“Two Six Figure Strategies to Help You with Your Next Product Launch” plus 1 more

Two Six Figure Strategies to Help You with Your Next Product Launch

Posted: 26 Feb 2011 06:32 PM PST

Earlier in the week I wrote a post about two factors that played a significant part in the growing of my own blogging business over the last 2 years.

making a mind shift away from just relying upon advertising and affiliate revenue to starting to build my own products.
investing in training and starting to learn from others who had experience in marketing and launching products online.

I mentioned Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula (PLF) in that previous post and recommended you check out some videos that he’s recently released (as well as a free report that gives a great blueprint overview of how to release products).

Today I want to share a couple of strategies that I use today that I learned from Jeff’s PLF that have been a part of my own recent success. I’d estimate that together they’ve been well over ‘six figure’ lessons.

1. Using Events to launch Products

One of the key elements of Jeff’s teaching is that he gets you to think about the launches of your products as ‘events’. This concepts has become increasingly important to me in my own product launches but also in some of the affiliate marketing that I’ve done.

One of the best examples of this from my own last 12 months as the 12 days of Christmas promotion we ran on my photography blog. Simply by thinking about it as a 12 day event helped a lot both in terms of my own planning and execution of the event – but also in terms of how it was received by readers.

I was very nervous at the start of the promotion that readers would become sick of it – but framing it as a 12 day event connected with people – we even had readers emailing us asking where our daily promotional emails were if we ran a little behind schedule.

Effectively what we try to do now with our ebook launches is take people on a journey rather than send them a series of ‘buy my eBook’ type emails.

2. Perpetual Product Launches

Launching a product (whether it be an eBook, a course, a piece of software or something else) is a big effort. Typically now when we release an eBook at dPS we do so over a 2-3 week period (1 week of prelaunch stuff and then two weeks for the launch event).

However once the initial launch is over many bloggers then move onto developing their next product and preparing for that launch. Business tends to revolve around a series of events – spiking in revenue along the way.

This is how things were for me for a while – but in doing the Product Launch Formula teaching I came across the idea of the ‘Perpetual Product Launch’.

This is where you effectively launch a product to a segment of your readers every single day.

An example of this is my first photography eBook – the Essential Guide to Portrait Photography which I initially launched almost 2 years ago with a big launch.

After that initial launch sales dried up to a trickle.

So I decided to experiment with a perpetual launch and added to the auto responder sequence that I’d already developed for the site an email to new subscribers that would go out about 7 days after they subscribed offering them the same discount that we offered during the initial launch of the eBook.

The email is not very ‘salsey’ – it simply thanks the person for subscribing, introduces the eBook and tells the story of its initial launch at 25% discount and passes that same discount on to readers with a limited time offer.

Every day this email goes out to a segment of new readers automatically and every day it generates numerous sales. While the daily sales are nothing like our initial product launch – over time they’ll exceed that product launch’s total sales numerous times over.

So without the concept of perpetual product launches I’d have been leaving significant money on the table.

Grab the Product Launch Formula Blueprint Today

These are just two of many strategies that Jeff teaches. There are many more (so many that I’ve not even implementing them all yet).

To get an overview of his launch strategy Jeff’s put together the ‘Product Launch Blueprint‘ – a PDF report accompanied by a 45 minute video walking you through it. It walks you through many of the strategies that Jeff teaches in the full PLF course and whether you go on to do the course or not it’s going to give you ideas that will translate into increased success with your own product launches.

The cost of this report is simply your email address which will put you onto Jeff’s list to receive further teaching videos (and which you can unsubscribe from any time).

Grab the report here today.

Post from: ProBlogger Blog Tips

Two Six Figure Strategies to Help You with Your Next Product Launch

Accepting the Blogger’s Social Responsibility

Posted: 26 Feb 2011 05:03 AM PST

This is a guest post by Bryan Cassidy of Endless Bucket List.

On a daily basis we bloggers are bombarded posts about so-called unique methods of making money, getting new advertisement opportunities, and how to increase revenue streams. It becomes so deeply ingrained in our minds that the end goal, if we care about monetizing our blog, is to become the next millionaire blogger. For some of us, blogging is our job so we truly need the revenue. But based on the inherent characteristic that bloggers enjoy helping each other, shouldn’t we bloggers have a social responsibility to give back to society?

Darren mentions the five "Cs" of blogging include content, community, points of connection, cash, and contributing something of value to the world and the blogosphere. As blogging allows us to easily share ideas and connect with individuals around the world, we shouldn’t be relying on corporations and philanthropists to help those in need.

Proactive or passive?

Bloggers can be classified in two groups when it comes to giving back to society: we’re either proactive or passive. A proactive blogger will more than likely actively assist charities by offering direct assistance. An example would be Darren’s travels in Tanzania with a charity to assist with a project and capture the story.

A passive blogger is more likely to place a widget on their blog sidebar, enabling a reader to navigate to a third-party site to make a donation if they feel inclined.

It truly doesn’t matter what group you fall into, as both provide human or monetary resources to a specific cause. I personally feel that bloggers should try to move into the proactive group, as the conversion rate for a charity or non-profit button will most likely be lower than what you can achieve by proactively giving back to society.

Six ways you can give back, starting today

I’m not talking about posting helpful information on a blog as being your gift to society. I personally can’t recall anyone in world history who has mentioned helpful information that has changed society without specific action by someone else.

What I’m talking about here is donating monetary resources to a charity in desperate need, donating your own time to personally help a charity, donating technical skills to help promote a charity, or helping educate those who cannot attend a place of learning.

While ideas and information may spur innovation to help in the long run, sometimes direct contribution can be the better solution for immediate impact. Here are a few ideas on how you can start to give back on your blog;

1. Donate a percentage of revenue (e.g. affiliate revenue, ebook sales, etc.) to a specific cause.
2. Place a widget or PayPal button on your blog.
3. Partner with other bloggers for a specific purposes (e.g. PassportsWithPurpose).
4. Organize a specific day to meet with your readers to participate in a community service project.
5. Find charities in your local community that need help advertising, and use your technical abilities to help build a blog for them.
6. Start a scholarship for your community to help pay education costs for under-privileged children.

Finding a correlation between your niche and a charity

Now don’t get me wrong: I personally feel that a donation to any charity, even if it doesn’t directly tie to your blog, is a good thing for society. But we are taught to keep our blog ideas tied tightly together, and a blogger should be able to look at the overall mission of their blog and identify a possible opportunity to “pay it forward” to society. Once you start looking, it’s not difficult to find a cause that aligns with your blog’s niche. Here are a few examples.

A couple that blog about renovating their house at Young House Love donate surplus children’s toys and clothes to Goodwill and almost every piece of furniture, lighting, cabinetry, door, window, and fan to the Habitat For Humanity ReStore.

Matador Network, an international travel magazine blog, is a member of the 1% Of The Planet charity, which asks its members to donate 1% of their sales revenue to the natural environment.

My own site, where my partner and I blog about our bucket list journey and inspire others to start their own list, donates a percentage of affiliate revenue to the Make-A-Wish Foundation to for children with life-threatening medical conditions.

Can my actions make a difference?

It’s a fair question. We can feel that our individual actions cannot move an obstacle. Just like any other animal on this planet, our strength comes in large groups. We bloggers have done this before by uniting together after the devastating Haiti earthquakes in January 2010 and asking readers to donate to international charities.

But don’t be tricked into thinking that change can only be brought by massive groups, our individual actions carry weight too. The well-known butterfly effect theory states that, “…a small action can have large effects elsewhere.” When we, as individuals, give back to society, we are essentially throwing a pebble into a large calm lake, causing a ripple that will be felt on the opposite shore. Those ripples are the good deeds that we’ve passed back to society, and which will ultimately have an effect on someone less fortunate.

What are the benefits?

You’ll enjoy the great satisfaction of returning a favor to society.
You may build trust with new readers and a strong foundation with existing readers by showing your personal effort to pay it forward.
Your blog may experience a boost of traffic from other blogs or media coverage.

So now I challenge you: how can or does your blog contribute back to society?

Bryan Cassidy runs Endless Bucket List with his soon-to-be-wife Lauren, a blog that captures their stories on accomplishing the joint bucket list items and inspiring readers to start their own bucket list. You can subscribe to their RSS feed.

Post from: ProBlogger Blog Tips

Accepting the Blogger's Social Responsibility