Creating Your Plan of Attack Todays, we are going to decide your plan of attack - your approach to doing business online, and the methods of implementation. We covered a lot of ground in the last lesson, but I think you'll agree that the effort was worth it. The really good news is that we are now well along the way to completing the foundation of our new, successful online business. This week, we are going to decide your plan of attack - your approach to doing business online, and the methods of implementation. As before, be sure to save this lesson somewhere that you can find it later. I confessed to you earlier that my whole online business has been re-vamped over the past year. At the very least, your online business will evolve over time, but by making the right decisions now, it will be a planned, progressive evolution. There are many options available for marketing on the web, but the most effective will require that you establish a "presence", a base of operations so to speak. This presence can manifest itself in many ways and we'll talk about those today so you can develop your own plan of attack. To decide what your web "presence" will look like, you need to think about what your marketing approach will be. Your options range from a mini-site all the way to a full-blown portal site, and anything in between. Let's look at the different approaches, and how each is best used with your niche market. Mini-Sites A mini-site is ideal for sales of a single product, because it consists of only a few web pages, and has a very focused sales message. There are no external links. The visitor either buys your product, or closes his browser. A full-blown mini-site can be developed containing no more than seven web pages. * Sales page * Payment page - often provided by your payment processing provider * Order confirmation page - thank the customer for the order * Privacy policy page - to educate the customer about your policies regarding disclosure/non-disclosure of their personal information * Disclaimer page - to comply with legal obligations requiring disclosure, truth in advertising, etc. * Terms of service - primarily for use with the sale of a service, this is a page outlining the extent of your agreement with the customer, and conditions for termination of the service * Contact page - to inform the customer how to contact you either by mail, email, or phone; or any combination of these The first three of those will be used in any commercial web site, as they form the core pages needed for ecommerce. First, there is the sales page. These are often written to simulate a personal letter to the visitor even though you have no idea who is viewing the page. This is simply to make your visitor more receptive to your message, and is a tactic that has been used successfully in direct mail advertising for decades. Your sales letter should take on as warm a tone as possible. Identify with the visitor. Make it clear that you recognize their problem - have had the same problem, but have found an answer that they are sure to appreciate. Focus on the 'benefits' that your product/service provides rather than the 'features'. At the end of the letter, you simply ask for the order. The only link on the page is the "Order" button that takes them to the payment page. In a recent course I taught, one of my students asked the following question. "Why is the price of the product / service not listed at the top of the page? I mean, when you go to a brick and mortar store to shop and find whatever you're looking for, isn't one of the first things you look for the price? I find myself, and I think there are a lot more people like me out there, reading the headline and maybe the first paragraph on a sales page and almost immediately dragging the scroll bar down to find the price before I even consider reading the rest of the page." One of the biggest challenges we face in marketing is overcoming exactly that behavior. If the price were at the very beginning of the sales page, your visitor would rarely read the benefits of your product/service and might "click off" immediately, just because of the price. The sales page has to justify the price, and the only way to do that is to get the visitor to read the sales letter - to keep their interest and lead them from the very top of the page, through every paragraph until they get to your "call to action". That is why the strength of the Headline, the Sub-Headline, and the opening paragraph of your sales page are so important. Your Headline needs to immediately grab attention - stop the visitor dead in their tracks. The Sub-Headline needs to draw the reader in, create interest -curiosity. If at all possible, these 2 elements need to totally disarm the visitor and make them want to read more of what you have to say. Don't even try to make the sale in the first paragraph - you should still be setting the stage, still drawing them in to your message. In a grocery store, there are often separate entrance and exit doors, or traffic is directed by some other means to Aisle 1. That's because produce is always placed in the first aisle. Merchandisers long ago determined that the bright colors and fresh aromas put the shopper in a more receptive mood. I spend more time than I would like following my wife around through boutiques and see individual clothing items matched and displayed as "outfits" high on the walls. We've all been "window shopping", right? Just strolling around looking into store windows at the mannequins all dressed up in the displays? And you've seen the SUV parked precariously with one front wheel perched on a platform at the edge of the car dealer's lot. Those "brick & mortar" examples serve the same function as our sales letter. By the time you get around to looking at the price tag in the brick & mortar world, you've already been given many visual cues to put you in a frame of mind that allows you to consider the price in light of the perceived benefits. If you ever see the price before having been pre-sold, it will be because the price is the biggest perceived benefit (as in a sign that shouts, "ONLY $29.95 DURING OUR LABOR DAY SPECIAL"). In that case, prominent display of the price is the pre-sell. Of course, if you fail to captivate the visitor and get them to read your sales letter, they may very well scroll right to the bottom of the page, see the price, and leave without stopping to read the benefits of purchasing. That's why the bonuses and the guarantee are listed in such proximity to the price. That's why the value of the bonuses is stressed, and that is why the bonuses and guarantee are reiterated in the P.S. But, you might also use a variation by splitting the sales page. This is a technique where you don't show them the price, or the bonus at the bottom of the page where they expect to see it. Instead, you simply show them a link that says something like, "Order Now and Receive a Special Bonus". If they've read your entire sales page, they are interested enough that one more click is not going to dissuade them. If they scrolled to the bottom without reading your benefits, to check the price, their curiosity should compel them to click to see that price and to find out what the bonus is. When they click that link, you show them a short easy to read page that summarizes your benefits in a list of bullets, reveals the bonus offer, reiterates your guarantee and asks for the order. You have forced the visitor to see a summary of your benefits, giving you one last chance to convert the "price shopper". template - I have created a sales page template for you. This could be used as the basis for the main page in any mini-site, but you will also need one or more sales pages, regardless of the type of web site you create. The template can be viewed at: http://ad-CLiX.com/Starter/SalesTemplate.htm. You could modify that in order to use the split sales page option discussed above. If you do, you may also want to use the short secondary page at: http://ad-CliX.com/Starter/PymtTemplate.htm and you can download them along with sample graphics at: http://ad-CLiX.com/Starter/Template.zip. The payment page (normally provided by the payment processing provider) is where their personal information is entered and they commit to the purchase. Ideally, the only choice given to the visitor is the form of payment (credit card or electronic check), and you will be informed by email of the purchase. The other major page on a mini-site is the order confirmation page, where you thank them for the order, and make sure they understand how and when the product will be delivered. This page can include instructions on how to contact you should there be any problem with delivery, or it might contain the download instructions if you are delivering a digital product. You might also make a backend offer for a related product on this page, or invite your new customer to subscribe to a newsletter. Because you "trap" the visitor in the order process at the very moment they arrive at your sales page, with no external links - no means of escape, some visitors will simply leave. Don't take this personally, a 2% conversion rate is considered good - anything higher is exceptional! One extra page is needed just to salvage something from the other 98% of your visitors. This page can be shown when a visitor attempts to leave without making a purchase, and offers a subscription to your newsletter; or a free report, ebook, or ecourse. This is to collect their contact information and permission to email your "freebie" to them. And of course, your "freebie" will continue to sell your product, or some related product. The Mini-Site for Affiliates The basic Mini-Site format can also be used to promote an affiliate link - but there are differences. Instead of directing your visitor to a payment processing page, your focus will be to deliver them to the merchant's sales page, and at that point you will lose control. This is an important distinction. First, it means that you will probably be delivering the visitor to the merchant's sales page - so your sales page really needs to pre-sell! In other words don't try to close the deal, simply make a sincere recommendation - explain what benefit you received from the merchant's product, in essence providing a testimonial, and recommend your visitor get all the details at the merchant's site. And, of course, you make this very easy for them by supplying your link to the site right there at the bottom of the recommendation. The other major difference in selling an affiliate product is that you won't be collecting the contact information thru the payment page (the merchant will). You have 3 options: 1. Accept that you will never get an opportunity to market to this visitor again, and simply make your recommendation with the link to the merchant's page. By delivering cold leads (i.e. from any advertising other than your own lists), you will get only 1 shot at that visitor and must continuously place ads to get new visitors - or 2. Place a form on your sales page to collect the visitor's contact information. The caveat here is that your message is less focused. You are providing an option for your visitor, who will probably fill out the contact form, or proceed to the merchant's sales page, but not both. And you may be creating just enough indecision that the visitor does neither! You may feel that the visitor would not have proceeded, anyway - so offering the second option is a way to salvage something from the advertising effort. 3. Deliver only existing leads to your sales page (i.e. no blind advertising) With this option, you don't need to worry about collecting contact information from the visitor, because you already have it. You won't lose the contact information, and by using a link that is specifically designed for ad-tracking, you can get statistics on how productive a particular ad campaign has been (i.e. how many visitors from a particular ad resulted in how many sales), but you won't know which visitor made a purchase. I would add here that you can create 2 versions of the sales page Then you can direct visitors from ezine ads, etc. to a version with a contact form, but refer someone from your lists to a version without the contact form. That way you can employ a combination of the above options. One super-affiliate, Phil Wiley, explains how he uses mini-sites specifically for affiliate marketing in his popular book Mini-Site Profits. Content Sites Content sites are not as focused on the sale of product. They are filled with information, tips and resources to make them more "sticky" - to give your visitor as many reasons as possible to return to your site. By becoming a trusted source of quality resources, visitors will begin to look to you for recommendations and rely on your opinions for guidance in your field of expertise. You will begin to develop a relationship with your visitors, based on trust. A content site, can cover a broader topic and, therefore, logically promote a wider range of products. The promotions will more often be delivered in the context of some information content as a recommendation with the information lending credibility to the recommendation. The information can be static reports published in web pages, or articles that have been organized and archived. Of course collecting and organizing all this information takes time and effort, but you don't have to "complete" it before you begin advertising your site. Start with a very focused section of your topic, and add 2 or three pages of related information and recommendations at a time. Make your site something people will want to come back to and learn more. My primary web site at http://ad-clix.com/ would be considered a content site. The home page acts as an introduction. Then there are sections for… * Free training, * Recommended tools and resources, * Archived articles, and * 3 different services Each section has many pages of information, sprinkled with recommendations for affiliate programs, and my own products. It's worthwhile to note that I have combined the mini-site concept in select portions of this site. These "mini-sites" are really just separate folders off my root web, and are normally advertised directly just as you would a true mini-site. For an example, look briefly at headlines2go.com. Once you get to that site, look at the URL in your browser address bar. Notice that even though it has a totally different look and feel, it is still just another folder on my main web site. It could be argued that Headlines2Go should be split off as a separate mini-site. I could still link to that site from my main site, promote it from my newsletter, etc., but because my promotions all go directly to that sales page, I really haven't seen the need. But will they come? Regardless of what form your web presence takes, you will be faced with the never-ending task of getting visitors - traffic. There are many ways to accomplish this, and you will want to use many different strategies... * Search engine listing One of the first objectives set by many, is to get high rankings in the search engines, because that will result in a continuous stream of free, targeted traffic. But... it can take a lot of time and effort to master search engine techniques to achieve a high enough position, and if you fall short of your goal - that time is wasted. I suggest that you save those efforts until you have begun driving traffic through some of the quicker methods. Search engines love content, so it will be much easier to get higher rankings for a content site. If you haven't already, you should sign up for Chuck McCullough's "Website Traffic System Email Course" (it comes with a free download of his Search Engine Primer). * Banner advertising When the web was young, colorful banners elicited curiosity from a site's visitors, so they were a moderately successful way to advertise. The curiosity has now worn off - so don't expect to receive a very high rate of click-thrus from this method of advertising. You can purchase banner ad placement to have your banner shown thousands of times across a network of sites that have agreed to show banner advertising. Rather than paying for advertising that is proven to deliver so little results, you can join a free banner exchange, where you show other members' banners in exchange for them showing your banner. The oldest (and most popular) of these exchanges is at http://bannersgomlm.com/. BannersGoMLM requires their own, unique banner size, as they actually display 2 "half" banners at a time - with a small advertisement of the service appended to each banner. My own ad-CLiX Traffic Exchange also provides a multi-level banner exchange using standard-sized 468x60 banners, with no advertising of the exchange service on the banner. * Classified ads These come in many forms. Simple text ads can be placed on : * o Advertising exchanges (free) like Traffic Swarm, o FFA sites (not recommended), o Safelists (not recommended), o Newsletters (list of paid ad media), or o Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search engines. * PPC advertising In contrast to free search engine listings, the Pay Per Click search engines are one of the quickest ways to get a flow of quality, targeted traffic to your web site. While there is a cost for this, it can be minimal, and very productive. With PPC search engines, your ad can be showing in a matter of days (with Google™ AdWords it is almost immediate). You control the search terms under which your ad is shown, the maximum you are willing to pay each time someone clicks on your ad, and receive some very targeted traffic in return. Many PPC search engines have been started, but I only know of three that receive enough visitors to make the effort worthwhile. * http://overture.com/ - most expensive of the three * http://google.com/ - most popular with searchers * http://exactseek.com/ - least expensive of the three If you haven't seen it yet, you might find an article I wrote last year, "In the Trenches with Google AdWords", of some help in understanding at least one of the PPC search engines. * Web page exchanges Like banner exchanges, you can also get actual "hits" to your web pages by joining an exchange. There are start page exchanges, and exit page exchanges. Start page exchanges require you setting your browser start page to a special URL that the exchange provides. That page then rotates one of the other members' web pages to your browser each time it is opened. Likewise, other members will see your web page as one of the pages in rotation, each time they open their browser. The result is that only other members (advertisers) ever see your page. They are the only ones with any incentive to set their start page to the special URL. * Exit page exchanges require that you place a piece of script in your own web pages that will cause another member's web page to be opened in a new window when a visitor leaves your site. The big advantage of these, over the start page exchanges is that your web pages are actually shown to other members' visitors when they have finished on that member's site, rather than only the other advertisers seeing your site. Exit page exchanges may also display the exit pages as pop-ups, or as pop-unders. The ad-CLiX Traffic Exchange uses the pop-under model, because I think that they are less intrusive, and therefore less likely to offend your web site visitor. * Newsletters, ecourses Huh?? Most people tend to separate "traffic" from "follow up". But follow up is really just a way to get repeat traffic, and repeat traffic is your most productive kind of traffic. The really big companies call it Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Isn't it just like them to tag this with a fancy name, write policy documents to define their strategies, and then not execute it very well? Anyway, there is a key word in that phrase that is very important. It is RELATIONSHIP, and there are some very big reasons for establishing a relationship with your prospects and customers. First think about this from your own viewpoint. How many times have you made a purchase of a product or service the very first time you were exposed to it? Whether it takes 7 exposures to a product or service, or maybe only two, one thing is pretty certain. You won't buy on the first exposure! Doesn't it follow that your visitor won't either? Let's keep going down this path. If you receive a request that simply asks if you would like to be informed of "other, similar products or offers", do you answer "Yes"? Wouldn't you be more likely to give a positive response if someone asked you if you would like to receive a free training course, or a free newsletter on a given topic? How did you find out about this course? What made you decide to accept my invitation? Well, the word "free" probably didn't hurt. And packaging up the free course with a couple of "special reports" probably helped you make up your mind too. Am I right? By producing a regular newsletter or ezine, or writing a course delivered by email in a series of lessons, you accomplish a number of things. First, you begin to establish trust. If you freely give your visitor (now reader or student) good information - information they have asked for - and you really over-deliver, in their eyes you will become an expert, and a trusted source. Create loyalty and develop valuable lifetime customers with your own online newsletter An online newsletter is a breeze to produce. There are no printing costs, no mailing hassles, and no mailing expenses Don't underestimate the power of a free subscription newsletter! People who subscribe to your newsletter will become very loyal customers if you show them that you are honest and credible, and that you really do know what you are talking about. ... They'll not only buy what you're offering NOW, they will also buy entirely different products that you offer in the FUTURE because you will have established your credibility and developed a rapport with them. With a free newsletter, you can establish the kind of trust and rapport you need to encourage customers to buy from you again and again... PLUS, when you email your free newsletter to your subscribers -- who are a targeted group of your best potential customers -- you can… · Offer special promotional pricing to "subscribers only" · Send updates and announce new products and services · Survey customers to find out if there is anything NEW you can offer them · Offer special "subscriber only" bonuses with a purchase … whatever it takes to get them to buy! Remember the paid ads we found on Google under fly fishing? If not, go back and review Lesson 1. Those ads represent competition. Unless you have developed a truly unique product, you will have competition of some sort. By establishing a relationship with your prospects, you will set yourself apart from that competition - whether they are selling a competitive product, or they are just another affiliate of the same merchant you represent... You must be different! So besides advertising your product directly, advertise your newsletter or free ecourse. Sell them on your free course or your newsletter, first. That way your offer is unique, and you can make the sale through follow-up. By the way, did you notice that the article I sent you to earlier when we were discussing PPC advertising was months old? …and that it was published on my own web site? Archiving your newsletters is a great way to add to a Content Site over time. Every issue/article becomes a new page of content, and over time these can become your number one source of traffic. You can see an index to all past issues of my ezine at http://ad-clix.com/eZine/Archives.asp. This page is important, because it becomes a directory with links to every article (and of course, provides a way for you to "opt-in"). Each article is on its own, attractive web page; consistently formatted in the same style; with an opt-in form, links to other important portions of my site, appropriate meta-tags for the search engines, and a link back to the archives so readers can easily find my other articles. In short, the content of every issue of my ezine is integral to my entire site. Direct Response Marketing Direct Response Marketing fits the Mini-Site concept very well, as the Direct Response model is basically * One ad * One call to action * One response But… Direct Response Marketing should be employed with a Content site as well, because it is such a powerful, focused method. Let's face it, unless you have a message, a call to action, and a way for your prospect to respond - nothing happens. Your web site will just sit there and (maybe) receive some very passive traffic. Direct Response Marketing is your way to "fetch" traffic, rather than passively waiting for web surfers to find your site in a search engine. Your newsletter or ecourse is a mechanism to 1) establish a positive relationship with your visitors, and 2) to actively take your sales message to them. You can manage this using your standard email program, but it is a lot of work keeping up with "subscribes" and "un-subscribes", hand-crafting and sending the same mailing to thousands of people at the same time, keeping backups of your mailing lists, etc. I know. I did exactly that for a very long time. It was barely manageable up until I hit about 300 subscribers. After that, it was hopeless. I still kick myself for waiting so long to implement an... Auto-responder One of the most useful automation tools for internet based businesses, auto-responders provide the means to follow up with an unlimited number of prospects and customers. The ability to maintain a list of recipients, and to schedule the delivery of each message in a series, or to broadcast a personalized email to thousands of recipients at once, makes auto-responders ideal for delivering newsletters or training materials by email, or a series of progressive sales follow-ups to anyone who has expressed an interest in your product or service. You can run your auto-responders from your own web site by purchasing an auto-responder system to install on your own web server, but this means that you or your web hosting company will have to take on the administrative chores of creating a backup of your lists, messages, and delivery schedule on a regular basis (recommend daily). And then there's the potential that a spamming complaint will not only shut down your auto-responder, but get your web hosting account deleted, as well. You could find yourself with no online business, whatsoever! Here are some of the best known companies that offer auto-responder software for installation on your own web host. Mailloop Add2It You can also pay a monthly fee to have a 3rd party service store your lists and auto-responder messages, and deliver those messages for you. While it is still probably a good idea to backup your lists yourself on a weekly basis, the services will do most of the administrative chores associated with maintaining this database. Here are some services that will give you a free account with a single list, and provide multiple auto-responder lists for a monthly fee. Royal Responder (this is the one I use) Aweber Get Response Rapid Reply * Note - I am also investigating Corey Rudl's My Email Manager for my own use, because he offers unlimited auto-responders and many more advanced features. His guarantee is solid, but he doesn't offer a free option. Well, this has been a long lesson - but hopefully, one that will spawn some new ideas for you about how to be successful in your online business. Refer back to this lesson as you complete your assignment for this week, and I'm sure you will find it to have been worthwhile... Your "To-Do" List First order of business is to decide if you want to create a single Content Site (stickiness, search engine friendly), or if you want to create one or more Mini-sites (focus, hard-hitting sales letter) to market your chosen product or services. Then you need to explore each of the marketing strategies. We'll cover the various promotion methods in much more detail in Lesson 5, but in the meantime be thinking about what we've covered so far so that you will be able to begin using your chosen methods as soon as your web site is ready. I think I made it clear that your best choice for quick, targeted traffic is the PPC search engines, and it's obvious that I prefer establishing a long-term relationship with my prospects for building a lasting business (in fact, I think it is critical to your success). Take inventory of the tools you already have and use. If you are missing some tools, begin researching the resources I provided to find your tools of choice. In the next lesson, we'll discuss choosing your domain name, and a web hosting service. If you are going to be selling your own product, you'll also need to be able to collect payments, so we'll explore some of the best options available for doing that, as well. Until then… All the best, --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ||{1}|| - Resources to find the best home business ideas and opportunities, that will allow you to start making money from your own home.