Internet Marketing Success Notes LFMpire Workshops .

Alex Poole's Internet Marketing Success Notes, http://www.IMSuccessNotes.com - Page 8 of 4540,000 with a solo mailing cost of 300).Editor's note: This list now has more than 50,000 members.You can still book a solo mailing for 300: http://www.demc.com/solo.htmlAs soon as he found the list responsive and the ads profitable, he booked in bulk andasked for - and received - a discount. “Always ask for a discount,” said Tahir. “Theworst that will happen is they say no.” He sent this traffic to a squeeze page with acompelling “can't say no” offer. Subscribers were routed through to a One Time Offer(OTO) to purchase a 37 resell rights product. Not only was he building his list, butthe process was self-liquidating (ie, it paid for itself,) through subscribers purchasingthe OTO.Squeeze pages need to: Have a clear unequivocal path to the desired action (the sign-up.)Contain a seriously compelling “can't say no” offer.Have a strong privacy guarantee.Tahir demonstrated this concept by having a member of the audience pick a card,which turned out to be the card Tahir had pre-selected. He achieved this by asking theright questions which led the test subject to his desired action – in this case, pickingthe Ace of Hearts.Editor's note: Eric Graham “The Conversion Doctor,” (http://conversiondoctor.com,)tested many different wordings of a privacy guarantee recently and found that onesthat did not mention the word “spam” performed consistently better. This, he thought,was because reading the word “spam” introduced doubt into the prospect's mind.Better, instead, to mention just the positive aspects of the guarantee - “your privacy isimportant to us,” without the usual negative, “we hate spam as much as you do.”)

Alex Poole's Internet Marketing Success Notes, http://www.IMSuccessNotes.com - Page 9 of 45Fri PM – Hot SeatThe panel were asked to critique http://www.alternative-healthzine.comThe site-owner explained that his ratio of conversions to subscribers was poor, and thepanel were asked to suggest how it could be improved.Suggestions included: Show the “please subscribe” popup every time (don't put it on a cookie so itonly shows on the first visit!)The links on the LH side were distracting to the key desired action – ie userswould click around the site instead of subscribing.Conversely, the links and quality content were responsible for some goodSearch Engine Result Pages (SERPs) positions in Google. Justin Brookecautioned that removing the links would probably be detrimental to the site'sSERPs (Editor's note: CSS absolute-positioning could be used here to keep theHTML flow of the site pretty much unchanged, whilst moving the links“below the fold” of the page, and hence creating less distraction to draw thevisitor away from opting-in, whilst keeping the SERPs positions unaffected.)Tests had proven that the optimum number of subscription forms on a site is 1– no more. It might be worth removing the opt-in box from the RH side of thesite and just using the (interstitial) popup.The wording of “6 free health reports” was a little vague and did nothing topromote desire in the visitor's mind. What could the reports do for them? Somemore specific copy could be used to make the reports more desirable andincrease conversions.The site could be transformed into a membership site. Being a “member” ispsychologically more powerful than “being on a list.”Monetize the signups by placing ads on the “thankyou for subscribing” page –the user has just made a commitment, (by entering their name and emailaddress,) which makes this an optimum time to show them a compellingrelated offer.Editor's note: In fact all the monetization and integration techniques that SorenJordansen discussed on Saturday could be used to good effect on this site.

Alex Poole's Internet Marketing Success Notes, http://www.IMSuccessNotes.com - Page 10 of 45Fri PM – Justin Brooke – http://www.sitefling.comThe secret to multiple high Google SERPs rankings?Blog Every Day!Google loves blogs – WordPress specifically – and especially ones where content isupdated frequently and regularly.Google knows how long you've bought your domain name for, (they're a domainregistrar in their own right,) and so it is worth buying domains for at least 5 years, notless. This shows Google that you're “in it for the long haul,” and are unlikely to beusing the domain as a “throwaway” SE spam site. This increases Google's trust in yoursite and is likely to lead to higher rankings.Justin's recipe for multiple top 10 positions 1 x 500 word article.1 MP3.1 AVI (video.)1 toolbar or other .exe file.All with ONE key phrase.How? Outsource the creation of the article.Have someone read it out to create the MP3.Create a video using the MP3 as the soundtrack along with some slides. (Editor's note: perhaps using http://www.animoto.com would be a goodoption here.)Use http://www.conduit.com to create the toolbar.Keyword Research Use the free Google Adwords keyword research tool ernal to identify good keyphrases to target.Choose lower volume keywords which are: Likely to be typed in by “buyers” not “browsers.” Less difficult to rank for. Example: choose “tomato growing kit” with 170 searches per month vs.“tomato growing” with 40,000 searches per month.Use the keyword difficulty tool at http://www.seologs.com to assess howdifficult it will be to rank for the chosen key phrase.

Alex Poole's Internet Marketing Success Notes, http://www.IMSuccessNotes.com - Page 11 of 45 If the keyword difficulty is 40/100 or below, it will be easy to rank. Example: “hydroponic tomato growing” has a difficulty of 27, which means itwill be easy to rank for this keyword.Search http://www.Google.com for the chosen key phrase. If the number ofresults when you enter the phrase “in quotes” is less than 10,000 it will be easyto rank.Also check the key phrase without quotes. If there are many established andtrusted sites, (such as .gov sites, .edu sites and other big web properties likehttp://www.about.com,) in the top 10, they will be difficult or impossible tobeat.Content SubmissionSubmit the article or other media (depending on the type of site,) to the followingWeb 2.0 properties : dpress.com (Editor's note: Howie Schwartz recommends a similar process but includeshttp://www.wetpaint.com on his list. He believes Web 2.0 sites that showGoogle Adsense ads are more likely to rank well, though of course Googlestrongly deny this link! Squidoo stopped showing adsense some while ago,and circumstantial evidence suggests Squidoo lenses don't rank as well asthey used to. Hubpages have also stopped showing Adsense, whilst Wetpaintstill does so.) For further information on leveraging the power of Web 2.0 properties,download Jon Merrick's excellent resource which, at the time of writing, isavailable free-of-charge: Social Bookmarking ExposedFor each submission, be sure the key phrase you've chosen is included in the followingplaces: URL – get the closest to the keywords you can. Example: http://www.squidoo.com/tomato-growingPut the keywords in the title tag.

Alex Poole's Internet Marketing Success Notes, http://www.IMSuccessNotes.com - Page 12 of 45 Put the keywords in the sub-title(s).Put the keywords in the content of the article with a keyword density of around3%. Certainly no higher than 5%.Place keyword-laden links in the article, but just 3 links in a 500-word article. Example, good: a href ”http://yoursite.com/” tomato growing kit /a Example, bad: a href ”http://yoursite.com/” click here /a for tomatogrowing kitsThe keywords should form the filename for the video, audio etc: Example: tomato-growing-kit.exe, tomato-growing-kit.mp3 etc.Don't worry about re-writing the articles for different sites. The “duplicate contentpenalty” is only an issue where the same content appears more than once on thesame domain.Use the following tools to speed up the submission process: http://articlesubmitter.imwishlist.com for article submissions.http://www.trafficgeyser.com for video submissions. (Editor's note: a free alternative recommended by Jeff Johnson t/rss-submit.htmhttp://www.develab.net (Promosoft software submitter.) Put the keywords in the “company name” field. (Editor's note: you could create the PAD file withhttp://www.padgenerator.com/ )Editor's note: for more information about creating software and submitting it to drivetraffic, see Chris Rempel's “Lazy Marketer” product at:http://www.thelazymarketer.comDomain extensions: Don't bother with a .info – They're cheap and Google knows this! Always try to get the .com first and foremost. .net is OK too.Outsourcing Hire 1 writer for every 2 submitters.Consider outsourcing to the Phillipines, where wages can be as low as 200 permonthAdvertise in: http://manila.craigslist.com.ph http://www.bestjobs.ph http://ph.jobstreet.comAllow average and poor applicants to filter themselves out by advertising for“superstar assistants,” and saying something along the lines of “don't even

Alex Poole's Internet Marketing Success Notes, http://www.IMSuccessNotes.com - Page 13 of 45 bother to apply unless you're an over-achiever and can prove it.”Ask applicants to complete a short test project – unpaid. If they won't provethemselves with an unpaid project, they don't really want to the job anyway! Editor's note: Craigslist doesn't allow the posting of “unpaid” jobs so becareful with your advertisement wording around this.Train staff with online video: http://www.jingproject.com http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp (Editor's note: another free alternative: http://camstudio.org )If you start to employ many outsourcers, consider employing a project managerso you can manage one person instead of a whole team.Get the staff to “sign in” every morning by simply logging onto Skype (or otherInstant Messaging service.)Don't give the staff the “full picture” of what you're doing – the bright ones willtake the model and do it for themselves instead! - Give them enoughinformation for them to complete their pieces of the puzzle, but no more.Workflow Project Manager (or you,) assigns a keyword to the writer for them to write anarticle about.Writer creates article.Writer creates the audio and video from the article and hands over to submitter2.Submitter 2 submits media using Traffic Geyser.(Meanwhile,) Submitter 1 creates and submits the .exe file (toolbar or otherapplication.)Submitter 1 bookmarks the web 2.0 properties usinghttp://www.socialmarker.comSubmitter 1 submits the article to the article directories.Project Manager checks the work is complete.Web2.0 promotion RSS submission and aggregation sites (there are 1000s of w.mixx.comAny other sites as provided by http://www.socialmarker.com

Alex Poole's Internet Marketing Success Notes, http://www.IMSuccessNotes.com - Page 14 of 45Sat AM – Donna Fox – http://www.whyshebuys.comDonna spoke about “persuasion” this morning, firstly saying she preferred the term“seduction.”Recommended reading: “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Dr obert Cialdini's 6 principles of persuasion: (1) Reciprocity - give first – whether it be a free report, video or other highquality valuable content. If you give the customer more than they expected, (byway of unexpected bonuses etc,) they will feel indebted to you and will buymore from you. Example: In a restaurant, it was found that waiters who gave one mint perdiner when they delivered the bill, consistently received a more generous tipthat those that did not. However, waiters who gave one mint per diner, thenstarted to walk away, then turned around and gave another mint per diner,saying something like “because you're such great customers,” received aconsiderably more generous tip again. They had used the law ofreciprocity in their favour. (2) Commitment and Consistency (“baby steps”.) - As with dating, (we don'tmeet someone in a bar then ask them to marry us immediately!) Takingcustomers through a series of small steps to reach a desired outcome is morelikely to achieve that desired outcome than going straight for the “wedding,”(the high ticket coaching program etc.) Example: Political canvassers who asked voters to place a large sign on theirlawn were usually rejected. When the canvassers took the voters through aseries of more granular “baby steps” - first giving them a leaflet, requestinga small donation, then a window poster, then, finally, the lawn sign, were alot more successful. With this principle, Donna reiterated the point that Tahir Shah had made onFriday, of the need to phrase questions to elicit a “yes”. Example: Instead of saying “can I help you grow your business?” youmight instead say, “You'd like to grow your business, wouldn't you?” (3) Social Proof – Testimonials are extremely important – people like to dowhat others do. Similarly a “units sold” countdown on a sales page is powerful,as long as it does actually count down! A “buy within the next 5 minutes andget a freebie / discount,” statement needs to work like it says – in other wordsit does actually count down and if you refresh the page it doesn't start again.

Alex Poole's Internet Marketing Success Notes, http://www.IMSuccessNotes.com - Page 15 of 45(Editor's note: this is simple to do with a cookie and some javascript.) Example: Donna used 2 hilarious examples. Next time you're in an elevator, she said, try facing the back, or evensitting on the floor! See how many people follow suit. Next time you're in a city, try looking up, (at nothing,) and subtlyobserve how many others do the same. Editor's note: this reminds me, (although its not totally related,) of the“100th Monkey” story which you can read articles/monkey.html (4) Liking – people must like and feel affinity towards you and your product.Donna said “People like people who like them.” This is human nature. Itsnot easy to show liking for people you've never met through a web page, but itis easy to show respect for the reader and to show that you “like,” (or respect,or value,) their problems. That's why people buy products – to “scratch itches,”or solve problems. If you can show (non-judgementally,) that youunderstand their problems, then they will feel affinity towards you. Furthermore, people like to see pictures of, and testimonials from, peoplelike them. If you're selling an internet marketing product, for example, doyou have testimonials from seniors, single mothers, people of races otherthan Caucasian etc? People want to see that people like them have hadsuccess with your product. Think diverse and wide - If you're selling a skin care product for example, isthere a picture of a man somewhere? Men buy skincare products too! Editor's note: When I used to work for a marketing agency, we proved thisto be true. On a squeeze page for a double glazing site which had onepicture of a typical white middle class family with 2 children, we addedpictures of older people and people of other racial origins. Nothing else waschanged. Conversion immediately increased by, (if I remember correctly,)around 6%! (5) Authority – people like to learn, and purchase products and services, fromthe expert. Are you an authority in your market? If not, can you interview one?Can you obtain a testimonial from one? Would you buy an Internet Marketing product from someone who admittedthey'd never made a penny online? Would you buy a weight-loss product from an obese person? Would you buy a “how to quit smoking” product from a 40-a-day chainsmoker?! Sometimes its hard to be seen as an authority – you can use surveys toappear authoritative – (“9/10 respondents said this was important to them”- you might have only asked 10 people!) Editor's note: one well-known and successful marketer, (who shall remainnameless,) said to me over the weekend, “faking it 'til you make it isdownright wrong, but you can use clever wording to soundauthoritative. If you haven't made a million dollars online with a product,talk about how others have, using the same techniques as you're selling.

Alex Poole's Internet Marketing Success Notes, http://www.IMSuccessNotes.com - Page 16 of 45'Borrow' their authority.” This makes a lot of sense. For example, how many sales letters writtenby people other than John Reese and Jeff Walker talk about John Reese'sfamous “million dollar day” when he released the original Traffic Secrets(http://trafficsecrets.com/)? They're borrowing a little of John's authorityby associating themselves, (and their product,) with his success. (6) Scarcity – people will naturally put things off. Scarcity will “scare” theminto taking immediate action. There are three types of scarcity: Limited number, (be careful with this one with digital products; most peoplearen't stupid!) Limited time (“This offer will expire at midnight.”) Price (“Only 5 available at this introductory price.”) The nickel script (http://www.nickelscript.com/ ) allows marketers to sella product which increases in price every time a sale is made. This isstrong driver for a visitor to “buy now” in order to lock in the best pricefor themselves. Guard your credibility carefully – if your “offer” didn't expire at midnight,people will see that you're “playing the game,” and not take your scarcityplays seriously next time.The next 3 principles were not from Dr Cialdini, (who is an offline specialist, not anInternet Marketer,) but by Donna.The 3 further principles of persuasion specifically in an online environment are: (7) A charismatic leader / Guru - How many people follow “gurus” indifferent fields? The “guru” doesn't even have to be a person – Twitter is a good example ofwhere the brand is the guru! (8) A “secret” language – every field has its own language – InternetMarketing is an obvious example, with our autoresponders, OTOs, SEO, PPC,FTP, HTML and PHP etc. Being “in the know” about niche terms makes peoplefeel like they “belong.” Editor's note: My wife is a Speech and Language Therapist (SLT,) which is aProfession Allied to Medicine (PAM.) She works with Adults with LearningDifficulties (ALD.) She's currently getting her record of ContinuousProfessional Development (CPD) up-to-date. My point? Every walk of life hasits own exclusive terminology wh

Prospects spend time on your site. Suspects tend to leave (“bounce”,) within 10 seconds. Incidentally, Soren Jordansen spoke on Saturday morning about how to monetize the “suspects.” If you must use the funnel analogy, flip it upside down. As customers rise towards the thin end of the