Sales Letter Landing Pages are traditional direct response sales letters that are used to maximize the conversion rate for a paid, usually credit-card-required offer for a paid information product. These same letters are often used in email and postal direct marketing programs.
We are happy to announce the release of more free content. Yes, now everyone will have access to content formerly part of the members only Mequoda Library.
One of the most popular topics searched at Mequoda.com is “Landing Page Templates”. In particular, our landing page reviews have become timeless guidelines for creating successful landing pages. Over the last five years, the Mequoda Research team has reviewed over 40 sales letter landing pages using the 12 essential elements set out in the Mequoda Sales Letter Landing Page Scorecard. … Continue Reading »
Marketplace landing pages are the gateways to sales
A landing page is any webpage where a willing buyer and seller can start a transaction. It’s the first page on your website where a visitor enters the ordering process.
A dedicated landing page is an indispensable part of your online marketing campaign. It is dedicated to converting traffic. It’s only reason for being, is to get that order. … Continue Reading »
Glossary Index landing pages capture user’s interest with specific terminology
A landing page is the first page a user sees when entering your site, and a user can enter and “land” almost anywhere. Therefore, every page on your website is a potential landing page, even the glossary index.
The glossary index landing page, as the name suggests, is a glossary on a website that lists dictionary-like definitions of words, phrases or concepts. … Continue Reading »
Landing Page Optimization: The value of A/B split testing for increasing response
This publisher’s “winning” titles routinely generate 50 percent more sales than the “losing” titles.
It was enough to make an experienced copywriter groan…
I have more than 25 years of experience as a direct response copywriter, but I recently had a rude awakening when the title I wrote for a paid report lost an A/B split test by a wide margin.
Here’s the story, with a few minor details changed to protect the victor’s identity: … Continue Reading »
From the desk of Don Nicholas — Managing Partner, Mequoda Group, LLC
Discover the Revolutionary Internet Marketing System That Can Double Your Online Revenues Every 12 Months
Dear Colleague:
In August 1999, Rosemary Gardner* was a successful author, newspaper columnist and newsletter publisher. At age 47, she had worked long and hard to be recognized as an expert in the field of gardening — and to make a good living doing what she loved.
Rosemary was terrified the Internet would spoil it all.
From what she had read — her beloved books, newspapers and newsletters were all going to be replaced in a matter of years by the Internet — a vast offering of information that would soon be available for free to every man, woman and child in America.
She asked me what she should do to protect her life and her livelihood?
“Embrace the Internet,” I told her. “Use your knowledge of gardening and reputation to build a new media empire that is platform agnostic — one that can prosper even if print dies, one that does not rely on any single medium, channel, publisher or partner to build your brand and marketing your information products.”
“Take control of your publishing future by building direct relationships with your most loyal customers,” I told her.
Today, Rosemary owns a $75-million niche media empire that is highly profitable.
The Internet did not destroy Rosemary’s life.
To the contrary, the Internet is the nexus of Rosemary’s media empire.
Her email newsletter, Gardens Daily, ended 2005 with 2.7-million opt-in subscribers in 41 countries. While her email newsletter is free, the average Gardens Daily subscriber spent $25.48 direct-to-publisher on Gardens Media Group books, newsletters, memberships and tours in 2005. In addition, Gardens Media Group sold another 235, 403 hard cover books at retail bookstores and garden shops generating $5.9M in retail sales in 2005 and exposing Gardens Media Group to thousands of new customers.
A Mequoda Marketing Parable: Rosemary Gardner is a composite case study based on the 35 clients we’ve taught the Mequoda Marketing System over the past 12 years and the hundreds of publishers we’ve interviewed over the past three years for the Mequoda Daily & Library.
How Rosemary transformed her book and newsletter into a $75-million media empire is a process I’ve been studying, testing, refining and teaching publishers since 1995.
We call the process the Mequoda Marketing System.
Mequoda Marketing System Facts:
The Mequoda Marketing System is business model agnostic and can be used to sell information products, generate highly targeted advertising inventory or both.
The Mequoda Marketing System is massively scalable for any B2C or B2B publishing operation where there is a clearly identifiable group of like-minded individuals. Media entrepreneurs routinely use the system to double their online revenues year after year for several consecutive years.
Through hundreds of interviews, we’ve identified just 51 publishers who use the Mequoda Marketing System and average between $18 and $90 in online revenues per free email subscriber per year. We’ve identified one publisher who went from no online revenues in 1998 to $110-million in 2005 using the system.
Since 1995, we’ve taught the Mequoda Marketing System to 35 publishers. One large consumer publisher that was in a steady-decline during the late 1990s, embraced the system in 1999 and in 2005 topped $190-million in total information product revenues — a whopping 16-percent increase over 2004.
The Mequoda Marketing System is software and operating system independent. It is a set of seven business strategies that when practiced as a system, form an Internet-centric, audience-driven, database marketing system that can be operated by one person or a small team of marketing and publishing professionals.
How can you learn about and implement the Mequoda Marketing System?
1. Making Money Online Private Seminar & Workshop
In just one day, I’ll teach you the seven business strategies that make up the Mequoda Marketing System and I’ll scope the time, budget and resources that would be required to implement the system. We’ll build a simple three-year business model that will forecast revenues, costs and profits that you could expect the system to produce for your organization.
2. Mequoda Marketing System Training & Support
At your and my option, we can enter into a six to 12 month coaching relationship, where we will work on:
Exploring the information needs of your target audience
Creating a detailed version of our business forecast
Choosing topics for your email newsletter
Selecting sources to build email circulation
Setting your editorial and promotional contact frequency
Prioritizing your information product development efforts
Creating job descriptions and hiring required staff
Planning, executing and evaluating your first marketing campaigns
Communicating with staff, management, directors and investors
3. Mequoda Marketing System Architecture & Design
The Mequoda Marketing System Design Team, led by Aimee Graeber & Michael Phillips, can scope, architect, write, and design a complete Mequoda Marketing System and Website Network for your organization that may include:
A Mequoda Internet Hub and a high-frequency Mequoda email newsletter to serve as the 24/7 nexus of your integrated customer acquisition and database marketing efforts.
Multiple free information products, Rapid Conversion Landing Pages and Up Sell Order Flows to drive your email newsletter subscription acquisition efforts using both free and Paid Media sources.
Information product marketplace with multiple dedicated Product Marketing Websites and Subscription Marketing Websites and their associated Sales Letter Landing Pages and Up Sell Order Flows.
Information Product Catalog Marketing Website with multiple information product category pages, product pages and high-performance shopping cart with quick-shop functionality.
Classified Marketing Websites and Lead Generation Websites to connect buyers and sellers of products and services inside your user community.
Membership Websites to offer your audience a searchable, in-depth library of answers to their on-demand questions and a place to share information and inspiration with other members of the user community.
Explore how you can double your online revenues every 12 months:
I am available to teach Making Money Online privately 12 times a year or about once a month. We’ll spend three hours in the morning teaching you and your team the seven Mequoda Marketing System best practices and sharing in-depth examples of how other publishers use the system to double their online revenues every 12 months.
Then in the afternoon, we’ll explore exactly how the Mequoda Marketing System can work for you. We’ll walk the whole process on starting and running a Mequoda Marketing System including a three-year business forecast using the Mequoda Internet Marketing Model which will be yours to keep at the end of the day.
Then you and your team can decide how to proceed:
Engage me and the Mequoda Team to help you launch a Mequoda Marketing System that can double your online revenues every 12 months… or
Chalk the day up to an interesting educational experience and be done.
To apply for a private presentation of Making Money Online, email or call Julie Ottomano, our Consulting Services Manager. If you and Julie agree that your organization and ours can benefit from the day, Julie will schedule a FREE 30-minute conference call with me to discuss your online opportunities, organizational needs and information marketing strategies.
I encourage you to join Rosemary Gardner and the elite group of media entrepreneurs who have embraced the Internet and are now generating 20, 30, 40 or 50-percent of their revenues on the Internet.
You can double your online revenues every 12 months using the Mequoda Marketing System just as dozens of other savvy publishers have done before you.
I look forward to hearing from you.
All the best,
Don Nicholas
Managing Partner
Mequoda Group, LLC
PS: If you’re the type of person who wants to do lot’s of research before reaching out for help, consider buying the Making Money Online Video Seminar. It’s the next best thing to having me as your personal Internet marketing coach.
PPS: Still not yet convinced that you can double your online revenues every 12 months? Then consider these comments made by some of the Internet’s most successful publishers and authors:
Ask the Builder currently sells about 400 e-books and 200 checklists monthly, ranging in price from $6.95 to $47. This is equal to nearly $1,000 in daily sales of downloadable content.
“The Internet has completely turned upside down the old publishing model where the publishers made all the money and the writers had no power. Now, writers can instantly become publishers, and they need to do that. Anybody can be a publisher on the Internet. And if you take your time and publish really good content, it will be found. Most people don’t want to work. So if you decide to put your nose to the grindstone and you pick a niche and become the expert in that niche, it will pay off. There is just so much opportunity out there. There is this never-ending conveyor belt of people who need to learn about things. They don’t have a clue what to do. Find out where those markets are, where people need information and tap into it.”
— Tim Carter, Author and Publisher, Ask the Builder
Agora Financial Group, powered by the 500,000 circulation The Daily Reckoning, generated 73 percent of its total annual revenue online in 2005, primarily by selling print products linked to DailyReckoning.com.
“We actually think of DailyReckoning.com as an e-communication website. It is the ‘front door’ through which all our business activity passes.”
— Addison Wiggins, Publisher and Editorial Director, The Daily Reckoning
Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the 25-year best-selling Guerrilla Marketing series, said it best in an interview in How to Become Both Published and Profitable:
“Someone once asked me how much I made for my first Guerilla Marketing book. The answer I gave was $10 million… The book, itself, only paid me about $35,000 in royalties, but the speaking engagements, spin-off books, newsletters, columns, boot camps, consulting, and wide open doors resulted in the remaining $9,965,000.”
— Jay Conrad Levinson, Author, Guerrilla Marketing
For GoalsGuy Learning Systems, Inc., the Internet and search engine optimization are key to driving revenue and profit growth.
“We sell a lot of products. This just happened two days ago. We had a human resources executive for a large oil company who was looking for some material to teach their employees. As a result of searching the words ‘goal setting’ they came to our site, asked us to overnight a package, and anywhere from 30,000 to 40,000 books will be sold as a result. And that’s not a fluke.”
— Gary Ryan Blair, Author and Publisher, Goals Guy Leaning Systems
Some six million visitors per year show up on the Cook’s Illustrated website which has been the primer driver to grow Cook’s Illustrated paid circulation to more than 700,000 and facilitates the sales of more than 40 branded information products.
“We feel the publishing business is increasingly becoming a database business. Ultimately, that’s how we view the business side of what we do. But we don’t view our various businesses as separate universes. We have a single database of people with a strong interest in cooking. It’s a large database with lots of names from lots of sources, and we have lots of ways of sorting through them.”
— Chris Kimball, Publisher and Editor, Cook’s Illustrated
Schedule a 30-minute call with Don today!
Our Mequoda consulting team led by Don Nicholas provides coaching to some of the most prestigious publishers in the industry. We provide our clients with a plan for online success.
Using the Mequoda Method, which is a system derived from decades of experience working with publishers, we are well versed in turning single print brands into multiplatform online publishing empires. To do this, we conduct usability tests, provide in-depth project plans, do keyword research, brainstorm product ideas and editorial schedules, train your staff, and provide unrivaled research and best practices.
We are proud to say that we’re one of the most sought-after consulting groups in online publishing.
Contact us for more information and to schedule a FREE 30-minute conference call with Don Nicholas to discuss your online opportunities, organizational needs and information marketing strategies.
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The key to creating successful sales letter landing pages is writing keyword-rich copy that Google ranks highly
Uploading a sales letter landing page to a website without regard to search engine optimization is a sure way to not be found. No matter how great the content, if Internet users can’t find it, it does not exist for them. … Continue Reading »
How to keep smart shoppers happy and provide them with a thorough, yet user-friendly online shopping experience. Normally, we don’t recommend shopping carts to our users, because we see the highest conversion rate on sales letter landing pages. However, we realize that many publishers have too large of an inventory and feel that shopping carts work for them. That’s why today we’re talking about shopping cart optimization. … Continue Reading »
Paid media programs balance your Internet marketing system
While patience is a required virtue for earned media programs, paid media programs offer the Mequoda Marketing System operator the opportunity for quick results with a reasonable ROI (return on investment). Each of these programs involves finding and buying traffic by spending money to buy advertising, leads or lists. … Continue Reading »
The same high quality copywriting and design elements can be used for online, email and postal mail sales pitches.
Multiplatform publishing in the 21st century means offering users many products on many platforms, and using the Internet to recycle, reuse and republish information in many different formats.
This involves taking the same information and turning it into any format a user could possibly want—from e-books to streaming video to email newsletters. Publishers not only save on material costs, but the same information is being cheaply repackaged and sold in a multitude of formats to maximize customer satisfaction and revenue. … Continue Reading »
Sales letter landing pages pre-date the Internet in that they resemble traditional direct response sales letters.
A sales letter landing page is a conversion landing page. Its objective is to convert the casual visitor into a paid customer.
Sales letter landing pages are traditional direct response sales letters designed to maximize the conversion rate for a paid product. Often, the very same sales letter landing page, with minor but significant modifications, can be used in both email and postal direct marketing programs. … Continue Reading »
Glossary and directory landing pages succeed when they provide users the information they seek—either a definition or a link to an article or product.
A glossary landing page, as the name suggests, is a glossary on a website that lists dictionary-like definitions of words, phrases or concepts.
Glossary landing pages attract traffic and include conversion architecture that urges users to subscribe or engage in some other transaction. Like the article landing page, the objective of the glossary landing page is to capture the user’s interest in the editorial content and lead him to a transaction. … Continue Reading »
You’ll write strong, engaging headlines when you use proven power words
The ideal headline for your sales letter landing page, print ad or email promotion is a statement of your product’s unique selling proposition or the promise that it’s going to satisfy a need or solve a problem.
The headline is an advertisement for an advertisement. It must grab the reader’s attention with such force that she can’t resist reading the next sentence. … Continue Reading »
A membership website is a user driven, content-based website satellite that generates the majority of its revenues from user access fees. This website business model is similar to a book club, professional association or user group that accepts little or no advertising, relying primarily on user support. … Continue Reading »
Mequoda views Internet Hubs as one of the most important website archetypes available to a publisher. Without a well-designed, well-marketed Internet Hub, an online publisher is forced to rely on other websites and other media to drive targeted website traffic. … Continue Reading »
Some say “it’s the first page someone sees on your site”. Others say “it’s a webpage viewed after clicking a link in an email.”
We’ve also heard it referred to as “a specific page a visitor reaches after clicking a search engine listing” or “a location a user is directed to or ends up at after clicking on a link or typing in a command.”
Every good wordsmith approaches the task of writing a little differently. Some writers start with an outline or by making copious notes. Others write numerous disparate paragraphs at non-stop speed and then revisit their first draft, cutting and pasting to arrange them in a “logical” order. Still others agonize over the lead or headline and feel compelled to get them perfect before they can write a single second sentence. … Continue Reading »
The Taguchi method of landing page testing identifies the following factors or variables that are worth testing on any given landing page: … Continue Reading »
In our NicheADay.com Landing Page Review we examined an information product designed for opportunity-seekers. That’s a large and ever-changing market niche comprised of would-be business owners.
These are people who are dissatisfied with their jobs, or have recently become unemployed, and suddenly decide to go into business for themselves. They may suddenly embrace the “American Dream” of being self-employed and start what they hope will become a profitable business. They even call themselves entrepreneurs. One of my mentors, Michael Gerber, calls that “having an entrepreneurial seizure.” … Continue Reading »
With the demand for information about illness and health, it’s not surprising that many physicians and traditional publishers have teamed up to begin online newsletters that address these issues. Many of these publications are highly specialized and focus on a single topic or ailment.
Others take a shotgun approach and attempt to address the public’s infolust across a wide spectrum of disease prevention, physical ailments and medical remedies. The wider editorial focus that targets a greater number of potential subscribers at a relatively lower price point has a different revenue model from the smaller niche, higher price newsletter. And it creates a special problem for the newsletter marketer and copywriter. … Continue Reading »
The first thing you need to have to create great landing pages is a basic understanding of the seven types of landing pages used by Internet marketing professionals. With that in mind, we think your odds of increasing landing page conversion rates will definitely improve. … Continue Reading »
What both types of CEOs have in common is the need for someone to execute their Internet marketing strategy on a day-to-day basis. Enter the Internet Marketing System General Manager and Publisher of your Mequoda Internet Hub. … Continue Reading »
EarlyToRise.com Pays Homage to Benjamin Franklin by Making its Owners Wealthy. Twenty-first Century Publishers Take Note: There is Wisdom in Adopting this Business Model
Financial independence has many rewards beyond the monetary. Or so I would like to believe. In the case of Michael Masterson, who prior to reaching age 40 sold a $135 million business and retired, one of the rewards is a bully pulpit on which to pontificate about anything and everything to anyone who will listen. Or more precisely, anyone who is willing to subscribe to his free email newsletter and read it. … Continue Reading »
What criteria would four of America’s most successful copywriters use to create better sales letter landing pages? And how would 26 landing pages from a variety of large and small publishers and authors hold up under their intense scrutiny?
Over the past 12 months, John Clausen, Peter A. Schaible, Robert W. Bly and Peter J. Fogel have used a list of 12 guidelines designed to increase landing page conversion rates to critique 26 successful (and a few not-so-successful) sales letter landing pages for a variety of books, magazines and newsletters for Mequoda’s Creating Landing Pages That Sell. … Continue Reading »
Discover how one publisher was able to increase landing page conversion rates 23 and 27 percent by re-purposing his direct mail sales letter copy. … Continue Reading »
After 11 years of website design testing, I’m still amazed at the long list of simple website design changes that can increase click-through rates overnight. With a simple advertising design change, one publisher I know recently doubled his information product sales by implementing a design change to increase click-through rates. … Continue Reading »
My brother-in-law, Randy, is always amazed at the website design elements I test when creating new sales letter landing pages. He thinks, that after running the test once or twice or a 100 times, I should just know the answer. When I’m trying to increase landing page conversion rates, there are times when I conclude that I know fewer absolute answers the more landing page tests I run. … Continue Reading »
he Mequoda Landing Page Scorecard™ encourages you to score your own landing page using each of the 12 Mequoda Best Practice Guidelines, add them together and arrive at a cumulative score. The goal is to emphasize the importance of effective landing pages that sell. Your landing page should achieve respectable scores in all areas, rather than over-emphasizing a single area or two, or omitting other areas completely. … Continue Reading »
If the advent of the World Wide Web and the superabundance of information it puts within easy reach has done anything for me, it’s made me a much better consumer of medical services and a greater participant in my own healthcare. … Continue Reading »
