It’s the paradox of the internet marketing industry.
Thousands of people want to quit their day-jobs using internet marketing… But they end up working twice as hard, trying to get one business running profitably while they’re still stuck in their usual daily grind.
Don’t get fooled by the get-rich-quick hype - internet marketing is hard work.
It’s like any type of success… What you reap is only relative to what you sow.
My most successful clients are at it relentlessly. Most of the more successful ones worked on their online businesses for years before they started to reap any significant returns.
One former mentor used to have a saying about achieving success: “You have to pay the price daily.”
Unfortunately, most internet marketers will give up after a month, 6 months, 12 months - in what Seth Godin calls “The Dip” - the steepest uphill climb before things start to get easy.
The good news is, if you can make it past this point, you start to experience real leverage.
That’s when things start to snowball.
One project I worked on, it took us over 3 years to build a database of around 7,000 people…
And then just 3 months to quadruple that database (that’s x4) from 7,000 to 28,000 people!
How?
The revenue those 7,000 people generated for the business “funded” the writing and publication of a book.
7,000 people bought the book, turning it into a bestseller.
The bestseller gained the attention of the media, with nationwide prime time T.V. coverage.
The nationwide T.V. coverage helped to sell tens-of-thousands of copies of the book (eventually over 100,000) - which promoted the website, which grew in membership from 7,000 to 28,000 in a matter of months!
This leverage is constant with other internet marketing models too.
Like if you’re building an online business reliant on outsourcing.
It takes time to build the systems around outsourcing - to develop systems for providers to follow, manage those providers while they seem to screw every task up (as they will invariably do at the start) and while you refine the processes until they “work”, develop methods of testing and measuring processes, and doing it all until it becomes a profitable and largely passive business system.
That’s when you get leverage.
Suddenly the system pays for itself - and the more often you repeat the system, the more profit you make.
That’s when things start to snowball.
It’s a hard slog getting to this point (I know - I’m working on this myself right now)
But there are a couple of steps I’m taking to make things easier:
#1 Begin with an End in Mind:
How can you ever get to where you’re going if you don’t know where it is?
I know what I want to achieve. I just have to (consistently) walk the best path I’ve found to get there. If I didn’t, I’d end up going in circles.
So how do you stay to the path?
#2 Keep a Single List of Things To Do:
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!
Yeah, corny joke.. but you’re never going to achieve success overnight (if it was that easy, it wouldn’t be called “success” - it would be called “mediocrity”).
I’m constantly working through lists of tasks to get things done in order, maintain focus, and so that I don’t get overwhelmed at the elephant on my plate.
#3 Use Leverage to achieve Leverage Faster:
Where I don’t have to reinvent the wheel, I don’t.
Several processes I want in my business have already been refined and developed - by people like James Brausch. When they become available, I buy them and add them to my systems.
My charge out rate is $99 per hour in my day-job… I take home a large percentage of that (after tax and management). It costs me $35 to buy the processes… And it takes much longer than 20 minutes for me to create a process myself (depending on the process, more like 3 hours - before the process is tested)…
You do the math!
#4 Celebrate the Little Wins:
Forget about the million-dollar launches of the gurus…
You’re not a guru - and neither am I.
There’s no point pretending like we are - it just make achieving success harder for us.
Celebrate the $100 revenue targets to begin with - and graduate to $1,000, $10,000, then $100,000 targets.
I don’t have 100’s of new subscribers per day - but you can bet your bottom dollar I’m celebrating the fact I’ve received 26 new subscribers since Sunday as a result of my videos!
Melbourne internet marketing guru Ed Dale has mentioned this recently in the lead-up to his 30-Day Challenge. Paraphrasing him, he also said “forget about the million dollar launches - when you don’t get it, you’ll only end up discouraged when you shouldn’t be”.
Keep in mind that Ed took *dozens* of tries [37?] to get his first niche site running profitably.
That’s some serious dogged determination!
Which brings me to my final point…
#5 Pay the Price - Every Day:
Success isn’t about the million-dollar salesletter, or the 26% Conversion Rate you’re getting… (Yeah, I know… I use them in my own marketing because they *sell* well - it’s because this is what everyone focusses on!)
Success means getting up every day and doing what it takes to move closer to your goal.
Success means doing the hard things - working the late nights, having the tough talks, and facing the hard truths.
Success means losing 36 times… and still choosing to brush yourself, get over the failure, focussing on the success, and getting back on that bike for another try - even when it still hurts.
(Why is it that kids can do this, and we can’t?)
I’m not where I want to be yet… And I’m not going to say I’ll make it.
But I’m paying the price, chewing that elephant, and celebrating each mouthful.
Did you miss out on the password for today’s copywriting videos?
Sorry…
Unfortunately, you’ve missed your opportunity for this one…
But it’s not too late to sign up to receive the next video. Here’s how to get the password for the next video:
Look up in the top right hand corner of this page for box asking for your name and email address.
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Enter your name and email address in the boxes provided…
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Go to your email box, and look for a confirmation email from me. Follow the directions to confirm your membership, and bingo! You’re in!
The next time I submit a protected blog post, you will receive a brief email from me with the password to access it.
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I promised I’d video and share the copywriting system I use to write successful salesletters (including one that sold $570,000+ in under 24 hours) - and let you watch while I write - but only if I had 20 people respond to my offer and comment on my post.
Well, more than 20 people commented - and with almost 48 hours to spare. So it’s time to make good on my promise.
Important: If you want the full copywriting procedure, you’ll need to subscribe to my blog via email by filling out the box in the top right hand corner of this page.
Some of the information will be password protected (I’m giving away my copywriting secrets, and I don’t want *everyone* to have them), so this will let me restrict access.
Right now I’m pulling together all of the information for the videos - and frankly even I’m excited about some of the copywriting tricks I’ll be sharing.
It’s something few copywriters actually give you - the “how to”.
Over the coming weeks, I’ll be going through each individual step I go through, explaining all the “why’s”, providing examples, and giving you all the and giving all of the “how-to” information you need in order to duplicate my process exactly.
Don’t think for a moment that I’ll be skimping on detail either - just because the videos are free.
Right now I’m training a new copywriter in my office (Mark) and I’ll be giving him these videos to work through while he’s getting started, so I plan on including all of my trade secrets.
A lot of this stuff you won’t find anywhere else… because it only comes from actually being a copywriter, and testing, and working hard, and… (the hardest one) learning from copywriting failures…
Sweeten Your Offers, Then Add a Cherry On Top - How to create truly irresistable offers that no red-blooded person can say “no” to;
The difference between a good salesletter, and a great salesletter - this one step will boost your results practically overnight;
5 Templates for Power Bullets - How to stockpile ammunition for a salesletter that will blow them away!;
Exactly what you need to do to prepare before you put pen to paper on your salesletter;
The Copywriting Tools and Software I use to write salesletters, boost my productivity as a copywriter, and maintain focus;
Collecting Facts Like an Obsessive Compulsive Squirrel on Crack Collects Nuts - how to do it, and why not doing it slaughter the sales of your salesletters;
Turning features into benefits - How to Get Potential Buyers Practically Salivating Over Your Product;
The Targeting Paradox: How to write to fewer people, but sell more - the *real* way to target a market;
The 7 Brainwashing Tools for Salesletters - getting customers to “automatically” make buying decisions with these hypnotic techniques;
Forget about keeping a huge Swipe File! There’s only 3 “must have” things you should copy from other successful sales letters;
The 4 Sales Copy Formats Used By Practically Every Great Salesletter - use one of these, and you’ll write like the pro’s;
The Influence Technique Robert Cialdini Forgot: How you can “play this wildcard” in price justifications to make any offer seem reasonable;
Putting it all together - the only one-in-all salesletter template you’ll ever need to know;
Get Testimonials That Sell - the exact techniques I use to consistently get loads of high-quality, convincing, real testimonials;
How to Write “Naked” Headlines that are better than the crud you’d get from most overpaid schmuck pro copywriters;
And, in case that wasn’t enough, much-much-more will be added as-I-go…
If this type of information was in a copywriting product, you could legitimately expect to pay somewhere between $500-$2,000 to access this information (depending on who it was sold by).
I’m going to give away everything for free.
So what’s the catch?
No catch… You’ll just need to subscribe to my blog via email if you want the password.
(The sign-up box is up in the top right hand corner of this page.)
Brent
P.S. - Even if you’ve “heard it all before” when it comes to copywriting, I guarantee there’ll be stuff you’ll discover for the first time in these videos.
P.P.S. - If you know someone who might benefit from this, hit the “Email This Post” button at the top of this page so that they don’t miss out on the first videos when they are released.
Just a quick note: I’ve moved over to Aweber to manage my blog email subscriptions.
For those of you who haven’t confirmed your subscription in the past 14 days, you’ll be imported into Aweber and asked to confirm your subscription again.
Brent
P.S. - If you haven’t subscribed via email, make sure you do.
I will be posting some password protected content in the coming weeks, and the only way to get the password is to be an email subscriber.
Do you know how irrelevant some of your Google Adwords traffic is?
For the past few days I’ve been using Tracked.to to trawl through thousands of my Google Adwords keywords.
I’ve been looking at the keywords I’ve received clicks for, and comparing them to the exact searches people used to find my ads.
You’d think the keywords I was targeting, and the searches people made, would be roughly the same - right?
Maybe you’d pick up more long-tail stuff in the data?
WRONG!
There are often HUGE differences between the two.
And I feel like a huge chump…
Google promised me quality clicks, and I’m getting some real duds…
The thing is, unless you had data like this, you’d never know what Google is making you pay for…
Good Long Tail Keyword Matching:
Sure, I have legitimate long-tail examples like these:
Great examples of long-tail keywords, and high-quality matching…
Bad Long Tail Keyword Matching:
And some not-so-great long-tail examples too…
Not really relevant to a web design and freelance programming company… But you can easily avoid these with some good negative keywords.
Horrible Broad-Matching:
But you also have examples that show you how “Broad” Broad Match can be - like these:
You’d assume kitchens, bathroom showrooms and graphic design are vastly different things, right?
Worst Semantic Matching Ever!…
And then… I don’t know HOW to describe THESE:
uhh… okay?
How does someone searching for “baby cooking full muha” possibly find an ad targeted to the keyword “website styles”…
(No, it’s not Content Network… These are from the search network only…)
Any ideas?
It goes without saying - targeting like this is nothing short of &%$#! [read: very bad]
Yes, it’s funny seeing the weird and wonderful keywords Google matches your ads to… until you realize you’re paying for clicks like these.
And here’s the kicker…
Not only are you paying for these clicks - but because these visitors are hitting the back button as soon as they realise your site isn’t what they want - your quality score goes up, and you end up paying more per click!
What a scam!
This is the so-called “quality targeting” you’re paying for with Google Adwords…
Then again…. unless you saw the raw data for yourself, you’d never know what you were paying for…
Brent *feeling livid*
P.S. - The tool I’m using to do this is Tracked.to. It’s a Google Adwords Tracking tool I co-own that tracks your Adwords clicks. It shows you the search term someone typed into Google when they found your ad, and the keyword Google figured your ad related to (just like you see above).
If you’re interested in finding out more, or getting free access Tracked.to to use on your own Google Adwords account, click here.
Long story short, I’m looking for beta testers who want to use the system for free - to help me get some more real-life case studies like these.
(Note: You MUST use Google Adwords to qualify for the Closed Beta)
Had a coffee (er, late-night chamomile tea) with Alister Cameron over the long weekend here in Melbourne.
He’s working on a great tool code-named “Vanilla” - something that can best be described as a theme engine for Wordpress.
It allows the creation of Wordpress themes with incredible levels of customisation - without needing to be a PHP programmer.
He gave me a sneak peek behind the scenes. I don’t want to give away too much (some of these developments are still “top secret”), so here’s a taste:
Even though these features are still-to-be-announced, already it’s so simple yet powerful that some people in the Wordpress theme community are talking it up as the next evolution of WordPress themes:
…Vanilla is going in the direction of becoming a new standard [for Wordpress Themes]…
If you’re a graphic designer or theme designer for Wordpress themes, I highly recommend you get onto his Limited Alpha release while he’s still accepting new applicants:
I will be implementing some of those techniques soon in my own business. Thanks Brent for the excellent post!”
In terms of being a top referrer this month - he’s doing great! He’s currently sitting at #2.
But will he make it to the #1 spot?…
Yesterday, my Top 3 traffic sources looked like this:
James Brausch is #2 - but with around half the referrers of StumbleUpon (at #1).
Today my Top 3 traffic sources look like this:
StumbleUpon gave me 226 new visitors today, James Brausch gave me 39.
Unfortunately for James Brausch, it looks like StumbleUpon is pulling away… and increasing its lead.
…as he says, I’ll have to write some more articles for him to promote.
Brent
P.S. - I bought James Brausch’s updated StumbleUpon process in a 24-hour special. I’m looking forward to receiving it so that I can see how it compares to my own StumbleUpon procedure. Will it deliver 100 new visitors per day to my site (on average) - like my current process does? I’ll have to wait and see… (The parcel is still on its voyage to me here in Australia.)
P.P.S. - If you’re interested… The major factor holding my site back in StumbleUpon right now is frequency of good content. If I was writing more, there would be more content to promote in StumbleUpon, and I’d receive more visitors. But, there are only so many hours in each day. That’s why I’ve begun outsourcing some of my blog content development.
Everyone knows testimonials give your marketing a “social proof kick” which boosts sales.
That’s because if you say how good you are, it’s just bragging… But if someone else says it for you, it must be true!
The problem with getting good testimonials is how do you:
Get other people to say how good you are in a way that sells well;
With as little effort as possible?
So how do you attract really powerful testimonials, without investing a huge amount of effort?
Here are some techniques that I’ve use to get thousands of really powerful testimonials for my clients, with practically no effort.
Testimonial Tip #1 – Ask for Feedback, Not Testimonials
The easiest way to get testimonials is to ask for feedback.
(People feel more comfortable giving feedback than providing a testimonial - and they’re practically the same thing anyway.)
The two best times to ask people for their feedback is when they’re most committed to their decision - at the point of sale, and at the point of delivery.
Robert Cialdini speaks about this in his book Influence: The Power of Persuasion.
If you have the book, read the chapter on Commitment and Consistency. There’s a story there about a study conducted on people placing bets at the track.
People were interviewed about their chances or winning - both immediately before, and immediately after placing a bet. What the researches found was immediately after they committed to their decision (i.e. - placed their bet), people were more confident in their chances of winning - even though nothing about the race itself had changed.
Use this piece of psychological ju-jitsu to your advantage!
Ask customers for their feedback on their previous purchase (after they have made a repeat sale), or when they are taking delivery of their product.
This is when customers are most committed to their decision, and it’s the easiest way to “glowing” testimonials.
If you run seminars, the best time to ask customers for their feedback is at the end of the day, while they’re still “taking delivery” and buzzing full of new ideas.
By all means follow customers up days, weeks or months later for testimonials - but if you’re not striking while you’re at the forefront of the customer’s mind, chances are they will have moved on and forgotten about your product, or forgotten how good it felt when they purchased from you.
Testimonial Tip #2 - It’s Not Just WHAT You Ask, But HOW You Ask It…
If you’re soliciting testimonials (er, feedback), how you phrase your questions will affect what people tell you.
Asking for the person’s name and contact details are a given - you should always do that. And in some cases, having additional information about the customer’s background is testimonial gold (their occupation, what they were doing before they found your “magical” product, etc.)
But whenever I ask for feedback for testimonials, I ask three specific questions…
These questions “train” the customer to start thinking in a way which will give you great testimonials.
I always put them on my feedback forms because they’ve been so successful eliciting great testimonials in the past.
Brent’s 3 “Feedback” Questions For Getting Killer Testimonials:
“How, specifically, did [the product] change the way you [achieve the benefit the product provides / do whatever the product does] previously?”
“What would you say to a friend who was thinking of investing in [this product] - but wasn’t sure?”
“If you feel it is warranted, feel free to leave us a testimonial in the box below:”
Each question asks essentially the same thing - but it does it from a different angle, and targets a different testimonial “style” - the Before and After story testimonial, the buying advice from a friend with no vested interest testimonial, and the glowing feedback testimonial.
This gives you three chances at hitting the killer testimonial jackpot.
In most cases, you’ll end up with something that you can work with (or rework - but I’ll go into this a little later).
When you’re reading through these feedback forms, look for testimonials which stand out.
The best testimonials are precise and exact and clearly relate the benefit that the customer received in purchasing your product or service. Or, they should read like a tabloid headline - full of intrigue, scandal or human triumph.
Remember John Carlton’s formula for a testimonial - it should be “specific, short, spicy”.
Testimonial Tip #3 - Ask Permission
This is one instance where I disagree with the saying: “ask forgiveness, not permission”. It’s so easy to do, it will save you so much trouble, and it will avoid “burning” an otherwise happy customer.
When you do receive good feedback or testimonials, make sure you have permission to use that feedback on marketing materials.
If you don’t, it’s only a matter of time until you get a phone call from a shocked customer, complaining that you’re leveraging on their good name to make money.
I’ve never had a customer say “no” when I’ve asked them if I could use their comments in marketing materials - but I’ve had several call and complain when I haven’t asked permission.
Fortunately, they were testimonials which were published online. If they had have been printed, we might have had to pay to reprint our marketing materials.
(I’ve included the email I used to use to ask for permission to use feedback from seminars as testimonials below. This email worked a treat!)
Testimonial Tip #4 - Don’t Be Afraid to Rewrite!
If you’re collecting testimonials offline (particularly with handwritten feedback forms), chances are your customers won’t remember exactly what they said on the feedback form they handed in.
So if you see an opportunity to add a bit of “spice” to the testimonial, rework the testimonial before asking the customer’s permission to attribute the reworked testimonial to them.
Hi {Name},
I was going through the feedback from last weekend’s event, and I came across your feedback form!
Your feedback was so great that I’d like to use what you said as a testimonial on our website - would you mind if I did this?
Here’s how I’d like to quote you:
—
{Place their testimonial here}
{Name}
{Town, State, Country / Website / Title of significance}
–
(Feel free to edit this if there’s something in there you don’t like)
Of course, at any stage if you wanted to “withdraw” this testimonial, just let us know and we’ll take it off all of our marketing materials, with the exception of printed materials (such as brochures - we’d need to wait until the next printing run to do this.)
Anyway, let me know if it’s OK to use this in our marketing materials.
Thanks again for your great feedback - I’m glad you got a lot out of the event!
Brent
Note: Make sure you keep the bit which says “Feel free to edit this..”. Fewer people will want to change their words if you say this. Go figure. I guess you’re putting them at ease.
Testimonial Tip #5 - Sow Back After You Harvest!
Finally… It’s handy to have a few “freebies”, little free giveaways, on hand to give away as thank-you’s for testimonials.
You don’t have to tell people they’re going to receive it when you ask them for their testimonial (usually they’ll say yes anyway) but it helps to feed goodwill back into some of your most valuable customers.
When I was a young (er, younger) marketer promoting real estate courses (often worth thousands of dollars), when someone gave me an unsolicited testimonial or some nice feedback, I’d post them a $20 audio CD on real estate investment.
They’d open up their letterbox a few days later, and be so surprised and euphoric that call me immediately, and give me yet another glowing review - this time even better than the first.
Invariably I’d see these people at seminars months later, and they’d introduce me to the friends that they’d brought along.
I can’t say with any certainty that one little $20 gift lead to two $500-$10,000 sales months later - but it did feed enough goodwill back into some of our most valuable customers that they wanted to come back again, and bring their friends too!
—
Of course, you’ll still need to do the “little 1%’ers” if you want to get positive testimonials from customers.
But if you’re delivering results, these tips will help to get the word out about your great work.
