Kikabink News

As tempting as it is to dish out advice on who Americans should vote for in today’s United States Presidential election, I am no more qualified than any non-American with an opinion!

However, I will say that if you have the right to vote, you’re wise to exercise that right.

Election day may be the only time the average person can really have any kind of influence over the decisions of the government, by virtue of who they choose to govern. Decisions that heavily impact your everyday life - from how much tax you pay, to the availability of health care and education, to the state of the roads, to how you conduct your business. And in a zillion other ways I couldn’t possibly list in this article.

The point is, if you don’t vote and make your voice heard about who you think should make decisions on your behalf, plenty of other people will do so for you. And they might NOT have your best interests at heart.

What are the issues for you to keep in mind as an Internet marketer?

Well, these would be issues that affect most small and mid-sized businesses - economic policy (specifically policies that impact on inflation, interest rates and the strength of the U.S. dollar), taxes, employment laws, trade laws, competition laws - as well as issues that specifically relate to the Internet and doing business on the Internet.

I’m not sure where Barack Obama or John McCain stand on all these issues, but they are all factors to consider, along with the other issues that are important - and may be far more important - to you.

Of course, however important these issues are… and whatever the elected administration does once it gets power… nothing will affect your success as an Internet marketer more than YOU. So while it’s important to have your say about who governs - and the government of the day WILL make decisions that affect you… none of that will have anywhere near the same influence on your success as YOU and what YOU DO.

I feel fairly confident saying this about the United States (and a number of other countries). I’m not so sure when it comes to the various totalitarian regimes that still exist in the world. Which is all the more reason to celebrate democracy and vote. And after you to that… it’s back to business!

If you ask an experienced Internet marketer what’s an average visitor-to-customer conversion rate they’d probably say 1 percent. 3 percent is generally regarded as good, and anything above that is viewed as outstanding.

But whether you’re achieving 1 percent or 12 percent, the vast majority of visitors to your website are still leaving without buying. And most of them won’t return either. But that doesn’t mean they don’t want to buy from you! There are many reasons why they didn’t buy the first time they visited your site.

So, will you (a) just let this huge majority of potential customers leave your site never to return, or (b) get them to come back and buy?

I hope you answered (b) because it will add hundreds, thousands, maybe millions, of dollars to your bottom line (depending on how big your enterprise is, and want it to be).

So how do you do get people coming back? There are two ways (and ideally you should use both). The first is to provide “sticky” content on your site. Sticky content is new, fresh and constantly changing content that appeals to your visitors. News, blogs and forums are three examples.

However, sticky content is often not the most effective way to convert prospects into buyers. (Do you want them to buy or visit your sticky content?)

A more targeted way - in which you have some control - is to to entice visitors to give you their name and email address.

Now you can communicate with them one on one, garner their trust and appreciation for the value you offer… and persuade them to buy!

This is what we call email marketing - and there’s an art and science to doing it right. But for now, I hope you’ve got the key idea - don’t ignore the 97 percent. Aside from the people who’ve already bought from you, they are your hottest target market.

Next time we’ll talk about how to construct your optin offer and what exactly you should send to list of subscribers.

A new chart from MarketingSherpa indicates that people and companies blog for many reasons. All blogs, however, would do well to apply MarketingSherpa’s three tips for crafting a blog for maximum impact:

1. Provide genuine, heartfelt content
2. Update regularly
3. Be focused

Here’s my take. When it comes to providing genuine, heartfelt content… leave the “corporate speak” for company brochures and annual reports. (Actually leave it out altogether). The best blogs seem to have a somewhat personal, informal tone.

Updating regularly means… regularly blogging. Now, this can certainly be a challenge for large corporates and individual marketers alike. I’m currently working with a large company to establish a weekly blog. The challenge we face is being able to select a topic, get it written, have it reviewed and approved by a gaggle of ’stakeholders’ - marketing, legal, public relations, etc - each and every week. Trust me, it’s like herding cats and I honestly don’t think it’s going to happen without everyone being absolutely dedicated and committed to the task.

For the typical Internet marketer, the challenge is finding the time to blog when there’s so much else to do. Should you spend an hour on your blog… or write some articles… or contact potential JV partners… or develop that new product?

My feeling is that unless you can update your blog at least once per week, it’s not worth doing. You’re better off focusing on other activities that you can commit yourself to doing well.

Having said that, blogging once per week is really not ideal in terms of getting frequently visited by the search engines, attracting backward links and traffic, and inspiring reader interactivity, among other things. It’s probably fine if you are already a “name”, but if you view blogging as a means to becoming a “name” you really want to be blogging several times per week. We started Kikabink News - which is both a blog and a newsletter - a few months ago and, while I’m delighted with its performance so far, we have a long, long way to go in terms of achieving our goals.

Bottom line: if you don’t have the time or interest to devote to blogging, don’t bother with it. Don’t waste time setting up a blog you never update. (Trust me, I have one of those, and it’s not doing much for our business). And, by the way, you CAN be successful without a blog. The key is to choose one or two core strategies for achieving your business aims and doing them extremely well.

Finally, when it comes to “focus”, the idea here is to stay on topic, and ideally choose a topic that others are not covering as well or in the same way as you. There are tons of blogs covering various topics… how are you going to stand out and keep - indeed, increase – your readership? Usually by having something different and interesting to say.

Source: MarketingSherpa, “New Chart: Craft Your Blog for Maximum Impact: 3 Absolutes to Make it a Must-Read”, MarketingSherpa, September 2, 2008

Wow, a high profile Internet marketer - dare I say “guru” - has lashed out at what she regards as 15 Internet marketing sins.

Sylvie Fortin, president and founder of outsourcing outfit, Workaholics4Hire, and wife of renown Internet copywriter, Michel Fortin, has released a report where she unleashes her rage over a number of tactics commonly used in the Internet marketing niche and elsewhere.

There’s certainly a marketing (list building and sales) motive behind the release of Sylvie’s report. Come on, we’re all marketers, right? But I was truly surprised - and impressed - by Sylvie’s brutal honesty in the report.

Surprise, surprise, a “guru” - who no doubt rubs shoulders with some of the biggest marketing sinners - genuinely lashes out at practices she believes are undermining Internet marketing. I mean really. She even lets loose a few expletives!

Frankly, I would love to see everyone in the Internet marketing niche (and other niches) take Sylvie’s ideas to heart. Regardless of whether or not this is partly a marketing exercise (and heck, I’ve signed up as an affiliate) I agree with her when she says that the fewer people engaged in shady marketing tactics, the better it is for all of us.

Download a copy of Sylvie’s Internet Marketing Sins report here (yep, it’s an affiliate link):

==> Free copy of Sylvie Fortin’s Internet Marketing Sins report

Source: Sylvie Fortin, Internet Marketing Sins, July 2008

Right now, Mike Filsaime is promoting his limited edition software product, Review Crusher. As at writing the product has not sold out, but that may change by the time you read this.

I guess the title of this article is somewhat ironic given that during his promotional video Mike condemns Google Adwords ads with headlines that appear to be critical of his name and the names of other high profile marketers. I hope you can see, though, that my headline is not in any way critical - it’s just based on a simply reality:

Mike Filsaime’s Review Crusher software won’t make you money. Only YOU will make you money.

Here’s why I raise this issue. Based on the popular business model of using product reviews to sell affiliate products - i.e. where the affiliate attracts prospects to their site by promoting reviews and then entices people to buy through their affiliate links - Mike has created software to automate the process of constructing such websites.

Mike’s contention - made in his promotional video - is that while the successful review sites he’s aware of manually build their websites, his software will make it easier for someone to build their own review site.

I say: so what?

Does his software bring qualified traffic to your site? Does the software make visitors buy from you?

Mike’s software is just… software. Sure, it may make it easier for you to create a product review site than if you used an HTML editor or blogging software like Wordpress.

But it’s not the construction of the site that is going to be your biggest challenge as you build a business based on product reviews. Your biggest challenge is going to be the same challenge faced by EVERY Internet marketer: getting lots of qualified traffic to your site and converting them into customers that, ideally, come back to buy from you again and again.

Personally, I think Review Crusher has a few bells and whistles that might make it worth getting. But if you decide to get it, please, whatever you do, customize the look and feel of your site. Do NOT use the same templates out of the box.

I can only imagine how many other people will get this software, use the same templates, and end up trying to sell the same products. That’s a recipe for getting crushed… not crushing others.

Put it this way, by definition, this product is aimed at people who don’t have the time, money or ability to create their own review sites… so you can bet that many of them also don’t have the time, money or ability to customize the look and functionality of their Review Crusher site!

On the other hand, if you do have the ability to customize the look and feel… before you take out your wallet for Review Crusher, you may want to consider customizing a Wordpress blog into a review site… After all, Wordpress is free!

Of course, you don’t get all the support Mike is offering if you use Wordpress, but the bottom line remains: Review Crusher won’t make you money.

Once you’ve installed, configured and customized the software, you need to get traffic and convert it into customers. An underlying that, you need a sound business and marketing strategy.

And just in case you’re wondering, this article is not a product review! It’s more like a “concept review”. I haven’t seen Review Crusher for myself and I am not an affiliate. I AM a fan of Mike Filsaime and think he is super-smart jumping on the review site bandwagon with this software product.

But the chief editorial aim of this Internet marketing newsletter is to empower you with news,\ comment, research, tools, tips and more to help your business become more profitable. And your business won’t become profitable if you get Review Crusher WITHOUT having a solid strategy for acquiring traffic and converting that traffic into customers.

Source: Review Crusher