Internet Marketing Made Simple

How To Create a High-Value Product That Has a Super-Low Refund Rate

As an infoproduct creator, you’re always looking to create high-value, in-demand products. But you’re also looking to create products with low refund rates too.

In order to achieve these goals, you take a few steps for each product you create:

You research your product idea to be sure it’s something your audience really wants.

You add value to the product with bonuses, tools, and so on.

You take care to ensure your product looks great both inside and out (ecovers) to make a great impression with your audience.

You employ an onboarding sequence and focus on customer retention strategies.

We’ve talked about all of these strategies at different points in this newsletter. Now here’s an advanced strategy we haven’t talked that can raise the value of the product while simultaneously lowering refunds.

It’s this: create a “hybrid” product, which is part digital, part physical.

The reason for doing this is because physical products tend to carry a high perceived value as compared to digital products. You can use this fact to charge more for your hybrid product, or you can use it to simply position the product as offering a lot of value for the money.

The second benefit is that hybrid products naturally create a lower refund rate. That’s because people actually need to ship the physical portion of the product back to you in order to claim their refund. The casual refunder isn’t going to do that. Indeed, a serial refunder is less likely to even bother buying the product at all, since they have to take the extra step to get their refund.

SIDE BAR: As the name implies a serial refunder is someone who buys digital products and almost always asks for refunds. They do this intentionally, as it’s their way of getting your product for free. If you see someone buy your product and almost immediately ask for a refund, that may be a serial refunder. If they do this more than once with some of your other products, that’s more evidence that the person is a serial refunder. If you identify a serial refunder, you may attempt to ban them from purchasing your future offers.

Another benefit of a hybrid product is that it’s a little harder for an infoproduct pirate to share it. In order to share it, they’ll need to copy the physical portion and either turn it into a digital product (such as by using an optical character recognition reader) or print copies to share in physical format. Either way, this is more labor-intensive than simply sharing a digital product, so fewer pirates will be sharing your content.

The final benefit is that the digital portion of a product provides the instant gratification that your customers are accustomed to. As such, your customers will get to start using part of the product immediately, and soon enough the rest of the product will arrive in the mail.

As you can see, there are a lot of great benefits that go along with creating a hybrid product. So, let me share with you a few tips for creating your own hybrid offer…

Decide How to Create the Offer

Your first step is to decide what portion of your product to provide as a digital product, and which portion to offer in a physical format. Take note that this includes any part of your package, including (but not limited to) your bonuses.

A good way to do this is to determine what portion makes the most sense to distribute in physical form. Ask yourself, is there any portion of the product that someone would want to print off?

For example, if you offer tools (such as worksheets, checklists and similar), then these are the perfect items to bind into a “workbook” and send through the mail. Indeed, your customers will appreciate this, since they don’t need to print it off themselves. (And as an added bonus, they’re more likely to use these tools since they don’t need to print them, which in turn leads to higher customer satisfaction.)

Here’s the next tip…

Automate the Physical Portion

You don’t want to print off and ship the physical portion of your product yourself. Instead, find a company that will handle printing and fulfillment. One such example is Disk.com, which can do everything from CD and DVD replication, to printing and binding.

Be Clear On Your Sales Page

As you’re preparing your sales page, ensure it’s clear to prospects that they’ll receive part of the product via an instant download, and part of it via the mail. Be sure to mention the benefits of this arrangement.

For example, let’s suppose you have a course with the curriculum available via instant download, and a workbook coming through the mail. You can let prospects know they can start studying the course materials immediately, and soon the workbook will arrive so they can put this information to work.

Finally, be sure to let your audience know how long it will take for the physical portion to arrive. E.G., “You’ll receive your workbook in the mail within five to seven business days…”

Include a Flyer in the Shipment

One other benefit of sending a physical product is that it gives you the opportunity to send a physical advertisement. This might be a flyer, a postcard, a discount coupon or something similar.

Whenever possible, send a special offer along inside the actual shipment. And since you now have your customers’ mailing addresses, you can consider sending other promotions through the mail. Test it out – you might be surprised by the nice conversion rate, simply because it’s a bit of a rarity to see physical promotions in the main from digital product sellers!

Conclusion

As you just discovered, creating a hybrid product comes with a lot of benefits, such as a higher perceived value, lower refunds, and increased customer satisfaction. And best of all, you don’t need to print and fulfill the physical portion yourself, so these sales can be totally automated. That’s why I recommend you give this strategy some thought to determine if it’s a good fit for your business and your specific products.

And that wraps up this issue of Three to Thrive. But as always, keep your eye right here on your inbox, because some more goodies will be coming your way again soon. See you then!

Keep Reading: …

Previous: How To Drive Traffic Using Optimized YouTube Videos

Or… Click Here To Get Our #1 Recommendation To Start Earning Today.

How To Drive Traffic Using Optimized YouTube Videos

Elsewhere in these issues we’ve talked about different ways to use social media such as Facebook to engage users, develop your expertise, and drive traffic back to your website. Now here in this lesson you’re about to discover another way to generate traffic. Namely, by optimizing your YouTube video for the search engines.

The reason this works so well is because you can get traffic in three ways using this method:

Internal searches. When someone searches YouTube for specific content, your video will appear in these searches.

External searches. When someone searches Google and other search engines, your video on YouTube will be among the results.

Viral traffic. When people find your video and really like it, they’ll hit the “share” button and share it on their own YouTube channel, on other social media (such as Facebook), or on their blogs and other platforms.

Point is, there is a lot of benefit to optimizing your YouTube Videos. So, let’s talk about how to do it…

Step 1: Choose Your Keywords

First, you need to know what sorts of words your audience is inputting into search boxes and search engines. You can discover these words by using a keyword tool (such as Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, or your favorite tool).

The goal is to choose a targeted longtail keyword. Not only does this sort of targeted word result in better conversions, these words also to be easier to rank well in the search engines. That’s because individually they don’t get loads of traffic, so the “big guys” in your niche aren’t focusing on them. That lets you to pick this low-hanging fruit for yourself.

Next…

Step 2: Embed Your Keywords

As with any sort of search engine optimization, you don’t want to stuff your video description page full of keywords, as search engines hate that sort of spam. Instead, what you want to do is insert your keywords naturally.

Quick test. As you’re inserting keywords, ask yourself if you would insert a particular word if you weren’t trying to specifically include it for SEO purposes. In other words, is it unnatural? If so, then you’ll need to consider whether you should insert it at all, as the search engines prefer you create high-quality content with your keywords appearing naturally.

Now, provided you can insert your keywords naturally, then here are some places to embed these keywords:

In the video’s filename, which tells YouTube what the video is about.

In the video’s title.

In the video’s description.

In the video’s keyword tags.

In the video’s subtitles/closed captioning. (Be sure your video content includes the keywords so that they naturally appear in the subtitles/captions.)

Once you’ve uploaded your video, then go to “Advanced Settings” to choose an appropriate category for your video.

Now that your video is optimized for the search engines, are you ready to roll? Not quite. Check out the last step…

Step 3: Be Sure Your Video is Ready for Prime Time

It does you no good to optimize your video for search engines if your video isn’t enticing to prospective viewers. That’s why you’ll want to be sure your content is enticing and engaging. Keep these tips in mind…

Choose an Attractive Thumbnail

YouTube automatically generates a selection of thumbnails from the beginning, middle and end of your video. Usually, these thumbnails aren’t very attractive and will do absolutely nothing to help you get people clicking on your video.

That’s why you’ll want to upload a custom thumbnail for your video. Most people decide whether to watch your video just based on the thumbnail picture (and the title, which we’ll talk about in a moment), so you need to be sure this image is relevant, clear and enticing.

For example, if your video depicts a dog training demonstration, then you might upload an image where the dog from the video is clear, “smiling” (as dogs are known to do), and engaged in the activity that’s the topic of the video.

Note: you need a verified YouTube account in order to upload custom thumbnails. However, it’s well worth the effort to get verified, which usually just involves entering your phone number and waiting for YouTube to send a verification code.

Craft a Compelling Title

As you learned above, you need to naturally insert your keywords into your title. However, you also need to make sure (as always!) that you have a benefit-driven or even curiosity arousing title that will persuade people to watch your video.

Let’s suppose your keyword phrase is, “toy poodle training.” Just using that as a title is boring. So, you include the keywords and spice up the title like this: “Toy Poodle Training Secrets: How to Housetrain Your Pup in 72 Hours or Less!”

RECOMMENDED! Click Here To… GET FREE TRAFFIC

Conclusion

It’s no secret that people really like video content, especially demonstrations. For example, it’s much easier to teach someone how to train a dog when you show them your process in a video, as opposed to teaching it in all text format. And that’s why you’ll want to start posting videos and optimizing them for the search engines, which will help you attract a targeted audience. Just be sure to include a call to action at the end of your video in order to drive viewers back to your site (such as your lead page).

Now the last topic for today…

Keep Reading: How To Create a High-Value Product That Has a Super-Low Refund Rate

Previous: Troubleshooting a Cold, Unresponsive List

Or… Click Here To Get Our #1 Recommendation To Start Earning Today.

Troubleshooting a Cold, Unresponsive List

One day you’re looking at your mailing list data and it hits you: your list isn’t all that responsive. Maybe it was at one time, but it’s now grown cold. Or maybe you realize it’s never been that responsive and it’s never really been the moneymaker that you hoped for.

At this point, a lot of list owners start a re-engagement campaign, where they send out a series of emails designed to get people opening and reading your emails again. The underlying idea is good, and you should send out a re-engagement campaign. However, before you do this, you need to troubleshoot your list to understand WHY its grown cold. Because once you know the reason it’s unresponsive, then you can create a campaign that addresses that reason.

Let’s take a look at some common reasons a list may grow cold. Ask yourself these questions…

Are you emailing the list regularly?

One common reason for a list to grow cold is simply because the list owner doesn’t stay in frequent touch with the subscribers. Ideally, you should set up an autoresponder sequence to welcome new members with emails that go out every one to three days. After that initial sequence is over in a couple weeks, then subscribers should get emails at least once per week – either through an autoresponder, in the form of live broadcasts, or some combination.

As such, you need to commit to emailing your list on a weekly basis. If you’re unable to do this, then load evergreen content to your autoresponder to keep your name and content in front of your audience. Simply put, it’s “out of sight, out of mind” when it comes to your list. And if you wait too long between mailings, you not only lose the “top of mind” awareness, but you might even lose subscribers who either unsubscribe or hit the “spam” button.

What should you do if you suspect your list is cold because you haven’t emailed them enough? Send out a multipart re-engagement sequence with some very special content. This might be a valuable freemium such as an in-demand video, membership, report or course. Be sure to pay special attention to your subject lines to get people to open your emails.

Secondly, if you’re unable to re-engage a portion of your list, then send out a “last chance” email to them. If this portion of your list isn’t even opening your emails despite multiple attempts over time, then you may choose to remove them entirely. Doing so not only lets you focus on the responsive portion of your list, it also saves money in cases where you pay per subscriber.

Are you meeting your subscribers’ expectations?

The next thing to consider is whether you’ve repurposed your list or are otherwise not meeting their expectations. Specifically:

What does your lead page tell prospective subscribers?
What does your initial autoresponder series tell new subscribers?
Is your list’s purpose and content different from what subscribers expect?

For example, maybe your lead page and initial emails told subscribers they’d get weekly tips and strategies, but all you send out are promotions. Or maybe you told them they’d get special discounts and perks, but you tend to promote items at full price.

If you’ve veered away from the purpose of your list, then you need to do one of two things:

Option 1: Return to doing what you promised. This is the preferred method. You may want to send out a special re-engagement campaign that focuses on your list’s original intent. (E.G., if you promised tips and strategies, then send out a sequence with tips and strategies.)

Option 2: Set new expectations. If you can’t return to doing what you promised, then you need to officially change your list’s purpose. This means changing your lead page, changing your autoresponder sequences, and sending out a new series of emails explaining what’s changing and how these changes benefit the reader.

You may lose subscribers during this process, as people who joined to get something specific are going to be disappointed that they’ll no longer receive that specific benefit. However, going forward you’ll have a higher conversion rate as you begin rebuilding your list since all your new subscribers are arriving with the correct set of expectations.

Next…

Are you sending content that your audience wants?

Another big reason why a list can grow cold is because you’re not sending in-demand content or offers. For example, maybe you set expectations that you’d send weekly featured products with exclusive discounts, and you’ve been doing that. But if no one is buying, it might be because no one really wants the offer.

Sometimes you’ll see a normal or high email open rate (which shows your list is engaged), but no sales. This suggests your audience may not want what you’re selling.

The solution? Do your market research to find out what your audience is already buying on sites like ClickBank.com, Udemy.com and Amazon.com. You can also ask your audience what they want, but keep in mind that what people say they want and what they actually buy can be two different things, so finding out what they’re already buying is the best predictor of what they’ll buy from you.

You can also start testing products to see what your audience wants. For example, use your autoresponder’s split-testing tool to send two identical emails (Email A goes to half your list, and Email B goes to the other half), with the ONLY difference being the product you’re promoting from within the email.

Conclusion

A cold list doesn’t mean you should immediately send a re-engagement campaign. Instead, you need to diagnose your list first to determine the problem, and THEN send out a re-engagement campaign that addresses the problem.

Now let’s turn our attention towards generating traffic…

Keep Reading: How To Drive Traffic Using Optimized YouTube Videos

Previous: Five Keys To Creating Infoproducts That Sell Like Crazy

Or… Click Here To Get Our #1 Recommendation To Start Earning Today.

Five Keys To Creating Infoproducts That Sell Like Crazy

Throughout these issues, you’ve been learning about creating infoproducts that people really want to buy. As you know, one big key is to research your market first, so that you create something that people really want. Another key is to create something fresh, something that stands out from the competition. Still one more key, as you learned, is to create an attractive bonus or bonus package.

Now we’re going to continue that discussion by looking at other factors that will make your product more attractive to your market. Read on…

“Niche-ify” the Offer

Sometimes marketers think that if they make their product for “everyone,” then they’ll have a large pool of prospects and a lot of sales. Unfortunately, however, it doesn’t work that way. In fact, the opposite is true: you need to niche down in order to generate sales. Indeed, you can even create a series of niche-ified offers directed at specific segments of your market.

For example, let’s suppose you have a dog training guide. You can niche down by targeting specific categories of dogs, such as small dogs. You can niche down even more by targeted specific breeds, and all it takes is a few simple tweaks to niche-ify a product. E.G., “The Secrets of Training Yorkshire Terriers” and “The Secrets of Training Toy Poodles.”

Now imagine someone has a toy poodle, and they’re going to buy a training guide. Which one are they going to buy: “The Secrets of Training Your Dog” or “The Secrets of Training Your Toy Poodle?”

That’s right, they’re going to buy the book specifically aimed at toy poodles. As such, focusing in on a smaller niche can help you generate MORE sales than if you try to appeal to everyone.

Now the next tip…

Set the Right Price

If you price your product too high, people may not buy it because they can’t afford it. If you price it too low, people might not buy it because they think the product must be junk since it’s so cheap. That’s why you need to set the right price.

The way to pick the right price is to first do some pricing research to find the range of prices among your competitors, as well as the median price (which is the most-used price). Then compare your product to the competitors’ offers to determine if your product is worth more or less.

For example, maybe courses similar to yours go for $27-$97 in your market, with most of them priced right around $47. You’d start with this median price ($47), and determine if your product is worth more or less than this based on how you’ve positioned the product, the overall bonus package, the format (e.g., video is worth more) and similar.

Perhaps you find your product to have more value than most, so you price it at $97. Or perhaps yours is about average, but you price it slightly under the median – at $37 – to provide a lot of value for the price.

This gives you a starting point for pricing your offer, but as always be sure to test and track to determine the most profitable price with high conversions and low refunds.

Next…

Get a Professional eCover

Yes, people really do judge a book (or a video or a membership site or any other product) by its cover. If you’ve got a cheap-looking cover, your audience is going to assume the information inside is junky too. And likewise, a professional cover helps set the expectation that the product itself is high-quality, polished and professional.

Unless you are skilled with graphic design, don’t even try to do this yourself. Instead, outsource this task to a professional. You can find a designer by searching Google for “ecover designer,” or you can simply post a project on Upwork.com or Fiverr.com.

Prove It Works

Your audience is a little skeptical when it comes to your offer. They don’t quite believe that it’s going to work for them. That’s why sharing case studies, testimonials and other forms of proof help boost conversions.

And here’s something else: reverse the risk by offering a money-back guarantee. Even though you’re proving that your product works, your prospect is still skeptical. So, here’s where you say, “I promise it works, or you get your money back… no questions asked.”

TIP: Longer guarantees tend to work better to both boost conversions and reduce refunds. If your guarantee is too short (such as one week), the buyer may panic if they haven’t yet used the product, and they’ll quickly ask for a refund while they still can.

Your guarantee should be at least 30 days long, and preferably as long as it will take for someone to complete a task (or even get results). For example, if you have a course that teaches people how to set up a business in 90 days, then you might offer a 90-day guarantee.

Here’s a related strategy…

Give People a Free Sample

As you just learned above, people tend to be a little skeptical of your claims. That’s why you’ll want to offer a “free sample” of your product.

If you have a membership or subscription style site, you can offer prospects a free month inside the site. If you have a regular infoproduct, then you can splinter a valuable piece of it and offer it for free. For example, if you have a multimodule course, you can offer one lesson for free. Or if you’re selling an ebook, you might offer one chapter for free.

The beauty of this method is that it provides a risk-free way for prospects to try out your product. The benefit is that you get to collect email addresses to encourage people to use the sample and to “upgrade” and purchase a full membership or the entire product. End result? You get higher conversions and fewer refunds, because people know exactly the quality of content they’re getting when they buy your product.

Now a few parting words…

Conclusion

You just learned five more ways to make your product more attractive to your audience. Go ahead and put these tips to work to boost your conversions too!

That’s it for this issue of Three to Thrive. As always, stay tuned, because there’s another value-packed issue coming your way soon!

Keep Reading: Troubleshooting a Cold, Unresponsive List

Previous: How To Get Your Best Customers To Refer Their Friends

Or… Click Here To Get Our #1 Recommendation To Start Earning Today.

How To Get Your Best Customers To Refer Their Friends

When marketers think about why they value their best customers, they often think in terms of direct profitability. That is, your best customers tend to be worth a lot to your business simply because they spend a lot of money with you. That’s why you treat your customers so well, use onboarding sequences, and focus on retention strategies.

Now here’s something else: your best customers are also your best business advocates.

It’s true, right? A really happy customer is likely to tell their friends about you, especially if their friends ask for recommendations. This is among the most valuable “advertising,” because people who come to you via recommendations from a trusted friend are really warm and presold on doing business with you.

So, the question is, how do you get your customers to recommend your business to their friends?

Answer: you create a referral program, which rewards your best customers for telling their friends about you.

Sure, some of your customers will be happy to tell their friends if you simply ask them to. But you’ll get a whole lot of enthusiastic referrals if you reward your customers for their recommendations.

Check out these tips and tricks for starting your referral program…

Create a Two-Way Referral Program

A one-way referral program is where you reward your customer for referring their friends. A two-way referral is where you reward both your customer and the referral. As you might suspect, the two-way referral tends to be more effective.

Some of the biggest companies in the world have used referral programs (and two-way referral programs specifically) to build their business.

For example, the bank ING offered $25 to new customers and the person who referred them when the referral opened up a new savings account.

DropBox, which is the cloud storage service, did something similar. They offered both referrals and the people who referred them extra storage space when the referral created an account.

The ride-sharing service Uber is another company with a two-way referral program. Both new customers and the person who referred them earn ride credits.

Here’s one more example from a company you know: Airbnb has a two-way referral program where both parties earn travel credits for the referral.

Which brings us to the next point…

Offer Valuable Rewards

When you set up your referral program, you need to consider what your audience really wants.

Sure, everyone wants cash, but if you’re offering cash then you’re basically setting up an affiliate program. Instead, you want to offer discounts, credits, products or similar.

Now here’s the key: if your referral program gets people involved in your business even more, that’s a good thing.

Take the examples I gave you a few moments ago. Uber offers ride credits. Airbnb offers travel credits. DropBox offers extra space. In all cases, using the referral reward involves using the business’ product or service.

The existing customer is happy to get a product or service for free (or at a deep discount). Meanwhile, the referral gets a chance to sample your products or services for free or at a deep discount. And when the new referral starts using your products and getting good benefits, they too will become loyal customers.

Let’s suppose you run a membership site. You might set up a referral program where both parties get one month free inside the membership site.

Another way to do it is to offer the reward conditional on becoming a customer. So, in continuing with the membership site example, you’d give each party a free month AFTER the referral has paid for their first month.

Now the next tip…

Create an Onboarding Sequence

When the new referral first arrives on your site, they’re going to be naturally enthusiastic because a trusted friend referred them. However, this enthusiasm may quickly fade. Indeed, the referral may claim the reward (such as a free month inside a membership site), but never use it. When their free trial expires, the person who never looked at your content is unlikely to sign up as a fully paying member.

That’s why you need to create an onboarding sequence for your new referrals. This sequence of emails should touch base every two to three days to do the following:

Remind referrals of the benefits of the offer.
Encourage them to use the product or service (by pointing to specific parts of it).
Share new tips and strategies to provide even more value.

If you can get the referral to use the product, then you’re one step closer to creating a new or repeat buyer.

RECOMMENDED! Click Here To… GET FREE TRAFFIC

Conclusion

Starting a referral program is a great way to generate warm leads. For best results, you’ll want to start a two-way program that rewards both parties with credits, discounts or products. If the biggest companies in the world use referral programs to grow, then you’ll definitely want to consider using them too.

Now that you know how to generate warm leads, let’s turn our attention towards creating profitable products…

Keep Reading: Five Keys To Creating Infoproducts That Sell Like Crazy

Previous: How To Create a High-Converting Email Series

Or… Click Here To Get Our #1 Recommendation To Start Earning Today.

How To Create a High-Converting Email Series

People rarely purchase something the first time they’re introduced to it. That’s why you’ll enjoy your highest conversions when you send out a series of emails to promote a specific product. That’s why you’re about to discover the step-by-step process for creating a high-converting series.

Take a look…

Step 1: Decide What to Promote

Your obvious first step is to decide what to promote. The key here is to pick just ONE offer per series. If you promote multiple offers, you’re going to dampen your overall conversion rate. So, pick just one offer and move to the next step…

Step 2: Design Your Offer

The next thing to consider is whether you’re going to promote a special offer, or if you’re going to promote a product at its regular price and without any special bonuses. Both approaches are acceptable. However, you’re going to get a higher conversion rate if you have a special offer to promote. In addition, if you’re promoting an affiliate product, then it’s a good idea to offer your own bonus or other perk to help spur sales.

Next…

Step 3: Determine How Many Emails to Send

Now you need to determine how many emails to create for your sequence, which will generally range from three to seven emails or so. Exactly how many you send depends on the following factors:

Does the audience know you?

If this sequence is going out to brand-new subscribers, then the audience likely doesn’t know you or trust you quite yet. As such, sequences going out to new subscribers will tend to be a little longer than sequences going out to your long-term subscribers.

TIP: If you’re sending out a live broadcast (rather than an autoresponder series), then you can segment your list by “old” and “new” subscribers. That way you can adjust the length of the sequence, such as by sending one extra email to “new” subscribers who may need a little more coaxing for you to close the sale.

If you’re selling an affiliate product, you’ll also want to consider whether the audience is likely to be familiar with the vendor. If you’re promoting a product from someone who’s really well-known in the niche, then your sequence might be a little shorter. If you’re promoting a product from someone who’s fairly new to the scene, then your audience may need a couple more emails in order to become comfortable with the purchase.

Next…

Is the audience familiar with this product?

If the product is brand new and just hitting the market, you may need to create a longer sequence. This is particularly true if the product is unlike anything on the market (and thus needs more explaining).

What is the price of this product?

The last big factor to consider is the price. As you might suspect, expensive products generally require more persuasion (and more emails), as compared to an inexpensive product that’s an impulse purchase.

For example, let’s say you’re selling your own $10 offer to people who know you. In this case, you can send a series of two or three emails. (Three emails are better, as it takes into account that not everyone is going to see every email you send.)

On the other hand, maybe you’re selling a $497 offer that’s brand new. In that case, you may send out somewhere in the neighborhood of five to seven emails.

These are just guidelines to get you started – ideally, you’ll want to experiment to find out which sequence length works best for your particular offer.

Step 4: Develop Your Content

Now that you know how many emails you need to send (approximately), you can start developing your sequence. Keep these tips in mind…

Choose a Theme

This is a series, so you want to choose a theme that ties all the emails together, which in turn encourages subscribers to read each email in the sequence.

Think in terms of sharing tips, secrets, ways, steps, tools or ideas. For example, if you’re writing about weight loss and you have a five-email sequence, it might look like this:

The Five-Step Guide to Getting Rid of Love Handles
The Five Secrets of Rapid Weight Loss
Five Ways to Boost Your Metabolism This Week

Next…

Create Something Useful Yet Incomplete

The series as a whole as well as each individual email should be useful in that it solves part of your subscriber’s problem, yet it should be incomplete in the sense that it naturally leads to your paid offer.

Let’s suppose you’re selling a home buyer’s guide. You can create an email series with an overview of the steps (what to do), but subscribers will need to buy the guide to get the exact details of how to take those steps.

Alternatively, you can provide a set of secrets/tips for finding and buying the right home. While each tip is useful, it doesn’t solve the subscriber’s problem in full, so they need to purchase your guide.

One more example: you can offer a set of tools for home buyers in each email you send, such as checklists and worksheets. In order to make the most of these tools, your subscribers will need to purchase the guide.

TIP: As always, don’t forget to create a strong call to action at the end of the email, where presell your offer and tell people to buy it. See a previous issue of Three to Thrive for more information about creating effective calls to action.

Next…

Capture Attention

As always, you need to create benefit-driven subject lines for each email. E.G., “The weird conversion trick that works like crazy!”

Craft Evergreen Emails

If you’re uploading these emails to an autoresponder that you intend to use for the long term, then make sure your emails are evergreen. This means sharing content without any references that would date the content, as well as sharing time-tested content that won’t become old/outdated.

Conclusion

Sending out a series of emails is a proven and powerful way to close a sale. You can use this technique to promote a product in your welcome series of emails, whenever you launch a new product or participate in someone else’s product launch, when you do a special promo (such as a one-week sale) or whenever you want to generate sales.

Now let’s switch gears and talk about a really good way to generate warm leads…

Keep Reading: How To Get Your Best Customers To Refer Their Friends

Previous: How To Quick And Easily Create Products The Hands-Free Way

Or… Click Here To Get Our #1 Recommendation To Start Earning Today.

How To Quick And Easily Create Products The Hands-Free Way

Imagine for a moment that you’ve just brainstormed a sales funnel, and you’re getting ready to start creating it. At a minimum, this funnel includes:

A lead magnet.
A tripwire product.
Your core product.
A backend product.
Cross-sell products for order forms.
Bonuses for the paid product.

And as you build out the funnel, you’re going to keep adding to it (e.g., more backend products, and with that you need to create more bonuses and cross-sells).

Point is, even creating one simple sales funnel requires a fair amount of time. If you’re not skilled at creating products, then you might spend a whole lot of time creating something that’s, shall we say, subpar.

So, what’s the solution? It’s this: outsource. Let someone else do the work while you take all the credit and make all the profits.

Here’s how to do it…

Step 1: Decide What to Outsource

First, you need to determine what your outsourcing budget it, which will help you then decide what you can outsource.

For example, if you have a bid budget, you may decide to outsource the entire sales funnel. On the other hand, if your budget is more modest, then you need to make some decisions. Specifically:

Which product(s) should you outsource? For example, you may decide to create a video-training course, and outsource that part if you’re not good at video production. Meanwhile, perhaps, you’d handle all the text-based products (such as the lead magnet).

Is there a way to make the process less expensive? For example, you might purchase PLR content, and then hire someone to tweak it. This saves you both time and money.

Decide what to outsource, and then move onto the next step…

Step 2: Define Your Project

If you intend to outsource multiple pieces, you may want to start with the smallest piece. That’s because a small project gives you a chance to see if you work well with a freelancer before you hire them on for a bigger project.

So, with that in mind, decide what to outsource first. Then you’ll want to draw up a project brief that details all the specs for the project. The more detailed you can be at this stage, the better quality of freelancer you’ll attract.

For example, let’s suppose you want someone to create a report for you that you intend to use as a lead magnet. Here’s the type of information you want to provide in your brief (which will double as an ad if you post it on a freelancing site):

Working title for the report.
Word count (or range).
Purpose of the report.
Outline for each section of the report (be as detailed as possible here).
Define the call to action at the end of the report.
Any notes about writing style or formatting (e.g., “write with a conversational style).
Delivery date.
Budget.

Take note that you’ll attract more freelancers if you have a bigger budget and a delivery date that’s not tight (as the best freelancers tend to be booked well in advance).

Step 3: Distribute Your Ad

Now that you have your project brief, it’s time to find your freelancer. Here are different ways to do it:

Post your project brief on a freelancing site such as upwork.com, guru.com or freelancer.com.
Search Google for a freelancer (e.g., “hire freelance writer” or “hire ghostwriter”).
Ask your colleagues and other contacts for recommendations.
Post on a freelancing group on Facebook or on a freelancing forum to get recommendations.

And finally…

Step 4: Do Your Due Diligence

You’ll likely have multiple freelancers on your long list who are eager to have you hire them for your project. To save yourself time, money, and heartache, be sure to research each potential candidate so that you can pick the best one to suit your needs.

To that end, turn your long list of potential candidates into a short list by asking yourself the questions below. You’ll need to do some research to answer these, such as combing the freelancer’s website and researching them using Google.

Does the freelancer produce good work? (Check their portfolio.)

Does the freelancer have good ratings and feedback on freelancing sites, where applicable?

When you run their name and business name through Google, do they appear to have a good reputation?

Does the freelancer’s rates match your budget?

Does the freelancer have references that you can check?

What makes a particular freelancer stand out from his or her competitors?

Now a few parting thoughts…

Conclusion

Outsourcing is a great way to build your business faster, as it frees up your time to work on other tasks. Or you can spend the extra time just enjoying your friends, family and hobbies. Plus as an added bonus, oftentimes a professional can create a product better than you can, so you’ll end up with something really valuable and desirable. And that’s why you’ll want to put the above information to work so you can start outsourcing soon!

That’s it for this issue of Three to Thrive. I’ll see you in another issue again soon!

Keep Reading: How To Create a High-Converting Email Series

Previous: How To Build a Community That Establishes You As An Expert And Generates a Lot Of Traffic

Or… Click Here To Get Our #1 Recommendation To Start Earning Today.

How To Build a Community That Establishes You As An Expert And Generates a Lot Of Traffic

Throughout these issues, you’ve been learning that one key to your success is to establish yourself as an expert or authority in the niche. That’s because people want to follow and learn from known experts, rather than the Joe Blows of the web. Indeed, that’s why you want to always publish quality content in each email you send to help you build up your authority and expertise in the niche.

But here’s the thing…

This sort of brand-building doesn’t stop with your newsletter. In order to firmly establish yourself as an expert, you need to think outside the newsletter. And one really good way to establish your expertise while also generating traffic is to create your own niche group or forum.

Let’s talk about how to do it…

Step 1: Decide Which Platform to Use

For the purpose of this lesson, we’re going to focus on groups or forums. Yes, owning a blog is also a good way to build a community, but that tends to be more one-sided (since visitors or members can’t start topics, as they can only reply to your posts).

The advantage of a forum is that you own the platform. You’re not going to lose your platform because someone else changed the rules. (Provided you follow your webhosting rules, of course.) The disadvantage is that a forum requires users to create a log in and remember to visit.

The advantage of creating a Facebook group is that people are already used to visiting the platform – often multiple times per day. They don’t need a new login, and your posts will show up in their regular feed to remind them to participate in the group.

The downside of Facebook, of course, is that you don’t own the platform. Facebook could change the rules and you could lose your group.

Nonetheless, generally Facebook is a great way to start a community, because you can get up and running fast (no tech experience required). Be sure to pick a name that reflects the topic, preferably with keywords that your audience is likely to search for. That way, anyone searching for the topic will see your group in the list.

For example, let’s suppose your brand name is Whiz Bang, and you’re setting up dieting group. You don’t want to call it the “Whiz Bang Group,” because only people who are already familiar with your brand will recognize it. Instead, you can incorporate your brand and the relevant keywords, such as “The Whiz Bang Weight Loss for Women” group.

Step 2: Determine Your Topic

The next step is to determine your exact topic. It’s a good idea to do some research to see what other groups and forums are in your niche and which topics they’re focusing on. In order to set yourself apart, it’s a good idea to specialize in a topic or targeted niche that others aren’t focusing on.

For example, perhaps you want to start a weight loss group. Consider this: Is anyone else focusing on your specific niche, such as weight-loss for middle age women or dieting for those with special dietary needs (such as gluten-free dieting)? Or how about a narrower topic, such as creating easy, delicious meals?

Focus in on a smaller segment of your market or a specialized topic, and then move onto the next step…

Step 3: Disseminate Content

Once you pick your topic and platform, then you want to start building up the platform with some good content. You may want to bring on a few friends or send out invites to a select number of your audience to help you build up content in the group before you initially launch. People are more likely to want to join a group if it already looks like there is good content on board and an active membership.

Step 4: Drive Traffic to the Platform

Once you have some content on the platform, then you can start developing a bigger audience. Here’s how to attract people to your new group…

Tell Your Existing Contacts

Blog about your new group, tell your newsletter list, and announce it across all your social media pages.

Start a Contest

The idea here is to offer contest entries to join your group as well as to spread the word about the group.

Drop Links and CTAs

Another way to promote is to put a link and call to action all throughout your website and sales funnel. This includes:

Links in all emails you send out.
Permanent links in your blog’s sidebar.
Links in your blogging and guest blogging bylines.
Links on your thank you and download pages.
Links inside your products, including lead magnets and paid products.
Mentions during your webinars.

Next…

Use Facebook Advertising

Facebook’s ad platform is a convenient way to promote a FB group. Just be sure to pick a narrowly targeted audience in order to get high conversion rates.

Ask Your Partners to Promote

If you have joint venture partners, ask them to do a co-promotion where they promote your new group and you promote the link of their choice.

Step 5: Develop a Plan

The above steps will get your group up and running. Now you need to create a long-term plan for both sharing content and building the group. This includes:

Creating regular features to make your group more “sticky.” For example, you might do group-coaching sessions one day per week or an hour or two, where members can ask you anything.

Develop a plan for member retention. For example, you might showcase your best members (e.g., “Member of the Week”) to build loyalty.

Encourage participation. People who contribute regularly are likely to quit the group. For example, you might ask members to share their favorite tips, tools, authors, embarrassing mistakes, pics or more – whatever you think will engage them.

Post high-quality content. This should include strategies and tips people can’t find anywhere else, as your goal here is to help build your expertise and authority in the niche.

Create a long-term traffic plan. You’ll need to promote your group and keep posting content in order to grow it. Eventually, once you hit a certain membership level people will seek you out – but until then, you need to find them and encourage them to join.

Create a plan for driving traffic back to your site. For example, you might post “Part 1” of an article in the group, and then encourage people to join your list to get “Part 2” of the article.

Now a few parting thoughts…

Conclusion

Building your own community in the form of a group is a great way to share high-quality content, establish your expertise, and drive traffic back to your site. That’s why you’ll want to start doing research ASAP to see what sort of group you should set up.

Now the next topic…

Keep Reading: How To Quick And Easily Create Products The Hands-Free Way

Previous: 7 Tips For Creating Emails That Get Opened And Get Read

Or… Click Here To Get Our #1 Recommendation To Start Earning Today.

7 Tips For Creating Emails That Get Opened And Get Read

Elsewhere in these Three to Thrive issues, we’ve talked about some of the key points to getting your emails opened and read, such as by creating enticing benefit-driven, curiosity arousing subject lines. Now here in this issue we’re going to continue with that conversation, as you’re about to learn other tips and tricks for getting people to open and read your emails.

Let’s jump in…

Develop a Schedule

The key here is to get your subscribers to expect an email from you on certain days and times. For example, perhaps you publish twice a week on Tuesday and Friday mornings. Sure, you may send emails at other times, such as when you’re promoting a sale, but you want to make sure your subscribers always get an email at the expected time.

The reason for this is simple: if you’re creating really good content (which is key), then your readers are going to start looking forward to your emails. The only way for them to sustain this level of anticipation is if they know when to expect your emails.

Which brings us to the next point…

Build Anticipation for Upcoming Emails

At the end of every email you send out, you want to get your subscribers excited about what’s coming in the next email. You also want to let them know when they can expect to see that next email.

A good way to do this is by sharing the benefits of an upcoming email. If you can arouse curiosity – such as by sharing the benefits but not letting recipients know how it’s possible to get those benefits – that’s even better.

Let me give you an example:

“You’ll want to keep your eye right here on your inbox, because next time you’ll find out how to sell your unfinished project car for more money than you think it’s worth. How is that possible? You’ll find out on Friday!”

Another example:

“A lot of dieters think that hunger pangs and cravings are inevitable. I have news for you – they’re not! And on Monday you’re going to find out the secret of rapid weight loss without hunger pangs, without cravings, and without ever feeling deprived! Keep an eye out for my next email, because you won’t want to miss it!”

Use Responsive Templates

Many of your subscribers likely use their phones to read your emails. If you’re using an HTML email template that’s not responsive, then readers are going to have a hard time seeing your content. And if they’re struggling to read your emails, their solution will be to simply not read it. If they encounter this problem more than once, they’re probably going to stop opening your emails altogether (or even unsubscribe).

Fortunately, the solution is simple: use responsive design templates that look great on any device. If you’re using a major email service provider (such as Aweber), then you’ll have a collection of responsive design templates to choose from – no coding required!

Build Brand Recognition

When a subscriber first joins your list, your subject line is going to play an outsized role into whether that person opens your emails or not. However, over time the subject line is still going to be really important, but some of the burden will begin to shift to your reputation.

Here’s what I mean: if you provide a lot of great content in every email you send, then people are going to start associating your brand with awesome emails. And in turn, that means they’re going to look forward to your emails and eagerly open them as soon as they arrive.

Of course the opposite is true too. If your content is just so-so, then you’re basically building a brand that people associate with “meh.” If people think “meh” when they see your emails, they’re unlikely to read them. A good subject line MIGHT make them curious enough to open the email, but if you don’t deliver the goods then your list is going to grow cold.

As such, that’s why it’s important for you to consistently deliver good content that solves problems and is (preferably) something that your readers haven’t seen before. (Even if that’s just one fresh tip in each email.)

The second key here is that you need to carefully choose the “From” field on your emails in a way that reflects your name or branding, and then don’t change it once you’ve decided on the field. People are going to open your emails, in part, based on recognizing your “From” field, which is why you don’t want to confuse people by changing it.

Use Follow Up Tools

Many of the big email service providers offer built-in tools that let you see which portions of your list didn’t open your last email. Use these tools to your benefit, by resending unopened emails, preferably with a different subject line.

Which brings us to the next point…

Test and Track Subject Lines

As mentioned, your subject line is always going to be an important factor when it comes to people opening your emails. That’s why you’ll want to test your subject lines to see which ones get you the most opens and clicks. This is particularly important for subject lines that you’re going to use repeatedly for the long-term, such as those in your autoresponder sequences.

Note: many of the big email service providers offer built-in tracking and testing tools. If your autoresponder doesn’t have these tools, then you’ll want to consider moving to one that does (such as ConvertKit.com, Aweber.com, and many others).

Now a few parting words…

RECOMMENDED! Click Here To… GET FREE TRAFFIC

Conclusion

Any little thing you can do to improve the chances of someone opening and reading your email is well worth doing, as that will improve your overall conversions and list profits. That’s why you’ll want to put the above tips to work for you.

Now let’s turn our attention towards building traffic…

Keep Reading: How To Build a Community That Establishes You As An Expert And Generates a Lot Of Traffic

Previous: The Secret Of Adding Value To (Almost) Any Product To Create Uber-Satisfied Customers

Or… Click Here To Get Our #1 Recommendation To Start Earning Today.

The Secret Of Adding Value To (Almost) Any Product To Create Uber-Satisfied Customers

Here’s a big key to creating satisfied customers: you need them to actually use your product.

Makes sense, right? If they don’t use it, they don’t get any benefits, and in turn they won’t have a particularly high opinion of you, your products or your business.

On the flip side, those who use the products and get the desired benefits are going to be happy campers. They’re sure to purchase additional products from you. And they may even happily tell their friends about your business too.

That’s why it’s so crucial for you to encourage people to use your products. There are a few different ways you can do this, including:

Providing calls to action where you specifically tell people to use the information (and give them a good reason to act now).

Creating an onboarding sequence of emails to keep people excited about the product and encourage them to use the product.

Making it easy for people to use the product, such as by giving them tools to help them take action (e.g., checklists, worksheets, templates, etc.).

For this lesson, we’re going to focus on that final strategy, which is to create tools. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of how to put this strategy to work for you…

Step 1: Decide What You Want People to Do

For this step, you need to take a look at the content you’re sharing, and determine what you’d like customers to do.

This is going to vary depending on the type off content you share. For example, if you’re sharing a “how to” report, you may have five different steps the customer needs to take in order to complete a process, and you need to determine if you should provide tools for each of those steps.

Another example: let’s suppose you have a 10-module training video. You may have cover one primary step in each training video that requires tools to encourage action. Or each video may require multiple smaller steps, and you may decide to create tools for all (or most) of the steps.

How do you decide which steps require tools? Consider this: which steps can you speed up and make easier by offering tools? Which steps can you simplify by offering a tool?

For example, if you’re teaching people how to create sales-letter headlines, you can make the process faster and easier by providing a set of headline templates.

Another example: if you’re teaching a complex, multistep process – such as how to set up an online business – then you can simplify this process by providing a tool such as a step-by-step checklist.

Which brings us to the next point…

Step 2: Brainstorm Tools

Now that you know around what parts of a process you might create a tool, your next step is to brainstorm tools that would help your audience the most. The possibilities include:

Checklists.
Worksheets.
Cheat sheets.
Planners/calendars.
Swipes.
Templates.
Process maps.
Mind maps.
Calculators.
Apps/software/plugins.
Lists (such as gear/resource lists).
Spreadsheets.

Let’s go back to the copywriting example. Let me share with you specific examples of some of the above tools:

A checklist that goes through all the steps needed to create a sales letter.
An audience profiling worksheet.
A cheat sheet full of tips and tricks for boosting sales page conversions.
A set of headline swipes.
A set of sales letter templates.
An app that lets you plug in benefits and it outputs headlines and bulleted benefit statements.

Let me share with you another set of possible tools. This time, let’s imagine you’re selling a dieting guide. Here are some of the tools you may provide to make it easier for the customer to take action:

A set of meal plans.
A set of recipes to go with the meal plans.
Shopping lists to go with the recipes/meal plans.
A checklist of how to get started.
A cheat sheet with ingredient substitutions.
A calorie calculator so people know how much food to consume.
A spreadsheet to help people track their goals.
A meal-planning app.
An exercise planner.

You get the idea. J

Go ahead and brainstorm specific tools you can create to help customers take action on the various steps your product teaches. Then move onto the last step…

Step 3: Create the Tools

Now that you know what sort of tools would be helpful to your users, it’s time to create them. Keep these tips in mind:

Create Professional Tools

A good-looking layout/design helps boost the perceived value, which in turn makes it more likely that someone will use the tool. If you don’t have the skills to create something that looks polished and professional, then outsource this task using freelancing sites such as Fiverr.com or Upwork.com.

Create Useful Tools

The key to creating satisfied customers is to make sure your tools really work to help people complete a process or achieve a goal. In other words, don’t just create tools that create “busywork” for customers. Be sure each tool is designed to help someone take a specific step faster and easier, and/or to help them get better results.

Get Feedback

Finally, it’s a good idea to put your tools to work in the real world. This means getting beta users to use them and offer you feedback. You’ll want to be sure your tools do indeed help the customer achieve a goal or take a step faster/easier. Be sure to encourage your beta users to offer as much feedback as possible about how to improve the tool, along with any ideas they’d like to provide about what other sorts of tools might be useful.

Conclusion

As you just discovered, offering tools to your customers will encourage them to take action. In turn, people who take action and start enjoying the benefits become satisfied, repeat buyers. That’s why you’ll want to take a look at your products and figure out what sort of tools you can create to make it faster, easier and better to complete a process or achieve a goal.

And that wraps up this issue of “Three to Thrive.” But be sure to keep your eye on your inbox because another jam-packed issue is coming your way soon!

Keep Reading: 7 Tips For Creating Emails That Get Opened And Get Read

Previous: How To Drive Traffic Using Repurposed Content

Or… Click Here To Get Our #1 Recommendation To Start Earning Today.