Rinse & Repeat

| by Paula Brett |

Phew, 2007 is over and now we launch ourselves into 2008!!Yes, I know, I’m probably a bit later than everyone else, but now my kids are well and truly back at school, I can get down to business again.

I thought that it might be nice to sit down quietly and write down what I actually achieved last year – yeah, OK, I thought, it will take me about five minutes. Bit of a shock really, because when I started to make my list I’d done a lot more things than I’d actually perceived…

Now, I’m not one of those people that feels particularly comfortable patting myself on the back and blowing my own trumpet constantly – maybe it’s the British stiff upper lip and distaste for showing off – but I have to admit that I made a good start in 2007 by finally coming out of my shell, crawling out of my hidey-hole in the forums and letting people know who I was – most importantly, branding myself!

February 2007: My `coming out’ started back in February. Although I’d written a few niche eBooks with resell rights to be sold on eBay, I thought it was about time I was brave and put my `real’ name to something more heavyweight. The launch of the $7 Secret Script was perfect for my first product Mailing Lists From Start To Finish – I didn’t feel confident enough to start off straight away with a ClickBank product!

Result: Better than I could’ve dreamed of. John Thornhill loved the eBook and decided to promote it for me (and has subsequently added it to his AR (autoresponder). Because the main referrer (affiliate) earns the initial $7 straight to their PayPal account, I didn’t make a great deal of money from the sale of this eBook BUT, I saw perfect demonstration, first-hand, of the power of a good OTO (one time offer) back-end sales from my links within the book and, most importantly, a huge swell to my mailing list. Currently, between affiliates and myself, an average of 5-6 of this product is sold most every day.

Conclusion: Rinse and repeat, asap

April 2007: My second $7 script eBook was ready for launch – 21st Century Email Marketing. This time I decided to do things a little differently. A big Easter JV (joint venture) was going down, so I decided to offer a rebrandable version of the eBook to the subscribers as well as sell the regular version on the $7 script with another good OTO in place. Once again, John Thornhill was happy to promote to his list and add to his AR.

Result: Because I had branded my name with my first product, people knew what I was about and were happy to spend their money on my second product. I was able to create another targeted list of buyers. With regard to the success of the JV – I have to say that these mass JVs are great if you are at the very beginning of building your list, you get loads of sign-ups – but you have to be prepared for people just signing up to get the freebies then unsubscribing, or using a false email address, or not being targeted or responsive enough to constitute a `good quality list’. Currently, 4-5 sold pretty much daily by affiliates and myself.

Conclusion: More name branding and reputation building. More list building. More back-end and OTO sales. Rinse and repeat… and perhaps give ClickBank a go next time!

May 2007: My friend and fellow moderator on the private PlanetSMS forum, Dan Thompson, and I had been chatting for quite a while about starting our own Hosting business. We’d seen so many `newbies’ suffering with car-crash hosting companies with little help or support, that we decided we could `do it better’. Argghh, a big statement!

We launched D9 Hosting in early May and we’re going great guns – in less than four months, we realised that we’d have to upgrade everything and revamp all our systems to cope with the demand and provide our loyal customers with even better products and services.

Conclusion: People don’t want to be treated as `account numbers’ and are appreciative of personalised services to cater to their individual needs. Continued development, growth and enhancement of services to our Clients

August 2007: Time for me to disappear back into `forum world’, when Lee McIntyre asks me to become a moderator on his Standing Start Profits forum. I’m very apprehensive to say the least. Having been a moderator on the PlanetSMS forum for what seemed like forever, I’d become very comfortable and cocooned there – I know everyone and everyone knows me. Forums can be intimidating – I’ve belonged to the Warrior Forum for years but rarely posted on there for fear of sounding stupid. I decide to take the bull by the horns and accept Lee’s offer.

Result: A very pleasant surprise. Another fantastic and helpful forum full of members of all abilities, eager to learn, appreciative and also, most importantly, quick to offer help, knowledge and expertise in return. No bitching, sniping, flaming or sarcasm!!!

Conclusion: Reiterated the importance of networking, making new friends and possible business relationships and branding your name further. e.g. Lee was running a competition, which I entered and won – the finished result was turned into an eBook promoting Lee and his products, but also promoting me and my products.

Networking, helping people out where you can and getting to know people is very important in the IM world. No man is an island, to coin a cliche. Lee was instrumental in chivvying me along to get on with my next product and the Members on his forum had given me an idea for my next subject. I also made contact with successful internet marketers Kevin Riley, who I would ask to contribute to my next project, and Tony Shepherd, another contributor, who had judged me the winner on Lee’s competition. More sales of my products, more subscribers and more name branding.

October 2007: The launch of my first ClickBank product, Operation eBook. This product was a bunch of `firsts’ for me.

My first time…

i) emailing other marketers who I didn’t know terribly well and some who I didn’t have a relationship with at all, asking for help and a contribution. I have to say it was worse thinking about it and plucking up the courage to do it, than actually doing it. And I didn’t have one negative response.

ii) ordering decent, professional graphics for my product, instead of muddling through with my limited Photoshop expertise. I was worried about the expense at the time and just kept telling myself that the first few sales would pay for them. In hindsight, I admit that the graphics weren’t that expensive and they certainly added to the overall professional look of the product. I wouldn’t hesitate doing this again in the future.

iii) pre-launching a product – that is I mentioned everywhere I went that I was launching a new product soon, I set up a squeeze page for people to sign up for updates of the launch and be the first to get a discount on the launch price. I then offered the product at a pre-launch price to a few carefully selected marketers for their subscribers for a limited time period.

iv) sending copies out for review – sending my `baby’ out with the possibility of it being ripped to shreds!!! The aim: to get social proof to post on the sales page that my product was all I said it was. Again, terrifying contemplating doing it, but rewarding and not half as bad as I’d imagined.

v) working out the vagaries of listing a product on ClickBank – not totally straight forward but I got there in the end, with a little help and advice from my friends and colleagues.

Result: A wildly successful pre-launch. John Thornhill, again, loved my eBook and promoted for me. Over 700 new subscribers to my list on the first two days of launch, via the free 7-day eCourse on the sales page. Increased sales of my other products by association. Lots of publicity when my pre-launch was branded a con by someone on John’s blog (quite a long thread but well worth reading) and even discussed on the Warrior Forum. More traffic to my blog and other websites.

Conclusion: Consider doing a pre-launch at a special introductory price and setting a time limit. Operation eBook sold more copies in the last 24 hours before the product was launched on ClickBank and the price went up than it did on the first day of launch.

Don’t be afraid to spend a bit of money on making your product look as professional as possible.

Don’t be afraid to ask other marketers for help and advice.

Don’t be afraid….. go for it!

December 2007: To finish the year off I decided to be really brave and enter John Thornhill’s prize JV competition for the launch of his newest product Resale Rights Blue Print. My aim, to get my name in the top ten affiliates. I knew that there would be a lot of big-name, highly successful marketers taking part and I didn’t for one moment consider that I would get anywhere near the top ten, let alone win any prize money.

About a week before the launch, I sat down and started thinking about what bonuses I could offer to those customers that chose to buy the product through my link – what could I tempt them with? – what could I offer to entice buyers to buy through my link as opposed to someone else’s? I knew that all the other competitors would have their own unique bonuses so I wanted to be able to compete. I won’t regurgitate it all again here but you can read about my efforts starting here

Result: Further profile raising and branding of my name – more sales of my own products, more subscribers to my lists, more traffic to my sites and, of course, a very nice ClickBank cheque And, unexpectedly, a lot of communication from existing subscribers, friends and colleagues expressing their support and good wishes, which is priceless.

Conclusion: Never promote a product unless you have used it or reviewed it and consider that it will be beneficial to your subscribers. Try to offer a bonus to go with whatever you are promoting. Try to make it targeted, something that will enhance the actual product, or something that you KNOW your subscribers will be able to utilise – don’t just cobble together a load of dusty old crap that you find on your hard drive. Try to make your bonus as original as possible, preferably `never before released’ or unique to you, or especially created for that product. It’s easy enough to take an affiliate link and promote it to your list but if you can put some thought into it and offer your subscribers more value with their purchase, then you’re on the right track. Always try to add value to a product you are promoting.

Phew, I fear that I’ve rambled on a bit here – I was going to write a little bit about what I intend to do THIS year but I think I’d better save that until tomorrow.

I will mention, though, that you may or may not have noticed that just before Christmas I added a new section to the blog? Well, not exactly a new section but I added to the `My Articles’ section, a `My Audio Articles’ bit – my intention was to record some of my articles so that instead of having to read them on the screen, you could listen to them as you were getting on with things. I’ll add the article that I’ve already recorded and will keep adding articles as and when I record them – I hope that you find them helpful.

Additionally, I thought it might be a nice idea to try recording my blog posts, you will then either have the choice of reading them or listening to them and I can post a link to each recording at the top of each blog post. What are your thoughts – do you think this would be helpful?

Anyway, I’m off to do the first recording and you can let me know what you think…

Best wishes

Paula

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