Tales From The IMC Testing Labs: Our Experts Share Their Latest Findings

The Internet Marketing Center Team

Want to know exactly what’s working online this minute?

Here at the Internet Marketing Center, we employ an entire team of “real world” experts.

By day, this dedicated group of Internet marketers works in the trenches, giving our customers one-on-one help to build their Internet businesses, often starting from square one and completing their sites just five days later.

But by night, our intrepid entrepreneurs run their own successful websites.

These websites serve as their personal testing labs, where they’re able constantly to try out new techniques and approaches for getting more qualified traffic, improving their search engine rankings, converting more visitors into long-term customers, and for adding additional streams of income to their businesses.

Through meticulous testing, they uncover EXACTLY what’s working right now, and decide which techniques aren’t worth wasting time trying.

On occasion, we like to pass some of these results along to you, our subscriber, to help you make the most of your own website.

So without further ado, here are a few helpful tips for improving your opt-ins and sales, courtesy of Senior Internet Marketing Expert/Instructor Cijaye DePradine, who has recently reported some exceptional results with her own testing program:

Tip #1: Increase Your Opt-In Rates by Up To 75% with Survey Landing Pages

Want to find out who your market is, or find out what they want (and how much they’re willing to pay for it)? There’s no better way than a survey landing page.

People LOVE to give their opinions on just about anything, particularly if there’s a benefit to them for doing it.

But Cijaye recently discovered there’s a hidden benefit to doing a survey: she used survey landing pages along with pay-per-click advertising, and was rewarded with an increase in her opt-in rates of a whopping 75%!

The trick is to offer your visitors some kind of “bribe” or reward for filling out the survey, and make sure it’s something you can email to them.

Then, at the end of the survey, thank them for participating, and ask for their names and email addresses to send the reward. And presto! An entire NEW source of opt-ins for your list.

Of course, the actual results of your survey are just as important as getting the opt-ins, as they’ll help you improve your overall businesses, so make sure you don’t just throw up any old thing to get email addresses.

Cijaye finds that her surveys are the most successful when she:

• Makes the pay-per-click ad enticing — If possible, dangle the free “bribe” in front of your visitors right IN the ad
• Keeps the survey short — A maximum of 10 questions is usually best
• Keeps the survey tightly focused — When writing your questions, concentrate on just one goal. What is the one thing you MOST want to learn from your survey?

Tip #2: Increase Follow-Through on Key Actions with Email Reminders

Is there something in particular you want your subscribers to do? Follow you on Twitter? Join your online forum? Revisit your site to check out new products?

Many people will put a “follow me on Twitter” logo on their website, or place a forum link on their homepage, then just sit back and hope that everyone stumbles across it, and decides to follow through.

If that’s your strategy, you’re not going to get very far!

In fact, as Cijaye recently discovered through extensive email testing, by far the BEST way to get a subscriber to take action is through email reminders.

And we’re not talking the odd email sent once a year. Cijaye says it takes as many as 7 contacts before one of her subscriber takes action!

Okay, we know what you’re thinking: If I ask my subscribers to “friend” me on Facebook 7 times in 7 different emails, they’re all going to unsubscribe!

But according to Cijaye, your subscribers actually won’t mind getting this many email reminders, as long as you follow one very important rule:

ALWAYS answer the “what’s in it for me” question!!

So, for instance, if you’re trying to get a subscriber to become a friend on Facebook, you’ll want to explain in your emails about all of the benefitsof being a friend: they’ll have free access to a community of like-minded people they can share ideas with, they’ll be able to find out about special offers on your site before the general public, and so on.

What subscriber is going to resent you for offering them this kind of help, even if you do it multiple times?

But just to play it safe, you’ll also want to pay attention to the timing of your email reminders. Send them too close together, and chances are you’ll see an upswing in unsubscribes.

Tip #3: Increase Purchases and Other Activity on Your Site by Up to 50% by Sending Out Detailed Instructions

Want to get twice as many of your subscribers to take critical action on your site — like buy something?

Cijaye found that simply sending an email with instructions on HOW to act can have a BIG impact!

She sent out detailed instructions for performing a number of different actions on her site, and saw excellent results across the board. Here are some things to try:

• Leave comments on your blog or site – True, getting comments from subscribers won’t have a direct impact on your sales, but more comments equals more content, which translates to better search rankings, more traffic, and then more sales.Plus, getting comments allows you to create more of a community, so that people are more encouraged to come back to your site time and again.So Cijaye sent an email to her subscribers, explaining how to leave comments, and voila, she had an IMMEDIATE increase in the number of subscribers leaving comments.
• Join your forum or special gallery — Again, getting people activelyinvolved in your website creates a community, which leads to repeat visits, and potentially more sales.So in an effort to increase the number of people who signed up for her special gallery, Cijaye sent out an email telling people exactly how to do it, and was rewarded with a 50% increase in members!
  
• Purchase more products — Believe it or not, you really can get people to make more purchases from your website simply by telling them how to do it!In this test, Cijaye sent instructions explaining how to purchase products using PayPal, and saw an immediate impact on her bottom line.

Why do these three tips we’ve just shown you work so well? Well, according to Cijaye: “People are simply too busy to figure things out their own, or to remember to take specific actions. It’s YOUR job as a business owner to help them along the way… and NOT doing so leaves money on the table!”

Would you like the opportunity to work one-on-one with Cijaye — or one of our other highly qualified Internet marketing experts — to get hands-on help starting your own Internet business?

We routinely host intensive 5-day startup clinics, where we work side by side with our clients to create lucrative websites from scratch over a period of just 5 days.

We’ve already had hundreds of graduates, and 100% of them left the clinic on Day 5 with a complete website already getting traffic, and many of them were already making sales.

To apply to join a 5-day startup clinic, and start a lucrative business that can secure your financial future, just follow this link.

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