So you’ve decided to go into business for yourself — on the Internet. But then you think… “What, exactly, should I sell?”
It’s a common stumbling block for start-up Internet entrepreneurs. But in his video today, Brian Edmondson, Director of the Internet Money Club, gives you an action plan to match your passion to profits when choosing a niche.
Click on the screen below to watch the video.
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This one time, in 1978, I tried to get a date for the 8th grade Valentine’s Day dance at my junior high school. Acting like the marketer I would become, I first selected my target market of girls I was interested in, based mainly on their demonstrated ability to spend 20 minutes in my company without getting grossed out or offended.
Having narrowed my market, I next chose my medium. Face to face was out of the question, as the only way to get one of those girls alone would have been to shove her in a janitor’s closet. So the medium would be the telephone.
One night, about two weeks before the dance, I purloined the corded phone in my parents’ bedroom, locked myself in my room with a phonebook, and prepared for my first foray into outbound telemarketing.
It wasn’t going to be pretty. I was cursed with limited sales experience and a rather dubious product: three hours with me in a school cafeteria doing the Bump and the Hustle to what we knew even then was some of the worst music ever created. Not to mention the obligatory slow dances.
So I knew I would have to practice. Luckily, I had expanded my prospect list to include several dozen girls who barely knew I existed and, therefore, could be counted on not to have any predisposition to say no to my suggestion of a date.
I found the phone number of the first one and tried to dial. As my shaking finger punched the last digit, I realized with a shudder that I had forgotten the name of the girl I was calling. A man’s voice answered, “Hello?”
“Urggly,” I said.
“Hello?” he repeated. I began to panic. I had to do something.
“Um, hi, is there an 8th grade girl at this location?” I stammered through the asthma I had just mysteriously acquired.
“Who is this?” the voice demanded, in a somewhat hostile tone, I thought.
As I hung up, I remember feeling distinctly grateful that Caller ID would not be invented for another decade or so.
I obviously needed a plan. So I wrote a script, complete with openings crafted for any eventuality: phone answered by prospect, by prospect’s parent, by prospect’s sibling, by answering machine, by random burglar, etc.
I practiced that script in the mirror for several hours. Then I returned to the phone and started dialing. This time, I took note of the name of my prospect — Ilene, a girl who went to my Hebrew school and was, therefore, morally obliged to pretend to tolerate me, at least when her parents were watching.
I dialed six digits and then hung up before I could consummate the call, certain that my opening line of, “Hello, is Ilene there?” was going to be a total bomb. I crossed it out and wrote, “Hi, may I speak with Ilene please?”
But that seemed too formal. “Hi, is Ilene there?” seemed to convey the right tone, but I didn’t approve of the cadence. And so on…
Long story, short (well, not so short, but not as long as it could have been), I didn’t make a single call. I procrastinated by drinking water, doing my social studies essay three days early, brushing my teeth several times, and even gargling once. I think I might have actually practiced my violin at one point. Finally, exhausted and ashamed, I returned the phone to my parents’ room, caught the 11:00 p.m. rerun of M*A*S*H, and went to bed.
This brings me — in a rather roundabout way — to what I want to talk about today: testing and tracking, a key strategy for marketing success.
You see, no matter what your online conversion rate, the success of your telephone close, or the effectiveness of your newspaper advertising, if you aren’t routinely testing different approaches and measuring results, you are leaving the lion’s share of business on the table.
Mail-order companies have known about testing and tracking for almost a hundred years. But it was a well-kept secret, largely because it was a tremendously difficult endeavor. If you wanted to test two different headlines in a newspaper ad, you had to figure out a way to get half of the papers to show one headline and the other half to show the second headline. Major logistical nightmare. And then you needed a way to determine which customer saw which ad. Also not easy. And then you had to keep track of the results by using a paper spreadsheet or ancient punch-card-eating mainframe.
In the old days, testing was for the big boys only. And those who did it accumulated unbeatable advantages over their competitors. Their major task was to beat their “control,” to discover a new approach that was even better than their current best one.
For example, here are two headlines for a correspondence course in English grammar:
1. The Man Who Simplified English
2. Do You Make These Mistakes in English?
Headline #1 was a failure, while Headline #2 was a smash hit. Interesting, huh? (This example, and the one that follows, is from John Caples’s book Tested Advertising Methods, 4th Edition.)
How about this pair, for a hair-growth tonic?
1. 60 Days Ago They Called Me “Baldy”
2. If I Can’t Grow Hair for You in 30 Days You Get This Check
Which one did better, #1 or #2? Before you answer, consider that both headlines were considered strong enough to run by some of the smartest, most experienced, highest paid advertising copywriters in the world. (Keep reading for the answer.)
If those copywriters couldn’t tell for sure which one would be best, then how can you or I expect to find the perfect headline, offer, photo, story, price, guarantee, proof, testimonial, etc. to sell our goods and services? There’s no way, unless… unless… unless we can find a way to run our own tests and figure out the results. And for those of us who do our marketing online, that’s not a problem.
Enter (trumpets blaring) Google AdWords. With AdWords, you can test in minutes or days what used to take months. You can figure out for dimes what used to cost tens of thousands of dollars. You can test ads, landing pages, order forms, e-mail sequences — everything about your online sales process. And it’s easier than calling Ilene on the phone and asking for a date (in my experience).
That awkward segue brings me back to my Valentine’s Day Dance Sales Failure. I failed not because I called 45 girls and they all told me to get lost. No. I failed because I didn’t call any of them. I was prepared with several approaches, and it’s certainly possible that at least one of them would have worked. But because I didn’t try anything, I didn’t learn anything. So when the 9th grade talent show/social rolled around the following year, I was no better equipped to get a date than I had been the year before.
The point is, if you’re just serving one Web page to all your visitors, you’re not learning. You’re not improving. And if you’re standing still online, you’re falling back.
So… which one of those headlines for the hair-growth tonic do you think did better? Turns out that Headline #1 (60 Days Ago They Called Me “Baldy”) did much better than Headline #2 (If I Can’t Grow Hair for You in 30 Days You Get This Check).
In the old days, a lot of time and money had to be spent to get the answer. But nowadays, give me a Google account and , and I can give you a headline that can double your sales almost instantly.
There are two kinds of customers you must pay special attention to: (1) the excellent customer, and (2) the extremely unhappy customer.
The excellent customer is someone who can’t stop buying your products, has been easy to service, and raves about you to everyone he knows. Only now he’s asking for something a bit out of the ordinary — and has created a special situation that must be handled. Since satisfied customers are your most important asset, you want to go to extremes to keep them happy.
One of my excellent customers, for instance, wanted a substitute for the free report I was offering with one of my e-books — something we don’t give away. But he had bought tons from us, so I happily gave it to him. He was so happy, he immediately bought yet another product.
The other type of customer you want to handle personally and with great care is the extremely unhappy customer. Reason: Unhappy customers tell other people that they’re unhappy with you. The more unhappy they become, the more people they complain to — and the louder they say it.
In the good old days, an unhappy customer complained to maybe 5 or 10 other people. But with social networking, they can tell thousands about you with a few keystrokes and mouse clicks.
I had a problem with a product I bought online, but could get no satisfaction from the seller. He refused to even take my call. So I wrote about it on my blog. Within 24 hours, the seller called, apologized profusely, immediately fixed the problem, and begged me to remove the post from.
Despite this newfound power that consumers enjoy online, many Internet businesses treat their customers poorly. I hear complaints about it all the time. People tell me they bought a product online, but when they called about returning it, the seller became downright opprobrious. Or they tell me about Internet marketers who flat out refuse, on the flimsiest of excuses, to honor their money-back guarantees.
And Internet marketers can be so darn inaccessible!
I mean, if you have a problem with your phone, you can call the phone company and eventually get to a real person, right? But when you want to complain to an Internet marketer, more often than not there is no mailing address or phone number.
And when you send them an e-mail, you get a response from a robot — an auto-responder — not a live human being. The e-mail tells you how busy the marketer is. Sometimes it promises a return call from a person… which usually never comes.
I have heard of Internet marketers who blow their stacks at customers who aren’t very computer literate and have trouble opening and reading an e-book or downloading and listening to a podcast. Those customers may frustrate you and try your patience, but think about how frustrated they must feel. They just bought great information from you, and now they can’t access it.
Is this how you’re treating some or all of YOUR customers? If so, something I heard at a recent meeting of the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County can serve as your new customer service policy. One of the speakers pointed out that a precept of the organization is: “Every person deserves to be treated fairly and kindly.”
This is great advice, especially if you are an Internet marketer.
“But,” you may argue, “I can’t personally respond to every complaint. That’s why I have an auto-responder or an assistant.”
First of all, assuming your products are a good value, you’re not getting all that many complaints. Second of all, you probably could respond to all of them, if you wanted to.
SL, a major catalog marketer, writes a personal note of apology — and sends it along with a small gift — whenever his company has an unhappy customer. If SL can do it, you and I can do it too.
But let’s say you can personally respond to only a fraction of the complaints you get. What should you do?
I hired a part-time assistant to handle all complaints and special requests. She does her job with sensitivity and common sense. However, I see all the complaints first, and I pick certain ones to handle personally. These are from the two types of customers I mentioned at the beginning of this essay — the extremely unhappy ones and the valuable repeat customers.
Every person deserves to be treated fairly and kindly. Are you treating every customer and prospect fairly? Do you do it angrily or kindly?
One more thing: Add an unadvertised grace period to your money-back guarantee.
If, for example, you have a 90-day money-back guarantee and a customer returns your product on day 92, you give him his money back anyway. Why? Because you want to treat him fairly and kindly… just like you’d want to be treated.
And if you treat your customers fairly and kindly, they will deal with you in the same way.
[Ed. Note: Providing great customer service should be a priority in your Internet business. But there is plenty of other stuff to learn and take care of... search engine optimization, copywriting, landing pages, e-mail list building, social media... you'll learn it all in Bob's Internet Cash Generator program. Find out more about it here.
Bob Bly is a freelance copywriter and the author of more than 70 books. To subscribe to his free e-zine, The Direct Response Letter, and claim your free gift worth 6, click here now: www.bly.com/reports.]
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A Question for Michael Masterson: “Are you approaching business any differently in today’s economic climate? Baby boomers never experienced a severe depression or hyperinflation –therefore, I think their worldview of business is skewed.”
D.M.
Plano, TX
Michael’s Answer: Yes, D.M., I am approaching business differently these days.
I am working harder than I’ve worked in several years. And I’m expecting everyone who works with me to do the same.
I’ve been through downturns before. And I’ve survived by putting my head down and moving forward. That’s what I’m recommending to my employees and my clients. Stop your unprofitable activities. Get rid of marginal products and people. Get mean and lean — and keep doing what you do best.
For me, that means focusing on small businesses in certain information-publishing industries. I like natural health and anything related to baby boomers. That has worked well for me for the past 30 years, and I expect it will work well for another 20.
I believe The Great Recession is still going strong. Lots of businesses will go bankrupt in the next several years. Millions of workers will lose their jobs. The U.S. will struggle and fall. It will no longer be the world’s best economy. But we will survive. And those who make the right moves now will become very rich.
I am investing carefully in real estate. I intend to buy one or two dozen rental houses in the next year or two. When the prices of these properties get back to where they should be, I’ll have made millions. In the meantime, they will generate tens of thousands of dollars of income for me — above and beyond my expenses.
I am buying precious metals, too. But I’m spreading my bets around, because I expect that gold might correct itself a few times before it returns to new highs in a year or so.
I’m also investing in a select group of high-quality, dividend-paying stocks. But there again, I’m expecting a significant market correction. And I continue to invest in bonds. They are riskier than they were before, so I’m being cautious.
Generally, I see the next few years as a buying opportunity for all sorts of investments. I’m bullish on smart investing, even though I think the economy is in serious trouble.
“I think you should raise the price of the Michael Masterson Journal to better reflect the value of its content and to allow for the purchase of an easier-to-read font!
“Excellent content, though. No doubt trust keeps a lot of people, rich and poor, from doing better.”
Robert Schwarztrauber
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In residential real estate, the best indicator of value is typically based on comparable properties in the area — what they SOLD for, not what they are listed at. But you should also consider cash flow and replacement cost.
List price shouldn’t factor into your calculations. Neither should the property’s assessed value. Neither of those numbers will consistently be a true reflection of what a property is worth. Do your own analysis. Then you can be certain you’re getting a good deal… whether you are buying a property for less than list price or not.
