My notes on “Anything You Want” by Derek Sivers

My personal philosophy’s

1. Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for others and for yourself
2. Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself
3. When you make a company, you make a utopia. It’s where you design your perfect world
4. Never do anything just for the money
5. Don’t purse business just for your own gain. Only answer the calls for help
6. Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what’s not working
7. Your business plan is moot. You don’t know what people really want until you start doing it
8. Starting with no money is an advantage. You don’t need money to start helping people
9. You can’t please everyone, so proudly exclude people
10. Make yourself unnecessary to the running of your business
11. The real point of doing anything is to be happy, so do only what makes you happy

Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers

• Make every decision – even decision about whether to expand the business, raise money, or promote someone – according to what’s best for your customers.
• If you’re ever unsure what to prioritize, just ask your customers the open-ended question, “How can I best help you now?” Then focus on satisfying those requests.
• None of your customers will ask you to turn your attention to expanding. They want you to keep your attention focused on them.

Ideas are worth nothing unless they are executed

• They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.
• Idea Value
• Awful Idea = -1
• Weak Idea = 1
• So-So Idea = 5
• Good Idea = 10
• Great Idea = 15
• Brilliant Idea = 20
• Execution Value
• No Execution = $1
• Weak Execution = $1000
• So-So Execution = $10,000
• Good Execution = $100,000
• Great Execution = $1,000,000
• Brilliant Execution = $10,000,000
• To make a business, you need to multiply the two.
• The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.
• The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.
• That’s why I don’t want to hear people’s ideas.
• I’m not interested until I see their execution.

Proudly exclude people

• It’s a big world. You can loudly leave out 99 percent of it.
• Have the confidence to know that when your target 1 percent hears you excluding the other 99 percent, the people in that 1 percent will come to you because you’ve shown how much you value them

Don’t punish everyone for one person’s mistake

• As a business owner, when you get screwed over by someone, you might be tempted to make a big grand policy that you think will prevent you from ever getting screwed over again
• “All violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”
• “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason”
• “No loitering. Restroom for customers only”

The most successful email I ever wrote

The automated email that let customers know when the CD was actually shipped was “Your order has shipped today. Please let us know if it doesn’t arrive. Thank you for your business”

I rewrote it to be:

Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, December 11th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year”.  We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby

It’s often the tiny details that really thrill people enough to make them tell all their friends about you.

Make yourself unnecessary to the running of your business

• Being self-employed feels like freedom until you realize that if you take time off, your business crumbles.
• To be a true business owner, make sure you could leave for a year, and when you came back, your business would be doing better than when you left

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Almost 2 years ago I wrote an article called “Should You Sell Space On Your NZ Website For Banner Advertising?“ in which I suggested you shouldn’t.

2 years later I haven’t change my mind. If it’s your core business then your website should focused on attracting new customers, and making sales, not earning a few dollars a month in advertising revenue at the cost of distracting your customers.

Blogs are a different story however.

7 Steps to Earning Income From A Passion

1. Find a topic you are deeply passionate about (this will give you the energy to keep going)
2. Be determined to write at least one short blog article per month
3. Your articles should contain useful information for other people interested in your niche. Eg lists, your findings on micro research projects, reviews and comparisons, interviews etc
4. Build up your audience by sticking to your niche and becoming a valuable resource
5. Find similar blogs/articles and write useful comments on them that contain a link back to your blog
6. Grow your audience to about 300 visits per day
7. Monetise

I create 2 or 3 new blogs like this every year. I’ve had some real duds (like ChickenCoops.co.nz) but I’ve had some big winners (like www.LoveOneDaySales.co.nz and www.NZHotPools.co.nz).

Today I want to tell you the story about NZHotPools.co.nz (which simply lists all the thermal hot pools around New Zealand) and tell you exactly how much advertising revenue I generate from it every year/month/day, so you can figure out if you could do the same with your idea for a blog.

NZHotPools.co.nz Monthly Webstats:

In this game, it is mainly about PageViews. Visits are important too but “Absolute Unique Visitors” are not.

There is a lot of confusion out there around these terms, so if you need a refresher on the definitions read: Difference Between Unique Visitors, Visitors, Visits, Page Views, Hits. And Why You Should Care

The hard part is getting an audience. Once you have an audience, monetising that audience is easy.

The 4 Ways to Sell Advertising Space On Your Website/Blog:

1. Direct Sales

• Direct Sales to businesses in your niche is the most lucrative but takes the most time
• It involves writing a list of prospects and making lots of phone calls to find out who the decision maker is to establish a relationship and to get permission to email them with your advertising rates from time to time
• Be creative with what you are selling: Eg banner ads, access to your email newsletter, sponsored blog articles, special mentions, featured businesses
• You can charge $5/$10/$20 CPM (Cost-Per-1000-Impressions) so for NZHotPools this is about $300/month
• If you use WordPress for your blog there are plugins that let you schedule the ads, or you can use http://www.google.com/doubleclick/

2. Google Adsense

• This is the easiest to manage. Decide where you will setup your advertising panels, and just generate the Adsense code and copy/paste it in. You’re done.
• Google Adsense calculate the best text-based ads to show your audience depending on the content of the webpage, the advertisers bids, and more recently, the visitors online behaviour and profile. Every bit of data they can use to generate more clicks which earns more revenue for you and for them
• On average you can expect to earn $1 per 300 visits, so for NZHotPools this is about about $50/month

3. TPN “The Performance Network” www.tpn.co.nz

• They require you to have 20,000 unique visitors per month though, so they might not want to work with you until you’ve grown your blog to that level (they bent the rules for me a little bit because I already had an account with them)
• They do display ads for big NZ brands like Kiwibank, NZPost, ASB etc
• They don’t have sophisticated technology to calculate the optimum ads to show, it’s just mass advertising rather than targeted advertising
• You can expect $1 per 300 visits so for NZHotPools this is about about $50/month

4. Affiliate Income

• An affiliate programme is where you earn a commission on every sale you make for the advertiser. Eg you could install an Amazon book widget for your topic and you’ll earn a dollar or two everytime someone purchases that book from Amazon thanks to your link
• Unfortunately, it is vary rare to find New Zealand businesses with Affiliate Programmes and your New Zealand audience is uncomfortable when they click on a link and find themselves on a USA based website so they are unlikely to whip out their credit card
• NZHotPools.co.nz doesn’t generate any affiliate income, but www.LoveOneDaySales.co.nz does generate a little

How Much Advertising Should You Switch On As Your Website/Blog Grows?

As your website/blog grows, you gradually switch on more advertising. For example, my rules are:

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My notes on “Why Now Is The Time To Crush It! Cash In On Your Passion” by Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary’s checklist for creating your personal brand:

1. Identify your passion
2. Make sure you can think of at least 50 awesome blog topics to ensure stickiness
3. Answer the following questions:
• Am I sure my passion is what I think it is?
• Can I talk about it better than anyone else?
4. Name your personal brand. You don’t have to refer to it anywhere in your content, but you should have a clear ideas of what it is. For example, “the no-be real-estate agent”, “The connoisseur of cookware”, “The cool guide to young adult books boys will love to read”.
5. Buy your user name .com and .tv if possible at GoDaddy.com
6. Choose your medium: video, audio, written word
7. Start a WordPress or Tumblr account
8. Hire a designer
9. Include a Facebook Connect link, Call-to-Action buttons, Share Functions and a button that invites people to do business with you in a prominent place on your blog
10. Create a Facebook fan page
11. Sign up for Ping.fm or TubeMogul and select all the platforms to which you want to distribute your content. Choosing Twitter and Facebook is imperative; the others you can select according to your needs and preference
12. Post your content
13. Start creating community by leaving comments on other people’s blogs and forums and replying to comments to your own comment
14. Use Twitter Search (or Search.Twitter) to find as many people as possible talking about your topic, and communicate with them
15. Use blogsearch.google.com to find more blogs that are relevant to the subject
16. Join as many active Facebook fan pages and groups relating to your blog topic as possible
17. Repeat steps 12 through 16 over and over and over and over and over
18. Do it again
19. And again
20. When you feel your personal brand has gained sufficient attention and stickiness, start reaching out to advertisers and begin monetising
21. Enjoy the ride

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• Did you know that poor cashflow is the #1 killer of small New Zealand businesses?
• Do you have clients with overdue invoices right now?
• Do you grit your teeth when you check your bank account on the 20th of the month and find the deposits you were expecting, missing?
• Are your customers/clients slow to pay?
• Are your invoices due on the 20th of the month but sometimes they don’t get paid until much later? Sometimes 60 days or 90 days?

Well you’re in luck, because today I’m going to tell you how I get the following results:

• 89.6% of my clients pay on time (within 7 days)
• 9.4% of my clients pay within 7 days past due
• 1% don’t pay at all, but only because they go bankrupt (no fault of mine, I assure you)
• I’ve never needed to use a collection agency

Here’s how you can get results like that:

4 Ways to Ensure Your Customers/Clients Pay On Time, Every Time

1. Change your terms to 7 days

Do it.

Right now.

Send out an email to warn everyone that it starts this week.

When your terms are 7 days your clients will file your invoices right under their accounts-payable-clerks nose for immediate attention.

Invoices that are due 20th of the month are so easy to ignore, or postpone, or forget about, or get lost.

“But my client’s accounting system can’t handle paying within 7 days!

Bullshit!

Ask nicely for an exception.

I’ve been paid within 7 days from Government Departments, City Councils and District Health Boards. Their policy is to pay 20th of the following month but they all made an exception for me because I asked for it.

2. Email your invoices instead of posting them

Ask for the accounts-payable-clerks email address and email them directly (and cc your contact at the company too).

No more posting. This slows things down far too much. And with 7 day terms, 3 of those days are used up in printing/delivery.

Don’t know how to convert your invoices to PDF? You don’t need Adobe Acrobat Professional (NZ$600!), just download 1 of hundreds of free/cheap PDF writers (they install as “virtual printers”).

3. Stop sending statements with OVERDUE stamps on them

Receiving a statement with a big red overdue stamps on it is like slapping your client in the face with a wet fish.

Acutally, it’s like slapping the accounts-payable-clerk in the face with a wet fish because your contact at the company will probably not even see this document.

Why would you treat the person who is going to pay you like this?

It is a deep insult. It is shouting out “You are crap at your job! Paying invoices is easy but somehow you screwed it up! Wow, you really suck!”

If you sent me a statement with a big red, angry overdue stamp on it, I would purposely not pay you just to piss you off.

4. Within a few days of the invoice being overdue, email a reminder

Send the following reminder to the accounts-payable-clerk and copy in your contact at the company too.

With these exact words: “Hi Bob, I just noticed invoice #1234 is a few days overdue. Would you like an extension?”.

That’s it.

Short.

To the point.

No waffle.

Notice the first part “I just noticed”? This lets them know that you know it’s overdue. It lets them know you are watching. Now they know that you know.

And notice how it ends with an open ended question?

I could have said “Let me know if you need an extension.” But this isn’t as powerful, because it isn’t a question. It’s weak. Don’t use it.

The magic of asking a yes/no question like “Would you like an extension?” is that people instantly form a response in their heads once they’ve read it.

There are two possible answers. Yes, and No.

Most of the time they are too proud to email you back and say “yes, could we have until the end of the month please?” (although some do, and that’s perfect fine, now you have a new due date to work with).

So they will think “no” in their head. “No, I don’t need an extension, I’m going to pay this today to show them how in control I am of my finances!”. You might not get an email response from these people but the payment will turn up in your bank account the next day.

Why this method works so well

You must stick to this schedule because this is how you train your clients. It lets them know what your expectations of them are, and they quickly learn what to expect from you next time.

If you ease up, that’s when it slips away and you’ll spend more time chasing overdue invoices and less time serving clients.

What if you still don’t get paid?

Wait another 7 days and send this email (and attach the invoice): “Hi Bob, could you check on invoice #1234 for me please? It is now a few weeks overdue.”

What if you still don’t get paid?

Wait another 7 days and send this email (and attach the invoice): “Hi Bob, Invoice #1234 is now 4 weeks overdue. May I have payment today please?”

What if you still don’t get paid?

Wait 30 days and then email them every day with a variation like this:

• “Hi Bob, just checking on invoice #1234, may I have payment today please?”
• “Hi Bob, could you have another look at invoice #1234 please. Could you arrange payment today please?”
• “Hi Bob, I just wanted to check on your payment for invoice #1234. Could you make that payment today please?”
• “Hi Bob, I was hoping to hear from you by now. May I have payment on invoice #1234 today please?”

The key is to not get angry. Keep your tone respectful and calm. Don’t acknowledge that you are being ignored.

“Why not just pick up the phone and call them?”

Because emailing saves face. It’s embarrassing to make a call to ask someone to pay, and its even more embarrassing to receive one. Email creates a comfort zone.

“What if they do ask for an extension?”

Fantastic! That is a great outcome. It’s not as good as getting paid, but it is pretty close.

Remember, they have chosen the new due date, you didn’t choose it for them. So reset your reminders and as soon as that new due date lapses without payment, repeat the process outlined above.

“This seems like a lot of work, is it really worth it?”

Once you have set expectations using the suggestions above, very few clients will progress to the daily harassment stage.

“How about I just use a collection agency instead?”

No. It’s your problem. It’s your fault for not training your clients properly. You deal with it.

What do you think about this advice?

What tips do you have for dealing with late invoices? Tell your story in the comments below.

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You may have heard that money-back guarantees are a good idea but you are not sure if they are right for your business?

Perhaps you are holding back because you are worried it’s going to cost you money handing out dozens of refunds, right?

Offering any kind of money back guarantee is better than offering none at all because the main two things that customers care about is:

1. Price
2. Risk

And a money back guarantee helps with both.

A money back guarantee reduces risk for the customer because:

• It signals that you are confident about the quality of your product
• It reduces their nervousness about making a bad purchasing decision
• It goes beyond the normal offer of replacing the item if something goes wrong, because they can get their money back

A money back guarantee reduces the price for the customer because:

• There is a cost for returning something for a refund: time. Knowing that you are able to get cash back for your trouble is better compensation than a replacement
• Customers perception is: Price + money-back-guarantee = Free Trial. Free is a customers favourite price

These are all “up-front” factors that persuade a customer to buy in the first place. Which is great.

In fact, let’s just slap a number on it and say that offering a money back guarantee will generate 20% more sales for you.

But the real magic happens in the “tail-end”, a long time after the sale.

Let’s say you purchased the Ginsu 2000 never-needs-sharpening-can-cut-through-a-can knife with a 30 year money back guarantee.

And it’s year number 29 and you decide it’s crap. Do you ask for your money back? Hell no. For 4 reasons:

1. You forgot about the 30 year money back guarantee anyway
2. You can’t be bothered
3. You feel you got your moneys worth any way
4. You don’t want to impose or be a nuisance
5. You’ve had it so long it feels like yours, you feel like the owner. This reduces the obligation of the people you bought it from

Yes, it’s an extreme example but you get the idea. Let’s look at another:

Let’s say you purchased an ebook about Search Engine Optimisation for $19 with a 3 month money back guarantee.

It’s the 2nd month, and you only just got around to reading it and you decide it’s crap. Do you ask for your money back? Hell no. For 3 reasons:

1. You forgot about the 3 month money back guarantee anyway
2. You can’t be bothered
3. You don’t want to impose or be a nuisance
4. It’s in your possession and so you feel like the owner. This reduces the obligation of the author

Let’s just slap a number on it and say that you get 5% of customers that actually do go ahead and ask for their money back.

So to summarise, you are getting 20% more sales to get out 5% refunds… Ummm, that’s really good isn’t it?

Yes. Yes it is.

4 Ways to Make A Great Money Back Guarantee:

1. Make the expiry really really long. The longer it is the more chance of the customer forgetting about it, or feeling like they are imposing by asking for their money back
2. If a customer asks for their money back, provide it the same day. Don’t drag your feet and make them wait. You will impress them with your customer service, and this experience may trigger Word-of-Mouth so you might get new sales from people they talk too!
3. Tell them up-front how to get one eg “To get your money back, just call us on 0800 xyz xyz and you’ll have your money back within 24 hours”. You could just provide an email form for them to request their money-back, but in this case, I advise putting up a small barrier for them and getting them to talk directly to you
4. Arrange their refund over the phone, and when it’s finished and approved, at the last minute ask them why they asked for one. Their feedback might be valuable. Don’t ask this question upfront because it will make them feel more uncomfortable than they already are

What about services?

Money back guarantees can also work for services but you’ll have to go overboard with your offer Eg “If you are not happy with our car washing service we’ll redo it for free + give your money back”

What do you think about money back guarantees now?

What do you have to add to this? Will you give it a try for your business? What’s the most outrageous money-back guarantee you’ve ever seen?

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Why would you want an Australian bank account?

I’m about to start offering services to Australian clients and, rather than accepting credit card payments, I decided to set up an Australian bank account for the following reasons:

1. Provides Australian clients with the convenience of paying their invoices in Australian dollars into an Australian bank account
2. Increases my credibility and demonstrates that I’m serious about serving my Australian clients well and have made an effort to make things easier for them
3. The Aussie dollars is so strong right now it makes sense to charge in Aussie dollars rather than converting from NZ to AU

How to set up an Australian Bank Account from New Zealand without visiting an Australian branch

1. Choose The Commonwealth Bank of Australia
   • If you read the details on the major Australian bank websites you will be told you have to turn up in person in Australia to complete the set up process. Commonwealth Bank offers a way around this because they own NZ’s ASB Bank
2. Go to the section about “Moving to Australia” on the Commonwealth Bank website
3. Read some of the guff, and when you are ready, click the button “Open an Account”
4. A customer service representative will contact you within the next 24-48 hours
   • If you are lucky you’ll get Mehnaaz [pronounce: "Men-arrzz"] Basha. She is awesome!
   • Tell him/her that you won’t be able to get to Australia for 6 to 12 months but need to start making transactions well before you arrive
   • They should then tell you that under special circumstances like that, you are able to submit your proof of identity to an ASB bank branch in person
5. You’ll get emailed a bunch of forms for you to fill out
6. Fill them in and present your passport as ID to an ASB bank teller (you don’t need an appointment but to save waiting, that might be a good idea)
7. The ASB bank teller will sign off your ID
8. Ask them to scan all the documents and email them directly to your contact person at The Commonwealth Bank
   • This is essential. These documents need to come from an ASB bank teller’s email address as further proof of your identity
9. Within 24-48 hours you’ll get confirmation that the documents have been received at The Commonwealth Bank will talk you through the types of accounts you have to choose from
10. After that, the internet banking department “NetBank” will then call you to set up internet banking for you

Make your first deposit straight away

• You need to make a deposit into your new Australian bank account within 21 days to keep it open. NZ$160 will do the job (= AU$100)
• You should be able to use Internet Banking from your NZ account to make this payment
• You will probably have three choices:
  1. Telegraphic transfers (an electronic transaction)
  2. Direct credits (an electronic transaction)
  3. Bank drafts (a physical cheque mailed to the recipient)
• A Direct Credit is probably the best choice. It’s a bit cheaper (about $20) but doesn’t let you write a message in the particulars field of the transfer
• You might also be charged a fee for receiving the deposit

It costs AU$20 to send the money back to NZ

• So you’ll want to do this is large lump sums to make it economical

Risk of double taxation?

If you are earning Australian dollars into a bank account would the AU government like some income tax from you? I’m sure they would.

And when you transfer those Australian dollars into your NZ bank account would the NZ government like some income tax from you? I’m sure they would.

That’s exactly what “Double Taxation” is. And if AU wants 30% and NZ wants 30% that doesn’t leave you with much does it.

But don’t worry, Australia has a Double Taxation Agreement with New Zealand, so you’ll only be taxed in NZ.  Do we have extra paperwork to fill in to make sure this happens? Probably, but I don’t know yet, but I’ll keep you informed.

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Over the last few years I have tried several ways of making money online.

I wanted to get rich quick. Don’t we all?

I fell for the hype and got out my credit card, but I’m not ashamed. I’m human, and the sales copy was brilliantly written and tapped into my psyche and convinced me.

I gave it a shot, and I failed many times, but I’m not afraid because that’s when I learnt my biggest lessons.

I have had a few successes and many failures.

3 Ways I’ve Tried (and failed) To Make Money Online:

1. Make Money Online Simply By Purchasing A Domain Name?

• If you are holding on to your domain names hoping for the day you get a big offer for it, don’t hold your breath.
• Ever been shocked that a particular domain name is still for sale? Ever been amazed that it hadn’t been purchased already by someone else? Don’t be. There are thousands of domain names like that
• No matter how exclusive a domain name you think you have, there are a million ways someone with real content will beat you in the search engines and sidestep you by merely adding a dash or another word to the domain name they buy for $25 to avoid purchasing yours for thousands of dollars

2. Make Money Online With Affiliate Marketing?

• There are lots of variations on this, one common example is that you are promised $1 every time you sell a digital product. Your task is to get your hyperlink in front of a large audience so you buy advertising space on big websites such as TradeMe, NZHerald, YouTube, Facebook etc using an ad network such as Google Adsense, AdBrite etc.
• Unfortunately the click-through rates are never as good as you thought they would be (the mega affiliates have already saturated the market and made all their money before you got your affiliate code) so if you ever make a sale, it’ll cost you $1.10 to make it (oops, you only made $1 on that sale so you just made a loss of 10c…)
• Another variation is starting a small blog and featuring your affiliate links in the sidebar (or in the articles themselves). Sorry, your web traffic levels probably won’t reach critical mass, and the poorer quality your content, the worse the future looks for you if you rely on free traffic from Google

3. Make Money Online By Blogging?

• Could you quit your day job and start writing full time and earn an income by selling advertising on your amazing articles? Probably not.
• It seems that the only people making money by blogging are those that teach others how to make money from blogging…
• I’ve written some pretty awesome articles over the years (if I do say so myself) and I actually have been able to turn one popular article into a small business, but I’m not going to give up my day job to write full time, are you?

My Slow-Cook Recipe For Making Money Online

I have had a small number of success at earning money online, so here is my recipe if you want to do the same:

1. Find a niche that lots of people are interested in (and ideally only a few people are servicing)
2. Do a better job than your competition at writing interesting, engaging content (eg articles, reviews, start discussions)
3. Attract the people that are interested in this niche (eg with organic search engine traffic, direct marketing, advertising, Facebook, Twitter)
4. Monetise the web traffic (with Adsense, or direct ad selling, or hold out for a buy-out of your business)
   • Sidenote: On average you need 300 visits to earn $1 with Adsense. Getting 40 visits per day? Hooray, you’ll earn $1/week!

There is no magic bullet.

And if you see a magic bullet for sale then that get-rich-quick gun fired a long time ago and you are too late to rake in a huge pile of cash.

What about you?

If you have tried and failed, or tried and succeeded at making money online, add your comments below.

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Have you noticed how much publicity the growth of online advertising has been getting lately?

If you are wondering:

• “Am I missing out because I haven’t tried online advertising yet?” and
• “How can I dip my toe in the water to see if online advertising is right for my business?”, then this crash course on online advertising is what you need

“What are the major formats of online advertising?”

There are 2 main formats:

1. Text based ads
   • Very easy to setup
   • Very easy to change
2. Display ads
   • Traditionally just “Banner Ads” but now includes rich media/interactive ads and video ads
   • Usually expensive to get graphic design and difficult and expensive to change
   • But, your best performing text-based ads can be converted to display ads very cheaply! (They look absolutely hideous, but they work really well)

“Where can we place our ads?”

In New Zealand there are 4 main places where it would be appropriate to put your ads:

1. Beside Google NZ Search results (“Google Adwords”)

• Format: Text-based ads
• In the right hand column, and sometime above search results
• Very easy to set up
• $1 per click would be average (highly competitive industry’s like finance or tourism will cost more)
• Good targeting: You can specify a geographic target and your ads are displayed when people in those cities are searching for something related to your offer
• Provides excellent data so you can just copy/paste your best performing ads to the next 3 ad networks

2. Websites that use Google Adsense

• Format: Text-based ads and display ads
• That have dedicated space on their website to earn revenue (like mine: LoveOneDaySales.co.nz)
• Very easy to set up
• Display Ads:
  • Very cheap CPM (Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions) because most people don’t bother creating display ads because it’s too hard = less competition for ad space = cheaper cost of advertising
  • Good reach – your ads would be popping up on random NZ websites all over the place – good for cheap brand recognition

3. Facebook

• Format: Text-based ads with a single small image
• Excellent targeting: you can specify exactly who your demographic is Eg Female 25-35 who live in the Tauranga area
• But Facebook users are not there to click on ads, they are there to have fun and share their lives. Therefore effectiveness can be very poor
• Cost-Per-Click varies greatly eg $1-$3

4. Huge NZ Websites that have their own advertising systems

• Format: display ads (interactive costs extra & video is not usually available)
• Eg TradeMe, NZHerald etc
• The CPM (Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions) is usually very high and uncompetitive to a discerning advertiser (because they put a very high value on their own audience and there is large overhead to pay for)
• No targeting at all

“Great! How do we get started?”

1. Be very clear what your objective is
   • If it’s new customers: What are you offering them? Why should they join? What’s in it for them? What should your landing page say?
2. Set a value on that new customer
   • Eg if you can expect every new customer to stick with you for 5 years and you will earn $100 from that relationship, then the value of a new customer is $100. If 50% of them will stick with you, the value is $50
   • This is your maximum allowable “Cost of Acquisition”
3. Set a target
   • Eg “1000 new customers”
   • And decide upfront how you will measure the results (eg install tracking code on the website)
4. Set a budget
   • Multiple your target by your Cost of Acquisition
   • If the number is unacceptable, re-adjust any of the numbers accordingly
5. Hand over the project to someone who knows what they are doing

“Great! Sheldon, can you help us with this?”

I’m booked up until March 2011. If you’d like to join the queue, email me your details and I’ll make a note in my diary to contact you then.

Cheers,
- Sheldon

Phone: (07) 575 8799, Email: sheldon@marketingfirst.co.nz

P.S. What I’ve left out:

• Mobile advertising
  • Google Adwords offers you the ability to show your ads on mobile devices. There is huge growth in this area and definitely worth keeping an eye on and considering later
• Google Search Partners
  • This is a network of search engines that use Google to serve ads, but these alternatives are not popular in New Zealand so ignore them for now
• Other Search Engines like Bing
  • Perhaps there are bargains to be had with Bing’s text-based ads but their market share is very small in NZ

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For about a week I have noticed an extremely squeaky rear electric window in my car. It is like 5 teenagers scratching on a chalk board – a really horrendous sound.

I hadn’t thought too deeply about what I should do about it when I heard a radio ad this afternoon “Free electric window lube at Anything Auto Electrical, 32 Waihi Road”.

Just what I wanted! To get the squeak fixed and it’s for free!

I pulled over, and whipped out my new iPhone and found their contact details on yellowpages.co.nz. I called the number and Greg the manager answered. I said “I just heard your radio ad for a free lube, I’ll be there in 10 mins, ok?” “Sure!” said Greg.

I love to talk to small business owners about their marketing, and that’s exactly what I did with Greg as he worked on my windows.

What Greg Reminded Me About The Yellow Pages

And even though I don’t think much of the Yellow Pages, Greg made me remember that for some industries it is essential and can be effective.

For his Yellow Pages online listing, the “Bronze” level was enough to get him ahead of all the auto-electricians in the area for an extra $20/month.  (I guess Yellow Pages hope that to get ahead of him, a competitor will go for the Silver level?).

Greg liked the Yellow Pages statistics he is provided with every month of the people who “click-to-reveal” his phone number. He monitors his phone call stats and tells me a very high percentage of those that click, go ahead and make the phone call.

How Greg Can Get Maximum Mileage Out of His Free Lube Offer

Greg tells me that the idea behind the “free lube for electric windows” offer was to get people in so they find out a bit about the kind of services they offer, where they are, and take a business card away with them so the next time they have an auto-electrical problem, they know who to call.

Finally I had a useful piece of advice for Greg (have you noticed that so far in this article, he has been teaching me?)

I suggested that Greg starts taking an email address and that the admin/receptionist sends out a short “thank you” email later today or tomorrow which has the following components:

• Thanks: eg “Thanks for coming in for a free electric window lube today, we think it is important to help you to prolong the life of your window motor and switches”
• Provide a list of 5 most common symptoms that would indicate an electrical problem “if you notice any of those changes/noises, bring your car in and we’ll do a no-obligation diagnostic for you”

Greg explained to me that he hasn’t bothered creating an emailing list in the past because auto-electrical work happens when something breaks, and whereas mechanics can send out 6 monthly reminders for oil changes and WOF’s, there is very little you can do in terms of preventative maintenance when it comes to auto-electrics.

I suggested, that now that he has the customers permission to email then, that he schedule an email for 3 or 4 or 6 months from now anyway.  The content of that email could simply repeat the list of “5 most common symptoms” or provide a new list, or helpful article, or free advice.

It’s an opportunity to get his brand name in-front of that customer again, and is sure to increase the chances of that customer choosing Greg if something happens to their car around that time that they receive that email.

How Greg Depends Heavily On Online Directory Websites

Even though I am a Marketing generalist and profess to be a “Marketing Consultant” or “Marketing Advisor” I must confess that I don’t do much of that kind of work for clients. Most of the time a client doesn’t even know they need help with their marketing, they just know they need a website. So that’s what I build for them – a website. Luckily for them all my marketing knowledge goes into that process for free!

Anyway, Greg told me his website lists products but doesn’t have ecommerce.

That is perfectly fine in my opinion.

Sometimes it is right to show samples of your product range, indications of pricing, and then drive people to the phone so you can help them in greater depth, provide them with a more accurate diagnosis of their problem, and propose the appropriate solution.

You don’t get that with an ecommerce website – most ecommerce websites are just about the lowest price. It’s no fun discounting all the time just to give yourself the chance of making a sale.

Since getting back to the office, I have tried to find Greg’s website, but I have failed.

I searched for “Anything Auto Electrical Tauranga” but the search engine results pages are dominated by directory listings of his business (Yellow, iLook, UBD, Finda etc), so there is no problem finding his contact details, location and phone number, but it concerns me that his “official” website is nowhere to be seen.

To me, this is a reminder that every business should have a website even if it is a single page with only your contact details and a summary of how you can help customers.

Did you know it is very very easy to rank at the top of search engine results for your brand name?

Why send everyone who searches for you to those directory websites? Do you see there is more risk of them finding one of your competitors while they are there?

If your official website is the first, that risk is removed and you have control over what they read (whereas online directories control how your info is presented).

Can I Help You?

I’d love to chat with you to find out about your business and I might have an idea or two for you to improve. But to be honest, mostly I’ll be listening to what I can learn from you

If you’d like some free advice about your marketing and advertising, give me a call (07) 575 8799.

Cheers,

Sheldon Nesdale

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Occasionally, just for fun, I spend a few minutes browsing www.ExpiredDomains.co.nz.

Expired Domains lists all .nz domain names which have expired and are in the .nz registry’s official 90 day pending release period.

But what I find most interesting about this list is that at first glance, many of them look like really good names!

Every single time I look at this list of Expired Domains, I have these same three reactions:

Reaction #1:

“oooo, I can’t believe that xyz.co.nz is available! And it’s only $24.50! What a freakin bargain, I’ll set up a website and make millions! I simply can’t lose!”

Reaction #2:

I do a double-take.

“wait a second… they are on this list of expired domains because someone, like me, thought they had potential.  But that person failed to make any money from it at all, and let it expire rather than waste another $24.50 on it to renew it… hmmmm”

**Warning Bells!!**

“calm down Sheldon, calm down, I don’t have to whip out my credit card right now and buy it before someone else gets a chance…”

Reaction #3:

“Oh, in all that excitement I forgot that it doesn’t matter what your domain name is. What is most important is your content!”

What do you think?

The next time you are tempted by an expired domain, pause, and remember that you are picking fruit from a graveyard of failed ideas.

Add your comments below:

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