Which Came First, the Business or the List?

by Jason on March 9, 2010

Here’s a question for you:
Do you need a list to have a business or do you need a business to get a list?
Which comes first?

Do you want subscribers first?
Do you want customers first?
Do you need subscribers to get customers?

I don’t believe the “money’s in the list” stuff. I think the money is in the relationship [...]

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Social Media’s Hidden Opportunity for Direct Response Businesses

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by Jason on March 8, 2010

At first I thought “social media” was a bunch of fluff.
I’m one of those people who doesn’t have much need for or interest in small talk.
And a lot of social media chatter is small talk. Or whatever is smaller than small talk, if there is such a thing.
Nothing important, nothing urgent, just talking… [...]

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How Much ARE You Worth Anyway?

March 5, 2010

Chris Brogan set off a bit of a comment firestorm the other day when he inadvertently revealed how much he charges clients for a day of his time.
I thought it was really interesting to read the comments and see how people reacted to the 5 figure number.
Apparently, a lot of people had something to say [...]

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Indirect Response Marketing: Will Somebody Please Call Claude Hopkins?

March 4, 2010

Buy now.
Order now.
Sign-up now.
Register now.
I threw in the yellow highlighting just for fun… it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to remember the good ol’ days of internet copywriting.)
The words above are the basic goal of many of the marketing books I’ve read since my business information addiction began back in 2002.
The focus?
Direct response marketing… [...]

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10 Lessons Learned from Running the SAME Online Business for 7 Years

March 3, 2010

Yesterday, my wife and I were working on a new product for a business we run and realized it’s been 8 years since we started it from our little apartment in NYC.
The first year or so, we were an offline operation. So there were paper invoices and checks in the mail. That’s how things [...]

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Will Selling With Video Hurt Your Future Sales?

March 2, 2010
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There’s a lot of hype right now about how the future of selling stuff online is to use VIDEO.
I’m not so sure. Here’s the big problem:
VIDEO in Its Current State is Pretty Much Linear
It has a timeline that needs to be followed for a complete message to get delivered.
Duh, right? It’s just like [...]

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What’s So Great About FREE Shipping?

March 1, 2010

I just ended a small “free shipping” sale in a niche business I help run.
I took the 22 qualifying orders that came in during the promotion (I excluded orders where they didn’t use the coupon or ordered something electronic) and did some quick math.
The average order value was $61.95.
Now if you add our normal shipping [...]

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The Art of Listening

February 26, 2010

The other day in my post about the Future of Information Marketing, one of the commenters asked about some practical applications of how this idea (the one where you treat people like people) could look in reality.
Here’s one idea:
It’s a simple skill called LISTENING.
For some reason, one of the most satisfying things is to BE [...]

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My #1 Recommendation for Boosting the Response of Your Salesletter

February 25, 2010

My #1 recommendation for boosting the response of your salesletter is to sell something worth buying.
Which means not selling “junk.”
That’s not a new idea.
And sorry if you were expecting a copywriting “secret” or something.
But in my experience, it’s easier to sell stuff that’s worth buying.
Because you don’t really have to “sell.” You mainly have to [...]

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Cancellation Hell

February 24, 2010

I just spent the last few minutes of my life trying to cancel an online service I don’t really want to use anymore.
I used the site’s online chat feature to attempt this.
My request was pretty simple:
“I need to cancel my account. The service is great, but I don’t use it. Please let me [...]

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