I recently bought ‘Adwords for Dummies‘ and I really enjoy it. Now my problem is trying to figure out a product to sell. Any hints on how to find products to sell?

My response:

First, thanks for your kind words about the book. You should feel free to write a nice amazon review for it :)

Now, let me gently criticize the thought process that produced the question:

That’s backwards thinking.

The world is so full of products and services, unless you live naked in the woods (or at the beach, which I don’t recommend), you’re tripping over things to sell all day long.

Right here, in my home office (OK, my wife’s home office, but she’s sleeping and I like her artwork better than mine, and I have to step over the dog to get to my office), I see binders, jewelry, postcards, battery chargers, matches, keys, picture frames, organic rice milk, window blinds, etc. etc. etc.

Somebody is making money selling every one of those things - else they wouldn’t exist.

Instead of looking for products to sell, look for markets to serve.

Focus on needs and desires and pains and longings. People will buy things that they think will improve their lives. Every purchase I’ve ever made has been an act of hope in a better future. Every purchase, from the bananas at Trader Joes to the Prius at the Toyota dealership to the 2 by 12 planks at Home Depot that I turned into raised garden beds. Toothpaste. Shaving cream. Bass guitar lessons for my son. Every purchase is motivated by a desire to increase pleasure and decrease pain.

When you focus on a particular market - a group of people who share some meaningful characteristics - and get to know what they deeply want to have and what they want to get rid of and what they want to avoid, then you’ll know what to sell to them. And you won’t have to wonder.

Now, if you want to use AdWords, certain realities come into play, which you can get from the book. Like, who’s looking for it, and how much can you make from selling it compared to the cost of an AdWords click. Some products are not well suited for AdWords.

But don’t start with products. Don’t even start with media. Start with people, and figure out how to serve them.

Khalil Gibran wrote, “Work is love made manifest.”

If your business is an expression of love of a group of people, and a sincere desire to improve their lives, then you are on the easy path to success.

What other web pages have great opt-in forms? Post your favorites to comments.

Even more incredibly, they had actually gotten a bunch of people to answer the question (77% opted for SEO). Poor 23% PPC (sniff).

The question makes about as much sense as asking what’s more important about a car, the steering wheel or the accelerator.

Even though I wrote the book about AdWords, I recognize that both have their place in a successful online marketing strategy. (To be fair, the Website magazine article offered interested stats and did end up with a nuanced view of the topic - I’m just picking on them to make a point.)

Let’s compare:

Organic (SEO) traffic is free and can be plentiful. AdWords traffic costs money and can be hard to come by. Score one for SEO.

Organic traffic is more credible than paid ads (at least, judging by searchers’ behavior). Score two for SEO.

Organic traffic can last a lot longer than AdWords traffic, where any idiot with a big checkbook and no understanding of ROI can outbid you and kick you off the first page. Score three for SEO.

PPC traffic used to be more predictable - your organic listings might disappear overnight like dinghies in the Bermuda Triangle when Google tweaked their algorithm, but AdWords was steady and consistent. Until summer 2006, when they started playing with Quality Score and threw the PPC world into an SEO-like tizzy. So no advantage there.

So why is AdWords so great then? Why do I view it as important as SEO? For three reasons:

1. AdWords traffic is perfect for testing and improving your website. What’s the point of getting a top listing in Google if all that traffic visits your site and pukes?

2. AdWords is the perfect medium for figuring out which keywords to optimize for once you get to SEO. You see, SEO is like a big old battleship - slow to get moving, slow to turn once it is moving. You do not want to hire an agency or spend months trading links only to discover that you’ve optimized for the wrong keywords.

3. AdWords is another leg of your business that can support your online efforts if SEO stops working. Anyone who relies exclusively on one traffic source is building a business on a one-legged stool. If that leg gives out, you’re flat on your - well, you know.

But the big money, for most people, is the vast stream of free traffic that Google will send you if you produce Google-worthy content. In my experience, in many markets free traffic will be 10x what you can get from paid. And it’s - guess what? - free :)

Trouble is, SEO changes all the time. Just when I got the hang of inbound links, the game became unrecognizable: all video, all social networking (why does 23-year-old Vanessa want to be my myspace buddy, anyway? I’m 43 and my profile is definitely not screaming “sexy and available”), all article marketing.

So I go back to school every year to make sure my own business can compete online. And so I can continue to guide my clients, once we’ve nailed AdWords, to take what we’ve learned from AdWords and apply it to the rest of their marketing.

I don’t do SEO professionally. But I do know enough to be able to recommend qualified professionals to my clients. Folks who understand the cutting-edge best practices. People who get meaningful results. Professionals who understand that PPC and SEO are not either-or, but both-and.

My school consists of buying lots of ebooks, reading lots of blogs, and masterminding with top people in the field.

Oh, and attending one seminar a year - the System Seminar, the place where each spring hundreds of serious businesspeople gather to share best practices and learn how to stay ahead of the online world from top pros.

I’m a presenter at this year’s event, in Chicago from May 30 to June 1, but for years I paid my own way as an attendee. I couldn’t afford not to go. That’s where I first heard about AdWords. About how to do SEO right. About online PR. About blogging. About article marketing. About online video. About online streaming audio. And I learned about each of these things, on average, two years before they caught on and became common practice. Imagine, a two-year head start to establish insurmountable advantages in several different areas.

This year, I’m looking forward to more of the same. I’ve been browsing the program like a chocoholic reading through the Harbor Sweets catalog. I’ve even built 3 days of empty into my schedule the following week, so I can assimilate and start to implement the things I will have learned.

I haven’t completely decided, but at this moment, I’m looking forward to attending the following breakout sessions:

Saturday May 31:

1:30pm Glenn Livingston: How to Successfully Enter New Markets

I’ve heard Glenn speak a lot, but I always pick up some new aspect of his incredible market research technology when I listen again. It’s so obvious, so elegant, and so powerful that almost no one is implementing his system. (Go figure!) Actually, it involves statistical analysis, which scares a lot of people off. Which is a really good thing if you’re one of the people it doesn’t scare off.

At the same time, my good friend Ann Convery will be teaching how to go from “Who Are You” to “My Wallet’s Out” in 30 seconds - the secret of an effective elevator speech (and AdWords headline, by the way). Ann has coached me over the past year, so I feel OK skipping her talk. (Sorry, Ann :)

And, Tim Gorman will be sharing Article Marketing Secrets. I attended his talk last year and applied his techniques with great success to a couple of markets. Tim, I promise I’ll listen when Ken makes the CDs available to attendees.

3:30pm Nancy Andrews: SEO - It’s Simpler than You Think

Cool. I like simple, and as I already said, I love SEO.

And Nancy’s a hoot. She’s the one who famously remarked that Yahoo is like an old dog and Google is like a woman. (Listen to her interview with Ken to find out what she means, and why this insight is crucial to SEO success.)

For me, that’s more important to my business than James Martell’s How to Make Money with Affiliate Programs, although I’m still flirting with “Marketing with Video on the Internet - Strategy, Tactic, Tips” with Lon Naylor.

Sunday, June 1:

10:40am Colin McDougall: Creating Cashflow Conversations

Colin’s interview with Ken McCarthy, founder of the System Seminar, was eye-opening for me. The cryptic title of his talk, I believe, refers to a simple and logical method of search engine optimization - being so interesting in your market that people actually want to go to your website and see what you’ve got to say. Imagine that - getting lots of traffic by truly deserving it!

I’ll have to pass on the other concurrent sessions, like Timothy Seward sharing his Google Analytics expertise (he helped with Chapter 15 of AdWords for Dummies, and he lives near me, so I kind of think I can pick his brain when I need Analytics guidance), or Chris Daigle and Lloyd Irvin talking about the new face of Real Estate online. And my friend Robert Middleton, laying out the anatomy of his successful online information business. And Christina Hills offering a blueprint for using email to grow profits. Sigh… so many choices, so little time.

1:30pm Undecided

I haven’t decided yet. I’m leaning toward Kim Dushinski’s Mobile Marketing: The Next Gold Rush, but I’m also fascinated by Gauher Chaudhry’s unique take on AdWords and affiliate programs. Oh, and Christian Mickelsen’s presentation about adding coaching to your business (funny thing - I’ve been a coach for a long time, but I haven’t organized any AdWords or internet marketing coaching programs at askHowie. Maybe Christian will inspire me.)

As many topics as I’ve mentioned, there are that many again that I haven’t. You can see and download the full program here.

And you can actually sample the presenters in advance; Ken interviewed each and every one of us, coaxing us to share real content and then publishing the mp3s. You can sign up to listen and to get much more complimentary pre-training.

So no matter what Google does next year (and believe me, they don’t tell me anything), I’ll be prepared to continue to market my own business and assist my clients (and maybe my future coaching students :), based on the insights I’ll receive in Chicago.

There are dozens of traffic generation and conversion strategies available online. You won’t master all of them, but even someone like me, who’s completely identified with one particular brand of PPC, makes sure that he’s got at least a few up his sleeve.

And just to make sure the expensive ad was extra-annoying, it kept unfolding over the article:

The good news? Most big companies, like the ones mentioned in the Times article, still are working off the old TV brand-building mindset online. For smart advertisers, the downturn in online advertising is an opportunity - cheaper clicks, less competition, and more chances to be friendly and helpful, rather than in-your-face and annoying.

Actually, my friend Sammy told me about it, and I looked it up on youtube, which is almost the same thing.

The McGurk Effect: if you listen to a recording of someone repeating the sound "Bah Bah Bah Bah" while watching a synchronized video of them mouthing the sound "Gah Gah Gah Gah", you will actually hear the sound "Dah Dah Dah Dah."

If you want to confirm for yourself the reality of the McGurk Effect, search for it on youtube.

Now, I’m anticipating three possible reactions to this summary of scientific progress:

1. "That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever encountered. Where can I learn more?"

2. "Big deal."

3. "Why are you wasting my time on this nonsense?"

Give me a minute, OK? There’s a lesson in here somewhere. Let me see…

When you create marketing campaigns, you are communicating based on a set of assumptions about your market:

• What language they speak.
• What their desires are.
• How much they can afford to pay.
• How badly they want their itch scratched.
• What they already know about your product or company.
• What they know about other potential solutions to their problems.
• And so on…

My question is, how many of these assumptions are you consciously considering, and how many are based on observable evidence as opposed to pre-judgment?

You see, if you write about your product as if your prospect already knows what it does, you may be a self-inflicted victim of a Marketing McGurk. You’re saying, "Here’s a big discount on my Magrouple-OpMart-WangChickle," and your prospect is hearing, "Dah Dah Dah."

Because your message is incongruent in context, just as the lips forming one sound and making another are incongruent in their context.

If you assume your prospect connects your solution with their problem, you may be McGurking yourself as well. You can treat sinus problems with chiropractic? Really? Acupuncture can help with eczema? The problems you can solve may be old hat to you, but your prospects need education and explanation and repetition to make the connections you take for granted.

Ken McCarthy understands the power of avoiding Marketing McGurkisms. He just announced the faculty and program of the 2008 System Seminar (Yes, I’m one of the faculty members, which entitles me to attend a pizza party on Sunday, June 1, not to brag but there you have it :)

And rather than assume that you would recognize the names and expertise of the presenters (most are not "gurus", but simply hard-working and clever practitioners and educators, so you probably won’t recognize them), Ken took the entire System 2008 program and made it available right now.

http://program.thesystemseminar.org

So if you’re not familiar with Nancy Andrews, Richard Mouser, Lon Naylor, or any of the other 22 faculty members; if you don’t know that Nancy Andrews has cracked the SEO code, that Richard Mouser used simple testing tactics to turn his money-losing online store into a huge success, that Lon Naylor is the expert in helping folks
use screen capture video tutorials to grow their businesses - you will after browsing the program guide.

Ken knows that by stepping out of the way of the product, and letting it sell itself, without hype or fancy marketing footwork, he’s allowing his prospects to gather information in their own way, to make an informed decision about whether System 2008 is appropriate for them.

If you’ve read AdWords For Dummies, you know that I credit Ken with being my Internet marketing mentor, as well as my first copywriting teacher. The most important thing he taught me is this:

Don’t try to be a copywriter. Just explain what you’ve got and why anyone should care - and then just get out of the way.

In other words, don’t mess around with mystical, manipulative tactics that are supposed to magically vacuum money out of your prospects’ wallets while they grin stupidly in a hypnotic trance.

Just talk to people. Be interesting. Be respectful of their time. Share value. Make your pitch. And shut up.

You can download the System 2008 program here:

http://program.thesystemseminar.org

If the program convinces you to join me in Chicago on May 30-June 1, I’d be delighted to connect with you - just give me a shout. If you read through the program and decide that it’s not for you, then that’s the right outcome.

No McGurks here - either it’s the thing to do, or it isn’t. Either way, you’ll broaden your perspective on Internet marketing tactics and strategies simply by browsing the program.

Do you believe Affiliate Marketing is a reasonable and economical starting point for someone trying to learn adwords and is it possible to be able to promptly track the results of  ROI and conversion rates?  Everything I read in Adwords is tied to having control over my own website which obviously I wouldn’t have as an affiliate.

Here are my thoughts:

This question is like asking me if I think it’s possible for a 5′10" 43-year-old guy to train enough to dunk a basketball if he currently has a vertical leap that wouldn’t clear a soda can. (Not thinking of anyone in particular, mind you.)

Yes, I absolutely believe that success is possible in both cases. But I’ve proven myself quite unwilling (so far) of doing the work that would get me to either goal.

I know some folks who make a good living at affiliate marketing. They know their markets, they test constantly, they track every traffic source for ROI conversion down to the keyword level, and they constantly scout out high-converting merchants. They manage their bids with alertness that would put your cat to shame. And they become brilliant at several forms of traffic generation - not just AdWords, not just article marketing, not just SEO.

Here’s the thing about affiliate marketing: because it seems so easy, it’s incredibly competitive. There’s the lure of easy money with no work and no customers and no website.

Not only that, the pure affiliate business model has structural downsides: you do all the front end heavy lifting of lead acquisition without any of the back end of long-term customer relationship. Also, affiliate programs change, Google changes, companies go out of business - so make sure if you want to be serious that you create a multi-legged stool, for traffic generation (not just AdWords) and affiliate merchants (not just one or two).

That said, affiliate marketing is great for supporting your entry into a marketplace in two significant ways:

1. Learning about markets without investing a lot of time or energy
2. Monetizing your creation of an opt-in list to subsidize your lead gen costs

In other words, use affiliate marketing to answer your question about whether the market you intend to enter is a potential profit source online, by measuring conversion and comparing the success rates of different approaches. And if you’re paying 50 cents a click to get prospects onto your email list while you figure out what to sell them, you can insert affiliate offers into the followup email sequence (using Aweber or another autoresponder service) to recoup your lead gen costs.

When I look at a business opportunity, I ask myself four questions:

1. Is it profitable?

Not having an MBA, I define profitable in terms I can understand: Do I make more than I spend?

That’s an oversimplification, of course. The real question is, will it bring in enough revenue to cover my costs and pay me well for my time. And, having drooled through Economics 101 in college, I do have a vague recollection of something known as Opportunity Cost - the awareness that every endeavor I say "Maybe" to automatically makes me say "No" to a bunch of others at that time.

2. Is it defensible?

Is it a castle on a hill with a moat around it, as Ken McCarthy metaphorized in a conversation the other day? Or can anyone with an AdWords account and access to KeywordSpy.com steal all your keywords and ad copy in 10 minutes?

3. Is it sustainable?

Is it a momentary fad, caused by a loophole in Google’s algorithm (like blog and ping), that will soon be shut down? Is it based on temporary market conditions (like the current mortgage crisis)? Or will my current investment in learning and mastering the business pay off for years to come?

4. Is it attainable by me?

Everything works for somebody. But if someone is pitching the dream life based on the dream business, I make sure I educate myself on the skills, experience, connections and personality traits needed for success in that business. There are lots of great business models that would fit me like a toddler’s glove. Pro basketball player comes to mind. So does crooked politician. So does affiliate marketer.

Me, I’m a teacher and coach and writer and strategist. When I try to be an engineer, I get woozy. Paperwork and administration floors me. I realize that my business can’t run on ideas alone, so I surround myself with employees and colleagues who compensate for my weaknesses. But the main focus of my business is delivering products and services that come from my strengths. Activities I enjoy and do well.

Partly, I’m preaching to myself here - because, honestly, I still spend way too much time doing things I’m not that good at and don’t enjoy particularly. Two bits of inspiration lodged in my brain this week.

1. Ken McCarthy inadvertantly gave me my new business mantra when he wrote in an email, "Unnecessary work is ceasing now."

2. Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth contained a line that completely reenergized me to hone my business to just those activities that serve my soul: "There is more meaning in joy than you will ever need." In other words, when I do what I love doing for its own sake, I don’t need to worry about whether I’m living up to my potential or changing the world or making my parents proud. The joyful consciousness that I generate when I fully embody my work is all the meaning my soul needs, and all the healing the world needs.

To finish the thought with which this post began: affiliate marketing…

Some of the smartest affiliate marketers I know will be presenting with me at the System Seminar in Chicago at the end of May 2008. If you’re serious, that seminar might be worth a look. You can preview the entire program here - check out James Martell and Colin McDougall especially.

Through the miracle of JavaScript, you can listen to it here:

One of the questions is, "If you could spend 30 minutes on the phone with me, what would you ask?"

Usually, I hear things like, "How to get more clicks… how to choose a market… which tools to use…" Stuff like that.

I just received an anonymous survey response with a really great answer, that I have to share:

Survey: If you could spend 30 minutes on the phone with me, what would you ask?
Respondent: How are you?

Reminds me of a line in one of my daughter’s favorite books, Indigo’s Star, by Hilary McKay:

History test question: "What would you say to Tutankhamen if you bumped into him on the street?"
Student’s answer: "Sorry."

So, I write about this because it amuses me, but I’m now casting about for a marketing lesson to wrap around the story, so you don’t feel like I’ve wasted your time.

Maybe it’s this: most of the other 105 completed surveys have given me an insight into my market that makes it very easy for me to connect with readers. It’s very hard to create from a blank sheet of paper. It’s fairly easy to answer someone’s questions (when you know the answers, that is).

We all know that we need to constantly create new and valuable content to compete for attention online. Yet most of us don’t feel like writers (me included, at least 80% of the time), and wonder how in the world we’ll find anything new to write about our industry.

Just find a way to systematically collect your prospects’ most pressing questions, and you’ll have fodder for more writing than you’ll have time for.

I use SurveyGizmo.com - their basic service is free, their interface is simple and intuitive, and I like the color scheme of their website (I know, I’m shallow).

Survey responses will also give you invaluable data about your AdWords account - which words to bid on, what to say in your ads, etc. Nothing like knowing the mind of your market if you want to make them happy.

And to the anonymous survey respondent, if you’re reading this:

"I’m fine, thanks. And you?"

We own a [TYPE OF] store that specializes in [PRODUCT LINE]. I have been chosen to run our adwords campaign and I am wondering what rules change if your only goal is to bring people through the door?  How does the game change? 

My reply:

If you want people to visit your store, you need to get them into your database and follow up to build the know-like-trust bridge. Sure, some people will read your landing page and get in their cars and drive right over. But most will need additional touch-points and reminders. So your landing page has to offer a compelling reason for visitors to give you their contact info. Maybe all you need is a 10% off coupon on their first purchase, which you’ll email to them.

Or a report on how to prevent and deal with the problems that your products solve. Or any type of information that answers compelling questions that your target market has.

My home study course, Leads into Gold, which you can read about on a web site that features a very chubby photo of me from 2004, deals with this issue in great detail - how to craft offers that will get leads, position you as an expert helper rather than a self-interested peddler, and predispose and presell your prospects so when they contact you they’re almost ready to buy.

Check out the email and see if you can blame me:

Looks real, doesn’t it?

But when I checked out the source code, I discovered that the live link actually went to a fake website, not AdWords. Had I looked closely, I would have noticed the typo on the last line: "any your ads and campaigns…" And the repetition of the second and third lines. And maybe half a dozen other clues. But as Paul Simon sings, "A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest."

So please be smarter and more deliberate than me when clicking links in emails supposedly coming from AdWords.