Welcome to the Horse Racing Experts Platinum Training Resources page
Here you’ll find all sorts of resources to support the development of your business and first product. If you’ve any questions, drop me a line at matt@summumbonum.co.uk
Stage 0 – Overview of the HRE Platinum Programme
Stage 4 – Joint Venture Partners
Stage 5 – Autorespondes & ‘Squeeze’ Pages
Website ‘How To’ A to Z – check out these videos for lots of common ‘how to’ questions answered on video
Overview
Workshop Transcription
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Workshop Slides
Slide pack(If you don’t have PowerPoint 2007, you may download a ‘viewer’ from Microsoft’s website here)
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‘Over My Shoulder’ Videos
Planning and Creating a Campaign
Prospect Pages (Opt-In ‘Squeeze’ and VIP Area)
Setting up JV Contact and Auto-reply Messages
More JV Emails and Creating PDF’s
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‘Over My Shoulder’ Transcriptions
Over My Shoulder Video Transcripts
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Action Plan
Action Plan Checklist–
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Sample Time Line Schedule
Sample Plan for a launch sequence
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Additional Workshop Notes
Matt’s notes supporting the previous presentation slides
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Section 1. Angle Research
Firstly, read the 20 Hot Angles pdf here. This will give you some excellent starting points from which to tinker either in Adrian Massey’s research site or with Racing Systems Builder.
Recommended reading:
Anything by Nick Mordin (esp. Winning Without Thinking, and Betting For A Living)
Anything by Alan Potts (esp. Against The Crowd, and The Inside Track)
US Authors, especially:
Andrew Beyer (speed ratings), James Quinn (class), Tom Ainslie (pace), Steve Davidowitz (general), and William Quirin (data analysis in handicapping).
Websites:
www.geegeez.co.uk (of course!)
Section 2. Product Research and Creation
This video demonstrates how to use RSB and Adrian Massey:
Research Websites:
www.AdrianMassey.com (look for ‘Generate Custom Report’ link)
www.HorseRaceBase.com (you need to create a user, and make a donation)
www.pjmracing.co.uk (reasonably priced tools and info)
www.football-data.co.uk (brilliant football resources website)
Premium Options:
www.timeform-i.com (Timeform’s interactive formbook)
www.thesportsbook.com (independent formbook)
Raceform Interactive (can be bought from RacingPost.com shop)
Section 3. Marketing Funnel Planning
Planning your marketing funnel is a key aspect of the whole process.
This section contains information to help you design an overview of your marketing approach.
Its objective is to get you thinking about the components involved in either a launch or a product release. [I encourage the use of a launch tactic, as this is the quickest means of a) building a list, and b) making some money!]
You will use this section in conjunction with other sections of the training materials, but this should assist you in planning your launch/release. (“Fail to prepare, prepare to fail!”)
As a reminder, I’d urge you to share your planning thoughts with me, so that I can help identify any possible issues or opportunities you might have missed.
Below is a sample plan I put together for a product I’m thinking of releasing in four to six weeks time. It is a laying system with software and, whilst I’m not quite sure which launch strategy I’m going to use, the principles at this stage are the same. It took me about 45 minutes to pull that together, and it will guide me through the rest of the steps. [Note that it is NOT intended to be an exhaustive step-by-step planner at this stage. Please also note that I have not attached timescales to any of the tasks and activities yet.]
Sample High Level Plan (text file version)
Sample Plan (Excel version)
Part 1: Launch or Release?
Decide on whether to do a ‘launch’ or a simple release. (HINT: Launches take more effort, but are more lucrative!)
Part 2a: Launch – you should have created all of the below BEFORE you even approach a JV partner, such that everything is planned in advance. Believe me, you do NOT want to be creating this stuff on the fly!
i) What are you going to give away in your launch sequence?
- Simple free system (with supporting research!)
- i. Example here.
- A free report – “Seven Steps To Being A Better Lay Punter”
- A percentage of the final product (e.g. 10%)
- i. Example here.
- Some video training (see Frank Kern’s Mass Control for a great example of this)
ii) You should aim to have three (or maybe more) of these items to ‘dripfeed’ to your interested parties, and – although you may ‘give’ the first one away, the remainder should only be shared in exchange for someone’s email address. This is the first part of the power of this approach: you grow a BIG list in a SHORT time, even when people DON’T buy your product.
iii) Create an email chain to support your launch campaign (in fact, two chains):
- A series of emails to encourage your JV partners to promote, at each stage. Remind them of the ‘WIIFM’ (What’s In It For Me, i.e. them) answers. Urge them to tell their list about your latest freebie as you move through the launch sequence.
- A series of emails to:
- i. Initially, get people to go to your ‘free giveaway’ or ‘squeeze’ page, so that they can get something for nothing and, if they like it, sign up to get more of the same.
- ii. Thereafter, email the guys who’ve signed up to tell them you’ve got something else for them – each time you release more of your free content. This builds massive trust and credibility, and… starts to instil the law of reciprocity!
iv) Don’t forget your Sales Letter and your JV Partner Approach – see separate sections for those…
v) Plan your launch sequence:
- When are you contacting JV partners (and how much time will you allow for them to respond)?
- When are you going to start your launch campaign?
- What is the spacing between freebie releases?
- Which emails support each stage above?
- Have you written your sales copy?
- Have you tested / tested / tested?!
Part 2b: ‘Simple’ Release – this is much easier to implement but still requires planning. You will not get the same list growth, and you are unlikely to get as many sales. But… with a simple release you can keep the sales page up for as long as you like (whereas with a launch, you’d likely take it down after a set period as stated in your sales copy – the point being to urgently drive people there to buy).
i) Establish whether you’re going to have a squeeze box in your sales page and, if so, create the incentive (free report or some such) to entice people in.
ii) Test your sales process setup.
iii) Set up your JV process (Clickbank is easiest, aMember has a bit more functionality)
iv) Publish the sales page, and urge JV partners to promote.
Section 4. JV Partners and Affiliate Software
An absolutely essential part of this business model, finding JV partners and persuading them to work with you can make or break your online endeavours. Take a lot of care in this section and make sure you do it right.
Let’s first look at finding potential partners…
The first thing to do is to set up a spreadsheet or some other means of tracking who you’ve contacted and whether they’ve responded. I’ve attached a blank template here:
The best places to source possible JV partners are:
– Search Engines, e.g. Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.
– Affiliate websites, e.g. Clickbank, Paydotcom, etc
– Offline publisher who specialise in sports betting or information publishing, e.g. Streetwise Publications
Be sure to keep this list up to date, and make a note of those email addresses that ‘bounce’ (are returned).
Next, you need to decide on your JV approach. For instance, you’ll need to know how much you’re going to offer partners (as much as possible!); what they need to do (as little as possible!); and what support you’re providing (as much as possible!).
I’m actually quite serious about the above. Please believe me when I tell you that the easier and more lucrative you make it for potential partners, the more likely they are to promote. In turn, this means the more likely you are to get a nice list, some excellent contacts, and some decent money!
My suggestion is that you offer at least 50% (and 70-75% if you can); that you create (or have created) both emails and graphics for the promotion; and that you provide full, prompt and courteous support to these guys whenever they request it.
[Think of it like this: you’ve just self-published your own book, and you are now approaching WH Smith, Waterstones, Books etc, and so on, to see if they’ll give it shelf space. What’s in it for them? Make it worth their while and they will make it worth yours.]
Here is a copy of the actual email I sent affiliates prior to Flat Racing Profiles launch (remember, make it personal for best effect). Keep it brief, but make sure all the key info is in there. You can elaborate once they’ve asked for more info. And, if you choose to follow up non-respondents, please give them at least a week before doing that (and obviously factor that into your plans).
Next, you need to send those who have expressed an interest more information. This email template is what I sent to those who responded to my initial overture for FRP.
At each stage, update your spreadsheet with any new information you receive.
NOTE OF CAUTION #1: not all JV partners are necessarily people who you’d wish to do business with. Do take care when starting out and, if you’re not sure, ask me for an opinion. I don’t know everyone of course, but I know quite a few people…
Your follow up email should contain all the info the JV partner needs. For FRP, I referred people to a webpage here:
http://www.flatracingprofiles.com/affiliates/wiifm.htm
Once you’ve got JV partners on board, you need to manage your JV partners.
To do this, you’ll need either a piece of affiliate software or the use of an affiliate marketplace (such as Clickbank). Depending on how much complexity you wish to deal with, and how technically adept you are, you may wish to go with Clickbank for your first launch. They handle everything: all commission payments; refunds; cookie tracking, etc. and, although they charge a premium for that, they are by far the biggest online ebook affiliate management centre.
They also cater for recurring subscriptions, so if you have an ongoing membership service, this can be handled through Clickbank too. I’m not going to repeat Clickbank’s processes here. You can get all the info you need from:
http://www.clickbank.com/sell_products.html
If you are looking for affiliate software outside of Clickbank, this will involve some configuration work, and I’d strongly advise you seeking help from a knowledgeable source, unless you’re a whizz yourself. Most product vendors have their own installation teams who can help you.
I recommend the following:
iDevAffiliate $99.99 (installation costs $45) – http://www.idevdirect.com/idevaffiliate.php
JROX $250 (install $25, with full integration $99) – http://jam.jrox.com/
If you’re using aMember membership software (see point 7 below), that also has an affiliate module which is sufficient for most things, but is fairly basic. They also provide a free installation service, and their customer support is excellent (I cannot vouch for the two above, as I’ve not personally used them).
NB. Each of these companies has full instructional info / videos on how to install and configure their product, so I will not repeat that here.
Once your software is set up, you can then add your JV partners to it, and send them their unique personal affiliate links.
NOTE OF CAUTION #2: Be aware that when using affiliate software (not Clickbank), you’ll need to have what’s called a P3P Policy. It’s pretty easy to set up, using a free online tool here (ignore the horrible purple at the top of the page, and scroll down to the text area!)
As ever, do it step by step, and it should take no more than ten to fifteen minutes. If in doubt, get some help! 😉
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5. Auto-responders and ‘Squeeze Boxes’
Auto-responders
If a list is the engine of a business, your auto-responder is the car around it. Quite simply, it facilitates all of the benefits of the list, by making communication and maintenance as straightforward as possible.
Auto-responders enable you to:
– collect the contact information from people interested in your product or service;
– send them a pre-written series of emails, either promoting a product, or providing some credibility-enhancing information;
– send ad hoc communications, for instance, to advise of a new blog post you’ve written.
Quite simply, this is one of the three things (along with a domain name and web hosting) you NEED.
The companies I recommend are:
– Getresponse (I use them, but they’ve updated their interface in July 2009 and it is not working correctly yet. I’d wait at least until October 2009 before considering these guys, as things stand)
– aWeber – the largest supplier of these tools to small business, and one of the most highly regarded.
– iContact – the ‘new kid on the block’, and very promising they look too.
Once you’ve signed up for an account, there’s three steps to getting it set up:
1. Create a campaign – this will be either for a product promotion (e.g. your new horse racing ebook or tip service), or for a blog site
2. Create a squeeze box / page – this is a means of capturing interested party’s email addresses so that you can send them the info you have and they want
3. Add follow-up messages to the campaign
Each of the providers I’ve listed above has it’s own video tutorials on how to do this, so there’s no point in me replicating that here.
However, I will offer a few pointers to you, as follows:
– Remember, much of the technical stuff is ‘easy’ to someone who knows. In my opinion, it is far better to pay $10 to someone who can get this right first time in double quick time, than to spend a day getting frustrated and failing to achieve what you set out to achieve (or making a pig’s ear of it, as I have done many times).
This is called Opportunity Cost, and you need to consider how much your time is worth. In my opinion, you are much better served ‘outsourcing’ this type of thing if you’re uncomfortable with it, and instead using your time to create the real value on your blog / sales page – CONTENT! You should be writing articles, sales copy, great products, not faffing about with things you don’t necessarily understand.
If you are working on a serious shoestring budget, fair enough. Otherwise, set aside a small pot of around $200 for all your little technical ‘incidentals’ and try to find a reliable developer to work with. (Use www.RentaCoder.com or www.eLance.com for this. I can help with some suggestions / pointers if you’re not sure how to request the help you need.)
Squeeze Boxes / Pages
Some websites have what’s called a ‘landing page’. This is a dedicated page that is the first thing you see when you go to their site. It’s sole purpose is to compel you to share your contact details, such that the site can communicate with you in the future. This is also called a ‘squeeze page’.
There is an art to creating landing or squeeze pages. The best recent document I’ve seen on the subject is here and it comes courtesy of my friends at Shortcut Bulletin (the password is ‘squeezepage’). Take a read of it, and factor it in if you’re planning to use landing pages or squeeze copy (i.e. the words that support the sign up box).
I have created a short video below on adding ‘squeeze box’ code to a web page if you want to try yourself (it’s not that difficult once you get started):
6. Sales / Video Page
Writing sales pages, also called copywriting, is a true skill. Like any writing, those at the top of the copywriting tree get paid millions of pounds for their work. It is a skill that one constantly learns about and improves at, just by reading and watching (and recognising) the myriad marketing messages we’re all subjected to on a daily basis.
Although writing sales copy is an art form, the good news is that there is a formula that we can all follow to at least make a ‘good fist’ of a sales letter.
Whilst following the formula, ALWAYS keep in mind that you have to appeal to your prospective customer, and therefore it is about them, and not you.
And remember the two acronyms from the training day:
AIDA – Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
WIIFM – “What’s in it for me?!”
With that in mind, let’s walk through the sales letter formula:
Headline: far and away the most important component of any sales material is the headline. As with a newspaper, if the reader is not compelled by the headline, she/he will not read any further. The job of the headline is to get your prospect to read the next sentence in your page – that’s it.
In order to write a good headline, I strongly recommend you take a look at what other people are doing, and find headlines (and indeed all sales copy) that you like. Gathering this information is called collecting a ‘swipe file’. Swipe files are hugely valuable to you, not because you are going to plagiarise someone else’s work, but because they provide you with ideas.
When you come to sit down and write your headline, take time over it. I suggest writing at least eight headlines, and maybe as many as twenty. In doing so, you’ll get a feel for what will work well and what won’t.
A couple of quick do’s and don’t’s for you:
– Don’t use round numbers in your headlines
– Do use some of these words (or words like these) in your headlines and throughout your copy:
Body Copy:
There are various components to the main body of the sales letter, and these broadly cover the following interests of your prospect:
– understand what their problem is
– resonate with it (i.e. you’ve had that same problem)
– describe your struggle with it
– and then you found a solution (your product)
– use social proof (what other people are saying, testimonials) to support
– reassure with either a free trial and / or a money back guarantee
– close with a strong call to action
– add some p.s.’s
I have created (actually, I paid someone else to create it!) a rudimentary tool that walks you through the process. It’s not without it’s ‘nuances’ so remember to save before moving from step to step. But it’s quite a cool little ‘easy website generator’. That’s why I hosted it at http://www.e-w-g.co.uk
You also would be well advised to spend some time looking at sales letters and seeing what makes you want to buy.
Understand how they got to your ‘hot buttons’. It doesn’t have to hype-y – it just has to be compelling (note, hype-y does work well though!). The length of the sales copy is as long as it takes to get all the above elements into it.
Break up copy with images, graphics, screenshots, etc.
If you’re confident / competent enough, use a bit of video or audio. I’m terrible at this, but the fact is it sells. More and more, we’re seeing video sales letters and I’m convinced it is the future. Basically, they’re TV ads on the internet.
7. Membership Sites
Membership sites are a great way to generate a lot of recurring income, say every month. Once you set up the service or content structure, you need some special webpage code to manage all of the possible interactions between your customers and you.
These interactions normally relate to canceling a membership; paying the next month; and such like.
It is possible to do this manually, and indeed the first time I did this, I undertook everything ‘by hand’. It was a nightmare, and a real drain on my time. Given that I got involved in this to exercise my passion AND to free up my time, this was not a good place for me to be.
The beauty of membership sites is that they enable all of the admin to be taken care of, leaving you with the twin jobs of driving prospects to the sign up page and creating the members’ content.
If you plan to offer a ‘continuity’ based product or service, I’d encourage you to consider some kind of automated solution. The two I recommend are:
Wishlist Member (for WordPress specifically)
aMember is my personal choice for membership sites. It comes with full support, and includes professional installation on your website in the price of $180 (about £109). aMember also has a basic affiliate tool within it, which I have personally used with great success.
Wishlist Member is cheaper but has slightly less functionality. It costs $97, and I will be experimenting with this in the future, as I move almost entirely to sites hosted on the WordPress platform.
8. Support Pages
When you first start, looking after your customers is not too much of a problem, due to the limited number of them. However, as you become more well-known, and your JV partnerships start to reap dividends, so you will have a lot more customer support to deal with.
It’s up to you whether you handle this yourself or outsource it. Either way, I have found the following to be very helpful:
– Create a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page, to respond to the most common enquiries (example at www.Laying-System.com/FAQ.htm)
– Have a separate customer support email address, that is used solely for this purpose
– Create an auto-reply for people who email your support address. In it, either include a link to your Frequently Asked Questions page or paste the content of that page into the email reply. Or both!
– Create ‘template’ email answers that you can simply ‘copy and paste’ to reply.
– Consider passing all of the above to a staff member. You probably only need an hour or less a day of somebody’s time, and there’s an army of people in India or the Philippines who will do this for maybe $2.50 an hour. That’s fifteen bucks (or about ten pounds) a week to have most of your customer support dealt with, freeing you up to create content and make money!
– Understand that your outsourced help will probably need a LOT of hand-holding at the beginning. Take the time to do this, and ensure they document everything. This is one of the best investments I’ve made in my business. It will be for you too, when the customers start to roll in.
9. Blogging
Use WordPress. Blogger is good, WordPress is great!
How to install a WordPress blog:
1. Find your blog domain name. Use www.domaincheck.co.uk to find your domain name, but DON’T buy it there.
2. Sign up with a UK based host (I recommend www.tsohost.co.uk). Buy your domain name from whichever host you choose, when you choose your hosting package.
3. Install your blog. There are videos on this page covering every aspect (in Module 2 on the page).
WORDPRESS TUTORIALS
There are stacks of great videos on the page above, and I would encourage you to take some time to look especially at Module 2, the Basic WordPress section, as that is going to help you get going very quickly.