While these two words, “strategy” and “tactics” appear to have the same meaning. Do not be fooled. The results attained from implementing strategies compared to tactics can differ a lot. Especially for those involved in business, profits can actually be maximized with a strategy that optimizes the correct blend of marketing tactics.
Popularity: 100% [?]
A few days back, I got this direct mailer package from Mouth and Foot Painting Artists Pte Ltd in the office mailbox. It contained 8 cards meant for festive seasons and a writeup of their request.
Sample of 2 of the cards
Basically the 8 cards were works of art produced by people through the use of either their mouth or feet, as they have lost their hands due to unfortunate circumstances. And the letter was a request for $17 for the 8 cards if you liked them, with a catalog of other things that you can order if it interests you. Interesting enough, you can send back the cards to them if you are not interested. At the back of the letter are photographs and stories of some of the people creating the art coupled with pictures of Singapore’s Prime Minister and President.
Exact writing of letter reproduced below
Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for reading this letter. As I cannot use my hands I wrote this letter by mouth. My fellow artists and I lost the use of our hands through accident, illness or birth defect.
Despite our handicap, we have made a serious endeavour to earn a living for ourselves and in some cases, our families. We strive to gain financial independence by using what God has given us and by becoming members of MFPA which arranges the sales of our artwork in the form of greeting cards, calendar and etc.
Each of the paintings reproduced in this set of eight attractive festive cards was painted by mouth or foot. We hope that you will be interested to buy our selection of cards.
It is difficult to find a method of selling that pleases everyone. However, this method enables us to describe the back-ground story of these cards produced from our original paintings which require hard work, determination and patience. It also gives us the opportunity to examine the quality of our work.
If you decide to purchase this at $17.00 kindly forward your cheque/money order (pay to MFPA PTE LTD) together with the enclosed form and seal them in the endorsed reply envelope. If you should like to order more, please see the enclosed form for further details.
There is no obligation. We are not a charity but a self-help organization. Should you decide not to purchase, you may return the whole package back to us by marking “Return to Sender” outside the package.
We wish you and your family good health, peace and happiness.
Best Wishes,
XXXXXX XXX
Whilst direct mailing is a big thing in the United States, it is not very frequent in Singapore. And in my opinion this was a well crafted out piece and it prodded my mind further on how we can actually modify its elements to use it for our internet based businesses, especially for those which sell physical products online.
I’m not sure what its conversion rates, return rates or pure failure rates are but I am guessing that it should be reasonable.
For this direct mailer:
Direct Mailing is definitely an art, but you can definitely employ some offline marketing methods to strengthen your online businesses to add that extra Oomph to it.
Offhand here are some ideas that come to mind.
For physical items that you are already sending to customers, you could:
For digital product customers (you need their mailing address for this though)
For prospects that you want optin-ed into your list (Modify Centerpointe.com’s model accordingly to suit their, check out their website and request for their sample package and you will get what I mean.) Here is a version which the famous Mr X of www.imxfiles.com mentioned in a Warrior Forum thread.
Popularity: 11% [?]
We all know that it is much more costly to gain a new customer than it is to gain repeat business from an existing customer. Therefore it makes much business sense to try our very best to retain our customers, keep them loyal to our brand (be it digital or physical products) and hope that they are Passionistas.
“Passionistas” are consumers who are passionate about certain issues more than the average consumer, and hence are willing to create and share content regarding their passions and the brands related with them.
So How Do We Target Passionistas?
Because Passionistas are more concerned and interested in the related issues or products, they are exposed to more information pertaining to your product category or industry. They are probably subscribed to various newsletters related to your industry and have bookmarked “go-to” websites that they frequent on a daily to weekly basis. Hence it is essential that you build back links from these “Authority” websites through text advertisements or banner advertisements so as to elevate the perception and branding of your online business.
It is obvious that “Authority” websites gain more recognition as venues of trusted information. To build a long term sustainable online business, it is advised that you add valuable content to your website on a constant basis. You can do that either by creating a blog or expanding the content pages within your website. In general portal based websites are more trusted compared to “sales page” websites that just seem out to make a quick buck. If the work involved is too intensive, the least you can do is to build a “portal” looking website that seems to be brimming full of information for the curious Passionista.
Example:
Centerpointe.com
Every link that they have is packed full of information and there is no lack of valuable information. They even kind of have a “sales page” webpage that is disguised in different formatting. While the conversion ratios (yet to be tested) might be lower than the typical sales page website, it is obvious that they are building a sustainable long term online business through brand building instead gunning for big short-term profits.
Creating Customer Evangelists
Hence it is no surprise that these “Passionistas” once converted, become “A” list customers for your business. This makes it much easier to nurture and convert them into customer evangelists for your business. Customer evangelists believe so strongly in a particular product or service that they freely try to convince others to buy and use it. The customers become voluntary advocates, actively spreading the word on behalf of your business.
In the book, Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force, Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba outline six steps to creating customer evangelists:
I hope that you have found this 2 prong marketing strategy approach of securing and targeting Passionistas as your customers and converting them into customer evangelists useful for building a sustainable online business.
Read more about Passionistas’ at ‘Passionista’ Consumers Help Brands Harness Digital Media
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Location is one of the most important factors when setting up a retail store. This arises because the location determines the amount and demographic type of people flow in the area. Which in turn gives you a rough estimate of the number of walk-in customers that you might be able to get on a daily basis.
Without saying, prime location rentals cost a huge bomb and not everyone is able to afford the hefty rentals. It is the same online. Having tons of web traffic is akin to operating a retail outlet in a well located mall. Hence one of the most sought after skills online is the ability to generate traffic at a whim. However traffic is not created equal and the traffic that you should be going after should satisfy these few criteria:
There is no point generating untargeted traffic to your websites, unless you are providing a mass product/service along the lines of Friendster or Youtube. Targeted traffic brings to your website prospects that you can then nurture and persuade into being customers. Whilst this seems very obvious, you will be amazed how many marketers sell products that teach you how to generate tremendous amounts of traffic that is simply untargeted. The numbers look good on paper, but that’s all its good for, looking good and not bringing in the money.
To build a sustainable long term online business, you would need a consistent flow of traffic. Sudden bursts of traffic due to special one time off marketing efforts are nice but are exactly what they are: short-lived. It’ alright to chase such efforts if the return on investment (ROI) is positive, but it stops there. Think of all the product launches that internet marketing gurus have, they generate a storm of traffic and buyers within a period of time. But after that the traffic tickles down and sales figures are simply dismal after that if they do not build other consistent web traffic sources.
Sometimes targeted traffic is simply not enough. You want to generate traffic from proven buyers who have a higher probability of purchasing your products. Joint ventures with other parties to a responsive list of subscribers tend to have a bigger group of people with buyer’s mentality. Whilst this form of traffic is pure gold, it is the hardest to get.
Are your prospects coming back to your website? Or are they simply on a touch and go basis, never to come back again. It’s no surprise that portals, authority websites that generate good content or provide ongoing services are the most successful. They provide consistent touch points with prospects which eventually lead up to a sale sometime in the future. Let’s take Mark Joyner’s Simpleology.com for example, he provides free software and products that lead you back to his website. You need them if you want to practice the methodology that he proposes. That is stickiness built into his business model, after all the effort to lure, entice, and persuade a visitor to the website, there is no reason why you should not try means and ways to have them coming back.
Remember to keep these 4 criteria in mind whenever you employ a new web traffic generation tactic for your websites. I will be going through the various web traffic tactics in further detail in Part 2 of “Generating Web Traffic: The Lifeblood of Every Online Business” and how well they rate according to these 4 criteria.
Popularity: 13% [?]
Since it’s nearing the end of the week, I thought you would like to spend it on something more interactive than merely reading something off a blog.
Check out Seth Godin’s Video below where he talks about the importance of building a product that is remarkable and marketing it to your target audience to stand out in today’s cluttered market place. Guidelines to develop a remarkable product include:
Enjoy…
Popularity: 11% [?]
We are constantly faced with numerous money making opportunities online everyday, its amazing how one always chances upon “The Next Big Thing” or the latest cutting edge marketing method.
What this does to majority of us is that it throws us off track, derailing us from finishing up the current project that we are working on, or pushing its deadline back considerably. Face it! I’m willing to bet $100 that this is a bad habit that you have, and if you don’t have it. You are probably wildly successful and don’t need my $100 anyway.
What is Strategic Synergy all about?
Strategic Synergy is something that probably nobody talks about, because it is simply common sense. But yet we see so many people not following it. And those adopting it simply get more out of their time and valuable resources.
Synergy is defined as:
The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.
So how does this apply to your online business or any business for the matter? Strategic Synergy is simply building your online businesses to complement each other. You can apply this through either vertical or horizontal growth of your online businesses. Let me present some examples to better illustrate this point
Vertical Growth would mean growing your sales funnel and adding higher/lower (depending on where you started out) priced items to cater to your particular niche.
So you simply dig deeper into your niche to offer them a range of products at multiple price points which provide better and bigger value at the higher price points. Product creation in this instance would be much faster as you should be well versed in your niche. And each additional product produced for your niche further entrenches you in the prospect’s mind that you are the leading authority of this field
If you think about it hard, every niche business can actually be grow vertically to offer more value to your customers. There are so many ways that you can do this to milk the remaining change from your customers. The list below is not exhaustive but here are some ideas of what you can offer:
Example:
Eben Pagan (David DeAngelo) started out doubleyourdating.com with his ebook, then the advanced course, dvds and then seminars and so on and so forth.
Besides vertical growth, you can expand further through horizontal growth.
Horizontal Growth would mean expanding into related niches around your core niche. Besides the usual marketing methods you would need to adopt, this would allow you to draw strength from the equity/list/brand (whatever!) from your core niche. Hence there is synergy between your niches. Do this many times enough and you will have a whole network of niches all supporting each other. Relevant backlinks and what not. You get the drift.
Example:
Check out one of Bradley Thompson’s websites at www.selfgrowthgiveaway.com/giveaway/
Those websites providing gifts there all below to the same network and each of them can hold their own fort in their own specific niche. And of course they all come under the self-improvement umbrella.
Or David Tang with the products he has created.
ArticlePostRobot.com
A software that semi-automates unique articles to be submitted to different article directories to prevent duplicate content penalties.
ContentRewriterPro.com
A software to assist rewriting of articles to create different unique content fast.
ContentAssistant.com
A software to create unique content quickly & easily even if you don’t know much about the topic.
VideoUploadPro.com
A software to upload your videos to Multiple Sites Automatically.
ArticleAware.com/linksubmission/
A service providing manual submissions of your websites to directories
So what you can clearly see is that David Tang creates products/services which greatly helps one in speedy submissions, be it for your articles, videos or websites. And he creates supporting products for these products. I would not be surprised if he later went on to create a software to assist in creating unique videos from scrapping other videos online. So as to supplement his VideoUploadPro Sofware.
Hence for whichever niche/market that you have decided to move into, seek to grow it vertically or horizontally. Do not (TRY not to) go into other unrelated niches if:
While all this seems like pure common sense, you will find that some Gurus or people out there jump from project to project. An article writing membership side, another list building software site etc. Can they still make money? Yeah but probably with more work then if they concentrated on expanding and growing the network within their core niche first.
Well of course a minority of you have enough contacts/firepower to startup all these multiple projects and still make a ton of money. But for the newbies to average joes, this strategy will save you time, money and assist you in being successful faster. So remember to keep strategic synergy in mind whenever you start a new business project.
Popularity: 25% [?]
In the 1st part of the series “It’s Your Positioning Strategy, Stupid – Part 1”, I covered why positioning is extremely important for gaining mind share amongst your clients.
While in the previous article “It’s Your Positioning Strategy, Stupid – Part 2”, I covered why personal branding is important and how you should go about building your personal brand.
Now in this 3rd series of “It’s Your Positioning Strategy, Stupid”, I will be covering the aspect of positioning your commercial websites and products. The material covered will be applicable to both information products and physical products sold online.
Why is Positioning Your Website And Product Important?
If you are a new entrant in the e-commerce community, you will definitely find many strong competitors already anchored in the different niches. And despite the 1,173,109,925 (source: www.internetworldstats.com June 2007) internet users world wide, you can be sure that majority of online purchasers already have their favorite websites to purchase from. Furthermore, new websites numbering the tens of thousands pop up everyday, eager to be the next Amazon or eBay.
With the intensive competition merely for eyeball attention, you would need to position your website to stand out from the masses. So how do you go about doing it?
1. Select a Niche
Despite being one of the most common advice given to online marketers, a huge percentage of websites still fail prey to the “I want to appeal to everyone” trap. I did a search for “online mall” on google and it returned 45 million websites. The first one being www.super-shopping-mall.com which was registered in 2002. From what I gather, its basically a portal with a list to a vast variety of products of which it is probably an affiliate of.
Its traffic? Alexa shows a ranking of 1,668,834. It’s a ghost town and no wonder. It did not have a specialized niche which it was strong for. Same goes for the other websites returned in the search results.
Is starting up a shopping portal in today’s age possible? Yeah sure, if you have the big marketing dollars numbering in the millions to start with, then maybe, yes maybe you might have a shot.
Amazon started out selling books, and further expanded their category offerings in the later years, offering beauty products to even Pampers. (Check out the Pampers link here) through different merchants. This is still a hotly debated topic of between marketing experts, of whether Amazon is sacrificing short-term profits through this form of brand dilution for long term value and sustainability. Sure some people will still buy these products from Amazon because of its brand name, but for me, I think I will stick to just buying books.
Zappos started out selling a vast selection in shoes in terms of brands, styles, colors, sizes, and widths shoes in 1999 but eventually ventured into bags, accessories and apparels. With sales of $597 Million in 2006 and projected sales of $800 in 2007, guess they aren’t complaining.
But the main crux of the issue is that even the big boys started off in niches, being specialists of their field before expanding their product offerings after amassing a huge clientele base.
Information internet marketers are also specialists do the same thing with their 1 page sales letters. They have 1 product to sell, and probably have an upsell through a special one time offer. John Reese is probably setting up a mega membership/mart at income.com for IMers soon too. But these aren’t the ones with the problems, it’s the affiliate marketers who are spoilt for choice through the myriad affiliate programs available and just bombard their prospects with different sorts of product offerings at their websites.
If you are an advanced marketer, you would probably not have this problem. But this is a common problem for newbies.
2. Differentiate or Die
Stealing the title from Jack Trout’s book, you have to differentiate or watch your business crumble, earn mediocre returns at best. The internet has given your website access to the millions of prospects worldwide, but it has also taken down the barriers to entry. A manufacturer in China, Vietnam or Cambodia with savvy enough internet marketing skills will be able to beat your pants off in price. Product designs can be copied the very day itself and sold the next day. They might be the very same supplier where you are getting your goods from.
How do you differentiate? Have a brand story…
Don’t you just love a good story? Well everyone does. And similarly for your website and business, it is essential that you have a brand story. The story and meaning of a brand is its most valuable and irreplaceable asset. Stories capture our imaginations, intrigue and engage us. And more importantly, having a brand story greatly helps customers in remembering your brand.
We are hard-wired, as a species, to connect to stories. That is why some of the most effective teachers throughout history were master storytellers. We’ll quickly forget carefully-crafted statements, and even the most profound principles, but we’ll remember a compelling story, sometimes for decades. And even pass it down for generations.
Let us take the popular cosmetic brand SK II as an example, they talk about how a scientist visited a sake brewery and noticed how an old lady’s hands were soft and youthful. He held multiple tests and eventually discovered that the secret lay in an all-natural yeast derivative, which they call Pitera®. Positioning Pitera as the secret ingredient that is present in all SK II products, the brand has emerged as market leaders in many countries worldwide.
For info-products, most of the better selling products usually tell a story behind the product creation and hence the eventual creation of the product. Make the story stick, like I said before. People just love stories. Even master copywriters talk about how weaving a story into the sales copy attains higher sales conversions.
Don’t have a story? Well create one…if you brainstorm the benefits of your product long enough. You should be able to come out with one. I’m not telling you to lie outright, but to squeeze out one.
How did I get started in internet marketing? A few years back, my ex-girlfriend was down with a terrible fever and had to take medicine at stipulated timings. So I stayed up all night long to feed her the medicine. And whist staying up, I surfed and came upon the Story of the Singaporean Joe Kumar (Read about Joe Kumar Here) and how he managed to earn tens of thousands of dollars quickly online and also destroyed his reputation. His story (the positive side) inspired me to learn more about internet marketing and I never looked back then. Back then, Ewen Chia was a small fry, not the affiliate master revered now, Michael Filsaime was just starting out and Michael Fortin still had hair. My only regret back then was not going into it full steam but merely dabbling here and there.
Anyhow that was my story. Ain’t really a good one but heck it can potentially be tweaked to work for sales copy. So just think up a brand story for your info-products or physical products.
How do you differentiate? Focus on your Unique Selling Proposition
Yes this has been drilled time and time over and over again by marketers. But bear with me for a minute. Or rather bear with Marketing Whiz Jay Abraham for a minute and read this.
A USP is that distinct and appealing idea that sets you and your business, or practice, favorably apart from every other generic competitor. The long-term marketing and operational successes I help you achieve will, ultimately, be helped or hurt by the USP you decide upon.
The possibilities for building a USP are unlimited. It’s best, however, to adopt a USP that dynamically addresses an obvious void in the marketplace that you can honestly fill. Beware: It’s actually counter-productive to adopt a USP if you cannot fulfill the promise.
Most business owners don’t have a USP, only a “me too,” rudderless, nondescript, unappealing business that feeds solely upon the sheer momentum of the marketplace. There’s nothing unique; there’s nothing distinct. They promise no great value, benefit, or service — just “buy from us” for no justifiable, rational reason.
Try it. With paper and pen, prepare a one-paragraph statement of your new USP. At first, you will have trouble expressing it tightly and specifically. It may take two or three paragraphs or more. That’s okay. Ruthlessly edit away the generalities, and tenaciously focus on the crispest, clearest, most specific promise you could possibly hold out. Then, rework it and hack away the excess verbiage or hazy statements until you have a clearly defined, clearly apparent Unique Selling Proposition a customer can immediately seize upon. And then, integrate your USP into every marketing aspect of your business, such as display advertising, direct mail and field selling.
Read this on Effective USP Components by Larry Lim, MarketingSphere.com
When formulating and implementing your USP, it’s crucial that you bear in mind the following components:
1. Your USP must be truly unique
2. It must be strong enough to excite your target market and get them talking about it
3. It mustn’t be easily imitated or copiedLook, anybody can claim that they provide the best service in town - “We’re The Number One Service Provider In America”. Do you think this is credible? Of course not. It’s lukewarm and is an empty promise because you can’t measure it and you can’t hold them accountable and people can easily see through it. USP such as this can in fact harm your business instead of helping it.
Your USP really needs to pack a punch.
Now, let’s take a look at a good example:
“Your Parcel Delivered To You The Very Next Day, or It Costs You Nothing!”The above is a powerful USP. As you can see, you can actually measure it and hold the Company accountable; the Company actually guarantees the delivery of your parcle the very next day or it doesn’t cost you a cent.
Can you imagine what this will do to the Company? It’ll put it head and shoulders above its competition.
Pepper up and strengthen your product(s) with endorsements. Zappos.com offers free overnight shipping, a 1 year return Policy and 110% Price Protection Policy (Read here for details)
Now try beating that!!
Or the more important question is…what are you doing to differentiate your website, business and products?
In the meantime…if you haven’t signed up yet, you should…
Click here to Download The Strategic Domination White Paper for FREE
It reveals the strategy that any business owner, online or offline should be adopting to maximize profits in the shortest time possible. All of us have limited resources, and we owe it to ourselves to only concentrate on the areas which yield the highest profit.
Lastly, the beauty of it all is that the concept is universal and applicable to every business owner. You have to face the million dollar question now, “Do you have a strategy or are you just waiting for that lucky break?”
Click here to Download The Strategic Domination White Paper for FREE
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The Strategic Domination White Paper reveals the 1 Simple Concept to Optimize Your Business Profits
Read Interview Here
