Mentor
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Business Building for Professionals....
Coaches, Consultants, Speakers & Trainers
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#28: Online Money Systems Explained- Part 1
David Wood, PCC
Contents 1. Announcements/Offers |
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1. Announcements/Offers
Inside My Shopping Cart Revealed - Free Video Download
It's one thing to hear about this whole system. But what's it like to drive it?
I've created a special video showing you the inner workings of my entire ecommerce system. You'll see the individual control panels, along with my explanation of what each screen is for. (In fact I'm using the System to send this to you, so you'll get a feel for how the customised forms work.) At the moment I'm happy to give it away. (Note: I'm still doing the finishing touches, but use this link, and you'll get it as soon as it's released)
Confused about the best coaching school for you?
Our School Chooser Wizard system matches your training requirements with schools in our database with which we have negotiated training specials, and sends you your Best-Fit School.
Visit us here: http://www.becomeacoach.com/freedownload.htm
2. FEATURE: Online Money Systems Explained - Part 1
Welcome to my personal note about the e-commerce system I have found to stand out from every other system I have seen.
I started selling my first product online in August 2002. In just 18 months I was thrilled and proud to have over $144,000 a year rolling in. And my mailing list of 8,000 was up to 25,000. How great is the internet?
But when I started, I found it really confusing to pick an e-commerce system. In fact, I didn't even know I was looking for an e-commerce system! I just wanted a shopping cart - without realising how the entire package fits together.
I'm a self-taught nerd when it comes to the web and programming, so I really investigated this stuff when I got started. And seriously - in the end it was such an easy decision; once you really understand all the features, the company I went with does seem to stand head and shoulders above the rest. (At least if you want to sell more than say $1,000 a month).
The Shopping Cart Itself
Frankly, I don't care too much about the actual cart. To me they are all very similar - what really makes a difference are the database and marketing features which I'll discuss below.
Still, I was really happy to find this cart has advanced features like:
a) 'Creating Offers' by bundling products together
b) Creating Timed and Limited Number discounts
(More? You can see how the cart works for one of my 'bundled' offers here.)
Merchant Facility
Boy did I get headaches when I was first researching this. The short version is you can use any merchant you want with the Professional Cart Solutions system. But I suggest you try out their sister company Practice Pay Solutions if you are in North America. They are just about the cheapest rates I've found, and they use Authorize.net; without getting too technical, it means you can do cool things like accept echecks, and handle recurring billing.
If you're outside North America you'll need to shop around, as PPS won't offer you the same rates. (I know!). But once you choose your merchant account (and online gateway), then you come back and choose your shopping cart and backend software.
Don't let it mess your head up too much though.
Autoresponders
If you don't already know, you'll soon learn that online marketing means automated. The biggest bonus of being online is you can follow up repeatedly with your customers, over say a year, while you are asleep!
Let's start with one-off emails. They fill in your form, and an autoresponder (AR) sends them an information pack. Or the first issue of your newsletter. They buy a product and the AR sends download instructions.
But why stop at one email? If you request the free video download here, I'll use an AR to send your access instructions for the pictures. I'll then follow up in a few days to see if there are any other questions I can help with. If I could think of something else useful - I might send that a couple of weeks down the track with my compliments (all with unsubscribe links at the bottom of course).
Just imagine following up with 1,000 customers, in an automated, targeted fashion for the next 12 months. That could be 12,000 emails arriving at just the right time, without you even thinking about it!
Professional Cart Solutions allows you to set up unlimited autoresponders. Further, you can say 'When they subscribe to the AR for purchasing Product A, then UN-SUBSCRIBE them from the AR that encourages them to purchase Product A'. Very powerful.
Custom Forms
This is critical. Professional Cart Solutions allows you to create your own forms which talk to its database. Not a programmer? Then your web designer can do it for you. You get to decide what fields appear on the form, what AR's to subscribe them to (5 separate ones if it's appropriate and in context - e.g. see www.solutionbox.com/freedownload.htm where they can select several different options) and how it looks.
I've created about 10 custom forms to take in the data I need from a prospect or customer, and then send it all over to Professional Cart Solutions. Example? Just see the form above for a quick example. You MUST have this feature in an e-commerce system.
Mailing Lists/Ezines/Broadcasting
The main plus with this system, is you can use merge fields. So instead
of 'Dear friend, we have a special for all countries, you can write:
"Dear <$firstname$>,
Because you are in <$country$> we can offer....
We have your work number listed as <$workphone$>, is this correct?"
Starting to get the idea? It's a very powerful broadcasting system.
Another plus is a coded 'remove link' at the bottom of each email, so YOU don't have to do it. Never again will you have someone ask to unsubscribe, but not be able to work out which email address you sent it to.
Ad Tracking
I didn't even know about this when I signed up - it was a complete surprise and a big bonus. Say you have a Google ad that costs 40 cents per click that reads "Your Next Career", and another ad that costs 80 cents per click and reads "Executive Career Coaching".
Which ad is making you money? Both? Neither? Which is best?
There's practically no way to know unless you have ad tracking, which Professional Cart Solutions does. It tells you how many people clicked on each ad, how many signed up for your newsletter, how many purchased, and the VALUE PER CLICK! (Records all dollars sold for each ad, divides by number of clicks - in other words it's how many dollars you're bringing in for every click on that ad). So if Value Per Click for each of the ads above was 60 cents, you'd only keep the first one which only costs you 40 cents and gives you a profit of 20 cents for every click.
This is the only way to manage advertising; I'm constantly ditching ads and enhancing ads based on the hard numbers which show which are making a profit.
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And there are even more features to talk about in the next issue.
But, if you want to get started right away you can start your 30-day trial now.
Enjoy!
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David Wood is a Professional Life Coach, and author of the powerful Free Download: '50 Life Coaching Questions to Take Control of Your Life and Help Your Clients'. He helps coaches, consultants, speakers and trainers to build their businesses via his popular ebook: "10 Super Coaches Share Their Secrets" and his audio ebook: "Getting Your First 50 Clients". "David Wood is a personal and business coach, and an original founder of the International Coach Academy - a global coach training school" Copyright 2001-2004 Life Coaching Resource.com |
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