Getting Started With Persuasive Copywriting: The First 3 Pieces of Content to Give A Makeover

When you’re ready to create some persuasive copywriting, you may be overwhelmed and wonder where to start. There are three places where your copywriting skills really matter and this is where you should start. Once you’ve mastered these three elements of your website, you can go on to tackle other areas of your site. 

 

1. Your ‘About’ Page

 

The ‘about’ page on any website is usually the most visited one. That’s why it should be clearly labeled. Don’t use a cutesy name in the hopes that more people will click on it. You’ll just confuse your website visitors. 

 

Your ‘about’ page should share your journey and cover why you’re qualified to help potential clients. Spin your journey into a story format that readers can relate to. For example, if you’re a business coach, you might share how you struggled to get your own business started for several years before finding success. By sharing your story, you’ll make it easy for your potential clients to relate to you and show them that you’re qualified to help.

 

2. Your ‘Services’ Page 

 

Your ‘services’ page is your chance to stand out from other solopreneurs that offer similar services. But don’t cram every single service you offer on the same page. That will overwhelm visitors and they may leave your website before reading through all of the services you perform. That’s why it’s smart to have each service listed on a separate page of your website.

 

You want your service pages to show that you understand your ideal client and can deliver what they need. Then you should explain how you work and what end result your ideal client can expect. For example, if you’re a social media strategist, don’t tell potential clients that you can handle their Facebook advertisements. That’s vague and doesn’t describe what you can do. Instead, you might tell potential clients that you can increase Facebook ad conversions by 20%. 

 

Now, include an easy next step, like joining your mailing list. Direct your visitors to your freebie sign up page with a helpful link, like this one: 

 

===> Add Your Download Link to Your Free Report <===

 

By doing this, you stay connected to potential clients that are interested in working with you but aren’t ready to hire you quite yet. 

 

3. Your ‘Home’ Page

 

When it comes to your home page, you have less than seven seconds to make your first impression. You want that impression to be a good one. 

 

When someone visits your home page, they should be able to tell immediately if they’re your ideal client or not from your copy. If you’re a social media strategist that works only with small businesses, then your copy shouldn’t be aimed at large corporations. It should be focused on small businesses and how you can help them. 

 

Your home page is also your chance to state why you’re uniquely qualified to help. Don’t use the same wording you did on your about page. Instead, keep your qualifications to one or two sentences on your home page. If a visitor is interested in knowing more, they’ll click on your ‘about’ page for the full story. 

 

Next, offer social proof on your home page. If you’ve guest posted on several popular blogs, share their logos. If you have testimonials from prominent clients, post those on your home page, too. If you’ve been interviewed in a magazine or podcast, be sure to add this information to your home page as well.

 

Before you post your new copy on your website, be sure to have a professional editor or proofreader look at it. An extra set of eyes can help you avoid embarrassing typos and make sure that your copy shines.

 

5 Steps to Reach Your Readers on an Emotional Level

When it comes selling yourself and your brand, it’s essential that you understand that your potential customers want to do business with people that they know, like, and trust. This is even more important if you’re a coach or service provider. Your potential clients may wonder if they’ll enjoy working with you, how you can help them, and if they’ll get their desired results. 

 

This is where persuasive copywriting can help you. Copywriting will allow your ideal client the chance to know, like, and trust you. It also gives you an easy way to answer their questions before they even ask them. But before you start writing your copy, there are a few steps you’ll need to take. 

 

Step #1: Identify Your Client

 

Describe your ideal client as detailed as you can. You need to be specific about their fears, frustrations, and feelings. Use forums and social media groups to see what words your ideal client uses to talk about their situation. Knowing how your potential clients describe what they’re dealing with will allow you to create copy that connects with them. You also need to think about what your potential client’s desired end result would look and feel like. For example, if you help overwhelmed working moms find time to prepare nutritious food to feed their families, then the end result might be less dinner time stress, more family time, and healthier bodies.

 

Step #2: Focus on your qualifications

 

Next, think about how you’re uniquely qualified to help your potential clients. Describe why you’re qualified as a professional (education) and/or as a person (experience). You’ll want to offer proof of your qualifications in the form of diplomas, testimonials, and endorsements. These qualifications can be placed on the ‘home’ or ‘about’ page or a dedicated ‘testimonials’ page on your website and blog.

 

Step #3: Describe the milestones

 

When you have a clear picture of what results your clients can expect from you, then you’ll want to think about the journey they’ll take. Try to describe the milestones your ideal client typically encounters during their journey. For example, if you’re a weight loss coach, one milestone might be losing the first ten pounds. 

 

Don’t focus on just the good milestones. You’ll also want to consider the setbacks clients may face as well as the emotional aspects of their journey. For example, a setback might be gaining three pounds one week. 

 

Step #4: Think about your clients’ objections

 

Once you’re confident that you understand your potential clients’ journey, you need to take a moment to consider their objections. What hesitations might your client bring up when they’re ready to hire you? What are they afraid of if they take that first step? For example, if you’re a fitness coach that helps obese patients lose weight, you might find that potential clients are worried about visiting a gym for the first time. 

 

When you understand these objections, you can offer solutions. Keep in mind that solutions don’t always have to be complex. You might simply tell clients that the first gym session is all about coming in and getting comfortable with the equipment, no workout required. Now, you’ve subtly eased a potential client’s objections to taking that first step toward fitness.

 

Step #5: Describe the action steps your reader would like to take

 

Now that you know the journey your clients are on, it’s time to guide them to your product or services. You can do this by thinking about the action steps readers need to take when interacting with your content. For example, you might have a call to action at the bottom of your blog posts for joining your email list.

 

When you send emails to potential clients on your list, you might have a call to action at the bottom of each email that invites your subscribers to set up a free consultation with you. You want to continually invite your community to keep taking action. By doing this, you’ll have a list filled with valuable leads.

 

Understanding your client is the first step toward creating more persuasive copy. When you genuinely care about your clients’ journey, it will shine through in your copywriting efforts. 

 

Copywriting Essentials: 4 Myths That Keep You from Writing Compelling Copy

You’re stuck. You’re not seeing the leads you want for your business. You’re offering quality products and great services but only a few people are buying from you. 

 

You might be tempted to believe that the problem is that your platform isn’t big enough or that your website isn’t interactive enough. But for many small business owners and solopreneurs, these problems are usually the result of poor copywriting.

 

The good news is that persuasive copywriting is an essential skill that can be learned. But first, you have to understand that some things you might believe about copywriting are actually myths that are harming your business.

 

Myth #1: Copywriting is all about selling

 

Some small business owners believe that copywriting is the equivalent of going to a cocktail party and screaming “Buy my product!” to every person you meet. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Copywriting is about so much more than selling your product or program.

 

Copywriting is about serving your audience. You can use persuasive copy to address your customers’ concerns, help them make smart buying decisions, and offer solutions to their needs. 

 

Myth #2: Copywriting is all about action

 

Many small business owners and solopreneurs think that every piece of content they create has to have a call to action, but that’s not true. Most of the time, you’ll be creating content to increase your customers’ awareness of your business. This can be called the “know, like, trust” factor.

 

The ‘know, like, trust’ factor is about guiding your potential customers through the buying stages. In the first stage, the know stage, you’ll give potential customers content that informs them. In the second stage, you’ll share content that makes your brand likeable. The third and final stage is known as trust. It’s the point where your customers will decide whether they should purchase your productive or service.

 

Myth #3: Copywriting is all about you and your business

 

Copywriting isn’t focused solely on you or even your customer. The best copywriting strikes a balance between “about you” and “about your reader”. 

 

You want your copy to show your understanding of and compassion for your ideal clients’ situation. Your copy should highlight that your business cares and why your brand is the best one to choose.

 

Myth #4: Copywriting is all about making your brand look perfect

 

Persuasive copywriting isn’t about positioning your brand as perfect. It’s about connecting with your reader on both an intellectual and emotional level. Your potential customers want to know about your expertise, but they also need to know that you understand them. One simple way to do this is to share stories about your brand. Don’t be afraid to include stories about your business’s failures.

 

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your copywriting is set in stone. Even expert copywriters create several drafts before they find a version that truly connects with their readers. The important thing is to keep testing your copy until you find what works best for your business.

 

Use Low-Ticket Offers to Boost Your Profits

A low-ticket offer, as a general guideline, is a product with a price tag of $50 or less. These low-cost items are usually digital products, like an eBook, video course, or resource guide. A low-ticket offer, if chosen wisely, is a powerful way to qualify leads and drive sales. 

 

As your prospects progress through your sales funnel, various offers direct them towards the ultimate destination: your core offer, a higher-priced item at the end of the funnel. 

 

By presenting prospects with a low-ticket item up top, you can gauge whether they have true customer potential or if they’re just freebie seekers. If they purchase your inexpensive offer, you can start building a relationship with them and priming them for purchase. 

 

Why Use Low-Ticket Offers?

 

There are several benefits to pitching low-ticket offers. 

 

Low-ticket offers provide you with another way to earn income. They are usually digital products, so they cost very little to produce and have no delivery or storage fees. It’s just an electronic file, so your margin is high, even if you’re only charging few dollars. Although the primary focus is your core offer, these small products can generate some money and offset any expenses associated with your higher-ticket items. 

 

The reason low-ticket offers work well near the beginning of a sales funnel is that they help to qualify leads. Many people who sign up for your lead magnet are only after the freebies. They’ll consume your content in exchange for their email address, but they have no intention of paying even a few dollars for a premium product. A low-ticket offer helps you identify these people right away. 

 

Low-ticket offers also help build relationships with new leads. By providing your target audience with an instant solution at a reasonable price, you establish trust and these customers will want to learn more. 

 

This inexpensive offer also provides an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise. Use your low-ticket offer to showcase your knowledge and the results you can deliver, and your customers will be more likely to purchase future offers with higher price tags. 

 

Low-ticket offers move prospects closer to your core offer and weed out those who won’t buy. It’s a low-risk and valuable lead qualification tool that costs very little to produce and distribute. 

 

The Key to Success: Know Your Audience

 

How do you maximize the effectiveness of your low-ticket offer? Get to know your audience. If you understand the issues they face, you can develop a low-ticket offer that will solve a particular problem for them and increase the likelihood of future purchases.

 

The best way to get a clear picture of your audience is to create an ideal customer profile. This process involves imagining your target audience as an individual – the one person who would most benefit from your core offer. Get to know their likes and dislikes, problems, and passions. This description will be a valuable tool when developing all of the offers in your funnel. 

 

One low-ticket offer isn’t going to completely transform the customer’s life, but it should offer a “quick win” and a concrete improvement, no matter how small. 

 

Creating Your Low-Ticket Offer Content

 

It’s not necessary to invest a lot of money into the production of a low-ticket offer. But what it can cost you is time and energy. Content creation can easily become a burden and a drain on your resources. 

 

Since the key to generating income with a low-priced product is to cut overhead, look for shortcuts to content creation. A few ideas include:

 

• Creating a smaller version of a bigger product. Extract a section of your core offer and transform it into a low-ticket item. 

• Offering a bundle of products. You can take several small pieces of existing content and put them together into a high-value bundle.

• Providing more content to help with your lead magnet. Make a resource guide, template, or tool that the customer can use to get more out of the free lead magnet they received from you.

• Repurposing existing content. Take content you’ve already created and alter it in some way, so it offers unique value.

 

The Right Timing for Your Low-Ticket Offer

 

The standard practice is to present prospects with a low-ticket offer at the beginning of the sales funnel, so you can start qualifying leads right away. But sometimes, it may be beneficial to engage with the prospect a bit more before pitching paid products. Think about your ideal customer and what they would prefer. For some people, and particular types of products, a low-ticket offer may be more appropriate later in the funnel. 

 

Or, conversely, you can offer a low-ticket item as a lead magnet, at the front of your funnel. To do this, you would create a dedicated landing page and drive traffic to it. Once they purchase it, customers are added to your email list, where you can then start communicating with them. 

 

There is no perfect place or time to present your low-ticket offer. Map out the customer journey through your sales funnel and experiment to see what works best for your target audience. 

 

Monitor Your Results and Make It Perfect

 

Track your results, check conversions, and then make the necessary adjustments. It will take some trial and error to perfect your low-ticket offer strategy, but once you do, it will be worth the effort. 

 

Are you ready to learn, step-by-step, how to create a low-ticket offer that will earn you more and qualify prospects for your core offer?

 

Create A High-Ticket Item You Can Sell Again & Again

One of the quickest and easiest ways to double your income is to come up with a high-ticket item that you can sell to your customers. One of the most popular models to do this is to offer one-on-one coaching or small in-person workshops at your house. While that’s certainly an option and a great way to justify asking for several thousand dollars per ticket, this model has one big problem. It isn’t scalable because you’re limited in how many you can sell by how much time you’re willing to spend on these meetings in any given week or month. 

 

Let’s look at some options that allow you to create one of these high-end products, without this limiting factor involved. In short, we’re going to look at some high-value products you can create that you set up once and then sell over and over again. First though, why is creating a high-end product such a good idea? After all, the majority of your subscribers and customers won’t buy them. The reason is because you don’t need to sell a lot to be profitable. Let’s look at an example. 

 

Let’s say your average product costs $27. To make $5,000 per month, you need to sell an average of 185 of them. That’s a lot of new customers you need to find each month to reach your income goal. Now let’s say you have a $97 product. You only need to sell 51 of them. Last but not least, let’s go crazy and say you come up with something you can sell for $497. You only need to sell about 10 of those per month. 

 

Now let’s circle back around to the idea of doubling your income. Sure you could come up with another $27 product, but you’d have to do double of what you’re doing now to generate an extra 185 sales. But what about that $497 product? It could become the last piece in your product funnel. Not every single one of your customers will buy it. Only the ones that need the extra help and are serious enough about reaching their big goals will pick it up. But that’s ok. You don’t need a lot of them to buy it each month to seriously increase your profits. 

 

There are a lot of different ways to create these products. Your main goal will be to offer a lot of value and to make a real difference in your customers lives or businesses. For example, this could a comprehensive guide with workbooks and open office hours where customers can ask questions. In the guide you walk them step-by-step through each part of the process of reaching their goal. Or maybe it’s an interactive video course that allows them to pick and choose lessons specifically on the stumbling block they are facing next. Or maybe part of it is access to your own team of people who can help them create covers, set up websites etc. Or maybe it’s yearly access to your membership site where they get help, motivation, advice, and interaction with like-minded people. Get creative. Think about what you would have wanted when you were in their position. What would have helped you get to where you are now faster. Create that and then don’t be afraid to put a premium price on the product. 

Embrace Paid Advertising To Grow Your Reach

Do you know what your only truly limited resource is? It’s time. We all end up with just twenty-four hours per day. What does that have to do with getting traffic and growing your reach? It’s simple. You have two options when it comes to reaching more people. You can spend a lot of time creating fresh content, posting on social media, reaching out to podcasters, bloggers, and vloggers. Or you can get in front of your ideal customers through paid advertising. 

 

Yes, paying advertising can seem a little daunting. After all, there’s no guarantee you’ll make your money back. The good news is that it’s easier and more affordable to get started than it has ever been. You can start small with as little as a few dollars per day and scale up as you learn more about what you’re doing. 

 

A great place to start is with Facebook ads. You see them all day long. Pay attention to the ads you find yourself clicking. Maybe it’s an interesting tagline and a pretty cover for a new book. Maybe it’s a new pair of shoes, or a planner that promises to help you stay productive throughout your busy day. Think about that ad. What made it so appealing? What hooked you. 

 

Once you’ve figured this out for a few of the ads that have grabbed your attention, it’s time to give it a try yourself. Start with your best-selling product, or the lead magnet that draws in new subscribers like crazy. Why do people buy or download it? Are you solving a problem? Do you tackle a hot topic? Try to zero in on what’s making this such a big hit for you already. Then craft a Facebook ad that reflects this. 

 

Next, it’s time to do a little homework. Read through some blog posts about getting started with Facebook ads. Watch a few tutorials. Go through the one that Facebook provides and go through the steps to set up your account. Make sure you have your pixels installed (it’s a Facebook thing… those tutorials will explain), so you can track what’s working and what isn't’. Then create that first ad.

 

Create at least two more ads that are similar to the first so you can start to test. A great place to start testing is with images. Pick three different images, but leave everything else the same. Launch this first set of ads with a limited daily budget. If you want to spend just $5 per day, that’s fine. If you can swing it, go up to $10 or even $15, but keep your bids as low as possible. This will get you data faster. Let them run until you get a feel for which one performs best.

 

Keep that add and start changing something else. Maybe it’s testing an add with little text against one with slightly more text and one with a lot of text (maybe an entire article or blog posts). Maybe you test different headlines. Or different calls to action. Keep testing and tweaking until you find a profitable ad that you have a hard time improving upon. 

 

From there the sky's the limit. Invest some of your profits into running more ads. Create ads to different products and opt-in offers. Branch out into Instagram and WhatsApp ads or cross over to different social media platforms, or even Google Adwords. Keep buying ads and keep growing your reach and your profits.

Focus On List Growth And Sales

There’s so much you can do on a daily basis to grow your reach and make more sales. The list seems almost endless, doesn't it? You could be writing a new blog post, creating a series of videos, posting on various social media platforms, writing guest posts, publishing kindle or print books… the more important question you should be asking yourself is what should you do if doubling your income is your goal? The answer is much simpler and the list much shorter. 

 

You should focus on just two things. Growing your list and making sales. Does this mean you stop doing everything else you’ve always done? Not necessarily. Think of it more as a mindset shift that can help you become much more profitable. You could still write that blog post. But the goal of the post would be to either turn the reader into a subscriber, or warm them up for the offer you’re going to email them about in a couple of days. You’ll record that podcast interview, but your main goal will be to convert the podcasters audience into subscribers to your list. Do you see how this works? 

 

Why is focusing on subscribers and customers so important? Because it takes some time before someone is ready to buy from you. They have to know, like, and trust you first before they hand over their credit card, or log into their PayPal account. That’s why your number one goal when you reach a new audience should always be to get them on your list. That gives you a chance to build a relationship before you make an offer to buy. Of course, the benefit of a list doesn’t end there. You also get a chance to make offers for other products. These could be your own, or something you’re promoting as an affiliate. The end result, in either case is more money in your bank account. 

 

A list of subscribers is valuable and something you should always work on growing. The only thing more valuable is a list of customers. Customers have proven that they trust you and like you enough to hand over their hard-earned money. If you deliver a lot of value and help them solve a problem, they are more likely than anyone else to buy something else you offer or recommend. 

 

As you go about growing your business, focus first on growing your list of email subscribers, and then on converting these people into paying customers. Make that the main goal for everything you do online and you will quickly see your income grow.

Create A New Product For Your Existing Customers

Listen up, this is important. It’s one of the most powerful marketing concepts out there and something that could become a game changer for you. It’s much easier to sell ten products to one customer than it is to go out and find 10 buyers. In other words, it’s much easier to create a second product and sell it to your current customer base than it is to go out and market to new people. 

 

That’s why one of the quickest and easiest ways to increase and even double your income is to create a new product. Find out what your audience needs next. What else are they struggling with? What’s the next step they should be talking to reach their goal? Talk to your customers and do a bit of research in your niche. I’m sure you’ll come up with all sorts of fun and creative product ideas. Pick one and get to work. 

 

You’ll find that it’s much easier and quicker to create that second product than it was to work on the first. You know what you’re doing now. And guess what. It will get even easier the third and fourth time around. Plan to create a whole series of products that help your customers reach their ultimate end goal. When you start to run out of ideas on what they should be doing next, think about related topics. For example, once you’ve taught your tribe everything you know about list building, branch out into social media or copywriting. If you’re teaching them about container gardening, consider branching out into composting, or food preservation for example. 

 

Finish that product and get it up for sale. Then email your list of existing customers about it. Don’t be surprised if the majority of them will buy from that one email. That’s right, you’ll start seeing quite a few sales from that one email. Compare that to all the work, effort, and time it took to find those customers in the first place. Doesn’t that want to make you get to work on the next product? 

 

Of course, the benefits of adding a new product don’t end there. Start promoting the second product the way you did the first. Send an offer for it out to your list of leads. Mention it on social media. Link to it from existing content on your blog. Mention it in guest blog posts and podcast interviews. People who weren’t interested in your first product, end up picking up this new one, resulting in even higher profits. Try it and see for yourself.

Raise Your Prices & Rates

Are you up for a little math? I promise it won’t be hard, but it will open your eyes to the possibility of doubling your income by raising your prices and rates. I’m sure you’ve heard that one of the best ways to double your income is to charge more for what you do. When we first start to work online, we tend to undervalue our worth. We are anxious to get clients or make those important first sales. Starting out on the low end is actually not a bad idea. Without experience, testimonials, and social proof, starting with low-end products and services is a great way to get a foot in the door. But it isn’t where you want to stay. 

 

How do you know that it’s time to raise your prices? When you start to make quite a few sales. If you’re a service provider who’s constantly booked, you should be raising your prices. When you hear your customers rave about your products and share how much value they’ve gotten from them, it’s time to raise your prices. 

 

But what do you do when you’re not there yet? It may sound counterintuitive, but the reason your sales pages aren’t converting may be that you’re not charging enough. Think about it. You come across a course on running an online business that offers a ton of content for $7. What’s your first thought? It’s probably that it can’t be very good if the person is selling for so little. Your customers and clients may feel the same way. 

 

Often, we’re reluctant to raise our prices because we think we’ll lose customers. While that can happen, it also opens a lot of doors. Other people may not even consider buying what you have to offer until they see a price that they associate with high-value. Plus, when you increase your profit margin, you don’t need to sell nearly as much as you did before. 

 

Let’s dive into that math. Let’s say you have a product that you sell for $20. To keep the math simple, let’s say you sell 100 of them each month and that there’s no real cost associated with the product. With an information product like an eBook or course, there really isn’t and let’s ignore those pesky payment processor fees for this exercise. In that case, you’re making a $2,000 profit per month. 

 

Now let’s say you go crazy and double your price. You start charging $40 for your product. Because it’s such a great value and because the higher price reflects that, you find you’re making just as many sales as before. By doubling your price, you’re doubling your profit. You’re not bringing home $4,000 per month. 

 

But it doesn’t stop there. Because of the higher ticket price, an affiliate marketer becomes interested in promoting you. You set up a 50% commission and he sends an additional 100 customers your way. That’s another $2,000 in profits after you’ve paid the affiliate his or her share. 

Don’t be afraid to raise your prices. You don’t have to double your rates if that seems like a bit much. Play around with the numbers. If it doesn’t work out how you’ve hoped, you can always go back down, bundle products at a lower price, or offer a coupon. Play around with pricing and find the sweet spot for your audience and your products that nets you the biggest profits.

Collaborate With Other Players In Your Niche

Here’s an easy way to double your income. Put yourself in front of twice as many people who are interested in what you have to offer. Of course, that is easier said than done. Getting traffic and exposure is one of the hardest things to accomplish as the internet grows and expands. Sure, you could throw a lot of money at the problem and accomplish it with well placed ads, but that’s not a viable option for most of us. 

 

A great way to get in front of a new audience interested in what you have to say is to find someone else who’s doing something similar to what you’re doing. In other words, find other players in your niche, or closely related niches and start to collaborate. For example, let’s say you’re selling a guide on growing tomatoes. Go find a few bloggers and marketers who are also in the gardening niche. This could be someone who blogs about organic gardening, or someone who sells container gardening kits, or books on how to grow all the vegetables you need in your backyard. You won’t be competing directly, but instead complementing each other. Your audience will be interested in additional organic gardening tips, and they may want to purchase a container kit that makes it easier to grow those tomatoes. Do you see how this could work? 

 

Approach the other players in your niche and see how you can work together. A great place to start is to offer to share something of theirs with your readers first. If the person sells a product, ask if you can interview them, or see if they have a special coupon you can share with your readers. If they have an affiliate program, you can even profit from sharing this with your readers. 

 

Next, ask if they would be interested in sharing you with their own audience. This is always your end goal, but you have to make it worth their while. Depending on your business model, there are several different ways to accomplish this. If you have a paid product, and an affiliate program, it makes it easy. You can also offer to create unique content for the other person’s audience. 

 

No matter what you decide to do, make it as easy as possible and do whatever you have to do to get your fellow blogger or info product creator to email his or her list for you. Mentions on social media and blog posts are great, but your ultimate goal should always be to get them to mail for you. When they do, your next goal is to get these people on your own list and to turn them into paying customers.

Track What’s Working And Use The 80/20 Rule

One of the best ways to double your income is to figure out what’s working and doing more of that. 

 

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? The problem is that you first have to know exactly what’s working and what isn’t. The best way to do that is to track everything. From there you look at your data and make a plan for what you should and shouldn’t be doing going forward. 

 

Your first step will be to decide what you want to track. This will be a little different for everyone depending on your business and what you do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. A good place to start is to look at income and expenses, products or different sources of income, and of course where you spend most of your time. 

 

Let’s say you start to track where your income is coming from. If possible, go back and look at the last six to twelve months of financial data. Did you make money selling your own products? Did you get large affiliate commission checks? Did you sell advertising on your websites? 

 

Next you want to look at expenses related to that income. You’ll have some fixed expenses like hosting your website for example, that you should ignore for the purpose of this exercise. Look at cost directly related to each source of income. For example, in order to launch your products, you may hire a graphic designer, a VA, and pay for your shopping cart software. You may also be paying commissions to affiliates promoting your products. Subtract those costs from the income you’ve made to get a good feel for your actual profits. Other sources of income will have little to no expenses. Once you’ve adjusted your income figures to reflect the profit you’ve made, you can start to compare. 

 

Last but not least, look at the amount of time you’re spending to generate the income. It may take you a full month of working twelve-hour days to launch a new big course. On the other hand, you may be able to put together a short eBook or fresh membership content in a day or two by leveraging content you’ve already written or buying pre-written content. Look at the time it takes for each type of product and compare this to the amount of money you expect to make from the launch and going forward. This will help you decide what’s the most profitable way to spend your time. 

 

With all the information at your fingertips, it will be easy to decide what you should be doing more off, what you should be doing less off, and what you should stop doing. Focus most of your time and energy on the most profitable products and income sources. Work on it for a good six months and look at how much your profits went up. I wouldn’t be surprised if this one strategy alone allows you to double your income.

Give Them What They Want - And How To Find Out What That Is

Effective marketing boils down to this: Find an audience, figure out what they need or want and then deliver it. Email is one of the best mediums to help you do just that. And it isn’t always about selling them on a product. In fact, that isn’t at all where you want to start. 

 

First you want to build a relationship with your readers. You want them to get to know you. You want to help them out so they start to like you and trust you. Only then will you be able to make an offer and have them pull out their wallet and buy it. 

 

Pay attention to your website stats. Programs like Google Analytics can give you a lot of information of where you’re readers came from, what page the landed on and where they were on your site when they joined your list. That data along with demographical information will tell you a lot about your audience. 

 

As you start to email your readers, they will reply and get back in touch with you. Pay attention to what they’re saying. And don’t forget to read between the lines. Let’s say you’re in the parenting niche and you noticed that some of your readers are asking for suggestions on being a more patient parent. They complain about being short temperate and freaking out about little things. The real issue may be lack of sleep because the baby or toddler isn’t sleeping through the night. 

 

Dig deep and see what you can learn about your market. Sometimes what they tell you they want isn’t the real issue. On the flip side, it can be helpful to ask them for suggestions. Keep the questions open ended if you want a lot to work with. 

 

Or consider having your readers fill out a simple little survey. It’s quick and easy to do with Google forms. You get some good data and you get your readers to interact. Having them contribute builds a sense of community even via email. 

 

Last but not least go back and look at the past emails you’ve sent. Pay attention to open rates, click through rates and unsubscribes. If a large percentage of readers opened the email, that’s a good indication they were interested in the topic. If they clicked link to additional content, that’s even better. If on the other hand you got a lot of unsubscribes, that might be an indication that either the topic was wrong or your language and overall message didn’t click with your audience. 

 

Use all the data and information you get back to learn more about your target audience and connect with them on a deeper level. The more you know about your subscribers, the more effective your email marketing will be.  

Keep Them Waiting For More - Using Foreshadowing to Create Anticipation

There’s a pretty neat strategy called foreshadowing that you can use in your email marketing to improve open rates. You may have seen this used on news programs and talk shows. Right before the commercial break, the host announces what’s coming up next. The idea is that you’re intrigued enough to sit through the commercial to see the next segment. 

 

Another good example of foreshadowing is when magazines show images and headlines or short bullets of what’s coming in next month’s issue. Again, the point is to pique your interest and get you to either buy the next issue, or even better, get a subscription. 

 

We can easily adapt this for email marketing and it works like a charm. Toward the end of your email transition from what you’re talking about today to what’s coming in the next email. Be vague on purpose, but grab their attention. 

 

For example, if you’re talking about why email marketing is important and the next email will be about crafting subject lines to get a higher open rate, you may write something like this: “Keep an eye out for Friday’s email. We’ll talk about THE most important thing when it comes to email marketing. If you don’t get this right, nothing else matters.” 

 

To mix it up, mention what they can find in the next email in the P.S. of your message. If you publish a weekly newsletter, try adding a section on what’s coming in the next issue similar to what you see in a magazine. Keep it simple and use images for best results. 

 

You can even take it a step further and get your subscribers to open a previously sent email. This works particularly well if you’re writing a series of emails on a related topic. Toward the beginning of your email, you mention something you covered in the last email, then move into today’s topic and then wrap it up with a little hint about what’s coming next. 

 

You don’t have to use foreshadowing in every single email. Sprinkle it in here and there where it makes sense. It also gives you a chance to pick up on in the subject line of your next email. Try using something like “As promised…” Even readers who missed your last email might be curious enough to open this one. 

 

Give it a try and see if you start to see higher open rates and more importantly get your subscribers more engaged.