Driving Traffic Offline Traffic to Your Online Website the Dirt Cheap Method

On the last blog post, we started down the road of how to generate traffic from offline sources.  I’m going to try to research and place as many ideas as possible and write about them.  Some of these ideas are from personal experience as well as research. 

You can read the last post I did on that subject here: Offline Traffic Generating Strategies

Tell Everyone You Know – How many people do you know?  Chances are, you know a load of people that you aren't even thinking about.  Sit down for a moment, get out a pencil and a pad of paper, your address book and any other log you use to keep names and addresses on and write down every person you can think of.  Not just friends and relatives, but anyone you do business with. 

You can then write them a brief snail-mail letter telling them about your website as well as the irresistible freebie that you have on your site if they get on your email list. 

Hey, double winner, chicken dinner!  Not only will they go to your site, but if the offer is great, chances are they’ll sign up for your shameless newsletter, email series, blog post alerts, etc.

Advertise Your Online Business on Your Vehicle – Have you ever been out driving and see a bumper sticker that had a web address on it?  Of course you have.  Sometimes I think the weirder the web address is the more it makes you remember it and want to go home and plug into the net.  Which brings up the major question of this post: Will people actually look up your business if they see your web address on your vehicle? 

Well, considering how many people are carrying cell phones and tablets around with them they probably will look you up. 

So here’s an idea, the more unique you can make your advertisement on your vehicle look unique or interesting, the more you’ll get the attention.  Use words or phrases that will generate curiosity.   Ask a question they ca answer on your site, or tell them that you have a free product to give them if they visit your site and register with you.

Once again, you’re trying to build that all-important list that you can use to market to the people that follow you and your products and services online. 

Put Your Web Address URL on Your Answering Service – Marketing Master, Dan Kennedy, had a great story about how he called a guy that was supposed to spray his home for bugs.  When he called the home office of the exterminator a lady with a cheerful voice greeted him and after a few seconds asked if he wouldn't mind waiting for a few minutes on hold while she transferred his call.

He was then treated to an awesome advertisement about the services and upgrades he could purchase with the standard service package.  That and all the perks, insurances and everything else you can imagine that you can think of.  Of course he was given the web address where they could get discounts and other freebies. 

Then Mr. Kennedy was treated to another commercial with all sorts of information and ideas on how to clean and take care of pools.  Yep, the web address of the pool maintenance company was on that commercial too and that business was owned by the brother of the bug spray guy.

Put Your Web Address on Al Correspondence- Yep, I know that this is a no brainer, but it bears reminding you to put your web address on all correspondence pieces like letterhead, envelopes, return addresses, etc. 

TIP! You could buy sticky labels and make them for your envelopes with a good call to action on it.  Put pictures on it or anything else that’ll catch the eye of your reader.  Just think of all the hands your letter passes through on its way to the recipient. That way your envelope will have a double purpose to it, carrying the letter and advertising!

 Mark “Elmo” Ellis

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

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

(859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

Essential Dirt Cheap Newsletter Methods That Will Create a Flood of Traffic to Your Business!

If you are going to use online newsletters to stay in touch with your clients, you’ll need to acquire the proper tools to run an online newsletter. In a previous section, we looked at two companies that were dirt cheap to start out with and you can read that information here:  Newsletters That Will Make Your Business Magnetic to Customers

A List of Autoresponder / Email / Newsletter Services

 Below is a reference list of some of the best email and newsletter businesses on the Internet.  Rather than listing benefits and prices to you, I’m just going to list them so you can go to their actual sites and check them out. 

The reason why I’m not going to review each one of these is because the pricing and features change so often that by the time this is written, one of them will have already changed their information.

Autosenders
Aweber
Constant Contact
Get Response
iContact
Iminiacamail
List Wire Mail Chimp 

Text Versus HTML

Many of these online companies offer two versions of newsletters and email that you can send: HTML and a text version.  I personally like the text version for a number of reasons.  For one thing, if one of the persons I am sending my

HTML Newsletters can look
very professional in color

newsletters to have a slower method of receiving their email, HTML will take more time.  With text, you aren’t relying on faster broadband speeds because text has no colors, borders, pictures, etc.

HTML has all of that stuff, plus the ability to embed pictures, video and use templates that look like websites.  In my opinion, HTML takes longer to format.  You have to make sure your text is lined up right as well as your pictures and other elements that are on the newsletter.

All you have to worry about with text, is that you format it a little to brand the name of your business on it.  However, usually that is a onetime set up.

Offline Newsletters

If you are creating an offline newsletter, use Microsoft Word or Microsoft Publisher.  Both of these pieces of software require some time to learn, but almost everyone knows how to use Word, but if you don’t know how to create a cool looking newsletter with it, there are tons of online tutorials that’ll show you.

TIP: If you don’t want to do all of the formatting involved in producing a cool looking. newsletter, hire someone.  If you’ve already written the material, and want someone to turn it into a cool looking format that’s ready to print, you can always find someone on Fiverr to do that for you.

Fiverr is a site that only allows you to charge or pay $5.00 per job./  So you can easily get someone on there to format your material into a great looking newsletter for a mere $5.00!  Such a deal.  Here is Fiverr’s link: Five Dollar Gigs 

If that doesn’t appeal to you, you can always go to an outsourcing site and hire someone for more money, but then again, that wouldn’t be the Dirt-Cheap method I’m so fond of.

List of Outsourcing Sites:

oDesk 

Freelancer 

Warriors for Hire

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 Content Creation to Generate FREE Traffic to Your Website

If you are going to use free content to drive traffic to your website, then you need to pay close attention to this one important tip I’m going to throw at you in a second.  Free content online is huge, and there is a lot of competition. 

However, for those of you out there in the vast Internet heartland, reading this message might be just what you need to push you to greater heights of Internet marketing glory.

The Giant Failure-Filter…Don’t Quit Your Day Job

If the statistics are close to accurate, Internet based businesses have a 90%+ rate of failure within the first 120 days.  There are many reasons for this that have been cited:  Lack of business experience, very limited technical skills, poor understanding of starting and running a business, no capital at all, unrealistic expectations. 

Should I go on?

This is why my blog is dedicated to teaching you how to work the Internet as cheaply as possible.  If you've never had a business before, start and learn as cheap as you can.  The most beautiful thing about the Internet is you don’t need to spend a wad of money to get started, and therefore, if you don’t succeed, you’ll financially live to fight another day. 

But don’t quit your day job, no matter what the gurus tell you.  Every stinking’ one of them had failures along the way.  Rarely, (emphasis on rarely) are the ideas, economic conditions, and your personal life so perfectly in sync that you’ll hit a homer on the first swing.

If you are persistent in business, you’ll bounce back from your failures.  You will find, especially on the Internet, that you’ll fail more times than you succeed. 

Writing Content for Free Online Traffic

Writing content in order to get free, organic traffic to your site or blog is

probably the cheapest way to get Internet traffic.

Just think of these benefits:

• If you wrote a post or added a webpage every single day of the year to your site, at the end of the year you’d have 365 pages of content out there on the Internet working hard for you, every day of the week.  Over two years you’d have 730 pages of content over three years that would give you over 1000 pages.  Those pages work 24/7/365 for you and the charge will be almost nothing. 

• If you did keyword research correctly for those pages, they would definitely bring in some traffic.  

• You could also post short notices to social media sites about those posts, generating a flood of traffic, and you can use the same post on social networking sites months later to generate interest in it again.

• If you organized those posts, and put them into a .pdf file, you could also brand it as an eBook and either sell it online or give it away free as an incentive for giving you their email address.

• Not only will you get comments from people visiting your site, but your website or blog will definitely draw attention from Google and other search engines.  People contributing to your blog by commenting on it will help it generate more attention from Google, and therefore, move you further up the search engine results pages.

The Downside to Using Free Content

I present to you now, the downside to this strategy:

• Most of us are lazy, let’s just face it.  In order to pull this off, you are going to have to write and actually enjoy it.   The only way out of this is to hire a ghost writer, but that costs money and the good ones don’t come cheap.

• You’re going to have to set a part of your busy day away to write and post.  This requires discipline as well as commitment.

• Quality is the order of the day.  In order to pull this strategy off, you’re going to have to give people the highest quality content you can muster.  It doesn’t matter what your services or products are, if you aren't producing excellent information and content about them people will ignore you.

• You need to know how to write.  If you write posts or pages that people can’t easily understand, then chances are they will click and go elsewhere.  Yes, this blog is about using the Internet as cheap as you can to make money, but don’t think for a second you can give out used Volkswagen efforts and get Rolls Royce results.  

• This is time consuming.  You’ll need to spend at least an hour or more writing every day.  Anything less is ludicrous.

• You need to know what you are talking about.  If you have no clue about your area of, ahem…”expertise”, then it will definitely stick out like a sore thumb. 

• You’ll need to know how to post to the Internet and do Keyword research.  You can use WordPress, Blogger or a website editor like Dreamweaver.  If you are going to build an actual website, you should learn how to hard code HTML so you can create the pages that you’ll post your writing to. 

  Blogging the “Easier” Solution

If you want my two cents about the easiest way to get content onto the Internet, I’d say Blogging is the way to go.  Both WordPress and Google’s Blogger are very easy to use and you can get free versions of both to cut your teeth on.  I personally use Blogger, both the free version and I also have a .com I pay for on another Blogger blog as well. (www.markelliscopy.com) 

Blogger is the cheapest way to go because even if you get a .com (URL) for that blog, all you have to pay for is the .com.  To have a URL with WordPress, you’ll have to have a hosting package from a company like HostGator and know how to set up the blog through the control panel. 

Here are some resources for you to consider:

Dreamweaver : Web Design Software

Learn HTML and how to build websites online...FREE!

Blogger

WordPress

In my next post, we’re going to explore how to organize your subject matter and research it in order to be able to write blog posts that people are actually going to WANT to read about.

Until then…

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

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

Web Savvy Success Principles That Can Propel Your Internet Venture

Yesterday, I wrote a rather extensive post about gaining traffic by creating EBooks.  If you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to write about all of the free ways that you can generate traffic to your website. That way, if you are new to Internet marketing (IM) you won’t waste a lot of money. 

Even though I can’t quote an exact figure, I read a recent article that stated 90% of the people that start Internet businesses fail within the first 90 days.

Personally, I believe the figure is even bigger than that, so let’s face it, many of you are tire kickers.  You’ll get on the IM bandwagon all wide eyed and enthusiastic, and then over a relatively short period of time, you’ll give it up thinking that this dog won’t hunt.

 

Just get on any good IM forum like the Warrior Forum, and you’ll see posts with headings similar to this:

“Frustrated…Don’t know what to do.”

“I quit my job to pursue IM, now I’m broke…What do I do?”

“I created a product, wrote my sales page, and nobody is buying it…”

You know, stuff like that. 

There’s probably a lot of reasons for this, but I think you have to look at IM just like most other endeavors in life; many shall come but few will be chosen.  Or, as I like to phrase it, “Many shall come but few will be committed.”   That’s probably closer to the truth.

After listening to motivational speakers, reading books on success, and trial and error over the last 25 years, I’ve come to my own personal conclusions.  These may help you or work for you, or perhaps not.  The main factor in the scheme of things is that the ball is in YOUR court, and it doesn’t matter how many success principles I throw at you or anyone else, it’s what YOU do that counts.

Dieting and Success, What’s the Diff?

Which brings me to another point.  I’m writing this post in January, right after the start of the new year.  Being fascinated with marketing of all kinds, I notice things like what kind of magazine articles and books that are published.  Now unless you’re living under a rock, you've no doubt noticed all of the diet and success books that come out this time of the year.

I’m always amazed at the seemingly all of the seemingly new angles that diet plan hawkers come out with.  Just take a look at this “short” list of diets. (I’m saying “short” in jest, because it is rather long, but in the scheme of dieting it merely scratches the surface of the names and types there are.)

DIET TIP:  I can save you a whole ton of money on diet books right now.  Years ago, I got a book from Men’s Health that was about all the great foods you should be eating. It had wonderful full color pictures of all sorts of hamburgers, steaks, huge salads, etc., and the recipes for them.   This book had all the stuff I love to eat, and the pictures were so enticing, I wanted to lick the page. 

I remember thinking, “Now, THIS is ME! This is the type of diet I want to be on. Where men with six pack abs are telling me to eat juicy hamburgers, spaghetti and all the crap I love! Yeah, I can do this!”

Inside the first chapter, Men’s Health went over the top 10 or so fad diets that people dive into.  Their conclusion:  These diets don’t work because they are not sustainable over a long period of time.  They are ineffective, and sometimes dangerous.

Then, Men’s Health gave you THEIR diet plan:

(Drum roll please…ahem…)

Burn more calories than you consume.

That’s it.  That was the whole plan.  And guess what?  I tried it, and it works perfectly! 

So, there ya go.  I already saved you a crap-load of moola on diet books.  You should never have to buy one again. Actually, the Men’s Health book advocated eating the right way, to preserve and optimize your health, so that book is a great buy, and you can get it used on Amazon cheap here:

Men’s Health Diet That Has Guys With Incredible Abs Of SteelTelling You To Eat Spaghetti And Hamburgers

Success Formulas Are Like Diet Plans

Success books and ideas are the same way.  Just another endless parade of books that promise if you follow the plans they have for you, the world will be your oyster.  Many, many people have made loads of money from that scheme, and just like diet plans, theirs will work for you. 

So here’s what works for me, and bear in mind, I’m telling you all this for free. 

#1 You need a passion, business, vocation or direction to pursue like a laser guided missile.  Without any direction, you are just like a ship without a destination.  You won’t go anywhere.  It’s the same thing with Internet marketing, if you don’t have a specific niche in mind, you won’t get very far. 

(Personally, I think it’s crazy to start a full 4 year degree without having a clue as to what you’re going to be doing after college.  If you are going to be a master chef, don’t you think it would be better to work in the restaurant business for a while BEFORE committing massive amounts of time and money in college?)

So, figuring out what you want to do at the onset, is very important.

#2 You need to be committed.  You need to stick with it. You need to be like Rudy Ruettiger.  You don’t want to bounce all over the place, planning and re-planning your destination.  You want to be committed to your passion through thick and thin.  Once again, I’ll bring up a few case studies to remind you of the importance of this:

Colonel Sanders went to 1000 restaurants with his chicken recipe before one of them tried it.

Edison tried over 10,000 experiments to get his light bulb to work.

Commitment is paramount.

#3 You need to take ACTION.  Yeah, you can decide on where you want to go and how much you want to get there, but without taking a ton of action, you’ll never even get close.  The best way to do this is to plan out what you’re going to do and execute it.  Many of the world’s most successful people plan out where they want to be years in advance and how they’re going to get there.  Then they take action based on those plans. 

#4 Your attitude needs to be conducive to the goals you are trying to achieve.  As Zig Zigglar once said, “It doesn’t matter how great of an attitude I have, I can’t run as fast as Roger Bannister or box as good as Joe Louis, but I could do those things a lot better than someone with a BAD attitude!”

Translation:  Having a good attitude may not get you all of the way to your destination (especially if you have an unrealistic one) but you’ll get much closer to achieving your dreams if you have a good attitude.

The Place You Wind Up In May Not Be Kansas

One thing I want to add to this.  If you are pursuing a dream…a really big dream, like becoming an NBA superstar, or a top-drawer studio musician, you more than likely set yourself up for failure.  I’m not telling you to give up on your dream, but I’m saying that you may wind up close to or in a great position that you didn’t imagine.  I’m NOT saying that is bad, as a matter of fact, you may be better off. 

I’ve personally known people that were trying to become NFL players and wound up being athletic coaches at prominent universities.  Did they make it to achieve their lofty dreams?  No, but they wound up doing something they liked in a great job that they love.

So, my advice for anyone with a goal or ambition is to put your back into your vocation or passion, you may be surprised at where you wind up.

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

Get More Internet Traffic to Your Site by Using This One Simple Marketing Strategy

Most of the traffic generating ideas you read about on this blog look real easy.  One of the reasons for this is because I’m an actual, certified teacher. I’ve taught almost 30 different subjects in the last 20 years, and I believe in giving you concise information and instructions, rather than giving you a lot of “fluff”. 

So, whenever I actually get around to putting down the exact steps to help you generate traffic to your site or blog, it is usually to the point.

A Bad Illusion

However, the problem with this is that gives you the illusion that doing the task is easy.  In Internet marketing NOTHING IS EASY.

I once saw a YouTube video where in the famous copywriter Gary Halbert talked extensively about marketing on the Internet.  One of the things he talked about was how much harder it was to sell things by way of the Internet than it was by direct mail.  One of the reasons he felt this way was because there are way too many distractions on here. 

I’ve posted a video here where the late Mr. Halbert talks about Search Engines:

My Master’s degree is in Education Technology and for years I’ve observed how long it can take a student to find good, solid information using the Internet.  If you go to the library looking for a book on Renaissance art, chances are that if you know how to use a card catalog system it’ll take you 5 minutes to find an entire section of books on that subject. 

But on the Internet, there are too many things competing for your attention.  There’s email, texting, gaming, advertisements, favorite sites and of course the biggest distraction…Social media.  And even if you happen to stay on task, finding a good site (despite how good Google’s algorithm is) can sometimes be very difficult.   

If you don’t know how to look for something it can be quite difficult. 

So, without going into great detail on situations where I had to help students find specific information I’ve learned one important thing.   If it’s difficult to find and sift through and find information on common subjects on the Internet, how much harder is it going to be to find your business on here?

Here’s The “One Easy Trick” I Told You About

The trick is simple in principle, but requires WORK.  As Edison so aptly put it,

“The only place you’ll find SUCCESS before WORK is in the dictionary.”

Here is the strategy: Becoming an authority or having an authority site. 

There are several paths to becoming an authority, but the most popular way to become one on the Internet is by using a blog and regularly posting outstanding information on it.  Now, that’s a very simplified strategy or idea, but it’s true and it works.

However, the steps to becoming an authority or authority site require a lot of work.  Here are just a few of the things that you need to do to become an authority in your chosen niche.  (You do have a niche, don’t you?) 

1.        Publish really great information about your niche on your site or blog.

2.        Make sure you link out to other valuable links in your niche that are relevant to what you are writing about.

3.       Post good quality info everyday on your blog or website

4.       Post short snippets about your updates to all social media sites you are associated with letting people know that you posted.

5.       Guest write in forums, other people’s blogs and anyone else that’ll let you as much as you can.  
Make sure that you post your website links are on those posts.

That was the short and sweet answer.  You can accelerate this whole process by doing some offline marketing too:

1.        Do public speaking and give out your site address and email addresses

2.       Put your website address on every direct mail piece that you send out

3.       Make sure your email address has your website address on it.

4.       Write a book on Amazon and tell people there are bonuses on your site and place your site’s address in the book. (Side note – writing a published book will quickly make you an authority.)

Here’s A Strategy On How To Become An Authority On The Internet In A Year

I’m sure that you’ve seen these strategies before.  However, it doesn’t hurt to reiterate them and remind you of what you have to do to move your Internet business forward.  In order to get your site really noticed, I’m including a link to a document that will really get you moving if you do most of what’s in it.

 Years ago an IM superstar named Brett Tabke wrote a post o n a forum that later became a rather famous E-book on IM called “The 26 Steps” Here is a FREE copy of that document.  If you are even remotely serious about Internet marketing, then you’ll read this excellent document and begin to use the steps he so graciously shared with everyone.

Brett Tabke’s 26 Steps

One other resource I’ve already mentioned in another post is Bob Bly’s most excellent book, “How to Become an Authority in 90 Days or Less” And the link is to the post where you can get it.

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

"When it comes to high response copy, I've got your back!"

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

Portfolio Site: http://markelliscopyportfolio.blogspot.com/

P.S.  Here's a link to Gary Halbert's site: The Gary Halbert Letter