Robert Plank

Reading time: 3 - 4 minutes

A split test of mine recently finished and the conversion rate increased from 2.21% to 3.92% by changing JUST the headline -- but not even the words on the headline... the COLORS!

Imagine that, an additional 14 signups to a "$47 every 2 weeks" membership site -- an extra $1400 monthly passive income -- from such a small change.

Why does this happen?  Why does split testing even work?

I'll tell you why... it's because:

Most People Are Confused About Which Way to Go!

It's the same reason why parking lots have signs that say "lock your doors."  Why airports have signs everywhere you look.  Why you have to put the silly red arrow on squeeze pages and literally TELL them to enter their name and e-mail address.

People are easily distracted, and it's up to you to explain what you want from them.

Think about how many times you see this on the internet in a single day.  When you go to YouTube, it recommends about a billion videos all around you... and you end up clicking on video after video without even realizing.  You end up with a bunch of open tabs... and you end up watching some other YouTuber's video.

Split Call-to-Action!

The days of "putting AdSense ads next to the order button" are gone (good grief), but now "multiple order buttons with payment plans" are all the rage.  Or even worse, "the P.S. with a different URL at the end of the e-mail."

Come on guys, don't give me a choice between four payment buttons.  Don't let me choose between paying it all up front or doing a payment plan -- most of the complaints and refunds come from the payment plan crowd anyway.

But with most people, the craziness doesn't stop after I buy from you.  Even after I paid you money... you're confusing me with the WORST two-letter word ever invented:

"OR!"

You could do this... OR you could do this... more choices.  Don't give me so many choices!

• You've setup your squeeze page, so you can promote it using AdWords... OR you can post on forums... OR you can get joint ventures
• You want a membership site, so you can use aMember for it... OR you can use Wishlist
• Choose one of these three methods of writing a sales letter
• Learn Windows and open up your favorite programs in one of six ways

Are you kidding me?  I have to choose?  Just give me the best way possible!

Even if you HAVE to tell people multiple ways to do something, like with a multi-part course, just give me the easy solution first.  Then tell me what's the "slightly tougher" solution to complete after I've finished the first one.

Do me a favor and stay away from giving me the "top 21 ways" in your training calls.  Instead, reduce it down to 4 or 5 things... you probably struggled coming up with all 21 anyway.

And then position those 4 ways as step 1, step 2, step 3, and step 4... remove the choice.

Today's Question: Are you guilty of the "top 21" syndrome?  How are you going to fix it?  Comment below and tell me... I'm not going to give you a choice, just comment.

Reading time: < 1 minute

Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple) who is worth over 5 billion dollars and is a fantastic speaker, has a unique close that if you try to emulate it, will kill every single webinar pitch and every single sales letter you have.

I'm not a huge Apple fan, but Steve runs an event once a year called MacWorld Expo... you've probably heard of it.  A bunch of geeks go to this event and he shows off all the latest stuff their company has put out.

At the end of the presentation, he stops and says, "Oh yeah, one more thing..." And then reveals something big, like iTunes or the iPod Touch. Read More »

Reading time: 1 - 2 minutes

A couple days ago I asked my list if they had a membership site yet... I got 300 responses to that question and I want to share the results with you right now:

• 165 people, or 54.8% own membership software
• Out of that half that owned membership software, 89 people or 53.9% have at least one paying member
  
• Total, those 89 people who had a profitable membership only accounted for 29.6% of the responders

So Strange!

Some of these people paid $197, $297, even 4000 bucks for a membership script but only half of them are doing anything with it.

So let me share with you a couple of reasons that stopped me from creating membership sites (I've created 19 of them in the past 12 months... and only ONE before that time period!)

Read More »

Reading time: 1 - 2 minutes

Let me tell you about the first product online that got me to pay higher than $100 for the very first time (this was years ago).

He called it a "Because I Can" sale.  Basically the guy put together a huge package with a bunch of his own products, including resale rights.

• This was long before that kind of thing was common!
• JV giveaways didn't exist yet...
• Pitch webinars didn't REALLY exist yet...

He set the start price at $37 and the end price at something like $297, and the sale only ran for about 3 days.  Every few seconds the price would jump up a fraction of a penny.  I waited until it was above $100 before I bought.

Back then I think my highest priced product was $197, and if I sold two copies of it in a week I would be jumping for joy. I might not have had a $1000 launch yet.  I was still full-time in college, rent was only $625 a month (a lot for me at the time).  I didn't have a full time job or any other source of income.

But... I Still Bought!

What got me to buy?  Scarcity!

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Reading time: 1 - 2 minutes

Guess what, I turn 25 years old today.

And the reason people give you birthday presents or even celebrate birthdays is for one reason.

If You Know That Reason...

... Then you can apply it to your e-mails, sales letters, products, everything, and it will increase response better than any 1-click upsell, forced continuity, free CD offer, 100% commission, or whatever goofy marketing fad is going around today.

The real reason you send people thank you cards, celebrate birthdays, buy one time offers... the reason it's 20 times easier to get a girlfriend when you're already dating some other chick is because of scarcity.

Scarcity is probably the ultimate reason you bought your house or car.  You had to make a bid now before someone else did.

Here's a Funny Story...

Lance and I recently ran a webinar course with 15 students who paid $497 each to get in.  Part of the weekly challenges were to run your own webinars.

These were small webinars we only promoted the afternoon before.  The average one had 17 attendees.

But the webinar with the biggest turnout (from Andy Erickson) had 62 people register and 35 people show up. Why?

Read More »

Reading time: < 1 minute

If you already sell products on the internet, and you experience some decent conversions, there are a few simple tactics you can apply to double or sometimes triple your sales.

In this business, increasing your conversion rate even from 1.0% to 1.1% can mean you can bid higher on keywords for more traffic, raise your prices for more profits, or outsource more product creation, article marketing, and video marketing. Anything you can apply that takes less an hour of work, one-time, that nets you can extra $1000 or $2000 per month, has to be worthwhile.

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Reading time: 2 - 2 minutes

Check out this cool e-mail I received from Sherm Cohen, who was a student in Product University 1.0 and the storyboarder for Spongebob Squarepants...

Subject: Thanks for the info in the footer!

Hey Robert...I just bought your 100 Time saving tips...I just wanted you to know that I would not have bought if I hadn't read THIS in your footer info:

"The report you are about to download is completely and originally created by Robert Plank... It's not a PLR product or resale rights product. There's NOTHING remotely like it available anywhere else, online or offline"

I've gotten burned in the past on buying resell products from people I trust, so that info was very helpful.
Hope you're doing well...

--Sherm

Just having that little blurb at the bottom made who knows how many extra sales? I will tell you right now that there is a huge stigma with selling resale rights products.  I'm not ashamed to admit that a while ago, one guy from the Warrior Forum bought into a membership site of mine filled with nothing but Private Label Rights content and one guy hated it so much, he canceled within an hour and posted on a bunch of review sites (Traffic Bad Boys).

With another membership site (IM Productivity Secrets) Lance and I hosted a bunch of webinars and made the recordings available within the private blog.  In between webinar replays, we posted PLR content we had made into video... and one guy quit, telling us if we had only posted the webinar replays, he would have stayed!  But the extra PLR content we threw in there to help members pass the time drove people away. Read More »