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Archive | September, 2022

Is Video Blogging A Good Idea? Maybe Not…

Which would you rather do – spend two hours thinking of a great blog post idea, researching that idea, writing the post and finally editing the post… or dashing off a video post in less than half the time?

Is Video Blogging A Good Idea? Maybe Not...

Heck, let’s be honest: If you’ve got a good idea and the ideas are flowing, you can dash off a video post in the same time it takes to make the recording. Post it to your blog, and you’re done.

No wonder why so many bloggers are turning to video.

Problem is, video is not the holy grail of blogging. In fact, if taken too far it can actually lead to the downfall of your blog (notice the crickets chirping, the tumbleweeds, err, tumbling, etc.)

Here are five tips for using video on your blog without totally alienating your readers or camouflaging yourself from the search engines. Or more specifically, five reasons NOT to use video exclusively.

Video is no substitute for the written word (sorry!) Users don’t just want video. Visitors want a clear idea of what they’re about to see before they hit that play button. Not to mention the fact that many of your viewers aren’t at their computer, they’re mobile users who may or may not have a speedy connection. If they can at least read your story and then decide if your video is worth downloading, you have a better shot at capturing and holding their attention.

Obvious solution? Incorporate video and writing into your blogpost, not just video.

The search engines don’t know what you’re talking about. The day has not yet arrived that search engines can figure out the words spoken in your video. Thus, if you have video only, or video and poor content from an SEO stand point, then you might as well have donned a cloak of invisibility as far as the search engines are concerned.

Instead, you want to couple good writing that incorporates your SEO terms with your video. The two paired together make a smashing team and work hand-in-hand to make your blog post even better.

Lousy videos are, well, lousy. Okay, if you’re breaking a story in front of a burning building, you’re going to use your cell phone to take the video because that’s what you happened to have handy at the time. But if you’re in your office doing “how-to” kinds of videos, PLEASE invest in an inexpensive HD camcorder. Please. Your viewers will thank you.

Also, ad-libbing is something few people can get by with. Before you begin recording, make an outline of all your major points and post it right next to the camera so you don’t get lost and you don’t forget anything. Notice I said outline – writing it out word for word and then READING it is a big (HUGE!) no-no and will make your audience fall asleep faster than two blinks of the eye.

Please be aware of camera positioning. I recently saw a video on a major marketing website that was positioned on a coffee table and afforded a perfect crotch shot for the entire duration. Ewww.

One last thing – forget the umms, errrs, and ahhhs. If you need to pause for a second to think of a word, then just PAUSE. You do not need to fill in every second with sound, especially when that sound (um er ah) makes you sound like a bonafide rank amateur.

Hiding your content underneath your videos is not cool. Look, you want people to spend as much time as possible on your page, right? Then begin your post with written content and place your video within the content – not ahead of it. Your headline and lead-in should capture their attention enough to get them reading, and within the first 2-4 paragraphs you can reference the video. If they’re engaged, odds are they’ll read the rest of your post and then watch the video.

On the other hand, if the video appears first, then they will either watch the video and leave (they’ve seen the video, why read your content?) Or they’ll just leave because they don’t want to watch a video without first having a clue why they should bother.

Don’t over use video – think of video as an hors d’oeuvre or side dish, not the main course. Videos should be short – under 2 minutes whenever possible, and certainly under 5 minutes unless your content is drop-dead riveting.

Bottom line: Video is an excellent supplement to your blog, but it shouldn’t be the only thing on there. Provide plenty of SEO friendly content that grabs readers’ attention and you’ll keep visitors on your website longer and visiting more frequently, as well.

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Source: hbio

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5 Ways to Increase Your Profits 

(And One Is Very Easy, Wanna Guess Which One?)

5 Ways to Increase Your Profits

There are only 5 ways to increase the money you’re earning in your online business. Every method you might think of falls into one of these five categories. And at least one of these methods can put more money in your pocket within the next week – can you guess which one(s)?

  1. Get more traffic to your offer
  2. Increase the profit you’re making on each sale
  3. Sell more stuff to your current customers
  4. Cut your expenses
  5. Make more sales

If you do all five, obviously you’ll see more money. But some of these take more effort than others, so let’s review them one by one:

Get more traffic to your offer

This is much easier said than done. You can tweak your SEO to rank higher, you can solicit joint ventures and recruit affiliates, you can hit social media and even buy traffic. While all of these can be good, none of them tend to be quick or easy.

Increase the profit you’re making on each sale

You might do this by increasing the price of your products. Then again, increasing your prices might decrease your sales, so study the market before you do this.

If you’re providing a service rather than a product, it’s entirely possible you might earn more by charging more, since you can focus on gathering a few big (ie: well paying) clients rather than servicing a lot of low paying clients.

Sell more stuff to your current customers

This can be a really simple thing to do and it’s one of two that I recommend you work on this week. If you don’t have a one time offer, get one. Even if it’s not your product. Buy resale rights or strike a deal with another product owner.

Next, place links to offers on your download page and inside your products. Your download page is the first thing a customer sees after making a purchase, meaning they are still in a buying frame of mind and this is the perfect time to offer them something different but related. And the inside of your products is a great place to make recommendations for appropriate products and services.

Cut your expenses

Unless you have significant expenses to begin with, this won’t give you much return on your time. For example, if you switch hosting to a company that’s $3 cheaper a month, how much are you really saving? You’ll have to switch everything over, and if you’re happy with the service you have now you’re potentially switching to a less reliable service. Use caution with this one.

Make more sales

This might be the easiest of all, as well as the fastest to employ. You’re going to tweak your sales copy and even your sales process to increase your conversion rate. Think about this: You don’t have to drive any more traffic or even offer any more products to make more money with this. You simply need to increase the number of people who say yes.

Let’s say that right now your product sells for $47, it’s converting at 3%, and you’re getting 3,000 unique visitors to your sales page each month. If you increase your conversion rate by just 1%, you’ll make another $1,410 per month.

Best of all, you only need to tweak and test and improve once to reap these added sales for as long as you’ve got traffic going to that sales page.

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Source: hbio

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How to DOUBLE Profits in Your Existing Business

Just a side note: What you’re about to discover here can also be used to help others squeeze more profits out of their online businesses, as well. In fact, you could build an entire business out of making other people’s businesses more profit using these simple methods.

How to DOUBLE Profits in Your Existing Business

Before you create new products and new profit streams, it makes good sense to maximize the earnings in your existing business.

To show you how this might be done, I’m going to use a membership site as an example. I love memberships because of the continuity of payments you receive. After all, why get paid just once on a sale if you can get paid every month for several months or longer, right?

Let’s say you (or your client) have a membership site. Naturally, the first thing you want to look at is increasing your conversions. First, you work on increasing conversions on your squeeze page, to get as many new (free) subscribers as possible. The more subscribers / prospects you have, the more of these you can turn into PAID subscribers.

Next, you’ll want to work on increasing conversions on your immediate upsell to the paid membership. And then you’ll want to work on increasing conversions with your autoresponder sequence as you follow up with prospects who haven’t yet subscribed to the paid membership.

Odds are you already know all about this. In fact, you’ve probably read numerous articles that tell you the exact same thing. The problem is, this is the point where those articles STOP, and also the point we will jump off from.

Now that you’ve maximized conversions on your funnel, what else can you do to increase revenue?

In fact, what can you do to DOUBLE the revenue you receive from paid subscriptions?

You can choose from several methods, ALL of which I highly recommend you implement.

First, offer your current paid subscribers a yearly payment option.

For example, if your membership is $25 per month, you might offer an annual membership for $175. This is a great deal, since it saves your subscribers $125.

“But won’t I be LOSING money if I do this?”

GREAT question. Your first step in deciding how much an annual membership costs is to find out how long your average subscribers stay with you.

In this example, if the average subscriber keeps their paid subscription for 5 months (5 x $25 = $125) then you are making an extra $50. If your average subscriber stays for 3 months, then you are making an extra $100.

You’ve got to know how many months your subscribers stay with you, multiply that number times the monthly subscription rate, and then charge an annual fee higher than that number, but lower than 12 times the monthly rate.

Confusing? It’s simple math, so just read the previous paragraph again and you’ll catch on.

Another example:

You charge $40 per month for your membership. Your average subscriber stays with you for 6 months (that’s really good at this price point, btw.) That’s $240 that you are currently making on the average subscriber.

You offer an annual membership for $320, which is $160 off of the normal rate. Your subscribers save $160, and you make an additional $80.

Your numbers will vary, but you get the idea. Adding this option can potentially bring in a very nice chunk of money very quickly.

You might want to offer the annual rate for one week only, so that subscribers don’t procrastinate.

And be sure to give new subscribers this option, too. New subscribers are generally the most excited, and thus the easiest to convert to an annual membership.

Second, you’ve got some prime real estate on your members page that’s most likely not being used right now.

Choose some hot affiliate offers your members are bound to like and add those to your member page.

You can do it in the form of banners or ‘personal recommendations.’ Switch these out every so often. This isn’t likely going to be a huge source of revenue but guaranteed, you will get some sales from this page.

An alternative is selling paid advertising on your members page. Basically, you are doing the same as before, except the banners or ads go to someone else’s offer instead of your affiliate links. You’ll find that fellow marketers would LOVE to offer something free to your members in exchange for their email address, and they will pay you nicely for the chance to get their offer on your member’s page for a month or two, or longer.

Third, create an entirely new page in your member’s area, and call it “Member Benefits.” Be sure to use that exact name – we’ve tested other names like Member’s Discounts and so forth, and “Member Benefits” out-pulled everything else we tested.

On this page, you’re going to place discount offers that you’ve negotiated with other marketers.

These might be discounts on products, free courses and books, free consultations, free coaching sessions and so forth.

Everything on this page benefits you. The courses and products with discounts earn you affiliate commissions. The free items cookie you in for commissions on anything purchased in the future, and so forth.

And again, you can place paid advertising on this page if you want to.

You might think this sounds like a lot of promotion, but we’ve found that almost no one complains. After all, what member is going to complain that you’ve found them a discount or something valuable for free? Occasionally someone will quip about banners, but it’s rare and nothing to worry about, as long as you don’t go crazy overboard with advertising.

Best of all, if you implement all three methods above, you’ll see a big cash boost from day one.

Your results will vary. And what if you don’t have a membership site? You do have a download page, correct? You can place ads for products there.

You can also bundle products and offer a discount. If you create products on a very regular basis, you can sell ‘memberships’ to all of your forthcoming products for a certain period of time.

And you can create a ‘Subscriber Benefits’ for your email subscribers. Add to the page every week, and also send out a weekly reminder email, letting them know there are new goodies to go collect – goodies that are available for a short time only.

That last paragraph may have slipped by your attention almost undetected, so I’m going to recommend you read it again. Go ahead…

I hear from so many marketers that they have trouble monetizing their lists. But if they would simply create a ‘Subscriber Benefits’ page and keep it filled with interesting things that result in commissions and send their readers there each week to collect those benefits, they could earn a six-figure income from this one technique alone.

Bottom line: Take a good look at your current products, funnels and business. Get creative and find ways to squeeze more money out of what you’re already doing, and it’s entirely possible to double your income without creating any new products or businesses. Until you do, you’re probably leaving thousands of dollars on the table that could be yours.

The post How to DOUBLE Profits in Your Existing Business appeared first on .

Source: hbio

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News Jacking

How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story And Generate Tons of Media Coverage

News Jacking

There’s a book out with the above title, and I highly recommend you grab a copy. It’s only available as a digital download and it’s less than 6 bucks at Amazon. I’ll try to summarize here in my own words, but this is no substitute for getting the book, reading it and above all using it to generate free publicity for you and your business.

News breaks every second of every day, providing you with literally endless opportunities to get your business free publicity. And I don’t have to tell you that publicity is worth far, far more than advertising, and yet it costs you NOTHING.

If you’re in the U.S., does the Donald Trump presidential campaign ring any bells for you?

Look at it from a reporter’s point of view – they already have the who, what, when and where – what they need is the “why,” and that’s where you come in. Journalists need original content, and they need it fast. And if you play your cards right, you can be as high as the second paragraph of that breaking news story. Just think of what that can mean in terms of free exposure!

What is essential is SPEED. You’ve got to hit when the story is hot to have a shot at getting the publicity. Wait even a day and it may be too late.

Always use your good judgment. Your business is NOT a great fit for the majority of news stories, so be careful and only go with those that you can honestly, truly relate to your business.

Now then, how do you find news to “jack?” Keep your eyes and ears open, because you never know when the perfect story is going to slap you across the face. Monitor keywords, phrases and trending word clouds. Track journalists in your field and monitor media outlets. And perhaps the best tip of all – follow Twitter hashtags, since this will often be the very first reporting of any story.

When you hear of a story that’s a good fit for your business, immediately formulate your strategy. This is happening in real time and so you’ve got to act in real time, as in NOW and not tomorrow. Speed is crucial to your success in hijacking the news.

Ask yourself – how are you and / or your business related to the breaking news? What’s your angle or hook? Why should the media care?

When you’ve got your take on what’s happening – or your angle or hook – here are possible moves you can make next:

  • Blog about your take on the news
  • Tweet it using an established hashtag (this is not the time to start a new hashtag)
  • Send a real-time media alert (press release)
  • Talk about it in a speech, or make a video and post it online
  • Hold a live or a virtual news conference
  • Directly contact individual journalists who might be interested

Now if you’re thinking this article is just the tip of what you need to know, you’re right. It’s enough to get you started, but by all means grab the book so you can fill in the blanks.

And think about this: Linking yourself to one news story can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars of free publicity, creating a boon for your business and perhaps even making you a mini-celebrity in the process.

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Source: hbio

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Be Yourself, Don’t Talk About Yourself

The data is in – if you want people to pay attention to you online, you need to do the following two things:

  1. Be your original self. Don’t be ordinary, be unusual. Be different.
  2. Don’t talk about yourself much.

Be Yourself, Don't Talk About Yourself

Here’s what we know: Tweets with uncommon words and phrasing get retweeted 4 to 5 times as much as common tweets. This means if you sound like everyone else and use the same words as everyone else, your message will get lost in the crowd of clones. The more original your style, the more likely people are to pay attention to your content and forward it. (And also remember your content, but we don’t have data on that.)

And it makes good sense. After all, if you’re saying the same things everyone else is saying, why would anyone retweet your stuff?

Now then, if you want more followers on Twitter, don’t talk about yourself so much. There’s a direct correlation to referencing yourself less and having higher follower counts. Not to mention the fact that your tweets are twice as likely to be retweeted if they’re not talking about you.

Bottom line? Be yourself, just don’t talk about yourself.

The post Be Yourself, Don’t Talk About Yourself appeared first on .

Source: hbio

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12.5 PLR Tips from the Pros 

The Good, The Bad and the Super Profitable

Believe it or not, in online marketing the pros (and we’re defining “pro” as six figures of annual income) use PLR all the time. They just don’t advertise it. (Would you?)

12.5 PLR Tips from the Pros

Private Label Rights (PLR) is content you can use as you own. You can use it just as it is or modify it. And you get to claim authorship – hence, the name ‘private’ label rights.

You’re already familiar with the “bad,” and that refers to the quality of some PLR. Obviously, it pays to buy well researched, well written PLR products. If you have to completely re-write the content, then you might as well have created it from scratch.

The good news is, most PLR these days is a higher quality than what we saw in the past. We can thank low sales of lousy PLR for this. Makers of PLR want to make sales, and they realize that the junk just wasn’t selling well – or worse yet, it sold well and then refunded like crazy.

Which brings up a good point – always check to see if there is a guarantee on PLR before you buy it. If the quality turns out to be lousy, you should be able to get a refund.

If there is no guarantee, then ask to see a sample before you purchase. If it’s good quality, they won’t mind showing you a few pages.

Now then, you already know you can repurpose PLR most any way you want (check your license) but what are some specific ideas for using PLR to grow your business and make money without a lot of hassle?

1: Create a PLR Folder

Designate a special place, such as a folder or even an external drive, to hold all of your PLR. This way, when you need content in a hurry, you know exactly where to find it. This tip alone has saved me countless times and kept me from wasting my PLR.

Before I had a PLR folder, I would buy PLR, forget about it for a few days or weeks, and then when I wanted to use it, I would spend time hunting for it. Or I would completely forget about it until months later, when I would run across it and wonder what it was.

It also eliminates confusion and a possible lawsuit. Let’s say you buy PLR and you buy products to use yourself. If you get confused and accidently use a product as your own – thinking it’s PLR when it’s not – you could get a very nasty cease and desist letter or possibly even a lawsuit.

Bottom line: Keep ALL of your PLR in its own folder or drive.

2: Take Inventory, Sort and Use

When you get a PLR package, take stock of what’s inside. Decide how you will use each package or each piece inside a package.

You are basically sorting your PLR into the following groups:

A: Premium – this is the PLR you’re going to sell. For example, you might sell an ebook as an initial offer, and the audio version as an upsell.

B: Lead Generation – as the name implies, this is content you use to generate leads.

For example, you have an article on traffic generation on your blog. Alongside that article, you place an offer for a free ebook on your best traffic generation tips in exchange for their email address. This lead magnet / freebie / free report is actually created from PLR, saving you time.

Imagine if you make a custom lead magnet for each blog post or article you place on your site. If they’re made from PLR, it won’t take you much time.

What’s the benefit to having all these different offers? Higher conversion rates.

If you offer every visitor the exact same lead magnet for joining your list, only those interested in that one particular topic will join your list. But if you offer a wide variety of lead magnets – each one tailored to the blog post the visitor is reading – your email sign-up rate will improve dramatically.
You’re no longer offering “one size fits all.” Instead, you’re custom tailoring your lead magnets to your readers, based on their interest.

Obviously, if you did all of this by hand, it would take a great deal of time. But if you make your lead magnets from PLR, it won’t take much time at all and you’ll grow your email list that much faster.

C: Web Content – To get your name out there, you need to publish daily to Facebook, Instagram, your blog, Youtube and so forth. This is a lot of content to create.

But if you can use PLR for at least some of it, you’ll save a great deal of time and effort.

D: Bonuses – If you’re selling products – your own products or affiliate products – you might use PLR to create bonuses to make more sales.

And if you’re a coach, you might offer products made from PLR as bonuses or auxiliary material to your coaching services.

3: Add Pictures

This is so easy, yet most marketers never think to do it. Let’s say you purchase a license to a 5,000 word ebook. It might be about 25-30 pages long, give or take.

Let’s say you add one to two pictures per page – you’ve likely doubled the size of your book.

But more than that, you’ve made it into a much more entertaining read. Assuming you chose your pictures carefully to go with the accompanying text, readers are now much more likely to read the entire book. The pictures help to move them from one page to the next… plus each page has far less text, making it an easier read.

Yes, I know it’s the same amount of words, but breaking the content up with great pictures or graphics really does make it more interesting and fun for the consumer.

Why is this important? You want your prospects and customers to CONSUME your information. When they actually USE it, three things happen:

They remember you, making it much more likely they will buy again in the future.

They learn from the information, enabling them to put what they’ve learned to use and make a difference in their lives. This makes it (again) more likely they will continue to be your customer in the future.

They are less likely to refund. Because they are enjoying your content MORE and actually USING it and hopefully benefiting from it, they are less likely to ask for a refund.

And you get all of these benefits simply from adding some well-chosen pictures.

4: Record the Information

If you’ve purchased rights to written content, consider making an audio recording of the content. This way you can offer the audio version as a product upsell.

Some people like to read, but others like to listen to things as they drive to and from work, exercise and so forth. By offering an audio version, you’re making your customers happy and making more money, too.

You can record this audio version yourself or hire someone to make the recording for you. Of course, if your PLR comes with an audio version already, it is perfectly fine to offer that version as your upsell.

Some marketers think they have to rerecord it in their own voice, but that’s not true. Your customers generally won’t care that it’s not you doing the recording.

If you’re worried about it, tell them that a friend recorded for you, or that you hired a professional to do the audio.

5: Blog Posting with Far Less Work

Use PLR to add new posts to your blog. Ideally, you’d write your own posts. But if you don’t have the time, it’s far better to use PLR than to have a blog that looks dead.

Here’s a tip for using PLR in your blogs: Add your own introduction to each blog post, to make it more your own. While it might have taken you 1 to 3 hours to research and write a blog post from scratch, simply writing your own introduction will likely take just a few minutes.

At a loss for what to write in your intro? Simply tell your own personal (and related) story that introduces the post. Everyone loves a good story, and people are much more likely to read your post if it begins with an engaging tale.

Also, you can schedule your blog posts ahead of time, scheduling them to appear each day or each week. In fact, your virtual assistant can do this for you.

6: Add Modules Within Larger Training Courses

Are you building higher ticket courses, live events and so forth? Or do you do coaching? You might want to use PLR to build certain chapters, modules or aspects of your course.

For example, if you have 10 modules to your course, some of those modules might be done with PLR.

A friend of mine is creating a course as I write this. One of his modules is on how to use AdWords, but he’s not an AdWords expert. So, what he did was search for the best and most up to date PLR course available that covered AdWords, and he bought the rights to give it to his students.

And he didn’t even pass it off as his own. Instead, he’s telling his students that he’s not an expert, which is why he bought the rights for them to be able to have the course.

I think his students are going to love this, since it’s a much more thorough training than he could give on the topic.

7: Creating and Updating Membership Sites

Would you like to make a sale once and get paid over and over again?

Start a membership site, and then keep your members happy with plenty of valuable, usable content.

The problem with this model, of course, is the continual need for more content.

But if you’re using high quality PLR, the problem practically takes care of itself.

You can even schedule content ahead of time and let it drip feed on a daily or weekly basis.

8: Establish Trust with Easy Videos

You’ve heard that people do business with people they know, like and trust. But how do you establish trust with your subscribers?

One way is to create short, simple videos they can watch online. Take a PLR article that contains some great info – for example, “3 easy ways to do ___”

Extract some bullet points or phrases from the article and make them into a slide deck.

Make a video reading the article and showing the appropriate slides as you go through.

For example, your slides might be:

  • Title
  • Tip #1
  • Tip #2
  • Tip #3
  • Conclusion

When you’re introducing the article, you show the “title” slide. When you’re talking about the first tip, you show that slide and so forth.

Once you’ve done this, create a short introductory type of video using your smartphone for “personal branding.” Simply introduce what the video is about and the benefit the viewer gets from watching. Add this intro to the beginning of your video.

Why go to the trouble of doing all this? Because then people get to SEE you. They get to HEAR you. And you’re delivering great content – content they can USE to get a RESULT.

If you do this correctly, they’re thinking… “If this is what s/he gives away for FREE, what’s in their paid products? They must be fantastic!”

They’re also getting to know you, at least a little bit. And you become memorable to them.

Imagine 10 different marketers are vying for the attention of the same customers through email.

ONE of those 10 marketers shows up in videos a couple of times a week with really helpful information. The subscribers get to see and hear this person.

The other 9 just send emails.

Who becomes the memorable, trusted authority? The one making and sharing the videos, of course.

And whose emails get opened and read the most often? Again, the one who’s making the videos.

You can publish these videos on your blog, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and so forth. People are going to associate your name and face with this great information, yet it only took you a few minutes to do this, thanks to using PLR.

This builds trust with prospects, regardless of whether you are selling products or services. For example, imagine if you’re selling coaching. Maybe this coaching costs $200 a month, or maybe it costs $2,000 a month. In either case you need to establish trust before you can make the sale.

So, here’s Mary, and Mary doesn’t know you at all. When you try to sell her on your $2,000 coaching, do you think Mary will jump at the chance to give you her money? Not likely.

But what if Mary had seen a couple dozen of your videos? What if something on 3 or 4 of those videos really struck her and stuck with her – things she could apply in her life?

You get on an introductory call with her, and she says, “I feel like I already know you, because I’ve watched so many of your videos.”

Do you think you can sell some coaching to Mary now? You bet you can.

9: Create Authority Posts

Most blog posts tend to be fairly short, such as “3 Tips to Accomplish XYZ.”

But sometimes, you find a blog post that is so in-depth and comprehensive, it takes you by surprise and makes you wonder how it can even be free. That’s what you’re going for here, by creating an authority blog post.

Typically, writing an authority post can take days of research, writing and editing. But if you use PLR, you can do it in less than an hour. Here’s how:

Start with a core theme that includes multiple topics, and use PLR articles or ebooks to cover the content.

For example, if your core theme is how to drive traffic, then you might gather together every piece of PLR you can find on all the various methods of driving traffic and consolidate it into one big post.

Then create multiple content formats – adding audio and even video. Try to cover every facet of your topic.

If you’re using articles, you’ll need to write transitions and do some light editing to make it all flow into one big blog post.

Or you can simply have your authority post divided into sections, with each section being another facet of your main topic, and also another PLR article.

10: Make Your Subscribers Intensely Loyal

Imagine if your subscribers are LOOKING for YOUR emails – and if they don’t receive an email, or they fall off your list, they are emailing YOU to get back on your list.

Here’s how to do it:

Create a page each week where you give away something for free. It needs to be directly related to your niche, of course. And it needs to have some value. It could be a tip sheet, some insider information, a PDF, etc. It’s really going to depend on your niche.

Each week that you do this, create a new URL for the page. This way people MUST be subscribed to your list to find the page, and they must open your email every week to get the link.

Never use the same URL twice. And only leave each freebie up for 7 days before taking it down. This way someone can’t subscribe and then decide to pick up all the freebies two months down the road. They must open your emails to get the link.

To get your subscribers opening most every email you send to them, send out the freebie email on different days of the week so they never know which email it is.

This way they have to open and read them all to find the freebie.

Yes, it’s sneaky, and you may or may not want to do this. But if you use humor and let them know exactly why they never know which day it’s going to arrive, your subscribers will go along with the game. In fact, this game of hide and seek or find the Easter egg can make your subscribers’ day.

You can also ‘hide’ the links deep inside your emails, such as in the middle, near the end or in the P.S. Again, change it up so they never know.

This is one of the most effective ways I’ve seen to get people opening and reading your emails. It’s like a treasure hunt, and everyone can win once a week – or more often, if you sometimes post freebies twice a week.

It probably goes without saying but use PLR to create your freebies. After all, who has time to create them by hand?

11: Sell More Affiliate Products

This one is so simple, and yet it can be crazy effective. When you’re promoting an affiliate product, put together some bonuses created from PLR for everyone who purchases from your affiliate link.

This can not only help you make more sales, but also help you to win affiliate contests, too.

And you can use bonuses made from PLR to promote your own products, too.

12: Make an Autoresponder Series

You should be emailing your list either every day, or at least 5 to 6 days a week. But who has time to write 300+ emails every year?

Thank goodness for PLR. You pull out some great articles, news and so forth and you fashion the material into an autoresponder series. Or you choose an ebook and break it down into bite-sized pieces.

At the end of each email, make a product recommendation that makes sense for the email’s content. For example, you’re doing a series on marketing with social media, and you recommend a product on – you guessed it – marketing with social media.

Or you’re doing a series on how to be more confident and assertive, and you offer a product that teaches the same thing, only more in-depth.

Your emails don’t need to be long, they just need to deliver value. That value could be a piece of news, a method for getting a result, or even something that entertains.

Just make sure it’s on topics your readers want to hear about, and don’t forget to throw in your product recommendations.

Using PLR, you can create 365 autoresponder emails in just a few days and then be done with it.

12.5: Create Your Own Free or Paid Newsletter

I know plenty of people who earn a recurring income with a small monthly newsletter. And some of these folks don’t even write their own newsletters – they use PLR.

Imagine having a few hundred subscribers each paying you $10 a month for an electronically delivered newsletter that you can put together in one afternoon. Not a bad deal at all.

You choose the PLR content you want in your newsletter. Maybe change headlines, write short introductions or personalize it as you see fit.

Get a graphic artist (Fiverr is a great place to find one) who can turn your content into a colorful PDF with pictures, graphics and a great cover.

Offer subscribers a free version, upsell them to the paid version, and then rinse and repeat. Each month you get new subscribers and you put out a new newsletter. If you price your newsletter competitively and you provide great information, people will stick with you for months.

There’s something about a low price point that makes people not bother to unsubscribe, even if they forget to read your newsletter.

I once promoted a newsletter for a fairly famous marketer. It was only $10 a month, and I made a bunch of sales. The weird thing was, he stopped writing the newsletter, but he kept on billing people.

I expected to see everyone cancel, but some of them hung on for months before they finally did. I don’t know if that would happen today, but the point is that if you’re not charging a fortune, people will stick with you for months.

And if they love your stuff, they’ll stick with you for years. I’ve subscribed to the same newsletter for about 10 years now. It’s priced at $9.99 a month, and it’s about 8 pages of great content.

And that’s key – choose your best PLR for all of your paid content, whether it’s products or newsletters or whatever. Your customers will never know you didn’t write it yourself.

Hopefully you found some PLR ideas here that you hadn’t seen before.

There is some fantastic PLR being offered these days.

And when you know what you’re doing, you can use it to gain subscribers and make money quickly and easily, with very little work.

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Create a $300 Training Program in 7 Days

…even if you’re the world’s worst procrastinator.

Create a $300 Training Program in 7 Days

I’ve used this technique to create all sorts of things, from a free bonus I put together and gave away for an affiliate product, all the way up to $1,000 training programs.

Creating content and products is a huge obstacle for most marketers because it takes so much time and effort.

But what if you had a way to create products – such as expensive training programs – that you could finish in a week?

And better still, what if you got paid for them before they were even done?

The first key you need is a big, fat, public DEADLINE.

If your deadline is public, then you will move heaven and earth to get it done – or at least I hope you will.

If you don’t, you’re in for some major public ridicule and embarrassment, not to mention the fact that you are letting people down.

The second key here – and this goes hand in hand with the first – is you’re going to sell what you’re selling BEFORE it’s created.

You tell people what you’re creating, you tell them when it’s going to be done, and you sell it before you ever make it.

And in the case of a training program, you’re going to create your product LIVE and then continue to sell the recordings as a product after the event.

So, in a nutshell – decide what you’re selling. Tell the world what you’re selling and when it will take place, and take orders. Hold the live event, create the product and continue to sell it.

Here are the details:

This works best if you are already good at something. This way, you know the material and don’t need to do any research. If you need research, then you might need to add a day or two to this process or use this shortcut – bring in an expert.

If you’re using experts, then you can cover any topic. Or every topic. Because no matter what your topic is, there is someone out there that can do the actual teaching for you – you just split the profits with them.

For the rest of this article, we’ll assume you’re the one with the information.

Set a deadline, because with a deadline and a hundred or so people depending on you to get your work done, you will get the work done. It’s that simple. They’ve put their money on you, and they believe in you.

You will not let them down, which ensures the training course you’re making – which would normally be finished in a month or two – is completed in a week’s time.

Deadlines are magic this way, regardless of whether or not you naturally procrastinate. Without a deadline, your work expands to fill the time. This doesn’t necessarily mean a better product – it just means it takes longer to make.

You can be surprisingly nimble with this method, getting products out fast on hot topics and things people want right now.

Figure out what the big 5 to 7 things are that you want to cover. What are the big ideas? What are the giant take-aways?

Instead of writing a sales letter, write bullet points. Remember, you’re doing this FAST. Don’t write a giant sales letter, write the high points. Tell them what they’re going to discover and how it’s going to benefit them through bullet points. Use curiosity, too.

You’re going to do a webinar. Create a Powerpoint with an intro and all of the major points. Let people ask questions at the end, because some of your very best material will come from the questions, things you didn’t even think of.

Cut up your recording into parts and sell it as a course. You’ll have an intro, and each of the major points. You might also want to get it transcribed and then edit the transcription to give your customers a written copy, too.

Selling your course BEFORE you make it gives you a DEADLINE. You’re telling people when the live event will happen. You’re giving them a deadline, too, because they have to sign up before the deadline or they will miss the class. 

Once you hold the class, upload the webinar into the members area and give access to everyone who bought. Some people will make it to the live event, some won’t, but they all get access to the recordings.

If there is something you feel you can do better, go ahead and record it again. Make a new recording of that section and replace it in the member’s section.

That’s the beauty of this system – you get it done fast, but it doesn’t have to be perfect. If you feel like it, you can go back and improve on it. And if you omitted something, make a new recording for that, too.

And what if you create a flop? That’s not even possible with this system. If you promote a product you’re going to create and no one buys, then you know not to waste your time making it.

Using this simple system, you get paid before you ever create your products, and you can crank products out faster than ever before. Plus, you can sell the recordings for a long time to come.

Just imagine if you create a new product every two weeks. In a year’s time you’ll have 26 new products you can continue to sell, repurpose, use as bonuses, sell the rights to and so forth. 26 new launches, 26 new products and 26 new revenue generators.

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You Don’t Have To Be Super Smart To Succeed Online

The kid who got straight A’s in school is probably the most successful person from that class, right? Actually, no. While good grades and a high I.Q. can be helpful, they not only don’t guarantee success – they sometimes hamper success.

You Don't Have To Be Super Smart To Succeed Online

After all, life is not school. And the skills it takes to get great grades don’t always transfer over into running a successful online business. Heck, I know people who struggled in high school and never made it to college who are pulling down 6 and 7 figure incomes online. How do they do it? By possessing the following traits…

They have the drive to succeed. How you define success will determine exactly what this means to you. Success for you might be making as much money as possible, it might be furthering a cause of yours, or it might be one of a hundred other things. Whatever it is, you’ve got to have a need to reach this success that you can feel in your bones. It should be your total focus so that your mind is constantly at work finding ways to make it happen.

They’re good at networking. Even online, or perhaps especially online, it’s important that you build relationships with your fellow marketers and your customers. And even if you’re not a born schmoozer, don’t worry – networking is a skill like any other that can be learned. Work on building yourself a large network of people you can turn to for advice, assistance and so forth, and always focus on what you can do for them.

They stay focused. Imagine you’re driving your car and you decide to go 5 different directions – at once. How far will you get? Or imagine chasing 5 different rabbits all at the same time – how many will you catch? Business is no different. Decide what you’re going to do and then do it, rather than falling for the flavor-of-the-week business idea.

They’re persistent. You’re not going to build a super-profitable business overnight. And if you’re looking at others thinking they became successful in a flash, know that in reality their success probably took years. Remember, nothing worth having comes easy, and persistence does conquer all.

They stand on their own two feet. I’ve seen people purchase a course on how to do something online, such as build a website or get more traffic. Then they bombard the author with a hundred different questions rather than figure anything out for themselves. Are they ever successful? I doubt it. Being an online marketer, or any type of entrepreneur, carries with it a certain autonomy. So don’t expect others to hold your hand.

They work first, they work hard and they play later. Sometimes MUCH later. You know those stories of working 2 hours a day and then laying on the beach? That’s for AFTER you make it big and you can hire somebody to oversee things for you. Maybe. Or even when you do make it big in online marketing, you may find that you still work hard. But either way, in the beginning you’ll be working long hours to get your business up and running. And yes, work does come before play if you want to be successful. If you want to play first, you might as well ditch the idea of being an online marketer and stick with a job.

Learn to outsource. There is only so much you can accomplish by yourself, even when you are working long hours. So yes, you’ve got to outsource. The first thing to outsource is anything you’re not good at, whether that’s website building, product creation, or whatever. Because if you’re not good at something, it makes more sense to bring in an expert than to spend weeks trying to master it yourself. Then as you begin earning more and more, you can also outsource more and more.

To be an online marketer, you don’t need to be the next Einstein. Your grades in school don’t matter a hill of beans. What DOES matter is what you do here and now. Adopt the above 7 traits and you are already halfway to growing an online business that can take care of you for the rest of your life.

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Double Your Traffic with the Same Content

If you’re not repurposing your content, you’re losing traffic.

Double Your Traffic with the Same Content

Repurposing is a technique to change either the format of your content or change its target audience.

For example, you might convert a blogpost into a video and publish it on YouTube. Or you might turn that blogpost into a series of emails, a podcast or even an infographic.

A blogpost on your website will only attract people who are interested in reading content. But when you repurpose it, you reach a new target audience on different channels.

Imagine converting your blogpost into a Slideshare presentation, and then getting 50,000 views. It’s entirely possible to do this. And further imagine that at the end of your Slideshare, you had an appropriate and highly relevant offer to join your list.

Even if a tiny fraction of people who viewed your presentation joined your list, it could still be 1,000 or more new subscribers for you.

You can convert your existing content into:

  • Social Media Snippets
  • Infographics
  • Videos
  • Slideshows
  • Ebooks
  • Pdfs
  • Case Studies
  • Lead Magnets
  • Email Courses
  • Images
  • Podcasts

And more…

I’d recommend starting off with videos on YouTube, republishing on Medium, pulling out social media snippets, and creating a slideshow on SlideShare.

These are some of the best and proven ways to repurpose content that will send heaps of traffic your way.

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8 Ways to Beat Writer’s/Blogger’s Block

I like to write. Heck, to be honest I LOVE to write. Yet sometimes I hate it as well – like when I HAVE to write another newsletter and I’m thinking I just don’t know what to say.

8 Ways to Beat Writer's/Blogger's Block

That’s why I like to find ideas that jog me into writing, and I share them with you here. Because I know if I sometimes have trouble writing, then those who aren’t that fond of putting words to paper must sometimes prefer to get a root canal than write another article or blog post. So take heart, here are 8 suggestions that should get your typing fingers flying and your blog readers happy they stopped by your site.

Be impulsive. If you write on a frequent basis, then there should be a part of your brain that’s always on the lookout for ideas, rants, complaints, laughs, etc. When inspiration strikes, WRITE. Yes, right then and there. If you can’t, then at least make lots of notes for later, and at the first available chance sit down and type it out. You can always polish it up later.

Some of my best writing has been where I feel possessed of spirit and the words simply fly into my head of their own accord. It’s almost like magic, but if I don’t immediately type them out then I lose both the spirit and the enthusiasm, and usually the post or article never does get written.

So be impulsive and write the moment the spirit strikes. You may not even know at first where it’s going, but that’s okay. Odds are you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Question everything. Question authority, rules, the way things are and the way things are done. Always be asking yourself “Why?” Why are things this way? Why do we do it this way? Is there a better way? And so forth. Even if you don’t have the answer, sometimes simply asking the questions can make for a terrific post.

Break rules. Above, we’re questioning rules, and this goes one step further. Is your blog about weight loss? We all know there’s a rule that you be kind to everyone, regardless. But sometimes people need tough love, and maybe your next post should be how grossly obese people need to sit down and write their obituaries because odds are really good that they’re not going to live all that long.

And before you send me an email telling me that I should not have said what I just did, I recently read a news story in which a doctor, a DOCTOR, told his patient to write his obituary and it was exactly what the guy needed to lose 376 pounds. So yes, sometimes it’s more than okay to break the rules.

Combine unlikely things. This is the peanut butter and chocolate trick, or the apple pie and cheese trick. Take two ideas, concepts, or whatever that normally do NOT go together, combine them and see what happens.

For example, if your website is all about how to raise money for non-profits, find out what the greediest people in the world do to acquire their fortunes, and then see how that knowledge might be appropriately used to raise funds.

Just write. I know I’ve mentioned this one before, but it’s so good I’ve got to say it again – just sit down and start writing, even if you don’t have a single solitary clue what you’re going to write about. Odds are the first few paragraphs will throw away nonsense, but soon something will emerge from your subconscious that’s been dying to get out. I’ve used this technique many times, and it seldom fails me.

Make an outline. If you’ve got your topic and you have an idea of what you’re going to say, then by all means make an outline. Once you’ve got it, just fill it in. And no, you don’t have to write it in order – pick a section of the outline, write that section, pick another section and so forth. Making the outline first is a dynamite way to then write quickly and nearly effortlessly. Plus you’ll get to see early if your idea is worth writing about or not.

Be crazy. Okay, so this crazy idea popped into your head, and you just KNOW that it’s silly, but what if? That is, what if it’s not so silly after all? We tend to dismiss our crazy ideas too quickly sometimes rather than see them through. And here’s something worth remembering – every great achievement started out as someone’s “crazy idea.” So go ahead, follow through and see what happens.

Chunk it. Write non-stop for a certain length of time, such as 20 minutes or 30 minutes, and then take a 5 minute break. Knowing that you cannot stop writing for that period of time makes you focus and get to work, and knowing you have a break coming up soon makes it all tolerable, even on days when you especially don’t feel like writing.

There you have it… 8 ways to beat writer’s/blogger’s block. Now get to writing, will ya! 🙂

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How to Achieve Anything in 90 Days…

…that you can’t achieve in a year.

What happens when you give yourself a goal to do something in the next year?

How to Achieve Anything in 90 Days…

You procrastinate. “A year? Heck, I think I’ll take a vacation first. I can work on that tomorrow – next week – next month.”

You put it off. And put it off. And a year later… you are still exactly where you are right now, today.

But if you only give yourself 90 days, you’ve got to take action NOW. Not tomorrow. Not later today. But right now.

5 year plans? Work for almost no one. Things change during a year’s time – what about during 5 years? Everything can change.

People function in 90 day chunks. You can’t plan to lose 50 pounds in a year because you’re continually eating the wrong things. Why? Because you think you can always eat right later and exercise later.

But you can lose 25 pounds in 90 days. Now you’ve got a deadline that is close, and you’ve got to get busy now.

And once you’ve lost those 25 pounds in 90 days, you can lose 25 more in the 90 days after that.

Let’s talk about your online business. Can you ramp it up in a year? Probably not, because again, the deadline is too far out. You’ll do everything BUT work on your business.

But in 90 days? You can build a website, build a list, create your first three products, recruit a couple dozen affiliates and do a joint venture or two.

And that’s just the start.

Once you’ve laid the groundwork in the first 90 days, you can level up and leverage what you’re already done.

Maybe you make an average of $2,000 a month during your first 90 days.

But now you have products, affiliates, a growing list, a growing reputation, a name for yourself and people who trust you and want to do deals with you. Do you think you can earn a whole lot more in your second 90 day period?

You bet you can.

Decide what you want and then focus on just doing that thing. Don’t get distracted. Don’t buy stuff you don’t need or spend time on things that don’t take you to where you’re going.

Break your 90 day goal up into 30 day increments. Where do you need to be 30 days from now to achieve your goal? Where do you need to be 60 days from now?

You’re looking at one big goal with two checkpoints along the way to make sure you’re on track.

Focus on this goal for 90 days. Will you do that for yourself? For your family? For your future?

The takeaway:

Ask yourself – where do you want to be in 90 days?

What do you have to do to get there?

And are you willing to do it?

Decide what you want.

Write it down.

Make a plan to accomplish it in 90 days.

And then just do it – in 90 days.

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Why One Internet Marketer Makes $20,000 Per Month and the Other One is Flat Broke

I’ll wager that 9 out of 10 people who read this won’t get it.

Why One Internet Marketer Makes $20,000 Per Month and the Other One is Flat Broke

Not really.

They’ll say, “Yeah, that’s probably right,” and then they’ll blow it off like they never read it.

But the fact is, I’m nearly certain that’s why some people crush it online and others never make more than a few hundred bucks here and there.

For example, imagine you’ve got some individual who maybe isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. But he doesn’t know that. He thinks he’s unbelievably smart. He thinks his products are radically awesome. He thinks he’s king of the internet and master of his niche.

And even though his products are average and ordinary, and even though he’s not all that bright and certainly not clued in on what’s happening, he still does really, really well.

Then you’ve got this other person who is smart as can be.

She really cares about her customers and wants to help everybody and anybody she can.

She tries her very best to put out products that can revolutionize lives, but she wonders if she isn’t falling short.

Maybe she needs to work harder, or find more answers to give in her products, or just be an even better person.

And she’s failing miserably.

The first guy KNOWS for a FACT that his products ROCK (as he would say) and that he’s “THE MAN.”

And this comes across in everything he does.

His emails, his videos, his website – they all exude a crazy amount of confidence, and customers pick up on that and are drawn to it.

But on her site, and in her emails and videos, she hesitates.

She’s a little bit unsure.

She wants only the best for her customers, so she holds back, just in case her latest recommendation isn’t good enough.

And customers pick up on her lack of confidence and don’t buy.

Simple, right?

Now the question: Are you going to think about this and find a way to use this in your business?

Or… are you going to dismiss it?

“Because I really do think – or at least I believe – that I’m on to something here.”

“In fact, I KNOW I am.”

Take a look at those last two sentences and notice the contrast.

Which one makes you sit up and take notice?

Which one makes YOU confident that I know what I’m talking about?

See what I mean?

You don’t need to be a jerk about it, but confidence and belief in your products will go a heck of a long way towards making you sales and customers who become raving fans.

Try it.

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The Secret to Online Business Success: Ignore 95% of Your Possible Marketplace

A friend of mine works with brand new marketers on setting up and building their business. Can you guess the number one problem these new marketers make for themselves? They want to target EVERYBODY…

The Secret to Online Business Success: Ignore 95% of Your Possible Marketplace

EVERYBODY who has a kid.

EVERYBODY who wants a date.

EVERYBODY who wants to make money.

EVERYBODY who wants to lose weight.

My friend has to go around and around with them to convince them of one simple, powerful fact: 

The more you specialize, the more you sell. 

Think of a general practitioner doctor versus a brain surgeon – who do you think makes more?

Think of a general contractor versus a contractor specializing in high rise buildings – who do you think makes more?

Think of a regular fireman versus one who puts out fires in oil wells – who do you think makes more?

Online marketing is no different.

You cannot target senior citizens the same way you do twenty-somethings or new mothers or busy executives.

That’s why you’ve not only got to pick your niche – making money, health, diet, dating, etc. – you’ve also got to pick your audience.

And even if you are STILL thinking you can target every single overweight person with your diet product, ask yourself this… how are you going to contact and sell to all of these different people?

A market that is too wide does not work.

Want to teach marketing to ALL small business owners? Good luck. 

Want to teach marketing to chiropractors? This is an opportunity worth pursuing, especially if you drill down further into local areas such as chiropractors in regions.

Want to teach dating techniques to every single person out there? Yeah, right. 

Want to teach dating techniques to single guys under 30? You can make a fortune.

Pick your niche, and then pick your audience within that niche. You’ll have a far easier time finding your prospects, knowing how to talk to them and how to sell them.

So if you really want a fighting chance at success in business, learn to be selective and target your niche carefully. Serve the needs of a carefully selected niche well, and the sky is the limit for you and your business!

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“But… I Don’t Know How!”

“I want to start an online business but I don’t know how.”

“I want to start my own blog and list build but I don’t know how.”

“I want to create a product but I don’t know how.”

I want to [insert whatever it is you want to do] but I don’t know how.”

But… I Don’t Know How!

Well guess what… neither did every single person who did it for the first time.

But you’re got to take the leap anyway, and take it on faith that you will land on your feet.

Figuring things out on the fly is a learned skill.

And the more often you take the leap – any leap – without knowing exactly where you’re going to land, the better you get at it. Plus, each time makes you better equipped to leap again and again and again.

Learning to operate at a high level within unknown scenarios is more valuable than learning a specific set of skills for a specific situation.

Prepare yourself mentally for being unprepared. 

You can never anticipate the exact skills you will need until you need them. In fact, you don’t know what you don’t know until you find out you don’t know it.

You’re going to hit roadblocks. Expect them. And expect to crash through those roadblock to the other side, too.

Expect challenges. Expect setbacks.

They are coming for you, so be prepared mentally.

Go in fighting, not retreating. 

Keep your eye on the goal and nothing will stop you…

…but if you look only at the obstacles, you will never get far.

Think about this – your entire life you have been flying by the seat of your pants in one fashion or another.

Don’t stop now.

When they tell you to seize the day, they don’t mean tomorrow – they mean TODAY.

Take the leap, because you got this!

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10 Marketing Mistakes You Can Correct

We all make mistakes, errors, blunders and things we really wish we hadn’t done.

10 Marketing Mistakes You Can Correct

Remember the last time you facepalmed?

Yeah, me too.

Let’s see if we can catch the next mistake BEFORE you make it.

And let’s also see if you’re already making one or more of these marketing mistakes.

If you are, you’re not alone.

Targeting Everyone

Who are you targeting with your online marketing campaigns? Everyone with internet access? Everyone who needs to lose weight? Every parent on the planet?

You need to narrow your target market.

If you look at the demographics of your current customers, that will tell you who to target. Don’t make assumptions about the demographics of your customer base. Women do search for sporting goods and men are interested in hair care, for example. Get to know who your customers are and you’ll do a better job of targeting.

Or if you are just starting out in a niche, it gets even easier. You get to decide exactly who you want to target and find out where those people are found.

Not Having a Blog for Your Website

Your website needs a blog, because blogs increase traffic. Businesses with blogs tend to have over 90% more inbound links, which helps you to get found by the search engines.

Blogs also help you to build a relationship with your prospects and customers, while giving you credibility and visibility. You write a post with great info, your prospects see and realize you know what you’re talking about, and they start reading more of your posts. Pretty soon they realize they like you. They trust you. And they buy from you.

Blogs are also a place where you can interact with your customers and prospects. You make a post and they get to respond. Then you get to respond to their comments. You can use your blog to get feedback on ideas and products.

And you can integrate your blog with social media, driving more traffic to your blog and website from social media, while driving visitors to your social media pages for even more interaction.

Lastly, you can share links to all of your blog posts on social media, not just your new posts. This is a great way to keep all of your pages alive.

Not Tracking Return on Investment

Do you know how much money you’re spending on your online marketing strategies and what kind of return you’re getting?

You don’t want to blindly throw money at digital marketing strategies without measuring the return on investment. And if you don’t measure your return on investment, you won’t know how successful (or unsuccessful) your strategy is. The key is to stick to what’s working and modify what’s not working. And to know this, you’ve got to track and measure.

To calculate your return on investment, you’ll first figure out what you’re measuring. Is it traffic? Leads? Click-through rates? Conversions? Once you know your campaign goal, you can calculate your ROI.

Take the financial gain and subtract the cost of your investment. Divide that number by the total cost of your investment, and that’s how you calculate return on investment.

Be diligent about tracking ROI on all of your campaigns from here on out, because it’s the only way to see if your strategies are successful.

Not Using Videos

Videos are engaging and capture attention like no other medium. And video content can be a great way to get people to go to your website.

In a recent survey, 43% of people who watched a video in the past month also checked out a website because of a video. 22% said they requested information on a product. And 15% made a purchase – because they saw a video.

Get your own YouTube channel and take advantage of the second highest trafficked website on the internet. Then post your videos on Facebook, and even make 1 minute videos for Instagram. Videos can generate new prospects for you, and ultimately lead to new customers as well.

Forgetting About Mobile Users

Depending on your niche, it’s entirely possible you’re getting more visitors from mobile devices than laptops and computers. This is exactly why your website needs to be optimized for mobile devices.

50% of people say they will use a company less often if the website isn’t mobile friendly, even if they like the brand. 48% of people think you don’t care about them if your website isn’t optimized for mobile users.

And because 90% of time on mobile is spent in apps, you may want to consider making a mobile application for your business. But even if you’re not going to create an app, you’ll want to at least make certain your site is mobile friendly. Not sure if it is? Pull out your phone and check right now.

Having a Slow Website

Slow websites drive visitors away. You work hard to get people to your website – why send them away before they even get to see it? Your visitors will abandon your site if it takes too long to load. If you need to spend more money for faster web hosting, then do it. Every second counts and you cannot afford to lose customers.

Not Offering Discounts to Your Best Customers

Frankly, I think you should offer coupons and discounts to everyone from time to time. This way people who are on the fence may jump in, order, and realize they love your products.

But you should at the very least be offering discounts to your current customers. They deserve to be rewarded for patronizing you.

When you bring out a new product, offer it to them at a discount. Ask nicely for feedback and testimonials, and you’ll likely get both. The feedback can be key to tweaking your product and making it even better. And the testimonials can earn you many more sales in the future.

Shunning Social Media

I’m surprised by the number of marketers who still avoid social media. It doesn’t cost you anything to make a Facebook, Twitter or Instagram account. And it is a great way to interact with your customers at low or no cost to you.

You can use social media for brand building, interactivity, buzz building, consumer insights, enhanced marketing effectiveness and broad reach. And because your customers are on these platforms, you need to be on them as well. In fact, 81% of people in the US have a social media profile.

When you do create your profiles, don’t buy followers. If you get caught, you’ll lose your reputation. Plus, it looks darn suspicious if you have 10,000 followers and not a single one of them engages with your content.

Not Commenting on Blogs

This applies to your own blogs and other blogs, too. On your own blog, you should engage with readers by answering their comments. Your subscribers will be surprised and pleased. And in return they will begin commenting more often. Plus, blog comments help with SEO to rank higher and get found by more traffic.

Keep your comments appropriate and professional at all times. And don’t forget to comment on other people’s blogs, too. It’s a way to subtly promote your own brand.

Your comments should be natural and informative to establish your credibility and likeability. Remember to use your full name and your face avatar, as well.

Not Guest Blogging

Why would you want to go to the trouble of writing an entire post of great content, just to post it on someone else’s website?

Three reasons:

First, you get exposed to an entirely new audience who may not have even heard of you. And yes, some of them will click your link and go to your website to grab your free lead magnet, thus joining your list. And some of those folks will become your customers.

Second, you’ll create a connection with a peer in your niche. And you never know what can happen if you continue to grow this relationship – it could eventually become very fruitful.

Third, because you can link back to your website or blog, you’ll be improving your SEO by increasing your domain authority.

How many of these mistakes are you guilty of? No worries, because now you can take action, get busy and correct them. Just pick one for now to work on, and when that’s in motion, you can begin working on the second one. No need to feel overwhelmed if you have several of these to do. Remember, inch by inch it’s a cinch.

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Your (Second) Most Powerful Business Marketing Strategy?

Regardless of what niche you are in, there is no doubt that building a list of prospects and customers who know you, like you and trust you is your most powerful business marketing strategy.

Your (Second) Most Powerful Business Marketing Strategy?

So what’s the second most powerful business marketing strategy? It’s up for debate, but I’d like to suggest the following:

Writing a book in your niche to give away to your prospective customers.

And no, I don’t mean a 20 page report, although that’s far better than nothing. Nor am I suggesting you write a “book” that’s nothing more than a cleverly disguised sales letter, although those can be useful as well.

Let’s stand in our prospect’s shoes for just a moment. Let’s say you live in Chicago and you’re looking to invest a substantial amount of money in marketing your brick and mortar business online. Obviously you don’t want to hand the work over to just anyone – you want someone who clearly knows exactly what they’re doing and can deliver the results you seek. Someone who will get customers streaming through the door and the cash register ringing non-stop. Bottom Line: Someone who won’t waste your time and money.

A fellow drops by out of the clear blue and offers to do your marketing. You’ve never heard of this guy and you’re cautious. You do some research, ask your fellow business people, and locate 3 more small business marketing types who all say they’re experts at marketing small businesses online. They even have references. Still, you’re cautious.

Then one day you’re at a friend’s place of business when you spot a book on his desk. The title immediately grabs your attention: Effective Online Marketing For Small Businesses In The Chicago Area.

It’s not a snappy title by any means, but you don’t care. You’re riveted. You want to know everything in the book and you especially want to know who the author is and can you hire him.

And all you’ve seen so far is a book title. So why are you so interested in hiring THIS guy? Why does he stand head and shoulders above all the other small business online marketers you’ve already spoken to?

First, he’s an author. And like it or not, author’s carry a mystique and an air of credibility virtually untouchable by any peers who haven’t authored a book.

Second, not only did he write a book on marketing your small business online – he wrote about marketing your small business online in the area in which you live.

It’s akin to having the name Abdul Anderson and finding a book titled: What Abdul Anderson Should Do Right Now to Solve His Problems. Tell me you wouldn’t pick that book up in a heartbeat if your name was Abdul Anderson!

Okay, you’ve got the point. When you write a book, you’ve got instant star attraction and a ton of perceived credibility. People are no longer asking, “Can I see 5 references?” They’re not asking, “What if you can’t do what you say you will do?” They’re not asking about your guarantee, how long you’ve been in business, and all those other questions.

Instead, they’re asking how much you charge and when can you start.

And this isn’t just for marketers working with offline businesses – this is for almost anyone offering a service or even a product.

Imagine someone comes to your website – has never heard of you before or been to your website before – and there on the home page sees the book that you’ve written. Do you think you’ve just scored some serious credibility with that new visitor? Absolutely.

Or what if you’re sending traffic to a squeeze page to capture their email address. Do you think offering them the e-version of a REAL book that is currently being sold on Amazon will increase your conversion rate? You bet!

Back to marketing to offline businesses – if you hand a prospect a copy of your book, do you think you’ve increased the odds you’ll close them on a $5,000 marketing package? Of course.

Your book should contain tons of dynamite information and no sales pitch. Yes, it’s fine to refer them to your website, but the main focus should be on educating your reader. The more you tell, the more of an instant expert you become in your reader’s mind.

Make the book comprehensive, covering a great deal about your particular niche. Don’t be afraid of telling too much – generally when a prospect realizes how complex your service is, if they can afford you then they will hire you rather than attempt it themselves.

Include your contact information, including phone number, address and of course your website. Realize that people hang onto books, and even if they don’t need your service right now, they might refer back to it in a year or even in 5 years, so don’t change your contact information unless you absolutely have to. The book you give to someone today could result in a $20,000 sale 5 years from now, but only IF they can easily find you.

Make it easy to read. Just like a sales letter, you don’t want page after page of fat paragraphs. Use plenty of headings, bullet points and space to break it up.

And by all means edit it. Get someone else to read it over and tell you if there are any errors or places where it’s difficult to follow. You want it to read as professionally as possible because it is a direct reflection of you and your business.

If you are giving away the e-version of your book on your squeeze page or website, by all means either give them a link or a screenshot that shows your book on Amazon. Anyone can SAY they are giving away a $19.95 ebook, but when they see that you really do charge that much on Amazon, your free gift suddenly becomes much more valuable in their eyes, increasing the likelihood that they will opt into your list AND read your book.

Do encourage your readers to review your book on Amazon. The more reviews you get and the better reviews you get, the more credibility you build up. After all, if you see a book on Amazon with 1 or 2 reviews, and another with 50 reviews, which seems to be the more popular? People tend to be followers, not leaders. That’s why they look for social affirmation that others are reading and liking your book. You might even offer a free gift for every unbiased review you receive. Just be sure not to offer a free gift for every POSITIVE review you receive, or you will lose much of the credibility you’ve worked to achieve.

Is writing a book hard? Yes and no. For some people it’s extremely difficult, not because they’re not intelligent, but because their intelligence lies elsewhere. We all have particular skills we’re good at and others that we really should leave to the “experts.” So if you don’t like to write, consider hiring a ghostwriter to write your book.

If you’re going to write it yourself, set a deadline by which you’ll have it finished, and then decide to write 2 to 5 pages a day, every day. If you’re writing a 200 page book at 2 pages per day, you’ll be finished in 100 days. At 5 pages per day, you’ll be done in just 40 days. See? It doesn’t take long if you stay consistent.

The secret to writing a book? Write your table of contents first. This will become your outline, and it’ll break the book up into manageable pieces. It seems like a daunting task to write 200 pages about your subject, but 10 pages about one particular facet of your niche is a breeze.

For your book cover design, I recommend hiring a professional. People really, truly do judge your book by its cover. Sure, you can create your own, and if you’re a graphic artist then maybe that’s the way to go. For the rest of us, we put too much time and effort into our book to make do with our own amateurish cover. So do some research and find a professional book cover designer with a portfolio you like, and spend the extra money to get it done correctly.

Once you get your book finished, I believe you’ll find it’s the second most important tool in your marketing arsenal, right behind your list of customers and prospects. Your book has the potential to generate more business for you than perhaps a dozen full time sales people, and through the power of the Internet it can be working for you 24/7, making you an instant expert and the go-to person in the eyes of your prospects.

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The Two Obstacles to Achieving Success

Forewarned is forearmed, and by knowing in advance what can stop you from realizing your goals, you’ll be able to do what’s necessary to overcome these obstacles and move straight through to victory.

The Two Obstacles to Achieving Success

The first obstacle is engaging in limiting beliefs. Need I say more? Well, maybe…

If we get what we think about, and we think we don’t have what it takes to accomplish something, what happens? We don’t accomplish it. If we believe that we don’t deserve success, do we get it? Not likely. And if we’re always being negative, thinking negative, speaking negative, what happens? Nothing good.

We achieve what we believe. Period. Not what we hope for, desire, wish for, etc. There used to be a computer expression – garbage in, garbage out. And it’s the same way with your beliefs – bad thoughts in, bad results out.

Whatever it takes, whatever you’ve got to do, find a way to lose the limiting beliefs and replace them with positive, boundless limitless thoughts of success.

The second obstacle to success? It’s giving up too soon. There is a quote I like…

While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior. -Henry C. Link

You’ve no doubt heard the story of the man who mined for gold and gave up just inches shy of hitting the mother lode. It’s the same way in anything – every time you give up, you lose. Wayne Gretsky said: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

You’ve got to keep shooting, keep moving towards your goal, because it is only through quitting that you can fail.

If you do not quit, you cannot fail because you are not done yet.

As Winston Churchill said, “Never, never, never, never give up.”

Follow this timeless wisdom in your business and you will overcome obstacles every day.

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Can Virtual Big Gulps Line Your Pockets??

We’ve all seen the mega launches of super expensive products that boast about how heavy the packing box is.

Can Virtual Big Gulps Line Your Pockets??

“You Get 32 CD’s, 22 DVD’s and 3 Big Manuals of 250 Pages Each!
This package weighs a whopping 15 pounds, delivered to your door!”

As marketers we suspect that bigger is better, even when it’s not. After all, more of anything seems like a better deal to the customer than less of something, right?

But thanks to a new study, we now know that “more” of a product not only sounds better – it can also be a status symbol for the customer.

Take for example the Big Gulp drink – 30 oz of sticky sweet carbonated beverage. Does anyone on the planet NEED 30 oz of sticky sweet carbonated beverage? While some might say they do, the fact is it’s a flood of empty calories with a bevy of negative health effects, yet they sell like gangbusters.

And believe it or not, they can actually make the purchasers feel BETTER about themselves.

No, I am NOT advocating you run out and buy one of these things – rather, I’m suggesting you SELL these things, in digital form.

Follow closely – This is from the Journal of Consumer Research and it concerns a series of experiments carried out by Derek Rucker of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

In the first experiment, volunteers looked at photos of people holding different sized drinks and then were asked to rate the STATUS of the people they saw in the photos. Tabulated results showed that the bigger the drink, the higher the status score each photo rated. No, I’m not kidding, and it gets weirder.

In the second experiment, half of the volunteers were asked to remember a time when they were bossed around. The other half were asked to remember a time when they were in a position to boss others around. No surprise here – the volunteers who remember being bossed around felt the least powerful. (Yet another example of how the thoughts you choose determine how you feel.)

Okay, here comes the surprise – next those same volunteers were offered a drink in 3 different sizes. There was no choice on what KIND of drink, only of what SIZE drink they could have.

Those who felt the least powerful CHOSE THE BIGGEST DRINK. In other words, even in something as ordinary as choosing a drink, the decision is not based solely on how thirsty the person is, but rather on how much power they feel they have.

And in the worldwide economy, it’s a reasonable conclusion that as people feel powerless to control what’s happening, more and more super sizing will be taking place, and not just in food.

Now then, here’s how to use this in your marketing…

First, when you can make your product appear larger, do so. For example, you might take each chapter of an ebook and separate it into a report – 12 reports look like more than one ebook. If you are shipping audios or videos, place them on 12 discs rather than 4. And so forth.

Second, offer a super size version of your product. That is, you might have your regular product and a second version that offers more information, more promises, more benefits, etc.

Third, offer them power and prestige. For example, if you’re creating a membership, don’t make it just any old membership. Give it a name like The Exclusive Gold Club for Star Class Members or something that conveys the power and prestige so many people are lacking in these uncertain times.

Fourth, don’t forget to add an OTO to your offer. OTO’s are like supersizing the fries – they’ve already decided to order, now it’s just a matter of offering them more, and many times they will jump at the chance to upgrade to that virtual Big Gulp.

One more thing… Don’t feel guilty about up-selling your customers. People want to feel they are in control, that they have power, that they do matter. And if it’s a choice between buying a few Big Gulps that are going to rot their bones and pack on the fat, or your new product that can actually HELP them, you’ve got a duty to offer them that product and let them decide for themselves.

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Build a Strong Mailing List in 30 Minutes

Okay, so I spoke in an earlier article on the importance of having a list. Not that it’s good to have, but that you MUST have a list if you want to achieve long term success online.

Build a Strong Mailing List in 30 Minutes

I’ve noticed the thing that really stymies a lot of would-be marketers is how to set up this whole funnel thing that gets you the list. Because it has to be really elaborate and it takes a lot of time and work to get it all set up, right?

Wrong. Too many people are over complicating it. Here’s what you’re going to do, and hang with me so you don’t get lost…

First, you’re going to create a squeeze page.

Second, you’re going to grab your autoresponder code and add it to your squeeze page.

That’s it.

Seriously. Building your list really is this easy.

“But I don’t know what to put on the squeeze page!”

That’s easy – a great headline and 3 to five short, snappy bullet points.

“But I don’t have a free gift to give them for subscribing.”

Seriously? There are PLR products all over the Internet, any one of which you can adapt into your own product in about 30 minutes.

Or you can create your own report – simply find the burning questions people ask the most in your niche and answer them.

OR, forget giving away a freebie. Instead send them to your sales page.

“I don’t have a sales page!”

Then send them to the sales page of an affiliate product you’re promoting.

Seriously, so many marketers make this so darn difficult when it should be the easiest thing in the world.

Your highest priority right now is getting your squeeze page up and running. NOW. Later you can create your own super-duper extra special freebie to give away if you like, but in the meantime you can be collecting names.

Think about this – you decide to create the ultimate free gift. It takes you a month to create that gift. Sure, you thought it would take 3 days, but darned if the project didn’t stretch out for the entire month.

Had you set up your squeeze page right away, you might have captured 10, 20 or more names a day while you were creating that ultimate freebie. But you didn’t create the squeeze page.

Result? You lost 300 to 600 or more subscribers that should have been yours.

See what I mean? Just put up the squeeze page, and then no matter what you’re doing online, be sure you’re sending people to that page. Send out tweets, advertise it on your Twitter profile, place it in your signature file on forums and in emails, advertise it (paid and unpaid) on Facebook, etc.

And once you get started building your list, you’re going to find that it’s easy. It’s not the big deal you thought it was. And even better, it’s addictive because as you see more and more subscribers coming in, you’ll be looking for more ways to drive targeted traffic to your squeeze page just so you can watch those numbers increase daily.

The important thing – the really important thing, is to target your list. That is, if your niche is on hot rod cars, be sure that your squeeze page is geared towards people who love hot rods.

For example, if you’re sending them to a sales page after the squeeze page, then the sales page should be promoting an excellent product specifically on hot rods. You want the people who opt into your list to be heavily into your niche, whatever that might be.

And everyone always thinks they’ve got to give away the farm to get someone on their mailing list, but think about this – if you’re sending them to a sales page after they opt in, some of those people will buy. Not a huge percentage, but if it’s a good offer for a good product, you’ll get sales. And the money you’re making from those sales can actually PAY to send traffic to your squeeze page.

Now you can advertise on Facebook in solo ads or where ever you want, and the more you advertise, the more sales you make, the more you can advertise. It’s all self funded so you’ve got your list building system on autopilot, and it took you 30 minutes to set up, plus the time it takes you to set up your advertising.

What about shortcuts? You know, like co-reg lists, safe lists, harvesting, renting lists – aren’t those easier ways to build your list? And the answer is no, absolutely not, because they don’t work. Not only are they unresponsive, but in many cases you’re spamming and you just don’t want to do that.

That’s why you want to build your own list of people who get to know you and who open your emails just because they see your name and they want to know what you have to say today. Build this and you’ll have a real asset. In fact, in online marketing I don’t know if I can think of a better asset than a responsive list, because you can go to that list anytime you want and send them an offer or even ask for their help on something and they will respond.

And if you’re just starting and you don’t know where to go to get traffic to send to your squeeze page, start with the forums. Google your keyword along with the word ‘forum,’ and find all the forums in your niche that allow you to have a signature line. Don’t blast out your squeeze page info; that’s not what you want to do. Instead, enter conversations and help people and become the go-to person in that niche. If you’re on these forums every day for a week, you can become an instant authority.

Just be real, help people, don’t hype anything, and let them click on your signature line in their own time and they will. Because you’re helping, because they see you as someone who really knows something about what they want to know, they’re going to want to know more about you and they’re going to want to get your updates.

These will be some of the most responsive leads you get – they’re absolutely golden – so treat them well and they will stick with you for years to come. And then once you’re good at forum posting, add something else to your traffic driving arsenal to get even more traffic to your squeeze page, like social media or advertising.

Find what works for you, get good at it, and then add something else. Do you see how easy this is? We try to make everything so hard and it’s really not. Just get started, get going and you’ll find out for yourself just how easy it is to build a list.

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5 Keys to a Money Making Online Business

We’re always trying to over complicate things, aren’t we? Making things appear more difficult than they really are. Why is that?

5 Keys to a Money Making Online Business

The other day I saw a breakdown of the 7 things you need to build your online marketing business, which was 2 more than you really need. Here’s my list: Network, List Build, Focus, Take Action, Produce. That’s right, just 5 things.

So let’s break each one down to its simplest form:

Network. Make friends with other marketers in your niche, whatever that niche might be. When you need help (such as promotion) call on them. Help them out when they need it.

Why is networking so important? 3 reasons: First, working from home can be lonely, daunting, and just plain difficult. It’s easy to procrastinate. It’s easy to get bogged down on some little obstacle. But when you’ve got others to turn to for morale support, it gets a whole lot easier.

Second, you can get quick help. Having trouble loading that widget or formatting that ebook? Contact your friend who’s a wiz at it and you’ve got the help you need. Be there to help them, too.

Third, promotion. Do you think it’s just coincidence when you get 5 or 10 emails promoting the same product? No. Those are friends of the person launching the product. It can make all the difference in the world to have a list of people to turn to when it comes to promoting your products. Without networking, your list is going to be a whole lot smaller.

Build a list. No need to spell this one out – if you’ve got a list then you’ve got people to promote to. The better and bigger the list, the more prosperous your business can be. If you’re not list building, begin now – as in TODAY.

Focus. I know I’ve hit on this before, but here goes – STAY FOCUSED! I wanted to add a swear word after that for emphasis, but in the interest of keeping this PG I won’t.

So many times I see people jump from this to that to the thing over there and around and around and they never stay focused on one thing for more than a day or two and then they wonder WHY they aren’t successful.

Pick something. ONE thing. Then FOCUS on that one thing until you’ve got it done. Eliminate distractions. If need be, REMOVE distractions from your immediate vicinity. Set a work schedule and STICK to the work schedule.

Here’s something to make it simple:

The more focused you are,
the more money you will earn.

Period.

Take Action. Don’t just plan and daydream, DO. Move forward every single day by taking a real action that gets you closer to your goals.

Produce products. LOTS of products. There are those who buy lots of products and those who PRODUCE lots of products. Who do you think is more successful?

Let’s put it another way – what are your odds of success if you produce one product versus 10 products? 100 products? Not all of your products will be grand slams, but when you produce enough of them then some of them will be hits. Also, by producing your own products you’re also building your own reputation online, which furthers your success. So take the plunge and begin producing products to sell in your business – in fact, make a HABIT out of product production.

That’s it. Do these 5 things day in and day out starting today and continuing as long as you’re an online marketer, and success will almost undoubtedly be yours.

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