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Strategy-Changing SEO Content Writer Tips

By Tom McSherry in Featured

As a professional SEO content writer, I see many common mistakes when it comes to content. It’s easy to get a general idea of what good content ought to be from the wealth of information available to the average website owner these days. But there’s still a lot of confusion and misinformation out there. What’s more, many of the common mantras of content writing are not very well understood. I’m going to provide three key insights that should help you get your content right.

Tip #1: Understand What “Content is King” Really Means

“Content is king” is the basis of content marketing online. Most website owners know that without content, they can’t possibly succeed in online business. Those who don’t bother to create content and think they can find a shortcut tend to sink.

But let’s clarify exactly what “content is king” really means. For one thing, it’s about quality much more than quantity. Ideally you should have a lot of high quality content, but it’s better to have a small amount of excellent content than a large amount of rubbish content. It’s become common for site owners to simply copy and paraphrase content from other sites. This is ultimately a doomed strategy, because as search engine algorithms improve your content will be exposed for what it is: a cheap imitation of the real deal.

Tip #2: Know Your Reader

One essential element of being a good SEO content writer is understanding the target audience. If you don’t get inside the heads of your readers, you won’t communicate on their level and you’ll fail to build a relationship. Creating a solid online business is largely dependent on your ability to build relationships through words. SEO content is not just a matter of slapping together a bunch of words with the right number of keywords in it. It must connect with the reader, otherwise it’s ultimately useless as part of a sales process.

Tip #3: Always Pre-Sell

Pre-selling is a key concept in SEO content writing. As I said above, it’s not just a matter of getting the keywords right – if your content is not written for human readers, your sales results and thus your earnings will be less than satisfactory.

Pre-selling is simply the process of warming up a cold prospect, in order to open her up for your sales proposal. When a reader comes to your site from a search result, she’s not looking for a sales pitch – she’s looking for information. Provide that information first, establish your authority on the subject – and then you can introduce your sales pitch. Again, this comes back to establishing a connection with your reader before you ask her to open her wallet. Successful SEO content needs to serve the dual functions of generating search engine traffic, and getting that traffic to actually like you and your site.

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Tom McSherry was tired of seeing the Internet swamped with low-quality, disposable content created by incompetent freelancers, so he created an SEO content writer service which aims to provide a one-stop-shop for business owners for all their online writing needs. Learn more at the Premium Online Writing website.

Hiring a Search Engine Optimization Company? Ask About a Pay-Per-Click Campaign as Proof of Concept

By Scott Buresh in Featured

There are generally two types of clients who seek out search engine marketing services – those who are new to the discipline and are researching various companies, and those who were unhappy with a previous SEO company and are now looking to engage with the right vendor. Whatever your background or familiarity with SEO, it’s important to understand that while most good firms do require a contract for services, the firms that have the most confidence in their own abilities will offer the chance to prove themselves to you by first providing a no-contract, introductory pay-per-click campaign.

Understandably, clients are sometimes wary of handing over the reins to their website – most often their most powerful marketing tool – to a random search engine marketing firm. In order to test an SEO company’s mettle, why not give them the chance to prove how effective they can be at managing and improving your PPC campaign instead? This way, you are engaging in a low-risk, high-yield endeavor that will truly serve as a litmus test for your working relationship. First, if you are already running your own pay-per-click campaign, give the SEO company control over all or even a small portion of your account to prove that they’re worthy of your business by not only maintaining the account, but measurably improving your results. If you don’t have a current PPC campaign, you can take the money that you’d spend on SEO and request that the search engine marketing firm build and run a pay-per-click campaign to serve as a proof of concept. While SEO and PPC are certainly different disciplines, they share a number of similarities including keyphrase selection, creation of targeted copy, tracking of metrics, and overall ROI. If the SEO company excels in generating results for your company’s PPC campaign, there is a likely correlation to the success that they will deliver a return on a longer-term SEO campaign.

Another benefit to this trial relationship is that you can find out if you enjoy working with your search engine marketing firm. For whatever reason, sometimes business relationships just do not work out. Expectations, styles, and workflows differ, and these cultural and philosophical variations can render the relationship a poor fit. During your initial pay-per-click campaign, when your potential SEO company promises a deliverable, are they on time? Do they deliver results without asking for too much work on your end? Can and will this search engine marketing company accommodate your needs? And do they take the time to explain concepts that you don’t understand?

These same principles and considerations apply if you are looking for a search engine marketing firm to take control of your existing and ongoing campaign. A good SEO company with years of experience should be able to identify new search terms for cultivation, and improve the metrics of even your very well run in-house pay-per-click campaign. In addition to standard SEO knowledge, the firm should act in your best interest and should have access to a variety of cutting-edge tools to measure what works and what doesn’t for your campaign. Even if you allocate only a small portion of your budget to this trial-run, a good SEO firm should be able to deliver swift and impressive results.

Since the SEO company is supposed to be proving themselves to you during this time, a pay-per-click campaign with a new search engine marketing firm, especially serving as a proof of concept, should not have a contract term. This is meant to provide you with peace of mind and eliminate anxiety on your behalf for multiple reasons. For example, if you don’t think the company is a good fit and isn’t delivering results, you should be able to immediately leave without having any long-term damage done to your campaign. Even if the company is delivering improved results from the pay-per-click campaign, but you’ve experienced a negative or cantankerous relationship with the firm, you should be able to take your business elsewhere to another firm that will work with you to meet your goals, and match your business culture and communication style. Essentially, during a proof of concept period, you should have expended little capital, have experienced a symbiotic business relationship, and have developed a firm sense of trust with your future SEO company.

Another reason why a pay-per-click campaign is the ideal medium for acting as proof of concept is because unlike long-term search engine optimization, which can require weeks and months to deliver full results, you should see an almost instantaneous uptick in results from a PPC campaign with a skilled search engine marketing firm. Although SEO is almost always the better long-term investment for your money, a pay-per-click campaign as proof of concept should give you the confidence you’re looking for in your relationship with a SEO company. With PPC, you should see measurable results within 30-60 days. Not only should you see your cost-per-click go down and your conversion rates rise, but both of these variables should lead to an increase in revenue. And just think – if you spent this same 30-60 day period searching for a SEO company without engaging in a proof of concept pay-per-click campaign, this is a lost opportunity cost that could have brought you not only a financial return, but also the confidence to engage in a worry-free campaign with a reputable search engine marketing firm.

Every SEO company says that their reputation is solid and that they deliver results. But unless they’re willing to accommodate your needs and adjust their workflow to suit your business, they’re probably not the firm you’re looking for in the long run. So, whether your business is just exploring the world of search engine marketing firms, or if you are looking for a reputable vendor who can confidently stand behind their work, don’t be afraid to ask for no-contract pay-per-click campaign to see if they can really deliver.

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Scott Buresh is the founder and CEO of Medium Blue, a search engine optimization company, which was awarded a prestigious American Marketing Association award in both 2008 and 2010. Buresh has been featured in respected publications such as Entrepreneur, Success, Direct Marketing News, Business to Business, Search Marketing Standard, Public Relations Tactics and the Atlanta Business Chronicle. His articles have appeared in numerous online publications, including ZDNet, WebProNews, MarketingProfs, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. He was also a contributor to How to Build Your Own Web Site with Little or No Money: The Complete Guide for Business and Personal Use (Brown, 2010), The Complete Guide to Google Advertising (Atlantic, 2008) and Building Your Business with Google for Dummies (Wiley, 2004). Medium Blue is an Atlanta search engine optimization company with local and international clients.

Web Marketing Strategy & Tactics: The Take-Away

By Jerry Bader in Featured

Consultants are always talking about “deliverables,” a term used to describe the final product provided to their clients. Consultants understand that business people are loath to paying for mere advice even if that advice is critical to their business, but they are open to paying for something tangible like a deliverable. The so called “deliverable” is usually a nice thick report bound in one of those fancy expensive folios that may contain some useful strategies and tactics but quite often is filled with platitudes and generalities accompanied by colorful graphs and charts of equally dubious value. As a consequence, business consultants, have a generalized reputation that lies somewhere between politicians and used car salesmen.

Somewhere along the evolutionary development of the Web entrepreneur a lesson was learned, unfortunately it was the wrong one. Deliverables are good; useless unusable stock solutions, even if wrapped in a nice shiny package, are bad.

The How-To Video Strategy

How-to videos have become an essential marketing strategy for featuring product knowledge and market expertise with the goal of creating confidence in a company’s ability to deliver what they promise.

3 Secrets to Business Success I Learned From My Grandpa

By Michele Pariza Wacek in Featured

My 96-year-old Grandpa recently passed away, and as a tribute to his memory I wanted to share some of the gems he passed on to me.

Grandpa was a successful entrepreneur — he started his business, a machine shop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, over 50 years ago.

Even though he never was able to get his head around the idea of Internet marketing, one thing he DID understand is business. Below are 3 tips he shared with me in order to help you build a solid, successful business:

1. Being lucky is contagious. Grandpa would often tell us stories about how his successful friends and associates were the ones who were lucky in Vegas — the ones who weren’t successful were also the ones who weren’t so lucky in Vegas (or other areas for that matter).

This sounds a little like law of attraction, right? Except grandpa would never call it law of attraction. I think it’s more like a core belief — if a core belief of yours is you’ll make a lot of money, then you’ll make a lot of money. If your core belief is you’ll struggle financially, you’ll struggle financially. Grandpa believed he would make a lot of money — therefore not only did he have a successful business but he also made money investing in various things (not to mention he also got lucky in Vegas quite a bit).

2. Being in a mastermind helps you grow your business. Except grandpa would never call it a mastermind. He would call it hanging out with his friends and associates, drinking, playing cards, talking about business and trying to one-up the other.

(This is also a good example of who you hang out with determines your business results.)

What’s even more interesting about all these stories is how this “mastermind” would self-select themselves in and out of the group. If you read between the lines (and after listening to the stories over the years) you start to see that his friends who hit hard-times financially and weren’t able to recover, quit hanging out with the group, but the successful ones stuck around (or new successful ones would join in).

3. Know your strengths and use them to your advantage. Again, grandpa would never say it like that but it’s what he did. For example, grandpa loves to get a deal. Especially in Laughlin and Vegas. So he would often negotiate with the hotel (to get a free meal or room or whatever) and he would use his age to his advantage. He would stand there and hem and haw and move as slowly as he possibly could until they gave him what he wanted just to get him out of their hair and help the next person. He especially liked doing this when there was a long line behind him.

There’s no question grandpa was a character. I have all sorts of stories about him, like how he used to go to Bingo games in Vegas and shout out “Bingo” only to have the Bingo caller tell him “sir, there haven’t been enough numbers called yet for you to have Bingo.” Grandpa would say “oh” then 2 numbers later yell Bingo out a second time. (I’m surprised he would make it out of those Bingo lounges intact.)

And of course, we have his girlfriend, who is 20 years younger than he is.

Ah, I will miss him.

But the point here is this — grandpa never really went in for a lot of self development or personal development stuff, but yet he still came to many of the same conclusions those disciplines teach. Mainly you need to the right mindset if you want to be successful. So take it from grandpa — if you want to be successful, start with the obstacles and blocks in your head.

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Michele PW (Michele Pariza Wacek) is your Ka-Ching! Marketing strategist and owns Creative Concepts and Copywriting LLC, a copywriting and marketing agency. She helps entrepreneurs become more successful at attracting more clients, selling more products and services and boosting their business. To find out how she can help you take your business to the next level, visit her site at www.MichelePW.com Copyright 2009 Michele Pariza Wacek.

Facebook Secrets – The Facebook Secrets To Success

By Joe Cabana in Featured

I would like to share some of my Facebook Secrets with you. Facebook is a great way to market your business. This site has exploded in growth during the last couple of years and is currently the Newest Internet Super Power. With more than 2.5 billion searches every month, that’s correct I said “billion”, and more than 600 million users, its no wonder so many people are on Facebook trying to market their business. With this kind of traffic it’s a really smart move for you to have some sort of presence there to help maximize your efforts. Additionally, this site currently offers some of the cheapest and most targeted PPC advertising you might ever find, also it probably will never be this cheap again.

With a few of these Facebook Secrets, you will discover some techniques that will help you target the proper people. When people join a company they are told to go to Facebook to promote their new business. They join groups, add a bunch of friends and just start posting their links talking about how wonderful their opportunity is or the unbelievable compensation plan their company provides. This hardly ever works. People are on this site to socialize. They don’t like to be bombarded with people sending them links about joining their opportunity. On Facebook they call this SPAMMING and people do not like it. You have to know how to locate people that are actually interested in what you have to offer.

Attracting your prospects with these Facebook Secrets can help you become much more targeted in your efforts.

You should begin by attracting people to you. You want to let them know about you personally. Start with your profile and let people know about what you like to do. Upload a few pictures of you, your family and friends. Posting a link to your site or blog is okay, just do not post a lot of links to opportunities you are trying to get somebody to join. Update your status on a regular basis to let people know what you have been doing. Try to talk about what is going on in your life personally and professionally. Once you do this you’ll start to attract people and get more friend requests.

Another one of my Facebook Secrets is to try to target friends which have the same interests that you do. You should not just add friends for the sole purpose of getting a lot of friends. Furthermore, whenever you make a friend request and that person accepts, you should not send them a link to join your opportunity. I see this happen so many times and people don’t like it. Work on getting to know them more and begin building a relationship with them. Seek feedback and try to find out if they are needing any help with whatever they are doing. There are so many people on Facebook attempting to market their business and not having very much success. Always offer value.

One more of my Facebook Secrets is generating free leads. You’ll want to start by trying to find groups which are in your niche. Try to find groups that have 100 members or more and join them. Find some of the most active members. The ones which are very active in the group and have posted recently. Read their post and comment on it. It will let them know you really did read it and send them a friend request. If they accept, ask them how things are going and seek feedback. Don’t send them a link for your opportunity at this time. Start creating a relationship and earn their trust. If you always offer value people will naturally want to know what you are doing and will be more likely to want to join you.

These are just some of my Facebook Secrets . Just remember, Facebook is a Social Networking Website. Utilize it to connect with new people in your target market. You’ll need to try to add friends from groups associated with network marketing. Connect with them and ask how their business is going. Determine if they are struggling and share some of the issues you are having too. You will always have people attempting to force their opportunity on you, but you will discover that a lot of them will want help. Learn more about them and offer them something of value. Facebook is growing fast and you should be using it to maximize your success.

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Joe Cabana is an expert network marketing coach and trainer teaching all the secret strategies used by the top producers in this industry. Get all of MY Free Network Marketing Strategies at: http://joecabana.com

How Frequently Should I Update My Blog To Keep Followers Returning?

By Diana Samalot in Featured

Blogging has become a key element part of an online presence for every small business owner. It’s no longer the domain of the niche aficionado or somebody with a distinct ax to grind in that way, but has by itself turn out to be a crucial marketing vehicle. You might have a business website already, but there is just about every reason for you to think about the establishment of a blog as well.

When you create and maintain a blog it has the power to catch the attention of regular followers. Each blog post can attract responses and this is what you should always aim for. Whenever you can initiate a two-way flow of discussion, this is viewed as being a very dynamic and valuable activity by the search engines like Google.

They’re more than likely to reward the particular blog page with a better ranking in the results webpages as a result.

When you have a blog content approach SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION rewards will without doubt follow. So long as you make the material suitable to your specific niche market, in addition to interesting and informative, you’ll have your angles covered. The modern-day SE is always looking out for content material that is relevant. They are just as likely to assess the context of the content that you put on your blog. While the reader will comment if the material is good, the SE also wants to make sure it is not only relevant but that there’s a level of comment discussion happening.

New business owners are often asking how to earn extra money running a blog and in fact you can do this two ways.

You may populate your actual blog with pertinent advertisements, affiliate offers and pay per click traffic alternatives, but you also can ensure that the content is so remarkably relevant and targeted that it subsequently increases targeted traffic. When people begin to comment back and forth your traffic expands exponentially. This is the moment to supply a pertinent link to your product or solution web page to siphon most of this traffic through your sales funnel.

The blog should be quite dynamic and must not be left to fester. This leads people to the query – exactly how frequently should blogs be updated? Views vary, naturally, but in general you ought to aim to update your blog several times per week if at all possible. If you have something crucial to express and have already built up a good following, then you certainly might prefer to make an attempt to update it on a daily basis. The trick is to make sure that you have something distinct to convey and you shouldn’t update just for the sake of refreshing the web page. Don’t be frightened to be controversial, within reason, as this is as likely as any other reason to induce those all-important responses.

A well-maintained blog is another good way of building credibility, authority and establishing trust. There must be a clear connection between your blog and your sales web page, but do not make the mistake of creating blog content material that is always sales oriented. There is a fine and delicate line here, but if you discover it, you may strike gold.

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Diana Samalot is mother of twin girls, writer, entrepreneur, master marketer and success coach. Using the proven system, training, coaching and world class support that the top 1% earners use will take your business to the next level whether you are seasoned or a newbie. To find out if you qualify to become part of her team of entrepreneurs and a millionaire by 2012, go to >>> http://thebestmillionairecreator.com

Affiliate Marketing – How Do I Generate An Income?

By Lawrence Hamilton in Featured

There are several different ways to generate a viable and sustainable income in Affiliate Marketing, The very first thing you need to determine is what product or service you want to promote or sell. Out of the millions of products and services out there, how are you going to choose something that is desirable to the public, yet has a low threshold of competition? My first recommendation would be to think of a product you are passionate about. Doing research and promoting a product or service you love will be fun and exciting for you. Don’t get too general and pick a huge market idea but grill down to a niche within that large market so you can concentrate on a specific area that is of great interest to you.

After you have made this determination, you need to find someone who has this product and needs other people (affiliates) to help sell their goods or services. That’s one thing that’s so great about Affiliate Marketing; people are out there doing the work and are looking for people to help promote and sell what they have. There are several affiliate services available to you such as ClickBank or OfferVault where you can find the product(s) you have an interest in. You sign up in the program that interests you most, and you have the first step done. The next obvious step will be to figure out how to get traffic to your product so prospects will purchase it. These is where a great percentage of people get frustrated or give up, because they lack the skills to promote or market what they want to sell. It can be a very daunting task, but there are many venues at your disposal which will alleviate the frustration and make your plans and ideas come to fruition.

Let’s go over some ways you could market your product or services so you can monetize your efforts.

1) A Website – A website always becomes an issue because most people don’t know how to go about putting one up on the Internet properly. They either don’t have the skills, knowledge, or the determination to create a website. The first question would be: can you generate an income without a website? The answer is a resounding…YES. The facts are, however, your chances of generating a viable income rise exponentially with a website at your disposal. If you research enough, you will find all the information you need to create a good, professionally looking website on your own. There are also sites out there that charge very little to teach you how to do it. They won’t build it for you (site builders can be quite expensive), but you will learn the fundamentals of putting together an income producing website.

You will also have to choose a domain name (very reasonable cost) and find a hosting company. There are hosting companies that do exist that are free of charge and do a good job. Once you have your website up and running, you can link to a blog, post links to the product or service you want to promote, and create several pages to inform people about the different advantages and benefits of your products you would like to sell. The main thing is to find a reputable site that will help you accomplish this without spending more money than you are willing to expend.

You usually won’t create and market your particular niche for absolutely no expense involved on your part, but it can be very minimal. It is a good idea to find some site(s) that can help you with your foundation so as to avoid the frustration involved with finding everything on your own.

The website you create can be your most important ingredient for guaranteeing your success with Affiliate Marketing.

2) Article Writing – this is another simple way to get started in Affiliate Marketing. If you are going to write articles, you are going to have to post them somewhere so people and prospects can read them. There are an abundance of free article sites upon which you can post your article(s). I would have to say that one of the most popular sites is ezinearticles, but you can find several out there that are also free. You can also find article submission sites that charge you a monthly fee. If you feel you can get more bang for your buck using a fee based site, then you have to weigh that decision out for yourself. One important aspect in reference to your title in any article you write and post is that you need to use the right keywords so you can expect to draw some traffic. Google Keywords is still the place where you can research the best keywords available for your niche product.

If you don’t ever get anybody to read your article, you will never get any traffic. You also have to do that research we talked about because if you do not project a level of professionalism and knowledge on your subject, you will lose them to another site. You do have to be aware that when you submit an article; you cannot refer anyone to a particular affiliate link. You are allowed to put your referenced blog or website in their resource box, but you do have to follow the protocol of the article administration. You also will have to get used to publishing about 6-8 articles per month if you ever want traffic. One article won’t do it, but you will get the hang of it, as this is a great system which will allow you to gain the traffic you need to sustain an income.

3) Blogging – a relatively easy way to get started is to create your own blog. You can go to Blogspot or any free blog site, and you can get set up with a free blog page. It is not my favorite method to promote a niche product with Affiliate Marketing, but it does have its advantages. What I like least about blogging is the aspects of promoting it, and how you have to continually keep it fresh. If you have the same information on your blog all the time, prospects will quit coming, because you offer nothing new to help them make a buying decision. So, how do I actually get prospects to my blog? There are two very acceptable methods that work, and I will share them with you.

First, you can go to Google Keywords and find the right keywords that will draw traffic to your blog site. If you’re passionate about being physically in shape, you can’t just use the keyword “HEALTH”, as it is way too broad. You have to look at keywords that go deeper into your niche that promotes abs, thighs, buttocks, biceps, or jogging, and then you have to determine if you are going after the male or female traffic (or both). It is necessary to narrow your competition down by using more of the long tailed keywords that will apply to your niche product, and Google keywords will do that for you. An example of a long tail keyword might be: rock hard abs, or how to run a marathon, or enviable buttocks in six weeks. We could go on, but you have to find the right combination for the product you have chosen. If you go the blog route, I feel it’s important to use a keyword in the Title of your blog, as well. This technique helps draw traffic to your blog site and should convert to sales. Once you have decided upon your niche product, done your research, and picked your keywords, you can now create that blog. I would recommend that you start out with a review of the product, how or why you used it, and how it helped you. Then you will need to add the appropriate link to your product.

Second, you could use your social networking to attract people to your blog. Whether you tweet and follow people, have a following, or you do the same on Facebook, you can get people to your blog simply by strategizing a method that would make people want to visit your blog. You need to inform your prospects something about what is in it for them to visit, they, in turn, need to see what’s in it for them, and you need to make that call to action for them to at least visit your blog. These will be your prospects, and you then need to make them your customers.

Regardless of how you go about getting yourself involved in Affiliate Marketing, you need to do your research, not only for the product you want to promote, but the method(s) you choose to employ to promote it. Once you have a solid foundation, it will not only get easier, but you will continually get better at it and generate that income you deserve.

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http://www.academyforinternetincome.com

Jackie Chan, Malcolm Gladwell and the Power of Social Media – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Tzvi Balbin in Featured

I couldn’t believe my eyes last night! One of the top trending topics on Twitter was #ripjackiechan. Had our Karate Kid Master actually “carked it” (died)?

The next step was to Google Jackie Chan and BAM! there were numerous articles reporting that Mr. Miyagi had died of a heart attack. The news swept like wildfire – retweets, posts and blogs were all spreading the word. RIP JACKIE CHAN.

There was only one problem, Jackie was Alive and well. Confirmed via his official Facebook page. (See Below)

Here’s how it all started. At about 6.pm last night (Mar. 29th) twitter user @forumn00b tweeted “Jackie Chan dies following heart attack, new details http://bit.ly/h67UWD #RIPjackieChan.” Roughly two hours later twitter user @tweetmeme re-tweeted @forumn00b bogus death hoax. You see the thing is, until 7 pm only five tweeters had re-tweeted the message. It had barely started to trend. So what happened?

Secrets to Improving Open Rates For Email Marketing

By Jonathan McCulloch in Featured

If you want to improve the open rates of your marketing emails, then what I am about to share with you will come as a surprise — because it seems to contradict what we know to be true about the people we serve.

Improving Open Rates For Email Marketing

I strongly suspect you’d find it very hard to find a stranger species than homo sapiens anywhere in the universe; indeed, the best sci-fi ‘aliens’ possess, in magnified and perhaps sometimes caricatured form, the traits we recognize as being odd in ourselves.

For example, it’s long been known, and demonstrated time and time again with research that we’ll work harder to cling onto something we already have than we will to gain something we don’t’ what’s more, we’ll also work harder to avoid pain than we will to seek pleasure.

Weird, eh?

Well if you think that’s weird just get a load of this: if you want to sell more by email couch your subject line in terms of gaining something positive, even if what you’re sharing with them or selling to them is ultimately about avoiding something negative.

Let me say that again, because it’s amazing when you think about it: if you want to sell more by email couch your subject line in terms of gaining something positive, even if what you’re sharing with them or selling to them is ultimately about avoiding something negative.

Isn’t that strange?

Let me give you an example of a very recent test I did. Two subject lines from otherwise identical emails:

1. How to Get Your Copy Read

2. How to Avoid Screwing Up Your Headline

You’d think the second would out pull the first, wouldn’t you?

Why?

Because it’s congruent with our human nature in wanting to avoid pain rather than seek pleasure.

But no: 35% more people went for the first as went for the second — and that’s definitely statistically significant (these stats are based on open rates, which while being inaccurate are consistent across the two emails and will be good relative measure).

So in this example you’d just make sure your email sales copy was aimed at getting them to achieve the first (get their copy read) by not doing the second (screwing up their headline).

Remember: this isn’t just idle mathematical geekism. This kind of knowledge will make you a lot of money.

Why?

Because your emails will make you money only if they get acted upon, and they’ll get acted upon only if they get read… and they’ll get read only if they get opened!

Most email marketers get this badly wrong and spend far too much time trying to sell in the email instead of going for the ‘low hanging fruit’ of maximizing the open rates. Yes, your email content is important… but if the email isn’t getting read, then it’s completely irrelevant.

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Lead generation and email marketing expert Jon McCulloch is the author of “BIG Marketing Muscle for Small Business”. This book reveals the strategies he has used with his clients to realize response rates over 300% better than traditional methods.

Your free book is waiting for you here: => www.jonmcculloch.com/big-marketing-muscle

The YouTube Star Making Machine

By Anthony Mora in Featured

According to a YouTube press release:

More than 13 million hours of video were uploaded during 2010.

35 hours of video are uploaded every minute.

More video is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than the 3 major US networks created in 60 years.

YouTube reached over 700 billion playbacks in 2010.

Less than a month after its fifth birthday, YouTube has announced that it has exceeded two billion video views per day.

That is a lot of video. How does anyone break through all of those images, music talk and clatter? The amazing thing is that many do and some ride it on to major success. That Bieber guy for example.

Although it’s only been around since 2005, and was sold in 2007 for 1.65 billion (yeah, billion with a B) to Google, YouTube is now a household name, a major player and a launching pad for new careers. The list of those who have emerged from YouTube includes Justin Bieber, Soulja Boy, and Tay Zonday, among others. The list is varied, from Bieber to the Bed Intruder to the double rainbows guy. John Jacobson and his Double Dream Hands video became a huge hit thanks to YouTube. Jacobson ended up on Ellen’s TV show teaching her staff how to do the dance on her birthday segment. There is now a Double Dream Hands phone app and a book and DVD are on the way.

Whereas YouTube used to be the site to visit to watch goofy, crazy videos, it is now the new engine for launching talent and careers. It is a community where viewers go to find news, sports, science, music and how-to information. Like a social network it also allows viewers to subscribe to different channels, friends, etc.

YouTube creates stars and sensations; Auto-Tune the News’s “Bed Intruder Song” was the year’s most-watched, non-major label video on YouTube. The site helped take it from obscurity to online sensation.

The Bieber Effect: The Beiber story is the most striking. The sixteen year old Canadian singer shot from anonymity to super-stardom in three years. After his debut release of “My World” he topped 100 million YouTube views. The Bieber effect signaled a new phenomenon – a combination of digital/viral social media and a crossover of digital/analog/print phenomenon. This was a true example of the new media melding with old.

Apart from videos from major labels, last year’s most popular videos were inspired by or take offs on established performers such as Lady Gaga, Ke$ha and, of course, Justin Bieber. There was also the Old Spice guy, and we’re all still recovering from the double rainbow. But musicians, performers and comedians aren’t the only ones to profit from YouTube. Who are they and how do they do it? I’ll be talking about that in my next article.

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Anthony Mora Communications, Inc. is a Los Angeles-based public relations company that has placed clients in: Time, Newsweek, 60 Minutes, CNN, USA Today, Oprah,The New York Times, Vogue, and other media. Anthony has been featured in: USA Today, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The BBC, CNN,Fox News, and other media outlets. Copyright © Anthony Mora 2011

© Copyright 2012 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

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