Marketing Funnels

Simplicity Rules Internet Marketing

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Hey all,

I did a webinar last night with VaNessa Duplessie, Greg Gomez III, and Taigh Smyth. We talked a lot about how ‘simplicity’ is key in creating your business presence online.

We are also putting on a workshop in Seattle on the weekend of Dec. 7-9. If you are truly interested in getting the knowledge and tools you need to succeed in this business, and if you love small workshop environments as much as I do, I’d recommend coming to our event. As I said, it will be a small group (less than 100) which means lots of one-on-one time with myself and the other instructors. This means less talking and more “doing” and “learning”..

You can find out more here:

http://onlinemasterysummit.com (tell them I referred you!)

Here’s the replay of the webinar:

Here’s a rough draft of what I spoke about:

I want talk about simplicity.

My tip ultimately here is to keep things simple and not overcomplicate things, but still be effective in your delivery, whether online or offline… Simplicity rules internet marketing. Now I don’t mean keeping things simple because you don’t know any better, or because you just don’t know how to make things more complicated. I’m talking about the realization that keeping things simple is something that you need to do deliberately, and not just because you don’t want to work any harder. It’s actually quite difficult, and it takes a lot of practice, to be simple and effective.

And to accomplish this is to force yourself to limit the amount of information that you want to convey without limiting it’s value. And if you do this, what you’ll find is that you literally force the creativity out you. If you put limits and restrictions on yourself you kind of become more creative and more resourceful, almost by default.

When restrictions are placed in a creative process and when information is limited, creativity thrives as we’re forced to think outside of the box that having too much information actually places us inside of.

Think: twitter 140 char limit. They give you 140 characters to convey your message, and only 140 characters to effectively convey your message and invoke the reader’s curiosity etc… It’s not easy. But people have become incredibly creative when using twitter, and lot of programming time has gone into creating things like URL shorteners.. so it would all fit in that 140 characters.

Twitter could have said “Ok, we’ll give you 240 characters now”. But that would have taken away the uniqueness of it and it would have made it too easy to put your message out, and it would have become less effective.

The same can be said about creating headlines, blog titles, email subject lines. Even when doing things like making videos or audios. Finding the simplest way to convey your message, and do it effectively.

Simplicity is where our foundation needs to lie within. Once we have that foundation and the mindset that surrounds it,  we can then start to bend our minds around what is needed to take it to the next level and to start thinking more creatively.

That’s why focus and simplicity is so important. Once you understand the simple processes that we do as Internet marketers, you can start to realize where your own personality and creativity needs to kick in.

Let me know if you find this helpful, maybe I’ll see you in Seattle…

– Geoff.

The Secret to Writing Profitable Autoresponder Messages

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So what’s the secret to writing profitable autoresponder messages and followups?

If you’ve ever had trouble writing good autoresponder messages, or if you just don’t have the time to try and write a whole new sequence of followup emails that you can send to your list…

Here’s a little ‘secret’ that will enable you to create great autoresponder content without you having to think up a whole new angle on what to write..

It’s simple and it’s what most marketers do in order to save time and money (and therefore make more money and have more time:)

If you’ve been in online marketing for any length of time, you have probably signed up to receive other marketer’s messages, right? You’ve opted in to get your hands on whatever the ‘free offer’ is, and you’ve willingly put your name and email into a capture form of some kind.

So. what do you do after you’ve accessed their free offer? Do you unsubscribe from their list because you don’t want to receive their messages? Do you just ignore any further autoresponder messages you get – maybe because you find them annoying?

I sure hope not.

If you don’t read these messages coming to you, that tells me you’re not really interested in being successful in this business.

I’m not trying to put you down by saying that, but I’m saying that you’re throwing away perfectly good content before you even see what it is.

What I do when I receive marketing emails from other marketers, is save them on my computer. I might not read them right away, but I save them to a folder specifically designated for this type of thing.

If I receive a series of emails from a company or marketer, I save them to an individual folder to keep them organized and in order.

Then what?

Then when I need an idea for an email series or followup..

I go to my ‘swipe folder’ and grab a few emails that are similar to what I’m looking for..

And then I simply re-write them to make them work for what I’m promoting.

Simple, right?

Absolutely.

Now before you go off and start copying other people’s work, it’s important to note that you CANNOT simply copy and paste other people’s work (unless they give you permission). What I do is use what other’s have written, to create the structure, and to create unique content that works for me.

One of the keys to success in internet marketing is to learn what more successful marketers are doing, and then do THAT (it’s called modeling yourself after someone else). What I’m talking about here is part of doing that. We’re not blatantly copying other marketer’s work, we’re taking it, learning from it, and re-purposing it to fit our needs.

You see, being a good internet marketer isn’t really about actually being a great copywriter. It’s not about being a ‘brilliant mind’.

It’s about BEING RESOURCEFUL. More than anything else in this crazy business, being resourceful will make you rich – faster.

So next time you think about emailing me (or your sponsor) to ask for help because you can’t think of anything to write in your autoresponder followup messages..

Check your ‘swipe folder’ and then show me what you CAN do, as opposed to what you CAN’T do.

This process will save you a TON of time, and a TON of frustration. Being resourceful will get your freedom back.

That’s it for now, please comment below if this helps you out at all.

See ya.

– Geoff Stephen

P.S. This is something I’m going to be showing you EXACTLY how to do at our upcoming workshop. If you’re interested in getting some REAL one-on-one training, click here to check it out.

Repurposing Content for Endless Traffic and Leads

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So… you have yourself a blog.

And you just wrote a great piece of content that you’re SURE will help your readers get ahead..

So you post your content to your blog, maybe mail your link out to your list.. and you’re done, right?

Wrong.

If that’s all you do with your great content, you are seriously missing out on a lot more traffic and leads for your business.

What you need to learn how to do is to “repurpose” your content.

What that means is to take the content you created, and “repurpose” it to be distributed through other means.

Sure, a blog post is a blog post. But why leave it at that? Why not turn it into as many other types of content that you can? If you leave it as it is.. consider it a waste of your time and talent.

Here’s what I mean…

Take your blog post and ….

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  • Turn it into an article and submit it to the main article directories
  • Turn it into a podcast by just reciting what you just wrote
  • Turn it into a youtube or vimeo video
  • Turn it into a youtube video with simple power point slides
  • Turn it into a slide share
  • Turn it into an autoresponder message
  • Turn it into an email broadcast to your list
  • Turn it into a presentation and make a training video on it
  • Turn it into a webinar training
  • Turn it into a ‘free report’ that you give away to help build your list
  • Turn it into an ebook to sell (or part of an ebook)
  • Turn it into a press release
  • Break it up into parts and create more related content..

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.. and don’t forget to link everything back to your blog or your capture page and SHARE SHARE SHARE

So there’s a few ideas to get you started.

Just keep creating value for your readers and share your value through as many distribution channels as you can with the time you have available. There’s no need to create a new piece of content for each, just repurpose the content you’ve already created.

The traffic is there, just go and GET IT!

Thanks for reading – LIKE it if you like it 🙂

– Geoff Stephen

http://globalnpn.com

How Do I Get More Leads for My Business?

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Hello all..

Here’s a question for ya:

So what’s the most important ‘skill’ you need to master in order to become successful in online marketing?

I suppose the answer could be things like..

Generating traffic, generating leads, writing good ad copy, using social media productively, talking on the phone to your prospects… anything like that.

Most people will say it’s a combination of many skills… which I would have to say is certainly true.

But..

A lot of people tend to focus on one or two things, and a lot of times those are the wrong things to focus on.

I get this question asked more than any other question:

“How do I generate more leads online?”

.. and then this question always comes in second place:

“How do I get more traffic?”

It seems like everyone needs to get more leads for their business. Fair enough, and probably true.

Here’s how the conversation goes after they ask me how to generate more leads…

Me: “What are you going to do with more leads?”

Them: “Ummm.. I dunno, get ’em in my autoresponder and then sell them stuff! Isn’t that the whole idea??”

Me: **sigh** “Well, I suppose that’s part of the ‘whole idea’. But do you know how to convert those leads into sales?”

Them: “Not really… but everyone need more leads!”

.. and it goes like that.

I guess my point here is that yes you need more leads, and yes you need more traffic… but who cares about that if you can’t make sales? What’s the point?

It’s like having a popular clothing store without a cash register. Lots of interest, no revenue. What’s the point?

There’s 4 “how to” things to learn in online marketing, and the 3rd and 4th ones are almost always ignored:

  1. How to get targeted traffic to your website
  2. How to convert that traffic into leads for your business
  3. How to convert your leads into sales, distributors, or customers
  4. How to keep those customers interested enough to want to keep buying from you

That’s it.

It seems like this entire industry is focused on getting more leads, and then selling training to those leads on how to get more leads, which trains your leads how to get more leads by selling training on how to get more leads…

See what I mean? Funny how that works. What ends up happening is you getting leads and selling ‘lead generation’ stuff to them. And that’s as far as it gets. And it sucks because nobody gets any further into your marketing funnel, and you don’t make any more money.

So my advice is to NOT forget about item #3 and #4 above. It’s NOT all about getting leads and traffic.

It’s about making sales and creating relationships with your customers.

Have a great day!

– Geoff.

Top Reasons Why I Started an Online Business From Home

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Why I Started an Online Business From Home

Hello all..

When thinking about starting an online business from home, we sometimes forget to think about the reasons why we would want to do such a thing – apart from earning an extra income from the internet.

I mean, we all have an entrepreneur mindset and we all want to make money online, but I often ask myself the real reasons why I do this, and why I did this in the first place.. so I came up with a list that I’d like to share with you. Perhaps you have the same motivations as I do.

Off the top of my head, here are my top 6 reasons:

1. FREEDOM. This is kind of a tricky one, because having a home business can absolutely give you the freedom that you wouldn’t get from an ‘ordinary’ job. However, it can also take away some of the freedom as well if you don’t have the self discipline to walk away from your business when it is needed. Having the freedom to set my own schedule and work my own hours has always been my main motivation in starting and running my own online business.

2. FAMILY TIME. I have 3 kids at home and it was always my intention to find some way to make a living while still being able to hang out with my family. Running your own home business can give you that freedom. I get to take my kids to school, pick them up from school, and never miss any of their sports or activities.

3. UNLIMITED INCOME. If you have a j.o.b., you are essentially trading hours for dollars. That’s it. And almost always, you consider yourself as being underpaid. Unfortunately, when you’re working for someone else there is no way around that, ever. With an online business there is literally no limit to the amount of money you make. Really, you end up being paid what you’re worth based on the value you bring to your industry.

4. WORKING WITH COOL PEOPLE. When you’re running your own business, you have a choice as to who you work with. You’re not forced to deal with co-workers that you can’t get along with, you’re not forced to have a boss that just doesn’t like you. You get to work with people that you can actually be productive with. People that are like you. People that have the same goals and dreams as you do. That fact alone is a big reason to do this.

This is my coffee shop desk as it looked while I wrote this blog post on why I run an online business from home.

5. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. When your entire business is an online business, you can be practically anywhere and still run your business. I’ve run my business from hotel rooms, coffee shops, shopping malls, baseball stadiums, airplanes, restaurants, while driving down the highway (in the passenger seat of course;), and even on a ride at Disneyland. With smart phones you don’t even need wifi anymore, the sky’s the limit (literally!). Nobody has to know where you are either, which is part of the package. (Word from the wise: you also have to learn when to turn it all off!)

6. LIFESTYLE.  I suppose this is kind an “all in one” reason. The lifestyle is what you get when you have a successful home business. You’re working your own hours, you’re making good money, you’re dealing with good people, and you have the time freedom to be wherever you want, whenever you want. It’s all part of the lifestyle.

So in a nutshell, those are my main reasons and motivations for doing this online business thing. What are your motivations for doing this? Money? Fame? Fun?

Let me know in your comments!

Thanks,

Geoff Stephen