I kick myself…

I’ve been collecting leads online, generating business and regularly emailing my prospects, customers and clients since early 2005. Making tweaks, updates and testing new “lead generation offers” on our various websites is something that has only increased over the years and really will never stop.

On a recent Saturday I noticed a higher number of “opt-in subscribers” to one of our sites. When ever there is a jump in traffic to your website it’s a good idea to have your web-person (or yourself) pull the analytics to see where the visitors are coming from. We noticed another website had picked up one of my articles which included links in my bio. A spike in traffic and subscribers, yes! But I kicked myself! Why?

Because a week or so prior we had discussed a better “opt-in offer” to implement on this very same site. But, we didn’t get it implemented in time. So how do I know our new offer would have pulled more opt-ins? Good question… And that leads me to the first kind of offer…

“The Informational Offer”

The informational offer is when you think about the questions your prospects ask you. The knowledge you have. The ideas you have that others want to know. Then, you take that info and package it into some sort of white paper, report, audio or video training. How you package it depends on you. But never forget the title is so very important. Here are few ideas for titles…

• How To…
• What Never To…
• What You Need To Know Before…
• 5 Reasons To Never…
• 7 Ways To…

The key is to offer some sort of instant gratification. Then, you deliver what you promise and maybe more. From there, you mention how you’ll stay in touch via quality emails two (or more) times per week. Just never forget – the additional emails you’ll provide the prospect are secondary and mentioned as an “OH, BTW.” Remember, It’s the title of your info that makes your visitor want what you have.

Next…

“The Transactional Offer”

The principle behind the transactional offer is again – “Instant Gratification.” Can you make it a no-brainer for a visitor to pop in their name, email and maybe phone number to get some sort of coupon or “sweet deal” from you? This strategy is key if your goal is to get them into your place of business right away or have them buy right away on your site.

You can combine the two kinds of offers as well. “Get Your Super Wiz-Bang Deal & Discover 5 Ways To…”

The point is to make sure you’ve got one of these key online marketing principles working for you.

Why? Simple…

Not everyone who comes to your website is ready to take some action and do business with you. But there’s a percentage of those visitors who will gladly give you their name, email and phone number (and sometimes more) for something of value to them. Once you have that info you have permission to follow up. Naturally, the art of email marketing and follow up is another topic but the starting point is lead generation.

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Have you seen the Google+ Icon?

Chances are if you land on a website that’s up-to-date where the web-master does his/her best to keep things current you’d see the Google+ icon.

The post Why Have a Google Plus Icon appeared first on Cyberspaceto your Place.

So it only makes sense that Mobile Pay Per Click is on the rise. Mobile Pay Per Click (MPPC from now on) is simply targeting only mobile devices for your key words and terms. If you log in to your Google Adwords account you can see the option to target smartphones and devices. You’ll also note in Google’s instructional video about MPPC they want you to send the searcher to your mobile website. Duh! The good news about MPPC right now is cost per clicks are still pretty low so you can really increase your ROI.  Stay tuned because the next episode of “Mobile Marketing Tips TV” will be about mobile pay per click.

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The online DVD rental and movie streaming service has taken a big hit recently.

A brilliant concept that started in 1997. Netflix dug a grave for Blockbuster Video when they weren’t looking, pushed them in and proceeded to throw dirt over them. Until recently it seamed Netfix could do no wrong.

I first heard about Netflix in 2005. A customer of mine told me about it. My wife may have joined a few months later. I remember checking their stock price six years ago. It was around $25 per share. I guess it was a bargain.

Their stock hit a high of $305 on July 13^th of this year. But since then their stock has been getting creamed. About $80 at the time of this writing. Still not bad if you bought it in 2005.

So why has the company’s value gone down by billions?

A few reasons…

They are on an aggressive expansion to be the first in new markets around the world. That sort of under-taking would be expected to bring the stock down a little. But why else has the stock suffered?

Here’s Why…

Netflix Spooked Share-Holders and Customers in two ways…

First, they raised the price of their popular DVD by mail and online streaming combo service by 65% percent. Then, they announced plans to separate the two services.

The truth is the new price might still be a great deal. But that’s not the psychology at work here. It’s the principle of the thing. Whether a rate or price increase is fifty cents or thousands of dollars it’s all relative.

I learned from my years in the martial arts business you can’t just jack up monthly tuition rates on existing members dramatically and expect them to be happy about it.

Reed Hastings pay attention…

Even though what’s done is done, if I were consulting with Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings, and he asked me what I thought of the price increase I would have had told him he was nuts.

What he should have done was put a plan in place to reward his loyal subscribers with a very small price increase or none at all. The brain-storming session would have been about the small two to three dollar increase, but focused on the extra value and strong reason for the increase so we would have had a case to make to the members.

Then, there could have been a recruitment push to get as many new subscribers in BEFORE the huge price increase. So instead of jacking members up from $9.99 to $15.99 he could have moved them to $11.99 or $12.99 with some added value and a justification for the small increase. And new members acquired in the recruitment push could get in at the $12.99 and lock-in the rate and never worry about paying $15.99.

Netflix Really Does Need The Price Increase

The reason for the increase is for the long-term benefit of the subscriber IMHBAO. DVD’s and postage eat Netflix’s cash-flow. They need that cash-flow to get better content into their streaming service. I love the streaming service. The streaming service is really the ultimate video store of the future. But what I don’t like about it is most titles I want to watch are on DVD only.

Yes, my wife and I were one of the many who did not go for the price increase and canceled our DVD program with them. We still do have the streaming.

Netflix back-tracked on that idea to split the services, but the damage has been done.

The lessons are simple…

Netflix could have easily saved billions if they played their hand better. You simply can’t try to pull off what they tried to pull off without and up-rising.

The post How Netfix Could Have Saved Billions appeared first on Cyberspaceto your Place.

When thinking of the wording for your website or any marketing materials one winning strategy is to ask questions targeted at your prospect.

The questions are usually born out of frustrations your prospect is feeling. What you do is re-phrase the frustrations in the form of a question or questions.

Here’s an example from a website promoting a different type of fitness program than the normal “gym”…

• Are you tired of working out week after week and STILL not seeing results?

• Are you tired of the same old routines that are no longer challenging to your body??

• Are you fed up with the whole “Gym Atmosphere?”

How do you come up with the questions? Easy, you pay attention to what some of your best customers and clients tell you about why they chose you in the first place. Then, you can go get more of the them by feeding back what they told you to the market place.

Everything starts with words so it would be wise for you to get good at crafting messages or bring someone on board who can.

OH– How did Katy Perry use this…

“Do you ever feel like a plastic bag

Drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?

Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin

Like a house of cards, one blow from caving in?

Do you ever feel already buried deep?

Six feet under screams but no one seems to hear a thing

Do you know that there’s still a chance for you

‘Cause there’s a spark in you?”

That’s the beginning to her hit song… “Firework”

See how it works?

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Nothing new of course, since we see QR Codes more and more!

But this time was different…

I’m so proud to finally be able to report a business who gets it.

So let’s explore what they did right when it comes to Mobile Marketing and QR Codes

This law firm brought their print marketing to life following all the QR Code commandments…

1. They placed the code in the proper spot. Bottom right. Of course, there are some instances where you can vary this, but for the most part a bottom right call to action is the way to go.
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2. They followed the “Call to Action” rules and offered an informational report.
3. Most important! Their QR Code opened up to a mobile optimized page which loaded quickly.
4. As an added bonus they also collected contact info in exchange for the report the offered in the ad.

It’s great to see a business who “gets it!”

One of the reasons we built a code generator and landing page builder into Mobile Marketing CMS is to facilitate the process above. “Proper Mobile Marketing Principles.”

I’m confident that as time goes on more and more businesses will “get it” when it comes to QR Codes

The post Success With QR Codes appeared first on Cyberspaceto your Place.

In the process they’re gonna be giving away 10 Million in ad credits.

Why? Easy, they want more small biz owners using their site.

Right now there are about 9 Million Small Business pages on Facebook.

The Cross Country Road show is a partnership between the U.S Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business.

It will kick off next month with (My guess) local workshops put on by both organizations.

Then, In January, FB will give away up to $50 is ad credits to as many as 200,000 business owners.

Now, the urgent part. Keep a heads up because these will be given on a first come first serve basis.

So, best to check in with your local Chamber over the next few months.

Also, this raises the question…

“Yes, great, now I have Facebook page for my biz, but so does my competition.”

How you can stand out is by making sure your Facebook page is totally custom and “Branded” to your business.

For more info on Branded Facebook Pages Check Out…

Custom Facebook Fan Pages

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Here’s what I mean…

Maybe they’re new in business and just get started or they’ve been around for a while and are just now discovering the true power of the internet. Some of these business owners say “for now, we just need to get something up – we can come back to all this internet marketing stuff another time.” This is a bad idea… Here’s why…

Yes, I am all for taking some simple action to generate momentum. But the problem with “just getting the website up” is two fold…

1. That site ends up being permanent and not temporary. We do so may redesigns of website that were “only supposed to be temporary.” Chances are the designer or the business owner simply forgot about it and it just sat there. Finally, the business owner realizes she is not proud of it and wants to make a change as bad as Pookie did in New Jack City.

2. As they get a little busier they quickly outgrow their website and it actually ends up costing them. Why? It’s not an accurate representation of their business. Further… It doesn’t work. Because it was just thrown up there. It is not optimized for search results and it is not ready to capture leads. It’s a big waste of space!

Bottom line…

If you’re gonna do it – do it right.

The post why just getting it up is bad for your internet marketing appeared first on Cyberspaceto your Place.

Even though I have not yet purchased this service, which is basically… insurance for the inevitable legal troubles all of us are bound to run it into at some point. What, you think you’re immune? In psychology that’s called the “Illusion of Invulnerability.” Which basically means you think bad shit won’t happen to you because bad shit is too busy happening to everyone else. My psychology friends and people formerly known as independent reps for Pre-Paid Legal would be so proud.

Could it be the old name that has kept me from investing in this service? I’m not sure about that, but here’s something I am sure about…

The new name is much better and it paints a fantastic picture of what the service is meant to do. The new name is Legal Shield. Makes senses doesn’t it? But hold on, we’re not done with the old name and there’s still some marketing juice left in this post – you just gotta squeeze a little.

The Old Name and a Mistake Most Small Business Owners Make

The old “Pre-Paid Legal” name was chosen the same way most of us in business choose names, titles, headlines for ads, wording for websites, etc and that’s…

1. Based on assumptions that our market “gets it.” They don’t!
2. Simply saying what “it is” rather than remembering we need to tell them what it “does” for THEM.

When you make those mistakes choosing names or marketing messages you end up having to work harder than you should. You’re starting from a point of needing to “explain” rather than simply help someone connect the dots.

I’m reminded of a time I was doing some consulting for a Massage Therapist. She was so hung up on the name of a particular type of massage technique. The problem was most of her clientele could care less. The point was… “Just tell me the result this type of massage produces and what the experience is.”

The name of this website, our book by the same title and our service is an attempt to tell you what the results are. Cyberspace to Your Place is about getting prospects from the internet to meeting you face to face so you can do business with them.

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