Every marketer needs to study this video:

Start with Why, not What.

What you do simply serves as proof of what you believe.

Enjoy.

Imagine this:

You wake up and there’s an inch of water on your living room floor, and it’s rising. Discovering a burst pipe in a closet wall, you grab the phone book and call the first plumber who offers emergency service.

Ring ring.

“Hello, this is Oscar and Felix’s Plumbing Service. How may I help you?”

“I’ve got a burst pipe and it’s flooding my house.”

“Oscar and Felix’s Plumbing Service has been operating in your town since 1987. We specialize in custom kitchen plumbing, septic systems, replacing old pipes with copper and PVC, and unclogging stopped drains.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I’ve got a busted pipe and my cat is swimming.”

“Would you like us to send you, absolutely free of charge and with no obligation, our Special Report, ‘7 Plumbing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your House’? All you need to do is give me your full name, address, email, and phone number, and you’ll have that report in your email inbox in just 3 minutes.”

Click. Dial tone. You, the hot prospect, are gone, never to return.

Your Landing Page is the Person Who Answers the Phone

And your prospect’s search query is the first thing they say after you pick up.

For example, let’s pretend you sell information on how to use webinars to grow your business. One of your keywords is how to record a webinar.

When someone enters that keyword and clicks your ad, they’ve just called you and said, “Hello, I’d like to know how to record a webinar.”

Your landing page headline is your response. Most advertisers don’t take the time to create different landing pages for different keywords. So their reply to the search query is something like the following headline:

“How to Make Money With Webinars”

But in that case, you’ve totally ignored what your prospect just told you they want RIGHT NOW.

And that feels pretty disrespectful. Like the receptionist at Oscar and Felix’s Plumbing Service ignoring the immediate need of the caller.

Instead, your headline might read:

“How to Record Webinars without Compromising the Quality of the Live Event and Without Needing Expensive Equipment or a Degree in Engineering”

Now does your visitor feel heard and acknowledged? Might they spend a little time on your site, enough perhaps for you to share some value with them in exchange for their contact information, or even their credit card number?

But I Have Hundreds (or Thousands) of Keywords!

You may be thinking, “That’s all very well in theory, but I couldn’t possibly create different landing pages for every single keyword in my account!”

Fair enough.

Here’s where the 80/20 rule comes to the rescue. Don’t try to do everything at once. Bite off a manageable chunk, like this:

Go into your AdWords account and click the Keywords tab.

Next, sort all your keywords, descending, by impressions.

Chances are, you’ll have just a few keywords (fewer than 10, and maybe only 3 or 4) that account for the majority of your traffic.

Can you create a new dedicated landing page for the biggest keyword that doesn’t yet have one?

If you have a decent amount of traffic and low conversions, this is absolutely the best use of your AdWords time.

It’s your choice:

You can mend the weakest point in your sales pipeline now.

Or you can call me when it bursts and you’re up to your ankles in a flood of expensive, unconverted visitors.

“Hello, this is Howie’s AdWords Plumbing Service. How may I help you?”

3-Part Landing Page Clinic

http://askhowie.com/lp-clinic-sale

If you're driving AdWords visitors to a landing page that doesn't produce enough leads or sales…

If you want to discover a simple formula for producing winning landing pages…

If you'd like to get a huge discount, plus not have to wade through a long sales letter… ;)

Here's the thing: I have this product, the Landing Page Clinic, which is really good. Three webinar recordings plus handouts.

I did it live several months ago, and never released it.

I'm working on the sales letter. But I'm exhausted from Camp Checkmate, and backed up on a lot of client work.

I'll get to the sales letter, I really will. 

But in the meantime, if you trust me enough to buy the Landing Page Clinic without it, I'll reward you with special pricing and a zero-risk guarantee:

Special Pricing

Landing Page Clinic will retail for $97.11. If you buy it now, minus the sales letter, you can take $50 off. This offer is good until June 25, 2010.

The 2-Part Zero-Risk Guarantee:

If you want a refund for any reason, at any time, just ask and I'll give you your money back.

If you implement what you learn and don't experience at least a 25% improvement in conversions within 60 days, I insist that you ask for and get your money back.

Get started now: http://askhowie.com/lp-clinic-sale

Wishing you health, happiness, prosperity, and good plumbing,
Howie

In this Camp Checkmate edition of Traffic Tuesday, we played a game of "Landing Page Double Negative," and then turned out critical eyes to three websites:

operacollectors.com
completehomebuyer.co.uk
bluechipwrestling.com

I'll eat my bowler hat if you can't find some nugget to apply to your own website from one of these scorches.

And now a word from our sponsor: Camp Checkmate

Camp Checkmate Chicago, June 10-11, is your one opportunity this year to achieve a guaranteed quantum leap in your marketing.

Not another "scribble notes furiously" seminar.

A full-out, hands-on, masterminding, best-practicing, creativity-exploding, get-it-done-ing two days that will rock your world. 

My guarantee: come away with effective done-for-you ads, landing page copy, headlines, strategies, and guarantees, or I'll write you a check for your entire tuition plus $750 to more than cover your travel expenses – on the spot.

I can only make this guarantee because I'm 100% confident that you will experience a profit-producing breakthrough – or several – on June 10 and 11.

Listen to Joey and Jamey Bridges discuss the aftermath of their 30 minutes of Camp Checkmate – FOUR MONTHS LATER:

And if you want more testimonials, from some of the biggest names in direct and online marketing (Perry Marshall, Drayton Bird, Robert Middleton, Ben Moskel, and others), spend a few minutes here.

Want the full story? Camp Checkmate home page.

Price goes up on June 1 – register now before time slips away.

When we use AdWords, we generally think in terms of numbers. How many impressions, how many clicks, how many conversions, based on a large potential market.

But what if your entire market consisted of only 5 people in the whole world? Could AdWords work in that case?

Check out this devilishly clever case study of an AdWords campaign that targeted known individuals, rather than big markets:

Have you used AdWords in unorthodox and clever ways? Share your stories in comments.

(Thanks to Barbara Demarest for the heads-up.)

On Friday, I shared my 4-stage testing protocol for AdWords ad split testing in this 60-minute webinar. 

Enjoy! Any questions or comments or disagreements or tangents, please share them in the Comments section.

Interested in being notified about upcoming Checkmate trainings, events, and free webinars? Register below.

I promote Camp Checkmate as a way to "Checkmate Your Competition."

To get more clicks, more leads, more sales, more profit.

That's what people want out of their AdWords campaigns, after all.

But in order to achieve those goals, we have to do something counter-intuitive and maybe even a bit shocking:

We forget about them for 90% of the time at Camp Checkmate. Read the rest of this entry »

Here are the slides and audio from today's webinar:

Ad Testing Protocol Slides (PDF)

Ad Testing Protocol Audio (MP3)

A recording of the webinar will be up in the next couple of days.

As always, questions and kudos and complaints are encouraged in the comments field of this post.

If the webinar inspires you to register for Camp Checkmate, well that was kind of the idea ;)

Register for Camp Checkmate here.

The other day I interviewed Shelley Ellis, the Content Network Queen, for my Ring of FIre members.

Here's the first part of the interview:

For as little as $20 a month, the Ring of Fire is an unmatched bargain in online education. You get answers to your questions, cutting edge content, and a network of supportive and friendly people, many of whom have the answers to the problems you're facing today. (And you probably have the answers to some of their problems as well!)

This month alone, we have a mind-bending presentation by Mike Marshall on the future of SEO (hint: it's already here, and if you're not aware of the gamechanging rules, you're playing the game with three hands tied behind your back), a live Intro to SEO webinar with Lyena Solomon (I learned the meaning of a "canonical" web site, among other things) and dozens of questions and answers in the forum.

Next week features a group coaching call, and whatever else the Ringers want. (I aim to please.)

So won't you give the Ring a try for a month? Sign up here for the Ring of Fire online support club.

My friend Steve challenged me to talk, unscripted, about what is most powerful and beneficial about Camp Checkmate.

What came out surprised me:

If you agree that what goes on between your ears is the single most important factor in business success, mediocrity or failure, then I hope you'll join us at Camp Checkmate. Register here.

Had a wonderful interview today with Shelley Ellis, the Content Network Queen. (I wore my best t-shirt and minded my manners, not to worry.)

One of her basic strategies for Content Network success is NOT showing your ads where they shouldn't be shown. 

Like certain categories of web pages: crime, profanity, violence, error pages, and my personal favorite, "juvenile, gross, and bizarre" content.

Here's how you do that:

1. Within a campaign, click the Networks tab

2. Scroll to the bottom and click the Exclusions link

You'll see Campaign level exclusions on the right. 

3. Click the Add exclusions button and choose Exclude categories… from the dropdown menu

(No, your eyes aren't going. Click the image below to clarify and enlarge.)

Next you'll see a list of the categories, along with any stats you've accrued in those categories so far:

Check the boxes next to the categories you want to exclude, click Save at the bottom, and you're done.

Thanks, Shelley!