View Research PDF

Internet

Marketing for

Smart People

How to Get More Traffic, Better

Customers, and More Profit

Using Content Marketing

I N T ER N ET M A R K ET I N G F OR S M A R T PEOPL E

Feel free to email,

tweet, blog, and pass

this exbook around

the web

... but please don’t alter any of its contents

when you do. Thanks!

copyblogger.com

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Introduction

By Sonia Simone

Something tells me you’re just ... well ... smarter than most people

looking to market online.

You’re not interested in lame “get rich quick” schemes. You’re not

looking for a magical silver bullet that involves no work, no time, and

no sense.

In other words, you don’t have to be Einstein to get this stuff. But

you’d have to be an idiot to believe some of the stuff peddled by

traditional Internet marketing “gurus.”

Introducing Internet Marketing for Smart

People

Before we get started, let’s talk a little about what “Internet Marketing

for Smart People” is (and isn’t).

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

The idea for these lessons was born from a bunch of conversations

Brian and I had as we were trying to teach Copyblogger readers

exactly how to create the kinds of enjoyable, profitable business that

we’ve built.

The blogging world had a lot of the pieces, but they didn’t have the

whole thing.

We saw too many bloggers who had huge, loyal audiences — but

were still broke. The “blogosphere” isn’t as rabidly anti-commercial

as it used to be, but the huge majority of bloggers still aren’t using

the best techniques to turn fans into customers.

We experimented a little with letting readers know about some

products from the more traditional Internet Marketing (IM) world. But

while the IM gurus had a great collection of tactics, they missed the

mark on some of the most important components that make a 21st

century business work online.

I wrote a post about this dilemma (you can read it here) that got

people talking.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

The funny thing was, . . . it got us talking.

Brian and I spent a lot of time talking strategy for Copyblogger (the

publication), and for Rainmaker Digital (the business).

And we found ourselves talking about what went into creating an

ethical, effective business.

We talked about the coolest, most remarkable ways to combine

great content with smart marketing. And how to put together direct

response copywriting that also respected our relationship with our

amazing community of readers and customers alike.

We decided to do more than talk. We decided to create a free course

just for Copyblogger readers — and those lessons became the

“Internet Marketing for Smart People” e-course.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

What you’ll get out of this ebook

When we looked closely at what was working best at Copyblogger,

we found that success rested on four pillars:

• Relationships

• Direct response copywriting

• Content marketing

• High quality products

Each pillar enhances the others. Together, they’re much stronger

than they would be if any of the pillars were missing.

That’s not theory, by the way. We’ve tested and proven these

concepts by launching profitable businesses in all kinds of niches

and topics, and by teaching others to do the same.

This ebook contains 20 core lessons on the nuts and bolts of

what goes into creating your own remarkable, content-based

“Copyblogger-style” marketing system.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

We return to each pillar several times, building on what’s gone

before, so that as you go, you’re creating a solid structure that gives

you the best earning potential.

We can’t and wouldn’t promise any kind of specific financial return

from the course. How much money you can make depends on your

focus, your drive, your market, your knowledge of your topic, and a

bunch of other things we don’t have any control over.

We’ll give you some of the best, most effective tools available today.

What you build with them is up to you. Fair enough?

What happens next

This ebook is intended to give you a real grounding in the way that

we do business and marketing on Copyblogger, and in our related

businesses.

Each lesson will be illustrated with articles from around the Web.

Many of those will be from Copyblogger, but we’ll also include

others who we think “get it.”

Ready to dive in? Cool ... let’s get it started ...

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 1

The First Pillar: Relationships

You know that old cliché, right? “Content is king?”

Well, it’s wrong.

Content matters, and content is a pillar of the “Internet Marketing for

Smart People” method. But content isn’t king.

Relationships are king.

Clever online marketers figured out a long time ago that “the money

is in the list.” In other words, if you can get a big list together of folks

who had some interest in your topic, you could give those people a

chance to buy stuff, and make a pretty nice living doing it.

The reality is, the direct mail (known to most of us as junk mail) folks

had this figured out decades before there was such a thing as the

Internet.

And because it costs money to send direct mail, they also figured out

another very important piece:

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Not every list is created equal.

When you’re spending even a few cents to send a piece of mail (and

sending them by the millions), you need to get very clear on what

works and what doesn’t.

Taking good care of your village

There are a lot of names for a group of prospects and customers you

communicate with regularly.

Dan Kennedy calls them a herd (which is a bit condescending, I

think). Traditional internet marketers call it a list. Seth Godin calls it a

tribe.

Here on Copyblogger, we call them a village. In some ways, we’ve

gone back to the Middle Ages, when nearly everyone’s “work” was

inextricably tied with their community.

The village baker was your neighbor. If he baked terrible bread, you

walked over and gave him a piece of your mind. It was a messy,

complicated system. Sometimes it was a real pain. But it also

brought a comforting reliability and predictability that business today

usually can’t match.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

In other words, it was a relationship.

Your village asks more from you, but they’re also more loyal to you.

This isn’t a new way of doing business, but it’s new to most of us.

Take a look at this post with more thoughts on the village of

customers.

In IMfSP (that’s Internet Marketing for Smart People) marketing, you

treat your village as your greatest asset.

That means the combined total of all the people who read (or watch,

or listen to) your content regularly. Your blog community, your email

list, your customer list, your Twitter followers — all of it.

Every time you have a business decision to make, you make it with

this in mind: How does this decision affect my relationship with my

village?

It’s how you decide what products to offer. It’s how you decide how

often to post. It’s how you decide whether or not to run an article by

a guest writer. It’s how you choose your affiliates.

Now there’s an important flip side to this, too.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Relationships go both ways

Sometimes we justify our fear of selling with the excuse that we

don’t want to damage our relationship with the village.

Keep in mind that a one-way relationship isn’t really a relationship at

all. It’s exploitation.

In exchange for everything you do for your village, you must also

conduct yourself in a businesslike way.

That means setting appropriate boundaries, making it clear from the

beginning that you’ll be offering products for sale, and taking from

the village as well as giving to it.

This is where many bloggers and other social media types stumble,

and we’re going to give you much more specific advice on how

you’ll do that with your own village. To get you started, take a look at

this post, aimed at what I call “Kumbaya” bloggers.

Just remember: If you give and give to your village, and never get

anything in return, what would that make you?

The village idiot, of course.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Next up, we’ll be talking about the second IMfSP pillar, which is

copywriting. Specifically, we’ll go in-depth on the one element that

can make or break your content.

CHAPTER 2

How to Get More People to

Consume and Share Your

Content ...

Now we’re going to jump into the second pillar of Internet Marketing

for Smart People, which is copywriting. More specifically, direct

response copywriting, which is used by direct marketers to trigger

very specific responses from readers.

The first thing you should know is that copywriting and content are

two different critters. Related, but different. We’ll talk more about

that as we go forward.

One thing they do have in common, though, is that they both need

fantastic headlines. Improving your headlines is the single fastest way

you can make your writing more effective.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Believe it or not, a quick way to find some killer headlines is to start

checking out the supermarket tabloids. You know the kind — the

ones with headlines that read like “Man’s Head Explodes in Barber’s

Chair.”

We might glance at the tabloids when we’re in line at the

supermarket and figure they’re written for (and by) morons. But

smart copywriters study them carefully, because cheesy tabloids

employ some of the greatest headline writers in the business. If you

think about it, those headlines need to grab the potential reader by

the throat and make that newspaper a must-read.

How can you get some of this mojo into your own copy and

content? Take a look at these three Copyblogger lessons on how

to adapt an existing successful headline (like one on a tabloid or a

popular magazine) for your own writing:

The Cosmo Headline Technique

The Hidden Key to Cosmo Headlines: Sex and the City?

Magazine Headline Remix: Details Edition

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

This is also a great technique if you’re a bit stumped for a post topic.

Mentally translating a tabloid headline to your own topic can spur all

kinds of creative ideas.

If your headline fails, you might as well go

home

If your headline is boring, or wimpy, or doesn’t capture anyone’s

attention, the game is over.

Your headline has one job, and one job only:

The job of the headline is to get the first line of your copy read.

“Your copy” in this case might be a blog post, a sales letter, a landing

page, or even a lesson in a free e-course.

If the headline does that job, it worked.

If it doesn’t do that job, it failed.

Great headlines can also do tricky things like make people want to

Plus, Share, retweet, and otherwise get the word out about your

work.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

What headlines don’t do, and don’t need to do, is to “sell” anything.

They don’t have to deliver your biggest promise, or communicate

a customer benefit, or some of the other stuff you may have read

about.

We’re not saying it’s bad to put a promise or a benefit into a headline.

In fact, it’s a really smart strategy most of the time. But you do it

because it works to get the post or email opened, and that first line

of copy read.

And because headlines do fail sometimes (happens to the best of

us!), here’s a Copyblogger lesson on one that didn’t do well for us ...

and how we tweaked it to work better:

One Big Way to Avoid a Headline Fail

Why you want to write great headlines

More people will read your headline than anything else you write.

They read it in your Twitter stream, they see it fly by in their RSS

reader, and it shows up in their email inbox.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Mastering headlines doesn’t automatically make you a great

copywriter, but it is a skill you’ll need if you want to effectively

market anything.

If you haven’t yet read the Copyblogger ebook “How to Write

Magnetic Headlines,” you can go pick it up in your free member

library

What else gets read?

The other places you want to have great, compelling content are

your first paragraph, your image captions, any P.S. you might have,

and your subheads.

Subheads are the second-level headlines you see in a post like this

one that break up the copy, like “What else gets read?” above.

Those are the most-read elements of any kind of copy, whether

you’re sending out a 28-page physical sales letter or a Twitter tweet.

The same skills that will make you a great headline writer will also

serve you well when you’re putting these elements together.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

For more ideas on subheads, check out The Deceptively Simple

Steps to Persuasive Writing that Works.

Content vs. copywriting

Remember at the beginning of this article, we mentioned that

content and copy are two different critters?

The main purpose of copy is to persuade a reader to take a certain

action. The main purpose of content is to create trust, familiarity, and

warm fuzzy feelings in your audience. A smart 21st-century strategy

uses both, and here’s a quick guide to how they work together in

tandem.

Used together, direct response copywriting and social media-

style content are much more powerful than either one used

independently.

In the next chapter, we’re going to talk about what makes for great

content and why it’s so important to your business.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 3

The Secret to Creating an

“Unfair” Competitive Advantage

Have you ever had a customer warmly thank you for your

advertising? Or ask you to help them make sure they’ll never miss

one of your ads?

Is your advertising changing people’s lives for the better? Does

it make you look like a hero with your prospects and customers,

instead of just interrupting and annoying them?

That’s the promise, obviously, of using content to market your

business. But it’s easy to get intimidated by content marketing.

There are hundreds of different ways to use content to attract

more leads, convert those leads into customers, create repeat and

referral business, and create positive PR (in this case we mean public

relations, not Google PageRank, although it can create that as well).

Let’s get one thing out of the way. You don’t have to be a genius

copywriter to create a content marketing program that makes your

customers love you (and your competitors weep).

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Copywriting talent is plentiful. Effective copywriting strategy is much

less plentiful.

In other words, there are a lot of writers who can give you beautiful

words. But deploying those words in a strategic way is a different

thing altogether.

Let’s look at one of the most popular ways to use content: to attract

attention in the marketplace and get potential customers to find you.

Create something worthy of attention

I see a lot of bogus marketing “gurus” try to tell you that you can slap

together any old mish-mash and market it as content.

So let me be very clear:

Garbage content will get you garbage results.

Tempted by one of those “auto blogging” programs that promises

a keywordfocused blog without any work? Keep in mind that if it’s

easy for you to automatically generate, it’s just as easy for your

competitors.

Also remember that this is the sort of content that Google likes to

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

devalue and even ban outright. Recent Google updates destroyed

traffic and rankings for thousands of sites using these kinds of tactics

– and Google just keeps getting better at detecting weak content.

The truth is, playing games is harder than just making something of

value. And if you aren’t a terrific writer yourself, it’s not too difficult to

find someone who is.

It’s a net, not a harpoon

Why does content marketing work so well?

Because instead of trying to take a single shot at your prospect and

“harpoon” him into buying, you create a nice, comfortable content

net that supports him and keeps him happy.

Great content creates a high level of trust and rapport, and educates

your potential client about all the benefits of doing business with

you.

You might hold onto that prospect for three days or three years

before he decides to buy. It doesn’t really matter. As long as you

keep delivering value, that person will stick with you and stay tuned

in to your message. And when he’s ready to buy, he’s yours.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

To make sure your readers aren’t tuning you out, you want to

shape your content so that it rewards the reader for taking time to

consume it. We call this cookie content (read this post to find out

why), and it’s a cornerstone of what makes content marketing work.

And for more details on the concept of the harpoon vs. the net, take

a look at this post:

The Harpoon or the Net: What’s the Right Copy Approach for Your

Prospects?

Finding customers, not just readers

If creating great content automatically led to a strong business, every

blogger would be rich.

Of course we know that there’s more to it than that. Your content

needs to be put into a system so that it pulls potential customers

closer and closer to you, and delivers a marketing message in a way

that’s inviting, not creepy.

You need more than great content: you need a content marketing

system.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

This doesn’t have to be an intimidating process. We wrote about all

of the steps here: How to Use Content to Find Customers. Anyone

can use the same incredibly effective content strategies that we use

here on Copyblogger to build a profitable (and fun) business.

In the next chapter, we’re going to give you some specifics about the

kinds of strategies that work well to make money online using your

great content (and one very popular strategy that doesn’t).

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 4

Why Advertising Doesn’t Work

for Bloggers

You might have heard that you can’t make money as a blogger.

A few bloggers can manage if they generate superhuman levels of

traffic, like Perez Hilton or ICanHasCheezburger (the LOLCat blog).

For ordinary mortals like us? You’ll be lucky to pay your Chipotle bill

via advertising. You need a model that works in the real world.

First, take a look at a post I wrote on exactly this topic, called Why

You Can’t Make Money Blogging.

One of the things I talk about in that post is that, for those who aren’t

seeing stratospheric traffic, we need to solve real problems in order

to make a decent living.

Copyblogger, even though it’s one of the most popular blogs on

the web, takes this approach. We don’t go the “blog celebrity” route,

because that’s subject to fads and fashion, and we like to build our

business on something more enduring than that.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Instead, we provide lots of solutions to real-world problems with

our free content, and we offer additional solutions involving paid

products of our own and formerly other people’s.

A lot of people associate affiliate marketing with sleaze, scams, and

highpressure sales techniques. But there’s no reason in the world to

leave affiliate marketing to the bottom-feeders.

Affiliate marketing is one of the smartest ways to start monetizing

your highquality content. But you have to do it right.

5 keys to better affiliate marketing

As you probably already know, affiliate marketing is the practice of

finding new customers for an existing product or service that you

didn’t create.

Even if you’re a product-creating rock star and you’ve got a fat

catalog of great stuff for your readers to buy, none of us can keep up

with our most passionate customers. They’re always going to want

more than we can provide. This is where a smart, thoughtful affiliate

program can fill the bill.

And if you don’t yet have a great product of your own to offer, you

can still give your audience the information, physical products, and

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

services they’re looking for, and make some money for yourself

while you’re at it. It’s just cool all the way around.

Generally, the vendor does all of the “selling” for you — you’re just

providing a lead. In reality, though, a little judicious pre-selling on

your part can make affiliate marketing work better for you.

When you’re looking for an affiliate product to review or promote on

your site, here are some of the guidelines that have worked well for

us on Copyblogger:

• Only promote products that are so good, you would

promote them whether or not you were paid to. Many “gurus”

will tell you to find a Clickbank product in your

niche that’s doing well and promote that. While that’s

a useful way to tell if a particular topic is viable, it’s also a

great way to destroy your relationship with your

audience unless the Clickbank product is terrific. Only promote

great quality, whether it’s a $17 product or a $17,000 one.

• Make sure you’re selling something your audience wants.

This seems obvious, but it’s where a lot of marketers fail.

You can’t just offer something people need or could

benefit from. They also have to want it. Don’t be

afraid to promote products that are already popular

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

in your topic. They’re popular because there’s a

strong desire. You’ll use your own relationship

and content to make people want to buy with your link.

• Look for high-dollar-value products. This is especially

important if you don’t have tons of traffic. It might seem

counterintuitive, but it’s true — you won’t necessarily sell more

of a cheaper product. It’s not uncommon to find that

a $197 product sells as many copies as a $19 one.

• Give some background. Reviews tend to do very well

for affiliate offers, because they give the buyer some additional

background on the product’s strong and weak points. Never be

afraid to honestly address flaws in a product you review.

You won’t hurt sales, and you will build your trust

and credibility with your audience.

• Always disclose your affiliate relationship. Not only is it a

good relationship-building practice to be honest with your

readers, but the FTC in the U.S. also requires bloggers

to disclose that you’re receiving financial compensation for

your endorsement. This can get you into some very

ugly hot water if you ignore it, so don’t. And yes, you can

still get in trouble even if your business isn’t based in the U.S.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

More killer strategies for affiliate

marketing

Brian Clark wrote a terrific series on Copyblogger about how

you can make more money with affiliate offers and improve your

relationship with your audience while you’re at it.

Remember, relationships are the first pillar. Make them your priority,

or the rest of your business won’t be able to grow and thrive.

The headlines speak for themselves. If affiliate marketing will be part

of your income mix, each of these is a must-read.

• Three Killer Content Strategies for Affiliate Marketing

• Five Effective Copywriting Tactics for Affiliate Marketing

• How to Turn Affiliate Disclosure into a Selling Point

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Can you still make this work if you aren’t

writing about online marketing?

A lot of people believe that this affiliate marketing stuff is only for

people writing about online marketing.

That’s actually one of the worst niches you could get into, so don’t

go there unless you have a huge passion for it (and something new

to add to the topic).

If you write a food blog, then review kitchen gadgets, gourmet

ingredients, and cookbooks. You can link to all of these with affiliate

links from both Amazon Associates and Commission Junction.

Remember to talk about the bad as well as the good. If the $2400

espresso machine sucks and the $89 one is fabulous, tell the

truth. And use an affiliate link for both. If someone’s going to

saddle themselves with the crummy one after you’ve given all the

information, there’s no reason for you to short yourself on the

commission.

If you write a humor blog, take your best material and put it on

t-shirts, hats, or bags with CafePress.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

If you’re a parenting blogger, you can review toys, clothes, diaper

bags, or even online parenting courses.

Blog about relationships? Find a great online course or ebook about

becoming a better husband, wife, parent, adult child, friend, or just

a happier, more fulfilled human being. There’s some great stuff out

there just waiting for you to help get the word out.

What’s the best way to score review

copies?

Physical stuff you’ll probably have to actually buy. If your blog gets

decent traffic, you can always ask for a freebie. But your credibility

goes up a little if you pay for it.

For ebooks and online courses, you can nearly always get your

money refunded if you decide the product isn’t worth a review, and

you should definitely get in the habit of getting a refund if it isn’t any

good (check the fine print before you pay to make sure, of course).

Of course, if the product is good and useful, don’t ask for a refund.

Karma tends to be very real in the online world.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Why you’re going to be better at this than

most people

Remember, you have some gigantic advantages in this business over

the typical “make money now” system guys.

• You’ve got a unique voice and point of view.

• You care more about your relationship with your audience

than you do about some affiliate commission (even a really

sweet one on that expensive espresso machine).

• You’re building tons of high-quality content (not auto-

generated or scraped junk) on your blog, creating a content net

to support buyers over the long run and keep them coming

back. If this offer isn’t a good fit for them, the next one may be.

This means your “ads” for these products don’t look like ads. They

look like honest recommendations from a friend. Which is exactly

the way you should think about them.

Will there ever be affiliate offers in

Copyblogger material?

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

We don’t make affiliate offers for other company’s products in our

content any more. If that ever changes, of course we’ll let you know.

Why don’t we use this strategy? Very simply, because over time,

we’ve built our own suite of content marketing tools and education

that cover most of what you’ll need to build a great content

marketing platform. When we run across a useful book or tool

that isn’t our own, we let you know about it without getting a

commission, because our core business model is built around our

own offerings.

We certainly let our audience know from time to time about

products, tools, or services that we create. Sometimes, when

we’re frustrated at not finding exactly the right tool to support our

businesses, we make one or partner with something superb that

already exists (the Genesis theme framework for WordPress being a

great example).

Would we ever let you know about something we didn’t believe in?

Of course not — because this is Internet Marketing for Smart People,

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

not Internet Marketing for Clueless Idiots. The dumbest thing we (or

you) could do is to promote garbage.

Your assignment for the week

Do some serious thinking about where you’re going to find really

high-quality affiliate products that you could discuss and, when

appropriate, recommend to your audience.

Clickbank is the biggest marketplace for information products

— just be aware that there’s a lot of junk mixed in with the gold.

Commission Junction is where to go for physical stuff — you’ll find

everything from collectible movie posters to gardening equipment

to great coffee. And if you’re in the information and advice business,

see if the better bloggers in your topic have anything you might

promote.

Next up, we’re going to circle back to relationships, and talk about

how to develop a persona that lets your readers and customers

create a stronger connection.

CHAPTER 5

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

The Key to Creating More

Remarkable Connections

So the first pillar for IMfSP is relationships, right? You’ve got to create

rock-solid relationships with your audience if you want to build a

solid, sustainable business.

We’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, this can be

one of the most fun parts of running your business.

The bad news is ... you’re probably gonna have to get naked.

No, no, not literally naked. If that’s your business model, I’m not sure

how much advice we’ll be able to give you.

But for most village businesses (remember, those are the kind of

smallniche, profitable, enjoyable businesses that create fanatically

loyal customer followings), the audience wants someone to relate

to. Conversations have two sides, and you’ve got to bring something

authentic to your end of the equation. Which can get scary.

Authenticity, blah, blah, blah

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

How many times have we heard “be more authentic in your content

and all riches/fame/success will be yours?”

There are a few problems with this.

First, it tends to lead dangerously to a lot of blathering about yourself

that no one wants to hear.

Trust me, I’d love to waffle on about my favorite techniques for

dyeing my hair, or share Flickr pictures of my kid’s most recent

watercolor paintings.

That’s what interests me. But it probably holds very minimal interest

to you.

The second problem is that it’s scary to put your “real self” out

there. Not only will your mother-in-law, your ex, and your fifth-

grade English teacher get to see what you’ve got to say, but so

will any number of random strangers (some of whom we can only

characterize as “loons”).

You don’t have to share it all

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Decide now what you will and won’t share. Some bloggers share

stories about their personal lives (particularly in media like Twitter,

which are essentially pure conversation), and some don’t. If you do,

make sure you’ve set reasonable boundaries for yourself.

“Authenticity” doesn’t mean you don’t have boundaries.

For more guidelines and suggestions on this, check out this post I

wrote forCopyblogger in 2008:

Feel Great Naked: Confidence Boosters for Getting Personal

You want to share personal details consciously and with care, not

just spew out whatever comes to mind.

They don’t want to read it all

Putting your own personality into your marketing is a great idea. It

creates an environment in which your readers will get to know, trust

and like you. And even the most hardcore salesman can tell you that

that’s the most important key to persuasion.

But becoming a self-centered bore is not a great idea. Make sure

you’ve got plenty of solid content that your readers care about.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Everyone’s mix is going to be a little different, but you want to aim

for a mix that looks roughly like this one:

The content mix

• 10-15% entertainment and/or “personality” content that

forms an emotional connection with your reader (if you’re shy

about revealing personal details, this will probably lean more

toward the “entertainment” side)

• 50-60% valuable tips and immediately usable information

• 10-15% weighty reference and higher-value content your

readers will want to bookmark and return to (as time goes on,

you may find you create less of this, preferring to send readers

back to your classic content)

• 5-15% content that builds relationships with other bloggers,

including news and links to other content

• 5% “selling” content that leads to an affiliate promotion or to a

sales sequence for your own product

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Don’t get too hung up on precise numbers, but do try to keep your

content profile in this general neighborhood.

Your audience will tell you the best mix for you. Some markets want

lots of entertainment, some like plenty of news, and others want to

form a strong bond with you as a person.

Also, remember that in some cases these categories can overlap. For

example, a meaty reference post can also be entertaining and show

your personality.

It’s still not about you

When you share your personality on your blog, it’s not for therapy or

to make yourself feel good.

Internet Marketing for Smart People is a marketing ebook, after all,

so we assume you’ve got something to sell — even if that something

is simply an idea, awareness of an issue, or a point of view.

The most enduring way to maximize those “sales” is this: Keep

your attention focused obsessively on your customer.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

The two secret ingredients for the most

effective marketing persona

If you’re going to create relationships online, there’s got to be

someone for your readers to have a relationship with.

Even for the most “authentic” blogger, there’s a difference between

the complicated human being called you and the persona that you

use on the blog.

Your persona is still you, but a selected version of you.

Your persona has boundaries and limits. Your persona has a

consistent message to share. Your persona is a “subset” of who you

are offline.

The first key to a persuasive persona is authority.

You may have heard that “authority is dead,” but nothing could be

further from the truth. Authority will never die, because it’s hard-

wired into our DNA.

(For much more about authority, I strongly suggest that you check

out our content marketing and training community called Authority).

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

The second key to a persuasive persona is warmth and nurturing.

When you genuinely care about your audience, it’s much easier to

get the word out about what you have to offer.

In my opinion, this can’t really be faked — you actually do have to

give a damn.

That’s one reason the traditional “yellow highlighter” squeeze-and-

sleaze Internet marketers will always be limited in their success:

• They see numbers.

• You need to see people.

When you combine these two factors, you end up with the

marketing persona that works in every market, every topic, with

every audience. Your persona needs to consistently reflect two core

messages:

• You know what you’re talking about.

• You care about your audience as human beings.

This is what I call the “nurturing parent” archetype. The nurturing

parent always steers the audience toward the right thing. The

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

nurturing parent knows right from wrong. The nurturing parent puts

the audience’s needs above her own, always. The nurturing parent

sets healthy boundaries and knows when to be gentle and when to

be firm.

Some nurturing parent archetypes are very “touchy-feely,” others

are more cool and distant. You can put this together in the way that

works best for you and feels natural.

Just remember: nurturing parents aren’t wishy-washy. It’s perfectly

fine (and smart) to admit what you don’t know, but be firm and clear

about what you do.

Your homework assignment

Put together 10-15 ideas for content that would illustrate the

“nurturing parent” concept.

They could be great pieces of how-to advice, philosophical lessons,

expressions of affection, or warnings about pitfalls to avoid.

Get some good headlines together for them and get them into your

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

“ideas for content” folder. If you don’t have one of those, start one

now. It can be physical or virtual, whatever works for you.

In the next chapter, we’re going to take a typical “hard sell” sales

letter, pull out an element, and show you how it might look with the

“Internet Marketing for Smart People” approach.

CHAPTER 6

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

How to Write a Smarter Sales

Letter

This lesson takes a traditional marketing guru’s sales letter and gives

it a makeover by translating it into a more content-rich, relationship-

based style.

In other words, we’ll take the same persuasion techniques that the

highpressure guys use, but we’ll creatively adapt them to a social

media audience that hates hype and hates salespeople — or at least

they think they do.

Ready to roll?

First things first

Please don’t misunderstand me. This is not a bad sales letter. In fact,

this is a very skilled sales letter. It does what it sets out to do (and

we’ll look more closely at the goals in a later lesson).

In certain business cases, it’s possible you would want to run a letter

very much like this one. As long as your product is good and you’re

always being 100% honest with your audience, there’s nothing

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

inherently bad about it.

But right now, with the audience and community you have today, if

you spring a letter like this on them, they’re going to run screaming

for the exits.

When you use social media to build a village of customers, you can’t

then run up with a “harpoon” style sales letter and try to shoot them

in the head with it. It just isn’t going to work.

If you haven’t read the article on The Harpoon or the Net: What’s the

Right Copy Approach for Your Prospects?, go do that now and then

come back. The whole thing will make much more sense to you if

you do.

The headline

Here’s the original headline from the sales page. I changed the actual

product type to “Widget Creation” because it doesn’t actually matter

what you’re selling. This is about the underlying architecture of a

more typical “harpoon” piece versus creating a content net.

“Here’s YOUR CHANCE To INSTANTLY Tap Into

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

The Greatest Minds Of Widget-Creating History

And Swipe Their Most Powerful, Game-Changing

WIDGET-HACKING SECRETS To Experience Your

Own Monumental Widget- Creation

BREAKTHROUGH!”

So, what’s the headline doing?

First and foremost, it’s grabbing our attention. If we’re into making

widgets, this headline will probably at least slow us down and catch

our interest.

If, that is, we don’t instantly click away because it’s so clearly and

obviously an ad. Because remember, both in and outside of social

media, no one likes to be sold, no matter how much they may love

to buy.

This style works decently for prospects who are in a hurry and who

are looking for something to immediately solve a pressing problem

— in this case, that they’re not happy with how they’re creating their

widgets.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

It doesn’t work well for those who are in more of a “browsing” mood,

and who are looking for information.

A relationship-based attention strategy

So how do we do this in a more audience-focused way?

Attention in social media comes as a result of knowing your stuff and

having something valuable to contribute. You do not need to be the

most towering expert in your field. But you do have to know enough

to make yourself consistently useful to your readers.

Assuming you’ve got something valuable to say, you then need to

say it in a way that will command attention.

Strong headlines are just as important to your blog post or special

report as they are to a sales letter like this one. But they can’t — as

this one does — look like an ad.

So when you’re looking to capture attention with your content:

• Take some serious care and time with your headline.

Remember, the work of the headline is to get that first line of

your content read.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

• If you use an image, make it a good one that creates some

emotional resonance for your reader.

• Then follow up with a digestible and insanely useful bit

of content (what I’ve called cookie content) to keep the reader

interested in what you have to say next.

Virtually any social media tool can be used to capture and hold

attention. Whether it’s a blog post, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,

Google+, YouTube — make sure those elements (headline, image,

cookie content value) are firing on all cylinders.

Promises, promises

This headline also makes a couple of promises.

First, this solution is going to be quick. This is conveyed, of course,

by the use of the word INSTANTLY, but also with the use of the verb

“swipe,” suggesting that instead of painstakingly building your own

widget-creation system, you’re just going to steal one that already

works well. The word BREAKTHROUGH also suggests immediate

massive improvement, not just a modest incremental change.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Second, this solution is going to create something of an “insider’s

club.” There’s a sense of a secret confederation here, a group who

have the inside dope.

You get that from “Tap into the greatest minds” (suggesting a sort of

Vulcan mind-meld with the legends of widget creation) and the use

of the word “secrets” (traditionally one of the most powerful words in

copywriting).

It’s also hinted at with the words YOUR CHANCE (note how

prominently they’re highlighted), suggesting that you’re finally going

to get a chance to crack into this elite club.

Because this is all being taken in by the prospect in about a second,

there’s no subtlety. Anything important is called out visually so you

don’t miss it. That’s why they’re using red to call out certain words,

as well as all caps and the unnecessary quotation marks.

Harpoon copywriters can’t afford to be fussy about design. Their

message has to be understood in the blink of an eye.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

The content-driven version

In a more content-driven sales system, you don’t use a single

letter like this one to deliver your entire sales message.

Instead, you’d figure out the most important promises you’re

making, and you create content which addresses each one.

One of the best tools for this is an email autoresponder sequence.

You could also do a series of blog posts.

All of the content that delivers these “sales promises” also has

to keep delivering solid “cookie content” value. If it smells like

advertising, people won’t consume it.

So you’ve got to stay under the radar. But you can easily create

valuable content that also communicates big promises like:

• Yes, there is an answer to the problem that’s been bothering

you

• You’re not alone

• It’s not as hard as you think

• You’re one of a select group/village/tribe

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

• The success you’ve been looking for is finally about to be

yours

• It’s not your fault

• People worse off than you have conquered this problem

Great persuasive content tells stories or uses metaphors to show

(not just tell) these promises.

Your homework

The first thing you need to think about is what kind of “big promise”

you can make to your audience.

• What pressing problem do you solve?

• What pain do you remove?

• What value do you add?

• What pleasure do you create?

• What freedom do you permit?

• What connection do you allow?

You might have one answer or several. It’s fine to have several “big

promises,” but you need at least one juicy one.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Then, think about how that might be translated into content. You

might tell stories about people who have attained this promise. Or

maybe you’ll give away some simple tools that allow the person to

experience some of that promise immediately, today.

For example, if your big promise is being able to become a master

auto mechanic, your content might have quick ideas about small

tweaks a beginning mechanic can make to immediately produce

much better results.

Also think about the best way to present that content. It could be

a blog series, an email autoresponder sequence, or a PDF special

report. Use whatever tool you think will work best for your particular

audience.

So that’s a single element of a traditional sales letter – the headline.

We spent quite a bit of time on it, because it’s incredibly important to

hooking your prospect’s attention and getting your message read.

Now we’re ready to dive into the body of our traditional sales letter.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 7

The Smarter Sales Letter (The

Body Copy)

In the last chapter, we started to dissect a traditional “yellow

highlighter” sales letter — the kind used by traditional high-pressure

Internet marketers.

Their kind of sales letter is designed to work like a harpoon. You

get one shot at your prospect, and you either make the sale or the

prospect swims away forever.

We spent a lot of time just on the headline (which was fair enough,

since it’s about 5 lines long). Now we’re going to get into the body of

the ad.

The first mention of the offer

This kind of ad is called “direct response,” because you make an offer

and then watch (and measure) to see how well prospects respond to

that offer.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Jargon watch: An “offer” is what you’ve got to sell and how much

you’re going to charge for it.

For higher-priced products, most copywriters are coy about the

price until they’ve had a chance to sell you on how fantastic the

product is. But because the price for this particular product is under

$100, this sales page introduces the price early on.

Get It All For Just $47 Right Now

That “Just $47” is hyperlinked to an order form, giving the prospect

the ability to buy the product right away.

“You had me at hello”

I call this the “you had me at hello” offer. Sometimes people don’t

need a lot of “selling” or trust-building to order from you. They may

already know you by reputation, they may have been referred by

someone they trust, or your opening headline and first few lines may

have communicated everything they need to know.

For a big-dollar item, this technique can scare this reader off

permanently by going too fast, too soon.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

But for something less expensive, you can bring price up fairly early

in your relationship.

If your main communication vehicle is a blog, you might have a

banner ad for a product at the bottom of each post.

(As part of your marketing education, see how we handle this on

Copyblogger – it does change over time as we test and learn more

about our audience and what they need.)

If you’re using an email autoresponder (you should be, if you aren’t

already), you can put a low-key offer into one of the early messages.

Or you might promote a smaller product, like an ebook, in each

message you send.

Let them know what you’re there for

I love the expression “Begin as you mean to go on.”

This isn’t just about making a small sale. It’s about communicating

to your audience that you are going to provide fantastic value with

content and you’re going to give them opportunities to buy from

you.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Let them know early on that your relationship has a commercial side.

You might think that going for years without “pitching” anything

would endear you to your audience. But in fact, it tends to just make

them cranky when you finally get around to asking for the sale.

(If that’s where you are, you should still do it. Just realize that you’ll

make a few people cranky.)

If you don’t have a product of your own to offer for sale, and

you don’t have the free time to create one now, find an excellent

product in your topic and see if you can represent it on an affiliate

basis. Review the chapter on affiliate marketing (Chapter 4 - Why

Advertising Doesn’t Work for Bloggers) to get ideas for how to do

that.

Ask for a small investment early on, making sure buyers get fantastic

value for their money. This lays a foundation that will pay off

handsomely later.

Jumping into features and benefits

Directly under that initial offer, the sales letter starts to introduce the

benefits of buying the product.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Transform Your Widget-Creation Instantly with Lessons from

the Widget-Hacking LEGENDS! The Most POWERFUL, PROVEN

AND PROFITABLE Lessons in Widget Creation From the Past

100 Years.

This could, frankly, be a little stronger. This is the section of the sales

letter that we’d test some variations on, if we were running it.

The words the copywriter chose to highlight (in all capital letters, a

technique you should probably avoid in social media) are legends,

powerful, proven, and profitable.

“Legends” is, of course, about establishing the advice in the product

as something that’s stood the test of time. This is echoed by the

word “proven,” and by “from the past 100 years.”

In the word “profitable” we move to what this particular customer

wants, which is to make money. “Powerful” is a little bit of a junk

word here, but it creates nice alliteration with proven and profitable,

which we assume is why it’s there.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

The audience-focused way to talk about

benefits and features

Persuasion for a more content-driven marketer looks pretty different.

But we still want, fairly early in our communication, to start hinting at

the fantastic benefits of doing business with us.

It doesn’t matter what you sell or how you’re selling it; people need

to know what they’ll get out of doing business with you.

The most compelling way to do this is often with a story. Talk about

how someone (someone, in fact, who looks a lot like your reader)

was able to realize her dreams of widget-building bliss by using

certain techniques, tools, and methods.

You’re not pitching yourself as the solution at this point. Instead, just

start to paint a picture of what success looks like for your reader.

Autoresponders are a great tool for something like this. You can also

use interviews (text, podcasts, or video) and special reports.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Remember that stories are inherently “shareable.” Get interesting

success stories on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, or anywhere else

people are sharing content. At the end of each one, include a

low-key call to action to check out something interesting on your

website or blog.

Getting them to say yes

Yes! I want to transform my widgets with the most POWERFUL,

PROVEN and PROFITABLE widget-hacking lessons from the last

100 years!

This is an old school sales method. As the theory goes, you get the

prospect to say yes to a lot of little things, and they’ll say yes to the

big stuff because of our innate psychological habit of consistency.

In other words, people are hard-wired to want to behave

consistently with how they’ve behaved in the past.

In practice, most prospects over the age of 7 have seen this

technique used, and it tends to make them squirm away. It feels like

they’re being sold to, which is an unpleasant feeling.

Instead of getting a prospect to check an artificial box or trying

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

to “make” them say the word yes, your task as a content-driven

marketer is to invite discussion and interaction.

Give potential customers a place to ask questions, enter a

conversation with you (and with other customers), and respond to

your work.

You’re using the same principle (consistency), but in a way that

doesn’t feel “salesy.” You’re enticing them to behave in a way that

shows they trust and like you, and that trust and like can become

habit-forming.

The details of the offer

It’s probably obvious that if you want to sell something, you have to

provide a clear description of exactly what the customer is going to

get.

Obvious, but surprisingly easy to forget if you’re not an experienced

salesperson.

You’ve got to let people know about the features of the product, as

well as all of the logical and emotional benefits they’ll enjoy after

they get it.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Here’s a spot where we content marketers can benefit from studying

the yellow highlighter brigade more carefully. Notice how clearly the

features and benefits of the product are explained.

I understand . . . I get access to the entire Live 2-Hour Training

with Sonia Simone, where she’ll hand me the MOST EFFECTIVE

WIDGET HACKS OF ALL TIME.

I understand . . . I also get access to the Video and Audio

Recordings of the entire training, as well as the Word-for-Word

PDF transcript so I can go through the training materials as

often as I like.

I understand . . . I also get a FREE 30-Day Trial Membership to

the FOUNDERS CLUB which gives me INSTANT ACCESS to 5

of your top widgetcreation and widget-hacking programs.

And, if I want to continue with my Founders Club membership

it’s only $47 a month.

Everything is spelled out — exactly what you get, and a few benefits

like “so I can go through the training materials as often as I like.”

There are also a few good verbs used. So we’re not just going to

give you the widget hacks, we’re going to hand them to you. The

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

implication there is that you’re not going to have to do any work at

all to get them and this transition will be effortless.

For this particular market, “easy payoff with no work” is an important

sales point. Rather than making a claim (which might attract a bit

too much FTC attention), the verb hints at the point without directly

making a promise of results.

If you’re going to model anything from this sales letter, this section is

decent.

This is perfectly good copy (though a little heavy on the hype) for a

landing page or anywhere else you’re spelling out an offer.

In the next chapter, we’ll take a look at what this sales letter is really

selling.

Hint: It’s not the relatively inexpensive Widget Hacks product. We’ll

also look at the the sales letter’s close. Just like with face-to-face

selling, that “close” is one of the most important parts of the sale. It

moves the prospect over the threshold to becoming a buyer. And no

matter what color highlighter we’re using, that’s the goal.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 8

The Smarter Sales Letter (The

Close)

This is the third installment of the content-driven sales letter,

taking a more traditional high-pressure internet marketing sales

page and showing how we can rework it for an audience-focused,

relationship-based approach.

In this chapter we’ll talk about what they’re really selling (always a

good thing for any marketer to figure out), the call to action, and the

P.S.

And we’ll talk about how you can do this exercise for yourself, taking

any “high-pressure” sales material and translating it for your own

audience.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

What they’re really selling

I understand . . . I also get a FREE 30-Day Trial Membership to

the FOUNDERS CLUB which gives me INSTANT ACCESS to 5

of your top widgetcreation and widget-hacking programs.

And, if I want to continue with my Founders Club membership

it’s only $47 a month.

Notice that Free 30-day trial? That’s what the marketer actually

wants you to buy.

Although most of the sales letter is pitching a $47 standalone

information product, that’s just bait for the hook. What they’re

really after is getting you to sign up to a monthly program (called a

“continuity” program in Internet marketing jargon), which turns your

$47 sale into one that could be ten times as high if you enjoy the

content in their program.

Usually marketers in this space assume that a customer will stay

between three and five months before quitting.

This is where a relationship-focused business has a huge advantage.

Because you build a stronger relationship before the sale, and

because you’re often much more committed to delivering an

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

amazing product, you’ll naturally tend to see customers stick around

longer. Don’t underestimate this advantage.

We’re okay with this strategy, as long as you’re absolutely crystal

clear about the fact that they’re signing up for an ongoing

relationship. The most ethical way to do this is to make sure that

the buyer can opt out of the monthly program if she likes. Set up

your shopping cart to allow the buyer to “unclick” the monthly

membership option.

Don’t try to push anyone into “forced” continuity, insisting that they

try your membership offer. Let them choose for themselves, and

you’ll make more sales.

Interestingly enough, even testing from the traditional internet

marketing “gurus” shows that letting people opt out actually results

in more sign-ups.

People don’t like to feel forced into buying, so it reduces conversions

and turns people off. Go figure.

Why buy now?

If you’re new to selling and marketing, you might wonder why so

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

many marketers limit their offers. Why push people to buy today,

when they might not be ready?

Wouldn’t you make more sales by leaving your shopping cart open

for buyers to buy whenever they feel like it?

In a word – no.

Even if your audience is passionately in love with what you’ve

got, procrastination is your enemy. For all but the most

absolutely urgent problems, if they can get around to

dealing with it tomorrow, the chances are good that they won’t

ever deal with it at all.

Two of the most critical tools for your sales process are the call to

action and urgency. Here’s the birds-eye view.

The call to action is a simple, explicit instruction to buy your stuff.

CLICK HERE TO GET IT NOW »

As silly as it might sound, if you don’t tell people “Buy this right now,”

many of them won’t.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

This is one of the most frequently overlooked elements when people

are just getting started with marketing, and it’s also one of the easiest

to fix. Read the article below for a more complete discussion of how

to put together a call to action for your own offers.

How to be a Copywriting Genius: The Brilliantly Sneaky Trick You

Must Learn

Incidentally, yes, you do want to use the words “Click here” in your

call to action, despite what web design or SEO pundits might tell

you. Here’s why.

Urgency is your customer’s reason for acting right now, not

tomorrow or the next day.

Act now! This offer will expire in just 4 days.

Take advantage of it now, while it’s still available!

Offers within a limited time frame will nearly always sell more than

offers that are open-ended. Without some kind of time or scarcity

pressure, inertia will tend to keep your customer doing more of what

she’s doing already . . . nothing.

We’ll talk more in an upcoming chapter about how to use urgency

and scarcity without being a thug.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

The obligatory P.S.

Virtually all sales letters have a “P.S.”

Why? Because it’s one of the most-read elements of any page.

Marketers use the P.S. to re-state the most important benefit, to

stress an urgency element, to reiterate the call to action, or to pull a

key emotional lever for their market.

A P.S. can be used for any important copywriting function. The only

“wrong” way to use it would be to skip it altogether.

On Copyblogger’s sales pages, we sometimes use the P.S. in a

tongue-in-cheek way. Because our audience is so familiar with more

traditional sales pages, we’ve sometimes been a little bit “meta” in

how we approach it.

For example, here’s the P.S. for a product we called Freelance X

Factor, an online course which taught freelance writers how to

make more money and create a more enjoyable business with fewer

hassles ...

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

• P.S. Is there a copywriter alive who can resist checking out the

P.S.? OK, here’s the quick summary: Freelance “X” Factor

is a steal at only $87 for over 4 hours of audio

modules, edited and searchable transcripts,

practical worksheets that guide you through the

processes, tactics, and strategies we reveal, supplemental

reference material that ties it all together, and 3 live Q&A calls.

Go ahead and buy now or scroll back up to get the full story.

• P.P.S. Oh yeah . . . it’s fully guaranteed for 30 days or your

money back, no questions asked. Let’s get started.

Notice that, although we start with a bit of a wink about the nature

of the P.S., we still used it! In this P.S., we restated the offer, included

two calls to action, and let the buyer know about a strong guarantee.

If the reader scrolled down the sales page and read nothing but the

P.S., she’d have enough information to feel confident about buying

this product.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Make it your own

The most important thing for you to take away from these

three chapters is that you don’t have to throw away any

effective copywriting technique just because it’s usually used in

a clumsy, “hypey” way. You can always translate a “high

pressure” technique and make it your own.

Your homework for the weeks ahead: keep an eye on the sales

letters you see, and figure out how you would translate their

techniques for your own audience, incorporating your own

personality, language, and style.

If you don’t subscribe to promotional email newsletters because

you’re afraid of being sold to, you’re making a real mistake. Get a

dedicated email address for them if you like. But do study what the

more aggressive guys are doing.

You can learn a lot if you translate it to your own market without

trying to use it “as-is.”

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 9

How to Build a Business Using

Paid and Free Content

You may remember that content is the third pillar of the Internet

Marketing for Smart People model.

And we forgive you if you roll your eyes a little at that, since

“content” has become one of the most overused buzzwords of 21st-

century business.

As is so often the case with buzzwords, a lot of people who use it

don’t quite know what they mean by it.

What do you mean when you say

“content marketing”?

Some people think “content marketing” describes the use of

valuable content to attract attention and build a solid reputation with

prospects.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Others think it’s the use of content and high-quality information

to actually market the product, in what’s been called a “content

conveyor belt” that takes the place of the usual sales pitch.

And still others think it’s about creating a business around paid

content, like ebooks, home study courses, and membership sites.

Actually, just like those multiple choice tests from sixth grade, the

correct answer is D, all of the above.

Content marketing is about taking your knowledge and

expertise (or borrowing someone else’s) and using it to support

business goals.

There are probably a thousand ways you could do that, but let’s look

at the three most significant.

Build your reputation

If you have a product or service that people actually want, the single

biggest factor that keeps them from buying is lack of trust.

We live in a low-trust environment, especially online. Everywhere we

look, someone is trying to infect us with a virus, phish the password

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

to our checking account, or sell us pictures we probably shouldn’t

be looking at in the first place.

Given the general environment of slime, it’s surprising how quickly

you can create a solid reputation by providing useful content.

People actually want someone to trust. They want reliable answers

to their questions, and good solutions for their problems.

Creating solid content that benefits the reader doesn’t just tell your

prospects you’re trustworthy, it shows them. And that’s always more

powerful.

The content conveyor belt

Content is also a terrific way to deliver a sales message.

The long-form sales letter (the kind we talked about in the earlier

chapters) isn’t dead, and it never will be. The work of enticing a

prospect and overcoming her objections takes some time.

But attention spans are short these days, and only the most

desperate buyer is willing to read the traditional long (often tacky

and heavy-handed) sales letters you often associate with Internet

marketing.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Enter the content conveyor belt. We aren’t the first to use this

technique – in fact, it’s being used by some of the smartest

marketers in the business to capture and hold prospect attention.

A content conveyor belt uses strong, interesting content and

storytelling to deliver each step of your sales sequence over time,

without ever feeling “salesy.”

You can attract attention, demonstrate features and benefits, elicit

desire for the product, show the product in action, overcome

objections, deliver a stirring call to action, and every other

copywriting function just as effectively in content as you can in a

traditional sales message.

In fact, it’s much more effective, because the content is — to use

master copywriter Gary Bencivenga’s phrase — “advertising that’s too

valuable to throw away.”

Paid content

Not every business can benefit from producing paid content, but

most can.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Once you become a content ninja, there’s nearly always a way to

create a “platinum” version of your content that’s worth paying for.

The simplest version is the ebook.

The upside to ebooks is that they’re relatively quick to produce. The

downside is that most readers won’t pay much for them. Ebooks

can be a great way to quickly test a market and make sure there’s

an interest in paying for information in your topic. They can also be

published on public platforms like Amazon to dramatically increase

your audience’s awareness of your business.

Digitally-delivered courses (sometimes called home study courses)

are the ebook’s more valuable cousin. These typically include

audio, transcripts, and worksheets or a workbook. If you’ve got

a good ebook but you’d like to do more with it, consider using a

free program like Audacity to re-create and expand the content in

audio format, then package it as a course. Courses command more

money, more respect, and gain you a greater reputation. They’re a

little more work to produce, but they’re generally worth it.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

The granddaddy of the family is the Interactive Learning

Environment, or ILE. Some people refer to these simply as

“membership sites,” but a true ILE adds solid instructional design to

present the information in an exceptionally powerful and effective

way.

More ideas

Content marketing is a huge topic and there are hundreds of ways to

use it. I came up with 49 of them recently.

49 Creative Ways You Can Profit from Content Marketing

I think you’ll get a lot out of that list. Pick one or two methods from

it that you haven’t employed before, and start making more of this

powerful tool.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 10

How to Sell (Without Losing

Your Audience)

A lot of people have built amazing followings with social media.

And by “amazing,” I don’t necessarily mean huge numbers. I mean

huge love. People who are interested in what you have to say, who

make a point of tuning in to find out your particular take on your

topic.

One of the things I get asked again and again is, “How do I translate

that loyalty into a little bit of income? Maybe even a decent living?”

So today I’m going to share my best secret for that with you. Start

doing this and you’ll be amazed at the results you get. You’ll find a

subtle clue to this skazillion-dollar secret in the headline of this post.

That’s right, my secret underground mastermind money-

getting platinum secret of the Internet ninja billionaires is: Have

something to sell.

Pretty earth-shattering, huh?

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

But the biggest monetizing problem people face if they have a great

relationship with their readers is not knowing how to sell them

something without turning them off.

So that’s what we’ll talk about in this section.

Make ‘em an offer

If you’d like your audience to give you money, you’re going to want

to make them an offer.

An offer is just a chance for you and your reader to exchange

something of value.

You give them an ebook, they give you some money. You give

them a cool tutorial video, they give you their email address and

permission to talk with them from time to time.

We talked earlier about the easiest way to have something to sell,

which is to recommend an affiliate product that you truly believe is

terrific.

But you can also make your own stuff, which is our favorite model at

Rainmaker Digital. We spend a lot of time watching and listening to

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

our community, then making software, education, or other resources

that we think you’ll get a lot out of.

There’s a shift that happens when you make something for your

audience.

You start to look different in their eyes. You’re not just someone who

has interesting things to say, you’re someone who actually comes up

with solutions to the problems that are bugging them.

You are now someone who’s in the business of helping them out.

Start small

People get stuck with this one because it seems overwhelming.

There are so many ebooks and online courses and membership sites.

How can we possibly make something good enough to compete

with all of that?

A small, starter product is not going to make you millions of dollars.

However, it does something that might be even more valuable than

that: it gets you started.

That’s important, because it’s a lot easier to move when you’re

already in motion.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Make a few small products, sell them, get experience. Watch what

does well and what doesn’t. Listen for what your folks would like to

see next. Tweak and test. Change the title of your product. Change

the focus. Add an audio bonus.

Just play with it.

When you keep things small, you develop the right attitude, which

is one of curiosity and flexibility. A small product that bombs isn’t a

failure; it’s a market test.

Solve a problem

People who claim that you can’t make money with a blog have

usually omitted a key step in their business.

They don’t have a business.

Instead, they have entertainment with advertising.

It’s getting hard for the billion-dollar TV networks to make money

with this model, and it’s really hard for you. It can work if you have

tons of traffic, but you can usually do better (and faster) by going a

little oldschool and solving a market problem.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Great businesses solve some pressing problem for their customers. It

might be a vanity problem, a health problem, a relationship problem,

a practical problem. It might even be a combination of problems.

When you know your customer’s most pressing problems and you

have a solid solution for fixing them, you have the basis for a strong,

healthy business.

Create the right rhythm

Now we get to the part where you’re selling stuff but your readers

don’t hate you.

Everything you’ve been doing to contribute value, to nurture your

relationships with readers, to give them something worth reading (or

hearing, or watching) in your content?

Keep doing that. Keep giving away excellent stuff for free. Keep

surprising them with quality. Keep raising the bar on what you give

away.

This sounds hard, but actually it becomes a habit. When you

challenge yourself to create better and better content, you’ll find that

your creativity rises to that challenge.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

And it’s just more fun than grinding out junk.

If great content isn’t your strong suit, look around for a partner.

There are tons of talented people who love to write, but have no

idea how to do the business side.

There’s always something amazing you can bring to the table.

All you need to do is find the partners who can complement you.

How are you using your ad space?

If you are running ads now, take a long look at that space.

Could it be better used with one compelling, nicely designed ad

for your own product? Even if you’re selling one or two $17 ebooks

a month, that’s a lot more cash in your pocket than a few pennies

from traditional advertising.

We’re not saying that ads are bad — some bloggers make very nice

money with them.

But it’s a good idea to look closely at the ads you’re running and

make sure they’re pulling their weight. When you run too many ads,

the reader has a hard time knowing what to focus on.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

She should be focusing on your great content, and on a terrific

product that’s bringing you revenue.

It’s never going to be perfect

Whatever it is you want to offer, trust me, it won’t be perfect. It might

not even be pretty.

But it will be something, and you’ll learn from it.

So get out your calendar, give yourself a deadline (a real one, not

something so aggressive that you know you’ll never make it), and

offer something small to your audience. If you’ve got 10 readers

today, that’s great, you’re creating a terrific foundation for when you

have 100 readers. And 500. And 1000.

Start now, while you’re excited about it. We can’t wait to see what

you come up with.

Now, let’s take a look at your copy and figure out why it may not be

converting as well as you might want it to — and what you can do to

improve it.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 11

Why Your Copy Isn’t Converting

You can go a long way with relationships and great content, but if

you’re trying to build a business, at some point you need to actually

ask your audience to buy something.

Some people believe there’s such a thing as a “natural salesperson.”

They think that selling is in the genes. Many people who think this

also believe that they don’t have that innate ability.

But selling is just education and communication. Like most things in

life, it’s a skill that can be learned and improved. Wherever you are

on the selling spectrum, you can learn to get much better at it than

you are now.

We need to discuss that fascinating, tricky moment: conversion.

That’s the point when your reader either buys or doesn’t buy, based

on your communication to that point.

Let’s talk about the five most common reasons that your readers

aren’t turning into buyers. There are any number of places this can

go off the rails, but these are by far the most prevalent.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

1. They don’t want what you’ve got

This is the painful one. But if this is what’s wrong with your

marketing, there’s no ninja copywriting technique in the world that

will help you out.

Sometimes we just get really passionate about an idea that our

customers aren’t nearly as passionate about.

Inventors are particularly plagued by this. You’ve spent so much

time with your unique and fascinating widget that you’re essentially

married to it, but no one else thinks it’s all that interesting.

“Unique,” in fact, is often a red flag. If no one else is offering what

you’ve got, it might very well be that no one wants what you’ve got.

Competition is a wonderful thing, because it’s a sign that you’re in a

market of buyers.

You might have something you’re convinced your customers need,

but it’s not something they want.

(We call this the “broccoli ice cream” problem.)

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

When in doubt, know that “want” beats out “need” every time. If this

is your problem, you have essentially two choices. One, you can

offer something that more people want.

Or two (also known as the hard way), you can think about how you

can build a bridge between something they want and something you

offer. There’s often a way to translate your market’s desires into the

benefits that your product provides.

2. They’re confused

If you’re sure your market actually wants what you offer (because

you have successful competitors) but those darned prospects still

aren’t biting, the odds are very good that they’re too confused to

complete the purchase.

The confused mind does not buy.

Actually, the confused mind doesn’t do much of anything. When

we’re faced with too many choices, too many decisions, too much

extraneous information, or even a visual design with too much

clutter, we freeze.

(If you want to know what this feels like, think about selecting a 401K

plan or new health insurance. Not very appealing, is it?)

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

You may have too many different options for them to choose from.

If they have to make a choice that’s more complex than “Silver, Gold,

Platinum,” you run the very real risk of losing them.

3. They can’t see the pretty picture

Another thing that kills conversion is that the prospect just doesn’t

imagine herself as a customer.

She might not be able to visualize what your product’s going to do

for her. (So paint a picture in her mind of what that will look like —

and use lots of concrete sensory detail like color, touch, smell, and

sound so she can make it real in her mind’s eye.)

She also might not get how your product makes her life better. (So

spell out the product’s benefits in clear, simple language.)

Remember what we said at the beginning of this lesson — selling is

communication and education. Be sure you’re getting your message

across clearly.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

You need to be absolutely certain your sales copy contains at least

these three things (and these might be enough to make the sale for

you):

• This is what I’ve got.

• This is what it will do for you.

• This is what you should do next.

4. You didn’t ask

This one is our favorite, because it’s the easiest to fix.

We realize it seems bizarre, but if you explicitly ask your reader to

click the link, dial the 800-number, or whatever other means you

use to get that sale, she’s much more likely to do it.

So links that say “click here” actually get clicked more often. Weird,

but true.

It’s called the “call to action,” and every persuasive bit of copy needs

a very explicit one. If you’re not familiar with the call to action, or you

think yours might need some sprucing up, here’s an article I wrote

on it:

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

How to Be a Copywriting Genius: The Brilliantly Sneaky Trick You

Must Learn

5. They don’t believe you

After #1, this is the most important one.

They might want what you’ve got. They might have a great mental

picture of it. They might know just what to do next.

But they hesitate.

Why? Here’s a hint: The #1 Conversion Killer in Your Copy — And

How to Beat It

Because they’re second-guessing their own decision, and they’re

scared of feeling like an idiot.

Don’t take it personally — we’re living in an age of betrayal. Enron

was lying, Bernie Madoff was lying. Scam artists and phishers are

sneaking into every email inbox.

So how are they going to find any trust in you?

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

You know the answer to this one by now — you can build up that

trust by creating great business relationships with killer content.

It turns out that if your relationships are solid enough, you can be a

pretty lame salesperson and still do very well.

And if you get a little bit better than lame, by getting these few

essential copywriting techniques under your belt, you’ll do even

better.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 12

A Remarkably Simple Marketing

Plan

I don’t know about you, but when I started trying to figure out how

to work for myself, the idea of a business or marketing plan sort of

made me gag.

The traditional books for small business (the best one, in my opinion,

is Small Time Operator), painted a picture that wasn’t really relevant

to me, with things like lines of credit and office space and business

licenses.

Those weren’t the problems I needed to figure out. My problems

were more like, “How am I going to find people who want my

services? How do I convince them I’m good at what I do? And what

the heck should I be selling, anyway?”

So I put together something I called the Remarkably Simple

Marketing Plan, which answered those questions for me in the early

days, and for my consulting clients as I moved forward.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

In the spirit of the whole “Remarkably Simple” thing, just cut and

paste what’s below into the word processor of your choice and get

rolling. Replace the “blah blah blah” sections with your own answers.

I don’t care if you use Google Docs or Notepad or send an email to

yourself. You can copy it out longhand in copperplate handwriting if

that turns you on.

The main thing is, get some answers down today.

I promise, if you do, you’ll be amazed at what this can do to get you

moving toward your business goals.

(By the way, this is also an important exercise if you’re doing the

marketing for someone else’s business, either as an employee or as a

freelance writer.)

Who’s the right customer?

Answer this question in as much detail as you can. You may want to

read this article for some pointers first.

Relationship Marketing: Connect with One Person

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

How will these customers find us?

Customer will find us by Blah blah blah and Blah blah blah.

Alternately, I will go find them by Blah blah blah.

What will the project look like when it’s

done?

By “project,” we mean the service, the membership site, the

consulting package, the ebook. What form does the thing take that

you give your customer?

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah

blah blah. Blah blah blah.

What problem does this product/project

solve for the customer? Is it a real

problem? Does anyone care about getting

this problem solved?

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah

blah blah.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

What tools or materials we will need to

get this built?

Will you use blog software? An awesome WordPress theme? Other

technology tools? Do you need a copywriter, graphic designer,

WordPress developer?

If it’s an information product, do you need to do additional research

on the topic? Could you interview some experts for additional

material?

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah.

Is there any way to create a really fast

prototype?

How could you do a “good enough” beta version to test that this is

actually a marketable concept?

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

What partners will we involve in this

project? Why?

Marketing partners? Content creation partners? Business partners?

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah.

How will we share revenue between

partners?

This can be different for different monetization items. Advertising

could be split differently than fees for services, for example.

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah.

How can I get moral support outside of

the partnership?

Starting a business is hard. It’s easy to give up. Can you join a really

great entrepreneur’s group? Work with a coach? Put together a small

mastermind or accountability group?

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Some things this product will need to do

2. Blah blah blah.

3. Blah blah blah.

4. Blah blah blah.

5. Blah blah blah.

6. Blah blah blah.

How we make money

2. Blah blah blah.

3. Blah blah blah.

4. Blah blah blah.

5. Blah blah blah.

6. Blah blah blah.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

What other stuff could we sell

thesecustomers later?

2. Blah blah blah.

3. Blah blah blah.

4. Blah blah blah.

5. Blah blah blah.

6. Blah blah blah.

Expenses

If there are partners, who pays these expenses in the launch

process before we have revenue coming in? Are these one-time or

recurring?

2. Blah blah blah.

3. Blah blah blah.

4. Blah blah blah.

5. Blah blah blah.

6. Blah blah blah.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Execution

Who will do the work? Who’s going to manage the project and make

sure the tasks get done? How long will it take?

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah.

How will we know it’s working?

If the project is a magnificent success, what will that look like?

(Answer this one in as much detail as you can.)

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

What do we need to worry about? What’s

going to bite us in the ass if we don’t

address it now? What do we need to

worry about down the line?

2. Blah blah blah.

3. Blah blah blah.

4. Blah blah blah.

5. Blah blah blah.

6. Blah blah blah.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Next actions

What do you need to do next to get yourself moving forward?

2. Blah blah blah.

3. Blah blah blah.

4. Blah blah blah.

5. Blah blah blah.

6. Blah blah blah.

Get these on your calendar today and start moving.

Having trouble putting it all together? Feeling a little overwhelmed,

or like maybe you’ll never be able to make it happen?

That’s a sure sign you’re on the right track.

Or at least, it’s a sign that you’re exactly like the rest of us. A certain

amount of overwhelm just goes with the territory. The good news is,

you truly can manage that. Here is my favorite method for creating

and keeping your momentum: The 3 Secrets to Massive Online

Marketing Success

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 13

Do You Include These 5

Relationship Builders in Your

Content?

As you probably remember, relationships form the first pillar of

Internet Marketing for Smart People.

After all: no relationship, no market, right? We need to have some

kind of connection with folks before they’ll pull out their wallets.

Sometimes people think that great relationships “just happen.” It’s

your mom’s theory of marketing — “just be yourself and everyone

will love you.”

But you might have figured out by now: no one loves you like

your mom does. And “just being yourself” sometimes needs a

little help.

Here are five strategic ways you can think about building the

kinds of relationships that lead to sales, as well as to retweets,

recommendations, and referrals for the great stuff you sell.

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

1. Generosity

We human beings are rather simple at heart. If you do nice things for

us, we tend to like you more.

Fancy marketing types who have read their Robert Cialdini (and you

should join them, by the way) call it reciprocity, even though Cialdini

himself actually calls it reciprocation.

Much Obliged: The Power of Reciprocity

The concept is too much a part of our DNA to need a fancy term.

Basically, it’s:

“Do nice stuff for me and I will want to do nice stuff for you in

return.”

The Millionaire’s Secret Trait that Attracts Success Like Crazy

In particular, there’s a type of content that will repay your generosity

many, many times over. It’s what’s been called “results in advance”

content — a tip, trick, or tutorial that lets your reader get a desirable

result in her life before she gives you any money.

100

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

So if you’ve got a wonderful home study course on how to raise

naked mole rats for fun and profit, your “results in advance” content

might be “5 Things to Look Out For When Choosing a Naked Mole

Rat at the Pet Store.” That content would tell people how to take

home a chubby, healthy, happy naked mole rat rather than a weak,

sickly one that’s just going to have problems.

If your reader can put your advice into practice and get a great result,

you’ve given her a delicious “free sample.” It greatly increases the

chances that she’s going to want more, now that she’s experienced

for herself how good it is.

How Tasty Are Your Chips and Salsa?

2. Relatability

One of the most powerful marketing messages you can send is “I’m

a lot like you.”

Why?

We’ll give you an example. We don’t have a lot of faith that weight

loss tips from the latest hot supermodel are going to do us any

good. But weight loss tips from Janeane Garofalo? We’re a lot more

101

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

interested. Because when she starts out looking more like we do, we

have more confidence that her advice will be something we can use.

One of the most overlooked sales objections is:

“Probably everyone else can make that work, but it won’t work for

me.”

Most of us have such lousy self-esteem that we’re willing to concede

that the diet, the money-making strategy, the stock tip, the parenting

advice will work for most humans on the planet — but not us.

The more you can get your reader to relate to you, to feel like he’s

basically like you, the better chance you have of communicating,

“Hey, if it worked for me, it will totally work for you.”

That’s why, even though you don’t want to undermine your authority

(we’ll talk about that in a few minutes), you also don’t want to puff

yourself up to be some kind of superhero.

Or if you are a superhero, be one with a really dorky alter ego, like

Peter Parker, not a billionaire playboy like Bruce Wayne.

Unleash Your Inner Dork to Become a Better Copywriter

102

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

3. Liking

There are two primary ways to get attention.

You can do tons of great stuff for people, make yourself useful, be

incredibly nice and friendly, and maybe crack a joke from time to

time.

• You can make a belligerent, loud, annoying pain in the ass of

yourself.

• They both work — if your goal is to get attention.

If your goal is to convert attention into customers, #1 has a lot of

advantages.

Some people have a gift for drawing attention to themselves by

being spectacular jackasses. And that can work, actually — if you’re a

likeable jackass.

It tends not to work too well (commercially, anyway) if you’re just an

ass.

103

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

4. Frequency

Do you have one of those cousins who only calls when he needs

money?

What’s your emotional reaction when that deadbeat cousin calls?

You roll your eyes and let it go straight to voice mail, right?

If you’re building relationships by providing valuable content, the

best way to do it is to keep it slow and steady.

Show up day in and day out.

Create a steady, predictable rhythm with your content, whether

it’s your blog, your email newsletter, your podcast, whatever. Keep

giving that high-quality free content, delivering those results in

advance, and letting everyone know you’re a good egg.

A nice, predictable frequency also demonstrates that you’re reliable.

If you show up every day (or every week, or every other week) on

your blog,n predictable as clockwork, your audience gets the sense

that you probably won’t skip to Costa Rica as soon as they’ve sent

you PayPal funds for your new consulting package.

104

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

5. Authority

Bloggers are often excellent at letting their audiences know they

care, that they’re good people, that they share the same problems as

their readers.

Sometimes they’re not so good at actually demonstrating that they

know what they’re talking about.

Worse, they often think that the call to be “transparent and authentic”

is an open invitation to show off as much dirty laundry as possible.

You need to become an authority in your field.

Good: A blog post about how you went from design klutz to design

wizard.

Bad: An endless stream of Twitter tweets about how badly you’re

blowing your clients’ deadlines because you’re just not in the mood

to fire up Photoshop today.

Transparency is not the same thing as oversharing.

105

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

A certain amount of talking about your cat or your kid or your funky

apartment can be good for bonding. And selectively talking about

your insecurities can do great things; no one likes someone who’s

too perfect.

But blathering about your bad habits and body fluids is just ... well ...

off-putting.

I hope it goes without saying that bashing other bloggers for the

sake of getting attention is a “success limiting maneuver.”

Constructive, legitimate criticism is fine. But being a professional

hater is just lame.

It can work (a little) in the short-term, because negativity attracts

attention. But bashing someone just to have someone to bash turns

you into a jerk and a whiner. And anyway, there are too many nasty

people on the web — it doesn’t actually make you stand out.

Your homework for this chapter

Take a look at the content you’re producing (email, blog, twitter,

Facebook, special report, whatever) and see how many of these

relationship builders you can include. Could you squeeze in all five?

106

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Which of these do you think you’re strongest at? Do more of it —

build on that strength.

And if there’s one of these relationship builders that’s a little out of

your comfort zone, schedule some time to create a message around

it before the end of this week. Your customer relationships will thank

you for it.

What’s next

Want a simple formula for persuasive copy? Read on to grab a

tried-and-true formula that works every time you need to persuade

someone to do something.

107

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 14

The 1-2-3-4 Formula for

Persuasive Copy

I originally heard this formula from John Carlton, but the end of the

copywriting swipe chain is usually John Caples, who stole all of it

from Claude Hopkins.

And Hopkins probably stole it from some 19th-century salesman of

buggy whips or patent medicines.

What is it? A handy little checklist for any copy you write that tries to

get someone to do something.

The best part is, it’s so simple you won’t have to look it up, or write it

down 500 times to make it second nature.

Whether you want to get an opt-in for your email list, a new blog

subscriber, make a sale, or just inspire readers to support your

favorite cause, start with the 1-2-3-4 method. You can add all of

your favorite copywriting tricks to make it work even better, but with

the 1-2-3-4 elements in place, you’ll have the most important bases

covered.

108

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Here’s the formula in a nutshell:

• What I’ve got for you

• What it’s going to do for you

• Who am I?

• What you need to do next

1. What I’ve got for you

If you want to persuade, you’ve got to let folks know what they’re in

for.

What’s your product? What does it do? Who is it for?

Start with a simple overview, a birds-eye look at what you’ve got to

offer. Here’s an example:

“A step-by-step home study course that teaches struggling

entrepreneurs how to bring in more customers.”

Before you elaborate on that, go immediately into #2.

109

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

2. What it’s going to do for you

Here’s where we talk about the great benefits of taking the action

you want your reader to take.

Now Featuring Benefits!

For some reason, the distinction between benefits and features is

hard to remember. But “what it’s going to do for you” is much easier

to keep in mind – and it’s the same thing.

What’s better about life with your product?

Describe the end result, the “after” picture once your customer has

bought your product and used it as you recommend. Let the reader

know how your product helps her reach the goals that matter most

to her.

For example:

“You’ll have more confidence, less stress, and you’ll have a simple,

proven plan for smoothing out those awful cash flow gaps in your

business.”

110

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Now circle back to #1 for a bit —

What I’ve got for you

Now we unpack the rest of #1: what’s in the product.

What’s in the box?

These are the “features” of your product or service. They’re

important, although they’re not as important as the benefits. But if

you gloss over the details of what your product or service actually

contains, people will be nervous about putting their money down.

And as we know, nervous people don’t buy.

The best way to list features is usually a series of fascinating bullet

points. Include enough specifics to make the product feel valuable:

More than 30 hours of action-oriented MP3 lessons, with complete

optimized transcripts.

Also include compelling teasers that are vague enough to create a

curiosity “itch.”

The three most damaging and expensive mistakes new businesses

make, and the easy way to fix them.

111

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

When you can, attach a benefit to each feature.

Okay:

Next-action worksheets come with every module.

Better:

Next-action worksheets come with every module, so you can take

what you’re learning and immediately put it into action.

Bullet points are a “secret weapon” for copywriters because they let

you make your point in a powerful, skimmable way, and they pull the

eye in. For more ideas about how to write great bullet points, take a

look at Brian’s article:

Little-Known Ways to Write Fascinating Bullet Points

3. Who are you?

Whether or not you need this step depends on where you are with

this particular reader. If she’s been reading your blog for a year, she

knows you very well, so you may be able to skip it.

112

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

But most of the time, you need to establish that you’re a trustworthy

and worthwhile person, and that you know what you’re talking

about.

This is why good sales letters often include a photo near the top of

the page. The photo can include some element that helps the reader

like and trust the author. Babies and dogs are always winners here.

If your topic is gardening, a photo of you in front of your own great

garden is a credibility-builder. And you’ve probably noticed that in

weight loss, we always seem get a good look at the fitness guru’s

terrific abs.

In the last section, we talked about the relationship-building power

of the statement “I’m a lot like you.”

That’s what this element is pointing to — not just who you are, but

how you’re similar to your customer, and what you offer that will

benefit her. So it’s not actually about you after all — it’s about how

you help her.

4. What you should do next

This is our old friend the call to action.

113

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

The reader needs to know specifically what to do next. Don’t just put

a link in; tell her to click here.

Tell (don’t ask) the reader what to do right this minute to move

forward with the sale. Be specific and painstakingly clear.

And of course, if you have a good scarcity element (like your terrific

offer is going away in 6 days), you make that very clear here.

Every step of your persuasion sequence, whether it’s a short opt-

in page or a months-long “sideways sales letter,” needs a clear and

specific call to action.

Yes, you still need 1-2-3-4 for “free”

Once upon a time, you could offer any old junk for free and people

would take it. The very word “free” seemed like it had magic powers.

But now, especially online, “free” still takes some selling.

You’re competing for attention and time rather than money — and

those are in very short supply.

So if you have a free special report to build your email list, or you’re

offering a valuable free e-class or video, you still need to sell it.

114

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

1-2-3-4 isn’t just about exchanging dollars. It’s about motivating a

specific, well-defined behavior.

The next time you see a really masterful sales pitch, try to identify

the 1-2-3- 4 elements. Look for it in infomercials, catalog copy, sales

letters, and good product reviews.

Start spotting these persuasion elements “in the wild” and you’ll

be on your way to becoming a more effective copywriter — a

copywriter who sells.

Yes, you still need 1-2-3-4 for “free”

Next we’ll be talking about the “secret” of getting social media

marketing to really work for you. Don’t believe there’s really a secret?

Read on to discover what we mean.

115

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 15

Are You Talking to the Right

People?

Everyone wants to know “the secret” of social media marketing.

Some people think there’s a magic trick for automating Twitter or

Facebook, or a special way to buy lists of social media users.

You’re too smart to believe that, but you might be surprised to know

that there is a secret — a factor that you need to understand to make

social media marketing work for you.

Those who fail to understand this can’t ever really make social media

work. They’re the ones who say it’s a waste of time, that there’s no

ROI, that social media is a fad for teenagers, not a real way to do

business.

It’s not a secret or special way to talk to more customers. It’s not

even a technique for listening to more customers.

The secret is who you need to ignore.

116

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Content marketing has two customers

First, there’s something you need to understand about content

marketing, especially when you use social media to get the word

out.

Content marketing has two customers.

The first customer is the one you already know and love. It’s

that very special person who buys from you.

The second customer is the person who shares your content.

The second customer might never buy your consulting package or

your ebook or your collection of aromatherapy oils.

But if he has the attention of lots of readers, he can put your great

content in front of those readers. And that makes him more valuable

than any one individual buyer can ever be.

Every piece of content has to work for

one of your two customers

This ebook is about content marketing, not content self-expression.

117

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Self-expression is a fantastic and worthy goal, and sometimes it can

make your marketing work better, but only if it’s held in check by a

strategic framework.

“Strategic framework” is just fancy talk for this: Your content

marketing has to make a connection with one of two customers.

• The person who buys your stuff

• The person who gets lots of other people to read your

content

Any given piece of content has to work for at least one of those two

readers.

Beware the peanut gallery

If you have a blog or participate in any kind of community online,

you’ve probably noticed that not every reader falls into one of those

two categories.

• You’ve got the perennial devil’s advocate, who makes a point

of painstakingly pointing out every way your content

might not be correct in every single circumstance for all people

everywhere.

118

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

• You’ve got the professional crank who just hates everything.

• You’ve got the outright troll who likes to stir up trouble and

make everyone crazy.

• And you’ve got a bunch of nice people who just aren’t that

into what you have to offer.

Collectively, we can call them the peanut gallery.

They have a lot of advice for you about what you should do

differently.

You should write different content. You should publish in a different

format. You should write on different topics. And, by the way, they

don’t like your blog theme. Or your color scheme. And while you’re

at it, lose 10 pounds.

Here’s how you handle the peanut gallery:

Ignore them.

That’s all the advice you need.

You can reply to their blog comments, but keep it short and sweet.

119

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

If you choose to reply to their email, again, keep it brief. “Thanks for

your feedback” is plenty.

Don’t engage people who aren’t your right customer.

Yes, every human being has something to offer — even the troll

(although that’s hard to remember sometimes).

But they may have nothing constructive to offer to you.

You don’t have to engage every human being who crosses your path.

You don’t have to respond to every critic or troll who complains

about you on their site, or on Twitter, or Facebook.

And as soon as your content starts to find some readers, you won’t

be able to. Save your energy for your two customers: those who buy,

and those who spread the word.

“But shouldn’t I at least try to respond to

everyone?”

There’s just one problem with trying to engage each and every soul

who wants to talk to you.

120

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

It will exhaust you. And your focus will waver.

If you’re creating content that’s intended to persuade, you need to

focus on the person you’ve chosen to be your customer. That means

the person who wants what you have to offer, who benefits from

your solution, who enjoys your approach, and who has the means

(money, time, etc.) to take advantage of your offer.

When you spend a lot of time engaging your critics, you start to

hedge. Your content begins to waffle a little. You “sell from your

heels.”

In other words, you wimp out.

You’re trying to keep your critics from getting mad at you,

when in fact, the people you need to take care of are those two

customers:

1. The person who buys your stuff

2. The person who gets lots of other people to read your

content

121

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Your homework for this chapter:

You can’t really make a connection with those two customers if you

don’t know who they are.

So take about 10 minutes (today) to brainstorm everything you know

about your perfect customer — the one who buys your stuff. Do

some freewriting to uncover who she is, what she values, why she

loves you, what problems you solve for her.

Then do another 10 minutes of freewriting to brainstorm your

perfect “second customer,” the one who shares your content. What

kind of platform does he have? What’s his topic? What’s his approach

to that topic? What’s his relationship with your perfect customer?

Finally, think about where these two customers hang out. Twitter?

Pinterest? Facebook? LinkedIn? What’s the best place to make a

connection?

Extra credit

How does your current content look? Does all of your content

marketing speak to one of your two customers? Does the balance

feel right, based on where you are today?

122

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

When you start out, you focus a bit more on your second customer,

so you can get the links and recommendations that build a wider

audience. As your content starts to find more readers, you’ll shift,

providing more for those allimportant first customers — the ones

who buy.

What to Do Next

Now that you understand how to reach out to your customers (and

who you can completely ignore) let’s talk a little bit about one of the

most-misunderstood topics in Internet marketing today – search

engine optimization.

123

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 16

Demystifying SEO

Are you one of those people who think SEO is some kind of black

magic?

Lots of people do. SEO practitioners use all kinds of arcane language.

They like to sit around and talk about algorithms and Florida updates

and “noindex meta tag in the non-canonical copies.”

I don’t know about you, but as soon as you start talking “non-

canonical copies,” my eyes glaze over and my brain leaves the room.

It’s true that serious SEO can get pretty technical. But here’s the

thing.

You know the 80/20 rule, right? Which usually ends up being the

95/5 rule?

95% of your results will often come from 5% of your effort. Your

job is to know what 5% to focus on.

124

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Effective SEO is all about that 5%

And it’s not as mysterious as you think it is, because SEO isn’t about

code or bots or latent semantic indexing at all.

It’s about people.

Yes, of course code and bots and latent semantic indexing are a part

of SEO. But they’re tools that search engines use to better serve the

people who make searches.

There are (of course) ninjas of SEO. It’s a deep, complex, and always-

evolving practice. If you want to make page 1 of Google for “weight

loss,” you’re going to need some serious SEO mojo.

This lesson isn’t about that. This lesson is about doing the simple

stuff that, for many of us, is all we need to rank for the terms that will

send us traffic and business.

And if you do ever want to hire an SEO ninja, it’s helpful to have

a strong grounding in the basics. There are a lot of phony ninjas

out there, and a little SEO knowledge will help you avoid getting

scammed by one of the snake oil salesmen.

125

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Make sure the search engines understand

what you’re trying to do

Remember when we said SEO was about people?

The tricky part is that people use a complex computer-driven system

(Google, or the search engine of your choice) to find the information

we want.

And that system is complex. Mostly because there are thousands

of weirdos and spammers out there trying to game the system and

send people garbage.

Google’s rules get ever more complicated because they’re trying to

do something very simple: send searchers to valuable content that

gives those searchers what they need.

As an official Smart Internet Marketer (we’ll be preparing those merit

badges soon), that kind of content is exactly what you create.

So you and Google are already starting off on the same page — even

if itdoesn’t feel that way.

126

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Now you just need to convince their computer code that you’re one

of the good guys. And because computer code is inherently very

stupid, you have to do that in a certain narrowly-defined way.

SEO is people!

(Extra credit to anyone who gets the reference.)

Most SEO guides will tell you a lot about how to arrange your web

page. And that matters quite a bit, because it tells the very stupid

computer code what your page is about.

But the hard, cold truth is that you’ve also got to get some links.

Links, that is, from someone other than your Aunt Mary and a mob-

run link farm in northwest Romania.

Everything we’ve been teaching on the blog and in this book:

• About building relationships first and foremost,

• About the second customer who’ll help share your content,

• About terrific content that serves a real purpose,

127

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

• About great headlines

... all of it will help you with SEO because it will get other people to

“say” great stuff about you in the form of links.

That’s why you’re already a long way toward being an SEO ninja,

even if you don’t realize it yet.

The website code is the easy part

Creating a website with SEO-friendly code and page layout is no

longer difficult. If you use WordPress, all you need is a well-designed

theme that creates search-engine-friendly code.

Great content is the thing that’s tough to create. It takes dedication

and care.

Once that great content is created, however, tweaking it so search

engines love it as much as people do is not that difficult. Sure, you

need to know what you’re doing — and you need to do it regularly

and efficiently — but it’s not hard.

To help you out with that, Brian Clark wrote a short book on How to

Create Compelling Content that Ranks Well in Search Engines.

128

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

In it, he covers:

• Why SEO copywriting still matters

• How search engines work, and why you need to “spoon feed”

them

• The 5 essential elements of keyword research

• How to create cornerstone content that Google loves

• Five link building strategies that still work

• Why writing for people works for search engines

• How to make SEO copywriting simple

Grab your copy right here.

Read it and you’ll have that 5% of SEO knowledge that will give you

95% of your desired results.

129

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 17

The Most Important Question

for Your Business

You may not realize that there are two main ways to run an online

business. And no, it’s not the scuzzy way and the smart way.

There really are two kinds of entrepreneur, with two styles of

working. Neither one is good or bad. Either one can be successful,

and either one can go down in flames.

Choose the working style (and the tools and techniques) that match

your personality and everything in your business will work better. But

pick the wrong style, one that doesn’t match who you are, and your

business is going to make you miserable.

What kind of race are you running?

The two types of entrepreneurs are sprinters and marathoners. And

you’ve got to figure out which kind you are.

A lot of the traditional Internet Marketing types are sprinters. They

like to work in focused bursts. They might kill themselves pulling all-

130

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

nighters for 4 or 6 weeks, create a process that works, deploy it, then

go lie on the beach for afew months or until they run out of cash.

Buzz marketer Dean Hunt once said that an internet marketer was

someone who “works 18 hours a day so he can make money while

he sleeps.”

That’s the best picture of a sprinter that I’ve found yet.

Sprinting is a lot of work, because your systems have to be able to

work withoutyou — to make money while you sleep. Tim Ferriss is

a sprinter, and his bestselling The Four-Hour Work Week is all about

effective sprinting techniques.

Marathoners, of course, take a more slow and steady pace. They

show up every day. They tend to be excellent at producing quality

content in small, bite-sized pieces. They often fall prey to doing

everything themselves, because they can.

Bloggers are the consummate marathoners. In fact, bloggers often

just keep running year after year and forget there’s such thing as a

finish line.

You’ve got to pick the right tools for your business and your

working style.

131

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

You probably think we’re going to tell you that the marathon style is

the right way to go.

But we’re not, because we don’t get to decide. You do. The rhythm

of your business is something you need to understand, and there’s

not a right or wrong answer.

We do, though, have some ideas about which tools work best for

each kind of race.

Tools for marathoners

As I said, blogging is a marathon technique. A traditional blog needs

to be fed high-quality content on a regular basis. It doesn’t need

to be every day, but predictable schedules are great, and most

successful blogs need at least one new post a week.

Newsletters (paper, email, or otherwise) are also a marathon

technique. No matter how much blood, sweat, and tears you pour

into this month’s newsletter, tomorrow you’ve got to start a new

issue.

Marathon businesses get to capture the customer when she’s

ready to buy. They can hold a prospect’s attention for a long time,

132

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

because they’ve always got something new to say. They don’t mind

customers who take a long time to make up their minds, because

they can keep that customer engaged until she’s ready.

If you’re a marathoner, learn from your sprinting brothers and sisters.

Put some systems in place so you get a break every now and then.

Even a natural marathoner will benefit from taking time away from

your business to recharge your thinking and renew your enthusiasm.

That’s why a smart marathoner looks for a sprinter as a partner.

Sprinters can add excitement to a marathon business. And they have

the energy and enthusiasm to push a marathon business to a higher

level.

Tools for sprinters

Product launches are the quintessential sprinter’s technique.

Launches are, by their nature, intense. Lots of activity confined within

a short window, and lots of moving pieces that you need to respond

to.

They reward the sprinter’s need for novelty, excitement, and

intensity. The days may be long, but you know in advance how many

133

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

days you’ll put into it. And they allow for plenty of rest afterward.

Advertising is a great tool for sprinters (especially something like pay-

perclick), because it acts as a faucet that can turn the traffic on or

off. A smart automated marketing sequence can work with a proven

pay-per-click ad and make money on autopilot for at least long

enough to fit in a really good vacation to Thailand.

Lots of social media techniques are lousy for sprinters. Unless you’re

willing to check in a couple of times a day, Twitter isn’t the tool

for you to find and connect with customers. Neither is Google+,

Facebook, LinkedIn, or a forum. They all need the steady presence

that belongs to the marathoner.

If you’re a sprinter, learn from your marathoning brothers and sisters.

In the long run, it’s awfully hard to keep building and rebuilding from

scratch. Momentum is a beautiful thing.

That’s why a smart sprinter looks for a marathoner as a partner.

Marathoners build the kinds of businesses that command deep

loyalty. And marathoners can keep a watchful eye over all of those

sprinter systems, so they always work their best.

134

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Why I love email autoresponders

Most of us aren’t pure marathoners or pure sprinters. We’re hybrids.

That’s how we are. We have periods of time when we’re working

our tails off, and periods when we’re kinda lazy. But we also tend to

maintain a pretty steady presence over time. We tend to our forums

and our Twitter streams and create a steady stream of content for

the blogs.

Every once in awhile, we have the temerity to take some time off.

And “kinda lazy” turns into “resembles a form of plant life.” That’s

when it’s nice to have a tool that will bridge the gap for us.

An autoresponder (and its cousin, the paid membership site with a

“drip” model for releasing content) lets us do a sprint, put together

several weeks (or even months) of great content, and then schedule

that content to take care of our prospects and customers over some

period of time.

Autoresponders take great care of new prospects when you’re out of

town. Or when you’re busting your tail with a new project. Or when

you have a baby, or a new puppy, or a garden to plant.

What Is an Autoresponder and Do I Need One?

135

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Know thyself

One of the best things about running a business is the fact that you

can set it up any way you please. So this week, think about the kinds

of rhythms you want to create in your business.

Make sure the tools and models you’re choosing are suitable to your

goals.

If you’re a sprinter by nature, are you using the marketing tools

that will naturally give you the breaks you need? Too many people

think they can maintain a constant sprint. If your name is not Gary

Vaynerchuk, you can’t.

If you’re a marathoner, are you getting the most out of your “slow

and steady” nature by producing plenty of great content in easy-to-

manage bites?

Are you building rock-solid relationships with customers, and

leveraging them over time with plenty of terrific offers?

136

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Your homework for this chapter:

Take a look at the tools and techniques you’re using to build a list of

prospects, interest those prospects in your product, and close the

sale.

Are you working with the rhythm and style that work best for you? If

not, what tools can you add to make that work better?

If your business rhythms don’t suit you yet, pick a new tool today and

make a commitment to learn more about it. It takes time to build the

business that suits you — and your style — perfectly.

137

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 18

Essential Marketing Tools: Blogs

We’re going to wrap up Internet Marketing for Smart People by

talking about some of the essential tools of the trade for marketers in

the 21st century.

These aren’t fads, trends, or quick fixes. They’re the tried-and-

true tools that worked yesterday and are going to keep working

tomorrow. These are the cornerstones of your marketing, whether

you’re a solo shop (maybe a consultant or a coach), or are handling

the marketing for a multi-million-dollar business empire.

Build an authoritative hub

Your website lives at the center of your internet marketing plan. That

website needs to have a ton of great content. It needs to be valuable

enough to attract lots of links, and to be intelligently optimized for

SEO. That means you need to be able to update it quickly and easily,

and the back-end code has to be state of the art.

So what’s the right tool to build that website? Whether or not you

call it a blog, you’ll want to use blogging software to build your site.

138

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Even so-called “static sites” are faster and smarter to build with good

content management software like WordPress.

Chris Brogan calls this your home base. It’s the core site where you’ll

build your reputation online and establish yourself as a credible

online authority.

Most people call this a blog, but if your customers don’t think

they read blogs, by all means call it something else. It can be an

information directory, a client resource center, a [your topic] library.

Use the language that works for your customers.

Why should anyone read your blog?

Here’s the thing. There are hundreds of millions of blogs. Many of

them are quite good. In order to get people to read yours, you have

to give them a compelling reason.

Without a great answer to the question Why Should Anyone Read

Your Blog? you’re dead before you begin. But don’t worry, creating

a good answer to that question is within your grasp. It just takes

commitment.

139

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Also check out the article below for some of the “deadly sins” you

need to avoid on your blog.

The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging

Build authority on your own domain

There have been some great blogs built on proprietary blogging

platforms, rather than their own domains.

And the owners of those great blogs, almost without exception, wish

they had started the right way — with self-hosted WordPress on their

own domain.

Because it’s hard to take the hit and transfer over when you’ve

attracted thousands (or even millions) of links. You always lose

something in the translation. It’s also hard to give up what you’ve

already built.

That’s why, if you’re not blogging on your own domain right now

(in other words, people type in something involving the words

WordPress, Blogspot, Typepad, Tumblr, or any other site you don’t

control to get to your blog), you need to switch.

140

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Not later. Not when you make a little bigger name for yourself. Not

when you can afford a killer developer to build a kickass site. Right

now.

If you’re intimidated at the thought of migrating your site yourself,

get help from a qualified WordPress developer who has experience

with site migration.

Also, despite what some alleged “gurus” teach, please don’t try to

make a third-party site like Facebook or LinkedIn into your authority

hub. The cornerstone of your business must always be a site you

personally control.

Those other sites are terrific, but they’re not your hub.

Use the right tools for the job

While you’re creating or improving your site, you might as well go

with a WordPress theme that makes the most of your site, with the

best possible SEO, great-looking design, and excellent security.

Naturally, we’re biased — but we think Genesis is the best theme

framework out there to satisfy those requirements.

141

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

But whatever theme you use, get yourself on WordPress and use a

domain you control. One of the many beauties of WordPress is you

can easily update the theme at any time in order to take advantage

of what’s best for your current situation.

Take a good blog and make it better

There’s one painful thing about blogs — you can kill yourself creating

the best content in the world, write a post that draws hundreds of

comments and thousands of readers, and make yourself a total hero

— and in two weeks everyone’s forgotten it already. The structure

of a typical blog makes it difficult for readers to dig back in and find

your very best stuff.

That’s why you’re going to make it easy for them — and give yourself

an SEO boost while you’re at it. Instead of just passively writing

content and letting it slip out of sight, you can take 20 minutes to

pull your best posts together into a powerful asset.

Derek Halpern wrote up some detailed instructions for you here:

How Cornerstone Content Gets you Traffic and Subscribers

142

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

How to sell from your blog

Believe it or not, a lot of otherwise smart people used to think you

couldn’t sell from a blog. That blogs were somehow inherently “not

commercial” and all blog readers would be turned off of any attempt

to promote.

We’re proud to say that Copyblogger played a key role in showing

that idea was totally wrong.

But we’re not recommending you turn your blog into a pitchfest. The

fact is, there are better tools (we’re going to talk about one of the

best in the next chapter) for pure promotion, but that doesn’t mean

you should never pitch from your blog.

Here are three keys to getting the most out of promotions on your

blog:

1. Make sure you’re promoting

strategically.

As you develop more friends in social media, you’ll find that

sometimes there are more affiliate products to promote than you

have days on the calendar.

143

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

And product launches tend to “bunch up,” with lots of marketers

within one topic all launching good products at the same time.

Think carefully about which products are truly in line with your

message, and with the needs of your readers. If you know someone

with a launch coming up, try to schedule them for a few guest posts

in the month or so before their launch. Let your readers get to know,

like, and trust the person you’re promoting, so the launch doesn’t

feel like it comes out of nowhere.

Your readers’ trust is on the line with every promotion you make.

Make sure everything you promote adds to your reputation.

2. Think twice about running ads for other

people.

A lot of bloggers want to offset their hosting and other expenses by

putting a few ads up. That’s fine, but remember — be strategic.

Avoid ads that are cheap-looking, ugly, or that don’t allow you to be

highly selective about what’s being advertised. Your readers see ads

on your site as a personal recommendation.

144

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Ad programs that don’t allow you to pick and choose can tarnish

your credibility, as you send your readers to products and services

that may be decidedly sub-par.

Nine times out of ten, ad space on your blog is better put to use

with an ad for something of your own — either a product, an

email newsletter, or a killer free report. Ads can also be used to

demonstrate your alliances, either to a prestige product or to

another online businessperson you admire.

3. Move ‘em off the blog.

We’ve tried lots of different ways to do promotions on Copyblogger,

and so far we’ve found that the most effective strategy is to develop

your case over time on the blog.

Do this by writing posts that:

• Set up the need for the product

• Vividly describe the problem your customer is facing

• Suggest some of the features that would solve that problem

145

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

In other words, you’re building a case for the product you’ll be

offering.

Once that work of “preparing for the sale” is done, you’re then ready

to move readers off the blog for the final sales communication. You

can either direct them to a strong landing page, or you can move

them to email.

Most serious online businesspeople will tell you they’ve seen

the same result — nothing can substitute for the engagement

and response that you can get with email. And that’s why email

marketing is going to be our next chapter in the Internet Marketing

for Smart People ebook. Read on for our best email marketing tips.

146

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 19

Essential Marketing Tools: Email

Marketing

You’ve heard it.

You might have even bought into it.

You know, that persistent little whisper from the shiny, sexy, new and

powerful world of social media.

“Email is dead. It’s so boring and old-fashioned. Everyone knows

we’re supposed to use [insert trendy social media platform of your

choice] now.”

The irony of this is thick. Truth is, email marketing was, is, and will be

(for the foreseeable future) the most powerful social media platform

around. Rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated.

Every successful online marketer we’ve talked with agrees — email

readers are more responsive, they have a tighter connection with

you, and they buy more stuff.

147

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Most email marketing is terrible. But yours won’t be — because

you’re going to follow these guidelines.

Build your email list

It’s hard to create a strong business around a list of 8 people. Okay,

this may seem a bit obvious, but bear with me.

It’s easy to get intimidated by the prospect of building your list, but

it’s not rocket science when you break it down into two key areas of

focus:

To build your list, you need to drive traffic

and capture opt-ins.

Simple, though not always easy. But let’s dive into it.

Grow your traffic

If you’ve been around Copyblogger for any length of time (and if

you haven’t, don’t worry), you’ll know that our philosophy of driving

traffic centers around content marketing.

148

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

As we’ve talked about throughout this book, content marketing is

just creating and freely sharing informative, valuable and relevant

content in a public way.

This can take all kinds of forms; blogging, guest posting, video

tutorials, free PDF reports. Here are a bunch more ideas if you want

to go nuts with this, which, of course, we highly recommend.

The idea is to create irresistible content, delivered over time, that

works its way into your reader’s heart and mind, culminating in ...

Building your opt-ins

Capturing the opt-in (that’s just a jargon way of saying the reader

gives you her email address and says it’s okay to email her in the

future) is the beginning of a profoundly important conversation.

This is point when a reader has been so knocked out by your free

content that they give you permission to contact them on a regular

basis with further, valuable content, as well as offers for products

they’ll want.

149

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Long gone (thankfully) are the days of copying and pasting hundreds

thousands, or millions of email addresses into your system with the

intention of spamming everyone’s lights out.

There is no good way to buy addresses to add to your email list.

It’s unethical, usually illegal, and terrible for your business. Don’t

do it.

(There are various ways to “borrow” someone else’s list, but that’s

another topic.)

On the practical side, you’ll need to set up a way to capture the

email addresses of interested readers.

No, you cannot just mail people using

Outlook. Trust us.

There are a couple of companies we unofficially recommend for this

(AWeber and Mailchimp both do a reasonable job). These services

automate the optin process through the use of links, web forms, and

robust backend software. More important, they manage relationships

with the companies that deliver your email, so you end up getting

caught in far fewer spam filters.

150

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Focus on your Cookie Content

You knew we’d get back to this one, right?

Cookie content is the answer to “How can I get people to read my

email marketing?”

It’s also the answer to “How can I get more subscribers,” “How can I

sell more stuff,” “How do I convince readers to complete the opt-in,”

“How do I stay out of spam filters,” and “How can I get more referrals

and repeat business.”

Just because someone signed up to your email list does not mean

they will open all (or any) of the content you send them. Cookie

Content is all about training your readers to understand that, if

you’ve sent them something, it’s gonna be worth reading. It teaches

them to create a wonderful association every time they see your

name in the “from” field in their inbox.

Cookie Content can take many forms depending on what you’re

trying to achieve in your business. Most often, it takes the form of

useful tips, funny or touching stories, case studies, or interviews

you’ve conducted with experts.

151

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Be warned: if you think non-stop ads, promotions or irrelevant offers

make for great Cookie Content, you’re on your way to the dustbin of

email marketing history. There’s no faster path to unsubscribes and

spam complaints.

This drip, drip, drip of delivering interesting and/or relevant content

over time will fan the desire of your readers, preparing them for

amazing offers of related products down the road.

The magnificent autoresponder

The email autoresponder is my favorite marketing and

communication tool.

(As you may know, marketing and communication aren’t two

different things for us — and they probably shouldn’t be for you

either.)

The autoresponder is a mighty tool that efficiently reaches out to

your readers for you, whether you’re around or not.

In fact, it’s so powerful that we recommend you avoid any email

provider — and there’s at least one popular one out there — that

doesn’t give you an unlimited autoresponder.

152

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Maybe you want every one of your subscribers to receive a 20-part

instructional course. The autoresponder has your back; it keeps

sending that course out when you’re on vacation, or have the flu,

or just feel like doing something else for awhile. The autoresponder

never gets burned out or bored. Every reader gets the same great

experience.

Maybe you’d like to send a single, special note to each of your

readers 72 hours after they sign up to your list. The autoresponder

will obey your command.

Maybe you have a tailor-made digital gift for each of your readers on

the first, second and third anniversary of their subscription with you.

Again, the autoresponder will faithfully deliver it, on time, to each

reader, on the individually correct date.

Are you starting to see how cool this is?

Once you’ve got one, five, or twenty autoresponders set up with

your provider, you’re done. And that faithful sucker will keep working

on your behalf day in and day out.

An autoresponder lets you get the most use out of your very best

material.

153

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

As you probably know, I’m a fan of creating the best damned content

you possibly can.

Which can, frankly, be a lot of work.

The fabulous thing about an autoresponder is that you continue

to get value out of that hard work. You can write the world’s most

brilliant blog post, and the odds are that in a month or two it will

be forgotten. But you can copy that post to your autoresponder

sequence and keep sending it to every new person who connects

with you — for as long as you choose to stay in business.

I love tools that let me work smarter, not harder.

154

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

CHAPTER 20

Essential Marketing Tools:

Social Networks

If you’ve been reading the news headlines about social networking

for the last few years, you may be tempted to think:

• Merely opening a Twitter account will triple your revenue this

year

• You’re only one blog post away from a guest spot on Oprah

• If you build it (a Facebook/LinkedIn/Google+ page), they will

come (in hordes)

Then you look around at the real world and realize that, sadly, none

of this is true.

The truth is, social media — when used strategically over time — is

the most powerful form of marketing and market research the world

has ever seen. But it’s not a magic bean that grows overnight into

business success. It’s a platform for real work.

155

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

The art is knowing the best places to put that work so you get results

and not just a lot of annoying people who think they’re your friends.

That’s what we’re going to talk about in this section.

First, a definition

The term social media has always been somewhat lame and

redundant.

Why? Because the internet has always been social. The tools are

new, but communication and interaction are as old as humanity

itself. That’s why so many essential principles of web communication

haven’t changed much from the old days of face-to-face selling.

What the internet does change is the pace, scale, and cost of

communication. You can send more messages to more people,

more quickly and more cheaply, than ever in history. But what you’re

going to say doesn’t change just because you’re using more efficient

technology.

Social media: what is it good for?

It’s probably obvious that social media (i.e. talking to people) is a

great tool for the first pillar of Internet Marketing for Smart People —

156

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

building relationships with fans and customers.

You might be a big company, a little company, or an individual. No

matter which you are, you can use social media platforms to show

your customers that you aren’t a creep. That you can be trusted.

That you know your stuff.

The biggest factor that kills your conversions is lack of trust. Social

media gives you an awesomely efficient, cheap, and effective way

to build that trust — provided, of course, that you’re a good egg to

begin with. Social media also does a fantastic job of exposing lousy

service, nasty business practices, and crappy products.

The #1 Conversion Killer in Your Copy (And How to Beat It)

The second and third pillars are direct response copywriting and

content marketing. Those are two separate skills, but they work

incredibly well when you blend them together, then use social media

tools to widely share the result of that work. This article talks about

how they’re different and how they work together:

What’s the Difference Between Content Marketing and Copywriting?

And the final pillar of Internet Marketing for Smart People is to have

something worthwhile to sell.

157

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Social media actually works brilliantly for this as well, because of

something most people forget too easily:

Social media is a tool for listening, not just talking.

Want ideas for products that are a surefire success? For the language

your prospects use to describe their problems? For the most

common objections people have to buying something like your

product or service?

Just “grow bigger ears” (to use Chris Brogan’s phrase) and listen on

Twitter, Facebook, Google+, blog comments (your own or someone

else’s), forums, and anywhere else people congregate to talk.

If you never wrote a word on social media platforms, but used

it purely for market intelligence and listening, social media

could still make you a millionaire.

Don’t forget to listen.

158

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Which social media platform is best?

The one your customers hang out on. There are millions of people

still using “dead” social media platforms like MySpace, AOL, and

Friendster.

Go fishing where the fish are. More specifically, where your fish are.

Where’s the ROI on social media?

Social media demands a huge investment — not of money, typically,

but in time, which of course is worth much more than money.

To get the best return on that investment, here’s where you need to

put your social media focus:

Gaining the attention of new potential customers. The best way to

do this is to encourage sharing of your very best cookie content.

Building your lists by bringing those new prospects to a “home

base” asset. This must be something you control, like your blog

(on your own domain name) and your email list. Don’t be a digital

sharecropper — instead, use external media like Facebook and

Twitter to bring traffic back to you.

159

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

Using social media to put a likable human face on your brand. This is

optional, but can be highly effective. Remember, you don’t have to

be perfect, but you do need to preserve your authority by acting with

a reasonable degree of dignity. Be someone we can respect.

Constantly working on conversion — on taking those fans and

readers and turning them into customers. Steps 1-3 do you no good

until you master step 4.

Watch out for this big, scary, dangerous

pitfall

The first thing we all realize when we start playing around with

social media is that it can be a brutal, ugly time suck. And too many

bloggers never get past that point. They lose hours every day “being

social” without anything to show for it.

That’s not what smart people do.

If you start with these foundational principles of using and thriving in

social media, there’s a good chance you won’t need Oprah.

160

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

So that’s Internet Marketing for Smart

People ... now what?

Thanks for your time and attention reading this ebook! Hopefully

you’ve learned lots about how to attract traffic, engage an audience,

and convert fans into customers.

Keep in mind that this is just one book in a library of 15. For

the complete set, head on over to the Ebooks section of

MyCopyblogger. You’ll find in-depth materials on SEO, email

marketing, landing pages, content marketing strategy ... and lots

more. And all of it is free with your MyCopyblogger membership.

(How cool is that?)

Hey, why don’t you swing by and leave your thoughts and comments

on Copyblogger.com? We look forward to seeing you there.

161

I NTE RNE T MA R K ET I N G F O R SM AR T P EOPL E

162

Internet Marketing For Smart People

Internet Marketing For Smart People