Robert Plank

Reading time: 3 - 5 minutes

If you've been following my blog at all then you've probably heard of the ten comment rule... any time I make a post, I ask for 10 comments from my readers... or I'll stop posting forever.

I just applied that to my marketing to gather testimonials for a product.

Nope, I didn't offer a bribe for testimonials, I didn't give away free copies in exchange for a testimonial.  (Good way to make sure you never hear from those people again.)

I simply said: I need ten testimonials from SOMEONE... any of my current customers... for version 1.0, and I'll release version 2.0 to EVERYONE.

I Had My Ten Testimonials Within 48 Hours!

It's tougher to get ten people to do work, even if it's 30 seconds of work (writing a testimonial), than it is to get them to pay you money.

I brought in ten sales of Action PopUp no sweat, just by mentioning it in a blog post.  I wanted reviews, not sales.

The only thing I needed to do was: end my blog post with a clear call-to-action (what action I wanted you to take), and my goal (what had to happen for the challenge to end).

It's Not Difficult, But So Many People Miss That Point

You have a blog with zero comments on every entry, end the blog post with a reason you want people to leave a comment.  End with a question.  Give people benefits about why they should leave a comment... what's in it for them?

Use your blog to build a list and send those people to new posts when you write them.

I'll see marketers add a FeedBurner chicklet to their blog, so they've built up their RSS subscribers... but they can't e-mail them... gross!  The only contact they have with these people is when they add to the blog.

Now you can't tell your readers... check out this post one last time if you haven't left a comment yet.

You can't follow-up and market to RSS subscribers the way you would to an e-mail list.

To be honest, if I didn't get my 10 testimonials by today, I would have asked my list again... I would have hit the weekday crowd instead of the weekend crowd.  I would have put up a talking head video begging someone... anyone... to leave me a review.

With every blog post you should be "selling" some action that benefits you at the end.  Leave a comment under the blog entry, or visit the URL I'm talking about.  One of those two.

If You Don't Think You Can Get Ten Testimonials...

Try a "five testimonial" rule.  You only need five testimonials to release the next chapter, update the next version, launch the next product... whatever the goal is.

Have a clear call-to-action... don't say, "Testimonial please."  Say, "What was the one thing you liked the most about it?  On what URL did you set it up?  What was the one stumbling block that ALMOST didn't get you to buy and how did you overcome it?"

Interview your customers one on one via e-mail and use their responses to piece together a testimonial. After I got my 10 testimonials I went back through all my e-mails, blog comments, and forum posts and pieced together an additional 7 testimonials for a total of 17 testimonials on that page.

Oh yeah, I released Action PopUp 2.0 to all version 1.0 buyers so you can add popups to WordPress blogs with just a few clicks... thanks for the testimonials I needed.  Even Michel Fortin posted that blog entry to Twitter.

Was that ten testimonial rule a waste of time?  No one needs a call-to-action at the end of every blog post, right?  I bet your blog is chock full of zero-comment entries with no call-to-action in sight... am I totally right or am I just a jerk?

Please, answer me below because if I don't get ten comments under this entry... I'm moving this whole site into a paid blog. 

Your thoughts?

Reading time: 2 - 3 minutes

This message is for my Action PopUp customers only... you need to read this if you want an updated copy.

As you know, exactly one year today -- on August 15, 2007 -- I released the first version of Action PopUp, the first popup ever designed for opt-in forms.

It's an unblockable on-exit lightbox popup that submits your e-mail subscription form in the background... so you can place them anywhere and not lose a sale.

Guess what... I'm releasing version 2.0 of the product. It still has all the cool pop-up features you've grown to love: you can customize colors, size... and show some crazy unique special effects...

Now it also works as a WordPress plugin! You upload a folder and activate a WordPress plugin, and you can create just about any kind of popup just by clicking around.

No editing code or config files... just clicking around on stuff.

If you know me then you know I give free updates for life on all my products.

So how do you get a copy?

Let's call this the ten testimonial rule (instead of the ten comment rule)...

I need 10 reviews for Action PopUp 1.0 for my customers, and then I'll release version 2.0 to everyone.

If you own Action PopUp 1.0, could you comment below and tell me:

• What site you use it on...
• Why it appeals to you (Easy install? Do you run PPC ads and want your click payments to go the extra mile? Cool noticable effects?)
• What feature you personally liked best about the product...
• Why others should want it...

Just answer each one of those questions in a sentence each (heck, only answer one or two questions, I don't care). Just give me a review I can use, good or bad.

Once I have my ten reviews I'll release Action PopUp 2.0 to everyone who bought the first version... use it super-easily as a WordPress plugin!

The new script works just as well for normal sites as well (like forums, sales letters, anything!)

Please post your review below...

What about you? What do you think?

Reading time: 3 - 5 minutes

The weekend before last, I launched WordPress on Crack... a set of video tutorials (5 hours worth) showing you how to write your own WordPress plugins... most of them easier to write than a standalone PHP script because you don't have to deal with most of the install, data storage, and templating issues that you'd normally deal with in PHP.

It also included three bonuses: Techie Howto WordPress by Joel Holtzman, Install SEO WordPress by Pawel Reska, and Advanced WordPress by Quentin Brown... also videos.

Total, the WSO grossed me over $8,000. Yes, $8,000 from one launch... that didn't involve any joint ventures or any advertising aside from a single forum post and a mailing to my list.

Here is a quick video from last Thursday showing the $7,000+ balance in my PayPal account (this is when the sale was still going on):

I sold 33 copies at 13.33 ($439.89), 33 copies at $16.66 ($549.78), 88 copies at $33.33 ($2,933.04) and 88 copies at $44.44 ($3,910.72). The last 12 discounted slots are selling at $66.66, so far 3 are gone ($199.98). That brings our grand total to: $8,033.41.

Take away a couple hundred dollars in PayPal fees, plus the cost of obtaining the resale rights to the bonuses, but you can add those back in when you accounted for "sidetracked" sales... getting my name out there caused people to buy a few more of my products.

"WordPress on Crack" made May 2008 my best month EVER! Even beating out June 2007 where I made $3,000 in a day. In May 2008, I made over $14,000 from PayPal (before fees). For the ENTIRE month, taking into account fees, Clickbank and day job income, I cleared over $16,000... in one month.

How did I do it? Easy. I acted like a marketer. I had something to market so I wrote a sales letter for it that explained everything (so many people post a WSO with nothing but a payment link... or even worse... a "buy me a beer" link... and wonder why it doesn't sell).

I created a product relevant to my e-mail list so I could market to that list. I gave them a unique offer -- the limited quantity -- which was something I actually tried last year with Push Button PHP and you know what? It pissed people off just as much then as it does now.

I had so much traffic going to that offer (opt-in list of 11,500 subscribers -- most of them paid) that the offer closed up quickly and people got angry because they couldn't get in.

Some of my subscribers told me they were unsubscribing for life because they were used to getting everything for $1.00 and could buy in at any time they wanted.

I had people saying I shouldn't resort to gimmicks because the product should sell on its own.

Guess what, most of the people who said that would never have bought anything from me over ten dollars, and have probably never done any serious marketing on the internet.

In 2008 alone, I've posted 31 special offers and earned $62,000. In the past 12 months? Fifty Warrior Special Offers!

I stick to one project at a time, I put myself under time constraints -- like having to get in my car to go to my day job or come off of my break.

I act like a real marketer... I try to over-deliver, and not in that generic cliched way. I added an e-book, scripts, and videos, and went out and bought resale rights to augment my original product.

I followed up with my list every day throughout the launch explaining what the price was that day. I hit them with a different angle every time and saved each mailing so I could use it as an automatic follow-up later. You know what people always say... it takes an average of 7 follow-ups to make a sale? How come almost NO ONE follows that rule?

What's your opinion on this situation? Was I wrong to limit the number of sales? Or was I a smart marketer by taking a WSO that would have normally made me $2,000... and turned it into $8,000?

Please take a moment to comment below.

Please post your thoughts below...

Reading time: 2 - 4 minutes

I've been in Austin at a conference for the past couple of days.

You have NO idea how it's been because I don't have access to a computer... I haven't been on one since last week!

I don't own a laptop... I spend too much time in front of a computer as it is, why would I want to bring one with me? Plus, I travel light... just one bag to avoid baggage claim. And there is all that fuss with airport security where they have to inspect the laptop separately.

How the heck am I talking to you then? Automation. I wrote this blog entry before I even got on a plane. I scheduled it to post sometime during my trip.

I scheduled a timed mailing to my opt-in list. It said to check out this blog post, so it could get traffic, comments, and sales of some of my products.

When I get a product ready for launch, I'll write the sales copy before it's even finished so I can post a WSO and get it approved... then I'll pay when it's ready to launch.

I recently launched a video series called Head First PHP. I bought up rights to an existing product and made it my own by recording daily videos.

Instead of recording long 20 to 30 minute videos, I recorded them 5 minutes of video at a time. This allowed me to space these out into "daily" videos.

The secret is... I'm not actually recording just one of these a day. I recorded them all at once, uploaded them all at once, wrote some quick autoresponder follow-ups for each day saying, "Hey... check out today's video" ... with a link to the video.

I put in an afternoon of work... and the effect is that it APPEARS I'm diligently providing updates every single day. That's pretty cool, right?

This and last month, I've been documenting my work using Camtasia videos and have been able to split up all my work into 10 minute tasks.

I'm ALMOST at the point where I can do all the work I need to do ONE day of the week (after I get home from my day job) and the everything is automated for the rest of the week.

When I first started out, I did a lot of freelance consulting and product launches. I focused very little on list building and automation. The result was that I would make $2000 one month and $200 the next. My income was very unreliable.

Now that I am writing follow-ups and blog posts weeks in advance... now that I'm following up with prospects and customers every single day automatically... I've noticed that I measure my income on a daily basis, not a monthly one. It's reliable enough that I could quit my day job if I wanted to.

Comment below and tell me: Do you have automation in your business? Timed follow-ups? Scheduled mailings? Business systems?

What's your opinion on this?

Reading time: 4 - 6 minutes

Private label rights means: you sell someone your product and give them permission to rename and repackage the book under their own name.

Here is why offering private label rights guarantees you will stay poor forever:

(Keep reading below to watch a SECOND video that shows how I ended up making $1200 from this venture in 24 hours... in other words, I made 44 times my money back!)

Go to eBay and search for "private label rights" or "master resale rights."

You will find all kinds of e-books and software that originally sold for $100... for under a dollar.

If you offer private label rights to your products, your hard work is going to end up in the eBay graveyard.

Here is what I did today:

8:46 AM: I saw a product for sale with private label rights and I bought it.

10:00 AM: I work a day job so during my mid-morning break, I quickly edited the Word document to change the e-book name. I also changed the name so I would appear as the author.

I ran into a roadblock... he provided layered graphics so I could easily change the name on them... but I didn't have the correct fonts installed on my system. I uploaded the files and went back to work.

11:30 AM: I got out of a meeting at work and took my lunch break. During that lunch break I found the CD with the fonts I needed, changed the graphics, setup the payment buttons, and sent a quick mailing to my list of 11,000 subscribers telling them about the product.

I should note that it took me years to get this list built up by releasing product after product. This is also a list that is very relevant to the product and therefore very interested in it.

Are you still building some generic incestuous list of internet marketing leads? Stop that now!

11:54 AM: The first sale rolls in as I eat the last of my re-heated macaroni and cheese (cooked it the night before... this ain't no crappy "boxed" stuff!). I hop in my car and drive the half mile down Monte Vista Avenue back to work to arrive right at noon.

That's It!

The rest of my work day consisted of working at my day job. I didn't do any other internet marketing work.

The Result:

A $27 investment on a private label rights product, in the morning, launched just before lunch and broke even before 12:30 PM.

By the time I checked that page after the end of the work day, I brought in 110 sales from a 12-cent dimesale which totals $732.60 (before fees)!

Where on Earth can you LEGALLY pay $27 and get $732.60 back in just a couple of hours?

I'm sitting on $700 profits for 20 minutes MAXIMUM of work on my part... I just made the equivalent of a week and a half of pay from my day job... during my coffee breaks!

Meanwhile, poor Jake has sold 8 copies at $27... which makes $216, minus $20 to run the WSO, minus whatever it cost him to write the sales copy and create the graphics... maybe he didn't break even.

Oh Well... Thanks for the Cash, Jake!

What lessons have we learned today, kiddies?

Lesson #1: Offering private label rights is a great way to devalue your product.

Lesson #2: If you can find someone dumb enough to offer private label rights for a product that happens to match your list PERFECTLY, grab it as soon as you can and put it up for sale that same day.

Lesson #3: You HAVE to do it that same day. By "put it up for sale" I mean the order link is live and you send a mailing out to your list. If you "wait" even one extra day, you won't feel like doing it anymore. I guarantee it.

You have to be faster than a speeding bullet when it comes to buying (and using) private label rights products... before someone beats you to it.

Can you please comment below and tell me if...

• You've offered private label rights in the past (and regretted it / didn't regret it)
• You've bought private label rights... did you forget to actually use them? How much money did you make?

How about you, what do you think?

Reading time: 2 - 2 minutes

Wow. I just stayed up all night creating a product, debugging it, writing the instruction manual for it, making the sales copy, and setting up the payment process.

The product I just made is called JV Plus. It allows you to turn ANY site (even this blog) into an affiliate program... cool, right?

Try it out. Just take ANY page on this site... for example:

http://www.robertplank.com/jv-plus

And stick your Clickbank ID in the "www"... for example...

http://stevenss.robertplank.com/jv-plus

Now you get credit for the sale of ANY of my Clickbank enabled-products I link to from my site! (Almost half of my products are on Clickbank.)

This script drops right in to any site... it doesn't matter what kind of site it is. I've never seen anything like this script before... that's why I made it!

You can check out the product here:
http://www.JVPlus.com

Okay, it's contest time. I deliberately violated one of the copywriting rules in Fast Food Copywriting on the JV Plus sales page... can you figure out what it is?

Winner Announced: Mark Squance guessed that the "big mistake" I made on that page was having a video longer than 2 minutes.  He won a free copy of JV Plus plus $20 sent to his PayPal account.

What questions does this raise for you?

Reading time: 4 - 6 minutes

Late last night I launched a special report called Fast Food Copywriting.

That product is something that started out as a blog COMMENT just a few days ago. I didn't even mean for it to be a complete blog post.

One of our discussions meandered into copywriting, and I typed up a quick response to quickly go over my personal formula for writing quick sales copy that's good enough to get the job done. Nothing fancy.

After the blog comment ended up being a couple of pages, I said to myself: "I'll just make this a blog post." I saved it to my drafts.

I came back to the draft later and edited it some more. Even when I said what I wanted to say with as few words as possible, it ended up being several pages long.

I moved it to a Word document, made the page margins as thin as I could and the font size as small (but still readable) as I could... and I thought, heck, maybe I should sell this thing as its own report.

The offer has been live for about 9 hours and sold 50 copies -- about 750 bucks. Not bad for a few hours of "smart" (not hard) work.

Update: After 48 hours I now have 104 sales
which comes to around $1400 after fees.

What does this tell me about infoproduct creation?

1. The best products I have ever made were answers (solutions) to real live questions (problems). This does like a "duh" point but I know that the very best books and reports I made started out as replies on forums or blog posts... then got carried away... then I said, it would be criminal for this info to get buried in a forum after a couple of days.
2. Keep your "sexy" information private and your boring information public. Perfect example: I gave away some WordPress SEO advice yesterday but saved the copywriting info for a paid report. Setting up blogs and sites are fun, but people get more excited about things that are going to make them money NOW and improve THEIR lives.
3. Have a backend. I have always been kind of a crappy marketer when it came to marketing my e-books... but not in 2008! I made sure to plug-in an affiliate program just before launching. I embedded the affiliate code in the e-book so that the call-to-action at the end is for the reader to promote the book as an affiliate.

Since Fast Food Copywriting is my only copywriting product, I don't have any upsells to push into so we'll see how the perpetual affiliate program idea works out.

Speaking of upsells, I have been working on my product funnel and tweaked the sales letters for Black Hat PHP, Lightning PHP, Impact PHP and Push Button PHP so that they all on their own upsell to PHP in a Box, a package containing all those products in one. It's a pretty sweet setup.

Income so far for this month: From my PayPal daily sales report anyway... $9,807.46 $10,377.58 with 547 585 sales. After fees that's $9,300 $9,700. (I find it funny that the money I pay in PayPal fees is approaching the amount I pay for rent.)

Add Clickbank and day job income and I've broken $12,000 $12,500 for this month.

I have 8 Warrior Special Offers running at the moment.

If you want to get your hands on the special report and find out the step-by-step method I use to become a copywriting machine and pump out these cash-sucking sales letters... check out Fast Food Copywriting.

In the meantime, could you do me a favor and comment on this entry and tell me:

Are you giving away the farm by dishing out too much free information, or are you saving "the good stuff" for paying customers?

Have you ever written a forum reply, blog post, or free report and said to yourself... "I should charge for this!" Please, tell me the story of how it came to be and share the URL where the product is selling now.

Enjoy this post? Leave a comment below and add to the discussion. Thanks!