Avoid the website graveyard

You spent a lot of time and money to establish your website. Now you want people to take and action when they pay you a visit.

Be sure to put a strong "call to action" in your sales pages. Don't assume anything. Direct them to do what you want them to do. Join your newsletter? Take a poll? Call your phone? Ad guys call this "conversions." You need lots of them to succeed.

Test. Test Test. Change the color of the font on parts of your sales page. Use special words like "because" in your text. Try taking out all pictures (or adding some pictures). See what happens for a week. You may be very surprised by what works and what does not.

If you don't have the time or talent to write compelling text, then hire someone to do the job. After all, you don't want your site to wind up in the Website Graveyard, do you?

Remember, a beautiful website is worthless without plenty of 1)targeted visitors; 2) visitors who take action once they get there.

Greg Cryns
Work at home profiles - my membership site
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Postcard marketing - give it a try!

Explore the opportunities of postcard marketing!







Postcard Marketing Model #15: Influence Big Shots

by Marcia Yudkin

Return-on-investment math often unnecessarily turns away marketers of low-priced products from using postcards as a promotional vehicle. Yes, if the goal is to sell copies of a $24.95 paperback book, sending even the most exciting, irresistible postcards about the book probably won’t garner enough sales to earn back the expense of a postcard campaign.

(Roughly, sending 2000 postcards would cost nearly $1800 in list rental,
printing and mailing of the cards. If you assume the book costs you $3 in
manufacturing costs, and you charge buyers the full cost of shipping a book,
you’d have to sell 82 books to break even, which represents a highly
unrealistic response rate – 4.1 percent of postcard recipients purchasing the
$24.95 book.)

However, when you shift the premise and imagine pitching a low-priced item to
key individuals who each are in a position to influence thousands or tens of
thousands of others to buy it, the picture brightens. Here are three scenarios
illustrating smart, strategic marketing of a low-priced product to influential
players using postcard marketing.

1. Media pitches. If an editor or reporter writes about the product or a talk
show host mentions it on the air, it gets exposure to thousands upon thousands
of potential buyers – many more than you could cost-effectively reach sending
postcards to them one at a time. Also factor in the credibility provided by
media coverage that can be put to work in all kinds of promotions.

Most people approach media people via email or by using news release
distribution services, and in that context, a colorfully designed, enticingly
worded postcard arriving by mail stands out.

Companies like Easy Media List (www.easymedialist.com ), Media Mailing Lists
(www.listsyoucanafford.com/media.html ), and others sell targeted contact
information for media folks. For instance, contact information for 1,290 editors
at African-American publications costs $149 from the latter source. Add the
cost of printing and mailing postcards to them, and then conservatively assume
that a lucky 13 of the recipients (1 percent) publish something about the $24.95
book that each triggers at least five purchases. Now the postcard campaign is
profitable.

2. Influencers. Other professionals besides journalists have great sway with
those in their sphere. Imagine them as the hub of a bicycle wheel, with spokes
extending from the center to dozens of points on the rim of the wheel. Here too
approaching the influencers involves a multiplier effect, since each might not
only purchase a copy of the item for themselves but also recommend it to their
patients, clients or customers.

For example, when I published a book for small business owners, it wouldn’t
have made sense to target them individually in a postcard campaign, even if
I’d been able to afford mailing cards to millions of people in that category.
However, I happily sent postcards about the book to more than 500 executive
directors of Small Business Development Centers throughout the United States,
who were each in a position to hand the postcard to their in-house librarian
and/or recommend it to workshops full of their small business clients for years
to come. Again the math becomes favorable in this scenario.

Influencers for real estate agents would be mortgage brokers. Influencers for
parents would be pediatricians. Influencers for wine producers would be
restaurateurs. Got the idea?

3. Bulk purchasers. A third scenario in which unfavorable postcard math turns
favorable is where you pitch a low-priced product not as a one-off purchase but
as something to buy in a large quantity. To take the book example again, this
might mean sending postcards to parent-teacher organization leaders to purchase
copies for all the board members, to human resource executives to suggest buying
hundreds of copies for employees or to private school administrators about
buying one for each graduating senior.

When it comes to postcard marketing of a low-priced product, success comes from
thinking large!

Veteran postcard marketer, consultant and author Marcia Yudkin is the creator of
The Mighty Postcard Marketing Course, which teaches the strategic, logistical,
design and copywriting secrets of successful postcard marketing
( www.yudkin.com/postcardcourse.htm ).

Photo by VoxAZ

Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo Website Design and Promotion
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Customer service: selling is not a bad word!

Twitter may or may not be all that it's cracked up to be, but I've made plenty of friends and discoveries during the past few months of highly active Twitter participation.

For instance, @RobbDrury responded to me by directing me to a customer service video. I almost did not click the link thinking it was just another sales pitch. I am glad I did finally click that link because I think we need to think of customer service no matter what level we achieve in a company.

In fact, I will say that the most successful companies these days are those that understand that everyone in the company needs to be an evangelist for that company. Achievable? Probably not, but we can hope that a large percentage of our fellow employees will be evangelists. Why? Because if the company succeeds, I succeed. If you say that making money to put food on your table is not your idea of success, well, then you are lying. That may not define "success" but then we are discussing nuances of a word.

Back to Twitter, I ask people if they want to exchange "business cards" through Twitter. See, I think everyone on Twitter is in business even if they are not selling things. But we all are at least selling ourselves in one way or another. We need to get away from the idea that "selling" is a bad word.

Watch this video sent Robb Drury to see what I mean.

photo by jennifer könig

Greg Cryns

Are you talking too much?

It is so easy to fall into the trap of loving the sound of your own voice and simply talking too much.

As a business owner, salesman or manager you need to make sure to give your prospects and clients ample time to express themselves.

Do you find yourself saying any of these?


1. Now pay attention.

2. You really need to hear this.

3. Listen.....

4. Look....

If you use any of those statements, you may have an inability to attract and hold the attention of clients and your subordinates at work. It may be high time to reconsider what you are saying and give yourself a listening tune-up.

Here are some thoughts that come to my mind on the subject of listening.

Do your clients and customers often ask you to repeat what you said?

Are you tempted to interrupt people while they are talking to you?

Do you sometimes finish a statement for a client or team member just to save time? Finishing statements for people will diminish their desire to communicate with you.

Are you thinking of responses during the communication process? If so, you may be losing a sale.

How often do you use the work "I" in your sentences? Think about that the next time you talk. It may surprise you how often the "I" word pops up. People are not that interested in what you have to say. They are more interested in what they have to say.

When we talk at people and not to people, it is like talking to ourselves.

Be careful about your preconceived notions and thoughts. We all have them but that does not make them a good idea in your life.

Tip: think about what it was like before you learned what you know now through long hours of study and experience.

Photo by Sarah L

Greg Cryns
Wahm Search Engine
Scentsy - a hot business idea

A brief example of a niche marketing technique

Do you have a marketing plan? Do you have an advertising plan? Do you understand that marketing is not exactly advertising?

Here are some thoughts I have on internet marketing as opposed to internet advertising.

Buying a banner or text ad on a web page is advertising. You want to be sure you are finding your target market when you place an ad on the Internet.

Let's assume for a moment that you sell mattresses for a living.

So, if you sell mattresses then you need to find out who needs a new mattress. That person would be in your target market.

You may want to appeal to people who have had herniated discs fusion surgery. If I had disc surgery I may not know how a mattress can help me.

Or you also be interested in people who have an allergy. How many people equate allergies to mattersses?

Perhaps you want to do some social networking to make people who have bad backs aware of your product?

So, your internet marketing plan probably does not want to include using Adwords for the keyword "mattress". You would be better off to search Google's keyword tool for key phrases people use to find a mattress that fits their needs. Try searching "mattress for" (with the quotes included).

There you would find that 2,400 people searched for "mattress for back pain" in November 2008.

You found one important search phrase that people who experience back pain may use to locate and buy a mattress. This is a technique used by people who do niche marketing.

Wouldn't it make a lot of sense to write a nice article employing the search term "matress for back pain" and put it up on a web page that a search engine will pick up and present to someone?

Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles

How not to "make money" on the Internet

When I see stuff like "How to make money on Twitter" or "ways to make money on the internet" I get a little sad and a lot angry.

There is no letting go of the hacking, thuggish ways of the 20th Century.

Old Style marketers keep coming at us with their marauding style of ugly approaches.

Listen up marketers. The Old School style of marketing is falling apart at the seams. Look at General Motors. Look at your local banks. Look at the business vacancies in your neighborhood.

Isn't it time to try something new?

Here are some recent posts on Twitter that just smell up the joint:

Make Money Scrapbooking

New blog post: Make Money and Save the Environment

New blog post: How To Make Money From Home With Articles And Niche Websites

Survive From Financial Crisis by Make Money Blogging

Do u want to make money? Become part of our team.

Want to Make Money Online?

Google’s YouTube: Finally, A Way To Make Money

Benefits and Pitfalls of Generating Free MLM Leads: You can make money in Multi Level Marketing MLM

How To Make Money Fast On The Internet

They want me to click on their incomprehensible offers and their oh-so meticulously preplanned "launches"?

Not everyone has a herd mentality.

Go away, spammers. I've got better things to do with my time.


Greg Cryns

Join a new community of Wahm folks. http://www.workathomeprofiles.com
My town: http://www.allaboutpasorobles.com
My business blog: http://gregcryns.blogspot.com