Yesterday I shared a list of things that we found to work, and things we had difficulty in the past 6 months getting to work well.

What we’ve started working on are multi-page mini-sites with offers on each page.  (To see an example, go to: http://kinkadedreamscollection.com/)

In many cases, we’re finding that people are not only responding to these sites, they are spending several minutes on the site, reading, viewing, and listening to the information that’s being presented. (Prospects on the Kinkade site spend and average of 5 minutes) 

It seems that the best approach is to give them a lot of quality information up front, give them the ability to click around a bit, and keep a consistent offer in front of them that appeals to exactly what they want.

Also, we’re finding that the traditional follow-up campaign to an email lead is pretty much worthless.  What we’ve done is still have that as part of our follow-up, but we’ve added in a phone call to the lead (so capture phone numbers!) and cut through all the hype and get right to their pressing question.  (Here is a good example of a site that get’s the name and phone number to get a follow up call.)

This seems to work well because not many online marketers will do this, or have the capability. The personal connection and attention are things people miss online, and will respond to when used without being pushy.

It’s still possible to get people to respond, but you better be on your game to keep the flow going in this economy.

Getting traffic to your sites continues to be the #1 issue people bring up.  When evaluating a client’s funnel, I typically ignore their request for more traffic and diagnose the real issues which are their website, offer, or sales funnel.  But once we fix those things, it’s fine to get into traffic issues.

As I’ve always said, it’s not about how much traffic your get, it’s about getting the right traffic.  We can’t get people to respond if the offer doesn’t match what they want, so getting a bunch of people to the site isn’t the goal.

Traffic seems to be the one area where things change quite rapidly, and strategies and tactics that work one day, are not effective 3 months later.  Google remains the key source of targeted traffic for our clients, but we’ve noticed that Adwords (both Search and Content) seems to have lost some of its effectiveness as harnessing a consistent flow of visitors.  It has really become a game (yes, a game) of seeing how many places and sources you can get on Google’s first page.  So not just being in one of the top 3 spots on Adwords, it’s also being listed in the News items, Local listings, YouTube videos, organic listing, and social networks - specifically Facebook and Twitter.

For us, being an expert in Adwords, it’s a lot to keep up with all things traffic, so we’ve secured an alliance with a colleague and firm that spends all of their time in the "laboratory" to figure out what Google is doing and how to use new strategies to capture more virtual real estate.  We’re seeing tremendous results and DECREASING lead costs by employing more diversity and strategy to our traffic efforts, and utilizing all the technologies to be seen rather than just Google Adwords.  The fruits of this alliance will be rewarding for our clients moving forward.

First off, thank you to each one of you who’ve email the office, posted on Facebook, or responded to my first email. It’s amazing that when you reveal something in your life that is painful and potentially embarrasing, others share their experiences. I’ve realized that my challanges health wise have been faced by others and I’m not alone.

Now, let’s talk about some reality in today’s market. It doesn’t matter if you are online or offline. Virtual or have a physical store.

We had the blessing of working in multiple markets, with diverse clients, and diverse product/service offerings.

We also have our personal network of colleagues that we keep in communication with as well (people like Perry Marshall).

You might be exception to the rules we state here.  All I am sharing is what I’ve seen and experienced.

This is a short list of what we’re personally experiencing.  Perhaps you’ve seen the same, or bucked the trend in one of these cases.  I’d love to hear your thoughts. Post your comments below.

In the next few emails, I’ll go into some detail on these points as to why they aren’t working.

Stay tuned.

Bob Regnerus.

Hey, Bob Regnerus here,

I know it’s been a while since you’ve had an email from me. You’ll find out why in a moment. First off let me say,  yes, I’m alive.  But I did have a little scare several weeks back.  But more on that in a minute…

The fact is, I’ve had to do what every other business owner in this economy has been trying to do - survive.  I know that some of you are in a business that has not been terribly affected by the economy.  Be thankful.  

Several more of you are in decent shape - well down from your highs, but decent enough to not cause too much concern.  But for a lot of you, this has been a time of trials and frustrations as things that once worked well for you suddenly stopped working.  Even new things you tried to launch didn’t seem to work at all.

Personally, I learned the value of managing stress and anxiety.  I shouldered too many burdens and tried to be superman.  I worked too many hours and it affected two things that are absolutely critical - eating right and exercising regularly.  I internalized so much stress and anxiety, that I finally found myself laying in a hospital bed overnight with what I thought was a heart attack.

After a barrage of tests, it turns out my lack of exercise and ability to manage stress was the root cause.  So I really look at this as a blessing, because I got a great wake-up call and it refocused me on my health, my family, my faith, and my business.  I took a month off to heal and have just started back to being a CEO again - working on moving the business forward and zeroing in on what we really offer to the market.

That’s what I want to share with you over the next few days.  

I am not going to promote anything like an event or webinar.  I’m not going to sell a product.

I hope you will find this interesting. I promise to not waste your time.  I look forward to sharing some things with you.

My prayer is these next 5 emails will bless you incredibly and you’ll discover some real world strategies that are working online. No hype, just the real stuff.
Stay tuned and talk to you soon.

Michael Reese is a financial planner from Traverse City, MI.  Michael’s mission is to change the way retirees invest in the markets.  He’s pained by the losses of wealth many people over 60 incurred in the 2008 downturn.  Michael laid out a plan with us to change the lives of thousands of retirees by training an army of financial planners on a new way to invest for their clients (and earn them a nice living at the same time.) Click on the video to see how Michael found clarity on his full day!