Presents The Daily Deal Builder Manual & Guide to Success вЂњHow to use and profit from your new one sale at a time software.вЂќ i Table of Contents Chapter 5: How Daily Deal Builder Works. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Chapter 6: Profiting From Your Daily Deal Builder Site. . . . . . . . . .10 Chapter 7: Advertising That Fits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Chapter 8: Going Viral and Getting Traffic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 Chapter 9: Growth and Automation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 Chapter 10: LetвЂ�s Get Started. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 You are encouraged to print this book for easy reading. This is NOT a free e-book! Purchase of this e-book entitles the buyer to keep one copy on his or her computer and to print out one copy only. Printing out more than one copy, or distributing it electronically, is prohibited by international and U.S.A. copyright laws and treaties, and would subject the purchaser to penalties PER COPY distributed. If you would like to share this eBook with a friend or colleague, please refer them to http://www.Daily Deal Builder.com If you are interested in joining our affiliate program, please visit: http://www.Daily Deal Builder.com/jvinvite.html ii LEGAL NOTICE The Publisher has strived to be as accurate and complete as possible in the creation of this report, notwithstanding the fact that we do not warrant or represent at any time that the contents within are accurate due to the rapidly changing nature of the Internet. While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this publication, the Publisher assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretation of the subject matter herein. Any perceived slights of specific persons, peoples, or organizations are unintentional. In radical advice books, like anything else in life, there are no guarantees of income made. Readers are cautioned to respond on their own judgment about their individual circumstances and act accordingly. This book is not intended for use as a source of legal, business, accounting or financial advice. All readers are advised to seek services of competent professionals in legal, business, accounting, and finance field. This Daily Deal Builder manual is a trademark of HC Consulting Group LLC Published by: HC Consulting Group LLC. Copyright В© 2011 HC Consulting Group, LLC. iii How Daily Deal Builder Works You have now successfully created your website and will receive your administrator login credentials in your email. Over the next 24 hours, we will update your site for you with a custom logo. You will follow the instructions in the email that was sent to you to get logged into your site. It is important for you to watch the short demos that are located on the download page from which you downloaded this manual and familiarize yourself with the Admin Menu Bar Tabs and your site as a whole. Once you login to your website you need to select вЂ•ManagementвЂ– at the bottom under the вЂ•Contact UsвЂ– section. You will then be inside your administrator panel. We have made it very easy to navigate around your admin panel, create offers, and manage your orders and users. We recommend first visiting Settings :: Site Settings and updating your site keywords, description, and title. This screencast will help you. To accept money you can use PayPal.com and/or your own Merchant account through authorize .net. Sign up for an account at PayPal.com. You will need to input your API username, password,and signature key. You can get this information from inside your PayPal.com account by selecting My Account :: Profile :: Account Information :: API Access :: Select вЂ•Option 2.вЂ– Here is a screencast if you have any trouble finding this information. You have the option to just accept money via PayPal, however we recommend to accept money using both PayPal and a merchant account. We use Powerpay and have been very pleased. There are 3 ways you can apply for a merchant account with us: 1. Apply online at http://www.powerpay.biz -we opend up a back door for you now with digital signature! 2. Call our contact directly at 877-775-6900 x 1754 and ask for Drew to complete a phone application. Be sure to let Drew know you are coming from HC Consulting Group and Daily Deal Builder. Let him know we sent you and we will make sure Underwriting gives your application prompt attention! The bulk of our training will be done on our live webinars that we are going to hold with you. It is very important to make sure you are in attendance so you can ask us questions live and hear all of your questions get answered. We will record the webinars, but many times webinar service providers have difficulty in delivering the recordings. iv Locking In Deals To Feature On Your Site One of the quickest and easiest ways to begin using your Daily Deal Builder website is to offer to let product owners, service providers, or any merchant вЂ“ run a campaign on your website. To launch your site correctly, we need to work directly with product owners in order for us to get the best possible deal for visitors of your site. I recommended to create a Google excel file of potential products to sell on your site. Then dig up the product owner (or gatekeeper to the product owners) contact information, email, address, and phone number as this will make it easy for us to begin contacting the product owners in bulk. Linkshare, Doba, Clickbank, Amazon, and Commission Junction are great, however, we want to mainly target product owners directly as this is how we will truly be able to offer outstanding deals and really gain the traction that we need to hit the threshold. A superb resouce that you should use to build your list of merchant providers is: http://www.hoovers.com. Hoovers will get you access to nearly every business you could ever imagine. Many of the businesses will bite back from the below swipe email and my recommendation is to then call the ones who first "bit" from the email. On the call our objective is to negotiate one of their products or services to featured for a 24 hour sale on your site. Negotiations will depend on many variables such as; What percentage do you want to push to get. My recommendation is to first and foremost focus on getting the best deals possible for the visitors of your site. Of course, cutting in a small percentage in the beginning, but gaining traction and hitting that threshold mark is of utmost importance. What is the price of the product up for negotiation. Preferably, It is most effective to start with a bit higher end products. (Greater than $100) as this will enable you to have the most wiggle room. What is the actual "cost" of the product up for negotiation. Many businesses will try to keep this information private, but it is important for us to know their actual cost so we all parties can benefit and get maximum exposure while still bringing profit. Always shooting for 10%-50% off retail price of the product is my goal. You have the ability to set a minimum number of units that must be sold in order for the deal to go through which really makes this the best possible risk-free advertising that you could ever offer a business. Once you build up your list of potential merchants, it is time to reach out to them. v Here is a swipe email that you can use when contacting merchants. You will want to slightly edit the email to fit your particular website and voice. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Hello _____________, My name is ______________, I am the CEO of ___________.com . I want to thank you for taking the time to check this out as I am positive you will be very happy that you did! {Insert business name} will very much benefit from this risk-free advertising that I am proposing to you. I am sure you have seen the huge consumer response to daily deal sites over the last year or so, most notable Groupon.com and LivingSocial.com, and there is a very good reason that this trend is growing so rapidly -- products sell like crazy with this method! ThatвЂ�s why I am working directly with an advanced internet marketing firm who has created hundreds of these sites to create one specifically for {insert your niche market here} who want your products, and we are about to go live with our new deal site ________________.com. We will be launching ________________. I have contacted a handful of companies such as yours that we have identified as key players in the industry and whom we would like to help leverage existing brands through our incredibly successful deal site model. We can set a minimum number of units that must be sold in order for the deal to go through which really makes this the best possible risk-free advertising that you could ever do. FACT: 40% of online purchases are impulse buys! FACT: Deal-a-Day sites are perfectly positioned to capitalize and expand upon that trend!! The best part about our business and my proposal to you is it is very natural, mutual and beneficial for everyone. We have set up an amazing customer support, sales, and marketing system to ensure that anyone who works with our company will see speedy and very significant results. With little or no effort on your part, we propose a relationship with the promise of very tangible and immediate benefits, including: вЂў Get a flood of new customers вЂў Bring new products to market quickly вЂў Increase brand awareness вЂў Sell excess or slow-moving inventory вЂў Save money on your advertising costs. вЂў Acquire new customers will little effort or expense. vi вЂў Gain repeat customers who come back everyday looking for the next offering. We look forward to including your products among our deal-a-day offerings. We can set it up for you in just a few short minutes by phone. I will personally be available to discuss this amazing opportunity and answer any questions you may have. Simply click this link ________________ (you can use instantscheduling.com) to schedule your call. We are working with some of the biggest names in the business and I know you will want to make sure your company is a part of this wave in our industry. Thank you for your time and I look forward to speaking with you soon, I encourage you to visit my Daily Deal site here: {DOMAINNAME.COM} P.S. If you have any other questions or something you would like me to look at before our call simply email me at ________________ Looking forward to getting on quick call and helping you make a TON of sales! After sending the email out to all of the merchants that you would like to sell on your site, you will want to follow up about 2-5 days later. Do not be afraid to just call up the business owners directly either as it is typically easier to work out agreements over phone. Going Viral & Getting Traffic To Your Deals There are some traffic generation methods that we will go over to help achieve maximum results. When you lock in the deals it is now to time to drive traffic to those deals. People absolutely love getting deals and I first recommend to use the Traffic Software that you have access to on your download page. The hardest thing that just about every internet business owner deals with is driving traffic to their website. I would like to stress again the importance of attending our live webinars as this is where we will be sharing the bulk of our knowledge on successfully driving hordes of traffic to your website. Remember to also use the traffic software that we have provided you with as it is extremely powerful. Drive traffic using social media: With a little hard work and time, it is possible to drive tons of traffic to your website using social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. Even though they tend to have a lot of rules that they enforce, they are extremely popular social networking sites and well worth putting in the time to market your site to its members. Remember to play by their rules though. vii 1.) You need to go to their site, and join up to become a member. They are free to join. Remember to read thoroughly their rules, paying attention to their position on SPAM, marketing etc, as you do not want to get off on the wrong foot with them. Browse the site, and familiarize yourself with it and start to get to know the members. Search for members that you share a common interest with, and begin to build a network of friends who will learn to trust you and want to know more about you. As you get to know these members, you will find yourself discussing topics that may be related to what you do, and they will more than likely ask you questions, so through this subtle way you will be able to build some contacts for your business. This is the social part, and then there is the marketing side of it. For instance, Facebook now has paid advertising. You can submit your site, and so long as it is within their criteria you can nominate a daily spend for clicks of your ad, displaying to the members. 2.) Look at what other members are doing to improve their position for paid advertising. Ask other members what they know that you can do that is within the rules, to promote to your market. 3.) Join some groups. You will have noticed when you familiarized yourself with the site that there are lots of groups that you can join. Join up to some of these groups and participate in the variety of marketing and business group discussions. It will help you to forge trusting relationships with fellow likeminded members. Share your knowledge and offer to help members whenever you can. This will help in the popularity ranks! Backlinks Backlinks are one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website and get index fast by search engines, especially by Yahoo or Google. So here are some of the few tips that you can use to have some backlinks to your site and drive traffic to it. 1.) Web Directories: One of the easiest ways to have a backlinks to your site are by using web directories. Paid directories will provide you with good backlinks for your site for just few dollars. Or you can enlist your site to a free web directory services with no cost at all, like DMOZ.org, or freedirectorysubmission.com. Google "Web Directories" and you will find quite a large list of potential places to use. 2.) Link Exchange: Exchanging links to other websites or blogs is another way, and perhaps one of the best ways to acquire backlinks, you can do this by mailing the webmaster, and try to exchange links with each other, remember to make sure the blog or sites content is also related to your site. 3.) Forums: Forums can provides a great amount of traffic to your site, by signing up and adding your site as a signature. With thousands of users signing and participating in forums in a wide variety of niches, there is a big chance that your site will be spotted and surf. Or you can add your link to your post, viii just make it sure that the link that you're adding to your comment is related to the discussed topic. Note: Be extremely cautious in putting or adding it in your comment because some forum sites are very strict in adding links to the posted topic, your site may be considered as a spam, and banned from their forums, or other users might mistaken it as a blog spam. 4.) RSS feeds: Try to submit your RSS feed to search engines like Google and Yahoo, or you can try to add an RSS subscription link or textbox to your site, for your visitors to subscribe and have an update to your newly posted articles, feed site directories like Feedburner and Feedblitz, provides you a tool and options for you to manage your feeds. 5.) Article Submission: Personally, I think this is the best way to earn lots of backlinks, and drive traffic to your site. This way, you donвЂ�t just get backlinks, but quality backlinks. Submitting a good quality article will boost a major amount of traffic to your site. One of the best sites to submit your article to is EzineArticles, which has been proven to be an effective way of driving traffic to your site. Bloggers and Webmasters always recommend this site for article submission. Other sites are goarticles.com, and/or squidoo.com. (Kind of like what I have done with this post here) Search Engine Optimization: Update your web site with good, new content. Search engine web "crawlers" constantly check for new content on your web site. This affects how your site ranks in natural search results. That's why I often recommend a blog strategy for most sites - each blog post has its own URL, and is an easy way to add new fresh content to your site. If you update it, you can train search engines to index your site several times a day. Tell bots how to index your site and to alert you to issues that can affect your rankings. Tools you can use include a robots.txt file (see Robots.txt.org), a Google webmasters account (Google.com/webmasters). Submit and verify your site, and then upload a sitemap. Repeat if your web site is redesigned or as it changes. You can also submit the same sitemap at Yahoo! SiteExplorer SiteExplorer.search.yahoo.com and MSN http://webmaster.live.com. Offline marketing: Taking your online knowledge and using it to make money and drive traffic from offline businesses and traffic is an absolutely wonderful thing to do. So if you have online expertise then you should take it offline and make loads of cash. Though most Internet Marketers have been aware of how the Internet works, and all the ins and outs of marketing online, most offline businesses don't have a clue. This is especially true of local businesses. To many of them, the entire Internet is a mystery. And to almost all of them, marketing on the Internet is a ix concept well beyond them. However, small businesses can really benefit from an online presence. And you, the online expert, can help them get more customers and make more money. There are two main ways that you can use your online expertise. You can offer to build a Website for local businesses, and/or you can offer to help bring more traffic to their Website. If the business already has a site, then you won't offer to create one for them. You would simply want to offer to bring more traffic to their site by optimizing their content and by using some basic SEO tactics and finally joining your website or hanging up a sign in their business with your website. If the business doesn't have their own site, then you can offer to put one up for them. By actually signing up for our affiliate program and letting us do the work for you would be the easiest way! You can either visit local related businesses in your area, or you can simply write a form letter and blast out the letters to all the local (or non local) businesses in your area. You would simply have to do a little research to see which businesses already had a Website and which businesses didn't. Then, you would have one form letter for the businesses with a Website, and for those without. You can even include in the letter that you will be calling to follow-up the letter in a few days. All you have to do is write a couple different letters with solid copy and then follow up with a friendly phone call. Before you know it, you'll have a booming offline business. Guerrilla marketing: Guerrilla marketing is pretty awesome. Getting people to talk about your website is a big deal. There are many different methods of guerrilla marketing, and we recommend that you incorporate as many of them as you can to help your site, grow and get viral traffic. This can be done by starting rumors about your site, announcing something crazy, or doing an act of craziness. Here is a list of ideas: Go to the largest airport in your area holding a sign like a limo driver would, but have your website URL on the sign. Put stickers with your website name all over town (this is illegal вЂ“ but it works.) Get your car wrapped with your website logos and names. Make shirts and other miscellaneous gear by going to this site: http://www.branders.com/ Pick the product, and upload your logo you'll be able to preview it and it is very userfriendly. Billboards - Look for available billboards and call the number listed on them. Billboards are going for cheap right now and renting a billboard for a month or two in a great location can really drive some traffic to your website and create a lot of brand recognition. x Have a small Cessna fly over a main sporting event with your website name on the back. Do an Infomercial - turn on the TV late at night and watch a couple infomercials... Learn by example. Send stickers, buttons, and branded paraphernalia all over the world to people with a small check and have them spread the word. Press Releases: A press release is a relatively inexpensive way (typically free, or close to it, depending on what you do with it) to get the word out about your business. But it is a process that many small business owners are not familiar with. First, find a newsworthy angle for your press release that, in a round-about way, is related to the product/services you provide. If youвЂ�re having a hard time coming up with a topic, check your companyвЂ�s online forum posts (or set one up if you donвЂ�t have one), which will typically lend some good ideas. Your topic needs to be something that the public would be interested in reading about irrespective of your businessвЂ� involvement. Editors and reports are not at all interested in helping your business obtain new clients and increase sales, so donвЂ�t try and sell anything. They are simply interested in providing news to the public. If your press release doesnвЂ�t provide a newsworthy angle, they wonвЂ�t release it - end of story. How do you write a press release? First, it needs to be in the third person (avoid вЂ•IвЂ– or вЂ•weвЂ–), in a journalistic and unbiased style. Before starting, familiarize yourself with quality journalistic writing from papers such as the New York Times or Washington Post, as well as the style of your local papers. When youвЂ�re ready to get started, there are five key elements to keep in mind (for a format example, please refer to The Daily Deal Builder Press Releasae): Headline - Your headline needs to catchy and attention grabbing. This is not the place to mention or make reference to your company, but to target the key element of the press release. xi Subhead - This provides a further explanation of what the press release covers. Lead - The lead is the first paragraph of your press release and covers the вЂ—who, what, where, when and howвЂ� of your story all in one. If the editor/reporter were to read this paragraph alone, they could do a little research and write the rest of the story for you, if they chose to do so. Body - The body of your press release needs to back up the claims you make with evidence. One of the strongest forms of evidence for any news story are quotes. You will want to quote common folk, as well as experts, to balance out both sides of your claim. There also needs to be, at some point in the body of your story, a short paragraph about your company (when established, what it does, why involved in this story, etc). Keep it short - no more than two or three sentences. More than that seems like a sales pitch. Indicate the end of your press release with вЂ•###,вЂ– centered. Contact Info Following the end-indicator, add a short little note for the editor/report that simply says вЂ•For more information or to schedule an interview with a company representative, please contact our office at . . .вЂ– There will be many times when you send out press releases to all local newspapers and radio stations and no one picks up your story. DonвЂ�t get discouraged. There are other ways to get the word out. So, in addition to sending a press release to the news media, you should also do the following: ALWAYS publish your press release on your website. Include links to your online press release in e-mail correspondence. Include a copy of the press release in sales correspondence (mail a copy to current clients). If your press release is published, write a letter to the editor on the topic (extra publicity). Send out a follow-up press release, with a different angle, and the original press release attached. In addition to your local news media, there are online release sites that may help in spreading the word, such as PRWeb and PRNewsWire. xii (The above information about press releases was written by Michelle Cramer for http://buzz.greatfxbusinesscards.com/.) Find JV partners to do a pro-bono blast for you. If you know of any potential joint venture partners in your niche, it would be extremely beneficial to link up with that person, and see if you can create a N.M.B relationship. N.M.B stands for Natural Mutual and Beneficial. This is the corner stone of any successful JV deal. If you don't know any JV partners you could get to mail out a recommendation your site then take a few hours and make a list of sites that have users who fit your target market. This list will be your potential partner list, and you will want to find the contact information for the owner of the site. (If it is not on the site you can use www.betterwhois.com to find the contact information) Please remember that in our training videos that you will soon have access to (or already do if you have submitted your domain name), we go over this in much more depth. In the typical JV we talk about in internet marketing your JV partners are essentially affiliates selling a product and making a commission, but when we are driving traffic to a SNS where there is nothing to buy you have to get creative to motivate the partners. So you will want to think of options to motivate your partners, such as: reciprocal mailings, free ad space, thank you page ads. This is an area where people often struggle when trying to motivate their potential partners, but don't forget they are just people, and you have a great product in the same industry as them. There is always a way to come up with a N.M.B relationship. Keep in mind that JV traffic is the most targeted traffic one can get, and putting yourself out on a limb for a potential partner could be a very wise move, and can often turn in to a long-lasting profitable relationship. For an awesome product that Hollis created, I definitely recommend to check out http://summittosuccess.com Tip: don't be afraid to looks for JV partners on other social networking sites, creating groups and building your network on sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, and some other networks available to you. xiii Create short videos to post to video sites - We show you exactly how to do this in Webinar #3, which again you will soon have access to if you donвЂ�t already. Using Daily Deal Builder For Affiliate Promotions If you donвЂ�t have any products to sell, a great thing that you can do is to become an affiliate of some products, and sell someone elseвЂ�s product. Below are various different affiliate programs that you can check out by following these links, and sign up to sell or advertise their products on your Daily Deal Builder powered website: Car enthusiasts: 1.) http://www.affiliatescout.com/automotive 2.) http://www.affiliatefirst.com/txt/Automotive/index.shtml 3.) http://www.hubcaps.org/affiliates.html Outdoor enthusiasts: 1.) http://www.affiliatewatcher.com/rough-up-your-affiliate-earnings-with-these-outdoor-merchants/ 2.) http://www.backcountrycorp.com/corporate/section/5/affiliate.html 3.) http://www.outdoorsuperstore.com/affiliate.asp Geographic based: 1.) http://www.affiliatescout.com/travel 2.) http://www.orbitz.com/App/Affiliate?z=69a4&r=1r 3.) http://www.lonelyplanet.com/about/affiliate-program Position or Company based: 1.) http://www.affiliatescout.com/careers 2.)http://www.officedepot.com/specialLinks.do?file=/companyinfo/companyfacts/affiliateprogram.js p&template=companyinfo xiv 3.) http://www.doostang.com/info/affiliate_program Age or race: 1.) http://www.affiliatescout.com 2.) http://www.affiliateprogram.com 3.) http://www.karmaloop.com/affiliates.asp College: 1.) http://www.affiliatescout.com/education/college 2.) http://www.collegegear.com/affiliate_info.asp 3.) http://www.teamfanshop.com/affiliates.htm Animals: 1.) http://www.affiliatefirst.com/txt/Family/Pets/index.shtml 2.) http://www.affiliatescout.com/family/pets-animals 3.) http://affiliates.petsmart.com/ Computer Lovers and Electronics: 1.) http://www.affiliatescout.com/computer-electronics 2.) http://www.thinkgeek.com/affiliates/ 3.) http://www.newegg.com/Info/Affiliates.aspx Gamers: 1.) http://www.gamestop.com/gs/help/affiliate.aspx 2.) http://www.affiliatescout.com/entertainment 3.) http://www.jinx.com/affiliate_info.aspx Selling Private Label Rights Products On Your Site: If you do not have a product of your own, it is very easy and profitable to visit master-resale-rights.com to find some related products. The e-books and software available on this website typically sell resale rights to great products in which you can keep 100% of the revenue. I have sold e-books in many different xv niches where I am not knowledgeable at all, and owning the master resale rights to products makes it really easy. If you pick up a related e-book, please be sure that you have the master resale rights to it and that the sales page is provided to you. You will then put the page up; if you donвЂ�t have an idea how to do this you can use my free website builder www.zezweb.com to do so. Invite code: vip. Using your Daily Deal Builder Site To Build A List: This is the first way that you are going to build your list. It is very enticing for people to enter their name and email to be notified about the new offers on your site. Every time a new product becomes available, you r subscribers will automatically be emailed. Your Daily Deal Builder website is optimized for some of the highest optin and conversion rates you can imagine. You can profit from this subscriber list by the use of follow-up emails through your website. There is not a set-in-stone number of how many emails you can send your list per week, but I would recommend to not sending more than one or two emails a week. A few very important factors to remember are that you want to promote related products, send highly valuable information, and build rapport so that your members look up to you and trust you. Do not be afraid to offer things. Become an affiliate for complimentary products that go well with your chosen niche, and promote them. You have the ability to export your users from your administrator panel as a csv file and you can upload them to another email deliverability service such as aweber.com, icontact.com, or relaycloud вЂ“ to name just a few. Some tips on sending and formatting your emails: One of the most important parts of your emails is your subject line. One of the biggest problems people have is getting their readers to OPEN the emails in the first place! Truth is, you can be promoting the best product in the world, and have the most compelling email copy possible, but if you're not writing compelling subject lines that get the emails open, all of your hard work is lost. To help you overcome this challenge, here are five tips for writing effective email subject lines that can easily double the open (and click-through) rates on your next email. Use Personalization for Added Attention xvi Ever been in a large crowd, and you suddenly hear your name being called? It doesn't matter if you're hundreds of miles away from home, and it couldn't possibly be someone calling you, you still look up automatically, without even thinking, right? Hearing your name instantly gets your attention! Now imagine how much more powerful your emails could be if your customers could "hear" their names right in the subject line. Sending out an email with a personalized subject line is the equivalent of calling someone's name in a crowd: it has that same power to grab their attention. So instead of a subject line that says something like: I have the information you're looking for! You could try something like this: Dave, I have the information you're looking for! Pretty simple, right? But it actually does work. In fact, according to a recent report by Marketing Sherpa, by writing personalized subject lines that include the first name of your customers, you can get almost TWICE as many people to open the email and click through to your offer. If you wanted to take personalization one step further, consider adding another personal detail to the subject line, like the city your customers live in (you'd need to collect that data from them, of course). Start with a subject line that looks like this: Want to get out of the city this weekend? And then, make it compelling by adding personal details: Marc, want to get out of Atlanta this weekend? The great thing is that, as long as you're collecting your visitors' first names (and any other data you think is useful), there are plenty of tools out there you can use to automatically merge their names and personal details into your emails. Keep your subject lines SHORT Here's a test: open up your email program, and take a look at the subject lines in your inbox. Are there any that stand out more than others? Any that you read first, or get you interested in learning more? Chances are it's the shorter subject lines that grab you, right? It's actually been proven that subject lines that are under 35 characters had higher opening and clickthrough rates than those with subject lines longer than 35 characters. So keep it short and sweet! You don't need to explain in detail what the email is about in the subject line, you just need to give enough information to make people want to open the email to read more. And, if you really want to increase your open and click-through rates, make sure you put your benefit, offer, or most important element right at the xvii beginning of the subject line. That way, if someone's email program cuts off the end of the subject line (which is pretty common) you'll still get your main point across. Keep the formatting simple and understated If you sent an email to a friend, asking her if she wanted to play music, would you type your subject line like this: Hey Sarah, do you want to jam on Saturday? Or how about like this: HEY SARAH!! DO YOU WANT TO JAM ON SATURDAY? It's pretty unlikely, right? So why would your emails to your customers and subscribers have subject lines that were formatted like that? The more your subject lines look like personal emails from friends, family members, or business associates, the more likely it is that they'll be opened. The more they look like spam, the less effective they'll be. So avoid capitalizing each word (or the entire subject line), and avoid exclamation marks and dollar signs, which can increase your chances of having your messages flagged as spam, and will be sure to set off warning bells with your recipients. Use a compelling "angle" to get your readers interested Of course, getting your readers to open your emails requires more than personalization and formatting. You'll still need to come up with an interesting angle that grabs your customers' attention, and makes them WANT to open the email. Here are some ideas for subject lines that I have had success with in the past: Make an announcement or share newsвЂ”people want to be the first to find out new things, especially if your site covers a specific industry. Make your reader curious about what's in your email, by suggesting they are missing out on an important offer or piece of information. When you use this technique, make sure you leave something to the imagination. For example: Paul, are you making this common mistake? Create a sense of urgency in your subject line by limiting time (вЂ•Frank, only three days leftвЂ–) or quantity (вЂ•Mary, only 250 copies availableвЂ–). Emphasize benefits. Another powerful approach for your subject line is to state how your readers will benefit from your email. If you can tell them how they're going to save money, save time, make their lives easier, etc., by opening and reading your message, you'll have the most success. Make sure your subject line relates to the content of the email xviii Nobody likes to be fooled or tricked, and deception is the wrong way to earn your customers' trust and respect, so make sure your subject line is related to your actual messages. In fact, it's a legal requirement under the CAN-SPAM Act that the subject line be authentic and not misleading. So, if your subject line says Mary, three ways to save money, you need to make sure you actually are talking about that, and preferably within the first few paragraphs. Otherwise, your visitors will feel cheated, and that will hurt your credibility. By following these simple tips for writing and formatting the subject lines for your emails, you should be able to increase your open rates and click-through rates by up to 50%, and earn even more commissions from all of your favorite affiliate products. Now as far as the body of your emails, here are a couple tips to take into account: 1.) Paragraphs should not be more than a few lines long. In our fast paced internet society today, it is harder than ever to maintain your readersвЂ� attention. Smaller paragraphs help you keep your readers interested in what you are writing about. 2.) Lines typically should not go over 10 words long. It is much easier to read an email that contains shorter lines. Go look in your inbox and you will see exactly what I mean. 3.) Putting an ellipse (вЂ¦) at the end of your paragraphs helps lead your readers into the next paragraph. When crafting your emails, you need to always be aware that attention spans are getting smaller each and every day. With that in mind, your goal is to try and lead your readers into your next paragraph by putting вЂ¦ at the end. 4.) Put your link or affiliate link in your email body at least twice. This in itself will raise your conversion rates. Typically, I write enough information to get my readers at least slightly interested, and I then put the link. Then I continue writing more information and before my signature, put another link. 5.) Post-Scripts (P.S.вЂ™s) are a great place to throw in a sense of urgency and re-iterate benefits one more time. Growth & Automation As your business grows, you will want to be careful to grow strategically and methodically. You have the ability to add Multiple locations, categories, or niche markets in your website, but we recommend to first focus on one city, or category before growing to another one. Once you see success in your first category xix or location вЂ“ it is then the best time to grow. To add multiple locations or categories in your site you can check out this screencast. A great way to encourage growth is to outsource using various tools the internet has to offer. Outsourcing Outsourcing is a brilliant move to do to expand your business and efficiency. I consider outsourcing "efficient laziness." If you are running every aspect of your online business, you are surely not being as productive, efficient, and effective in your work, and are missing out on a lot of profits and revenue. It is a strategic tool for making your business more fun, productive, and profitable; if you know when to take advantage of it, of course. Consider the following criteria when deciding whether to outsource: The activity isn't central to generating profits or competitive success. The job is a routine one that wastes valuable time and energy. The task is a need that's only temporary or that recurs in cycles. It's less expensive to have someone else do it than to do it in-house. The activity can be done cheaper in-house, but drains resources that could be better used elsewhere. The skill required is so specialized that it's impractical to have a regular employee do it. The activity isn't one that people enjoy doing. If you have the resources to outsource an activity that you do on a regular basis, and it fits in one of the above categories, it is a poor business decision not to outsource it to someone else. Outsourcing is a viable option for everything from graphics, mundane tasks, payroll, accounting, manufacturing and delivery to customer service, employee training, property management and computer services, website creation, and so on. The key advantage of outsourcing is that it enables you to invest your resources into more profitable activities. Companies, however, should be careful not to outsource functions that appear negligible, but that are actually essential, such as customer service in a small xx business that relies on building rapport with a loyal customer base. Although, you may not see immediate revenue from having superb customer service, it will surely pay off in the future for you and your business. Once you've decided to outsource a particular area, here are some tips for finding and working with a company that's right for you: Do your homework. Ask companies in your area for recommendations on good outsourcing firms, and search the Internet for a more comprehensive list of services available. Ask the companies you research to give you client references, and interview these clients to find out how reliable and flexible their services are. Use Google and the other major search engines to find viable options to outsource specific activities to. You can find off-shored companies that will do great work for you for very cheap. Just be sure that you do your research and ensure that the people have references from past customers. Select a compatible company. Choose a company that understands your needs and can accommodate them. Devise a contract that allows you to adjust the terms of the agreement to suit unforeseen changes. An arrangement that's satisfactory now may not work in the future if the company expands or competition increases. Make sure that your point of contact speaks your language. You don't want to outsource something in your business to a company that doesn't speak your language. Establish the standards you expect. Outsourcing will mean the loss of direct control and supervision, so communicating the standards of performance you expect is a must. Outline these standards in the contract in detail, and check up on the company periodically to make sure that it's doing its job correctly. Remember, to pass your standards on from the beginning and only accept top notch work. Arrange for constant communication. Schedule regular meetings with your outsourcing people to stay informed and discuss the day-to-day problems they've encountered. By staying aware of what's going on, you can prevent potential problems and improve how your business operates. ODesk.com is a great resource to use to outsource various tasks through because it monitors your workers for you. Secure insurance for emergencies. Make sure you have a backup system in place in the event that the outsourcing company can't carry through. An accounting service, for example, should provide your company with a copy of backup records or store them in a separate location. This link has a list of resources that we typically use: Also, remember to be resourceful and find various places to outsource sections of your business that make sense using the major search engines like; Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask.com. xxi Hire a Personal Assistant As a part of your Daily Deal Builder platform you have a virtual assistant free of charge to you for 1 month. To access and begin working with your virtual assistant visit here Please note: To get set up with your VA, you will have to enter your billing info, BUT you will not be billed. You will receive one month of service at 123Employee absolutely free. After a month you will be billed unless you cancel. There are no contracts and you can cancel whenever you like. Hiring my first in house assistant has dramatically increased my efficiency and effectiveness. To hire an assistant, you can simply use craigslist.com and post up your ad. Here is the ad that I posted up to find my all star assistant. You will, of course, want to use your own story, and your own personal needs and requirements. If youвЂ�re ready to move beyond a prior role as an Executive Assistant to C-level executive(s) and looking for something a bit more flexible and a LOT more fun вЂ“ this could be your ideal position. IвЂ�m a 3+ year serial entrepreneur looking for a truly exceptional Executive Assistant to help me organize, streamline and manage my business (& sometimes personal) life. First, a few qualifiers and a little background. I work out of my house, so there is no beautiful office building with a corner suite. If you like coming into an office and need the interaction that comes with that - this is not the position for you. I get my own coffee and am pretty self-sufficient which is why IвЂ�ve hesitated for so long to hire an Executive Assistant for so long. I work out of the house to spend more time doing what I want to. Previously IвЂ�ve only worked with virtual assistants and independent contractors to run my internet company - but now looking for more help locally. IвЂ�m in Decatur, GA, so you need to be driving distance because IвЂ�d want you to drop in 2 вЂ“ 3x/week for quick meetings. However, most of the work would be done in your own home so you have a lot of flexibility for hours and how you prefer to work. Now this also means you must be incredibly self sufficient, independent and proactive. This is an unusual, diverse and highly flexible role that will suit someone with outstanding intelligence, dedication and work standards. You should be able to find answers on your own, and be resourceful in being able to get things done. WhatвЂ�s more, you must display the following critical competencies: efficiency, integrity, excellent written and verbal communication skills, organization and planning, follow-through on commitments, intelligence, analytical skills, attention to detail and persistence. (In fact, I have left several mispellings in here for you. Please provide the total number of typos in this ad along with your cover letter when you apply.) xxii In addition, you must be able to quickly jump from one task to another. One day you could be helping organize a seminar for 400 people and the next you could be working on setting up a teleseminar with one of our partners. Or another day finds you dealing with mundane tax forms and later in the week itвЂ�s managing a subscribrer newsletter from conception to completion. Major functions of this position include: Keeping, maintaining and proactively setting calendar/schedule. Arranges travel including reservations, trip agendas, hotel accommodations and trip follow up and post trip activities Keeping multitude of websites updated and current. You do not need HTML knowledge but simply to stay on top of adding/correcting items like testimonials, corrected dates, #s of units remaining, etc. with our tech team. Handling approximately 70-75% of daily email and mail correspondence. Assists with meeting preparation including gathering documentation, doing research, coordinating attendees Completes projects and special assignments by establishing objectives; determining priorities; managing time; gaining cooperation of others; monitoring progress; problem-solving; making adjustments to plans. Improves quality results by studying, evaluating, and re-designing processes; implementing changes. Assists in streamlining work processes and helps to create written processes and systems. Follows up on communication with team and external contacts Follows up on owners action points from meetings and calls Schedules conference calls and manages telephone calls as necessary Manages special projects as assigned Research for books, articles and speeches Preparation of reports and presentations Essential attributes include: Experience in a demanding environment Perfection (or almost!) in all work and extreme attention to detail. Proactive task completion and system creation. Excellent at meeting or exceeding deadlines. Thorough experience with project management Quick on the uptake вЂ“ donвЂ�t need to be given explicit directions for each and every detail. Excellent organization skills Very good writing ability and communication skills Ability to self-start and work highly independently, most of the time from home Adaptable, easy-going and collaborative Requirements Excellent Administrative Skills Self starter, Self learner, able to work independently Detail oriented Highly organized and flexible; expert at organizing others Comfortable providing feedback Ability to remain flexible and to meet deadlines Ability to multitask Continuously strives to improve work processes Strong work ethic Proficient with Microsoft Office xxiii To apply please email a 1-page cover letter explaining why you are the perfect candidate along with your resume and salary history. Please email to [email protected]. A very wise decision is to automate your Daily Deal Builder powered website in advance, so you can set it and work on more important components, such as driving traffic. To do this, you can simply set up your offers in advance, and put your auto-responder in place in advance so that you donвЂ�t need to do anything but get people to promote your site and work on growing your sites audience. Further down the road, you may want to sell your websiteвЂ¦ How to sell your Daily Deal Builder Website While you will be loaded with questions and unknown variables when ultimately you decide to sell your website, it can be like winning a jackpot and a big change to your life. You might have been building your web business for years, constantly working on it day after day, and night after night. When it finally sells, you obtain a (hopefully) big cash injection and move on to new projects, feeling renewed and excited about your future prospects. But, before this can happen, you have to make the sale, which in and of itself is a tricky task. By no means should you consider this a hard and fast set of rules, but it should give you some guidelines. Bear in mind that there are many ways you can go about the process, and you should explore all your options before deciding to sell. How Much Is Your Site Worth? Your site is worth as much as someone is willing to give you for it. Simple answer, really, but I know that doesnвЂ�t help when you go out advertising a site for sale, and everyone is asking how much you want for it, and you donвЂ�t know what to say. You donвЂ�t want to undercut yourself, especially after years of hard work, but then again, you are selling a website. вЂ•Virtual propertyвЂ–вЂ”it just seems a little bit strange, doesnвЂ�t it? ThatвЂ�s what my parents told me after I told them I was selling one of my sites. вЂ•YouвЂ�re selling a website?!?вЂ– вЂ•Yeah.вЂ– вЂ•But a website isnвЂ�t anything. Who the heck will give you money for it?вЂ– вЂ•ItвЂ�s complicated, Mom.вЂ– xxiv вЂ•Ahh, okay, well, umm, thatвЂ�s nice dearвЂ¦вЂ– As with traditional businesses, website businesses, or even just hobby sites that bring in money, itвЂ�s hard to determine a selling price. What you need to consider is what you will be content to walk away with, and what the records tell you. Other variables that will come in to play are the industry in which your site operates (competition, as well), how much labor and technical skill is required to manage the site, the costs (hosting, marketing, staff, etc), whether the business is on the rise and how fast, the future potential, and whether the industry is a buyers or sellers market (supply vs. demand). ThatвЂ�s only part of the process, as well. Some people will tell you a business should be sold for ten times its gross profit, or five times average revenue, or twice last yearвЂ�s total revenue. EBizBrokers state that generally an e-business website is worth three to six times earnings before interest and tax, so if your website profits are $100,000 you have an asset worth $300,000. Your site is worth as much as someone is willing to give you. You will have a special personal consideration to think of as well, as you are not going to want your site to go to just anybody. It has to go to someone that would look after it, and keep the dream alive. You most likely do not want an overseas buyer to absorb the site into their business, and lose the great community that you have created. The new owners need to share the passion you currently have and hopefully take the site to new heights. In the end though, you may in fact take anything, if all options to find good owners are exhausted. You want to walk away with something for your hard work, even if it means the site will die a slow death under new management. Preparing To Sell The more information you can provide to potential buyers, the better. Raw statistics are especially important to most buyers, and if they donвЂ�t ask you for certain numbers, then they donвЂ�t know what they are doing and are probably not really interested. You should at least prepare these figures: Your website traffic statistics: Unique visitors, Averages, and Totals Page views: Averages and Totals Growth rates over time In which countries your visitors/members reside xxv How much traffic comes from search engines and direct bookmarks Which keywords your site is popular for, and the Page Rank of your site You may want to make available a direct access to your log files with a statistics package like Awstats or Webalizer so serious buyers can get a good grasp on your siteвЂ�s performance. Your financial figures If you run a proper business, then you should have your financial figures in some form of accounting package. The profit and loss statement is a popular choice for potential buyers, but of course, the more data you can provide the better. You need a good sales spiel email letter introducing your website and you, your siteвЂ�s history, why you want to sell your site, what your site offers to the new owner (current financial and future potential) and any other important factors. DonвЂ�t give away your asking price up front but certainly make note of the important factors, such as traffic figures and if your site is profitable. Finding Buyers Once you have decided a rough figure you would be happy with, you can head out and find buyers and see how much demand there is. With the two to three times revenue figure firmly planted in your mind as a goal to work for, you can now go off to find a buyer. Searching Your Industry The initial thought is to find a local buyer in your home country, interested in the same things that you are. I believe that the best place to start will be the retail outlets that sold products that your market is using. ItвЂ�s time to email all the stores that you can find contact details for, some of which you may already have established relationships with, because they will have advertised on your site. You should also email some of the largest overseas online stores and websites that should at least be notified that you are looking for a buyer, to get some interest going. When you first head out to find buyers, you should look to contact individuals that will understand the value of your site because they will be the easiest to sell to (they wonвЂ�t need to be вЂ•taughtвЂ– about your marketplace). They will also be the most excited about the prospect because, most likely, they already sell to the same target market, and you will be bringing them a lot of potential new customers. xxvi Searching Outside Your Industry Once you search locally with no success, you might want to try and search simply for a buyer looking for a website. This could be a web entrepreneur that sees the potential in your site, or simply someone interested in running a website and would prefer to buy one rather than build from scratch. Obviously, with this method you are going to have to do more explaining if the potential buyer doesnвЂ�t understand your industry, and even worse, if they donвЂ�t understand website hosting at all, you will have a lot of technical training to do if they buy it. You will also need a really good sales pitch and the numbers (financial details) will count for a lot more, since that might be the only part of your web business the buyer will understand. There are a handful of online places you can try and sell your site. EBayвЂ�s Business/Websites for sale section is a popular choice, but remember, eBay is an auction so the negotiation and haggling is all automated. Your auction listing page will have to be very good to get a good price and you will be very much at the whimsy of eBayвЂ�s traffic which might not be ideal for what you are selling. A better option is try a few forums, like the SitePoint or SiteSell area where you can list your site for sale, and get some exposure. The best thing about this is, you can go in and search the archives to see what other sites have sold for in the past. By comparing the details of previous sales, you can get a feel for what your site might sell for. Also, try hunting around in other forums such as SearchEngineForums, buy my website and businesses for sale/brokerage sites such as BusinessBroker, BuySellWebsite and eBizBrokers, to drum up some interest in your sale and conduct research. Making the Sale Eventually, you should find someone interested in your site and the negotiation will begin. As with any negotiation, the mindset and вЂ•state of urgency,вЂ– of the buyer and seller play key roles in determining who has the upper hand. If the buyer is not desperate or the seller is then the power can rest in the buyers hands and he/she can dictate the terms and price. Of course, it can be the other way around with the buyer very eager and the seller not so desperate, or any combination. Each case is different, but as a seller, remember: Stick to your guns, and donвЂ™t sell unless you are happy with the terms. No regrets. In my case, I had my set price in mind but I was also new to selling websites so to be honest I was a little star struck to think about the numbers I could get from my site. In the end I presented my price, we negotiated terms and that we were both happy with. We agreed on details such as where the site would be hosted, how long I would make myself available to train the new owners and the transfer of ownership xxvii record changes. It took about three months for the new owners to get the hang of things and for about a year after the sale I would jump in and help now and then with technical matters. When finalizing the details of the sale I suggest you keep in mind these points: 1.) How and when will the money be transferred? I suggest an upfront partial payment (we did 50%) and a final payment once the transfer has been made. Are you going to use check? Direct bank wire? Cash in hand? 2.) Write up some form of formal contract with dates and agreed upon price and have all parties sign it. Of course, if you are completing a high dollar deal then get yourself a lawyer to make sure you stay on top of the legal concerns. 3.) Define how long you will provide support. I chose to make myself available for a long time and even today I still help out occasionally. You might want to play it safe and document the mandatory period that you must provide support. 4.) Stay on top of all the technical little things. Web business is a complicated task and there are a lot of web tools that you might be using and have even forgot about. DonвЂ�t forget web hosting, domain names, auto-responders, mailing lists, software, subscriptions, paid directory listings and any of the host elements that might be used by your web business that you need to transfer to the new owners. Any Daily Deal Builder site owner that sells their license of Daily Deal Builder to another person or entity will be required to contact HC Consulting Group and alert HC Consulting Group to the buy-out. A fee of 10% of the sales price will be paid to HC Consulting Group by the original site owner. The new owner will take over the monthly hosting account payments as well as any other paid services that are provided by HC Consulting Group. Those service fees will be paid directly from the new entity to HC Consulting Group. Moving Forward Post Sale YouвЂ�re all smiles, your pockets are filled with cash, and the world is a wonderful place. Now donвЂ�t screw it up and blow all your money on partying too hard, stupid investments or some pyramid schemes. YouвЂ�ve learnt what it takes to build a web business and sell it. No doubt you would like to do it again, and you have more business ideas to test. Remember how hard it was first time round with no capital available? You had to bootstrap your business, provide your own funding or beg family/friends/the bank for funds. Now you have capital which you can use and invest wisely. Sure celebrate a little, have some xxviii fun and enjoy the moment, but remember you didnвЂ�t get to where you are by wasting money, and youвЂ�re not about to start wasting it now. LetвЂ™s Get Started Now itвЂ�s time to get started. Please re-visit your download and move to the next step. Remember, if you need support вЂ“ please visit our support suite by going to http://support.hcdesk.com and or calling us 1-800-794-7192at one of our team members will respond within 24 hours. Go back and re-read this manual as many times as you need to, so that the information becomes second nature to you. Once your website is up and running you will have access to further in-depth coaching. We thank you again for your purchase and look forward to seeing your site take off! Make moves today! Hollis Carter & Marc Horne HC Consulting Group, LLC xxix