customer

What Bad Looks Like (and What it Means for Your Business)

by Paul Joseph November 9, 2011 Featured

My wife and I recently stayed at a nationally affiliated “luxury” hotel in Miami and learned a lot about customer service…the hard way. Being Okay with Blown Expectations: Staying at a nice hotel ($350+/night) and being willing to pay $25/person for breakfast, you’d naturally have certain expectations. Our first morning, we grabbed the USA Today (because I love the pretty pictures) and headed down to eat. We checked out the buffet and immediately knew something wasn’t right. It was the closest thing I’ve seen to airplane food (coach) outside of an airport. Runny, sheet pan, powdered eggs. Paper-thin, translucent bacon. Danishes from Sam’s Club. Being hungry and not having a good alternative close by, we ordered off the menu. It was awful. When we questioned the waiter about the quality of the food, he said, “Sorry you don’t like it,” and proceeded to hand us our hefty bill with 18% gratuity included (more on this later). It was easy to infer that the waiter, restaurant manager, and hotel didn’t give two shits about the customer. They were fine serving terrible food at premium prices. Do your customers get value for their dollar and come back for more? Or are you constantly hunting for fresh meat? At a minimum, are you being proactive about your reputation , or are you letting customers set it for you? Gratuity Included: Everything at the hotel had a non-negotiable gratuity added to the bill. When I say everything, I literally mean everything. Food, drinks, activities, whatever. Gratuity allows the client to show appreciation for the level of service received. Under normal circumstances, the interests of the server and the customer are aligned. When gratuity is automatically added, those incentives disappear. Why should the server care that the food is terrible? Why should they make sure to refill the water or deliver good service in any way? They’re getting the same monetary incentive either way. Do your incentives actually work against you? Examine what behaviors are rewarded and where interests are aligned. Employee Incompetence + Arrogance: We were notified that we’d be moving rooms for the second time in the middle of our stay. The first time, we didn’t understand, but we got our new room keys and hauled our luggage across the hotel. The second time, they asked us to move out of our room, store our luggage and come back later to retrieve our room keys. What? We were being evicted from our room and forced to wait around the hotel in the middle of the day before getting a new room? I walked to the front desk to ask why I was in this circumstance. The woman working the counter said, “Because we have you in a different room.” No kidding. I got that. I was asking why. She explained that there was a scheduling “mix up.” This was ridiculous. I asked why their scheduling issues were my fault. She smiled and said, “Now sir, we have to make room for our new guests,” then turned to talk to the valet who was looking for change. I felt like I was in the twilight zone. Not only was I being treated like crap, she acted like it was my fault. Do you use confusion and double-talk to avoid taking the blame? What impact does it have on your customers? Dirty Floors and More: There are only a few basics that hotels really need to have. Cleanliness is one. Because of the awesome scheduling system, I had the pleasure of sampling three different rooms. All three had dirty floors. When I say dirty, I’m not talking about a little dust here and there. After walking to the bathroom and back, I could make a little pile of crunchies that accumulated on my feet. All three showers had a noticeable amount of junk in the corners. Every bathroom had hair and particles around the toilets. Are there noticeable defects in your business that you just choose to ignore? If so, why don’t you care? Your customers certainly do. “I’m Not the Real Concierge”: Before arriving in Miami, a stand-up paddle boarding excursion was planned for some of the women in our group. On the day of the event, my wife checked in with the concierge to get details. The concierge looked up the reservation, acknowledged it had been made, and then explained that she’d call the room with details no later than 9:30 a.m. At 10:15 a.m., a woman left a message stating that there was no pre-arranged excursion, but that the group could rent on their own. Oh, and just an FYI, she explained that she wasn’t the “real concierge.” I had never heard of a hotel with fake concierges. Interesting concept. Maybe the hotel is a trendsetter. Do you and your employees follow through? If there’s an issue, do they try to deflect responsibility? Spa Experience: One of the female members of our group decided to indulge in what the hotel literature described as “complete relaxation.” It was a 30-minute massage followed by a pedicure for $60. She entered the spa expecting an inviting and relaxing environment, perhaps with a variety of pools to relax in after the treatments. Wrong. Instead, she walked in to find the staff watching a small TV that was blaring reruns of Two and a Half Men (no joke), abrupt service, and a lackluster rubdown. To top it off, the pedicure consisted of a bucket of warm water and a wooden bench. Does your marketing promise things you can’t or won’t deliver? Blank Management: At a certain point, the amount of ridiculous added up to an unbearable level, and I asked to speak with the manager. I was told there was no “manager,” but that I could speak with the “head of operations.” Semantics aside, the man who appeared looked and acted very much in charge. He smiled and said, “How can I help you?” as he looked over my shoulder, apparently very distracted by the nothing that was happening behind me. I calmly explained the situations as his eyes darted all over the room, clearly conveying his lack of interest in my plight. At the end of my spiel, he said, “I’m sorry to hear that,” and stared blankly back at me. That was it…a half-assed sorry was all that my situation needed. Dumbfounded, I just stared back at him until he said, “Well if there’s nothing else, I need to tend to other customers.” Leadership is top-down. Why should other employees care if management doesn’t care? In fact, they probably learned their indifference from the manager. Extras: I didn’t have room to tell you about the hotel trying to overcharge everyone, our friends’ toilet flooding their entire room only moments after check-in, being asked to pay for dinner before being served our main courses, or having infomercials blasted through the pool-side sound system. There’s just not enough space. But I actually feel blessed by my experience. At least now I know what terrible looks, smells and feels like. Brent Beshore is a serial entrepreneur who owns AdVentures (#28 on 2011 Inc. 500), blogs on entrepreneurship , and is involved in a number of startups including a digital talent agency. Read more about Brent here .

Tagged as: business, customer, entrepreneur, group, luggage, management, server, small-business

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Getting Quality Testimonials Instantly

by Paul Joseph July 5, 2011 Featured

One of the best things any of us can do to market our business is to get some great testimonials from current and past customers. A testimonial is better than anything else, because it is someone who has experience dealing with your company saying that the experience was a good one – that you did what you said you would do, as well or better than you said you’d do it. Consumers are leery of advertising. They know you can say pretty much whatever you want to say in an ad and justify it. It might not be “untrue” technically, but it is slanted at best. That’s not to say advertising and other forms of marketing don’t work. They can work very well, and each medium should be considered seriously to see which avenues are best for your business. But no matter what your business is, testimonials – either as part of your advertising or just placed conspicuously on your website – are useful and an outstanding marketing tool. How to Get Testimonials that Matter It should go without saying that the first step in getting great testimonials from customers is to take great care of them. And taking great care of them, doesn’t mean simply “good” customer service. Testimonials are best when they come from people who feel you’ve gone above and beyond in serving their needs. A person’s enthusiasm comes across in their written words (or in a video especially), and their enthusiasm will be non-existent if you deliver average service. To understand the secret to getting great customer testimonials right away, from every happy customer, you have to understand something about how humans in our society are wired. There is a term known as “instant reciprocity” which refers to the tendency of people to want to return a favor or good deed immediately upon receiving the same from someone else. You see this at business and personal lunches all the time. There is a small tussle over the check, and then the person not paying says, “Well, you have to let me get the next one.” The Magic of Reciprocity Although we’ve been told many times to ask for referrals and testimonials immediately after every sale, there is a better way, using the concept of instant reciprocity. The way it works is simple and very effective. Before asking for a testimonial, pay your client or customer a genuine, sincere compliment. Thank them for being so easy to work with, for example. Tell them how refreshing it is to deal with a client who really gets it. What you say will depend a lot on the type of business you’re in, but you get the idea. Once you’ve paid your customer a sincere compliment, the law of instant reciprocity will automatically kick in, and you can relieve their urge to return the compliment by then asking for a testimonial. At that point, asking them to say a little something about how it was dealing with your company, so you can show it to other clients, will solicit the kind of testimonial you really want. Caution: This is not some “trick” you’re playing on your customers. Notice the word “sincere” was used a couple of times in the explanation. If it looks like you’re paying a fake compliment just to get them to reciprocate, chances are, you’ll get a testimonial that looks fake too. What other tips do you have for getting quality testimonials from clients? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Tagged as: advertising, business, client, customer, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, time

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How to Effectively Communicate Value When Building a Business

by Paul Joseph June 24, 2011 Featured

Ever talk to a business owner or an entrepreneur about their business and they were not able to effectively explain what their business did?  Maybe they went on and on trying to describe it and the explanation was simply not very clear. Or the explanation was clear, but there was not a real punch in terms of making a strong impression. When this is the case, these business owners could benefit by improving their ability to effectively communicate the value that they deliver to their customers. What is value? Value in this context refers to a business benefit that is transferred to the customers or clients that purchase the products or services. Not to be confused with features and benefits of products that are sold, this is actual improvement that results on the customer’s side at the business level. For example, take a company that sells web-based training software. The features of this software are that it is completely delivered as software-as-a-service with robust recording and delivery options. A main benefit of this software is the ability to deliver education to anyone that has an internet connection. But the value that this business provides is that it helps its clients to effectively and efficiently train their employees leading to a better workforce. Why is communicating value important? Effectively communicating value is important because when we talk with prospects, investors, potential business partners, etc., we need to not only communicate what we do concisely, in a brief period of time, but we also need our message to be as powerful as possible. And while you might understand your product’s features and benefits and they may excite you, the main thing your potential customers care about is how you can help their businesses to decrease cost and increase revenue. Effectively communicating value will provide this information. Identifying the Core Value Some business owners may know the value they offer right off the bat. Others may find themselves stuck somewhere between summarizing features and benefits. When this is the case, below is a process that can be used to try to identify the core value that the business offers. 1. Outline features: Summarize or outline the key features of the products or services that are offered. 2. Outline benefits: Take the features that are outlined and build a list of the benefits that those features produce. 3. Summarize benefits: Summarize the benefits provided into a concise summary of the improvements gained. 4. Convert to a business standpoint: Convert over the summarized benefit to what it means from a business standpoint. Producing a Value Statement Once the core value is identified, we can produce a value statement. A value statement is a one to two sentence summary of the value that you provide. By having a value statement, we can then have that have that ready to be delivered whenever we meet with potential clients or business partners. Whether  we someone in person, make a cold call, or start to build any of our marketing deliverables, when we begin to explain what we do, we can go directly to the value statement and hopefully if built correctly, it will clearly explain what we do in a powerful way. Moving Forward How effectively do you communicate value for what you offer?  Are you talking more features and benefits or are you talking at a business level?  Share your comments below! Michael Halper is Founder and CEO of Launch Pad Solutions, LLC, a sales consulting and outsourcing firm that helps businesses to take off and get to the next level. Read more about Michael here .

Tagged as: business, customer, customers, startup

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The 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing

by Paul Joseph June 22, 2011 Featured

Formerly known as “The Six Pillars of Internet Marketing” and having undergone several stages of evolution over the past 10 years, the “ 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing ” is a framework for the learning, strategy, budgeting, execution and analysis of the entire universe of digital marketing tactics and techniques.  7 Pillars is an active and constantly evolving ecosystem that covers a lot of ground. Each Pillar is like a force that dictates, to a large extent, how the World Wide Web works.  The framework contains logic and lessons for teaching hands-on execution, as well as high-level strategy, philosophy and the history of digital marketing. Building on my prior blog post on raising your Digital IQ , herein is a basic overview of the 7 Pillars and how you can start using it to improve or evaluate your own marketing.  Mastering these principles, or at least grasping them all and then diving deeper into one or two Pillars, will enable your web strategy to be smarter and more profitable. What are the 7 Pillars? 1.  Content – All forms of web content, from copy to photography to video, comprise Pillar 1.  Content is still king, and the bloodstream of digital marketing.  Content, which is equally important in the traditional marketing world, is the most overlooked area of digital marketing, and where businesses surprisingly struggle to produce. 2.  Design – Pillar 2 is comprised of web page templates, layouts and the overall UX (User Experience), be it via computer, mobile device or iPad.  Usability, User Interface and User Experience are different ways to define this essential Pillar.  Branding is a subset of Design.  Design determines brand and perception of quality more than anything else. 3.  Search – SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the key component of organic Search, and the holy grail of what every business wants to dominate in for their industry and product categories.  The Search Pillar also includes other types of search, such as organic Comparison Shopping Engines, onsite search (within websites and portals), and Universal Search (for music, images, videos and places).  Multi-lingual and mobile search are also considered herein. 4.  Media – PPC (Pay Per Click), retargeting, display advertising, affiliate marketing and CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) media comprise the loaded Pillar 4, digital Media.  This is where the most advertising dollars are flying to, making Pillar 4 the richest digital marketing strategy.  Digital Media tactics have significant overlap with Search, Social and Mobile Pillars, which are some of the primary pathways to digital Media spending. 5.  CRM – CRM or Customer Relationship Management is all about how customers, leads (and frankly, any relationship that a business maintains) are managed, organized and communicated to.  This includes contact management systems, Email Marketing, and Analytics of how prospects and existing customers interact with an organization’s websites and various digital campaigns. Google Analytics data is actually one of your most important CRM tools. 6.  Social – All social networks, blogs and other forms of user-generated content (forums, polls, surveys) are considered in Pillar 6.  Social websites are growing faster than any other kind; and even the “Search King” (aka, Google) is investing more in Social than any other area.  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Stumbleupon, Flickr and hundreds of other innovative social media companies and technologies are covered under Social media. 7.  Mobile – 5+ billion mobile phone subscriptions exist in a planet of 7 billion.  Mobile is the new access point to the web and all other Pillars, making new commerce opportunities available and opening the door for those who practice creative digital marketing to take advantage.  Mobile apps, mobile websites and mobile payment systems are revolutionizing the field, making this possibly the most important Pillar of digital marketing. Each Pillar has numerous sub-categories, which contain thousands of specific tasks that encompass them.  As the constantly-changing field of digital marketing evolves, so do the Pillars.  Certain tactics and strategies, such as Comparison Shopping Engines, actually cut across different Pillars. To organize how one should approach the 7 Pillars, we can take a look at 7 key stages in the overall marketing process.  Each stage is a process of its own that is relevant to all the Pillars, while also existing beyond them to the overall marketing campaign. The 7 Pillars framework covers all of these bases, by explaining what typically happens and what the key actions and decisions are required at each stage, for each Pillar.  View a recent entry on the 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing Blog for more depth on the 7 Stages. Over the coming months, strategies, lessons, best practices and case studies for all 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing will be elaborated upon in this blog column.  For now, I’ll leave you with a couple of assignments that will help shape your own digital strategy. Your Assignment Looking across the 7 Pillars, make a note about what your company’s approach and commitment are to each. What is your own personal Digital IQ in each domain? As far as the 7 Key Stages go, assess how well your current marketing approach or digital strategy conducts each stage. Arman Rousta is Founder & CEO of digital agency, Blueliner, which services start-ups and established companies such as IZOD, California Closets and Lufthansa. Read more about Arman here .

Tagged as: business, comparison, customer, design, digital, entrepreneur, internet marketing, learning, marketing, marketing-strategies, media, search-engine, technology

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How My 5 Question Survey Saved Me Time And Resources In Product Development

by Paul Joseph June 9, 2011 Featured

Selling information for money – it’s such a beautiful thing. It’s what so many of us love talking (and blogging) about. It doesn’t take a huge office, lots of inventory, and once it’s done, you can almost set it and forget it – right? Well, it all depends. Allow me to explain . . . Since the beginning of this year, I’ve been working on building my Biology Website . It has been a huge undertaking. After reading Crush It , by Gary Vaynerchuk , I was convinced that the way to grow my website was to release videos almost every weekday (three to five times a week). Each video would teach one concept in biology. I also decided to use YouTube as one of the main ways of getting traffic to my website. It was interesting to see what happened next – my traffic increased significantly and has been increasing every month since I started, with my videos receiving anywhere between 1,000 and 1,500 views every day . I’ve also started getting people sending me testimonials and Thank You emails almost EVERY DAY ( 254 since January – yes, I counted), it’s such an exciting feeling. Then I reached the stage that many internet entrepreneurs reach when they realize that their site is getting decent traffic – the stage where the site is demanding for more resources – a stage that starts to cost more and more money (upgrading servers, outsourcing more tasks, etc). It’s the stage when you know you need to start doing things to start making money. The Great Money-Making Idea Since I was satisfied with the level of traffic I was getting, and with the amount of value I was able to share with the world, it was time to take it to the next level – releasing a paid product . I had many ideas about different products I could release and eventually narrowed it down to what I thought was the best idea – I could take all of my free YouTube videos and create a DVD package. After consulting with an internet marketing friend of mine, we both came to the conclusion that it was the best idea for the following reasons: I didn’t have to create anything new in order to have the product. Since it was based on videos that were already made, all I needed to do was re-export the videos in a form that could go onto DVD. Using a service like Kunaki , you don’t even need to purchase the DVDs in advance. They ship the DVD directly to your customer for you at a low cost of $1 per DVD. So if you charge $97 per DVD, you make a SWEET profit of $96. DVDs generally have a higher perceived value than digital downloads. As I made more free videos, I could release more DVDs in the future, allowing me to have multiple products. Doesn’t that just sound like a great deal? Wouldn’t it make a lot of sense for me to develop a product like that? Yep, that’s what I thought too, until I made a quick decision to do something very simple that proved to be very valuable. What did I do? I’m glad you asked . . . If You Want To Know – Ask! Right before I got ready to start putting together the DVD package, I decided to send out a short survey to my audience. I wanted to know whether they would be more inclined to buying a DVD product or a Digital product. My assumption was that they would prefer to get a DVD, and boy was I wrong. The questions on the survey were the following: Do you think it would be valuable to make a DVD series available? If you had to choose between having a physical copy (DVD) or a digital copy (Download) of the Interactive Biology videos, which would you choose? If we made DVDs available (over time), would you buy a copy? How much would you pay to be able to get a full Series (approximately 40 videos): The full, mobile AND MP3 versions? If you could choose between purchasing a Set package at one set price (i.e. a Nervous System Package, Energy Package, etc.) vs a Subscription where you get immediate access to ALL Videos as soon as they are released (full, mobile and MP3), which would you choose? This survey answered a number of questions that have helped me shape my product that I’ll be releasing over the next few weeks. Allow me to share some of those important answers with you: When I saw these results, I was very happy. No, it didn’t tell me that 88% of my audience would actually buy, but at least I had a good idea that they thought the idea was worth looking into. I’m not sure why these results surprised me, but I was indeed surprised. I was thinking that most people would find more value in a physical product, but the results indicated something different – only 9% was in favor of just a DVD. Everyone else were in favor of either all digital or a combination of both. This showed me that if I were to choose one to start with, digital would be the way to go. When it really comes down to it, knowing that my audience thinks that having a product is a good idea doesn’t paint a full picture. What really matters is whether or not they would actually buy. This told me that 62 of the people that took the survey would at least consider spending money. This was a very important question for me. I was struggling to decide on a price point. Seriously, I was. I can’t tell you how much time I’ve wasted discussing this question with one of my Internet Marketing buddies over the phone. Now, I know that 74% of the people who took the survey would at least think about paying anywhere between $47 and $197 to get a product relating to my content. The results to this question really amazed me. I’d always thought about adding a paid membership component to my website. However, I always told myself that it wouldn’t work for this non-internet-marketing crowd. Now I know that 55% of the people who completed this survey would at least think about paying a subscription fee to access the resources I could easily make available. Why Was The Survey Such A Good Idea? It gave me actionable data . I no longer have to guess at what is more likely to work. I can take action based on actual data as opposed to my thoughts and feelings. It saved me a lot of time . Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes I can suffer from analysis paralysis – where I try to analyze every aspect of what I’m trying to do, so I waste time not taking action. Now, the decision-making process took a much shorter time and I can spend time building the product. My audience gets to be a part of the decision-making process . My site is not all about me providing information. The goal is to build a strong community, with active participants. By allowing them to take part, it encourages them to take ownership of the community, and that’s exactly what I want. Tips For Running A Successful Survey There are certain things you can do to enhance the likelihood that you will get a decent response to your survey. Here are some very useful tips: Keep it Simple. Don’t try to answer every question you might have in one survey. In my survey, I did five questions. That’s the most I would do in any survey. Long surveys can be intimidating. Use a service like Survey Monkey or Polldaddy . They both give you pretty detailed results and stats. I chose to go with Polldaddy because they have a plugin for wordpress that easily allows you to embed your poll into a blog post. With their free service, you can analyze up to 100 responses to each survey. Promote it in various ways for maximal response. I posted a blog post, sent it to my list, shared it on my Facebook Fan Page and made a YouTube Video about it (I’ve taken down the blog post because the poll is now closed). Be Human. In creating your surveys, let people know the real deal and ask them for their opinion. I straight up told them that we need money to grow the site, but wanted to make sure to do it in a way that is most beneficial to everyone. So What Did I Decide To Do? I decided to set up a membership site that will provide video downloads in two formats (for computer and mobile device), in addition to an MP3 that they can take along with them and listen to even while they are driving in their cars. It will be a paid membership of $47 for six months . Yes, I know it’s a low price point, but I want as many people to benefit from it as possible without having a high barrier of entry. Plus, I know that a significant amount of my audience is at least willing to consider paying that price. I will also produce DVDs, but not right now. The plan is to eventually make them and offer them at a discounted rate to upgraded members. Do I know that it will be very successful? No, I don’t. The fact is – a Paying customer is only a paying customer when they’ve actually paid for something. Filling out a free survey saying that you will spend money is much easier than actually spending the money. But you know what – that’s what the “Entrepreneur’s Journey” is all about. What I do know is that I will gain experience from what I’m attempting to do, and I will report back to you in as much detail as I did in this post. Why? Because I want us to learn together. It’s much more fun that way Your Comments So what do you think? Do you think doing a survey was a good idea? Did I make the right decision based on the survey? Have you used surveys to help you decide what to do in your online business? How did it work for you? If you haven’t used them, how do you think it would help you to start? Let me know in the comments below. Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: book, customer, internet, money, online, small-business, videos, young

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Tired Of Failing To Meet Your Goals? Try My Success Formula…

by Paul Joseph June 9, 2011 Featured

My previous articles have talked about marketing with regards to knowing your customer and refining your niche . This week I want to talk a little bit more about the mental game of business and what is required to build a successful business. Specifically, I want to provide some useful tips for goal setting. If you are currently not setting goals for your business, then this article will help you get started. If you are setting goals for your business, then this article will help give you some handy tips to improve your goal setting and hopefully your results. Goals Give You Direction If you are serious about making a living from your online endeavors, then you need to have goals for your business. At the very least so you have some idea of how you may possibly pay your bills. You also want to have some idea of what you wish to accomplish. If you use a goal in the simplest sense just to give you a general direction to head for, then at least that is a start. Not having any goal would be like getting in a car for a drive and not having any destination in mind. Sure you may end up somewhere nice, but the probability of ending up somewhere nice if you actually planned to end up there would be a lot higher. Traditional Result Orientated Goals Usually goals are stated as what I call result orientated goals and there is nothing wrong with that. For example, business goals may include “I want to make $XXXX amount of money this year” or “I want to sell X amount of products”. Setting goals like this is a good starting point, but I want to help you tweak your goal setting for better results. An Economics Law To Improve Your Goal Setting From The Economist in 1955 is a quote that has come to be known as Parkinson’s Law : “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” A more generalized version is: “ The demand upon a resource tends to expand to match the supply of the resource. ” If you are not a savvy saver you will often find this true of your finances. As your earnings increase, so do your expenses. Basically, Parkinson’s Law can be applied to goal setting in the form of setting a deadline. This is useful for long term goals, but I find it incredibly applicable for short term goals. We probably all experienced this with assignment deadlines in high school or university. If you have two weeks to complete a project, it will take you two weeks. But if you set yourself the goal to get it done in one week, you probably could. Obviously you need to be realistic, but I am just saying you may surprise yourself if you tighten the reigns a little on your goals and set some tougher deadlines. Give it a go on your next small project. For example, I allocated a certain amount of time to writing this article. This pushed me a little and motivated me to be more productive. Break Down Your Goals Into More Manageable Pieces Although I am a fan of dreaming big, I also find it can be a bit overwhelming at times. So I find that breaking down a goal into more manageable pieces can help give you a sense of the smaller stepping stones you need to take to reach your end goal. Plus, it allows you to monitor your progression and make any necessary adjustments along the way. Revising goals is also an important point we will discuss later. There are two ways that I find helpful to breakdown a large goal: 1. Break down the goal into some progressive steps. For example, if you have a goal for your business to earn $100,000 dollars in the third year of operation you may have some smaller milestones along the way. You may breakdown the $100,000 per year goal into a goal of earning $30,000 the first year of operations and then $75,000 the second year. That way the end goal looks more manageable, and you have some checkpoints along the way to monitor progress . This enables you to make any necessary changes during the allocated time period and not just at the very end when it may be too late. 2. Break down the goal into smaller pieces. If you have a goal of getting 73,000 visitors to your website in a year, you could break that down to a monthly or daily figure. You would need 200 daily visitors and 6000 monthly visitors to reach that goal. That way you can focus on these more manageable numbers and know that if you reach them, you will reach your larger goal. A Practical Example Of Breaking Down Goals A great example of breaking down goals is seen by Internet Writer Everett Bogue in his 333 project . Everett has set himself the goal of making $100,000 per year from writing. He has decided to charge a $25 monthly fee to readers for access to “letters” he writes. The math is simple: $25 x 12 months x 333 subscribers = $100,000 . So (in his mind) all Everett needs is 333 subscribers. Instead of constantly thinking about making $100,000, Everett is probably thinking how he can enrich, add value and connect with enough people that 333 of them are willing to pay him $25 a month. Not bad considering most aspiring writers are struggling to make ends meet. Introducing Action Goals The problem with result orientated goals is they tell nothing about the “how to” process of achieving the goal. It leaves you totally unaccountable for your actions towards that goal. So your results orientated goal may be getting 100,000 visitors to your website in a year. What about the process or procedure for that? You can set goals for those also, I call them action goals . They define what you need to do to achieve that result goal. Some action goals for the above example may include: I need to post to my website five times a week. I will submit at least one article a week to an article directory I will update my business Facebook page weekly I will try to guest post on other people’s websites two times a month I will release a YouTube video every week So now you have a procedure for achieving the end goal. Notice the procedures are objectified and very definite so there is no question about if you did them or not. You either did or you didn’t. I find not setting action goals, or not having a procedure behind a goal, is probably the main reason people fail in their goal setting. Don’t Be Afraid To Revise Your Goals Things don’t always go to plan. And I think that constant revision of your goals has many benefits. Firstly, it can help to regularly reinforce what you are striving for and this can be important for inspiration and motivation. Secondly, it can help you make necessary adjustments. If you have some goal stepping stones like I mentioned earlier, you can gauge if you need to make any adjustments to your end goal or your procedures. Lastly, things change. Life is dynamic . Our wants, needs and desires can change, and our goals should be flexible to realign with any changes that happen. Goal Setting Summary Set your result goals and break them down into more manageable stepping stones. Set a time period for your goals so you have a deadline to work towards. Take your results orientated goals and write some objective action goals that will serve as the “how to” steps of achieving your result goal. And finally, constantly revise and update your goals depending on your outcomes and current circumstances. Leevi Romanik Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: article, customer, goals

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How To Conduct A Quality Podcast Interview In 7 Steps

by Paul Joseph June 6, 2011 Featured

Six months after starting this blog back in 2005 I purchased what at the time was a cutting edge MP3 player, called an iRiver. It was a 20GB HDD MP3 player, a principal competitor to the dominant iPod. I didn’t get an iPod because I wasn’t a mac user yet. I wasn’t a fan of itunes (I’m still not a fan) and I hated the way iPods were “jailed” to itunes. My iRiver was essentially a portable hard drive that I could stick any file on and carry with me. If it was a music file it would play it, no questions asked. I Discover A Microphone One of the features of my iRiver, which initially I ignored, was a tiny little microphone. It didn’t look like more than a dot cut out of the plastic case. That dot would be my doorway into the world of podcasting . If you are not familiar with what exactly podcasting is, I recommend you start by reading the introduction I wrote a few years ago here – What is a Podcast and How Can I Use One? Using my iRiver I recorded spoken audio – just me talking into the mic – that I uploaded and distributed on my blog. If you want to hear how much of a novice I really was, you can find my early recordings listed on the Podcast page right at the bottom of the sidebar. Fast forward to today and I have recorded more than 70 episodes of my show, most of which are interviews with other entrepreneurs. I stopped using the iRiver a long time ago, however podcasting remains one of my favorite methods to produce content on my blog. It’s a great tool for meeting other experts, learning from them and providing value to your audience. Podcasting is also a fantastic marketing technique . My podcasts are often shared between friends and sometimes when I interview someone prominent they link back to my site to inform their readers about it. It’s quick, relatively easy, makes for fantastic content and brings traffic to you. Of course all of this rests on your ability to produce a great podcast interview, so let’s take a look at how you can do that next… 7 Steps To A Successful Podcast Interview I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts from my industry and I’ve noticed that many of them, although providing some value, are often let down by the quality of the questions asked by the interviewer. I’ve compiled the following seven steps to help if you are considering running a podcast and interviewing people. These tips represent what I have learned as the best techniques for you to get the most out of the people you interview. The better an interviewer you are, the better the quality of your podcast, and thus your audience will really benefit from the content and share it with others. Here we go… 1. Equipment: What software and hardware I use I’ll cover this first since people always want to know what tools I use to record my podcast interviews. I have a Apple MacBook Pro 15.4-Inch Laptop . I have a fantastic mic, Snowball USB Microphone by Blue Microphones , which slots into any USB port and should instantly be available in any software you use (you may have to select it in the audio options). I usually plug in a standard set of iphone/ipod headphones when conducting interviews so I can block out the ambient noise. That’s all I need for hardware. For software I use Skype to call the person. Sometimes I use the SkypeOut function (you can call any phone with SkypeOut, but you will need Skype credit to do so), but most of my interviews are Skype-to-Skype. I just ask for the Skype username of my interviewee, we arrange a time and then connect. The benefit of Skype-to-Skype is the digital connection makes for better sound quality. You can also use Skype video to record video interviews. To record the call I use Call Recorder , which is a Mac only program for recording skype. Before switching to Mac I used Skype and the software Pamela to record my interviews using PC. Today for efficiency I record my calls and will say an intro and outtro at the start and end of the interview to remind people that they can get more podcasts from my blog. By doing this I don’t need to edit any of the interview post call, I can just take the raw .MOV file, convert it to MP3 using iTunes ( here is how to do this ) or any MP3 converter (I sometimes use Garage Band ) and upload it directly to my server. If something goes wrong during the call and I need to stitch two files together, or edit in an intro (I used to add theme music to my earlier podcast episodes), I use Garage Band that comes with Mac. When I was a PC user I used Audacity to do all my post-production editing, which is a free download. Currently I set my MP3s to MONO at 128kbps during the conversion process, which results in a high quality sound at about one megabit per minute in size (60 minute podcast is roughly 60meg download). If you are worried about filesize you can drop this to 64kbps or 32kbps and still retain quality. I upload the MP3 to my Amazon S3 account for streaming media using Bucket Explorer , set the permissions to public, generate a download link and then take that link and place it into my blog post. I use the Audio Player plugin for WordPress to generate a streaming file version that looks like this – I also link the URL to a plain hypertext download link so people can save the file to their computer. I write a little description of the person I interviewed, highlight the best parts of the interview, add a photo and click publish. Done! Now let’s talk about how you can convince people to come on your podcast as a featured interview… 2. How To Convince Famous People To Come On Your Podcast The first piece of advice I recommend when it comes to convincing people to be your next interview victim is to simply ask them . Nine times out of ten this has resulted in a “yes” for me. If you approach really really famous people obviously you will face more resistance. It’s a smart idea to not approach the big players until you have some history behind you. This gives you the opportunity to practice, and also build some audience. It’s easier to convince someone to come on your podcast when you can say certain other respected people have already come on and you have X number of listeners. I also find referrals are a great doorway into the world of certain people. If you can’t reach someone directly, get to know a friend of theirs and ask for an intro. The more well known you are, the easier it is to convince people to join you for an interview. Networking works. Most of the people I interview either I meet in person at networking events. I’m introduced to through networking online, or I approach them after reading about them on another blog or website. Some, like Tim Ferriss , come to me when they have something to promote, and if I think their story is interesting enough I will record an interview with them. 3. Focus On Your Audience There is one thing I want you to keep in mind the entire time you are on the call with your subject: Who are your audience? Just like when marketing your products and services in your business, you need to have a strong understanding of what your customers needs and wants are, where they come from and what language/style they use to describe their problems, when conducting a podcast. You need to consider all these things when interviewing. The better a job you do of this, the more popular your podcast will become. One of the key mindset shifts I make while conducting an interview is to get into the shoes of the “avatar” of my target audience. The avatar is an example of the typical person who listens to my calls , and in my case I always focus on beginners who want to learn how to start a business and make money online. While interviewing I think about whether the questions are being answered in enough detail for a beginner to understand. If the steps aren’t explained, or no examples are given, I ask the person I am interviewing to break these things down. This works particularly well when I am personally curious because I want clarity too. For example, when conducting an interview recently with Scott Valdez , he explained how within two weeks of starting his business he had more customers asking to buy his service than he could handle, so he had to create a waiting list. Naturally I asked him how this happened and he said the story behind his business (Virtual Dating Assistants) was picked up by various media outlets, including television coverage in the USA. If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering exactly HOW Scott managed to get this much press coverage. So that’s exactly what I asked him. He then proceeded to break down the process of how he went online and found the contact details for 150 journalists and emailed them all a template about his story. He even explained how he found the contact details, giving enough detail that a listener could replicate what he did. This level of detail is important, and most people you interview won’t automatically break things down for you. You need to ask them and keep asking them until you have the specifics. To help you do this, drop your presumptions and knowledge about the person you are interviewing and become your target audience . Then you will know what level of detail you need to dig out of the person you are interviewing. 4. Begin The Story: Find Out Where They Came From A key lesson I learned about conducting quality podcast interviews is to see the person you are interviewing as a story . You are there to help facilitate the revealing of their story to your audience. To begin this process I always ask my subjects to go back in time and take us through their lives to bring us up to date on their current project. Everyone I interview has some kind of key theme, something that makes them special and a real success story. Revealing how they became successful is important, and discovering how they came to the place of success by digging into their past is a great way to begin a story. I usually ask my interview guests questions like this at the start of the interview – Where they were born What schooling they had and if they did any university studies If they had any jobs before becoming entrepreneurs How they developed whatever skill or speciality they are know for If the had any businesses/websites before the current project You can use these questions as is or adapt them for your interviews. They should lead you to the next step, talking about their current success. 5. Find Out The Secrets To Success Once you break down the history of your interview subject you can move on to the core reason you brought the person on the call. This part of the interview focuses on whatever successful project or reason that person is famous (or infamous). I find every person I interview usually has two “secrets” to reveal when it comes to whatever they are successful at. What practical steps they did and in what order to get the result they achieved What mindset/strategy sets them apart and was responsible for their success You have to be careful to cover BOTH aspects, not just one. Talking strategy is great, but often it’s more inspirational than practical. It gives people hope and motivation, but they don’t have anything they can actually take away and do. The practical steps make your podcast a training tool as well as a source of inspiration and ideas. 6. Wrap Up The Story And End With A Summary Once you have broken down the entire process your interview guest went through for their current success and revealed their life story leading up to that success, you can begin to wrap up the interview. I like my interviews to go for 30 minutes to an hour at most , so I always keep an eye on the clock to see how things are progressing. Towards the end of the interview once I have everything about the core story explained, I use the remaining time to fill in any gaps I may have picked up on while the interview progressed. Often I’ll pick up on something that wasn’t fully explained but it wasn’t appropriate to stop them at that point. For example, I might ask them to explain their marketing technique in more practical detail, or talk about how they found their business partner, or even simple things like who built their website and how they found the people who work for them. Having run a business myself I’m naturally curious about certain key things that I consider the major challenges, things like – Technology Marketing How to find good people and what to pay them How to find good partners and structure partnerships Exit strategies, including finding buyers and completing a sale Obviously these questions are relevant to the entrepreneurship industry. You should consider what are the major challenges in your subject area or you have personally experienced and whenever they come up during an interview, make sure you ask your guest to explain how they dealt with the issue. Once you reach the end of the interview or at any point where the guest has explained multiple processes and experiences, I like to reflect back a summary . This serves a few purposes: It helps recap, sequence and clarify the points for the audience (and yourself – it makes you an active learner while doing the interview) It may trigger further explanation points for you to ask or your guest to bring up It ends the story-telling loop , meaning you can move on to the next chapter in the story or move to conclude the interview I end all my interviews by asking my subject to list any websites or resources of their own they want to promote. I sometimes ask them to explain what they are doing next (plans for the future), or talk about what a day in their life currently is like (again focusing on specifics) or ask if they have anything to say to a person listening to them who is at the start of the process they just went through. That last question is a great ending point because it’s always motivational and speaks directly to the listener . It’s nice to end on a high that leaves the listener eager to get out there and take action. 7. Ask How As Often As You Can The final piece of advice I have for you is to always ask “ how ” whenever you don’t understand how something was done during the interview. This one tip on some levels is all you really need to be a good interviewer. If you keep asking how , drilling things down, you will keep opening new doors to ask how about. Most people are vague or very generic when they say they did something. Some of my guests have initially been very brief when answering my questions. I might ask how they did something and they will respond with one or two sentences… Me : So how exactly did you come up with the idea for your blog? Guest : I realized I liked sowing so I started a sowing blog. Answers like that do not make for a long interview and don’t really give your listener anything to benefit from. In this example I would ask them more about how they learned to sow and what skills in particular are most challenging to learn. I’d then ask them how they built their blog, what platform they used, how often they publish articles, what sort of subjects are most popular, how they come up with ideas for content, where they found readers, etc etc. Every answer opens doors for more questions, it’s just up to you to decide which doors are the best to open. If you ever really struggle with a guest who just doesn’t give you in-depth answers I recommend you focus on one thing – get personal . All people, even shy people who don’t like being in the limelight still enjoy their own lives as a subject. Ask questions that flatter and show direct interest in the subjects that person cares about the most. Ask them to talk about where they were born, what they enjoyed growing up, what they are good at, what books they read, or anything specifically about them. A quick trip down nostalgia lane is a great way to get a person interested in opening up to you. You Can Ask Why Too For more on the concept of always thinking about asking questions, here’s a similar take but this time on asking “ why ” – How To Develop A Crystal Clear Understanding Of Your Customer How Do I Prepare For Interviews? I’m often asked if I do any preparation for my interviews, including whether I have questions ready to go in advance. The answer is no, I don’t . The only preparation I do is some brief research into the person I am interviewing so I know what they are most famous for and what websites they own. To be honest though, I don’t even need this info. You can begin an interview with anyone and deliver a great podcast without knowing a single thing about them simply by asking the right questions and follow-up questions. Right now I could ask you – “ What are you most known for? ” – and that would take us down a path to learn a lot about you, and make for a great interview, no matter how boring you think your life is. I’m naturally curious about people and I’m good at coming from the angle of a beginner, so I find conducting interviews on the fly is my preferred style. I feed off the answers of my guests and probe any subjects I feel are relevant or interesting. This works well for me and always results in a good interview. However don’t assume this is something you can do immediately. Interviewing is not a skill everyone is naturally good at, and until you get some practice your own nerves may stop you from being relaxed and in the flow with your guest. If you need a cheat sheet of questions to help you conduct your interview, that’s perfectly acceptable. I sometimes take notes myself so I don’t forget to ask something. You can prepare these questions in advance or even run off a template you use for all interviews. A word of warning though – using questions can lead to a disjointed interview. If you rely on prepared questions so much that your mind isn’t open to diverging down different paths based on how your interview guest responds, your podcast can feel quite stunted. Being relaxed and enjoying the interview like a good conversation, engaging with what your subject is saying and showing real curiosity, is the key to a natural interview style. It’s Not About You One final reminder that’s important for all you people out there who love to talk – the interview is not about you . You can add to the interview, briefly, by offering your own reinforcing story , or relevant comment, but don’t start interviewing yourself. I like to focus on two things as my role as the interviewer – Asking the questions Summarizing the answers That’s all I do. Even when I tell my own stories I usually do so only as a means to summarize or repeat what was just said by my guest. If you find yourself dealing with awkward silence , don’t use that as an excuse to start filling the interview with your own voice. Keep asking questions. Follow the idea that you can never ask “how” too many times. I hope these tips have given you some insight into how to conduct a quality podcast interview . The next step is to just get out there and do it. One of the most important skills to develop is comfort in front of the microphone when interviewing people. When you first do this it feels like you have a massive audience in front of you, even though it’s just you and your guest, so there will be nerves present. The only way to get past this is to do more interviews. Practice breeds comfort and a comfortable host makes for a better podcast. Get busy interviewing. Yaro Starak Podcasting Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: answers, conversion, customer, digital, industry, internet, online, people, person, skype

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Why Thinking Like A Fish Can Help Your Business

by Paul Joseph June 1, 2011 Featured

When we are operating a business, we are often told to try and think like the consumer . To ‘walk in their shoes’ or to ‘get inside their head’ and know what they are thinking and feeling. All this is done with the end goal of creating a better experience for the consumer or of providing them with exactly what they want. I remember a story told by a famous copy writer about a fisherman. This was no ordinary fisherman. He had gained legendary status in fishing circles. He was always top of the trophy board. The fisherman was routinely famous for out fishing a boat of fisherman all by himself! And he did it with old school tackle. None of this fancy rod and reel stuff that his competitors had. How Did He Manage To Do It? He says the secret came to him years ago when he was thinking about how to catch more fish. He reasoned if his desire was to catch fish, then he needed to know everything he could about fish. So he vigorously set about learning everything about fish. He learned their feeding habits, how they fed, when they fed, their migration habits, their relationship to currents, how they behaved in different types of water, how they fed in different seasons and weather conditions. He spent a lot of time studying the ocean, and weather. He studied the relationship the fish had to the ocean and weather. His competitors were out studying to become better fisherman. They were investing their time in fishermen related things. Buying fancy lures or bait, upgrading their rod to the newest model and playing with their sonar fish finders. Come tournament time, because the famous fisherman had spent so much time trying to think like a fish, he knew exactly what they, the fish, wanted. All the guess work was removed. So he would size up the weather, the currents and sea conditions, and he knew exactly where the fish would want to be feeding. So all he did was pick the right location to drop anchor, based on his intimate knowledge of the fish’s behavior, and cast out a line and start reeling them in. Moral of the story: To catch fish, you need to think like a fish NOT like a fisherman. Translation for the entrepreneur: To sell your product or promote your business, you need to think like the customer NOT like a businessman. For the entrepreneur business person, we must always keep in mind our customers . Despite the fact what we want or think is best, our personal desires come second to the customer’s. It is something that is very hard to do, but the sooner you can start applying this principle, the better service you will be providing your customer. Walk In Their Shoes There are instances where by chance or luck we have walked in the shoes of our potential customers. Think of people who have transformed themselves through weight loss and are now sharing their methods with other people. They can relate to their potential customer in the most real sense, because at one stage they were in the exact position of that customer – the position of an overweight person looking for a weight loss solution. Do you think they would know the emotional journey of their potential customers? What about the ‘ hot buttons ’ of the customers? Would they have a good idea of the doubts and fears that an overweight person has while looking at diet solutions? They would know the answer to all these questions and more, because they have personally been there . If you are fortunate to be doing your entrepreneurial endeavors in an area where you were once in the shoes of the consumer, then that is great. You have been inside the head of the customer. You know their wants, needs, desires and objections.  Everything you offer should cater to their needs and help move them closer to their end goal. This can be applied to end product creation and also in the building of relationships with the potential customers. If you are in the information niche, it may be the offering the perfect free report you use for an email opt in, the content on your website or the angle of your email autoresponder series. This type of insight into the mind of the potential customer can also be gained from having a lot of contact with that type of customer. Think of some personal trainers at the gym. They would know all the nuances associated with weight loss and the head space that someone who is trying to lose weight occupies. Simply because they have spent considerable time communicating and being around overweight people. At times you may find yourself entering a market which is way out of your comfort zone and you may venture into totally new territory, which you have no idea about. This is common in affiliate marketing, especially when you are promoting the next ‘hot thing’ or a high converting product. What If You Don’t Have Experience Being A Consumer In Your Niche Or The Niche You Are Entering Is New For You? Then you need to do some investigative work and role playing. You can discover this by visiting sites like these: http://www.boardtracker.com/ http://answers.yahoo.com/ http://omgili.com/ http://blogsearch.google.com/ http://www.samepoint.com/ http://alltop.com/ Above is a list of forums, websites and blogs. Find and hang out in forums related to your niche. Be a fly on the wall. Do some market research . See what people in the niche are talking about, how they are talking about it, what frustrates them, what hopes they have, what obstacles they face, etc. Sometimes, you may have to pick up some new lingo to converse on the same level as potential customers. Outside the seduction niche if I used the words PUA, SHB and AFC, they mean nothing to you. But within that niche, this is their language and if you don’t use it then you may not be accepted as ‘real’. To take it a step further, after your research you want to create a fictional avatar of your potential customer. Give them a name, find a photo on the internet of what you think they would look like. You want to be able to write ‘their story’. Who they are, what they want, what they are currently doing, what frustrates them, what are their dreams and goals etc. Now to really get inside their head you can use what is called an empathy map . The empathy map represents aspects of that person’s sensory experience. What they are thinking, feeling, saying, doing and hearing. Filling it out is a really great way of “getting to know” all aspect of the person. When it comes to doing anything related to promoting your business or product you simply look at the avatar you have created and write as if you were writing to them. So now all communication you do for your business is more focused on your potential customer . You are writing to a ‘real person’, you are communicating to a ‘real person’, you are helping a ‘real person’ get one step closer to their goal. Knowing your potential customer well can only help you provide them with a better service, and if you can help people achieve their goals better, then this ultimately leads to a more successful business for yourself. Leevi Romanik Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: customer, internet, language, mind, mindset, people, research, words

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Don’t Treat Every Blog Reader The Same: How Segmentation Turns Readers Into Buyers

by Paul Joseph May 23, 2011 Featured

The Ultimate Guide To Customer Segmentation Part 3 By now you should understand the basics of how to segment your customers. The idea is to target each segment individually to ensure they respond better to your marketing efforts. If you have not read part one and two of this series already, please click here: The Ultimate Guide To Customer Segmentation Part 1: What Are The Fundamentals And What Can You Expect To Gain? The Ultimate Guide To Customer Segmentation Part 2: How To Segment Your Blog Readers If you have also completed the homework from the previous article in the series, you will have already attempted to split your readers or customers into at least three different segments, and be in a position to practically implement some of the strategies I mention in this article. In the previous article I posed a question regarding how Yaro segments his own readers. He does not do it based on value (he should do that also!), but he segments them according to different needs. Yaro realized very early on that his customers (readers) have different ways of digesting his material, so he offers various methods for them to explore. You can download the text version of Yaro’s blueprint for those who prefer to print things out and read them in peace. You can download podcasts of Yaro’s key articles and manuals, designed for followers that prefer listening to reading, and of course his partnership with Gideon brought forth videos for those of us who prefer to learn through watching. These are three very distinct sets of users: audio preferrers , text readers and video users . Each of these groups is a distinct customer segment and will react differently to various marketing efforts. For example, audio preferrers are sure to be more excited about a new podcast, then perhaps a new blog post. So naturally I would mail to each of my segments when I have something that will be relevant to them . Podcast lovers would love to know about my new podcasts, and by ensuring I mail them information they like to receive, then they are sure to open my emails for a long time to come. I have another great example of segmenting blog readers which you should read here. I highly recommend the dating blog case study as it is perhaps the most relevant to this audience, and if I had space I would have included it directly into this article. I’m sure you can see the power of splitting these various types of customers into different lists. They are more likely to read your newsletter and click your links as they know each newsletter will contain more of their preferred types of information. Such a simple change can bring massive results. One of the best ways to learn about segmentation is to watch good segmentation in practice. Yaro’s example above should help you understand some basics of segmentation but let’s look at my own story, which may be true to many bloggers. What I Learnt From My Blog When I started blogging some four or five years ago, I simply wrote about Internet Marketing in general and hoped people would like it. I did not really have a specific mini-niche, I simply wrote about making money online, which as you know covers virtually the entire market! Naturally, my articles would be all over the place and I found some of my articles hit the front page of Digg , bringing me tons of new readers, but there was no logic in which types of articles would hit the main page, it seemed random. Here are three examples from my blog, perhaps you can work out what is happening here. The first article that hit the Digg homepage was a motivational article I did titled “ 9 Reasons You Will Never Be Successful “. The second to become popular was “ How To Impress A Mentor “, an article for those trying to find a mentor, and the last set of articles were all based on creativity within business. I wrote about many topics as I wanted to express my business knowledge in general, and even though I had over 1000 RSS followers , I could not get people to continuously post comments on my blog. Their interest seemed to waver and the click through rate in my newsletter was low. The Ah-Ha Moment And Google Analytics I sat back and took a good hard look at my blog and decided to see what I knew about my customer (readers). I used Google Analytics to find the search terms people were using to find my blog, and surprisingly I finally noticed something that had been staring me in the face the whole time. By grouping together the keywords people use to find my site, I was able to find three core groups of people that found my site interesting. They were the people who searched for articles and advice regarding mentors, people who searched for motivational articles to help them become successful, and people who like to be inspired by creativity. This was such an ah-ha moment for me. Just because I like doing all those things, I had assumed that all my readers enjoyed all three topics also. They were not. Google Analytics had suggested there were three types of users on my blog relating to each of the three identified core themes . I then went through the various types of articles on my blog and found, just as expected, that similar groups of people were commenting on the three main areas of interest. So, all this time I had been treating all my readers the same, but in fact I should have been splitting them into three different groups . If I sent updates about creative articles only to users mainly interested in creative articles then for sure my click through rate would increase. Why? Well the members on that list would know that each of my newsletters would have something of interest to them, whereas previously it was a one in three chance that the article topic was related to creativity. How I Segmented My Customers So here is what I did. I changed my newsletter to three different newsletters and made the sign-up forms on my pages different for each type of article . So creative articles were linked to a free creative report, thus making a list specifically for creative members of my blog. Mentor related articles all had a  newsletter sign-up link, which offered a free report on a mentor related topic, and the same success related articles had a ‘becoming a success’ report. This almost immediately had a positive effect. By segmenting my customers I was able to offer them more of what they wanted, and they showed their thanks with an increased participation on my blog, and a massive increase in click-through rates in my newsletters (which meant more money in my pocket, and allowed me to send out product recommendations to the relevant groups of customers). The question I am often asked is: How often do I mail my members? Now we have segmented my readers, the answer is easy. I mail my readers every time I write or produce something that I know they are interested in! If I produce a new creative article I mail everyone in my creative mailing list, simple! Please click here if you want to read more real life case studies about customer segmentation. In the previous article in this series we talked about segmenting your customer in terms of value, or how valuable they are for you. In today’s article I used two examples to show you how to segment your users by activity. So now we have two different ways to segment your users. Who Are Your Most Valuable Readers? However, even if you segment users by activity, you should still segment them by value again, so that you know who your most valuable readers are. For example, I split my readers into those who like creative articles, those who like success related articles and those who like mentor or coaching related articles. However, not all the readers within each of these groups will be the same, so I should split them again in terms of value, so I know who my best readers are within each group. (See part two in this series to understand why we do this.) If I do this for my blog then I will end up with four mini-segments for each of my main three types of customers, so in total I have 12 different groups of readers . So for those who like creative articles, I will have four sub-segments (shown in red in the figure above). I would then repeat the process for my other two main groups of readers, and thus end up with 12 different groups. (I discussed in the previous article ways to achieve this, so head back there if you need a refresher.) The good news is that you do not need to work on all 12 segments so do not worry! This is about working on the 10% that count, and not aimlessly creating extra work. We want to develop the customers, who are less active, into customers who are way more active, and thus participating more and earning you more money. We also must remember not to neglect our best selection of customer, as it is these 10% of customers who give us 90% of our profits . The value of our groups in the figure above goes from one to four in that order. Group four are our trouble makers and therefore our role is to eliminate them from our blogs if possible. Groups one to three are what we should concentrate on, perhaps using some of these suggestions: Group 1: Our Most Valued Readers The whole objective with this group is to keep them close. They are your ideal customers and click on almost every link you send them. I discussed some tactics in the previous article as to how to keep them close, but here is a recap: Only use special articles for this group. No one else gets access to these articles and no one else even knows they are available (this creates mystery, and these good readers will continue to be active as they do not want to risk missing out on things!). When you produce a report or series of blog posts, send them in a complete format to this group so they do not have to wait for the next parts to be published. Tell them they get special treatment as your best readers, and they will love you for it. Hold special teleconferences with this group. It makes them feel special and gives you a chance to obtain great feedback. Remember, treat this group like they are special and they will remain loyal forever. Almost 99.9% of marketers never do this and thus lose hardcore followers. You can send many messages to this group, including third party offers, they will read everything yet stay loyal. Group 2: Readers Who Commented At Least Once This group holds the most potential for your income. They just need an extra boost or kick to join your readers in Group 1 – you just need to help them find that missing element. Here are some ideas: Like the first group, invite them to teleconferences so you can find out more about them, and they can learn to trust you more. Once in a while, send them some of the stuff you made specifically for Group 1 members, but tell them it is only a sneak peak and only special members get those kind of freebies on a regular basis. Some of them are bound to be motivated to rise up the ranks. This is likely to be a large group and if you can mange to train them to be like Group 1 then you are in the money. Like Group 1 they are loyal and you can send them third party promotional emails without the risk of losing them, provided of course you are still satisfying their needs on your blog also. Mail them as frequently as Group 1. Group 3: Readers Who Do Not Comment This group is the trickiest. (Note: When I say readers who do not comment I also include readers who have not purchased anything yet.) They may read your stuff, but perhaps do not return the value in the form of activity. Most larger companies simply employ mass marketing tactics on these groups, and do not pay it a lot of direct attention as the return on the time you invest will be very low compared to Groups 1 and 2. Groups 1 and 2 represent where 20% of your successful effort should go. You should not neglect Group 3, but spending too much time on them will not bring enough results to justify your efforts. Simply stick to normal mass marketing efforts. Avoid emailing this group too much. They are not convinced about you or your blog yet, so they will feel hounded by emails. I suggest to mail to this segment once a week and maximum twice a week. Third party product recommendations may not bring great results and may cause you to lose loyalty to another product creator (they have not bought anything from you, but they buy from someone you recommend, thus they see the product creator as more valuable), so only advertise other products if you clearly do not care about developing this segment. Summary That was a very brief introduction to Customer Segmentation and Customer Relationship Management . Of course the topic is much deeper then this and thus I am hired as a consultant by many freelancers, but this should give you enough groundwork to make customer segmentation work for you. It is not difficult if you do not over complicate it. As mentioned before, if the only thing you take from this series is that you should start treating your best readers differently, like they are special, then this whole series has been worth it. This tip alone will bring you great results for many years to come. This whole series is one of 30 lessons in my Online Marketing MBA course , be sure to check it out if you found this useful. Dee Kumar Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: book, customer, internet, money, online, search, small-business

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How To Segment Your Subscribers When You Run A Blog Business

by Paul Joseph May 20, 2011 Featured

I was reading Dee’s recent article in his customer segmentation series where he talked about how to segment your blog readers. One of his main premises was the difference between a person who leaves a comment, or many comments and those who don’t. I agree with Dee that these are possible options for segmenting your blog readership, but I want to expand on his piece and give some examples of my own attempts to segment my readership over the years. Blogging For Profit One of the key distinctions that must be discussed before looking at how to segment your blog readership, is the reason why you are aiming to do this in the first place. In my case, and very likely your case too, we want to segment our readers so we can achieve the following goals – Make money , often from promotional content (affiliate links and your own products) Do so without alienating your audience The challenge is always how to find a way to commercialize a blog without diluting the value of the reason people come to the blog in the first place. Often the commercial intent can be blended with the content, so you can satisfy both needs, however segmentation can take this process even further, ensuring only those who are interested in certain types of content receive it, and those who are not, don’t. To achieve this outcome you need to figure out the following – A means to identify each group by specific criteria relevant to your goals Once identified, a means to segment and continue communication with each group separately I’ve always found it difficult to use only your blog content to accurately segment readers into different groups. Sometimes you just want to make sure as many people read your content as possible with no sales message, where at other times you want to make as many sales as possible , but not turn away readers who don’t want to buy. The people who buy are a tiny percentage of your entire audience, so if you spend all day promoting to everyone, eventually you will lose your audience, unless you can find a way to bring in a continuous stream of new people who replace those you lose. Ideally we want to maximize both audience retention and growth , and maximize profit too. Segmentation Options Dee mentioned how I use text, audio podcasts and video on this blog and this is one way to segment my readership. This is true, but in terms of commercial intent (the goal of making money), I don’t segment my readership using these formats, this is merely an attempt to maximize the amount of people I can reach using different media. That’s the same reason why I have brought on more writers to this blog. With more than ten people now contributing their unique ideas and experiences, Entrepreneurs-Journey.com has grown beyond me to point where I don’t feel like it is just “my” blog anymore. We could segment our audience based on authors, or subject, or media format, or the time of day people read or what country they come from, and it would be great to know all this about my audience, but I’ll be honest with you, I found it way too difficult to figure out all this data and come out with methods to segment each group. It’s just too much and too difficult using the format of a blog. I feel it is always best to give all my content to all my readers. That was until the day I made one change. I added an email newsletter to my blog. Why My Newsletter Forced Me To Think About Segmentation Many, many, many times I’ve been asked on coaching calls – “ Which content should I put in my newsletter and which for my blog? “ The distinction isn’t always clear to people since they are both content delivery mechanisms. When I started my first newsletter I knew one thing: I was creating a newsletter to filter people into a group who were interested in one specific thing, so eventually I could sell them something. Here’s a key difference between a blog and an email newsletter (at least in 99% of the cases). Blogs do not require a person opts-in . There is no action to take to read the content, you simply find it and consume it. An email newsletter or email list asks a person to “opt-in”, by presenting some kind of offer, a reason why and what they will receive in return. You can blog away happily for a long time not worrying too much about the specific nature of your topic, as long as you stick to a specific area, and feel your way to a target market. When you start your newsletter, you have to decide the offer you are making, which very much dictates the type of subscriber your attract. This is in fact, the very first point of segmentation, taking a generic website visitor and turning them into a person who has expressed interest in a certain type of information. That first filter is a powerful segmentation step. It tells you that someone is willing to join your list to get what you offer. When I first brainstormed ideas for my email newsletter I considered two variables – What I thought my audience were interested in . What I felt I could deliver to them based on what I had done and knew about. My decision was to launch a blog traffic tips newsletter , which was added to my blog when I did a redesign to include an opt-in form. My newsletter from that point forward was my first ever attempt at segmentation with commercial intent. I know had a readership and a list of “prospects”, people who had stuck their hand up to show interest in one specific topic. This was very helpful when it came to deciding what content went where as well. From then on I wrote a series of weekly emails specifically related to blog traffic (in fact most of my articles about how to build a great blog went into my email list initially, not my blog), while my blog became a place to talk more about my experiences as an entrepreneur, including how my current businesses were going. How I Segment My Audience Today For me, email has always been a much easier tool to segment, even with just a basic autoresponder. I use the AWeber email autoresponder (read my review here – AWeber Review ), which has some simple to use segmentation tools, including – Multiple Lists The ability to create multiple lists, so you can make different offers to create different segments. For example my list of people who want to make money with blogs is one list and those who want to learn more about membership sites is another. I have others for things like my coaching programs and even for sponsors who want to advertise on my blog . This is an important segmentation tool, because you can use different lists for different levels. I have people on prospect lists (never purchased, but opted-in for free content) and customer lists (made a purchase). I can mail these lists individually, or pick and choose which ones I combine or even exclude. One good way to use this tool is to mail your prospects special offers for your products, but exclude people who already have purchased those products. You can also choose to send affiliate promotions only to certain groups depending on what you are promoting and how valuable that list is to you (for example you may not want to promote affiliate products too heavily to your paying customers to keep them focused on your products). Segmentation Based On Action Another tool within AWeber allows you to segment based on an action, for example someone clicking a link in an email, or if they opened the email or not . There are many ways to use this, but I primarily use it to reduce my unsubscribe rate when it comes to affiliate promotions. Affiliate promotions rarely interest your entire list, but for the segment that does show interest, you want to make sure they are mailed several times. Often I email my entire prospect list an email related to a product, then segment the list into people who opened the email (usually around 10%-20%). I then send the segment the followup emails about that same product, for example when the closing deadline is coming soon. By doing this I don’t send multiple emails about the same launch to people who don’t want it. I’ve also used this function to send a different email with a new subject line to the group who didn’t open the first email to see if I can get their attention. The email subject is such a critical variable when it comes to email marketing, so having this tool is like a “second chance” to mail about the same thing, without annoying the group who opened the first. Segmentation Based on Location One other nifty tool is the ability to mail only certain countries. I’ve emailed my Australian subscribers details about events in Australia, which excluded everyone else for obvious reasons. My Australian portion of my list is only about 10%, so being able to mail this group specifically is helpful, especially without annoying the rest of my peeps. A Good Autoresponder Is A Must As you can know doubt tell, having an email autoresponder that allows you to control these different elements is pretty powerful. Don’t forget you also get statistics about all these actions too, so simply by taking the steps to segment your email lists you can learn a lot about your subscribers. If you don’t already have an account, I strongly recommend you try out AWeber now . I’ve been using them for five years and I couldn’t have done what I do without my email list – www.aweber.com Simple Segmentation The main reason I focus my customer segmentation on email marketing and not my blog is that I find it much simpler that way. My blog isn’t the tool I use to segment people as much as it is the tool I use to capture attention initially. I actually see my blog more like a magazine and database of training content . The writers here at Entrepreneurs-Journey.com give you daily training and insights into our businesses. If you want more from any of us, you can visit the respective site and join the email list if available. That’s the same for Entrepreneurs-Journey and my training. If you want to learn more about making money with blogs, then you opt-in for the Blog Profits Blueprint and are then exposed to further training about that subject as well as related promotions. Segment Your Advertising The one area where the blog itself is great for segmentation is Sponsored advertising . However most bloggers don’t take advantage of it. CarAdvice.com.au (founded by my friend Alborz Fallah ), only makes money from advertising, and a heck of a lot of it (millions a year now). They make so much because they segment the sponsors based on the content and charge a premium price for targeting. In fact their only monetization method is advertising, hence they’ve become very good at it. For example Toyota might choose to place their banners only on the Toyota related content, or even sneakier, only on content about their competitor’s vehicles. By doing this they are ensured of having a very targeted reader for their advertisements. If you have a product related blog, this kind of segmented sponsorship might be a great idea. Segment With Purpose Segmentation is definitely powerful and I hope this article, and Dee’s ongoing series on customer segmentation , give you plenty of ideas for how to segment in your online business. Don’t forget the two most important rules – Segment with a purpose in mind – how can what you are doing help improve relationships with your customers and make you more money Keep it simple – there are countless segmentation options available, but only a few steps are enough to make a difference that matters Good luck! Yaro Starak Segmented Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: advertising, article, attention, book, customer, goals, location, time, unique, young

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