From Timothy A. Gross, Executive Director - Educated Media, LLC
Before
we get started: I received an email from a subscriber
last week that made my day. He'd emailed about a year
ago, describing himself as "severely disabled"
and unemployed. Based on how he described his skills and
past work experience, I gave him some very general suggestions,
a little encouragement, and wished him well.
Fast-Forward
to last week, when I received the following email:
| "I
am not sure you will remember me... Things have changed
dramatically since then, realizing that the market
was pretty dead (where he lived), I went with the
money, and was successful in the first three days
of (job) interviews. I now have a new computer, a
new Mercedes and some money in the bank. I want to
thank you again very much for your encouragement." |
Wow!
Fantastic. ;-) But listen, I didn't come up with some
"genius plan" to help this gentleman, I just
offered a little encouragement and practical advice. I
never would have imagined he would take the time to email
me a "thank you" after he'd turned his life
around, and frankly, there's not much to thank me for.
-
But it really hit home with me the power that *each one
of us has* in our daily communications and interactions
with one another. A kind word, a friendly smile (even
a goofy computer one ;-) ...Can have an impact on others
that we'll usually never know, and with the increased
tension most people are feeling these days due to current
events and increased insecurities, keep this in mind:
We
don't always have to go the extra "mile" to
make the world a better place; If we all just go an extra
INCH, it could help more than you'd ever imagine. (friendly
smile)
OKAY,
LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS
I
received ANOTHER email last week from a subscriber that
made me nervous. The initial email to me basically said:
| "I'm
about to print up thousands of copies of my new book
on (subject), and plan to sell it online. The simple
fact is that (subject) people generally buy anything
about (subject) that is halfway decent, and there
are millions of potential buyers." |
My
initial thought: Uh-oh, this person may be in trouble.
He's already committing to printing thousands of books,
and my suggestions and questions may be too late...
These
are my questions when I'm discussing someone's plans for
a new product that will be costly, both in time and money.
Did they:
Since
I knew this person was moments away from sending his new
book to be printed, I cut to the chase, and asked him
about one thing he might still have an option to change,
which is crucial: "What is the name of the book?"
(More
on the importance of the title in a minute.)
Now,
I'm not going to tell you the subject matter of the book
I'm talking about, and it really doesn't matter. For hypothetical
examples, let's say the book is on dieting and losing
weight.
Book On Dieting - An Automatic Best-Seller?
It's
true that the diet industry is enormous, however it's
also true that there is fantastic competition for "diet
dollars". To think that you can write a "not
bad" book on dieting and make a fortune with a "not
bad" ad for it is simply incorrect. How would we
put this diet example through the checklist I made earlier?
Step 1: Make Sure There's A Hungry Market
-
Yes, there IS a "hungry" market for diet books
(no pun intended). So it's a question of how to tap into
that preexisting market.
Step 2: Check competitors' product offers,
price points, method of sale, successfulness
-
You're up against Richard Simmons, Jenny Craig, the "Zone
Diet", and a wide variety of other top-dog competitors.
You're also up against other direct competitors on the
internet. Research the websites. Work at understanding
the sales process they're using. What can YOU offer to
differentiate yourself from the rest to maximize sales
of your soon to be released product?
Step
3: Test at least 5 - 7 different titles/headlines to your
book (or whatever product you may be developing)
-
The title of your book can make or break its sales! If
it's on a shelf in a bookstore, the title on the spine
is its sole "classified ad" to get someone to
pull it off the shelf. I'm sure you've heard that the
headline is the most crucial part of an advertisement...
Well a book's title is the headline for the book. Its
importance CANNOT be underestimated.
Let's
say we test the following titles for this hypothetical
weight-loss example:
"The
Couch Potato's 'Lose Weight While You Watch T.V.' Guaranteed
System"
"Weight-Loss
Drill Sergeant In A Box" - Turn Your Life Around
In 45 Days Starting Tomorrow With Your In-Home Diet Bootcamp.
Take The Challenge!"
"The
Busy Mom's Sure-Fire Gain Energy & Lose Weight Rocket-boost
Program"
"How
I BECAME The Other Woman - My Friends And I Used To Be
Jealous Of All Those Slim Sally's That Turned Our Husband's
Eyes... Now My Friends Are Jealous Of ME!"
"I
Finally Lost Weight After 19 Failed Diets - And You Can
Too With This No-Fail System!"
"Supermodels
Make Me Puke... But Unlike Them, I Don't Want To! The
Get-Fit-For-Life 57 Day Action Guide To REAL Results For
REAL People!"
Now:
Can you GUARANTEE me which of those headlines will out-pull
the others? You can take a guess, but you'll never know
without testing it on YOUR potential customers.
Are
your potential customers ex-marines? Then the drill sergeant
ad might be best. Are your potential customers mostly
overworked, frustrated moms who don't have as much time
to spend looking their best as they'd like? Do they watch
a lot of TV? Do they want to make their friends jealous?
You'll
never know - Unless you test.
The Difference Between "Selling
On The Internet"
And "Internet Marketing"
That's
where the term "marketing" comes in. If you're
"selling" on the internet, you're just "trying
to get a bunch of people to buy your stuff". If you're
an "internet marketer", you're in one of two
groups:
a)
You already have a group of subscribers and potential
customers who you're in contact with.
b)
You're just starting out and have no pre-defined target
audience.
How To Find Out What Your
Customers Want From You
If
you already have a large group of subscribers who are
interested in health/fitness/weight loss, ASK THEM what
they want from you.
Email
your subscribers, and direct them to your website, where
the five headlines you've created are active links. Tell
them that you're giving them the first chapter or two
of your new book free as a "thank you" for being
subscribers, and give them an option to click on any of
those five links to read the report.
Once
they've clicked on one, on the next page ask them not
to click on any of the other links, and explain that each
link went to the same information, you were just testing
which headline appealed to them the most to find out what
appealed to them the most, then give them the information
you promised.
ALTERNATIVE
TEST
An
alternative to that is to have an "exit pop-up"
page that offers a free first chapter incentive with the
same five links. I've also used this test with excellent
results. When a visitor leaves your website, have a popup
box come up that says:
| "Special
Gift For Visiting Our Website
A Shocking Weight-Loss Report On The Subject Of
Your Choice
Please Choose Your Free Report From The List Below |
Whichever
way you choose to test, you of course need to put a counter
on each linked page, to gauge the difference in clickthroughs.
The results you get should dictate the title of your book!
(Or name of your product)
If You're Just Starting Out
And Have No Target Audience
If
you don't already have a customer or subscriber base to
"tap into" when creating new products, you have
more freedom. The question becomes not "What do my
customers and subscribers want", but "Where
can I find the best-defined, quantifiable amount of qualified
prospects for my potential product?"
It's
not enough that your potential prospects are "out
there", you have to be able to get the attention
of qualified prospects at an affordable price. In other
words, it's time for more research.
NOTE:
How to do complete market research on the Internet is
beyond the scope of this article. Part of what you need
to determine is where your potential customers "hang
out" online, and the viability of being able to reach
them with your sales message at an affordable cost, whether
it's through paid advertising on specific targeted websites,
joint ventures/co-ops with other business owners who may
be willing to endorse your product for a percentage of
the profits, effective search engine listings, etc.
Hot
Tip On "Niche Marketing" Possibilities
Here's
A Hot Tip: By trying to be "everything to everybody",
you often don't get anyone's attention. In other words,
the headline, "How ANYONE Can Lose Weight GUARANTEED"
doesn't really make people think, "Who, me?"
(More likely than not, it elicits the response, "Yeah,
right.)
But
by focusing on "niche markets" within a specific
industry, while you're on one hand limiting the number
of potential buyers, you're at the same time increasing
the interest of buyers within that group. And the "hot
tip" is that you can target several niches simultaneously.
In
other words, say you have a weight-loss book that's written
to help "everyone" lose weight. Instead of trying
to sell that one book to everyone, with a little modification
you could create different versions:
*
The New Mother's Guide To Dropping Those Pregnancy Pounds
In 6 Weeks Or Less
*
The Over-Fifty Metabolism Program To Burn Away Unwanted
Pounds And Feel Thirty Again
*
The Teenager's Guide To Popularity Through Better Self-Image
Through Dieting
Each
one of those titles speaks more directly to a specifically
targeted reader.
Step 5: Develop a winning sales letter/process
IN ADVANCE of the printing
Marketers
don't try to figure out how to sell something to their
audience, they figure out what their target markets want
to buy. I would never print up thousands of books before
I'd already written, tested, and proven the winning ad
with which I would sell them!
How
do you test a product you haven't even finished yet?
Option
a) Sell a "prototype" or rough draft of your
product at first. (If it's an informational product, have
it printed at Kinko's, burn it onto a CD-Rom, or make
it a downloadable product.)
Option
b) Create and put out your sales letter first before you've
even created your product, and fulfill on the orders you
receive with one of your competitor's products during
your initial test. That's right - Buy a comparable competing
product to the one you plan on creating, and sell IT instead
of your future product to whoever purchases from your
test ad. If there's no single book/product similar to
yours to meet the promises of your sales letter, then
you may have to buy two or more books/products to fulfill
on each order received.
You shouldn't worry about the cost of fulfilling orders
on these initial test sales, even if you're losing money.
I once did a test for a sales letter I'd written for a
product I hadn't spent one minute starting to develop,
and I ran an ad with a selling price of $25 that I had
to spend $45 to buy a competitor's product to fulfill
on every $25 I received during the test.
It
was a small price to pay... I learned priceless information
about response to my sales letter, response to the classified
ads I posted, and the viability of the product overall
- Before I'd spent even one minute actually creating the
product.
I
could go on and on about the subject of product development;
It involves some of the most crucial decisions a business
makes, but it's too-often made on a whim or an assumption
that may not even be correct. With the scientific testing
tools and methods at our disposal on the internet as astute
marketers, that's just crazy.
In
conclusion, I wish the person who sparked this article
in the first place the best of luck with their new product...
I wrote this to try and help you take the luck OUT of
your product development.
We
all have a lot to feel lucky about, but lets not make
our BUSINESS depend on luck (smile). How depressing to
test titles of your book AFTER you've printed thousands
of copies and find out that an alternative one out-pulled
yours by 400%. "Marketing" can be as easy or
as hard as you make it.
I
hope this newsletter edition helps to make *your* job
a little easier.
To
Your Success, Timothy A. Gross
