The Incredible Pinterest Hoax - Driving Targeted Traffic To Your Site

Women seem to like Pinterest
for some weird reason.

For those of you that don’t know, Pinterest has been around since about 2010 and it is a unique spin on Internet photo-sharing.  The easiest way to describe it is that it a digital, online version of a bulletin board that you can pin pictures of things that interest to. (Hence the name “Pinterest”.)  

You can take a look at and follow other people’s boards, you can invite people to join you, (similar to Facebook), and you can re-pin other people’s pins.

People use Pinterest to not only pin personal pictures and things of interest to them, but what entrepreneurs have the ability for businesses to showcase their wares and business messages on Pinterest.

If You’re Going Down That Road…Make Sure You've got the Horses!

Since we can probably all agree that using as many social networks as we reasonably can to get our marketing message out is important, we can all probably agree that since Pinterest is a site we probably can’t ignore. 

And since we can’t afford to ignore it, we need to know how to use it.

However, don’t think for a second that using Pinterest is going to be easy-cheesy-peasy.  Just like all other social networks it’s a HOAX to believe that you can just do a few simple things and get away with it. 

This requires work, persistence and care, just like all other forms of social media marketing.

I would like to point out that this is another one of those dirt cheap methods that requires no money to market your business.   It merely requires a free account with Pinterest to post your pictures and get your compelling message out to the masses.

Pimp Yo’ Board with Blog Pictures!

Here’s a great way to get followers to follow your blog or website.  Some people refer to the area on your Pinterest site wherein you post articles a “blog-board”. All you have to do with this little gem is to post the URL of your Blog post to Pinterest using a very simple and easy interface that they provide.

So, each time you post on Pinterest, you can merely drop your URL in the box they provide you and an image and a link will appear on the board where you are posting.  

Even though this is a dirt-cheap method of marketing, I wouldn't use this as a sole means of driving traffic to your blog or website.  Mostly what you'll get on many of the social media sites are folks that are looking for people to sell their own wares to and tire kickers.  

Selling YOUR Stuff On a Pinterest Board

If you want to sell items on Pinterest you can easily do so.  You need to make sure that your items

I said you could sell stuff on
Pinterest....I didn't say you'd like it!

have very good, high quality pictures with them.  Pinterest usually has a drop down menu on it that will allow you to look at different types of items to buy that range between different price points.  

When someone on Pinterest clicks on a price range, ( like the $100-$200 range)  Pinterest will then take them to a board that has items that are selling within a price range. Personally, I think this is a huge waste in time looking over items like this versus going on Amazon and typing in exactly what you need.

Once you've clicked on a product, you are taken to similar screen that has pictures of items that are similar and similar in price.  

I kind of look at buying things on Pinterest like a huge browsing tool for people that just want to blow money.  Like it's burning a hole in their pockets and they're going to float around on there until something strikes their fancy.

Let's Go Grouping!

Not to say that the site doesn't have its merits.  For one thing, Pinterest will allow you to network with other people that are in the same niche as yourself or in the same industry.  However, it is hard to find other groups that are similar to yours because there is no search feature that will help you find groups.   

You can get re-pinned if people find what you have to offer interesting, but finding groups to hang with that are similar to your interests are slim.  There is a site called PinGroupie that will allow you to look through a list of Pinterest boards that you can search through.  

There is a drop-down menu that allows you to go through entire categories and determine which ones are relevant to your search.

The Big Hoax...Revealed!

Just like other social media sites, using Pinterest to market your business isn't a real significant way to generate traffic.  

In order to get a decent amount of traffic from social media sites, you'll have to work a bunch them simultaneously before you get any significant traffic, and then that will only occur on days that You are posting on them.  

After that, you'll have to go back and re-post several times before you will notice a spike in your traffic.  However, if you couple this with all of the other dirt-cheap methods I've shown you to generate traffic to your site, you'll be a heck of a lot better off than someone that went into hock to get started 

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

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

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

(859) 797-9560

eBay! - How I Made My First REAL Money on the Internet!

In my last three posts I asked for readers of this blog to send in their stories on how you made your first money on the Internet.

I must admit, you’re a stubborn bunch.  I had three responses from readers that basically sent me one or two short sentences that I had to expand upon in order to make it interesting.

You can read those posts here if you so desire: 

1. Anyone Can UseThis Simple Technique to Get Started Making Money on the Internet Immediately!

2. How I used eBay!to Make My First Real Money On The Internet!

3. We Need You! HowDid You Make Your First Dollar On The Internet?

In case you’re holding out on me, or are too constipated to get out of your recliner to write it up, my offer still stands.  You can send me your story on how you made your first bucks on the Internet here:

Elmo033057@gmail.com

This offer will stay open until the hot, bad place freezes.

How I Made Some Real Money on eBay!

It’s relatively easy to make a little money on a venue like eBay! But it’s a real challenge to make substantial amounts of cash there, and it requires quite a bit of work.

The way I happened to make money on the auction site was labor intensive.  Actually, anyone that is making good money from an Internet venture will tell you, the same thing: It's a lot of work. 

My wife and I have had a few sewing businesses over the year.  She is quite amazing and has made everything from quilts to canvas covers on the backs of trucks.  I did the marketing, she did the sewing. 

With an embroidery digitizing program any things is possible!

However, she knew how much I like doing graphic arts, so she started showing me embroidery that people were making using computer driven embroidery machines.  I was amazed at how beautiful you could make items using a single head machine.

The other part that I thought was cool,  was that you had to use a digitizing program that was similar to a graphics program to create the designs.  

So, with a little prodding, we decided to get the machine, digitizing program and go into the embroidery business.

However, the embroidery machine start up ran us around $12,000 for the machine, software computers, etc.  We had that money saved up so we didn’t have to get a loan or anything.  ($12,000 to start up regular bricks and mortar business is still dirt cheap, so don’t start accusing me of not being thrifty!  Ha ha!)

Why the Internet Is THE Place To Start a Business and Why I’d NEVER Go On Shark Tank

No, You're Dead to ME!!!!

As you already know from reading this blog, I don’t like going into debt to run a business because I’m too cheap.  As a matter of fact, you’d never see me on Shark Tank begging those folks to go into business with me because I just don’t want the debt and I hate owing people money.

My way of thinking is I don’t want the heavy pressure and stress that’s associated with borrowing money like that.  I’m always trying to think of other ways out of that situation.

The real value of Shark Tank isn’t the money, it’s the Sharks themselves and their connections.  Getting the opportunity to work with them would be the real value.  However, there is a cheaper way to find out how they do business and that’s read and study their books.

Almost every one of them have written books and blogs, made videos, given interviews and all you need to know is in the library on the Internet just sitting there for free waiting for you to read.  Not only do you have their resources, but you also have access to every single entrepreneur’s mind that is significant. 

How to drive your librarian crazy...

If you don’t see their books in your local library, then get on Amazon and buy their books used. 

Why?  Because it’s cheap that’s why! 

The reason why I’m mentioning the fact that I’m cheap here, is because when my wife and I started to scope out places to rent for our embroidery business, we were freaked out by the cost of renting a space. 

The mall in Lexington was only a few short blocks from our house, so we thought we’d rent a kiosk there.  However, the kiosk spaces were renting at $3000 a month, and during the months of October through December the rental went up to $5000 a month. 

So, in my estimation, many of the kiosk businesses at the mall were LOSERS!  I can’t figure out how the people that sell the little painted crabs that crawl around inside little glass cages make any money at all.  You’d have to sell a ton of those things just to break even!

The idea of all of that money being shelled out JUST to get started horrified me!

My Dirt Cheap Solution

Since I had already built websites and done some Internet marketing on my own, I put our single head embroidery machine into our finished basement and started the business there.  I figured out every cheap way I could to get website hosting, a merchant account and a domain. 

Back in those days, merchant accounts weren’t cheap like they are now, but they were a heck of a lot cheaper than renting a space at the stinkin' mall!

 Not only that, but all I had to do in the morning was get up and go to work.  No commute, no spending money on gas, and no rental fees.

Cheap-cheap-cheap!

I didn’t have to worry about when I had to lock up and go home either.  If I wanted to digitize a design and test it, all I had to do is create the design and run it through my machine because everything was right there for me to work with.  It didn't matter if it was 12:00 noon or 12:00 midnight.

eBay! –The Launching Pad for My Business!

Once I got my Website built, I knew I needed to pull in initial sales, however when you build a brand new website, it takes a while to get indexed by the search engines.  So, for the first few months you are pretty much invisible on the Internet.

It turns out that eBay! was my solution. 

I got an account with eBay!, plugged in all of the information I needed to start selling and proceeded to begin to make money.

Well, yeah I made money, but it wasn't much.  Since I’d never sold more than a few eBooks online, I really didn't have much Internet marketing experience to ride on. I threw my embroidery business out there without a clue as to what my niche market was, what my Unique Selling Proposition (USP) was or anything.  

Unfortunately no marketing plan = no business.

I remember some guy ordering a gardening hat from me.  I think I made $2.00.

So, I started reading.  A lot.  I got every eBook and Internet marketing book I could think of and I found a niche I was passionate about – musical instrument apparel.  

This turned out to be a nice niche for me since I liked the graphic aspect of creating my own digitized – embroidered designs as well as my passion for music.

Thus, Ellistrations Music Apparel was born!

So, in my next blog post I’ll tell you how I sold a $3.00 dollar hat for almost $60.00...

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

P.S.  If you really want to get started making money lightning fast on eBay! check out this video:

How I used eBay! to Make My First Real Money On The Internet!

My Personal eBay! Story...

You've got to know what'll sell on eBay! if you
really want to make some money!

In case you've missed my last several posts, I’m conducting an experiment wherein I post several ideas that entrepreneurs send me on how they made their first money on the Internet.

The interesting thing is,  I have received only a few of these ideas from readers even though I've offered to post names and place web addresses with links next to the articles.   A few of you have sent in articles, but did not want to have their website information published, which is OK by me. 

I did have one really good tip sent to me by a guy named Jon that told me that he made his first money on eBay, buying and selling stuff that he found at yard sales.

Since he really didn't write much, and since I too used eBay a lot to make my first bucks on the Internet, I thought I’d expand on that and tell you about how I got down and dirty in the trenches with eBay. 

But, before I go down that road…

I just want to take a second and throw out the offer once again, for those of you interested in sharing your experiences on how you made your first money on the Internet. 

Please send your stories and ideas to: elmo033057@gmail.com or write your ideas and place them in a comment box.  It’s just that simple.  

I’ll give you full credit and place your name, business or whatever you want on my blog, to include your URL and a link to your site.

How I Made $20,000 on eBay!

OK this idea of using eBay to make money took quite a bit of work, but it basically forced me to try to learn how to do things on the Internet.  While $20,000 may look like quite a chunk of change, it was actually more money than that, and it was over a period of years I made money on eBay!  But as I said, it was really my first money that I made on the Internet, as far as I can remember.

It was about 1995 or 1996 that I got involved with eBay, and I just want to reiterate, it was a lot of work.  The first thing I tried to do was go around to yard sales, buy junk and try to sell it on eBay. 

I had heard at work that there were people going around making big bucks by going to yard sales, buying ties, shirts, or whatever and then selling them on the world’s greatest auction site.  

So off I went, hitting every yard sale I could buying things that I thought people would want. 

Unfortunately, I wound up with a garage full of junk. Some of the stuff I placed up on auction sold for a mere pittance and once I paid the shipping, I was the loser.

Clorox Bottles - The Turning Point!

But as I have stated before on this blog, your successes come from failing.  So, I kept at it.  I learned pretty quickly that you needed to have a way to check the

prices of things before you bought them.  However, this was before the Internet was on your cell phone, so I had to have another plan.

I had my slave…er…son sit at home next to his computer, and I took my cell phone with me.

Whenever I wanted to know what something was selling for I would call him up and ask him to look on eBay to see what the prices of particular items went for.

Hey, ya learn fast when you lose money.

So, my wife and I stopped at some lady’s house who was selling glass Clorox bottles.  Now, I was born in the late 50’s and as far back as I could remember, my mother always had to white plastic Clorox bottles, so I knew that these had to be antique.  I know that certain glass bottles can go for quite a bit of money, and these were in mint-perfect condition.

So, I asked the woman running the yard sale what she was selling them for. 

“$20.00.” She announced for everyone in the garage to hear.

They're $20.00!

I asked her where she got them from, and she told me they had been passed on for years in her family.  She also told me that glass collectors love those things. 

When I inquired why she wasn't trying to sell them to glass collectors and really cash in on the glass bottle bonanza, she told me that as soon as the yard sale was over her son was going to take them and do just that.

“Yeah,” she said chewing on a piece of beef jerky, “he’s gonna sell them to an antique dealer we know for $60.00 apiece.”

“Oh, really?” I said, dialing my son.

To cut a long story short,  it turns out there were loads and loads of them on eBay, in mint perfect condition starting at $4.00 apiece. So I skipped out of that yard sale thinking about a sign I saw in a library as a kid.

"Knowledge is power."

After that I usually checked things put before I bought them, and over time I knew which of the items were real hot sellers.

The Certain Things Sell Better Lesson

I remember going to a yard sale and some young guy (obviously pretty successful from the looks of his house) had a  brand new cell phone in a box.  When I asked him why he was selling it, he said,

"I signed up for a plan with the cell phone company and they hacked me off, so I cancelled the contract with them. Since that phone will only work with that particular company, I'm selling it."

He originally wanted 20.00 for the phone, but I offered him $5.00.  Since I hit him with this price right before he shut down his yard sale for the day, he decided to let it go.  I made $65.00 off of that brand new phone on eBay!

Knowing your market is kinda important 

So, if you know what the market on eBay! is looking for, you can still make money.  However, you have to consider the cost.  

• The cost of gas driving around

• The cost of time.  This method is pretty time consuming.  Not only do you have to drive around to all of the yard sales, but you have to consider the time you have to take packing this stuff up and then standing in line at the post office.

• The cost in shipping the items to the people that are buying them.  You don't want to charge too much, but at the same time, you don't want to under charge so that you're losing money either.  

• You'll need to spend even more time and money on eBay! itself.  eBay! does charge for placing items on it's auction site, and you'll have to take pictures of your items and upload them as well as write a real good description of the item.

The Lessons I Learned From This...

This isn't a real good way of making money on eBay!  

When I consider the time, money and effort I put into it, I was a loser.  However, as I said before knowledge is power, and I quickly learned how to put items up on eBay! and how the whole process worked.  

That set me up for making an actual income that was worth working on the "World's Greatest Auction Site" which I'll share with you in my next post.

Just a reminder, if anyone want wants to send me their story of how they made their first money on the Internet, please send it to:  elmo033057@gmail.com  

I'll be happy to give you full credit, place a link to your site and help you in any way I can.

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

We Need You! How Did You Make Your First Dollar On The Internet?

Last week I conducted an experiment.  

I ran an ad online asking for Internet marketers to send me an examples of dirt cheap marketing that they've used to make their first dollars online.  (I ran a real good deal on the ad, so I didn't pay much there and I didn't want to pay a bunch to get their responses. Ha-ha!  Cheap!  Cheap! ) 

I also posed a question on a popular marketing forum asking folks what their methods were there as well.  I got quite a few responses there too. 

So, this week I’m going to post those responses here for you to read.  

The Second Part of My Experiment Involves You!

Not only am I going to post the responses that I received, but I’m also going to post any good ideas that my reading audience sends me as well.  You can either send it to me here: elmo033057@gmail.com and I’ll post it to my blog with your signature and web address on it, or I’ll post it into the comment section of my blog. 

Either way works for me!

The Rules:

• Please don’t post duplicate content.  It will get trashed immediately.
• No foul language.
• We are here to lift each other up as entrepreneurs, not trash each other.  If you disagree on a point with someone, try to disagree without being disagreeable.
• I will not allow affiliate links.  If you have an example of a product or website, fine, but all affiliate links will get trashed.
• I won’t mind promoting your business if your post has a logical point or example with it. Readers can easily tell if you are just promoting your junk instead of sharing valuable information with them. 
• Oh, and No Running in The Pool Area!

Dirt Cheap Method #1 -Using Your Web Savvy Brain to Sell an eBook Online

I figured since I actually went through the process myself,  I'd be the first to tell you exactly how I made my first money online.  

I invested $30.00 on an eBook  which was titled, "How to write and Sell and eBook in 30 Days".  I bought the book and without thinking too much about what niche to dive into, I started writing.  

I actually got the book written in about 2 weeks and churned out about 75 pages of material.  I thought someone...anyone would want to read it and that I'd make some money on it.

I knew enough to figure that I would probably not make a huge sum of money from writing the book, but I was eager to set it up and get the ball rolling.  

In the early 1990's credit card processing was kind of expensive.  
You had to get an online credit card service if you wanted to sell something, even an eBook.  PayPal had just started to really roll, but it did not have half of the cheap merchant services it has today.  

I finally found a very inexpensive solution from a company called 2Checkout.  2Checkout is a company that would let you set up any product that you wanted to sell, and it would act as a credit card processor for a percentage of the sale.  (Currently, they will charge you 2.5% for processing.) 

They would let you set up your products, give you the code to drop into your page and then process your order for you.  With very few glitches, it worked like a charm.  

How I Faced Failure and Turned It Around...

However, nobody wanted to read my book on Internet marketing, especially since I was a Newb.  

So my first effort resulted in selling nothing.

But, hey, you'll learn your best and biggest lessons from failure.  Determined to still make money from Internet marketing thing, I decided to try again.  This time I wanted to find a niche that was narrow and that a group of people felt passionate about.  

At the time I was trying my hand at this, I was a band director at a military academy and I was working with a bagpiping team.  

The kids that I was working with at the time, were really into the whole Celtic/Bagpiping hobby, and I had a hard time keeping up with them because I had no education in the realm of bag pipes.

One Friday, when I was getting ready to go home from work, I noticed one of the bag piping team members getting into a car with his Celtic gear on. (Yep, the team wore kilts.) 

When I asked him why he was wearing his outfit, he told me something I had no knowledge of.  He was making all sorts of money playing bagpipes for different events.  Weddings, funerals, retirement parties, police events, etc.

And the money he was making was pretty good.  He'd make $200.00 at any given event, and he was only required to play for small segments of the events.

So, that was thew seed of an idea for my second eBook, "How to Make Money With Your Bagpipes"  and even though it didn't make me rich, I still made thousands from it.,

Heck, it was pretty easy to market, when I look back on it.  Since I was a band director at a military academy, it was very easy to network with bagpipers and find out where they all hung out at online.  

I also knew who the best bagpipe teachers were and I could easily contact them and get them to spread the word for me. 

I guess that's why identifying a focused niche is very important.



So, that was the first time I made money online and I've been hooked ever since.  

Now it's your turn.  What was the way you made your first money using Internet marketing? 

Once again, you can post your story in the comment section or send it on to me at: elmo033057@gmail.com

I look forward to hearing from you!

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 One Thing You Absolutely Have to Have to Run a Business - Or You Can Just Hang It Up

Today, I’m going to switch things up a bit.

I’m not going to talk about what web savvy, slick tools you can use to generate traffic to your site.  Instead, I’m gonna tell you about the most important thing you are going to need to survive in business. 

I’m an active participant in the Warrior Forum.  The WF is probably the most active Internet marketing forum on the planet right now.  Probably because the seats are so cheap.  You can get a lifetime membership for $10.00.  Not bad. 

I've written about this forum and others more extensively in the past, and you can read that post here:

Marketing with Forums

The Reason I’m bringing up this venue is because the other day, I noticed there were quite a few people on that forum that were a certain class of people.  These folk show up all over the Internet.  On forums, blogs, and social media sites.

For some weird reason, they are rather shameless in their brazen messages, and they don’t care how much abuse they take from people reacting to them.  They just keep on broadcasting, no matter what.

Of course, the people I’m talking about are the habitual whiners. 

These folks, instead of writing extensive posts on their blogs or websites, spend their valuable time and efforts complaining about how something didn't work.  How Internet marketing doesn't work, or how they’re sick of hearing people give them the same advice over and over again, or how they lost money, yada, yada, yada…

It’s as if they think they’ll actually start succeeding if they keep complaining.

It ain't gonna happen that way.

And the sad fact is that there are a number of people on that site that’ll actually waste their time trying to help them.  My advice to those people is: Don’t waste your time. 

 

I've owned online and offline businesses and the downside to owning a business is that it’s not like a job.

 

With a job, you down have all the responsibilities of running the company.  You’re not the one that has to make payroll for everyone in the company, make sound decisions about which direction the company is going to go, spend money on marketing, and have health insurance for your employees, and all of the other stressful responsibilities that go with running an enterprise.

Usually with a job, you don’t have to do all of those functions.  You have a certain set of things you do for the company and that’s it. 

But if you are an owner, you have a very full plate. 

It’s like Spiderman’s uncle said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

So, if you are going to whine and cry about the “Internet Gods” not favoring you, go find something else to do.  Because business, (no matter what type it is) is a full-tilt, 10 million pound behemoth that you’ll have to battle with every day.

Failure is Absolutely Necessary

If you are going to be an entrepreneur, you are going to fail and you’ll probably fail a lot. 

I’m sure you’ve heard of Thomas Edison’s most famous quote, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

I guess it's all how you look at it.

So, failure is essential to learning.  Ask any musician, artist, writer, engineer, or business person.  Especially, when you are new to having your own business, failure is essential.  I’m not saying to go out and deliberately try to be a failure, I’m saying that it’s a part of the process.

If you’re not failing, you’re not trying, plain and simple. 

Why Dirt Cheap is So Cool

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll notice that I’ve talked an awful lot about using “dirt-cheap” methods of starting businesses and marketing.  There is a method to my madness.  For one thing if you start small, cheap and SMART, you’re reducing your risk dramatically. 

Thanks to the Internet, gone are the days of having to take out huge sums of money to start a business.  You can start a business anywhere from home and actually make a living.  And you can also do business globally.   

You won’t have to worry about having a lot of money or taking out a loan.  That’s the beauty of this method, and it’s low stress.

This makes it extremely easy to start a business. It no longer matters how young or old you are, whether you’re a cripple or Chuck Norris, the door to prosperity is wide open. 

That is, if you have the guts, knowledge and DETERMINATION to keep on truckin’!

But, you will fail.  Any successful entrepreneur will tell you that they've had many more failures than successes.  That is just the nature of any business or endeavor and you’ll have to face that demon on a daily basis. 

So keep swinging that bat, keep playing that horn, keep busting your butt, because that’s the only way you’ll ever learn enough to outlast people that just don’t have the will to stick it out.

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

Boosting Your Business and Sales In Facebook with a Great Call to Action!

On my last blog post I gave you the basics of what you’d need to get started using Facebook in your quest to generate traffic for your business.  If you still haven’t read that content, you can access it here:

Dirt Cheap Methods of Using Facebook

Now I’m going to tell you how to get that traffic to move towards your marketing message and eventually your business sales funnel.  There are several things that you will need to do to motivate and influence people in order to get them to move to your sales page or squeeze page. This episode we’re going to focus on…

Using a Call to Action! (CTA)

The first thing you need to do is decide exactly what you want your audience to do.  Basically, you are going to ask them to stay engaged with you.  The whole idea is to get your readers to take several small and easy steps on their way to your irresistible offer. 

This is tricky, because each step along the way must LEAD the prospect in a manner that is non-threatening in a sales perspective. You’re not selling…You’re LEADING!  Once you have them in your sales funnel, there are different ways you can sell to them, but during your multi-step process you’ll need to engage them enough to have them move forward with you.

For example, you've got your Facebook business page set up with articles relevant to your niche.  Every now and then, you could refer to an interesting article on your blog, which in turn has a whitepaper, eBook, coupon or other relevant stuff to offer that’s free.

Take a look at Nature Valley Granola Bars Facebook Page. (My wife’s favorite hiking food!)  About every 5 or so posts, they have a posting similar to this one:

They have a link to their site, which usually has…COUPONS!!!  The next step in the natural order of things is the sale.  Pretty simple, eh?

Hook and Reel

Once you get your prospects to your site or destination, you’ll want to ask them to take the next step.  Depending on your where they are in your sales process, you will either sell them or move them closer to your sale. 

Usually, when the item or items are big ticket, the sales process is longer and probably looks like this:

Facebook page à Blog posts à Free eBook à Small purchase like an eBook ($29.00) à Bigger purchase like a course with videos ($ 100.00) Seminar or coaching sessions ($2000.00 and up).

The ultimate thrill for a marketer of this nature is to get you on their paid subscription because they’ll be making "mucho deniro" from you on a regular basis.

Get Prospects to Act…Fast

Sad but true, if people have too long to think about things, they won’t buy.  A good car salesman knows that the second you walk off the lot to think about it, you won’t be back.  (They call prospects like this “Be-Backs” because they know that you’ll never “be back”.)

So, whenever you give them an irresistible offer to act, you need to put a sense of urgency in there.  In my opinion the subtler you can do this the better.  One of the best examples I ever saw of this was a copywriter that said that for accounting reasons, he wouldn't be able to keep selling his course for a while. 

He went on for three or four pages talking about the course and very subtly, he’d mention that even though he was fighting his accountant for months on this, for tax reasons he wasn’t going to be able to offer it after a certain month and that he wouldn't be able to sell it again for 5 years or so.

I think this is the reason why coupons almost always have expiration dates on them.

Keep it Simple…Smarty!

The last bit of advice is that you’ll want to keep the process of ordering simple.  Don’t give any choices as far as products are concerned, and don’t make the prospect go through too many steps in the sales process. 

The only time you’ll want to give prospects more than one choice is how they are going to pay you! 1-800 numbers, Paypal, Credit Cards, whatever.  The more ways to pay the better. 

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