Summary: Learn why you should test, test, test everything in Internet marketing to find out what works.

There are a ton of “proven techniques” that are promoted in the Internet marketing arena. But, no matter what you might read or who you might listen to one thing is certain. Testing your marketing methods is something that must be done on a regular basis.

Here’s the deal. We can’t assume that what works for one group of prospects will work for another group. We can’t assume that because it has been “proven” that it will work for us. We can’t assume that what has worked for us in the past will work for us in the future.

I know what you are thinking, “If I can’t depend on these things, then what can I do”. Well, here it is in three simple words; test, test, test.

Testing of your marketing methods should simply be a part of the way we do business. We should want to know if option A produces more results than option B. We should want to know if we are getting traffic from those paid clicks or if we are just paying out money for no reason. We should have some form of insight into what is going on in our marketing efforts and how we can improve their results. We should, test everything.

So how do we do this testing?

One method is split testing. Let’ take newsletter sign up forms as an example. Split testing a sign up form is a simple way to know if one form gets better results than another form. Let’s say your two forms are exactly alike in all respects, except one form is placed within the home page of your site and the other form is included in a popup on that same page.

Over a period of time, say a week or even a month, you see that more people sign up through the pop up form than through the inline form on the page. Now you know that the pop up form is the way to go.

Now that you know which form works better by placement, now you can create two similar pop up forms that rotate out and you can begin to refine the form for even better results. You can continue to do this for as long as you like, though there may come a time when you say, “That’s good enough for now”. When that happens leave it for a while, but don’t forget to come back and review your results regularly to make sure that you are still getting the response rate you are looking for.

You might be thinking, “I don’t want to spend a lot of time split testing”. I understand how you feel. I felt the same way until I saw my newsletter subscription rate double because of some simple split testing. Before the split testing I had no real insight into how to improve my processes. It was all mainly guess work. I got tired of driving blind and I am sure you feel the same way.

If you are interested in improving your results, and I know you are, then here is what I recommend. Use a service that provides you the ability to split test whatever it is that you are working on. Now, in some cases you can easily split test on your own without needing a service, but if you like to be shielded from the technical side of the process, then look for a service that can give you quick and easy split testing tools.

To split test the Open Source Marketer newsletter sign up forms I used AWeber. They offer me the ability to create split tests for newsletter sign up forms and all I had to do is put the code on my website. Aweber handles the form rotation and tracking for me. I get to login, review my results, and make decisions about a or b. Then I can refine the test and the forms get updated on my site automatically. I get the benefit without the hassle.

There are also services out there that will let you split test web sites, web pages, graphics, ads, etc. Everything and anything can be split tested and should be. So remember, all the “proven techniques” in the world aren’t worth a dime if you can’t point to one of them and say this worked for me better than that worked for me.

Testing is essential to getting results and should be just another part of how we do business. So, stop and think for a second, what can you split test today that will increase your chances of success? Now, get out there and test it.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Accelerate your business online using social media.

Summary: Learn why you should offer an ethical bribe to get people to take action.

The incentive technique you are about to lear is as common these days as Starbucks coffee shops, but the principle applies whether you’re asking people to join your mailing list or trying to get them to complete their online orders.

What am I talking about is the “Ethical Bribe”. Better known as offering someone an incentive to take some form of action. Sign up for a mailing list, complete an online order, tell a friend, you name it.

You’ve seen it hundreds of times. Amazon offers free shipping. TracFone offers free minutes for referring a friend. You get a free report, a free trial, a free bonus, etc. This form of freebie incentive has been around offline forever.

It’s the same online. You do this and I will give you that. Only, online the give away is usally something that doesn’t “cost” anything. It’s a free report, or free access, or a free service. Online, the incentive can be anything that is perceived to have value to the prospect.

Should you offer an ethical bribe to your customers? Take the customers point of view. Sign up and get something beats sign up and get nothing everytime and if someone needs a final nudge to take action then your incentive might just be the thing tips the balance and makes the deal.

Of course, you need to balance this with not creating an out of pocket expense and you need to pull the prospect through a series of steps to pre-qualify them as something more than just a freebie seeker.

I know, I know, your thinking you don’t have time to create a free something to give away to people. Well, here’s the genius part of the Internet. Look around for a product that you can buy and give away to your list.

You can also partner with someone who has a product related to your product or service so you can cross promote their product as an incentive for your own. Offer a give away when they do X. People are always looking for ways to cross promote and share traffic.

One last point to remember is that this is an ethical bribe. So, stay on the right side of the equation. If you have to wonder if your incentive has gone to far or has infringed on someone elses copyright, then just don’t do it. You can always contact that person to ask permission.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Accelerate your business online using social media.

Summary: Learn how you can leverage ClickBank to supplement your business online.

Do you want to start selling products online? Do you wish you had a product to sell now? Do you think you have to wait until you’ve created your own product to start selling? Well think again.

You might not realize it, but there is a whole market of existing products on ClickBank just waiting for you to promote them. It’s really simple. ClickBank is like a broker between content producers (sellers) and affiliate marketers (you). ClickBank enables you to sell digital products online by leveraging the power of affiliate marketing without even having a product of your own.

In fact, there are thousands of available products listed and best of all ClickBank takes care of the affiliate payment processing for you. All you have to do is pick a product and promote it.

ClickBank allows you to sell up to 99 products using one account. However, there is one thing to consider when using ClickBank.They do take care of payment processing for your products and they pay your affiliates their commissions, but ClickBank only provides you the ability to use one sales page to promote products.

To have multiple sales pages for multiple products using one ClickBank account you must purchase a third-party software package. The third-party tool we recommend is EasyClickMate.

In case you have never heard of EasyClickMate, here is a brief overview of the product.

EasyClickMate is a server installed software package that redirects affiliate links to the appropriate sales page for your product.

From that sales page buyers are directed to ClickBank where they make their purchase. From there ClickBank sends the buyer to your EasyClickMate server which then delivers them to the proper thank you page to download their product.

Each time an affiliate directs someone to your product page EasyClickMate records a hit. If someone clicks through from your sales page for that hit and makes a purchase then a sale is recorded for that affiliate .

This gives you the advantage of knowing which affiliates are promoting your products and with some split testing you can tell which promotional tools are more effective and you can tell which affiliates you might need to spend more time with.

Best of all you get stats on your sales, on your sales page hits, and your affiliate get an automatic e-mail when a purchase is made from their affiliate links. This type of the affiliate encouragement is invaluable.

Just think, each time an affiliate makes a sale, they get an e-mail telling them that a sale has been made. This will encourage them to do more to promote your product if they know that they’re making sales.

EasyClickMate was easy to set up and configure. The users guide was extremely clear on how to set up and use the system. If you are familiar with how to set up PHP software using a MySQL database then you will have no problem installing and configuring the system. In fact, you can probably finish the installation and be using the system with an existing ClickBank account in about 30 minutes.

EasyClickMate also provides affiliate sign-up forms, e-mail notification each time an affiliates makes a sale, and an alternate payment sources in case ClickBank is down. For example, I send buyers to a PayPal screen if ClickBank is down. This helps to save a sale that might have been lost to a dead link.

The great thing about EasyClickMate is you have a central place to manage your affiliate accounts. You can use EasyClickMate from several sites, provide affiliates with links, and track everything through one central administration.

EasyClickMate even has an automated subscription feature that allows you to automatically add e-mail addresses to an existing mailinglist. For example, I use Aweber as my autoresponder service and when someone buys a product from me an e-mail is automatically sent to an existing mailing list that is set up just for that product. When a customer completes the purchase process as normal, they are redirected to their download link. Simultaneously they are sent an e-mail asking them to verify that they would like to be added to my mailing list.

This requires no additional interaction from the customer other than confirm that they want to receive your newsletter. Best of all, the process is completely automated for you so you don’t have to manually add them to your mailing list.

So, whether you have an existing product to sell or you are simply promoting products from the ClickBank market place, it’s easy to see that a tool like EasyClickMate can come in handy.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Accelerate your business online using social media.

Summary: Learn how to leverage Internet marketer mailing lists to get a solid picture on what’s hype and what’s not.

If you are new to Internet business, you might be wondering, “Where do I start”. You probably want to know what products will get you the best information for your money so you can start earning money online, rather than spending it. Also, you’re probably wondering which of the information products are hype and which ones have the stuff you need. That’s a great question because there is a ton of information out there and knowing which one to choose is a tough job.

Well I’m about to give you a tip that will help weed out some of the noise.

Tip One: is get yourself an email account just for Internet business research. By this I mean, set up an account that you’ll only use to sign up for informational product mailing lists. I know the form says “Primary Email” address, but it’s your in box. Put in an address that is dedicated to receiving email from Internet marketers. Then check that box daily.

Tip Two: is sign up for mailing lists that interest you. As you do, you’ll learn a lot about the different categories of products and what each of them can do if you begin to learn the language the Internet marketers are speaking. You’ll also begin to learn who specializes in what and you will get a feel for who you can understand and possibly relate to the best.

Don’t worry about spam, you are using an address dedicated to Internet marketing so you are keeping everything separate from your normal in box. Over time you will see that real Internet marketers are not interested in sharing your information directly with anyone else. In fact their list is considered the life blood of their business so you are less likely to get spam from them than you are from a large corporation.

Tip Three: is be patient. Do yourself a favor and don’t do anything at first. Just sign up for the mailing lists, read what comes in, archive everything for later reference, and just learn. Over time you will begin to learn who is interested in making a quick buck and who is interested in giving you value. I’m not knocking anyone here. People are motivated by different things and the marketer who is interested in giving you value is also trying to make a dollar. He is just going about it in a different way than the guy who is in for the quick turn around.

Tip Four: is read what other people are saying about the product before you buy anything. If you read what people have said about products in the past then you might be able to get an idea of what a particular Internet marketer will sell in the future. If they have put out solid information and quality products, then they are likely to again in the future.

Tip Five: is the most important I think. By signing up to multiple mailing lists you will start to see overlapping emails messages. This usually happens when a product is being launched and multiple Internet marketers are pitching the product to their lists. Now there is nothing wrong with this, but if all the marketer is doing is copying and pasting the message into the box and expecting you to buy, then that will quickly show up when four messages come in that all exactly the same.

As a buyer of information you want to know that someone is in your corner and that you are getting value out of your dollars. The marketers who are truly creative and who are interested in promoting good products to their lists will take the time to craft a personalized email message to their list. In my experience, these marketers are interested in quality and long term money making practices which means more than likely they have actually reviewed the product or will at least tell you if it may not be for you.

So, get an email address, sign up for some lists, learn as much as you can, and remember that this whole Internet thing has been churning for years and your not going to miss the train if you don’t jump now. In fact, you can avoid throwing yourself under the train if you will just step back and take the time to look, listen, and learn. Then when you’re ready you’ll be better equipped to pick the best product that will give you the most value for your money.

Keep reaching for success,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Accelerate your business online using social media.

However, online it’s possible to get both advertising and sales for zero dollars. The secret is to establish an affiliate program to promote your products or services. For less than a hundred dollars you can setup an affiliate program, create marketing materials, and start enlisting an army of people who are eager to sell your product and advertise your services.

Affiliate programs are a winning formula for all sides. Companies are able to generate leads and makes sales. Affiliates make commissions from the sales that are generated. Customers win because they discover the products and services they’re looking for.

Many online businesses avoid starting an affiliate program because they think it will cost to much or take to much time, but in reality they are missing out on a great opportunity to promote their website that will more than pay for their efforts.

Getting started is simple and there are several low cost options for setting up an affiliate program.

Regardless of the technical solution you pick, the overall goal remains the same. Get people to promote your products and services in exchange for a commission on the sale. The customer buys the product, you pay commissions, and you keep the remaining percentage as income.  You also get free advertising from the links your affiliates create to promote your website. It couldn’t be a better deal.

Contact me if you would like assistance setting up your affiliate program.

Building a sales army,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

It started when I was asked to give a presentation on integrating Twitter into WordPress for the Dallas Fort Worth WordPress Meetup Group. Public speaking is something I like to practice whenever possible and I knew exactly what materials I wanted to talk about. So, I spent a good bit of time putting my presentation together and getting things organized.

Because the meetings are monthly, I had an entire month to plan and prepare. I created bulleted slides with relevant graphics. I painstakingly referenced two pages worth of resources so that my audience could take the information and use it in their own projects. It was important to me to provide as much value as possible to everyone who showed up to listen.

I even brought a projector complete with extension cords and remote control. Clearly I wanted it to be a successful event. So you can probably imagine how many people I told about the Meetup. Your probably guessing 10, 20, or 100 people, right?

Did I tell my friends, colleagues, or family? My neighbor, my barber, my banker, or my dog? No! I didn’t. I didn’t say one single word to anyone. I didn’t write about it on my blog, I didn’t post it on Twittter or Facebook. I did tell anyone! Why?

The simple answer is I didn’t think to. I didn’t think to say anything until just before the meeting. About 30 minutes before I was supposed to arrive and setup the projector, I talked with a few friends on Twitter while I was at a Starbucks across the street. But other than that, I just didn’t think to promote it. This is exactly how you find yourself being a bonehead marketer. You don’t mean to. It just happens. Oh, and it will happen.

What I should have done after being asked to speak to the WordPress group was take two minutes to create a quick outline of my promotion schedule for that month, and then put reminders in my calendar to prompt about specific actions.

I could have started by announcing on Twitter that I would be speaking at the next DFW WordPress Meet up. I could have invited locals out to the event and let others know they could download the presentation if they couldn’t make the meeting.

Then, I could have made periodic announcements on twitter leading up to the event. I also could have written about it on The Open Source Marketer blog and e-mailed an invitation to my mailing list.

I could have invited friends and colleagues who could have been interested in networking with WordPress bloggers and could have sent out an announcement to my own Internet Entrepreneurs Meetup group. And why didn’t I? Because I was a bonehead marketer. I got so wrapped up in making sure that I gave a good presentation that I forgot to tell anybody about it.

Now don’t feel too bad about lost opportunities because, you get to learn from my mistake, and overall 50 people still attended the Meetup. Plus, given the fact that our meeting room only tell 50 people, it wasn’t too bad that extra people didn’t showed up.

But don’t get me wrong, if 50 extra people had signed up for the event we would have just moved the meeting to a bigger space. It would have been a good problem to have, is all I’m saying.

So, learn from my mistake and don’t be a bonehead marketer. It’s extremely easy to get the word out about things these days. So, leverage that ability to help share your information with as many people as possible. It’ll help to ensure that your efforts and time are well spent.

Living and learning,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Here’s a copy of the presentation. I’ll be writing more about integrating Twitter into WordPress in upcoming articles.

How to Integrate Twitter Into WordPress

Recently I got the opportunity to help out with the Epic Change TweetLuck Project that’s using Twitter to raise funds to help expand Shepherds Junior school in Tanzania and it gave me a whole new perspective on how we could be using social media.

The goal of the TweetLuck project is to use social media to raise awareness and funds for the school by encouraging people to donate $7.77 toward the financial goal or by subscribing for $7.77 a month (or $77.77 per year). Both the monthly and yearly subscription options get contributors listed on the TweetLuck website with a link back to their Twitter profile.

So, not only do these contributors get to help the cause, but they also get listed on a site where promotion efforts are high, which could ultimately help them create new connections and expand their social network. Everybody wins.

As Twitter and other social networking technologies mature they offer opportunities for people to contribute to the lives of others in meaningful concrete ways. Using Twitter as a way to raise funds and awareness is a fantastic use of the technology. It serves to remind us that there are real people behind those Twitter avatars and that we each have the ability to affect positive change in the lives of others.

If your interested in helping a charity or just doing a little self promotion, take just a few moments and go see what they’re doing at TweetLuck. You may find that it’s something you’d like to support and if nothing else you can take notes about how they are using Twitter for charity.

Tweet Luck,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

How would you like to know exactly what keywords people will use to search for a product of service? Maybe you’d like to launch a new website idea, apply search engine optimization techniques or promote an affiliate product and you don’t want to build a site and wait to see what your server logs tell you about your search traffic. What you need is a solution like the one I came across today.

Imagine you already have a mailing list of people within a targeted market. You know they can give you good keyword intelligence, but you don’t have an easy way to gather those keywords without launching your website first.

Well, that’s where SeedKeywords.com has a genious idea for harvesting keywords while your still in the development stage of creating your website, or even creating the product itself.

Seed Keywords helps you set up a survey around a fictitious scenario that prompts participants to enter the keyword or keyword phrase they would use to perform a search.

The example that’s given on the Seed Keywords website is, “You have a faulty PC. You need to have it fixed. What would you search for?”. Participant keyword entries are recorded for you to see. You can then perform Google keyword research to get an idea of whether or not they are good keywords.

Having a list isn’t required to use Seed Keywords, but you might want to experiment with getting keywords from a general audience versus a filtered list of targeted individuals.

I plan to use this service with several of my affiliate sites, so I’ll report back what I find. If you use the service, let me know what you think about it. Also, let me know if you come up with creative ways to roll it into your processes.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

PS. You could easily create your own home grown solution using a simple PHP page to collect info. In fact, I might recreate this as a word press plugin. I’ll let you know if I do. But for now, this is a good solution if you’re a non-coder.

- C

The service costs six dollars a month and seeks to fill the gap that exists in Facebook’s chat messaging system.

Today you can adjust your mobile Facebook account setting so that you’ll receive text messages for friend requests, messages, wall posts, and status updates from your friends. You can also post status updates using text messages, but you can’t chat outside of Facebook without ChatToText.

Here are some of my thoughts on the service, the Facebook application model, and the marketing behind ChatToText.

But before we get to that, let me walk you through the process I experienced when I signed up for ChatToText.

Oh, there’s one thing I haven’t mentioned about ChatToText yet. Part of the model for encouraging viral promotion of the application is an attached multi-level marketing pitch. What do I mean by that?

Well, you can either signup to use the service for $6 USD a month and use it like any other subscription based service or you can sign up and promote it to make $2 per new sign up and .25 cents per new tiered sign up (up to 8 levels deep). That means there’s a commission structure associated with using and promoting the service that has the potential to provide a return for as long as the subscription is active, or for as long as new people are signing up. I would imagine that like with anything else, there will be a saturation point, but for now everything is new.

So there you have a cool new Facebook application with a multi-level marketing spin to encourage promotion. Got, it? Of course you do. So let’s look at the sign up process, both as a potential user of the service, and as a Facebook marketer. To help you out, I’ve documented the whole process.

Allowing Access

Initially I saw a Facebook message come across from one of my friends that said Facebook was going MLM. Being curious, I clicked through to the ChatToText application where I was presented with a very simple, but very well done,  4 minute video that told me all about the service and how to sign up.

If you’re even slightly interested in Facebook marketing, copy writing, or using videos for marketing, I recommend you watch the offer video. It’s very smooth and the copy in the ad is too the point, addresses objections, sets expectations, empathizes with you, and ultimately greases the way for a clean buying transaction.

After I clicked the sign up button at the bottom of the video, I was presented with a standard Facebook “Allow Access” message.

I clicked allow and I was taken to the ChatToText website outside of Facebook. Looking at the web address in my browser I could see that the ChatToText guys were using aMember as their member management solution and affiliate management tool.

In case you don’t know, amember is a commercial piece of software that connects a long list of open source software packages together so you can create membership sites or just plug disconnected systems together. I’ve used it in the past to plug WordPress, forums, and photo galleries together.

It’s not overly important that you know they use amember, I just think from an Internet marketing perspective that it’s interesting because the software costs less than two hundred dollars and offers a flexible solution for creating membership sites. Which shows, that you can take an idea and an inexpensive tool and turn them both into something that makes money online.

Create An Account

Next, I completed their member registration form and clicked continue. As you can see the registration form was short and too the point. They’re just trying to get the user to the next step.

After reading through their user agreement, I saved a copy to my hard drive for later reference and clicked the “I Agree” check box and clicked continue.

Complete The Payment

I was then taken to PayPal to complete the payment portion of the signup process. The first thing I noted was that ChatToText  put a big red notice at the top of the page to tell me something “really important”.

This is an interesting tip and something you might want to consider for your own marketing if you use PayPal. The message is part of the header graphic that PayPal lets you upload to tell people who they are buying from. I think it’s a creative use of the space. Even if you don’t have a required message,  it could also be used as a place to remind the buyer about special bonuses so to keep them encouraged to follow through with their purchase. Just a thought.

Next, I logged into my PayPal account, reviewed the details, and clicked the pay button.

Once the payment was accepted I was presented with a “Return to Merchant” button, just like the big red text mentioned on the first PayPal screen.

So, I clicked “Return To Merchant” and got this message.

This is a standard message and it doesn’t exactly create any feel good moments, but at this point in the purchase process the   payment has been completed so the buyer is committed to an action.

So, I clicked continue which took me to the order thank you page where I was prompted to complete the setup process.

Now, take note that this is not an Amazon OneClick process, but the ChatToText guys are smart because they put the payment process up front as quickly as possible.

Instead of trying to pull the buyer through the signup process and configuration process, they get them to complete the payment first. ChatToText shows the buyer the product offer, and immediately closes the deal with a payment.

Once the buyer is committed to the transaction, their motivation to complete the process has shifted. They won’t abandon the process because they have already paid.

Complete The Setup Process

Clicking the “click here” link took me back to Facebook where I was greeted with a step by step setup process.

In fact, the graphics indicated I was already on step 2 and there was even an option to watch videos to help with completing the process.

Pause for a moment: It may not be obvious, but the extra support videos are meant to reduce the likelihood of refund requests by people who can’t finish the process. Remember, this is a monthly subscription service and it’s only $6 so if you, the developer, can get the buyer to complete the process and the service works, then you will probably have a customer for a very long time. In fact, it would take a lot of screw ups on your part to make them even think to cancel. $6 isn’t much to pay, but it can add up with thousands of signups.

Here’s what the multi-step status page looks like.

Invite Some Friends

Since there is a multi-level marketing / viral promotion (ie, you want to get some payolla) component to the application, the  next step is to tell some friends. So, that’s what I did. It is interesting to note that you are limited to sending the application to 8 friends. So, I picked people who I thought would use the the application, would respond to a request from me, and had friends who would use the application.

This is an important point because you don’t want your requests going to waste. Sure you can always promote the thing later in other ways, but since your doing it, you might as well try to make it count.

To futher encourage action, I included a custom message with my invitation to let my friends know that I was researching the application and I wanted to know their thoughts. It’s important to be genuine during this step. I really was researching it and I do want to hear their feedback, but I also wanted to ask them a question so they would feel compelled to respond. If people think you are waiting on them, then they tend to respond.

Next up was to enter my cell phone settings. So, I entered my cell number and selected my phone carrier.

Setup Your Phone

In a few seconds I recieved a text message on my phone with instructions on how to confirm the message.

I entered the confirmation code and sent a text message back to ChatToText.

In about ten to fifteen seconds the ChatToText system was updated and I was able to click the “Click Here” link to refresh the page and complete the setup

Add To Your Profile

Then I was taken back to the setup steps page and asked to add the ChatToText application to my Facebook profile page so that people would know they can chat with me via text messaging.

Take notice that just below the big red box that seems to dominate all your screen real estate and your attention there is a button to add the application to your profile page. I clicked it and

The application instantly showed up on the left hand side of my profile page just under my friends and my networks. You can move your box around if you like, but it won’t go above your friends, so you might want to consider where to put it so you will get the best exposure.

Your sign up action will also show up in your Facebook activity stream so your friends can see that you’ve signed up. This is just one of those great Facebook automatic promotion things that doesn’t hurt your promotion efforts.

How To Cancel Your Subscription

So what happens if you don’t use the service and you’re not seeing any revenue from the application? How do you cancel your subscription?

Well there are two ways you can manage your account. One is to view your ChatToText Facebook application page where you can see all your stats and commissions and the other way is to access your membership through the ChatToText website.

To cancel your subscription, you can go to the ChatToText website and log in with your membership log in.

On the main membership page you should see a link, in the bottom right hand corner, to cancel your subscription. It’s pretty easy to do.

There you go. That’s the whole sign up process.

Now let’s talk about the model that is being presented here.

The Model That’s Being Presented Here

As marketers and developers look for ways to make money with Facebook, I’m convinced that they are going to have to move away from the poke, super poke, and someone just gave you a beer, model of grabbing people’s attention.

They are going to have to offer real services that do real things to add value to Facebook user lives.

Now you can argue the value of chat all day long, but the truth is it’s up the buyer to weigh that value and decide if they want to pay to get it. This is where I think ChatToText is doing an excellent job. They are hitting the market at a place where there is a gap which is unlike most MLM setups.

Most Multi-level marketing systems try to convince the buyer that they want what is being offered and the buyer can offset the cost by selling the product. But, ChatToText is offering what people want and then encouraging them to talk about the service by offering a tiered commision on sales. It’s a fine line I know, but isn’t that always the way it is. You can’t make someone talk positively about something they really don’t want, but you can’t shut a person up if they really like something.

Another interesting thing to note is that ChatToText is building a base of qualified buyer. Provided they do a good job of delivering their service, they should be able to leverage that base for future marketing efforts. And by offering a service tied to a communication channel, they will have the ability, if they ever choose, to inject marketing messages into the flow of communications via text messages or chat responses.

So let’s review briefly. When making a Facebook application:

• Offer a subscription service that provides on-going value
• Complete the payment process up front
• Include a viral component that will help the app spread
• Build a base of qualified buyers that you can leverage for long term growth.

Be sure to checkout the ChatToText application both as a user and as a Facebook marketer.

As you can see, there are lots of interesting pieces to this story.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Let’s Connect on Facebook!

Before I tell you all about how you can attract Twitter followers by adding personality to your Twitter page, I’d like to thank @Shama Hyder at Click to Client for introducing me to this great Twitter video tool.

Bubbles, or rather Bubble Tweets are circular shaped video clips for your Twitter page that automatically play for visitors the first time they visit. This plays on the idea of pattern interruption because it grabs the visitors attention and pulls them away from the “next next next” pattern of clicking between web pages.

It also adds something that has been missing from an otherwise great social networking tool, and that’s personality. With BubbleTweets you can give potential followers a little taste of who you are or what they can expect from you as a personality. You can be all business, or all humor, or all cutesy. Whatever you choose, you have 30 seconds to do it on camera.

Now, let’s be certain. This is a tool and just like every other tool out there it has great potential. It has the potential to help you connect with your Twitter page visitor and hopefully turn them into a follower, and it has the potential to annoy people. If it’s used creatively, I can see it being a great tool that will add a whole new layer to Twitter. But if it’s over used, which it will be, in a “me too” boring way then the novelty will wear off and it will become annoying. Like I said, it has the potential to attract and to annoy.

So, ask yourself, “What will I say and how will I say it”. Will your 30 seconds be all about you or all about your Twitter page visitor? Will you speak to a virtual crowd of people or will you address one person sitting at one keyboard in front of one screen? Will you give the visitor a reason to follow you that seeks to add value to their daily noise? These are all valid questions and you should spend some time thinking about how to get the most value from such an engaging tool like video on Twitter.

The big question in my mind is, will Bubble Tweets increase your Twitter follows? I’ll be interested to see some real world test results. Will a call to action style video do better than a silly video? Will a direct address or a cross promote message do better? Will a tip of the day message do better than a “hi my name is” message? Personally I think it will have the ability to increase Twitter follows 10 fold if used creatively.

Will Twitter or other third party developers start offering more things like this in the future? Oh, I definitely think so. BubbleTweets is one of those ideas that kicks the door to other previously unrealized ideas. Maybe we’ll have the opportunity to add all type of bubble widgets to our page, or maybe we’ll get to add personality bubbles down the left side of the page that target specific types of information. Maybe we’ll be able to deliver polls or one time offers, or act now (operators are standing by) offers…okay hopefully it will be smoother than that, but you get the idea. Don’t think this is going to be limited to a 30 second video bubble of you in a half lit room recording a nose cam shot to say hi to your visitors.

You can bet, it has much more potential than that.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com