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February
2002
Print and Go
Here
is the entire ezine for you to print and take
with you. Simply print this entire web page by using your
"File/print" command. All of this month's articles are included
and there is plenty of room in the margins
for notes
Website Technique
Recommend Forms
by Tom Antion
There is not much doubt in any marketing circles that third party
endorsements from credible people are more powerful than all of your
self-generated pronouncements of greatness.
You can make it easier to stimulate these third party endorsements by
installing recommend forms on your website and suggesting that visitors use
them.
These forms can be used to recommend any of your products or services.
PROMOTE YOUR EZINE
I use a recommend CGI script to get people to promote my free Ezine "Great Speaking." A CGI script is a
piece of computer programming installed on your website server computer.
(Unless you are pretty savvy technically, you wouldn't install this
yourself.) When someone fills in the form and hits the "submit"
button a complex series of events is kicked off behind the scenes. That
gets your marketing done automatically.
Here's how my "Great Speaking" recommend form works:
When you visit http://www.antion.com/recommend.html
you put your name and email address in the recommend form. You then put in
the name and email address of your friend along with a personalized massage
to your friend. When you hit the submit button several things happen.
1. Your personalized recommendation goes via email to your friend along
with a customizable message from me and subscribe
instructions for "Great Speaking" ezine.
2. You can get an optional copy of what was sent to your friend sent back
to you via email.
3. I get notice via email that someone recommended "Great
Speaking" and a copy of what they said.
4. The form pops back up with a thank you note from me to you along with a
suggestion to recommend "Great Speaking" to more of your friends
and colleagues. The form keeps popping up until you get tired of it or run
out of friends.
This is all automated. I had this installed several years ago for a very
small amount of money (about $85.00) and it's been working flawlessly ever
since.
My record so far is 15 recommendations from one person. I also suggest to
the person recommending that they use this as a way to stay in touch with
clients because it's a nice, quick, and inexpensive way to let them know
you are thinking of them.
This script has resulted in thousands of new subscribers to "Great
Speaking."
Many people ask me if I can email to the persons that were recommended to
"Great Speaking." The answer is NO! That would be spam email
because I have no relationship with these people. I realize that some
people may risk it and claim they had a relationship through the
recommender. But I say it's just too risky that someone will complain.
RECOMMEND YOUR WEBSITE
The same form could be used to recommend your website or free e-book or
whatever you want.
I got this script from a good old boy at http://www.willmaster.com . The basic script is
actually free if you can install it yourself. I got the $50.00 version that
has the recurring pop up feature, i.e., it keeps popping back up for more
recommends until the recommender quits. I also paid the creator of the
script $35.00 to install it on my web server.
Before you dive into a project like this, read about whatever script you
pick to see the server requirements needed for it to work. Then call your
web host to see if they are using what your script requires.
For instance I think my script needed to be hosted on a UNIX server ( I say I think, because I don't know anything about
that stuff and don't want to) and it required CGI BIN access (same thing. I
don't know what this means and don't care). All I did was call the web host
and ask, "Do you use a UNIX server and
do you allow CGI Bin access?
They said yes. I called Bill back and sent him a check and the passwords.
He installed the script and tested it and sent me instructions on how to
change / customize the sign up message.
I haven't had to fool with it since..
I recently looked into recommend forms that use different types of
programming like ASP, PHP and other acronyms I don't understand. I asked
top search engine expert, John Heard, if he thought these forms would hurt
my search engine positioning and he said no. So feel free to use any form
you like.
You can find many of them at http://www.willmaster.com or type "recommend
forms" with quotation marks around the words into any major search
engine.
If you would like a form like this that takes only about 2 minutes to set
up http://www.kickstartcart.com
has it's own module
included with it's other advanced marketing
features. Get a 30 day free trial by clicking the link above.
For my "Great Speaking" ezine I put the
following text in each issue:
Please recommend this E-Zine to
anyone you know that is interested in being a better presenter, or who may
want to make money speaking and training. (It's a good way to stay in touch
with client's too.) You don't even have to mail
them an article. http://www.antion.com/recommend.html
For http://www.GreatInternetMarketing.com
I simply put a link with text: Click
here to recommend this site to a friend which is hyperlinked to the
Kick Start Cart automatic recommend form http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/tellafriend.asp?MerchantID=16070
Make it easy for people to recommend your products and services and you'll
tap the power of the third party endorsement.
Upcoming web techniques
·
Pop Under Boxes
·
Discussion Boards
·
Ask the expert
·
Shopping Systems
·
Third Party Applications
·
How to make your website sell
·
How to get free and cool content
·
Web customer service
Traffic Generation Technique
When NOT to Drive Traffic
by Tom Antion
One of the biggest mistakes people make is to put Herculean efforts into
driving traffic to their site before the site is thoroughly tested.
When I say tested I mean two things. 1. Mechanically tested i.e., does
everything including the shopping system work smoothly? 2. Does the site
convert visitors into buyers?
I had a lady start using Kick Start Cart http://www.kickstartcart.com
with a merchant account and a gateway. The moment she threw the settings in
the cart she announced her new ebook to her large
mailing list of fairly substantial people that she wanted to impress.
RESULTS: She got buried with complaint emails because everyone that
tried to buy the book go their credit card
declined which embarrassed them and embarrassed her.
It turns out that she had the wrong setting for the gateway to the merchant
account and her AMEX merchant account had not yet been activated. I'm not
sure exactly what else was wrong. I just know that a site that isn't
thoroughly tested over a period of at least days is likely to cause
trouble.
Test all the credit cards you accept in a live transaction. Get your
friends to do it or you may want to sneak a few transactions through using
your own credit cards (I'm not advocating this because you may violate your
merchant agreement by using your own card in you
own system.)
If you ask, most merchant account providers will give you a fake credit
card number to use in testing. I have found though that there is nothing
that compares to testing with a real credit card. The fake cards test your
system, but don't prove that the money actually gets to your bank account
which is the whole idea right?
TESTING YOUR SALES PAGES
Once all your links on your site work and go to the correct places and once
your shopping system absolutely works, you must
begin testing your sales pages.
If you send 1000 people to a sales page and no one buys, do you think it's
a good idea to simply send more people to the page? Of course not.
The idea is to send a certain number of people to the page and track the
number of people that buy.
Let's say you send 1000 people to your sales page using a pay-per-click search engine
and 30 people buy your 19.95 audio tape. You have
a 3 percent conversion rate calculated by dividing the number of people who
bought by the number of people who visited the page.
This is pretty darn good. Now you change something about the sales
page…Maybe you change the headline or maybe you change the call to action
or maybe you change he entire page.
Your original page is now called the "control." You now test the
changed page against the "control" and send another 1000
visitors. If you do less than 3 percent conversion on the new page, you go
back to the control page. If you do better than 3 percent you now have a
new page that makes you more money. It is now the "control" for
future testing.
You can keep testing until you get tired or you get to the point where you
can't get any higher conversion rate.
Now you can drive as much traffic as you want feeling confident that you
are selling a s much as possible from your sales
page.
THE FINANCES
Let's say you end up with a page that gets 3.5 percent conversion on a
$19.95 product and each product costs you $2.00 to produce and package.
So, for every 1000 people that hit the page you sell 35 products.
35 x $19.95 = $698.25 Gross Income
Your cost of goods sold (COGS) was $2.00 / product x 35 products sold =
$70.00
Let's assume your pay-per-click search engine cost you .20 per click for
your keyword to drive the 1000 visitors to the sales page. This would be
.20 / visitor (click) x 1000 visitors = $200.00
We'll assume the customer is paying the shipping and handling fee which
should cover your cost of postage and labor to haul the products to the
post office.
Here's the math:
$698.25 - $70.00 - $200.00 = $428.25 net profit
If you have a downloadable product you wipe out the COGS and shipping
hassle which adds an extra profit of $70.00
/ thousand visitors. In the above example you would make $498.25 profit per
thousand visitors.
If your pay-per-click keyword costs more than .20 that obviously would
reduce your profits and if it cost less than .20 you would make more
profit. If you get high rankings in regular search engines to drive part of
the traffic and/or drive traffic from your ezine,
media or speeches you would increase your profit even more.
We'll talk more about conversion rate in a future issue. But once you have
your site thoroughly tested and have your best conversion rates calculated,
you can drive as much traffic as you want.
Future Topics for this section
·
Trade links -- it's great for you in several
ways
·
Write one articles and get at least five
uses and maybe 50 uses
·
Off line ways to drive traffic
·
Online ways to drive traffic
·
When NOT to drive traffic
Product Development Technique
AUDIOTAPE PACKAGING
In previous issues we learned how to create an audio tape script and to
record an audio tape product.
Now let's take a look at labeling and packaging the tape(s) into a salable
product.
LABELING
For audio tapes I use Avery Label Pro software. This is a convenient
software for all kinds of labels (I don't use this for CDs). One of the
reasons it's convenient is because the program has numbered templates that
match up with the numbers on the boxes of labels that you can get at places
like Office Depot and Staples…..well maybe you can get them at Office Depot
and Staples. I have found quite often that the audio tape labels are not
kept in stock at the retail stores because the demand is not great enough.
You can usually order them from the website of the same stores I just
mentioned and have them delivered to your door.
When you set up the Avery program you will have to run a calibration sheet
through your printer and make a few adjustments to the software so that
everything lines up nicely. You do this once and then you're setup unless
you change your laser printers (ink jets work too).
It's been my experience that the Avery labels are the highest quality you
can get. There are many off brands and colored labels that you can get to
work with the software with enough tweaking, but you'll likely get lots of
paper jams. Also the labels are thinner and tear easily. I say stick with
the good quality labels that are seamlessly compatible and you'll get a
good looking label with very little frustration.
OTHER LABELS
For higher quantity labels or multi color labels
that really must look great or special label stock like gold foil, metallic
colored, etc. visit your local instant print
shop.
Unless it's a real print shop they don't print these labels in-house. You
order from a catalog and tell them what you want on the labels and they
ship your order out to some company that specializes in labels like
Discount Labels. It usually takes about a week to get them back. Sometimes
you can have them shipped directly to your office.
APPLYING LABELS
You're going to blow a few labels by putting them on crooked. I hold them
between my thumb and forefinger on the top edge. I pull them tight and line
them up across the top edge of the tape and then lay then down somewhat
diagonally so they don't buckle. I then press my fingers all over the label
to take out any small wrinkles and to make sure the edges don't curl up.
OTHER LABELING METHODS
As I outlined in the audio
tape production article, your duplication facility can stamp ink right
on the cassette shell so you don't have to do any labeling at all.
On short run products and low demand products I make the labels in-house so
I can do it quickly and also so I don't have to invest in large quantities
like I would if I bought them at a print shop.
OUTSIDE PACKAGING
For single tapes you can use the standard tape box and "J" card,
but I don't recommend it. If you are selling information products, you need
to increase the perceived value of the product any way you can which will
promote your image and reduce returns.
I think BIG packaging helps toward the above two goals. This is why I won't
use small cassette boxes and "J" cards.
For all my tape packaging I use vinyl cassette albums. I get them from http://www.polylinecorp.com . They have albums that will hold 1, 2, 3, 4, 6,
8 and 16 tapes.
Even the one tape album is 2 or 3 times bigger than a little cassette box.
It looks big and it looks substantial which is precisely the image I want
to convey before you even listen to the great content.
The Album alone normally won't finish off your packaging. ON single tapes I
use labels and I also throw in a book mark for my "Wake 'em Up Book."
All the albums I use have a clear plastic cover that is open at the top
which forms a pocket so I can slide in pieces of paper to make covers that
look really great.
ALBUM COVERS
Many years ago when I first started making albums I had to print at least
1000 copies of my color covers to make it cost effective. Cost effective
means that the unit cost was small enough so that it didn't eat up all the
profit of each product. Small numbers of covers could cost you $10.00 each
or more because of the setup costs of the printing process.
That's all changed for the better especially if you are an information
marketer. Now I can make up a cover on my word processor, print it out on
good paper in gorgeous color, cut them to fit and have a professional
looking cover.
When I need 50 or 100 covers I just take the master to Kinkos
or I email them a pdf file and they run the covers on their color copier.
I could do one at a time if I felt like it. Yes, the unit cost is between
.79 and $1.50 depending on the size, but both those prices leave a big
profit margin on high markup info products.
If you aren't very good at computer graphics, it's pretty easy to find a
computer based graphic artist these days or a high school kid. Get them to
supply you with a pdf file and you're off to the Kinko's races.
In come cases when I have a cover that is bigger
than 8.5 x 11 inches I output it directly to a pdf file because my laser
printer will only take 8.5 x 11 and I don't want to buy an oversize printer
for a few covers.
When I do have a cover that is oversize, many times I can get a 2 for 1
happy hour special.
Let's say the cover I need is bigger than 8.5 x 11, but smaller than 11 x
17 so I have to get an 11 X 17 color copy anyway and cut it down to size.
Why not lay out a color coupon on the part that is going to get cut off?
Now you get a coupon and a cover for the same price.
So get busy with you audio tape project and use the techniques in this
article to make it look great!
Other upcoming topics
·
CD Production
·
Product packaging
·
Email courses
·
Ebooks
·
TeleSeminars
·
Consulting
·
Video Tapes
·
Webcasts
·
Radio Shows
·
Videoconferencing from home
·
Streaming audio courses
·
Streaming video courses
Email Technique
Why use a list management company?
by Tom Antion
Because you're crazy not to or you just have way too much time on your
hands.
A list management company specializes in handling all the mundane and
complex functions of maintaining a large email address list.
Why are you crazy if you don't use a list management company?
·
You will have to handle all the subscribers
one at a time by hand.
·
You will have to handle all the
"normal" unsubscribers by hand
·
You will have to handle all the idiot psycho
maniacs by hand.
·
To comply to present day double opt in
standards you will have to send a confirmation email to each person
subscribing and track whether they return it or not.
·
If you choose to send a welcome letter (it's
a good idea) to subscribers you will have to do it by hand after they have
returned the confirmation email which you had to track by hand (whew! I'm
getting tired).
·
If you choose to offer free ebooks, reports, etc as
incentives to sign up (also a good idea) you will have to do it by hand one
at a time.
·
If you want to keep track of undeliverable
emails, you will have to count them up by hand.
·
You will have to deal with people bitching
to be removed because they signed up under one email address and ask you to
remove a different one.
The list goes on and on.
That's why you'd be crazy to do this yourself. Do you know how I know?
Because I didn't know any better when I first started and I had to do all
the above and more. It's no wonder I didn't have enough time to get my
other work done.
Once I started using a list management company all the above tasks (except
for dealing with people too stupid to unsubscribe themselves) was taken
care of automatically by the list management company.
Subscribers could sign up themselves, unsubscribe themselves, get their
confirmation and welcome emails automatically and also get two free reports
automatically.
If I want to know how many undeliverables I have,
I simply press a button and there's the answer. It even breaks it down for
me into different domains like hotmail and yahoo
so I can see which one of those major services is doing the worst. Right
now Hotmail is the worst with Yahoo running a close 2nd.
As soon as I switched to a list management company I had many more hours
per week to actually market. With a list of any size at all it would be
impossible to do all the above functions.
Ok I know there are software programs that will do much of what I
outlined above, but are they a good idea?
I don't think so unless you are really technically savvy because there
is a tremendously steep learning curve . . . not just in learning the
software, but in making the entire project work so that your emails get
delivered.
This involves locating bulk email friendly ISPs etc,
etc. etc.
Another reason it's a good idea to use a large and credible list management
firm is because they carry enough clout to get the attention of the Hotmails, Yahoos and AOLs of the world.
What does that mean?
Let me give you some inside scoop. Companies like Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and
other ISPs routinely dump email. Will they openly admit this? No, not
exactly, but I have plenty of experience with all of them.
They'll claim they are simply filtering potential junk mail. Well that
"junk mail" could be the Ezine
legitimately requested by your subscriber. They won't tell you how the
filters are set which makes sense because real spammers could then beat the
system easier.
The real reason, in my opinion, is to cut down total amounts of incoming
mail to make things cheaper and easier for them. They figure, "So what
if you don't get all your Hotmail mail. It's a free account anyway so too
bad."
A large list management company can get a meeting with AOL officials, Yahoo
and if lightening strikes Hotmail officials and
make deals that you can't.
If the list management company has strict controls against spamming and
enforces them, AOL could be persuaded to open the door to email coming from
them.
It's doubtful that you'll ever have this kind of clout by yourself.
None of this means that all your mail will get through. In peak periods it
could get dumped "accidentally on purpose" or purely accidentally
or many free email users let their boxes fill up causing the rest of their
email to bounce.
This is another feature of a good list management company. You can set the
number of times you try to deliver to a certain address before the list
deletes the name for you (this is called pruning).
You wouldn't want to drop an address after only once bounce. Their server
could just be down momentarily or the subscriber's mail box might be full
because they are on vacation.
BACKUP
A reputable list management company will keep your list nice and secure. No
one else will have access to your subscribers. They also back up their
computers regularly.
WARNING: This does not relieve you of
the responsibility of downloading your list regularly and backing it up
yourself to a floppy disc, CD, zip drive etc..
Keep at least one copy of the backup out of your office in case of fire or
other disaster. Remember -- that list is just like gold bullion to your
company.
HOW MUCH DOES THIS COST?
You'll be happily surprised that this kind of service starts at less than
$20.00 / month depending on the size of your list and the level of service
you require. I pay $299.00 / month now with a list of about 117,000 which
is pretty cheap when you consider this list has brought in close to a
million dollars in sales.
If you want to do HTML email, or if you get a smart service that adjusts
automatically between HTML, plain text and AOL depending on what the
subscriber chooses, that will cost you quite a bit more.
Don't be crazy. Use a list management company right from the start.
I use the standard version of http://www.postmastergeneral.com/?affiliate=antion
Upcoming topics for this section:
·
Email strategy
·
HTML email
·
Smart Email
·
Plain Text Email
·
Link tricks
·
Getting subscribers fast
·
Getting content fast
·
How to make money with your zine
·
How to gain clout with your zine
·
How to maximize the signups on your website
Copywriting
Technique
Parallel Tracks
by Tom Antion
AND
Article 2
Killer Copy: Words That Are
Like Magnets to Money
by David Garfinkel
This is a fairly simple and extremely powerful concept that is not well
known to new Internet marketers. It has to do with the fact that some
potential buyers like to skim an ad and make quick decisions. Other
potential buyers are more analytical. They read every word.
THE SKIMMERS
To take care of the skimmers you brainstorm a bunch of good headlines like
you normally would for any ad. You pick what you think is
the best one and make it the headline of the sales page. You take the best
of the leftover headlines and make sub headings out of them. Make sure that
jumping from headline to sub head to subhead tells your story. Make the
subheads intriguing and provocative.
Along the way put "Buy Me Now" buttons or "Yes, Tom I'm
ready to invest in myself" links so the skimmer can make a decision to
buy and do so (many times before they get to the bottom of the page).
ANALYTICALS
Just fill in the blanks between subheads with your normal good copywriting
techniques.
Having two tracks means your train is heading for a sale.
Killer Copy: Words That Are Like Magnets
to Money
By David Garfinkel
I'll never forget what my accountant said five years ago when he saw the ad
I wrote for my services: "How many scotches did you drink before you
wrote this?"
He was kidding about the scotch. But he just couldn't believe anyone in
their right mind would write such a bold and outrageous ad for their own
writing, consulting and speaking services, as I had.
Well, I spent $300 on that ad -- $200 to run it in a local trade
association directory, and $100 to have it reprinted as a flyer.
The following year, that $300 ad turned into $12,341 in new business for
me. And $12,341 was just a tiny fraction of my total business that year.
Why did I make so much money myself while there were so many thousands of
"starving writers" in the world? The answer may surprise you. You
see, it's not because I'm a better writer. It's not my schooling. Not my
resume. Not any talent I was born with.
It's all because I learned how to write "killer copy."
How do you write killer copy?
You start your killer copy with an emotion-packed opening statement that
will get the attention of your reader. This opening statement may be:
* a headline
* an opening sentence
* a subject line on an email
* the header on a Web page
… or for that matter, the opening words in a telemarketing script, radio
commercial, or TV spot. What's important is that you understand - your
first words count for everything… because you must captivate peoples'
imagination with those words in order to keep their attention.
Here are examples of opening statements from actual successful marketing
pieces:
a) "Take the luxury vacation of your dreams at a reduced cost
because of this special offer" (from a travel agency's letter to
business owners.)
b) "How to stop overwhelm before it stops you" (from a
personal coach's ad aimed at stressed-out overachievers)
c) "Why almost every financial statement in family court may
not disclose the full net worth of the opposing spouse" (from an
investigator's sales letter to divorce lawyers.)
Then, after your emotion-packed opening statement, you just
a) Make a promise
b) Back it up with convincing proof and
c) Ask for action.
1. Make a promise. The letter about luxury vacations starts
with these words:
"Imagine taking your winter vacation knowing you aren't
spending a penny more than you have to-secure that you
have a team of travel experts making sure every little detail
of your vacation goes smoothly.
"Here's how you can have that vacation right now: Take
advantage of an unusual promotion our company is doing. Let me
explain."
Pretty exciting, right? Even if you don't think so, the people who got the
letter did - because the letter produced an amazing $5 million in sales for
the travel agency.
2. Back it up with convincing proof. The personal coach's ad
for stressed-out overachievers, the one that begins "How to stop
overwhelm before it stops you," contains this proof:
* 3 case studies,
* 3 testimonials,
* detailed credentials of the coach
* and a money-back guarantee.
Despite its stunningly bold claims, the ad comes across as very believable
and has generated a record-breaking parade of new clients.
3. Ask for action. The investigator's sales letter to divorce
lawyers, beginning "Why almost every financial statement in family
court may not disclose the full net worth of the opposing spouse,"
ends this way:
"I would like to meet with you at no charge to show you how I can be
of service to you and your clients in future family law cases.
"Please call me at your convenience so we can set up a meeting to
discuss further how I can assist your clients recover their fair share of
assets. Call me directly at xxx - xxx-xxxx."
Killer copy always asks for action in the
most powerful way possible. Notice how the above words spell out
exactly what to do, and even make a big promise - that the lawyer reading
the letter will recover more money in court for their clients (and,
therefore, get more money themselves).
As you can see, a few words of killer copy can lead to massive amounts of
money. In fact, many people say writing killer copy is the single most
valuable money-making skill in the world.
And recently, writing copy was named as one of the top 10 emerging
professions for the new century.
It doesn't surprise me. In the age of the Internet, the old style of
advertising copy -- saying something clever, and hoping people remember -
just doesn't cut it anymore.
Besides, these days, with business-to-business advertising growing so fast,
the traditional advertising industry is feeling a lot of pressure for ads
that really produce results. Why? Because, old-style advertising that
entertains, but does not sell, is not cost-effective enough for many
companies in today's hyper-competitive market.
Recently I heard from my former accountant. (A few years ago, he left
accounting to start a new business.)
He asked me if I wouldn't mind sharing some ideas on how he could write
killer copy for his own business.
I said sure. And now he's on his way to doing the same thing that I do, for
himself.
Funny thing about the conversation we had the other day. Unlike the
conversation we had back in 1995, he didn't kid me about drinking scotch,
or anything else. Maybe he finally realized that when it comes to
increasing your income, killer copy is serious business.
© 2000 David Garfinkel. All rights reserved.
David Garfinkel
is widely recognized by many "marketing gurus" as their secret
weapon. That is, he is known as "The World's Greatest Copywriting
Coach"; because, he can, like no other, teach you how to turn
words into cash. David is also the author and narrator of Killer
Copy Tactics, the Web's first and only totally interactive audio/visual
learning system for writing killer sales copy.
You can learn more about this course at:
http://www.killercopytactics.com
Cool Software and Gadgets
Software
http://www.gotomypc.com
Access your home computer from anywhere that you have an Internet
connection
http://www.comp4learn.com/cleaner/
must have inexpensive software to clean up blocks of text in seconds. I use
this all the time!
http://www.grsoftware.net/search_engines/software/grkda.html
Keyword density analyzer. This is what I use to optimize pages for search
engines so that they have the right number of keywords on them. This does
in less than a second what it would take you five minutes per page to do.
Gadgets
http://www.mediaprotection.com/MV1000.html
Protect your valuable discs from fire
http://www.projectiondirect.com/PresentingAccessories.asp
Gyro mouse wireless mouse
http://www.presentacase.com/
briefcase and presentation screen all in one.
http://www.cpen.com
and http://www.irispen.com
Pen sized scanners
http://www.snpower.com/
Solar Cell phone batteries
http://www.igoproducts.com/Pages/NewProducts/
product_spot_pj.asp
Recharge your cell phone from your laptop battery.
http://www.arialphone.com/
Wireless, headset phone that dials by voice recognition
Useful Websites
http://searchbug.com/packages/
Track all your product shipments from one website.
http://www.linkpopularitycheck.com
Find out how popular any site is by seeing how many other sites are linked
to it. Link popularity plays a big part in search engine rankings.
http://www.netmechanic.com Lots
of free and power tools to evaluate and improve your website.
http://websitegarage.netscape.com/
More evaluation and tune up tools for your website
Computer / Automation Technique
Address Grabber
More techniques
Address Grabber is a program that does exactly what is says. It allows
you to "grab" your contacts in any format in a text document,
from your e-mail, or off the internet, and transfer these addresses into
your contact database.
For those of you who collect business cards on the road, this makes it easy
to enter these contacts away from home. It will also give you something to
do on the flight home or in your room at night. You simply type the names,
addresses, telephone numbers etc. into your word processor as fast as you
can in any old format. Once you have access to your database, using Address
Grabber it will only take an additional few minutes to transfer them.
The way this program works is very simple. First, make sure your transfer
destination is open i.e., ACT or Outlook is open and running.. Type the addresses and/or other contact information
into a Word or similar document. Highlight the address you want to transfer
and then click on the program you want to transfer to in the Address
Grabber toolbar. A screen will pop up for verification that the fields are
in the correct position. Once verified, simply hit transfer. Address
Grabber will then transfer all contact information into your database in
the correct fields.
You can also grab addresses from websites and e-mails. It really is that
simple and fast. This really works great when you have collected numerous
business cards on the road and they need to be entered quickly. I keep it
running all day so I can grab an address from a signature file in an email
or whenever I see an address I want to "grab" for the database.
The only drawback I have found with Address Grabber,
is you can only transfer one contact at a time. However, if you have more
than a few addresses to enter, this is the most efficient way to go about
entering your contact information. It is less time consuming and you don't
need to worry yourself with the details of tabbing over the fields of
missing information.
In all, this is a wonderful program to have on your desktop. It will save
you an enormous amount of time. And saved time is saved money. This product
can be found at http://www.goldminesolutions.com
for $49.95. They also offer a 15 day free trial.
More
automation techniques:
·
Automatically check to see your website is
up as soon as you open your browser window by making your site the home
page. In Internet Explorer Click on "Tools" then click on
"Internet Options." Make sure you are in the "General
Tab." The first area will have a place to put home page that you want
to come up when your browser opens. In Netscape click on "Edit"
then click on "preferences." On the left hand side highlight
"navigator" then on the right side put in your home page.
·
If you visit a website regularly and want to
get to it really fast surf to the site in Internet Explorer. Click on
"File" then click on "Send." Pick send shortcut to
desktop and you'll have a shortcut right from your desktop to that page.
Miscellaneous Stuff You Need to Know
·
You can get a free CD production guide
(watch out....it's more technical than you really need to make money at http://www.discmakers.com
·
You can give out free email accounts to your
visitors. This would be especially useful to promote your brand name.
Different programs give you some of the ad space that rides along with each
email or you can pay and get all the ad space for yourself or to sell.
We're planning on having free email in the not too distant future at Great
Internet Marketing.com and Great Speaking.com Find free email providers for
websites by visiting http://www.bigmailbox.com
and http://www.everyone.net
·
Add a great search tool for free if you have
a non-password protected site with less than 500 pages http://www.atomz.com You
can try this out at http://www.public-speaking.org
·
Don't get carried away with some off beat
color scheme that matches your print brochure. Make sure you are only using
browser / web safe colors in your website. There are 216 colors that show
up pretty much the same in any browser and on any computer.
·
Viruses have been discovered that infect
Flash movies played in the Macromedia Player. Those played in your browser
are ok.
Case Study
Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE
NOTE FROM TOM: Patricia is very
complimentary to me in this snapshot of her business and I appreciate that,
but she is an example someone who doesn't sit around and do
nothing just because she's pretty comfortable. I wish all Butt Camp
attendees were like her.
What should you do if your calendar is jam-packed, you have bookings
years in advance, and your business is running perfectly? Patricia Fripp knows the answer: "MAKE the time to expand
your electronic marketing."
Fripp was quick to see that her website,
originally created as a now-ubiquitous "brochure site," was as an
opportunity to reach new clients, sell more product, and save time and
money on hard-copy materials and administration. Driven by an enthusiasm
for both marketing and technology, Fripp has
expanded and refined http://www.fripp.com
into a client-getting, labor-saving, money-making success!
British-born Fripp is all about firsts. A
professional speaker, she has won every award and designation given by the
National Speakers Association including the CSP and CPAE. She is also the NSA's
first woman president (1984-85). An admitted "shameless
self-promoter," Fripp was among the first
speakers to market herself with a speaker press kit (1978), to develop a
speaker demo video (1985), and to market her products and services
effectively online with her website and her e-zines FrippNews
and SpeakerFrippNews.
Fripp admits she is not a natural
"techie." Even so, as a full time and in-demand speaker,
executive speech coach, sales trainer, and author, Fripp
still finds time to work one-on-one with her webmaster, Aylene
Rhiger, orchestrating an ongoing campaign to
update and improve content, functionality, visitor traffic, and bottom-line
results.
So how does Fripp remain so "hands-on"
with her website? After all, her expertise lies in leadership, customer
service, marketing, sales, presentation skills, and employee motivation.
But she is able to collaborate with her webmaster because she stays
up-to-date on the latest in electronic marketing. Fripp's
most recent and best resource for this was attending Tom Antion's seminar, "Electronic Marketing Butt
Camp."
During her website's first few years, growth of traffic was respectable for
the time. Always eager to try new marketing strategy, Fripp
worked with her webmaster to increase website traffic. Visits jumped by 80%
in twelve months. That was great, but the Fripp
team knew that an even higher level of success was possible. Their goals
were more traffic, more online sales, and more inquiries about Fripp's speech coaching and sales training services.
Searching for solutions, Fripp and her webmaster
both attended Tom Antion's Electronic Marketing
Butt Camp. Amazingly, after implementing just a few of Antion's
simple solutions, they were able to boost website traffic an additional 30%
in just three months--and the success continues today.
Here are some improvements the Fripp team made
after attending Tom Antion's Electronic Butt Camp:
Improved strategic placement of keywords on pages. For example, text-link
navigation was expanded to include more essential keywords.
* Expanded number of outbound links on site.
For example: http://www.fripp.com/links.html
* Established additional reciprocal link
relationships with other websites..
* Stepped up publication of Fripp articles on other websites, linking back to
Fripp.com.
* Created hallway pages. For example: http://www.fripp.com/forspeakerhelp.html
* Tailored pages to better match specific
search-engine criteria.
* Moved Fripp's
two e-zines, FrippNews and SpeakerFrippNews,
to http://www.postmastergeneral.com/?affiliate=antion
a Butt Camp recommended system. The subscriber base has doubled, because of
an easier subscription process and each issue directs subscribers back to
the website.
* Improved site indexing: http://www.fripp.com/frippmap.html
and http://www.fripp.com/alphasiteindex.html
* Expanded "feeder" sites, additional small Websites which
draw traffic into Fripp.com. Existing feeder sites were:
http://www.robertfrippunplugged.com
http://www.executivespeechcoach.com . Feeder sites
recently added include: http://www.aboutemployeemotivation.com
http://www.advancedpresentationskills.com .
In 2000, Fripp produced an audio program for her
brother, legendary guitarist and celebrity Robert Fripp,
and has marketed this through the feeder site http://www.robertfrippunplugged.com
. which attracted far more celebrity-seeking
visitors than Fripp's primary business sites.
Search engine positioning eventually paid off, and, using the many
techniques learned at Butt Camp, the Fripp team
was able to push traffic up to all Fripp sites.
Currently, http://www.executivespeechcoach.com
now receives the highest number visitors of all the Fripp
sites.
Butt Camp further re-enforced Fripp's belief that
quality free resources would attract more visitors to her website. For
example:
* An extensive selection of articles at http://www.fripp.com/articleslist.html
Online video and audio, some full-length, at http://www.fripp.com/frippclips.html
* Two free content-rich e-zines: FrippNews at http://www.fripp.com/business_newsletter.html
, and SpeakerFrippNews at
http://www.fripp.com/speaking_newsletter.html
Butt Camp also re-emphasized that electronic marketing should not only make
money. It should SAVE you money. Downloadable materials on Fripp's websites site have cut printing, shipping, and
administrative costs. "My assistant of ten years left one year
ago," Fripp explains, "and because of
my website I have not had to replace her."
Here are some materials that Fripp provides
online:
* Speaker Video
* Complete talks in audio and video
* Press Kit (photos, bio, etc.)
* Program Descriptions
* Handouts
* Agreements
* Pre-Program Questionnaire
* Samples of most of her audio and video programs
The best electronic marketing strategies are constantly evolving and
improving. Here's how Fripp plans to update in
2002:
* Fripp will
continue to reposition herself online with a greater emphasis on her
executive speech coaching and sales training services.
* The Fripp team will leave their old Miva Merchant shopping cart and move over to a
Butt-Camp-recommended shopping cart, http://www.KickStartCart.com
. The new cart will be an improvement, offering an easy affiliate program
and follow up marketing e-mails to shoppers.
* The ongoing effort to boost search engine rankings will continue through
expanded work with the Butt-Camp-recommended system Web Position Gold.
* Fripp will use
the Butt Camp model of teleseminars to conduct seminars over the phone.
* The Fripp team
will integrate on-line forms into her contact management system.
Fripp's webmaster, Aylene
Rhiger, is also an Electronic Marketing Butt Camp
alumna and highly recommends the program to other webmasters. "We were
already working on our online presence," she says, "and Tom
showed us the possibility of a higher level of success. More importantly,
he showed how to get there!"
February 2002 with mark Patricia Fripp's third
time attending Tom Antion's Electronic Marketing
Butt Camp. "Whenever someone approaches my team with an Internet
marketing `solution,'" Fripp says, "we
ask ourselves, `What would Tom Antion do?' Tom Antion's
Electronic Marketing Butt Camp keeps me up with the rapidly changing field
of Internet marketing. I have no interest in doing it myself, but I can
make more results-oriented choices with my electronic marketing and better
direct my webmaster.
"As a seminar junkie for over 26 years, I have never attended a
seminar that has more practical, immediately usable content per minute. As
long as Tom provides this seminar I will be a repeat attendee!"
#
# #
Patricia Fripp CSP, CPAE is a San Francisco-based
executive speech coach, sales trainer, and professional speaker on sales,
marketing, leadership, change, customer service, team building and
presentation skills.. She is the author of "Get What You Want!"
and "Make it So You Don't Have to Fake it!" She is a
Past-President of the National Speakers Association. named
Fripp "one of the country's most
electrifying speakers!" She can be reached at
mailto:PFripp@fripp.com ,
1-800-634-3035 or visit
http://www.fripp.com
Aylene Rhiger, MA, MFA
is Patricia Fripp's webmaster and a web developer
specializing in websites for speakers, trainers, consultants, and authors.
Contact her by mailto:aylene@rhiger.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Upcoming case studies
·
Michael Stahl
·
Rob Dale
·
Caroline Corser
·
Jeffrey Mayer
·
Bill Brooks
If you would like your case study used, attend Butt Camp, apply what you
learned and tell us what happened to your business. mailto:tom@antion.com
TRENDS
·
As I've been preaching for a long time
forget the Flash and go for the cash. According to an article in the
E-commerce Times Ron Rogowski said operators of
the best sites focus on clear navigation, beginning with the home page, and
keep flashy graphics and other gimmicks to a minimum.
·
AOL finished near the bottom of a Consumer
Reports survey of ISPs and now they're raising their rates for those
subscribers who are using their BYOA services. Rates are going from $9.95
per month to $14.95 per month. They also became the most expensive ISP last
summer when they raised their subscription rate to $23.90. I use them quite
frequently for my Internet connection when on the road, but service and
connections leave a lot to be desired.
·
On the other hand AOL has 33 million
subscribers who spent around 33 billion dollars last year on line. You've
got to play their game to get your share of that money.
·
A study by AnswerThink
found that in 2001 91% of retail websites had an automated email system. Do
you have one? Here it is http://www.kickstartcart.com
·
Western Europe has passed up the USA in the
highest percentage of Internet Users. They now have 29.8 % and the USA has
29.2 % Are you thinking Internationally when you
put something on your website? Along with that USA
E-business revenues increased by 7% and Europe, the Middle East and
Africa went up 32%.
·
According to an Ipsos-Reid/RBC
Financial Group survey, as of the third quarter 2001 the average Canadian
family spends 32 hours per week online.
·
Pizza chain Papa John’s will make online
ordering available at all of its free-standing restaurants in the US. It is
the first pizza chain to offer this service throughout its entire system.
·
There is fierce competition among the
airlines for providing high speed Internet access at about $20.00 per hour.
I have a tough time seeing this because no one I know even uses the
telephone on airplanes. I just saw the latest rates. $2.99 connection
charge and $7.99 per minute . . . OUCH. How are they going to have $20.00
per hour high speed Internet when they can't even have reasonably prices
telephone service?
You will have to print out the following
reference pages separately. They are included in each issue, so there is no
need to print them out every time. Do, however, check them frequently
because I will put new additions to these pages at the top of each page
until the next issue comes out.
Recommended
Learning Tools
Search Engine Resources
Suppliers
Back to February 2002 Index page
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