Trying To Write Compelling Salescopy? Play To Your Readers' Emotions...

Benefits show -- in detail -- how your product will solve your customers' problems, improve their lives, save them money, and so on.

In a nutshell, benefits answer the BIGGEST question on readers' minds: "What's in it for me?"

But how do you know which benefits to focus on? What are people searching for when they type words into a search engine and end up on your sales page? More importantly, why are they searching?

(Hint: it's not because they like to spend money on random sites on the Internet!)

The answer to "why" is the secret ingredient that lies at the heart of EVERY successful salesletter: emotional appeal.

People don't buy things for rational reasons. They buy for emotional ones. They want to feel good... hopeful... satisfied... proud... relaxed... acknowledged... secure...

... you get the picture.

If you can identify the underlying emotional needs your product or service satisfies, you can write copy that identifies with your reader in a very intimate way. In a way that says YOU understand them. That you've been there yourself. And that you've found a solution to the very problem their emotions are driving them to solve.

That's powerful stuff.

So how can you write emotionally-charged salescopy that connects to your reader? Start by looking at the problem your product solves. What's the underlying emotion it addresses?

Let's say you sell an eBook on 5-minute makeup tips. What problem does your eBook solve? The need to look professional in a hurry and without too much effort? What emotions are being catered to? Pride? Vanity? Laziness? All three?

Out of all human emotions, some are more powerful "sales" drivers than others. So the first step to writing emotionally-charged copy is to identify which "power" emotions are at the core of your product.

Here are seven power emotions that you can tap into, to write salescopy that converts the MAXIMUM number of visitors into paying customers...

Power Emotion #1: Fear of Loss

One of the most powerful human drivers of change is fear. Fear of losing those things that are most important to us. It could be our sense of security that's at stake. Our money. Our health. Or even our happiness.

When you identify fear, you can write salescopy that speaks to that emotion, and indicates how your product will overcome that fear.

Here are some examples of copy that recognizes fear and offers a solution to it:

• "Lose $3,000 tomorrow without this advice…"
  
  
• "Protect your computer from viruses that can wipe out your entire hard drive."
  
  
• "Selling your home? Avoid the top 10 mistakes that can cost you thousands of dollars!"

Notice how these examples use words like "protect" and "avoid"?

Just as there are power emotions, there are power words that correspond to those emotions!

What are some other power words besides "protect" that correspond to fear? Well, you can try words like:

• Save
  
• Secure
  
• Safety
  
• Clinch
  
• Red flag
  
• Defend
  

Keep in mind that when you identify negative emotions like fear, your ultimate goal is to show how your product or service takes away these fears.

Your job is to identify the fear that is there, relate to your reader based on that emotion, then provide relief from that unpleasant emotion. That's why the power words related to fear are positive.

Power Emotion #2: Greed

Greed is another powerful emotion that drives us to take action on our goals. Whether it's our thirst for money, security, fame, recognition, power, or just about anything else that we desire.

So how do you acknowledge these desires in your salescopy? And more importantly, how will your product provide them?

Take a look at some examples of copy that does just that:

• "We'd like to introduce the easiest, simplest, and most efficient proven method for you to make money... This revolutionary method is 100% real and effective, and it will make you increase your income about 90%, so you can make between $100 and $500 a day."
  
  
• "Club Sportiva gives you the keys to our private multi-million dollar car collection... letting you experience everything from the classics like a Jaguar E-type and Bentley to the newest exotic Ferraris and Lamborghinis."
  
  
• "Tired of scraping by, only buying products if they're on 'sale', living paycheck to paycheck? Discover how to break the cycle once and for all, and start living a life of luxury."

And here are some power words you can use to connect with your readers' inner longing for easy acquisition:

• All
• Amass
• Money
• Millionaire
• Monopolize
• Results
• Proven

Power Emotion #3: Lust

Lust is perhaps the most pleasurable of the power emotions. And who couldn't use a little more pleasure in their lives?

Some examples of salescopy that hand you lust on a platter:

• "In this section, you will learn a step by step process for how to win the game of love, so that you can immediately begin attracting the love of your life."
  
  
• "Learn the seduction secrets that will make women melt in your hands..."
  
  
• "Are you ready for a night on the town? Your best girl friends -- check! Money for cover charges and one drink -- check! Oh wait -- what to wear? No worries, FlirtCatalog has one of the largest selections of sexy dresses to put your mind at ease!"

Home in on this pleasurable emotion using some of these lustful words

• Compel
• Attract
• Love
• Delicious
• Tempting
• Enticing
• Charming
• Discovery
• Health
• Tempt
  

Of course, people can lust after things as well as people (like a Lamborghini!). So keep in mind that your product doesn't have to be focused on "getting the girl" or other types of people-related lust.

Power Emotion #4: Vanity

If your product caters to people's vanity -- pride in their appearance, abilities, and achievements reflected back by others -- you're in luck. It's another top-selling emotion.

• "If you want to be one of those women who always looks great no matter what you're wearing, no matter what your age...and even if you're not at your "ideal weight," then this will be the most important letter you've ever read."
  
  
• "In the last 10 years, we've helped thousands of men and women of all ages and fitness levels to look and feel their very best -- people just like YOU!"
  
  

In fact, whole industries are built around this need to look and feel our best. Let's face it. We can all use a boost sometime. And those products that appeal to our vanity can provide them.

Some other vanity power words include:

• Attractive
• Confident
• Magnetic
• Younger
• Stronger
• Beautiful
• You
  

Think about how your product or service caters to this power emotion... image consulting, exercise equipment, cosmetics, laser eye surgery, baldness cures... the list goes on.

Power Emotion #5: Pride

Do you feel pleasure when you know you've done something well? Feeling good about your accomplishments is what pride's all about.

To connect with pride, your ultimate goal is to show how your product will provide a sense of worth or accomplishment.

Let's take a look at a couple of examples:

• "Would You Want Your Name Written In The 'Largemouth BASS' Hall Of FAME? What if I could show you insider up-to-date secret techniques that will put your name in the history records like the old-school stars -- Kevin VanDam, Denny Brauer and Gary Klein?"
  
  
• "Now You Can Transform Ordinary Fabric Into a Handmade Quilt That Your Family and Friends Will Love, Admire and Cherish – Even If You Have Never Made a Quilt Before!"
  
  
• "Transform the book idea in your head into a completed and ready-to-publish manuscript in your hands."

The opportunities for identifying with pride are endless! Your pride power-words:

• Accomplish
• Master
• Transform
• Best
• Biggest
• Greatest
• Money
• Proven
• Results
• Envy

Power Emotion #6: Envy

You've worked hard all your life, but you're not even close to making that 6-figure salary you thought you'd be making by now. But it seems every time you turn around, there's someone else who is.

Ah, envy. Whether you've got it for someone else or you want others to envy YOU, it's a powerful emotion. And it's one of the top instigators of change.

Envy is the state of seeing others who have what YOU want. So if you're going to identify with envy, you need to be prepared to tell them how your product will give them what they're lacking. In a word, your copy needs to promise fulfillment.

Testimonials, examples, and personal stories inspire envy -- and give inspiration to take further action:

• "Your buddies will be AMAZED at your LUCK or so it would seem... If they only knew what you're about to discover..."
  
  
• "I was working a corporate job for almost 9 years. Finally I had it when my salary was cut by 30%... Today my life is drastically different. I work out of my home office in NYC. I gave up the suit for jeans, sweats and shorts. And I spend most of my day doing what I love: working out, shopping, volunteering and walking my dog Cheila. And I have already tripled my income this year working this business 20-25 hours a week."
  
  
• "Desperate Scrawny "Nerd" From Texas Humiliates The "Big Boys" At The Gym After Accidentally Discovering The Body's Hidden Natural "Trigger" For Blasting Through Rotten Genetics And Packing On Up To 3 - 6 - Even 9 INCHES Of Shredded Muscle...NOT In Years...But Just WEEKS!"

Here are some envy power words you can use:

• Desire
• Covet
• Begrudge
• Secret
• Ordinary
• Extraordinary
• People just like you
  

Just remember, envy is only a negative emotion if it doesn't prompt someone to take concrete steps to change whatever it is about their lives that isn't working for them.

And if your product can provide those steps, your customers need to know about it!

But first you have to capture their attention... by using genuine testimonials or personal anecdotes you can inspire a little envy, then go on to describe how your reader can achieve the same enviable state!

Power Emotion #7: Laziness

These days, there are a lot of things competing for our time and attention. Family, work, hobbies, giving back to the community... the list goes on and on. So products that can provide quick results with minimal effort are extremely appealing.

That's where laziness comes into play.

Laziness is the need for maximum results with minimum effort. And its allure is powerful.

Here are some examples of "lazy" copy:

• "Avoid the common fitness mistakes that waste your time."
  
  
• "How would you like to write your book in 3 days? Attend my Author's Boot Camp and get that book that you know is inside you out of your head and onto the paper in one weekend."

Your lazy power words:

• Instant access
• Save time
• In less than
• Break-neck speed
• Lightning
• Easy
• Guaranteed
• Roadmap
• Blueprint
• Avoid mistakes
  

Those are the top 7 power-emotions in a nutshell. Did you notice that salescopy from the same website came up in a couple of examples? For instance, the examples about writing a book covered laziness AND pride. Most copy will cater to more than just one type of emotion.

And there are natural combinations of these emotions, too: pride, laziness, and greed; fear, pride, and vanity; or envy, vanity, and laziness, for example.

So by all means, choose two or three to highlight throughout your copy and sales process. In general, any more than that, and your copy won't be as focused or effective as it should.

But remember, emotion is the element that will turbo-charge your salescopy, so think -- and FEEL -- like your potential customers.

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5 Tips to Become a Better Marketer

Let's start off by discussing what marketing is. According to the American Marketing Association (from Wikipedia)...

"Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market, as in shopping, or going to a market to buy or sell goods or services."

The above tasks are by no means easy, especially now during our less than stellar economy. Marketers have fascinating yet challenging jobs that essentially boil down to making business work. I was thinking about a few things that marketers can do to help improve their game and wanted to share those things with you.

Stay up to date with technology

Technology is shaping how we market to and build relationships with our users. We have tools that let you communicate to the world instantly, social networks that allow you to build fan pages, applications that can tell what store carries a particular product and for how much, etc. As a marketer you need to be aware of the new technologies out there and how they could potentially impact how you do business.

Create conversations not broadcasts

Broadcast messages are dead, they are just too easy to ignore and tune out. Instead of focusing on creating broadcast messages to large groups of people, shift strategies and try to create conversations with your marketing tactics. The more flow of information you can create the better.

Communicating the new

It's no secret that the marketing landscape is changing. It's not enough to just want to be a part of the new type of marketing. You have to be able to understand why you want to be a part of it and how to communicate that to senior execs. Take twitter as a simple example. Would you be able to justify using twitter for business to your boss? Part of marketing is being unique and standing out, being the "purple cow;" the other part is communicating why and how you are going to become that "purple cow." Desire and ideas will only get you so far, you have to back up your actions and decisions.

Metrics and measurement

Part of being an effective marketer is the ability to show results. How do you do this? by identifying metrics that tie in with your marketing objectives and then showing those metrics increasing. How do you justify the cost for a billboard ad or a television commercial? How do you justify creating a facebook fan page or a twitter account? Learn how to use online analytics and measurement tools and make sure you understand how to correlate your metrics with your actions.

Listening and responding

As a marketer you should be keenly listening to, observing, and engaging in the conversations and discussions that are going on around your product or service. Pay attention to what your users want and don't want what they like and don't like. Technology has created virtually free ways for marketers to monitor their brand and create online focus groups. Much of the information a marker needs can be found online for free (or can be gathered). If your customers complain, listen, if they talk to you, respond. This is how you can keep your conversations from turning into broadcasts.

There are several other things that can be added to this list but I'd rather hear from you. What are some of your tips for becoming a better a marketer?


Source : http://www.mpdailyfix.com

Author : Jacob
http://www.jmorganmarketing.com

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Online Business Functionality

What Do You Want Your Online Business To Do? I'm sure you've heard the term Web 2.0 recently and wonder... What does that mean?

Well, "Web 2.0" refers to a perceived second generation of web development and design, that facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Essentially, Web 2.0 changes the way people use and interact with the web.

The concepts behind Web 2.0 have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, social-networking, blogs, Twitter, et cetera, et cetera. There are some really cool web companies coming online and doing great things.

As a business owner, you're probably thinking, "Web 2.0 means I need to spend even more money on my already oversized technology budget." Well, we're here to help.

With Web 2.0 we need to change some terminology. Instead of talking about your "web site" let's talk about your "online business". The technology changes to the web have changed the way web sites work, or at least, should work.

nstead of having your web site simply display your telephone number and physical address, web sites are now living working extensions of your business. Your web site should be more proactive and work hard to:

* Amplify Your Voice
* Automate Your Customer Service (Self-Service)
* Sell Products Online
* Generate New Leads
* Build Your Community
* Build Customer Loyalty
* Amplify Your Voice

Amplify Your Voice

One of the best ways to amplify your voice is through Blogs and Email Marketing. Good content addresses your customers' information needs, and search engines love good content. It also gives your business a human touch.

Automate Your Customer Service (Self-Service)

How many customer phone calls do you get asking about the same thing? And, how much time is spent answering the same question? Every web site should have a section that focuses on Customer Service. It is important your web site has an FAQ section, Webforms and Workflows and Secure Zones to help your business automate your customer service.

Sell Products Online

Building eCommerce web sites and selling your products online was once a very expensive, time-consuming adventure. The cost to develop online shops has gone down dramatically. If you want to sell your products online, there is nothing standing in your way. Online shops are a great way to expand your business' reach and product offering.

Generate New Leads

Your web site should offer users an option of getting in touch with you. Webforms and workflows help ensure your web site is converting users to new leads.

Build Your Community

A good business will always have a community of dedicated customers. With your online business, Blogs, Forums, Comments, Customer Databases help to build that community and keep it strong.

Build Customer Loyalty

Building customer loyalty is a lot harder than it seems. It takes incredible focus to make sure your customers are loyal. Your web site needs to help you do just that. Targeted Email Marketing, Comments, FAQs are all aspects of your online business that should be working for you to build that loyalty.

Businesses must embrace the strengths of the web and use it as a platform. Make your web site, your online business, work for you!

Oh, and if you need a great web site design and development company to help, let's talk. We'll take you by the hand and provide good guidance. We give concrete ideas about suitable design, what functions your web site should have, and strategy to help you achieve your business goals. We take the time to help our clients prioritize their goals so that we can provide you with a great solution.


About the Author: John Sullivan - After 5 years as the Interactive Director for a fortune 500 company, Bullsprig was started by John Sullivan in 2003. Since then, we've done a lot and learned a lot. We take pride in being partners with major companies, small start-ups and everything in between. Our work has won national and international marketing awards.

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Work On Your Web Content And Your Content Will Work For You

Effective website content can generate targeted traffic, improve conversions, increase average sales value, and even increase customer retention levels.

It's no secret that website content plays a pivotal role in generating traffic; virtually every marketing website and SEO newsletter extols the search ranking based benefit of keyword optimised content.

However, content that concentrates solely on keyword densities and extensive keyword lists is often bereft of character and may be doing more harm than good – you can generate as much website traffic as you like but if your content doesn't effectively convert traffic into bottom line sales then your business will suffer.

You Can Improve Rankings With Good Quality Content

Website content CAN improve rankings, but improved search engine positions do not have to come at the expense of poor quality content.

Use your researched keywords but add inflexions as well as semantically, or topically, related keywords. Throw in a collection of Search Engine Presumed Synonyms (SEPS) and you have the ingredients to write high quality content that will perform in every way.

Convert Visitors To Customers

Writing good quality web page copy isn't enough to ensure you get conversions. The copy needs to sell and it needs to sell to your target market.

If you don't know or understand your target market then you should start researching and really get to know the people that will be visiting your website. Effective copy should also give visitors a reason to buy your products or pay for your services and to do so immediately.

Generate A Buzz

Word of mouth marketing has been one of the most effective forms of marketing for small businesses and service providers for generations.

Websites can benefit in a similar way but on a much grander scale. Offer something of genuine value that causes intrigue, answers a question, or offers credible and useful information. Not only will your visitors appreciate it and be more likely to trust what you say but they'll also be inclined to tell others with similar interests. The end result could be the type of viral marketing you only dreamed of.

Enjoy Greater Average Sales Figures

If you're adequately tracking your website's performance then you should have a good knowledge of the average sales value your site generates. The greater the average figure, the more you can afford to spend on design, development, marketing, and other website and business improvements.

Your return on investment will be greatly improved if you can provide content that persuades visitors that they need to buy a handful of products rather than one. As well as offering discounts or offers such as free shipping for orders over a certain value, directed content can help towards this end.

Gain Greater Customer Retention Rates

The most successful businesses are those that retain their customer base. This is true whether you're selling products or services, whether you're promoting your own products or those of an affiliate program.

A returning customer costs you less in marketing, improves your website ROI, and increases your sales figure. What's more, a returning customer that's happy will already be sold on the service that you offer; they will trust you and believe your word.

Offer useful and insightful tips and articles on how to get the most from your products or services and always provide a high level of after sales customer service to enjoy the best possible customer retention rates.

About the Author: Matt Jackson - WebWiseWords is a website content writer providing content writing and SEO copywriting services that are geared towards improving all aspects of your online business. Entireweb.com

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How embarrassing is that?

Have you ever kept something around that was out-of-date, thinking it might be useful again someday, when it really should have been thrown out?

How about your website?

It's probably only a few years old, but is it outdated or just plain not working? Is it time to figure what you really need, and what you don't?.
95% of existing web sites were built using obsolete models. People re-created their sales brochures online, or put up sites so they'd have "a web presence" or were convinced that "if we build it, they will come." If sites like these have any significant traffic at all, they aren't working to generate leads and close sales.

Is your site one of these?

Ready to fix your site so it actually brings in a steady stream of qualified leads and/or sales?

While I don't want to get anywhere near your attic, and in fact I could still use some help with mine, I can show you how to clean up your online marketing so you can grow your business this year.
Look at your sales figures and site stats and answer these questions:

1. Does my site attract a steady stream of visitors?
2. Do I have a system for increasing traffic to my site?
3. Are at least 10% of the visitors to my site contacting me or buying from me?
4. Do I have a simple process in place for converting visitors into paying clients?
5. Is my site optimized to maximize the value of each visitor and customer?

If you answered NO to any of the above questions, it's time to clean up your site and put it to work to increase your profits. Don't wait until it's as useless as my daughter's baby carriage. Do it now.

With a few changes to your website, you could be one of the few business owners who will increase their online profits this year.

To your success,

Charlie
marketingforsuccess.com

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Examples of Goals and Strategy

These are goals, strategies, and measuring techniques we've used and have worked successfully (meaning we achieved our goals).

1. Goal: Keep visitors at our site an average of 2 more pages per visit.

Strategy: Put "Next" buttons on the bottom of each page in order to lead people to the next page.

Measurable: Go into the site logs and compare the average # of pages hit per visit for four weeks before and after adding the navigational buttons.

2. Goal: To increase sales of our book by 5 sales this month at Amazon.

Strategy: Get our book reviewed at Amazon by an independent reviewer.

Measurable: Compare number of sales the month after the review with the number of sales during the month prior to the review.

3. Goal: Increase visitors to website by 50 unique visits per week from search engines.

Strategy: Optimize 10 web pages of the site for keyword frequency and meta tags, submit to 6 most popular search engines.

Measurable: When the pages are indexed and ranking, use Web Position Gold to compare the number of referrals from search engines for three months prior to and three months following the optimization.

4. Goal: Increase number of newsletter subscribers by 25 people per week.

Strategy: Get two other web sites to put up our ad and subscriber address on their thank you page when someone subscribes to their newsletter. (Return the favor by also including them on our web site.)

Measure: Gather number of subscribers each week by having an email come into my mail box everytime someone subscribes. Compare the number of subscribers before and after the ads go out.

Source : thewritemarket.com

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Educate Your Customer to Make the Sale

By: Jinger Jarrett

If you've been on the internet for any length of time, you've probably seen thousands of ebooks, courses, and other types of tutorials on just about any topic that you can imagine.

The problem with a lot of these courses and ebooks businesses are giving away are junk. They don't contain any real information. Many are nothing more than blatant sales pitches.

Although it may seem like a waste of time to create a course when this technique seems to be so overused, have you ever considered that this could be a way to sell more of your products and services?

Although the market seems to be flooded with courses, ebooks, and tutorials, there's alway room for this material provided it's high quality.

What is key is creating a course or ebook, or some other type of tutorial is to offer some real choice information nuggets your readers don't know.

Although you can create a course, ebook, or tutorial out of others' articles, this isn't really a good idea unless you can find really valuable, and useful, content.

If you decide to go this route, you'll need to do some research. There are plenty of top notch article directories where you can find articles to create your course:

Ezine Articles - http://www.ezinearticles.com
Go Articles - http://www.goarticles.com

Both of these article directories are general article directories and contain plenty of articles on just about any topic.

If you can't find enough quality articles to create your course, then you may want to consider more specialized article directories.

You can find find article directories here:

Directory of Article Directories - http://www.directoryofarticledirectories.com/ - Although this is a fairly new directory, you'll find quite a few niche article directories on a lot of different topics.

When selecting your articles, you should select at least seven. It takes an average of seven contacts with your reader to make the sale.

Send them out over a period of at least 30 days or more. One or two emails per week is plenty. Don't bombard your reader with email. Include a short note to your reader, and make sure that you mention your product or service. Be subtle about it. No one likes to be sold.

The other alternative is to write your own course. Personally, this is a better choice because your content is original. You have an opportunity to give your reader a few choice nuggets they won't know, and it's an opportunity for you to really show your potential customers what you really know.

Tie these nuggets to your products and services and show what your products and services can do for your readers, and you have a winner.

When you're ready to take your course to the next level, you need to publish it for wider distribution. Sites like Learno, http://www.learno.com, can help you publish your course, as well as turn your course into a real book for publication. This will allow you to leverage your work and share your knowledge and expertise more quickly.

By leveraging your work, you'll brand yourself as an expert more quickly. Potential customers who are interested in your offers will seek you out. This will save you time and money on your internet marketing efforts. by driving targeted visitors to your site.

Although using courses, ebooks, and tutorials to promote your products and services has been overused, if you create quality content and offer your visitor something useful, you'll increase your chance of making the sale.

Jinger Jarrett will show you how to market your business on the internet for free. Get her latest book, "1001 High Traffic Sites Where You Can Market for Free", when you visit her site at www.jingerjarrett.com

Source: marketingarticlelibrary.com

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When Top Sales Professionals Get Stuck – This is What They Do

By: Cheryl A. Clausen

I’ll bet you think those sales producers in the top 20% never get stuck. Well, they do just like you. The difference is in how they handle getting unstuck and how you handle it.

The sales environment is never static. When you make the mistake of thinking it is, that’s the exact moment you get hit by the proverbial truck. In most cases there are warning signals that things aren’t going the way you want them to. Top sales professionals don’t make the mistake of ignoring these signals pretending they will go away. Instead they have their radar on high alert detecting and monitoring any and all potential changes in the sales environment.

Most sales people are far more reactive than proactive. You wake up in the morning rush to get out of the house. All day long you chase after prospects and clients allowing them to dictate what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. Unfortunately, when you’re so wrapped up in the moment you focus on symptoms mistaking those symptoms for the source of the problem. Top sales professionals recognize that it’s far easier to react to symptoms than it is to rout out the source of the problem, and focus on resolving the real problem.

Whether things are really good or really bad it’s dangerous to take either situation and treat is as though it’s the real circumstance. Top sales professionals realize you have to step back and identify the facts in every situation. Pretending things are different than they really are, is a dangerous and slippery path.

Most sales professionals ask why things are happening to them. This sets you up for a victim mindset. You never want think of yourself as a victim because no one is going to come in and act as your savior. You have to be your own savior. Thus those at the top of their field ask how they can turn their undesired situation into the outcome they want.

When you want to increase your sales you either try to go it alone, or you turn to your peers for help. Top sales professionals turn to guides who can help them get where they want to get quicker. They don’t typically turn to their peers because their peers aren’t experts providing the help they need. Peers are often:

-- too sympathetic rather than empathetic

-- too competitive to provide any real help

-- too closed minded to have an innovative approach that will really make a difference for you

You tend to look at what your peers are doing and imitate them. Top sales professionals look at what others outside their industry are doing and ask how they can use those ideas to improve their business. They then adopt those ideas, adapt them to fit their business, and then act on those ideas.

You try things for a while and then give up when you don’t get the results you want. Top sales professionals try things they know work for others, adapt those ideas, and then consistently implement those ideas adapting them as needed until they produce the outcomes they want from those ideas. Plus they only adopt ideas that are in alignment with what they’re doing and what they’re trying to accomplish.

Source: marketingarticlelibrary.com

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Who Else Wants to Increase Sales - without Being a Sales Person?

By: Cheryl A. Clausen

Does it make you shudder to think of yourself as a salesperson? Do you think of sales people as pushy, manipulative, and brash? Upon hearing the word do you immediately picture a used car salesperson wearing a plaid jacket and a phony smile? What if you could find a way to sell your services without being a “salesperson”? What if you could get all the sales you want without ever selling anyone anything? Sound impossible? Well, it’s not and you can.

As a professional in a service industry you never want to position yourself as a sales person. On an emotional gut level you understand why. You know you feel queasy inside just thinking about acting like a sales person. You’d feel embarrassed behaving the way you perceive sales people to behave saying the things you remember sales people saying to you. Your gut reactions are both right and wrong.

You absolutely never want to act like the sales person you’re envisioning because doing so places you in an adversarial position with your prospect from the onset. However, those behaviors you’re associating with sales people aren’t the behaviors or words a true sales professional would ever demonstrate or say.

The funny thing is you don’t think of true sales professionals as sales people. You think of them as trusted advisers. You want to position yourself as a trusted adviser never a sales person. The difference is tremendous. A trusted adviser never sells you anything instead they help you to buy what you need to meet your desired outcomes. They work with you as an assistant buyer. You trust them respect them like them and value their knowledge and expertise.

How do you position yourself as the trusted adviser? It begins by doing your homework. Ok after you finish moaning, realize that you’re going to really like this homework because it’s going to get you almost immediate financial rewards. Do you know why most inventors never make any money from their inventions? Because they don’t do their homework in the form of market research, and that’s the same reason many service businesses struggle to survive.

Having a service and trying to find someone to sell it to is like trying to find a needle in a haystack that may not even have a needle in it. What you want to do is find an unmet or unfulfilled need in a specific market, and then determine how you can position what you do to fulfill that need.

All the people who have that want/need will want to know how to fulfill it, even though they have no interest in your service when you talk about it in terms of the service. Do you see the subtle yet dramatic difference?

Make this unmet or under-served need your niche, what you do. To position yourself as the trusted adviser you’ll need to convince yourself that you are one. That means you must be convinced:

*You are or can be an expert helping specific people obtain a specific solution

*You have specialized knowledge that makes you valuable to a specific group of people

*The way you deliver your solution better fulfills their needs than competing options

*You can help your best prospects discover their highly motivating reason for acting and acting now

*You’re cheating your prospects when you don’t help them make the best buying decision

Then package you and your solution. Focus on presenting yourself and your solution in terms of what your prospects want to get. Recognize no one cares about you or what you do until/unless it specifically pertains to what they want to get.

Position and package yourself to make powerful first connections. From that point forward your prospect should have no question that you are the trusted adviser. Each subsequent connection should build on and strengthen the previous connections.

The best way to ensure this happens the first time and every time is to have systems. Systems ensure consistency and prevent start stop roller coaster cash flow struggles. You need systems for: consistently, predictably, and profitably filling your marketing funnel; smoothly transitioning prospects through your sales funnel as new clients, and obtaining repeat business and referrals from existing clients. Put this all together and you increase cash flow by helping people buy.


Article Source: marketingarticlelibrary.com

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Choosing an Article Submission Service

Top 10 Questions You Should Ask Before Spending Your Hard Earned Dollars

This Building your list and adding prospects to your sales funnel with article submissions is the hottest sales lead generation trend on the Web today. However, the article submission process is one of the most boring and tedious tasks around. That's why many authors, experts and businesses choose to outsource their article marketing efforts.

How can you choose the best company to handle this important process for you? Follow these tips to avoid being ripped off from unscrupulous merchants? Here Are My Top 10 Questions to Ask Any Article Marketing & Submission Service Provider So You Can Reach Your Goals:

1. Are the sites on your company's article submission list well known across the Web, or are they dummy sites that you set up? Some unscrupulous article submission service providers promise to post your article to hundreds or thousands of sites for a very low fee - like $15! What they don't tell you is that these sites are ones they have created for the sole purpose of posting your articles. No one visits these sites. Search engines don't index these sites. So no one will ever see these articles. Ask for a list of sites they submit to. If they don't seem credible, run fast!

2. Does Google index the sites you submit to? If Google doesn't, then you are wasting your time. Ask them for a list of success stories. By going to Google and typing the headline in quotes, you can check whether or not Google indexes the articles they submit.

3. Does Alexa index the sites your company submits articles to? Alexa.com is a website that tracks the traffic of all websites. Go there and type your website URL and you'll see where your site ranks among the millions of websites. It's easy and fun to do. Try it! Now, ask the marketing company to provide the names of 10 sites they will submit your article to. See where they rank on Alexa. Do they even rank on Alexa? If not, watch out!

4. Is this a targeted campaign, or a scattershot approach? Ask the company how well targeted the article submission process is going to be. Can they target specific audiences, like health, or marketing or C-level executives? If they can't, then you are wasting your money reaching audiences that aren't interested in your message.

5. Does your company submit articles by hand or by software? Most reputable websites that accept articles will not accept articles delivered by software. They want unique content and they know articles submitted by software will be sent to every site imaginable.

6. Does your company edit your article? I've written six books on marketing and the Internet that have been translated into six different languages, and I write and submit articles on a weekly basis. Yet, I still hire proofreaders to review my articles. Sure, you think you are a great writer, but there's not a person alive who won't benefit from a copy editor giving the article a second look.

7. Will your company use sound search engine optimization strategies to make my articles search engine friendly. If your hire a good article marketing company, they will not only edit your articles but they will make your articles search engine friendly as well. This way, your articles can be found on Google.

8. Will your company handle the day-to-day correspondence with site and ezine editors? You can spend hours answering questions from website and ezine editors. The best firms handle the routine correspondence for you. They bring you in only when you need to answer an important question. You should avoid firms that don't respond to editors because your articles will never be published by highly targeted websites. They can say they submitted the article, but you won't have any pickup.

9. Does your company submit articles in a way that Google respects, or do you blast articles out there? Google hates when people try to manipulate their rankings and will ding your article campaign if you send out too many articles too quickly. Make sure your article marketing company understands this. Otherwise, Google could blackball your article marketing efforts.

10. What do you charge? It has been my experience that the article submission process, if performed correctly, can take up to 10 hours or more to submit your article to 100 sites. That doesn't count the proofing, editing, optimizing, consulting and following up. All this work takes time and effort.

If the price seems too low, remember the old saying, "You get what you pay for." You want an article submission company that cares about your success. Many fly-by-night artists just want to take your money and run.

Make sure the service you select takes the time to get to know you, your marketing goals and your audience? Follow these tips to ensure you get what you pay for! If not, you could be headed for disaster. I hope to see you all over the Web.

About the Author
Internet marketing pioneer, Dan Janal has influenced several generations of Internet Marketers including the top executives from IBM, American Express and Reader's Digest.

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Boost Your Rankings with SEO

Increase your search engine rankings with these SEO basics

This article is for 'Newbie SEO' people to understand more about search engine optimization.

Boost your ranking on search engines with accurate, clear and relevant content. For the Newbie, 'SEO' Search Engine Optimization advertising is an online advertising model whereby the advertiser creates pages to be indexed by search engines. Then, Search Engine Submission is the next step to ensure your pages are indexed by the search engines.

Search Engine Optimization TIPS! Pick Your Target Keywords, Position Your Keywords, Have Relevant Content, Avoid Search Engine Stumbling Blocks, Have HTML links, Frames can kill, Say No To Search Engine Spamming, Submit Your Key Pages, Verify And Maintain Your Listing, Build Relevant Inbound Links

Search Engine Optimization. In a nutshell you should Look for the keywords with the lowest Supply and highest demand before creating pages.

I am confident your search engine positioning will increase with some research like a keyword assessment by targeting your most popular and least competitive keywords.

Supply (Competitiveness) - the number of sites which a search engine (e.g. Altavista, Google, etc.) displays when you search for that keyword using exact match search, that is with "quotes" surrounding the term. Rather than those web sites returned when entering the phrase only partially, that is without quotes.

Demand (Popularity) - The demand figured is the number of views in a month for that particular phrase as calculated by the Overture Suggestion Tool.

I have developed an Effective Index based on the logic of the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) calculation that accounts for the Supply and Demand.

Pick Your Target Keywords

How do you think people will search for your web page? The words you imagine them typing into the search box are your target keywords.

For example, say you have a page devoted to marine engines. Anytime someone types "marine engines," you want your page to be in the top ten results. Then those are your target keywords for that page.

Each page in your web site will have different target keywords that reflect the page's content. For example, say you have another page about the history of engines. Then "engine history" might be your keywords for that page.

Your target keywords should always be at least two or more words long. Usually, too many sites will be relevant for a single word, such as "engines." This "competition" means your odds of success are lower. Don't waste your time fighting the odds. Pick phrases of two or more words, and you'll have a better shot at success.

Position Your Keywords

Make sure your target keywords appear in the crucial locations on your web pages. The page's HTML title tag is most important. Failure to put target keywords in the title tag is the main reason why perfectly relevant web pages may be poorly ranked. More about the title tag can be found on the How HTML Meta Tags Work page.

Search engines also like pages where keywords appear "high" on the page, as described more fully on the Search Engine Ranking page. To accommodate them, use your target keywords for your page headline, if possible. Have them also appear in the first paragraphs of your web page.

Have Relevant Content

Changing your page titles is not necessarily going to help your page do well for your target keywords if the page has nothing to do with the topic. Your keywords need to be reflected in the page's content.

In particular, that means you need HTML text on your page. Sometimes sites present large sections of copy via graphics. It looks pretty, but search engines can't read those graphics. That means they miss out on text that might make your site more relevant. Some of the search engines will index ALT text and comment information. But to be safe, use HTML text whenever possible. Some of your human visitors will appreciate it, also.

Be sure that your HTML text is "visible." Some designers try to spam search engines by repeating keywords in a tiny font or in the same color at the background color to make the text invisible to browsers. Search engines are catching on to these and other tricks. Expect that if the text is not visible in a browser, then it may not be indexed by a search engine.

Avoid Search Engine Stumbling Blocks

Some search engines see the web the way someone using a very old browser might. They may not read image maps. They may not read frames. You need to anticipate these problems, or a search engine may not index any or all your web pages.

Have HTML links

Often, designers create only image map links from the home page to inside pages. A search engine that can't follow these links won't be able to get "inside" the site. Unfortunately, the most descriptive, relevant pages are often inside pages rather than the home page.

Solve this problem by adding some HTML hyperlinks to the home page that lead to major inside pages or sections of your web site. This is something that will help some of your human visitors, also. Put them down at the bottom of the page. The search engine will find them and follow them.

Also consider making a site map page with text links to everything in your web site. You can submit this page, which will help the search engines locate pages within your web site.

Finally, be sure you do a good job of linking internally between your pages. If you naturally point to different pages from within your site, you increase the odds that search engines will follow links and find more of your web site.

Frames can kill

Some of the major search engines cannot follow frame links. Make sure there is an alternative method for them to enter and index your site, either through meta tags or smart design.

Build Links

Every major search engine uses link analysis as part of their ranking algorithms. This is done because its very difficult for webmasters to "fake" good links, in the way they might try to spam search engines by manipulating the words on their web pages. As a result, link analysis gives search engines a useful means of determining which pages are good for particular topics.

Just Say No To Search Engine Spamming

For one thing, spamming doesn't always work with search engines. It can also backfire. Search engines may detect your spamming attempt and penalize or ban your page from their listings.

Also, search engine spamming attempts usually center around being top ranked for extremely popular keywords. You can try and fight that battle against other sites, but then be prepared to spend a lot of time each week, if not each day, defending your ranking. That effort usually would be better spent on networking and alternative forms of publicity.

If those practical reasons aren't enough, how about some ethical ones? The content of most web pages ought to be enough for search engines to determine relevancy without webmasters having to resort to repeating keywords for no reason other than to try and "beat" other web pages. The stakes will simply keep rising, and users will also begin to hate sites that undertake these measures.

Consider search engine spamming against spam mail. No one likes spam mail, and sites that use spam mail services often face a backlash from those on the receiving end. Sites that spam search engines degrade the value of search engine listings. As the problem grows, these sites may face the same backlash that spam mail generates.

Submit Your Key Pages

Most search engines will index the other pages from your web site by following links from a page you submit to them. But sometimes they miss, so it's good to submit the top two or three pages that best summarize your web site.

Don't trust the submission process to automated programs and services. Some of them are excellent, but the major search engines are too important. There aren't that many, so submit manually, so that you can see if there are any problems reported.

Also, don't bother submitting more than the top two or three pages. It doesn't speed up the process. Submitting alternative pages is only insurance. In case the search engine has trouble reaching one of the pages, you've covered yourself by giving it another page from which to begin its crawl of your site.

Be patient. It can take up to a month to two months for your "non-submitted" pages to appear in a search engine, and some search engines may not list every page from your site.

Verify And Maintain Your Listing

Check on your pages and ensure they get listed, in the ways described on the Check URL page. Once your pages are listed in a search engine, monitor your listing every week or two to ensure that your search engine optimization strategy is working. Strange things happen. Pages disappear from catalogs. Links go screwy. Watch for trouble, and resubmit if you spot anything in error.

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How To Get More Website Traffic

When You Write Articles Want to get more website traffic and more prospects now? When you write articles, you will attract more attention and get more website traffic, online publicity and profits.

BUT, if you want to write articles that get read and keep your audience coming back for more, you must follow my basic rules of writing for an online audience. If you are used to writing articles for print publications, be sure to read these rules. The online consumer is different than the print consumer.

7 Article Writing Tips to Ensure Your Targeted Audience Reads What You Write & Buys What You Are Selling:

1. Use conversational copy. Talk to your readers. Use words that people know. Absolutely, do not use jargon. It is boring. You will lose your audience's attention immediately. So, use words that people are familiar with and can connect to. Write like you talk and let your personality and experience shine through. You will make a better connection with your readers.

2. Go active. Words have power. Find specific active verbs to paint your copy. This will make your article exciting and lively. Action verbs are more engaging and will move the reader along. And, by using action verbs, you will automatically reduce the number of words it will take to get your message across. For example, "John loves Mary" is stronger than "Mary is loved by John."

3. Make your copy benefit oriented. Honestly, your readers don't care how many awards you have won. They don't care how many degrees you have or how many books you have written. All they care about is how you can help them solve their problems. So include a strong benefit in your article title. Include benefits in your article. And add benefits to your "About the Author" section.

4. Connect with your readers' emotions. We all want to feel smarter, richer, happier and thinner. Use these emotions to connect with your reader. For example, "Do you feel paralyzed every time you have to go shopping? Do you hate trying on clothes? Does stepping in front of that three way mirror strike fear inside you? Here are my 7 top tips to help you lose weight now..."

5. Keep sentences and paragraphs short. When your readers see articles with long sentences, long paragraphs and no bullet points or sub-headings, they will automatically skip that article. Here's why? - Large chunks of information scare them. - It overwhelms them. - It takes too much time and effort to read that article. And that's the psychology of most readers online. So make your sentences and paragraphs short. If your sentences are longer than 20 words, cut them up into two sentences. You can also add lists and bullet points. And, use subheadings that will attract readers when they scan articles, just like I have done with this article.

6. Front-load your point. When you make readers wade through paragraph after paragraph of unrelated anecdotes before you get to your point, you've lost your audience's attention. Yes, Mark Twain pulled that stunt all the time. But, your name is not Mark Twain. You want to tease your readers with bits of information they need to know. This way they'll stick around to the end. They'll then want to click on the link in your "About the Author" section and buy your products or services.

7. Simplify. Worried you're not using the right words? Use simpler words. Worried that your sentences are not clear? Make simpler sentences. Worried that people won't see your point? Make your point simpler. Make things simpler and your writing problems will vanish. That's why every newspaper in the world is written so a sixth grader can understand. I'm not telling you to boil everything down to "see spot run" simplicity. But, if you can't make people understand what you write, it's not because the world is filled with morons. It's because your messages are not clear.

These are just some of the tips found in my Complete A to Z Article Marketing System at http://www.BroadcastYourArticles.com This easy system has helped hundreds of people just like you get articles get read from top to bottom. Follow my article writing advice and you will get more online publicity, website traffic and profits! By revealing his top secrets to writing articles that sell fast,

About the Author
Article Marketing Expert Eric Gruber has helped of thousands of experts just like you boost traffic, get more leads and increase sales. Go to http://www.BroadcastYourArticles.com and let Your Article Marketing Expert take you by the hand & teach you step-by-step, how to write your way to profits!

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The Power of Free Trials

Do free trials really work? Are they cost effective? Whether you're considering a free trial or sampling of some kind, keep in mind that many products are best "experienced". For example, its difficult to know whether or not you'll like the flavor of a new toothpaste without trying it. On the service side, you don't know if you'll like a new dry cleaner until you get your shirts pressed.

As a result, many marketers are using free trials to lure new customers. This is particularly effective when the lifetime customer value of a new customer is substantial.

Picking up on our dry cleaning example, once acquired, a customer may stay with the dry cleaner for many years to come. Therefore, offering a free trial for a few shirts equates to a low acquisition cost in relation to the total revenue that can be generated from the newly acquired customer.

Another example is Salesforce.com. A business-to-business company that specializes in online management solutions has been offering free trials for a long time. These free trials have accounted for significant revenue growth and the addition of more than 40,000 new subscribers per year.

• Make Your Free Trial Effective

The key to having a successful free trial program is to make it simple and risk free. For example, don't ask clients for tons of information in order to begin their free trial. Make participation clear and easy requiring only minimal information. Make sure this information allows you to track their participation and follow up with them at a later point in the process.

Solicit feedback from those who participate in the free trial. Ask them, "How's it going?" This can improve your chances of conversion and also give you the information you need to enhance your program moving forward.

• Most Popular Free Trials

The most popular free trial is "30-day Free Trial". This is effective for a number of reasons. The first and foremost is that a new habit is formed within three weeks. By getting someone to participate in a program for a minimum of 3 weeks (like subscribing to a cable channel) makes it habit forming and creates some switching costs. Remember the old saying, "I want my MTV". Yeah, of course... because once you've watched it for a while you can't do without it.

Other types of free trials are available as well. The key is to look at what competitors in your industry are offering and finding the offers that have been out there for a long time. This means that the offers are effective. No company can survive by giving their products and services away for free indefinitely.

• Is a Free Trial Right for You?

If your product or service is a high price, and a free trial may not be idea. As a result, you many want to consider sampling. Perhaps sampling involves a small portion of the complete service you're going to deliver.

Just the other day, I received a free trial of something for my website. The free trial only included a partial scan of my website. After some items were identified, I had to upgrade to receive the additional benefit. This works extremely well for service businesses or those where products are too expensive for a free trial.

In conclusion, think about the free trial as another marketing tool in your tool chest. Free trials are ideal when selling products and services that can generate an ongoing revenue stream. Don't hesitate to try a free trial offer. If it works, you can have a consistent stream of users and conversions.

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Are You Making This Marketing Mistake?

A few years ago, I met one of the best known 'sales experts' in the UK. He had authored several books, and provided motivational training for blue-chip companies in a career spanning decades. If you've worked in the sales world for any time, you have almost certainly heard of him. Now in the 'golden years' of his career, he could sit back and let the opportunities come to him, couldn't he? Actually no.

"We never kept a database, Bernadette" he privately confessed to me. So at great expense he had to hire and manage a sales team to set appointments for him. If he had cultivated a list over the years, he would have had prospective clients knocking on his door. "But my business is different!" Ok, so you're a consultant - and you only work with 3-4 large clients each year. Surely you don't need a list of 1,000 do you? Maybe not, but any list will give you huge leverage.

If you run a training course, you could offer 'tips' to attendees, which you mail, or email after the training. Make sure you keep in touch because even though they may not have buying authority right now, some of those attendees will get promoted, some will move to other departments, some of them will move to different companies, or even different industries.

Several business opportunities have come to me this way over the years. Or you're a massage therapist - and you can only see 12 clients a week, so you think you don't need to have a huge list either. No therapist who has been in business for more than 2 years should ever have an empty appointment book. Just this week I heard the sad tale of an experienced complementary therapist who had worked with over 1,000 clients. Business had mainly come her way via word of mouth and referral. But then, for a variety of reasons, she had to stop working with clients for a couple of months and had lost momentum.Now she was struggling to re-establish her client base to its previous levels.

"Well, why not send a mailer to your past clients," was the advice. "Ah", she replied, "I didn't actually keep a list of addresses of my clients". So she was basically starting from scratch all over again. This sounds so obvious, but you would be surprised just how many people I have seen make this fundamental marketing mistake.

Keep a list of all your past clients, and if you come up to a lean period, you can simply send a mailer to them. It doesn't have to be a hard sell, just a simple reminder that you're available, and perhaps a special offer. I guarantee you will get a response from people who have been meaning to call you for weeks or months, but never got around to it - until you contacted them.

Action Steps

1. Commit to collecting names and contact details of every single person who expresses an interest in your business. Look at every current activity you do to market your business and make sure that there is a way of capturing details of people - even if they're not ready to buy right away.

2. Follow up and stay in touch. Yes, I know you're really busy and don't have time to follow up with everyone, but there are ways of following up with people that don't have to be a huge drain on your time or money. An email newsletter is a cost effective way to stay in touch with thousands of people. Even monthly or quarterly mailers or postcards would be better than nothing at all.

3. Stop trying to be perfect. Some sort of name capture and follow up is better than nothing at all, and you can always tweak and adjust your follow up messages as you go along (that's what I do).

4. Start measuring success differently. Most people measure their business results in terms of sales and profits. I recommend that you also add 'size of the list' to your success measurement - as it can help you plan for future sales and profits too.

5. Commit to building and cultivating a prospect list. Put 'growing your list' to the top of your priorities and you'll be surprised at the results you can achieve.

About the Author

Bernadette Doyle publishes her weekly Client Magnets newsletter for trainers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, then get your free tips now at http://www.clientmagnets.com.

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