I’m familiar with Jeff Walker and his Product Launch Formula. I know a lot of these big internet marketers brag about their server crashes and how much money they made in a few days. But I question whether a big product launch is always the best idea, given the huge strain  put on staff, servers and infrastructure to pull these big launches off and the potential for disaster.

Done wrong, a big product launch could actually damage one’s reputation. Here’s Why.

I recently bought a product that I was totally excited about. It is a scorching HOT product in a niche that promises to dominate the future. I absolutely loved the sales page, the graphics and the videos used to sell the product. And I was equally ecstatic about the training videos – all 50 of them and many other resources. There was no question that these people had over delivered. I thought it was one of the best purchases I have ever made.

Second Thoughts

And then a tiny mix-up involving a second product that was part of an upsell led me to ask big questions about whether I should pursue what looked like a terrific business. Without totally revealing the product, I’ll tell you that part of it involved using the vendor’s software to deliver a service to customers.

More than a week after my purchase I’m still trying to gain access to this second part of the offer. So I put in a ticket with their customer support and apparently with Clickbank. The problem came when Clickbank responded. The message included a note with a number to call which ironically happened to be in my own zip code.

I dialed the number only to learn that the person on the other end was another person who had purchased the product, never received it and had complained to Clickbank. I still don’t know how this mix-up occurred. But now, I had big questions about the services of this company.

Could I count on them to deliver? Would my customers face serious snags in their services? Could my business receive a black eye if I promoted these services?

The people who created these wonderful products are very young. What they put together was extremely ambitious. I am sure they are on their way to earning millions of dollars. But at that moment I started to see this as a risky venture for me because I could not control their services, and yet my business would depend on their delivery.

I share this story to demonstrate how important a customer’s experience can be to your small business. You always have to keep in mind how your customer will be affected by the actions you take.

It might have been better for this company to roll out the business in stages. By all accounts they sold several thousand copies of this package. That was a lot to manage with a big product launch involving a number of super affiliates.

It’s the ancillary pieces – the related software – not the training itself, that gave me pause. If the software works as promised, it should be awesome. But as I started to realize how many people would rely on the services of this young company, I wondered if they would be up to the challenge, given the mix-up I experienced.

The message I would share is to anticipate the things that are likely to go wrong. Plan your product launch to ensure you can deal with the inevitable snags. This product was so good that I bet these guys will overcome these challenges.

Still, I wouldn’t want my customers wondering if I can really deliver everything I promised, because of customer service snags. Remember this story as you plan a new product launch for your business. And let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

SERPS - Search Engine Result Pages

By now your head may be spinning, but hang on. You can master this stuff if you don’t try to rush the process. By learning proper SEM techniques, you can succeed in gaining more website traffic. 

The first key to SEM is to learn how to correctly reach your intended audience. When searching for products and services on the web, consumers input specific search terms into search engines to find what they are looking for. 

To ensure that they find your site, you will want to use keyword phrases on your web pages that match the search terms your target audience is using. 

SEM and Keyword Research 

You need to use keyword lists and keyword tracker tools to determine the best keyword phrases to use on your website.  Keep in mind that SEM involves balancing the needs of people who will visit your website with the demands of the search engines themselves. 

This is done through SEO or Search engine optimization. Search Engines use specific criteria to determine how relevant a web page is to a specific search term. To do this, search engines use software called spiders to search the pages of a website to categorize its information. SEO is so important to the success of your website that you should consider it while you are building your website. It takes a lot less time and effort than having to change your site later. 

Submitting your Site to Search engines 

Now it’s time to submit your optimized site to search engines. The whole idea behind SEM is to have a good presence on search engines, so they connect you with your target audience. 

There are three different ways for search engines to find your website. 

1. You can directly submit the website to the search engine by filling out a submit form.
2. You can choose to simply let the search engine gain access to your website by having links to your site on other website directories.
3. You can pay for the search engine to categorize and index the site.

You can also draw traffic to your site by getting other similar websites to link to your site. The links can be from articles, other websites and blogs, or from online directories. This is another factor search engines consider when ranking your site: the quality and quantity of links that bring visitors back to your site. 

Your website needs to contain great content to entice other websites to link to your site. If the value of what you offer visitors is solid, owners of other websites will want to stay linked to your site. 

 Think of their link as a type of validation – word of mouth advertising — to their traffic that what you offer is useful to their site visitors. Keep these thoughts in mind as you plan the SEM for your website and you should drive quality traffic.

It’s not unusual for home business owners to throw up a website or blog without paying any attention to all of that SEO stuff. “We’ll worry about that after we start making money,” you may think.

Take it from me, your website may die a slow death in cyberspace until you get up to speed on SEO or search engine optimization.

Here’s why SEO is important

Most people looking for information on a topic type keyword phrases into a search box.

Search engine robots crawl millions of pages with those keyword phrases looking for the best results to serve up to searchers. The robots use complicated algorithms to determine which pages to show.

The algorithms change constantly as the robots get smarter and many more pages are added daily. SEO experts attend pricey conferences and conduct plenty of studies to stay up on this topic. So it’s no wonder that SEO is a special challenge for the home internet business.

Crash Course on SEO

Here’s what you need to understand about SEO to succeed. The whole idea behind owning a website or blog is to get people to visit your website, engage with your content and buy your products or services.

A recent study showed that you have just 46 seconds to engage your visitor to prevent them from clicking away. Everything from the headline to the design and structure of the site and especially the content must be appealing and captivating to keep the visitor on your site.

The study also showed that if you can keep the visitor on the site longer than 46 seconds, there is a good chance that they will click around and visit at least 3 pages.

If those 3 pages happen to contain pay-per-click ads or affiliate programs, the chances of making a profit increase substantially.

SEO is not only a product of how balanced and keyword-rich your content is, but also a combination of how your site is built for the major search engine “spiders.” That’s why you should consider SEO when you build your website – not later.

SEO Tactics to avoid:

1. Watch out for companies that guarantee links overnight.  Too many links too quickly will pull whatever site ranking you already have down. The search engine algorithms always manage to catch up with your site if something fishy is going on.
2. Avoid SEO that:

• Links to shadow domains
• Places links to their other clients on “doorway” pages
• Offers to sell keywords in the address bar
• Gets traffic from fake search engines, spyware, or scumware,
• Or, is not listed in Google’s index.

Choose the people that work on your site or the SEO strategies you use very carefully. Make sure you know exactly how they plan to promote it for SEO.  Ranking a site for content relevance takes time, and is a process that cannot be rushed, no matter what so-called expert tells you.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about SEM or Search Engine Marketing and how to draw traffic to your website.

By now, I hope you have some idea of the direction your home business will take. Whether you plan to blog, freelance, promote other people’s products or create your own, you will need a PLAN.

If you are not sure where to start you might benefit from some of the step-by-step guides sold online. But you might enjoy creating your own process guides, charts and checklists.

Develop a short business plan

You should start by developing a short business plan that describes your basic ideas, the niche or target market you plan to pursue and the business model you will use. You also will want to outline your various projects and campaigns, along with your keyword lists, information about your niche and anything else that will help you achieve your goals.

You can outline your plans using such traditional tools as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. But there are other tools that might prove even more useful.

Plan your sales funnel and list-building strategies

As you plan, you are going to want to diagram your company’s sales funnel along with whatever steps you plan to take to acquire new customers. You could buy pricey software for this purpose, or you could use a simple graphics program to illustrate the processes you will use.

Here is a diagram I created in Microsoft Publisher for a friend who wanted to add internet marketing features to his network marketing business.

Map out your projects

Project managers often use Gantt charts to plan projects that involve a lot of different tasks, people and resources. You can do the same thing with mind mapping software that lets you fit your entire project on one page. Here is a mind maps I created for a special report using Mindjet Mindmanager, a neat package that is a little pricey. However there are several free mind mapping programs available online as downloads. If you draw a little, you might enjoy mapping your projects by hand using color pens and large sheets of paper.

Improve your videos with simple storyboards

Many internet marketers are producing videos to promote products or as short lessons. Unfortunately, many of these videos look as though the marketer just grabbed a camera and started shooting. You can create a short storyboard for your video projects using a graphics program or maybe even Microsoft Word using tables. Here is an example of a short storyboard created for a short video showing how to weatherize homes.

As you can see, planning can be fun with a little imagination, so give yourself an edge by capturing your ideas in a visual form to help you stay on track.

We’ve talked about creating a business online. Some of the options we’ve discussed include affiliate marketing, blogging and a list of other ideas that range from writing, freelancing as a service provider, — even creating your own information products.

Whatever you’ve decided to do, there is a lot to learn. There are a million courses online, but I find it easier to read a book to gather basic information. Here are a few of my favorites with links to Amazon.com where you can order them.

In a previous post, I mentioned Yanik Silver’s “Moonlighting on the Internet.” This book is helpful if you haven’t made a decision yet about which Internet business model you plan to pursue.

Moonlighting on the Internet: 5 World-Class Experts Reveal Proven Ways to Make Extra Cash

For Bloggers:

If you’re hoping to make a living on the Internet as a blogger, I suggest you read, “ProBlogger; Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income,” by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett, two highly successful and well-respected bloggers. It takes time to succeed as a blogger and if emphasize the wrong things, it can take even longer, so spend a little time learning these guys secrets.

ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income

Affiliate Marketing:

Yesterday, I suggested you read Rosalind Gardner’s “Super Affiliate Handbook.” I’ll repeat that link here in case you missed it. I suggest Rosalind because I know that she has succeeded big-time as an affiliate marketer. A lot of other people on the net have made more money telling others how to do it, then they have made in the business itself. Some of these marketers even make up phony screen shots or videos showing you their affiliate checks just to get you to buy their products. Start with someone who has actually done it.

Here’s the link to Ros Gardner’s site again: Super Affiliate Handbook.

For Freelancers:

If you are doing business on the Net as a freelancer, you definitely want to read “The Wealthy Freelancer,” by Steve Slaunwhite, Pete Savage, and Ed Gandia. These three guys are successful copywriters who have a lot to share about building a profitable freelance business.

The Wealthy Freelancer: 12 Secrets to a Great Income and an Enviable Lifestyle.

Help with Writing Web Copy

Finally, you should know that writing on the Internet is very different than it is offline. As you promote your business online, you will need to understand the differences and know how to write web copy that sells. There are two good books you should take a look at to prepare you to write content and copy for the web:

· “Web Copy That Sells; The Revolutionary Formula for Creating Killer Copy That Grabs Their Attention and Compels Them to Buy,” by Maria Veloso. Veloso is a copywriter who learned much of what she writes about in the book while working with Mark Joyner, one of Internet Marketing legends, who taught many of the gurus.

Web Copy That Sells: The Revolutionary Formula for Creating Killer Copy That Grabs Their Attention and Compels Them to Buy

· “Net Words; Creating High-Impact Online Copy, by Nick Usborne – another veteran copywriter who has earned his stripes over the years by writing landing pages and other web copy for a number of large companies.

Net Words: Creating High-Impact Online Copy

Now I admit, NO ONE reads books anymore and I am asking you to pick up a book. But I can guarantee that it will be worth it. These books are much less expensive than many of the products people are promoting on the Internet and you’ll start with a better understanding of what you’re trying to do.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about how to put it all together in a plan – along with a description of some of the tools that might help you do that. So stay tuned. And please leave a comment to let me know if you are finding these posts helpful.

If you are a beginning marketer on the Internet you may want to start with affiliate marketing. And if you really are a newbie, you may be wondering just what is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is promoting or selling the products of others for a commission. Your business advertises and sells for other companies. It is one of the fastest growing businesses in the Net. It’s a low cost business to start and it’s the perfect business to run from your home.

To succeed in affiliate marketing, you need the following:

• A professional looking website with great information to attract and benefit your target audience or niche. In addition to useful articles, your website might include a blog, product reviews and videos or podcasts designed to help your audience do things.
• Products to promote to your niche that they are interested in buying. You can promote affiliate products exclusively or blend your own products. The products can range from digital ebooks and special reports to audios, videos, webcasts and full-blown courses. You can find good digital products to promote at Clickbank.
• You also might choose to promote a physical product – which essentially means you can sell anything. You will need to establish an account at one of the affiliate networks that list physical products, such as Commission Junction.
• A list of prospects within your niche. Building a list is a major topic all of its own and perhaps the most important part of succeeding as an affiliate marketer. You can learn more about list building at http://incomeonautopilotnow.com.
• An autoresponder system such as Aweber.com. This is important because not everyone who visits your website where you market affiliate programs will purchase right away. An auto responder helps you follow up with these people, and will keep on reminding them about your website and invite them to visit your site. You can use an e-course or an e-zine with interesting tips that will make your prospects want to visit your website again. By doing this you are increasing the chances of generating a sale from most people who visit your site
• An optin page, often called a “squeeze page” because it’s only purpose is to get people to join your list. Your squeeze page links to your list housed at your autoresponder, which lets you automate your follow-up process.
• Web traffic which you acquire through dozens of free methods such as article marketing, posting videos on YouTube and social marketing, or paid traffic using pay per click ads or ezine advertising. Increasingly people are generating traffic to their blogs or websites using social media such as Twitter, Facebook Fan pages or other promotional tools. All of these strategies generate backlinks to your site from high-ranking, high-traffic websites. We’ll talk more about ways to generate web traffic in future blog posts.

To succeed as an affiliate marketer, you need to become adept at advertising and promotion. It helps to have strong skills as a copywriter. You will also need to be good with math to be able to track your campaigns, so you know which strategies are making you money.

Many information marketers say it is easy to make a lot of money in affiliate marketing. But take it from me, it is as not as easy as they say it is. The more prepared you are the better.

To learn more about affiliate marketing,  grab a copy of Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook. Rosalind has made a lot of money as a super affiliate so her secrets are priceless.

Here’s the link to Ros Gardner’s site again: Super Affiliate Handbook.

Here’s a guest column I should have shared with you a couple of weeks ago, but I was extremely busy. After reading it, I decided the post is timeless. You can use this information again and again. So I am going to share it here. Jimmy D. Brown is one of my favorite teachers. He has a great knack for making things crystal clear.

By Jimmy D. Brown

Did you know that other people “warm up” your customers for you with their “big product launches”?

And, did you further know, that a huge opportunity for you to create sales for YOUR product or a product you promote as an affiliate can be the result?

If, that is, you “borrow” the buzz that other people are generating.

Imagine this scenario…

Mr. Marketer creates a new $2,000 product. He “launches” it with his friends. Everyone on the forums is talking about it. Every email sent out within the marketplace has something to say about it. Bloggers are raving. The whole industry is buzzing about the new launch.

The average conversion rate is 2%. And that’s not on $2,000 products. But, let’s assume that Mr. Marketer is the best in the biz. And he can generate something obscene like 25% conversion rate on a $2,000 offer (which, by the way, ain’t likely to happen).

IF that were to happen, the flipside is this: 75% DON’T BUY.

In other words, for every 100 visitors to the “launch” site, 75 of them walk away without buying.

Were they uninterested? If that’s the case, they likely wouldn’t have visited the site in the first place.

In the majority of the cases, the $2,000 price tag was out of their reach. Not in the budget. Don’t have the money. Been there, done that … didn’t have the cash to buy the t-shirt!

So, what can we learn from this?

We can learn…

• These 75 out of every 100 who don’t buy are probably interested to some degree.
• These 75 out of every 100 have heard all of the buzz and have been “presold” on the premise of the product.
• These 75 out of every 100 are strong candidates to buy a lower-priced, related alternative.

That’s where YOU come into the picture.

You “borrow” the buzz that’s been generated for the big product being talked about by everyone as you promote a lower-priced, related alternative!

Here’s how you do it…

Look for high-dollar launches in your market.

1.  The first step is to keep your eye on the pulse of your market. Whenever a major new product is being launched, get busy. You’ll usually know days, if not weeks, in advance because that’s how launches work: they do a lot of “pre” build-up work to get people salivating for the eventual launch. Keep your eyes out for anything new in the works.

2. Promote a low-cost alternative.

It doesn’t matter if you write a quick 10-15 page report, promote your own existing product that is related or grab an affiliate link to some other existing product or service. It doesn’t really matter WHERE you obtain this lower-priced alternative. The important thing is that you find one. It needs to be related to the topic of the big product being launched. It can be related either (a) by teaching a similar concept, or (b) teaching a portion of the big product’s concept.

3. Write a mailing that explains the two options.

You’ll want to write a mailing to send to your subscribers or to post at your blog. This mailing needs to contain three important elements…

- Content that presells. Share some meaty nuggets related to the offer you are ultimately going to promote to set the table.

- A small blurb about big launch with your link. Mention the “major” launch briefly. Describe it’s benefits and use an affiliate link of yours to point to the offer. Mention that it’s only drawback is “price”. Express that many people can’t afford it.

- A stronger promotion for your option. Then, really hit home with this “lower-priced, related alternative”. Let them know the benefits are similar at a fraction of the cost. Be sure to point out that it’s priced for everyone — especially those who feel “left out” of the big budget launch because they can’t afford it.

Then, it’s just a matter of getting that mailing out to your subscribers.

Let’s look at what you have in place as a result of this strategy…

• You have two promotions: a minor one for the same “major” launch everyone else is promoting, and a “major” one for the lower-priced, related alternative.
• You have “borrowed buzz”. Everyone in the marketplace is warming up prospects with all of their “talk” about the importance of the subject matter of the “big product launch”. They are primed and ready to buy … something!
• You have a spike in sales coming.

This is a wonderful strategy for getting extra sales.

Remember, there are always a whole lot more people who DON’T buy the product being offered in the “launch”, than those who do! You’ve got a huge pool of prospects in the 75-98% of people who don’t buy the $2,000 offer. Many of them WILL buy a lower-priced, related alternative.

So, the only thing left for you to do is get started.

And if you’ve like a shortcut, let me show you a quick way to do it TODAY.

You have almost certainly seen that Product Launch Formula 3.0 (PLF3) has launched this week. Everyone is talking about it. While there are a lot of different strategies and ideas involved in a “launch”, the backbone is the same…

*** Other people send you the majority of your traffic.

It’s obviously a very *HOT* topic right now. People are scrambling to pay BIG BUCKS for the course.

But…

Do you think everyone can afford it?

What about the tens of thousands of internet marketers who can’t afford it, but who ARE INTERESTED in the subject?

What a shame to let them sit by without getting any sales from them!

But, don’t worry — you CAN get sales from them! Here’s how…

You offer them something for PENNIES on the dollar that provides the same end result: other people sending them traffic for their products and services!

A few days ago Jimmy D. Brown announced a resale rights offer for his SalesArmySecrets.com course.

All the details are at http://www.infoprofitshare.com/go.php?offer=mingcomm&pid=49

There are still licenses available for YOU to grab in order to sell a low-cost alternative to the high-dollar “launch” product that everyone is jabbering about.

***BUT IT GETS BETTER — FREE PLR to $20 Report! ***

Jimmy wrote a report several months ago which he briefly made available to one of his membership sites. It’s entitled “How To Get R.I.C.H. With Your Own Affiliate Program”.

(It was pulled after a month and is no longer available anywhere.)

The report is 21 meaty pages in itself, but it also strongly promotes the Sales Army Secrets course at the end.

When you order one of the remaining licenses for Sales Army Secrets, Jimmy is going to give you (no cost!) a free PLR license to the special report!

You can sell the report for $20, give it away, do whatever you want with it (as long as you don’t misrepresent it or mention Jimmy in reference to it)…

…while using the endorsement at the close of the report to promote YOUR COPY of Sales Army Secrets!

It’s a ready-made marketing report to get people to buy Sales Army Secrets from you! You can sell Sales Army Secrets for $97 per order and keep 100% of every sale!

Here’s what you need to do…

1. Order the Sales Army Secrets resale rights license at http://www.infoprofitshare.com/go.php?offer=mingcomm&pid=49

2. Register and open a ticket at Jimmy’s support center at http://www.Infoprofitshare.com and provide his staff with a copy of your receipt.

Within 24 hours someone will send you the download information for this special Free PLR offer.

That’s it!

Get one while it lasts…

http://www.infoprofitshare.com/go.php?offer=mingcomm&pid=49

There’s only ONE catch…

This special offer is for the next 3 days only. On Friday, July 2nd at 10PM CDT, Jimmy is shutting down the license offer and this Free PLR offer. They will no longer be available. Officially “retired” at that point.

Grab yours now: http://www.infoprofitshare.com/go.php?offer=mingcomm&pid=49

Then you can quickly “borrow the buzz” of those promoting PLF3!

When trying to pick a niche for affiliate marketing, experts encourage you to go with your passion. Why? You have to do a lot of research and develop a great deal of content on the topic. You don’t want to pick something that bores you to tears.

The heart is a symbol of passion which can make a difference in perseverence in internet marketing.

 Well, I’ve been struggling with the issue of passion. Back in the nineties, I worked with a nonprofit agency to bring a brand new program to Delaware where I lived at the time.

It was a microloan program called Working Capital that provided business training and very small loans to tiny companies. Based on the Nobel Prize Winning Grameen Bank model created by Muhammad Yunus, Working Capital was supposed to do for America’s inner cities and rural areas what the international loan program had done for India and some African nations.

I can’t remember a time when I felt more passion than those many evenings I spent meeting with groups of small business owners explaining the program and helping them form loan groups. Once groups were formed, members discussed their business plans and sought the group’s approval for loans.

I was a woman on a mission. I really believed in free enterprise and its potential to transform communities.

What made the whole experience so powerful was the atmosphere we created. We held networking events, brought in special speakers and formed a lot of business loan groups. The energy in our building was so powerful you could feel the excitement. During the five or six years the program ran, hundreds of entrepreneurs joined Working Capital.

Our Delaware program was so successful that we won a Presidential Award and were invited to help form loan groups for street vendors before the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

Thinking back, I realized that I poured so much of my heart and soul into that program that something inside me died with the program. I had a vision of little businesses transforming Wilmington in a similar way as successful minority owned companies changed the landscape of Memphis’ historic Beale Street. My hope died hard.

I created Savvy Marketing Secrets hoping to rekindle some of the passion I felt with Working Capital. By helping very small businesses harness the power of the Internet, I hoped to relight that spark.

Of course it’s not as easy to feel passion sitting in front of a computer screen as it was when I was meeting with real business owners. But tapping into that experience helped me remember my passion.

Many of the smallest businesses are not even on the Internet. But the net holds tremendous promise for business growth for those who take advantage of the various marketing tools. So my passion now is to use this blog to connect the dots to help businesses similar to the ones I worked with in Delaware.

I would love to hear your stories about your passion and how you are shaping it into your small business. Please leave a comment below. 

How to Write Articles the Easy Way

In a recent blog post, I suggested 10 different ways you could promote your website without spending money. In the next few posts, I will review products to help you implement the 10 ways I told You about.

30 Minute Article Marketing  System

Article marketing - Hands on keyboard

30 Minute Article Marketing System, a 29-page ebook by Melanie Mendelson, is a practical guide for anyone who is just getting started with article marketing.

Not only does Melanie deliver what she promises – a quick, easy way for you to produce an article in 30 minutes flat; she also describes the other elements to consider when using article marketing as a way to promote your website.

Here are some of the ways that 30 Minute Article Marketing System can help you succeed with article marketing:

• This ebook simplifies the writing process to help you get started
• Demonstrates how to select and use keywords in your articles
• Describes in clear fashion how to optimize your articles for search engines, and
• Shows three key ways to distribute your articles on the Internet.

Melanie’s 30 Minute Article Marketing System shows as well as tells. She uses simple, easy-to-follow examples that leave no doubt about how to implement her suggestions.

In the appendices, she provides a comprehensive list of article directories, a number of article announcement mailing lists, and a 30-Minute Article System Recap you can print and use over and over again.

If there is anything I would question about her product, it’s that she makes it seem almost too easy. It’s difficult to imagine how you could fail with this guide.

To insure that you accomplish your goal of producing your articles in 30 minutes flat, each step is timed. And Melanie even throws in a timer.

If you’ve decided to include article marketing as a tactic in your  promotional arsenal, you can’t go wrong with Melanie’s 30 Minute Article Marketing System.

Marcia Ming

P.S. I should warn you that this link goes to an optin page first for the Six-Figure Secret. Don’t hit the back key, you’re on the right path.