Brain Takover

Toledo Marketing

2008-06-21T18:14:00.001-07:00

Web marketing services are now available in Toledo Ohio through www.NolanBarger.com

Article Marketing

Do you have a piece of written work you would like the world to see?

I never knew how powerful article marketing was until an article I submitted gave me an extra 53 hits in less than one hour along with 11 newsletter sign ups. I later got many subscribers with that same article after I sent it to multiple article sites.

This is possible when you know which article sites to submit to. Don’t let your written content collect dust. Send it to us and we can make you some money with it.

Video Distribution

Do you have a video or commercial? We can submit it all over the net to dozens of video blogging sites like Youtube and Yahoo! video. These videos pull high rankings on Google and other search engines, bringing you a steady flow of visitors to your site.

Inbound Linking Services

This is what pulls in the traffic. Google loves sites that are linked to by other sites. We will scope out your competition and find out what they have done to get inbound links and get you inbound links from the same sites. Then we will get you inbound links from related high ranking sites, boosting your Google page rank.

Blog Creation

The great thing about blogs is you don’t have to know HTML or have any fancy skills to post updates to them. Search engines love blogs and give blogs favor over regular old fashion sites when choosing who to display at the top. The hard part is setting them up! We can do this for you and even transfer your old site content to the new format.

Call today and top the search engines 419-309-7787

Nolan Barger
www.nolanbarger.com

Jeff Johnson Viral Video Marketing Blog Post

2008-05-19T23:59:00.000-07:00

http://www.undergroundtraininglab.com/52/viral-video/

Check out this post. Well worth a read. Jeff covers a lot of the same marketing methods I use to get top rankings. Other great content on his site as well.

Nolan Barger

Sqidoo

2008-05-19T23:58:00.000-07:00

Hey new squidoo lens, check it out

http://www.squidoo.com/nolanbarger

Nolan Barger

Targeted Content: Quick technique to boost traffic

2008-05-19T23:06:00.000-07:00

Want more traffic? Well duh!

Here's a quick technique. We'll call it "targeted content."

Step 1

Make some content that interests the audience that you wish to attract. This can be video or articles. Both would be best.

Step 2

Decide on a name for this content. Now this is important. Let's say your niche is paint ball. You sell paint ball equipment and everything related. Go to a free keyword lookup service and find what people are searching for within the niche.

Search Term Total

paint ball
20658
paint ball guns
11535
paint ball gun
9030
paint ball markers
1425
paint ball marker
1049

Pick a search term that ranks high like “paint ball guns.” Then make sure the search term ends up in your content title.

Step 3

Leverage the searching power of video and ezine sites to market your content. For example posting a video on youtube called “paint ball gun modifications” might do well. It has the words “paint ball gun” Or you might release an article with the same title to ezine article sites that pull high with the search engines. Better yet do both.

Paint ball isn’t my niche so figure out what works for your niche. Or you might release an article with the same title to ezine article sites known to pull high on search rankings.

Nolan Barger

Customer Reactivation Sample Letter

2008-05-19T23:03:00.000-07:00

Now let’s look at a sample letter you might use if your business is a website that sells marketing information. Let’s say your site sells marketing information products, seminars, DVDs, the works.

Dear Sean,

I'm writing to thank you for being a valued customer of Nolan’s Marketing and for the business you've done with us in the past.

After checking our records we noticed that we haven’t heard from you in awhile. We wanted to check in and make sure that you were still getting the most out of the products you’ve bought in the past. If you have any questions about anything, always feel free to give our office a call and I’ll personally make sure that your questions get answered.

I’m also letting you know about our new 20 page special report on establishing yourself as the expert in your chosen niche. This report is only available through www. your site .com and it sells for $39, but I’d like to give you a free copy as my thanks for being a customer.

To download your report, go to www. Your site.com/nichereport.html.

I’m looking forward to keeping you as a happy customer for years to come. In fact, to show you my appreciation, I’ve set up a “Special Access” web page that features our newest DVD set at a full 25% discount.

This page is for our valued customers only and I’d appreciate it if you did not share it with anyone else. You can take advantage of this discount at www. Your site.com/specialaccess.html. However, because these DVDs are sure to go quickly, I can only extend this offer for the next 10 days.

Thanks again for doing business with us. I hope you enjoy the report I’ve created and I know you’re going to love the great price on this DVD collection that we’re offering for a limited time.

Sincerely,

Your Name
www. Your site.com

Unstoppable Customer Reactivation

2008-05-19T23:00:00.000-07:00

What are you doing right this second to reach past customers? I’m talking about the ones that haven’t bought from you in the last 6-24 months. If you’re like most of us in the business world the answer is little to nothing.

This is interesting because you probably know the value of a repeat customer. And I bet you know that 80% of your business will come from that loyal 20% of buyers that wants exactly what you have to offer.

And who are these “lost” customers buying from? They are probably buying from your direct competition. This means that the longer they aren’t buying from you, the more likely that they are buying from your competition. Then they may never buy from you again.

For most of us the problem is that we don’t know how to get these past customers to buy again. Or, we don’t know how to do it without seeming desperate or bombarding the past customer with promotional offers.

I’ll show you exactly how to bring back old customers and get them to buy more than they’ve ever bought from you in the past.

First let’s figure out how much this can make you by the end of the month. Make a list of all your past customers that haven’t bought from you for the last six-twenty four months. Then calculate the average price per customer order.

A good customer reactivation campaign can win you back anywhere from 10% to 50% of your past customer base. We will be really conservative and say that your next customer reactivation campaign only brings back 20% of your old customers.

Let’s say your average order is 100$ and you have 2000 dormant accounts. 20% of 2000 is 400 past customers. Even if you are only able to reactivate 20% of this customer base, that is approximately 40,000$ in sales in the next week or two. Not to mention that with the right customer service in place, these customers will continue to buy again and again and again. Imagine if you started one of these customer service reacquisition campaigns every year or so. What would this do to your bottom line? This one technique can make a good business great and a great business unstoppable (hence the title of this article.)

So let’s get these customers back. What’s the best way to reach these past customers? I’ll give you a hint. Anything but email! Smoke signals, ring them on their pager, or call them. Use anything but email. An email from a company you haven’t done business with in a while could be considered spam and reported as such.

I recommend that you send letters the old fashioned way. Spend the extra money and use good old snail mail. While it may cost more in the short term, it will pay off in the form of sales. In fact a past customer is FIVE TIMES more likely to open a letter through normal mail than email.

How to craft the ultimate customer reactivation letter

The basic formula for the letter will look like this:

1. Thank the customer for doing business with you.
2. Give them a gift.
3. Give them a special reason why you are writing them. (for example the special offer)
4. Put a time limit and scarcity on this over (this last step is the key!)
5. Add an element of exclusivity

1. Thank the customer for the business you’ve done with them so far. Gratitude will get you everywhere in life. You’d be surprised how many people would buy from you at this point just for sending a thank you letter from a business they bought from in the past.

2. Give them a gift. Don’t skimp on this part. Give them something with a lot of value. This isn’t a coupon usually though it could be. The best bet is probably a downloadable product like an ebook or an audio. Something that is easy enough to produce but will be valuable to your customer.

For example, if your site sells mountain climbing gear, you might produce a 5-20 page ebook devoted to the most important knots used when climbing. Or maybe you can offer a guide to learning how to free climb. It doesn’t have to be directly related to you product. It only needs to be valuable to your past customer.

Digital products are the best because your customer will get the gift now and you can avoid the hassle and cost of shipping.

3. Give them a special reason for writing them. In this first letter our reason for writing them is to give them a gift and let them in on our special deal. In later follow ups with customers you should always have a reason to contact them other than “hey buy my stuff!” For example whenever you contact them later on down the road maybe you are contacting them to let them know about a special “insider” deal only available to past customers. Or maybe it’s to let them know about your new product launch. Anything but “hey look at our stuff more.”

Put a time limit on the offer. This is key right here. This one step will change your closing ratio on this venture like you wouldn’t believe. Tell them that this special link is only available for the next 72 hours.

Then on top of that let them know that the first twenty orders will also receive a copy of ________ digital product.

Exclusivity. Make sure you tell them not to share the link with anyone. This is for insiders only. Even if you would like the entire world to see this link, make sure they know to keep it a secret.

“Nolan, what product do I offer to my customers that will get them to buy again?”

Pick the product that fits the majority of your customer base, yet has enough of a profit margin to allow you to offer your customer a discount. Digital products such as ebooks and audios are great because you are likely going to be making a high volume of sales in a short period of time. A thirty percent jump in sales might be too much overhead for some companies, unless the process is automated with the digital delivery of products.

So the main point when deciding what product to offer is that it must appeal to the majority of your customer base.

2008-05-15T17:25:00.000-07:00

Today I'll show you how to increase the professional image of your site and I'll give you a tip that alone can increase your site's sales by the end of the week.
So you finally launch your site and your product. You've researched your competition and created a better product. Your sales are alright but somehow you can't help wondering how your site measures up to the competition. Maybe you feel that your competition has an edge over you even though you know you have a superior product or service.
Have you ever looked at your competitor's site and said to your self or your friends "Look at these guys, how will I compete with them?!" Maybe they have mind blowing flash graphics and gimmicks and bells and whistles. They have a picture of an attractive female sales rep with a boom microphone and a big white smile.
Then you go back to your site and you've tried some different ways to position yourself as the expert and yet when you look at your site there's something missing. Something about your site just looks amateurish.
The secret to a professional web presence is to find what we call "professionalism leaks" in your website and plug them today. This should be easy enough right? You have your obvious leaks.
- Crummy looking site and graphics- Awkward site navigation- Too many ads and banners
These are a few of the extreme cases. These are the "big leaks." These are fast way to destroy your professional image on the web and "POOF," your sales go with.
"Nolan, I know better than that! My site would never have any of that! My customer's experience is top notch. I know all of this already."
Cool. I'm glad we're on the same page. Plugging these "big leaks" should really go without saying. Especially if you are a site owner that truly cares about your customer's needs. This article is going to show you the small hidden leaks that you might not see at first. The ones that once plugged will add to your bottom line and maintain your site's professional image.
The bad news is that these small leaks are the hardest to find. Why is that? Because everyone on the net has them! Therefore they start to look normal after awhile. Features on your site that look normal to you and everyone else but subconsciously sends a message to the reader like:
"Hey buy my stuff! Please?"
"Don't buy from those other guys! My stuff is just as good."
"Please don't go! I've been in business for a whole three days!"
The person receives this subconscious message, makes a judgment on the value of your product based on their perception of your website and moves on.
Nearly every business I consult with has no less than 3 (and often times up to 10) additional different ways to almost immediately increase their site's professional image and therefore it's cashflow. Here are a few of the common ones you can begin to eliminate today.
1. Making statements about how great they are as a business (Instead of focusing on the customer's needs)
Too much bragging is the best way to look like an amateur operation in a hurry. There are ways to give credentials without bragging. Take the focus off of you and show the customer how you can help them today.
2. Grammar and Spelling: I won't hammer down on this one too much. Run a spell check and have someone qualified look over your site to point out any errors.
3. Graphics and site- Here's some great news. Your graphics and site doesn't have to be amazing. It doesn't have to be fancy and mind blowing. It just has to not look like garbage. Learn the basics of web design and put up a decent site. If web design and graphics isn't your cup of tea, consider hiring someone to throw up a smooth site.
4. Poor product packaging:
People will judge your product's value base on how it is packaged. Period.
Read the above statement at least three times out loud before moving on.
This is the biggest hidden leak on most product and service based websites. This is a huge one. A little work on this part of your business will go a long way to increase your sales and give you a more solid company image.
It's sad but true. We as humans judge books by their covers. Not just some books, all books. We judge everything from people, to businesses, to products and websites.
- Ebooks with blurry covers- Inappropriate fonts on books- Product images designed with MS paint- Products that have no image to display at all
What do all of these have in common? They all make potential buyers feel like your site is homemade. They make people feel like the value of your product is low (even when it's a fantastic product). They might even think that you don't have a product to give them once they send you their hard earned money.
This is bad news isn't it? Or is it? How can you profit from this piece of information and get an edge on your competition. Here's a quick tip. When you finish this article, look at your site or your current site concepts from a buyer's perspective. Then in your mind triple the price of your product and say "how great would the packaging for this product have to be before I would pay this new amount?" If you can create this new product package you will almost instantly increase the sales on that product.
5. Bad Sales Copy
This goes right along with product packaging. A good sales letter can easily increase your product sales by many thousand percent within the month.
Look at these two fictional ad headlines and find which one is more effective.
1. "TIRED OF YOUR SITE NOT GETTING HITS!?
Nolan Barger's Site Hit Mastery is a cutting edge new product designed to blast your site into orbit..."
Or...
2. "Here's How You Can Increase Hits To Your Site By 20% This Week
First immediately go to _______ and switch _______ around."
What's the difference? The first one is hard selling right off the headline. It is product focused instead of customer focused. This is bad. Many people reading this aren't looking to buy right now. Maybe they want information first. Selling right off the bat is a good way to lose trust with your potential customers.
Number one uses all sorts of clichés that have been around since the beginning of time. There are too many things wrong with this all too common headline style to cover is this short article. It also seeks to sell the client on a product instead of showing them how easy it is to quickly fix a problem they have.
Example number two is different. It shows the browser how they can get a specific result: Learn how they can increase they're site's hits by 20% this week. It also makes no reference to a product (even if your method involves buying your product.) Then the letter goes right into information on how the browser can accomplish this 20% increase.
6. Flashy ridiculous websites
You don't have to give your browser a brain seizer with the latest turbo charged flash programming. Keep it simple. While some crowds appreciate the work that goes into such a graphical website, the bulk of these flash sites clutter the viewer's field of vision and take the focus off your business. Keep it super simple. Make a smooth functional website that directs your viewers to the important parts or your site.