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? 😉
You don’t need a humongous budget when you begin outsourcing, but what you do need is the knowledge of HOW to get the best online workers possible. After all, no matter how much work you outsource, it’s still your business and your reputation on the line. Not to mention the fact that better work equates to better profits, both short and long term. Doesn’t it just make sense to find the very best people possible to work in your business?
Whether you are a seasoned pro at outsourcing or you’ve never hired anyone to do anything before, here are some proven tips to get you moving with the least amount of hassle and the highest return for your money.
Be absolutely clear on what you want done. Whether you are posting a job or giving instructions to someone you’ve already hired, tell them step by step exactly what you want them to do. This will save you time, aggravation, and usually get the job done faster. Plus the bids you receive will tend to be lower, since the people doing the bidding can easily envision exactly what they’re doing and how long it will take. Lastly, if you are paying by the hour then this will save you money, as your worker doesn’t need to take the time to figure out how to accomplish what you want done.
In being clear, consider either writing out what needs to be done in a step by step fashion, or make a video showing them exactly what to do. This way you are not only showing your present worker what to do, you’re also creating a blueprint for future workers to follow. In addition, if there is a hole in your plan it will become quite clear when you’re going through the steps necessary to achieve your goal.
Have an agreement or contract between you and the worker. Things you might include are:
Work to be done (Detailed description of what is expected)
Deadline for the work to be done
Payment arrangement (Amount to be paid, terms, method of payment, etc.)
Copyright (You’ll want it to be crystal clear that you own all copyrights)
Non-disclosure (Your worker is not to reveal anything that goes on inside your business, etc.)
Check out your worker prior to hiring them. Check their portfolio, references, feedback, etc. You might also Google them. Try to get an idea of the kind of work this person does and whether or not they meet deadlines. Also important: How well they communicate with you.
Start with something small and work up from there. If you’ve never hired someone before, choose a small job first. It makes it easier for you to get your feet wet, minimizes your risk, and allows you to experience how wonderful it is to have someone else handling that small chore that you don’t enjoy doing anyway.
Find the workers who do well with the small jobs and then give them bigger tasks to do. Rather than hiring someone for a large project, let them show you what they can do with a small one first. They’re testing the waters with you, finding that you do indeed pay on time and you’re someone they can work with. And you’re finding out what kind of work they do, if they meet deadlines and if their style meshes with yours. If it’s a good fit, offer them more work and bigger jobs. If not, move on.
For any big job, don’t pay all at once. For example, rather than paying all up front or all when the job is done, you might pay 25% up front, 25% when the job is half done, and 50% when the job is finished. This provides them with plenty of incentive to keep working, since they know you pay and there is more money to come. Plus, if the work isn’t to your satisfaction, you can stop the work before you’ve shelled out too much money.
Let them know to contact you if they have questions they can’t find the answer to. It’s important that they and your project not get stalled simply because they’re missing a key piece of information.
Have them keep in touch daily. You might ask them to send you a report at the end of the day detailing what they accomplished on the project, any challenges they’re facing and of course any questions they might have.
Keep your relationships professional. That is, don’t hire your best buddy because he needs the work – you’ll only end up with problems. Also, if someone you hire is really nice but not performing, you’ve got to set aside your feelings and deal with the situation from a business standpoint. This is, after all, your livelihood.
Let your workers know exactly what you expect and give lots of feedback. Don’t make them wonder if they’re doing a good job, tell them. Don’t just pick out the one mistake they made in the 100 articles they wrote for you, also tell them what they did right and let them know you appreciate their work. The more positive feedback you can give, the harder they will work for you, and the easier it will be for them to take constructive criticism as well.
If you think you might change your mind, let them know ahead of time. For example, you decide to take a project in a certain direction, all the while wondering if you shouldn’t be doing it differently. Let them know you might be changing things halfway through, and if it comes to pass they’ll be ready for it.
Always treat your workers with the utmost respect. It goes without saying, but I will anyway: Just because they’re working for you doesn’t mean they are less than you. Being respectful of your workers will yield you 10–fold in goodwill and hard work. Think back to when you had a boss – who did you go the extra mile for? The boss who yelled and screamed and put you down? Or the boss who was positive, treated you with respect and brought out the best in you? Be the good boss and you will have workers who are loyal and ready to set aside their other work to get yours done faster and better.
Apply some of these hard-earned tips working in the trenches of outsourcing and you’ll save yourself lots of frustration and find faster success getting others to help you grow your business online.
No doubt you’ve been told to avoid using “hype” in your copywriting and sales messages, right? And I’ll bet there have been times when you’ve closed a sales letter page because the hype was too ridiculous for words. But when it comes to defining hype and especially to determining how much is just right, the water gets murky and no two marketers can give you the same answer.
That’s because “hype” is subjective. One prospect’s perception of hype is another prospect’s perception of just the right sales message to get them to buy. In addition, you need some hype to sell. No hype = no excitement, which means no sale. Here’s what I mean:
Sales message example #1: “This system is for sale for $33.33, here’s the order button.”
Now you’ve got to admit, that’s hype free. It’s also benefit free, boring and will capture the interest of just about nobody. Of course, if the system is already well-known and you’re discounting it to 5 bucks, you’ve made a sale. But if you’re selling a good product at a reasonable price, you’re going to have to turn on the hype. Here goes:
Sales message example #2: “This Revolutionary New System Cuts Your Work in Half While Tripling Your Productivity.”
Not bad, and certainly worthy of further investigation if you’re interested in getting more work done in less time. And yes, there is hype for sure, especially in the words “revolutionary” and “new” – just not so much that it raises red flags and causes your prospect to tune out.
Sales message example #3: “The Easy System that Earns You a Thousand Dollars a Second with NO Work.”
Looking at the words themselves, there isn’t much in the way of hype. We didn’t say it’s the greatest system in the world, or that everyone loves it, or that there’s never been anything like it since the beginning of time. However, is it believable? No. And therefore, the promise is just so much hype in the ears of the prospect and doesn’t offer enough substance.
Sales Message Example #4: “Give Me 5 Hours and I’ll Show You How to Earn $1,439 Per Month on Autopilot.”
Hyped? I don’t think so. This message offers a specific benefit in exchange for a specified amount of work – 5 hours. The amount doesn’t sound unreasonable because we’ve all seen examples of a few hours of work resulting in a monthly income of several hundred or even a couple of thousand dollars per month. Most importantly, the reader isn’t being promised something for nothing, which will ALWAYS instill doubt in a prospect. It sounds honest, it doesn’t sound hyped, and it’s completely plausible.
What have we learned from these examples? Plenty. First, if you don’t use some hype you’re never going to sell much of anything. People need to get excited before they’ll whip out their wallets and they need to see a clear benefit to making the purchase. They WANT to be fired up, they want to feel their heart race a bit and experience that adrenaline rush of getting a great deal. The better you can extrapolate how the features of your product will benefit the consumer and improve their life, the more likely they are to click the order button.
Second, be believable. Making wild claims is the ultimate in hype – and if you can’t back those claims with rock solid absolute undeniable proof, you’re better off not making those claims at all.
Third, be specific. “Make $2,000 a month!” sounds much more like hype than “Earn $2,078.55 a month.” Why? Because the specific number is more credible, as though it’s already been done. “Type Faster” doesn’t mean much, but “Type 15 Words Per Minute Faster after Just 4 Lessons” tells the prospect exactly what to expect. Non-specific claims and rounded numbers just naturally sound like hype, regardless of whether or not they’re factual.
Fourth, tell them what the catch is. This goes right back to being believable, because if you tell someone they can get a great benefit, they immediately want to know what the catch is. Often this equates to price, but if you can show a different catch, such as “5 hours,” then you take their mind off of price and onto the question of, “What do I need to do for 5 hours to make that $1,439 a month?”
And by the way – normally an article like this would start out with the definition of hype, but I wanted to save this gem for the end. Here’s what hype really means:
Hype: Verb meaning to stimulate or excite
Hype: Noun meaning extravagant or exaggerated claims
As you can see, hype is good so long as we strive to stimulate and excite, rather than exaggerate or stretch the truth.
Regardless of what you’re writing – a blog post, an article, a sales message, etc. – your copy should sound personal and relevant to the person reading it. You don’t want to sound like you’re writing a textbook to a class of students or a news article to the masses. Instead, your tone should be similar to a one on one conversation with a friend.
So how can you achieve this? With a little research and a healthy dose of imagination. This is one of those tricks that natural writers do without thinking about, and the rest of us can learn with just a little practice. What you’re going to do is create a “persona” of your ideal reader. For example, if you’re writing a sales letter, your persona is the customer. Hopefully you have a good idea of who your customers are, and if not you might want to engage in some research to find out.
Choose one customer: Someone who has purchased your products in the past and reads all your stuff. This person might be real or imaginary, it doesn’t really matter. Now write a bio for your customer, answering these questions: Male or female? Age? Where does s/he live? Occupation? Likes? Dislikes? Desires? Goals? You get the idea – you’re creating this person just as if they were real and sitting there in the room with you. Picture them in your mind, or choose a photo from the Internet.
Now for the fun part: Make friends with this customer. Imagine having a face to face chat about your latest product or the blogpost you’re about to write. What do you tell him or her? What questions do they have? Do they understand what you’re saying, or do they need clarification?
If you’re thinking you can’t do this, it simply means you’re out of practice. All children have imaginary conversations in their heads, and you did as well. This is your chance to let your subconscious mind go to work, filling in the words your persona would say to you in a conversation. You’ll be surprised by what you discover because you’re opening the door to knowledge you didn’t even know you had.
Now then, once you’ve got a good sense of who your persona is, go ahead and write that blog post or article or sales message directly to your persona, just as you would write a personal letter. Be sure to connect with them on an emotional as well as intellectual level. Your persona is the only one that matters when you are writing because it is just the two of you having an intimate conversation.
And if all of this sounds terribly silly, don’t worry. Just try it. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much better your writing can become when you’re writing to that one specific persona.
BONUS: As you get to know your persona better and better, you might try asking him or her questions and quietly listening for the answers. Your persona can tell you why your marketing is falling short, how to market your product for more sales, and even what product to create.
Once you’re well acquainted with your first persona, consider getting a second one that is quite different from the first. For example, if your niche is Internet marketing and your persona is a 50 year old male looking to make extra money to sock away for retirement, your second persona might be a 22 year old looking to earn a full time living online as fast as possible, or perhaps a newly divorced 35 year old mother of 3 trying to make ends meet.
These personas will make your writing come alive, as well as accessing useful and sometimes brilliant information and insights that take you by complete surprise and significantly add to your bottom line.
When you’re struggling to write your latest blogpost, you probably don’t want to have to worry about SEO, too.
There is one theory that says you shouldn’t. After all, if you start focusing on SEO, then you won’t be writing the best content possible for your audience.
But is it really an either/or type of situation? It would be nice to get free Google traffic from your articles and blog posts without going crazy about how to structure your writing, what to add and what to leave out.
With that in mind, here are a few tips from the pros on how to do exactly that:
1: Your Writing Needs to Be Excellent
The content should be unique, high quality and written to professional standards.
Do this, and Google will likely reward you.
If any part of you is interested in buying those spun articles that were prevalent years ago – don’t even think about it. Don’t even consider using them simply to pad out your website – Google will look for them, Google will find them, and Google will penalize you for them.
(This sounds like a Liam Neeson movie…)
2: Longer is Not Necessarily Better
One popular strategy is to write a longer, more in-depth piece than anyone else. But it’s never that simple.
If you look at the webpages that have you beat in the SERPs right now, you can see for yourself how good they are and how long they are. But are they well-written? Do they answer the questions that customers are having? And do they understand what searchers are looking for?
You might be able to beat them by being more succinct and to the point. If you can convey the information in fewer words without losing anything, then do it. Any searcher will tell you they’re after the info, not a super long article because they have nothing better to do with their day.
That said, don’t write short just for the sake of fitting onto a mobile screen. Shortchanging your reader isn’t going to cut it, so remember to tell the whole story.
3: Write for People, Not Bots
True, your grammar and style should be the best. If it’s not, get yourself an editor who knows what s/he’s doing – it will pay dividends in the long run.
When you’re writing, ask yourself who your audience is and what their pain is. If you can put yourself in their shoes, you can write a better piece that your audience loves.
4: Use Good Copywriting Principles
For example, write an attention-grabbing headline that is based on your best keyword phrase.
Use subheads to keep your reader involved.
Write in short paragraphs and short sentences.
Do your editing days after you do your writing – you’ll be surprised how much better you can make your writing if you wait awhile.
And get someone else to read your work – they’ll spot mistakes you missed.
5: Key Phrases 2018
Yes, these are still alive and well, thank you. But their use in digital marketing today has changed somewhat.
When you’re doing your keyword research, focus on your audience. How big is your audience, where are they, what do you know about their demographics and what should your content be about?
Get the answers right and you’ll know how to write your copy.
Don’t write according to something Yoast SEO tells you. Millions of people are already doing this.
Instead, write according to the rules and advice here. And write for PEOPLE, not SEO plugins. You should start seeing better results.
6: User Experience Still Counts
An enjoyable read is a much better experience for your audience than some dry as dirt academic paper.
Likewise, having a page that’s easy to read and understand is crucial, too.
Make your headline big, your sub-headlines clear and easy to understand, and make sure your content is easy to navigate.
Bottom Line: Write with your READER in mind, not the search bots, and you’ll likely do fine (actually, much better).
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Blogging is a great way to grow your business and brand. Here’s 7 tips to blog better…
Use images. People are more likely to read your post if there is an eye-catching image to go along with it.
Break your content up. Use a big headline, sub-headlines and short paragraphs to make it easy to read.
Reply to comments. It shows you’re paying attention and you care, which will get more people to comment. Plus, it’s the right thing to do.
Comment on other people’s blogs that are in your niche. This can drive traffic back to your blog.
Use a P.S. as a call to action. Sometimes when you sell within a post, it annoys people. But no one is upset at a P.S. at the end that says, “Hey, go check out my related product here.” In fact, most people appreciate that.
Link to relevant posts. You can do this within your post or at the end. Adding additional value to your blog posts by linking to related and supportive content can make your posts more valuable to others – which is the real goal of blogging.
Share your blog content. Let your list know you just put up a post, and share it with social media, too.
Apply these 7 tips to your blogging to create more value and engagement in every post!
Almost nothing is better than having your own product because you not only keep 100% of the sale price when you sell it – you can also get affiliates to sell it for you, thus simultaneously building your list and bank account through the efforts of others.
So how do you crank out products quickly and easily that people are hungry to buy? I’ve compiled a list of proven methods – and none of these should take you longer than 7 days, with most taking only a few hours.
Interview an Expert. This is a super fast and easy way to create a product, and you don’t need to have any expertise of your own. Instead you’re “borrowing” the subject’s knowledge and packaging it into a product.
So where do you find these experts?
Search Amazon for authors in your niche – authors are often eager for the chance to share their knowledge and plug their latest book, and so they’re open to being interviewed. And on Amazon you can find an author on just about any niche topic you want to pursue.
Look for authors on ClickBank. ClickBank is divided into niches so it’s easy to search. Choose your niche and look at the gravity of each product within that niche to find something with a high gravity (100+). This means that the product is selling well, and this might be a good person to interview.
Do case studies. This is a bit different because instead of interviewing your subject on his expertise, you’re asking specifically how s/he did one particular thing.
Use What You Know by Recording Your Own Tips and Tricks. You may not think you have skills that others want to learn, but odds are you do. Maybe you know how to write a great blog post in 10 minutes, or how to lose 50 pounds in 3 months, or how to swap out the engine on a ’57 Chevy.
You can either turn this knowledge into a report or ebook, or record it as videos or audios. Once you start breaking down what you do step-by-step, you might be surprised at how much you know. And if there’s a market for what you know, you’ve got yourself a viable product.
Don’t ever discount your own knowledge. If you’re in the internet marketing niche, for example, and you’ve only been working in it for six months, you still know things that people who are just starting out don’t know, and those things can be turned into your own unique product. You don’t have to be the foremost expert in a niche – you can simply have more knowledge than the customers you’ll be targeting.
Turn Your Existing Content into New Products. Have you written a bunch of articles and blog posts? Maybe you’ve got enough there to create your own book. Do you have videos that you’ve made, audios, etc? Can you package this content into a product? Repurposing your own content is a great way to make a completely self-created product very quickly.
Co-Create a Product with Someone Else. Team up with someone who has the skills you don’t and vice versa. Perhaps you’re a good writer and they have the knowledge, or you have the personality to make the videos and they have the background in the niche. Decide in the beginning what needs to be done and who will do what, and the deadline for completion.
The benefits here are two-fold: First, two heads and two sets of experience are better than one. And second, by working as a team you are accountable to each other, and the product is likely to get created quite quickly with no procrastination or stalling getting in the way.
So that’s 4 ways to create products super fast. Get inspired, take action and you can have your own product created and selling online within the next 7 days, or less. Go for it!
Here’s an interesting case study from a guy in the US. It seems he’s something of a big name in his day job, so he wanted a way to make extra money online without ever revealing his real name.
He’s found a twist on the marketing method we all know and love – list building – that gives him multiple streams of income in several different markets without ever creating a product of his own, blogging, dealing with affiliates or creating a big name in any of his niches.
Here’s how it works: ‘Mark’ targets all of the usual niches – make money online, dating and romance, embarrassing problems, losing weight, golfing, stop smoking and so forth.
If there is a niche with good money, he goes after it.
His goal is to build lists in each of these niches, but he doesn’t do it in the usual manner.
He finds his prospects in both the offline and online world, with the goal of collecting as much data on each one as possible.
As you know, when you offer a free download in exchange for an email address, that’s about all you’re going to get – the email address.
But instead of ebooks or reports as his lead magnets, he offers printed ‘books’ in exchange for the prospect’s information. He mails these books to his new subscribers, so of course he has to collect their mailing address and full name.
And being the clever guy he is, he often collects a lot more info than just that.
He also collects things like the phone number, income bracket, gender, interests and so forth by using quizzes and surveys. It’s amazing what people will answer in a quiz, survey or test if they want to find out something about themselves, such as what they should be doing for a living, what kind of personality they have and so forth.
Of course, he makes each survey or quiz up himself, so it’s much more for fun than being scientific. The goal is always to collect the info.
And because he physically mails out the books, he only targets people in the US so that it remains financially viable for him to run this.
Once someone answers the survey or quiz or fills out the form to get the free book, he then tries to upsell them on related affiliate products, so that’s one income stream.
Then he continues to email these prospects offers in their niches. He has an autoresponder series set up for each niche, and in each series he promotes a lot of different products.
All of his emails and books are basically PLR info, or info he’s gleaned from the sales pages of the products he’s promoting. He doesn’t write much of anything himself. As mentioned, he also has a full time job he enjoys and he doesn’t want to quit; so time is at a premium for him.
Now then, when he mails out the books, he also encloses offers. Some of these offers are his, and he makes a commission on them if they buy. Other offers are from partners who pay him to send these out, so there’s another income stream.
Then, and this is perhaps where he makes about 50% of his money – he rents out the information he’s collected to other businesses. Every business is in search of new customers, and many like to find those customers through the mail.
For example, someone who is trying to lose weight will try a lot of different ways to do it.
One of the ways will be the free book he sends, and perhaps the upsell after the book, and perhaps an affiliate product or two through email.
Then other companies send the same person weight loss offers through the mail – often diet type supplements or an entire diet program – and the customer might try that as well.
This is how one customer can wind up making a dozen or more purchases in one niche within a fairly short amount of time.
And as you can see, Mark likes to get a piece of as many of these sales as possible.
If this sounds like a lot of work, it isn’t really. Initially he comes up with a book that’s really a report made from quality PLR materials.
Then he creates an email series promoting evergreen products in that niche – products that will be around for a while, usually from ClickBank but also from JVZoo and other places.
And then he’s got his contacts as to who wants to buy what type of lead.
He was a little cagey when I asked him about this part, but he did say that he simply contacts a few likely businesses and let’s them know what he’s doing – sort of a copy and paste email he sends out.
Some don’t reply and some do, and once he’s got a new client he’ll even ask specifically what they’re looking for in a lead. Then he’ll tailor a survey or quiz to find those answers.
He buys traffic, uses some basic SEO, places ads on blogs and uses other techniques to get people to his pages. Basically, he drives traffic any way he can, as long as it’s not time intensive.
His favorite method is buying traffic from Facebook, since he can do some heavy duty targeting there.
He also sells solo ads and even sells individual leads to lawyers. These might be people about to get divorced or who had an accident, and he rents these leads out for several dollars apiece to multiple lawyers at the same time. He gets these leads online and also buys advertising in small local papers – yes, it’s a very old school method, but it still works.
He also employs a virtual assistant to do much of the work for him, so basically he spends maybe 5 hours a week actually working the business now.
Initially, of course, he invested a lot more time, but now that he has his assistant trained, she does most of it for him.
Remember, he doesn’t blog, create actual products of his own or try to build up a reputation in any one niche.
When he does need to use a name, it’s always a pen name – he has a different one for each niche.
And his coworkers have no idea he does this on the side, nor will they ever know unless he tells them.
This shows you just how important data is, and why companies like Facebook and Google are all about tracking what we do.
The more info and intel you can gather on prospects, the more they are worth.
This is a good business model for someone who wants to make a mint with their mailing lists, while entering any niche you choose and remaining completely anonymous.
