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New Ebook Marketing Rollout Plan - Continued…
By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog |
Response from last post:
The idea of putting it for sale now sounds great. One problem. I have never done any work in this niche at all therefore I have no audience to market to at this point. So, I could begin selling but I would have to market to get the visitors coming and I feel that this would take time away from finishing the product.
(Note from Tim: He also gave me a link to his sales letter rough draft and explained that the Ebook was something he purchased “Private Label Rights” to (he’s allowed to rewrite/improve it and sell under his own name. I was originally under the impression that he already had a subscriber list of people to promote this Ebook to when he was done, now I realize he’s starting from scratch, so here’s my updated advice:)
Updated Marketing Rollout Plan:
Thanks for sharing some details of your project so I’ve got a better understanding of what you’re doing. I’m not going to reveal any of your details here of course, but here’s my feedback, both the good and the bad. (Note: To clarify to anyone reading this, the product is not for businesses or related to anything financial, it’s targeted to consumers)
First, the bad news: While it’s great that you’re working so hard to improve the quality of the product, the frustrating truth is that the only way it’ll actually help you SELL more is if you’re adding content that makes for fantastic, salivating bullet points in the sales copy.
More bad news: I wouldn’t want to build a business using a full sales letter like the one you showed me. Why? Because without a fantastic personal story to tell that differentiates you, it’s a tough sell no matter how good the sales letter is.
For instance, let’s say your product was on how to lose weight but you’re not a famous expert on the subject yourself… The only way you could grab people’s attention would be to make absurd, ridiculous claims: “Lose Forty Pounds In Four Hours - Guaranteed!” …And among the many reasons you wouldn’t want to do that is that you’d be running the risk of getting trouble for deceptive advertising.
So if you can’t make stronger claims than the competition, and you’re starting from scratch and you don’t have a box full of testimonials to wow readers, what can you do?
Here’s what I’d do:
Write a short report on one specific bullet point that will really get people’s attention, and write it from a “consumer education” angle that:
1) IS really informative
2) Has a strong push to get the reader to forward it to 5 friends by email “to help spread this vital information”
3) Has a strong (but not obviously manipulative) push to get the reader to subscribe to your “club” or “hotline” e-newsletter and password protected website area for more important tips
Then, change your website’s front page to be similar to doubleyourdating.com (in the sense that it’s nothing but a short pitch to opt-in based on a strong promise) but include instant password access to your FUTURE site when they opt-in.
In the password-access area, just have a short paragraph: “Thanks for subscribing and becoming a member! We’ll notify you shortly of valuable upcoming updates coming to the website”
(In other words, you don’t have to have any content there yet.) Once they’ve subscribed, you’re obviously building your list, and now you can promote your future product you’re working on to them when it’s ready, plus you can promote any other products (through affiliate links where applicable), while of course only promoting things that will benefit them.
Examples of things that will get passed along in email:
My mom forwards stuff to me fairly frequently, and some of it is Urban Legend junk (heh). But two things she sent me that really were worthy of being passed around were:
1) How to survive an earthquake, and the incorrect myths that we’ve been taught that could actually kill us (My apartment was condemned in the Northridge earthquake of ‘94, so that one got my attention)
2) A Powerpoint presentation of what to do if YOU are having a heart attack while you’re waiting for the paramedics to arrive. (Hint: Breath in and out violently to keep your heart pumping) The problem with that one was that it was a .ppt file, and a lot of people (especially consumers) don’t have a Powerpoint viewer installed, but a graphic slidehow or small video that could be viewed by anyone without any special software would be good.
An example on the “tricky marketing” side is what the drug company who developed a vaccination for the human papilloma virus (HPV) did. It’s apparently against the law for a drug company to run advertisements for a drug before it’s actually for sale in the markeplace, so what they did to skirt the law is start running “public service announcements” (quote-unquote) letting women know about the dangers of HPV, and telling women to spread the word to their friends because it’s so important.
What they were actually doing of course, is creating consumer concern about HPV so that when their drug became available a couple months later, women were pre-educated to want it.
Anyway, that’s the model I’d follow. It makes your actual product secondary to the concept of building a related subscriber list for the topic. It’d be very tough to run paid advertising for your product outright, especially if you didn’t have a backend upsell product to immediately pitch to initial buyers.
Outside of the obvious method of getting the product endorsed by related list-owners and paying them a healthy commission for it, the above plan would be my personal recommendation.
I hope that helps, and best of luck to you. - Tim
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