We were going over her autoresponder series – a week-long series of lessons on selling real estate in this down economy – and we were talking about the words she was using in her text.

What I liked about what she had written was that the language was casual and “real” sounding, rather than the artificial, overly formal “corporate” style that most people end up writing their first time around.

In other words, she’d write things like “Do you remember back in the ‘good old days’ of real estate — just a couple of years ago — when all you had to do was list a home, and you’d get 5 offers to buy it? Well here’s how to go back in time as soon as tomorrow.”

That’s refreshing to read, and much better than

“Circa 2007, the real estate market was growing at a momentous clip, and offers followed rapidly behind the posting of a home on the multiple listing services. Since that time, the industry has entered into a precipitous decline, as housing inventory nationwide has ballooned, while the number of buyers has plummeted. What follows is a solution to that problem.”

See what I mean?

One draws you in, and quickly absorbs you into a real conversation. You forget you’re reading and instead enter into some sort of a trance as you follow the story and become involved. (Yes, even in just two lines of text!)

The other just puts you off, makes you conscious that you’re reading something, spending your time, and prevents you from any emotional connection at all with the text.

I suppose that the more formal kind of text might work if you were writing technical papers or clinical studies for an industry publication, but it just doesn’t work when you are writing your website, your blog posts, your product literature, your autoresponders or your advertisements.

And just about everything you do for your online business is “writing” on some level or another.

So how do you know what to write, or how to write it?

Well, that all comes back to this month’s topic in the Coaching Club — Knowing Your Customer.

Here are some things to think about, with regards to your target prospect, when writing for your business.

* Are your prospects expert or novice with this topic?
* Are they trying to prevent a problem or are they trying to solve a problem?
* Are they at the beginning of their search or near the end?
* Are they just researching or ready to buy?
* What are their beliefs about the topic?

How do you know ANY of these things?

Well, you’d know them automatically, once you knew who your customer was. For example, let’s talk about my client’s target market: real estate agents, looking for buyers.

* Are they experts with real estate? Yes. But they care more about selling a house today in their neighborhood, rather than about real estate statistics nationwide.

* Are they trying to prevent or solve a problem? Clearly, they want to solve the problem of “houses are hard to sell these days.” What they want is to find more people to sell houses to — since there are plenty of houses available to sell at the moment.

* Are they at the beginning of their search or at the end? They’ve probably been looking for a solution to this problem for a year or two. Chances are, they are disillusioned and depressed because nothing they’ve done recently — lawn signs, networking, open houses, newspaper ads — is working any more. What they want is something new, that will work TODAY.

* Are they just researching or ready to buy? I bet that once someone hears what this client is offering, they’d instantly understand why it works, and would sign up in an instant.

* What are her target’s beliefs about the topic? Well, they probably think that real estate used to be easy to sell, because it really was true that all they had to do was put a house up for sale and they’d get a half dozen offers that day, or soon after. It was THAT easy. And they all wish it were easy like that again.

This last point is truly critical, and a point not made often enough.

It’s very hard to change someone’s beliefs. Changing your beliefs means that you’ve got to admit that you were wrong about your belief in the past — and no one likes to admit they were wrong.

So if you can write your advertisements and marketing materials to agree with your customer’s core beliefs, you are more likely to get him to agree with the rest of what you are saying.

That’s why telling a story about the good old days — a time that ALL real estate agents wish they could go back to — is so powerful. Because it taps into the deepest, most basic desires of her customers.

You should do the same.

So how did my client know what her own target prospect believes?

She got to know her prospect.

You should do the same.

If you haven’t yet read “Prospect Xray”, go download your copy now. It’s in the Coaching Club, waiting for you.

If you’re not yet a member of the club, then join the coaching club now. You’ll get this month’s content, plus dozens of other valuable marketing downloads, ebooks, webinars and other information.

To Your Success,

–Mark Widawer

If that strikes you as a good question, then I’ve got news for you.

It’s the worst question.

And that’s because it means that the woman who asked it was starting her online business the wrong way.

I’ve said this several times in lots of different ways, but it bears repeating so long as we keep getting new members in the club, and some of the older members haven’t gotten this message yet.

The right way to set up your online business is:

* Decide who you want to serve.

* Figure out what they want.

* Give it to them.

It’s that simple.

But far too many people start their business some other way. First, they create or discover some product, then ask “how can I sell this?”

Or they set up a website that sells everything from Toothpicks to Televisions, and then ask “How do I get people to come to my site?”

In one of Dan Kennedy’s brilliant “No B.S.” books, he talks about hunters.

Hunters decide what kind of critter they want to catch, then learns what kind of food that kind of critter likes to eat, and then uses that food as bait to catch the critter.

Wow. Seems pretty logical, doesn’t it?

I mean, how many other ways would you go about catching critters?

Would you start by getting some random bait and see what kind of critter it attracts?

I wouldn’t think so.

You could go for days or weeks, only to discover that there aren’t many critters that like brussels sprouts. You’d go hungry fast, and finally resort to eating the sprouts yourself.

So why would you start your business that way?

Well, successful people don’t.

Successful people do this:

* Decide who you want to serve.

* Figure out what they want.

* Give it to them.

I’ve repeated the steps again so that it gets into your head.

So that’s why, this month in the coaching club, we’re focusing on those steps. We’ll be focusing on the Prospect X-Ray ebook that’s available now in the Coaching Club. Get it. Read it, and truly discover who your prospect is, and what he wants to buy from you.

We’re also going to be going deeper in this these three steps this Thursday in our webinar. I’m going to talk you through these steps, and help you really understand who your customer is, and what they want to buy.

If you can truly figure this out, then everything else about your online business gets pretty darn easy.

You’ll know what product to sell, what to call it, how to market it, who you’re marketing it to, and just about everything else.

It kinda all falls into place.

Oh, and it doesn’t matter if you’re thinking that your ideal online business is as an affiliate, as a blogger, or an ebook author.

These first steps are the same for everybody.

* Decide who you want to serve.

* Figure out what they want.

* Give it to them.

To Your Success,

–Mark Widawer, Kaycee Edenfield, The Coaching Club

kaycee@trafficswarm.com
303-895-3575
http://mmc.trafficswarm.com

Like me, you might spend most of your day squinting at a computer screen, so I find it is great to break things up a bit and relax. This eBook turned out to be just the ticket. I like to read as much as I can about the online marketing space, because you can never know enough. And frankly I’m still just learning and can never get enough!

It doesn’t happen often, but you know when you read a book that’s so good you want to share it with all your friends? This was one of them! It is called “The Triumph of the Stupid”. With a title like that it just begs you to read it! I read it in only 15 minutes and I immediately shared it with everyone in our office.

Then I thought since I am already sharing this with my co-workers, why not share it with you? We can never do enough for our TrafficSwarm Pro members. It sells for thirty bucks, but I’m sending it to you for nothing just because you are one of our valued Pro members.

Go ahead, give “The Triumph of the Stupid” a look - it’s yours to keep, no catch, just a ‘thanks’ for continuing to be a TrafficSwarm Pro member.

If you are already a Pro member, shoot me an email to get your FREE ebook

If not, join Pro today and send me an email for your FREE Ebook
www.trafficswarm.com

Enjoy!
Kaycee
TrafficSwarm Member Services
303-895-3575

Kaycee@trafficswarm.com

P.S. If you like the content, the author is Mark Widawer, the main coach for our Coaching program. I’m setting up some special pricing exclusively for Pro members to join the Club, so drop me a note or give me a call and I’ll tell you all about that.

After all, it’s a critical part of online marketing.

But that’s not a catchy title. It’s down-right boring, unless you already understand the idea, and why it’s so incredibly important to your own personal success online.

“Knowing your Customer” is factually correct, but it doesn’t tell you anything at all about why you’d care. There’s no benefit in that title. No reason why. No attraction. No urgency.

No movement.

So we worked hard to find some other title for this month’s Coaching Club that would instantly appeal to someone like you. We wanted a title that would laser target itself into your brain so that your immediate response was “That’s for ME! I need that!”

The important thing about knowing your customer should be obvious, but it isn’t to many people. Especially new internet marketers.

Many new marketers think that there’s a river of gold online, and all they need to do is buy a pan and dip it into the river to get their share.

It’s not that way.

Internet Marketing is more like an ocean.

Lotsa fish. Lotsa people trying to catch those fish. Most of them using the wrong bait.

(You’ve heard me talk about stuff like this before.)

Its your job to use the right bait.

And the only way to use the right bait is to know about the fish you want to catch. Are they bottom feeders or top feeders? What kinds of little critters do they eat? What time of day do they feed? Do they lie in wait or do they go searching for their food?

So how does that translate to real live people shopping online?

Well, you’ve got to know who they are and what situation they’re in.

Are they in pain or are they looking for fun?
Do they need something or do they want something?
Do they know much about what they are buying or are they generally uneducated about the topic?
Is it a quick, impulsive kind of sale or is the sales cycle longer?

There are potentially hundreds of questions you could ask, and the answer to each one of them gets you closer to understanding who your customers are, what they need, and what would get them to buy from you.

And if you really do know your customer, you’ll instantly know what it is they want to buy, are eager to buy, and starving to buy.

So, we’re calling this month’s Coaching Club theme “How to Connect With Your Customer So That His Wallet Will Follow”.

Does that sound like something you want to know? Are you thinking to yourself “Yes! That’s for ME!”???

It should, if you are at all interested in being successful with your online business.

So log into the coaching club now, if you’re a member, and get Prospect Xray, my ebook all about knowing your customer. Err….I should say that it’s my ebook about Connecting to your customer so that his wallet will follow.

And make sure you attend this weeks’ webinar, where I’ll take you, step by step, through the process of knowing your customer, connecting with him, understanding why he’d want to buy from you, and getting him to pull out his wallet and give you what’s inside.

If you’re not yet a member of the Coaching Club, what are you waiting for? You can sign up for as little as a dollar, and get Prospect Xray, attend the webinar, and have access to all of the other Internet Marketing content in the club.

Members, go here: http://mmc.trafficswarm.com/members

To sign up, go here: http://mmc.traffficswarm.com/

To Your Success,

-Mark Widawer

This time the webinar is at a different time, actually we had to reschedule many times

We are going live at 4pm Pacific, (7 EDT).

All you have to do is show up, learn all about Wordpress, ask your questions, and get one on one coaching from your Coach Mark Widawer.

Pretty Easy right?

If you haven’t already, go ahead and register now at the Coaching homepage

Here is your link to do so http://mmc.trafficswarm.com/members

Now…I know that not everyone can always make it to the live webinars, but remember if you cannot make it, I can always ask your questions for you.

I’m here for you to get the most out of your coaching. Just let me know your thoughts, ideas, and questions.

It’s easy, either fill out the question box on your member’s homepage within the Coaching Club or shoot me an email at kaycee@trafficswarm.com

Heck, you can even call me directly at 303-895-3575

I want to encourage you to be involved and get the most out of your coaching…that is why you signed up right? To learn and succeed online?

Plus, look at last week’s winners. They participated, got personal coaching, and recieved 1000 Trafficswarm visitors?!

Way to go Cheryl, Belinda, and Bogdan! Keep up the good work!

See you on the call today, Thursday at 4 pm PDT, 7pm EDT?

Once again here’s your link to the Coaching Club homepage: http://mmc.trafficswarm.com/members

Talk to you soon!

-Kaycee

Your Coaching Club Team,
Kaycee and Karla
http://mmc.trafficswarm.com
303-895-3575

I was going over all of the new and existing Trafficswarm members that have upgraded to a Pro membership recently…

To be honest, there are very few members that have choosen to upgrade…

And well this really got me thinking? I mean, I know how valuable a Pro membership can be. I know what 2500 extra credits can mean to anyone who owns a website or is simply trying to earn an income online.

So, John maybe the problem is… I haven’t done a good enough job of showing the value of a Pro membership to you.

Well…

I asked my Boss if I could give a Pro membership to every Trafficswarm member for Free, because I know that if I could just show you the Value in a Pro membership first hand you could see what it could do for your business.

Unfortunately for you and I, (not for a lack of trying!) I couldn’t quite convince my Boss to give away a Pro membership valued at $40+ to every one of our 400,000+ Free members.

But…

I did convince him to do something else!

He agreed to give a $25.00 Gift Card to Restaurant.com to every member who upgrades to a Pro membership by the end of the month!

So, John if you upgrade to a Pro membership by October 31st not only will you receive 2500 credits instantly, double the credits for surfing, and receive all of the other great benefits of a Pro member. You will also receive a $25.00 gift card to the restaurant of your choice.

So become a pro, let your business grow… and have dinner on us

Click Here to Upgrade to Pro Today and receive your $25.00 Gift Card
http://www.trafficswarm.com/adm/c.cgi?trafficswarm&procard

Warm Regards,

Karla W.

TrafficSwarm Support
www.trafficswarm.com

P.S. After you have upgraded to Pro you will receive your $25.00 Gift card by email within 24 hours. So make sure we have an updated email address for you. And if for any reason you don’t get it feel free to contact me directly at karla@trafficswarm.com .

There’s no simpler way to put up a website, put up some content, and get some organic traffic, than with a blog.

This month in the coaching club, we’ve been talking about Blogs and Blogging. And this week, as we finish up the topic, we’re diving deeper during this weeks’ webinar.

We’re going to show you the inside of a blog, how to write a post, how to install a theme, how to install a plugin, and other things that bloggers need to know how to do.

Plus, we’ll be answering your questions, live on the call.

This week we are changing up the time a bit too. The webinar will still be on Thursday, yet we will be live at 5p.m. Pacific (8EDT).

Go ahead and register on your member’s homepage if you haven’t already and mark your calendar:
http://mmc.trafficswarm.com

To your Success

Mark Widawer, Kaycee Edenfield
The Coaching Club

kaycee@trafficswarm.com
303-895-3575

What a shame.

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to get started in internet marketing. You don’t need a product of your own, carry no inventory, and get paid half the money, more or less.

So why do some affiliates fail?

Well not all products are good products, and not all marketing is good marketing. In other words, maybe the product you’re promoting wouldn’t sell to anyone, no matter how much traffic you sent to it.

But it’s entirely possible that a nearly identical product might sell like CRAZY.

So your job as an affiliate is to start out by selecting more than one product to promote. Make them similar products — nearly identical if possible.

For example, there are dozens of “how to play golf” ebooks you can promote as an affiliate. Some make tens of thousands of dollars a day. Some make none.

So your job, as an affiliate, is first to do a little investigation. Many people seem to think they should avoid promoting products that have a lot of affiliate competition. But that’s the wrong attitude. The best products to promote are the ones that sell best, and the ones that sell best are the ones that everyone is promoting.

See how that works?

So pick two high-selling products in the same or similar field. Then watch carefully to see which one is making the most sales, and earning you the most money.

Continue promoting whichever one sells the best for you, and then abandon the one that lost the test.

And if you’re really interested in the fast track to more success, repeat the process. Go find a third offer to promote. Put that one up against the prior winner.

And then repeat the process until you just can’t handle all the money you’re making.

To Your Success,

–Mark Widawer

I’m sure you might think that a blog will cost you money. You might think that setting up a blog is expensive. But you probably didn’t think a blog can save you money.

Well, however strange it might be, it turns out that your blog CAN save you money.

Here’s how.

One of the most effective ways to advertise is through Google’s Adwords program. Back in the ‘old days’ when Adwords was new, there were a lot of people advertising some very low quality websites on Google.

And Google cares about how their users are treated.

So they came up with a set of new rules that related the price they would charge per click to the quality of the website that you were sending the traffic to.

So, if a website was “low quality,” you’d pay more to advertise it. If it was a high quality site, you’d pay less.

So what’s a high quality site?

High quality sites are usually good resources for their topic, which means that they’re relatively large. They’ve got pages and pages of content related to their topic. It’s also important that Google should be able to figure out pretty easily what the site is about, which means that pages are linked together with meaningful, related keywords.

Hmm…Let’s review that. Lots of good content linked together with good SEO practice. Hey, that sounds like a blog!

And it’s no coincidence.

Good blog systems, like Wordpress, are designed to make it easy to build high quality sites. As a result, they automatically do a lot of things that high quality sites would want done. All you need to do is add your content.

And when you do, and you start sending your Google traffic to your blog, you’ll see your cost per click tumble.

A lot.

So clicks that used to cost you 25 cents might start costing you 20 cents. And then 17. Then maybe 12, and then…well, who knows how low it might go.

I do know that clicks to a high quality site can cost as little as 10% the price of the clicks you’ll send to a low quality site.

And that’s not something you should ignore.

Blogs can help your business in all sorts of magical ways. Isn’t it time you had one, too?

This month, the Coaching Club is all about blogs and blogging. We’ve got tons of resources for setting blogs up, updating them, and even monetizing them.

If you’re a member, log in to the Coaching Club now. http://mmc.trafficswarm.com/

To Your Success,

–Mark Widawer

There’s lots of ways to make money on your blog. Here are just a few.

* Links to your sales pages. Blogs are a great way to attract traffic, and then send that traffic to the pages that make you money.
* Google Adsense. Google’s advertising program is a great hands-off, automatic way to make money on your website.
* Affiliate Ads. Go find products in the same field as your blog’s topic. Download the banner ad the merchant will provide to you, or make your own. Add your affiliate link, and you’re done.
* Sell banner ads. Yes, banner ads are still alive and well on the web. You’ve got to have a lot of traffic for anyone to bother to pay for ads on your site.
* Paid Links. These are basically text-versions of banner ads. People will pay you for a link on your site to their site.
* Text link ads. There are several ad companies that will turn some of the text on your pages into text links. Advertisers pay for the link to the ad companies (like Chitika and Kontera), and the ad companies share that revenue with you. Neat. Effortless.

Okay, so there are a lot of ways to make money with blogs.

But when you’re just starting out, it’s best to leave your blog ad-free. Don’t be in a hurry to put Adsense and affiliate links on your blog from the beginning. At the very start, concentrate on getting into a regular rhythm of writing on your blog, moderating your comments, and building your traffic.

If you start out with one article, and 10 ads, the few new visitors that you’ll get probably won’t stay very long — or come back for more.

Of course, there’s lots more in this month’s Coaching Club about building your blog, driving traffic, and monetizing your blog.

Log in now to see it all, or attend this month’s webinars and open coaching calls each and every Thursday at Noon PDT, 3pm EDT.

http://mmc.trafficswarm.com

To Your Success,

–Mark