Short and sweet: Are you going wide instead of deep? For example, if you’re in online marketing, are you trying to reach every new marketer out there? This is a huge mistake.
If your niche is gardening, are you trying to reach every vegetable gardener on the planet?
And if your niche is dating, are you targeting every single male – period?
Then you’re going too wide. By appealing to everyone, you appeal to no one.
I once coached a woman who wanted to start a newsletter for parents.
All parents.
Of every age of child, 0-18, who lived anywhere on the planet.
I spent half the coaching session trying to talk her out of this strategy, or rather, lack of strategy.
She could not be dissuaded.
And I never heard from her or her newsletter again. My guess is she’s still stuck working the 9-5 job she was trying so hard to leave.
What should she have done?
Targeted brand new first time parents, or parents of 0-2 year old children, or middle class working parents of annoying teenagers, or adoptive parents, or frustrated foster parents, or…
In life and in business, we tend to hate two things mainly: criticism and hassle. And why wouldn’t we? We all want a drama-free life without people telling us what we are doing wrong – that’s human nature. Complaints and additional work can be a bit demoralizing.
However, in business (especially online as vendors of a product or service), whether it is justified or not – we are always at some stage going to have to deal with complaints. And as much as that is something no one wants to face – we must learn that no matter how good we are, everyone has their own level of quality and a different perception of what they want to experience. Plus, things don’t always go smoothly – our connection can be slow, a tool may not work or something may not go to plan. It is alright in these moments for customers to get frustrated. That’s ok.
The only thing you must realize and prepare for is:
1. Complaints will happen and sometimes it’s not your fault.
2. Learn how to deal with complaints in an effective way that serves and protects both you and the customer.
If you don’t accept the above facts – you’re going to get an unhappy customer, leading to bad reviews and counter-productive word of mouth. So, understand that when complaints happen it is not so much about the complaint itself – it is how you deal with it that will be how you are measured by them. That is, not what went wrong but how you treated them afterwards.
Don’t think if you get a complaint online that the world is over and that you are bad at what you do and certainly don’t take it personally. The best thing you can do next in this situation is focus. Focus on what you can do to now rectify the situation. Unhappy customers become happy ones when they have an experience of something going wrong and note that it is dealt with swiftly, professionally and most of all – with care and politeness.
Often we can get so caught up by the insult of a complaint, we can fuel even more complaints with our harsh and defensive reactions. Or we may even not bother to fix it in the way we should because it seems like a pain.
Here’s my recommendation:
Respond to complaints calmly, confidently and completely.
Every complaint is an opportunity to turn around a dissatisfied customer – respond quickly and positively. Remember your brand is easily damaged, and the last thing you want is for people to be actively spreading bad stories about your business. A complaint that is dealt with well can often result in a loyal customer, one that has the experience of how sweet you were when they were quite cross. In doing this (as opposed to getting annoyed with them) gives them refreshed trust in your brand and the confidence to buy again. Why? Because they now know if things do go wrong they will be sorted out quickly.
And that is worth much more to your business, your reputation and bottom line than trying to be perfect. Customer complaints, and your positive and helpful response to them can actually become a strength builder for your business and brand.
Here’s how to make your content timely, highly relevant and super hot, every single time.
Let’s face it – online marketing is and always will be about selling stuff to people. Simple.
The techniques might change (somewhat) and the methods we use become more refined, but it’s still all about selling products and services people need or want.
Keeping that in mind, it’s very simple to write a series of reports on all of the basics.
For example:
“How to start a Facebook Fan Page and get 1,000 fans interacting with your product.”
“How to build a profitable list of 10,000 people in 3 months.”
“How to create products, how to drive traffic, how to use social media, etc.”
You get the idea.
Now then, here’s the trick to making your content super timely and hot:
Watch the news.
See what the latest brew-ha-ha in marketing is.
For example, did Google make yet another change that threw website owners for a loop?
Then your ‘how to drive traffic’ report can be repurposed into: “How to Drive as Much Traffic as you Want without Google”
Did Facebook make major changes to their advertising policy? Repurpose your Facebook Fan Page report into, “How to Get All the Facebook Leads You Want WITHOUT Buying Facebook Ads”
Or for your, “How to make a product” report, you could take the latest marketing trend and write something like this: “5 Products [New Trend] Users are Screaming for That You Can Make in 2 Days.”
In each case, you’ll just go into your word processor file, update your document with the new title, add or change the bits specific to the current news or trend, and you’ve got a hot selling new product to offer.
Put it on ClickBank, JVZoo, etc. Then promote it to your list, or buy enough traffic to get some sales. Your goal is to get noticed by the affiliates, and from there it’s Profit City for you and your evergreen content.
The beauty of this system isn’t just that you can repurpose your best content over and over again. When news of a marketing change or new trend hits, you can get your highly relevant product to market almost overnight, filling a market gap practically the moment it’s created.
Plus, isn’t it wonderful to continue getting paid for content you wrote once, and only need to modify to make it highly relevant again?
One more tip: If you don’t like to write, you can always search for PLR. Then update and tweak it to make it relevant to what’s happening now.
Sometimes one of the most exciting things in life is buying something that has meaning and value to you. You hear about something on television that sparks your interest, or you see an ad on the Internet that puts you into that mode where you just have to buy it. But then you buy it and that’s it – nothing more to it. You simply have the product now…
That’s the way many customers feel when they buy something. That’s also the original way we were taught to sell. A majority of sellers do not make it fun or exciting to buy. They just pitch a product to get a sale, give it to the customer, and hope they buy again. Well this is where we need to step outside the box and let our creative juices flow.
How about start a contest? What will this contest be? What will the prize be? Most of the time, you hear about sales contests, but what about doing it with your customers? Everything is up to you, the seller. Since you are reading this article, I will give you some tips and ideas on how to start a contest.
One contest can be to give a gift to the 100th buyer. This has actually been something in practice for years. One of the best things about this contest is you don’t have to let your customers know in advance. As you may have seen on television, when someone is the 100th customer, balloons, confetti, streamers, and such start falling from the ceiling all of a sudden. Then an announcement is made over the loudspeaker that they are the 100th customer!
Surprise contests will leave people smiling for a long time. They began with the brick and mortar stores. As you are using the Internet mostly for your business, you will more than likely have an email list of buyers. When one of those customers is your 100th buyer, you can reward them as well by making an email blast about it.
Keep in mind too; you should never entice your customers to buy from you in an unethical or illegal way. Be careful of what type of contest you run. There are some dos and don’ts for this. For instance, you do not want to shame another company. You also do not want to bash anyone or say anything hateful. This is for your email list, website, and article directory, whatever you use.
If you are using social media, make sure to check out the platform’s terms of service. Please be sure you understand what you are allowed and not allowed to do. If you violate their terms, they can and most likely will deactivate your account and put an end to your strategy.
Do however, offer special bonuses. When someone buys from you and they win your contest, you can give them a bonus, and also offer unadvertised bonuses. People like the unexpected if it is something that will benefit them in any way.
People get excited about the bonuses especially when it is something they can use. Make sure the bonuses are useful and related to your niche. They should add to the use of a product either by giving the product more uses or make it an extension of what they bought.
These are some ways in which people think it is fun to buy something. Whatever you decide to do in order to make buying from you fun; remember to keep certain rules in mind. You can surprise them or make an announcement. As long as it adds value and people enjoy the product, then you will win over your customer’s hearts.
Things that entertain us – well, that’s not entirely our choice. When you satisfy your need for entertainment, (eat ice-cream, watch a movie, win a game) the reward centers in your brain fire off a weaker dose of the same chemical rewards that you would get for actually gathering rich food, finding a partner and winning a fight.
These chemicals stay in your brain telling you the behavior that triggered them is really good for you and forcing you to seek more of this ‘high’ state. Essentially, you don’t need entertainment, you won’t die without it- but the more you have, the more you think you need… you want it like a drug.
Advertising is the biggest business on the planet – why? Because they know this deep addictive need in human beings to want to be entertained so they weave a good feeling story or an adventure into their product brand and just like that – people are buying four pairs of the same shoes with different shapes on it.
I guess the lesson is this: Want someone to buy your products? Want someone to love/remember you?
ENTERTAIN THEM. Make them laugh or cry, make them say yes! Make them want more videos, more options, more of your approach. Give them value.
This idea dates back to the Roman era when the Colosseum delivered people to their death in the name of entertainment; showing how important it has been to us for centuries to feel occupied and given a certain standard of entertainment in order to maintain interest. This fact doesn’t escape us as Internet marketers. Just because we are not film directors doesn’t mean we cannot use what we have and know to entertain and keep people engaged with us.
My first bit of advice is this – we live in social media times so it is irrelevant if your business is well-established, new or you are selling nails and think you don’t need to know what the ‘crowd’ is doing – because you do. Make sure your social media strategy is up to date and always try to be ahead of what is happening. What are people interested in? What’s happening now? If you don’t know what is going on, I’ll bet that your competitor will and I’d say they’ll use that strategy to keep people entertained, and focused on their business – not yours.
In the same way as a face-to-face conversation, make sure your posts, tweets, content and images are unique and entertaining. People get bored in dull conversation all the time so it’s not a surprise that uninteresting social media webpages and irrelevant, boring posts will not get people coming back to your social media page or engaging in your online ‘conversations’. No talking about you? No sales. It’s really that simple.
Invest a little in finding out what really gets people talking and update yourself to be authentic, current and cool. Maybe you’ll find your inner entertainer in all sorts of unexpected ways, and in turn create more of a tribe following for your business that you can grow to ever-increasing heights.
Making your customers feel like they are more than just a buyer is not that difficult. As you always do, thank them for their business, but there is more that you can do. Thanking them is one thing, but remembering them on a special occasion is a big plus.
No one will get to know their customers overnight, but an effort to get to know them over time can pay big dividends in your business. For starters, since they are your customers, you do know at least something about them because they like the products and services you offer.
Do keep in mind; you should never assume that they always want the same things. You probably think you know what your customers want but you cannot be 100% sure. One of the main reasons businesses fail is because they are trying to create demand where there isn’t any. Also, businesses will build themselves around ideas that are untested and unproven. Those ideas will often make it difficult to attract even a small number of customers.
Always give your customer what they want, and always do what you say you will do. If you say you will give them something for free, make sure they get it. Don’t say they will get it and then they are waiting for it and it never arrives. Or if you say the product will be delivered by a certain date, make sure it is. People won’t want to buy from you if they are misled. If you are not able to deliver something by the promised date, let them know why; don’t make them wait.
Aside from delivering what you promised, it is a good idea to create and personalize a loyalty program. For instance, if you are an Internet marketer or blog owner, you can create a program where customers receive a discount after earning so many points and they can earn points when they buy from you or refer people to your products.
Staying connected is really important too. You don’t want too much time passing where the customer never hears from you. Every now and then, you should send a letter to your subscribers and customers giving updates or good news or something they may find interesting. Always have something prepared to send and schedule it with your autoresponder.
This may sound funny, but give a little favoritism to your buyers. While you always want to get new customers, you cannot forget about people who already buy from you. Make them feel as if they are really important by creating a loyal customer or VIP program.
One thing I’ve learned through experience is to reach out to your customers when they have a birthday, or if someone is getting married or having a baby. Of course you will only know as much information about someone as they will tell you, but use what you do know about them and let them know you are thinking about them when the time is right.
Lastly, the way you handle customer service is crucial. If someone has a problem or a concern, always stay level headed. Never make excuses. You know and they know that you have more than one customer, but people always feel as if they are the only one. Give them that personal touch.
Now you have some tips to help you make your customers feel like they want to do business with you. The more you practice these skills, the better you will become as a business owner and your customers will want to continue to buy from you over and over again.
As you already may know, videos are the most popular type of media on the web today. More and more people are looking for a video to watch than simply reading an article. With the written word, there may be misinterpretations as compared to watching a video. People like to have visuals to help them understand something better.
Think about this: YouTube is the second largest search engine on the World Wide Web today. Millions upon millions of visitors go to YouTube every day to watch a music video, something entertaining, or even something informative. Because videos are so popular, many people have vlogs (video blogs).
You don’t even need to invest in a website for uploading your videos. If you have a YouTube channel, that can be your vlog. YouTube has many ways to help you monetize your videos, so you definitely want to use YouTube and your own site together.
There is more than one way to make money with YouTube. You can either put up a video with a backlink to your site, to an affiliate site, or you can become a partner with them and make money with ads.
As an experienced marketer, you know how important video is today. I have touched on using video in other articles, but now I want to go more in depth. Let’s start by talking about different types of videos you can make, which will encourage people to check out your site. This will be a way to make income before you use more technical approaches with your videos.
For starters one of the highest searches for videos is a tutorial. Say someone wants to build a website for themselves and they don’t know how to do it. They will search YouTube for a tutorial on it. They will watch step by step as someone shows them by screencast how to build a site from beginning to end. Tutorial videos are not limited to just showing someone how to build a website of course.
You can also demonstrate a product for people. If you are selling a tablet computer for example, you can show people some of its features and what it can do and how to use it. How well you explain the product and how to use its features will depend on whether people will tune in and watch your videos. If they like what they see, they are more likely to check out any other videos you have on your channel.
A great presentation about not just the computer, buy any product you can demonstrate will give people more of an incentive to purchase it. Since you are the one who created the demonstration, they are more likely to buy the product from you.
There are many other subjects and niches you can vlog about. If you keep a journal of your travels, you can turn it into a video journal. Make it exciting and give people interesting facts about the places you visit. You can film yourself walking around or you can make a slideshow of pictures. However, people will more likely watch a video of you walking around.
Another vlog can be website reviews. These websites can be ones that you are an affiliate for or they can be sites that people are interested in and you want to share your experience with them. After people watch the video, you want to direct them to your site where they can learn more. So give them enough information at the start, but not everything they need to know. You want to encourage them to learn more by visiting your site.
Commercials are another great idea still as popular as they were when TV was invented. You can make your own commercial by simply being a spokesperson for your product or affiliate program. No matter how you put it together, if you grab the interest of your target audience, it should work out for you just fine.
You can use a video to provide certain information to a viewer and give them the option to purchase or request more information in the end. This is where a squeeze page comes in handy. If you like, you can put a video on the squeeze page, or just have them click a link to take you to the page after viewing the video. Whatever way you choose to do it doesn’t matter as long as you can encourage people to give you their information so they can now be on your list.
Some people out there may have very large lists of clients. One thing you can do is to start a joint venture with those people. You can charge a fee for others to use your video on their site, or you can cross promote each other’s products or services. This gives you more exposure and traffic to your vlog as well as exposure for your partner. It’s a win-win situation.
One more idea for creating videos is to give people tips and advice. Start a tip of the week vlog to keep people tuning in to your show. Keep the tips related to your niche, and never give them too much information to take in. Keep it short, simple and to the point.
So as you can see, thinking outside of the box is essential to attract people to your product or service with this method. It really isn’t hard to do, and there are lots of resources available on the web today that will help you create your video blog. If you want to grow your list, then consider partnering with other marketers. There are endless possibilities with vlogging. Take some of the information here and begin your journey today!
When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and you just have to live your life inside that world as best you can.
Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. Don’t step on toes, don’t be too cocky.
That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call ‘life’ was made up by people that were relatively no smarter than you and so if you want to change something in your world… you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use too.
You are more useful than you know. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.
This is the advice I learned from Steve Jobs. You know that billionaire guy with the Apple fetish? He rocked. And more than that, he knew he did.
That was the biggest secret to his success on and offline – like you, he initially thought ‘I don’t want a job. I want to be an entrepreneur. Most of us end there and then let self-doubt cloud any potential of getting any further. We make a few bucks, we live pretty comfortably and we dream realistically. We see the obstacles. But obstacles don’t stop us from going further as we may think – it is actually how resourceful we are in dealing with them. We can’t let a few trials dictate to us where our ceiling of success is.
And while being safe instead of bold is a good strategy if you like this life… there is no harm in a little self -love. It is this that creates the boldness.
If you wonder what being bold has to do with being successful or you think that talking about self-love is a little too ‘new-agey’… then let’s get scientific.
55% of all of our communication (that is how we present ourselves to the world) is not what we say and do. It is our body language. It is what we do with our face and our tone. The words you say are a side note. And so, it is essential to believe in yourself each day before you ever set foot online thinking you’re going to make a million because – heck – if you don’t believe it and you are not congruent, not one customer is going to believe that you’re the one to solve all their problems either.
So next time you say ‘I don’t want to sell myself’ or ‘I’m not sure people will like my product’ or ‘Am I charging/asking too much?’, make sure that the answer to that is in line with how much you value yourself. Be the value and people will pick up on it. Tell yourself you have lots to offer and that you can do it.
And why not… many people talk to themselves negatively all day long and this is not a great strategy for motivation is it?
I’ll say it one last time… you want to succeed.
Do it from the inside out – believe you can first. Believe you are worth that money. It is from a place of fear and worry that most people never pick up that phone and call when they should, most people never ask for what they want (at the price they want) when they know they should. That’s what separates the people that do things from the people who just dream about them. You’ve got to act. You’ve got to be willing to fail. You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn. And when it is all done and it’s time to get up, it’s not your legs that will lift you… it’ll be your self-belief.
Coupons have been around since the beginning of man’s shopping experience. People love coupons because it gives them an extra discount on something that is much needed and wanted. They are an incentive to buy, and leave you with a pleasant feeling that you saved money. In fact, coupons are a very powerful tool to grow your business and brand.
You aren’t just giving the customer a reason to buy, but allowing them to save their hard earned money and not spend it all in one place. This will always get you on their good side and also gain trust that you really want them to save money.
How creative can you be with coupons? There are many different types of coupons to give. One type of coupon is an amount that is discounted from the total price. Simply put $5, $10, $15 dollars off a product for example.
Another type of coupon is “BOGO” or “Buy One Get One” free or half off. It is for you to determine which products and services go together to give someone half off or even a free product with their purchase.
A different variation of the “BOGO” coupon or discount is to buy multiple products to get one free or half off. You can have them buy as many as you like, but the price needs to be reasonable. It can be any price you set, but it has to be something that a customer would feel is worth buying and useful to them.
You can also be creative and give people a discount for referring your business to others. You can give a money amount or a percentage off their next order. Again people are saving money and also it is a way of inexpensive advertising. When people learn they will save money with you, the potential to gain more customers is stronger.
If you sell physical goods you can offer free shipping. As you know amazon.com offers free shipping to Prime members on many products. You can do the same if you have your own private store online. You may want to be a little more competitive and offer free shipping on items of lower prices. Make sure it is cost effective though.
You can also take a percentage off the total price if someone spends a certain amount with you. For instance, say you will give 10% off if they spend $50, or $100, but only if it meets or exceeds the amount. This will help you out in making money, but also encourage customers to buy more from you.
Rebate coupons are also great. Do you remember the last time you bought something and got a rebate? You have to send a slip in the mail and wait for the money to come back, but on the Internet you can make it more instantaneous. You know in today’s day and age, instant gratification is in high demand.
What you can do with coupons is really up to you. You can combine them, or give them out weekly or monthly. You can be as creative with this as you can imagine. Sometimes people like to combine coupons with offers, or use multiple coupons at one time. Whatever you think will make the customer the happiest, and still work to grow your business and brand.
With a number of different coupon options available for your use, now it’s to put some of these ideas into practice. Don’t just throw them in front of the customer and try to persuade them to buy just because they are getting a discount. That’s not actually good business practice, but throughout many years, people believed it worked.
Buyers will come to you because they like your products, they like your brand, or they like your attitude. Just reach out to those who are interested, and treat them nicely by offering coupons and discounts to build customer loyalty, and gain more referrals. This is a sure-fired way to grow your business over time.
You know, not just as Internet marketers but as people, we crave perfection. And because of that fact, we fail to act when we probably should.
I think you’ll recognize the following examples:
– Planning a party and then putting it off to the following weekend because there’s more time to get it ‘just perfect’.
– Waiting until the year after to go on that course, because the deadline this year is just too soon; you’re not quite ready.
– Writing that book that never quite gets finished because it’s not reading just as you’d like yet.
– Putting that concert off: sure, he/she will be around this part of the country next year – won’t they? You don’t have the money right now anyway… or the time… this time…
And specifically as an Internet marketer, you’ll notice that we are always (in the same way) trying to create the perfectly perfect product. We want to wait until it’s just right or just ready and at the best time in the most apt niche.
Careful is good, don’t get me wrong – you don’t want to invest in everything shiny you see like some mindless raven but there is also a danger in being too cautious.
If you wait until you’re ready… really ready it will queue your success and put you after those others that will dare to try and fail with the products that they have now. Not perfect products – working products. You see, if you’ve been in this game as long as I have, you’ll understand this:
There won’t EVER be a perfect product.
Every product, service, investment, niche and sales related system has risks. In fact, to cheer you up, I’ll tell you this: every moment of life, whether you think about it or not, has risks. You could go outside today and be hit by a bus with no greater or less risk realistically than if you were skydiving. You have to just work with the circumstances you’re in.
There will always be a product ready today, that sells today. And even failing to generate sales will teach you how to reach success next time. Because there are no failures, just learnings. Every product that sells less than another tells you many, many useful things about your market – about your consumer. And once you are inside the buying brain of a consumer – well, that’s when the money rolls in.
Do not delay in your experiments. Run with what you have today and make it work the best it can, for now. Stop trying to make everything work out perfectly because frankly you’re wasting time and missing out on valuable lessons and challenges that could have benefitted you as a very successful Internet marketer.
Sometimes you just have to rip the plaster off. Just pull and stop thinking about the how’s and whys. Doing things too carefully often delays the inevitable anyway and drags out the whole affair, causing pain. On a similar note, for you and for your life (on and offline) – If you need to walk away from something, just do it now. Waiting is more stressful than the act itself and once you’re on the other side, you can begin anew. But never before then. There’s never a good time. The time is NOW.
Certainly, don’t wait for approval to do something either. I have noted a lot of Internet marketers worrying about what their families etc. will think of their trial and error mode. And I don’t blame them – the jobs we have are more risky when you’re self-employed, naturally. But you’re here because you do not want to be a corporate slave, you want freedom. Let that freedom of choice be reflected in your next decisions too then, because life waits for no man and no woman.
Move with it, act now, make your own decisions – be free to make mistakes and to try different things. Products don’t sell themselves, you sell them. And the more you try, the better your methods will become.
Don’t wait for the perfect thing – it’s not coming. Make use of what you can do now – today. Your imperfection is all of our imperfections. It is what makes us human. It is what makes us great. Harness your imperfections, take action and work toward your greatness every day.
