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It has been shown in the past few years that social media has a lead-to-close rate that is a full 100% higher than traditional outbound marketing strategies. Engaging with an audience is obviously critical for the success of your business, but many budding entrepreneurs and even some senior marketing analysts are unaware of the best tips and tricks. Let us look at a handful of the most effective and innovative strategies which can help elevate your presence and reputation to the next level.

Interrogative Engagement

In other words, the audience should be engaged with a question in order to produce a response. Let us look at these two examples:

“Recent studies have shown that Facebook is the best social media tool for businesses”.

“What do you think about the recent studies that have pointed out the business prowess of social media?”

The second text is much more likely to generate a response from any visitor or follower. The longer a discussion is kept alive, the higher the chances are of breeding a loyal and responsive fan base. In turn, they are likely to examine the products or services that you are offering.

Quizzes and Polls

Many social media sites give you the ability to create polls and quizzes that members can take. This is a great way to enable a post to go viral while simultaneously curating solid leads for future contact. Let us never forget that in the same respect, such questionnaires are excellent ways to keep your finger on the proverbial pulse of your targeted demographic. By understanding their opinions, you will be able to focus your services around their needs.

The Power of the Video

It has been shown that a massive 65% of individuals will visit the website of a marketer after watching their video found on a social media site. Videos are a great idea for a few reasons. First, many users are more likely to watch (or listen to) a video while out and about as opposed to reading small text on a smartphone. Secondly, videos put a “face to the name” in terms of product and personality. Another novel way to employ videos is to answer popular questions, introduce a new service or even to make a heartfelt apology to a less-than-satisfied client. Modern videos take proactivity to the next level.

The “Secret” Power of Twitter

While Twitter is a great social media portal, it boasts another lesser-known advantage. You may have not been aware that you can become your own “secret shopper” by adding a simple term in the upper search field. Employ the search.twitter.com URL and simply enter in the word “wish” immediately before your service or brand. This associates “wish” with relevant phrases such as “I wish company ABC would bring back their old product from last year.” This is a quick and easy way to scroll through any feedback that you may have received in order of the date that it was originally added.

Speaking of Tweets

There are some who have recently stated that repeat Tweets serve very little purpose. This is only partially true. Those fragments which have generated little feedback or interest should naturally be discarded. However, any Tweets that have received massive responses or engagement should OBVIOUSLY be repeated until their usefulness has run its course. Should you determine that higher clickthrough rates are associated with a particular Tweet, run with it.

Put ROI Aside

No one wants to feel like they are being sold something every time they visit a social media page. Posts such as “buy this” or “take advantage of our latest offer” are now becoming trite and redundant. Simply put, people are becoming much more finicky. It is wise to throw out the self-serving jargon and start real conversations. Find fun and interesting ways to plug your product without putting off your visitors.

Keeping Ahead of the Curve

One of the issues that many marketers encounter is that they simply do not have the time to keep track of numerous platforms. In turn, posts can become stale and not nearly enough attention is devoted to this powerful medium. Much like in any other analytical campaign, use software that enables you to centralize, collate and interpret how things are going. Packages such as Hootsuite are great at cutting down on the clutter and enabling you to determine exactly what it is that you should be doing.

Social media is an ever-evolving organism. So, what worked well yesterday could be outdated tomorrow. These are a few key tips which will help you to focus your efforts in the right place and understand what it is that your audience desires.

Are you stressed by online marketing? The majority of you are, even when earning what could be seen as ‘decent’ money for relatively little work by comparison. But you are still frustrated. Why is this? Why do you want more and why can’t you get it?

There are two very basic and overlooked reasons for this:

1. You are overwhelming yourself with too many tasks and not breaking it down into manageable chunks – therefore giving up altogether on the main goals.

2. You are comparing yourself to the guru ‘ideal’. That is, you are asking – “Why am I not making millions NOW? Like Frank or Bill or Super Marketing man?! They said it was easy and to just follow!’

Let me explain the traps of both these reasons.

Firstly – don’t take too much on. You’ll say to me now – ‘But then I’ll not do it fast enough’. Trust me, if you don’t take it in pieces you can manage, steps that are realistic, you’ll not do it fast enough anyway – because you’ll throw in the towel, get frustrated, say it’s all a big scam and GIVE UP before you know it. If this wasn’t true, there’d be billionaires made online all day, every day.

No one really wants to give up. It’s just they’re not chunking. Nothing can become too hard or too much to do if you just break it down.

For example:

Are you stressed by the idea of running your online business as it stands? Is it a drag? Are you afraid to scale up?

Well, the best way to deal with a stressful situation like this is to break it down into hours. Not days or weeks or your year plan.

Don’t focus on tomorrow or what happened last night, be here in this HOUR.

What do you have to do in just this next hour? Are there any problems in this moment right now?

Stay present. Don’t worry and don’t get caught up in all the things along the line you have to still do to make it work best.

Everything -once you segment- is doable. Easy. It’s the self-created mental overwhelm that harms you. And harms your potential success. Everyone has the exact same resources… You must break it down into chunks.

List the things you can do in this one day, this one evening or morning that will move you a step closer to your goals. That’s it. Even if it’s not much, it’s far more productive than a fruitless frustration that may last the week, achieving nothing.

The second reason, as suggested is – your need to compare your progress with that of the millionaire. The guru.

You must understand that you are making progress. Always. If you’re reading this now, you are making progress. But you will not notice how much you are doing and self-sabotage by accident because you’re too busy asking:

“Why am I not where he is? Why does she earn more money when I’m doing the same thing?”

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a vision to be like your guru or idol – this is helpful and gives you a future aim. But wouldn’t it be smarter to compare your progress with those around you, your peers… ones that started at the same time as you. Not guys that are full-scale experts on this bandwagon for decades or the ones who have gotten lucky in their timing, approach or product. This is not you. Stop comparing yourself with the stars. It will harm you because you will be blinded to your own progress because you will be constantly frustrated by your level of results compared to the guru’s results.

If you need some healthy competition to keep you going and keep you on target, your best bet is to compare yourself with friends and peers on YOUR LEVEL.

Yes, the guru should always be in your mind but it must be maintained as the vision, the ultimate aim – and not as the crutch that’s holding you back by frustrated comparison with your current progress. This will get you nowhere.

My advice? If you want to beat anyone at the IM game… Beat yourself from yesterday.

Be your own personal best, every day, and one day you will be the “guru” that others aspire toward.

The only way you can fail is to give up. If you don’t give up, you can never fail, and it is only a matter of time before your perseverance pays off. Trust me, it’s true.

For example:

Have you heard of Theodor Seuss Geisel? Or perhaps you’ve heard of Dr. Seuss?

Theodor studied at Dartmouth College and Oxford University because he planned to become a series writer. But the Great Depression saw him working as a cartoonist and advertising illustrator just to get by.

Deciding to launch his writing career with a children’s book, Theodor wrote, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

Unfortunately the manuscript was rejected 27 times. 27! Imagine going to 27 different publishers and having every single one of them say, “NO!” No doubt you’d want to throw the manuscript out, which is exactly what Theodore planned to do.

As chance would have it, he ran into an old college friend who happened to be working for a children’s publisher. Yes, the book was published, and Dr. Seuss went on to write over 40 books that have sold over 200 million copies. He won Emmy and Peabody Awards and even a Pulitzer Prize.

So what would have happened if Theodore had thrown out his manuscript after his 27th rejection? He wouldn’t have had it to give to his friend. And likely he would have given up and stayed in cartooning and advertising.

Never give up.

One more story…

You’ve probably never heard of Paul Rokich. He was born in Utah, near a sulfur dioxide belching refinery that destroyed everything around it. The place looked awful, so Paul vowed he would bring back the trees that had been destroyed by the sulfur.

But the refinery refused to give him permission to replant the trees. So Paul went off to college to study Botany, where his professor told him nothing would ever grow in such a wasteland.

But Paul didn’t give up. Years later he began sneaking back onto the refinery grounds and planting seedlings week after week. Most of his seedlings died, but he kept planting. Drought killed many, some were destroyed by fire, others were dug up by workers, and most just wouldn’t grow in the poor soil. But then, some of them started to grow. And animals began returning to the area.

Eventually Paul got permission to be on the land. He got machines and a crew to help him, and today the area is 14,000 acres of trees, bushes, plants and wildlife.

Even when things seem impossible and beyond your control, and even when your efforts prove futile time and time again, just keep planting.

Because sooner or later, persistence always pays off.

You’ve got a terrific offer that’s converting at 10% with earnings per click of $1.50. Anyone who mails for you is bound to make money. So why is it when you email potential JV partners, you don’t hear back from them?

Let’s look at it from the perspective of the JV partner. They probably get 2-5 emails a day just like yours. They already have a lot going on. They already have a lot of income coming in. They’re not desperate to mail, but they know if they do they will make money. So they need to get around to it, and they will, but it’s probably not going to be with your product unless you make it super easy for them.

Yes, you’re going to have email swipes in place and everything ready to go, but that’s not exactly what we’re talking about.

When someone gets your JV request, she has to review your product to see if it’s any good. That alone is generally going to take an hour or more. If she likes it, she’ll want to form her own opinion of it so she can tell her list. More time. Then she’s got the whole autoresponder thing to deal with. It’s an investment of time for her, for sure. Frankly, she’d rather be doing something else.

So to help push her in the direction of choosing to do this work for your product, here’s what you can do:

Don’t ask for the promotion because that’s what everyone else does. Instead, let her know you’ve got a ‘ready to go promotion’ for her mailing schedule next week if she hasn’t already filled it.

Provide a swipe email or two with her affiliate link already inserted into it. Provide a review copy. Provide all the details, like: Earnings per click, conversion rate, commission, who has promoted it, etc.

By saying it’s a ready to go promo and giving all the details up front, you are standing apart from every other product owner who is saying, “My product is great and I’m great and you should promote me.”

You’re focusing on what the JV partner needs and wants, and what’s in it for HER, not for you. Yes, it doesn’t seem like a big difference. But like anything else, it’s not just what you have but how you present what you have that can make all the difference.

Are you getting something expensive done for your business? For example, are you having some special software made just for you? That might set you back a couple of thousand dollars, but not if you’re smart.

When you tell your coder what you want, ask him to create a stand alone version that you can sell to others. It might be a blank version with no graphics or banners that you can then sell at a premium rate to other marketers, who can then brand the software and sell it under their own name.

This might cost a little more money up front, but the money you earn on selling the software will likely pay for the whole deal, and maybe even put you in profit.

What if you’re having your lawyer draw up legal forms for your website? Same thing. Ask your lawyer to make generic versions you can then sell to other marketers who can’t afford a lawyer. Make it clear that they need to do their own due diligence, and that you are not offering legal advice.

Anytime you are paying for anything pricey, ask yourself how you can turn the expense into a profit stream. It’s a simple shift in your mindset that can greatly reduce your overhead and even put some extra money in your pocket.

I know a marketer who subscribes to a PLR membership. He gets good stuff, usually video courses that are quite extensive. When he finds a course he likes, he renames it and gets new graphics for it so it looks like it’s his.

So far so normal, right?

But this is where it gets good. Instead of just selling it like you would any other course, he offers it as a personal mentoring course that lasts for 30 or 45 days. And he sells it for $297 to $497, depending on the contents of the course and the duration he chooses for the course length.

Then he simply makes himself available via email and twice a week via Skype to answer any questions. Of course he makes sure he knows the topic well, but anyone who’s been marketing for any length of time will know the basics well enough to do this.

He also limits the number of people who can join to somewhere between 10 and 25, depending again on the course. This creates urgency, and it’s not uncommon for him to completely fill a class. But even if he only sold a couple of mentoring courses, he would still be plenty in profit since his monthly membership is only $49.

The real work is done by the students as they progress through the course. He just answers questions. It’s a great deal for both him and the students, since they are learning by doing and they have someone to go to with questions. And he doesn’t put in much work to make the profit he gets.

If you’ve got a decent amount of Internet Marketing experience yourself, you may consider this for an additional income stream.

What if you were to do the exact same work and put in the exact same effort on your next product, only you made 3 tiny changes and increased your income? Here’s how…

1. Change the commission amount that you offer to affiliates. If you normally give 100% to build your list, try offering just 60 or 70% instead. Surprisingly, your affiliates will often send just as much traffic, but you get to profit as well.

Alternative: Bump the commission up to 100%. If you normally pay 50%, try bumping it up this time instead. Then offer an upsell in which you either split the commission with affiliates, or take it all yourself.

2. Insert referral links into your product. This is old school but it still works. Choose a product or two of your own that fit well with the product you’re selling and talk them up inside your new product. Don’t oversell, just mention how they will help out with whatever it is they do.

Alternative: Add the sales pages for the products as index.html files into your download zip. Or better yet, do both.

3. Place links for other products on your download page. This is prime real estate and a great place to make other offers.

Alternative: Offer your best affiliates a link to their product on your download page if they will promote your product like crazy. This works really, really well at motivating some affiliates. Decide if you want to split the profits from their products with them, or let them keep 100% of the profits.

It is surprising how often simple little tweaks can substantially add to your bottom line. You just have to test things out and see what works best for you – it’s well worth the extra few minutes it takes.

This won’t make you rich but it can make you a full time income… Every day there are new people wanting to do Internet marketing, but they don’t want to do the work. If you can take the pain of the work away from them, they will pay you handsomely for it.

The pain is in the actual “doing” of the thing. So you do the “thing” for them. What’s the “thing?” It could be creating their first product, setting up their sales funnel, building their website, writing their blog posts, putting a list building system in place… anything that needs to be done to start an online business qualifies.

Let’s say someone wants to have their own website but doesn’t know where to start. “I will create your website for you” is going to resonate with them. So you create a professional website for your customer, and then when you’re in profit and have your own service you can start marketing – you outsource the rest of the website development while you focus on building your next service.

Yes, it really can be that simple. Watch to see what people want when they’re starting their online businesses, then jump in and be the one to give it to them. It’s a guaranteed plan to make money online now, and far into the future.

That’s right – you can make 50% for products you haven’t even created or sold, simply by offering this service. There are plenty of people out there who have created products but are reluctant to bring them to market. Why? Probably because they either don’t want to spend the money it takes to launch a product, or they don’t know how to do it, or they’re simply scared. The reasons don’t matter so much. What does matter is they’ve got a great product that will sell, if it’s given the chance.

You can offer to launch the product for them.

You put up the sales page, create the membership page if it needs one, write the sales letter and get the graphics done. Or you can outsource the entire thing, depending on if you’d rather do it yourself or pay someone else to do it.

In exchange, you get 50% of the profits. The product owner gets the other 50%, of course. You get 50% of profits from sales, 50% of recurring sales, 50% access to the list and 50% if you sell off the product.

Be sure to get this in writing. Never assume, even if it’s someone you’ve known for years.

This is a win-win for both of you. The product creator gets their product out there and gets 50% of sales. You don’t have to create a product. You just handle the marketing. If you have a list and JV contacts, this will be even easier. If not, budget for solo ads, Facebook ads or Google Ads to get the ball rolling.

If you’ve never launched your own product, you might want to do that first to get the experience. Then go to forums like Warrior and find folks who have products and need help launching. Be choosy about which products you want to launch. And then make it a big success for both of you.

You already know about the BIG THREE niches: Health, Relationships and Money. It’s been estimated that as much as 80% of online revenue has something to do with these 3 niches. Of course, if you’re going into one of these niches, you’re going to want to niche it down a whole lot more. For example, Health could be: Weight loss, yoga, running, herbal remedies, healthy cooking, etc. The list is endless.

But how often do you find a great niche that isn’t in one of these three categories? That is, how often do you find a hot niche that isn’t overrun with competition? Not too often. That’s why when I stumbled on this niche, I had to tell you.

Of course, this niche is nothing novel or new. It’s simply overlooked by the vast majority of marketers. Which is a shame because it’s highly profitable and the buyers in this niche will fork over big bucks to get solutions to their problems.

So what’s the niche? Education. It’s a multi-million dollar category with an endless stream of parents ready and willing to pay to help their kids.

If you go into this niche, you’ll again want to sub-niche it down to a particular field (math) or grade level (anything from kindergarten all the way to university).

Imagine a young parent with a child who is struggling in school. Is that parent willing to pay for a course or book to help the child? You bet. How about a parent who is worried their child won’t get into a good university, or worried they can’t afford one, or just wants to help their child write term papers – the list is endless.

If you have a teaching background, or if you can enlist the help of teachers, you could probably make a small fortune in this niche. At the very least you could publish a line of Kindle books on tips and tricks to do well in each grade of school, and another series of books to show parents how to help their kids. The possibilities? Endless.