Tag Archives | Marketing

The 3 Ways Websites and Blogs Make Money

By Jacob S Paulsen on December 23, 2011 in Marketing, Online, Tutorials

If you recently started a blog or have a website you may be looking for creative ways to generate revenue. As I considered all the various ways to make money online I was able to boil it down to just three generic methods. As you review the concepts and some of the specific examples, consider how you can execute all these opportunities to maximize your own websites and blogs.

Sold Content. Every website provides some level of content to its visitors. This may include video, text, images, etc. Anyone who sells a product and believes that your website visitors are among their target market, may consider paying you to introduce that product. Here are some of the more common types of content that you can sell from your website.

Reviews. In some cases this may involve your client submitting exact copy for you to publish or they may rely on you to write a high quality review based on your true experience with their product. Generally this means you will receive a complimentary product above and beyond the investment you secure to produce the review.
Email Blasts. If you have an email list of your website visitors you can sell email blasts to that list. Generally these are priced by the number of sends and clients will be interested in your average delivery rate, open ratios, and ctr.
Social Media Mentions. More and more often advertisers are willing to pay for your social media endorsement or mention. Awhile back I reviewed SponsoredTweets, but there are many different ad networks and direct advertisers who are interested in this type of publicity.

Sold Advertising. These are the traditional advertising options you notice on other websites.

Banners. Banners offer advertisers a great way to brand their business while driving web traffic. Generally advertising buy a number of impressions, clicks, or actions.
Rich Media. This could include various video integration options, or other media above and beyond traditional banners. The benefits tend to be similar to banner advertising but offer more opportunities for engaging with customers and getting out a message.
In Text Links. In text links are gaining in popularity. Advertisers can select existing text on a page or post of your site and pay you to hyperlink that text string to their site. They may also pay you to add a new text link in a page, post, or in your footer. Advertisers like in text links because they don’t tend to annoy web visitors as much, they drive direct traffic, and they help in search engine optimization efforts. Generally these are sold at a fixed price per time period or by the click.

Sold Products

E-Commerce. This is relatively straight forward. If you have a product you can sell it online. The quickest product to turn a profit on is an information product. It requires no production since buyers download it and thus your profit margin is higher. You can also become a retailer for a wholesale product. Many wholesalers will even drop ship the product directly to your buyer. This makes you the perfect middle man, just taking your margin and processing the sale.

I’m sure that I’ve missed an angle or idea that you may be able to implement. Hopefully this gives you a generic outline that will spark some new ideas to make money from your websites!

Google Plus Making a Big Splash… Will you Plus One this Blog Post?

By Jacob S Paulsen on July 11, 2011 in Featured, Marketing, Online

Google Plus has arrived in a big way. You might have noticed the little +1 buttons in your Google search results for the last few weeks but nobody really had much of an idea what it was about until now. In a nutshell Google Plus is another attempt by Google at launching a usable social network. You might be asking how this is different than Orkut or Google Buzz and you would be right to see similarities but there is a distinct difference and its that difference that also makes it greatly appealing to businesses when in comparison with Facebook & Twitter.

What Makes Google Plus Different

Well, to consumers the basic difference is that it is from Google and that alone is enough to get it out of the gates. For advertisers and online marketing professionals the difference is that simply put, they have combined the social networking with their own core competency… search. Facebook & Twitter don’t have the option to put “like” buttons and “retweet” buttons on Google’s search results pages. Since Google controls over 60% of the online search volume this gives Google Plus a huge audience and relevancy right out of the gate. This is also the single greatest reason why businesses will care about Google Plus.

While search engines like Google have been trying for a long time to factor in social popularity into search algorithms, only Google Plus is perfectly positioned to directly affect SEM. Consider that it would be easy and sensible for Google to give higher rankings to websites and pages that have high social popularity via Google Plus. That can’t be done in the same way or with as much ease with Facebook likes.

Google Plus for Business and Marketing

If you are a business owner or webmaster the biggest thing you can do right now is to integrate a Google Plus button into your website and blogs. This can be done quickest with the Digg Digg plugin for WordPress. For now you will have to settle for this since Google Plus as a social network is currently for consumers only.

In a post from Christian Olsten, Product Manager on the Google Plus project, he remarks:

“We have been watching Google+ take shape over the last week and we’ve seen some really great companies get involved. But frankly we know our product as it stands is not optimally suited to their needs. In fact, it was kind of an awkward moment for us when we asked Ford for his (or was it her?) gender!”

They are working on it. They have big plans to make Google Plus an easy place for non-person entities and businesses to interact with current and potential customers. For now, go here if you would like to be considered in their beta program.

Jacob S Paulsen

Launching Your Online Marketing Plan: Basics Summary

By Jacob S Paulsen on June 8, 2011 in Featured, Marketing, Online

Are you trying to get started with a website, blog, or lead generation page? Are you trying to sort through all of the different software programs available for email marketing, blogging, managing social media, and webcasting? Here is my simple walk through:

Start With Hosting

If you are going to manage an online presence you will need a website. The first steps include setting up a hosting account where you will be able to host your domain names and build your website(s). GoDaddy is very popular but I personally prefer Hostmonster. The key is in picking a reliable company with good customer service and competitive prices. Follow the following links to get the best discounts from these hosting providers. Godaddy. Hostmonster. Hostgator, 1&1.

Setup Your Website

Unless you are willing to invest BIG money into programmers and web designers you will probably be best off utilizing WordPress. WordPress is a no cost, versatile, user friendly system that you can install in a single click through any of the above hosting providers. Tutorials abound online and on YouTube for how to use WordPress. Start on my WordPress tutorials to begin.

Blog SEO & Syndication

Setup your site to automatically syndicate your content across the web. This will increase your organic search engine rankings and bring more visitors to your site. Start with this short article on video syndication but to really make this happen I suggest getting your hands on my e-book, “The Blog SEO & Syndication Formula.” Don’t worry, you can get a free copy sent to your email if you subscribe to my quarterly newsletter. Look for the subscription form on the right side of my site.

Email Marketing

Building an email marketing database is crucial to the success of any online strategy. I have spent time writing about the best methodologies and tools. Read my overview on the why and the how here.

Social Media

Can you believe that just a few years ago the idea of a business being on Facebook was laughed at? As you get started building your online brand and driving traffic to your site, Twitter can be one of the best tools in your back pocket. As you grow and engage your audience Facebook becomes a required tool. Read this overview about how to build and grow an audience on Facebook & Twitter. Then check out this article about building & engaging your Twitter audience.

Webcasting

One of the best ways to engage your audience and present your topics is through online seminars, or webinars. Webinars present an opportunity to connect with your team, prospects, or online readers/followers in real time. You can utilize webinars to discuss a recent book, talk about industry changes, present research, present products, or train a team. Use this link to get your own webinar room.

Hopefully this short summary will help jump start your website on the track to success!

Are You Still Ignoring Google Places? Components & Overview

By Jacob S Paulsen on April 4, 2011 in Featured, Marketing, Online

Late October of 2010 Google changed the search engine marketing (SEM) game again. The format in which local business results are displayed within search results changed dramatically. In the past I used to think of paid search, local search, and organic search (seo) as distinctly different strategies of search engine marketing. The changes from last fall have caused these 3 distinctions to meld into one complete strategy. Local results are displayed in every different part of the page depending on the search being conducted, and more than ever local listings play a bigger part in organic search results.

What is Google Places? Google places is the Google local business directory. In many ways it another yellow pages online solution, different from yellowpages.com or citysearch.com because it integrates with the most popular search engine on the planet. Local businesses can go to www.google.com/localbusinesscenter and list or claim their business to ensure that they appear in relevant results.

Important components of Google Places. Your Google Places page is essentially your most effective or non-effective micro-site or landing page. Depending on the quality of the content it can be a great service to driving more phone calls to your business, and visitors to your site. Considering the massive impact of the service and the fact that it doesn’t cost anything; Google Places has become essential. You can of course include basic info including phone, address, websites, etc. You can also include videos, pictures, and a description of your service or product. Don’t forget to select 5 key categories in which you operate to help Google index your business in searches properly.

Google Places Reviews. Your Google Places page/listing will accumulate all the reviews about your business from the various popular consumer review sites including Yelp, UrbanSpoon, InsiderPages, CitySearch, Dine.com, Travelocity, etc. In addition consumers can post reviews directly to your Google Places page. Both types of reviews are important. You want to drive more good reviews to the various consumer review sites so that you increase your total exposure and reputation online. You want to especially focus on Google Places reviews because it will give you greater strength in your Google Boost advertising (to be discussed below). Utilize the friends and family who do business with you to get some positive reviews quickly. The total number of reviews and how many stars out of 5 that you have on average will be BIG factors that will separate you from your competition in search results. RESPOND to negative reviews. Negative reviews can be your best friend if you respond with concern, eager to make a bad experience positive.

Google Places Tags. For $25 per month you can include a yellow “tag” on your Google Places listing. For many larger businesses this is a no-brainer!! All the research supports that that yellow tag and its accompanying offer/special will bring you more clicks than your competition. It does not however guarantee number one results on the page.

Google Boost. Google Boost is the simplified version of Google Adwords. It allows you to utilize your current Google Places listing as a paid ad in the paid search results of the search results page. It removes a lot of the complicated work that generally goes into a Google Adwords campaign. You can still set campaign budgets or weekly/daily budgets. This is where your Google Places reviews really pay off. You may have 200 total reviews on Google Places, of which 180 came from third party review sites and 20 were made natively on your Google Places page. In that case your Google Boost ad will show only the 20 reviews.

Google Pages Analytics. Like any other type of online advertising you will be able to measure the results from your Google Pages listings. The analytics will outline how many impressions and clicks your listing received over a specific time period. You will also be able to see the top search terms which led people to your page. This is an effective tool that you can use to determine the best keywords for your paid search and SEO efforts.

Stop ignoring this powerful & free tool and get your listing claimed and built out right away!

Jacob S Paulsen

Internet Marketing Solutions & Strategies for Account Executives & Sales Representatives

By Jacob S Paulsen on December 13, 2010 in Marketing, Online, Sales

In this modern world it doesn’t take a geek like me to convince local businesses and advertisers that they need to utilize the internet to interact with their customers. Small businesses across America who don’t have the resources to hire experts struggle each day to keep up with the best practices in online advertising; but what about the sales people? 14.5 Million Americans work in sales. In this fast as light (or Facebook) world how should sales reps be using these online tools to build their client list, customer retention, and generally increase productivity and reach? Today I want to outline a clear strategy for today’s modern sales person.

The Three Sales Objectives:

The first objective is to increase the total number of customers. Building your prospect funnel to eventually increase your client base will always be one of the strongest ways to increase your check.
Secondly we need to increase retention. Maintaining the customers you have in their current buy is crucial to your overall efforts. It doesn’t take very long in the sales profession before you realize that keeping customers is easier than getting new ones but the littlest neglect can lose you customers very quickly.
Your third objective is to increase the buy per customer. Driving each of your customers to give you a greater part of their total budget/buy is sales 101. Up sale the customer to the next promotion, the next product, or the next product category and you will increase your total billing without too much more effort.

The Four Online Activities:

Build an online presence. At a minimum expense you could obtain a complete website. In a society where high school students are trained to build websites it may cost you a lot less than you think to have a professional presence online. Build the website in blog form allowing you to post new information on a regular basis. If you are too cheap to pay for a website I suggest you turn to a free blogging platform such as Blogspot or WordPress.
Create valuable content. Ask yourself what type of content your current and potential customers need. What expertise do you have to share that would both educate your customer and drive them to buy more of your product? If you want to create a loyal following you must develop high quality content. This is where the blogging begins. Share success stories from current clients that are designed to give your client ideas and encourage them to do more business with you. It’s ok to recycle articles, news, etc. If you have access to industry updates, news, etc you can just share that information with your readers/clients. No need to rewrite everything. Just post your opinion about the information and give credit to the original source. Remember that your goal is to create high leverage online activities. The less man hours you have to put into it the better.
Build a list. On your site create an “opt-in” form that allows site visitors to choose to receive your newsletters. Also ask your existing customers permission to add them to your e-newsletters. Newsletters should be sent less frequently than blog posts. If you blog once per week you may send a newsletter every month. If you blog monthly you might send a newsletter every quarter. Utilize the newsletter to share industry news or share your insight into the market changes. This is your opportunity to show your expertise and create a raving fan that will always turn to you when they have a need within your product/service industry. Ask around about different economic email marketing services you can utilize to serve the emails. See resources below.
Syndicate Your Content. There is no need to spend all your time sending links and messages on Facebook and Twitter. This is NOT a productive activity. If you want to connect with clients and potential clients on the social networks such as Facebook and Twitter that’s ok but don’t add the time burden to your day. Since you are already writing content on your blog make sure to automatically feed your blog posts into Facebook, Twitter, and whatever other social networks you feel would be beneficial. Share news stories, industry research, etc on the social networks as well. Utilize a service such as Hootsuite.com or Ping.fm to post to all your networks at once. Both of these services also offer mobile solutions to allow you to share on the go from your phone.

The Five Rules:

How often you blog isn’t nearly as important as how consistently you blog. Start out slow, maybe posting a new blog once per month; slowly increase as you become more comfortable. Get in a groove so that your audience can come to expect a certain type of content and frequency.
Online marketing is a long term, low cost investment. Don’t expect to get fast results. Be consistent over time and only commit to a plan that you are willing to execute over time.
If your audience grows large enough you will be able to monetize your online presence. You will be able to sell ad space on both the site and on your e-newsletters.
Be personable. Nobody wants to do business with a robot. Your online content needs to reflect both professionalism and personality.
Get the help of an expert and continue your online education. Subscribe to my blog and the blogs of other internet marketing gurus. Reading the blogs of internet marketers provides free ongoing training.

Resources:

The three most popular online email marketing systems are iContact, ConstantContact, and Aweber. They each charge based on the size of your contact list. The links in this article will give you a free trial of any of them. Also, let me suggest MyEmailProgram.com which is a new product on the market that is both feature rich and more economic. There are two reasons why you use software like this in place of just a contact group in Outlook. Firstly because it will facilitate automatic signups from your website and secondly because it will track which people open your email, when they open it, and what links within the email they click on.

Various Internet Marketing Mediums for Small Businesses

By Jacob S Paulsen on October 18, 2010 in Marketing, Online

Over the course of 2010 I have met with thousands of small business advertisers to discuss their internet advertising campaigns. Consistently I have found that most small business owners do not have the resources to hire a dedicated in house expert to run their internet advertising. This results in one of 3 scenarios:

The business does nothing being already overwhelmed with the other aspects of the business
The business owner outsources to whatever salesperson walks in the door and claims to be able to take care of it
The business owner attempts to self-educate themselves and spends a lot of time and energy accomplishing very little

Regardless of where you find yourself in this group this article is for you. I have quickly tried to outline the various mediums of Internet advertising. This will hopefully help you clarify a strategy to branding your business online and driving traffic to your website. More to come on this subject.

Video Marketing: SEO and Content Syndication

By Jacob S Paulsen on October 7, 2010 in Marketing, Online

As part of any online campaign you should be considering how to utilize video marekting as part of your strategy. Video Marketing syndication is getting a lot of buzz and attention right now because of 2 simple reasons.

Firstly Video Marketing is a free HUGE back linking system that doesn’t cost anything. Everytime you publish a video to all the various video websites (YouTube & it’s copycats) you are giving yourself another backlink to your site. This is very easily done by inserting the URL at the very front of every video description that is uploaded.
Secondly, Video Marketing represents a huge SEO opportunity because Search Engines give videos their own search priority. Every video on YouTube (or other video sites) has a description, title, and keyword tags. This means that each individual video becomes it’s own optimized piece of content.

Other advantages of Video Marketing include the social aspects of YouTube. Youtube is the 3rd most popular website in the country and as a business you can establish a youtube channel for each station. Check out www.youtube.com/toyota to see how big US companies are taking advantage of this. Toyota has 3,944 subscribers to their YouTube Channel.

HOW to start your Video Marketing Campaign:

There are a variety of high quality video syndication tools online that simplify the process of submitting videos to all the various video sites like youtube. The most effective of these tools is http://www.trafficgeyser.com/ It is a paid tool, but it is the best. I use a service called www.tubemogul.com that is also effective and offers both a free account and a premium upgrade. TubeMogul also offers effective tracking options to help you keep track of how many video views you are getting. Either of these tools allow you to upload the video once, inputting the Title, Description (with URL), and the keywords; and then submit it automatically to all the various video sites including: YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, Facebook, MySpace Video, Yahoo Video, Veoh, Blip.tv, MetaCafe, etc.

Example: Yesterday I deployed a new video via TubeMogul.com It was syndicated to 7 different video websites. Within 24 hours I was in 3 positions on the first page of Google for the keywords I was targeting. This stuff really works.

Jacob S Paulsen
TubeMogul Overview Video

WordPress Malware & Virus Attacks. Blog Security

By Jacob S Paulsen on January 25, 2010 in Tutorials

On Christmas Eve 2009 all of my websites were attacked. I have two hosting accounts with GoDaddy and all of my wordpress sites on both accounts were down. In addition two business partner’s of mine who have their own unique hosting accounts (one with GoDaddy and the other with HostMonster) also had all of their wordpress sites go down at the same time.

wordpress security

After almost a full month of work I have finally managed to clean my server completely of any and all malware and to rebuild my sites with MASSIVE increased security way above and beyond the standard WordPress stock installation. Knowing that I was not the only one to be attacked and that there will yet be many more people in the future I would like to outline some suggestions of both how you can prevent these types of attacks in the future and how to clean out the malware on your site if you have already been infected.

I recently purchased the “Lock Your Blog” Program from Alex Sysoef who is a WordPress Genius! The DVD is free if you pay the requested $9 shipping. In addition to having the DVD shipped to your home, you can also access the videos on his site after you pay the shipping fee. I highly encourage anyone concerned with WordPress Security to follow this link and purchase his program and go through it step by step. Just the same I will outline some of the highlights here:

PREVENTATIVE WordPress SECURITY: Keep me safe!

You have to understand that wordpress is so widely used by so many people online that it becomes a primary target for hackers. While I assume that you have already installed WordPress on your server, preventative security starts with the install process. Changing the default table prefixes and WordPress user keys is essential to protecting your site from intruders. Check out www.expertwordpress.com for a custom version of wordpress that eliminates these stock security loop-holes.

If you have already installed WordPress download and install the WP Security Scan plugin. By activating and running this plugin you will be able to determine which of the basic loop-holes you have. This plugin has a few tools that may be helpful in closing your site down from future attacks also.

Install the plugin Secure WP which will change some of the default codes in the background of your WordPress that otherwise leave you exposed including hiding the version of WordPress you are using.

Install the plugin Limit Login Attempts. The default settings are good enough but you may choose to enable to notification setting so you can receive and email when anyone tries to login more than 4 times unsuccessfully.

Install the plugin WP-DB-Backup and configure it to email you a daily or weekly backup of all your WordPress databases. This will help you restore your site should it be compromised.

Keep all your plugins and core WordPress updated. Developers update their plugins regularly to close security gaps and fix bugs that could otherwise leave you exposed. Visit the tools menu of your blog as often as possible to run all available updates.

Configure and install the Akismet plugin to automatically quarantine spam comments. Set it up to auto-delete comments after 30 days.

LIKE I MENTIONED BEFORE THERE IS SOOOO MUCH MORE YOU CAN DO IF YOU ARE WILLING TO SPEND THE $9 AND PURCHASE THE “LOCK YOUR BLOG” PROGRAM I MENTIONED ABOVE!

RECOVERY: I’ve already been hacked!

Bad news huh? Your site has already been compromised and now you need to clean it out and get it back online.

Contact your hosting provider and let them know you think you have been attacked. Ask them to verify that your databases are still clean of any malware. Most hosting providers do not have the resources to automatically scan and clean all of your files at any given time but they do monitor your databases and can scan them with relative ease. They may also have other suggestions to help you clean your site.

Via your FTP client software (e.g. Filezilla) delete all your themes that you are not using. Also delete any other files that you aren’t concerned with keeping. This will speed up the time you will spend cleaning through files.

Setup an account with Google Webmaster Tools and setup and verify your site. If Google has crawled your site recently and found any malware it will display a warning in your Google Webmaster Tools account and walk you through locating and deleting the malware. After you clean your site you will also come back here to request a new crawling to verify that your site is no longer infected.

Also check with http://stopbadware.org/ to see if your site has been registered. They also have a lot of good tips (non wordpress specific) to cleaning your site.

Ok, now for the WordPress Security specific things you have to do. To be perfectly honest if you have been compromised then there is most likely malware code in almost every php file on your server. It spreads quickly and hides in very unique places. This essentially means you have to delete everything and start over. This means the process of cleaning malware from your wordpress site basically includes backing up all the non-replaceable files, and starting afresh. The only way to do that without losing all your content will be to purchase a new hosting account and rebuild your site almost from scratch. This will be 100% less time consuming and more secure in the long run than it would be to attempt the manual scan of every file on your server. Here is a step by step solution that should help you complete this process.

Just in case we fail in duplicating your site we want to create a full backup of all blog in case we have to revert back to it eventually. Do this by installing the wp-db-backup plugin and performing a backup of your databases.

After you verify with your hosting provider that your databases are clean from any malware navigate to your tools menu and select the “Export” option. Export content from all the authors. This is the process of saving all of your posts, pages, and comments. The file needs to be less than 2MB.

On the new hosting account install a new version of WordPress. I suggest doing a custom install utilizing the suggestions on www.expertwordpress.com. The stock version of WordPress has far too many WordPress security holes and we want to install a custom version that will avoid the common issues from the beginning.

Follow the steps listed in the “Preventative Security” section above to secure your blog against future attacks.

Search out, download, install, and activate a fresh copy of the theme you are currently using on your blog.

In the Tools menu perform a WordPress Import of the XML file we saved in step 3. You should now have all your old content on your new blog as well as have the same general look.

Make a list of all the plugins you used in your old blog and install fresh versions of each on your new blog. Double check all the settings and configurations to make sure they are the same.

Copy the content of each of your widgets under the Appearance menu to your new site. As long as you are copying and pasting the content from within the WordPress appearance menu you will NOT have to worry about inadvertently copying over any malware code.

Custom theme changes. By now your site should be almost 100% duplicated. The only things left to do will be to make the subtle changes that you made to customize your theme. Since these can vary in a billion ways I can’t provide instructions here but whoever helped you customize your theme last time can certainly help you do it again!

Now that you have rebuilt your site from scratch you should be safe from any potential future threats. Make sure all of your passwords including Database, Hosting Account, and WordPress passwords rank high in the password quality scale including at least one number and upper case and lower case letters.

GOOD LUCK!

Jacob S Paulsen

Networking Revolution:: Stop Chasing the Chasers

By Jacob S Paulsen on November 23, 2009 in Marketing, MLM

In the arena of internet marketing and online networking the experts teach us to search in social media for the type of people you want to do business with. This is good advice but most people interpret it incorrectly. The automatic assumption is that people building a mlm business should seek out people on Facebook and Twitter who are talking about, or already participating in Network Marketing. This is usually done by searching for keywords such as MLM, home based business, opportunity, etc. THIS IS A POOR STRATEGY!

If you follow this line of logic you are most likely to find yourself chasing the other chasers. You might build good friendships with these like minded people, but the chances of doing business with them is greatly limited.

When you are taught to network with people in social media, that you would like to do business with, you need to be looking for the people who will be naturally attracted to you. People with whom you can create a fast friendship and establish common ground. In short, search for people who share your passions. If you are particularly into scuba diving, chess, or fashion then you need to find the people who share that passion.

ACTION: Re-Read my post on Utilizing your Passions in Attraction Marketing and then create a list of keywords that you can use to identify people who share those passions on Twitter and Facebook.

Jacob S Paulsen

Internet Marketing Methods Are Only Good For As Long As They Are…

By Jacob S Paulsen on November 19, 2009 in Marketing

I have been in marketing and sales my entire life. It might be better to say that sales and marketing are a part of all of our lives; and so I have worked hard to understand what general techniques or principles are most effective. In all the different types of work I have done, I have been able to construct a series of well proven principles that seem to be true in all forms of marketing.

Today I want to discuss the principle of uniqueness. I have observed that sales techniques tend to be effective for as long as they are unique. Or, better worded; techniques are good for as long as the customer doesn’t expect them. When training sales reps in a variety of industries I also pose the question, “What is your customer expecting you to say, and also what is the last thing your customer would expect you to say?” For a few years I worked as a door to door salesman of Dish Network TV. After time testing a variety of approaches I found that my most effective approach tended to be, “Hi, my name is Jacob and I am a salesman. Do you still have cable?”

This approach was effective because it was the last thing that any customer actually expected too come from my mouth. Now as my experience in Internet Marketing is evolving I am starting to recognize the dying techniques that people are using. Don’t get me wrong, there are techniques in use right now that are still bringing in new people but they are dying out. Its time for the online sales process to evolve and I am looking for the new innovations but not finding them.

The age of sales letters, Ebook giveaways, and auto responders is dwindling. The systems and techniques have become far too common place. There are now sales-letters selling sales-letters, giveaways of giveaway systems, and auto-responders to promote auto-responder systems. The Mike Dillard ripple is beginning to die off and the best of the best are trying to discover something new. Recent attempts to innovate with subtle changes to include social media networks or techniques have brought little to no innovation at all. All of this is still working today because the methods are still mostly new to most of the world. (Its hard for those of us involved in internet marketing to remember that people outside the industry don’t see and hear it everyday.)

The key is in breaking patterns. Effective marketing approaches, ad headlines, and videos break our normal patterns. People have to pay attention and getting someone to do that is almost impossible. You have to disrupt their comfort zone.

ACTION: All sales systems in all industries require this constant process of innovation and change. Ask yourself what your customers are starting to recognize as the standard sales pitch. Ask yourself what your customers would not expect to hear.

Jacob S Paulsen