blogging

Quick Start to Internet Marketing

By Christian

Many people out there are looking for a quick start to internet marketing. I understand. Most people in my network are business people, and we are the kind of people who want to get things rolling quickly. You know being online and marketing yourself with blogging, internet marketing and social networking is essential, but you don’t know the best way to go about it, and you have a million questions.

This massive access to information causes what’s called “paralysis by analysis”. In other words, we’re so fixated on learning what we need to do, we fail to act. This is death for business. You need to act, but you don’t want to screw things up. So here is a quick start to internet marketing checklist that will give you what you need to get started. It contains a little philosophy and a few specific actions that will get you off and running. There is a lot of value in knowing you’re starting off on the right foot, so I hope this helps. If you have any questions, let me know by commenting or contact me!

Quick Start to Internet Marketing

Make the decision that your focus is going to be building a real business…or extending your existing business. Do not allow your sole focus to be making money. If your focus is on building a real business, creating a good reputation and brand and creating value for others, it’s hard to screw things up. It’s when we decide to focus solely on making money that we start doing crappy, spammy things that we will regret later…and that will not do us any good. This is the first step, and it’s easy. Just decide that your focus is going to be on creating value for your customers, not just selling stuff. With that, you have already cleared half the hurdles. Believe it or not, it really is that simple!
Start a blog. Don’t over think it. Don’t dwell on it for more than five minutes. Pick a platform, and fire it up. If you want my specific advise, I recommend using WordPress, and I recommend having a professional set it up for you. I can do it for you, or you can have any number of other professionals do it for you. WordPress can easily be search engine optimized, and it is highly extensible. Some of the most successful blogs on the internet use WordPress, and for good reason. That said, it’s more important to have a blog than it is to make absolutely certain that every detail is perfect. Your blog will serve as the hub of everything you do to market yourself online. It is your home. You need a place to hang your hat. You need a blog.
Post to your blog regularly. The more you blog, the more you will learn. The most important thing is to get started. I could write for 10,000 words easily right now about how to do this. And if you want to solve any specific marketing issues sooner rather than later, I recommend using my consulting services to jump start your efforts. That said, this is not rocket science, and if you put in the effort you will learn everything you need to know simply by doing it. You get out what you put in. Again, if you’re focusing on creating value for your customers, your blog will be on target.
Get on Facebook and Twitter. Are there other social networks? Heck yes there are. Is there value in checking them out and learning about them? Heck yes. But this is a quick start to internet marketing guide, right? So let’s keep it simple. The fact is that Facebook is huge, and Twitter is massively important and an indispensable tool. You can do a lot of damage with just these two. Just as with blogging, use them regularly. An inactive profile is worthless to you. Just like if you leave your house unattended…it will deteriorate over time, this is true for your internet property as well. You have to maintain it for it to grow and remain valuable. Use your social networking profiles for being social and meeting people. Sure, link out to your blog posts and such, but keep the content you produce 99% social. Believe it or not, people know you sell widgets even if you don’t tell em. It’s linked up on your page, see? So they know already. You don’t have to tell them every five minutes. Meet people and concentrate on getting to know and learning from others with similar interests. After doing this for a while, you will start to get these mysterious messages in your inbox. They will be coming from people who have visited your site and are interested in what you’re selling, and you’ll wonder where all this magical activity is coming from. Some of it’s coming from Twitter, believe it or not. And it will have all happened without you having to hard sell anyone. This stuff works really well, if you work it. Let it take time. It’s fun anyway, so why turn it into hard work?
Let it take some time. Like I mentioned in the previous step, this stuff doesn’t happen instantly. One thing about internet marketing is that people often expect immediate results. I’m not sure why that is. It must come from a misconception about what’s happening. When you give someone a business card at a social event, do you expect them to buy something from you right there on the spot? No. You meet 28 people that night, and 9 of them call you back over the next few weeks. You build it from there. This is how it works. Social networking has become confused with being this new phenomenon, and we think it’s complicated. It’s not. Social networking is people with common interests hanging out, talking. This has been going on for ages. It’s how business is done. And building a business takes time.
Read and learn. Study what you’re doing. Read other blogs. Look at other websites, especially within the same field as you’re working. Apply the CASE principle of success I’ve described in a previous post. Never stop this. Learning and stealing ideas from your competitors is another age old business principle that is not ever going to go away. Use it to your advantage.
Don’t quit. Be consistent. As I say so many times, things take time. As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Of course I don’t consider this quick start to internet marketing checklist an ultra-comprehensive tool. After all, it’s a quick start checklist! However, I would love your input. Do you have anything you’d add?

In upcoming posts, I will be posting some of my top resources. Articles and tools I’ve used to learn this business. It’s only fair for me to share all my secrets with you, seeing as how everything I’ve learned about internet marketing is online…imagine that 🙂

20 Ways to Instill Trust and Make More Money

By Christian

As I mentioned in my last post, trust is a hot commodity. It’s essential to instill trust with your readers if you want to get good business results from your blogging, social networking and internet marketing. So how do you instill trust?

The methods we use to market products and services these days are changing rapidly, and if you’re reading this blog you’re obviously aware of these changes and are taking steps to learn. Kudos. But it’s important…absolutely essential…to understand one simple fact.

The way people buy things is changing, but the REASONS people buy things haven’t changed at all.

In other words, people may be searching for information differently, they may be hyper-connected and using new resources to find out what they want to know, but deep down they still need the same things. People want to avoid pain and increase pleasure. They have the same hot buttons: greed, envy, love, etc. And they also need to trust you if they want to buy from you.

Here are things you can do to instill trust:

Create quality content, specifically written for your target audience.
Respond to your comments. Be thoughtful.
Respond to your email. Take time to be helpful.
Be everywhere. The more your audience sees you “out there”, the more your credibility increases.
Offer a guarantee for everything you sell. Take all risk upon yourself, leave only value for your customers.
Honor your guarantee. It should be just as easy to get a refund as it is to place an order.
Don’t spam people.
Leave thoughtful comments on other blogs. Use comments on other blogs as a conversational tool, not a promotional tool. People know comment spam when they see it. If you think real customers are going to click through your comment spam on other blogs and buying things from you, you’re deluding yourself!
Be honest.
Be consistent.
Make your products and services targeted. In other words, don’t just produce what you want. Confirm there is a need first. Targeted product creation instills trust, because it speaks directly to your customer. They will really feel like you really know them.
Don’t post blind, stupid links on Twitter or in your social networking status. Would YOU click on a link that says “hey check this out! crappyaffiliatelink.tinyurl.com”? I’m not against affiliate marketing of course. Not at all. I’m just saying, blindly blasting out affiliate links, hoping some of them will stick is NOT the way to build trust.
Before you post anything, anywhere, ask yourself “Is my goal to create value for my customers, or am I just trying to sell something?”
Be around for a while. There’s really no getting around this. The longer you are around, the more credibility you’ll build and the more your reputation will proceed you. This is a key element of trust, and it takes time.
Make your site easy to navigate.
Be an active member of other forums or a guest author on other properties that are valued and trusted by your target audience. This is another element of “being everywhere”, from #4.
Avoid overzealous claims in your sales copy, even if they’re true.
Don’t ignore complaints, and don’t be rude…seriously, someone who has taken the time to complain or leave a stupid, hateful comment on your blog is EXACTLY who you want to interact with. They care enough to let you know…99% of the time, it’s a simple issue you can resolve immediately with very little effort, and when you do this, you come off like a hero. If you choose to attack back, you will be justified in doing so, and you will also lose at least one customer forever. You can choose between using such an event as an opportunity to grow trust in your brand, or you can choose to come off looking like a jerk. Your choice!
Testimonials. This is a classic. It works, and it will ALWAYS work. Show people proof that your product or service has produced favorable results for others. Produce a system for getting testimonials from your buyers today!
Be good. This one might sound like a cop out, but I think it might be the most important one of all. Being good requires constant hard work, networking, staying on top of things and really putting your honest, full effort into your business…every day. These are all things the “gurus” claim they can teach you to skip. Learn all you can from the gurus, but then go out and bust your ass implementing what you’ve learned. Don’t skip the hard stuff, because doing what your competition is not willing to do…that’s exactly what will turn the tables in your favor. Can you make money online by doing very little? Yes, you can make chump change that way. Of course, if you’re in it for chump change, you’re reading the wrong blog 🙂

Of course, I don’t consider this to be a masterfully comprehensive list, but it’s a few things I consider to be absolutely crucial for instilling trust with your buyers.

Do you have any to add? Let me know what you think!

The Number One Reason Blogs Fail

By Christian

Most of the readers of this article are people who are actively involved in blogging, internet marketing or social networking for business…or people who are looking for a good way to GET involved in these activities. One of my biggest goals is to communicate the fact that there really isn’t a hardcore secret to making it work. You need to be purpose-driven and work hard at it.

I suppose I could sell you a book on how to make a million dollars in your first year while only working a few hours a day, or I could charge you $97 for a “proven, guaranteed program” on how to get 10,000 followers on Twitter in the next 90 days. But I’d rather just tell you the truth.

Here’s the motivation for me: if I tell you what really works, then some of you will turn away and not come back, because I’m not telling you what you want to hear. To me, that’s a good thing. The reason it’s good for me to run some people off, is because I sell stuff. I sell sales training and consultation, and I sell information products. If you’re looking for a fast fix or a get rich quick deal, you either won’t buy what I’m selling, or you’ll complain when you get it, so me just giving it to you straight really is better for all of us!

The Reason Blogs Fail

That said, what IS the reason most blogs fail? This is my honest assessment: the reason most blogs fail is because they were improperly researched to start. Probably very little or NO research was put in at the beginning, and as a result the blogger failed to get any meaningful results. Then they quit.

I would quit too if I got no results! If you’re getting no results, it’s smart to move on to something else. It’s important to know the difference that a failed blog doesn’t mean you’re a failed blogger! I hope these bloggers are not giving up on blogging altogether. I hope they are picking up the pieces and learning from their mistakes…and moving on to more successful projects in the future.

But the idea stands: if you want a successful blog or internet marketing plan of any kind, you need a fully detailed plan to start off. As you know, I consult with sales people all the time, and you’d be amazed at how many people have no business plan of any kind. No written goals at all. I’m sorry, but you cannot run a meaningful business and achieve meaningful results without a plan.

The Magic of a Business Plan

The magic of writing up a business plan is NOT in the finished project. You can throw the business plan in the trash for all I care (figuratively speaking; it’s best to keep it, refer back to it and continue to revise it at least quarterly). The real power in writing a business plan comes from the writing process.

What is your target audience?
How will you target them?
What will be your main source of traffic?
What steps do you plan to take to ensure you get the traffic you need?
How do you know these steps will be effective?
How will you measure the success of your blog?
How do you know that getting those results will create a meaningful impact on your business?

Answering questions like this put you in the hot seat. Will your idea for a blog work? I don’t know, but don’t you think it’s better to find out before you spend the next several months working on it?

Failure to plan properly is not the ONLY reason a blog can fail of course, but it’s the number one reason. It’s amazing how many businesses are out there operating with no plan whatsoever. If you take your success seriously (why wouldn’t you?), do the necessary work to write a proper business plan. You’ll be doing yourself a serious disservice if you choose to skip it!

Is Selling on Your Blog Sleazy?

By Christian

I just wrote recently about how we’re all salespeople, whether we think so or not. This begs the question: if embracing the fact that we need to sell things in order to really make money online is necessary, why are so many of us wary of asking for money from our readers?

This is an essential issue to address, for the simple fact that if you DON’T ask for what you want, you will not likely get what you want. We all understand this concept, but many of us are still bashful about asking for people to buy things from us. Asking someone for money is tough, it feels to us as if we’re violating or somehow cheapening the relationship we have with our readers.

Are You Ashamed to Ask for Money?

Sometimes we feel ashamed of asking for money, because deep down we feel that salesmen are sleazy. Is selling on your blog sleazy? I hope to answer this in this post, but ultimately this is going to be a personal decision. But know this: if you don’t sell stuff, you’re not likely to ever make much money in anything you do. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing…money isn’t everything. Believe me, I understand this. I’ve turned down several high paying jobs that would have required way too much of my time.

Turning down a job that pays well over a hundred thousand a year is not something a young me would have done. But you learn eventually that money isn’t everything…so I get it.

But this doesn’t mean selling is sleazy! Being sleazy is sleazy. But to say that all salesmanship is sleazy is a blanket statement that we all know is not true. Not if we’re being honest. So, that’s the answer I have for you:

Is selling on your blog sleazy? Yes, if you’re a sleaze. For the rest of us, it’s an honest and absolutely essential business practice.

How to Get What You Want

What does this mean for those of us who really want to make money online? How do we take our business and really promote it effectively through internet marketing, social networking and blogging? Here’s how:

We have to know with absolute clarity what we want. Then we need to ask our readers to give it to us.

This is all there is. Blogging is simple! It’s just work. If we create a LOT of value for our readers, we have every right to ask for money. Not all will. It’s cool. You’ll never have a 100% closing ratio, but you don’t need one. Many internet marketers make good money from a closing ratio hovering around 5%. Personally, I think you should expect way better results than that. But I digress…the point is that you don’t need EVERYONE to give you money, you just need some people to give you money. But if you don’t ask you don’t get.

Lesson from the Trenches

How to create huge value for your readers? This is a great topic for future posts, but let me give you a quick story from my direct sales years for now. I used to sell Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door. You learn a lot about building value by selling door to door. I’m asking people who haven’t met me 15 minutes ago to spend $1500 on a vacuum cleaner that didn’t think they needed before I walked in.

After my demonstration, I always asked people what they thought the price tag was, and most of them told me they were expecting a price tag of over $3000. So when I told them it was $1500, they were visibly relieved. You could actually seem them relax into their seat when I gave them the order form.

How do you do this? I will get into the fine details as I continue to develop this blog, but for now I just wanted to give you the basic concept…if you want to ask someone for $1500, you better give them $3000 in value. If you want to have someone buy your ebook for $47, you better be able to show them definitively, in terms they understand, why it’s worth a lot more…that’s the concept.

Give people a deal. It’s more work for you, but it’s a better deal for your customers, and that’s how you make money. You make money by creating value for others.

Why You are a Salesperson Whether You Think So or Not

By Christian

Everyone is a salesperson. Just like everyone is an actor. This is a responsibility that most of us do not want to undertake, because it means extra work. It means paying attention to every detail. But even though it’s extra work, it’s worth it. The fact is, we cannot decide how things are; we can only decide whether or not we are going to be effective and successful, given the circumstances.

Running a blog is hard work, and if you’re reading this you are someone who wants to learn to do it effectively. This is a theme that comes up many times in my writing, and I think it’s important to cover it regularly, because there is SO much information steering us down the wrong path…a path that will waste our time. This is information that caters to the little voice inside all of us that is always seeking a shortcut. We need to destroy that voice and get to work!

Why to be a Salesperson

Being an effective salesperson means that you will be effective in getting the results you want out of your readers. It means you will present yourself deliberately and professionally. It doesn’t mean your blog needs to be prim and proper…it means you need to present yourself in a manner consistent with getting the results you want and need to run your business effectively.

Being an effective salesperson means you will not be afraid to ask for the order. Maybe this means you will ask people to comment your posts, maybe it means you will ask them to buy your product or services…but it means you WILL ask for what you want. This is something most bloggers fail to do.

Not only will you ask for the order, but you will study and perfect the craft of asking for the order daily…constantly seeking better and more effective ways to improve what you do. Maybe you need to phrase your requests differently. Maybe you need to use a pop up window. Maybe you need to frame your request in red and put it in the upper right hand corner of the page (the statistically most effective placement for an opt-in box). Details matter. As an effective salesperson, you will care about these details, and you will attend to them daily.

What Happens When You’re NOT a Salesperson

If you’re NOT a salesperson, you will have a much easier time of it. You will simply write what you want, post when you feel like it, and you will expect your readers to do what you want them to do. Some of them will, but most will not. Success will remain a nebulous and mystical phenomenon to you, because you’ll see a lot of other websites and blogs that seem to you to be very similar to what you’re doing. Yet some of them will have vastly more traffic and make a lot more money than you, and you will always wonder why. After all, you will think to yourself, you’re blogging. You’re working every day, so why aren’t you getting the results?

At some point you will decide that it just isn’t for you, and you will quit…not ever having realized that you were a salesperson. You thought you were a blogger. You thought wrong.

Success is in the Details

You are a salesperson, whether you think you are or not. That is the business we’re all in. If we do this for money, then we need to get results…it’s just how it is. A lot of what I write about will be conceptual stuff like this, but it all leads into a detailed analysis of the mundane details. Details which will make many of your eyes glaze over. If you’re one of the ones who glazes over, it will be because you will not want to do the work I’m describing. That is the moat which separates the successful and unsuccessful…in blogging, internet marketing or any business endeavor. Big success is made up of millions of tiny, seemingly insignificant successes. Success is in the details.

Does it matter whether you use Verdana or Times New Roman on your sales page? Yes, it matters. A true salesperson knows this and is EXCITED to determine which one to use. Why? Because choosing the right mundane details is what will create tiny, incremental improvements. And those tiny improvements, done consistently over time…THAT’S what makes you a huge success. A salesperson knows this.

Those of us who are successful at making money online have embraced this fact. And we’ve embraced the work that comes with it. We do what it takes. Are you a salesperson? You better believe it!