| LED Digest 2551: The Trick to Raising Prices |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom www.WillMaster.com/Master : the LED's Key Sponsor Master Series Software - Get Connected with Your WebSite www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. December 8, 2007 Issue no. 2551 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== <Moderator Comment> --== International SEO ==-- ~ Barry S Mills "I think selling USA-Europe is a good topic right now..." --== Raising Prices =-- ~ Shel Horowitz "The problem: how to determine what my market will think is fair." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== RSS Feeds and Redirecting Domains ==-- ~ Rich Dudley "You might want to look into FeedBurner..." <Moderator Comment> --== Internet Marketing Trends in 2008? ==-- ~ Michael Linehan "...the offline marketing world is making huge inroads into the Internet..." --== Should Your Company Be On YouTube? ==-- ~ Jesper Brantberg "YouTube is not a serious way to do business." ~ John Brumage "Internet competition has made TV infomercial time VERY cheap." --== Improving Conversions ==-- ~ Philip Scriver "You need to market many, many, many more to go to the next level." ========== NEW =================================== <Moderator Comment> The post below was sent around November 20 but bounced. I've heard from a couple other people who had This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it bounce. If you have submitted a post over the last few weeks but it hasn't been published, please re-send it to me. I'm researching the problem and should have it sorted out today. Thanks! Adam ---------------------- From: Barry Mills Subject: International SEO > How do you optimize international sites? > As an American SEO, how can I offer UK > businesses my skills? What's different, > what's the same?" - Question from "Ask the Experts," LED Digest 2538 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1953/190/ Ok, I have to jump into this thread and pick up on a couple of points. This is mostly aimed at the Americans on the list. I think selling USA-Europe is a good topic right now, things are slowing down in the States and the exchange rate favours exports so it's definitely worth looking at. So here's a few tips from across the pond. 1. Do NOT use colloquial English unless you really know what you are doing. That means unless you ARE English, and from the same demographic as your target audience. Otherwise, hire a copywriter that is, or at least a proof reader. Generally, colloquial English is "bad" English. Much like the way Americans talk is "bad" English J. It is a mistake to assume that everyone understands it, because dialects vary enormously in different regions of the UK, and colloquial language varies according to age and social group as well as region. Unless you are speaking to a youth audience (innit) you will probably alienate more people that you will endear by using slang - it just doesn't work written down. 2. Make sure you understand how/if your products will be taxed at their destination. It's not unheard of for deliveries to be impounded at the port and the consumer then has to go and collect them, and pay hefty duties. You need to ensure your shipments will get delivered, and that all costs are included at the point of sale. 3. One more thing. Don't mention anywhere on your site terms like "UK English" or "British English", this really winds us up. It's just English, it's our language remember (the clue's in the name). It's bad enough that you've butchered it, please don't imply that you invented it too. This is not a rant btw, I'm just trying to reflect a not untypical British consumer sentiment that you need to understand if you want to sell to us. Good luck to anyone who decides to give it a go. Barry S Mills Chairman Netstep Corporate Communications http://www.netstep.co.uk -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Shel Horowitz Subject: Pricing a service business: advice wanted It's been a few years since I last raised my prices, and I know I need to. In that time, expenses are up significantly living here in New England, dependent on oil for transportation and for home heating. The problem: how to determine what my market will think is fair. I've been at US $145/hour for most services, with $175/hour for certain specific types of copywriting: direct-sales letters (postal or Web) and ads. This of course is very cheap for an internationally known copywriter, and I have had pretty much no price resistance. However, more and more of my work seems to be helping writers figure out the best way, with their personality and their book, to become published authors and steering them through the process. Those clients are great to have, because it's typically a several month process and thus a source of continuing work. But in that sector, there is definitely price resistance. Some of my clients pay it happily and engage me to fully produce their book, but others just drop in for an hour of consulting every now and then, because that's what they can afford. And the nice thing is a lot of this is phone work, and thus not involving the computer. I find that computer fatigue limits my time onscreen, a lot. I work in bursts of half an hour to an hour, and in the course of a day I try to manage two hours of billable work, a chunk of professional reading, and struggling upstream to not fall *too* far behind in the deluge of several hundred emails a day. And of course some time for my own writing and marketing. I'm currently creating four monthly newsletters and updating my blog several times a week. There are some slight revenue streams from this, but basically it's just greasing the marketing wheel. I had originally thought of raising everything currently at $145 to $155 or $165. Now I'm thinking of bringing the regular copywriting (press releases, non-sales web pages, book jackets, etc.) and marketing consulting to $175, raising the specialty stuff just a little bit, like $185, and keeping the book consulting at $145. So my questions: - Will marketing clients see it as a problem if they are paying $175 an hour for my brain while certain kinds of consulting clients are getting me for $30 less per hour? - At what point do I say to a book publishing client, "we're really doing marketing here, this session is at the higher price" -- or do I just figure that they're essentially getting a bulk discount and do the whole thing at the cheaper figure? - I would definitely charge the higher rate for media training -- but for some of the other work, the distinction is much less clear, because all the publishing consulting I do is informed by the marketing choices the client wants to make, and all of it is focused on creating a marketable book. Should I just decide arbitrarily that once the book goes to print, they're a publisher and they pay the business rate? - A related question: I'd like to do more speaking. My current rate is $2400 plus expenses for a 60- to 90-minute presentation. Generally, speakers bureaus aren't interested in even talking to you until you're charging $5K or more. That feels like a huge leap for me. What other steps can I take to get more speaking gigs, while raising my fees to a lower level? Oh, and since I'm asking all these questions, let me conclude with a bit of advice: offer your clients the chance to lock in the old rate. I make it clear that whatever money I collect before the end of the year, I will work off at the existing rates into 2008. This provides both god will and cash reserves<g>. Shel Horowitz http://www.frugalmarketing.com Sign the Ethics Pledge: http://www.business-ethics-pledge.org ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Richard Dudley Subject: Redirecting RSS > I'm wondering if I redirect the quovadis.ie > domain name to the new domain name will my > readers have to update their RSS feed... - Carol Moore, LED Digest 2550 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1965/190/ You might want to look into FeedBurner (www.feedburner.com), which is an RSS syndication service (and then some). You republish your blog through FeedBurner, and at any time you can change its source invisibly to your subscribers. Current subscribers can be redirected to the FeedBurner feed automatically, and they have great stats you can use. Rich Dudley The Bloomery www.bloomery.com <Moderator Comment> I second the Feedburner recommendation, Carol. After their recent purchase by Google they made a bunch of features free that previously had a monthly charge, such as a sub-domain for your feed (feeds.domain.com for example). I recommend using the sub-domain and redirecting your old RSS feed to the new one at Feedburner. It's trivial to do but can be confusing. Consult this documentation: http://www.google.com/support/feedburner/bin/answer.py?answer=78464 and if you have any problems, post to their forums here: http://forums.feedburner.com. The Feedburner staff is very responsive and really friendly -- you'll get the help you need! Best of luck, Adam ========= Begin Sponsor Message ========= The Master Series CGI Software It's tools. It's automation. It's a solid investment for your online business. Here's a tip- If we sell it, we guarantee it. And support is extraordinary. http://willmaster.com/masterLED ========== End Sponsor Message ========== -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Marketing trends > What do you think are the most important > trends for Internet Marketing people to > watch 2008? - Lennart Svanberg, LED Digest 2550 I think a huge trend for 2008, that has been gathering momentum for a couple of years now, is the realization that "it's not *Internet* marketing; it's *marketing*... on the Internet". The powerful principles of marketing are sorely lacking in much of what goes on, online. Even the most basic marketing and sales ideas are often not in place in the building and use of a website. I've been amazed to see one forum leader share his recent startling discovery that one truly needs a powerful and captivating headline to catch attention and lead the viewer into reading! I.e. someone who counts himself an Internet marketing specialist just *now* discovering that headlines are important!!! At the same time, the offline marketing world is making huge inroads into the Internet - such as Ogilvy's purchase of an established seo company. I think it's time to study up on marketing and sales principles. More advanced tools are great. But it doesn't much matter if have a Ferrari if (a) don't know where you are going, and (b) don't drive very well. Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy www.marketing-alchemy.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Jesper Brantberg Subject: YouTube > So, Should You Be On YouTube.com? - Rod Aries, LED Digest 2548 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1963/190/ Well, NO! If you run a legitimate business I think your business can be damaged if you try to "sell" your products on YouTube. YouTube is not a serious way to do business. I personally would never buy something from an "ad" shown on YouTube. OK, my customers are on YouTube, no doubt about that. But, how do they react when a company are trying to "spam" YouTube? I think they react negatively. My strong believe is that if you want to show your products in a videoclip, you should do this on your own website. Emailspammers sell products, but everyone hates spam. Don't spam YouTube! Jesper Brantberg, Sweden Brantbergs Webpublicering (Small webpublishing company) -------- new post - same topic -------- From: John Brumage Subject: YouTube Bill Gates thought the Internet would really take off once it was capable of Video. Although it left an opening for Netscape, Bill was essentially correct. The huge growth of the Internet is about to happen. Once the video producer has a low cost channel to the end user, advertisers should not overlook producing relevant video content. Even if your video gets only a few hundred views a month, they will be views from active prospects. Another bonus, Internet competition has made TV infomercial time VERY cheap. John Brumage Disco Legend Zeke -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Philip Scriver Subject: Conversions > I'm averaging 10 sales per week, or 2/100, > which is of course, search related traffic... > I read that it can be as low as 0.2%, so I > guess I should be pleased. - Phil Chave, LED Digest 2547 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1962/190/ From one Phil to another, I haven't even looked at your site BUT based on my selling of books I have a very good idea of one of the major reasons you are not selling many copies. You state you have 6 CD's. 6! You need to market many, many, many more to go to the next level. I used to list just new books I obtained and sales were not that great. Now I list nearly six thousand books at xplorebritain.co.uk and my sales have rocketed. When I reviewed my initial sales pages I figured all the reasons why somebody wouldn't buy from me - I didn't have the title they wanted, the book cost too much, the book cost too little, the book was the wrong size, the wrong author and maybe even the wrong colour (you remember the Monty Python sketch where books were stocked on the shelves by colour). I'm afraid trying to find more customers who will purchase any one of your limited titles will be difficult. Try offering more titles and more similar products. Make each product have its own unique page. Then submit a sitemap to Google, wait for it to be fully spidered and I believe you will see a difference. It did for me. The page dynamics, alterations, coding, etc, if you have limited knowledge, can wait. Amend that side bit by bit as you gain confidence and knowledge (and this digest will help you a lot, as it did and still does me). Philip Scriver Explore Britain Books & Maps at http://www.xplorebritain.co.uk/default.asp (c) Copyright 1995-2007 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out." -Anon. |
