Did you get this?
September 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I hate email…
In the past month alone it’s cost me and my clients (some of you) a whole lot of money in the form of lost revenue.
Why?
Because people simply aren’t gettin’ the message… literally. The email isn’t getting delivered.
And if you use email as a step in your marketing program (or God forbid, email IS your marketing program) then hopefully this letter will make you do some thinking. (If it even gets delivered to you.)
Here’s my question:
What Happens to YOUR Business
If Email Disappears?
I don’t mean that you won’t be able to SEND email. I just mean that most of your leads and clients will never read it.
Which is pretty much the same thing when it comes to your bank account.
The solution is actually simple, but not easy.
In fact, people like Jay Abraham have been talking about it for years. Unfortunately, people spend a lot of money on this type advice–advice they never put to use.
It’s his Greek Parthenon theory.
The bottom line is that, like the pillars in the Parthenon, you’ve got to have multiple income streams running into your business.
Otherwise, your business will be built on a shaky foundation.
Now when most people think about income streams, they think about PRODUCTS or SERVICES. What they SELL or DO to earn money.
But you can’t forget the HOW. How you earn that money.
So That Makes EMAIL an Income Stream
Now if you’re operating with a list of 40,000 people or more, maybe you don’t notice the problem. After all, you can make a million bucks a year with a list of only 2,000 or so… if you know what you’re doing.
But for the folks with a huge list… the only reason you don’t notice that you’re leaving money on the table is because you’re not keeping track of the numbers.
Because email is becoming a real problem for marketers. How many emails do YOU delete in a day without even reading them?
And every sales message that doesn’t get delivered is potential money on the table.
As I work with some of the bigger marketers out there, I’m quickly realizing something very important…
Everyone’s Pretty Much
in the Same Boat.
And the boat’s in danger of sinking.
The solution is to branch out. Develop the direct mail campaign… get the PR machine going… learn about NEW media.
Sure, something like direct mail is more expensive.
But price isn’t really the key here. It’s how much you get BACK for your money that’s important.
And if your business doesn’t have the margins to market with anything but email, then you’ve got a bigger problem than just marketing.
When I first started in this business, I wrote copy. And while that was valuable to my clients, I quickly realized that copy is just a small piece of the puzzle.
The offer is far more important.
And the list is even more important than that.
And once that’s taken care of, then the prime directive is to get the marketing messages DELIVERED… into the hands of your prospects and customers. That takes a system.
And the only way I could ensure that I provided a huge amount of value was to take responsibility for all the parts of a business’s marketing program.
To become the source for the system that brings in leads, sales and repeat sales.
So far, it’s paying off very well… for both me and my clients.
So what new income streams can you develop quickly? There are many to choose from.
The future of your business depends on how you answer that question…
A Lesson from Peeping Tom…
September 11, 2007 | Leave a Comment
What are the visitors on your website doing… right NOW?
Do you know?
Sure, you could look at your web server logs to answer that question. But untangling a visitor’s path through your site… WHAT they looked at, HOW often and in WHAT order… can be pretty tough.
And even if you were willing to spend the time to do all that–you’re STILL living in the past. Looking at what happened LAST month, or LAST week.
But what about NOW? What is your market doing right now? That might be different than what they were doing last week.
The great hockey player, Wayne Gretzky, didn’t say, “A good hockey player plays where the puck WAS.”
He said:
“A Good Hockey Player Plays Where
the Puck Is. A Great Hockey Player
Plays Where the Puck Is Going To Be”
And the same goes for your market. You’ve got to know where they are to understand where they’re going.
Let me explain how you do this…
One of my clients is in the middle of testing with a tool that lets us watch web visitors as they go through the site…
Nothing new about that technology. It’s been around for years. But most people don’t use it. (Something like LivePerson)
But it only took us about 10 minutes to see we were losing a lot of money.
Because We Were Flying BLIND!
Because we were making assumptions about our market instead of actually seeing reality.
Content pages that we thought were just filler were attracting the eyes of qualified visitors. (We never thought theses pages would be popular.)
So the people were coming and looking at information we didn’t think they’d care about.
What were all of those pages missing?
Anything to move the visitor to the next step in the sales process. No call to action… no opt-in box… NOTHING.
It took 10 minutes to increase our conversions simply by observing what was happening right in front of our eyes.
What’s even better, is that now we can piece together exactly what goes through the minds of our visitors.
We can watch how they come in on the landing page… spend a few minutes clicking on things… and then go in search of CREDIBILITY. Something that convinces them they aren’t being “taken.”
Once that happens, they go back and start digging. Once that emotional switch is flipped and they’re thinking, “this guy MIGHT know what he’s talking about…” THEN they hunt for the facts to backup their hunch.
And it’s EYE OPENING to be able to watch as it happens. Turns out it’s also very profitable.
High quality knowledge about your market can always be turned into profit.
So If That Makes Me a Peeping Tom, So Be It
Actually, it’s not quite like Peeping Tom. He was watching people in their homes. This is more like watching them in yours.
If you aren’t using something like this, you’re missing out on a whole lot of information about your market.
And it’s a lot harder to make money by trying to guess what your market will do. It’s much easier to watch what they do and plan accordingly.