Marketing Tips Report
Helping real people create wealth and
freedom with Internet businesses since 1996 |
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June 4, 2009
Issue #231 |
Tales From The IMC Testing Labs: Our Experts Share Their Latest Findings
The Internet Marketing Center Team
 Want to know exactly what's working online this minute?
Here at the Internet Marketing Center, we employ an entire team of "real world" experts.
By day, this dedicated group of Internet marketers works in the trenches, giving our customers one-on-one help to build their Internet businesses, often starting from square one and completing their sites just five days later.
But by night, our intrepid entrepreneurs run their own successful websites.
These websites serve as their personal testing labs, where they're able constantly to try out new techniques and approaches for getting more qualified traffic, improving their search engine rankings, converting more visitors into long-term customers, and for adding additional streams of income to their businesses.
Through meticulous testing, they uncover EXACTLY what's working right now, and decide which techniques aren't worth wasting time trying.
On occasion, we like to pass some of these results along to you, our subscriber, to help you make the most of your own website.
So without further ado, here are a few helpful tips for improving your opt-ins and sales, courtesy of Senior Internet Marketing Expert/Instructor Cijaye DePradine, who has recently reported some exceptional results with her own testing program:
Tip #1: Increase Your Opt-In Rates by Up To 75% with Survey Landing Pages
Want to find out who your market is, or find out what they want (and how much they're willing to pay for it)? There's no better way than a survey landing page.
People LOVE to give their opinions on just about anything, particularly if there's a benefit to them for doing it.
But Cijaye recently discovered there's a hidden benefit to doing a survey: she used survey landing pages along with pay-per-click advertising, and was rewarded with an increase in her opt-in rates of a whopping 75%!
The trick is to offer your visitors some kind of "bribe" or reward for filling out the survey, and make sure it's something you can email to them.
Then, at the end of the survey, thank them for participating, and ask for their names and email addresses to send the reward. And presto! An entire NEW source of opt-ins for your list.
Of course, the actual results of your survey are just as important as getting the opt-ins, as they'll help you improve your overall businesses, so make sure you don't just throw up any old thing to get email addresses.
Cijaye finds that her surveys are the most successful when she:
- Makes the pay-per-click ad enticing -- If possible, dangle the free "bribe" in front of your visitors right IN the ad
- Keeps the survey short -- A maximum of 10 questions is usually best
- Keeps the survey tightly focused -- When writing your questions, concentrate on just one goal. What is the one thing you MOST want to learn from your survey?
Tip #2: Increase Follow-Through on Key Actions with Email Reminders
Is there something in particular you want your subscribers to do? Follow you on Twitter? Join your online forum? Revisit your site to check out new products?
Many people will put a "follow me on Twitter" logo on their website, or place a forum link on their homepage, then just sit back and hope that everyone stumbles across it, and decides to follow through.
If that's your strategy, you're not going to get very far!
In fact, as Cijaye recently discovered through extensive email testing, by far the BEST way to get a subscriber to take action is through email reminders.
And we're not talking the odd email sent once a year. Cijaye says it takes as many as 7 contacts before one of her subscriber takes action!
Okay, we know what you're thinking: If I ask my subscribers to "friend" me on Facebook 7 times in 7 different emails, they're all going to unsubscribe!
But according to Cijaye, your subscribers actually won't mind getting this many email reminders, as long as you follow one very important rule:
ALWAYS answer the "what's in it for me" question!!
So, for instance, if you're trying to get a subscriber to become a friend on Facebook, you'll want to explain in your emails about all of the benefits of being a friend: they'll have free access to a community of like-minded people they can share ideas with, they'll be able to find out about special offers on your site before the general public, and so on.
What subscriber is going to resent you for offering them this kind of help, even if you do it multiple times?
But just to play it safe, you'll also want to pay attention to the timing of your email reminders. Send them too close together, and chances are you'll see an upswing in unsubscribes.
Tip #3: Increase Purchases and Other Activity on Your Site by Up to 50% by Sending Out Detailed Instructions
Want to get twice as many of your subscribers to take critical action on your site -- like buy something?
Cijaye found that simply sending an email with instructions on HOW to act can have a BIG impact!
She sent out detailed instructions for performing a number of different actions on her site, and saw excellent results across the board. Here are some things to try:
- Leave comments on your blog or site -- True, getting comments from subscribers won't have a direct impact on your sales, but more comments equals more content, which translates to better search rankings, more traffic, and then more sales.
Plus, getting comments allows you to create more of a community, so that people are more encouraged to come back to your site time and again.
So Cijaye sent an email to her subscribers, explaining how to leave comments, and voila, she had an IMMEDIATE increase in the number of subscribers leaving comments.
- Join your forum or special gallery -- Again, getting people actively involved in your website creates a community, which leads to repeat visits, and potentially more sales.
So in an effort to increase the number of people who signed up for her special gallery, Cijaye sent out an email telling people exactly how to do it, and was rewarded with a 50% increase in members!
- Purchase more products -- Believe it or not, you really can get people to make more purchases from your website simply by telling them how to do it!
In this test, Cijaye sent instructions explaining how to purchase products using PayPal, and saw an immediate impact on her bottom line.
Why do these three tips we've just shown you work so well? Well, according to Cijaye: "People are simply too busy to figure things out their own, or to remember to take specific actions. It's YOUR job as a business owner to help them along the way... and NOT doing so leaves money on the table!"
Would you like the opportunity to work one-on-one with Cijaye -- or one of our other highly qualified Internet marketing experts -- to get hands-on help starting your own Internet business?
We routinely host intensive 5-day startup clinics, where we work side by side with our clients to create lucrative websites from scratch over a period of just 5 days.
We've already had hundreds of graduates, and 100% of them left the clinic on Day 5 with a complete website already getting traffic, and many of them were already making sales.
To apply to join a 5-day startup clinic, and start a lucrative business that can secure your financial future, just follow this link.
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5-Minute Credibility Booster for Your Site
Pssst... Want to completely KILL all of the credibility that you've worked so hard to develop with your website?
Then we highly recommend putting up a site that's FULL of grammar and spelling errors!
Seriously! A couple of spelling mistakes on your website may not seem like much of an issue in the overall scheme of things, but to a lot of your visitors, these small errors will be an absolute deal breaker.
That's because many people assume that the quality of a website's products is only as good as the quality of the site itself...
This is doubly true if you're promoting an ebook that you wrote yourself. Who will feel confident in your skills as an author if you can't even produce a homepage that's error-free?
Now that's not to say that you have to be a professional writer to write error-free copy.
You can still create your own correct copy, regardless of your skill level. Just use your trusty spell checker, plus this quick guide to the most commonly misused and misspelled words we've found on other people's websites.
Commonly misspelled words:
| Wrong |
Right |
| alot |
a lot |
| definately |
definitely |
| should of |
should have (would have, could have, etc.) |
| use to (past) |
used to |
| your's |
yours |
Words that are commonly mixed up:
| anecdote |
A quick story of something that happened, often used as an illustration of a point. |
| antidote |
A drug that counteracts a poison. |
| |
"He told an anecdote about how they discovered which antidote the patient needed." |
| complimentary |
Free; or saying nice things. |
| complementary |
Related to going well with something else. |
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"She was very complimentary about the main course and the complementary side dishes." |
| everyday |
Commonplace, not remarkable. |
| every day |
Two words meaning... well... every 24-hour period. |
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"I call it my everyday china, but I eat out so much I don't use it every day." |
| farther |
Describes physical distance. |
| further |
Anything other than physical distance. |
| |
"The farther I traveled from home, the further I came to understand how others live." |
| home in |
To get closer and closer to a target, as in radar. |
| hone |
To polish or perfect. |
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"I'm honing my skills at homing in on a niche market." |
| i.e., |
That is... in other words... what I really mean is... |
| e.g., |
For example... |
| X and I |
Use "I" when you're performing an action. |
| X and me |
Use "me" when you're the object of the action. |
| X and myself |
Wrong in all circumstances. |
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Simple rule: if you eliminated the "X and" part of the sentence; which word would you use?
"The tickets were given to [Jarrod and] me, but [Lisa and] I went to the show." |
| its |
Belonging to it. Possessive, but there's no apostrophe. |
| it's |
It is. This a contraction, so the apostrophe takes the place of the missing letters and sticks the two words together. |
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"It's rumored that the company will lay off half its workforce." |
| lay, laying, laid |
You lay something down, you were laying something down, you did or have laid something down. |
| lie, lying, lay, lain |
You lie down, you were lying down, you lay down in the past, you have lain down. |
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"I always have to lie down after I lay tile."
"He was just lying around when he was supposed to be laying down the rhythm tracks."
"After the paramedics laid him on the stretcher, he lay there, terrified." |
| peak |
The highest point, the ultimate. |
| peek |
A quick look at something. (So you want to invite people to take a sneak peek, not a sneak peak.) |
| pique |
Annoyance (noun); to provoke, invite, or arouse (verb) |
| |
"She took the tram to the peak of the mountain, but due to her fear of heights, was afraid to even peek." |
| their |
Belonging to them. |
| there |
Over there, there is. |
| |
"There's a spot over there where they keep their tools." |
| whose |
Who owns it. |
| who's |
Who is. That contraction thing again. |
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Abbott and Costello are the act whose classic bit was "Who's on First." |
| your |
Belonging to you. But almost universally misused in Internet communications to mean... |
| you're |
You are. Again, it's a contraction so it gets an apostrophe. |
| |
"You're about to get a big credibility boost to your site if you fix this one mistake." |
A word about apostrophes:
You don't need an apostrophe when you turn a singular noun into a plural.
It doesn't matter what letter the word ends with; it doesn't matter if it's a proper noun; it doesn't matter if it comes from another language; it doesn't matter what part of speech it is when it's not busy being a noun.
Videos have been replaced by DVDs.
The Cratchits had us over for Christmas dinner.
Petunias are easy to grow.
Fastenings gave way in the storm.
Porsches and Mercedes Benzes are in demand.
Opt-ins signed up in droves.
The ten-year-olds hated the clown.
Cafes are open for breakfast.
See? Not an apostrophe in the bunch.
Finally, a note about capitalization:
Avoid capitalizing random words for no particular reason.
If it's a proper name of a person, place, or thing, capitalize. If it's just a regular run-of-the-mill word, don't. If you're in doubt, check the dictionary.
There you go! Just take just a few minutes to clean up these very common errors in your copy and you'll put a professional polish on your site.
"Beaker" photo courtesy of Flickr user "Skycaptaintwo"
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Drop us a line at questions@marketingtips.com -- and you may see your question answered in an upcoming issue of Marketing Tips Report!
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