Top Secret PHP: 300 Sales in 24 Hours
Early yesterday morning (about 24 hours ago) I released yet another PHP video series. This one is called Top Secret PHP.
I launched it using a nickel sale.
What's a nickel sale? Keep reading...
Just so you know what I'm talking about, it's like my other video infoproducts where I supply 7 PHP scripts, provide detailed step-by-step PDF instructions on how they were made, plus a 10-minute-ish video showing it in action, and how you can customize it to fit your site.
It has scripts to run some pretty unique special offers... like fast action bonuses, client-side one time offers, and upsell series.
The rest of the scripts and videos deal with affiliate marketing: how to stop affiliate vendors from stealing your keyword research, how to place pop-ups on other peoples' sites.
It even shows how to tweak your vendor's sales copy to make sometimes very necessary changes (like remove THEIR opt-in forms and ads from sales pages you risked your hard-earned advertising dollars to promote).
Because my most successful product launch (that $3,000 day last June when I announced Web Sites on Crack) was a nickel sale, I decided to go with what works.
A Nickel Sale is Where You Set the Price of Your Product At $0.05.
When someone buys, the price changes to $0.10 and the second buyer has to pay 10 cents for the same product.
Buyer number three has to pay $0.15. And so on.
You wouldn't think it adds up, but it does. I got Web Sites on Crack to run up to the $20 level, which means 400 buyers, so even though people were paying under a dollar at first, the last few people paid $20 for the exact same thing.
With 400 buyers, you average out to about $10 per person or $4000.
Even with just 200 buyers, that's $5 per person on average or $1000 in profit.
An added surprise bonus: That rush of early buyers provides the social proof for others to buy in quickly so THEY don't miss out before the price rises again. It feels like buying a rising stock in the stock market.
Gary Ambrose did this exact same thing with a program called "Nickelmania." I didn't hear about it until a year or so after he did it, after I began doing it.
The difference was with Gary's opp, he offered an affiliate program AND a physical DVD. That is even more ballsy. I'm only offering a downloadable product. If I don't make any money, that's no big deal. But a DVD costs about $5 to have autoshipped. If he gets less than 200 buyers, he loses money.
Then again Gary is all about list building. He is one of those guys who doesn't care about losing a little bit of money because... it's just like AdWords! He's paying for each lead, just like with AdWords you pay for each click to your site, and try to funnel it into a list.
His system is even better than AdWords, because he only pays per lead, not per click, and he's paying for a lead of someone who is willing to give money to him... now he can hit them with a backend product or market to them later down the line.
I've seen Russell Brunson have a site where he PAID affiliates $1 for each newletter sign-up they referred. He doesn't mind the initial loss because he's build a huge list of responsive people.
Even better: pre-qualify subscribers by making them buy something first. I recently saw a site that offered a 1000% commission affiliate program. What he did was charge people 10 cents to sign up to his newsletter, but paid affiliates $1 for each confirmed subscriber. It's the same idea... thinking of it in terms of pay-per-lead.
The moral of the story?
5 cents isn't that cheap, it isn't even a loss after you get a couple hundred sales in.
Here are my sales statistics for Top Secret PHP starting on midnight Thursday January 24th, 2008 and ending on 11:59 PM on that same Thursday...
Number of sales: 298
Profit: $2,179.60
Profit Per Customer: $7.31
Profit after PayPal fees: $2,019.75
Additional sidetracked sales: $124.38
Sure beats the hell out of that slow burning incremental product launch I did with PHP Uncensored, doesn't it? The Top Secret PHP launch just made in a day, what it took PHP Uncensored to two weeks to earn.
P.S. That dimesale / nickelsale script is a part of Sales Page Tactics Volume 3 if you were curious.
Filed in: Product Launches
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- Affiliate Marketing » Blog Archive » Top Secret PHP: 300 Sales in 24 Hours | January 25, 2008
Oh by the way, I forgot to mention… yesterday Top Secret PHP got a 40% conversion rate!!!
299 sales, divided by 732 unique IP addresses = a 40.8% conversion rate! Talk about having fanatics on my mailing list.
Compare that to PHP Uncensored with 1430 unique visits this month. That’s 225 sales divded by 1430 = a 15% conversion rate.
That number is inflated because I sent a mailing to my list of previous buyers, obviously. 1% is what you’d expect over the long-term, even 10% would be an unbelievable number.
That kind of conversion rate isn’t sustainable over time because I’ve got a finite list, but that’s a freaking $2.78 value per visitor! When I launched Top Secret PHP, I made $2.78 (on average) every time someone loaded my sales letter. Is that damn cool or what?
Great job Robert. You really know how to market the products that the IM niche really need…
Good stuff…
I sent you an email…agree with what Yusoff says.
I thought you did a better job of convincing me of the value (which I could see, upfront) on topsecret.
You also managed to wangle an SP3 purchase out of me — one of the few of your products I don’t have.
I sent Robert an email and he asked that I do what I should have done in the first place — say it here:
*********************
Top copywriter Gary Bencivenga says a great product is more important than a great salesletter.
Robert,
You continue to show us how to do what others would be pleased to charge us $37, $47 and more for their products — your products are out-of-the-box bargains
providing the reader is willing to do a little work.
Why wouldn’t they buy?
Your success is testimony to Bencivenga’s comment, as well as what ‘relationship’ marketing is all about.
Keep up the good work!
(yeah, you can use that first paragraph as a testimonial.
Judy Kettenhofen
http://www.NextDay-Copy.com — if you’d like — but that isn’t why I wrote this email. 🙂 )
Oh yeah, your sales process — creating urgency — doesn’t hurt, either! LOL.
Live JoyFully!
Judy Kettenhofen, Profit Strategist/Copywriter
Hi Robert,
I was having one of those long days and I checked my email about 3:00 AM in the morning and there was your newest offer. I rushed on over and picked it up for a cool $2.05.
To me the nickel/dime sales work the best for they definitely create a sense of urgency. It also helps build a list of very alert buyers.
No matter what sales plan you stick with, I’ll always purchase anything you put out. Love your programming skills that much.
Kenny
P.S. Do you have any plans on creating a PHP script in the future that tracks both impressions and clicks for rotating banners/text ads?
Hi Robert,
Just got home after a longish day at work (its 7.30pm here in the UK) and checked your blog first – always do this!) and lo and behold Top Secret PHP. It was at $15.05 but I had to have it! Got to boost your profit level. But i also went on to get SP3 (I haven’t got SP1 or 2 only Lightening) for $17.20 so what with uncensored you’ve had a good start to 2008 from me and I still consider those proces worth it. All I have to do now is try and fins the time to use them all!!!!
Gotta go now my evening meals in the oven and its beeping to let me know it’s finished.
Thanks for the scripts and the comments in your blog, I am finding them really useful, especially the ‘refresher’ ones.
Chris
Hi Robert,
I really like the way your products teach me HOW the scripts work, as well as providing the code for me to use.
It’s very easy to justify the cost, because it delivers on many levels.
Good work!,
Kevin
Hi Robert,
Your scripts are great! I love them. I always look forward to your emails 🙂 Other marketers would package them up nicely and sell for a lot more, but you let us have them for a super low price. Keep them coming!
Hi Robert,
I thought you did an excellent job with selling thisd product. Of course I like all of your products, but as mentioned, your marketing efforts seem to be getting better.
I remember a time when your copy wasn’t that great, but all of us knew the value so that helped the sales. Personally, I think you’ve grown a lot in this past year. You seem to be more rounded.
Anyway, thanks for another great product, and keep up the good work!
All the best …
Mary
Dear Robert,
You’ve made my day as well with your inspiring story. Urgency + Quality + Serving Real Business Needs = Long-term High Conversions and Profits. THAT’S the magic combination you’re offering. And that combination makes makes your customers enjoy playing variations of this fear of loss game over and over when they buy from you.
What long-term customers don’t like is marketers sending them through the IM spin cycle over and over, selling junk they don’t need and or scripts that don’t work. Several well known marketers selling with dime sale scripts are proud to think of their wannabe customers as clueless sheep. I have heard them say so in public.
Of course, many customers ARE sheep, buying into the fantasies of instant wealth. But before long, those customers go broke and drop out, so the approach requires a lot of effort getting new customers.
The other part of the IM spin cycle marketing approach is JV deals with other spin cycle marketers. Please don’t learn from these guys. They aren’t cool: their skills and long-term business strategy are weak compared to yours. And they’ve created a furious mob of cynical newbies on the forums.
In contrast, you’re offering both newbies and experienced marketers a better way to improve sales conversions and SHOWING them exactly how to use the scripts immediately in their business. I hope you’ll keep quality, respect, and serving genuine needs along with urgency in your marketing mix. If you do, you’ll own this market niche for keeps.
Cheers,
Mary Greene
I really dont think the price is the main factor- the quality of your products – and the are very good – are what will make people buy again.
You are providing what many non-techies need!
I am sure if you set the price atsay $20 most would still have bought.
Keep it up!
Hi Robert
Congratulations on your conversion rate. It is exactly the same point I have made with BUYING LISTS compared with FREEBIE lists.
I fully agree with the fact that conversion rates can easily be far above 30% when you supply as good products as you do.
Robert, there is a good reason why you have faithful customers. You deliver the goods every single time.
Talk about testimonials… 😉
Interesting post and as others have said your products are high quality – so having bought one it’s easy to make the decision to buy another. I have a few of them myself!
If you combine previous experience of buying a quality product with a dimesale you’re going to get some scrambling from regulars to get what you offer early in the cycle.
And as I said to you on the WF people in the UK would like a level playing field for first-mover advantage!