The 4 P’s of Internet Success. Part 1 of 6: Optimization

Overview: Small optimizations across different internet aspects of your business can increase profit hundreds of percent each year.

No matter what your business, once you begin using the internet, optimization becomes the key to your success. The Four P’s of success on the internet are:

1. Prepare
2. Build a Presence
3. Profit Optimization
4. Find Partners

How to make $400,000+/year your fifth year in business

A teenager in India decided to try to make money on the internet. At each step, he did research and tests to find the optimal solution.

1. Research and tests found the optimal product for him was an infoproduct.
2. Research and tests found the optimal infoproduct, helping pet owners care for a sick bird.
3. Research and tests optimized the sales (landing) page he used to sell the book.
4. Research and tests optimized the ads he used to find buyers
5. Research and tests optimized the content of the infobook.

By his fifth year in business, he was earning over $435,000/year. That’s a lot of money! How is that possible?

The first reason he did so well is that once you earn $1.01 for each $1.00 you spend, the more you spend, the more you profit. Money spent becomes an investment earning a return. To earn more, invest more. He optimized so that he would reach $1.01 in profit for each $1.00 spent as quickly as possible.

Optimization Compounds Your Profits

The second reason he earned so much is that by optimizing each step, his success multiplied, or compounded. Take a look at just five simple factors:

1. Visitors/Ad
2. Signups/visit
3. Sales/signup
4. Referrals/sale
5. Profit/sale

If you increase your profit/sale 10%, your overall profit (before costs) increases only that 10%. But what if you increase EACH of these five factors by 10%?

1. Optimize each of these 10%, your profit increases to 161% (before costs).  The formula is 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1=1.61
2. Optimize them 20%, profit increases to 249% (1.2 x 1.2 x 1.2 x 1.2 x 1.2=2.49)
3. Optimize 30%—profit 371%!
4. Optimize 40%—profit 538%!!
5. Optimize 50%—profit 759%!!!
6. Etc.

Mega-Optimization

The third reason is that many things can be optimized hundreds of percent at first.  For example, most companies can easily quadruple their referrals per sale or signups per visit by implementing best practices and optimizing over time.

The fourth reason is that there are many more factors you can optimize, such as adding joint ventures. What if you found a business that didn’t compete with yours, but was synergistic with it? For example, you each marketed different things to the same kind of client, and each of you had a 10,000 name mailing list with very few names that overlapped.  You could each give the other a free ad in the other’s newsletter. You just doubled the number of people that will see your latest newsletter offer, for FREE.

Or what if you created an infographic & video that went viral, and got 400,000 views for the same cost as your last video & infographic, which only got 400 views?

The fifth reason is that some factors start out as losses. Wherever you earn .99 for every $1.00 you spend, the more you do, the more you lose. You need only a tiny optimization to turn that loss into a profit. Uncovering problems where a small optimization can turn failure into success can be HUGE for your business.

Summary

Putting your business on the internet means your job becomes optimizing and re-optimizing everything that matters, all the time.

Next Modules

Part 2: Preparation

In the next section, I’ll discuss:

1. Why you have more profitable assets and core competencies than you realize.
2. Going beyond conventional wisdom and what you think you know: Optimizing to remove ignorance.
3. Finding people who will send you their customers for free.
4. Being prepared for viral success. (E.g, when the New York Times features your product or service, how your website can handle thousands more visitors/minute without going offline, or it costing you more for bandwidth.)
5. Why 98/2 is the new 80/20.
6. How finding problems means mega profits.
7. Finding and following success templates.
8. Making success nearly maintenance free.

Part 3: Your Internet Presence

► You’ll need to set up locations where people can find you and your offerings on the internet. Each step should build on the last, in an order such as this:

1. Key directories (such as the Google and Yahoo free local place/business listings)
2. Reserved presence (reserve domain and social media names)
3. Newsletter (no emails that did not opt in, encourage viewing images for tracking, encourage opting out to protect and build reputation)
4. Signup Landing page (Free offer to get signups)
5. Branded blog (Picture, name with font, simple logo with name blog.domainname.***)
6. Conversion Landing Page 1 (Buy product or service)
7. Facebook page
8. Guest Blogging/Info marketing (your articles on other websites)
9. Business Website (www.domainname.***)
10. Reoptimize all properties for signups
11. YouTube channel
12. Twitter account
13. SlideShare channel

► I’ll discuss how to use your presence to build your influence, your brand and your community.

Part 4: Optimizing The Four Corners of Your Profit Foundation

You’ll need to have an optimization roadmap for your business—what things you will concentrate on optimizing and when. But there are four areas that you will need to be constantly optimizing. They are:

1. Virality, PR and Exposure.
2. Engagement, Sign-ups, Conversion.
3. Offers/Products/Marketing choices.
4. Costs in Money and Time.

Part 5: Leveraging your Success Through Partners

1. I’ll discuss the common kinds of joint venture, and how to get the most bang for your buck while building your reputation and increasing your profits.
2. How to start a Personal Learning Network (PLN).
3. How to turn customers into brand champions.

Part 6: Putting it all together

Here I’ll re-emphasize skipping things you don’t need to do, the kinds of optimizations that will work the fastest for you, and how to always have a free lottery ticket to success on hand: going viral.