Mark's N-POD Journal
30 days to N-POD success!

In this lesson we got our first taste of the X-Factor, and how the X-Factor will outperform your competitors by building solid relationships with your customers (your list).

X-Factor = the bond & relationship you create between yourself and your list.

Like a brick and mortar business we have to treat our customers like customers, it’s tough because we forget that the person on the other side of the Opt In or sale is a person because you never actually see them. Like any business without good customer skills we will lose them.

Losing a customer is more than getting an Opt out or no sale its loosing the life time value of that customer.

The value of a customer can be looked at like this. The average paying customer will purchase from you 3 times a year, if the price point of the purchase is $50 that’s $150 dolors a year. Add to that the average customer will be faithful to you as a vender for 3 to 5 years. On the short side the life time value in this example is around $450.  If your price points are higher and your customers push the 5 year mark than the life time value can be much higher for just one customer. This in and of itself is worth holding on to that customer, who couldn’t use an extra $450.

We will wrap this up in part 2 of the X-Factor

Until next time

Mark

Part 2, we finished up on the ”creating your own N-Pod Pied Piper Effect” basically we touched on more offline advertising methods, everything from flyers, T-Shirts and bumper stickers to direct mail response.

Being in affiliate marketing I would have never even thought of an off line campaign for marketing however some pretty compelling arguments were made for doing so.

For the home work part of the lesson we are to research off line methods of advertising and create a media strategy. I know I said in my last Blog Entry I would be primarily be sticking with online advertising but will consider a small amount of off line ads to at least test them out. If off line marketing works out I will add it to my daily routine.

That was pretty much it for part 2, the next lesson starts the X-Factor and is supposed to be exciting and will set my N-Pod in a league of its own.

Until next time

Mark

Part 1, today we were introduced to the Media Factor the 6^th factor in the 11 step N-Pod creation. Using a media graph we looked at time vs. money for the advertising of your N-Pod.

 Put pretty simply the more money you spend on advertising the less effort you will spend in time and vice versa.

Before I go on there was no talk of SEO (search engine optimization)in the Lesson.  I am very big on SEO and will be employing the SEO Tactics I have learned over time. SEO is not a quick method of getting traffic to your website but in the long run if you understand how SEO works it’s the cheaper and more reliable source of traffic out there. A perfect example of the results of good SEO are to go to http://www.google.com/ put the words “free traffic tycoon” in the search box and click search. You will find my website www.ashland-marketing.info/freetraffictycoon on the first page every time and it was virtually free to have it there. For more on SEO click here. Ok I am all done with SEO.

So as you can see I will be implementing SEO, I will also be using PPC (pay per click)advertising  to get the site around the internet using my search word keywords.

There was a part of the media graph that covered off line marketing (news papers and TV) but I will primarily be using online tactics for now. I have set up and started two PPC campaigns and will monitor them as we go through the rest of the lessons.

Until next time

Mark

Part 2, I had a few things in place so this was a little easy but it still took me two and a half days to complete.

The first thing I did was to register my domain name, because I am building my N-Pod around 3d Art I did a Google search for the term 3D Art and found that “animation software” was searched for 45,000 time last month so I named my URL http://www.3d-animationsoftware.info/. I know we were not supposed to use anything but a .com but my partner John and researched this extensively and found no difference between .com and .info click here to see.

 After that we were supposed to research a data base responder or email auto responder but since I already use Aweber (an all in one email auto responder service) all I had to do was to create a new list for the Opt in.

The next step was to find a tech head to assist in building the N-Pod or webpage where the N-Pod was parked on the internet. I am a self proclaimed geek (tech head) and was able to take all the information from the previous lessons and create an N-Pod myself.

I do recommend finding a tech head if you are not familiar with putting together a website as this can be frustrating even for me sometimes. At least have a tech head on speed dial and a newer copy of Dream Weaver (a website builder) on hand when starting out, you’ll be glad you did and even if you end up building your N-Pod yourself you’ll like it that much more.

The only thing left for lesson #8 is to add a few emails to the auto responder and let the N-Pod do the work while I relax. (no relaxing) not yet at least.

Until next time

Mark

This lesson was broken into two parts the first of which was about tracking and contact management. Again I am going to refer to my own Opt in page; on the Opt in page you will see my Opt in Box.  Once someone “Opts in” (gives me there information) their name, email address and whatever information they put in the fields is added to my data base where I can easily manage the list of names. With my list I can send out prewritten emails or send out a broadcast to my email address whenever I want.

The lesson makes the whole email and data tracking process sound difficult; trust me it does not have to be. There are several good email services for a monthly fee that will store and take care of all your Opt ins and Opt outs, the Opt out feature is in place to prevent spamming and they will even manage that too. I personally use Aweber for all of my email campaigns they make it so easy I forget they are there, at least until the bill comes but it’s pretty inexpensive.

Having your email service set up properly allows you to be able to set a string of emails to be sent at predetermined times. For example I have from the same Opt In box mentioned above 17 emails that will automatically be sent out each being sent every 4 days. This means that for the 68 days to follow after someone signs up for my offer I will make contact with that person every 4 days for two months.  Each Email has different content and a different message but all with the same goal, keeping contact with my customers. This is the forcing your N-Pod to do the work while you relax part.   

The second part of the lesson was choosing a domain name for your N-Pod. It was covered that some consideration should be given to the name of your N-Pod for instance I am building an N-Pod around animation and computer animation so my name should reflect that. What was not covered is the use of the most popular key words for my website name. Before I purchased a domain name I used Google’s Key Word tool to search my keywords (computer animation) what I found was that the words animation software was searched for 50% more than computer animation and as a result I used animation software in my URL’s name. Using your keywords in the title of your web name adds to the search ability of your website.

Until next time

Mark