Answer To “How Much Money Can I Expect From My List?”

By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog |

With the generic way that question is asked, the real answer is, “There’s no way of knowing.”

It’s like asking, “If I were to run an ad in a magazine, how much money could I expect to make?”

What ad? What magazine? How big of an ad?

Lets look at just some of the variables…

You could build a list:

…and many other variations

Did the subscribers opt in for your niche, or did they opt in to be entered into a lotto drawing?

In addition to the list variables, there’s what you’re selling.

Then there’s the offers you’re making them:

-Are you trying to promote a product through an unproven sales letter that you wrote yourself?
-Are you promoting an affiliate product that’s already been promoted by everyone with a similar list 10 times?

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Here’s why it’s so dangerous to make unproven assumptions about the value of the list you’re building:

If you took the suggestion at face value that the worst thing that could happen from building your list was to make $.25-$.50 a month per name, you might happily run off and blow thousands of dollars building that list, figuring you only have to wait 2 to 3 months for the initial investment you made in building the list to break even.

“After that, it’s all profit, baby!” you say as you chortle greedily…

…Three months later, it’s possible that you won’t have made back a dime. Or, maybe you’ve made a killing!

But there’s too many variables to make blanket statements. Start building a list, find out for yourself what it’s worth, and proceed from there.

Topics: Marketing | Add A Comment » Trackback URL

What Simple Info-Products Are Really All About

By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog |

Selling information is a wide field. It includes books, videos, seminars, home study courses, and more.  It can be a great business, because you do the work once (create the product) and continue to make money from it over and over with little effort.

However, it’s also very intimidating for a lot of people, and I completely understand why. But the truth is, simple information provided in a very logical manner that you’ve found achieves proven results can be very valuable.

Here’s a good example, it’s a book how how to potty-train dogs. It’s called:

“Everything you need to know about house training puppies & adult dogs!“  (I’m linking to the book on Amazon.com, but it’s not important for this discussion that you look at it.)

I think this was a very good book,  and even though there’s really nothing new to learn about potty training your dog, this got me to make some changes that improved the “accident rate” of my dog by about 95% immediately.

Here’s the main points of the book:

  1. Limit when your dog eats and drinks to specific times, and keep an eye on them afterwards until they go to the bathroom.  Keep notes on what the average time between eating => pooping and drinking => peeing are.
  2. Don’t train your dog to go potty inside in a specific spot, it’ll just confuse them. Train them to go outside.
  3. You can’t leave a dog alone without being taken outside for more than a certain number of hours (I think it’s around 6? I can’t remember, but that’s not the point).
  4. If you have to leave your dog alone for longer than that, either get a neighbor or pay a dog walker to take your dog out during that time (like when you’re at work), or you should get rid of your dog because you’re not able to provide it with an appropriate level of care.

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that point #4 really upset some readers, who gave the book a one-star review.

Here’s what’s good about the book:

  1. It gave very specific steps to follow and explained WHY it was so important to do them.
  2. It gave references about where to get some supplies you might need
  3. It provided “tough love” to the buyer and told them that some of them weren’t treating their dogs well. That upset some of them and caused them to return the book.  It also undoubtedly made some people think and change their behavior (ie, hire someone to walk their dog when they’re away too long, etc).

It’s a simple topic, and to some degree the reader already knows the information already. But it gives specific steps to follow, uses social proof to show that others have solved their problems doing the same thing, and makes it easy to start now… While also not pretending that pet owners can do exactly as they please, use a couple of tricks, and achieve success.

It’s nothing you can’t do with your own information product. You don’t have to tackle a whole topic. Just pick one sliver of one facet of one niche that you can help someone with, create a simple info-product to show people how to do it better, and you’re in business.

Speaking of which, for a measly $12 (at least for the moment) you can get my 1 Day Business complete video training about how to create your own info-product in as little as one day.  Take a look here:

http://www.1daybusiness.com

To your success, Tim Gross

Topics: Marketing, Product Development | Add A Comment » Trackback URL

When Is It OK To Refund Information / Training Products?

By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog |

It was recently discussed about how some marketers feel awkward asking for a refund after they’ve purchased a marketing information product.  Here are my thoughts:

Legitimate reasons to be disappointed with an info purchase include:

  1. An obviously poor quality product
  2. Sales letter was too “enthusiastic” and virtually impossible to live up to
  3. Sales letter cast too broad of a net looking for buyers and was sold to people who can’t benefit from it

Non-legitimate reasons to be disappointed include:

  1. You’re already familiar with a topic you purchased information on, and already know 90% of what’s presented, but the other 10% is new… and valuable if you apply it. Smart marketers consider a couple of tips that will make them money to be well worth the cost even if they know most of it.
  2. You’re accidentally discarding valuable information because you don’t recognize it as being valuable.
  3. You’re a serial buyer/reader and never apply anything to find out if something has value or not.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, and it’s all on a case by case basis.  If you don’t refund on poor quality products that fall incredibly short of the sales letter, you’re a chump.  And if you habitually refund well-made products because, *sniff*, “I’ve seen this before”, then that’s obnoxious and you should stop buying products on that topic and admit to yourself that you know enough about the topic to stop buying and start doing.

On a side note, I certainly know what it’s like to get an incredibly un-detailed description of how to do something that is so vague that it doesn’t appear to be of any use. You are allowed to request a refund for something that, in your judgment, is not of value to you.

However, when someone says they want valuable information “explained thoroughly”, that means different things to different people, and there’s a portion of people who will never be satisfied because they expect a product to be able to drive itself to the bank and deposit the money it made for them.  :-)

As a buyer, try to do your best to confirm that it’s the product’s fault, not yours. As a marketer, try to create a product that delivers on its premise, and market it towards groups who will benefit from it.

Topics: Marketing | Add A Comment » Trackback URL

I’ve Been Marketing Online A Long Time

By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog |

I use AuthorizeNet as my gateway for my merchant accounts, and I had to call them today.

Another much newer AuthorizeNet gateway account I have has an account ID of something like 180,000, but my original account with them, which I’ve had for 10 years, is a 3-digit number that starts with a “2″.

When I called them today the woman asked for my ID, and I gave her the 3 digits.  There was a pause, and then she said, “...that’s it?”

Heh.

It made me wonder how many AuthorizeNet accounts with 3 digits are still active, and what percentage gave up the ghost.  As Dorothy said,  “People come and go so quickly here!“

Topics: Personal | Add A Comment » Trackback URL

The History (And Decline) Of Treating Affiliates Well

By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog |

In a recent forum thread, there was outrage about an affiliate program whose owner name-captured visitors (got them to subscribe to his email list) and then immediately started promoting 3rd-party offers to the list that the affiliates who sent him traffic wouldn’t earn commissions on.

Around 10 years ago, all of the “original” big-dog online affiliate programs competed with each other to win affiliates’ trust. It was a point of pride to brag about setting 2 year or longer cookie tracking (back when users didn’t routinely clear their cookies) and to back it up through other methods (ie, capturing the affiliate ID when they subscribe and using it in promotions, etc).

Off the top of my head, a few of the ones who stressed it the most and who ordinarily didn’t do any promotions that their affiliates wouldn’t profit from were:

* Cory Rudl
* Marlon Sanders
* SiteSell
* Me (I paid a hefty $200 commission and manually searched my subscribe logs to look for a commission if an order came in without one)

(There were others, I’m not trying to snub anybody.)

There was an entire section in the affiliate signup form that bragged about how well they would treat affiliates. Why? Because at the time, affiliates cared a lot about it. I always read up on how a program would track affiliates before ever considering to promote it.

When Clickbank came out with their affiliate program with a 60-day tracking cookie, it was a huge step down from what other affiliate program were doing at the time.

I’d never consider promoting a product that captured an email for a free report unless I’d looked over their selling process first (and gotten on their list, checked out what they were doing, etc).

Apparently this discussion is a wake-up call for a lot of affiliates who’d never considered these things, but it’s always been an affiliate’s responsibility to choose what to promote and what not to promote. If you haven’t been doing your due diligence first, you haven’t been doing your job.

It’s your job to:

Promoting an offer on Clickbank without checking it out first is like buying a “Rolex” from the back of some guy’s van for $50 and then being outraged that it turned out to be fake.

Topics: Marketing | Add A Comment » Trackback URL

Company Fined $300,000 For Posting Fake Reviews Online

By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog |

A cosmetic surgery company was fined $300,000 by the state of New York for having its employees pretend they were satisfied customers posting fake glowing reviews online.

The company also created its own websites of face-lift reviews to make it appear as if they were independent sources.  Here’s a quote from the news story:

False reviews have become more of a problem as more people rely on sites like Yelp, Amazon or Epinions to rate and learn about products and services.

Some review sites have grown so powerful that consumer reviews can make or break a new business. Lifestyle Lift, which is based in Troy, Mich., and operates 32 centers nationwide, believed that negative reviews had significantly hurt its reputation, the attorney general’s office said…

New York’s attorney general, said in a statement that Lifestyle Lift’s “attempt to generate business by duping consumers was cynical, manipulative and illegal.

I completely agree that online reviews can make or break or product or a business.

The problem is that people are much more likely to complain about a business or product than to rave about it.

There are legitimate (read: legal) ways to manage your online presence.

  1. Many review sites allow the business owner to post rebuttals to bad reviews.
  2. You can encourage your customers to go online and post their own good reviews if they’re satisfied.
  3. You can follow up with customers to find out if they’re satisfied with their purchase.  Your attitude can directly affect your customers’ happiness/frustration with their purchase.
  4. You can try to fix the problems that caused the bad reviews in the first place.

…But unless you want to be fined $300,000, keep it legal.

Topics: Marketing | Add A Comment » Trackback URL

Getting The Best Out Of Yourself

By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog |

I just got back from the gym, doing the “Firefighter Training Test” on the treadmill… Each minute the speed and incline increases, and it gets really rough at the end.

Towards the last couple of minutes I start frantically clicking my iPod Shuffle looking for a high-energy song to run to.  For some reason, the song that helps me run the best (because it matches my stride) is David Bowie’s “Young American”.

At this point you’re probably saying to yourself, “Gee that fascinating, Tim, what did you have for lunch, I’m all ears?”  :-)

Bear with me…

Being able to get the most out of yourself is critical. If a David Bowie song helps you exercise better, you better be playing it.

If you work better late at night, don’t try to work in the morning just because it’s expected of you.  Find the schedule that works for you.

We can all get overwhelmed with a mountain of work to do. Break it down into bite-sized chunks, and set time limits for each task.  Work only 45-50 minutes, then take a 10-15 minute break.  Use a timer to regiment your schedule.

Having finite, short intervals to tackle certain jobs can help you be shockingly more productive than just trying to work for a long time on a big project. Try it - I guarantee you’ll be surprised at the results.

If you work better with music playing, play it.  If you work better naked, don’t work from your laptop and Starbucks.  (heh)

Only you know how to get the best out of you. It’s your job to figure it out.

Topics: Marketing, Personal | Add A Comment » Trackback URL

How To Back Up Your PC Drivers NOW (You Better…)

By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog |

crashed harddriveI put a new hard drive in one of my computers yesterday, and it made me remember 2 resources that I highly recommend you remember and use:

Driver Magician: This awesome little program automatically finds all the drivers being used on your PC that aren’t included in the Windows installation disk, and saves them all to one directory/folder, which you can then burn to a CD.

When your computer hard drive crashes some day, that CD with all the drivers can be worth it’s weight in gold. After installing Windows on your new hard drive, just insert that Driver CD, and ALL of your hardware drivers are found on it. At the very least it saves time, and sometimes it saves a lot more than that. Download it now.  It is a Shareware program that is free to use for 15 days, and while you can buy it, frankly, you only need it for one day.

The Next Problem: Are you sure you have the product keys for every Microsoft product you own? Windows? Microsoft Office, and everything else? Download http://magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder it’s a simple little program that looks through your computer and gives you all the registration codes for your Microsoft products in a text file. Save that file somewhere OTHER than your main computer hard drive.

When your hard drive fails, that text file may be the only help you can get to reinistall Windows products. Just to be clear: This is not some Warez/Crack/Key Generator.  It doesn’t let you steal microsoft software illegally. It just finds the product keys for Microsoft products you already have installed, product keys that you may have lost which would cause you a lot of trouble if your hard drive failed.

Do it now.  Better to be safe than sorry.

Topics: Cool Tools, Oops (Bad Move) | 1 Comment » Trackback URL

Newbies Want Quantity, Pros Want Quality

By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog |

People trying to create information/training products often ask things like “How long should my ebook be?”

That reminds me of:

Q: How long should your legs be?
A: Long enough to touch the ground

There is no right or wrong answer, but here’s a generalization depending on who you’re marketing to:

Newbies often don’t appreciate the value of information. No matter what they’re sold, if they don’t get a LOT of it, some will feel they were shorted and it could affect your refund rate.

The more experienced tend to appreciate specific, valuable info without the fluff.

(I personally despise enormous font size with enormous margins double-spaced to use up more pages. It’s harder to read, harder to take in, and it turns me off.)

It’s kind of like restaurant portion size: In the U.S., it’s widely known that many restaurants give oversized portions, the customers overeat, it’s bad for them, and it makes them feel like crap when they’re done.

But the alternative is to reduce portion size, which causes some patrons to feel like they paid too much for what they got which could hurt repeat business (even though what they ate was exactly what they should eat for a meal and they left with a full stomach, just not feeling sick).

Topics: Copywriting, Marketing | 1 Comment » Trackback URL

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