Recent Updates
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.
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...
Automation Checklist
1. Do you have your autoresponder broadcasts every day for the rest of the week already scheduled?
2. Every time you mail out to your list, do you archive it as a followup so new subscribers get it as well?
3. When you broadcast to your list, do you schedule a similar mailing 90 days from now?
4. Is your web hosting, mortgage, autoresponder, and all other bills possible setup on autopay?
5. Do you have at least 10 blog posts scheduled in advance, even if it's only one per month?
6. Do you have autoresponder broadcasts scheduled to send traffic to those blog posts?
7. Does at least one of your autoresponder sublists contain 10 followups or more?
Do me a favor. Answer each of these 7 questions with a yes or no, as a comment below. (Hey that rhymed!) Then tell me which of your "no's" you will correct within the next 24 hours.
I need 10 comments to keep this party going...
The Number One Product Creation Myth is…
... That you need to add "professional quality" audio and video into a product. The truth is you can get away with what I call the "lens cap strategy" ... you'll know exactly what this means when you get inside Product University 2.0... but more about that on Wednesday's training call.
Remember, products are not just e-books. Videos can be products on their own... streaming videos, downloadbale videos or even DVDs. You can use audio to create CDs, offer them for download or even stick them onto your sales letter to increase conversions.
Here's something you can do to enhance your sales letter in the next five minutes: whip out an audio recording program like Audacity or Camtasia, put that USB headset of yours on your head, and record you reading the most powerful part of your sales letter.
That's the beauty of audio: you can read what's already on the page word for word and people will still get extra value of it because it makes your message more impactful.
You might choose to read your guarantee word-for-word. Or maybe the description of your bonus items, or your headlines and the deck copy below the headlines. Then slap it on an audio button and guess what... you've added personality.
But what's great about those little USB headsets you can find on Amazon.com is that the audio quality is so good, you don't need a hiss filter. You don't need a preamp or an equalizer. You don't need anything because it plugs right into the USB port and does not use your sound card. Continue Reading »
Product Creation Confessions
Be sure you're registered for the product creation call on Wednesday, July 1st at 5:00 PM Pacific. I can't stress this enough:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/408406978
But I have a confession to make before the call. The price of this course will be $997.
To be honest, I'm scared. I have charged $997 before, but never for an e-course.
Then again, most of my courses are $200 to $400 for a four week course, and this is an 8-week course, so it's really not that big of a jump.
I also remind myself that when you join this course, I'll show you how to create a 7 dollar product to sell FAST. How to create a freebie to build a list for that product. How to create a $27 and $97 product. How to establish a $27 a month membership site with almost no extra effort...
Plus, you get all the list and traffic in place to get some consistent sales.
Just one of those seven things would be worth $997 on its own. Even back in the day... I'm talking 2003 and 2004, I'd get an idea for a product, whip it out in a day or two, post it in the right community and pull out $400 overnight with no list.
400 bucks overnight... and then the product was still mine to continue marketing! Continue Reading »
Writing a Sales Letter is Hard?
Product creation myth number two is that: writing sales copy is hard.
You know what I'm going to say in response to that, right?
"FALSE!!!"
Just like you, I let sales copy be yet one more excuse not to launch a product. I didn't have 20 thousand dollars or even a thousand dollars lying around to pay someone to make my site sell, so what was I to do?
My mentor at the time just said... list some bullet points. And that really is all you have to do. Choose ten things about your prdouct that people would really like. What does it teach them that no one else does? What skill do people walk away with? How soon do they see results and how dramatic are those results?
Think of ten great things about your product that say great things about it, that don't actually give the chapter titles away. Then take the strongest bullet point in that list, move it to the top, make it larger, and now you have your headline. Continue Reading »
A Product Launch is Impossible Without Affiliates?
All the time I get replies from internet marketing newbies with resentment about being kept out of the "good ol boys" club. You know how it goes... you get the same exact copy and paste e-mail from 30 people on the day a product launches, and the process continues over and over... week after week...
Why can't your product be in that rotation? "It just isn't fair!"
You know what? I learned at a very young age that you don't want to be in that club. When you get stuck in one of these "syndicates" ... people will promote YOU but now you're obligated to promote other peoples' products, even if they're similar to yours or even not that great.
Even if you apply this on a smaller scale... like you mail for one person if he mails to you, you will probably still lose. A lot of marketers will use their sublists of freebie buyers to promote your stuff... meanwhile you mail for the other guy using your small list of BUYERS... and whatever hard work you've done to acquire those buyers is out the window.
That's because your buyers will end up on that other guy's list, and he'll have no reason to get you to promote anymore, plus those buyers of yours will be much less responsive since that other guy is marketing to them now.
So, myth #3 is you don't necessarily need "affiliates" ... you just need a source of traffic. Getting affiliates and joint ventures to promote is an easy way to get a lot of traffic fast but you can do it without being stuck in ad swap hell. Continue Reading »
Make a Product Faster than You Ever Thought Possible
Myth #4 is that making a product takes a long time. FALSE. I have written a 23-page e-book in one afternoon, launched it, then recorded the videos that night.
Fact: Jason Fladlien and I filled out a DAILY membership site with one year of content (all of 2009) in just a couple of months.
Fact: For our second webinar class, Product University, we filled up 25 hours and 3 gigabytes of content in only four weeks, and that was a "side project" ... in addition to our usual product launches.
Think for a second about what it would be like to have 25 hours of content. You could have articles written based on that content. Cut it up into a 52-week fixed term membership site. Spliinter some of those products as upsells or downsells.
Have you seen the movie Swingers with Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn? There's a scene where Jon Favreau doesn't know how to introduce himself to a cute girl, and Vince Vaughn says:
"That girl over there is like a little bunny. And you're the big giant bear. And you say, I don't know how to kill the bunny with these big giant bear claws!"
That's the exact position you're in when you have a ton of content to repackage. You've already done the hard work, so all you have to do is throw some stuff together and attack "the bunny" -- your prospects.
The only way to do that is to focus on one project at a time, so if you're the kind of person who has 5 or 10 half finished or 95 percent finished e-books... yes I'm talking directly to you individually... choose just one of those almost-finished books, get it finished as soon as possible (TODAY), and get it published.
Even if you think that's tough, the solution from me and Lance Tamashiro is coming in just a few days. Maybe you won't be able to crank out content as fast as I can, but even just a couple of shortcuts can reduce your product creation time by 50% or 75%.
Leave 10 comments below to get access to myth number 3 about product creation...
Be the Product Creation Incredible Hulk in 2009
Robert Plank here to disspell myth number 5 about making products and that's... people think creating products is hard.
Infoproduct Myth #5: Creating Products is Hard!
(Hint: It's Not! It's Only in Your Head!)
False. If you can get into the correct mindset, you'll actually have fun making a product. That's why you need to learn how to "hulk out" into a writing frenzy, or record a webinar and get the audio transcribed by your assistant.
I use a combination of time-boxing and question formatting to write articles quickly, and if those articles run over length then guess what? Those become the chapters of my e-book.
The days of the 600-page, 200-page, or even 100-page e-book are long over. Shoot for a goal of 10 to 30 pages and sell it for 7 dollars. Add a bonus to that product and now you can sell it for 17. Record just an hour of video and now it's worth 27 dollars. Throw a webinar on top of that and now you have a 47 dollar product to sell... in a single day.
Video is pretty easy too, as long as you don't script it. Whip up a PowerPoint presentation then stand it front of a Flip camera, web camera or digital camera and advance the slides using a clicker remote or even your mouse if you want to keep it simple.
The two factors that make you "think" prdouct creation is hard are confidence and completeness. Fortunately, if you can get excited about your topic you can overpower that confidence problem pretty easily, and your need to get that thing launched as quickly as possible before anyone else does will override your need to make it "complete" -- because no product ever will be.
At this point you might be wondering what this is all leading up to. Lance Tamashiro (who was a top student in many of my classes) has now graduated to become a co-host.
Lance and I have teamed up to provide you something very soon that has to do with product creation, but it is very different than the offers you've seen from me and unlike anything you've seen from anyone else. Keep your eyeballs peeled and I'll pass more details onto you as I get them.
What can you do right now? Leave me a comment below so that I can share myth number 4 with you once I get my ten comments...
Competition in Your Niche Keeps You Product-Less?
The stumbling block I want to smash into a million pieces today is the belief that if you try to enter a niche, and there's competition, it's not worth marketing.
Infoproduct Myth #6: Competition!
False. Even years and years ago, in 2003, I knew people who said the market was saturated with internet marketing products. Saturated with affiliate marketing products.
But let me ask you something, how many affiliate marketing products and internet marketing products have launched in the past six years? Do you think one a day? Do you think even MORE than one a day?
Even if we went on the low end of one new product a day, that's over 2000 new products just in the internet marketing niche.
My definition of "competition" is simply that other people have blazed a trail for you. If you research a niche and no one's selling in it... guess what, it means you probably won't sell in that niche and you saved yourself a lot of time.
If you do have competition, you don't have to compete directly. If you're unique, you can occupy different areas of that niche. Or if you offer a complementary solution, that competitor is now your affiliate or your business partner.
Infoproduct myth number five is coming tomorrow, same time same channel... as long as 10 of you leave comments below this post today.
Seven Cruel Myths that Keep You Product-Less!
Bottom line. You need to have at least one product, preferably five, in any given niche. I would prefer ten but let's not get carried away.
Even if you're an affiliate promoter... guess what, you have a bribe to get people to opt-in or even a bonus if people buy from your link: info-product.
If you are strictly a freelancer... the best possible way to get lots of people banging down your door to pay you money for services is to publish a product to PROVE you know what you're talking about: info-product.
If you're a public speaker it's just about REQUIRED that you have some kind of book before presenting on stage.
And even if you already have a product, or a few... more can't hurt, can they?
So allow me to share with you the first myth that keeps you without a product, so you and I can overcome it.
Myth #7: You Need To Be Authoritative In That Niche To Have A Book
False. Dr. Phil (a 245 pound overweight man) sells weight loss products. Kim Cattrall (from Sex and the City) wrote a book on how to have endless orgasms and then divorced her husband because he wanted too much sex. Take your pick. You don't have to prove you can do something, or even that you follow that advice, only that you can get others to follow that advice.
I have a problem with personal and group coaching if you aren't the expert, but when that situation comes up, you can interview guest experts to host webinars for you or even write your book for you. Plenty of people use pen names or partner with real experts in a niche.
Want infoproduct creation myth number six? Great... all you need to do is leave a comment below telling me you want it... do that right now. I need 10 people to tell me they want it.
Three Instant Product Improvements So You Can Double Your Prices Before Dinnertime
Today I'm asking you why the heck is your product (if you even have one) so freaking identical to everyone else's?
To be honest, most people think all they have to do to create a product is write some stuff in Microsoft Word, save as a PDF, and setup the thank you page and sales letter.
And guess what... they're right!
The good and bad news... most people stop there. Let's just say that's good news because when you put a tiny bit more effort into your product, you can rise above the rest of the crowd.
The first thing you can do is add a pre-sell funnel. All you need to do is write a couple of articles based on the content of your e-book. Flip to three random pages of that 10 or 20 page manual, think about what it describes, and write that thing it describes as a question. Then answer it... there's your article.
If writing an article is hard for you, then pay somebody $10 per article to write a question that answers it. Do that four times and you're only out 40 dollars.
Or even better, buy private label rights that allows you to turn the information into a free e-course (only if it's stated in the license) and setup your follow-up sequence in just a few minutes.
Don't even overthink it. Create a four-part follow-up sequence in Aweber, plus one additional follow-up asking people why they haven't purchased. Create a quick PDF report using EzineArticles. Use that PDF as a bribe to get people to opt-in on a squeeze page.
That way even if they don't purchase immediately, you can keep following up with them, automatically.
Speaking of private label rights, something else I do if I feel worried about getting sales... is buy a private label rights product in my niche, and tack it onto the offer as a bonus. (We even discussed this in the PLR Copywriting class last night.) Bam, you've just doubled the value of your product.
Now get this. The easiest, fastest, and CHEAPEST way to enhance your product's value is to hold a webinar. I tried launching an e-class ONLY on webinars a few months ago, but the launch bombed.
Do you want to know why? Because most people are CHICKEN about hosting their own webinars!
But the funny thing is, those people that actually overcame their fears and did it, admitted that once that actually tried it, it wasn't that hard. And using the proper shortcuts, these people became affluent in webinar hosting in just a few short weeks... when otherwise it could have taken months or years.
You simply can't argue with 50 products created in 28 days... especially when 11 of those were made on the same day!
I'm thinking about hosting a new product creation class. With all the products I've launched, plus the fact that I've co-hosted a product creation class before, and even spoken about the subject live, makes me more qualified to teach it than just about anyone else.
Add to that the fact that my webinars get people to actually go out and DO stuff, and you quickly realize there's no one else who can teach you and make you do it like I can.
Would you guys have any interest in taking a product creation class from me? Even if you've already created products, just to pick up the shortcuts (especially those I've picked up in the last six months), absorb new confidence and skills (like making webinars), and being accountable to take action and finally get that product out there?
Comment below with "yes" or "no"... "yes" meaning you'd join an 8-week product creation class if I offered it.
As your reward, I'll redirect you to a signup page where you can get on a free live webinar with me on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 to find out how to make a product a day...
Traffic Bad Boys
Traffic Bad Boys is a site Jason Fladlien and I launched during the first week of our PLR Copywriting class -- DURING the end of the first class. It was pretty crazy, we showed our students how fast and easy it is to build a site consisting of private label rights material.
I don't usually read what other people say about me. But I just read a bad review about Traffic Bad Boys, actually a bunch of bad reviews written by just one guy. And I'm smiling and laughing about it. You know why? Because the only bad things he had to say about it were:
1. I was banned from YouTube, so I "must" be bad. (Not a good assumption.)
2. Someone blogged about me a couple years ago calling me the next Mike Filsaime in a good way, that reviewer found it and tried to spin that as a bad thing.
3. The Traffic Bad Boys site contains master resale rights material, so it must be bad. (False... in the AM2.0 Platinum Google group full of $100K+ earners we recommend master resale rights products all the time.)
For that class, we took 7 products we had rights to, cut them up into pieces and dripped them out onto a membership site for 7 dollars a month.
The reviewer joined for one day, couldn't wait for the rest of the month or even the rest of the week, cancelled immediately and wrote a bad review about us... even though all he had to base it on was the first 20 pages of the material.
So What Does This All REALLY Mean?
It means you need a $7 product for two reasons: to get people on your list, and to get people OFF your list.
You can't always land a $97 or $497 or $997 sale immediately, you have to build trust. Get them to say yes to something small and then build them up with upsells.
But when you price so low you're also attracting bad buyers... it's a fact of life. When those people cancel, you can't take it personally, it's just part of the weeding out process.
You need to weed out those people complaining about having to pay an entire dollar for each product, complaining about having to wait for the rest of the material when they haven't even read what they already have.
(It would be stupid to put your best stuff into your free products and $7 products... save that for your high-end stuff.)
You can't pack the member's area with more stuff because then people will join and complain about being overwhelmed... been there, bought the t-shirt with the Daily Seminar membership.
The Solution!
If you're offering a $7 per month membership site, put $7 of content into it every month... no more, no less. (That's exactly what we did.) That sounds like common sense, but far too many people take bad customers personally and overcompensate.
If you were selling everything in that first month for a one time $7 payment, you would value-stack so that the information was already worth at least $50 or $100. There's no need to further bloat that up to $200 or $300 of value every month just because it's recurring.
Your information and your advice needs to be expensive so people will take it seriously. That's the real lesson you should take away from what happened with Traffic Bad Boys.
Do you find when you price higher you deal with better customers, yes or yes? Leave me a comment below to share your thoughts with me.
Here’s What You Get in a Robert Plank Webinar Series…
Nothing for sale today. If you're on my list you saw the PLR Copywriting 4-week e-course Jason and I are running.
I'm going to give you a peek at what happened inside the member's area at the end of the first class, just so you can see what happens when you combine proven step-by-step solutions with CHALLENGES (instead of homework) with accountability... the productivity level reaches a kind of critical mass:
Question: What was your favorite webinar series and why? What would you want to see on the inside if I offered a HUGE webinar course for you guys? Answer in the form of a blog comment below. I appreciate it.
