The Importance of Good Customer Service

There's been a lot written about customer service recently (and, in particular, about those companies that have dealt badly with customers via Twitter).  And this led me to think about my own experience of customer service in the past two weeks, with two separate companies.

 The first is a clothes manufacturer - Viyella.  I have been wearing Viyella clothes since my early twenties.  I have bought numerous skirts, blouses, suits and jumpers with the Viyella label and I've loved them all - until recently when I bought a skirt from their website.  Now, my experience of Viyella has always been that the clothes fit well, look good and are hard-wearing.  Not so this new one! 

I discovered that not only did the skirt crease very easily but it was well-nigh impossible to get those creases out on the iron setting suggested.  What's more, the skirt marked at the slightest thing.  With other skirts, a splash of something or other can usually be wiped off or sponged out easily.  This skirt had to be put in the washing machine.  On one occasion I hand washed it and, since there was a mark on it, I gave it a gentle rub.  Once it was dry, I was horrified to see that the section I'd rubbed had lost some of its surface and looked different from the surrounding area.

I emailed the Viyella helpdesk, saying how disappointed I was with the skirt.  The reply was somewhat perfunctory and said "I am sorry to hear of your disappointment with your Tencel Skirt.  Thank you for notifying us of this issue.  I would recommend taking the Skirt into your local Viyella Store along with any purchase information you can supply so they can advise you further."  (Tencel is the name of the fabric, but what 'skirt' had done to merit a capital letter I have no idea!)

I was less than pleased with this.  The reason I buy online is because I don't have a local Viyella store.  I therefore had to make a special journey to the nearest store, which is some twenty miles away.  I was interested, however, in what sort of 'advice' they might give me.  Throw it in the bin, perhaps?

The manager of the store looked at the skirt and listened to my complaint.  Well, she said, Tencel does crease - it's similar to viscose.  Now, viscose is a favourite fabric of mine and, yes, it does crease - but it's also very easy to get those creases out with light ironing.  So I wasn't impressed by that.  Then she told me that the skirt could be sent off for examination but that would take about a month after which I might receive a refund - or I might just be told that I'd washed it on the wrong setting (which I hadn't) or done something else wrong.  The alternative was to take the value of the skirt in gift tokens which I could spend on something else.  This seemed to be the lesser of two evils and I agreed to it.  

So I now have Viyella gift tokens which I discovered later I can't spend online, meaning that I have to wait until I'm in the vicinity of a Viyella store with the time to browse.  And I'm left feeling rather jaded.  Because I've bought Viyella for so many years, it will not stop me buying Viyella in the future, but I think I'll be rather more careful and perhaps will not buy as much.  If I'd been a new customer, I think this experience would have put me off buying Viyella entirely.

Compare this experience with what happened when I returned an Avon product.  I buy Avon from time to time from a local representative and, some months ago, had bought some skin cream which, I discovered, made my eyes sting when I used it.  I mentioned this to the Avon rep and, immediately, she arranged to send it back and get me a refund.  It didn't matter that I'd had it for a couple of months and there was no suggestion that I might not be using it 'properly'.  Avon wanted me to be happy . . . and I was.  This month I've ordered quite a lot from the catalogue, secure in the knowledge that if anything's not right, I can return it.

So, from clothes and makeup to internet marketing.  Whatever product we're selling, I believe it's vital to ensure that the customer is happy.  Because a happy customer will return and buy again.  And that's why I like the 'no quibble guarantee' that a lot of people offer.  It results in my buying (and keeping) a lot more than I might otherwise do.  I never buy anything without a guarantee, following an experience a couple of years ago when I spent £60 on an ebook that purported to contain a successful marketing system that 'you have never come across before'.  It turned out to be no such thing and was simply an introduction to joint ventures.  I emailed to complain and ask for a refund but didn't even receive a reply.

Of course, there will always be people who will buy our products, read them or watch them, and then ask for a refund.  Some of them will be genuine - the product truly doesn't meet their needs - and some won't.  But if we offer a no-quibble guarantee, the chances are that the first group will buy from us again - and no one will be left with a feeling of dissatisfaction.

Following Your Passion

You're going to have to trust me on this one, because I can't remember where I read it or who said it, but a while back I read a quote from a respected internet marketer.  And he said that all the really successful internet marketers of his acquaintance had followed their passions.  They hadn't set out to find a way to make a great deal of money, they'd just done something they loved doing.  And, that way, the long hours of work involved in getting a successful business off the ground weren't a chore but simply a way for them to get more involved in the subjects that really interested them.

I've been thinking about this recently because I've started on a new project, quite unconnected with internet marketing.  I'm setting up a website around a subject that has been a hobby of mine for a good number of years and I'm finding all the research and the work involved quite exciting.

And one thing that I've become aware of is that it's much more fun than the work I've been doing (and am still doing) in the field of internet marketing and social media.  Now, don't get me wrong, I find internet marketing very interesting and challenging . . . but I'm not passionate about it the way I am about this hobby.  I wouldn't want my waking hours to be filled with internet marketing and nothing else . . . whereas the hobby?  Well, perhaps.

So is it a mistake to work in a niche that you're not passionate about?  No, I don't think so.  But I suspect that it makes it more difficult to stick with it.  On the other hand, there may be problems with working in a niche that one is passionate about.  I remember talking to a friend who is an antique dealer and she told me that the most difficult thing she found about the business was stopping herself from keeping everything she bought.  She had a fine collection of antiques herself but every time she bought something beautiful for her stock, she was tempted to add it to her collection rather than selling it.  So she had to keep reminding herself why she was buying a piece.  Similarly, if we're following our passion, we need to keep our eye on the ball - remember why we're doing what we're doing.  If it's just for our own entertainment then it's fine to spend hours reading interesting articles and researching stuff that doesn't really take us any further.  But if we're basing a business on it, passion isn't enough.  There's got to be discipline involved as well.

But even then, we could run into trouble.  Another story from the antiques world springs to mind.  Some years ago I was watching the Antiques Roadshow on television.  A chap had brought along a huge copper item . . . I think it was a Victorian boiler or something of the sort.  He had a small collection of these and was hugely proud of this one.  The expert said he'd never seen one like it and had no idea what sort of value it had.  To which the owner replied "Of course, it's a collector's item, isn't it."  The expert smiled and said "Well I've only ever met one person who collects these - and that's you."  No matter how passionate we are about a subject, if we're the only person interested, there's no way we can make a business out of it.

So to anyone starting out and thinking about which niche to choose, I offer the advice that many have given before me: go with your passion, remember your goals, and check that you've got a potential audience.  If you do that, chances are that you'll have fun  . . . and you could well be successful too!

A Useful Infographic on Content Marketing

I thought this was an interesting infographic - from the Content Plus website:

What's in a (Newsletter) Headline?

As I've mentioned before, I produce a weekly newsletter which is made up of the most interesting articles I've found on the internet during the previous week - usually around 20 of them.  Of course, although all the people I send it to are on my mailing list, not all of them open the newsletter each week.  But what puzzles me is why some subject lines seem to work better than others.

Admittedly, some of the fluctuation in opening rates may be due to other factors - people being too busy to read it, or having received a large number of emails that day - but the subject line has got to be a major factor.  So I've been trying to see what it is that appeals to my readers.

The newsletters seem to fall into three groups . . . one in which a lot of people open it, one in which a moderate number open it, and one in which not many people open it.  But what puzzles me is the seeming crossover between the groups in the actual subject matter.

For example, "How to Succeed . . . and Other Useful Information" is my best scoring headline to date.  But "How to Get Your Internet Business Off to a Good Start in 2013!" had the lowest opening rate.  And yet, to me, the titles are not dissimilar.  Perhaps the fact that the second one came out soon after Christmas had something to do with it, but it certainly seems that "how to succeed" rang more bells than the more specific "get your business off to a good start".  So . . . lesson one, the use of the words 'succeed' and 'success' may influence someone to open an email.

In the 'low openers' group was "The power of Twitter & MySpace; Effective Marketing Strategies; Designing a Great Website . . . & more" which is the longest headline I've used.  Certainly it's way over the 55 characters which this article says is the most that one should have in a headline.  And perhaps that's lesson two.

As far as the subjects covered are concerned, "SEO" appears only in the top scorers, "Pinterest" in the top and middle groups, "Social media marketing" in the middle and bottom, and "Blogging" in all three.  Obviously, the subjects in the headline depend on the articles I've found that week.  And here it gets more puzzling.  I keep a record of the number of clicks on each article within the newsletter . . . and the high scorers don't tally with the seemingly high scoring subject lines . . . apart from articles on Pinterest.  "Pinterest For Business Has Arrived! 7 Reasons To Jump Onboard" was one of the most popular items so far, but other than that there seems to be no pattern.

So, what do I think I've learned from this analysis?  Perhaps the following:

• 'success' or 'succeed' in a headline may induce people to open the email
• headlines need to be short - long ones may be ignored
• SEO and Pinterest seem to be subjects that people want to read about
• writing headlines is not easy!

There's a lot of interesting stuff being produced online every week and I enjoy sharing what I find.  But am I getting the subject mix right?  Should I try to find more on SEO, I wonder?

So may I ask you, whether you subscribe to my newsletter or not, to leave a comment and let me know which subjects in particular would get you to open a newsletter . . . SEO, Pinterest, social media, marketing strategies, content marketing, affiliate marketing . . . or something else entirely.

And if you don't subscribe and would like to, you can sign up by clicking HERE. 

Seven Deadly Internet Marketing Mistakes

I have started my spring cleaning.  I don't have a lot of time for it, but a half hour here and there mounts up and I hope that the house will be pristine by the time spring arrives.  At the moment, I'm working on my study.  I've turned out the cupboards and the filing cabinets, and sorted through everything, and several large sacks full of paper have been sent off for recycling.  I've discovered three sets of headphones that I didn't know I had and more ball point pens and blocks of post-it notes than you can shake a stick at.

In amongst all the stuff on my desk were several spiral bound notebooks containing notes that I've taken at various conferences, workshops and online tutorials, and that I'd never got round to typing up.  So I spent a couple of afternoons doing that.  Most of the sets of notes said where they'd come from but there was one with no attribution.  However, it contained some very good advice and so I'm going to share it here and ask the person who originally came up with this list to forgive me for not acknowledging my source.

The list is of seven deadly internet marketing mistakes, and I offer them here with my thoughts on each:

1.  Thinking you’re not good enough. 
It's easy to do.  We come into internet marketing feeling very confident, looking at all the people who have been successful, thinking we know just how to do it and how to make money.  And then we hit obstacles that throw us off course or we just fail to make money.  And we lose confidence.  This is the point at which many people will give up.  But, in the time I've been in internet marketing, I've come to realise that the trick is to keep going.  Very few people make money overnight.  With some it can take two or three years before they have a decent income.  The important thing is not to lose faith in yourself.  Learn from your mistakes and you'll only get better.

2.  Forgetting what marketing is.
The person from whom this list originally came - let's call him X - says it’s not about creating products but, rather, about finding a group of people with a problem and giving them a solution.  It's the old saying about 'build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door".  Concentrating on producing something that interests you but that no one else wants is a sure way to fail.

3.  Being a magpie. 
You don’t need to know everything or do everything says X.  But it's a temptation and it's easy to get distracted.  We need to look at what we're doing and ask is it relevant?  If it isn't, stop doing it!  This isn't to say that we shouldn't try doing new things - because how else would we find out what we're good at - but it's a mistake to try them all out at once. 

4.  Listening to people who know less than you do
A lot of people who go into internet marketing find that their friends and family, not quite understanding what it is that they are doing, can be rather disparaging.  I remember Yanik Silver telling a story about when he was first getting started, selling information products.  His father looked at some of these and asked "And people actually pay you for this bullshit?"  Fortunately, Yanik was confident enough not to be undermined.  But comments such as "Why are you wasting your time on that?" can be very discouraging, especially when you're first starting.  A conscious decision has to be made not to listen to such criticism.

5.  Carving your own path rather than learning from the experts.
I remember Andrew Reynolds saying that, when he decided to become an entrepreneur, he went to a course and then he did exactly what the man at the front of the room had told him to do.  Mostly, this is sound advice.  But I have been to a few seminars where it wasn't the case because the information offered was out of date or was presented in a confused or confusing way.  Online or downloadable courses that offer you lifetime access to updates will get over the first problem.  (I have at various times bought courses from Armand Morin and Ryan Deiss in the knowledge that I'll will be informed of any changes in the system made necessary by the ever-changing nature of the internet.)  It's also important to ensure that the person who is teaching you really is an expert and that the system he is expounding has not only made him money but other people as well.
That said, I believe that there's always room for improvement.  Once you've copied somebody's system and it's worked for you, then you can start experimenting.  You may find that a few minor changes make it work better . . . or you may, indeed, find that the original was best.

6.  Living in a cave. 
 Internet marketing is about interaction with other people.  'X' stressed the importance of going to events and courses and discussing what works (and what doesn't) with other people.  One of the Ryan Deiss courses that I invested in fairly recently (and which I shall write about in due course) has the advantage of an online forum where people who have done the training can discuss how it's going for them and learn from each other.  If you're looking for somewhere to discuss your own marketing strategies and to ask questions, try Warrior Forum.

7.  Chasing the money. 
This clouds your vision, says X, and should not be your primary focus.  Sometimes you need to make less money to help people solve problems.  Admittedly, a lot of people have been successful in internet marketing simply because - thanks to redundancy or other problems - they have know that they had to.  But a lot of internet marketing is about service - offering products that people need and, as Armand Morin always stresses, over-delivering, giving them more value for money than they expected.  In this way, you will build a faithful following who will buy from you over and over again.  But if you concentrate on the money, you may tend to overprice your products which, in the long run, will result in you making less money, not more.

Festive Spirit - a Personal View

Christmas is just two weeks off . . . although the shops have been displaying Christmas goods since September (and, in some cases, August).  Christmas lights have been switched on - and in one English town, at least, there were complaints at the poor quality of the display.  One of our local superstores has already run out of Christmas trees.  People are replenishing their drinks cupboards, parents are spending huge sums on whatever the latest craze is that the kids are demanding, and numerous presents are being bought  that, once Christmas is over, will be consigned to the bottom of a drawer or advertised for sale in the local paper.

Now, I am not a Christian, so I'm not coming at this from a faith-based angle.  But, even so, I find all the commercialism of Christmas rather sad.  Yes, it's great to buy presents for those you love . . . but somehow each year there seems to be a compulsion to spend more and more.  And giving things isn't the only way to show love.

Because, as a non-Christian, I believe that Christmas is about celebrating the birth of someone whose mission was to bring more love into the world.  I'm a great admirer of the Salvation Army whose idea of a good Christmas is to ensure that lonely elderly people and homeless people have a hot Christmas dinner and a happy day, feeling wanted and cared for.

And I'm also a great admirer of the entrepreneur Andrew Reynolds.  Not because he's a self-made multi-millionaire (although that, in itself, is admirable) and not just because of his enthusiasm in encouraging others to follow in his footsteps.  But simply because he is a great philanthropist and works tirelessly for charities including Great Ormond Street Hospital and the Make A Wish Foundation and has helped many people in South Africa to achieve a better standard of life that, without his help, would have been unattainable.

But there is no doubt in my mind that internet marketing can encourage greed . . . think of the marketers who sell worthless packages, or who don't offer a money-back guarantee, and the retail companies and eBay sellers who sell substandard goods.  There are so many people trying to make a living through the internet, there is so much competition, that I feel that it's very easy to lose sight of what it's all about.  Because, as one of my other marketing 'favourites', Armand Morin, always stresses, it's not just about making money, it's about providing value.

And so, when I'm feeling jaded about the internet, it's good to be reminded of how it can bring people together and make life easier.  And when that reminder has a Christmas theme, so much the better.  I first saw this YouTube video last Christmas and loved it then.  Not everyone does, and if you don't like it, then I apologise.  But if you haven't seen it, please have a look at the Digital Story of the Nativity.

It's not easy to find time to read everything

There is a huge amount published every week on the internet on the subject of internet marketing, affiliate marketing, using social networks, blogging . . . and the all the paraphernalia of making money online.  Some of what's written is interesting, some is informative, some is both interesting and informative. 

I read a lot of it and, as you'll know if you read this blog regularly, I like to share things that I find helpful.  So about three months ago, I started to compile a weekly newsletter containing twenty of so of the stories and articles that had caught my eye during the past seven days.  I offered it to the people who were already on my list and, three months on, more people are reading it each week.

I haven't advertised it at all but the response I've had to it has now prompted me to mention it here in case any of the readers of this blog would like to subscribe to it.  It's free and all you need to do is click here and then fill in your name and email address on the form and click 'sign up'.

Recent articles have included:

• 5 easy ideas for increasing blog traffic
• 7 reasons to join Pinterest for Business
• A report on the new Facebook purchase tracking tool
• The secrets behind great business websites
• Best practices for SEO content writing
• Making money with social media
• 6 Insider Secrets to a Winning Affiliate Marketing Program
• How to Build an Online Business From Scratch
• 10 reasons for using videos for marketing
• How to Get Started with Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest
• 10 ecommerce turn-offs to avoid
• Why businesses fail online
• How to make your online branding brilliant

The Sphinx House Newsletter comes out every Monday.

Why Linkedin Worries Me

I joined Linkedin a while back.  Someone suggested it was a useful way of making business contacts.  He also suggested that I put myself on the Open Networker listing.  This means that I'm happy to connect with anyone who invites me to do so. 

Since I became a member I've linked to over 3000 people, some of whom share my interests.  But, overall, I've wondered about the value, for me personally, of being a member.  I can understand that for anyone who is job-seeking or wanting to make contacts within a specific industry, it can be useful.  But I'm self employed, both as a counsellor and in running my internet marketing business, and that's quite a different kettle of fish.

But what has worried me recently is that people have started to 'endorse' me for my 'skills and expertise'.  I have been endorsed as a doctor, writer, broadcaster, hypnotherapist, public speaker, internet marketer and integrative counsellor by several people who have never met me and don't know me from Adam!

Now, this is very kind of them, and I appreciate the gesture.  But what sort of message is it giving to others?  It implies, surely, that these people know me and trust me.  But, for all they know, I might have made it all up  . . . I might be a book-keeper or an insurance salesman or a ballet dancer just playing with an imaginary alter ego.  (Actually, if anyone's worried about it, I am exactly what I say I am on Linkedin.)

So how valuable can Linkedin be for making genuine and trustworthy business contacts which, as I understand it, is the whole point of the website?  I'm beginning to wonder.

What Do We Need to Do to Get Customers to Trust Us?

It's a common complaint in the world of internet marketing . . . that there are people out there selling the "secrets" of their own methods - without having had any success with them themselves.  I've been amused recently by a number of tweets on Twitter that proclaim the writer's excitement at being able to get thousands of new followers in a very short space of time.  The implication is that they have tried it and it works.  Out of curiosity I looked at the number of people following these accounts.  Not one had more than a few thousand.  Two which proclaimed "get 10,000 followers today" had, respectively, 2247 and 3350.  Which begs the question, if it works then why haven't you used it.  And, if it doesn't, why are you advertising it?

In my life outside internet marketing, I work as a counsellor where 'congruence' or authenticity is very important.  We don't hide behind a facade because we can't help clients if they don't trust us. Similarly, I believe that in internet marketing we need to prove to our customers that we are trustworthy.  If you're buying a high price item, would you rather buy it from someone you've dealt with before and whom you trust or from someone you've never heard of?

But how do we build this trust?  Well, obviously, first of all, by not making false claims.  And secondly by being absolutely open and honest in our dealings.  Offer a money-back guarantee if the customer isn't satisfied - and make it a no-quibble guarantee, even on downloadable items that can't be returned.  Yes, certainly, a few people will rip you off by asking for their money back when they intend to use the product, but they are few and far between and offering a guarantee will mean you’ll gain far more than you’ll lose.

Another way to build trust is to give good value (something that I was writing about a couple of posts ago).  It's all about perceived value, which is why so many internet marketers offer 'free bonuses' with products.  Now I'm not sure about bonuses.  Obviously, it’s important to offer bonuses that are totally relevant to the product.  But I believe that it’s equally important that they don’t appear to be just a continuation of the main product because otherwise the prospective customer may wonder why they’ve been offered separately.  In such a case,  the bonuses could actually have a negative effect, diminishing the value of the product itself.  After all, you wouldn’t expect to buy a book and find that the last chapter was being offered as a ‘free bonus’.  

I also believe that it’s very important to appear professional.  This doesn’t mean to pretend we have more experience than we actually have but, rather, not to make elementary mistakes that set people to wondering exactly how much we do know about the subject.  So, for me, it’s vital to check spelling, punctuation and grammar.  If I’m irritated by the typos and the poor grammar on a sales page, I’m not going to want to buy the book it’s trying to sell.  Similarly, the page needs to be well formatted.  WordPress themes have made it so easy to construct a good-looking website that anything less than that can appear amateurish.

And finally, I believe that it’s very important to communicate with customers.  If they have a question, answer it.  If they’re not sure how to use a piece of software you’ve sold them, explain.  Let them know that you (or your staff) are real people who understand their needs and will always  give good service.  This has always been how small businesses have built up a loyal customer base and, as far as I can see, whether it’s a bricks and mortar business or one that’s online makes no difference at all.

Are We Losing Sight of the Importance of Good Value?

I went to a car boot fair this morning.  It's a large one and a lot of the stallholders are antique dealers who use the fair to sell off their less valuable or smaller pieces.  I was talking to one of the dealers who had some nice vintage glass.  He was bemoaning the fact that the distinctions between local prices and international prices are being blurred by so much being sold on eBay.  It reminded me of the Oscar Wilde quote about the cynic, who is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.  

And that, in turn, got me thinking about the cost of the courses and software and so on that we sell as internet marketers.  I have noticed that there are some marketers who charge the same price for pretty well everything they produce  . . . it's all £197 or £247 or whatever.  (I remember hearing a year or two back that someone had actually done a trial and found that things sold better if the price ended with a seven rather than a nine, say, or a zero.  Go figure!)

And, certainly, I have heard it suggested that, if you're producing a new product, you should look to see what other people are charging for their products and price yours accordingly.  Now, in one way, this is sensible - you don't want to charge £300 if everyone else is charging £50 for a very similar product.  Nor would you want to undersell yourself and charge too little compared with similar items.  But I wonder whether, in all this, we are losing sight of the importance of quality and value.  If our product is genuinely better than everything else available, should we not charge more?  On the other hand, should we not make an effort to be aware of the shortcomings of our products in order to avoid charging more than they're worth?

I believe that some products being sold online are greatly overpriced.  I've written recently about the cost of buying Camtasia compared with the low cost of a subscription to Screencast-o-Matic.  I have no personal experience of Camtasia but certainly some reviewers seem to think it's not worth the £299 price tag.  On the other hand, I think there are some pieces of software that are genuinely worth their high prices.  Adobe Photoshop, for example, retails at around £500 but it can do things that (as far as I'm aware) other photo editing software doesn't.  I have used it myself and, for someone who does a lot of work with photos and graphics, I think it's worth every penny.

Similarly, I have seen internet marketing and other courses which, while useful and informative, are - to my mind - not worth anything like the £297 being charged for them.  I have seen single instructional DVDs that I would happily pay £8 or £10 for but not the £20 to £25 being asked by some sellers.  Conversely, I have bought courses from some people (such as Armand Morin) which, despite being pricey, have been such good value that I've gone back again and again for more.   

And that, surely, is what it should be about - offering good value to our customers so that they return time and time again.  It's all very well learning about the 'funnel' - lure them in with an inexpensive product and then promote increasingly expensive ones over a period of time - but if the first product is rubbish, they're not going to come back, no matter how cheap it was.

This, of course, is one of the problems with affiliate marketing.  We have to promote the product at the prescribed price and, if we want to be sure that it's worth the money, we have to buy it first and spend time reading it or watching it.  So although producing our own products can be hard work and time-consuming, it does give us much more control.  In the past I've sold my own products and I've sold other people's and, shortly, I'm hoping to launch a website where I can offer a range of quality products at  reasonable prices.  Value is everything in this business.  And, as Armand Morin - one of the most successful internet marketers ever - always teaches, give them more than they've paid for and they'll buy from you again and again.

What do We Have to do to Get People to Read Our Sales Letters?

I've been thinking about what it is that makes us read things . . . or, more specifically, what makes me read things.  I am at the moment reading a novel which is incredibly badly written - jam packed with cliches, the characters cardboard cut-outs, and a few real howlers (such as a shape being described as "an eight sided octagon" - presumably to distinguish it from an eight-sided square!).  But what is truly amazing is not how badly written it is, but the fact that I'm over three-quarters of the way through it.  So, why?  Why am I wasting my time when there are so many better books around.  And the answer is simple . . . it's an extremely good story-line and I want to know what happens.

Now, whether this is transferrable to the 'genre' of sales letters is debatable - but something tells me that, even if you're not an expert writer, it should be possible to hold the reader's interest for something that is, after all, a great deal shorter than a 500 page novel.  However, I'm all too well aware that I very rarely read my way through a long sales letter.  Either I lose interest halfway through or else I cut to the chase and scroll to the bottom to find out how much it is.  So my first rule of sales letter writing is: It's Got to be Short!

And, let's face it, most sales letters seem to be remarkably repetitive.  I may not have the most retentive memory in the world, but I can remember things from one paragraph to the next and if I'm told the same thing three times in quick succession, I'm going to stop reading.  Again, to give this novel its due (and, no, I'm not going to tell you its title!), it doesn't veer away from the action.  The author keeps the story line going . . . his eye is firmly on the ball, if not on his grammar.

OK, so a letter needs to be short, concise and to the point.  What else can we learn from this novel?  Well, because it's so badly written, it tends to be quite funny in places (I laughed out loud at the octagon).  And a bit of humour never comes amiss, I think.  I was looking, this morning, at an internet marketing website, and there was an article with the fairly dreary title of "The growth and evolution of the performance marketing industry".  What drew me to read the article, though, was the accompanying graphic.  At first glance, it looked exactly like the London Underground map.  But on closer inspection, the names of stations had been replaced with 'Social Media', 'Blog', 'Google', 'Newsletters', 'Adsense', 'Photosharing' and other keywords relevant to internet marketing.  I thought it was clever and amusing - and, as a result, I read the article.

Now, internet guru Jo Han Mok says "When you’re writing headlines, don’t attempt to be cute This is not the place for humour."  And, obviously, that's true.  You've only got a limited number of words for your headline and they've got to be hard-hitting.  But if you can write the actual letter in a witty way, the reader will enjoy it and will, for the moment, lose sight of the fact that you're trying to sell something . . . and thus (we hope) will be much more likely to read to the end.

Perhaps it's just about expressing why you love the product you're selling and letting the reader share in your enjoyment.  But please don't think I'm advocating great long screeds about how you've made X number of dollars and bought Y number of houses and Z number of cars.  I don't know about you, but when someone starts bragging about his earnings, I lose interest.  Because, as it always says at the bottom of the letter in very, very small type, the fact that he made zillions is no guarantee that I'll make any money at all.  I don't want to know what it's done for him - I want to know what it can do for me.

So . . . that's my ideal sales letter . . . short, concise, witty, readable and focussed on the buyer and not the seller.  And I suppose the fact that it's really quite difficult to produce such a letter is why so many people employ professional copywriters.  However, those of you who know my high opinion of Armand Morin, will not be surprised if, at this point, I mention his new WordPress Sales Letter Plugin which, I first mentioned here on June 7th.  If you can't afford a copywriter this, to my mind, is the next best thing.  And, even if you can, this is a whole lot cheaper!  The great thing about it is that it comes with built-in ideas for headlines, introductions, closing statements and so on which can be modified according to your needs.  So you don't have to worry about the actual construction of the piece because it offers the bones of the letter and all you have to do is to flesh out with a little humour and a lot of enthusiasm!

Coming Back for More - the Importance of Recurring Income

If you've been interested in internet marketing for any length of time,  you'll be familiar with the concept of back-end products - the idea that you start off by selling new customers something inexpensive in the hope that they will become loyal to you and buy more and more expensive products as time goes on.  Because, as the gurus are always quick to point out, you're never going to make a fortune from selling just one-off products at $29 each.  This is one reason, of course, why it's important to choose your products wisely (and, if you're an affiliate, to check them out for yourself before trying to sell them).  A dissatisfied customer who thought that the $29 product was poor value will not go on to buy a $97 product from the same seller.

Of course, no matter how good your products, there will be some customers who'll only buy once - for whatever reason.  Maybe the first product worked so well they've decided they don't need anything else.  Or perhaps they've lost interest in the subject.  Or it could just be that they don't have the money to spare.  So, while it should be possible to continue to get further orders from a list of customers to whom you've sold good value stuff, there are also other sources of recurring income that are worth considering.

The first of these is the newsletter - produced either online or published in the traditional way and sent through the mail.  They seem to work best in the fields, such as investment, where things are constantly changing and where people are looking for easy ways to keep up to date.  How much is charged for a newsletter varies from publisher to publisher.  Some on the subject of internet marketing cost $47 or even $97 a month, so the opportunity for making a good income is high.  However, unless you, personally, have all the necessary information at your fingertips and have the time and dedication to write about it for a monthly deadline, producing a newsletter entails the recruitment of experts and writers, who would need to be paid.

A less time-consuming (at least in the long run) and more cost-effective way to achieve a recurring income is to produce a training course of some sort.  Internet gurus are fond of pointing out that, while people may balk at paying $50 for a book which will teach them a new skill, they will often be happy to pay $20 a month for a course which is, in effect, that book broken down into bite-sized chunks.  Maybe it’s because it makes the information more accessible or because they feel that it’s more interactive but it certainly seems that, if you have the knowledge, it’s much better to write a course than a book. 

But better than either of these, to my way of thinking, is the membership site.  Certainly it will take some time to set up, and you need to invest in the appropriate software but it could end up running itself on all but the technical side.  I’m thinking here of a site that I belong to.  It was originally set up in 2002 by a woman in Australia, who wanted to talk about a subject that she was particularly interested in.  Over the past ten years it has grown steadily and now has 27,500 members.  Admittedly, not all of these are subscribers but, since the best parts of the site can only be accessed by those who have taken out a subscription, many of the twenty seven and a half thousand will be paying the $20 or so a year that it costs to join. 

There are three things that I consider to be very clever about this site.  First, the subscription is low and therefore affordable for most people.  Secondly, quite a bit of the site is accessible to non-paying members who grow to enjoy it and then want to see what it is that they’re missing on the rest of the site.  And thirdly, there’s a forum where members can discuss things related to the topic of the site - and, in the ‘chat’ section, anything else that they want to.  This has resulted in many people becoming friends (and, yes, I have met up with quite a few face to face in the seven years that I’ve been a member) and so engenders a loyalty to the site.  And, since the forum is now the focal point of the site (with, at the time of writing, over 150,000 threads and just under three million posts) it is the members themselves, rather than the site owner, who create the content.  Now, I’m not saying that any of this was planned by the site owner at the outset, but if you’re looking for a source of recurring income and you’re interested in a particular subject or hobby, this membership site could provide a worthy model to copy.

Why We Need Multiple Mentors

I have a friend who's an antique dealer.  She buys a lot of her stock at auction, but she also spends time every week going round antique fairs and exploring other people's shops.  And sometimes she finds some amazing bargains.  When she first told me about some of the things she'd bought from other dealers - and about the profits she'd made - I was astonished.  How come, I asked, that the people she'd bought from had priced the items at so much less than they were worth?  Simple, she replied - antiques is an enormous area and nobody can know everything about it.

It's the same, these days, with internet marketing.  Time was that you could buy one person's course on how to make money online and it would be much the same as everybody else's course.  It would teach the fundamentals - how to write a sales page, how to create a product, and how to drive traffic to your website by exchanging links with similar sites.  Then there came a point when not only was it getting much harder to exchange links but the links themselves no longer had the SEO value that they once had.  So along came the courses on article marketing and press releases.  And how to use Google adwords and other pay-per-click advertising.  Then backlinking became the thing to do - until recently when Google started to crack down on what it called 'unnatural linking' (see my post of April 7th).  And, of course, in recent times we've had the development of bookmarking and blogging and social networking - and while there are a lot of gurus out there who know a huge amount about how to make money online, I don't believe that any of them knows it all.  And they freely admit that they don't go to each others' seminars just because they're good friends . . . they go to learn from each other.

Now, if you've been reading my blog, you'll know that I'm an enormous fan of Armand Morin.  His products range from the amazingly comprehensive Internet Marketing Explained down to his free Internet Marketing Newsletter.  And I have learned stuff from him that I've never heard mentioned anywhere else.  But there are gaps - I don't think he yet has a course on how to use Twitter, Pinterest and other forms of social networking.  And it's possible that he may never produce one because it's not an area that he uses very much himself.  However, there are other people who are experts in the field, such as Melanie Duncan, whose 'Power of Pinning' course is based on her own successes using Pinterest, and Mili Ponce who has been called 'the Queen of Twitter'.

But it's not just to fill in the gaps that we need a multiplicity of mentors.  Sometimes they don't get it right.   For example, Armand Morin's FAST (Facebook Ad Secret Training) course works.  I've tried it and I have no doubt whatsoever that he is teaching here the best way to use Facebook advertising.  But recently I heard another guru talking about how to use Facebook ads.  And several of the things that he recommended were things that Armand had said NOT to do (and had explained why).   I'm sure that, if I had followed the suggestions of the second guru, it would not have been disastrous but I'm equally sure that I would not have got the excellent results I achieved from following FAST.  So it's not that they get it wrong, exactly, just that they don't get it right.  And the only way we can know this is by listening to several people on the same subject.

This is where 'bootcamps' can be so valuable.  I remember with great pleasure a couple that I went to that were organised by Andrew Reynolds, where we heard some twenty or so speakers over the course of three days.  And for each person in the audience there were some speakers who were outstanding, and some who were less so.  For me, the stars were Armand Morin and Derek Gehl and Simon Coulson - and I've since learned a great deal from all three of them.  So I remain very grateful to Andrew Reynolds for giving me the opportunity to listen to so many gurus and to be able to pick out those whose teaching spoke to me personally.

Now We Can All Write Brilliant Sales Letters!

For anyone who's ever struggled to write a sales letter (or been horrified at what professional copywriters charge) Armand Morin's new WP Salesletter will seem like a godsend.  Because not only does this amazing plug-in make writing a letter easy but it comes with built in, ready-written ideas for headlines, introductions, closing statements and so on which you can modify according to your needs.  And, of course, since all these ideas are crafted by experts, your chances of good conversion rates are very high.

As regular readers of this blog will know, I'm an enormous fan of Armand Morin but, even so, watching the video he's made about WP Salesletter, my jaw dropped in amazement at its simplicity and its power.  And, as Armand points out, because it's a plug-in rather than a theme, you don't have to change the whole look of your website in order to write a sales letter.

At only $77 for a multi site licence with lifetime updates, I think this is amazing value, particularly when you compare it with what you might have to pay a professional copywriter for a single letter.  

To Assume Makes an Ass of U and Me

In the past two or three weeks I seem to have received quite a number of emails and pieces of literature in the post that try to tell me what I think, like, do or want to do.  And it annoys me.  These people are assuming that they know me . . . and they're getting it wrong.

For example, I got an email a few days ago from an internet marketer.  It began: "I bet you take at least one family summer vacation each year, right?" Well, actually, no.  And it went on "But if you're like most ultra busy parents - you probably aren't really going out of your way to create real-world entrepreneurial activities and lessons and unique family bonding?"  Well, I may be ultra busy but I'm not a parent.   So wrong again.  

Now, it so happens that I both like and respect this marketer and I have bought courses from him in the past.  But, if I didn't, I suspect that this sort of thing would lead me to wonder about the quality of what he was selling . . . after all, if he can get so much wrong in a single email, how reliable would his teaching be?

Admittedly, he was promoting "a special event for highly successful entrepreneurs and their families" and he went on to say: "If you have kids (or grand kids, nieces, nephews, etc) ages 6-18 this it a great way to let them get a taste for business".  But what puzzles me is why, with all his experience, he didn't start off with the "If you have kids . . ." bit.  That way he would have avoided alienating people who might assume that he wasn't a very good marketer and would have avoided the risk of upsetting anyone who had lost a child, who had no contact with his or her children as a result of divorce, or who desperately wanted children but was unable to do so.

Writing good copy is not just about capturing the reader's attention and persuading them to buy something.  It's also about being honest and being sensitive to the reader's feelings.  So I believe that it is counterproductive to assume anything about the people who receive our emails.  All we really know about them is that they gave us their names and email addresses via our opt in pages because they wanted something we were offering.  We don't know anything else about them.  And if we imply that we do - and get it wrong - we're in danger of losing them.

We need to be sensitive.  Implying that someone is a parent when they're not could cause distress.  Similarly the phrase "I bet you take at least one family summer vacation each year" could be hurtful.  Although some people do, indeed, take one or two holidays a year, there are still some who can't afford it.  And when we consider that a lot of people who start dabbling in internet marketing do so because they have lost their jobs or because the're having difficulty making ends meet, the assumption that everyone can afford holidays implies that the writer is out of touch with his readers.  Years ago, when I was working in a psychiatric hospital, we used to have a meeting of all the patients on the ward every morning.  One day, one of the women mentioned that she hadn't had a holiday for several years because she couldn't afford it.  To which one of the other patients (a very well-heeled and rather haughty woman) said in an amazed tone of voice "Can't afford a holiday?  I've never heard of that.  I have friends who go to Majorca three or four times a year."  All these years later, I still remember the distress of the first patient.