Help!! Frustrated Newbie Driven Toward Success- NEED ADVICE FROM THOSE WHO HAVE MADE IT!

by suhrmd

Posted: 16 years ago 32 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Hi,
I am a psychiatrist that has written an ebook that I have gotten excellent feedback on. The ebook helps spouses of alcoholics. I am committed to helping family members of alcoholics. I have been trying to market my ebook on the internet without much success. I am getting active on twitter and some forums in my niche on facebook). I have an active blog and have written about 7 or so articles. I am used to such success as as doctor with helping patients, I realize I am on new ground (success is more elusive). What can I do differently to turn the tide?

I just found out I am too new to post links-( but if you are interested to check here are the addresses)

helpalcoholicfamily.com/blog blog page

helpalcoholicfamily.com landing page

helpalcoholicfamily.com/spouse-ebook - sales page

alcoholic-spouse.com more of a professional website for the book that I am currently working on.

Even if you don't look at my site- here are my burning questions:

#1 Where do I go from here?
Writing my blog and my ezine articles takes a lot of time. Although I am slowly getting more traffic to my website (blog gets on average 40-100 visitors a day according to google analytics- it doesn't seem worth the time on top of my practice (work and parenting) schedule. Conversions are low.

#2
Do I hire a copywriter to help breathe life into my internet business?

#3 What can I do to make it go "viral"?

#4 Is there a method/course worth purchasing out there?

For example, I have already spent too much money and time on courses and email coaching which haven't turned things around. My email inbox is flooded with the latest internet marketing products promising "THIS IS THE ANSWER!" I got an ad for George Brown's traffic ultimatum or Rapid Mass Traffic this week. Each one sounds like a "must have". Are they?

I have been at this for about 9 months and am ready to do something different. I have put my heart and soul into this. I am very open to suggestions and appreciate any helpful input. I need some good honest advice from someone who isn't selling me anything. It would be extra awesome if someone out there might understand my niche- they do not necessarily respond to the same tactics as someone who is marketing a product on making money on the internet. They are very sensitive and in pain and not easily trusting.

#advice #copywriting #driven #ebook #frustrated #internet marketing #made #newbie #success #viral help

Nickolie0990 16 years ago

First of all, forget about all the "Latest New Product". As to here to go from here, sense it is a niche, I would focus on two things. First building a list, which I see you are doing. In addition to that, you need to be building a relationship with that growing list. Try creating a conversation about your niche. What are the steps you can give away for free to help the person suffering from an alcoholic family.

So the first thing is, building a list, and building a relationship with that list. You do that by sending follow up's sequences with your auto responder. Script a conversation that you would have, then over time build that up. Then you can sell to them once you have established you as an expert.

Second, you need traffic, sense this is a niche. I would recommend PPC (Pay Per Click). You don't have to use AdWords, you can use Facebook or any other of the PPC Networks.

Just approach this like a business. Get leads, convert those leads threw your follow up sequence, then sell them the book. I know this was kinda vague, but just focus on building the list, and build a relationship with the list. And forget about all the other stuff. Hope that helps.
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- suhrmd 16 years ago
  
  Hi,
  Thanks for your reply. I wonder if everyone agrees about not getting the "latest new product". My list building seems so slow- and I want to speed it up. Your suggestion about building a relationship with my list is something that I need to do more of. Should all my emails to my list point back to my ebook or not? I am not sure about this. Also, I haven't done any paid advertising. Is getting an ad on facebook different than ppc?
  
  Thanks
  
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Troy Trump 16 years ago

I would focus on improving the salesletter. You need good conversions to get affiliates and to get the most bang for your buck on traffic.
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- Jessica Martinez 16 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Troy Trump
  
  I would focus on improving the salesletter. You need good conversions to get affiliates and to get the most bang for your buck on traffic.
  
  I totally agree. Of course, as a copywriter, I'm a little biased, but seriously, you have to have well written copy that converts lookers into buyers no matter what other methods of traffic generation you're going to use.
  
  Thanks
  
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- suhrmd 16 years ago
  
  Any suggestions how to improve my sales letter. If you know of one I can use as a model- that would help too. Thanks!
  
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Jonathan Ferraro 16 years ago

I'm not sure if you are getting organic traffic or not, but you definitely should be doing something with your title tags. It's one of the most important parts of SEO.

Your title tags tell Google what your site is about. For example if you wanted to rank for "alcoholic help", you can put that your title tag. Try to make it a little salesy, like:

"Alcoholic Help - How To Treat Alcoholism"
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- suhrmd 16 years ago
  
  Hi,
  Thanks for your reply. What does organic traffic refer to? I have filled out the SEO all in one plug in on word press, but have not paid attention to "title tags" other than that. Do you think it is worth switching my blog to the DIY theme that I happen to own, but have not used for this website? I recently got it. It is supposed to be a lot more SEO optimized than the theme I am using.
  
  Thanks
  
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  Soapyshoe 16 years ago
  
  1. You need WAY more than 7 articles.
  
  2. There are tons of niche marketing systems out there.
  
  I think you should use SBI for this niche.
  
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  suhrmd 16 years ago
  
  What is SBI?
  
  Thanks
  
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  Denise Hayes 16 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by suhrmd
  
  What is SBI?
  
  Site Build It - it's a niche website builder and marketing training course. I can't post links yet, but you can Google it.
  
  Thanks
  
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USGTMauthor 16 years ago

I too have been involved in some ebooks. Are you trying to sell the ebook to make money or you could give it away to improve your practice. Another source of traffic would seem to be posting to forums and discussion groups for alcoholics and their families. This should be a good market for you. Personally, when I sold my ebook, I did not build a list and I am not sure if it matters. If you have a "hair on fire" product, they will buy it. When you are solving a problem people are experiencing right now, they will buy. I also sold several ebooks with simple online classified ads in craigslist and others. Good luck
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Maddi

16 years ago

Some excellent suggestions here and by the looks of things you are sort of on the right track but need to scale things up. I'd suggest getting a coach/mentor rather than buying the new shiny product. It is amazing what a coach and teach you with the knowledge, time and products they have tried and tested.

Here is a few things you can do right now.

-Revamp your short report + get a graphic ecover done for it.
-Enhance your optin box on the Blog and use that ecover for it.
-Your squeeze page has way more information than needed. Use less words and move the opt-in box above the fold [first half of the webpage]
-get at least 30 articles written and submitted to different directories.
-get a press release written and submit it to PR directories
-Advertise your free report using paid and free methods
-Your sales page need a lot of work. Get it done or do it yourself [there is a lot of free info available about copywriting if you decide to do it yourself]
-Write atleast 10 autoresponder emails but don't pitch your eBook in all of them and provide value and content to your list for free.
-Use giveaway events if possible with your free report
-Since your product is already on clickbank, create an affiliate page and provide promotional material such as banners, blog posts, email swipes, ecover graphics to make it easier for them to promote.

I understand its can be daunting but take one thing at a time and keep progressing.

Hope it helps

You are on the right track and I wish you all the Best.

Regards,
Maddi.

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Venturetothetop 16 years ago

Ask for advice and you will get 1 millions different answers...

Befriend people who have the life (and websites) you want.... convince them to become your mentor and learn how to do it right...

I have written about this numberous times both here and on my blog and also described how to obtain a mentor. The value of a mentor will keep you focused on what is really important, help you focus on one step at a time and help you prioritise.

10/10 for making a start on your site... you already have done the hardest part, now is just the fine tuning.
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- suhrmd 16 years ago
  
  Hi Dee,
  I would love to find a mentor, but really don't know how to go about it. I really like Tellman Knudson, but he is too well known now. His staff is coaching me through e-mail, but it is too piecemeal for my needs. Back to my original question- how can I find a mentor that might even know bit about my niche? Please- any one feel free to answer this question.
  On spring break, I met a woman walking her dogs on the beach who was a software consultant. I told her my internet woes and she had 2 people call me form California that help market a plastic surgery practice. I am not even sure what questions I should ask them to see if they can help me improve my site.
  I get calls every few weeks form unknown internet marketers wanting my business (they have gotten my number form my buying courses on line).
  How do I find the right mentor?
  
  Thanks
  
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suhrmd

16 years ago

Hi Maddi,
That's an awesome list-thank you- I will follow all of it (eventually

I do have a couple of questions though.
What kind of topics can I write a press release about? Can I write it about the launch of my book, an article I have written, something new about addiction that might appeal to my target audience? What about free press release versus paid. What do you recommend?

What paid method should I advertise my free report? I haven't done any paid advertising. Is it worth it? How much should I spend at the minimum?

What is a giveaway event?

How do I create an affiliate page for clickbank. How would I find someone to put this together for me and how much would I expect to pay them?

Thanks- those are my important follow up questions for you!

Thanks
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Maddi

16 years ago

Originally Posted by suhrmd

Hi Maddi,
That's an awesome list-thank you- I will follow all of it (eventually

Glad to be of help. [love action takers

]

Press release can be about the launch of your site/ebook.

Best way to go about it is check wso and 'warriors for hire' to get a press release written and submitted. I'm not sure about the pricing but I'm sure its not a lot.

Go for the paid advertising later and there are several methods for it so you can do your research and go about it accordingly. Some of the popular ones and kind of relevant to your product are Banners/paid email promo's/PPC/adwords/Facebook ads

Giveaways: A giveaway is a type of online marketing promotion where something is given away for free. Marketers often use giveaways to spread the word about their products and what basically happens is All the contributors contribute in the event by submitting their free product and are required to promote the event to get members. Members join the event and browse through the free products and to download it they have to enter they name and email.

So you get to build a list and benefit from every marketer promoting the event and members get to download a lot of free products in return of their email ads.

The followup to that is adswaps after you have a reasonable list. Although there might be a problem to find a giveaway related to your niche but I'm sure there must be some.

Affiliate Page:

This is an affiliates page for one of my products Games For Travelling

Basically its nothing but the same mini-site template with different content.

I can't promise you it but If you want I can dig into my hard drive and give you the content[text] for affiliates page and you can modify it according your product.

If you are familiar with html editing there shouldn't be a problem doing it yourself. If you want to hire someone [see sig

] check out wso or freelance websites and they should be able to do at as a reasonable rate.

Hope it helps

Maddi

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Venturetothetop 16 years ago

Im currenly putting together a guide to finding a mentor, but here are some basic guidlines to point you in the right direction:

1) Remember about 80% of any business is the same in essence. You need to make a profit, learn what the customer really things and maximise your potential in any niche.

2) Have you done the basic research on competing or similar products? Just looking at what your competitor is doing can often guide you initially and give you ideas about where you want to focus your developement.

3) Have you looked for complementing products, ones that you could upsell once your ebook has sold? There are two advantages to this, first it opens the door to many potential mentors that you didnt see before (if they are doing well in a complementing niche they have no competition from you and by helping you they also increase their sales)

I hope to release my new program some time next week which works on this issue, and i hope to post some more tips on this forum nearer launch date. I hope the above at least guides you.
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suhrmd 16 years ago

Hi Maddi,
I would love the affiliate page if you can find it on your hard drive. One of the posts above told me to use SBI for this niche. What is SBI?
Thanks
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adenclark 16 years ago

i use ecoverbox.com and have fantastic conversions. You may want to take a look as you will struggle with your website as it looks unprofessional.
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jukeboxhero 16 years ago

My opinion...

Good ideas and great books are a dime a dozen...

It's not about your book it's about your marketing... Unless a customer actually get's your book they will have ZERO idea about whether or not it will help them.

It's up to you to identify the fears, frustrations and anxieties of your market and then pose yourself as the most viable solution.

Spend some time on Amazon looking at the indexes and back covers of top books in your category. Publishing companies spend millions to know what sells... just go borrow there research...

Your sales page is waaaaaaaaay off but hey at least your trying.

Saying things like "Better take a look at this now"... is empty.

If you want people to take a look, show them something worth looking at.

It's like the difference between telling somebody your funny or just telling them a joke...
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mysterrio 16 years ago

If you want to send me a copy of the ebook I would be willing to see if we could come up with a sales letter for you to use and maybe break it into a few articles for you.

You can email me at: larrydzwonkowski@yahoo.com
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Maddi 16 years ago

Alright no worries. Pm me your email address and I'll look for the affiliates page and email that to you.

If you wanna get your sales copy done by someone else you can also include your budget in the pm for that and I can recommend a few fellow warrior copywriters [according to your budget] or if you decide to rewrite it yourself you are better off purchasing a copywriting eBook to follow.

As for graphics there area few wso's for minisite designs and quite a few fellow warriors with excellent graphics and competitive pricing. * hint hint * [see sig ]

Haven't got any experience with SBI so can't comment.

Regards,
Maddi
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Dital 16 years ago

The first thing to do is get affiliates to market it for you.
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- AJHunter 16 years ago
  
  I agree with everything said above... The number 1 thing that all new internet marketers face is traffic to their site. Before you can ever create a list you need to learn how to get targeted traffic.
  
  I have found a couple different ways to increase traffic that only require a small amount of time, & I'm creating a product on it. I would be happy to discuss these options with you, if you contact me.
  
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  Intrepreneur 16 years ago
  
  You're in a bad niche to begin with so I highly advise getting out of it as soon as possible. Though I would still turn all the content into an ebook and add it to the CB marketplace so at least you didn't waste that much time.
  
  Why are you in a bad niche?
  
  There are support systems worldwide for these people and they're free. Yes, completely free so you gotta think about how it affects you. In my opinion it says it's a bad niche.
  
  However..
  
  In this niche people like privacy about the problem at hand so if you do take the content and turn it into an ebook. Get a good copywriter to work on the copy as you don't seem to have grasped the niche properly.
  
  Lastly..
  
  Remember: You're in a bad niche!
  
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  suhrmd 16 years ago
  
  Aj Hunter,
  What are some ways to increase traffic that do not take much time?
  
  Thanks
  
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  AJHunter 16 years ago
  
  Send me your email address and I will get back to you asap.
  
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  suhrmd 16 years ago
  
  To AJ Hunter,
  I don't have enough posts to send you a pm with my email. Please let me know the different ways to increase traffic that you would suggest. Thanks
  
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  AJHunter 16 years ago
  
  Go to my website and contact me from there.
  
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- Loren Woirhaye 16 years ago
  
  The layout of your sales page is kind of behind the times. The
  copy is not so good, imo. The e-cover is a little cheesy... and
  7 articles or whatever is not a full-blown traffic campaign, especially
  if you don't know SEO.
  
  Two inter-related factors are probably hurting you more than the
  above, which are correctable without too much trouble.
  
  1. Perhaps people don't want your book. They aren't desperate
  enough to want it right now or they're aware they could
  get a book for the same purpose at the library, at a bookstore,
  or perhaps even for FREE from AA or other support groups.
  
  2. Your price is outrageous for general, widely available information
  in competition with free resources and library books. At $10 you
  might get some impulse buys but at $37 I reckon people are
  thinking twice... and not buying.
  
  The only reasons people pay such prices for ebooks is because
  they are desperate for instant solutions. That desperation either
  has to exist already... and it doesn't in most niches, or your letter
  has to create it - which is a skill-intensive copywriting thing
  explained best in Eugene Schwartz's "Breakthrough Advertising" -
  which is not a casual purchase due to its $94 price tag and over
  the head of most people who haven't written copy for awhile.
  
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Jimian 16 years ago

I would just give it away FREE on your site as a marketing tool -- it's your "business card" ... you become the expert and it opens the door for much more lucrative services. Put your mug on it so people will in time recognize you (and have the analyst's couch in the background)... are there alcoholics' forums???? Hmm...
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suhrmd 16 years ago

Tell me about SBI ? Does anyone else think this is a way to go? If so, why?
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