Sound too good to be true? Well I did it. Keep reading and tell me what you think.

Is there such a thing as a quick, inexpensive and effective list building tool?

These days you’ll see all sorts of offers to grow your list. And some of them are really cool. Others are just big time wasters. While you may be getting leads, they may not be particularly high quality and it may cost you a small fortune to get them.

I found a tool that gave me an additional 100 subscribers in 2 weeks. Each lead cost me $1.78 and it took me two minutes to setup.

Total outlay = $178 and two minutes for 100 subscribers.

Now you might not think that I got such a good deal. But consider it in the light of a standard marketing campaign.

For a standard marketing campaign you get 100 leads for $40 each. And it takes you a whole day to get it done!! Let’s have a look at how I made this up.

• I worked out the cost of buying a list ($1000 for 1000 leads), writing a sales letter, buying envelopes and postage ($0.60 per letter). I then assumed a 4% conversion rate (which is pretty high for most campaigns).

My campaign was cheaper details on how I worked all this out, go here. But is that the whole story?

Time is ticking away…

Do you remember how much time I put in? Two minutes effort netted me 100 leads. That means that I got 50 leads for every minute of effort. OK, back to our traditional campaign again. Writing a full letter and mailing it is probably a full days effort. Let’s assume you work a 6hr day; that’s 360 minutes. That means you got 0.27 leads per minute.

My technique = 50 leads per minute

VERSUS

The traditional campaign = 0.27 leads per minute

So what is the final verdict?

For a fraction of the cost, I’m getting 200 times the return. Yeah, I’d say that is worth my time. I get 100 new prospects that are interested in what I have to say. I have permission to regular send them new offers and zero cost. And it was a total time investment of 2 minutes.

I’m sold, you should be too. Go here and start getting 50 leads a minute onto your list.

Regards,
Damian Driessen
P.S. I love making the best use of my time.

The inbox is bulging again. Every day I get about 400 email in to my inbox. So my morning chore is to plough through and see what is important. Amongst the customer correspondence there are a dozen or so newsletters that I subscribe to.

Today, I unsubscribed from a newsletter. This is a rare event for me as I looooove information. All stored away for that rainy day. Anyhow…

In the past, I had received great value from the newsletter. But over time things changed and all I ever saw was a daily pitch for some great new product or program.  This guy who I had respected was now becoming annoying. He was becoming an annoying buzz in my ear.

I gave him a month to see if it improved. Every day for a month I carefully read what he sent me. Was it education or was it a sale? And in every case he was trying to get me to swipe my credit card.

In a month he didn’t tell me anything. So clicked the magic little unsubscribe button.

So based on my reaction to my friend, your newsletter should:

• Provide great quality education
• Provide your personal news and views on topics
• Provide a sales pitch where you honestly think the person will gain value from the purchase

We are all in this for a buck. Man’s gotta eat you know. But you also need to provide exceptional value and information, otherwise you’ll end up annoying your customer. And eventually they’ll tell you to buzz off.

Damian Driessen
AKA Love of education and the occasional pitch

Debates rage throughout the marketing industry. Long copy works best! No, short copy works best! Both sides have strong views on what works. But who is right? The answer is pretty simple.

Whatever copy causes the customer to buy is the right length.

When a customer is hot to buy, two sentences and a “Buy Now” button may be plenty. Other times when you really want to cover all every aspect of the deal and get the prospect drooling, you might lay out a long sales letter.

Long copy is a great tool when you have a lot of different aspects to cover off. You may have some potential objections that need to be addressed. You might need a page or two orf testimonials to put the customer’s mind at ease. Long copy definitely has a place.

Recent years have seen an increase in short copy. Squeeze pages with just a few words designed to make it simple to get the customer to take action. The idea is that people are busy and don’t have time to read pages and pages of your copy. But if you’ve got something that hits their pain-point, this ‘busy’ person will eagerly read your “War and Peace”.

Different strokes for different folks.. But here is the truth of the matter.
Don’t guess whether you should use long or short copy. Test it.

So what does that mean to your business? You may be used to using one or the other. But being a pro marketer, you know that testing is a valuable tool. So if you’ve traditionally written short copy, write long. And vice versa. Track the clickthroughs and signups. You’ll soon know what works for your situation.

I use both. I’ve got a long copy page for my newsletter, plus a short copy one. Have a look and share your opinion on what worked for you and why.

And that’s the long and the short of it…

Damian Driessen
Friend of long and short copy.

Did you do one thing today that moved you a little closer to your goals? Congratulations if you did. That’s great work. That’s all it takes to make your dreams a reality.

Every day take a step, and another step, and another step. Continue working to your plan.

There will be distractions. A new tool. A new technique. Or you’ll get bored and begin to doubt that this will ever work.

Stay on plan. Rather than chasing the new thing, make a commitment to do one thing from your plan. Walk it out and you will see the fruit come. There will be plenty of time to chase the new fad later.

Damian, out.

There sure is a lot of information in this online marketing business. Information about tactics that work. Information about long copy versus short copy. About eye tracking. About writing styles. About headlines that work. And a mountain more.

Many people spend all day, every day, trying to learn every piece drop of information they can. Yet they are still not making any progress.

There are way too many distractions for us information junkies. A new launch, a new technique. And so we diligently go off, buy it and learn it. Then go a quick short trial of it before getting distracted with the next fad. And we still fail to make any progress.

Progress only comes by diligently putting into action what you’ve learned.

Let’s pull this sentence apart:

• Diligently implies that this is not a ‘fad of the day’ but something we will stick at. While there are a few tactics that instantly get results, most take a while to kick in. Articles are a fabulous tool but you probably won’t see any return for at least a month. So whatever you choose, put in the time. For most tactics, you need a minimum of three months to really see results.
• Putting into action says that we will actually implement the tactic rather than just reading about it. Want to know a really sad fact? 80% of information products end up on a dusty shelf with their shrink wrap still in tact. If you want progress you need to learn the tactics and put them into action.
• What you’ve learned implies that you actually need to learn. Most successful people are lifelong learners. Your business won’t grow unless YOU are studying what your business needs. So buy that next course that comes out (even if you just want to spy on your competition). As you learn, you’ll get the ideas and techniques that will jumpstart your business.

Want to know more ways to jumpstart your business? Sign up for my newsletter here.

Regards,

Damian Driessen.

P.S. Remember… Progress = Diligence + Learning + Action

If you’ve been in the marketing arena for a while, you are sure to have heard about the importance of testing. You need to test your headlines, test your offer, test whether to use graphics, test, test, test.

So you go in search of the right test tool and soon discover that you need 1) deep pockets for some complex testing tool or 2) a Masters degree to get it working. That is until now…

1shoppingcart.com is a great tool for doing split testing. Although it isn’t as widely advertised as some of the other features, it has split testing that is simple to setup and works great.

You simply create two pages on your site. Name them testpage1.html and testpage2.html. Then within 1shoppingcart you setup a new “Ad Tracker”. This is their name for a split test. You enter the names of your pages being tested. It will issue you an “Ad Track Campaign Link URL”.

Then simply refer people at the URL 1shoppingcart gave you and the test is off and running. 1shoppingcart alternatively displays your pages and keeps track of the click throughs for each page. Once you are satisfied that you have a) had enough traffic through and b) found a clear winner, you have a new ‘control’ piece.

If you are in the market for an autoresponder, shopping cart and simple test tool, you really should consider 1shoppingcart as your top option. For more details on 1shoppinfcart click here.

Regards,

Damian Driessen
Online Jumpstart

Well, another Easter is just finishing up Down Under. It’s been a great time of seeing old friends and just ‘hanging out’. And of course we’ve all eaten too much again. My favourite part was firming up friendships with people I only see every year or so.Anyway, I said this was about marketing right?

Just like spending time with old friends, regularly catching up with the people on your list is critical. If you are in the process of building a list, you need to make sure that you regularly spend time getting to know them. Some marketers recommend daily correspondence, others weekly, others every two weeks and others monthly.

I prefer to ‘touch base’ with my list once a week. I know that people are busy and probably get hundreds or emails every day. I don’t want to become yet another source of mess that they have to clean up. But if you can touch them once a week with a powerful message, then I’m satisfied. Every two weeks would be ok, but anything longer than that and it would be like meeting a brand new person every time they open their email. I want customers that know and remember me.

With so many affiliate programs it may be tempting to send a sales page every week. Surely this is a great way to make profits? You could do this and it may work for a time, but before too long you’ll fatigue your list. People can only endure being pitched to for so long. Eventually they’ll have had enough and will hit the unsubscribe button. Just like the blow hard that only talks about themselves at your Easter function, you’ll only have an audience for so long.

A better way is to share information that your list will find useful. Whether you want to admit it or not, you know that YOU are YOUR favourite topic. When you open an email, you want it do something for you right? What if someone gave you inside information on how they grew their list and how YOU could instantly apply it. If this was something you desired, you’d be very interested. So I recommend you give away valuable, practical information. This will keep them interested in the conversation. They may even read your next issue instead of just hitting the delete key.

I trust you’ve had a great time this Easter. Remember the time you spent catching up with people, and the conversations you enjoyed the most. Then begin regularly having conversations with your list. You want them to remember you all year round, not just at Easter time.

Regards,
Damian Driessen.

Dear Kevin,

Believe it or not, there are specific words that will get the attention of the most web-hardened browser. Savvy marketers know the words and language that get the eye of every reader. There are a whole variety of these words that you’ll hear people talk about. Let me tell you two secret words that are more effective than any others?

Are you ready to learn these closely guarded secrets?

Here is word number 1 - You.

To demonstrate, let me give you two headlines and you tell me which is the more powerful:

1. Who wants to know the power words that force customers to buy?

2. Do you want to know the power words that force your customers to buy?

Whenever you personalise, you dramatically increase the power of your message. Do you get the message?

Word #2 is also related to personalisation - Your name

Imagine a busy street corner and you need to get the attention of one person. The situation is dangerous and it is very important you get your message through.

Which statement is more effective?

1. Hey you, stop before that car hits you.

2. Hey Kevin, stop before that car hits you.

Obviously, using someone’s name get’s the best result. While you may not be able to do this easily online, there are ways to do it. Offline you have no excuse. Everytime you do a mail merge, you need to use your customer’s name.

So Kevin, next time you want to write that killer letter, make sure you personalise it.

Regards,

Damian.

This is a challenge that most online businesses have come up against. There are a million different tactics that you can use to drive traffic, but one of the best is writing articles. Articles specific to your topic will:

• Get you ranked in Google for the keyword
• Raise your visibility as the guru for your topic
• Help you build content for your next information product
• Give you additional materials for your website
• Help you answer your customer’s most common questions
• plus much more…

The best articles choose one particular aspect of your topic and drill right in. Articles that go deep into a very specific area get the attention of web visitors. There is a lot of generic information out there. So be different, and go deep, real deep.

Most articles are between 300 and 1000 words. Some people can rattle that off in their sleep. For others, it is a harder task. One easy way to help the non-writer is to answer the following questions:

• What is so important about this topic
• How do I do things with this particular topic
• Why are people interested in this topic
• Who is interested in this topic
• Where do I go to learn more about this topic
• When can I best use this information

Answer these questions and you’ve got a start on an article.

If you’d like more information on this and many other list building tactics, go to OnlineJumpstart.

Cheers,
Damian Driessen.