It shows the number of sign ups a client gets to his newsletter.

Each week, he gets more sign ups from the previous week, just by doing one simple little trick.

Whenever he sends out an email to his list, he keeps an eye on the click through rate.

If it gets a good clickthrough rate, it obviously struck a chord with his prospects, so he shoves a similar piece on to his website.

If his mail bombs with a low click through rate, he steers clear of adding any similar content to his site.

It sounds obvious, and it is. But it’s also a fool proof way of putting great, relevant content on your site. And when you do that, more prospects will be inclined to jump on to your mailing list.

It’s infuriating – and it’s not great for profits either.

Here’s what it all boils down to:

“People buy when it suits them – not when it suits you”

But it’s because of this auto-responders work so well. When it finally suits a prospect to buy, if one of your mails has just tapped them on the shoulder, you’re in with a great chance.

But sometimes, you don’t even need to be in the right place (their inbox) at the right time (as often as possible).

There’s another way to cajole them in to doing what you’d like, whether they are ready to buy or still mulling stuff over.

It’s not new or ground breaking. And like everything else on this blog it really is old hat. But it works. Here it is:

Add urgency to your mails in any way you can

Adding urgency works for two reasons.

Firstly, there are always prospects who want to enquire or buy – but are too busy. They decide to do it later. But the truth is, later is never. Never forget that.

Urgency gives them the nudge they need to find the time.

The second reason is just plain greed. All these examples appeal to greed – and all of them work well:

“This offer has to end at …”

“10% discount if you order by …”

“Voucher valid until…”

Yes, they are old and clichéd. But you keep seeing them because they work. So don’t be afraid of using them or variations for your business. It makes a real difference.

My favourite example of ‘creative urgency’ came from a local car dealership just before Christmas. They sent out a brazenly honest email, with oodles of urgency.

Basically, the mail said, “This is always a terrible time of year for us – we sell next to nothing. So have a look at the discount on these. You won’t get anywhere near these prices in the New Year.”

It just goes to show whatever you do or sell, there are always ways to add urgency.

• Your emails get scanned or read
• Your prospects click through

It’s here where you really can trounce the competition, because most businesses send out the same dull info, in the same dull format, hoping to bore or bludgeon their list in to submission.

Don’t forget, unless EVERY mail has something of real value for prospects, you’re wasting your money and their time.

But there’s a really easy way to stand out from the dull corporate crowd and get your mails opened, read and clicked. Just tell a story.

It works like a charm – but so few do it.

A story brings your emails to life – wrap them around news, curiosity, self interest or an ‘easy way’ and you’ll always have folk opening, reading and clicking.

It’s the clicks that count – they are the life blood of your business. If click throughs don’t happen, nothing else does. No sales. No enquiries. Nothing. You may as well not have mailed.

So here are two great ‘story’ examples. One is an old classic that demonstrates how much a story can grab you, and the other an email sent from Michael Senoff, of hardtofindseminars.com

Michael’s subject headers, short sentences and paragraphs always get me reading. And because he always tells a story, it’s impossible to stop (it’s worth signing up to his list just to see how he does it).

This old Zippo ad plays on curiosity. Once you’ve been suckered in by the headline, it’s no effort at all to read the body copy.

Below is one of Michael Senoff’s emails:

 Subject header: Happy Birthday to Ace The Leopard Gecko. .

 Alastair,

 Ace, our leopard gecko is now two years old.

 I can remember how he came into our life.

 After watching “Wild Recon”, a new reptile show on the learning channel, my 10 year old son decided he wanted a gecko.

 So I agreed that is was time for him to take on more responsibility.

 I told him I would buy the gecko and pay for the glass habitat, heated rock, sand and the first round of food.

 He agreed to sign a gecko care agreement and to clean the poop, change the water, feed it crickets and worms every 3 days.

 So at 10:00 Sunday morning we were at the pet store looking into the class case of 20 baby geckos.

 How would he choose the right one, I thought?

 What gecko would stand apart from the rest?

 They all looked the same.

 The pet store attendant opened the case and all the geckos were in sight.

 And then something happened . .

  One of the geckos crawled away from the pack.

 He nestled himself next to the corner closest to us.

 And that’s the gecko my son took home and called Ace.

 And if you want to stand out from the crowd, you too have to separate yourself from the rest.

 And here’s some great audio interviews on how to do that.

 Go to

 http://www.hardtofindseminars.com/Stand_Apart.htm

 PS. 19 other geckos had the same chance to stand apart.

Add arrows to your action pages.

That’s it. Simple eh?

An action page is when you want a prospect to do something – like sign up or buy.

It’s one of the few things I’ve never seen fail – it’ll always give your results a little bump.

Here’s a screenshot from a client’s split test. The test is a page with an arrow, against the the same page without an arrow.

The orange line (the page with the arrow) is beating the control (the page without the arrow) by 9.8% at the moment.

So call it a 10% bump – from just a tiny little arrow.

So now they are converting at 5.44% which is not too shabby – but there’s still room for improvement (conversions were at 1.99% when we started working with them).

But back on to arrows.

I’ve always found hand drawn arrows work best.

And of course, the best place to put a ‘call to action’ like a sign up is above the fold, so people don’t have to scroll to see it.

Top left is the most looked at place of your site. Heatmaps prove this time after time.

So imagine, you’re trying to launch a new social network.

Ideally you want a hand drawn arrow, pointing towards the top left of the page, right?

There are only a few companies smart enough to do that.

When I started working with Drayton I used to be terrified when he’d ask me to write copy.

I used to joke to clients he’d only change it in three places: the start, the middle and the end.

Anyhow, copy that did get Drayton’s blessing all followed this simple formula:

• The offer – It has to be in your headline and subheads.
• Expand on the offer in the first few paragraphs.
• Proofs and specifics – give testimonials, facts and figures. Never be vague. Never say, “You’ll lose weight on this plan.” Say how much they’ll lose and how quickly – but only if you can prove it. And if you can’t, you’ll sound and look like a crook – so don’t be surprised by your crappy results.
• What will happen if they don’t act.
• Add urgency.
• Summary / repeat offer.
• Tell them to take action (don’t ask – tell).

Then see where you can crow bar in any of the 7 raw emotions.

And then, get editing:

• Short paragraphs.
• Short sentences.
• Short words.

And guess what? The pages that sell the most for me online all follow this wonderfully stale and hackneyed formula.

Okay, it’s old hat – but if it’s not broken, why try and fix it?

Here’s a great example of why.

Look at this screenshot. It’s showing the traffic sources for a new site I’m promoting that is less than a month old. You’re looking at last Saturday and Sunday’s stats.

The goal is a sign up to the mailing list.

Now here’s the biggie. Notice anything?

Clearly, the PPC traffic is much hotter. It converts at 8.46% (not too shabby – but room for improvement).

The SEO traffic converts at 0.45%. Appalling.

To put it in to perspective, at these rates I’d need the SEO traffic to give me 13,702 visitors to give me the same number of signups as the 773 visits from the PPC traffic.

So it’s PPC all the way, right?

Nope.

SEO is a lumbering beast. But using the information from the PPC account, you can point your SEO efforts in the right direction.

Again, all the heavy lifting is at the start, but once the SEO is ranking with the converting keywords, you’re on your way, without the PPC costs.

Of course though, building a list with your sign ups is only half the battle.

You then need to seduce your list by sending them great content as often as possible.

Send them anything that isn’t relevant, interesting or helpful and you’re dead in the water.

And every mail needs to be sent automatically – in the background – so you don’t have to think about it or lift a finger (you do this with an auto-responder. I use Aweber – try it out here).

Emotion is far stronger than reason – so you need to appeal to it.

But what emotions are the best to go for?

Here are the seven I always fall back on:

• Greed
• Flattery
• Fear
• Guilt
• Salvation
• Anger
• Exclusivity

Of course, it’s difficult to crow bar them all in to one mailing. I’m not saying you should do that. But at least two should make a guest appearance.

Greed and Flattery are by far the most effective.

They irritate me beyond belief because they are easy to avoid.

They happen through laziness, not ignorance. That’s what drives me mad about them.

Here’s the first: not knowing your numbers.

I don’t care what you sell – whether it’s a low ticket item or one that costs thousands and thousands, you still need to know:

• How many visits you need for a sign up or enquiry
• How many sign ups or enquiries you need for a sale
• How much the average sale is worth to you

And finally, in time:

• The average life time value of a customer

Without these metrics you are just driving blind. You have no idea how much you can profitably pay for a lead. That’s gambling, not marketing.

The second marketing gaff that drives me insane is this:

Not having enough emails in your autoresponder list.

So here’s how an autoresponder works. A prospect enquires, and then gets your emails as and when you please.

You may have 12 emails plumbed in, and decide to send them once a week.

But after 12 weeks, what then? Your prospect will forget about you.

You need to make it your mission to add emails constantly to your auto-responder list.

If you find this a pain, don’t worry – live with it. All the heavy lifting is at the front. Once you have a 50 or so in the system you can start to relax.

And then it’s all automated. All your new prospects are taken care of.

If you’ve written your emails well, it’s like having your own sales team working 24/7 for you, without lifting a finger or paying any wages.

So don’t be lazy with your emails – they are worth the effort.

If you’re not using an auto-responder yet, try out this one.

Makes sense? More tips here:

When they enquire – or a week or so later?

They are the ‘hottest’ the second they get in touch, so three points:

• Send them your strongest follow up immediately after they enquire (more on this below).
• Never leave it a week before mailing them again.
• Send more mails as soon as you have something useful or relevant to say.

If you can think of 7 tips or gems your prospects will benefit from, you’ve got 7 emails sorted. Send them in the next 7 days. Really – it’s the only way you can stay on their radar.

The biggest reason why people are afraid to mail so often is they think they’ll be bothering, not helping their prospects. This is utter madness. Help them and they’ll gladly look out for your mails.

Fortunately it’s easy to see whether you are being helpful or not.

A good click through rate is around 20% on an email (that’s when they click a link in the mail). If you’re near that, your prospects found the mail useful and relevant.

So here’s an example of a great mail:

Clearly, the prospects on this list find the content useful and relevant (43% click through) so I moved it up the list. It’s now the very first email a new prospect gets.

Now here’s another one.

This one bombed. It has a click through rate of just 4%. Not good – so I pulled it from the autoresponder sequence.

And that’s all there is to it. Go through your autoresponders after they’ve had time to breath for a week or so. Weed out the weak ones. Move the good ones up the list.

The mail with the best click through should be the first in the series, the second best click through rate should be number two…and so on.

Repeat this weekly until all your mails are getting that 20% ish click through rate – then you’ll have a really healthy amount of repeat visitors on your site, going to specific pages that sell hard.

Keeping tabs on your autoresponders in thsi way gives you a really tight follow up process as well as showing you what appeals to your prospects – and that’s invaluable.

And it’s easy to do, too.  The reporting on Aweber is superb. If you’ve not got an auto-responder series on your site yet, have a look at Aweber right now – it makes it really easy.

Still sat there nodding? Then I suspect you’ll find the ’51 ways to shaft the competition’ helpful. Why not get it right now?

It took me a while to pick it up – but once I’d started it I couldn’t put it down.

Below is an extract from a few pages that really struck a chord with me for a number or reasons:

“My idea of a good advert is something that shifts kit off the shelves, something that these creative geniuses seem to forget.” – Lord Sugar.

I couldn’t agree with him more. Most marketing directors however, prefer the stuff that massages their ego. Idiots.

If, like Lord Sugar, you prefer the stuff that sells, grab the ’51 ways to shaft the competition’ right now.