Archive | April, 2023

If you’re selling big ticket items, you’re leaving a tremendous amount of money on the table if you’re not sending your prospects something in the mail. Think about it – anyone and everyone can send an email, but how many sellers reach out via the postal mail to give their prospects something tangible they can hold in their hands?

Better still, “snail” mail can’t be deleted at the click of a button. And if you make it enticing enough, physical mail gets read and acted upon.

So what should you send to your prospects? According to Dave Dee, you should send a packet of info that includes the following:

– A checklist. For example, if you’re selling a service then you would send a checklist entitled: 7 things you should look for when hiring a _____. This way YOU set the buying criteria and you tell the prospect what to look for.

Now here’s the trick – at least ONE of those 7 things must be something that ONLY YOU do. Maybe you provide a service no one else provides, or you do it in a way like no other. Or perhaps your guarantee is unparalleled. Or you offer a free bonus service that everyone else charges for. Or perhaps you have qualifications or proven results that no one else has.

Whatever it is, it has to be something that only you have, so that when they go to compare you to others, no one else measures up to you.

– Include a newsletter of your own. It should be 2 pages long, customer oriented and include:

• Bullet point tips – these could come from your website or your book – no need to write new ones
• 1 article which could again come from your website or your book
• 1 cartoon (get someone on Fiverr to create this)
• 1 big mistake that people make and how you correct it
• Your picture

– A micro sales letter that sells them on the next step in the sales process, whatever that might be. If it’s making a small order, making a phone call, visiting your website – whatever it might be, you want to move them along in the sales process.

If they don’t respond to this package, Dave Dee follows up with these 3 sequential mailings.

First, he sends a gourmet cookie and a letter in a box. He uses a box so the cookie doesn’t get crushed. His letter begins, “As you can see, I’ve included a cookie. Why have I done this? I wanted to catch your attention. As you can see this is a gourmet cookie. It’s different, just like not all (Your profession, service or product) are created equal…” And then he reiterates his offer. This engages all of their senses and who doesn’t love cookies? Is anyone going to throw this in the trash without at least reading it? Highly unlikely. Are they going to remember it (and you) in the days to come? You bet.

Next he sends a fortune telling fish. It’s simply a little plastic fish that moves in your prospect’s hand. You can find these on novelty sites. Depending on the movement of the fish, it tells you something. The chart that goes with it says if it moves up, it means the prospect is going to call you. If it moves to the left, he’s going to hire you today. If it moves right, he’s going to buy your product, and so forth. No matter how fish moves, it’s a similar call to action

The third mailing is an Aspirin with another letter. This letter starts off with, “Do you still have this problem? We can make your headache go away…”

And if Dave still doesn’t get the response or sale he’s looking for, he then follows up with a year of monthly newsletters.

It sounds like a lot to put together, but once you have the system in place you never have to deal with it again. The newsletter can be timeless, so you can continue to run the same 12 issues. And the sales letters stay the same for as long as you’re selling the same product or service.

Your follow-up system doesn’t need to be this elaborate, but one good point to take away is this – acting differently from everyone else and being more creative will get you noticed and it will get you business.

There is a super simple way to create products people want to buy. It’s so simple, in fact, that you might have heard of this technique and quickly dismissed it. Yet it works like marketing magic just about every time it’s used.

Here’s the secret: Write your sales page BEFORE you create the product.

That’s it. Now here’s why it works:

– The headline and bullet points basically give you an outline of the product to create.

– You don’t have to think of the bullet points yourself – just go to forums and find out what people are asking. Those are your bullet points.

– It is far easier to write the sales letter first and then create the product, rather than the other way around.

– As you write your letter, you can think about what your customer wants to know. Put yourself in their shoes. This almost guarantees a great sales page and product.

– If you outsource the product creation, you can simply hand your writer the sales page and let them create the product from that. You’ll get a far superior product created in less time than if you ask them to do it from scratch.

– There’s no need to hire an expensive copywriter using this method.

Here’s another secret – copywriters use this method all the time when creating their own products. And if they do it, you KNOW it works.

“But if I’m writing the bullet points first, how will I get the information?”
The same way you would do it the traditional way – research. Either way, you’ll be researching your product if you don’t already know. But if you’ve already written your sale letter, then you’ll know exactly what information to look for, saving you time.

And if you find some gems of info as you do your research, you can always add those to your product as well as to your sales letter.

Write the sales letter first and you will nearly always produce a product people will want to buy.

1. Send another email to those who opened your last email but didn’t click the link, and to those who didn’t open your last email. Offer them the same product, but with an additional 7 days of free email support from you.

This works if you’re familiar with the product, which you should be if you’re promoting it. The addition of real live support can often double your sales or better. And it can be fun making new friends with people on your list.

2. If it’s your product that you’re promoting, send out another promotion to those people on your list who didn’t click the link or open the email, offering the same product with a twist for more money.

The twist might be a special bonus, email support, a coaching call, etc. You can charge more because you’re offering more value. Again, some people will take you up on this offer who wouldn’t otherwise have purchased.

3. Send out the “bugging” email. This is the email that you again send to those who either haven’t opened your other emails or opened them and didn’t click the link.

Admit right up front that you are bugging them with your emails, but you have a very good reason for bugging them. You know this product can make a real difference in their lives. In fact, you’re so sure this product can make a difference that you’re willing to risk your friendship and their patronage just to get them to look at it. Because that is what friends do.

And if you think about it, that IS what friends do. If your friend knows you would be far better off if you only did ___, wouldn’t your friend bug you to do it? Of course. Your email list should be no different. Because you only promote the products you KNOW will help them, and because this product is a life-changer, you’re sending this email.

This technique flat out works – try it.

What NOT to do: Do not be the person who sends that annoying, “Frankly, we’re puzzled why you haven’t bought “x” product yet.” This conveys the message that you think they’re idiots for not buying it and is an instant turn off to any thinking person who receives the email.

Instead, always take the high road of, “I completely understand why you might be skeptical, which is why I’m throwing in free coaching, or which is why I’m offering email support to help you get started, or which is why I keep writing to you.”

By using any one of these 3 techniques, you can double your sales without a lot of effort. This means you can promote half as many products and yet make just as much money, or promote the same number of products and quite possibly double your income.

…yet it’s a technique most marketers aren’t even aware of yet. And it’s as easy as turning video PLR snippets into lists and cash. Here’s how it works…

Find some good, solid PLR videos that instruct on how to do something. They should cover the step by step method to achieve a goal. They don’t need to be fancy but they do need good information that people want.

Once you’ve got your videos, watch them to find the “good” parts. These are the little 2-3 minute segments that teach something especially useful most people don’t know. Really you only need one of these segments, but if you find several, that’s even better.

Copy that segment into a file of its own. You can use most any video program to do this. Basically you make a copy of that video, then cut out everything you don’t want, leaving that 2-3 minute segment.

Place that video segment on its own page on your website. Once you’ve gotten this far, you’ve got choices on what to do next – LOTS of choices. You can…

1. Add a lead capture form to build your list. “To get the entire 30 minute video series for free, just let us know where to send it.” Drive traffic to your lead capture page from social media, guest blogging, paid traffic and so forth.

Visitors watch the 2-3 minute segment and quickly learn something valuable. You’ve now earned a level of trust. And they are impressed and curious enough to give their email address in return for the rest of the video series.

Taking this a step further, you can monetize your lead capture page by adding an upsell to the sequence. Once they subscribe, you offer them another, related product. Done right this will make your list building profitable enough to pay for advertising.

And with a self-liquidating offer, you can build your list as fast as you like.

2. Promote your membership site. “This entire video series is just one of many in my XYZ membership. Click here to get more info / sign up.”

You’ll find it’s much easier to drive traffic to your membership sales page by promoting your free video clip. And you can add this into your autoresponder sequence to make more sales of your membership as well.

3. You can sell the actual PLR series. Placing a clip on a stand-alone page is a great way to promote your product. Be sure to rename the video series and give it an entirely different look with a new cover as well.

Visitors watch the clip, like it, and click the link to get the rest of the video series. This takes them to a short sales page with an attractive price tag.

Guaranteed, you will make more sales using this method than if you simply send them straight to the sales page without letting them view the segment.

4. Give the video series away when they purchase an affiliate product. “Would you like to get this entire video series for free? Simply click this link, purchase ABC products and the video series is yours.

They are then taken to the sales page for ABC product. Of course this works best when the affiliate product is directly related to the video series you’re giving away.

5. Give the video series away when they buy your product. “This entire video series is just one of the bonuses you get when you purchase my product.”

Again, letting them preview the video series greatly increases the perceived value and heightens their desire to see the rest of the video series. Thus it’s a much better enticement to get them to buy your product.

BIG BONUS TIP: This tip alone can put thousands of dollars in your pocket, and it’s super simple. Ready?

For options 2-5, you can add them into your autoresponder sequences to make additional sales on autopilot.

And you can repeat this with as many PLR video products as you like, too.

Just show a teaser video and then offer the full course when they join your list, join your membership, buy your product, etc. It’s such a simple technique, yet very few marketers have caught on to this yet so it’s still wide open. Go for it!

This idea has been proven to work GREAT for insurance agents, and it can work phenomenally well for other businesses as well. Imagine you walk into Joe’s insurance to sell your marketing services. Joe is sitting at his desk, looking bored and sad. “Joe,” you say, “How’s business?”

“Not great, he answers.”

“Joe, I’ll bet you a steak dinner that I can get your phone ringing off the hook in days.”

Joe takes you up on your bet. You then launch an advertising campaign via social media or traditional media, in which Joe offers a big steak or shrimp dinner if he can’t save a customer money on his or her insurance. Because the offer is so attention getting and so bold, the phone does indeed ring off the hook.

Just make sure before you run a promotion like this that Joe can indeed save most people money.

You can do something similar with other trades, too, such as tax preparers, travel agents and even auto repair shops. That’s right – auto repair. The offer might be – “Bring in your estimate from any other shop. If we can’t do the work for less money, we’ll buy you dinner.”

Can you do something like this with online marketing? Why not?

“Follow my step by step system. Show me you did all the steps, and if you aren’t making “x” amount of money in 6 months, the course is one me.”

Or…

“Follow my recommendations, keep an exercise and eating journal for 6 weeks while following the program, and if you haven’t lost 10 pounds, I’ll send you my competitor’s program for free.”

The possibilities are endless. By making an offer no one else is making, you will stand out from the crowd, get noticed, and make sales.

The fact is, most people have an expertise that would make a good product others would happily pay for. But some people either don’t feel confident enough to charge for what they know, or they really don’t know enough to charge.

So what kind of product can these folks create? That’s easy – software.

With software, you don’t have to record videos and write PDF’s and give case studies and examples and so forth, other than what you need to sell the software.

All you need to create a software product is basically two things: A good idea and a coder. Coders are easy to come by – just go to any of the freelancing sites and take your pick.

So how do you get a good idea for software? Study your market. See what people need. Make a note when you wish you had software that would do ____, because odds are other people are wishing for the same thing.

Look at the new software introduced in your niche – how could you improve it?

What are the latest, biggest, fastest growing trends? What software can you make to piggyback on these trends?

The fact is, new ideas for software are everywhere if you’re looking for them.

And software generally has a higher perceived value than information. This means you can either charge more than an information product, or keep your price low and get more buyers.

Either way, you’re making sales and building a list of buyers.

All you need now is an idea and the guts to see that idea through.

Imagine if your products were as addictive as some drugs – only in a good way. Your customers derived tremendous satisfaction from using your products, and continued to buy and use them for months and years.

Your business would thrive, your customers would receive tremendous benefit, and everyone in this scenario would be happy.

But how do you build addiction into your products and services? And in fact, can it even be done?

The short answer is that not only can it be done, but it already has been done many, many times over. Look at any product or brand that people rave about and continue to buy over and over again and you’ll have a product or brand that people are in some way addicted to.

The Apple brand immediately comes to mind, as well as many video games, foods, certain authors and so forth.

In fact, bloggers and authors can use addiction to tremendous advantage, getting their readers to come back time and again for their latest post or book.

So the question is, how can you build addiction into your products and services? The answer is by meeting as many of these six human needs as possible. The more of these your product satisfies, the more addicted your customers will become:

– Certainty and security – avoiding pain and gaining pleasure. For example, the certainty of a continuous stream of income that means you never have money problems again.

– Uncertainty and variety – good surprises, positive changes, new stimuli. For example, when you play a video game there are always elements that can take you by surprise at any time.

– Significance – feeling unique, special, important or needed. A service that pampers makes us feel special. A new job title makes us feel important.

– Connection and love – feeling close to someone or a group of people. Social media helps us feel connected. An active forum centered on a product or goal can provide a strong tribal feeling.

– Growth – expansion of capability, capacity or understanding. Many information products can provide growth opportunities.

– Contribution – a sense of service and of helping others. A forum in which members help each other reach their goals can be especially effective for this.

We know if we can incorporate all 6 of these needs into a product, we’ll have something that is potentially addictive to our customers. So let’s try it with a membership on how to make money online, and see what that might look like:

– Certainty and security. This one is easy – if they learn how to make money online, they will have security. And in our sales information, we’re going to highlight the successes of current members to demonstrate the certainty that our program works.

– Uncertainty and variety. We can add special bonuses and surprises in the member’s section to keep things interesting. Plus we can run challenges and competitions.

– Significance. We find ways to acknowledge individual members as often as possible. We also respond quickly to all communication with personalized answers. And we continually let our members know how important they are to us, and remind them of the contributions that only they can make to the world.

– Connection and love. We provide a forum or a private Facebook page where members can interact and become part of our ‘tribe.’ We highly encourage this interaction and have key people who answer questions and help everyone.

– Growth. We can have different levels of mastery that members work through, so they can see the progress they are making. Their levels of achievement are displayed inside the members’ area (significance.)

– Contribution. In the forum we encourage and reward members for helping each other. And we remind them of the contribution they can make to the world by using their new skills.

As you can see, it’s not all that difficult to touch on all 6 needs within your product or membership. Many times you’ll see overlap from one need to the next. And the better job you do of meeting these 6 needs, the more people will become addicted in a positive way, and possibly even become your customers for life.

So next time you create a product or service, or start a membership site, ask yourself – how can I get my customers addicted – in a good way?

Print and keep this checklist handy for the next time you send a promotional email to your list or to a prospect if you want more email opens, product sales and online profits…

 Do you get to the point right away? Do not tell them about the last four hours you spent watching television or mowing the lawn unless it’s pertinent to the story.

__ Are you telling a story? Ideally you should tell an interesting story in every email you send to increase your open rates.

__ WIIFT… What’s in it for them? Don’t just tell them how great your product is. Tell them what they get for taking the action you’re promoting.

__ “So what?” Read the email as if you were the recipient, and see if they would ask, “So what?” You want to fascinate and excite them to click that link.

__ Is your writing boring? Uh-oh. Not talking about what’s in it for them, or writing “so what” emails are leading causes of massive email boredom.

__ Are you using action verbs? Contrast these two sentences to see the importance of using action verbs: 1. The cat seems healthy. 2. The cat raced across the yard and dove into the bushes chasing the terrified ground squirrel. Which one keeps the reader awake and reading?

__ Is your email just long enough to get them to click the link, and no longer? You’d be surprised how many marketers talk themselves out of getting that link clicked by rambling too much.

__ Is the formatting super easy to read? Or is it all one long indistinguishable paragraph?

__ Have you read it through and cut out all the fat? Seriously. Get to the point. Now.

__ Have you established credibility? Give them a good, honest, believable and credible reason why this is THE product they should buy.

__ Are you using bullet points? If not, are you crazy? Bullet points are your best sales tool in an email or a sales letter.

__ Have you given them a reason to respond right now? Preferably one that doesn’t sound cheesy?

__ Have you included your call to action? Don’t assume they know what to do next.

Use this checklist on your next 5 emails, and compare the results with your last 5 emails. You should see a significant bump in conversions.

Would you like to add a new income stream to an existing business? Or are you looking for a brand new business? Then check this out.

First, you need knowledge. If you don’t have it, then obviously you can get it. It’s got to be specialized knowledge. Maybe you’re an expert at a certain software program, or a WordPress expert, or you know everything there is to know about how to drop to 5% body fat. Whatever it is, it’s got to be knowledge that other people want NOW.

Next, you need a way to get your consulting in front of the people who need it. Let’s say you’re an affiliate for a software or program that you personally know inside and out. You keep a mailing list of everyone who’s visited your site or bought the product from you.

These people sometimes email you with questions about the product. “How do I… ?” “Where is the… ?” “When so and so happens, what do I do?” And so forth. Being the good affiliate you are, you probably answer these questions. And you’re good at it, too.

But what if you could get paid to do it? Set up a page on your site offering your consulting service by email. Charge a reasonable fee, like $27 or $47 for the day or for the week, whatever is appropriate for the information you have to offer.

Remember, a certain percentage of people would much rather have someone show them how to do something than to have to figure it out for themselves. And they will gladly pay you for making their life easier.

That’s really all there is to it. Answer their questions by email, and remember – you are a consultant, not a technical advisor (unless you are.) This way you can focus on the types of questions you’re good at.

Bonus tip: Spend some time in forums finding out what the most common questions are about the topic, and then SEO your site to get high rankings for several of the well searched keywords. Then on every page of your site, point them in the direction of your consulting.

Your consulting can even help you to sell more affiliate products because you will be building trust with your readers that you are an expert. Thus when you recommend something, it’s really and truly worth buying.

I know I preach about picking something and staying focused on that something until you make it a success, but there are exceptions, and this is a big one. There are certain products you should probably grab whenever you see them. These are “how to” products on marketing techniques that contain three little words that can be a goldmine for you – “Step by step.”

The reason I love these is because for a very cheap price – usually less than $40 and sometimes only $10 – you get a complete step by step system on how to do something.

You might buy 2 or 3 of these a week. Then when you’ve got time, go through each one. Read the PDF’s and watch the videos.

Decide if you think the technique is something you can apply to your business. If it is, try it out. You might set aside one afternoon each week to try a new step by step technique.

Then wait and see what happens. Sometimes you see results right away and other times it takes a while, depending on what the technique might be.

You’re watching to see if it works. For example, if it’s a technique on how to get traffic then you’re watching to see if: You get traffic and if that traffic converts.

Once you know it works, you apply the fourth magic word – Outsourcing.

That’s right – you give your “how to” product to your outsourcer, along with any notes you’ve made when you implemented it yourself, and have them do it for you.

The first day they might send you a few emails with questions, but it won’t take you much time to answer them.

Then you just let them run with it and watch your numbers. Make sure you’re making more from results of the system than you’re paying the outsourcer and you’re good to go.

One of the best things about “step by step” products is they’re written for the average person, not a rocket scientist marketer. They have to be, or else the product creator would get a million questions. This makes it super easy to hand it off to another person to do the actual work for you. As long as the technique results in more income than outlay, it’s a winner.

And all you invested was the initial price of the ‘how to’ program, along with an afternoon to try it out for yourself.

To give an example: Let’s say you pick up 5 new ‘how to get traffic’ systems. 4 of them work well, so you outsource those and forget about the fifth one.

The new traffic results in X amount of new subscribers and X amount of new sales. Maybe it’s 1,000 new subscribers a month, and $1,500 in sales the first month, $500 the second month on those 1,000 subscribers.

So as long as you’re paying your outsourcer less than $2,000 a month (which is easy to do) you’re in profit.

This is a great way to add extra income to your existing business without a lot of time and effort on your part.

So remember to use these 4 magic words – “Step by step” and “Outsourcing.”

And one more thing: If you have a fistful of resell products sitting on your hard drive, take a look at those. You never know what step by step technique you’re going to find that you can use to help build your business through outsourcing.