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What’s With All The French Toast?

In the lead up to the most recent nor’easter, our local Walmart showed signs of the typical rush for last minute supplies and I was reminded that the most raided shelves lead to one thing…

French Toast

I didn’t take notice of a run on vanilla or brown sugar, but what it comes down to is a seasonal mania for a glorious breakfast. Since I brought it up, let’s go over the basics:

Okay, now I’m hungry for french toast. Hopefully, we’ll get another warning for  ❆ Snowmageddon ❆   so I can go sack the grocery aisles and get my fair share of this marvelous breakfast treat.

Tools of the Trade

From what I’ve seen, an online business can be boiled down to these four key elements:

♥ Content ♥

This is the heart of your business. Without some form of knowledge, you’ve got nothing to offer. You need to start with a market such as health, wealth, relationships or interests. Once you’ve picked a market that suits you, it’s time to “drill, baby drill“. Drill down into niches, sub-niches and specialty sub-niches. Don’t do “weight loss”. Do:

lose weight to fit in your ideal wedding dress
quick fitness routines for middle-aged businessmen
reverse aging with lifestyle choices for retired couples

Don’t do “make money”. Do:

getting out of debt quickly for cash-strapped millenials
investment strategies for new parents
maximizing your retirement funds for empty-nesters

Don’t do “find your soulmate”. Do:

survive your first year of an arranged marriage
restore your relationship with estranged adult children
safe dating tips for international travelers

Don’t do “improve your golf game”. Do:

organic indoor gardening for small apartment dwellers
learn Latin and Greek for ancient history buffs
origami napkin folding for event planners and caterers

The real power rests in being very specific. When you have addressed a need that quite a few people have, you will find that there are aspects of that sub-sub-niche that you didn’t cover. That will give you plenty of opportunity to address related concerns.

♠ Tech ♠

Technological needs are pretty basic. You will need:

A Domain Name

Part of being in an online business is having an easily remembered site name. Anybody can go to ChristmasAllTheTime.com or PioneerSkillSet.com pretty directly if you tell them to go to Christmas All The Time or Pioneer Skill Set. What’s not so easy is going to one of these web services with the long convoluted names that even you probably won’t remember or be able to pronounce in such a way that anyone would be able to really find the thing. If you’re going to be in business, you’re going to need to own it. The first step is picking your domain name. I’ve bought all of my domain names from GoDaddy so far and I’ve never had a problem.

Hosting

Yes, there are free sites like Weebly, Wix and Blogspot, but these sites often have strings attached regarding what you can say or promote. When you own the hosting, you’ve got a lot more flexibility and control. There won’t be any rude surprises when your site suddenly vanishes because you’ve inadvertently broken the terms of service. In addition to this, there’s the fact that self-hosted environments usually come with a lot more controls available. I’ve been using HostGator for several years and the cPanel environment gives me a lot of tools that you just won’t find on a free web builder.

Content Creation Software

You’re going to need a variety of formats for the content you create. You’ll need WordPress on your website. You’ll need some form of Office software to create documents and slideshows. You’ll need some graphics software to create images for Pinterest pins, infographics, e-covers for books and reports, memes for social media and so forth. You’ll need audio capture and editing software to create podcasts. You’ll need video editing software to create presentations for your site or your YouTube, Vimeo or Daily Motion channel. The more formats you can produce your content in, the wider it will be able to be shared.

Autoresponder

An autoresponder is a web service that allows you to queue up a sequence of emails in order to keep in touch with people who are interested in what you’re offering. They have lead capture mechanisms, tracking statistics, automation features and training available from the support staff. I’ve been using AWeber for years and they’ve been taking really large steps toward seriously sophisticated automation in the last year or two.

♦ Conversions ♦

This is one of those skills you’re going to have to learn on the go. Certainly, there are a number of very talented copy writers out there who can whip you up a high-converting sales page, autoresponder sequence and so forth. With skill comes cost. Talented people can afford to charge what they will. Most of us don’t have a lot of money for hiring out sales copy when we’re just getting started. Here are some acronyms to get you started:

AIDA

This acronym stands for Attention-Interest-Desire-Action, which are the key steps that any sales process needs to take the prospective buyer through in order to seal the deal. You gain the subject’s attention with a catchy headline that addresses a core need. Not only should it draw in relevant prospective buyers, but it should repel people for whom it does not apply. For instance:

ATTENTION!!! Are you old and bald and fat? Regain your youthful vigor!

A headline like that is clearly NOT going to appeal to someone who is young, well-coiffed and lean. It will probably chase away the ladies, too. However, some percentage of fat, old bald guys are going to scroll down to see what’s going on. Once you have your intended prospect’s attention, you need to interest them in your solution to the proposed problem. In the example above, they’re going to want to know how you plan to restore their youthful vigor. As you go through the body of your sales copy or the extent of your sales video, you’re going to try to keep dragging them down the rabbit hole with you. You need to keep their attention and convert their interest into an actual desire for the solution to their problems. Well, you can’t really cure oldness, but you can get them to believe that by living a healthier lifestyle, they won’t feel old anymore. If they’re living healthier, they’ll probably stop being fat at some point. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. If you’ve got a legitimate cure for baldness, you’ve hit the trifecta and you’d probably get me clicking the buy button. That’s the intended result. You’ve got some action at the end of the process that you want them to take. If they’re actually among your target audience AND you’ve sold them on the idea that they can have the results you’ve promised then you need to get them to do something. Subscribe to your email newsletter. Buy your book. Buy your CD or DVD. Subscribe to your membership site. Whatever it is, there’s an action at the end of the line and you need to have them waiting with baited breath for the opportunity to slap that buy button or throw their email address into that subcription box.

WIIFM

This is a very key question that your prospects are going to be asking as they go through your AIDA sequence: What’s In It For Me? They’re going to use that as the yard stick for each and every step of your sales copy. When you lose their attention or hit on things they don’t feel they need, the action they’re going to take is to close the tab. That’s not entirely a bad thing. If you’re offering a solution to organic gardeners for growing succulent tomatoes in rocky soil, I’m out because I’m not a gardener of any kind. I count on my friendly neighborhood farm stands and grocery stores for my succulent tomatoes, thank you just the same. What’s in it for me is succulent tomatoes. I don’t care how they get there, so tips on growing them organically in rocky soil is a non-starter. I’m not even going to scroll down past the first paragraph. You, however, might be in rather desperate need of this info. As such, you’re going to keep on scrolling until they have either convinced you that they have the holy grail of tomato growth or until your BS-ometer spikes and you close the page.

FBA

In the case of copywriting, this stands for Feature + Benefit = Advantage. This is crucial when you’re laying out bullet points of why they should desire your solution. Truth be told, nobody wants a grill. Grills are dirty and smoky. You’ve got to scrub them off with a wire brush. You’re making a hell of a mess just for a batch of burgers or brats. Who the heck wants all that aggravation? No, what you want is a juicy, delicious hamburger with those snazzy little char lines on them or a sizzling bratwurst to top with kraut and pepper. What you want is a backyard picnic with the wife and kids. What you want is to be the grill god who bestows mouth-watering steaks and tangy BBQ’d chicken breasts to admiring throngs of friends and relatives during summer get-togethers. By taking the Feature + Benefit = Advantage route, you’re giving them the basic details (Grill) and explaining the benefit of having that feature (Quick, Easy Cooking) that gives them the advantage that they’re really looking for (Party, Dinner, Admiration of the Guests).

EPC

This one is Earnings Per Click and it’s not so much a component of your sales copy as it is a measure of the effectiveness of your sales copy. The EPC is determined by dividing the gross earnings by the number of clicks your offer has had. The clicks in question are only people who have been to your page, not the buyers. If your product is $20 and you’ve sold $200 worth (that’s ten sales) but it took 1000 visitors to get those 10 paying customers, then your earnings are only 20¢ per click. Granted, that’s $200 that you didn’t have before but 20¢ EPCs will not wow potential affiliates. If you’re doing all the selling yourself, that’s not a concern but even so you’re likely buying ads instead. If you’re only making 20¢ for each person who clicks to your site (in aggregate that is, not an actual payment of twenty cents from each visitor I mean it’s not a gumball machine or a toll booth) then it’s going to be darned near impossible to afford an ad that will get people to your site. You wouldn’t want to spend more than 10¢ per click on the ad if you want to maintain any kind of profit margin. Good luck getting 10¢/click ads in any niche. Ideally, you want at least $1/click in order to be able to afford most ad spends or to attract the attention of affiliate marketers.

♣ Traffic ♣

This is where the rubber meets the road (pun fully intended). What if you held a sale and nobody came? Just being online isn’t enough. You need to be found and you need to be found by people who are going to be interested in your offer and will have the funds to spend. There are a variety of avenues. I’ve already mentioned ads and affiliates. If you don’t know what an affiliate is, it’s traffic that pays for itself. An affiliate is a person who will drive traffic to your offer for a cut of the proceeds. That sounds kind of like an ad, but the thing with an ad is that you’re paying whether you get buyers or not. You’re just paying for the opportunity to be seen. With an affiliate, you are offering a percentage (often 50% to 200%) of the sale to somebody but you don’t pay them until they actually deliver a buyer. How they get the traffic to your offer is their own affair. If they’re experienced, they have established a variety of avenues and will probably be able to deliver a fair amount of buying traffic. Just the same, when they deliver a buyer they get the aforementioned percentage of the price of the offer after the fact. They are creating the money that pays their commission. If they don’t deliver any buyers, you aren’t paying them a penny. You’re not making a penny, either but at least you’re not paying for an ad that costs plenty but delivers nothing.

Freedom

A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom. ~Bob Dylan

This is another factor that figures into the creation of an information marketing business is the freedom of being your own boss. Along with that, naturally, comes the responsibility to be a hero to your audience. Whatever category you’ve selected has needs. Those needs are related to the people who are interested in the solution to the issues of the niche in question.

The heroism in question comes from being the person who researches and produces the solutions needed. Be that hero. Figure out what it is that you’re either an expert in or willing to gain expertise in so that you can help people who are searching for an answer to their problem.

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Just as you need a bowl, whisk, spatula and frying pan to make French Toast, you need to have the four key elements (♥, ♠, ♦, ♣) to an information marketing business that I listed above. When you have all the tools and the correct ingredients to your niche’s needs, you’ll be able to serve up a beautiful solution to their problems and they’ll pay handsomely for it.