More Dirt Cheap Ways to Get Traffic to Your Website

There are so many ways to market your website that if you were to actually participate in all of these marketing activities you’d probably wouldn't have time to brush your teeth.

 My last two blog posts had at least 10 different ways that you could use to market your site for free, or at least dirt cheap.

In my opinion, you should pick the ones that you know how to use the best and run with them.  You don’t want to spread yourself out too thin trying to do everything.  However, if you use a calendar, you can schedule what days you’re going to use these different tools.  That way if you do use quite a few of them or even all of them you won’t burn yourself out.  Cycling through as many free method works, it just takes a bit of planning.

Here is the link to the two previous posts in case you missed them:

More Ways to Get Free Traffic to Your Website 

How to Get Free Traffic to Your Website

Another Batch of Free Tools

Use Google + to Get Maximum Exposure to Your Site – If you haven’t been using Google + you’ve really been missing out.  Just like Facebook and Twitter, Google + has emerged as one of the main players in the social media food chain. 

It’s very easy to make friends that have the same interests as you do on Google + because it has different categories called “circles”, that you can put them into.  This way, you can keep people that you are more intimate with in a different category than people that you merely do business with. 

Not only that, but you can actually create your own categories to put people into.  For example, I created a category called “Marketing Friends” since I have so many people I communicate on there about business and marketing.

The other tool I like using on Google + is a section called “Communities”.  This is a section wherein you can join up and communicate in online groups that have people interested in the same things you’re interested in. 

It’s a great place to post and share thoughts, videos, art, just about anything you can think of!  Like Facebook you’ll have to devote and spend time and effort developing and nurturing relationships, but in the long run it’ll generate traffic and prospects to your site.

Use Twitter to Get Eyes onto Your Website – if you can get involved with a group of people that have similar interests as you on Twitter, you may have an easy and fast way of getting some traffic to your blog.  There are a few things you’ll need to learn about how to use their hashtag system, but once you figure that out, leaving relevant posts are duck soup. 

TIP: Here’s an idea that’ll help you get noticed on Twitter.  If you know of a TV

show that you and others are interested in you can use the hashtag to post to people on Twitter that are also interested in the same TV show.  However, the show and Twitter conversation should be relevant to your business. 

For example, I write advertising copy.  Therefore any TV shows lie The Apprentice, Shark Tank or Undercover Boss are applicable for me to talk about.  Awhile back, I logged in during Undercover Boss, and used the appropriate hashtags and made good comments.

I got so many people to start following me on Twitter, that I was very surprised. These are basically people that are subscribing to my posts (or as Twitter calls them, “Tweets”) that every time I leave a comment or a link to my blog, they will see them.   This is one of the easiest and simplest ways of getting traffic cheaply to your site.

Set Up and Develop Joint Ventures – Joint ventures can benefit more than one person’s website at a time. It’s what you would call a win-win situation for both partners involved.  For example, you could team up with another person and develop a course, and split the work between you.  Both parties using their sites as a springboard for selling or showcasing the course.  If you were writing a book together, both parties could brand the eBook for both websites. 

I’ve seen joint venture books of this nature where different writers contributed their own individual chapter of the document.  Of course, within that chapter they mention their business and website where the readers can get even more information on the subject matter. 

The beauty of this is that the idea that multiple experts wrote a chapter is even better than on expert writing the whole book.  Not only that, but each expert reinforces and supports the other with testimonials, which adds more credibility to the eBook. 

You don’t just have to make eBooks either.  You can create video courses, guest blog posts etc.  The ideas are limitless!

Leave World-Class Comments on Other People’s Blogs – This is an easy method in theory, but it takes time and expertise to pull off.  It takes time to sit, think and then write for a blog comment.  Not only that, but you must make absolutely sure that you know what you’re talking about. 

If you try to come off as an expert and you don’t really know what you’re talking about, people that do know will call you out. So, write excellent blog comments, leave your URL if they’ll let you and for gosh sakes, make sure you know what you’re talking about.

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

(859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

Web Savvy Content Generating Ideas That’ll Drive Free Traffic to Your Site

It appears that we are moving toward a more sophisticated economy.  About a year ago I watched a fascinating expose on how our education system MUST change.  It appears that we have been graduating from schools that are based on the Industrial Revolution production mindset.   The speech was given by Sir Ken Robinson, a man that was described as a “world-renowned education and creativity expert”. 

The premise of his speech was that basically, our education system was built to fuel factories with more warm bodies.  We had a factory driven, industry based economy and it was the civic duty of our leaders, government, and citizens to perpetuate it.

(If you are wondering why I am starting down this road instead of jumping right into the subject matter outlined in the title of this post, please stay with me.  I always want to tell you why you should do a thing before you go out and do it.)

Our Industrial Based Thinking Sucks

Anyway, we went to school, went from one class to another in lines, and with kids that were the same age as we were, and we were programmed.  Follow the rules, do what you’re told, sit at your desk, keep up or be left out, and DON”T BE DIFFERENT!!!

In the ‘60’s rebellion kicked in.  The “in” thing was dropping out and letting your hair hang down.  However, most of it was rather pointless.  As a matter of fact, some people could objectively look at the 60’s rebellion and call it another form of conformity, but that’s getting too deep.

Hence, the Industrial Revolution conditioning stuck and the education and labor system that we have become used to is still in place today. 

To see the video by Sir Ken Robinson on our industrial revolution school system click here:

The reason why I’m bringing this up is because our brains seem to think along the same business model/economic lines.  We still look at doing business the same way we were always trained:

Draw people to our site, try to sell them something, move on to another victim…er…customer or client, contact your previous prospects, try to upsell them something more expensive, and leave never to return. (Except when you want to sell them something else.)

People are catching on.  They know when you are merely looking at them like a piece of raw meat that you can suck the life from. 

Undercover Boss - The Bad Side of Things

The trouble with this business model is that there is a very high burn out rate, mainly because you’re just churning out CRAP. Even if you finally make a lot of money getting people to buy into your scheme, you’ll still have to fight like the dickens to keep replenishing your clients and prospects. 

And what kind of entrepreneur will you become as a result of this?

A perfect example of this was on a 2015 episode of the TV show, Undercover Boss.  Without going into too much detail, the show highlighted a seminar/real estate tycoon that was obviously a charlatan.  

He bragged about himself so much, you wouldn't believe it. He announced that if he died he’d want to be reincarnated as himself, because he was the “&%$#*” luckiest man on earth.  His claims were that he made about 40 million or so and was getting richer every day.  He charged attendees of his real estate seminar $43,000 per seat, for a 2 day session.

You should have seen the poor, deceived people he was fleecing.  Some of them looked like they were living out of their cars.  Some admitted that they were running up their credit cards to feed the beast.

(Not only that, but as the show was running, I was following the comments of people on Twitter about this show, and you wouldn't believe how hated this man was, especially by women.  The comments ran on and on and NOBODY had anything nice to say about him or his business.)

It was sad.

One of the reasons it was so sad, is because ANYONE COULD HAVE GIVEN THOSE POOR PEOPLE THE EXACT SAME REAL ESTATE INVESTING INFORMATION FROM AMAZON USED BOOKS FOR LESS THAN $20.00!!!! Actually, the information from the books would have been better than the info they would have gotten from HIS seminar. I guarantee it.

Why Am I Telling You This?

The reason I’m telling you all of this is because, your mindset has got to change!  

Gone are the days of merely taking people’s money and forgetting about them.  If you are just in this for the fast in and out, just be aware that people are becoming attuned to the fact that they are getting fleeced.  It’s little wonder why the term “Internet Marketing Guru” is now considered to be a negative term and the gurus are doing their best to distance themselves from that moniker.

People want to feel like they know you and they want to feel that they are a part of something.  They‘re sick and tired of being thought of as nothing more than a consumer that’s there to line somebody’s pocket with money. 

Consider a Facebook ad that looks like this:

Actual ad from Facebook- (URL removed). Apparently they were using Shutterstock’s pics without even paying.

Do you really think that anyone is going to feel connected to this, much less believe it?

The reason why I’m telling you this is because you are going to have to give, connect, respond, enrich, enliven, educate and HELP people if you really want true success.  And when you do sell them something, your product should be the best it can possibly be.  

You don’t want to cut any corners, and when you do sell somebody your wares or services, you’ll want to be extremely concerned that it is doing every single thing you said it would.

Hey, here’s a new concept:  After the sale, follow up and ask your customers how it’s working.

Generating Content – It’s Not Expensive to Give This Away

This brings me around to the subject matter at hand, generating content ideas.  The cheapest way for you to help people out and educate them about what you do, is to give them excellent, mind-blowing content.

 Here are a few ideas to help you get started:

• Cruise forums that are specific to your niche and read the questions that people are asking.  If you keep seeing the same question asked over and over again an excellent, FREE, well-written article will be something they’ll benefit from.

• If you have a list of people that have already purchased your products or services, ask them questions about what they thought the product lacked or helped them with the most.  This will give you fertile ground for subjects you can write about.  Make sure that you send this information out to people on your lists.

• Sit down and brainstorm a list of benefits that your product or service gives, as well as a list of problems that it solves.  Remember the color or size of your product isn't usually a benefit it’s a feature. Benefits are things that your product will do for you.

• Go on Amazon or eBay and look at products and services similar to yours. What benefits do you see vendors talking about the most? (NOTE: If you are rendering services, look at the books related to your services that are being sold.  Use the “Look Inside” feature of Amazon and look at the table of contents. There’s loads of ideas you can write about there.)   

Also, look at the comments sections of the products and see what people are complaining about the most.  That‘s pure gold for content creation.

Make a List and Create Your Programming

Once you have gone through these content generating ideas, use a calendar and make a schedule of the subjects you’ll be talking about on your blog, podcast or website.  Since I’ve already written a post about this, I won’t bore you by repeating myself, you can read it here:

Using a Calendar to Create a Content Schedule  

I hope you find this message enlightening and it has helped you in some way.  If you’d like to fire some ideas or comments at me please feel free to do so.  

Send them to:

Elmo033057@gmail.com

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

 (859) 797-9560

Use Your Personal Facebook Page to Gain Massive Appeal for Your Business

Years ago, I remember watching the Osbournes, a reality show about an aging rock star and his dysfunctional family.  I believe it was the first really successful reality based show and it got a lot of attention.  President George W. Bush even said it was his favorite TV show. 

The reason why shows of this nature got so popular was because people genuinely wanted to see what these stars actually lived like.  

Looking back at it, in a weird way it was like going to the zoo to see what animals do in their natural environment.  Not to denigrate the nice people in the Osbourne family in any way, but that’s what it kind of what it reminded me of.

So, people want to know more about the folks they follow or like, and if you’re doing business on the Internet, then people will want to know more about YOU.

Hence the reason why it’s a good idea to use your personal Facebook profile to relate to your herd, tribe, or crowd.

Getting Personal with Facebook

Just to let you know, Facebook tries to discourage using your personal business page.  In the Facebook Terms of Agreement, under Registration and Security section, line #4 states:

“You will not use your personal timeline primarily for your own commercial gain,* and will use a Facebook Page for such purposes.”

(*Underlined emphasis added.)

So according to Facebook you can’t OVERTLY use your personal account for business advertising and marketing.  However, that does not mean you cannot use it to communicate with people that want to follow you. 

Quite frequently, I have people that I do business with through my business Facebook page and they want to follow my personal page as well.  I don’t see any reason not to add them to my friend list.  But this is a personal issue that you’ll have to consider for yourself. 

NOTE:  If you have strong political convictions, you may want to keep them in check on social media sites.  I personally know a local photographer that just can’t keep his mouth shut on Facebook and the result is he has lost a TON of business.

 I keep my personal views to myself for several reasons.  For one thing, I realize that many people have different views than mine, and they will be offended by my views no matter how nice I am about it.  Another reason I don’t engage in these conversations is it is very time consuming.  I have no time to hammer out the problems of the world through Facebook, so therefore, I avoid political conversations like the plague. 

Finally, no matter how much proof I have on a certain point, no matter how great my debating skills are, I have never, ever in my lifetime moved an adult from their political conviction.  It’s like Simon and Garfunkel sang in their famous song, “The Boxer”:

“... still a man hears what he wants to hear,

And disregards the rest, hmmmm…”

So, I’m not even going to try to dissuade people from their political persuasions on Facebook.  That’s just the way it is.

Announce Cool Things about Your Business

If you have achieved a particular goal, you could use your personal profile to

crow about it.  Just make an announcement that you have achieved a particular thing related to your business.  For example, I’m planning on sharing a goal I have for having 200 blog posts on my blog.  I’m just going to mention that I have achieved a personal goal, and mention that friends and family can take a look at the work I’ve do by visiting my site. 

See?  It is very non-business threatening that way!

Just make sure that you a talking about it in your normal writing voice, as if you were writing a friend. 

Give Congrats to Friends!

Just like patting yourself on the back, you can also use your personal Facebook profile to congratulate people you've made friends with on there.  If you are networking with like-minded business people, you ca be sure that they will really appreciate your notice.  Also if they post an interesting piece of information, thank them.  A few words of thanks and encouragement will go a long way.

 Tell a Story

This works real well in the realm of advertising copy.  If you can tell a real good story about yourself or something you’re involved in, it’ll go a long way.  People relate to stories especially if the story is real and believable.  So, if you can use your personal profile to tell a story, especially an inspirational one, so much the better.

Post Pictures

If you have an event like an award ceremony or get together, take pictures, post them and then make sure you tell what they are about.  Also, make sure that you tag the pictures to let the people you are trying to honor see that you value them and their service.

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

The Top 3 Web Savvy Facebook Traffic Generating Tips

Over the last week, we’ve explored strategies and tactics for using Facebook as a traffic generator for your business.  These strategies will get you started as quick as possible, and to make sure you get off on the right foot with Facebook, here are the links to those posts:

Your Competitors Are Using Facebook

Facebook Scheduling Tactics

Creating a Facebook Presence

Dirt Cheap Facebook Tactics

Boosting Your Business with Facebook

What to Do With Facebookers Once TheyCome To Your Site

Getting People to Leave Facebook and Come to Your Website

Today we are going to look at 3 ways to easily get people to come to your blog or website.  Up till now we’ve been mostly talking about what to do with people when they get to your site.

Now I’m going to show you what you should do on Facebook itself to motivate your crowd to move in a direction that is conducive to your business.  We’ve already talked about what you should be posting, now we’re going to look at how you should post.  (If you don’t know what to post, please look at the video I’ve posted: HERE) 

Tip #1 Post Web Address of Post or Web Page into Facebook

The primary way I use Facebook to promote my site is by posting a blurb about what I wrote on my blog for the day.  I pretty much write 500 to 1000 word articles as frequently as I can.  When I do this, I go to Facebook and on my business page, I’ll post a brief message about the subject I’m writing about as an intro.  Then, I paste the URL of the blog post into the message field. 

Automatically, a picture will appear from the blog post itself as well as the title and link to it. I also do this on Google + as well and here is what it looks like right after you paste the URL into the field:

Facebook and Google + are almost exactly alike in this nature.

 If your blog post or landing page does not have a picture on it, you can always add a picture directly from your computer.  As always, make sure that it is relevant to your post. 

Tip #2 When Posting - Use a Dynamic Headline

This is a tactic where learning how to write a little advertising copy might help.  You want to have headlines on your posts that are relevant yet DYNAMIC!   The best way to learn these is to start going to well written squeeze pages and make copies of the headlines that impress you the most. Then, keep them in a file so you can use them as a basis of a headline later. 

For Example:

“My $10 Million Dollar Discovery!”

That was a title of a book by Internet marketing specialist Yanik Silver.

You could easily create a headline for your post that read: “My $5 Thousand Dollar Discovery”, or “My Massive Cash-Flow Discovery” or even “My Amazing Facebook Marketing Discovery!”

Please bear in mind that when you are collecting these ideas to not use the exact same words, but learn from them and draw ideas from them. 

If you are going to stay in the Internet marketing arena for a while, then you’ll need to keep a swipe file and learn as much as you can about writing copy.  You may not have any desire to be a copywriter yourself, but you need to at least understand it when you hire someone to write copy for you.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you need to make sure that you are not misrepresenting the content you are directing them to.  If you do that prospects will automatically see you as a waste of time.  You can still make the lead – in exciting and on-topic at the same time.   

Here's a good video that'll give you a few pointers on writing a good headline.

Tip #3 Make Sure You Post at the Right Time

Using Facebook and other social media sites is an awful lot like fishing.  My dad was an incredible fisherman. A natural, actually. He always told me the best fishing hours were from 5:00 AM and 8:00AM and then later on in the day from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. He almost always brought a load of fish home to clean.

Facebook is almost the same way.  When people get up first thing in the morning, they are looking for something to read and when they start getting home from work they are on usually. 

So if you can get yourself on just before those peak hours, you’ll get the most eyes on your postings.

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

(859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

What to Do With Your Facebook Prospects Once They Come To Your Site!

Over the last couple of days I’ve written about how to use a social media site like Facebook to cultivate and nurture relationships with prospects.  Now we’re going to talk about what to do with them once they get to your site. 

Unlike direct mail, which has a marketing process that looks like this:

Using social media to sell your, service, product, or ideas has a marketing process that looks something like this: (Facebook = Your Facebook Business or Fan Page.)

So as you can see there is a distinct difference between the two processes. 

The Big Differences

The difference between the two is obvious; the direct mail method is a simple two step system that requires the medium (sales letter) to sell whatever it is you are trying to push.  The Facebook method requires multiple steps is more complex, requires more time and work and is more difficult to track. 

The direct mail method is simple, delivered exactly to the person or persons you want to connect with, and is much easier to track.  Let’s face it if you send out 100 direct mail pieces and 4 of them lead to a sale that’s 4%.  

However, finding out your rate of success with social media of any kind is going to be a daunting task.  Direct mail does require a lot of work, because you have to have the skill set to write copy that will convert to sales.  That is a lot of work on the front end.

The Hidden Benefits of Using Facebook to Market Your Business

The hidden benefits with the Facebook method are it’s much cheaper, and your message has the ability to hit larger numbers of people over and over again. 

  You can sell to them, and if they love what you sell them, they will spread your message for you virally.   Not only that, but you can easily stay in touch with people that subscribe to your Facebook page.  That means if they like your business and products, they may buy from you over and over again. 

THE REASON I’M TELLING YOU ALL OF THIS IS BECAUSE ONCE PROSPECTS OR FANS OF YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE COME TO YOUR SITE, YOU’LL WANT TO TAKE EVERY MEASURE YOU CAN TO MAKE SURE THEY TAKE THE ACTION YOU WANT!

After you go through all of the necessary steps to get prospects to your site, you’ll want to have the opportunity to eventually sell them. However, don’t get too excited yet!  We still have a trick or two to perform before we unleash our irresistible offer at them…

A Proper Pop-Up That’ll Eventually Convert

One good way you can use to build your list is to use a “Welcome” pop-up.  The Welcome pop-up will drastically increase the number of subscribers to your list. 

It has even been reported that one Internet marketer increased his opt-in rate by over 700% in just a few months by doing this.  I can’t confirm this, but I’m sure you’ll have a better opt-in rate using a Welcome pop-up than a static box on your page. 

Bench Prep Uses a Welcome Pop-Up

With the Welcome pop-up, you won’t send them to a sales page yet.  You will want so ease into the sale eventually at a later date.  At this point, you are merely growing your list of humble, yet starving followers. Yes, starving to hear more about your niche, service or product, and it can all be done very cheaply.

Overt - Subliminal Advertising

Here’s an idea that has been around for a while, and yet when we see it, we stuff it into the subliminal backs of our minds. It’s very, very common to see an ad at the top of many popular sites.  Because we have seen these advertising banners so much, we have a tendency to automatically think of it as being a vendor’s banner, rather than a banner of the SITE OWNERS. 

So, it would be a good idea to create your own banner as if were someone else’s!  Don’t lie, just advertise your product at the top of your page just like a banner.  Perhaps use different fonts and colors than the ones which are on your blog or website so that it register’s in your visitors mind as “just another ad”. 

You can either sell your stuff from the banner or use it as another way to get more people to sign up for your email newsletter. 

The Warrior Forum Sometimes Advertises It's Own
Products on Its Site Like WSO Special Offers

Another way to have banner advertising is to make them relevant.  In other words, if you are talking about kayaking, you could have a free video on how to put a kayak on top of a car, if you can get the person’s email.  So have a banner or button that your visitors can click on that is related to what you are talking about.

Keep Your Landing Page CLEAN!

One last piece of advice about these strategies, keep your landing pages clean.  Google gets it.  If you look at the search engine objectively, you’ll see just how clean it is.  While all of the other search engines like AOL, Yahoo and Altavista were busy putting more crap on their pages than you could stand, Google went with a very clean and elegant design. 

The reason?  The folks at Google wanted to make sure their visitors were focused on one thing: getting nothing but awesome search results.  If you went to Google you had only one option: SEARCH.

It's Easy To See Google is Very Focused on One Function...Searching!

So, when you have a page that’s supposed to make your visitor take a specific action, make sure NOTHING can get in their way.  Keep that page very simple and devoid of distractions.

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

Web Savvy Methods of Converting Facebook Visitors Into Buyers

In my last post I wrote about how you should know where your Facebook business page fits in your sales funnel.  If you didn’t get a chance to read that post, here’s the link:

Method of FillingYour Sales Funnel 

The Traditional 3-Step Process

In case you don’t know, I don’t claim to be an expert in all areas of Social Media. I do use it on a daily basis, and over time I have seen results from it.  However, to be totally honest with you, I don’t claim to know some Top-Secret Super Guru Method of using social media to generate thousands of dollars daily.  

If you are looking for a good resource like that, you may want to hire this consultant:

So, this is what I've been doing in social media, it is what is called by some marketers as the 3-step process.  Very simply, it looks like this:

Breakdown of the Steps:

Step #1 - Facebook With this step, you are going to update your status in some way.  If you look at the Nature Valley Granola Bar Facebook page, you’ll see that they have all sorts of updates.  They don’t promote their items every day, because when you’re selling all of the time it is “Big-B” BORING! 

Nature Valley shows pictures taken by fans of the great outdoors.  Once my wife and I were hiking around Colorado, and Nature Valley was asking people to post pictures of themselves holding their product in the great outdoors.  My wife was only too thrilled to have her picture posted with a granola bar.  Sheesh!

This is a case of Nature Valley promoting AND getting customers to add to their Facebook Fan page.  So they were getting customer involvement and getting their Facebook page updated at the same time!  Double the Fun! (Wait, that’s a gum product!  My bad!)

Step #2 - Your Blog or Website Once you've engaged your prospects, you can now get them to your website or blog, where they can read information that is of importance to THEM.  (You always want to make sure that you’re not writing things that interest you; it’s your audience that counts!)

You need to have links to your coupons, squeeze page, irresistible offer, or whatever else on the page that they are reading.  Don’t overdo it, but place the links where it can be plainly seen and if possible make them a part of your website’s landscape. 

You can do this several different ways too!  You can have an advertisement close to your valuable content while at the same time, you can also have an RSS feed next to your content and an opt-in box as well.  

What these last two options will do, is allow you to build your marketing list so you can send them a well written offer…eventually.

Step #3 – Conversion…Cha-Ching!  In your final step in the 3-Step Process, you’ll have your sales page work its magic.  In reality, this is the page that’s going to require the most skill to craft, because you’re going to have to use words to sell your service or product.  Not as easy as it looks.  The best way to do this if you have no experience yourself, is to hire someone to craft your compelling copy.

Depending on what you are selling and how much you are charging for your goodies, your message can run from about a page or two, to ten pages!  I just read a sales letter a few days ago, and it was over twenty pages in length!!!

Usually, if you’re selling a high ticket item, you’ll have to use a pretty long sales letter to overcome the load of objections in the mind of a prospect.

  I can tell you that if you hire a good copywriter it will run you big bucks.  In some cases they’ll charge you a minimum of $3000 and half of that is up front, non-negotiable and non-refundable. 

On the other hand, you can hire a cheap copywriter and have low conversions.  It all depends on how much you really want to make.

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

(859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

Web Savvy Facebook Method of Filling Your Sales Funnel

Social Media, especially Facebook is very popular.  The Internet is loaded with entrepreneurs that are jumping on the social media bandwagon, thinking that it will reel in loads of customers and prospects. 

If you don’t believe me, just hop onto Facebook and type “Make Money” into the search field.  You’ll see volumes of people that are trying to get you to immediately buy their wares.

Usually, these are big picture ads telling you to “click here” to find out how to make boatloads of money by either following their advice or selling you a product.  Unfortunately, this is not the way social media works.

Sure, you might get lucky and out of 5,000 or so posts of that nature, you could sell a person or two.   However, the chances of that are slim.  You first need to identify and clarify your sales funnel and its relationship with your Facebook business page.

TIP:  By the way, many people think that if you just use social media channels,

you can make mega-bucks with your business and walk away a winner.  I recently saw an episode of Shark Tank wherein a woman did just that.  She would post items she saw in stores and different places and people would buy similar items from her through her social media site.

However, what if the social media site goes down because it was hacked into?  What if someone banned her account or in my case, the hosting company wanted to charge me a large fee for bandwidth because there was a flood of people on my site buying stuff. (True story!)

The fact of the matter is, to quote Dan Kennedy, “If you are using only one channel or method of selling your product or service, then you are in a very dangerous position. And that’s because if something were to happen to that channel, you’d be out of business!”

‘Nuff said!

So getting back to our Facebook strategy, ask yourself a question:

How does my Facebook page relate to my sales process or where are my prospects at in the buying process?

Will Facebook fans actually buy from me?

How can I track my conversions so I can see whether or not Facebook is worth my time?

Dealing With the Reality of Facebook Marketing

If you cannot answer at least two of the questions above, then you may be wasting your time.  There are social media forces at work that you won’t understand and that could lead to you wasting a lot of time and money. 

Let’s take a good look at question #1 “How does my Facebook page relate to my sales process?”

You first need to have a sales funnel for your product.  Usually, Facebook pages are very early on in the sales process, thus putting it near the very top of the funnel.  On very rare occasions, you’ll have someone that will but from you right out of the starting gate, but that is rare.

You need to keep in mind that Facebook pages, like other social media pages, are trust and relationship builders.  (That is actually the answer to question #2!) 

Once a person likes what you represent, they will join your page and begin to participate.  However, in the scheme of things, very few people out of many will join your page, very, very few will participate.   Social media experts will tell you that a whopping 90+% of the people that go to your Facebook business page are browsers or lurkers. 

They know what they’re talking about.

I think the very first marketing book I read years ago, was by Jay Conrad Levinson in his CLASSIC marketing book, Guerrilla Marketing.  I say “classic” because you should go back and read it once a year.  Mr. Levinson made the observation that in order for people to trust you, they need to see you over and over again. 

This is the reason why mainstream businesses like Progressive Insurance and McDonald’s are always in your face.  Billboards, TV commercials, coupons in newspapers, magazine ads, etc.  The more you see these companies’ ads the more you feel like you know them.  No matter how bad Mickey -Dees hamburgers are for your health, you still want to buy from them.  This generation can barely recall a time that you didn't see the “golden arches” in almost every town you went to.

Not only that, but I think their Big Macs taste good, and people like them.

Checking Conversions from Your Facebook Page.

I’m sure that there are all sorts of high-tech methods, but being a cheap skate marketer, I like to do it up right and NOT spend money on tracking. So, here is my method…Cheap and easy.

Have an exclusive page on your site or blog with which to send your Facebook traffic from.  Google Analytics is a tool a lot of people use to track their traffic with. If you follow the directions on Google Analytics, which usually is nothing more than dropping a bit of code into your site, you should be able to see how much traffic that’s being generated from your Facebook page. 

If you’re like me and use Google’s Blogger, you can use the “Stats” checker in Blogger.  There is a menu in Stats that lets you check traffic sources.  The cool thing about Blogger’s traffic checker is that it is built into the system already, so you shouldn't need to place code into any of the Pages I’m sure that someone will tell me that this is not the most accurate way to go, and they would probably be right. 

However, most businesses on the Internet are not MASSIVE BEHEMOTHS, and therefore in the early phases of client and customer acquisition, can keep it cheap for a while. But this should give you a good idea if you’re getting any traffic from your Facebook page.

Reference Section:

Ten Ways to Check Traffic to Your Site

Getting Started With Google Analytics Video

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

(859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com