3 Proven Methods For Turning Away Customers and Losing Money

Are you your own worst marketing enemy? Hey, I'm sure you wouldn't intentionally turn customers away... but we all make mistakes. In the following article you'll find some tried and true ways to lose sales and kiss your profits goodbye!

1. Distract Them You know what I'm talking about. You've been to Web pages where there were a TON of clickable links. You start clicking away, get 10 screens open... and yeah, you forget which is the original site and why the heck you were there in the first place! This one is especially true for Internet marketers. Let me ask you... how many clickable links are on your Web page? Don't send your customers to other places before you've made a sale. Once a prospect heads out for greener pastures, they'll probably never find their way back.

2. Give Them An Unpleasant Surprise You've probably made a purchase, got set to write the check and discovered extra fees that you weren't counting on paying. No one even mentioned them until you were sitting there with pen in hand. Maybe it was that vacation package you've been dreaming about for a while. You're left with a choice... grin and bear it, or walk off without the vacation. Nothing leaves a bad taste in a customer's mouth like last minute add ons to the price they pay. Yeah, sometimes they go ahead and go through with the purchase, but next time they'll think twice before they trust you to give them the real scoop on the price... if they ever return. Be up front! Are you planning to charge shipping? Don't wait until they've already made the purchase. Let them know right up front. When they already know it's part of the deal, they won't have a problem with the fees.

3. Confuse Them Eenie meenie minie moe... Have you ever been there... which item is the better buy and the right one for you? It could be that you walked out without making up your mind, thinking you'd return later. But now for the biggie...Did you make it back? Customers who leave without making the purchase are at high risk for changing their minds about making the purchase at all. That's why it's important to keep the decision as simple as possible. Make it a "yes" or "no" choice and you've effectively guaranteed they walk out with the item in a bag. The marketing place is competitive enough without making things tough on the customer. These three keys to sending customers away, are keys you'll want to watch out for. Don't make the mistake of wiping out your own profits.

3 Secrets to Knocking Out Big Competitors

Nobody likes a bully… especially small business marketers. If you’ve ever felt like the little guy taking punches from a heavyweight champion, you know what I’m talking about. Big business has donned its gloves, and is waiting to put small business down for the count. I’ve got good news! Sometimes the little guy wins. Heck, it isn’t easy and sometimes it’s a close call, but little guys do win and when they do… victory is sweet! What can you do when you’re being threatened by the bully down the street?

1. Take a careful look at the Competition Every business has its strengths and weaknesses. You need to be aware of both… your competitors strong points, and the places where room for improvement is quite obvious.

2. Be Flexible Don’t expect your competitor to broadcast his next move so that you can be prepared to block it. You’ve got to think a step ahead, and be ready to outsmart his next maneuver.

3. Use a little Judo You don’t have to be big and brawny to successfully use Judo. Why? It’s an art that uses your opponent’s momentum to trip him up. So what if you don’t have thousands of dollars to invest in a campaign. When you’re competition has invested his tens of thousands in one, you’ll be able to make a quick about turn and counteract quickly with a smaller campaign of your own. He’ll either forfeit his investment or continue through, but loose steam. I’m going to let you in on a little secret about your competitors that might encourage you. Although big businesses often have a wide variety of products filling their shelves, they often don’t have depth.

Think about it this way. You may run to your local department store and find everything ranging from make-up to camping equipment. The problem with that? …chances are they don’t have an extremely wide assortment of their products. This means that if you’re an avid outdoorsman, you probably wouldn’t be satisfied choosing between two cheap brands of tents when there is an amazing variety on the market. An outdoor related store could get one over on the big department store by offering the widest variety of fewer products in a focused field.

Another asset about being the small guy, is that it’s easier to make a quick turn. Hey, how many managers do you have to get okays from to make a quick decision? Think of the weeks it takes for a local department store to send a request from a customer for a certain product to the regional or national management? Yeah, too long! As a small business, you can have a new product on your shelves within a week. If I were a customer wanting a new tent, I’d prefer to not wait until summer was half over to get it. There are a lot of benefits to being the small guy. Don’t take bullying lying down. You have what it takes to get the best end of the stick and come out a winner.

3 Popular Niche Marketing Misconceptions

Specializing in Niche Markets has never been as crucial as it is today. Long gone are the days when you can target general, broad markets and make money from them. To make money in today's Internet Marketing environment, one must specialize in well defined niche topics. Lets examine a few misconceptions when it comes to niche marketing.

Misconception #1: You do not have to be an expert in the Niche field you choose! Everyone says you should only choose a Niche that you are an expert in...nonsense! The Internet is so impersonal that you can easily appear as an expert and not know anything about that particular niche topic. The key is to appear as an expert. How? You can outsource, build niche sites with no interaction such as blogs, purchase resale rights to an ebook in a particular niche. You see, you can choose to profit from any niche you like.

Misconception #2: Choose one niche market and stick with it. Not true! Once you establish yourself in one niche and develop a profitable system, choose another one and run with it. You can even choose a pen name if you like, it's common practice to do so. Niche marketing is a numbers game. Once you find a profitable niche put it on auto-pilot and choose another niche market to get into.

Misconception #3: The best way to make money in the niche game is to promote niche products as an affiliate. Wrong again! Sure, becoming an affiliate and promoting niche products can be very profitable, but if you are doing this, you're not maximizing your income. You need to promote your own landing or squeeze page where you collect the e-mail address of the visitor, and then sending him or her to the niche product you are promoting. You should also send out an e-mail course with informative information pertaining to that particular niche market to gain the visitors trust. Since your subscriber now trusts you, you can recommend products in that niche again and again, knowing your recommendation holds a lot of weight. Those are three popular misconceptions when it comes to niche marketing. Follow the tips above, and you will be more likely to succeed. Remember, it is important to find a profitable niche, set it up so it is on auto-pilot, then move on to the next niche. Not all niche markets will be a slam dunk, so don't get discouraged. Even if one out of ten become really profitable, sit down and smile, you've hit the jackpot.

2 Sure-Fire Methods Proven To Convert More Customers

If you're a marketer your number one concern is customers. You've probably read and heard a million and one ideas about how to build relationships, retain customers, create a list of potential customers, and inspire consmer loyalty. But the tough question is, "How do I convert prospects into customers?" There are a lot of people out there who see your ads, think about them, and maybe even say, "I ought to..." They're just waiting to be convinced to to do something about it. There is something you can do to get them moving!

1. Improve Your Offer No on can pass up the deal that's "too good to resist." Think about it... how often do your customers want your product, but just want something else a little more? That leaves you with a long list of "almost sales" that have the potential to be converted into real sales and profit. Sweeten the deal. Make the offer so good they can't resist it. Now, I'm in no way suggesting that you drop your prices to sweeten the deal. You can just as easily load it up with bonuses to increase the perceived value without cutting away at your profit. Bonuses motivate sales, maybe even more than cut prices. Don't let them lollygag. Yeah, get them into the store pronto with a deadline. They may have to put a competitors purchase on hold to get your deal, but hey... what's wrong with that?

2. Follow Up How would you like to increase your sales by more than 50 percent? Yeah, it sounds good! There's really a very simple tactic that you can implement... follow ups. Chances are, prospective customers aren't going to buy your product the first time they see or hear about it. Maybe it'll be the third or fourth, but they have to hear from you that third or fourth time before they actually become a customer. Do you have a follow up system in place? Simply contact the "almost customer" every month with a new offer, or give them more information about the product they are showing interest in. It doesn't have to be an intricate process. Keeping the contact there goes a long way toward building trust... the key to finding life-long customers. Internet Marketers experience a high number of customers who browse their site, then click away. You can't follow up without some form of contact information. A great way to gather the info you need is to offer a free ebook or informative report that consumers will find of interest. Once they've given you the information to email them the product, you have what you need to keep in contact, and work on converting them into loyal customers. Personalize as much as possible. If you can get the firstname of your customer... great! Personalized messages have greater appeal than "addressed to occupant" messages.

3 Reasons Why Adsense Is Essential For Content Sites

The concept is really simple, if you think about it. The publisher or the webmaster inserts a java script into a certain website. Each time the page is accessed, the java script will pull advertisements from the Adsense program. The ads that are targeted should therefore be related to the content that is contained on the web page serving the ad. If a visitor clicks on an advertisement, the webmaster serving the ad earns a portion of the money that the advertiser is paying the search engine for the click.


The search engine is the one handling all the tracking and payments, providing an easy way for webmasters to display content-sensitive and targeted ads without having the hassle to solicit advertisers, collect funds, monitor the clicks and statistics which could be a time-consuming task in itself. It seems that there is never a shortage of advertisers in the program from which the search engine pulls the Adsense ads. Also webmasters are less concerned by the lack of information search engines are providing and are more focused in making cash from these search engines.


The first reason why Adsense is essential for content sites is because it already has come a long way in understanding the needs of publishers and webmasters. Together with its continuous progression is the appearance of more advanced system that allows full ad customization. Webmasters are given the chance to choose from many different types of text ad formats to better complement their website and fit their webpage layout.


The different formatting enables the site owners the possibility of more click through from visitors who may or may not be aware of what they are clicking on. It can also appeal to the people visiting thus make them take that next step of looking up what it is all about. This way the people behind the Adsense will get their content read and making profit in the process.


The second reason is the ability of the Adsense publishers to track not only how their sites are progressing but also the earnings based on the webmaster-defined channels. The recent improvements in the search engines gives webmasters the capability to monitor how their ads are performing using customizable reports that has the capacity to detail page impressions, clicks and click-through rates. Webmasters and publishers can now track specific ad formats, colours and pages within a website. Trends are also easily spotted.


With the real-time reporting at hand, the effectiveness of the changes made will be assessed quickly. There would be time to sort out the contents that people are making the most clicks on. The ever-changing demands would be met while generating cash for the webmasters and publishers. The more flexible tools are also allowing webmasters to group web pages by URL, domain, ad type or category, which will provide them some accurate insight on which pages, ads and domains are performing best.


The last and final reason is that the advertisers have realized the benefits associated having their ads served on targeted websites. Thus increasing the possibility that a prospective web surfer will have an interest in their product and services. All because of the content and its constant maintenance. As opposed to those who are no using Adsense in their sites, they are given the option of having other people do their content for them, giving them the benefit of having successful and money-generating web sites.


Adsense is all about targeted content, the more targeted your content is, the more target the search engines’ ads will be. There are some web masters and publishers who are focused more on their site contents and how best to maintain them rather than the cash that the ads will generate for them. This is the part where the effectiveness is working its best.


There was a time when people were not yet aware of the money to be achieved from advertisements. The cash generated only came into existence when the webmasters and publishers realized how they can make Adsense be that generator. In those days, the content were the most important factors that is taken quite seriously. It still is. With the allure of money, of course.

3 High-Impact Fixes For Your Marketing Woes

How many times has your competitor gotten one over on you? The feeling of being left behind just eats away, until you do something about. The problem is that we often feel that we've got to come up with some grand plan in order to get our business skyrocketing again. Don't be fooled! Getting back on top of the market isn't as tough as it seems with these high-impact, easy-to-use fixes. 1. The Magic Number - 1 Implement a "advertise 1 item at a time" motto for your advertising strategy. Does that mean you can't SELL more than one item at a time? No... but wait until AFTER the sale. When a customer sees more than one of a product offered at unbelievably low prices, he's confused. Which one is the better deal? Which one does he prefer? These questions encourage procrastination - one of marketing's greatest thieves. Instead, offer the consumer a product that compliments his purchase in a nearby display... or even at the register. You'll make extra profits instead of losing a sale. 2. Outsmart Your Competitors Your competition is looking for you in all of the usual places. Don't go there. Quietly look for new methods of advertising and new markets to target. Niche markets provide the perfect sneak tactic for reaching new clients. Here's they key... sub-divide your current market into smaller, more specific niche markets. Familiarize yourself with the needs and concerns of the niche, then present yourself as the pro in their corner. Leave your competition in the dust with the intensity of new prospects that will come your way. Modernize an old marketing technique that still carries a wallop - postcards. Yeah, these small, inexpensive marketing tools still carry a personal message that is quick and easy to read, but with new high-impact colors and designs that capture the attention of readers. Your competition won't even know that you're using them! 3. Encourage Communication Communication is crucial to understanding your consumers. Encourage questions before the sale, during the sale and after the sale. Make it easy and comfortable. Provide convenient contact information on all of your sales materials, including Websites. If you find yourself overloaded with questions, create a frequently asked question page where clients can get the answers they need without claiming as much of your time. Confused customers, tough competitors and communication mishaps won't steal profits from your account when you fix things up with the 3 quick tips.

3 Reasons Why The Copy You Hate Will Bring Profits You Love

Every copywriter's nightmare. We write beautiful copy for a client, who takes one look and says, "You can't be serious! This is too sales-y...or too simple...or too different..." And I'm reminded of the days, many years ago, when I volunteered as a Pet Adoption Counselor with the San Francisco SPCA. Looking back, I must have been training for what I do now. I had lots of enthusiasm. People often teased, “You’re selling cats!” Sure enough, many visitors went up with a crate holding a furry bundle of joy. Our Volunteer Coordinator kept reminding us, “Don’t judge the visitors. You’re not going home with this person. The adopter who drives you crazy may be the best thing that ever happened to a dog.” True. And copy works the same way. We don’t judge our friends the way their dogs and cats do. And we don’t read our copy like our own customers. I tell my own clients, “You may not like this copy. But you’re not the target market, even if you think you resemble your clients.” Here are 3 reasons why. 1. Customers live on a different planet. If you hang around the Internet, you develop a unique lifestyle. For instance, some of my best friends are people I’ve never met. We exchange emails and phone calls for years. My favorite web designer is an American living in Brazil. And you hear the same promises over and over. “Bring traffic to your website.” “Attract all the clients you can handle.” But if you’re targeting ordinary people (i.e., those who have actually met their best friends in person), many of our ho-hum phrases will seem fresh and exciting. “Hype-free marketing? I like that,” purred an earth-dwelling prospect recently. “That’s a whole new way of looking at marketing.” Your world may not be the Internet. Maybe you live fitness, coaching, cooking, or finance. But chances are your familiar phrases will seem fresh and exciting to your target market. 2. Customers want to be sold. They know you’re not putting up websites and creating brochures so you’ll feel good and collect gold stars for your Permanent Records. And if they want your service, they’re looking for reasons to say “yes.” Think of all those Madison Avenue ads with the theme, “You deserve it.” Or, “You’re worth it.” They’re giving us permission to spend our money. As long as you’re tasteful and – drum roll – meeting their real needs, your customers will actually appreciate learning about what you offer. Recently I was pitching my services to “Frank,” a prospective client who sells fitness services. Hesitantly, I referred him to a website I’d written for “Tom” – a financial professional who was terrified we were selling way too hard. Frank was impressed. “This isn’t the least bit pushy. It’s so warm and friendly! Tom sounds like such a nice guy.” We’re still talking. But when Frank sees his own fitness site, I bet he says, “Um – do you think we’re selling too hard?” 3. Customers don’t want to stop and think. Some words and phrases slow us down. For some good examples, pick up your college textbooks and maybe a couple of academic journals. You’ll see words like “moreover,” “counterintuitive,” “although,” and more. (I know. I wrote many.) How did you read your college textbooks? I bet you read slowly, made marginal notes and hung on tight to your yellow highlighter pen. Alas, website visitors don’t study our copy the same way. We have to help them create highlights and move along fast. Which gets read more: (a) “Although you can work very hard, you may not see results for a long time.” (b) “But you can work really hard and wait forever for results.” Bottom Line: Expect surprises when you unveil your copy to your clients, especially if you’re new to marketing yourself and your own products. When I first wrote the title Your 21-Day Extreme Career Makeover, I cringed: Was my site becoming the virtual equivalent of a used car lot? But my target market – professionals and senior executives – started buying. And the rest, as they say, is history