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Four Ways to Get More Out of Your Followers by Challenging Them to Take Action
If you've seen any of the comments on this blog, you know that my posts get a lot of response.
If you've been inside any of my paid webinar classes, you know that I have a lot of successful case studies and success stories from people who did exactly what I told them to.
How do you clone exactly what I did? You use one of these 4 methods to get your followers to take action.
"Know" Phase #1: The Blog Comments
Something you can do right now without launching a new product, even without making a new blog post, is look at the most recent post you've made on your blog and cap the number of comments at 10.
Put a note that says "as soon as that blog post gets 10 comments, you're going to disable comments." You would not believe how many people have told me at live events that they had no interest in leaving a comment on my blog until they heard that they might miss out on it. That's how most of your viewers are as well. They are just barely on the fence about whether or not to comment.
It's up to you to give them that one extra reason. If having 10 blog comments seems like a lot, here's a secret. You should be replying to your blog comments. This means that if 5 people leave comments on your blog and you reply to each individual comment with a comment of your own, that equals 10 responses total. When I say you should cap your blog post at 10 comments, you really only need 5 people to leave comments and then for you to respond to each one.
At first, you might have to pay people $1 per comment or have some of your friends leave comments, but after a few posts, when the social proof is there, people will leave comments as long as you are sending traffic there from your forum and from your list.
"Like" Phase #2: The Retweet Campaign
When I launch a blog post, after it has filled up the 100 or so comments I like to have, I will close out comments and then mail my list a second time, telling them to re-tweet that blog post.
In the past, I tried to tell people to comment and re-tweet but this works a lot better if you devote one day and one email just to commenting, and after you've gotten what you wanted, devote one day just to re-tweeting one of your posts. On my blog, I use the TweetMeme plugin and just by having that button there, I do get 10 to 20 re-tweets or one click mentions on Twitter.
But when I specifically ask people to re-tweet, it jumps to 50 to 200 re-tweets. That means that 200 different people have mentioned that specific blog post on Twitter which gives me more traffic and more social proof, and I like that at this point, the comments are turned off because that means anyone who comes to my site now has to sign up to my mailing list to be notified when they can comment again.
You can also have fun with this re-tweet campaign by re-tweeting your blog post once per day to drive the count-up and add some kind of prize. For example, if you can get 20 re-tweets of your latest blog post, you will make another blog post this week.
"Trust" Phase #3: Free Live Webinar
Most people have no strategy when they're leaving a blog post. I always do.
When I make a blog post, it's usually to pre-launch my next class or my next email offer. You should be doing the same.
Use the responses you got from that last blog post to create your presentation or to improve the next class you will be offering.
Even if you only have 10 comments, you can pick out about four things that people are having trouble with.
For example, I once made a post on my blog called Forfeit the Race to Free, telling people not to gravitate towards trials but instead be moving their price higher, and although a lot of people agreed with me, some people told me things like they were at first afraid to launch their product and now this advice got them to do it. Some other people argued that more people bought at a low price, which in my experience was false. More people bought at a higher price.
My favorite response to that post was that some – one of my commenters told me that somebody didn't buy from them because the price was too low and the average person thought that because it was so cheap, something must be wrong with it.
All those responses can make a great presentation or augment a presentation that's already ready because it speaks directly to people's fears and frustrations and the best part is you can use the same language, the same phrases people say to you and use that to make a killer headline based on your pressing issue.
"Close" Phase #4: Pitch And Close
You've already taught people something from your emails leading up to your blog post, from your blog post itself, and during your free live webinar. At the end of that free live webinar, all of that info should be coming in together - the emails, the blog posts, the comments, and this live training into a relevant and special offer.
You gave people a lot of tips on overcoming roadblocks but now it's time for them to pay you to get access to the step-by-step how-to system to get them from point A to point B.
Make it a special offer just for people on the call that will be increasing in price soon, have a real deadline so that there is real scarcity, and send them to at least a short sales letter explaining your offer exactly in black and white terms. That way, when people join your class or purchase your report or get your video series, they know exactly what they are getting.
Is your business model anything close to this, the KNOW, LIKE, TRUST, and CLOSE step-by-step system? If not, why not and how soon are you going to implement this? Comment!
3 Myths of Subscriber Burnout
If I ask someone why an email I sent didn't get a lot of clicks or why an offer I'm promoting didn't get as many sales as I would like or even when a blog post doesn't get as many comments as I'm used to, the usual cop-out I hear from other marketers is "your list must be burned out."
We've all wondered about this at one point or another. In fact, at one time, Lance and I thought we had burned out our list when we're mailing for a $200 training course.
Then, flash forward 6 months later when we're launching a $997 training course 1 week, a $497 training course a couple weeks later, and a $27 per month membership site at the same time and everyone is buying in, and in fact, the people who buy now tell us the price should be higher.
What's the difference? The difference between that $200 era and the $1000 era is that we trained our list not just to receive these offers but also to purchase and be happy at a certain price point.
Burnout Myth #1: Non-Responsive List
If you think your list is non-responsive, the problem is either from your traffic source or from your marketing.
I have seen way too many marketers come out of the gate one day and say, "here you go, here is my $1000 training course."
They have no teaching, no build-up and no pre-launch and they just expect people to purchase their $1000 course at a moment's notice. When people tell me that they do not purchase a certain product because of price, the problem could be that they can't afford it and would never buy under any circumstances or it could be they just did not have enough advanced notice to clear their credit card or save up that money.
That's why you need a pre-launch sequence and you need to mail more often.
This leads me to many marketers recommending that you only mail your list once a month or once a week. But the problem with that is we need to push a lot of people into buying an offer quickly, you really do need to mail them once a day during your launch sequence, and I see marketers try to get by with mailing just once a week or just once a month, and then when they have to mail once a day, the subscribers aren't used to it.
The solution is to mail everyday, whether you're selling, teaching, or doing a little bit of both.
Mail everyday, mail more often, and mail on topic. If somebody is telling you to buy their AdWords product over and over again and then one day turned around and tried to buy a product about forum marketing and there was no transition whatsoever, there is no consistent marketing message.
Have a real launch, email every day, and email at least 5 times when you're promoting something new.
Burnout Myth #2: It's Too Expensive
If no one is buying the things you have to offer at any price, consider where your traffic is coming from. I built my traffic up from a free forum but what I did differently is most of my subscribers had to buy something from me before they could get on my list.
They were all people who have been proven to have a credit card, have room in their credit card, and trust me enough to pay me. If you're building a list from ad swaps, safe lists, or JV Giveaways, you're getting the worst subscribers possible.
You're getting people who have not been proven to buy anything but who you do know get dozens, if not hundreds, of emails everyday for other free offers. You need to build a better list. Build a list that gets traffic from a better neighborhood. Get joint ventures. And above all, make a better offer.
It's one thing to offer a 100-page eBook or 5 hours of videos but what will those videos allow me to do? If you just tell me you are selling a real estate course, that's not very exciting, but if you told me that this course could get me to find the perfect property to flip in one day and I could flip it in one week and make a certain amount of money, that would be more exciting for me.
You need to position your offer to be more benefit-based and to be more exciting and fast and explain the answer to the question "what's in it for me?"
You might have to weed out freebie stickers. If there are some subscribers who yell at you or ask you repeatedly to drop the price, there's nothing wrong with removing them from your list if they are never going to buy from you. It seems harsh but you are doing them a favor because they don't like your emails.
Burnout Myth #3: The Wrong Niche
If I subscribe to your email list about copywriting and one day, you started emailing me about stock market trading, why should I even care? I didn't come to you as the authority for stock trading. I came to you as the authority to copywriting. You need to give your subscribers what they want.
If somebody joined your list because you offered them a free report on copywriting, give them more stuff about copywriting, give them a course they can join on that same subject.
Don't hop around in different niches. Give them the same stuff that they want and need. And build your list from the correct source. If you have a copywriting product, build your list from a copywriting forum, not from a stock trading forum and vice-versa.
You might not have to give up and change your niche overnight... just start offering your list what they want. What they'll buy.
Did this post help you overcome any of the 3 myths of subscriber burnout? They were a non-responsive list, a list that thinks your stuff is too expensive, and a list that's in the wrong niche. Which one applies the best to you, 1, 2, or 3? And what are you going to do now?
Comment below telling me, please!
The Future Has A Lot Less Buttons And Levers: Choices Are Bad
I hope you are noticing this: The more successful solutions out there reduce the number of choices.
I first noticed this a couple of years ago when I bought a special box that attaches to my TV called a NetFlix Roku. What this box does is it connects to my Netflix service over Wi-Fi and streams movies and TV shows to my TV.
Sounds complicated, right? But it's not! The funny thing about this remote is that it has only got nine buttons: It has got a Home button, an Enter button, four arrows (like left, right, up, down), a Play and Pause button, Rewind and Fast-Forward. That's it!
There is no Channel Changing button, there is no Volume button, no Mute button. Not even an On/Off button.
That's Right!
The Roku device remains On for as long as it is plugged in! It is one of my favorite devices to use because I can literally use it within seconds of taking it out of the box.
Here is something else to think about: Video cameras. For a long time I resisted buying video cameras. It is so difficult to decide which one to get. I didn't want to get a video camera that used tape, even digital tape, and I wasn't sure if I should get a camera made by Sony, Kodak or some other manufacturer.
But I did buy the Flip camera years ago. The great thing about the flip is that it really only has one Big Red Button. Much like the Roku remote, it has a couple of extra buttons, such as Pause and Play (that's one button), the Trash button, and buttons to navigate between videos and zoom in and out. But the button usually almost always used is that Big Red Record Button.
You want to record new video? Take it out, hit the Big Red Button - it records. You want to stop? Hit the Big Red Button again.
That is compared to other cameras which are better in quality and have better features, but the problem is they have too many features. For example, with the Kodak Zi8, I almost bought it because it has an external microphone. But everyone I have seen record with it has to navigate through different menus to choose what quality they want to record with, and other settings, before they can record it.
I don't care about that! I want to just hit one button and it records.
Think about the iPhone: again, almost no buttons. It has got a Lock button, volume controls, a Silent button and a Home button. That's it. No buttons for dialing or going through different menus. That is all handled in the touch screen.
If you don't have a touch screen phone, I would recommend you borrow someone's iPhone and try to do a conference call. It is amazing how it can generate new menus and give you new buttons to push when there were none there previously.
Same deal with the iPad, Droid, Kindle and other touch screen devices with almost no buttons. It is super simple and super intuitive to use - and requires almost no documentation.
Think about WordPress: I think what makes WordPress special is that it simplifies everything. You can literally set it up in a few seconds and write your first blog post in a few minutes. The interface for writing new posts and activating plugins is far simpler than any other blogging platform I have ever seen.
And the blogs that are the most accessible are the ones that remove features. They might remove things like the dates, or the ability to leave comments on posts, just to make it easier to get to the information.
Now that I have told you how much I like the Roku, the flip, the iPhone and WordPress, it's your turn!
What Are You Doing To Remove The Buttons?
Do you offer two Order buttons on your sales letter: maybe a way to fully buy your product and another offer as a payment plan?
What would happen if you split tested, only showing one of those buttons? Would it make it easier for people to join your program?
When someone logs into your membership site, is it clear what they should look at first? In other words, are your posts listed in chronological order? And do you have some kind of welcome message or welcome video when someone first joins?
When I read your report, am I going to find clear, step-by-step instructions about what to read first and where to go from there?
And, most importantly, what should I do when I'm done? So tell me, how are you removing multiple choices and multiple calls to action that don't matter?
What are YOU doing to remove the buttons? Comment below.
I’ll Take You to a $5000 Seminar July 20-22, in Las Vegas, for Free
I have never offered anything like this for free. In July I'm getting trained by a guy who has made 1 million dollars in 90 minutes, speaking at a seminar.
I want to take you as my guest to Armand Morin's "Persuasion X" speaker training seminar in Las Vegas, Neveda on July 20-22, 2010. That's a Tuesday through a Thursday.
I have spoken on stage four times. A couple of weeks ago, Lance and I presented on membership sites at a seminar in Minneapolis to a room of 50 people.
7 people had already bought our $997 package in the past, but we got 7 new people to pay us $999.
Think about that, $7000 bucks from a 90 minute presentation, that I would have done for free anyway.
If you ever want to speak from the stage, if you want to get better from with your webinars, or even just become more confident, then you should come to this very secret seminar.
All I want from you, is to tell me why I should take you as my free guest. But here's the thing:
1. It's up to you to drive or fly to Vegas on your own.
2. You are on your own, hotel and food-wise.
3. I don't want you sitting next to me at the event, go find your own friends... the room is full of proven five thousand dollar buyers
4. You will get to meet with me, and talk to me at the seminar
Like I said, this seminar literally costs $5000 but I want to take you as my free guest so you can find out:
- How to become an in-demand professional speaker
- Persusasive presentation
- Control and lead your audience
- Hypnotic speech patterns
- Structure your offer so it makes the most impact with your audience
- How to sell membership products from the stage
- Exact PowerPoint designs to increase your sales from the stage
- How to "work" the stage: where to stand and what to do with your body, plus the most POWERFUL closing sequence ever created
Go ahead, tell me why I should take you as my free $5000 guest. If you have the best answer, I'll buy your way into this $5000 seminar.
You Think Too Big And It Is Hurting Your Business: Why Gary Vaynerchuk Was Wrong
If you never had the chance yet to read Gary V's crush it book, I definitely recommend it. In fact, if you ask me privately I have tons of copies of it and I am willing to give you one for free.
Gary took his father's liquor store and turned it from a $4 million dollar business into a $50 million dollar business.
The biggest lesson I got out of his very quick read was this: When you are a self-employed entrepreneur you are going to work harder and you are going to work more hours than someone who has a day job. It doesn't matter, if you are going to be doing something that is fun that excites you to get out of bed in the morning.
Gary talks a lot about getting noticed by the big media companies on social media like twitter, facebook and you-tube. I think a lot of marketers take that advice too far, especially when pursuing the getting bought out model.
In case you weren't paying attention during the first dot com boom of the late 90's and early 2000's. The idea is that you mass tons and tons of users get tons of market penetration while breaking even or even losing money, in the hopes that some big company will buy you out for $100 million dollars.
You-tube lost money for years even after they were bought out by Google, until recently. Facebook lost money until it partnered with Microsoft and started displaying ads. MySpace lost money until it was bought out by Rupert Murdock, and the list goes on.
Chances Are: You Won't Get Bought Out By Someone Else!
You can't count on that payday. If you are already making millions of dollars a year and can afford to lose money for years and years, that's fine. Ignore my advice.
If you are trying to make a living, and build a business you need to make some kind of profit. It is NOT evil to make money! Although people like Gary V. have enough money to think big, you are still starting out and you need to think small.
When you pay $20 dollars for advertising, just try to get $20 dollars back. On a regular basis, I will post form offers or create pay per click campaigns for load to your products to make some of the money back, and to attract affiliates, and to get a few extra leads.
If I spend $20 dollars to promote a free offer, and I get 20 opt ins out of that promotion, I know I have made my money back. I know I get more than $1 dollar per subscriber on my list.
When I find affiliates, I have no problem giving them bulk of my profits. I pay 60% commission to my affiliates with lifetime tagging.
I know a lot of people who offer 100% commission on the front end, and 0% on the back end. What does this mean? It means that you might have a report selling for $20 dollars that up-sells people to a certain course for $100 dollars. You have a $20 dollar front end, $100 dollar back end.
When an affiliate promotes that $20 dollar product, if it makes a sale they get all the $20 dollars and none of the $100 dollars. What I do instead is give 60% of both. That means if they make a sale at $20 dollars, I will give them 60% or $12 dollars of the $20. When somebody then buys the $100 dollar product, I will give the affiliate $60 dollars of that as well.
Again, I don't mind giving away that high commission because I would not have made that sale without that affiliate.
Affiliate Sales Are Just "Extra!"
Even if you do want to get yourself bought out some day, you need to show some kind of earnings potential. You-tube, and facebook, and twitter can easily sell because they've massed millions of users. Just in case you don't make it to the millions of users, try to monetize the few number of people you have. That way you will find it easier to devote the time to a site that is making money versus a site that might make money sometime in the future.
I do agree with most of what Gary says. I don't want you to repeat the same mistakes made during the dot com bust, which was losing money for years in exchange for users. You don't have to give away everything for free. Your knowledge and your services are worth something. You are just going to have to trust me on this.
Do you agree or disagree with what I had to say today? Leave me a comment below right now giving me your quick and honest opinions.
WordPress 3.0, WordPress 3.1, and WordPress 4.0 Explained
But Here's the Big Question:
Should You Upgrade?
- YES, if you are running a free (open) blog such as RobertPlank.com, to get used to the new features and take advantage of themes that use the new functionality.
- NO, if you are running a mission-critical WordPress membership site, especially if it's hosted with Wishlist Member.
Three First impressions About WordPress 3.0
- Better looking Dashboard with a "notification" area (like Facebook)
- Batch updating of plugins (now if only the updater wouldn't stall on my server)
- New theme-dependent things like menus, featured image, and standardized way of changing your header graphic
Three Things You Might Not Have Noticed
- WordPress MU (MultiUser): so you can create a blog network if you change your config file
- author specific templates: if you know how to rename your theme files, you can give different users a different admin interface
- custom post types: you could create an e-commerce store or article directory in WordPress easily without "fudging it" using pages.
3 Things to Look Forward to in WordPress 3.1
(coming August 2010)
- newer HTML editor: local autosave, paste with formatting, and faster performance such as showing text while resizing
- prevent comment impersonation: if someone tries to leave a comment on your blog, and that email address belongs to a registered user, require them to login
- email authentication: users can login using their email address and no longer have to remember usernames, only passwords.
4 Things I Want to See Before WordPress 4.0
- better plugin updater: mine still times out, I at least want a progress indicator, and maybe even the ability to update a plugin WITHOUT going into maintenance mode or halting the entire thing
- official plugins: please build the All in One SEO Pack, Robots Meta, Google Sitemap, Subscribe to Comments, Twitter Tools, Get Recent Comments, List Category Posts, MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer, WPTouch, and Psychic Search plugins right into WP so I don't have to install them by hand on every single blog I setup
- automatic update: I really don't see this coming until WordPress 4.0, but I would like a Windows-like function to automatically check, and update, the blog, theme and plugins overnight
- big picture stats: when I login to the dashboard, I want to see the word count of my entire blog, the average word count of my posts, my top commenters, the average comment length, how many posts per month, how many comments per day, how many hits per day, and how many searches per day my blog is getting
What do you think about the new WordPress? Have you upgraded yet or are you waiting until a more stable and tested version?
New Apple iPhone 4
My new iPhone 4 showed up a day early (Wednesday)... some lucky people even got theirs on Tuesday!
I did have to wait a few minutes for it to activate with AT&T, and for it to sync my iTunes movies and songs... but once that was all done... well you check it out!
Check it out... ability to use FaceTime for video calls, you can choose the front or back camera when taking photos... it's thinner, lighter, faster, and better looking.
Apple already introduced multitasking to the old (3G and 3GS) phones on Monday, so I've already been able to stream music from a radio station via Pandora while checking email or browsing the web on my phone.
- iBooks (book reader) is new, even though we already had the Kindle app
- Netflix app is coming so you can stream movies to your phone (like you already can with iPad)
- iMovie is coming out soon which will let you edit videos with all the features as the desktop version
- Farmville is coming to iPhone pretty soon as well
What phone do you have? (Come on Droid people, let me have it!) Are you getting this new phone?
Why Your Email Subscribers Hate You
The last time that you sent an email to your list, did you get less responses than you wanted? Did you get less sales than you wanted? I hope your answer to both of questions was yes. You should always be moving forward and growing. In order to take that next step, let's figure out what you are doing wrong in your email marketing.
You Don't Email Enough
When I explain list building and email marketing to most people their problem is that they don't contact their list enough. I know that this was my problem for years when I first built a list. I had no idea what to say to my list. I didn't know if people would even care what I had to say.
But guess what, they joined your list and the only way to find out if they like what you have to say, if they hate what you have to say, or even if they will unsubscribe is to email that list. You just won't know until you talk to them.
Please email at least once a week, if not more than once a week. Send them to your latest blog post. Cut, copy and paste your latest article in there. Buy a pack of private label-right articles and use those for follow up content. Pitch your latest offer and copy and paste chunks of the sales letter into your message.
You Email Too Much
The problem I see with those marketers who have built their list from a bad traffic source is that they email too much. People who have built their list from ad-swaps, JV giveaway, and even safe lists are dealing with such an unresponsive list. They have to email those people three or four times a day with different offers just to make any money at all.
The problem with this model is that it gets the gullible people to keep clicking and keep buying. But gets your real long-term buyers to leave your list. It is possible to hit your list too much, and too much is more than once per day.
The only exception to this is if I am launching a product and its launch day. For example, I am running a webinar, I will email three times a day. But on a regular basis, I will only email my list a maximum of one time per day.
You Email Crap
It is not enough to just email regularly or email just the right amount per week. You need to send people good emails. Do your emails blend your teaching and your pitching? If it is too much teaching or too much pitching, you are doing your subscribers a disservice.
Think about it, if all you are doing is pitching, then all you are saying is buy, buy, buy, buy. If all you are doing is teaching, you are giving them ideas, but you are not telling them how to take everything to the next level.
Your emails should be short and to the point. You should give people at least one thing to think about today, and then transition into some URL you want them to click on. That way, no one can complain.
Even if they don't like the offer you are giving them... they can at least read the email and not click the link at the end, so they will walk away with some free piece of advice.
It's Just Not A Good Fit
When people sign up for one of my free courses, or purchase one of my products. I let them know that they are getting on a list where they will receive updates from me about all my future products, not just the one they bought.
Some subscribers don't think that should be the case. That's okay, that's their opinion. What I know is that if there is someone online who I really like, whose products I like to buy, who I want to be like and emulate, I want to get regular emails from them. Because otherwise I will start thinking about and wondering what they are doing today and what their latest project is.
Your true fans want to know what you are up to, what you are launching, and how they can buy it so they can get more value out of it than the price they paid. Just like everything in life, it is not for everyone. That is why if someone wants to get off your list, it should be easy and permanent for them to leave.
Do you know now why some of your email subscribers hate you? Which of the four reasons above is the reason? What are you going to do differently in your email marketing now that you have this information?
Leave a comment below explaining yourself.
Build Up a Mailing List by Attracting Web Traffic
You send traffic to a squeeze page and people opt-in to a list. Then you send them more free info over time to build trust, and eventually start hitting them with offers related to that niche.
How the heck do you get traffic to that list?
Method 1: Join forums in that niche and post real content. Don't mention your site, don't try to sell people on anything, just participate in conversations and get people to recognize you. After you get 25 posts, edit your profile and place a link to that squeeze page in your forum signature.
Method 2: Create a blog. When news hits in your niche, write a blog entry about it, and add your link at the end. For example if a local news story about a cat massager business hits the news, talk about it and link to your squeeze page at the end. Locally hosted blogs like WordPress will "blog and ping" ... so your posts will hit the search engines in seconds. You can also get free accounts on services like Blogger.
Method 3: Article marketing. Write some articles and post them to those same article directories with a linkback to your squeeze page. If these get you lots of opt-ins, consider hiring freelance article writers to write these articles in bulk for you. Then guess what? You can post some of those articles to forums and post them to your own sites as blogs.
Method 4: Social networking. Join MySpace groups and post MySpace blog posts to your profiles with your articles. Get Camtasia Recorder, create PowerPoint presentations of your articles and record those videos. Then post them to video sites like YouTube and Revver, with your squeeze page URL watermarked right in and your URL in the video description.
Method 5: Create a free, lead-in product. Write your own articles and package them as a product, or hire someone to write articles and assemble those into a PDF yourself. Make sure the URL to that squeeze page is prominently displayed on every page. Then sell resale rights to a select number of people, or offer your product on giveaway sites.
Method 6: AdWords. That's probably the hardest method of them all, but what you can do is look at the ads that appear on the right hand side of Google searches that stay listed over time, and try to model those ads. Worried about paying too much per click? Look at the top 10 search results, choose to only show your ads in the content network, and say you only want your ads to appear on those top 10 pages.
If you don't know where to begin, I recommend you dedicate an entire week to doing nothing but method #1. Then dedicate the next week to method #2. All the way to method 5 (only try method 6 if you know what you're doing) and build up that mailing list.
