The question the question that always comes up is, “How long should an ebook be?” Instead of me just giving you my opinion, which I will in a later post, I decided why not let you, the reader, tell me your thoughts. We all have opinions and right now I want to know yours.
Please answer this question below:
One of the questions that I get asked the most about teleseminars is whether they should be free or if they should they have a cost attached to them. At first thought, the answer seems to be obvious. Free seems to have no downfall, right?
Not necessarily. In fact, I would bet that you wouldn’t see much of a difference at all as far as the number of people you get on the call. You’d probably still have the same number of people on the paid version as you would on the free version. Why? If you charge for it, it increases the perceived value of what it is you’re doing.
Let me give you an example. If you told everyone on a call that you were going to give them the resale rights to the whole series that you were creating, what value would that have to them? Now if you said they could get resale rights to this particular series and it’s going to cost them $5,000, then immediately, the series has more value to it. Suddenly, people are going to take it more seriously. If you start charging for a teleseminar, people are going to take it more seriously.
The difference in the number of people who sign up for your paid call versus your free one is dependant on your price point. If the difference is from free to $200, that’s a big difference. But if you go from free to a fee of $50 or less, then I don’t think you’re going to see that much of a difference at all.
Anything less than $100 is considered an impulse item. Let’s say you do a call a month and you average 20-30 people on each call. If you charge $50 to those 20-30 people, you’re talking about anywhere from $1,000 to $1,500 a month in revenue, and you’re still building your list by 20-30 a month. Not only are you building your list, but you’re doing it with paying people. You see, not all subscribers are equal.
I have two lists. I have one list of people who have signed up to be part of my free newsletter, and I have another list of people who have bought a product from me. Which list is a better list? Obviously, the list that bought is the best because they have already spent money with me. They have already proven that they are willing to spend money with me.
Someone who has purchased from me is likely to spend money with me again some time in the future. The other list may be just as good, but we just don’t know because they have not bought from me yet.
So, if you are using the teleseminar as a list builder, and you are giving great content, then you should feel comfortable charging at least a little money for admission. Making the amount nominal should not hurt the number of people who sign up for the call and will help qualify your list as an active one. The main thing is that the whole time you are collecting names, you are also putting money in your bank account.
Repeat after me… “It’s OK to make money in my business!”
Merchant accounts are critical to the success of your online success. There is a lot of advice out there about what the best way to accept credit cards is. I used ClickBank exclusively for the first three years I was online. It was easy to set up, the initial cost was minimal, and they had a great reputation. You need to know all your options. Here’s what I did.
ClickBank charges you 7.5% of the sale price of an item plus $1.00 per transaction for any sale you make through their service. That is a pretty hefty amount, but if you don’t want to deal with a merchant account, they may be your best option.
The disadvantage of working with ClickBank is that you are limited to just digital products.
In having my own merchant account, I save over 5% as well as 70 cents per transaction. That is a huge difference. Also, the money is directly deposited into my bank account within two to three days. It’s a really big benefit to be able to get your money faster.
There are other costs when setting up a merchant account. You can pay upwards of $195 for the setup fee (I’ll show you how get one FREE!) on a merchant account, but in the long run, the savings of having your own are huge and I recommend that you look into that.
Another benefit of having your own merchant account is if you have a retail business and accept cards in your store your processing fee is only 1.69% because the actual card is present. But, for all intents and purposes online merchants will be looking at a rate of about 2.29% for all online sales.
This morning I woke up to find an interesting article on TechCrunch about how Amazon and Google plan on jumping into the sales and distribution of eBooks. Amazon has been doing this for years, but they are now going to be offering books through their own reader while Google plans to start charging users to view full text books they’ve indexed from the Google Book Search Library. Here’ just a snipplet from TechCrunch on this.
Amazon & Google To Enter eBook Business
The New York Times is reporting that both Amazon and Google are entering the eBook business this year, joining Sony and others who already have products (the image to the right is Sony’s Reader).The new Amazon product and service will be called The Kindle and will compete directly with Sony. Google will begin charging users to read the full text of some of the books they have indexed.
Okay, so you’ve got a lot of affiliates signing up to sell your products. How can you make it easy for them to succeed? The fact is that if you don’t do your part in assisting them, they probably won’t do much at all. You have to equip your affiliates with the tools necessary for them to be successful. Here’s what I do and how you can learn from what I’ve done.
The first thing you need to do is give them sample ads. I like to give my affiliates three different ad formats. I give them a
The second thing that you should do is provide your affiliates with Google AdWords examples. To give you an example, a few months ago I called my affiliate manager Stu McLaren and told him what I wanted.
I wanted pre-written AdWords for every single one of my products. I explained that I wanted two to four AdWords ads for each and every one of my products. What that means is that he has to write like 80 AdWords ads. AdWords are great because people can advertise via pay-per-click, and they can use them not only for AdWords but they can use them for any pay-per-click search engine that exists out there in the marketplace.
The third thing I supply them are banner ads. Go through and make a list of the various banner ads for each one of your products. Don’t just give them one banner for each product, give them a whole slew of banners. I give people about six different sizes of banners for each one of my products.
The next thing to help with affiliate successs is blog posts, blog reviews or whatever they can post to their blog about your product. Giving affiliates pre-written blog posts allows them to manage their own blogs, as well. If you just did that one tactic alone, that’s more than enough to give your affiliates a way to get started on the right track.
These are the various things you want to do to become successful with our affiliate program. Let them know you are not just looking for a one time promotion. This is an on-going promotion. Marketing your product is something they should do all the time, because your products don’t just sell today, they sell every day. Explain the process of using the tools you gave them in a very step-by-step format. That way they will understand how they can be most effective in selling your products.
Every Monday, my Affiliate Manager, Stu McLaren holds FREE training calls for all of my affiliates. You can jump on these calls absolutely free if you are part of my affiliate program.
You want your affiliates to be active and successful. The more products they sell, the more money you will make. You can bet on one thing for sure, if you don’t give your affiliates the tools to work with and the explanation on how to use those tools, chances are they won’t do much on their own. So, spend a little time to equip your affiliates with both the tools they need and the knowledge of how to use them effectively.
In 30 days from today, on October 5th, 6th and 7th, hundreds of people from all over the world will gather in Atlanta, Georgia for the premier Internet Marketing Seminar in the world, the BigSeminar. One of our featured speakers this is year is the legendary Jay Abraham.
The World’s Highest Paid Marketing Consultant Finally Reveals His Lifetime of Joint-Venture and Business Growth Secrets Anyone Can Use to Create a Windfall of Profits LIVE at the BigSeminar. Even if you have no money, no product, and no list!
Many people ask me how they can write better copy for their sales letters. One of the first things that always come to mind is to be more descriptive. Now, I don’t necessarily mean that you need to do a better job describing your product. What I mean is you should try to paint a picture for your reader so they can visualize what their experience with your product or service is going to be like.
As I write this, I’ve got a newspaper ad in front of me. I have actually saved it as an example of great descriptive copy. It is out of USA Today from September, 2003. I was at a hotel speaking somewhere when I saw this ad for tempurpedic mattresses.
It has Dick Clark and his wife pictured in this ad, and it says,
“Ask Carrie and Dick Clark, they’ll tell you that tempurpedic’s high tech, weightless comfort bed provides remarkably relaxing and rejuvenating sleep.
The kind of re-energizing sleep all of us took for granted when we were very young. Tempurpedic’s amazing tempur sleep service uncannily molds itself to your every curve. Its visco-elastic thermal plasticity reacts selectively to your body shape, body weight, body heat and it actually defies gravity and neutralizes pressure points.
Our sleep technology is light years ahead of any other mattress manufacturer. The media gives us rave reviews and well over 25,000 medical professionals worldwide recommend our legendary weightless comfort bed to their patients. No wonder why more than nine out of ten enthusiastic owners also recommend tempurpedic to their family and friends.
One toll-free call brings you our free demonstration kit. It contains an actual lab sample of tempur-pressure relieving material, a better sleep video, a consumer guide book and low factory-direct prices.”
That’s the entire ad. I have saved it for years because of how well crafted this short message is. Where it says, “ask Carrie and Dick Clark, they’ll tell you that tempurpedic’s high tech, weightless comfort bed provides remarkably relaxing and rejuvenating sleep.” Notice how they describe the bed. They don’t just say their fantastic or amazing bed, but instead, “their high tech, weightless comfort bed provides remarkably relaxing and rejuvenating sleep.”
In reality, they’re just talking about a bed and that you’ll get a great night’s sleep in. If they had just told you that tempurpedic’s amazing bed allows you to have a deep sleep, it wouldn’t have the same impact as “a high tech, weightless comfort bed that provides remarkably relaxing and rejuvenating sleep.”
In fact, they go on to further describe sleep by saying, “the kind of re-energizing sleep all of us took for granted when we were very young.” In the next paragraph, they said, tempurpedic’s amazing tempur-sleep surface uncannily molds itself to your every curve.”
How about the words, “sleep surface uncannily.” I know what the word uncannily means, but I don’t see very many people use it. “It uncannily molds itself to your every curve.” What they’re doing is painting this visual that’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. They are talking about a mattress, but they never say it. Instead, they say, “the amazing tempur-sleep surface.”
Then they use these big words, “visco-elastic thermal plasticity reacts selectively to your body shape, body weight and body heat.” I don’t know what that means, but it sounds pretty impressive when you’re reading. We can pretty much gather just by breaking down the words what it actually means — it’s a sponge for the most part.
“It actually defies gravity.” Not that, “when you put your hand down in it, it bounces back to its original form.” No. “It actually defies gravity and neutralizes your pressure points. Our sleep technology is light years ahead of any other mattress manufacturer. The media gives us rave reviews.”
Numbers help sell because it makes the ad more believable. In fact, I would have been more specific. It’s the only thing I would have changed in the entire ad. “Well over 25,000 medical professionals,” I would have said, “25,319 medical professionals worldwide recommend our legendary weightless comfort bed to their patients.” Again, a perfect use of the word legendary. “No wonder more than nine out of ten enthusiastic,” not just owners, but “enthusiastic owners also recommend tempurpedic to their family and friends.”
“One toll-free call brings you our free demonstration kit, which contains an actual lab sample.” Not just a sample, but “an actual lab sample.” Why did they go to extent of describing the sample? It’s because an actual lab sample sounds more official.
Why did I pull this ad out? It was not only to share it with you because I think it’s a fantastic and brilliant ad, but more so, it demonstrates one of the things that people are usually too lazy to actually do, and that is to go out and be more descriptive in their copy.
When you are writing your next piece of sales copy, ask yourself this question. “How can I be more descriptive in what I’m writing?” The answer is not just with the simple additions of adjectives. You need to use the appropriate word at the right time. It can make a world of difference to get our point across to people. When you have what you think is your finished copy, go back over it. You need to go back over your copy and paint a picture, a visual representation for your customer to experience.
