Did you mean that I should pay for traffic after I do this even though my services aren’t ready? I expect a 6/1 launch date (I hope!), so do I wait or perhaps pay for some text ads on Google, now? A 125×125 ad here or there? What do you suggest?

Hi Nicole.

I’m going to make this a two-part answer. In this post, I’ll address the specific components you want to have in place on your site before you set up any type of paid advertising. Then, in part two, we’ll look at the pros and cons of Pay-per-click and banner advertising and explore when it makes sense to use them.

And since you have been bold enough to ask your question publicly, I’m going to use your site – www.picknicksbrain.com – as an example. I hope you don’t mind.

In an online marketing campaign, there are many variables. Some of those variables are within your control and some of them are not. In this post we’re going to look at the variables that are completely within your control: Namely, your website’s homepage, landing pages, subscriber sign up form, etc. Each of these components will be crucial in the success of your online marketing. And each of these factors is completely within your control.

As I mentioned in the previous post I recommend a two – or more – step process of converting prospects into customers. You can certainly attempt to convert new visitors into customers on their first visit, but experience and testing has shown that converting a new visitor to a subscriber first almost always leads to a higher customer conversion rate down the line.

Looking at your site, I see that you’ve added a Free Quick Guide to the sidebar. Great! That gives visitors an opportunity to join your list and get a valuable resource.

Now lets take a look at your offer and see if we can spruce it up a bit for the visitors who are going to be pouring in soon!

First, the offer itself gets lost on the page. There’s nothing to set it apart from the other links. I honestly didn’t even notice it the first time I went to your site. That’s not good!

This offer should be your primary focus. It should one of the first things – if not THE first thing – that your visitors see.

Use a different color. Use a larger font. Create a graphic. Experiment with different styles and then measure your conversion rate.

If you’re using Aweber for your email list, experiment with their excellent and easy to create pop-ups, hover and lightbox ads. In one test I ran, a static signup form converted at 7% and a lightbox signup form converted at 34%!

Second, consider changing the title of the offer. Instead of Free Quick Guide, which doesn’t tell me much about the product, consider using a title that focuses on the benefit your product offers. In this case it could be something like:

• Help Your Child Sleep Soundly – A Free Guide
• End Your Sleepless Nights… And Your Child’s – Get Your Free Guide Now!
• Sleep Like a Baby While Your Baby Sleeps Through the Night…

You get the idea. Zero in on the benefit your product provides and make that your title.

Next let’s look at your sign up form. When you’re converting a first time visitor to a subscriber always remember that Less is More! At this point in the process you don’t need to know their address and the number of children they have. Would it be nice to know? Of Course. But keep in mind that every extra field your visitor has to fill in decreases your conversion rate!

At this point in the process I would recommend you ask for their name and email address and that’s it!

And just as every extra field on your form means lost subscribers, every extra click also translates to lost subscribers. So put the entire form in your sidebar. Let people sign up right there. No need to click through to a sign up page.

And if you do it this way, you can use Aweber’s excellent split-testing feature to test different copy, colors, etc. You can even test the conversion rates on a form with name and email only versus one with name, email, address, and number of children. (You could discover that in your target market your conversion rate is higher when you ask for more info!)

Now what about your landing page?

If you are going to launch a paid advertising campaign you will definitely want a landing page devoted to your Free Quick Guide… er… The Secrets of Sleeping Babies Free Report!

You can use your existing sign up page, but flesh it out a bit. Start by changing the title as mentioned above. Then list some of the key things they will learn when they download the free report. Use bullets and focus on benefits. If you have testimonials include a couple of great ones here. If you don’t have testimonials, now would be a good time to ask for some!

You want to make this landing page as good as any sales page. This is your chance to get people into your system. If you don’t convert them now, they may not return. (But don’t worry too much; there are millions of others out there!)

So here’s your pre-paid-advertising checklist:

• Create a benefit-focused title for your free report
• Make your sign up form eye-catching
• Remove all extraneous fields from your sign up form (just name and email for now)
• Set up split tests with different types of sign up forms (hover, pop up, lightbox, etc)
• Create a landing page with bulleted benefits and testimonials

Once you’ve got those pieces in place it will be time to look at your paid advertising options. I’ll be posting part two of this answer later this week.

Thank you so much for any advice you might have on this subject.

Nicole – PickNicksBrain.com

Hi Nicole

First of all congratulations! You’ve got a great looking site with excellent information!

As far as advertising goes I would encourage you to hold off until you set up a system for capturing visitor emails. You want to immediately start to convert visitors into subscribers.

It’s great that you’ve got your blog set up for both RSS and Email subscriptions. But since you are focusing more of your attention on the business side of things you’ll also want to have a separate email list.

Keep in mind that a more effective and sustainable approach to online marketing is to take a long-term view. Your primary goal should NOT be to sell to visitors the first time they come to your site. That might make you money up front, but you’ll be losing out on the ongoing sales.

Instead, focus on providing great information (you’re already starting to do that) and encourage people to join your list with an incentive – a free report or recording of a teleclass for instance. My guess is that you already have some material that you could easily turn into a free report and offer as a sign up incentive.

These visitors who convert into subscribers are much more likely to become customers and, if you treat them right, they will very likely become customers for life!

That’s what you want.

Even when you begin advertising, I encourage you to think of it as a two-step process.

1. Convert visitors to subscribers.
2. Convert subscribers to customers.

On the technical side I recommend two email solutions:

If you want an integrated solution that includes a shopping cart, email and autoresponder management, and affiliate management you’ll want to go with 1ShoppingCart. I’ve been using it for over 3-years and it keeps getting better.

That said, the individual parts of an all-in-one solution will never be as good as a dedicated solution. So if you are just looking for a top-notch email and autoresponder system, I recommend Aweber. I am in the process of migrating my list from 1ShoppingCart to Aweber mainly for its higher email deliverability. But I am also enjoying the ease of use, the enhanced testing and tracking functions and their flexible blog subscriptions.

Whatever email service you choose, make sure it has – and you use – double or confirmed opt in for your list. Even though your list will be a bit smaller, it will be more responsive and more legal!

To your success!

Ed

Email is arguably one of the both best and worst productivity tools on the planet. Although I get over 1000 emails a week, with the following tips, the ones I actually have to manage and respond to are about 200-300 a week. It’s still a lot and a big time drain, but I’m far better off than I used to be, wading through 1000+ emails, trying to figure out what to do with each one of them:

• I am an email filter junkie. I have over 100 filters set up in my email client that automatically deliver emails to their proper folders, which drastically reduces the amount of time I spend managing messages. Here’s the general breakdown of how I have my inbox organized:
  • The ONLY things that come into my regular inbox are those that require a review or response. I have folders set up for newsletters, affiliate and ad network announcements, blog comments, & social media messages (”Julie has sent you a shout on Digg!” ).
  • I have an “Unimportant” folder set up for any miscellaneous messages that I want to review, but I don’t need to reply to, such as Google Alerts and the latest person following me on Twitter.
  • I have a “Good Networking” folder set up for messages from social networking sites that I love using, like WorkItMom, Facebook & LinkedIn. I go through these folders weekly.
  • This allows me to ensure that the important messages I need to see are the ones that remain in my inbox, like messages from friends, colleagues & my contact form.
• I set up automatic deleting rules. In Thunderbird (and I’m sure Outlook can do it too), when you set up folders, you can tell the program to automatically delete things in that folder older than any length of time you want. Unimportant things are deleted in 7 days. My junk mail folder deletes after 24 hours. You can also set up rules so that some messages just go directly into the trash. I do this for some automatic emails I get that I know I don’t need to see or file.

• I have a Turbo-Charged Contact Page. As email started piling up, I started answering frequently asked questions directly on my contact page.
  • Bloggers needing help are directed to my free 10 Days to a Better Blog eCourse.
  • Media is directed to the Press Room.
  • PR professionals are given strict instructions on how to not piss me off when they spam me, I mean, send me their pitches (I do like to get relevant info from PR pros, it’s the irrelevant stuff that really drives me nuts).
  • Potential Advertisers have their own page
  • And I use an advanced contact form plugin that allows users to email any author on the site directly (instead of coming to me, which would have to be forwarded anyway)

For more on managing email, Chris Brogan just turned me on to Leo Babauta’s guest post 10 Steps to Become an Email Ninja on Tim Ferriss’ blog, and Dawud’s post Why You Should Be Filtering Your Email.

Back to our Monday Motivation

Usually, I encourage you to post your to-do list for the day, the week, or whatever works for you, and then let us know what it will take to motivate you to get it done. In order for me to get through a tough project, I need accountability and self-imposed consequences. Other people need a big fat reward to get things done. Whatever works for you, works for Monday Motivation.

Today, I challenge you to tackle your email and set up folders and/or filters to kick off 2007 with an organized and easy(er) to manage inbox. And today before I go to sleep I will:

Completely empty my inbox down to 0 messages, and update my incoming mail filters as well. Leverage :: If I don’t get this done by tonight, I will withdraw my entry into the Elance Win a Virtual Assistant Contest. And knowing how desperately I need to win that contest, I assure you, I will get this done!

Edited to add: I just created about 50 more email filters, and immediately dropped from 670 emails down to 508. It’s still a pile, but now I don’t have to review 162 emails! Woot!

So who is willing to tackle their inbox today?

Leave a comment or write up a post on your own blog, and get Motivated this Monday!