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2 internet marketing magazine
march 2012
The
STATE OF THE INTERNET
› INTERNET UPDATE
The Upcoming Facebook IPO
Facebook is set to float its shares through an Ini-
tial Public Offer (IPO). It hopes to raise 5 billion
dollars through the IPO, to enable it expand its
operations and consolidate its position as the
world’s premier social media website. Analysts
estimate the company to be valued at between 75
billion dollars and 100 billion dollars. Its founder,
Mark Zuckerberg could easily be worth $28 billion
after the IPO.
The move would give the social
network, whose sales almost
doubled to US$3.71 billion last
year, a pipeline of more than
US$5 billion in possible borrow-
ings. That compares with a re-
ported US$3 billion credit line
for Google Inc, the most valu-
able US Internet company.
We believe that the demand for Facebook’s stock
is going to be so high that most investors will not
worry about the fundamentals of the stock be-
cause of a want to own part of the Internet Pow-
erhouse.
Facebook filed for the IPO last month, pursuing
what may be the largest Internet offering on re-
cord. This could place Facebook as the fourth
largest IPO ever in the U.S., behind companies
like Visa, General Motors and AT&T Wireless.
Facebook Launches Premium
Facebook’s new premium ads have been creating
5 to 10 times more click-throughs and a 3X ROI lift
when compared to previous units after more than
two months of testing. Mike Hoefflinger, Face-
book’s customer marketing director, disclosed the
metrics while announcing his company’s premium
ads upgrade - among other items - at the recent
Facebook Marketing Conference.
“We are evolving from advertising to stories,”
Hoefflinger said. “Ads are good, but stories are
better.”
Katie O’Brien, Ben & Jer-
ry’s Global Digital Market-
ing Manager reported on a
Facebook business channel
video that they had expe-
rienced a 4x increase in
reach as a result in running
Facebook Premium. She
also advises interaction
with ‘Likes’, ‘Comments’
and ‘Shares’ are up over two
times. From a marketing mix analysis she report-
ed that from every $1 they invested in Facebook
they saw $3 in increased sales.
With new ‘Premium on Facebook’ ads, marketers
can expand their reach on the social network by
paying for a video, a coupon or other message to
appear on the homepages of Facebook users, on
the log-out screen and even within users’ news-
feeds. Until now the newsfeed had been free of
paid marketing messages.
“Our vision for marketing is that it is as good as
any of the content you and I see on our newsfeed
from a friend or family member,” Facebook Vice
President of Global Marketing Solutions Carolyn
Everson told roughly 1,000 guests in the audito-
rium of Manhattan’s American Museum of Natural
History on Wednesday.
ben and jerry’s facebook premium

3
internet marketing magazine
march 2012
Allowing paid company posts onto users’ news-
feeds is a risk for Facebook because newsfeeds
could get overwhelmed with advertising messag-
es, Williamson added.
“Facebook advertising in the past was off to the
side,” she said. “Now Facebook is taking the bold
step of putting advertising right in the mix be-
tween photos of babies and updates on trips to
restaurants.”
When companies buy a “premium” ad, they are
paying for their message to show up in several
places on Facebook, including on the righthand
side of a user’s homepage, when people log out
and, potentially, in the newsfeed. Facebook’s
algorithm determines whether or not an ad will
show up in a user’s newsfeed, so there is no guar-
antee for companies that it will.
Facebook’s Premium Ads, announced officially
at Facebook’s “fMC” on February 29, combines
the strengths of Facebook (where connections,
conversations, and community flourish) with the
triad of marketing disciplines (paid, earned, and
owned media so central to every leading brand’s
media strategy). Premium Ads not only puts a
brand’s page and relevant post in front of the
right audience, but it leverages an individual’s
connections, i.e., “social context” to amplify
its relevance and trust. The result, according to
Facebook’s internal testing, is expected to de-
light advertisers. Specifically, according to Face-
book, Premium Ads are:
• 80 percent more likely to be remembered
• Drive 40 percent higher engagement
• Significantly increase purchase intent
There will be six types of premium ads: Photo,
Video, Question, Status, Event, and Link.
Facebook Timeline for Businesses
Facebook also unveiled the new Timeline-styled
Facebook Pages for brands, businesses, and or-
ganizations this week. The pages allow brands to
tell their stories going back to their founders – as
long as it’s not before the year 1800.
For instance, Coke’s Timeline begins in 1886. The
new brand pages look and function like the user
Timelines that have been rolling out for weeks.
I believe that the business timelines will have lit-
tle to no effect on business ROI as it’s only a small
percentage of consumers who are actively con-
cerned about a companies history. Perhaps Face-
book is missing the mark here as the consumers
really care about their own ‘wants’ and ‘needs’,
not a companies history, but time will tell.
The change will be available to all Facebook us-
ers by the end of March, about 3 months after the
feature was fully rolled out to personal accounts.
Magento’s eCommerce Platform Surpass-
es 4 Million Downloads
Magento, the popular open-source e-commerce
platform that debuted in 2007, recently surpassed
4 million downloads of its free Community edi-
tion, Roy Rubin, founding chief executive advises.
Magento Clients range in size from merchants do-
ing less than $1 million a year in sales to more
than $100 million.
magento.com

march 2012
Acquired by eBay in 2011, the
platform is now taking aim at
larger technology providers.
In many cases, companies and
independent technology devel-
opers start off with the free
Community edition to explore
Magento’s open-source technol-
ogy before migrating to the En-
terprise edition.
Amazon Lowers Prices for
it’s Web-hosted Services
Amazon.com Web Services divi-
sion announced yesterday that it
is lowering the prices of its vari-
ous web-hosted services any-
where from about 10% to 42%.
The price reductions apply to
the company’s Amazon Elastic
Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon
Relational Database Service
(RDS), Amazon ElastiCache and
Amazon Elastic Map Reduce ser-
vices. Users of the EC2 service,
which allows users to tap into
Amazon’s web-hosted servers
for computing power and charg-
es by the hour or on a contract
basis, will see their rates drop
depending on use and region.
“Some companies work hard to
lower their costs so they can
pocket more margin. That’s a
strategy that a lot of the tra-
ditional technology companies
have employed for years, and
it’s a reasonable business mod-
el. It’s just not ours,” Amazon
says. “We want customers of all
sizes, from start-ups to enter-
prises to government agencies,
to be able to use AWS to lower
their technology infrastruc-
ture.”
Online Ad Spending to Sur-
pass Print for First Time in
2012
For the first time in U.S. his-
tory, marketers are projected to
spend more on online advertis-
ing than on advertising in print
magazines and newspapers.
According to a recent study
released by eMarketer, online
advertising is expected to gen-
erate $39.5 billion in sales this
year — a 23.3% increase from
2011 — compared to a sum of
$33.8 billion on print.
Spending on TV, however, ap-
pears largely unaffected by the
growth of online. Spending on
TV advertising still dwarfs online
ad spending and looks set to still
do so for the next few years.
From the Desk of the
Editor
You will notice a new ‘look
and feel’ to Internet Market-
ing Magazine this month. As
our audience continues to grow
and evolve we plan to grow and
evolve with it. A special thanks
goes out to Juanita Field for her
exceptional design skills.
You will now find the new full
Gavin Merriman eCommerce
Strategy Interview audio in the
‘Audio Expert Interview’ section
of the member’s area. Gavin’s
knowledge and experience in
the eCommerce area is amazing
and is well worth a listen as well
as a read. It’s free, so if you
haven’t been sent your link to
the member’s area please feel
free to register for it today at
http://internetmarketingmag.
net/become-member/
Keep a look out in next months
issue for an eye opening session
I recorded with Armand Morin
on ‘Doubling Your Sales Online
in 2012’, that you won’t want to
miss.
Until next time… Wishing you
the best of success online
Greg Cassar
Online ad spend eMarketer graph
Online ad spend tv eMarketer graph
GregCassar
Greg Cassar
Internet Marketing Strategist
& Editor – Internet Marketing Magazine

march 2012
GAVIN MERRIMAN
eCommerce Strategy Mastery
Gavin Merriman is a leading eCommerce strategist with over a decade of digital experience across
various industry sectors for major brands in both the UK and now also Australia. Gavin has a
proven history of growing visitors and sales, whilst improving user experience. Gavin is also
a regular speaker/panellist at industry events around the globe. He is currently the Head of
eCommerce of Universal Music Australia.
› EXPERT INTERVIEW
An Interview by Internet Marketing Strategist Greg Cassar
With a background in SEO in the mid 90’s Gavin
went on to learn all parts of the eCommerce
trade in the 2000’s through consulting roles in the
UK with the search agency Stickyeyes and running
major digital news sites at the Guardian Media
Group.
Gavin then went on to be the Group Head of
eCommerce Strategy for Shop Direct, which is the
second biggest online retailer after Amazon in the
UK with approximately $1.7 billion in revenue.
Greg: Gavin, when you were with the Stick-
yeyes Consulting Group in the UK one of the
things that really stood out for me was your
great wins on the SEO and the traffic front. You
took O2’s SEO uniques from 100,000 to 1.2 mil-
lion in just 12 months, including rankings on
the mobile phone type terms. What was your
key learnings from that experience?
Gavin: The key learning for me was just proof
of the value of making sure SEO was built into the
actual fabric of the site itself.
Back then there were still a lot of the big brands
who were trying to build SEO around their site
instead of thinking about SEO into the heart of
the site. So, they’d have their normal site or
store and then, around the edges, they’d get an
SEO agency to build content and generate links
but they wouldn’t actually want to change the
homepage or change the layout of their site to
have it so it’s search friendly.
Whereas what we were able to do with O2 is that
they were going through re-development so they
just followed the guidance in terms of the infor-
mation architecture and the page structure and
page titles. And, yes, they reaped the results. I
think every major site now pretty much builds
SEO into the heart of it. But for back then, it was
proof that that was the way we should be doing
it.
We really identified like some of the main terms,
like mobile phone, making sure that they were
in the hierarchy of the site, and that there was
enough weight that had gone onto the decent
folder structure, and making sure that the key-
word frequency was correct on the site.
Also going for the long tail. So, instead of just
focusing on the one or two big terms, optimising
through the site for some smaller keywords, pick-
ing up that long tail traffic really worked well.
Greg: Often that longer tail traffic can be key
buying phrases, especially if they’re searching for
the exact brand name of something or to the ex-
tent of that. So, yes, that really can work well
and convert better.

7
march 2012
Greg: When I look at all the
different things you’ve done in
the past, the role of yours that
interests me most was when
you were working as the head
of eCommerce strategy at the
Shop Direct Group. There ob-
viously were, under your cre-
ative control, some massive
eCommerce stores, includ-
ing Woolworths.co.uk, little-
woods.com, very.com, isme.
com and, obviously, the list
goes on. Like you said, second
only to Amazon as far as sales
in the UK. I know you’re very
strong in the user experience
area. How did you go about
engineering a better user ex-
perience for these site visitors
and shoppers over time so that
they enjoyed the site, wanted
to stay longer and, ultimately
purchased more?
Gavin: We already had a us-
ability team in Shop Direct when
I joined but they were con-
stantly battling with creative
because creative would want to
create something that looked
high fashion and impactful, with
loads of graphics. And then we
were also battling with what the
brand teams that wanted. They
all shared the same ambitions
but didn’t necessarily know the
value of the usability or UX.
So the key thing I did really was
try and drive through a group
wide creation of a digital board,
which hadn’t existed before,
where you’ve got all of the dif-
ferent people, from the buying
and merchandising teams to
the strategy teams to the brand
teams, to the creative teams,
all together so that they then
filtered in their requirements
through this one group.
They were then prioritised and
they would fall into usability
testing. So once there were some
prototypes created, they’d fall
into some usability testing and
then results would come back,
so the customers were always
put into the heart of it.
So instead of it being just us-
ability test, it’s then also con-
version testing to see what im-
pact the design has on sales.
Ultimately, the customer does
decide because the customer
will determine which variant
they like best and that’s the one
which we go with. It really does
let the customer decide what
we do.
So starting with AB testing, we
then move into the multi vari-
ant testing after that, to try
and refine down and, you know,
make sure that all the variables
convert nicely together.
It’s funny actually that often the
thing that has the biggest differ-
ence is something you wouldn’t
expect at all, just like a slight
difference in buttons or by
dropping a little basket symbol
onto the button or changing the
colour of It. It’s the small things
that seem to make the bigger
impact. You can never second-
guess what’s going to happen.
Greg: Personalisation - It’s not
something that we’ve heard a
lot about in the past but defi-
nitely will hear more and more
about in the near future. I
know that it can have a mas-
sive impact on the conversion
of an eCommerce store. Have
you had much success with
personalisation over time?
Gavin: Yes, definitely. We,
at Shop Direct, tried three dif-
ferent personalisation engines.
One of them was an in-house
version, whereby it was home-
made really by some pretty
bright mass PHD types, and two
other industry offerings.
isme.com

march 2012
We tested that against two others, one from ATG,
which was obviously the eCommerce platform
we were using, as well as one from another well
known analytics company.
We then studied which performed best in terms
of the sales generated from alternative products
recommended on product page. We saw a big
uplift actually. It was interesting. The analyt-
ics one performed worse. The version that was
the in-house version actually performed second
best with ATG Recommends coming out on top.
And that same engine then was used within email
campaigns. So we sent personalisation of emails
out, which had some huge impact on the sales
and uptake that went from those emails.
Greg: So it remembers whether someone’s a
male or a female and what sorts of products or
services they’re interested in?
Gavin: Yes, exactly, and what products they’ve
also bought, some collaborative filtering to look
at other people who’ve bought similar products,
their buying habits and perhaps even if you’ve got
some information about family members.
I think the main thing for me is not so much how
much evidence I’ve seen so far that personalisa-
tion works. It’s more the potential of it and I
think that’s still relatively untapped, even with
some of the bigger eCommerce engines. There’s
a lot more that can be done and will be done over
time.
You very rarely see, for example, that much use
of social graph. I know people are trying it now
but there’s so much rich information within social
media about people’s likes and habits that could
potentially be mined.
Product reviews are important also. For some
people product reviews might be an absolutely
essential part of their decision making process
when buying, whereas for other people it might
have very little to no impact. It might actually be
seeing bigger, better product pictures and bigger
product descriptions.
You probably haven’t got quite sophisticated
enough solutions but once you start to map in
things that monitor mouse position and where
people’s focus is going and then you start to do
some AB tests that layer that in then I think you
get to really interesting sort of personalisation
where it’s not just the products and promotions
that are personalised. It’s the entire journey
that’s personalised.
Greg: You said something there that I hadn’t
really thought about before which was the inte-
gration with the social graph. For those who are
not familiar with what Gavin’s talking about, it’s
for example within Facebook where there’s the
new timeline and people are basically spelling
out their whole life and everything that they’re
into and not into and all that sort of stuff. It’s
all information that can potentially be used and
it looks like, from Facebook’s terms and service
and privacy, you can pretty much
very.com
littlewoods.com

9
march 2012
have applications interact with that stuff with-
out even the user’s permission. Is your under-
standing that’s the way it works as well?
Gavin: Yes, they connect with you. So we obvi-
ously want to encourage, and a big part of our so-
cial strategy would be encouraging our customers
to connect with us through Facebook. So, once
they’ve done that connection, then we request
their permission and, depending on how they re-
spond to that, you can access more or less infor-
mation about those customers and, if they allow
you full permis-
sion and you find a
way of incentivis-
ing that for them
as well, then you
have a lot more in-
formation.
So, although some-
one might not have
signed up for our
REM or our Lady
Gaga or any other
artist’s database
and we don’t know
that they’re inter-
ested, we might
be able to see that
they’re actually a
follower on Facebook or, that they’ve Tweeted
something about one of those artists. So then
we can use that to say, “Great. Okay, we know
this person’s a fan, let’s personalise the products
and promotions to make them more relevant to
them”.
Greg: Yes, which ultimately is going to re-
sult in more conversion. But you were talking
about ATG before, which is obviously a technol-
ogy that Oracle bought in the last year or two.
The other really big players in the eCommerce
space really would be IBM WebSphere and also
Magento eCommerce, while not as big at the
top end of town, certainly is a more cost ef-
fective solution, I would say, for the majority
of organisations. Have you got any particular
preference as far as platforms that you really
like or dislike?
Gavin: No, we used ATG at Shop Direct and it
was an absolutely great solution. It did an aw-
ful lot but then it comes with a really big price
tag and I think the same is probably true with
WebSphere, which I’ve never actually used, but I
know a fair few friends who use WebSphere and
they seem to share the same sort of opinion that
I’ve got on ATG. Magento’s interesting, obviously
because it’s like Wordpress but for eCommerce,
being far more open source. And it looks like a
very good solution.
Greg: Yes, we defi-
nitely like Magento, their
Enterprise Edition is $12k
a year compared to liter-
ally hundreds and thou-
sands of dollars a year
for the other solutions.
I think if you’re building
Amazon then, it might
not be the right solution,
but if you’ve got a brand
name and you’re trans-
forming your site from a
normal site to an eCom-
merce store then it’s a
very, very good way to go
and it seems quite robust.
One thing we’ve found is
that laying out the design
right from a server point of view is crucial so that
you get your site performing well.
Greg: We were talking a little bit before
about social media integration and social media
definitely has matured and is very much main-
stream now, especially following the massive
growth of Facebook and, to a lesser extent, I
guess, Twitter. For organisations that want to
get into the social space and know that strategi-
cally they need to do something there but they
want to focus on what’s the 80/20 of it. When
really thinking about ROI, what are some of the
things that can be implemented that can be ef-
fective?
Gavin: I guess it really depends on the brand.
It’s going to be quite different for some fast mov-
ing consumer goods than it will be necessarily for
Fcebook Sign

march 2012
us but I definitely think for retailers. If they’re
operating in the space we are then, yes, the focus
should be on ‘on site social’ and it’s often over-
looked.
I think there’s a tendency to try and build Face-
book likes and see Facebook likes as the be-all
and the end-all whereas, actually, really, it’s en-
gagement that’s important. It’s when you’ve got
your advocates, your fans talking to each other
across your Facebook page or across your plat-
form that you’ve really sort of hit the bingo.
Our focus definitely in terms of the 80/20 where
you get the most value is building ‘on site social’
and gamification so we can get our customers rat-
ing the products and services and talking to other
fans of artists - which really helps generate SEO
as well and creates a
sense of community.
It’s not trying to build
a social network like
Facebook. It’s just
trying to build user
generated content and
some of those tools to
create a better shop-
ping experience.
Greg: I notice you
do a lot in the mobile
space, and when you
do designs from a mobile point of view, that
you do very much two designs. So one is for the
tablet format and one for the Smartphone for-
mat. What sorts of technologies or design con-
siderations do you really believe are key when
nailing a mobile strategy for a site or a store?
Gavin: I think in terms of the technology,
we’re using a rendering engine, which takes a
product feed and site structure for the eCom-
merce engine and creates a nice user experi-
ence for each different device.
So for a mobile, obviously, it’s far smaller. You
need to design some things like flat forms and
just keep it really simple. It’s more important
about what you’re taking out than what you’re
leaving. It’s about making sure you strip it down
as much as possible.
For a tablet, you’ve obviously got far more
space... and you’ve also got to think about the
times these are likely to be used. For a mobile
it’s far more likely to be dead time where some-
one’s perhaps sitting on a bus and they thinks “I
may as well utilise this to buy the CD I was think-
ing about” whereas, with a tablet, they’re prob-
ably more than likely sitting at home watching TV
and think, “Okay, actually I want to buy.” You
hear a track or something or you want to go and
buy some clothes. So it’s you want a more plea-
surable sort of shopping experience on a tablet
device.
Greg: What can you tell us about the Get Music
site and really it’s a plat-
form, isn’t it, because it
publishes music to other
places, and how you’re
going to grow that at Uni-
versal because it really
is an interesting project
that one?
Gavin: Yes, it’s a music
store where we sell and
stock music from all art-
ists, both digital and phys-
ical. It’s really, the whole
ethos behind it is ‘it’s by music fans for music
fans’ and it’s a place to get exclusive and deluxe
products. So we’re not just trying to be JB Hi-Fi.
We’re trying to really appeal to the super fans
and allow those super fans to connect with other
fans. I think it’s about two years old now but I
mean I’ve only just joined about four months ago.
So we’re going through what is the brand position
on it at the moment and inputting every bit of
the strategy for rolling out, which includes all of
the things we’ve talked about today – personali-
sation, social, mobile, making sure we’ve got the
right products – and hopefully we’re going to be
able to create a really good brand there and a re-
ally good site.

In terms of the 80/20 where you
get the most value is building
‘on site social’ and gamification
so we can get our customers
rating the products and services
and talking to other fans.
“ “

11
march 2012
Greg: That’s an interesting project. I wish
you the best of luck with that one. I see you’re
a keynote speaker at the upcoming iMedia On-
line Retail Summit in May. What will you be
covering at that event?
Gavin: I think the core focus of it is going to
be on talking about some results and what we’ve
seen from our social media marketing and also
mobile marketing. So by that point, we hopeful-
ly would have launched our iPhone, our android
apps, our mobile optimised site and Facebook
store. So we’ll have some results to share about
what impact that’s had and what return on in-
vestment we’re seeing from it.
Also from the Shop Direct experience and what
impacts we saw there but then as well as what
direct results you can get from social and mo-
bile and how they fit into the broader eCommerce
strategy.
Greg: Thank you very much for your time. We
really do appreciate it and wish you the best of
luck with both the Get Music store that you’re
relaunching and your career in the future online.
Gavin: Thank you very much. It’s been my
pleasure, and it’s a pleasure to appear in Internet
Marketing magazine.
getmusic.com.au

march 2012
› ADVERTISEMENT

13
march 2012
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food is also bad (and why)... and why organic food
is best.
Then show people how to get it inexpensively –
YOUR PRODUCT.
Or you might hear a story about a celebrity eating
organic food.

march 2012
Or you might go to Google News, punch in organic
gardening and come up with a dozen other ideas.
Or you might go out for dinner and get a nasty
addition in your food, which triggers off a rant ask-
ing the question: what other crap is in your food.
Don’t fall for it – but organic.
This happens no matter what your business is in.
Ideas Begin to Come From Everywhere
And the more emails you write, the better and
FASTER you get and the more it just... FLOWS.
You should be able to eventually punch out an
email in 15 minutes. What’s more, after you’ve
been doing it for a while you should have more
ideas than you can poke a stick at.
Here’s a handful of email concepts I’ve used over
the years:
• A rant about something that made me an-
gry.
• An idea / concept I got from a book which
I’ve shared.
• A nasty comment from a subscriber – i.e.
your emails are crap. Explaining why
they are not and referencing all my recent
emails which were delivering value.
• Current News. i.e. relating to recent elec-
tion, giving opinion and segueing it into the in-
terest of your group. i.e. a fashion consultant
could comment on the fashion mistakes made
by those in the election, Golden Globes, etc.
• Common question: send out a questionnaire
to get to know what questions your customers
have. Then answer them.
• Throw in your opinion about industry gos-
sip.
• Interesting fact – find out an interesting fact
and then use that to segue into your main point.
For example, did you know the most dangerous
month to fly is in December? Want to know why?
You’ve gotta keep reading, don’t you? (and by
the way, it’s true).
There’s a ton more, but that should get you start-
ed.
Ok, let me give you 3 examples of openings that
have worked extremely well:
Example #1
SUBJECT: 3 business decisions: Are You Making
Them Based on Fear?
Now I am not suggesting that you are in any way
sitting around quaking in your boots, but if you are
like me you have probably at some stage in your
business...
1. Accepted staff that were performing below
par, just because you were too scared to replace
them (better the devil you know)
2. Put up with vendors who were sloppy.
3. Or accepted clients that ate up too much of
your time and weren’t worth the effort you put
in, simply because you didn’t have enough deal
flow.
We’ve all done it. We’ve all made this same mis-
take at one time or another.
So what’s the answer?
Example #2
SUBJECT: How to Out-Earn Your Competitors: the
#1 Secret
Let me ask you a question...
What’s the difference between you and a doctor?
Why can he heal people and you can’t?
He knows something you don’t.
What’s the difference between you and an accoun-
tant?
Why can he save people tax and you can’t?
He knows something you don’t.
What’s the difference between you and a lawyer?
Why will people pay him / her $300+ per hour to
defend them in court.
Because he knows something you don’t.

15
march 2012
Here’s the bottom line when it comes to money:
Example #3
SUBJECT: Don’t be Played a Fool by Marketing Ex-
perts: What You Must Know
I am currently reading a book by a guy called Gene
Landrum who has studied some of the greatest entre-
preneurs of all time.
One of the chapters is about the oil magnate J. Paul
Getty and in it he talks about the importance of hav-
ing the right information. Here is what he had to
say...
“I learned that the one who had the most informa-
tion was the one likely to get the most information
in return... after my experiences in Tulsa I knew all
the nuts and bolts of the oil industry.”
Let’s look at that quote a little more closely...
Take This Challenge
Sending regular emails can transform your business,
because sales are made based on trust.
But first you’ve got to do it. So let me issue you with
a challenge. Your mission if you choose to accept it
is to:
• Write down 7 concepts for emails (go on, do it
right now).
• Create one a day for the next 7 days. (do it
first thing in the morning).
Odds are, you probably won’t.
But if you do, you’ll build extraordinary relationships,
sales and a solid business.
Oh, and if you don’t have an email list, master the
conversion and traffic tricks in this publication... and
get one.
Scott Bywater
Do you want to learn the easiest way
to get more customers fast? Leading
advertising copywriter, Scott Bywater,
has just completed his brand new guide
“7 Ways to Get More Customers” where
he outline everything so it’s as easy as
1, 2... 3. Download it for free by visiting
http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au

march 2012
The Secret Ingredient For Belting Out A
HOMERUN On Your Next PROMOTION
I was chatting to one of my copy-cub students this
week. He was struggling with a piece of copy that
wasn’t converting.
He couldn’t put his finger on it…
So he asked if I could run my masterful eye over
it. He was hoping I could spot the leaking crack
that flowed into the dark abyss of lost sales. Smart
move.
So I checked it out. And there it was. Staring me
in the face like a flashlight stunned Possum in the
veggie patch.
You see… everything else in the copy was great.
He tapped into the dominant emotion of the mar-
ket with a crunching headline. Pulled them into a
story from the get-go. Dug up all their objections,
fears and desires. Transitioned into the solution
like a seasoned pro. Drenched the piece with some
undeniable proof to back it all up…
But just couldn’t drag them over the line…
So what was missing?
Here’s what the missing ingredient was
He didn’t show them an R.O.I (Return on Invest-
ment).
Big mistake. Huge.
Showing your clients an R.O.I is a critical, power-
ful weapon to use in your copy to close a sale.
Don’t forget this.
Let me show you how. To drive the point home…
I’ve even added in some examples from a couple
of winning sales letters that I’ve personally writ-
ten.
So let’s kick it off…
Okay, before I get started, let me drill this into
your mind one more time so it sticks. Remember
this…
Anytime You Can Show Your Prospect A
Return On Investment In Your Copy… DO IT
In fact, go the extra mile to show them. This is
one of the most powerful “copy clicks” you can
ever use. Period.
To prove it… The kingpin of direct response copy-
writing, Dan Kennedy, rates the “ROI click” as one
of his top five copy-clicks he uses every time he
writes sales copy (as if you need any more con-
vincing than that)
Think about the psychology behind it…
Keeping in mind that the majority of your pros-
pects are secretly looking for reasons NOT to buy
from you…
What do I mean? Well, let’s be honest here… Your
prospects don’t spring out of bed in the morning
looking to spend money with you, right?
Reality check:
If they can get the solution for free,
they’ll take it every time, no question.
So you need to knuckle down and work harder
in your copy if you want them to part with their
money.
› COPY CORNER

17
march 2012
Beware of the dangerous little voice in their head
that whispers, “I don’t really need to spend mon-
ey on this”. It’s your job to silence that voice.
Good news is… the
ROI click can to-
tally swing them
around. If you can
demonstrate (as
simple as possible)
how quickly and
easy they can re-
coup the money
they spend with you,
then it could seal the deal.
That little voice will now say, “What have I got to
lose? I’ll get my money back in X days/months,
then I’ll be in front after that.”
NOTE: If you hear more then two voices at the same
time, please see a doctor immediately or stop
smoking those “special” hand-rolled cigarettes.
Moving on… Let me give you an example of a ROI
click.
The first example is from an ebook sales letter.
If you’ve seen me present on stage before… or
watched my free-gift-DVD “How to write a win-
ning sales letter”… then you may remember this
example from the ‘Dog Breeding’ letter.
Here’s how I used the “ROI click” for this $27 eB-
ook.
How this $27 eBook can make you
$30,000
“Then I got to thinking… now I know all the facts
on dog breeding, and seeing that I LOVE the pro-
cess… this little $27 eBook could make me some
extra cash on the side. My calculations told me I
could sell each puppy for around $1000 each, so
with a litter of 11, that’s $11,000 for doing some-
thing I love.
Then my mind really started ticking over… I could
do this several times per year and pocket around
$30,000 and stay at home and enjoy life, in-
stead of selling my soul to an unappreciative
BOSS!”
That example is pretty short and sweet – Probably
all that’s needed for a $27 eBook. In hindsight, if
I had taken the time to create a visual graph or
table showing the profits, then it would convert
even more.
Please see another short example below. You may
need to zoom in if it’s hard to read..
For more complicated sell processes or for high
price tickets I put a lot more emphasis on dia-
grams and tables to show the ROI.
Use the demonstration of ROI where you can. It
works.
Till next time…
Think big. Be different.
Bret Thomson
ROI copy click Sample
Bret Thomson
Is a master copywriter and profit
strategist. He is the one of Australia’s
premier Copywriters, Entrepreneur
and Speaker. Bret made $125,000 in his
first 5 months copywriting alone.
You can get a free copy of Bret’s DVD
‘How to Write a Winning Sales Letter’
at BretThomson.com
ROI Cost-value Graph

march 2012
› ADVERTISEMENT

19
march 2012
The Lowdown on Raising
VENTURE CAPITAL
This article is the 2nd in a series from Venture Capital Expert Tony McAuslan and follows on
from the first article in the February 2012 issue of Internet Marketing Magazine.
› FEATURED ARTICLE
Access to capital for growth has
always been one of the major
hurdles confronting a business
Founder, and events such as the
Global Financial Crisis (GFC),
and an ongoing European market
meltdown certainly don’t make it
any easier. In last month’s issue,
I wrote a piece explaining that
there was still money to be had,
and I highlighted the market ‘Hot
Buttons’ that VC Fund investors
were on the lookout for.
Since that time, I’ve had a num-
ber of meetings with what I’d
term ‘Top Tier’ Fund managers,
and I can assure you that despite
the current world situation, many
of these funds are still awash
with cash - and believe it or not,
they’re telling me that the big-
gest problem they have is finding
suitable start-ups worth taking a
punt on.
This month I’d like to talk about
some of the tricks of the trade
you can learn, that will give you
at least a fighting chance to
keep control of your own des-
tiny, should you suddenly find
yourself in a bare-knuckled
fight with an interested inves-
tor, who is probably doing his
best to convince you why giving
up 35% of your company for the
paltry $500k he is planning to
invest is such a great deal.
But first, a quick snapshot of how
your basic VC Fund works.
Most funds are set up as ‘Limit-
ed Partnerships’, and therefore
have a predetermined ‘Life’ re-
garding how long the fund will
run for (usually 10 years). The
fund starts ticking once the final
amount of money is raised and
the round is ‘closed off’.
Money is raised from high net
worth individuals, other invest-
ment portfolios (think super-
funds), some investment banks,
and sometimes other Funds. The
Board and Senior Management
Team of the fund charge around
2.5% of the value of money held
by the fund, as a management
fee, and they are often further
incentivized with bonuses for
successful investment ‘exits’,
i.e. a trade sale or market listing
(IPO).
Most Funds have an objective to
return at least 20% per annum,
but given that about 80% of in-
vested companies never make
the big time, the other 20% of
their invested companies (that’s
on 2 out of 8) need to return
an annual compound growth of
around 30% per annum. So in oth-
er words, 8 out of 10 investments
usually fail, but they are hoping
for those other 2 to be sold at
a multiple of around 10x and (if
they’ve done their homework)
maybe even get the odd sale at a
100x multiple.

march 2012
So that’s the prism through which a Venture Capital
(VC) investor is looking at your company - can he:
A). Turn your fledgling company (or idea) into a
booming business with enough critical mass to
make it an attractive purchase for another larg-
er company, or can he make it look good enough
to enough ‘mum & dad’ investors to have them
clambering for stock in the event of an IPO?
B). Do you, as the Founder, come across with suf-
ficient drive, enthusiasm and product knowledge
to warrant putting his reputation on the line
to his Board, Investors and fellow Management
Team members?
C). Is your Intellectual Property sufficiently
locked down to ensure there will be no lawsuits
along the way?
D.) Are you operating in a growth market sector?
E.) And most importantly, is your business/idea
scalable across a global market to ensure that
millions of people will want and be able to pur-
chase your products?
Given that the answer to all off the above is a re-
sounding YES!, then there’s a good chance your
VC investor is considering reaching for his cheque
book. BUT WAIT!
The (often unspoken) but primary objective for
any VC is two-pronged - these being to
1.) Have as large a share as possible of your
company AND
2.) Have as much control of your company as
possible
And therein lies the rub. While they want your
company to grow exponentially, they also want to
make sure that when that big pay day comes, they
are sitting on as much of the equity as possible - in
order to maximize their investment.
Secondly, their reasoning is that if they are going
sink several million dollars into your great idea,
they’re going to want as much ‘control’ as possible,
in order to make sure there are no sudden changes
in direction or wobbly management decisions.
In terms of #1 - Maintaining their share, this issue is
approached through the scramble for equity. Which
is why they are so keen on you to give up as much
equity as you’re willing to part with in their initial
round of funding. And more importantly, why they
usually put additional money into your company in
further funding rounds - even at a higher valuation.
Something you are unlikely to be able to do, i.e.
have the cash to match them.
In terms of #2 - Gaining Control. This is in part dealt
with by the equity issue. The greater the equity -
the greater the voting rights you bring to the table.
But is also usually approached from the ‘Manage-
ment’ side, e.g. A VC will probably insist on at least
one seat on the Board, and have also been known
to install their own CEO on the premise of adding
some “’experience” to the management team.
So, back to some tips for controlling your own des-
tiny in the event of an investment offer. Here are
some of my favorites:
• Hold on to as much of your equity as you
can, for as long as you can. Giving away 30%
of your company when you are only worth $1m
doesn’t seem like a lot. But if you go on to be-
come one of those 100x companies, 30% of $100m
is suddenly a large chunk of cash.
• Make sure you have the same divestment
rules as your VC. I have seen a number of Found-
ers shocked to discover that at the next round of
investment they are expected to give up another
20% of their equity, yet the VC has only got to
give up 5% due to some tricky clause in the Term
Sheet.
• Make sure you get all of the money prom-
ised, upfront, and NOT paid in on the drip feed
as you reach various ‘milestones’. This is also
known as ‘Death by a thousand cuts’ - extremely
painful.

21
march 2012
• On a similar theme, make sure that ALL of
your equity is vested from Day 1, and not vest-
ed over a period of years as you reach various
targets and milestones.
• When it comes to Board appointments, in-
sist on an ‘Independent’ Chairman (useful for
breaking deadlocked votes) - and then make
sure that this ‘independent’ Chairman is vetted
by you, or even better, an associate of yours.
Perhaps a former boss or mentor from within
your industry. There’s nothing like being able to
phone up the Chairman and asking him to help
you ‘pre-sell’ an idea or radical change to the
Board on your behalf.
• On the subject of Board meetings, make
sure that either you, or someone you trust
(your CFO?) is the person taking the minutes.
This is the corporate version of the old Roman
adage that ‘The victor writes the history’. Any
slightly unclear points can be written to your
advantage, and you also avoid that terrible mo-
ment in every CEO’s life when you read the min-
utes and see that you have somehow agreed to a
whole raft of actions that you have absolutely no
recollection of never having agreed to. Believe
me, this happens a lot more than you may think.
• Finally, insist on any in-
vestor providing you with a
written business plan that
indicates the type of chang-
es to the business they are
intending to implement,
well BEFORE you agree to sign
up for their terms.
• A well-written Term
Sheet that sets out all of the
terms of the investment is
akin to a modern day ‘Pre-
Nup’ that you put in the bot-
tom draw, and hopefully nev-
er have to refer to again.
Next month I will be giving
you some insight on how to
value your business in the event that you are con-
sidering raising some funds from an investor. In the
meantime, thanks to all those readers out there
who have taken the time to get in touch with me
to discuss their fund raising adventures. There are
some great success stories out there, as well as
some badly burned entrepreneurs. Maybe we can
share some case studies in a future issue!
Tony McAuslan
is the epitome of a modern day
‘Entrepreneur’. After working for some
of the world’s largest companies in
Advertising and then Gaming, Tony
launched his own start-up business in
2001. Starting from a base of only 3
staff, Tony raised over $25m in venture
capital and grew his company to over 80
staff with offices in Sydney, Los Angeles
and London. After exiting the company in
2005, Tony went on to work as a Business
Development Manager for one of Europe’s
largest private VC firms, where he helped
raise over US$80m for a wide range of
start-up ventures. He now splits his
time between mentoring various start-
up firms, and consulting for clients who
are seeking venture capital funds. He is
based in Sydney and can be contacted by
email at tmcauslan@hotmail.com

march 2012
7. Always provide an affiliate program for any product or
service you sell online. Without affiliates and JV
partners
(higher paid affiliates), I wouldn’t be where I am today.
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› ADVERTISEMENT

23
march 2012
5 WAYS TO LEVERAGE
PINTEREST FOR YOUR BUSINESS
› PINTEREST MARKETING
Over the last few months a new site has taken the
Internet by storm. Sending more referral traffic
to websites than Google+ and LinkedIn combined!
And racking up an astonishing 11 million unique
visitors per month and counting.
This site is called Pinterest.
Pinterest is a virtual pinboard to organize and share
the things you love. Pinterest can credit it’s rapid
growth thanks to the help of mostly women, but
more and more men are joining the site everyday.
While ‘Pinning’ is fun, businesses and marketers
from around the world can benefit greatly from
this monster of a site. After all, leveraging your re-
sources is good practice when trying to grow your
business and gain exposure to your offers.
But Pinterest is still brand new to some and many
people have never even heard of it... so to help
you get started on Pinterest, let’s focus on 5 ways
to leverage Pinterest for your business.
The 5 Ways To Start Leveraging Pinterest
It doesn’t matter what business you’re in. Wheth-
er you are an affiliate marketer, a digital informa-
tion product creator or an offline brick and mortar
business, you can use this plan to gain traction.
But you need to identify your market and their
needs first. Be exact. The better you do this, the
more results you will get.
So find some related images online (make sure
you are not infringing any copyright laws) and get
ready to start pinning.
#1 - Optimizing Your Pins For Search
Yes, you can actually rank your pins. It’s actually
really simple to make sure your images are opti-
mized correctly. There are a few things you need
to do.

march 2012
First, you’ll need to know your
keywords. I’m going to assume
you know how to do your re-
search for that. But you will
need to know which keyword
you’re going for.
Once you’ve got that you can op-
timize your boards and pins.
• Make sure you pin your
images in the correct category.
• Start with your broad ti-
tle. When you go to name your
board make sure you include
your main keyword in the title.
• For your actual pin
you need to insert your
main keywords in the de-
scription text.
• Also, if you have
control over the name of
the image file, name that
image your main key-
word.
• Don’t be afraid to point a
few back links from other social
networking sites to your image
or interlink you pins together for
a little more link juice. This will
help push your pin to the top of
Google.
• Ping your new pins.
#2 - Back links
Every online marketer with some
type of content on the Internet
knows the importance of us-
ing back links for better rank-
ings. Even though Google makes
changes to its algorithm some
400 times a year, back links still
hold weight and always will.
The Internet is quickly shifting
into a social based space. Lucky
for us, Pinterest is a social con-
tent curation site. Currently, it
has a page rank of 6 which is 3
times higher than the average
website and has a root domain
authority of 92.
Now, acquiring links from Pinter-
est is very beneficial and they
are super easy to get. You can
acquire a link from a few plac-
es and point them to anywhere
you’d like, such as your compa-
nies site or affiliate sites.
When pinning an image you can
edit any pin on any board. You’ll
want to do that for just about
any image to make sure you are
getting some link love.
First, when pinning an image
and editing it you’ll want to put
a link in the description (impor-
tant) along with your main key-
words.
Then, on the same pin you can
enter a link in the URL field.
You can also acquire back links
to your site when you actually
pin an image from a site that you
own. Pinterest will automatical-
ly put a link to the source where
the image came from.
Next, you can click on the “edit
profile” button in your account
and leave a link in the ‘About’
and ‘Website’ box.
Last but not least, once the
board has been created you can
go back to that board and edit it.
In that description you can also
drop your link and a keyword for
better optimization.
#3 - Get People In Your
Niche To Follow You
As soon as you start
with Pinterest and
set up your account
you will notice that a
few people will start
following you. This is
fine but these people
aren’t targeted. You
want and need tar-
geted followers.
And this all starts
with interesting images. The
more interesting it is the more
people will start to follow you
or your board, ‘like’ your image
and comment. The more interac-
tion you can get the more people
will start to see your stuff and
follow you.
A great way to do this is with In-
fographics. Infographics are all
the rage right now.
When you can present informa-
tion to people in a fun, unique
way they are sure to pass it on...
Of course, there are other things
you can do to position yourself in
a way for others to find you.
Editing a Pinterest pin

25
march 2012
Things like...
1. Find authority figures in
you niche who are on Pinterest
and follow them.
2. Follow all the people who
follow those authority figures.
a. Re-Pin other people’s
pins. They will get a notifi-
cation saying you re-pinned
their stuff and hopefully
they’ll follow you back.
#4 - Promote Your Videos
On Pinterest
Not a whole lot of people actu-
ally take advantage of this. Pin-
ning your videos on Pinterest is a
great way to increase your video
views.
Now I say “views” loosely. We
don’t want views on our videos
from just anybody. That’s why
it’s important to follow the right
people and get the right people
to follow you on Pinterest.
The total number of views on
your video gives it more cred-
ibility. People land on your video
and say, “Hey - This video has a
lot of views. It must be good”.
This will help keep people on
your video, watch it all the way
through to the end and hopefully
follow your call to action.
You can post videos to your
boards from just about any-
where, but with the most popu-
lar being Youtube and your own
sites. Videos get a lot of views,
comments and likes from Pinter-
est users. Besides,
videos are a great
way to turn a cold
visitor into an in-
terested customer.
On a side note
- Ever since Pin-
terest became so
popular there have
been several other
sites to follow in
their footsteps.
Specifically, a site
called http://
www.chill.com
Chill is a site just
like Pinterest but
for videos. It al-
lows you to post
videos to your ac-
count from people
you like. On the
flip side, you could
post your own vid-
eos for more expo-
sure.
#5 - Consistency Creates
Conversions
I see a lot of people make this
mistake when it comes to mar-
keting on Pinterest or any other
social site for that matter... They
get the ball rolling, post a bunch
of stuff about their business, get
a bunch of followers and then
just stop.
This is a huge mistake!
You have to keep your posting
and engagement consistent. If
you start pinning images to your
boards and stop, you can’t stay
in front of your audience.
Examples of Infographics

march 2012
Pinning images is very easy. You could easily pin
something everyday and only take a minute or two
out of your day to do it. This will keep your brand,
product or name in front of people’s faces at all
times.
You can’t let them forget about you. In today’s
fast moving marketplace, people are constantly
hammered by then next new shiny new thing. It’s
cluttered to say the least. But consistency creates
a following and ultimately conversions.
Pin something everyday. It doesn’t even have to
be your images. In fact, I have a rule. This rule is
simple. Don’t make every pin about you. Spread
your pin to promotion ratio out. I only like to post
something about my business or an affiliate pro-
motion maybe twice a week. The rest of the time
I am simply re-pinning things from other people or
sites.
Even though, you need to stay consistent with
your pinning, you don’t want it all about you. You
can easily come across as a spammer of sorts. You
don’t want that associated with your name. Be-
come a part of the community and the conversions
will come.
Other Things Worth Mentioning
I can’t stress this enough... When you are finding
images to pin, make sure the site you are pinning
from is cool with it. If you are using the “Pin It”
button and a site has blocked access to it, don’t
manually upload the image.
The site doesn’t want their
stuff shared. Respect that or
they may take some sort of
legal action.
Install the “Pin It” button to
make it easier to pin images
from your site or things you
like. This is a huge timesaver
when you need to post some
content for your followers.
If you sell anything online and
have the ability to create and accept coupons,
make a few and pin them to your boards. In times
where the world’s economy is suffering, people
love to save a dime on items that they want. Plus,
coupons can spread virally like a wildfire. This
works for both physical products and digital.
There you have it... Just a few ways you can le-
verage Pinterest to help propel your business for-
ward. And just a little FYI, there are way more
than 5 ways to leverage Pinterest. You just have to
get creative.
Bottom line... Pinterest is wide open for market-
ers to leverage their business. If you’re not using
Pinterest as a part of your overall strategy, you
should be.
Derek Allen
is a popular teacher in the Internet
Marketing community, local business
consultant, established affiliate marketer,
software developer and a statistics
maniac. With over 5 years of digital
marketing experience Derek has been
called an Internet Marketing innovator. He
loves to help, teach, and coach. Derek has
a website where he shares tons of valuable
information at http://ultimateimclub.com
He also came out with the first official Pin-
terest marketing course.
If you would like to learn more about using
Pinterest to help build your business please
feel free to check it out.
Pinterest.com

27
march 2012
The
$18 MILLION WEBSITE
› FEATURED ARTICLE
Luxury Hotels and Resorts brand ‘Four Seasons’ re-
cently re-launched their FourSeasons.com web-
site for an alleged $18 million.
While this seems like a lot of money for a site re-
launch, it is an international brand with 84 hotels,
and the $18m may cover more than just a rede-
sign.
Let’s check it out with a quick site review to see
how effective the new design is.
The imagery that you are hit with on the sliders
the instant you hit the site is breath taking and
luxurious as it scrolls through location after loca-
tion of beautiful scenery and location shots.
If the intended audience are impulse buyers and
are likely to see the imagery and then decide to
choose a location and travel there based on what
they have just seen then this strategy could work
very well.
The primary desired course of action of the site is
to ‘Make a Reservation’ with the secondary course
of action is ‘Select Your Destination’. They’ve
done a good job of making those buttons highly
visible while still keeping a very classy look and
feel to the site.
If the site visitor is using a smaller resolution screen
display like 1280 x 800 as many of the older afflu-
ent community may use, then the ‘Make a Reser-
vation’ system does not work ideal because it is
obscured off the bottom of the screen. The button
can be seen but clicking the ‘Make a Reservation’
button makes the screen scroll up slightly but not
enough to seamlessly choose a location and order
without having to scroll up and down several times
to do it. The developers may have made a con-
scious decision to not worry about these resolu-
tions of screen because of the trend for higher and
higher screen resolutions over time as technology
develops.
For any screen resolution of 1080 or higher the site
works perfectly and the primary courses of action
of the screen can be seen without the need to
scroll.
The individual hotel landing pages also sport that
same widescreen, stunning photography. On these
individual site pages the content goes down well
below the fold: presumably the thinking is that
once a customer gets to a specific hotel page, they
are interested enough that they will scroll down
for the info. Our heatmap testings in the past
across many industry verticals show this is often
not the case, but one would assume that they are
testing this.
When making a booking if you select a room that
is not available you are greeted with “Search exe-
cuted but no availability returned”. This feels like
more of a system error message than a customer
service message as I would have expected a “sor-
ry we do not have any rooms available for those
dates” or similar customer centred response.
four seasons above the fold
four seasons primary courses of action

march 2012
The mass affluent consumer is obviously a consum-
er who is on the go and would make searches and
site visits from mobile devices. Our testing from
both the iPhone and iPad provided seamless per-
fect user experiences for the mobile consumer with
their mobile optimized sites.
From a traffic point of view the site is doing very
well with 30 million site viewers in 2011 and domi-
nant rankings in both SEO and Google Adwords for
‘Luxury Hotel’ searches.
The Yahoo and Bing Pay Per Click via Microsoft ad-
Center seems to have been missed though, as dur-
ing our site testing we were not able to find the
luxury hotel brand by searches from those two
search engines except for organic results. Micro-
soft adCenter reports that they have 78 million po-
tential customers (searches) using Bing so it may
be worth looking into. Would it be cheeky of me to
offer to get them dominating in Yahoo and Bing PPC
for a cool million? :)
Greg Cassar
is Australia’s leading Internet
Marketing Strategist. With
InternetMarketingDoneForYou.com
he provides traffic and conversion
optimization services for medium to
large businesses and enterprises. You
can follow Greg’s latest updates by
subscribing to Internet Marketing Magazine
at InternetMarketingMag.net for the new
members area and the latest issue updates.
fourseasons.com

29
march 2012
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