Some of you may know that I am into the self-help niche. I have been a self-help geek since high school and recently came across what I consider to be the most effective Law of Attraction program ever produced-”The Secret Behind The Secret”. Click here to see my special offer.
I spend a fair bit of time surfing the net, always looking for ways to improve my own website. One thing that I have discovered is that although many internet marketers give you plenty of great content, they make one simple mistake which kills their sales.
The problem is that they don’t ask for the sale and if you don’t ask, you will never make the sale. Just look at the websites and sales letters of the heavy hitters. On the heavy hitter sites, you will find some sort of sales button every couple of paragraphs. It may say click here for more information or click here for instant access but whatever it says, they are not afraid to ask for the sale.
On many newcomer sites that I visit, I find it very rare that they actually ask for the sale. They will tell you all about the product they are marketing and what it will do for you but, they fail to ask for the sale. If you don’t ask, they don’t buy.
Many years ago, I was a real estate broker and one of the first things that you learn is to ask for the sale or use something called assumed consent to close the deal. Asking for the sale is great. It is a simple answer-either yes or no. Assumed consent is slightly different and in some cases it can be more effective.
In the assumed consent approach, you assume that your customer wants and will buy your product so instead of just asking a yes or no question, you offer them alternatives as to how they want to buy your product.
For example, after you have completed your sales pitch, you simply ask the customer: Would you prefer to use credit card (click here) or would you prefer to use PayPal:click here. It makes it much easier to ask for the sale by giving these alternatives rather than risking a yes or no answer.
Either way that you go, it is important in a sales situation to give your prospect your closing statement (ask for the sale) as often as you can without going overboard.
As I said earlier, this is probably the most common mistake that newcomers make. They are fearful of asking for the sale and as a result it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy and they don’t make the sale. Before long, they become discouraged and drop out of internet marketing thinking that they will never make any money and they are right if they don’t have the nerve to ask for the sale.
You can make a fortune on the net but, you will never make a dime if you don’t actually ask the customer to take action and complete the sale. Remember, ask and ye shall receive.
On your blog and on your website one way to get repeat traffic is to run a contest. I have a website called “The Digital Photographer” and each month, I run a Digital Photo of the Month contest. If you are into digital photography, just hop on over to “The Digital Photographer” and click on the contest page and submit your best photographs. The winning photograph will be published at the first of each month, receive a certificate suitable for framing and be entered into a yearly contest with a cash prize. Not only that but if you are available for assignments, we will publish your contact information if you so desire.
In fact, I am now going to run a contest on this blog. Send in you best traffic tip and the winner will be published on this blog and also on my “Marketing on a Shoestring” website. You may ask, what is in it for me? Simple, at the end of your article, if you win, you will have a signature file that may contain links to any websites or blogs that you have. Please send all entries to:
stanpontiere@internetbizops.ws
I hope that you can see how this can help you get repeat traffic if you also run a contest on your blog or website. It is really simple. It costs you virtually nothing and anyone who enters will be returning to your site or blog to read or view the winning entry.
It really is a win/win situation, you get repeat traffic and the entrant get a chance to be published with links to their website or blog. Try it and see how it builds your traffic.
You can spend all the money you want on Google Adwords and their competitors and all that you will get is short-term effects. Shoestring Marketing, on the other hand, will produce results that will last weeks, months or maybe even years. Advertising is not only expensive but it only works while you are forking out your hard-earned dollars. Shoestring marketing costs nearly nothing and builds long term trust and respect. The 5 top secrets that I mentioned earlier are not really secrets but the top 5 methods of marketing on a shoestring.
1. Build a list. You have heard time and time again that the money is in the list. That is not exactly true. The money is in the trust and respect you receive from producing a quality content filled newsletter. Most newsletters are nothing more than blatant advertising but if you give your readers solid content, you will build trust and respect and when you do promote a product, your readers are far more likely to buy from you. One note of caution, don’t go cheap when you pick an autoresponder. Go for the best. Not only do they have higher delivery rates, they also will keep you out of legal hassles. There are a lot of laws involved in email marketing and the FTC can be a real dragon. Many ISPs are so afraid of the FTC that at the slightest sign of a spam complaint, they will shut down your website. Being cheap with an autoresponder could be mighty expensive.
2. Article Marketing is absolutely the best in terms of building trust and respect for your expertise and it is truly a long run affair. Some articles will be picked up by other websites, blogs and social networks, months or even years after you originally wrote the article. The web has a voracious appetite for solid quality information and article marketing meets this need. Not only will this bring you trust and respect, it will build quality back-links. Quality back-links will always improve any Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that you may do.
3. Build a quality content rich website. Nothing is worse than writing great articles and then have the reader click on an Opt-in page. Certainly, you need an opt-in page but it should not be the site that they land on after reading one of your articles. Your readers are looking for content-not fluff. Certainly, you can put an opt-in page on your website, just don’t let it be the first thing that your article readers see.
4. YouTube and the other video sites can be a great method of producing quality traffic for your website. Although, you can’t meet your customers face to face, at least they can see you and hear you on the video sites. This is a great source of quality traffic. If your videos look professional, you will have much the same effect as article marketing.
5. Social networking. Almost everyone I know is on one of the social networking sites-Squidoo, MySpace or one of the myriad of others. For sheer volume of visitors, the social network sites cannot be beaten. There is one caveat (aside from your blog) the quality of visitor is not nearly as good as you will get from article marketing. Certainly, spend some time on the social networks, but not too much. You will get a ton of visitors but, not a lot of customers.
There are many other shoestring marketing methods and you should use them all. These five are the ones that you should concentrate upon.
It doesn’t matter if you are an internet marketer with your own product or an affiliate, at some point you have to be a salesman. Although you may think that it is all about product sales, you would be wrong.
What your prospect is really looking at is: Why should I buy from you and what is in it for me? There are plenty of great products and bonuses that you may promote and certainly you are going to tell the customers about these it’s features but, what you really need to know to make the sale is what are this customer’s hot buttons. Remember, the customer has probably seen several similar products or programs. He is not all that interested in what the product is but, what the product is going to do for him.
Each customer has a different hot button and your sales copy must hit as many of these buttons as possible. What is in it for me? Will I make a fortune, will it make my life easier, improve my family life, sex life, improve my golf score by 10 strokes or maybe it will add to my prestige. These are the types of questions your customer is really asking.
Ask yourself, why does one person wear a Timex and another a Rolex? For the most part, they both do the job equally well. Why does one person carry a Visa card that they got for free and another person carry American Express that cost the around $55 a year. The Amex card does not even carry a credit line and it is accepted in far fewer places. Perhaps the answer lies in Amex’s slogan: “Membership has it’s privileges.” A Ford and a Ferrari both have the same basic purpose-transportation. So, why buy a 250 thousand dollar Ferrari when a Ford performs the same basic job for one tenth of the price.
As an internet marketer/salesman, this is your job to find out and learn how to push those hot buttons. Marketing and sales are not the same thing but in the end, if you are going to build a business on the net, you have to develop both skills.
Advertising and internet marketing are just like cats and dogs. The dog (marketing) listens to you and is faithful. The cat (advertising) is also your pet but, his reactions are totally unpredictable, when you reach down to pet him, it is just as likely to bite you as let you give him a little loving. Yes, there are both pets but the reactions may be completely opposite of what you expect. Too many marketers, both newcomers and experienced, confuse advertising and marketing, believing that they are both the same animal. That’s a big mistake.
How many times have you devoted countless hours developing an advertising campaign and then watched it flop and do nothing more than swipe your hard-earned dollars. Then another time, a hastily built campaign made you a small fortune. Either way, advertising is only effective while you are pumping money into it and in the long term has no lasting results.
Internet marketing is much more like your pet dog. You develop a bond of mutual love and respect and when you walk through the door at the end of a long day, the dog is sitting there, wagging his tail and happy to see you. When you throw a stick into the field, you can always depend upon the dog to return it to you.
Advertising has it’s place and you will use it but, marketing will help you build a sustainable business. In marketing, you build upon a basis of mutual trust and respect and your clients will respond in kind. When you do advertise to your client base, only promote the best of products-products that you would use and believe in. If you ever promote a product that doesn’t deliver on what it promises, you are cheating your clients and ultimately yourself. You will lose all of the trust and respect that you have worked so hard to create.
An excellent example of marketing is in your choice of a stockbroker. A good stockbroker builds on the trust of his clients and if he ever leaves his current company, he takes his client list along with him. His clients trust him and not the brokerage firm that he is working for. He has helped his clients become successful and in doing so, he has also become successful. You never trust your money to some faceless company, you trust the broker that you respect and build a bond that overrides any advertising that his company may do.
Yes, go ahead and use advertising but, remember that the only long term results that you have come from building that bond of trust and mutual respect that comes from marketing not advertising. One final note, don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Only promote products that you trust and respect.