The Silent Avatar Speaks

If you’re into Internet marketing then maybe you can relate to to the title of this post….( or am I just being a touch sensitive to others marking shite loads of money straight from the wallets of “newbies”, and anyone else looking … looking …. looking … to make a quick buck? (sorry successful online business).

Let me explain…

My email inbox has been (yet again) bombarded with product launch emails.

If it wasn’t Mike Filsaime’s Traffic Fusion at $1495 (oops $1497) , it’s Rich Schefren’s Guided Profit System (at $2495.. oops $2497), or how about …

Look.. I’m not saying that these “systems” are not worth what they are asking for.. but either people are being crazy and digging deep into their wallets until they hit their credit card/s (Ker Ching),  or I’m just a tad disillusioned with the whole “up the ante lets rake in the money while we can game”.

In the space of 3 years I have seen product launches go from $97 to $497 to now $1497 and Rich’s latest offering at $2497!

Put your wallets away.. there is nothing that these guys can teach you that you can’t find by some diligent surfing of the Internet. Yes.. It may take time, but how about putting that $2497 into a BIG advert in your metropolitan paper and see what that gets you.

How about thinking strategically about where you spend your money for your online business?

How can this money be best spent right at this time to move me towards where you need to go?

$2497?

Think about it… a shite load of PPC! Just monitor your competitors, their ads, and see if the same ad keeps coming up week after week, after week. If it does? Just duplicate it with your own branding. Look.. no one keeps paying for PPC if it isn’t working.

$2497?

How about paying a crack SEO dude to really ramp up your site and get the traffic flooding in?

$2497?

Rent a Billboard for a week (or how ever long it gets you), in the most prominent spot in your city and stick your web address on it and a “tease offer”.

$2497?

How about outsourcing all the stuff you’ve never finished, never got around to, always wanted to add to your website, or have them blog like crazy for you, submit articles, research a niche? Hell for $2497 I could bring on board an outsource from from some far flung land that is prepared to work for months for me for that sort of money.

$2497?

How about hiring a PR dude to get you to speak at a Wealth Building Conference? (not for the faint hearted but definitely doable).

$2497?

For that I could catch a return flight from Australia and knock on Rich Schfren’s door and bug the hell out of him day and night until he sat down with me and talked turkey.

Now for all those reading who like to spend money on “Personal Development”, I say “You go girl!” (or guy). I am definitely an advocate for learning more of what you need to know about yourself, your self sabotaging patterns, and if you need to pay $2497 to find out what your constraints are then go for it.

Hell..  welt KNOW what our constraints are TIME and MONEY. But I’ll give you the link to shoot on over and sign your self up if you really want to…

You can do it here: https://ssl2.strategicprofitsystem.com/gps/

For $2497 I could get a one on one with someone like Rich Schefren for .. hmmmm.. maybe an hour or two.

Do you think I would pick his brains to bits.. do you think I would tell him what I want to do and then ask him “How do I get there”.

Do you think I would have a list of questions..take a recorder… video… do the whole shebang (and even take ‘em for lunch is that’s what was required?)

But you know what?…..

Do you really need to know what you don’t know?  Or … do you just need to know that you don’t know, and get someone who to find you the information you don’t know?

It reminds me of a story I read once.. it was about the guy Ford.. (you know the one.. the guy who made the first car.. the “Model T”). The story goes like this…

Henry Ford (congrats to those who got it right), wagered a bet with a friend that he could answer any question his friend put to him and get the answer right.

The friend accepted the challenge, and up for grabs was a considerable amount of money…

The friend asked him the question (insert your own wildly insane, hard as you can, bet you don’t know the answer question ’cause it doesn’t really matter what the question was he was asked).

The point is this…

Henry Ford picked up the phone, called his personal assistant, told him the question, and said get back to him with the answer.

Touche! Mr Ford!

Did he NEED to know the answer? No.

All he needed to know was how to find the answer, and he only had to pick up the phone and he had his answer. Do you get it?

You work hard for your money.. damn hard. Make it work for you, and stop making others wealthy, because now you know.

PS. This post comes with a disclaimer. Rich Schefren is the only man who I have got up at 4am in the morning to join a live video seminar he was hosting. The man’s a legend. However  he relies on people not to think about what else their money could buy. His list is so big, his contacts so far flung, his wealth (well.. I’ll leave that alone ’cause we know he’s not short of a dime) that he has at his disposal people just like Mr Ford had.  In a nutshell he has gotten rid of his constraints to building a successful business by finding out what he needs to know and then getting others to do the groundwork for him. How on earth do you think he manages to conduct workshops, teleseminars, run Strategic Profits, do product launches, and the thousand and one other things this guy does?

$2497 for the Guided Profits System?  Now it’s a choice not a “must have”.

I say.. Ease up fellas.. our wallets are not that FAT (and I’m not about to make yours fatter).

Of course, if you agree or disagree you comments are always welcome

Sphinn

Tags: Advertising, Business Tips, Internet Marketing, Online Business, Promotion and Marketing, Web Design by the silent avatar
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No doubt taking a business online is a decision which shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s easy to get caught up in all the hype of the Internet, but the bottom line is “will you see a return on your investment”?

One of the biggest headaches can be getting traffic (aka customers) to your site, and eBay already has that covered.

Here are the traffic statistics from Alexa.com

Of course there is a multitude of ways to drive traffic to your site. Most take time to do, others you can pay money for and get moving straight way. All should be monitored (especially if you are spending advertising dollars to get the customers) as to how effective they are for you.

So here are a couple of scenarios which you may want to consider…

1. Open an online shop and either hold physical stock or drop ship.

2. Sell your products for a competitive price (including postage).

3. Advertise your site using free classified, forum posts, Pay Per Click advertising, etc

or

1. Research your market on Ebay
   Log in and go to “Advanced Search”. Input your product (be specific). Check “Search Title and Description” and Check “Completed Listings Only”, and check “new items only” (if you sell new) – then search. This will return you a listing of SOLD items which have been listed for sale on eBay, which are more than likely products you would offer to sell.

   Note: Search through “all Categories”, then refine down your listings using “Narrow your results” (which is accessed by going to the left of the window)

   Only review the listings highlighted in green (these are sold items).

   Now… Start a spreadsheet or pen/paper and input the data from the sold items.

2. Enter in the following:

· Item Name ( you want to know which items are the biggest sellers)

· Sold price – (because you want to know the lowest/highest price you can sell for

· Date sold – you want to know which day/s things sell more of than other days.

· Time sold – you want to know which time is the best sale time.

· Postage – you want to know what postage is reasonable (though you shouldn’t make money on postage – it should be flat postage fee plus an amount to cover packaging and getting to the post office).

· The seller (the best seller may have tricks you can use)

Armed with the information from Ebay you have a much better idea what people are willing to pay for the item you are going to sell. You also have a good idea what day you should be listing your items, and what time you should be listing them to get them in front of buyers, and how you should be listing them (I’ll go into that next post).

If you have found that the price people are willing to pay is something that you can work with, the next step is to use this information and set up a listings on Ebay of around 30 products (they don’t all have to be individual products) and list them on the day and time that your research has turned up as being the best time to sell. Don’t list the same items one after the other.

Do this for 1 month and see how sales go.

While you are doing your research you can also be checking out other auction sites like oztion.com.au and do the same thing.

You can also check out forums in your selected niche (let’s say you want to sell Xbox 360 video games). You can simply Google search for “Xbox forums”, join up and have a look around the forum for anyone who is talking about where they buy their games. You can also get a pretty good idea about what products they are buying.

While this might sound a little tedious it will pay huge dividends and either confirm to you the project is viable, or scrap it as you can’t compete with what is already out there (and lets face it with imports from china it’s getting harder and harder to compete)

Having said that… all is not lost if the price issue is looking pretty grim.

If you specialise in a “niche” (and I’ll use the video games as an example, you could “specialise” in games for only Xbox or a certain type of game ie; racing car, war games, etc.

If you determine you have a viable product and can sell at a price which is comparable to your competition, you are then good to go…

You can either set up your own website and market traffic directly to the site or set up a full eBay store and run it as a business, or, you can keep listing products (using the research you have done), and just list single items to sell.

Over to you….

As always feel free to post a comment or question for me to answer.

Tags: Business Tips, Internet Marketing, Traffic Generation by the silent avatar
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I’m very grateful for the readers of my blog, and especially the comments which inspire me to give out some more useful information about webdesign and Internet marketing in general.

A reader (Casey) recently posted a comment to my previous post “How to get your site visitors (NOT) doing what you want”.

Casey wanted some feedback (which I am happy to do), and I hope that you will relate my feedback I am giving on this website PropertyWishList.com.au to your own site in evaluating its effectiveness. You can open the site I am evaluating in another browser window to check it out as we go.

The first comment I want to make is not to launch a site until you have tested the site.

Testing encompasses a lot of things, not the least to make sure everything works technically. Another test should encompass what users think of the site. Now I’m not talking about you, your offsider, or your web developer. When you have been working on a site for any length of time you can become quite blind to what the site obviously needs. Find someone who fits a typical user. It could be a friend, an acquaintance, or a respected business person. You will want to go through the site and do what I am doing – evaluate it from a user perspective.

Your task for them should be clear. Does our site encompass everything that you (as a user) want and need to be of benefit to use this site? (this is especially the case when your site is a “service” website).

If necessary get them to fill in an online form, or ask them to just make notes and give you a call, or send them to you via email. You many even want to offer an incentive.

So lets go…

How do I think this site stacks up against the competition?

While it might bruise some egos, send out a collective *groan*, and put you in a spin, what I about to say could have been alleviated if you had assessed the wants and needs of the users first over what your competition offers.

I heard something recently (can’t remember where) the saying “Never be the first one to do anything”. I’ve pondered this good advice and now know why. When you are the first to do something you never get it right. You just set the benchmark for someone else to do it better.

I’ve used real estate sites often. In fact very often. For the past 3 years I have been trying to sell a property which I have moved on from (due to re-locating).

Realestate.com.au is by far the biggest competitor (and I have used this site extensively when searching for property to buy), so first know who your competitor/s are and evaluate their website for areas which don’t work or could work better. Do this from the prospective of a user and make notes. Then do it from the prospective of a developer (and take notes).

[Read more →]

Tags: Business Tips, Internet Marketing, Web Design by the silent avatar
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Successful websites depend on returning visitors to account for a major part of their traffic. Returning visitors are easier to convert into paying customers because the more often they return to a site, the more trust they have in that site. The credibility issue just melts away. Hence, keep your visitors coming back to your site with the following methods:

1) Start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox

When you start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox, you are providing your visitors a place to voice their opinions and interact with their peers — all of them are visitors of your site. As conversations build up, a sense of community will also follow and your visitors will come back to your site almost religiously every day.

2) Start a web log (blog)

Keep an online journal, or more commonly known as a blog, on your site and keep it updated with latest news about yourself. Human beings are curious creatures and they will keep their eyes glued to the monitor if you post fresh news frequently. You will also build up your credibility as you are proving to them that there is also a real life person behind the website.

3) Carry out polls or surveys

Polls and surveys are other forms of interaction that you should definitely consider adding to your site. They provide a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved in your website. Be sure to publish polls or surveys that are strongly relevant to the target market of your website to keep them interested to find out about the results.

4) Hold puzzles, quizzes and games

Just think about how many office workers procrastinate at work every day, and you will be able to gauge how many people will keep visiting your site if you provide a very interesting or addicting way of entertainment. You can also hold competitions to award the high score winner to keep people trying continuously to earn the prize.

5) Update frequently with fresh content

Update your site frequently with fresh content so that every time your visitors come back, they will have something new to read on your site. Without a doubt this is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors, however due to laziness of webmasters this is also the least carried out one. No one will want to browse a site that looks the same over ten years, so keep your site updated with fresh bites!

Tags: Business Tips by the silent avatar
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