In our human tendency to make simple things complex, we overlook the following fact.
For Example:
Taylor Swift Concert Tickets Buy Now
Over the years I have generated the most sales with a page with a few sentences and a button or link.
Knotty Garden Twine (non-slip nylon twine in a convenient spool for gardeners)
How To Coach Baseball To Kids (VHS and DVD)
Rocket Norton: Lost In Space (Book)
The Mind Map Book (Review with an affiliate link to Amazon)
The Tao of Pooh (Review with an affiliate link to Amazon)
The Woman In Black (Stage Production)
F**K Cancer Concert (Fundraising Concert)
I wrote the reviews on a whim in about half an hour each and generated thousands of dollars in affiliate commissions over the years (harder to do now).
The Knotty Twine order form used Javascript to calculate price and shipping based on quantity. A day maybe.
The other pages were a few hours.
I rarely did anything to promote beyond paying attention to the title and description for Search Engine Optimization. People found the page and bought it, sometimes because other people put links to my pages.
A little paid advertising could have blown up sales if I were paying more attention!
Do People Want What You Are Offering?
Often we don’t ask ourselves that question and instead get wrapped up with reasons like:
It is something important for me to create.
People need it.
If I build it, they will come.
Need Versus Want
We have sometimes not paid enough attention to people wanting what we offer.
Sometimes we know people need it.
But maybe they won’t want to think about it or look for a solution until they absolutely have to.
Online courses and memberships can be an area where we confuse people needing what we offer translating to people wanting to buy.
Prooving A Market
We and most people encouraging the creation of courses, memberships, and products urge people to determine if there is an interest in the offer.
That involves creating a minimal viable product and putting it out there.
A $1 offer for a membership is a good test. If people will not try for a dollar, there may not be interest in the offer.
Adjusting The Product And Offer
Sometimes it is a matter of recasting the product and presenting in a different way.
You can split-test this by positioning the product in different ways to see what resonates with the market.
Creating Awareness And Interest
Now that we have established something that people want to buy, we can apply our vast range of Integrated Marketing strategies and implementations to get the offer out there and make sales.
Our Total Traffic and Conversion team can help you test the viability and get the offer out to the people who want what you offer.
Retail is all about Traffic and Conversion. For a physical location, we are talking about foot and road traffic and sales.
Is Your Store Invisible?
The small town I live in has a few downtown streets with small shops. The bigger chains are out near the highway.
Many of the retail spaces are vacant.
And many look vacant, soon to be actually vacant.
Here is an exercise you can do for your own business.
Walk down the sidewalk and imagine you are looking at your shop for the very first time.
Here are some things to look for:
Is there a sign visible from the sidewalk?
Is there a sign visible from the street?
Does the shop look like it is open? (an OPEN sign helps!)
Is it obvious what the shop sells?
Does the entrance look inviting for people to come in?
Are there specials and announcements visible from the outside?
What Is The Inside Experience?
Does the shop feel welcoming?
The merchandise is well organized?
Is the pricing clear?
Product information is available?
Are staff members helpful?
Is it easy to check out and pay?
How did you do?
All of the above items contribute to sales and the survival of your business.
Low-Cost Improvements
Here are some inexpensive things you can do quickly to improve visibility.
Create an A-Frame ‘Sandwich’ board to go on the sidewalk. These are visible to foot and road traffic. You likely have a local print ship or can order online from a service like VistaPrint.
Have an OPEN sign that is bright and ideally lighted.
Have your hours clearly posted on the door.
Have attractive posters or displays in the window that communicate what the shop offers and invites people in.
Create effective displays within the shop.
Have business cards and brochures available in the shop.
Other Improvements
Here are a few other things to consider.
Clean up and paint the outside wall of the shop if looking a little shoddy.
Add professional-looking signage.
Add a branded awning with the name visible from all sides.
Consider a digital sign with rotating images and text.
Consider a video display in the window looping a marketing video.
Upgrade your inside merchandising presentation.
Integrated Marketing
Our Total Traffic and Conversion Team, along with our Referral Partners, can help you with most of these items, including creating print and digital assets.
Retail Effectiveness Review
Like our Online Effectiveness Review, we can review your physical shop and make recommendations.
If we cannot visit your shop in person, you can take a bunch of photos with your phone and send them to us for review.
In this episode, Greg Dixon, Roy Dickan, and Betty Withrow discuss how writing a book and integrated marketing can help you grow your business, be it a chicken coop empire or anything else.
Learn how to gain authority, credibility, and success with their advice and experience.
Key Points:
Writing a book can help increase your authority in the marketplace and helps boost your credibility.
A book can be a great marketing tool and can be used to promote various aspects of your business, such as press releases, blog posts, and other online content.
Google rewards authorities with free traffic, and establishing a Google business profile can help you gain more exposure in your niche.
Creating a marketing plan that includes a book, website, and online course can help grow your business and reach new customers.
A well-thought-out marketing wheel can be customized to your specific needs and goals, and the Total Traffic and Conversion team is ready to help and assist in any way they can.
Book Publishing + Integrated Marketing + Google = Massive Success
What do you want to put out into the world?
Products? Courses? Services? Books?
All of the above?
We can help you clarify your plan and create a launch plan.
In this broadcast episode, Greg Dixon and Betty Withrow discuss the search for a literary agent for new authors.
They cover various topics, including the definition of a literary agent, whether or not finding an agent is necessary, and when to consider self-publishing versus traditional publishing.
Betty also provides tips on how to find an agent, such as using the Guide to Literary Agents and doing research on publishers and agents who represent your genre. She also shares insights on how to write a query letter, the importance of timing, and the amount of work that goes into promoting a book.
Lastly, she suggests different resources for aspiring authors to explore, such as Publishers Marketplace and the Writer’s Market.
Overall, Betty emphasizes the importance of understanding what you want your book to accomplish and tailoring your publishing strategy to achieve that goal.
Get ready for our newest episode that is sure to make you think twice about your branding strategy. Our expert guests, Betty Withrow and Roy Dickan from Niche Domination, discuss the correlation between your brand and your niche.
They share some amazing insights on defining your niche and creating branding messaging that truly resonates with your audience. Plus, they offer some valuable tips on making your solutions affordable and establishing a connection with customers.
If you’re ready to take your brand to the next level, then you can’t afford to miss this episode!
Use code FreeReview for a free Online Effectiveness Review.
Well, happy Friday everyone. My name is Greg Dixon. I’m here with Betty Withrow and Roy Dickan for Total Traffic and Conversion.
Today we’re going to talk about your brand and your niche. And Betty just posted something recently about it.
So I’ll let you kick this off. Okay. Yes, I posted an article which you can find on our site as well as on the Total Traffic and Conversion LinkedIn, and you can follow us on LinkedIn.
But what I have to say here is that your brand is not your logo. It is not your storefront. It’s not anything like that.
Your brand is actually you. What is it that you are conveying to the customer about the value that you can provide with your goods or services? And everything that you do contributes to your branding in some way or another. Having images that support the feeling that you want your brand to create is an important piece of messaging when you’re doing online or any other kind of marketing. And even more important than that is how do you speak about what it is that you do?
Who do you talk to about what you do? And what do you do to connect with the actual concerns that your audience has? And what problem are you going to solve for them? All of this is contained within your brand.
And the reason why this broadcast is called Your Brand and Your Niche is because that contributes directly to your need.
Once you define and understand your brand, then you’re a long way towards understanding what your niche is and vice versa.
Once you’ve defined who you serve, what’s your target market, what do you provide for them and so on, then you can reverse engineer it back into your branding and then go back into your niche.
Go back and forth until you’ve really got it nailed down. And Roy is the guy who can work with you to boost your niche marketing online so that you become what I like to call the only choice in your market. You’re not the best choice.
You’re the only choice.
When people look at all the things you offer, going with you is absolutely a no-brainer. They need to do that. And they know it by the time they even get to your site. They even get to your site. And so there’s no better person to talk about niche than Roy from Niche Domination.
So maybe you can elaborate on what Betty said there, Roy.
Sure. Yeah. Well, your niche is definitely you. Well, I think a good approach is, and what I have done and what I recommend a lot of times, is that your solution is what you develop a lasting impression about.
And you sum it up into a couple of words, like, my solution is niche domination. Just two words. And then I try to make it visual. And then from there, I expand it out. So whenever I talk about it, I’m talking about niche domination.
So everything is Niche Domination. It’s almost, people might remember niche domination more than they even remember Roy Dickan.
And that’s fine. Eventually, they’re going to put the two of them together, because that’s my brand. And I think a solution is what people are always seeking. So when your brand really is a solution that they are looking for, then they’re really going to remember it. And it’s going to be easy for them to tell other people about it as well. So I like to take it beyond what most people think about as brand and actually brand your solution.
Yeah. Perfect. Okay, Betty, what do you want to add?
Well, yeah, that’s another part of what I wrote about is, what is your solution? Are you providing fast results?
Are you providing in-depth analysis of what your customers and clients need? Are you providing personal service?
Are you focused on efficiency?
All those things fit into your brand messaging. And as Roy was pointing out, what is your niche? What is the most effective way for you to position your messaging within the marketplace?
Yeah, so when people see your logo, and your logo for your brand might be different than the logo for your business, or they hear the words, or they hear your name, if that all becomes kind of one thing, and then when you tell your story, you’re talking about that as well, then to me, that’s really, you know, making the brand come to life.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
So we, Betty kind of talked about it, I think her process is when she starts working with a client is to figure out what their brand and what their niche is.
Because not everybody knows, sometimes people come to us and they have a perfectly good idea about everything they want.
And they’ve got a clear path to it, but that’s not always the case. And as you said, it’s a bit of a going back process, you know, figure out your niche, figure out your brand, go back, refine one, go back, find the other.
And our Total Traffic and Conversion thing is we try to get all those pieces to work together. So that it looks like you have a brand when you’re presenting in a networking group and your LinkedIn profile and your website and YouTube channel and all these other weird and wonderful things that you might be doing.
So it’s consistent.
So do you guys want to talk a bit about how we get people there? Yeah, I can address that. I feel like your brand in a lot of cases is how do you make your customers feel?
And so I like to get into that, you know, does your customer feel like, oh, yeah, showed up on time, did exactly what was requested, beat the deadline, all those types of things.
But that may not be what your process is. That might be something else entirely. So what I would like to do with a business owner is just have a conversation about what it is that they promise to their people. How do they deliver that? What is their best angle to present their services or their goods?
And then work to refine that so that it’s crystal clear to the customer exactly what they’re going to experience when they work with you. Because even more than a product or a service, they’re purchasing experience. They want to know that when they give you their money, you’re going to give them what they need. And that experience being seamless and building a power of trust and everything is actually the essence of a brand. There’s been quite a bit of stuff in the news lately about certain brands and the problems that they’re having because they misunderstood the needs of their market. I
t’s not even about the product.
It’s about the feeling of community that their product did not provide for the people who have been their consistent customers based on messaging that wasn’t, it just wasn’t ringing the bell for the people who were at the cash register.
Let’s say it that way. And so what you really want is to be with your customers where they are.
And so the way I do that is I ask people who’s buying your things, what is it that they really need from you?
And how do we make sure that there’s a clear pathway to get there?
I use a three-step process that I use in everything that I do, whether it’s your video scripting, your blog, whatever, to use the three things. I call them the Three Golden Apples, language, choice, and outcomes. The language of your market is the language of your brand.
The choice is you being so well equipped to understand the language of your market that you communicate with your market very, very, very effectively. And the outcomes are what is it that your customer experience is going to be? You know, a high-quality experience, something that makes them feel really good about themselves because they were smart enough to choose you, all this type of thing.
So all of those things go into the brand messaging. And then the team and I, our team, which is all of us, work together to figure out what’s the best strategy to deliver those things into the marketplace and what’s going to be most effective for you in reaching the people who need to know about you.
Yeah, that’s great. And I want to take that a step back. If you’re just starting your company or it’s relatively new and it doesn’t have the sales that you really want yet, so it’s really hasn’t really taken off yet, what you want to do is make sure that the niche you’ve selected is the right one for you. Before you even develop the solution and before you start branding the solution or branding the niche or branding yourself, whatever you’re going to do, make sure that the niche is something where you can provide a solution that is really impactful, that people really want.
But then make sure that the niche also has the money to buy that solution, because if they can’t buy it, they may want it, but there’s nothing that’s ever going to work out for them or for you if it’s unaffordable for them. So your niche has to have the right money in the hands of the people, or they have to be able to borrow it if it’s a lot.
And they can, they’ve got the resources to do that so that they can actually afford your solution. Once you have an affordable niche, a niche that has a big demand, and you now have a solution for that demand, a solution for that big problem, that’s when I think it’s really the time to really establish your brand, because now you’ve got, you know that when you have a solution that can be afforded and that it can do a good job for people, when they find out about it, they want to move forward. So you’ve done all the background work.
Now create the branding so that when they find out about you, they remember you visually with the wording, with the thoughts, and then you can prove yourself with the showing up on time, doing everything you say you’re going to do. And that all put together becomes your brand.
Yeah, that’s really good, Roy.
Right, because if they can’t afford it, then nobody’s happy about it. They’re going to be very upset because now they can see they’re way out of their problem, but they can’t afford to get it. So they may be more upset than ever. True, true. Yeah. So having good payment options for people is good too. Y
es, yes. Yeah, Betty and I have had a conversation that says we’ll take money anyway. You know, Stripe, Square, PayPal, hot air balloons with money strapped to it. You know, we want to make it easy.
Yes, all of the above. Minimize the friction. Right, minimizing the friction, but also as Roy pointed out, making sure you have affordable solutions.
Sometimes there’s somebody who simply cannot yet afford your top-value offer. You know, however, if you have something that is affordable for them as a first step, then you’re showing that you’re beginning to provide solutions for them and giving them a pathway to greater success because what you’re doing for them is going to make them more able to afford your higher-level services.
And you’re keeping them engaged with you in the process. They feel like you understand them and they can get to those three critical words of know, like, and trust you so that you have an ongoing relationship rather than a single sale.
You know, I’ve worked with business coaches who are like, just go for the high level and, you know, like charge onto the moon. Well, not everybody can go to the moon right now. Okay, so give them something that they can afford that’s going to solve at least one problem for them. And you’ve got them in the loop, so to speak.
And you’re a service-oriented person rather than somebody who’s just grasping for a sale.
Oh, that is excellent advice. Yeah, because once they can afford something, even if it’s your lowest price item that you’ve got, if it gets them a little closer to where they want to go and once they purchase it, two things happen.
One, if it works for them, they’re really happy about that and they’re getting closer to where they want to go.
But also the whole relationship between you and your customer now is totally changed from when they were a prospect.
Now they’re a customer. Now it’s much easier for them to want to buy from you again, when you’ve already provided some movement toward the path that they want to go down to get to the solution that, you know, they’re a big solution.
They’re maybe five years, 10 years down the road, but if they take a step toward that, that relationship is totally changed.
Yeah, that’s great. Yeah.
So speaking of first steps and affordable options, we have a special offer.
Betty and Roy and I offer an effectiveness review.
Basically we sit down and figure out where you are, where you want to go and, you know, what steps there are. And normally we charge a nominal fee for that, but I put a coupon in the chat and called free review. And so for the affordable price of free, you can sit down with the three of us and we can take a look at, you know, what you’re doing.
We started this with taking a look at people’s online presence, but it all goes into the branding and the messaging all across everything from website to social media to what other campaigns are.
And again, as that could lead to, we can give you some advice that might help you put, you know, help you make choices for your future, or you could choose to work with us and we hope you work for us for the 10 years that Roy was talking about. S
o yeah. And we can, we always look at what’s appropriate for you, what’s the best solution for you and the people you’re trying to serve. The longer you can be with us, probably the better it’ll be.
But if we can just take you, you know, toward where you want to go, you know, we’re happy with that. We love helping entrepreneurs. We love helping businesses of all sizes. And I don’t want to tell you how many years we’ve got between us or added up, but it’s a lot. And so we’ve been there for a long time.
We want you to take advantage of our experience. Yeah, that’s perfect. I put a QR code up on the top here. You hold your phone there and go to the website to go to totaltrafficandconversion.com. And then there’s an effectiveness that’s on the menu as effectiveness.
And I also put the link, direct link into the chat. So do we have any questions from our audience today?
Any last comments from Betty and Roy here? Other than just do it.
Get three for free. That’s what came up.
Three for free.
I should have had a banner for that. I just thought of it just this minute. Say we brand it now. Yeah. It’s part of our brand, right? Yeah, it’s part of our brand. Three for free. That’s how the creative process works. I sit down with you. I listen to you. I let it kind of kick around in the back of my mind for a while.
And then something pops up and says, this will take it to where it needs to go with words or it starts with concepts and then it moves into words. And it’s a living process. Yeah. And we’re finding with our collaboration with us and then also our clients too, we’re all sort of putting our heads together and what’s the best thing to do and what’s the next best step.
And so it’s all better with the more people giving a different perspective on it, the better the overall effect is. Indeed.
Yeah. Yeah. What I like to say just in closing here is that when one of us offers a solution, it’s good.
When two of us offers it, the same solution or a different solution, of course, is a better solution. But when three of us come together on creating that solution and implementing that solution, it’s dramatically better.
And so this is what we can bring to you.
Please take advantage of our three for free. And let’s get to know each other. And I think you brought something up.
We don’t just give you advice about what to do. We help you make it real. We help to implement it and make it happen.
So yeah, please follow the link, book an appointment. And we’re all on LinkedIn, so you can reach out on LinkedIn and chat with us.
And we’re open to collaborating as well. And even with our clients, we think of it as a collaboration, not just a client service.
Yeah, absolutely. It’s teamwork at its best. In the service that I provide, I really want to get into your head, into your vibe, your brand.
So I like to say that I write as you, not for you.
That’s the objective for me, is to create something for you that’s so you that when your husband reads it, he goes, that’s a great post, honey.
And then you have to confess, that’s happened before. And I love it when I hear that story. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you very much for joining us on Friday.
And I know you really love this little video, so we’ll play it again way out. This is so much fun. Here we are. Bye. Have a great weekend. Yeah, have a great weekend.
Getting the book ready for publishing and distribution can also be expensive.
And that is the easy part!
Getting out and marketing the book can be the most expensive and daunting part of the process that many authors never get around to doing.
Sponsorship can help in all three areas.
1. Writing and Editing
Our collaborator Betty Withrow helps with many parts of the book writing process, including coaching, editing, and ghostwriting as needed.
Betty and others charge professional rates for the service to help your book idea come alive.
You can get a sponsor to help take your book from idea to polished manuscript.
2. Formatting and Publishing
Unless you can land a traditional publisher that takes on the formatting and publishing details, you will need to either do that yourself or hire professionals to help.
Again, sponsors can help pay for that.
3. Marketing Your Book
Even if you have a traditional publisher, much of the marketing responsibility will be yours.
Some of the things people have done to sell their books have included:
Book Tours
Publicity
Speaking Engagements
Advertising
Launch Funnels
…
Step 3 can make the first two seem like a walk in the park, which is why many writers check off Step 2 and stop.
Almost no one ends up reading the book.
That’s a whole lotta work for nuttin’!
Better to have a plan and get sponsors involved from the get-go.
Why Would Sponsor Want To Sponsor My Book?
Most large companies have an advertising budget for Sponsorships.
Their goal is mostly to generate brand awareness and sometimes to make sales.
Here are some places where sponsors appear:
At live events
On websites promoting events.
On podcasts and speaking engagements.
In networking groups.
On vehicles used for tours (wrapped cars, vans, and RVs).
At speaking events.
In books and digital products.
…
The magic is in creating win-win arrangements with your sponsors.
Where Can I Learn More?
There are many articles and resources on Sponsorship online.
I have worked with Linda Hollender and highly recommend her Virtual Sponsor Secrets Seminar that is coming up soon.
Bonnie and I attended two live events in LA with Linda Hollander and I ended up creating a book about her dad’s life (that is a story in itself).
I have collected a number of videos I have created related to Kartra and using many of the features.
Following Andy Jenkins, I joined the Kartra Beta Test program in 2017. Since then I have been using the all-in-one business platform for myself and my clients since 2018. It was pretty good in the Beta program and has continued to improve and expand since then. This is my overview of Kartra and why I still love it.
A brief tutorial on building pages in Kartra by Greg Dixon.
Kartra Funnels
Kim Walsh Phillips often has her audience repeat these words:
“If it is not going to make me money, I’m not going to do it!”
Since there is a monthly cost to Kartra and you could end up paying someone like me to help, you will need to have a plan on how to generate revenue.
Kartra can support many different ways of generating revenue, including a very strong Product system with deep support for payments.
We will take an overview with a closer look at payments in Kartra.
Here is an interview with Roy Dickan, where he asked me about Kartra.
I said that Kartra was like a cargo container full of lego parts to build almost anything to support your business. T
he word ‘Kartra’ sounds like an exotic Goddess of commerce!
Opt-In Forms and Pages
The most frequent thing you will do is to
Create an Optin/Sales page,
Create a Thank You Page,
Create an Optin or Product,
Connect the Optin or Product to a button on the Optin/Sales page.
Email
Sequences are a great way to send a series of emails over time when people signup for or purchase something. You can save emails as a template and clone the sequence to reuse components.
Kartra Affiliate Program
One of the strengths of Kartra is the affiliate program for products and services that you offer and also offered by other Kartra users.
I show how to promote the memberships and courses offered by The Note Investor University.
Every book author faces the decision to seek a traditional publisher or self-publish. Today, ghostwriter Betty Withrow and Greg Dixon talk about some of the options and considerations to help you choose what is best for you.
Betty’s first question is, what do you hope to achieve by publishing a book? Sales? Authority? Entertainment? Helping others? Tell stories? …
Kindle Direct Publishing is a great option for publishing yourself, though self-publishing could make it difficult to get a traditional publishing deal.
However, Betty gave some examples of authors who started with self-publishing, which helped land a traditional publishing deal.
Betty Withrow’s books are on Amazon. See her Author Page.
Greg Dixon talked about the publishing history of Rocket Norton’s Lost In Space, now available in The Rocket Norton Vault. Greg has been submitting Rocket Norton’s novels through Kindle Direct Publishing. See Books on Amazon.
Betty Withrow, Roy Dickan, Greg Dixon and special guest Burke Franklin discuss the big picture of developing a business marketing strategy and how the different elements of it work to create Total Traffic and Conversion.
Business Power Tools
Burke’s Business Power Tools at https://www.businesspowertools.com/ include essential tools for planning and building a successful business: