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Top 21 Ways to Ruin Your Business
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: Continue Reading »
Forfeit the Race to Free!
Price training your list and your customers IS real. If people are used to getting everything from you for $10, there's going to be a price shock if you jump to $500.
So you're stuck working way too hard trying to land 10-dollar cheapskate customers.
You need to work your way up to at least 100 bucks per sale. Consider if you want to raise 700 bucks... you can either make 7 sales at $100, or 100 sales at $7. Which do you think is easier? Getting just seven sales. Continue Reading »
Why Are You Trapped in the Sandbox?
Are you ever middle of helping someone and suddenly it hits you... and you think, "I can't help you anymore?"
That's what happens when I come across someone who is in "demo mode."
Maybe you do this or you've come across someone who does this every now and then. These are people who always setup web sites called "Test Web Site." Or blogs called "Demo Blog." Or membership sites called "Temp Membership Site."
Come on man... tests are for students, demos are for little battery-powered keyboards and temps are for offices. I honestly want you to make an actual product, an actual membership site, and an actual blog.
Lance and I talked about this in one of our private coaching calls but I think a lot of you can benefit from this advice as well... Continue Reading »
Keep it Shippable, Stupid!
This is something I was thinking about presenting at my next live seminar...
But I'll share it with you here anyway!
It's something that most people who teach "productivity" leave out, and I see marketers FORGETTING this over and over again, even though they should know better.
This is "supposed" to be a programming concept but when I worked with other programmers, almost none of them knew about this, let alone implemented it...
It's Keeping Your Stuff SHIPPABLE!
I'll explain. Think about the order you see items (as a buyer) in a "fully optimized" sales letter... Continue Reading »
The Emperor Has No Close: How to Avoid “Just One More Thing” Syndrome
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. Continue Reading »
4 Reasons Not to Have a Membership Site, Plus 8 Reasons You Should Start a Membership Site
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!)
Four Disturbing But True Facts About Inaction and How to Overcome Them Immediately
I just came back from the 2nd Warrior Event in Raleigh, North Carolina where I was a speaker.
Speaking of webinars and seminars, remember the "Which Test Won" game we played on the webinar a few days ago? I showed you how:
- What converts BETTER than a squeeze page giving a free gift? One of my $7 reports selling almost the exact same thing!
- Removing three words from a headline TRIPLED conversion rates -- an EXTRA $625 from every 500-something clicks
- Adding a small logo to another sales letter boosted conversions from 1.99% to 3.57% -- an EXTRA $846 from every 1000 clicks
When you split test you make those small tweaks. But if you don't even have a product of your own, or a sales letter, then it's impossible to split test those pay raises!
Here's Something Crazy...
When I was on stage at the warrior event, I asked this question...
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.
