Hmmmph…They Weren’t Serious about Buying Anyway!

In an online world where just about everything can be tested and tracked, I think it’s easy to forget that there are still human beings creating the data for all those wonderful calculations that allow us to increase our conversion rates and ROIs. Of course, I talked about this just a little while back in a post entitled Myth: It Comes Down to Conversions.

But I saw a comment on a forum today that made me want to revisit the subject.

The subject of Virtual Agents (you know those annoying pop-up scripts that pretend to a be real human giving you a last ditch offer before you leave a website?) reared its head again. The person who created the thread was complaining about how annoying they were and how he felt they were a bit dishonest. Others chimed in with similar opinions.

Others stated that it didn’t matter what we thought, but that if the Virtual Agents increased conversions, then they were worth looking at. I can accept that. Personally, it’s not always about the bottom line for me, but I can accept that my opinion shouldn’t guide what someone else should do with their business.

But the most curious comment came up. Here’s what one forum member said:

“Well I look at it like this…

If you’re annoyed by the Virtual Assistant then you were NOT going to buy anyway, right..? So for the times it does save a sale it’s completely worth it…

If a non-buyer gets upset then so-be-it… they won;t be back anyway, right?”

Honestly, it felt like a bit of regurgitation of advice I’d seen before where the context made more sense. But what the heck? If a potential customer is put off or offended by something in your sales process, they’re not serious?

Does that mean we have carte blanche to do what we want, insult our customers and they’ll still buy if they are serious about our product?

Of course not, but it seems to me that’s what this forum member was saying. There are so many reasons we lose sales and realistically, we have little to no control over most of them. But I think it’s a mistake to attempt put yourself in a safe place and justify the loss of every customer is based on the fact that they’re not serious.

Have you ever walked into a store, ready to buy something and left because a sales clerk was unhelpful or rude?

Or worse, have you ever convinced yourself that your own prospect wasn’t serious because they didn’t like something about your own order process?

Marketing Blogs - Hollywood Tabloid Style

Something really weird is going on with some marketing blog bloggers that seem to have gone tabloid. I think it’s totally cool to disagree with people and you should be a man/woman and have the guts to say who you’re disagreeing with - but what’s with the personal shots?

Next we’ll be seeing photos of our cellulite-covered bathing-suit clad bottom halves saying “You’ll never guess who,” exposing all gurus and their ever-growing computer-planted behinds. Or maybe when that skinny guru (I think there are a couple!) goes to a sushi restaurant and shares one piece of sushi with his/her skinny friend, we’ll hear all about it.
I jest, but I admit I was kind of surprised by a couple of personal jabs this week.

One of note - came from Rick Butts and his blog post entitled Worst Internet Marketing Advice I’ve Ever Heard. This post was a video response to this post by Ross Goldberg. I got pulled into the whole thing because I commented on Ross’s post as I disagreed with what he said and Rick addressed my comment in his video. Yes, it sounds like a soap opera, I know. Don’t worry if you don’t follow, just watch Rick’s video and you’ll see what I mean.

Now, I realize that Rick likes to use a bit of humor, so I can cut him some slack. But his video alluding to the fact that Ross may fancy himself as a vampire and other comments, made me wriggle in my seat a little. Why not just state your argument and inject humor where it isn’t directed at a particular individual? But hey, if that’s Rick’s thing…it’s Rick’s thing and it looks like Rick and Ross have decided to discuss things on a more even-handed level.

Warms my heart.
But then I came across this post on Mashable that contained no humor, took comments out of context and was clearly written to take personal shots. The post is entitled, Is Twitter Vulnerable to Marketer Attack? by Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins and he uses bits and pieces of an email from John Reese to illustrate that marketers are taking advantage of Twitter.

He refers to John’s customers as victims and states his concern that “there are a million affiliate marketers with even less scruples” - oh please. If you want to make an argument, make one based on the facts and true issues in front of him. Forget the fact that no marketer, spammer or idiot can actually ruin Twitter because it’s completely permission-based - if you do actually have an argument, just make it.

EDIT: You can read John Reese’s response to Hopkins’ post here.

Sure, I realize these guys do this to bring in traffic - as we know controversy is a great attention-getter (and it works cuz I’m sending these guys traffic). But does controversy need to be so personal?

MYTH: It All Comes Down to Conversions

A few years ago when John Reese released his Traffic Secrets, he really started drilling into our heads the importance of testing and improving conversion rates. These were very important lessons indeed and it suddenly everywhere you went, people were throwing out the standard advice, “Test it” or “Split Test It”. It continues to this very day.

That’s a good thing and the Internet does provide a great opportunity to inexpensively and quickly test to improve our marketing. But have you ever stopped to think that all this testing can sometimes lead you down the wrong path?

It’s Not Just the Non-Testers Who Run Their Business Blind

To me, just simply running testing data and adjusting solely based on what conversion numbers are telling you is running your business nearly as blind as someone who does no testing at all. See, there’s a fine line between immediate conversion rates and losing potential life-long customers. That’s exactly what can happen when you go by numbers and throw common sense out the window. What may gain a one-time customer today may repel another customer who could have been more valuable to you.

But until Now, I’ve Just Been Thinking about This to My Little ol’ Self.

That is, until I saw a recent blog entry by Michel Fortin and I wanted to shout with glee. As a self-labeled “fanatic tester”, Michel was warning people of its dangers. In his blog entry Customers Won’t Discount Your Dishonesty, Michel discusses the potential dangers of a particular exit strategy that has become very popular for rescuing sales from exit traffic. This method has been defended for boosting conversions, but Michel very poignantly highlights why it could be detrimental to business. Read the blog entry and resulting comments for an enlightening discussion.

But please - if you aren’t testing now, please don’t take this as an excuse not to. Testing data + educated/experienced analysis will help you maximize your opportunities.

This Bugs Me - Blame the Mom and Pops

A couple of days ago, Lynette Chandler posted about an interesting discovery she made in the Q&A section of PC Magazine.

Apparently, Neil J. Rubenking, the software expert at PCMag was asked for advice on avoiding spam when giving out email addresses. Part of Rubenking’s shocking answer included the following quote:

“When you buy something at a small, lesser-known online store, there’s a decent chance they will sell your address to spammers.”

and

“Sign up for a newsletter? Your address could certainly get sold.“

Reading Lynette’s post, I was rather peeved. Not at her, of course, but at this guy’s assignment of blame on the little guy, when most of us truly experienced know that it’s not Kate’s Pretty Bows (made up name, of course), operating out of Kate’s basement that is selling information. It’s the BIG companies with their 40-page long terms and disclaimers.

As I wrote on Lynette’s blog:

“That’s quite an assumption [on his part]. Morals and ethics aside, I don’t think most smaller online retailers are aware of or would know how to get into the lucrative opportunity of selling personal information. It’s the big companies that know and do this, unless they explicitly state they don’t.”

So, what do you think? Whose really selling our information here?

If Only It Were Paint-by-Numbers

Earlier today, I posted about the trouble Internet marketers get into by NOT being able to apply solutions to their own business and paralyzing themselves in desiring a paint-by-numbers solution to everything. I’ve just been hit with another example of this crazy phenomenon.

(Ahem, if online business was paint by numbers, we could all be dot-com millionaires )

I often have people tell me that they feel a bit overwhelmed by the information I provide because:

“I’m a physical product seller and I feel like your information is more targeted to intangible products.”

…and then recently, I had someone else tell me the opposite. They felt my information is more relevant to the product seller and were having trouble seeing how my stuff applied to affiliate marketers.

Aye, aye, aye. I can’t win, can I?

Personally, I think I’m pretty even-handed when I create my reports, audios, courses, etc. I give examples from the physical product world, for affiliate marketers and for information marketers. But you know what? If someone doesn’t want to see that and use a little of the imagination that Chele astutely proclaimed people are lacking, I don’t know what else I can do.

But please don’t think I’m just sitting here trying to defend myself. THAT is not the point of this rant.

If my information really isn’t relevant to someone, then that is just fine. But I believe these people come lamenting to me because they want me to COMPLETE every little piece of the puzzle for them, instead of them making their own decisions. If they found my information totally valueless, they would just move on.

But something makes them stay.

They just can’t or won’t complete the puzzle for themselves. I’m sorry, but no one can hold your hand the whole way through your unique business.

In the end, I’d like people to keep two important things in mind:

If you want to maximize your online income, never put yourself into one type of seller.

Every physical product seller can be using affiliate marketing techniques to generate traffic and gather new customers (think content-marketing, blogging, offering additional products to your customers, etc). They can get more customers by putting on an information product marketer hat (whether they sell the information, offer it as bonuses with products or give it away as a lead-generator). Allowing yourself to be pigeon-holed limits your options.

This is marketing, folks…and much of it applies, no matter what you’re doing.

Copywriting is copywriting. Article marketing is article marketing. Outsourcing is outsourcing. Sure, there are different things to consider when it comes to your own unique target market and product line — but that is something YOU need to understand about your own market and apply accordingly, no matter what techniques you are using to market your business.

Could This Be the Problem?

One of my Twitter friends, Chele Neisler recently used 140 alloted characters to post a very poignant observation. For the record, I don’t know precisely what made her post this.

But in working with online entrepreneurs and really trying to give them the PUSH to actually do stuff - her comment illustrated perfectly what holds a lot of people back:

It seems like a lot of people want everything laid out for them when it comes to this online marketing stuff. If they receive general step-by-step instructions, they get tied up on one detail and can’t just come up with a solution for themselves.

Here’s just a couple of the things I see people get bogged down with, but I see similar brain farts like this all the time.

“I have written an ebook and want to sell it, but not sure if I should use ClickBank, PayPal or something else.” - Ummm…your ebook is written, pick a processor and get on with it. Sure, you can get opinions from people, but people use questions like this as a crutch to do nothing.

“I am not sure if I should post other people’s articles on my site because I hear conflicting things about duplicate content.” - If you like the article, post it. It’s that simple…and seriously, since when is a search engine allowed to dictate how you run your website? Besides, who cares what other people argue endlessly about?

Sure, it’s good to get advice from other online entrepreneurs, pick up some how-to information, but taking action and getting results is YOUR responsibility. If you run into something you don’t understand search Google. It’s really easy and you can find information to help YOU answer your questions there IMMEDIATELY, instead of waiting for someone to come to your rescue.

Making decisions and deciding what will work for you and your business is up to YOU only. Sure, some decisions will result in some errors, but correct them and move on.

Draconian Guest Blogger Requirements Or…

Have you noticed that guest blogging has kinda exploded lately? It’s not uncommon to see request or permanent invites for people to guest blog. I think it is great. In fact, in IM Blogging Bootcamp, we encourage guest blogging. It relieves you of the pressure to come up with unique content regularly. Plus, a little (relevant) deviation from just you, y ourself and your company can be good.

Yet, sometimes you see some pretty excessive rules for guest blog submissions. One such I recently came across required the guest blogger to write posts that are between 600 - 1000 words.

That’s practically an article. I’m not saying bloggers shouldn’t accept long article like posts. But seriously, as blog readers, don’t you think article length posts are a bit tiring to read? Yes, the quality of the article matters. But my guess is, most blog readers are not into long article like posts.

Furthermore, I think this is rather a turn off for guest bloggers. It is true that big, popular blogs can demand a lot and there would still be people who’d dive at the opportunity. Yet, I can’t help feeling a little irked over it. What do you think?

But My Market Doesn’t Like it When I XXXXX!

This is something that came up recently when I was interviewed for a recent Mom Masterminds interview on Email Marketing. And although it’s a very common complaint I hear from online business owners when it comes to email, I think it applies to online business as whole.

Here are the complaints I hear:

“I always get a ton of unsubscribes when I try to sell something.”

“My readers won’t buy expensive products.”

“My target market doesn’t have a lot of money to spend.”

“I get angry emails when I promote products.”

Now, most people looking at this situation would immediately say - It looks like you chose the wrong target market. If your market doesn’t have the money or isn’t willing to spend it, perhaps you made a mistake in planning your business.

But you know what? I think it goes way deeper than that.

The fact is, we are responsible for who we ATTRACT to our marketing. If we harbor these fears of selling, suffer some degree of scarcity mindedness, we absolutely attract the type of person who doesn’t like to be sold to and is offended when you suggest they might open their wallet to buy something.

In the Mom Masterminds interview, I used my own target market as an example. That market being the market of marketing to other marketers (that’s a mouthful!).

You’ll see some people working in this market that have all those complaints I listed above. They say their market doesn’t have money and aren’t willing to invest in their businesses.

HUH?

Then how is it that we can look at all the big shot gurus and they’re selling $2000+ products left and right?

People in this market ARE spending money and spending lots of it. Problem is, when we project our own self-limiting ideas out to our readers, those are the type of readers we’ll attract. No, you don’t have to go out and sell $2000 products, but you need to stop feeling apologetic for recommending good products that can help people. Being apologetic is no way to build a business.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a life coach, a scrapbook instructor, a baby website owner or a bookkeeper. This applies to you. How you communicate effects how your market reacts.

So, if you’re stuck in the my market doesn’t like it rut, get out of it!

You can start by changing the way you communicate.

Stop trying to find your readers free solutions to everything (yes, provide them with good free content…but recommend paid products where appropriate).

Start promoting more and don’t be shy about it.

But What if You Offend People with This Change?

I say GOOD! Some of your readers will come around and join you in your newfound abundant thinking. Others will get annoyed, drop off and find other places to complain. You’ll also start attracting the RIGHT type of people who are going to make it possible for you to build your business.

I’ve Been There

When I share this with you, I speak from experience. I started with the same approach to my marketing. I was the owner of InternetBasedMoms.com and my target market was the WAHM (and the WAHM still makes up a large chunk of my market even though I’ve moved on from the IBMoms website).

I decided that all work at home moms were on a limited budget and because they had children they were responsible for, they couldn’t afford to invest in their businesses. So, I marketed to them this way. I legitimized their excuses for not taking their businesses seriously and made it okay for them not to invest in their businesses either.

Then one day, a light bulb came on and I realized that I wasn’t doing myself or my market any favors. So, I changed. I changed the way I communicated with my market. I showed them how important it was to think big with their businesses and to invest wisely.

In the process, some moms left me and they continued doing what they always did. At the same time, some of the moms who were stuck in the same trap as me, came along with me for the ride of BIG THINKING. I also started to attract new big thinking moms to my readership.

What do you think? Is there anything about the way you communicate with your readers that could be limiting your success?

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