Instead of paying a full price for a product from the get-go, with a trial offer a customer gets to test a product for certain number of days for a knockdown price. Once the trial offer period finishes and he decides to keep the product, he then gets billed full amount as per normal. If not, he simply cancels the trial and he won’t be billed again.

This model’s been used with great success by many businesses. Two examples I can think of - the first one is Derek Gehl’s Insider Secrets. The full price of the program is $197 but you get to trial the entire thing for 30 days for just $2.95(!). I’m sure it works great for them because they’ve probably done all the testing there is to be done and they’re still sticking to this model to market Insider Secrets.

The other ultra-successful one is David de Angelo’s Double Your Dating ebook. I think he charges what, $27 for his ebook but he let’s you download the thing for FREE for 7 days. If you like the book, he then bills you the full amount after the week is up. If not, you simply cancel the trial and he won’t bill you a cent (and you still get to keep the book). Again, I’m sure he’s tested his sales process to no end and it probably works very well for his business. I mean, $20million a year in revenue ain’t too shabby at all, right?

So seeing these fine examples online, I thought I should give it a shot, run a little experiment to see how successful this trial offer model could work for my products.

One of my products online goes for $147 - pretty hefty for some people. So I decided to offer a 30-day trial for $4.95 to my list for a limited time and see how well the promotion would pan out.

The pitch was simple - instead of forking $147 up front immediately, for $4.95 you get to download and use the entire product for 30 full days. After 30 days, if you like what you see, do nothing and I’ll bill you the remaining $142.05. If you think it’s not for you, then simply cancel the trial and you practically get to keep the product for a miserly $4.95! (I can’t get anyone to un-download a digital product anyway, can I?)

So I ran the promo. In about a two weeks, we sold over a hundred copies of the product at this trial price. Which I think is pretty decent. Because if you take it to the full amount, in 30 days if no one cancels, you’ll be netting a very neat 15 grand in sales.

But right… you’d be silly to think that no one cancels their trial offers. Over the next few weeks, I received emails every single day asking for a cancellation of their trial offer. Sometimes this could be an indication that your product is utter crap, but I’m pretty that wasn’t the case for me - I’ve been selling the product for close to two years now with a very low refund rate. So I know the product delivers what it promises.

The kicker’s that some people even ask for a cancellation just 24 hours after purchasing the product! How the heck can you actually test and use the entire product in 24 hours and know that it won’t benefit you?

So here’s what I found out. If you decide to use a trial offer, expect some people who just want to get a free ride. They purchase your trial with the intention of canceling it even if they ultimately find that your product is helpful and useful. So expect to get an increase in those kinds of customers.

I guess if you’re selling a physical product, things could a lot more different. Someone is going to be a lot less willing to cancel his trial and spend money to have to ship the product back to the company (plus he also paid for shipping for the product to reach him!). So if you’re marketing a physical product, this could work out pretty well for you (kinda like Insider Secrets).

All in all, the MAJORITY of customers I got were good ones. They genuinely wanted to test the product out and they paid the full price when they discovered that the product actually helped them. So yes the promo was a success for me - I sold copies to customers who otherwise may not have purchased my product without the trial offer. Just note that along the way, you’ll get your fair share of freebie seekers taking advantage of your trial offers as well.

I just received my copy of John Reese’s Traffic Secrets 2.0 on Tuesday. It took some time to reach but, you know, after going through nearly half of the program so far, I must say it was well worth the wait.

12 video CDs covering the major traffic methods on the Internet today (including the seven I mentioned in my earlier posts) - really great value. Especially at $397. It’s a steal considering that Traffic Secrets 1.0 was $997.

John really breaks it down for you and he makes it really simple to understand. You don’t have all that fancy-schancy stuff that leaves you confused after going through it. Simple, effective, neat.

Anyway, besides the fact that Traffic Secrets 2.0 is a really solid product, I mentioned it because to get really good at something, you must continually upgrade (upgrade sounds like something the government tells retrenched people to do) educate yourself in order to improve in your field. It’s amazing how people expect to be experts at something without even investing the time to learn the simple basics.

I’ve had people come up to me and ask me ‘How can make money online?’ and I always do this - I throw them a copy of Insiders Secrets and I tell them to read the whole friggin’ thing from front to back in two weeks. And get this… NO ONE has done it so far. I bet they look at the thickness of the binder and they start freaking out. I’m sure they’re going “Ah shit, it’s a trick! There’s actually work involved…”

But that’s exactly what I did. I read Insider Secrets from front to back more than once when I was just starting out online. Like I said, how can you expect to get good at something if you can’t even accomplish something as simple as reading a binder in two weeks? Now, I don’t want to sound preachy or anything here, but I have to point that out to you. Especially if you’ve NOT been investing too much in your education at all.

I’ll admit. I’m as lazy as you can get as well. When I got my copy of Traffic Secrets, I got all excited, tore open the box and ooh and ahhhed at the pretty CDs and stuff. That lasted like 10 seconds and then my mind actually acted up and said “Oh man… now I actually NEED to go through this stuff?”

So I get that too. But it really comes to knuckling down and getting things done. The day I got the product, I popped in the first CD and started watching the videos. Now you see, here’s the trick - we human beings just can’t stand leaving things unfinished (for the most part, anyway). If someone tells he’s going to show you three magic tricks and he only shows you two, you’re definitely going to ask “Dude, where’s the last one?”

Or similarly, have you read a book before and halfway through it, you finally realized that it really sucked and it was totally boring. But then you decided to read the whole thing anyway, just so you could finish it.

It’s the same here. I popped in the first CD of Traffic Secrets and when that was done, I automatically wanted to carry on with CD2 just because I wanted to see what was next and eventually finish what I started.

I’m sure you know, often times it’s just getting the ball rolling bit that’s the hardest, but once you push off, it just starts rolling easier and easier and pretty soon you reach the bottom of the hill and ‘hey!’ you finished the course.

So if you’ve been wanting to get something done but you’re still procrastinating, it’s simple - just start with the first step and the rest of it will simply flow. It works.

I was speaking at Brand Mastery over the weekend (or Sunday afternoon specifically) and I really had a blast. Not least for the fact that the fine audience were cool with me going WTF on stage (no kidding!) and having a laugh at the same time.

Here are the fine people who don’t mind having Hollywood action speech being used in a seminar (buahahahah!):

I didn’t give the usual Internet marketing formula because the majority of the blokes in the room already had their successful offline businesses of their own. So I had to tailor my presentation towards how they could use IM in a way which would complement their current marketing strategies. As compared to teaching someone how to start an online business from scratch, which is slightly different.

Well, I really do hope I gave enough great value and tips on how businesses can improve their web design and conversion processes online. And ahhh… WTF

I incorporated a lot of direct marketing elements into the website because as an Internet marketer myself, my website has to walk the talk and I’d like to think it does. (Even my home page is a squeeze page!)

But enough about my new site, what I’d like to draw your attention to today is all about testimonials. You already know that testimonials are VERY powerful tools in helping your business build credibility and also to ease your potential customer’s perceived risk about doing business with you.

So it is highly important that you use testimonials copiously in your salesletters or any other marketing material that you have (where it’s appropriate, of course). And I have to say, I DIG the testimonials I have on my website.

I hired a film guy girl and we went around filming these really spiffy video testimonials of the great partners I’ve worked with. And I think you’ll be able to see why I’m quite pleased with the results.

Click on the image above to see all of them in full HD glory! (I can’t stand those TV ads…)

Now one common question that is asked around a lot is how many testimonials should you use on your website? Normally, the answer is - as many as you can! But I’d like to tweak that answer a wee bit; I believe you should show as many GOOD testimonials as you can - the ones that make the most impact.

The not so great ones can be left behind. Because I feel that if you simply clutter too many testimonials together, it detracts from the impact the great ones can better make for you if they had been left to shine in the spotlight. But of course, if you only have a handful of not so great testimonials, use them first anyway!

Anyway if you’re looking for a good film expert to help you film (almost) whatever it is you want, drop me a comment and I’ll pass you the contact.

Video Marketing

Video marketing is also relatively new on the Internet. Remember it wasn’t too long ago that most people will still hooked up to the Internet using dial-up modems.

At those snail-crawling speeds, streaming video over the web wasn’t feasible. But with more and more people signing up to broadband and the runaway success of YouTube, video marketing is fast becoming another great way to drive traffic to your websites.

What you need to do is to create videos based on your market niche and then submit them to as many video sites as possible.

We’ve all heard of www.YouTube.com. Other major video sites include www.spike.com, www.metacafe.com, videos.google.com, etc.

These video sites, especially the big ones, receive HUGE amounts of traffic every single day (it seems like people have nothing better to do with their lives than watch video), and submitting your videos to these sites will net you some eyeballs to your website. You even can use a service like TrafficGeyser.com to help submit your videos for you.

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is a strategy where you encourage people to pass on your marketing message. They pass it on to their friends, who in turn pass it on to theirs, creating exponential growth for the exposure of your website.

A great real-life example I can share with you is this website which generated over a million dollars in just over two years - purely by viral marketing.

Have a look - www.TheInterviewWithGod.com

When you land on the website, you are treated to a short inspirational video. The message in that video touched so many people that they automatically wanted to share that video with all their friends and family.

And they in turn also passed the video on, and on, and on. The website just grew and they monetized all that traffic by selling products based on that one simple video that started it all.

You can do the same for your website by giving away free reports, books, videos, and CDs all pointing back to your website. You can even make this a near zero-cost exercise if you do it entirely digitally.

What you must ensure is that what you are giving away must be of sheer quality or it could hurt you! No one is going to pass on anything which doesn’t add value to their lives. So make sure you do this part right.

Viral is a great way for driving traffic, especially when it hits that ‘tipping point’ and the whole thing just snowballs your way.

It could be a bit tricky getting there but if you do it, it’s well worth it.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing a system where you pay people a commission in return for recommeding a customer for you.

A fine example of a system like this Amazon.com’s associate program. This program allows you to display Amazon’s books on your website. And if someone clicks through from your website and purchases from Amazon, you get a commission.

Th advantage for Amazon is that they gain an army of affiliates to promote their products for them and they only pay when a sale is made.

The benefit for the affiliates is that they don’t need to create their own products to sell, but they can still enjoy hefty paydays if they promote successfully.

You too can implement an affiliate program for your own website and it is a tremendous way to drive traffic to your website for free. Clickbank.com is a great and very easy way to start your own affiliate program if you’re dealing with digital products.

Just make sure that your offer CONVERTS. Because if your website is not performing, affiliates will drop your program and move on to a better converting product.

Social Marketing

Social marketing is a relatively new form of driving traffic. It is basically driving traffic to your websites from online forums, blogs and from also social networking websites like Facebook.com, MySpace.com, and also from social bookmarking sites like Digg.com, etc.

These are places where thousands of people of a particular interest meet virtually online.

The idea is to join these social networks and participate in the discussion online. As you contribute more and more to the community, you build yourself up into an expert in that social network.

And when that happens you automatically become an authority in that field and naturally people want to see what you have to offer.

It is a relationship that is based on trust.

Remember if you are not contributing and your focus is only on selling to these people but not giving, the community can see through it and you will not get any results this way.

A great way you can start is to join an online forum related to your market niche and start participating in it. As you find network with friends and peers, your social influence will start to grow and in turn help to direct people to your website.

So there you have it!

Seven methods which you can use to drive online traffic to your website. If you feel overwhelmed with the information, remember that you don’t need to employ all the methods for to drive traffic to your business website. Doing one or two methods EFFECTIVELY is much better than doing all seven in a half-baked manner.

For example, when I first launched Secrets Of Self-Made Millionaires, I only employed TWO methods of driving traffic to the website. I simply did article marketing and affiliate marketing.

The reason why I chose these two methods was pretty simple. Firstly I had a ton of articles at my disposal and naturally the smart thing to do was to submit them to all the article directories out there directing traffic back to my salespage.

And since I was using Clickbank to market the product, it only made sense to have an affiliate program set up. The thing about having your own affiliate program is that you want to make it as EASY as possible for your affiliates to promote for you.

So I did just that. I provided as many tools as I could for my affiliates so that promoting my product was as simple as cut-and-paste. I provided articles, solo ads, graphics, banners, a rebrandable report, etc. If you provide all these sort of tools for your affiliates, it greatly lessens the work they need to do to promote your stuff, which makes it more attractive to them (because let’s face it, everyone doesn’t want to do work!).

If you want to have a look at the tools I created, you can have a look at the affiliate page I set up. You can model it for your own affiliate program if you want to.

I didn’t do any SEO because I knew jack about it (even though I read ebooks and articles about it). Right now, if I want to get SEO done, I’ll look for an expert to do it. Because he’s going to execute a better job then I’ll ever do in a million years. Ditto for PPC.

I didn’t have videos, so I couldn’t submit any back then. I didn’t have the time (or enjoyed it anyway) to partake in social marketing. But I know of a friend who did VERY well simply by hanging around forums and making for a name for himself there. And viral marketing was something that I didn’t want to bet my traffic on.

So I just started off with article marketing and affiliate marketing. And till now Secrets Of Self-Made Millionaires has made more than seventy-grand in revenue (guesstimate). Not too shabby, eh?

Like I said, you don’t need to do EVERYTHING just so your website starts rolling. In fact, if you can only do, for example, article marketing, right now, the just do that one method right and consistently. And then you can move on to other traffic methods as you get more familiar and proficient with other methods of driving traffic.

Hi Adam,

You see, I’ve created my own product but now I’m stuck as to where and how to promote it.

Where can I find JV partners? I means, yes..you know you have a great product when you digitalised Adam Khoo’s books…but the BIGGER question is: who did you JV with? where to find JV partners? How to market your products? How to get your products out to the market?

I’m stuck…appreciate if you can throw some light on this for all fellow Internet Marketers.

Millers

And I said I’d give him an answer, so here it is.

There are 4 steps to building a successful online business and you probably already know this.

1. Profitable Niche Market
2. Product
3. Website
4. Traffic

You need to do these 4 steps IN ORDER properly if you want your Internet business to make money for you. Just to be brief, Step1 means you need to have a niche market to sell something to. A lot people make the mistake of creating a fancy product first only to find that no one actually wants to buy it (Wuuu… The ‘How To Marry An Ugly Bankrupt’ book - NO market!). Complete waste of time and money and I made that mistake too, not too long ago.

You need to identify a niche market online first, discover what their needs or problems are FIRST before you create a product to suit them. So that’s Step1.

Step2 is pretty straightforward. Once you’ve done enough market research and you know what your market is looking for, you then create a product that will fill their need or solve whatever darn problem they have (bad breath, acne, man boobs, etc).

Step3 means you need to create website that is designed to SELL your product. So you need a good salesletter, offer, sales process, credit card processing, etc.

And Step4 is the final bit. You need to drive traffic to your website. It’s not use building the best sales site in the world if no one is ever going to see it. You must get eyeballs to your site to make sales.

Each of these steps are crucial and ALL of them need to be done right (but not necessarily perfect!) for your website to make money online. So to answer the question here - How do you drive traffic to your website?

There are many ways to do that, but I’ll narrow it down to these 7 major methods.

1. Search Engine Optimization
2. Pay-Per-Click
3. Article Marketing
4. Video Marketing
5. Viral Marketing
6. Affiliate Marketing
7. Social Marketing

To give you an overview of these traffic methods…

Search Engine Optimization

Basically SEO is a process of optimizing your website around your targeted keywords so that it is ranked highly in the search engine results. Go to www.Google.com and type in lets say… ‘dog training’. And again you ‘ll see a bunch of search results pop up on the left.

This is where you want your website to be. On the first page and especially in positions #1, #2 and #3. If you’re ranked on the 59th page of the search results, not too many people are going to find your website, are they?

There are a lot of factors to consider when optimizing your website for the search engines and it takes TIME. You will not jump to page1 overnight. But if done right, it is a highly, highly effective way to gain targeted traffic to your website.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing

PPC is the quickest way you can start driving targeted traffic to your website instantly. You can literally set this up and start driving traffic to your website in less than 5 minutes. The downside, of course, is that you have to pay for it (come on! it’s still advertising after all).

Go to www.Google.com and type in a search term like ‘golf swing’ into the search box and hit search.

You notice when the results pop up that there are links on the right side of the page. Those links are from companies advertising on Google for the keyword ‘golf swing’. And they only pay a fee whenever someone clicks on their ad, hence Pay-Per-Click marketing.

As with any paid form of advertising, it is imperative that you measure your return on investment. It’s no use spending $100 on PPC only to find out that it’s making you sales of only $50!

There are many things to employ to ensure your PPC campaign runs successfully but Pay-Per-Click is definitely a major way you can drive traffic to your website.

Article Marketing

What are looking for most times when you surf the web?

I’d guess that a majority of the time you spend online is all about looking for information. That’s basically what the Internet is - a whole web of content and information.

Knowing that people visit the web to look for information, in article marketing, your goal is to provide that information in the form of articles and in turn direct people to your website through them.

What you can do is to write a bunch of informational articles relating to your market niche and then submit them to article directories (here’s one example - www.goarticles.com).

You’d want to submit your articles to as many quality article directories as you can. Because the more places your article shows up, the more people are going to read your article and visit your website.

But it doesn’t stop there.

When you submit to an article directory, you also allow other website owners to pick up your article and use it on THEIR website. Again if many website owners love your information and decide to add it to their websites, your article is being displayed in many more places. All in all, article marketing is a great and steady way to drive consistent traffic to your websites.

To sum it up…

Remember, this is by no means an exhaustive guide on how to drive traffic to your websites. I’m giving you just an overview because each one of these methods could fill a book by itself.

If you seriously want to drive traffic to your websites, you need to LEARN how to do it. And it doesn’t stop there, you need to DO it as well (now that’s the hard part. All that work… damn!).

So if you want to do SEO, get a good product or coach who will teach you how to do SEO the right way (Stompernet for example). Ditto for the other traffic methods.

I’ll share the other four traffic methods in my next blog post.

I had just finished my National Service and I had not much of an idea about what I actually wanted to do. All I knew was that I wanted to be IN CONTROL of my time. Because to me ‘time = life’, and I decided never going to cede ownership of that to anyone else (besides the wife, maybe).

After over two years in NS, I decided I had enough of having someone exerting nearly absolute authority over me because of the insignia he carries. So quite logically, chasing a high-paying 9-5 job (or 9-9!) was never on the top of my list. I’d take a lower salary and a RICHER lifestyle any day.

And besides you don’t really need loads of money to do that things you really want to do (unless you love big boats, caviar, and four women with you all the time). And you don’t really need all that stuff, do you?

I realized that what most people are chasing for nowadays is not always money, but time. And today I’m grateful to say I’m in control of mine.

But back to the story…

I just finished my NS, I didn’t think of going back to school, I didn’t want to look for a job, but I had no money (oh shit…). And I dabbled around in many different things and opportunities for one freaking year. With ZERO results.

I guess you could say I was pretty lost during that period and feeling not too successful at all.

Then as you know, I hit upon Internet marketing, played with it, launched a few websites and “Hey!” it actually made money for me. Pretty soon, I was making more money than I had ever made before (ha! which wasn’t too hard actually, since I was making none…) plus I was doing everything from home.

One part of me was deliriously happy with the results that I was getting. But another part of me (it’s the evil twin!) always felt that I could still do more, that I could achieve more, that I could be making even more.

More, more, more!

I remembered I started off with a goal of making $500/month online and I said that if I achieved that, I’d be happy. And I achieved that goal pretty easily.

So then I told myself I now wanted to make $2,000/month online and if I did made that, I’d be successful and happy. And I achieved that too.

Then I wanted to make five grand and I said if I made that amount, I’d be really successful and “yup!” I achieved that as well.

Then I wanted ten grand and I’ve achieved that as well (but not consistently every month though).

But the thing was I didn’t actually feel any more successful with every financial milestone.

Maybe yes, after the initial high of setting a new payday record. But after that, I always found myself asking “Is this all there is?” and I’d go climb the next tallest mountain. Again and again and again.

As you can see, it’s pretty obvious how a trait like this can be very useful in becoming successful. But it can also drive someone mad always chasing the proverbial rainbow’s end. Because it doesn’t exist.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love the paychecks, I love being able to buy my own ice cream and toys with my own money, and I’d rather be unhappy rich than be unhappy poor.

But I also realized I was falling into a trap.

Because the moment I achieved one goal which I thought would ’cause’ me to feel successful, I immediately went off looking for the next one and in that process I was always ‘delaying my success’.

So the moment I made two thousand bucks, I’d feel successful for a few days and then I’ll go planning how to make double that. And in spite of what I’d achieved so far, I’ll tell myself all over again that I’d only be really successful when I hit my new goal.

It’s almost like imagining Bill Gates being depressed because he’s only the 2nd richest man in the world.

And so I realized that I had to stop living in the future.

That whenever you get too caught up in your goals, you are living and placing all your happiness in that future (which technically never exists).

And tomorrow never really comes, does it?

It’s all about balance…

On one hand, you can see how setting goals and striving after them can motivate someone to achieve their life dreams. And on the other, you can also see why it can cause you to feel unhappy even though you’ve done all the things you thought would make you happy.

That’s why you see people who are making tons of money but feel miserable anyway (poor fools…) and there are people who are doing so-so but are the happiest people you’ve ever met. If I’d had a choice, I’d always pick the latter.

But it’s NO EXCUSE for not doing your best to be financially successful.

I cringe whenever I hear financially suicidal people, who are too lazy to step up, saying that money doesn’t buy you happiness, when it’s quite plain that the lack of it is causing their unhappiness. (wake up!)

Besides I don’t believe in a life where you have to choose either or. You can be rich AND supremely happy as well. And be wise enough to know that both do not depend on the other.

So now for me, my next goal is to make five figures consistently every single month.

I could easily feel crummy because I haven’t achieved that yet or I could choose to see that as long as I’m moving toward that milestone, I am being successful already. We all know which one works better.

And if it doesn’t work, oh well… I could always just make even MORE money.