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The
IMC Insider
Helping
Real People create wealth and freedom with Internet businesses
since 1998 |
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May
07, 2007
Issue #146 |
Editorial:
Using testimonials -- 4 "best practices" to
instantly boost your sales
By
Derek Gehl
When you're running an online business, unbiased third party recommendations -- aka "testimonials" -- are one of your most potent sales tools.
Here's what you need to know...
- If you are going to sell online you must
have testimonials.
- If you're trying to sell online without much success and you're not
using testimonials... get some now and put them up! I guarantee you'll be
surprised by the results.
- If you're selling successfully -- but not using any testimonials
-- if you put some on your site, you will sell MORE.
Seriously, it's that simple. More testimonials = more sales!
However, there is a catch. I'm going to be candid:
at least 85% of the websites I visit (and I'm being generous
here) completely screw up the way they present their testimonials.
So if you want to start using testimonials effectively, here are
the top 4 testimonial "best practices" you need to start using yesterday:
1. Use testimonials that offer real MEASURABLE results
Avoid using "feel good" testimonials. They're the ones from customers who gush about
how great you are and how much they love you -- but fail to mention what kinds of results they got from using your product!
Good testimonials describe how your product helped someone...
- Make or save more money. (If so, how much -- and how long did it take?)
- Become more successful at something. (If so, how much more successful --
and how long did it take to achieve that success?)
- Improve their health. (If so, exactly how did their
health -- and life -- improve after they
used your product?)
Maybe your product doesn't offer tangible results like these. Maybe you
sell collectibles, like coins or model trains -- or entertainment
items, like CDs or DVDs. In that case, use testimonials that build your
credibility as a seller.
They should answer questions like:
- Was the quality of your product accurately represented on your website?
- Were you responsive to your customer's needs?
- Was shipping and packaging good?
- How did their shopping experience at your site compare to the
competitors?
.... You can see what I am getting at here. Your customers don't want
to hear how nice you are. (I mean, I know lots of nice people I'd never buy from -- because I don't think
their products offer any real value.)
Your customers want to know if your company keeps its
promises and offers products that deliver results. Use
testimonials that clearly show those results
-- in as specific a way as possible -- and your customers
will show YOU sales.
2. Keep your testimonials SHORT and POWERFUL
If your testimonials are longer than 4-5 lines, most
potential customers will just skim them or skip right over them. Keep them short
and get to what matters... Results!
3. Include as much PERSONAL information as possible
The majority of online testimonials I've seen include just the first
initial and last name of the happy customer. That's not enough
information -- it doesn't fully establish the testimonial giver's
credibility. You want to present as much information as possible, including:
- First name
- Last name
- City, State/Province
- URL if they have a web site
- Brief demographic or professional description:
- Stay-at-home mom
- Retired
- Teacher
- Doctor
- Student
- Etc.
... As well as any other relevant information your customers will allow you to
publish on your site.
4. Use the most EFFECTIVE formats
Here are the different formats you can use on your web site to present your testimonials (from
most effective to least effective):
- Video testimonials
- Audio testimonial with photo of customer.
- Written testimonial with photo of customer.
- Written testimonial
With technology today, anyone can sit down with a basic digital camera and
give you a powerful video testimonial to use on your web site. If
you limit yourself to written testimonials, then you're limiting your
results.
And remember... don't be shy! Ask your customers for testimonials. You'll be surprised how
easy it is to convince a happy customer to record an audio or video testimonial for you.
In fact, many will volunteer on their own -- but chances are you'll get more quality testimonials
sooner if you simply ask for them.
**Shameless plug** If YOU'RE a customer who has experienced
success with one of my products or strategies, I'd love
to hear from you! What product was it? What kind of results
did you get? Send an email to questionsforderek@marketingtips.com
and tell me about it.
If your testimonial shows great results, then chances
are I'll feature it on my web site soon. (Which means
your website URL could be seen by an extra 2,300+ people
a day!)
To see how we use testimonials on our web site
go to: www.marketingtips.com/tipsltr.html
You'll see lots of examples applying the 4 "best practices"
outlined above. Don't try and reinvent the wheel... just
copy what works. |
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The
2 tools that guarantee eBay success
By
Jim Kobialko
The first thing people ask me when they discover I'm a professional eBay mentor
is, "Can you really make a living selling on eBay?"
The answer to that is a definite YES!
In fact, thanks to the great research tools available, you can
discover exactly what products are hot-sellers on eBay -- and find
cheap sources of those products -- so you can set up your own
profitable eBay business in less than a week!
Here's how to do it:
Step #1: Brainstorm possible research topics
Brainstorm a list of your skills and interests. What topics are you
most interested in? What skills have you picked up on the job or in
your personal life? Any one of these could be the basis of a highly
profitable eBay business.
Step #2: Choose a topic to explore further
Narrow your list down to your top 5 choices. Now pick one to research
further. It should be something you could see yourself basing a
business on. For example, maybe you're a high school basketball coach,
or a huge NBA fan. One of the topics you'd probably want to explore
further is basketball.
Step #3: Use Terapeak to discover what people are buying on eBay
Terapeak is hands-down my favorite research
tool. It costs only $16.95 a month to use and shows you
exactly what products people are buying on eBay.
It shows you the exact search terms people are using to
look for products on eBay.... how much the products are
selling for... and who the competition is.
In short, it tells you absolutely everything you need to know to
determine what products to sell -- and how much to sell them for -- in
order to make a profit on eBay.
Let's go back to the basketball example. Terapeak can
tell you exactly how many people are buying basketball-related
items on eBay. Then you could drill down deeper to discover
exactly what those basketball-related items are.
Plus, it'll tell you the exact keyword terms people are
using when they search for those items on eBay!
You could even discover what percentage of items actually got
sold -- so you'd know how successful your listings are likely to be,
before you even post them.
Say you discovered that Nike "Air Force S.T.A.T." basketball shoes were
selling on eBay for an average price of $79.99 -- and that 60% of all
listings for those shoes received bids. That means for every 10
listings you post, you'll successfully sell six pairs of shoes.
Step #4: Calculate your profit margin
As you probably know, eBay charges you money for every listing you post.
How much you pay depends on how much your starting price is, how much
the final sale price is, and how fancy your listing is. (For example,
how many pictures you include.)
You need to figure out these costs, so you know exactly
how much of your profits will end up in eBay's pocket.
Once you know that, you'll know how much you have to charge
in order to make more money than you spend.
Step #5: Find a reliable drop-shipper
Drop shipping is an arrangement in which a manufacturer or distributor ships
products to your customers on your behalf. You do all the selling and the drop shipper
is responsible for product development and order fulfillment.
Drop shipping is a great way to start making money FAST on eBay because it allows you to
auction new products almost instantly. You don't have to build up your own inventory.
And you don't have to worry about leftover stock.
All you have to do is use Terapeak to figure out what you want to sell -- then
find a drop shipper who supplies that product, sign up for their program,
and you're in business.
The downside to drop shipping is, you won't make as much money as you would if you were selling your own products.
Also -- due to the growing popularity of drop shipping,
there are a lot of scammers out there selling fake lists
of drop shippers for hundreds of dollars online. There
are also middlemen posing as drop shippers who'll charge
you much more for merchandise than you should be paying.
Don't let these scammers scare you away. Just be aware they exist and always
look twice at any company before agreeing to enter into a business arrangement with them.
Here are two drop shipping resources that offer reliable
information and have a good reputation:
- Worldwide Brands offers a directory
of legitimate drop shippers with excellent reputations.
Worldwide Brands is also the ONLY directory publisher
of drop ship and wholesale product sourcing information
on the Internet that is certified by eBay.
- Doba allows you to source products
that you can drop ship to your buyers. You can browse
product categories or search for specific keywords,
and then buy the ones you want to sell, or use the
"Push to Marketplace" feature to list them
on eBay immediately.
Step #6: Write your own listings -- and make sure they stand out from
the crowd!
Here's a trick that'll have you making more money than your competitors who also sell drop ship products: WRITE YOUR OWN LISTINGS!
The vast majority of people who sell products through
drop shipping use the product listings they're given by
the drop shipper. That means shoppers see the exact same
salescopy for every product they click on!
Make sure YOUR listing stands out from the crowd by writing
it yourself -- and including the keywords you found during
your Terapeak research. These are the exact words and
phrases people are using when searching for products on
eBay. Place them prominently throughout your copy -- and
you'll have a listing that catches people's attention
because it speaks directly to their needs.
Step #7: Start selling!
That's it! As you can see, by using a research tool like Terapeak and a product sourcing tool like Doba or Worldwide Brands,
you can set up a profitable eBay business in well under a week. Best of all, you can guarantee it's successful before you even
set up your first auction.
Happy eBay selling!
[Ed. note: Jim Kobialko is head of IMC’s expert
team of eBay mentors. To learn more about how you can
set up your own highly profitable eBay business, click
here: www.auctiontips.com/course]. |
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Case
study: A "search engine marketing" success story
By
Nicole Ephgrave
Debra LaPorte was a stay-at-home mom who didn't like the idea of going
back to work at a nine-to-five job. So she didn't!
Instead, she started YourSafeChild.com, an online business
selling child safety and identification kits -- and her
business brought in over $500,000 last year alone.
We recently interviewed Debra for our
private "Secrets to their Success" website. And she
told us that she owes much of her success to search engines
like Google and Yahoo. Her only form of paid advertising
are the "pay-per-click" campaigns she runs through Google
AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing.
She's also a self-taught "SEO" expert and has scored herself a top
position in the free search engine listings, as well. (And THAT'S
traffic gold!)
The results of her efforts speak for themselves: YourSafeChild.com
gets around 3,500 unique visitors per month and some of
those visitors, like Brinks Security and Subway Restaurants,
turned into HUGE sales!
Pay-per-click marketing is Debra's primary Internet marketing strategy.
When you're working on a PPC campaign, you need to
create a budget and track your ad costs -- it's extremely easy to
overspend!
But that doesn't mean you shouldn't bid on more expensive
keywords. Once you've calculated how much a visitor is worth to you, just keep
your keyword bids under this amount and you'll stay in
the black.
Here's what Debra says...:
I'm
spending about the same amount a month for Yahoo and Google, with
nearly equal results. With Yahoo, my major listings are at least $1 per
click, sometimes $2 (I long for the days when I only spent about $.10
per listing!) And it seems to be about the same for Google.
Any good pay-per-click strategy doesn't just rely on one or
two keywords. You need a long list -- and that's where the Debra's favorite,
Keyword Selector Tool, and Wordtracker come in handy.
They'll help you develop a list of "long-tail" keywords that by themselves,
don't amount to much, but taken together, can bring you lots of targeted traffic.
Here's how Debra uses her keywords...
Search engines are our only advertising, so we
take great care to stay in first or second place for each of our
pay-per-click keywords (we have about 130 on Yahoo alone!)
On Google's non-paid listings we're usually in
the first five listings for our top converting keywords, such as "child
ID kit." On Yahoo and other engines like MSN, our listings are usually
in the first two pages. I am working on improving this.
In 2000, when we were only using GoTo (now Yahoo Search Marketing),
I made a list of keywords, which not only included the product names and categories,
like "Child ID," and "Toothprints," but also variations such as "Protect Child, "Safety Tips," and "School
Safety."
The Keyword Selector Tool was extremely instrumental
in choosing our keywords. I had no idea there were so many ways to say
"ID Card"!
The keywords that have been most effective for us
have been related to identification product categories (Child ID, child
ID kit, kid identification, etc.), more so than the actual names of the
products.
It takes a while to see which keywords perform
best -- it's kind of like a science. But over time, it becomes apparent
that you may be wasting money on keywords that don't generate results.
Even better, the act of hunting down those keywords
can open your eyes to new marketing strategies you never considered.
During her keyword research, Debra discovered that
there were a lot of companies and corporations looking for ways to
raise their brand profile or raise money for charity. That gave her a
great idea for a new service. She offered to print company logos on
kits and found a whole new market!
She says...
Our list has also expanded to include "Logo
Imprinted Product," and "Fundraising for Organizations," which targets
our promotional and fundraising customers.
In terms of organic SEO, Debra rolled up her
sleeves and became her own SEO expert...
After looking up site optimization on the Web, I recently began working
on refining the keywords in our meta tags and our site description. I've also been
adding keyword-rich descriptions to the ALT tags. I read that Google is
now using ALT tags as one of their criteria for placement.
I truly believe that if you want to save money on hiring a professional, you can search
the Web for information about any subject area and learn how to do it
yourself. I have no experience with SEO, but I am willing to learn, and
so far, it's working.
Working? You bet!
Last year's revenues of $500,000 were up more than 43%
over 2005, and Debra's aiming for $1,000,000 in sales
this year. She's a great example of someone who
understands the importance of strategic search engine
marketing -- and the role it plays in the success of an
online business.
[Ed note: You can read more of Nicole's search marketing tips on her blog or meet up with her in our exclusive
"members-only" Search
Marketing Lab forum -- it's her favorite online hangout.] |
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New
feature: Internet marketing term of the week!
By
Derek Gehl
A lot of people have been asking me recently to provide definitions for some of
the terms we commonly use in our articles.
That's a great idea! After all, I want to be sure you
get the most out of the information we provide you each
week. That's why I've decided to include a new feature
in our newsletter: the Internet marketing term of the
week.
This week's term is "forum thread"...
As you may know, a discussion forum is a website where people
gather to discuss a particular topic — an interest or hobby, perhaps, or
something related to a specific industry. Forums can be free for anyone to join,
or they can be members-only subscription sites.
A forum thread is a set of messages that have been grouped together
according to topic, and ordered in terms of when they were posted.
All forum members are able to start new topic threads or post their comments on a pre-existing one.
For example, if I went to an Internet marketing forum to get some feedback on a new tool I'd heard about,
I would start a new thread asking people what they knew about the tool. Anyone could then add their comments to the thread I started.
To see an example of a forum thread, click here to see the weekly "featured thread" at our private members' forum,
the Internet Entrepreneur Club:
InternetEntrepreneurClub/featuredthread
(Just be aware that you're starting at the bottom of the thread. In order to see how the conversation progresses, you'll want to scroll UP.) |
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Meet
the IMC team of experts
Meet the IMC team of experts -- join us for an exclusive
two-day "Wealth-Building Bootcamp" coming soon to a city
near you!
For two full days in each of the cities listed below,
my IMC team will speak live on stage, giving away the
exact step-by-step blueprint you need to grow a lucrative
Internet business...
... Using the most current, most advanced Internet marketing
secrets, strategies, and technologies that we've used
to generate over $60,000,000 in online sales.
Upcoming Bootcamps:
Toronto,
ON -- May 12 & 13 (Click
here for more details)
Philadelphia,
PA -- May 12 & 13 (Click
here for more details)
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AB -- May 26 & 27 (Click
here for more details)
Miami,
FL -- June 9 & 10 (Click
here for more details)
To claim your tickets, click on the links above -- or call my team, who will be happy
to answer any of your questions about these exclusive
events -- at 1-800-595-9855. |
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Reprint
IMC's up-to-the-minute marketing advice on YOUR website
or blog -- free!
Click
here to find out how you can use our content
to help grow your business! |
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Do
you have an idea or comment you'd like to share with the
IMC community?
Leave a comment on Derek's blog: http://blog.marketingtips.com/derek/
And let's get the conversation started! |
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To
contact us...
If you have any questions, email info@marketingtips.com
Or, if you would prefer to use postal mail,
please contact us at:
The Internet Marketing Center
Attn: Newsletter Subscription Dept.
1123 Fir Ave
Blaine, WA
98230 |
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