Archive for January, 2007
Wednesday, January 24th, 2007
Successful information product entrepreneur Jeff Smith writing at his blog talks about creating reports as an incentive to bring in prospects - Create Truly “Viral” Special Reports To Drive Traffic and Sales.
As he says, such freebies have long past us in their total effectiveness - ie: most prospects think “big deal … another free report”. But here, Jeff talks about how all is not lost.
He then heads us off to his 5 Secrets Of Writing A Red Hot Viral Report
- Have an exciting, attention grabbing and compelling title.
- You have two customers - the end reader and your distributor.
- Brandable with your partner’s links.
- Create a buzz factor
- Provide basic graphics
A well thought-out, highly niched 5-10 page report can still do your marketing wonders - maybe not 1999-style but decent enough numbers and buzz.
Posted in information products | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, January 24th, 2007
The latter half of 2006 saw a new type of craze opening up in the online marketing world.
This new craze told us how what was once popular (AdSense, Affiliate Marketing etc) was now dwindling away. They were “The Death of …” series of reports.
Personally, I became quickly tired of these new “Death of…” reports. And many others have as well. No wonder: One of them gets to a tipping point and on they jump and scamper onto the bandwagon - skilfully (and some not so) selling their wares while talking of the death of … something.
I think consumers are becoming more savvy to marketing techniques, especially online consumers. They see through such tactics more easily and because of that we, as all marketers, just have to get better and rather than sell, converse with our prospects - build trust. We also have to respect that out prospects are busy people - there is just never enough hours in a day.
So (drum roll …) this is why I recommend this … “Death” report. Because it makes you think.
I came across it from none other than Brian Clark of the famed CopyBlogger - The Death of the Long Copy Sales Letter, downloaded it with just a little bit of wariness and was pleasantly surprised - hence this post.
Written by well respected (and highly successful) copywriter, Michael Fortin - The Death of the Sales Letter is a thought-provoking and insightful read that will change forever the way you think about those long sales letters with all them bells and whistles and little emotional triggers trickeries slapped thoughtfully throughout.
Basically he says that in today’s marketplace, with our time being at a premium we must sell better, quicker and get to the point - and essentially give the prospect a show. He goes on to say that audio and video are the new ways of copywriting.
But folks, I’ll let Michael tell it to you best. You can download the report here (PDF 336Kb - 51 pages).
Mike Sigers of Simplemonics also talks it up - The Birth Of A Better Salesletter.
And for you cynics out there (like yours truly) he’s not selling anything or pushing some future $4,997 infoproduct.
Posted in information products | No Comments »
Saturday, January 20th, 2007
Aaron Walls’s SEO Book really intrigues me and has so for a long time.
As an information product it has been a remarkable success. He has done everything right in creating a strong brand - when you think of Aaron Wall you think of the SEO Book.
With that in mind, I wanted to do a thorough case study on the whole phenomenon that is the SEO Book from an information product developers point of view - what to do and what not to do. I believe there’s so much to learn from the way Aaron has developed his niche.
This case study will be written and released in the following months and will include how he has gone about branding himself and his ebook as he has in such a successful manner - the way he uses his blog, a distinctive logo, the additional free apps he offers and other little tidbits that make it all gel together.
I’m not really concerned with what the book is about - except maybe how it’s laid out and presented.
With all of this in mind, I must thank Aaron for providing me with a complimentary copy of his book for review. My next step is asking Aaron for an email or three to discuss various aspects of the way he has gone about things. But that’s all in due time.
Once reviewed, I will give the book away to a reader of this blog - who is subscribed via email (so folks … if you ain’t signed up yet, go ahead and join).
Posted in information products | 1 Comment »
Friday, January 19th, 2007
Read/Write Web reports that Google is promoting Checkout on its Home Page.
This will give Checkout a huge boast and access to a massive amount of eyeballs as the Google home page is one of the most visited pages on the web - we’re talking in the hundreds and hundreds of millions of eyeballs everyday. In any one’s word that’s awesome branding potential.
Mike Arrington from TechCrunch…
Small merchants overwhelmingly use PayPal to take credit card payments. But Google’s Checkout product is superior in a lot of ways. And the fact that they are promoting it on the Google home page and in search results is a real competitive advantage.
Read/Write also points us to Cost Per News where speculation is rife that Checkout is about to ramp its service in a big way.
Hmmm… For small merchants, PayPal is a clear leader. It’s a breeze to set up and use, has way over 100 million users worldwide and is trusted by many. It’ll take a lot for both merchants and buyers to change away from PayPal - but if anybody can do it Google can.
Other blogs talking about this: WebMetricsGuru | Search Engine Land | CenterNetworks |
Posted in PayPal, information products | No Comments »
Monday, January 15th, 2007
For those wary of using PayPal to make payments online comes a new offering from the eBay owned company.
The PayPal Security Key is a small electronic device which will generate a unique 6 figure code every half minute and then expire.
Together with entering their normal login details users will also have to input the code, which gives them an added layer of protection.
PayPal is working with VeriSign on this - it’s still in the testing phase within PayPal and is not available yet. They will shortly be beta testing the device with users throughout the world. They do have a page up here which provides some basic details.
The cost of the device is a once-off $5 with PayPal business account holders having the fee waived.
Here is a quick look at the device…
(via AuctionBytes)
Posted in information products | 1 Comment »
Monday, January 15th, 2007
Rich Brooks writing at his blog Flyte Blog talks about PayPal’s Abysmal Email Support.
Twice in the past few months I’ve used PayPal’s email support and twice I’ve amazed at how abysmal it is.
I tend to agree with Rich - and I’m sure many other would as well - that PayPal has a shocking history of customer support. Some would even say it’s non existent.
Now, you have to understand: I use PayPal, I’m a PayPal merchant, and I regularly recommend it to clients. Which is why I find this so frustrating. PayPal offers a good service at a reasonable price. I just wish they cared more about their customers.
Rich hits the mark. In today’s marketing savvy world word of mouth is a powerful factor in making or breaking a company.
I’d urge PayPal to lift their game, unless they want to see upstarts like Google Checkout overtake them.
Read Rich’s post …
Posted in PayPal, information products | No Comments »
Monday, January 15th, 2007
Bare with me as I tweak this blog right in front of your eyes.
Cheers,
Martin
Posted in information products | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 10th, 2007
(note: this is a sponsored review)
For me personally, Text Link Ads has been a wonder.
I’ve played around with AdSense, spent hours tweaking it and watched just a trickle of money coming in - month after month. AdSense is not passive work - you are always having to keep up to date and continually tweaking - and for a few dollars here and there it’s a total waste of productivity time.
With Text Link Ads you basically get paid for placing links on your site - it’s as simple as that. You don’t have to go chasing these paid links - that’s where Text Link Ads comes it.
(more…)
Posted in information products | 2 Comments »