[Corey]: Is there anything really special and intriguing you want to
tell us about any of your businesses? Some gem of information that you learned
"the hard way" that can help us all?
[Audri]: We've tried just about everything - we've been doing this for
a very long time. So we've made just about every mistake you can make. We learned
a lot though. (The only thing we haven't done is spamming - we were two of the
early pioneers against spam.)
Probably the most important gem we learned the hard way is the importance of
testing and tracking. Every good Internet marketer gives lip service to this,
but few really do it.
We did a promotion test with one of our partners about two weeks ago that generated
about $165,000 in two weeks. We tested six different promotions. The best
one outpulled the worst 3 to 1!
In this case I guessed which one would work best, but I certainly didn't guess
the magnitude of the difference. We can roll this out with much better results
than we would have gotten without testing.
It's not at all unusual for one promotion to outpull another by that big a
margin. Sometimes all it takes to turn a failing business into a raving success
story is better ad copy or headlines. You never know until you test.
[Corey]: What do you consider to be the "formula" for success online?
[Audri]: I don't really believe there is any one magic bullet. Internet
promotion means doing 12 or 15 things well. Of course, some things do work better
than others. :)
There are four main steps, with one important given: You have to offer terrific
products or services you are passionate about and that customers truly want.
The basics are:
- Create an Internet strategy that involves doing something you can't do anywhere
else.
- Start simple. Create a Web site that accomplishes your goals and that's totally
customer focused. (Most people say this, but very few really do it.)
- Promote it very actively and effectively.
- Test and track everything and modify your program based on your results.
[Corey]: Tell us about a success story from one or two of your clients.
[Audri]: One business owner who heard us speak at one of Jay Abraham's
"Ultimate Live Market Research Laboratory" (ULMRL) talks told us a few months
later that he had implemented just a couple of the ideas from that talk to his
site and had generated an extra $500,000 of profit in a few short months.
Another business owner at the same talk (Muriel Hart - http://www.kitchen-classics.com/)
has a gourmet kitchen store. It had taken her three years to get the first $1000
day in her retail store. It only took her six weeks to do that on the Web,
and her average online order is twice her retail average!
Web based orders accounted for 10% of her volume the last time we checked,
and she said they were "growing like mad." She was so excited about her results
that she sent us a huge, gorgeous, handcrafted cherry, red oak and black walnut
cutting board, as well as a microcomputerized Neuro Fuzzy Logic temperature controlled
rice cooker - an amazing way to make perfect rice every time - as thank you gifts!
We get lots of gifts like this - another client sent us a dozen gorgeous roses
earlier this week. I think this says much more than testimonials - which of course
we get lots of as well. :)
[Corey]: So what do you think people are missing most when it comes
to Internet marketing and promotion?
[Audri]: Lots of things, unfortunately. Strategy that makes sense. Focus.
Figuring out what they want to accomplish. Just doing it - getting going. Making
it too complicated.
Compelling headlines are very important. ("Bob's Home Page" is not a compelling
headline!) You have six seconds to grab someone's attention or they're gone.
Most sites are really bad in this area.
A passion for - and loving - your customers. Totally focusing on your customers
and benefiting them. It seems like a lot of business people forget that the numbers
they see in their traffic logs (if they analyze their logs at all!) represent
real human beings.
Then the usual - slow pages, poor navigation, sloppy design, hard to use systems.
Not promoting regularly and consistently - and not testing and tracking - are
probably the biggest. It takes some time, but when it catches hold, it can build
fast. If you don't keep at it, you will fail.
[Corey]: What are most people doing that limits their success (in any
of their businesses, whether they be online or offline)?
[Audri]: I've already mentioned not testing and tracking. Jim's favorite
saying is: "Don't spend a nickel on anything if you can't track it."
Also, blindly relying on search engines. Search engine placement is the life-blood
strategy for some types of business. For example, those businesses where people
would use the Yellow Pages to find them. Another example is where people would
type a keyword into a search engine that is used enough to generate significant
traffic (but not so often that the competition for that keyword makes it uneconomical
to get and maintain high placement).
The real benefit of the search engines - which no one talks about - is that
you often can get qualified traffic that is ready to buy. This is like when people
go to the Yellow Pages in the physical world. They are ready to buy.
However, for many businesses, optimizing your search engine placement just
isn't worth it. It can be very time consuming and can require a lot of resources.
For many companies, there are much better ways to invest their time and money.
[Corey]: A perfect lead in. Is there any Internet promotional method
that you feel is substantially more profitable than all others?
[Audri]: Yes. E-zines.
If you have a business on the Web, you really should have an e-zine to keep
contact with your customers and visitors. We've been advocating this for years.
Now, there are so many e-zines, but the advice still holds - you just have to
"nichify" more and execute better than you did three years ago.
Next is "Tom Sawyer marketing," - if done right. We coined the phrase "Tom
Sawyer Marketing" to cover the different ways you can use to get other people
to help you accomplish much more than you could on your own. [It's from the scene
in "Tom Sawyer" where he gets all the other kids to help him whitewash Aunt Polly's
fence. There are some great marketing examples in that scene. :) )
Affiliate programs are essentially ongoing joint ventures, where you pay only
for results. When done right, these are probably the best "Tom Sawyer" marketing
techniques available.
Then there are one shot joint ventures, which can be a big help in generating
quick results, and a great way to open doors for future business deals.
"Viral marketing" techniques are also very powerful. These are basically systems
that promote your business in the process of the customer's using your product
or service.
The most famous example is Hotmail. That little message at the bottom of all
those free email messages was the mechanism that created the fastest growing online
service ever. And it resulted in Microsoft buying the service for hundreds of
millions of dollars.
That's an interesting story. The founders of Hotmail had originally approached
a venture capital group for funding for another project. The group decided to
turn them down, but asked if they had any other projects they were considering.
One of the founders mentioned casually that they had been tinkering with an idea
for free email services.
One of the venture capital people suggested that they let the users of the
service promote it with those little text banners you see in Hotmail messages.
The rest is history. :)
[Corey]: If you were starting a new business on the Internet, in what
order would you do what promotion to make the most amount of money in the least
amount of time... on a budget of less than $3000?
[Audri]: First, create an e-zine or email discussion list. It's basically
free. Subscribe to several in your field of business, to see how they're formatted
and to get a view of several different approaches you can model as appropriate.
You can find resources for finding the ones in your area of interest at our site,
NETrageousResults.com.
You'll want to choose a specific topic that will attract the people who are
the most likely prospects for your product, of course. The more tightly focused,
the better. Then decide on a frequency for publishing. A good rule of thumb is
to decide what you feel you can realistically do, and then publish about half
that often. It always takes longer than you think. ;-)
If I had a bricks and mortar business, I'd first go to my current customers.
They're your best potential subscribers, and the ones from whom you'll
get the best results.
Write articles for other e-zines, and include subscription information for
your own in the authors' credit at the end. Use the announce lists and list with
the e-zine directories. Build your circulation to at least 1000. Then swap ads
with other publishers. This will help you to get to a decent subscriber base fairly
quickly.
Click Here for Part 3
