Organic Marketing: Success Without the Hype

[bholus10]

Every deal is really BIG, or it’s HUGE, and sometimes it’s downright MASSIVE! “Circus barker marketing” has been all the rage with small business for some time now.

You know the type of pitch: Become a millionaire, or a zillionaire, in three easy steps. It’s a $10,000 value, but for you, if you buy now, it’s only $2.50! And the infamous, “But wait —here’s what I’m going to throw in.” And, by all means we must, “ACT NOW!”

It is a veritable jungle of expletives, imperatives, and superlatives out there.

It may work for some, but many of us, like holistic practitioners, coaches, professionals and other conscious entrepreneurs, it is a very uncomfortable approach. It just doesn’t feel right. Since it’s not a good fit, we don’t do it, but we know we have to do something to market our business or practice.

The good news is that there is another way. I call it organic marketing because it works from the inside out — by sharing your expertise you can build your business or practice, and make a difference too.

It all begins with your knowledge. You simply write a timely, relevant article from 500 to 700 words long on an aspect of your profession or practice that you believe is important to share.

This one article can do a lot. In addition to helping a lot of other folks out there in cyberspace, it goes to work for you in multiple ways including: enhancing the content of your Web site, beefing up your Blog or adding interest to your eZine, and it can even be used as an incentive to get people to join your email list.

But perhaps on of the most beneficial ways to use your knowledge and expertise is to send it to live on other people’s sites, or be featured in other people’s Blogs and eZines. Called “article marketing,” this is not only a very powerful way to help others by discriminating your expertise, but you can also build your reputation, and bring qualified potential clients to your Web site.

It works because content is still king, and the Internet is full of content hungry containers — thousands of Blogs, Web sites, and eZines are created every day and they all need fresh content. You can fill that need with your valuable information, and in return gain great PR and drive qualified traffic to your site. Best of all, the cost is minimal.

Based on your expertise, you write that great content-based, keyword-rich article in your field of knowledge. Make sure the article includes keywords that are relevant to your Web site. If this is difficult for you to do alone, there are many good, inexpensive writers and editors available online at sites like elance.com, or you may have writers in your personal or business network.


Next, create a short resource box with your copyright information, your value statement, and links to your Web site and any special offers or other information that is relevant to the article you've written. Append the resource box to the end of the article.

Then, submit the article to one or more high quality, heavily trafficked article directories like ezines.com. If you want to automate the submission process, there are also services available that will submit your material to multiple sites for a small fee.

Now, wait a couple of weeks and Google your article. You’ll be amazed at how it has spread! If the writing is good and process is handled well, the results will be impressive. You will see a lot more, better-qualified traffic; you’ll be getting great publicity for your expertise; and you will save marketing dollars. Finally, your information will be reaching a lot more people and, as a bonus, you will feel really good about your marketing program.

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[bholus10]

I’ve got a confession to make. This may come as a surprise to you (after all, I’m a testing fanatic)... But, testing doesn’t improve website conversion every time.

Nearly all "online marketing gurus" promote the benefits of conducting split tests and multi-variable tests on your website. But, few (if any) tell you the WHOLE truth about how to test, what to test and what results to realistically expect from your testing.

The consequences? Many online markers become confused by and disappointed with their first fledgling attempts at conducting testing campaigns on their websites.

Because their results often don’t live up to the "hype", they become discourage and simply assume that "testing doesn’t work" or "it’s not worth the effort".

I hear this from my clients all the time. They will tell me, "oh... I tried testing on my site and it didn’t help."

Well... in an effort to clear up a few of the misconceptions about testing and help folks overcome some of the unrealistic expectations that simply set them up for disappointment, I’m about to tell you the "dirty little secret" that the gurus usually fail to mention.

Every variable you test will NOT automatically improve sales. In fact MOST of the variables you test will either reduce response or make no measurable difference!

In fact, after conducting over 6,000 split and multivariable tests over the past six years I’ve generated some pretty good data on what you can expect to achieve in a typical testing campaign.

In most multivariable tests only 1/4 to 1/3 of your variables will boost response. Another 1/4 to 1/3 of your test variables will actually reduce response. And 1/3 to 1/2 of your variables won’t make a measurable difference.

(Well... that’s not entirely true. If you run any test long enough a winner will usually emerge, but it is not worth the trouble to let a campaign run for months on end just for a 1/10th of a percent improvement in conversion.)

Of course, the more experience you gain in testing, the better your odds of finding a variable that will be a winner... but you still have no guarantees.

Often variables that you are sure will boost sales, wind up having no effect or worse, decrease response.

I’ve seen tests where a 1 year guarantee was tested against NO guarantee and the no guarantee version won. I’ve conducted price tests in which we tested $17 vs. $97 and $97 converted better! (Not just higher visitor value, but actually higher conversion!)

So it really is impossible to know in advance what version or variable is going to win. Experience and prior testing data can help you make an educated guess, but you still have to test it and see.

I view selecting test variables, kind of like picking stocks. You can do all of your homework, use a variable that has boosted response on every other site you tested and still not have a winner.

And the opposite can happen. You can test a variable that you are almost positive will be a dog, (or even make an error when setting up your variables) and it can boost response. I’ve often seen headlines that I hated or graphic images that were down right UGLY convert better than the more appealing versions.

So just like picking a stock, past performance doesn’t guarantee future results! Every single variable you test will not be a winner. In fact when it comes to the stock market, if you can pick a winning trade just 51% of the time, you’ll become rich.

The same principle applies to test variable selection. If you’re able to consistently pick winning variables 50% or the time or more, you’re doing an outstanding job! (Or you’re simply not running enough tests...)

Now, am I telling you all of this to discourage you from testing? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Like I said at the beginning of the article, I’m a testing fanatic.

I’ve seen small businesses transformed into "big" businesses almost overnight via proper testing.

I’ve seen a laid off, single father go from struggling to pay the bills selling an ebook to making a solid six figure income by only tweaking and testing 4 items on his sales letter.

Done right (and with proper expectations) testing can indeed change your life and transform your business.

I just want to make sure that you go into the process with the right, long term mindset and that you don’t become discouraged and quit if your first attempts at testing fail to yield earth shattering improvements in response.