Brands. Any company has one, whether it be great or not so great. Even if the company doesn’t want to admit it, they are responsible for what their brand portrays to their customers.
Today I heard about an up and coming internet reality tv show which was dirtied (in my opinion) by one of the coaches. I won’t go into detail with that, you can do your own research, but it just goes to show you that if you don’t keep tabs on what your employees are doing, you will likely suffer to some extent.
Here are some things that might help keep the people who don’t know any better from doing something stupid:
Flat out tell them that they are not allowed to discuss the project, business, or whatever with other people.
If something does get out, then publicly address it. If you have to, then reprimand your employee.
Along the same lines as discussion, don’t allow them to release any media without your approval.
In business your brand is your image. It is often your customer’s first impression of you. No matter what you do, you brand will at some point get tainted. How you deal with it is up to you.
Every since I began working in the PPC industry I am amazed that I learn something new every day. Lately I have been putting a lot of thought into spending money on campaigns and how to get the most of what I spend.
With my current process I setup a test for an offer, throw some ads up, and then see what happens. At first I was tracking all the stuff I had to track and optimizing what I had to optimize. However, after about the second time of doing this, I noticed that there was a lot more information that I should have been keeping track of than I was.
I have read a few times that you should track everything, but always took the advice with a grain of salt. But once I looked at the money I was spending on PPC and not feeling like I had enough in terms of research to show from it, I changed my mind and my process. For example, if you have two different Ad copies and you delete one that isn’t performing very well, maybe you should log the bad Ads so that you can learn what isn’t working. As opposed to just trashing the Ad and creating another Ad to test against the good Ad. The same goes for landing pages. Put all your bad landing pages in a folder and every so often go back and analyze what you are doing wrong.
After all, you are spending money to show both Ads, so you might as well get your money’s worth from both. Think about it, after optimizing the campaign a few times and building up an excel sheet of a handful of bad Ads, wouldn’t it be nice to go take a quick look at it and see what ISN’T working?
If you think you are wasting a bunch of money on PPC, just keep in mind that there shouldn’t really be any “wasted” money in PPC. All that money you just gave the search engine and didn’t get any commissions was for research data- don’t disregard it or throw it away.
The thing I am quickly learning in PPC is that the sooner you learn from your mistakes and correct them, the more money you make. A lot of PPC marketers say that you have to lose money before you can make money – but why? You have to test something, spend money to do it- then learn what you forgot, didn’t know, and what you could have done better.
I’m still intermediate to PPC and still learning a lot about the industry and I hope this information helps you.
-God Speed-
So, if you read my previous posts, then you know that I have been learning and testing out my knowledge of PPC (Pay Per Click). Needless to say, I’ve been losing money from the start. It’s not as though I didn’t know this would happen, and I actually never assumed I would making any to begin with. However, I knew going into PPC that I had to get testing out of the way. I relate it to learning to swim. You can ask all the questions you’d like, but without jumping in the water and getting your bearings, you will never gain experience. Experience is an interesting thing. You can read all you’d like about anything, but you may never achieve the same reasoning or hands on feeling that others might.
If you are interested in making money online, then you have of course read money making sales letters before. The funny thing is, even though most people who blog tend to hate these products, I don’t. My reason for this admiration is due to the simple fact that these sites actually draw ME into to wanting to buy the product. The feeling is the type you get when watching a late night infomercial which tells you how to get rich as quick as possible. In this post I am going to dissect these sites to determine what it is that is drawing you to buy, and hopefully we will learn something useful from it.
The Title
Every good sales page has to have a great title. This is the first thing the visitor sees and thus is the most important. Almost every title I have seen serves as the product description. It gives an enticing phrase or sentence to make you read more. Usually you will see mysterious words such as: Insider, Money, Secret, Mystery, Tactics, Strategy, Debunk, etc… Basically anything that will make you believe you are reading something secret, difficult to find, or not common knowledge.
With every good title you also have a certain amount of money. For some reason, you never really see an even amount like $200 or $4,000. Yet, you tend to see something such as, “$45,326.00.” First of all, this is probably being used for believability. The amount seems to be specific, so this guy must have made it somehow. Second, the number is a little more eye catching (at least for me) when I read a sales page.
Introduction
The next thing you will see is something describing what you are about to see. This might include some strange but impressive statistic. Or perhaps it will state the time sensitive status of the information you are about to read. Again, this is an introduction, so you are going to see something intriguing to make you scroll down.
Experience?
Somewhere shortly after you will see a list (often bullet pointed) of requirements to join or buy the program. Of course you are always going to meet at half if not all of these, “requirements.” The so called requirements are simply here to get rid of any doubt or impressions you might have about the product. Generally, the statements are stating that there is practically no learning curve when beginning the program.
Images are proof…
If you have a good sales page, you have to have great images. I usually see images of money, but other times will see pictures of nice houses or cars. Why are these images here? They subconsciously tell your mind that this is what you are going to achieve. Who doesn’t want a nicer car or house?
As far as images go, you will sometimes even see this proof from checks, bank statements, and online accounts.
Snippets
Every sales page has engaging snippets or excerpts from the actual product. They might not actually tell you anything useful, but will always make you want to buy. Most often, I will see some facts that are common knowledge on the internet and are only twisted to sound more exciting.
Induction and Conversational Hypnosis Techniques
A month or so ago I posted in reference to a product I had purchased called Conversational Hypnosis. The interesting thing I noticed about a sales letter I came across just now is that it uses some of the same techniques from that program. Here is the paragraph I am referring to:
“Buy Low, Sell High”
Let me tell you what that means…
This idea of “buy low, sell high” applies to traffic the same way it applies to all the goods and services sold in the world today. In fact, it applies to traffic in the same way that it applies to your life, right now, in your job. After all, your boss is buying up pieces of your life in order to take huge profit from these investments: buying low, selling high.
Now pay close attention as I tell you what Arbitrage is: it’s the art of exploiting the gap between what something is worth to somebody and what you can acquire it for.
As you consider this, you notice that it’s the same prinsiple. Buy Low, Sell High, that’s the idea.
But right now, this may sound as abstract to you as hearing that somewhere in the far reaches of South America, there is a city named El Dorado, and it is made of gold.
Except now you can have the map. So stick with me. We’ll get to that in a minute.
Anything seem strange to you? Fundamentally, it is stating first a simple rule that everyone knows. After which it is anchoring it to your feelings with income (a boss) and a word, “Arbitrage,” (used earlier in the title). Also take note of the way that the writer places, “As you consider this…,” right after anchoring this in your mind. This makes everything feel fluid as you read it. There is no break when the writer goes back to reference the prior rule he first stated. So in your mind you are believing that there is indeed a clear connection between what you were just told and whatever the writer wants to make you believe. In this case you are even straight out told the connection in the first two sentences of the paragraph.
Reviews
By far the most important part of any sales page is the review. The review is here to tell you that this product is legitimate. You may see reviews from people who are already rich or maybe just someone who is well known in this field. Each review is almost always authentic, but it makes you wonder how the writer was able to get the reviews… You don’t very well think that all these successful people are just going to freely review this product do you?
The review should engage the reader and let him/her know that this reviewer is a source in this field and how this product is superior.
Conclusion
As your side scroll bar reaches its end to a long journey from the top, you ask yourself again – Why do I feel like buying? Hopefully now you have your answer. What seemed like a simple sales page, was actually a very well thought out and targeted approach to making your decision for you.
Please share your ideas and thoughts on the subject of sales pages. Does this have any applications to blogging?
Awhile back I wanted to start a review site for some service I can’t recall at the moment. However, my primary reason for starting one was that I would able to target a niche more so than I do on this site. With a review site specifically, you have the ability to take something like loans, and review any number of sites to create affiliate income.
Now I’m the type who tries to determine the psychological or visual response that my sites will have on the visitor. So when I drafted up a review site, I of course tried to place everything which I wanted to sell in the best possible place. The most important thing I noticed off the bat was that the #1 affiliate should always be the first to see on the site. If somebody visits your site and is just clicking through to find something, they will see #1 and the product right away. It is just like Google search listings- first is supposed to be most important and, “the best.” And seeing as how many internet users and more importantly consumers were trained to search by Google, there is no harm in using this knowledge to your advantage.
Immediately after I pull up the site, I first look at the banner. This is either because of the flag’s red color which stands out quite well amongst the other images or the cutoff on the flag which creates, what I will call, “a point of interest,” on the site.
Enticing Interest
If it where me, I would take out the flag (or at least make it almost entirely transparent) and enlarge the header for the website. By doing this I think that the viewer would first see the title, “Top USA Online Casinos,” and take note that they are in the right place.
Make it Noticeable
Next, I would go ahead and make the Number 1 site more noticeable. This way the visitor sees it either first or right after they see your header. Let’s face it, don’t you want them to see the best affiliate first and follow it? There are numbers next to the sites which are creating this type of effect, but I really didn’t notice size difference until I looked closely. So clearly, the sites need more emphasis on where to click and which is best.
Color
Color could use a little improvement. Color always plays a big role when determining where you want the user to click or be directed. I have noticed that primary colors are most often the best way to grab the attention of a user and make them read or click on something important. For example, placing a yellow star on the first site would significantly improve the user’s ability to determine that it is in fact the best option to go with.
Likes
“FREE guide,” is very noticeable, and it never hurts to say something is free.
I also like the fact that the first site is showing right in the middle of the screen. In order for the visitor to see anything below #4 clearly, the must scroll down. In turn this is increasing the chances of a user clicking on not only the first, but one of the top four sites.
The update information is nice, but I don’t think it is needed. This isn’t a blog and most visitors will assume that the site is up to date based on how the site looks overall. Perhaps replace the space with a horizontal line to divide your top information with the site listing.
Conclusion
There you have it, a review site somewhat dissected. Hopefully, you learned something from all of this. Tell your user where to go and chances are he/she will go there.
