Professionals, amateurs and the great unwashed
If you want something done, perhaps you would ask a professional to do it. Someone who costs a lot but is worth more than they charge. Someone who shows up even when she doesn’t feel like it. Someone who stands…
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A little out of sync
All those devices in your bag make it easier than ever to stay in sync. You can reap what you sow in Farmville, keep up with your email, know what’s going on on every important blog, be in the right…
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The blizzard of noise (and the good news)
As the amount of inputs go up, as the number of people and ideas that clamor for attention continue to increase, we do what people always do: we rely on the familiar, the trusted and the personal. The experience I…
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Sell the problem
No business buys a solution for a problem they don’t have. And yet, most business to business marketers jump right into features and benefits, without taking the time to understand if the person on the other end of the conversation/call/letter…
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On Gummi Bears And Toilet Paper
“You have to believe in what you sell!” Right? Wrong! I have heard this many times. And it sounds good, a lot of novices and gullible marketers take it to heart. They get “sold” on a particular product, brand, or company, and enthusiastically go out there “selling” it.
The problem is, that most of these people really shouldn’t be selling, they should be marketing. And to market something, you don’t have to “believe” in it, you just have to provide it to a hungry marketplace.
Case in point: Do you think Wal-Mart is really “sold” on Gummi Bears and toilet paper? I don’t think so. But they sell a plethora of it. (A plethora is a really big number.) So what gives? They don’t “believe,” but they sell it like crazy.
It’s all about mindset. A good marketer, or marketing company, can market anything. Often, their passion is not centered in the product or brand, but in the marketing itself. They love moving products to market!
Obviously, I’m not condoning marketing crap or trying to trick people. I’m just saying, you really have to be careful what you get sold on. Many marketers passionately market something that doesn’t make them money, and never will. Good marketers aren’t sales people. They are passionate about moving good products into the market place. And no matter how good the product is, if it doesn’t sell, they move on.
Just food for thought. What are you marketing? Are you sold on it? If so, it could be holding you back from your true marketing success.
Traffic Anarchy Review
Traffic Anarchy is a brand new free traffic solution. It’s a one time purchase ($37) that, in m humble but correct opinion, is a great value. (The bonuses alone are worth way more) and all in all, I think it’s a very worthwhile, and way underpriced investment.
Traffic Anarchy is a software solution designed to get you tons of free traffic to the website of your choice. The sales page is extremely hypy (for a $37 product they could tone it down a lot and still sell a ton of these).
It’s basically high-powered submission tool, and if you use it every day you can definitely expect some great traffic. But here’s the kicker, it comes with 555 (yes, that’s five hundred and fifty five) well written PLR articles! Are you kidding me? I would pay more than $37 just for that. Talk about a blogging and article writing life-saver.
So, all in all, you can basically skip the hype and purchase this thing, it’s a solid way of getting a ton of great traffic to your site, and comes with some great bonuses.
Check out Traffic Anarchy here.
Best “Tweet Adder” Software
I’ve played around with tons of “Tweet adder” software packages, and come to the educated conclusion that Tweet Adder is the best. Here’s why:
1. It works. They have thought through all of the bugs and downsides of adding followers, and worked out the kinks better than anybody else.
2. It’s a one time, inexpensive purchase, compared to their competitors recurring monthly fees.
3. It works more “naturally” than others, eliminating the risk of getting your account shut down. Unless, or course, you do something dumb like try to follow 1,000 people a day. Don’t get me going on this! I have more Twitter accounts in the boneyard than probably anybody you know or can name! Trust me, don’t add more than about 200 a day for a while, and over time gradually raise it to 300, but that’s it! Don’t raise it any higher, or if you do, don’t come crying to me when Twitter shuts down your account! (And good luck getting the account back!)
So if your Twitter followers number is low, and you don’t have a decent number of people following you every day, Tweet Adder software is the best way I’ve found. Just click on the link to check it out.
Article Titles: Don’t Make This Mistake!
Pick the best article title:
Article Titles: Don’t Make This Mistake!
Don’t Make This Mistake In Your Article Title!
They both say exactly the same thing, but one is excellent, the other is a complete waste of time. Why? Read this excerpt from Ezine Articles Editorial Guidelines:
- TITLE KEYWORD RICHNESS: Your title should be “Keyword Rich.” The first 3-4 words of your TITLE determines the success of the article in terms of how much traffic your article will generate…so choose the first 3-4 words wisely.Example of a Bad Keyword TITLE:
- Top 9 Ways to Acquire Fractional Jet Ownership
Example of a Good Keyword TITLE:
- Fractional Jet Ownership – 9 Strategies to Help You Acquire Your Private Jet
Wow! Who knew? So look at the above example titles again, and you’ll see how much better example one is. Make sure and incorporate this into all your future articles, or you will miss out on a lot of traffic!
Email Subject Lines: Getting Your Emails Opened!
Email subject lines are absolutely critical to email marketing success. Marketing experts tell us that the number one thing that determines if an e-mail will be opened or not is who it’s from, and the second is the subject line. People check their e-mail quickly, and if you can’t grab their attention in a split second, your mail is deleted real fast.
Email Subject Lines Are Critical To Open Rates
So here are some tips to making sure your email subject lines grab their attention, and gets your letter read.
Create a swipe file. This is simply a place where you gather other peoples e-mails into a folder so that you can refer to them for inspiration or ideas on anything to do with e-mail, whether it’s the subject line, writing style, call to action, whatever. But a swipe file is brilliant for subject line creation, because when you open that folder in your e-mail client, you can instantly scan all of the subject lines, one after the other, to get some great ideas. Simply subscribe to newsletter writers that you respect, and learn real time their techniques as you read their mail then store it in your swipe file folder.
Make an announcement or share news. People love to hear about new things or interesting facts.
Create curiosity. People are by nature curious. If you can get them curious with your subject line, there is a high probability they will click through and read the rest.
Create urgency. “Promotion ends at midnight” or “Only 3 spots left” or “Offer ends Thursday” are the types of phrases that grab the readers’ attention and make them wonder what they might miss out on.
Emphasize a benefit. People buy benefits, not features. If you can put the major benefit of your e-mail in the subject line, your open rates will improve.
There is a healthy debate about whether to personalize the subject line or not. Research conducted by Pinpointe dot com suggests that length of the subject line is more important than personalization, and personalization makes the subject longer, so it’s generally better to not include personalization. But other marketers would argue this, and the fact is it probably depends on your niche. But the bottom line is, if you thought personalization was mandatory, you’re probably incorrect. It’s definitely optional.
The last point I want to make on subject lines it to test! Make sure you test every letter you send out, for open rate and click through rate, so that you know exactly how effective your e-mails are. Remember, these metrics can’t be measured perfectly, so don’t assume that the number of opens and click-throughs is an exactly correct number, it isn’t, but it is accurate for comparing e-mails to each other.
Over time, you will learn a lot as you scan your results and see which subject lines pulled best for you.
This worked so good I stopped doing it…
Content Marketing.
Have you ever had one of those “just kick me in the head now” moments when you realize you’ve made a major marketing blunder? I had one of those recently. I was on a webinar with Don Crowther, one of my social marketing mentors, and he casually mentioned that his mortgage is completely covered from adsense revenue from his hubpages sites.
Doh! Here’s the thing. He told me about hubpages TWO YEARS AGO. Why do I do an annoying “all caps” on that? Because two years ago I tried it, and it worked. For example, one of the first “hubs” I created was for a network marketing play, and I got two new distributors the very first month I published it! Not bad.
Then… not so much. Over the last two years I have published a grand total of 17 hubs, while Don just cranked one out every single day, and now makes a few thousand smackers a month.
And during that time I could have easily produced a plethora of hubs, but I just , well (fill in excuse here).
So, I’m back in action, and recommend you get into action too. Hubpages are great on so many levels. They are fun to make, you aren’t limited in what topics you can cover, and it forces you to write- and let’s face it, content is king online, and if you can’t produce content about your subject you’re in trouble. Hub pages is a great place to learn. Follow other hubbers to see what they do, and get into action! Not only can you get the following benefits:
-Links back to your blog or website
-Direct traffic
-Improve your marketing skills
-Earn 60% of the adsense revenue generated on your hubs
-Learn some great stuff from the community at large…
But it’s also a free and fun marketing method for whatever it is you’re selling, or even not selling! You can make hubs about whatever your little heart desires, and sure enough, the mighty Google will find a relevant ad to stuff in your hub and get you some cash.
And btw, follow my hubs, and tell me your hub ID, and I’ll follow you back! I’m at:
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