Why some people should lower their Google Adwords click through rates

Once you've started your Google AdWords campaign and chosen a great set of keywords, your ads may still need some work. No matter how relevant your keywords are, your campaign needs to woo your potential customers, not just freebie seekers.

This seems to be an area that most PPC marketers fall down on. With all this talk about click thru rate, people miss the bigger issue: the clicks are next to worthless if they don't convert to sales. In fact, they aren't even worthless – they lose you money. Return on investment is what matters, and everything else is subordinate to that, including (perhaps especially) how many people click on your ads.

So, how do we target buying customers and get rid of the click-hungry tire kickers? Well, there are several strategies I use, and taken together they ensure I get healthy returns on my clicks.

Firstly, pay very close attention to your keywords. By on large, the broader the keyword, the greater the chance of random non-buyers clicking on your ad and costing you money. For example, someone searching for "Adwords" might want to log into their Adwords account, they might be searching for free content, or they could just be killing time.

Contrast this with a very targeted keyword such as "buy Adwords e-book". Well, there is no comparison, the second will tend to convert at ten times the rate of the first, more general keyword – but people tend to pay the same for each keyword. I don't know if it's because no-one tracks their conversions properly anymore, but in any event don't fall into the trap of believing that all keywords are created equal.

If you are a merchant and have conversion tracking setup on Adwords, pay close attention to where your sales are coming from. The truth might surprise you.

Secondly, add "free" as a negative keyword to your campaign – this will cut out the blatant tyre kickers before they even get a chance to click on our ads.

A third possible strategy is to put your price in the ad, possibly in the headline, eg "super new gizmo only $50". However, I don't like this method too much – the reason being that the freebie hunters will click anyway, and many potential buyers will be dissuaded from clicking (many copywriters make their price as invisible as possible on the sales letter, why advertise it before they have even read the benefits?)

What I tend to do instead is make a subtle reference to the fact that the information does come with a price tag, using a word such as "cheap", "low cost", "inexpensive", "limited offer", "discounted price" etc. This tends to not only dissuade the hardcore freebie hunters, but will actually make borderline potential buyers curious and more willing to read the sales copy. And that can only be a good thing.

Remember, click through rate is important but only if the people who click are buying. If not, you would be better off pausing your campaigns and trying a more forgiving advertising method.  http://Infosdemocracy.com

 

How to Keep Customers For Life

Being is business isn't just about getting a customer, selling him something and moving onto the next one. It's all about making sure that your customers keep coming back to you … and spend more money!

But how can you make sure that your customers stay customers for life? What strategies can you put into practice to keep bringing them back for more? A planned customer retention programme is something every established small business should have in place. That sounds great, but what is a retention plan and what should it include?

Do the Groundwork

Before starting a retention programme, you need to understand where your business stands now as regards its retention track record. Ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. Do you know how many customers you have lost in the last 12 months?

2. If you do know how many, do you know why they stopped dealing with you?

3. Have you ever quantified the impact these losses have had on your bottom line?

Before you can put an effective retention plan in place, you have to answer these questions. They are the key to understanding and implementing an effective retention strategy. Let's look at each of them in turn.

How Many Have You Lost?

It's essential you know how many people stop doing business with you at any one time. Keep a database of all your frequent customers; how often they buy; what they buy and in what quantity. Every month review the information and see if you can spot any worrying trends. Has the average order value been declining over the last 3 months? Has one customer's regular order dried up altogether? If someone orders a large range of items each month but suddenly stops purchasing one particular range, why?

If you can't track the customers you are loosing, how can you keep them or tempt them back?

Why Have They Turned Their Back On You?

Armed with the information on who's deserting you, the fight back can start in earnest! There are sometimes very good reasons why business can dry up – the owner could have died, moved away, or closed down. Not a lot you can do about that! But what about more worrying reasons? Your product quality has gone down hill; the customer feels he is no longer getting value for money; your general service levels have declined. These are areas you have to know about, so you can get the business back on track

If you see a slippage in business and you can identify who is contributing to it, then pick up the phone and get talking! Find out what the problem is. If you can bring them back into the fold, then great but if it's genuinely too late, then at least you have gathered some important knowledge about where the business is going wrong.

What Has It Cost You?

You may be thinking that the odd customer here and there is not going to have a major impact on your lifestyle. Think again! Remember, it's not just one sale, it's a lifetime of sales that you are loosing. Supposing a customer spends $1,000 per month with you. He walks away into the sunset and you never see him again. Imagine that he could have been doing business with you for the next 20 years – that's $240,000!

Interested now? Well you should be! Working out the financial impact of loosing just one customer can really bring home the impact on the business. This should galvanise you into action and get you working on a retention plan.

Your Retention Plan

Having now convinced you that you need a Customer Retention Plan, what exactly should it include?

1. Have a system in place which allows you to answer all the questions we have just reviewed. Understand what is going on in the business, so you can identify and put matters right. Make sure you know who you lost, why you lost them and how much it has and will cost you

2. Get your staff together on a regular basis and remind them of the importance of retaining your customers. If you don't get them on board then you have no hope

3. During your staff meetings hold brainstorming sessions so everyone can come up with ideas on how to hold onto your customers

4. Implement the good ideas and measure the results so you know what is working and what is not

A good retention plan can be just as effective as a good marketing plan; they achieve the same results – a contribution to profit. So, sit down and have a think about the steps you can put in place to keep your customers.

I saw a sign in shop one day, it said, "It's not how many come in, it's how many come back that's important." Doesn't that say it all! http://Infosdemocracy.com

Forget Conventional Dream Interpretation: Learn to Cultivate Your Dreams Today!

One of my favourite quotes of all time and I am sure many of you share my thoughts, is the speech by Martin Luther King at the civil rights march in Washington, 1963, which went like this:

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood..."

"I have a dream..." Indeed. Inspiring stuff. I want to discuss our dreams in a very practical way today.

I want to talk about how to cultivate your dreaming. It really is a tremendously valuable thing to do. I want to steer away from conventional dream interpretation and will explain why.

As of today, pay attention to your dreaming and your daydreaming. Dreams are important to us in many ways, because they do the following:

Firstly, when you dream you actively process information and feelings.

Secondly, dreams are always involving many senses, so the highly sensory experience is very rich. It is quite rare for us to use all our senses at once as we do when we dream.

Thirdly, dreams give us valuable information about what is going on in our lives, whether directly or more often in a disguised or symbolic form.

Fourthly, dreams are strongly sequenced, though often in a way which is emotionally rather than logically organised.

Finally, dreams draw upon a rich range of unconscious, associative, creative links between many kinds of information.

Some people remember their dreams; others tend to forget all but the most dramatic bits as soon as they wake. When you dream or daydream, take time to replay as much of it as you can in your mind before the events of the day overlay it. Relive the story of that dream. Remind yourself of the events, pictures, sensations and other sensory information it involved.

This dream was the product of your mind. Marvel at your own creativity! This is amazing stuff here; get excited by it.

If you get into the habit of asking yourself when you wake, "what did I dream?" you may at first only remember a few particularly strong feelings or vivid images: write them down and review it regularly. I actually used to write a dream journal and wrote everything down as soon as I opened my eyes each morning. It provided me with such inspiration when I required it.

Naturally, lots of you may want to start with dream interpretation straight away. Resist the urge for dream interpretation, ok?

Do your best not to assume that there is necessarily a single clear meaning which can be interpreted according to psychological theories or books on dream significance or dream interpretation. How can your dreams have the same meaning as someone else? Is your brain the same as that persons? For now, ease off the dream interpretation.

I have found that the most useful assumption to make about dreams is that they have some kind of significance for you, the dreamer: they come from your internal, unconscious mind's storehouse of feelings, experiences and images, and are an active and useful way of processing that is quite different from – and just as useful as – the processing that belongs to the logical conscious part of your mind.

Often a strong feeling will be your first clue to the meaning a dream has for you: so note it, and wonder about it, but don't try to rush to tie it down by conscious analysis. The real work of the dream is often done simply in the dreaming of it: the conscious mind does not always have to understand, and when it tries to translate dreams into its own terms it may be limiting it, just as poetry translated from another language usually loses something of its more subtle tapestry of meanings.

Think about the value of dreams.

Dreams demonstrate a different level of mental functioning from conscious, disciplined thought. When you pay attention to them, and even cultivate them, you are learning to become familiar with, to trust and to draw upon a fuller range of your own mental resources: in other words, you are using more of what you've got. Hey, this stuff is going to keep happening, so why not really use it.

The mind works both consciously and unconsciously. Conscious thought is formally taught in our education system. Its strength is its systematic and disciplined way of handling information. Its limitation is that it tends to be rule-bound and too narrow in its problem-solving approach.

The brain also processes information at an unconscious level: mostly, this is associative and depends on links, similarities and feelings. This processing produces dreams, as well as much of our other "creative" or "expressive" experience. That is why we are often surprised by the spontaneous connections we make or insights we have, and by our imaginative inspiration: it is not what we would have come up with consciously at all, yet it seems somehow completely "right". This way of thinking works "laterally" – it expands, goes sideways and finds multiple avenues rather than just one.

We need both kinds of functioning if we are to make the most of our brain power. Logic and intuition, discipline and divergence, are all vital tools that enrich and enable us. But whereas we are used to working with the conscious mind, in part because we are aware of it and can monitor it as it works, many people are less at ease trusting and using the unconscious processes. Paying attention to your dreams, and deliberately cultivating daydreaming, are both ways of stretching yourself into this area.

So let us have a look at the value of deliberate daydreaming. Where dreams come unbidden, you may find it useful to deliberately evoke the conditions for daydreaming, if, like many people, you have not really valued the activity before now.

How is it valuable? Daydreaming brings us escape and relaxation; visions of the future that inspire and help us to bring about what we have dreamed of; solutions to apparently unsolvable problems; inventions and creative possibilities. Daydream states allow the unconscious, associative parts of the mind to work in their own playful and imaginative ways, bringing not only pleasure but results that our usual deliberate, attentive, rational thought does not. We need space in our lives for both ways of processing if we are to realise ourselves as fully as possible.

The key to daydreaming is to be in that right state. If you want to practice, please visit my website and download the free hypnosis session there, or learn self-hypnosis, read my book "The Secrets of Self-Hypnosis" or invest in the self-hypnosis masterclass audio programme, there is nothing else as good in the world today, really there isn't. There is a kind of automatic abstractedness that goes along with daydreaming. Mostly it just seems to happen – but when you know about creating and changing states, you can choose to make it happen.

Here are some ways you can cultivate and work with your daydreams:

Firstly, notice when you have been daydreaming. Is there any pattern of circumstances that helps bring about your particular daydreaming state?

Some people find that repetitive, relatively automatic, activities such as jogging, ironing or walking create the right state. Perhaps it is a warm bath, swimming a few lengths, or sitting in the garden. Or it may be swaying to the movement of a train, staring into space, looking out of the window of a bus on the way to work, or going on a long drive.

Once you find what helps you daydream, use it and make space for it in your life on a regular basis, imagine that you are in that experience, recreate those circumstances inside of your mind. Let daydreaming come to you, and notice what kinds of windows it opens from our ordinary world into what other kinds of possibilities. Some of your best ideas and inspirations may come at these times.

Secondly, next time you have a decision to make, or a problem to solve, or a challenge to overcome, you can set up the circumstances so that you can trigger your daydreaming state – and allow yourself to explore your problem or decision in this way. When you have done so, make some notes of what you experienced and discovered. Add that to your conscious thinking on the subject: you now have much more information, and the advantage of having engaged more of your mental resources.

Thirdly, for today, forget dream interpretation. That is a conscious and limiting thing to do. Did I make myself clear? Forget conventional dream interpretation. For now use your dreams in personal ways to you.  http://Infosdemocracy.com

The work-life balance

Balance. It's a nice word but the reality is hard to pin down. It may not even put us on the right track in our 21st century quest for fulfillment and happiness. In this article we will talk about the integration of work and family life, beginning not with the workplace and the employer's role in sorting things out, but with the person and her priorities.

Generally than people talk about work-life balance they mean the challenge of managing their family commitment when they've got children, while juggling the demands of a career. That's the traditional focus, but the concept has evolved quite a bit. There are now many younger people in the workforce, in their late 20s and early 30s, who may not even have home or family but they want a sense of balance in their life.

Often we are thinking of some sort of perfection, where nothing is out of place, there's no stress, and this of course is unrealistic. It automatically means a trade-off between work and life. If I give more time to my family I won't be able to do my job properly, or if I spend more time on the job my family will suffer. Yet I want to be able to have it all, to do it all, right now.

Let's think about integration, which means bringing the various pieces of our lives into a cohesive whole. We each have many roles, goals, responsibilities and life plans. We have to get it together. The attractive idea of finding ways to bring life into a unity will give us the harmony and happiness we seek.

Experience shows what people who have very clear priorities and their own clear definition of success succeed best at balancing their lives. They know what's most important in their lives. These are people who can say, before it happens: If I have to make a choice, if work and family come head to head, I know what my biggest priority is. People who realize it may have slow their career for a period of time, perhaps while a child is younger, and have a less demanding job so they can have more time at home. And they can be at peace with that, because their definition of success is not necessarily the one that society tells them.

Usually we have to just go through life and let the new promotion or the new demands of the job dictate what you do, to feel you don't have a choice. This is not balanced life road. We need to stop and reflect, communicate more with your husband, your wife, your manager at work, and basically be more pro-active.

The today's truth is that we have too much to do. Technology has changed things and made people accessible 24 hours a day, encroaching on the peaceful time people used to have. Yet some things don't change. We still have 24 hours a day. We all have the same amount of time and how we use it comes down to a personal choice.
The disorganization traits usually come from avoiding the choice and try to do too much. Even a simple thing like, What are we going to have for dinner tonight? can become a huge job if we feel, Oh, I've a lot of work and will not be able to do grocery shopping. Obviously, if we have the knowledge and skills to make something simpler than we're going to gain more time. This is what AcePlanner is built on - using good systems to simplify daily tasks so you don't spend inordinate amounts of time on work.

For balanced life planning and other basic management skills have to be used at home as well as in the workplace. One of the reasons why many people prefer going out to work to working at home is what we're very organized in the workplace, we use time management there, and then we come home and just ride the waves, consuming ourselves with the latest problem that has cropped up.

However there's nothing wrong with wanting to go out to work. We do need multiple interests to enrich our lives and many times we have talents that we need to give to the workplace and to the world. But it is true that work on the job is often more attractive because it is more project-oriented and very linear, and at the end of that piece of work we get the praise and a sense of accomplishment, whereas at home every day it's the same thing.

Human beings have certain basic needs that have to be taken care of every day, and although we can feel a sense of accomplishment that we have organized something at home, it's soon going to be dirtied again, or another meal is going to have to be put on the table. And this means changing your sense of where you get your satisfaction - not just from accomplishing the task or from the process of doing it, but from the motive.

We are all expecting a reward or praise for completed work. Lack of reward will kill our desire to work what leads to reduced productivity. This is why we prefer working for others than doing something for ourselves. Promise yourself a reward for completing each task or finishing the total job. For example let yourself watch an interesting movie when you finish developing page or new promotion plan.  http://infosdemocracy.com

Finding Your Ecommerce Cranny on the Web

Online or off, a time tested method of succeeding in business is to focus on an unexploited area. You are probably wondering how. Here is your answer.

Finding Your E-commerce Cranny

When we talk about a nook, we are simply identified a very focused area of business. There are a zillion sites selling movies, but very few selling French movies from the 1960s. If there is sufficient interest in such movies, you could build a business around selling such classic movies. This concept applies to any business area regardless of whether you are selling products or offering services.

You need to do some daydreaming. Most people make the mistake of focusing on a subject that they think will make a ton of money. Problems can occur with this approach because if you have no inherent interest in the area besides money, you will eventually grow disillusioned with it. If you are going to start a business, you want it be enjoyable. If it is just another job, you have made a bad mistake. This brings us back to daydreaming.

You need to give serious thought to your interests, and not just your interests today. What have you always been interested in? Don't worry about how you will make money, just focus on the subject matter. Remember the cliché – find something you love and the money will follow. This is exactly what you want to do. Once you have an idea, it is time to figure out how to make money off of it.

For a web business, you want to focus on something known as keyword research. Keyword research is crucial because you can type in a phrase and see the exact phrases people have used to search on Google, Yahoo and MSN that incorporate the world. Even better, you can see how many people use the phrase each day. Doing keyword research lets you determine if there is enough interest in your area and the exact phrases your prospects are using to find things in the area. It doesn't get much better than that!

There are a variety of tools you can use. Overture offers a free tool that will give you a general idea, but is not the most accurate. Wordtracker is much better, but will set you back a few bucks. Keyword Discovery is similar, but runs a few more dollars yet. Regardless of your choice, make sure to use one of these for keyword research.

Once you identify the phrases used by your prospects, you can determine if there is enough interest in your nook. You can also identify the exact phrases they are using and tailor your site and marketing to those phrases. http://Infosdemocracy.com

Ten Top Tips For Successfully Setting Goals

 "Goals. There's no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There's no telling what you can do when you believe in them. And there's no telling what will happen when you act upon them." ~ Jim Rohn

Would you like to achieve positive results in your life and get what you really want? This tried and tested goal setting strategy is an effective way to set and achieve your goals. My Ten Top Tips are as follows:

• Write them down. By writing down your goals you are showing personal commitment and declaring your intention to succeed, as well as helping to clarify your thinking.

• Be specific. Write down goals that are specific, measurable and positive. Focus clearly on what you desire, not what you lack or want to get rid of from your life.

• Have a time limit. Set a date by which you will have achieved each of your goals. Otherwise, it's like starting a football match without having agreed when the game is to end!

• Think of the benefits. Think through all the benefits of achieving your goals, and write them all down. This helps you clarify why they are important to you, visualise and feel what it will be like to achieve them, check how committed you are to working on them - and all this will help energise and motivate you if the going gets tough.

• Consider options and obstacles. How many ways can you think of to achieve your goal? Evaluate the results and consequences of each. What could stop you or cause a problem? And what about subconscious obstacles? Complete this sentence several times to find out more – "I want to achieve (name your goal) but………"
"Goals. There's no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There's no telling what you can do when you believe in them. And there's no telling what will happen when you act upon them." ~ Jim Rohn
Would you like to achieve positive results in your life and get what you really want? This tried and tested goal setting strategy is an effective way to set and achieve your goals. My Ten Top Tips are as follows:

• Write them down. By writing down your goals you are showing personal commitment and declaring your intention to succeed, as well as helping to clarify your thinking.

• Be specific. Write down goals that are specific, measurable and positive. Focus clearly on what you desire, not what you lack or want to get rid of from your life.

• Have a time limit. Set a date by which you will have achieved each of your goals. Otherwise, it's like starting a football match without having agreed when the game is to end!

• Think of the benefits. Think through all the benefits of achieving your goals, and write them all down. This helps you clarify why they are important to you, visualise and feel what it will be like to achieve them, check how committed you are to working on them - and all this will help energise and motivate you if the going gets tough.

• Consider options and obstacles. How many ways can you think of to achieve your goal? Evaluate the results and consequences of each. What could stop you or cause a problem? And what about subconscious obstacles? Complete this sentence several times to find out more – "I want to achieve (name your goal) but………"
• Make a detailed plan. Having chosen your preferred way forward, identify all the actions you'll need to take. This breaks a seemingly big and daunting task down into manageable steps, enables you to plan what to do, prepare for problems, and reduces resistance to actually getting started.

• Identify resources. What skills, knowledge, ability and contacts do you already have? What additional resources will you require? What changes do you need to make? Realistically review and assess this when making your plan, and ask for extra support as required.

• Balance and fit. Check that all the areas of your life are in balance – if not, will your various goals make this happen? Will your goals support your long term plans and fit your ambitions, are they worthy of you, do they reflect your values? So while you are building that great career or business, ensure that you are also looking after your health, relationships, fun time, wealth and personal development etc.

• Take action! Make a start. Actually take the first step you identified when you formed your plan of action.

• Review and reward. Set some interim milestones as part of your initial strategy. This means you can check your progress regularly and see that you are moving in the right direction. And as part of this process acknowledge your achievements along the way and reward yourself for everything you accomplish. Celebrate!  http://Infosdemocracy.com

Cracking the Pareto Code

Ever heard of the "80/20 Rule"? That's the well-known principle that says that in every sales organization 20% of the salespeople win 80% of the sales (and money!) while the remaining 80% are all splitting up 20% of the revenue. So, which category do you want to be a part of - the Top 20%, or what I refer to as the Sales HEROES, right?

Where did this rule come from? In fact, the 80/20 rule is not a rule, it's a "law." It comes from the work of Vilfredo Pareto, an eighteenth-century Italian economist. His studies on economics and productivity led to the conclusion that in just about any endeavor, 80 percent of the productivity will come from only 20 percent of the efforts. Eighty percent of the profits are produced by 20 percent of the employees. In a police force, 80 percent of the arrests are made by 20 percent of the officers. It can be applied another way: 20 percent of a business's customers create 80 percent of the problems. And so on.

Want to be a Sales HERO? You can use Pareto's Law to your advantage! Create an action plan that embraces the law rather than fights it. Meetings, crisis management, phone calls, office chat, paperwork, getting your ducks all lined up in a row are NOT part of the 20 percent of your activity that is directly attributable to creating new business. There is only one task proven to directly lead to achieving your sales objectives: cold calling or prospecting. I have seen every possible attempt to find a way around Pareto's Law but none has succeeded. Once you accept the reality that you cannot change the rules of the numbers game, you will be able to make the decision simply to play by the rules or quit.

How many prospecting calls do you have to make? Let's apply Pareto's Law to find out. Let's say you decide to "complete" 100 prospecting calls in a given period of time. According to Pareto's Law, you will have had to walk through about five doors or made five phone attempts to actually reach one decision maker (20 percent of the total). Therefore, you will make 500 attempts to attain your goal of completing 100 prospecting calls. Of the 100 decision makers you actually spoke with, 20 (20 percent) are going to have a genuine interest and will stay in the game - your pipeline - for further follow up, while 80 (80 percent), no matter how good at selling you are or how much you know they need what you have to offer, are simply not going to be interested - they are out of the game for the time being. Now, through appointments, proposals, and follow-up calls, you will find that 80 percent (or 16) of the 20 prospects that were still IN the game are not going to buy (at least not right now), for whatever reason. 

There is absolutely nothing you can do about it. It's not you, it's the law. Don't worry, they may get back in the game later! That leaves four decision makers who buy your product now! Congratulations, you just made your first four sales! At first this may seem like small reward for all your efforts, but you will learn that it is a good, solid formula that will always help you get from ZERO to Sales HERO in 90 days! 

Try this - Invest 80% of your productive time prospecting for new business for three straight months. If you do, you'll find that from there forward you will never need to invest more than 20% of your time prospecting to keep your momentum going.

As you mature in your sales career you will learn many skills, techniques and ideas that will help you learn to work smarter rather than harder, and to leverage relationships and referrals to build your sales empire. Just remember – whenever you start fresh with a new opportunity, or if you find yourself in a slump and need to get out of it fast – start a 90 day action plan that embraces Pareto's Law – I guarantee you will be on your way to the Top 20% of all salespeople in the world!  http://Infosdemocracy.com