Do You Love Ebay?
I know it’s been around for years but I’ve just heard it, day after day, as my 12 year old sings it through the house.
Topics: Friday Fun | No Comments »
Health Marketing: Don’t Bring a Heavy Hand Online
It seems like almost every week there is a new product launched about how to make money using information marketing and the Internet as the marketing vehicle. And, without fail, almost everyone of these products requires that you have content. And, without fail, almost every one of these products is rehashing information and education that has been “floating” around the Net for years.
**Note**
If you look carefully at the way in which some of these products are marketed in the Internet Marketing field (one of the hardest markets) and took just a small percentage of the strategies used to another market, you would make a killing.
Marketers who are selling some of the same information are using concepts that have sold widgets and books for decades. If you find the specific mix of marketing tactics, information packaging and like/trust value that trips your readers trigger you’ll make a sale. In other words, the tactics used by the old door to door vacuum salesman aren’t successful online where the customer can slam the door in your face with a non-confrontational click of the mouse.
This past summer I was outside doing lawn work when a young lady approached me. She and her salesman were in the neighborhood for the day and, in exchange for listening to a pitch about their product, I could get 2 rooms of carpet cleaned.
Well, I needed my carpets cleaned, and I had a an hour to spare that day (the time she said he would need), so I said yes.
He got his foot in the door and began unpacking the most gorgeous [BRAND] vacuum cleaner I had ever seen. He demonstrated how it lifted dirt from the carpet I had just vacuumed an hour before. And then made the mistake of telling me that the machine he was using was new and wouldn’t be used in anyone else’s home. This all in one, inclusive machine could be had for the very low price of . . .
He didn’t know!
Or at least it was the initial story he was sticking with. He was only the demonstrator – who demonstrated his expensive watch and told me about the last vacation he ‘earned’ as top salesman for a product he didn’t know the price for!
UGH.
I felt badly that a new machine would be wasted in my home because I had absolutely no intention of purchasing the product, and I told him that. About 15 minutes later, after having to tell him that he was offensive, he finally left. Even the kids had gathered in the kitchen to watch their normally kind mother skewer this salesman who was making offensive comments.
And over the next week I was in the home of two of my neighbors, both of whom were sporting brand spanking new [BRAND] vacuum cleaners in their family rooms. For only $49.00 a month, for the rest of their LIVES, they have a vacuum cleaner with a 20 year warranty.
The vacuum cleaner is a great product and the price really wasn’t horrific for a machine that could reverse flow air and double as a leaf blower. But I wasn’t ready to purchase.
The salesman had the added advantage of being in my home and grabbing my undivided attention – and I couldn’t seem to get rid of him. His strategies did seem to have some appeal with some people.
BUT, and this is a big BUT, those same strategies don’t belong in sales pages, blog posts, or other pieces of information content where the reader has the distinct advantage. Instead of beating our customers over the head we must entice them, engage them and encourage them to keep reading and click that lovely orange button at the bottom of the page.
We instinctively know that the high pressure sales techniques of the vacuum salesman or the used car salesman aren’t as successful online as they are offline. And as our readers and overseers (FTC) are getting more sophisticated, neither does the screaming hype make successful sales.
Look around at the marketers who have been online for years and you’ll two different strategies being employed. There are the marketers who sell with a slightly heavier hand, sell a big ticket item with many affiliates, and then disappear for many months until they have another treat to grab our attention.
And then there are those who have products and services they continue to market year after year. The sales techniques are slightly different. The loyal customer base is slightly different. And the consistent income level is also slightly different.
Only you can decide which camp is more comfortable for you – but rest assured that products sold to health marketing have customers who require products and services for years and years and years.
~Gail
P.S. Just kidding about the comment of a lifetime continuity program for the vacuum cleaner – I think it was for 3 years.
Topics: Core Concepts | No Comments »
Take a Hint From Coca-Cola!
Talk about giving back to their rabid customer base!
Topics: Friday Fun | No Comments »
Why Practice Health Marketing?
The practice of health marketing is really nothing more than deciphering the exact turn of phrase that works for your particular market.
Well . . . that might be a BIT simplistic – but still sums up the overall gist of the thing.
One question that I’ve been asked is WHY marketers should change their tactic for this particular market, HOW they should change and WHEN those changes should appear on their pages. The why may actually be the easier of the three to answer, even though it is more theoretical than practical.
The simple answer is that the better you practice this type of marketing the greater your merchant account grows. In other words, health marketing affects not only advertising but also copy writing and conversions. And, while the strategies and techniques are based on traditional marketing theories the outcome should include information that speaks to the needs, values and methods of exchanging information in this particular market.
For those who have been practicing in the field of medicine or holistic medicine this may seem second nature. But there are more than nurses, dentists, doctors and chiropractors who want to market their information online. (It is impossible to list all of the positions in medicine which have a familiarity and knowledge that would lend itself to this marketing – forgive me for leaving them out.)
What about the marketer whose background is IT and who wants to work in the health and wellness niche because it interests him, it is his passion, his mother was sick and he did months of research on her disease, or he is suffering from a medical illness that placed him on disability and working from his computer at home is a possibility. Or the myriad of other reasons that people are intrigued by the health and wellness market.
Should these people be shut out of marketing tactics and strategies that would improve their list building, conversions and bottom line?
I don’t think so. Three years ago I started PLR-Health-Wizard and in that time I’ve noticed that there are two groups of people. One group is well versed in marketing and easily converted their knowledge to health marketing and the other group either had marketing knowledge or didn’t but couldn’t market successfully in health and wellness.
This needed to change. So I am in the process of publishing some of the tactics and strategies needed to gain a foothold (and then some!) marketing information and physical products in the health and wellness niches. I’m still working out the details but it should be available in the next several weeks.
Topics: Core Concepts | No Comments »
What is Health Marketing?
Because I produce health, wellness and fitness PLR for members at PLR-Health-Wizard I have a significant interest in the specific marketing tactics that go in to making money in this field. The fact that the health and wellness niche is a multibillion dollar industry is undisputed.
In fact, one market in the health and wellness field is one of the largest markets sold online or offline for many decades – self-development/personal development. And that is just ONE. The online searches for topics in weight loss, weight training, and nutrition number in the millions each month.
And these topics are evergreen – which means that there are people every day who are looking for information about these issues.
If you have been marketing anything online for more than 10 days you’ve probably run across the niche of Internet Marketing, or the information required to sell other people physical products or information using the Internet as a marketing tool. This market has their language, beliefs and customs.
The same is true for those who are marketing in the heath and wellness field – and that niche is Health Marketing.
In fact, even the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) has a definition and description for Health Marketing that is so extensive that it requires 5 bullet points! The exact definition is as follows:
Health Marketing involves creating, communicating, and delivering health information and interventions using customer-centered and science-based strategies to protect and promote the health of diverse populations (CDC, 2005)
Breaking down all the marketing and health speak it essentially means that it is a way of marketing health information to a group of people in order to increase their ability to care for themselves and improve their health. But the information and interventions (can be physical products) are marketed in a way that makes sense to the customer population you are targeting.
Health marketing isn’t new to me or to some of my members inside PLR-Health-Wizard but it does seem to be like talking to Greek to some marketers. So . . . after months of contemplating my navel I decided it was time to offer some of these tips and tricks to my members who were struggling with exactly HOW to market their information and physical products.
As my 6 year old would say, “It is coming soon to a theater near you!”
Topics: Core Concepts | No Comments »
Do You Have To Rewrite Your PLR?
I must get this question at least once a week from new members.
The stink about duplicate content has created a race among software developers to produce content spinners – or little pieces of software that access large data bases of words which are substituted within the article. In other words, the software asks you to make a choice from a thesaurus that can replace some of your words in the article.
Unfortunately, unless you spend a good deal of time on this process the article comes out reading like a robot wrote it.
So – if most content spinners are worthless (as far as saving time or doing the rewriting on autopilot) what do you do about duplicate content?
Well, the other day I touched on the whole concept of duplicate content. If you missed it, Google (on their blog) answered that very question. The bottom line is that duplicate content found on your own site can result in the entire site losing ranking. But, duplicate content found between sites will result in the content that was published first being ranked higher in the search engines – and only for the page where the ‘duplicate’ content was found.
If duplicate content isn’t an issue do you have to rewrite any private label rights content you purchase?
The answer to that question is found in your end use. In other words, if you intend to syndicate the content through article directories you’ll want to differentiate the content you provide from others. And, most article directories aren’t happy when they serve up the same article with different authors to their readers. This reduces the quality they provide.
However, if you intend to use the research and content for ezines, blog posts, special reports or podcasts then keeping the majority of the content the same is not an issue.
Most good PLR is written without a personality or voice so that the end user can insert their own brand of humor, introduction or conclusion quickly and easily. Making those small additions so your readers get to know you better is usually the only changes you need to make.
The ultimate choice of whether you keep PLR the same or rewrite it is based on HOW you intend to use it and one other factor . . . What are the terms of use or terms and conditions placed on the content by the original author? Don’t make the mistake of keeping the content the same if the seller insists that it must be changed. Take the time to read the terms and conditions.
Topics: Core Concepts | No Comments »
Does PLR Deserve a Bad Reputation?
Five years ago when I began working online I made a discovery . . . private label rights (PLR).
One of the things I do best is massive content creation but I quickly found that using well written Private Label Rights allowed me to create articles, ebooks and special reports more quickly and with less effort.
But then I made another discovery – once the goldmine was discovered, it was polluted.
I think you know what I mean . . . the first PLR products were well written, had accurate research and the creators were proud of what they created. Within months it seemed memberships were sprouting up delivering thousands of articles each month.
If these were all original articles there would be little to no profit margin. But they weren’t original and if they were they were written by authors who used English as their second language. The quality was poor. And most of them were useless.
Another criticism of PLR is that if more than one person uses it – it suddenly becomes duplicate content. The fear over losing search engine ranking, coupled with poor quality led many potential users to run in the opposite direction.
Enter software for end users that “spun” the content “quickly and easily” so that each article was uniquely yours. These spinners used a thesaurus to replace words – nothing magical about it. The end result wasn’t magical either – most of the time these early versions created content that wasn’t readable.
The newest SEO information is that PLR doesn’t create an issue with duplicate content. Google talks about this issue on their blog. The bottom line is that duplicate content is incredibly important on your own site and the sites that publish the original content first get higher ranking in the search engines. HOWEVER, having the same content doesn’t get you banned, just ranked lower for the page with content that is published first elsewhere – and isn’t that fair?
In my estimation PLR doesn’t deserve any kind of bad reputation. I believe the creators who pump out garbage deserve the bad reputation. I know that when I find quality PLR it makes my job easier and faster.
But only you can be the judge.
Multiple Niches at Private Label Central
Topics: Product Creation | No Comments »