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Chapter Eight: Investing Fundamentals

When it comes to investing, many first time investors want to jump right in with both feet. Unfortunately, very few of those investors are successful. Investing in anything requires some degree of skill. It is important to remember that few investments are a sure thing - there is the risk of losing your money!

Before you jump right in, it is better to not only find out more about investing and how it all works, but also to determine what your goals are. What do you hope to achieve with your investments? Will you be funding a college education? Buying a home? Retiring?

Before you invest a single penny, really think about what you hope to achieve with that investment. Knowing what your goal is will help you make smarter investment decisions along the way!

Too often, people invest money with dreams of becoming rich overnight. This is not realistic. Even if you were lucky enough to pick the next Microsoft or Xerox and buy up thousands of shares, it would be years before that one investment made you wealthy. So it is a very bad idea to start investing with hopes of becoming rich overnight. It is safer to invest your money in such a way that it will grow slowly over time, and be used for retirement or a child’s education.

If your investment goal is to get rich quick, you’re reading the wrong book. Go online and search for “make money.” You’ll find any number of schemes and scams that will promise you the moon and happily empty your pockets. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is too good to be true. This includes any and all promises of overnight wealth.

You should strongly consider talking to a financial planner before making any investments. Your financial planner can help you determine what type of investing you must do to reach the financial goals that you have set. He or she can give you realistic information as to what kind of returns you can expect and how long it will take to reach your specific goals.

Again, remember that investing requires more than calling a broker and telling them that you want to buy stocks or bonds. It takes a certain amount of research and knowledge about the market if you hope to invest successfully.

Why You Should Invest

Investing has become increasingly important over the years, as the future of social security benefits becomes unknown.

People want to insure their futures, and they know that if they are depending on Social Security benefits, and in some cases retirement plans, that they may be in for a rude awakening when they no longer have the ability to earn a steady income. Investing is the answer to the unknowns of the future.

You may have been saving money in a low interest savings account over the years. Now, you want to see that money grow at a faster pace. Perhaps you’ve inherited money or realized some other type of windfall, and you need a way to make that money grow. Again, investing is the answer.

Investing is also a way of attaining the things that you want, such as a new home, a college education for your children, or expensive ‘toys.’ Of course, your financial goals will determine what type of investing you do. If you want or need to make a lot of money fast, you would be more interested in higher risk investing, which will give you a larger return in a shorter amount of time.

If you are saving for something in the far off future, such as retirement, you would want to make safer investments that grow over a longer period of time.

The overall purpose in investing is to create wealth and security, over a period of time. It is important to remember that you will not always be able to earn an income... you will eventually want to retire.

You also cannot count on the social security system to do what you expect it to do. As we have seen with Enron, you also cannot necessarily depend on your company’s retirement plan either. So, again, investing is the key to insuring your own financial future, but you must make smart investments!

Determine Your Risk Tolerance

Each individual has a risk tolerance that should not be ignored. Any good stock broker or financial planner knows this, and they should make the effort to help you determine what your risk tolerance is.

Then, they should work with you to find investments that do not exceed your risk tolerance.

Determining one’s risk tolerance involves several different things. First, you need to know how much money you have to invest, and what your investment and financial goals are.

For instance, if you plan to retire in ten years, and you’ve not saved a single penny towards that end, you need to have a high risk tolerance - because you will need to do some aggressive - risky - investing in order to reach your financial goal.

On the other side of the coin, if you are in your early twenties and you want to start investing for your retirement, your risk tolerance will be low. You can afford to watch your money grow slowly over time.

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When you’ve checked the Contributors gifts and seen that they are satisfactory, you will notice that your Contributors have One Time Offers for their products. These OTO’s can make your Contributors a lot of money, which is a real incentive for them to participate in your Giveaway event.

One warning I must give you is that some people don’t always set up their OTO payment system correctly, so when a payment is made the download page doesn’t arrive. These situations are usually beyond your control, but you will get a lot of questions from people who purchased the product and never received it.

This seems to occur from people who are either beginner or advanced marketers – people continue to make simple mistakes that shouldn’t occur. A simple test purchase should be sufficient to ensure that the product is set up correctly – however in 90% of cases this isn’t done. This is because, if using payment systems like PayPal, there is no opportunity to change the price of the product without having to completely recreate the button link.

So you’ll find yourself, at times, as an intermediary between your Contributor and the person who purchased. At first, check your database and see if there is a reliable contact email, and forward off the complaint to the Contributor. Make sure you send a copy (cc:) to the person who purchased. If there’s no response within 24- 48 hours, suggest to the person who purchased to get a refund. This is quite a common practise with some marketers so don’t be too lenient!

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Chapter 4 "How to Write Ads that Attract Clicks"

One of the best things you can do to really kick butt with AdWords is to understand that managing your PPC campaign is a step by step process which each step designed to accomplish a specific objective, and with all steps linked, leading your prospect from the start (where they search for the key terms you're bidding on) to the end (where they 'convert' either into buyers or leads orsubscribers).

Note: What I've found is that when I break down AdWords (or keyword research, or SEO, or sales writing basically, any skill) into small steps like this, people instantly find it a lot easier to understand what's going on. I'm hoping that you'll find the same thing with today's chapter on ad writing.

Writing ads, then, is just one step of this process. But before we dive into the specifics, I want to discuss something that is at the heart of any successful Google AdWords campaign:

Focused Keyword Lists.

If you remember from the previous chapter on keyword research, you will remember that it is absolutely critical that you break down your main keyword lists into smaller lists that are focused around subtopics. If your ads are not targeted to your keywords (i.e. a general-purpose ad on insurance showing up for someone who is searching for car insurance) they might not click on your ads. Worse, if your site does not offer a particular type of product (you are targeting custom home theater systems when you don't offer any customisation), all those clicks will be wasted.

And that's the single biggest problem with most AdWords campaigns-a lack offocus. Start off with a basic list, and then expand it into specific subtopic lists as you refine your campaign. One of the ways to do this is the 'Peel and Stick' method (I'll talk about this in more detail in chapter5).

Okthen, on to writing ads.

Ad Writing Basics

Before you write an ad, you have to remember that in even a low-competition market, your ads are under pressure to perform (that is, your clicks must also convert), or otherwise they will end up costing you money. Because of this you should always write ads with two thingsin mind:

The ad must persuade the prospect that the page this ad points to will hold the answer to what they are looking for.

The landing page must deliver on what the ad promises , otherwise the clicks will be wasted (we discuss landing pages in chapter 5).

In addition, you also have to ensure that only those people whom you are targeting will click on your ad. Or to put it differently, you want to make sure that you get the clicks that are most likely to convert into buyers.

Nowthat we knowwhat's required, we can map outsome guidelines forwriting the ad.

Identify what you are selling

Makesureyou have a clearidea ofwhatyou'reselling and howthatwill tiein withyourad. Choose the keywords that apply to yoursite, and include them in your ads.

Narrow down your target market

Understand who you are selling to. An excellent example of this is one of Perry Marshall's recent ads for his book, Guide to Google AdWords. He's targeting serious business-minded people who are willing to pay for quality products, so he's made sure that he lists the product price in the ad. Does that help? It will potentially keep out people who are looking forfree advice or those who cannot afford the book. Narrowing your market.

You can refine the focus of your market by writing down who exactly you are selling to for my weight loss e-book that I wrote way back when I was starting out in Internet Marketing, I focused on young adults who led extremely busy lives and wanted an easy, effective and time-saving solution to managing theirweight problems.

Use focused keywords to help you create a targeted ad

As I've explained in the previous section, focus on subtopics rather than ads for the general keyword they convert much better into customers because you are able to direct them to exactly that page that contains the information they are looking for.

Write to persuade this is sales writing in a very small space

Sales writing boils down to a simple principle convincing the reader to take immediate action on what the writer wants them to do (sign up to a list, buy a product, etc). To do this right, you have to first attract their attention (headline), convey the most powerful benefit (first line) and provide a logical justification for taking that action through your most powerful feature (second line).

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Anthropophobia is the phobia of people. If even the thought of attending a networking event and meeting strangers gives you heart palpitations and leaves you nauseous then don’t worry, it’s unlikely that you have this phobia.

When confronted with their worst fears, a genuine phobic will often have a full-blown anxiety attack. It’s far more likely that your problem is that of shyness or, even more likely, a simple fear of the unknown.

Most people – unless their self-confidence is very strong – will feel, at the very least, uncomfortable when placed in an unfamiliar setting with unfamiliar people. We feel unsure of what to do or say and we compound it by worrying that other people will notice our discomfort.

People often make excuses as to why they can’t attend off-line events such as seminars or workshops. It’s easy to pass off these justifications as evidence that someone is not serious about their business.

But it’s far more likely that the individual is simply nervous about placing themselves in an unfamiliar environment.

The purpose of this chapter is to help you confront and overcome these fears by de-mystifying what you can expect to find when you arrive at an off-line event.

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Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. Mark Twain

A man's dreams are an index to his greatness. Zadok Rabinwitz

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. Seneca

Pay no attention to what the critics say; no statue has ever been erected to a critic. Jean Sibelius

The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed. Lloyd Jones

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Specific is the difference between the vague mental image painted by this phrase: “Widget Roll-Out Garden is generously sized and pre-seeded with almost three dozen types of beautiful flowers”… and the vivid, you’re-right-in-the-middle-of-the-feelings picture created by.

“With Widget Roll-Out Garden, you’ll enjoy seeing more than 34 different varieties of carnations, zinnias, and snapdragons exploding in 2.3 yards of red, yellow, and orange bloom for month after month of fragrant pleasure right outside your own front door.”

I’ve underscored the words that make this pitch specific: color, type of flower, and appealing to the senses…in this case, the eyes and the nose. And I’ve twice underlined one of the most meaningful specifics of all: non-round numbers.

I’ve Got Your Number You know what it means to round up and round down. Well, that’s where a round number comes from. 17 rounds up to 20, 42 rounds down to 40, etc.

Rounding up and down may be okay for tax returns, but round numbers can doom your online marketing efforts. Studies have shown that people rated copy as more believable when the numbers used were “non-round.”

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Talk with, not at, your prospect Your sales message should be a conversation, not a one-sided sales pitch. To keep a prospect involved, ask lots of yes and no questions in your copy. The questions can remind them of their problems (Are you tired of paying too much for life insurance?), remind them of your solutions (Wouldn’t you like an insurance agent who put you first for a change?), and alert them to the “danger” of not acting now (Can you afford to leave your family unprotected?)

Add incentives for acting NOW Turn your prospects into eager beavers by offering extra incentives for quick action. This can be a percentage-off discount, a faster shipping option, or free gift-wrapping.

Incentives to come again Discount coupons, bonus points that earn free gifts, a buyer’s club, etc. are all ways to encourage customers to make repeat purchases. And, when they’re redeeming their coupons, you have a chance to sell and sell again.

Use highlights to spotlight You can significantly enhance the power of the benefits listed in your copy by using color, highlighting, underlining, and even attention-getting words and phrases (including slang and “blue” lan-guage).

“Surf” a mile in someone else’s shoes When you’re creating your site, put yourself in a first-time visitor’s shoes. Design the site for them…create your product pitch around them… do everything you can to show them the value of doing business with you.

Everyone wants to feel good about themselves Make visitors feel good about themselves and they’ll feel good about doing business with you. Compliment them on their intelligence (“You’re smart not to wait until your storm drain prob-lem gets worse”) or on being “a cut above” (“This success program isn’t for average people…this is for winners only”).

A little trust can earn a lotta dough Test a “bill me later” option on your website. It sends an unmistakable message that says, “My product is great and I know you’ll love it” that can instantly transform a prospect into a sale. And don’t worry: most people are honest and will pay what they owe.

Create emotional attachments As soon as your ad copy can get a prospect to “experience” what it would be like to experience the positive results you deliver, they begin to develop an emotional attachment that will keep them “hooked” until you close the deal. Your copy must make your reader see, feel, hear, and taste everything your product has to offer.