I know Christmas is still a few weeks away.
But I thought I’d give you a early present for the upcoming holiday season.
You see, I’m always finding excellent resources while *working* {aka: surfing the Internet.}
The problem is I don’t always have the time to write a blog post for everything I discover. So in this post, I’ll the best of what I’ve found in the last few weeks.
Ho Ho Ho! Here are 4 Christmas goodies for ANY Internet marketer {Tweet This}… [click to continue…]
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On Wednesday night, the Boston Red Sox made baseball history with a complete collapse in a single month.
At the start of September they had a nine game lead over the Tampa Rays for the final playoff spot. And on the last night of regular series they lost their final game; thereby eliminating themselves from the playoffs.
Sidebar: Okay I know some people don’t watch baseball (or have it their country.) So here’s an article that described what happened. Sorry to my overseas friends. I couldn’t think of a football, cricket, or rugby analogy
The “Red Sox Collapse” will become legendary because they’re a really good team. They have excellent hitting. A great closer. And an okay starting rotation.
In other words, there should be no reason why they missed the playoffs with one month to go.
But it happened.
What’s my point?
With an Internet business you could experience the same thing. One day you’re making a solid income with a loyal group of followers. And then suddenly you get hit with a disaster – Something that destroys part (or all) of your livelihood.
You can minimize disasters that happen to your online business. In fact, there a number of ways to prevent them from happening in the first place. My advice is to always have a “worst-case scenario” for when something goes wrong in your business.
Today I’d like to talk about five different disasters that can happen with an Internet business. In addition, I’ll provide some ideas on what to do in case YOU experience it yourself.
You can quickly lose a source of income. Sometimes overnight. I’ve seen it happen to countless people; countless times.
Just imagine if you live in California and make money by promoting Amazon.com products. Then one day Amazon decides it will no longer pay affiliates from California. So in a single day this income is GONE. The scary thing is this is something that happened a few months back.
Solution -–>
Memorize these simple three words:
Diversify. Diversify. DIVERSIFY!!!
Never have one source of Internet income. This is a disaster waiting to happen. I recommend building a network of different revenue sources:
Sometimes you can’t control when an income source will dry up. What you can do is build multiple sources of revenue. That way, when the inevitable happens you’ll still have a leg to stand on.
This disaster is sometimes directly related to an income source. We all rely on web traffic for the growth of our Internet business. And often this traffic can go away as quick as a flick of a switch.
Just ask anyone who relies on Google for 100% of their traffic. Seriously; Google doesn’t care about your business. They don’t like something about your site? Presto! It’s gone from their search engine listings.
Are you scared yet? You should be…
Solution -—>
Again…you should diversify traffic. Never rely on one website to promote an Internet business. This is called a single point of failure. One thing goes wrong and your income is toast.
Definition: A single point of failure (SPOF) is a part of a system that, if it fails, will stop the entire system from working. They are undesirable in any system with a goal of high availability, be it a network, software application or other industrial system.
At the bare minimum, you should get traffic from these sources:
Having lots of traffic sources is the best emergency plan around! It’s the best way to avoid something catastrophic from happening.
This is similar to losing a source of traffic…but a LOT worse. We all use sites like YouTube.com, EzineArticles.com, and Aweber.com to grow our online businesses.
Unfortunately it’s easy to forget that we don’t control these properties. These sites don’t like something about your account? It’s gone! And if you don’t have saved copies; then these are gone as well.
Solution—->
Always maintain a copy of any content you’ve created. Keep these in a well organized folder which you can access at a moment’s notice. In fact, keep a separate copy in a back-up disc or thumb drive.
If have you an email marketing program like Awber you should also save a copy of your lists at least once a month.
Backing up a list is easy to do. Simply go to the subscribers section and find the search option. Then select Stop Status is Subscribed. Finally; select the Export CSV option and save it into a folder:
If your Internet business relies on content or a database; then these things need to be saved into a secure location.
Blogs run off a database. If something happens to that database then you risk losing your entire blog. That can be a terrifying thought if you’ve built up a large audience.
Solution—->
The simplest solution is to regularly back up your database. I use the WordPress Database Backup Plugin.
Once uploaded and installed on a blog; you’ll go to Tools menu and select the Backup option. From there you can choose to save this file to a server, email account or to a computer. My suggestion is to do TWO of the three options. Preferably have one copy stored online in ‘the cloud.’ And another stored on your computer:
Do this at least once a week.
Yes, you can get sued with an Internet business. It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong. Someone doesn’t like something you’re doing online? They’ll sue you!
Sad to say; that’s the world we live in.
Solution—->
Bottom line… Your entire online business should be structured through a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC.) An LLC is a the best way to legally protect both you and your assets.
I won’t pretend to be an authority on this subject. That’s why I recommend this in-depth free podcast that talks about this subject.
Don’t think these things can happen to you? Well, I’ve experienced EACH of these disasters during the last seven years. Stay online long enough and you’ll probably experience the same.
At the start of this post, I mentioned the recent collapse of the Boston Red Sox. Let’s pretend that one month ago they could look into the future. I imagine they would have prepared for this disaster and made a plan to prevent it.
It’s time to make your emergency plan!
My advice is to take a hard look at each part of your Internet business. Like your blog, web traffic, or source of income. Ask yourself a simple question: “What would I do if I woke up tomorrow and it was gone?” Then take action to prevent or minimize this situation.
As Benjamin Franklin once said: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
In other words, it’s always best to prepare for the worst case scenario. On a long enough timeline; something will happen. So be prepared!
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I’m often asked the question: “How do I make more money with affiliate marketing?”
This is hard one to answer. That’s because there are a number of ways to increase affiliate income.
Some you can do in a few minutes. Others require an extra level of time and dedication.
Today we’ll cover forty-five of these ideas…
#1 – Write a review for the marquee products you promote. Target the keyword: {Product Name} + review in your content. Get backlinks to this article and increase its search engine ranking. This is a great way to target people who are in a buying mindset.
#2 – Enhance the review (see #1) by including examples, screenshots, videos and anything that demonstrates proof of what the product claims. It’s important to be specific. People want to know how it’s helped YOU.
#3 – Record an audio (or video) Skype interview with the owner an affiliate product. Include 90% quality content with a light pitch at the end. Do this for everything you promote. Then offer these interviews as exclusive content to blog readers.
#4 – Target a massive problem/question in your niche. Create a webinar presentation that mostly solves this problem. Weave a subtle recommendation of a quality product within the content. Promote this piece of content to all current and future readers.
#5 – Create a resource page for blog readers. Think of this as a “101 class” where you include links to content covering a specific topic. Put it in a logical order. Then link to any product that’s relevant to these articles.
#6 – Create a tools page. These are the things you use on regular basis. Most will be links to free resources. But also include affiliate recommendations to products that help readers.
#7 – Record a video presentation where you demonstrate a product. (This works great for membership sites and software.) Show all the benefits and provide a behind-the-scenes look at what’s available to customers. Post on your blog and YouTube. Use a site like Tube Mogul to distribute this content to additional video sharing sites.
#8 – Think “content marketing.” People don’t buy blindly through affiliate links. Buy they will if you’ve built authority and regularly provide excellent advice. So focus on sending people to content where you subtly talk about a product.
#9 – Use a tool like Rank Tracker to identify blog posts that generate web traffic from niche-specific keywords. Edit these articles; recommending a related affiliate product. Increase their search engine rankings to get more traffic and make more money. (A big thanks to Alex for this idea!)
In addition, you can use one of the popular SEO Services to increase the rankings of your existing web pages.
#10 – Rotate the advertisements on your blog with the Ad Rotator plugin. Most affiliate products have internal tracking that measures both earnings and clicks. Eliminate any ad that’s not making money. This will free up space to display ads that are profitable.
#11 – Streamline the key areas of your blog. Your focus is to increase the amount of content people read and make money. Remove the things that don’t add to this end result. Ie: Do you really need a clock or a calendar widget?
#12 – Design a ‘ninja advertisement.’ This is a text-based image that matches the same font as your blog. (See the bottom of this post for an example.) Automatically post this at the end of each article using the DD Add Sig plugin.
Obviously… you should test this in comparison to traditional types of advertising.
#13 – Set goals in the Google Analytics program. Focus on increasing clicks to affiliate products. Regularly run a test on your blog and see if it produces more clicks.
#14 – Track every affiliate click down to the exact traffic source. This identifies the specific actions that produce income. This information is a great way to do an 80/20 analysis of your affiliate business. Simply do more of what’s working and less of what’s not.
#15 – Register a URL forwarding address for your top affiliate programs. Make it easy for people to remember. Example: I use http://www.GetMarketMe.com for my promos of the Market Me Suite program. This is a great idea if you create a lot of audio and video content.
#16 – Create a bonus that complements an affiliate product. Only offer to people who buy through your link. Even better…Point out a product defect and then position your bonus as a solution.
#17 – Create a product that sells for under $10. Write a killer autoresponder sequence that promotes a variety of affiliate offers. Simply put, customers are 10x more likely to buy an affiliate recommendation than your standard email subscriber.
#18 – Record a Podcast series in your niche. Provide amazing content that builds a loyal audience. Only then should you recommend an affiliate marketing offer. (Check out Podcast Answer Man for more on this.)
#19 – Record a video series in your niche. This is similar to tip #18 where you create excellent content before giving an affiliate recommendation. (Check out this free PDF on how to dominate video marketing.)
#20 – Tighten your paid advertising. Adwords, Facebook Ads, and Yahoo are great places to find targeted traffic. The important thing is to identify the keywords/demographics that generate income. Focus on those and ditch the stuff that’s not making money. (This might seem obvious. But many marketers let their unprofitable campaigns go unchecked.)
#21 – Presell the affiliate offer. It doesn’t matter what medium you use. Telling people why you like a product is a great way to increase interest in it. Folks should come to a sales page – Wallet in hand and ready to buy.
#22 – Link to a product’s presell content. Nowadays most affiliate programs offer tools that presell their product. (Like free PDFs, webinars, infographics, and audios.) Instead of directly linking to an offer; you can send traffic to one of these presell items. This is a great way to bridge your presell content with a sales page.
#23 – Use scarcity effectively. Many product owners love to use scarcity in their marketing. This could be a limited availability or a sale for a few days. Find when a program is using scarcity and make a strong push to your audience.
#24 – Use content sites like EzineArticles.com and Squidoo to promote an affiliate link. Yes, this trick still works. The important thing is to create quality content that makes people take click your links. Also, be sure to use a forwarding URL (see #15.)
#25 – Tweet about an affiliate offer. I do think people send too many self-serving Tweets. However the occasional affiliate link works when you’re always giving great content. Just make sure to build trust and only link to something that’s useful to followers.
#26 – Bypass the opt-in page of product owners. Sometimes you don’t want to send traffic to a squeeze page. This is especially true when it gets a low opt-in rate. This free tool helps you bypass this page and send folks directly to the sales letter.
#27 – Diversify your affiliate income. I’m a firm believer of focusing on a single niche. On the other hand, it’s important to create multiple streams of revenue. One thing you can do is set up a web of Amazon niche sites.
#28 – Write a Viral eBook. Write a free report (or manifesto) that’s full of helpful information. The primary objective is offer value to the reader. But include an affiliate link to any product you think helps people.
I did this for my report THE Affiliate Research Formula last month.
Almost as an afterthought I included an affiliate link to the Market Samurai program. The result? I generated more sales in last 30 days than I had in all the months before.
#29 – Offer a lead magnet and build an email list. This is what all successful Internet entrepreneurs do to generate a full-time income. Done correctly, you can generate cash-on-demand every time you send an email message.
#30 – Include an affiliate advertisement on your thank you page. (Or test an existing offer with a new product.)
#31 – Include affiliate links in your lead magnet. This is similar to idea #28. The only difference is to make a strong recommendation of a single product. That way, you’re giving great content without overwhelming a new reader.
#32 – Split test your lead magnet offer. Put simply: More subscribers = More money. Use a site like Google Optimizer to increase your opt-in percentage. (Also check out my ab split test post that lists 23 ways to increase your subscriber numbers.)
#33 – Build an autoresponder sequence that rocks! Write a series of emails that educate while promoting top affiliate products. The key here is to create valuable email content that complements your online brand.
#34 – Send a broadcast message. Don’t let old subscribers stagnate. You can maintain their interest by sending regular content…with the occasional affiliate offer.
#35 – Maintain a publishing schedule of your emails. Do this for both your autoresponders and broadcast messages. Include metrics like:
This information is important because it shows what produces income. Use it to front load your sequence with the most profitable emails. Ultimately this is a great way to increase profits with the same number of subscribers.
#36 – Resend a message to your “un-opens.” With tracking you’ll know what broadcast messages make money. With Aweber you can deliver the same message to anyone who didn’t open the original email.
#37 – Continue to send profitable emails. This technique works great with broadcast messages.
The harsh reality of email marketing is many people will unsubscribe after a few months. Or they’ll lose interest. The good news is you can send proven emails to new subscribers. Usually I like to recycle my best content every 6 to 8 months.
#38 – Examine the payout of your existing affiliate product selection. It’s okay to promote stuff that generates a single commission. But it’s even better to market offers with recurring revenue and quality upsell offers.
#39 – Find new products to promote. New products hit the market all the time. It’s up to YOU to try them and tell subscribers about the best ones. (Personally, I like to send at least one email each month about a new product.)
#40 – Use a site like CB Engine to track new Clickbank products. There are a lot of hidden goldmines in Clickbank. Be one of the first to promote them and you’ll make more money as an affiliate marketer.
#41 – Locate and understand common problems in your market. (Use a site like Big Boards to do this.) Identify the questions and obstacles that plague most people. Take these ideas and create content around them. Be sure to recommend an affiliate product that provides a solution.
#42 – Study other marketers in your niche. Join their email lists and subscribe to their blogs. See how they structure an affiliate recommendation. Borrow the ideas that currently work for them. (Just don’t plagiarize their content.)
#43 – Ask for more money. This works great for offers with a self-hosted affiliate program – Especially if you’re generating a lot of sales. Most product owners are willing to increase affiliate commissions if you ask. The trick is to be someone who produces a reliable level of income.
#44 – No matter what…always experiment. The Internet is constantly evolving. So it’s important to test different things. Sure, some things will result in failure. The good news is you’ll also develop a few techniques that will raise your affiliate income.
#45 – Take your affiliate business to the next level: Allow me to give my shameless, gratuitous plug:
My Affiliate Marketing without the Bulls**t product provides a step-by-step solution to affiliate success.
In this post I’ve listed a number of tips and shortcuts. But they won’t work unless you have a plan. With my product you’ll get that roadmap that guides you through the challenging process of building a long-term business.
Okay, I just listed 45 tips to make more money with affiliate marketing.
Now it’s up to you!
Did I miss an idea? What tricks do you use with affiliate marketing? Have you successfully (or unsuccessfully) used any tip I just listed?
Please discuss below…
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I have to admit something. In the last few months, I’ve experienced a mild case of Writer’s Block. Sure there have been numerous content ideas for this blog. But none have been on par with the massive value posts I used to publish every Monday.
I want to get back to creating lengthy, ‘how-to’ articles. The problem is I don’t know what people want. So I need your help…
Please answer this question:
“What would help increase YOUR success on the Internet?”
This should be a specific strategy you’d like to learn. Or an obstacle that’s holding you back. Just think about the one thing that prevents you from getting to the next level. Then post it in the comment section below.
What do you get in return? In the next few days, I’ll pick the comments that fit my background/expertise. Then I’ll post a detailed answer to each in the weeks and months to come.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts…
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Let others share your ebook for you!
Today we have a guest post from Angela England about some of the ways to make money with an eBook.
I will let Angela tell you about herself….
I’ve never considered myself a “mom-blogger,” because I got into the online world as a web content writer.
Quickly developing a grasp of basic SEO and technical skills, I created a residual income in my spare time that grew from guilt-free-pizza-nights to covering the mortgage during my maternity leave with my third baby.
What I want to share is how I used ebooks to grow that revenue even further during the year my fourth child was born and I began homeschooling.
When I published Making Money Blogging – Beyond Banner Ad Sales, it was designed to be a recap of the three main ways I used my blog to create an income for myself through ebook sales, through turning web articles into magazine articles, and via content production for several clients and websites.
The book also became my stepping stone to launch myself as a consultant for small bloggers and solidify my standing as a speaker at conferences.
Last year, I used the book to leverage an additional five figures of income for my family – on top of what I already had going on as Editor-in-Chief at Blissfully Domestic, Feature Writer at Suite 101, and of course, busy mother of four! There were four main ways I garnered revenue using my ebook that I want to share with you here.
Of course, the first thing that comes to mind when you think of creating revenue with an ebook product is the income from the actual sales of the book. In this case, the $25 someone paid to purchase the book. But, as you’ll see in the next two steps, this was only one portion of the income generated via my ebook.
Setting your ebook up with an affiliate program of some sort, whether third-party hosting like ejunkie, or a plugin you control yourself, can be a very significant way to increase the amount of sales you generate. Now, you aren’t the only one promoting and marketing your work – you’ve enlisted the help of others. Running a good affiliate program can make a huge difference in the amount of ebook sales you are able to generate.
Another great way to capitalize on potential revenue after the sale of the book, is through related affiliate links. This is also a fabulous way to monetize a book you’ve given away for free. Anytime you mention a product or tool that is genuinely helpful, or useful for accomplishing a task you mention in the ebook, don’t be afraid to use an affiliate link if available.
Affiliate links are something I consider a benefit and value to my readers. When I talk about the plugin I use to create my own estore and affiliate programs, it only makes sense that my readers might want to purchase those plugins!
When I started doing consultations for small and new bloggers, I knew I needed to hone my chops a bit. So when I launched Making Money Blogging, I offered a free, 20 minute phone consult to anyone who pre-purchased the book. This gave me two advantages with the launch of that book:
As a result of those initial consultations, I raised my rates, developed a positive reputation for someone who could help personalize your to-do-list, and I was able to collect very positive testimonials.
Nearly one-third of the purchasers of that ebook last year ended up hiring me for consultations, some of them, more than once. I offer a discount for the initial consultation with the purchase of the ebook to help overcome that first barrier. Adding a service after the sale of your ebook can greatly increase the overall revenue potential for you!
I put these two together because I always wind up being hired by clients when I speak at a conference or event, so the two go together in my mind. Sometimes, someone will read what I’ve done or what I suggest doing in the ebook and decide they would rather hire me to do it for them instead of doing it themselves. For example, one area that comes up a lot is keyword research.
It’s something I’ve become pretty good at, but is also something that has a higher learning curve for some people or seems too tedious and time-consuming to do themselves. Other ways I’ve seen this work for friends is with website design, graphics creation, editing, freelance writing, and many other things. Always be sure that if you are willing to do per-hour or per-project work on behalf of someone else, you make that clear in your ebook, because you never know when your next client might be reading!
Using these four methods, I turned my last ebook into an additional five figures of income for my family. Granted, we aren’t millionaires, but most of this was while I was home as the primary care-giver for our four children, traveling multiple times, running an online magazine and homeschooling my children. Turn off the TV for a month, make it a habit (Love this post by Steve!) to write every day, and work on your next ebook. Then, you’ll see how you can add to your family’s income this year, too!
Angela England is a problogger, freelance writer and author of 30 Days to Make and Sell a Fabulous Ebook.
Find her on Twitter and at her blog, angengland.com.
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Adarsh details an important fact in this guest post. If you want to succeed online, you need to know how to sell. Read this article to learn how to improve upon this invaluable skill.
If you are into online business, you need to sell. No exceptions. Period.
I’m going to assume that you either blog with the hopes of making money or have a business that will make profits. Whichever the case is, you need to sell. We are all salesman in the “internet lifestyle” world.
Some professions, no matter how important they are, always tend to have a negative aura surrounding them. Marketing and sales is one such career where you tend to be perceived as a person trying to cheat the buyer in any way possible. When people hear the word salesperson, they think that these people only care about the commission they make as a result of the sale. The image of an average sales man is that of a crook trying to steal the hard earned money from an innocent buyer. There are no tricks per se. Every salesperson must aim at selling effectively and in less time.
When I told one of my friends that I am going to start online business and start selling online he laughed at me. He advised me, “Man. Don’t spoil your life. Go for a regular job with a stable income.”
Now, if everyone became a doctor, or an engineer, or an IT pro, who would serve the primary function of taking the economy forward by making sales? Besides, selling is one of the highest paid jobs, if you know what you are doing.
There are two ways in which people can look to their job as a salesman.
One, they can see this as a regular 9-5 job. If you look at it from a career perspective, this is an excellent field to make a name and some money. I know quite a lot of people who sell to make a living. Some just make enough money to scrape through. Some cannot make money to meet even the basic needs of food and shelter. Then there are some who make more money than a glorified MBA guy. What does this mean? You can choose your destiny with the profession of selling.
If you are into internet marketing, no doubt you might have come across many online products. Some claim to help you make millions, some teach you SEO skills, some teach you other aspects of marketing and so on.
Carefully observe what people in the online world do to sell. Just make sure that you analyze a handful of successful internet marketers. Darren Rowse from problogger.net, Brian Clark from copyblogger.com, Yaro Starak from entrepreneurs-journey.com etc are fine examples of people you can learn a lot from.
Here is what they have in common
These are not the only people making a killing online. There are lots of others too. But, if you watch closely, everyone follows the same principle
To become a better salesperson, you need to understand about something called intuition or your gut feeling. Imagine the case when you go to the local store and you are offered two toothbrushes. They are almost similar in quality, price, looks and reputation of the brand. Which would you choose?
Difficult choice, I’d say.
However, if one was suggested by your friend and the other by someone you barely know, the answer is obvious. You are more comfortable with the person you know. You think that you can trust him more than the other person whom you hardly know. This is what every salesperson should strive to achieve. Try to build a strong emotional feeling between you and your client. This will almost guarantee a sale. When was the last time you rejected a dear friends recommendation to buy a product?
Understand the reason why people buy a product or solution. Is it because they can get better ROI? Is it because your product is 10% better than our competitor? No… The answer is, most of the time, emotions. People buy based on their emotions rather than thinking logically. If you can capitalize on the buyers emotions, I can guarantee you that you would have a better chance of selling your product.
I was planning to take a life insurance cover. There was this guy whom I met at a party. He overheard my conversation of planning to get a life insurance from a top leading insurance company. It so happens that this guy used to work for that company. He came up to me and we met. He took down my number and gave a short sales pitch about his company and why I should take the policy from him. I patiently listened to him and said that I would call him when I make up my mind. Counting 30 days from then, I must have had at least 100 calls from this guy asking me the status of my decision. What do you think happened then?
I ended up taking insurance from another company even though I was about to go with this company at first. When we are not comfortable with the salesperson, we don’t buy. No matter the quality, reputation or value the product provides, I simply did not choose to buy. That is the power of emotions and the comfort level with the salesperson.
There are often different reasons we all choose a career. If I choose to be a doctor, sometime I might have the aim of helping people, sometime I may have the aim of getting fame and respect in the society and sometimes the driving force can be monetary rewards. It all boils down to the individual’s personal choice. There are often many types of rewards people can get being a salesperson. If you ask me, the broadest classification would be one which gives you benefits which can be measured and the other one which cannot be measured.
Here is a scenario.
You noticed a fellow passenger dropping his wallet. You take it and give it back to him. There are two types of reward you expect knowingly or unknowingly. Either you can expect the person to say a thank you and appreciate you for your honest and mentality to help others. Otherwise, you could expect a monetary gain as a reward for returning the purse.
If you wanted money then you are expecting a measurable reward and if you expected appreciation then you are expecting a non measurable reward.
For an average salesperson, the non measurable rewards can include:
The list can go on depending upon the individual.
In case of measurable rewards it can be:
To become a better salesperson, all you need to do is believe in yourself, sell the right product to the right customer and explore new opportunities.
You don’t need all the marketing advice to sell online. You really don’t.
All you need is some basic advice and the rest comes from personal experience.
After all, a great footballer who doesn’t play is only as good as a person who doesn’t know to play at all.
Over to you. What kind of rewards motivates you? What is your strategy to make online sales?
Steve’s Note: Adarsh Thampy is an independent marketing consultant for small business who blogs at Conversion Rate Optimization Blog and helps small business get more customers and improve their conversion rates.
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