Marlon Sanders has released the latest issue of ‘Marketing Minute’. The featured article is titled “STOP OVERCOMPLICATING: The only 5 things you gotta do and  how to get ’em done in a few weekends”. [Article]


Marlon Sanders’ latest article:

STOP OVERCOMPLICATING: The only 5 things you gotta do and  how to get ’em done in a few weekends

Marketing 101 is to get a list of people and sell something to ’em.

That’s about as basic as it gets.

Step one:  Get traffic

Step two:  Get people on your list

Step three:  Give ’em an offer to erase your traffic cost

Step four:  Get ’em to confirm their email address

Step five:  Send ’em emails that get ’em to buy

Now, you can SIMPLIFY that even more by saying: Get traffic, get ’em on a list, send emails and make sales.

You can get most of these things done in one or two weekends.

There, now you have the “magical formula’ for making money online.  How does it feel?

Of course, as with all things, the devil is in the details.  For example, one fly in the ointment is people don’t have a target market.

I solved that with pushbuttontargetmarket.com so I won’t waste time on here.  I think I also cover that topic well in Product Dashboard and my Produce Promote course. Another fly in the ointment is having a product to sell. You START by selling affiliate products or PLR. But you create your own product in ONE WEEKEND if you’re halfway ambitious.

Or you can start by selling affiliates products.  Private label rights. Affiliate products. They DO work to start. Your own products are better. But hey, it’s better to get going than to do nothing.

You can write a report or do 5-7 screen capture videos that are 10-20 minutes long using either Power Point slides or a mindmap as your talking points.

Beyond those two sticking points, the next BIG question is: “So how do I get those people ON my list to begin with?”

The answer is:  Offer them something free that they really want.

The more they want it, the higher your conversion rate on your squeeze page, that is the page that gets ’em to give you their name and email.

There is no “magic formula” for the write freebie to give. Some target audiences might like videos, or audios, or cd’s or podcasts.

In the past, there was an import company called Mellinger that build a multi-million dollar business running classified ads in dozens of magazines offering a free sample import. And they taught you how to run an import/ export business.

Their freebie was a free sample import.

If you’re offering a free report, audio or video, the KEY is simply the title you give it.

It’s no more complicated than that.

They have to REALLY want whatever the secret you’re offering is.  If they really wanna know about it, they’ll opt in. If they don’t, they won’t.

The format of audio, video, ebook or whatever is secondary to the topic and the secret being offered.

Your actual name squeeze page can be ultra simple.  Eben proved that with doubleyourdating.com.  Or you can be a tad fancier.

Here’s my squeeze page that I’ve shown before. It’s not exactly a work of art but before you laugh, it’s averaging 50%+ opt ins.

http://www.thetrafficdashboard.com/squid/billyjean.html

The BIG secret is that I had to do 10 or more squeeze pages to find ONE that converted at 50% or over.  I didn’t get it right my first time out.

I showed on the Traffic Dashboard webinar yesterday that some of those test squeeze pages only got 5% to 8% opt ins. But then ONE stood out with 69% opt-in rate. And that’s the one I use now.

It’s not hard to do some graphics in Power Point or Photoshop Elements, drop them into Kompozer or Dreamweaver and create your own squeeze page.

You can even hire it out for as little as 5 bucks (we discussed how to do this on the Traffic Dashboard webinars this week).

Should you use a name squeeze page?

How do you come up with a great title for your freebie?

Look at the things that grab YOUR attention. That’s a good start.  Look at magazine article titles, subject lines of emails, and so forth.

When something grabs your attention, ask yourself “why?” Why did that grab your attention?

So step one is:

1.  Find something your target market really wants to have, see or know.

2.  Offer it to them in exchange for joining your list.

It’s no more complicated than that.

Now you have people on your list. Step two:  Send emails that continue value and on occasion sell something.

There are advanced methods, secrets and little tricks for name squeeze pages, follow up emails and all that.

But you START with the basics.

Target your group of people. Get ’em on your list. Send ’em emails.

Listen, in ONE WEEKEND you can write an ebook.  50 pages. You can do that in one weekend.

In one hour you can write 10 bullets and ask a designer to create a name squeeze page for you.

Excellent graphic designer who knows how to create a nice name squeeze page for ya.

In one weekend you can create a few Camtasia videos people get as a freebie when they join from your name squeeze page.

You can EVEN do like Eben USED to do on doubleyourdating.com and answer all the bullets on the next PAGE. In the old days, Eben NEVER sent a freebie. Your freebies were all delivered on the next page after you join his list.

I’ve seen people do that with a video also. They’d deliver the info on a video then do a little mini-pitch.

STOP OVER COMPLICATING.

Get a stupid name squeeze page DONE!  Get a freebie you offer in exchange for a name and email. Get it DONE!

I’ve seen people use PLR (private label rights) as their freebie and get 50%+ opt-ins with it.

I’ve seen people use PLR and also affiliate products as their offer on the thank you page after people opt in, and I’ve seen it be very profitable.

My friend Winter Valco made $15,000 last January 2010 by selling a series of TEN PLR products after people joined his email list. Some were one time offers and some were sold via email.

Write your ebook in ONE WEEKEND.  50 pages.  THREE PAGES per hour.  Ten hours in a day.  That is 30 pages per day. 60 pages in two days.

DONE!  Finished. Get on with it.  If it needs editing, send it off to an Elancer.

Don’t like to write?  Do screen capture videos.  With practice, you can bang out 5-7 ten to fifteen minute videos in 3 hours or less.  Your first few times out will take longer.

Don’t wanna write or talk?  Then stop the excuses and get started with plr and affiliate products.

Don’t got a target market.  Pushbuttontargetmarket.com.  Or Productdashboard.com.  Or my Produce Promote course.  Can’t do graphics. Hire Guru Ryan NOW and then get Design Dashboard and get some SKILLS going for yourself.

It’s a GREAT product.  Great stuff. Yeah, Adobe has a new version of Elements.  So one or two things changed on the videos. But really, you CAN figure it out.  For the most
part, they changed the COLORS of the program but not the
core functions.

It isn’t complicated.

You draw boxes.  You insert photos.  You add a border or shadow. You create a gradient. You add a pattern.

Understand layers.

Understand how to use the canvass.

Understand how to lock layers and view layers.

Know how to add a stroke on text or graphics.

Know how to add a background image or color to a table.

SIMPLE, SIMPLE stuff.

That’s about all things we do in Photoshop and Dreamweaver. You could learn them in a few hours if you set your MIND to it.  We use like 3% of the total abilities of Photoshop.

It’s EASY to learn.

Dreamweaver. Insert tables.  Center.  Add background image. Insert picture.  Insert graphics.

That’s your html editor or Dreamweaver basics.

If you don’t have the money for Dreamweaver, don’t sweat it. Kompozer is a freebie download and lots of folks use it. I think in Design Dashboard we used First Page for html the 2006 version (the last version produced).

Hey, it STILL works! No problemo.

Now, Photoshop.  Layers, gradients, patterns.  Saving for the web.

Basic, basic, basic stuff.

And if you don’t wanna even learn THOSE basics, for dirt cheap you can hire some pretty good designers nowadays.

Of course, there’s the perenntial “Where do I get TRAFFIC from?” question. And now that too is answered at:

http://www.thetrafficdashboard.com.

Let me ask you a question:  Can you think of ONE STUPID THING your target audience or market REALLY wants to have, see or know?

Can you think of ONE THING?

If you can, write 10 bullet points on it.

Open html editor.

Insert table.

Center.

Type headline.  Select font. Choose dark blue as color.

Type bullet points.

Go to aweber, automateyourwebsite.com or Get Response. Create form.  Copy html. Past in code in html editor.

Name squeeze.  DONE!  See doubleyourdating.com for example.

Now, you have a list in Aweber, Getresponse or automateyourwebsite.com.

Send emails.

Don’t know HOW to put the autoresponder code on your page? Hey, no problemo:

http://www.marlonsanders.com/optinsecrets/promo.html

Now, sign up for affiliate products at Commission Junction or Clickbank. Send emails.  Sell.

The MOST important things are:

1.  You MUST have one reliable method to get traffic to your  squeeze page.

You can use article marketing, organic seo, ad swaps, solo emails, “the epiphany”, $7 offers or any of the other methods I covered in the Traffic Dashboard webinars this week, or any of the methods in the Traffic Dashboard itself.

They all work.

2.  You MUST have a 40%+ opt in rate email capture page

I’ve covered this in detail in past ezine issues.

But you gotta have one.  My tip is to create TEN to get ONE that produces at over 50%.

But that one can make you a lot of dough and is 100% worth it.

3.  You MUST have a one time offer that works and partially or fully erases your advertising costs.

A great OTO allows you to break even on your ad costs, thus making the building of your list a no-cost event.

A super duper one returns 2 bucks for every buck you spend. My friend Corey Lewis has one like that.

4.  If you’re double opt-in, you MUST test different confirmation emails and thank you pages until you get a combination that works really great.  Right now I’m at 60% confirmation but I’m  not happy with that and will continue testing.

5.  You MUST send offers via email

Affiliate offers are fine but learn how to create your own pre-sell pages.

Learn how to send “free-to-join” offers.

Learn how to create your own little 7 dollar, 100% commission offers.  We talked about this on the webinar yesterday also.  My friend Jason Fladlien practically built his whole business with these to start with.

You’ll spend about a month learning how to do ppc, or specialize in any ONE method in “The Traffic Dashboard.” You do NOT need to do all of them to start with.

Pick ONE  and do just it for a month.  Then go from there.

Set up your affiliate program using affiliatedashboard.com.

These are the BASICS.

This is how you make money in this business if you’re curious and really don’t “get it.”

STOP OVER COMPLICATING.

STOP IT!

Get the basics done.  Like starting NOW.

Best wishes,

Marlon Sanders

Marlon Sanders is the author of “The Amazing Formula That Sells Products Like Crazy.”

To get on his killer ezine list, to get cheat sheets and all kinds of other goodies every Saturday and during the week, to get simple,to-the-point Internet marketing know that works real world without all the hype, go to: http://www.marlonsnews.com and subscribe

Check out all my products here:

http://www.getyourprofits.com

Marlon’s Marketing Minute

*IMNewswatch would like to thank Marlon Sanders for granting permission to reprint the latest article.

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