The Death of What, Exactly?

Hello again.

I'll get back to public speaking next week, I think, when we're all back into the swing of things...

Meanwhile, I thought I'd share a couple of lessons I've re-learned during the Christmas lull.

Firstly, when anyone publishes an ebook or white paper titled, 'The Death of....' you'd be very unwise to take it at face value - of course, they just want your attention. But when Michel Fortin publishes a white paper and calls it 'The Death of The Salesletter', you should certainly read it. As one of the world's top copywriters, he certainly knows what he's talking about. Which is why I'll give you 'The Death of The Salesletter', just for signing up to Roy Everitt dotcom...

Secondly, when anyone talks about the death of anything in business, that claim is almost always premature. We've even had 'The Death of The Internet' and yet, here we still are.

The obituary for email marketing has been written several times, despite the fact that emails clearly still work. And they work despite the fact that we're all bombarded with more emails than we can possibly read, with more links to websites than we can possibly follow, and with more downloadable ebooks than we can possibly use. Email marketing still works well in the right niches. And, being more or less free, it still works well enough in some areas where it hardly works at all - a one percent response or less is fine if you can send a million emails at almost no cost.

But when you have a much smaller list to market to, you need a much better response, which means you have to give a lot more thought to your campaign - to your offer and how you present it. That's when you want your response to be in double figures, or better. That's when you need some real expertise on your side.

So, a twenty-four percent response to an email marketing campaign can't help but be pleasing. That was the response we got to our last campaign. So far, about seventy of the roughly two hundred and eighty-odd people we've emailed have signed up for our latest venture. Over thirty of the original two hundred and thirty or so actually attended our first event, despite it being just a week before Christmas. We're almost nervous about inviting any more in case the venue can't cope with the numbers...

What this shows is that we chose the right medium to market our product. Another product might sell better through printed direct mail, yet another by online sales and pay per click. Word of mouth and referrals will almost always work.

But get your offer right, put your message across well and market to the right people, and you can still sell - even in the week before Christmas.

And even by email...

Roy Everitt, Writing For Response.

PS. What you must not do in these circumstances is pay too much attention to the few people who didn't like your marketing method. If it worked, and you got the response you hoped for, that's all the approval you need. Marketing, as someone once said, is a 'numbers business'.

The Old Ones Are The Best

... sometimes, anyway.

Hello again.

With all the hype and genuine enthusiasm for Web 2.0 in all its manifestations, it's easy to forget how effective 'traditional' (ie, more than 12 months old) marketing methods still are.

For example, when you want to know something, especially something a little bit obscure, do you go to Facebook, or MySpace? Not if you've any sense. You'll see some fascinating stuff and some amazing people there, but in terms of finding just what you need to know, they're not the places to look. Likewise, YouTube.

Nope - you 'Google' when you want to find something. And all the web 2.0 stuff is partly aimed at getting good traffic and therefore good rankings on Google and the rest, anyway.

It follows that putting your business in front of people on Google is still a very good thing to do. So it follows that Google Adwords are still worthwhile, providing you can keep the cost per click down. It also makes sense to have Google Adsense on your pages if you can keep the cost per visitor down.

A few weeks ago, I came a cross a product that shows exactly how one Brazilian man, with next to know Internet experience, made himself a multi-millionaire using Google's pay per click. The idea is very simple - you find a way to get traffic cheaply and then sell on the qualified leads at a much higher price.

The devil, as usual, is in the detail, and it took Canadian marketer Alex Goad months of questioning to uncover the finer points of the technique and put it to profitable use for himself.

Does $3.5 million a year sound profitable enough?

Well, now he's willing to tell us all about it too, in Google Payload.

It's got to be worth taking a look.

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS I don't know if Alex Goad (what is it with the name Alex and Internet success?) is planning to put the price up, but I do know he should! Go to Google Payload now, before he realises what he's got!

The Post Launch Profits Prophet

That's me...

Hello again,

As predicted, I didn't win the Post launch Profits affiliates' contest. Hardly surprising when you see the calibre of some of those on the leader board. So I'm not too downhearted.

At Least Alex Jeffreys has confirmed my theory about the value of strong joint venture partners - JV partners like Michael Cheney, Tahir Shah (if you haven't heard of him, you soon will), and David Congreave, although John Thornhill came out on top.

And, at the risk of repeating myself, it is the post launch profits that really count. And you can still get PLP for nothing. Click on the ad to the right, or click here to go to Post Launch Profits' sales page.

Roy Everitt, Writing For prolonged Results!

PS. You might have been wondering where the public speaking articles have gone. Or rather, when they're going to appear. I did say 'in the next week or two'... I guess it's gonna be two... Monday at the latest, I promise!

"Why Should I Tell You...

...My Secrets?"

Hello again.

It's the kind of question any successful person could ask. Why, indeed?

After all, if it's made someone rich, why would they want to share? Won't that just improve the competition and make it harder to become even more rich?

Surely, there's only a limited amount of this 'richness' thing to go round? *

And when someone offers not to sell you their product, but to give it away, what gives? Why would they do that? And yet, they do.

It's madness - but there's method in their madness, as my mum used to say.

Obviously, there's some benefit in there for them, even if we can't quite see it at first glance.

Well, there are at least two good reasons to give something away. Two very different reasons but each equally valid - one short term and one long term.

First, the short-term gain: I'll give you this now and I'll offer to sell you something even better while you still feel that cosy 'he's a nice guy' glow. There's certainly nothing wrong with that, and it's what Alex Jeffreys is doing with Post Launch Profits. You don't even need the warm glow, but the giveaway makes him seem like a straight-up kind of guy, which he is.

(So take his giveaway PLP ebook and certainly don't be afraid to buy the upsell - if Alex has done it it's guaranteed to be good.)

The second reason a 'guru' might give you the keys to his kingdom - or to his library of knowledge, anyway - is that we all get richer quicker if we have help. If I can reach a thousand people and you can reach a thousand, we can both reach two thousand by cooperating. But a guru reaches tens of thousands, most likely, and probably more, and you may have a hundred or less on your list. So what's he or she buying into?

Time to be flattered. If a guru shows real interest and you don't have a killer product and your list is paltry, then he or she's not interested in your list or your product - they're interested in you! I listened to a telesminar the other evening by another Alex, Alex Mandossian, and he listed the three stages of his perfect student:

Year one, student

Year two, affiliate

Year three, partner

With you as a successful partner, Alex Mandossian, like any other guru, gets more success as well.

I don't know about you, but I was never a perfect student - it was always 'Could do better'. But at least now we all have an incentive to really do our best!

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS. As Alex Jeffrey's affiliate contest for Post Launch Profits draws to a close, I can be pretty confident I haven't won - damn it! But, as Alex has been preaching, the real, sustainable income is in the months after the launch...

PPS Alex M also said that some of his students do the student-affiliate-partner trip in three months rather than three years. Now that's an incentive to really buckle down!

PPPS Of course, if you want to learn more of my secrets, you'll need to sign up for Roy Everitt dotcom. The form is waiting for you, top right on this page.

* Actually, no. There are some very good explanations of why that is in books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and others. I'll come back to it another time.

Now Post Launch is Post Launch

Well, perhaps not quite...

Hello again.

If you've been following the progress of Post Launch Profits you might be wondering how it's going. Well, Alex Jeffreys reports it's going very well, thanks.

But the point of Post Launch Profits, of course, is that Alex will continue to profit post-launch.

I'm sure he will, and I'm sure he doesn't need any good luck messages from me. But if you want to be a part of Post launch Profits - and that means you continuing to profit, too - get over to Post Launch Profits right now.

Roy

What Everyone Isn't Doing

Hello again.

If you've been following my posts here or in my emails, you'll know that I'm a keen advocate of networking and joint ventures. That particular route is a pretty reliable one to take if you want to build a list quickly and sell your product quickly. It also gets you noticed.

Which is probably why just about everyone else is promoting it, too.

So here's something that everyone isn't promoting (but top marketers are actually doing)...

Actually, before I tell you what it is, consider this:

As a marketer, you need to communicate a sense of 'you' - your values, your experience, your integrity. I don't know many top marketers who hide behind a company name, do you?

Over 90% of our communication is not in the words we use. Considering how powerful the right words can be, that's pretty amazing.

The spoken word, with the added benefits of tone, accent, intonation, pauses and the rest, conveys more meaning, but it still lacks something...

Use video, and you've got body language to add to the mix.

But even if that's your writing, your spoken word and your video, it's still not quite you.

The only logical conclusion is this: to sell you, you need to present you. And the only way to do that is to appear in person.

You can do that to some extent by networking, and you might speak to ten, fifteen or twenty people during the course of a day, which isn't bad. But networking's main benefit, as we've seen, is in finding jv partners.

So why not speak to fifty or a hundred people in a single hour - and still speak to your ten or fifteen potential jv's afterwards?

Public speaking scares a lot of people, but it's a great skill once you master it, and even grasping the rudiments will impress the majority of people - it's rather like having a book to your name, in the way it immediately makes you an expert. But, unlike your book, public speaking puts you into direct contact with your audience. At the same time, it sets you apart...

However ordinary you may think you are, once you've been on stage you're something like a star.

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS. Good news for those of you who are still nervous about the idea: over the next couple of weeks I'll be passing on some first-hand advice on public speaking - from conquering nerves to getting engagements and, most importantly, working out exactly what to say.

PPS. Sign up for Roy Everitt dotcom and you'll get that advice straight to your inbox, to keep and use whenever your opportunity knocks!

Post Launch Profits Launches!

It's here!

Hello again.

As promised, here's the link to Post Launch Profits

There's already quite a buzz going around about Alex Jeffries' new product.

Almost exactly a year ago, Alex launched his first product. It went pretty well, by all accounts, as well-supported launches often do. But there's a story behind these massive launches that's not often told...

You see, even the biggest launches often only last a few days. A few very exciting and lucrative days, it's true, but a few lucrative days is not enough to build and sustain a business.

No, what you often don't get to hear about is what happens next - how the really successful marketers sustain their income for week after week and month after month. It's something Alex had to learn pretty fast, and that's what he's sharing with the world today. It's how he turned one successful launch into a $100,000 year...

And it's how you can do the same.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this product, which I know has taken months to write is that it's free... I suggest you download it right away, at Post Launch Profits

Roy Everitt, Writing For Sustained Results

PS It's one thing creating a great product, getting jv partners and affiliates on board and launching it successfully (actually, that's three things), but the next step you'll need to take is to sustain your post launch profits. Alex Jeffreys tells you how. Here's the link again, to Post Launch Profits.

Waiting For the Green Light

Hello again.

This is one I'm bursting to tell you about, but can't...

Not quite yet, anyway.

Remember a short while back I told you how useful it can be to be mixing with top people and with the up and coming people, for that matter, at networking events. It's given us advance notice on three major launches in the last few weeks, meaning review copies of the products and a head start with the strategies they outline.

You'll also remember I mentioned Alex Jeffries, and his imminent product launch. That launch is today, but not quite yet.

But later today, I'll be able to tell you all about his new product, his ambitious plans for it, and most importantly, its absolutely enormous value to you. And of course I'll include a link to take you straight to it.

It's going to be big, it's going to change lives and help people get where they really want to be - and you can get there from here in just a few hours' time!

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS. To make sure you don't miss the announcement (I know how life can get in the way!) join Roy Everitt dotcom using the sign-up form at top right on this page. I'll email you every time I update this page, and you'll get exclusive advanced notice of some other great stuff too.

Five Ways to Secure a JV Deal...

(By Jacqui Carrel)

Hello.

No, I can't guarantee any of these methods will work, but they will ALL improve your chances of securing that all-important agreement from a major marketer to promote YOUR product.

You see, the main problem you'll have with your jv proposition, once you've got a great product and a good conversion rate and a great 'fit' to your target's list, is getting your jv target to listen to it.

So, keeping the promise I made to you yesterday, here are five ideas you might try:

• Email them personally. I've started with the method least likely to succeed, so you can see that even this can be done well or badly. Emailing these days will often get you nowhere. I get dozens of emails every day, and I expect you do too, and most of them are junk. Of those that aren't, I probably read about ten percent (unless I'm very bored, which isn't often these days), the rest I save for 'later' - which never comes. An email addressed to me by name, that looks like it might be a personal message, will at least get read promptly, so think of an original and personal-sounding subject line. Maybe try a topic you know they're interested in away from work - but it must tie in with the subject of the mail, even if a little tenuously.

• Write to them. A real letter, that is, with a hand-written envelope, addressed to them personally. We hardly get any personal mail these days, so a brief letter, again hand-written if possible, that speaks to them, might just sway them. Maybe tell them you'll follow up with a phone call, or invite them to phone you - don't forget to leave your number! Remember to make a strong sales pitch within your friendly little note.

• Join the forums on their membership sites and read and post regularly on their blogs. Get yourself known by name, at least. You'll have your email and website address in your profile. Then you can contact them through their site or by email or letter, or...

• Phone them. Some people are genuinely too busy to answer their own telephone, but not always the people you might expect. Speaking with them directly is much more likely to give you the results you're after and much more likely to get you off on a friendly footing, too. Even if the answer is 'no' this time, you're more likely to be remembered if you've actually spoken, and a good impression now may well pay dividends next time - in the form of a 'yes'. We all like working with people we know and like - it's simple human nature.

• Meet them face to face. Network, in other words, and try to get to the events where your targets are most likely to be - often as speakers. That doesn't make them untouchable or out of bounds. Networking like this also throws up other opportunities for joint ventures that you probably haven't considered. At the very least, you can speak to several different potential jv partners in the course of one networking day. Know what you're offering and be prepared to think on your feet, because there will probably be other deals on offer that you should consider.

That's my five for today. I've assumed you've done your homework on your 'targets', found or created a great product, demonstrated that it will sell, and that you are the kind of person a successful marketer will be happy to work with.

And I'm sure there are plenty more ways to get the attention of the big guns in Internet marketing - let me know about any you've had success with!

Jacqui

PS. Never forget, we're dealing with human beings here, so what works with one target might be exactly the wrong way to approach another. Trust your instincts, listen to their advice about what works (because that's probably what works with them), but most of all, TAKE ACTION. When you have a good product to promote, for goodness' sake PROMOTE IT!

(Copyright Jacqui Carrel 2007)