APD-Marketing Newsletter

Welcome to the May 2007 edition of the APD Marketing newsletter.

First of all I hope last month’s “kick ass” newsletter served its purpose and jolted you into action.

How much have you achieved since Aprils edition?

Another tough question, but…no more kicking backside this month, just a friendly reminder to get on and do something! After all, it is in your own interest…isn’t it?

As it happens, I’ve just put the fnishing touches to actually writing down my entire time management system. So, soon, very soon, I’m going to make my powerful time management system available for everyone. And…since I kicked my own rear end and re-implemented the system, things have been fying. It’s incredible how much I’ve got done.

Edit 2009, this system is now available as Total Control - learn how to control time and money. If you haven’t got it, go get it…it has changed lives!

Alison is just proofng the eBook at the moment, so as soon as it’s ready for release, I’ll let you know. This is a set of really powerful tools that will just sky rocket your effectiveness and ability to get things done. It will also massively increase your ability to develop new projects.

I know it blew Alison’s socks off and she has now implemented the system as well. She is absolutely amazed at what’s happened to her ability to just power through incredible amounts of work in a short space of time.

I’ve got some guinea pigs (in the nicest possible way) working the system right now. Once they report back with any minor tweaks or changes that may be needed, I’ll be putting it out on general release just as soon as I can.

Make sure you watch out for this, as it will really enhance your ability to move on to real wealth!

So, moving on. It is indeed story time this month.

I’ve been having an email exchange with a guy this last week or two. He’s young, enthusiastic and desperate to make his way in Internet Marketing, so we’ve been discussing a few issues this last couple of weeks.

By the way, I love it when people are so enthusiastic, it rubs off on you, doesn’t it?

Anyway, he said something that got me thinking. Basically, he’s decided, as he doesn’t have much seed capital, that he’s going to go the route of affiliate marketing.

My view? If you’re starting at the bottom with very little money, it’s a great way to get going and quickly get up to a six-fgure income (provided you get it right).

So, what did he say?

Simply this…” I’ve been told it’s all about making money not friends.”

I thought I’d mentioned this topic in passing last month. Things such as over delivery being the way to go and proper, quality service – but clearly the message didn’t get through.

It also made me think about an affliate program that I’m in. A program where orders have been outstanding for over a month and I can’t get a reply from the help desk that gives me any comfort.

Obviously I can’t tell you which program it is, but if you knew, I guarantee you would fall off of the chair you are reading this from. So, I thought I would give you the benefit of my wisdom on this touchy, feely subject this month.

You see, the Internet is an impersonal place. You can’t see the person you’re dealing with. You can’t see their offices or what they’re wearing. And, people are naturally suspicious, it’s the human condition – particularly when buying online.

So, I believe you have to offer exceptional service. Exceed people’s expectations.

If you do this, the viral word will spread in your favour. Fail in this or try to pull the wool over peoples eyes intentionally…and that viral word will become particularly virulent and attack you with gusto!

So, here are a few ideas that might just help you get this area right.
Look After Your Customers

It’s much easier to KEEP a customer than gain one. 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers (the Pareto rule for those that are interested). These are two key principles in your customer management.

Offer free stuff, special discounts, basically do whatever you need to in order to keep your customers, to keep them coming back.

Time Keeping

I mentioned above I can’t get an answer from a helpdesk on a key issue with one of my affliate programs. The bottom line is they have five BIG orders that they have just not delivered for over a month. Big-ticket items. All they will say is “they are out of stock”.

Having spent good money promoting them, I want to know when they are going to be in stock so I can turn what is a current loss into a profit. A fair question in my humble opinion!

However, I just cannot get an answer to the question that I have now sent them four times. They fudge the issue constantly. How would you feel in this situation?

So, the rule has to be – always answer queries on time and honestly.

Everyone knows email is almost instantaneous. I know if I haven’t had a reply within a few hours I start getting tetchy about it. I’m sure most people do. So, answer emails promptly.

Don’t Promote Crap

This is the quickest way to lose customers! You only have to do this once and they’re gone forever. Plain and simple. You might make a few quid up front, but…long term the damage is irreparable.

I only ever promote products that I have tried and tested myself.

Test Your Systems

I know this might seem obvious, but…you should test that your sales mechanisms work before you go live or start promoting a product. If you’re working as an affiliate you’ll know, as you would have brought the product yourself. If it’s your own product, just make sure.

People will just go away again if the sales process doesn’t work. I guarantee no one will bother to tell you, so test it yourself.

You Can Apologise

Indeed, if something goes wrong you should apologise. It’s common decency. In this break-neck culture that we find ourselves in, traditional values have slipped.

However, those values are still very much sought after by most people, particularly in business.

Indeed an apology for an error can be turned into a positive, and a customer made more loyal.

I had a situation where a refund just got missed out of the system. I had one very irate customer and rightly so. However, I apologised and made the refund that day. I also sent him a complimentary eBook. He’s now purchased two products from me – I rest my case.

Sometimes things will just go wrong – no matter what you do, so, don’t be afraid to apologise.

So, to sum up, take a look at your business from the customers’ perspective.

Is there a reliable contact mechanism? Is your website professional, does it all work? Does the order process work? How do you deal with your customers?

Just take a second to think how you like to be dealt with yourself. If you apply that to your own customers you won’t go far wrong!

And…finally.

At last, the portal is alive and kicking. Please feel free to go and have a browse and download the free stuff.

All the past newsletters are there (theyre here now actually – March 2009) and the business course in case you missed a part or just lost it plus some new free stuff – enjoy!

I’ve transferred the portal to the main domain at…

www.apd-marketing.co.uk

In the fnal analysis, once I’d got this job allocated it took just one and a half days to complete.

And…that includes sitting down with the developer and doing all of the “business analysis” – that’s putting the design and specification together of how the site should work.

There may well be a few “bits” that don’t quite work properly and a couple of bits still under development. BUT…I did promise it would be done by this month, otherwise I seem to remember I suggested some ridiculous forfeit.

However, it is live – whew!
Both the Time Management and Copywriting products should be ready this month, I’ll mail you when they go live.

Otherwise, that’s it for May, I’ll be back in June with a bumper birthday edition.

As always…to *YOUR* success!

Cheers now and have fun.
Derek

Internet Marketing from APD

Hello and welcome to January’s edition of the APD Marketing newsletter. I hope you had a very merry Christmas and the new-year hangover is now fading away.

Now, normally at this time of year, all the newsletters tend to talk about goals for the coming year. Is this year really going to be your year and are you actually going to getup off your bottom and make something happen in 2007.

You know the score.
And…as you’ve recently read my business start up course where I go into some detail on goal setting and taking action, I thought I’d spare you and talk about something totally different…

What’s a Customer Worth?

What an interesting question. Have you ever stopped to wonder?

So, what is a customer worth?

The trite answer is, “It depends what you do with them!”

Before I do talk about the value of a customer and how to make sure you get the maximum value out of your customers, (in the nicest possible way), just one small point.

You Do Need Customers!

Obvious, I know, but…you do need to actually have customers. Now, I’m sure you have realised this, but…without customers you simply don’t have a business. Yes, you can have the website, the office, the letterheads in fact…all the expenses. But you just cannot claim to be “in business” until you have customers. Without them all you have are expenses and you will be down the tubes before you can say “London Underground”!

You see, customers are the greatest assets of any business. Your customer list is what gives your business its value. Make sure you understand this.

Your income (and therefore profits) derives from the fact that your customers buy from you. So, as a business owner, your main focus must be the continuous building, maintaining and nurturing of your customer base. This is the life-blood of your business and is what enables you to grow…expand to greater levels of profit and sales.

At it’s most basic level, business is all about…

•  Acquiring new customers
•  Delivering superior products / information
•  Building a relationship
•  Maintaining contact
•  Maintaining a steady flow of new products
•  Keeping customers happy
If you can achieve this, you will have a customer base that buys from you regularly and you will also gain many “word of mouth” referrals for your business.

Keep In Touch

So, today, I’m going to talk about the “maintaining contact” aspect of the business.

For any sales people out there, you will probably remember from your training that, on average, it takes seven contacts from you before your potential customer really trusts you. And, of course, they will not buy from you until that trust is earned.

The same applies in the online world.

Your copy can be the strongest around but your initial conversion rate will be low. That is why you must have some form of personal details capture mechanism on your site. If you don’t “sell” to your prospect (and that’s all they are at this stage) on first contact you will need to “capture” their personal details so that you can maintain contact.

You see, if they don’t buy initially you will probably need (on average) a further seven contacts to make that happen.

As an example, have another look at my site ( www.apd-marketing.co.uk ), and you will see that my “capture mechanism” is the free seven-part business-start up course that you all signed up for. OK, you didn’t buy the Start Up Kit that I was offering, but rather than let you just “slope off”, I offered an inducement for you to give me your contact details.

So, the fact that you signed up for the course offers me seven more opportunities to “talk” to you. Hopefully at the end of the course you will have gained some benefit and feel more disposed towards buying products from me, either now, or at some stage in the future.

You will notice that I followed up the course with my free newsletter (which you are now reading), and so, I now maintain regular contact with you. Again, this can only be good for my business as I deliver benefits to you on an on-going basis. This in turn builds trust and once more, makes you more likely to buy from me.

Now, in the past, keeping in contact on such a regular basis, via the postal system, would have cost thousands of pounds! In fact, it would have meant instant massive losses for any business. The old direct response methods never made a penny until the back end products were sold.

Nowadays, the advent of e-mail makes online businesses much more profitable, even on the front end.

So, how does one make these contact mechanisms work?
The reason that I am able to keep you so well “informed” is that I use an automated system that sits behind my business. It sends out what information I say to whom when I tell it to! Understand?

The Power of Autoresponders

Seriously though… I use an Autoresponder to manage my business. The package also has an integral Shopping Cart, which means online check out software.

These things have really come of age over the last 18 months. The system manages everything as far as customer contact is concerned.

•  It keeps a database of all my customers and people who sign up for my
courses and newsletters – I don’t even need a desktop contact management
program.

•  I can, however, export all the contacts to a desktop program if I feel the need!

•  It allows me to set the dates and frequency of communications I send out

•  I can send out “broadcasts” i.e.; one-off messages

•  I can track my ad campaigns

•  All my orders are managed for me, including the “order” and “thank you”
pages

•  I can manage my product database including all the relevant marketing
materials

•  I can develop custom forms and pop-ups for my websites

•  I can manage my entire affiliate program

•  And, there are superb online tutorials to help me make sure I get everything right with the minimum of fuss.

In short, I manage my entire business through the Shopping Cart / Autoresponder.
The one I use for my business is AWeber. Have a look by clicking on the following link. You can get a free trial run by clicking here.

To be honest, I really couldn’t run my business without this product. It takes a bit of commitment to learn how it all works, but as I said, the tutorials are excellent, so it’s just a case of dedicating a little time to learning what you need to know.

End Game

So, back to the original question, what is a customer worth over the lifetime of a business? To be honest I can’t even begin to imagine. What I do know is that approximately 20% of any customer base will become loyal and long-standing customers – customers how come back to buy time and time again. OK, so the front end product is only £67, but back end products range from £399 up to £1,499.

I also know that without my autoresponder, I couldn’t even begin to plug into this potential. So, the answer, is, without my autoresponder, a customer is worth very little! With it? Well, many thousands of pounds. When I decide to retire, I’ll sit down and work it all out, but I love this business, so that’s some way off. Watch this space!

I love working out new ways to do things, I love helping other people get up and running and hearing their success stories. I love writing these articles, I love finding new and useful products and I love learning about this business. With the pace the Internet moves at the only sure thing is change – that’s for sure! I learn somethingnew every day; it’s what keeps me going!

That’s it for today, so I’ll say goodbye until the next time.

Cheers now, and have fun….

Derek

Derek Armson
APD Marketing Ltd

derek@apd-marketing.co.uk
www.apd-marketing.co.uk