"hey, can you check out my new website and tell me what you think"

"Ok, yup here it is, um, great, well, it looks nice but it won't sell anything"

"Well, what do you mean, we just had it professionally designed"
"Well for starters, there is no headline, no call to action and no sales copy"

See, my buddy is a computer network specialist.  He has a company that operates locally in his city and provides networking solutions to other companies.  They will go in and maintain a network, set up security, set up software and so on in their clients place of business.  He has a buddy who is an advertising guy - builds websites and the likes.  So here he is with his new website all set up.

The website looks very corporate, tells a litle bit about what they do - describes some of their services.

I said, OK, right now your website looks like all the other websites out there in your field.  Why should a client do business with you above any and all other options available to them?

He couldn't answer.  See, this is the USP - the Unique Selling Proposition.  What is it that sets you apart - what makes you different, why should anyone do business here?  He never defined what he does or what he sells.

Next question, where is your call to action?

"my what?"

What is it you want people to do once they come to your site?

"Oh, well, I don't know, I thought I just had to put up a nice site"

(oh, please)

See, my buddy doesn't even have a clear, defined sales process.  I said, OK, let's work backwards here.  How do you get new business?

"Well, all I know is that if I can meet with a prospect, there is a pretty good chance I can close them"

OK, now we are getting somewhere.

"OK, so if that is the case, then your website needs to sell a meeting.  You need to irritate a problem that your client would have and then offer to solve the problem by coming in to their business and having a free consultation.  Your website needs to sell the free meeting.  Then you can close them"

Now he was starting to see the light.

See, BEFORE you get started on all of this, you need to take a minute and clearly define your sales process.  What steps do you want your prospect to take?  Make them easy steps to take, tell them what to do, hold their hand as they do it.  Guide them along.  If your business works when you have a meeting with a prospect, then any marketing you do needs to be focussed on getting that meeting.  Print advertising, website, all need to be targeted towards getting that meeting.  The first thing that the prospect should see when they come to your website should be a good headline - one that draws them in and irritates the problem.  The solution to their problem needs to be for them to invite you to a meeting, and then make it very easy for them to set up the meeting right there.

If you can sell face to face, then your website needs to set that up.

It is too bad my buddy didn't ask me for help BEFORE he set up his site.  What a waste of a website

BUT, be carefull in how you run your show…

A couple of months ago, I got an offer from Derek Gehl at The Internet Marketing Center.  The offer was for a $2.95, 21 day trial to his new Search Marketing Lab.  OK, let's try it out.  So I sign up. It was new, I check it out, didn't feel there was much value.  I forget about it.  Now, i just realized that my credit card has been billed $27 for a monthly subscription.  I contact them to get it figured out (I never logged in again).  In the meantime, since that first charge, there has already been another.  I ask for a refund.

Well, they were fine to cancel my subscription and so on but when it came to the refund, here is what they wrote:

Jonathan,

 You were charged for 2 months – and no there were no refunds as you were outside the refund guarantee.

 Thank you and have a great day.

That's it, sorry, too bad, see you later.

Now, it would have been nice to get a note from them at the end of my trial to let me know my card was to be charged (but, no).  They should have sent me a receipt for payments made (but nothing).  At the very least, they could have forwarded me my login details and offered to refund me the last payment.  But a little note saying, "sorry, it sucks to be you" is no way to run a business.

I actually was going to join a more expensive program of theirs but have lost all respect for the way they run their operation and am no longer considering doing anything with them.

Remember that even though you are online, it doesn't mean you have to be more impersonal.  Your clients are still people and should be treated as such.  Run your business with dignity and respect, build relationships that are real - not just you emailing out to your list.  It is worth it.

http://www.dyson.com/about/ads/?movie=ball_principals_us

What impresses me about these ads is that they speak directly to the consumer, they irritate a problem and then offer a solution.  In this ad, the inventor is going on about how inconvinient it is to have a vacuum cleaner that can't turn around corners.  He spends a great deal of time talking about this issue.  He explains the problem in depth and then offers his solution.  By the time he is done talking, you are thinking "well of course, why didn't anyone else think of that before".  His solution is so simple that it is the only obvious choice.

He has run great ads before and they all seem to follow the same format.  Speak directly to the consumer, irritate the problem and then offer a simple solution.  Simple wisdom that any marketer can use.
Great job, Dyson.

The site is basically a shopping style site.  You go there, find what you want and add it to your cart.  Check out when you are done.  It is fairly simple - not too fancy.  I was running some Google Adsense on the side of it.

Site has been running along with very little change for the past few months.  The other day I get this email:

"While reviewing your account, we noticed that you are currently displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our policies. For instance, we found violations of AdSense policies on pages such as easy-scripts.net.

Tags: internet marketing tips, Jonathan Hook, article marketing, niche marketing, internet marketing

This is the identity that you create that sets you apart from your competitors in your marketplace.  This is the answer to the question in your customer's minds "why should I do business here?".

One thing that you have to remember though, as you develop your USP, is that you need to make sure that your USP addresses a concern that actually exists in your marketplace.

If your USP boasts something about your business that you think is important to you but none of your customers find important, then you have missed the mark.  If you have a Pizza shop and you are bragging about how fast you can deliver the pizzas but most of your customers are walk-in customers and they actually come there because of the taste of your pizza, then you have missed the mark.  You are promoting a feature of your business that is not relevant to your customers.

As you set up your USP, make sure that you not only identify and address important features or benefits, make sure that they are the features and benefits that your marketplace is actually looking for.

PayPal's multi-million client base is growing at the extraordinary rate of 28,000 new accounts daily, and their payment processing system is sheer perfection. Still, you may wonder why you should use PayPal to process your payments. What's in it for you? It's a fair question, and you deserve some good answers.

Versatility and Ease
PayPal is the most widely accepted payment system in the world. At the time of this writing, it is available in 38 countries, and the company has plans to continue expanding its services around the globe. That means you can do business on a global scale and get paid the same day.

The user-friendly interface makes it a breeze to sign up for a free consumer account, which allows the sending, receiving and requesting of payments. It's free and easy for all those happy potential customers to buy from you and pay you immediately for your product or service.

Upgraded PayPal accounts can even accept credit card payments without having to sign up for merchant accounts with credit card companies. Being able to accept cash or credit card payments opens you up to a wider client base.

Speed and Security
Using PayPal is a dream for buyers and sellers alike. Their checkout system allows for a quick and seamless online transaction that simply processes a payment with the click of a button. Your customers can even pay you from their mobile phone rather than waiting until they get home to their computer. No more waiting for a cheque in the mail. That alone is a good reason why you should use PayPal to process your payments.

Although much of the world now has at least some idea of how to stay safe online, many people are still nervous about the security risk of making purchases. PayPal's payment processing takes that worry away with their aggressive security measures. They use only secured servers and information is encrypted. No one ever sees the consumer's financial data, not even the person or company receiving payment. Customers can relax and feel safe using PayPal to complete a transaction with you, as their details cannot be stolen.

If a consumer has dealt with a verified seller and feels there is an issue with that seller, PayPal will step in and investigate. Their account holders are offered buyer protection and Safeweb Insurance. This is another feature that helps you to establish trust with clients, especially if they have never dealt with you before.

There are so many incredible reasons why you should use PayPal to process your payments. The ease, versatility, speed and security all make for smooth transactions that will leave both you and your customer happy.

Automate your digital product delivery and increase the security of your downloads with a unique piece of software at www.minisite-sales-system.com 

If you are looking for a way to grow your small business, then I first want you to stop and think about something…

When your customer leaves your place of business, how are you making money off of them?

You see, your customer has value to your when they are in your store or office but they also have value to you afterwards.

The trick here is to collect their contact information.  Did you do that?  Most businesses don't.  Why not?

The secret here is in the follow-up.  If your customer or client is a happy one, then why not sell them something again?  Send them an offer next week, next month, on their birthday, at Christmas, see, whenever you can.  And, best of all, the offer doesn't even have to be for your own business, you might partner with another company that serves the same market and do a joint venture or cross promotion!  A lot of companies don't think of this.

Ok, so let's say you offer a service, you are a massage therapist, chiropractor, acupuncturist, etc.  How often should someone use your services?   Once a month?  Once a week?  So, if someone hasn't been there for 3 months, why haven't you followed up with them?  Send them a cupon or a special offer to get them back in your door.

Let's say you offer a seasonal service to homeowners.  You offer a lawn cutting service.  Partner up with someone who offers snowplowing services and take a 10% commission for referring the business to them.

Auto shop?  Well, when someone comes in for service you are already writing down their name and address along with the information about their car, why not send them a reminder when their engine is due for a oil change or when their tires should be rotated?  Even better, let's say the customer was in last week and got some work done.  You noticed that their brakes were getting down but should be good for another 5,000 miles, great, make a note and send them a reminder in 2 months to come in and get their brakes fixed.  Send them a letter like "tired of your brakes squeaking?  Come in for a check-up".  The guy's wife probably came home the night before and said, "honey, I think the car is making a funny sound".  What a chance for a sale.

All you have to do here is go an extra little step and remind the customer to come in and use your service. They will even thank you for it!

Tags: internet marketing tips, article marketing, affiliate marketing, niche marketing, internet marketing

You can do one of these things:

1. Get more traffic

2. Increase conversions - make more sales per number of visitors

3. Increase the size of the sale - charge more for the product
4. Ad more back end sales
The problem is that most people only focus on step number 1.  Now don't get me wrong, traffic is great and at the end of the day there is almost no problem that your website has that can't be solved with more traffic.  If your sales letter sucks but you can get 1,000,000 people to view it, you will still sell something.  The problem is that traffic is hard to get and it is expensive if you have to pay for it.

The trick in all of this is to focus on the other 3 points.  Because they don't cost you anything to tweak.  You can change your headline to get more attention, you can tweak your site (change the bullets, add bonuses, check your guarantee, etc) and these things don't cost you anything to improve.  Try changing your price - and, believe it or not, a lower price does not always mean more sales.  The problem is that you can have a great sales letter, build up your product so that it seems like it is the best thing in the world and then you actually devalue it by selling it for $7.  If it is so great then why on earth are you giving it away.  You will make a lot more money if you would build up the product and add a few bonuses and sell it out for $97.  And you may be able to do this without a significant loss in conversion rates.  BUT you won't know until you test it.

Another way to increase the size of the sale is to upsell the customer at the point of purchase.  Is there something else that your customer needs or something else that will compliment the product they are buying?  Sell it to them right away - when they are already making their purchase.  Right in between the period of time after they decide to purchase and before they enter their credit card number.
And don't forget your back-end!  After someone buys something from you, MAKE SURE you collect their contact info into your autoresponder and make another offer next week.  If you aren't doing this, it is like watching money walking out of your store.  Here is someone who just came to you and purchased something, there is a pretty good chance they will spend money with you again.  Try it.

NOW, once you have all this in place and you have a good idea of what the life-time value of your customer is, you will have no problem buying more traffic because you know what you can spend and still make money.

Go over your website, increase the value of every click that comes to your site and then, after that, you can get more traffic.

Tags: internet marketing tips, Jonathan Hook, website optimization, internet marketing, article marketing

And, strangely enough, more people wonder how to get more traffic and worry about all kind of different tricks and gimmicks than worry about servicing that traffic once it gets here.

What is the purpose of your website?  What is your conversion rate from viewer to opt-in to sale to backend sale?  Did you know that if you could tweak each of those steps just a bit, you could double the amount of money that you make with the same traffic you are already getting?  It's true.  If you could push your visitor to opt-in conversion rate from 40% to 50% and your opt-in to sale conversion rate from 25% to 35% then for every 100 visitors you go from (100 x 40% x 25% = 10) 10% visitor to sale conversion to (100 x 50% x 35% =  17.5%) 17.5% visitor to sale conversion.  You just increased your sales by 75%.

The more steps in your sales process, the bigger difference this will have to your final result.  If you would just leave your conversions alone, you would have to increase your traffic by 75% in order to increase your sales by 75% and that can get expensive.  First, work on your conversions and aim to increase each step of the sales process just a little bit.  It adds up very quickly and soon you will find yourself making more money with the same amount of traffic instead of worrying about getting more traffic.  Once you have this streamlined, then go out and get more traffic.  You will be rewarded many times over!

If you do know what article marketing is, then you are likely already using this technique to generate traffic and links to your site.

Basically, in a nutshell, article marketing is where you utilize the power of article directories to generate links to your site. What you do is simply write articles about the niche that your products or services are in. You might write some "how to" articles, you might write some articles about "why" certain ideas or products are better than others. Once you start thinking about it, the information that you already possess about your given niche or topic can fill a lot of articles. You only need to write articles that are about 500 - 600 words long.

How do these articles help you?

Well, quite simply, if you could get other websites, newsletters or e-zines to publish your written work, you could become an "expert" in your field or niche, couldn't you? Isn't that what makes an "expert" an "expert" - other people listen to and quote what they say.

If you write interesting and informative articles, then more people are apt to read them and in turn, use your articles as content. See, the thing that I haven't told you yet is the bonus… any time you submit an article to a directory, they allow you to have what is called a "resource box". This is a paragraph at the bottom of the article where you, quite simply, tell a bit about yourself - or your company, product or service. Most often, they will allow you to have a link in your resource box that directs back to your own website. So now, as publishers pick up and use your article, you are getting all of these links back to your website. Better still, the links are on the same page as the topic of your niche and very relevant to the content in your website. Now you should start to see the power of this activity.

You publish an article relevant to your niche, people read it, use it and you get a link back to your website.

So, that is great, how do I publish my articles?

Well, one option is to go to some of the article directories and submit your articles by hand one at a time. Certainly this can be done but it is very time consuming, wasting time that could be better spent writing more articles. What I would recommend is to use an article submission service and let them submit your article all over the web. They have lists of article directories that would take you a very long time to even come up with, forget submitting to each of them.

Better yet, read through this free little book called "The 4 Ridiculously Simple Keys to Online Success" that will bring you up to speed.