I suggest that you take advantage of the constant opportunities for learning to build your business that the net supplies for you. Every little thing you learn gives you that much more of an edge in making your business successful.
There are tons of other ways that you can make money online. And tons of ways to do each of the steps described in previous posts in this Internet business blueprint. In fact, there are at least three right ways for every person who does them.
I suggest that you use that process for a few reasons.
1. It’s simple, and it can be done on any budget that allows you to own a computer and connect to the Internet.
2.It can be done quickly and with a minimum of time spent learning.
3.It will give you a ground level understanding of a lot of things you need to know to really grasp and use the more advanced techniques.
At this point, it’s all up to you. You have the knowledge, you have links to the tools, and you have the plan.
So, you gonna do something about it?
Build a Better Offer
Before creating any product -paid product, newsletter, free report or anything else you should write the sales letter first. The process for making this work is simple. You write a kicking letter for the very best product you can picture. Add everything you can think of that you might be able to fulfill. Get fired up. Let your imagination run crazy and describe the ultimate product for that niche.
Describe every benefit they’ll get from every feature of every part of the product. Then pile on the bonuses. Get really crazy here. Solve every problem your perfect prospect might have. Every one. And make it effortless. Give them a complete understanding and all the tools they need to become a master of what you’re was teaching or what they want to do. Doing it this way gives you a number of handy advantages.
The biggest is that you are never as enthusiastic about your product as when you’ve just come up with the idea and are fleshing it out. If you do your copy then, you’re going to communicate that enthusiasm in a big way. It’s a lot harder to get wound up about a product after you’ve just spent weeks or months looking at it from the “ground level.”
Another is that you will often see more possibilities at this point. You’re not sick of the idea yet. You’re also not locked into a design or feature set by ego or investment, so you can change directions and let the idea tell you what’s going to be best, rather than your programmer or web designer.
It also helps you avoid a lot of the “duds.” If you can’t develop an idea at this point that gets you fired up and wanting to get this out to people RIGHT NOW -you probably have a loser on your hands.
Next!
Assuming it passes the WOW! Test, move on to the next step.
Polish that letter until it would sell your perfect product -well for a hefty price tag. Then save an extra copy somewhere. That’s your roadmap.
Take the first copy of that letter, and look closely at it. What is the lowest level version of the product that you could create that would:
A: Be worth buying (solve significant problems for your perfect prospect)
B: Be worth selling (high enough price point for the effort involved), and
C: Prove the demand for the product
Next, you want to decide what your business model is. Is it a digital product, or are you going to ship hard goods? Is it a membership site or continuity program, or a one-time purchase? Do you want to make a big score, or test a niche for long-term viability? Your answers to those questions may require you to adjust the things you include in the product.
Now, create the product and roll it out.
If it sells, you can add the remaining parts later. That’s where the original “Super Letter” comes in as your roadmap.
Integrate Your Tactics
The second thing I’d do is make sure that every action I took served at least two purposes from the following list:
1. Sell product
2. Generate subscribers
3. Recruit active affiliates
4. Generate targeted traffic
5. Generate links
6. Create product
7. Build my network
As an example, suppose you are arranging an affiliate-based endorsed mailing by a site owner or newsletter publisher. Rather than just giving them copy to mail (or letting them create their own), you might offer to do an interview with them that relates to the topic of your product.
They could offer the audio recording of that interview to their subscribers as a bonus for ordering your product, increasing profits for both of you. You both get to use the interview for other purposes, with the agreement that neither of you will give it away free.
If you plan these right, you can arrange a number of these interviews that cover all the major aspects of your topic using interviews with experts. This is a much easier deal to arrange than just asking someone to do an interview and spill their guts for nothing.
This shows real respect for their knowledge in addition to making them money, so it helps build the relationship with these individuals. That means a lot more in the long run than just saying, “Hey. I’ll give you 50% to promote my stuff.”
And, since the deal promotes them as much as you, it’s much easier to get them to continue the offer indefinitely instead of stopping with a simple commission-based promotion.
So, with a process like this, you’re looking to: drive targeted traffic, sell product, create product, build your personal network, recruit active affiliates and generate links. Plug a few places into the process where people who don’t buy can sign up for your list, say through an affiliate-branded mini-course that promotes your product, and you’ve got the Grand Slam.
This is really just one more example of building a better offer.
Promoting your site with articles? Do a very in-depth version that will serve as a lead generating report or a chapter of a book. Then use a shorter version that still offers useful information as the piece you submit to directories or other publishers.
Want to get to know some of the players in a specific niche market? Create a product that includes them or points to their sites. Introduce yourself, give them a review copy to let them know what’s being said, and take it from there.
Look at everything you do and see how you can connect at least two or more of the goals listed above into the process. Spend a half hour on that right now, and I’m sure you’ll find lots of ways you can put this idea to work to increase your immediate profits and long-term growth.
And spend much more time…
Recruit Marketing Partners
It’s kind of obvious to suggest that your profits increase as you have more people promoting your products. But how many people really pay much attention to this?
Not many. I certainly haven’t given it as much thought as it deserves over the years. In fact, when Bob asked me this question, this is the first thing that came to mind.
The two main things that people think of when they think “marketing partners” are affiliates and joint venture partners. (Many folks hear “JV: and just think of an endorsed mailing by an affiliate, but that’s another discussion.)
Marketing partners can take a lot of forms. The most neglected pool of potential marketing partners around is your own group of subscribers.
Who likes you better than your subscribers? Well, your Mom. Your drinking buddies… maybe. Not too many other people, at least if you put out decent information that helps them or entertains them.
Why is it smarter to focus on getting your subscribers to become marketing partners, rather than just customers?
Well, let’s say you have 1000 subscribers. Each one of those people knows a bunch of other people online that share their interest in your topic. Let’s say it averages 50.
You can reach 1000 people, who like you and trust you as a publisher. THEY can reach 50,000 people who like them and trust them as peers. If you only manage to get 20 of them involved in helping you market your product, you’ve just doubled your reach.
That’s worth making a little effort, yes?
The process you use to get more people to help you market your products is the same process you use to get anyone to do anything: Give them something that makes it worth their while. If you want to beat the other people who are also trying to recruit them, you do it the same way you beat any competitor… And I’ll bet you know exactly what I’m going to say at this point.
Make them a better offer!
Here are just a few things you can use to build your base of marketing partners:
Affiliate Programs
There’s the usual approach to this, which is the tried and true, “Pay them to sell your stuff.” That’s powerful, and shouldn’t be downplayed. But it’s not the only approach for this.
For example, have you considered starting an affiliate program that rewards people for sending you new subscribers? If you have your own affiliate software, or promote products through Clickbank or PayPal, give people a form they can put on their own sites that includes their PayPal address or their Clickbank ID.
Store that in your subscriber database, and merge the affiliate info into links where appropriate when you send your newsletter. If people know they can make affiliate commissions for just getting people to subscribe, they’re much more likely to help you build your list.
Or give them articles and other tools they can use on their web sites that promote your stuff. Let them brand those so they make money from sales, while also providing useful information to their visitors or their own subscribers.
Or you could do something simpler. Develop some solid and useful information they get as they reach various numbers of subscribers sent to your list. Sort of like Green Stamps, but with a twist. I guarantee you, if the bonuses are really worthwhile, there will be some people who will put that sign-up form on their sites to get them.
Get creative with this stuff. There are hundreds of ways to make this work that no one has ever tried yet. If you’re the first to try one, you might just find there’s a fortune in it.
Resale Rights Products
This is kind of an interesting thing. You sell (or give) someone else the right to sell (or give away) your products. They make money or get subscribers by doing that, and you have links in the products that make money or get subscribers for you.
You want to be careful with this, but it can be powerful. The best approach for beginners is to create a short report (10-25 pages) that can be reasonably sold for $14.95 or something like that. Include links that can be “branded,” which means -the person selling the report includes their affiliate ID for your products. They make money selling the report, and you make money on the affiliate sales.
So, what about offering rights to your affiliates? Or giving them away as a subscriber-only benefit?
Custom Content
People answer a few basic questions, and they get a tutorial back that gives them a plan for developing their own online business. It’s pretty well customized for each person. Everyone who fills it out also gets a subscription to my newsletter to help them with their business.
Nothing too fancy there. The cool thing is that anyone who wants can add the tutorial on their site. They change a few things that are invisible to the visitor, and add their own newsletter info to the part the visitor reads, and they have an instant subscriber system. They also get the affiliate commissions from any products mentioned in the tutorial.
That thing can get you subscribers and sales for years. You need to spend time building more of them. It’s nice to have something like that churning out the business for you without you having to keep doing the work.
It’s a great way to get other people to help you market. They get all the money and a subscriber. You get subscribers from as many sites as you can get to host it.
Even in the crowded Internet marketing world, I don’t see many people copying the idea. I can just imagine how uncommon -and popular -it would be in other markets. This is a technique that very few people use to real advantage. It’s too simple, so they don’t think of it.
You create a killer bonus for someone else to include in their product. Give it to them free. Include a way for the people who buy the product to subscribe to your newsletter, join your affiliate program, or whatever specific goal you’ve set for that project. Make the goal a good match for the product the bonus is included with.
Make sure you track which people come from that bonus.
Like I said, simple. The interesting thing is that the people who come in through something like this will usually be very high-percentage buyers or active affiliates. You don’t need huge numbers to make this a very valuable use of time.
Track Your Talkers
This one I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else do. Or even discuss. Most of us have, at one time or another, used referral systems. Tell-a-friend pages, encouraging pass-along of articles, etc. I’ve found that, in any group I’ve monitored, there will be a small group of people who actively spread the word. Those are the people I call talkers.
Do you know who those people are in your group? If not, start including ways to track them. Develop systems that they can use that make it easier to tell the world about your offerings. Build in some extra motivation for them, and tell just those people about it. Cultivate them and reward them.
I’ve actually thought about designing subscription systems that would generate nothing but talkers on a list. Think about that. It would take a little bit of extra work, but think about the potential of it.
If they are prone to forwarding your emails or giving away your reports or recommending you to their friends, and you focus on those people -what kind of resource could they become for you? Especially if you develop a good viral system that you want to kickstart fast?
I know someone who’s built a list of nearly a quarter-million people in under two years without doing any regular promotion at all. All based on talkers.
You gotta get you some of that.
