Category: HTM Blog

  • Market To Previous Customers Or Pay The Price

    Market To Previous Customers Or Pay The Price

    Previous customers are may be the most overlooked and undervalued of all lead sources. This much can easily be proven simply by reviewing the number of companies offering customer acquisition versus the number which offer customer retention and relationship development. But placing your primary marketing focus on acquiring new customers is nothing more than a way to spend more money and effort accomplishing something that should cost far less and be far easier. Savvy marketers look to deepen their relationships with previous and existing customers, and reap benefits that would make other marketers jealous.

    Previous Customers are taken for Granted

    Suppose you are marketing an informational e-book. Do you suppose that the bulk of your marketing budget should go towards seeking new customers, or marketing to those who have already purchased from you in the past? Many marketers would do little more than send the previous customers a set of canned email solicitations, announcing the new product. This is a practically free method of marketing which treats previous customers almost as an afterthought. Meanwhile, much of the marketing budget will be dedicated to PPC, Facebook, display ads, and other means of marketing which primarily target new customers.

    Missed Opportunity

    The above example represents and enormous error, and missed opportunity. According to a study by Bain & Capital, acquiring a new customer is six or seven times more expensive than selling to a previous customer. This means, all things being equal, your investment can do up to seven times the work if directed at pervious customers as opposed to new customers. Of course, this advice pertains more to those who already have a sizeable database of existing and previous customers. New marketers have little choice but to build up a list of satisfied customers, and can steadily allocate more of their marketing budgets to previous customers as they go.

    Focus First on Customer Experience

    Offering superior service is essential in laying the foundation for sales down the road. A recent study found that 62 percent of customers across the globe switched from one company to a competitor due to poor customer service. If you do not offer outstanding service your company will be in that 62 percent. Online performance marketers can use the checkout process to further help ensure that first time customers will return. For example, the customers could be offered the opportunity to check a box and be among the first to be notified about new products or services before the general public, or even offered a “no expiration” discount coupon as a gift for making their first purchase.

    Believe in Your Offering

    Many marketers fail to adequately target previous customers because they, the marketers, do not truly appreciate the product or service they are offering. Imagine a Lamborghini salesman. He or she would certainly contact a definite list of previous customers every time a new model is announced because he knows that his customers truly value his offering. He does not hesitate to make the call, and in fact sees himself as doing the previous customers a favor by allowing them to place an order before everyone else. High end sports car sales may seem like an extreme example, but it really is appropriate. You must be every bit as convinced of the quality and utility of your product or service as a high end sports car salesperson is about his. If you aren’t, you won’t market to previous customers because you will have considered yourself lucky that they bought from you in the first place.

  • Performance Marketing And The Law Of Large Numbers

    Performance Marketing And The Law Of Large Numbers

    The Law of Large Numbers says that only over a sufficiently large number of occurrences, or trials, can the result of the trials become apparent. As applied to performance marketing, the law’s application says that only after running a large number of trials can a campaign’s effectiveness be determined. For the same reason you would never determine the probability of flipping heads or tails after a trial of just 10 flips, you cannot judge your campaign’s effectiveness after just a few trials.

    The first active part of performance marketing occurs with the deployment of advertising trials. It is the moment that the ad goes live, and customers begin seeing the ad, that things get interesting. In internet marketing every ad is going to have its own unique desired click through rate (CRT), and actual CTR. But it is important that a sufficient number of impressions be allowed to run before determining that a particular ad is a success or a failure.

    One of the most important questions many performance marketers ask is just how many trials within a campaign are sufficient to determine whether or not the campaign itself is a winner. The answer to this question will ultimately depend on many factors including the kind of product, the cost of the product, the lead source, and how much money the marketer has to fund the campaign. In general the marketer should devote a predetermined part of their marketing budget to each trial, a sum sufficient to place their ad before a large number of prospects. The trial should be allowed to run to its completion, and should not be aborted early due to poor results.

    Many performance marketers rebel against this law. Often after having read the reports of a “super marketer” who has a golden touch, they decide that following his lead should result in instant success. But the sobering truth is that the entirety of performance marketing is based on the application of this law. Ignore it to your peril.

  • Master The Message – Positioning Can Make Or Break A Campaign

    Master The Message – Positioning Can Make Or Break A Campaign

    One underutilized idea in the world of performance marketing is positioning. Positioning is not just the product or service you market, but it is the way in which you present your product or service to your customers. Some good examples of positioning include a national soda brand which uses bikini clad models to sell their products, or an international technology company which presents their product as being refined and exclusive. These examples of positioning give an important clue as to how to best market a product: Using the old adage of selling the steak and the sizzle we can see that not only should you sell the product –the steak, and the presentation – the sizzle, but also the idea that eating the steak confers tangible benefits to the buyer’s health or social status. That is positioning.

    There are many aspects to properly positioning your product or service. Some of the most important include:

    • Imagery – People usually think in pictures. When a person thinks about the good life they see mental images which they associate with positive progress. Perhaps they see money, or see themselves in a new car or home. For years advertisers have made use of the fact that young men like to imagine themselves surrounded by beautiful women. One of the best positioning strategies is to get in touch with your potential client’s idea of the good life, or life without a certain problem the currently have, and then present that image to them in your ads.
    • Scarcity – Positioning your product or service as being scarce is almost always a good idea. For example, a current internet trend is not only to offer a traditional email sign-up for an auto responder series, but to inform the prospect that the “program” is currently closed and that they will be placed on a waiting list. So, instead of automatically getting the information they were looking for, the prospect will be sent an email saying that they will be notified when the program is reopened. This artificial scarcity is thought to increase a prospect’s desire for the product, service, or information.
    • Exclusivity – People love it when a product or service gives them a sense of superiority. This is why exclusivity is such a powerful selling position. Products and services which are positioned as being exclusive work well when simultaneously positioned as being scarce. This increases the sense of superiority or exclusivity for those who are ultimately able to obtain it. Offerings which convey a feeling of exclusivity to the customer can often be sold at a premium, and can command intense customer loyalty when properly positioned.

    The goal of positioning your product is to cause your potential customer to intensely desire it. As convincing a person to make a purchase, or take any other action, is largely based on your ability to connect your product to the prospect on an emotional level, the more intensely your prospect visualizes him or herself with your product, the better. This is why so many performance marketers fail. They fail to make the connection between their product or service and their prospect’s core emotional needs. But by using these three positioning techniques, the performance marketer can significantly increase the odds that their prospect will connect emotionally with their offering.

  • Why Performance Marketers Rule The Digital Marketing Kingdom

    Why Performance Marketers Rule The Digital Marketing Kingdom

    Performance marketing and digital marketing are often thought of as being two different terms for the same animal. But those who are aware of what these two forms of marketing truly entail understand that they are not the same, but do have similar qualities. While digital marketing is a term which can encompass everything from usage of paid banner ads to blackhat tricksters, performance marketers are usually affiliated with a company whose products or services they digitally promote for a fee. As such, performance marketing is a kind of digital marketing.

    Many digital marketers started their careers by developing their skills in the performance marketing arena. Some of these current and former performance marketers were responsible for generating many of the of techniques and strategies that are involved in today’s online marketing, such as tracking, split testing, and spy tools. In the early days of the internet – way back in the mid-1990s, if you were interested in performance marketing you had no choice but to invest your own resources in order to experiment and discover what works and what doesn’t in a particular niche. This resulted in these, and other, cost saving and efficiency techniques being developed.

    Performance marketers have arguably added as much to the world of digital marketing as any other group.  One of the main reasons is that, because they had to use their own money, performance marketers have adopted a strategies which have resulted in their being known as “lean marketers.” That is to say, they are able to maximize the efficiency of the resources they have available to them. Their landing pages and advertising techniques produce results as “minimum viable products”. They also do regular split-testing of their landing pages and advertisements in order to determine what CTAs and verbiage is generating click-through results and sales.

    Another reason performance marketers are great digital marketers is that their skill set is such that they don’t have to rely on outside help for things like creating landing pages, script coding, or budget planning. They are able to save time, money, and other valuable resources by doing these essential tasks themselves, and doing them exactly the way they want them done the first time. Additionally, not only is their general skill set more expansive, their marketing experience is deep as well. This gives them a considerable edge in optimizing conversions, nurturing leads, and marketing automation. Other digital marketers typically don’t have these kinds of skills, or are very limited in them and are forced to outsource.

    Lastly, performance marketers are specialists in only a few specific areas, and by “only a few” we mean one or maybe two at the very most. They often have expertise in pay-per-click or search engine optimization and other areas in which many digital marketers have little to no experience. Performance marketers have typically invested a tremendous amount of time, money, and effort into expanding their experience and expertise in a specific area and have become masters in that area. With all of that said, it is clear that those who are solely digital marketers have a difficult time competing with performance marketers primarily because of their laser focus on ROI. Digital marketers by and large just don’t have that same focus.

  • Getting Into Performance Marketing Requires Investment – Like Any Other Business

    Getting Into Performance Marketing Requires Investment – Like Any Other Business

    When it comes to performance marketing, most people take an interest because they have been told that it is a lucrative way to earn money from home and eventually will allow for the marketer to quit his or her day job. While that may be true to some extent, the reality of performance marketing should be put out there so that people who are thinking about getting involved in it truly understand what they are getting into. One of the most frequently asked questions about performance marketing is “how do I get involved in performance marketing with little money or even no money and without using a credit card?” They are wondering, in other words, how they can begin to make money with performance marketing despite not having the money for the typical start-up costs.

    The answer to this often asked question is that while it is not necessarily impossible to get into performance marketing with no money or credit card, it is extremely difficult. Or perhaps more accurately put, it can be done but the results are likely to be so miniscule that it probably won’t be worth your time.

    Most people who do dive into performance marketing without a decent amount of start-up cash rely on search engines and free traffic generating methods like Craigslist and Backpage and the like. The problem with these is that they are very restrictive in their user policies and have several other drawbacks that make it very hard to generate any meaningful results. Performance marketing, at its core, is like any other business venture in that it involves a high level of risk for the investor. The vast majority of people who get into PM lose money in the initial stages. And as a result most who start don’t stick with it because of the ease with which they lose money in this venture. That said, if you are serious about getting into performance marketing, you should only invest money that you are confident you can afford to lose.

    It is advisable that anyone looking to invest in a PM program should have between $1,000 and $2,000 set aside specifically for the expenses that are involved in making for a successful go at it. If debt is an issue in your finances, it is a good idea to eradicate as much of it as possible before you begin. If you do have a credit card, don’t use it for performance marketing unless you have the means to pay it off on time. And if you don’t have a credit card and you’re serious about performance marketing, then get one. Not all traffic sources accept PayPal, e-checks, or bank wires, so having a valid credit card or at least a debit card is strongly recommended. Without a credit card, you can expect to run into a slew of problems such as limited sources for traffic, since most of them require a credit card. Slow processing times can also be an issue because other forms of payment can take days or even weeks to confirm. Finally, you may be charged additional fees since many providers prefer credit card payments and charge a fee for those who don’t use them.

    This isn’t an attempt to discourage anyone from performance marketing without money or a credit card. It is simply a reality check. But if you are determined and you believe you can make it happen that way, then go for it. But remember that you did read this article and were advised otherwise. Good luck!

  • Pay Per Call Becoming Hottest Thing Since Sunburn In Online Marketing

    businessman-in-the-office-2-1287062-mAlthough performance marketing has proven itself over the last few years as one of the premier money making business platform in the world, it is still a matter of opinion as to how it will fare in the years to come. Businesses are always looking for the virtual magic pill that will generate strong, long-term online profits, and understandably so. That said, how does performance marketing in general and pay per call marketing in particular, allow that to happen?

    Forbes predicted way, way back in 2012 that Pay per Call marketing had the potential to be ten times the marketing juggernaut that pay per click has become. Good began offering Pay per Call advertising back in 2010 and within two years saw it generating upwards of 15 million calls every month for advertisers. With numbers like those it is pretty obvious that Pay per Call is going to be something that will be impossible for any advertiser to ignore. In fact, it already is.

    With Pay per Call being as white hot as it is right now, and is likely to remain for the foreseeable future, there is one element of the world of e-commerce that must be utilized in conjunction with this profit generating tool – mobile marketing. While there still is a significant enough percentage of online users sitting at their desks using desktop computers, more and more of them are switching to either tablets or smartphone to do the majority of their online activities. Fully 45 percent of people who use smartphones have used those devices to search for products and services over the last seven days. Additionally, it is expected that there will be nearly 30 billion more internet searches on mobile devices than on desktop devices by 2016. With that in mind, advertisers will be looking for a way to integrate Pay per Call into their mobile marketing strategy. The revenue generated for those who do so intelligently could be astronomical.

    Research has shown that leads are converted into sales more efficiently when some level of human interaction is involved. In other words, people prefer to deal with other human beings when making transactions and doing business. That being the case, Pay per Call is a no-brainer for any marketing strategy. Advertising networks will need to be equipped with the right resources and tools to allow marketers to succeed with Pay per Call. It isn’t just a plug-and-play type of endeavor. It requires real strategy and the right network. The performance marketing industry isn’t going anywhere. It is expected that spending therein will be well over $3 billion in 2014 and will climb as high as nearly $5 billion by the time the next presidential election comes. So any doubters who might be questioning the validity and profitability of performance marketing may need to recheck their numbers. And with a Pay per Call campaign integrated into the right performance marketing campaign, even the sky may not be the limit for businesses.

  • The Advantages of Stealth Marketing in the Pay per Call Movement

    The Advantages of Stealth Marketing in the Pay per Call Movement

    Stealth marketing is the latest soon-to-be-overused buzz term that is picking up momentum in the world of performance marketers. It has earned something of an unsavory reputation as a type of underhanded and manipulative form of marketing because of a few unscrupulous individuals who have used the tactics in those kinds of ways. Even the term itself – stealth marketing – carries with it an inherent tone of sneakiness that comes off as something that is designed to line the pockets of advertisers at the expense of their customers. However, stealth marketing – sometimes referred to as undercover marketing (which admittedly sounds just as ominous) – is simply a form of advertising that allows performance marketers the opportunity to market their business without damaging their reputations. Pay per Call promotions are among the most effective means for advertisers to harness the power of stealth marketing, and there are a variety of ways in which they do so.

    One of the quickest and most efficient ways to generate sales leads through stealth marketing is through blogging. Writing short articles related to performance marketing and recommending the specific business in question with the phone number is an extremely effectively way to push a Pay per Call campaign. The articles don’t need to be extensive but they do need to be relevant, and more importantly, informative and helpful. Advertisers create a niche related to the campaign or offer and write the relevant articles around the topic. They then generate a list of businesses that perform best in that niche, establish a solid SEO position, and incorporate tracking numbers.

    Another online avenue for lead generation for performance marketers is creating YouTube videos. This is among the most popular methods because it is relatively easy to do and can generate the quick and lasting leads that every business longs for. There are several other video forums such as Vimeo and Vine that marketers use to showcase their business and phone numbers, but YouTube is far and away the most popular and the most effective. Think of the most effective videos as visual blogs. That is to say, find a niche related to the offer in your Pay per Call promotion, offer some kind of relevant and useful information about that niche, and display your number on the screen throughout.

    Something that requires a little bit more effort and time in order to see results is the “giveaway” tactic. Pay per Call Campaigns and the performance marketers who use them can benefit tremendously from this type of stealth marketing. It involves having your numbers on all possible manner of physical promotional items like t-shirts, coffee mugs, pens, and key chains. These items are then handed out to anyone and everyone in the local community and the word – as well as your numbers – spread, both offline and online. This tactics does not generate the fast leads that online tactics do but for generating leads over a longer period of time, it is one of the best ways to implement stealth marketing. This is far from an exhaustive list of tactics that performance marketers can use but it will definitely get your mind working in the right direction. Advertising is about creativity, not just creativity in your content but also in the way you present that content. There are countless ways to promote your business and many of them haven’t even been thought of yet. A few of the others, well, you just read about them. Now use them and get those leads!

  • Rule #1 to Performance Marketing – Choose a Product You Know or Care About

    Rule #1 to Performance Marketing – Choose a Product You Know or Care About

    When a performance marketer chooses a product, the calculation goes something like this: “How much does it pay? How easy is it for me to get the customer to take the action that pays? How much competition is there in the market?” While all of these questions are essential to evaluating the potential profitability of a campaign, there is one question which is missing. The question which should come before all of the aforementioned questions is “How much do I know about this product, and why do I care about it?”

    Too often performance marketers are drawn by the idea of making big bucks, not by the idea of offering a genuinely helpful product or service to the customer. While there are countless stories of people who have become rich by finding the correct niche and exploiting it earlier or better than everyone else, this is not the most reliable way to achieve success. Here are some tips for entering a field in which you are an expert or at least genuinely interested, and thereby boosting your chances of getting conversions.

    1. Look for offers in a field that you have worked in – Do you have experience as an insurance agent? Maybe an insurance offer would be ideal. Do you have experience as a personal trainer, and helping others lose an impressive amount of weight? Perhaps you should look into weight loss offers. The starting point to choosing an offer to market should be analyzing your familiarity with the product or service. It is always best to promote an offer with which you are familiar, all things being equal. And one of the best ways to become familiar with a field is to work in it.
    2. Look for offers in a field in which you are an expert – When you promote a product of which you have an expert level knowledge, your marketing materials will demonstrate your familiarity with the subject, and your customers will trust you.  Even if your knowledge is in an area that does not qualify as a current interest or hobby, it can be leveraged in your advertising to demonstrate to your potential customers that they should choose your offer over that of the competition.
    3. Look for an offer in a field that interests you – Another way to choose the ideal offer to promote is to look for something that genuinely interests you. For example, gamers would make ideal candidates to promote gaming offers. A person studying Spanish as a second language can more readily identify with the difficulties that arise in that process, and can transmit that understanding into all of their marketing – giving the customer a sense of greater trust that the product being recommended will actually work. So, it is not necessary to be an expert in the product or service you wish to promote. Being genuinely interested in the product or service should be enough.

    If you have been struggling to make money with your offers, perhaps you are promoting a product that you know nothing about or care very little about. While it is true that expert marketers may be able to make a mint selling just about anything, it is a good idea to get your first successes under your belt by promoting something that you have a personal connection to.

  • HyperTarget Marketing to Showcase Its Dynamic Live Lead Generation System and Affiliate Program at LeadsCon

    HyperTarget Marketing to Showcase Its Dynamic Live Lead Generation System and Affiliate Program at LeadsCon

    HyperTarget, a leader and pioneer in pay per lead marketing, is pleased to announce it will be attending this year’s LeadsCon Convention on March 25th and 26th in Las Vegas. Executives from the company, including Director Eric Evans, will be showcasing the company’s unique platform which allows affiliates to earn top dollar while generating the highest quality live leads for the end user.

    The company’s signature pay per call product was generated in response to mounting client dissatisfaction with other lead products in the market. The result has been overwhelming: clients love the pay per call lead generation system offered by HyperTarget, which ultimately results in better payouts for publishers and affiliates.

    “HyperTarget’s lead generation system provides both publishers and affiliates with all the tools necessary to generate and deliver live leads to paying clients, who range from attorneys to home improvement companies,” Evans stated. “Our system offers optimization which extends well beyond typical SEO techniques, and includes tweaking a customer’s website and other online media for maximum lead conversion. The result has been higher commissions for affiliates, resulting from higher overall lead quality and customer satisfaction.”

    Interested in speaking with us at the show?  Please contact us today to set up you FREE consultation.  We’re looking forward to meeting with you!

    ABOUT HYPERTARGET:

    With over 20 years of expertise in online marketing, mobile marketing, and traditional marketing methods including radio, print, and television, HyperTarget provides leads to clients that convert at rates several times that of the competition. HyperTarget is also a leader in the affiliate and performance marketing niche, helping affiliates and publishers stay on top of the game.  To learn more, visit http://hypertargetmarketing.com.

  • The Major Mistake that All Average Affiliates Make

    The Major Mistake that All Average Affiliates Make

    So you want to be a super affiliate? It is the dream of every person who enters into affiliate or performance marketing that they would soon shoot to the top of the program, making thousands or even tens of thousands, of dollars per week. Of course for the vast majority of performance marketers this never happens. Why? The reason is simple: Those who fail to reach their goals as performance marketers lack a well thought-out plan for achieving their goals and lack the focus to carry that plan out. Here we will take a more in depth look at this mistake, and what can be done to change it.

    The first part of the major mistake that virtually all performance marketers make is that they lack a well-thought out plan for making their opportunity pay. That is to say, they have very little idea exactly what they will do in order to realize the kinds of profits that they desire. Here are some pointers to making a plan to promote your affiliate offer:

    • Read through all the information provided to you by the company offering the affiliate program. Familiarize yourself with the product and any marketing materials the company offers.
    • Ask the company for marketing pointers, focusing on what is already working for top producers.
    • Create a marketing plan with your budget in mind. At first your plan should be considered to be in “testing” phase, in other words simply gauging the market. Often times affiliates get discouraged when their initial marketing efforts fall flat. Remember that your initial efforts are usually used to better set parameters for later marketing efforts.

    The second part of the mistake that virtually all performance marketers make is that they do not develop the focus and concentration on their effort which is needed to see it through to success. This is one reason why it is always best to choose to promote a product or service that you really care about, and with which you are intimately familiar. It is a far easier to promote an offer that has benefited you in the past, or of which you have expert knowledge.  Here are some pointers for developing the focus needed to see your way to success:

    • Before beginning to promote a product ask yourself if you really believe in it. If the answer is no, you should probably not get involved unless there are pressing and compelling reasons to go against the rule.
    • Before beginning to promote a product choose a definite amount of time you will work per week, and a definite number of weeks or months you will dedicate to your success. Next, evaluate your commitment honestly. Ask yourself if your time commitment is likely enough to lead to the success of your efforts.
    • As you promote your offer, check your actual time and effort invested versus your earlier commitment. Ask yourself if you are living up to your commitment. If not, try to identify why not. If possible, step your activities up to match or surpass your commitment.

    The major mistake that virtually all average performance marketers make is thinking that the process will be easy. They think that they can get into the business and make money quickly, without rendering an amount of service equivalent to their compensation. But successful performance marketers realize that success can only follow selecting the right offer, making a plan, and consistently following through.