Tag: software secrets exposed

Seven Things #3: Second Chance Offers

December 17, 2008 • 15 Comments

Stu McLaren (The Nicest Guy on the Internet) interviewed me live last night in between Jim Edwards and Joel Comm.  When he asked me what's the most signifcant change I made in 2008, the very first thing that came to mind, and therefore the thing I blurted out, was "automation."

If you can write a quick e-mail, or article, or blog post, chances are you can write 2 more really quick posts, even if they say nothing but, "Remember a few weeks ago when I said this?"   Then lead into the exact same call to action...

Answering Stu's question reminded me of when I was at the Warrior Event in Austin earlier this year, when I picked up a really great tip from Ron Capps -- the NicheProf!

We were talking about sending offers to your list and how we both sometimes send new offers to our list for old products.

Ron will send a mailing out to his list promoting a product,
then send the same offer out again in 90 days!

On average, he promotes the exact same offer 5 or 6 times (one time every ninety days) before it completely runs out of gas.

That is a freaking cool way of looking at mining gold from your list.

That's what our plan is with the Daily Seminar membership site... simply because of attrition.  I launched my first recurring membership site almost three years ago and it began with a big splash, but we didn't market it after that, and the membership slowly died off.

But you can do that with your one time products as well!

Two Products a Week?!

At one point many people on forums thought I was a machine -- that I pump out two products a week consistently. Not true. I just have so many products I created in the past year or so that it seems that way.

People forget. People don't read every single e-mail. People will look at your offer and save it for "later" ... which ends up being never.

In fact I promoted a product from 2001 (Software Secrets Exposed) ... all I did was I took an old product, slapped a dimesale onto it and told my list. $1200 in a day -- on a SUNDAY -- probably about an hour's worth of work total.

Nevermind the costs I put in, I'd already broke even on the resale rights from an earlier promo I did for that product.

The best thing was... because I had it on a timer... I didn't even do any work that day.

Your Mission (Should You Choose to Accept It)

Here's what I want you to do: The next time you send a mailing out to your list, write the mailing a second time and save it as a timed mailing to get sent out 90 days from now.

If you do that now, then just before Valentine's Day 2009, you'll get a nice little surprise bump in income!

It doesn't have to stop there. You know that 2001 product? Someone bought it and saw the 2001 copyright and asked how could the info still be relevant.

I responded with an e-mail explaining how 100% of the stuff in the book still applies today and how all the predictions Ben Prater made in 2001 are now true today.

After responding to that message, I worded it into a quick follow-up and added it to my autoresponder to go out SIX months later. Hit on an extra benefit in the follow-up that people missed or forgot about!

p.s. How's this for automation?  I wrote this blog post on April 24, 2008, when I was in a blog writing frenzy, and scheduled it for December 2008... so I wouldn't overload my readers.  It's only now being published 5 months later.  Just before it went live, I took about 60 seconds to make it current.  Best of both worlds.

Here's what we learned today:

  1. Send the same offer to your list every 90 days.
  2. You can promote the offer 5 to 6 times. (Over the course of 18 months.)
  3. Have it on a timer so you don't have to worry about it.
  4. If you can take the answer to a common fear and turn it into a sales message, do it!

Have you resurrected any dead offers successfully?  What about when you failed, how was that different?  Please leave a quick comment below.

How to Reduce Refunds

March 3, 2008 • 23 Comments

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.)

↑ Back to Top