November 12th, 2015
Posted In: Bing, Google Adwords, Microsoft Adcenter, Pay Per Click, PPC Boutique, Search Engine Marketing, Yahoo
Traffic is the lifeblood of any Internet-based business. All information marketers who offer products and services online regardless of the industry or niche’ needs traffic. In fact, your sole purpose should be to get your message in front of as many qualified prospects as possible and present your offer which will add value to your prospect’s life in exchange for money. That may seem to be overly simplistic, but in the information marketing business this is what we do or should be doing in a nutshell.
The challenge for most information marketers, especially new comers; is that it can be difficult to spread your message to your target audience online without the proper knowledge or training in lead generation. That’s the #1 reason most information marketers start out in their businesses with joint ventures and working with solid organizations like AMG.
The great part about operating in a joint venture is that you can get instant access to targeted traffic with an endorsement from the list owner or joint venture partner. That presents a phenomenal opportunity for you. In fact, many people have gone on to build six and seven figure information marketing businesses just using this one strategy alone.
There will come a time however, in every information marketer’s career when they will look around and not have any joint venture partners to promote their products/services; and without the consistent flow of new leads and prospects, the business eventually dies off. As unfortunate as that may be, it does happen. Not to mention, sometimes even being able to get your foot in the door with a potentially large joint venture partner requires you to have your own database of prospects/buyers so that you can reciprocate the opportunity and allow the joint venture partner to promote to your database as well. This brings me back to the title of this piece, which is also a question – “Got Traffic???”
If you are determined to be prosperous in 2012 and take your information marketing business to the next level, then you want to maximize your exposure. This results in you generating more targeted traffic to your offers, and also grows your list, which brings in more sales which again widens your exposure. It becomes an endless, beautiful circle and I think for most of us that is the obvious part, what’s not so obvious are the things you need to do in preparation before even turning on the traffic.
The first thing you want to do is ensure you have a front end offer which converts well. Notice I did not say have a good product because although your product may be great, how you market it and position the offer is the most important thing. I cannot stress that enough – you must have a good offer in place if you want to sell your product or service. When it comes to your offer, it can be presented in a number of ways to convey the value to your customer so that they will take action and buy. Below I have listed the top three ways to present your offers for maximum conversion.
The reason all of this is so important is two-fold. First, having a good front end offer allows you to pay for your traffic, gather a prospect, and build your customer list for free. Think about it this way, let’s say you are spending $10 per lead (1 Lead = 1 Opt in) and for every 10 leads you generate you make one sale. Let’s assume your front end offer is $197; so for every $100 dollars you spend you make a $97 dollar profit which can be reinvested to generate even more leads.
This brings me to my next point – the back end offer. This involves having a good backend offer or higher price point offer of $497 to $997 plus a high valued, high ticket coaching product or service for $2,000 to $10,000. This is where the real money is made for an information marketer. And when coupled with your front end offer which generates leads on demand, it’s almost like printing money. The fact that you are profitable or at least break even on the front end means you build a list for free, and because you have a back end in place to monetize your leads, the sales on the backend are mostly profit minus your ancillary expenses for converting the back end sales. Putting these things in place first will ensure that when you begin to drive traffic you have the best chance for profitability.
Also, there are many sources of traffic available online and believe me when I say that all traffic is not created equal. As a result of this, we don’t want just any type of traffic, but instead are seeking the laser targeted traffic of prospects that are most likely to invest in our products and services.
We already established that joint venture traffic or endorsed traffic is the best available traffic to start with, however when going after cold traffic (Cold Traffic = No relationship or Endorsement) Pay-Per-Click traffic will deliver some of the best targeted and responsive prospects available.
When it comes to investing in PPC traffic Google is still the 800 LB. gorilla and has the most available traffic because they can reach over 90% of the people on the Internet. That is just mind boggling when you think about how much traffic that equates to. Now, because Google is the 800 LB. gorilla and they know it, we have to play by their rules or be subjected to the dreadful “Google slap” or worse yet the “Google ban”!
As information marketers it can be very challenging to please the Google gods while at the same time maximizing conversion for our products and services. This requires a balancing act which means we provide great content and value to Google’s customers first and think about conversions second. That is a tough pill to swallow sometimes, especially since we are actually feeding the Gorilla with real money out our pockets but it’s the way Google operates.
Since being in compliance is so crucial, the first thing we need to do is design our website in such a way that it’s fully compliant with Google’s terms and services. This requires several different mandates, but I will cover the main ones in the list below:
There are several more steps that need to be taken as well to ensure your site does not get slapped or banned, however this article will become a book if I attempted to cover everything that Google wants before your start driving traffic but I have provided a good starting point for you.
In conclusion, always ensure you have a good front end offer, a good back end offer, and site that Google loves before you turn on your PPC campaigns. By taking these steps, you can ensure you will have a self-sustaining lead generation machine that will allow you to flourish in your business, help customers change their lives, and help you become a valuable contributor to the joint venture community because of your ability to reciprocate and promote others as well.
November 12th, 2015
Posted In: Bing, Google Adwords, Microsoft Adcenter, Pay Per Click, PPC Boutique, Search Engine Marketing, Yahoo