gregariousquest.com

Part two of this three part series focuses on what it is we can all do as online marketers to put value back in to our offers in particular our email offers.

In my previous business it was our system that was the powerhouse behind achieving brilliant sales.

Our information system told us everything about each of our customers so we knew that our offers were always on target.

A good system is about providing the best information so tasks can be done more effectively, this means specific offers or tasks can be presented in different ways. In internet context that might be text or, video based offers, monthly high value specials, time sensitive offers. Using a system in this manner also allows you to send specific offers based on the knowledge bank built on the person you send to.

Alas in the internet marketing world finding an out of the box system that converts current data into useful information may be hard to find. Your system is something that grows with your internet business it becomes an adaptable tool that delivers the results. It’s actually the value behind any business. If you’re thinking of selling your blog or website – it’s the system people buy because it delivers proven longer term results.

This possibly may sound a little heavy for some so let’s break it down to a simply email related situation.

Currently online marketers send you a flood of offers based on the fact you signed up for a free offer with your email address. As an example you may have signed up for free eBook on photography which you receive along with constant flood of unrelated product offers in the hope you may buy.

Guess we have all seen emails with subject lines that touts the offer reading something like “Boost Your Google Rankings by Automatically Injecting Massive Juice into Your Backlinks”

The body of the email might say Hi or if you’re lucky it might even have your name.

Be honest would you even read the email? It even looks like spam.

Subconsciously you ask what’s in it for me.

Does the email look like it was something you could trust or did it scream value?

In any form of marketing the highest form of value is results. No results no value.

You naturally think “If I do this I get money” I can expect results.

The message being here if you’re email marketing you should be selling results.

Keep it in mind next time you do a mail out don’t be like many of the others who send random emails.

Just quickly in closing I will expand in the final post that it may be helpful to get your email to be opened is to use the first name of your mail recipient in the subject line along with a compelling statement that has the customer thinking “I just have to open it to find out the answer.”

I suggest you don’t promise a million dollars or your long lost Aunty left you a mint in your subject line its sort of been done to death already.

If you don’t know what I mean by compelling statements, read any Dan Brown book (Da Vinci code) whereby it’s so well written you must “just read the next chapter.”

Also in the final post I will give you the keys on what you need to do to set up your system. The results you can achieve will be well the effort.

Ciao for now

Gregarious by name Gregarious by nature

Noticed whilst cruising around the blogging world the large amount of references or articles related to newbie’s.

I realized I’m in a unique position to comment being myself a newbie, possibly after 6 months of grinding away I will have much more knowledge under the belt and my thoughts will be altered forever.

It would seem that many in the internet marketing niche follow the same processes and lines of marketing. As Sally reminds me there is lot of monkey see monkey do type marketing to us newbie’s.

Not really sure why maybe it’s just the flavour of the month as internet marketing moves pretty quick. Has anyone noticed lately you now make an offer on product which has a suggested buy price click to buy the product you then face a battery of up sells to get to the checkout.

Newbie’s as a keyword rates not so well suggesting many who work this niche have found it to be less than lucrative. Remember in my last post I said It takes the same amount of work to build a successful blog or website as an unsuccessful blog or website.

Last couple of weeks this newbie has been working through a pile of research in many fields looking at an entry point into online that fits and suits my criteria. Call it foundation work.

I must be getting close because I know what I don’t want to do. During the search process I have signed up to for free reports the odd big promise program, eBooks, software, and the latest killer list growing tactics.

At this point I must refer to my bricks and mortar business where we had over 3000 hotels contacts who bought from us an on monthly basis. Our system could tell us everything they purchased when, what, why and who bought it. So we know a lot about our customers.

Jump back into internet world and we find much of the marketing uses the scatter gun approach. Just fire of an email to the list everyday and hope the headline or pretty colours works.

I don’t believe the marketing side of online has evolved much in 5 years. What about video you might say – another excuse to send an untargeted email – Read on there is much more to this newbie.

Yes we know the money is in the list or so they say. I have two marketers currently who have sent me emails on more than 100 days straight and still going.

As a newbie in internet world but experienced in bricks mortar land I wonder why these online marketers fail in the most basic or all tenants in sales and that is to work with your customer and help them in everyway you can in return the sales will come because you make yourself indispensable.

Imagine that - an internet marketer who can make offers to you, knows where you’re at what you like, online experienced or in experienced a guided but lucrative path.

I can’t imagine how much work goes into researching what sells, split testing, standing sites up, making videos the list is endless only to annoy the backsides off everybody with a zillion email offers with mostly ridiculous claims. No wonder emails have low opening rates across the globe – Emails are generally perceived to have no value.

The answer is to put value back into those emails get to know your customer, if they like to write eBooks then target then with everything possible to help them write from start to finish, get it online market it.

If your customer likes to affiliate market show how to pick the products, how to market it. I guess you get my point none of it can happen without knowing your customer and I see very few online marketers who have anything that looks like a system that can provide the sort of intelligence they require.

How do you find such system? Well that’s my juice for another day.

Ciao for now

Gregarious by name Gregarious by Nature

Hi everyone it’s been a great week in terms of getting some real understandings and today was special in fact I had a BFO (blinding flash of the obvious).

The work required building a great blog or even a website is the same as building unsuccessful blog or website. What?

Read on – A mate mine went to Uni for 5 years training to be an aeronautical engineer, he was one smart dude. On applying for a position in his chosen field you can imagine the look on his face after 5 years of full on University to be told his degree was too BROAD. He was advised to go back to school and specialize. (He did)

So as someone who is new to internet smarts and maybe earning an income online, I found my thinking was getting clouded with the technical aspects of getting online plus the associated info overload. It’s easy to drift away from the fact that It’s best to choose a niche and target it with good tight phrases and keywords.

I always thought that if you get traffic (readers of your blog or people on your website) I could do just fine, get more traffic I could do better. Wrong Wrong Wrong. I had no target or niche.

Having no real focus or a broad approach can kill you pretty quick. Put it this way if you were looking for a site about red Ferraris would you put the word “cars” into Google? Would you find the information about Red Ferraris under Cars? I suppose you would but it would be hard work to find out the information or recommendation you were after. What result do you think you would get if Red Ferraris had been the search term? More than you could handle I guess.

The common denominator for all good sites is great focused terms, words or phrases that are bang on the money for their target.

Getting this part of the internet business right gives a great foundation. If I get the keywords and phrases right then it means my content or offerings have a better chance to attracting the right person to see my stuff and better chance of going on to buy something, I can attract links from other sites and bring more people in.

Let’s put this into a sharp perspective. It’s so very easy to build a great looking blog or website and have really great articles and offers with bucket loads of work to produce it all only to find that it did not kick off the way you expect.

This leads me to repeat the opening statement the work required building a great blog or even a website is the same as building unsuccessful blog or website.

Guess I need to take stock and start working out exactly what am I targeting before ripping in and wasting a pile of effort and time.

And just one more thing to do before starting – Is it possible to make any money in my chosen niche?

Writing a blog on two legged bandicoots maybe a dream for some but not likely to make any money.

The lesson can so easily be missed cost a heap of time burn you out and worst still make you give up if you are new to the internet I advise you to take the time to do the research first to see what works before you start.

Ciao for now

Gregarious by name Gregarious by nature.

Well it’s been about 8 weeks since I started my first ever blog. Time moves fast when you’re on a big learning curve.

For me it’s been head down – well you know the rest whilst learning with Sally. The setup side or technical aspects of running a blog I have come to discover can really eat up not only your time but lead you up the garden path. More on that later.

Having a blog in your name on the net kinda feels great, I guess it’s a personal brand or reputation thing that can take you to great heights or just plain bash your head in on the rocks.

Questions like what am I trying to accomplish? Do I have anything to share? Are my thoughts or views unique? After all there are millions of blogs out there. That’s a lot of noise. Why should someone listen to me?

Info overload when starting out can be a killer it fires up those random thoughts I spoke about in the quest. There is so much info coming at you these days it’s real hard to know who to trust or follow.

Sitting here writing this post I find that I have reverted back to old training from engineering school days to get me through this. Maybe you might find this helpful also.

Actually it’s the same message I delivered in my first PowerPoint presentation.

You must have a plan some strategy and tactics which all add to a heck of a lot work. Ask Sally I say I’m sure she will give you a great answer.

The way to get through the info overload is really very easy – focus and carryout just one task or problem at a time and here is the key complete that task before you move on. Sure you may need to research to help you get through, however stick to only what you’re trying to solve or complete.

Anything else like “keeping unto date” or being entertained watching YouTube is just bull!

Fall into that trap and you will lose your, direction and purpose in what you’re trying to do in a heartbeat.

If you’re just starting out blogging and you fall into this trap you may lose your focus and your actions will become further apart then it’s a sticky end heading your way.

I said earlier about the technical aspects of setting up a blog can lead you up the garden path.

For me I’m not the greatest tech head going around. Inside my head and I’m guessing others have the same issue there is a conflict going on. I want to stick to my strategy because that’s what I set myself up to do and I know it’s the right way.

My strategy revolves around good content, based around my topic or niche maximizing, marketing and monetizing the blog.

Having been in business in “the outside world for many years” no business survives without marketing. I want to be marketing my blog a big percentage of the time.

Conflict arises when you wish to produce content and the technical aspects of shooting uploading videos or composing a PowerPoint get in the way and stem creativity.

Technical aspects of running a blog can take you away from the more important issues of operating your blog. So what’s the answer? Get someone else to handle the techy bits there are plenty of people who thrive on the technical stuff and not so good on the rest – well that can only be good for the rest of us.

Right now I am writing my first major piece I believe in blogging circles its call a Pillar content article. It’s the first part of my quest where you will find out what a bloke who has been in business for twenty plus years does to get a start in the online world. I’ll cover my plan, strategy and tactics plus I’ll show you where I got a lot handy tools and ideas from in the process.

For the seasoned campaigners who take the time to read the article they may get a better understanding of what a rank newbie does and for those starting out just like me it will be compulsive reading simply because it can clear the way and you may avoid some of the mistakes and save some money on the way through.

Ciao for now

Gregarious by name Gregarious by nature.

What a week it was surrounded by software and audio issues, headset mic failed so finished up recording with Laptop on board mic..

My PowerPoint upload to YouTube didn’t go well. Learning curve was great whilst not enjoyable I learnt a lot – obviously didn’t get it all right but what the heck It was my first ever upload to You Tube.

Starting Gregariousquest from scratch shows the amount of work required to get you in to the game. It’s really easy to go bug eyed watching videos,learning what to do or getting a new software program and learning how to drive it.

This tells me clearly why many who are trying to earn money from the net are falling over.

Watching videos and learning to driving software is a time consuming exercise and not the bit that makes the so called fast money.

It is possible to outsource the work, however does not leave you with a great backup plan when things go wrong.

For now, my part of Learn with Sally course was to get the PowerPoint thing happened and uploaded there will be more PowerPoint style uploads in the coming weeks.

For me I think I prefer an on camera video which looks to be easy in terms of technical and maybe just a Nervous Nelly exercise to speak on camera.

Thinking those TV dudes make it look easy.

Anyway have look, hope you like it, the 4 steps actually do work. Let’s know what you think; I’m guessing the big boss Sally’s comment right now will have something to do with black lines I believe.

Have a great week

Ciao for now

Gregarious by name Gregarious by nature

Big week this week after Sally set her students a task of producing a video.

My little cartoon here is right on the money here as I needed to take my brain out during the week and give it a tune up. This is what my little video will be all about – no not surgery!

It’s pretty easier to get overwhelmed these days. 4 actions I took helped to clear the decks and get some quality focus and energy back into the camp in a big way. You might say it was hippopotanic move.

It’s pretty easy these days to feel like a gumby as PowerPoint and Camtasia are new to me.  Having said that they are fun – Grateful you guys can’t see my feeble attempts.

Maybe I should start a competition for everyone to lodge their first attempts or video crashes for a bit fun.

Anyway must kick on and watch a few more videos learn and get my dodgy cinema art posted.

Ciao for now

Gregarious by name Gregarious by nature.

Writing this post today I was reflecting on how and why I got started writing this blog – after all I had no plan and no clue what I was going to do. Worst of all I didn’t know how to put up a blog and get all those doovy plugins and widgets, Facebook, Google, You Tube hookups happening.

I read a post on one of the forums which struck a cord with me and it was Sally Neills journey from where she was and how far she had come. It was a very – if I can say a normal read with out all the hype, in fact it sounded like I can do that.

Well, Sally has put up her first training course so on joining I found it super easy, I call it monkey see monkey do , the blog setup was a breeze. That’s 2 months work all done in 2 weeks actually it took me an hour a night to watch the videos and do the setup.

Now I have the medium to convey the message of my quest. That message is not about me it’s about what results I get and how others can do the same and miss the pitfalls as I might stumble in along the way.

You will get recommendations along the way from me and this is the first one. If you want to take action and get started, even if you do not know what you want to do, then sign on with Sally’s training course, its cheap as chips, you can afford it even if you don’t have a job.

If your wondering if I get paid for this recommendation the answer is no.

It’s refreshing to recommend someone who does a great job helping others, no hype just great value.

The journey begins

Ciao for now

Gregarious by name Gregarious by nature.

Hi everyone well I can say at last that Gregarious that’s me  is off and running.

I have found already starting this new blog there is nothing like doing something or learning how to do it that keeps one switched on and motivated. It’s the experience that money can’t buy.

Struggled something fierce when first starting how ever that’s part of the learning process my guess for many of you, it is or was the same.

Taking action to move forward I found not so easy either when you see the amount of theory or case histories with outrageous claims attached to them on the net which leads me to say following my blog will be “on the job training “ and that’s the best you can get.

For you it’s really about what happens and the Results, choose to use them or lose them.

Do you know anyone who lives their life in the mind numbing routine of working day in and day out for someone else just to pay the bills?

They might think they’re happy but really they are distracting themselves with TV and the next shiny thing not to notice that slaving away day after day is a habit that will have them waking up one day and wondering where their life went.

Of course all of us have dreams or plans that will happen “someday”…

But when we wake up in the morning and start our routine over again never questioning our path we are like cattle being lead to slaughter. One day we will wake up and realize that it’s to late…

This documented quest will provide examples of a different path, a path where we can choose the life we want to live, where we are in control of what we do each day, and we can actively work towards our dreams. Today. Now.

During the quest you will look over my shoulder in real time as I walk the path to freedom. This is not a blog full of theory, fantasy or impossible to follow “success secrets” Instead you will see what works and what doesn’t as its happening.

By following the quest you are joining a community of like minded people who are ready to go beyond the daily grind to get support and share ideas to break free of their old habits and regain control of their lives.

So if anybody you know who might be just starting out or not yet started would like to follow some one in a similar situation or would like to wake up and realize that “some day is here”, before its to late and life has passed them by send them to Gregariousquest today.

Ciao for now

Gregarious by name Gregarious by nature.