Online Marketing

Affiliate Marketing – The Step-child of Online Marketing

There are a lot of businesses now moving towards the internet as a way of advertising and even doing their business online. You’ll find that when it comes to sites like Amazon.com. It is a site that really gets the meaning of affiliate marketing. This is one of the ways that you can create awareness and also make some business happen.

With affiliated marketing you will find that it is a way to encourage a business to sell or even advertise products online and they will get their share of commission. You’ll find that back in the way; it was a really bad way of generating business because there were so many people making fake sites. Today, it is not uncommon for someone to look a t a product online or to even purchase a product online. You’ll find that these sites are making a lot of money in profit and in commission. It is very important that you consider using affiliate marketing strategies now that the world evolves around E-commerce.

Affiliate marketing is also done in blogs too. You’ll find that these are becoming very common and also there are some sites that will use affiliate marketing as a way for them to do comparison shopping. With situations like that, you’ll be able to hold on to your sales, but also gain commission from mention other products.

Keep in mind that this type of marketing is the best way to do business, because when you target those who are online, you are able to hit many of your target audiences without having to pay for each market. You will be able to get everyone’s attention with this type of business.

Header Ads

I know your ads aren’t working !

How do I know this?

Because I’m betting that you’re probably getting a pathetically
low click-through rate and an almost non-existent conversion
rate out of those ads.

Let me explain.

The truth is, banner ads and link exchanges just don’t work
anymore. People just ignore them completely.

Google and other major companies that get the bulk of their
profits from advertising have tried to counteract this
‘banner blindness’ by making ads different sizes
- which worked … for awhile.

You can be the best graphic designer or copywriter in the
world – and it doesn’t make one bit of difference. Your ads
still have a horrible conversion rate.

Want to know which kind of ads people don’t ignore?
Header Ads.

The header is the area at the very top of a web page. It
usually includes the product name, maybe a photo of the
creator and a graphic of a software box or book cover.

It’s also the very first thing people notice on a website,
and the very first graphic to load.

Now what if you could take this same header area from
someone else’s site and put YOUR ads on it?

Can you see just how much more targeted that would be?
The site visitors can’t help but notice it – which means
you get more click-thrus and more eager buyers coming
to YOUR site!

See what I mean at

http://budurl.com/Hads

It’s like getting someone else to do all the marketing
for you. All you do is sit back and watch as the customers
pour in!

And best of all – if you go to

http://budurl.com/Hads

- you’ll find out exactly how much this advertising costs:

Nothing!

But I should warn you. As soon as the big marketing
pros hear about this – their servers are going to fill up
fast. And once the space fills up, they might have to
start charging.

Get in now before it’s too late -http://budurl.com/Hads

More Traffic More Sales

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It just launched and it’s red hot full of targeted prospects.

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around member text ads.

The site’s targeted at work from home moms and

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marketers, affiliate marketers and anyone that is

looking to make money online.

Are these the type of people you need for your business?

If  so .. you’ll want to join today..

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Members as WELL as visitors come to Your EZ Ads and click on member ads, so that means your sites will be seen!  Clicks to your ads = traffic and we all know more traffic means more optins and sales!

For a limited time, you can grab a free membership today and receive 150 ad credits just for placing your ads!

Online Gambling2

Gambling online .. its pros and cons

Some gamblers play online before actually playing the games in real life. They believe that there are numerous benefits to get from playing it online before facing real opponents. Practice is said to be the main objective of online players.

Is online gambling really well? In both ends, there are advantages and disadvantages.

Online games are shorter. Players are really changing very often and stay on the game for just one to two hours. With this, determining the opponent’s playing tactic is less attainable. And, it is impossible to understand when the raise in flop was made by maniac and it is possible to re-raise or by tighter and it is better to drop. The same is for reaction on your actions.

In online gambling, you could not see what your opponents look like. So feel free. There are no poker coins actually. You do not have to worry about being stressed out. You do not have to look great. You do not have to worry if you look like a very pale woman looking. You will jus need to be in front of your pc and explore how intelligent your body is. When you play online, it is like you have an imaginary opponent.

Gambling, be it online or real life, is still gambling. You win a few, you lose some. Both are also get hooked to it that may lead to addiction and of course all those unwanted effects that may change your values as a person.

You really have to see to it that you are responsible enough and as much as possible determine if you are engaging in it as a form of entertainment only, nothing serious about it.

As researches show, there could be really bad outcomes when you get yourself too addicted with the urge to gamble and win.

Playing or gambling online may really be very beneficial. Whatever the impact of the games on the people engaging on it is not the big deal. What lies to be important is the fact that you have the power to way things or way choices and live by that choice.

Online Gambling

Disadvantages of online gambling for income

Through time, man has found means to get himself a living. This may come from the soil or the sea but there are these people who are depending on luck as a source of everything. Funny but true, we could not even count how many people try the lottery almost everyday and many goes to the casino. One of the means often played by luck-testers is gambling online.

Do you know one thing? Online gambling is now the source of living of some people. It is now growing as more and more people try their luck out and do spend nearly a day just playing poker and hoping to earn the best money for a living.

Is this practical?

Having this as a form income will not allow you to have paid vacations. This will not also allow you to be away for a long time.

Another thing you have to put in mind is the fact that income from gambling is taxable in the United States.

Not to mention, you will have an unstable income in every month with some risks of losing it. Being an expert is not assurance that you could not lose money. There are fluctuations and for you to make it through, you have to be professional in dealing with such play.

It takes a lot of experience for one to be sure with that one has what it takes to get through like a rich experience. This experience is your sole ticket to success in this kind of income-generating activity. Earning money fast is not the only reason to make a job full-time.

One more thing is that when you become so hooked with gaining money by online gambling, you would not realize how much hard work pays. There is also a possibility that instead of using it as means of earning money, it would slowly turn out to be a vice. When this happens, it would definitely cause more problems than solutions to your financial targets.

Earning money is still at best when a person gets it the hard way. Luck is an advantage but relying on it for your whole living or source of life. The way we earn by hard work is not out of fortune but of the struggle- the industry, patience and dedication.

Exploding Your Sales

“Advanced Pricing Strategies Goldmine”

Let me ask you a question. The last time you launched your own product to sell online, or even offline, how did you come to a conclusion about what price you were going to be selling at?

At a guess, I’d probably say you looked at the competition to see what they were charging. While this is a good start, it’s far from the whole picture, and you’re fumbling in the dark if you looking at competition is the only factor you’re taking into account.

Did you know you can double your sales volume by doubling your price? I’ve done it myself, and I’ll show you how.

Did you also know that 99% of the products I see being sold are too cheap. So much so, that they’re putting customers off instead of attracting them (which is no doubt what they think they’re doing).

Let’s dispel some pricing myths and dig right down to the real facts to ensure you get the most cash in your pocket the next time you launch one of your products.

Overview on Pricing

● To introduce the concepts of fluid pricing strategies, and to show that you have many more avenues to explore than it seems like at first glance.

● To answer some of your questions about how you should price your product for maximum profit taking the number of sales to price ratio’s into account.

● To display the effect of pricing too low, where many people price their products without first looking at the all important bigger picture.

● To show you why many people are under pricing their products in a big way, and how you can avoid this pitfall.

● To show you that the price you choose for your product isn’t simply about charging less than the competition, in fact by charging more, you can be making even more sales.

● To give you additional pricing options for your main product, and show you how you can significantly increase your profits simply through giving your customers options.

● To demonstrate the correct and most effective way of going about introducing trial periods for your products, and why many get this wrong.

● To show you effective methods of experimenting with your price over time without annoying the people who bought from you previously at a higher price.

Pricing Strategies – Getting Started

There are some things that I want to talk to you about related to pricing before you head off, create a sales system, put up a website and stuff a price on your product.

The aim of this report is to give some insight into the versatility you have as an online marketer with your own products. The problem is, most people just seem to whack a price on their products with little time spent thinking about it, why they’ve priced it like that, and what factors are going to contribute to whether it’s a successful decision. Sound complicated and a lot of work? Well, let me tell you it’s not.

But I think it’s really important that I show you just how much freedom to experiment you have with regards to pricing, and what effect getting it wrong can have in a number of ways, so before you put a price on your product and release it to the world, take some time out, have a read, pick up the points and take them into account using them as kind of a checklist.

The Bigger Picture

Now understand, there’s a much bigger picture to this than most people realize. A lot of the time prices are put there, just because they can be and possibly fitted loosely around competition and other products and services offering similar things, however, it’s not just about planting a number and a dollar sign behind it. All through this process you should be asking yourself lots of why questions. Some of the time, people ask me why the heck I go so in depth into subjects and talk about why they happen. They just want to know how to make a whole load of cash real quick.

Well, I say to them I can tell you how to do stuff, but if the situation changes, and you didn’t know why it worked in the first place, then you’re going to have to come right back to me again, hand me another five hundred dollars just to find out how to do the same thing in a different way. However, if I tell you how things work, you can take some serious knowledge and know-how away with you, and you have the power to adapt to the fast paced changing world of business online or offline. If you can’t adapt, you’re dead. Or your business is anyway.

Like I say, there’s quite a lot to this, and a lot of things that we’re going to talk about, and there’s going to be a load of questions that are going to pop into your head. Does competition matter in such a big marketplace with

regards to pricing? Should I be cheaper? Should I be more expensive? How do I know when to be which and why? Should I give special offers to particular groups of people? Who? Why? Should I offer different versions of my product at different prices? How do I do that, and how do I know if I’m doing right?

There’s a shed load of answers about the above and much more that I’m going to give you in a moment. But all the way through this I want you to keep in mind the flexibility you have as an online marketer with your pricing. Get this right, and it could easily mean double the profits for you. Get it wrong, and it’s likely you’ll have trouble selling anything at all.

Pricing with Regard to Competition

So, with the formalities and generalizations out of the way, lets look at how you should price your products with regard to competition. The reason I want to talk about this first, is simple. When you’re looking at pricing, the very first thing you’re likely to do is say, hey, so what is everyone else charging for similar products? And you may go from there.

Now there’s nothing wrong with doing this at all, but there’s more to think about, and a lot more questions to ask than a simple can I beat what this

guy is charging for his service?

Your price doesn’t have to beat everyone else’s out there for you to get sales. This is something that I learned a long time ago, and you may remember me talking about actually increasing my sales by putting the price of the monthly membership up, and offering an option that was actually ten times more money up front, which increased profits even further.

You really need to be aware of what other people are charging for their products, but that doesn’t by any means signal that you have to go out there and beat them. Imagine you’ve just started up an ad tracking and autoresponder script site that’s so detailed, and so professional that it smacks the pants off the competition. But see the other sites offering the same service are hanging around at the ten dollar per month mark. Does this mean that you have to go and beat them and have a lower price for anyone to look at you? Nope, not at all. What you have on your hands is a premium product, and you shouldn’t be worried to sell it at a premium price.

Rule 1: Premium Products Sell at Premium Prices

So, here’s rule number one. If you have a great premium product, don’t be afraid to bump the price up. You do not by any means have to beat a competitor’s price to be competitive, in fact, by putting your price up, it’s quite possible that you’ll outsell your cheaper competition. Why? Because a higher price screams quality. Don’t, for one moment, believe you have to have the best price to make any sales. That’s just not true, you just have to have the best sales system, and of course a premium product if you really ever want anyone to buy from you again.

Rule 2: Wowing Through Price Is a Bad Move

The fact is, if your price is too low, people look at you and wonder why the heck you’re charging that tiny amount. If your brand spanking new piece of advanced technology software is really as good as you say it is, why does it only cost ten dollars? So there we have rule number two. Never price yourself so low that you think people will look and think wow that’s a quality sounding product, look how little it costs! That’s not what they’re saying at all. They’re saying, “Wow, look at how little that costs. There can’t be that much to it.”

So in effect, all you’re doing here is adding even more value to your

product through a higher price. It might be the same product, but I tell you now, it’s much more likely to sell more copies at a price that someone might look at and think that it’s reasonable, or average than something someone might look at and fall off their chair at how cheap you are.

Don’t Be Afraid

Too many people are afraid to take the leap and price their products as they believe they’re worth. Too many people look at competition and think they have to cost less otherwise no one is going to buy their stuff, or they’ll make less money out of it. This is simply not true. Don’t undervalue yourself just for the sake of being cheaper. If you have a better product, you put a higher price tag on it. The experimentation and playing around to find the right combination of offers, deals, follow-up and pricing options can come later.

I could show you so many products that are out there right now, in competition with each other, but one is charging a heck of a lot more than the other. How about this guide, for one? Here’s us charging you a thousand dollars for the complete set of manuals, but there are plenty of other guides out there that cost ten dollars. Will the quality of both of them be the same? Looking at the price alone, from a customer’s point of view, I highly doubt it.

Times Are Changing – Business Needs To Adapt

How about the latest purchase you made for your house, whether it was a whole work surface, a new garage door, a toaster, a dinner table, whatever it was. I bet if you think about it, you’ll see that times have changed. A long time ago, even before I was born, people wanted things that worked. They were just ok. But nowadays that’s not enough. It’s got to be the best, the fastest, the nicest, the easiest to use. There’s a real market for premium products emerging. Make sure you don’t place yours in the bargain bin if it’s meant as premium product, not a bargain basement product.

Increase Sales by Presenting Choices

Ok enough of that for now. I want to talk about something else that’s rarely done, especially in the world of online marketing and info products, and that’s offering different price plans from the word go. Sure people might change their price, put it up and down to experiment, put on offers and so on, but that’s not doing much if your original plan isn’t well thought out.

Even with the simplest of single sale info products such as this, you’re presented with options. The more, the better to be honest. Whether you’re a high ticket item offering smaller chunks to be paid at extended periods, or a low priced membership site that does the opposite, and offers a lump sum that gives access for three months, six months or even a year.

Remember, the sales process is all about answering the customer’s questions, and squashing their fears or any problems they may come up with in their minds for not buying your product. It’s no good you selling someone on something and then they find out they don’t have the payment option they want. Make sure you add multiples of these. It’s simple, if there’s anyone out there with a website that only offers one payment option, they’re losing sales. Don’t let this be you.

Rewards for Customers Equal More Cash in your Pocket

Rule five, and one of the most important. Never ever, no matter what you do, ignore the people that have purchased from you before. It’s not hard to come up with ways to reward them. Right now, I’m putting together an ID number system for myself that allows previous customers to come along and buy my stuff at a discounted rate.

These people are the most important of all. You’ve already got them on your lists, they’ve already bought your stuff, which means they’re willing to spend money, and of course they trust you, and they’re serious about wanting more information, or the products and services you offer. Remember this, because if you forget you’ll go broke. It’s as simple as that. You want to keep the customers that are buying from you happy, and you want to stay in touch with them. If you don’t go out of your way to please them, you’ll have to go out and spend wads more on finding new customers. Look after them, because they’ll be with you for a long time to come and will form the base of a successful business from the word go.

Trials & Lead Generation

Rule number six: Avoid free trials unless you’re aiming for lead generation. The problem with free trials is that you’ll attract all sorts of freebie seekers, and just like I don’t want anyone here that doesn’t want to make a successful business of themselves, I’m sure you don’t want people wasting your time either, taking up valuable resources and just picking something up because it’s free.

As I learned with my big experiment site back in the day, it’s far better to charge a small amount for a short trial, say one to three dollars for the first

week simply to sort those people out that are coming to you just because they can, and those that are coming to you because they’re serious.

I’ve got a great example for you here too. Now a good friend of mine set up a site when we were in our early days on the scene. He had a pretty good product backed up by a multi level affiliate system, or a matrix of sorts. Anyway, he started promoting and all was going well, until word started spreading around some of his affiliates about some guaranteed signups site that sold signups to anything free, for a fee.

Now unfortunately I’m sure you can see what’s coming. Not only did the affiliates go for this one, which wasn’t much help to them, because of course most of these untargeted people were just freebie seekers signing up because they were getting something in return from the guaranteed signups sites, and only a tiny percentage were actually going for his hosting package or the pay plan he had in place. What he ended up with was a system clogged full of people that had no idea what they were subscribing to, weren’t making him or themselves or the people that referred them any money, and had no interest in doing so. A real resource disaster case, that one, because it rendered the pay plan almost useless. Make sure you do this one right and offer a trial for a small fee if your product permits. You could be looking at a similar costly situation otherwise.

Banning the Word Cheap

Rule seven: Never tell anyone your product is cheap. Yuck. Nothing major to dwell on here, really, but never ever describe your products as cheap. Competitively priced – yes, the best price for that service – yes, cheap – no way. That just devalues your product full stop. More often than not, people don’t want cheap. They want quality at a good price, especially in online business.

Rule eight: Don’t be afraid to experiment with pricing strategies. I can understand how you might be worried that customers, who bought your product costing four hundred dollars, would be annoyed that they receive an e-mail for a special seasonal offer cutting that cost in half, but it seriously doesn’t work that way. You’re not offending anyone by doing this, and it’s the only way you’ll come up with new techniques and tactics yourself, through testing.

The fact is real world businesses do this all the time. They have super sales, then they put prices up at Christmas time and particular times of the year when their products are going to be more in demand, discount things daily, add and remove discounts and so on. It’s not a wrong thing to do. It’s not unethical. It’s business. And if your customers have ever left their houses to go and purchase something from a store, they’ll know this too.

So here’s the deal. If you need some extra cash, why not offer a limited number of members, a long subscription at a discount of a month or so throughout the year? I have to say this one works real well, and I had a large percentage of my member base from my previous site hand me large up front wads of cash that I could put to good use making more cash. If I’d left them at their twenty dollar per month fee, I might have made an extra few hundred dollars, but at a slower pace.

There’s nothing wrong with you adding discounts to the end of five or six day follow-up messages, so on and so forth. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with changing your price on your main page without any warning or notice. Don’t fall into the trap of worrying what previous customers are going to say, because seriously, this happens in the real world all the time. I know in all my experimental days I’ve never had someone come to me and shout or complain because I pulled a quarter off the price a day after they bought it. If you have a quality product, that’s good enough, not to mention you owe it to yourself to try different methods like in the above examples until you get things dead perfect.

Value Added

Rule nine: Always add value. We’ve got a whole section that talks about adding value in a moment, through bonuses, different approaches, promo’s, and the like. But for now, remember when coming up with a price for your product, don’t let it be the only product. Strange sentence indeed, but look at it this way, what kind of things are going to allow you to increase your price and actually persuade people to buy your stuff at the same time?

The quality of your product and sales system are the obvious, but how about bonuses? What about testimonials from known and trusted people in your field? It’s not just material things either. What about your reputation and how others see you? So here’s a final tidbit of advice for you. If you feel that your product isn’t worth the four hundred dollars you’re charging then increase its value through these methods. If you still don’t feel it’s worth it, then at this point, you know that you’re charging too much for it.

Ok, I’ll be honest with you. If you want to succeed and get your price just right, without being ‘cheap’ you have to do a little work. A little research and a little brain work. It’s not all straight forward one two three. Understand that it’s not about being cheaper than anyone else, it’s about pricing your product correctly depending on competition, who you’re aiming your product at, its quality, and your research and tracking results.

By now you should have a clear idea how much you want to charge, and how you’re going to go about it. If you have, great. Just remember, the price you put up there on launch day doesn’t have to be set in stone by any means. It’s there to be tinkered and played with by you until you feel it’s correct, and your testing shows you that it’s correct. Have a little confidence in your stuff. Next time you create that amazing info product, membership site, or piece of software, try to avoid selling it at rock bottom prices, because I assure you, it’s not gaining you sales, it’s losing you them.

Summary

● In this section I’d like to talk to you about pricing strategies, and show you the kind of versatility we have as online marketers with our own products. Many seem to just throw on a price similar to what they think their product is worth, or look at others and try to beat the competition.

● Because our products and the way they’re presented is so wide and varied, there’s more to pricing your product than meets the eye.

● A lot of people ask me why I go into so much detail when talking about prices among other subjects. They say get on with it, I just want to make some cash quickly. Well my answer to this is, if It’s all well and good if someone tells you how something works, but if the situation changes (which it often does in business, and fast) you need to know the intricacies of why something worked in the first place, allowing you to adapt your methods to the changing situations without having to buy a guide every time new trends appear.

● So, how do we decide upon our pricing? Does competition matter and what should I take into consideration when pricing my product? Should I be cheaper? Should I be more expensive? How do I know when to be which and why? Should I give special offers to particular groups of people? Who? Why? Should I offer different versions of my product at different prices? How do I do that, and how do I know if I’m doing right? A shed load of questions and answers we’ll be covering in this section.

● So here’s my top rules for successful pricing of any product that you create, and the questions that you should be asking yourself as you go through this process, as always from the ground up.

● Rule one: Don’t price yourself too low. A low price doesn’t mean more profit. When you’re looking at pricing, the first thing that would probably jump into your mind if I sent you off right now to price up your products is what is the competition charging? I’m going to charge less.

● Keep in mind from the start, your price doesn’t have to match or beat everyone else’s, or even come close to doing so for your products to be a success.

● You do need to be aware of what others are charging for similar products, but that doesn’t mean you need to beat them. Why can’t your product be the Mercedes or the Aston Martin of your chosen market? It’s still a car, but it’s the best, a premium product and the price reflects that.

● So, rule number one: If you have a great premium product, don’t be afraid to bump the price up. By putting your price up and above the competition, you’re actually likely to outsell super cheap competition. Why? Simple. Would you expect the same quality from a $10 course as from a $1000 one? So there we have rule number two. Never price yourself so low that you think people will look and think, “Wow, that’s a quality sounding product, look how little it costs!” Because that’s not what they’re saying at all. They’re saying, “Wow, look at how little that costs. What’s the catch?”

● In effect, all you’re doing here is adding even more value to your product through a higher price. It might be the same product, but I’ll tell you now, it’s much more likely to sell at a price someone will think is reasonable, than something that knocks the reader off their chair at how cheap it is.

● Don’t join the crowds who are too afraid to even attempt to bump their prices up. Don’t undervalue yourself for the sake of being cheaper. If you have a better product, you go ahead and put a higher price on it. People will soon hear about how you’re worth every penny.

● I could show you so many products that are out there right now, in competition with each other, but one is charging a heck of a lot more than the other. How about this guide as one? Here we are charging you a thousand dollars for the full set of manuals, but there are plenty of other guides out there that cost ten dollars. Will the quality of both of them be the same? Looking at the price alone, from a customer’s point of view, I highly doubt it.

● How about the latest purchase you made for your house, whether it was a whole work surface, a toaster, a dinner table, whatever it was. If you think back, some time ago things were the opposite. People wanted things that were well priced, cheap, and they worked. They were practical and affordable. Times have changed.

● Nowadays, it’s got to be the fastest, the best, the most powerful, the nicest, the easiest and least hassle to use. Now is the best time to capitalize on this. Don’t put your products in the bargain bin if they’re premium products. More on this later.

● Next up, offer choices for your customers. A Pro and a Lite version for example. Not everyone can afford a premium product, and a lite version is just the ticket.

● On top of this, taking the above reason, not everyone can afford premium products, so offer up a choice. Selling premium products is all well and good, but when the price starts to get a little higher, you need to cater to those who can’t buy in one go as they may do with less expensive products.

● Next up, reward schemes. It’s not hard to come up with ways to reward them. Right now, I’m putting together an ID number system for myself that allows previous customers to come along and buy my stuff at a discounted rate.

● These people are the most important of all. You’ve already got them on your lists, they’ve already bought your stuff, which means they’re willing to spend money, and of course they trust you, and they’re serious about wanting more information, or the products and services you offer. Remember this, because if you forget you’ll go broke. It’s as simple as that. You want to keep the customers that are buying from you happy, and you want to stay in touch with them. If you don’t go out of your way to please them, you’ll have to go out and spend wads more on getting new customers. Look after them, because they’ll be with you for a long time to come and will form the base of a successful business from the word go.

● Rule six: Avoid free trials. Trial periods are often a standard feature for a membership site, but unless you want to waste your time and resources on

freebie seekers, set up a limited, less expensive trial for them. A dollar for the first month for example, otherwise you might find yourself wondering why your customers aren’t buying anything more from you. It’s likely because they didn’t want to buy in the first place, a waste of your time.

● I’ve got a great example for you here too. Now a good friend of mine set up a site when we were in our early days on the scene. He had a pretty good product backed up by a multi level affiliate system, or a matrix of sorts. Anyway, he started promoting and all was going well, until word started spreading around some of his affiliates about some guaranteed signups site that sold signups to anything free, for a fee.

● Now, unfortunately, I’m sure you can see what’s coming. Not only did the affiliates go for this one, which wasn’t much help to them, because of course most of these untargeted people were just freebie seekers signing up because they were getting something in return from the guaranteed signups sites, and only a tiny percentage were actually going for his hosting package or the pay plan he had in place. What he ended up with was a system clogged full of people that had no idea what they were subscribing to, weren’t making him or themselves or the people that referred them any money, and had no interest in doing so. A real resource disaster, that one. Make sure you do this one right and offer a trial for a small fee if your product permits. You could be looking at a similar costly situation otherwise.

● Rule number seven. Never say your product is cheap. It’s cost effective, a good deal, but never cheap, which suggests a lack of quality.

● Rule eight. Don’t be afraid to experiment with pricing strategies. I can understand how you might be worried that customers that bought your product costing four hundred dollars would be annoyed that they receive an e-mail for a special seasonal offer cutting that cost in half, but it seriously doesn’t work that way. You’re not offending anyone by doing this, and it’s the only way you’ll come up with new techniques and tactics yourself, through testing.

● The fact is, real world businesses do this all the time. They have super sales, put prices up at Christmas time and particular times of the year when their products are going to be more in demand, discount things daily, add and remove discounts and so on. It’s not a wrong thing to do, it’s not unethical, it’s business. And if your customers have ever left their houses to go and purchase something from a store, they’ll know this.

● So, here’s the deal. If you need some extra cash, why not offer a limited number of members a long subscription at a discount of a month or so throughout the year? I have to say this one works real well, and I had a large percentage of my member base from my previous site hand me large up front wads of cash that I could put to good use making more cash. If I’d left them at their twenty dollar per month fee, I might have made an extra few hundred dollars, but at a slower pace.

● Rule nine. We’ve got a whole section that talks about adding value later on, through bonuses, different approaches, promotions, and the like. But for now, remember when coming up with a price for your product, don’t let your product be the only product. Strange sentence indeed, but look at it

this way, what kind of things are going to allow you to increase your price and actually persuade people to buy your stuff?

● The quality of your product and sales system are the obvious, but how about bonuses? What about testimonials from known and trusted people in your field? It’s not just material things either. What about your reputation and how others perceive you? So here’s a final tidbit of advice for you. If you feel that your product isn’t worth the four hundred dollars you’re charging then increase its value through these methods. If you still don’t feel it’s worth it, then at this point, you know that you’re charging too much for it, and your tracking data will tell you that also.

● Ok, I’ll be honest with you. If you want to succeed and get your price just right, without being ‘cheap’ you have to do a little work. A little research and a little brain work. It’s not all straight forward one two three. Understand that it’s not about being cheaper than anyone else, it’s about pricing your product correctly depending on competition, who you’re aiming your product at, its quality, and your ongoing tracking and testing.

● By now, you should have a clear idea how much you want to charge, and how you’re going to go about it. If you have, great. Just remember, the price you put up there on launch day doesn’t have to be set in stone by any means. It’s there to be tinkered and played with by you until you feel it’s correct. Have a little confidence in your stuff. Next time you create that amazing info product, membership site, or piece of software, try to avoid selling it at rock bottom prices, because I assure you, it’s not gaining you sales, it’s losing you them.

Overview of Added Value

● To introduce concepts of adding value before and after the sale of your

product, keeping your customers happy, and putting more money in your pocket.

● To show you how to start looking around you, and to start seeing what other people are doing with their value adding, especially the successful.

● To talk about testimonials and how to take them further to inspire solid confidence in yourself from the customers perspective.

● To look closely at standard bonuses, and to avoid some of the pitfalls of other marketers not in know, who destroy their sales by trying to add value incorrectly.

● To give you three real life examples of real marketers that have tried to add value, but done so incorrectly in one way or another, and to show you how to avoid devastating your sales by doing the same.

● To show that rewarding loyalty goes a long way to increasing sales, and sometimes producing multiple sales from a single product, that means double the profit in your pocket.

● To demonstrate how a simple technique will make sure that your customers remember you and your product for a long time to come, leading to further sales down the line, and nice bulge in your pocket.

Adding Value Explained

Welcome to the adding value to your products section. You may remember we talked a little about this earlier in the sales letter writing sections, but we didn’t quite go into the depth that I would have liked, so I saved it for here instead.

In this section we’ll be talking about how to directly influence your sales through the addition of value for your products, ranging from offers, joint venture deals, consultation fees, bonuses and others. You see, it’s all about perceived value, and getting the most out of your product. Again, something we talked about in pricing strategies, was getting the price you think your product deserves and persuading people to buy it by stacking on reasons for them to do so, something once mastered, will push people over the edge again and again, pushing them over the edge by hitting the buy button on your site.

Most importantly of all, there’s a lot of ways of pulling this off, and they’re forever changing, and marketers are coming up with more and more innovative ways to add value to their products. It’s worth watching in fact, next time you find yourself reading through a sales letter or some ad copy, look at how they add value to their offer using things that aren’t directly related to the product itself. Watching how others do things on their sites is one of the most valuable cost free and pretty much effort free way of doing

things you have in your arsenal, but it works extremely well. Keep that in mind all the time, not just throughout this section.

Come back here once you have got your product up and running if you’re not working on that right now, because all of these are elements of a sales letter in some way or another, bar two. So lets get started. How about taking it from the top and starting with the most used and widely known and working down to the least widely used, and the new and innovative ideas.

Cut Off Dates

Cut off dates and limited numbers: A great place to start and really easy to slip into any sales letter for any product. The old cut off dates are probably the most widely used out of all of these methods, and they seem to still be working. All this requires is notification of your low price only being guaranteed until a particular date. These are great words to use, because if you do decide to extend the deadline, you’ll find that you can without causing a stir. Way too often recently I’ve visited sites that say the price will be going up for sure on a particular date, but it never does, and the date magically moves forward each day. Not a good way to be doing business I can assure you. This is catering more to the impulse buyers rather than adding value, but I thought we’d get that in there too anyway, as it’s worth a mention for sure.

Limited Numbers Done Right

Next up is the limited numbers method: Only allowing a limited number of people into the site at a particular time, or only allowing a particular amount of people to buy at a particular price. Again, quite widely used, and both catering to impulse buyers as well as adding value, depending on which method you’re using. Now this one I especially like. One of my previous sites has this very system up and running, where I only let a few hundred members in at a time. It’s a membership site of course, so re-occurring incomes all around for me, and it makes my members feel a little lucky. Some of them have even told me this themselves, and I’ve had requests from my list on several occasions asking when a spot will become available because they really wanted to get in.

Now you might say that I’m losing money on such a deal, only letting people in a small number at a time, but it really doesn’t happen like that. The reason the limit was set in the first place was so that I’d have time to start working on other projects and could run my other sites on autopilot, so you could say I discovered this one by accident. Don’t forget that you can always raise and lower your limits if you do try this, which I highly recommend you do try, even if limiting numbers doesn’t suit your situation,

limiting numbers on a lower price, very likely will suit every situation, not to mention it always amazes me how far word of mouth travels about this.

Standard Testimonials

Next up is the hugely widespread and popular standard testimonial. I’m only going to touch on this, because there really isn’t a huge amount to say, and I highly doubt anyone out there has never seen one. A standard section of text either throughout your sales letter, down the side of your nav bar, on a separate page or a database of happy customers works without a problem and goes a long way to cementing in your customers minds that your product is good. This is especially true if the person or people writing are well known and respected in your field. Try to get in contact with at least one well-known, hand them your product for free, and request a testimonial for it.

Testimonials – But Better

Now, let’s look at the slightly rarer audio testimonials. These cement value in your product even further and increase customer confidence no end. I’ve personally looked at text testimonials before, and seen some major flaws that gave away to me, and proved without a doubt that they were faked.

This pretty much put a big dent in what I thought of these things early on, and I’ve even had people come to me and tell me they faked their testimonials in the past. Needless to say I wasn’t happy about that. Granted, audio testimonials can be faked too, but it’s generally not something that pops into your head when listening compared to reading written ones, hence the big confidence booster and value adding of this method.

If you can get some audio testimonials, whether you ask people to call your answering machine and have them leave messages, or if you’re able to record over the net through voice communications, it’s well worth it. The extra effort comes in and hits your customers with a massive boost to confidence resulting ultimately in more sales and resources for you and your business. Can’t be bad.

The Ultimate Testimonial

Ok, seeing as we’ve done the audio and text thing with these testimonials, lets go all out, major bells and whistles professionalism with video testimonials. How often do you see streaming video testimonials up on websites? Not very often I’d say. In fact at the time of writing this, I’ve only seen two in my whole career, and they were great. Real people giving real accounts of using real products that worked. If any type of testimonial is

going to add value to your products, it’s going to be this one. A simple idea developed into an all singing all dancing, hard hitting method that works.

The next best thing to video testimonials would be inviting these people over to your house to tell you how good the products are. I admit, this is taking things to an extreme, but with all the digital cameras floating around nowadays, and the ability to capture video through the net, and the larger hosting spaces starting to appear through the thought competition, it shouldn’t be more than a little time consuming to get a few of these. Well worth it in my opinion. Taking testimonials to the max.

The Standard Bonus

Right, I think we’ve done about as much as we can with those testimonials, so moving on a little to bonuses. Standard bonuses. Nothing fancy really, all you’re doing is offering up some sort of bonus with the purchase of the product, again adding value. Generally these are known as something directly related to your product, or even better, something that will benefit you as well as the customer getting it for free.

How about putting together a small training series that allows the customer to give it away, building your reputation, as well as adding value on the initial sale? Or if you’re really on a brainy one that day, how about putting something together that will make you money through educating the

buyer? For example, give away an affiliate marketing course to your customers, helping them become better affiliates, allowing them to promote your stuff and make you money at the same time.

Bonuses – But Smarter

It’s links like this that make up really clever bonuses, where on the surface they might just seem standard to other people that don’t understand where you’re coming from. Always try to put something together that will benefit you as well as the customer, whether it’s increased sales, a re-branded book packed with affiliate links or links to your product they can give away, or an educational tool that will assist your customer, and put money in your pocket at the same time.

In fact, while we’re talking about giving away bonuses to enhance your product, I’ve even seen some really effective products that are just made up of a bunch of bonuses, with no real central product. Of course they have a central theme, and are all related in some way, but this is something to keep in mind for when you’ve been going a while and having a slow day. As long as all the products compliment each other, and are relevant, they can come together to make a whole new product and income stream for yourself.

Bonuses Done Right

Whilet we’re on this subject, please, please take note here, because if I see anyone trying to flog their product, thinking that an e-book entitled ‘ Doing business today, in the 60′s’ is going to shift more of their products, I really might have to start wondering about peoples motives. Things like this won’t add $500 to your price. In fact, let me tell you how serious this issue is. If you put a dodgy bonus together, or do this in the wrong way, you can devalue your product so much, that it becomes worthless, and you just won’t sell any. Simple as that.

So here’s a general rule for you. If you’ve really thought about it, dug about and tried to find something to add in as a good worthwhile bonus to try and tip customers over the edge and to have more of them buy your product, and you honestly can’t find anything that fits the bill, go with nothing or create an original info product yourself. No bonuses are better than one that puts all your customers off. As obvious as that sounds, it seems to be occurring more and more often recently, which is strange, because of the sheer number of people that claim to know what they’re talking about that are teaching people what to do with online business nowadays.

Using the example above I want to demonstrate something to you now that also seems to have become a strange epidemic that pretty much makes

me and everyone else I know click right off the website and go somewhere else when looking for their products, and that’s when people take too much time and put in a little too much effort into adding value to one of their products. Or so they think anyway. Have a look at this one, how many times have you seen this recently?

Example: Get your hard hitting, intensive training course, entitled ‘Improve Your Fishing’, consisting of two CD’s packed with audio and video, showing you all the tricks, tips and tactics in use today by some of the most successful fisherman in the world!. Order now and get this proven course worth over $2500 for a measly $300. In fact, I’m so confident that it’s going to help you I’m going to knock the price down further. You can get all this expertise in one place for an amazing $49.95. Order your copy now!

See where I’m coming from? Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with giving special offers to people who buy there and then catering to impulse buyers, and bargain hunters, or just to show people they’re getting a real good deal out of you, but from $2500 down to $49.95? That’s going over the top, and unfortunately just makes your product look like a defect. How would you feel if you walked into a store and saw a top of the range 62″ plasma screen knocked down from $12000 to $200? I can tell you, your first reaction would either be ‘Yeah right, this a joke’, or even more likely ‘What’s the catch?’ or ‘What’s wrong with it?’.

Remember when we talked earlier about increasing customer confidence in your products, and the whole idea of a sales letter is to squish all these problems and questions people might have with a product, while at the same time creating a want, and sometimes even a need for it. Do you see how adding too much value, too soon, or going really over the top can be detrimental? Where as you see it as giving the customers a bargain, they’re seeing it as another question in their minds. Another hurdle that they need to cross, or a question they need to find the answer to before they buy your product. It’s everywhere nowadays. Discounts aren’t bad on their own, but in this type of circumstance, they are going to kill your sales. Most people don’t even know why. If you didn’t before, now you do. Don’t make the same mistake.

Now one thing I don’t want to do is let you think that there is only one bad way to add value (or completely remove value) from your products, because I’ve seen it done over and over again in different circumstances. I was going to give you three examples here, but lets take the fishing example above as one, and I’m going to give you two more, in totally different situations that will spoil your sales figures. Bear in mind these are real, live examples that are out there right now on the net.

Example one: The ‘Only want your bonuses’ factor: I land on this pretty

blue and white, professionally designed, well built website that immediately makes me smile (Just feels nice when something is presented like this). I proceed to read the sales copy which briefly tells me how I can get money-making tips for free if I sign up to their newsletter. I see links to back issues here too so I’m not really put off by the thoughts of this being another poor excuse to send me ads. Then comes the standard, sign up today and get this freebie. I’m happy, because it looks relevant to what I want to achieve. Now normally at this point I’d just go and sign up, but this person decided to go the extra way to please me.

E-book 1, E-book 2, E-book 3, E-book 4, Software 1, Software 2, Software 3, Software 4,5,6,7 and so on. Now on the surface this might seem like adding value to the point of people not being able to refuse, but honestly, are people signing up to their free newsletter for the freebies or for the content? Again, at first glance getting more subscribers is good right? Well, not really. Not if none of them care about your content and just wanted your collection of fifty thousand e-books. Remember, it’s all about quality, not quantity, and this example shows exactly how you can add too much value to a free a product to your detriment in the end. Your quality suffers, so does your pocket, and you’ve totally wasted your time.

Example two: The ‘Not sure what going on’ factor: Here’s a good one that I see a lot of, and something else that’s on the rise too. In fact, to be honest, I really think this one is our fault, it’s us selling these guides that tell you to sell your bonuses like they’re products themselves. This is correct information, but it can be taken too far.

Again, I’m surfing around the net and land on a site that happens to be a money making op. I’m not opposed to money making opportunities of course, and this one just happens to have a great headline that entices me to read further. The further I get down the sales letter the better it gets, until we hit the bonuses. E-book one, click here to read about this e-book (forwards me to a whole new sales letter), click here to read about this software (takes me to a whole new sales letter) and so on for three or four bonuses. By the time I’m done, I’ve been taken all over the place, have five windows open, read six sales letters which each try to sell me on to something else, and have trouble finding my way back to your sales letter.

It’s important to remember to add value using bonuses in a way which makes your bonuses seem like real products themselves, but never ever lose sight of what you want your website to do. Don’t throw people off in different directions and have them read ten sales letters for different products. It just doesn’t work like that. Again while you may think you’re adding value, all you’re doing is distracting and confusing your visitors. When people say sell your bonuses like a real product, they mean a few hard hitting paragraphs about how this compliments the main product and you’re getting a heck of a good deal, or you can’t get it anywhere else, or where it’s been proven etc. Don’t go over the top, or again, you’ll be losing customers.

Just these two above examples (three if you include the fishing one) I see every single day, and the worst thing about it is, when people say to me, ‘Why no sales from my site?’ and I tell them that parts of their bonuses sections are destroying their sales letter, I get strange looks and comments. See it’s like one of those little annoying mind puzzles, where the solution is so obvious people miss it, and I can tell they don’t feel too proud about that, but no worries. Not a problem at all, as long as you learn from it and don’t repeat the mistake you’ll do fine I tell them.

Now if you’ve read this far and are ultimately confused or lost as to what the heck you could possibly give as a bonus in addition to your product, or don’t have anything to hand, don’t worry. It doesn’t have to be tangible at all. It doesn’t have to be an old e-book (in fact, it’d probably be beneficial if it wasn’t an old e-book) it doesn’t have to be a piece of software. Open your mind a little and think about other things you could offer to people along with your product. Are you respected in your field of expertise? How about a free one hour, no strings phone or video consultation with your customer’s purchase, or even a follow-up consultation to see how they’ve done with the product you’ve just sold them?

This isn’t such a hard thing to implement if you have the knowledge. Personally, I like my free time, and you won’t get me talking to you on the phone about your business unless you’ve just deposited $500 into my account for the hour, and heck, you’d have to know me pretty well and be

in my good books to get me down to that price too. Immediately that adds value to this product without me even offering the consultations, because I can tell you now, it took a little longer than three hours to write this guide. This is something you can do too, and if you really wanted there’s nothing wrong with going a step further and actually offering those consultations, maybe 30 minutes or an hour per customer free (depending of course on how many customers you plan to get per week. Be careful not to try to give 100 people a free three hour consultation every week).

You don’t have to be in the business of selling guides and info about business to put any of this together. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling, you can use this method somewhere, whether it’s an hour free technical support, or a free 30 minute confidence builder to compliment your main product. It’s totally up to you. Be imaginative, and hey, it might even lead to further consultations putting even more cash in your pocket. Again, a freebie helps your customers and you, not just your customers. An important factor, indeed, and a question you should be asking yourself when creating any value adding material. How does this help my customers and me?

A Little Something Extra

Before we move on, there’s two more ways I’d like to talk to you about adding value to a product. This time, though, the bonuses we’ll be offering aren’t directly related to the product, and aren’t necessarily given on the

sales letter as most bonuses are. It’s always nice to give the customer a little something extra, and this is one way to do that and again, as we talked about before, helping yourself as well as the customer.

The first example I want to talk about is adding an option for discounts related to your other products, either now, or in the future through a ticket system. A good way to do this is allow customers to add additional products to their shopping cart at a discounted price when they check out. Not only does it allow them something extra for a little less, but it allows you to make more sales at the same time, again, benefiting both you and your customer.

If this is the first product you’re creating, it doesn’t hurt to reward loyalty. How about giving them 10% off the next product they buy from your business? This might not seem like it’ll do much on the surface, but when you turn a first time customer into a long term customer that keeps buying from you again and again, this is adding value to your products at it’s finest, because it benefits you the most not just today, but far into the future, where your previous customers are picking up two, three, four, and even more of your products within a year.

And last, something that’s rather underestimated and hardly ever used (at least through the products I’ve purchased over the years anyway) is again,

about rewarding loyalty. If for some reason you don’t want to include particular bonuses on the sales letter, why not go for something a little different instead, and hit them with it after they buy the product. Granted, you’re losing your additional sales power through presenting this on your sales letter, and instead handing it out after the sale, but let me assure you, if you do this, you will be remembered, and most importantly people will talk about you, and at the same time become long term, loyal customers of yours. Is there anything more valuable?

Above all, if you take nothing else away from this, I want you to remember one thing, and that’s that nothing in business is set in stone. No rules that exist now will exist forever, nothing that works now will work forever. The same applies to everything written before you. Experiment, innovate, be different and you will be remembered, make wads of cash and get your name around, and who knows, in six months time you might just be sitting where I am now, typing out a report revealing the newest and most cutting edge marketing methods that you’ve that you’ve discovered throughout your journey.

Summary

● In this section we’ll be taking the concept of adding value further, when we look at directly influencing your sales through the addition of value, ranging from specifically crafted offers, JV deals, consultations, bonuses and others to demonstrate perceived value or intangible goods is as good as monetary value with tangible goods.

● There are many ways to add value to your product, and the means and methods are forever changing through new and innovative twists on current techniques. It’s worth looking out for these the next time you read a powerful sales letter from a trusted marketer, and asking yourself, how are they adding value to their products? Watching how others do things on their sites is one of the most valuable cost free and pretty much effort free way of research that you have in your arsenal, but it works extremely well. Keep that in mind all the time, not just throughout this section.

● A good place to start here is cut off dates and limited numbers for your sales letters. Probably the most used and widely known aside from testimonials, this one really gets the sales flowing if done correctly.

● All the cut off dates require is notification that a special offer is ending on a particular day, giving the impression that the reader will miss out if they don’t buy now, an age-old and well-used, but effective, means of pushing home additional sales.

● If using this method, use the language that shows that your low price and your special offer is only guaranteed until a particular date, this way if you decide to continue to a later date it doesn’t cause a stir, and you can avoid using those little java codes that push the date forwards each day relating to the computer clock time at the visitors end.

● Second, think about limited numbers, only allowing a limited number of people into your site a particular point in time. Again, quite widely used, and both catering to impulse buys and adding value. One of my previous sites has this system set up, and still to this day, I have people asking if there’s a space open yet, and even offering more money than he standard fee to get in.

● Now you might say that I’m losing money on such a deal, only letting people in a small number at a time, but it really doesn’t happen like that. The reason the limit was set in the first place was so that I’d have time to start working on other projects and could run my other sites on autopilot, so you could say I discovered this one by accident. Don’t forget that you can always raise and lower your limits if you do try this, which I highly recommend you do try, even if limiting numbers doesn’t suit your situation, limiting numbers on a lower price, very likely will suit every situation.

● The next method of adding value is the testimonial. Again, we’ve talked about this previously, but it deserves a mention. A standard chunk of text either well positioned on your sales letter, or down the side on your nav bar, or even a whole section dedicated to customer comments and testimonials. This does wonders for proof of your products abilities and adding value.

● Taking testimonials to the next step: How about pulling in audio? Simply setting up your answering machine to record, and letting your customers know it’s there for them to leave audio testimonials is a great way to add realism and a bit of believability to your customer comments, what’s more, they’re not exactly easy to fake, so you’re inducing even more trust with your readers.

● How about taking things even further with video testimonials? I saw a specific marketer doing this just a few months back, and it made his sales letter really sticky, memorable and powerful. Considering I forget about sales letters just a few hours later unless I learn something, or they’re pretty special and unique, this is something I urge you to try if you have the tools to put this together.

● Next up, standard bonuses. Again, let’s not dwell on the basics of this because we’ve already talked about them, but how about taking standard bonus giveaways a little further?

● How about putting together a small training series that allows the customer to give it away building your reputation, as well as adding value on the initial sale? Or, if you’re really on a brainy one that day, how about putting something together that will make you money through educating the buyer. For example, giving away an affiliate marketing course to your customers helping them become better affiliates, and hopefully promote your stuff and make you money at the same time.

● It’s links like this that make up really clever bonuses, where on the surface they might just seem standard to other people that don’t understand where you’re coming from. Always try to put something

together that will benefit you as well as the customer, whether it’s increased sales, a re-branded product packed with affiliate links or links to your product they can give away, or an educational tool that will assist your customer, and put money in your pocket at the same time.

● In fact, while we’re talking about giving away bonuses to enhance your product, I’ve even seen some really effective products that are just made up of a bunch of bonuses, with no real central point of focus. Of course they have a central theme, and are all related in some way, but this is something to keep in mind for when you’ve been going a while and are having a slow day or want to put together a feature packed membership site. As long as all the products compliment each other, and are relevant, they can come together to make a whole new product and income stream for yourself.

● My next point is: Don’t add value to the point of taking it away. Imagine if I tried to give you a bonus with this course and told you it was called ‘Business in modern day 60′s’ and then went ahead and told you it’s worth $500, as an antique maybe, but nothing more.

● If you’ve really thought about it, dug about and tried to find something to add in as a good worthwhile bonus to try and tip customers over the edge and to have more of them buy your product, and you honestly can’t find anything that fits the bill, go with nothing. No bonuses are better than one

that puts all your customers off. As obvious as that sounds, it seems to be occurring more and more often recently, which is strange, because of the sheer number of people that claim to know what they’re talking about that are teaching people what to do with online business nowadays.

● Next is your price. Have you ever seen those products that tell you that their product is worth five hundred dollars, and then crossed out next to it is a new price with the original crossed out of $250, then that price is crossed out and next to it is a $20 price tag? I think people are smarter than a lot of sales letters give them credit for.

● There’s nothing wrong with giving these kinds of signals out to people, but $500 to $20? I don’t think so. The reaction is either ‘yeah right, this is a joke’, or more likely, what the catch?, or ‘Ok what’s wrong with it?’ simply devaluing to the point of placing doubt in the customers mind again.

● See how adding too much value too soon, or going really over the top can be detrimental? Where you see it as giving the customer a bargain, they’re seeing it as another question in their minds. Another hurdle that they need to cross, or a question they need to find the answer to before they buy your product. It’s everywhere nowadays. Discounts aren’t bad on their own, but in this type of circumstance, they are going to kill your sales.

Most people don’t even know why. If you didn’t before, now you do. Don’t make the same mistake.

● Here are three real-life examples that I’ve seen of people giving away too much value to their detriment. Number one: I land on this pretty blue and white professionally designed site, which immediately makes me smile. I proceed to read the sales copy, and I’m pleased to report that the free publication sounds mighty enticing. I’m ready to sign up, but before I do, this person decides to go out of their way to entice me.

● E-book bonus 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, in addition to a forty e-book library, software 1, software 2, software 3, software 4, software 5. By the time I got done reading about each one, I’d forgotten what the original product was. On the surface it may seem like adding value, but are people signing up for their free newsletter or the bonuses?

● Giving the earth away is a good method to get numbers, not quality.

● Example two: here’s a good one that I see a lot, and something you’ve probably seen before, too. In fact, to be honest I really think this one is our fault, it’s us selling these guides that tell you to sell your bonuses like

they’re products themselves. This is correct information, but it can be taken too far.

● Again, I’m surfing around the net and land on a site that happens to be a money making op. I’m not opposed to money making opportunities of course, and this one just happens to have a great headline that entices me to read further. The further I get down the sales letter the better it gets, until we hit the bonuses. E-book one, click here to read about this e-book (forwards me to a whole new sales letter), click here to read about this software (takes me to a whole new sales letter) and so on for three or four bonuses. By the time I’m done, I’ve been taken all over the place, have five windows open and have trouble finding my way back to the original sales letter.

● It’s important to remember to add value using bonuses in a way which makes your bonuses seem like real products themselves, but never ever lose sight of what you want your website to do. Don’t throw people off in different directions and have them read ten sales letters for different products.

● Two additional ways of adding value: Number one, giving discounts for other products at the checkout. Add this to your cart, and buy them

together and save 50%, an excellent and fast way of making double sales in many situations. More cash for you, more value for the customer. Of course not everyone will take up your offer, but the few extra sales sure add up.

● If this is the first product you’re creating, it doesn’t hurt to reward loyalty. How about giving them 10% off the next product they buy from your business? This might not seem like it’ll do much on the surface, but when you turn a first time customer into a long term customer that keeps buying from you again and again, this is adding value to your products at its finest, because it benefits you longer term.

● Last, something that’s rather underestimated and hardly ever used (at least through the products I’ve purchased over the years anyway) is again, about rewarding loyalty. If for some reason you don’t want to include particular bonuses on the sales letter, why not go for something a little different instead, and hit them with it after they buy the product? Granted, you’re losing your additional sales power through presenting this on your sales letter, and instead handing it out after the sale, but let me assure you, if you do this, you will be remembered, and most importantly people will talk about you, and at the same time become long term, loyal customers of yours. Very valuable.

● Above all, if you take nothing else away from this section of the guide, I want you to remember one thing, and that’s that nothing in business is set in stone. No rules that exist now will exist forever, nothing that works now will work forever. The same applies to everything written before you. Experiment, innovate, be different and you will be remembered, make wads of cash and get your name around, and who knows, in six months time you might just be sitting where I am now, typing out a report like this revealing the newest marketing methods that you’ve discovered.

How to Set Up Your Own Online Business

Creating an Online

Business 101

Chapter 1 -

What Reasons Are There for Starting an Online Business?

There are plenty of reasons as to why many people start an online business, and below we will provide you with just a few of them.

For many people, the main reason that they decide to start an online business is to earn an extra income.  Usually, this is in addition to the income that they are already earning.  However for others, what starts as a part time venture, soon becomes a full time one.

Another reason that people decide to start up an online business is that they have more control over their working life.

Also, it provides them with a chance to spend more time with their family and friends.  Today much too much time is spent working, and many people find that they have little or no time to spend with those that they love.

Furthermore, there are other reasons as to why so many people now choose to set up an online business.

What rush hour?

No longer do they need to get up in the morning to rush off to work and get caught up in all that traffic.  Now that time which would normally be wasted sitting in traffic can be used to their advantage.  Plus, it is up to you when you work, so if you don’t want to start until late in the morning, you do not need to.

Prosperity

Because of the rapid advance in technology, many online businesses today tend be prosperous, and so getting involved in this type of business is a good way to make some money.

Costs of Starting Up

This is probably one of the biggest reasons as to why many people choose to start an online business.  As many of the transactions are completed online, there is little or no need for lots of paper and documents.  What one really needs in order to get an online business going is a computer, a high speed internet connection (ADSL), printer, fax machine and few other essentials that an office may need.

As you can see, these are just a few good reasons for why setting up an online business might be the ideal choice for you.

Chapter 2 –

Things That Need to be Considered Prior to Setting Up an Online Business

During this chapter, we will look at things that you need to consider before you actually set up your online business.

What product or service will you want to provide?

For many people, they will start an online business based on knowledge and experience that they have already, while others may spot a gap in the market.  But the most important thing that you can do is carry out research with companies and individuals that you do not know in order to get a more unbiased view.

Also, do as much reading and research on everything you can about particular areas of interest, as well as studying the pros and cons that this will have in relation to your overall goals.  Plus, make yourself familiar with your competitors, as this will boost your confidence and enthusiasm for setting up an online business.

Where to work from?

You do not need to work from home, but this is an option that many online business people prefer.  But others prefer to have an office away from the home, as they find it difficult to focus, as well as feeling isolated.

How to market the business?

It is important, if you want your online business to thrive, to ensure that you establish a web presence.  The best way of doing this is by direct mail, networking, display advertising etc.  But what approach works best for you will depend on the product that you are selling.  The best way of finding out what will work, is by trying a different number of methods initially, and then go for it once you know which one is best.  However, if you are unsure where to start, then look at how your competition is marketing their goods…if it works for them, it may work for you also.

Develop a Plan.

Without having a blueprint on how to reach your goals, you may find that not just your efforts, but the resources may well be squandered.  Having a plan provides you with focus, direction and momentum to keep the business on track.  We will look further at setting up a business plan in the next chapter.

Check Laws and Regulations

It is important that you check to see if there are any local laws or regulations in relation to setting up an online business from home.  Also, you will need to get laws and regulations in regard to being self employed.

Setting up the Office

More often than not, an online business will be conducted from the person’s home.  So it is important that you set up a home office prior to starting up the business.  You should arrange to have all the necessary equipment that you will need such as computer, internet connection, printer, fax machine (but not essential) are just a few things that you will need if you want to be successful with your online business.

Chapter 3 –

How to Set Up a Business Plan for an Online Business

By setting up a business plan, you are road mapping your way to success.  It will help you to develop your business goals and strategies, as well as providing you with a better understanding of the marketplace.  It will also highlight any business strengths or weaknesses that you may have, as well as providing you with an opportunity to take a close look at your competitors.  If you want, you can also include financial projections, historical data and growth expectations into your business plan.

With any good business plan, it should show who the target audience is, and just how the product or service that is being provided will meet or exceed their needs and expectations.

When organizing a business plan it is best if you break it down into sections such as:-

1.                Business summary – The product or service you want to provide.

2.                Market analysis - Research on the product or service and how the competitors are doing.

3.                Product positioning - How to make it more prominent compared to your competitors.

4.                Market strategy - How are you actually going to market it?

5.                Customer analysis - Look at what the customer wants or needs.

6.                Financial analysis - What you need to invest in order to set up the business and to keep it going while it is just getting started.

7.                Overall business goals - What you hope to achieve in, say, a year’s time.

But what is more important is that once a business plan has been developed, it should not lay in the back of a drawer somewhere.  It should be a working plan that you can refer to when you need to.

The best way to make a business plan is to keep it simple (one or two pages should be all you need).

Certainly one of the best things you can do when starting an online business is to create a plan then stick with it.

Chapter 4 –

What Type of Businesses Can You Have

as an Online Business?

In this chapter, we will look at some of the more common types of online businesses that people are running. Keep in mind, the decision is really up to you as to what type of business you want to run online.

Marketing Business

This is one of the most common types of online businesses around. You can either run this business by exclusively marketing your own products, or by marketing those of other big budget companies. But this needs you to produce a visually striking web page that has all the necessary information and purchasing options on it for the products in question. In order for this business to be successful, it needs to be promoted effectively to potential customers via search engines, email or other sources. We will look at marketing in more depth in another chapter of this book.

Turnkey Internet Business

This is a very trendy type of business to have online. This is where you would purchase a website from an already established sector and then run the business on a web platform that is provided to you by the established business. In order to promote such an online business, there are many different methods that you could use, such as promoting individual products or services to your online customers.

Internet Services

This is a business where specific services are provided to online customers at a reasonable price. Such businesses are often set up according to a person’s professional expertise and will provide services to their customers in relation to this. The types of businesses that will come under this umbrella are online consultancies, computer software assistance, and hardware trouble shooting and even such things as how to start an online business.

Medical & Health Care Facility Services

This is where someone will set up a complete online pharmacy and the services related to this type of business will be offered to online customers. Such businesses will provide customers with medical consultancy, selling of medications and other medical charges. If you look further into this line of business, you will find that there are several medicalinstitutes who can franchise a person to run a virtual medical and health care facility for them.

But besides the ones mentioned above, there are many other kinds of online businesses around, such as entertainment websites, home decoration, dating, article writing, fitness, allergies, online chat and interaction and email servers are just some.  But no matter what type of online business (“niche”) it is you decide to get involved in, it is important to plan carefully and have the ability promote the business professionally over the internet.

Chapter 5 –

How to Go About Setting Up an Online Business

The best way of setting up an online business today is as follows:-

1.                   Choose a niche and then specialize in it.  Do not think that you are going to make big bucks by selling everything under the sun (unless you are using Ebay, but even this is getting more competitive today).

2.                   Choose or create a product.  You can either use affiliate products or create your own.

3.                   Probably one of the most important things to do when setting up an online business is to find a good name.  It should be short, easy to remember and reflect what your business actually does.  Your domain name is the name by which your online customers will remember you by.  A good domain name is one that is memorable, short and easy to spell.  There are many websites around offering domain names, and prices can start for less than $1.

4.                   Get your own website.  Do not go for a free page on some affiliate site, but get your own.  It is much easier to do than you think.  Get some hosting (there are plenty of companies on the web today offering their services).  Then buy a template system if you can not program (again take a look around the web and you will soon find plenty of companies offering web templates).  Now all you have to do is start learning how to use it.  However, if you are not technically minded then you will need to hire someone to handle all the technical aspects of your online business.  This could include such things as building your website for you, the handling of your website hosting and the setting up of any domain names that you may require.

5.                   Always look for a secure and reliable host service provider.  It is important that you examine the “uptime guarantee” that each service provider offers.  Also, analyze the physical infrastructure of where your online business will be stored.  But probably most important of all is that you should scrutinize the hosting providers “Back Up” and “Data Security” systems. This includes calculating how much time would be required to reinstall your online business if there was a complete infrastructure failure on the part of the hosting provider.  This will help you to calculate the least possible loss to your business if such a situation arises.

6.                   Build a list.  This is important so that you are able to repeatedly talk with visitors to your site.  It is important that you keep the visitors updated as to what is happening with your site. This also enables you to contact them numerous times regarding whatever offer(s) you wish to present them.

7.                   Look at the ways in which you will handle the payments made by your customers.  If you are selling an affiliate product, then this will not be a problem as the affiliate program will handle the payments for you.  However, if you are selling your own product, then you will have to set up your own payment processing system. This will be looked at more closely in another chapter of this book.

8.                   Look at the ways in which you will arrange for goods to be delivered to your customer if selling your own products.  You must look at local courier companies, as well as the postal service and find out which will be more cost effective for sending goods to customers.  Also, you will then need to decide on the pricing system for the sending of packages to your customer’s.  But it is important that you choose a shipping company who you know is going to be reliable.  Look especially at those companies who offer an online tracking system.

Chapter 6 –

How to Set Up an Online Business on a Budget

You have now decided to set up an online business, but your budget is very small, so how can you get going?

You could start off by looking for free domain names.  Because there are so many companies around who are now selling domain names, the market has become quite competitive.  But there are a few sites around that will register a domain for you at no charge.  However, there is a catch with some of them in that they will set themselves up as the administrator for your domain and then only transfer ownership to you after a set period of time for free or will charge you a small fee.

If you are going to be setting up and launching a website, but do not want to pay the $20-$40 a month that you can typically charged for hosting, then don’t.  There are plenty of places on the web today that will host your site for free.  But before you get too excited about this prospect, it is important to remember that there is a drawback to be had from using such places.  Most of these free host sites will place a banner at the top of your pages for allowing you to do this.  However, there are some web hosts around who do not charge you a fee or force you to have a banner on your site either.  While there are others who will remove the banners completely for a small fee each year, which is nothing compared to what you would pay to get someone to host your site for you each month.

What if you are someone who does not have their own product to sell, but still wants to make money online?  Then look no further than becoming an affiliate marketer.  This we will look at more closely in the next chapter of this book.

Chapter 7 –

Just What is Affiliate Marketing and Why Become an Affiliate Marketer?

Many times you will have seen previously in this book we have mentioned affiliate marketing as a great way of setting up an online business. During this chapter, we will provide a more in depth look at what it is exactly.

Affiliate Marketing is a method of promoting a product in which an affiliate is then rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, customer and/or sale provided through their efforts to the actual company selling the product.  The compensation or commission that an affiliate gets may be based on a certain value for each exposure, visit (pay per click), new customer (pay per lead), sale which is usually a percentage of the item sold (pay per sale or revenue share) or it may be a combination of any of these.

Many companies like to use affiliate marketing because they do not incur any marketing expenses unless the desired result is realized.

There are also some e-commerce sites around today which run their own affiliate programs, while others use third party services.  These provide intermediaries who will track traffic or sales that are referred to them from their various affiliates.  There are many businesses online today who owe much of their growth and success to the use of affiliate marketing.  It has been especially successful for small and midsize businesses on the internet.

We have now looked at what affiliate marketing is, now let us look at some reasons as why it is a good type of online business to set up.

No Production Costs

With an affiliate program, production costs are no longer an issue as the product has been developed and proven to be good.  Best of all, it has all come out of the merchant’s accounts and not yours.

Do not need a lot of money to set up.

All you will need is a desk, computer, internet connection and word processing software to get started.

Costs Involved

Normally it is free to join an affiliate program, and all the set up costs and shipping costs will be met by the merchant whose products you are selling.  Plus, as you do not need any where to store goods, this is another reason for joining an affiliate program.  So even

if you happen to live in a 1 bedroom apartment, you can still sell the biggest products going as an affiliate because all the goods are held by the merchant you are working as an affiliate for.

Choices

There are thousands of products and services that you can choose from.  So finding the right products for either a website you have already or one that you are planning to build is immense.

No need to have a Merchants Account

This can be a time consuming and costly expense for anyone setting up a business for the first time.  Certainly, it is even more so where an online business is concerned.  However, as an affiliate, the merchant you are selling the product for will bear all costs, as well as handle the processing of all payments.  So you never have to worry about any potential charge backs, fraudulent purchases or losing your merchant account completely as an affiliate.  Plus, no longer will you be concerned with collecting and storing names and addresses of customers along with their credit card details, as this is all done by the merchant who you are affiliated to.

Plus, no longer do you have to worry about dealing with awkward or nasty customers and their complaints.  This is down to the merchant to deal with.

Probably one of the best things about affiliate marketing is that you can make money while you sleep.

Another benefit to get into affiliate marketing is that if the product you chose isn’t making money, then you can just dump it.  Remove any links to the product and then start promoting another instead.  This is because there are no long term contracts which bind you to selling one particular product, so the risk to you is minimal.

If you work hard at affiliate marketing, then the potential to earn a good income is high.  It really depends on just how much you want it and how much effort you are willing to put in to the products you are trying to sell.

For an idea of just what kinds of products and services offer affiliate programs, check out Clickbank.com or ComissionJunction.com. Both of these sites are generally at the very top of most affiliate marketers’ lists.

Chapter 8 –

Is Using an Online Payment System a Good Decision for my Online Business?

There are many online payment services today which provide you with an alternative way to traditional payment methods.  So unlike banks and credit card companies, services such as PayPal and CheckFree no longer require a business to have a merchant account.  In fact, using services like this not only provides a quicker way for money to be paid online, but it is more secure than having someone sending you a check or cash.  This is because the funds are electronically transferred to your account with them in order to settle any transaction made.

Such services have become especially popular among those who use online auction sites (such as Ebay), but also many other online businesses are now beginning to see the advantages of these services as well.  However, what is important to know is how they work, and how to avoid any potential problems that may arise.

Such services use a relatively simple process in order to transfer money from one person to another.  What you need to do is set up an account providing enough information which should include your real name, email address and credit card or bank account details (which are used to verify your identity).  Then, in order for someone to pay you, they enter your email address and the amount of the transaction in question.  This is then paid into your account, and can either then be transferred to your bank account, or a check can be sent to you.

However, many of the payment services will charge a small fee in order to transfer funds.  For example, PayPal charges you up to 2.5% for each transfer that they make (but this all depends on the amount).  But what should be remembered is that these fees are probably less than what you would normally pay for a credit card merchant account.  Also, such services can be especially helpful when you need to arrange for small repetitive payments to be made to your account, such as affiliate rewards and commissions.

But there are some drawbacks to be had from using a payment service, and these are as follows:-

1.                  Many of them impose a daily or weekly limit on the amount of money that you send or receive.  So if you want to exceed these limits you may find yourself incurring an additional fee for a “business account” or “premiere account”.

1.                  These services are not banks, and therefore are not subject to strict banking regulations or protected by Federal Deposit Insurance.

2.                  Often these services provide their customers with less protection against fraud and abuse than many credit card companies offer.

3.                  Also, they are sometimes quick to freeze a customer’s account if they suspect fraudulent or other criminal activities are taking place.  They can be so quick sometimes that some customers have found that their account has been frozen for no apparent reason whatsoever.

It is important that before you sign up to any payment service, you read through their terms and conditions thoroughly.  Plus, also read through their terms of service agreement carefully.  It is important that you fully understand and accept the service’s dispute policy, limits on liability, their fee structure and any other rules or regulations that they may have.   It is also important that you do not keep too much money in your account, rather hold in it enough to conduct a few days of business and any unused funds should be transferred over to your regular bank account.

Below are just a few more payment services that you may want to look at further when setting up an online business account.

1.                      Authorize.net. This service processes credit card and checking account transactions.

2.                      BidPay.  This allows person to person payments, in which they accept a credit card payment from the payer and then send a money order through to the payee.

3.                      BillPoint.  This also allows person to person payments, but from a credit card.  Originally this system was being targeted specifically at Ebay customers.

4.                      E-Gold.  This allows the payment in gold (silver, platinum or palladium) to be made from one customer to another using an account based system.

5.                      PayPal.  This is probably the most well known of payment services, and it allows user to user payments.  This is where a payer uses a credit card to pay money into another user’s account.  Or, in fact, they can use money they already have in that account in order to pay for the goods they have purchased.

6.                      World Pay.  This service provides both an internet merchant account, and payment processing service in one package.

Chapter 9 –

How do You Go About Marketing Your Online Business?

In the final chapter of this book, we will look at various ways in which you can market your online business.  The reason for marketing an online business is in order to get that all important traffic to visit your site.  This traffic consists of visitors, who will then become your customers and start purchasing your product or service from you.

The first thing you need to do is learn how to optimize your website so that it will start getting ranked in the top three search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN.  The sooner you do this the faster it will get ranked and the sooner the traffic will start to appear at it.  A great way of doing this is by investing in either a book, E-book or Ecourse on how to optimize your site, or you could try some of the following methods instead.  The best way in which you can optimize your website is by ensuring you have back links to your site.  This is where you have links to your site placed on other sites through various different methods.  Below we provide you with some that are useful in order to get those all important back links to your website.

Link Exchanges

This is where you exchange links with other websites that have complimentary products or services to your own.  It will not only give you direct traffic from the link, but will help to increase your pursuit for getting ranked higher in search engines.

Write Articles

It is important that the articles you write are interesting and full of useful information regarding your niche.  This is probably one of the best ways around for gaining more traffic to your website.  Not only is it free, as there are many article sites around where you can have your articles published for free, but each article you have published will be providing a link back to your site.  This means that you are helping to gain even higher rankings where search engines are concerned.  When writing an article, you should always include information about you, the author (this will usually be in a resource box at the bottom of your article), and do not forget to include that all important link to your own website.

By distributing to numerous article sites, you are not only gaining traffic (as when someone sees it on there, they will click on your link if they like what they saw), but also you get a link that points directly back to your site, which the search engines use to rank sites.

However, if you are someone who dislikes writing, then you could always look at using a ghostwriter.  There are many sites around today who offer ghostwriting services, but when initially setting up an online business, this may not be an expense that you want to incur.

Online Forums

When using these, do not forget to include your signature line at the end of any comments that you make, as this will then provide a further link back to your site. The best bet is to stick to forums that are on the same topic as what you are trying to sell. Not only will you be learning about your potential customer’s desires, but you’ll be able to establish yourself as an expert in the field.

Blogs

Blogs are a great way of ensuring you get back links to your site.  So why not start a blog on your website?  But ensure that you post to your blog several times a week and think of it as news page for your site.  Certainly blogging has become the in thing at the moment on the web.  You only have to do a quick search to find out just how many there are.

Conclusion

So hopefully the information that has been provided for you in this book will be setting you on your way to starting your first online business.

However, what you should remember is the costs of running an online business are considerably reduced.  This is because you do not actually need an office…you can work from home.  No need to employ others and all you need to get started is a good computer and good internet connection.

But there are some problems that you do not get with a traditional business, such as hackers, viruses, websites going down and data preservation.

However, the most important aspect of any online business is to generate traffic to your site.  There is no point in you having a great product if nobody knows about it.  So get a strategy in place which will generate the traffic required to bring in those all important visitors, and then sales to your site.

So the best way of starting any kind of online business is to sit down and write up a plan.  Once you have done this, then you can start looking at all the steps that have been shown in the book on how to start an online business!

Good luck with your future online ventures!

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