10++ Lessons Learned Outside Of The "Make Money Online" Niche

Great list. Sometimes we make BIG assumptions about our audience. Just because something is easy or understandable to US doesn't mean it will be to our audience.

I was reminded of this by a tweet I read a few days ago, where someone was talking about how she was enjoying the winter snow at the moment.

I was like.... eh? Winter? It's the middle of August! You mean to tell me not everyone has their summer in August?

She was an Australian. So the answer was, I guess not.

But that goes for just about everything, as you point out... currency, time zones, language (i.e. "fall" is called "autumn" here in England), customs, and much more.

MarkR I LOVE it!!

Every niche I am in is far from the make money niche and agree with everything.

my biggest issue is people not understanding what an eBook or digital product is. Many often order and mail me when they can expect it in the mail.

I even go on in the sales copy and mention exactly what a eBook is and why that is better than a physical copy( Instant gratification "no waiting" and no expensive shipping fees)

I found using just a download button will hurt your conversion with an audience over 30 or anyone with a prehistoric computer. The word Download raises a few red flags with my market. they think anything from virus, too complicated or that their computer will just not be able to download it.

I use two buttons now...

A text link that says "Click Here To Download Now..." and directly below that I have imitated Amazons "Add To Cart" button. Nearly every visitor feels they have two option and are clueless they are really the same button. More options = more conversions (even if each options the same, just worded differently)


cheers,

Great points. I can definitely relate =). Here's a few more:

- Many of my customers assume that every link on my site (including Adsense ads) are personally endorsed by me.

- Many of my subscribers think the word "subscriber" means that you're going to ask them to pay for your emails. They often email me saying "I thought you said this newsletter was free!'

- Many of my subscribers have trouble with basic copy and paste. That means that double opt-in doesn't work well if they can't click the confirmation link.

- Many of my customers flat out refuse to use PayPal, but they will give you their credit card information on the phone or even in an email.

- Any ebook cover displayed is automatically assumed to be a physical book - even if it clearly says that it's an ebook or pdf download.

- Many of my subscribers simply do not read. They read the first sentence, scan the body, and read the last paragraph and PS. Any significant points in the body need to stand out to capture their attention.

- My customers and subscribers look forward to receiving my emails. When I go a week without sending one, I get complaints like "why have you stopped sending me your emails"

- I have a group of long term subscribers who will not unsubscribe because there is something in the content that they look forward to receiving. I can send out solo emails, launch promotion emails, etc - as long as I keep sending the content they want, they keep opening the emails.

Hi,

Great subject and very true.

I've learned that some WILL NOT use a credit card for fear that they will be charged again or over charged.

Although I haven't done it yet I'm going to start offering more free products to make them really want my main product and in the free products I'm going to explain the joys of prepaid debit cards. Almost anyone can pick up a prepaid gift or debit card and use it online.

Also there is a whole crowd out there that will not buy anything online. However they will buy from eBay. I'm going to start putting an eBay link on my sales pages with something to the effect. "If you wish you can purchase this through "trusted" eBay."

George Wright

Very interesting thoughts, indeed!

Even though I used to teach cross-cultural communication skills to local service providers (a must in immigrants countries like Canada...) - I tend to forget about it because somehow we like to think that IM is so "international" that we don't need to pay attention to cultural differences.

Thanks for reminding us how important the proper communication is!

This is a thread of great value.

The long noticeable aweber tracking link in emails has never made sense to me. I'm an internet marketer and I don't even want to click on those long aweber links even if I'm getting them from a friend and while reading them from a MAC.

The long wrapped tracking links have always taken me out the consumer experience.

Solving this is one of the easiest workarounds with page tracking, redirects or link cloaking.

As others have stated, it's important to know the type of customers and subscribers you have. Many who subscribe to my primary business are into web video marketing, so they click and subscribe to podcasts, are very web savvy and intuitive subscribers.

Mark,

copy scape works great in the MMO niches! I have also been a HUGE FAN of TheRichJerk's warning at the very bottom of his site that says:


"*NOTICE* - Anyone who distributes illegal copies of our Rich Jerk book, or uses our trademarked/copyrighted Rich Jerk text and/or images without permission will be reported to their billing and/or hosting company, and any other related companies for account closure. We will follow with a federal copyright infringement lawsuit in accordance with the The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). To date we have successfully prosecuted 12 parties."

I know what your saying with your legal pages becoming an "exit" for your potential customers so what I do is make them light gray and small with the very last link bright blue and pointing to "e-Mail me for questions"...

Than I have it so if they click the terms or privacy links it will open up in a pop up window where I have determined the size. I make it small and a single column. also add a "close" link throughout the page lol

A lesson I had to learn to be successful online was that people want to know they are dealing with a real person. How I do it:

1 - Use my real name on my website
2 - Use my real photo on my website
3 - Provide links to my Facebook profile and LinkedIn profile on my website. Recently I added my Twitter account.
4 - Provide my personal email address in my newsletters, and my email address includes my real name.

This helped establish confidence in subscribing and eventually buying from me.

Why test one or the other then using both at the same time produces killer results? some people distinctively click on text links while others buttons. By having the text link above the button they subconciously will select the option that they feel most comfortable with.

Ooohhh.... MMO means Make Money Online!

A little off-topic, but my initial thought was that this was another World of Warcraft thread.

Okay, back to my level 80 shadow priest now.

intresting.

When I offered a free course long ago on a bad niche, from those who
were intrested, I had people offer to pay me for information i clearly stated
was free.

People are always ready to pull on the card if you ask them to. it's strange,
but these questions i got(and other cool ones) helped me realize that even
in the make money niche, some of these questions we see as elementarary
is like advanced calculus for some

Derek S - Yes, I like that language. Maybe I should "borrow" it!

Marcus - Great points, thanks.

Kristy - Thanks. No report planned, just trying to share some valuable lessons.

eglobalbrad - No problem!