Norman Freeman On What They Call
"Internet Marketing"

I attended a live event this last weekend at Las Vegas.
Ross Goldberg’s Seminar.

It is not that I was really going to see the speakers, but the only reason I went was to meet three people: My good friend Sterling Valentine - who I have been working ith on a couple of projects for the last 6 months - , Harris Fellman and Liz Tomey (both introduced to me by Sterling).

So, why is that I am taking two 18-hours flights from Berlin, Germany to Las Vegas and back? I share No fascination for this city in general AT ALL by the way!

Cost for the whole trip and expenses might have been around $1500, which is not the problem. The time is even more of a problem. I lost 4-5 full days at home with my wonderful family.

So why it’s worth all efforts to meet people in person?
It was only for the one reason that I wanted to fly over to LV.
I wanted to meet these people face to face.

Sterling is always talking about this andand he’s none short of just right.
Here’s what he says:

“We are not in the marketing business, not are we in the software or info-product development business. This is a PEOPLE business!”

He’s right. But there’s a disclaimer. It’s NOT to shake hands, take a picture and walk on to the next person. I recommend you only plan to make a really good connection to your top three people at each event.

I attended Mike Filsaime’s 7figureWorkshop earlier in 2007 and i met al those guys, nevertheless to find those i can connect best with and who are similar in approach and character I needed to only focus on 2 or 3 of them. No need to make quick, weak connection to all of them.

I can honestly say that each seminar I go to pays me back at least 10 times the cost i had.
But: Don’t be fooled. You can only profit from connections if you have somethig to profit with.

You may make friends regardless of having something to offer, to sell or to get help on. Nevertheless, in that case, it will be pure spend that you have to write on the “cost” side.

I would suggest yu have a product, service or an idea to present to others before attending seminars.

All this of course is only if you are not primarily interested in the speakers’ content.

My flight is boarding now, so i will continue about seminars/events in the next post.

Attend seminars.
But not only to spend your money.

Talk soon,
Norman

While a letter can be a very powerful tool for beginning a new relationship with a key decision maker, it is limited in terms of what we can realistically expect readers to do once they have read it.

Practically speaking, unless readers have a burning need for your services, they will not pick up the phone. Thus if your call to act is limited to Give us a call today to discuss your…you will never hear from a good percentage of your readers. And that will be a setback for your business since there are likely to be lots of people who would like to learn more about you but are reasonably suspicious of leaving themselves open to a full-bore sales pitch.

However, if the call to action is for more information, you will find that a large chunk of your readers will take that next step.

That’s you can say the role of a Free Report.

This is a must

Your Free Report should build standing for you and move the probable client forward to the next step in the relationship building process. If your reader puts down the report without taking that next step, then your report hasn’t completely done its job.

What you want to do first is…

Develop an attention getting title.

• What initially makes someone want to read your report is….your title. But, most writers don’t give this the thought it deserves.
• When you send out a report your goal should be that people stop what they’re doing, and read it right then.
• When you’re developing your title focus on…results.

That’s what your readers want. That’s what they’re interested in. That’s what they’re going to read.

            Ask yourself, what result do your readers want?

• For a catchy, compelling headline, ask yourself this question; What would accomplishing the goal enable readers to do that they can’t do now?

Here is a fun example that illustrates this. Which would you rather read?

“How to automate your business” or
“How to set up your business so that it runs on autopilot while you play golf”?

Key Point: Identify what the desired result would be and include that in your title.

• . Make sure that your title suggests targeted results. By this, I mean that the more you refer your role in the title, the greater the response and interest. “Time Management for Physicians”, “Tax Tips for the Family Owned Business” can be some good examples.

The bottom line is that your title is critical.

Style

To be completely successful, a report, which makes recommendations, must ensure that the persons for whom the report is intended:

• Read it without unnecessary delay.

• Understand everything in it .

• Accept the facts, findings, conclusions and recommendations.

• Decide to take the action recommended.

It all about the style you adopt to present relevant facts accurately. It also demands that you communicate in a way that is both acceptable and intelligible to the readers.

Selectivity

Careful choice of words can enable you to convey your messages with enough clarity.

Accuracy

Everything you put in your report should be factually accurate. The facts should be capable of being verified. Moreover, your arguments should be sound and your reasoning should be logical. Nothing should be there to misinform, mislead or unfairly persuade your readers. If you do, you will be doing damage not only to yourself but also to your business. Accurate information is essential for effective communication and decision-making.

Objectivity

A report should not be an essay reflecting personal emotions and opinions. You must look at all sides of a problem with an open mind before stating your conclusions.

Make it clear that you have an open mind while writing your report. This will, in most cases, make your conclusions and recommendations more acceptable to your readers. The emphasis, therefore, should be on the factual material presented and the conclusions drawn, rather than on any personal beliefs, biases or prejudices.

Conciseness

Julius Caesar reported his visit to our shores as Veni, Vidi, Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered). While none of your reports will be as short as this, you should aim to keep them concise. Ideally, a concise report is the one, which is short but still contains all the essential details.

To ensure you do not include material, which can safely be left out, you should not ask: ‘Can this information be included?’ Rather, ‘Is it necessary you should ask for this information to be included?’

Clarity and Consistency

The best way to achieve this is to allow some time to elapse between the first draft and its revision. Try to leave it over the weekend, or at least overnight. If cannot do this, at least leave it over a lunch or coffee break. It is essential to have a period of time, no matter how short, when you can think of other things. In this way, when you come back to the report, you can look at it with a degree of objectivity.

Simplicity

Usually, your report will be as simple as it can be if your writing is selective, accurate, objective, concise, clear and consistent. Do not oversimplify… for example to the point of missing out information, which the reader needs to fully understand… You should again keep your readers firmly in mind and keep asking yourself whether they will be able to follow the logic of your presentation.

Avoid Pointless Words

Some words and phrases like basically, actually, undoubtedly, each and every one ,during the course of our investigation … keep cropping up in reports. They add nothing to the message and often can be removed without changing the meaning or the tone. Try leaving them out of your writing. You will find your sentences survive, succeed and may even flourish without them.

What’s there in a plan?

So there you are! You have come across a great business opportunity and have decided to get started. You are excited, and if possible, you want to start from tomorrow. But wait! You are driving too fast, and may be heading for a crash! 

Without a proper business plan, your ride may be as rough as a runaway roller-coaster, that is heading for a free-fall.
Just as a building project needs a blue print plan; your business also needs a plan…even if it is a small business.

The importance of a well laid out business plan cannot be stressed much, before you really dig into it..

“How do I plan and set targets, if I don’t have the faintest of hint what I am going to get out of it and within what timeframe?”..is what you may ask.

Right you are. But your business, should have a proper groundwork to start with. Drawing up a plan is a must to convert the potential of a business into success..
Remember, in any business nothing will happen overnight but you can be rest assured that the businesses that begins with a plan reach their goals quicker than the others.
A proper plan will even make your potential investors feel comfortable about your Company before they invest.

To define it, a Business Plan is the foundation, or rather a springboard, towards the establishment and growth of a new business. It is also an essential tool for companies who intend to raise capital by floating shares. You need to design and prepare such plan professionally that caters the need of investors.

The best plan is the one that reflects your business through the investor’s eye and answers all the concerns of a potential investor.

Reasons for a business plan

Let me tell you that the reasons for compiling a plan will vary from situation to situation:

·          If it is a new business you need a plan to clearly evaluate every aspect of the business and show how it will succeed.

·          If you are acquiring an existing set up you will need to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the business to determine whether it’s within your capacity to make it a success, and draw your plan accordingly.

·          If you are already into a running venture and need extra finance for its expansion, your plan should be tailor-made for your potential investors.

·          If you are applying for one of the many grants available, get your plan in that way.

Some tips

·         Plan your business in your own style, in a way, that meets your needs as well as of your customers.

·         The entire business plan should have your ideas in the focus.

·         When you compile a business plan it should have a

ü  Cover page,

ü  A list of contents,

ü  Background information,

ü  Descriptions and range of the products, and services being offered, the market plan, the managerial hierarchy, business operations, financial plan, and then…

ü  A well-written conclusion.

Hope, you got the catch…the intention of your business plan should ideally point at the strategies, goals, and resources of your business.

Look before you leap

·      Even a football team is not taken into a game without a “game plan”, though it’s only a game. So when you venture out into something as important to its future existence as an e-business initiative, a clear-cut “game plan” or strategy is very very vital. But, recent surveys show that almost 60 percent of the enterprises doing e-business do not have a clearly articulated and well-documented e-business plan.

·         Here, a business plan need not have to be elaborate, just well thought out. If you remember what the Cheshire cat told Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s in Wonderland, “If you don’t know where you are going, it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

·         Your e-business strategy is your road map to a successful implementation of your project. Just hosting of a site is not enough; it must be strategically positioned in order to make your investment pay off. If you don’t do it right, someone else will… that’s how business goes.

E-Business is a lot more than a web site

·         It’s not very uncommon for companies to mix up their corporate websites as their e-business strategy. The web site should be thought of as an enabling technology and not a business plan in itself.

·         You must have visited the web site of a company that you have always respected, and found it disappointing and your experience there left a lot to be desired. A poorly thought-out web site can quickly turn off customers that have taken years to attract and nurture. So why do so many companies pay so little attention to getting it right? Think it through…it’s all because, a proper plan was lacking, while the website was being developed.

To be there, from here

·         No need to panic, it is time you do your business and think about your possible e-business strategies. If your customers and suppliers are in the development stages of e-business application systems, you cannot be left in the dark when they are themselves looking for compatible customers and suppliers. This is the time you plan, instead of when you are required to take your business elsewhere. By beginning the strategic planning early, you can plan to implement systems in smaller more manageable paths. Smaller & manageable steps also ensure more flexibility & adjustability to newer technologies and ideas.

·         To remain in the race you need to decide upon the ways and means of purchases and sales of your products and services in an online environment. You might as well begin the business planning process right now, before it is an emergency.

·         So, to start out a successful e-business initiative, first make it sure that your project tallies with your long-range business plans and goals… and you have a business to run. 

·         Yes, you can always seek help. But remember, before you hire a wizard to develop a whiz-bang web site, you need the direction, which can be rendered only by a well thought out e-business strategy.

Here’s a lesson I learned from Eben Pagan, who is one of the business people who had a  big influence on me lately.

“Give your BEST stuff away. For free!” is what he says. And he explains it very interesting.
It won’t work for ANY business, I am sure, but here’s my 5 cents:

It is always a challenge to figure out what to give away free.  You do have to explore the art of giving away more for free but at the same time attract more in return.  It is an interesting mental exercise and doing business online takes the whole ‘chicken and egg’ riddle a step further.

Now you must be wondering as how “give things away for free” concept goes with the ‘you get what you pay for’ mantra.  Therefore, you must be thinking, if you are going to get something free you are about to get a lot of headaches trying to make things work.  But amazingly some of the best online services are free and they have wonderful customer service and products.  Now, let us see how they make money and sustain their businesses over time.  What is it about the web that makes giving away things for free so necessary and easy? 

The Free Line..

The idea is that there is a line, a point on your sales funnel where you distribute free value, and below the line comes all the paid-for products, moving from front to back-end.

In the world of Internet marketing the concept of the sales funnel is well known. The process of moving customers from free resources, into paid front-end products down to high margin back-end items, has made millions for many Internet entrepreneurs.

The whole of process begins with some free resources and nearly everyone online has experienced this part of the sales funnel, like a blog you read. A blog is a “free resource” that the owner offers to the world that at least in some part and the blog contributes to bringing people into his sales funnel.

So, propel readers away with free content and then sell them on your paid stuff once they trust and value you!

How it can help your businesses.

Moving the Free Line

If you ever talk to an Internet marketer, you will know the idea of the free line moving further and further down the sale funnel. What was previously a front end product you had to pay for becomes a free resource sitting above the free line.The argument generally put forward is that moving the free line ever further down is one of the techniques you can use to beat the competition.

If you have a well constructed sales funnel that enables you to distribute more value for free, then you can out-value others and can also offer better commissions to affiliates. This secures more traffic and customers. So, it is about extracting the highest profit from the back-end and provide the most value above the free line.

Give Away Your Best Stuff

The principle is quite simple - you must give away some of your best content in order to capture attention. Content is the force that drives traffic online, and if you give so much quality for free, more links are connected to your site, which means…. more traffic, enhanced credibility, more exposure, and  more sales !

Remember that web users expect things to be free. This is why if you intend to do anything online, you better be giving it away for free.

No copying but Innovation

You also need to know that releasing a free e-Book and replicating what others have done is not going to cut the ice. A super-duper content can still draw huge amounts of attention. An e-Book format with old resources and formats will not make a splash. This is exactly why the concept is about MOVING the free line - you need to innovative ways to provide and distribute value.

Sometimes one of the best ways to make a splatter when offering free value is to use innovative delivery methods. , like you can conduct a live web-stream of your event or release a  great video content for free as part of your launch process and break the die by asking for email addresses of the visitors.

You should not be surprised if you find membership sites, videos, audios - even physical product like home study courses, DVDs and audio CDs floating above the free line. This can be a good marketing tool to generate more and more business.

Expect the first adopters of these techniques to come from the Internet marketing industry, since this place is already saturated with free content. From there it will seep down into other industries. Imagine how you can do with this concept like the free line if none of your competitors understands it!

How Does Moving The Free Line Affect You?

If you are already in an online business then you already work on some level to provide free resources. If you don’t, you must be struggling to build up traffic. Consider what you currently offer for free and brainstorm how you can go one step further and wow your potential customers with your free content. Always remember to use unique delivery methods and always plan to offer more for free in the future.

If you haven’t yet established enough free resources then your job now is to work on building up a store of value for others. With time, your previous efforts will continue to offer value, while your current activities can move towards producing content for front-end products and eventually back-end offers.

As a blogger, your main free value is the content you publish. The next step might be to build up a free email auto responder course, with five training emails set to go out in a sequence. Free distribution of a catalogue of videos or audios can also be a smart idea to attract traffic.

So, you can see..the options are limitless. What’s important is that you realize the thrust you get of these over deliveries and expect the free line to move further down over time.

You can’t stay in business if you are not driving forward, breaking in new ideas and in return, asking for nothing but attention.

“I bet I could have saved on many of the ninety-hour weeks that I’ve invested in over the years, had I been more systematic in managing time!”
…Have you ever heard anyone uttering this? I will be surprised if you haven’t.

Do you feel the need to be more organized? At the end of a tiring, hectic day do you sit and wonder why you haven’t accomplished much?

Any business without an effective and well thought out time management planning is just like around the world in 80 years, flying in a jet!!
Time management skills are especially important for small entrepreneurs who often find themselves performing many different tasks in a single day.

Time Management- A Myth???

No matter how organized we are, there are always only 24 hours in a day, you can’t change that. So, it’s all about managing ourselves and what we do with the time that we have.

To start with:

Get Aggressive about Managing Time!
Time and money are both very important in business. Yet, many business people tend to give a lot more specific thought only about managing their finance and leave time to take care of it. The time management of most entrepreneurs doesn’t go much further to questions like “What am I going to do today?” or “What should I do next?”
But the fact is like finance, proper forecast, control & budget is also necessary when it comes to spending business time

Find out where you’re wasting time.
You could fall prey to time-stealers that eat into the time you could have used much more productively. Find out your time-bandits! Do you spend too much time net surfing, reading email, or making personal calls? Checkout your daily schedule file so that you can form an accurate picture of what you actually do.

Create goals.
Remember, the focus has to be on changing your behaviors, and not time. A good way to start is by getting rid of your personal time-wasters. For one week, for example, set a target of not taking personal calls while you’re working.

Implement a time management plan.
You can take this as an extension of time management tip # 3. The objective is to change your behaviors over time to reach whatever target you’ve set for yourself, it can be increasing your productivity or decreasing your stress. So you need to not only set your specific goals, but also track them over time to see whether you’re accomplishing them.

To keep you cool & collected here are some more leads for you.

Use time management tools.
Let a software program such as Outlook, remind you of events, appointments and meetings in advance, making your time management easier.

Prioritize ruthlessly.
Your day should start with a time management session prioritizing the tasks for that day and setting your performance benchmark. As for instance, if you have 20 tasks for a given day, how many of them do you truly need to accomplish? Jot down your tasks in your personal notebook, cellular phone, digital diary, wherever you may find comfortable. Get everything that you need to concern yourself physically in an email in-box, a notebook you take with you, a little tape recorder, etc. Don’t try and remember everything! So, start the day correctly.

Learn to delegate and/or outsource.
Allow other people to bear some of your load. You are now in an era of outsourcing. Identify the non-core functions of your business bulk those out.

Get in the habit of setting time limits for tasks.
Reading and answering emails can consume your whole day if you let it. Allot a specific time, say of 1:30 hours in a business day to see and answer your mails. Have 2 specific time of the day, one in the morning, one in the evening to check and reply mails. Turn off your mail-alert; that tends to make you open and read mails whenever they arrive.

Be sure your systems are organized.
Is hell of a time being wasted looking for files on your computer? You need to organize your file management system. Is your filing system slowing you down? Redo it, so it’s organized to the point that you can quickly get what you need.

Don’t waste time waiting.
From client meetings to personal appointments, it’s impossible to avoid waiting for someone or something. But you need not have to just sit there and fiddle with your thumbs. Always take just a blank pad of paper that you can use to plan your next marketing drive. Technology makes it easy to work wherever you are, but I found it slaving to be “always connected and wired!. The classic pen & paper are useful for me anyway.

While in a meeting
While you are in a meeting with your members of staff, keep it brief, in no case that should extend an hour, if you really don’t want your staff to yawn over your face. Don’t discuss non-pressing items in a meeting that always pushes off the priorities. Best of all; hold meetings standing, rather than sitting, that way you will all arrive at quick decisions.

Narrow Your Focus!
This is very crucial to avoid distractions… fewer priorities you focus on at once, the more productive you will be. After you have your major time priorities for the year established, you should allocate them by week or by month.

Process
Process tasks systematically. Start from the top of the in-box, pick up each item and ask yourself “is there an action I need to take about this item?” If there is no action you need to take, either throw the thing away, file it for reference, or make a note on your “Someday/Maybe” list. If you feel you can take action in any of the listed tasks in two minutes or less, do it now! If not, decide what that next action is, and enter it on your “Next Action” list.
Now, you have to get out from under the daily grind and find time to grow your business

The Rolling Stones sang, “time is on my side, yes it is.”
If you own and run a small business, this probably isn’t your theme song.

This goes out to James Brausch. Nobody else listens I guess.

Hey James, I am testing Rasof since yesterday and already understand the numbers in the report.
Here’s one question though  since there’s no sufaq installed for Resof I think…

How old/new/current is the data behind Rasof?

I understand the data changes not significantly over time, but for some variables, it does!
I understand that the rankingfactors product is an analysis of data from months and months, BUT:

How old/new/current is the data behind Rasof?

If  the base for the data behind Rasof is the very same as I can read in the Rankingfactors Report, I could just use that one to adjust my site and wouldn’t need Rasof to compare my site’s factors to the data from your research (except the nice points-system of course!). Correct me if I’m wrong!

Also, here’s my questions to your last longagodeadlined Q&A game:

How much of your whole income makes jamesbrausch.com and the products associated with the blog (in percenage)?
How many people do you employ (and where in the world)?
Are YOU programming yourself or “just” concepting the software you sell?
How many new visitors does yor blog have monthly (percentage) and if many, is taht the reason why your promote you software in new blog posts so often?
How many subscribers do you send out your announcements to? Is the “money in the list”?

Have the greatest day every day, mate!

Norman

P.S: The trackback to male you see this post follows:
http://www.jamesbrausch.com/?p=646

Well… I just love it.

The moment I understood the concept of Simplicity and applying it, my life changed.
I will talk about that alot in the future.

It is about macheting down the jungle of information overload and eliminating the perfectionist inside.
Don’t misunderstand though: I always and still do believe in the power of QUALITY! Just that to achieve quality, it is not always neccessary to exhaust yourself, others and the idea you are working on by sticking to perfectionism.

By talking about simplicity, I mainly talk about doing things one-by-one whilst having the goal in mind and clearly defined.

As said, I will talk much more about it here in the near future.
For now, I at least changed the layout of my blog to become even more simple and easy to read.
I will test some more font-styles, but am pretty sure the current design is very easy to read. Cool abouit it: If you click to read a whole article, it opens without a sidebar!

Some may say that’s not good for navigation purposes. I say: It’s perfect for focusing on THAT article you read at the moment and not being distracted by more options.

I will let you know how I work on implementing Simplicity in my business workflow-systems in following posts. You’ll get real-life examples.

Have a great weekend!

Norman

You may have noticed the last posts almost all were about James Brausch.
Well, I think I found a reason.

I just listened to his “LifeManagement 101″ Audio CD and found out he just has very similar thoughts about life.

Maybe, if we meet someone (be it in person or virtual, how I met James on his blog…), your subconscious mind checks similarities to that person by scanning all it can get to compare to your mindset. That may be text, topics, videos, thought, anything.

Well, James seems to be a crazy guy (what 98% people would say ;o) and I seem to be.
I tell you: HE’s not!

He does one thing so super-right (if he really does how he says) that most so-called “gurus” preach, but I would bet most of THEM never put into action.
James understands WHY he chose the internet to make it his road to freedom (he defines “freedom” better on the Audio-CD!).
That reason is:

Family!

I couldn’t agree more.
And I always knew it. In fact, i have some other entrepreneur friends and some of them work on the internet. If you talk to people like that, many times the discussion goes to “Why are we doing what we do?” “What makes us different?”.
And you know what? Even if they work the same tasks like me (some of them), want to make money with the same tools like me (Selling other people’s products, create own products, build a list, etc…), they always answer this question different than me.

If you ask me today:
“Norman, why are you so eager to get your name out there, to develop products, take risks, test stuff * and sit in front of yur computer?”

*(I LOVE testing! BTW: Did you see that Google Website Optiomizer is now out of beta-status and FREE for everyone in their Adwords-Accounts? It’s fuckin’ FREE! That tool is so awesome, it honestly made me thousands over the last 3-4 months! It’s Taguchi-Testing for Dummies! You HAVE to USE it!)

Back to the topic:
So my answer would be:
“I am doing this because very soon, I want to do nothing else than to spend time with my loved wife, my kid (which will be born late summer this year! I can’t wait!! :o) and my garden. I love green grass , blue sky, a reading a good book in a hammock and have a barbecue with friends & family (WITHOUT having to go to work tomorrow!).”

So, let’s sum this up:
I do what I do just and only for the purpose to FREE MY TIME!
I know I am not where I want to be with my income yet, so I still work. But I will work less and less, year by year.
My dream is to stop working. Or just doing it for fun & charity in the future. As soon as possible.

And you know what the other guys I mentioned say:
“Hey, we want to get THIS done to start THAT and then do the next project and: WE JUST LOVE TO WORK!”

Honestly, what’s the point?
You LOVE work? You LOVE being away from your family? Why do you have one?

I have to admit, there may be relationships that are not as wonderful as the one I have, but please people > Solve it or divorce! And then focus on LIVING again.

I truly NOT believe that we are here on planet earth for working our asses off!

Conclusion:
If you are a newbie to Internet Marketing or just started or are in the middle of it and realize you just have no time for yourself, family and fun anymore, I very much hope that this is temporary to get your initial momentum.

Think of time as a health supplement. Get the most of it for yourself in your own life.

In any case, James’ Audio is a good introduction to the theory of making your life YOURS (again) while still making money.

Here’s the link to his course again (NO affiliate link and it’s only $10 for the CD!):
http://www.jamesbrausch.com/?p=435

Have a great day everyone!
I love life. Not money. And not work.
Norman Freeman

Good morning everyone. Norman here.
Norman is a guy-name, here in Germany too.
Why I am telling you this? Read on.

I have been thinking about what really sells for a long time now.
I don’t mean “what sells” from a product view or what kind of service is in demand at the moment. I am talking about measurability.

So what makes your launch, your product, your list, your blog and your life a success?

For products and marketing, you would say something like: Distribution (list, promotion-partnerships, ads), Copy, features, benefits…

So have you ever thought about if one of those big guys that crank out 197$+ products every other month to lists (via JVs) of 300.000+ subscribers would be able to sell a product without any salesletter? Or, would someone not knows in the “IM niche” at all - like me - (yet ;o) be able to covert the same product with the same salescopy and the same list with the same conversion rate?

Well, I think not. Authority and influence are my favourite words of the day.
If Mike Filsaime (or any other of those guys) tells his list about a product, it’s not only about the story, the copy and the product. It has much to do with authority. And INFLUENCE!

I don’t know how to measure it yet, but maybe James Brausch is willing to help out. He is the only one I would trust in this whole marketing-circus to get an analytical product together to measure emotional variables in sales-processes.

Anyway, one measurable variable just proved itself: Influence.
Proven by the same guy btw: James Brausch.

He - what I appreciate very much - named my blog on his.
No particular incident to do so, he did it just because he likes my blog (way of writing?). That’s what he says.

But unfortunately there was one thing that caused a tail of actions been taken by different people. It was a tail that, from my view, was kicked off by the power of (unintended) influence.

To name it:
I had a header-graphic on my blog that showed me with long hair (and a business-suit btw!) like I had it grown for years. (Yes, I like Indie-Rock-Music!)
Somehow that picture seemed to look a little un-male (or at least not 100% male) to James.
Although he did not mean to be rude I am sure, he wrote about his concerns in this blog entry. Now think what happened?

1. (I am happy about this!)
I got some list-subscribers who were actively referred by James to my blog.

Sidenote: You can tell I was not only surprised but honored to be “featured” in James’ blog, since he (you might have recognized he is the ONLY blog I recommend yet!) writes a solid analytic style I like very much.
Also he seems to be way outside the “net of slaveristic freedom” (more about that later) which most “IM gurus” (I HATE the word guru…) decided to belong to.

2. (I am not sure about this one)
I got about 5-10 comments on my blog that made fun about me looking like a girl or both in my header graphic.

Sidenote: This does not sidetrack or hurt me. I have a wife, a kid and a wonderful life. I just tell you this for a reason: Influence! Read on.

Though some of those comments were not that nice, I can understand why they occured. Honestly, I think 90% of the IM-product customers seem to be like that.

Here’s the catch if you move your brain in this niche of wannabe Gialdinis:
You are influenced. Anywhere. Anywhen. Anytime.
Keep that in mind!

So I think if some of those commentators would have not read James Brausch’s post before they came to my blog, they wouldn’t have even thought about me being a man or a woman.
They just had it in mind after reading James’ post.
In fact, some of them might even have visited my blog for just THAT reason: To see my header graphic. I changed it atm, but will maybe change it back later. In fact, I changed it now because one of those people seemed to be so persistent with his (her?) thoughts about my gender that I finally changed the pic.

So what can you learn from this?
I would say two things:

First, BE AWARE that you are influenced every second of your life! You can not change that, but you can mix it with some SELF-THINKING!

Second, you COULD use the power of influence in your salesletter, ads etc. but that’s another post.

To sum it up:
Thanks, James! I was very surprised opening up your blog after watching your “How to create a newsletter from a remote Island” videos and found MY NAME on there. I not only appreciate that, but it also gives me some confidence to continue my way.
Hope to chat with you one day.

Yours,

NorMAN

The Original post by James Brausch (I honestly don’t know how this trackback technique works yet…):
http://www.jamesbrausch.com/wp-trackback.php?p=397

http://www.jamesbrausch.com/?p=397

Internet Marketers who use split testing experience higher success levels than those who do not perform such tests. Split testing allows marketers to measure the effects of different content on their landing pages against user response, and thus select the best performing page. Split-testing is typically a time consuming process. Without any special tools, a marketer would need to create their landing page content, and run it for a specific period of time to test the results. Then, the marketer would need to run the same page with one change- perhaps a different headline font, or a different wording for the headline, and test the results of that variation. It’s expensive and time consuming because you can only test one item at a time in order to obtain accurate results, and because it is completely based on trial-and-error.

Google Analytics has allowed marketers to measure their conversion rate (how many visitors become buyers or perform the specific action a web site asks them to make), but tracking this doesn’t tell you what content on your site is effective and what areas need improvement. As any internet marketer knows, if you’re going to spend money on pay per click advertising and other means of getting web site visitors to your web page, then what content you actually put on that page is priceless! You want successful performance from your ads. How can you monitor the actual effectiveness of the content on your page, and know what content is performing well and what isn’t working?
Google is currently offering a new service for split-testing landing pages, called “Website-Optimizer”. It makes split-testing much more manageable and less expensive than testing without the tool. Basically, the optimizer is going to allow you to try different variations of content on your landing page and measure the results to see which page has a better performance (conversion rate).

The Website Optimizer is free, and can be used without extensive experience running testing experiments on landing pages. In other words, you need not be a split-testing genious to use the optimizer tool. Before beginning a landing page experiment, Google even provides internet marketers with a “pre-experiment checklist”. It details step by step what you’ll need to do, from selecting your test page, to setting a goal for the experiment, to the actual running of the experiment and reading of results.

Using the optimizer, a marketer can experiment with new headlines, different promotional copy, and a variety of images designed to turn web site visitors into “conversions”. Google will provide you with easy to read, graphical reports to determine the content that performs the best and encourages site visitors to the highest conversion rates.

When determining what to test on your page, you need to take your goal into consideration. If you want your site visitors to take a specific action such as downloading a document or making a purchase (the call to action) then you might want to test different headlines. You might try different graphics- to see whether photographs of products or a person using the product has a better result. Changing the actual page copy to decide whether lengthier text offers better results, or shorter and more direct copy has better conversions. Testing the format of text might offer changes in conversion rates as well; try bulleted points or paragraphs. Finally, try altering the actual “call to action” portion of the site. If you have a button that says “sign up”, try a different phrase, like “quick sign up” or “get it free”.

While you need to have an active Google AdWords account to use the optimizer tool, you will be able to test traffic coming from various locations. You’ll test incoming visitors that are a result of your AdWords advertisements, Google search results, and other search engine traffic.

View the impressive demo here:http://services.google.com/websiteoptimizer/overview/index.html

Ressource: http://services.google.com/websiteoptimizer/

From Google:

“…You want your ads to be successful. To measure that success, you use click and conversion tracking to gain insight into user behavior on your pages. If users are reaching your pages, but you aren’t getting the conversion results you want, what do you do? It’s time to make improvements to your site. Website Optimizer can help.

The Website Optimizer allows you to test changes in the website content of your pages in order to determine what will be most effective in getting conversions. You choose what parts of a page you’d like to test — headline, image, promo text – and we’ll run an experiment on a portion of your site traffic to determine which content on your site users respond to best. When we’ve collected enough data, we’ll provide you with reliable reports and a suggested course of action in order to optimize your site for maximum business results.”