Marketing Confidential » target audience

List Building Power Methods

John — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:37:04 +0000

The more subscribers you have on your list, the more you are likely to earn a good income from that list. That's why it's important to invest time and money into building a targeted list, or lists.

Here are a couple of the methods that I use to build my own lists..

The Article Marketing Power Method

Create a three part article. Part one should be distributed to as many article directories as possible and, where permitted, have "Part One" in the title.

Your "Part One" article should then link to "Part Two" which you publish on your own website or blog. At the bottom of "Part Two" you should position an optin form that must be completed before the reader can continue to "Part Three".

Be sure to keep the best information back for "Part Three" but give them enough information in parts one and two to encourage them to click through to the next part.

The Pay Per Click Power Method

This takes a little bit of time to set up, but it's well worth the investment in both time and money when it's implemented properly.

Choose highly targeted long tail keyword phrases for your PPC adverts and be sure to set your maximum cost per click and campaign budgets so that you limit your expenditure (You don't want to bankrupt yourself within the first couple of days). Your PPC ads should offer a free white paper, or special report, and should "sell" the click to your landing page.

Invest in an attractive and appealing landing page that draws the reader in with a strong headline and a clear call to action. Be sure to emphasise the benefits of subscribing and stress the real value of the white paper or special report that you are offering in exchange for their name and email address.

Remember, first impressions are important and your white paper, or special report, should be well presented and of high quality.. especially the content. There are lots of good PLR materials available on which you can base your white paper or free report and, if you use PLR, be sure to add your stamp to it so that it reflects your personality and demonstrates your professionalism and expertise.

Obviously, your PPC advert drives targeted traffic to your landing page and, when the visitor has confirmed their email, they will be redirected to a page with the link to download their free white paper or special report. However, This offers you with a great opportunity to.....{+}

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The Power Of The Free Report

John — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:38:24 +0000

I've recently seen a number of people suggest that giving away free reports is no longer worth the time and effort.

I have to disagree!

There are many ways that you can benefit from the publishing and distribution of free reports:

Building your brand
Establishing your credibility as an expert
Building your lists
Traffic from links within the report
Income from embedded affiliate links
Increase in link popularity
Potential boost in your page rank

Creatingt a free report doesn't have to be either time consuming or expensive. Although the better the quality of your report, the more likely that it will be downloaded.

One of the most effective methods of creating a free report is to base it upon material with private label rights. Simply edit the source document, add your name and, if possible, improve the presentation of the report with a professional looking template.

It's also worth noting that once a book has been created and distributed, your work is done. It's a 'set it and forget it' type of operation. Your free reports will be out there, providing backlinks and generating traffic.

Here's a list of 24 sites where you can submit your free reports:

One place that deserves special mention is:

Scribd.com which is becoming increasingly popular and has proven to be a great source of targeted traffic.

Of course there are ways of boosting the exposure of your free reports.....{+}

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Little Known Link Building Tactics

John — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:56:06 +0000

No matter how good your blog or website, you need links from other relevant sites to generate traffic.

How do you get to any website or blog? You click a link! So, the more links you can get to your site, the more likely people will click them. The trick is to position those links on sites where your target audience hangs out. Not only will you get relevant traffic, you'll also demonstrate to the search engines that those sites are confident enough in the quality and relevance to link to you.

When link building I strongly recommend that you have an end in mind and you use a natural link building strategy. A site that suddenly gets thousands of links overnight will almost certainly be flagged as unusual. Whereas a site that incrementally grows in link popularity over time in a natural way will be undoubtedly accepted without question.

Natural links will come from a variety of sources:

Article Directories
Press Releases
Relevant Blogs
Forums
Directories
Authority sites
Bookmarking Sites
Social Networking sites

Natural links will also come from sites with a broad range of "rank". So it's important that you don't focus all your attention of getting links from sites with high page rank. While a site with a high PR will afford you greater benefit, it's important that you spread your link building efforts over sites with lower page rank too.

One of the most important link building aspects to remember is that incoming links shouldn't all focus on your home page. Natural links will point to pages deep within your web site.

One of the single best link building tips I can give you is to get what I would describe as piggyback links......{+}

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Don’t Create Your Product Until You Know It Will Sell!

John — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 23:05:00 +0000

If I had a dollar for everyone who had told me about the great idea they had for a product, how they'd invested lots of time and hard earned cash in development, only to discover it wouldn't sell.. I'd be incredibly rich!

My response to these folks is simple.. Don't spend a penny on product development until you've tested the market. In fact, don't develop anything until you know what your customers really want.

Here's my proven approach to validating an idea that you think might have potential..

1. Consider your idea in terms of benefits. List every single way that you think your target market would benefit from your product.

2. Choose what you believe to be the top three benefits and write a single headline for each of your three primary benefits. Then turn that headline into a question.

3. Set up three landing pages each with the headline and a short survey with a maximum of five questions. My "Survey Cash Machine" script (Free for Premium Members) was designed for product surveys.

Your questions should be designed to discover if the respondent would be willing to buy the product, the format in which the product should be provided and the price that they would be willing to pay.

4. Set up a split test with AdTestPro (Free for Premium Members) or a similar script to deliver the three pages and then use a Pay Per Click service such as Adwords to drive targeted traffic to your landing page.

5. After they have completed the survey, ask them to opt-in to an early bird notification list to qualify for a special pre-launch discount.

6. After they have confirmed their subscription, send them to a relevant One-Time-Offer. If you don't have an OTO, send them to a presell page for a competitive product through your affiliate link.

7. When you have enough data, analyse the results to uncover the features and benefits that your target audience are willing to pay for. Then create your product to that specification. (Don't get carried away and over-engineer the solution - stick to what your potential customers have asked for)

Important: This is the point of no return. Do not under any circumstances go ahead with any product development unless and until you know with absolute certainty that there's a real demand for a product and that people will be willing to spend cash for it. Remember, you job is to solve people's problems and deliver the solutions to those problems as benefits.

8. Before you launch your product to the public, set up basic pre-launch sales copy with a conditional offer. Notify your survey list that they can get a discount on condition that they test/use the product and give you a review and/or a testimonial.

9. Bring your sales copy up to standard, add your testimonials and launch your product.

By following the above strategy, you won't need to create your product until you already know the exact features that it should include, precisely how it should be positioned and you'll have a small list to kick start your initial launch.

By monetising the back end of your survey, you'll also generate profits even before you create your product. And, if your survey demonstrates that your product is a no-go, you'll probably at least break even on your PPC costs.

Download links:...{+}

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How Well Do You Know Your Niche’s Demographic?

John — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 11:00:40 +0000

Sometimes the cost of PPC traffic is just far too expensive to make it worthwhile entering a specific niche market. When I do my niche research analysis, and see inflated PPC costs, I occasionally wonder just how my competitors can afford to buy traffic a such a high price. Either they are taking a long term view on the lifetime value of the customer, they know something I don't, or they've miscalculated the break even point!

Let me take a moment to explain how I calculate my break even point; and then we can move on to why understanding your niche's demographic can save you a lot of money and tap into targeted traffic at a much lower cost..

For example, let's say that we're promoting a £279 product with a 10% affiliate commision. That means each sale will generate £27.90 and, if the sales letter is converting at the typical 2%, our income per visitor will be: (£27.90 x 2)/100 = £0.558. So our PPC breakeven point is 56 pence and anything less than that will earn us a profit.

Now, when I see my competitors paying 56 pence per click and above, my decision is easy. I'm going to leave them to it and move on to my "Plan B" where I'll target the same audience but I'll attack the market from a completely different direction based on my in-depth knowledge of the demographics.

Plan B requires a little "out of the box" thinking. Let me explain.. ...{+}

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Who Are You Blogging For?

John — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:14:24 +0000

When I can spare the time, I like to read what other people in my niche market are doing. Blog's can provide you with all sorts of information. For some reason some folks seem to think that they can share their innermost secrets on their blogs. What baffles me about a lot of bloggers is that their posts are almost all about them and their interests. It's almost as if they are talking (or writing) to themselves. As a reader I feel excluded.

Probably like you, I'm much more likely to become readers when a blog provides something that I want. As a casual visitor I may initially read a blog because I find training, answers to specific problems, entertainment, or something else that interests me. I don’t want to read about you, your girlfriend, your cats, your kids, or your catastrophes - unless you're a very close friend and it's a persona blog.

There's an art in writing good blog content.. ...{+}

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