20 Responses to “Mixing Marriage And Business”

1. Carol Says:
   May 5th, 2009 at 8:44 pm

   My advice for Harry and Sally would be to turn their product viral. Since their customers seem satisfied with their products, they should turn their customers into sales agents. At the end of a digital product and/or later in a follow-up email, they could say “If you enjoyed this product, tell your friends. Each one who buys will earn you $XX.” Then give them an affiliate link. Instead of offering money, they could also offer a related title for X number of sales. The affiliate links they give out should be cloaked or shortened (for passing on verbally) but encouraged to email to their friends for ease of clicking. This solution doesn’t add any costs to their promotion other than a normal affiliate commission. And if enough buyers refer friends, who refer friends, who refer friends, they can stop PPC altogether.

2. Ross Goldberg Says:
   May 6th, 2009 at 7:08 am

   There are a ton of options to improve the situation here.

   1. Improve conversion or dollars per visitor.

   By analyzing the sales copy and sales process, more sales and more money per customer is definitely possible.

   Have friends review the sales copy and explain in as much detail as possible how it makes them feel. Identify areas that can be improved and improve them.

   Are there any upsells? Getting more money per customer is a smart way to reduce the stress from the Adwords cost.

   Are they building a list? An exit popup, footer slideup, or inlaid autoresponder form will give them the ability to continue the sales process via email and bring in more customers without any extra traffic.

   Are they adding customers to a list? I didn’t personally do this for my first year online and lost over 5,000 product buyers by not doing it. I imagine that cost me over $50,000 in my first year online.

   2. Reduce Pay Per Click costs.

   Do a simple Google search for some of the terms you are paying for. Find sites that rank well for the terms and create a special campaign specifically for that website. Have your ads show up in their Adsense blocks and pay less for the traffic.

   Are they focusing on long tail terms (3 to 5 word, less competitive terms)? It’s proven that the more words a customer uses to find a website, the closer they are to buying. Bidding on single and double word terms can be VERY expensive and will convert less than a logical five word term that people are using. It will be much higher conversion at a lower cost.

   3. Do some natural SEO

   A simple video can rank in the top 5 for a long tail term in a matter of a few hours. Sites like YouTube and Viddler rank insanely fast.

   Do they have a blog? Wordpress blogs have features built in that help them rank very well, too. Write some keyword rich posts, use logical tags and categories, ping directories using ipings.com, submit to social bookmarking sites, submit to web directories, and submit the RSS feed for tons of backlinks (the key to good rankings in Google) and easy traffic.

   Press Releases and Articles still rank insanely well, so do some writing.

   Create themed Squidoo Lenses and Hub Pages.

   4. Get more traffic

   Think! In a competitive market, there are websites where thousands of their potential customers are hanging out every day. FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube, Forums, Blogs, etc… Be sure to have a presence in front of those customers! Share content and ideas with them and help them solve their problems. If you can show them that you know your stuff, they will search out your products and beg you to buy more of them, too.

   Cutting some of the Adwords budget and rearranging campaigns will free up money to have people distributing content for them and getting them rankings in Google. The best part of this is that once the rankings are there, it’s very easy to maintain them by continuing to promote fresh content over time. Focus on more and more keyword terms as time goes on.

   5. Find more affiliates!

   Clickbank doesn’t list their affiliates, however, it’s easy to find most of them. Do a google search for the final piece of a Clickbank hoplink of one of your main competitors (VENDOR.hop.clickbank.net) and you’ll find many of their affiliates. Look for contact pages on sites where affiliates promote the products of your competitor. Send them a friendly email offering to help them promote your product, too.

   I think that covers most of what I’d do in their situation.

   Ross

3. Georgette Pann Says:
   May 6th, 2009 at 11:03 am

   I suggest more networking for potential partners..for cross promotions and real joint ventures ..Look for ways to put or package your product with something else or with someone else. Upgrade product and increase price as well.
   Look offline as well…not only for partners/joint ventures but for advertising in professional magazines for example…professional forums,etc
   These are a few things that have worked for me

4. gayanna Says:
   May 6th, 2009 at 11:18 am

   Golf is, indeed, an expensive niche in pay-per-click, however a quick twist of their marketing campaign could turn more clicks into cash with very little work.

   Change the ad copy to include the word “free”: such as “Free Tips to Improve your Golf Swing” (or whatever their eBook helps a golfer do.

   Then, when it comes time to get the sale, offer their book at a slightly higher price (remembering the rule of 7) or FREE when the buyer completes an offer at Trial Pay.

   Trial Pay will pay them for the offer being completed, and prospective customers who might not have bought the eBook before will jump at the chance of getting it free.

   This is a great technique to convert site visitors into cash flow.

   Of course, I hope they have a good back-end so they are also maximizing SHARE of CUSTOMER, as it’s always easier to get happy customers to buy more stuff, than it is to get more customers. The easiest way I’ve found of getting a larger share of my customers’ spending is by giving them the opportunity to participate in my Preferred Customer program at: shop.thatadgirl.com. Now, when my customer spends money on ANYTHING they are looking for they get rewarded with points they can use for other freebies from me.

   In summary, give people everything for FREE and you’ll make customers for life!

5. Matt Says:
   May 6th, 2009 at 11:29 am

   Step one: Put price of product in google ad copy. This will eliminate tire kickers (save money) while most likely not affecting total number of sales.

   Step two: Immediately, right now, gotta-have-it-done-yesterday, create an expensive (at least over $99) physical product and promote using a REAL, LIVE DIRECT MAIL LETTER sent to last 1,000 customers.

   Bonus points awarded if Harry and Sally use “lumpy mail” with a grabber.

   If Harry and Sally are like most internet marketers, they are NOT mailing direct mail letters to their customers on a regular basis. As a result, they are leaving money on the table every month.

   When they start making large amounts of cash on the back-end, the initial front end costs of acquiring a customer will be less of an issue.

6. Russ Says:
   May 6th, 2009 at 11:32 am

   Here’s a novel idea: Go offline to drive traffic to their site. Golf is a huge industry and there are many ways to get attention in even a crowded market. If they took a portion of their PPC budget and spent for one classified ad in a golf magazine for the bulk of the season, they would be able to reach an entirely different mindset.

   Another option is to get directories of golf courses and send out direct mail letters offering the golf pros a commission for any sales they make. (I know, it’s still an affiliate program, but it’s approached differently.)

   And finally, if they live in an area with a large golfing population they could even do some local promotion activities at tournaments, men’s nights and charity events, etc.

   The only one that has a major cost would be the magazine spend. But if they’ve got successful PPC campaigns, it’s just a matter of writing the same kinds of ads for the magazine reader instead of the web surfer. And if they’re allocating a portion of the money they already spend on PPC, it shouldn’t add to their expenses.

7. Andrea Says:
   May 6th, 2009 at 12:36 pm

   Affiliates can be their salvation - as long as they are in the ‘Golf Information’ business, they’ll continue to see costs eat at their bottom line.

   Instead they should be shifting their minds (now that they have a proven product) to “How can we help our affiliates get more of what they want?”

   What do affiliates want? They want more sales.

   They need to shift gears and be in the ‘affiliate marketer’ information business. If they provide training tools and professionally created copy, email, ads, etc … for folks to sell their golf product, they will see exponential growth.

   And probably come away with an entirely new product that provides its own income stream … which can also then be leveraged via affiliate army

   They can essentially quit advertising and help others make the sales they’re wanting. Everybody wins.

8. Jay Says:
   May 6th, 2009 at 2:47 pm

   The story of When Harry Met Sally….

   This is an easy one. Really.

   They need to use video, which when done properly will BOTH increase traffic AND conversions. Let’s take a look at some important facts:

   These facts come to use from comScore:

   More than 65% of the people who watch web video are between the ages of 35 - 64
   67% of those folks earn middle to high incomes

   Does that sound like the perfect clientele for Harry & Sally? Yes it does. But wait, there’s more…

   There were 5.9 BILLION videos watched on YouTube alone in December 2008
   That’s 98.9 MILLION viewers who watched video on YouTube in December 2008
   There were a total of 14.3 BILLION videos watched in the US alone in December 2008
   78.5% of the total US Internet audience viewed online video in December 2008
   The average online video viewer watched 309 minutes of video (more than 5 hours) in December 2008

   Weezie, here comes the BIG one…

   According to a 2009 eMarketer report, the number of online shoppers who watched retail videos grew 40% in one year, from 2007 to 2008. (I’d be willing to wager it’s even higher in 2009…)

   Look, I don’t care what online business you’re in, if you are not using video you are leaving a LOT of money on the table.

   Done properly, video is the ONLY online marketing tool that can increase traffic to your site, and convert that traffic once it arrives. Estimates of increased conversions have been reported between 5 - 20% using video.

   By properly optimizing video, you can not only rank on page one of Google, but you can rank multiple times. In some cases, you can completely dominate the first page of the results in Google for your keywords. I know this, because I’ve done it. More than once.

   Remember, the more page 1 rankings you have, the less your competitors have.

   It is human nature to think in terms of “stories”, which is why video is so effective on conversion. Think about it. When you meet up with your friends, say over lunch, someone will tell a story, then the other person will reply by telling their story. We use stories in a great deal of our communications.

   By using stories in video, you can build a relationship with your prospect/customer. You can gain their trust. They get to know, like and trust you. Once that happens it’s magic! It’s conversion magic!

   I am not suggesting Harry and Sally stop doing PPC. However, once they begin to dominate the organic side of the page, their PPC will be the icing on the cake.

   Lets also not forget they can use their video on the Google content network. I would venture to guess most of their competitors, even the one’s who’ve figured out they need to use video, are NOT using it on the Google content network. This will have an immediate and dramatic impact on their PPC results.

   Let me put it another way. If you have an online business, and you decide NOT to use video, I’d suggest you start looking for a JOB real quick. Because once your competitors figure out video, you’re done. The time to use video for your online business was yesterday.

   But today’s not too late. Tomorrow might be.

   So, When Harry met Sally, and they got married and decided to be internet entrepreneurs, they made a commitment to succeed. They’re frustrated. But they’re still in the game if they start using video.

   It is obvious they have a good product. They like to be behind the scenes, so they can easily hire the on-camera talent for the videos.

   I would also suggest they implement an up/down sell strategy to increase their ROI. This will allow them to better optimize the value of each visitor/customer. They need to sell more products to their list as well.

   Golfers are passionate people. They always want the latest and greatest gadgets, clubs and toys. If Harry and Sally do not yet have other products, I’d suggest they sell affiliate products until they can develop their own back-end products.

   If they’re selling a product, and their customers are happy, sell them even more stuff.

   Back to video for one more suggestion…

   If they’re really smart, they will hire an NLP Expert, Like Dr. Harlan Kilstein, to help write the scripts for those videos. Of course, they will also need to hire an expert in video optimization. For that, they should talk to me.

   Because when they do all of these things, it’s game over! Harry and Sally will once again be happy internet entrepreneurs!

   And Sally will no longer have to fake it at the dinner table….(you know, that she really likes mashed potatoes…)

9. Ian Says:
   May 6th, 2009 at 2:51 pm

   Besides the usual online affiliate route think bigger by going offline:

   Take a print out of your sales conversions and build a credible case of having a good product that can sell.

   Approach people who sell golfing goodies offline and ask them to insert a flyer in their packages they deliver to customers or piggyback on their mailings. Give them a split of the profits. Your flyer can
   be your tested opt-in page. Drive them online and put them into your funnel. Explain to your new partners how they have a unique tracking code for each customer sent to them, and alleviate their concerns of not being paid.

   Mention that their is no need for product fulfillment because the product is digital, and explain your motives as well.

   You’ll get new customers for nothing. You partners will make some extra bucks.

   Now keep creating back end products with higher value. DVD’s plus, mp3’s. Step up in value each time.

   Keep segmenting your list by 20%. Each 20% will buy something of higher value. 20% of those 20% will buy something of higher value.

   You can keep going until you have a couple people paying you $50,000 for a depleted uranium insert putter.

   If you don’t want to create new products source out other people who have good products and promote them as an affiliate.

   You’re going to increase the value of your customer so high you’ll be able to afford those high priced google ad clicks. You may also be able to give 100% of the profit to your offline partners knowing you’ll make three or four times on the back end.

   Give it a shot, stay cheery and keep up the good work!

10. gayanna Says:
    May 6th, 2009 at 4:30 pm

    I forgot to mention that Trial Pay will pay Harry and Sally each time someone completes the offer. Harry and Sally can choose how much the offer needs to pay them when setting up their freebie, so that they earn just as much as if they sold the eBook.

11. lawton Says:
    May 6th, 2009 at 7:00 pm

    Well, i would say that in order to off-set costs, do 2 things:

    1. Add a ton of social proof, testimonials, and bonuses, and raise the cost of each order on their golf product, increase the value and off-set some of the Google costs.

    2. Bypass Google all-together or use TrafficGeyser.com to add new videos and other great content into a marketing funnel that builds the list, pulls in more traffic, and converts more visitors into buyers.

    3. Turn those 2 things, TrafficGeyser videos or TubeMogul.com videos, and take the golf product and turn those videos and product into a monthly membership site.

    

    -Lawton

12. Chas Says:
    May 6th, 2009 at 7:15 pm

    Article Marketing is the answer. The quality of the article can be a factor, but every article will be a link, if not a traffic source. And every level of quality can be purchased. The fact is, an article may fade….but it will still be there the next day. Google may double it’s prices any day….and that’s the end of the road for all your hard work. 2000 articles won’t ever die. And they can be made into a series or a book as well. And a video. If you write them yourself then they can be a training aid for your Virtual Assistants. Work on your retirement plan all at the same time.

13. stevenf Says:
    May 6th, 2009 at 8:20 pm

    Go to companies that sell products in their golf business ecosystem. Golf clubs, golf balls, golf shoes, golf gloves. Gold lessons, For example there are golf ball companies online. Do a deal with them. That should reduce the click cost and get an entirely new set of eyes. Same thing with each of the other product lines. As long as they aren’t competing there is only upside relative to the click costs.

    Go to the golf forum’s online and write short articles that really answer questions and as appropriate make a link back to their site.

    They can do something similar offline. Go to golf stores (by phone) and provide them with the product and make a deal that enables them to be affiliates. Anyone who buys with their affiliate code gets a piece.

    This is a good problem to have.

14. Danny Guspie Says:
    May 6th, 2009 at 10:41 pm

    Hi Harlan - You rocked at Mass Control. Heidi tells me you have solved the mystery of why we kept ending up in the hallway at the same time every day / night (LOL)…anyhow - here’s my suggestion:

    Sally and Harry need to hijack traffic, get cash in quick, and reinvest revenue right back into scaling up their traffic efforts with dedicated staff as revenues increase.

    The easiest least amount of work would be to:

    (a) Search google for these two terms: “Driving Ranges” / “Golf Courses”

    (b) Contact 5-7 per month and conduct a teleseminar where you interview the owners, instructors, pros, staff, members. Get each person you interview them to share their top 10 secrets to getting the most out of using the facilities.

    (c) Transcribe the interviews, create autoresponder content from transcripts by hiring a writer editor, repurpose on blog networks, article networks, in particular the pro version of http://www.ArticleCaster.net . press release networks, twitter posts, social networking etc etc etc use initial profits to outsource the web 2.0 networking work to Howie Schwarz team; Use Harlan’s NLP Copywriting tactics in all content creation, which he gave Harry and Sally as a prize for reading his blog, implementing this plan and becoming raving fans after mass Control in San Diego (LOL)…

    (d) Have a money site blog created from profits and fill it with content using PIPES and products from data feeds;

    (e) Take the audio and the transcripts - Create a GREAT LOOKING CD for Kunaki

    (f) In return have the “Driving Ranges” / “Golf Courses” owners promote their CD at cost for shipping in rotating banners above the fold on their sites – You do the fulfillment by processing the order through your infrastructure. In reality you are just sending the order to Kunaki

    (g) Create a great Self-Liquidating Godfather Offer with 4 teleseminar products, the transcripts and CD’s as The Insider Secrets of The Top Golf Courses and Driving Ranges in North America” - offer monthly continuity. Plow those profits back into market research with http://www.DannyResearchTool.com to begin hijacking best PPC traffic – why reinvent the wheel? Use it on the money blog, in addition to the golf course above the fold banner spots;

    (h) Take profits, outsource video slide creation / audio and video podcasts of each tip from the top 10 tips – use Harlan’s NLP Copywriting tactics in all videos;

    (i) Take profits, outsource video distribution use http://www.DannyTrafficMachine.com, Platinum edition; keyword the hell out of the videos and use the Platinum edition to drip the videos into as many keywords as you can come up with, beginning with searches of 300,000 results that have no videos to dominate conversation.

    (j) Roll out affiliate program using increasing profits to create an amazing affiliate center with a ton of great tools, training calls, support, superior tracking, lightening fast payments…

    (k) Take profits, and outsource more aspects of the operation – take yourself out of every area you’d rather not do and focus only on your strengths. Create Camtasia Operations Manual for project manager and staff

    (l) Repeat the process with products “Golf Clubs” Golf Balls”, “Golf Bags” etc etc. Be grateful you live in such a wondrous age…look forward to becoming the go-to-guru of I-marketing in the golf market over the next 18 months as you expand by interviewing and promoting your way to the A level players and events of golf….

    (m) Hire Harlan as their copywriter guru to create amazing copy for their sites, promo literature etc. Pay him a lot of $$$ because they can now afford to do so…

    (n) Have staff execute while you go play golf and after a great days playing as a VIP member of all these courses you are promoting, have a nice cold one, whip out the lap top and begin your automated research on other markets to conquer

    Danny Guspie
    DivorcedDadWeekly.net

15. Shawn LeBrun Says:
    May 7th, 2009 at 8:17 am

    1. I’d keep using Google Adwords, but I’d also focus on less competitive, and less expensive keywords.
    Think of other things that golfers use in their daily lives. What else would they buy before or after buying a golf info product?

    So, using Wordtracker or Google’s keyword tool, I’d find keywords related to golf, but not the more expensive, competitive ones. And I’d do it by thinking like a golfer and finding the other things I’d buy or use as a golfer, then I’d target those keywords.

    So, maybe golf shoes, golf clubs, golf magazines, golf videos.

    Instead of thinking of the obvious, more costly and competitive keywords, think of ones outside the box, in other areas of golf that someone would use before/with/or after your product you sell.

    2. Also, try to joint venture with complimentary, but non competitive websites who can do an endorsed marketing campaign to their lists. Again, think of doing joint ventures with golf clothing companies, golf shoe companies, golf club companies, or any other companie that sells a golf product or accessory.

    Heck, golfers are such rabid and passionate people for their sport, you could probably even JV with competitors, and the prospect would still buy both your products.

    3. If they can afford it, rent a mailing list of targeted people who have recently bought a similar golf product in the last 30 to 60 days.

    Send out a short direct mail campaign targeted to the most likely people to buy, that is, those that have just recently bought something similar. Bypass google this way, or at least supplement it.

    4. Try to get some remnant display ad space in targeted golf magazines and try to offer a free report in those magazines to get people back to his site.

    There are a ton of golf magazines that would probably offer some cheap remnant space, try to get people back to your site from a small display ad in a golf magazine.

    5. Set up a Youtube account and film some short golf tip videos. use TrafficGeyser to get your video out there. Ditto with Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. Get some content on those sites, including written articles and videos, making you guys the obvious experts in your niche.

    6. target natural seo by writing articles based around your targeted keywords and then submit the articles using articlemarketer.com or a similar service.

    I think the best bet is to create multiple sources of traffic coming in, so if one of them dies out, you still have others to fall back on.

    Shawn

16. Matthew Says:
    May 7th, 2009 at 9:25 am

    In one of Frank Kern’s videos he goes over three things to do when you are selling something. I think it is something like this:
    1.) Tell your customers what you have. Check for Harry and Sally
    2.) Tell your customers what it will do for them. Check for Harry and Sally (assumption)
    3.) Tell your customers why you are credible/why they should trust you. Umm… Houston, we have a problem.

    I am a golfer and I would never buy a golf product that isn’t from a pro or directly endorsed by a pro. Not necessarily someone on the PGA tour but a licensed golf pro.

    What Harry and Sally need to do is partner with a pro. Once that happens they will be good to go.

17. I.A. Says:
    May 7th, 2009 at 9:44 am

    The CASE is clear.

    There are only TWO things Harry and Sally can do to save their bank accounts and
    their lives from this painful dread.

    I will list them below…

    (1) Cut Out The Cancer.

    Both of them are CLEARLY unhappy.

    They are in that niche for the money. And when the money dries up, their moods go down.

    PROOF: They hired ghost writers to create their product.

    This single move shows that they don’t really care. Because the most important things need
    to be done by the owner. Product creation(at the very least having a big hand in it) and marketing,
    these are a couple of those important things I was talking about.

    Outsourcing your book to be written by someone else is a bad first move.

    Things were doomed from the get-go.

    (2) Dig Deep And Go Long.

    If they’re still unrepentant… then stick with it for the long haul.

    The best way is to do a Joint Venture with someone selling a complimentary product. Golf balls,
    golf shoes comes to mind.

    (a) tweak your salespage then test it - get it converting at least 50% better, this can be done
    in about a week MAX. Remember to capture all the fresh names coming in off your JV partner via
    a good opt in page.

    (b) set up a relevant backend - create an audio version that sells for $10 more OR if you’re
    pressed for time be an affiliate and sell someone else’s product as a back end.

    (c) survey your current list - ask them what they want, give them something in return for their
    answers, a coupon or send them a hard cover of your book. Something relevant and of value.

    That’s it for now my apprentice ; )

    Peacefully,
    I.A.

18. Michael D. Walker Says:
    May 8th, 2009 at 7:58 pm

    Since their product is selling & getting very low returns & very few complaints,
    here’s my recommendations (not in any specific order):

    1. Test higher price points on their current product. If you’re not getting 2-5% returns you’re not charging enough.

    2. Create back-end offers with series of up-sell/down-sell scripts
    A. Approach famous golfers to become affiliates for them (if they have affiliate
    program. If not, offer to set them up with one for a percentage of profits).
    B. Approach famous golfers who have books published and present them with
    business proposal to make Home Study course out of their book and sell it for them as one of
    your many new back-end offers.

    3. Do cross promotions with complimentary golf web site owners to get more new traffic
    at absolutely no cost.

    4. Do joint ventures with complementary golf expert sites. Joint venture traffic is a huge list builder
    when done right.

    5. Make arrangements to give away free version of your most popular ebook to golf charity
    organizations such as The Chi Chi Rodriguez Academy. Do this when back-end offers and upsell/downsell scripts are in place. You could take your Google AdWords budget & use the money instead to get yourselves & your site displayed on Chi Chi Rodriguez’s site in their DONOR SPOTLIGHT
    wherein your donation (of those free ebooks & the AdWords $$$) gets you exclusive front page placement on their landing page for a set time.

    6. See how many different places you can do step 5. I found Chi Chi’s charity in 2 minutes of online searching.

    7. Article marketing..use some of content from ebook to create powerful articles to drive more traffic.

    8. Sell audio version of their ebook.

    9. As Shawn mentioned above, if they can afford it, use SRDS at local library & see what it’d cost to
    mail offer to list of recent golf buyers that most closely matches their target customers.

    10. Give away some of their ebooks at local golf charity events in their area. Make it part of their
    awards ceremony or raffle. Also hand out flyers with special promotion price for limited time.
    Again, after back-end offer is in place so that this new traffic can convert to higher sales, value added packages.

    11. Get testimonials from current happy customers & use them in all new marketing efforts.

    12. Make concentrated effort to get testimonails from recognizable golf pros. Or use some of that AdWords budget to buy a golf pro endorsement/testimonial. You don’t think George Foreman promotes those grills out of the kindness of his heart, do you?

    13. Do cross promotion with local golf courses. They sell copies of ebook at their pro shop & you
    give them banner space on your thank you/download pages.

    14. Do cross promotion with any & every golf course in the country doing the same as #13.

    So, there’s like another dozen things but that 14 will create a major shift in their business
    for starters.

    Michael

19. Mike McRitchie Says:
    May 8th, 2009 at 8:11 pm

    A lot of great ideas.

    Here’s what I’ve heard:
    1) Harry and Sally are good at marketing golf products and have solid connections for selling golf products online.
    2) Harry and Sally are not the golf experts and aren’t raving golf fans.
    3) Harry and Sally are making a living but not hitting holes in one.

    So latching onto another idea here, what about being the online back end for golf pros? Golf pros have credibility with their clientele and are great at what they do, namely teaching golf and playing golf.

    They are not experts at online marketing of golf products.

    I would guess that the market for being a back end sales source for golf pros is a solid niche with little real competition.

    So Harry and Sally should get in on golf industry conventions where golf pros hang out and do keynote addresses and demonstrate their effectiveness.

    Just like Harry and Sally are using ghostwriters since that is not their expertise, they can be the same for golf pros.

    Just keep it simple and do what you can be the best in the world at…

    Good luck!

    Mike

20. ML Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 11:01 pm

    I must say I disagree with most of the comments made to the blog so far.

    One of the basic rules of businesses that advertise in PPC is that if they can’t make it work, it is highly unlikely that an Affiliate (who has presumably less margin to play with) is going to be able to make it work. For example if Harry and Sally make $47 per unit of their golf e-book they can presumably pay any amount of money up to $47 to at least break even per unit. Since they aren’t going to pay out $47 per unit to Affiliates, then it is almost necessarily true that an Affiliate is not going to have the same options in the PPC realm. Plus Amazon and other programs have already proven that for the most part PPC Affiliates tend to “poach” sales an offer owner was going to get anyway rather than acquiring incremental sales (and see the above about the Affiliate having less money to acquire customers per unit… this should be obvious). Therefore it is simply unrealistic therefore to think that Affiliates are going to get a PPC advertiser anywhere.

    Most of the other ideas — SEO, switching to various offline models, dinosaur direct mail — seem either too slow or too expensive for Harry and Sally if they are already at a point where they are considering packing up the golf business. Recording new videos and pressing CDs are nice ideas in theory but in practice they are just more production costs with no way to drive traffic to the products. Where do Harry and Sally get if they have a great CD but it’s in the same niche, where they are already buying keywords, already have a site, and so on? Incremental products within their same niche are only going to be relevant to re-marketing to their same list of buyers… which the hypothetical already indicated is not a large list. In sum, they are going to have the same traffic issues but with even more bills.

    The solutions that Harry and Sally can action have to be fast and cost-effective… and probably still virtual. Here are some suggestions.

    1) Product Diversification in New Niches
    From the sound of this hypothetical, Harry and Sally — since they don’t know anything about golf — are selling a product that keys on mindset, overcoming mental barriers, and so on. If this is the main thrust of their product, then they are not really in the golf business, they are in the self-improvement business, and have simply channelled their information product to golf. My suggestion would be to swipe their own sales letter and product and re-apply the same basic value proposition to more verticals… making it through a marathon, weight loss mindset, poker and other competitive card/tournament games. Surely there are going to be niches out there that have similarly rabid audiences but less expensive keywords. They may not be as large as golf but Harry and Sally don’t have a huge amount of overhead, so they don’t need to operate exclusively in the largest niches. This is a nice option because the product development is highly scalable but not expensive; I would guess Harry and Sally can hit a new niche every week, at least.

    2) Traffic Diversification
    It sounds like Harry and Sally are primarily using Google Search through AdWords. They can get discounted clicks using the Google Content Network and especially MSN search (better than Yahoo! for purposes of ROI, plus fewer competitors). If Sally is sighing at the cost of the Google ads, it seems like their business is small enough that they can benefit from MSN, Ask.com, Facebook, or the Content Network, which are all self-serve and all offer cheaper clicks than Google Search. I don’t know enough about their keywords or the golf niche to assess whether SEO or SEO 2.0 would be useful for them but both are too slow given the competitiveness of their niche.

    3) Customer Conversion
    It seems obvious that Harry and Sally have bought products based on new and different traffic-driving techniques but at the end of the day everyone knows that Google is king. What they should be doing is building custom headlines and landing pages to convert more of the customers who are reaching their landing pages. I read nothing about split testing. If they are going to invest in traffic generation, I would suggest having a PPC expert look over their Google campaign to improve CTR and reorganize their Campaigns and Ad Groups. The money they spend here will end up saving them money per-click and making them money on tonnage as they bring in more customers with more clicks (Google reduces CPC in return for CTR). If they are using a “get their email address” rather than a “convert them on-site” approach, they should probably also split up their lists by keyword so they can write headlines that will get higher open rates… Same technique applied to a different point in the marketing funnel.

    4) Putting it All Together
    When they diversify product, Harry and Sally will have opportunities to buy more and different — and hopefully cheaper — keywords. Maybe other verticals are less stagnant than golf for information products (is there anything for Scrabble mindset? We know from various documentaries how rabid tournament Scrabble players are!) … Since it is just the two of them, a niche doesn’t have to be huge to be a great add-on. At the same time, more keywords at lower prices is going to help Harry and Sally build their email list more quickly. In addition to having specific email lists for each product (hopefully organized by keyword), Harry and Sally will have a larger overall list to send relevant third party Affiliate offers, which will bring more cash into their business without expending a lot of R&D or hard media dollars.

    Bonus - Implement Google Checkout
    This is a little-known trick that is used by some of the largest retailers but has not been massively adopted by the online marketing community. This might be easy for Harry and Sally because right now they only have one product (the issue with many stores is that they have tens of thousands of products which complicates and enlongates the process).

    When you implement Checkout, customers pay Google and don’t have to “trust” your site. Moreover, you get a special Google Checkout icon that appears next to your ad in AdWords. Many end users see this as a badge of approval from Google; they have reported CTR increases by 50% and more thanks to the presence of these icons. We know how Google will discount clicks based on a positive increase in CTR; if Harry and Sally can acquire a few more customers because of added trust and smoothing out the conversion process (they don’t have to enter details into a new and unknown cart), that might also improve their conversion percentage, driving down their cost per acquisition!

    ML

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