issues and subscribe please visit: http://www.jamesmaduk.com


E-zine Description (short): VirtualSelling eNews subscribers receive weekly how -to information taken from James Maduk s Small Business Heroes Guest interviews, Entrepreneur Magazine Articles and Online Sales Training Library. James shows you how to make your solutions irresistible to the right clients. To review back issues and subscribe please visit: http://www.jamesmaduk.com


Keywords: Sales, Small Business, Internet Radio, How to Sell, Internet Marketing, motivation, achievement, self- growth, success, self-development,


Sample Issue: http://www.jamesmaduk.com


Subscribe Information: E-mail to: join@jamesmaduk.com


Article Submissions: If you allow guest articles, provide a brief description of what type you are looking for. An example might be; Articles of between 400- 1500 words on the subject of Internet Marketing, Sales Skills and Personal Development/Motivation gladly accepted. Send to: mailto:auto@jamesmaduk.com ?Subject=Article_Submission


CLASSIFIED ADS: If you accept classified ads, provide a brief description of what type of ads you allow. Personally, I do not have any outside classified ads in my e-zine. Some of the things required include ad rates, ad deadlines, forms of payment etc.


Publisher/Editor: Full Contact Sales Systems


Contact Name: James Maduk james@jamesmaduk.com


Ad/Website/E-mail Headlines


  1. Are You Ready to Triple Your Business Within the Next 6-12 Months? If your business is doing $300,000 a year, imagine doing $1 million... If you're doing $3 million, you could soon be doing $10 million... The Secret: Getting major corporations, including Fortune 500s, to gladly do business with you!
  2. Stop buying into the doom-and-gloom... Stop letting the poor economy trash your business... and discover how to jump-start your sales and profits today...
  3. Has the sluggish economy tricked you into settling for lukewarm sales and far less profit than you deserve?
  4. FREE 7 Day Virtual Seminar live with James Maduk. Send an E- mail to: auto@jamesmaduk.com?Subject=VS and you will start receiving the FREE 7 Session Virtual Seminar today! "The 5 Steps Anyone Can Take to Generate Real Revenues from Any Web Site!" Rock-Solid Tried and Tested Information.

Chapter 24 - Checking Your To-Do List

jamesmaduk.com

Take Stock Before You Get Started


Coaching you one-on-one through the maze of options, tactics, strategies and opportunities to succeed online is tough. There s too much information available. This info-glut results in wasted time and money for both new and experienced marketers. So where should you start?


You need to take stock of your unique situation; you have to find out where you are now before you can take the first steps toward where you want to go. Take stock by going through this online business audit.


It is broken into key sections, each with a number of questions. Write a short note to yourself about items that you feel need attention. Some questions may only require a yes/no for the answer. Some of them will not necessarily apply to you and that is OK. This is just to let you know where you are before you decide which tactics and strategy are best for you. Relax. It s not a test!


Print the list of questions out or photocopy the pages so you have some room to scribble and revisit the answers.


Key Areas


Key 1: A unique and professional website with your own domain name. A website will be the cornerstone of your success online yet that does not mean it has to look different from the rest of the pack. What it does mean is that you have a unique domain name. I could go on and on with this one but I will not. Just surf the web awhile and decide what sites YOU would buy from. That will tell you volumes.


What is your website address?


Who designed the site? Who did the HTML?


Can you update the site when and if you want? - By yourself?


Do you have a copy of Frontpage/Dreamweaver/Go Live to manage your website?


Where is it hosted?


Key 2: A product line you can control. Ideally, you should sell at least one product or service that you own. If you prefer to resell or market affiliate programs, then make sure you align yourself only with the strongest companies and affiliate programs you can rely on long-term.


Do you have any products to sell today?


Are they digital information products or physical?


Are they selling now? - If so, how well, how much and where?


How current are they? Can you confirm that there is existing demand for the products? Do you know what your conversion ratio is?


Have you thought about products?


Do you have some ideas ready and tested?


Key 3: A way to accept secure payments via credit card at your website. The best solution is to have a merchant account of your own. However, if that is too costly for you in the beginning, a solution like paypal.com, ccnow.com or ibill.com will do. (International businesses can use Worldpay.com as a solution.) Offering a FAST and SECURE way for your customer to purchase from your website with their Visa or MasterCard is a must on the web.


Do you have a merchant account with your existing bank?


Where (what countries) do you expect to sell your products or services?


What currency do you charge?


Are you considering one-time subscriptions as well as one-time purchases?


Does your website hosting company offer these services?


Have you already looked into these services? Which ones do you have or use?


Key: 4 An opt-in e-mail strategy. You MUST continually grow a list of prospects. It's the only way you can capture a percentage of the folks who visit your site and do not buy the first time (Which is nearly all of them!) An opt-in strategy works best when you give something of value away in exchange for a visitor's name and e-mail address. Then you must stay in touch with these people on a regular basis, providing VALUE for them.


Do you have an existing customer list?


How many names are on the list?


Do you have any e-mail addresses for this list? How many?


Is the list current? What kind of shape is it in? Are the e-mail addresses valid?


Does the list have names that have requested to be there for your current business?


How did you collect them?


Are you able to capture e-mail addresses on your existing website? How are you doing it?


Do you use pop-up or pop-under pages to capture new contacts?


Do you give any free items to your website visitors in exchange for their e-mail addresses?


Key: 5 Sales copy that is proven to sell. If there is one aspect that KILLS website sales it is poor sales copy. You may THINK your site is fine, but tiny details in your sales copy can be costing you countless dollars. I have personally experienced visitor-to-sales ratios as low as 250 to 1 and as great as 8 to 1. The difference in dollars is thousands a week. What makes the difference in most cases is the sales copy. It is that important. I know that if you follow proven, successful cyber sales formulas, you will be able to sell just about anything online!


Who wrote the copy for your website?


Do you have a page or pages dedicated to selling on your site? Are the URLs or addresses accessible from the rest of the site??


Do you know how effective they are?


Have you tested any variations on the copy?


Can you track the response rates for the pages?


Do you have an up-sell or down-sell strategy?


Key: 6 Offer an affiliate program at your website. OK, some may say this is not an absolute necessity, but look around. Nearly ALL successful online selling sites offer some form of affiliate program. You can pay for visitors, leads or commission sales, but you need to offer SOME way of rewarding folks who bring you business.


If you have a merchant/shopping cart system set up already, does it have an affiliate program?


Do you have an existing affiliate program or referral program in place?


you had a product today, how much would you want to charge for it?


Do you know any other websites or competitive sites that sell/do what you do? List a couple of URLs.


Do they have affiliate programs?


If you were able to form a partnership with another website owner, who would it be? What is their website?


Why would they want to partner with you?


Why do you think they would be a good partner?


Key: 7 Recommended products and services While we're on the subject of offering an affiliate program at your site, on the flip side of the coin you need to join a few affiliate programs yourself! Find affiliate programs that tie in well with what you offer, use the product or service, and if you like it recommend it to your visitors. You'll increase your website income literally overnight. Over the years, I've found that the best programs are the ones that offer residual or recurring income on each sale.


Have you joined as an affiliate for any other website?


Which ones? What is the website?


Why?


Have you earned any commissions from them?


How have you promoted them?


Key: 8 New products or services on a regular basis. If you can create a new product of your own once or twice a year, you will stand a better chance of growing your income continually. Also, be sure to update your existing products on a regular basis to keep content and sales fresh. If you're not able to create your own products that often, then you have to find a product you can get behind and do a joint venture with the owner. Even if the owner does not offer an affiliate program, you can offer to promote the product or service for a percentage of sales.


Do you have any long-term plans for a series of products?


What part of your business are you most passionate about?


If you had your choice, would you like to sell mostly products or mostly services?


Why?


What services are you offering now?


Can your services be duplicated?


Are you the only one who can provide them?


How hard is it to duplicate your products?


Do you consider your existing products and services exclusive?


Are they proprietary?


Key: 9 A support strategy that keeps your prospects and clients happy.
There are many ways to offer support. The best is simply by offering contact forms at your site and answering e-mail every day.


Today, how are you handling support issues online and offline?


What kind of support do you have to provide?


Are you the only one who can provide it?


Key 10: A marketing strategy that includes free promotion and paid advertising.
Let s face it, in order to make money online, you have to get visitors to your website. There are tons of ways to do that on the Internet and I have tried nearly all of them.


Do you know how many unique visitors there are to your site each day?


Do you know where they are coming from?


How are you promoting your site today?


What free tactics are you using? List as many as you can.


What paid tactics are you using? Are you able to track how effective they are?


Last Question.....


What are your top 5 goals for your online business?


Moving Forward:


Think about where you are now and then consider where you want to go. What will your business look like 1 year or 5 years from now?


Look at these areas and start to fill in the blanks.


Online Selling Tools?

Personal Tools Like: Copernic, Alexa, Frontpage, Google toolbar
Infrastructure Tools Like: Contact Management Software, Autoresponders and E-mail Servers, Web Server or Hosting Providers, TeleClass Lines, WebCast or Event Services, Billing and Credit Card Processing, Domain Names, Access Providers, Affiliate Software Solution

List Your Research Activities!


Customer Homework, Market Homework, Product Homework, Search Tool Testing to Confirm Your Market.

Build Out Your Site:


Start Collecting E-mail Addresses, Write Articles, Schedule Events, Fill In Content.

Create Sales Pages/Offers


Create and Test Your Web Copy, Create and Test Your E-mail Marketing Copy.

Have Fun Marketing Your Online Business

Chapter 23 - How to Schedule Your Success

jamesmaduk.com

There is no question that Internet marketing is going to take time and effort on your part. I have included a list of things you should do as you move through the steps.


It is kind of like homework.



 - The more homework you do, the smarter you get in class and the higher your marks.
 - If you do all of your homework you will do better than if you only do part.
 - If you rush through your homework hoping to get it done quickly, you are sure to miss something.


So if you are serious about earning online, do your homework, and do it properly. Here are the homework items you should focus on:


Step One


  1. Get a product that will sell online and offline.
  2. Make sure you have a market for that product.
  3. Get your customer profile defined and verified.
  4. Research your customer profile and make sure there are customers in that market who are willing to buy.
  5. Double check that you are up to marketing this product to this market. You know who you are and who and what you want to accomplish.
  6. Develop your Elevator Pitch, that single paragraph that lets everyone know why he or she should or should not do business with you today.
  7. Decide and document your Big Fat Claim.
  8. Download and install the tools that you need.

Step Two


  1. Build a theme based information website to support your Big Fat Claim.
  2. Analyze and optimize the site for Key Words.
  3. Study what customers actually search for and how that ties into your site.
  4. Start to collect How-To information about your theme from as many different sources as possible.
  5. Pick events that support your theme and create a schedule.
  6. Build up a collection of testimonials.
  7. Set your site up as an e-mail capture engine.
  8. Start an e-zine and pick the format appropriate to your product and goals.
  9. Evaluate any online interactive tools to see if they would be able to capture e-mail addresses.
  10. Include a way to measure the traffic on your website.
  11. Double check and test:
    a. Your e-mail address capture incentives
    b. Your keywords and search engines rankings

Step Three


  1. Research and purchase a Contact Management software package.
  2. Decide on what information you need to capture about your customers.
  3. Start collecting contacts and e-mail addresses everywhere you go.
  4. Evaluate and choose how you are going to use:
    a. Search Engines
    b. Directories
    c. Pay-Per-Click Directories
  5. Investigate and test online tactics that push and educate your potential customers.
  6. Investigate and test offline tactics that pull customers through your online sales process.
  7. Start an affiliate program.
  8. Set up an online campaign tracking system to measure how effective your online selling tactics are.

Step Four


  1. Build a series of direct sales mini-sites for individual products or categories of products either as virtual domains on your site or with new domains.
  2. Open an online payment processing account.
  3. Start to build a swipe file of websites that sell.
  4. Build models of direct sales mini-sites that follow the exact steps towards a sale.
  5. Test and track your sales copy on every mini-site.

Step Five


  1. Decide how many and what kind of e-mail campaigns you want to run.
  2. Create a series of e-mail templates that can be sent out to potential and existing customers over a period of time for each campaign.
  3. Send your e-zine on a regular basis.
  4. Test and track your e-mail copy in every campaign.
  5. Advertise your Mini-site pages in other people s e-zines.
  6. Advertise your mini-site pages in Pay per click search engines.
  7. Give your affiliates copy to send out to their e-mail lists that directed them to your mini-site.

My Internet Marketing Strategy


You have worked hard up to this point, but there is one final step that I cannot take for you. It does not matter what you sell, whether it is a physical good or a virtual download. It does not matter where you live or what you look like. In the end, it comes down to you making it happen. You have to go to market in order to produce orders. Getting ready to sell is a start. Creating a great product is the beginning. Building a site to collect e-mail addresses is the fastest way to grow your list. But, even if you take the next step and build some mini-sites to send your prospects to, if you stop there, you are no better off than you were when you began.


You have to run your campaigns. You have got to direct targeted prospects to your mini-sites in order to create paying customers. We have already looked at some different types of campaigns. I consider each of these a baseline, the minimum requirement for marketing your small business online.


Focus Your Internet Marketing Activities in These Five Areas
 - Your List
 - Your Affiliates
 - E-zine Solo Mailings
 - Your Giveaways with Links Back to Your Site
 - Joint Venture Partnerships


A Simple Schedule to Follow


Here is a typical month for me online. I will go thought the process week by week, so you can see how easy it is to plug your own products and services into a system. This schedule becomes your online sales engine. Your products and services go in one end and orders come out the other. Once you have worked the kinks out, the process will run like clockwork as long as you take care.


In Week One I Choose a Product to Sell and Create an Offer: Decide what product you are going to feature. Remember it does not even have to be yours. Because I have over 30 different products, I only feature my own. The only other time I will include someone else s product is when I use it as a bonus.


Once I decide on the product I am going to offer, I do four things:


  1. Double-check the demand for the product. Is it saleable? Why would someone buy it? What offer should I use to make it irresistible to my contact list?
  2. Create a mini-site specifically for the product. I use the same template for every mini-site I create. The all have a single page sales letter and an order page.
  3. Next, I write a series of e-mails each with a different strategy for getting the reader to visit the mini-site. E-mails with a third party endorsement or testimonial usually work best, followed by the mystery and direct bribe strategies. All of them include a link to track the results.

In Week Two I Send the E-mails to My Contact List Using the Sequential Autoresponder. I use www.Promasoft.com s autoresponder and sit back. The entire series of messages is delivered over time automatically to everyone on the list. This usually includes new prospects, my subscribers and existing customers.


In Week Three I Update My Affiliates: They should already know about the offer. They are on my contact list so this step is done as a follow-up. I send a special message to all of my resellers that provide them with all the new material and links they need to start promoting the new offer. Good affiliates jump at the opportunity to promote new products because it gives them the chance to cash in early.


Finally, In Week Four, I Approach my list of Compatible Joint Venture Partners: By week four, I have had a chance to sell some product and get some real feedback that includes testimonials. With solid testimonials, it is easy to approach your new and existing joint venture partners. I craft an e-mail for the partner using the third party endorsement strategy we looked at earlier. This allows the partner to quickly send out an e-mail to their list that sends their traffic to my mini-site. We share the profit.


All that you need to do is decide on your own schedule and, month after month, sales will continue to build. Like clockwork! It is a foolproof business process that works every time. There is nothing fancy about it. Just follow the steps and use common sense setting it up.


Weekly Activities


During each week, I also purchase solo mailings and create give a-ways to use as marketing tools. Both pull in more and more sales. So, what are the results from this 5-step system? Follow the steps and you will always get:


  1. New Orders: As long as your campaign runs and your affiliates and partners send e-mails out, orders will come in. When the e-mails stop the orders stop.
  2. New Subscribers: Some visitors will not buy from you. However, every single month you will capture new e-mail addresses for your contact list. Make offers and your contact list will grow. The more offers you make the faster your list grows.
  3. New Affiliates: Depending on your product, many of the visitors and buyers will become affiliates. You can extend your reach with a virtual sales team if each new affiliate just sells ONE product a month. You did not try to recruit new affiliates; you did not go looking for them. They join automatically as a result of the system.
  4. More Trust: As you build trust with new customers, subscribers and affiliates, you earn the right to sell higher priced items. This means more back-end sales and higher profit margins for your online and offline businesses. Treat them right and sales rise every month.

Next Step


Repeat the process. Test and Repeat. Do more of what works and less of what does not. Each month the results will get bigger and better! More orders, more subscribers, more affiliates, bigger back-end sales. The new customers purchase more products; new affiliates make more sales and bring in more customers and more new resellers. It is a loop that builds and grows month after month.


This is the process that I follow and you can too. How big the process, and how much is up to you. I just told you how it works. It s up to you to get started now!

Chapter 22 - Converting Your Visitors

jamesmaduk.com

Key Point! Visitor Conversion Is More Important Than Web Site Track and Test, Track And Test, Track and Test& How many people are coming to your theme site? How successful have you been at using the search engines to get people to your site? I will bet you even have some basic reports on how successful you ve been. I know that the free reports in FrontPage tell me how many visitors came to my site, how many of those were repeat visitors, where they were before they visited and how long they stayed on each page.


Key Point!
Visitor Conversion Is More
Important Than Web Site
Traffic!


While these are all important to your business, your main theme site s best measure of success is its ability to convert new visitors into captured e-mail addresses.


Optimize your main website for e-mail conversions. Common thinking on website design revolves around the number of return visitors and the length of time that each visitor stays on your site. Web designers will also look at which pages are visited most frequently, in relation to how the navigation is set up on the site. This is where analysis of page load times comes in, along with questions about how useable the site is.


Although these measurements are important, they should always be looked at after your conversion ratio.


Those traditional measurements are important if the purpose of your main site is to keep buying visitors on their very first visit. You already know from personal experience that you need too many visitors for this strategy to work. The only sale you are making is your purchase of their e-mail address. Do not forget that. Getting caught up in site reporting can lead you away from your primary goal.


Your main site is there to capture e-mail addresses and search engines.


Each day, week, month measure how many new e-mails you added to your contact list and where they came from. Divide the number of new contacts added to your list by the number of first-time visitors to your website. If you had 100 first-time visitors your website and your site was able to capture 25 of those visitors e-mail addresses, you had a conversion ratio of 25/100 or 25%. This is your conversion ratio.


Testing and Reporting


One process, five steps, and more than 52 tactics and strategies you can apply immediately. Where should you start?


Your server logs are a gold mine if you know what to look for and how to analyze the appropriate data relationships. Combined with some basic financial information, the data can produce some valuable insights. Why, without even looking at your actual site, somebody else could tell you a lot about how successful you are just by playing with these numbers.


What kind of response rate can you get with this system? I do not know and you should not care. You want to test and measure your conversion rates, not response rates. There are just too many variables when it comes to response rates. Conversion rates generate income. Response rates do not. Measure what counts, not what looks good.


When you turn a responder into a buyer, you have a process. If you can consistently convert traffic into dollars you have a system. If you can duplicate it, you have a gold mine.


E-commerce may be a numbers game while Internet marketing for small business is a ratios game. The trick is to focus on the right numbers so that you can make accurate decisions about how to improve your site and, ultimately how good a Customer Conversion Ratio you have. The key metric you need to track as you work to increase sales is your conversion rate. My experience has been that few companies are collecting the right data or, those that do are so overwhelmed with data that they do not know what to do with it.


How Often Will You Test


The best way to lower your marketing costs is to get smarter about where and when you spend your money and your time. Internet marketing makes this easy. You can track every campaign that you do. Use variations in campaigns and track which ones are most effective.



 - Is the money you spend on Internet advertising actually worth it?
 - Which types of e-mails, ads or campaigns are profitable and which ones should you continue.
 - Which audience is most interested in what you offer?
 - Which campaigns are losing money and should be dumped ASAP?
 - What is the current return on investment of your campaigns?
 - How many people actually click through e-mail links to visit your Mini-site?
 - How many people click through from your direct sales page to the order page?
 - Which giveaway on your themed information site is creating the most subscribers, downloads, referrals, etc?


The best tool for tracking campaigns that I have found is called Hypertracker. www.hypertracker.com allows you to easily create links that are specific to individual offers. You even get notified when you want with the conversion ratios and profit for each tracked campaign.


What is a good response to this system? Who cares? Focus on how effective your process is at conversion. When you know conversion ratios, it is easy to plug in numbers and get real answers. With the numbers, you know how many customers you have to put into your sales engine and exactly how much money will come out. Test and retest to maximize your conversion ratios and by default you will earn more money.


Ratio Examples


Here are some ratios that you should track. They are simple calculations that let you to know exactly how well you are doing over time. Use the ratios to make decisions about what changes you should make to your process.


Customer Conversion Ratio (CCR)


This is the key ratio. You get the CCR when you divide the number of orders you get by the number of unique visitors who arrive at the site. You will have a CCR for your theme site and for each mini-site. The sale that you make on the theme site is the purchase of the e-mail address. The number of actual sales is measured on each Mini-site. The CCR (also called sales closing ratio and sales closing rate) is your bottom line metric. It is an exact measure of how many of your visitors actually complete the primary action that you have set out for every website.


Customer Acquisition Cost


The CAC measures your cost of sales. You can get the CAC when you divide your marketing expenses by the total number of orders you receive from unique new buyers over a given time period. You want to track this ratio because the cost of acquiring a customer, or traffic to a Mini-site, is critical to improving your profitability and also your cash flow. You can include the fixed costs of your Internet marketing expenses, such as the cost of the website as well as the monthly cost of maintaining the site, or only consider promotional and/or advertising expenses. Use the approach that works best for you.


Sales-Per-Visitor


SPV is another great ratio to track. You can measure your sales per visitor when you divide gross sales by the total number of unique visitors. This is similar to CCR, except that instead of showing you the percentage of visitors you "close" into becoming buyers, the Sales-Per-Visitor shows you the actual average amount purchased per visitor (not per order). The SPV ratio is the key to your Pay-Per-Click strategy. If you know exactly what the sales per visitor are on one of your direct sales sites, you know exactly how much to bid on appropriate keywords.


Cost-Per-Visitor


For the accountant, you want to measure the CPV or cost for each visitor. To get this ratio, divide your marketing expenses (or your marketing expenses plus your web expenses) by the number of unique visitors. Cost-per-visitor measures the effectiveness of your marketing and your conversion processes. The objective is to minimize cost-per-visitor and increase sales-per-visitor.


No Sale Rate: Home (or Landing) Page


The NSR and ratios are used for diagnostic purposes. Making changes to text, copy and layout of a Mini-site may have consequences that were not expected. Calculate the No Sale Rate for your main theme site home page by dividing the number of one-page visits to the home page by the number of visitors entering the site through the home page. This metric is crucial; if you have time to track only one thing, track this one. You can use this ratio on any high volume page on any of your websites. It is also effective for measuring your pop-up/ pop-under pages. How many subscriptions are being submitted compared to the number of times the subscription page was served to the visitor? If visitors are not making it past the page being tracked, something is wrong.


Two items come to mind with this ratio. Are the text and copy right? Is the marketing on target? If it is, then the call to action might be wrong and the visitors simply cannot understand the offer or what is being presented. Use the NSR for hunting down copy problems. The lower the percentage, the better.


No Sale Rate: Theme Site


This same ratio applied to every page on your theme site can provide some room for improvement. Divide the number of one-page visits to the entire site over a period of time by the total number of visitors over the same period of time. This ratio points out general flaws in the layout and navigation of your main site. When you make global design changes, pay attention to this metric and aim for the lowest possible number.


Key Point!
Your Can Run Your Online
Business with 6 Key Ratios!

Chapter 21 - Campaign Ideas

jamesmaduk.com

Your best bet is to start with a single standard campaign. Every contact on your list came from somewhere. If you have done your homework and have purchased contact management software you have a way to manage your contact list. With the right give away and you basic marketing activities, you should now have the start of a list with contact names, e-mail addresses and a source field.


The source field lets you know where they came from and it s an easy way to group the campaigns. Did they download a book or report from your site? Perhaps they attended a trade show you were involved in or you asked them personally if they wanted to be included in your contact list. Your standard campaign groups everyone together. You use your entire contact list with the standard campaign.


Checklist:


  1. You have your list of contacts with valid e-mail addresses and a way to tell where they came from.
  2. You have a mini-site or direct sales page finished.
  3. You created 12 e-mail templates that follow one of the four message types: Direct Bribe, Mystery, Direct Sales Letter, or Testimonial.
  4. You decide which order you would like to send the e-mails in.
  5. You create a schedule for your auto responder with the correct sequence and frequency of e-mails

In the above examples there are 12 e-mails that can be sent out. For your first campaign, send one message every 15 days and you will have 6 months of constant contact with your list in addition to your newsletter. Every one of those messages has one purpose:


VISIT MY MINISITE NOW


The reader will either click on the link and be brought to the mini-site or they will not. Pretty simple really! The more effective you are in sending e-mails that get that click through response, the greater your chance of selling online.


Run your standard campaign for the first 60 days and track the response you get to different message types, subject lines, calls to action or P.S. text. How many e-mails you send and how frequently you send them is up to you.


By starting everyone in your list on one standard ongoing campaign, you are able to get a good idea of your response rates and quality of your list.


When you get comfortable with creating e-mail templates and understanding how frequently you can send to your list, you can introduce an unlimited number of campaigns. There are an unlimited number of reasons to set up a campaign. My best results have come from using a series of e-mails that relate to the offer I am making to them on my mini-site. If they downloaded a video on selling, I send them a series of e-mails about my online sales training site http://www.webmarketingforsmallbusiness.com.


As you add mini-sites, you can mix them into the existing campaign. For example if you have two or three different offers, increase the frequency of the e-mails but change the mini-site link. Instead of always sending them to the same sales page, each e-mail will focus on a different offer.


If that approach does not make sense for what you sell, just add another campaign for the new mini-site.


How your e-mail campaign is set up is not set in stone. In fact, it should be fluid, based on the responses that you get from your list.


If people are clicking the link in your e-mails and then visiting the sales pages, it s working. If they are not, you need to go back and try different offers, templates, message frequencies and calls to action.


Other ideas


These are examples of campaigns that you may want to investigate. Notice they are not limited to prospects or online customers exclusively.



 - Do you have an existing customer list? Create a special campaign that introduces a new product or add-on for what they have already purchased. Stress the additional benefits they will receive from upgrading their existing solution. A special offer for existing customers or subscribers works well.
 - Create a Notification Campaign with advance notice of upcoming events or product offerings. Keep your key customers up to date and in the loop with private, members-only information. It is easy to include links in the messages to mini-sites that give preferential treatment to an existing customer. This strategy works great with your best customers.
 - I use my Internet radio station as a reason for a campaign. Every week I update the play list with new content. Guess what gets included with every e-mail? Three links to one of my mini-sites. This e-mail goes out every week to all of my contacts who have requested the link to the Small Business Heroes Radio program.
 - Did you sponsor an e-zine, place ads in someone else s e-zine or purchase a list of e-mail addresses? If you did, create a campaign that follows up automatically with anyone who replied from your sponsorship or requested more information.
 - If you have an affiliate program, please take the time to create a series of e-mails that educates your new affiliates. By spelling out exactly what your affiliates are required to do to promote your products and services, you are dramatically increasing the chances of them being successful. I have included a series of e-mails that I received from Jimtools.com when I joined their affiliate program. What an outstanding job - and totally automated!
 - Do you have a service or technical support department? Create campaigns that follow up with anyone who has a service call or requests technical support. Not only are you providing excellent service, you gain opportunities to sell to happy customers.


Key Point!
Use Autoresponder E-mail
Campaigns for Every Part of
Your Business!


Offline Campaigns


Your autoresponder and e-mail campaigns can be used effectively as a way to generate new leads for your direct sales efforts. Create some simple tracks that address common problems with face-to-face selling. If you lose a deal or request for proposal, add the client to a short, follow-up campaign. The campaign may initially thank them for the opportunity. Two weeks later a follow-up checks to see if they are pleased with the choice they made. The next e-mail might update them to a new offering or event that you are holding.


A direct sales professional does not have the time to follow up with every customer that they lose yet those same losses can turn into real business if you can develop them. Automate the follow-up for the sales reps with a simple campaign that brings them back to a specific offer on a mini-site.


The same approach should be used for a Closed Sale. By adjusting the content and frequency of the e-mails, you can create any number of campaigns to suit your specific situation.


If you get stuck and cannot think of a reason for a campaign try these:


  1. Existing Content Series: Use your own content or collect some articles from your partners. Package them up as an Expert s Panel and send them out as a series. You can use a series of e-mails with high value links. Collect industry or product specific bookmarks and create a series of e-mails or documents with the links. When sending the e-mails in the series make sure to include your own links to your virtual selling mini- sites. Include one at the top, middle and bottom of each e-mail.
  2. Surveys, contests, reviews or quizzes: Create a fun or trivia quiz, top 10 lists, product/service reviews or survey on your site and include the answers in an autoresponder. This way, you will collect e-mail addresses and know who is interacting with the site.
  3. Reviewing products that you receive affiliate commissions for is a great way to earn extra income. Right a review and make it available by autoresponder. Include your affiliate link in the review for those who want more information.
  4. If you use a contest on your site or in your newsletter, have the entries sent to your autoresponder. You can set up the autoresponder to send a confirmation message immediately saving you time and collecting new e-mail addresses. Another idea is to put portions or teasers of past or upcoming events in an autoresponder series, and then include your follow-up sales letters at the end.
  5. Send sequential testimonials, along with the description of your products, an excerpt or a free chapter. This will increase your credibility.

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to e-mail autoresponder campaigns. By combining strategies and tactics, you can really automate the number, quality and effectiveness of your customer contacts. On top of collecting new contacts and e-mail addresses, you can automate frequently requested tasks. In all of these follow-up campaigns make sure to include your own links to your mini-sites. Include one at the top, middle and bottom of each e-mail.


Joint Venture Campaigns


When you are first starting out, you may find yourself in the classic chicken and egg situations. You have a great product and you have set up your VirtualSelling direct sales single page websites, but you do not have a big e-mail list and there is no traffic going to the site. Creating a Joint Venture is a simple way to fix that problem. The two reasons you would use this tactic are to:


  1. Drive new traffic to your content site and capture e-mail addresses.
  2. Send targeted traffic to one of your direct sales copy mini-sites to earn money.

It is a simple process that allows you to leverage the traffic of other businesses and partners for mutual benefit. This win/win approach puts money in your pocket and money in a partner s pocket.


Creating a Joint Venture is probably the fastest and easiest way to increase traffic to your main content site or one of your sales sites. It takes only a small amount of preparation after you have created your sites and can bring in lots of cash quickly. The three steps that I will outline are easy to implement, cost nothing and can be used at any time with any product.


Let us take a look at how it works. In its simplest form you:


  1. Find another company or partner with a complementary product offering, making sure that they have enough website traffic for the joint venture to succeed.
  2. Create a joint venture where they will send an e-mail to their existing customer base promoting your mini-site.
  3. In exchange for the e-mail being sent out, you agree to pay them a percentage of the sales that are generated.

Key Point!
Other Entrepreneurs With
Existing Products And
Customers Are Willing To Help
You Grow Your Business!


How to Set Up a Joint Venture


The first thing is that you have to have something to sell, ideally your own product or at least the rights to sell it. Obviously, the greater the demand there already is for your product the better.


Since we already talked about it, I am going to remind you about your product checklist. Do you have a good product, a powerful direct sales mini-site for that product or service and an easy way for someone to buy?


The second step is to find a partner to joint venture with. Use some of the tools that I have mentioned earlier to find out who is really behind some of your potential partners.



 - Use Copernic or the Google tool bar to search for your product or service. For example, if you are selling gardening supplies, search on gardening keywords.
 - Visit the sites that get listed and look at the page rankings in the Alexa toolbar. You are looking for the owners of websites, newsletters, and e-zines that are in the same target market as you are. OK, now that you have done your searches, this next step is a simple step-by-step process.
 - Alexa will give you the competitive information that you need for the next step, so pay attention. Alexa features a popularity ranking, all the related links and categories that other surfers visited and complete site owner information.
 - If Alexa does not pull up the information that you need, use a Whois query. This tool lets you know who-is the registration contact and the technical contact for the domain name. You can go to www.betterwhois.com and search on the domain name you want to partner with.
 - Send an e-mail to the website owner proposing the joint venture. I have included a template e-mail from Joint Venture master Mike Enlow in the Toolbox.


Put yourself in the other site owner s shoes. You are going to call them out of the blue and request that they do business with you. Make sure that you do your homework and research the site. What is it that they sell and how do they sell it. Check the testimonials. Are they Real testimonials? You know you have done enough homework when you can give a nice description of who they are and what they do.


One of the fastest ways to get someone s attention is to give them a compliment. Use this strategy at the start of your e-mail too them. Write a nice sentence or two in the first paragraph. This also lets them know that the message is not a bulk spam letter. It is a real opportunity with another professional business person.


Make sure that when you send this request to do business together you use a professional business subject line in the e-mail.


Trying to hype them or make bold claims at this point is useless. You are a professional asking to do business with another professional. Get to the point up front.


What Kind of E-mail does The Partner Send?


The joint venture e-mail approach works well when the potential partner sends a personal recommendation. Here is an example of a joint venture letter that I received this morning.


Letter from xxxxxx...

This week xxxxxxxx has released a book about building a mailing list and growing your ezine.

Nothing special about that you might think. After all there are heaps of books about ezines.

But this one is different, and I've got to say that it's the best book about developing your online business that I've had the privilege of reading at any time over the past few years.

Now that sounds like a bit of a sensationalist statement, a bit of hype. But it's not.

I don't want to sensationalize this book at all, and frankly I don't need to.

It's a very serious book for serious ezine owners and list builders.

I'm not saying it's complicated. It's not.

Everything is explained in a straightforward, but detailed, manner. But it is only for people who are serious about building an online business. It's not fluff. It requires you to think. Well, it compels you to think, and to act on what you learn.

I've never scribbled so many notes when I've read a book.

http://www.xxxxxxxx.com/xxxxx/

Oh, before I continue, I want to say one sensationalist thing...what I'm learning from reading this book - a distillation of xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx list building wisdom - is going to at least double the circulation of this ezine this year.

I've never seen so many ideas for getting new (very targeted) subscribers packed into one place before.

And so many of the ideas are new to me. I'm sure they will be to you as well. Xxxxxx doesn't just say "do this and you'll get 50 new subscribers a day" he tells you in step-by-step detail exactly how to do it, and why to do it, and even when to do it. But he's not just talking about 50 new subs a day, those figures are on the low end of the scale for him. He shows you how to take steps to get many hundreds or thousands of new subscribers a week.

The great thing is that he's not just plucked these ideas and methods out of thin air, they're not just theories, they're what he's done himself to build a powerful ezine and an almighty reputation.

In February he started a new newsletter, completely outside the Internet Marketing niche, and took it from zero to over 8000 subscribers in just the first few days

. And using Xxxxxx's advice, marketer Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx tripled his ezine subscriber list in just 99 days:

______________

" Xxxxx ...I made a challenge to myself to DOUBLE my Opt-in List in 90 days. You encouraged me to go for it, Xxxxxl!

Well guess what? I doubled it from 10,292 to 20,584 in 74 days and TRIPLED it to 30,903 in only 99 days." Xxxxxx Xxxxxx.

______________

I printed my copy of Xxxxx's book out, had it comb bound, took it into my favorite coffee shop and then let my coffee grow cold without touching it because I was too busy making notes in the margins to think about drinking.

I could go on about this book for ages, but I'm not going to. You know whether you're serious about list building or not. And if you are you've got to read this. Simple as that.



http://www.xxxxxxxxx.com/xxxxx/

Xxxxxx's shown me an exact way to get 200 new targeted subscribers a day AT NO COST. That's 1400 a week.

And I'm going to do it or rip my hair out trying.

One more thing I need to mention. He's giving away, as a bonus, a tool called xxxxxx that on it's own is probably worth the cost of the book to people using mail merge programs. Very useful indeed.

************************************************************************

What a great sales letter, excellent copy, testimonials embedded in the copy and a personal recommendation from the list owner to his own customers. You can guess how successful this joint venture was.


The sender also used a tracking link in the letter. They have now had a campaign that both parties can test. The list owner knows how many of his customers have bought and the product owner knows exactly how many people from the list purchased. Win/Win for both parties.


If you are selling information or soft goods, the easiest way to share the revenue is with ClickBank. Remember ClickBank was one of the payment processors that included an automatic way to give a commission to affiliates or partners that drove targeted traffic to your selling site.


If you are willing to try a joint venture, follow the simple step-by-step approach of approaching another business owner. You will find enough partners to get the phone ringing and the cash flowing to your site.


Key Point Make Sure That Your Payment Done properly you explain how you will be doing all the work and they are simply showing them how to leverage an existing asset with a non-competitive offer. It is that simple and it works every time!


Key Point
Make Sure That Your Payment
Service Tracks Joint Ventures
Automatically. "ClickBank"
Makes a Joint Venture Easy!


Joint venture offers like the example above work especially well when they come as a personal endorsement from the sender.


Joint Ventures for Affiliates


You can use this same tactic with your affiliate network. Write all the letters that they would use in their own newsletters for them. Every ad, every banner, every graphic is ready for them to plug-in to their existing list of customers and prospects. Links in the copy of these ads can point directly to your site with the appropriate tracking link or to a mirrored page on your site for their benefit. An example of this strategy can be found at http://www.jamesmaduk.com/affiliates.htm. You can join my program or just visit some of the resources. I ve even included sales copy and websites that you can use to help sell. The e-mail that goes out to their list is only a teaser to come back to a customer sales page on my site.


Joint Venture Schedule


All you have to do is commit to working two days a week surfing, finding prospects, and sending out letters. Dedicate two days a week, a couple of hours each day to make the calls and arrange the deals. It is that simple& and yes, it works.


I have found all of my partners with a simple strategy. I subscribe to the newsletters of those individuals I think I might like to work with. They send me all of their contact information; I get a feel for the type of partners that might interest them, and find out whom they are already working with.

Chapter 20 - How to Build Great E-mail Campaigns

jamesmaduk.com

You want visitors sent directly to your sales mini-site. How are you going to get them there? If you have been doing your homework up to this point you will have started to build a substantial list of e-mail addresses and contact information. You collected them when you gave away e-books, when they subscribed to your e-zine; when they asked to receive a free report or article from you. You provided valuable information to them, and they gave you their e-mail address. If you were really smart you have collected e-mail addresses from all of your business activities. Now you have a list of e-mail addresses, names and a field that tells you how you got the e-mail addresses.


You have a killer e-mail list organized in convenient common groups. If you have not done it yet, import the names into whatever e-mail client or auto responder tools you have decided on and get ready to start your e-mail campaigns.


Timing and Touches


How many e-mail should you send and how often?


This is probably the hardest question any Internet marketing has to answer. Too many e-mails sent too often will bring poor results and high a percentage of please remove messages. Not enough messages sent sporadically will not create the trust and top of mind awareness required to get sales flowing from your sites. What we do know from testing is that:


 - Any touch is better than no touch and that includes e-mail, phone, fax, face to face, trade shows.
 - You need to use a contact and campaign management system like GoldMine to coordinate your campaigns.
 - You should have a sleep campaign that maintains a minimum of 10-12 touches/yr./person.
 - To make the most of a campaigns system you need to architect or script the steps or flow of the e-mails before you start sending messages out.
 - Frequent contact/touching is key.
 - Your prospects will not buy or change without this constant touch
 - Campaigns apply to all selling situations and processes
 - Perpetual maintenance of your list is the goal. Your main theme site acquires the prospect, your e-mail campaigns develop the business relationships.


The bottom line is that you are going to test your list and your market to find out how many and how often are best for you. Use a different frequency with two of your lists. Ask your prospects and customers how many times are enough. Send messages, track results and evaluate.


Please respect the requests for inclusion or exclusion that your list makes.


Templates


Be consistent and use a template. Consistency within the message structure builds trust and familiarity. Using a template also reminds you to follow some proper e-mail marketing protocols. There are three common features that should always be included in every outbound marketing e-mail.


Mom Never Told Me!
That instead of writing each e-mail
I send I should create pre-
formatted templates!


  1. Remind the reader how they got on the campaign or list. Remember you captured the visitor s e-mail address, name and an additional field that you included to remind yourself of how you got the e-mail address. The average American gets close to 20 e-mails a day according to eMarketer. Do you remember why you are getting them all? Why would a one-time visitor? Here is one that I received today.
    Hi James, (FIRST -- you're receiving this as a follow-up to the "Guaranteed Marketing" e-book you requested from me. If you don't want to receive further messages, please see the unsubscribe instructions at the end of this message. Otherwise, feel free to forward this to your friends in business. Thanks! -- Kevin Donlin)
  2. Make all the links in your text message linkable. For e-mail addresses include mailto: directly in front of the address. For web pages, include http://. Do not forget the AOL users as well. The default e-mail client for AOL users requires that web page links include the HTML equivalent. You can do this by adding the HTML markup with the URL. For example <a href=http://www.yourdomain.com the text you want displayed here </a will display a clickable link.
  3. At the end of your messages provide the reader with an option to remove themselves from your marketing campaigns. Either a direct link to a web page where they can unsubscribe or a mailto: link that removes their address from your active lists and campaigns.

E-mail Formats


Make sure that you format your e-mails so that they are no longer than 65 characters in length for each line of text. This maximum size ensures that no matter what e-mail client your prospect is using they will receive an e-mail that shows up in even paragraphs. As soon as you see this type of e-mail:


Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada,
Yada,
Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada,

If you get an e-mail that looks wanky you know that the sender is new to the game. If you use a text editor like windows notepad you can hit the enter key every 65 characters to make sure that the line spacing is right. The other key is to use a fixed width font like Courier.


Why would you use notepad instead of a word processor like Microsoft Word? When you use a word processor like Word, a lot of special formatting goes on behind the scenes. Often special characters get inserted into the text of the message. Guess what happens when you cut and paste your message from Word to your e-mail client? Some of those special characters have been embedded in the message without you knowing. The message looks fine on your end. It is a mess on your customers. Do not take chances. Use notepad.


E-mail Addresses


When you send e-mail out in any campaign, send it from a real person address. If you get e-mails from james@jamesmaduk.com or 89ddkkl90_ioidj@xyzlist.com, which one are you more comfortable opening? Trust, credibility, real people talking to real people! Send and use real e-mail addresses when you send any e-mails in a campaign or otherwise.


This does not mean you have to use your personal address as your main newsletter or marketing campaign e-mail. Create an e-mail alias like
newsletter@.....com
editor@.....com
specialnews@.....com
specialoffers@....com,
newreleases@......com


Mom Never Told Me!
That how I format my outbound
e-mail is almost as important as
what text goes into them!


Mom Never Told Me! That how I format my outbound e-mail is almost as important as what text goes into them!


These e-mail addresses can be used to identify each campaign and allow the recipient to reply to the mail. Even though you may include detailed instructions and links to other e-mail address in the body of the e-mail message, more often than not the average user will just use the reply button to send a message back to whomever sent the message.


Subject


A great e-mail subject line is the key to getting your e-mails opened. The wrong subject line may even get you mail automatically blocked as spam or filtered by e-mail rules set up by your prospect.


Rules are made to be broken, right? Not these rules. Your customers have set them so you have to play by them.


Try setting and using the e-mail filter rules in your e-mail client. How do you set yours up? Are your customers doing the same? Send some e-mail to yourself and find out if they get filtered. Look for simple things like using ALLCAPS, the word Free in the subject.


Subject lines may be the only things that are getting read in any of your e-mails. Assuming that is true, what tried and tested direct marketing strategy could you use?


  1. You could put the entire offer in the subject line. Is this applicable to your campaign? Can you boil the offer down to 60 characters? An offer in the subject is direct and bold.
    Eg. 50 Online Sales Training Courses, Only $19 Save 33%
  2. You can also put the call to action in the subject. If you really want the reader to go to a mini-site, send them there in the subject line. Some of readers will follow the link others will need the added incentive to find out why they should check it out. Either way they end up at your mini-site.
    Eg. Check out http://www.webmarketingforsmallbusiness.com
  3. With existing customers, members or newsletter subscribers you can personalize the subject line. Include their name in a subject line that looks like a personal message.
    Eg. Bill, Check out http://www.minisite.com it s great, James
  4. The how-to approach still works. You can follow it with just about any benefit your product or service will provide and even disguise it with some power words beforehand.
    Eg. Discover How To Turn Any Business Opportunity into a Comfortable Conversation.
  5. The question approach. This is an approach that I picked up from direct marketer, Bob Serling. It has two components. First, you have to know what your customer s biggest problem is and then to build a question that causes them to remember the pain associated with the problem. The more pain the quicker the reader will act. An example might be:
    Are You Great At Providing Your Service - But Still Not Earning as Much As You Should Be?
  6. The personal Story Headline is an approach used by Joe Vitale of Hypnotic Marketing fame. His approach utilizes the promise of a personal story and the mystery of a missing link.
    Eg. I didn t feel comfortable closing sales until I found out how to turn a sales call into a Sales Conversation

Mom Never Told Me!
That the subject line of my
outbound e-mails makes or
breaks my sales efforts!


You can combine strategies and test, which works best for your contacts. These are powerful headlines that immediately capture the reader s attention and build a deep interest in the product or service that you provide.


Personalize the Messages


In every case, use the contact information that you have available in your list database to personalize each message. Use the reader s first name when appropriate in the body of the messages and in the subject line.


Types of Messages to Use in Your Campaign


What should you actually put into the body of the message? We will review four strategies here that can be used effectively.


  1. The Direct Bribe message includes an added incentive to get the prospect to visit the mini-site. If you visit now you will get&& this added bonus. You can also use time or volume incentives as a bribe. Make the offer expire on a set date or sell a limited number of items. This type of incentive works well with price sensitive customers and can complement the Bonus Pile On approach used in your sales letter.
    a. Follow up your first e-mail with a Review of the Direct Bribe and add an additional bonus. This e-mail simply reviews what was offered and updates the reader on the initial response to the first e-mail. This is a great way to introduce testimonials to the reader who needs a little more information before visiting your mini-site.
  2. The Mystery message never provides enough information for the reader to make a decision. In order to satisfy their curiosity, the reader visits the mini-site. The body of the message is a simple question with a link.
    a. For example: James, did you know about this? Http://www.jamesmaduk.com/seminars What was it that I did not tell you?
    b. You can also use the personal story approach in this type of mail. For e.g. I was afraid to ask for the order. I know my product and services are among the best in my industry but I just did not feel comfortable asking for money until I discovered these 5 simple steps. Click here to find out the steps
  3. The Direct Sales Letter approach includes the entire or condensed content of your mini-site in the body of the e-mail. This approach is often used by affiliates who do not have their own websites. A well-done e-mail sales letter gets the job done without the required click to the mini-site. The down side is that the likelihood of your message being read to completion is determined entirely by the quality of the letter. Bad letter = low response.
  4. The Personal Recommendation approach uses a personal or third party testimonial. In the middle of the testimonial links are inserted that direct the reader to click on the reason for the testimonial . If you have built up enough credibility, you can use this approach. If you have not built enough trust personally, use one of your testimonials from a trusted third party. Although you are sending the message, the text is written as if the trusted third party is speaking. As we learned earlier this approach can be quite powerful if done correctly.

I have included examples of each of these formats in the resources section.

Call to Action


What is the purpose of the e-mail? If you want to get your reader to the mini-site, make it their only option. Give them the option early and give it often. One of the easiest ways to do this is to include a specially formatted section within the body of your message with the direct command. Here are some examples from past e-mails I have sent.


 - Don t wonder where your sales career might have been if you would-a - could-a or should-a listened to James Maduk. Find out for certain right now. Visit http://www.salestrainingforsmallbusiness.com
 - To learn how James Maduk can increase your Sales Velocity visit www.jamesmaduk.com.
 - Save $100 on this limited time offer. http://www.virtualselling.com


Use a compelling reason and give the reader a direct command to click on the link or ask a question to which clicking the link will answer the question. Do not be afraid to use a combination of calls to action or multiple calls to action in your e-mails.


P.S.


Did you know that 60% of the readers of your campaign e-mail will actually read the end of the message first? That is right, the P.S. found at the bottom of many sales letters will probably get read before the body of your message.


Take advantage of this fact. Make your P.S. sell!


Here are a couple of things that you can use in your P.S. to improve the response rates of your outbound e-mail campaigns. Include a final call to action with:


 - Repeat the main offer.
 - Remind the reader of the limited time offer.
 - Restate your guarantee.
 - Add some bonuses to the offer.
 - Note additional celebrity referrals.
 - Include additional savings for buying now.


E-mail Link Tracking


How can you find out if your readers are actually clicking on the links in your e-mails? How do you know which subject line works best? Which of the four body message strategies creates the most traffic to your mini-site?


While the call to action - that direct command that tells the reader what to do is important, if you are not able to find out how effective it is over time you are leaving money on the table.


You want to track and test all your outbound e-mail, continually refining and improving your results. Tracking and testing is not limited to how many people clicked through. You need to know what your return on investment was for every campaign you run. How much did you spend on the campaign and how many sales did you make?


Mom Never Told Me!
That I could actually tell how
many people were really
responding to every call to action
that I included in every e-mail!


I use a free service called hyper-tracker which does exactly those things.


many people were really responding to every call to action that I included in every e-mail! What follows is a short report from a free service that gives you an idea of some of the information you can gather from a campaign. All you have to do is enter the mini-site web address that you are sending your customers too and any cost associated with the marketing campaign.


Hyper-tracker allows you to give the campaign a unique name and even tracks sub campaigns. This means that you can send out a single e-mail offer and include three different subject lines in the e-mail. Hyper-tracker keeps tabs on the total number of visitors that follow the link to your mini-site and also breaks down which subject line worked best.