GeekAffiliate

As I write this, there is a particular frenzy today among Internet marketers as Product Launch Formula 2 launches. I refer to this frenzy as the firstborn child bonus technique.

Buy Through My Link And Get My Firstborn Child As A Bonus!

The firstborn child bonus technique is a technique used most often by Internet marketers trying to sell to other Internet marketers. When a big product launches, there are so many IMers clamoring to sell it that more than a few resort to the FCB technique in order to be heard above the din.

The premise of FCB is simple, and the heading above pretty much says it all: as additional incentive, I will send you a bonus if you buy product X through my affiliate link. It may not in fact be the firstborn child, it may only be the youngest child or even a niece of nephew — the size of the bonus depends entirely on the size of the affiliate commission.

Thus when products are launched that cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars, the bonuses offered by top-name Internet marketers can be quite astounding: piles of books and software, free telephone consultations, promotion of your own products to their lists, etc. The purported prices of these bonuses can literally add up into the thousands themselves, though of course it’s unlikely that someone would actually buy all of those products at the listed prices. Still, it makes for an impressive offer.

It’s extremely hard for the little guy to compete with the big guys on these kinds of offerings. You’re probably better off focusing your energies on other things while the top cats fight it out among themselves.

One of the axioms of Internet marketing is that “the money is in the list“. Gathering a list of potential customers and contacting them on a regular basis is a tried-and-true method for generating sales. That’s why building a mailing list is so important.

The standard way to build a list is via a squeeze page. At its simplest, a squeeze page is just a web page with some text and a subscription form. The text entices visitors to enter their name and email address in order to gain access to a newsletter, course, or some other free offering.

Building a squeeze page is not hard for the typical geek, of course: it’s just HTML, after all, and there’s no fancy coding required — and the geek literally just paste sin the subscription form provided by the mailing list provider (geeks may be tempted to manage mailing lists on their own, but it’s not a wise use of their time). No, creating the page isn’t the hard part, it’s what’s on the page that’s hard.

Imagine someone approaching you on the street and asking for your name and phone number. Would you give it to them? Unlikely unless they do something to build some trust and you feel you’re going to benefit from revealing your personal information to a third party. And yet, that’s exactly what a squeeze page is doing — asking someone for personal information (be sure to have an explicit privacy policy, by the way) in exchange for…

For what, exactly? No one’s going to sign up for your list unless they’re getting back in return. The geek knows this, of course, and so they’ll list all the benefits of joining the list right there on the squeeze page. “This course will teach you…“, “Learn about…“, “Become a better…” are typical ways of expressing how a visitor will benefit from joining the list. (The key word here being benefits, of course, and not features — something not all geeks realize.)

Here’s the real squeeze page secret, though. Forget about listing the benefits of joining your list, it’s almost irrelevant. Instead, offer a freebie download — an “ethical bribe” so to speak — and promote its benefits. Make joining your list (which still needs to be mentioned somewhere) a side benefit, but not the focus of the squeeze page. The squeeze page is all about the freebie.

Why a freebie? Because it’s immediate gratification. Because it feels like they get more from giving up precious personal information. Because it gives you opportunities for further selling (embedded links in documents, banners in software, etc.). Because it works.

As a geek you can easily create your own freebies, too. If you like to write, create a special report. Or a video. Or, and this is something that really only the geeks can do, write some software to give away.

That’s the squeeze page secret: give them a freebie. It’s amazing what people will do to get something for free — giving a name and email address doesn’t seem that hard when they’re getting an ebook or software in return. Professional Internet marketers know this — and now so do you.

Technorati Tags: Internet marketing, squeeze page, freebies, gifts, mailing list

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise: launching a new product is hard, even on the Internet. Perhaps even harder than creating the product itself, oddly enough. There are dozens of things to do: getting the website up, the sales copy written, the graphics done, the sales system setup, the affiliate program started, the partners recruited, the buzz built. Many of these things are routine, especially if you’ve done them before, but they’re all important.

You can learn a lot about product launches by dissecting what others do. Here, then, are some things not to do based on what I saw happen with the AdSense Resurrected launch. (See my AdSense Resurrected review and the ensuing discussion for the full background on AdSense Resurrected.)

1. Postpone the Launch Date Several Times

AdSense Resurrected (AR) was originally going to launch in October, 2007. It was then delayed multiple times, finally launching only on January 18, 2008.

Now I must admit that part of the delay was my fault, since not too long before the initial launch date the authors of AR approached me about revamping my PLRSiteBuilder software and selling it as part of the AR system. This happened by accident, really, and so it was natural to expect a delay because of that. One or two delays is understandable and sometimes unavoidable. But it definitely leads to disappointed customers. More importantly, it also leads to disappointed partners, who expect firm launch dates so they can send traffic to the product site on launch day and make their affiliate commissions.

2. Don’t Communicate With Customers and Partners

If you can’t avoid delaying the launch, don’t wait until the last minute — or, worse yet, after the expected launch time has passed — to notify your customers and partners of the delay. It leaves everyone scratching their heads wondering what’s going on.

3. Deliberately Underdeliver

Marketing gurus always tell you it’s important to overdeliver when you deal with your customers. Releasing a watered-down version of what you promised to be a “revolutionary” ebook is not a good strategy.

4. Admit You Underdelivered

Even worse than underdelivering is telling your customers that you deliberately underdelivered! Do customers really need to know that they’re purchasing a watered-down version of AdSense Resurrected? Probably not. Especially not if you didn’t lower the price or otherwise reduce their expectations.

5. Complain About Your Customers

Anyone who launches a product can expect criticism from some of the customers who buy the product. And from potential customers who aren’t convinced your product has value. This is normal, it’s to be expected, and in some markets it’s even worse because skepticism abounds.

Telling your customers (or potential customers) that they’re being silly and that they’re wrong to feel the way they do is unproductive. Instead of complaining about your customers, deal with the underlying issues. Did you underdeliver? Make it up. Or explain why you feel you didn’t underdeliver.

You can’t please everybody, of course. There will always be people clamoring for refunds, no matter how good your product is. But you don’t have to go out of your way to deliberately annoy them.

6. Make It Hard To Get Refunds

Despite your best efforts, there will be customers who want refunds. Make it easy so that you and they can get on with your lives. If it’s a hassle, they’ll just complain even more and spread bad word-of-mouth.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think AdSense Resurrected is a bad product. The basic premise is sound and I’m sure that the readers who take the time to implement the techniques presented there will be successful — it’s an extension of the advice I presented in The AdSense Crapshoot. I think the way it was launched, however, has turned off many potential customers. They’ve sold 600 copies so far, which is better than I’ve ever done with my launches. Perhaps the controversy has actually helped… but I can’t but think they could have sold even more and built lots of goodwill with a different approach.

Read Eric Giguere’s GeekAffiliate blog for insightful essays and product reviews on all aspects of online marketing. Be sure to check out his unofficial AdSense blog as well.

Technorati Tags: AdSense, AdSense Resurrected, affiliate marketing, Internet marketing, online marketing, customer service, ebook, review, post-mortem