MindValleyLabs Internet Marketing Blog

We opened an email swipe file account recently and I’ve been going in daily to observe the various emails.

It’s interesting and eye-opening, almost like a "survival of the fittest" experiment with the best emails rising to the top and the ones not cutting the mark sinking to the bottom (simply because I subscribed to 140 marketing mailing lists).

All 140 marketers proclaim themselves the ‘best expert’, throwing all kinds of free information… and yet there were still only 2 or 3 that really impressed me. Every single time these guys send me an email, I open it.

I’ve tried to reverse-engineer how and why these emails are so amazingly effective at capturing my attention, and even in some cases, my heart. I call this single most powerful concept ‘SOS’: Setting Off Sparks.

Setting Off Sparks

This finds its basis in the analogy of a forest fire, where all it takes is a spark to some dry wood to set alight 1000 acres.

In the same manner, sparks happen in everyday life. It’s like the tipping point from being acquaintances to becoming best friends. It’s the tipping point at which best friends suddenly become lovers, because of that one spark.

This is our role as marketers: to create those moments for the subscribers’ list to become followers, and ultimately, loyal customers.

How do you embed sparks in your emails?

How do you create the conditions for ‘love’ to happen? I’d say there are three different ways to set off sparks.

1. Dazzle them with revelations

What I mean is, don’t just give information: give information that will rock their socks off, shake their world, and change the way they do things. You can accomplish this in 2 ways:

1. Give out brand new information that no-one else has. Failing that (because there’s no such thing as brand new information anyway),
2. Translate old information in new ways. According to Joel Bauer (the best public speaker in the world according to some), when you name something it becomes more real, more credible. You could take some old concepts, string them together, put a label on them, and kaBOOM…it seems like a revelation and looks like something new.

Why give revelations?

Because you can keep giving out information to your list and they won’t appreciate it because there’s a lot of free information available out there. But, when you hand them something that suddenly strikes them deep in the core and changes the way they do something, they will remember you.

And every single email you send thereafter is an open door for you, every word you say has more weight, and every technique you share has more value. That’s how it works.

For example, even I follow the people who’ve dazzled me with revelations. Even if, afterwards, they don’t give me ‘good’ information, I still follow what they’re up to because of that one dazzling revelation.

That list includes Eben Pagan, for example, when he said to move the free line and make sure everything you give away is of value and can be monetized.

There’s another guy, Stu McClaren, a JV expert who spoke during the JV portion of Jeff Walker’s product launch workshop. (I subscribed to 140 mailing lists so naturally I’m on his list, too.) I clicked through and his newsletters had a couple of pointers that dazzled me.

I thought to myself, "Wow… I will never look at entrepreneurship the same way again." Because of that, I now follow him and am a fan. Why? Because he dazzled me. It works.

The thing is, you only need to ever dazzle them once and they’ll follow you. BUT, of course, at the same time you always need to remember that it’s a numbers game. You need to keep giving out as much new information as possible because some of it will hit, and some of it won’t. But it’s worth it because once that one idea hits, they’re yours.

Like Victor Hugo said, there’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

2. Touch them with stories

Not just any stories, but your stories.

Touch them with your autobiographical sketches, your snapshots of yourself. Why? Because that story will create identification and empathy between you and your prospects.

For example, again Stu McClaren captured my attention because of his story about his fiance and the trouble they had getting money for their wedding, and that was something I could identify with because, you know, weddings are expensive these days.

There is suddenly a moment of empathy with that guru or with that person, and you start following his story. Now, it’s not so much about the revelations he can give you anymore as much as it is about who he is, to you.

3. Tease them with Cliffhangers

There’s a famous saying in marketing that ‘curiosity killed the cat but made the marketer rich’. As humans, we are always curious to discover new techniques and  strategies, and new ways of doing things.

Mark Joyner describes this as the Zeigarnik effect in his book, Mind Control Marketing, where the use of the Zeigarnik effect keeps people ‘glued in’ to discover what’s going to happen next. It basically says that all human beings have problems with unfinished stories.

Even if they watch a terrible movie, if they’re three-quarters of the way in, they’ll want to finish that movie, they will not walk out of that theater.

Why? Because unfinished stories are torturous to your mind because they cause such a disruption to your thoughts.

So, one of the keys to building adoration is to torture them. You can achieve this by placing a cliffhanger in the subject line or body copy, e.g. "This involves something called the BK effect…find out in the next segment what it is!"

Even CNN does this, by the way. They give you a useless trivia question, and then you stay through the commercial so that you can find out what the answer is.

The most important thing about this point, though, is this: your answer had better be satisfying! Don’t throw something out and build to an anti-climax. If you can give an answer that will blow their minds somewhat, you have a friend for life –a friend who’ll listen to you and when you say ‘open your wallet’, they will.

I always try to say ‘old stuff’ in a new way, because sometimes it’s the only way to be heard in a sea of competitors. In your market, how can you begin to translate your information into dazzling revelations? If you are inspired specifically by the ideas I’ve shared, let me know by posting a comment or just saying hi.

If you remember, I shared with you a few days ago Brian Tracy’s words: successful people are always learning and trying new things.

Brad Antin said something similar, this was the second insight he shared. Our customers are people who have self-selected to make their lives better, and people who want to make their lives better don’t just stop buying.

Such people don’t think that because they’ve bought one product, they’re done and they’re set for life.

Not at all.

They’re going to keep learning and trying new things. Now, where do you think they’re going to keep on learning, and what things are they going to keep on trying?

Well, if they know your company, and know your products, if they’re already delighted and already love what you have done for them, are they going to try your next product, or somebody else’s?

Things have never been more obvious to me. It’s obvious, for example, that Centerpointe has such huge back end profits because they really, truly delight their customers, and they do so way above and beyond what anyone else on the market is doing.

When people buy our products, as soon as they’ve finished checking out, there’s a page telling them that they’re getting a surprise bonus gift. In my opinion, I think this is ok but it doesn’t make people feel nearly as special as what Centerpointe does. One hypothesis I have is that perhaps the gift is too immediate?

Remember, I got the book 2 weeks later, and the CD 2 weeks after I got the book. At that point, I didn’t expect anything anymore from the company. But, they kept delivering. And just to further point out their business and marketing smarts –when they sent me the CD, they also sent 4 extra CDs to hand out to friends, and that’s obviously where a lot of their referrals come from.

Why does this work?

Because at this point, they’ve done 2 things in a row that have absolutely floored you, so when they ask you if you could pass on the CDs to a few friends if you’ve enjoyed their products and services, it’s very powerful reciprocity in play.

I don’t think you’d have to follow their example exactly and send physical products, but perhaps you could look into that. Maybe you should. I really don’t know the answer to that question at this point.

Let me explain their reasons for sending out physical products. They used to have free downloadable resources –their free demo used to be available online, and they gave me a few reasons for killing that. I can’t say I remember the reasons exactly, but…

1. You need to wear a headset to hear Holosync®, their special bineural beat sound (that’s what makes Holosync work). When they allowed people to try it online, they realized that too many people were not doing it correctly. Perhaps it’s because they don’t have a headset on their computer, or they’re just lazy. However, chances are if they do it on the stereo, they’re more likely to do it correctly.

2. They can include their sales letter when they send their CDs. Their sales letter is more likely to get consumed under these circumstances.

3. Physical products have a higher perceived value, which works well for them because their customers appreciate them more.

Of the many things to be learned from Centerpointe, another is this: 100% of their new customers are acquired online. Although they send out direct mail, they only do that on the back end, to their list of existing customers.

Offline Follow-up?

Most of Centerpointe’s follow-up is offline.

Why? Because according to Centerpointe, the offline communication response rate is 10:1 compared to online follow-up. That means, when they get 4-5M in sales from an offline promotion, they believe that the online equivalent would only be half a million. The economics are the reason why they do it.

When Vishen was in Florida, he talked to Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller, the guys behind Gravitational Marketing. Over dinner, they told him the same thing: the key is offline follow-up, where they said their response rate was 10 to 100 times more.

The recipe’s becoming more clear as to what we need to do to close the gap, and it isn’t difficult to do.

Some people do counter-intuitive things, and it works.

Centerpointe, for example, loves offering phone support. They do it just to stand out –it’s customer delight in action.

When someone buys their product, they ask them to call them immediately if they have any problem or they get stuck. They say, "We will help you. We are here for you." This builds Centerpointe’s customer delight , because today, most companies don’t do that.

You should start thinking about customer call support, too. For the sites you have the capacity to offer extra services, you should make it available.

There’s another reason for increasing your customer support and follow up: At least 50% of all people who buy your product will most likely never really use it if there’s no follow-up. This illustrates the value and importance of follow-up.

If these people they don’t use your product, is it likely that they’ll buy from you again? Not really. And are they going to refer your product? No.

Therefore, it is in your interest to drive up consumption, and to help people to consume your products. Remember, Centerpointe’s CLV is $800, of which $620 is from back end sales. You have to fight for this.

If you don’t drive up consumption and people don’t consume your first product successfully, you’ve lost $600 or more.

One thing to be mindful of is that what Centerpointe is doing is costly. It costs money to deliver good customer support and it costs a lot of money to send out direct mail via the postal service instead of emails.

The equation only works if your offline sales convert very well and if you have already build a big back end and get a lot of repeat sales. The good news is that this is relatively easy to test since you can start by sending mails to a smaller sample of your customer base and then testing the follow up response.

Those are the economics for Centerpointe and hopefully, one day it will be the same for us. We need to get to the next level for all our products, whichever product it is.

There’s not much new  in the key lessons from Centerpointe, but we’re still not doing it. However, we’ll start doing it now, because it is so important. Now, how do you intend to implement all these things in your business system?

If you construct your landing pages right, you’ve got a lot of beach time ahead of you. Your landing page is the first step to capturing all that traffic you’re paying for. A well-made landing page could be the difference between a website that’s your hobby and a website that funds your vacations.

If you’re spending cash on pay per click or other advertising, there are several crucial principles you must follow (if you want to make money)…

What Makes a Good Landing Page?

1. The headline and copy correspond to the ad that triggered the page.

If your ad is targeted to people looking for golf attire, your landing page should focus on golf attire, and not on other items that could distract from the main focus, such as golf clubs.

2. The focus is on getting visitors to take one specific action.

The landing page works on the basis of a most wanted response (MWR). It is designed to get the target audience to take ONE specific action, such as making a purchase or subscribing to a newsletter.

3. There are no distracting navigational links.

Unlike the homepage, the purpose of the landing page is not to get the users to browse the site, but to stay on the page and carry out the MWR. Tests have shown that landing pages with too many navigational links consistently under-perform. Just stick to the basics: a company logo or header for recognition along with a link to the homepage are sufficient. Avoid having any links that distract from carrying out the MWR.

4. The copy is short.

The copy on the landing page is usually shorter and more straightforward than the copy on your homepage. Remember to keep the look and feel of your landing page consistent with the rest of your website.

5. There is a prominent subscription form or checkout option.

The action you want the user to take should be available on the landing page itself; the user should not have to click to another page.

Below is an example of a landing page we use to get visitors who click on our meditation-related ads to sign up for a free online course. Notice the short copy, prominent signup form, and the lack of a confusing navigation menu…

[This is an excerpt from a 13 page report on Landing Page Construction we’re making available for free for 5 days. You can get the full report here and see that landing page example immediately.]

It’s available for 5 days.

Click here once and begin your short journey to elite landing page construction.

Our regular readers may have noticed a slight downturn in AdWords-centric blog posts over the past few weeks (months?).

Let me explain why.

While we enjoy sharing our regular experimental results and weekly nuggets of wisdom, we took a hiatus from these to focus on something dramatically more useful to you.

We hunkered down and finally put into writing a series of revelations that occurred over the past 6 months or so.

You might look at it as “The State of AdWords” but it is more than that; you will also see our predictions for the future (i.e. what the current state means to the future of your business).

So head over and get your hands on our most up-to-date battle plan to protect your business now and in the future.

The tipping point for this piece came while Mike was perusing an old military manual. You’ll see what I mean.

Once you read it, keep your eyes peeled for those how-to’s and updates we wrote about. Get it now (if it matters it is free).

Here’s a note Gary wrote in about an hour ago:

The coming adwords war is probably one of the most informative, and most importantly succint documents
that cover the real essence of a successful adwords campaign. Like alot of others I have spent a fair bit of
time and money(!) and learnt the hard way about doing adwords. What your guide instantly highlighted
were the errors I had previously made. It is a must read!

Regards

Gary

Once you take a look, please let us know what you think!

Many people do their own writing, be it copywriters cranking subject lines and sub-headlines, or “normal Joes and Janes” riffing bullets and body copy.

Here are a 3 techniques that will instantly SPICE up your copy.

The Knew/New Method

I came across this in an article written by Sean D’Souza, the author of Psychotactics. “Knew” are existing benefits which people already know about, for example, how to save money, how to double sales, how to do proper marketing, how to write a headline… these are things that you already know. But, the problem with things you already know is that they are boring. Because it’s familiar, you have no curiosity to find out more.

But, when you add “new” to “knew”, you can create intensely powerful headlines because it adds something intriguing. “New” is something that is so totally unrelated to “knew” that it transforms the headline into something curious and intriguing. You always start with the “knew”.

Let me give you an example. e.g. ‘how to write compelling articles’. That is “knew”. You can add a twist by saying that it’s the George Bush method to writing compelling articles. Suddenly, there’s something disruptive because it’s so divergent, and there enters the “new”, which throws in the element of curiosity to the equation.

Simply put, take something familiar and add something strange. This is one of the most powerful headline formulas I know, and it can be used for bullet points as well. I use a lot of this. It transforms your copy in a new and compelling way.

Specific Target Approach

Again, this is from Sean D’Souza. You start out with the target, then you name the benefit you want to accomplish in the headline you are writing. Suppose you are coming up with a headline, lets say as an example, “How to Write Headlines”. If you use that as the headline of your article, it’s a very weak headline.

So, what do you do? One of the things you can do with this approach is inject benefit into the headline. For example, “How to Write Headlines That Draw Money”, where the benefit is “That Draw Money”.

The second thing you could do with this approach is by adding a numerical goal to it: “How a Headline Can Generate a 200% Boost in Profits”. The “200% increase” is the target. Basically, whichever specific target approach you use, the end result delivers what the bullet or headline wants to accomplish.

Remember, make it as specific as you can. Anything that is vague will lose your readers attention. Let me show you some other examples that is strengthened with a specific target. If your topic is on writing body copy, your headline could be “How to Write Body Copy to Attract Joint Venture Partners”. Then comes in the specificity. “3 Ways to Write Body Copy That Attracts Joint Venture Partners.” The headline is strengthened because it talks about something specific, and a targeted result it’s working towards.

National Enquirer Approach

This is one is extremely straightforward, because the name says it all. You go into the National Enquirer, or any tabloid for that matter, and swipe the headlines there. It’s very effective because it’s a very non-traditional way of doing it. It’s a breath of fresh air from the normal, standard Internet marketing-type headlines.

This approach captures people’s attention because it doesn’t follow normal headline formulas, it’s not like “Who Else wants To Earn Millions?”. Don’t get me wrong, although the conventional headline formula still works, it has its place. One of my recent headlines using the National Enquirer method pulled in a much higher conversion rate compared to what we previously had.

More headline madness is here.