by John Reese
I have really enjoyed helping other entrepreneurs, and I will continue to teach people how to succeed online — which is why I started MarketingSecrets.com.
Here are a few things that I recently shared in my first ever formal seminar presentation:
1. All of your marketing online must be designed for IDIOTS.
A lot of people laughed when I showed them a slide saying how the “secret” demographic for Internet Marketing success was that 98% of people online were idiots. But it’s the truth.
In order to achive maximum RESULTS you must design your marketing so a complete idiot will know EXACTLY what you want them to do.
Don’t create pages with a bunch of OPTIONS for people to take. Give people 1 or 2 options. Period. The more options, links, buttons, etc. you give people, the more likely you are to not have prospects take the desired actions you want them to take.
Internet Marketing success (just like Direct Marketing) is all about one thing — RESULTS. Nothing else matters.
So your task is to get your prospects to do what you want them to — click a certain link, download a particular file, or get them to submit a form — like an optin form, or an order form, or a survey.
But in order to get the MAXIMUM number of prospects to take that “call to action” that you want them to take, you must make it BRAIN DEAD SIMPLE. If you do, you’ll get more people opt-ing in. And, oh yeah, you’ll also get more orders.
Now I know what you’re thinking…
“John, this is common sense.”
Yes, it is. But you know what? 99% of marketers online are currently using marketing that’s too complicated.
They are also trying to use too much GUESSWORK to run their businesses. Which leads me to something else I shared…
2. The *Real* Internet Profit Formula is this:
Part 1: YES or NO
Part 2: MORE or LESS
That’s it. Game. Set. Match. That’s the entire formula for Internet Marketing success.
I know you probably want to be told it’s some other “magical” formula that’s more complicated, but it’s not. That’s *THE* actual formula to make as much money online as you want.
Here’s how it works…
Every “call to action” you want a prospect to take (such as clicking a link, downloading a file, or submitting a form) must be tracked. The result of that tracking everytime will be YES or NO. “X” number of people did take that call to action, and the rest did not.
If you take the total number of unique “YES” calls to action, and you divide them by the total number of unique visitors to the web page where the call to action was you get a CONVERSION RATIO.
For example, if 100 people visit a web page where you have an opt-in form, and 10 people opt-in, your “conversion ratio” for that opt-in form is 10% (10/100).
Got it?
Then here’s Part 2 of the process…
Now you create a slightly modified version of the web page where that opt-in form is (maybe you giveaway a different bonus if people opt-in, or call your ezine something else as a test, or use different colors on the page, etc.) and you run a SPLIT-TEST.
A split-test is simply where you will take your web site traffic and equally distribute them to two different web pages — like the two opt-in pages, in this example. One is your original page, the second is the slightly modified version. It’s basically like sending “every other” visitor to the other page. (I’ll explain HOW to do all of this in a moment.)
You will track the results on each of these pages separately. When the results are in, and you calculate the “conversion ratio” for each, you will have a WINNER.
One of the pages will create MORE results (“YES”s) and the other page will create LESS.
You simply now start using the page that created MORE and you’ll want to now test another version in a split-test against that version. You want to constantly try to improve upon your results.
The more you improve, the more money you make. It’s just that simple.
I will teach you about some other testing methods in the near future, but for now you should have at least a basic grasp on why it’s so important.
Ok, so HOW do you implement this?
Well, to be perfectly honest with you, there isn’t a 100% “perfect” service that I can “highly” recommend you use — because the existing ones have some problems that keep them from being 100% accurate.
But for now, using “something” is better than nothing. I recommend checking out “Clickalyzer” at: http://www.clickalyzer.com
You can use this service to start tracking the results of calls to action. You simply paste a little bit of code on the page where the call to action is, and then some other code on the “thank you” page of that call to action (or whatever page you serve next to people after they take the action).
This code simply creates a hidden “counter” that you can then take those numbers and do the math on to figure out your conversion ratios — as I described above.
I’m not sure if Clickalyzer will allow you to run split tests or not — I haven’t used their service in ages. It didn’t when I had tried it.
If that’s the case, you should check out Marty Foley’s “Split Test Gold” script at: http://profitinfo.com/catalog/v4/
Marty is a great marketer. I have known Marty for years. He has some other great stuff you might want to check out on his main site: http://www.profitinfo.com
I, personally, use my own proprietary technology (that I had programmed for my own use) to do my testing and tracking. What I use is quite a bit more powerful than what’s currently available for marketers to use.
However, I *will* be allowing others to use my testing and tracking “system” very soon! I’ve had many of my Internet marketing friends BEG ME to come out with a service with it, so I am *finally* going to do it.
I will be launching this new service very soon. It will allow you to EASILY track, test, and improve on all of your marketing results automatically.
I will email you as soon as it’s ready to go.
I honestly believe that “Testing and Tracking” is 90% of the equation for making money online. I can’t stress how important it is.
And on another note about testing and tracking, here’s a BOMBSHELL I dropped during my presentation…
3. Header graphics almost always HURT conversion rates!
This was a big shocker to the crowd.
I discovered this myself after testing some different things. (I test stuff like mad.)
I finally decided to run a true split test with one of my sites to see how a version WITHOUT the header graphic would do against the original version. Almost all marketers online are using pretty header graphics across the top of their direct marketing “mini sites” — myself included! I just “assumed” someone had originally TESTED it and found it to produce more sales than just having a sales letter with no graphic.
I was wrong — and so are thousands of other people that are using header graphics on their sites right now.
RESULT: The version without the header graphic produced 37% MORE SALES!
Yes, 37% more sales. That’s a HUGE difference. In fact, I was kicking myself for not having tested this before. I can’t imagine (I don’t want to think about it) how much money I lost because I had a site designed like other people’s mini sites.
But maybe this was a FLUKE? Maybe this was just the case with *MY* site. Maybe my header graphic was too ugly, or too distracting, or the filesize was too big? Maybe it only made a difference in MY case.
So I picked up the phone and gave my close friend Stephen Pierce a call. I ask Stephen to do me a favor and run a test for about a week — I knew that he was getting tons of traffic to his “Whole Truth” site everyday and would be able to get conclusive results of a test very quickly.
Stephen agreed and began running a test of the same version of his site but without a header graphic.
RESULT: The version without the header graphic produced 50% MORE SALES!
50 PERCENT!
Do you think Stephen was HAPPY about this? 🙂
This one simple change is going to produce THOUSANDS of dollars in sales (each month) that he would not have been making.
You can see his current site at:
http://www.the-whole-truth.com
This is the POWER of testing and tracking.
BUT I STILL WASN’T TOTALLY CONVINCED…
I still wasn’t 100% sure that the “No Header” test was conclusive. I wanted MORE PROOF.
So I called my buddy Armand Morin on the phone. As you may know, Armand actually sells a popular product called, “Header Generator”! This great product produces beautiful graphic headers for people to use on their sites.
As you can imagine, Armand wasn’t totally excited to hear the news I shared with him about my test and Stephen’s test. But you know what? Armand’s response was the same response of any great marketer…
“I need to test it right now!”
Even Armand understands that it’s not about ego and that it’s all about RESULTS. He just wants to use whatever will make him the most money!
So Armand ran a split-test with a header version against a no header version. He had just released a new product, “FlashPal Generator” (www.flashpalgenerator.com) and decided to test it on this site.
RESULT: The version without the header graphic produced…
Are you ready for this?
400% MORE SALES.
Yep, FOUR HUNDRED PERCENT!
Now, this “No Header” vs. “Header” design issue may not be the same for all sites. There might be some sites that look more professional with a header and that allows them to sell more than maybe a version without a graphic header. Our tests consistently showed the version with no header graphic produced more sales, but as with anything TEST IT YOURSELF and go by YOUR RESULTS.
Don’t just take my word for it. Test it and see what works best with your site. It’s just possible that your site may sell better WITH a graphic header.
The “reason” behind why the no header version outproduces the header version is probably because the HEADLINE (showing the primary BENEFITS) is pushed farther down on the page and people may not even get a chance to read it before they decided to leave.
Some people will only spend 10 seconds on your site before leaving and if they see that header first, that may be all they check out before making the decision to leave.
If people read the headline and get sucked into the copy, they are more likely to continue reading the sales letter — and thus more likely to BUY.
You know, there’s a reason that sales letters that sold MILLIONS of dollars worth or products and services for YEARS in direct mail didn’t have a big graphic “strip” across the top like a graphic header. I’m sure with the millions of sales letters that were tested someone tried it and it didn’t work as well.
There’s a lot we can learn from Direct Marketing masters. Even, though, the Internet is INTERACTIVE, many of the 50 year old + techniques still work today online.
Author’s Resource:
John Reese is an Internet Marketing pioneer that has been actively marketing online since 1990. John has sold millions of dollars worth of products and services online and his network of Web Sites have received over 1.4 BILLION Web Site visitors since their inception. You can learn more about John and his home study courses by visiting MarketingSecrets.com.
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