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.

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

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

• AdWords Miracle vs. Beating AdWords: Affiliate Selling Via AdWords
• AdWords Miracle vs. Beating AdWords, Continued
• AdWords Miracle vs. Beating AdWords, Part Trois
• Review: Google Wealth Wizard

Before you buy any of these books, please take the time to read my (extensive) reviews. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about the books. Note that my rankings are:

1. Beating AdWords
2. AdWords Miracle
3. Google Wealth Wizard

And, as I said in the last posting, if you’re serious about making money via affiliate selling, I would pair up either Beating AdWords or AdWords Miracle with Affiliate “Project X”.

Like all arbitrage, however, there’s a certain degree of risk with this model. You’re spending real money to get traffic that may not convert into earnings, or that won’t make you enough to cover your traffic acquisition costs. It’s a tricky business model to master.

The ebook AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging provides step-by-step instructions on how to make money with AdSense arbitrage. I like this book because it’s very detailed, and it’s the one I now recommend to anyone looking to get into this (quite serious) game.

I did a full review of AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging on my AdSense blog, so rather than repost it here I’ll just point you to it:

AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging Review by Eric Giguere

Although it doesn’t really have anything to do with affiliate marketing, I thought it was interesting enough to mention here as well, in case you’re looking for a different technique to try out or a way to further diversify your affiliate income.

Technorati Tags: AdSense, AdWords, Google, AdSense arbitrage, AdWords arbitrage, AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging, arbitrage, Internet marketing, affiliate marketing

Distracted Marketers

The typical affiliate marketer is a distracted marketer. Their inbox overflows with messages from other Internet marketers promoting new money-making products and joint ventures. Those Internet marketers know that the distracted marketer is a prime mark, because he or she buys products and services based on hope — the hope of making money. They understand the reseller meta-market and know how to play off that hope.

The distracted marketer is, unfortunately, a poor marketer. Poor in both senses of the word, as in not a good marketer and not a rich marketer. And it’s not through lack of trying. It’s through lack of focus.

The Successful Internet Marketing System

Affiliate marketers are presented with new Internet marketing systems on at least a monthly basis, each claiming to be the “Next Big Thing” (NBT) in online selling. None of them work, however, without focus.

Let’s look at Affiliate “Project X” as an example. APX (as it is known) presents six different methods for making money by promoting ClickBank products. But only a foolish person would try to implement all six methods at the same time. Instead, the smart affiliate reads the e-book (at least twice — it’s a dense, though-provoking read) and then selects a method to follow. Once the decision is made, the affiliate must focus on nothing else. Or else no money will be made.

For example, let’s say an affiliate decides to follow APX’s “Workhorse” method. The simple way to describe this method is “write and submit articles that promote affiliate products”. But that simple description is deceiving, because it doesn’t really capture all the work required to be successful with article-based affiliate marketing. The APX author describes the “Workhorse” method as being “idiot-proof”, but only if the “idiot” follows these exact steps:

1. Find promising ClickBank products to promote.
2. Do keyword research around those products.
3. Filter the list of keywords to drop the duds.
4. Write articles around those keywords, with affiliate links (usually cloaked) embedded either in the articles or (most often) in their resources boxes.
5. Submit the articles to a select few sites. (APX recommends three sites specifically.)
6. Repeat ad infinitum.

Each step takes time, especially if done manually. (Hence the popularity of tools like Keyword Elite.) The first two steps also tend to be particularly distracting as you come across interesting products and keywords. Writing good articles takes effort and often seems very daunting. And, of course, you won’t see any fruit from all this labor for a good while, at least a month or two. It’s no wonder that many affiliate marketers abandon the process when they’re only partway through it, distracted by the latest trendy system for making money.

Follow Nike’s Advice

Really, the path to affiliate success is quite simple. All you have to do is follow the Nike Rule: just do it. Find an Internet marketing system you’re comfortable with and stick to it. (APX is one place to start; affiliate marketing newbies who prefer videos may find Dominating CB easier to digest, though not nearly as thought-provoking as APX.) Unsubscribe from all your mailing lists if you have to, but don’t let yourself get distracted by new opportunities, not until you’ve given your chosen method the full attention it deserves and have truly determined if it works for you. Don’t go fishing elsewhere until you’ve exercised the system to its fullest. Otherwise you’re just wasting your money.

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

Technorati Tags: affiliate marketing, Internet marketing, online marketing, Nike, ClickBank, Affiliate Project X, focus

Products sold in this manner suffer from a fundamental flaw that eventually works to the detriment of the purchasers and sometimes (but not always) the original seller: the inability to legally set a minimum price for the resold products.

Price Fixing is Illegal

Most resale rights include specific limitations on where, how and to who the purchaser can resell the product. Despite what those restrictions say, however, the seller cannot require the reseller to sell at a specific price. They are free to suggest a price, of course, but the reseller can price the product as he or she pleases.

The reason is quite simple: price fixing is illegal in most jurisdictions. Rather than go into the reasoning here, though, let me just point you to the extensive entry on price fixing in the Wikipedia.

Prices Trend Downwards

In the tangible world, products cost money to produce. These costs invariably generally set a lower bound for the retail price of the product. Few tangible products are ever sold at a loss, and even “loss leaders” are sold with the expectation that extra purchases (of other products) will make up for the loss.

In the infoproduct world, however, the rules are different. Although the first copy of a product costs money to create, each copy thereafter is essentially created at zero cost. This changes the underlying economics. The lower bound of the price is now zero. Even if a reseller purchases a product for $100, they can recoup their initial investment in the product by selling only 100 copies at $1 each. Everything beyond that is pure profit. (It’s true that I’m simplifying things slightly, obviously there are costs involved in promoting the product, processing payments, etc., but a good infopreneur will spend hardly anything on most of these.)

There’s a joke that goes something like this:

“Bob, we’re losing ten cents on each sale of our product!”

“Don’t worry, Jake, we’ll make it up in volume.”

If the product costs you essentially nothing, though, the joke isn’t a joke anymore… volume does in fact become more important than price… Even if you amortize the cost of the product (what you paid for the resale rights + whatever fixed costs you have for marketing it) over the total number of units sold, the per-unit cost approaches zero as you sell more and more units.

And with non-exclusive resale rights (which is the most common scenario), all it takes is for one reseller to price the product below the suggested retail price range to start the downward spiral. Once the product is out there at a low price, other resellers will follow suit. Eventually, the product will end up selling for several dollars on eBay. Don’t believe me? Check out the information products section on eBay.

Push It Hard, Push It Fast

If you purchase the resale rights to a product, you need to promote it fast and hard. The key is to get the product out at the price you want before other resellers flood the market with lower-priced offers for the same product. You could say that a resale rights product has a short shelf life.

Once a product is widely available at a very low price, the retailer’s profit margin starts to shrink considerably. There are different tactics to use at this point:

• Sell resale rights. If a product was sold with “master” resale rights, you have the ability (but are not required) to sell the resale rights to the product as well as the product itself. If you haven’t already done so, you can start selling the resale rights and not change the price. (This will hasten the decline of the market, of course.)
• Target a new audience. See if you can find a fresh new audience for the product, especially an audience not already flooded with emails from other Internet marketers pushing the same products.
• Setup a membership site. Resale rights products are perfect for membership sites like Mr. OverDeliver, especially those based on the Butterfly Marketing system. Products with resale rights appeal to potential members, especially if the membership to the site itself is free.
• Bundle products together. Create a “super-product” by combining two or more related resale rights products into a single bundle.

Many marketers will simply look for something new to sell, of course.

How the Creator Benefits

You might be wondering how the original creator of the product benefits from selling resale rights? Well, besides providing new income streams from tired products (many products sold with resale rights were originally sold without such rights), it also allows the creator to funnel more people into his or her backend sale system. It can be as simple as embedding affiliate links within a product, or offering free updates to the product if the purchaser registers the product with the creator.

Beware of Resale Rights

If you’re purchasing a product because it comes with resale rights, be careful. Do some research before proceeding. Is the product being sold on eBay? Can you find other websites promoting the same product? At what prices are others selling it? Is is available for free anywhere, like in the popular membership sites?

Don’t forget to look closely at the product itself. Is it a good quality, sellable product? Resale rights may just be the lipstick on an otherwise unsaleable pig.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that you can’t make money with resale rights products. But you need to go into the process with your eyes wide open.

Technorati Tags: resale rights, resell rights, affiliate, price fixing, membership sites, Butterfly Marketing

Technorati Tags: Butterfly Marketing, Butterfly Manuscript, chaos theory, viral marketing, affiliate sales, memberships, excerpt, chapter

• 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