It’s hard to sometimes know just what you’re supposed to put on each page of your funnel, including your, ‘thank you for subscribing’ page.
You need to reassure new subscribers that they did the right thing. You’ve got to let them know how to get the lead magnet. And you want to convince them to click on that email and follow the instructions.
And you need to do it all in as few words as possible.
Here’s a template you can use for the page new subscribers see when they opt into your list to get your free lead magnet:
Success! Your request has been received!
Here’s What to Do Next
We have received your request for [insert name of lead magnet]…
These secrets will help you [benefit] and [benefit] without [pain point] …
And much, much more!
My system is in the process of sending you the access link via the email address you provided: [their email address]
“Oh No!!
I typed my email in wrong! What do I do?”
Mistakes happen!
If your email address above has an error, or you would like to receive access to a different email address, please Click Here
to correct your email address.
Otherwise, check your email now for a message from:
[Exact ‘from’ field of the email message they will receive]
The subject line will be:
[Exact subject line of the email]
I’ll see you in your email inbox!
[Your Salutation]
[Your Name]
“What to do if you DON’T get the access email?”
1) Don’t panic — we’re on your side.
2) Check your SPAM, Junk, or Promotions folder/tabs
3) Click here to join our Help Desk. We’ll get you taken care of!
Do just one of these and your sales will increase.
Do all 4 and it’s entirely possible your sales will at least double.
1: Pre-qualify your leads.
Also known as list-segmentation, this technique finds the right prospects for the right products.
For example, let’s say you have a content page covering a broad topic, such as social media marketing.
Give your readers multiple options to follow in the sidebar and at the bottom of the page, like this:
Which one of these do you want to know more about…
Marketing via Facebook?
Marketing via Snapchat?
Marketing via Instagram?
Each button sends them to an appropriate squeeze page where they get a free lead magnet on that topic.
Now you know for a fact that this list is interested in Facebook, that list is interested in Snapchat and so forth.
This allows you to zero in on your prospects and offer them exactly what they want.
2: Tell the Truth
If you’re in the online marketing niche, let them know that building a business online takes time and money.
If you’re in the weight loss niche, let them know that losing weight and keeping it off takes time and effort.
Whatever niche you’re in, you want to deter people who are looking for magic answers because they will drain you of your time and energy, as well as refund like crazy.
Plus, you are also sending the message to everyone else that you are the real deal and don’t make ridiculous promises you can’t keep.
3: Increase Your Emails
Add more follow up emails to every sequence and you will make more sales.
Don’t get trapped into thinking everyone sees every email you send out, and thus you only need to send one or two for each promotion.
And do remember that the more exposure someone has to an offer, the more likely they are to buy it.
It could be the fourth, fifth or even tenth email of a series that finally makes the sale.
4: Romance New Subscribers
For the first week after someone joins your list, send them plenty of high-quality free content along with all the reasons why they should buy your upsell.
Do this right and you’ll be amazed at how many more people buy your initial upsell. Your lead magnet is still fresh on their mind. They’ve seen your upsell on your thank you page and your download page, so that’s on their mind as well.
Now just follow up with lots of great info and remind them of why they want and need your upsell.
Add in a deadline to get special pricing, and sales should go through the roof.
Trying to recruit affiliates is a lot easier if you can offer 100% commission on the front-end product and 50% commission on each upsell.
If you only have a front-end product, the profit potential tends to go down and it’s a little harder to attract those affiliates.
But what if you don’t have any upsells to your product, and you don’t want to create any, either?
Here are a few ideas:
If you’re selling software, you might offer a multi-site license or a developer’s license as your upsell. For that matter, you can offer all three on the main sales page, and price it in such a way that nearly all the buyers take the most expensive choice.
For example, the plug-in alone might be $29, the multi-site license might be $33, and the developer’s license might be $37. Who isn’t going to take the third option? I’ve seen sales go through the roof with this kind of offer, to the point where you don’t need upsells because your conversion rate is so high, there’s plenty of profit for you and your affiliates.
Or let’s say you’re selling content, like a report, book or some videos. You might sell it outright on the main sales page, and then offer resell rights and PLR rights as your upsells.
How about offering coaching as the upsell? Your main product tells them how to achieve the result they’re looking for, and your first upsell is a series of calls to answer questions, and your second upsell is email coaching, and your third upsell is one-on-one coaching or even a “we do it for you” type of service.
Even offering different formats can act as an upsell. Maybe your main product is a PDF report for $9. Your first upsell is the audio version for $12, and your second upsell is a video version for $29, discounted by $12 if they took the audio option and the full $29 price if they didn’t.
You don’t always need to add more products for your upsells. Usually there is something you can offer that takes almost no extra effort – such as the Word files for PLR or the rights to use software on multiple sites. Or instead of additional products you can offer more services, such as coaching calls, email coaching and one-on-one coaching.
Take from this what you will. I’m not recommending you do what I’m about to describe, nor am I saying you shouldn’t do it, either.
Okay, here we go:
From time to time I get emails from someone (Not in the IM niche) with subject lines that look like this:
Re: Ticket # 73652430
Then in the email he goes on to explain that this ‘ticket’ is my discount on a certain product of his. Sometimes the discount is half price, sometimes it’s like 95% off.
Obviously, he’s making the email look like the reply to a support ticket. And yes, it gets my attention. In fact, Google sometimes even flags these emails as being important in my inbox, which is kind of rare for me.
He only uses this headline now and then, because if he did it all the time it wouldn’t work. Or at least, I don’t think it would, since I haven’t tested it.
As I always say, don’t take my word for it and test everything.
It might be worth noting that this guy seldom promotes anything that isn’t his own products.
Anyway, I wouldn’t even be telling you about this subject line except for one thing: I buy stuff from this guy’s emails. So yes, his emails are working, including these quasi-bogus ‘ticket’ emails.
Like I said, take from this what you will. While I don’t necessarily support it, I will bet you that his open rates and conversions on these ‘ticket’ emails are high, or he wouldn’t keep doing it.
If you want people to read your work, then never forget these 7 words:
Your blog is not your personal journal.
If you want to journal online, go for it. Just don’t expect that your journal is going to resonate with your audience.
When you make the mistake of making your writing all about you, nobody but you will care.
Yes, stories are great. They’re awesome and if told well, they rock. Yes, you need to share your personality with your reader.
But never forget – you are in competition with every other website on the internet. That includes apps, movies and porn.
Write for your audience. Write TO your audience. Be authentic, unique and sincere.
And always, ALWAYS do at least one of the following:
1: Entertain your audience.
People love to be entertained and they hate to be bored. Make them laugh and make them cry. If you were a stranger reading your writing, would YOU be entertained?
2: Educate your audience.
There’s a reason why “how to” posts are popular. If you can show someone how to get the result they seek, they’ll pay attention. Share what you’ve learned through personal experience and help people to better understand themselves and how to navigate their path.
3: Inspire your audience.
People want hope and change. They want to be inspired, to be lifted up and to see what they can become. Inspiration can be the spark that causes people to do the work to make the change they seek in their lives.
Can you do all three of these at once?
Then your writing will be amazing – and people will read it, share it and come back for more.
First, view your sales page, your opt-in box or anything where you are trying to get a conversion.
What is the dominant color on that page?
Whatever it is, choose a CONTRASTING color for your button to increase conversions.
For example, if your sales page is predominately white and green, choose red for your “Add to Cart” button.
If your opt in box is predominately white and blue, choose orange for your “Send My Free Report” button.
The more you can contrast your call to action buttons with the rest of the page, the higher your conversions will tend to be.
Make your buttons stand out as much as a pink elephant in your kitchen.
Test after test shows this is the way to higher conversions, but then again only one test counts: The test you perform on your own site.
The Power of a Great YouTube Channel Name
Make of this what you will:
While watching a John Oliver “Last Week Tonight” video, I noticed a comment from a user named, “1,000,000 subscribers without any videos challenge.”
Intrigued, I clicked on the name and found an empty channel without a single video. But they do have 3.9K subscribers as of this writing.
Here’s his progress thus far:
50 – 9/5/2019
100 – 9/8/2019
150 – 9/12/2019
250 – 9/18/2019
500 – 10/19/2019
750 – 10/21/2019
1,000 – 10/29/2019
2,500 – 12/06/2019
5,000 –
Two things to note about this achievement:
1: I’m guessing he’s gotten nearly all of his subscribers from comments he’s left on other people’s videos
2: The reason he’s gotten those subscribers is 100% because of his name.
How can you use this information to increase your YouTube subscriber base?
If Your First Language Isn’t English…
…but your target market’s language is English, be sure to get a native English speaker to check your content prior to posting.
Of course, this is true for all languages, not just English.
A recent reminder of the importance of having a native speaker check your work comes from a site I recently visited. The newsletter sign-up box had the following copy:
Unlimited geek help
Leave us handle all the hard work when it comes to set your online business and marketing stack
Give us some more extra info about you by signing-up with Facebook and we re compensate you back.
English is hard.
But losing potential customers because of silly little errors like these is even worse.
Put Yourself in a Unique Position
“When you solve problems and satisfy needs, you put yourself in a unique position. You’re doing something for the customer that he isn’t used to getting from others. The others are simply going along, taking orders, doing what they’re asked to do. They aren’t looking for ways to be of greater value, so they don’t enjoy greater income and opportunities.”
— Harry Browne, How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World
Forget the Passion Mindset
“If you want to love what you do, abandon the passion mindset (‘what can the world offer me?’) and instead adopt the craftsman mindset (‘what can I offer the world?’)”
― Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You
Don’t Spend a Second on These
“No matter who you are, no matter what you do, no matter who your audience is: 30 percent will love it, 30 percent will hate it, and 30 percent won’t care. Stick with the people who love you and don’t spend a single second on the rest. Life will be better that way.”
― James Altucher, Choose Yourself
Don’t Wait Until You Feel Motivated
“Who says you need to wait until you ‘feel like’ doing something in order to start doing it? The problem, from this perspective, isn’t that you don’t feel motivated; it’s that you imagine you need to feel motivated. If you can regard your thoughts and emotions about whatever you’re procrastinating on as passing weather, you’ll realize that your reluctance about working isn’t something that needs to be eradicated or transformed into positivity. You can coexist with it. You can note the procrastinatory feelings and act anyway.” -Oliver Burkeman
Do Silly Names Sell Products?
Way back in the day (which is another way to say I don’t know when this happened, but it was at least 10 years ago) an online marketer recorded a bunch of videos to sell as a product.
The product had something to do with online marketing, but I don’t remember the topic. I also don’t remember who the marketer was, although at the time I think he was pretty well-known.
What I do remember is that while he was recording, a dog in the background kept barking.
And thus, rather than go with a standard name for his product like the, “Get More Traffic!” product or the “Make Tons of $$ with Social Media” product, he called his video set…
“The Barking Dog Videos.”
My point here is simple: After all this time, I STILL remember that name because it was different from everything else out there at the time (or perhaps since, too.)
He could have rerecorded the videos to make them more “professional,” but if he had, I suspect his sales wouldn’t have been as good.
Not only did he have a catchy, memorable name – he also had a STORY that his affiliates could tell in just a few words.
In a nutshell: “Great product, silly name because of a crazy barking dog, check it out.”
I remember a tourist type of place with a huge gift shop and restaurant on a main road on the outskirts of town. I drove by it all the time, and regardless of what time of day it was, the place was PACKED with people.
The name of the place? “The World’s Worst Restaurant.” People stopped just to be able to say they ate at the world’s worst restaurant and shopped at the world’s worst gift shop. You know that when they got home from their vacation, they told their friends about the place.
Would they have told others if it was called the Magnolia Café? I don’t think so. In fact, they probably would have forgotten all about it after a week or two.
We might want to be “professionals,” but the fact is that being different, strange, weird and even fallible will sometimes win out over everything else.
Create great products with just a little bit of built-in gimmicks or craziness and see what happens.
Within the Flow – They say you can get your business name in just 3 seconds. (You might want to take a little longer than that, but hey, who knows? Your first attempt might also be the best. https://www.withintheflow.com/business-name-generator/
Namelix – Generate a short, brandable business name using artificial intelligence. https://namelix.com/
Panabee – Search for domain names, app names and company names. Red broken hearts mean the name is not available and full blue hearts can be yours. https://www.panabee.com/
Embrace Insecurity
“True security lies in the unrestrained embrace of insecurity – in the recognition that we never really stand on solid ground, and never can.” – Oliver Burkeman
Dwell time is the metric that runs through various search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s the time people spend reading those results pages before they go back to Google to take a look at other results. And it might be more important than we thought.
Thanks to apps like TikTok and Snapchat, Instagram’s growth rate has dropped and Pinterest has taken its place as the third largest social media app in the U.S.
Debate flares up over the ownership of ‘.org’ domains
Do you own a .org domain name?
Ethos Capital, a private equity firm, announced that it plans to buy the rights to the cyber neighborhood that is home to big nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations like the United Nations (un.org) and NPR (npr.org), and to little ones like neighborhood clubs.
The deal has been met with a fierce backlash, with good reason.
What Google’s plan for a cookie-free Chrome means for marketers
Google’s Justin Schuh, director of Chrome engineering, recently released a blog post stating that Google Chrome intends to kill off third-party cookies by 2020.
This proposed change introduces friction for advertisers and marketers who continue to rely (for better or worse) on third-party cookie tracking to display relevant ads to users.
Google Updates adds Favicon to Desktop Search Results
Google has been displaying favicons in mobile search results for several months, and now these website icons have been added to desktop and laptop displays as well. Here Google lays out exactly how you can choose what favicon will appear next to your search result.
CCPA, or the California Consumer Privacy Act, is the latest legislation focused on improving how online users can control the data businesses obtain from them, and how those businesses are able to utilize it.
The new law requires updates to your business disclosures, including letting consumers know about the existence of the law, their specific rights in regards to their data, as well as enabling users to obtain copies of, or order the deletion of, their personal information from any business.
Email is still a force to be reckoned with in 2020. Although there are new kids on the block like social media and PPC, email is still as relevant and powerful as ever.
Here is what you are looking at in terms of ROI across the digital landscape:
Email – 59%
Social Media – 21%
Display Ads – 14%
Video – 5%
As you can see, email provides the highest ROI.
The next time someone tells you that email marketing is dead, show them these 141 email marketing stats:
What should marketers be doing about Google’s BERT update?
BERT, or Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, is Google’s most recent algorithmic update to how it processes queries and curates page results. Instead of just using keyword matching, BERT will seek to understand the meaning behind sentences, paragraphs, and the entire article on a page.
Spotify introduces game-changing ad technology for podcasts
Spotify announced a new approach to its podcast marketing technology. The proprietary “streaming ad insertion” (SAI) allows Spotify’s sponsors to deliver targeted ads to podcast listeners through the use of real-time data analysis.
Resources for Collecting and Sending Emails for Free
Are you on a budget? Begin growing your email list with one of these:
Contact form 7: WordPress plugin to collect email addresses
Hello Bar: Displays a bar across the top of the page to get more email subscribers
Mailchimp: You can send 12,000 emails to 2,000 subscribers for free
ManyContactsBar: Free contact form sits on top of your website
Moosend: You can send unlimited Emails to 1,000 subscribers for free
Scroll Triggered Box: This WordPress plugin has consistently increased conversion rates by several times. Be sure to test this one prior to use, as it may not be compatible with all WP sites.
Sumome List Builder: Create professional-looking pop-ups that appear on clicks, timers and before people leave
Sumome Scroll Box: A polite way to ask your visitors for their email address as they finish reading your latest blog post or product page
Click To Tweet: This plugin allows you to easily create tweetable content for your readers right from WordPress. Make it easy to share your content on Twitter, and grow your traffic. https://clicktotweet.com/
Later: Visually plan, schedule and analyze posts for Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. https://later.com/
Crowdfire: Follow / unfollow people on Twitter & Instagram. Automatically discover articles and images your audience will love, so you can share them to all your social profiles and keep your timelines buzzing. https://crowdfireapp.com
SocialRank: Identify, organize, and manage your audience on social media. https://socialrank.com/
Ritetag App: When you share a URL in a social post, forum or email, etc., you get a way to retain your connection with your audience. You can display a text, image or video ad on top of the page that opens when people click that URL. You can entice people to follow you here or there, get newsletter signups, launch a startup or even sell something. https://ritetag.com/
Buffer Free Plan: Craft the perfect post for each social network, all in one place. Plan and publish your content for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn, all from one simple dashboard. https://buffer.com/pricing/publish
Addthis: Simple share buttons and a full suite of website tools like list builder, link promotion, and recommended posts, all for free. Get more shares, follows and conversions. https://www.addthis.com/
Sumo Share: Makes it super easy for your visitors to share your content to their friends, family and others with built-in social media buttons on your site. https://sumo.com/app/share
Disqus: The internet’s favorite comment plug-in makes it easy for publishers to bring their content to life, fuel colorful discussions, efficiently moderate comments, and build engaged communities. https://disqus.com/
Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University.
Browse free online courses in a variety of subjects. Harvard University courses found below can be audited free or students can choose to receive a verified certificate for a small fee.
You’ve probably been hearing the name “PerkZilla” floating around a lot lately. And if you haven’t, just wait – it will make it into your circles and social media networks soon. Everyone’s talking about it, because it’s the most exciting viral rewards platform to come down the pike in a long time.
Simply put: people are loving their traffic, they’re loving their new subscribers and they’re loving all their new sales.
But is PerkZilla right for you? That’s what you’ll find out inside this review. Take a look…
What is PerkZilla?
First things first – just what is PerkZilla?
In a nutshell, it’s a viral rewards platform that lets you give gifts such as products, coupons, contest entries and other rewards to your visitors in exchange for them referring their friends to your website.
That means that one visitor might tell three friends, who tells three more friends, who tells three more friends… and so on. That means that one visitor can turn into dozens of visitors. It’s an incredibly powerful way to get more traffic to your web pages, content and offers!
I’ve been on the inside of PerkZilla, have put it through its paces, and have set up multiple campaigns. So, let me tell you the pros and cons of this platform…
What Are PerkZilla’s Best Features?
There are a lot of really good reasons to fall in love with PerkZilla. Here are the highlights…
PerkZilla is a Hands-Free Way to Drive Traffic
The biggest benefit is that this is a traffic generation method that works completely on autopilot. You set it up once, and your traffic grows on its own! You don’t need to spend hours monitoring your campaigns, and you don’t need to spend any money placing ads. Just tell your existing network and visitors about your content, and they’ll tell all their friends!
It’s Easy to Use
Simon Hodgkinson and Jeremy Gislason built this platform for their own use, to make it easy for them to get more viral traffic without having to do things manually. They built this platform so that anyone can use it on ANY device.
Here’s why it’s so easy to use:
• No downloading or installation required. This is a web-based app, so all you have to do is log into your dashboard to get started.
• No tech experience required. Setting up a viral campaign is as easy as clicking your mouse. The app gives you a bit of code, which you need to paste into your website. It’s easy!
• The dashboard is very user-friendly. The links and features are all intuitively labeled, so you can get your campaigns up and running fast. But if you get stuck, there’s also step-by-step documentation and videos available in the very thorough help section.
• It works on any platform. Whether your users are using phones, tablets or desktops, the links and forms are tested and proven to work across devices and browsers.
Next strength…
PerkZilla is Very Flexible
You’re in complete control when it comes to PerkZilla. Here are some of the factors where you have control:
• You choose how many reward levels to offer. You can offer one reward level, or you can set up multiple levels to encourage even more sharing. Ideally, each level up would offer better rewards.
• You choose the rewards. These could be products (such as ebooks, videos, apps, or memberships), contest entries, discount coupons, or anything else that you can easily deliver by email.
• You can customize most everything. This includes your opt-in forms, emails and more. However, PerkZilla also comes pre-loaded with default settings and pre-written emails, which makes it quick and easy to set up your campaign.
• You can use PerkZilla to promote a wide variety of content and pages. This includes lead pages, sales pages, contests, blog posts, videos, webinar registration pages and more!
Sounds good, right? This platform is easy to use and is proven to drive viral traffic to your contests, lead pages, sales pages, blog content and more. The better rewards you offer, the more traffic you’ll get!
What Are PerkZilla’s Downsides?
No product is perfect, but PerkZilla comes pretty darn close. That’s because it comes with only the features you want and none of the ones you don’t, which keeps it clean, lean and very powerful.
However, there is one downside to PerkZilla…
At the time of writing, you can’t use this platform to promote other peoples’ content (such as your affiliate links), UNLESS you work directly with the person who owns the website. That’s because you need to paste a little snippet of code into the page to make it work.
This isn’t a failing of PerkZilla itself so much as a practical limitation. While certain technologies such as iFrames may work, they’re not very practical for this particular application.
Of course, there is a way around this. If you want to promote an affiliate link, then set up a pre-sell page, and have your visitors refer their friends to THAT page. That way, you still get the viral traffic. You still get to build your list. And you still get to promote your affiliate offer. Only difference is that you don’t need to bother the vendor and have them creating special pages for you and pasting code into it.
Our Verdict?
If you can’t tell by now, we’re REALLY excited about PerkZilla. And that’s why we highly recommend it.
Listen, there are a few competing platforms out there. But there are multiple problems with them. Namely:
1. The competing platforms aren’t flexible enough to handle multiple campaigns. For example, some of these platforms ONLY handle contests. Others only handle giveaways. PerkZilla is different because you can promote any of your web pages, products, contests or content!
2. Some of these platforms force users to utilize their templates. You have nowhere near the power and customizability with these other platforms as you do with PerkZilla. Some of them even force you to use certain social media sites. PerkZilla gives you full control to let your users promote their links however they want.
3. Some of the competing platforms are bloated and confusing. There is a big learning curve, which often results in users simply giving up and abandoning the platform.
PerkZilla overcomes all these problems, as it’s user-friendly, flexible, fully customizable and very powerful.
From now on, it’s my #1 choice in viral rewards platforms. I know it will be yours too once you see what all PerkZilla can do. So, check it out right now at click here – and do it now, because a load of viral traffic awaits you!
You Need to Start With The Right Tools to Be Successful with PLR
If you want to be successful with PLR, then it can be a good idea to invest a little in your business. One of the best ways you can do that is by investing in your hardware and software. By upgrading your capabilities, you will improve your ability to make your own edits to improve upon the original products or just to make them a little better suited to your specific branding (whatever that may be!).
So, what kind of tools can you make use of as a PLR reseller? Here are some of the most useful…
Image Editing and Word Processing
Perhaps the most basic place to start is with word processing software. If you are going to make edits to the actual content rather than just the cover, then you will need a piece of software that allows you to open and edit the documents that your content is made up of.
Most of your PLR products will come in .doc or .docx format. This is of course the Microsoft Word format and thus downloading MS Office could be a good place to start. With that said though, you could find you are able to use other products, such as Open Office or Google Docs.
While MS Office is particularly feature-rich and very much an industry standard tool, it unfortunately also costs a recurring monthly fee. Open Office does essentially the same things but is free. You might find a couple of compatibility issues but overall, it should be smooth sailing.
Another free option is Google Docs. Google Docs is a cloud service that began life as Google Drive – a cloud storage solution – but grew to include its own tools such as a spreadsheet tool (Google Sheets), Word Processor (Google Docs) and more. This is excellent for collaboration, as it allows you to make changes that will instantly be available to anyone else with access to the Google Drive folder. Moreover, you can make comments and annotations for others to see.
This is less convenient for editing PLR content, however, as you’ll probably have the document on your computer, and you’ll likely find this brings up even more compatibility issues than something like Open Office. This is not a bad solution but if you plan on doing this a lot, then MS Word is a worthwhile investment. MS Word will allow you to create headings and titles and to auto generate a table of contents from this.
It will also let you do other impressive things, such as adding watermarks or page numbers. While other tools might do the same, they will possibly go about it in an alternate way to the original creator, thereby creating more work for you! As for redesigning your covers or creating images for inside the book, this will probably benefit from Photoshop.
Most of the covers that you get with your PLR content will also be available in editable Photoshop file format. This will allow you to do things like editing individual layers: for instance, you can alter text that is hovering on top of a background image, or you can alter just the background image and leave the text as it is. The only problem with this, is that Photoshop is a rather expensive product.
In order to gain access to it, you will need to sign up for the Adobe Creative Cloud and you can choose to give yourself access to the full suite of apps that come with that, or just the few tools that you actually need (though this will limit you to two). There is a free one-month trial that you can use. This will allow you to edit the cover of one PLR cover, but of course that’s not going to be especially convenient if you want to do this on a regular basis and you have lots of books you need to edit!
An alternative is once again to use free software. A good example of this is GIMP, which can do nearly everything that Photoshop can do and is completely free of charge. Again, the issue here is compatibility and there is no guarantee that GIMP will be able to work with all the files you get – this will depend on how the creator decided to work! That said, if you only have access to a PNG or a JPG, you can still do a lot with GIMP or Photoshop.
You’ll still be able to airbrush, or to apply effects and filters. And if the book designer has been smart, then they will have placed the title against a plain colored background which you can edit without needing to work with layers.
Again, this is all at the discretion of the creator and something you need to consider when choosing which PLR product is right for you. This is where I get my PLR products.
However, if you want to make logos or images, then there might be a little more reason to invest in the Creative Cloud and that is so that you can get Illustrator. Illustrator is the software that is considered the industry standard for making logos and other professional designs. The reason for this is that it creates ‘vector files’. Vector files are files that allow you to move, bend and delete the individual lines that make up your image – as well as to resize them.
That means they can be resized endlessly with no loss of quality which means that once more, they can be edited in a way that appears seamless. It is down to you to decide how much editing you want to do and what kinds of books you’ll be reselling!
Web Services
There is no requirement for you to make any edits and if you prefer, you can sell your product just as it is!
But what you will need to do, no matter what business model you choose to pursue, is to set up a website/page from which you can start selling your product. You might already have this, in which case some of these suggestions won’t be relevant. I use this site to create all my online sites.
But for everyone else, the following will be absolutely required…
Web Hosting
Web hosting means somewhere for you to store the files that make up your website online. We recommend HostGator or CoolHandle (www.coolhandle.com), both of which will provide a lot of extra features and benefits on top of basic hosting – including a range of tools to help you manage emails, upload and download files, edit files on the fly, improve your security or even install WordPress with a single click.
You can purchase one of the more basic packages, as this will give you enough space to store the files you need as well as enough bandwidth to handle the volume of traffic (unless your product turns out to be the next Pokemon Go, in which case you can always go ahead and upgrade your account.
As well as the space to store your files, you’ll also need a domain name, which of course is the address that people will type into their URL bar when they want to find you. You can get this through your hosting provider, or through NameCheap (www.namecheap.com) or GoDaddy (www.godaddy.com).
Finally, to help with transferring files, an FTP software like FileZilla (https://filezilla-project.org) can be a very useful tool indeed. This will allow you to upload files to your hosting account without having to do so through your browser. It’s also handy for making backups or fixing issues when things go wrong with your WordPress files.
Building Your Sales Page
You’ll also want a payment processor, which will allow you to create your own ‘buy now’ button. This is important – if you don’t replace the buy now button, then you may just be making money for the person that sold you the product! This will be tied to your own account and that way, you can withdraw the cash into your own bank. PayPal (www.paypal.com) or Stripe (www.stripe.com) are good choices.
Depending on the type of package you have purchased, you might find that your product comes with ready-made files to run the website. In this case, you can simply swap out the ‘Buy Now’ button and any of the text that you want to change and then just upload all the files to your domain. On the other hand, you might just have been given the text and in that case, you will need to create the actual HTML page that this text is going to go on.
To do this, you might want to install WordPress, which you can do through your hosting provider or through WordPress.com (www.wordpress.com). From here, you may wish to install a theme like Optimize Press (www.optimizepress.com), which will automatically transform your site into the perfect size and shape to be a sales page! You can also use something like Infusion soft, (www.infusionsoft.com), which combines an autoresponder with a sales page and a ‘buy now’ button all in one!
You can also sell through a Project Management System such as JVZoo (www.jvzoo.com) or ClickBank (www.clickbank.com). By the way, these also happen to be affiliate marketing networks, meaning that you can use them in order to sell products via affiliates. An affiliate is of course a marketer that will get commission whenever they sell your product. This means you can have more people helping to drive traffic to your PLR product so that you don’t even need to do the marketing legwork!
Autoresponder
Finally, you might want an autoresponder. This is a piece of software that you use to build mailing lists. This allows you to collect the emails of people who think they might be interested in buying your products and then to send them messages to encourage them to come back and buy. It lets you build trust and it lets you establish yourself as an authority.
The purpose of the autoresponder is to allow you to keep all your contacts managed in one place and to handle things such as new subscribers or people choosing to leave the list without you having to do everything manually. Good options include GetResponse , AWeber (www.aweber.com) and MailChimp (www.mailchimp.com) I personally use GetResponse as it’s a very reliable service and is inexpensive. It also allows unlimited subscribers and campaigns for a low monthly price.
YouTube: The Forgotten Marketing Powerhouse
When you start learning about internet marketing, you’ll find that there are a lot of different subjects for you to tackle. These include the likes of SEO, of social media marketing, of writing press releases and more. You’ll have to learn about autoresponders and email marketing, about how affiliate marketing and about link building.
But something that often gets overlooked is video creation. This is strange, bearing in mind that video can have an incredibly profound impact on your brand’s visibility as well as your sales and is one of the most effective ways to stand out.
So why do people tend to ignore it? One possible answer is simply that it is too complicated and difficult for many people to understand – so they’d rather just overlook it!
Why Video is SO Important for Your Internet Marketing
But it’s this ‘difficulty’ that makes video production such a powerful marketing tool. Simply put, anyone can create a blog and anyone can create a sales page. When you build either of these things, you could still just be someone working from their Mom’s basement.
Video creation on the other hand requires expertise and expensive equipment. To make high quality videos, you will need a good camera, a great lighting set-up, a good microphone, editing software and know-how. All of this communicates that you are a serious business with serious money to invest and that professional sheen is what will inspire trust in your visitors.
What’s more, is that video allows you to talk directly to your audience and to use both your own voice and music to persuade them to make a purchase. Video is naturally more engaging and it makes people feel as though they know you, all of which is incredibly useful from a marketing perspective.
When creating video there are several ways you can use it as part of a marketing campaign. One is to add a video to your homepage or your sales page. Either of these things will help you to immediately grab attention and increase conversions. Another option is to create a YouTube channel. This makes it very easy to reach a big audience and can even be highly profitable on its own. A video getting 100,000 views a month can easily earn you in the region of $200!
How to Get Started
To get started, you will need to invest in a small amount of equipment. You need a camera with good auto focus and the ability to record in at least 1080p at 30fps (ideally better on both fronts). Even more important is good lighting, so invest in a soft box or another professional lighting solution.
Sound is also very important. A H1 pocket recorder paired with a mic will make a big difference at a low price point. You’ll then need to edit all this together in a piece of editing software such as Adobe Premiere Pro.
It all sounds a lot but trust me, it is more than worth the investment in terms of what you’ll get back out of it!
