Your Unique Selling Proposition or USP can be your most powerful motivational tool. Your USP is what makes you different than all your competitors. It’s the one thing that gets people excited about your business rather than anyone else’s.

In order for a USP to be effective, it has to genuinely be different than anything else that’s out there. If you put out a USP that doesn’t sound shockingly powerful, chances are it won’t work.

Here are a few examples of USPs and how they motivated their markets.

Radiohead’s Donation-Based Album

The discussion of the internet’s desire to be free versus the record label’s desire to stay profitable has been an active topic since the very beginning of the web.

Radiohead’s album, released on a “pay what you want” basis on the internet, was designed to test this out. Their USP was very simple: Download the album; pay whatever you want.

This USP generated massive press and buzz. They had a massively successful album launch and proceeded to have a home run concert tour.

Zappos: Free Shipping Both Ways, 365-Day Return Policy

Another clear and simple USP is Zappos’ 365-day return policy. If you buy a pair of shoes from Zappos and decide you don’t like them, you can return them months later for free.

Furthermore, Zappos will pay for you to return your shoes. Unlike other companies, Zappos aims to make it easy rather than hard to make a return.

This “no risk” USP allowed their customers to make snap decisions on purchases. They knew that even if they didn’t like it, they could just send it back.

Prosper Marketplace

Prosper Marketplace offers a very unique proposition for both lenders and borrowers. Instead of lenders buying stocks or bonds, they can lend directly to real people instead. Real people can submit their applications to real lenders, rather than a bank, who will then decide whether or not they deserve the money.

This USP appealed to both lenders and borrowers. Lenders felt they had more control over their money and had a chance at a higher return. Borrowers relished the chance to make their case to real people.

The Secret to a Great USP

A USP that motivates customers is a USP that finds an existing desire and solves it. Usually a USP entails taking some risk by the company.

Zappos takes a big risk by offering a 365-day return policy. Customers want safety when they buy, and that USP offers it.

Radiohead took a big risk when they offered their album on a “pay what you want” basis. What if everyone just downloaded it for free, or only paid a dollar?

Figure out what your customers want, then find a method to fulfill it. If it seems like there’s a big risk involved, then you’re probably on the right track. Do everything you can to manage the risk, but don’t back out because it’s risky. That’s where the money is made.

Affiliate Marketing

Your product’s features, no matter how revolutionary, are not what will sell your product. Features are simply facts. They carry no emotional weight.

If you want to sell your product, you have to translate those features to benefits.

Benefits are features, translated into “what’s in it for me” statements. Instead of telling your customer what your feature is, you tell them exactly what it can do for them and how it can change their lives.

Features are about you and your product. Benefits are about them and how their lives can improve.

Here are a few examples to illustrate the difference:

Feature: 1 Gigabyte Storage
Benefit: 1,000 Songs in Your Pocket

Feature: 1,380 Watt Motor
Benefit: Blend veggies or fruits with zero leftover pulp!

Feature: Tri-band phone
Benefit: Your phone works with any SIM card in the world

Features are simply facts about your product that don’t necessarily mean anything to the buyer. On the other hand, the benefit statement gives them a crystal clear interpretation of what they get by purchasing.

 The Translation Process

Take a piece of paper and draw a line straight down the middle. Label the left-hand column “Features” and the right-hand column “Benefits.”

Now on the left-hand side, write down every feature your product has. Write down every feature your company has.

One great place to find features of your product is in your existing marketing or promotional materials. You can also look at your product specs.

Try to fill up one or two entire sheets of paper with features.

Once you have your features column filled out, fill out the right-hand side. Ask yourself: What does this feature mean to someone? What’s in it for them? Why should they care? How would it change their lives?

Repeat this process for each benefit on the right. If you come up with multiple benefits, just write all of them down.

Spruce It Up

After writing all your benefits down, let that piece of paper sit for a couple days. Then come back to it.

Now that you’re looking at your benefits with a fresh eye, look for ways to spruce it up.

Add power words and action words. Instead of saying “increase your profits,” say “explode your profits.” Instead of saying “stop being afraid,” say “get rid of fear once and for all!”

Keep tinkering with your benefit statements until you nail it right on the head. Then replace the features on your website and your marketing materials with benefits.

Once you do, you’ll likely see a sudden jump in your conversion rates, opt-in rates, retention rates, pageviews per visitor and length on site stats.

Benefit statements make more emotional impact, improve customer motivation and make the overall process of interacting with your brand more exciting and persuasive.

 

 

Affiliate Marketing

Autoresponders are email messages that can be scheduled in advance and delivered in a systematic manner.

As a business owner you likely already take advantage of this technology to send out newsletters and other business information.

Another effective way to make use of this email technology is to create a series of messages that all add up to one extremely useful package of information.

Each message adds on to the information you’ve already provided to your prospect. It helps establish your credibility as a reliable source of value and it offers benefits to your subscriber.

An autoresponder series also helps provide you with more opportunities to promote your products or services. Here’s how to create an effective autoresponder series.

Choose a Focused Topic

Choose an autoresponder topic that is focused and addresses a niche need. For example, “how to start an aquarium” is a fairly broad topic. Yet, “how to start a salt water coral aquarium” is more specific. A focused topic provides more value to your reader.

Tell Them What’s to Come

Let your reader know what to expect from each autoresponder. For example, you might end your message with, “keep an eye out for the next lesson in this series where you’ll learn….”

Remind Them of What You’ve Already Covered

You may want to include a few reminders about what you’ve already covered. Don’t get too heavy handed with this because you can end up with too many links.

However, it does make sense to link to past newsletters or and upload them onto your website so subscribers can refer back if they missed a message. It’s also a good way to drive traffic to your site.

Promote Yourself Strategically

The goal of an autoresponder series is to provide value and build your business. Readers expect links to your site and a certain amount of promotion.

Yet it is important to make sure that you promote strategically. For example, you probably don’t want to give a heavy pitch in the first message. However, it does make sense to make the last message more promotional.

Test and track your calls to action and promotional offers as your messages are delivered. You may find that promoting in every other message or every third message you deliver provides the best balance.

Have a Goal for Your Series

What do you want to accomplish with your autoresponder series? Not just theoretical goals but actual measurable goals? What’s your objective? Create a goal and build your autoresponder series around that goal. Without a goal your messages may feel disjointed and unfocused.

A single goal that you can measure will help you stay on track and provide your readers with the most benefit.

Finally, test and track your messages. Use the information to determine what tactics work best.

For example, maybe your subscribers open messages with numbers in the subject line or maybe they prefer messages delivered on Tuesday afternoons.

Most autoresponder services provide analytics so you can adapt your strategy and messages as you receive more information.

Affiliate Marketing

You see it almost every day on the major social networking sites. Authors post a link to their book’s sales page and call it marketing.

Posting a link to your book without creating a message and connecting with your prospect isn’t really marketing, it’s advertising. And while advertising your book may be a good idea, marketing it is usually more effective.

The Role of Social Media

Social media sites like Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter all enable you to quickly connect with a large number of people. For example, when your ebook makes Amazon’s Bestseller’s list for your category you can announce it on Facebook and reach thousands of people at once. Yet, the power social media has to promote your information products starts long before you publish, or even write, a word.

Use Social Media to Build a Following

Most authors gain book sales by creating a platform. That is to say, they focus on a message and/or a niche and begin to build an audience long before they publish their book or information product. Once published, each subsequent product further supports the platform. Social media can help you build a following and establish your platform. You connect with potential prospects and other thought leaders in your industry.

Ideas for Marketing with Social Media

Twitter

* Ask readers a question that relates to your topic. Twitterers respond well to questions and tend to click on links when the tweet is compelling or invites them to contribute.

* Offer tips that relate to your book’s topic. Provide value and include a link to your book’s sales page.

* Make announcements about your events and activities. For example, if you wrote a book about organizing a home, post a link to a client’s before and after photos. If you’re doing a book signing at your local bookstore, announce the event.

* Content, content, content. Write, create videos, podcasts, and even slide shows on your topic and include links to the content on Twitter along with a captivating 140-character message. Provide value.

Pinterest

* Pin a picture of your book’s cover.

* Create specific boards dedicated to your niche topic and ask fellow Pinners to contribute.

* Create infographics related to your niche or platform.

* Host a contest to choose your book’s cover and ask Pinners to vote by repining or liking their favorite cover.

Facebook

* Create a profile page for your business or author’s website.

* Content, content, content. Yep, again. Publish unique content on Facebook. And link to new blog posts or articles that you’ve published. Include a teaser to drive traffic to your website.

* Hold a contest. Ask people to “Like” your page and then provide them with an entry form to enter a contest. Make sure the prize is related to your information product’s topic. For example, if you wrote a book about organizing your home, you might give away a gift card to a home organization store.

Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many creative and effective ways to market your information products.

Finally, integrate your social media efforts so they provide maximum results. LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and many more can all be strategically linked. This saves you time and helps maximize your info product marketing tactics.

Affiliate Marketing

What is your blog’s goal? For most internet marketers and blog owners, the goal is to connect with their reader and provide information. Through this information, aka blog posts and content, you are able to establish your business and generate an income. The more conversational your blog posts, the easier it is to create that connection with your reader.

Think about it like this: would you rather talk to someone who is formal and stiff or someone who makes you laugh, think, and feel relaxed? Generally, conversational blog posts are much easier to read. They’re more interesting to read. And they help your reader feel closer to you – like you’re talking to them personally. If you struggle to write conversational blog posts, this is for you!

1 Consider Dictating Your Content

Many people struggle to convert their thoughts into the written word. The result is formal and often disorganized. If you’re “not a writer” then skip that step. Use one of the many marvellous dictation tools available now and dictate your blog content.

For example, if you have an iPhone you can send yourself a text message with your dictated blog post. You can use Dragon Naturally Speaking and any number of other tools. Once you have the content dictated, then you can go through it and edit, format, tweak, and publish.

2 Write as if You’re Writing to a Friend

You talk to your friends differently than you probably talk to your prospects and customers. You’re more conversational. Consider putting a picture of a friend in front of you as you write if you have trouble getting into this mind-set.

3 Ask Questions

Conversations are two way, right? You don’t just talk at people; you ask questions and invite their input and feedback. Do the same in your writing. Ask questions and invite comments and feedback.

4 Use Simple Words and Simple Sentences

Yes, some people talk in run-on sentences. They don’t pause and they don’t take a breath. These generally aren’t people that are pleasant to talk to. And content that contains run-on sentences isn’t fun to read. Keep your sentences short.

Additionally, it’s not enjoyable to talk to someone who uses words that you don’t know. For example, they throw in jargon, acronyms, and words you haven’t heard since your 10th grade spelling bee. Keep your language simple and easy to understand.

5 Easy to Read Formatting

Finally, formatting isn’t necessarily part of the writing process; however, it is part of your reader’s experience. Large blocks of content are difficult to read online. Keep your paragraphs short. Use formatting like bullets and numbers to separate ideas when appropriate. And use subheadings to introduce the next idea or paragraph.

The more you write conversational copy, the easier it will become. Remember what you like to read, and pay attention to those features as you write for your audience.

Affiliate Marketing

One way to look at copywriting techniques is as the art of creating motivation using the written word. The written word carries profound power to persuade. How do you use this powerful tool to create motivation? By mastering and implementing these five principles.

==> Technique #1: Benefit Driven Language

Most business owners focus a lot of attention on telling consumers why their company or product is the best. Yet at the end of the day, that’s not what consumers care about.

Consumers care about what you can do for them. They don’t care that you have the biggest company, but they do care that you’ll always have their product in stock. They don’t care that you’ve been in business longer than anyone else, but they do care about reliable service.

Translate statements from “about me” to “about what we can do for you.”

==> Technique #2: Use Power Words

Power words or action words are words that pack an emotional punch. Instead of saying your product saves energy; say it “slashes your energy bills by 40%.” Instead of saying your product helps bring in leads, say “new leads will be flooding in your inbox.”

Power words create mental imagery and have an emotional tone that helps sell your product.

==> Technique #3: Proof, Proof and more Proof

Prove every claim you make. People today are extremely sceptical – and rightly so. There are so many people making bold claims that promising a benefit simply isn’t enough anymore.

Prove what you’re promising, then prove it again and throw some proof on top. It’s much better to solidly prove that you can help someone lose 15 pounds than it is too loudly proclaim that you can help them lose 40 pounds without proof.

People won’t feel motivated unless you can prove that you’re the real deal.

==> Technique #4: Removal of Risk

Doing business with a company for the first time is very risky for consumers. They don’t know if you’ll fulfil your claims, they don’t know if your product is good, they don’t know how good your service is – they really don’t know much at all about you.

That’s why risk removal is such a powerful way to get people to act on their motivation.

Risk removal doesn’t actually create motivation. Instead, what it does is remove barriers to getting people to act on their desire for your product.

Add a powerful money back guarantee to your product to reduce and remove risk.

==> Technique #5: Urgency

When people think they’re going to miss out if they don’t act, that’s a powerful motivator. It’s called the “Fear of Missing Out” or FOMO for short.

Learn to leverage FOMO in your copywriting techniques and you’ll be able to motivate and generate real action. Use it to take people from wanting your product to actually buying it.

Affiliate Marketing

Getting a high conversion rate with your landing page isn’t just about writing good copy. Design can play a huge factor as well. Poor design can kill even world class copy.

Yet many entrepreneurs don’t really understand what goes into landing page design.

The design of a landing page doesn’t use the same rules of design as graphic design. The goal isn’t necessarily to look good, though that doesn’t hurt.

Instead, the goal is to direct attention flow as clearly as possible. You want to first make it easy for the headline to catch attention. Then you want to direct that attention in an unobstructed way.

Here are a few tips on landing page design.

==> Headline Color and Font

Red has traditionally been one of the highest converting colors in any market. This is still true today, with a few notable exceptions.

In markets that are heavily marketed to, such as the “make money online” market or the “lose weight” market, red headlines can actually decrease conversions. People are tired of hardcore sales messages and start to tune them out.

In a heavily marketed market, try a deep blue color instead. In other markets, red is still a healthy choice.

For fonts, always go for a sans-serif font. Tahoma has been tested to pull extremely well. Make the font as big as possible to fill the whole screen.

==> Graphical Headline, Graphical Subheads

Instead of just using plain text for your headline, you can really bring it to life by making it a graphic instead.

This allows you to add drop shadows, yellow highlights, creative punctuation and so on. This applies to both headline and subheads.

If you use this technique, always try to compress the image as much as possible. Your headline should load instantly when visitors load the website.

==> Color, Background and Width

The background of your sales letter should be as unobtrusive as possible. Many top sales letters just have white backgrounds. If you want something a little better looking, you can use a slight color or a mild pattern.

Never use a background that calls attention. Your reader’s eyes should be on the sales message, not the design.

Always use black text on a white foreground. Different text colors and different foreground colors never, ever work.

The width of the sales letter should be relatively narrow. This helps create the sense that the content is easy to read. The width should be no more than 700 pixels wide, preferably below 650 pixels.

These design factors combined will give you a streamlined design that has been proven time after time to convert well. It may not win graphic design awards, but it will do its job of putting money in your bank account.

Affiliate Marketing

Keyword research is the all-important scaffold of any successful internet marketing campaign. If you have the right keywords, you’ll be able to get the right kind of person to your website. The wrong keywords will either be too competitive to realistically get traffic, or you’ll attract the wrong kind of person.

Here are a few keyword research tips to help find the optimal keywords for your business.

==> Know Your One to Two Year Keyword Targets

While it’s important to do your keyword research for what you want to target immediately, it’s even more crucial that you know what you want to be targeting six months, one year or two years from now.

The tough keywords don’t happen get ranked overnight. Instead, you need months and months of concerted effort to hit the top.

While you’re working on the easier keywords, also spend some time working on the harder ones. In time, long-term thinking pays off.

==> Research Different Base Keywords

Try to research as many different “base” keywords as possible. A base keyword is a keyword that has a unique set of words.

For example, if you’re in the weight loss industry, “lose weight” and “burn fat” are different base keywords. On the other hand, “burn fat quickly” or “burn belly fat” are subsets of the “burn fat” base keyword.

Try to research as many base keywords as possible. Especially try to dig up uncommon ones or overlooked ones. The competition within a base keyword, among its longtail keywords tends not to vary too much. However, the competition between base keywords can vary a lot.

There could be much, much more competition for “lose weight” than “look slimmer.” Try and find lower competition base keywords, rather than just drilling deep.

==> Competitive Research

Competitive research is a huge part of determining whether or not a keyword is worth pursuing. The goal of keyword research is to find keywords that have high enough volume to be worth it, without too much competition.

In SEO, assessing the competition involves gauging a number of factors. These include the number of backlinks your competitors have, their PageRank, when the site was founded, the number of pages on the site, how many exact match anchor texts are pointing back to their site and their current rankings.

In PPC, evaluating your competition involves using spy software like SpyFu or KeywordSpy to see what kind of keywords and ads they’re using, as well as what they’re likely paying.

If you start with your long-term keyword goals then work your way back, explore a wide array of different keyword bases and do your competitive research to figure out where you’re most likely to win, then you’ll have a very good chance of overtaking your competition.

Affiliate Marketing

Have you thought about using an ezine to market your business? If not, consider using an online magazine to gain interest and traffic. Here are a few tips to use as you craft your magazine.

People love to read magazines. They provide articles, ads and photos to view. You can use one as a way to market your business.

With magazines also come subscribers. It is one step closer to getting people to try your products and invest in your business. Here are some ways you can use your ezine to leverage your business position.

* Offer free subscription – Just for signing up and giving their name and email address, you can offer free subscriptions to your new online magazine.

* Write articles about your products – You can write articles related to your niche market, helpful ones that offer timely and expert advice to your reading audience. But, don’t forget to write pieces about your business products. Let people know that you are an expert and then tell them about what you do.

* Create a customer section – This is where customers can have their questions featured and answered by you. Include an email address where they can send them.

* Offer advertising for free or at a discount – This is one way to pay for your magazine efforts. Offer a free month of advertising in exchange for subscription. Also include the price for advertisements depending on where on the page their ad is located.

* Have guest writers – Ask customers to write articles. If their submission is accepted, then they can get a discount on their total product order on your site. And, you can give them a byline.

* Use directories – Ezine directories such as ezine-dir.com allow you to create a page to promote your magazine. Include links to your advertising page, your magazine site and your website. Even create a page that gives them a sample of the online magazine to read.

* Hold contests – Everyone loves contests. The prize could be a free item from your store (within a certain price). Second and third prizes could be discounts upon purchasing. Feature the names of the contest winners in the next edition after the contest ends.

* Send out mailings to your email list – To those that have opted in for contacts on your website, send them an email autoresponder with a link to where they can subscribe to your online magazine. You can advertise a free report as incentive to sign up.

* Promote it on social networks – Do you have a Facebook business page? Talk about your ezine there. Even create a magazine page where subscribers can give feedback on your work.

Ezines can be used to promote your business by providing vital information about your business to current and prospective customers.

Affiliate Marketing

Once you’ve got yourself a fairly decent affiliate website up, the hard part comes – getting traffic to the site. There are a ton of different ways you can get traffic to an affiliate website, from the totally free to the high risk, high reward.

Here are a few smart ways of promoting your affiliate marketing website.

==> Pure Free SEO

If you don’t want to spend any money on marketing, you can still earn a very decent living through purely free SEO.

With this method, your goal is to identify several moderate traffic, low-competition terms to go after.

You build your pages around these terms, then get as many backlinks to your pages as possible. Use a myriad of free backlinking tactics like social bookmarking, directory submissions and article marketing to boost your rankings.

==> Accelerated SEO

Instead of just going for the low-hanging fruit, you can be more ambitious by using accelerated SEO techniques.

These techniques can help you net high PageRank, high authority links.

One common method of getting high rankings is to do paid blog posts. You pay other bloggers for the permission to write a blog that gets posted on their website. The link back to your site will be in-context and high in PageRank.

Another method of accelerating your SEO growth is to start outsourcing much of the work. By hand, you might only be able to do ten backlinks a day. For just $3 an hour, however, you can create your own mini army that goes out there creating these backlinks for you.

==> YouTube Traffic

Another method you can use to promote your affiliate marketing website is YouTube videos.

Put up innovative, informative and entertaining YouTube videos. Make sure the video is high enough quality that people will want to pass it to their friends.

Then put a link back to your affiliate website in the description box or in the captions.

==> Buying Up Related Sites

Go on Flippa.com and take a look at sites that are related to your industry. Buy them up and use the traffic to your advantage.

You can use the traffic to build an email list which funnels into your affiliate marketing list. You could put a banner ad for your site or an affiliate product on your list.

You could even just 301 redirect the entire site and its traffic to your primary site.

==> Pay Per Click Advertising

PPC advertising is quite difficult to master, especially when it comes to affiliate marketing. There are pitfalls when it comes to finding profitable ROI campaigns, as well as navigating the rules each PPC system has around affiliate marketing.

All that said, PPC is still one of the most lucrative ways of earning revenue through affiliate marketing.

These are some smart ways of promoting your affiliate marketing website, from the innovative to the proven.

Affiliate Marketing