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In episode 2 of the Business and Blogs podcast, I answer the questions that you guys asked after the first podcast. I discuss how I went from a mailing list of 200 subscribers and 50 customers to a list of 25,000 subscribers and over 4,000 customers.
Some of the topics discussed in this episode are:
- Traffic generation via SEO, PPC, and Forum Marketing
- How I generate hundreds of affiliates to promote my programs
- The product launch model and launch sequence
- How marketers CAN make it online these days and how to go about it
- The steps that I go through to create a product that customers want
- Avoiding and dealing with “Shiny Object Syndrome” or info-overload
The podcast comes in at right about 30 minutes again. I cover a lot of topics really quickly because I wanted to answer every question you had. I think I share some of the best info I’ve ever shared in here (especially when it comes to product creation techniques).
Some of the programs I mention in the show are:
Easy Video Player
The WordPress Classroom
Wishlist Member
GOMPlayer
VLC Media Player
Thanks so much for listening and asking awesome questions. Continue to ask your questions here on this blog and I’ll continue to answer them. I’ll be doing another episode next Wednesday (Nov. 23rd). Get any questions you want answered about what I discussed (or didn’t discuss) in before that and I’ll do my best to get them all answered in the next show.
Again… NO topics are off-limits. Ask me anything you want about my business or personal life. Anything goes.
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Hey Matt.
Nice one again. Thanks for answering my query.
Where do you see online marketing heading in the next few years and what methods should we be aiming at? Atm it seems to be how to monetize from social marketing, mobile marketing and every man and his dog is pushing an offline SEO/marketing product. Do you think product review sites will still be viable?
Just FYI I tried the whole offline thing 6 months back and every business I approached (either face to face, email, phone or postcard) were sick of people approaching them via whatever method. I was treated like i was one of those overseas tele-marketers. Totally saturated industry. Really put me off that business model.
Hey Mike,
I think that Yes, review sites are still a viable business model. However, I think to be really successful with them, you need to approach them in a different way than everyone else. I think you need to build a relationship and build trust with your readers so that they feel you aren’t reviewing just for the sake of making affiliate commissions. You need to have the customer in mind and always give honest reviews that will help your customer. The best way to do a review, in my opinion, is to train the prospects on the product you are reviewing / promoting. Show them that you use it yourself and show them how easy it’s going to be once they get their hands on it. This builds trust and gives comfort to the person buying because they’ve seen it in action and know what they’re getting. Don’t use canned reviews that product creators offer. You’ll get nowhere.
As far as local marketing… I agree. It’s totally over-saturated and it’s difficult to get in to it. It gets much easier once you’ve built a web presence online and can show a history of proven results. You can help rank family and friends or do SEO work for free to prove yourself and collect testimonials. The more social proof you have, the easier it gets.
Saying that, I still think the best business model in the world is information marketing. Create products to help train people in your area of expertise and then get them in front of people. Less one on one client work, no stocking of products, and no limitations to how big or small you can create the product or how much you can sell it for. People need to be educated… Infoproducts will always be a viable business model.
I’ll dive deeper in to these topics in the next podcast. This response is getting a bit long for a blog comment.
Hope that helps!
Matt
I really liked both podcasts, but this one was clearer for me at least, though I realize that your first one was an overview as it was talking about how you got into blogging and The WordPress Classroom. I especially liked the part about product creation.
As someone who is starting to put together notes for an e-book about compulsive shopping, this will be a big help to me. The same for books and/or programs for self-confidence and procrastination. Thanks. I’ll start seeing what questions there are about these topics. Keep up the great work with both the podcasts and the videos, Matt!
Thanks Katherine! I’m glad you enjoyed it. Feel free to post whatever questions you’ve got for me and I’ll do my best to answer everything I can.
Matt,
This podcast was fantastic. I really appreciate your honesty and your openness to share your real story. I actually listened to the podcast twice!
I’ve always been afraid to hire a company to do my SEO. I’ve heard that there are lots of ripoffs in this area. Can I ask which company you hired to do your SEO and are you happy with the results?
Looking forward to your next podcast!
Hey John,
I’m glad you enjoyed the podcasts. I absolutely love making them. I haven’t had as much fun teaching this stuff and sharing my story since the early days of my blog. Between this and photography, I think I have two new passions.
Hiring SEO people can be scary. The company that I’m currently using is called FreshRankings. They aren’t cheap but they get the job done. If you go on Elance or oDesk you can find people for a lot cheaper but you never really know what you’re going to get…
I’ll try to round up some solid companies to talk about in my next podcast.
Matt
Thanks for your the great answer
about Product Creation it’s so simple but it’s the best method I heard. It’s strait foreword with no compilations.
Your podcast are super valuable!
One thing I want to know what payment service do you use, do you use e-junkie, PayPal or an other payment methods/service?
Main question: How do you build relationships with your email list
Thanks for all your awesome service I love how you comment on every question. It comes back to that customer service post
JanDirk
Hey again.
Great questions. Personally, I like using Clickbank still but Paypal is a great option for people when first getting started.
As far as building relationships… That’s a bigger topic that I’ll touch on in a podcast.
Thanks for the questions!
Matt
Hi Matt,
Just listened to your podcast and was so glad to hear you say that if we’re new to marketing or don’t know a whole lot about marketing then we shouldn’t be out there trying to teach people how to make money online. Thank you! You are the first one that I’ve heard say that, and frankly, that’s why I haven’t really done anything yet even though I started learning about online marketing two years ago. After hearing everyone else say, “Just take what you’ve learned here and go out and do it . . . apply what I’ve taught you and you too can be making money” . . . it took awhile, but I finally caught on.
I’ve lost thousands of dollars going from one course to another, following guru after guru, and the fact that EVERYONE seems to be jumping on the “Let’s show people how to make money online” bandwagon” I’m actually getting pretty tired of listening to it all now. My thing was the fact that I DIDN’T want to teach someone how to make money online, or to PRETEND I was a video marketing expert when I’m not, and I’m sick to death of all the make money online hype. I know how these people are making money online . . . by suckers like me falling for their products only to find something missing . . . some vital piece of information they won’t give you until you keep buying more of their products.
NOW HERE’S MY QUESTION: This is something I’ve asked a lot of people and NO ONE has ever answered it for me. One thing that has held me back from doing anything was the fact that I’ve heard how easy it was for a WordPress site to get hacked and stolen and that not even some of the big gurus are aware of this. Even if you have password protection, there’s some way that hackers can easily steal your site. I’ve heard there’s a way to configure your files so that this can’t happen, but NO ONE will show how to do this! Is it because they don’t know, or because it’s a secret they’re not willing to share?
If you could make a video showing how to do this I would be so very grateful as I don’t want a membership site that is not hacker-safe. Right now, I can’t afford to buy new software because I literally got swindled by a real estate agent who took everything I had, and I’m currently looking for a JOB to help me get by till I can get back on my feet again.
If you know how to configure the WP sites to make them hacker-safe, will you please teach us how to do this . . . PLEASE!
Thank you so much, Matt . . . I know if anyone can do it, you can!
Hey Donna,
Great question! There are actually several plugins floating around that help prevent your site from getting hacked. Many are discussed inside The WordPress Classroom. Here’s a great blog post that I found about the subject:
Prevent Hacking
Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that if someone wants to hack your site bad enough, they can probably figure out a way around every type of security. As security gets better, hackers just learn new tricks… It’s a fact of this business.
The best way to keep safe is to perform daily or weekly backups. That way if you ever get hacked you can contact your hosting company, send them your backup files, and get back online in no time. I personally use a plugin called WP-DB-Backup.
Hope that helps,
Matt
. . . Actually the above post is in regards to any WordPress site, not just a membership site.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for answering the questions. Very much appreciated.
I fully agree that people shouldn’t teach stuff they are not practising themselves. Compilations of ecourses regurgitating untested methods with different ecovers…
Well, it seems to be the staple on the IM MMFH market.
BTW, I’ve just set up a membership site based on a variation of the method you show in the WPC. Nice to hear that you are using Wishlist.
Another question: what would be a good affiliate management program to use. I currently use WSO Pro but away from the Warrior Forum I am faced with Clickbank, which is a bit heavy going for a first time run. Digiresults do not do subscription payments (yet). Which seems to leave PayDotCom. Any comments, suggestions?
I’m looking forward to the next instalment.
Be well and many thanks.
Max
Hey Max,
I personally use Clickbank. It’s what I know best. Maybe I’ll make a Clickbank getting started tutorial sometime because I’ve had a few people tell me that they were overwhelmed a bit by Clickbank.
However, when I first started the WordPress Classroom, I used Paypal. I set up a simple payment button and setup a recurring billing through them. Once I started bringing affiliates on board, I moved to PayDotCom. The only reason I moved away from PayDotCom was because of the Clickbank marketplace.
With the Clickbank marketplace, people find your products and promote it without you even trying. They just look for topics they want to promote and go for it. It’s one of the best ways to generate affiliates without even really trying…
I’ll dive deeper in to this in a future podcast.
Matt
Thanks for this, Matt.
That’s precisely what I have in mind as Paydotcom is so much easier to set up and get going.
Max
Hey Matt!
My twin sis and I are enjoying your content which we find is very memorable and we keep coming back to see what you’re up to because your authenticity shines through so much, more than almost anyone else out there in the niche of what you’re teaching.
We’re gearing up to go ahead with WPClassroom, but until then we thought we’d just try an experiment with CPA Marketing, something we just found out about and just wondered if you might have any recommendations on using free WP themes? (Or do you think it’s always best to go with paid?, which we will eventually, but just wanted to toy around with a couple of ideas we have first before going full force with our main idea for a blog and youtube channel!)
Thanks very much for your time, and we’re really enjoying your podcasts. We’d totally have no problem listening to you for two (or more) hours, just so ya know! Glad we found you.
Paula
Hi Paula,
Thanks for commenting! I experimented with CPA marketing a little bit a long time ago but never really had much success with it. Personally, for that style of marketing, free themes are probably just fine. It’s hard to say without having more details about what you’re doing but I can’t really think of a scenario in CPA marketing where a premium theme is a complete necessity.
Hey Matt, one more thing…
In my last comment I mentioned that we’re planning a YouTube channel, but we’re wondering now, if we were to get Josh’s EVP, does that make it unneccessary to have a channel?
Paula
Hey Paula,
Good question. I use both YouTube and EVP. YouTube is great for getting traffic back to websites and naturally ranking your videos in the search engines. EVP is great for using videos for marketing… Things like adding opt-in forms in the videos or adding delayed buy-now buttons. They really serve two different purposes. Personally, I think both are necessary in marketing.
Thanks for both replies ~
For an affiliate product we’re trying out Truth About Abs
& planning on promoting that with blog&youtube,
(+ writing our own ebook on trying to banish junk food!)
We realize a lot of the questions we have may be covered
in WPClassroom, but until then, we have a couple more…
1) Until we complete our own info product(s), what is the
best way is to find free info products to give away as gifts
to use for opt-in pages?
2) Do you recommend any type of template for being able
to whip off an ebook/booklet in record time (but still be
professional of course.) We have tons of handwritten
notes we’d like to organize to get going with our
own “offering”. (Like FreeMind? Not sure how to use
that yet, just checked it out quickly.)
Paula
P.S. As a way to make my questions not appear too lengthy
I’m obviously not using the entire space provided. Is thak ok
or is that a pain for a blog owner in any way? Just thought
I’d ask!
Hey Matt -
I just heard your first two podcasts this morning – you killed it! No editing…? Wow just like Mixergy but you’ve barely started doing podcasts… I honestly can’t tell you’re new to it.
I totally don’t get how comments work. Like I realize a blog author like you is extremely busy with countless projects and responsibilities, and that putting out quality takes (tons of extra) time, but I had some additional questions in my last entry as per the offer in this podcast to ask “anything” but without a reply I’m not sure the best way to maintain the belief that I’ve found an individual that can be my go-to resource like I thought.
Just trying to figure this stuff out as I’m in the process of becoming one myself.
Hey Paula,
I’m not quite sure I understand what you’re asking here. I do my best to answer everyone’s questions to the best of my ability in my episodes and in my replies on the blog. Unfortunately, I don’t have every possible answer but I do my best to give the best response I can. If I don’t answer your question the first time around, you can always ask again and, if I have more information later, I can come back around to it…
Hi Matt:
You mentioned in the podcast that you use Clickbank for the WordPress Classroom. I signed up as an affiliate almost a year ago via PayDotCom and have been pointing tons of links via my affiliate id. Does this mean that my PayDotCom account in essentially inactive now that you are with Clickbank, or is it still live? I’m a little worried now. I will go and sign on as an affiliate via Clickbank.
Thanks!
Hi Dianne,
To be honest, I wouldn’t recommend pointing using the PayDotCom link. However, I did leave that link live so anyone pointing to my site with PayDotCom would still get the commission. The link will still work just for that reason. However, it is pointing to an older sales page. To ensure a higher amount of sales, you’ll want to switch those links to Clickbank. The Clickbank pages are MUCH more optimized and convert at a much better rate.
Hope that helps.
Hi Matt:
Thanks! I did switch over a few days ago. I also used your tip from an earlier podcast regarding using StumbleUpon Paid Discovery. I love it! I’m getting so many hits on my articles and a high percentage of the article readers are clicking through to the clickbank link. Hopefully it will translate into future sales. Thanks so much for all of the great tips you’ve been sharing. You are doing a wonderful job and I always look forward to the next podcast.
Speaking of optimized sales pages. Do you have any recommendations on an expert in terms of sales pages\ conversions? I have a new product that includes an ebook in three versions; pdf, Nook and Kindle, a free one year membership to G5 Leadership Academy which offers high quality leadership webinars, plus a “tips” video that I’m selling as part of a “How To Supervise Toolkit” for $47 on my website: http://www.HowToBeASupervisor.com. It’s a high value/high quality product.
This is a new product and I’m doing all of the traffic generation organically. After almost two months, I now get 100+ visitors a day but have only garnered 4 sales. I’m not sure if it’s just because my traffic isn’t high enough yet, or if the sales page is lacking in some way. I’d love to get an expert to help me with this. Maybe I just need a little more patience as it’s been less than 2 months.
The other piece here is that I have well over 200 affiliates and growing who will get 70% commission as an incentive, plus I’ve provided banners and other tips and strategies, but still no affiliate generated sales. This is why I’m a little concerned that there is something lacking in the sales page. I am just starting to take your advice about forum marketing and blog commenting with the hopes that this will help drive traffic over time.
Take your time responding. I know that you are juggling a lot!
Thanks,
Dianne
Hey Dianne,
A good resource to learn more about conversion optimization is actually a blog the Justin Brooke mentioned on the podcast episode that I did with him. Check out http://jimyaghi.com/category/yl-conversion as a good start.
I checked out your sales page and I have a couple quick suggestions that WILL improve conversions. How dramatically they will improve, I’ve got no guarantees but they are things you should try.
1. Get rid of all external links to other pages. Don’t send them to your other websites or link them to resources. On a sales page, the goal is one thing and one thing only… Get them to click the buy button. Don’t give them other options.
2. Refine your headline. At first glance of the site, I really don’t know what’s for sale. You want the main benefits of what people are going to get right in the headline of the page in big, bold letters. When people land on your page, tell them exactly what you’ve got for them right in the beginning. If it’s not immediately apparent, you’re going to get a lot of people surfing away from your site.
3. Don’t have a “add to cart” button at the top of the page. People land on the page and immediately know they are being sold something. You want to tell a story and get them immersed in the content before they even realize something’s for sale.
4. Personally, I would get rid of the “Take a peak inside” images. Some people may be overwhelmed by the amount of content that you are providing. One good thing to keep in mind with copy is that you sell them what they want and give them what they need. People don’t WANT a huge ebook that’s going to take them hours to read. They want the benefit that comes with having the knowledge. Sale them the benefits of what they’ll get once they’ve read the book as opposed to what’s inside the book itself.
5. Try to find or create some relevant images for the bonuses. Membership access cards, box shots, something… Make the bonuses stand out. Often times the bonuses are what sell the product. Hype them up a little as things that are almost as good as the main product itself.
6. Finally… The last recommendation is to make the guarantee stand out a bit more. It kind of blends in with the rest of the text. People want a good guarantee and often times they’ll scan the page for a guarantee before even reading the rest of the copy. Make it stand out and make it seem like a no-brainer to purchase because there’s no risk at all…
That’s just a few things that came to mind after a quick glance. Hopefully you don’t find it too critical… However, I’d be willing to bet that those few quick changes mean the difference between 3-4 sales total and 3-4 sales per day…
Hope that helps!
Matt
FYI: Wanted to add that I offer just the ebook version on Amazon and Barnes and Nobles and it selling well in these venues. I thought that the larger package would be more attractive…
Hi Matt:
Thanks for providing such detail! I will definitely take your advice and review Justin Brooke’s information. Your suggestions sound great. I really need to get perspectives from others in the business about what they see that I may be missing, so I appreciate your valuable insights.
I’ll make the changes that you recommended, see what I can learn from Justin and we’ll see what happens. This is an ongoing process, so I forsee that I’ll be making other tweaks along the way.
You rock, thanks!
Dianne
Hey Matt:
I made the changes to the sales page that you recommended. Would love to know what you think!
http://www.HowToBeASupervisor.com
Best,
Dianne
It’s definitely looking a lot better. From this point, I’d use Google Website Optimizer and make a second version of the page. Just duplicate this page and change one thing (like the headline) and start running some split tests…
Thanks for perspectives Matt. I’ll definitely split test. Thinking seriously about actually split testing with video versus the current page to see if there is a difference also.
That’s definitely worth a try!
Matt, good work on your site/podcasts. Something you fail to mention as to why your sales and traffic keep growing, is because you’re a really down to earth guy that can relate to all walks of life! Now you mentioned in this 2nd podcast your disagreement with product launches that have finite time frames (i.e. 2 weeks). I’ve seen this work countless times with great success, and what you may not be thinking about is the shelf life of the info inside the product. I have great respect for content creators who acknowledge that what they are selling may no longer be relevant in 6 months, hence choosing to limit their launch/sales window. Thoughts?