Arguments for pricing low: this economy is terrible, people are spending less, and if you price low many more people will buy your product. And if they like your product, they will recommend it to friends and they will buy your next product, too. People are less likely to rip off low priced products, and less likely to ask for refunds, so it’s less hassle. And if you price low, for a great product, people will perceive you as providing fantastic value and over-delivering.  When you price low enough, you increase the chances that people will buy on impulse rather than thinking about it and meaning to come back to buy later, but never doing so…

Arguments for pricing high: Once you price low, it’s hard to convince people to ever pay high for your products. People may perceive low price as low value. You have to sell many more products at a low price then you do at a high price. If you price low, you will not be able to find affiliates who want to promote your products for you because the cut they get from the product will be tiny.  If you price low, all of the customers you get will be cheapskates who will never buy more expensive products.

I ended up pricing low, and sold thousands of copies of my ebook at $7, and literally had half a dozen refunds. The reaction to the ebook was amazingly positive, I got tons of nice comments, and

But some very successful marketers were telling me that I was waaaay underpricing my ebook and I really needed to start charging more. So I created a new infoproduct and charged $19, and I collaborated with some marketers on products that were even more expensive.

And it didn’t work out that well. Way less sales.  I mean, hundreds of sales versus thousands. Way less comments about how wonderful the product is.

This doesn’t mean that it’s wrong to create high priced products; it just means that you have to experiment, try different methods, and go with what works best for YOU. You also need to look at the market, see what other people are charging for similar products, and frankly…charge less.

I am working on some future products which will be released in the near future, and I will be pricing them low this time around.

Well, newspapers and magazines have to fill up their pages all the time and they have to provide fresh interesting content. They do this by using an editorial calendar.

The editorial calendar is used to plan out content month by month, many months in advance. This allows you to take advantage of things like holidays and national awareness months to generate ideas for blog posts. You won’t have to sit there on the spot struggling to find ideas; you can come up with ideas for your blog post content in advance. When you feel inspired to write something not on your editorial calendar, that’s fine too…but you won’t find yourself frustrated and caught up short day after day.

Is November coming up? You can write blog posts about spending time with family, travel, making reservations, recipes, diet and fitness over the holidays?

Is April coming up? You can write blog posts about Easter, Passover, decorating eggs, spring cleaning, summer holidays…

You can also hold sales or charitable events based on the month, and blog about them in advance.

You can schedule guest speakers who fit in with whatever is going on that month.

Also, you can use your editorial to plan out content for different days of the week. Monday could be Guest Post Day. Tuesday could be Useful Tips day. Wednesday could be Inspirational Quotes Day.

And so on.

You can use a free service like Google Calendar to plan out your editorial calendar.

You’ll find that once you start planning your content out in advance, it will be much easier to fill up your blog with excellent, targeted posts.

And now, again, we come to the blatant self promotion part of this post. Copywriting genius Dawn Abraham, and little ole me, are holding a two-part teleseminar next Wednesday and the Wednesday after that – the 19th and 26th at 8:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.
http://www.qualified-lifecoach.com/How-to-Write-an-Article.html

This teleseminar will teach you how to write blog posts and articles that generate multiple streams of income.  We are charging for it, but I guarantee you that if you attend both classes, and follow the steps laid out in the classes, you WILL make money from your writing!

But I also emphasized the “little” aspect of it.  Unless you luck into writing articles for a really wonderful client, you will not find many people willing to pay well for articles. Why? Two reasons:

1.) Supply and demand.  Not only has this economy flooded the market with people desperate to make an extra buck – many of them people who formerly worked as journalists or teachers, so they know how to write – but thanks to the internet, you are competing against people from developing countries who may charge as little as $1 an article.

2.) Many people are seeking affordable articles, not quality articles. A lot of people who seek article writers want to fill up blogs or websites with content, any content, as long as that content is stuffed with keywords. They want to use those articles to make money from adsense or other programs, or they want to use the articles for SEO purposes.  They aren’t using the articles to build up their personal brand, so they don’t care less about whether the articles are well written or not; they make their profit by buying content in bulk, basically. It can be really challenging to find people willing to pay more than $5 to write an article or blog post.  Which is ridiculous money and not worth the effort.

If you’re trying to make a living writing articles, and you are a good writer…I can just about guarantee that you’re not being paid what you’re worth.

So you should just give up, right? Find some other way to make money?

Well, no. I have used my writing skills to build up a solid online business. I know plenty of people who have done the same. It can be done.

Here are some tips to help you do the same:

• Write a few articles cheaply to get testimonials about your writing skills – and then move on! Writing articles full time is no way to earn a living wage these days.

• Write content that pays well. People pay more for: press releases, ebooks, ghostwriting, memoirs, white papers.

• Use your content to fill up your website and get people to come to your website, by giving away useful information. Then, when you have decent traffic, put adsense, affiliate ads, and banner ads on your site.

• Create info products about what you know and sell multiple short ebooks.

• Always use your writing to generate multiple streams of income. You will have busy months in some areas, and slow months in some areas. Ebooks will be selling well one month, and not the next month.  Your affiliate sales will be ebb and flow.

And now, the shameless self promotion part of this blog post.  Dawn Abraham is a copywriting genius who’s written articles that generated as much as $9000 in adsense income. That’s more money than most published authors make these days.

And when it comes to finding ways to make money from my writing, I’m not too shabby , if I do say so myself. We are teaming up to teach a teleclass which will take you step by step through how write articles that generate multiple streams of income.  And I guarantee you this: If you pay attention in class, and follow the blueprint we lay out for you – you WILL make money with your writing!   https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=166403983447910

Today’s resource roundup: free and cheap ways to get a website up and running. If you have any kind of business, these days, you need a website even if you don’t sell your services online. Your website, at a bare minimum, is your online business card. Although you should also be filling it up with great content so that people can find your website, but that’s another story.

If you are short on cash and lacking in the mad design skillz, here are some  free, easy to use website builder options – some of them have paid upgrades available:

• www.wix.com
• www.weebly.com
• www.blogger.com
• www.moonfruit.com
• http://doodlekit.com/home
• http://www.yola.com/

I have used a number of websites to find freelancers, and for the most part my experiences have been positive. I’ve never hired anyone truly awful. I’ve hired a few people whose skills weren’t up to what I needed, and for that reason I wouldn’t hire them again, but I have also hired a lot of people who were extremely talented and worked for very reasonable prices.

Here are some things that freelancers can do for you:

• Write articles and blog posts
• Design websites
• Customize wordpress blogs and other types of blogs
• Add new pages to your website, like a “products” or “services” page
• Add plugins
• Write ebooks
• Design ebook covers
• Create apps for you
• Do social media marketing for you

Here are the sites I’ve used to find freelancers:

www.odesk.com
www.vworker.com (I used it when it was rent-a-coder.com)
www.elance.com
www.guru.com

These two sites are internet marketing related, but they have sections on their sites where freelancers offer their services, and I have had GREAT success hiring freelancers from there:
www.thewarriorforum.com
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/

And here’s a site that I’ve never used, but I’ve heard a lot about: http://fiverr.com/

And here are some tips on not getting burned by freelancers:

1.) Pay fairly. Don’t cheap out. All you’ll get is a freelancer who is resentful and not particularly inspired to give you their best.  Take it from me – I’m a freelancer.

2.) Ask to see samples or a portfolio of their work.

3.) VERY important – check to see how many recommendations they have. I know this makes it hard for people to get started as a brand new freelancer – but I don’t hire freelancers for anything expensive unless they have a lot of positive comments/reviews/ratings. And if that freelancer does a great job for you – help them out by offering to go back on the site and give them an excellent rating.

4.) If it’s an expensive job – sites like elance.com and odesk.com and guru.com and vworker.com have an escrow system – you pay the site, not the worker – and the site holds on to the money until the job is completed to your satisfaction.  With sites like The Warrior Forum and Digital Point – if it’s a big project, I would offer to pay in stages. Maybe 1/3 up front, they finish 1/3, you pay them the second installment…this isn’t for $25 jobs, mind you.

5.) Make sure the terms are agreed on up front. What EXACTLY do you want the freelancer to do for you? Don’t go in and try to add more tasks to the project, unless you offer to pay them for it.  When will they complete it by? What happens if they are late?

6.) After they are completed – consider changing your passwords to the sites they fixed up. Not because THEY are untrustworthy – but who else has access to their laptop? What happens when they throw away or sell their laptop? (or desktop. or tablet). It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

And finally…if they did a great job, consider paying them a bonus! Or at least pay them a little more than you originally agreed to. I do – and it makes for a happy, appreciative freelancer who will work very hard for you the next time you hire them.

1.) The first step, and the most important one, is to fill up your website or blog with well written articles which show your expertise. Are you an expert in show dog grooming? Vegan cooking? Building big biceps? Write blog posts offering free tips. Show people that you know your stuff. This will ensure that people can find your website in the search engines, and when they arrive at your website they will read your blog posts and immediately see that you are an expert in your field.

2.) Sell your articles. Now, I will say flat out – articles are THE lowest paying form of writing on the internet. However, there are some advantages to selling your articles on websites like fiverr, odesk, elance, www.thewarriorforum.com, etc. It allows you to get your name out there and gather testimonials which you can feature on your website, so that you can start promoting better paid writing services – like ghostwriting ebooks, writing press releases, etc. And it can bring in some quick cash if you are hard up for cash flow.

3.) Adsense. I have created adsense sites that earned a few hundred dollars in passive income every month, and then after a couple of years of consistent earnings, sold them for thousands of dollars. How to do that is an entirely different story and would take up more time and space than I have here, but I will address it in future posts.

4.) Advertising on YOUR site. If you have a website full of well written content on a popular topic, and you build up a decent amount of traffic to your site, you can sell advertising on your website.

5.) Use your well written content to write guest posts on other people’s blogs, and drive traffic back to your website, where of course you have excellent products and services ready to sell. Writing guest posts and having them featured on popular blogs is an extremely effective way to expand your audience and reach new customers.

When you get to the point where you are following thousands of people, or friending thousands of people, it gets hard to keep track of all of the people you’re communicating with. And let’s face it, a LARGE percentage of your “audience” doesn’t even exist, for all practical purposes. They created an account months or years ago and never check in any more, or they’re spambots, or they are real humans who act like spambots by only tweeting links and never responding…

So that makes the real people who take time out of their day to correspond with you that much more precious, in terms of networking.

One way to make sure that you keep track of all of the people that you have made a connection with  is to use an application like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck, and create a couple of streams that you especially want to keep track of – like “industry leaders” and “connections”. And every single time someone communicates with you on a social networking site, add them to that list.

Another thing that I do is, I cut and paste the Twitter handle, facebook name, linkedin name, etc. of people I want to stay in touch with into a document, and I regularly go through that list and check up on what those people are up to, and I check in with them. I may just tweet a simple hello, I may comment on something they just said, but if I’ve already established a connection with someone, I don’t want to let it go. This type of list can, and should, include any industry superstars that you’ve been lucky enough to connect with, AND people who are up and coming in your industry, and  people who have retweeted your stuff or answered a question or responded to a tweet.

I don’t need to tell you how valuable networking is to your bottom line. I frequently send hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of business to talented friends of mine – people that I met online – and I’ve gotten tens of thousands of dollars in new business by having people refer business to me, and refer others to my info-products.

So remember to treat your “stay in touch” list as the priceless business resource that it is, and use it frequently!

First of all, there’s the new kid on the block: Klout.  Klout claims to be a measure of your social media influence. It doesn’t just measure how many Twitter followers and Facebook friends you have, it measures your interactions with them and how often the information that you post is shared or commented on.

So how can this affect your life? Because employers in the PR field and social media marketing field are checking on people’s Klout and in some cases, they may pass over an otherwise promising candidate if their Klout score isn’t that high. Really. Truly. And in this anemic job market, that means Klout can affect you and your lifestyle significantly.

Find this hard to believe? Here are some articles that back me up:

http://goo.gl/Pwd5V 

http://goo.gl/RUwxL

http://goo.gl/ixb98

But here’s why it’s not the end of the world: because doing what it takes to increase your Klout score involves doing what you should be doing anyway, if you want to work in the PR, social media, or marketing fields: building up your social media following, interacting with your followers, broadcasting excellent content, sharing other people’s excellent content, and so on. I had what apparently is considered a high Klout score before I even signed up for a Klout account, before I even knew Klout existed. Why? Because I am very active on social media sites. So instead of trying to find ways to game your Klout score – and there are ways – you might want to spend time instead ensuring that you are being an active and involved social media citizen, and your Klout score will rise on its own.

More social media numbers that can affect your life: Are you trying to convince people that you should hand their social media marketing? Are you trying to land new PR clients? And do you have only a few dozen followers/friends/Linkedin connections?

It is INCREDIBLY easy for prospective clients to check up on your social media presence online. Anybody with the slightest social media savvy, who is considering hiring you or your company, is going to do some research on what you’re doing, and is going to check your social media accounts, and if you can’t even get 50 people to follow you online, why would they think that you can help THEM get the word out about their company, product, services, etc.? So having a big social media following doesn’t mean that you have more friends, or that more people love you, or that you’re a better person…but it does mean that you are more likely to be the person that gets the job.

Why this isn’t so bad: See the Klout answer, above. If you want to help companies get publicity, you must be able to socialize. If you’re in this field at all, you should be out there publicizing yourself just as much as you publicize your clients. Building up your social media numbers doesn’t mean that you have to care only about the numbers; it means that you have to create a lot of good content that’s worth sharing, and you have to socialize and follow people and send out friend requests, which is how you get a lot of followers anyway.

So be aware that in the social media/pr/marketing world, numbers are visible and numbers matter, but also be aware that the way to get those high numbers  is to go out there and be socially awesome. Which you should be doing anway.

Here’s what I know, from years of experience in internet marketing and promoting myself and my clients online: Yes, getting a big audience won’t help you if you have nothing decent to sell or promote.  Yes, a big audience is meaningless if you don’t know how to interact with them.  However, assuming that you have quality products or services, and that you know how to communicate with your audience in a helpful, sociable, non-salesy way (more on that in a future post), then having a big social media audience is crucial. Why? Two main reasons:  Because it offers visible social proof of your success. And because the more people that follow you, the more potential customers you have.

The reason that I got my other website, www.thepressreleasesite.com, to rank no. 1 for the term “press release writer” against 12 million competing sites, and the reason that I get thousands of visitors to that site that I very rarely update, is because of my large social media following. I get new inquiries every week from customers because of that social media following, and because of the good content I have on my site (she says humbly).

So you’re convinced? You’re ready to rush out and start finding lots of friends, followers, and connections?

Not so fast! First, there are some crucial first steps you need to take.

1.) Make sure that your website is ready for prime time.  There’s no point in sending people to a website that is half finished, that is riddled with typos, or that has broken links.

Go over it with a critical eye. Is the design attractive, clean, and easy to navigate? Is every link working?  Is there a clear “call to action” on the home page, and every other page, if you want people to take a particular action? Is it easy to sign up for your newsletter, or find the tab with your products and services? Do you have a “contact me” section with current contact info?

2.) Have a blog on your website that is filled with well written posts which demonstrate your expertise. This is crucial for both SEO purposes and credibility purposes.  If you sell exercise videos, feature some short clips from those videos and have blog posts about how to build big biceps, or how to firm up one’s stomach after having a baby, or whatever your focus is. If you sell eco friendly gardening products, have blog posts about natural pesticides, and gardening calenders, and how to make natural fertilizer. You get the idea.

3.) Ensure that your social media accounts look professional. You should get a custom twitter background – they’re generally not more than $100. If you have a Facebook business page, you should get that custom-designed as well.  My friends at www.savvygiraffe.com (not an affiliate link – I just recommend them because they’re good!) have Twitter/Facebook design packages, as do many other designers.

You should ensure that your bio is up to date and describes what you do, and that your contact information is up to date as well.

Now you’re ready to get out there and start building up your audience!

And I always advise that my clients monitor their social media marketing campaigns, so they can tweak and adjust as necessary. Testing and tracking, baby. It’s all about the testing and tracking.

Here are some of the ways that I do it:

I use Tweetbeep and Google Alerts, to see when my name is mentioned. Among other things, when I tweet a link to a new blog post on my other website, www.thepressreleasesite.com, Tweetbeep lets me know every time someone retweets (as long as they give me credit.) This tells me how effective I am in spreading my message, and which types of posts are best-received.

I also have Google analytics installed on my blog so I know where all of my traffic is coming from. This tells me which social media platforms work best for me, and which ones are a waste of time. At this point, I get most of my traffic from Twitter, then I also get a lot from the Warrior Forum – www.warriorforum.com, and I get some from Facebook and Linked in, and the rest from organic search.

I often use bit.ly or http://cli.gs/ as a link shrinking tool. These tools allow me to see how many people clicked on a link that I post in my tweet.

I also search for my name on www.addictomatic.com, technorati.com, socialmention.com, and other tools – and I search for competitors names as well.

These are just a few of the many – free – ways that I keep track of how well I’m doing with my marketing efforts. What are your favorites – free or paid? What am I missing?