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We’ve all seen the mega launches of super expensive products that boast about how heavy the packing box is.

As marketers we suspect that bigger is better, even when it’s not. After all, more of anything seems like a better deal to the customer than less of something, right?

But thanks to a new study, we now know that “more” of a product not only sounds better – it can also be a status symbol for the customer.

Take for example the Big Gulp drink – 30 oz of sticky sweet carbonated beverage. Does anyone on the planet NEED 30 oz of sticky sweet carbonated beverage? While some might say they do, the fact is it’s a flood of empty calories with a bevy of negative health effects, yet they sell like gangbusters.

And believe it or not, they can actually make the purchasers feel BETTER about themselves.

No, I am NOT advocating you run out and buy one of these things – rather, I’m suggesting you SELL these things, in digital form.

Follow closely – This is from the Journal of Consumer Research and it concerns a series of experiments carried out by Derek Rucker of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

In the first experiment, volunteers looked at photos of people holding different sized drinks and then were asked to rate the STATUS of the people they saw in the photos. Tabulated results showed that the bigger the drink, the higher the status score each photo rated. No, I’m not kidding, and it gets weirder.

In the second experiment, half of the volunteers were asked to remember a time when they were bossed around. The other half were asked to remember a time when they were in a position to boss others around. No surprise here – the volunteers who remember being bossed around felt the least powerful. (Yet another example of how the thoughts you choose determine how you feel.)

Okay, here comes the surprise – next those same volunteers were offered a drink in 3 different sizes. There was no choice on what KIND of drink, only of what SIZE drink they could have.

Those who felt the least powerful CHOSE THE BIGGEST DRINK. In other words, even in something as ordinary as choosing a drink, the decision is not based solely on how thirsty the person is, but rather on how much power they feel they have.

And in the worldwide economy, it’s a reasonable conclusion that as people feel powerless to control what’s happening, more and more super sizing will be taking place, and not just in food.

Now then, here’s how to use this in your marketing…

First, when you can make your product appear larger, do so. For example, you might take each chapter of an ebook and separate it into a report – 12 reports look like more than one ebook. If you are shipping audios or videos, place them on 12 discs rather than 4. And so forth.

Second, offer a super size version of your product. That is, you might have your regular product and a second version that offers more information, more promises, more benefits, etc.

Third, offer them power and prestige. For example, if you’re creating a membership, don’t make it just any old membership. Give it a name like The Exclusive Gold Club for Star Class Members or something that conveys the power and prestige so many people are lacking in these uncertain times.

Fourth, don’t forget to add an OTO to your offer. OTO’s are like supersizing the fries – they’ve already decided to order, now it’s just a matter of offering them more, and many times they will jump at the chance to upgrade to that virtual Big Gulp.

One more thing… Don’t feel guilty about up-selling your customers. People want to feel they are in control, that they have power, that they do matter. And if it’s a choice between buying a few Big Gulps that are going to rot their bones and pack on the fat, or your new product that can actually HELP them, you’ve got a duty to offer them that product and let them decide for themselves.

To make your email stand out and get it opened, make it clear that your email is useful to the reader, that it’s specific to what they want or need to know, and that it is also unique.

Here are a few additional tips to help ensure you get the most bang for your email buck…

Identify yourself. Don’t send an email from a generic name in the hope of confusing them into opening it – they’ll just resent you for it. Use your own personal name.

Always send your emails from the SAME name. You’re building brand loyalty, even when that brand is you. So if you keep changing your “from” line, even if it changes from “Bob Smith” to “Robert Smith” to “Bob,” you’re confusing your recipients.

Don’t pretend your email is what it’s not. More and more we see emails that say, “Your order is complete” or “Here is your download link” something similar, when it’s got nothing to do with anything the receiver ordered. This is spammy at best and downright deceptive at worst.

Create urgency SOMETIMES. Urgency works best in moderation. If every email you send screams, “Time is running out!” “The price is going up!” “There are only 3 copies left!” Then you’re going to become like the boy who cried wolf, and you know what happened to him – he cried wolf so many times that when a real wolf actually showed up, nobody came to his rescue because nobody believed him. So the wolf ate him up.

Be brief. Yes, there are times when you have to send a longer email, but also send short ones. Remember, more and more of your subscribers are reading your emails on mobile devices, and in a distracted state. Keep your email messages succinct and to the point.

Email marketing remains one of the greatest forms of direct response marketing in history, and you can significantly improve your results if you keep these simple tips in mind when you prepare to send out your next email broadcast to your subscribers.

You already have a sign-up form on your website – but are you doing everything possible to get as many subscribers as possible? Here are 7 tactics for growing your list faster with simple things that only take a few minutes…

Place your sign-up in as many places as possible – preferably on every page. You might also place it in the header or footer as well.

Get in their face. Your opt-in form should be prominent, in bold colors, with background color, maybe animation, etc. Make the sign-up totally visible and eye-catching.

Use pop-ups. Love ’em? Hate ’em? Either way, pop-ups just plain work. Test to see if it’s best to use a pop-up that appears after a few moments, or when the visitor is leaving the page. Do not have the pop-up appear immediately when they get to your page – you’ll just irritate your visitors and encourage them to click away. People need time to see if they like your website and if they want to subscribe.

Sell it, baby! Don’t just ask them to subscribe, BRIBE them to subscribe. Give them something they would otherwise be willing to PAY for and you’ll have a sure winner.

Get their friends, too. Run offers that encourage your visitors to forward your stuff to their friends or colleagues, and always include an easy way for them to sign-up.

Use social media. Perhaps this should have been #1 since social media can build a list faster than almost any other method. Place a sign up form on your Facebook page, run contests, offer bribes and do whatever is necessary to capture the positive attention of your prospects and get them to join your list.

Cross promote. Whether you’re cross promoting between your own product lines, or with another marketer, send emails to each list you can access offering people a great incentive for joining the other list.

Put a few of these tips into action and celebrate the growth of your email subscriber list!

There’s more to making money from your list than simply getting people ON your list. In fact, it’s once they’re on your list that the real work begins because you not only don’t want them to unsubscribe – you want them to actively look forward to hearing from you, to open and read your emails, and to act on your suggestions.

Your subscribers will stay on your list if you are giving them value in the ways that they need. Tricky, huh? Because how do you know what it is that they need?

The answer is to create a feedback loop so they can tell what they want to learn and what they want to buy from you. This way you can design your products and services in a way that is exactly what your readers want.

You can get this information by using a survey to ask them for their number 1 questions on the niches or topics your list covers. SurveyMonkey.com can do this for you free.

Or you can write a blog post that asks readers to give you information on what they currently need. Be sure to specifically ask them to comment, and reply back to their comments. Commenting back encourages even more readers to comment, because they realize you are really paying attention to what they say.

A third option is to ask them a question in an email. It might be after your main email message, or the entire email might be you asking them to answer your question. Ask them to “hit reply right now” to send you their answer.

Once you know what their biggest questions are, you can write content or offer products that provide them with exactly what they need.

You want to condition your list to work with you, to give you the information you need so that you can help them. Think of it as a team effort – you’re asking what they need, they’re telling you, you’re creating it, they’re giving you feedback, etc.

It’s not about selling and more selling. It’s about offering your subscribers what they need, whether it’s in the form of free or paid content. And as long as you’re doing that, they will not only remain on your list – they’ll also become fans who enjoy reading your emails and buying your products.

Bloggers, email marketers, copywriters and writers of all genres, how do you keep your readers coming back for more? By utilizing that literary gem, the cliffhanger. I’ll show you how to use cliffhangers and teasers to increase your sales, but first a little background…

We’ve all been caught up in a story only to realize it was continued in the next chapter, installment, episode or issue. And wouldn’t you know it, they ended the present installment right when something HUGE was about to happen! Coincidence? Not at all.

When Dallas ended their season with “Who shot JR?” it was all people talked about for the entire summer. Heck, that was over 3 decades ago, and people still refer to it today. But what if they had shown you who shot JR before they ended the season? It’s likely no one would even remember that JR got shot at all.

Just this morning I was reading a work of fiction in which one of the main characters realized he was about to be ambushed when POOF! It was the end of the chapter. And wouldn’t you know it – the next chapter addressed an entirely different plot line of the story, thus leaving me in suspense until I can return to my reading.

It is the suspense that keeps us watching the movie or tuning in each week to the television show or watching the News at 11 because of that teaser they threw at us earlier in the evening that said, “Is your holiday turkey safe to eat? Find out at 6:00,” or “Is the water you’re drinking causing you cancer? Find out tonight at 11:00.”

You can use this technique in your own marketing, as well. For example, when writing a series of emails, end each one with a major benefit of what they’ll discover in the next email. When writing a sales letter, promise to teach them something they really want to know, but first delve more deeply into why they need your product. And when writing blog posts, either throw out a teaser at the end that sends them to another blog post or sales letter, or use the JR method and leave them hanging until your next post.

Cliffhangers and teasers can be your best friend when it comes to getting your emails opened, your sales letter read and people hanging on your every word. And if you look closely, you’ll notice I even deployed this technique in the first paragraph of this article. It got you to keep reading, now didn’t it? 😉

There are only so many hours in your day, which is to say, you can only do so much.

In the beginning of your business, you’re probably doing everything yourself.

But as things start working and making money, you’ve got to scale it up if you want to keep growing the business.

If you don’t scale, then you can’t grow beyond the point of what you can do alone.

That’s why you want to begin outsourcing as much as you can. And the easiest way to do it is to record yourself performing each step of your business, so you can hand the recordings over to an outsourcer to do these things for you.

Either write it up, take screenshots or use video recording.

And no, it doesn’t have to be perfect. You’re simply going to hand it to an outsourcer and let them take over the task for you.

Remember, your goal is to work ON your business, not IN your business.

Otherwise you will have trouble hitting six figures and you will never come close to that magical seven figure income.

The ‘secret’ isn’t all that secret, and yet most marketers get this wrong.

You simply have to give a much higher value than the price that subscribers pay, and two things will happen:

They will join in droves, and they will STAY and continue to pay.

It doesn’t matter if you’re charging $10 a month or $1,000 a month. Just make sure that your members are getting far more than the price they are paying.

For example, let’s say you want to build a membership on how to start an online business.

If you give your subscribers an eight week guarantee (think ClickBank) and a promise that they can start earning by the fourth week, you’re in business.

If you further promise full email support, you’ll do even better. Yes, you’ll outsource the support, and it will be well worth the cost. Many members will join just to get that live support.

Subscribers get new content each week, they have 8 weeks to get a refund, they’ll be making money in just 4 weeks, AND they have live support – do you think that might be a winner?

Absolutely. And you can use a similar model no matter what niche you’re in.

Let’s say you teach golfing. You promise that in 4 weeks they will shave 4 strokes off of their game. They have an 8 week guarantee. And sure, maybe you even throw in live support of some kind, too. Again, you’ve got a winner.

Always give far more in value than you’re charging for your membership sites, and you can’t go wrong.

Okay, your competition has been around longer than you.

They know more than you about your customers, your products, your marketing…

…let’s face it – they’re racehorses, and you’re a mule.

But what does that mean?

New marketers feel like they are coming into a race when it’s three-quarters over.

Seasoned marketers know more, have more tools, more contacts, more customers, bigger lists, more outsourcers and so forth.

How is a mule to compete against a tried and true racehorse?

One step at a time, that’s how.

In 1976, the Great American Horse Race – 3,500 miles long through 13 American states – had 90 teams of purebred racehorses competing…

And 1 team of mules.

That’s right, mules – competing with thoroughbreds from across the world in the perhaps the longest, greatest horse race ever.

Entered in the race were Viking horses from Iceland; Arabian stallions, favored to win by almost everyone; tall Irish thoroughbreds; striking Appaloosas; and horses from France, Australia, Denmark and Japan.

And then there was Lord Fauntleroy, the mule. “Leroy,” for short, was the choice steed of Virl Norton, a steeplejack from San Jose, California. Lady Eloise was the backup mule. And no one – no one – took them seriously.

3,500 miles later, you already know who won: The most unlikely victor in any horse race, ever. As Leroy crossed the finish line into the stadium, he flopped his ears and gave a victorious “hee-haw.”

The mule had won with 315.47 total hours. Second place went to an Arabian, clocking 324.6 hours. That’s right – it wasn’t even close.

When you think you can’t compete – when you’re sure you don’t know enough, have enough experience, don’t have the contacts or whatever thought is going through your head, just think of Leroy.

No one expected him to win except his owner and rider, Norton.

Maybe no one expects you to win, either, except maybe your spouse or loved-one.

That’s okay, because if you simply stay in the race and be consistent, you can outshine them all… Or at least cross the finish line with a lovely payday for yourself.

So you’ve set up your blog and you’ve got several posts – and no readers. Now what? Here are 7 proven methods to drive traffic to your blog in no time…

Facebook Fan Pages. You can set up a Fan Page for your blog in about a minute – ten minutes if you’re hunting for a photo and just the right thing to say. It’s simple, easy and free, and here’s my favorite part: Once people become fans of your blog they’ll be able to see your blog updates when they’re on Facebook. Plus, when they like your blog, their friends see that and check out your blog, too. Some of them ‘like’ it, and their friends check out your blog, and so forth.

Twitter. Yes, just about everyone seems to be either on Twitter or joining, so go ahead and set up a Twitter account just for your blog. Again, it’ll take you a whopping 2 to 3 minutes. Make a few interesting Tweets, and then begin adding followers. Use one of the many Twitter add-ons to schedule your tweets to run around the clock, mixing them up and always making them interesting. Tweet each time you make a new blog post, and be sure to use your blog’s URL in your profile. Ask others to retweet you, continue to build your followers, and you’ll be driving traffic to your blog in no time.

Forum signatures. We’re going to assume you’re blogging about a topic you thoroughly enjoy, and thus you belong to at least one forum that focuses on that topic. Be sure to place your blog information in your signature line, using something catchy that teases them into checking out your blog.

Social Networking, RSS Feeds and Blog Directories. How are people bookmarking and /or finding blogs these days? Through blog directories, RRS feeds and social networking. That’s why you want your blog to have all those social networking buttons – they’re not just for decoration. And get your blog listed in all of the big blog directories as well. Here’s a list to start you out…

http://www.toprankblog.com/rss-blog-directories/

Blog Commenting. Find the most widely read blogs in your niche and comment on their posts. Here’s how: Create an Icon that absolutely catches the eye. If you’re not sure what it should look like, spend some time looking at other Icons/Gravatars and see which ones positively pop out at you. Next, leave helpful, interesting comments on the blogs, always with your blog’s URL in the website field. Last, watch to see which of these blogs sends you the most traffic, and focus your commenting on those blogs. Better yet, hire someone to post the comments for you.

Guest Posting. Now that you’ve been leaving great comments on these blogs, let’s take it a step further. Contact the blog owners and ask if you can write a guest post for them. Since they’ve been (hopefully) seeing and reading your comments, there’s a good chance they will be open to letting you do the heavy lifting of writing a blog post for them. To increase the chance they’ll say yes, actually attach the blog post to your email. If they turn you down, it could be because they didn’t like your topic, so ask if there is something else they would prefer. Then resubmit your original blog post to another blog.

Ezine Articles Dot Com. Yes, this is still a good way to drive free traffic, for a couple of reasons. First, people searching for information on Google often land on a particular article at this website – so why shouldn’t it be your article? With your blog in the resource box, this can result in free traffic. And occasionally your article will end up on someone else’s website – again, a good source of free traffic, not to mention another backlink.

Half of Facebook’s more than 2.2 BILLION active users are on Facebook in any 24 hour period. In addition, the average U.S. Facebook user spends nearly 6 hours a month browsing this social network.

In other words, if your business isn’t on Facebook yet, maybe it should be. And one of the first questions I invariably receive from newcomers concerning Facebook is, “What should I post to get people interested in my business?” Here are some ideas:

Showcase your customers. If you’ve got photos, videos or emails from happy customers using your products, go ahead and show them. Just remember, you’re not bragging about your product, you’re showing what your customers are doing with your product. Keep the difference in mind when choosing and framing content and you can’t go wrong.

Instead of showing a testimonial from Jimmy telling how great your product is, show Jimmy using or enjoying your product, or show the direct results Jimmy achieved with your product. For example, if you teach your customers how to restore classic cars, show Jimmy with before and after shots of his car.

Use humor. Don’t make yourself or your business overly serious on Facebook. Instead, use light-hearted humor whenever possible. This isn’t necessarily telling jokes – most times it’s simply taking a poke at yourself or your day, showing something in a humorous light, being witty or simply sharing that silly thing that happened to you a few minutes ago.

Post funny videos, especially if they’re relevant to your business. And don’t just grab videos from YouTube – make your own quick videos when you feel inspired.

Give them content. Facebook isn’t necessarily the place to offer long winded diatribes about anything. But it is a great place to share cool content – especially the “How-to” variety and the entertainment variety. And it doesn’t all need to originate with you – use curated content to round out your own and keep people engaged.

Let them inside. That is, show off your staff (if you have one) or your family or the inner workings of your business. Engage them by pulling back the curtain and showing what they normally wouldn’t get to see. For example, if you’re a one person business working out of your home, show them your office, your view, and your little dog that keeps you company. If your business has oodles of employees, post pictures of your in-office celebrations such as birthdays, as well as the antics that go on and so forth. By giving them a peak behind the curtain, your friends and fans feel very much included and part of the group. You’re no longer just a business, you’re part of their circle.

Ask questions. Nothing engages other people like asking them their opinion on something, even if it’s as silly as, “What’s better: Baseball or Football, and why?” Posts with questions get the conversation rolling, especially when it’s an easy question to answer. And be sure to respond to the answers you receive.

Use these Facebook “attention getters” to quickly begin bringing more people your way.