Introduction

Welcome to 25 MORE ways to Increase Your Internet Business Profits in 60 Minutes or Less!

In the previous edition I gave you 25 ways to increase your internet business. In this edition I give you 25 more! Enjoy 🙂

There’s a goldmine hidden in your business. And you can tap into it any time you want.

Let me explain…

You’re probably already making some money with your business. Maybe you even make a pretty comfortable living, the kind that gets the neighbors wondering how it is that you can stay home all day and still live a good life.

But the truth is –

Whether you’re brand-spanking-new to business or
you’re successful business owner with years of experience,
there’s still a river of cash that you haven’t yet tapped.

Your eyes should have lit up just now. Maybe your heart even quickened a bit at the thought of pocketing more cash.

The good news is that you’re about to learn 25 ways to increase your business profits – and each proven method takes about 60 minutes or less.

Let’s get right to it…

26. Make the Bonuses Scarce

Just as you can limit the number of discounts available, so too can you limit the number of bonuses you offer.

Examples:

“Be one of the next 98 customers to order the ‘Fat Burner Guide’ today, and you’ll get a free low-calorie cookbook!”
“Special offer to the next 212 people who order this vegetable gardening book today – get a FREE package of sweet corn seeds!”

Naturally, you can mix and match these bonus offers to come up with your own powerfully effective offer. For instance, you can combine a quantity-limited and time-limited bonus offer, like this:

Example:

“Order your bodybuilding personal training sessions today and you’ll get a free tub of whey protein! But hurry, this offer ends Saturday or after the first 12 people have purchased their sessions, whichever comes first.”

27. Justify the Price

Earlier I mentioned that one common objection is, “I can’t afford it.”

As you learned, one way to handle this objection is to offer a more affordable “lite” version of the product. That works particularly well if the prospect truly cannot afford the full version.

However, sometimes people tell themselves, “I can’t afford it,” even though money really isn’t a problem.

It’s just an excuse not to buy.

And so in order to overcome this objection, you need to prove the value of your offer. Truth is, you need to justify the price.

Tip: The reason this works so well is because people make their buying decision based on emotion, but then they need to justify the purchase based on logic. So you can push them towards the “buy now” button much more quickly, simply by helping them out with their justifications.

Here’s how it works overall: You remind the prospect of all the benefits of you offer, thereby raising the perceived value of the product in your customer’s mind. Once you’ve recapped the benefits, then you tell the prospect the price and then justify the price.

There are a few ways to do this, including:

Show why it’s a good deal.

Example: If you have a $20 book that can help people save $500 on their heating and cooling costs this year, then clearly the $20 is a good investment. Example: “Would you invest just $20 to save a whopping $500 this year?”

Compare the price to something else.

Example: Let’s say you have a $10 report. You might justify the price like this: “This report is just $10 – the price of a small pizza. Tell me, would you trade a pizza for the peace of mind that comes with having a virus-free computer?”

Focus on the lowest price. If you have something like a monthly membership site, then focus on the smallest component of the price. So instead of focusing on the membership being $360 a year or even $30 a month, you can point out how much it daily.

Example: “For just $1 a day – the price of a cheap cup of gas-station coffee – you can discover the secrets of making a comfortable living by working from home.”

28. Prove Your Claims

Here’s another big objection: Your prospects don’t believe you. But if you can overcome this objection, then you can boost your conversion rates and profits. And one to overcome the skeptic’s objections is by proving your claims.

Here are five examples of ways to prove your claims.

Display testimonials. These are the comments you get from paying, satisfied customers.

Tip: Be sure to just use your strongest testimonials, such as those that talk about their results.

Show endorsements. These are words of praise you get from high-profile individuals and experts.

Example: If you wrote a book about tooth care, then getting endorsements from dentists would be a good idea.

Offer screenshots.

Example: Let’s say you’re selling a traffic-generation guide and you want to prove your claims. You can show screenshots of your own traffic logs.

Post videos.

Example: Maybe you want to show that your dog trick-training guide works. In this case, post a video of your dog performing the tricks.

Scan your proof.

Example: Let’s say part of the strength of your claims rests on you being a doctor. You can scan your degrees and medical license to prove this claim.

29. Use Social Proof

You just learned about testimonials and endorsements – both of these are forms of social proof.

This is where you use proof that carries the basic sentiment, “Hey, these people use and like this product, so you will too.”

You see, people have a bit of a fear of doing the wrong thing. When they get into a new situation, they tend to look around to see what everyone else is doing, then they follow suit.

You can use this natural tendency to your advantage, by assuring your prospects that they are indeed doing the right thing, since everyone else is doing it too.

As mentioned, testimonials are one way to offer social proof. Here are other examples:

Show how many people are currently on the site. You’ll see this on the bottom of a lot of forums (such as the WarriorForum.com). But you can even display this on your sales page.

Example: “This product is spreading across the internet like a prairie fire – over 6538 other people are reading this page right now!”

Tell how many customers you have.

Example: Think of McDonald’s signs, which have claims like “Over 1 billion served.” You can even add a twist, such as by saying, “3729 happy customers can’t be wrong, so order now!”

30. Reverse the Risk

Yet another common objection you’ll find among prospects is that they’re afraid your product or service won’t work for them.

In some cases, your testimonials and other proof will help overcome this objection and save the sale. But if not, then a strong guarantee will help close the sale.

You’ll notice I referred to a strong guarantee. That’s because the stronger the guarantee (which often means a longer guarantee), the higher the conversion rate and the lower the refund rate (usually).

You see, if you offer a short guarantee, such as one that’s just seven days long, then you’ll likely get a flood of refund requests. That’s because people think, “Shoot, this guarantee is only a week long, and today is day five! I don’t have time to use the product, so I’ll just request a refund to be safe.”

Now take that same product and offer a guarantee of 30 days, 60 days or even a year, and the refund rate drops.

People are in no hurry to use the product, because they figure they have plenty of time. By the time the refund expiration date approaches, they’ve either used the product and liked it (no refund) or they’ve forgotten about the product (still no refund).

As such, a strong guarantee really does two things:

It increases your conversion rate,
Longer guarantees can decrease the refund rate.

Example:

“Your satisfaction is guaranteed! If you’re unsatisfied for ANY reason, simply contact me within 60 days and I’ll cheerfully refund every penny. No questions, no quibbles, no hoops to jump through!”

31. Offer Multimedia on Sales Pages

Different people prefer different methods of receiving information. Some people prefer audio. Some people prefer videos. And still others prefer to simply read text.

So here’s the deal: If you’re just using text sales letters or just video sales letters, there’s a certain portion of your audience who’s not really getting your message. They may listen or read it, but the sales message doesn’t sink in. Or they may land on your sales page, see that you don’t offer multimedia in their preferred format, and then just hit the “back” button.

The solution is simple: Offer both a video and text sales letter.

If you already have a text sales letter, then you can go to Elance.com to find someone to create a professional sales video for you. Likewise, if you already have a video sales letter, then you can present the text from the video on your sales page.

Tip: Of course you can do these tasks yourself if you already have copywriting skills and video-production skills. If not, then hire a professional to do it. That way, you’ll spend 60 minutes or less on this task – and you’ll get a great end result!

32. Improve Your Sales Copy

Here’s another quick way to drastically increase your profits: Track, test and tweak your sales letter. Basically, the goal is to improve your conversion rate.

Tip: You’ll need a tracking tool in order to perform this task. You can get it at http://www.google.com/analytics/. Otherwise, you can an A/B split-testing script, such as the one at: http://www.adtrackz.com/.

Here’s the key: Unless you’re running a multivariate test, you can only test ONE element of your sales letter at time. Here’s how it works…

Let’s say you want to test your headline. You’d then create two sales letters that were EXACTLY alike, with the only difference being their headlines. You then randomly split your traffic between these two letters (which tracking tools do for you). After you’ve received 30 to 50 sales, you can look at the data to determine which headline resulted in a better conversion rate.

As you can imagine, you can test just about every part of your sales letter, from the color of fonts you use to the web design. However, some elements tend to carry more of an impact, so you’ll want to start your tests with those elements. The top elements include:

Headline
P.S.
Price
Call to action
Guarantee
Sales letter opener
Bullet point

33. Track, Test and Tweak Your Marketing Campaigns

If you want to increase your profits, then don’t stop your tracking and testing at your sales letter. Instead, extend it out to your entire marketing campaign.

This includes:

Your ads. This includes everything from your pay per click ads to your newspaper ads to the ads you’ve purchased through media buys.
Your keywords. If you’re using Google AdWords or other pay per click search engines, then be sure to test your keywords.
Your traffic sources. This is where you test all your sources (AdWords, banner ads, SEO, social media, etc). Once you know which ones bring in the biggest returns on your investment, you can focus your efforts on those winners.
When you place your ads.

Example: Maybe you’ll find that placing an ad in the Friday edition of the newspaper gets you better return on your investment than placing an ad in Sunday’s paper.

34. Start Building a Prospect Mailing List

The vast majority of people will leave your site without ever purchasing your product.

Indeed, if your conversion rate is 3%, then consider this: 97% of your visitors are leaving. And most of this 97% won’t ever come back, either due to forgetting or not being interested in your current offer.

So here’s what you do to boost those profits: Get these people on your mailing list, such as one you build through Aweber.com or GetResponse.com.

This helps you accomplish the following:

You can close the sale by following up with the prospect.
You can build a relationship and trust with the prospect, which boosts sales.
You can put other offers in front of the prospect. So even if he doesn’t buy your original offer, he may buy something else you’re promoting.

Now, you can’t just say “join my list.” Instead, you need to give people a reason to join your list.

Examples:

You run a golf site. Offer a free “improve your putting” video to all who join your list.
You sell weight loss products. Entice people to join your list by offering a free report, “77 Surprisingly Easy Ways to Lose Weight!”

35. Interact With Prospects

You’ll notice in the last method that I mentioned how building relationships and trust with your prospects leads to more sales. That’s because people buy from those they know, like and trust. A newsletter is just one way to share useful content in order to build that trust. Interacting with your prospects directly also works well.Here are three ways to interact with prospects and build relationships:

Blog. A blog gives you an opportunity to showcase your expertise and share your useful content. But it also gives you a chance to directly talk to your readers (in the comments section).
Get on Facebook.com. Again, you can share content here. But you can also chat with prospects.
Join niche forums. Or, alternatively, you can start your own niche forum to help establish yourself as an expert as well as interact with prospects (both of which help boost your profits).

36. Build Anticipation for Your Offers

Here’s a common mistake even seasoned marketers and business people make: They tell their prospects about their newest offering just one time.

Example: They’ll tell their list once. They’ll blog about it once. They’ll mention it on their Facebook page once.

Problem is, if you mention a new product just once, a good portion of your audience is likely to miss the message.

Some will see it, but set it aside for “later” – and of course “later” never comes. Still others are interested, but they need more information.

How do you solve all three of these problems?

By sending out an email series of at least four to seven emails for every product you launch. Your job is to build anticipation and pique curiosity in the week or two leading up to the launch. Basically, put your buyers in a frenzy so that they can’t wait to buy.

Here’s an example sequence:

Mention upcoming offer at the end of a regular newsletter.

Example: “Stay tuned, because in three days you’re going to learn about a product that will rock your world.” Send this email out about one week before launch.

Send out a solo email that piques curiosity by telling readers the benefit of the product, but never revealing the product.

Example: “This project is still under wraps, so I can’t give you all the details. But I can tell you this – the product will [insert benefits]…”

Two days before launch: Reveal the product and reiterate the top benefits. Share testimonials and proof. Give people the link of the future sales page and let them know when the product goes live.
Day of launch: Send out a short email reminding prospects of main benefit. Give them the link to the sales page.
Day after launch: Short email reminding prospects of any discounts or other scarce offers.
A few days after launch: Share newest testimonials and feedback with your subscribers.

37. Market Offline

Sometimes online marketers say, “But why market offline – I’m an online marketer!”

That’s true, but your prospects play, work and live offline. And when they get online, you’re competing for their attention alongside every other marketer on the planet.

Consider this:

Send them a postcard in the mail, and they’ll take note.
Send them a text message on their phone, and they’ll read it.
Buy an advertisement in their favorite niche magazine, and they’re likely to see it.
Run an ad during their favorite radio talk show, and they’ll hear it.

Test it for yourself and see.

38. Start an Affiliate Program

Think about how many sales you make in a given month or a year. Now imagine if you could quickly and easily multiply your efforts. Imagine having an entire army of sales associates promoting your business day in and day out. And it wouldn’t cost you a dime upfront.

What is it? It’s affiliate marketing.

You don’t have to pay a dime unless an affiliate makes a sale for you. Then you pay out commissions ranging from 5% to 10% (for physical products) up to 50% and higher (for digital products).

If you sell digital products, you can get set up quickly and easily using www.clickbank.com.

39. Join Forces With Other Marketers

As you just learned, one way to make more money is by having other marketers in your niche sell your wares. However, there are other ways to do joint ventures with other marketers.

Examples:

Create a product together. Just get on the phone using a bridge line like e-teleconferencing.com, interview each other and an hour or so later you’ll have one or even two products.
Co-promote by recommending each other in your respective newsletters.
Act as guest bloggers on each other’s blog.
Put cross sells and backend offers on your websites for your partner’s products (and he does the same for you).

40. Install a Referral Program

Some of your best affiliates could be your most loyal and satisfied customers. Indeed, you can certainly tell your customers how to join your affiliate program to earn cash for referrals. However, many of them may be happy if you simply offer them discounts and bonuses for referring others.

Examples:

You offer a $5 discount on a future purchase for every paid referral an existing customer sends you. If someone sends you five customers, he gets a $25 gift card to spend in your store.
Everyone who tells five friends about the site and/or posts about it on a social media page gets a free product.

41. Start a Customer Loyalty Program

I bet you’ve participated in a loyalty program in the past (or maybe even now). And I bet being a part of the program caused you to spend a little more than you might have otherwise spent with that particular company. Here are a few examples:

Airline miles programs.
Buy 10 coffees, get one free.

The good news is that you can put this same strategy to work to boost profits in your business, too.

Examples:

Create a “points program,” where customers get a point for every dollar spent with you. They can then use these points to buy other products and services from you. You can even do a joint venture with another marketer, where you allow your respective customers to buy products from your partner’s site with their points (and vice versa).
Buy X number of products, get one free. (Example: Buy three ebooks, get the fourth of equal or lesser value free.)

42. Develop a Customer Retention Strategy

As you already know, much of the profits in your business lies hidden in the backend, meaning the money is in selling to your existing customers. That’s why it’s important to develop a customer retention strategy, so that these customers will keep buying again and again.

However, a customer retention strategy is even more important if you run a membership site or forced continuity program. In this case, your customers are automatically billed every month, so it’s your job to keep them happy so that they remain members.

Here are three ways to do it:

Build anticipation. Always be telling your customers what’s coming.

Example: “Stay tuned, because next week you’ll discover a little known secret for burning belly fat!”

Over-deliver. In other words, give your customers more than they expect. Make them feel like their membership is an absolute steal. One way to do this is to offer regular bonuses, with some of these bonuses being surprised (unannounced) gifts.
Offer great customer service. You may enjoy living the internet marketer’s lifestyle of working just a few hours a week. If so, then make sure your customer help desk is manned during business hours (and perhaps 24/7 if there’s a high demand).

43. Offer Free or Low-Cost Trial Offers

You’ll recall that earlier we talked about several common buying objections, such as the prospect concerned about the price and whether the product or service is right for him.

Here’s a way to circumvent many of the common objections: Offer a free or low-priced trial so that your prospects can try the product out, virtually risk free.

Examples:

You have a weight loss membership site that costs $29.99 per month. You offer a free one-week trial.
You have a copywriting membership site for $49.99 per month. You offer a one month trial for just $1.

Either a free or low-cost trial works to get people signed up. But the advantage of a $1 trial is that you have an excuse to collect the customer’s credit card number or other rebilling information. If they’re unsatisfied, they cancel before the trial ends. If they’re happy, you start billing them at the full membership rate once the trial is over.

44. Give Customers Payment Options

Remember the “I can’t afford it” objection? Here’s yet another way to handle it: Offer the customer the chance to pay in installments.

Example: A customer looking at a $500 price tag thinks that’s too much. But if it’s two payments of $250 or four payments of $125, suddenly that doesn’t sound so bad. And so the customer justifies the price and makes the purchase.

Naturally, you want to encourage as many people as possible to pay upfront (which improves your cash flow). So what you do is offer the regular price to anyone who pays upfront. Then you offer a slightly higher price to anyone who takes you up on the payment option.

Example: The regular price is $500. The payment option is two payments of $255 each.

45. License Your Products

You make money with your products by selling one copy at a time to your customers. Then you make money on the backend when your customers buy additional products and services through the links you’ve embedded in those products.

How would you like to multiply your efforts by making MORE money upfront and getting more backend sales?

Here’s how: License your products to other marketers.

Maybe you have a proven book that you’re currently selling for $25. You can sell the rights to this product from anywhere to $100 to $250 or more, depending on how well your name is known in the niche and what all materials are included in the package.

You can then sell these packages to 50, 250, 500 marketers or more!

Here are the three main license designations:

Offer resell rights. The resell rights holder can sell the product to end users only. This is a good way to keep control over your product and enjoy the backend income.
Sell master resell rights. This is where anyone who buys the book automatically gets the right to resell it to others. This quickly devalues the product. However, more people will see the product, so you may enjoy more backend sales.
License private label rights. This is the only license term that allows license holders to modify your content, including putting their name as the author. That means your backend links will be stripped out. On the plus side, PLR content is highly sought ought by marketers, so high-quality content can command a larger license fee (as compared to resell rights or master resell rights).

Tip: You can start licensing your products by selling the licenses off your own site. You can also advertise licenses on eBay.com, CraigsList.org, WarriorForum.com, DigitalPoint.com and SitePoint.com.

46. Repurpose / Recycle Your Content

Creating content for your business takes time, whether you’re creating new products, lead-generating reports or even content for your blog and newsletter.

How would you like to do all of this more in 60 minutes or less… so that you can start making MORE money?

Here’s the answer: Recycle your existing content.

Examples:

Compile some of your smaller products to create a home study course.
Break down a report into 10 or more separate articles which you then post on your blog or load into your autoresponder.
Chop apart a larger ebook into lead-generating reports or entry-level products.
Turn an ebook into an audio or a video.
Transcribe an audio or video to create a text product.
Turn a physical book into a Kindle ebook.

47. Sell Hybrid Products

I mentioned this idea before, way back in the beginning of the report. Basically, the idea is to create a “hybrid” product that’s part digital (downloadable) and part physical (the part you need to ship).

Here are the benefits:

The digital part satisfies your customer’s desire for instant gratification.
The physical part raises the perceived value of the product.
The fact that part of it is a physical product means fewer refunds, because people don’t want to go through the hassle of shipping something back to you.

Example: You sell a golf product. You offer an ebook available for immediate download after purchasing. You then send the customer a set of videos (DVDs) that shows the golfer how to improve his drives, his plays on the fairway and his putting.

48. Create a “Lite” Version of a Product

Earlier in this report I mentioned that you could entice reluctant buyers by lowering your price and offering a lite version of your product. Now here’s another idea: Give away the lite version of your product.

In essence, this works as a free trial for your prospects, even though the features and/or functionality are reduced in the lite version.

However, the key is to show the “lite” users what features or functionality they’re missing out on.

Examples:

You offer a lite version of a bodybuilding product. The full version includes access to videos showing the prospect how to complete the exercises. The lite version has a link that takes prospects to a page that tells them to upgrade in order to get this feature.
The lite version of an autoresponder script doesn’t include tracking data or the ability to upload more than seven autoresponder messages.

49. Outsource

Outsourcing – it’s one of the single biggest ways to growing your business, fast. That’s because outsourcing is like cloning yourself… once, twice maybe 10 times or more.

Think about how much you get done in a week – now imagine if you had a whole team of people working for you. How much more would you accomplish? How much more money would you make?

Here are the steps for outsourcing:

Step 1: Create a list of prospective freelancers. You do this by posting ads on Elance.com and other freelancing sites, posting and browsing ads on CraigsList.org, looking on the WarriorForum.com, placing an ad in your local newspaper and searching Google.

Step 2: Do your due diligence. Review the freelancers’ feedback ratings, references, portfolio and business history to determine the right one for the job.

Step 3: Hire and get to work. Sign agreements, give your freelancer a detailed brief, start small and work your way up to a great business relationship.

50. Make More Money in Less Time

Just a moment ago you learned that the next best thing to cloning yourself is to outsource all or part of your business.

Now here’s another way to help your business grow: Make sure that every hour you spend working on your business is a productive use of your time.

You see, most people schedule blocks of time to work, but they get distracted. The phone rings. They check their email constantly. They go online to do research and end up chatting on Facebook or watching videos on YouTube. Hours pass by quickly, but little gets done.

It’s a common problem, but you can prevent it – all you need to do is learn time management and productivity skills. Here are three tips to get you started:

Check email at set intervals. Do you have a problem with checking your email continuously and then answering everything that comes in? That habit can really eat into your productivity. Instead, check it at set intervals. Depending on your business, you may check it two or three times per day. If you need to check it more than that, then you may want to hire an assistant to check and handle your email for you.
Cut out distractions. This means turning off the TV, your cell phone and anything else that could distract you. If you don’t need to be online, then you may even want to disconnect yourself from the internet so that you’re not tempted to do something non-work-related.
Set a timer. Here’s a little trick to get a lot done in short bursts of time. Simply set a timer for 15 or 20 minutes, and then work as quickly as you can during that period. When time is up, keep working if you’re on a roll. Otherwise, take a short break (a few minutes), reset your timer, and do it again.

Apply the above tips to your business, and soon you’ll find yourself making more money in less time!