So let’s see if we can shed a little light on the subject!

CPA in A Nutshell

CPA is an online advertising model where the advertiser only pays for a specified action linked to the advertisement.  For example, if you run a banner on a website and only pay the website owner whenever someone clicks on the banner and subscribes to your newsletter, that would be a CPA campaign.

I’m sure you can immediately see the benefit of running such a campaign – you only pay for actual subscribers, rather than paying for clicks or impressions.  This is by far the most lucrative form of advertising currently available to online businesses.

CPA is really an advertisers dream.

You can run a CPA campaign for nearly any outcome you choose, but most online businesses use it for purchases, free trials, subscribers, zero friction, etc.  If you’ve seen the advertisements where you’re required to put your name and email to get a coupon or be submitted for a chance to win something, then you’re already familiar with the concept behind this form of advertising.

How Can You Benefit From CPA?

Although CPA has been around for a long time, there have been some interesting developments in the industry recently.  The most beneficial development for most of us is that there are now a large variety of advertising networks available to advertise your offer.  Many of the full-service firms will even help you form your campaign, design your creatives, and even help you with your landing pages.

Not only are there a large number of advertising networks that offer CPA, but there is also a variety of methods of showing your advertisements now available through these networks.  You ad now has the opportunity to be shown in a full page pop under, pop over, email, contextual ad, banner, survey, form, etc.

There are tons of choices and lots of opportunity to profit, especially in zero friction campaigns.

CPA And Affiliates

And that brings me to the other evolution of  CPA.  As an affiliate, you have a lot of opportunities to offer CPA advertisements on your website – beyond the normal pay per commission affiliate program.

As an affiliate, you have the opportunity to earn a lot more affiliate commission through CPA because it’s generally easier to pre-sell your website visitors on those kinds of offers.  After all, it’s generally easier to get visitors to fill out a form or request more information about something than it is to get them to pull out their wallets.

Of course, there is also a downside.  It’s often more difficult to get approved to join CPA affiliate programs than it is to be approved for your normal, run of the mill affiliate program.  In fact, I recently came across a statistic that only about 10% of  applicants are approved for CPA programs.

If you can get approved, you can earn some serious affiliate revenue.

If you’d like to learn more about CPA, then I highly suggest you take the time to learn more about different strategies.  I personally like the zero friction method because it just makes sense!

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In fact, I was quietly building my online business and no one knew about it… until my mother in law found out.

Suddenly my extended family wanted to know more about what I *did,* friends who knew that I worked at home suddenly wanted to know more, and people I barely knew started asking more for more information about my online business.

That’s when the need for business cards hit me squarely in the face… and I didn’t have one!

If I had been a little smarter, I would have created a business card for my ebusiness much sooner.  I guess I just didn’t think about all the opportunities that I was overlooking without them.

Business cards are excellent lead generation tools AND they make you look like a professional… no matter what kind of business you’re in!

The standard business card really hasn’t changed much in last few decades, except for added lines for fax numbers, email and website addresses. While it may be simple, the little card is still an effective lead generation tool that gets results.

• It gives potential customers all the information they need in one location.With that card, they have a contact name, name and type of business, and a website address. That potential customer can access your products or services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Business cards make you look polished and professional.Potential customers are more likely to conduct business with you if you have a professional looking business card than if you scribble your website address on a piece of scrap paper.

• It just makes it easier to communicate with potential customers, friends, and family.Handing out a business card easily explains your business, your website address, and what you *do* in one simple to understand format. It’s like having your thirty second commercial about your online business on a cue card… it works.

• People hang onto business cards forever.Once you’ve handed someone one of your cards, you may not hear anything from them about your business for weeks or month… but they still have your information. I’ve been surprised to hear from people who received my card more than a year ago and now they’re ready to do business.

So, do you have a business card for your online business?

Don’t do what I did and wait until you really need it, get your cards and start using them now.  You’ll be surprised how many doors it will open for you and your business!

I get my cards through VistaPrint.

They’re quick, easy, cheap, and professional looking.  In addition, they’re always offering great deals and free business cards online.

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• A headline must capture the attention of your prospect.
• A headline must tell your prospect what’s in it for him.
• A headline must deliver a complete, immediately understandable message.
• A headline must pull the prospect into the copy… compelling him to keep reading.

In essence, a headline should motivate your prospect to respond.

In fact, headlines are soooo important that I have a swipe file of really great headlines that I come across.  I keep a swipe file so that I can go back and refer to those headlines and use them as headline starters when it’s time for me to create my own promotional materials.

Here are 10 headline starters from my own swipe file:

• The Untold Secrets To Making…
• Is Your (Insert Topic) Being Threatened?
• 7 Amazing Strategies to…Add New
• Do You Wish There Was An Easier Way To…
• 3 Direct Reasons Why You’ll Be Kicking Yourself if You Don’t…
• Instant Strategies Anyone Can Use To…
• The 5 Ugly Lies About…
• How I (Insert Benefit) In Record Time…
• Watch this ‘shocking’ play-by-play underground video…
• Why Aren’t You…?

If you’re interested in getting more great headlines as well as swipe files for other parts of your promotional material, then I highly recommend My Instant Swipe File.

Or feel free to visit my full review of My Instant Swipe File.

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So of course I clicked on the forum post and found out that the post was meant to be sarcastic.  Then I started reading the responses from other Warriors and was completely appalled with the lack of integrity of some of the posters.  The video below is my rant on the subject:

And here is the Podcast of the video (so you can take it to the gym or something instead of being tied to the computer! )

And for those who don’t like audio/video (or the sound of my voice totally annoys you), here’s a rundown of what I had to say:

1.  If you want to make money online, you probably shouldn’t be in the internet marketing niche.

Internet marketing is used in every niche to promote websites, you don’t have to promote internet marketing in order to USE internet marketing.  In fact, every business on and off line is actually in the business of marketing, whether they realize it or not.

In my opinion, it’s much better to be a big fish in a small pond by applying yourself to a small niche rather than being a tiny fish in an ocean of competition… as you are in the internet marketing niche.

Real money is made online by everyday people who find a niche, completely dominate that niche, monetize that niche, profit from that niche, and then move on to a new niche and do the same thing over and over and over again.

2.  Long term income and longevity online comes from being original.

It’s not okay to copy other ebooks and rehash them to make your own product… but you can use other’s work as the inspiration for your own original products.

Rehashing old ebooks isn’t working as well for “gurus” as it used to because the online community is finally starting to wise up.  No one wants to pay $50, $60, $100 for a twenty page report that contains the same information that they could find online with a little searching.

3.  You can’t just throw in the towel when it gets tough!

If what you’re doing isn’t working, you’ve got to track it, analyze it, research it, study it, until you figure out why.  It just doesn’t make sense to repeatedly throw in the towel, start over, and move to something else when you don’t immediately make thousands of dollars online.

Proactive Steps You Can Take:

1. Track and analyze everything on your website so you can determine what’s working and what isn’t for your business.

2. Master a marketing strategy before you move on to another one. In article marketing, for example, you wouldn’t do five or six articles and then move on.  You’d need to do hundreds of articles over months before you could say that that marketing method doesn’t work for you.

3.  Realize that earning substantial revenue online takes time.

4.  Don’t be schizophrenic with your business. Make a plan, stick to your plan, and be consistent with your marketing.  You can’t jump around from idea to idea… you need to focus on one goal at a time.

5.  Find a mentor. Mentors can be extremely helpful in helping you fix whatever might be broken in your business.  In addition, if you can find a mentor in your niche you may be able to piggy back off them and become successful more quickly.

6.  Believe in yourself and don’t let yourself get negative. The world is full of people who try something for a week, claim it doesn’t work, and then tell everyone who will listen that the idea is crap.

Don’t let yourself become one of those people.  Those kinds of people spend their entire lives being victims and blaming others for why they aren’t happy and successful.  Life’s too short for that!

So that’s my big rant for today… what do you think?

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If you want to get the rest of the story, you’ll have to subscribe to Answers eMagazine and read the January 2009 Edition.

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In this month’s issue the Cover Story is about landing pages, what they are, how to use targeted landing pages, and how to write really great landing pages. I’m also running a Special Feature about putting website counters on websites… should you have a counter on your homepage?

In addition, we’ll talk about the difference between reporting and being an expert on your blog, continue our series on tips to increase your conversion rates, and discuss why you should be gearing up for the holidays now.

All in all, it’s a pretty full issue, so I hope you’ll take the time to subscribe to receive your copy now at:

http://imarketingwatch.com/answers/

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Marketing a business with email newsletters can benefit your business because the people who sign up for your newsletter want to hear your message, they are already familiar with your products and services, and you can build a lot of rapport with your target audience through a newsletter. In addition, a well-written newsletter provides you with a tremendous amount of credibility. It puts them in a warm, ready to buy, frame of mind.

Most important of all, however, is that newsletters and ezines can create the additional benefit of generating revenue for your business, provided that you don’t practice any of these humongous newsletter mistakes!

Mistake #1: Unprofessional Design

When you’re designing the look and feel of your newsletter or ezine, it’s best to make it look like an integrated component of your business.

Even if you choose to create a newsletter that’s strictly text, there are still things that you can include that will call to mind your website or business to the reader. For example, you could use your business tagline in the beginning of your email message.

In addition to looking like a part of your business, your newsletter should also look clean, easy to read, and well thought out. You don’t want to present a sloppy or unprofessional image to your target audience because it will hurt the revenue generating power of your newsletter and may actually hurt the business itself.

Mistake #2: Misspellings and Bad Grammar

Okay, everyone, including me, makes a spelling mistake or a grammar slip from time to time. But if you make a habit of it with your newsletter or ezine, it won’t be an effective marketing tool for your business. When a potential customer reads a newsletter full of misspellings and bad grammar then may assume that your business is equally sloppy.

In addition, simple spelling and grammar mistakes hurt your credibility with your target audience. If you can’t even spell correctly, what’s to say that they should trust your advice? Perhaps you’re a complete dope… at least your prospects may think it’s possible.

Mistake #3: Blatant Outside Advertising

This one is probably a sore spot with a lot of business owners. Some businesses earn quite a bit of money through outside advertising in their newsletters. It’s a business model that works very well for a lot of businesses, but it’s something to think carefully about.

When you get ready to start your own newsletter or ezine, you should carefully consider the purpose of your newsletter. For example, if your newsletter is designed to spotlight your product and it’s importance in your field, then carrying outside advertising really works counter to that purpose. You would want to point your target to your product and your product alone.

On the other hand, if your newsletter is designed with the sole purpose of generating revenue, then outside advertising might be necessary. Remember, whenever you accept outside advertising into your newsletter or ezine, you are inviting your readers to visit those other website, rather than your own. Therefore, you must determine if outside advertising fits into your overall newsletter model.

Blatant or “in your face” advertising is probably never a good idea, regardless of your newsletter model. It irritates your subscribers and costs you rapport and credibility with them. In my opinion, it’s much better to go with more passive advertising like linking within articles, small graphics, resource boxes, etc.

Mistake #4: Non-Focused Content

This is a humongous mistake that I see email marketers make all the time… sending the wrong kind of content to their target audience. For example, a stock trading newsletter should never send a weight loss article to their target audience unless it directly related to a specific stock. That would be completely ridiculous… but it happens all the time.

Your target audience subscribes to your newsletter because they want to receive information on your niche or business. If you fail to send them the kind of information that they expect, or that you’ve advertised, then you’ve irreparably hurt your own credibility.

Mistake #5: Ineffective Mail Frequency

In order for a newsletter or ezine to be effective in generating revenue or sales for a business, it has to be sent out at regular intervals and often enough to become a good marketing tool.

In my experience, you’ve got to send out a newsletter at least once every two weeks to be effective. You would be better off, however, to send something to your subscribers weekly.

The reason for more frequent contact is so that your subscribers remember you and don’t hit the “spam” button as soon as you send them something. In other words, if you don’t send mailings to your subscribers often enough, then will forget you, they will forget your product, and they will forget that they ever subscribed to your newsletter. All of this works counter to your marketing goals.

Of course, it’s also possible to go too far in the other direction and mail your target audience too often. You should take a look at your overall newsletter goals and your newsletter model to determine how often you should mail your subscribers.

There’s a lot of other mistakes that newsletter and ezine owners make that hurt their business, but these are the really humongous mistakes.

No matter how you approach your newsletter and what newsletter model you choose to employ, your overriding goal should be to put your subscribers in a warm, ready to buy frame of mind. If you do, your list will be more responsive whether you’re marketing your own products, affiliate marketing, or simply selling advertising.

In the end, building rapport, trust, and credibility with your subscribers will generate a substantial amount of revenue for your business.

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I call this astounding news because the only reason that I’ve heard sited for bumping it back was so that the studio could make more money.

In other words, they made a killing on The Dark Knight and so they didn’t need a big blockbuster this fall to end out the year… so why not push it back so that they can seed their profits for next year? In addition, the kids are out of school and movies are more accessible to them, and they’ve also got the DVD/Christmas season release to consider.

HUGE mistake.

Let me tell you why I think the studio has really messed up on this one…

What Are They Saying To Loyal Fans?

Look, the Harry Potter franchise is a business… first and foremost. Believe me, I totally get that, so I understand that it may be better for the studio to release the movie in July… provided that was their original game plan. It makes sense from a business stand point.

Hind sight is 20/20, so they may even wish that they had planned for a Summer 2009 release.

However, if you have children, you know that Harry Potter isn’t a franchise or a business to the millions of loyal fans of the series. It’s a story that people all over the world, across every age group, deeply identify with.

Harry has become an icon.

Movie studios shouldn’t mess with icons. Studios also shouldn’t tell fans that they’re trying to dig a little deeper into their pockets while handing them a huge disappointment with a bump in the release.

Beyond the fact that I think it’s morally wrong, it’s also really stupid from a PR perspective. After all, the movie has already been completed and is ready for release… they’ve even started running trailers and getting sneak peaks in several magazines.

Fans know it’s all about the money… and I think they’ll remember when it comes time to buy some of the movie paraphernalia (at least I know this parent will!).

Here’s a couple of quotes I’ve read from fans:

“I have to wonder if this isn’t just some big ploy on Warner Bros. part to create a big controversy to draw even more attention to the movie. They make this big announcement that they’re moving the release date to next summer, we all freak out, the press publishes tons of articles on the topic, pressuring Warner Bros. to move the release date back to November, we all rejoice because we “won” and we all see the movie five times instead of once or not at all, like we’re threatening here. I mean, the movie’s finished. Perhaps this is just a big marketing/publicity experiment. With the same end for WB, of course: to make MORE MONEY.”

That was a possibility that I hadn’t thought of . Here’s another telling quote:

“This is absolutely disgusting. You have done this, not so kids can enjoy it during the holiday or so that it doesn’t clash with your other titles or make the audience sick of the sameness. You have done this so you can get a DVD release for Christmas 2009 because you left it too late for this year – you make me absolutely sick – you cannot expect your public (paying public and paying heavily I may add) to be messed around like this. This is really bang out of order. I will watch, of course I will because I am a potter fan but I will seriously think about funding your empire by watching any other WB movies or buying any of your future merchandise. You really do suck – big time. I hope it all backfires on you and someone steals it from you and plays it on the net or something – you deserve it for disappointing fans who have anticipated this release for a very long time. Boo warner Bros – Boo boo boo – you should be ashamed”

Of course I could go on and on with quotes from angry Harry Potter fans… there are thousands of people reacting on blogs and forums everywhere…

Frankly, WB would have been better off to create some kind of controversy or the need for additional scene filming that would delay the film release. Fans wouldn’t have liked it, but it would have been a much easier pill to swallow… especially since studios pull that kind of bunk all the time.

But they didn’t do that… they alienated their customers by telling them the truth. It’s all about money.

When you’ve worked so hard to build a fan base and create deeply felt rapport with your customers, why would you jeopardize all that with such a move?

If Warner Brothers moved the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as purely a business decision, then they should fire the guy who made that decision… it’s very bad business.

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As a business owner and marketer, I totally understand why the demo team exists… to solicite new members to our dojang!

It’s a sound marketing strategy, in theory, but something happened over the weekend that really got me to thinking about the whole thing.

Our family got hornswaggled into performing a smaller demonstration at a place called “Crane House.”  We were asked as a special favor to our Grand Master, told there would be a lot of performers in addition to our own Korean Demo Team, promised that it would only last an hour, and assured that it would be a great cultural experience for the kids.  Okay, we’ll do it!

Now, you need to understand two things…

1. It’s an hour for us to get to town roundtrip because we live in the country.
2. We already know that our Grand Master tends to exaggerate from time to time.

So, we got all gussied up in our finest dobaks on a Sunday afternoon, piled into the demo team van, and drove to the “Crane House.”

I should have realized what a lark the whole thing was going to be when the “Crane House” turned out to be a small conference room at a small public library… but that’s okay, maybe there’s going to be a lot of people there.  After all, there were supposed to be several other cultural demonstrations.

We arrived at the library about a half an hour early in order to set up our display, run through what each of us was going to demonstrate, and introduce ourselves to the other demonstrators.  As I watched the clock waiting for the croud to start filtering in, the other demonstrators arrived… an accupuncturist, tai chi master, karate demo team (three people), someone from Kroger doing free blood pressure screening, and a Turkistani dance group (who were very interesting, btw).

Two o’clock… time for use to do our demo (we were the first demonstration).

No one, apart from the other demonstrators, was at this little gathering… no one.  In fact, there were no kids — tae kwon do’s target market  — at the function.

No one signed up for a trial lesson or even looked interested in tae kwon do.  It was a complete waste of time… and my Sunday afternoon!  In fact, we had to stay for all the demonstrations (it would have been rude to get up and leave), so the whole endeavor took a whopping five hours (including driving time)!

Do I sound bitter?

Okay, maybe a little flabbergasted.  Why would our dojang even bother to do this kind of demonstrations?

1. It makes our dojang look like it’s hard up for cash if we do these go-nowhere type demos in the community.  That’s not good for business at all, in my opinion.
2. Tiny demos like this just burn out the demo team so that they won’t want to participate in the bigger demos.
3. Doing demonstrations for elementary school assemblies, scouts, day cares, children’s fairs, etc. would be a much better use of the dojang’s time and resources.

What does all this have to do with you?

Okay, I realize that this was a pretty long story to use just to illustrate my point… but here it is. 

Know your target audience!

Yep, that’s it!

If you do demonstrations in the community, don’t waste your time doing demos for people who really aren’t interested in what you’re selling.  It will be complete waste of your time and resources.

If my Grand Master truly understood his target audience, where he can find them, and how he can reach them, then he wouldn’t have set up a demonstration like the one I described above. 

You may be asking yourself at this point why I didn’t explain all this to my Grand Master… two reasons:

1. His culture and background wouldn’t have allowed him to take business advice from a woman… his loss.
2. He didn’t ask.  I never give unsolicited business advice to friends and family… our dojang is very much like a family.

There’s one thing I can tell you for sure… our family will never do another one of these small demos again!

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You just can’t sell people your product if they never even see your message… that’s the first big hurtle in direct marketing.

Recently I received a piece of unsolicited mail that got my attention… In fact, it actually got me to open it even though I knew I wasn’t interested in this company. Let me set it up for you.

The company, which I won’t actually name, is a gardening club and they’ve been trying to sell me a membership for several years. Their method for getting new members is to offer a deal where you get to test different garden products from them in exchange for their membership. I’ve received all kinds of direct mail pieces from them including post cards, brochures, envelopes full of stuff, etc. But this time, they sent me something a little different.

The big green envelope they sent made funny shaking noises that peaked my curiousity… I had to open it and see what what inside. Whoever designed this marketing piece is brilliant at getting people to open the envelope! I bet their open rate for this piece is very high because most people will be curious enough about the noise to actually open up the package.

I still didn’t buy a membership… the entire offer just didn’t appeal to me… but I did open the package and see their marketing message.

So what was inside… an inexpensive packet of flower seeds!

Here’s Another One

A few weeks ago I received a plastic coconut in the mail. (It was one of those coconut cups that you put a straw into and use at a tropical party.) It was strangely wrapped in plastic with no identifying information in it, and I thought it was probably a mistake or a sample sent from a company who wants me to sell them on one of my sites (I get this kind of stuff all the time).

Frankly, I wasn’t particularly interested in the coconut, so it got tossed aside where my eight year old son found it. He was fascinated by it, as any eight year old would be, and opened it up. Lo and behold, there was a very long sales letter inviting me to join an affiliate program!

This was certainly one of the most interesting direct mail pieces I’ve received in a long time… the trouble is that the letter inside didn’t live up to the outside packaging. I didn’t join the affiliate program, but I am seriously looking at their product.

Mission accomplished!

What kind of direct mail samples do you get?

I guess all that junk mail we get is good for something… at least if you’re in the business of marketing your business (and you should be). Junk mail provides us with a wealth of opportunities to see what works and what doesn’t and gives a us a lot great examples to put in our swipe files.

When it comes to direct mail, the biggest obstacle for marketers is to get their prospects to open the mail and read the marketing message. The examples above gave me a whole bunch of great ideas to use in my next direct marketing campaign… hopefully they’ve inspired you too!

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