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So how much of the Buy Now Wizard’s sales pitch and promise is real and how much is just good old fashioned “we’d like your money” marketing?

Buy Now Wizard, from 27AM Network Inc, is a “sales conversion boosting tool” which is fancy marketing talk for “this software has features that you can add to your webpages, sales pages, squeeze pages and other offers to grab the visitor’s attention and/or give them more incentive to take action.”

Skepticism aside for a minute, there is common sense here.

If you can grab a webpage visitor’s attention when they first enter your page AND do a great job at grabbing the attention of those who are turning away from your offer and are leaving your page… you greatly increase your ability to communicate your sales message to them.

If you also implement proven sales psychologies that date back to our caveman (and cave-woman!) days, and provide a bigger incentive and urgency for your prospect to take action, it goes without saying that your sales will increase.

There isn’t much of a debate for whether the concepts that Buy Now Wizard is based on would create a boost in conversions. (Which is probably why it can offer a guarantee to its claims).

The questions instead are:

1) Do you need to worry about conversions that much in the first place?

2) Do you need a software to set this up for you?

3) And, if so, then is Buy Now Wizard really your best bet?

I can answer #1 very plainly: of course! Again, not much to debate here.

Consider your current income… let’s say it’s $50,000 per year based on various sales pages and squeeze pages that you run for your business. Let’s say your sales pages average out to 2% sales conversion and your opt-in pages average out to 20% opt-in. This all produces your $50,000 per year.

Here’s a no brainer… if you can boost your conversions by just 50% (ie: take your 2% sales conversion to 3% and take your 20% opt-in conversion to 30%), you don’t need to pull out your Windows Calculator to know that your income would be an extra $25,000 for the year (total of $75,000).

So there’s no need to discuss whether giving some attention to your sales and opt-in conversions is important. In fact, if you do it right, it is the fastest way to give yourself a raise (as I just demonstrated).

Question #2: Do you need a software to set this all up for yourself?

I love automation and simplicity as much as the next person. But how many quick fix products do you really need? Is a software essential for all this?

Well… yes… unless you want to set out to program all of this yourself (that’s no small feat) or hire your own programmer to do it for you (that’s the silly and costly approach but I’ve seen some stubborn marketers take that route).

To be able to replicate some of the attention grabbers of Buy Now WIzard (Browser Warning Bar and Before You Go Exit Window), coding would be required or you need a software. And certainly to handle the automation of the scarcity (limited quantity) and urgency (limited time) tools, you definitely need a software solution.

Alright, so there’s no argument that the Buy Now Wizard principles and functions make sense as being important. There’s no argument that focusing on the conversions of your various offers is critical (though often it’s disgustingly overlooked). There’s also no arguement that a software solution is needed.

That brings me to the 3rd question: Is Buy Now Wizard really your best bet?

To answer that would take a bit of digging around.

Currently, there are a handful of less than impressive tools in the marketplace and only a couple of high-quality and high-value alternatives. I won’t spend time on the low grade “me-too” products.

When looking for the “fear of loss” type functions, the next best product that you’ll find retails for $299.99. Great product but it won’t give you the attention grabbing functions and the price is a bit scary for some.

When looking for the “Before You Go Exit Window” feature of Buy Now Wizard, you’ll find one publisher selling a similar solution for $79.99 (just for that function) and another one retailing theirs for $97.01 initial payment + $99/month.

When looking for the “Browser Warning Bar” feature … well … you won’t find one.

If you chose the alternative independent solutions, you’d be looking at a price tag of approx $299.99 + $97.01 + $99/month and you’re still missing one attention grabbing feature. (Not to mention you now have multiple companies to run to if you need tech support!)

So as it stands Buy Now Wizard takes the cake and comes out the winner.

It’s a solid product.

As with everything else, it has room for improvements. For example, the $299.99 product has a dead-simple installation process, but then again Buy Now Wizard doesn’t take more than a few brain cells to figure out (it comes with a video walk-through to help even technophobes).

Buy Now Wizard is a recommended tool for your online income pursuits.

Should you grab a copy? Do you like seeing more sales for the same offer and from the same amount of traffic (same amount of effort)? My point exactly!

Make the investment and download your copy. It is guaranteed, after all, so you really can’t go wrong.

Just follow this link to learn more about Buy Now Wizard or to download your copy.

Dee

www.pososto.com

I was a passive participant in a conference call earlier today. The presenter was very articulate and charming.

The essence of the call was how important it is to start your Internet Marketing business on the right foot. The presenter went on to point out how difficult it was for newbies to discern which were the right products and services to buy, which would help and which would sit stagnating on their hard drive.

There was a lot of content about how much money could be wasted by those who were too inexperienced to be able to judge what would be useful and what would not.

The call ended with a heavy, very time limited sell of a very expensive mentoring program.

Now, the first thing I want to say is that I have no view on whether the mentoring program provides value or not. I know insufficient about it to comment. What hit me was the very clever psychological approach taken by the presenter who declared the problem, empathised and then came in with a solution - all classic sales techniques.

My concern is for the newbies who were on the call reaching for credit cards, which are possibly already nudging the max setting, in the hope that this new offering would be the solution to their problems - and I really hope that it proves to be just that if they have decided to buy.

So many expectations have been raised by stories of certain names making incredible amounts of money in a single day through Internet Marketing and I don’t doubt for a moment the veracity of their figures but I do question whether these stories represent the full picture. Revenue is only half of the profit equation and until these names start to reveal their cost of sales I for one am not impressed by their numbers.

There is no doubt in my mind that good, solid businesses can be built using the Internet as a platform - I’ve done it - but as in businesses everywhere, on and off line, there is no quick answer. Every business needs time and attention spent on it for it to thrive and prosper.

As an aside, I think what most offended me about the conference call was the use of the word ‘mentor’. Perhaps I have been fortunate but my mentors have never charged me a red cent. They have been happy to share their wisdom with someone who knew less than them but who was also eager to learn.
So, personally, I’ve had enough of people who have allegedly ‘made it’ further lining their pockets with cash from those who have not. I am savvy enough to know that this is an economic model found everywhere but I really would like to see a change. I appreciate that skills have a tradeable value. My objection stems from the fact that only half the story is told regarding possible outcomes. Most people could earn $1million a day if they spent a huge percentage of that on promotion.

Now, please don’t think I am against every Internet Marketing product. I am surely not. I am just saddened by the lack of transparency and the confusion caused in the mind of the newbie by the constant barrage of offers that arrive every day.

The secret to Internet Marketing success is in researching what the market wants and then taking action to supply a product or service that promises to satisfy that want. It really is that simple. This is how so many of the Internet Marketing products succeed - they are peddling promises and hope to people who want it.

To go some small way in addressing the balance I have an offer for you.

There is a free membership area behind this blog populated by some new and some experienced Internet Marketers and, if you are looking for a community to join you will be welcome. No fees, no upsells, nothing but an open offer to mix with people who are earning a genuine living through their web marketing efforts and with others who are new to the concept.

This is the place to get your questions answered and to learn from the experience of those who have been around the IM block a few times. It matters not to me whether you join or not - the offer is simply made perhaps specifically for those who would like support but no longer have the funds to buy into expensive programs.

So, that’s today’s rant well and truly vented.

There are some wonderful people operating in the Internet Marketing niche and none of my comments are aimed at anyone in particular. Well, that’s not true - my comments are aimed at the newbie who keeps buying product after product and coaching program after coaching program.

My message to you is that there is no magic bullet here. You are going to have to do some work and you are going to need to be in a community - you cannot do this on your own!

Thanks for reading!

Dee

www.pososto.com - marketing ideas and innovations

The question has been asked of me several times recently so I thought it justified a mutter on the blog.

“Which is the best keyword research tool?”

It is a hard question to answer because I think underlying this question is really another, which is,

“Which keyword tool is the easiest to use; is not going to take up hours of my time in research and will ultimately produce me a neat little list of excellent phrases which are going to hit the number 1 and 2 spot in Google within days.”

That underlying question is of course impossible to answer!

There is no doubt that keyword research is a chore. In another part of my working life I work with new authors and I liken keyword research to the process of writing - there is something about them both that seems to completely wipe the mind of any intelligent thought.

Ideas are - plenty until you sit down to actually work on them and then there seems to be a million reasons to discard niche after niche because they never quite stack up against ‘the numbers’ . And, just what are these numbers anyway? And, how do we know how accurate these numbers are?

It seems to me that keyword research is a process. As with all processes it is something that is subject to tweaks along the way as you find out what works and what does not. So much of the data we would need to establish definite figures, is not available to us anyway. It is all assessed and calculated by the various tools that are available.

Recently, in the Thirty Day Challenge, Ed Dale, Dan Raine and the gang came up with an innovative way to check actual search figures against known data. This is probably as accurate as anyone has ever gotten with keyword research.

The keyword tools that are available all offer some similar and some different functions, although some undoubtedly perform better than others. Some will just combine strings of words into endless permutations. Some will actually search known data sources from which they extrapolate figures for you on which you can then base future marketing decisions. Some will help with Pay per Click programmes. Some will offer long tail phrases. I understand that some will even let the cat out at night before going to bed………

No tool, in my humble opinion, can replace the human input and rationale. The tools can all make life easier in as much as they can create lists of thousands of possible keywords and keyword phrases but I remain unconvinced that the rest of the data is reliable enough for you to back it with your last dollar. You also need to apply your own thoughts and some logic.

Take for example Christmas. If you were to be planning a Christmas marketing campaign most of the keyword tools would be absolutely useless to you in your planning. The data is just too seasonal. You are going to have to take an educated guess about suitable keywords and phrases and constantly track, test and tweak along the way.

For me, the keyword tools all remove some of the drudgery of keyword research but they in no way replace your personal effort. I’m sorry that’s not want you are going to want to hear! There is no magic wand here. I wish there were. I am unconvinced that there is one tool that will guarantee success for you.

I do know that the research stage of your marketing efforts is the key piece that will bring you success or failure. However hard, tedious and dull keyword research seems to be it needs to be done!

So, for your interest I can tell you that I personally use Keyword Elite and Wordtracker and have nothing bad to say about either of them. They both do an outstanding job and there is no doubt that they make a tedious job quite a bit easier. But, neither of them remove the need for me to exercise my brain and make a judgement.

These free guides are available for download:

A Keyword Research Guide from Wordtracker

may be downloaded from the link above

and

Two books on Keywords Adsense and Adwords from Keyword Elite

will be downloaded as zip files when you click on the link above here.

I hope you find them helpful

…….amongst other things - excellent customer service.

Recent experiences have proved this for me beyond a shadow of a doubt.

There is an Indian gentleman, currently living in the USA who is responsible for designing this blog template. You will find a link to his site in the footer of the page.

The template is free to download and use. It works perfectly and does exactly what I want it to do.

Now, whilst I was setting this little site up I ran into a problem caused by my own lack of understanding so I posted a comment on this gentleman’s blog to see if any of his readers might have an idea of how I could fix the problem I had caused for myself.

Within 10 minutes I had an email from the designer himself giving me very simple, concise instructions and I was up and running in no time.

This for me is excellent customer service given to someone who hasn’t even entered into a financial transaction with this gentleman.

It was an outstanding experience and he now has a loyal fan.

Compare this to another experience with an organisation to whom I have been paying an obscene amount of money for many months.

I had cause to cancel a credit card and am awaiting delivery of a replacement. Unfortunately the timing of this coincided with the date when their monthly payment was due. I emailed them to explain the situation only to be told that the service is either prepaid by midnight tonight or it will be cut off until the account is in good order.

They have been unable to offer me any alternative payment methods. They will not accept Paypal nor will they accept my Bank debit card as it will not process through the Visa network. How customer friendly is that?

Two very different experiences. Two very different outcomes. Guess which business I shall be using again and recommending…and guess which one I most certainly won’t?

Chatting in the Pososto chatroom last night with two special members of our mastermind group, we found ourselves losing focus. It made us laugh at the time, although there is a serious point to be made about it now!

Having arranged to meet to discuss a particular project we spent longer than planned talking about a personal matter and then we found ourselves off at a complete tangent bouncing ideas off each other around possibilities for future projects. (I hold my hand up here to being the culprit - it was me who changed the subject!)

In the end we spent very little time on the subject for which the meeting had originally been called.

Does that sound familiar?

This lack of focus on the project in hand is, I believe, at the root of the feelings of overwhelm that are experienced by so many colleagues and clients.

The nature of working on the Internet and disseminating information sets up a dichotomy for us.

On the one hand we need to be aware of the news and the general happenings. How can we report on them if we are not?

On the other hand, if we always have our focus outwards, on gathering information, there is the real risk that we will never reach the point where we are able to actually do anything with the data we have collected.

Working for yourself can be challenging at the best of times - especially in the early days of a business when financial constraints usually mean the business owner wears all the business hats and fulfils all the business functions. It can be difficult to keep sight of the primary goals and aims of the business when caught up in the day to day ’stuff’.
However, the only way for a business to be successful is for there to be a clear focus. This focus provides the light at the end of the long working day tunnel; it keeps us going in the right direction and means we will ultimately achieve our goal.

Our challenge, as we work in the virtual world of the Internet, is to gain and retain this essential focus. To decide on a course of action and to see it through to the end - not to abandon it for something else when the next batch of emails is delivered offering us yet another ’solution’ or opportunity.

So, I am interested to know how you stay focused? What tips you have to share about how you stick with the job in hand until it is done?