If you’re like I am, you probably have at least half a dozen ideas or projects that you want to do. But there’s only so much time in the day. How do you choose which idea to implement first?
Here’s my personal criteria for ideas:
1. How quickly can I implement this idea?
What are the specific tasks needed to bring this idea to the real world?
Can I do it myself or will I need help in the form of graphic designers, manufacturers, expert information, technical support, etc?
2. How much will it cost to implement this idea?
Do I have the money to finance this myself?
Can I raise the money either through private sources, conventional lenders or crowd sourcing?
3. What is the potential Return on Investment?
Will this idea, properly implemented, make money? If so, how much money and will it be enough to make this a worthwhile endeavor?
4. How fast will the money come in?
Can this idea be implemented and marketed quickly?
Does the market for this idea have to be made or does it already exist? (If it has to be made, I will probably kill the idea at this point.)
In the Clearwater, FL area?
If you have an idea (or many ideas) but don’t know where to start, join Dan Stojadinovic and me for a one-day seminar. We’ll show you the exact blueprint that we use to get ideas from our brains to our bank accounts.
Go to http://www.fromideatoincome.net to find out more and to register.
Don’t wait until the last minute. Seating is limited to only 30 people, first come, first served. There will be no videotaping of this event, no live streaming. This is a closed door session.
Remember: Every great accomplishment began with a single idea. What’s yours?
As most of you already know, your opt-in bribe is that freebie that you offer to people in exchange for their name and email address. If your opt-in bribe sounds interesting enough, people will gladly fill their information in the form. For years, marketers offered a “special report” (or it’s much sexier cousin, the white paper) or an ebook. It eventually evolved into audios and videos. The typical freebie was downloadable because there was no cost to the marketer.
Then someone upped the game by offering a “Free DVD” (just pay shipping and handling). The shipping and handling usually covered the cost of the DVD and people got something tangible, something they could hold in their hot little hands. Unfortunately, whether they got a DVD or downloaded a video, the content was the same.
I think the real problem with ebooks is that most of them, particularly the freebies, really suck. The information is superficial at best. The “authors” use a huge font and lots of pictures to make it look like there’s more to the book than there is. (Kind of like those 100 word reports you had to do as a kid: “I liked the book because it was very, very, very, very, very, interesting. 13 words. 87 to go…”)
I remember attending a seminar given by a woman whose product was a series of letters (this was very early on in marketing days). Supposedly, these letters worked “like magic” to get a higher response from a direct mail list. She would put the letter up on the screen (using an overhead projector and transparencies – remember those?) and then quickly cover it up so people in the audience couldn’t see (and copy down) the letter. My conclusion? She had nuthin. She had somehow managed to stretch a few letters into a course on direct mail, but the heart of her product was the series of letters. She may have sold some, but I am sure her return rate was fairly high.
People search the internet for information. If you want people to become your fans and buy your stuff, then you can’t give them crap. They are looking for quality information. Your opt-in bribe, in whatever form you serve it, needs to show people that you have the information (or product) they are searching for. You need to be confident enough to share some of your best information. An ebook gives you the space you need to showcase your knowledge and the benefits you bring to your clients. And if “ebook” isn’t sexy enough, call it The Universally Magic – Banned in Boston -Secrets THEY Don’t Want You to Know – Underground and Undercover Chronicles. Just make sure you give people information they want and can use. They’ll come back for more.
Right up until Viagra** came out, the two words in the title, “Rinse, Repeat” sold more product than any other sales copy. It’s on the back of every shampoo bottle. We wash our hair, rinse and repeat. Who in their right mind would buy a product that has to be used twice in order for it to work? Everyone, apparently.
Those two simple words probably didn’t double the sales of shampoo. Not everyone is going to buy into the idea of washing their hair twice in a row or they are not always going to have the time to do so. But I bet those two words increased shampoo sales by at least 50%.
Do you have a product or service that you could encourage people to double up on? My friend Bobbie imports dirndls – those traditional German dresses reminiscent of the Sound of Music if you are a woman and St. Pauli Girl beer if you are a guy. (www.mydirndl.com) How about mother/daughter matching dirndls? Or father/son lederhosen? (She can do that for you, by the way.)
Magazines use a variation of this to increase their subscription base (advertising rates are based on subscription rates). Have you ever bought a “gift” subscription for someone and got a free or half-price subscription for yourself? Tire stores often run “Buy 3 tires, get the 4th tire free” ads. Why? Most people know that you shouldn’t replace just one tire (they wear unevenly and give a bad ride). So, people will usually buy at least two tires at a time. However, if the tire tread is getting low, and they are going to buy two tires anyway, well…. Gee, they’re going to have to replace the other two pretty soon anyway, so yeah, they’ll go ahead and buy three tires. Not always, not everyone. But enough people go for that free tire to make it worth running the ad.
Think about what you offer and see if there’s a way to add a gentle, loving nudge to your prospects and clients to get them to open their wallets a little bit more or a little bit more often.
** What’s the line that has had Viagra and other medications like it flying off the doctors’ scrip pads? ”If erection lasts for more than 4 hours, please consult a physician.” What guy can resist that? It is marketing disguised as a warning. Brilliant.
Had a great laugh with my friend Jim this week. He asked if I was going to listen in on a webinar for a new (read: recycled) SEO technique. My exact words to him were: “Thanks. But I’ll pass. I’ve given up on SEO. I think it is all bullshit because Google just goes and changes their algorithms at whim. You wind up chasing your tail.”
Jim and I had discussed his latest foray into SEO a few weeks before. He had paid a guy to create a ton of backlinks to his site (already on the first page of Google) to drive it to the very top. The backlinks were created and the home page of his site disappeared from Google search. Oh, it may have been somewhere on page 57 or so, but for all intents and purposes, it was gone. A couple of his back pages showed up on pages 2 and 3, but the home page was nowhere.
He contacted the guy, had him remove all those lovely backlinks, and lo and behold, his home page was once again on the first page of Google. Said Jim, “Lesson learned.”
So, imagine his absolute joy when he realized he was listening to a webinar extolling the virtues of paying someone to create a network of backlinks (and you could get it for only $47 a month!). We laughed ourselves silly.
Here’s the thing:
Google has already figured out the game. Google has already figured out EVERY game. It is Google. It knows all. It sees all. It controls the game.
A quick check with friends who have sites on the first page of Google (in various niches ranging from transmissions to vacation rentals) told me what I already suspected. Want to get on the first page of Google? Do this:
Have good, relevant content.
Don’t be a sales page.
It’s better to have some time behind your domain name rather than be brand new.
Use keywords, but don’t keyword “stuff.”
I’ll go one step further. Don’t be Google-dependent. If your traffic depends on being on the first page of Google, pay Google. Very simple.
But most of us don’t have businesses that need to be found by unknown prospects from all over the globe. Most of us have businesses with a specific target market.
If you address your target market, listen to their needs and give them what they want, they’ll find your site. Especially if you feature it prominently in your marketing materials.
It’s the same thing with as-yet-unknown prospects. Find where they hang out (online and offline) and market to them there.
Frankly, pinning your business’s future on your Google search rank is not a great plan. You need to be doing a lot more than hoping someone clicks on that link. You need a comprehensive marketing plan. Google is just one piece of the puzzle.
Google is a moving target. And it moves a lot faster than most of us. Do this: Provide a good product or service, understand your customer base, take care of your people. Then market! The Google ranking will take care of itself.
Your brand is not just a logo or the colors on your packaging. It’s not your nickname, especially if it involves the words “diva”, “goddess”, “king” or “guy” (I really don’t want to be defended in court by “The Litigation Guy”).
Your brand is the entire experience people have when they deal with you and your company, from the advertisement they first see, your website, your product or service and most importantly, they way they are treated throughout the process.
I think one of the things that business people miss is they are so focused on trying to be clever or catchy or that all-elusive “viral” that they never put themselves in their customers’ shoes. It’s not about you. (Sorry.) It’s about what you can do for your customer.
You have the opportunity to set yourself apart from every other business in your niche. Branding doesn’t just happen. It is a conscious decision on your part to create a positive experience for your clients. So grab a pad of paper, a glass of wine or cup of tea and sit down someplace quiet to ask yourself these questions:
What problems do your clients bring you to resolve?
If you were that person, how would you like to be treated? What would the ideal process be?
How can you differentiate yourself from your competitors? Is it attitude? Is it amenities that you offer? Can you do something extra that shows an extra level of caring?
Here’s an example. I took a pair of shoes to be re-soled. Most shoe repair shops look the same: a little dusty, pairs of shoes that have been repaired; some that have not been picked up. Shoes in various states of repair. The smell of glue and leather. This shop was no different.
The man took in my shoes, gave me a ticket and a time to come back. He had the personality of a small plastic soap dish. Not offensive, but nothing to make your head swing. His price was right in line with other shops. When I picked up the shoes, they had been re-soled and re-heeled. But they had not been polished.
Now I know that not every shoe repair place polishes the shoes as part of the service. But it takes about five minutes and makes the shoes look fantastic. It’s a way of saying that they are proud of their work. It’s an extra bit of service that could make them stand out from their competitors. This guy missed.
Yes, polishing the shoes is a small detail. But it is the type of thing you are looking for to start laying the foundation of your branding. What can you do to make the customers’ experience with you different from their experience with anyone else? What can you do to make your customers’ experience with you better? Think in these terms and your brand will emerge.
Remember: It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done.
Consistency.
For any of you who read this blog, you know I am seriously lacking in this quality. (And yes, I am working on it.) The conventional wisdom with a blog is that you must post consistently, whether it is daily or a set number of times per week. I was really shooting for once a week. Sometimes I get up to as many as one post a month. 
I am afraid this carries over to my marketing efforts, too. And, while not being consistent with blog posts won’t affect my business one way or another (at this point, anyway) being inconsistent in marketing will. Jay Conrad Levinson said “It is unfortunate but true that bad marketing done consistently is better than good marketing done inconsistently.” Or at least three different bloggers have said that he personally said exactly this to them. I’ve met Jay Conrad Levinson. For the record, he didn’t say it to me. I believe he said something like, “Could you pass me a napkin, please.”
But the man is right. I have advised students not to start a marketing campaign they can’t afford to sustain. (Yes, of course it’s a matter of do as I say, not as I do.) I am about to start a small offline marketing campaign to speakers for my custom writing business. I have a list of over 5,000 names of speakers to market to. I am starting with a small mailing of 500 names that I will market to consistently once a month for a year. I have the campaign laid out. I have the budget money set aside.
Is this too small a group? It would be if I was marketing a $19.95 widget and needed 1,000 sales to make this worthwhile. But I am marketing a $5,000 and up custom writing job and I am looking for twelve people to sign on. If I mailed to 5,000 people, I may not be able to accommodate everyone who responds. Think about it. A one-half of one percent response rate is typical from a mailing. One percent of 5,000 is 50. One half of that is 25. I only want twelve new people. One person a month.
This is small. It is affordable. It is sustainable. It will bring about the results I need.
But what if you need more sales than that? What if you are selling a lower-priced item or service? And you can’t afford to consistently mail out to 5,000 people?
You need to market in stairsteps. OK. I have only had one cup of coffee so far this morning and that is the image I have come up with to illustrate this point. Let’s see if I can make it work.
Say you need 70 clients a month at $100 a pop. On a regular mailing campaign (yes, offline! OMG! How Old School!) you would need to mail out about 14,000 pieces (postcard, letter, flyer, whatever) to get a response rate of 70 people per month. But that would run you at least $14,000. So you’d be paying $14,000 for $7,000 in revenue. Not good. And no, you can’t make it up in volume. Now, if it was a monthly recurring revenue of $100 per person, you’d make your money back in the first two months, give or take. But your ongoing marketing costs could be crippling. (And stupid.) More so if that $100 per person was a one-shot deal. Less so if you have more than one product to sell.
Most small businesses I know don’t have $14,000 a month to throw at an advertising campaign. In fact, most small businesses I know don’t have $1,400 a month in their marketing budget. But you need to start somewhere.
My advice: Don’t try to climb to the top of the stairs in one shot. (Aha! You knew I’d get back to my analogy, didn’t you?) Climb a flight. Stabilize your breathing. Climb the next flight.
If you can only afford to send 700 pieces a month consistently, then do that. But do it every month. For a year. You will see additional customers and revenue. With the increased revenue, increase your marketing efforts the following year. So with 70 new customers, the following year you should be able to increase your marketing to 1,000 people per month or 1,500 people per month. Send out to that group consistently for a year. Rinse repeat.
I’m not going to get into cost of acquisition vs.conversion rates vs. increased revenues here. I’m not going to get into supplementing your offline marketing with online marketing to the same target market. (Yes, of course you should.) I am talking about making a realistic plan and carrying it out.
Just a note: If you are doing an online, no to low-cost marketing campaign, you still need to plan out your campaign, get it set to go and make sure it is something you can and will do consistently. Set up at least seven months’ worth (a year is better) of your keep-in-touch program, newsletters or whatever you are doing. Pre-set the send outs in your autoresponder or have a consistent date to send out the monthly, weekly or daily missives. (Daily? Really? You really think you are going to do something every freaking day?? Come on. This is me you are talking to.)
Here’s the point:
The trick is to set aside the money and plan out your campaign before you start. Too many business people run out of money and/or steam after two or three mailings. Don’t count on making enough money from the first two months of your campaign to finance the rest of it. If your budget won’t allow you to do at least seven mailings, then you need to cut the amount of people you are mailing to. If you have no marketing budget, you aren’t in business. You are slowly going out of business. Yes, there are a ton of free ways to market, (I’ll get into that in the next post which should come about some time in the near or distant future) but you will get further, farther faster with some jing-aling in your marketing budget.
Being consistent is a matter of planning ahead. No will power needed. I like that.
I’ve been receiving emails from a man who apparently belongs to one of the networking groups I belong to. If I have met him, I don’t remember him, but he has my name and email and I am now on his list. Apparently he’s a roofer.
I have been studiously deleting his emails without opening them and this past week realized who he was. So the first email I open from him tells how he closed a sale. Brags actually. “I was going in there asking them to cut a check for $3,000 on upgrades they didn’t need.”
Wow. Wrong on so many levels.
I suppose he wants us to admire his “marketing prowess”. But I am thinking in an economy where people are struggling, it’s more than a little shitty to rip people off for upgrades they didn’t need. (The basic roofing job was covered by insurance.)
I also think that if you are ripping people off, you really shouldn’t tell other people about it. That’s kind of like getting away with a bank robbery and then yakkiing about it in your neighborhood bar.
And gee, let’s put it in writing and send it out to over 100 people.
And finally, let’s send it to people that this guy hopes to get referral business from. Because the first thing I am going to do is refer a friend or client to someone who I know rips people off. Not.
This email rates a big WTF. And, as you can tell, it pissed me off. What a wanker.
Here’s a marketing tip: If you are ripping off your customers, it is probably best not to write that in an email and send it to people you want to do business with. OY!
18
Information Products as a Marketing Tool
0 Comments | Posted by barbarag in Copywriting, Marketing, Workshops and Seminars
Why do information products work so well as a marketing tool?
First of all, one of the main reasons people search the internet (consistently in the top 3 in studies) is they are looking for information. The internet is a convenient research tool, whether you are looking for a recipe, a neighbor’s tax records, how to build a solar collector or how to start your own country. You can find anything on the internet – if you know where and how to look.
But, the internet has its inefficiencies. Because of the sheer volume of information that is available, it is often difficult to find the specific information you are searching for. Sometimes you find pieces of the information you need, but not the whole picture and usually not all in one place. In addition, much of the information is undocumented or comes from questionable sources.
The beauty of an information product is it gives people what they want – the information they are looking for, explained in a way they can put to use, all in one place.
It also gives the marketer what he/she needs: a chance to display his knowledge and capabilities to a targeted market. An information product provides credibility to the author, sets that person up as an expert in that particular topic and sets them apart from their competition.
People learn in various ways – some learn better by reading or by listening or by doing. Information can be conveyed in those various forms and an information product can be made more marketable by putting the same information in various formats to help people learn in the way that’s easiest for them.
Last, but not least, information products are cheap to produce. In downloadable form, they cost nothing. CDs and DVDs can be produced for a dollar or two. Books can be printed, one at a time, for about $8.00. So, as a giveaway or a promotion, an information product’s no to low cost is perfect. As an item that is sold, the margins are incredible.
Whether you are using information as a product to sell in itself or as a list-building tool or a way to warm up the relationship with your clients and prospects, from bricks and sticks to point and click, information products are an all-around winner.
In the Tampa/Clearwater area and want to know more about creating and using information products. Click here for information on my June 4th Workshop.
I was reading a book by the late Robert B. Parker last night, author of the Spenser series, among others. He wrote crime/adventure-type novels which are, as a genre, kind of like candy for the mind. Like his character Spenser (with an s, like the poet) he had a vast knowledge of the esoteric and eclectic and a facility and playfulness with words that were the result of a life time of working with these building blocks. He had a mastery of his craft.
I spend too much time on Facebook and other internet sites, receive too many emails, sit through too many seminars where I am subjected to the marketing shouts from “instant experts” — people who are better marketers than masters of what they are selling; people who have more self-confidence than they should (or maybe no self-confidence at all and have bought into the “fake it til you make it” mode); and people who have lost jobs in their industry and now have bought a course that shows them how to become an “instant expert” and teach others. (Yes, I am enjoying the irony of the fact that I sell a course that helps people do just this.) In short, people marketing solutions or partial solutions to non-existing problems.
I have studied marketing for decades; I am only about seven years into internet marketing. And I’m ready to hang up the whole business. I see a sea of carnival barkers, shouting, thumping their chests, bullying and intimidating people into buying. I see the gentle sheeple, sharing the same platitudes of self-worth and motivation. I see the more cynical marketers spouting those platitudes and then twisting the messages so that people will feel badly about themselves and buy.
What I don’t see are leaders. I don’t see people who are taking time out to just THINK. I don’t see marketers stopping to ask, “Will this product actually HELP anyone?” I don’t see anyone leading the charge with anything new or revolutionary. It’s just the same old stuff, recycled, repackaged and resold to an audience that is hoping that this will be the Golden Ticket.
I grind out course manuals for national speakers for a living. I am part of the problem. Some of the speakers have good information. Some do not. There are many speakers I do not work with — apparently even I have a line which I won’t cross. (Who knew?) After reading Parker’s novel last night, I knew I wanted to do something better. Was it great literature? No. Was it expertly written? Yes. And I’ve decided I want to spend my time with people who care about their craft, people who care about what they do and the effect it has on others. Most of all, I want to leave the shouting, thumping instant experts behind and find the people who are quietly DOING and doing well.
My friend Bob Burg has a post on his blog (burg.com)that got me thinking (as he usually does) on using foul language and mean humor in speaking, blog posts, on social media sites, etc. My language is not pure so I can’t comment on that…. (my mother did teach me better, I just didn’t listen). I did have some thoughts on using humor. I worked (briefly) as a stand up comic and I can tell you a lot of stuff that DOESN’T work when it comes to humor. But I’ll save that for a longer post. These are just some quick thoughts:
Humor is very tricky — it’s not only extremely subjective but if your timing is off, it just doesn’t work. What makes something funny is the revealed truth within the statement — that’s why the half-apology “just kidding” after a stinging remark doesn’t begin to mitigate what was said.
You can poke fun at yourself, but as a speaker you have to be careful not to undermine your standing as an expert. You can also poke fun at a situation. This is about the safest way to go, since the revealed truth doesn’t “hurt” anyone. The beautiful thing about humor is that it can reveal a shared experience (we all know what it’s like to ALWAYS choose the slowest checkout line) that helps the audience bond with you as the speaker and with each other.
There’s a huge difference between club humor and humor intended for general audiences. There’s also a matter of how you want to be known or your “brand”. I don’t work with people if I need to walk on eggshells around them. Part of my “brand” is that I tell it like it is. (I had to make it part of my brand — I don’t have enough filters between my brain and my mouth.) Can you use strong language and weird humor? Yes. Just know that it will affect who you work with and therefore your earning power.
