You already know that a buyer on your list is worth 10, 20, maybe even 30 freebie seekers and tire kickers, right? After all, someone who has made a purchase from you is far more likely to make more purchases in the future. That’s why some marketers with small lists (less than 2,000 or so) still do quite well.
Think of it this way: Imagine you’ve got a brick and mortar business, and you stand out on the sidewalk asking people to take a sales flier from you. If they take a flier, you add them to your mailing list. But some of these folks, instead of taking your flier and walking away, actually go into your store and make a purchase.
Now then, who is more likely to buy from you again, the people who took your flier and kept walking, or the customers who came into your store, got to know your business from the inside, experienced your customer service and enjoyed the benefit of your products? See the difference? It’s not small, it’s a TREMENDOUS difference, and that’s why if you build a list of buyers, you will do far better than if you simply build a list of people shuffling by on the sidewalk.
How do you build a list of buyers? You can of course take the traditional route of spending a few weeks creating a $47 product, recruiting affiliates, creating a tremendous amount of free material to give away to draw attention to yourself and try to promote your product, etc.
But here are two thoughts for you. First, why not go with simple $7 products? That is, a 10 to 20 page report that solves a problem in your niche. Just one problem, one solution. You can bang one of these out in a day, and since you’re only selling it for $7, you won’t need to agonize over the sales letter for days and days either. Just a short, snappy, concise sales letter and you’re ready to roll.
How do you sell your $7 report? By offering the entire commission to your affiliates, paid immediately. There are many affiliate management programs out there these days that can automate this for you. Your affiliates promote, the customer pays the $7 and your affiliate management service pays your affiliates directly so you never have to worry about paying anybody, and the customer downloads the report from you (which is when you capture their information.)
Now then, you’re building a list, and so what do you do? Here’s my second thought: Put out another $7 report. In fact, see if you can’t do this once a week for a year. Always promote it first to your list, and then encourage everyone who purchases to become an affiliate. This way, you can turn happy buyers into evangelists for your product as well!
Once you have several reports done, package them and sell them at a discount. Then offer them as bonuses for other marketers to use when selling their products (again, you’re capturing the customer’s info because the report is downloaded from your website.)
Do you see how this can snowball? Each report can make you some quick $7 commissions (for the ones you sell directly) while going viral and bringing you evenb more buyers. Then you can package several together to make a new product, and let other marketers use them as bonuses when selling their products, again bringing you more customers.
Plus you can package several together and offer them as an OTO (one time offer) when new customers purchase a $7 report, and so forth – the possibilities are limitless.
What I love about this is that it takes so little time to create each product. You’re providing a real, viable solution to a problem your prospects are experiencing, so you’re providing real value. You’re building your list of buyers and your list of affiliates and you’re building your reputation. See how well this can work for you?
And best of all, after creating one new report each week for one year, you will have approx 520 to 1,000 pages of valuable information that you can then package into a mega-product, or pick out the best reports and create a book you can sell on Amazon. (Actually, if you have 1,000 pages, you can create 3 or 4 books!)
And the credibility you receive from having your own book on Amazon cannot be beat.
So there you have it – crazy idea or genius plan, you decide.
One last thought: If you’re the kind of person who groans at the prospect of writing a 200 page ebook (and that would be most people, btw) then this method gives you another benefit: Quick payback. You don’t have to slave over your computer for weeks before you start seeing a return on your time. Think of it as the instant gratification plan for marketers. You write a report today, write the sales letter tomorrow, and you’re making money and building your list the next day.
Now how great is that?!
