Author Archive | Richard Oleszyk

Let’s say you write and sell a fairly successful monthly newsletter. How can you get your subscribers to bring you new subscribers? Or maybe you have a growing membership. How do you get your current members to bring you more paying members? The answer might be as simple as giving your existing members certificates to GIVE to their friends…

In the case of the newsletter, let your subscribers give away 1-6 months for free. Limit the number of gift subscriptions they can give away to keep the perceived value high. Make the gift certificates look like they were paid for by your current subscribers, so that when they give them out, it appears they’re giving a valuable gift (which they are.) This also makes it more likely your subscribers will give the certificates out because there is a sense of pride in the giving of the gift.

When the gift recipients sign up to get their free subscriptions, you can offer them the chance to subscribe for a longer period of time at a reduced rate. Some will accept your offer, others won’t. Those who opt only for the free subscription will receive your offers to renew before their subscription ends. If you’ve provided a great value to them, some will subscribe. And when they do, you can then offer them certificates to give to their friends as well.

Remember, since your newsletter is delivered electronically, it costs almost nothing to give out gift subscriptions. And even if your newsletter is printed and mailed, the cost is still low compared to the number of new subscribers you are likely to get using this simple method. Of course, you’ll want to track your numbers to be sure it’s profitable.

Memberships can work the same way. Let your current members give away limited-time memberships to a small handful of the people they think will appreciate it the most.

You might even do special promotions using this method. For example, you give out certificates in late April for Mother’s Day with instructions to give them to moms who would enjoy the subscription or membership. Or prior to Christmas as gifts, and so forth.

If your membership or newsletter delivers a high value, using your current customers to bring in more customers can be the easiest, fastest and most cost effective way to get a continuous stream of new, happy customers into your business.

Therefore, instead of only thinking about how many of your paid newsletter subscriptions or memberships you can sell, start directing your creative juices to finding ways you can leverage your existing subscriber and customer base’s enthusiasm for your services to start GIVING AWAY everything you have to offer. As you do this, your business and influence can start growing exponentially, and with less overall effort and advertising investment on your part.

Guaranteed, you’ve been on the customer side of this equation. You buy a product and you think you’re going to be directed to the download page. Instead, you find yourself on an upsell page trying to sell you another product.

No problem, you scroll to the bottom and click the ‘no thanks’ link, thinking you’re about to get to the download page.

No such luck. You’re on another upsell page. You scroll down and click ‘no thanks’ again, and you’re taken to…

… yet another upsell page. Now you’re getting irritated. You scroll down, click the ‘no thanks’ button, and you’re finally taken to…

… another upsell page! @#$%&

You’re no longer just irritated, you’re annoyed, mad and even downright ANGRY. Odds are you are talking to your computer and what you’re saying is not very nice.

Who can blame you?

Now then, let’s look at this from the marketer’s standpoint: The more offers you as the marketer can make, the more money you will make.

Today, that is.

But when you make your customers angry, what happens? They remember how you made them feel. In fact, they will remember how you made them feel long, long after they’ve forgotten your product. And the next time you try to sell them something, they’ll decide they’re going to stay far away from your offers because they do NOT want to get caught in upsell hell ever again.

So what’s the solution? Offer ONE upsell. Just one. Then take your buyers straight to the download page.

On the download page, you can offer them another product with a nice discount. You’re not holding their purchase hostage at this point because they’re able to download it. So they’re not going to resent you for making them another offer, especially if they get it at a reduced price.

Then in your autoresponder sequence, you can offer them all the upsells, down sells and cross sells you like interspersed with helpful info, news and so forth.

The bottom line comes down to this: If you want to be a flash in the pan and make all of your money today, use a ton of upsells. No one will buy from you again, but it won’t matter because you’ll be living on the beach somewhere carving coconuts.

But if you want to build a long term business, then respect your customers and never, ever put them through upsell hell again.

First, the bad news: If you’re telling customers that you’re only selling “X” number of your digital product, they’re going to think you’re a scammer.

Think about it. Back in 2000, you could tell people you’re only selling 1,000 copies and they would believe you. But it’s 2020, and people have seen this tactic so many times, they not only don’t believe you – it makes them question everything else you say.

Plus, how shortsighted can you be to limit how much money you make? Let’s say you put out a truly great product, but to create scarcity and make sales you decide to limit either the number of products sold, or the time during which you will sell them.

You make the sales, you pull the product, and your income goes to zero. That could be a big long-term loss for you.

Or worse yet, you claim you will pull the product but you don’t. Or you say you “may” stop selling, but you don’t. Or you stop selling for 2 days or 2 weeks or 2 months, and then you open it up again.

And your credibility goes out the door.

So how do you create scarcity of digital products without losing sales and credibility?

You need to have a legitimate reason for creating the scarcity. For example, if you’re selling PLR, then obviously you can’t flood the market with thousands of copies or the PLR will lose its value.

But most products can be sold forever without causing the buyers a problem. So in that case, what do you do to create scarcity? You use the second method, which is…

… Bonus packages. And the good news: It’s easy, it’s highly effective, and done correctly it can create sales for you for a long time to come.

Here’s how it works:

Go to other marketers who sell products that compliment yours. These should be products that have only been sold and have never been given away. Otherwise they lose their value.

Ask these marketers if you can do a deal: You get to give away their product to your next 50 / 500 / 1,000 customers or all of your customers during the next week / two weeks / month. In return they get a percentage of your profits, along with the email addresses of all the buyers.

Not many marketers will say no to this offer. They get paid for sales they’re expending no effort to make. PLUS they get the email address of every buyer so they can sell them more products later.

And the best part is, you can repeat this as many times as you like, always offering new products as your limited bonuses. Maybe you offer the “XYZ” product to early bird buyers during the first 10 days only. Then during the next month you offer the “ABC” product, and the month after that, the “DEF” product and so forth.

True, in theory you could offer this bonus forever, except that in reality the owner of the product you’re giving away has the final say on how many copies you can give out. And as you tell your customers, you have to follow their rules or you can’t give away any of their products.

See how this works?

Added bonus for you: You’re creating alliances with these product owners. If you treat them right you’ll be able to do more deals with them in the future as well.

Bottom Line: By using REAL scarcity in this manner, you can continue to sell your product for a long time to come. And your customers will respect you for it, too.

Which one would you remember: “Pete and Earl’s Hair Salon for Men,” or “Best Head Salon?” How about “The Best Irrigation Installation and Repair” or “Dirty Boots Irrigation?”

Choosing a memorable name for your business, service or product can actually increase your business, for 3 reasons:

– People can remember it in conversation with others. “Check out the “Stealth Remodeler,” he does work during off-hours so he won’t bother your customers.

– People remember it each time they see it. They might forget a generic name and not realize they’ve seen it over and over again online in forums, on blogs and so forth. But a memorable name they will remember. “Hey, I see that product or service everywhere, it must be good!”

– People can remember it when they need your product or service. “I’ve got to get a new window, so I’ll call the one window place I remember: ‘Peek-a-boo Windows.’” Or, “I need help with my website SEO, I’ll Google ‘Naked SEO’ because I remember their name from an article I read.”

Everything else being equal, the catchy, memorable name will win the business.

Let’s say you have a product for brick and mortar businesses on how to get more customers. If you take the exact same information that is in your product, but customize it for a specific niche, you can charge more AND make more sales.

For example, you customize the info for chiropractors and market it exclusively to chiropractors. Sales will actually be easier to make for a couple of reasons.

First, it’s easier to reach your audience when you are being specific. Second, chiropractors will see the info is just for them, and be far more likely to buy than if it was generic. So it’s easier to reach your audience, and easier to sell to them when you find them.

But perhaps the biggest benefit of all is that you can sell your product for more money because it is geared specifically towards chiropractors. And you can do this in multiple niches: Contractors, lawyers, accountants, dentists, etc.

Let’s use another niche – weight loss. You have a generic product on how to lose weight, which means you are competing against every other weight loss product out there. But if you focus your product just for men over 60, or just for college women, or just for people in cold climates who can’t get outside to exercise, you’ve created more opportunities to target and sell your information. And you can continue to customize your info as many times as you can find markets. If you can reach your specific audience, you can do this.

This could be a business all on its own. You can go to any product owner and strike a deal where you take their info and customize it and then sell it. If you do, be sure you negotiate for a high percentage of the profits, since you will be doing the customizing and the work.

Or better yet, simply buy rights to the information and then you can keep all the profits for yourself.

Are there really any good reasons NOT to launch your amazing new product? Take this quiz to find out so you don’t make the same critical mistakes that have destroyed many other businesses and entrepreneurs from the word GO…

Ok, check all that apply:

1. __ Another marketer has just launched a product very similar to yours, and if you launch your product now, you’ll look like a copycat.

2. __ You just got word that another launch for a similar product bombed in a very big way – almost no one bought it. You’ll look like an idiot if you launch your product.

3. __ A big guru in your niche just started the launch process of a very similar product. His first video is out, and once he releases the fourth video everyone on the planet will be promoting his product.

4. __ There are already several free versions of products quite similar to yours – thus there is no reason anyone would buy your product when they can get the same info for free.

Did you pick which scenarios should stop you from launching your product right now?

Okay, let’s see how you did.

Answers:

1. This happens more often than you think. And yes, product creators do pull their product launch when they see someone else has just launched something similar. And you know what? Those product creators are fools. Here’s a true story to illustrate why:

Recently a popular marketer was just about to launch a product he’d worked on for a long time. He had everything in place to launch – all he had to do was press the button to send out the first email.

But someone else launched a VERY similar product that was selling like gangbusters. So he decided not to launch. Which made him sad. So late that night, when he was feeling down, he said, “Screw it!” and hit the launch button. $61,000 in profits later, he was very, VERY happy he had launched his look alike product.

Do not worry about what others are selling. If you’ve done your research into what your customers want, you WILL make sales. And sometimes you’ll make those sales to the exact same people who bought your competitor’s product, too! Don’t wait, don’t hesitate – launch your product.

2. If their product didn’t sell, yours won’t either, right? Wrong. You’ve done your research and you know what your customers want. Your customers trust you. They like you. They buy your stuff.

So of course you’re going to launch your product, because whatever that other marketer did or did not have going on does not affect you. And neither do rumors, so don’t pay any attention to them. Stop second guessing yourself and launch your product.

3. Oh no, you can’t compete with the “big cheese,” can you? Who says you have to? Your customers are YOUR customers. Your affiliates are YOUR affiliates. It’s common for similar products to hit the market at nearly the same time and have both do well. So don’t worry about it. Just launch your product.

Have you noticed a pattern yet? I hope so. Okay, onto the last one…

4. What is the perceived value of “free?” Low. Very low. In fact, no free product can compete with your paid product, because as everyone believes, they get what they pay for. That’s why free is never your competition. So launch your product. Now.

In fact the only real competition you ever have is in your mind. So don’t worry about who is launching what or when they are launching. In fact, stop reading your emails when you’re in product creation mode and just focus on your task – creating the content and products your customers want. Everything else will take care of itself.

Let’s say you run across an affiliate program for a product with recurring payments, such as a membership site or software. Because it’s recurring payments, you sell it once and you get paid over and over again, for months or possibly even years. Everything else being equal, these are always the best types of products to promote because the income just keeps coming and coming.

Naturally you want to make as many sales of these as possible, so the question becomes: Other than your usual methods of promotion, how can you get more subscribers to this affiliate program?

Try an old school method that still works – creating a viral report.

In the report, teach how to do whatever it is that the product does. Teach the method in detail, step-by-step. Leave nothing out. Then at the end, let the reader know that they don’t have to do any of what you just said. Instead, they can get the same results a whole lot faster and easier by subscribing to the affiliate program.

Simple, right? First you show how complicated it is to do it by hand. Then you give them an easy way to get the same result – by subscribing. And you give your affiliate link.

And by the way, this is the ONLY affiliate link you put in the entire report.

Now then, here are few tips to make this work:

– Create a report good enough to sell. This should be high quality.

– Make the report short enough that readers can easily finish it in one sitting. You want every reader to reach the end so they see the affiliate link.

– Whenever possible, focus on telling your reader what to do, but not how to do it. This way they’re more likely to take the easy way out and subscribe to your affiliate program, rather than figure out details for themselves.

– Give your report an absolutely KILLER title that makes people want to read it and share it.

– Leave your name off of your report. This will encourage others to share it with their lists.

– Give anyone and everyone who has the report the right to distribute the report exactly as it is with no alterations. They can use it as a bonus, as a list building incentive and so forth.

– If you’ve written a sales page for the report, let others use the sales page and put their own name on it. Yes, they can absolutely charge for the report if they like, so long as they leave your affiliate link in place.

The idea is to get as many people as possible sharing your report. The more your report is distributed around the net, the more chances you have to make sales.

This is a very old school method that can still be quite effective if you follow these steps. And of course you can repeat this method as many times as you like.

Imagine if you have a dozen of these reports, each with an affiliate link to a recurring payment program. You let other marketers give your reports away as bonuses and whatnot. And you let marketers sell them and keep all the profits.

Thousands upon thousands of copies can be distributed using these methods. And even if only 1 out of 100 who get the report subscribe for a few months to your programs, you’ll still make out like a bandit.

Ready to avoid a big mistake and increase your bottom line? Do you have download pages? You know, pages where people pick up their product after buying it from you?…

If so, have you TESTED those download pages? Odds are it never even occurred to you. But why not? You test everything else, so why not test your download pages, too?

Oh-oh, let’s back up.

Any virtual real estate you have – including download pages – can be selling something for you. In fact, download pages can be the PERFECT place for promotion because your customer just made a purchase. This means they’re already in a buying mood. And who buys products? BUYERS do. If you’re not promoting something on your download pages, you are missing out on what might be thousands of dollars of revenue a month, depending on how much traffic those pages get.

So how do you best promote a product on your download page? Forget flashy banners and things that look like ads. Simple is better, which is why adding a link to your list of download links will usually give you the best results. For example, if your download page has a list of videos, at the end of the list you will place a link in the same font and the same color offering them their customer discount on the product you’re promoting.

But don’t take my word for it – test it out for yourself.

When they click this link they are led to a slightly altered version of your regular sales page. At the top of the page is a line or two letting them know that because of their purchase, they are entitled to a special discount on this product today.

Of course, you’ll want to remember to give them that discount, too.

So what should you test on your download page? The links you use, the placement of links and the pages you send them to. Remember to promote a product that is in some way directly related to the one they bought for best results.

Making this one simple change can potentially add thousands of dollars to your bottom line each and every year. Now that’s a great return on the investment of your time.

…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 his link, purchase ABC product 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.