Posted by: Clayton Makepeace
March 24, 2008
Issue #380

For Sale: Dead Puppies

Old joke:

A guy has two daughters.  One’s a perky little blonde - a cheerleader and a hopeless optimist.  The other is a Goth:  She’s dyed her hair black, painted her fingernails black, wears black lipstick, heavy black mascara and is a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist.

Wanting to show each of them a more balanced view of life, Dad hits upon an idea:  He’ll give his little pessimist a pony - and he’ll present his optimistic daughter with a steaming pile of horse poop.

So when the little Goth comes home from school, Dad follows her to see how she’ll react to the pony he left for her in her bedroom.  "Oh no - not a pony," shrieks the Goth.  "This is terrible:  I’m going to have to feed and water it every day, clean up after it every day – and someday, it’ll get sick and die!"

Shaking his head in bewilderment, Dad checks to see how his little optimist is reacting to the pile of manure in her bedroom.  Sure enough – she’s dancing around, throwing manure in the air like confetti and shouting "Yippee! Yippee!"

Baffled at his daughter’s euphoria, the father has to ask:  "I filled your room with manure – why are you so happy?!"

"Because with all this horse poop," says the little optimist, "there’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!"

Meet Sad Sack

The other day, a guy – a real sad sack – left a post on my blog.  Said he’s been a copywriter for decades but has not been very successful at it.

It’s not his fault, of course.  It’s the world’s fault.  More specifically, the direct response marketing world’s fault.  And to get even more specific, it’s ultimately our prospects’ fault.

See, our Sad Sack realizes that prospects will not respond to a depressed, negative, cynical salesperson.  After all – if you’re interested in buying, say, a new car, the last thing you want is to consider all the possible negatives of car ownership.

We want the salespeople we deal with to be upbeat – excited, even – about the products we’re contemplating buying and the benefits they bring to our lives.  And since copywriters are salespeople in print, that means he’d have to become (horror of horrors) enthusiastic about the products he’s selling.

But enthusiastic sales copy – which our Sad Sack refers to as “hype” – is beneath him.  He wouldn’t dream of lowering himself …

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Posted by: Drayton Bird
March 21, 2008
Issue #379

Drayton Bird Q&A

We’ve been hearing a lot about the death
of traditional media from digital zealots,
what is your response to this prediction?

Rather like Mark Twain’s on reading his obituary in a newspaper: “Reports of my death are exaggerated.”

I’ve been hearing about the imminent death of direct mail and other traditional media for well over a decade. The first person to tell me, at 3 am in a bar, was the English creative director of an agency in Kuala Lumpur.

Like most things said by drunks in bars it was utter rubbish. Now they say ‘Web 2.0 will change everything’. These claims are based on a totally flawed premise: that new media replace old. They generally complement each other, which is why integrating media pays.

How come people are reading more books than ever? Still watching TV, going to movies, listening to live music?  Why are direct mail volumes, with a few hiccups, still climbing? And why have e-mail response levels fallen from those early, dizzy heights?”

Marketers should learn more from history. As the American philosopher George Santayana said: ‘Those who ignore the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them.’ And we’re already seeing people make the same old mistakes with the Internet.

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Posted by: Robert Hutchinson
March 20, 2008
Issue #378

8 Easy Ways to DOUBLE
Your Opt-In Rates

A "squeeze" or "opt-in" page is the web page that visitors land on after they click on a search engine keyword.

The only purpose of an opt-in or squeeze page is to elicit a specific response from a website visitor – usually to give a name and an e-mail address in exchange for specific information. Smart marketers often have visitors land on a squeeze page first … before being redirected to a sales page.

In recent months, Internet marketers have been complaining about declining opt-in rates … but the truth is that many web developers ignore proven, tested techniques when creating their squeeze pages. Fortunately, just a few simple changes can dramatically boost your results – often doubling or even tripling your opt-in rate.

Step 1: Make sure your headline matches keyword search terms exactly. Fully 50% of people who visit your site after clicking on a search engine keyword make their decision to stay or go within the first 2 seconds. Their only question when looking at your web page is: Is this the right place? If they think it might be, they’ll linger for a few more seconds. Your first and most important job is to help them realize that, indeed, your site is the right place. If the dominant keyword for your product is "seaweed shampoo," then the words "seaweed shampoo" better be in the headline of your squeeze page and found throughout the body copy.

Step 2: Tell your visitors EXACTLY what you want them to do and tell them immediately. If you want visitors to sign up for your free e-zine, then the sign-up box should be front and center and "above the fold." Smart Internet marketers put links and sign-up boxes throughout the body copy of their squeeze pages. You want people to always know what you want them to do.

Step 3: Show your product immediately. We call this the "hero shot" because your product or service is the "hero." Again, this should be done above the fold. If you’re selling a service, then you must graphically represent the service with photos. The purpose of the hero shot is to convince visitors that they’ve found the right spot.

Step 4: Make sure you have a privacy statement right next to your sign-in or purchase box. The world loathes spam. If you don’t convince your visitors that you respect their privacy, right from the get-go, they’ll be gone, Johnson.

Step 5: Use tables or bullets instead of text to describe the benefits of your product or service. As a copywriter, I never thought I’d say this … but on squeeze pages shorter copy is better than longer copy. You still can have body copy and sales copy, but 50% of people who opt in probably won’t read it. They’ll be convinced solely by your headline, hero shot, bullets and privacy policy.

Step 6: Ask only the minimum necessary for a sale or opt-in. Too many marketers ask visitors to their site for everything from their mother’s maiden name to their fax number. Keep it brief. Don’t frighten people off unnecessarily.

Step 7: Add audio or video to your squeeze page. It’s 2008. If you’re not using video or at least audio on your squeeze pages you’re badly hurting response.  There are dozens of free or inexpensive tools available now that make online video a snap. If you don’t know how to add video to your site, ask your web developer.  It’s now easy as pie.

Step 8: Use graphical credibility enhancers – again, "above the fold."  These credibility enhancers include your best testimonials … Better Business Bureau icons … any industry logos or association logos your company is authorized to use … and so on. You need to communicate immediately that your site is credible. You should try to do that as much as possible without words but with graphical elements.

I’ve used all of these steps for my clients – with amazing results.  One project I worked on had a slightly less than 2% opt-in rate on a free offer.  It was a long sales letter with an opt-in box at the bottom.  After implementing the steps above, the opt-in rate skyrocketed to 15% and higher.  That’s an amazing difference.

Bottom line:  The only purpose of a squeeze page is to capture leads.  It’s not there to sell a product … build brand identity … or tell prospects about your company.  When you keep that in mind when designing your squeeze page, it will make an enormous difference in the results you get.

Contributed by Drayton Bird, Hon. F IDM
Guest Contributor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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Posted by: Daniel Levis
March 19, 2008
Issue #377

Is This Part Of Google’s Evil Plot
To Rule The World –
Or Just An Amazing Free Tool
That Can Make You Big Money?

In this issue:

• How to harness sophisticated multivariate testing on your website for FREE …
• The brain dead simple way to incrementally improve your website conversion and grow your opt-in list faster than you ever dreamed possible …
• How to dramatically increase your test win rate, and skyrocket your sales …
• Plus more!

Dear Web Business Builder,

A while back I did a quick review of Google’s new Website Optimizer multivariate testing tool. About a year’s passed, I’ve had a chance to put the tool though its paces, and I thought it might prove useful to revisit the topic …

Actually, I’ve deliberately created a “sandbox” where I’ve been playing around with all kinds of stuff, tweaking and testing different copy ideas, design strategies, and so forth.

Website Optimizer is a fantastic tool that you can use to incrementally improve the performance of your online campaigns. You can use it at each step of your process flow to improve your conversion. And it works no matter where you source your traffic. It’s hard to believe it’s free.

For example, you can use it to improve your squeeze page conversion by rotating a number of different web page variables. Not only can you see which variables impact your conversion positively, you can see which combinations are working best.

Let me illustrate how this works for you with an actual experiment I’ve got running right now …

First, I have what Google calls my “original”. This is the web page that I initially designed for this lead generation campaign. The page consists of a pre-head, a headline, a sub-head, a call to action, name and e-mail address fields, a survey field, a submit button, and a privacy statement.

Next, I decide what I’m going to test: in this case the headline, the survey field (with and without), and a voice over (with and without). So I install a few snippets of HTML code on my “original” web page, and then add a variation for each of these three elements in the Website Optimizer console.

And voila, as if by magic, Google rotates all eight possible combinations, and tracks the results.

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Posted by: Troy White
March 18, 2008
Issue #376

Is this holding you back
from reaching your goals?

In this issue:

• 6 questions that may give you a breakthrough in the next week …

• The mastermind meeting unveiling of simple solutions …

• Uncovering the block that keeps you from moving forward …

• And Much More!

Fellow Business Builder,

1,542 e-mails in the past 7 days.

That doesn’t include any newsletters I subscribe to either.  That is strictly 95% spam, and the rest are legitimate business e-mails.

This past weekend, I was in a mastermind meeting for over 12 hours – and this e-mail problem kept popping up around the room. 

And it made the conversation turn to management of your various business functions.

As much as I love to talk about marketing and advertising strategies for small business, I also realize that there is more to business than just the growth side.

If you don’t have some serious management systems (and people) in place, all the marketing you are doing can just as easily go to waste.

One of the mastermind members runs a real estate investment type of company.

She has been doing this for many years, and her newest project she is selling has been her most trying.

But one thing became glaringly evident
while we grilled her about her business challenges …

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