“All You Need to Know About Using Exclusivity for Better Product Launches” plus 3 more |  |
- All You Need to Know About Using Exclusivity for Better Product Launches
- Announcing the NEW ProBlogger.com [Grab this Early Bird Discount Today]
- What The Most Unexpected Gold Medal in History Can Teach Us About Successful Blogging
- 3 Critical Questions To Answer Before You Take Your Blog On The Road
| All You Need to Know About Using Exclusivity for Better Product Launches Posted: 20 Mar 2014 09:10 AM PDT This is a contribution by our very own Shayne Tilley.  Image by Flickr user EricaStLeonards Launching products and campaigning can be fast-moving and complex beasts. There are so many layers, and even the best-laid plans can be scrapped in an instant as it all goes amazing well, or horrifically wrong… Two promotional tactics we use in our product launches and special campaigns on both ProBlogger and Digital Photography School are the notion of “exclusivity“, and “limiting factors“. I thought today I’d share with you the how and why of this approach, and what we’ve learned along the way. So what do I mean by “exclusivity” and “limits” in the context of a launch or promotion? Exclusivity:Exclusivity is about creating a proposition that will not be available to the general public. It’s an offer specifically for you, because you meet some sort of criteria. It might be because you're an existing customer. It might be because you showed early interest in a product. It might be because you are a newsletter subscriber, or a member of a community. It can be anything as long as you can define it. By me giving you this offer I’m making you feel special. You’re acknowledged and rewarded and hopefully rightly so! This can then drive two responses: 1. the “nah-nah-na-na-nah!” responseWe like to brag. Sometimes it's about how much we paid for something, sometimes it’s about how little we did. When I make you this exclusive offer, it means when you take advantage of it, you’ll have something the chump next to you paid way more for and it’s only because you were you. It’s like winning without having to even play the game! Of course you’ll head to the checkout. 2. the IOU responseBy giving you this exclusive offer you immediately think that you owe me something. I’ve taken the time to create this special offer and reward you for some reason. That I value you so much I’m willing to give you something that no-one else can have. The only way you can pay me back is take up the honour in which I bestowed upon you and head to that checkout. An example we’ve used recently on ProBlogger.com: We soft-launched the new ProBlogger Community in the last couple of weeks, and before making it available to all, we exclusively launched it to existing members first. We provided with exclusivity in two ways: offering members the chance get into the community early and establish themselves in addition to receiving a great price as a foundation member of the site. Why? Because no matter how great the content and site technology is, it’s the people there that make it special — and we wanted to ensure our loyal problogger.com members were part of the new site. A real win-win situation. This idea of exclusivity has been one the tech start-up community has really embraced. Take Pinterest for example: it had an 'invite-only' sign up process for some time. You had to request access, and when you were given it, (because you’d been ‘approved’ by them), you are much more likely to actually use the service. There are secret back-door and referral systems built-in to make you feel even more special. Whilst you’ll see what sound like legitimate reasons for this, trust me – it’s a marketing tactic. One that’s designed to create an emotional debt with the product, person, or service you are using. Which makes you more likely to stick around. And it’s quite effective. Limited:When limiting your campaigns, you are communicating some sort of restrictive factor. It might be stock, it might be seats, or it could be time. By doing this, you are creating a sense of urgency. A sense that “if I don’t act now, I might miss out“. These responses are driven by our past – we’ve all missed out on something because we waited too long, and it made us feel bad. It’s the desire you have to avoid that negative emotional trigger I’m pulling by limiting an offer in some way. How we use this on Digital Photography School: Every single new product launch we run will have a limit. For the most part, it’s in the form of an earlybird special. For a time-limited period, readers will receive a special discount, or a special bonus for a few weeks. Over the launch period, we up the focus on this to increase the urgency. The first week we’ll focus on the product or offer and just mention that it's Time-Limited. The next week, we will announce the cut-off date with a little more prominence, and the final email we’ll send 48 hours before that date will be the core message of the product. With this urgency we often see more sales on the last day than we did when we first announced the product. This of course goes up a new gear when we run our 12 days of Christmas Campaign, where each deal only lasts 12 hours. It’s not about making the sale, it’s about closing it. With both of these techniques, it’s not about making the sale. Your products benefit and the offer still needs to do that too (sorry). What limits and exclusivity will do is just give the potential customer that little extra nudge to head on through the sale process. Digital vs Actual These techniques have been around longer than the internet, and digital content is actually just an adaptation of what retail stores mastered a long time ago. If you’re selling a digital product, such as a book or a video course, then as long as there’s power you have an infinite amount of stock. However if you have a service, or a course, or a physical product, you don’t just have time up your sleeve to use as a sales technique – you also have ‘While stocks last’ – just as powerful, maybe even more! The ProBlogger team recently witnessed action that a stock/seat limitation can create. After putting a limited number of tickets (450) on sale for this years ProBlogger Event, within minutes, half of them had sold. That creates a bigger, more urgent call-to-action, as people realised they only had a short time to make a call to attend or not. If they waited they’d miss out! … and it snowballed. This accumulation of momentum resulted in all tickets being sold out in 6 hours and a re-engineering of the event set-up for us to allow another 100 people to attend. Which sold out quickly again! Time and its subtletiesIf you can’t use stock as a limiting factor, then time will be your best friend – just like it is on Digital Photography School. With time there are some subtleties in language you need to take into account. ‘Ends in two weeks‘ is much stronger than ‘soon‘ ‘7 days only‘ is much stronger that ‘next week‘ ‘In the next 48 hours‘ is stronger than ‘In the next two days‘. When putting your copy and messaging together, you need to think about which time terms feel closer; and ensure that you are giving specific time periods rather than just writing generic terms like ‘soon’. As I mentioned earlier, we tend to get more specific and forthright as we get closer to the end. Be prepared to shift gearsIn your campaign and launch planning, you’ll have a nice start and end time for your offer. You’ll communicate that clearly as suggested above, but you also might find yourself in the situation where you need to change things up. We’ve done so a few times when:
Truth is better than fictionThese techniques are powerful motivators, and you might be tempted to ‘manufacture’ them. Which is essentially lying to your readers. Now I can’t stop you doing that, but in the interests of a long-term relationship with your customers, truth is much better than fiction. If you never intended to raise your early-bird price don’t call it an early-bird offer. If you’re thinking about putting up an out-of-stock sign on your product with a warehouse full of them, just don’t. Eventually, people will figure it out. When we put 450 tickets up for the ProBlogger event, we only ever intended to sell 450. As a result of what we witnessed, we were fortunately able to react quickly and find room for some more. It’s that authenticity that help build the demand in the first place, and lying will break that over time. So that’s my take on exclusivity and limits, and how we use there here at ProBlogger and Digital Photography School. I’d love to hear if you’ve used these on your own blog and how it went.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger All You Need to Know About Using Exclusivity for Better Product Launches     |
| Announcing the NEW ProBlogger.com [Grab this Early Bird Discount Today] Posted: 19 Mar 2014 12:42 AM PDT Today I’m excited to announce that the NEW ProBlogger.com has been launched! You can learn more and join today with a special early bird discount here. Our Journey to Create the New ProBlogger.comIn 2004, I created this blog on ProBlogger.net as a place to share what I was learning about making money from blogging and in the hope of connecting with others on that same journey. I had just reached my goal of making a living from blogging and had a suspicion that in the coming years we’d see more and more bloggers aiming for and reaching that goal. It turns out that my suspicions were on the money (no pun intended). In the last decade we’ve seen many tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of bloggers have found ways to make a living from blogging. While not all reach a full time level, it isn’t the rarity that it once was. Alongside this trend we also have seen a whole industry spring up around blogging. Companies have been birthed to create plugins and tools to help bloggers do their jobs, hosting and design companies have been created solely to focus upon bloggers, many conferences have sprung up to serve bloggers of different niches and geographical areas… It’s been an exciting decade! Changes at ProBloggerSince 2004, things here at ProBlogger have been through a variety of stages of evolution. What started out as a blog where I shared my story and learnings has grown into something far beyond what I imagined. I’ve published over 7200 free tutorials in that time, co-authored the ProBlogger Book, published 6 ProBlogger eBooks, added the ProBlogger Job Board, held many free webinars and run 5 ProBlogger Events in Australia. A number of years ago I also created a small paid private forum for bloggers on ProBlogger.com. It was a place for a couple of years where many bloggers came together to share what they were learning, network with other bloggers and collaborate on projects. While there were some definite benefits from the first version of ProBlogger.com I always knew it could be much more and together with my little team here at ProBlogger HQ started dreaming of what it could be around 12 months ago. The NEW ProBlogger.comThat dreaming has become a reality in the last week and today we’re publicly launching the new ProBlogger.com Here’s a quick video on what it is: As I say in the video – the new ProBlogger.com is based around 4 key benefits to members. 1. Practical TeachingMembers will be invited to two private webinars each month where you get access to myself, my team, and other experienced bloggers from around the web. These webinars will be a combination of teaching, Q&A, case studies, and interviews with experts. We’ll be focusing these webinars on four main areas:
Of course we’ll also run webinars on other topics such as the technology behind blogging and other related topics. All webinars will be recorded for members to listen to if they miss a live session and to keep coming back to over time. I’ve been running webinars now for 18 months on ProBlogger and they always get great feedback, so I’m excited to be creating these! When you sign up to ProBlogger.com you’ll also get access to over 10 hours of previously recorded webinars, as well as a few sessions that we recorded at some of our live events. Our next webinar is on Wednesday and will be on the topic of Creating and Selling eBooks. Following it we have a Q&A on using Social Media, and a teaching webinar on developing an Editorial Calendar. Check out the webinars we’ve got coming up and the recordings already in the library here. 2. Private Community AreaThis private forum is where members have opportunity for mutual learning, networking and collaboration. Again we’ve already set up areas in this forum for the 4 main areas mentioned above:
But there’s also a ‘review my blog’ area and ‘general chat’ section for other topics. While we’ve only had the new community area open for a week or so we’ve already seen a fascinating array of members and discussions and I can’t wait to see what collaborations emerge out of these new relationships. 3. Powerful ToolsThis is an area that I’m particularly excited about in the new ProBlogger.com. Over the last 12 months I’ve hired a small team of developers to help me improve the design and functionality of my own blogs (particularly over at dPS). As part of their work they created a number of custom-made WordPress plugins that are unavailable anywhere else. It struck us a few months ago that these plugins would be quite useful for other bloggers and so we’ve decided to make them available to all ProBlogger.com members. So far we’ve only released one – the Infinite Scroller which we’ll talk about in the coming days here on ProBlogger.net but there are more that we’ll release in the coming weeks to ProBlogger.com members. Our intention is to continue to create WordPress plugins not only based upon what we’re doing on my blogs but based upon the suggestions of ProBlogger.com readers. In essence my developer team will become yours, as a member. Also along the lines of ‘powerful tools’, we have begun to reach out to other blog-tool and service providers to get you access to what they offer at some great discounts. Our members discounts area already has some great discounts on all ProBlogger eBooks, hosting from Bluehost, a free design task from Swiftly and a $99 upgrade from 99designs. We’re also working on negotiating some other great deals currently for ProBlogger.com members. Keep in mind that we’re not taking any affiliate commissions on these discounts – which is why we’re able to negotiate some great prices. Sign Up Today At an Early Bird RateThe new ProBlogger.com will cost $27 USD per month to participate in. We think this presents great value given the teaching, community, and tools it gives you access to but to celebrate the launch we’re offering members who sign up in the next couple of weeks lifetime access for just $17 USD per month. Sign up today at this rate and you’ll get this discounted rate for as long as you stay a member – even as we continue to add value in the months and years to come. If you don’t find ProBlogger.com to be what you’re expecting you are free to cancel your membership at any point but our intent is to keep adding so much value that you wont! This Early Bird offer is for a limited time – so grab your membership today here and we’ll see you at the new ProBlogger.com. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Announcing the NEW ProBlogger.com [Grab this Early Bird Discount Today]     |
| What The Most Unexpected Gold Medal in History Can Teach Us About Successful Blogging Posted: 18 Mar 2014 08:01 AM PDT  Image by Flickr user jungle_boy In 2002, Australian speed skater Steven Bradbury was lining up for the 1000m final at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Among his competitors for the gold medal were the some of the best in the world at their sport: multi-medallists and world champions. He, by his own admission, was the oldest and the slowest competitor – and while he was going to give it everything he had, he really didn't expect to win. A few minutes later, he found himself casually coasting to victory from 15m behind the pack as every single skater in front of him fell over just metres from the finish line. You can see the short video here. The result was even more unbelievable given the exact same thing had happened in the semi-final, allowing Bradbury to get to the final he didn't expect to earn a place in. And what does this have to do with blogging? Perseverance. What do you do when you're chugging along on your blog, seeing other people achieve success faster than you? You persevere. What do you do when you feel like giving up, like you'll never win anyway? You persevere. Because you can't predict the future and you don't know what is going to happen. And when others are falling away or giving up when it all gets too hard – you are still there, blogging, and giving it your all. Bradbury had worked his whole life to represent his country at four Olympic Games, he had suffered an horrific injury to his thigh, and even broken his neck in the quest to be the best. And he finally earned gold right at the very end when circumstances nobody could predict meant he finally had his chance. It's one of the biggest pieces of advice I give newbie bloggers who ask – persevere. I tell them that blogging is a marathon, not a sprint. Getting readers takes time. Feeling comfortable takes time. Building networks takes time. Gaining respect takes time. Where others give up, you do not. You adjust your expectations, you adapt to your environment, you find what works for you, and you forge connections with other bloggers and your readers. You might go through phases with your blog where you're motivated and excited one day, dejected and needing a break the next. You take a break and you regroup, but you do not give up. You never know when someone before you will pave the way for your success. I'm not saying you should hope your blogging peers all fall over so you can snatch their golden dreams, but, you know, it's OK to keep your mind open to unexpected possibilities! Blog from your heart, be useful, be there. You might just be the last man standing. Stacey Roberts is the Managing Editor of ProBlogger.net, and the blogger behind Veggie Mama. Can be found making play-dough, reading The Cat in the Hat for the eleventh time, and avoiding the laundry. See evidence on Instagram here, on Facebook here, and twitter @veggie_mama. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger What The Most Unexpected Gold Medal in History Can Teach Us About Successful Blogging     |
| 3 Critical Questions To Answer Before You Take Your Blog On The Road Posted: 17 Mar 2014 09:24 AM PDT This is a guest contribution from Kelly Edwards. If you're a blogger, then there are many benefits that can be gained from getting out from behind the keyboard and attending real world events: from raising awareness, sourcing new talent, and increasing overall readership. Of course, attending an event is an investment, particularly if you're intending to travel and especially if you decide to present your blog via a stand – so you need to make it count.
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