Google Play, and Google Wallet by extension, allows refunds to be given to buyers within 15 minutes of the initial transaction. The new sales report now allows publishers to see the amount of sales and refunds on their accounts. This information is collected in an estimated sales report that is updated within two days of the transaction, depending on the timezone of the account that made the purchase.

The estimated sales report is archived at the end of each month. At this time, publishers may view their monthly payout cycle. A new estimated sales report is created at the beginning of each month.

Archived estimated sales reports will be available in the “merchant reports” section of the developer console. They will be downloadable CSV files, the same format monthly payout reports come in.

All the information contained within the estimated sales report is the same as the monthly payout report except for final payment details. Google says this will make it easier to reconcile recorded sales versus the actual payout amount. You will be able to view estimated sales data from February 1, 2012.

As a final note, “merchant sales reports” has been renamed to “monthly payout reports.” It’s a small change, but one that Google says better reflects the content of the report.

Comments

Now you’re ready to move on to the next level. Again, this post barely scratches the service, but it does provide you with some additional, important areas to consider when looking at your site’s usability.

Answer the question, “What do you do?”

I’m amazed at the number of sites that simply do not tell visitors what it is they do clearly on their home page. It’s almost as if they assume that every visitor is already fully in-the-know before ever coming to the site. News flash! Most first-time visitors are ignorant of who you are and what you do!

Every visitor that comes to your site needs to easily be able to figure out what you’re about. Don’t bury that information in an “about us” page or in some vague mission statement. Make it obvious!

If you believe that only industry knowledgeable people visit your site, you’re wrong. Knowledgeable people may be your primary audience, and even where the bulk of your sales come from, but even knowledgeable people still need to know they found a site that will meet their needs. If people cannot figure out what you do, how can you expect to turn them into a customer?

Give yourself a voice

Have you ever been around a group of people and suddenly you hear one voice that stands out above the rest. Not because it’s louder but because of they way the person talks. It might be their accent, their word usage, or even their speech pattern, but something about that voice is unique. Once you become familiar with it, the next time you hear it you automatically know who’s speaking. Your website should be no different.

Giving your content a unique “voice” helps you stand out from your competition. Done right, your voice is exclusive to you and you alone, and gives your audience something to remember you by when compared to other sites they have visited.

All things being equal, having a unique voice gives you an edge and the advantage. It tells customers that you’re different, and when choosing between you and an equal competitor, that may be the advantage that makes them choose you over the bland others.

Follow-up and follow-through

Great communication is they key to having a successful business. If you’re letting leads, calls, emails or inquiries fall through the cracks, you’re throwing money away. Good follow up has many forms: return phone calls, follow-up phone calls, follow-up emails, auto-responders and confirmation emails, just to name a few. Each of these must areas be constantly analyzed to ensure you are being as effective as possible.

When it comes to following up, little things can make a big difference. What you say to potential customers, as well as when or how you say it, tells a lot about how you will do business with them. Customers need to know you care just as much as what happens after the sale as what happens before. But, if you don’t care before the sale, they’ll know you won’t care after.

Great follow-through after the sale tells customers you still care about them because you’re proving it! That’s great repeat business generation right there.

Structured navigation

On far too many websites, the site navigation is cluttered, disorganized and doesn’t help drive you to the pages that will give you the information you need. One of the biggest mistakes people make is creating a navigation that links to just about every page of the site. That’s far too many options!

If you have a large site, heck, even if you have a small site, try to pair your navigation down to as few elements as possible. It’s OK to have a dozen links or so in your navigation, but be sure they are organized so visitors can easily choose.

Implementing a structured navigation makes it that much easier for visitors to quickly find the pages that are most interesting to them. The less they have to think (and search) the better.

Build a sitemap

When you have a large site, sometimes important pages can get buried in your navigation. It’s generally not a good idea to have a catch-all navigation that links to every page on your site. The solution is not only to make the navigation as intuitive as possible, but also to build a sitemap.

HTML sitemaps give your visitors an easy way to find any page of your site quickly without searching. One click to the sitemap, a quick glance and they find they page(s) they are looking for!

The better organized your sitemap is, the better it is for the visitor. Not all visitors use a sitemap, but those that do find them valuable in getting where they want quickly and without having to make numerous clicks through a deep navigation structure. The sooner you get your visitors to the right information, the more likely you are to get a conversion.

Have a site search box

Having a “search this site” feature can work both for or against you, depending on how well it is implemented. If your site search doesn’t produce excellent results, then you’re better off not having one at all. If visitors search via your search box and don’t find the results they want, even if you have the product, you just lost a sale because the visitor has left.

If your search cannot produce relevant results 100% of the time, then it’s causing you to lose sales. It’s a simple as that. You’re far better off having your visitors find your products through navigation or the sitemap than risk the possibility that the in-site search misleads them.

However, if you do have a great site search that gives perfect results every time, this can be a great way to help visitors find specific products, features or information quickly without having to scan a bunch of pages. This search data can also be helpful in knowing what people are looking for so you can promote those areas better. Better access and promotion to your products and services means more sales.

Consistent formatting

As a whole, all your site pages should be similarly formatted. While some home pages do look a bit different from the internal pages, it is important to carry consistency from one page to the next.  This means that your primary navigation should not change from one page to the next. Nor should your footer, page layout, color, etc. Consistency from page to page is expected from your visitors.

When your pages are consistent from one to the next, visitors are able to navigate better and know where and how to get the information they need. When you don’t have that kind of consistency, the on-site experience can be quite jarring, giving the visitor a bad experience. Any bad experience is bad for sales.

Privacy policy

Does anybody really read your privacy policy page? I doubt it, but who cares! The point is that it’s there for them to read if they want to. Ultimately, its about giving assurance that you do, in fact, have a policy in place. They may choose to scan through it, but maybe not. It’s very presence gives visitors security.

Be sure to create a policy page and then link to it from strategic locations. Anywhere there is a form on your site, a link to a privacy policy can increase form submission rates. This tells visitors you care about protecting their information. For many, that’s all the assurance they need.

Add unique product information

If you sell many of the same products as other sites on the internet, chances are you may have the same product description information as them. This is almost universally true if you posted boiler plate product descriptions from the manufacturer. While this may at least provide relevant product information, it doesn’t give any info that makes your products unique among your competition.

Just like you want to give your site a unique voice, give your descriptions a personal touch. Describe the product from your unique perspective. Tell shoppers about things you feel is particularly unique or useful about each product, or anything else you think your visitors might like to know about. Sell them using emotion, not just facts! The more unique information you provide, the more you set yourself apart from all the rest.

Fix your checkout process

I’ve never come across a shopping cart or checkout process that didn’t need to be fixed in some way or another. Amazon is constantly testing their shopping processes, always in search of the better way to present a product or improve the conversion process. You may not realize it, but poor shopping and checkout processes lead to significant abandonment rates. Shoppers start but don’t complete an order.

Make sure that your checkout process includes as few steps as possible. Every click visitors are forced to make creates an opportunity for them to flee. Studies show drop-off rates increase as checkout process clicks increase! Streamline your checkout process by reducing the amount of information needed, adding calls to action, place related products in strategic locations and making ordering easier over all.

Working on each of these conversion optimization areas is bound to improve your customer interaction and conversion rates. If you can improve your conversion rates, the same number of customers you get each month will result in increased sales. With that, any increase in traffic increases sales exponentially!

Comments

True conversion optimization takes time and testing. What works for one site may or may not work for yours. You only know by trying it out and looking at the data. However, there are some good old standbys that are generally recognized as universal. If you don’t know where to start on conversion optimization, here are a few quick and easy tips.

Make your phone number visible

I know, I know… You don’t want to handle customer calls all day, especially with issues that can easily be resolved on the website. I get it. We all feel that way! Unfortunately, there are still a lot of Web users who prefer traditional forms of communication – like the phone.

If your phone number isn’t prominently displayed on your site, you are potentially losing these customers. Most visitors won’t call, but the confidence a prominently displayed phone number provides can be immeasurable. It’s the security in knowing you can call and get immediate help, rather than waiting 24 hours (or more) for someone to return an email. Simple assurances such as this can have a huge impact.

Answer emails and phone calls

I am surprised by how often prospective clients tell me that our company was the only one who followed up with them on their SEO inqueries. As a business owner, this is something I never understood, yet too many companies still let their phone calls go to voice mail or don’t return email messages in a timely manner.

Customers are turned off by answering machines and unanswered emails. This is a very quick way to create either a negative or positive first impression, and you only get one chance at it! Quick responses are the epitome of great customer service. If a company isn’t willing, or able, to return my call before I’m a customer, they certainly won’t be likely to do it once they have my money!

Fix typos and grammatical errors

Nothing says “amateur” more than spelling and grammar errors. Your website content is a representation of who you are. It speaks directly to your professionalism. If your site is littered with typos, potential customers may lose confidence. I know, silly, right? But you feel the same way about other websites, so no judging!

It’s those small things that often make or break a sale. ‘No cents leaving it to chanse!’

Show prices and shipping info

I can’t stand sites that bury their pricing information. While price isn’t the only factor shoppers use to make a decision to purchase, it is a significant one. If your visitors are unable to find product or service prices, they’ll likely move on to another site that will display them.

While most sites readily display pricing info, many continue to bury the shipping costs. I’ve left a number of sites because I had to get too far through the checkout process just to figure out how much it would cost to ship my order. When sites do that, I usually know I’m in for a shipping surprise!

Whenever possible, make your pricing and shipping costs easy to find and/or calculate. Don’t force visitors to wait until the end of the check-out process to get an order total!

Create an ‘About Us’ page

Not only do you need an About Us page, but you also need to fill it with great information about your company. This is one of the pages many shoppers go to when they want to do business with you but need to feel a bit more secure about whether they can trust you or not. Your About Us page can give visitors that needed security.

Fill your About Us page with company history, team leader bios, company skills and experience, mission statements, etc. All of this information can play a role in building confidence that helps your shoppers choose you over a competitor. A great About Us page creates a personal touch and lets visitors see the faces behind the screen.

Underline your links

There are many ways to make your links stand out. You can bold, italicize, change color, highlight, etc. But there is one thing that stands out like no other, and that is underlining your links. Link text that isn’t underlined is often mistaken for just more bold, italized, colored or highlighted text. Unless shoppers frequently visit your site, anything other than underlined links may be lost on them.

Underlined text on a web page is the universal sign of a hyperlink to another page or area of the site. While we all want to build unique websites that stand out, there are some universal expectations that you have to meet to avoid confusing your visitors. Yes, your site does need to conform to (some) typical Web development practices. Otherwise, you lose your ability to communicate effectively with your audience.

Underlined links create clarity for your visitors, making navigating from page to page easier. If it’s underlined, they know it’s a link. No question.

Create a custom 404 error page

Have you ever clicked on a link and the resulting page looked something like this?

Pages like that don’t give you many options. And none of them help you navigate the site you thought you were clicking on. If you’re offering these types of pages to your visitors when they inadvertently click on a broken link, then you’re likely losing those visitors. By creating a custom 404 page not found page, you give your visitors the opportunity to stay on your site to find what they were looking for.

Broken links happen all the time, especially coming from external sites that you have no control over. By creating a custom 404 error page, even a broken link to your site is a potential sale opportunity.

Add links in your body content

The simple rule of thumb here is not to make your site navigation do all the work. Links in content are just as – if not more – important than your site navigation. Good navigation is essential, but when visitors are engaged in your content, you don’t want to force them to disengage to get to the next page.

Links in your content not only help each visitor decide where they want to go next, it gives them multiple options based on the content of your content. If you are talking about your team, link to your About Us page. If you are talking about your successes, link to your testimonials. If you are talking about your services or specific products, link to them, as well.

Whenever a visitor reaches the end of a page without any content links, they are forced to think about what information they want next. This gives them an opportunity to leave your site. Using content links keeps them engaged and on your site, hopefully until they get enough information to convert.

Fix broken links

While the 404 error page noted above is great for keeping people on your site when they encounter a bad link, it’s still better to eliminate as many broken links as possible. You may not have control over external links to your site, but you do have control over internal links on your site and even external links to other sites.

Broken links happen. Sometimes content gets moved or removed and not every page is updated as it should be. Sometimes sites you’re linking to do the same. The more you link, the more opportunities there are for links to go bad. Check all your site links regularly to make sure no new broken links turn up. Fix those you can and remove those you can’t.

Calls to action

Every page on your site needs to have at least one call to action. A call to action is simply a line of text or an image that tells the visitors what they should do next and links them to that opportunity. A call to action can be almost anything, but here are some typical ones you can use to get your visitors to take a desired action:

• Continue reading
• Add to cart
• Buy Now
• View testimonials
• Check out our services
• Call us
• Email us
• Follow us
• Sign up
• Download

You get the idea. Calls to action drive the visitor from page to page or from page to purchase. It may seem silly, but your visitors want to be told what to do. The call to action does that. It’s still their choice, but at least you’re providing them with one.

I guarantee that most, if not all, of the tips above will bring measurable improvement to your site conversion rates. But hey, don’t take my word for it. Test it out and see for yourself. If I’m wrong, at least you know you’re not missing any conversion opportunities. If I’m right, send a card. Or better yet… a link!

Comments

I have a full time job, but I’m very passionate about staying healthy, eating right, and exercising, all on a limited budget.

I want to start a blog so I can share my story, provide tips and advice, and help others. 

I also want to make some money doing it!

Can I have a blog without a website? If so, how can I monetize my blog?

– Monetizing in Machais

Dear Monetizing,

You can definitely have a blog without a traditional website. However, these days the line between blog and website is so blurry as to be inconsequential. Your blog will probably have several static pages, such as an About page and a Contact page at a minimum. 

One way you can make money from your blog is by selling ads. Unless you get a huge following you’ll probably never be able to quit your day job this way, but it will offer you passive streams of income. You could start with Google Adsense, which is probably the easiest way to get going. There are also plenty of blog-specific ad networks out there, including BlogAds.

If you want to increase the money you make off of each ad you’ll have to sell them yourself, which can be more time consuming for both the sales process and managing the ads yourself.

Advertisers will be interested in how many people they can reach through your blog, so you’ll need to build your numbers up. 

You may want to check out 25 Ways to Promote and Market Your Blog to get more traffic.

If you’re wondering what to charge, find similar blogs that take advertising and ask for their advertising rates. (Note: this does require some subterfuge. Try not to mention you’re soon to be a direct competitor. And who knows? If they’re undercharging, maybe you should advertise your blog on theirs!)

Another way you can make money off your blog is through affiliate programs. There are probably plenty of books on Amazon that you’ve read and could recommend through your blog, taking a little bit of each sale through the Amazon affiliate program. Likewise, there may be inexpensive athletic equipment you could recommend. These affiliate links could be within blog posts themselves (although by law you need to mention that it’s an affiliate link) or posing as ads in the side columns.

You should also check out sites like Commission Junction and ClickBank. Through these affiliate marketplaces you can find products with affiliate programs that are in line with your values and the message of your blog.

A third way to make money off your blog is by creating, promoting and selling your own e-product. Maybe you could put together a book of inexpensive recipes or workouts that don’t require expensive equipment or a gym membership. Maybe you could create an e-book called 101 Ways to Get Exercise Out of Every Day Activities or a video program that shows how to exercise using items found around the house.

Using services like e-junkie or 1ShoppingCart you can then sell these virtual goods to the audience you’ve attracted.

Do you have any other ways in which you’ve made money from your blog? Let us know!

Comments

Google, over the years, has been figuring out the same thing. So, it is possible that the ranking algorithm changes that Google has been making are not merely directed at lowering the rankings for content farms and other spam sites, as many have opined, but rather improving search results for searchers across a wide variety of searches. The search leader might be working on a new game.

We’ve known for a while that calling the formula a ranking algorithm–singular–is no longer true. In fact there are many ranking algorithms and Google selects the right one with what it believes are the best mix of factors for each search. Some searches emphasize the freshness of the information, others might include more personalization, yet others might emphasize information over commerce–or vice versa.

Google might be judging some of these factors on clickthrough of search results and on conversions. Google has many ways of tracking conversions–everything from Google Analytics to Google Checkout to the Google toolbar–and we know that they are using machine learning to extrapolate from small sets of data to large ones. So, what that means is that once they have a subset of sites that they can get this information from (and they do), they can then look at every other site on the Web and identify which ones are similar to their master set.

If your site looks very similar to sites that convert highly for a type of search, expect your rankings to improve. If you look like a site that doesn’t convert, expect the ranking to go down–but maybe you don’t care, because that search wasn’t bringing you qualified leads anyway.

Stop focusing on mere rankings as a way to judge your search effectiveness. Besides the fact that rankings are personalized (so you don’t know for how many searchers you rank anywhere anymore), you are missing the point of search–just like those companies gathering more and more sales leads that don’t close. Look at your revenue and focus on your best-converting keywords. That’s where the focus needs to be.

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“My service is the best. I promise that I will deliver everything I say I do. I have been doing this for a long time. All my clients love me. I can do this really fast and I will always be on time because I like to be on time.”

Did you make it past the second sentence? Be honest, you skipped over most of it didn’t you? You know why? Because it wasn’t about YOU!

Website owners are always talking about conversion rates and increasing sales. We have found that reworking your web copy can be the best way to increase your conversion rates. But what does good web copy look like?

The best web copy in the world never even mentions the company it is trying to sell. They focus entirely on the prospect. Let’s take another look at the above example written a little better:

“You deserve the best service in the world….”

Already we are off to a better start. What is the word that stands out the most? YOU:

“On time delivery, experience and succeeding expectations are all awaiting you.”

Results are clearly shown here and again, we throw in that trusty YOU at the end to bring it around again:

“You will love me. I promise.”

Powerful YOU statement to wrap it all up. This statement shows a creative way to still talk about you (adding that personal touch) while still talking about them.

Why does this work? Because people are smart. If you talk more about yourself than the client, chances are that is how you operate your customer service. Yikes! Focusing on them from the outset translates into increased trust, and trust equals sales.

Why Writing This Way Pleases Google

I am sure that you have heard of the Great Panda Update that Google did a few months back. You may have heard the horror stories of websites falling off of the face of the earth because of the change. Maybe even your website experienced a drop in rankings.

There are a lot of misguided ideas about the Update that have lead people to make mistakes that ended up hurting their sites even further. Many people assumed that Panda had to do with links. It didn’t. It had to do with onsite web copy (the stuff we are talking about).

Many people built entire web empires using tactics like article marketing and web 2.0 sites. Eventually people started getting lazy and content was getting worse and worse on these sites. Google decided to clean house and de-valued a TON of these sites. If you had links coming from that part of town, you were in trouble.

So why do I bring this up? Simple, not EVERY hubpage or squidoo or ezine article was de-valued, just the ones that nobody paid attention to. What does this mean? If people are interacting with your content, Google thinks you are valuable (think social search). And what kind of content do people like to read? Stuff that applies to, is about, or encourages them.

Nowadays writing for the search engines is writing for the people, not for yourself.

So How Do You Know If It Is Working?

Here is an exercise that you can do right now to increase your conversion rates.

1. Go through your analytics and look at your current bounce rates on your landing pages. Take note of those.

2. Look at your website and change every “I/Me/Us/We/Our” statement into a “YOU” statement. It can be hard and it can be a real challenge, but have fun with it.

3. After about a week or two look at your bounce rates again and compare them to before. I bet they are lower.

I like to call the bounce rate the “Hotness Factor”. If your customers are “turned off” by what they see on your page they will “bounce” at a higher rate. If they feel romanced, they will delve deeper into your website and you will see this by a lower bounce rate.

At the end of the day remember who is paying your bills. It isn’t you (though you may be getting the statements addressed with your name on it) it is your customers. So address them, talk about them, communicate with them. Because the YOU they care about isn’t you at all, it’s them.

Comments

As part of the One on One conversation series I do over at SmallBizTrends.com, I recently talked with Cory Hartlen, a product marketing manager with Radian6.  During our discussion Cory mentioned quite a number of things that hit on the topic of social media ROI.

One story that really caught my attention was around how some of their clients were using listening tools from an HR perspective. By listening for mentions of people that have graduated with their MBA, or are looking forward to graduating with their MBA, a few of their clients had success in finding potential candidates for their junior executive training programs. So instead of having to rely on more traditional avenues for recruitment from headhunters, they were able to use social listening to help reduce some of those costs.

From a more traditional angle, Cory said Radian6 themselves listen to social conversations so when people reach out to their social networks and ask for advice, they can lend a hand and share a link to our review of monitoring systems. Then those conversations are very measurable because they can figure out how many leads they are getting from the social space over a given time period and get those input into their system.  Then they actually see how many of those leads they are able to close on over a given time period to get their ROI from a program like that.

One last point Cory made is that he believes when it comes to social media ROI it all comes down to goals and strategy. And this seems to be backed up by the results of CRM Essentials/SMB Group Social Business Study performed last year.

Our survey of 750 executives at small and mid-size companies found that companies who characterized their approach to social media as strategic seemed to find more success with it than those who felt their organizations were more informal with its use.  In fact, people working at strategically social companies were twelve times more likely to predict an increase of twenty percent in 2011 revenues over the previous year, compared to more informal social media users. And employees who said their companies did not use social media were twice as likely to expect a decrease in 2011 revenues compared to strategic users.

Below are a few differences in approach to social between strategic vs. informal users:

• Strategic users 2.5X more likely to have Sales involved than Informal users
• Strategic users 2.5X more likely to have HR involved than Informal users
• Strategic users almost 3X more likely to use social media for product development than Informal users
• Strategic users 2X more likely to use social media for research than Informal users
• Strategic users 2X more likely to use social media for internal collaboration than Informal users
• Strategic users 2X more likely to have integrated CRM with social than Informal users
• Social media was 2X more likely to be selected as top activity for improving customer service by Strategic users than Informal users

And along with the differences in how strategic organizations leveraged social media throughout the organization, they also kept track of KPIs differently:

• Strategic users 5X more likely to measure customer retention metrics than Informal users
• 3X more likely to measure sales conversion rate from online community
• 2.5X more likely to measure number of followers on social networks
• 2X more likely to measure net promoter score
• 3X more likely to measure share of conversation
• 1.8X more likely to measure new ideas generated

When asked about the ROI of social media, Cory says you could very easily ask what the ROI of his telephone is.  Without a goal and a measurable strategy, you pretty much are left in the dark. But if you decide to make three more sales this month, then you know you need to make X number of phone calls to be able to close that number of sales.  So now you have a goal and a strategy which can be measured to prove how successful you were.

He thinks that social media is no different, and the numbers seem to back this up.

Comments

First off, people are getting more comfortable with social media and social behavior and the “social media is a pure engagement temple mentality” of some early adopters has faded.

More importantly, however, is that smart marketers are testing, tweaking and trying lots of things and figuring out how to build know, like and trust – the path to selling anything, anywhere – on social networks.

In my own experimenting I can tell you that generating and converting leads using social media takes a more patient approach, but once you find the right path, it’s actually a better way to sell in any environment.

The reason I see many people’s social media marketing efforts fail is that they are still simply broadcasting sales messages. This approach still works to some degree in an advertising setting because people often stumble upon your ads with a buying intent. It still works to some degree in email marketing efforts because people have asked to get your messages and you can easily earn the right to sell in that relationship.

However, most people don’t participate in social networks to shop so any sales message can feel sort of harsh and in the snack sized, feverish world of tweets, shares and likes any and all messages are very easy to ignore.

If you want to sell using social media, here’s one path:

Test your message

Using 140 characters or less to basically write an ad that makes people want to retweet and click isn’t something most people can muster in real time – and yet, that’s what most try to do.

I’ve had tremendous success using Google AdWords to test very compact messages. Once I find a message that draws clicks there, I know I’ve got a winner that will get action in the form of a tweet or share.

This somewhat scientific approach is one of the most overlooked aspects of marketing in social media and it’s the primary reason people that contend you can’t sell there say so.

Target your message

Here’s another proven technique that seems lost on many marketers. Just because there are 800 million people on Facebook doesn’t mean you need to appeal to all of them.

The quickest way to get the right kind of attention is to announce “hey you 437 people that need to get better at X” I’m talking to you.

If you want to learn more about the impact of using data to form your social media messages look no further than the work Dan Zarrella is doing.

Prove your worth

It’s nearly impossible to get someone ready to buy simply by crafting a mouth-watering tweet. There’s just not enough information to develop trust.

You must make your initial relationship building all about valuable content. Give something away that you know your targeted prospect wants and needs. Move the free line to the point where your free stuff is better than most other people’s paid stuff and watch how enamored people get.

Here again, there’s nothing new about this. For years, smart marketers made tiny little inexpensive classified ads in the back of magazines like Popular Mechanics pay off nicely using this exact approach.

Engage

Now, here’s a step that just might be unique to social media and online marketing in general and it’s a very powerful one.

In the process of giving away all that great information ask your prospects to tell you things, share things, rate things and help you make the world a better place for all who inhabit it.

Seriously, create feedback forms and make that part of the deal for why you are giving away such great stuff. Socialize your content and make it easy to email, tweet and like. Send a series of emails during your content sharing phase that reinforces the important takeaways from the content and offers more engagement like email support or live Q and A sessions.

Ask for the order

Once you’ve done all this work and logically and authentically led a prospect to the place where they do indeed have some level of trust, it’s time to tell them where this journey is ultimately headed.

Paint the picture you know exists in their “current reality”, remind them of the incredible glimpse you’ve shared and then illustrate what the picture could look like.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming they will connect the dots – show them how to get the value you know you have to offer and be extremely clear about it. One of the benefits of this approach is that, if you do it right and they still don’t buy, you’ll earn the right to ask why and they’ll gladly help you understand how to get it right.

There’s nothing that magical about this approach really. Marketers have been using some form of these elements for years, but it’s the total package, including patience and hard work, that makes it pay off in the world of social media.

Comments

If not, you should. And if you already do – or you regularly promote other entrepreneurs as an affiliate – then today’s article has a simple yet powerful tip to make your efforts more effective.

But let me backup here and make sure we’re on the same page…

In case you aren’t familiar with affiliate programs; they’re basically a simple way for others to refer prospects your way online and get credit for it. And they’re great for small businesses.

Typically, you set up an affiliate program using your shopping cart or other online tool. And you make sure to include a set affiliate commission (basically a referral fee) of either a dollar amount or a percentage of the price for anything you’re trying to promote.

Then you invite people to join who know, like and trust you and would be willing to promote your stuff to their community. Each person who joins gets their own, unique affiliate link. This lets you track who sends you each new client or customer so you can pay them their fee.

Once you have a few affiliates, it’s time to promote your products, events and/or services via your new affiliate partners. That means you’re going to put together emails, Facebook posts, tweets, ezine blurbs and more for them to use.

Now, here’s where it gets tricky…

In order for an affiliate program to be successful, the affiliate link included in each promo needs to send prospects directly to the page for that product, event or service. NOT to a generic products or events page, or worse to your home page. Do this and you WILL lose sales.

The problem is, every affiliate is automatically issued their own affiliate link via the system. And that link goes to one Website page and one page only.

So what do you do when you want your affiliates to send prospects directly to a specific page for a new product, service or event (Or when you want to promote a new product as an affiliate, but you only have the one link)?

You could set up separate affiliate programs for each item. But that’s a huge pain on your side. Plus then affiliates have to sign up to promote each one. Uggh.

Instead, here’s a cool little trick to customize affiliate links I learned years ago from my VA Erin Blaskie…

All you need to do is add this little piece to the end of the affiliate link (be sure to include the landing page URL): &u=www.URLHERE.com

So let’s say the generic affiliate link is:

http://www.myshoppingcart.com/app/?af=651317

But you want the link used to promote your new book, “Buy It Now” from buyitnow.com. In that case you simply copy and paste &u=www.buyitnow.com to the end of the affiliate link like so.

http://www.shoppingcart.com/app/?af=651317&u=www.buyitnow.com

Make sure there are no spaces between the original link and the bit you just added and it should work like a charm. Of course, be sure to test it before you use it yourself, and advise your affiliates to do the same. Then shorten it using a service like bit.ly or tinyurl.com for ease of use.

Simple. Effective. And sure to increase your affiliate-based sales.

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What is Foursquare’s new “Save” button for and how does it work?

Foursquare’s new save button is meant for websites of businesses with physical locations (such as shops, restaurants, tourist activities, etc. ) in order to allow online users to add the location to their queue of places to visit next time they are in that geographic area. The idea is quite brilliant and I predict it will have the necessary kick to move Foursquare into bigger leagues sooner than later. This positive outlook for Foursquare is greatly improved from my impression of the service (which I was an early adopter of) over the past while; which has been lackluster at best since Facebook and Google launched similar check-in services.

A quick sideline: what is Foursquare? You would be easily forgiven for not knowing much if anything about this company because it has largely been an app-driven service for smartphones. Here is a bit of background from their About Page:

Foursquare is a location-based mobile platform that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. By “checking in” via a smartphone app or SMS, users share their location with friends while collecting points and virtual badges. Foursquare guides real-world experiences by allowing users to bookmark information about venues that they want to visit and surfacing relevant suggestions about nearby venues. Merchants and brands leverage the foursquare platform by utilizing a wide set of tools to obtain, engage, and retain customers and audiences.

What is the advantage of the Foursquare Save button for businesses?

Foursquare explains this best in their news release:

When readers use the ‘save to foursquare’ button, the saved places will show up in their foursquare app with your branding, along with a link back to the original article on your site. Find out how to add the button to your site here.

In addition to this, consider that Foursquare’s button is the perfect compliment for your physical business if it tends to convert visitors to customers better in-person because it will increase the likelihood your physical location will get visits from those who found your business online. Taking this a step further, in my opinion Foursquare is setting itself up nicely as the social media leader of converting online traffic into offline business which means this button will be a MUST for all bricks & mortar establishments with an online presence.

Here is an example of the button on a profile shown on New York Magazine’s website:

This is a 12 second clip showing the button in action (I have no idea why Foursquare didn’t jazz this up a bit):

Here are some sites who already have the Foursquare button in-place: Time Out Boston, CBS’s list of “The Best Burgers in New York”,  Frommer’s Travel.