Template for Crafting Sales Offers

Template for Crafting Sales Offers

Crafting your offer is a great starting point on your pitch.  Your goal here is to find a need and fulfill it, making your product worth what you charge.  There are many types of offers.  Use this worksheet to think through the process.

Remember, your products tell a story. Make sure that they flow together smoothly, and that they “mean” what you want them to mean. 

Examples:

Short: One or two upsells, maybe one downsell. Suggest recurring payments, but make them optional. Bump recommended, but optional.

Medium: Two or three upsells, one downsell. Recurring recommended, but optional, with an optional bump offer too.

Long: Three to five upsells, two to three downsells, and recurring and bump offers as well.

How would you like to construct your offer?  Use the space below to brainstorm the proper offer for your market.  Remember: You can test different offers over time as some may be more effective than others!

Now that you have the different templates to craft your sales offers. The next step is how to make sense of it all. I like the STEAM system

  1. Schedule your content
  2. Track your analytics
  3. Engage your audience
  4. Advertise your profile
  5. Monetize your traffic

This works for any media format and platform.

The Platforms that you can start on to get momentum:

  • Facebook Personal Profile
  • Facebook Fan Page(s)
  • Facebook Group(s)
  • Youtube Channel(s)
  • Instagram Account(s)
  • Snapchat Profile
  • Periscope Livestream(s)
  • Twitter Account(s)
  • Pinterest Board(s)
  • Additional Networks
  • Flickr (Instagram Integration)
  • Linkedin (SEO Purposes)
  • WordPress.com
  • Blogger.com
  • Blogspot.com
  • EmpowerNetwork.com
  • BuildingaBrandOnline.com

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA

  • Because social media networks have high authority, which means that they can rank well in Google, and get you tons of FREE traffic, leads & sales.
  • Therefore – It’s WISE to set up your brand on “multiple” social media networks, and follow the STEAM system to develop a plan for each one, and then build some link popularity to them to help rank them well.

For example, let’s say you buy a brand new domain name (abcmoney123.com).  Now when you list that site in Google, it’s not popular because there are no sites linking to it, so why should Google rank it higher than all of the other sites that were already there.  If it were that easy, we would all just buy domains and get millions of visitors.

Versus:  Facebook.com/ABCmoney123

How can you get your social media profile more popular to rank higher?

  1. Link Popularity
  2. Internal Links
  1. Links from other pages on that social network to your profile
  2. Example: Link from https://fb.com/myname personal profile that points to https://fb.com/clickbucks fan page.
  3. Example:  Share posts from my page to my personal profile.
  4. Example:  When OTHER people share your posts and page.
  5. Example:  When a post starts going viral, you start getting more internal links to your page/profile
  6. Best way:  Boosted Posts.
  7. External Links
  1. When other websites on the internet link to your profile
  2. Example:  Link from https://clickbucks.xyz that points to https://fb.com/clickbucks
  3. Example:  Links from your other social media networks that point to your main profiles. (Twitter, Youtube, etc)
  4. Example:  Write a guest blog post for someone elses blog, and link to your social media profiles in the guest author bio box.

For example:  I set up a new Periscope.

http://periscope.tv/clickbucks

Link Popularity Strategy:  

INTERNAL:  Naturally I’ll get tons of internal links by getting popular on that platform (hearts, engagement, followers, etc.

EXTERNAL:  I’m going to start posting links on tons of websites, blogs, any chance that I can going to my periscope.tv account.

EXTERNAL:  Drive traffic from other social media networks (like Facebook Ads) – Because google takes into consideration “traffic” as part of their authority.

Blogging Guide: How To Make Money With a Blog

Blogging Guide: How To Make Money With a Blog

Blogging started as a simple hobby, but has transformed into a powerful way to capture search traffic and monetize an audience.

While many successful bloggers started years ago, it’s still possible to start a successful blog today. You just need to update your tactics.

I’m Shenzu and I launched this blog in late 2019 to prove that it’s possible. With startup growth tactics Ive got steady traffic and regular commissions coming in exceeding $2k month with around 1-2 hours work a week.

The Riches are in the Niches (So Choose Wisely)

Ultimately, launching a blog starts with planning. And that includes choosing your niche carefully, or your unique target audience to focus on.

So how do you choose a blogging niche that you can easily monetize?

You need to find a niche that is highly monetizable and has affiliate revenue potential.

One of the most common pieces of advice that pro bloggers provide is to write about your passions.

While this advice may work for a few whose passions lie in a profitable niche, it won’t work for most bloggers. They’ll start with a passion in mind, write content for years without a monetisation strategy, get burned out when the money isn’t rolling in, and quit.

That’s why you must choose your niche based on market factors, not passion

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First, your blog needs affiliate revenue potential. This is a term I coined that basically means that the keywords that you target need to be monetizable with an affiliate program.

So how do you do this? First, use an SEO tool and find keywords that include the word “best” in them.

“Best” keywords are searches that people do when they’re looking for product reviews. For example, “best credit cards”, “best laptops of 2021”, and “best travel insurance” are all highly-monetizable searches.

Remember, to make money from a blog, you must treat it like the real business that it is.

And for that business to succeed, it must offer something that your target audience is willing to pay for.

To take it a step further, choose a niche that has audience revenue potential.

For example, while college students include a large subset of people, they may not be the most lucrative to target. But working professionals might be.

You need both revenue potential with high-value products AND an audience willing to put up the money. We monetize the blog with a variety of options like:

  • Affiliate offers
  • Display advertising earn per click
  • Dropship products 
  • Actual brand ecommerce products
  • Sponsorship
  • Paid placements

Think about it this way.

Instead of writing about interior design for stay-at-home moms, write about commercial design for hotel and resort managers.

1. Leverage Your Professional Experience

Once you’ve identified some great niche opportunities, narrow it down to ones where you can use leverage.

Your professional leverage will help you tremendously when starting a blogging business.

This is what gives you a unique advantage over other bloggers in your niche.

How do you discover relevant experience to leverage?

Ask yourself:

  • What valuable experience do I have academically and professionally?
  • How can I leverage the connections I have in my industry?
  • How can I leverage this experience into a profitable blog?

The answers to these questions will help you zero in on a niche that will fasttrack your path to success. For example, when you’re first starting your blog, you need to build influence (and Domain Authority) with backlinks and guest posts. If you have no leverage, it’s hard to get noticed.

But if you already have leverage in an industry, it makes it much easier to build blogging relationships and get more guest posts published.

They’ll also help you blog about topics you’re already familiar with, thereby saving you time on content creation.

It can also help you avoid burnout, which is another common problem that bloggers face.

The number one ingredient to running a successful blog is influence. And leveraging your professional experience and connections is a great way to build it faster.

make money online with laptop

Before You Start Making Money with Your Blog…

One of the biggest mistakes aspiring bloggers make is to think that blogging is the lazy person’s path to financial freedom.

It is a path to financial independence, but it requires a lot of hard work – especially in the initial stages.

Here are a few things you must get right if you’re to make money from your blog…

2. Get the Right Web Hosting, Domain Name, and CMS

While this may seem obvious, many aspiring bloggers make a business sinking mistake here. They go for the cheapest web hosting.

Web hosting is an essential element of your blogging business as it determines the reliability of your blog.

It also impacts the speed of your website. Poor web hosting can result in your blog occasionally going offline and loading slowly. Both factors can cause you to lose valuable readers.

See my blogging recommendations on what setup platforms you need.

To get the right web hosting, focus on:

  • Speed
  • Uptime
  • Customer service
  • Budget

And if you’re going to rely on a lot of media like images and video, you should also consider storage space.

Aside from choosing great web hosting, you also need to get a domain name. This is your blog’s name, as well as it’s address (URL).

Most web hosting platforms offer a free domain for a year, but after that, this should cost you roughly $10/year.

If you can’t get a domain name with your main keyword (as is the case with most keywords these days), you can always consider using your name as the domain name. This is great for coaching businesses and allows you to pivot your content if a sub-niche doesn’t work perfectly.

Third, get a reliable content management system (CMS) to publish your blog on. WordPress comes highly recommended here as it’s very flexible and 100% free. With WordPress, see my recommendations on the tools and themes you can use for blogging.

3. Create a Content Strategy

Content is the lifeblood of your blog. Get it right, and you’ll be in the right direction to make money from your blog.

But how do you ensure that your content achieves its goals of attracting visitors and converting them into subscribers and customers?

It all starts with a rock-solid content strategy, which involves (among other things):

  • Conduct keyword research. The number 1 skill you need to suceed is keyword research mastery your target audience use in their Google search queries.
  • Understand searcher intent. Understand what your audience is really looking for when they perform a search query. It’s an indicator of their pain points and, thus the problems you can help them solve. Google is looking for answers that end a user’s search journey, meaning they visit your blog and then stop going to others.
  • Semantic keywords. Make sure to use a tool like UberSuggest or SurferSEO to make sure that your blog posts have the best possible keywords and different variations that Google is looking for.
  • Create a content calendar. Create a schedule of blog posts to be published (based on your keyword research and user intent). For this, you can use a project management tool like ClickUp
  • Update posts regularly. Keep updating and adding new content to your old posts to keep them fresh and relevant.

With a solid content strategy, you’re bound to create compelling content that your audience will love.

The goal should be to create content that helps foster meaningful relationships with your audience.

Treat Your Blog Like a Startup, and Scale It Like One

Since most of my readers work full-time, to make money with a blog you need to use your time in the most meaningful ways possible. I write a lot of content early mornings or late late at night hovered over my keyboard in a dark room haha it might not be glamouros but it gets the job done.

You need to treat your blog like a startup, rather than a passion project. I hustle my butt off to get things moving at the end of the day no one else will hustle like me. I want to be the hardest worker in the room, but also the smartest worker in teh room. Outsource the low value work and focus on the high value  work for yourself and your time.

The reason many blogs fail is not from a lack of creativity or passion, but because they struggle to transition from blogger to business owner.

And here are a few areas you have to focus on as you treat your blog as a startup and scale it:

building your affiliate website

4. Have a Blog Business Plan

Like any business, start with a business plan.

This is a blueprint that will guide your decision-making, tell you what to invest your time in, and steer you on the path to monetizing your blog.

 

Blog Business PlanIt doesn’t have to be overcomplicated — a simple Google Doc will do. Elements to include in your blog business plan can include:

  • Goal setting
  • Market research
  • Competitor analysis
  • Blog monetization strategy
  • Your unique value propositions, heading, and taglines
  • Tasks to complete

Set SMART goals and make sure to keep track of everything in one place.

5. Scale Your Blog by Boosting Your Blog’s Ranking

To scale your blog’s traffic, you need to both create high-quality content and get links pointing to that content. It’s really that simple.

To do this, you must work on your search engine optimization (SEO). So how can you boost your blog’s ranking through SEO?

Build Quality Backlinks

Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors search engines consider. They are like the currency of the Internet.

Not only do they improve your Domain Authority (DA), but they also help drive traffic to your blog. You must invest time and resources to build quality backlinks to your blog.

And here’s the key many bloggers have missed — build relationships, not just backlinks.

In blogging, it’s impossible to scale your blog single-handedly. You must build relationships with other bloggers and webmasters if you’re to scale fast.

Once you understand this, you’ll base everything you do to scale your blog on the value you offer, not just what you can get from others.

This will increase the chances of you getting the valuable backlinks others struggle to get.

To scale, consider hiring a VA or outreach assistant to make more connections and build more backlinks.

Audiences

Guest Posting

One of the most effective strategies I’ve used to grow my blog, both in traffic and Domain Authority, is guest posting on sites in my niche.

This simply means creating high-quality content that you publish on other blogs. Reach out to your network, prospect with some link tools and find people and blogs that alow guest posts, this will be a easy way to start getting sweet links.

The reasons this is very effective are it:

  • Drives relevant traffic to your blog
  • Is an easy way to get backlinks
  • Helps you build brand authority

In 2019, I conducted an experiment to try and prove the efficacy of guest posting. The results spoke for themselves.

After eight guest posts on websites with DAs from 60-94, here are the results I got in 15 days:

  • 32 new referring domains
  • 247 new backlinks
  • 268 new organic keywords ranked in the top 100
  • 372% increase in organic traffic
  • +12 to Ahrefs Domain Authority
  • Alexa Rank improved by 600,000

To succeed with your guest post pitches, make sure your content is relevant to your host’s audience, doesn’t exist yet on their site, and focused on a specific keyword.

To sum it up, a guest posting strategy is a surefire way to scale your blog’s traffic and quicken your path to monetization

Create SEO-Optimized Content 

Of course, we can’t talk about SEO without talking about your on-page content.

After all, content is what attracts visitors, helps you build relationships with them, and converts them into your customers.

For your content to achieve all this, you must optimize it for SEO.

This is where your keyword research comes in. Each blog post should focus on one keyword and be included in:

  • Your headline (preferably as close to the beginning as possible)
  • The first few paragraphs of your blog post
  • In your subheadings (H2s and H3s)
  • Naturally within your content

Apart from this, your content must also be easy to read and have high readability scores. To do this, use short sentences and paragraphs and format it properly with subheadings and bullet points.

 

Implement Solid Technical SEO

Technical SEO refers to optimizing your website’s technical aspects that impact how search engines rank your website.

It mainly boils down to ensuring that your blog offers visitors a positive experience. This is critical as Google announced that  they rate page experience much higher now and it should be on every bloggers radar as an important signal for rankings and page visibility.

I like to think I can dive into the tools and get my hands dirty with the technical SEO work and really clean up my sites. The downside is I dont always have the time to be doing it hands on myself. Wearing my Operations hat I would say outsource the technical SEO work if you can afford it and have someone reliable to do it. Time vs reward.

 

Some technical aspects of your website to work on include:

  • Page load speed. Make sure your website loads fast by optimizing it for speed. This is technical and border line developer work.
  • URLs. Use descriptive URLs that contain your keyword. To do this, change your blog’s permalink settings.
  • Internal links. Building internal links helps search engines understand and navigate your website better, making it easier for them to crawl your site.

No matter how great your blog is it will not won’t rank well if your technical SEO is lacking. This will lead to you losing valuable traffic and, ultimately, revenue.

Nailing your SEO will result in your blog’s DA increasing, resulting in it being more visible to your target audience.

Remember, to make money with a blog, you must drive traffic to it. And that’s the main purpose of search engine optimization.

silos explained

Image: The technical structure and architecture of a website makes all the difference.

 

Build Relationships with Your Audience (and Monetize Your Blog)

With a regular business, email marketing plays a vital role in driving sales and increasing customer retention.

The same applies to your blog.

If you want to make money with a blog, you will want to put effort into growing your email list and using the best email marketing tools that simplify the communication between reader and you.

Your email list forms the core audience that you’ll market to. But to successfully sell to them, you have to build a trusting relationship with them first.

Let’s go back to basics and see how you can build a list of engaged subscribers.

6. Grow a Profitable Email List

To build a list of engaged subscribers, you need two main things:

  • A reliable email marketing tool.  Here are email tool suggestions that will help you create and manage your database of email subscribers. It will also help you strategically automate your email messages.
  • A good offer. To get your target audience’s contact details, offer them a valuable resource they’d be willing to something of value. This has to be a resource only people interested in your topic will sign up for. For example, a high-quality lead magnet.
  • A well-designed signup form. This is where your readers input their details to gain access to your offer.

Make sure to promote your offer on your blog and social media to encourage as many people as possible to sign up.

First, you can promote your blog posts to your subscribers, helping drive traffic to them.

Secondly, you can promote your products/services to your email list. You can also add affiliate links to your emails and recommend products.

In addition to email marketing, here are the most common ways to make money with your blog.

7. Pick Your Monetization Strategy

Here are the top seven ways to monetize your blog after you gain sufficient traffic.

Affiliate Marketing

This is a traffic dependent monetization strategy in which you promote services or products on your blog via affiliate links. If a visitor purchases through your link, you get paid a commission for that sale.

First, you need to join affiliate networks and then jam pack your offers with value and the messaging that works. Then you add them to your content and track reporting to see how many clicks and conversions you get.

 

Display Ads

Another way to make money from a blog is by joining an ad network and displaying ads. Granted, this isn’t as easy as it used to be.

The main problem with this blog monetization strategy is that you need a good amount of traffic to make real money from ads.

However, if you’ve already got a decent following and your blog receives a good number of visitors, you can consider signing up for Google Adsense or

other ad networks that pay well like MediaVine and AdThrive.

Sponsored Content

Sponsored content refers to content brands pay you to create and publish on your blog.

Of course, the content is usually about them or a topic related to their business.

Again, brands will only partner with you if:

  • Your blog receives a lot of traffic
  • Your audience is mostly made up of people in their target audience.

The advantage with sponsored content is that you can charge a flat fee – it doesn’t depend on the number of impressions or clicks, as is the case with ads.

Online Courses

Learning online with courses are one of the best high-ticket ways to make money with a blog.

The reason for that is that you don’t need a ton of traffic to monetize your blog this way.

You can start by creating a short course on a niche topic to gauge if demand for the course warrants you to invest time, effort, and resources into creating a full-fledged course.

By pricing a course at either $199, $499, or $999, you can generate significant revenue from a limited number of sales.

Create and Sell eBooks

Ebooks are another great way of generating revenue from your blog.

Thankfully, creating an eBook is as simple as compiling your best content and repurposing it into a book format.

The good part is that selling your eBooks (or photos if you run a photography blog) directly from your blog means you get to keep most of the revenue the eBooks generate.

Digital Products

Another great way to make money with a blog is to sell digital products. This could be anything from a handy spreadsheet to a simple tool. I have a few simple digital products on my blog that help users scale their backlinks and affiliate revenue.

Sell Physical Products

There’s no reason that bloggers can’t become ecommerce merchants too.

By using a simple WordPress plugin like WooCommerce or BigCommerce for WordPress, bloggers can add a fully-functional ecommerce store to their website.

Bonus: How to Plan Your Blog’s First 180 Days

Here’s my blog monetization formula, broken down into fours stages based on your blog’s age and traffic:

  • 1-90 days: High-end consulting (0-1,000 monthly site visitors)
  • 90-180 days: Affiliate marketing (1,000-2,500 monthly site visitors)
  • 180-365 days: Create and sell an online course (5,000+ monthly site visitors)
  • 365 days and beyond: Course memberships (10,000+ monthly site visitors)

One of the biggest mistakes most new bloggers make is to launch a blog and start adding affiliate links and ads right away. It simply doesn’t make sense to do that when you don’t have much traffic.

This is a numbers game.

When you’re first starting and have little traffic, if you can monetize with consulting and land one or two high-end clients, you’ll make money from your blog much faster than if you’re trying to earn commissions from affiliate sales.

How to Land Your First High-End Client… Fast

Remember, your blog is a business. To make money from it, you have to do what conventional businesses do — create a sales funnel.

For a brand new blog, all you need are your first five blog posts, a one-page opt-in “freebie,” an email platform and list, and a consulting page.

Once you have these in place, you can use them to strategically lead prospects down your funnel – in five simple steps.

  1. A visitor reads your high-quality blog content.
  2. They opt-in for your email list (thanks to your brilliant offer).
  3. Optional: You can add a lower-priced offer around $50-200 to build trust.
  4. Send an automated welcome email series that tells a story and leads your prospect to set a meeting with you.
  5. Lastly, your ideal B2B client sets an appointment with you, leading to them paying for your high-end consulting offer.

Of course, for this to work, your blog must offer a highly-sought-after service. The key is to master your high-end offer and sell yourself exceptionally well.

Does this mean you should do away with the other ways of making money from your blog?

Definitely not.

And as your traffic increases, you can then start implementing the other monetization strategies outlined above.

 

I love starting and growing blogs. I sadly do not have the time available as I used to focus solely on this part of my business. I do have people I work with and employ now that help me do the heavy lifting with my clients and JV partner sites. Time vs reward is a big takeaway and I want you to be comfortable outsourcing or hiring the small stuff out.

Keeping yourself free to gorw the business or the blog is your number 1 focus. This will take trial and error and finding that special assistant and support that allows you to step back, have faith in them and trust in their abilities. I found this part really tough, my standards were so high when they didnt need to be. 

The key takeaway is to start today even if its a section of the guide. Just do that one thing today with the plan to come back on the weekend and do the second thing. Thats all I can ask and its a great way to at least move one step forward. I want you to be as excited by this as I am and to make money doing what you love.

Enjoy the guide make it work for you and take action. Peace!

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How To Build A Social Media Strategy

How To Build A Social Media Strategy

Social Media Strategy Overview

What’s the PURPOSE of Social Media?

The goal of social media is to connect people to other people. When 90% of businesses do it you could be forgiven for thinking it is as awkward as teenagers kissing for the first time. Cringeworthy and totally off the mark.

If you get the messaging right you get the attention and engagement. 

 

Is Social Media Traffic As Valuable As Other Traffic Sources?

NO. Social Media traffic is some of the lowest converting, lowest quality traffic online. But it has its place in our traffic acquisition strategy.

BUT… Social Media traffic CAN bring us new leads & customers, and at a very low cost due to the viral nature of trending and niche targeted posts. Imagine if your post goes viral how much new traffic you can plant your retargeting cookie on. Its all in how your position your message.

While thsi traffic is not the holy grail of online traffic you should still link to and promote your Social Media accounts anywhere you can.

And… everytime you make a blog post, promote a link to it on Twitter, Facebook, and anywhere else that’s relevant. Hammer away at the content promotion and over time it will pay off.

How to “future proof” your SM strategy

My first step is to plan everything. I use Notion and Google sheets to plan all my content. This keeps me and my teams organised.

Then this might be a suprise but step 2 is to make a video about your topic. A short 20-40 second video shot in 720×720 on your phone or a specific digital camera.

My aim is to always drive traffic off social media into a lead capture where I can get the email address for future marketing. Here is my fave email tools.

This will be our content that we use again and again. We can recreate this content in 20 different ways. This maximises the content lifecycle and allows us to use the spin offs on multiple channels as new content. 

I like to splinter that main content video into:

  1. Youtube video
  2. Blog article
  3. Quote card
  4. Instagram story
  5. Facebook Story
  6. Snapchat story
  7. Facebook post
  8. Instagram post
  9. Pinterest video

These are my main platforms but there are almost 60 others to be used for syndication.

You should always have a website to host your lead capture forms, pop ups and other list building options. Learn how to build a website for any experience level.

A secret platform for helping me get the words from the video into usable format is a place called Rev.com a transcribing service. They help by taking the video speech and making text from it, great for adding quotes and subtitles.

Platform Specifics:

Facebook 720×720 dimension

YouTube 1920×1080 dimension

Instagram 720×720 dimension *Max time 59 seconds

Instagram Story 1080×1090 dimension

*Max 15 seconds

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What’s the Purpose of Social Media?

To ENGAGE with some of your target market
To
BRAND your products & services and company To SUPPORT your customers or prospects
To
PUBLISH some of your content
To
SYNDICATE and link to your Web Site content To help others DISCOVER your content & products

WARNING: Social Media ‘surfing’ can be a HUGE WASTE of your time and won’t make you money.

Type Of Social Media Posts

Asking A Question Interesting Images Educational Content Entertaining Content Opinionated Content InfoGraphics

Full Content or “Content Teaser” ‘Some’ Sales Promotions & Offers

What The Heck Is A Hashtag?

A hashtag is simply a keyword with the pound symbol in front of it. i.e. #vacation #gotigers #savingmoney

DON’T overuse hashtags! Rule of thumb to keep in mind is to use a maximum of 1-3 highly relevant hashtags. DON’T use any on Facebook!

How To Achieve The Viral Effect?

NATURALLY FOUND (Organic)
We
ASK People To Share, Like, Follow
We
INCENTIVIZE People To Share, Like, Follow

facebook social media platform

Facebook Tips That Build Momentum

Facebook has been done to death…by crappy marketers. This is still a very viable platform. I am finding Facebook groups to be the a solid source of lead generation and traffic. Start Facebook Groups related to your target market Facebook hates links within posts; Share a link

Getting the messaging right and the targeting is the trick on Facebook. Especially for organic social its harder to get enagement unless you pay for Ads.

Consider OUTSOURCING your Social Media efforts Tell Stories and share ‘real life’ with your audience COMMUNICATE, DON’T JUST SELL

Try to post 2-3 times per week if not more
Post as your Facebook Page on other people’s posts Run CONTESTS!

Talk about “Mistakes people make” in your market Share helpful resources
VISUAL gets most attention – videos & images Post related images WITH content posts

MIX IT UP – post full articles and article teasers Use 80/20 Rule to post more of top engagement Create a SERIES around most popular posts


Try posting late at night or “off” hours and behind the scenes. The behind the scenes works really well when you have more than 2,000 followers. Any less and it doesnt get the engagement. 

The good thing about Facebook is the automation it has with many third party tools. You can schedule a years worth of posts over a weekend. Dont sleep on using Facebook in your traffic strategy.

Instagram Tips To Build A Business

If you have a “visually appealing” product and/or market use it, if not maybe spend your time elsewhere Link to an Opt-in Page in your BIO with a CTA Consider using a URL shorter or redirect for your URL like bit.ly or Link Tree.

CROSS-PROMOTE with similar companies, brands and category kings (Influencers).

Use up to 3 relevant hashtags but don’t overdo it. You can add more hastgas in teh comments.


Pay close attention to competitors’ posts. Do some competitor research and work out their strategy. This will pay off in the long run.


In your post description “encourage” the CTA in BIO link. People need to be told what to do so make sure you tell your audience you want them to click the link in the bio.

Take a video in 720×720 and add some captions before uploading to your profile.

Post “share-worthy” photos and videos
Once you see conversions coming from Instagram activity, EXPAND your Instagram efforts…
Buy a Sponsored Post from large follower accounts in your market — reach out to them directly
Do deals with “Instagram Influencers”… get them to tag your account in their posts and promote you
If it’s really working well… test advertising on Instagram but be very careful to track ROI

If you need to post schedule you can use something like Meet Edgar or OneUp app.

Twitter Tips To Get Traffic


NOTE: I don’t recommend heavy Twitter usage. no more than 3 tweets a day. 

Use an easy to remember/spell username
Try and use a maximum of TWO relevant hashtags

Like you do with most social profiles remember to link to your domain URL in your BIO. In some cases you can link to the most profitable sales offer or highest converting sales page. Test this method out it can work crazy good.


Share links to your blog posts using compelling copy Engage with other users in your market


Retweet relevant posts from your market
Use Twitter for competitive research

Twitter is a great way to get updates out to the masses. It is underrated and you can get a lot of traffic from Twitter especially if you use moments. 

Pinterest Tips That Build An Empire

The most underrated channel on this list, Pinterest is a traffic goldmine. If you take some time to design Pinterest perfect images your traffic from this platform will surge.

If your marketing and/or products are related to a “visually appealing” market then consider investing time into Pinterest efforts. If not, don’t.


Explore Pinterest to see what types of products are the most popular — if what you sell is, go for it!

Write compelling, keyword-driven, SHORT descriptions Pin items multiple times per day
Follow Pinterest suggestions – no hashtags, no promotional language, no CTA mentioning

Vertical pins work best — 600px wide x 900px tall, 800px wide x 1200px tall, 600px wide x 2100px tall, 400px wide x 2800px tall
Overlay compelling copy onto images

VERIFY your web site with Pinterest. This is huge and it pays off. 

LinkedIn Tips To Grow Your Audience

If YOU are the ‘product’ in your business as an expert, and you sell to a certain industry, consider investing time in LinkedIn marketing — if not, don’t. Network appropriately with others in your industry Attach “Rich Content” to your profile – promote CTA Examine competitor profiles for ideas

Optimize your profile with great copy and keywords Participate in discussions and post GREAT CONTENT

Recreate your best articles as on LinkedIn and publish with a CTA to your original article. 

For affiliate marketers the LinkedIn space might not be the best place to focus on. For businesses that have services and eCommerce businesses you should be on LinkedIn drawing people from that platform to your own sales pages and offers.

 

Key Takeaways

Build your social profiles out 100% and make sure you keep them active. The golden rule is working on 3 main platforms. Then you can syndicate to the other platforms that are not your main audience targeted platforms.

Track everything, take the time to add UTMs and review your efforts. Get an understanding of how good or bad your efforts are on each channel.

Have some fun with it, don’t always post serious stuff and mix it up. Thanks for reading and put this to action. Peace!

Best Affiliate Marketing Programs

Best Affiliate Marketing Programs

Best Affiliate Marketing Programs - Your Path to Profitable Partnerships In the vast world of affiliate marketing, success often begins with choosing the right affiliate programs. Whether you're new to affiliate marketing or looking to expand your portfolio, the best...

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How To Build An Affiliate Product Review Template

How To Build An Affiliate Product Review Template

Affiliate Product Review Template and Examples In the vast realm of affiliate marketing, product reviews serve as potent tools for persuading readers to make informed purchasing decisions. When done right, an affiliate product review can be a convincing testament to a...

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How To Build Better Marketing Messaging

How To Build Better Marketing Messaging

Here’s a powerful way to make your marketing stronger.
Write out an offer that your dream clients would love and be hard for them to say no to. Then see how close you can get to creating it. Once you do launch and promote it everywhere.
This sounds simple but so many sales are lost due to weak offers. Note when I say offer I do not mean price discounting. I mean a real sales offer.
Do you know what the only asset that matters in your business is?
  • It isn’t your Facebook page.
  • It isn’t your Instagram followers.
  • It is not your people
  • It isn’t any of your physical machinery or facilities.
So what is it?
It’s your client database and the relationship you have with them.
When businesses are sold this is ‘really’ what the purchaser is buying.
Clients pay for everything and you must treat them as gold. If you don’t have your own client database set up and actively market to it the best time to fix that is right now!
“I’ve always been intrigued by the reality where some clients are happy to pay more for essentially the same thing. The reason is because of how the value is positioned in the service. I always ask this question.
Have you taken time to look at all potential clients for what you sell?
Have you identified those who can:
  • Benefit the most
  • Benefit the fastest
  • Pay the most
One of the easiest ways to grow sales and reduce headaches is to sell to the best clients you can. If you will do the research now your future self will thank you for it.”

Help Your Clients Discover Their USP

A USP is short for Unique Selling Position. This is a great way to identify the why and how the business is better than its competitors. An example may be that store A& B can deliver in 14 days but store C can deliver in 7 days that is a USP for store C.
Do your clients know the answer to this question?
Why should I buy from you over anyone else AND instead of buying something else with my money?
It’s a profound question and your answer must contain one key thing.
That thing is something they can only get from your company. Now this requires some digging and work but the rewards are there for you if you do it.
Once you can say you are the only one with X you immediately separate yourself from the competition and become THE choice for the clients you want.
So take 15 minutes right now and come up with your list of what clients get only from you.
Then review it and see what would be most powerful from a client perspective. Most importantly start using it in your marketing NOW.
Learn How To Start An Ecommerce Business.

18 Techniques That Improve Advertising Efforts

The purpose of all advertising is to take people’s existing desires and direct them towards your product or service. The old problem and solution pairing is a great way to start running ads with copy that calls out pain and provides the segway to the solution.
If you want to make your ads better you need to understand psychology and copy writing. But I know not everyone has time so to save you time here are some of my favourite advertising approaches. All have been used effectively over many years. choose what you believe will work best with your clients.
Don’t be afraid to experiment and test different appeals.

Here are 18 Quick Fire Tips

1. News. If you have something genuinely new and different then use a news angle in your ads. Words like announcing, introducing or finally now you can XYZ.      
2. Arouse curiosity. Once a curiosity loop opens in someones mind most people feel the need to close it. I had a great example recently a Facebook ad asked me if I knew the one question to get more sales. I didn’t but was curious and clicked the ad to find out.
3. Tell a story. It seems widely known now that stories sell. So use them in your message. Especially if it’s a story of success for someone just like the person you are aiming the ad at.

4. Add scarcity but make it true. A risk something will end or run out triggers fear of missing out and makes us take action.

5. Sell it well and then take it away. If you can get people wanting what you have and then say who it’s not for this adds more motivation to purchase.
6.Create a common enemy. You can bring people across to your site by sharing a common enemy. A few examples that people use are ‘big business’, ‘the banks’, ‘big pharma’ etc. Notice how the labels predetermine you viewing them as bad.
7. Take a contrarian position. A simple example of this could be telling people not to use Facebook ads whilst everyone else seems to be telling them to use them. You can go really strong on this one if you’re comfortable with it. Be aware though you will get some flack so you need to be able to deal with that.
8. Create controversy. This is a strategy that has been used in Public Relations a lot. Brands like American Apparel have also used it to gain greater exposure. It’s not for everyone and again has risks of flack you need to be aware of.
9. It’s not your fault. If you can absolve potential clients of any responsibility for making mistakes in the past then they can embrace your solution. If they feel as though it was their fault it can be hard for them to move to something new.
10. Social proof. The more people who testify to the fantastic results they get with your business the better. It’s far more credible than anything you can ever say. Aim for video testimonials if you can with specific results they got from your business.
11. Risk reversal. In any purchase there is a perceived risk of making a mistake and this fear reduces sales. You can limit this ‘perceived risk’ with a powerful risk reversal guarantee.
12. Small yeses. If you can get someone to say yes to something in your ad and keep them agreeing along the way it makes it easier for get the main yes to your product or service.
12. Offer a magic pill. People want the magic pill. As much as I hate this it’s the reality of the market. You need to present your offer like a magic pill to get the most people saying yes.
13. Sell to their want not need. It’s amazing how there is always money for what people want. Even if you know what they need sell to their want first or you won’t get the chance to help solve their true need.
14. Offer a sense of community. We are all looking to belong in some way if you can add community to your ads and offers it can bring more people in.
Creating a community around  product, problem, or technique is the nest step. Most popular places are Facebook groups, Reddit threads, Substack style lists and so on.
15.Use the Zeigarnik Effect. In psychology, the Zeigarnik effect states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. This can be really powerful when used at the right time and right place.
The easiest way to use is to give part of the information and then the rest can only be gained by clicking to another page or opting in for something. Don’t make it too hard though.
17. Enter the conversation. You must be entering the conversation already going on in their mind. If you can write your ad to what they are thinking about right now then they will click your ads in big numbers. But you need to dig in and really understand your market to do this.
18. Ask a compelling question. It’s really hard for us to ignore questions especially if they are on a topic we are interest in. So you could ask a question like ‘Do you know the one question all clients want answered?”. If they don’t they will very likely act to get the answer.
In summing up all of the above we are always communicating to the ad viewer self-interest.
If you keep even that in mind at all times you’re on the way to creating better ads and growing your business faster.

Bonus Tip For Clear Messaging

Are your words easy to understand?
The words you use to promote your business matter. If you use big words you lose people. If you use regular words then almost anyone can read your message.
The more people who read or hear your message the more clients you can get.
There is a simple set of tests you can use to make sure your message is well understood.
Yesterday I ran the profile a popular marketer in LinkedIn through these tests.
This person failed the tests.
In fact the writing requires a post-graduate education to understand it.
This is not an unusual case.
If you try and read it you know immediately it makes no sense.
So the solution is to get a Flesch Kincaid grade for all your writing.
You want a grade level of 7.5 or under and a reading ease of at least 60.
For the record this post has a grade level of 4.5 and reading ease of 84.9.
Read how to craft crystal clear marketing messages that cut through the noise.

Keeping Your Marketing Message Clear

Your marketing message will be ignored unless…
The very first line contains one of the big 3 elements that grab attention.
Here they are in reverse order of power (my ranking):
Coming in 3rd is curiosity. You see this with click bait headlines if you’re curious enough you click. But what you click to can often be disappointing.
If you use it make sure you genuinely reward the persons curiosity.
Coming in 2nd is news. Especially anything to do with threats to our survival and loved ones. We are hard wired to tune in to any potential threats.
Coming in 1st is self-interest.
That is something that is relevant to what I most want right now.
It’s been said that we need to enter the conversation going on in the minds of our potential clients.
I’ve never seen better advice than this.
All three work and you should test them all in your market.
But if you choose one might as well start with the most power self-interest.
If your marketing messages, websites and social media profiles aren’t already applying these then the time to fix it is right now.
How To Sell Products While In Lockdown

How To Sell Products While In Lockdown

Being in lockdown is tough the isolation and confinment can get to you. That good news is that everyone else is feeling just like you. Theres all these people stuck at home with nowhere to be and no where to go.

My focus for the last 7 days has been to jump on opportunity.

My team and I have been researching products and marketplaces that you can “buy low, sell high.

I’ve spent the last week scanning the usual suspects trying to understand market demand for this current moment. It was a painstaking task but very important.

My Research Grounds:

  • Marketplaces
  • Amazon Product Listing and Reviews
  • Ebay
  • AliExpress
  • Etsy
  • Pinterest Group Boards
  • Facebook Marketplace and from Facebook Ad Libraries
  • Empire Flippers Listings
  • Flippa Listings
  • Gumtree
  • Any place where domains and businesses are being sold

My research produced some really good results and I want to share some of what I found with you here today. Ive found a lot of business categories where you can buy businesses at an all time low. I know this may sound like the behaviour of a vulture but its just business.

I’ve been pretty keen to shift non essential tasks and projects to the side so that I could dig my teeth into the shift in the market. Theres something unusual and almost once in a lifetime happening right now. I know Ive not been through any other world changing event to the scale of this corona virus.

My thoughts originally were to use this for my own portfolio’s benefit but then its better to share so we all get a slice of that cheese. I know a lot of people are in struggletown with businesses collapsing and money running dry.

Heres How I Build Resilient Businesses.

There is a huge shift in how people are using online search now and the daily habits of each user. This is new territory for all of us especially online marketers. Ive seen some crazy stuff growing in popularity and search interest thanks to Google trends. At times like this its important to keep your head on the swivel.

Below I will list what Ive seen and what you can use to sell more while isolated at home.

If you are looking for something to do in quarantine that can make you online money…

Or if you are stuck inside looking for a new side hustle that will make you the money you want for your next project this is for you…

Or like millions of people and my girlfriend you just got laid off and you need something right now to keep the lights on…

Then I can help you with a strategy thats stood the test of time the “buy low, sell high” tactic will give you some ideas that start you on your online journey.

Here are 3 things that people are flipping right now for fun and profit:

Sell Trading Cards

In my younger years collecting and trading NBA basketball cards was my addiction. Collecting all the rookie cards of the big players took most of my after hours time when I wasnt actually playing ball.

Michael Jordans rookie basketball card

Buy Michael Jordans Point Club Trading Card

But the unique situation we are in is that all major sports leagues are in exile sadly. So what type of trading cards can be used in this corona virus time? Surprisingly still sporting cards and battle cards.

Most sporting team cards are still growing in popularity the weird thing is with the seasons suspended these leagues are still growing in popularity. There are millions of people at home and what do you think the TV networks are doing? they are showing replays and sports from the past. This is what is helping propell the rising interest in these trading cards.

Ive never been a magic cards collector guy, Ive got friends who are huge dungeons and dragons nerds, White Dwarf and Magic The Gathering card collectors. These card collections are exploding right now so how can you pivot to include trading cards in your product sales? can you make a set of cards on your industry.

I’m seeing huge popularity spikes in this niche. Think of all the dads stuck at home and the lack of live sport on TV, and then think what is one really great way for parents to bond with their kids? sports of course. With the parents and kids at home trading cards with popular sporting stars is one sure fire way to strengthen a bond by using sports trading cards. Kids also love those battle cards and using powerups and level up type cards, this is like old school Pokemon but with cards.

PLUS… due to the economic slowdown, a lot of collectors are strapped for cash, which means that you can “buy low” right now. This is a perfect product for our buy low sell high strategy.

Proof is in the search results:

NBA trading cards

Just look at those prices for a basketball card. Crazy money for a trading card.

Trading card money is made in two ways:
This niche is one for collectors so finding and collecting full sets is a valuable focus and also finding those rare cards, limited print cards and the big stars rookie cards.

Another tactic is a little more of a gamble but buying stars that are about to rise as as valuable or popular players. This can be a little harder in our current now because the players are sidelined. But there is big money in flipping these cards much like stocks the players stock value rises and falls as their performance reflects on impact.

Designer hand bags & Perfume


Weirdly as we are all self isolating and social distancing so why would someone need a designer handbag it boggles the mind. I’m not a fancy guy I really enjoy thrifty shopping and functionality of clothing and accessories. My girlfriend HATES when I buy clothing and accessories based on functionality 😆.

Designer Handbags and Perfume are spiking to all time highs right now. Ive seen post after post after post around these items being hunted online. I get that all the stores that sell these are closed except pharmacies or chemists but they sell knock off garbage perfumes not designer.

When shoppers cant get hold of products they want that product goes into high demand. There are still a lot of people who have excess money that they want to offload and dont forget about people pre corona virus who were excessive shoppers who now have to commit to getting their retail therapy online.

expensive handbag

This bag is a Christian Dior designer handbag that retails for $6,462 see actual Handbag here.

With designer handbags and name brand perfumes being a huge interest all you need to do is know where to look to find these items at wholesale prices. There is so much fraud in the space that finding real, authentic fragrances can be a challenge so dont just go to AliExpress and get that channels perfume because its a knock off and can get you into all kinds of problems. This does present a real opportunity for selling the real brands and NOT cheap imitation handbags and fragrances.

My advice is to take 2 angles for this and present yourself as a wholesale buyer, liquidator and bulk buyer of goods and look for auctions, liquidations and wholesale places for opportunities. Most people who do this normally may be laid off or on leave.

The second angle is as a seller and store owner of a store that sells these things.

The overview of how this works:

Know where to look for these products
Know what brands are in demand
Buying at a low price
Know what marketplaces to be promoting that you have these products
Negotiating and promoting your webpages where you will sell these items
Sell product at a higher price than you paid for it

Some search terms you can optimise your web pages for:

  • Designer handbag
  • name brand] handbag
  • Handbag [name brand]
  • name brand] perfume
  • perfume [name brand]
  • buy [name brand] online

There are entire markets and buyer types to flip high end colognes, designer handbags and perfumes to. I am far from the target market so this niche was new for me to be diving into but the riches are in the niches and as far as I can tell this niche is ripe for the picking. There were so many people searching for and asking for these products that it would be hard not to make money if you have the actual products.

This right now presents a very rare opportunity for you to buy low priced items and sell high on your website to an already hungry to purchase audience.

THIS is a perfect product for our tactic of buying low and selling high. I hope you can start to see the shift in perspective of how Im looking at the markets now.

Buying Businesses and Websites

I love domain flipping and business flips. These have been a huge part of my income over the last 3 years. In a nutshell I buy a website or business at a low investment price and perform some work to these websites using my online marketing skills to create a website that now functions as a high converting store or lead generating website.

>> If you want to work with me on a website or business you own contact me here.

This is the perfect time to start looking for investment opportunities. A lot of businesses have closed or are closing their business down. There are also a lot of websites that people who used to have employment that no longer do and can not sustain the fees for running and managing websites. This is a sad reality of what this virus has done to the economy. 

I would look at Flippa, Gumtree, Shopify Exchange or FE International and look for businesses for sale. The filters will help you navigate to the most relevant opportunities for you. I set filters ranging from $3,000-120,000 so I have a range of business types.

Now this is a longer play and not a buy today and flip tomorrow unless you work very fast. This takes me riughly 2-4 months to get my hands on teh new purchase and make some cosmetic edits and some backend changes to get that site healthy and looking good. I also like to track activity on teh front end of the website buy adding Google Analytics and reviewing any affiliate programs, ecommerce settings or existing CRM type sale systems.

My process revolves around taking something that is not working for someone else and refining what they have on the front end. It needs to look nice for people using the website. I like to then focus on backend adjustments to make sure the website is Google friendly and in good health. Once Ive done these two steps my entire focus on the UX and conversion rates of the website. 

When I am happy with the data I have and the visitor engagement is looking healthy I will start to get the site ready to flip for a much bigger payday.

This is my 3 tips for selling online while locked down and self isolating but still making money. I use the buy low and sell high method in dropshipping and site flipping all the time and its made me a lot of money 💰💰

I’m focused on businesses that are fun to build, regardless of what the economy is doing.

Ill be setting up a mini course on how I do this so people can see the step by step process to take control of their lifestyle and finances. Stay Tuned. If you want to do this on your own, you can totally do that too.

Take note take action and take advantage of the market. If you liked this drop a comment, share it or show me your results in a month or two ✌️.

7 Tips To Sell More SEO Services

7 Tips To Sell More SEO Services

These Tactics Make You More SEO Money

THE SEVEN RULES THAT HELP SUCCESSFULLY SELL PREMIUM SEO PACKAGES


When I started freelancing and fending for myself in this new industry of online marketing I was primarily selling pay per click, web design and SEO services as my core offerings. My goal was to always sell the prospect exactly what they needed and not what made me the most money and that they may not of needed but was nice to have. 

I am by no means a salesman, I hate selling and Im not a big fan of meeting new people and pitching them something they don’t really understand. That just seems awkward to me, and me selling face to face is awkward enough I do NOT look like the typical digital sales person being a large tattooed, bearded man I get a few strange looks when I meet people the first time in office settings haha. Fun Fact you will never see me in a business suit ever! I made a pact with myself that if I ever had to wear a corporate suit again I was doing the thing for work.

Make the agency fun think of culture

My goal was to sell $100k of marketing services for the year . I created myself a large database of businesses in my area that needed help with marketing thanks to help of a lead scraping tool called SCOPELEADS. This tool would let me put in locations, service types and some keywords and would go and bring back hundreds of results that matched my exact request. I spent a couple days building this so it got to a nice fat figure of businesses. When I had 200,000 businesses in that database I now had a playground I work in.

My Main Methods of Contacting these Businesses:
1 Email prospecting with website audits, SEO audits and more
2 Cold calling getting the manager or owner and highlighting the areas of improvement
3 Walking in cold to the physical business and trying to get the owner and manager

This was some time ago and I was starting out, when you start out the hustle is different you try to attack everything. These methods don’t scale well when you get bigger and bigger but for a one man show these were all I had to get the conversation started with these businesses.

What I learned is all of these methods really really SUCK! no one wants to talk to you or hear how their pride and joy website is missing all of these things they don’t understand. I had a of doors slammed in my face and was a hung up on a lot. But I did learn so much about what these business owners do want to hear and what hooks actually got them to take interest in what I was saying. I believe in  failing forward, so I may have lost 2,000 of those leads from my database but after 2,000 interactions I started picking up on what was working or at least intriguing the interest to take the conversation down other paths.

My confidence grew after figuring out these little 1% signals that I would use to compound and get the business owner invested in the conversation. I hate selling I really do but when it was becoming easier and easier I did kind a start to enjoy turning a no into a yes. A very weird turn of events but this sick little addiction to winning the conversation turned into sales and a steady stream of them closing me a nice little portfolio of new clients. I signed on 45 NEW clients over the span of 3 months. This got the attention of a bigger marketing agency who at the time was losing a lot of client (thanks to yours truly) so they made me an offer to sell my business to them for a nice little payday. I didn’t intend to be el solo while running a 47 client agency so this timed perfect with me scaling and then onboarding my new portfolio into their system and account manager team.
meme business in 2020

My sale of business was agreed on with one clause. That clause was that I work with the purchasing businesses sales and prospecting team to help them turn around their slump of no sales. I agreed of course I love training and developing talent. That was a no brainer. 

I don’t tell you this to impress, big note or get attention, but hopefully, motivate some people who may be starting out to take real action.Now Ive got the 7 tips below to help you level up with selling more SEO. Also because I know what it’s like selling SEO, it’s not an easy task the competition is fierce and the cowboys have made it damn hard to sell.

Seven Tips To Selling Premium SEO Packages
1. Only Target Businesses That Are Already Established And Have An Existing Investing Mindset.

2. Your Success Of Setting Clients Expectations, Will Be A Direct Reflection Of Your Retention & Revenue Success.

3. Frame SEO As A Long Term Growth Plan & You As The Vehicle That Can Only Take Them There.

4. What You Charge For Your Fees Should Be Directly Related To The Potential Value You Bring & The Size Of The Problem You Solve.

5. The Deeper & More Involved In The Client’s Business You Are, The Harder It Is For Them To Operate Without You.

6. Always Give & Deliver Value First. Give Your Best Stuff That Will Help Them Now Before You Ever Ask For The Sale.

7. You Are The Prize, Back Yourselves, Back Your Prices & Be Willing To Walk & Want Nothing!


This forms some of what Ive taught the sales and prospecting team at the agency I consult with thats helped them net $3.4 million in new business.



If you have an existing sales team ask yourself about how they sell and how good are their sales. You should be always reviewing your sales process and communications from sales person to business owner. Do you use the right language, do you highlight their pain points and then your solution all of these really simple conversation points play a pat in getting the conversation turned towards signing on for your services.

What ‘simple things’ can you do to improve sales?
Regardless of what is going on in the economy there are always simple things many businesses can use to improve their sales and profits. Sometimes making more sales is as simple as talking to more potential customers about what you sell. And there are a huge number of simple things you can do to attract more customers.

Here’s an interesting way to attract new customers that was both fun and extremely effective:
A hardware shop increased the number of people coming into their store with a fun competition. They put up a big sign in their window that said: “We guarantee that if you come into our store one of our people will professionally greet and welcome you within 15 seconds. If they don’t we will give you $50.00 worth of hardware of your choice free” People would walk down the street and read this sign. They would stop for a few seconds and then mentally say to themselves “That sounds interesting; I think I will check it out.” So they would walk inside the hardware store to see more about what was going on.

The store had a bell and buzzer on their door that sounded as soon as you went in. One of their salespeople would excuse themselves if they were dealing with a customer by saying something like “Can you just excuse me for 10 seconds” and then walk over to the person and welcome them to the store. “Thank you for coming in today, I’m just with someone else so please free to look around. I’ll be with you in a moment”.



This way the customer was always greeted professionally within 15 seconds of walking in to the shop.Now once the people were in the shop guess what many did?They said to themselves, “Well now that I’m here what can I buy that I might need?” Sales increased dramatically.What ‘simple things’ can you try this week to increase your own sales?The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is ‘look under foot.’
The great opportunity is where you are.
 John Burroughs

If you want to sell more of something I highly recommend taking stock of the following:
> your unique selling position
> your customers pain points
> your sales messaging and language
> your sales teams method for getting the actual signing of a sales contract/agreement

The sale is an important part of the process and your USP, your sales people and language even down to how they go for the handshake to confirm the deal are all compounding signals that can be improved by just paying attention to them.

I really hope this was helpful and you are able to implement some changes in your processes and business that result in you getting more sales and higher retainers for your services. If you liked this post please share it. Thanks.

Design Amazing Webpages

Design Amazing Webpages

How You Can Design High Converting Web Pages

Webpage Layout Success 

I know that when I browse online I’m looking for things that peak my interest. I want to be entertained and delighted its not a big ask but it is my browsing habit that I understand. I want to see interesting and informative websites serve me helpful content and unique images that are not blurry.

Now as a marketer I know most of my webpages I work on Im either selling a product or a service or influencing a visitor to take an action that will lead to that next step being a transaction or enquiry to something that makes money. This is unavoidable as a online marketer we have to be making ourselves or someone else money to be employed. 


The Key Elements of A High Converting Webpage Are:
1 Focus header with crisp clear hero image and CTA
2 Uncluttered page layout using 3-5 main elements

3 Clear calls to action per page 
4 Clear micro conversion points per row
5 Content that helps move the user into the conversion phase
6 Images that help inform the user that your product/service works
7 The Story carries throughout the webpage

Lets expand on each point listed here so you get a clear understanding of how important each one is and the best use case for them on your money webpages.


Number 1 Focus Header & Hero Image Explained:
When you first land on a webpage you land on the header and are usually greeted by a hero image or banner that should instantly confirm the reason you clicked through to this page is what this page is about.

User flow example.
You searched for “Website chat bots” and the first results claims that its all about website chat bots this meets your first needs.
You click through to the website and you should be greeted by an image and messaging that confirms that this webpage serves website chat bots as its primary focus. If you were greeted by a picture of a gym shoe you would be wondering WTF does that have to do with fixing my problem with my website live chat feature.

Number 2 How Uncluttered Webpage Layouts Matter:
I learnt a lot of webpage layouts working in ecommerce, my sole goal 90% of the time is to get the user to land on the webpage and read just enough to know that the product we have on the page is right for them. The next logical step is to make buying that product as easy as can be usually a 2 click process.

Most of the time I would suggest product images to the left and the key notes, features and pricing immediately on the right with a ADD TO CART or BUY NOW button directly under the key description points. This converts very well and if you look at ecommerce stores now almost 99% of them do this layout as a standard because it works.

You do not want to clutter that flow in any way, your other content needs to go below the product. Every bit of content even the SEO juice content and reviews get pushed down the page to keep that transactional flow first and foremost. No distractions no clutter.


Number 3 Expanding on Clear Calls to Action:

The number one hook point you have on your webpages are the Calls to Action or in short CTA. These are what make people take action and when you find the winning formula for your webpage you will notice an increase in leads & conversions. 

Number 4 Can You Include Micro Conversions In Your Webpage?
Yes you can once that number 1 priority goal has been established. You never want to confuse people with too many options and want to keep the overarching goal to be 1 page 1 goal. There are however micro conversions you can include per webpage row.

A row on your webpage if you think of your webpages like excel spreadsheets, you have rows going across the spreadsheet and columns running down the spreadsheet and they work together to help align data into easy to read sections. Your webpages are based from this type of organisational design using rows and columns to build the page.

You may have also guessed at this point that I’m a huge nerd and you are 100% correct I love this stuff.

Now back to the spreadsheets example, taking my webpage here I am using a x1  column downward layout with a x4 row across layout. Within each one of the four rows I can add small micro goals to influence the bigger goal we have of the page. 

Number 5 Why Your Content Matters 
Content used on your webpage helps to build the story behind the product or the service.

Number 6 How Images Help Influence Action
Nothing speaks as loudly to your website visitors as images. Use the wrong image and you will see a high bounce rates in your analytics, but use an image people connect with and you will see people stay on the webpage and engage more with the page because they feel this page connects with them and what they are looking for.

Number 7 Are You Telling Your Story Throughout the Webpage?
Good marketing is really just clever storytelling if we were to break it down to the nuts and bolts of it.


Conclusion
If you want to take this serious you need a basic understanding of design vs function. I cant count on one hand the number of arguments Ive had with UX designers because of conversion impact issues by design getting in the way. Funny that a UX designer could block transactions but it happens when you don’t understand the full spectrum of the sales funnel.

Keep the webpage you care about to a 1 page 1 goal limit and you will start to get a feel for what works for various things you sell. Don’t rush into things always test and measure to understand how behaviour and patterns work towards the transaction flow of your webpages. Keep it super simple until you know you have it under control.
Thanks for reading and put what you read into practice.