Author Archive | Christina Watkins

As marketers we write headlines all the time, whether it’s for a blog post, an article, an email, a sales letter or an ad. As you know, the better your headline, the more people will read your words and possibly take the action you seek.

Here are 15 ideas for headlines. Next time you’re stuck for what to write, simply refer back to this page. In fact, you might want to print it out and tack it up next to your desk.

15 Profitable Headline Ideas:

Give news using words such as “new,” “introduction” or “announcing.” “Introducing A Painless Way To Remove Skin Lesions Forever.”

Use numbers and statistics. “Unprecedented 88 Miles To The Gallon.”

Make a recommendation. “The 3 Niches You Must Be In NOW.”

Ask a question. “What Do Successful Marketers Have That You Lack?”

Tie in to current events. “How This Year’s Election Provides You With A Unique Investment Opportunity.”

Give the reader a command, telling him or her to do something. “Try This Weight Loss Snack And See If It Doesn’t Taste Exactly Like A Decadent Candy Bar.”

Use words that paint a picture. “How To Be As Muscular As Arnold Schwarzenegger In His Prime.”

Tell a story. “The Bully Laughed When I Fell To The Ground, But He Wasn’t Expecting What Happened Next…”

Create new terminology. “New Wixor Method Instantly Doubles The Conversion Rate On Your Website.”

Caution them. “How To Avoid The Costliest Mistake You Can Make In Building Your Online Business.”

State a startling benefit. “Get Your Own Virtual Assistant For Just $5 An Hour.”

Tell them your amazing offer. “Everything You Need To Make Your Own Beer For Just $29.”

Make a comparison. “Get Twice As Many Widgets For Half The Price Of Our Competition.”

Use a testimonial. “Before Taking This Course I Was Broke… Now I’m Debt Free And Financially Secure.”

Make a seemingly contradictory promise. “Eat As Much As You Want And Still Lose Weight.”

You have the potential to achieve great things, and to do something extraordinary, whether it’s in your online business or something else.

And achieving the extraordinary is more possible than ever before, thanks to the technologies and knowledge we have today.

However, it’s also easier than ever before to get distracted, too.

So, how do you stay focused? And how do you ensure that you are making progress every single day?

By taking a lesson from other successful people who have reached their goals.

There is a common fallacy in our culture known as the ‘overnight success.’

Someone achieves something great, and because this person was previously unknown, people say s/he achieved this success seemingly overnight, out of thin air.

But as you might expect, it actually takes years to become an overnight success.

If you ask any entrepreneur or actor who made it big, you’ll find they worked hard for years before achieving their goals.

Think about this: You’re an actor, going up for a major role. If you get it, this will be your big break.

But you’re up against another actor for that same role.

This actor has been taking acting classes for 10 years, taking part in local theater, auditioning for every part possible, and taking every job she’s offered.

You’ve been ‘acting’ for 10 years, too, but in that time you really haven’t done much.

You didn’t take any acting lessons.

You didn’t participate in local theater.

You didn’t audition for a part unless you ‘felt like it.’

Needless to say, it’s the other actor who gets the part and becomes an ‘overnight success,’ all because she’s been working hard for a decade to get ready for this exact moment.

I’m going to share something with you right now that is life-changing.

However, since you’ve probably heard this before, you’re also likely going to dismiss this.

That would be a grave mistake.

What I’m about to impart will make the difference in a life of mediocrity and stellar success, and it’s this:

Every single day, without fail, determine the ONE thing you need to accomplish to move forward on your goal, and DO IT.

If you can only get one thing done, what would it be?

Ask yourself this question every night before going to bed, and again the next morning.

If you get just ONE thing done, what should it be?

The key here is to focus on importance, not busy work.

Contacting ten possible new clients is a step forward. Clearing your desk is not. Yes, it might be important to have a tidy desk, but how does that advance your goals?

There is the story of the professor who holds up a glass beaker in front of the class. The professor fills the beaker with large rocks all the way to the top, and then he asks the class if the beaker is full.

“Yes!” the students reply.

Then the professor pours small pebbles into the beaker that fit all around the large rocks. Again, he asks the class if the beaker is full.

“Yes!” comes the reply.

Finally, the professor pours sand into the beaker, which fills in the gaps around the pebbles.

Now the beaker is full.

But what if the professor had put the sand in first, or the pebbles in first? Then the professor could not have fit the big rocks into the beaker.

The things you need to do to advance your goals are your big rocks. You’ve got to do these things first, or they will never get done. If you focus your efforts all day long on sand and pebbles, you will always be busy, but you won’t accomplish anything.

Choose one thing per day, the one BIG thing you can do to advance your goals, and do that thing first, no matter what.

There’s always going to be a small percentage of your customers who are more than happy to pay more to get things done faster and better.

Case in point: If you’re not familiar with it, there is a giant ferris wheel in London that is absolutely huge and offers spectacular views. It was built for the Y2K celebrations. Ironically, it didn’t open in time for Y2K, but that’s another story (perhaps about planning your business and hitting deadlines.)

To ride this ferris wheel, known as the London Eye, you’ve got to pay something like 20 pounds and stand in a queue for about an hour and a half. For you Yanks, a queue is a line. 😉

But if you’re willing to pay more – a good deal more – you will only have to wait about 15 minutes. That’s because they also offer something called the Fast Track, also known as the short line for rich people.

Now then, where in your business can you offer a “short line for rich customers?” That is, how can you upgrade your products or services for those customers who are more than happy to pay for better/faster service? Because these are the customers you need to spoil rotten. These are the customers who will make your business a pleasure to run and who will be the reason why you like getting up in the morning and you have a new car in the garage. Frankly, these are the customers who, when you get enough of them, will allow you to focus exclusively on them if you choose.

Think of it this way – would you rather service 100 rich customers who pay whatever you charge without so much as a flinch, or a 1,000 customers all moaning about your latest $2 price increase? To be frank, you can earn far more by catering to your best customers than you can by trying to sell cheap stuff to cheap people. And yes, I realize it might not be politically correct for me to be saying this, but I bet you can already see the truth in it.

So it’s your decision – continue to focus only on selling to the masses, or begin locating those customers and clients who will gladly pay you top dollar for your extraordinary services without batting an eye.

If you don’t have time to write 6 or 7 emails each week to send to your email list, try this method instead: Pick out several evergreen products that you know and trust and can promote to your list for months and even years to come… For example, choose your favorite hosting service or autoresponder if you’re building in the online marketing niche.

Write 4 emails for each of these evergreen products. They can be stand alone emails or a sequence with each email building on the previous one, whichever you prefer. Put a link in each email to the product or service you are promoting.

Place these sequences into your autoresponder and schedule them to begin going out as soon as someone joins your list.

However, cue these emails so they only go out on Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

Monday and Wednesday are reserved for new emails you write, promoting new products.

No matter when a new lead signs up, they start on the email sequences you’ve programmed, but they never receive them on Monday or Wednesday because this is when you send out your new, live emails.

Now you’re only having to write two emails per week.

Once you get used to sourcing products to promote and writing the emails for them, you have a choice: You can either send more live emails and fewer autoresponder emails, or you can use some of your new emails as automated sequences (assuming the products stay relevant and available.)

This method is a great way to ease into emailing 6 days a week, and it’s perfect for the person who is currently working a full time job but looking to quit as soon as the online income is high enough.

It’s also perfect for the new marketer who takes a long time to write an email. No worries, you’ll get faster with time.

Try this method and see if it doesn’t take some of the email writing pressure off of you.

This is a great approach for someone who is new in their niche and wants to build a reputation and list while still making really good money.

I met this guy who is fairly new to the internet marketing realm. He’s no expert or guru and yet he’s making about $12,000 a month from the start.

He realized that it’s a lot easier to sell a $1,000 product one time than to sell a $10 product 100 times. For one thing, the customer service for one person versus 100 people is like night and day. For another thing, it’s so easy to give stuff away rather than sell it. He’s sort of sneaking under people’s radar with this method.

He runs promotions, free WSO’s, advertises on Facebook, has a Facebook Group and so forth. And on all of these platforms, he’s giving away his stuff.

People opt in to his list just like you would expect, and then they’re presented with an upsell, again just like you would expect.

Except… here’s where it’s different – he even gives away his upsell.

I know, how crazy is that?

Then he gives his list tons of stuff for free, too. His subscribers open his emails (his open rate is INSANE) because they know he’s always giving them awesome content FOR FREE.

This builds trust like you would not believe. His list isn’t all that big yet, but it doesn’t matter because his subscribers LOVE him.

Then once a month he opens a limited number of slots to work directly with him on a one-to-one basis at different levels.

He offers email coaching, personal coaching over Skype once a week, and even a higher level of coaching. His prices run from about $250 to $3,000, depending on the package.

Like I said, this guy is new to the internet marketing realm – he just started about a year ago… Yet he’s bringing in about $12,000 a month with this model.

He never promotes affiliate products, only his own stuff. And he gives away everything but the expensive products.

What a great business model!

No matter what you’re earning now, you can earn more. A lot more. Six figures is very reachable and seven figures are possible; you just have to take the right actions to get there. In today’s article, I’ll share 10 ways you can start earning more with your business.

1. Get serious about making money. A lot of people have the thought that “things will fall into place” and “then I’ll be earning a lot of money.” Sorry. Things do not fall into place on their own. You’ve got to have a plan for earning money, and then you’ve got to get very busy working that plan. The only exception is winning the lottery, and you have far better odds of dying broke than you do of winning even a six figure prize in the lottery. Focusing on the money you want to earn and then working your plan for earning it is the surest way to make the money you want.

2. Have annual and daily money goals. You want to earn $100,000 in the next 12 months? Then you need to earn $2,000 this week, and if you work 5 days a week, you need to earn $400 today. And if you miss the mark today, you need to make up for it tomorrow. Too high of a goal? Then adjust it down and work your way up. Perhaps you begin with a goal of $50 a day for the next month, and $100 a day for the month after that. Your goals need to be both achievable and a stretch for you. By stretching and meeting those goals, you’ll quickly discover how easy it is to earn as much as you set your mind and your efforts to.

3. Value your time. If you’re earning $100,000 a year and you’re working 40 hours per week, then your time is worth a minimum of $50 per hour. So are you performing $50 an hour work? Or are you mowing the lawn or playing with Facebook when you should be working? Just as you will never get this moment to live again, you will also never get a second chance to use all of your moments wisely. Before you switch on Netflix the next time, or play an online game, ask yourself, “Is this the highest use of my time? Does this justify $50 an hour?” If the answer is no, then you should be doing something else.

4. Get more done in less time. Find your most productive times and refuse to do anything during those times other than work. For example, if your best work time is 6 am until noon, then lock your door, shut off the phone, block your email and do nothing but work.

Develop habits that get more done in less time. For example, lumping similar activities together can be a tremendous time saver.

And eliminate any time wasters that are robbing you of your work time. For example, don’t meet a client in person if a phone call will work as well.

5. Outsource. Anything that can be outsourced should be outsourced, whether it’s building websites, posting in forums, writing copy, sending tweets, whatever. The more you can work ON your business instead of IN your business, the more you will be able to earn. “It’s better to harness 1% of 100 people’s talents and energies than 100% of your own.” But when you outsource, you can harness both and much more.

6. Avoid the paralysis of analysis. Two of the things that stop online marketers is being pulled in too many directions at once, or no direction at all. If you’ve got 15 different ideas on what to do next, odds are you’ll do nothing at all. And if you’re afraid to take the next step – whatever it might be – you’ll suffer the same fate. That’s why you need a plan – ONE plan – and then you need to work that plan. Forge ahead, step by step, and don’t worry about getting everything right because frankly, you won’t. And it doesn’t even matter that you won’t get everything just right. The best batters in baseball only get hits a third of the time. Odds are your averages will be better than that, but it just doesn’t matter so long as you know where the ball is and you keep swinging at it with all of your determination and might.

7. Charge more. A $7 info product can often just as easily sell for $17 or $27 – it’s just that the info product seller is afraid to charge more. Add in some videos and you can charge $47. Make it a complete course and you can get $97. Remember, you don’t need as many sales when you charge more to make more. Experiment with your pricing and you might be surprised.

8. Repurpose your content. If you’ve got a bunch of great blog posts, consider bundling them into an ebook. If you’ve got some awesome interviews with experts, get them transcribed and use segments as articles, or bundle them into a course. The more use you get out of the content you already have, the more you can earn.

9. Specialize. Dan Kennedy teaches that the more specialized you are, the more you will earn. A marketer teaching brick and mortar businesses how to market online will not earn as much as another marketer teaching dentists or chiropractors how to get new clients from online marketing, and so forth. If you doubt this, think of doctors. General practitioners don’t earn as much as specialists, and the higher the specialty, the more they earn.

10. Love your customers silly. Repeat business is the easiest business of all to get – you just have to treat your customers like royalty and cater to their needs. Provide excellent customer service and by all means ask them to upgrade or purchase your next product.

Dan Kennedy tells the story of one of his clients who ran an introduction agency for divorced American men to meet foreign brides. (This was during the pre-internet days.)

Dan persuaded his client to raise his price from $395 to $3,995. (Not a typo – he multiplied his price by 10.)

Would you like to guess what happened to sales?

Believe it or not, they stayed THE SAME. But of course the owner made a LOT more money – ten times as much, to be exact.

Most marketers look at what their competition is charging, and they charge about the same. But what they don’t realize is their competitors probably did the same thing.

There’s a pizza place in a major city that has probably 100 competitors. Yet this pizza place outsells all of them, and does it without offering coupons or special deals, either.

How do they do it? Positioning. They claim to be a ‘gourmet’ establishment, and they charge more than any of their competitors.

Sometimes you just need to establish yourself as the premium option to set yourself apart. Other times you might need to add something to your product or service, such as personal involvement, to make it exclusive.

If you’re competing on price alone, you’re never going to do well. But if you can reposition your offer so that you can charge more – maybe even twice as much or five times as much – then you become the gold standard that people want.

Are you stuck for ideas? Maybe you’re not sure what niche you want to go into next, or you’ve got the niche but you don’t know what your next product should be. Here are 10 ideas to get you started…

1. Use Your Job Experience. Do you have a particular skill, expertise or career experience that people would pay to learn more about? Maybe you’ve managed and led corporate teams to accomplish extraordinary things. Or maybe you were the best chef in the city. Whatever your job experience, there might be people out there who would gladly pay to benefit from it.

2. Teach Something. If there is a topic you want to know more about, there is no faster way to become an expert than to teach it. You’ll find you learn 10 times faster when you’re teaching others, and you can do the teaching right over the Internet via webinar, podcasts or even by email. Once you’ve finished teaching your course, turn your outline and content into an info product, and add the recordings to it for an easy $97 or $197 product.

3. Take Courses. If you’re looking for fresh ideas, take a course in your niche and use it as a jumping off point to create your own product.

4. Use Your Life Experience. Did you successfully get your children through the terrible 2’s or the dreaded teenage years? Do you have some great advice to offer other parents? Then you’ve got the makings of a product. Did you lose weight? Did you get in shape? Did you go from deep debt to deep pockets? Life experience can be used to create hot selling products, and because you’ve lived the information, it’s really easy to impart it to others.

5. Write About a Process. Perhaps you built an electrical business from the ground up, or you bought a business and turned it from a losing proposition into a money maker. Or maybe you perfected a process for turning iron into gold. Whatever the process, there is a good chance others are more than happy to learn from your mistakes and take advantage of the many shortcuts you can show them.

6. Write About Your Hobby. If you’ve got a hobby you love, odds are there are others who love it as well. Do you collect baseball cards? Do you paint? Do you collect old books? Whatever it is, find a way to use your knowledge to help others with the same interest.

7. Compile Anecdotes or Stories. Choose a common theme, and then compile stories that follow that theme. Think “Chicken Soup for the Soul” and you’ll know what I mean. If you’re using other people’s stories, be sure to get permission. This can be a super fast way to create a product or a book; simply write the intro, choose a catchy title, and compile the stories.

8. Find a Need and Fill It. Ask your readers and customers what they want to know, and create a product that fills that need. For example, one lawyer kept hearing from his business clients that they wished they had an easy reference for business law basics so they wouldn’t have to call the lawyer with every question they had. He wrote the product and sold thousands of copies.

9. Narrow Your Niche. Maybe you’ve already got a topic for your next product, but there are too many competitors selling the same topic. Narrow the focus of your topic so that your angle is different from all the other products. For example, you want to write a book on growing roses, but there are hundreds of books out there already on that topic. Narrow your focus to growing roses on a patio (for apartment dwellers) or growing roses in harsh northern climates and you’ve probably got a winner.

10. Keep Your Eyes Open and Your Brain Active. Watch for things that spark your interest and ask lots of questions and you’ll find topics everywhere – you just need to learn to spot them. For example, when you’re having a conversation or listening to the radio, ask yourself “Where is the product in this?” You’ll be surprised by the variety of answers you get – oftentimes they’re things you normally never would have thought of.

You spend an hour writing a great email and no one clicks the link. Or you create an ad of some sort (banner, Adwords, blurb for your website, etc.) and no one clicks. Now what?

Here are 13 ways to make your ads and your emails generate more click throughs…

1. Ask for the click. Tell the reader to “click here to continue” or “click here to get the details.”

2. Offer something for free on the other side. If they know they’re going to get useful information for free, rather than simply hitting a sales letter, they’re more likely to click. (You can, of course, include great info right inside your sales letter.)

3. Make it easy to visualize what they’ll see. When someone goes into a restaurant for the very first time, they may experience a bit of trepidation because they don’t know what to expect. But when they’ve been there before, they’re much more comfortable because they already know what they’ll see, what the place is like and so forth.

Ads and emails act as the doorways to your restaurant, or in this case the page you want your prospects to go to. The more you can help them visualize what’s on the other side of that door and look forward to experiencing it, the more likely they are to click your link.

4. Describe what’s on the other side of the click. ‘Blind clicks’ (those ads that don’t give you a clue what’s on the other side of the click) don’t do as well as ads and emails that make it quite clear what the reader can expect on the next page.

5. Display a picture of the benefit of clicking. Are you going to show them the secret to roses the size of dinner plates? Show them a photo of exactly that.

6. If you are offering a freebie on the other side (such as an ebook for joining your list) make sure the freebie has a great title that both entices and implies real value. “Free Dating eBook” won’t cut it – “22 Surprisingly Easy Ways to Get Dates With Gorgeous Women” will.

7. If appropriate and your email is in html, try placing a ‘coupon’ within the email. Or try placing a coupon border around the ad. These dashed lines attract attention and imply savings, thereby stimulating response.

8. Talk about the value and benefits of what’s on the other side of the click.

9. Put a benefit in your ad’s headline or email’s subject line. “How to solve your low conversion problem.”

10. Ask a provocative question, such as “Are you tired of fighting with your spouse?”

11. Ask an informational type of question. People want to know the answer to questions, so ask them something, such as “How do you put the love back into your marriage?”

12. Be direct. If you’ve got a great offer for them, don’t beat around the bush, just come straight out of the gate with it. “12 miniature roses for just $32, shipping included.”

13. Give them useful information. For example, your subject line might be, “7 Ways to Eradicate Mold.” Then inside your email you give them the first 6, with the seventh one being your link to your product. If it’s an ad, then the link goes to the list of 7, with the seventh one linking to your product.

You already know that adding bonuses to an offer can increase your sales. But did you also know that the wrong bonuses can actually DECREASE your sales? That’s because it muddles the offer and confuses the customer.

Here’s the 4-part test I use that almost guarantees I choose the right bonuses every time:

1. Does the bonus have a high perceived value? Or a value the prospect cannot determine? Answer yes to either one and it passes the first test. For example: If you’re selling investment advice, then offering a video of insider’s investment tips from the author of the product can have a very high perceived value, while offering an investor’s dictionary (information that can be found with a quick Google search) would have a very low perceived value.

Another example is offering an ebook that currently sells for $97, versus one that sells for $5. Be sure to show them the actual page where you are selling the $97 ebook, and also make sure no one else is selling that same ebook elsewhere for less.

2. Is the bonus unique? Offering a special ebook written by you is unique, so long as you haven’t sold the resale rights. Offering a resale rights product available all over the Internet is not unique. TIP: You can refashion a PLR product into your own unique product – with a unique title and cover – so even though the info is not entirely unique, it does appear as though it is. Is this ethical? I’ll let you decide.

3. Is the bonus relevant to the product being offered? If you’re selling a coffee maker, then a coffee bonus is relevant. Same thing if you’re selling coffee and you give away a free coffee maker (one company made a fortune doing exactly this.)

At a loss as to what to offer? Look at your main offer and then ask, “What’s missing?” It might be a set of instructional videos, or a way to double the effect of the main product. Or perhaps it’s personal coaching, or a webinar to answer questions and help the users get the most out of the product.

4. Is the bonus desirable? The more people want your bonus, the greater the number of prospects who will purchase your offer – sometimes just to get the bonus. For example, if you’re a well-known copywriter, you can offer to polish one of their sales letters as a bonus when they purchase your $997 course on how to write sales copy.

Apply these bonus hacking tips when you create your next product, and you’ll sell more!