May 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
FAQ Pages

Frequently Asked Question pages are basically used for two purposes. 1. To lighten the customer service load and 2. to sell. I use mine to sell.

Visit http://www.antion.com/faq.htm to see my page.

Part of selling is education. When you educate your customer about what they need and then fill those needs you can sell lots of stuff. Here's and example from the first FAQ on my page.

Do you customize?
I sure do! I know many speakers say they customize, but to them that means they sprinkle in the name of your organization and charge you extra to pronounce it right.

Here's how I do it:
1) I do a computer search of your industry, your company and your competition; 2) When possible, I do phone interviews with audience members (sometimes I incorporate their quotes into color visuals and/or handout materials); 3) I review your trade publications; 4) I "secret shop" your retail establishments, if appropriate; 5) You get handout materials that reflect the theme of your meeting; and 6) Titles and subjects are customized to your event.

Let's break this down:

First, many new meeting planners or people that are given the task of finding and hiring speakers may not have any experience doing so. They may not know that a customized presentation is more valuable to them than a standard dog and pony show. It's my job to educate them.

I also take the opportunity to bash other speakers a little by exposing what they "call" customization. This will alert the meeting planner to watch what other speakers say about their customization. The meeting planner will automatically compare what the other speaker says to what I have already told them is the standard. If the other speaker doesn't reach my standard . . . .chalk up one point for Tom.

I then go on to mention the different ways I customize. This is pretty impressive that I would go to all that trouble to call people, secret shop, customize the handouts, titles etc.

Let's look at the next question:

How long are your presentations?
My presentation will be designed to fit your available time from 30 minutes to two days. I am also experienced and flexible enough to adapt when my segment needs to be cut or expanded unexpectedly. I will do whatever I can to accommodate your needs.

In the above question I'm showing that I'm flexible, that I have plenty of material and that I'm experienced and capable of adapting it to their needs. I'm basically showing them that their needs come before mine.

How can you effectively address so many different types of groups?
The fact that I've addressed a wide range of audiences (more than 87 different industries) is a big part of my value to your organization. Every group is different, but I have found that we face many similar challenges. In my areas of expertise, I bring the best of "what works" from other industries to your group.

The above question makes a benefit out of my experience. This is to counteract someone thinking that they need an expert from their own industry.

How can we get extra value by engaging you?
Many groups that hire me to do a keynote presentation also have me do a breakout or spouse session at the same event. This gets you a big discount on the second presentation and saves you travel
and expenses. I will also help you design exciting convention openings and closings, even if you are on a bargain basement budget!

Again, I'm educating them about the ways they can get more bang for their buck, i.e., I'm adding value.

Creating a FAQ page

You can simply start listing questions and answers right down the middle of your page. In Microsoft Front Page they have a template with all the book marks and hyperlinks already in place. You just fill in the questions and answers.

Make sure you concentrate on educating in a way that gives you an excuse to highlight the benefits you bring to the table.
 

Traffic Generation Technique
Ebay

I am just getting my feet wet on Ebay as a seller. I've been buying stuff on there for awhile. My first auctions went up this week and so far I've  sold two "Wake 'em Up!" books and gained two new customers.

The last part of the last sentence is what I want you to pay attention to -- "and gained two new customers." That's the real important issue here.

Hold the presses. hahahaha another one of my auctions just ended and guess what NO BIDDERS hahahahaha. It cost me a whole 35 cents to list "Wake 'em Up" in an obscure area and nobody found it.

This is cracking me up because everything has a certain skill level to it. I started my auctions on a whim and then got the book Ebay for Dummies. I'm now reading about all the dumb things I've been doing. There are best times to run auctions, Best times to start. Best times to end and more strategy than you would realize. I can only suggest that you get a book on it which will save you lots of time.

The beauty of the whole thing is that it's so darn cheap to try out. The other thing is that everyone on there is not necessarily an el cheapo bargain hunter. I certainly am not cheap, but I buy stuff on there all the time and if I find a good company I'll buy stuff direct from them.

OK, back to my two new customers. It's too early to say if these people are likely to spend any more money with me, but I spoke to one of them on the phone for about 15 minutes and she's an author with a published book and she wants to be a better speaker. WELL HELLO . . .WHO'S BETTER THAN ME TO HELP HER ALONG HER WAY?  . ..  (For those of you who don't know me that's my field.)

That's the point. She could become a long term customer and buy thousands of dollars worth of products and services. We're back to the old "Lifetime value of a customer" concept.

I'm thinking that once I learn how to do it, the process of the auctions can be virtually automated. Ebay has a $5.00 a month tool that keeps track of your auctions and uploads them with templates so they look nice. If you're really industrious you can make some really fancy stuff layouts of your products.

So Tom, what does this have to do with website traffic?
Well here's the scoop. There are tricks of the trade to put your website address in with the ad. There are personal home pages Ebay gives you that tell about you and what you do. There are millions and millions of visitors to Ebay all typing in keywords (that's another thing you need to learn to do. . .put keywords in your descriptions so you come up on searches.)

So if you have any kind of product, audio tape, video tape, book or whatever, you can use it as a loss leader. If you're self published it's probably not even going to be at a loss. I sold one Wake 'em UP book for $8.00 plus shipping and the other for $6.83 plus shipping. With a $2.00 cost I still made a little money on both and got two new customers.

Let's say I can get that up to a five or ten or twenty new customers per week. Now we're talking some good revenue when some of them upgrade to other products and services.

More updates on my Ebay auctions next month.

Product Development Technique
Video Tapes

The good old VHS video tape is still hanging in there. Blockbuster still has miles of shelves filled with them and you can buy them all over the Internet. The DVD is coming, but it's not even close to replacing your VCR.

Creating video is a lot easier, better quality and cheaper than it used to be. It's still much more complex than creating audio products but with the right kind of help you should have no trouble making VHS video products.

The reason it is so much cheaper now is because of the digital camcorder. They are tiny in physical size, light in weight and put out an extremely high quality picture.

Do it yourselfers
For those of you that are more industrious you can do entire video productions yourself using a digital camera and your home computer. I have to tell you though it's not as easy as the video editing software people make it sound.

To edit video on your home computer takes a really big and really fast hard drive. These drives are usually a step above the standard computer hard drive. You also need a good video capture card. If your computer doesn't have one, then you'll need to choose one (not very easy) pay for it and install it AND hope it works.

When it comes to video cameras, just about any modern digital or mini DV camera is more than enough to create great quality instructional videos.

Don't forget the lights and a good fluid head tripod. A terrible camera with great lighting will most likely give you a better picture than a great camera with terrible lighting.

You can't really do great video with a standard camera tripod either. A fluid head tripod allows you to move the camera smoothly through pans (horizontal left/right movements) and tilts (up and down movements).

You better take some tutorials about framing shots, zooming, panning and all the other good camera techniques before you try to create a product. Most people that shoot their own video make it look really bad because they don't know the techniques to create interesting shots that don't make you nauseous from excessive panning and zooming.

Video is much more complex because you've got audio that must make sense when matched to the video. You can't believe how hard this can be doing it yourself. If you really want to do it, here are some resources:

http://www.videoguys.com/

http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/

http://www.ulead.com/products/main_video/video.htm

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/productinfo.asp?product=videofactory

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/main.html

http://www.pcphotoreview.com/Video,Editing,Software/PLS_2670crx.aspx

A better way
Get a professional to shoot your instructional video product. I can tell you after two failed attempts to shoot and edit myself (even after having owned a video production company many years ago) I've given up the do it yourself route. If I need good video done, I hire a professional camera person and editor. This let's me concentrate on the content so that I do a good job.

This doesn't have to be overly expensive. You can get some very small companies to shoot for a couple hundred dollars a day. Many of them have small digital editing systems that are more than adequate for instructional videos. The hourly rates can start at 30 or 40 an hour and go up.

In most cases, using these people as long as they are reliable and half way professional, will give you a much better finished product than you could ever have done yourself.

Video for free
A good way to get a free video production is to offer to do training for a company or organization that either has it's own video production department or is willing to pay for video production. You could make a deal where they agree to do a professional production that you can keep and use in exchange for the training or you may even get paid for the training and still get a master copy of the tape. The deal you land will depend on your negotiating skills.

Video cheaper than usual
Organize several people that want a video product and share the costs of the shoot. If you can standardize the location, (like a hotel room) or small studio, you can split the cost of the video shoot. Each one of the group would be responsible for the cost of their editing, but you might be able to arrange a package deal with the editing company by bringing several jobs at once.

Do you really need a video product?
Before you jump into any of this, please contemplate the above question. If you are simply going to be a talking head, I suggest your forget about video. Why would people want to drop everything and watch you talk? If you can't come up with a valid reason why they couldn't get the same info in some type of audio format, forget the video project  . . .unless of course your're doing it for ego or for a lot of money.

The best video informational products are ones that actually show the viewer how to do something while they are being told how to do it. I've learned tons of magic from videos. So much that I'm planning a series of magic tapes for speakers.

What to wear on video
For this section I'm going to take a section from "Wake 'em Up Video Professional Speaking System" http://www.antion.com/speakervideo.htm

TIPS FOR TELEVISION, VIDEOTAPE, AND VIDEOCONFERENCING

Here are some things you should keep in mind when a television camera is trained on you:

TELEVISION & VIDEOTAPE TIPS

• Gestures should be smaller.

• Make sure clothing is "broken in" and comfortable when you are sitting and standing.

• Prior to your performance, have instant photos or video taken of you while sitting and standing. Make sure your clothes look good in both positions.

• Find out the background color of the set if possible. You don't want your clothing to blend in and make you invisible.

• Ask the producer for wardrobe color suggestions.

• Do not wear any clothing with tight patterns or pin stripes. This causes an optical illusion called a moir‚ pattern which makes you look bad.

• Avoid clothing with large patterns or geometric shapes. The audience will watch your clothes instead of you.

• Avoid wearing black, white, or red on television or video. Even the best of cameras have trouble with these colors.

• Avoid flashy jewelry. It reflects light.

• Avoid jangly jewelry. It reflects light and makes noise that will be picked up by your microphone (this applies whether you are on TV or not).

• Wear your eyeglasses if you want, but avoid shiny frames.

• Tip the bows of your eyeglasses up slightly off your ears. This angles the lenses down to reduce glare from lights.

• Wear makeup. It has the practical purpose of reducing the glare of TV lights. Apply it to all exposed body parts, like backs of hands, arms, neck, etc.

• Apply cover-up below eyes to mask bags and/or wrinkles.

• Good studios are kept cool to negate the effect of the hot TV lights. You may freeze for a while until the lights are turned on, then you may burn up. Dress for the heat, but bring a jacket or extra cover-up to be used while you are waiting to go on.

• Bring a handkerchief or tissues to dab perspiration during breaks

• Don't second guess the camera. Act as if you are always on screen.

• Make sure your makeup, wardrobe, and hair are consistent with your message.
  
  MEN

• Wear knee-length socks.

• Always keep double breasted jackets buttoned.

• Single breasted jackets can be opened, but not too wide.

• I SAY AGAIN Wear Makeup. TV lights can penetrate several layers of skin. You can't possibly shave close enough to prevent whiskers from showing without makeup.

• Don't forget makeup on receding hairlines or bald heads.

• Trick: Run the thin part of your tie through the loop in the back of the main part of your tie then clip the thin part to your shirt below the loop. This will keep your tie perfectly centered without the tie clip showing.
  
  WOMEN

• Don't wear vivid red lipstick or lip gloss. Stick to softer tones and dab lips with a little powder.

• Consider dress shields if you perspire easily. Make sure your hair will stay where you want it. You don't want to be fooling with it while on the air. Make sure a lavaliere or lapel microphone and transmitter can be attached to your clothing.
  
  Lillian Brown has written the best resource I know of on the topic of appearing on television. It's called Your Public Best: The Complete Guide to Making Successful Public Appearances in the Meeting Room, on the Platform and on TV (Newmarket Press: New York 1989).
  
  VIDEOCONFERENCING

• If possible prior to the videoconference, send remote location participants handouts, copies of agenda, and copies of visuals.

• Try to get someone else to operate the camera and other equipment. Have them shoot close up if possible. With more than one presenter, if you leave the camera on wide angle, the viewers will have trouble picking out who is talking.

• Periodically ask for feedback from the remote sites. Your chances for misunderstanding multiply when communicating electronically.

• Remember assume you are always on camera. Use the mute button for your microphone if you must converse off the main program.

Next issue we'll talk about scripting your video product

The issue after that we'll talk about packaging and duplicating your video product

Email Technique
Ezine Strategy

The Bargain
The implied deal I have with my subscribers is that I will give them really great information and in return they will allow me to keep sending my E-zine and marketing to them. If I break my part of the bargain by sending lousy information, then people will withdraw their permission for me to email to them which is called "unsubscribing." If I send too much marketing stuff compared to the great information, I have again broken the bargain and they will unsubscribe.

People know that I give usable stuff, or I keep my mouth shut. I'm always helpful as much as I can because I want people to keep coming back. I want to be known as a good source of information. I want them spreading my name. That's one of the ways I use my E-zine. I give them good information and let the readers spread the word for me. The best way to maximize the value of this though, is a one/two punch between your website and your E-zine. That's what I do.

The Website Connection
The strategy is to maximize the value of the connection between my website and my E-zine. I do this by publishing articles and ads that are linked back to my website for more information, or compelling ad copy. I can write as much as I want on the website, but I can only fit so much in the electronic magazine.

I can't advertise all the time so I still might link people to my website or other websites just to keep giving them more great information. This helps solidify their subscription. You just can't forget about giving good information, or you will lose subscribers.

The psychology of the E-zine / Website connection is that many people read their email while online. Your enticing links to the website are similar to a person picking up an impulse-buy item at the cash register of the grocery store. The reader figures, "Heck while I'm here online I may as well pop over to his website to see what it's all about."

Once you get them to the website you can write long copy that really sells the visitor. You can't make your sales copy too long in an electronic magazine. People will go and read long copy on a web site, but generally they don't want emails that are excessively long.

The articles, links and ads drive people back to the web site. I'm going to show you an example of this.  I made lots of  money on product sales in a short period by sending people from my ezine to  http://www.antion.com/speakervideo.htm . That is professionally written copy. I actually wrote it, but I had a professional advertising copywriter look at it. Good copy on your website is a critical piece of marketing strategy to make a lot of money. You can make money with just the E-zine, but when you put the website and E-zine together, that's when sales can really go crazy.

As you'll when we talk about the website sales process in another issue,  this page is obviously a product. Even the URL tells you it's a product before you even click on it. Sometimes I'll send a person to a different type of copy that is designed to hide the product until you show all the benefits of having it. The same video product is being sold with ad copy at http://www.antion.com/public-speaking.htm check it out and see the difference. The page in the above paragraph is obviously a product. This page doesn't' t look like a product it looks like an article, but it's actually selling the same product..

The first type of copy is fine for people that know it's a product and just want to look at it. The second copy is better for people that find the page while looking for free information.

Make Back Issues Available
Another strategy, is to make back issues available at your website so that people can go back and look at articles. They'll also be exposed to the ads again. I have all back issues of Great Speaking on the website at http://www.antion.com/ezinebackissues.htm  , http://www.antion.com/ezinebackissues2000.htm  ,
http://www.antion.com/ezinebackissues2001.htm ,
http://www.antion.com/ezinebackissues2001.htm

Keep back issues handy and update them once in a while if some of the web pages that have your ads on them have changed. You don't want somebody going to a back issue and finding links that are no good anymore, although that will inevitably happen once in a while.

Some of the individual back issues could show up in search engines too, but they're usually not optimized very well.

Bigger is Better
This is something I learned once I started to get lots of subscribers. People all of a sudden wanted to make deals with me. Joint ventures come out of the woodwork now that I have about 140,000 subscribers. This actually was part of my strategy and continues to be. Having control of a list of people this size gets me invited to speak to other business people who also want to learn to do what I do. Having a good product mix actually makes no fee speaking engagements very profitable because of back of the room product sales.

Other joint ventures can be very profitable too, but you've got to watch them closely. You will get lots of people approaching you with pitiful products that don't sell for much and get lots of returns. All you'll end up with from them is unsatisfied subscribers, unsubscribers and very little, if any, money to show for it.

Ad Revenue
This is another issue that just came up for me last month. I don't really push advertising sales because the value of the ad space for my own products and services is greater than the revenue from selling an ad to someone else. This really hit home last month when the ad rates for a single stand alone ad to my entire list was only $475.00. Seem like a lot of money for just sending out electrons doesn't it?

Well I lost my proverbial electronic shirt on that ad. At least 3500 people unsubscribed from my list. The person placing the ad made a fortune which I'm happy about, but even if I placed a value of as little as 35 cents for each of those subscribers it will cost me $1225.00 to replace them. So the ad rates must go up substantially for me to sell stand alone ads.

Ads in the body of the ezine can be more reasonable because there is more space and it's surrounded by content, so one particular ad unless it was offensive (which I wouldn't allow) won't cause a massive exodus.

Copywriting Technique
 

Why Most Copy Fails Miserably
And What You Can Do About It
By David Garfinkel

Let's get real. Your advertising - it's all about you, isn't it?

It's about your company. Your services. Your this. Your that.

It must make you feel very good.

Except…

Except when you don't get any sales out of it.

Ever wonder why?

Your Customers Are Simply Not Concerned About You. . . Until
You Have Convinced Them You're Concerned About Them

And there's an easy way to convince them you care about them. In three steps.

Step 1 is to do your research. Not your typical market research.

In this White Paper, you're going to learn about a new approach to writing copy I call "Dissatisfaction-Resolution Copywriting." What sets this new approach apart from the approach used to write so much of the other advertising copy you see today, is what you do in Step 1 - research.

We'll get to that shortly.

But first, Step 2 - you were wondering what that is, weren't you? - Step 2 is writing the copy itself.

And Step 3 is editing the copy to make sure it is as alluring and intriguing - and as irresistible - as it can be.

Dissatisfaction-Resolution Copywriting Puts Your Customers
In The Driver's Seat - And Their Money In Your Bank Account

I developed the concepts and tools of Dissatisfaction-Resolution Copywriting after years of writing successful advertising - advertising copy that has resulted in millions of dollars of sales for clients in dozens of different industries.

As the author of an interactive course and two online books to help others improve their own copywriting, I realized a lot of people who were able to write better copy (as a result of learning what I taught) were still making a fundamental mistake.

The mistake?

They were focusing the advertising spotlight on themselves rather than on their prospects' needs and wants.

Despite dire warnings to the contrary.

Dissatisfaction-Resolution Copywriting aims to help you avoid making that mistake by leading you through a simple process to take the focus off you and onto your prospect.

Specifically, onto your prospect's dissatisfactions. And how you can offer them blessed relief.

Fine. So How Do You Take Advantage of the Huge Payoff
You Get From This New Approach of Writing Copy?

Start with Step 1 - research. The research I am talking about is no more than thinking through the answers to six questions, and writing them out on paper (or your computer).

Here are the questions:

1. Who am I selling to? Be as specific as you can. Most people never think this through. If you can think of an individual you know personally who represents the buyers in your market, use that person as a starting point.

2. What is the dissatisfaction in this person's life that what I am selling will fill? Don't gloss over this question; take your time. Go deep. Don't settle for the first answer - really explore this question. For example, if you sell annuities, the dissatisfaction you are filling is the individual's feeling of inadequacy that they haven't done enough (or anything, maybe) to prepare financially for their, or their family's, future.

3. How does this person experience this dissatisfaction? Very important. You don't want to say to your annuity prospect, "Do you feel inadequate that you haven't done enough to prepare financially for your family's future?" They may experience the dissatisfaction as a hidden sense of shame that they're not being responsible financially - or, as a feeling of financial helplessness. Once you know, really know, how they experience their dissatisfaction, you are miles ahead of almost everyone else in your field who's writing copy.

4. What am I selling? Of course, this is where most people start - and when you start with this question, you are on a guaranteed path to advertising disaster. But now, once you're aware of your prospect's dissatisfaction and how your prospect experiences that dissatisfaction, you can address the question of what you're selling. Make two lists, of both the literal features, and of the benefits your product or service delivers to buyers.

No, don't just nod your head in agreement. Really do it. Make the two lists.

5. In what ways does what I'm selling take care of the customer's dissatisfaction? Your answers to this question make up "the keys to the vault." This is the hard work you want to do before you start writing your copy. This is the million-dollar-payoff work.

For example, remember old O.M. Scott, the lawn-care dude? He knew that a lot of lawns turned brown in the summer. He came up with a strain of grass seed whose shoots stayed green even in the hottest, driest weather. He knew without question that the dissatisfaction he was solving was un-green lawns, and the way he did it was by providing lawns that stayed green, with his grass seed.

Sure, it sounds simple now.

But it was a breakthrough idea when he came up with it.

And last time I checked, the company was still around.

6. How can I prove what I'm selling takes care of their dissatisfaction? There are lots of ways - through the use of testimonials, case studies, facts, awards, reviews in the press, and so on.

Okay, So Now What?

Now, Step 2. Write the copy.

Let's not kid ourselves. Writing copy is never easy. But it will be much easier to write good copy that gets you great results once you have worked through the answers to the six questions in Step 1.

And you structure your copy like this:

1. Start with a promise about your prospect's dissatisfaction - either that you will help the prospect solve a problem (the one that's causing them dissatisfaction) or achieve a goal (so when they achieve the goal, it will relieve a dissatisfaction they are feeling).

2. Then, offer convincing proof that you can really deliver what you have just promised.

3. And, ask the prospect to take the next step - to contact you or to buy directly from your copy.

What About Polishing Your Copy?

Of course. That's Step 3.

I'll give you a free checklist that walks you through how to make sure your copy gives you the best results you could imagine. Maybe even better.

Just send a blank email to: mailto:checklist@mailback.com

How Did You Like What You Just Read?

Yeah, I know. Some of it was sort of brutal. Harsh. Judgmental.

I mean, who likes to be accused of being self-centered in their advertising?

But think of it as a wake-up call. And then, see how you like what you just read after you write your next ad, email, sales letter, Web page, postcard or radio commercial using this approach.

Come to think of it, you'll probably like this White Paper a lot better once you see the awesome results you get from using the new ideas you learned from it. Sales results. Money in the bank.

By the way, the information you have just read is adapted from my new e-book called "10 Sure-Fire Ways to Become Much Richer in 90 Days… Or Sooner." It has a lot more straight-to-the-point tactics for getting more return from your marketing.

It's published by wz.com. Find out more about it at http://ebooks.wz.com/richer/a189.html


About the Author: David Garfinkel is the author or co-author of five business learning products, including "The Money-Making Copywriting Course," "Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich," and "10 Sure-Fire Ways to Become Much Richer in 90 Days… Or Sooner." He is also a master copywriter whose work has pulled in millions of dollars' worth of sales for companies in 81 different industries. You can learn more about David's copywriting and read an excerpt of his book on headlines at http://www.davidgarfinkel.com 

 

Search Engine Tips
Keyword Placement Part I
The Title Bar

I'm going to take this slowly because the placement of keywords is so important. This article is actually a homework assignment for you if you have a website now. Go to every important page in your website and see if you have what this article suggests. In future issues we'll cover different parts of your web page where you can strategically place keywords.

One of the main places that a search engine looks for the keywords is in the "Title Bar" of your web page. The title bar is usually a blue bar across the top of each one of your webpages. It's actually at the very top of your browser window or most likely the top of your screen when you browser is at full size.

The information in the title bar is also the link text that someone clicks on when they receive the results of a search AND it is also the text used when someone "bookmarks" your site or puts it in their favorite places (many browsers allow the person bookmarking the webpage to change the text that they see in their list of bookmarks).

If you look at the title bar of this page, you'll see that it says "Great Internet Marketing." Although the keywords "Internet Marketing" are in the title, it doesn't matter too much for this page because this page is in a private paid membership site. It's password protected and not designed to be found by search engines.

A problem I see all the time is where people put their name in the title bar or use "home page." All of this is meaningless. What you want to do is put keywords in the title bar.

Tip: Go though your website and make sure each page has keywords in the title bar. Using keywords in the page title tells someone what's on that page. If you look at my home page, for example, http://www.antion.com  , it does not say, "Hey this is the big shot speaker Tom Antion." My keywords in the title bar say "presentation skills," "speeches," or "public speaking."

Use something relevant to the search engines and your topics. The title bar is weighted very heavily when the search engine is looking for the page. It's just about the most important / relevant part of your page when it comes to search engines. If the search engine is doing a search on the term "public speaking" and it's not in the Title Bar, which is the most important part of the page, the search engine figures the page is not about public speaking and most likely skips looking at the rest of the page.

The title tag
The HTML code that behind the scenes of your page is called the "Title Tag." It should be the first tag beneath the head tag as shown below.

<head>
<title>Great Internet Marketing</title>
</head>

You could easily see this same coding in your Internet Explorer browser by clicking on "View" then "Source." If you are in Netscape, click "View" then "Page Source" You can't look behind the scenes HTML coding using the AOL browser.

Folks, this is very important. Make sure your keywords are in your Title Bar and check it for every important page of your site. Also remember that pages on different subjects should have different keywords in the title bars of your web pages.

Cool Software and Gadgets

Software

http://www.mastersyndicator.com Syndicate your writing so thousands of websites across the web can get updated immediately.

http://www.dataviz.com/products/documentstogo/index.html Take your important documents with you on your Palm

http://www.screencapture.com Check out Capture E Z Pro

http://www.infokeep.net Highly encrypted place to keep all your passwords

Gadgets

http://www.beachcomber.com/Gadget/Electron/shake.html Have trouble waking up when traveling? Different time zones got you zonked? Do you have to get up early or miss your flight. Check out this gadget that shakes you awake.

http://www.wearablegroup.org/ check out what's new in computer fashion.

MIT is developing a prototype phone that sends vibrations to the person you are calling. Uses: well I can think of one with your girlfriend hahahaha but what the technogeeks had in mind was delivering cyber handshakes.

http://www.smartwear.com/ Electronic Leather Wallet

http://www.dumpcomputers.com/casmod.html Really cool desktop computer cases. Click on "cases" and look around

Useful Websites

http://www.websitegarage.com evaluate your website for load speed, graphics and other parameters.

http://www.ebay.com

http://www.labelgear.com

http://www.citysearch.com Find out what's going on in selected cities

http://www.megaconverter.com/mega2/ convert anything to anything

http://www.eBookDirectory.com Free Ebook. Quality varies

http://ezine-swap.com/  Resources for ezine publishers

http://www.spamslicer.com/  Helps you reduce spam email

Computer / Automation Technique
Autoresponders Part I
More techniques

An autoresponder is a piece of software that receives an email and sends back a response or multiple responses automatically. You could equate it to the email version of fax on demand where someone calls a phone number and requests documents to be faxed back to them. The system does it automatically.

Autoresponders are tremendous time savers for you and give immediate gratification to your clients and prospective clients.

SIMPLE AND SEQUENTIAL

There are two types of auto responders. A simple autoresponder receives an email from a person and sends back one email response to that person. A sequential autoresponder not only sends back the initial response, but sends additional responses at prearranged intervals.

Simple
Simple autoresponders are used for various responses to simple and repeated questions. For instance: Let's say you have advertising rates for your ezine. You don't want to have to personally email everyone that is interested in finding out what your rates are. So you set up an auto responder that emails them automatically for you. In my case if you mailto:sponsor@antion.com you will get an email back with the current advertising rates and guidelines. I also give them a web page to visit with the same info http://www.antion.com/sponsor.htm . Remember we want to make it easy for people to do business with us on their terms. Some would prefer email and some would rather visit a web page.

In many cases your web hosting service gives you autoresponders for free. Check with them first. On some of my hosting accounts I get 30 different simple autoresponders included in my web hosting fee. When I say 30 different autoresponders I mean that you can have thirty different automated messages. You would have thirty different email addresses to match. Another one I have is mailto:linktrade@antion.com

Even if they aren't free from your host, they are probably dirt cheap like a dollar a month or something like that. If your host doesn't provide them, there are tons of other companies who will be happy to accommodate your needs. Just type in "cheap" or "free" autoresponders into any major search engine and you'll find more than you need. NOTE: Always keep in mind when I say a service is "free" they are probably going to tie in an ad to your service. To get ad free services you probably have to pay a small monthly fee.

Sequential
Sequential autoresponders are much more powerful marketingwise than simple autoresponders. They can be used to deliver continued followup to prospects urging them to buy. They can be used to deliver either free or paid E-courses and they can be used to give ongoing customer service.

Here's how it works: Instead of composing one response message to be delivered to a person requesting it, you compose several or many messages. You put them in the autoresponder interface screen on your computer and you tell the autoresponder how many days to wait before delivering the next message in the sequence. Usually the first message goes out immediately and then the follow up messages go out at any interval you set.

I use this to deliver my 7 day mini course. The first message goes out immediately upon request and another message goes out automatically each day thereafter for the next six days.

You could have the follow up messages going out once a week or once a month if you want. Better systems allow variable time between the messages. So instead of regular daily, weekly or monthly intervals you could set the first follow up message to go out after three days, the next message after 7 days and the next message after that in 15 days or whatever you want.

When I first started I used http://www.aweber.com as my sequential autoresponder company. In fact, I still do because I have over a million emails out there with the address to that system that I felt it was a good idea to keep it even if it's not the best deal anymore. You can get the course by sending an email to  mailto:minicourse@aweber.com .

Better deal
The reason aweber is not such a good deal anymore is that http://www.kickstartcart.com the high end smart shopping cart system I sell has an unlimited number of sequential autoresponders plus all the really advanced shopping cart, upsell and database features all rolled into one for about the same cost as one or two autoresponders from aweber.

Even better deal
http://www.kickstartcart.com has a feature that allows the autoresponders to be tied to a product purchase instead of an email request. This is an unbelievably powerful feature not even found in many custom programmed shopping carts cost 50 times more.

What this means to you is that when a customer purchases a an item from KickStartCart they automatically subscribe themselves to an autoresponder sequence that can be used to reduce buyer remorse and returns, give extra customer service and upsell the customer to additional purchases, thus extracting more money from the same number of visitors to your website store.

When you purchase http://www.kickstartcart.com I give you an hour long orientation which will save you many hours of figuring the features out on your own.

In Part II I'll tell you the strategies I use to write follow up autoresponder messages to help you gain much higher levels of customer satisfaction and to make more money.

Miscellaneous Stuff You Need to Know

• Many people think that their home page is the only really important page on their website when it comes to search engines. This is not true. Every single page of your website has the potential to be found by search engines so you must pay attention to keywords for each important page in your site.

• URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator which is a fancy way to say "the address of your webpage." Each webpage you see on the World Wide Web has its own unique URL. It's similar to the address of your house. There is no other place on earth that has the same address as your home. Even if you live in an apartment complex where everyone has the same street address, your apartment still gets mail because you live in 2C or 3B or whatever your apartment complex's numbering system is. That's why you get your mail and that's why your webpage is found.

• You can back up your entire system to a portable hard drive and get it out of your home or office so that an office disaster like a fire or flood doesn't put you out of business. DON'T SLACK ON YOUR BACKUPS

• Don't be swayed by supercheap hosting services. You will likely be on a supercheap server computer that is overloaded with thousands of websites which makes your site load like molasses.. They probably don't have adequate backup services or power generators in case of a localized or regional power outage. Service is probably poor or non-existent. If you are serious about selling on the Internet, get good reliable hosting and pay for it. One day of downtime could cost you a small fortune once you get a steady stream of sales coming in.

• Want to see what fonts are on your computer? Click on "Start", then click on "Settings," then click on "Control Panel," then click on "Fonts." If you click on any font listed you get a sample in many different point sizes. You can print out the sample and put it in a binder if you like to see how things look on paper.

TRENDS

• Overture.com (formerly Goto.com) is alive and well posting it's third straight profitable quarter. They also signed a three year extension to their agreement with Yahoo. That means if you want top listings at Yahoo, break out your wallet and bid in the top three at Overture.com on your keywords.

• If you use a hotmail account, you are at great risk of having your account lifted by hacker types forever. A major and credible security risk has been uncovered that allows someone to access your account and you can't stop them even if you change your password. If they get hold of your cookie file, you're cooked. Click here for full story at Wired.

• From Ecommerce Times: "While low-cost marketing tools like e-mail spam may tempt budget-constrained companies, such methods often backfire and repel potential customers, analysts warned." Don't do it and don't get greedy. Build your list legitimately and you'll have a real asset. 

•  TMP Worldwide surveyed 5,000 US workers. 50% of those responding believe technology has made more work for them. 50% of workers between the ages of 35 and 55 believe they are "drowning under their workloads."  44.4% of feel they are tied much tighter to their workplace because of mobile phones and computers.

• AOL is squirming to keep customers who typically jump ship after they get a broadband connection.

• "Someday, in the distant future, our grandchildren's grandchildren will develop a new equivalent of our classrooms. They will spend many hours in front of boxes with fires glowing within. May they have the wisdom to know the difference between light and knowledge." --Plato

  E learning is going wild. I'm grabbing my share of it and so should you. Teach people things on line and they will pay you for your efforts.

  Read an eye opening article about it by clicking here.

• 32.7 million computers were shipped in the first quarter of 2002. People are stampeding the Internet and they have money to spend. Make sure you set up the systems to get your fair share.
  

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

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