And you want to do it using the internet. Purely online. No TV, newspapers or radio. No print ads. Assume you’ve already done all of the above (you should have) and just want an online strategy that will work.

There are many things you can do. Every experienced online marketer will agree that the first step is to set up a home base or launch pad. Some website where people can find you and your product online. Some place where you can funnel attention and traffic towards. It’s where you pitch your work. It’s what people will be sharing.

This article will talk about how to create an effective website to promote your new product (or just about anything you want).

How People Usually Promote Products Online

The most common way of promoting a new product involves the development of a new website or web page to showcase it. In both cases, the goal is to provide information about the product, capture attention, generate interest/desire and sales.

If a new webpage is built, it usually takes the form of a straightforward sales page and is hosted on an existing domain. If a new website is developed, the sales page format can be extended into an informational site with a community built around the product.

It’s impossible to say what works for every product out there. So let’s avoid generalities and assume a specific scenario. Say your product is a new book and you want to promote it. Here are some of the common methods used:

• Method One – Set up a landing page for the book on your existing personal website or blog. A product page is also often created on the publisher’s website or a distributor like Amazon.com. This is usually a page with promotional blurbs or recommendations, along with a synopsis of the book and reviews from the press.




• Method Two – Buy a new domain name exactly similar or related to the book’s name and set up a website just for the book. This will include a blog where you can share knowledge by posting essays, articles related to current events or updates/news regarding the book. Press reviews, testimonials and author bios are included too.

From what I’ve seen, all book authors or publishers take either one of the above two approaches. If you’re really savvy and smart you’ll do both method one and two: Optimize your own personal website and set up a new hub just for the book. Connect them together.

Then proceed to put up regular articles, not veiled infomercials for the book but actual content that informs and benefits the general reader. Provide value first. Sales is almost an after-thought. First thing to remember when creating successful product launch websites.

Develop a Laser Like Focus on Delivering Maximum Value

Image Credit: Dashu Pagla

Let’s retrace our steps. You want people talking about your book and telling their friends and family. You want word-of-mouth to spread naturally and ripple outwards. Every day you want someone who has never heard of you to discover your book and tell someone else about it.

In order to do that you need to increase the value you offer to everyone who lands on your website. You need to sculpt that value until it has a laser-like focus. It should be extremely engaging and incredibly tangible.

For most book marketers, method one and two is the extent of what they will do. But it often results in a pretty boring website. And boring doesn’t help you to get word of mouth.

Here’s what I think: Method one and two do work. But they aren’t focused enough to deliver maximum impact. People can be easily distracted online. After getting to your site, they first have to orient themselves and then after that, search for the value you offer. What’s so cool about you or your book? What’s your message? Why should I care about your book?

Imagine being a visitor who lands on your website. What do they see? A bunch of testimonials and blurbs floating around somewhere to the side, a blog with content related to the book’s topic, news of a book signing in a city they don’t live in and even if they do get so far… a bio of someone they don’t know and most probably won’t care about.

Is that the best way to encourage word of mouth? Refine your website. Make it better.

Create an Experience to Magnetize the Attention of Your Visitors

Image Credit: roujo

Thought-provoking blog posts are valuable for your audience. So is a free chapter from your book. Sure, they are all beneficial. But there are many other types of value. Some of them are better for encouraging massive word of mouth.

You goal is to make your entire website a buzz generator. The whole website functions as a congruent whole. Every page has a certain mood. It is designed to elicit a specific thought in the viewer’s mind. That thought could be ‘this is intriguing’, ‘this is really cool’ or simply ‘wow’.

Ideally, that thought should end with ‘I have to let others know about this..‘ or ‘XXX will be really interested in this..’. You want them to pull the pass-it-on trigger and share your site.

Follow the AIDA model. Get their Attention first with your landing page. The first image they see. Hold their Interest and lead them through your site so they don’t wander off and click away. Make them Desire to know more by teasing with your best bits. Get them to take Action by asking for the sale/share and making it easy for them to proceed.

Want an example of how to do it? Check out PhoneSextheBook.com

It’s a website set up to promote a book featuring interviews with phone sex operators. There’s still room for improvement but I think it’s a good example of a product launch website. Apart from the naturally stimulating topic, the entire website is designed in a minimalist way which provides maximum value up front. Here’s a picture of the homepage:

The only way you can navigate through the simple but inviting front page is to click. And you will click. Because you’re curious.

Once you’re in the curious mindset, you’re presented with a short introduction to prime your thoughts. Notice how the minimalist design is maintained after the first click. Just one click after the introduction and you’re IMMEDIATELY in the frame of exploring the product. There’s no need to search for anything, scan headlines, read testimonials or click to download a free pdf. It’s just there. Right in your face. You cannot avoid it.

People don’t come into this website looking left and right for something interesting or cool. The juicy value-added content is shown directly in the middle. The best bits come first.

Instead of putting out large chunks of text that may be a turn-off, this website uses only brief snippets of content and pictures. This is a great because of two reasons: 1) It teases by providing only a taste. 2) Less information to process facilitates movement through your site. Not everyone has the time to invest 10 minutes on each individual page.

If you don’t like just sharing snippets and want to share more content, try using infographics. They can pack a lot of usual information into an image that can be read in a glance or two.

The last page of the website has the publisher/author details, link to a PR agent, a downloadable press kit as well as a link to Amazon.com. Not pushy at all. No hard sell.

Personally, I would have included a few other elements to enhance a product website like this:

1. A blog. This could be created as a sub-directory at phonesexthebook.com/blog. On the last page, a ‘find out more‘ link to the blog could be added. This blog will use a more conventional layout and will include news, more info on the making of the book and other related topics. It can also be used as the place from which to create content that will attract links and traffic.




2. More pages. Since the pages displayed are visually engaging and not text-heavy, more of them could be included to make the whole site more substantial. This might not be suitable because the whole book only has 50 pages but in general, giving a little more away increases the overall value for your visitor. People don’t want to share 5 pages and a sales pitch at the end. People want to share something that’s worthwhile enough to add value to their social network.




3. Click prompters. For additional usability, I would prefer to have a small but noticeable ‘next’ or ‘continue’ button/link somewhere on each page, which will encourage continuous click movement towards a definite end. It’s like turning a page and taking your visitor on a journey through a story. If you design the site well, they WILL keep clicking and seeing what you want them to see.




4. Opt-in form. Depending on the type of book or product, you may want to collect emails so you can update your prospective audience. They may not buy immediately but want to stay in touch. You can set up an opt-in email newsletter to share news about the book or general research tips on a certain topic. Other types of capturing attention include displaying a RSS of your blog or a link to your Twitter profile. This is all optional of course, but it never hurts to nurture a following.




5. Pass-it-on buttons. After going through the content, many of your visitors will want to share what they learned or experienced with others. Make it easy for them to do so by including a simple email-a-friend form or post-to-Facebook-Twitter button on the last page or somewhere on your site. Don’t underestimate their ability to generate word of mouth traffic. Assuming you get 10,000 visitors in a day and 1% of them used the pass-it-on buttons. That’s 100 people. And they may refer a substantial amount of people to your site, especially if some of them are influencers with a large social network.




6. More copy. I liked the introduction used because it seemed like an authentic artist statement. It’s not snobby or sale-sy and it succeeds in giving the book some gravitas. If you’re selling a different type of product you may have to use a different style of copy. The words you use are extremely important because of the minimalistic set up. The introduction page sets the mood for the rest of the pages so prepare your text carefully.
   
   
   I like the idea of telling a story but choose what works for you. At the last page, it would be useful to include one or two high profile testimonials. This works very well to seal off the experience. Look at it this way. Your visitor has just finished perusing content and their opinions might not be fully developed yet. Testimonials reveal what others think and tune your visitor towards a favorable perspective.

Such a site is noticeably quite different from a salespage or a blog. Simply put, it’s a distraction-free experience that’s 100% content-focused. But careful. Don’t go overboard with the design. The site should be easily usable and the pages must load really FAST. I cannot emphasize this enough. Slow loading pages built with flash or other unnecessary design elements will result in impatient visitors clicking away.

Can minimalistic multi-page slide-style websites work for every product type? Of course not. But I think it works really well for many products and offers. Can this work even if you don’t have your own product to sell? Of course. Affiliates, non-commercial organizations, artists and individuals promoting themselves can use this method as well.

The key point is to lead them through your web site towards a result you want. Be it a new subscriber, greater awareness on an important issue or an affiliate conversion. Go test it. It may work better than what you’re doing now.

How to Create Successful Product Websites that People Love

Many, many times. You know it well. Every marketing guru has spoken about this topic. I’m sick of hearing it. But it STILL bears repeating.

Because some people still don’t get it. What’s the underlying principle for successful online marketing, selling or networking? The art of giving before you try to get. Before you get something from someone, you need to first give them a reason for them to give it to you.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? Don’t you know that everyone has walls around them? Don’t you see them at all? They don’t like to be scammed out of their money. That’s why they’re cautious and won’t just click to buy immediately. They don’t like to waste their hard earned salary on crappy products or services. That’s why they do a thorough research online. 

They don’t want to be lied to. That’s why they are hesitant to believe what you say or claim. They don’t want their feelings to be exploited. That’s why they are wary about trusting you with their true thoughts. They have been fooled before and no one wants to feel stupid again.

It’s a defense mechanism designed for self-preservation in a life that is nasty, brutish and short. Living ain’t easy. People are fed-up with hard-sells and sledge-hammer pitches. They’re sick of hustlers always running game on them. Their walls grow stronger, reinforced by the plaster of bad experiences. Once they pigeon-hole you as a ’spammer/scammer’, it’s all over. Don’t bother with getting them to take out their wallets. Won’t happen.

There is a fool-proof way to get people to lower their defenses and commit. You just need to manage their impressions of you. You need to change what they think about what you’re doing. You’re not spamming, you’re offering a product that is designed to fulfill needs. You’re not a money-hungry marketer, you’re a passionate individual who loves to help people achieve their goals. Reframing and re-adjusting the prospect’s image of your brand.

So here it comes. Here’s the part when I tell you to ‘always add value’ and ‘build trust’. But let’s refashion this proverbial tip on selling. Let’s put a spin on value or trust and combine them into a single actionable guideline: Always focus on giving before trying to get.

Give them helpful free content. Give them answers to their questions. Give them a freebie. Point them to tools they need and things they should know. Give them tips they can instantly use in their lives/business. Give them pleasant surprises. Give them interaction. Give them promises you can keep. Develop a history of giving. Be known as a giver.

“This person has given me many valuable things. I have benefited from these gifts. I like her. I will pay attention to what she says. I think I will trust her words. I will lower my guard a little and run with it. What else could go wrong? I’ve only had good experiences with her so far. She has proven herself to be beneficial to me. I think I may…. no, I will commit and take a chance this time. It’ll be fine, I’m sure. Don’t worry too much.”

These are exactly the thoughts you want them to think. This is the inner dialog you want in their heads as they look at your proposition, as they wander and explore your website. This is how you get them to buy, subscribe, agree and take action on your suggestions.

Don’t mass spam your links all over the web and think that you’ll get someone’s trust or money easily. That’s a silly strategy. You’re not selling to robots or animals. You’re selling to people who care about the seller. Get what you want by first giving unconditionally. Manage what people think or feel about you and you’ll get what want easily.

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An Essential Marketing Principle: Give Before You Try to Get

An advertisement swap or ad swap is simply an arrangement where you agree to put up someone else’s ad on your site or email newsletter in exchange for them doing the same.

The goal of an ad swap is mainly to get exposure for a specific purpose, such as selling products/services or improving awareness of your brand/site. This is different from a link exchange because you are not seeking to improve your search engine rank.

The link value doesn’t matter at all. What matters is getting visitors into your web site.

Four Pre-Requisites for a Successful Ad Swap

Image Credit: Erik K Veland

For an ad swap to be successful and fair, there are four pre-requisites to be fulfilled:

1. Equal traffic and exposure: Both parties ought to have websites that receive a steady amount of visitors everyday, or an email list with a decent amount of subscribers. Otherwise, there is no meaning in setting up an ad swap in the first place. Ad swaps are most agreeable when both parties have an equivalent audience reach/traffic count.




2. Fair and Good Ad placement: Traffic flows more easily to you when your ad is displayed in a spot which is easily viewable and accessible by visitors. While site designs may differ, both parties should endeavor to exchange ads that are displayed in a similar fashion. A pop-under does not capture visitor attention in the same way as a site-wide banner, so seek to use equivalent ad formats too.




3. High Relevancy: In the best scenario, an ad swap should occur between websites in the same niche, as both parties would benefit from a trade in visitors with an already established interest on the same topic. But it is possible for trades to occur for sites in different niches. The essential point to remember is that your ad/message MUST be relevant to the page or site where it is placed and vice versa for your ad partner.




4. No Conflicting Purpose. If you’re a merchant selling a product or a firm offering a service, you should not do ad swaps with competitors (other merchants/firms in the same niche). However ad swaps can be done for joint promotion of a specific event or shared project. You also should not do an ad swap with a site that contradicts your brand’s ethos or image (e.g. PETA doing an ad swap with Kentucky Fried Chicken).

There is one more important factor and that’s networking. Webmasters and bloggers are often inundated with requests for link trades: they have a defensive barrier against requests from strangers. Unless your site has some reputation or authority in your niche, ad swaps usually need to be prefaced with an established relationship.

People are far more likely to do ad swaps after they become more comfortable with you, when they don’t see you as a leech but a potential benefit. So keep this in mind as well when you aim to fulfill the four other prerequisites.

Seek Quality Ad Partners, Don’t Settle For Anything Less

Image Credit: andy frankwick

You may be familiar with the traffic exchange networks of the past (and present), places where webmasters can go sign up, submit their site and browse through each other’s websites in order to earn viewing credits that can be converted into pageviews for their own site.

It’s all about trading incentivized glances in a merry-go-round of self-interest. You look at my site, I look at your site. Everyone is happy. And it goes on ad nauseam.

Even though these pageview-trading rings are called traffic exchanges, they aren’t useful because you don’t get truly targeted and interested viewers, people who click through to your site because they were honestly compelled by curiosity or desire, not because they want more hits to their own website.

I bring up the topic of the old-school traffic exchanges to emphasize the importance of having a quality ad swap. One should carefully select ad partners because you need to maximize your returns with a limited inventory: you only have that much ad space to trade.

Your goal is to get the best quality visitors from your ad. To achieve that, you must try to only trade with websites that have a quality audience. Don’t do ad swaps just because someone asked you to, it could end up being a waste of time and ad space.

You probably know how to find quality ad partners already, as you should be familiar with your niche. If not, find them by doing a Google search for your site’s keywords.

If you can’t set up a good ad exchange because your site doesn’t get enough traffic, try again after you’ve developed a greater audience. Or you can negotiate with more popular sites by reducing the display length for your ad against their ad, although even that may not work.

Types of Ad Swaps You Can Set Up

All ad swaps can be measured with tracking links and analytics so both parties can compare how many hits they received with the clicks they sent out. If you’re doing an ad swap with a friend or prefer a looser agreement, you can forgo click data and stats altogether. The choice is up to you. Here are some ad swap formats you can use.

• On-site Banners and Text Links. This includes banners of all sizes and text links on a site-wide basis or on specific webpages. Includes blog post promos.




• Email Newsletters. Involves inserting a mention of your ad partner’s website or product/offer. This can be accompanied by a personal endorsement or not.




• RSS Feed Ads. These are either text links or image banners placed within an RSS feed.

Some Extra Tips and Recommendations

One guideline I follow is to never send traffic to my homepage or any page that is unoptimized. A custom landing page must be created for each ad swap. I can design it for the purpose of capturing leads (freebie + opt-in) or set it up so that it becomes a welcome page (‘Hello, visitors from Site A!’) with a short introduction and deep links.

I also pay special attention to the ad banners used. Banners that reference your partner’s site name or brand tend to get better click throughs, although you should get permission first. Sometimes they do not want to appear as if they were endorsing your site, although they are already implicitly doing so by having your ad up.

Ad Swaps Aren’t Hip Now But They Still Work

While it’s a common email marketing practice amongst internet marketers, I don’t often read about ad swaps being recommended as a traffic strategy for bloggers or webmasters. There were a few ad trading networks around but none of them really caught on for some reason.

Perhaps it sounds archaic and boring compared to all the super cool social media viral marketing buzz building tactics being promoted right now by all the experts. Yes, ad swaps may sound dull but they still work if you know how to do them right. If you’ve got ad space you can’t sell, why not give it a shot? You have nothing to lose at all. ^_^

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Ad Swaps: A Smart and Easy Way to Get Free Traffic

There’s a common saying: build your site for visitors, not for search engines. A famous Google webmaster guideline asks the question: “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?” It’s actually quite a challenge: Pretend search engines don’t exist. How can you grow your website, get visitors and make lots of money?

I recently built a couple of sites without any focus on search engine rankings and getting organic search traffic. I didn’t block the search bots from indexing the site but I optimized nothing. Didn’t focus on site link architecture, title tags, meta-descriptions, meta-keywords, link building, competitor analysis. Forget about search engine algorithms.

I also wasn’t interested in methods of search-based marketing like finding long tail phrases and placing them on article directories or social media properties in order for these pages to rank and send traffic to my site. That would have involved researching search keywords and competition, so I did nothing of that sort too.

Ultimately, you’re dealing with a situation where the convenience offered by search engines is non-existent. No quick answers to quick questions for everyone. So how are people going to find what they need? How are they going to find my site?

Image Credit: assbach

Without search engines, people will do what they’ve been doing for thousands of years. They rely on each other. They rely on the community, on the collection of publications known within their geographic location or industry. They rely on word of mouth. And they also rely on getting information from common resources like a public square, library, forum or marketplace.

Go where people gather. There you will be heard. It sounds like rudimentary marketing but quite honestly, until I’ve tried ignoring search engines and focusing exclusively on gathering points, I didn’t realize how much actual marketing I was NOT doing.

There were far more forums, social networking sites, blogs than I ever imagined even for small niches. And then there are mega-sites like Youtube and Facebook. If I were to put a number to it, I would say I’m missing out on at least a few thousand visitors every day by NOT being active in these online communities. And that doesn’t include offline marketing.

This is a good amount of visitors who are likely to become supporters of your content, clients or buyers. And the truth is I’ve always made money much faster by going to them instead of waiting for them to come to me. It sure beats the usual plan of waiting for my site to get indexed, rank for longtail phrases and THEN hopefully convert into an ad click or sale.

Traffic from these sites can be as targeted as search engine visitors: many are looking for recommendations from peers or actively engaged in a specific activity that is relevant to my site. But unlike search visitors, they aren’t coming in blind into your website from a query.

They know more than your page name, url and meta-description. They know your avatar, they know your history of contributions. They have a rough idea of who you are. Your words are in their face before they even click over. You’ve already presold them by making yourself familiar.

Image Credit: assbach

The most common problem we face is the lack of time. Can we outsource something like forum, blog or social site marketing? Yes, of course. But use people who know what they’re doing or else you’ll be wasting your time. If you’re a one-person operation, it might not be good for your brand to have someone that’s not you out there, even if you have an excellent ghost.

But small businesses, big businesses and multi-author content sites? No problem.

In any case, the whole experience of marketing without search engines is educational. It forced me to go out and represent my brand. This is me, I own this website. Hello, here’s what I do. Take a look. Here’s why this will be interesting.. and so on.

Once again, nothing revolutionary but when you’re not depending on search engines, its a make-or-break situation. How can I not just get clicks but the most value out of each click? What web page should I link to, who should I target, what content angle to use etc.

It forced me to work and persuade on a social level you don’t really think about because you’re always focused on existing traffic/users or things that will improve a machine’s reading of your site’s worth. Then you realize the value in having a strong brand and reputation.

I would recommend that you try pretending that search engines don’t exist, even just for a week or so. Especially if you’ve got a new website. Search engine traffic is invaluable but there’s a lot of visitors out there just waiting for you to show them your site. 

If you’ve already reached a plateau in organic search traffic and its not making you as much money as you like, why not focus on promoting your site outside of search engines?

So, how would you market your website if search engines didn’t exist?

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Marketing Your Website Without Search Engines

A presell strategy can built upon months or years of contact with prospects: people are more likely to like or trust you when they’ve been reading or interacting with your blog or email newsletter. But a history of prior contact with prospects is not essential for effective preselling. One can pre-sell just as well when you have a reputation as an expert in a specific field.

A big part of pre-selling is how you present information in a way that subdues doubt, while placing prospects in a mental state that is ready to buy at your call-to-action.

As the vendor’s website usually includes all the features and specifications of the product, the job of pre-selling goes beyond simply duplicating what is already available. You should try to offer complementary or first-hand information on the product, this can be done in the form of a simple review or product comparison.

As an affiliate marketer or product owner, you’re often trying to make money by promoting someone else’s product or selling your own merchandise. Both marketer and vendor use similar tactics: The vendor creates a sales page flaunting all the benefits of the product, while getting targeted traffic through various means, the use of affiliates being one of them.

There’s usually some preselling involved: Both the affiliate and product owner often warm up the prospect through their email lists. Instead of sending visitors directly to the salespage, some affiliates prefer to presell by first getting traffic to their reviews of the product before sending them to buy at the vendor’s site.

But there’s an even more powerful way of preselling a product. This method allows you to easily dispel any buyer hesitation even if you do not have a long-standing relationship with your prospect or the reputation of an expert, although having both elements can boost your success rate even more.

This particular method has worked tremendously well for me. My conversions have improved dramatically by using it, instead of the usual presell review or a basic list recommendation. Interested in learning how it can work for you? Let’s look at it in detail.

Creating the Presell Blueprint and Learning How to Sell Indirectly

Image Credit: 0olong

This presell tactic is simple and can be explained easily. All you need to do is to try to sell to your target market indirectly by promoting a method which uses the product.

People are far more likely to purchase something when they can use it immediately to achieve a desired result. They don’t want to get a product and then struggle to find some way to get value out of it. Give them the blueprint to achieve their goals and they’ll gladly buy the product so they can put what they’ve learned into practice.

After all, most products are not ends in themselves, they are developed as means to acquire specific benefits. A weight loss ebook gives one the knowledge to get slimmer. A website template does nothing until it is customized and used for a specific purpose.

Here’s a detailed example of what to do. Let’s suppose you’re in the ‘make money online’ niche. As an affiliate or vendor, you’re trying to promote a keyword tool that helps people find search terms to target niche markets online. You want people to buy this tool from you (if you’re the vendor) or through your referral link (if you’re the affiliate).

So what do you do? Instead of just doing a review of the product, focus on creating and promoting a method that offers step by step instructions on making a lot of money online. Because that’s what people really want. They don’t want a fancy looking keyword tool. They want to make money online, buy the things they love and pay off all their bills.

The keyword tool is just something that gets them there. So do up a short report called something like “The Secret of Passive Income: 10 Foolproof Ways to Make $1000 a Day.” I know it sounds really tacky but something like this attracts attention instantly. If your content is good, don’t worry about the headlines sounding scammy.

The report can be in the form of a PDF ebook, an autoresponder course or even a series of blog posts, if you’re more comfortable with that. In this report you’ll offer some detailed tips on ways to make money online. No fluff or abstract theory. Just actionable steps and solid information. A key point to remember: Always structure your content around the product.

In this scenario, start by including a section on researching niche markets and demonstrate how it can be done with the product you’re promoting, which is the keywood tool.

Offer tips on some other market research methods or even free keyword tools, but make sure that you’re showing how your product can be used and how it is superior to others. 

You don’t have to just stop at one product: you can even squeeze in and promote a few more by aligning certain parts of your report towards each product’s capability/promise. For example, you could recommend an ebook about article marketing after you’ve finished offering tips on the topic. Or a link cloaker/tracking plugin when talking about creating affiliate links.

Never let the method degenerate into a sales pitch. Remember, you’re selling the method to sell the product. Don’t push too hard. Don’t skimp on helpful tips. Demonstrate value. The readers will be grateful. They will develop trust. Because you are helping them.

This is How You Presell to the Masses

Image Credit: itslefty

Put a salespage for a keyword tool side by side with a substantial free report on how to make $1000 a day. Which is going to reach more people? Which is more tempting? Beginners and experts… you’ll hook them all with the free report on making money. How about the keyword tool? Just a group of marketers who know what they’re doing and what they need.

The method sells itself. Nothing compares to it. What do you think will spread faster? The promise of a better life and reliable daily income… or a keyword tool that may even look alien to someone who is new to internet marketing.

The method has natural appeal. Not all products do. No matter how much you dress up the sales page with pretty words, its not going to trump a free lesson plan where everything is in place and ready to go. If your content is built around the product, there is a high chance that readers will purchase it because they see how it can help them achieve their goals.

They’re not going to give up so easily once they’ve seen the light, once they know what to do. When they know that certain products will help them succeed, they’ll be more than willing to pay in order to remove the obstacle. All this because your blueprint gave them a sense of direction while stirring up their desires.

This presell tactic is extremely powerful. I have used it and found great success in multiple niches, both as an affiliate and product owner. This is by far my favorite method of pre-selling and I think it works better than a simple trust-based recommendation in an email list or the usual try-to-be-objective-and-add-value review.

Show your prospects a clear path by removing everything in the way and they’ll follow. To sum up in a sentence: Teach people how to fish and they’ll buy the fishing rod from you.

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The Most Powerful Way to Presell Any Product or Service

If you think about it, call-to-actions are really a natural result of most human interactions. You call a friend to chit-chat and before you hang up, you ask her to have lunch together tomorrow. She thinks about her schedule for a moment and says “Sure, let’s do that”.

It’s just a way to conclude a moment of interaction. It’s telling the other party ‘what’s next’ and how to continue. If used alongside exceptional content, the call to action no longer becomes a gentle request but an imperative that requires your immediate commitment.

I often feel that way when I’m reading well written brochures from charity organizations. And it works the same way (sadly) for get-rich-quick scams that prey on the human desire for happiness, of which wealth is widely seen as the best means. If the message is overwhelming enough, people will generally do whatever it is you want them to do.

Even in day to day interactions, people react to call to actions that are coherent with what they are currently feeling or thinking. It flows on from an initial encounter: Here is how you can get even more of the same. Here is how you can continue down the path of success. Here is how you can share your love (or hate) for this brand.

We have a predilection for sharing information: We often tell people about our good or bad experiences with products or places, sometimes even if no one asks for our opinion. If you want someone to spread the word about your content or service, ask them directly. They will do it even if you don’t give them an incentive. This is what I believe from experience.

Modesty and pride are usually the main obstacles. You don’t want to come off as too conceited and you’re too proud to beg. So you publish free content and give away free tools without asking for anything in return. Maybe its just a hobby for you and you don’t care. That’s cool. But if you’re interested in reputation or revenue, this won’t help you at all.

There’s Nothing Wrong With Asking for Help

I’ve been using Ozh’s Admin Drop Down Menu, a Wordpress plugin that arranges the current admin area menus in a horizontal, instead of a vertical format. This is a great feature that helps me work faster and better with Wordpress websites.

In the settings menu for this plugin, you’ll find a series of call to actions:

People have a few options of what to do after installing and using the plugin. Two of them involves increasing its social proof (rating and sharing the plugin) and one is a revenue generator (donations). Generally, people are more willing to part with compliments (free) than money (cost involved) so I would imagine that most would pick the first two options.

The plugin has a perfect 5 star score (with 316 ratings) at the Wordpress plugin directory, which as some will know, is a rare feat for any plugin that has over 100 ratings. Impressive stuff, although part of its success is also due to the simplicity of the plugin itself.

This is a free tool. Some would have just installed it and forgot about sharing if they were not prompted to do so. We have things on our mind, goals to fulfill, people to meet and jobs to do. Call to actions break through the clutter and say ‘do this now’. Don’t let your prospect’s interest or satisfaction fade beneath the noise of other things that demand their attention.

If you give away free content, you should not only ask why you are doing so but learn to embed call to actions in some of them. Don’t be too modest or proud to tell someone what you want them to do for you. And never underestimate the power of reciprocity. It’s an influential social norm that you can use to your advantage when marketing online.

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Tell People What You Want Them to Do for You

A little vagueness won’t hurt. I can always muddle through and change things up in response to market conditions or personal interest. No need to be perfect from the start.

I looked at many websites to study their methods, to learn what made them a success. I started planning what specific niche I wanted to explore and suddenly realized that I was thinking about the whole thing in a roundabout way.

There’s really no need to think hard about having the perfect idea. The foundations of popular and profitable websites/services are deeply related to the basic reasons why people get online and use the internet. Let’s do some reverse engineering from that perspective.

So, why do people worldwide use the internet?

1. To communicate and socialize

This is very much a fundamental human need. People like to meet and talk to other people through the internet. They use it to maintain new or existing relationships. They want to communicate ideas and find solidarity with others who share similar interests. So do something which facilitates communication. Hyper-local or cross-border communities, social networks, virtual worlds, apps or services built on existing communication/social protocols and services. Bring human social activities onto the internet grid. Socialize existing web functions, emphasize on connecting people.

2. To find information, learn new things and be entertained

The internet is a massive archive of new and old information. It is also a source of pleasure, giving immediate gratification in the form of images, sound and interactivity. As an educational tool, the web is essential for people who are seeking to learn.

People want to find things online. So help them. Create a system which provides information or filters existing content. Monetize the flow of data. Blogs, training courses, social news, aggregated news, paid membership sites, online journals, one-stop entertainment portals, video, image and game hubs with a specific focus.

3. To do work, generate income and run a business

People use the internet to make a living. It is essential to many businesses that want to increase brand exposure or sell a product/service. They also use the web to help them work better. There is a market of webmasters, entrepreneurs and small/big businesses out there who are willing to pay to boost their revenue. Consultancies, design firms, freelancers, enterprise software, business-specific tools/apps and services. Think of ways to help people work smarter and more efficiently online.

And of course, there’s the e-commerce industry and the buying/selling of products. There’s really a lot more specific reasons why people get online. Everyone of them is an idea for a product/service/website. Most likely there’s already someone out there in the same niche doing the same thing. The question is not how many competitors are there but how saturated and fulfilled are each web user’s reasons/needs.

Differentiate by presenting alternate solutions. Or stand on the shoulders of giants and improve existing services/websites even more. Learn to do some clever marketing and you should do fine. Cut your losses early by quitting when you’ve lost the passion or will to work hard. Because one rarely gets profitable or influential without interest or perseverance.

Just some thoughts I had. I wrote them down as a reminder and decided to share. ^_^

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Everyone Uses the Internet for a Reason

Around four billion tissue packs are distributed every year in Japan. An internet survey of over 100,000 consumers show that 76% will accept the tissue packs, with over 50% saying that they’ll definitely look at the ad. In terms of appeal, tissue packs are more welcome than flyers and are more likely to be retained by the recipent.

Why? Because tissue packs are useful. People need them in their daily life and their lifespan is not limited to the time it takes to look at the ad, before throwing it away. Flyers and junk mail easily go in the bin, while tissues can be kept and gradually used for a period of time. Some consumers are likely to glance at your ad several times before they exhaust all the tissues.

What will the consumer see? Alongside the offer/pitch, company logos, phone numbers, website urls and addresses are usually the basic information included in the advertising inserts. Large and small companies often use tissue-pack marketing as a general branding strategy or a specific tactic to launch a new product or service offer.

Image Credit: Examples of tissue packs

It’s a simple but useful way to spread a marketing message and reach the people you want to target. There are two main things I like about it:

1. It is more than an ad. It is useful to the recipient. Bundled value asset (tissue paper) facilitates initial acceptance of ad message. It may also increase overall retention.
2. It is persistent. The message usually stays with the consumer for the lifespan of the pack: there is continual and repeated exposure over a period of time.

A tissue pack isn’t the only asset you can use. The basic strategy is to tag a marketing message to a portable functionality that extends its lifespan and value. Packs of specially branded chewing gum. Most people don’t mind chewing gum. Cardboard binoculars during a music festival. It helps people to see better. Anything that makes your message more than an ad increases the likelihood of it being accepted and retained by potential customers.

I’m not suggesting that you should start creating ad copy and bundling them with tissue packs to pass them out in your neighborhood. Of course, that can be done. But if you’re not keen on offline promotions, the principles of the tissue-pack can be carried over to online marketing.

Web users are going to tune out the typical ad that sells and sells only. Some automatically remove all image ads via a browser addon like Ad Block Plus. Display ads do work to get attention but a holistic marketing plan should also involve the use of ads, pitches and offers that are substantiated by an attached asset which extends its value.

An ad that isn’t just an ad. An ad that doesn’t just involve a pitch and sell. An ad that is actually useful for the recipient. An example: affiliate marketers give away free PDF reports as teasers to show actual product depth. Inside these informational reports are links and more details on the actual offer. People will read and pass around reports embedded with marketing messages because they find something of value in them.

The same goes for consultant firms who release white papers as an indirect way to market one’s skills and services. Establishing thought-leadership via educational reports focused on the needs and interests of one’s target audience is an effective way to build a reputation that will attract sales leads and referrals in the long run.

An advertisement for your firm, website or business doesn’t always have to look like a pay-per-month graphic banner. An ad doesn’t have to stand alone and face consumer resistance. Learn to bundle it with assets that extend its lifespan and value to your target. It helps in message retention and may even assist in the spread of word-of-mouth.

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Advertisements that Work: Lessons from Tissue Pack Marketing

You already get a glimpse of them everyday when they interact with your website. Some may register for an account, leave a comment or send you an email. But many are ‘invisible’. They get to your site, see what you put out, click on a outbound link and disappear.

What you currently know about these individuals comes from a combination of visible user actions (e.g comments/emails) and statistics (e.g visit frequency/visit length). Is this knowledge sufficient for most businesses or bloggers? Yes. But I think it would be tremendously helpful to learn even more about your audience.

In marketing and advertising, we proactively define our target audience. We start with our end goals and then structure our website/ads with the right buzz phrases, pitch, style, keywords and angle to appeal to people we want to attract as a consumer/user/reader. Gathering information on visitors to our website makes us more effective marketers.

It is helpful to analyze and construct a general profile of your audience, however shifting it may be, because it provides you with information that will allow you to better improve your content scope, site usability, conversation rate or marketing campaign. Let’s split this process up into two sections: statistical analysis and data collection.

Statistical Analysis: Start Working With What You Already Have

Image Credit: Mint

Depending on the stats tool you’re currently using, you can get a lot of information on how visitors are using your website, where they come from and what they are looking at. There are obviously a lot of different metrics to look at but I’m listing what I think is more relevant to understanding visitors in general:

1. Visitor loyalty, bounce rate, recency, time on site. These sites measure one critical thing: the level of engagement. They reveal how often people visit your site, the last time they used it and the depth of their visit. While these numbers aren’t a definitive interpretation of on-site user actions, they are a gauge of their enthusiasm.




2. Visitor Location. This allows you to make cultural and linguistic assumptions of your visitors. If you know you receive the most visitors from a few specific countries, you might want to create landing pages/offers or content with a geographic focus.




3. Visitor search terms/keywords. This includes both search engines and on-site search boxes. The clearest indicator of visitor interest, search terms tell you what they want to get from your site and it reveals information gaps you can fill up. This is where data collection gets specific. If you consistently get a lot of queries for a specific phrase, you can safely assume that there will be visitor interest in content or offers related to it.




4. Traffic source. This includes search engines, referrer sites, type-in/bookmark traffic and ad campaigns. Pay attention to referrer sites: it reveals what visitors are reading or using. Traffic sources also tell you where to improve for greater visibility.

Take some time to look at these statistics. Instead of only looking at them at each single point in time, it makes more sense to regularly study them to see how they trend over the lifespan of your site or the course of a marketing/ad campaign. On the whole, they will give you a good idea of what users want and what draws their attention.

How to Get More Audience Data: Using Polls, Surveys and Features

Now for the fun part: the active solicitation of user information. Instead of simply monitoring web statistics, you create opportunities for visitors to voluntarily reveal personal data and opinions. These can be achieved in several ways:

1. Polls. An excellent and informal way to get information on user preferences, they are very easy to set up and maintain on any website. The questions asked can be diverse and they are a good way to gradually accumulate a lot of information without being too invasive. Run a poll for two weeks and change the questions to pull in more information. They can be integrated on a regular basis alongside articles or they can be left alone on a visible corner of the website.




2. Surveys. Depending on their length and how they are created, surveys may be more labor intensive. Some visitors will avoid them if they are too long. They are ideal when bundled with competitions or special offers which provide incentives for completion. Short surveys can be used for exiting visitors or as a follow-up after a user completes a specific purchase or opts-out of your payment plan/subscription.




3. On-Site User Features. If you’re running a community, social media service or even a blog, you can get more information by simply offering more user features (ways users can interact with each other and your site). For example, allow users to input more biographical info in profiles or give them the option to favorite/rate your blog posts and the contributions of other users. Features also add value to users and increase their engagement with your site. Think strategically about what data you want and create a feature that allows users to indirectly reveal it. Facebook is a good example of a site with features that generate a lot of mineable data. Of course, it is always good to have an appropriate privacy policy and allow users to opt out easily from their side.




4. Audience Feedback. To understand your visitors, its useful to ensure that you monitor your feedback channels. Comments, emails, incoming blog links, mentions on online communities and even tweets allow you to get an intuitive feel of what people think about your website. Subscribe to the right feedback channels (Google alerts, blogsearch etc.) and track them daily. Either do it yourself or get someone to be the official feedback/community coordinator. Audience feedback is often unsolicited, although you can easily get more comments/emails by specifically asking for them. This provides you with clues on how to better cater to your target market.

While this isn’t an exhaustive list, some of these methods can be applied online and offline simultaneously. For polls and surveys, you should be able to find some plugins or software available for your site platform. Alternatively, you can always use external online services like SurveyMonkey, PollDaddy, 4Q and Wufoo.

After obtaining this data, setup a system which allows you to segment and compare your findings over a period of time. This can be a simple spreadsheet or something more sophisticated. When combined with the visitor statistics you already have, it’s easy to understand your audience, allowing you to to better accommodate their needs or interest.

Can you think of any other ways to get more audience data?

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How to Understand Your Audience: Data Collection & Analysis

A team of NYU neuroscientists and economists conducted brain imaging studies and discovered that the striatum, a part of the brain’s reward circuitry showed an exaggerated response to losses during an auction game. When a group was told that they would lose $15 if they failed to win an auction, they consistently bid higher than others who were told they would win $15.

The difference lies in way the auction was framed. When simply reminded of what they had to lose instead of what they stand to gain, participants responded with higher bids.

While there have been investigations of overbidding which have attributed the phenomenon to either risk aversion or the ‘joy of winning,’ it was the use of imaging data which allowed us to distinguish between these conflicting explanations and actually arrive at a new and different one, the ‘fear of losing.’…We were able to use neuroimaging results to highlight the importance of framing, and specifically the contemplated loss, as an explanation for overbidding during experimental auctions.”

This ‘fear of losing’ seems to be triggered by competition with others and perhaps, attachment to the value of the item. A interesting takeaway point: instead of only highlighting the benefits or promise for a product/service, it would be beneficial to indicate what the buyer might potentially lose by not making a purchase or taking action.

People implicitly understand that they’re  dealing with other consumers because of factors like exclusivity and scarcity. The one who acts swiftly will get to purchase and enjoy the benefits of the product, while others may not. The call-to-action is much intense in an auction, because the actions of others occur in noticeable real-time. Competition is in the forefront of the mind.

This study reminds me of how much competition is almost intrinsic to human society. You see competition between individuals, groups and countries in business or sports. It is perhaps, both an evolutionary necessity and a learned behavior that one develops in order to survive or thrive within a social environment.

We are all familiar with the pleasure of competition. Many of you have bought items from Ebay, an online auction marketplace.  Often, your decision to make or abandon a purchase is rushed along on a subtle but tangible undercurrent of excitement during the process and a feeling of minor elation for having won an item at a favorable price.

Could there be a way to transplant the fear of losing and the pleasure of winning into a non-auction scenario? Perhaps the use of a competition as a backdrop where each consumer’s individual drive can play out against others. Make them interact and challenge one another within a superstructure that helps YOU fulfill specific end goals.

Let the Competitive Instinct Flourish Within a Social Environment

Image Credit: Swamibu

Businesses or marketers should think about how to create a social environment which encourages the natural competitive instincts of their audience. Interaction within this sphere motivates each individual consumer/participant. This helps to increase the level of audience engagement and automatically enhances the value of the product/service/site.

Social news sites like Mixx.com proudly highlight their top users by displaying them on a leaderboard or giving them specific awards/badges. This symbolic segregation of a group of users from others and the conferring of exclusive emblems of acknowledgment enhances the visibility/reputation of these individuals. This becomes something others can strive towards.

Not everyone will lust after awards or a higher user ranking. In fact, most casual users won’t care or bother to go after greater recognition. But owners of these communities know that there will always be a segment of hardcore users (the more competitive or goal-oriented ones) that will work extra hard so they can improve their score or rank higher on the leaderboard.

This addicted 1% of users enjoy a sense of achievement and are often enough to generate enough activity to make your site grow. This effect is even more prominent when the community itself is the main attraction. Take the example of video games with online features: players will gladly pay for a monthly Xbox Live subscription or WOW account so they virtually cooperate or compete with other individuals. Inter-user competition becomes an value add-on.

Such a social environment is not very difficult to create: there are a few fundamental elements involved. For starters, users should be able to interact freely with one another, through the site’s main features or separately in an standalone environment. Also, bind user profiles and on-site activity to awards, rankings, points, recognition, rewards and achievements.

Allow people to form sub-groups to pursue a diverse level of interests. Facilitate inter-user contact and interaction by organizing open competitions or one-off events that everyone can join. These special events can be plotted on an established calendar of regular activities which involve the community or its sub-groups.

The general theory is simple enough: Think about creating social environments that are conducive for your overall business objectives. Apart from simply marketing your site, we should look at giving our audience the ability to connect (and compete) with each other.

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Fear of Losing: Using Competitive Instincts to Your Advantage