Okay, so you’ve hopefully got your core business online, or you’re about to put one online.
You have it up and running, making money… Now what?
First things first – figure out how to make MORE money in the business you already have.
How do you get more customers?
How do you sell those customers more stuff?
And how can you charge more for what you sell?
But what about the ‘fun’ part?
That’s a matter of trying stuff out.
Buy new stuff on Warrior and JVZoo. Read the case studies.
See the new techniques someone’s dreamt up.
Pick and choose stuff to try and then just try it. Don’t devote a week to it – it might not work.
But devote a day or two and see what results you get.
That new thing that everyone is doing? Pick a topic (or whatever needs choosing) and outsource it.
Or if you can do it yourself in a day, go for it.
Is it promising? Keep going.
Does it look like a loser? Good – you just found something that doesn’t work for you.
Either way, if you always look at it as experimenting, as having fun, as trying new stuff
and seeing what happens, then you’ll never take it too seriously.
You won’t get stressed. You won’t smash your head against the desk when you realize the last 24 hours taught you nothing more than how NOT to do something.
Because you’re having fun.
And when you do strike on a winner, sha-ZAM!
Rinse and repeat and you’ve got another money making avenue in your online business.
No doubt you’ve heard that offering a bonus for other product sellers to give to their buyers is a good way to get a list of customers. And that’s true. If your bonus is good enough that the product seller believes it will increase their sales, they might be willing to let your bonus tag along with their product.
You might need to contact 5, 10 or even 20 product sellers to make this happen. Obviously, the better your bonus and the closer it’s tied to the original product, the higher your odds of getting a yes. Having a relationship with the product seller helps immensely, too. But there is an easier way to get that coveted “yes” from the product seller, and here it is:
A lot of newer product sellers on Warrior and JVZoo don’t have their own upsells yet. And because of this, they’re leaving a lot of money on the table.
If you offer them a complete upsell funnel and let them keep 100% of the profit, you stand an excellent chance of them saying yes.
Your upsell funnel should include a squeeze page offering a good freebie – this will capture product buyers who don’t purchase your upsell. It also should also include a proven product that converts well.
You can add exit splashes, pre-populated forms, bonuses and trial offers – basically whatever it takes to:
1. Capture the email addresses of the buyers, regardless of whether or not they take your upsell.
2. Makes sales for the product seller.
Using this method, you can add hundreds of buyers to your list every week. And as you know, buyers are worth far more than tire-kickers.
Everyone is happy using this model:
– The original product seller is making more money – often twice as much or more.
– The product buyer is getting a good deal on your product.
– Even if the product buyer doesn’t buy your product, they still get your freebie
(remember to make it VALUABLE.)
– And you get a list of buyers with very little effort on your part.
For maximum success, rinse and repeat as often as you like.
Have you ever suspected that marketers make secret deals with each other behind the scenes? And that perhaps they will call each other on Skype or Zoom and coordinate activities and launch dates? And maybe they work together on marketing deals, promote each other’s products and work together to maximize their profits? Well, it’s 100% true…
Marketers network and mastermind with marketers on their own level. Now, if you’re new to the game, how do you break into one of these million dollar mastermind groups?
Think about college – you go to school with a group of people. You meet as Freshmen or Sophomores, hang out together, do stupid stuff together, take classes or study together, etc.
After graduation, who can you call to get an “in” at a company, get a lead on an account, get an introduction to somebody and so forth?
Your pals from college, that’s who. You came up together. You’re friends. And of course you’ll help each other out whenever you can.
Marketing works the same way.
Find people on your level – marketers who are on their way up.
Make friends. Hang out. Have drinks. Talk on Skype. Work together. Bond.
You and your friends will progress up the marketing food chain together.
And there’s your ground floor opportunity into your own million dollar mastermind group – the guys and gals who came up with you through the ranks.
So start networking. Get a team of friends. Work together. Help each other out. Have each other’s backs. Care as much about them and their success as you do about your own.
And in no time, people will be looking at your group and wishing they were you.
It’s simple. Partner up on projects. Now, just to be clear – I’m not necessarily suggesting you take on a full time partner for your entire business. At least, not at first – not unless you already know someone really well who is the perfect fit in every way.
What I am suggesting is partnering on individual projects.
For example, you have an idea for a software product. But you’ve never taken a software product to market before, so you call up your friend who’s done it several times.
1. His skills and strengths complement yours – you bring different assets to the table and together you make a better team than either one of you working alone.
2. Two heads are better than one. Together you come up with improvements in both the marketing and the product itself that you likely never would have thought of on your own.
3. You can keep each other accountable for getting your tasks done.
4. And together, the two of you bring more affiliates to the table than either one of you can individually.
In the process of working on this project – which is a success – the two of you come up with great ideas for your next project, and so forth.
Partnering can be a great way to get more accomplished in less time, to defeat the procrastination monster and to make things happen, fast.
Just be sure to choose your partners and your projects wisely.
There is a young lady in the Internet marketing niche who has 3 separate IM type blogs. And without revealing too much (we don’t want to create direct competition for her) here are the methods she’s tried and the ones that worked in monetizing those three blogs…
To begin with, she tried AdSense. But that only made a few bucks and she quickly abandoned it. Then she tried renting out banners, but since her 3 blogs combined receive about 10,000 visitors a month, she didn’t get a lot of interest.
She does put up ClickBank ads, and those bring in about $1,000 a month from all 3 blogs combined. Not bad, but obviously not that great, either. Especially when you consider that she posts 6 days a week on each blog.
Next she decided to devote one blog post out of 6 to promoting an affiliate product. This wasn’t an easy decision for her, because she was afraid her readers would be alienated and they would stop visiting her blog.
But on the contrary, her promotional blog posts were well received and they’re making her money. In fact, it doubled her income and then some.
So now she was making over $2,000 a month on her three blogs but she felt she could do better. So what she did next was a little unorthodox.
She had a pop-up to get people to subscribe to her mailing list, which she decided to rent out. That’s right – she’s renting out her pop-up. She devoted the top right sidebar and the bottom of each page to capturing email addresses for herself.
Then she made a page showing her traffic stats, her own conversions on her own pop-ups, some demographic info and so forth. She was really selling her pop-ups on each of her three blogs.
And it worked. She rents them by the month, taking the code the customer gives her and pasting it into the pop-up. The customer has to be offering something for free, and of course it needs to fit her niche.
Believe it or not, between the three pop-ups on the 3 sites, she’s earning close to $2,000 a month just doing this. Combining that income with the income from her ads and her promotional blog posts, and she’s earning about $4,000 a month from her blogs. Of course, this doesn’t include income from her own list which she is building.
So the question is, why was it so much easier to sell the pop-ups than it was banner ads? Maybe because it’s something different. Or perhaps because people want to build lists, and see this as the way to go.
Now you might be wondering if she isn’t shooting herself in the foot and losing out on long term income by building her own list faster using her own pop-ups.
It’s hard to say. But one thing for sure is that $2,000 a month from the pop-ups is coming in like clockwork, and all it takes is collecting the money and pasting in the code once a month. Really, you can’t beat that.
I hope this gets you thinking about new possibilities for your own website(s)!
Some of you are going to dismiss this idea. You’ll think it’s strange. You’ll think I’m full of beans. But others will recognize this as one of the holy grails of online marketing. And those are the folks who will do really, really well online if they aren’t already. Because making money as an Internet marketer isn’t about selling products or services or clicks…
Nope.
It’s about selling YOU
Think about what you buy. Don’t you find that certain marketers just resonate with you? When you get their emails, you read them. When they tell you click somewhere, you click. And when they put out a product, you buy.
Why? Because you like the way they make you feel. You like their style, their humor, their motivation… whatever it is, you just LIKE them.
Why did you like a certain teacher in school? Why do you like your friends? Your spouse? Maybe you don’t know why, you just know that you do. It’s the same way for your customers.
If they like you, they will read what you write. They’ll subscribe to your emails and read them. They’ll follow you on social media. They might even promote you. And yes, they will BUY most ALL of your stuff.
Not because they want more stuff, but because they like YOU and the way your stuff makes them feel. When you brand yourself in such a way that you connect with your readers, you no longer have to worry if your products will sell or if your affiliate recommendations will work.
Your coaching program will sell out. Your webinars will be packed. Your products will be winners.
And you don’t have to worry about sales any longer. Just focus on being the best YOU that you can be for your customers, and everything else will take care of itself.
So how do you brand yourself?
You might take a course on branding. You might look at branding leaders, too. Most of all, take a look at your strengths. What are you good at? How do you best communicate? What are your interests?
If your niche is IM and you’re into extreme sports, how can you combine the two to resonate with people just like you?
If your niche is health and you’re very much into spirituality, can you combine the two to create your persona?
I’m not suggesting you reinvent yourself. I am suggesting you combine what it is that makes you, YOU, with your niche.
Here’s some examples… The Hippy Gardener The Globe Trotting Marketer The Spiritual Carpenter
Now, you might be thinking this is a bad idea because it will turn some people off. I have news for you – no matter what you do, there will be people who don’t like you. And that’s a GOOD thing. Because those who do like you will be all the more loyal.
Sell yourself first. Find your followers and build your tribe. And everything else in your business will naturally fall into place.
To make more sales, you can send more people to your offers, you can send better qualified people to your offers, or you can convert more of the people you send. Today let’s talk about how to convert more of your traffic into sales by using little copywriting tips and tricks that massively improve your copy’s ability to make those sales for you.
1: Do more research. If you know how to hit your prospect’s hot buttons, your conversion rates will improve. And to know what you’re talking about, you’ve got to do your research.
What other products are on the market? How is yours better? What do your prospects want most? How can you tailor your benefits to what they want? What did the reviewers say?
Sometimes you’ll even discover the perfect headline buried deep inside your research, such as the comment someone made when they tried the product and got spectacular results.
2: Talk to your market. Who is it that you’re targeting with your product? These are the people to talk to. If you don’t fully understand the relationship between your product, your customers and how it improves their lives, then find out. Ask for their experiences and listen carefully for emotions and key phrases that convey both how they felt about the problem and how the product has changed things for them.
Are you just launching and don’t yet have customers? You can still ask about their problem and what it will be like for them when they have the solution. Even going to Amazon and reading the reviews that people leave for products similar to yours can be super helpful. Look for the experiences others can relate to, the ones where someone is talking about how tough it was to have the problem, and how frustrating it is that the product didn’t solve the problem or how their life has changed since it did solve it.
3: Test headlines. Always have several headlines to test, because the one you are certain will be the winner is probably going to be the loser. It’s just a fact that even the most seasoned copywriters often can’t predict which headline will hit it out of the ballpark.
Try not to get attached to a headline prior to testing, either. Give each one a fair test and let the numbers speak for themselves. I’ve seen marketers fall in love with a headline and lose a great deal of sales because they took too long to test others.
4: Use mini-headlines. Those little headlines that break up copy also work like Australian Cattle dogs to herd sheep. When your reader starts to stray, your mini-headline will bring them back into the fold because it’s going to create intrigue, give benefits or simply raise so much curiosity that they MUST read what comes next.
Imagine someone is skimming your sales copy and all they are reading are the mini-headlines. Do they tell a story on their own? Do they create curiosity while also conveying benefits? Would you be drawn into the copy and perhaps even want to buy the product just from reading the mini-headlines? If not, you might want to work on those.
5: Use lots of bullet points. I’ve seen a lot of marketers who seem to think you’re supposed to have one section of bullet points and that’s it. But I’ve also noticed that some of the highest converting sales letters have 2, 3, 4 and even 5 separate sections of bullet points.
Bullets make reading easy. In fact, some of your prospects will read the headline, the bullet points and then maybe the guarantee before making up their minds if they want to go further. To create a bullet point, first write a mini headline and then add a sentence that supports the headline and adds a benefit.
For example:
The #1 Stealth Method of Persuasion (This is the exact covert method the US government used to turn die-hard Russian spies into secret double agents – use this method to get what you want every time.)
6: Add sidebars and boxes. Break up your copy with sidebars and boxes that highlight benefits, showcase testimonials and quote experts. This breaks up your copy, makes the entire letter look interesting and keeps the reader reading.
7: Use an experienced graphic artist. Ideally your designer has experience formatting sales copy within your niche. Take a look at the work they’ve done and see if their style will work for what you have in mind. Jot down ideas and suggestions of your own and then listen to your designer’s ideas, too.
Remember that good copy with great design can sometimes out-convert great copy with lousy design. The look of your page can be just as important as what your page says. If you don’t believe it, think of the last time you arrived at a sales page and clicked away because of what you saw and not what you read. First impressions are made so fast that the reader has often formed an opinion before they’ve even read your headline.
You know those headlines that scream out you can earn XXX amount of dollars by simply “pushing a few buttons” or “sending a few emails” or some such? Well, this case study is actually about someone doing almost no work and yet banking close to $5,000 a month.
In fact, she might be up to that amount now. The $4,400 was how much she earned when we spoke, and she mentioned that her income is increasing every single month. Yet she does almost no work whatsoever.
And by the way, OPA stands for Other People’s Artwork.
Here’s how it works:
I’ll call her Sally because, well, when I talk to her she giggles a lot and sounds kind of silly. Sort of like a high school girl, and yet she’s in her mid-twenties.
Sally has several different identities on Etsy and Ebay. Each identity sells a certain type of artwork. One sells paintings of animals, one sells landscapes, one sells abstract art, one sells hearts (I’m not kidding!) and so forth.
She has a real life assistant (we’ll call him Gorgeous George because as Sally tells it, in addition to working for her George also does some modeling and fitness instruction.) George makes all the listings for the artwork, gets the prints made from the originals, fulfills the orders and handles any customer service requests.
What does Sally do? She outsources work to several artists who do all of her paintings for her. Just like hiring a ghostwriter to write a book which you then sell, Sally is hiring “ghost painters”. She has them sign a non-disclosure agreement that gives her all rights to the paintings. And she never tells her artists what she does with the paintings, either.
If I were doing this business model, I might consider giving the artists a percentage of sales, but Sally likes to simply pay one fee up front to keep things simple.
Sally chooses the styles for the paintings by finding examples and showing them to her artists. She then asks them to replicate the style and not the actual painting. She sells the original paintings for a good price ($300 to $1,000) and sells limited edition prints for a lower price.
Her listings never claim that she or her persona is the artist. She’ll use generic language such as, “This painting was created May of 2021 using pastels on canvas.” She has her artists use several mediums, including acrylic, watercolor, pastels, ink, charcoal and so forth.
She also has a virtual assistant who has one job: Promoting the artwork through various social media channels. This is why her business is growing so fast, because word is getting out via social media. And she’s very good at picking her subjects, too, some of which are extremely timely and most of which prove popular.
As you can see she has expenses: Her real life assistant George, her virtual assistant, the artists and selling fees. But even after all this, she pulled in $4,400 in profit the month she revealed her system to me, and like it said, it’s increasing every month.
The real key here is to choose subjects that will sell. That’s why she likes animals, hearts and landscapes because they always do well. And her paintings aren’t super elaborate, either. An experienced painter can likely create one in a short afternoon.
One of her best-selling stores sells paintings that are somewhat cartoonish, including caricatures of real people as well as animals doing silly things. As mentioned earlier, one sells hearts. I suspect this artist probably does 4 or 5 paintings in a day because they are that simple. But they sell like hotcakes because people love hearts and bright colors.
This business is easy to replicate and if you use assistants, it takes very little time at all.
In the 1970’s there was a ridiculous and somewhat controversial show where performers of questionable talent did strange and bizarre things in the name of entertainment. When their acts became too much to bear, celebrity judges hit a giant gong, sending the performer packing.
This was a precursor to the competitive reality shows of today and at the time many people thought it was in terrible taste. That didn’t stop them from tuning in, though, and if you happened to be stoned when you were watching, well then I hear it was a laugh riot.
The perpetrator and host of this show was a guy named Chuck Barris. To give you a bit of history, Chuck created two smash hit TV shows in the 60’s; The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game. But when Chuck debuted The Gong Show, critics called him, “The Baron of Bad Taste” and “The King of Schlock.”
In response, Barris wrote a book that attempted to set the record straight with some bald-faced lies. Barris claimed he was – now get this – a CIA assassin.
In his book, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” Barris asserts he worked for the CIA as a hired assassin throughout the 1960s and 70s. The CIA emphatically said this was not true, but what else would the CIA say?
The public always wondered…
Was Barris – the guy who acted like a silly clown on television – really a CIA assassin?
Maybe.
Nah… probably not.
But still… maybe…
Barris was quoted as saying, “Here I was, getting crucified by critics for entertaining people (The Gong Show) and getting medals for killing them. That just didn’t seem logical.”
In 2002 George Clooney created a feature film loosely based on and totally spoofing the book, in which Chuck Barris kills 33 people as a CIA operative.
Back to the two hit shows Barris created in the 60’s:
The Dating Game was simply 3 people competing to get a date with a 4th person by answering his or her questions. That was the entire premise and the show lasted for 15 years.
Then there was the Newlywed Game which was, as Barris described it, “4 couples, 8 questions and a washer-dryer.”
How long did it take Barris to come up with these ‘products’? I suspect the ideas came spontaneously in the shower or while he was falling asleep. Sure, he could have made them more complicated, but why?
Time and again I see marketers overcomplicating their products. “I want to create a product on driving traffic through Facebook Groups” becomes, “I’m creating a 22 volume set of traffic driving techniques for every major social media site as well as 13 other methods and each volume will have 2 hours of video and a 100 page book and…”
STOP!
All you need is 4 couples, 8 questions and a washer-dryer.
Keep it simple.
Simple is easy to create and it’s fast to market. You can find out quickly if your idea is a hit or not. And people are more likely to consume your product, thereby getting value for their money and coming back for MORE of your products.
Keep it simple.
One more thing…
Do your prospects find you boring? Do YOU find you boring?
Then start a rumor.
Maybe don’t start one that says you’re a CIA assassin (unless you really want to). But start a rumor that is fun, interesting and maybe just a tiny bit shocking.
Have a few people spread it on social media. Then deny the heck out of it.
This is the sort of thing that can go viral quite easily. You might even get some free publicity, too.
And who knows… one day George Clooney might make a movie about you, too.
Boys and girls, there was a time when calculators weren’t apps on smartphones – they were actually stand-alone hand-held electronic gizmos that did nothing but calculate numbers. (I’m dating myself…) Some of these calculators were even what you might call “desk sized” because they were so big you had to set them on something to use them.
One day a salesman found himself stuck with a gross of these large desk calculators. Nobody wanted to buy them, so here’s what he did…
He told his customers they were giant “ice scrapers” they could use to scrape ice off of windshields. The customers would object and say, “No, they’re calculators,” and he would reply, “Oh ya, I suppose you could use these as calculators, too, but they’re really great at removing ice!”
People would laugh and then buy one, and within days the calculators sold out.
Do you have a product that’s not selling?
Maybe you can find new positioning for your product, or a new and imaginative way to describe it.
For example, do you have a course on how to drive traffic via social media? Reposition it for one particular niche – dating, health, mmo, chiropractors – you get the idea. Do you sell a course on how to make art? Reposition it as art therapy so that it’s now about the process and not the outcome.
Almost any product can be targeted to a new audience or even rebranded as something entirely different.
