Recent Updates
Ten Testimonial Rule
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. 😉
Action PopUp 2.0
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...
Clickbank vs. PayDotCom
Just to give you an update on the Clickbank situation, I've decided to stay with them.
Apparently, they WILL approve list building related products on a case-by-case basis (as a commenter to the last post mentioned), which was good to hear considering The Rich Jerk, Butterfly Marketing Reports, ListMail Pro, etc. were all approved.
Heck, one of the resale rights buyers to WordPress on Crack already has my exact product and same exact sales letter already listed on Clickbank.
Here's how to get your list building related product approved on Clickbank:
1. Make sure the product ONLY mentions responsible, double opt-in, CAN-SPAM compliant list building tactics. I would definitely stay away from gray areas like buying and selling leads, tell-a-friend scripts, and co-registration.
2. Explain to Clickbank that the product does go into list building, but only for double opt-in CAN-SPAM compliant purposes. You can do this in the "extra notes" section.
That's all there is to it.
Now like I said... I'm staying with Clickbank. I will still use PayPal for my non-affiliate sales (95% of my income) because my refund rate with PayPal is about 1% and my refund rate with Clickbank is 7.5%.
Dean's comment in the previous post said it best...
After reading the many thoughful posts it does seem that straddling CB and PDC makes the most sense.
Use 'em both but steer the big money to PDC. Use CB to attract new affiliates.
Mike Filsaime made a GREAT point that his service gets 1,000 new signups per day and he is now BEATING Clickbank.com in his Alexa ranking.
Why Don't I Roll All My PayPal Buttons Over to PayDotCom?
Two reasons... one, PayDotCom adds an extra page people have to click through. They click your order button, then are sent to PayDotCom, then have to click on ANOTHER button to pay through PayPal. Clickbank also has a 2-step order page and that's always going to hurt conversion rates no matter what.
The next reason: Someone pointed out that when someone buys from you using PayDotCom, they get added to Mike Filsaime's list corrected: that information is stored on Mike's server somewhere.
A comment from the previous post:
My wariness about using PDC is that mike filasmie, who is technically the competition of many of us, would become our provider of services...
enabling him to:
know what product sell best
how many we sell
the NAMES and EMAILS of all customers...Robert, is that a reason that would keep you away? clickbank, or other paykment processors, are not a competitor to you in the way PDCs owners are...
(I'm not accusing mike filsaime of using others information, just noting that the fact he COULD makes me uncomfortable.)
Your List is Your Baby... I don't want to send all my buyers onto his mailing list so he can outsell me.
I will put some products on PayDotCom eventually, but I want to get everything on Clickbank first. At the moment, only 40 of my products are available on Clickbank.
The moral of the story: get yourself setup with the simplest checkout process possible (I like PayPal) then use "other" processors like Clickbank and PayDotCom to increase sales... use those services as funnels instead of your primary payment processors.
I'll say that again...
Use Clickbank and PayDotCom to Attract Affiliates.
Don't Depend on Them For Survival.
I have a script called Clickbank Switch that will show one button if Clickbank affiliates come your way, and another if non-affiliates stop by, but you don't even need a script for that.
You can setup separate pages like http://www.example.com/paydotcom and http://www.example.com/clickbank then put a PayDotCom button on your "paydotcom" page, and send the PayDotCom traffic that way.
When you join PayDotCom you can get your product listed on Filsaime's marketing product review site, make your link go viral using Butterfly Reports, and get listed on PayDotCom's marketplace.
I have been with Clickbank since 2000 and it makes more sense to stick with what works and makes money, than to tear everything down and STOP making money, just to spend more time building it back up.
Keep it simple!
For you skimmers out there, here is what Clickbank will and won't approve when it comes to those list building grey areas.
- What if I were to explain co-registation, would that get approved? No.
- Would a product that mentions buying double opt-in leads get approved? No.
- Would a product that talks about tell-a-friend get approved? No.
- Would a product that talks about selling e-mail leads get approved? No.
- Can I mention double opt-in? Yes!
- Can I mention single opt-in? Yes!
There you have it. The easy way to get a list building product approved on Clickbank: explain your product only deals with CAN-SPAM compliant e-mail marketing practices. Here's the verbage I used:
This product mentions RESPONSIBLE list building, email marketing through double-opt-in email lists and CAN-SPAM compliant methods.
Was I right in choosing to stay with PayPal and Clickbank? (And in the future, PayDotCom?) Please comment below and tell me if I'm a total idiot or a freaking genius.
Time to Give Up on Clickbank?
Resolved: I've decided to stay with Clickbank.
For years and years I have been saying Clickbank is an awesome payment processor. People always complain that they don't add features quickly enough (like two-tier payments, recurring payments), but I consider that a good thing... it's always the same.
To be honest I already have my buttons coded to default to PayPal, but show a Clickbank button if my visitor comes from affiliate traffic.
The "straw that broke the camel's back" today was... they told me they wouldn't approve my product, because it mentions list building!
I have heard of lots of stories before from other Internet marketers because their sales letter mentioned list building or social marketing. CB doesn't want you promoting stuff like this because they had problems with people promoting spam-related products.
They lumped it all together into one category, and double opt-in e-mail marketing done correctly definitely isn't spam. It's very difficult to write any infoproduct on internet marketing without talking about list buildling.
I can also understand if they were to ban infoproducts that mention list building and NOTHING else. I go into list building several times but that's definitely NOT the focus of most of my products.
Many people I know changed the phrase "list building" to "autoresponder building" or just removed the list building content from the sales letter.
I removed what they asked from the sales letter, but they tell me I have to remove it from the product as well.
What the F!!! Maybe it's time to move somewhere else.
- I don't have 100% of my products on Clickbank but for those that do, affiliates who refer people to my blog automatically get credited if I mention any of my products on the blog.
- I store affiliate cookies for 365 days instead of Clickbank's 60 days.
- I have upsells on almost all my offers, so an affiliate might promote a $40 product for 50% commission and end up getting 50% commission on a $247 sale instead.
- I make sure to HIDE the non-Clickbank upsells when an affiliate sends me traffic.
Basically here are the pros and cons of Clickbank for me...
PROS
|
CONS
|
More pros than cons, maybe I should start bailing out.
The ONLY payment processor I would move to, if I left Clickbank, is PayDotCom since it's at the point where many internet marketers have an account already. (None of this 2Checkout, AlertPay, iKobo garbage.)
Do you use Clickbank? Do you use PayDotCom? Would you make the switch from Clickbank even if it meant pissing off a few affiliates?
Please comment below...
Your List is Your Baby
I want to introduce you to my new kitty.
His name is Peaches (short for "Peaches and Cream") and he is a 3 month old tabby. I got him over the weekend and today (Monday) we are leaving him alone at home for the first time.
He is the most mellow (and clumsy) kitten I have ever met. But here's the thing... he's basically my baby and I wouldn't give him away to anyone.
Heck... look at him... a kitten that cute... if I didn't take care of him, someone else would!
In the same way, your mailing list is your baby. Giving those subscribers away would be a stupid, stupid thing.
Every once in a while someone asks why the heck don't I promote affiliate programs up the wazoo like so many other internet marketers with decent-sized mailing lists.
Why don't I participate in product giveaways... why don't I do lots of joint ventures...
When you promote someone else's product as an affiliate, you are building your list for them. Say you get a sale and get your $47 or $97 commission... your ride ends there.
Meanwhile that guy who runs the affiliate program captures the customer's e-mail address after a sale and gets to market to that person over and over and over.
So, when you have a list and you promote an affiliate program, you are copying some of your paying subscribers to someone else's list... that person can probably outsell the heck out of you too.
When you promote other peoples' stuff, you sacrifice future sales. What you want to do is setup an affiliate program and get others to promote it to THEIR lists.
Of course you can network with other people in your niche... but please, think twice about giving your list away.
Let me tell you something else about Peaches. He is spoiled, even after these first few days. He has a really bad cold... so I got him a humidifier.
He has fancy kitten food. Yesterday we fed him "California Roll" kitten food and tomorrow's flavor will be "Turducken" -- that's turkey inside a duck, inside a chicken.
I was reading some of the ingredients on his "Surf & Turf" kitten food... it contains lobster, and different kinds of apples!
Kitten food!
My question to you today is: do you spoil your list in the same way?
Obviously I have things to do so I'm going to draw the line somewhere. The same is true with my list. I don't treat my list like crap. I follow up with them. I unsubscribe troublemakers from my list.
When you have a mailing list, making money is the bottom line... but if you don't treat it like your baby, someone else could mine the gold out of that list before you can.
My list gets hungry and my best subscribers are more than happy to pay me for my information. There's nothing wrong with that.
Build your list using as many paid buyers as possible. Weed out the freebie seekers. Be very careful about where you send your subscribers and be wary of promoting the latest hyped-up product just because everyone else is doing it.
Honestly, if you train your list to only want free information, or low-cost information, you're going to fall flat when it comes time to pitch the big-ticket items.
Establish a sales funnel. Send automated follow-ups to your list to keep it from going stale. Promote one-time-offers to your other products.
Here is a way to improve your customer relations in one minute or less...
Just say "hi." If you haven't sent a mailing to your list in a while, take a second right now to say "hi" to them. It doesn't matter what you say. Tell them what sites you worked on today. Ask them a question.
You dont have to have some fancy, thought out message, you don't need to write a 70-part follow-up autoresponder series, just say "hi." Do it right now and come back to this blog post... it won't take very long.
My kitty is perfectly happy when I just say "hi" to him... I don't always need to bring a treat. I don't always need to get something out of it.
Comment below and share your favorite tactic to warm up your list... remember, I need 10 comments if you want me to continue posting blog entries.
Homeowner
I am now the OWNER of a 2200 square foot, 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom, cute yellow corner house... and I'm 23!
I am no longer going to screw around with the stock market. That $30,000 loss in January still stings a bit. That was supposed to be my financial shortcut to getting a house and it had the opposite effect.
My goal now is to work like crazy and build up exactly 2 years worth of living expenses, then throw more money at that house to cut the payments in half.
Comment below if you feel like congratulating me.
Thank You Notes
My question for you today is in two parts...
First of all, do you collect your customers' physical addresses?
Second, do you send your BEST customers handwritten thank you notes in the mail?
I do both -- as of earlier today.
(If you don't feel like reading the rest of this blog post... just scroll down and leave a comment answering those questions.)
To be honest, I only switched from the "no shipping" option on all my PayPal buttons... to optional shipping last year... and didn't lose any sales. Last month, I switched from "optional shipping" to required shipping on all my buttons, and didn't lose any sales! In fact, May 2008 was my best month to date.
Don't get me wrong. I am very much AGAINST ignorant order forms like JVManager that require customers to fill in their shipping information TWICE (once to get them in the order system, a second time into the payment processor).
There is no excuse for crap like that. Processors like PayPal will capture the address info and then save it in your logs or even pass it back into a script.
If someone is paying with a credit card, they have to type in their billing address anyway... and if they are paying directly out of a PayPal account, their primary shipping address is already PRE-SELECTED!
Every time I go to a seminar, the big boys who make $10,000+ per week always tell you to take your customers offline. They offer postcards, free CDs (where you pay shipping only), and big markup for those $997 packages with 30 DVDs that probably cost under $100 to produce.
You don't have to get all fancy like they do. In fact I just about guarantee you that if you try to set something up with Kinko's online, or some kind of automated postcard mailing service, that you will make everything way too complicated and get yourself confused.
Here is what I did. I downloaded the history of all my PayPal transactions of the past 6 months or so, onto an Excel spreadsheet.
I filtered the spreadsheet to include only those addresses that contained the phrase "United States" and sorted by highest purchase amount first.
After removing duplicates, I ended up with a list of about 50 Americans who bought a $30 or higher product from me in the last six months. There were many many people who paid less than $30, lived outside the United States, or just didn't provide any shipping information.
How pathetic is that? I average 566 sales per month with an average price of $19.06 per sale... I made 2,829 sales from January 1st to June 1st 2008... and I only ended up with about 50 decent physical leads.
Don't make the same mistake I did... require shipping on your PayPal account, even for online orders.
To write my thank you notes: I sat down on my couch to watch a movie and made use of some idle time. During that two hour movie, I wrote 50 personalized thank you notes.
I printed out that list of leads and a little bit of buying history from each person (because I funnel everything into a list, it is VERY rare for someone to only buy one product from me). I mentioned the product they bought, thanked them for being a loyal customer, asked them to take action on that product.
If I saw a trend in the products they bought from me (i.e. ONLY JavaScript how-to products, or ONLY the scripts themselves, or ONLY copywriting products) I would recommend something else they might like.
I wrote each of these in one of those fat little diary books, one thank you note per page, then hand-addressed each envelope, tore out each sheet of paper and stuck it in the envelope, added a stamp... then today, I stuck them all in a mailbox.
I did this all with mailing materials I had in my house. I didn't have to go outside, I didn't have time to talk myself out of it... I just needed a monotonous task to get me through a boring movie.
Watching the movie on its own would have been too boring... stuffing the envelopes would have been too boring... but I was completely happy doing both of those things at the same time.
So go ahead and check your order history (cross reference them with your mailing list to make sure they haven't unsubscribed) and write some thank you notes if you're going on a plane ride or watching a boring movie.
If you're one of those people who needs to add it as a routine to their schedule, just write and mail 4 handwritten thank you notes per day. Do it on a trial basis... you can stop after 30 days.
It has to be handwritten. I can't tell you how many pieces of mail I've thrown away just because they weren't handwritten.
They have to be mailed to your current customers ONLY. No cold mailing. I've thrown away plenty of those envelopes in my mailbox as well.
Even if those thank you notes don't bring in any more sales, it felt good to write them. George Bush Sr. supposedly wrote hundreds of thank you notes per day. He carried a box of thank you cards around with him and wrote thank you letters sometimes minutes after speaking with someone.
This was just a test. If the thank you note thing works out then I might send thank you's out to all my high-ticket customers, maybe throw in some Starbucks gift cards, hire someone to write them, who knows.
The important thing was: I took my customers offline, even if it was just a little bit.
Are you doing the same thing?
Please answer me in the comment form below because I need 10 comments to continue posting.
WordPress on Crack
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.
Is Your Photo on Every Sales Letter?
Earlier this week I realized I had been doing something very stupid... leaving my photo OFF of my sales letter!
Seriously, you already go to the trouble of adding your photo to Facebook and MySpace...
Why Aren't You Doing the Same Thing on Your Sales Letter?
I noticed this when I attended my first internet marketing luncheon. It was just a warrior lunchtime get together in New Jersey (I flew down from California to New York City for the weekend just to attend).
Immediately I recognized Mike Ambrosio and said hello to him... because his photo is on all of his sales letters! I also recognized Mike Merz, and of course when Mike Filsaime showed up, he was surrounded by so many groupies, no one could go talk to him. (So many Mikes.)
So... I knew who three people were, but the other 50-ish people were total strangers.
At the Warrior Event in Austin this April: I recognized Willie Crawford (his picture is EVERYWHERE) and Dr. Ron Capps the NicheProf, Marlon Sanders and Jason Fladlien... but again, that was about it!
Even some of the speakers were people I'd heard of... I'd read their sites, responded to them in forums, but didn't recognize them.
For that reason, I went through all of my sales letters this week and added my kisser to them.
On some sales letters I was able to do an "align=right" and place it to the right of the text, but sometimes I just gave up, centered that image, and placed it below my signature line at the bottom of the page.
Can You Please Do the Same on Your Sales Letter?
I'm not saying adding your photo will get you recognized instantly at real-world seminars. At the very least it will remind your potential customers reading that sales letter, that you're a real person.
You don't have to be wearing a suit or a hawaiian shirt... any picture will do.
- If it's a family photo, crop the image so it only shows you -- that way your kids aren't appearing on your sales letter.
- If you look like crap, crop the image even more so it only shows your head.
- If you think you're ugly, resize the photo of you down to 100x100 pixels.
- If you don't even have a digital camera, find a friend with a camera phone.
You have every reason to post your photo on a sales letter. Stop procrastinating and just do it.
Please comment below and tell me when you finally realized you needed to have your photo on your sales letters.
If you don't have your photo on there yet, add your photo to your sales page and post the URL here for all of us to look at.
Clickbank Allows You to Sell Physical Products
The other day I was on Clickbank requesting a price increase for my account. (So I can charge more for products.) Guess what? I discovered how you can sell physical products with Clickbank!
As you might know, Clickbank is a payment processor that you can use to handle payments. As far as I am concerned, PayPal is #1 and Clickbank #2. With PayPal you get paid instantly, but with Clickbank, you have access to 100,000+ affiliates to promote your stuff.
Clickbank handles all the affiliate payments and everything, and heck -- they even added support for recurring billing this year (membership sites) and an IPN so you can integrate it with a script.
The only problem? Clickbank only wants you to sell digital products. This is because they have a pretty buyer-centric refund policy and don't want to be like PayPal where it is a big issue to get the physical product back.
So with Clickbank you can have a membership site with affiliates, but no physical product delivery -- like Jim Edwards did with The Net Reporter. ($77 per month and in addition to access to the membership site, he mailed you a physical DVD video every month.)
Here's the loophole for selling physical products with Clickbank... I noticed the following in Clickbank's terms of service:
You may also offer shipped delivery of printed media (books, CD's, and DVD's) as a courtesy to qualified customers (e.g., US and Canada only), provided the shipped media is clearly complementary and not essential to the operation of the originally downloaded digital product.
After having a Clickbank account for 6 years, I never noticed that. What you have to do is provide your members with a hybrid delivery. (Coined by John Reese.) When someone buys this physical product from you, provide 100% of the content in downloadable form -- for instant gratification -- then ship the physical materials as bonuses, for added value.
That's what you should be doing with physical products in the first place and that's what I recommended to Steven Schwartzman when he was disappointed about the Five Minute Articles WSO. Sales picked up after he added the hybrid product delivery.
I am really resisting the push into physical products. I am looking at a gigantic map of how my upsells connect to one another (drawn in Visio). There are about 60 products in that map... not all of them are connected.
I showed that map to Steven Schwartzman and this is what he had to say:
In regards to the image...WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have nothing else to say about that except wow. It's amazing to see how many products you have when it's displayed like that. You can create a course on making those maps.
I recently recorded 4.5 hours of Camtasia PowerPoints for Software Secrets Exposed. This means now, not only do I offer the book, I also offer six 45 minute videos and six audio CDs.
The audio CDs are just the audio from the videos but it means you can burn them and listen to them in your car or whatever.
Should I have released this as a physical product?
- Maybe set the price low at $17 just for the PDF.
- They click to order, and have the chance to get just the audios at $37.
- They click to order, and have the chance to get the audios plus the videos for $47.
- They click to order, and have the chance to get the package for $97 as a set of 3 DVDs plus 6 audio CDs mailed to them.
There are some really good fulfillment services like SwiftCD where all the shipping info is grabbed from PayPal, but yet another drawback is getting my customers on my follow-up list as well for updates.
Could you please comment below and let me know if I should have released this update as a physical product? Have you yourself released a physical product?
Is it even worth the hassle dealing with the shipping problems and refunds... especially since with Clickbank, you can't get those physical items back?
Behind Schedule
I've been so behind schedule ever since I came back from the Warrior Event seminar in Austin. I have a ton of blog posts outlining a bunch of the stuff I learned... just be patient.
I've "only" put together 8 1/2 sales letters and recorded two e-classes. An e-class with me is approximately 30 daily episodes, each episode is about five minutes.
I make it a point to handle a finite number of projects at one time. Absolute maximum is four. The number I want is one. I usually end up working on about two projects at a time.
The problem when you promote stuff as an affiliate: you are the same as everyone else!
Why not add some of your own stuff as a bonus -- check out script number 7 of Top Secret PHP to learn how to modify OTHER people's pages and add your own affiliate bonuses.
I bought Kevin Riley's Recipe for Post Product Launch and was so impressed with it, I put together a PowerPoint presentation and recorded a Camtasia video of me dictating it.
When you buy that product through my affiliate link, I add you to an autoresponder and send you another five minute episode every day for a month.
It appears as if I'm putting 20-30 minutes a day into the class, recording the video, uploading it, sending out the e-mail message... when really, I recorded all the videos in a couple of hours and wrote all the daily follow-up messages in under an hour.
Think about recording PowerPoint videos the next time you promote an affiliate product.
People hate work and like having things laid out for them. It's easier to watch a little bit of video every day then try to crack a book... that's too much like school... yuck, I'm having nightmares already!
Just make a separate slide for each page to keep things simple. Make three bullet points for each slide summarizing the main points. Print out the entire book out on your printer.
Record your video and read the text word for word. When you have something of your own to add, just wing it.
When you're done with each page, pause the recording and see how long you've recorded. If you're close to five minutes, save the video and start a new one.
Why five minutes? Because Camtasia allows you to save to MP3 audio and those will be your CD tracks.
That's right, you just added even MORE value to your own customized affiliate product because you have the daily videos people can watch every day... and you've given them audios so they can burn them to a CD or to their iPod.
I've done this with one affiliate product and one product I bought rights to.
You could produce the video into a DVD as well if you felt like it.
I know many of you are resisting me here. But think about this... don't you want to be considered an expert in your niche? Every time you see someone speak on stage at a seminar... either live or when you watch it on a DVD... do you wish that was you presenting?
There is also that added bonus that after you read an entire book allowed, you become an expert on that subject. You know it backwards and forwards. If someone asks about a subtopic in that book, you could explain EVERYTHING!
This is how you will get to to that point. Not just by creating the video products but by getting lots of practice in, being an instructor.
I know you would rather host a seminar, charge $1000 per seat and get 50 attendees and make $50K in a weekend than launch a lousy $27 e-book and try to make that same amount of money over the course of a few years.
Am I right?
What do you personally do to differentiate yourself as an affiliate? Do you offer personal consultation? Bonus products? Daily videos? Something else I haven't thought of? Please, share with me... I need the usual ten comments.
p.s. If you want those videos, check out:
www.PostProductLaunch.com
DON'T purchase from that site just to see how I roll the videos out. I have no what I'm doing. I really suck.
Only check out that product if you're interested in grabbing new affiliates AFTER your product is initially launched, you want to know how to properly host your own seminars, turn customers into promoters, blah blah blah... 🙂
How To Break Into Any Niche Part 4: Don’t Burn Up Your Blog Too Fast
In the past we've talked about creating an autoresponder sequence to automate relationship building with your prospects or even your existing customers.
If you had 10 autoresponder messages, you wouldn't set them up to use them up in 10 days. You'd space them out to give subscribers a chance to take in the information.
Remember, you aren't only concerned with readers. The bottom line is how much money does your blog make... if it makes nothing then what's the point?
I'm not saying it has to make money directly with ad space or AdSense. If your blog gets you some regular traffic, which leads to more autoresponder signups, which eventually makes you more sales, then your blog is a source of income.
- You want to keep your readers' interest, but at some point get them a little bit bored so they'll check out one of your other products that sells something.
- You want to give other blogs and sites a chance to mention a recent article of yours before it's taken off the front page.
- Don't forget that search engines penalize sites that toss up too many pages too quickly and don't grow at an average rate.
Like I said when I started this blog, I wrote 50 blog entries before I made the blog public. I could post one entry a day and burn it all up in two months, then be left with nothing else to write. Or I could post one entry per week and last a year. I could post 2 entries a week and last 6 months before I had to come up with any new content.
Here are my tips about not burning up a blog too fast, based on my experience with running membership sites and watching other peoples' blogs start out well but eventually fail miserably:
- Have a reserve of emergency articles -- at least 6 months to a year's worth -- to continue populating your blog at a regular pace. This doesn't have to be a lot. If you intend on posting a minimum of one article per month, all you need are 6 to 12 articles.
- Don't post more than twice a week. Daily is too much even for active subscribers to keep up with.
- If your articles are 1000 words in length or longer, break them up into manageable 250-500 word pieces. You can perform a word count using Microsoft Word or any decent text editor.
- Post replies to comments for two reasons: to let your readers know that you are reading what they say and encourage them to keep commenting, and keep your entries fresh, even if they are a few days or weeks old.
Comment below and tell me if you have a reserve of emergency articles for your blog or if you just wing it... and if so do you post on a regular basis or whenever you feel like it?
Coaching: Do You Have Someone to Call?
For 2008 I told myself I was going to treat my internet business more like a business. As in, put work into it every single day (even if it was just a little bit) instead of putting a ton of work into it every now and then (which is a hobby).
It wasn't a "New Year's Resolution." Those never work. I just kept telling myself every day that I was going to have a business instead of a hobby, and after several weeks, it finally stuck.
Building A Business Requires Personal Coaching.
My friend Steven Schwartzman (I've mentioned him before) is my consultant. I have joint ventured with him on projects for the past five years and flew to New York last summer to meet him and attend a Warrior luncheon.
I make more money than him but that's only because I put out more products. As far as internet marketing experience goes, he and I are equals.
Earlier this year he got back into internet marketing after a break for several months -- he was studying for the LSATs to get into law school. I've made it a point to call him every weekday to ask him what he accomplished that day, then tell him what I accomplished that day.
I've noticed a gigantic boost in productivity by doing this. If I have nothing to report I feel like I'm letting him down, and I think it has the same effect on him. We motivate each other pretty darn well this way.
So far in 2008, I've earned $30,247.38 just from PayPal sales alone. That's not counting my day job, that's not counting my Clickbank income, that's not counting my stock trading income (usually that last one loses me money... I hardly do that nowadays anyway).
That's 1,762 sales in the past 100 days. That's right, doing some simple math in your head will tell you: 17 sales and $302.47 per day.
I've launched 24 products since New Year's.
I'm telling you, you need someone like this. I'm not talking about instant messaging, that is a huge time waster. You need someone to actually call on the phone (not Skype, you should be away from the computer) at the end of the day and talk for 5-10 minutes maximum about what you both accomplished.
It needs to be someone far away, it needs to be someone who does the same things you do (marketing on the internet). It can't be someone you know, it can't be a real friend or a family member.
At one point Steven was very sick, on the couch, watching Jeopardy, but we randomly got the idea to get him to watch some internet marketing videos so at least he can accomplish something until he gets better. In the meantime he assured me he was less than a day away from finishing his special report.
As soon as he was all-better, I'm bugged him on the phone every day until it was finished.
I have been feeling a little bit down from these product re-launches, because I put a lot of work into videos for existing products, but each launch only gets me a few hundred dollars because most of my list already owns these products and I deliver free upgrades. (For brand new products, I am used to bringing in a couple thousand dollars in the first few days.)
However, Steven assured me that, in his words, "A few hundred dollars a day is nothing to shake a stick at." It's consistent income and though I have seen several $100-$150 days lately.
My combined income, taking into account PayPal fees, Clickbank, and day job income, equals $34,000 year to date or $136,000 per year. Profit from the past 12 days equals $275 per day on average... or $100,000 annualized.
I must be doing something right. Considering I made $90,000-ish last year INCLUDING day job income, I could be in for quite a boost if I keep doing what I'm doing all year round.
Sometimes it only takes a simple comment like "it's nothing to shake a stick at" to put everything in perspective.
You don't need to spend $2,000 a month on professional personal coaching unless you are making so much money that you need to get rid of that $2,000 for a nice tax write-off... yeah, I wish I'd thought of that before getting my bigass five-figure tax bill this month.
(For the rest of 2008 I have to pay more money per QUARTER in taxes than I made in INCOME for an entire year just a few years ago!)
You just need someone to talk to on the phone. Someone who won't steal your ideas and won't lead you on the wrong path. They can be your equal, it doesn't matter... you just need someone to TALK to.
Could you comment below and tell me if you have a business mentor? Are they paid or free? How often do you communicate? Has it helped you?
Private Label Rights: 4,444% ROI
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?
You’re Fired!
Imagine for a second that you have a full-time employee working on your business. (Maybe you already have one.) I don't mean a pay-per-job kind of employee, I mean a salaried employee you pay every single month.
- You pay for this person's health insurance.
- You pay for sick and vacation days.
- You pay into their retirement account.
Their job is to build you a web presence and create new products and sites, write sales copy, buy advertising, and so on.
Despite all this, your employee frequently visits forums, checks e-mail, chats in instant messengers, and generally puts out products at a snail's pace... let's say 1 or 2 products per year when he could be producing one per month, easily.
Now that you've got that pictured in your head, tell me... are you that employee?
Do You Deserve To Be Fired From Your
Self-Employed Internet Marketing Job?
I am still following the daily video challenge and I hope you are too.
I recorded five videos instead of just one on Monday, to make up for my trip away from home at Disneyland... that was some nice downtime and recharged my batteries, by the way.
When I record a daily video:
- I make sure Camtasia is running, and that I have my headset on so I can talk about what I'm doing.
- I open up Notepad and write "Appointment with myself: Finish chapter 5 by 6:30 PM" (I set that to whatever the time is half an hour from now and whatever chapter I'm working on.)
- I set my alarm clock for 10 minutes -- use a kitchen timer or Cool Timer.
- I haul ass for ten minutes and stop immediately when it runs out, then explain what I'll be doing for the next ten minutes.
The above formula works wonders to keep me motivated.
Sometimes I'll start out and not feel like working, but within a couple of minutes I'll be in the exact mood I need to be in.
I recently discovered another hidden bonus about recording yourself at work: You have indisputable proof that you are working!
If you are one of those people trying to convince a spouse or family member that you are doing more than just clicking around on the Internet all day, give them access to the daily videos you are recording.
(Show them how to fast-forward to skip the boring parts.)
You can respond by saying, "Look, today I wrote 50 pages."
Or, "Today I wrote four sales letters."
If you didn't meet your goals, you can explain in the video, exactly why you didn't write that many pages or why you didn't make as much money as you wanted to that week.
Heck, it could also remind you what you were working on yesterday.
- Are you using a similar formula?
- Are you using video to document your work?
- Do you have some OTHER tip to keep yourself motivated so that you don't disappoint the people in your life?
- Should you really be fired from your self-employed job (or at least put on probation) and what will you do to make up for it?
Please comment below and let me know... I would really appreciate it.
Do You Watch Your Own Videos?
I'm five days into the Robert Plank Daily Video Challenge and using Camtasia I've recorded 6 how-to videos I'm going to use in an upcoming paid product, one video documenting a task and one video going over my progress for the day.
My formula is: try to record a video for a paid product, if I don't have time for that, keep the video rolling while I do something to improve my business... and don't stop the camera until I'm done. (This REALLY keeps me on task.) If that fails, open up Notepad and go over what I did that day. I plan for 5 minutes and that usually ends up taking 20 minutes.
Then, watch that video you just recorded from start to finish.
This is what professional actors and public speakers do to train themselves to actually look presentable.
You'd be surprised at how many people DON'T do this. Just look at how many chipmunk-infested Camtasia vids are floating around out there.
There Are People Out There Who Are Supposedly "Experts" at Video
Who Are Hard to Watch.
When you talk with your hands, it's distracting and you look like an idiot! There is absolutely NO REASON for you to use 2-3 different nervous hand gestures with every sentence.
When you talk for 2 minutes before you start to say anything new, you've lost my interest. Do you have a lame video with flashy graphics than says nothing but, "Welcome to my web site?" Get rid of it! If someone missed the first 2 minutes of your video, would it still make sense? Then start at that 2 minute point next time.
That's part of the reason why I said don't freely share the videos for this challenge. You see dumbasses on forums who record videos of themselves edited together with stock footage, and the video says NOTHING of value. They just post it all around in a pathetic attempt to bring in traffic.
When you do something in a video that could have been explained in text, you're stupid. That's why I use Camtasia so much, so I have something to show people other than my ugly mug.
Think about newscasters. They speak for a short time and then cut to a clip of what they were talking about. If you had the TV on mute the whole time, you could still figure out what was going on. At the very least, you would know to UNMUTE that segment.
Your videos are never going to be perfect so don't worry about that part.
Here is my mindset when I'm recording a video: "If I was doing this live at a seminar, would it still be acceptable?"
It's ok to record the video in just one take. It's ok to pause or screw up a sentence every now and then. But is your video so bad that it's cringeworthy?
The only way you're going to rise above that is by WATCHING those cringeworthy videos and then doing better next time.
I'm not saying I'm the best person in the world at recording videos, but I can tell you that watching my own videos has cured:
- A tendency to talk too fast. People told me they had to watch my videos multiple times to understand everything. Now my 10 minute videos are more like 30 to 45 minutes.
- Minor speech impediments. When I first started to record videos, I sounded out-of-breath. I mumbled, I slurred my words and sometimes stuttered. Now, I project my voice and always keep in mind to give people a chance to let what I just said sink in... all without thinking about it!
- Nervousness. Have you ever had one of those classes in school where the teacher always called on you and put you on the spot? At first it was really nerve-wracking, but by the end of that class you had a handle on it. The pauses I make in my videos are logical pauses, not nervous pauses. I also keep my hand off the mouse as much as possible so I'm not talking with my hands (in a Camtasia video sense).
Do you watch your own videos? If not, it shows.
Please, comment below and tell me if you watch your own videos.
If not... watch one of your own videos right now and tell me what you need to improve.
Daily Video Challenge
I added a small daily task to my schedule, starting yesterday, that I CHALLENGE you to try:
Record One Video Every Day
This is going to be a daily video diary for your business. (I recommend a Camtasia video, not a webcam video... but in some niches, Camtasia doesn't apply very well.)
Here are the rules:
Rule 1: I don't want you to show it to anyone other than yourself, just stick it in a folder somewhere. You can turn this into a paid product, or show it to ONE business associate but do not just give it to the general public for free.
Rule 2: I don't care what it's about as long as it relates to your business. Yesterday I spent 18 minutes explaining why February 2008 was my best month, passing up June 2007, and what things I did different than last year. You can record for 5 minutes or 30 minutes, but it has to be in one take.
Rule 3: If you end up showing it to someone else, it has to be a paid product. Membership video, DVD, one time product, whatever... just DON'T give it away as a blog post.
I was just thinking last night that recording videos is something I can't do consistently. I can write consistently because I have lots of practice, especially from posting in this blog. But videos... out of the 20+ infoproducts I have out there, 14 are video-based. Videos are my weakest skill at the moment.
Do you remember my three tips to fast infoproduct creation? Let's see how they stack up against the daily video challenge...
- It doesn't have to look good, just be good. That's the whole idea here. You spend 5 minutes creating the sloppiest video ever, because the video DOESN'T have to be that great and no one is going to see it.
- Get excited about your topic. You're choosing what to talk about so why not? I think that if you make enough videos on enough subjects, you will find something to talk about that you are excited about.
- Practice. You're recording a video EVERY DAY. This technique is practice... by definition. You'll establish good habits for yourself and in no time, videos will be a cinch for you to make.
Can you get to recording your video already? If you're worried about taking time out of your day, limit yourself to five minutes.
The video you record might end up being your next product.
The video could just be you going over your to-do list for the day... describing what you did and didn't accomplish. Maybe you'll watch it again 6 months from now and notice how your business has changed over time.
You might record yourself putting a product of yours to use... now you have an excellent how-to video to bundle with your product. You've just cut down on customer support requests.
Heck, I plan on doing a couple videos of nothing but me working on my project. What a great way to keep yourself on task!
If you know the cameras are rolling, do you think you'll get distracted and check e-mails, instant messages, and forums? Or do you think you'll actually focus on one single thing till it's done?
I thought so.
Please, leave a comment here and let me know if you accept this challenge. If you want to give me a little hint about what your first 5 minute video will be about... go for it... but you don't have to.
If you read through this whole post and DIDN'T comment, that tells me you're chickening out.
You're not a quitter... are you?
How to Break Into Any Niche Part 3: Virginal Markets
If you have spent even 3 weeks or less learning about Internet marketing, I'm sure you have heard about blogging, videos, squeeze pages, pop-ups, and autoresponders.
Everyone in internet marketing uses them. There's one problem with that: EVERYONE IN INTERNET MARKETING USES THEM. When you are in the internet marketing niche and use autoresponders, you are Superman and you are still stuck on the planet Krypton -- you're just like everyone else.
If you take all the internet marketing techniques you know into other niches, you become a guy who can fly around in the air while everyone else is stuck walking from place to place.
Say you are in the fly fishing niche. Everyone else is being non-imaginative and tossing up poorly made web pages with hundreds of articles and no call to action. Or placing AdSense on pages and not trying to make the site sticky with an autoresponder newsletter or with backend products or paid memberships
No one is making YouTube videos, displaying one time offers, or split testing. You will be the guy setting up joint ventures while everyone else is still trying webrings and link exchanges.
If you take what you know about internet marketing and apply it to a sleepy, underdeveloped niche, you will become Superman. You will kick ass.
Never sell to the "how to make money" niche. It is full of people with no money lying about how they made money, or people with no money wanting to make money.
If you have to do internet marketing, narrow it down. Internet marketing is too broad of a niche. That's like having "computers" or "computer programming" as your niche... it's too damn non-specific. Instead of internet marketing, focus on search engine optimization, or article marketing, or Web 2.0 promotion (Squidoo, StumbleUpon, MySpace) ... don't be the same as everyone else.
Don't be the same as ANYONE else, in fact.
Don't try to sell your niche stuff to internet marketers. If you are breaking into a new niche you have to start from scratch. The exception to this is if you want a jumpstart, create something that's NOT just an e-book -- a DVD or CD -- and sell resale rights to the internet marketers.
NEVER offer private label rights. In doing this you are creating more competition for yourself but you are getting your name out there.
Don't brag about or mention your extra-cirricular efforts to other internet marketers. If word gets around that your niche is lucrative and an easy target you could get some fellow Supermen trying to take away some of your action.
This is why some hardcore niche marketers will use a fake name, register a totally new business name and host their sites on a separate server with WHOIS protection to keep their real identity secret.
I don't do the fake name stuff with my PHP niche because I am just outside of the internet marketing niche. My niche is where PHP and internet marketing overlap. I teach site builders how to write PHP scripts. So I am not teaching something as advanced as the techie people who want to learn programming as a career, but slightly more advanced than people watching WordPress videos or learning Flash and HTML.
My competition consists either of rockstar programmers who know a lot but can't or won't teach it to dummies, and have more fun talking about XML processing or RAID arrays instead of the easy stuff I teach. I also have competition who are internet marketers but not rockstar programmers, who pass along little tips but don't understand PHP enough to write their own code. They only know how to pass along other peoples' stuff.
To sum breaking into virginal markets using your existing IM skills:
- Be unique.
- Get into a niche that you know like the back of your hand.
- Stay away from the how to make money niche.
- Use your internet marketing skills to outperform everyone else in non-IM niches.
- Don't talk about your efforts with internet marketers.
- Know exactly what kind of people you are selling to.
- Know exactly who your competition is and what kinds products and web sites they have.
Once you've got that site setup, use:
- The 5 Minute Article method to get an infoproduct developed quickly in a couple of hours.
- Fast Food Copywriting to put together sales letters quickly.
- PaySensor to handle PayPal payments and deliver products to customers via email.
- Action PopUp to gather leads and stick them into a mailing list like ListMail or Aweber.
- JV Plus along with a system like Clickbank to turn competitors into your affiliates.
- Sales Page Tactics to increase your conversion rates even more.
My question to you is:
What is your best tip to establish yourself in a new niche?
Remove Chipmunks from Camtasia Videos
Eugene Humbert, cool guy that he is, sent me an e-mail the other day letting me know that my Camtasia videos were producing weird "chipmunk" sounds.
This only happens with recent (version 9) versions of the Adobe Flash player. There's an easy solution:
Download the Camtasia Audio Bug Fix.
(The zip file is located at the bottom of that page.)
TechSmith solved this in Camtasia 5.02.... but I still use Camtasia 4 because I want my videos to look the same. By the way, this is ADOBE's fault and not Camtasia's.
The cool thing about this tool is, you can drag a whole FOLDER containing your SWF files, and the tool will find the SWF files even if they are buried deep inside other folders.
Last night, I de-chipmunked 14 video products. It didn't take that long at all because I used the above method.If you want the technical explanation of why this had to be done, Flash 9 can't properly play MP3 in SWF files that is encoded at a non-standard bitrate (it only understands bitrates that are a multiple of 11.025 Hz). The audio fixer quickly re-encodes the MP3 audio stream in your Flash file.
Why was all this extra work for me a good thing? It enabled me to finish adding affiliate programs to ALL my infoproducts.
All my products now have the affiliate subdomain trick built-in, as well as solo ads, an affiliate page for quick copy and pasting, and a call-to-action in the final chapter explaining to readers how to join the affiliate program for the product.
Heck, I've even JV Plus enabled all those products on this blog.
Before I encountered this chipmunk emergency, I was lazily working away, putting up maybe 3 or 4 affiliate pages per day. That was a task that I told myself I'd finish FIRST before anything else. So, I had to hurry up and finish all the solo ads before I could begin de-chipmunking.
I whipped out Microsoft Excel, copy and pasted all the product links on this blog's sidebar, then made a column for each thing I had to do for the site (write the solo ad, link to the affiliate page, setup an upsell, write the call-to-action, update the PDF file, de-chipmunk) and I just plowed through it. Because I had to.
So, don't forget to de-chipmunk your Camtasia videos if you haven't already.
Steven, What the F???
How the heck do you get a business partner motivated?
There is this guy, Steven Schwartzman. I have been working on internet marketing stuff for years... but... he can't freaking get a product launched to save his life!
My first contact with him was in 2003. I spent a week writing a PHP script for him, he paid me $650 for the job, it was all done and ready to sell. I even thought up a cool name for it. (HyperSplitter.)
We both made money, right? Wrong. In 2004... I get a message from him saying he needed some bug fixes. He waited so long to launch the product that some of PHP's changes broke the script.
I made the changes... then in 2005, I get a call from someone else saying, "Check out this web site... Hypersplitter.com. The script isn't for sale but I want you to look at the features on that site and clone the script. I would have bought resale rights but he isn't offering those either." I'm not even making that up... I really did get that phone call from Jaime Ojeda!
I think Steven eventually launched it but it only made a few hundred dollars. No big deal except it took him YEARS to launch it. Come on, Steven!!!
The guy is a great copywriter and he comes up with really great ideas for products. But he can't follow through! Everything he makes is half finished.
When I visited him last August he was working on a membership site. The last thing I said to him in person before getting on a plane and flying 3,000 miles back home was, "Promise me you'll have that product launched by the time I get back." It still hasn't been launched!
He does great when he's working for other people (writing copy and headlines) but for his OWN stuff... he just can't do it. He was supposed to write a report and registered a GREAT domain for it, but waited so long... that the domain expired... and copywriting legend HARLAN KILSTEIN snatched it up!
It was for that reason that I mentioned in Fast Food Copywriting about Mark Joyner's policy to never use the word "wait." You shouldn't be "waiting" on anything... ever.
Do everything you can right now. Focus on one thing and get it launched.
Steven had to study to take the LSATs for law school, he was sick for a while, he took a family trip to India and another to Portugal... okay, that's all behind you, it's time to get to work. Steven, can you launch just ONE product by the end of the week?
Come on dude. You come up with the BEST ideas I have even seen. If you just put products out consistently, you could be more popular than Brausch.
I'm sorry if I seem like a jerk here, or too nosy, but I want you to do well. All you need to do is keep posting special offers, keep building a list, and only work on things that will make you money. Not spending days helping someone else put up a web site for free.
Looking at my launch calendar over the past several years, I noticed that in 2006 I was lucky to even post one WSO. These days I feel guilty for going more than 5 days without posting one or sending a mailing out to my list.
Can you do one thing every day?
Please, give Steven some advice on staying motivated.
He NEEDS to get his ass in gear.
How to Reduce Refunds
Ben Prater is a guy I have never exchanged words with, unfortunately. He is an expert Internet marketer and has a way of reducing refunds that is pretty damn effective.
He is similar to me because he sells infoproducts in the "make your own software" niche, but he focuses more on the managerial, engineering part of that niche than I do. I am a do-it-yourselfer, he is an idea guy.
I'll never forget his best product… called,
"Software Secrets Exposed."
His sales letter sells you the story of what you can do with his book – his friend at Microsoft who worked in a high tech office and went to the Ferrari factory himself to make sure they painted his six-figure car the exact shade of purple he wanted.
I bought his book in 2003, before a lot of people had thought to direct sales into autoresponders or even save those leads at all. But Ben had thought of that.
You buy from him and you are automatically added to a follow-up series that sends you an automated, personalized message every few days.
When you first purchased, you got the book. After 7 days he sent a 30-page bonus report with a sample blueprint (just like the ones he talks about how to make in his original book).
He sent out more bonus reports after 14, 30, 45, and 60 day periods. They were either bonus chapters that wouldn't have fit anywhere in the book, or interviews with others – which are even easier to make than reports!
He didn't always simply give away the bonus materials… sometimes he asked for something in return.
For example, in one follow-up he offered a report on a related subject – but to get the report, you needed to provide a testimonial for his original "Software Secrets Exposed" e-book. Look at that sales page, it overflows with glowing testimonials!
If you can spread out the bonus items like he does, you will cut down on refunds because those people who refund immediately won't get the bonus items. If you can string them along for long enough, they might pass up the refund period!
When information is cut up into pieces it has a greater "thud" factor. Five twenty page reports all with their own sales letters have a higher value than a big 100 page book, even if contains the exact same information.
Spreading that information out over time gives it even MORE value, because your customer is more likely to read the information given to them in pieces than trying to sift through a huge pile of stuff the day they purchase.
I'll admit, I don't have a follow-up series for every product -- that would take time away from creating new products -- but every now and then I choose one product randomly and spend a minute or two writing a follow-up for it.
It doesn't have to be anything super valuable. You could:
- Remind them to download the product. (7-day followup)
- Ask what they thought of the product... which you can then use as a testimonial. (14-day followup)
- Offer an affiliate link and a solo ad they can copy and paste and send to their list. (30-day followup)
- Send a special discount link to another one of your related products. (45-day followup)
- Give them a surprise bonus report. (60-day followup)
That's how you reduce refunds. Advertise these items in the sales letter as a 7-day bonus, 14-day bonus, and so on.
On a forum I called this strategy:
"Turning a one-time product into a short-term membership site."
If you give a refund, immediately zap them from the update list and block their IP address from your site.
Recently, I paid through the nose for the rights to Software Secrets Exposed, setup a web site and an affiliate program, and added the bonus reports as autoresponder follow-ups just like Ben did.
Do you have any advice on how to reduce refunds? I don't mean legal issues like disputing transactions with PayPal, but ways to turn refunds into a good thing. (In this case adding more long-term value to a product.)
JV Plus
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.
