The article by Paul Myers <paul@talkbiz.com>
The article below was originally written as part of a series on the future of online publishing, for TalkBiz News. I hope you find it useful.
If you'd like to subscribe (this is a fairly typical example of the content), send any mail to mailto:getnews@talkbiz.com
Enjoy!
The Future of Online Publishing
Interlude - Mini-Sites
This week I'm altering the schedule again, and slipping in a tool that I missed in the original list. Mini-sites. They're one of the most effective tools for online publishers of any type.
They're also one of the cheapest and easiest to create and profit from. This article makes them sound simple. That's because they are. Don't let that fool you, though.
They work. As you'll see, they sometimes work Big.
Allan Gardyne and Phil Wiley have both done series on them, which have been quite interesting, and Marlon Sanders has a book out covering the concept extremely thoroughly.
To see Allan's series, go to:
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/search/newsletter136.shtml
It's a four parter. To see the next three parts, replace the 136 with 137, 138, and 139. I won't get into much of what he covers here, beyond the basics. It's been done well already. ;)
Phil's articles have covered some of the same things, and added some interesting perspectives. His aren't available on the web, as he's planning to expand on them and give up some of the nuts and bolts in a commercial product.
I intend to order it when it comes out.
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The core idea is simple. You put together a one or two page site (two only if you need an order form) promoting a specific action. The site has one main purpose, usually to sell a product.
Everything on that page should be focused around the idea of getting the visitor to take that action. Everything. There should be no distractions allowed in the design of the page.
Let's be clear on what that means...
* No Flash or other plug-ins needed.
* No heavy graphics.
* No links to anything but the order
form.
* No editorial, unless your desired
action relates to the topic of the editorial, and then only if it's
absolutely necessary.
* No "filler" content.
* No gimmicks of any kind.
In short, there should be nothing for the visitor to do but take the desired action or go to another site.
Of course, you need to provide them with the right reason to act, but that's another article. Or book. Or something...
....
You put the page up and drive targeted traffic to it. The tighter the targeting, the better the response to both your traffic generation methods and your offer itself.
For example, you might be in the business of selling music CDs. A good mini-site would focus on a specific band (or better, a specific album), or a narrow group of buyers. An example of the latter would be parents who want music their kids will like and that they approve of.
Very tight targeting is a key to this.
....
Keep the ordering process simple, and automate as much as possible. The goal, which you'll never completely reach, should be to cut direct human involvement in the ordering and fulfillment process to zero.
That allows you to focus on marketing the site, doing customer service, working up good back end offers, or relaxing on the beach. Whatever it is that you want to do most.
....
Driving targeted traffic is relatively easy. If you've achieved a good conversion rate (tested, of course) and the income per action is sufficient, you can go the simple route: Pay for it.
Buy links/ads on other sites or in newsletters, preferably on a per visitor basis. Use the pay per click search engines. Use banner networks that charge per clickthrough. Anything that gives you control of your cost per visitor. Then watch those numbers carefully to make sure they keep generating a profit.
Buying traffic in small, controlled doses is also a great way to test the results from the site. Track, tweak, and make sure the thing will return a decent conversion rate (read: profitable), THEN roll out the big guns.
This applies even if you're not going to use paid traffic builders as a rule. If you plan to do promotions to a limited group, you may want to test on a sampling first. Even if it costs you a bit more than it brings in, the increased returns from proper tweaking will be well worth it in the long term.
....
If you're on a lower budget, or just want to play around with the idea without spending money, you're going to have to get creative. There's plenty of stuff out there on free promotional techniques. Hit the search engines and you'll find more than you can read in a month on the subject.
Hey, I never promised I'd focus only on the free stuff, right?
....
There are three main uses for these "mini-sites."
* Direct sales
* Pre-selling for an affiliate program
* Generating leads or subscribers
Of course, they can be adapted to almost any online purpose, but those are the biggies.
....
Direct sales: This is where the big money is. You can look at any of the big names in online sales and see that their focus is simple direct response. They'll tell you that.
But they usually don't give you any benchmarks to measure from. So, some examples, with real numbers, seemed in order.
A friend of mine (We'll use Marsha as a name) had a high end information product to promote. The price tag was just over $1000. She also had a list of email addresses of clients who had specifically requested info on special offers via email.
She used a clean, professional looking, brain-dead simple web page for the copy. No graphics at all. This was a half hour design job. Literally.
....
The copy itself was a fairly traditional sales letter, with only minor adjustments made to allow for the difference between the web and print. The letter was roughly 12 pages long. The response mechanism was a choice of going to the second page to request a phone call (using a simple CGI form), or hanging up and calling a toll-free number to order.
I heard that. (You really shouldn't think so loudly!)
"She didn't have an online ordering option? She actually made people read a 12 page letter on the web - and then hang up and make a phone call?
Is she CRAZY?!?!"
Yes, she is. But that's another story.
The initial emails to her list got roughly a 35% clickthrough. Of those, 8.76% ordered her $1000+ product.
Marsha turned over $250,000 NET on that project, which took a whopping three days to set up and two weeks to execute. Not bad for her first foray into online sales.
Was she crazy?
....
Some things to remember:
* This was a "house list," (they'd ordered from her before), so credibility and credit weren't issues - they had both the money and the interest to buy.
* The offline ordering option was consistent with both her style and the price of the product.
* They had signed up to receive just this sort of offer, via email.
In short, an extremely targeted campaign.
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I hear a lot of drooling going on among the new folks. No, this is not typical...
...unless you have a similar situation. Two other people I know used almost identical approaches, and got results that were so close, in terms of response rate and profit per email delivered, that they might as well be identical.
....
"But what about us folks that don't sell 4-figure info products to house lists?"
Well, I guess you don't get to make a quarter of a million bucks in two weeks then. The people in these examples spent years developing reputations and customer lists. You can't duplicate that overnight.
Or can you? (More on that later.)
....
Side note:
If you have those resources, why aren't you using them? If you have an established client base, why aren't you giving them an incentive to sign up for online offers?
Did you think all those people who talked about the value of building your email list were just running off at the mouth?
If so, you might want to reconsider. Remember, folks... These are NOT fictitious numbers. That's 250,000 cold, hard cash-in-the-bank dollars.
Pre-tax, of course, but it'll still buy a couple of nice lunches.
....
For those who may have a great product, but lack an established base, here are the key points in this example:
1. Good conversion rate: The 35% clickthrough rate could probably have been improved. If you can get an 8 or 9% conversion rate, you're going to have plenty of money to work on that with.
Better yet, test emails to your list in smaller samples.
Pay attention to the numbers. Constantly work to improve them. If you don't know your conversion rate, you might as well be playing roulette.
2. Targeted traffic: You do this through carefully designed promotional materials. Whether it's search engine terms, banner ads, article publishing, paid textual ads, or anything else - focus. Make sure your promotions attract only those with a high degree of interest. People who are going to be predisposed to take action.
This is especially important for pay per click promotions. For these, you should use "negative qualifiers." If you're paying by the click, chase off everyone who isn't a perfect prospect.
3. Credibility: This is a combination of things. If they don't know you, you need to make sure they at least trust that what you're saying is true. You can do this through the use of specific facts, testimonials, press quotes, and/or endorsements.
For new products or unknown producers, endorsements are the way to go. You automatically gain the credibility of the endorser with the market. Of course, this requires that your product is good enough that they know they won't lose credibility themselves by endorsing it.
....
Can you duplicate that overnight?
Not quite, but in a whole lot less than 20 years. Or even 20 weeks, if you're smart and want to do it.
Here's the approach:
1. Get a good product that people will endorse. 2. Get a process in place that converts visits to sales. 3. Offer good commissions to people with credibility and a large audience.
Simple. Sometimes it's even easy.
But not often. You may actually have to work here.
(Ooops. There went half the audience... But not the half that counts. ;)
....
Preselling for an affiliate program: This is a bit different, but not all that much. (You probably don't want a 12 page sales letter for this approach, for example...)
A great example of this is Phil Wiley's site promoting Marlon Sanders' book "Gimme My Money Now." This is a "warm up" site. Its sole purpose is to create a predisposition to reading Marlon's sales letter, and getting you to click on the affiliate link.
The URL is http://www.philwiley.com
This site generates about $350 a week in commissions. I won't spoil the surprise by telling you how much it cost Phil to set this up and host it for a year. That's part of his book. <g>
Take a look at this site. Notice how clean the layout is, while still looking professional. Look closely at the way he handles the copy. This is a beautiful example of a mini-site that works.
Then take a look at Marlon's site. (Marlon is an odd bird in marketing circles. He only preaches what he practices.)
This is a textbook case. A well designed mini-site, pointing to an affiliate program with a very high conversion rate and a good commission payout.
A prescription for cash.
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Another good example is Allan Gardyne's site at
http://www.LifetimeCustomers.com
This is one small page, and focuses on just one primary aspect of Ken Evoy's book, "Make Your Site Sell." The fact that it pays commissions on everything a customer you refer to the site ever buys from SiteSell.com.
Take a look and break the site down in your mind. Allan is a master at affiliate marketing. This site is an excellent example of how to make it simple.
I didn't ask about income on this one. For one thing, it's going to be a regularly growing thing, due to the nature of the program. For another, not many people have a list of 15,000+ devoted readers. <g>
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These are interesting examples. To see if this sort of thing could be duplicated, I went to someone who doesn't write about his work professionally.
The first name that came to mind was Wayne Porter, "Power Affiliate," affiliate program consultant, and webmaster of http://www.affiliatehelp.com
Wayne was extremely helpful. The example he provides is not precisely a mini-site as they're usually described, but more of a micro version of a themed site.
The distinction is important. A themed site focuses on a narrow slice of a topic, with multiple resources related to the topic. A mini-site focuses on only one product.
As an example, he gave me some stats on one of his earlier experiments in affiliate marketing. The discussion follows:
....
TalkBiz: Thanks for agreeing to help out with this, Wayne. So, what are we looking at?
Wayne: The site is at http://www.free-cdroms.com
This was one of my early experiments in affiliate marketing. In this case I had decided to focus on a vertical market (cdrom collectors) and use CPA deals. Specifically, free samples.
[Editor's note: CPA stands for Cost Per Action. In these programs, the affiliate gets paid when someone takes an action that's not a sale.]
I felt this would be a good approach because sampling is natural behavior, and many people get samples online and then go offline to make their purchase.
TalkBiz: How's it working out, income-wise?
Wayne: I do between $750 and $1000 a month from that site alone.
TalkBiz: How long did it take you to set the site up?
Wayne: That one took me over a week. Now I can set them up in a day or two. I find what I want to promote, highlight the best features and then start my promotion process.
TalkBiz: How long do you spend promoting it each month?
Wayne: The free-cdroms.com site is a bad example as I spend only 1 to 2 hours a month with it. I have far more demanding projects at this point.
TalkBiz: Not bad. A few days to set it up, 24 hours a year promoting it, and $9000 to $12,000 a year in income for that time.
How long do you spend on more typical mini-sites?
Wayne: Because I balance multiple projects I try to keep promotion down to about five hours per month per mini-site.
I do have the advantage of having been online for some time and have built relationships with webmasters who have a lot of established traffic. I work on mutually beneficial ways to tap into that stream. I also do traditional directory marketing, key word purchasing and a little time each month tweaking key pages for search engines.
TalkBiz: Sounds like these are pretty low maintenance sites.
Wayne: That's the beauty of this approach. I do what I know well, which is sending merchants visitors who are interested in their offers before they even get to the merchant's site.
When you have an established relationship with a segment of a market, like topical newsletter subscribers, the key is to pre-sell the product. That's very effective if you have established credibility with your audience.
In my case, it's much simpler. I find ways to get in front of people who are already looking, and I give them ways to sort themselves by their own interests.
The merchants handle fulfillment, customer service, and all the labor intensive parts of the business.
TalkBiz: Smart approach. Classic marketing strategy, applied to the net. How many visitors do you get to this site each month?
Wayne: This particular site only gets about 150 unique visitors a day, and 250-350 page views. Your readers make like a sneak peek into the vital stats on one network.
Here's the yearly production from one network on the site so far this year. (This does not reflect the site's total earnings. I use 6 different networks on this site.)
Gross Sales: $4,931.91 Sales: 100 Leads: 1083 Hits: 11618 Impressions: 174871 CTR: 0.07 CPM: $28.20 Conversion Ratio: 0.10%
TalkBiz: Over 1000 leads and 100 sales. Not bad. But does it duplicate well? What's your average monthly income per mini site?
Wayne: My mini-site performance can vary radically. This particular site generates anywhere from $500-$1000 per month. That depends on the offers I find, traffic, and other business factors.
I have had mini-sites produce gross merchant sales as high as $15,000.00 in one month. On average most do around $1000-$2000 in commissions per month. This site could do a lot more but I spend little time with it. I have more lucrative projects to focus on.
Of course, I've had some mini-sites that were total flops. Because the incubation cost is so low, it's not a big loss, and the data is very useful. In the case of free-cdroms.com I still have it hosted on a free server so my yearly cost is $13.50.
The ROI is quite good. I have CPMs as high as $450.00 on one offer. I try to "carpet bomb" niches. Better to have one buyer then 100 casual surfers.
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So, how does this fit in with online publishing?
It's all direct response. Hard focus on results.
It's an approach those with a generic product can use to catch the attention of specific groups of serious prospects within their market.
It's a great way to multiply your effectiveness without multiplying your time investment.
It's an extremely efficient way to generate leads at low cost.
It's a great way to test new approaches without tinkering with a site that's bringing in satisfactory results right now.
In short, it's the perfect way to hone your online marketing skills and turn a profit in the process. Whether you're selling subscriptions to an ezine or membership site, selling ebooks or software, giving away free subscriptions to build an advertising or networking base, or using any other info-centric business model, this is a tool you don't want to ignore.
And if you're just looking to develop a side income while you learn, it's apparently pretty good for that, too. ;)
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Look over the examples, and then read Allan's series on the subject. Then re-read Wayne's responses. Note the approaches each takes, and consider how you could apply those in your own situation.
And notice Wayne's comment about working out mutually beneficial deals with people with whom he's developed ongoing relationships. We've used exactly those words in this space before. We (and Wayne) call that networking.
Don't just read this and nod your head (unless I'm putting you to sleep). This is, unlike most of what you'll read about marketing online, something so cheap and easy to implement that there's no one who can't do it.
And it's a great way to test your other marketing ideas.
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You made it this far? Cool.
Got an hour or two? Use this article and go set up a new income stream!
Like I said, this is fairly typical stuff from my newsletter. If you'd like to subscribe, send any email to
mailto:getnews@talkbiz.com
Paul