One of the fundamental principles of running a successful business is to maintain customer satisfaction. Once you achieve that, it becomes easier to increase your profit streams as they find it easier to purchase from you. Customer satisfaction comes in many forms. Ideally, maintaining a high quality of product and [...]
This video was inspired by one of my Blueprint students who had asked for me to break down the internet marketing funnels of other online marketers, and provide my perspective, critiques, and highlights. Unlike 90% of my tutorials (which have one succinct set of strategies or principles to be taught in a particular order), this video was a free-form breakdown of a website sent to my by one of my students.
While most of my website and strategy breakdown videos are not traditional “internet marketing”-style promotions, I figured that this page would still exemplify some good conversion tips (and potential pitfalls) for our viewers and followers.
In this case, it’s a direct marketing landing page by speaker and author James Malinchak, where he employs a tried and true product strategy for any digital marketer: Sell it in a book.
Whether most of your online sales are a product or a service, packaging your unique expertise in a physical book format still generally holds more weight than any ebook or white paper can offer – and is more likely to be seen as valuable by a potential.
eBook sales shot through the roof beginning in 2010, but new evidence suggests print books are making a comeback (again). No matter how you slice, dice and package up the information – be it paper, eBook, and/or audio format – books sell – and this kind of “just pay shipping” book offer has a good likelihood even higher conversions because of the perceived discount.
Let’s take a look at a few of the marketing ideas housed in James’ “free book” marketing page.
Landing Page Basics
James Malinchak gives away his “33 secrets” for generating wealth in his promotional book Millionaire Success Secrets at www.millionairefreebook.com.
The landing page is nothing fancy, but it gets the job done with a few basics:
Book image in banner and video – making it obvious to any viewer that this page is all about his new book release (single important call-to-action for the audience)
Testimonials from extremely reputable sources (well known celebrities)
Extremely direct button copy (IE: His button does not read “Submit” or “Get Book,” it says “Get FREE Book Now”)
James keeps things simple and direct for this offer with the these landing page factors:
3 simple order steps
Concrete, succinct list of bonuses
Benefits with a sense of urgency
Info on shipping/handling (what the consumer pays) with a reminder of normal retail price
The fundamentals are present, as is the call to action – this is one of, if not the, most important catalyst in the selling process. A key question remains – is there a big ticket product promotion waiting on the other side?
I continued along my funnel exploration process and jumped into the next step.
Sales Funnel Steps
Step 1: Enter your name and e-mail address, and click the shiny gold button for that free book. Simple and quick.
Step 2: A key step – where the consumer gets out the credit card information for the small shipping and handling fee. The order form again includes bulleted benefits on the order form to reiterate the core benefits of this program (and the “deal”, IE: it’s just a harmless shipping payment).
Step 3: After the purchase is a “thank you” video. It takes “just a few minutes” to watch (again, the consumer’s time is valued, and James doesn’t want to scare anyone away with the threat of a long promotional pitch). Instead of a flashy promotion or next pitch to a big ticket item, Malinchak gives the consumer more i.e.3 online training videos, an immediate benefit. Then comes the big ticket pitch – another call to action.
Step 4: Thank you page that re-affirms what was bought (important!), and encourages buyers to engage on social media (catching them while they’re hot, emphasizing relationship after the previous series of pitches).
The Big Ticket Promotion
This final offering is the real money-maker, and it needs to make the consumer feel like they’re getting the gold standard of offers. Malinchak consciously cloaks his as a “special bonus”, which is nothing new.
So what’s the tangible benefit? There really isn’t anything super concrete. He offers up additional strategies for achieving financial success with a new CD course (which has the same title as his book). There’s some psychological persuasion at work.
Malinchak iterates again and again, with enthusiasm, his offer for financial success:
5 key areas for self-made success
Training your mind to make more automatic money-making decisions
Insights not ‘taught’ in the classroom (a bit of irony at play)
He also wraps up the bonus as a deal – $297, or 85% off of a product that costs the average consumer $2,000.
Part of selling anything requires identifying consumer profiles. The typical consumer purchasing Malinchak’s course probably envisions him or herself as a savvy business person making real money, which is the intangible promised being marketed. But the consumer is likely not making that real money quite yet, and big numbers are intimidating.
Framing a product or service as an affordable steal, especially one that will produce tangible benefits (in this case – more dollars), is one strategy for enticing consumers who are on the fence to press that gold button.
The final push? It could be the 2 additional free gifts – another free hard copy of the book and an audio version of the book. He has most of his bases covered in terms of format. It certainly doesn’t hurt to consider consumer access and preferences.
But more importantly, Malinchak re-emphasizes that this course “will make a difference in your life”. Seems simple enough, but this is what got the consumer to this page in the first place and it serves as the final call to action.
Creating and Packaging
How did a nationally-renowned businessman like Malinchak find the time to write a book and put together this offer?
My money is on the idea that he audio recorded the book to start and hired a ghost writer to turn his ideas into a book. The content was nothing foreign – these 33 secrets were most likely an extrapolation of the 5 key areas, or principles, which he speaks about 24-7. The books is simply a stretching out of those ideas into a marketable product.
He went a step further and repurposed content by turning his ideas into a CD course or seminar – different format and different materials, but same ideas. Not so much reinventing the wheel as spinning it in different directions.
Packaged skill sets are still more than useful to a consumer who appreciates the ease of knowing exactly where to look.
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One of the fundamental principles of running a successful business is to maintain customer satisfaction. Once you achieve that, it becomes easier to increase your profit streams as they find it easier to purchase from you. Customer satisfaction comes in many forms. Ideally, maintaining a high quality of product and service delivery is instrumental. Additionally, [...]