Tim Gross: Internet Business Blog

My Free Sales Letter Generator Is New And Improved

Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:23:32 +0000

A lot of people take advantage of my free sales letter generator, and I’m glad they do… You just follow the recommended steps for each block of text using my examples, click the button, and you’ve got a complete sales letter guaranteed to include the proven, most effective elements needed to increase response.

I just improved the output page formatting, so it’s ready for you to copy & paste into your own sales page. Not only does it force you to follow the basic steps of a good sales letter, but it’s great for overcoming writer’s block, because instead of staring at a blank page, you’re just editing each individual element.

By following the simple steps, you’ll wind up with a superior sales letter almost automatically, and it only takes roughly 20 minutes. Need a better sales letter? Click here to try it now, I think you’ll be pleased.

About Tim Gross
Tim Gross is an online marketing consultant, direct response copywriter, author, and video training developer. For the latest free training videos, free advice, and additional resources, subscribe now at http://InternetMarketingCourse.com or at his blog http://TimGross.com

Best Free Traffic Training Ever?

Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 20:29:53 +0000

Jonathan Mizel and I have a brand-new traffic course called Traffic Interceptor, and we’ve got a couple of hours of free videos you can watch… We haven’t even put up the 3rd video yet, and already people are saying they’ve gotten more valuable info than from other courses they’ve paid big bucks for.

Check it out for yourself and see, you’ll be glad you did. (The videos are only up for a limited time, so don’t delay.)

Don’t “Spam” Your Own Customers

Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:40:12 +0000

I received what looked like a typical spam email today, it even had the words “work at home” in the return email address URL. I normally wouldn’t bother, but I did a search in my inbox for the sender’s name, and surprise surprise… I had purchased a software script from his company a couple months ago.

The software was quite good, but I wouldn’t remember the seller’s name if my life depended on it. And that’s why in my opinion he’s making such a big (and incredibly common) mistake in sending out his newsletter updates.

Back in the olden days of the Internet (10 years ago, when you’d lose your connection if the hamsters got tired) overzealous spam filters would punish you for having any “subscription / why you’re receiving this” language in your emails, so some people removed them.

I didn’t and never have… I’d rather have a few emails get blocked than to have people not remember subscribing. If you’re on any of my subscriber lists, at the top of every email is something like this:

{!firstname}, You sub-scribed on {!signdate ss}) when you you either purchased a product from me or subscribed for video training. If you no longer want updates, just click the link at the bottom of this email.

I highly recommend using similar language if you have subscribers you email. Why would you want your recipients to misidentify your (hopefully valuable) communication that they requested as unwanted spam?!

For specific product lists, my “you’re receiving this because…” message is even more specific, listing the specific product or website they purchased from.

(Oh and by the way, if you’re reading this and are NOT subscribed to my free online newsletter, well that’s just crazy… You’ll get instant access to over 6 hours of valuable video training as well as other bonuses. You can subscribe right now at: http://www.InternetMarketingCourse.com )

Anyway… Remind people who you are. For instance, I’m the guy who’s been running online businesses since 1994 and goes in spurts of creating really helpful marketing training for his subscribers and readers mixed with disappearing for months at a time when he’s working on other things that grab his interest, heh.

How To Create Successful Banners (With Before/After Examples)

Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 16:26:55 +0000

I’ve done a lot of banner advertising, and there are some very simple ways to increase your click through rate and the success of your banners.

I’ve actually taken a bunch of banners and re-worked them to show what I would do to improve their effectiveness. The actual critiques start at the 2-minute mark:

In the above examples I’m dealing with some very small banners, 234×60 pixels, which is the size allowed in signature files on the Warrior Forum, but the same ideas and techniques apply to all other banners as well.

If you have any questions or comments about it, let me know.
-Tim

Future Of Display Advertising (According To Google)

Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:17:19 +0000

Google made predictions about what the future of display advertising will be like in 2015. What with them being SkyNet and all, I figure we should take their predictions seriously.

Anyone involved in direct response marketing should be very wary of this statement:

Today, the “click” is the most important way that advertisers measure their display ad campaigns, but it’s not always the best measure especially if an ad campaign is designed to boost things like brand awareness or recall. With new measurement technologies emerging, in five years, there will be five metrics that advertisers commonly regard as more important than the click.

With that said, I’ll be curious to see what their magical five metrics will be.

To me, the most interesting development for video ad formats they’re rolling out with is:

We demonstrated some new video ad formats we’ve been testing on YouTube that we’re calling “TrueView”. These will roll out later this year. These ad formats give people the option to skip an ad if they don’t want to watch, or to choose from multiple ads the one they want to watch. Importantly, advertisers only pay if the user chooses to watch their ad.

I’ve had ongoing success in the past with “forced choice” banner ads, where a user has to choose between certain banners to click on in order to access whatever it is they want. There are tricks to it, and I’ll be watching these developments very closely.

Ethics & Legalities Of Being An Affiliate Marketer

Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 20:24:33 +0000

There have been multiple forum threads lately about people believing it’s OK to copy (steal) a vendor’s squeeze page without asking for permission and put it on their affiliate site to build their own list to promote the vendor’s product.

The belief seems to be that since they know a couple of vendors that wouldn’t care if they did that, somehow they extrapolate that to believe that ALL vendors/merchants are OK with that.

It’s a fallacious argument. The truth is, it’s both unethical AND illegal to do that. Let’s look at why:

Simply put, the vendor’s promotional materials are copyrighted, and just because you’re an affiliate doesn’t give you permission to use anything they don’t give you permission to use. Case closed.

Here’s just some of the ways a vendor could be damaged by affiliates who do this:

Subscribers to the affiliate squeeze page (which looks just like the vendor’s own squeeze page because it was taken verbatim, including the logo, etc) could be mislead into subscribing to a list they don’t want to be on. That’s deceptive.

Continuing on, the affiliate could choose to promote the vendor’s offer through followup emails that are hypey or misrepresent the product offered. It’s nothing new for affiliates to over-hype an offer, but subscribers could mistakenly attribute the hype to be coming from the vendor, not the affiliate.

The affiliate could promote competing products to their list that was built through using the vendor’s squeeze page. In other words, the affiliate is leveraging the vendor’s creatives to build a list they promote other products for other than the vendor.

The squeeze page that was copied could have a “test headline” that the vendor quickly decided wasn’t appropriate. For instance, maybe a weight loss vendor did a quick test of “Lose 10 Pounds In 7 Days Guaranteed” as the squeeze page headline, only to learn that it breaks the FTC advertising guidelines regarding specific results claims.

Even if the vendor quickly changes their headline to be in compliance, if rogue affiliates copied that potentially illegal headline and continued to use it while representing themselves to BE the vendor, the vendor could come under scrutiny of the FTC due to the affiliate’s use of their squeeze page headline.

Those examples just scratch the surface of all the reasons why it’s damaging to the vendor for affiliates to use/steal their content without permission.

Most vendors provide an affiliate tools section for affiliates, giving them banners, text links, headlines, and ad creatives for them to use. That’s what the tools section is for: To tell affiliates what they CAN use.

Affiliate marketing covers an enormous amount of ground. Someone who is primarily a Clickbank affiliate may get the impression that vendors in general don’t care too much about how a sale is made as long as they make money.

On the flipside, an affiliate network like Commission Junction has merchants that explicitly state all the many ways that affiliates are not allowed to promote them.

Some people try to weasel away from the issue by saying, “I always think it’s better to ask for forgiveness rather than ask permission” News Flash: When it comes to copyright theft, that’s a terrible idea. You can get sued for doing it ONCE, and it doesn’t matter what your stated intentions are.

If you don’t believe, me, Google this phrase: sued for using without permission

On a final note, I learned my lesson about not doing something that “everyone else is doing so it must be OK” in High School. Parking was full at my local beach, but there were about 100 cars all parked on the road leading to the beach that had “no parking” signs on it.

I figured… Well, if there’s 100 other cars doing it, it must be OK.

When I walked back to my car a few hours later, every single car on the road had a parking ticket on it, including mine. Lesson learned.

When it comes to online business regarding copyrights and trademarks, the rules ARE posted, and it’s your job to find them and understand them. Saying, “I didn’t know” after you use copyrighted material (whether it’s text, images, whatever) doesn’t get you un-sued.

My Recommended Video Production Tools

Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 23:07:14 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot of video product stuff lately and have gotten multiple questions about what gear (camcorders, mics) I use and what software programs I use to edit, so I’m going to list what I use and recommend.

Camcorders

I’ve just upgraded to the Canon HF S100 for HD video:
Canon VIXIA HF S100 HD Flash Memory Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom

Here’s what I like about it:

Tapeless, so I don’t have to capture video from tape to computer, which always seems like a hassle.
Also, with my last video camera the tape created a “buzz” sound that got picked up by the internal audio which was annoying.Â Since this is tapeless, there’s no tape buzz noise.
Very high-def HD at maximum settings. I’ve got a good video-editing computer to handle these large files.Â For slower computers, it can take awhile to work with large video files.

Keep in mind expense-wise that if you get a flash memory-based camcorder like that you’re either going to need to get a 16 GB Flash Memory Card minimum (around $40) or a 32 GB Flash Memory Card (around $90) as well as the camcorder.

If you’d rather use a camcorder that uses tapes, I recommend:
Canon VIXIA HV40 HD HDV Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom

I was using the older version (HV20) until it broke recently. If it hadn’t broken, I’d still be using it.Â Benefits of the HV40:

It records to tape, and tape is cheap to archive (ie, store the full tape and you’ve always got a backup)
Video isn’t compressed like it is with flash drives. Some people think the video quality is slightly higher.

One thing to be aware of:Â With the above 2 camcorders, they’re recording in HD and you can’t just burn them to DVD, you need to use software to convert them to the smaller DVD format.Â That’s fine when I’m using it to create my training videos and I want to have the highest quality possible.

However, if I’m recording family events or personal stuff, recording in HD is too much trouble.Â Non-HD camcorders still do a very nice quality job.Â For a non-HD (tapeless) camcorder, I recommend:
Sony DCR-SR45 30GB Hard Drive Handycam Camcorder with 40x Optical Zoom

The file sizes are much smaller
Records in standard 720×480 so it’s easier to burn to DVD
Easier to edit video on slower computers

Microphones For Camcorders

Built-in microphones for camcorders are OK, but they’re not great.Â If you have one of the above Canon Camcorders, the easiest upgrade is to get
Rode VideoMic Directional Shotgun Mic w/Mount

…It’s just a mic that mounts on the top of your video camera, and it significantly improves audio quality.

Good for recording multiple people talking
Improves audio quality and comes with a direct attachment so you don’t need any other hardware to mount it on your video camera.

When I’m recording myself speaking into the camera, I use a “Lavalier Mic”, those are the little lapel clip-on mics that you see people wearing on talk shows.Â I spent a lot of time checking out the audio quality versus price of different lavalier mics, and I decided on:
Audio-Technica AT899 – Wireless microphone

It does a really nice job, very impressive.Â You need a microphone XLR-to-3.5mm adapter if you want to connect it to the lavalier mic to your camcorder, just a little adapter like this:
3.5mm (M) – XLR(F), (wired for stereo mics.), 1 ft.

Video Editing Software

I’ve always stuck with the Sony Vegas software for video editing, I’ve found it much easier to learn and more intuitive than Adobe Premiere and other products.Â I went all-out and bought the full video editing package last year:
Sony Vegas Pro 9 Professional Video, Audio and Blu-ray Disc Creation Software for Windows – Slip Sleeve Version

However, it is a little pricey.Â There’s a simpler version that I also purchased first (I own version 8, it’s virtually the same), it limits the number of audio and video tracks you can add to your products, but in practicality you don’t usually need more tracks than it provides anyway.

Considering it only costs about 25% of the above pro version, it’s an extremely good bargain:Â Â Â Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Pro Pack

If you’re trying to make decisions on video production gear and software, I hope the above recommendations are helpful. The above products have worked very well for me, and I spent a lot of time researching each of them before I purchased.

P.S. -Be very cautious about buying electronics from websites with crazy-low prices that you’ll find listed in those “shopper/comparison” type websites.Â Those comparison-type sites will show 5-star or 4-star ratings for questionable companies because they make commisions when you buy, but if you want accurate feedback on websites selling electronics gear check somewhere like reseller ratings.

Why You Should Create Banners Even If You Don’t Use Banners

Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:42:06 +0000

I’m diving in to creating the sales process for one of my projects, and I wanted to point out something important:

I’m creating banners for it first, before I even write the sales letter.

-I recommend that you do the same, even if you don’t do banner advertising. Here’s why:

A banner ad basically functions as a classified ad, and a classified ad basically functions as a headline. If you want to find out if your current headline is as good as it can be, take it and put it on a banner with nothing else but a “click here” button, and see if it works.

If your headline can’t pass the “banner” test, I recommend you try testing out other banners. Can you fit something into this banner box that is compelling enough to get the right people to click on it? If not, go back to the drawing board!

In fact, I recommend that you try creating headlines/banners/classified ads while you’re still in the product creation process, because it helps you figure out whether you’re creating a product that has an angle/hook that will work.

If you’re creating a product and you can’t think of anything interesting or compelling enough to fit in that box, you may want to consider some new angle or approach to your product that DOES allow you to promote it better.

Think about it: If you can’t create a compelling banner, you can’t really create a short, compelling email either. And if you can’t either of those things, how are you going to get people to view your sales letter??

I was looking at a kid’s maze today, you know, the circular paths that you draw your pen from the outside to the “winner’s circle” in the middle, while avoiding the dead-end paths along the way…

It actually was pretty hard, and I realized that starting from the middle “winner’s circle” and finding your path OUT to the beginning was a lot easier.

Creating banners and ad creatives first is like doing that.

How To Enter A Crowded Niche? Micro-niche

Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:20:56 +0000

Experts often advise newbies to stay out of very crowded niches starting out. Niches like:

Make money online
How to lose weight

Why? -Because it’s hard to compete against the “big dogs” who have more experience, more impressive testimonials, better case studies, etc.

My best advice for anyone trying to enter a very crowded niche is to NOT create a general “cover it all” product. Your best bet is to focus on a micro-niche within that niche. Just focus on one sub-topic, one specific method, and do it well.

By doing that you have a much better chance of standing out and separating yourself, as opposed to just being a watered-down version of something that someone else has already done better.

Ethics And Legalities In Marketing: An Important Discussion

Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:09:14 +0000

There’s a great quote by Zig Ziegler that always stuck with me: “Timid salesman have skinny kids”.

In marketing forums I constantly see people asking whether specific marketing techniques are unethical or illegal. In most cases, something is unethical or illegal based on how the tactic is used, not the tactic itself.

This is going to be a pretty advanced discussion, so we need to define our terms before getting started. Understanding these distinctions is very important, because a lot of marketers are limiting their results out of fear.

Here are my working definitions for the following terms in relation to business:

Unethical/Immoral: Being misleading or doing harm for personal benefit. (Note: There’s a difference between “unethical” and “immoral”, but I’m lumping them together for this discussion unless I state otherwise.

Illegal: Against the law

Against T.O.S. (Terms Of Service): While not necessarily illegal or unethical going against the terms of service of a specific website or company

Polite: How cordial and well you treat others

Aggression Level: How in-your-face (or timid) you are

Before I start giving business examples, lets look at a few real-world examples:

Cheating on your spouse is unethical/immoral, but not illegal
Driving safely over the speed limit is illegal but not unethical/immoral
Talking loudly in a library is not illegal or immoral, it’s just against the library’s T.O.S. (you’re supposed to be quiet, they might ask you to leave)
Being rude to someone isn’t illegal and usually isn’t unethical, it’s just not polite.
Respectfully and nicely asking for donations to a worthy charity multiple times to the same person isn’t illegal, unethical, or impolite, it’s just aggressive.

These are very important distinctions, and here’s the most important for you to understand as a marketer: You can be aggressive with your marketing tactics and still operate legally, ethically, and morally.

Using fake testimonials: Unethical and illegal
Using real testimonials but not complying with the new strict FTC guidelines: Not unethical, but illegal
Saying you’re limiting the sale of a PLR (Private Label Rights) products to 100, but then continuing to sell more: Unethical and illegal
Saying you’re limiting the sale of a PLR product to 100 and refusing to sell any more after 100: Ethical and legal
Arbitrarily limiting the number of a certain product you will sell, using the artificial limit as a “scarcity technique”: Ethical and legal, as long as you do what you say… And yes, that applies to digital/downloadable products too, not just physical inventory. To repeat: There’s nothing illegal or unethical about choosing to limit how much of a product you sell.

Understanding these definitions will be very important as I begin introducing more advanced concepts in the weeks ahead.

How To Create A Signature Font Graphic

Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:44:22 +0000

Here’s a step by step video:

Hope that helps.

Google Promoting ITSELF As A “Work From Home” Method

Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:05:00 +0000

This surprised me enough to take a screen shot of it…

You probably know there are a lot of Biz Opps pitched as a way to “make money at home with Google Adwords”.

Well, apparently Google wants in on the action.

Here’s a screenshot of an actual search result done today:

To make sure it wasn’t a fluke, I did the same search again but in a different browser, and here was the top Adwords result:

But still, “Earn Money Using Google” as opposed to “Advertise Your Business Using Google?” I actually find this a little depressing. It adds credence to the joke that sometimes it feels like the Internet is one big biz-opp. Granted, I understand that Google is trying to match their results to the search terms, for instance:

…But still, REALLY?

“Work From Home W/Google, Advertise online while working from home on Google Adwords -Sign up www.Google.com/Adwords”

Sounds like a biz-opp to me… Your thoughts?

Tim Gross: Internet Business Blog

My Free Sales Letter Generator Is New And Improved

More Articles

Best Free Traffic Training Ever?

More Articles

Don’t “Spam” Your Own Customers

More Articles

How To Create Successful Banners (With Before/After Examples)

More Articles

Future Of Display Advertising (According To Google)

More Articles

Ethics & Legalities Of Being An Affiliate Marketer

More Articles

My Recommended Video Production Tools

Camcorders

Microphones For Camcorders

Video Editing Software

More Articles

Why You Should Create Banners Even If You Don’t Use Banners

More Articles

How To Enter A Crowded Niche? Micro-niche

More Articles

Ethics And Legalities In Marketing: An Important Discussion

More Articles

How To Create A Signature Font Graphic

More Articles

Google Promoting ITSELF As A “Work From Home” Method