Feature Product Review:Internet pay-per-click marketing strategies can have a great impact on your business. This article discusses Internet pay-per-click marketing strategies. PPC (pay-per-click) is something we have a lot of experience and knowledge on. We know what works, and what doesn’t. We know some of the best strategies and approaches you need to take to
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Internet Pay-Per-Click Marketing Strategies
When I think about it, I still get that feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was chatting with a woman with an interior design business about the changes she needed to make in her website. The conversation was going well — she loved all my ideas and was ready to rebuild her site. I started getting excited, thinking I had found my next project. I was already putting together her proposal in my head. Then she uttered those dreaded words … “I’d love to take you to lunch and pick your brain sometime.” I didn’t know what to say or do. I felt my face turning red and I stammered out an excuse about getting back to her when I checked my calendar. Requests for “brain-picking” are rampant in any business, and they’re never fun if you’re the one whose brain is being picked. It used to happen to me so much that I found myself becoming resentful. Every time I spoke with someone new I heard a little voice in the back of my head saying “Ugh, I bet they’ll never hire you, they just want a bunch of help for free”. That little voice was not very helpful for landing clients If you’ve ever been in this situation, there is a way to turn this around. There is a way to handle these situations with grace and without frustration. There’s even a way to make those freebie requests go away — or, even better, turn into paying clients. It is your job, and your job alone, to set appropriate boundaries and clear up what you’re happy to give for free and what you charge for. That might be hard to hear. But if you want to move through these situations with grace (and encounter them less often) you have to stop placing blame — and start making it a policy to get paid for your time. Sound impossible? It’s not. Here’s how: 1. Take full responsibility The most important thing you can do is stop being angry at the prospect for asking. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. If you were given the choice between getting a new computer for free or paying for the same computer, you’d pick free every time — and you’d never think about the company who doesn’t get paid for the sale. Why would you? I know free is my favorite price for everything. It is your prospect’s prerogative to ask for your time for free. Let me say that again — it is their prerogative to ask . In fact, they’d be missing a golden opportunity if they paid for something when they didn’t have to. You can’t blame the prospect for taking the smart route. You’re also missing the subtle compliment that goes with being asked for advice. When someone asks you for your time for free, be grateful that they view you as someone who can offer valuable advice . Gary Vaynerchuk constantly says how grateful he is to get thousands of emails a day — he doesn’t take it for granted that every one of those people thinks that he is worth taking time out of their life to write to him. Everyone asking for your time is already “sold” on you to a degree — they must be or they wouldn’t be asking you for more! Instead of viewing them as a dead-end cheapskate, see them as someone who is so invested in you that they’ll either be a potential client or a source of referrals. 2. Clearly establish your service offerings Sometimes people ask you to work for free because you haven’t given them anything to buy. When I offered web design I didn’t have any packages for ongoing support. I charged clients a per-project fee, and considered the project done when the client signed off on the design. Invariably, people would contact me after the project was officially “over” with some tiny request — things that literally took 5-10 minutes of my time. Crafting a new invoice for this small request seemed silly, yet all of these requests were starting to seriously eat up my time. I started to feel like I had to provide free service for life for each one-time purchase, and I felt like people were taking advantage of me when they asked for these small favors. Looking back, I can see that they weren’t taking advantage of me. The issue was mine. I should have had a clearly-defined ongoing support package to offer in response to those requests. That would have made things clear — either you had purchased my ongoing support or you hadn’t. As it stood, everyone was in the grey zone. If you don’t like people asking for your time for free, but also don’t have any sort of well-defined offer in place to charge them for that time, the blame falls squarely on you. 3. Decide what you’ll give away … What are you willing to give out for free? This is where content marketing is your friend, because you offer plenty of valuable free resources like your blog or newsletter. It also may be appropriate to do brief introductory phone calls, or host one group in-person session per month for people who are interested in working with you. Whatever it is for your business, get clear. For the record, you do not have to offer any time for free. It is possible to get hired without any kind of free consult beforehand if you do a great job building the relationship ahead of time with your content marketing . In my business people sign $5,000 contracts with me without any kind of free introductory consult. 4. … but don’t assume that free advice is all they want We often make the mistake of assuming that someone isn’t willing to pay just because they ask to “pick our brain.” Again, they’re asking because we all love free. That doesn’t mean they’re unwilling to pay, it means they’re hoping they won’t have to. They’ve expressed interest in learning more from you, which means they are a potential client and should be treated as such. Remember that you are in business here, which means that you exchange value for money. Don’t let “free” become your default mode. It is your job to take the lead. If you lead them down the free path that’s exactly where they’ll go. Lead them down the customer path instead. 5. Respond with confidence Here’s a script for how to handle someone asking you for coffee or lunch to “pick your brain”: I’m glad to hear you’re interested in getting deeper into this. The next step is my one-hour consultation. Would you like me to tell you how that works? Notice that you’re asking permission and putting the prospect in the driver’s seat. You’re also using the clear service offering that you established in step two. You’re not explaining why you’re charging, because there’s no need: your time is valuable . That’s a given. Even if you’re not used to thinking of it that way yet, get used to responding to these queries as though you are. If they want to hear more about your consult, that’s great! You have the green light to sign a new client. Some people will backpedal and start saying they’re tight on money. Here’s another script you can use in that scenario: I completely understand, you have my card so just get in touch with me when you’re ready. You can also take a look at the articles on my blog if you’d like some more general advice that can tide you over until you’re ready to embark on this project. What you don’t want to do is hedge, waver or discount. Stand firm with full respect for your business and you’ll find that the prospect will share that respect. Hold firm and freebie requests will fall off You’ll notice that the people at the very top seem to struggle with this topic less, even though they get the most requests. Why? When you’re clear and confident in what you offer, paying for your time becomes the natural progression. Get clear, get confident and start being honored by those “freebie” requests. That’s how you become an expert that always gets paid for their time. If getting all of those requests because you’re the top expert in your field is a problem you would like to have, check out my course Creating Fame . It’s a step-by-step guide to making you and your business famous using social media. Enrollment opens for a limited time on Thursday, October 7th. About the Author: Laura Roeder is a social media marketing expert who teaches small businesses how to create their own fame and claim their brand online. She lives in Venice Beach, California, where she video blogs, makes frequent trips to the library, and volunteers with local middle schoolers.
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The Simple Tricks Experts Use to Always Get Paid For Their Time
Be remarkable. Be the purple cow. Get yourself noticed. Just be your own beautiful and unique snowflake self, and your allotment of raving fans will come find you and buy everything you make. Ever heard that advice? It’s a social media truism that as long as you’re authentic , you can’t go wrong. Fame, fortune, and the latest Apple products will all be yours. Let’s face it — authenticity can be a great way to draw a crowd. Especially if you have an over-the-top personality. And because we live in the age of attention scarcity, many people think that getting attention is the hard part. If only I could get noticed. If only I could get someone to read my stuff. But attention isn’t actually the rarest commodity in the 21st century. Trust is. It’s true that the first letter in every sales formula is “A” All marketing has to start with attention. If you can’t attract attention in the first place, nothing else you do has a chance to work. This is why headlines matter more than anything else you do. And that’s been the case as long as selling has existed. If you’ve ever been to a Renaissance Faire, think about the way the food vendors let you know what they’ve got to offer. When the pretty girl in the tight bodice shouts Hot Turkey Legs! and Cold Beer Here! , those are headlines. They attract your attention and let you know the most important details of the offer. But you need to remember that the work of the headline is not only to attract attention. The true job of the headline is to get the first line of your copy (whether it’s a blog post, email message, sales letter, video, or podcast) read, watched, or listened to. In other words, if you gaze happily at the pretty girl but you never approach her for a beer, the headline (and the bodice) have failed. Copywriting formulas have more than one letter (If the whole idea of copywriting formulas is new to you, you can find 15 of them here .) Conversion is the copywriting term for all the stuff that happens between that initial “A” and the sale. You craft an offer that people will actually want to buy . You build trust. You answer questions and counter objections. You describe appealing benefits to spark interest and fan it into desire. You make it easy for the prospect to see herself as a customer. You increase desire with appealing bonuses. You deliver a clear, compelling call to action . You build in urgency elements to get the prospect to act today. You state your call to action again. Being a jerk is bad for business Lots of us will reward a jerk with attention. But not many will reward a jerk with business . Jerks can’t be depended on. They play head games. They don’t respect their audience. They amuse themselves at the expense of other people. Prospects are already fearful enough . If your prospects don’t trust you, they’re not likely to spend any money with you. You don’t have to be a wimp You’ll notice that some very successful businesspeople have strong, tough personas. They may well make themselves unlikeable to most of the population. That’s ok – they’re filtering out the customers who aren’t right for their business. The message they send to their right customers, though, is always that they can be trusted. That they’ll tell the truth, even when it’s not pretty. That they’re consistent, whether you like them or not. The dad from Sh*t My Dad Says would make a good marketer. Let’s face it, if you bought a car from that guy, you know that you’d have a completely accurate picture of what was good and bad about the car. He may be offensive at times, but he’s trustworthy. (At least, the real dad and not the one who will be played by William Shatner.) The dad from “Family Guy” would make a lousy marketer. He’s capricious, he goes for the cheap laugh every time, and he has no integrity. There are no customers gullible enough to buy a car from that guy. You may find him hilarious, but no sane person would find him trustworthy. It takes more than being remarkable Hey, I’m a big fan of remarkable. I built a blog and a lovely business around it. But “remarkable” doesn’t mean “remarkably annoying,” “remarkably mean,” or “ remarkably useless .” You have my permission to swear on your blog , to fearlessly embrace controversy , or just to make yourself a likeable jackass . But never, ever do it at the expense of the trust of your readers. There is no effective copywriting formula that leads directly from getting Attention to creating a Scandal to making a Sale. That’s just a formula for making an A-S-S of yourself. About the Author : Sonia Simone is CMO of Copyblogger Media and founder of Remarkable Communication . Follow her on twitter . Flickr Creative Commons image by Alaskan Dude
I spent the day at Google’s San Francisco offices today and came away with a fresh perspective on not only their business but mine. Google's San Francisco Offices I am excited about getting back to my office and applying both what I learned and discovered.
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Google’s San Francisco Offices
There are two types of sales page readers: those who faithfully read every word, and those who skim until they get to the end. Since you want to sell to both of these groups, you have to know exactly how to capture and hold the attention of each — and doing so in the same sales page is no small feat. The good news is, you can use the same writing strategy to get each group to engage with what you’re reading … and ultimately to buy what you’re selling. One very simple way you can increase the “scannability” of your sales page is by making effective use of subheads. Subheads are a sales page’s best friend If you blog at all, you know the power that a good set of subheads commands over your readers. You take special care to make them stand out, capture attention and intrigue your readers — and most important, to give those people who give your post a quick “once over” a reason to slow down and read every word you’ve written . Sales pages are no different. Good subheads allow your readers to stay grounded in the context of what they’re reading, while building a sense of anticipation of what’s to come. So let’s talk about a few subhead strategies you can use to make readers sit up and take notice. How to strengthen your sales copy with promises We’ve talked before at Copyblogger about how a good headline delivers a promise to the reader that makes them want to read further into your sales page. But if you don’t deliver on that promise quickly, readers can lose interest and either scroll down to the end or give up on your copy entirely. This is why you want to set up each subheader to include a smaller promise — a taste of what’s to come in the next few paragraphs, if only they will continue reading. For each section of your copy, ask yourself: What result will my reader be closer to after reading the text in this section When you find the answer, build that into the subheader text. (If you can’t come up with something, that’s a sign you need to improve that section.) Want an example? Look at the subheader above. I just did it. Why benefit-based subheaders get your readers to stick Naturally, readers want to know what’s in it for them. Here’s where you tell them how the promise you’ve made can make their business (or their life) better. To figure out the positive changes that will happen after they take you up on your offer, look at the promise and ask yourself: How will things be different for my readers after they take in this information This works so well because it makes the reader hungry for a specific outcome. Where a promise simply hints at a basic result, (“You will be more successful”) the benefits speak to the experience that people will have after they get that result (“You will double your current income in two weeks”). Tapping into the desire for a specific experience does two things: First, it forces you to tighten up your copy so that it delivers on the promise. And second, it triggers your readers’ motivation to read every word of it. After all, that’s what happened with this section, isn’t it? How I used story elements to hit the front page of Digg (and how you can too) When I first started learning about copywriting, I found the most popular headlines from places like Digg and Copyblogger and physically wrote them out by hand so I could get a true “feel” for what went into making a compelling opening for my blog posts. The act of writing with pen and paper made the copywriting lessons stick in a powerful way, enabling me to hit the front page of Digg six times. And as I talked to others who used this same technique I realized that it wasn’t a fluke — it’s an important part of learning by doing. It’s so important, in fact, that my first Copyblogger guest post was about this exact subject. It’s opened the doors to many guest posts since then. That’s my story — which, interestingly enough, you’ve just read to the end. Keep in mind the story doesn’t have to be about you — it can be the reader’s story (for example, “How you’ll get twice as many people to read to the end of your copy”). In some cases this can be even more compelling than a story elements that refer to you or your customers. Look at the subheader above and see how I’ve included the idea of story, a promise, and a specific benefit to keep you from clicking away. When you do the same, you readers will appreciate it. Why solid subheadings stop scanners in their tracks Now, all that we’ve talked about so far explains how to keep interested readers moving from section to section of your sales page — but what about the “scanners” who quickly scroll their way down to the price? How do you get them to stop and read what you’ve written? Well, as I said at the beginning, the techniques that keep those interested readers reading can also make scanners feel like they’re missing out on something — a key motivator for taking their finger off of the scroll wheel. If your subheaders are heavy on promises and benefits, and have an element of story to them, scanners will notice them as they move down the page. As the subheaders “stack” on each other, with promise after promise, benefit upon benefit, and a story that just won’t quit — just as I’ve shown you how to do above — scanners will decide that they’ve just got to slow down and really listen to what you’re offering them, because they’ll be convinced the rewards are just too good to miss. (And just in case you scanned your way down here, that last sentence was for you.) About the Author : Dave Navarro is a product launch manager who can’t wait for you to join the 7,000+ people using his free workbooks in the Launch Coach Library (a crowd favorite in the Third Tribe forums).
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Want People To Read Your Sales Page? Make It Scannable