Tuesday, March 29, 2011

I Think My Head Is Going To Explode

Greetings loyal subscribers and thanks for taking the time to
read this week's newsletter. Hopefully, there is something here
for everyone, no matter who you are or what you do for a living.
My goal is not to flood your email with endless offers, but to
publish a newsletter that adds some value to your life and makes
you think more about what you do or would like to do.

Lately I have been receiving a lot of emails from folks with a
variety of ebooks and services who desperately want to get their
piece of the Internet pie. While the niches they serve are
different, I find most people taking the same approach to
launching their product or service: with little or no thought.

I still don't understand why the majority of people out there
think they can transform any half-baked idea into the next
million dollar maker. While it is true the Internet affords
virtually anyone with an idea the opportunity to sell it online,
that doesn't mean it is going to make a million dollars or even
sell more than one copy to your Mom.

There appears to be no sense of reality. If it were really that
easy, then we'd all be millionaires. Having been a millionaire
once, I can tell you it takes more than luck. True, it helps to
be in the right place at the right time, but you also need a
great product or service for a niche that is not yet being
served. You may have built a better mousetrap, but there's still
a lot of other people out there selling mousetraps. Getting heard
above the noise is a difficult thing. It takes planning, skills,
time, effort and money.

Another thing which gets my goat is how everyone seems to believe
they no longer have to pay for marketing. All they do is
Facebook and Tweet. Again, this is so wrong. If it were really
that easy to promote a business or product, then where are all
the millionaires? Any one who has ever experienced a real,
genuine level of success will you it takes more than tweeting
that you're sipping a mocha in the neighborhood cafe.

I'll give you a few examples about wrong thinking.

I spent some time with representatives from a local church who
wanted to know how to use social media to get more people to
their web site. They had been using Facebook and Twitter. I told
them you need to have something compelling to say before people
will start liking or re-tweeting your posts. I looked over their
past messages and they were b-o-r-i-in-g. Furthermore, if anyone
did visit their web site, they found a drab, unfriendly web site
-- which for a church is the kiss of death.

If you are going to try to generate traffic for a web site using
social media, you'd better be damn sure that the home page of the
web site you are sending them to puts your best foot forward and
is compelling visually and textually and also states the action
you want the visitor to take: subscribe, click, buy.

Another prospect approached me about reviewing their sales page
for their paid subscription newsletter. Their site design was
drab. Their home page copy merely described the author's past and
ongoing success in a few short paragraphs. And there was NO buy
or subscribe button at the bottom of the page. This approach is
simply not going to work.

Before you spend one dollar or one hour on marketing -- be it
social media or other forms of more traditional online or offline
marketing -- do some research about your niche and see who else
is serving it. If your product or service seems too familiar, too
similar to existing products and services in the niche, than it
is going to be challenging to generate revenue let alone be heard
above the competition's noise.

Do your homework. Do competitive analysis. Look at who is already
listed in Google's Top Ten for your niche. Use the keywords you
believe others would use to search for similar products and start
charting the features, advantages and benefits of your
competitors. Compare and contrast your own product or service.

Then make a go/no-go decision to either move forward with
marketing or look for a better idea. And remember, marketing
requires a plan, with tactics and timeline and a budget.

Not every idea deserves to go to market, no matter how
emotionally attached you may be to it. Sometimes you can save
yourself a lot of aggravation by simply turning your attentions
to a more worthy idea.

So think before you market.

Look both ways before you cross that virtual street.

And remember, social media is about building relationships, not
about selling crap.

More to follow,


All my best,

Steven

P.S.: Click the link below to share with a friend:
http://www.getresponse.com/forward.html?x=a62b&m=XqrU&s=BMdBv&y=B&

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

How to Get Traffic to Your Web Site

I trust this email finds you well. While this newsletter is the
very best way to stay connected to me and plugged into my world,
you might also want to use social media to keep track of me. I am
on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. I invite you to connect!

This week I want to briefly touch upon "traffic". No, not the
kind of traffic you battle on your way to work or home. I'm
talking about the traffic you want to generate and send to your
web sites to raise awareness for your projects, products, or
company.

Traffic can be real expensive if you do it wrong. I had one
client who insisted on buying their traffic by running Google
Ads. While they achieved their goal of generating substantial
traffic to their site, they were ineffective at maintaining it.
Cost them $50K for 250,000 unique visitors, and they didn't
collect one name or email address! You can't make that mistake
too many times.

There are many ways to generate traffic at no cost or very little
cost. I've discussed some of these tactics over the years. Your
site can't exist without traffic. You can't generate awareness,
subscribers, leads or sales without it.

Traffic Dashboard is a new tool from the guru of Internet
Marketing, Marlon Sanders. I hang on every word he writes. He's
that knowledgeable and that successful. Why wouldn't you listen
to someone who generates millions of dollars a year -- all
through the magic of online marketing? Here's some of what
Traffic Dashboard covers:

* 7 article headlines that got 93,298 views

* A step by step plan to go from 0 to 1000 visitors a day
(in approximately 6 months)

* Marlon's top 10 discoveries from 81 articles on ezinearticles

* How to get 600 visitors a day from 1 Squidoo Lense!

* Complete update on the Google Farmer fiasco.

* The 3 things you need to do to get 100 visitors a day in the
next month.

* How Marlon got 11,992 vies and 2733 clicks for a ctr rate of
22.8%
using ezine articles and COMPLETELY, 100% outsourced articles --
and attained coveted Platinum status for my pen name.

* Complete A-to-Z article marketing system that took Sean Mize
from scratch to $4,000 a month in six months then $10,000 a
month in 12 months (and how to predict your OWN income 12
months into the future.)

* How Marlon outsource the article writing CHEAP so I didn't have

to type even one single word!

* How Marlon got a 22.9% clickthrough rate on our article
resource
box.

* How Marlon uploaded 15 videos and got 100,000 views on Youtube!

* How Marlon snagged a cool 782,878 impressions / 2340 views for
.02
cents

And that's just the beginning.

Check it out here:

https://marlon.infusionsoft.com/go/traffic/ms115084/

Let me know what you think.

All my best,

Steven

P.S.: Marlon is the one who convinced me to write Rocket Science
Revealed where I explain how I get over 2,000,000 unique visitors to
one of my sites every year. He's a great guy and he puts out
quality tools. I strongly suggest you at least visit his web
page:

https://marlon.infusionsoft.com/go/traffic/ms115084/

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

3D Web Display Maker and Chamber Benefits

Good afternoon and I hope your day has been a pleasant one. We're
at that strange time of year in the mid to south west where
temperatures swing from the teens in the evening to the 70's
during the day. Sure makes it hard to dress with wide swings like
this. Kind of like trying to do business in this equally wild
economy.

First, I want to thank everyone who has been writing to me,
thanking me for publishing my weekly newsletter. I've been at it
for almost 15 years. You would think I would run out of things to
say and info to share, but it never stops coming and we're approaching
2000 subscribers!

Second, I wanted to tell you about a new graphics tool that
crossed my desk, and I think it is very exciting. It enables you
to quickly create a dazzling 3D display of images -- could be
album covers, photos, product shots, screen shots -- just about
anything you can think of -- and they look like the "cover flow"
effect that iPod's and iPhone's use on their displays. I know
you've seen them. Click the link below to read the review and see
a sample of this really cool tool:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/multimedia/3DWebDisplayMaker.htm

Third, are you a member of your local chamber of commerce? Back
in 2000, I joined a local chamber but didn't get as much out of it
as I thought I would. Well, this week I joined a different
chamber that is in an "up and coming" area near Tulsa that is
experiencing record residential and commercial growth.

One of the things you need to look at when considering joining a
chamber is the total number of active members. This one has over
425 members which represents a good-sized, focused group of
prospects for me. In addition to becoming potential customers,
they also represent a potential new referral base for me.

In addition, you need to look at how many members are in your
business category. In my case, there were only two other
companies in advertising and marketing and one appeared to be out
of business. This means my category is not diluted with too many
competitors yet.

I also asked about their entertainer category, and guess what,
they don't have any magicians in the chamber yet either, so I
signed up under that category, too.

Of course, as my friends have told me, you get what you give. You
need to get involved in your chamber's activities and volunteer
in order to develop credibility, authority and meaningful
relationships. So I'm looking forward to this and will keep you
abreast of my progress.

Speaking about magic ... I appeared at the Spotlight Theater
twice last weekend and the shows were packed! I had a lot of fun
and even received a standing ovation. Never in my wildest dreams
did I expect to find myself performing magic and comedy at age 52.

It goes to show that you need to listen to and then follow your
heart. While I'm not making a ton of money performing yet, I am
having a great time making others laugh, I am learning a lot
about myself I never knew, and I am laying a firm foundation to
expand my love of magic into a profitable business.

Right now, I am the only magician in the area who is appearing in
two different public venues every month. This puts me at a
distinct advantage over my competitors as I can invite
prospective customers to come see me work before they make the
decision to hire me.

Now to start applying everything I typically do for my marketing
clients to my own magic business. Let's see what kind of magic I can
really do!

Until next time,


Steven

P.S.: If you have any marketing challenges you'd like to discuss,
please give me a call at 918-810-5233 or drop me an email at
info@schneiderman.net. And if you need a magician for an upcoming
event, drop me a line!