Selling is an art. I’m not sure it’s something you can teach. Either you have it — the ability to persuade someone to buy — or you don’t. A good salesperson is a good salesperson, it doesn’t really matter what they’re selling.

Most geeks are not good salespeople. Something about telling it like it is, being focused on features, and generally not being deceptive about things. (Am I being cynical here?) As many of us discovered during our early dating years, there is such a thing as too much honesty, especially too quickly. Selling is lot like dating, I think: you want to attract the other party’s interest without revealing too much of yourself too early. There’s a real balancing act there.

That’s why finding a partner who can sell is something you’ll want to do if you really want to succeed. Because the people who really succeed have the human angle figured out.

That’s what I think, anyhow….

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

• 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

1. Thinking “sell” is a four-letter word.

Get over your natural dislike of the selling process. Selling doesn’t have to be sleazy. Compared to other forms of selling, online selling greatly levels the playing field. It’s more about building trust with an audience than schmoozing potential customers. Think pre-sell instead of sell.

2. Not learning about online marketing.

You read books, online manuals, tutorials, and blogs to learn new things about technology, don’t you? So why aren’t you doing the same thing with online marketing? Do you really think there’s nothing you can learn? Continued education is key. The next time you visit your favorite bookstore, head to the marketing section (here’s Amazon’s) and buy a business book or two.

3. Selling products that no one wants.

It’s tempting to only promote the expensive products with the highest payouts, but that’s rarely the path to success. Neither is creating a product just because you think it’s a cool idea. Here’s a tip: don’t start with the product, start with the audience. Find a market with an untapped need or want, then find (or create) a product or service to fulfill it.

4. Not being honest.

Let’s be frank: online marketing is ultimately about making money. Admit this and you’ll find it easier to focus on the things that can actually make you money. Your customers already know it, and pretending otherwise just makes you look foolish. Be honest with them about your intentions and about the products or services you’re promoting — they’ll appreciate you all the more.

5. Talking about features, not benefits.

Geeks love to talk up features. Linux is great because it’s open source or This system is twice as fast are typical examples. But that’s not what interests your customers. They want to know how a product or service will benefit them. What problems does it solve? How will it make their life better? Those are the questions they want answered. Don’t know how? State your feature and then ask yourself So what? and come up with a list of benefits.

6. Not knowing when to outsource.

The term outsourcing has lost its shine these days, but the truth is that most businesses outsource things that fall outside their core areas of competency. Payroll, IT, security, travel and event planning, public relations — these are just some of the things that can be outsourced. Geeks can outsource, too, and spend their time working on the things that matter most. Why manage mailing lists yourself when $20/month is all it takes to have someone else do it for you? Why get woken at 2 in the morning to respond to a network problem with your servers? Get over your geek pride and spend your time on the important stuff, the things that make you money.

7. Thinking “if I build it, they will come”.

Sure, you know how to build a fancy website. You can do it in your sleep. But who cares? There are programs out there that will create decent-looking enough websites for not very much money. Or you can hire someone on Elance to do it for the price of your next latte. Even building a new product (e-book, video, script, application) isn’t that hard, for similar reasons. The hard part is the marketing and promotion of your product/service — getting human eyeballs to see what you have to offer and convincing them to open their wallets and buy it. You may not be able to make the horse drink, but you still have to lead it to the water.

8. Not investing enough time to succeed.

Like anything you want to do right, online marketing takes time. Time to write and distribute articles and press releases. Time to create websites. Time to build your mailing lists. Time to analyze your sales to see what’s working and what’s not. Time to keep your knowledge current (see #2). Time, lots of time… The only overnight success stories are from marketers who spent a long, cold winter in Antarctica. (And probably without a high-speed Internet connection.) Devote some time each day to marketing activities.

9. Not having a plan.

When you sit down to code, you have at least a minimal plan formulated in your head, or even a formal plan written on paper. Otherwise how would you know where to begin and when you’re done? The plan lists the steps you need to take to succeed and the goals you’re trying to achieve. Good marketers make plans. Those plans aren’t always right, but they provide focus and a way to measure accomplishments. Make a plan.

10. Getting bogged down in the details.

How much time have you spent getting a web page to render perfectly across all browsers? What was the cost of that perfection in terms of opportunity cost? You’re better off to automate as much as you can and spend your time dealing with the hard parts: writing copy that sells, interacting with others, researching keywords, etc. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be good enough.

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: geeks, internet marketing, online marketing, marketing, AdSense, affiliate, products, promotion, blogging, SEO