Such is the case in a recent telephone conversation I had with my buddy Jeremy Burns.  Jeremy is a fantastic internet marketer and I was discussing a project with him the other day when I asked him a question totally unrelated about a site of mine.

I had a small PPC campaign sending traffic to a sales page and my list wasn’t building fast enough.  I was making money, in fact for every $500 I spent on PPC I was getting $1,500 back.  I’m OK with that.  But I have an optin form where people can find out more if their not ready to buy.

I was getting a 9.5% optin, meaning that out of 116 clicks from my PPC campaign, 18 people were signing up.  So I asked Jeremy to take a look at my site while we were on the phone.

Right away he spots things and starts rattling off suggestions.  I was taking notes as fast as I could.  Change this, move that…and everything made sense.  The problem was, I needed somebody else to tell me to do it.

Bottom line, my optin rate is now 23% (more than double!) and I just made 3 changes to the page.  He suggested more but I didn’t have time to do it all yet.

Here’s what he suggested and what I implemented:

• Move the optin form to the tippy top of the page (duh!)
• Change the headline and use black text, with red highlights
• Put a video of me at the top

That was it.  Conversions are crazy.  To think I’ve been running this campaign for 6 months and lost all those email addresses!

Here’s the page if you want to check out how it looks: www.GetExcelTraining.com

Some friends of mine had been telling my wife and I about Rainbow sweepers (they don’t call it a vaccum for reasons to be revealed later) for a long time, telling us how wonderful they are and where to go in order to purchase one. I never listened. All the hassle of changing the water was a big downer for me, plus I figured it was all a gimmick. I wasn’t convinced.

As it turned out, I was content just buying a new disposable vaccum every few years. You know, the junk they sell at Wally World or any of your home improvement stores. I had bought the $400 Sanyo, and that outlasted any of the other ones, but after 2 years it was taking the dump regularly and in the shop more than in the house cleaning.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a sales pitch for Rainbows, but you’ve got to endure the whole story, because after all, I had to.

I was searching and searching for a replacement that would actually last. I realized I was going to have to spend some serious cash. I put it off. So long in fact that my wife borrowed our friends Rainbow and, of course, she loved it. So I succumed to a demonstration. I didn’t want to sit through it because I had too much work to do, but for whatever reason (partly because I wanted to see what a crock it was), I ended up in the living room watching.

They come totally prepared. The sales person I mean. They’ve got all their sales propaganda in a nice box and it’s ready to go. Here’s where it gets interesting.

He brings a light with him and has you clean the carpet with your vaccum cleaner, as much as you want. Then he scrapes the carpet (that you just cleaned) and turns on his light. Dust flying everywhere! You couldn’t really see the dust before…and after all, you just cleaned it.

The Realisation
Then he tells you why. Vaccum bags get plugged, they lose their suction. They stop working. “No, I see stuff disappear when I vaccum!” Then he takes an attachment from the rainbow, with dirt on the floor, and the attachment isn’t even plugged in. He wipes back and forth, and the dirt disappears…where? It got rubbed into the carpet. It’s still there, you just can’t see it.

Then he starts in with how much you spend on disposable vaccum cleaners, he shows you up-close pictures of dust mites, he talks about health and by the time he’s done, you’re like “I’ll take it!” Why? Because he showed you problems that you didn’t even know you had.

This is what your sales letter should do. It should open up the eyes of the viewer. Show them their needs, things they didn’t even know they had. Visually if at all possible. Connect with them. Show them you know more than they do and you’re someone they need.

If you ever get a chance to see one of these demonstrations in person, do it. If for nothing more, do it for the education. The whoel thing took 2 hours, so there’s no way I can tell you everything he did, but it was loaded with stuff just like what I’ve told you, so it kept me engaged. I didn’t even realize it took 2 hours until he was done (and I was a good bit poorer).

It didn’t stop there though. He started right into the upsell of accessories, but get this. I must say, Masterfully done. He says “Now this attachment is regularly $89, but if you’ll get me one referral to watch the demonstration, I’ll give it to you for free, in fact, I know you’re gonna love your new Rainbow sweeper and I know if you ever have the opportunity, you’ll tell someone about me, so I’m gonna throw that in for free.”

Now if that isn’t a bribe, I don’t know what is! He just paid me, in advance, to send him a referral. He did that with several products, totalling probably $200. If you’re selling a $2,000 sweeper, you can afford to give out $200 in RETAIL items. He KNOWS he’ll get a referral and make hundreds back from it. I’m a lead generator FOR LIFE because I feel obligated.

Do long form sales letters work? Absolutely, if you can keep them engaged. Part of what makes them more engaging is audio and video. Words tend to leave people disconnected. If you can draw them in by showing you are a real person, that’ll help a lot.

Advertising on websites, using Adwords, and traditional marketing, means that you try to get a new customer that perhaps isn’t even looking for your product or services.  eBay, on the other hand, is full of people specifically looking for what you have.  So they are more qualified than, say, an Adwords click.

Big eBay Mistake

One of the biggest mistaked eBay sellers do is post an auction, sell an item, and post another auction.  Over and over and over again, it’s the same story.  Getting a new customer is way harder than selling to an existing customer.  Existing customers already know you.  They trust you.

To overcome this, focus on your existing customers.  Market to them.  If they bought one product from you, they’ve already demonstrated a) they’re interested in the niche b) they’re willing to spend money c) they trust you. 

The Trap

The way that you use eBay is simple.  List a product, an inexpensive product that you can ship them on CD, or a printed manual/report.  Everywhere you can you’ll get your companies URL in front of them (and this is a bit tricky because eBay doesn’t let you do it wherever you want).

If the experience is good, your new customer will see what else you have on eBay.  If all you list is this one niche specific information product or inexpensive item, they’ll visit your URL as soon as they see it.  On your website you have many other products, or just one more (expensive) product.

You’re using eBay as a lead generator, and as a source of traffic.  The more people that come to your site, the more orders you’ll take.  Traffic + Product = Sales

The site will feature step-by-step guides on how to actually do things related to Internet Marketing.  LIke using Photoshop to create ecovers, DreamWeaver to create your sales page, stuff like that.  It’s going to be a membership site, and I think it will do very well.

We’re even going to offer a forum and people can post questions that Jeremy and I will answer.  It can be anything like, “How can I build my list?” or “How do I record good quality audio?”.

Things are moving along quite nicely on the WalkerStudioPro.com site, and I’ve got more business than I can keep up with.  No complaints about that!  I do have a couple of areas I need to finish though, training and audio in particular.

I’m going to try to start revealing some great traffic generation techniques in the coming weeks.  All for free.  I am NOT going to start another podcast because it takes up way too much time and I’m doing too much right now as it is.  I think I’ll just stick to quick and easy for now.  I’ll be covering some graphics and audio topics as well.

Most people simply create an account on YouTube and start uploading videos, and that’s all they do.  Sure, they’ll get a little traffic, but nothing like the full potential.  It takes a little effort, but it’s effort well spent.

Here’s an overview of a technique that I use to get traffic from YouTube.  I provide this technique as a service to my clients for $950, so obviously I can’t give away all the details.

YouTube Promotion Steps

First you create a YouTube account with keywords in it.  Then you go into your account and rip out everything in there that you can except for one window showing your videos.  Why?

Simple.  When people find your video and watch, they’ll come to your channel to see what else you have.  When they get there, do you want them to find a million things to do or look at?  Or do you want them to see your URL and because they’re so curious to find out what else you have, click it?

Duh!  You want them to see your URL.  If that is all you give them to do, that is what they’ll do.  They came to your channel because they were curious.  If there is nothing else to do except click your URL, their curiosity has not been satisfied and that is exactly what they’re going to do.

In addition to ripping out all options, you also put your URL in various places in your channel and YouTube will give you a live, clickable link that appears in your channel.

But that’s not all boys and girls.  You will also go out every day (or pay my staff, which is why this costs $950) and subscribe to channels and post comments on some of the more popular videos.

You do this because YouTube gives live, clickable links on everybody’s name that posts a comment.  If you post comments on high-traffic videos (even if you don’t watch the video) people see your name (which has keywords in it) and they will click it to see what you’ve got going on.

You’re taking the whole Web 2.0 thing and working the system.

How much do you have to post?  Well, in the package I sell to clients I subscribe to 24 channels and make 100 posts per day for 10 days.  Included in that price I also subscribe to 5 different high-traffic forums and create 5 different user accounts with signatures linking to the promoted site, making 10 posts per day per account for 10 days.  Forum posting, however, will needs be saved for another discussion.

Well, that’s pretty much what I do.  I create promotional videos that sell products.  And on this blog, I’m going to share some of my secret tricks of the trade.

I’ll be starting to post regularly next week, so be sure to check back.