Once you have your web site up and running with prospects knocking at your door waiting to sign up or emails going out to promote your products you need to find a way to determine what works from what doesn’t. The best method for doing this is split testing.
To explain this further, you basically take you web site that you know is converting prospects into subscribers or sales and create variations of individual components to test against each other. The important thing to remember however is to only test one aspect at a time…so you know where the change in results (positive or negative) is coming from.
There are various components of a web site that you could test, the headline, body copy, sign-up box text or design….you can basically test anything you want however if you have not done any split testing before, the easiest place to start is with your headline or the sign-up box. Just take the headline that you have at the moment and create a number of variations (if you are a beginner, you might just want to start with one or two at any one time). You then alternate the headline that is displayed to each visitor and wait for the results to come in. Once enough people have seen each one, you will soon know what works and what doesn’t by comparing your sign-up or purchase rate for each headline.
There are numerous tools out in the market to allow you to handle split testing, some you can purcahse and some which are free however if you use Google Adwords to drive traffic to your site, they have a great resource built in that allows you to change components of your site and even tracks the results for you.
If you want to test your sign-up box then you are best off doing this with a proven program. I currently use Aweber to collect my leads and they have a great function that allows you to change the sign-up box and alternates them for you showing you which one performs better. You can test the location, headline text, length, colour, pictures or even field order – basically whatever you can think of. Considering this is the place where all the action happens on your site, it is a pretty important thing to be able to test.
Just remember, split testing is the best way to optimise your site to get better click through rates and more sales. Start out simple if you haven’t done it before and work your way up. Your will be suprised at the results.
I am sure that most of you are aware that blogging is one of the most effective ways to broadcast you message to the internet world. I had always been a bit sceptical because people seemed to include all sorts of info on their blog that was irrelevent to the message they were trying to get across. While your weekend at the beach or lunchtime coffee break might be interesting to create a ‘bond’ for a while, eventually your subscribers will realise that there isn’t much valuable information to be seen and will start to look elsewhere.
The other challenge of blogging is ‘how do I get my blog noticed?’ Well, you could spend a heap of money on the latest and greatest ‘blogging for money’ e-book or you could just use the leverage of Web 2.0 and the social networking sites to advertise your content. I have recently come across a great site at http://www.onlywire.com where you can link to your accounts at over 20 of the social networking and bookmarking sites.
Once you have signed up, OnlyWire will give you a list of the sites that they broadcast to and links to the sign-up pages. Just go to each page (now, I know this sounds like work, but trust me, its worth it) and sign up for an account at each of the sites. Once you have completed and confirmed your signup, just enter the username and password into your main OnlyWire page and whenever you update your blog, just post the one link to OnlyWire and they will do the rest of the work for you. You can save hours with just this one interface.
This is a shameless plug, I’ll be honest with you.I try and avoid them but I have just joined a great forum to ask a question and the first person to respond was a gentleman by the name of Daniel McGonagle.He gave me some valuable information that prevented me from wasting $9.95USD on a SafeList advertisement.
I have been a subscriber to a few SafeLists over the past 6-9 months and had finally given it some serious thought and was about to subscribe to their great offer of 3 months for the price of 1…Sounds like a great deal, doesn’t it.
Well, fortunately enough Daniel posted a reply to my question and it was simply his signature that offered this free report…and it also has giveaway rights so I could have taken this thing and posted it up here myself but I want to convey the true spirit of internet marketing to you all so the best thing I can do is recommend that you check out Daniel’s free report :The Top Ten Mistakes Everyone Makes in Internet Marketing” at his site http://firsthandreviews.com/topten/
I have made my share of mistakes online but this 74 Page report even taught me a thing or two!
P.S.You can also learn some simple lessons from Daniel’s strategy of offering a free report in his signature.Try it yourself and you will be amazed at the results!
If you are not aware of internet guru Joel Comm’s latest venture, The Next Internet Millionaire then make sure you check it out at http://www.nextinternetmillionaire.com
Joel has given 12 contestants an all expenses paid trip to learn from the masters of marketing and compete for cash, prizes and the ultimate joint venture with Joel Comm.
This show is being produced as an online reality show. Now, I am not a reality show fan but have just finished watching the first episode and it is absolutely brilliant. You don’t get all they hype normally associated with these shows, it is more along the lines of Donald Trump and The Apprentice so make sure you check it out at http://www.nextinternetmillionaire.com
It doesn’t matter what business you are in, you want your customers to be delighted with your business so that they become advocates for you. This applies just as much to internet marketing as it does to an offline business.
Actually, given the enormous landscape of the internet, it is likely that you have far more competitors online that you would in a normal offline business where your competition might be limited by locality or other factors. So, in such a competitive business as internet marketing you must be able to answer the question “What makes doing business with you memorable?”
Great service will always make you memorable, but most business have nothing specific to offer and only do what everyone else does so their service is neither great nor memorable. Good service starts from the first point of contact you have with a customer.
On the internet, this is normally when someone reads you sales page, web site or blog and forms an instant opinion of your business, their level of trust for you and their desire to do pay for whatever you are offering.It continues if they make a purchase from you with the delivery of the product as promised and the fulfillment of the commitments in your sales letter, including any bonuses or refunds as promised in your guarantee.
I recently purchase The 7 Figure Code from Mike Filsaime and Tom Beal.Now, I have been on Mike’s email lists for a while now, I have heard him speak live at Internet Mastery Secrets and on numerous audio recordings that I have purchased.Mike Filsaime inspires me with confidence that he is genuine and I trust that his products will have the same, if not more value than he offers.The 7 Figure Code, if you are not aware of it, is a home study course based on a $5000 workshop that Mike had run previously to teach people how to build and run a seven figure business.The sale sold through the roof, far beyond their expectations (and over and above their stock levels), however, Mike kept in touch with everyone who had purchased to advise of shipping updates to keep people in the loop.His helpdesk was hit with hundreds of requests from people asking when they would get their package and when they finally shipped out, Mike even sent a picture of the boxes on the trucks!
International buyers were told to wait 14-21 days for their delivery and as an international buyer, I waited my 21 days before checking with the helpdesk on the status.Unfortunately, when I purchased the package I was in the process of moving interstate so had a different billing and delivery address.When I checked with the help desk, they advised me of the shipment address that was used and it appeared as the street address from my billing details (my old address) and the town and state from the shipping address given (my new address).I checked with the local Post Office and they advised that all undeliverable mail was returned immediately.
Now, it’s Mike’s helpdesk and their approach to customer service that impressed me no end.My help desk ticket was answered almost immediately with all the details on where the package had shipped to and they had even checked the trace on the package with the U.S. Postal Service.When I advised them of the confusion with the address, their immediate response was ‘check with the Post Office, if you come up empty we will ship it to the proper address’.After checking on the package and with no luck I wrote back to advise that it had been returned and they had no hesitation in shipping out a new package immediately, purely on the trust of my word and without wanting the retuned package back first.
This is an example of making an experience memorable and I extend my thanks to Mike Filsaime and his team, especially Don Hendrick, the Support Associate at mikefilsaime.com who deserves credit for handling this problem in a professional manner and providing nothing but an outstanding customer experience every step of the way. Mike and his team have done nothing but impress me and live up to all the expectations that Mike sets in his sales letters and presentations and are an example that should be followed by anyone hoping to make an impression in internet marketing.
The lesson in this, is that when you consider how you deal with your customers or prospects, consider the perceptions of how they see you and ask yourself a few simple questions:
Why should your targeted prospects or customers listen to you?
Why should they believe what you have to say?
Why should they do do anything about what you are offering?
Why should they act now?
If you know the answers to these questions you will be able to make yourself stand out from the competition without question.
Start Today – Make Your Business Extraordinary!- Just do something better than everybody else is doing and make it easy to spread the word.
Internet marketing is no different to any other business, keep your eyes and ears open for ideas that will make your service memorable. The internet marketing guru’s understand these concepts and the people that will continue to be successful will be the ones who sustain their credibility and continue to delivery over and above what everyone else is offering.
You may have often heard that there are two ways to live your life: the first is through ‘trial and error’ and the second is through ‘other people’s experiences’. Well, I had heard that too, but not often enough in the last 15 years and it certainly didn’t mean much to me until the last few. It was only 2 years ago that I stumbled across personal development as the most effective method of increasing my knowledge. I had thought about ‘going back to school’ and doing some type of course either at a college or by correspondence but I didn’t really know what to do, I didn’t know what was going to propel me towards the future that I didn’t yet understand.
Fortunately for me, someone tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘why don’t you read this book’ and then proceeded to give me more information than I thought I could take. I felt overwhelmed at first but then it clicked and I had that first ‘ah ha’ moment when I realized that the people in the books I was given were sharing their life experiences with me, their real world examples.
You see, what I understood, was, that irrespective of what I wanted to do, there were people out there already living it, already doing whatever it was I wanted. I am just fortunate that internet marketing provided me with a focus for that learning and the inspiration two years later for Guru Mastery Secrets. This site isn’t about ‘exposing the untold truth’ and making the guru’s look like they are holding something back. The fact is that they might be, and they might want to sell more products later on. The reality is, that if you take what they show you and take immediate action then you will put yourself on the path to success.
Brian Tracy talks about the “Corridor Principal” which basically says that you have to open the first door and put yourself in the corridor and then you never know what doors will open for you. The same can be said about internet marketing, get started, do that one first thing….and then you never know what can happen. But if you don’t start, if you just sit there and wait for someone to hand it to you on a golden platter, then you might get it but you might also be waiting a long, long time.
Guru Mastery Secrets isn’t intended to be a one stop shop with all the answers. What it is however, is an introduction to the wealth of knowledge that is available to you and about some of the success methods that I have learnt from the Internet Marketing Guru’s and a place where I can share my successes and failures (and the place where some of the guru’s can share theirs) in the hope that you can learn from those. Fast track your success by learning from someone else’s experiences! As Sir Isaac Newton said “If I have seen further it is because I have been standing on the shoulders of giants”.
Happy Marketing Brad Davidson
P.S. Your role models and mentors all tell stories that we can look up to but they all started out with a dream in their hearts and with all the same fears and insecurities.
