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I got an email from Perry Marhsall this weekend that laid out the 6 essentials of a profitable internet business.
I’ve known these things for just about as long as I’ve been doing marketing (and implemented them many times over). But never have they been laid out as clearly.
If you’ll do these — and do them right — you’re almost guaranteed to profit.
Miss a step or two along the way and it’ll quickly chip away at your profits — and even pull the foundation out from under your entire business.
Here, for your benefit, are Perry’s 6 essentials of a profitable internet business, with explanation:
In my experience, the foundation of a stable and profitable
Internet business is having six systems in place. Just six:
1. Market Research
2. Properly built Pay Per Click campaign
3. Conversion Tracking
4. Split testing of key sales elements
5. Seductive copy
6. Automated Email follow-up
That’s it. Just six. You can build a $1 million business, or
in some markets, a $10 million business, with just those
six things.
Most people know GoDaddy.com for their raunchy Super Bowl ads and don’t realize how much advertising it really takes to make them as successful as they are. And they’re no chumps when it comes to advertising either.
What I didn’t know about GoDaddy.com is how much CEO and founder Bob Parson’s philosophy of advertising lines up with mine.
Watch this video and learn his 9 rules for advertising that works (I’ve included my notes below):
GoDaddy.com CEO and Founder Bob Parsons’ 9 Secret Rules for Successful Advertising
Start small. Don’t blow a fortune on advertising that hasn’t proven itself in smaller tests first.
Exit strategy required. Don’t get yourself into a situation where you’re locked into an advertising contract when the advertising isn’t working. There are plenty of places to blow your budget. Take your advertising dollars elsewhere.
It works now or never. If your advertising isn’t bringing returns today, don’t believe the ad salesperson when they say, “Customers won’t respond until the 7th time they see it.” Sometimes customers will, sometimes they won’t. But if your ad works today it’s certainly worth running again.
Effective advertising pays for itself. If you can’t trace returns on advertising to prove it’s paying for itself within days or the first couple weeks, it’s not effective advertising. Even GoDaddy’s Super Bowl commercials play this out — I read once that each time GoDaddy has run a Super Bowl ad they’ve been able to attribute a significant long-term increase in business to their campaign.
Measure and test. This is critical for that last rule to work. If you’re not measuring you don’t know what’s effective and what’s not. And testing lets you compare what works and what doesn’t and apply your learnings for future success.
Effective advertising must be coupled with a good ordering process. Whether it’s your website, your sales call center, or customer service, the customer must feel comfortable responding to your advertising and placing an order. You can kill the order as soon as you thought you had it by failing here.
Make it stand out. To be effective your ads have to get noticed. And to get noticed they have to stand out. Whether you go the bikini-clad women route of GoDaddy.com or choose another method of standing out is a personal and business choice. But no matter what you choose, this rule is crucial.
Controversy is good. GoDaddy.com has found that about 15% of Super Bowl viewers are offended by their advertising. But that’s why I’m talking about past years’ commercials right now in mid-November. Because controversial draws attention and gets remembered. And… As Bob said… Controversy has translated for them into sales — the most important figure to track.
You can’t please everybody. Try to be all things to everybody and you’re nothing to anybody. Find your tribe, your raving fans, your teeming horde — and serve them well. They’ll serve you well in return.
I popped over onto Michael Fortin’s CopywritersBoard this morning and saw a hot thread going in the forums there. The question from Steve aka. Ravedesigns was:
Hey guys,
So I’ve been wondering for a while which is the best approach to take when writing sales copy – talking mostly about what prospects gain from using your product or service – or about what they lose by not using it?
Personally I’ve never been a big fan of advertising that says in effect “all these bad things will happen to you if you don’t take advantage of what we have to offer” so I’m not crazy about writing stuff that’s mostly negative – but I’ve got to wonder if one approach works better than the other?
Have you come across any tests to indicate which is best, or do you know of any marketers/copywriters that say one works better than the other? Do you have any personal experiences using one or the other approach?
I’m curious to know your thoughts – thanks!
Steve
Here’s the answer I came up with — what do you think?
This reminds me of an interesting study I heard about that analyzed how people valued items — both when they didn’t “own” them yet, and after they did “own” them. (I use quotes because it’s hard to simulate ownership in a lab… regardless, keep reading.)
Participants were split into two groups. Each person in the first group was not given a coffee mug — they were just told to sit in a room. Each person in the second group was given a brand new coffee mug as a “thank you” for participating and also told to sit in a room.
Here’s what happened.
The First Group: For those who were NOT given a coffee mug, they were told to approach one of the researchers with the same style of new coffee mug, and try to buy it from the researcher. In order to buy it, they’d have to set a fair price. The group who did not yet own the coffee mug set an average value of $3 on the coffee mug as they tried to barter for it.
The Second Group: Those given a new coffee mug were approached by a researcher who wanted to buy their new coffee mug off of them. Asked to set a value for the mug, this group’s average value for the coffee mug was $20 — nearly 7 times what the first group valued the mug at.
Our lesson?
Something that is “owned” is valued much higher than something which can be gained. Which ties back into fear of loss and desire for gain because fear of loss applies to something which is already owned, desire for gain doesn’t. So from this research (and others cited above) fear of loss is the winner — no matter how we as copywriters feel about it.
Of course, testing is always in order. Because maybe you just write enough better copy around desire for gain vs. fear of loss that for you, desire for gain means more effective copy.
Bonus: How to apply this in your copy…
You want to put your customer in a psychological position of ownership right away. Then, they won’t want to lose the ownership role. Here are some ways to do that:
One idea is tell the story of what your prospect’s life will be like once they’ve accepted your offer. Make them imagine themselves in a situation where they’re already the happy owner of your product — then tear away that vision and tell them the only way they can get it back is to buy right now.
Another option is to pull John Carlton’s recommendation of “I have an account open for you here, and I’ve put $50 in it. The money’s yours as long as you use it on a purchase of…”
Third, get the product in their hands using Gary Halbert’s incredible offer of “Send me a check post-dated 30 days, and I’ll send you the product right away. Take those 30 days to decide whether the product is right for you. If you don’t send it back, I’ll assume you’re happy and I’ll cash the check once the 30 days are up. If I do get it back I’ll write VOID real big right across your check and mail it back to you. Either way, you have nothing to lose by ordering now.”
Those are just some ideas, you’re a creative bunch so I’m sure you can come up with your own as well.
I wrote it fast so it’s rough around the edges… but the idea is rock-solid. Try it in your business, and let me know what you think.
If it feels like you’ve hit a brick wall when it comes to business development, you may want to read this carefully. It’s not a long message, but it’s a reliable way to increase sales and grow and expand your business.
The first time I leveraged this opportunity, I created over $40,000 in new business almost overnight — in a company doing $10-15,000 daily. Not a huge bump, but big enough to get noticed. And to tell me this opportunity is worth paying attention to.
And the best thing about it is that it doesn’t require any special skills. It’s just a matter of “start doing here what already works over there.”
Let me explain.
In business development, it’s easy to relax into the path of least resistance. We get good at doing our thing, in our area.
If we do direct mail, we do direct mail. If we market online and through email, we market online and through email. If we’re in a telemarketing operation, we’re telemarketers.
Sure, we can get incremental improvements by getting better at what we do.
Make our current direct mail efforts better. Optimize our landing pages. Write better subject lines. Create a better telemarketing script.
But we’ll get to a point where it’s hard to get better… Maybe you’re there already.
Your direct mail works well. Your emails get opened, and read, and responded to. You close a high percentage of telemarketing calls.
So what next?
Here’s the business development secret — the most reliable way to take any one of these operations and increase sales significantly, even after they’ve been optimized.
Sell through a new channel!
If you’re in a direct mail company, try driving your customers online where you can follow up through email. If you rely on telemarketing, why not prime the pump with a first-class letter a few days before your call? If your only contact with customers is through email, why not surprise them with a personal letter in their mailbox inviting them to try your more complete solution? (That’s where I “created” the $40,000 opportunity I mentioned above.)
All you have to do is take the message that works well in one medium, and translate it to the next. The fundamental persuasive message doesn’t need to change for you to grab attention — just the way you present it!
It’ll work remarkably well, I promise.
There are a couple reasons this works:
It catches your prospect off-guard, getting enough attention for your message that your prospect may catch and digest some of it. (Which is perhaps the most important consideration in this 21st Century marketing environment.)
None of your competitors are using this new channel yet. You’d be surprised how many business people will never test a different selling channel because “nobody in the industry does it that way.” Dufus! (Not you or I… Just those other business people that have fallen prey to this thinking at one time or another.) That’s why this new approach is going to be so successful. BECAUSE nobody else is doing it.
So… If in today’s environment you want a reliable business development opportunity… Get out of the old, and into the new. Test a new channel for selling your product or service.
Even if nothing else has worked to increase sales, this could double your business.
This year Tom Leung — Google’s product manager for Google Website Optimizer — presented at Ken McCarthy’s System Seminar. As Tom spoke, System faculty member Sean D’Souza scribbled away a few cartoons to illustrate the points Tom was making.
The points include:
Testing can help you win the tortoise-hare race by helping you make more effective landing pages than your competitors.
Bad landing pages are like crash zones!
It’s easy to get really excited — overzealous? — about testing, once you get into it. (“Guilty as charged, your honor!”)
If you want big results, then test BIG, BOLD changes.
Don’t act too quick on early results.
Yes, the 80/20 rule applies to testing too — it’s often better to do a couple quick split tests, rather than doing too-advanced, too-complex multivariate or Taguchi tests. Getting in, getting out, and getting results is profitable!
To see the cartoons, check them out on the Official Google Website Optimizer Blog:
UPDATE: Look in the comments below — Sean stopped by and linked to a page with a few other cartoons from this same series. It appears Google left a few on the cutting room floor!
Most businesses could learn a lot from Google (mine too).
Starting with the entire vision they have for business — what it means to be in business, how they define success in business (hint, it doesn’t start with profits), and how to make their business better every day.
Google’s put a lot of thought into it all — which may be obvious from their success. But what might not be as obvious is, these are things you can apply in your business.
When you do, it’s very likely you’ll double your business. You’ll be happier with what you do every day. Your customers will love you. Your team will have a renewed spirit. Work will be exciting. And both your bottom line and top line will grow steadily.
So where does it start?
“Never settle for the best”
You’ve heard of optimization, right? It’s part of search engine optimization and conversion rate optimization (among other things…).
A simple definition of optimization is working to make something better.
W. Edwards Deming was one of the first in business to really push for the philosophy of continuous optimization. Google takes it to the nth degree. Whatever you’re doing well today, you can do it better tomorrow. All you have to do is be continuously coming up with new ideas of what might make your business better — and test them.
Google does it all the time. In fact, they make it easy for you to do it all the time in your online business, too. Tools like Google Website Optimizer, the Ad Testing tool in AdWords, and even Analytics to track performance make this all possible.
Learn to use these to track how customers interact with your website and your business communications. Then experiment with ways to make each communication — each customer touch — a better experience.
Beyond that — into manufacturing, product development, and down the entire list — keep trying every day to make what you do better.
Everything else in Google’s philosophy is founded on “never settle for the best.” You should also implant that deep in your business mind. Always be looking for ways to make what you do better. And with what you’ll learn over the next 10 parts of this 11 part series, you’ll have ten powerful starting points for optimizing your business.
Here’s another video on Google Website Optimizer — covering some of the best things you can test on your e-commerce website. Testing is a “garbage in, garbage out” process. That means if your ideas of what to test are bad, you’ll get bad results. But if you’re ideas of what to test are good… the sky’s the limit!
The better your test input, the quicker your profit boost will be.
This video can be used as a yardstick to measure your testing ideas against — and you can know with certainty what you’re testing has the power to bring results, quick.
It features Tom Leung, Google’s Product Manager for Google Website Optimizer, plus Bryan Eisenberg from FutureNow and GrokDotCom.
The video shows you a number of different options that can be tested to increase your web page and landing page conversion rates, including:
Where to start for maximally profitable testing.
Two simple things you can identify about pages on your website, to decide in seconds which pages can be turned into the most profitable tests.
“Idea Spectrums” you can identify for testing — and where to place your test inputs on the spectrums to get the biggest bumps in conversion.
Easy experimentation ideas.
Best practices in scientific advertising and marketing experimentation.
A bigger strategy for testing — why “thinking big” when testing will give you the most long term growth.
Four types of buyers — including how quickly they make the buying decision, and whether they use a logical or emotional appeal.
What people look at when they hit your web page — knowing this will tell you exactly what to test first.
The hierarchy of optimization, and why persuasion should be one of the last things you think about testing on most websites.
Five formulas for online marketing success.
How decreasing “flashiness” can increase your profits (expensive web designers — beware!).
Three easy headline tests that could boost conversions 50% or more.
Twelve website copy tests that can actually make a difference.
The point in the buying process when your prospect is the most fickle — and how to build confidence and close the sale.
Eight variables contained in just the “Add to Cart” button.
How “The Golden Rule” applies to testing your marketing.
P.P.S. — To make sure you never miss helpful info like this, sign up on the right side of this page. I’ll be sure to get you these great how-to videos as they become available. Sign up now!
Two carpenters are asked to build a table. They’re given identical sets of tools, and identical pieces of wood. They’re given two days to complete the task.
At the end of two days, one carpenter comes back with a rather plain, simple table. Nothing fancy, and certainly nothing that would stand out as exceptional compared to all the other tables you’ve seen in your life.
The other carpenter presents a table, the very sight of which takes your breath away. The table is sure and solid, with fine construction. And the details… magnificent! The legs are decorated with intricate carvings that seem as if they’d have taken years to do. The surface is smoother than glass. Every inch of the table was carefully considered, creating a masterpiece table if ever there was one.
The carpenters above were given the same tools, and the same material to work with. Yet they came back with drastically different results.
This also applies in online testing.
One of the biggest myths about testing your online marketing is…
If you’re given the tools, you’ll see instant improvement. This comes from the assumption that the tools are responsible for the increase.
(That couldn’t be more wrong!)
So… if it’s not the tools… how do you get breakthrough results?
The secret I’m about to teach you is the #1 most important thing to know, when you’re testing your marketing online or offline. It’s how you’ll create incredible results — independent of whatever tool you’re using.
It’ll turn you into a testing expert capable of creating big increases in response. Today, if you choose to apply it.
And it works whether you’re using Google Website Optimizer, Vertster, Optimost, Split Test Accelerator, or one of the other marketing testing platforms out there. It even works for testing offline marketing.
This secret is universal.
Summed up in the shortest form possible, this secret is:
“Test big differences.” Let me explain.
When your prospect sees your ad (online or offline) you have — at best — 3 seconds to convince them to stay. If what you’re testing can not be seen in 3 seconds or less, you’re not going to create any big difference in response.
So the solution is to present large differences that can be seen in 3 seconds or less. Test changes to the elements of your ad that are front and center when your prospect first sees it.
Testing these big differences will get you…
Big differences in response (whether they’re for better or worse).
Once you learn the “Test big differences” principle, you’ll start to see great differences in your test results. Some of your tests will flop (that’s okay). Some will soar (whoopee)! And some will stay roughly the same (that probably means the element of your ad that you’re testing is minimally influential, and you should move on to testing something else within the ad).
But the first step is to learn to test big differences — differences that can be identified within 3 seconds of looking at your ad.
This will change your life. Here’s how…
Using this principle, some of the tests will fail, and you’ll return to using your control package. But some will lead to increases in response far beyond what you’d ever expect — increases that can literally change your life forever by creating more customers, more sales, and more profits.
As you use this principle, creating these breakthroughs will become easier and easier.
That’s the #1 secret for breakthrough marketing testing — use it and you’ll become the carpenter that gets exceptional results, using the same tools everyone else can only manage to create nominal improvement from.
If you want to learn the most advanced method of online testing — Taguchi marketing testing — head on over to http://www.TaguchiTestingHandbook.com to buy the ebook I wrote with A-list copywriter Bob Bly on the subject.
You get 90 days to try it risk free, and you’ll get a couple bonuses just for trying it out: The Kowalick Taguchi Spreadsheet for running free Taguchi testing (using the methods I lay out in the book), and Bob’s special bonus report Online Marketing That Works.
Here’s a video by Tom Leung, Google’s product manager for business solutions. It’s about Google Website Optimizer, how to increase website conversions, and general best practices for online marketing.
It’s easy to get excited about testing your marketing. The prospect of increasing conversions from 10% to 2,000% or more is really motivating. But when you get in there to actually do the testing, it can be a little confusing — what should you test to get the best results, and why?
In my ebook — The Taguchi Testing Handbook — soon to be released with Bob Bly‘s CTC Publishing, I cover this topic in a lot of detail. Much more detail than I can cover in a blog post. But I’ll share some of the basics here, to get you started on the right track.
Test high probability areas
On your landing page or other web page, there are inevitably a few areas that jump out and attract the eyes from the moment you load the page. These probably include your headline, any image at the top of the page, the first paragraph of body copy, the first list of bullet points… the list could go on, and is different from page to page.
When I’m looking to run a test, I want to know the first couple things that jump out to any visitor to the page. Why? Because these are what almost every visitor looks at, and what will probably have the most impact in testing. When there’s something that every visitor to a page focuses on, even for a split second, it has the potential to increase conversions through testing.
Once you’ve picked out the two or three most prominent page elements for testing, you may wonder what else to test (especially for Taguchi testing, which requires many more than 2 or 3 variables). Here’s a list of landing page elements that qualify as “high probability areas” — they’ve been influential in quite a few of the tests run:
The main headline
The subhead right below the main headline
The greeting (“Dear friend,”)
The offer (Including bonuses, packaging, delivery method, etc.)
Price
Guarantees (30-day, 1-year, 100% money back, 100% money back + $100 donated to a charity in your name)
P.S. (restate offer, restate guarantee, a mini FAQ, etc.)
Reinforcement copy in the checkout process or on the order form
These may or may not be influential variables on your landing page. And they may not be the only influential variables on your page. But each is worth testing because just one could increase your response by as much as 2,000%. And by testing multiples the increases will stack up even greater.
Once you’ve decided what to test, you need to decide what your different input will be. This is the most crucial step of the testing process. I’ll cover that in my next post, so make sure you’re registered on the right for updates.
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