Making them understand that you know their needs, pains and troubles would help to intensify their eagerness to listen because they believe that you have the solution. When the connection is established, they can give you their full trust, and from there, you can fully give your message.

It Captures Your Audience’s Attention

Like how Carl’s company uses colors, creative headlines, and animations on their web design services, our goal as a speaker is to capture the audience’s attention. They say that the first 60 seconds of the presentation is very crucial. That is why the best way to establish undivided attention is to say important opening statements that will somehow connect you to them.

Start by conditioning their minds and hearts that the message that you are about to share is something they can relate to. Tell some specific experiences to get an emotional response, add drama if necessary. Just make sure that the message is simple and clear and they will pick up the cues.

It Makes Selling Easier

Did you know that most customers buy a product based on emotion, simply because it feels right? You can easily upsell or downsell to a customer by using their emotions. In the Art of Persuasion, appealing to the human side of the audience makes them act according to your advice. Some even consider the “connection” is more important than the logic of doing a specific thing.

Salespeople present their products by creating wants, making their prospects feel that they are missing something in their lives and they have the solution. They focus on negative issues and give hope. So, before they would present their product, they have already intensified the emotions of the customer. Few more information about the advantages of the product would lead to a big SALE. In addition, maintaining such connection will earn you loyal customers who would even recommend you, your product and services to other people.

It Helps the Audience Remember

Art of persuasion includes making a blunt message exciting and easier to digest. The audience won’t listen to same old pitches about the company. Make the audience’s emotion as your focal point to make sure that they absorb the message, they respond and soon take an action in your favor. It is not important that they like you as a speaker. What’s important is for them to open their hearts to you and eventually use their emotions to make decisions.

It Increases Engagement

Touching the hearts of the audience will not only give you a response during the presentation. It helps gauge the extent of your influence. When you finish your speech, some would love to mingle with you because you have made connections with them.

They would tell you how they feel about the presentation and you have the opportunity to dig deeper into their hearts and know what’s on their mind. This is where a lasting connection should start. These kind of opportunities are should not be wasted.

The post Importance of Emotional Connection in the Art of Persuasion appeared first on Carl Ocab.

Listen now, because this is gonna be important and life changing.

Last August 26, 2009, Carl wrote an article about how he’s got a secret: and that is “Content Is Not King” – it’s marketing.

It’s been about 6 years when he said that, but given that I believe what he said is true ‘till this day, this got me asking:

“How do you simplify marketing to someone who’s just starting out?”

Now, if you’re like me, I don’t want to get overwhelmed by lots of information.

Imagine a little kid who wants to learn about marketing – I bet he won’t appreciate the confusion of information overload also.

So, in this case… here’s what I’d say.

There are only three walls that prevent people from making that decision to buy from you. And those walls are:

1. Not listen
2. Not believe
3. Not act

People will not listen to your message, will not believe your message, and will not act upon your message. Break these walls and you’ll be making more money online and offline with your marketing efforts easier.

This “3 walls to break principle” is the cornerstone of what I call Auto-Smash Strategy.

Literally saved my life, but that’s a story for another day.

For now, let’s look at how to break these walls:

1. Smashing the “Not Listen” wall

In order to make people listen to your message, you have to use a good “headline”.

A headline could exist in different forms depending on the advertising medium, but this is the general idea – your headline is what your audience reads or hears first in an Ad.

For example, in radio and television, your headline would be the first few spoken words in that Ad. In print, it would be the first words (usually written in bigger and bolder fonts) that your audience reads.

A simple structure of a headline would be to start with a question directed towards a problem – something like:

Still Struggling to Make Money Online?

(Followed by a benefit driven promise like:)

Discover 3 Simple Methods
to Cash-in on the Internet Craze
Within the Next 24hours

Pretty simple and straightforward, but that just works.

2. Smashing the “Not Believe” wall

People are sceptical, and that is good. If you know how to make them “believe”, then you get advantage in the market place.

Use stories. Tell specific numbers. Show pictures that paint the scenario as believable. Use testimonials. Use phrases like “believe me”. And so many more.

Just ask yourself – “what would make me believe if I was to hear this pitch?”

3. Smashing the “Not Act” wall

This is, in a sense, the “closing the sale” part. A lot of people drop the ball here – being afraid, shy, or whatever about “asking for the sale”. If your product would help people out, then do it. Simply say…

Here’s what you do next…

(then tell them what to do: buy, like, share, open, click, etc)

Easy… right?

If a long-haired work-at-home dad like me can do it, so can you:)

Forget about AIDA – because it doesn’t tell you to make people “believe”. Forget about the 4Ps… well, because literally my small brain just can’t remember what those 4Ps are.

This is pretty much what Auto-Smash Strategy is all about. This is what I’d share to someone who’s just starting out with marketing or someone suffering from information overload.

Believe me, I used Auto-Smash Strategy myself while I was just starting out as a copywriter – and it worked great as we we’re bringing in hundreds up to thousands of people in our seminars while I was working for the Philippines’ #1 Success Coach.

I hope you find value to this sharing. If you like what you’ve read…

Here’s what you do next…

Study this sales page I wrote (as of this writing, you can’t buy anything from that sales page because I haven’t launched the product yet). You’ll notice that this “piece” follows the same principle I shared to you just now – break the three walls not listen, not believe, and not act.

Check the sample page here:
http://headlineswissknifemethod.com

(or check out Carl’s Headline Swiss-Knife Method Review)

Sincerely,
Dexter Paglinawan

www.dexterpaglinawan.com
UDEMY INSTRUCTOR
From way up high Philippines’ City of Pines

The post Move Over AIDA, 4P’s – Break These Three Walls To Sell More Instead appeared first on Carl Ocab.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing Is A Double-Edged Sword

Pay-per click marketing offers instant exposure, traffic and profit potential for one’s website business. It also  provides up-to date analytical data which enables an advertiser to learn more about his/her customers, exploit new markets or opportunities and reduce costs by taking corrective action quickly and efficiently.

The flip side is also through. If the advertiser is not continuously split-testing ads, doing proper keyword research and creating meaningful relevant landing pages, he/she will not only lose a lot of money, but also credibility in his/her respective niche. This can be a frustrating ordeal, and is often the case with most new internet marketers.

PPC marketing should be an essential part of one’s internet marketing strategy for a number of reasons. It should be mainly used in combination with organic SEO, email marketing and ezine advertising to improve web visibility and establish brand.

In order to be successful at adwords, one has to understand the importance of relevancy.  There should be a shared or meaningful connection between the targeted keyword, adcopy and landing page. They all have to tell the same story, with each element building upon the next. This improves overall CTR, which in turn positively affects quality score.

(CTR, also known as click-thru rate is an excellent measure of relevance. It is a major part of Google’s quality score.  A lot of us know and understand that.)

Exploring Key Ways To Improve Your Adwords CTR

Certain CTR factors are obvious or more agreeable:-

Use keywords in the title, adcopy and destination URL, address a question/captivating call to action,  state the product’s benefit and features and observe the content in the ad above you. No question there.

But, should your ad copy include or exclude product price?

That’s what i’d like to ask. Personally, i’ve experienced good results either way and i can easily argue both sides.

Including product price qualifies your visitors a little more. It acts as a weed barrier, if you will, eliminating or discouraging curiousity clicks. This provides for better targeting. The result may be a lower CTR, but a higher conversion rate. Then again, this also depends on whether your product is expensive, competitive or cheap. If it is lower than the competition, then expect high CTR and conversion rate.  If it is expensive, expect low CTR and low conversion rate, unless your product has very strong brand recognition/loyalty or better product features than its competitors.

The flip side with including price is that some of the clicks you will be discouraging are from people with a low to moderate interest in your product. People who are not ready to commit as yet, but may convert depending on the quality of the sales letter.

Think of it this way. If i don’t have the opportunity to convey the product’s value to you either in the form of a sales presentation, letter, or demonstration, why would you be willing to buy based on price alone?

While, price inclusion effectively hedges or protects against wasted clicks, it also eliminates  certain “prospect” clicks or clicks from individuals that are somewhat interested, but need more persuasion before fully committing.

These type of individuals are not “wasted” clicks, their simply “price-sensitive”. They need more assurance before buying.

Like i said earlier, there’s pros and cons to both. But, i would love to hear your take on it. Include or exclude price?

Ryan DSouza is a financial analyst, fiction writer, food critic and part-time internet marketer.  He maintains a small blog where he freely discusses different internet marketing strategies and techniques for beginners. His current interests include blogging and mobile application development.

The post Should Your Adwords Ad Copy Include Or Exclude Price? appeared first on Carl Ocab.

Not anyone until now.

I know I’ve been out for awhile, and the reason I keep telling you guys is that I manage a lot of stuff lately, especially right now because I was so blessed that I was able to get my own office with a full time programmer – which is pretty cool to say the least. Someone calling you “sir” just ups the ante.

So to get back to the game, I’ve compiled a couple of insider secrets that happen to work and get good results when I make banners for the advertisers on this blog.

And these insider secrets, doesn’t need you to be a graphics expert or a high paid copywriter, these secrets are the kinds that you can do by yourself.

1. Know Who Are The People You Are Talking To

The ad above is the one I give out to Ultimate Blogging Theme affiliates – and they work great. If you look at the first line of the banner, it calls all the bloggers. The Ultimate Blogging Theme is a product for bloggers so most likely, my affiliates place this banner on sites where most people have blogs.

Having the line “hey bloggers” get people’s attention because they can relate.

2. Short And Sweet, To The Point

People on the internet have less time compared offline.

The thing is, there’s a big “x” button on the upper right hand corner of the screen. There’s also a nifty back button on the browser – and there are tons of websites to visit. A lot of choices, so why would they stay on your site?

Like they say, the first 3 seconds is your chance to impress, to make them stay or to tell them your message.

3. Curiosity, Curiosity, Curiosity

This ad has been on my blog for quite some time. With a little dash of attitude, POOF! Click magnet!

Curiosity is one of the most effective techniques to get people to click, it’s human nature – we want to know more, we don’t need to, but we “want” to.

It’s powerful, especially when you add this ingredient…

4. Benefit, Benefit, Benefit

I’m letting you in in a little secret… that green little ad you see above, is by far, the most effective ad on my blog.

Simple, straight forward – benefit.

All the stuff we do, we do it because we benefit from them.

Let’s have a little question and answer here, for example, the people who go to the gym.

• Why do you go to the gym? – to lose weight
• Why do you want to lose weight? – to look good
• Why do you want to look good? – to impress others, to feel good

Everything we do, there’s a benefit – that’s what keeps us going.

5. Easy To Read

The most often question people ask about ad typography…

“What font should I use?”

Some people say, Arial, some say Times New Roman, Georgia, Tahoma, Verdana, the list goes on – the results varied.

But what most people forgot to test is – the font the blog is using. In other words, blending the ad to the blog.

Now what happens here is that your ad gets read more often because the typography is the same as the blog and people think it’s not an ad.

Also, one thing – don’t let readability suffer for design.

6. Salestickies (Handwritten text)

In the contrary, you can standout. Handwritten texts just grab attention like a man sleeping in a rock concert.

What can I say it’s unique. Have a look at this…

If you want to download some Salestickies, you can check out my Direct Response Templates, it’s one of the bonuses.

7. Namedropping

This simple edit will only take you a minute to implement on your ads but you’ll get something big in return.

For example, you can turn…

“How to rank high in the search engines”

To…

“How to rank high on Google”

“Make money with videos”

To

“Make money with Youtube”

Test, Test, Test!

The good thing about online advertising is you can implement changes quickly. In a matter of minutes, you can change the banner ad that shows up on your website. In a matter of seconds, you can change the copy of your AdWords ad.

The internet is testing paradise.

You should use this to your advantage because not all these tips work on all places.

Like my favorite speaker/author Tom Peters always say…

“Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast.”

The post 7 Secrets To Eyeball-Sucking Ad Banners appeared first on Carl Ocab.

Ghostwriting services are much needed in the online money making world. If you struggle to write or have a phobia with writing, then you definitely need to hire a ghostwriter. This article will show you how to hire a good ghostwriter so that you can increase your online sales.

It’s worth mentioning first of all, that looking for the cheapest price is definitely not the way to select your ghostwriter – unless you’re working on an Adsense site where content doesn’t matter and  you’re only concerned about Adsense clicks.

If you need 10 articles (500 words) to be ghostwritten, and the ghostwriter charges $5 for each article, that would mean he will earn $50. But it takes him a minimum of 3 hours to finish them. Why would anyone work 3 hours for $50?

If they’re in India or the Philippines then yes, than would justify the pay. However, you need to be extra careful to see what their standard of English is and the amount of research they will do for your articles or ebook. You are writing content to provide valuable information to your customers and readers. You’re not writing content for the sake of it.

Here is a checklist of things you should go through when hiring a ghostwriter:

1. Does he have samples to show you his writing style? Does his samples have informative content written in an interesting tone with good English?
2. Does he have testimonials from his past customers? Do the testimonials sound real?
3. Search for the ghostwriter’s name on forums. Does anyone mention his name and say they liked the work ghostwritten for them?
4. Look at the prices the ghostwriter is charging. Do they seem reasonable? If they’re too cheap then you run the risk of receiving poor quality content or a delay in receiving the material. If they are good and cheap, then obviously they will get bombarded with work.
5. Ask the ghostwriter questions on your ebook or articles that you want written. Look at their responses to your emails. Are they written in good English and do they reply your email in a timely manner?
6. Ask for referrals from friends or word of mouth. If several people recommend a ghostwriter, check them out and see if you are comfortable with working with them.
7. Ask the ghostwriter if they can do the research for you or whether they need a lot of hand holding from you. Some ghostwriters will expect you to supply them research material so that they can work on it. This is costing you time. Professional ghostwriters will do the research for you. You need to make sure.
8. Ask if the ghostwriter can write a sample for you based on your topic. If they say yes, then you need to consider if they’re worth hiring. A good ghostwriter would not write for free to prove themselves. It could mean that they are desperate for work due to lack of clients. Good ghostwriters are very busy.
9. Does the ghostwriter understand how to write a Search Engine Optimized article? Do they know what LSI is? If they’re knowledgeable in this area then they can write articles for you that can rank high in the search engines.

And finally, if you do get good quality work from a ghostwriter, then make sure you stick with them. The more you work together, the more you will understand each other. They will know how to produce work that you want.

Conclusion

I am not saying that ghostwriters that are charging low prices produce low quality content. But you run the risk of hiring someone who’s first language is not English and therefore produce below average material.

If you fiind that they are good ghostwriters then they will be so busy with work and therefore very likely delay in delivering your ebook or articles.

Think about it. If they are good and cheap, why would people not use them again? Also once they get many orders, it’s only a matter of time that they will increase their prices.

If you want to make money online, then you need good content. Content is what the internet is about. If your readers like your ebook or the articles that you have produced, you will get loyal subscribers and customers. Ghostwriting services are an important part of your business to outsource. They make money for you. So make sure you get this part of your business right.

Alan Cheng is a professional ghostwriter who delivers a complete solution for information product owners. His ghostwriting package includes ghostwriting an ebook, sales letter with minisite graphics, squeeze page, thank you page and press release. His website is at http://www.bestinstantsites.com.

The post Ghostwriting Services – How To Hire A Good Ghostwriter appeared first on Carl Ocab.

Answer the three questions below and after that you’ll find out if you caught this spreading disease…

Question number one

How much soil is there in a hole measuring one meter by one meter by one meter? (Answer below)

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.

.

.

.

.

.

None, it’s a hole!

Question number two

A man dressed all in black is walking down a country lane. Suddenly a large black car without any lights on comes round the corner and screeches to a halt.

How did the driver know there was a man in the road?

.

.

.

.

.

.

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It was daylight!

Question number three

A mute person goes into a shop and wants to buy a toothbrush. By imitating the action of brushing his teeth he successfully expresses himself to the shopkeeper and the purchase is done.

Next, into the shop comes a blind man who wants to buy a pair of sunglasses, how does he indicate what he wants?

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

He would simply ask.

What did you get?

If you have answered the three questions correctly then you are clear of Attentionitis but beware this is a contagious disease you might catch it from suffering patients.

If you have answered only one or two correctly then you are in the stage 2 of this disease, go get some tea to calm down and concentrate.

If you haven’t answered any of the questions right, I’m sorry but I can’t do anything for you, just read on.

Attentionitis everywhere!

When I logged in to Google Analytics a while ago, I checked one of my sites and saw a huge traffic spike yesterday. Looking at the traffic sources, Stumble Upon topped the leader board. Unfortunately, the bounce rate was horrible and the average time spent on the site is less than a minute! Imagine that.

A recent study was also conducted that people watching Youtube videos judge the whole video on the first 20 seconds. If those first seconds sucks, they’ll switch to the other video, if it’s entertaining then they’ll finish it.

With that said, we can declare that most people online has Attentionitis.

Cure?

Nope, at the moment, there’s no world wide cure going on so if you are selling or want to give a certain information…

“Do it shorter because less is more. Speed matters.”

On a side note, Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician and philosopher once said to his friend in a letter “I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had time to make it shorter.”

But shorter is harder.

The post Attentionitis – Why Shorter Is Better appeared first on Carl Ocab.

If you have noticed, I’m doing some changes in that big header up there. I’ve been changing some colors, write-ups, placement, etc. It’s not that it looks bad or something but I’m just into some tests.

You see I’ve read loads of articles, watched tons of videos about this NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming). NLP is about how language (linguistic) affects a person’s thinking (Neuro) using different massive techniques. You can check out my post about it, I left a video there from Derren Brown, a popular guy from London.

I got so curious about it that it made me look for more videos from that guy and wow, I was deeply amazed how he can change almost all people’s perspective and even their train stop.

Headlines Should “Suggest” Action And Time

“Buy one today, get it now, grab a copy today, etc.” You’ll see those on almost all stores worldwide, and it’s also here online. Check out my header for a quick example. No it hasn’t degraded even after all the years that marketers used it.

I got proof, on my first try, when I first added the big header, I used the headline “Your FREE Report”. It worked nicely at first but let’s not count it because there’s always big conversions at first launch. After a week, conversions just suck! I got like 10-15 names from a blog that gets 500-1000 unique visitors everyday. After that, I didn’t hesitate to change the headline and some texts and added the second one which is “Grab (Suggestion of action) Your FREE Copy Today (Suggestion of time). I’ve increased conversion rates to 15-20 (I’m pretty sure it didn’t go below the 15 line)

For a curious kid, that wasn’t enough, so yeah, I changed the headline again to “Make Money Online Now” My traffic was targeted for that because if you still don’t know, I’m on the frontpage of Google for the keyword “make money online”. That’s right! Conversions jumped!

Colors, Backgrounds and Fonts

If your headline is ready and you think it’s enough, try experimenting now on how they look. Colors, backgrounds and fonts have a major impact on the headline. Let’s just say that you have a great headline but it’s just too dark that people can’t see it. What happened? Well, unfortunately for you, nothing.

So try experimenting on these elements, make headlines stand-out with other fonts. Set mine again as an example. You’ll see that I’m using a red font color for the main headline and a black one on the not-so-important ones. I also used a white background to highlight the texts in the headline (That explains those irritating yellow highlights in salesletters!) Also, some drop shadow will help, just to pop it out a little.

Share Your Experiments

All of these are for experimental purposes only, it may or may not work well for you because we may have different audiences. So all of these results are just from experimenting but with a little science on the side.

Anyway, I know I’m not the only one who have been playing with people experimenting with headlines. What about you, do you have any experiences with these? mind sharing it?

The post Playing With People: How Powerful Words And Colors That They Influence You appeared first on Carl Ocab.