I recently asked a group of marketers this question:
“When you send an email to your list, what’s your #1 goal?”
Some of the answers I got were…
To get readers to open it
To get readers to READ it
To give some useful info
To build rapport
To sell a product
Those are all good answers…
But they’re also all WRONG answers.
Of course you want them to open the email, read the email, build some rapport, maybe give some useful info, but none of these are your primary objective.
So what is?
To get the CLICK.
That’s it.
Everything else is simply in support of that #1 goal, getting them to click the link you send to them.
Ideally, you want to train your list to click your links like (pardon me here) mind-numb robots.
You want them to click automatically – without thinking – because it’s what they always do when they open your emails.
You don’t need to sell the product – the sales page or video you send them to should do that for you.
You don’t need to tell them everything about the blog post you’re sending them to – the post will do that for you.
Your job is simply to get the click.
So how can you improve your click-through rate?
Give great information. People will like you and TRUST you if you give them great info that helps them. Clicking the link is just a natural extension of that.
Show them the ‘what’ but not the ‘how.’ You might give them a really useful tip on what drives super targeted traffic, but to learn how to do it they need to click the link. And yes, that link goes to a product you want them to buy. You haven’t sold the product in the email, but you have sold them on the method. The product is simply an easy shortcut to using that method to get the result.
Don’t always send them to sales letters; send them to fun stuff, too. Show them your blogposts, your videos and even other people’s stuff now and then. Did you see a video on YouTube that taught you something really valuable or made you laugh out loud? Try sharing it with your list. Remember, you want to get them in the habit of automatically clicking your links. And giving them rewards when they do, like useful information or a good laugh, will teach them to do just that.
Now and then surprise them with a free product. Your email tells them a method to list build using Facebook. Then you send them to a link that will give them 5 more list building methods. And when they click the link, they see a very short sales page offering the product for FREE. How much do you think they love you right now? And what are the odds they will click more of your links in the future, just in case there’s another free product on the other side?
Of course, your list and your niche may call for slightly different methods. But bottom line, your primary, number one goal of email marketing is ALWAYS to get the click.
The more trained your list is to click, the more money you will make in the long run.
Are you starting an online business with a small budget? That’s OK. Online businesses are one of the lowest cost businesses to run – if you know what you need to pay for and where to go.
Follow these suggestions for getting your website set up inexpensively while not sacrificing quality. There are some things you need to pay for (and this will tell you how much) and other things you can do just as well for free.
STEP ONE: GETTING A DOMAIN NAME
There’s no reason to pay more than $10 for a domain name, so feel free to shop around. Domains are important because they give you credibility as a business.
Free websites do not enable you to have your own domain name so instead you end up with mybusiness.freespace.com instead of mybusiness.com. See the difference? Your customers expect you to put some money into your business and this is a clear tip off that you are not doing that – and for $10, why shouldn’t you?
STEP TWO: FIND A HOST
Hosting plans vary considerably. Much of what you pay for will be determined by the features your hosting account provides with its service.
Are you setting up a simple, one page site? You could probably use a low cost host for $5 per month. Do you need some extra help with templates and layout or expect a high amount of traffic or downloads? You may have to pay more but it can be well worth the extra expense to have integrated webpages already set up or to ensure your host is providing you with enough bandwidth to handle the traffic on your site.
Never use a free host, unless perhaps you want to start with a blog or similar format while you get your own website up and running. Free hosting usually means you pay in other ways – lack of a domain name or a lack of quality. Many free hosting accounts are for personal use only and do not allow commercial accounts. Try to get recommendations from others when looking for a good host.
STEP THREE: DESIGN
As previously mentioned you can find professional templates on some hosting services. These can give your website a professional polish without the expense of hiring a designer. You are limited, however, on the look you choose depending on the variety of designs available.
Templates are also available to others so your site may have the same appearance as someone else. If you need custom work done consider hiring a freelance web designer from a site like elance.com or ask a local student studying web design. Freelance sites often put you in touch with new designers who will charge less while building on their experience and adding to their portfolio.
Spending money wisely is important when starting any business, but some free services will cost you in reliability or image. On the other hand there are some great deals e.g. https://bit.ly/profitcentersystem you may not hear about so don’t give your hard earned money (or worse – your credit) for a service you can pay less for and get the same results.
A web site is a crucial ingredient of your marketing strategy because it can widen your target market to include anyone who has access to a computer and the internet. Almost 60% of Canadians had access to the internet at home in 2003, and around 8 million had regular access to the internet from somewhere, either at home, at work or at school.
And that’s just in Canada. E-commerce sales from Canada were $7.2 billion, and we only captured 4% of the global e-commerce market! So, how can you reach some of those internet surfers, and how can you capture some of that $7.2 billion spent in e-commerce?
First, you build it The first step is designing your website. If your company already has business cards and letterhead, its best to design your website around them. A matching corporate identity and website helps with branding.
I like uncomplicated websites, with a simple layout and easy navigation. A nice, simple layout, with good graphics, balanced look and good color combinations is my #1 goal when designing a small business web site. Remember to use graphics sparingly and to optimize them for your website because internet surfers are impatient. If your page loads too slowly, they’ll leave.
Navigation should be easy to find and to use, and it should be consistent from page to page. I’ve left more than one site frustrated because I couldn’t easily find their navigation.
Small business web sites aren’t static. They evolve. You need to start somewhere, and starting with an introductory web site is probably easiest. All you really need to start is five pages. You can always add pages later. The important thing is to just do it, take the plunge and get it out there.
Your five pages could include an index, or home page, about us, services, contact and a sitemap. The index page is your landing page. Typically its design is a little more detailed than the others, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
I like to use CSS (cascading style sheets) for designing because its simply easier to build a web site and to edit its layout with CSS rather than just HTML (hypertext markup language) alone. A change on a CSS sheet changes all the pages on your site at once.
Content is king Once your site is designed, you’ll want to start thinking about content. Design is very important, but it does little good to have a beautiful site without high-quality content.
Your small business home page introduces you and your company , who you are and what you do. The about us page is usually used to give more detail than the home page, about who you are, and your services page gives more detail about what you do. You might wonder why you’d waste a page on a sitemap since you only have 5 pages, but sitemaps help search engines find all the pages in your site.
As far as content goes, more is better, up to a point. Your pages should be content rich and informative, but they also need to be relevant to your small business. If your visitor can’t figure out what your web site is about in just a few seconds, they may leave.
The internet was at first strictly informational, and that’s how it remains today. Several times people have tried experiments using copy writing similar to direct mail sales letters, but they’ve all failed. It seems as if people surf the internet more for information than anything else. Knowing this will help you write pages people will want to read.
Attracting visitors You could follow your instinct and just start writing, but wait. There’s research you must do first, or your web site simply won’t be high enough in searches to be found. Search engine optimization is far too big a subject to cover in this short article, but among other things, search engines find your pages based on keywords.
So, pretend for a moment that you’re on the other side of the desk. If you were a customer of your own business, what words or phrases would you use to search for your product or service? Ask friends and neighbors how they’d search for your product or services.
When you’ve come up with a few, check them out on a keyword suggestions tool. You can also use that tool to suggest similar words and phrases. Then find out how many results there would be if you searched for that term. What you want to do next is narrow down your choices to the words or phrases that are searched for the most, but have the fewest results.
Remember that people generally don’t look beyond the first three pages for any search term, so if you’re not in the top three pages, your business is not likely to be found at all. If there are millions of results for your phrase, you might simply need to make it more specific.
For example, let’s say you have a small business consulting company that specializes in communication for small business. Using communication as a search term is nearly pointless because there are almost 2 billion results for that word. But, there are only 974 results for small business communication.
Much better, but how often is that searched for? According to Word Tracker, it’s searched for 10 times a day. Not bad, but I think we can do better. How about small business consulting? That’s searched for 261 times a day, and there are 373,000 results. That could be the best primary phrase for a small business communication consulting company.
What you want to do, is write your content around those words and phrases. You don’t want or need very many, three or four are plenty.
Getting them to come back again and again Getting visitors to come back to your site again and again is relatively simple. Keep your content fresh and lively, make sure it’s informative, and add to it often.
I hope you decide your small business needs a web site. It’s the best way I know how to reach a wider target audience with a relatively small investment.
While it’s true we can learn from our own mistakes, it’s much easier, faster and sweeter to learn from the mistakes of others.
With that in mind, here’s 7 doozies that belong in the Business Mistakes Hall of Shame:
Schlitz Beer – At one time, Schlitz was the best selling beer in America. Then they decided to change their formula, replacing quality ingredients with inferior ones, adding chemicals to try to mask the changes, and even changing the brewing process. All of this was to increase their profit margins so they could continue to compete on price against Budweiser.
Basically, the Schlitz people worked very hard to ruin a best selling product. By the 1970’s, they’d changed the product so much that the bottom of each beer contained a repulsive mucus-like substance.
Of course sales plummeted, and the brand lost over 90% of its value. Schlitz beer was now relegated to the bottom bargain beer shelf for only the most desperate and poor of beer drinkers.
Lesson for online marketers? It’s clear isn’t it – quality DOES count. Whether you’re creating products or acting as an affiliate marketer, if you don’t offer your customers a quality product, they won’t be back for more. And you’ll get a lousy reputation in the process.
Star Wars – A long time ago in a studio far, far away, 20th Century Fox made one of the lousiest business decisions – ever.
In 1973, George Lucas negotiated a deal with Fox Studios on a film he wanted to direct – sort of a space western. Fox had offered him $500,000 to direct, but George offered to do it for just $150,000 if they would grant him all merchandising rights as well as rights to all sequels.
As of today, combined revenue from merchandising and sequels of Star Wars is an estimated $42 billion.
Yes, that’s right – Fox lost BILLIONS to save $350,000.
When you create a product, don’t stop there or you’ll be leaving most of your profit on the table. Create an upsell, a down sell, a continuity program, a coaching program and yes, sequels and updates.
You work hard to get your initial program sold, so why not bank on the goodwill you’ve earned to sell even more?
Take a lesson from George Lucas; the big money isn’t in the main product, it’s in everything else that comes after.
Kodak – Did you know Kodak invented the first digital camera? But they panicked and made a terrible decision – sitting on the invention so they could continue to sell film.
Naturally, it was just a matter of time before other companies invented their own digital cameras. Since Kodak owned the patent, they made millions – until the patent ran out in 2007. 5 years later Kodak filed for bankruptcy.
Lesson learned? Don’t try to fight progress. Instead, be an early adopter and use it to your advantage. Those who were first on board with online video did really well, as did those who jumped on board social media and so forth.
Things will inevitably change, which is why it’s better to roll with the flow, look for new opportunities and never stick your head in the sand like Kodak did.
Blockbuster – In 2000 when Netflix was still a niche DVD postal rental company, they offered Blockbuster the chance to buy them for $50 million.
Blockbuster laughed at Netflix’s CEO and what they thought of as his ridiculous offer. After all, they were making good money with their stores and late fees – why change?
It wasn’t long before Blockbuster was chasing Netflix, copying their DVD rental by mail plan and failing miserably.
Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010. And Netflix is now worth $30 billion.
Lesson learned? Always keep an open mind when presented with new opportunities. You never know when that crazy idea someone just pitched you could be the next Netflix.
Ayds – In the 1970’s and early 80’s, Ayds candies enjoyed brisk sales as a diet aid that helped suppress appetite.
But along came the Aids epidemic in the mid 80’s, and it’s no surprise that all of a sudden people didn’t want to buy Ayds. As of 1988, sales had dropped off by half and were continuing to plummet.
Now, most manufacturers would rebrand at this point, but not Ayds. They added the word ‘diet’ in front of Ayds, but it was too little, too late and the product was withdrawn from the market.
Lesson for online marketers? Unexpected things can and will happen. It wasn’t the manufacturer’s fault that an epidemic carried practically the same name as their candy, but it did. Had they bit the bullet and rebranded, they could have saved their product.
If you find for whatever reason that you need to make a change in your business, it’s best to do it quickly before it’s too late.
Telegraph to Telephone – There was a time when the telegraph was the most advanced communication system on the planet. Then in 1876 a fellow named Alexander Graham Bell invented a little gadget he called the telephone, and was ready to bring that invention to market.
But first he contacted Western Union, the most important communications company at the time, and offered to sell his patent for just $100,000. William Orton, the president of Western Union, turned him down and instead set up his own phone company in secret in an attempt to compete with Bell.
Bell successfully sued Western Union for infringing on his patent. In 1879, Orton was legally forced to pull out of the telephone business altogether, and of course Bell went on to build a business empire.
Lesson learned? Whenever possible, work with your competitors rather than against them. That $100,000 Orton ‘saved’ literally cost him a fortune and spelled the eventual demise of the communications portion of his company.
MySpace – In 2005 when MySpace had more users than Facebook, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp decided to buy the super popular social media site for $580 million.
MySpace had 300 million registered users and was valued at an estimated $12 billion. So he got a good deal, right?
No matter how good the deal, if you try hard enough you can really muck things up.
Facebook was threatening their number #1 status, so to immediately make MySpace profitable, they filled the site with tons of garish ads.
Next, they instituted the same corporate policies as News Corp, thereby preventing MySpace from adapting quickly to its competition.
After 6 years, News Corp sold the site for just 6% of what they had paid for it.
Lessons learned? First, if it isn’t broken, don’t ‘fix’ it. By plastering MySpace with ads and banners, they drove away their users.
Second, have patience. If they’d spent a little time thinking about their strategy to monetize the site, they could have come up with much better solutions than tons of ads.
Third, be flexible. Shackling your company with corporate policies that make progress slower than a snail’s pace is not going to win the day on the Internet.
One last note: It’s really easy to play ‘Monday morning quarterback’ and talk about what these companies ‘should’ have done. It’s a lot more difficult when you’re in the day-to-day grind trying to find your way.
Something all of these companies and business people had in common is this: They did what they thought was best at the time. And sometimes that’s all you can do.
If you ever find you’ve made a colossal blunder, or even just a stupid mistake, here’s how to make it right again: Get back up, forgive yourself and then let it go. Don’t dwell on the past except to learn. If you can live in the present with an eye to the future, you’ll be fine.
We all make mistakes. Some of us just have the opportunity to make bigger mistakes than others.
This one is so simple, yet diabolically effective…
When you first introduce a new product to your list or your blog readers, do you simply pop a link on there with a line of text and hope they click?
Of course not. You introduce the product. You tell them what’s good about it, how you use it, why it can change their business or help them achieve their goal, etc.
In other words, you’re introducing the product and warming up your readers BEFORE you send them to the sales page.
Now here’s the mistake I see marketers making all the time…
…when they first introduce the product, they take the time to do everything we just said.
And they make sales.
Later they decide to promote the product again, only this time they forget a crucial step.
They slap that affiliate link or product link up on social media and figure people will click it and buy the product.
But they don’t click.
Why not? Because there’s no introduction to entice them to click and learn more.
So here’s what you do…
Take the copy you wrote in that email or post that introduces the product, and give it a page of its own on your site. Add your affiliate link or sales link to the bottom.
Now when you advertise the product on social media and other venues, send visitors to your intro page first. I’ve seen this little technique increase conversions 4 fold.
You’re familiar with how lead magnets usually work – you offer visitors a report or some other incentive for joining your list. Depending on your traffic source and the strength of your offer, your opt-in rate could be anything from almost non-existent to 30% or more.
Here’s the problem – EVERYONE and their uncle is offering some type of incentive to get people to join their lists. And because of this, visitors have become more and more cautious about giving away their email address.
So what can you do to increase and possibly even DOUBLE your opt-in rate?
Change things up a bit, like this:
Step 1: Create a dynamite lead magnet with great information on how to do something. For example, maybe it’s a case study: “How Janis Smythe made $4,294 in 12 days using XXX technique.”
If you’re just starting out and you need a case study to use, start Googling. Don’t forget to let the person know you’re doing a case study on them, because in this case you really should get permission first.
Or omit the names and fictionalize the personal details. That works, too.
Step 2: Write an excellent sales page. Yes, you’re giving the report away, but you still need to entice people into wanting it.
Step 3: At the bottom of the page, and perhaps to the right as well, put a download button. That’s right – no opt-in form at this point, just a ‘download it now’ button.
Step 4: Split your report into two sections. The first section is the introduction and overview. What they’ll need to do this, how much money they can make and the success they can have, and so forth. Don’t make direct promises, of course. Follow the law.
The second half of the report is the payoff, the actual technique and how to do it step by step. On the bottom of the first section, tell the readers that the step by step blueprint is in Part 2.
Sneaky, right? It gets better:
Place TWO links on the last page of the first section – one where they pay $17 to buy the second half of the report…
And a second link where they get the report for FREE in exchange for their email address.
Both links go to the same webpage.
Step 5: Create the webpage for the second half of the report. Give them the option to pay $17 and the option to get it in exchange for their email address.
You should get extremely high opt-ins using this method. Having the payment button there makes it look like they are getting an extremely good deal by giving you their email address.
And oddly enough, once in a while someone will actually pay for the second half of the report. Don’t ask me why, but they do. And that’s okay too.
If you are looking for work from home jobs, chances are good that you have run into several jobs that would like you to pay in order to get the money that they are offering to you. This is something that you really want to think carefully about ,and that you want to try to avoid if you absolutely can. Remember that one of the things that you have to remember is that most of the time it is possible to work from home for free, and you should try to do this if you can.
Many people think that when they sign up for a work form home job they are working in a different way than they would usually be working. Sometimes they think that this means they are going to be working in a different place, or working in a different way. They often will take work from home jobs that require them to pay a fee or to pay something else in order to work there, because they feel that their work from home job is not a regular job and therefore paying for it is something that is okay. However, it is important to remember that a work from home job should be just like any other job. You want to be sure that you have respect for yourself and for the work that you are doing. Even if you are doing a work from home job, you are still working, and therefore you have a real job to be ding.
Therefore, you should try to avoid an job that requires you to pay money in order to be able to work for them. These jobs are usually going to be scams, and you will not be able to get the type of work that you require. There are plenty of chances for you to find work from home for free, which means that you should not have to pay to be able to work.
Often times there will be chances to sign up for job boards or for other programs that require you to pay a small fee in order to do this. This is not work from home for free, but it might be something that you want to try. However, it is important that you carefully think about how much the fee is and whether or not it is worth it. If you aren’t able to make money, and you are paying the fee, it is not going to be worth it and you should look for work from home for free jobs that do not require you to pay. Remember, no matter what you think there are plenty of chances for you to work from home for free. All you have to do is to take a look around you and find some jobs that aren’t going to require you to spend lots of money. There are plenty of these jobs, and if you are able to find them this will help you out a lot in the long run.
When you are a stay at home mom or a typical housewife, chances are you stay at home and do all the housework instead of going out into the corporate or working world to earn a living. While this may be true for quite a few housewives and stay at home moms, you need not suffer from unemployment simply because you are stuck at home. There are a few Work from Home jobs for housewives and for moms to choose from.
Among the Work from Home jobs for housewives and moms, the easiest one that is usually available are clerical or encoding jobs. These encoding jobs often require a person to have accurate typing skills and an attention to detail as well as relatively fast typing skills for them to be able to finish a few pages of typing work per day. These typing jobs come in quite a few different variants and may involve pertinent writing and composition skills for some of them.
Some typing jobs are advertising related and you may be required to type advertising copy for certain companies. There are also typing jobs which are actually article writing jobs. These Work from Home jobs for housewives and moms may require you to write documents that they need for their businesses. This kind of a job requires you to have a certain amount of researching skills and above average writing skills. This kind of a job is said to pay very well.
Other typing jobs include filling up surveys and questionnaires. You may need to view certain sites or try out certain items for you to successfully fill out these surveys. There are also Work from Home jobs for housewives and moms that require printing of documents and mailing them to a list of addresses that the employer provides. There are even jobs that get Work from Home moms to send emails to a mailing list that the company they are working for sends them everyday.
While there are a lot of jobs that can be found online for stay at home moms and housewives, finding legitimate Work from Home jobs for moms and housewives may require a little research and careful scrutiny. There are a lot of scams when it comes to these online jobs and knowing how to discern the real jobs from the scams will help these moms and housewives get a true source of income. By simply having a computer and an internet connection at home, these women can earn a living while taking care of what needs to be done at home all at the same time.
Lots of people dream of being able to work from home. How does one go about it and what are some of the qualities you need to become a success? Read on to find out some of the things you will need to do and some of the traits you need to possess if you are determined to work from home.
Are You Self Motivated?
Those people who want to work from home need self motivation. Without a boss to answer to, you will need to get yourself moving and take the responsibilities for even the most unpleasant tasks. This is a serious consideration for those who want to take the plunge and work from home.
Are You a Patient Person?
It may take some time for your business to turn a profit. Are you one who is willing to put in the hard work and wait for your business to take off? You may need to live very carefully until you have established yourself when you decide to work from home and this is especially true if you have no other source of income. Be patient and work hard and all of your efforts will soon pay off.
Being able to Adapt and Be Flexible…
For those who are coming from a corporate environment, it may be hard to lose your status and the help of others who completed and aided you in many of your tasks. They may have taken care of the more mundane side of business which left you free to take care of the creative end. You need to be able to wear many hats when you work from home. You will need to be flexible, learn new tasks and skills and be able to adapt to many different situations. If you think you can accomplish this, you will be a success when you work from home.
Think about the Realities of Your Financial Situation When You Seek to Work from Home…
There is a financial reality that must be taken into account when you decide you want to work from home. Things such as retirement benefits, health insurance and paid vacations are a thing of the past unless you make the arrangements for yourself. If you expect your business to start off slowly, how do you plan to make your living until you are seeing some return on your investment? You will have to make your own plans for retirement too. You may need to speak to a financial advisor once you have established yourself in order to take care of such details as well as the best health plan available you can afford.
If you plan to take your family on vacation when you work from home, this will have to be carefully planned as well. You will not have your vacation time or sick days to rely on and will have to save money if you intend to travel for pleasure.
Are You Ready to Work Long and Hard?
Getting a new business off the ground takes long hours and lots of hard work. If you expect to sit home on your laurels and make money, you are sadly mistaken. Working from home will more than likely require you to work longer and harder than you have before. The bright side to this is that you are doing all this work on your own behalf and not for the benefit of someone or something else.
Even if you do not want to go out and work and prefer to stay home, you can still work from home. There are several options and you could see what is suited to you according to your talent and skills.
Sit at home, spin tales and cook up stories…
Many magazines and sites need articles on a daily basis. They have a list of freelance writers to whom they give out work. If you have a talent for writing you could work from home for any of these dailies or magazines. It is not even necessary for you to meet with them or go to their office to submit the articles. All you have to do is send it to them via email and they will pay you through their online sources.
There are many topics that articles are needed on. You could subscribe to the recipe section. Giving a good description of the method and a list of the ingredients is all you need to write. Your work from home is not so complicated. Topics like beauty queries, handy home tips, interior decoration, and your knowledge on plants if you have a green thumb, pet care can all contribute to interesting reading and you will get paid for this.
Need time to recover before returning to work…
Sometimes you may have had a bout of ill health or surgery, you might be feeling pretty good now but it is not advisable to go back to work as yet. You could organize to work from home. Maybe your employer could allow you to do some of the work that you were handling from home online.
A new mum needs to spend some more time with her infant. If the company allows her to telecommute she could work from home for a few more months. The company could install a net working system on you computer where your work could be accessed at the office and give immediate results.
You love your work but need time at home…
If you are a qualified soft ware person or any other technical aspect of computer oriented work, with skills such as web designing and graphics but need time to be at home for certain domestic reasons you could take on work which you could complete at home. You could work from home and submit it as per the assignment schedule.
Some highly qualified people are opting for the option to work from home, they are able to deliver the goods and yet be with their families and see to their personal commitments also. Many companies are also cutting down on overheads by employing people who would like to work from home. Commuting problems and people who need to travel a long distance to reach their work place are also opting to work from home.
It doesn’t matter what the nature of your work, if you prefer to work from home, there are enough opportunities available where you can make full use of your talents and get job satisfaction too. You may want to work from home for domestic, personal or health reasons, but whatever the reason there is definitely work available for you. Just think about what your work preferences are and look out for home based opportunities in this area.
