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Weird but true… In the early part of the 20th century there was a massive campaign in the U.S. to abolish alcohol. Weirder still, this campaign actually won the day, and Prohibition became the 18th amendment. This made the U.S. a dry country in 1920 until the amendment was rightfully abolished in 1933.

So how does a movement influence people to take away one of their own rights?

With smart marketing.

First, in their campaign rhetoric the Anti-Saloon League made the issue an either/or choice.

Either you’re for children or you’re for alcohol.

Either you’re for our brave boys fighting the war, or you’re for alcohol.

As one advertisement featuring a picture of Whistler’s Mother read: “Which Gets Your Vote: Mother or The Saloon? Vote Dry.”

That’s right – either you’re for mothers or you’re for alcohol.

No middle ground. You don’t want to abolish alcohol? Then you hate your children, your boys overseas and your own mother.

A campaign like that wouldn’t fly today, would it?

😉

Today you either use the advertiser’s product or you’re not sexy, not worthy, not relevant, not important, etc.

If you don’t believe me, watch a few TV commercials and see for yourself.

Of course, you’ll want to be much more subtle when using this tactic in your own campaigns, but the tactic itself works as well as ever.

Second thing they did in their campaign was to eradicate the competition.

You’re a member of a state congress and you don’t want to abolish alcohol? Then we’ll run a smear campaign on you and get someone else elected who will vote our way.

No competition means easy victory.

Translate that to today’s marketing, and we don’t mean you should photoshop pictures of your competition doing evil deeds and post them on the front page.

Instead, you eliminate all competition by inventing your own class.

For example, instead of being one of a 100,000 weight loss coaches, you become the only sexy shape expert.

Third, they enlisted their competition in their crusade, working side-by-side with politicians who drank booze as long as those same politicians would vote against drinking.

In the world of online marketing, this translates into working with your nearest competitors as long as it increases sales.

This might be in the form of joint ventures, interviews, affiliate sales and so forth. No marketer is an island, and even those who appear to be in direct competition to your interests can often help you in your quest.

Fourth, they didn’t try to convince the masses, because they didn’t need to. All they had to do was switch just enough voters to their side to gain their 51% and win the day.

In online marketing, you don’t need to win every customer, nor should you try. Some customers will buy from you no matter what, and you should reward them but you don’t need to convince them. Some will never buy from you, and there’s no need to waste any time on those folks.

It’s the ones in the middle that you want to focus your efforts on to get them converted over to customers.

Fifth, they employed a new device that showed, not told, of the ‘horrors’ of alcohol. For a nickel viewers could see something new in the world – a motion picture version of the play, “Ten Nights in a Bar Room.” In this movie a drunken husband squanders his pay on drink, his daughter is injured while trying to bring him home, the man dies of drinking and the wife despairs of her lost family.

What a great piece of propaganda for the anti-booze movement, which helped to reinforce the belief that even one drop of alcohol could destroy not just individuals, but entire families.

Pretty crazy, right? But again there’s a lesson to be learned here: Show, don’t tell. In just a few minutes of showing how ‘evil’ alcohol was, the movement gained tremendous ground in convincing and converting voters to their side.

YouTube, anyone? 🙂

Bottom Line: The techniques that influence people don’t change, they just get more sophisticated with time. What influenced people a hundred years ago can still be translated into today’s terms to increase your own conversions.

Since you’re making videos anyway, why not shoot for the zenith of online video marketing and go for viral? While you can never totally predict what will go viral and what won’t, there are some tricks to make it much more likely your video is the one your viewers will forward to others. Here’s 15 proven tips to make your next video go viral:

Don’t use a sad ending, even if it’s true. This reminds me of a time a video was shot of a firefighter resuscitating an unconscious kitten that had been trapped in a smoky home. Viral magic, right? Absolutely. This video went viral for every outlet that left out a key piece of information – despite being resuscitated, the kitten later died of smoke inhalation. Neetzan Zimmerman, editor at Gawker, was told by his editor to include the epilogue. Result – “That video did tremendously well for practically everyone who posted it, except Gawker.”

In fact, don’t evoke any sadness if sadness is the only emotion. Videos that inspire sadness are far less likely to get shared than videos that evoke almost any other emotion. However, a video can be sad and still be uplifting: For example, a heroic person who fought a disease, lost, but left a great legacy. It’s sad that they died, but it’s uplifting that they tried so hard and left a positive mark on the world.

Do use other emotions in your video. The emotions most likely to elicit that coveted share? Surprise, anticipation, joy, anger, awe, anxiety, happiness and humor. The stronger the emotion evoked, the better. Just think of what you like to share with others – odds are it’s videos that surprise and delight, or videos that inspire anger against a common enemy. What we don’t share are videos that might make others sad, unhappy or depressed.

Make the sharer look smart. Surprisingly, data compiled by Chartbeat – a company that measures online traffic – demonstrates that people forward things they haven’t even read or watched. This is ego-driven sharing; trying to look smart by sharing smart material. So for example, if your video teaches some cutting edge techniques, it’s likely to be shared by many who simply want to look smart to their friends. Of course, whether or not anyone will actually watch it could be another matter.

Make it practical. Useful content is highly viral because people love to share “news you can use” for two reasons: It helps others AND it makes them look good.

Tell a story. Even when you think stories aren’t applicable to your topic, they probably are. Stories are universal in that they can teach anything and people are hard wired to listen to them. Tell the story well enough, and it will be passed along.

Be outrageous. Do you remember WePay’s stunt of leaving a 600 pound block of ice at the front entrance to a PayPal conference? PayPal had been freezing people out of their own accounts, and so WePay froze the words, “PayPal Freezes Your Accounts” along with cash inside the giant ice block. Great stunt that got a lot of press, but WePay really blew it – they didn’t film the delivery of the ice block or people’s reaction to it. If they had, there’s no doubt their video would have gone viral.

Be controversial. Is everyone in your field saying one thing? Then perhaps you might want to say the opposite, especially if you believe it’s true. For example, in Internet Marketing everyone says “the money is in the list,” yet an excellent case can be made for other forms of IM that don’t involve list building. The key here is to debate issues that don’t hurt feelings. For example, a ‘chunky vs smooth peanut butter’ debate, or a ‘cats vs dogs’ debate won’t ruffle anyone’s feathers, yet they can inspires a lot of interest and interaction.

Be surprising. We alluded to this earlier – surprises get passed along and talked about more than almost anything else. Remember that video of a serene, tranquil scene that suddenly turned into a screaming demon? That wasn’t just surprising, it was shocking. You don’t have to go that far – hiding ‘easter eggs’ in your videos can make them viral. For example, a hidden URL that takes the viewer to something special, or what appears to be a naked person walking past in the background, or anything that is unexpected and fun.

Another kind of surprise is the “Cracker Jack Box surprise,” a toy hidden inside every box. It’s no surprise there’s a toy in there – they tell you that on every box. What is surprising is what the toy is. If you make a lot of videos, you might plant a ‘surprise’ in every one – it could be a bit of eye candy or a link to download something useful.

Make it an “experience.” This one takes some planning, but the potential upside is nothing short of huge. Remember the Blair Witch project? The movie promos made the movie ‘real’ to the viewers, and the viewers then become a part of the movie, getting pulled in as though it were a real life event. In fact, some people actually thought it was.

Make it interactive. Remember the Subservient Chicken from Burger King? Millions of people made that chicken dance. Or how about Office Max’s viral phenomenon, Elf Yourself? Upload photos of you and your family, and suddenly you’re in your own dancing elf holiday video.

Be funny. Or cute. Or both. If you can work footage of your kitten doing something hilarious into your video, go for it. People never get enough funny or enough cute. Then there’s just plain silly – like the Old Spice commercials. Short, fun and full of surprises, these go viral every time.

Capture the attention of a taste maker. Remember the video of Yosemite Bear Mountain saying “oh my god, oh my god” about the double rainbow? That video was online for 6 months before it took off and eventually got tens of millions of views. So what happened that finally started the flood of traffic? Jimmy Kimmel tweeted about the video, and after that it was a viral phenomena.

How do you get a taste maker to share your video? First, go after small taste makers within your own niche. Second, actually make the video with them in mind. What do they love? What do they share? Incorporate that element into your video and your odds go up dramatically that they’ll share it. Third, ask them to share it. It never hurts to ask.

Add a trigger. In the video “Friday,” the trigger is of course “Friday,” and while the video was popular it was shared and watched far more on Fridays than any other day. Remember Alice Cooper’s song, School’s Out? That song was released decades ago, yet it’s still played every late May and early June on thousands of radio stations.

Capture the attention of a particular community. This can be as simple as opening your video with something like, “This video is for avid gardeners only.” Or, “This video is for avid Red Sox fans only.” Then at the end of the video, ask them to share the video with fellow avid gardeners or die hard Red Sox fans. If you’ve incorporated other viral elements, this simple step can give your video the added push it needs to begin its viral journey.

Next time someone forwards you a video, ask yourself why they did that. What was it about that video that made them want to share it? You can learn a lot simply by watching viral videos and asking yourself, “how can I apply this to my videos?”

If you want true financial security, it’s not enough anymore to be a millionaire – you’ve got to be a multimillionaire. So how do you join the ranks of the 1%?

Make a firm decision to be a multimillionaire. Your first step is making that firm decision and then reaffirming that decision several times a day. See yourself rich, feel yourself rich, be rich in your heart and mind. This is where it starts and this is the first step to realizing your dream.

You must lose the poverty thinking. No matter what you were taught about money being evil or scarce, you’ve got to let go of those beliefs once and for all. Abundance is all around you when you open yourself to it. Like attracts like, so if you’re thinking poverty, you’ll just get more poverty.

Continuously think of your multimillionaire status as real. Since you can’t hold two opposing thoughts at the same time, if you’re thinking about how little money you have then you’re not thinking about getting rich. You’ve got to feel abundance throughout your entire body, and meditation combined with visualization is a great way to achieve this state.

Stepping stones are okay. In fact, they’re great. One of the biggest obstacles new marketers face is that $10,000 a month wall. They think they should be making this amount of money from day one, but the fact is you have to start somewhere. If that means getting your first $10 day and working up, so be it. Most self-made millionaires began with one small step on their journey and then simply never stopped growing and moving ahead.

It’s not just money, it’s also something else. This might be making a difference, proving yourself, living up to your potential, making the world a better place or leaving a legacy. If your sole focus is the money, you’ll find that all the money in the world won’t make you happy. But if you have other goals beyond the money, being rich can make you happy indeed.

Get yourself some millionaires. They say you are the average of the people you hang out with, and that includes your income. So find wealthy people, whether you know them personally or read their blogs and books.

Buy time. Rich people buy time while poor people sell time. Nothing is more valuable than time, and this includes money. So anything you can outsource to someone else, whether it’s work related or home related, should be outsourced the moment you can afford it.

Forget spending – invest instead. You know that new car you want to buy? What would happen if you took that $30,000 and instead of buying a car, you invested it for 20 years at 7% interest compounded monthly? You’d have $121,162. If you bought the car, in 20 years you would have nothing of that money.

Millionaires-in-the-making invest when they can, whether it’s in their business, their education or in their portfolio. Instead of buying a house, they purchase an apartment building that produces cash flow and tax write-offs. Instead of buying a car outright, they buy cars for their company and then deduct them because they’re used during work, and so forth.

Create multiple sources of income. The more revenue streams you have, the more money you can potentially make and the more secure you are should one of your streams dry up. This is why marketers go into more than one niche, create more than one product and look to earn money in multiple ways. Remember when Google made junk Adsense sites obsolete? Those with many different streams of income were the least affected, while those who depended solely on Adsense were devastated.

Take advantage of trends. Right now one of the hot trends is finding inexpensive products and selling them at huge mark-ups on Amazon. Eventually the competition will be severe and something else will be hot. That’s okay. If you stay flexible and keep a close eye on the marketplace, you’re ready to take advantage of trends as they happen while also building a solid, reliable business you can count on.

One last note: Self-made multimillionaires are confused by people who aren’t rich. They don’t understand why you can’t do the very same things they do – and they’re right – you can.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to creating great wealth is the mindset. If you believe that money is limited, or evil, or that rich people are bad, then you’ll never get rich yourself.

But if you can focus on abundance, if you can create a clear picture of where you’re going, and if you can feel satisfied with what you have right here and right now, then you can achieve wealth.

Lack leads to lack. Worrying and stressing about your lack is only going to produce more lack. By all means get fired up and excited about what’s coming, but while you’re making it happen, let abundance flood your very being.

People are nothing if not predictable. Let me give you an example: If you say to someone, “You’ve got a great job.” They will invariably tell you why it’s NOT great. But if you say to them, “You’ve got a lousy job.” They’ll tell you why it’s actually a very good job.

Knowing the triggers you can use to activate certain behaviors in prospects can help tremendously to increase your conversions and your bottom line.

That’s why I’ve compiled 10 slightly sneaky methods to get your audience to do your bidding – or stated another way, here are 10 methods to get the public to buy your product and share your message with the world.

People crave entertainment like they crave air, and they always need more of it. A good analogy is caffeine – in the beginning, the smallest amount of caffeine can give you a nice little buzz. But the more caffeine you use, the more you need to achieve that same buzz level.

Entertainment is no different. The movies of the 40’s weren’t fast paced enough for people of the 60’s. The music of the seventies can’t compete with the music of the 80’s. The comedy of the 90’s seems tame compared to the comedy of now. Why is that? Because entertainment is constantly having to turn up the intensity to get the same reactions from the audience. People want more and more exciting stuff, and if you can build excitement and entertainment right into your product, you’ve got a hit.

Speaking of entertainment, people LOVE controversy. Build a controversial website, blog, forum, product line, podcast, YouTube channel, etc. and watch people flock to it. You’ll get free publicity everywhere as people either promote you or flog you in social media, forums and other blogs across the net.

And as a marketer, you could capitalize on both sides at the same time if you wanted to be sneaky about it. For example, you might build two websites – one on each far, far end of the political spectrum – and let them slug it out online. Anything that has what is perceived to be a polar opposite could work, such as God-fearing vs Atheist, protecting wildlife from loggers and miners, etc.

Or build controversy into your product from the start. “How To Use Tax Loopholes So You Don’t Pay Your Fair Share Of Taxes.” Is it legal? Yes. Is it fair? No. Or how about toy guns for children? Some parents love them, many hate them, and all will have something to say about it which drives more traffic to you.

This one’s really sneaky – carry on a conversation between two people about how great a product is. This could be in a forum, posts on a blog, or even if it were to “come up” during an interview about something else. The point of course is to not appear as though it’s a promotion. Yeah, I know; pretty sneaky.

People like to follow, as in “follow the leader.” What happens when one cow walks away from the herd? If the other cows suspect this cow knows something they don’t, they’ll follow. It doesn’t matter WHAT this cow might know, only that they have information that might be of use. Is the grass greener over there? Is there a secret stash of alfalfa or a salt lick over there? Let’s follow her and see!

It might seem callous to compare people to cows, but the herd mentality applies to many species including people. If someone is seen as a leader and that leader uses ABC product, then it’s going to be easy to get the followers to use ABC product as well.

As a marketer, you can use this in one of two ways – either become a leader yourself, or get your product into the hands of leaders and make sure people find out about it.

Speaking of following, people follow the confident person. They’re attracted to confidence like bees to honey. If you don’t have confidence, get it. Depending on your niche, arrogance might work as well.

Take it away. Whatever your product is, find a way to take it away from the potential buyer. Maybe they have to qualify and not everyone can. Or there’s a limited number. Or the offer is ending soon. Or maybe they’re just plain NOT supposed to have it, so you tell them NOT to buy the book but you drop hints of just how powerful it is.

People do not like to be left out. This works well in the Internet Marketing niche and it works even better in any non-marketing savvy niche.

People work harder to get something for nothing. Weird but true. What else explains someone who masters a gambling system or studies race horses just to bet? If your product promises huge returns for small effort, it will sell. Unfortunately, most products like this can’t deliver. But you can use the something-for-nothing technique in a way that is totally ethical – referrals. That is, get people to promote you through social media in exchange for something free.

Another way to ethically use something-for-nothing is to make it appear as though the very act of purchasing your product is a giant leap towards attaining their goal. You’re being honest that there is work involved, but you make the first step seem so enticing they feel they’ve practically achieved their dream simply by buying the product.

People get seduced by stories. BIG TIME. Think of the man sitting cross-legged, playing a flute while a cobra sways hypnotically to the music. This can be you hypnotizing your audience through storytelling, both written and verbal.

Entire courses have been written about using storytelling in marketing. A good story creates thoughts and images in your prospect’s head that seem to originate from the prospect, not from you. And a really great story causes the audience to feel emotions and desires that come from these thoughts and images. Bottom line, get good at storytelling and then use your skill to weave mesmerizing stories throughout your marketing.

People buy dreams, not just once, but over and over again. Why is it a camper will buy every camping gadget out there? Why will a golfer purchase every golfing book written in the past 20 years? Why do Internet marketers buy online marketing products sometimes at the rate of 3 and 4 a day?

This is why a list of actual buyers is so hot – if these people bought once, they will very likely buy again and again. You can continue to create products and promote products to this list and as long as their dream remains alive, they will continue to buy. Perhaps it’s the act of purchasing that makes them feel they are one step closer to realizing their dream. Thus 5 purchases puts them 5 steps closer, and 10 purchases put them…

You can get sneaky with this one as well. Create several somewhat similar products and then let them compete with each other. It can be surprising how many customers purchase two or more.

People actually WANT to believe. So make it real. Make it believable. Help them along. Show some negative with the positive. Did you know that testimonials are far more effective if they mention something NEGATIVE? For example: “I wasn’t crazy about the title of this course and thought it was going to be just a rehash, but it turns out it was exactly what I needed. Using this information I’ve been able to ___ and ___ and achieve ___.” Make it believable.

And remember, please use these methods only for good and never for evil.

By now you know that social media is great for building your lists and promoting your products. A recent study discovered that sales people who use social media for their jobs outperform their non-social media peers by 73%. But have you thought of using social media for these purposes?

Fundraising. Let’s say you’re using Kickstarter to raise funds for your new project. Problem is, no one knows you, no one trusts you, and no one is telling anyone else about you.

Solution? Get busy on social media prior to your launch. Establish a strong social presence and build your credibility. Once you’ve got a strong following who believe in what you’re doing, that’s the time to start your fundraising campaign.

Referrals. Sure, you’re already hoping your content gets shared on social media, but that’s not enough.

Be sure to always give great value and service to ensure your customers have plenty of positive things to say about you. Then run contests, offer prizes and discounts to encourage your customers to share their positive experiences with their networks.

Status. You can look like a big dog and boost your own credibility by sharing content from the big names in your industry. It doesn’t even matter if these influencers are aware of you – simply by associating your name with their name by quoting them will make you look like an influencer yourself and boost your own credibility.

Ice-breaking. Let’s say you want to make contact with an industry leader. Problem is, so do thousands of others. What can you do? Try following this leader on social media and look for points of common interest.

Maybe she has a dog – what kind is it? Is she passionate about that breed? If so, that’s something you might put in the subject line: “Phyllis, did you see a Yorkie won best of show at Westminster?” This is a much better icebreaker than, “Hey, I’m just one more guy who wants to JV with you.”

Kevin Bacon. It’s said that you can link any Hollywood actor to Kevin Bacon within 6 degrees. So what about the guy you’re trying to get a meeting with? If you can use social media to find common connections and get an introduction from someone he trusts, you’ll have one foot in the door.

Super Hero. You see a tweet from someone complaining about your competitor’s service. Or someone else is talking about a problem your business can solve. Why not don the cape and jump in to save their day? If you do it in the spirit of helping rather than selling, you’ll almost certainly gain a new customer.

Storytelling. Telling your brand’s story is a great way to captivate potential customers. But knowing how to tell the story can be challenging. So why not practice on social media? Give out pieces of the story, or many small stories, to build your brand image. Monitor the likes and shares to see which stories win the most social love, and work these into your marketing.

Help. Do you have a pressing problem? Reach out and ask your social network for help. One couple lost their wedding venue and $7,000 deposit six weeks before their wedding. Thanks to reaching out for help on social media, they received everything from jewelry to a wedding cake to a new event planner.

Anticipation. Build anticipation for your next content – whether it’s a blog post or a book – by posting about your progress in play-by-play fashion. This keeps you in touch with your community, gives insight into your work and provides an eager audience when your content is finished.

Accountability. If you have trouble completing your to-do list, consider posting what you’re going to accomplish in the morning, and then reporting back in the evening whether you accomplished it and how it all turned out. There’s nothing like knowing your entire social network is paying attention to whether or not you do what you say you will do to keep you on track.

Currency. Marc Jacobs opened a pop-up store for the New York fashion week where the only currency that could be used were posts to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. That’s right – they didn’t accept money, only social media posts, using the hashtag #MJDaisyChain. This is a great way to gather some social media momentum, new clients and terrific testimonials.

Pay it Forward. Find something really nice to say about someone on social media every day, or offer to help someone, or maybe even send out a call to help anyone who asks. Not only will you build positive brownie karma points – you’ll also attract attention from potential customers and best of all, you’ll feel great about yourself and your business.

These are just 12 examples of thinking beyond the social media box. If you keep an eye out for how others are using social media, you’re bound to find even more business building ideas.

You’ve got a DYNAMITE idea for a new product and you can’t wait to get started on it – or maybe you already have. Then it happens: You see that someone else has beaten you to the punch and released a very similar product just last week. What should you do??

At this point many people will simply fold. They’ll scrap their product idea and begin a search for a new idea.

Then there’s the successful marketers who wouldn’t bat an eyelash just because someone else released a product like theirs. They would go ahead and finish their product and release it as soon as possible.

Do you know why? Two reasons: First, a successfully selling product on a particular topic means there’s room for another product on the same topic. And the reason there’s room is because of reason number 2: People who are deeply interested in a topic don’t buy just one book or just one course – they buy everything they can get their hands on.

In fact, the person who released their product ahead of yours did you a favor, because you can now see how well their product is selling. You can look for the information holes they forgot to fill and you can be the one to create a better product. You can also see what their price point is and act accordingly. If they’re priced at $17, you might want to shoot for a higher price and provide a much higher value. On the other hand, if they are selling their product at several hundred dollars, you can choose to become the affordable alternative.

So the next time you’ve got a great product idea and someone else beats you to the punch, you might want to thank them, and get excited!

One more thing – don’t be afraid to approach the other product developer and suggest doing a deal together. They might also be open to becoming your affiliate and sharing your offer with their list and customers. Yesterday’s competitors can become tomorrow’s partners.

Remember – competition can be a GREAT thing when you’re marketing online.

A coaching student recently emailed with a problem you may have encountered yourself – your sales funnel just isn’t working nearly as well as you’d like it to. Fortunately, there are proven techniques you can use to increase any sales funnel’s pulling power, from the ads you place, to your squeeze page, your blog, your sales letters and on your backend.

Here’s 17 simple ways to increase the effectiveness of your online sales funnel…

1. Ask for action. Whether it’s a Facebook ad, solo ad or a banner, a squeeze page, a sales page, even a blog post – ask your reader to take the next steps and do what you want them to do. Keep it simple and make it easy to take that action, too.

2. Always offer free information, such as blog posts, articles, reports, podcasts, videos etc. to establish yourself as an authority who can be trusted, as well as someone they just plain like.

3. Describe your lead generating free report in a way that makes it every bit as enticing as a $100 paid product.

4. Show a picture of your report or product, and don’t skimp on this. Get a good graphics designer to create a cover that looks like it belongs on the bestseller list.

5. Spend a lot of time choosing just the right title. Whether it’s a blog post, a free report or a product, give it a name or title that creates curiosity or implies a big benefit. If you can do both, you get major bonus points.

6. Include your address on your squeeze page and your sales page. Make it super easy to find on your blog. A real address (preferably with a real phone number) tells people they can trust you.

7. Use your head shot photo everywhere you can. Unless you look like an ogre (and trust me, you don’t) it’s better to have your face seen throughout your sales funnel. This makes you a real person to the prospect, not just some faceless person trying to take their money. Spend time choosing just the right photo, and even use social media to help you pick the one that makes you look like the likeable, trustworthy person you are.

8. When offering discounts, use a dollar amount, not a percentage. For example, $10 off converts better than 10% off.

9. You know those dashed lines they put around coupons? Thanks to conditioning, those lines also work online for getting attention and making sales. Try using them on your order page.

10. Give the order page “coupon” a headline that affirms positive action – ”Yes, I want to lose 30 pounds in the next 60 days.”

11. Give the customer 2 or 3 choices – perhaps a starter option, a full option and a deluxe option. Price the deluxe at slightly more than the full and you will very likely increase sales dramatically.

12. Try placing a less-heavy dashed line around your banner ads as well to stimulate response.

13. Use a direct headline – one that promises a benefit or stresses the offer of free information while invoking curiosity. Test your headlines. Test test test. Then test some more. If this seems tedious, get your VA to do it.

14. If you don’t have a VA, consider getting one. S/he can be doing the little stuff while you focus on improving your funnel.

15. Giving away a free book or consultation? Or is your price crazy low? Put it in the headline.

16. Offer a bonus unlike any other. For example, everyone offers a free ebook, recording, video, etc. Instead, offer something tangible like a real book. Have it shipped via Amazon. Obviously this bonus will only be offered on higher priced products.

17. Offer a free sample. Yes, this is old school, but it works. Offer a free 30 minute consultation, or a free chapter, or the first 3 videos of your 15 video series. If you deliver what you promise and make them want more, you’ll get sales.

One last thing: If you’re already doing all of the above and your sales are still lower than you like, you’ll want to take a look at the big picture. Is your offer a good one? Is the product something people are willing and even eager to pay for?

All the marketing in the world won’t do much to help a lousy offer. If the problem turns out to be the offer, the question to ask is whether you’re charging too much or is it simply something people don’t want? And then take the appropriate action.

Above all else, don’t give up, because the only people who truly fail are the ones who throw in the towel at the first sign of trouble.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the better your headlines grab eyeballs, the more money you can make. In fact, even a small improvement can add significant money if your sales funnel is set up with a high priced product or two. For example, getting 5% more people to opt into your list or open an email or buy a $7 product could result in another 1/2 to 1 percent buying your more expensive and profitable product. Over the course of a year that could easily add thousands to your bottom line.

One way marketers used to test headlines was through Adwords, back in the day when they were super cheap. A marketer would try out 2 or more headlines and see which one pulled the best. Seasoned marketers still test headlines with Google and Facebook ads, but if you’re on a small budget there is a less expensive way.

These days Twitter is the easiest and cheapest method for testing headlines, so long as you have a following. Simply choose what you think are your two best headlines, tweet them both and track the results.

First, the tweeting: To be fair you’d want to tweet both simultaneously, but that’s probably not the best way. Instead, tweet them both in the morning and again in the afternoon, about 20 to 30 minutes apart. So for example in the morning you might tweet headline A at 9:00 and headline B at 9:30. Then do the same in the afternoon but reverse the order.

Track your results with a good click tracking software like Click Magick or your own favorite tracker. When you’ve got a winner, test it against another headline, and so forth.

Now then… why use this method instead of split testing? Frankly, I prefer split testing when it comes to something like a squeeze page or a sales letter, but there are times when this Twitter method comes in especially handy.

Are you sending out an important email or series of emails for a big promotion? Are you getting ready to launch a product and want to have a good idea in advance which headline will work best? Using Twitter to test your subject lines up front can put you ahead of the game and into profit faster.

It’s fine to build your business gradually, a step here and a step there. But it’s so much better, faster and just plain more FUN to build it by leaps and bounds.

Below you’ll find the magic words that will help you to do just that. Forget taking the long, slow painful route and resolve to achieve a quantum leap, or true metamorphosis in your business.

1 Magic Word That Quadruples Productivity And Profits

There are a myriad of tasks any one online marketer needs to perform, and the faster and better those tasks are completed, the more profitable the business can be. But struggling marketers who are trying to balance administrative duties, product creation, social media, customer service, formatting and uploading books to Kindle, writing blog posts, setting up JV’s, recruiting affiliates, writing emails, setting up autoresponders, doing research, writing sales copy, answering emails, forum posting and all their many other marketing tasks might be better off doing less, not more.

If you’ve ever been on a ship, you probably noticed the captain doesn’t cook the meals or swab the deck. Nor does he maintain the engines, hoist the sails, plot the navigation or the other 101 duties that are done aboard a ship. Rather, he is the pilot of the entire operation, instructing everyone else on what to do.

Perhaps it’s time you think of yourself as the pilot of your own business. Do those tasks which you are extremely good at, and OUTSOURCE the rest to professionals who excel in those areas. You will not only get far more done, but odds are the work will be completed faster in a more professional manner. And when you can quadruple your efforts by adding a few part time outsourcers, you can also quadruple your results and your profits.

Don’t kid yourself – you cannot do it all and make the kind of money you want. As soon as you can afford to, start outsourcing. It’s not only one of the most profitable things you can do, it also gets you away from the grindstone and able to see the big picture so you can better navigate the waters of your business.

2 Magic Words To Make You A Marketing Rockstar

If you want your content to be seen and shared, and if you want it to make a lasting impression on prospects, then the written word is seldom enough anymore. Let’s do a test: Tell me everything you can about the person who wrote the blog post you read yesterday. Drawing a blank? Now tell me everything you can about a video you saw yesterday. Different story, right?

What if someone calls you on the phone to sell you something you’re interested in, versus someone that shows up at your door. Which one are you more likely to buy from? Assuming you’re not freaked out that a salesman appeared out of nowhere with the product that adequately fits your needs, you’re going to buy from him, not the faceless person on the phone.

Obviously you can’t visit your prospects in person, but you can do something almost as good – USE VIDEO. People remember video over the written word because it engages more of the senses. If you only use the written word, you’re simply not going to make nearly the same level of connection that you could have with video.

Now then, you might be afraid to get in front of the camera. If so, you can start out with slideshow videos, animated videos or screencast videos. Then move up to videos of yourself because this is the real pay off. This is where people start to feel like they can really connect with you and they KNOW you. Remember, content is more important than quality. You don’t have to be the next Steven Spielberg to make this work, you just have to be authentic with something to say that people want to hear.

3 Magic Words That Can DOUBLE Your Sales

You should be doing this every single time you sell a product or service because it will invariably increase your bottom line. Marketers have added hundreds of thousands of dollars to their sales funnels by simply incorporating these three words into every sales system they create.

What are the 3 magic words? ALWAYS BE UPSELLING. Every single time you sell anything, offer an upsell / downsell sequence because it can turn your original $47 sale into a $300 sale or more, simply by offering the customer additional options.

Offer something that is complementary to the original offer. It might make the original offer easier or faster to implement, go into more depth, offer more options, or even perform a service for them. It could be coaching, an additional information product, software, a membership program or anything else that helps the customer to achieve the result they want.

What if you don’t have a product or service to offer as an upsell? Then find an appropriate affiliate product that matches your original offer. And here’s a secret: When a customer turns down an upsell, they are typically more open to buying a lower cost (downsell) product. It’s almost as though the higher ticket item warms them up to the downsell offer. This is why car dealers and real estate brokers like to show cars and properties that are too expensive for the client. Once they show the client something more affordable, the client is more likely to make an offer than if they’d been shown the lower cost model in the first place.

4 Magic Words To Get You More Clients

If you’re selling big ticket items or services, I’m about to utter the 4 words 9 out of 10 marketers dread: PICK UP THE PHONE. Nothing sells as well as face to face contact except perhaps the phone. Let’s face it – your prospects are inundated with emails and shout-outs on social media. If you really want to connect and make the sale, you need to pick up that 500 pound phone and establish a real one-on-one relationship.

If you’re phone-a-phobic, start with existing customers. Find out how they’re doing with the product(s) they’ve purchased and what you can do to help them along (coaching, perhaps?) Next, move on to your lowest hanging fruit – those prospects you deem most likely to bite. Make it a rule to call 5 people each day, and within 3 weeks you’ll notice 2 things: First, being on the phone isn’t so scary anymore. And second, business is definitely picking up.

5 Magic Words That Virtually Eliminate Any Competition

Whatever your niche, there are others who are doing very nearly the same thing, better known as your direct competition. For example, if you’re a weight loss coach, there are thousands of other weight loss coaches you’re competing against to gain clients.

That’s why you’ve got to find a way to stand completely apart from the crowd, and the best way to do this is to CREATE A UNIQUE POSITIONING POINT for yourself and your business. Find that one thing that makes you totally different from all the other weight loss coaches out there, that thing that draws customers to you like flies. And mind you, saying that you’re better, that your work is higher quality, that you’ve got more experience, etc., isn’t unique. Everybody says those things.

Can’t think of anything? Try this: “I will show you how to lose weight while NEVER feeling deprived and still eating the foods you love.”

Sign me up!

Here’s one from a carpet cleaner: “If I don’t remove your stain and get you sparkling clean carpets, I’ll pay you $50 for your time.”

You’re hired!

I wouldn’t need to hear another word in order to choose this carpet cleaner over all the others – would you?

A Chiropractor might advertise: “I’ll get you immediate relief from your back pain or your visit is completely free.”

That’s what I want to hear – make me an appointment now!

6 Magic Words That Double Subscribers

You already know how crucial it is to continually build your list. But are you being aggressive enough? The vast majority of websites are missing opportunities to grab more subscribers because they don’t PLACE OPT-IN BOXES ON EVERY PAGE of their website. Yet this simple step can as much as DOUBLE the number of subscribers you get from your site.

Most websites have an opt-in box on the homepage or none at all. But very few have an opt-in box on every single page. And fewer still place opt-in boxes on both the right sidebar above the fold, and again at the bottom of each post. But adding these boxes along with a great incentive to sign up will increase the number of subscribers you get. And make sure your opt-in box stands out with clean lines and no clutter.

Go ahead and place opt-in boxes in unexpected places as well. Do you have sales pages? Place an opt-in box on each one. Do you have more than one sign-up incentive? You might place one incentive in the right sidebar, and the other at the bottom of the page. This way if one incentive doesn’t interest them, then the other one might. You can then position your follow ups according to the incentive they chose.

You might even place a video with your opt-in boxes, instructing the reader to fill in their email address and press the button to get the incentive. By telling people what to do, you increase the chances they’ll actually do it.

Can you make a short, snappy and powerful quiz people can take? This is another way to capture email addresses. Once they finish the quiz, you request their email address so you can send them their confidential results via email.

7 Magic Words To Build Your Visibility And Reach a Larger Audience

If you’re not doing Google Hangouts yet, you’re missing the boat. Google Hangouts will increase your visibility, help you boost traffic to your site, improve your search engine ranking, improve your authority, increase the distribution of your content, and connect you to your potential customers, affiliates and joint venture partners. Therefore, HOST REGULAR GOOGLE PLUS HANGOUTS ON AIR. Hangouts are multi-participant video chats. When you host a hangout, you can carry on a training or conversation.

Your Hangouts might be informal chats, scripted or anything in between. You can keep the Hangout private, or you can live stream and broadcast your Hangouts on Hangouts On Air. By publicly streaming your show, it’s automatically recorded and added to your YouTube account. You can also embed it on your website.

If you don’t want it to go live, you can make it private, download it when you’re finished and edit it before posting it.

This is a great way to reach a huge audience and strengthen your reputation. Make a plan on how and when you will use Hangouts on Air, and set up a regular schedule for broadcasting. Think about using Google Hangouts for teaching and lecturing, for coaching, consulting, interviews, webinars, product demonstration, hold question and answer sessions, etc. The possibilities are exciting and nearly endless.

8 Magic Words That Increase The Money In Your List 10 Fold

A list full of buyers is worth at least 10 times more than a list full of people who haven’t purchased anything from you yet. In fact, in most cases a buyers list is often worth closer to 100 times more than a list of prospects, and here’s why: When someone purchases anything from you, even if they only spend $1, they are now in a vastly different mindset concerning their relationship with you and your products. They now have an OWNERSHIP mindset because they own one of your products, and because of this they are far, far more likely to purchase from you again and again and at higher and higher price points.

So what are the 8 magic words that increase the money in your list 10 fold or more? TURN PROSPECTS INTO BUYERS AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. In the beginning it doesn’t really matter if they are spending $1 or $100. The important thing is they have crossed that threshold from prospect to buyer.

How do you get prospects to immediately buy? The easiest way is to get them pre-sold by people they already know and trust. This means having affiliates refer people to you. If you cookie the affiliates in so that they receive commissions on anything prospects purchase for a long period of time, such as a year or even lifetime, affiliates will be more than happy to send you referrals.

Other ways to get people pre-sold on you before they even hit your site is to guest blog, to do joint ventures, and to create products that others in your niche can give away as a bonus to their own product. Whatever it takes, turn your prospects into happy customers as quickly as possible and you’ll be able to continue to sell to them for a long time to come.

I could have sent you a fruitcake this Holiday season to thank you for being a loyal subscriber and reader, but I think you’d appreciate something with more enduring value. So instead I’m giving you the gift that keeps giving – your own money generating system.

As you (hopefully) have already discovered, making money online isn’t difficult, but it does take some knowledge and the ability to put that knowledge to work.

I’m going to outline a rather simple and straightforward system that I believe anyone can use to make income. It can be scaled up as large as you like, depending on how much time you want to put into it and what you want out of it. And it’s easy enough for even new marketers to do.

Mind you, this is not my invention, but rather a system that has been working for many marketers for years. It’s not a shiny new bauble – instead, it’s a proven method that brings home the paycheck week in and week out – if you put in the time and effort required.

Ready? Let’s get started.

1. Choose your niche. I’m going to make it easy for you here by recommending that you choose one of the following 3 niches: Money and finance, health and fitness, or relationships and dating. All three are evergreen and bring in a ton of money.

For purposes of this training, we’re going to focus on health, because I believe it’s truly the easiest of the 3 niches in which to make money. True, there’s plenty of competition, but that won’t really be a factor for what we’re doing. That’s because people who are desperate for a health related solution such as alleviating pain or losing weight are ready to make a purchase now.

Google “most common illnesses” and you’ll find acne, allergies, ADHD, arthritis, asthma, back pain, bad breath, bursitis, etc. And that’s just a few from the A’s and B’s. $320 billion is spent on prescription drugs in the U.S. alone each year, and that doesn’t include over the counter medications and remedies.

This is a HUGE market full of desperate buyers. So forget selling granny square patterns or children’s bedtime stories for now – focus on where the money is.

And if you want to focus on money or relationships, those are always hot, hungry markets as well.

2. Choose a product to sell. This is going to be your One Time Offer after they opt in to your squeeze page. Most people will tell you to create your free report, then create your squeeze page, and then find an OTO to offer after they opt in.

This is good advice. After all, they found your squeeze page, they filled out the form and they pressed the button – they are eager for a solution to their problem! Logically this is the time to offer it to them.

But I do things just a bit differently. I find the product I’m going to be promoting as my OTO first. Preferably I also find a second, similar product to use as my back up, in case the owner of the first product pulls it (yes, it happens.) The reason I find the product first is because I want to tailor my squeeze page and my free report to that EXACT topic.

For example, if my OTO is how to cure adult acne, I will write my report on ADULT acne, not teenage acne. But if I had done things the way most people do, I could have had a report on teenage acne and an OTO on adult acne. Sure it’s the same problem, but it’s two entirely different markets and my conversion rate on the OTO would have been terrible. That’s why you want to find the product you’re going to be promoting as your OTO first.

What product should you choose? Here are criteria to look for:

* Low price – something less than $15 is ideal because it becomes an impulse purchase. And that’s exactly what you need here, because you haven’t yet established a lot of credibility with your new list member.

* Excellent product – you’ve got to buy the product and make sure it really delivers on whatever it promises. This is no time to be selling junk. Actually, there is never a time to be selling junk.

* High conversion rate – okay, this is a no-brainer. You want a product that converts really well so that you’re making money.

The ADVANCED ALTERNATIVE to promoting an affiliate product is to create your own product. The drawback is you need to create it or hire someone else to do it for you, either of which takes time. The benefit is you keep 100% of your sales, rather than splitting them with a product owner.

The CHEAT METHOD to creating your own product is of course to use some high grade PLR.

If you are using your own product, here’s a trick I like to use: At the top of the sales page, let them know that their free report is on its way to their inbox. This builds consistency and credibility and shows them they’re at the right place.

3. Next you’re going to create something to give away to your new niche. Here’s the key – you’re not going to slap together any old report or re-purpose some PLR. Instead, you’re going to create something so awesome, people would PAY YOU to get it. Best of all, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel or come up with some brilliant insight to do this. Instead, you’re going to let others do the research for you.

Head over to Amazon and search for your niche in the book section. Write down titles that grab your attention. Search inside the books and look at the table of contents. Take notes.

Now do the same with magazines in your niche. Look at the headlines on the magazine covers – these can be a goldmine. You’ll need to change them to accommodate your exact niche (and not plagiarize) but that’s easy. You want to pay attention to what the hot topics are and what headlines are used to sell those topics.

Next, visit other websites to pick up more ideas and information. This entire research process should take you about an hour or two, depending on how much time you want to put into it.

Outline the information you’re going to present, and then either write your report or record it, your choice. Don’t want to write it yourself? Then outsource it. It only needs to be 10 to 20 pages of solid, useful information – don’t write a book.

As you go through this process, always keep in mind what you’ll be promoting for your OTO, so that your freebie is 100% consistent with that product. This will give you the highest conversions on your OTO.

4. Make your squeeze page. Hopefully you garnered 1-5 smoking hot headlines during your research. Use these on your squeeze page as the main headline and bullets, let them know they get the report for free for opting in, and that’s it. Don’t make this complicated – less is more. Create excitement and curiosity. Again, if you don’t want to make your own squeeze page, you can always outsource it.

A word to the wise: Once you begin using your squeeze page, test it. Test headlines, test colors, test the call to action – just TEST. The more you test, the better conversions your page will get, the more you will make. Doesn’t testing seem boring? Let me ask you this – does doubling your conversions and thus doubling what you earn seem boring? Don’t think about it, just do it.

IMPORTANT: If you’re using double opt in to build your list, customize the page they land on after confirming their subscription. At the top of that page, let them know their report is on its way. Then either direct them to your affiliate page if you’re promoting an affiliate product, or place your sales letter on this same page. This gives them a second opportunity to purchase your offer.

5. Get some professional articles written. These articles have got to be outstanding, so unless you’re a brilliant writer, I would suggest hiring this out to a professional.

Remember when you did your research in magazines and books? These are your very best clues as to what to write about and even how the title should read. Keep in mind: If you see something on the cover of a current magazine, that likely means it’s a hot topic now and will make an excellent topic for one of your articles.

Number of articles to write: At least 2, although 30+ is better. If you’re on a budget, start small and get more written later. The articles should be magazine quality. They should immediately capture attention and rivet the reader all the way to the end of the article.

Add your resource box to each article. This is your call to action where you promise the reader your shiny new report if they simply visit your totally awesome (squeeze) page.

An alternative to sending them to your squeeze page is to send them to your blog or website. Be sure to have a sign-up form on every single page of your site, offering your free report.

Variation: If you’re sending your new traffic straight to your blog or website, make it for “members only.” This means they have to opt in to get to your website and read the content. Yes, this is also a great way to list build. I recommend testing between the squeeze page, straight to the website with opt-in forms and making your website member’s only to see which one converts the best.

6. Find blogs in your niche. You’re looking for blogs that match your niche really well, that get lots of traffic (bare minimum – 10,000 hits a month) and that are open to guest written articles. If a blog doesn’t meet all 3 of these criteria, then take a pass.

[One note here: The higher traffic blogs might be harder to break in to, but they’re well worth the effort. If you are more comfortable starting out with blogs of 10,000 visitors a month and working your way up, do it. After all, those 10,000 hit blogs may well be getting 100,000 visitors or more soon, and if you’re already established there, so much the better.]

Also, visit each blog you’re considering and look at the bylines. Are all of the articles written by one author? Or does this blog accept submissions from others? While it’s not impossible to get your article on a blog that is generally only written by one person, it’s far easier to get it published on a blog that regularly uses guest authors.

7. Rubber meets the road. Remember the articles you had written? You’re going to contact these blog owners and give them your articles. Give each blog owner 2-3 articles, and only give each article away once so that each blog owner gets completely unique material from you.

Why give each blog owner 2-3 articles instead of just 1? Because you’re proving that you can consistently write great articles. Also, what if the one article you send them is on a topic they don’t want to cover? Or maybe they just did an article on it? By sending more than one article you give them a choice and you also greatly increase the odds that they will publish at least one article for you.

Here’s how you give the articles away: Contact these people. Do it through email, through Facebook, through Skype, whatever. Better yet, contact them through all of those methods at the same time. No, you’re not spamming them. You are HELPING them. Send them a very friendly, upbeat message that includes the following points:

– You’ve been reading their blog

– You love what they write

– You’ve written exclusive articles just for them

– The articles are free – they can do whatever they want with them

– No strings attached

– You would like (LOVE!) to be a guest writer on their blog

– If they would publish one of your articles on their blog with your author’s box to help you get exposure, that would be totally awesome

– Thank you

What you’ve just done:

* You’ve made contact and you’ve GIVEN them something right off the bat, no strings attached. What happens when 99 out of 100 people contact a blog owner? They WANT something. But you are GIVING something, and it’s something totally cool, too: Well written articles that are perfect for their blog.

* You’ve got a new contact in your field. Do you think s/he might want more articles? And maybe they will even promote one of your own products? It could happen, and it starts with this initial contact.

* You’ve solved a problem for this new contact – you’ve given him or her high quality content. If you’re a blog owner, you know how hard it can be to create new content week after week. Having help is always much appreciated.

* You’ve got some serious link juice going. You’re contacting BIG blogs with major traffic, many of which will be posting your articles. Think Google will notice? Absolutely!

* You’ve got traffic. FREE traffic. Highly TARGETED, raving fanatical traffic visiting your website.

* You are building a LIST out of this traffic. A list of highly targeted people who think you must be an expert because you write articles on important blogs. Traffic that reads your stuff. Traffic that BUYS your stuff.

* You are making money immediately with your OTO. Remember, you’ve got a low priced and highly targeted OTO after your squeeze page. This product is something directly related to the issue you wrote about in the article and in the report.

Total cost for this list building/product selling business? If you do everything yourself, it costs you nothing but time. If you outsource the squeeze page and articles, it might run you a couple of hundred dollars, more or less.

What do you do now? Rinse and repeat. Continue writing articles (or having someone write articles for you) and continue contacting new blogs. Write more articles for the blogs on which you’ve already been published.

This works. Don’t reinvent the wheel – just do it.

The downside is you will find a few blog owners who simply won’t publish your stuff. That’s okay. Most times they will tell you that they won’t, and then you can take those same articles and offer them to a different blog.

Power Tip: A variation to sending them 2-3 articles is to send one 3-part series. It’s got to be totally researched, relevant and on a hot topic. If you get them to publish this (generally over the course of 3-5 days) you will see even more traffic than you would from getting one regular article published.

Now let’s talk hypothetical numbers just to get a feel for what this system can do for you: You contact one blog that gets 250,000 visitors a month. 25% of them read your article (that’s kind of a low number – you might get more.) Of those who read your article, 40% click your link, and 50% of those get your free report (meaning they joined your list.)

That’s 250,000 times .25, which is 62,500 people who read your article. How cool is that?? Just imagine for a second that 62,500 people read your article and see your byline – you’re already an expert and they haven’t even clicked on your author’s resource box yet.

Of those 62,500 people, 40% click your link. That’s 25,000 people going to your squeeze page. I don’t know about you, but when I think about getting 25,000 HIGHLY targeted people to my squeeze page, my heart beats a little faster and you can’t wipe the grin off my face.

Of those, we’re hypothetically saying that half join your list. I know some of you are thinking that number is high, and for the typical squeeze page it is high. But in this case they’ve just read your article on a high authority website and obviously liked it. They already know why they are coming to your page (to get your super-duper hot report on a topic they’re really interested in) and so unless your squeeze page is awful, you can expect to get a higher than average conversion.

Half of 25,000 is 12,500 new people on your list. People who have read your article. People who think you’re pretty hot stuff. People who are now going to read your report and KNOW you are pretty hot stuff. People who are far more likely than average to open and read your emails.

12,500 people from one article. Okay, true, you had several articles written and probably sent 3 of those to the blog owner, who maybe only published one. Still – is that a good return on your time and money or what???

And if you only do 1/10th as well as our example? Then you still have 1,250 highly targeted new subscribers. Not bad.

To those skeptics who think that only the “big dogs” can make money online, I hope I have just given you something to think about, and more importantly – a plan of ACTION.

It’s the New Year. What better time to roll up your sleeves and put this to work?

One more number I want to throw out here: Suppose you got 12,500 new subscribers per month. Maybe you did it with one article, maybe it took you 20 articles. Whatever. Each month you do what it takes to get 12,500 new subscribers. Assuming a high attrition rate of 20%, how many subscribers would you have by the next holiday season?

I’ll leave you to do your own math on this one.

Happy New Year!!!