Archive for June, 2011

postheadericon An Internet Marketing Seed

Dear Fellow Internet Marketer,

It is vital to create a product that will allow you to eventually expand into other markets. The goal is for the people who initiallly buy your product to also buy your next products. Since you have proven that you can be trusted by delivering a product to your clients they love it should be much easier to obtain their business when your new item hits the online marketplace. We need to understand a seed is truly important indeed. You need to see your first product as that seed.

You see this is about creating an Internet marketing kingdom, a virtual empire of products that all start with one tiny seed that is planted in the fertile soil of those hearts that are eager for your particular product. For example, I am in the process of creating a set of onlline videos where I teach students the various techniques needed to speak English. My area of expertise lies in the field of ESL(English as a second language) of which I have been blessed to have over 10 years of experience teaching to adult learners. My target market would be foreign adults who wish to learn English via video. I realize though that if I wish to branch out and sell different yet similar products later I will have to pick a product that these learners would also enjoy. This led me to recall the great end of the semester food parties in the classes that I taught where both myself and my students brought in dishes from other countries that many enjoyed. Now I know that my second product launched will be an esl cookbook with recipes submitted from actual students. The cookbook will be sold to other esl students online. Branching out even further, a cooking forum would be established as well as an online cooking class with graduates of my esl video courses eventually teaching the course. It is amazing to see how all this began from the planting of one little seed. The online esl videos seed grew to become a cookbook, an online cooking school and a cooking forum. As we all know marketing is a numbers game and the bigger number of people you have on your marketing list the better your chance of survival and dominance.

Think about your online marketing seed before you plant it. You want to plant something that will grow into something huge. When you look into the jungle you see an incredible array of trees. That is what you should want your seed to turn into. The trees in your Internet jungle will be represented by the vast amount of names on your email list who want your first and additional products. The product you create should also appeal to as many people as possible. I know those who may not be interested in esl may be interested in cooking and vice versa. I could use the cooking bait to reel in the esl fish and use the esl bait to reel in those who love cooking. When your Internet marketing seed is sown you will reap the harvest of personal freedom. This translates into having the freedom to spend time doing what is really important. Even though I am blessed to be doing well working from my home right now, my goal is to create an online marketing kingdom. God is of course the king, I am the king, my wife is the queen and my daughter is the princess. I plan to give my little girl the choice to attend college or as the princess of the family become the boss while the queen and I enjoy our travels. It all starts with that tiny Internet marketing seed. The Bible talks about having the faith of a mustard seed and what can happen if we have just a bit of faith. We have to have dreams, big dreams and seeing those dreams become realities is quite inspirational and shows that this Internet marketing thing is real. No one in your circle of naysayers can argue with your results unless they choose to be up against the truth of your success.

Much Continued Success,

postheadericon 5 Steps to a Successful Adwords Campaign

1. Find A Product
2. Keyword Research
3. Ad Copy
4. Bidding Strategies
5. Tracking & Testing

Let’s explore these steps in detail below:

1.) Find a Product:

If you don’t have your own product a fast way to get started is to join an affiliate network such as cj.com, clickbank.com or linkshare.com. There are thousands of great products at these networks. They are easy and free to join. You don’t need a website to start however it is a good idea to invest in a website once you find a lucrative market. You can also join thousands of companies who run their affiliate programs in-house. To find these companies type in a product you would like to advertise and follow it with affiliate program. E.g. “guitar lessons affiliate program”.

2.) Keyword Research:

Brain storm search terms that people would use to find your market. Use general and specific keywords. General keyword e.g. “guitar lessons” “learn the guitar”. Specific keyword e.g. “guitar made easy” “ebook guitar lessons”. Check your competitors’ website source code and look at their meta tags to see what keywords they are using. Use keyword tools like Word tracker, Overture’s free tool and Google’s free tool. These will help you uncover hundreds or even thousands of keyword phrases and combinations.

3.) Ad Copy:

Writing good ad copy is crucial for getting visitors from Adwords. Focus on the benefits of the product you are selling and use the keyword in the title of your ad. If a web surfer typed the keyword “guitar made easy” you could write an ad like this:

Guitar Made Easy
Learn Insider Techniques to
Master the Guitar Fast.

http://www.your-guitar-store.com

The keyword is in the title and the benefits are in the ad body.

4.) Bidding Strategies:

If you have a small budget keep your bids low between 10 and 25 cents per click. Bid on as many keywords as you can. Don’t get into bidding wars with your competitor for 1st place or any ranking. Figure out what a visitor is worth to you. If you have 4 sales for every 100 visitors and you make $20 per sale, a visitor would be worth $0.80.

This is how I calculate the visitors worth: 4 sales x $20 / 100 visitors. Once you know what a visitor is worth you will know how much your maximum bid should be. To obtain a healthy ROI never bid more than half of what a visitor is worth on a search term. Using our example above a visitor is worth $0.80 so you would keep bids below $0.40 because you want to try to make a 200% ROI.

5.) Testing And Tracking

Experiment with your ads. Split test 2 ads in your Adwords account. Keep the ad that performs the best and edit or rewrite the loser and split test again. Look at your Adwords stats to make note of the best performing ads. This will teach you what types of ads work best for your market. Test variations of your landing page. Modify your page and track your results. You should constantly be testing and tracking your website content and your ads.

Google has a conversion tool to help track specific goals like your ROI and your click thru rate to your website links. Google has an excellent tool called Google Analytics that tracks traffic,goals, ROI, keywords and much more. It is the best free tracking tool I have ever worked with.

postheadericon 6 Eye Grabbing Subject Lines

Your subject lines plays a crucial role in any email campaign ads whether you’re using safelists, autoresponders, ezine solo ads or any opt-in list where email is involved. Your subject line will make or break your return on your investment so make sure you get their attention first.

Here are six headlines that have worked for me in the past which I’m sure will work for you too. The technology will always change but peoples desire to succeed and curiousity will not.

1. Promote Your URL Here – Free!

For whatever reasons, I’ve had so much success using this subject line when promoting free classified sites, safelists, and those viral ad boards.

2. Hi, My name is Paul

This works simply because it raises prospects curiosity. I’m always a sucker for this subject line. Who’s this Paul anyway? I’ve had succeess with this using ezine solo ads.

3. I need your help, please?

There’s something about being a human, always wanting to help another human being, It’s hard to explain, it just works.

4. Bob, I haven’t received your shipping address yet.

What! my shipping address? why do you need my shipping address for. This particular subject line really piqued my interest. If you are sending post cards to your members or prospects, this will improve your sales especially if you personalize it.

5. How my site got listed #1 on Google, for free!

This one made several sales from Trafficswarm traffic exchange program when I was promoting an affiliate program about search engine e-book. Even made more sales with ezine solo ads using the same subject line.

6. Paul, Please accept my sincerest apology.

When I saw this subject line from an email, my first reaction was, “who/why/what are you sorry about?…huh?” Exactly it got my attention and my curiosity. The sender was apologizing for not sending that email sooner which was about a new traffic exchange program. Good grief.

In conclusion, make your subject line so compelling that it’s almost irresistible for your prospects not to open the email message. If you can hypnotize your readers with cleaver subject lines, you are half way to making a sale. Also when people can recognize where that email message came from, that will help getting your email message open as well. Don’t use fake names, use your real name instead.

Of course, I am not recommending that you use any of these headlines if they are not true in relation to the content of the e-mail message. If you rely on deception in e-mail marketing, all you will do is tarnish your reputation
and your credibility.