200-Proof Marketing

Take a look at this quote:

“Those who have much, enjoy little. Those who have little, enjoy much.”

What does that mean you ask? Think about it, the more you want or need something the more satisfying it is.

When I was just starting high school I went to football tryouts. The tryouts were tough and the coaches kept us going non-stop for about two hours.

For some cruel reason they refused to give us any water except for a small, almost pathetic sip half way through.

When it was over, I was worn out and dehydrated. Yet, after cleaning up and changing I remember having one of the most satisfying experiences I can remember.

I went to the water fountain just outside the locker room and probably spent 5 minutes sucking up every bit of water I could get.

That was without a doubt the best tasting and most enjoyable water I’ve ever had. If water was that good all the time no one would drink anything else.

What made the water so fantastic? I was very dehydrated after over 2 hours of heavy physical exertion in the hot Florida sun.

The lack of or extreme need for water is what made it so good.

That’s why those who have little enjoy what they get so much more than those who have “much.”

I saw a show on the Discovery Channel a few weeks ago about two guys who were stranded on a desert island for 4 days with no water. When they were rescued it showed them gulping down water and I found my self envying how much they must have enjoyed that water.

Now you’re probably wondering what that has to do with Marketing…

While it is somewhat relevant to Marketing it’s also an important life lesson(and something for me to write about since I can’t think of anything else right now).

When you’re picking a product to sell the first thing you should look for is a Starving Market. A group of people that desperately want something.

You don’t want to sell A/C units in Antarctica, sell heaters instead.

Once you have a starving market, all you have to do is let the market know you have what they’re starving for. From there on it’s easy money.

One of my favorite things to read about on other marketer’s blogs is their test results. Very few ever give them out, yet say they are religious testers.

I too consider my self an insane tester (it can be alot of fun) but sometimes I get lazy and stop testing for a while.

I imagine it’s the same for other marketers but maybe they’re just greedy?

One thing you should always keep in mind is that what works for one market or salesletter may not work for another, so it’s important to test every change you make to your sales page.

Here are some results, (the ones I can remember) that have boosted my conversion rate…

1. Use a blue background just like you see on this website. The color code is #003399 I think. I’ve tested this many times and every time it has beaten a white or light grey background.

2. Make your headline any color but Red (preferably Black, although I’m about to test Dark Blue as an option). Red has always failed against Black in my tests.

4. Make your salespage’s Table Width between 65 and 70 percent. The main Table on this website is about 65% I think.

5. Use a little “Satisfaction 100% Guaranteed” picture in your guarantee. Did I mention you should put your guarantee in a table with a different background color from the rest of the website to make it stand out?

6. Test different PS’s because they are one of the most read parts of a sales letter. Try using it to reinforce a deadline, justify the price, or reiterate your guarantee.

7. Add a fake picture of your Ebook or Software box to your salesletter. My tests have shown this to increase conversions in most cases.

8. Try adding some audio at the beginning of your salesletter. Something as simple as paraphrasing the first few paragraphs of your salesletter can and has boosted conversions by over 200%.

9. Try adding Video near the top of your salesletter. This is still new territory but early results look very promising.

10. Prices ending with 7 tend to out sell others. This isn’t true in all markets and can be tough to figure out, but as a general rule $29.97 will usually outsell $29.95.

OK, there ya go… Ten things you can test right now that will almost certainly increase your conversion rate.

Don’t forget to test them though(individually), because nothing is an absolute in this business. There may be general rules but there are always exceptions.

I’m not going to tell you what I’m thinking just yet. Read below first then I’ll explain…

“One must be able to express himself briefly, clearly and convincingly, just as a salesman must. But fine writing is a distinct disadvantage. So is unique literary style. They take attention from the subject. They reveal the hook. Any studies done that attempt to sell, if apparent, create corresponding resistance.”
Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins

Now go read this Chapter of Gary Halbert’s Boron Letters: http://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com/Boron/TChapter18.htm

Did you read all that? Did you find the similarity in the two? If not, keep trying before reading on…

If you notice both texts are from Copywriting legends and both say that you shouldn’t make it obvious you are trying to sell something.

If it looks like a blatant Ad from the start, people are likely to ignore it and move on. That makes perfect sense, because I do that quite often.

I’m guessing the typical internet sales letter has become a “Blatant Ad” and my stats are reflecting this.

On one of my niche sites, over 90% of my visitors spend less than 10 seconds on my sales pages before leaving. Yet that site still averages a 3% conversion rate.

That’s just screaming to me that something is up. Either the stats aren’t reliable, I have a horrible headline, or people can easily tell it’s a Ad and leave before reading anything.

The current thinking is that at the very least people will read your Headline before deciding whether to stay or leave. Then if you’re headline is good they will be interested and keep reading.

People are told the Headline is there to get attention (which it is), so they think they should make it stand out even more. Why not make it BRIGHT red, or make it enormous? Because that might be telling the customer “THIS IS AN AD, PLEASE GO AWAY!”

In theory something that doesn’t look like an Ad but instead a piece of helpful information should draw people further into the copy, thus increasing sales. I’ve found corresponding proof of this by looking at some successful copy of the past.

So I’m going to potentially create a little stir and say “All the Guru’s are doing it wrong!”

I can’t prove it yet and I could be completely wrong, so I’m going to run a test on one of my niche sites.

I’ve already rewritten the sales page so it looks more like a helpful article at first than a Ad, and I should have the test up and running in a few hours.

Update: I forget the exact results of this test but I know it inceased my conversion rate.

The Income Tax deadline is quickly approaching and it’s a bad time for many people who own their own business.

I’ve noticed that sales tend to drop every year right around April 15th. It’s been one fluctuation I could count on and it sucks.

It’s not just taxes that hurt sales, it’s the coming of Spring and better weather. People spend less time on the computer and more time doing other stuff.

So if you’re new to the game and have seen your sales dropping, don’t worry, it’s to be expected. They will probably start picking up slowly in the next few weeks.

However, Fall and Winter are typically the best times of the year for Internet Retailers.

On a side note… I was cleaning out a file cabinet yesterday and found a 9th Grade Report Card.

I was in a class called Principles of Entrepreneurship which was taught by a lady who’s husband ran a semi-successful Appliance Store.

Here’s what had me laughing… I got a D- in that class!

I almost failed! Yet here I am, no doubt more successful than anyone in that class (including the teacher).

By the way the class had very little to do with real business. We learned all kinds of useless stuff that I can’t even remember (maybe that’s why I almost failed?).

To tell the truth, me and my buddy spent our time surfing the web and messing with other people though the schools network.

Anyways, I had a good laugh at that one…

I read somewhere once about the 80/20 rule which basically states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. My experience shows me that this is correct.

I try to test and track everything I do so I can change my actions and improve my results.

When I launch a new niche product, I use Conversion Tracking to track which keywords convert and which don’t. I then use that information to bid more on the ones that convert well, bid just enough to make the crappy ones profitable, and delete the ones that don’t convert at all.

By doing that I greatly increase my products profit. In fact, some of the products I sell start off losing money but then after some tweaking end up very profitable.

When I’m testing my sales copy I first try to find what parts of it affect my conversion rate the most, then focus on improving those parts. Therefore making the most of my time spent testing.

Get the point?

If you find the 20% that’s making the biggest difference, and then focus on improving or duplicating that 20%, you can easily increase your profits in every thing you do.

Find a way to track as many details of your business as possible, and then exploit the hell out of that information.

I’ll use almost anything to get a competitive edge, and although I won’t tell you all of my tricks, I figured I’ld give you a few.

If you do your Niche Marketing like I do, you sell your products primarily with PPC(pay-per-click) in the beginning. SEO comes later, if at all.

When you release a new product on Clickbank, it goes to the bottom of the list in the Marketplace, where it is usually overlooked by affiliates.

To get affiliates you have to either wait until a good affiliate finds your product and promotes it(which could take months), or use a dirty trick to send it climbing up the list.

How do you raise your product rank in the Marketplace?

Easy… If you’re like me you have a lot of accounts with Clickbank. All you need to do is use another one of your accounts as an affiliate in your PPC ads.

Say your product is on an account called “product” and you have another account called “something.”

Just make an affiliate link like this one: something.product.hop.clickbank.net

Then make that your Destination link in your PPC Campaign.

Now every sale you get on your own will count as an affiliate sale, which will boost your ranking in the Marketplace.

I suggest you only use this until you have a few affiliates. There’s no real benefit to over exploiting it because once a few affiliates find it they will raise the rank on their own.

I realize that a lot of the things I talk about here probably soar right over the heads of people that are just getting started.

The reason I do that is because I prefer dealing with the more advanced topics since those are the ones that can help people already in this business the most.

But it’s important to never forget the basics. With all the new stuff going on, many marketers completely lose sight of the core fundamentals that make Direct Marketing work.

When I first started, I read this book and it helped me tremendously… I believe I read it at the recommendation of Gary Halbert.

The book was published in 1923 by a pioneer and legend of Direct Marketing. Since then it has been read and studied by almost every successful Direct Marketer(if not all). It is the one book that should be mandatory for all aspiring Direct Marketers.

The name of that book is Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins.

I had pretty much forgot about it until a few days ago when I decided to reread it just to make sure I still had a good understanding of the basics.

Here’s the cool part… Not only did it help me cement the basics again but it gave me more idea’s than I know what to do with.

The whole time I was reading it I was thinking to myself “how can I apply this to my business” and the idea’s started flying.

So, if you’re new to Direct Marketing read it at least twice and take notes. The information you’ll learn will be invaluable to you in your business. Some of it is outdated but most of it has stood the test of time.

If you’re like me and you’ve been in the game for awhile, take the time to reread it. I’m sure you’ll find some new ideas in it just like I did.

To make it easier for my readers to read, I threw together a quick and dirty webpage containing the book. I considered putting it in PDF format but I’m too lazy right now so I just copied and pasted it into a webpage.

You can read Scientific Advertising right now for free by clicking the link below…

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins

Don’t be lazy and skip reading this book. If you want to be successful in this business you must understand the principles outlined in Scientific Advertising!

No, not in the way you’re thinking…

Over 10 Million people have been exposed to sales copy written by me.

That’s pretty cool, eh?

I know that’s nothing compared to big copywriters like Gary Halbert, but I’m not a professional copywriter either.

I personally don’t think I could stand to write copy for a living. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind it, I just don’t think I’ld like writing copy for other people.

I think it would get old really fast if all I did was write copy for others and never had any of my own projects.

The fun is in the whole process, from finding the market to seeing something I created turn into a successful business.

Sorry, no useful tips this time… Just some ego boosting on my part. But I am working on some things that will be pretty cool for my readers…

Some of you may think I’m crazy, but I actually enjoy infomercials. They can be entertaining and educational for a Marketer.

The humor is probably lost on non-marketers, but if you understand what they’re doing (or trying to do) it can be funnier than the latest blockbuster comedy.

Just the names of some of them are hilarious…

Take Yoga Booty Ballet for example. That’s a pretty funny name and product, but from the looks of it, it’s selling like crazy.

Who in their right mind thought of such a thing?

Entertainment aside, the main reason I watch infomercials is to see what’s selling and how they’re selling it.

It’s the same as reading all the ads in a magazine month after month.

The ad’s in the magazine or the infomercials that keep repeating are the ones that are profitable.

This is an excellent way to find new products that are already selling and to learn what sales techniques are working in that market.

If you want a wildly profitable product just look at some infomercials…

Some long time winners are Real Estate Investing (no money down and tax sales), EBay get rich quick deals, Exercise machines, Exercise videos, Diet pills, Cooking gadgets, and many others I can’t think of.

If you want to improve your marketing, one of the easiest ways is to study what’s working for other people. That means watching infomercials, buying magazines for the ad’s, and whatever else you need to do for the particular media.

Right now I’m watching a show I like called “Deal or No Deal.” It’s usually an enjoyable game show but tonight it’s a 2 hour commercial.

I’m “roughly” timing it and there’s 5 to 6 minutes of the show followed by 3 to 5 minutes of commercials.

It’s incredibly annoying…

Typically there are about 15-20 minutes of commercials for every one hour of TV, and somehow people have learned to live with that. But a commercial every 5 minutes?!?!

I know that’s a little off topic but it leads me to what I really wanted to talk about…

Image Marketing aka “Marketing Made by Idiots”

Direct Marketer’s generally dislike Image or Brand Marketing because it isn’t sales driven.

The goal of Image Marketing is to make a company or product look good and to get customers to remember it.

The goal of Direct Marketing is to SELL! Screw everything else, just sell the damn product.

Obviously any successful business needs to provide a quality product and build repeat business, but you can’t have repeat business if no one ever buys your product.

Company’s like Pepsi or Reebok, can benefit from Image Marketing because their customers are often faced with two very similar products and rely on “Brand Loyalty” to make the decision.

But Entrepreneurs who start a Small Business get little benefit from Image Marketing.

They usually go to an Ad Agency that makes all kinds of promises, charges a ton of money, and delivers very little.

This leads to the failure of countless small businesses every year.

Sure everyone in town may know your business’s name but if you don’t give people a reason to come to your store and buy something, they won’t.

If you’re going to start a business, take the time to learn about Marketing first, and don’t rely on an Ad Agency to take care of the most important part of your business.

In Direct Marketing your Ad’s should always give you a measurable increase in sales. Exploit the Ad’s that sell and throw out the ones that don’t.