Archive for March, 2008

Do You Watch Your Own Videos?

• March 21, 2008 • 12 Comments

I'm five days into the Robert Plank Daily Video Challenge and using Camtasia I've recorded 6 how-to videos I'm going to use in an upcoming paid product, one video documenting a task and one video going over my progress for the day.

My formula is: try to record a video for a paid product, if I don't have time for that, keep the video rolling while I do something to improve my business... and don't stop the camera until I'm done. (This REALLY keeps me on task.) If that fails, open up Notepad and go over what I did that day. I plan for 5 minutes and that usually ends up taking 20 minutes.

Then, watch that video you just recorded from start to finish.

This is what professional actors and public speakers do to train themselves to actually look presentable.

You'd be surprised at how many people DON'T do this. Just look at how many chipmunk-infested Camtasia vids are floating around out there.

There Are People Out There Who Are Supposedly "Experts" at Video
Who Are Hard to Watch.

When you talk with your hands, it's distracting and you look like an idiot! There is absolutely NO REASON for you to use 2-3 different nervous hand gestures with every sentence.

When you talk for 2 minutes before you start to say anything new, you've lost my interest. Do you have a lame video with flashy graphics than says nothing but, "Welcome to my web site?" Get rid of it! If someone missed the first 2 minutes of your video, would it still make sense? Then start at that 2 minute point next time.

That's part of the reason why I said don't freely share the videos for this challenge. You see dumbasses on forums who record videos of themselves edited together with stock footage, and the video says NOTHING of value. They just post it all around in a pathetic attempt to bring in traffic.

When you do something in a video that could have been explained in text, you're stupid. That's why I use Camtasia so much, so I have something to show people other than my ugly mug.

Think about newscasters. They speak for a short time and then cut to a clip of what they were talking about. If you had the TV on mute the whole time, you could still figure out what was going on. At the very least, you would know to UNMUTE that segment.

Your videos are never going to be perfect so don't worry about that part.

Here is my mindset when I'm recording a video: "If I was doing this live at a seminar, would it still be acceptable?"

It's ok to record the video in just one take. It's ok to pause or screw up a sentence every now and then. But is your video so bad that it's cringeworthy?

The only way you're going to rise above that is by WATCHING those cringeworthy videos and then doing better next time.

I'm not saying I'm the best person in the world at recording videos, but I can tell you that watching my own videos has cured:

  • A tendency to talk too fast. People told me they had to watch my videos multiple times to understand everything. Now my 10 minute videos are more like 30 to 45 minutes.
  • Minor speech impediments. When I first started to record videos, I sounded out-of-breath. I mumbled, I slurred my words and sometimes stuttered. Now, I project my voice and always keep in mind to give people a chance to let what I just said sink in... all without thinking about it!
  • Nervousness. Have you ever had one of those classes in school where the teacher always called on you and put you on the spot? At first it was really nerve-wracking, but by the end of that class you had a handle on it. The pauses I make in my videos are logical pauses, not nervous pauses. I also keep my hand off the mouse as much as possible so I'm not talking with my hands (in a Camtasia video sense).

Do you watch your own videos? If not, it shows.

Please, comment below and tell me if you watch your own videos.

If not... watch one of your own videos right now and tell me what you need to improve.

Daily Video Challenge

• March 17, 2008 • 45 Comments

I added a small daily task to my schedule, starting yesterday, that I CHALLENGE you to try:

Record One Video Every Day

This is going to be a daily video diary for your business. (I recommend a Camtasia video, not a webcam video... but in some niches, Camtasia doesn't apply very well.)

Here are the rules:

Rule 1: I don't want you to show it to anyone other than yourself, just stick it in a folder somewhere. You can turn this into a paid product, or show it to ONE business associate but do not just give it to the general public for free.

Rule 2: I don't care what it's about as long as it relates to your business. Yesterday I spent 18 minutes explaining why February 2008 was my best month, passing up June 2007, and what things I did different than last year. You can record for 5 minutes or 30 minutes, but it has to be in one take.

Rule 3: If you end up showing it to someone else, it has to be a paid product. Membership video, DVD, one time product, whatever... just DON'T give it away as a blog post.

I was just thinking last night that recording videos is something I can't do consistently. I can write consistently because I have lots of practice, especially from posting in this blog. But videos... out of the 20+ infoproducts I have out there, 14 are video-based. Videos are my weakest skill at the moment.

Do you remember my three tips to fast infoproduct creation? Let's see how they stack up against the daily video challenge...

  1. It doesn't have to look good, just be good. That's the whole idea here. You spend 5 minutes creating the sloppiest video ever, because the video DOESN'T have to be that great and no one is going to see it.
  2. Get excited about your topic. You're choosing what to talk about so why not? I think that if you make enough videos on enough subjects, you will find something to talk about that you are excited about.
  3. Practice. You're recording a video EVERY DAY. This technique is practice... by definition. You'll establish good habits for yourself and in no time, videos will be a cinch for you to make.

Can you get to recording your video already? If you're worried about taking time out of your day, limit yourself to five minutes.

The video you record might end up being your next product.

The video could just be you going over your to-do list for the day... describing what you did and didn't accomplish. Maybe you'll watch it again 6 months from now and notice how your business has changed over time.

You might record yourself putting a product of yours to use... now you have an excellent how-to video to bundle with your product. You've just cut down on customer support requests.

Heck, I plan on doing a couple videos of nothing but me working on my project. What a great way to keep yourself on task!

If you know the cameras are rolling, do you think you'll get distracted and check e-mails, instant messages, and forums? Or do you think you'll actually focus on one single thing till it's done?

I thought so.

Please, leave a comment here and let me know if you accept this challenge. If you want to give me a little hint about what your first 5 minute video will be about... go for it... but you don't have to.

If you read through this whole post and DIDN'T comment, that tells me you're chickening out.

You're not a quitter... are you?

How to Break Into Any Niche Part 3: Virginal Markets

• March 12, 2008 • 15 Comments

If you have spent even 3 weeks or less learning about Internet marketing, I'm sure you have heard about blogging, videos, squeeze pages, pop-ups, and autoresponders.

Everyone in internet marketing uses them. There's one problem with that: EVERYONE IN INTERNET MARKETING USES THEM. When you are in the internet marketing niche and use autoresponders, you are Superman and you are still stuck on the planet Krypton -- you're just like everyone else.

If you take all the internet marketing techniques you know into other niches, you become a guy who can fly around in the air while everyone else is stuck walking from place to place.

Say you are in the fly fishing niche. Everyone else is being non-imaginative and tossing up poorly made web pages with hundreds of articles and no call to action. Or placing AdSense on pages and not trying to make the site sticky with an autoresponder newsletter or with backend products or paid memberships

No one is making YouTube videos, displaying one time offers, or split testing. You will be the guy setting up joint ventures while everyone else is still trying webrings and link exchanges.

If you take what you know about internet marketing and apply it to a sleepy, underdeveloped niche, you will become Superman. You will kick ass.

Never sell to the "how to make money" niche. It is full of people with no money lying about how they made money, or people with no money wanting to make money.

If you have to do internet marketing, narrow it down. Internet marketing is too broad of a niche. That's like having "computers" or "computer programming" as your niche... it's too damn non-specific. Instead of internet marketing, focus on search engine optimization, or article marketing, or Web 2.0 promotion (Squidoo, StumbleUpon, MySpace) ... don't be the same as everyone else.

Don't be the same as ANYONE else, in fact.

Don't try to sell your niche stuff to internet marketers. If you are breaking into a new niche you have to start from scratch. The exception to this is if you want a jumpstart, create something that's NOT just an e-book -- a DVD or CD -- and sell resale rights to the internet marketers.

NEVER offer private label rights. In doing this you are creating more competition for yourself but you are getting your name out there.

Don't brag about or mention your extra-cirricular efforts to other internet marketers. If word gets around that your niche is lucrative and an easy target you could get some fellow Supermen trying to take away some of your action.

This is why some hardcore niche marketers will use a fake name, register a totally new business name and host their sites on a separate server with WHOIS protection to keep their real identity secret.

I don't do the fake name stuff with my PHP niche because I am just outside of the internet marketing niche. My niche is where PHP and internet marketing overlap. I teach site builders how to write PHP scripts. So I am not teaching something as advanced as the techie people who want to learn programming as a career, but slightly more advanced than people watching WordPress videos or learning Flash and HTML.

My competition consists either of rockstar programmers who know a lot but can't or won't teach it to dummies, and have more fun talking about XML processing or RAID arrays instead of the easy stuff I teach. I also have competition who are internet marketers but not rockstar programmers, who pass along little tips but don't understand PHP enough to write their own code. They only know how to pass along other peoples' stuff.

To sum breaking into virginal markets using your existing IM skills:

  1. Be unique.
  2. Get into a niche that you know like the back of your hand.
  3. Stay away from the how to make money niche.
  4. Use your internet marketing skills to outperform everyone else in non-IM niches.
  5. Don't talk about your efforts with internet marketers.
  6. Know exactly what kind of people you are selling to.
  7. Know exactly who your competition is and what kinds products and web sites they have.

Once you've got that site setup, use:

  • The 5 Minute Article method to get an infoproduct developed quickly in a couple of hours.
  • Fast Food Copywriting to put together sales letters quickly.
  • PaySensor to handle PayPal payments and deliver products to customers via email.
  • Action PopUp to gather leads and stick them into a mailing list like ListMail or Aweber.
  • JV Plus along with a system like Clickbank to turn competitors into your affiliates.
  • Sales Page Tactics to increase your conversion rates even more.

My question to you is:

What is your best tip to establish yourself in a new niche?

Don’t Buy Optin Accelerator!

• March 11, 2008 • 61 Comments

Recently, "Big Jason" Henderson of Big Marketing Online alerted me to a product called Optin Accelerator. At first I was excited about this product but I have a few very good reasons why you should NOT buy it.

The idea is freaking genius. You have a tell-a-friend form -- you are asked to enter the names and e-mail addresses of 1 to 5 friends to tell them about a web site. You can offer a freebie or a big discount on a product if they fill in every single field for the 5 friends.

Optin Accelerator gives your site a unique twist on the tell-a-friend idea which just so happens to be the same reason sites like MySpace and Facebook came out of nowhere and took off so fast.

Update: Aweber Hates It!

Aweber, the leading e-mail autoresponder service, has officially stated they will now TERMINATE all accounts using Opt-In Accelerator. If you use OA or any other tell-a-friend script... do you think you are safe from legal trouble? Even with a service other than Aweber?

If you use tell-a-friend scripts, you are asking for trouble. Period.

Here is proof from Aweber:

Thank you very mush for bringing this to our attention. We have taken action to contact the owners of that product.

Please understand that this was done without our consent, and will be fully addressed. We take many steps here to ensure your deliverability, including monitoring the use of customer accounts, so that even should someone use this type of program without our consent, we would remove them from the service.

Thank you again for bringing this to light. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to let me know.

Regards,
Tracey Churray
Director Of Customer Solutions

Mike Filsaime became popular using this method and sold a script that allowed people to create butterfly marketing membership sites. Even if the site grows virally by less than 1 percent each day, it's getting bigger without you having to do anything or pay any money, building a subscriber list, and bringing you in more sales.

Contact Grabber Plus Tell-A-Friend

Optin Accelerator takes this to the next level. Instead of asking you to type the information in, they ask for your e-mail login information. You type in your Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo!, or AOL e-mail address and password, then the script pre-populates the fields with ALL of your contacts. You can un-check people you don't want to share with.

That means if the person signing up has 165 people in their address book (remember, when you reply to someone in Hotmail it adds them to the address book), they just told 165 people instead of 1 to 5.

Theoretically, you site could EXPLODE with growth.

But it's not that simple... and here's why...

Problem #1: You're Not a MySpace or a Facebook

As a programmer, I know how this script grabs contact information. You give them your username and password, they login to your account FOR YOU, go to your "Contacts" page and read the list of names and e-mail addresses.

It's one thing to give someone like MySpace or Facebook your Hotmail/Gmail info because you trust them. Why would anyone trust some unknown site with their login details?

Problem #2: The Script Depends on THEIR Servers

The Optin Accelerator script you purchase is just a frontend... it really dials home to THEIR servers where it does all the real work.

I can understand why they did this... sites like Hotmail and Gmail changes their login software around all the time. If they just made one change, the script would break and they would have to send out updates.

But what happens if Hotmail sees the same IP address logging into tons of email accounts and says: "Hey, stop that!" -- And blocks Optin Accelerator's servers from logging into Hotmail. Then every copy of Optin Accelerator is no longer functional.

I didn't see any mention in the affiliate materials that Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! or AOL have given approval to this kind of script. I seriously doubt they would... especially with AOL's strict anti-spam policy.

Problem #3: It's Still Easy to Steal Your Information

Even though Optin Accelerator hands the login details off to another server, it would be way too easy to steal everyone's login details and save them for later. Even if the PHP source code is encoded, you could easily store that info using an output buffer or a couple lines of JavaScript code.

If this kind of contact grabber tell-a-friend service was to kick off, it would have to be a third party service. You'd leave the person's site and go to an SSL-secured page and enter your login details there... kind of like how you leave someone's page and trust PayPal enough to enter your credit card details... and THEN you are sent back to the vendor's site.

I don't see that kind of legitimate service starting up anytime soon, because you'd have to get cooperation from those four e-mail providers.

Conclusion: Stay Far Away!

That's why I am staying FAR AWAY from Optin Accelerator. I admit that after watching the well-done demo video, I was ready to promote it as an affiliate and write a bunch of add-on bonus scripts to offer as an affiliate. But now that the excitement has worn off... I am telling you NOT to buy it.

What's even more ridiculous is the utter immaturity of the product's creator... check out this post he made on an internet marketing forum...

Controversy 🙂

We actually worked with aweber and have had their approval that the software complies.

Seeing robert went to jason henderson jealous about the software, and wanted to reverse engineer it, but with everyones invited friends secretly being signedup to HIS own aweber account. . . I don't really credit his opinions. To me he sounds just a tad dodgy.

Thanks for posting though, I'm glad the software has caused people to sit up and take notice 🙂

Um how about no.  I have never had plans to reverse engineer the software, ever.

Why would I publicly say the idea is crap on my blog... and then come out with my own version?  That would never happen.  I have been against tell-a-friend since the beginning.

Also, how would ANYONE expect to get away with copying leads to their own autoresponder and not expect to get shut down for spamming... even for a week?  (I don't even have an account with Aweber, by the way.)

That kind of storytelling convinces me that Matt will go to any lengths to make himself sound better.

No matter what he says about it being safe with Aweber... I have the letter from Aweber saying they will shut you down, and he does NOT have a letter from Aweber saying it's okay.  Case closed.

Many people will watch that Opt-in Accelerator video and think... "This is the one tool I need to really make it."  False. You need to release products, joint venture, and build a list like the rest of us.

Stick with the fundamentals... they work.

Remove Chipmunks from Camtasia Videos

• March 6, 2008 • 35 Comments

Eugene Humbert, cool guy that he is, sent me an e-mail the other day letting me know that my Camtasia videos were producing weird "chipmunk" sounds.

This only happens with recent (version 9) versions of the Adobe Flash player. There's an easy solution:

Download the Camtasia Audio Bug Fix.

(The zip file is located at the bottom of that page.)

TechSmith solved this in Camtasia 5.02.... but I still use Camtasia 4 because I want my videos to look the same. By the way, this is ADOBE's fault and not Camtasia's.

The cool thing about this tool is, you can drag a whole FOLDER containing your SWF files, and the tool will find the SWF files even if they are buried deep inside other folders.

Last night, I de-chipmunked 14 video products. It didn't take that long at all because I used the above method.If you want the technical explanation of why this had to be done, Flash 9 can't properly play MP3 in SWF files that is encoded at a non-standard bitrate (it only understands bitrates that are a multiple of 11.025 Hz). The audio fixer quickly re-encodes the MP3 audio stream in your Flash file.

Why was all this extra work for me a good thing? It enabled me to finish adding affiliate programs to ALL my infoproducts.

All my products now have the affiliate subdomain trick built-in, as well as solo ads, an affiliate page for quick copy and pasting, and a call-to-action in the final chapter explaining to readers how to join the affiliate program for the product.

Heck, I've even JV Plus enabled all those products on this blog.

Before I encountered this chipmunk emergency, I was lazily working away, putting up maybe 3 or 4 affiliate pages per day. That was a task that I told myself I'd finish FIRST before anything else. So, I had to hurry up and finish all the solo ads before I could begin de-chipmunking.

I whipped out Microsoft Excel, copy and pasted all the product links on this blog's sidebar, then made a column for each thing I had to do for the site (write the solo ad, link to the affiliate page, setup an upsell, write the call-to-action, update the PDF file, de-chipmunk) and I just plowed through it. Because I had to.

So, don't forget to de-chipmunk your Camtasia videos if you haven't already.

Steven, What the F???

• March 5, 2008 • 17 Comments

How the heck do you get a business partner motivated?

There is this guy, Steven Schwartzman. I have been working on internet marketing stuff for years... but... he can't freaking get a product launched to save his life!

My first contact with him was in 2003. I spent a week writing a PHP script for him, he paid me $650 for the job, it was all done and ready to sell. I even thought up a cool name for it. (HyperSplitter.)

We both made money, right? Wrong. In 2004... I get a message from him saying he needed some bug fixes. He waited so long to launch the product that some of PHP's changes broke the script.

I made the changes... then in 2005, I get a call from someone else saying, "Check out this web site... Hypersplitter.com. The script isn't for sale but I want you to look at the features on that site and clone the script. I would have bought resale rights but he isn't offering those either." I'm not even making that up... I really did get that phone call from Jaime Ojeda!

I think Steven eventually launched it but it only made a few hundred dollars. No big deal except it took him YEARS to launch it. Come on, Steven!!!

The guy is a great copywriter and he comes up with really great ideas for products. But he can't follow through! Everything he makes is half finished.

When I visited him last August he was working on a membership site. The last thing I said to him in person before getting on a plane and flying 3,000 miles back home was, "Promise me you'll have that product launched by the time I get back." It still hasn't been launched!

He does great when he's working for other people (writing copy and headlines) but for his OWN stuff... he just can't do it. He was supposed to write a report and registered a GREAT domain for it, but waited so long... that the domain expired... and copywriting legend HARLAN KILSTEIN snatched it up!

It was for that reason that I mentioned in Fast Food Copywriting about Mark Joyner's policy to never use the word "wait." You shouldn't be "waiting" on anything... ever.

Do everything you can right now. Focus on one thing and get it launched.

Steven had to study to take the LSATs for law school, he was sick for a while, he took a family trip to India and another to Portugal... okay, that's all behind you, it's time to get to work. Steven, can you launch just ONE product by the end of the week?

Come on dude. You come up with the BEST ideas I have even seen. If you just put products out consistently, you could be more popular than Brausch.

I'm sorry if I seem like a jerk here, or too nosy, but I want you to do well. All you need to do is keep posting special offers, keep building a list, and only work on things that will make you money. Not spending days helping someone else put up a web site for free.

Looking at my launch calendar over the past several years, I noticed that in 2006 I was lucky to even post one WSO. These days I feel guilty for going more than 5 days without posting one or sending a mailing out to my list.

Can you do one thing every day?

Please, give Steven some advice on staying motivated.
He NEEDS to get his ass in gear.

 

How to Reduce Refunds

• March 3, 2008 • 22 Comments

Ben Prater is a guy I have never exchanged words with, unfortunately. He is an expert Internet marketer and has a way of reducing refunds that is pretty damn effective.

He is similar to me because he sells infoproducts in the "make your own software" niche, but he focuses more on the managerial, engineering part of that niche than I do. I am a do-it-yourselfer, he is an idea guy.

I'll never forget his best product… called,
"Software Secrets Exposed."

His sales letter sells you the story of what you can do with his book – his friend at Microsoft who worked in a high tech office and went to the Ferrari factory himself to make sure they painted his six-figure car the exact shade of purple he wanted.

I bought his book in 2003, before a lot of people had thought to direct sales into autoresponders or even save those leads at all. But Ben had thought of that.

You buy from him and you are automatically added to a follow-up series that sends you an automated, personalized message every few days.

When you first purchased, you got the book. After 7 days he sent a 30-page bonus report with a sample blueprint (just like the ones he talks about how to make in his original book).

He sent out more bonus reports after 14, 30, 45, and 60 day periods. They were either bonus chapters that wouldn't have fit anywhere in the book, or interviews with others – which are even easier to make than reports!

He didn't always simply give away the bonus materials… sometimes he asked for something in return.

For example, in one follow-up he offered a report on a related subject – but to get the report, you needed to provide a testimonial for his original "Software Secrets Exposed" e-book. Look at that sales page, it overflows with glowing testimonials!

If you can spread out the bonus items like he does, you will cut down on refunds because those people who refund immediately won't get the bonus items. If you can string them along for long enough, they might pass up the refund period!

When information is cut up into pieces it has a greater "thud" factor. Five twenty page reports all with their own sales letters have a higher value than a big 100 page book, even if contains the exact same information.

Spreading that information out over time gives it even MORE value, because your customer is more likely to read the information given to them in pieces than trying to sift through a huge pile of stuff the day they purchase.

I'll admit, I don't have a follow-up series for every product -- that would take time away from creating new products -- but every now and then I choose one product randomly and spend a minute or two writing a follow-up for it.

It doesn't have to be anything super valuable. You could:

  • Remind them to download the product. (7-day followup)
  • Ask what they thought of the product... which you can then use as a testimonial. (14-day followup)
  • Offer an affiliate link and a solo ad they can copy and paste and send to their list. (30-day followup)
  • Send a special discount link to another one of your related products. (45-day followup)
  • Give them a surprise bonus report. (60-day followup)

That's how you reduce refunds. Advertise these items in the sales letter as a 7-day bonus, 14-day bonus, and so on.

On a forum I called this strategy:
"Turning a one-time product into a short-term membership site."

If you give a refund, immediately zap them from the update list and block their IP address from your site.

Recently, I paid through the nose for the rights to Software Secrets Exposed, setup a web site and an affiliate program, and added the bonus reports as autoresponder follow-ups just like Ben did.

Do you have any advice on how to reduce refunds? I don't mean legal issues like disputing transactions with PayPal, but ways to turn refunds into a good thing. (In this case adding more long-term value to a product.)

↑ Back to Top

wpChatIcon