How to Turn Your Online Clark Kent into Superman

By Carl Weiss

You know, it doesn’t take a phone booth and a red cape to turn Clark Kent into Superman.  All it takes is the will to thwart evil day in and day out.  Believe it or not, online marketing is a lot like that as well.  Think about it.  When you create online content, it's all too easy to lose the spark of inspiration that keeps you churning out blogs, social posts and videos on a weekly basis. That being said, if you hope to generate super results, all you really need are the skills to continue the fight. 

Leaping tall buildings in a single bound is no easy feat to accomplish, but neither is getting onto page one of the major search engines, particularly Google.  The secret to leaping onto page one is to have multiple routes to the top.   Just like websites, it's possible to optimize blogs, social posts and even YouTube videos.  This means wrapping your posts and videos with the keywords and phrases that you would like to see on page one of Google.  While it may not be faster than a speeding bullet, I have seen posts on Google+, Blogger, YouTube and even Merchant Circle leap to the top of Google in less than twenty four hours. 

Of course you still need to keep in mind that the only thing harder to accomplish online than generating traffic is generating sales.  Having one without the other is great for bragging rights, but it won’t do much to augment the bottom line. Statistics show us that the average visitor to a website will only view 3.6 pages and stay on site for 2.45 minutes.  So you had better provide the visitor with compelling content if you hope to generate either a lead or a sale.

Use Grabber Headlines to Steer Prospects

If your intention is to steer your audience to watch a video or read a blog, the first thing you need to do is whet their appetite by providing a killer headline.  On average, eight out of ten people will read a headline, but only two out of ten will read the copy.  The key to writing killer headlines is to state the biggest benefit in the boldest way possible.  “Create an Instant Audience in Just 1 Click!”  “Blog your way to Online Succe$$.”  “How FREE Offers Generate Results.”

Features Inform and Benefits Sell

If you want visitors to read beyond the headline, you need to spell out the benefits before describing the  features.  The public doesn’t purchase automobiles because they can travel from point “A” to point “B”.  They buy them because they are sporty or fuel efficient or because they can ford a stream to reach that secluded camping spot. The reason that most people read a blog or watch a video is to save time or money, cure a pain, or to be entertained.  The last thing they want to do is read a tech manual.  So keep your narrative interesting by injecting human interest stories and showing the audience what’s in it for them.

If you want to hook a fish, then dangle some bait

Circle this item in red.  The main reason that most online marketing campaigns don’t succeed is due to the fact that they don’t provide a compelling inducement to click or buy.  Or, they hide the offer so that it is nearly impossible to find.  Remember, the goal is to generate a new customer.  In order to prime the pump, you need to offer something of real or perceived value that is going get the prospect to take action. You need to feature the offer prominently, not hidden at the bottom of the page below the fold.  


For the most part, you need to offer something free or at a substantial discount in order to generate either a registration or a sale.  The bait doesn't always have to cut into your bottom line either.  Intangibles such as white papers or free reports have proven immensely successful in generating registrations over the years.  If sales are your goal, try offering free shipping or a coupon that offers 10% off the next purchase.  Above all, the secret to successful marketing is to answer this question:

Why should I do business with you versus every other option available to me, including doing nothing?

While this principle is right out of the Marketing 101 playbook, you would be surprised at how many people fail to acknowledge the fact that the operative word in online marketing is “Marketing.”

How to make the fish nibble twice at the bait.

Another intangible that can be of great value is a free webinar.  The webinar can either be taped or delivered live. (Personally I prefer taped, since you can deliver the goods as soon as you generate the registration.) Either way you get a second shot at the prospect.  Add to this the fact that a webinar will give you a far better opportunity to enhance your credibility and prove your authority than a printed report ever could.. More importantly, this mechanism could become one of your best closing tools ever.

Don’t make it hard to act.

One of the main reasons that many online marketing campaigns fail is due to the fact that it is sometimes difficult to fill out the form that is required to accept the offer.  The last thing someone wants to do is fill out a survey that is five pages long.  Rule number one in selling online is “Make it Easy to Accept the Offer.”  Once you have the prospect’s attention and given them a solid reason to do business with you, don’t fumble the ball on the one yard line by making the acceptance of your offer as painful as root canal.  Make the acceptance form short and to the point. (If you desire more information than name, email address and phone number, you can get this more easily in a follow up email.)  Remember the letters WWW still mean Wild Wild West to many people.  This means that credibility is the biggest hurdle to pulling the trigger and accepting an offer and/or buying anything online. 

Don’t drop the ball once you have generated a lead.

The final linchpin in the effort to acquiring new customers is that once you generate a lead, you need to use it.  Obviously everyone that opts in for your offer and/or listens to your webinar is not going to make an instant buying decision.  Does that mean you should discard the lead?  Hardly.  If you want to make real money in online marketing you need to take the long approach and set up a drip marketing campaign that automatically sends out a newsletter replete with offer every couple of weeks.  As they say in sales, persistence beats resistance. 

While it may take Kryptonite to thwart Superman’s efforts, for the most part the thing that foils most wanna be online marketers are their own inconsistencies. In other words, far from turning into Super Sales People, they shoot themselves in the foot somewhere between enticing and acquiring an online lead. So if you want to turn your inner Clark Kent into Superman, put down that red cape and pick up some white hot online marketing strategies.  Besides, where are you going to find a phone booth to change in anyway?

As president of W Squared MarketingGroup, Carl Weiss has been Supercharging his clients online marketing efforts for more than 16 years.  If you want to learn more about Working the Web to Win, tune in Carl’s online radio show of the same name on Blog Talk Radio.