Biz Tips Blog: Internet Marketing Tips

The Trust Factor: 7 Ways to Build It

How do you build trust over the Internet with visitors to your sites? If you're selling anything over the Web, people don't usually have personal contact with you, so your written words have to create confidence with potential buyers.

This is one of the reasons we advocate blogging for your business. When you are writing frequently, people get to know you on a level that is beyond your web page brochures and sales copy.

There are other things that go into creating an impression of reliability and trust with people. Here are a few things to consider:

1. You write in a clear and transparent way
2. You show you're fallible and make mistakes, and admit and correct them
3. You provide free reports, teleseminar access, and other info for free
4. You don't over-hype your products but deliver your sales copy with research, case studies and valid testimonials

Evil Spammers: The Yale Economic Review?

For 2 days now (right in the middle of a sale, no less!) Denise and I have been perplexed by bounced emails. (Perplexed being a euphemism for pissed off...)

It turns out our email signatures contained links to our new Law of Action program and to our Blog Squad video. Both of these are hosted on a Hostgator server. The same server hosts a site that has been reported as a spammer.

I did my research: the nasty offender is none other than The Yale Economic Review! Spam blockage usually happens when someone - a disgruntled recipient - reports an incident as spam. That's all it takes.

Unfortunately, the spammers continue to mess us all up. I  doubt that a serious magazine such as The Yale Economic Review employs spammers or spamming techniques.

In the meantime, SpamHaus takes reports seriously and all of the sites hosted on the same server as The Yale Economic Review will have problems: emails that bounce and reported as blocked because of spam content.

Boost Blog Traffic with Email Subscription Options

Do you use Feedblitz to deliver blog updates by email to your readers? No? You're missing a amazing opportunity to get more readers and drive more traffic to your blog.

Did you know that adding an email option to your blog can boost your readership by over 50%? And did you know that you can also send out your newsletter through a free account with Feedblitz?

We've been using Feedblitz for years now, and love it. But listen to this: recently they made some important upgrades for their paid Premium accounts, AND then made them available to all free accounts.

You need to know about this! It could dramatically boost your readership and subscription lists.

Subject Lines: Words to Avoid

Do you ever wonder why some email messages get through to your recipients and others don't? I often scratch my head.  Yesterday I sent a message to a colleague 3 times before she received it. It was about a program we are going to present together and I have no idea why the first two attempts did not get through.  The subject lines and content were not spammy or hypey.

At any rate, today's issue of Marketing Profs has an article, or rather a list of 100 words NOT to use in email subject lines.  Many are obvious but others may surprise you, like "teen" and "get".  Basically anything that even remotely sounds like hype or a scam. Makes it tough on legitimate marketers who may need to use a word like "get" in their email!

Check out the list and keep it as a handy reference when you're creating email subject lines.

Affiliate Marketing Part One: My Top Five Pet Peeves

Do you have an affiliate program? Are you getting the results you want from your affiliates? If not, are you really doing everything you can to support their efforts?

I'm an affiliate of a good number of programs with products targeting solo entrepreneurs, ranging from self-improvement to business startup to marketing. And I'm surprised at how many of my affiliate program managers (aka the people I'm an affiliate of) make it so hard to promote their products! Here's a list of things affiliate program managers do that absolutely drive me up the wall:

1. Send email about an upcoming program to promote -- that starts in 48 hours or less! This is definitely the most frustrating situation I run into. I don't know about you, but suddenly dropping everything I'm doing to spend an hour or two preparing and sending a promotional mailing is a big disruption to my work day. It happens to me so regularly that I'm no longer surprised when it happens. But it runs a big risk that I won't bother promoting the program at all.
2. Don't let affiliates know about new program dates at all. Your affiliates can't promote something they don't know about! When I sign up for an affiliate program, I have the expectation that I will be notified when there is something they want me to promote -- weeks, if not a couple of months, in advance.
3. Offer little or no collateral material. Affiliates need something to work with! Articles that I can post with my affiliate link, pre-written short and long sales letters that I can customize, banners in various shapes, sizes and colors -- all are tools I can effectively use to promote affiliate programs.
4. Offer freebies without giving me an affiliate link to use to promote them. Many affiliate program managers have great freebies they give away -- a free ebook, ecourse, teleclass, etc. These are great introductions that can fill their pipelines with prospective buyers, and I'd love to promote them! But if I don't have an affiliate link that will tag my referrals for future purchases, I'm less likely to publicize them. It's just a reality -- I have to choose activities that are going to eventually make me money.
5. Lack of communication. I sign up, get the generic welcome email, and then never hear from them again. Marketing is all about relationships. If you want your affiliates to promote your products, build a relationship with them. Even a simple email once in a while would be a start!

Tune in on Friday, when I'll share my Top Five Ways to Keep Affiliates Happy.

***Bonus Sixth Pet Peeve (added 08-03-07):

6. Forcing affiliates to send prospects to a squeeze page. Let's say I write a nice promo piece about your product. Then I send them to a page...where they have to put in their email address just to learn more about a program they might want to buy? Huh? I just got them to take a leap of faith to check out something I recommend...making them take a second leap to trust whoever wants to take their email address is just as likely to make them click away. By all means, have a newsletter/freebie signup on your sales page -- just please don't make it harder for me to get you prospects.

Learn more about Affiliate Marketing and other ways to create Multiple Streams of Income

Internet Marketing: Six Ways to Improve Your Double Opt-In Rates

You probably know that having a double opt-in* process for your newsletter/ezine list is a must in business-to-business email marketing. It can be a confusing process to implement, depending on your ezine subscriber management system, but the benefits are clear:

• less chance of being called a spammer by someone who doesn't remember filling in the form (or because someone else filled out the form with their email address);
• fewer bad email addresses in your list;
• some mailing list delivery services require it!

BUT--sometimes your would-be subscribers don't click that link they receive from you in the confirmation email. And so you lose 10, 20, even 50% of your "subscribers". Arghh! How can you improve your opt-in rates? Generally, the more compelling and relevant your "offer" is to folks, and the easier it is for them to complete the process, the better opt-in rate you will enjoy.

1. Have some really strong copy that describes your ezine and the benefits they will receive.
2. Provide an incentive for folks to subscribe. A free ebook, ecourse, etc.
3. Remind folks that they must confirm (click the link in the confirmation email) to receive the incentive. You can do this on the signup or thank you page.
4. Help them make sure they receive the confirmation email, by offering a page explaining how to add your ezine to their whitelist.
5. Show them how to confirm. A snapshot of the confirmation email, with the confirmation link circled, is one way to make it crystal-clear.
6. Make sure your confirmation email matches the description of your ezine. Use the same wording, etc. Nothing will reduce your confirmation rates like using the generic confirmation email text!

Implement these permission-based email marketing best practices, and watch your subscription confirmations soar!

*Double opt-in defined:

1. new subscriber fills out a form on your site
2. your list management software sends a confirmation email with a special coded link
3. new subscriber clicks the link
4. subscriber is added to your list

Single opt-in eliminates steps 2 and 3.

Get more internet marketing tips for Solo Entrepreneurs

3 Things to Look For in Your Marketing Plan

What are 3 essential requirements a small business owner should look for when considering their online marketing plan?

I’ve been writing a white paper for The Blog Squad™, partly based on a manifesto I’ve been thinking about for small business owners.

It goes like this:

• Marketing shouldn’t cost an arm and leg
• Marketing shouldn’t be difficult for non-techie professionals without staff
• Results of your marketing should make it easy for people with problems to find your solutions.

Is this too much to ask? We don’t think so. Denise and I believe that it’s becoming easier than ever to use the Internet to market your services as a professional.

Advertorials: Step 8- Make an Irresistible Offer

You know how many promotional offers sound the same?

"Buy my book and you'll get instant access to $42,386 of free bonuses?"

Instant access to downloads does not guarantee your reputation or your respectability.

How is this different:

"Because you're reading this right now, I want to do something special for you. In a moment, I'll give you a special phone number and a special website address to take advantage of a unique gift I've arranged for you to have as my appreciation for your time in reading this.

"You'll get access to our program, with our no-risk satisfaction promise, and 3 bonus reports valued at $97 each. You'll receive an additional consultation with us at no charge when you decide to enroll. You can keep the bonuses and benefit from our one-on-one phone coaching even if you decide you aren't satisfied and want a refund."

The point is to make your readers feel special not overwhelmed. If you can go overboard in making your sales or enrollment process painless and risk-free, you will see an increase in your business success.

Remember that on the Internet, your words are your customer service representatives. Be sure to keep your word. People won't give you a second chance if you aren't trust-worthy.

Advertorials: Step 6- Address Objections

How do you even know what your prospects are objecting to? Okay, you can put yourself in their shoes and imagine why they might not buy or register for your product or services.

The problem with that process is that we only imagine what our own objections would be. I hear people doing this a lot: "Well, if I were the customer, I might think it's too expensive."

You may not be your average customer or prospect. The point is you can't know unless you do some research.

Adam Urbanski, The Marketing Mentor, suggests that there are four basic questions people ask themselves:

1. Is this easy?
2. Can I do this?
3. Will it work for me?
4. Can I afford it?

Do not avoid addressing these issues. He suggests using stories and price positioning strategies to explain the value of your program. Compare the price to something appearing to be similar that costs a lot more (individual consulting fees vs. group classes).

Here's how I rewrote the advertorial for The Blog Squad Mentoring program:

Advertorials: Step 4 - Why most solutions fail

Once you've got your readers to pay attention to what you have to say, you explain the problem from their point of view. You can read how I did this on our writing blog.

In step 4 of writing persuasive copy, you suggest several ways most people try to solve the problem and why that fails. Why is this important?

A couple of things happen when you write about failed solutions. First and foremost, you are letting people know you understand them, their problems and frustrations. This is extremely crucial to building trust and rapport with readers.

You present yourself as a credible expert who knows what all the ramifications of the problem and solutions are. You must be knowledgeable, not only about your own solution, but also about others. This is an opportunity to show what you know. In cases where a solution may be viable but it is not yours, you can talk about it reasonably and reveal its shortcomings.

Third, people love reading about mistakes and failures. Its just human nature to be drawn to the negative stuff. Above all, be reasonable and credible when you discuss this, however. Too much over the top promotional hype for your own solutions will drive people away.

This 4th section of an advertorial continues your quest to build relationships with readers, show your knowledge, and show you care and understand them.

Here's step 4 in our sample advertorial for The Blog Squad: