JR's Marketing Insights

OK, it’s been over a month since I last wrote about my progress, and I think it’s a good time for an update.

I feel I’m continuing to make good progress, although perhaps a little slower than I was hoping for. There are a number of things I am happy about, but there are certainly things I can be doing better.

I have built my mailing list to 321 people

The majority of this growth has been from giveaway sites, which I have continued to participate in. I have also put all of my free products on a page in this blog, which has generated some sign-ups, and my Twitter messages have also sent a decent amount of traffic. I have participated in one Ad Swap so far, with my fellow Alex Jeffreys student David Walker. That appears to have been a great success, as I had at least double the number of sign-ups on the day of the ad swap over the usual daily numbers.

Incidentally, the email that I sent to my list for David was to promote his ebook, Stop Slogging Start Blogging. The unintended consequence of promoting his product to my list is that I read his ebook in order to write the email copy, and I learned a few things myself! This isn’t part of any ad swap, but I highly recommend everyone check out his ebook here: http://www.stopsloggingstartblogging.com/.

I have 5,943 Twitter Followers
This is in large part thanks to the Tweet Elite Pro software that I reviewed here. I have had a great time interacting with everyone on Twitter, and there is a noticeable surge of traffic every time I tweet about a page on my blog or one of my free products. I think I’m only just getting started on Twitter, and I hope to use it a great deal more in the coming months.

I have built this blog to an average of 20 visitors/day

Again, not a particularly impressive stat, but it’s double the number of visitors I had a month ago. If I can keep up that kind of growth, I think I can get to a respectable number of visitors fairly quickly.

I finished my first product

I’m particularly proud of this one. Productivity Power Plan has been released! I’m getting tons of great feedback about the book, and I have been encouraged to expand upon it into some additional great productivity materials. I’ll have more about this in a few weeks, but I hope I can continue to provide valuable productivity advice. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, there is a link on the right-hand side of the page at the top, or under the Free Products link.

I haven’t made any money yet
I have made $51.84 this month!

I have made two sales from the One Time Offer behind my free Twitter ebook, which is for a product I have Master Resale Rights to that I’m selling for $27. After PayPal fees that works out to $25.92 per sale. Again, I’m not quite ready to retire, but considering I’ve never made a cent from Internet Marketing prior to this, I think it’s a great start!

I’m getting more comments on my blog posts

I’m assuming this is due to increased traffic, but I’m seeing a few more comments on each of my blog posts. It’s still not quite where I’d like to be, but progress is a good thing.

The thing I feel I need to improve on is the frequency of my blog posts. For the first month, I was posting just about every day. Now I’ve dropped down to once or twice a week. I’m not looking to inundate you with a ridiculous amount of blog posts, and I’d rather have a few quality posts rather than a ton of junk. I do feel I can probably post closer to three times per week and still maintain the quality.

The other area I want to increase my efforts is in my videos. I have only created two so far, one a tutorial and the other a product review. I would like to do many more of each of these. I’m going to focus mostly on the tutorials because I have received more positive feedback on them, so I think they are what you want to see. Let me know in the comments if you feel differently.

Overall, I think things are going well. It’s slow going, which can be frustrating at times, but at least I’m moving in the right direction finally!

I’m not sure if these channels are available in other countries, but in the US, there are two big shopping channels, QVC and Home Shopping Network (or HSN). They are basically a series of advertisements or infomercials for the various companies they partner with to sell their products, fit into half hour time slots. While I am aware of them, I have never really watched them before. Until recently, that is.

My wife Jamie is, to put it mildly, very enthusiastic about the Christmas season. Truth be told, she is CRAZY about Christmas. So when she found out that QVC runs an annual “Christmas in July” weekend where they sell all kinds of products related to Christmas, of course the TV was tuned into QVC for 48 hours straight! On the plus side, where are almost done with our Christmas shopping for the year. On the down side, it was a rather costly television session!

While Jamie was watching QVC, I was doing my best to ignore it, thinking that there was nothing I would be interested in. While I was right about the products (although some of the ornaments were rather nice), I should have paid more attention for a different reason. I didn’t realize it until QVC did another Christmas special yesterday. Was it supposed to be “Christmas in August?” I’m not exactly sure. “Christmas in July” sounds more catchy to me. But I digress.

I should have paid closer attention, not because I wanted to buy something, but because I learned something from the way they sell their products. You might think there is not much to selling products on a channel that is explicitly devoted to selling stuff, but you’d be mistaken. While it’s true that most people who tune in are looking to buy something, there is no guarantee they will be convinced to buy what you are selling at that particular moment. So there has to be some method to the way they are talking about the products.

I found the following techniques that I believe can be useful in Internet Marketing:

Product Demonstrations
Every product was shown working, being set up, or being played with. Whether it was a set of Christmas lights, a remote control car, or a music box, everything was shown in use, rather than just sitting in a box. I think this is one of the advantages of TV, in that you can show something in motion rather than just a static image or text. I believe this is why video is becoming such a powerful tool in internet marketing.

Customer Testimonials
Interspersed throughout the program were calls from previous customers. These were not long conversations, but for about 30 seconds each, the sales person would ask callers which product they bought and why, what they liked about it, and who they were buying it for. Social proof goes a long way, so getting people who are so enthusiastic about the product that they are willing to help sell it sends a strong message. I also think some people will say anything to get their voices heard on TV, but that’s just me being cynical. Similarly, testimonials on squeeze pages and comments on blog posts provide a little bit of verification that there is value in whatever you are selling or saying.

Personalize the Message
Every sales person on the show had an example of a friend or relative that had found this product so useful, or had been so happy to receive it as a gift. Aside from the testimonials mentioned above, this was a way to get customers to see themselves using the product. I think this is one of the strongest strategies used by the sales people on QVC. If you can get the customer to identify with the scenario you are presenting, then they will of course want the same feeling of satisfaction you are telling them about.

Sense of Urgency
For every product, there were only “limited quantities” available. In some cases this was a few hundred items, in others it was a few thousand. Throughout the broadcast, these numbers were continually updated, to give the viewer the sense that if they didn’t order RIGHT NOW, there would be none left. Occasionally, the products would become sold out, and viewers would be told that they could still order to be placed on a wait list, and “hopefully” they would be able to purchase their item once more came in stock. I’m not sure that the quantities were truly as limited as they claimed, because fairly often a few more would become available an hour or two later. Either way, the fear of missing out on your only chance to get that great deal can be a powerful motivator.

Discounts and Bundles
Almost every product had a retail price with a discounted price below it. Also, in many cases products were combined into a bundle with complimentary products or accessories. The idea of receiving more value for your money makes it easier to rationalize the purchase. I think this is why so many squeeze pages have a suggested value for a product, even if it is being given away for free. Also, the use of bonuses to help sell affiliate products is a common practice that seems to work well.

Believe me, I was as surprised as you probably are to get so much out of a shopping channel. I think I can find a few more tidbits by watching a bit more closely, but for now, I think these concepts will be a benefit to anyone trying their hand at Internet Marketing.

This blog has been in existence for just under 3 weeks at this point, and this seems to be a good time to write a post about my progress.  The intention of this blog is to detail what I am learning during Alex Jeffreys’ coaching program, and to chronicle my successes and failures along the way.

So far I think I have made fairly good progress, although I think I need to ramp up my efforts in certain areas.  First, the good:

I have built my mailing list from 0 to 83 people

Using mainly giveaway sites, I have offered free products to people in exchange for their contact information.  I have participated in four giveaways so far, and they work extremely well.  I have noticed that the first day a giveaway opens is usually the strongest; some have provided me with 20 signups on a single day.  I will try to increase this by learning to write better add copy for my free product listings.

I have built this blog to an average of 10 visitors/day

Not a particularly impressive stat, perhaps, but considering I had no blog and no traffic a few weeks ago, it’s still a good start.  This was accomplished mainly through posting on forums and commenting on blog posts.  I really need to increase my efforts in this area.

I’m finishing my first product

I should be releasing my first information product within the next few days.  I have been motivated by the creations of my fellow coaching students to put some serious effort into this area!  I have ideas for about four other products, but I will have to pick one or two to start with in order to stay focused and productive.

Now to the not so good:

I haven’t made any money yet

This is perhaps a little disappointing, but I’m only just getting started.  I’m laying the groundwork for success in everything I do, so it’s only a matter of time.  I may have to revise some of my strategies to improve my results.  For example, to date I haven’t used affiliate links on my blog at all, even where it would make sense to do so, for example when discussing tools that I use.  I agree with Matt Wolfe’s post here (also the inspiration for this post, by the way) that the proper way to go is to only link to products I can personally vouch for.  I may make this change going forward.

I’m not getting many comments on my blog posts

I can attribute this to two main problems, my style of posting and the amount of traffic reaching my blog.  Most of my posts have been sort of bland, “this is how I do what I do” sort of writing, that may not be terribly engaging for the reader.  My mentor suggests that blog posts need to be more personal, and perhaps less formal.  I’m working on this (wait for my next post).  As for traffic, with only 10 visitors per day I’m not having many people show up to comment in the first place.  As I improve my traffic, this should improve as well.

I hope this post doesn’t sound overly negative, because I really am encouraged by my results so far.  I think with a little more focused effort I could really improve the areas I have identified and ultimately achieve the results I am looking for.  The ball is in my hands, and all I have to do is run with it!

Since I kind of jumped into this blog headfirst, I haven’t really taken the time to stop and explain who I am and what I’m trying to accomplish with this blog.  I haven’t even gotten a respectable “About Me” page up yet, for which I apologize.  So consider this my introductory post, only about 2 weeks late.

My name is JR Biasi, as I’m sure you realize by now.  I’m 29 years old, and I’m a fairly successful IT consultant.  I mainly work as a contractor, which in my case means I take short term contracts with large companies to work on the security of their networks.  The money is decent, but there is considerable downtime between contracts which can be pretty stressful.

I’ve been married for over 7 years, and I have three daughters, ages 6, 3, and 3 months.  We’re all from Long Island, NY (except the baby, technically; you’ll see why in a second), and we moved to south Florida about 8 months ago (that’s why).  We’re enjoying the weather and the people, although we still have a house up in NY that we’re renting since we can’t seem to sell it in this market.

So both my job situation and my housing situation caused me to seek out other methods of earning an income, which led me to internet marketing.  I’ve been trying to get somewhere for a while now without much luck.  I’ve purchased some products, learned a lot, but I haven’t really broken through to the point where I’ve made any real money to brag about.

My frustration with my lack of progress led me to join Alex Jeffreys’ coaching program.  I really liked how “hype-free” he was, and that he really seemed genuinely interested in helping others learn the ropes.  The coaching program started at the beginning of this month, and I must say that it has completely exceeded my expectations.  Not only is Alex the genuine article when it comes to his claims, but the group of students involved in the coaching are also so willing to help each other out and provide support that I’m blown away by the whole program.  I really believe we will be able to succeed with the help of this program, and I think it was the best decision I could have made for my own success.

I have to admit; I was extremely inspired and impressed by the first coaching call Alex Jeffreys put on last night for his students. It was originally slated to go for 2 hours; it ended up lasting for almost 5 hours!

There was a lot of valuable information provided during that call. I can’t wait for the recording to be posted so I can comb through it again! I think this coaching program may be the best investment I have made in my business so far.

If you didn’t get into the coaching program this time, keep an eye on Alex’s site and hope he opens it up again in the future!

So, time to get started!

I’m about to begin my journey into internet marketing success, at least I hope so!  I am starting this blog at the behest of Alex Jeffreys, as I have joined his coaching program.  As I progress towards success, I will share here anything I can that will help others achieve success as well.

I have been attempting to make money online for quite a while now – at least 3 years on and off.  Unfortunately I have not gotten anywhere, and I think that having a mentor like Alex will help me break through that roadblock on the way to my first sale!

Please subscribe via RSS, follow me on twitter, and comment with any questions you may have.

Here’s to internet success!