The Truth About Marcia's Weight Loss Blog

by Bonnie Boots

 
In my world of entrepreneurs, self-employed professionals and small business owners, I find myself taking pains to sidestep the phrase "internet marketing."

I use terms like "marketing on the internet," "ebusiness" and "online business" to convey the concept of marketing and promoting your business online. I strive to stay away from mentioning "internet marketing."

The phrase itself is innocent enough. All it means is "using the internet to promote and sell goods and services." The problem is the company that phrase keeps.

The words "internet marketing" have been co-opted by people who devote themselves to finding newer and better ways of gaming Google, spamming the world's inboxes and pounding us over the head with messages of "make millions on the internet."

I've no interest in throwing up thousands of AdSense-click sites and other such "IM" business models, so I try to avoid association with that world. Nonetheless, I find it useful to monitor what they do. In pushing the envelope on marketing tactics, the IM'ers frequently come up with tactics that can be useful to the sort of business company I keep.

Here's an example.

If you've ever run across Marcia's blog, you know her story of struggling with weight gain. Marcia's a pretty young woman who put on a few pounds. She lost her excess baggage when she discovered two amazing new products. Marcia was so thrilled with the results that she put up a blog just so she could share her story with women like herself.

If you haven't yet stumbled across Marcia, type http://www. and then marciasweightloss dot com into your browser. I won't put a live link to Marcia's blog here, as I've no desire to give her help with the search engines. Nothing personal. It's just that…well, Marcia doesn't exist.

Marcia, you see, is an internet marketer, most likely a male, and she has aliases ranging from Marcia to Lisa to Kimberly. She's a blond brunette with red hair. She's also a 21-year old student and a 31-year old Christian wife and mother of 3. Marcia, you see, is Everywoman. Or at least every woman that lands on one of her blogs.

Marcia gets people to come and visit her by paying for ads. I've seen her using the common text-link ads and the becoming-more-common photo ads. And she advertises a LOT!

I don't know how much money Marcia is paying out each day in ad fees. But I know this for certain-it's far less than she's taking in for her daily PPA fees.

PPA stands for "Pay Per Action." Like Marcia, PPA also has an alias: CPA, for "Cost Per Action."

If you look at Marcia's blog, you'll see that within her dramatic story, she directs you to sites where you can get free samples of the amazing products that allowed her to lose so much weight. The links to those 2 sites are prominent in both the body of the blog and the sidebar.

The sole purpose of Marcia's blog is to get people to click on those links and register for those free samples. Each time someone takes that action, Marcia's PayPal account goes "Ka-ching!" with incoming cash. That's why this method is called "Pay Per Action."

Marcia buys ads to drive traffic to her blog. Marcia, in turn, is paid by other advertisers every time she convinces someone to take action. The action Marcia wants people to take is agreeing to accept a free trial. Not too hard a task, is it?

Marcia's blog works. I know it works because I see her everywhere, and IM'ers don't spend 5 cents advertising a page that doesn't work.

How much is she being paid? PPA offers can range from a few dollars on up. Way up. $50 is not uncommon. A good many advertisers pay even more. If Marcia convinces a visitor to click on both her PPA links, she may very well collect a total of $100.

Imagine if Marcia convinces 10 people a day to click both links. Marcia gets $1000 dropped into her PayPal account. Now imagine that Marcia, disguised on other blogs as Kimberly or Charity, convinces 20 and 30 more visitors to take action.

Marcia is making enough money to hire someone else to loose weight for her while she sits on the couch eating CheezeyDoodles and playing Nintendo.

Now, much as you might admire Marcia's income, you don't want to be Marcia. You are probably like most of my subscribers: you have a passion and a higher purpose. What does Marcia have to say to you?

If Marcia could stop talking about her dramatic weight loss for one minute, she'd tell you that you could use a similar method to sell your own products and promote your own business. So let's take a closer look at what Marcia really does:

If you look at her blog, it's easy to see the elements that make Marcia effective.

1.Marcia focuses on one goal-get the visitor to click two links. Everything on her blog is directed toward this.

2. Marcia's blog is a blog in name only. Even though it looks like a bog, and there are links to other pages at the very bottom, pages like "About Me," "Contact Me," and others, that's a false front. There are no other pages. There is only a single page-the sales page page. Marcia isn't wasting time trying to be a weight loss authority or dominating the weight loss niche. Marcia is only trying to convince visitors to click 2 links.

3. Marcia makes her story personal, so we will feel "She's just like me!" Empathy is a great motivator. Marcia includes before and after photos, so we know she's a real person and not some 30-year old male marketer. She includes personal details like the city and state she lives in, and the fact that she's a mom. Why, she even has to interrupt her blogging to go pick up her kids! That let's visiting mothers know she's just like them, and they can therefore trust her advice.

4. Marcia makes her story trustworthy by including "authority" references from CBS news, Rachel Ray and Oprah. After all, if it was on the news AND on 2 shows popular with millions of women, it must be true. Right?

5. Marcia uses fake comment boxes to seemingly carry on conversations with blog visitors. This lets her add the illusion of other people who also recommend that visitors accept those 2 free trials. This is called "adding in social proof." (Don't bother submitting your own comments. Marcia is apparently too busy to approve new comments.)

6. Marcia stays within the law by posting the terms of the free trial agreement on her blog, but she's oh, so discreet. The text is at the bottom of the page in light gray text on a pink background in 5-point type. An eagle couldn't read it. But you can, because I've enlarged it:

"The free trials of the products worked for me and for many other people, but results may vary by person. Also, keep in mind that I got trials of the (product name was here) and (product name was here) supplements for free, but I had to pay shipping and handling which came out to less than $6.00 for each. If, during your free trial, you like your results, do nothing and you'll be billed for the remainder of your order (usually a discounted price of around $70). But if you are not satisfied, just cancel within the trial period and you'll never be billed. Some advertisers require trial to be canceled within 14 days of the trial period while some other advertisers give you 30 days to cancel the free trial. There may be other terms and conditions on the free trial, so make sure to check with the seller to understand all the terms and conditions of the trial. Thanks and good luck!"

This reveals that Marcia is getting two payments. She gets one payments if the visitor registers to accept the free trial. She gets a second, higher payment if the visitor does NOT cancel before the $70 fee is billed.

7. And last, if you click any of the links on Marcia's blog, you'll see that she has her links "cloaked," which means most people won't realize Marcia is making money by sending visitors to register for the free trials. After all, knowing that would spoil the illusions.

Can you adopt Marcia's tactics without sliding into the sleazebag zone? Absolutely!

You can easily put up single page Wordpress blogs to promote your own products, services and authority sites.

1. Have each single-page blog focus on the one action you want visitors to take. That action may be going to the sales page of your own product. It may be registering for your newsletter or free gift. It may be visiting your forum. Whatever it is, make sure everything on your single-page blog is focused on convincing visitors to take that one action.
2. Make your message personal and believable.
3. Add in social proof from average people as well as authority figures.
4. Reveal yourself to both your visitors and the search engines. If you use another person to promote you, make your Marcia a real person, someone you really know that really recommends you. Marcia's fake "About Me" links and especially her fake "Terms" and "Privacy Policy" link. Google demands a privacy policy on terms statement every site. Marcia's phony links are meant to fool Google into thinking she's complied. Don't take that road.
5. Set up a Google AdSense account, deposit a set amount and start sending traffic to your single-page blog. Be aware that mastering AdSense takes time and close attention. You need to find which keywords work best for your site. But you can get an easy start by depositing ten dollars a week and buying the lowest-priced keywords. Over a few weeks, the statistics Google gives you will teach you a lot and you'll have the means to start improving your performance.

If you have a great product, a good web site or a life mission that's worth promoting but you're just not getting enough visitors or the right kind of visitors, take a tip from Marcia's blog. Narrowing your focus down to one action and driving visitors to take that one action can be the key to turning your internet experience around.

 

 
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