"The Lightning Speed Internet Sales Success Course" LESSON # 21 (Bonus Lesson) © 1997 B.S.A. / F.M. http://web.idirect.com/~bsa/index.htm _______________________________ SPECIAL PRESENTATION: Pre-release version of issue #1 of The Future Media Letter (a newsletter I will begin publishing one day ... soon ... I promise ...) The All-In-One March 1997 Summary Of How You Can Use The Internet To Earn Money March 14 1997 8:17 p.m. E.S.T. Dear friend and subscriber - If I was starting this newsletter the old-fashioned way, my garbage pail would be overflowing with about 50 crumpled up sheets of paper. Because I didn't know where to start. I stopped writing "The Update" years ago. Over the last 3 years I have had many occasion to say "Wow, if I were still writing a newsletter, this would be great to write about". "This" could be a dozen different things; heck, when I stopped writing newsletters the Internet craze hadn't started yet! Now, we rarely make a sale that doesn't originate on the Internet. But I don't want to give the impression that this is just another newsletter about how the Internet is an all-in-one marketing miracle. Because it most certainly is not! In fact, I want to stress that ... Paper = Power !!! 1000 salesletters put through the mail will out-sell 1000 e-mails hands down. But that doesn't mean that paper should be at the center of your business. I don't think it should be. Frankly I look forward to the day when we can run our businesses entirely without killing any trees. My approach to Internet marketing is one of harmony and synergy. Everything we do helps everything else. My outgoing salesletters rely on the Internet for back-up support by telling people to send me email or visit my web site for additional information. And my Internet strategy is to get as many mailing addresses as possible in order to be able to use direct mail on my prospects. In the past a salesletter led your prospect to a "binary decision". The prospect was either "on" (became a customer) or "off" (decided not to buy). A "maybe" was as good as a "no". Now there's a middle ground! In your salesletter (or newsletter, or business card, or TV show, or classified ad) let your prospect know your "URL" (your address on the World Wide Web). Now, the "maybes" can be turned into "Yes"'s - without the expense and sheer pain of long distance phone call follow ups, immediate repeat mailings etc. If they are qualified prospects (remember, the other kind don't matter anyway), the "maybe"s will make the effort to visit your web site, if they haven't already mailed you a check. Once at your web site, you can drown them in information - and even entertainment! Repeat contacts lead to sales. If you get leads on the web, and then mail them something which causes them to come back and visit you again, you've made 3 contacts - but only paid for one of them! In fact, if your followup is an email, not a snail-mail-salesletter, you haven't paid for any of them (unless you include the $20 a month you're paying for using the Internet) but you should still be sending paper snail mail salesletters - it works much better. In addition to asking people to come back to your web site just to see more information (as if people don't have enough of that to deal with already), here are some other ways to seduce people into your web site ... - free articles of drastic and immediate importance to their lives ("Come back and visit my web site to find out how to get monthly payments from the Social Security Administration for your goldfish!"). - free software to download (that they can't get somewhere else; for example "Get a free demo version of our new CD-Rom: http://www.domain.com/demo.zip"). - the simple pleasure of getting to see more of you (it's true that some people do have "the cult of personality" about them and just seem to attract people. If Martha Stewart mailed a command to her thousands of loyal disciples to visit her web site, she'd get plenty of hits). Round Up The Herd And Rustle Them To Your Web Site! So many web sites die a sad and lonely death. I've seen sites that were last updated over a year ago (it seems like only yesterday that the Web didn't exist, doesn't it?), have been more or less abandoned, and have had less than 100 people visit it (despite being listed on the popular search engines). The reason they die? They are not relevant. The web site's owner a) did not get enough people to visit it to justify it's existence, and/or b) the site was of no use to visitors when they arrived, so they left and didn't come back. I don't know how many people visit the BSA web site each day, but 2 or 3 people a day give me their complete mailing address, e-mail address, phone and fax numbers and a list of what freebies they would like. I've got about a DOZEN techniques on the home page to drive them to the "Freebies page"! (Go to web.idirect.com/~bsa/index.htm and see for yourself). The Whole World Awaits For Anyone Who Takes The Time To Do This ... This is a must. The future doesn't look too bright for you if you still haven't got a web site that describes EVERYTHING you sell and gotten it registered on the major search engines. www.altavista.digital.com (my favorite by a long shot) www.webcrawler.com www.yahoo.com www.excite.com www.inktomi.com www.dejanews.com (you can't get listed here, but it's still a great index) www.infoseek.com www.hotbot.com There are a lot of "mega listing" speed traps out there. You know, the places that list "600 search engines where you can list your web site for free". The problem is, probably 99% of all web searches (and newsgroup searches) are done using the search engines listed above - while you can spend days getting listed in directories that, frankly, aren't going to be of any help. More Proof That Web Visits Alone Don't Make A Big Impression About half the time a visitor to our web site responds to a follow-up direct mail piece, they say "This is interesting, but I don't remember giving you my address" (or just "How did you get my address?"). Think about it - they visited the web site, typed in their address and phone number, and asked for some specific freebies. By the time they arrived, they had completely forgotten about their request! What's the moral here? It's just this: on the World Wide Web your presence is going to be fairly generic. The Web is like a 200,000,000 channel TV set; most people will visit your site just once. They will usually visit lots and lots of sites, many of them accidentally or randomly, each time they log on. That's why you must ... - give them a good reason to give you THEIR MAILING ADDRESS! - send real mail to them! - respond by email, too! - give them a good reason to come back to your site as often as possible! More profitable web site design strategy can be found on our "Internet Consulting #2: World Wide Web Magic" disk. Friends, please listen. The Internet is, in its totality, a major human advancement. On the other hand, as far as business goes, the Internet is just another tool. Your headlines are just as important on the web as they are on paper. Use of the words "Free" and "You" are just as important in an e-mail as they are in a display ad. Using cutting-edge advances will actually repel most of your prospects! People don't want to install a plug-in to their web browser to see your artistic creations. Your PROSPECTS are the people in your market who might spend MONEY on what you are selling if you can convey the necessary information to them in a seductive fashion. Don't make them unable to see your information! The stuff you read on (for example) the Shockwave Listserv, would make any self-respecting marketer weep. You see questions like "People, please help me - I'm trying to use frames in the new Beta3 version of Netscape. For some reason I can't seem to get Java and 2 Shockwave movies to talk to each other when I put the Shockwave movies in a table while also using frames. It keeps crashing." This may be a relevant concern for online multi-player games amongst a small group of nerds (I use the term lovingly), but it has nothing to do with common sense marketing and it sure as Hell has nothing to do with 99.5% of your market (who are using Netscape2.02 and Pegasus Mail and have exactly zero plug-ins to "enhance" either program). By the way, NEVER visit a Java-enabled site unless it's at some totally trutworthy site like www.pccomputing.com or www.microsoft.com. Java is a powerful programming language, elaborate enough to do things like completely erase your hard drive, or plant a virus in your system. World Wide Web Marketing Tips 1) Despite the media hype about "browsing", few people go on the web just to goof around. They go there looking for something - games, iguana information, racing schedules, gambling methods, punk literature, dog pictures or what have you. People surf the web for a reason. They want help with something, information on new products, or for entertainment (games, Web-Soap-Operas etc.). Sheer information demand is why the two guys that own the I-Mall are each worth $165,000,000 according to the stock market. And it's also why Yahoo is listed at $1,000,000,000. The masses want what these companies offer. 2) NEVER use graphics more than 10K in size on your site for no compelling reason, without warning people. For example, "Click here for more information on Ostriches (Warning! The Ostrich page contains a 125K graphic. Please be patient.)". If graphics are a central part of your site (for example if you are selling art), use "thumbnail" pictures which your visitors can click on IF they want to see a larger version of a certain picture. Studies show the average person will get ticked off and cancel their visit in 40 seconds and go somewhere else - someplace designed for human beings. Start off your web page with a small banner ad or none at all. Right below it there should be text. This way, your visitors will immediately have something to read when their browser connects to your URL. By the time they finish reading it, a few small graphics and some more text will have loaded. Their visit will start off in an inviting manner and they'll never have to wait for anything! When's the last time that happened to you? 3) What should your opening screen text be? No matter what your site is about (no exceptions!) it should follow the rules of good salesmanship. - review what pain your visitors wish to avoid, what pleasure they desire, what information they want - assure them you have it "right here, on this website" - give them the content they must have in order to NOT leave your web site - thank them for visiting, make them feel welcome, encourage them to relax and stay and send you their address and other personal information by email. Why do you want people's mailing addresses (that is, if you want them to buy something)? Because direct mail is still the hands-down best way to make sales (unfortunately). 4) If you would like your own domain name, contact your personal Internet Service Provider or The Association Of Internet Users at 1-303-443-4705; E-mail hsegal@AIU.com. They've got the cheapest rates I've found for virtual web domain hosting. Believe me, you don't need the hassle of buying another computer and maintaining your own web server in your basement. Let someone else do it for you, so you don't spend all your time dealing with technical problems. Visit http://www.internic.com/whois.html to find out if the Internet domain you want is already taken. 5) There are 5 basic ways to fill your site with great content ... a) Find it on other sites and ask for it politely. b) Find it on newsgroups (not as good as the first method). c) Announce on your site and relevant newsgroups that you want content. d) Make deals with magazines (and other publishers relevant to your site) to exchange advertising for content. e) Create it yourself if you possibly can. Go to www.altavista.digital.com to find other related websites all over the world related to yours. Visit them and you'll get great ideas about what to include on your website. 6) Visit www.netminder.com for yet another great way to get people to make repeat visits to your site. (This incredible service is FREE!). RIGHT NOW, Your Market Is Reading Newsgroup Messages. Are You There? I have to assume you know what NewsGroups are and that you have a newsreader. If not, go to www.shareware.com and search for "newsexpress" without the quotation marks, find the version you need, download it, install it, and make sure it's working. Good, let's continue. Now go to www.dejanews.com and use their search features to find out which News Groups are pertinent to what you are selling. For each group, give it a visit and try to find a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions listing) and also observe a few dozen messages on that group. Find out to what degree advertising is allowed. If it is not allowed at all, post a simple innocent message to the group and make sure your signature file describes what you sell and where you are on the web. It won't inundate you with orders, but it's something you can do in 30 seconds of spare time. If blatant advertising IS allowed, hell, go for it - blast 'em with your best shot. The Rules Of Effective E-Mail 1) Even if your e-mail list consists only of people who asked to be on it, begin each letter with the message "I've got something fantastic I had to e-mail you today, since you're on my directory of Internet contacts. But if you would like to be removed from this list, just contact me and I'll never send you another e-mail". 2) Send a copy of the email to yourself first to make sure it looks good. For God's sake do NOT send a short message with the text file of the message attached to it as a file! It will not be read! Open up the salesletter text file in Notepad or something, Select All, Copy it to the clipboard, then Paste it into your outgoing email text window in Pegasus or Eudora or Netscape e-mail or what have you. That's all for the Internet for this issue. Some Thoughts On Multi-Level Marketing A multi-level company has to pass three criteria for me to consider it worthy of even a passing glance ... - there has to be no competition. If a multi-level company wants you to buy something through the mail that you could buy at a local store, then the only reason the company exists is to play a game of money swaps. - there has to be training and support delivered automatically to the home. Too many hundreds of thousands of MLM-ers have abandoned their distributorships because of poor sponsorship and lack of contact from head office. - the product alone has to have a terrific return on investment (in terms of wisdom, knowledge, health, money, or whatever the product is intended to do) EVEN IF THE PEOPLE YOU SELL IT TO NEVER MAKE A RED CENT FROM THE "BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY" ASPECT. Multi-level companies are heirarchical, just like IBM or McDonalds or McDonnell Douglass. The people at the top make the most money and the people at the bottom make the least. If you've got what it takes you can build a large organization and profit from it. In short, I wouldn't sell any product to you through a multi-level company unless I would also proudly sell it to my own mother. It's necessarily true that most people in any networked company will not make a profit from the business aspect of it; you should understand this before getting involved. And that's all I'll ever say about MLM in my newsletter; I'm not going to make any pitches here. ------------------------------ Your Very Own MultiMedia CD-Rom For $50 ?! The multimedia industry is fiercely competitive. I know of at least 5 people besides me (and my brother ... and his friend) who can create multimedia CD-Roms combining existing video, audio, text, photographs, sound effects, clipart and backgrounds and ideas and animations. Now, my set price to create a custom made multimedia CD- Rom (for Windows only) is $10,000. In case you haven't experienced this for yourself, try calling some people on the phone and asking them to give you $10,000 for anything. Go ahead. Try some rich people, too. Same result. So I needed a strategy to be handsomely paid in a competitive industry. And what I came up with was ... A Whole New Concept Of "Lead Generating" ! What I will do for someone now is take their video, audio, ascii text etc. and take a couple of days to create a very rough and incomplete idea of what I can do for them. It has to be rough and incomplete for 2 reasons: #1, because that's all you can do in a couple of days, and #2, for $50 I'm sure not going to create something that someone can duplicate and sell! No way. If they want a finished product, they've got to do better than $50. But since people are mostly either broke or say they're broke, here's what you (I) can ask for instead of cash ... - royalties on future sales - an agreement that they will immediately manufacture the CD once you've finished it, and give you 1000 or more copies of it. You can sell them, or use them as "resumes" - hand them out to people as proof of what you can do - a split on the copyright But don't come across like a loser. Compete on value, not price. If your price is $10,000, include $10,000 worth of value in your side of the equation during negotiation. If you're happy to make $3,000 and that's all you get up front, you'll be able to remain calm if you never see the other $7,000. But you'll know that you might see that other $7,000 - or at least part of it! Think of it as gravy for your potatoes. It doesn't stop at the demo, either - or even with the finished product. For God's sake get out of the "technician mentality". If someone wants a CD-Rom, their primary worry is "How the heck am I going to sell it?". I tell them about the catalogs, the wholesalers and retailers, the people who will readily fork over $1000+ for a duplication license for any reasonable-sounding CD. I let them know I will be glad to create a press release for the finished product and tell them who to mail and fax it to. I'll even tell them what company to use to duplicate it. Solve every problem, remember? Get the salivating greed glands flowing. Then give them a meal! And ... Don't Be A Technician! Be A "Consultant"! Studies show that a "consultant" can easily make more money and put customers at ease than a "salesperson" can! A "consultant" is perceived as somebody who is going to come in and solve every problem. Which is what you should do. You can see that this technique is nothing other than a little hard work to prove that you're worthy of doing business with. Glide into your customer's life like you're some kind of benevolent deity-consultant who can solve their every problem. If you don't solve EVERY problem they've got, they'll feel like they haven't been helped at all, because they're just going to have to start over from square one to find other resources to accomplish their goals. To run a business properly you'd better know all of your market's problems and desires. And be ready to deliver a solution to each one. That's all for now. Sorry this issue has been a little hodge-podge, but as I said, this is my first newsletter in 3 years. The next one will be better. Dont miss it. The title is going to be "How to create "Presence" with user-friendly and compelling CD-Roms and web sites". Warmly, Scott Covert MultiMedia Communications Consultant. Not a salesman. Definitely not a technician. P.S. A business is more than just a salesletter. Funny how many people don't understand that. I'll discuss this further in another issue. P.P.S. You'll never make a big sale ($1000 or more) unless people know your face, your voice, your attitude and your competence. Felix and I have never made a sale over $200 that didn't involve a phone call. I'll discuss this further in another issue, too.