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Because I Can
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!
The Greatest Selling Tool of All Time: Scarcity!
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?
What Sales Tactics Should You Apply Immediately?
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.
Action Comments Now Supports GoToWebinar!
Check this out... you can now paste your GoToWebinar invitation link into Action Comments!
That means your blog commenters can tick one checkbox under your comment form and get subscribed to your webinar.
Awesome new feature!
I own almost everything you produce Robert. I love the ability to be able to automatically add people to my list.
J.R. Jackson, JRJackson.com
Super Robert,
That's pretty innovative man. You're a brilliant marketer.
Jason Parker, ProIMer.com
Create a Product in 55 Seconds For Free
If you still have not launched your own product, and you have not at least tried to get any copywriting gigs, maybe you are cut out for affiliate marketing. When you're somebody's affiliate, you don't need your own product, all you need to do is send traffic to a page, people order and you collect a commission.
But the mistake most affiliate marketers make is: not having a list.
Here is the simplest way I can describe it. You need a list of buyers so you can drive them to your offers.
Even when you freelance, you keep a client list so you can follow up with them later for repeat business.
You need a page to build up that list (for people to subscribe) and a way to drive traffic to that page.
It's simple: Traffic... List... Offers. Continue Reading »
Ban People Who Forget to Use Their Real Name?
Quick question:
Should I delete comments from people on this blog who post with names like "Affiliate Store" or "Forex Business Credit"... a handle instead of their real HUMAN name?
When you do that on my blog, I feel like I can't use your name when I reply to you... I feel like you're only here to get linkbacks to your site, and it messes with my search engine relevancy.
You market the most effectively when you can show you're a real person... that's why so many people put their picture on their sales letter, create video, use their real names on forums, post blog comments with gravatar images, and sell using webinars.
Should I delete those comments, yes or no?
Tell Them If It’s Not Private Label Rights
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. Continue Reading »
How to Respond to 100 Emails in Under 20 Minutes
Funny quick story to tell you about today. I launched my 16 Copybombs report on autopilot over the weekend... I actually put it together back in early June but my autoresponder was filled with blog posts and e-mails about Product University 2.0 at the time, so I had to schedule it.
Long story short, I messed up the download link and when I checked my e-mail today (Monday -- I never check e-mail on weekends) to find literally over 100 e-mails from my buyers asking where the file was. Some of them e-mailed me 2 or 3 times about it.
Replying to 100 people, sounds like something that might take all day or even all week, right? Wrong... when you're Robert Plank it takes 20 minutes. Continue Reading »
2009 Goals
As soon as I started putting my goals down, I got a lot more productive. I'm not saying you need to plan the rest of your life out or anything, but you need to know where you're headed... so you know what needs to come next.
List last year (2008), this year (2009), 2010, 2011 and 2012. Next to each year, write what you'll have accomplished during that year. Write each thing in the present tense, as if you've already done it.
I'll go first...
2008: I bought my first house. Attended my first few seminars. Co-hosted 2 e-classes. (DONE!)
2009: I quit my day job and visited Orlando, Dallas, Austin, Iowa City, San Diego, Chicago, and Buffalo. Had my first several $30K months, sold a membership site for $32K. (DONE!) Haven't done this part yet: setup 20 recurring membership sites by year-end.
2010: Paid off 50% my mortgage and had my first $50K month. Sold at least ten copies of a $1997 package from the stage.
2011: Paid off my mortgage.
2012: Own at least one million dollars in cash and assets.
Now it's your turn. List each year from 2008 to 2012 and list what you have (or have yet to accomplish) each in the present tense.
I look forward to your comment below...
