Neil Shearing’s Internet Marketing Strategies

I’m not sure about the exact situation in the USA, but here in England the same story is everywhere… 1.4 million people will come off “cheap fixed rate” deals in 2008 and will be hit with their mortgage lender’s full variable rate… which is likely to be much higher than their fixed rate deal.

Coming off a fixed rate to a standard rate happens to everyone who has a fixed rate mortgage, that’s the whole point of it… you start out with the low rate but the mortgage lender actually makes their money in the long term when you pay the standard rate. When our fixed rate expired, we just asked our current lender to give us a better deal than their standard rate, or we would take out mortgage elsewhere. Guess what? They said, “OK” and knocked a full 1% off of their standard rate for our mortgage. We ended up paying I think 1% more than the discounted fixed rate, but 1% less than the standard rate. We were happy and the mortgage lender was happy.

(Actually, we were happy mainly because we’d paid off the vast majority of the mortgage during the 2-year fixed rate… and the new, higher, rate would only apply to the “rump” of the mortgage we had left.)

The problem now is that when it comes time to switch to the standard rate, mortgage lenders supposedly won’t be so likely to “cut a deal” with the mortgage holder because taking your mortgage elsewhere has become more expensive… rate have jumped and so have application fees… as lender’s tighten their belts.

Well, that’s the theory and supposedly it was even behind the Bank Of England’s decision to cut rates earlier last week… easing the transition from fixed rate to standard rate. Cliff D’arcy says that “in April 2001, when the base rate was the same as today’s 5.50%, Halifax’s SVR was 6.50%. After yesterday’s cut, Halifax now has an SVR of 7.50% — a full percentage point higher than 6½ years ago!”, and that, “mortgage arrangement fees have almost doubled in the past two years.”

Well, I don’t believe it’s as bad as it’s painted.

Just a little research at fool.co.uk shows us some cheap mortgage lenders still exist. For example…

Darlington 2.13% discount :
5.69% Until 30/04/10 :
Arrangement Fee: £474

Hanley Economic Fixed :
5.59% to 28/02/11:
Arrangement Fee: £649

Those are still decent deals which you can use to justify asking your current lender to match or come close to when your fixed rate deal is about to expire. After all, they will want to keep your business, just as my lender did.

update from the ThisIsMoney website…

“Ray Boulger at broker John Charcol in central London says borrowers should not panic. ‘Only those with adverse credit are having difficulty remortgaging to a competitive deal,’ he says.

‘That’s not to say the market won’t be tougher next year. All borrowers coming off special deals should brace themselves to pay more. But there will still be plenty of good fixed and tracker deals available.’

Borrowers coming to the end of a mortgage deal in the first half of 2008 should start thinking now about their next move. It is vital for homeowners, particularly those with credit problems, to act early and get advice from an independent broker who can search the whole of the mortgage market for new loans.

David Hollingworth at independent broker London & Country Mortgages in Bath, Somerset, suggests talking to your present lender first, as this will give you something to compare new mortgage offers against.

‘If it can offer you a reasonable deal it is worth considering, particularly as staying means there won’t be any need for a new valuation of your property or credit checks,’ he says.

‘But the majority of borrowers should not have any difficulty switching to any deal in the market if they want to take advantage of the best rates.’

Most mortgage deals can be reserved for up to three months and some for up to six months. But Boulger says: ‘ Borrowers who want fixed rates and can afford to wait could get a better deal if interest rates are cut again in the first few months of next year.”

They seem to agree with me. For most people there shouldn’t be much of a problem. Of course you’ll be paying more… your discounted rate ended… but it shouldn’t mean a financial crisis.

Wow. Did laptops crash in price, or is it just my perception?

Yesterday I bought a brand new, whizzy laptop for just $800. (and that’s factoring in 17.5% VAT [rip off!] and a shocking exchange rate of 2 dollars to the pound, otherwise it would’ve been a lot cheaper).

Anyhow. I thought it was incredibly cheap… compared to the last laptop I bought in 1999.

Then I had a think about it. Since 1999 I’ve moved house (4 times) had 2 children, paid off half a million bucks of mortgage debt and lost my ponytail.

I think it’s not surprising laptop technology has improved and fallen in price while that lot happened. I just didn’t notice.

Once in a while I get migraines that last for a few days. They’re not much fun. I basically hide from the world for a few days… hence the lack of blogging. Did you miss me?

… if the crazy British pound keeps rising.

“The pound soared to its highest since September 1992 against the dollar as signs growth in Europe’s second-biggest economy is quickening stoke speculation the Bank of England will raise interest rates again this year.

The U.K. currency is at its strongest since billionaire investor George Soros and other speculators drove it out of Europe’s system of linked exchange rates. It was also near its best versus the euro since January 2003, buoyed by the fastest economic expansion in two years.” (source)

I’m sometimes amused by the contrasts I see. Earlier this morning I was busy sending emails here, there and everywhere across the planet via the ‘net… and about an hour later, I saw a local farmer buy a sack of potatoes from a local supplies yard (where I was getting sawdust bedding for our small animals), put the sack of “spuds” in his tractor and drive off.

It’s great fun running a digital business from a rural location. Potatoes and emails! Ooo-arrr!

< — Actual data with categories and tallies!

Linda and I spent several hours pouring over the data generated by the Wizard survey.

I’d like to share the results with you…

I sent the email out to about 30,000 people asking for their feedback. The mailout generated 1,641 page views… not bad considering current email deliverability issues… especially the amount of email that gets filtered out as spam or junk before a visitor even takes a look.

So 1,641 page views were generated. From those page views, I got 658 survey replies. That’s a ratio of almost exactly 40%. I’m not sure if anyone refreshing the page would count as multiple page views or not.. or if repeat visitors were counted as multiple page views. It’s likely that there were many fewer actual “visitors” than “page views”… so the conversion rate of people answering the question could be much higher than 40%… perhaps as high as 50%. Either way, it’s a great result.

People were asked to list the top three areas they needed help with… so the maximum amount of answers would be 658 x 3 = 1,974. Some people didn’t provide three answers, some replied several times, some were “junk” answers to get to the free product. But, discounting all those unsuitable responses, we still received 1,325 distinct replies.

Those 1,325 answers were tallied according to category. In the end, there were 142 different categories which covered all the 1,325 replies.

So there are 142 different aspects of making money online people want me to help with!

I’ll do my best.

Obviously, some areas were much more popular than others… so they’ll be my initial focus.

And so another year draws to a close.

Was it a successful one for you? Did you achieve the 2006-goals you wanted?

I’m absolutely awful at setting goals. I like to jump from one interesting project to another every five minutes or less.

My New Year’s Resolution should probably be to set some New Year’s Resolutions.

But, regardless of whether you did or didn’t set any specific goals, you should still be able to look back at 2006 and ask yourself “did I achieve what I wanted with that year“?

I’m not necessarily talking about money… there are many other aspects to life than just income.

Did you treat your friends and family well?

Did you take care of yourself… mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically?

Did you write that novel you’ve always been “meaning” to write?

Did you visit the places you wanted to go to, see the sights you wanted to see, meet the people you wanted to meet?

… or did you just let 2006 slide by, and wonder what happened to it when people started to mention Christmas back in October?

If you let 2006 slide by, was it because life threw obstacles at you that prevented you from achieving other goals? Or was it because you “slobbed out” in front of the TV when you weren’t at work?

Will you be doing the same in 2007?

Think about it. 2007 hasn’t even begun yet. As I type this, 2007 is still nine hours away… which means 2007 is like a pristine present… an unwrapped gift all on its own under the Christmas tree. You’ll be opening that gift at the end of today, whether you want to or not… so wouldn’t it be great to positively decide, right now, while the gift is still unopened, that you’ll make maximum use of the opportunities 2007 will bring?

Make your list… what is it you want to achive? A personal goal? A travel goal? A new house? Sacking your boss and starting your own business? Taking an existing business to the next level?

Write your goals down… and make them happen in 2007.

May I be the first to wish you a Happy New Year… slightly early.

(now go and make that list… )

Just in case anyone was wondering.

I haven’t disappeared. I’ve just been blogging and emailing a bit less often for two reasons…

1: I don’t like emailing people all the time. Being bombarded with email isn’t the way I like to hear from people, so I don’t do it to others. Of course, I know I can blog as often as I wish, and ramble away to my heart’s content, but recently I haven’t because of…

2: Chickenpox. Yes, my son came down with it two weeks ago, and my daughter came down with it a few days ago. Working from home can be quite testing with sick kids around, so I basically decided that I’m the boss, and my family comes first… so they’ve been getting my attention recently.

I will be working on a “year’s end” blog post… goal setting, that kind of thing… so stay tuned.

In this post I get to pull together two of my favourite themes… sneaky banks and Internet marketing.

If you’ve seen the ever-increasing hype surrounding new product launches in the Internet marketing world, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the “act now, or else” marketing tactic was only being used by the “guru” Internet marketers.

You’d be wrong.

I got an email this morning from my bank asking if I’d like to make a balance transfer at a special, *Christmas* offer where they waive the balance transfer fee (normally 3%)… and, get this, the offer expires at Midnight December 7th. That’s right, it’s a ONE DAY offer.

Here’s the email copy…

***
Do you want to be full of the festive spirit and enjoy the festive season without the financial strains it may bring? For a limited time only, you can now transfer a balance* WITHOUT a fee being charged!

Complete a balance transfer before midnight on 7th December 2006** using our online banking service and the balance transfer handling fees will be waived.
***

Wow. Is that an “Internet marketing” tactic you recognise? Act now, or else (the price goes up, the offer sells out, we withdraw the offer, the sky falls in).

And the “catch” is (as far as I can tell) it ISN’T a “zero percent” balance transfer… so presumably they’ll waive the transfer fee, but charge you interest from the day the transfer takes place at your current card rate.

Did you assume it was a “zero percent” balance transfer? Silly you!

Depending on the amount your transfer, how long you take to pay it off, and the rate of interest you’re paying at the moment, you may be better off ignoring this one-day offer and actually going for the “standard” zero percent for 12 months (with a 2% handling fee).

I actually got a zero percent deal for nine months without a transfer fee from the same bank about a year ago. I put their money on my mortgage and, before the deal expired, paid off the card thereby saving a small fortune in mortgage interest.

So, thanks for the 24-hour “Christmas” offer, but no thanks.

I got the millionaire next door as a birthday present and just finished reading it.

It basically reaffirmed my thoughts on getting ‘rich’… “Earn a lot, spend a little. Avoid debt, build wealth!”

I did like how the entrepreneurs and business owners described in “The Millionaire Next Door” had a hidden advantage over the high-income “professionals” such as accountants, lawyers, doctors etc etc. That hidden advantage was that the professionals were under social pressure to live an expensive lifestyle… they were expected to be seen, in their professional capacity, in suits, ties. They were expected to live in a “wealthy” neighborhood, with expensive cars. Their children were expected to go to private school. Whether they desired these things or not, the social pressure was there to fit in with what was expected. After all, if your accountant meets with you wearing jeans and a T-shirt, you’re not going to be impressed, are you?

On the other hand, entrepreneurs can wear pretty much what they want, when they want. I certainly do!

Business owners, on the other hand, have the reverse pressure. If they wear sharp suits and drive luxury cars, their employees could very well resent their display of wealth. So it’s better for the business owners to act like one of the employees.

That “hidden” benefit may help explain why the high income professionals struggle to accumulate wealth whereas the entrepreneurs and business owners seem to succeed. 

To accumulate wealth, you need to earn a relatively high income and spend wisely. Know the value of a dollar. Make each one work for you.

The book is well worth reading, but after the initial point is driven home (to accumulate wealth you have to earn a relatively high income, spend frugally and live quite a long time) along with another good point (minimize your taxable income and grow your non-income producing assets) I felt the book ran out of steam. It talks about “how the wealthy buy their cars” and “inter-generational transfers of wealth and what it means to the recipients” for what seemed like most of the second half of the book.