Lead Capture 1; The Money is in The List!

Capturing leads, converting those new leads to paying customers, building relationships with customers to create loyalty, having your customers buy more often from you & getting your customers to spend more on each item purchase… is every small business owner’s biggest challenge.

Here at E- Com Gold for Small Biz, we understand the enormous value of gathering, educating & monetizing  “The List” (or “Data Base” as some call it).

In the online world, The List is the prize, the sought after pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

A responsive, targeted list has so much income potential for local brick & mortar businesses.  Most business owners are quite shocked at the un-mined gold they are sitting on the first time they are introduced to this very effective & age old business necessity.

Today, with the ease of installation & low cost of modern technology, the job of collecting prospect & customer details is simple, lucrative  & a highly effective bottom line  strategy no business should be without.  List building has been automated to such a degree this essential element of direct response  marketing is a must have that business can not overlook, no matter how large,  small or from what industry sector.

Building relationships with your list of contacts is the key to creating customer loyalty, long term customer satisfaction & a constant stream of referrals which substantially reduces the huge cost of advertising facing all businesses to-day, as they scramble for market share.

List gathering & customer relationship building will place any business light years ahead of their competition…take a look at the recent hugely successful DOVE soap adds for example.

Then, just this week, a car manufacturer has come out with a serialized add campaign to engage a potential audience …their particular demographic…in the more intimate details of the “life you could live when you buy this car”

Managing your list, educating your buyers, creating loyal, long term “raving fans” is now within the reach of all small businesses via Direct Response Marketing.

If approached in the correct manner, list building & proactive management can also help slash advertising costs by half, increase sales… & the biggest surprise of all to most biz owners is that with direct response marketing, they can learn how to increase their prices, gain market share,  have their customers willingly pay the extra $$, buying even more product, all with reduced business advertising costs!

Next;  How much is each person on a list of responsive, targeted  names worth?

Have a guess & fill in the anonymous poll here !

For more info on how to start a list or if you want to begin an on-line business go here.

What is a Prospect?

What is a prospect?

A  prospect is just that…a maybe.

Our job is to educate them into the benefits of owning our product which will solve their problems, perceived or real.

Are they really “hotties” for our products in the first place?

Who is going to give them the final nudge over the line?

You or your competition?

Prospects go from site to site, gleaning information about various subjects, until one day…usually after about 7 contacts with the specific information, they “get it” & it’s that person who imparted the final info gem, who will get the sale!

Just make sure it’s YOU!

Send your auto responder education to them for at least 20 times.

They don’t always open their emails, so you will need lot’s of exciting incentives for them in your email headlines, to get them excited about your goodies & excited enough to have them open & take action on your prompts.

This is part of the farming process needed when building a list.

Go here for your free copy of List Love

A New List Building Book is Coming…

Building a list…

What do you need to know?

Why build a list?

How many ways are there to begin?

How do I begin?

These & many other questions will be answered in the upcoming

book by Ezine expert author…Poppie Dee.

Just Found This Out!

I had been traveling along, minding my own business to-day, when suddenly I realized there are 2 very different list building strategies!

Man, you’d think I was a dumbie not to have worked that one out earlier!

Most of the stuff I’d learned about building a list came from the “Give ‘em stuff for FREE” camp, but intermingled with that was a lot of good sensible info from the other camp, which said “Offer ‘em stuff & make a list of buyers”!

It was only to-day that the fog cleared & I realized that there were 2 totally different camps…honestly!

I felt such a dumbo! Duhhhh!

So, now I’m restructuring my traffic plan…I’m gonna use both!

Over here is where I’ll put my new mussings about the enormous differences in strategies & how most newbies get confused!

Simple…NO ONE tells them there’s TWO  vastly opposing systems !

Back to List Building Basics!

Before we begin; here’s a quote I found the other day that I thought you might like.

“Time whizzes by & unless you are fully focused, life will actually happen to you while you are out searching how to get it!”

It’s time now to add more traffic getting info here.

People have asked me to show them how to start an actual list.

This seems to be the single biggest hindrance to most people getting a sustainable business started online..

• What are the steps to take?
• In what order?
• What tools do you need?
• How much will it cost?
• Is the Internet a “REAL” business?

We wont discuss the reason for a list just now, as most people I know understand the value & need for a list to create an ongoing income and an asset of true value.  Which by the way, can be willable & saleable as part of the business it belongs to.

Have a look here to see what else goes on behind the scenes…AFTER you get a list started!

Sign up for the infamous Poppie Dee Report over on the right here & you will receive blow by blow updates straight into your mailbox a couple of times a week as I slog it out on my way to My Million Dollar Day Quest.

Lead Capture;10…Video Ups Your Sales!

Did you know that video is now the chosen way 72% of people viewing information on the net prefer ?

If you don’t have video on your site, you are lagging behind in the race to capture, hold & inform your audience!

OK, I will go paste a small video clip here for you to see how it changes the whole page dynamics!

It’s a small few minute clip on how to change your mouse pointer arrow into a hand! Complete with timer watch & all.

Did you notice how much more alive the whole page has become?

Do you feel more involved? More connected to this site?

OK, it probably isn’t the best video available for the job, but it’s a subject about something you all have…your mouse cursor!

Well, Imagine if you are a hairdresser & had an information page on “Hair Do’s” … A few small pictures or a short video clip is going to hold the attention of your readers a lot longer than just plain old text any day.

Say you had a Pet Shop, we could put up the current months new pet additions on video & mail it out to your data base of subscribers to go check out your blog for more specials. Everyone loves the look of  cute, little puppies & kittens!

Or, if you were a Butcher, we could show how to cook a great 3+2 minute steak…Aaaahh, nothing like a good steak…mmmnnn

Or, if you were a Mechanic, we could show how a proper oil change should be done, how the sticker should show what & where it should go etc…

Or, if you are a R/E agent...

OK, OK, you’ve got the gist of this great advertising tool & you can definitely see the benefits of  adding video to your promotion arsenal now!

The addition of video to your site is so cost effective, you will wonder why you haven’t used it sooner.

Don’t even have a site yet you say, no worries.  You can be up & running in less than a week or two in most cases.  Go visit  this page for a FREE quote

or

call me in Qld, Australia on +61 408-711-618

Next, we’ll discuss Blogging as a means of building relationship with your list, while still building it.

Lead Capture:9…Increasing Sales by Adding Audio

Audio added to your site can increase sales conversions by up to 20% or even more!

Why is this so?

People are human & desperately seek to connect with the person on the other end of the “screen” to remove fear & build an attachment-connection- with you, so you need to engage as many of their 5 senses as possible to increase your sales opportunity. You only have about 2-5 seconds to capture the interest of a stranger. This is why farming your own list is so beneficial & hugely profitable!

It is frightening, as a buyer with a loaded wallet, roaming around the net, looking for whatever it is they are searching for, to actually decide to open their wallet & enter their card details, in a lot of cases, to a perfect or (not so perfect) stranger. You must remove as many of these barriers as possible to provide a trusting environment for your buyer to proceed.

They want to gather as much social proof, evidence & whatever else they need to trust you enough to go ahead.

So, give it to them!

Place an interview with an expert about your product onto your site & let your list know about this exciting event. This adds value to your direct response mail- out & your list becomes more educated, by you, about your products.

When you decide to commence a launch sequence, they are already familiar with some of the features of this “wizz-bang new widget the expert spoke about recently”!

It’s all about relationship with & educating your list.

Audio can be recorded over the phone, by  Skype, or any one of a bunch of ways that modern technology provides us with to-day.  Downloading the audio…listening to it,  is mostly instant, no waiting around to buffer etc. You can even set it to begin playing automatically, when someone lands on your site!

You are probably wondering; who do you know who is an expert in your field?

Surprise!

Most of the time it is YOU! You know a whole lot more about your product in most cases than you think. Why did you begin your business in the first place?  You probably had a passion about it & it grew from there.

We can record you for a 30 minute interview & upload it to your site.

Write out a few key things about yourself  & your product , then we’ll provide you with a bunch of questions about it all, you answer, we record it. Simple. Of course you get to review the questions etc up front & practice your speaking voice for people to be able to hear you & so on…

BUT; once this is done, you have it for ever...AND you have access to a heap of up-sell/bonus product offers now, to offer or give to your list for practically zilch!  Don’t you just love the scope of direct response marketing?

We’ll go more into how you can monetize this simple 30 minute recording in Part 2 of The List; in Back End Products Made Out of Thin Air! coming 2010.

To-morrow we will cover Adding Video to your Site.

Lead Capture:8…Creating Money on Demand!

Creating money on demand!

Successful Membership sites create money regularly, but how do you create extra money on demand?

The business owner’s secret weapon…The Product Launch!

What exactly is a modern internet Product Launch & how could an offline business take advantage of this proven online money spinner?

This is one of my favorite  strategies, the other top favorite is Membership sites.

There are many ways to launch a product on the net, the most successful being through a  specific sequence of events which educates, creates anticipation with curiosity, implies exclusivity & scarcity,  then builds right through to your potential customers actually bursting through “your doors” to be the first to buy it, so they don’t miss out!

This very potent marketing sequence strategy has recently come to the fore, with some of the most successful launches in IM marketing history being recorded.

Every launch now seems to out perform the previous as savvy  marketers implement this time tested formula.

I hesitate to reveal to you numbers that are really happening because you will not believe it possible.

So, before I tell you, I will show you why it is entirely possible & how with this formula under your belt, we can help you create sales figures that will blow your competition into disbelief!

First, let us go back to your list!

Say you have been diligently collecting names for a while & now have about 5,000 prospects & customers on your list.

Your regular direct response marketing campaigns via the internet have been reaping EXTRA sales from your list… building to about $5,000 a month now & your Membership site you set up a month or two ago, already has “86″  members in it, each paying you $20 a month to belong, that’s an extra 1720 a month!

You decide you want a new house to go with the new car that your membership site is now buying you…So, as you are already familiar with that facet of direct response marketing, you figure, maybe this one will work too…so you are prepared to give it a try!

The sequence of e-mail copy is set up & kicks in,  pre-launch lasts about 3-4 weeks, now launch week arrives!

The word goes out, they have X amount of time to respond, either  by coming into your shop or buying whatever it is you are offering over the ‘net.

This can turn into a “feeding frenzy” if managed correctly, it can & has produced averages of 20% to 60% conversions!

How would you manage just 500 (10% ) of your 5,000 list turning up on your doorstep to buy?

Say you had a product that sold for $300…that would be $150,000 ! A  deposit for your new house, from a product you already have in your store, & not discounting it either!

Now imagine a “must have” product at $2,000 & you only have 500 of them, how much is that?

Yup, a whopping one million dollars!

Pay for the whole house, car & holiday, while you’re at it!

That, my friends is how over 1 million dollars in a day was accomplished!

Google “John Reese record sales one day” & see if it’s still there.

It WAS a 1 day record a few years ago, but many others have since topped that with…$…naahhh , you will not believe me!

Go here to see the metrics for a million dollar day.

To-morrow, Adding Audio to your site.

Lead Capture; 7…Creating Monthly Income Through Membership Sites!

One of the nicest…in fact…super coolest things that can happen to a human being is to continue to receive ongoing payment for a job you did only once!

That’s what we will be talking about now; How this can happen in your business.

Memberships, Continuity Programs, Monthly Subscriptions, who really cares what they are called?  They all deliver the same results!

That is; a monthly fixed income you can fairly well calculate in advance!

From your list of both suspects (prospects) & buyers, some will just love the thought of  being made special & will pay seemingly outrageous amounts of money to belong…

Remember the story I related the other day about the businessman who receives $2,700 U$D a MONTH from each person to belong to just One of his membership groups?

OK, You are probably thinking how can we apply this to your business & you’d be right.

Say you were a hair dresser…How on earth would you go about creating a monthly subscription & why would any one join it?

What can you offer that could be of value to your readers as you can’t yet deliver a hair cut over the internet?

There are many ways you can create a substantial collection of valuable industry related information, items of interest, great hair do ideas, bonus offers for members only and so on & charge a small monthly fee to belong.

The sheer novelty of this concept will spark curiosity, enticing a particular group of people who would be willing to join your group.

The sky is the limit with this type of income earner.

The beauty of this is that it is not geographically dependent! The world is your oyster here.

One young man, just 24 or 25 years old, has…48 membership sites! Yes; 48 membership sites! Not 48 members, but 48 sites all with memberships of over 100 people up to 20,000 plus, in each site!

Imagine what he’s dragging in each month! Just for easy math, say each of his sites ONLY averages 200 members a month, multiply that by his 48 sites = 9,600 people, each paying every month, say only $20 U$D a month to belong, that equals a rather nice…$192,000 a month! That’s right…a month.

He’s been doing membership sites for about 5-6 years now & obviously has learned a few tricks of the trade. But what makes his story much more interesting is that ALL his sites are within one market niche within one industry.

The Health & Fitness  industry…& guess what they all are on one subject only, Push ups…or weight resistance or some such thing!

Oh, the potential of a well thought out Autoresponder campaign!

I actually saw a copy of one membership site’s monthly income recently & it was over $240,000U$D & still growing, different person, but it was a membership site!

So, now your head is in a spin, I’ll finish this now & to-morrow we’ll talk about Launching your new product into the market.

Lead Capture;6… Keep ‘em Coming Back for More!

After your list has been educated about the benefits of using or owning your products or services, offered great value bonuses, have been into your store to redeem time sensitive coupons…how much more can you “squeeze” out of them, business owners ask.

Good question!

Your customer who has spent with you before, trusts you now & if you have stood behind your guarantee & service claims, built engaging relationships with them, they will have referred their friends to you…now what happens…how much money do they have, will they spend, can they spend with you next time?

This is where your back end products kick in.

You have heard of the “Up-sell”, I dare say?

All good marketers have a range of more & more  expensive products to keep on “up-selling” to their clients!

Yesterday I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw an upsell a rather famous Marketing sage mentioned in an interview.  He was chatting about a new product he was involved with (building anticipation & educating his audience, creating a perceived need) & mentioned he was then off to LA to attend his “Membership group annual Bash”.  OK so far.

Then he mentioned his members pay…wait for this..they pay $2,700 U$D a MONTH…to belong to this marketing master mind group…and he has…? members?

Oh, I forgot to mention, some of  his other back end products are;  Consulting at $5k an hour or $10K a half day, $25,000 for a 3-4 day seminar/ Workshop!

His front end entry point products are only $27 !

Then they go to $47, $97, $197, $497, $997, $1997, 5K, 25K & so on!

That’s how he keeps his clients coming back for more. He has something they want & they willingly pay these amounts of money, because they see true value in his products & services & obviously, he delivers.

Price no longer becomes an issue. The product is a must have now, at any cost!

Do you know  the up-sell ratios?

Say you have 1,000  real customers on your list

1,000 buy  at $1

100 buy at $10,

10 buy at $100

1 buys at $1,000

That’s a rough idea of how the up-sell graph works.

It is a little more sophisticated than that, but that’s all we need to know to set up your campaigns & let your autoresponder educate, inform & deliver relevant interesting content to your customers & prospects, creating new customers & up-selling to your established customers & raving fans!

To-morrow we will discuss how you could create your own monthly continuity program; commonly called Membership program, where you have a group of people who pay you a “nice little” monthly fee to belong to a select niche in your business!

Lead Capture…5; Creating Raving Fans!

A great way to create raving fans…customers who are so switched on to you, your products & services, that they just can’t help but share this great experience with their friends & rellies, has been simplified by modern technology;  The Autoresponder E-Mail System!

A businesses owner’s dream come true!

So how can a mere mortal of an over worked, stressed out business owner/manager create this Utopian state with his clientele & prospects, when his wife at home is needing more of the same attention & he’s already having trouble getting home on time?

(For this example ladies, we are using the male & female genders as descriptive terminology only to make the story easy to read…forgive please!   We all know the ladies are managers & bosses too!)

He’s probably wondering how on earth some one dreamed up this idea, let alone expect that he has to add it to his already overloaded schedule & an under funded marketing budget.

Enter modern technology; the Autoresponder!

He thinks…How can a piece of techo-geeky equipment, with a strange name,  perform this superhuman task of saving money,  romancing & wooing his  “List”  & then convert it into a money making, customer generating, wife pleasing Bonanza?

Regular communication, which builds relationships is the first of a proven group of strategies on his new agenda, followed by adding true value to his product &/or service by information that is relevant & timely.

For example; After a tooth extraction, a dentist could send a series of  7 daily e-mails to his patient on  “Care of your mouth & gums after a dental extraction”.

At the end of the 7 days, in the last e-mail of that series, he could send a coupon for a “Free Coffee” at a favorite coffee shop he has made a reciprocal association with.

Do you think this patient would be over the moon to receive this coupon?

Of course they would.

One millionaire, I think it was the likes of Jim Rohn, said he loves free stuff, it makes his day fun.  He loves the free chocolate sweet a particular coffee shop provides with their coffee.  He said the coffee isn’t that great, but the service & the free chocolate certainly are!  He goes out of his way to be served there.

There are many creative ways an autoresponder can educate, add true value &  provide great content to your e-mail recipients that will have them lining up to read their next e-mail from you, waiting to down load your latest (no cost to you) bonus, that will bring them streaming into your shop, ready to buy from you… just for the experience even more than the product in some instances!

To-morrow we will explore How to keep them coming back for more!