Will you like to develop some marketing ESP?

ESP as in extra-sensory perception, or otherwise known as sixth-sense.

If you have that power to know what your prospects and your customers are thinking – and use that knowledge to your advantage – will you want it?

I hear you saying yes…

Alright. Let me reveal to you the dark secret.

The secret to knowing what your customer want is to….

Ask Them!

Yes. It’s that easy. Ask them for their feedback!

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”

You want to eat that kind of breakfast.

Getting the feedback of people that matters most to you allows you to

- Find out their needs

- Discover their wants

- Uncover their desires

- Locate their problems

- Finding a solution for their problems

- Add value to them

Sometimes people may say….”Nah…many will not give me a feedback!”

Well…if you don’t ask…how will you know?

And if you are in the selling business, this “intelligence” is invaluable.

Imagine…if you want to launch a product, you can get feedback to find out if your prospects/customers really want the information that you want to cover.

Without any feedbacks, you could be spending time on content you audience may not even want. And you even think you are heading on to a blockbuster when in fact it may be a potential disaster.

Feedbacks Will Save You a Lot of Time And Money.

Here’s another example to illustrate this point.

Ever wonder why some people don’t buy…?

Quite frankly, there could be any number of reasons…

• Your sales letter didn’t explain the benefits well enough,
• Your visitor got bored before reading it all,
• Your product wasn’t quite what they were looking for,
• Your product was more than they could afford,

… and so on – in other words, there could be a whole bunch of reasons why they end up not buying from you…

… and when they’re not buying or subscribing, any money you spent on advertising is effectively lost, and you’ve lost valuable sales and profits which you could have used to grow your business.

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Or putting this into a different perspective: when you know what your visitors are thinking, you can use that knowledge to make changes to your site to massively boost your sales and subscriptions.

Does that make sense to you?

Now the only problem is most people wants to stay anonymous if they are to leave their feedbacks. They don’t want to put down their email address. Or that they may be lazy or just simply not trust you enough.

So you could be thinking how then…right?

Fortunately, there is a solution…

Paul Hancox, a brilliant marketer came out with a powerful script that automatically helps you to gather feedbacks. And do more…

It’s called the “Feedback Seeker”. Go here to check it out.

It explains the power of feedback better than I do. And it’s so much more than just a “contact us” form, if that’s what you are thinking.

Why am I recommending it? First…go there to read the sales letter, and you will know what I mean.

And secondly, I’m using it! And it works great! I’ve been getting quite a few interesting comments and feedbacks.

Now if you look at the top of this page…and at the portion just before the “Comment” section, you will see 2 feedback forms.

You know what do do right? =)

As usual, let me know what you think by leaving a comment below…

And don’t forget the feedbacks too!

All success,

Jag Foo

[tags]E-MoneyMarketing, Feedbacks, breakfast of champions[/tags]

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I’ve always been an advocate of testing and experimenting in marketing.

Often we don’t know what works. Or we think we know what works…but actually don’t.

I’ve done plenty of split tastings before on sales pages, landing pages and email campaigns, and the results have sometimes differ from what I thought was correct.

From there, it just underlines further to me the importance of testings in marketing and conversions. It’s NOT about what we think. But what the buyers think!

Now…when it comes to testing and optimizing, very few can match up to the folks at Marketing Experiments.

I’m a big fan of their marketing content.

Just recently, they came out with a big list of marketing tools, chockfull of guides, PDFs reports and worksheets.

They are FREE and extremely useful. If you are a marketer or a student of marketing, download them.

I’ve put them together here for your easy reference and download.

Free Tools from MarketingExperiments

1. Value Proposition Worksheet
One of our most downloaded resources, this worksheet will help you evaluate and present your value proposition more effectively.

2. Compounding Effect Spreadsheet
This tool measures the (usually large) impact of incremental increases in conversion through testing.

3. Price Testing Analysis
Created to help marketers accurately analyze the overall results of price tests.

4. Subscription Site Metrics Tool
Allows subscription sites to determine the profitability of their own PPC campaigns.

5. Max Bid Analysis Spreadsheet
This is a tool that can help marketers calculate the maximum bid they could make in a PPC campaign and still remain at a specific profitability margin.

6. Customer Service Analysis Tool
This tool is designed to help companies see and calculate the possible profit that can come from inbound costumer service calls.

7. A/B Testing Template Doc
A basic template that guides marketers though the A/B split testing process.

8. Content Analysis Template
Helps you systematically calculate the attractiveness and value of your website’s content.

9. Competitive Analysis Spreadsheet
Walks you through a thorough competitive analysis (also valuable for identifying potential partners).

10. Comparison Engine Features
A table our analysts put together with marketing insights drawn from their experiences with the comparison engines.

11. Data Sample Statistics
Explains how to determine the statistical validity of a test. This document also introduces the test validation section of the Test Protocol tool we offer to our live workshop and certification students.

12. Metrics Dashboard Tool
This dashboard helps marketers monitor the essential metrics that they need to track when testing online.

13. Optimization Scenario Tool
Want to compare key metrics and results between different landing page optimization scenarios? Try this tool.

14. Pay-Per-Click Analysis Tool
One of the spreadsheets our analysts use to examine the differences in performance between multiple PPC campaigns.

You can download from the link individually.

Alternatively, if you want convenience, I’ve saved all these tools into a single zipped folder. You can go to your FREE E-MoneyMarketing membership to download it.

And of course, you also get tons of other free marketing and business guides inside. So if you are not a member yet, please sign up now.

Let me know what you think of this GREAT marketing resource kit that Marketing Experiments has put out.

I know for sure I love it. And I’ll be using it. What about you?

All success,

Jag Foo

[tags]E-MoneyMarketing, Marketing Toolkit,  marketing testing, optimzing, tweaking[/tags]

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If you are doing sales, you have to constantly think on how to maximize your effort.

And how you can create leverage on your sales process and get back exponential results…

To bring this further, let’s look take a leaf out of the most sought after marketer today.

Jay Abraham says there are only 3 ways to grow your business. Only 3.

• Grow your no. of customers
• Increase the frequency of your sales transactions
• Increase the value of your sales transaction

Now that can give a lot of insights on how you can optimize your sales process. And getting as much out of the initial sales transactions.

There are several stages in a sales process. Let’s examine them from start to finish…

Pre-Sales

Move the free line. Give something of value away for free. Not just any free things you can think of. That will serve as a no-risk bait for your prospect to commit to you.

For example, if you are selling a trading system, you may want to give a free booklet on trading strategies. Something related, and packed with good value.

Get them to opt in to receive their freebie.

Follow up

Email them. Follow up with them with more valuable information. And pre-sell your product. Tell them how your product can help them or their business.

Give real examples. Give specific case studies. Focus on the ROI. Educate and empower them…

All these while…always follow up, follow up, follow up…

Sales Page

Write a compelling sales copy for your product. Highlight your prospect’s problems. And aggravate it. Make them feel the pain.

Provide them the solution that your product is supposed to give. Sweeten the deal by piling on the bonuses. Do a risk reversal by giving them a free trial or money back guarantee.

That’s copywriting 101.

That said, you can also look to incorporate an up-sell element on the sales page itself.

Take a look at Amazon.com. They have subtle up-selling components such as:

“Best Value” - Buy 2 books at 20% discount…

“Customer who have bought this item have also bought this”         

- Cross-selling related products

“Special offers & promotions”

All these are done aimed at one thing – getting the customers to spend more.

And Amazon does this very well. Godaddy is another example of having good a up-selling platform in place. Their’s are a bit more direct and in-your-face though. That said, it is still effective in getting them more profit.

Pre-payment

When they are about to make payment. Bring them to a page whereby they can choose to buy a best value package (e.g. Buy 2 get 1 free). Or they can move on to buy the intended item.

Again – getting customers to spend more when they are already in the buying mood.

You want them to act. Not tomorrow. Not the day after tomorrow. Now.

So to do that, you gotta instill some urgency. Introduce one-time offers. Set a deadline. Tell them if they buy now, they 20% off…or they get 2 more bonuses…

Push that scarcity factor. And get them to take the action of buying NOW!

Thank you page

At this juncture, re-affirm their buying decision. Congratulate them on a great investment. And tell them to get them started.

This will help reduce refund rates also as to get them to really reap the benefit of your product. That will increase customer loyalty to you.

You can use this opportunity to up-sell another related product.

After Sales

As you already know by now…follow up some more!

Ask them how they are doing. Tell them how to get the most out of their investment in your product. Let them know you genuinely care for them as a customer.

Get them to be also be your affiliate. Your customers already know about you and your product. They will make very good referrals to you if they like your product.

Profile your customers.

Know who are your repeat customers and who spend the most on your products. The Pareto’s Law applied in business and marketing is hugely important.

Focus on getting them to spend some more. And treat them well.

We talk a lot about the selling process. But remember your product is important as well. You don’t want all your marketing and sales effort to go down the drain just because of your customer’s dissatisfaction with your product.

So there you have it. As we go through the sales stages I mentioned above, you can see how we can increase

- No. of customers (via referrals and more follow ups)

- Frequency of transactions (via up-selling and cross-selling)

- Value of transactions (via up-selling)

This process constitutes a whole profit center by itself with a full sales process with many branches. And it applies very much offline as well as it is online.

Where you can go from here onwards is to simply….rinse and repeat!

Grow many profit centers. Multiply them and incorporate the selling process as described above for each of these profit centers.

As usual, let me know what you think. You have more ideas on how to optimize your business? Share them here and we can discuss!

All Success,

P.S By the way, Tucson SEO Solutions compiled a very comprehensive list of do-follow blogs. Very useful list if you are into SEO and looking for good link backs.

[tags]E-MoneyMarketing, business, sales optimization, business optimization, up-selling, cross-selling, pareto law, Jay Abraham[/tags]

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Any good marketer worth his salt will tell you that one of the most important, if not the most important, aspect of a sales copy is….the headline.

The headline is the first thing a prospect see when he looks at an advertisement. The headline is the advertisement…FOR the advertisement.

If you don’t grab the attention of your prospect there and then, he is gonna leave. Period.

And precisely because of this, copywriters spend hours tweaking the headlines, split testing different versions, to determine which gives the best conversion rate.

You will be surprised just how much a good headline can out-pull a less attention-grabbing variant (with all else being equal e.g. benefit, offer, guarantee etc).

What makes a good headline? We are looking at something that incorporate the one of the following (or a combination of them) :

• Compelling benefit for prospects (What’s in it for me?)
• Curiosity factor (cliff hanger style…)
• Personalization (YOU.., your name…)
• Specificity (exact numbers and figures)
• Thought-inducing (What if you can…? What if you are able…? If I tell you that you can do….?)

I’m gonna leave you with the a list of the 100 Greatest Headlines – compiled by Jay Abraham – one of the most renowned marketing consultant in the world.

Read through them and see how many of them incorporates the above pointers. And you will know what I mean.

Do let me know which of these headlines you like the best. And why. Enjoy!

1. “The Secret Of Making People Like You”

2. “A Little Mistake That Cost A Farmer $3,000 A Year…”

3. “Advice To Wives Whose Husbands Don’t Save Money – By A Wife”

4. “The Child Who Won The Heart Of All”

5. “Are/Were You Ever Tongue-Tied At A Party?”

6. “How A New Discovery Made A Plain Girl Beautiful”

7. “How To Win Friends And Influence People”

8. “The Last 2 Hours Are The Longest And Those Are The 2 Hours You Save”

9. “Who Else Wants A Screen Star Figure?”

10. “Do You Make These Mistakes In English?”

11. “Why Some Foods “Explode” In Your Stomach?”

12. “Hands That Look Lovelier In 24 Hours – Or Your Money Back!”

13. “You Can Laugh At Money Worries If You Follow This Simple Plan”

14. “Why Some People Almost Always Make Money In The Stock Market”

15. “When Doctors “Feel Rotten”, This Is What They Do…”

16. “It Seems Incredible That You Can Offer These Signed Original Etchings – For Only $5 Each.”

17. “Five Familiar Skin Troubles – Which Do You Want To Overcome?”

18. “Which Of These $2.50 To $5 Best Sellers Do You Want – For Only $1 Each?”

19. “Whoever Heard Of A Woman Losing Weight – And Enjoying 3 Delicious Meals At The Same Time”

20. “How I Improve My Memory In One Evening…”

21. “Discover The Fortune That Lies Hidden In Your Salary.”

21. “Doctors Prove 2 Out Of 3 Women Can Have More Beautiful Skin In 14 Days”

22. “How I Made A Fortune With A “Fool Idea”…”

23. “How Often Do You Hear Yourself Saying: “No, I Haven’t Read It: I’ve Been Meaning To!”

24. “Thousands Have This Priceless Gift – But Never Discover It!”

25. “Whose Fault When Children Disobey?”

26. “How A “Fool Stunt” Made Me A Star Salesman”

27. “Have You  Had These Symptoms Of Exhaustion?”

28. “How A New Kind Of Clay Improved My Complexion In 30 Minutes.”

29. “161 Ways To A Man’s Heart – In This Fascinating Book For Cooks.”

30. “Profit That Lie Hidden In Your Farm.”

31. “Is The Life Of A Child Worth $1 To You?”

32. “Everywhere Women Are Raving About This Amazing New Shampoo!”

33. “Do You Do Any Of These Ten Embarrassing Things?”

34. “Six Types Of Investors – Which Group Are You In?”

35. “How To Take Out Stains … Use (Product Name) And Follow These Easy Directions”

36. “Today .. Add $10,000 To Your Estate – For The Price Of A New Hat.”

37. “Does You Child Ever Embarrass You?”

38. “Is Your Home Picture-Poor?”

39. “How To Give Your Children Extra Iron – These 3 Delicious Ways…”

40. “To People Who Want To Write – But Can’t Get Started.”

41. “This Almost Magical Lamp Lights Highway Turns Before You Make Them.”

42. “The Crimes We Commit Against Our Stomach.”

43. “Thousands Have Benefited From This Special……., Have You?”

44. “They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano – But When I Started To Play…”

45. “Throw Away Your Oars/ Sack Your Boss…”

46. “How To Do Wonders With A Little Land!”

47. “Who Else Wants Light Cake – In Half The Mixing Time?”

48. “Pierced By 301 Nails… Retains Full Air Pressure.”

49. “No More Back-Breaking Garden Chores For Me – Yet Ours Is Now The Show Place Of The Neighbourhood”

50. “To Men Who Want To Quit Work Someday.”

51. “How To Plan Your house To Suit Yourself.”

52. “Call Back These Great Moments At The Opera.”

53. “Lost My Bulges…And Saved Money Too!”

54. “Right And Wrong Farming Methods – And Little Pointers That Will Increase Your Profits”

55. “New Cake-Improver Gets Your Compliments Galore…”

56. “Imagine Me…Holding An Audience Spellbound For 30 Minutes…”

57. “This Is Marie Antoinette – Riding To Her Death.”

58. “Did You Ever See A “Telegram” From Your Heart?”

59. “Now Anyone ….Can Do The Job For You.”

60. “New Shampoo Leaves Your Hair Smoother – Easier To Manage”

61. “It’s A Shame/Pity For You Not To Make Good Money – When These Men Do It So Easily”

62. “Thousands Now Play When They Never Thought They Could.”

63. “Great New Discovery Kills Kitchen Odors Quick – Makes Indoor Air “Country-Fresh”

64. “Announcing….The New Edition Of The Encyclopedia That Makes It Fun To Learn Things”

65. “For The Women Who Is Older Than She Looks.”

66. “Here’s A Quick Way To Break Up A Cold.”

67. “76 Reason Why It Should Have Paid You To Answer Our ADA Few Months Ago.”

68. “Suppose This Happened On Your Wedding Day!”

68. “Are We A Nation Of Low-Brows?”

69. “What Everybody Ought To Know… About This Stock And Bonds Business.”

70. “Money Saving Bargains From America’s Oldest Diamond Discount House.”

71. “Greatest Gold-Mine Of Easy “Things To Make” Ever Crammed Into One Big Book.”

72. “17,000 blooms from a single plant.”

73. “In two seconds, Bayer aspirin begins to dissolve in your glass.”

74. “Six times whiter washes”

75. “Melts away ugly fat.”

76. “Tastes like you just picked it.”

77. “At 60 miles per hour, the loudest noise in the Rolls-Royce is the electric clock.”

78. “They laughed when I sat down – but when I started to play…”

79. “How a bald headed barber saved my hair…”

80. “Shrinks hemorrhoids without surgery.”

81. “9 out of 10 decorators use Wundaweave Carpets for long life at low cost.”

82. “Relives congestion in all 7 nasal passages instantly.”

83. “Here’s what you do to get rid of pimples fast.”

84. “Before Wheezo hay fever medication made you drowsy – with Wheezo you can have relief and be alert.”

85. “Announcing: Guided missile spark plugs.”

86. “Ours Alone! Persian lamb originals – only $15.40.”

87. “Does she or doesn’t she – only her hair dresser knows for sure..”

88. “Would you believe it? I have a cold!”

89. “Pour yourself a new engine.”

90. “Starting July 5th – the Atlantic Ocean becomes only 1/5th wide.”

91. “Floats fat right out of your body.”

92. “What everybody ought to know about the stock and bond business.”

93. “Aunt Mary, who never married…”

94. “When you’re weary with daytime fatigue, take Alka Seltzer.”

95. “Don’t invest one cent of your hard-earned money until your check this guide.”

96. “If you can count to eleven, you can increase your speed and skill at numbers..”

97. “The difference in premium gasoline is in the additives.”

98. “See what happens when you crush our executive baggage – nothing!”

99. “If you’ve already taken your vacation, don’t read this. It will break your heart.”

100. “It took 24 years and genetic engineering to make this product possible.”

101. “This is so powerful that it is almost illegal…”

All Success,

[tags]E-MoneyMarketing, advertisement, sales copy, copywriters,split testing, copywriting, headlines, benefit, offers, guarantee[/tags]

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A lot of email marketers will often ask – “how big is your list?”

A valid question. However, I prefer to ask this – “how targeted and responsive is your list?”

For me, quality of the list take precedence over quantity.

Quality first and then quality…and then finally quantity. Everyone can buy a whole database of leads but how many percent of that will actually convert into your subscribers or customers?

Now, if you want to ensure your prospects are really targeted and responsive to you, get them to double opt in.

In that way, you can be sure they really do want your information.

“What!…Double opt in???….But you will get a far bigger list with single opt in!”…as many will tell you.

True. But do you consider the following scenarios such as…

• People keying in email addresses with typo errors…
• People keying in bogus email addresses…
• People keying in other people’s email addresses without permission instead of their own…

Do you? Do you think such leads you will get are quality? Not a chance.

And if untargeted prospects get into your list, you will usually end up with a high spam complaint rate. You want that kind of hassle? Or rather you rather concentrate on marketing and providing value?

No doubt about it. You want them them to click the confirmation link to double opt in after they have enter their initial details.

And that brings us to today’s topic – how to ensure that as many people will click the email confirmation link as possible…

Good O’ me will show you some tips.

Let’s not waste time. Here goes…

How to improve your email confirmation rate, step by step:

1. Create a custom thank you page

Once they entered their initial details, direct them to a custom thank you page.

In your custom thank you page, state down the following details your subscribers will expect to see in the confirmation email

- Name/Email address that the confirm email comes from (e.g. your name, and admin@yoursite.com)

- Subject line of the confirmation email

2. Tell them what they have to do

Click the confirmation link! That’s what!

3. Lastly…the benefit of doing so… 

You want them to click. But first, you must tell them                  what’s in it for them if they do so.

It can be…a free gift round the corner…or a discount voucher for them…or a value-added report for download…

Something enticing. Something good for them if they opt in.

With an incentive, they are far more likely to click the confirmation link.

You might want to throw in a video on how to go about the whole process if you have time on your hands.

4. Last note…

Remember to tell your subscribers to white-list you. You don’t want to have your emails going into their spam inbox!

Okay. There you go. What do you think?

Do you think they are helpful? Agree? Or violently disagree?

Let me know. My ears are peeled…

All Success,

[tags]E-MoneyMarketing, business, double opt in, single opt in, Email Confirmation rate, open rate[/tags]

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Very often when you do business, you have to entertain your client. Sometimes it can be a dinner. Or a drink out. Or maybe even golf.

You just do what it takes to seal the deal.

Now, entertaining a client is a fine art. You may laugh along with him, even when his jokes are not funny…listen to his needs and grouses…agree with him on discussed issues…basically doing everything right to make him like you.

All well and good. You are on the right track…

BUT…remember NEVER ever to do one thing…

The one thing that may seems so small on the surface but may swing the favor against you…

That is when it comes to payment…and when you rightly foot the bill…NEVER NEVER EVER ask for a receipt in your client’s presence.

NEVER!

Why?

When you do so, you make your client feel that he is just part of a business set up. And that entertaining him just means incurring business expenses to get his business.

You want to go beyond that. You want to make him feel like he is a friend. A friend worth spending on. A friend whose time and relationship you value a lot.

Your client is gonna feel you care about him. Yes it may be a small gesture. But it helps. You never know what long term business he may give to you in future.

The few dollars spent can be worth it’s weight in gold.

In any case, most of the time, a receipt will given to you without you asking, which you can still claim as business expense anyway. You just don’t ask for a receipt if one is not given to you.

Bottom line – treat your customer like king – and sincerely do so. Help them first. And they will help you back – many folds over!

As usual, let me know what are your thoughts on this. I’m all ears.

All Success,

[tags]E-MoneyMarketing, business, client entertaining, business, relationship-building[/tags]

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For us email marketers, one of the key metrics we track is the open rate.

How do we define open rate?

Say you send out an email to 100 people. If 1 of those open up your email, it is an open rate of 1%.

The open rate gives you a good indication of how well your email campaign is going. And how your subscribers are responding to you.

There are many ways to increase your open rate, but today I’m gonna talk about how to optimize your email subject title – probably one of the single most important elements that drives open rates – as one of the ways.

Truth be told, these techniques I’m about to reveal to you are so simple, you might laugh and say these are nothing new.

But remember – simple works.

Let’s go in details…

1. Include the word ‘you’ in the title if you can…

2. Incorporate ‘benefit’ and ‘curiosity’ element in your subject headline

Talk in terms of everyone favorite radio station – WIIFM – “What’s In It For Me”. And invoke their curiosity enough to prompt their itchy finger to click through.

3. End off your subject headline with 3 triple dots (“…”)…

This is to create a “to be continued” feeling that you will compel your reader to want to click to find out more…

4. Include your branding in front of the subject headline. For example, your company name is “Profitable Marketing”, then your headline can start with “[Profitable Marketing] Headline xxxxx….”

The front branding tag is to allow your subscribers to immediately identify that the email is coming from you. Once they know you well enough, they will start clicking through more consistently.

Also having the front tag differentiates your email from the sea of other emails in your subscribers’ inbox.

There. Find them useful? Got more to add? Let me know. I’m all ears…

All Success,

[tags]E-MoneyMarketing, business, marketing, email open rate, subject headline, email marketing, click through rate[/tags]

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Yes. Ironic as it sounds, it can be – provided you know how to do it right.

I have to confess this apply more effectively towards the informational marketing niche. More specifically digital informational products.

You see. In the digital informational product arena, almost everything gets pirated. It is the reality of the game you have to face up to.

Everything can be downloaded and distributed, whether you like it or not.

E-books. Mp3. Graphics. Videos. Games. All can be easily ripped off.

With the explosion of file sharing sites and peer-to-peer network (P2P), it is only a matter of time before you find your product up there within those ranks too.

So How Do We Solve This Darn Problem?

Well…as they say, if you can’t win ‘em…join ‘em!

Wait up! I’m not talking about being a pirate yourself, silly. But about how to turn it around – to your advantage!

Think about it.

There are millions of free-loaders and pirates wanting your product for FREE! Just check out the tonnes of traffic file sharing or torrent sites like Warez and PirateBay receive.

What does this mean?

There is a big ready audience for you out there! And if they download your product, chances are they are very targeted!

And because they come to your product, instead of YOU…going to them, they are much more qualified. They actually want your product, goddamn it!

If your product gives them sufficient value, you can easily sell to them later!

Can you see the various profitable possibilities forming already?

This is what you can do:

1. Have an opt in form in your e-book product or include a read-me text that gives them a link to your opt in form. Tie that in with an incentive.

Just do anything to allow those ‘thieves’ to see your incentivized offer, and get their names. Now you actually know who these people are once you capture their names.

Congratulations. You have just leveraged on the pirates to build your list.

Can you sell to them again? Yes you can. Go ahead. Up-sell and cross-sell these suckers! Tie in with one-time offers and all those marketing gimmicks you can think of. It’s payback time!

2. Include affiliate links in your product. If they don’t want your product, there is always a chance they may click on your affiliate link. And you can profit from that.

Pretty neat eh?

3. Gather all your freebie stuff you already plan to give away. Go distribute to all the file sharing and torrent sites. Just google them if you don’t know any.

And incorporate the 2 techniques above.

Better still, make your stuff re-brandable with their affiliate links, and you just give them an incentive to distribute the product for you.

There you go. You can unleash a viral campaign – with the help of pirates! Not too bad if I do say so myself.

Okay. What you waiting for? Let’s get cracking!

This is just another way to turn something disadvantageous around to your favor.

As always, I love to hear your views on this. I’m all ears.

All Success,

[tags]E-MoneyMarketing, piracy, informational marketing, online marketing, affiliate marketing, business, viral marketing[/tags]

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As you may know, online forum is a website where people gather and engage in discussion in niche topics.

Forums are also known as message board, bulletin board, discussion forums, discussion boards, or online community.

There are all sort of forum for every niche under the sun: weight loss, sexuality, money management, celebrity, self improvement, knitting etc.

Do you know that online forums are actually goldmine for Internet marketers?

When done right, forums can make you ton of cash. Now before you hit the back button, I am not suggesting that you spam the forums. If you use the following strategies, I will be very surprised if you are not making money at all.

Now, before you start marketing in any forum, remember this golden rule: your contribution has to provide value to the forum members.

Period.

Before you post, ask yourself, “is my answers useful to the member?”

If not, don’t even bother.

Never include any affiliate links in your post as it is frowned upon by many forum moderators.

Secondly, when you become a new member of any forum, allow yourself a few days to lurk around to get a “feel” of the forum’s environment.

Make Money via Your Signature Files

Many online forums allow clickable signature file in your profile. Your signature will be shown at the end of every post.

You can redirect the signature file to your webpage where you sell a product, or you can redirect the users to a squeeze page(recommended).

To achieve high CTR (Click Through Rate) for your signature URL, good copy is vital.

Few examples of signature text that can yield high CTR are:
- How I (achieve something)!
- Don’t Click Here if you’ve (achieve something)!
- Free Report on how you (do something)!
- X product is a piece of crap, click here to find out why.

You get the idea. Your signature text should arouse the emotion or curiosity of viewers so that they want to find out more. Google “copywriting tips” and you can get tons more idea to write good copy.

Next, you want your signature text to be seen to as many people as possible. The easiest way is to browse through the forum, and contribute to the forum threads that have the most replies and views.

Or, you can start a new thread by saying something useful or controversial. When I participate in these threads, I am always giving my best answer, and then redirect the visitors to my signature subtly.

For example, there will always be discussion on the latest hot new product in any niche market. I will quickly set up a pre-sell page for that product, or a competitor product and make it my signature URL.

Next I will participate in the related discussion. If I am promoting the same product, I would share my experience and reviews. Note that your review has to be honest or people will sense that it is a blatant promotion. A fool proof way to make your review genuine is to actually point out the flaw of the product.

If I am promoting the competing product, I will pin point all the disadvantages of the product in discussion and explain why the particular competing product is better.

At the end of my posts, I simply say “interested party feel free to PM me or refer to my signature for more information”. This method has never failed to make me few hundreds per month by spending only few hours.

As you start building up credibility in the forum, you can make even more money with this method. Always rotate and test your signature text to see what works best for that particular forum.

When you find a winner, it never hurts to build up site targeting Adwords campaign on that forum. If the forum isn’t monetized with Adsense, just email and ask if the forum user accepts paid advertising. The sky’s really the limits.

This technique works especially well in desperate niche, including weight loss, make money online, gambling, investing etc. These niches usually have lucrative affiliate programs, and the niche audience are proven to be buyers(very important!).

The simplest way to find online forum is by Googling. Just go to the SE and type the following:
- keyword + forum;
- keyword + google group;
- keyword + yahoo group;
- keyword + bulletin board
- keyword + chat;
Another good resource is http://www.big-boards.com

In coming posts I will outline other methods that I’ve personally used to profit from online forums. Stay tuned!

[tags]E-Moneymarketing, online marketing, forum marketing, online forum[/tags]

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Split testing is essentially an A/B test. We put 2 version out, A and B.

We set one variable to be tested (e.g. headlines in a sales copy) and keep all other factors for both versions constant.

And we send it out to test with fair exposure to both, and measure the ensuring actions that return.

So Why The Heck Do We Have To Test?

Marketing is about testing. It’s about bettering the previous version and keeping the improvement process going. Again and again.

Take a look at this equation:

Sales = Conversion x Traffic

Now, traffic takes time to build. But, you can easily improve your conversion by tweaking a headline, an offer or a bonus!

For example, you will have 5 sales if you get 1% conversion out of 500 visitors. To get 10 sales, you will need 1000 visitors, assuming your conversion stays at 1%

BUT, if you increase your conversion by just 1 more % with the same 500 visitors, you would already have gotten 10 sales. Is 1 more % difficult to achieve?

IT CAN BE DONE!

And if you have 4% conversion with 500 visitors, you get 20 sales! That is a 100% improvement over the initial scenario!

Make no mistakes. Tweaking and testing is important. You will be able to know what works. And what doesn’t.

Let me share with you the result of one of my own testings.

I had a landing page. The conversion was decent. But I wanted more.

This landing page has a opt-in form at the bottom of the page.

I wanted to test if my conversion would increase if I put an extra opt-in form at the top of the page.

So I done up another version with 2 opt in forms – one at the top and one at the bottom.

Now I got 2 versions. And with the help of a split testing marketing script, I put both to the test.

Which came back better?

It was the 2nd version – the one with 2 forms, with an improvement of 33.34% in subscriber sign-ups!

See What I Mean?

I can achieve a significant result just by doing a simple tweak that didn’t take me more than 10 minutes. Small change. Significant results!

Now, go take a look at your product. Is there something out there that can be improved and tested upon? I’m sure there is. There is money out there waiting for you. Money left on the table.

You just got to take action – NOW!

If you have any interesting testing results you have of your own, do share it here!

[tags]marketing, online marketing, split testing, A/B testing, sales, conversion, traffic, e-moneymarketing, subscribers, opt in[/tags]

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