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Even the smallest changes can sometimes result in the biggest increases to your conversion rate. Take the headline split test, for example. Headlines A, B and C are tested against each other. Headline A converts at 1%, Headline C converts at 2.5%, and Headline B converts at 4.9%. Hmmm, which one should you pick? The choice is obvious, you go with Headline B.

But what if you hadn’t split tested? You would never have known. Just imagine: You write a terrific headline, which happens to be Headline A. It looks like a sure winner, so you don’t bother to test. And sure enough, it converts at a respectable 1%.

BUT, if you had tested, you would have chosen Headline B. And for every 100 people who hit your site, you would have made 3.9 more sales. If your product sells for $47, that’s another $183.30 you would have earned for every 100 visitors. But you didn’t test, and so you didn’t know, and so you lost thousands of dollars. Ouch.

Testing might seem like an irritation, but there are few things that can pay off as handsomely as a simple split-test.

That’s why I’ve made a list of things you might want to test in your next sales letter or even in your next email. I’ve left out the common things like headlines, pre-headlines, sub-headlines and calls to action. You already know about those. But have you thought about testing these?

• Various bonuses tested against each other and against no bonus
• Person next door tone versus formal business tone
• Header versus no header
• Placement and look of testimonials
• Adding more images, arrows, underlining, etc.
• Adding/changing the text underneath the images
• For low priced items – Placing the price at the top (beginning) versus at the bottom (end)
• A soft sell versus a hard sell approach
• Adding more call to actions throughout
• The design of the page itself
• Wording directed to your best customer versus more generic copy
• Changing the color scheme
• Changing the color or text on the order button
• Variations on your product image(s)
• Variations on your product image size
• Variations on your product image location(s)
• Renaming your product
• Focusing on benefits versus focusing on the pain of no solution
• Placing bullets closer to the beginning versus further into the page
• Focusing on one major benefit versus a laundry list of benefits
• Having all copy or video on one page, versus using steps with a progress indicator
• A trial offer versus asking for the entire sale up front
• Sales – a percentage off versus a dollar amount off
• Coupons versus sales
• And perhaps the most interesting of all: Using dark emotions like jealousy or revenge to get the sale [“You know that snobby woman at your child’s school who thinks she’s so terrific? Right now she is praying you NEVER get this program, because if you do you’ll lose that weight and look ten times better than her. Imagine how envious she’ll be then!”] Heh heh.

Mind you, this list is to get you thinking and moving in the right direction. There’s no way you’re going to test all of these things unless you’re a compulsive profit-seeking entrepreneur who can’t rest until you’ve got the most finely tuned sales presentation in the history of the world.

For the rest of us, pick and choose what you test. If you haven’t already, start with the basics like your headlines and calls to action. Then choose something from this list and see if you can’t boost your conversion rate even higher.

To stay motivated, do the math to find out how much more you will earn on every 1,000 visitors for every tenth of a point you increase your conversions. Write this number down and post it where you’ll see it. Then every week, or every day if you’ve got the traffic, test something new. There’s no easier or faster way to give yourself raise after raise than continually split testing.

This idea has been proven to work GREAT for insurance agents, and it can work phenomenally well for other businesses as well. Imagine you walk into Joe’s insurance to sell your marketing services. Joe is sitting at his desk, looking bored and sad. “Joe,” you say, “How’s business?”

“Not great, he answers.”

“Joe, I’ll bet you a steak dinner that I can get your phone ringing off the hook in days.”

Joe takes you up on your bet. You then launch an advertising campaign via social media or traditional media, in which Joe offers a big steak or shrimp dinner if he can’t save a customer money on his or her insurance. Because the offer is so attention getting and so bold, the phone does indeed ring off the hook.

Just make sure before you run a promotion like this that Joe can indeed save most people money.

You can do something similar with other trades, too, such as tax preparers, travel agents and even auto repair shops. That’s right – auto repair. The offer might be – “Bring in your estimate from any other shop. If we can’t do the work for less money, we’ll buy you dinner.”

Can you do something like this with online marketing? Why not?

“Follow my step by step system. Show me you did all the steps, and if you aren’t making “x” amount of money in 6 months, the course is one me.”

Or…

“Follow my recommendations, keep an exercise and eating journal for 6 weeks while following the program, and if you haven’t lost 10 pounds, I’ll send you my competitor’s program for free.”

The possibilities are endless. By making an offer no one else is making, you will stand out from the crowd, get noticed and make sales.

Carl was brand new to his niche. He had no authority, credibility or following. He knew no one. Yet within weeks he had sales, clients and JV partners. How did he do it?

By being just a little bit sneaky, yet still 100% ethical and above board.

Carl knew he needed an incentive to get people to join his list. He also knew he needed something to immediately build his credibility online, so people would trust him and buy from him.

What he wanted was something like an online calling card that would educate, entertain and subliminally sell both himself and his forthcoming products and services.

So he decided to do something that might sound a bit strange – he interviewed himself.

That’s right. He wrote down a list of questions from his niche that he knew he could answer really, really well.

Then he recorded his answers to the questions. And while recording, he streamlined the questions, deleted one that didn’t work and added two more that he thought of.

Then he found someone on Fiverr who had a voice that could easily pass for a newscaster or radio personality, and hired him to read the questions he’d written onto an mp3.

And finally he hired someone else on Fiverr to put the recorded questions together with his recorded answers, along with 5 seconds of professional fade-in music at the beginning and 20 seconds at the end.

Now he had his interview. And anyone listening to it would think he was most definitely an authority with a great deal of expertise. Plus he sounded a little bit like a celebrity, which didn’t hurt either.

Carl used this interview to build his list. He also sent the interview to potential JV partners and prospective clients, as well as podcasters. As a result, he received numerous invitations to be interviewed, to do guest posting and to do joint ventures.

And because he sounded like a true authority, his list opened his emails and clicked his links, too.

Please note: Carl never misrepresented himself. He never claimed the interview came from TV or radio. Had someone asked, he would have told them he hired someone to interview him. But interestingly enough, no one but his wife ever asked.

That’s another perk of being viewed as an authority in your niche – prospects already view you as the expert, so you don’t need to prove yourself. Instead, you can focus your time on where it belongs – helping your customers solve their problems.

You know webinars are a great way to sell products. Hop on a webinar, talk for 30 to 60 minutes and sell some products right there on the spot. Then rinse and repeat as many times as you like, buddying up with a different list owner each time. It’s simple, it’s fairly easy, and the more you do the better you’ll get.

But for many marketers, it’s scary to get on the Internet and talk to tens, hundreds and maybe even a thousand people at one time. “Me? Talk for an HOUR? To PEOPLE?”

Here’s something to consider: You don’t need your own list to run webinars. If you have a great product or service, you can go to list owners and split the money with them. What an outstanding way to get access to other people’s lists and make money doing it!

And most list owners love doing webinars because it’s almost hands off cash in the bank for them. All they do is send out one or more emails to their list, and you do the rest of the work. This means that webinars are an excellent way to get your foot in the door with people who have big, active lists.

Another thing to consider is that webinars mean almost instant and highly targeted traffic for you. Your partner promotes your webinar to their list and their people flock to your site to sign up.

Webinars create instant products in themselves. You can SELL your webinar if it’s packed full of good info. Think about that – what better way to create an instant product than by talking to an audience for an hour?

Or you can give your webinar recording away as a list building incentive of your own.

Plus, webinars can be REPLAYED to make even MORE sales. Again, you record it once and you can set it up on your own website to make more sales. You can also let your list-owner partner put it on their site as well, or send more traffic to your site to listen to the webinar.

And here’s the kicker you probably never even considered: Webinars are one of the best ways to build your own list. You partner with someone, they send traffic from their list, you get (for example) 500 sign-ups and 150 of those attend the webinar. 15-30 of the attendees buy your product, and now you have sales AND a new list of 500 people!

Webinars provide quality traffic, high conversion, partnerships and quick product creation for both free and paid products.

Webinars are truly great for selling products because nothing gets people more excited to buy your product than hearing from you – the expert – on how they can achieve their goal.

And they’re also one of the best ways to build your list.

Imagine if you do just one webinar a week or even once per month – how much more you could accomplish in your business… Believe in yourself and go for it!

Since you’re making videos anyway, why not shoot for the zenith of online video marketing and go for viral? While you can never totally predict what will go viral and what won’t, there are some tricks to make it much more likely your video is the one your viewers will forward to others. Here’s 15 proven tips to make your next video go viral:

Don’t use a sad ending, even if it’s true. This reminds me of a time a video was shot of a firefighter resuscitating an unconscious kitten that had been trapped in a smoky home. Viral magic, right? Absolutely. This video went viral for every outlet that left out a key piece of information – despite being resuscitated, the kitten later died of smoke inhalation. Neetzan Zimmerman, editor at Gawker, was told by his editor to include the epilogue. Result – “That video did tremendously well for practically everyone who posted it, except Gawker.”

In fact, don’t evoke any sadness if sadness is the only emotion. Videos that inspire sadness are far less likely to get shared than videos that evoke almost any other emotion. However, a video can be sad and still be uplifting: For example, a heroic person who fought a disease, lost, but left a great legacy. It’s sad that they died, but it’s uplifting that they tried so hard and left a positive mark on the world.

Do use other emotions in your video. The emotions most likely to elicit that coveted share? Surprise, anticipation, joy, anger, awe, anxiety, happiness and humor. The stronger the emotion evoked, the better. Just think of what you like to share with others – odds are it’s videos that surprise and delight, or videos that inspire anger against a common enemy. What we don’t share are videos that might make others sad, unhappy or depressed.

Make the sharer look smart. Surprisingly, data compiled by Chartbeat – a company that measures online traffic – demonstrates that people forward things they haven’t even read or watched. This is ego-driven sharing; trying to look smart by sharing smart material. So for example, if your video teaches some cutting edge techniques, it’s likely to be shared by many who simply want to look smart to their friends. Of course, whether or not anyone will actually watch it could be another matter.

Make it practical. Useful content is highly viral because people love to share “news you can use” for two reasons: It helps others AND it makes them look good.

Tell a story. Even when you think stories aren’t applicable to your topic, they probably are. Stories are universal in that they can teach anything and people are hard wired to listen to them. Tell the story well enough, and it will be passed along.

Be outrageous. Do you remember WePay’s stunt of leaving a 600 pound block of ice at the front entrance to a PayPal conference? PayPal had been freezing people out of their own accounts, and so WePay froze the words, “PayPal Freezes Your Accounts” along with cash inside the giant ice block. Great stunt that got a lot of press, but WePay really blew it – they didn’t film the delivery of the ice block or people’s reaction to it. If they had, there’s no doubt their video would have gone viral.

Be controversial. Is everyone in your field saying one thing? Then perhaps you might want to say the opposite, especially if you believe it’s true. For example, in Internet Marketing everyone says “the money is in the list,” yet an excellent case can be made for other forms of IM that don’t involve list building. The key here is to debate issues that don’t hurt feelings. For example, a ‘chunky vs smooth peanut butter’ debate, or a ‘cats vs dogs’ debate won’t ruffle anyone’s feathers, yet they can inspires a lot of interest and interaction.

Be surprising. We alluded to this earlier – surprises get passed along and talked about more than almost anything else. Remember that video of a serene, tranquil scene that suddenly turned into a screaming demon? That wasn’t just surprising, it was shocking. You don’t have to go that far – hiding ‘easter eggs’ in your videos can make them viral. For example, a hidden URL that takes the viewer to something special, or what appears to be a naked person walking past in the background, or anything that is unexpected and fun.

Another kind of surprise is the “Cracker Jack Box surprise,” a toy hidden inside every box. It’s no surprise there’s a toy in there – they tell you that on every box. What is surprising is what the toy is. If you make a lot of videos, you might plant a ‘surprise’ in every one – it could be a bit of eye candy or a link to download something useful.

Make it an “experience.” This one takes some planning, but the potential upside is nothing short of huge. Remember the Blair Witch project? The movie promos made the movie ‘real’ to the viewers, and the viewers then become a part of the movie, getting pulled in as though it were a real life event. In fact, some people actually thought it was.

Make it interactive. Remember the Subservient Chicken from Burger King? Millions of people made that chicken dance. Or how about Office Max’s viral phenomenon, Elf Yourself? Upload photos of you and your family, and suddenly you’re in your own dancing elf holiday video.

Be funny. Or cute. Or both. If you can work footage of your kitten doing something hilarious into your video, go for it. People never get enough funny or enough cute. Then there’s just plain silly – like the Old Spice commercials. Short, fun and full of surprises, these go viral every time.

Capture the attention of a taste maker. Remember the video of Yosemite Bear Mountain saying “oh my god, oh my god” about the double rainbow? That video was online for 6 months before it took off and eventually got tens of millions of views. So what happened that finally started the flood of traffic? Jimmy Kimmel tweeted about the video, and after that it was a viral phenomena.

How do you get a taste maker to share your video? First, go after small taste makers within your own niche. Second, actually make the video with them in mind. What do they love? What do they share? Incorporate that element into your video and your odds go up dramatically that they’ll share it. Third, ask them to share it. It never hurts to ask.

Add a trigger. In the video “Friday,” the trigger is of course “Friday,” and while the video was popular it was shared and watched far more on Fridays than any other day. Remember Alice Cooper’s song, School’s Out? That song was released decades ago, yet it’s still played every late May and early June on thousands of radio stations.

Capture the attention of a particular community. This can be as simple as opening your video with something like, “This video is for avid gardeners only.” Or, “This video is for avid Red Sox fans only.” Then at the end of the video, ask them to share the video with fellow avid gardeners or die hard Red Sox fans. If you’ve incorporated other viral elements, this simple step can give your video the added push it needs to begin its viral journey.

Next time someone forwards you a video, ask yourself why they did that. What was it about that video that made them want to share it? You can learn a lot simply by watching viral videos and asking yourself, “how can I apply this to my videos?”

A man sets out on a journey of a lifetime.

The problem is, he doesn’t know where he wants to go.

So he spends the next 40 years wandering the back roads, never really going anywhere.

Another man chooses his destination. It’s a promised land, far, far away. The dangers he faces along the route are great and the challenges seem almost insurmountable.

Yet because he knows where he wants to go, he is able to find his way, overcome the challenges and eventually reach his destination, where he retires in 10 years’ time.

One man didn’t know where he was going, and so he wandered for 40 years and achieved nothing.

The other man knew exactly where he wanted to go, and because of his belief and determination, he was able to overcome every obstacle and reach his destination in 10 years.

Which person are you?

Most people won’t define what they want until they have clarity on how they will get there.

But because they don’t know what they want, they don’t have the clarity, and thus end up doing nothing.

That’s why you’ve got to decide first what it is that you want, and be totally clear on what that is. Write it down in detail.

Only then will you figure out how to get to where you want to go.

One more thing: Once you begin your journey, take time every single day to revisit your goal.

Just like a builder continually consults the building plans, you should continually go over your goal so that your subconscious mind knows exactly what it should be doing to get you to where you want to go.

This will also help you avoid time wasting activities that you don’t need.

Advanced Tip: Measure what you treasure.

Whatever your goal might be, take daily measurements of how you’re doing.

For example, if your goal is to reach a certain income level, you’ll want to track your profits daily.

If your goal is to exercise and eat right, you’ll want to keep a journal of everything you eat and every exercise you perform.

Whatever your goal might be, measure what you treasure and you will get more of what it is that you want.

I want to clear something up right now. Too many aspiring online marketers have bought into this fairy tale that says all you need is ONE BIG hit and you’ll magically go from broke to six-figures. 95% of the time it just doesn’t work like that. Nor is your online income going to magically grow like “clockwork” on “auto-pilot” with “zero effort” or investments.

Have you heard the expression, “Two steps forward, one step back?” That’s how almost every business grows, including any and all forms of online marketing.

Building an online business isn’t like winning the lottery, nor is it a movie. You don’t get struck by lightning and fall into a pot of gold. Instead, you do an affiliate promotion that costs you $500 in advertising and makes you $400 in commissions.

This is where most people quit. “SEE?! ONLINE MARKETING DOESN’T WORK!”

Baloney.

You earned $400 in commission AND you learned something, too.

You use that new knowledge on your next promotion where you spend $500 again, but now you make $900. You repeat that for a while and you’re making pretty good money, all because you didn’t quit when you lost that initial $100.

Then you’re feeling pretty confident so you decide to expand your list with a solo ad that costs you $300, but you only earn $50.

Nuts!

But now you’ve got a bigger list, and you nurture that list and eventually over the course of weeks or months you earn an additional $2,000 from it.

Yeah!

Then you hire someone to create a product for you, and it’s a terrific product but no one wants it, and you lose $700.

Darn!

But you still have the product, so you break it up into pieces and use those as posts and free reports and combining that with social media you further build your list while promoting a related affiliate product and now you’re earning a cool $300 a week just from that while also watching your list grow.

Wow!

But you need to invest in a better website or software or whatever and there are expenses and so you’ve got to pay those and…

Do you see how this works?

Two steps forward and one step back.

The trick, therefore, is to simply keep moving forward no matter how many steps you take backwards.

If you graph out the growth of online businesses, you’ll find that 95% of the time the line goes up, dips down, goes up, dips down and so forth. But the downward dips don’t mean a thing as long as the overall trend is up.

And if you’re prepared for this and expecting that it won’t be all smooth sailing and that you will have setbacks small and large, then you’ll know enough to weather those setbacks and keep plugging away.

You’ll be far less afraid, too, knowing that it’s normal to have these setbacks. And in my experience, it’s much easier to work when you’re not terrified that your income will suddenly dry up if you make one wrong move.

The vast majority of online marketers experience a series of small successes and small failures, too. They go hand in hand, and that’s okay. Just make sure you either have more successes than failures, or that your successes are bigger than your failures and you keep moving forward.

Really, that’s the only ‘trick’ to online marketing.

Okay, so you’ve hopefully got your core business online, or you’re about to put one online. You have it up and running, making money…

…now what?

First things first – figure out how to make MORE money in the business you already have.

How do you get more customers?

How do you sell those customers more stuff?

And how can you charge more for what you sell?

This is basic and should always be your focus. The more value you give, the more money you typically make. Give more value and you can charge more and sell more.

But what about the ‘fun’ part?

That’s a matter of trying stuff out.

Buy new stuff on Warrior and JVZoo. Read the case studies. See the new techniques someone’s dreamt up.

Pick and choose stuff to try and then just try it.

Don’t devote a week to it – it might not work.

But devote a day or two and see what results you get.

That new thing that everyone is doing? Pick a topic (or whatever needs choosing) and outsource it. Or if you can do it yourself in a day, go for it.

Is it promising? Keep going.

Does it look like a loser? Good – you just found something that doesn’t work for you.

Either way, if you always look at it as experimenting, as having fun, as trying new stuff and seeing what happens, then you’ll never take it too seriously.

You won’t get stressed. You won’t bang your head against the desk when you realize the last 24 hours taught you nothing more than how NOT to do something.

Because you’re having fun.

And when you do strike on a winner, sha-ZAM!

Rinse and repeat and you’ve got another money making avenue in your online business.