Home  e-Commerce The 6 Steps To Success
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Written by Charlie Page
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Success online comes down to this. DO WHAT WORKS...
The Six Steps To Success
Charlie Page
The Six Steps To Success Success online comes down to this. DO WHAT WORKS.
One thing we KNOW that works is ezine advertising. But even ezine advertising, as wonderful as it is, will fail if you don't have a plan. So today I'm going to show you how I make an ad plan and how that helps me succeed when I advertise.
We've all heard that when you fail to plan you plan to fail. I hate trite sayings, but in this case it's right on. If you begin to buy advertising of any kind without having thought through what you want to accomplish, you'd better have a lot of money at your disposal.
On the other hand, when you plan well you can make your ad dollars go incredibly far. Let's get to it.
The six steps of advertising success are:
1. Target
2. Budget
3. Copy
4. Testing
5. Measure
6. Re-invest
Taking these steps into account, here's how I would make a plan. For this example let's say we are selling 'how to' information.
NOTE: Any plan requires certain assumptions. In this example, I'll show you my assumptions as we go along.
Also, I'm going to start with a budget of $500.
1. Target
Who is going to need this information? There are two broad groups on the Internet. People just starting out and people who have been online for a while.
I'm assuming that people who have been online a long time have acquired much of the information they need, so I'm going to market to people who are new to online business.
Some people call that group 'newbies'.
If they are just starting out I'm going to assume they don't have tons of money, need to learn some shortcuts, feel overwhelmed by information and don't have the skills that a veteran Internet marketer will have.
Now I look for ezines that fit that profile. What ezines would I choose? SOME ezines that would fit are ezines that...
* Help people save money.
* Teach skills like HTML.
* Focus on Internet marketing.
* Teach time management.
* Teach 'home office' skills.
* Give free business advice.
These are some of the places I'll find readers who will be interested in my offers.
2. Budget
I have only $500 to spend, so I'm *not* going to spend it all in one place. I'm going to get pricing on top sponsor, solo ads, and regular classifieds as well. I'm going to spend my entire $500 testing to see what works, knowing I can spend more IF I KNOW that my ads will work.
I'll need to place ads in about half a dozen ezines to test effectively. That means I can spend only an average of $83.33 per ezine. This helps me because I can rule out those ezines that just cost too much. I'm happy because I know the DOE makes this super easy. ;)
3. Copy
I want copy that creates a real curiosity about my product and will get people to my web site to learn more. I take my handy ad writing checklist and begin to write my masterpiece.
Not sure you can write great copy? I wasn't either so I sought the help of Charlie Page.
http://www.charliepage.com
No matter how you do it, make sure your copy grabs attentions and creates curiosity. Remember, the job of the ad is ONLY to sell the click, not the product.
4. Testing
I've written what I think are two great ads. I'm not sure which one will pull best, so I'm running each of them in three ezines. I'm using good old Hypertracker but I could just create a unique URL for each ad (see message 3) so I can measure results.
Depending on how I spend my money, if I run ads in those ezines twice I'll switch the ads to see if that creates better results.
5. Measure
My ads have run and now I have some results to measure. But what is important to measure?
First, did I make any money? For this I total all the sales I made and compare it to the $500 I spent. Simple, but effective.
Next I want to know what every click cost me. I take the $500 and divide it by each click.
Now I have an overall cost per click. Then I do the same thing for each ad. If an ad cost $44 and I got 100 clicks, the cost per click is 44 cents.
Now I can easily measure which ezine was most effective AND which ad was most effective. While there are many things that can be measured, these basic measures help me know what will work in the future.
Is this perfect testing? No. But with only $500 to spend, I'm light years ahead of the people who just buy without measuring. Most of all, I'm learning what works.
6. Re-Invest
Now it's time for me to make some decisions. I've made more than the $500 I spent and I know which ezines worked best. I also know which ads worked best.
My next step is to take my original $500 and do it all over again. This time I'm going to make my plan based on FACTS, not assumptions.
I'm going to find more ezines, using the DOE of course, that are similar to the ones that worked. I'm going to buy a top sponsor ad and see if that pulls better. I'm going to take the ad that worked best, polish it a bit and run it again.
The KEY here is this. I now have a PROCESS that works. If I can advertise successfully, no matter how modest the profit, I can refine that process and end up with a KILLER ad. I'll also have learned HOW to advertise successfully. And I'm making money in the process.
Let me encourage you to apply these six steps to your product or service. It doesn't take long. It only takes thought.
Once you complete this process and create a great, profit pulling ad, do it again and again. Soon, you'll have a SYSTEM for ad success that will help you reach every goal you ever set.
----------------- Resources to help you ---------------------
I want to share with you the resources I use to ensure my profits. Each of these products has competition and, yes, I am an affiliate of each.
If you don't want to use any of these that's OK. I just want you to have the information.
For easy e-commerce... PayPal http://www.paypal.com
For Autoresponders either AutoResponse Plus (installs on your server) or Get Response (web based) http://www.getresponse.com or http://www.autoresponseplus.com
For tracking (I'll bet you guess this one!)Hypertracker http://www.hypertracker.com
For copywriting (To be fair... I own the DOE) http://www.charliepage.com or Yanik Silver's great site http://www.instantsalesletters.com
For another type of ad that will blow you away with how well it works, my friend Mike Glaspie http://www.bannersgomlm.com
And last but not least, if your computer skills are not what you want them to be, you need to learn the language of the Net or you just need to know how to do a particular task (like copy and paste or mail-merge) the Newbie Club is for you. It's not just for beginners any more!
http://www.newbieclub.com
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