Internet Marketing Made Simple – Page 8

How To Change The Way Of Thinking

Change Your Thinking

Another way to generate ideas is to change the way you’re thinking about a problem. And sometimes, changing the way you think is as simple as changing a few words.

For example, let’s suppose you’re thinking about ideas around this topic: “How to lose weight.”

If you keep thinking of the problem in the same way with the same words, then your mind may not as easily offer new ideas. As such, you’ll want to start a brainstorming session by thinking of OTHER ways to phrase the problem. In this example, these other ways may include:

How to shed the fat.
How to look thinner.
How to get leaner.
How to diet.
How to reduce calorie intake.
How to increase calorie output.

And so on. Once you have a new list of different “angles” on the same problem (which are just different ways to phrase it), then you can brainstorm ideas and solutions.

TIP: Note that this sort of method also works when you’re trying to solve your business problems. For example, if you want to think up ways to grow your business, you may brainstorm other phrasing such as: how to increase revenue, how to boost sales, how to renew sales, how to increase the bottom line… and so on.

Next…

Read Product Reviews

Here’s a great way to tap into other people’s creativity in order to generate ideas: read product reviews. That’s because plenty of people who leave reviews will offer unsolicited ideas about benefits and features they’d like to see in a product (as well as offering ideas about what they don’t want). And that means that reading reviews on sites such as Amazon will give you plenty of new ideas.

Check Suggestions

Here’s another way to let automated scripts do some brainstorming for you: check the suggestions on blogs and Amazon that appear whenever you are looking at a particular page.

For example:

If you’re viewing a blog article on a popular blog, check if there are recommended related articles listed at the end.

If you’re viewing products on Amazon, check the recommended products listed midway down the page.

Same goes for any other platform you may visit – always check if there are recommendations, as these recommendations may give you ideas for products and content.

For example, let’s suppose you’re looking at Kindle books on Amazon that are similar to a book you want to create. If you look at the suggested related products, you may get an idea for a bonus product you want to create.

Brainstorm Value Propositions

Customers often make a decision about a product, service, content or even a business based on the value proposition. That’s because a value proposition states the reason why consumers should choose this particular product, business or content over the competitors. It’s the reason why customers should act (subscribe, buy, register, etc.).

So here’s a way to generate ideas: start by brainstorming potential value propositions. That is, what would make your product or service (or content or business) different from the competitors and better than the competitors? Why should people do business with you?

Brainstorm as many “reasons why” as you can, which in turn will help you generate new ideas.

Now the next method…

Review Successes

The idea here is to take a look at big success stories both inside and outside or your niche. Study the following:

The products.
The way the products are marketed and positioned.
How the sales funnel is set up.
The ad campaigns.
The company itself.
The content (blog posts, social media, etc.).

Then ask yourself the following questions:

What was the most popular product for this company?
What made this product so popular?
How did the company set this product apart (value proposition)?
What lessons can you learn from this success story?
Is there a way to model (not copy) this company’s success?
What sort of products, services or content could you create to replicate this success?

And on the flip side…

Study Mistakes

Another good way to generate ideas is to study the mistakes of others. This includes product mistakes, advertising mistakes and anything else you can uncover. As you analyze these mistakes, ask yourself the following questions:

What mistakes did the company make? (List everything that applies.)
Is there a way to take their original idea and improve on it?

For example, Google Glasses certainly launched with a lot of fanfare, but the concept fizzled out pretty fast. Turns out users had some problems with the glasses, such as a small display. Other companies jumped in and started developing ideas for similar glasses, but with improvements, such as bigger displays. Still other companies worked on developing glasses for specific uses, such as sports glasses.

Now let’s take a look at the next step…

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How To Unleash Your Creativity And Generate Ideas

Recite Your ABCs

Here you take out a piece of paper or open a fresh text document, and then list all the letters of the alphabet. Then, as quickly as possible, you list at least one idea related to your niche for every letter. (And whenever possible, you list multiple ideas for each letter.)

Let’s suppose you’re brainstorming online marketing topics. Your ABCs brainstorm may look something like this:

A… affiliate

B… branding

C… conversions

And so on, all the way through the rest of the alphabet. When you’re finished, you’ll have at least 26 content and product ideas ready to go.

Here’s something a little different…

Break Routines

One of the keys to generating ideas is to get creative. And one way to get creative is to break out of your usual routines. This works especially well if you break out of your routines right before you begin a brainstorming exercise.

For example, plenty of people have morning routines. This may include firing up the computer, brewing the coffee, enjoying that first cup of coffee, petting the cat, reading the news headlines, and so on.

The point of this exercise is to shake things up a bit. Instead of starting the morning reading news and drinking coffee, try going for a walk instead. Or do some household chores, like dusting. If you break the routine, your mind may break out of a rut – and that makes it easier for you to brainstorm some great ideas.

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Ask a Dead Genius

This sounds a little crazy, right? But hear me out (because this works really well to unlock your creativity and generate ideas)…

Imagine a table of respected, intelligent people who’ve gathered together to help you brainstorm, solve a problem and generate ideas. As you’ve already gathered, this table of geniuses don’t need to be currently living – you can certainly imagine people who’ve already passed. But the key point here is that you want to sit down and imagine what these various people would tell you.

Let’s suppose you’re brainstorming ideas in a cooking niche. You might imagine a famous chef such as Julia Child helping you with ideas. But then just for the fun of it you might also imagine people outside the niche helping you brainstorm, such as Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, and Abraham Lincoln.

The point of this exercise is to get a new perspective on your niche. Ask yourself, what would each of these respected figures say about your niche? What solutions would they offer? What advice would they give you?

As always, don’t censor your answers. Go ahead and let your brain run wild during this exercise, as the end result may surprise you.

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How To Use Idea Generators

Use Idea Generators

You don’t need to do all the brainstorming yourself. Instead, you might make use of an idea generator like this one: https://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator.

All you have to do is enter in three nouns, and the tool will then give you a handful or content ideas. For example, if you enter in the word “dog,” you might get a title idea such as, “Five Tools Everyone in the Dog-Training Industry Should be Using.”

TIP: To generate even more ideas, take each of the ideas generated by the tool and brainstorm five more related ideas. The tool will give you five suggestions for each search, and you can spin that off into 25 ideas!

Next…

Check Reddit

The site Reddit.com has a lot of subreddits where people are discussing ideas and exchanging information in your niche. That’s why you’ll want to search for your keywords using Reddit’s search tool. This will reveal individual threads (discussions) as well as subreddits (“groups”) dedicated to the topic. If you spend time browsing the subreddits, you’re sure to generate plenty of ideas.

Browse the Archives

Many times when people are generating content ideas, they tend to look at the freshest content across competing websites, social media sites and other platforms. However, you can generate plenty of ideas by looking at the older and archived content. Indeed, you may even want to visit Archive.org to see what type of content and products your favorite sites use to house.

As you browse older content and products, ask yourself these questions:

Are these ideas and solutions still applicable/relevant today?
If they’re no longer applicable/relevant, is there a way to update them?
What sort of other tweaks or twists can you offer to these solutions?

Next…

Go Behind the Scenes

If you’re an information creator, then you probably create a lot of straightforward “how to” information. However, no matter what niche you’re in, there are plenty of people who are interested in “behind the scenes” information. Your first step, then, is to spend some time brainstorming what sort of “behind the scenes” information you can offer.

For example, let’s suppose you’re a bodybuilder. Here are some of the “behind the scenes” tasks your market may be interested in:

What it’s like backstage at a bodybuilding competition.
What it’s like trying to “peak” at the right time in anticipation for a bodybuilding competition.
What’s it like shopping during a bodybuilding bulk.
What’s it’s like at the gym.
What a day in your life is like (what you do each day in terms or exercise, eating, etc.).

And similar.

Point is, brainstorm all the possible “behind the scenes” events you can think of. Each of these events is a potential idea for you.

Predict the Future

Here’s another brainstorming exercise that gets you out of the box: try to predict the future.

As always, don’t censor or edit yourself during this brainstorming exercise. You may be tempted to censor yourself as you may think some of your ideas are silly or even unrealistic. But let your mind go free during this exercise without the constraints of judgment.

Here are the types of questions you can ask yourself to help spark the brainstorming:

What major changes will happen in the niche this year?
What major changes will happen in the niche in the next five years?
What types of products will be on the market next year?
What types of products will be on the market in five years?
What solutions will surprise people the most?
What else will happen in the niche in the next few years?

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How To Use Different Techniques: Check Questions Sites

Check Question Sites

Another way to get great ideas is to check out question sites online to find out what people want to know about in your niche. Here are the sites you can browse:

Yahoo! Answers
Quora.com
JustAnswer.com

Yahoo! Answers and Quora are community sites, which means anyone can answer the questions. As such, these two sites give you the bonus information of whether a particular topic is popular right now. Generally, the more people who answer a question, the greater interest there is in the topic.

SlideShare

If you go to SlideShare.net, you can search for popular slide-share decks in your niche. Again, this will give you ideas of what’s popular, as well as ideas for different ways to present information.

Interview People

Here’s a bit of a sneaky way to generate ideas: interview experts in your niche. This is an alternative to hiring a consultant, and it comes with the big benefit that you’ll have a webinar and/or the recordings that you can use as a lead magnet or product, if you so choose.

For best results, interview a variety of people in the niche. For example, let’s suppose you’re gathering ideas for a weight loss product. You can interview a variety of people such as:

A dietician.
A personal trainer.
A medical professional.
Someone who has lost a lot of weight.
Someone who creates and sells low-fat cookbooks.
A bodybuilder (who knows a lot about “cutting”).
The person who leads your local Weight Watchers or similar weight-loss meetings.

And similar. If you interview several people, then you’ll get several perspectives – and this will help you generate plenty of good ideas.

Check Your Traffic Logs

Take a peek at your traffic logs and answering the following three questions:

How are people reaching your site? That’s right, the way that people arrive at your site may give you ideas. For example, if your site “accidentally” ranks for a niche keyword and people are coming in from the search engines based on that keyword, that may give you ideas about what sort of content and products to create.

What content is most popular on your site? On what pages do people tend to spend a lot of time? If you look at this data along with other clues (such as what people are commenting on), you’ll get a sense of what your prospects want. In turn, you can brainstorm ideas for new content and products.

How do people navigate through the site? This may give you some insight into your audience’s thought process, which in turn may spark some content or product ideas for you.

Let’s suppose you have a dog training site. If people typically navigate from articles about chewing to articles about jumping to articles about counter-surfing, that tells you that your audience needs help with problem behaviors. You might then create a product just addressing these problem behaviors.

Next…

Consider Controversies

Here’s a question for you to ponder: what is controversial in your niche? If you can figure out what’s controversial, then you can generate ideas for content, products, ad campaigns and similar.

For example, let’s suppose you’re in a weight-loss market, and a new diet supplement hits the market that’s very controversial. You can create content around this supplement, lead magnets, ads and even products. While this is a short-lived strategy (as controversial topics aren’t necessarily evergreen), this is a way to generate ideas on hot topics.

Here’s how to find these controversial topics:

Check popular blogs in your niche for topics that are polarizing those who comment.

Read forums and groups to see what topics are generating a lot of controversy.

Browse social media to see what has people in your niche up in arms.

Next…

Run Tests

Here’s a great way to generate ideas: run some tests and experiments in your niche.

For example, let’s suppose you cater to those who want to learn about copywriting. You might sit down and brainstorm about “conventional wisdom” in your niche (such as how headlines should be in quotes, or even sales letter should include a postscript). You can then run tests on the conventional wisdom, which in turn may generate ideas. For instance, you may create a lead magnet that’s all about challenging conventional wisdom. Or you may even get an entirely different idea, such as an idea for improving the split-testing tools that are currently available.

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How To Use Different Techniques: Ask Your Customers

Ask Your Customers

Chances are, your prospects and customers have ideas that you never would have thought of, and the only way to get at them is to ask. Just be sure you ask open-ended questions in order to solicit the most creative answers.

For example:

What topics are you most interested in learning about?
What benefits and features would you like to see [in a type of product]?
What your biggest [niche/topic] challenges?

Here’s another way to generate ideas…

Consult With an Expert

Yes, you’ll need to put some money down for this strategy, but if you choose the right expert then it’s well worth the cost. The easiest way to do this is to hire a coach or freelancer in your field, and then ask open-ended questions to generate ideas.

For example:

What is your favorite way to [get some result]?
What mistakes did you make when you were first starting out?
What are you top three tips for [getting some result]?

Next…

Read, Watch, Listen

The key here is to always be reading, watching and listening to things in your niche. This means subscribing to and following your industry leaders. Set time aside every week to view:

Blogs.
Forums.
Newsletters.
Facebook groups.
Webinars.
Videos.
Social media posts.
Industry publications.
New products in the niche.

Here’s another way to generate ideas…

Attend Expos and Trade Shows

If you live anywhere near a decent-sized city, then you probably have niche expos and trade shows coming into town at least once or twice a year. The best part is that you can get into the vendor’s areas for free, and you’ll generate lots of ideas just walking around. If you have some spare cash, then pay to see the speakers and demos, where you’re sure to generate even more great ideas.

Do Group Coaching

This is where you solicit questions from people in your niche, and then answer them in a group setting. This could be a live Q and A session, such as on a webinar. Or you might set up a Facebook group and encourage people to submit questions. Either way, getting questions from your students is a great way to generate content and product ideas.

Go Outside Your Niche

The idea here is to research other niches to see what’s popular, and then decide if you can take a particular idea and bring it to your niche. For example, if living with a blind dog is a popular topic in the dog markets, then check if living with blind cats is popular too.

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Check the Newsstand

If you’re looking for great ideas, then check the magazines and other publications at your local newsstand. In particular, pay attention to the cover stories on magazines related to your niche. Big, popular magazines tend to spend a lot of money researching and testing to find out what’s popular. So, not only do cover stories help you generate ideas, but you also get the added benefit of knowing these stories are popular topics right now.

TIP: Spend time browsing the ads in niche magazines. For example, if you’re catering to a dog market, then spend time flipping through several issues of Dog Fancy. Check out the ads sprinkled throughout the content, as well as the classified ad section in the back. You’ll find product, content and advertising ideas from cover to cover.

Next…

Create a Contest

Here’s a way to tap into your prospects’ and customers’ best creative ideas: create a contest around generating specific types of ideas.

For example, let’s suppose you’re trying to think up ideas for creating a brand slogan for your business. You can run a contest where participants can submit up to five or ten slogans, and then award cash prizes for those you deem to be the best.

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How To Generate Great Ideas: Go To Google Scholar

Go to Google Scholar

This is a place where you can search for topics in academic journals. For example, if you’re serving the weight loss market, then you might search these journals to learn the latest about metabolism, nutrition and exercise. In turn, what you learn may lead to some great product and content ideas.

For example, let’s suppose that researchers uncover how a certain food or supplement raises the metabolism. You can create a diet based on this research and put it on sale as soon as possible. By the time news of this research spreads, you’ll have a product in place and ready to go.

Start your search here: https://scholar.google.com/.

Use Focus Groups

Another way to get feedback (and in turn generate ideas) is to make use of focus groups. This is where you bring together about a half a dozen people in your niche to talk about issues, challenges, and desires.

The advantage of a focus group is that you get to tap into the “hive mind,” which is often more powerful and creative than talking to people individually. That’s because the group feeds off of one another’s ideas, which really boosts creativity.

Attribute Listing

If you’re generating product ideas, then this is a great method for getting creative. The idea here is to take a product and break it down into its attributes/features/benefits. Once you’ve completed this step, then brainstorm how to improve each of these attributes.

You can do this with your own products, of course, but you’ll generate even more ideas if you do it with your competitors’ products.

Search Social Media

Social media is just brimming with good ideas that are ripe for the picking. Here’s how to harvest them:

Scan hashtags. This is a good way to get ideas about what’s hot right now in your niche, but collecting popular hashtags over time also gives you an “evergreen” look at what interests your niche.

Search Facebook groups. Enter your niche keywords (such as “gardening”) into the Facebook search box, and then visit the top groups. Spend time reading both new and old posts, and you’re sure to generate plenty of new ideas.

Seek out competitors’ pages. You can search various social media platforms to find your competitors’ walls, pages and accounts. Follow them to generate new ideas daily. Don’t forget to check out the comments on popular posts to get even more ideas.

Study ads. Facebook runs a lot of ads in the sidebar as well as within the content. If you’re not seeing ads relevant to your niche, then like a few pages or groups related to your niche. These ads are bound to give you great content, product and even sales ideas.

Next…

Use Google Trends

Google Trends is a unique type of keyword tool that lets you gauge the interest in a particular keyword over time and in different areas of the world. This tool also helps you generate ideas, as it provides related search terms and topics.

Start your search here: https://trends.google.com/trends/.

Daydream

Generally, people talk negatively about those who daydream. However, daydreaming is a powerful way to generate ideas. Simply get relaxed (such as in a recliner), close your eyes, and think about the topic around which you’d like to generate ideas. It’s a good idea to have a note-taking app or paper handy so that you can write down all your ideas as they come to you.

Fill in the Blanks

This is a brainstorming exercise where you answer broad questions as quickly and possible. (And, depending on the question, you should also provide as many answers as possible.)

Here are example fill in the blank questions:

The best way to solve [specific problem] is to _________.

[Some specific product] would be better if ___________

If I could create any [solution, product, etc.], I would create something that _______________________.

Here are the problems I’d like to solve in my niche: ________________________________________

My prospects and customers need something that ________________________________________

Next…

Wishing

The idea behind this idea-generation strategy is to start by “wishing” what you want to create in the niche, irrespective of whether it’s doable. Then brainstorm ways to turn these wishes into a reality. Better yet, task your team with finding ways to turn these wishes into reality.

For example, Thomas Edison is known for inventing the light bulb. Turns out he didn’t actually come up with the idea of the light bulb itself. Instead, he just took someone else’s discarded idea and “wished” he could make it work. Then he got down to the task of turning the light bulb idea into a reality.

Collaborate

Two heads are better than one, three are better than two… and so on. That’s because everyone who comes to the table to brainstorm and collaborate all bring their own unique perspective, experiences and skills. If you want to generate a lot of ideas, then gather together a diverse group of friends and start brainstorming.

Clear Your Head

Sometimes the best way to generate new ideas is to just stop thinking about it for a while. Instead, clear your head by doing something else entirely. For example:

Take a bath.
Do yoga.
Go for a walk.
Wash the dishes.
Do yardwork.
Head to the gym.

Next…

Ask a Child

Got a tough problem? Ask a child how to solve it. Better yet, ask multiple children. Children tend to be very creative, so you’re likely to get answers that will help spark your own creativity.

Browse Video-Sharing Sites

Enter your search terms on sites like YouTube and Vimeo. These videos will give you a wide range of ideas, including:

Ideas for articles and other text content.
Ideas for free videos.
Ideas for paid videos.
Ideas for ways to present information.

As always, be sure to read the comments under popular videos, as this may give you even more ideas.

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How To Generate Great Ideas: Great Ways To Capture Ideas

Two Great Ways to Capture Ideas

Don’t let your best ideas slip away and be forgotten. Instead, capture them using one of these methods:

Use your phone. You can of course record your ideas using videos or sound files. Better yet, use an app like EverNote.com, which is geared towards those who want to capture ideas.

Utilize pen and paper. If you prefer, you can go old school and use pen and paper to capture ideas. A small notebook that fits in your pocket works well for this purpose.

Whatever method you choose, be sure to always keep it handy. That means having it with you in the car, next to your bed, at work, and everywhere else you go.

3 Keys to Better Brainstorming Sessions

If you want to create better ideas, then you need to start having better brainstorming sessions. Check out these tips:

Set plenty of uninterrupted time aside. You should brainstorm for at least 20 to 30 minutes straight, without interruption.

Brainstorm as quickly as possible. Write (or type) everything quickly, without pausing to evaluate your ideas.

Don’t censor your ideas. Write EVERYTHING down, even if it seems silly or nonsensical in the moment.

Next…

Map Your Ideas

Some people don’t like to brainstorm in linear ways. If you’re a part of this group, then you’ll want to try mind mapping. This is where you start with a central idea in the middle of your page, and then “branch out” with ideas that spring from your central idea. Your secondary ideas may also have branches (and so on).

For example, your central idea may be “dog.” Secondary ideas may include training, health, socialization and similar ideas. You may also branch out from these ideas. For example, “training” may have branches such as house training, obedience training, trick training and similar.

Use Google to Get Ideas

Here are two ways to generate ideas using Google:

Try Google autocomplete. Go to the Google search engine and enter partial keywords related to your niche. For example, if you enter “dog,” then Google will suggest ideas such as dog breeds, dog training, dog boarding and similar.

Use the Google keyword tool. You can use Google’s tool (at https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/) or your favorite keyword tool to generate ideas. Just enter partial searches such as “how to” or “tips” or “get rid of,” and you’ll get all kinds of ideas.

Next…

Utilize Storyboarding

Another way to generate ideas is to use “old fashioned” storyboarding. This is where you get a corkboard and pin your ideas to it. You may pin pictures, words, or anything else that represents your ideas. Be creative, move your ideas around on the board, free associate, and see what happens.

Spy on Your Competitors

One sneaky way to generate ideas is to see what your competitors are doing. This means checking out the following:

Blog posts.
Emails/newsletters.
Social media posts.

The best part about checking social media (and sometimes blog posts) is that you’ll simultaneously get an idea of whether an idea is popular just based on how many people like, share and comment on it. Be sure to also read visitor comments which may generate even more content, product, service and/or business ideas.

Find Out What’s Selling

Still another way to generate ideas is to run a search for your niche keywords and take a look at what others are selling. You can complete this search in marketplaces such as ClickBank.com, iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon.com. You can also run a general Google search to see what pops up.

Next…

Look at TOCs

A great way to generate a bunch of content or even product ideas fast is to look at the tables of contents of popular products in your niche. For example, if a book has 10 chapters and each chapter has five sub-topics, that’s 50 quick ideas for you.

Check Popular Articles

You can check your own articles, check your competitors’ articles, or even check article packs in your niche that PLR sellers are offering. Whatever method you choose, the point is to generate ideas from articles. In most cases, you can generate multiple content or product ideas from each article.

For example, if an article has ten tips, those ten tips are ten potential product or article ideas.

Browse the News

Spend time every day browsing news sites such as the BBC, NPR, CNN and even your local news. You can also run searches on these sites for niche keywords to uncover relevant stories, which may lead to product, content or business ideas.

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How To Make Process Of Testing And Tracking

Don’t be Impatient

Don’t end a test prematurely just because it looks like one variation is pulling out ahead as a winner. Be patient and gather all the data, as then you can be confident in your results.

Test Pricing

This is a big factor when it comes to conversions. There are three types of pricing you can test:

Major pricing. This is where you test major pricing differences, such as $19.99, $29.99, and $49.99.

Minor pricing. Here’s where you test minor differences to see which pulls better, such as $19.99 versus $19.97.

Payment options. Here you can test options such as PayPal versus 2Checkout, or you can test payment plans versus one-off payments.

Next…

Block Escape Hatches

Make sure there is only one primary exit on a sales page: the order button. If you need to include other links (such as terms of service), then test whether to open new windows with these links, open pop up windows, or open them in the same page.

Test Quickly

The sooner you can run a test and find out what works, the sooner you can get higher conversions, get more people on your mailing list, and make more sales. That’s why you’ll want to run your tests quickly. A good way to do this is to buy traffic – such as by using Google AdWords or even Facebook ads – which lets you get traffic almost instantly. If you buy enough traffic, you can complete your test as soon as in a few days.

Don’t Make Assumptions

Just because something works for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for you. Don’t make these sorts of assumptions. Instead, test everything yourself to see what works.

For example, just because everyone in your niche uses red font for headlines doesn’t mean that’s what converts the best. Test it yourself to find out for sure.

Develop a Testing Process

Don’t test blindly. Instead, use this process to determine what to test:

Step 1: Identify Problems. Check your traffic logs in order to identify problems in your sales process. For example, check conversion rates on your sales letter to determine if your sales letter is optimized.

Step 2: Analyze the Problem. Here you hypothesize what is causing the problem. For example, if people are bouncing out of a sales letter quickly, then you may want to start by testing headlines.

Step 3: Run Your Test. Now do an A/B split test on the factor that you think is causing the problem.

Step 4: Draw Conclusions. When the test is done, look at your stats to determine if your hypothesis was correct. Check which variation created the best conversion rate. Where warranted, run additional tests to further improve conversions.

Next…

3 Factors to Boost Ad Conversions

Let’s suppose you’re running an ad on Facebook or even a niche site. Here are three factors to test:

The ad headline. This factor tends to have the biggest impact on conversion rates, so make sure you optimize until you have something that gets attention and gets clicks.

The ad graphics. Generally, simple graphics with bold colors are better than busy graphics. Your photos or other graphics should help your ad get attention.

The call to action. If you’re not getting the clicks, then check if your CTA is doing its job.

Next…

Increase Email Conversions With These 4 Tests

Optimize your emails by testing these four factors:

Subject lines. This factor generally has the biggest impact, because if no one opens your email then the rest of the content really doesn’t matter.

Opener. The subject line drew the reader in, and the opener is going to determine whether they keep reading. Test different openers to boost response.

The offer. Another big factor is what product you’re offering and the price. Rotate different products and offers to see which ones your audience responds to the best.

Day/time sent. If you’re sending emails when your audience isn’t in a position to take action, they won’t. That’s why it’s a good idea to test different days and different times of the day to find out what boosts your conversions the most.

Next…

10 Factors That Can Boost Your Sales Letter Conversions

There are plenty of factors you can test on a sales letter. Here are some of the biggest factors:

The headline.
The subheadline.
The opener.
The bulleted list of benefits.
The call to action.
The postscript.
The guarantee.
The overall offer (price, positioning, and bonuses).
The overall design of the website.
The headline font, size and color.

Which brings us to the next point…

Focus on the 20%

Here’s a good guideline: 20% of factors will produce 80% of the results. Your job is to identify the top 20% (such as headlines or prices) and then focus the majority of your efforts on optimizing those factors.

Test One Factor

Unless you are familiar with multivariate analysis, it’s a good idea to test just ONE variable at a time, while holding all other variables constant. That way, you can be confident that any changes to your conversion rate are due to that one factor.

For example, if you want to test sales letter headlines, then be sure the only difference between your Sales Letter A and Sales Letter B is the headline. Don’t create any other differences, such as trying to test pricing, web design or anything else.

Acquire Good Tools

Testing is easy when you have the right tools. These include:

Built-in tools. For example, check if your email service provide offers tracking and testing tools.

Stand-alone tools. Examples here include Google Analytics, Piwik.org (which is an alternative to Google Analytics), and split-testing tools such as SplitTestMonkey.com.

And finally…

Two Things to Test

Here are two items to test which are often overlooked:

Long copy versus short copy. Some audiences respond best to a long-form sales letter, while others prefer a headline with a half a dozen benefits. You’ll need to test this to see which your audience prefers. Keep in mind that it may be different for different types of offers.

Video versus text. You may test video sales letters, text sales letters, or a combination of both.

Let’s wrap things up…

Conclusion

You just discovered 101 ways to boost your conversions across your ads, sales letters, emails, articles and other content. So now your next step is to take action by implementing these tips – because the sooner you do, the sooner you’ll start enjoying higher conversions, more subscribers, more sales and more money in the bank!

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How To Keep Design In Mind

Keep Design in Mind

There are plenty of design elements that may look “cool,” but they can dampen conversions. That’s why you’ll want to stick to the basics, such as using black text on a white background. (Anything else is just too difficult to read.)

The second point you’ll want to keep in mind is the design and placement of ads on your site. Anything that looks too much like an ad – such as a big, flashing banner – is often ignored because prospects develop “ad blindness.”

Be Congruent

You’re probably putting out a lot of content, right? If so, then be sure your content and sales messages are congruent across all channels. For example, the content you post on your blog should be similar to the content you post on Facebook, both of which should be congruent with your sales pages. This cohesiveness helps build familiarity, which in turn boosts conversions.

Presell Prospects

Hitting prospects up directly for a sale often results in very low response. That’s why you’ll want to presell your prospects. Here’s how to do it:

Get them on a mailing list and follow up repeatedly via email to close the sale.

Give them a high-quality lead magnet to show them the quality of your products, and then pitch a tripwire offer.

Generate sales by “warming up” leads via your blog posts and social media content.

Here’s another idea…

Create a Series

People don’t often buy a product or take some other action the first time that they’re exposed to that particular product or idea. That’s why you’ll get a better response if you expose your prospects to the idea multiple times.

Here’s an example: create a three-part “Gain-Logic-Fear” series and deliver it by email. Here’s what it looks like:

Gain: here’s where you share the benefits of the offer, which primarily appeals to the prospect’s emotions.

Logic: here’s where you present data regarding the offer to appeal to the prospect’s rational side. For example, you might provide a case study to prove your claims.

Fear: here’s where you create a fear of missing out (or other fear) to urge people to act. For example, you might extend a limited-time discount.

Next…

Polish the Content

Before you release your content, ask yourself these questions:

Is the content completely designed around leading people to the call to action?
Is the content engaging/entertaining?
Is the content formatted for easy readability?
Is the call to action compelling?
If it’s a video, is the video production professional and polished?

If you can answer “yes” to these questions, then your content is more likely to convert the readers.

Create a Swipe File

Do you ever get stuck when you’re trying to write an article, sales letter, ad or other piece of content? Here’s the solution: create and use a swipe file.

This is a file of other people’s content that you use for inspiration. For example, if you see a title such as “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” you can use that for inspiration in your niche. E.G., “How to Lose Weight and Look 10 Years Younger.”

You can collect these inspiring pieces from sales letters, blogs, and social media posts around the web. You can also clip them out of magazines and newspapers. Your swipe file may include:

Headlines.
Email subject lines.
Titles.
Sub-titles.
Openers/introductions.
Closers/conclusions.
Benefit statements.
Guarantees.
Postscripts.
Calls to action.
Transitional phrases.

And similar items.

Next…

The High-Converting Sales Letter Checklist

Before you release that sales letter, use these questions as a checklist for creating a great sales letter:

Did you profile your target market before you wrote the letter?
Did you list all the benefits of your product, service or other offer?
Does your headline get attention with benefits, curiosity and/or social proof?
Did you put your headline in quotes?
Did you include a benefit-driven subheadline?
Does your opener grab attention with a story, startling fact, or intriguing questions?
Do you agitate your prospect’s problems and remind them of the pain of their problem?
Do you introduce your product as the solution to that pain?
Do you get prospects to imagine the joy of this solution?
Did you include a bulleted list of benefits?
Did you raise and handle objections?
Did you include a guarantee to reverse the risk?
Did you justify the price?
Did you include bonuses to sweeten the offer?
Did you craft a strong call to action next to the order button?
Did you inject a sense of urgency (e.g., fear of missing out)?
Did you include testimonials?
Did you include other forms of proof to back your claims?
Did you end with a postscript which reiterates the main benefits and calls the prospect to action?
Do you have a professional-looking web page?

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How To Create a Strong CTA

3 Tips for Creating a Strong CTA

Your call to action (CTA) has a big impact on whether your prospects actually click your link, fill in your form, or act in some other desired way. That’s why you’ll want to check out these three tips for strengthening your C.T.A.:

Choose strong, specific verbs. For example, “buy” is a strong verb that tells people exactly what you want them to do.

Transmit urgency. Exclamation points and words like “now” help create urgency. Whenever possible, inject scarcity into the offer. E.G., “Buy now – and hurry, because this offer ends tonight!”

Advise prospects explicitly. In other words, lead people by the hand and tell them what to do. E.G., “Click the order button below now to get started!”

Check out this next set of conversion-boosting ideas…

6 Ways to Create a Sense of Urgency

People are more likely to take action if they have a compelling reason to take action NOW. That’s why you’ll want to create a sense of urgency whenever possible. Here are five ways to do it:

Offer a limited-time discount. E.G., “Act now to save $50 – but hurry, this offer ends tomorrow!”

Offer a limited-quantity discount. E.G., “The first 100 people who act now will get a $50 discount!”

Offer a limited number of products. E.G., “Only 100 PLR licenses are available, so act now!”

Offer a limited-time bonus. E.G., “Get a free workout video if you act now – hurry, this offer ends soon!”

Offer a limited-quantity bonus. E.G., “The next 48 people who act now will also get a free workout video!”

Remind prospects what happens if they don’t act now. E.G., “Hackers could have already installed malware on your PC, and they’re just waiting to steal your banking information. Protect yourself by buying this guide right now!”

Here’s another way to boost conversions…

How to Prove Your Claims

Many of your prospects don’t entirely believe your claims, which is why you need to prove them. Here are six ways to do that:

Provide customer testimonials.
Highlight great results with case studies.
Offer photos (such as “before” and “after” pics).
Provide videos.
Share screenshots or scans.
Give people other evidence (such as a link showing your romance novel on the New York Times bestseller list when you’re selling a “how to write a bestselling novel” guide).

Here’s something related…

How to Get More Testimonials

Testimonials typically don’t just magically appear in your email inbox. Instead, you need to solicit them from your satisfied customers. Here’s how to do it:

Put a request for testimonials at the end of the product. Be sure to include a link to a form or an email address to make it easy for people to send their testimonial.

Request testimonials within your follow-up email series. This is one of the better ways to do it, since you can ask multiple times in order to garner a better response. E.G., “Could you do me a quick favor, please? If you liked this product, please send me a testimonial. Simply click here and let me know what you liked about this product!”

Ask customers directly. If you talk to customers directly (such as if you’re in a service business), then directly ask them to provide a testimonial.

Next…

Make Your Order Button Stand Out

If you bury your order button in a sales page in a way that makes it difficult to see, you’re going to dampen your conversion rate. That’s why you need to make it stand out using these tips:

Set it apart from the text. Put lots of white space between the text and the order button to really make it stand out.

Make it big. Even a skimmer should be able to quickly pick out your order button.

Offer something colorful. For example, a big orange button will “pop” against a white background.

Here’s another important factor when it comes to your conversion rate…

The #1 Key to Boosting Conversions

Simply put, if you’re not sending targeted traffic, then you can expect poor conversion rates. Keep these tips in mind:

Choose highly targeted keywords. Whether you’re optimizing for the search engines or placing a pay per click campaign, be sure to choose targeted keywords.

Place ads on targeted sites. Ask the website owner about the visitor’s demographics and other important information so that you know if their traffic is targeted.

Here’s the next tip…

Segment Your Audience

If you want to boost your conversions in follow-up emails, then segment your audience according to their interests and behaviors. Specifically:

Segment according to different lead magnets your audience has requested.
Segment according to different products your subscribers have purchased.
Segment according to behaviors, such as opening an email or clicking on a link.
Segment according to other activity, such participating in a contest or joining a webinar.
Segment according to relevant demographics, such as gender.

When you know what people are interested in, you’ll be better able to create content and offers that directly appeal to each segment of your audience.

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