End of Week Roundup (12-7-07)

Just a couple of quick posts to point out before shutting down for the weekend…

• Terry Dean's end-of-week post is just chock full of great info, no matter what business you're in.  This one is not to be missed!  He makes some excellent points about how some businesses/services are becoming commoditized or are heading that way.  Who wants to be in a business where price is the only factor used to choose one source from the other?  YIKES!  He goes on to present some great ways to keep this from happening in your business (even if you happen to be in one where everyone else is selling by lowest price, trying to Wal-Martify your industry to death so NO ONE can make a decent living).  By the way, just because it works for Wal-Mart doesn't make it a good idea…more to that model than meets the eye.  Speaking of which, there was a great quote (from Dan Kennedy I believe) that was something like "There's no power in being 2nd cheapest".  Think about that and then read what Terry has to say about offering "dirt cheap" products/services as a way to win the sale.  I could go on and on about this one…

• If you don't know of James Brausch, now is a great time to get acquainted.  He's literally bearing his soul in a series of posts roughly based on his escape from a horrible situation in his past (I'll let him reveal what the scenario was).  But instead of just revealing the actual path he took from there to achieve the success he has now, he's showing readers the steps he would have taken had he known then what he knows now.  This is like being able to ask someone who's already achieved success, "What would you do if you had to do it all over again".  You should definitely check it out but you'll have to subscribe to his blog announcement list since the posts are password protected.  Don't worry, your email is safe in his hands and you don't have to worry about being bombarded with one affiliate offer after another, like some lists.

Speaking of which, the start of the new year is a great time to purge your inbox of those kind of lists. Why not get started a few weeks early. You know who they are.

Popularity: 73% [?]

End of Week Roundup (11-30-07)

Here are a few items from around the web this week that definitely shouldn't be missed.  If you didn't catch these already, be sure to go take a look.

James Brausch
James posted an excellent article on Joint Ventures this week.  He makes the point that it's pretty useless to try to get him (or anyone else for that matter) to pitch your "thing" by harassing them with FedEx's, preview copies and the other typical stuff…while dangling the "carrot" of an affiliate commission.  Instead, he advocates simply focusing on YOUR customers and mentioning good products you come across that will help your folks…without worrying about any affiliate commission/JV nonsense (i.e., use a direct link).  In the end, it's better for everyone.

James lists 10 very important reasons why this is a more powerful strategy.
You'll have to check out his post to find out those reasons.

Aaron Brandon
Aaron posted some interesting preliminary data on a test he's been doing on split testing an optin form.  This is actually something I'm planning on doing myself once I get my copy of MuVar (don't know why I just got around to getting this…hard headed I guess…review forthcoming after I play with it).  Anyway, Aaron's post is more evidence that we should all be AGGRESSIVELY testing any aspects of our site that lead to a customer "action".  It also sounds like using something like MuVar and the HTML version of AWeber code is much more powerful than using AWeber's built-in split testing feature. 

Richard Lee
Since we're on the topic of testing and tracking, one of the most overlooked aspects of online business is conversion.  A lot of people seem to be narrowly focused on getting more traffic rather than converting more of the traffic they already have.  Richard lays out a killer explanation of why conversion is so vital for giving you a competitive advantage.  In fact, here's link to the first in a series of posts where he covers "Traffic vs. Conversion".  Definitely worth checking out.  Be sure to read the entire series.  (Also note the use of a "series" of blog posts as a way to get around the "what do I write about today" problem.  Nice!)

His posts also make a good case for knowing where your traffic is coming from and segmenting that traffic to see how visitors from each traffic source behave once they hit your site.  All traffic isn't equal.  But there's a really simple way to capture this sort of data using a free tool. 

More on that next week…

Popularity: 40% [?]

End of Week Roundup (11-23-07)

Since it's Thanksgiving weekend here in the States, I'll keep this Weekly Roundup pretty short.  But there were a couple of items I came across this week related to online video that I wanted to share with you…really awesome stuff.

1.  Get Camtasia Studio for FREE!!!

If you haven't heard already, you can now get Camtasia Studio 3 absolutely free.  Now there's NO EXCUSE not to start cranking out some sort of video product.  Why not set a goal to have one done by the end of the year?  That would make for a great way to kick off 2008 with your very own infoproduct.

Why is Techsmith doing this?  Because they're hoping that you'll upgrade to the latest version of Camtasia ($149 upgrade fee).  From what I've heard from others who've used the latest version, Camtasia Studio 5, there are some added features that make the upgrade worthwhile if you've got the money in your budget, but version 3 works just fine for what most of us are looking to do.  And it's not some trial version that expires if you don't pay for the upgrade either, so you don't have to feel pressured to whip out your credit card.

Anyway, to get your free copy of Camtasia Studio 3, here's what you do:

1. Download Camtasia Studio 3 from this link:

                http://download.techsmith.com/camtasiastudio/enu/312/camtasiaf.exe

2. Register for a Software key:

                http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/pcpls.asp

Now, if you want a really cool way to get the word out about your videos, check out this resource…

2. Free Online Video Distribution and Tracking for Your New Camtasia Videos (or any other videos…)

I have no idea how I didn't know about this already.  I feel like I totally missed the boat on this one, but a big thanks to Josh Wexelbaum over at the Scrappy Business Blog for putting together a quick video highlighing TubeMogul.  If you've heard of Video Post Robot, then TubeMogul will sound familiar - it allows you to upload your videos to a dozen online video sites, sort of like an ArticleMarketer for online video. 

The downside is that there aren't as many services available as you get with something like Video Post Robot.  But there are enough upsides to more than make up for that.   Here are just a few of those reasons:

1. The sites that TubeMogul DOES submit to are the major players in the online video space.  For most of us, worrying about the second and third tier video sites is sort of like worrying about how much traffic you're getting from one of the lesser-used search engines when we all know Google has more than half of all online traffic (or is it higher now?).  Just focus on the big guys and you'll be fine.
2. TubeMogul is free.  Nuf said.
3. This one is crucial for measuring the success of your video marketing efforts -  TubeMogul allows you to track the stats on all your videos across all the sites they submit to.  You can see which video sites are getting the most views (or which individual videos for that matter) and quite a few other stats.

I haven't tried this out yet for myself, but Josh has a quick TubeMogul video that shows the basics of the service and I plan on testing this out pretty soon.  For video info product publishers, affiliate marketers or anyone looking to pull in more traffic through online video, this looks like an awesome service to try out.

I'll probably post a follow-up sometime soon with my own results after testing it out.

Popularity: 12% [?]

End of Week Roundup: Good Stuff From Around the Web

Here's a quick recap of some of the stuff I found on web this week…that you shouldn't have missed.  Enjoy!

Richard Lee:
Richard Lee wrote a great post on getting over the fear of creating your first product for your Internet business.  Plus he gives some awesome strategies for relaunching a product later on if you decide to update it or improve it.  But the main point is that you can't improve something until you have SOMETHING to improve.  Or to quote a title from one of my favorite authors - Nothing Happens Until Something Moves (title of a book by Robert Ringer).  There were so many things in this post that struck a cord with me that I can't fit it all in here…keep an eye out for an upcoming post.

James Brausch:
James Brausch has a post covering a really cool mail management service that allows you to get postal mail via email.  This is something I've been meaning to try for awhile and just never got around to it.  Imagine never having to worry about dealing with junk mail again and putting the rest of your mail handling on autopilot.  This is core 4-Hour Work Week kinda stuff.  Just one more thing to outsource and one less thing to eat up time.  Check out James Brausch's post for more info, including a great idea for securely archiving important documents so you can get access to them anywhere in the world.  Wish I had known about this when I was in the military, moving around so often.  Thanks James!

Terry Dean:
Terry Dean offered up an MP3 recording of a conference call he did on how to choose profitable markets online.  The call was with one of his coaching clients on - a guy who's in something like 17 different online markets!  Okay, two caveats.  First, the MP3 isn't free but it'll only set you back 7 bucks, including transcript…insanely cheap for the value provided on the call (and no, I'm not an affiliate or anything like that).  Two, don't let the 17 markets thing scare you away or excite you, because neither one of these guys really recommend spreading yourself that thin.  In fact, that's one of the things they discuss on the call, though by doing so, his coaching client has been able to hone the process of finding, researching and entering profitable markets.  I listened to the call and thought it was extremely useful.  I have to admit, I wonder how long it would take to get good enough data to get the "green light" but you could easily setup a handful of tests in different markets as they describe during the call (probably in less than a day), then go with what ends up working out best.  Also, better to take your time and spend a little money in testing rather than go full throttle into a market and end up thousands of dollars in the hole…already almost played that game once myself and it's NO FUN!

Holiday Wishlists:
And finally, just in time for the holidays, a good friend of mine clued me in to a great little freebie online service (that I really wish I had thought of) that allows you to build your own wishlists for gifts and such.  Think of it sort of like what you can do on amazon.com but a service that works internet-wide.  You just sign up for an account, save a bookmark, then find stuff online you'd like to add to your list.  Click the bookmark you saved and it opens a quick little form where you can save an image of the thing, the description and the price.  You can share your list with others and they can choose items from there without you knowing who's getting you what.  I think it also keeps multiple people from getting you the same gift.  Anyway, seems appropriate since we're rolling into the holidays.

Here's the link:  www.wishlist.com

On to the weekend…

Popularity: 8% [?]