It is the last date for filing your business taxes.

But here is the good news.

What better reason to offer your customers a discount?

Tell them you have a tax bill and for this reason you are offering them a discount if they buy now.

This will help you pay the bill and also get new customers into your marketing funnel.

Turn a time of stress into a windfall of profits.

- Michael.

Youtube is HUGE!

If you want to get attention then this is probably the fastest and easiest way to get the attention of huge numbers of people.

I won’t for a minute suggest that these people are buyers but without a doubt they are b-o-r-e-d and if you have something worthy to show there is a high likelyhood you will not only get product exposure but you’ll also get to drive traffic to your site.

You can quickly throw something together with Camtasia or if you’re feeling a little more ambitious have someone demonstrate the use of your product.

You can also add an affiliate link to the description field to get sales. Be sure to use http://… etc. for it to work.

Just in case you can’t think of something interesting to promote as an affiliate there are companies that just promote products on Youtube with this exact method, such as,

brandfame.com

So you could offer this as a type of service for a fee to local companies!

Promoting an ebook?

Show results of applying the method or solution offered by the eBook.

BEFORE and AFTER works best.

Imagine if this guy knew something about marketing in the highly competitive world of diet products.

Shesh!

As a reader of this Blog I have already shared with you some innovative
ways of finding new products without ripping off (aka. Borrowing) from other
Internet Marketers.

Before I show you a new method you should know that some of the brightest
Internet Marketing minds have been doing this for YEARS.

In fact, if you read Marlon Sanders “The Red Factor” or “Secrets
of a Ninja Marketer” you would not only have seen him doing exactly what
I am about to share, but he tells you exactly what he did.

Yes, he tells you.

OK, here’s the technique.

Short version, “DUMB IT DOWN”.

Longer version, find an ivory tower nerd’s book, thesis, whitepaper on a niche
topic and make it easy for dumbo’s like me to understand.

Marlon did it with the work of Michael Porter and Clayton Christensen. No,
I am not going to steal his thunder by revealing his ideas. You can go read
his excellent products to see how he did it.

Now before I get another email complaining, “But Michael I can’t find these
book, thesis, whitepapers”… let me give you some URLs to work with (a starting
point).

http://dissertation.com
http://www.universal-publishers.com
http://www.brownwalker.com
http://cambriapress.com/

Now go create some awesome products and let me know about them.

Later, Michael.

p.s. leave me a comment underneath if you want to meet at Frank Kern’s “Mass
Control” event this weekend.

Why?

Well besides keeping an eye on the competition, it also allows us to improve our business by learning.

Yes, we read and buy a lot of Internet Products.

Today we spent about an hour discussing one particular big launch.

Like any “mastermind group”, our conversations are part philosophical, part scientific, part motivational, part rant… OK, so you get the idea.

In particular one of the launch emails caught our eye.

Not because it was good but it was BAD.

Instead of dismissing it, we analyzed what we disliked about it.

Here is a summary of our findings.

- The email subject line was factual (no benefit).

- The email copy was hype.

- There was no engaging story to read.

- The case study was tedious.

An example of, “Toxic Marketing Syndrome”.

Basically, if your marketing is a “snoozefest” you won’t get people to read about your product and hence fewer if any sales.

The solution is;

- Tell a great story

- Weave in benefits with real-life examples

- Keep the reader and potential buyer guessing

- Use video, lots of photos (before and after examples)

- Be different!

Now, maybe next time I should record our conversation – it can be an education all by itself!

Later, Michael.

As an alternative to hanging out at ClickBank
Marketplace (link) why not spend some time where “nerds” hang out?

Most of these guys and gals have ZERO marketing knowledge and frankly when
they have a good marketing idea they tell EVERYONE.

A few good places to troll for software, ebook and training ideas include,

http://www.phpclasses.org

http://www.hotscripts.com/

http://code.google.com/soc/2008/

http://sourceforge.net/
– look under ” Browse Software” for ideas.

Another great place for finding ideas are online forums with a “twist”.

Here is my twist.

1. Register as a member (free).

2. Search for terms like, “How”, “Where”

The results will spawn many great ideas.

Often the replies give an indication of broad interest.

Last idea.

Sifting through “Press Releases”.

http://www.prnewswire.com/

They have a convinient search box on the home page and you can quickly find
out the “buzz” in any industry.

- Michael.

Recently I needed something to add to my collection of ‘gizmos’ and took along a friend on my gizmo shopping spree.

“Watch this!”, I said.

I picked out the item I wanted.

Snagging the attention an elusive sales clerk was probably the hardest part.

As we approached the register (friend in tow) I asked casually,

“Do you offer a discount?”

There was a slight pause in his step. I winked at my friend.

“Actually, yes we do. Let me see what I can do” , he replied.

A few minutes later, ‘gizmo’ in hand, my friend who was initially horrified at my behavior laughed.

“I haven’t seen that done before”, she said.

Memorize those 5 words. Try them. The worst thing they can say is, “No”.

Don’t believe me, then check this article out from the New York Times. (link)

- Michael.

p.s. For the record the item was a “popper blocker” (link) — I got it at 25% off retail!

Here it is…

Facts don’t make sales.

Emotion do!

Facts make me sleepy.

Emotions grab my interest.

Basic human behavior.

And the best copywriting method to “shift” a prospect from mild boredom to excitement is to use “curiosity”.

See what “The Last Protege Student Of Gary Halbert” said about this on the thegaryhalbertletter.com blog.

In particular, “Marketing Secret #4″ aka. “The Marketers Jedi Mind Trick!”

The Last Protege (link)

- Michael

The item or ‘thing’ isn’t important.

What was interesting was how hard some people make it to buy from them.

Some examples.

1. “Call this phone number to order” — I did and got stuck in voicemail HELL!

2. “To order FILL OUT THIS FORM” — 25 fields before I order. You’re kidding, right?

3. “To order call 555-5555″ — I did and no-one called back.

And so the saga went.

My suggestion, “find someone non-computer savvy and give them the task of ordering from your site”.

Ask them to explain what your site offers.

Ask them to go through the order process.

Listen to their questions.

This simple exercise could be worth a small fortune to you.

I’ll pay to promote your business, you keep the revenue but I get to see how well my methods work and I can use these results as ‘proof’ my methods work.

There is a slight catch!

I want to try these methods on marketing SOFTWARE not ebooks, CD or DVD’s.

The software must be your own unique product. It can be a hosted script or a PC product.

If you are interested then reply in the comment box below.

The comments are moderated and won’t be published.

I will contact you privately.