How do you influence others over the Internet? Whether you want to change a mind or make a sale, the better you are at influencing, the more you’ll get what it is that you want. With that in mind here are 27 tips in no particular order to strengthen your own online influence and get more of what you seek. Pick one niche and become the master of that niche. The thinner you spread yourself, the less influence you have. That’s why you want to thoroughly cover one niche rather than haphazardly trying to cover several of them. Get out of your own online world and into new communities. We tend to g ..read more

There is so much disinformation on this that I just have to weigh in. No doubt you’ve been told or read that you should create a fancy autoresponder sequence where each email builds upon the previous email. And that if you make it fancy enough, and complicated enough, you can get prospects to take any action you like, blah blah blah… But guess what? You don’t know how people are going to respond to it. You can make a prediction, but your guess might be 180 degrees off. So now you’ve come up with an elaborate system that accomplishes nothing. More importantly, building a sequential series like ..read more

Notice the headline doesn’t say, “How to Create a Product and Sell It.” Frankly, that’s exactly what most marketers do – they create a product without any thought to what the market wants, and then they try to figure out a way to sell it. Result? Most times: failure. To create a product that sells, you want to first identify a niche that’s hungry, and then offer them whatever it is that they are hungry for. The hard work is in finding that target audience that is ready and eager to buy. Once you’ve done that, creating the product is the easy part, as well as the fun part because you know in a ..read more

When someone asks what you do for a living – what do you tell them? That you own a business? That you write a blog? That you create products or build websites, or that you’re a doctor or a lawyer or a plumber or a race car driver? I hope not, because while all those things are professions – they’re still NOT what pays your bills. The only real answer to the question of what you do, regardless of what your profession is, is that you are a marketer! Your specialty is attracting new customers or clients, persuading existing customers to make larger and more frequent purchases, and ensuring that ..read more

To make your email stand out and get it opened, make it clear that your email is useful to the reader, that it’s specific to what they want or need to know, and that it is also unique. Here are a few additional tips to help ensure you get the most bang for your email buck… Identify yourself. Don’t send an email from a generic name in the hope of confusing them into opening it – they’ll just resent you for it. Use your own personal name. Always send your emails from the SAME name. You’re building brand loyalty, even when that brand is you. So if you keep changing your “from” line, even if it c ..read more

I mentioned in a previous article that you don’t want to become one of those many one hit wonders that make a big splash on the Internet and then vanish – but how do you make sure that you’re not? Because it’s really easy to say you won’t be, but the fact is that no one PLANS to be a one hit wonder; in fact it happens when you DON’T plan. I’m going to offer some tips here for ensuring that your success is not the flash in the pan variety, but rather the type of success that continues to pay off day in and day out for years to come. Really what we are talking about is becoming what you might c ..read more

So you slaved over your latest blogpost – and nobody tweeted it or shared it on Facebook? Or perhaps you wrote a dozen new articles – and all you hear are the sounds of tumbleweeds drifting across your screen? It’s harder and harder these days to capture attention – namely because attention spans are getting shorter as people are deluged with more and more things to watch/read/do. Here are some fast tips to make your writing – shall we say – more readable. Forget your honors English class and write like people speak. Not sure if you are? Try reading your writing out loud. If it’s awkward or s ..read more

Has anyone ever told you to set goals? I know, silly question. People are always telling you to set goals because goal setting can and does work. But has anyone told you there is a right way and a wrong way to choose those goals? For example, you want to earn $10,000 a month so you set a goal to reach that $10,000 mark. So far so good, right? Actually, no, because this is what’s known as a “static” goal rather than an action goal. Static goals sap your motivation because they’re focused on outcomes that are, for the most part, outside of your control. Bottom line – they seldom work. Imagine y ..read more

How can you create a product in less than a week that has a high perceived value and is almost guaranteed to bring its own traffic and sales? One word: Interviews. Here’s how to do it… First, choose a niche if you don’t already have one. Preferably you want to find a niche with experts who have their own email lists. Second, choose a hook. If your niche is vegetable gardening, your hook might be, “How to grow an entire year’s worth of veggies for less than $50.” If your niche is classic cars, your hook might be, “How to buy classic cars for half their real value.” If your niche is Internet Ma ..read more

I don’t need to tell you how important the conversion rate on your squeeze page is. The better it converts, the more prospects you get. The more prospects you get, the more sales you can eventually make. So how do you get your squeeze pages converting like gangbusters? Here are 13 things you should be doing on every landing page you create to ensure you’re capturing every prospect possible: Know who you’re talking to. On your squeeze page you are speaking directly to your prospective customer. So who are they and what do they want? You’ve got to know your customer and use the words and images ..read more