5R System: How to build your opt-in list 4 to 7 times faster

I missed this week's call with Michel Fortin and Daniel Levis about growing your online customer and prospects lists 4 to 7 times faster. Luckily Michel Fortin (my fellow Ottawan) was kind enough to mail me MP3 recording of a call. This call was obviously pre-sale for more complete and detailed system by Daniel Levis but nevertheless it was full of actionable tips that could be utilized by any webmaster in any business immediately.
Just by reading these ideas and acting upon them could really improve the speed of any opt-in prospects gathering process quite a bit.

So here they are.

5R system by Daniel Levis - well defined workflow for improving conversion. It boils down to:

Effective Communication

which in 5R terms could be spelled as:

Right person communicating Right message to the Right audience at the Right time in the Right way

What these principles are (in different order):

1. Right audience.

   Take empathy for your audience. Learn their language, find their problems, live their emotions. To do that - search relevant blogs, forums. Create and let people fill single question surveys: whats your biggest question or problem about "X" ?
   Utilize exit popups in sales pages - ask question: "why didn't you buy?" or similar, invite feedback.

2. Right message.

   Begins with simple, easily understood, ultra compelling promise, follows with social proof that your product can deliver on it, ends with a singular clearly defined, easily measurable call to action. This action could be as simple as asking to "put your first name and primary email address to this box". "Click here to lock in your spot". Relevant promise, proof and call to action - helps to grow list faster than competition.
   Whats target audience goals? They dont buy things, they buy results, outcomes, benefits. They want to go away from pain / toward pleasure.

3. Right person.

   You must be perceived as the right person doing communicating. Inject human element into static world of a webpage. Position to the upper left is preferable. Use conversation language - not corporate or average marketing bubble. Jargon/sleng familiar to your target audience could give a good personal feel. Personal signature at the bottom is great. People must feel personal with your marketing message. Physical attractiveness gives best impression. Expression on face - eyes, smile, look - always work well. Evaluate your current imagery - dress, look, allow prospect to identify with you more easily. Positive visual presentation principles allow prospect to bond with you.

   Michel Fortin: it takes about 1/20th of a second for a person to decide whether to stay on or leave your website.

4. Right timing.

   = Sequence: in what order you will need to deliver your sales message. It must be in series of linked steps. Important to segment the message. Each step must have specific function.
   Simple scenario:
   - Banner ad(on other sites): seize attention+arose curioucity and interest.
   - Landing page: seize attention, establish liking, authority, stimulate reciprocity, demo proof, make offer, reverse risk, create scarcity/urgency and scarcity, take prospect to the shopping cart page.
   I personally detest these lame cheap "scarcity" tricks that marketers are trying to pull on you nowadays. Only 29 copies of "digital" downloadable product left, so you have to hurry to buy, or else!!! Yeah right, blow me. Not my type of marketing. When I see this type of stuff on a sales page - I don't trust the marketer any more, don't buy and go to download his product from torrent site in a few days).
   - On shopping cart page: summarize offer, restate guarantee, restate social proof, close the deal.

   What doesn't add to the sale - detract from the sale. The less steps the better.
   Dedicated squeeze page - best way to increase number of leads - single purpose - short - all must be above the fold.

   Longer copy - bad 50% less conversion. Extend person's existing beleifs toward what you want. Don't try to change him. For example: Prospect believes that buying new car is difficult + paying too much. How to bridge gap between distrust and trust? Offer free report: "10 sneaky tricks card dealers use to inflate car price. How to turn tables on them".

   if he downloaded your report - trust is gradually established. Series of more emails strengthen trust.

5. Doing  it in the right way.

   Aim at sales killers: bad things you never want to happen on your website:  confusion + boredom + disbelief.
   Each line of copy must maintain readers interest. Always keep reason to keep reading.

   6 words that never failed to captivate interest: "Let me tell you the story" (Gary Bencievenga).  Good story always has element of surprise. Good story emotionalize facts - makes them more meaningful. People acts on emotions and than justify their action by logic. Emotion - driving force of sale. Story about blind man's sign: "i am blind - please donate" vs. "It's spring, and i am blind".
   Clarity is important. Ok to tease - never ok to confuse. Look at each sentence and eliminate double meaning words. Get rid of too long sentences. Bridge sections together properly.

So here they are - great easy principles to use in your online business to increase conversions and opt-in rates!

Thanks for Michel Fortin and Daniel Levis.

Ottawa Sales Leadership Initiative – the missing link?

I was interviewed recently for Ottawa Business Journal regarding newly formed local organization named Sales Leadership Initiative. The concept behind it is that Ottawa's local Technology and R&D talent is lacking selling skills and expertise - and that's what SLE will be attempting to fix. I do agree with that. "I have great idea -  let's do it" syndrome was responsible for as many startups as many failures and tons of cash burned to ashes in relatively short periods of time. We all need extra sales and marketing education. How to find potential customer, how to approach potential customer, how to educate customer, how to establish lasting mutually beneficial relationships - those are the skills that greatly help to converts idea, product, service and technology to cash.
So I hope to see great sales, marketing and educational events, speakers and materials to be available to local tech companies soon.

The Missing Link?

Although there is one thing that I didn't find anywhere on SLE website (at least at the time of writing this post) - anything about educating local techies on specifics of Internet Marketing.

I currently working for Epiphan Systems - company that markets their niche hardware products almost exclusively through the internet channels. We sell products to 70 countries all over the world. Only about half of our sales are from North America - so this made us somewhat resilient to US economic downturns and rollercoaster credit crunch rides. Without internet - we as technology company would have really hard time to do business and survive, even if we'd have the best local sales team at hands. Only about 1% of our sales coming from Ottawa and only 5% from Canada.

So, how about educating local technology companies on how to wisely use internet to propell their business and sales?{+++}

I'd love to see more Internet Marketing and Sales education available to local technology companies. This would make them stronger and make our local economy stronger.

Gleb Esman