The One-Time Offer
One of the side effects of the Butterfly Marketing program has been an explosion in one-time offers. Even though one-time offers aren’t new, I didn’t see them that much; now I see them used on almost every new program that launches. Here are some recent programs using one-time offers:
- HypreVRE (a free program for generating “virtual real estate” sites)
- The ListFX (list-building tips and instructions)
- Mr. OverDeliver (free e-books and software)
- Secret Page Spy (free keyword tools)
And I don’t see the trend stopping anytime soon. The one-time offer (OTO) seems here to stay.
How One-Time Offers Work
An OTO page is shown immediately after you register at a site. Perhaps you’re giving your name and email address to join a mailing list. Or to get a free product. Or access to a membership site. Regardless, as soon as you’ve submitted your information you’re taken to an OTO page. The OTO page is a cannily-worded upsell page that offers a product or set of products to you at a “discounted” price “never to be seen again”. You have two choices: either buy the product now at the special price, or continue on without buying the product and lose access to the special price. (You can often still buy the product later, but at a higher price.)
An OTO page is very simple to program. The hard part is writing the copy for the page. It has to be compelling. It has to impart a sense of urgency. It has to convince the reader to buy a product sight unseen. A well-designed OTO page presenting a product from a well-known seller can have a very high conversion ratio. Which is why Internet marketers are eagerly using them.
Beating the One-Time Offers
If you’re a skeptic like me, the OTO page isn’t something you normally buy from. Personally, I get so many offers from so many different marketers that if I were to buy every OTO that came my way I’d go bankrupt. I like to pick and choose the things I buy very carefully. As should you.
But what if it turns out you really WANTED that OTO? Either you’ve lost the chance to buy it entirely or else you have to pay a higher price. Or do you?
The simplest strategy to “recover” the OTO is to leave the OTO page open and to open another browser window and visit the site you’ve just registered that way. If you see what you like, go back to the OTO page and buy it. Simple.
This assumes, of course, that you can figure out that the OTO is worth it in a few minutes, before the OTO page’s session expires. What if you decide later that you need the OTO offer?
The solution that almost always works is to re-register using a different email alias. If you want to push it a little, you can even re-register using your other email address’ affiliate link — it might not be enough to trigger a payout, but if you do happen to sell a few of the products to others you may get part of your money back. Be careful, though, as some affiliate programs explicitly disallow this kind of “discounting”.
Re-registering won’t work when there’s a limit to the number of membership being sold and the number of registrations has reached the membership limit. At that point you have to either suck it up and buy the upgrade at the higher price or move on to something else.
If you’re creating your own site, think about incorporating an OTO page into the registration process, especially if you’re offering a free membership. But be careful, as this may be the first experience that people have with you, and if the product they buy from you is crap then you’ve ruined what could have been a profitable relationship.
Eric Giguere is an online marketing geek. When not pretending he’s an AdSense expert, he develops software for iAnywhere Solutions as part of the AvantGo development team.
Technorati Tags: affiliate, marketing, online marketing, one-time offer, butterfly marketing
Some of what you say here is true, in the fact that most of the one time offers out there are not really one time offers, and you can in fact do just what you are saying in this blog report. But the question here comes down to this. Do you really want to do business with a person that is not telling you the truth? You see if you tell me that this is a one time offer, and all I have to do to get the offer again is register under a different email address then it really is not a one time offer, and you have in effect lied to me. You are then not a person that I wish to do business with. On the other hand if you really want a one time offer then you have to make sure that is what it is. Just as an example go to http://prodriven.com/oto/oto.php and take a look at that offer, no need to signup with your email because we do not need it. But I will tell you this, the next time you go back to that page you will not get that same offer. The page will look very much like the first page that you seen but you will never see the first page again. This is a true one time offer, and the truth be told. If you are going to do business on the internet do not tell lies to get your clients to buy from you. Just tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may. One time offers can not be beaten as you state in this blog. And the reason that I say this is the one time offers of which you speak are not one time offers, and they are not because of what you actually say. You can bypass the system therefore you can make them a two time or a three time offer if you want to. A true one time offer can not be bypassed. Just decide who you want to do business with, a person that will tell you the truth or a person that will lie to you in order to get your money.
….. One Time Offers?
January 11, 2008
I just spent a large amount of time reading a pitch page for what sounds like a great ebook product from an Internet marketer that I actually trusted; and I decided to buy their ebook. I went through the purchase process, gave them my credit card number and eagerly waited for download instructions.
To my dismay up pops another lengthy pitch page. I begin to read it because I am looking for download instructions. Of course this page turns out to be another huge investment in reading time and I am encouraged to read the entire page and warned that I will never see this page again and I may never find this offer at this low price with these bonus products again.
Meanwhile I am thinking, “Where is the product I just bought and why is this annoying page in my face?†This is known as the (new and annoying) “One Time Offer.â€
I did read most of the page. After all, I was told that I would never see that page again. Really? I wondered. The one time offer sounded good of course. They wanted more of my money; (of course) but I wasn’t quite ready to spend more money at this time. What I wanted right now, this minute, was the ebook product I had just paid for. They had gotten me all worked up about how great it was and I was anxious to see it. (Instant download they had said.) Still, this was a one time offer. If I passed it up, I thought, I may never have the opportunity to get this again. I wondered (some more) about the reasoning for that.
I was undecided and annoyed that I did not yet have the original product I had just paid for, and now I was expected to read another ten mile long pitch page and make another decision to spend more money. I was thinking that I would have liked to at least looked at the book I had just bought and evaluated it before I bought another one from this same person, bonuses or not. Besides, I was exhausted from reading two endless pitch pages.
I decided not to purchase the one time offer stuff. I can’t even remember what it was. Oh well, as they said, I’ll never see it again, so I guess I can live without it.
Later, I thought about what they had put me through and I did not like it. I have always had a standing personal policy not to succumb to high pressure “buy-it-now-or-else†sales tactics in my daily (non-Internet) life, so how did I get sucked into almost falling for that on the Internet? Truth be told, I don’t actually know how new this “one time offer†marketing idea is to the Internet, but it was the first time I had seen one but what I do know is that this is very annoying. I will do whatever I can to put a stop to it. Will it make money? Probably, but personally I would never do that to my paying customers.
These are tactics that utilize the fear-based decision making mentality that I have always tried to recognize and avoid in my own life. Fear based decision making is so rampant and common in most people’s lives that sometimes they don’t even realize they are engaging in it. Apparently that includes me when I am face to face with an expensive well written ten mile long “one time offer†pitch page.
Never again.
Therefore I would like to say to all you master Internet marketers out there who would brag about how much money you spent hiring someone to write the content of your “one time offer†page, I’m not interested in it, especially after I purchased your product. I would have liked you a lot better if it had been a “Thank you for your order!†page. If I like your products I will come back to you for more, but not if I feel like you are going to continue to use these kinds of annoying and sleazy tactics.
Gloria Jean
http://www.bacaracka.com