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Making Money Online

Positive Mindset
on January 30th, 2012 by - No Comments

Making money online is one of the best lives anyone ever created and it’s not just the large amounts of money that can be made. It’s also about the freedom. The freedom to be your own boss. The freedom to work when you want and where you want. The freedom to go watch your kids soccer game. The freedom to take that trip to a place you’ve always wanted to see. The freedom to buy that new car or that new home.

Still not everyone that tries to make a living online succeeds. In fact most people trying to make a living are not doing all that well at all. In fact 95% of the people trying to make money online are failing, 4% are only doing marginally well and 1% are bringing in the big bucks. These are daunting statistics to anyone just starting out or to someone that has been working at it for a short time.

Those that are making money online have discovered the secrets of what it takes to be successful. They have learned that in order for you to receive you must also give. They have built websites that have attracted large amounts of traffic. They have written compelling sales letters that convert visitors into customers, but the most important thing they have is confidence.

We all know that some sports teams are successful year after year, while others never seem to become champions. The ones that do become champions over and over, again and again just believe they are going to win. Businessmen become successful with no more talent than some of those that fail all because the believe in themselves. When you accomplish a goal you’ve set, nine out of ten times it was because you knew you could do it.

This reminds me of the famous quote by Henry Ford, “Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.” Henry Ford obviously believed he could and there are many other examples of wealthy people who got where they are because they saw an opportunity and believed in themselves enough to really put themselves out there and go for it. The others believe so strongly that they will fail that they either don’t even try at all or if they do try they go into it believing they will fail.

Perseverance is what it takes to succeed in online marketing. Many people quit just before they are going to make it big. However long you’ve been marketing online don’t ever give up the fight. Keep plugging away at it. If your efforts aren’t paying off do some research, learn other ways to market your product or service, go to forums and ask for help, try new things. It will be worth it in the end because you’ll get that freedom I spoke of at the beginning. One place to start is with Confidence Building for Becoming A Millionaire

“I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.” – Warren Buffet

Confidence is a key element in becoming a millionaire. Just look at the statement above. Warren Buffet’s confidence exuded from him when he was young and you can have that same confidence just as big and powerful as the millionaire’s that have gone before you.

1. Set small, achievable goals for yourself as you build your quest of wealth. By starting small with your goals you get into the habit of succeeding. If you start by setting your goals too high and fail this will shatter your confidence and it will take time for you to recover. By setting your goals at a lower, more reasonable goal that you will achieve, then your confidence will soar.
2. Record each success in a journal. Put in the accomplishments, testimonials, thank you letters from customers, everything that is positive. Refer to your journal each time you need a little motivation or when you forget why you’re doing this or just to see how far you’ve come in this new venture and just how awesome it is.
3. Network with like-minded people that are also working to achieve success. You need to put yourself in a healthy environment that is conducive to keep yourself motivated and strengthen your confidence. Join social and networking events to meet people just like you. There you will be able to exchange ideas and motivate each other.

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Who Is Your Target Market?

Marketing
on January 27th, 2012 by - No Comments

So you have a product and it is a very good product. One that should appeal to a select group of people. Is this a national group or an international group. Maybe you mostly sell to people in you state or community. No matter where your customers live you need to identify who they are.

The next thing you need to figure out is your demographics. Are the people you sell to old or young, rich or poor, or maybe they belong to a special interest group. Here is a list of questions you can ask:

Age
Gender
Education
Income
Marital status
Ethnicity
Religion
Life Style

You can find this information locally at town hall, library, Chamber of Commerce or you can find information from polling past customers and of course using the internet.

The more detailed you can get the better you can target your sales message. Start by dividing your market into groups and you can narrow down exactly who your product and similar products appeal to. Then there is the most important question you must ask and that is why do they buy your product.

This can be narrowed down to three things:

It makes them feel better.
It solves a problem.
It satisfies a basic need.

Once you have weighed the data and search through data bases you should be able to get a clear picture of who your customer is. If you can you may even be able to picture this person. Maybe you even know someone that would fit the bill.

If so this is great because you want to target that person. You want to write your sales copy as if you’re talking, one-on-one with that person. The next thing you will need to do is decide what direction your message is going to take. In other words what emotion are you going to target.

Some say there are only a few but in actuality there are many emotions you can appeal to get someone compelled to buy your product or service. What emotion is most likely to work is part of targeting your audience. Once you know this person then you will also be able to know what will move them.

Knowing your customer will tell you what benefit to focus on as well. This person buying will buy because of some special reason most generally. Being able to identify this benefit will give your sales copy a better chance of succeeding.

Knowing your customer is imperative for your overall success and research is the key to knowing that customer and what spurs them to buy. So before you write anything find out who you are selling. Then sit down and write like you are talking directly to that person, telling them about some new product or service that you found and are excited about because of the benefits you received.

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Does Your Sales Copy Sparkle?

copywriting
on January 24th, 2012 by - No Comments

For a sales letter to be effective it has to sparkle. If it does it will be a real moneymaker. In fact the difference a copywriter can make will mean thousands of dollars to your bottom line.

So, exactly what do I mean by SPARKLE?

For your sales copy to sparkle it must do several things:

  • Grab Attention
  • Engage
  • Excite
  • Entertain
  • Justify The Purchase
  • Create Urgency
  • Prove Your Claims
  • Show Uniqueness
  • Have A “Call To Action”
  • Make It Easy To Order
  • Reiterate And/Or Add Another Benefit

So let’s go over these points one-by-one.

Grab Attention: To hit the ground running your headline and opening paragraph must get their attention or they won’t even read your message. It is like when you read or scan the newspaper you look at the headlines and read the opening paragraph of any headline that interests you. If they don’t satisfy you hunger you go on to the next headline.

Engage: For them to continue reading they must believe they are going to get something out of it. Something that will make their lives better must be stated for them to continue.

Excite: They must get excited about what they read. For this you should utilize imagery evoking statements. This will put them into the picture, create ownership and live the dream you develop.

Entertain: What TV programs do you watch and which ones do you turn off? The same is true with your sales copy. People will not read your message if it does NOT entertain them. This above everything else creates that sparkle that you want your sales copy to exude.

Justify The Purchase: Once you have tapped their emotions and have your prospect envisioning themselves in the picture you have created, you need to  help them justify the purchase. This is done with logic not emotions. They must decide that the purchase is the right thing to do.

Create Urgency: We are notorious procrastinators and the be-back bus has four flat tires. What this means is; once they have left your page they will not come back. If you create urgency then they will feel more compelled to make their purchase right then.

Prove Your Claims: The person reading must be convinced that what your telling them is the truth. If you don’t do this then you have lost any chance of making this or any other sales to this person. This creates trust in you and people buy from people they trust.

Show Uniqueness: Yours is not the only product or service available to them. If you can’t show why yours is better for them at this time then they probably won’t buy. Give them every reason to buy and don’t leave anything to chance.

Have A “Call To Action”: Once you have done all of the things listed above you need to direct them to the next step you want them to take. This is when you are going to ask for the sale. So many sales letters don’t effectively ask for the sale and leave the prospect hanging. Consequently they don’t have any direction to take next, so they leave.

Make It Easy To Order: Once you’ve got them pulling out their credit card don’t blow it by making them jump through a lot of hoops. The order form should be simple and straight forward, plus easy to access.

Reiterate Or Add A Benefit: After the salutation at the end of the letter insert a P. S. Many people will skip to the end of the letter and read the P. S. first. It also gives you another another chance to sell. You can state the main benefit again or introduce another benefit at this point.

If you can successfully implement all of these into your sales letter you will have an effective tool to convert prospects into paying customers. Skipping or not effectively doing any of these steps will seriously hinder the ability of your sales letter to accomplish what it was meant to do.

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Experience The Art Of Advertising Done Well

Advertising
on January 22nd, 2012 by - No Comments

Advertising is an art form that requires creativeness and the use of elements that will first grab the potential customer’s attention and compel that person to read, or at least scan the advertisement or website.

Advertising done well is not just random clip art and words. An advertisement needs to be carefully planned by an expert to reap the full benefit of the money spent for placing the ad. Of course you can try to create you own advertisements and save the expense of a professional, but if spending the money will more than pay for itself in the revenues received, then you will realize hiring a professional is an expense you can warrant.

The advantages a professional can give you are enormous. It is not simply the layout or the message or the use of art work and white space. It is the melding of these features that makes an effective advertising tool.  A professional will construct your print ad or brochure using the skills and perceptions gained over years of experience. Natural abilities and talent also come into play and is simply something that cannot be replaced.

When you hire an advertising professional you will begin to see that you have made a wise decision, because results will soon be seen in your bottom line. But it is not enough to just have professionally constructed print material, you must also have a marketing plan.

Who are your customers

  • How do you reach your customers
  • What can you provide to solve their problem
  • How will your product or service improve their lives
  • Can you prove the claims and help them live the dream

There are two choices:

1. Keep going as you are and your sells will probably drop and you’ll be out of business.
2. Create a marketing plan, pull in more targeted traffic and increase your conversion rate with superior sales copy that presells your customers.

The choice is yours to make, but if you want to thrive in a hostile, very competitive marketplace you need to have someone in your corner that can give you the edge you need. I will give you a free one-hour consultation to go over your situation and discuss how I might be able to help.

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Creating A Marketing Plan

Marketing
on January 21st, 2012 by - No Comments

Planning your advertising is a lot of hard word, but it pays off in the end. It’s like building a house. You wouldn’t go out and hire a contractor and say build me a house without a plan.

Well, your advertising plan is like your blueprint for your business. Without a good plan your business just will not get off the ground.

The overall marketing plan is going to give you the basis for your operation. It will spell out the direction you want to take with your business. It will help you to orchestrate your efforts by integrating the two primary marketing functions of branding and advertising.

How you are going to attract customers is the most important aspect of any business.

  • With a good marketing plan you will identify and accurately describes your market, your customers, your products and services, and your competition.
  • You will be able to calculates the scope of your market.
  • This will make it possible for you to calculate you advertising budget.
  • It will provide your business with the focus it needs, the guidance required, and the direction for effective advertising and business practices.
  • A good marketing plan will positions your company in the marketplace.
  • It will provide guidelines to establish proper customer management and retention.
  • Most importantly it will outline your communications strategies by giving your entire company a clearly planned, comprehensive and consistent message to customers, employees, investors, and business partners.

Once you have a strong marketing plan you will have a guide on how you are going to advertise. If you do it the other way around you will just be backing in or making it up as you go along and this is no way to start a successful business.

Now, I’m not saying you need to write a fifty-page document detailing every aspect of your marketing to the slightest detail. What you want is a clear-cut, realistic picture of your business strategy, who you customers are and what your budget will be for both branding and advertising.

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Marketing On A Shoestring

Marketing
on January 20th, 2012 by - No Comments

Marketing is the art and science of producing sales for a product or service. It is an age-old practice that began when the first person tried to sell something to another for nominal gain. Some of the more notable marketers have etched a name for themselves due to their success and today is no different.

You will see their names plastered all over the Internet known as gurus. Some actual and some professed. Nevertheless, marketing is how they have amassed a fortune. If you are to realize your own financial success you must learn to utilize the tactics used by those gurus.

To become you successful you need 2 things a product and a vehicle used to announce that product to those that wish to buy your product. In fact there are many methods in which to accomplish your objective.

1.    Article Marketing
There are many sites that will allow you to post articles for free. How this helps you is they will let you put a link to your site. This creates targeted traffic, which gives you a better chance of converting those visitors into paying customers.
2.    Forum Marketing
No matter what your niche there is a forum that caters to it. Find them, join them and lurk around for a while to get the hang of how things work. Then begin posting to threads to offer advice or to thank someone for their words of wisdom. These are also a good way to find out useful information that will actually help you in your endeavors. Again you can place links to your site to get traffic.
3.    Free Classified Ads
These are just like what they seem. You can go to these sites and put up classified ads for free to get traffic to your site. The secret here is being able to write effective ads. Of course they need to go under the proper category and should be written so they give the reader enough information to make them want more.
4.    Search Engine Optimization
Volumes have been written on this subject but what it really boils down to is using keywords in your HTML source code (<meta name=”keywords” content=”your keywords go here”>) and in your content. But that is nowhere near all there is to it. There are other factors involved, such as the age of the website, the amount of traffic, the quantity and quality of competition. I understand that you have no control over these factors except the amount of traffic, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention them. Some would say that this isn’t marketing, but anything that brings traffic to your site is marketing.
5.    Press Releases
These are another real good source of free advertising just because the public views them as news stories. The trick here is to make it sound like a news story while you sell. It can be done and when it is done right it can be very successful.
6.    Social Marketing
Many marketers have turned their focus or at least a portion of it to marketing through social sites like myspace, facebook or one of the many others. It seems as though these are not just a place where little Jenny can put up her pictures and talk about what one friend said about another. Serious money is being made through marketing efforts through these sites. So, go, make friends, get a following and market your brains out.
7.    Networking and Master Mind Groups
In your area you can find people that meet regularly to discuss things of like interest. You may get some business from it, but you will mostly benefit because you will get ideas that can really help propel your business.

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