Yesterday, my husband and I had a little chat about Internet marketing products - ebooks, programs, systems, courses, etc - aimed at teaching you how to perform some aspect of Internet marketing. This, in turn, led to a discussion about ‘the dirty little secret of Internet marketing products’…

Now, Simon is a rather skeptical guy. And he generally shies away from any kind of ‘how to make money online’ product. That said, he has certainly invested in a number of products over the years that, while not promising to turn you into a millionaire overnight, teach practical skills e.g. how to do Google Adwords, how to do search engine optimization, and so on.

So, I guess he’s that breed of Internet marketing customer that is turned OFF by cheesy headlines. I’m similar, but since I’m more familiar with who’s who in Internet marketing I’m probably not as skeptical as he is about certain things (although I’m probably more skeptical about others!).

When it comes to high profile Internet marketing products, Simon says that, by default, he doesn’t believe most of the claims made in sales letters and other promotional materials.

And that’s where we differ. Depending on the Internet marketing product in question - and, in particular, the Internet marketer behind the product - my default position is that I DO believe the claims made in the sales letter.

But here’s the thing: while I believe that so-and-so Internet marketing guru probably made the money they said they did by following the system or using the program they’re selling… I also think there’s a rather significant piece of information missing from the sales letter.

It’s the dirty little secret of all, if not most, Internet marketing products, and it’s simply this: for the system or program to work… YOU have to work.

YOU have to roll up your sleeves and put time, sweat, tears and perhaps even money into learning, understanding and applying the steps… YOU have to persist when the program or system doesn’t yield instant results… YOU have to innovate when, for whatever reason, the cookie cutter approach is no longer effective.

Search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, copywriting, affiliate marketing, article marketing… they all require work!

Now, admittedly, there IS an alternative to you doing work. It’s called: paying someone else to do the work.

But even that doesn’t let you off the hook. Having worked purely as a consultant to at least one large organization where just about every aspect of Internet marketing is outsourced to various different agencies, I can honestly say there is STILL a lot of work to be done.

Coming up with new ideas… strategic planning… managing all the agencies… evaluating their results… reporting to other parts of the business… troubleshooting… and that’s just SOME of what the Internet marketing people do. It doesn’t even approach what everyone else does in the business - producing the products, delivering customer support, building the business, and so on.

So if we need to do work - and often a lot of work - to achieve the results so-and-so Internet marketing guru has achieved… why don’t they tell us that in the sales letter?

Well, firstly, if you read through the sales letters put out by the most respected Internet marketers you’ll see that some DO actually mention that work is involved. They might say something along the lines of “Don’t read this unless you’re serious about making 7 figures this year and are prepared to do what it takes to make it…”

But that doesn’t sound too much like hard work does it? I mean it’s not as if the copy says “Don’t read this unless you’re serious about making 7 figures this year and are prepared to: stop watching TV, halve the time you normally spend with family and friends, work at least 60 hours per week, cold-call at least 10 people a day…”

(Am I exaggerating? Well, depending on the aim of the Internet marketing product in question, I’m just touching the surface…)

That said, there are two main reasons why Internet marketing product sales letters - and, indeed, sales letters for most other ‘how-to’ products - don’t and SHOULD NOT emphasize the work involved.

Firstly, as indicated above, you CAN indicate that work is involved without needing to spell it out. Anyone who’s hot for your product will still see what they want to see, and will likely skim over the ‘work’ bit and focus on the ‘end result’ bit.

Secondly, what IS selling if it’s not harnessing the prospect’s emotions - their hopes, desires, fears, etc - in order to persuade them to take a certain action step (e.g. buy your product). You’re not seriously going to do anything - like talk about how hard it is to make your system work - that sabotages your ability to sell, are you?

I mean, does anyone really expect ads for Coca-Cola to talk about how much sugar the drink contains, and how excess sugar intake is linked to tooth decay and obesity?

It just makes sense to emphasize the positives, and avoid or neutralize the negatives, in order to persuade someone to buy.

BUT… if you’re both an Internet marketer who sells stuff AND an entrepreneur who looks for tools and information to help build your business… it probably doesn’t hurt to occasionally repeat the dirty little secret of Internet marketing products!

Yesterday, I listed six tactics MarketingSherpa recommends for Internet marketers to use in their online video marketing. The first tactic listed - use ‘edutainment’ videos - deserves special mention. Basically because it reflects an important distinction: that your online videos need to entertain, not just educate.

To be blunt, the novelty of online video is wearing off.

People are becoming less and less entranced seeing moving images on a website. They are realizing that watching a Powerpoint presentation or a talking head on a website is just as exciting as watching a Powerpoint presentation in a seminar or a talking head on television. In other words, a Powerpoint presentation or talking head, of itself, is NOT exciting at all.

What’s more, video (like audio) has a MAJOR drawback: it cannot easily or quickly be scanned for specific information. So although some Internet marketers may claim that any kind of video - even long, boring videos – will generate higher conversions than sales letters… I don’t think this trend will last.

For many Internet marketers’ online video to continue attracting and converting a significant number of viewers, either the educational value or the entertainment value or both will need to increase.

What is ‘educational’… what is ‘entertainment’… and what are sufficiently high levels of each will vary on a case by case basis. However, Powerpoint presentations and talking heads will still work… IF they offer sufficient education and/or entertainment.

For example, Rich Schefren’s 26 hour video marathon conducted back in September was just a video stream of Rich sitting at his desk, looking into the camera. It was, however, a huge success, generating 27,355 viewers in that 26 hour period. Why? Because Rich was giving people powerful Internet marketing information - he was not just educating, he was answering the specific questions that his audience had.

An Internet marketing ‘guru’ who has used more ‘entertainment’ in his online videos is Frank Kern. Frank has gone so far as to create and act out a fictional (and rather hilarious) story to attract attention, traffic and conversions.

While there must be some kind of entertainment value in your online videos - which does NOT necessarily mean theatrics or creating fictional stories - I do think that, given the choice, Internet marketers are wise to emphasize education over entertainment. That is, if they are results oriented. We need only to consider television commercials and infomercials to see why.

Television commercials that are big on entertainment tend to draw attention to themselves i.e. the commercials rather than the products or services they advertise. That’s essentially the objection we, as direct response marketers, have long had against what Jay Abraham calls ‘institutional advertising’.

Infomercials, meanwhile, do not generally involve any kind of theatre or obvious creativity. They generally use a format involving an interview between two people and a product demonstration.

And, trust me, however boring it seems, this is the format that works. Otherwise, we wouldn’t see it used over and over again by infomercial producers and networks that simply can’t afford to run infomercials that don’t make money.

Of course, at the end of the day, testing and tracking will indicate what works and what doesn’t. But if the history of ALL other media is anything to go by - whether it’s print, television, radio - then people will be ’sold’ less and less by the medium, and more and more by the content.

So, as Internet marketers, we can probably look forward to a time where it’s not enough - or even ideal - to put up just any kind of online video. Our videos will need to explain and entertain in a way that yields the best possible response from our audience.

By the same token, let’s not assume that video will always be the best vehicle for yielding the optimum response. In many situations, using good old fashioned text – e.g. a sales letter - may end up generating the best results.

Source: MarketingSherpa, “Video’s Role In Your Marketing: 6 Proven Tactics To Support Lead Gen, Search, Product Launches,” MarketingSherpa, Rich Schefren, “We Beat John McCain,” Strategic Profits Blog, September 18, 2008

Research by Dynamic Logic indicates that, when viewing ad-supported content on the Internet, 61 percent of U.S. adult Internet users are willing to watch between 1-5 ads per hour.

Dynamic Logic’s survey, conducted in September 2008, found that the largest single group of adult Internet users (21 percent) preferred no ads at all… but the next largest group (19 percent) was willing to view two ads per hour.

Of course, from a marketer’s perspective, it’s not all that helpful to measure ad volume by the number of ads per hour. It might be appropriate in relation to online video… but for websites, sales letters, emails, etc it’s probably more helpful to know the ideal ratio of ads to non-promotional content.

Our experience and observations suggest that when it comes to email marketing, you probably don’t want to send out any more ads or promotional offers than one for every three non-promotional articles you send. A 1:3 ratio of advertising to non-promotional (quality) content in other words. On the other hand, depending on your target audience, you may be able to have slightly more or fewer ads per non-promotional articles.

Source: eMarketer, “What’s the Right Amount of Online Advertising?”, eMarketer, October 7, 2008

A Kikabink News reader wants to know why he has to:

read as many as 15 pages or more at times of sales page to get a damn price… and even then at the end of the long ass pages they still do not tell you the price until you click to order. Maybe I am old fashioned, but I want to know the cost now and not later…

In the last two feature articles I likened sales letters to sales people. Well, let me ask you… how many times does a top salesperson introduce himself or herself and tell you what the price of their product or service is straight away?

Now, they might do this to work out whether or not you’re a legitimate prospect who can afford their product, but if they suspect you are willing and able to buy, chances are they’ll start their sales presentation by asking you lots of questions about your circumstances, problems, goals, needs, wants, etc in order to tailor their presentation to you. Then, based on what you’ve revealed, they’ll present their product or services as the solution to your problem or the passport to the opportunity you seek. Then they’ll build more and more value into what they’re offering. And then, when they’ve sold you on the product, they’ll explain how the price is a mere fraction of the true value of their solution.

Or something along those lines.

Point is, like a sales person, a sales letter is designed to reinforce your desperate need for a solution (to solve your problem or achieve your goal), persuade you that the product on offer is the ideal solution, build up even more value, and then, when you’re convinced that the product on offer must be worth many times more than you’re capable of paying, introduce the price as being a mere fraction of what the product is worth.

The process of building up your desire and your perception of value in the product BEFORE introducing the price is integral to making the sale for the kinds of products on offer via sales letters. Sure, it may not be necessary for selling a tin of baked beans, but for items that require much more persuasion, this process is usually necessary.

And, once again, there’s a reason why the most successful direct response companies structure their sales letters in this way. It’s NOT to deceive you. It’s to sell you. And, yes, I’m sure we could all argue about the sometimes fine line between being misleading and selling. (I’ve given legal advice on that line plenty of times). But I truly believe that any company that aims to be in business for the long haul - and I’m thinking of 9-figure direct response marketing companies such as Agora Publishing and Boardroom, Inc. - just can’t afford to mislead.

So the aim is not so much to ‘hide’ the price, but to present it in the best possible way, at the best possible juncture within the structure of a sales letter.

Of course, if you want to know the price straight away, it’s generally a simple matter of using the ‘find’ button in your browser and typing in the dollar sign! And if the sales letter doesn’t reveal the price (something I DON’T agree with), just click on ‘Order’ to see what it is. You won’t have to hand over your credit card details to see the price. (If you do, just leave the site).

If you’re interested in buying a product - let’s say it’s an information product - do you read the sales letter from start to finish?

Or do you, as Kikabink News subscriber, John H. does, scroll down to the bottom to find the price and then skim the bullet points.

Or do you do something else entirely?

Well, it’s the very fact that different readers approach sales letters in different ways that they - the more effective ones, that is - are structured and written in a way to accommodate different kinds of reader.

There are readers who read every word… skimmers who catch the main points… and ‘pick and choosers’ who look for, and focus only on, the details that matter to them. And there are those who may do any of these depending on the kind of product they’re buying, whether it was preceded by a huge pre-launch campaign of videos, etc, and other factors.

For example, when I bought my first information product in the Internet marketing niche, I read every word of what was something like a 20+ page sales letter. Just recently, when I invested in another - much more expensive - program, I focused only on some of the main points.

The difference for me was that in the first case, I had no familiarity with the product, the company behind it, or what benefits it would bring. I felt that I needed to understand exactly what I was being sold. In the second case, however, I was familiar with - and trusted - the marketer, had experienced an extensive pre-launch campaign, and was really only looking for confirmation that what was on offer was right for me.

Yesterday, I mentioned my view that if you are aiming to sell a product online that would ideally be sold by a real-life salesperson, then a sales letter is probably ideal. Similarly, a sales letter - just like a top sales person - should accommodate as many buyers as possible. It should deliver both the detail… and the salient points… it should allow for people to understand all the features and benefits… as well as convey the overall benefit… it should appeal to the emotions… and also appeal to the rational mind with logic…

The end-result is often a long sales letter. Will this turn off some people who don’t like scrolling? Probably. But, if it’s good, it will capture more people than it loses.

And remember, although YOU may not like reading through reams of copy… it doesn’t mean many of your prospects won’t. Or that they won’t simply skim or pick and choose what they read. As always, your customers (or lack thereof) will tell you whether you need to change how you present your offer.

The issue of using sales letters on websites… and how long or short they should be… is one that seems to attract earnest debate.

My guess is that many newcomers to the Internet marketing niche, as well as various other niches on the web, are unfamiliar with the use sales letters on websites and wonder why many marketers use them. Especially when most brand name websites are designed and structured in an entirely different way.

I know that I was unaccustomed to long sales letters when I first learned about ‘Internet marketing’ in 2004. And this was AFTER my husband and I had previously built and sold an Internet business. I wondered why all these people selling information products used websites that often had no logos, no navigation, no ‘About’ or ‘Contact’ links, few graphics, and nothing but a long sales letter with a price hidden within the copy and an ‘Order’ button at the bottom.

And why were they all so long?

But when I bought my first Internet marketing info. product (after reading the sales letter) and then started learning about Internet/niche marketing in earnest, it all started to click.

Sales letters work.

Not in all contexts. Not for selling all products. But certainly for selling products that:

• Are intangible - can’t be touched or ’seen’ to be understood or appreciated
• People don’t know they want or don’t think they need - where considerable persuasion is needed
• Have an intangible benefit - where the result is more psychological than physical
• Carry a high price

I like to think of it this way. If you’re selling a product on the web that would ideally be sold by a real-life salesperson… i.e. someone would explain the benefits, features, etc then use a sales letter. Or, with the advent of online video, a sales letter with some video elements (we’ll discuss video in a later article).

If, on the other hand, you’re selling a product that wouldn’t need to be sold by a salesperson (and, in fact, having a salesperson would hinder the sale) then a salesletter is probably not a good idea. A simple product graphic, some copy and the price may be sufficient.

At the end of the day, marketers big and small - from big direct response marketing companies such as Agora Publishing, Boardrooms and Weiss Research to small companies like ours - use sales letter style websites because they make money.

As for whether many of these sales letters are too long… and whether anyone actually reads them… let’s discuss that tomorrow…

Here’s a timely reminder for us all… Don’t automatically believe what an Internet marketer says - whether it’s in a sales letter, an article, a video, an audio, a post in a discussion forum, or anywhere.

It is EXTREMELY easy for someone to, for example, put up a sales letter selling a course on “how I made $1 million in less than a year”, provide a compelling sales letter to engender trust, and convince people that they have the keys to the magic kingdom.

And guess what? The course might even be quite good. It might be full of helpful advice. And the sales letter might be quite inspiring and motivational.

But here’s the problem - the course was ripped off from somewhere or someone else… the sales letter was written by a copywriting pro… and the person behind it all NEVER made $1 million in less than a year.

In other words, it is VERY easy to lie, given the anonymity of the Internet and the difficulty to verify claims. (I would love to see the day when an Internet marketer says “I made $20 million last year” and included an independent auditor’s statement i.e. from one of the major accounting firms that verified the truth of that statement!)

I am not pointing the finger at anyone in particular, here. I wouldn’t know who to point it to. I am not even saying that you should instantly dismiss someone’s claim of making a certain amount of money, or that you shouldn’t use TRUE earnings statements in your sales letters.

I am just saying that given how easy it is to concoct a story… make up a bogus claim of huge earnings… hire a copywriter to write top-notch copy… and plagiarize someone else’s content for an ebook, course or whatever… you need to know that not everyone may be telling the truth.

There ARE people who have incredible, motivational and TRUE stories of building successful businesses and substantial wealth in short amounts of time. There are Internet marketers who have achieved this. But please don’t blindly believe what someone says just because it sounds good.

Sometimes people don’t tell the truth…