Those who complain there are no legitimate ways to make money online often simply do not know where to look for money-making opportunities. The internet is a virtual goldmine for those who know where to look. A popular, and indeed an enjoyable, way some people make money online is by taking surveys.

Getting paid for taking surveys is often easy work, but it takes some time to find reputable companies with whom to work. Following are the ten steps you must take to make money with paid surveys.

Research

Don’t just sign up for the first companies that promise payment in exchange for taking surveys. Do your research first to make sure the companies you sign up with are reputable. Always ensure that the companies you sign up with do not sell your information to marketers. You can learn a lot about a company just by doing an internet search and by reading what other people have to say about their experiences with that particular company.

Sign up

You’ll likely find there are dozens and dozens of reputable companies that pay people to take surveys. Once you find those companies through your research, sign up for them. You may want to start slow by only signing up for one or two in the beginning.

Keep a list of usernames and passwords

For security purposes, you’ll want to have separate usernames and passwords for each of the survey companies. Keep the list in a Word or notepad document. You should also email yourself an extra copy of your usernames and passwords, just in case something catastrophic happens, and you lose your hard drive.

Bookmark

Bookmark each survey company’s Web site to make it easy for you to find it again.

Fill out your profile completely

Survey companies are going to require you to fill out a profile that will allow them to send you surveys that fit with their needs and your interests. Be sure to fill out the survey completely and honestly.

Create a new email account

Don’t use your regular or your business email account unless you want to be bombarded with emails. Rather, sign up for a free email account with Yahoo, Hotmail, Google, or another free email host. Keep in mind that free email accounts often have spam filters that could grab your survey invitations, so turn off the spam filter, if possible.

Accept invitations

Accept as many survey invitations as you can when you’re first starting out. As you build a reputation and get more and more work, you can start being more selective as to which invitations you accept.

Answer surveys as quickly as possible

Don’t allow survey invitations to languish in your email inbox. Answer the surveys as quickly as possible after receiving them.

Refer other survey takers

Referrals can often earn you more money, so start referring your friends, family, and others to the survey companies.

Check your email frequently

Survey invitations can and will arrive at all times of the day and night. To ensure you don’t miss out on the timeline of a survey, make sure you check your email frequently throughout the day and on weekends.

When you have an online business you do not have the perks of selling your product in person. Therefore, your words are very important; they make or break a sale.

• Writing up a sales letter means getting into the minds of your readers.You should know who your customer base is, what age group, gender, etc.

• You need to use psychology and tactics that will draw your readers to buy immediately.

• Your sales copy should be captivating so that your customer is interested in reading through it, however long it is.

Some sales letters are twenty pages long, but still keep the readers attention the entire time. The sales letter needs to fully describe the problem the customer may be having and why your product is the only solution.

When you are writing your sales letter, you need to make sure your readers trust you and that your product is absolutely the best. Your sales letter should describe your product in detail so that the reader understands completely what is being sold.

The sales letter should make the reader feel that there is a sense of urgency, that they must take action and purchase the product now. There may be a few slots remaining or eBooks left to sell, or there may be a certain time where the product will not be for sale anymore.

You want your order form to be visible and the price should have a strike mark through it indicating that there was a price reduction. Bonuses also entice the customer to purchase your product. A sneaky approach to selling your product is to state how many other web sites are scamming customers and how you as an owner were scammed too, which propelled you to create your product.

All these techniques make an excellent sales copy, however, keep in mind that there will be a fair bit of tweaking to the writing before you have your perfect salesletter.

If you want to sell something on the internet you might need to write a salesletter. A salesletter is a one page website which tells people about your product, and why they should buy it.

You could study a few books to learn how to write great salesletters, but if you are a beginner you might get confused in this way. It’s a better idea to buy one good book and try first learning from it. Then you might get another book. But it takes time, so in the meantime you can read this article and it should be enough to write a good salesletter. To be successful at internet marketing you need to first learn a little bit, and then take action. You will learn by doing it. It’s the best way to learn. So let’s learn the basic steps of writing salesletters.

First, read some other salesletters about similar products as yours. Of course, don’t copy or plagiarize, but you get some good ideas and get inspired.

Second, write an interesting headline. The headline is very important. If the headline doesn’t catch people’s interest, they won’t read your salesletter, however interesting it is.

Write the headline in red, black or blue and use bigger font than for the rest of the page.

Third, tell a story. Tell about some problems people have in your niche. Then tell them how the thing you are selling can solve their problems.
Fourth, using bullet points or lists, tell people about all the benefits of your product. Write about as many benefits as you can.

Fifth, finish your newsletter calling for action. It means that you need to tell people to “buy now”. You need to tell them also why they should “buy now” Try to find some good reasons why they should act now. Otherwise people will procrastinate.

You can also make your salesletter better if you use the word “you” often. Use it more often than “I”, “we” or “us” combined.

Make your salesletter simple. The background should be white. Most of the text should be black. Use other colors to emphasize certain phrases.

Use a lot of “buzz phrases”, in proper context, that are important to your niche. Make these words more visible by highlighting or underlining them, or make them bold, italic, etc. But don’t overemphasize. Be selective. Emphasize the most important phrases only.

Don’t use caps too much. Don’t use too many images either. Better none, than too many.

Offer money back guarantee. It will increase your sales conversion.
To make people “act now” offer some bonuses.
Be honest; don’t over-exaggerate the benefits of your product.

Don’t try to make your salesletter perfect at first. Just write it, and then you can work on improving your salesletter.
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Krzysztof_Sroka

You don’t have to be an award-winning copywriter to create effective sales letters. In fact, writing great sales letters is more of a science than an art. Even the pros use proven “templates” to create sales letters that get results. The following is a 12-step template for writing foolproof sales letters.

Overcoming the Hurdles Leading to Buying Resistance
Every person has some form of buying resistance. The objective of your sales letter should be to overcome your reader’s buying resistance while persuading them to take action. I liken writing a sales letter to running a steeplechase foot race. The first one to the finish line who has jumped over all the hurdles is the winner, or in this case, gets the sale.

Whether you’re giving a sales presentation in person or on paper, the process of overcoming the hurdles leading to buying resistance are much the same. These hurdles are manifested in many spoken and unspoken customer comments such as:

• “You don’t understand my problem”
• “How do I know you’re qualified?”
• “I don’t believe you”
• “I don’t need it right now”
• “It won’t work for me”
• “What happens if I don’t like it?”
• “I can’t afford it”

Results-oriented sales letters will need to address some or all of these objections to be effective. The 12-step sales letter template is designed to overcome each of these objections in a careful, methodical series of copywriting tactics.

The 12 steps are:
Get attention, Identify the problem, Provide the solution, Present your credentials, Show the benefits, Give social proof, Make your offer, Inject scarcity, Give a guarantee, Call to action, Give a warning, Close with a reminder. Each of these 12 steps add to reader’s emotions while calming their fears.
Motivation Is An Emotional Thing
It’s important to remember that people are motivated to buy based on their emotions and justify their purchase based on logic only after the sale. This means that each step in the sales letter process must build on the reader’s emotions to a point where they are motivated to take action. That being true – - there are only two things that truly motivate people and they are the promise of gain or the fear of loss. Of the two, the fear of loss is the stronger motivator.

Think about it.

Would you rather buy a $50 course on “How to Improve Your Marriage” or “How to Stop Your Divorce or Lover’s Rejection?” I have empirical data that proves that the second title outsells the first 5 to 1. Why? Because it addresses the fear of loss.

Underlying the promise of gain and the fear of loss are seven “universal motivations” to which everyone responds. Whatever product or service you are selling you need to position it so that its benefits provide one or more of these universal motivations.

To be wealthy, To be good looking, To be healthy, To be popular, To have security, To achieve inner peace, To have free time, To have fun. Ultimate motivations are what people “really” want. The product or service is just a vehicle to providing these benefits so make sure your sales letter focuses on these motivational factors.

The 12-Step Sales Letter System

Now that we know what impedes a person to buy and what motivates a person to action let’s review the 12 elements of a winning sales letter.

1. Get Attention:
Assuming the reader has opened your envelope, the next step is to get their attention. The opening headline is the first thing that your reader will look at. If it doesn’t catch their attention you can kiss your letter goodbye. People have a very short attention span and usually sort their mail over the wastebasket. If the headline doesn’t call out to them and pique their interest, they will just stop and throw your letter away.

The following are three headline generating templates that are proven to get attention.

HOW TO _____________________”
People love to know how to do things. When combined with a powerful benefit the “How to” headline always gets people’s attention. In fact, they’re probably the two most powerful words you can use in a headline.
SECRETS OF _________________ REVEALED!”
People always want to know “insider secrets.” We love to know things that other people aren’t privy to. Knowledge is power and those who have it feel powerful. Besides that, most of us enjoy a good mystery, especially in the end when the “secret” is revealed.
WARNING: DON’T EVEN THINK OF ___________ UNTIL YOU ___________.
Remember that people are motivated by fear of loss more than the promise of gain? Well, the “warning” headline screams fear. The word “warning” demands attention and combined with something of interest to the reader, is a very powerful headline.

2. Identify the Problem:
Now that you have your reader’s attention you need to gain their interest by spelling out their problem and how it feels to have that problem. The reader should say to himself, “Yeah, that’s exactly how I feel” when they read your copy. In fact, you shouldn’t stop there. Pretend that it’s an open wound that you’re rubbing salt into.

This technique is called, “problem – agitate.” You present the problem then agitate it so that they really feel the pain and agony of their situation. People are such strong creatures of habit that we rarely change our ways unless we feel great amounts of pain. In fact, companies are no different. Most businesses trudge along doing the same old thing until things get so bad that they have to make a change.

For example, if you were selling garage door openers you might agitate the problem by telling a short story about what happens when it doesn’t work.

“There’s nothing worse than getting home in the evening and not having your garage door open. It’s dark outside and after tripping on the porch step you search for your front door key.

Finally, you find it only to scratch your new front door up trying to find the keyhole. Exhausted, you get inside and plop down on the couch just when you remember your car is still running in your driveway….”

In this scenario the problem was a faulty garage door opener and the agitation is all the terrible things that happen because of the faulty garage door opener.

3. Provide the Solution:
Now that you’ve built your readers interest by making them feel the pain it’s time to provide the solution. This is the part of the sales letter where you boldly stake your claim that you can solve the reader’s problem. In this section you will introduce yourself, your product and/or your service. Relieve the reader’s mind by telling them that they there’s no need to struggle through all their problems because your product or service will solve it for them.

4. Present your Credentials:
In most cases, after you have introduced yourself and your product or service your reader is thinking, “Yeah, sure he can fix my problem. That’s what they all say.” So now it’s important to hit them right away with the reason why you can be trusted.

List your credentials including any one of the following:

• Successful case studies.

• Prestigious companies (or people) you have done business with.

• The length of time you’ve been in your field of expertise.

• Conferences where you have spoken.

• Important awards or recognitions.

Your reader should get the impression after reading this section that “you’ve been there and done that” with great success and that the reader can expect the same results.

5. Show the Benefits:
Now it’s time to tell the reader how they will personally benefit from your product or service. Don’t make the common mistake of telling all about the features of your product without talking about the benefits. As I already stated, people are interested, not so much in you, or even your product or service, but what it will do for them.

Get a piece of paper and draw a line down the center of the paper. Now write all the features of your product or service on the left. Think about the obvious benefits and not-so-obvious benefits of the each feature and write them down on the right side of the paper. Most of the time your product will have hidden benefits that people won’t naturally think of.

For example, a hot tub not only soothes and relaxes your muscles but it also gives you an opportunity to talk to your spouse without interruptions. The hidden benefit is greater communication with your spouse and ultimately a better marriage!

Bullet point each benefit to make it easier to read. Think about every possible benefit your reader may derive from your product or service. In many cases, people will buy a product or service based on only one of the benefits you list.

6. Give Social Proof:
After you’ve presented all your benefits the reader will again begin to doubt you, even though they secretly want all your claimed benefits to be true. To build your credibility and believability present your reader with testimonials from satisfied customers.

Testimonials are powerful selling tools that prove your claims to be true. To make your testimonial even more powerful include pictures of your customers with their names and addresses (at least the city and state).

You might even ask if you can use their phone number. Most readers won’t call but it is a powerful statement to include their complete contact information. It demonstrates that you are real and so are the testimonials.

7. Make Your Offer:
Your offer is the most important part of your sales letter. A great offer can overcome mediocre copy but great copy cannot overcome a mediocre offer. Your offer should be irresistible. You want your reader to say to themselves, “I’d be stupid not to take advantage of this deal.” Your offer can come in many different formats. The best offers are usually an attractive combination of price, terms, and free gifts. For example, if you were selling a car your offer might be a discounted retail price, low interest rate, and a free year of gas.

Hint: When developing your offer you should always try to raise the value of your offer by adding on products or services rather than lowering your price. Include vivid explanations of the benefits of the additional products or services you are offering in order to raise the perceived value of your offer.

8. Give a Guarantee:
To make your offer even more irresistible you need to take all the risk out of the purchase. Remember, that people have a built-in fear that they are going to get ripped off. How many times have you purchased a product and got stuck with it because the merchant wouldn’t give your money back?

Give the absolute strongest guarantee you are able to give. If you aren’t confident enough in your product or service to give a strong guarantee you should think twice about offering it to the public.

In reality, almost all small businesses already have a very strong guarantee, but don’t realize it! If you had an irate customer that wanted their money back would you just say, “No, I’m sorry. I will not give your money back?” Probably not. If they insist on getting their money back, in most cases you’ll give it back to them.

You see, most businesses already have a strong guarantee and don’t hold it up and trumpet it for fear that a lot of people would take them up on it. That’s simply doesn’t happen. When was the last time you asked for a full refund on something? If you’re like me, it’s been a while.

Here is an example of a guarantee that I give for one of my products:
“100%, No Questions Asked, Take-It-To-The-Bank Guarantee”
I personally guarantee if you make a diligent effort to use just a few of the techniques in this course, you’ll produce at least $4,490 profit in the next 12 months. That’s right, $4,490 extra profit you never would have seen without this course. If you don’t, I’ll refund the entire cost of the course to you.

Actually, you get double protection. Here’s how. At any time during the 12 months, if you sincerely feel I fell short in any way on delivering everything I promised, I’ll be happy to give you a complete refund. Even if it’s on the last day of the twelfth month!

This guarantee extends for an entire year and that they will receive specific benefits (in this case it’s money). It they don’t get what they expect, they get their money back with no questions asked. This virtually eliminates all the risk for the buyer.

Hint: Your offer may be so good that people won’t believe it. You’ve heard the old axiom, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.” To avoid this thinking, give the reason why you can give such as great offer. For example, you might have goofed when ordering inventory and now you’re overstocked and that’s why you can offer such a great price. When people read the reason why, it will help them reconcile your irresistible offer in their mind and make it more believable.

9. Inject Scarcity:
Most people take their time responding to offers, even when they are irresistible. There are many reasons why people procrastinate on investing in a solution. The following are just a few:

• They don’t feel enough pain to make a change.

• They are too busy and just forget.

• They don’t feel that the perceived value outweighs your asking price.

• They are just plain lazy

To motivate people to take action they usually need an extra incentive. Remember when I said that people are more motivated to act by the fear of loss rather than gain? That’s exactly what you are doing when you inject scarcity into your letter.

When people think there is a scarce supply of something they need they usually rush to get some of it. You can create a feeling of scarcity by telling your reader that either the quantity is in limited supply or that your offer is valid for only a limited time period.

Your offer could sound something like this:
“If you purchase by (future date) you will get the entire set of free bonuses”
Or
Our supply is limited to only 50 (product or service) and will be sent to you on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. After they are gone there won’t be any more available.”
Or
“This offer is only good until (future date) after which the (product or service) will return to its original price.”

One word of caution: If you make an offer you need to live up to it. If you go back on your word after the deadline date you will begin to erode the trust and confidence your customers have come to expect from you.

10. Call to action:
Do not assume that your reader knows what to do to receive the benefits from your offer. You must spell out how to make the order in a very clear and concise language. Whether its picking up the phone and making the call, filling out an order form, faxing the order form to your office etc…. you must tell them exactly how to order from you.

Your call to action must be “action-oriented.” You can do this using words like ‘Pick Up the Phone and Call Now!” or “Tear Off the Order Form and Send It In Today!” or “Come to Our Store by Friday and …” Be explicit and succinct in your instructions.

Plant your call to action throughout your letter. If you are asking the reader to call your free information line then perhaps some of the testimonials might say, “When I called their free information line” or in your offer you might say, “When you call our free information line…” Then when you give the call to action at the end of the letter, people won’t be surprised or confused. It will be consistent with what you said all throughout your letter.

11. Give a Warning:
A good sales letter will continue to build emotion, right up to the very end. In fact, your letter should continue to build emotion even after your call to action. Using the “risk of loss” strategy, tell the reader what would happen if they didn’t take advantage of your offer.

Perhaps they would continue to:

• Struggle day to day to make ends meet.

• Work too hard just to get a few customers.

• Lose the opportunity to receive all your valuable bonuses.

• Keep getting what they’ve always got.

• Watch other companies get all the business Etc.

Try to paint a graphic picture in the mind of the reader about the consequences of not taking action now. Remind them just how terrible their current state is and that it just doesn’t have to be that way.

12. Close with a Reminder:
Always include a postscript (P.S.). Believe it or not, your P.S. is the third most read element of your sales letter. I’ve seen good copywriters use not just one postscript, but many (P.P.S). In your postscript you want to remind them of your irresistible offer. If you’ve used scarcity in your sales letter, include your call to action then remind them of the limited time (or quantity) offer. It sounds like a simple step but postscripts get noticed.

Voila! You now have a powerful salesletter. Using this 12-step formula anyone can write an effective sales letter that sells. The following are a few extra tips to help you write an even better sales letter:

• Tip #1: Write the Features/Benefits – The biggest hurdle to writing a great sales letter is just getting started. Many people have a fear of writing. One way to get your letter started and develop a helpful guide for your letter is to write a feature/benefit list. Take a set of 3 x 5 cards and write all the features you know about on one side of the cards. Then turn the cards over and write a benefit for each feature. You’ll have started your letter and produced a list of benefits you can use to write it.

• Tip #2: Once you have completed the letter, let it sit for a day or so. This will allow you to be more objective you when you edit your letter. If you’ve just spent the last few hours working on it you will find it hard to catch the mistakes or edits in the letter because you’re just too close to it.

• Tip #3: Develop a “swipe file” to help get your creative juices flowing. When you see a great ad or receive a particularly effective letter in the mail, keep it in a file that you can refer back to again and again. Companies pay thousands of dollars to develop their marketing materials; you might as well take advantage of that by using it as a model for your own work.

• Tip #4: Before you start writing your sales letter, develop a customer profile sheet by documenting every thing you know about your target customer. Some great copywriters put a picture of a typical customer in front of them as they write to help them remember to whom they are writing the letter.

• Tip #5: I often get the question, “How long should my sales letter be?” and my answer is, “As long as it needs to be.” Each part of your sales letter should be building your case. If it takes ½ page to build your case then that’s how long your letter should be; however, I use a 24-page sales letter to successfully sell one of my products.

Most anyone can write a powerful sales letter by just following this simple 12-step process. Make sure that you include each of the steps because each step builds your case in a unique way and adds to the reader’s emotions.

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Editor of the Marketing Best Practices Newsletter featuring small business marketing best practices. http://www.MarketingBestPractices.com
mailto:David@MarketingBestPractices.com

Step By Step Sales Letters Creator 2009

When you sign up with a web host provider, if they are a good one, you should get a website builder. Website builders are incredibly useful because they allow you to be able to build your own website without having to pay someone else to do it. There are many features that a good website builder will have, including:

1. Ease of use:
You want a website builder that is easy for you to use. You do not want one that requires you to know how to do website programming. The best website builders are the ones that make it easy for you to build a website with little or no experience at all. Typically website builders operate on the drag and drop method, or WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). This means that you move the webpage elements around with your mouse and what you see on the screen is how the website will appear.
2. No Charge:
If you have a web host that provides you with a website builder, they should provide it to you free of charge. You should not have to pay any money for this because the price should simply be included in the price you pay each month for the service. If you have to buy the website builder for any amount of money, then you should find a different web host.
3. Templates:
When you get a web host that provides you with a website builder, you should make sure the website builder has templates. Templates are incredibly important because they give you the ability to create a look of a website without having to do anything except choose the template that you want. Templates will have a background, theme and color that you can use. Then, all you have to do is put in pictures and text, links and buttons for your website. This makes it very easy to be able to create a website and it ensures you are not programming anything.

When you get a website builder, you want to make sure it is going to meet your needs. If the website builder is not easy to use, costs you money and only has a few templates, then you may want to find a different web host and a different website builder. You can spend money on professionals to make your websites, or buy professional website design software like Dreamweaver and FrontPage, but starting cheap is important and nothing is cheaper than a website builder you get for free from your web host.

By: K Wilber