Unfortunately, just a simple point has a huge influence over the success rate of your business promotion (and fortunately from another perspective, such a simple change can improve your sales conversion rate tremendously). However many small businesses (and even large ones) completely waste the powerful ability of the headline and therefore throw extra sales away.

Let me explain.

The headline of your promotional material (ie letter, flyer, leaflet, poster, advertisement etc) is the first gate in the pathway towards turning an ordinary citizen into one of your loyal customers. Now because it’s the first gate, anyone who doesn’t go through it will not even have the opportunity to go through the remaining gates and eventually reach the end of the path and become a customer or client.

Why is it the first gate? The headline handles a number of very important points in the concept of selling via promotional material:

1). It’s wording, colour, font and size seizes the attention of your target audience. This is vitally important for obvious reasons, if they don’t even notice your promotional material or have an incentive to read it, they won’t buy what you offer (probably because they don’t even know about it).

2). It grabs the reader and instantly adds value to the remaining sales copy (if you explain a benefit or ask a question). This gives the reader an incentive to continue reading. 

So, the headline plays two major roles. It grabs the attention of any prospects and then persuades them to read the rest of your promotional material. Now if the headline isn’t there, can you see why it’s so important?

In a nutshell, you can add a couple of percent or take a few percent away from your sales conversion rate just by what you write in your headline. This could mean a difference of 2-5+ extra customers per every 100 prospects your promotional material is in front of. Pretty powerful stuff for one measly sentence.

Unfortunately, almost all small business promotion I see these days simply uses the business name or some other information completely irrelevant to the sales process. For example:

“J. Smithson & Co”
“Excalibur services”
“PLUMBING”
“Computer support service”

Now if you were walking down the street, would any of these grab your attention and entice you into reading the promotional material?

So…

If you want an easy and free way to increase your sales conversion rate, take a look at any of your material which could make use of a powerful headline and have a go optimising it. This includes any kind of promotional items, your vehicle, website (very important), business cards and much more.�

However.

Even if this is spot on, a poorly designed flyer will get you no results. The difference is phenomenal as a flyer which is well designed with powerful sales copy can bring in hundreds of extra sales.

So here are my top 6 tips. Stick to these and you’ll create a flyer which is a powerful selling machine for your business.

1). Attention-grabbing headline

This is extremely important. The reader will be drawn to a headline which relates to them, so the headline must relate to your target audience. Do this via describing a direct benefit or promise your product/service will provide for your target prospect.

2). Benefits

As with all powerful sales copy, your flyer must create emotional desire, interest and need for your product or service. You do this by explaining the direct benefits your prospect will receive by buying what you offer. Include all major benefits when you’re writing your copy.

3). Don’t forget features

Describing benefits are useless if the reader doesn’t actually know what you’re selling. Make it clear and obvious exactly what you’re selling and what it will do for the reader.

4). “Why should I buy this?” “Why should I choose you over another business?”

It is vital that the sales copy on your flyer answers these questions. Every reader will sub-consciously have these questions in mind as you try to sell your products/service to them. If you can’t answer these questions then the reader already has two reasons why he should not buy what you have to offer.

5). An offer and call-to-action

Give the reader a strong reason to contact you right now and tell them how to do it. An offer doesn’t have to involve price: you can include bundles, free items, guarantees and many other things. Your call-to-action should tell the reader to receive the benefits of everything you have told them about by contacting you. Give a clear explanation of how to contact you:

“contact us now by phoning 1234567″ or “buy now by visiting www.youronlineshop.com”

6). Design

The selling ability of your flyer is the most important aspect but never forget design. Good quality design should make your flyer very noticeable to your target audience (large headline, relevant images), have easily readable copy (clear font, well contrasting colours, spacious layout) and provide a professional brand image.

Also don’t forget to use relevant images. Pictures paint a thousand words and can greatly help explain to the reader what you offer before they even read the text.

There are other ways but usually, 90% of the most common methods consist of the same thing.

Now I’ll put it in simple terms. There are only four ways of making decent amounts of quick money on the internet:

1). Gambling.

2). Someone giving you money for nothing.

3). Stealing it.

4). Coming up with an incredibly unique, amazing idea which would probably take a few months of development regardless.

Every other system, concept or E-book story about how to make quick and easy money really just does not work.

Believe me you can make money from these methods (the potential is millions), but any decent amount of money will not be quick and will take time.

Lets take the usual system of making quick money on the net, and one I see a lot of interest in on certain forums (the kind where there’s a bunch of threads congratulating people on making their first $2). It’s the concept of creating a high traffic website, then putting in advertisements from a service like Adsense - so people click the ads and you make a few pennies or pounds per click (this is basically what many money making E-books out there will tell you to do).

Now in theory, this system does work and has worked. Over the last many years a lot of people have started up huge websites with thousands or millions of visitors, and have thus made many thousands of pounds from advertisements. It still happens today.

Anyone who has any realistic expectations of making money using this method may eventually achieve it. However you decide to make money from it, building up a high traffic website is the same as any other website or business out there. You need to write lots of quality content (or provide something else of large value) and build up a lot of visitors who keep coming back. This is this ideal goal for many Webmasters - but whichever way you look at it, you need to put in a lot of effort and time to do this. Sometimes months, usually years.

Unfortunately these quick-money E-books (written by the guys who have achieved such success) are marketed in a way to tell you that it’s an easy way to make money on the internet. That’s the target for many people. When the Internet came out there was a huge hype about making an income from it. The opportunity to work from home, using the Internet to generate cash. If the people who write the E-books told you that it would take a lot of smarts, work and effort - how many do you think they would sell then?

I was on a business forum I use and many months ago I saw a thread from someone which went something like this:

“Can you all tell me what are the best ways of making money on internet.“

Everyone gave replies which makes a lot of sense. Telling the guy that it isn’t as simple as that, it requires work, effort etc.

Then about six months later, someone posted in this guys thread, who rather coincidentally had the same IP (thus the same person), saying the following:

“Hi,

I am in online business for a couple of years. At this time online business is the easiest means of earning money. At present I am using a system called EP****L.com . This system is good and without any doubt it will provide you with extremely high profits. I am earning more than $3000 to $5000 a week. It also gives me a Full-up training program. Surely you will make bucks by using this system.“

Did he take any notice of us? Course he didn’t. He ignored the concept of actually having to do work for it and instead probably bought a ‘how to make money the easy way’ E-book and decided to start-up his own money making scheme. I’ve just checked that website since about a month after he posted and now the domain no longer works. Shock horror…

Unfortunately this happens to hundreds, or perhaps thousands of people everyday. There is one vital point they all seem to miss. For the people who actually made decent money from these methods, they probably spent the same, if not a longer amount of time than they would setting up a legitimate online shop or business.

I talk to people now in various communities who have actually made good money from such methods as starting up websites and using advertisements. Unless they’re trying to sell you something, they all say the same thing; it took them at least 1-2+ years of development, experimentation and experience in their website to build it up to the level it’s at today.

Yet most people I come across who are in it for this way to make money, they want the quick method. They set up a simple page website, add in a few articles then get bored and quit.

These methods do work, and are very effective for many websites and businesses online. But they take months and years of work and effort.

I’ll leave you with this. If the quick-easy methods of making money online are so easy and amazing, then why aren’t they doing it themselves instead of writing an E-book telling you how to do it?

I’ll tell you why actually. Because they make more money by writing E-books telling everyone else how to do it.

I’m not very good at the normal jokes, nevermind the April ones…

Anyway. Mix n’ match is our latest marketing service. Instead of having a large marketing report or consultancy campaign; mix n’ match allows you to buy bespoke, expert help reports on specific subjects. This makes marketing consultancy help easier than ever before, and amazing value for money too.

I’ll leave it up to you to visit the official page which will tell you everything else you need to know. If you have a small business I definitely recommend checking it out.

Searchme is a search engine which provides a visual image of the website as a list of results. It’s kind of like the Iphone album menu - you can browse through a list of screenshots so you’re able to see the website before you click it. Check the video out on the website to see what it’s like.

Now I think this is a great example of how the Internet is evolving. It’s great to see a real-time representation of how communication and services are adapting and changing. I think Searchme is the beginning of a slow but sure change in how we visit websites, organise information and sort the web.

This has came shortly after the ‘Inventor of the Internet’ - Tim Berners-Lee - said that he believes search engines such as Google could become obsolete, after being superseded by services which make use of newer technology. Perhaps Searchme is an example of such a competitor?

I do believe this has come about more suddenly than I expected. The introduction of Searchme will mean Google and Yahoo are already being put under pressure to adapt and retain current levels of market share. They will have a while yet before Searchme gains momentum though.

I don’t think there is much of a concern for Google. The Internet has many examples of smaller past competitors which fail due to market share, finances and simply not being able to compete on levels of marketing and branding. It is possible but in the current industry situation I believe if the Searchme concept does catch on - Google will simply copy or adapt it to it’s own system. Unless of course there are patents involved, we’ll have to wait and see.

So what does this mean for all of the web entrepreneurs out there? The Internet could begin to utilise graphic and visual communication more strongly than ever before. Perhaps this is because the evolution of copy communication and web functionality has reached a level where it caters for the current needs of the standard Internet communities. Either way; if this kind of search engine concept catches on, we could see SEO involving aspects of graphical improvement as it becomes more important in the click through rate on search engines.

What are your thoughts?

This will be of course a fairly simple example and in the real world it isn’t as simple as popping an extra pound on here and there. Gets the concept across well enough though.

Let’s take the Xbox360 games console, the brainwave of Microsoft which was released sometime in late 2005.

Total sales have now reached 10.32 million - 10,320,000 units.

I’m not sure of the precise figures but lets say the Xbox360 cost £250 and has sold 10,000,000 units. This is £2.5 Billion revenue. Now lets imagine you were one of the guys at the big executive desk deciding on pricing. You wouldn’t think one pound is much would you? But the fact is if they sold it for £251 instead of £250, they would make an extra £10 million.

So just where would you stop? You wouldn’t think a further pound on-top of that would really effect sales much but that’s another £10 million in revenue. How about another pound, and another, and maybe even another?

So here is my question to you entrepreneurs out there. Just where would you draw the line and how would you decide? Would it drive you insane if you knew that you had to stop rising prices but even just another penny per unit would bring in an extra £100,000 revenue?

Post your opinions and thoughts below in a comment.

Signatures on social sites are a great way to display your message to the community about what you offer. It’s also a pretty nifty way to get backlinks too.

If you make many authoritative, quality posts per day on relevant forums, your signature can become a powerful marketing tool for sending targeted traffic to your website. Certainly isn’t mainstream traffic but it’s not bad for no extra effort.

Forum signatures can be as effective as you make them though. Just like any other advertising they have to stand out, be noticeable, grab attention and make people want to click the link. So just how is that done?

• Grabbing attention

The key to this is making sure your signature stands out from the rest of the text on the page. This can be done through text formatting and colour.

For an example let’s use this piece of text:

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.

Nam adipiscing fermentum est. Aenean lectus. Integer dignissim. Nam augue ante, sollicitudin hendrerit, ullamcorper nec, facilisis ut, enim. Praesent orci. Vestibulum purus.

Morbi urna urna, volutpat in,nascetur ridiculus mus.

In a diam at est viverra pharetra. Donec ac risus. Phasellus ut est eget magna elementum pulvinar. Morbi velit.”

Now if we add some text formatting…

“Lorem ipsum dolorsit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.

Nam adipiscing fermentum est. Aenean lectus. Integer dignissim. Nam augue ante, sollicitudin hendrerit, ullamcorper nec, facilisis ut, enim. Praesent orci. Vestibulum purus.

Morbi urna urna, volutpat in,nascetur ridiculus mus.

In a diam at est viverra pharetra. Donec ac risus. Phasellus ut est eget magna elementum pulvinar. Morbi velit.”

It’s simple stuff but you can already see a drastic improvement in how much the text stands out from the rest of the page. Regular forum users become immune to noticing signatures while browsing forums. Therefore the text must be eye catching to grab attention.

• Copy

People sub-consciously notice words when scanning a page. Words which are noticeable and related to a person will instantly draw attention. Let’s say you offered a service which helps businesses improve their marketing. Words related to positive situations in business are ‘profits’ and ’sales’. Words which provide a positive point are ‘drastic’, ’skyrocket’, ‘improvement’ and ‘increase’. If a business owner scans a page and sees the word ‘profit’, they will want to know what exactly is being said about profits. Adding these other words in such as ‘drastic increases in profits’ arouses even more curiosity.

Uncommon words are very effective too. I’m sure if you were on a Business forum and someone had the word ‘Grandmother’ in their signature, you’d notice it wouldn’t you? You would be curious as to what was being said about that word.

That is an extreme of course. More uncommon words for ‘increase’ are ’skyrocket’, ‘explosion’, ‘breakthrough’. These words are more noticeable and interesting.

• Call to action

It’s all well and good getting someone to look at your signature. Fairly useless though if they then ignore it and don’t click the link. You need to persuade them into visiting your page and a good old call to action will do just that. Give them a solid reason to visit your page and tell them what to do.

• Keeping things fresh

As with many forms of visual marketing and advertising - the more someone sees something, the more they get used to it. Eventually it may be the case where they become immune to what is being shown and don’t even notice it.

Create a number of different signatures and swap them every few weeks. They can all contain the same message but if wordings and text formatting are different, it will catch the attention of people who may have become used to the current signature.

• A question

Another good tactic is to ask a question in your signature. If the question is related to a person they are more likely to notice it and read what you have to say. For example ‘increase your profits’ could become ‘do you want to increase your profits?’

So let’s come up with a final example. Let’s say you operate a website selling woolly hats.

“Want to keep your head warm? Visit our range of woolly hats.”

Simple.

Also don’t forget about SEO. If you have a link to your website make the anchor text of the link relevant to your website by containing a major keyword or keyphrase to improve backlink weight. You could even add in an anchor text backlink after your main marketing signature if there is enough space.

Do you have anymore tips or would like to tell us what you think of our suggestions? Please leave a comment below.

People aren’t so clued up yet though, but it’s understandable. The Internet is forever recruiting more people who are taken in by the somewhat magical ability to make a quick buck. The magical long-page sales copy says so - therefore it must be true.

Internet users need to learn the reality of this. Affiliate marketing and PPC schemes seem like good methods for quick money making but guess what? The top earners have spent years developing their sites and methods, just like every other legitimate business selling a professional product or service.

I’m quite sure you could set up some website or blog and start earning a few cents per day for the first few months to a year. Not really worth it is it?

Even this kind of ’secret to my riches’ business requires a lot of determination and skill in marketing. However good something seems you are still competing with the tens of thousands of others who are trying to do it too. A competitive market is a competitive market, however simple or easy the money making methods may seem.

So if you’re looking to swoop down on the Internet and start making quick dosh, don’t even bother looking elsewhere, because you won’t find a way to do it, unless you’re lucky. The web is still a very healthy market and filled with opportunities for businesses selling products, services and trades of all kind.

These money-making methods can work of course, but don’t expect an easy or quick adventure. Good money can be made but chances are you’ll be in it for the long-run.

So what do you think? What are your experiences in making money via the web?

Imagine you had a natural link from a website because they posted an article or story about you. If you had an article or story from their website which you’d like to put in your blog it means you would lose all of the link juice. Doesn’t seem very fair does it?

Research shows that reciprocal links are devalued compared to one-way links. So if you have the opportunity to get a reciprocal link from a very powerful website don’t turn it down. However try your absolute best to negotiate a one-way link, it will be much more beneficial.

For anyone who is unfamiliar the idea is fairly simple. Members post links to news stories and articles - if other members read it and like it, they can Digg that entry (consider it a vote). The more Digg’s a story or article gets, the more exposure it receives and therefore the more traffic and Digg’s it will receive.

Of course, many businesses have articles, stories and blog posts on Digg and they’re all vying for the same thing - exposure on the Digg front-page *insert mysterious magical smoke here*.

There are a number of specific parts of your article or story you can optimize which gives you the best chance of being Dugg. If you are planning on using Digg.com for your business, reading our top 5 tips is a must.

1). A compelling headline.

A critical part of getting your entry Dugg enough times for the front page is getting interest from complete strangers - usual members of the Digg community. These people need a reason to click on your entry when they see it, which is why a compelling headline must be used.

Create curiosity and describe something of benefit. Creating an article of effective, simple information and explaining it in your title will attract people who are interested (for example - 3 ways to increase your business profits).

2). Friends

Build up friends on Digg, as many as you can. You can rely on these people to Digg your articles or stories to give it the initial boost it needs to receive potentially more exposure and further Digg’s.

3). The hook

Quite obviously if your story or article is poor you won’t succeed as far as Digg is concerned, no matter how many tricks you use. Articles should be well written, highly informative and beneficial. It’s also vital that there’s a need and requirement for such information. Do research in social Internet communities relating to your industry to find some frequently asked questions or advice. The same goes for your blog posts.

4). Learning what people want

What you think would be a surefire success may actually be a surefire flop. Take notice of social networking in your industry and find some of the most requested or relevant content to work from. Other forms of blog postings and articles can also achieve success such as novelty entries (interesting facts) or opinion/review articles. These are harder to market compared to informational articles and may require a very strong subject to get to the front page.

Ask friends, opinions, associates and others for advice and feedback on what you write before it is submitted to Digg.

5). Help people Digg you.

Members are only able to Digg your entry via the Digg website. This isn’t the ideal situation since people have to backtrack to the Digg site to Digg your entry after they have read it.

Integrating a Digg button to each blog post, blog and article on your website makes it as easy as possible for visitors to Digg what you have to offer. More information can be found here on how to integrate an official button to do the job.