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e-BizResources Update
July 5, 2006
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Hi there,
Michael here. Welcome to the latest issue of "e-BizResources Update". I hope you're well. There's a lot here for you again today.
For those of you in the USA, I hope you had a great 4th of July and managed to spend some time relaxing and/or celebrating with your friends and family.
As usual, in this issue you'll find a new article, a freebie and some very special offers, along with some comic relief.
The article, by Jim Daniels, explains the OTO (One Time Offer) Strategy. It's a strategy that's being used more and more and can be a great income source. If you're not already using it yourself, you should. Read the article to find out more about it.
Here's what's in store for you:
1. Want to Become a Power Affiliate?
2. New SevenBucks Offer.
3. The Lighter Side of Life #1
4. Save $97 on This New Report: "The New Age Work At Home Plan"
5. Guest Article: "The OTO Strategy Uncovered"
6. The Lighter Side of Life #2
7. Grow Your Business With Video.
8. Do You Want to Solve the Traffic Equation?
9. Tell Me What You Think!
So, why not sit back, relax and read through it. I hope you enjoy.
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1. Want to Become a Power Affiliate? Learn how FREE.
This is just a quick reminder.
Gary McCaffrey has recently launched a site where you can join at no cost and download a number of useful affiliate marketing tools and training materials aimed at helping you become a "power affiliate".
Power Affiliate Kit---------------------------
2. New SevenBucks Offer.
Doug & Teri Champigny have put up their new offer for this week.
Firstly, there's another of Liz Tomey's ebooks, "Viral Marketing in a
Box", and as usual it's a great read full of tips and info.
You'll also get Louis Allport's "Instant Blog Traffic" with twelve
step-by-step videos.
Find out more and pick take advanntage of this great offer here:
SevenBucks Offer----------------------------
3. The Lighter Side of Life #1
From the book "Disorder in the Court", reportedly an actual exchange
in a court case.
Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for blood pressure?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for breathing?
A: No.
Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the
autopsy?
A: No.
Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Q: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
A: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practising law
somewhere.
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4. Save $97 on This New Report: "The New Age Work At Home Plan"
Jim Daniels has just released a brand new report, "The New Age Work At
Home Plan: Internet-Based Financial Independence in 10 Simple Steps"
Now, he's selling it for $97.00, but I've got a surprise for you.
Jim Daniels is generously allowing my subscribers to get it today at
no cost.
Just go to:
Free ReportIMPORTANT: You need to click the Gold Key near the bottom of the page
to bypass the order form and save $97.
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5. Guest Article: "The OTO Strategy Uncovered"
by Jim Daniels
Chances are, you've seen the "OTO" strategy in action. It's becoming quite popular at marketing related sites, and it is even making the leap to websites in other niches.
Today I want to explain why it is so popular and show you some examples of just how effective it can be. If you're marketing online, you owe it to yourself to read today's article ...
First let me explain exactly what the OTO strategy is ...
OTO stands for One Time Offer.
This "one time offer" idea was explained to me by Mike Filsaime in his Butterfly Marketing Package. While reading his manual I saw that it could work, but I was not fully sold on the idea until I saw it in action.
My first experienced with the OTO was as an affiliate. One day I got an email from a fellow marketer named Shawn Casey, inviting me to give away his "Business in a Box." I owed him a favor and I figured giving a gift away would be an easy way to repay him, plus it might help my subscribers at the same time.
So I sent a message to my subscribers that included my affiliate link where they could grab the free gift. As they grabbed their gift from Shawn's site, they were presented with a one-time offer on one of Shawn's business packages. The package was quite extensive and a bargain at his asking price of about a hundred bucks.
I thought nothing more of the message I sent other than it may have helped some of my subscribers, and I returned the favor I owed Shawn.
A month later I was shocked when I received a check for a little over $5,000 in commissions from Shawn. It was from the OTO site. That day my eyes were opened to the power of the OTO.
Needless to say I decided right then that I'd try the strategy myself some day.
That occasion came just a few months later. I had been working on a new ebook/special report that I knew was going to be a real hit. Rather than sell it, I decided it would make a perfect "front-end gift" for my own OTO.
(That's the real key to success with the OTO strategy. You need a product or service with a perceived value that is so great, anyone would be crazy to pass up a chance at grabbing it for free.)
Once my book was complete, instead of launching it, I got busy putting together a great one-time offer that would tie in well with the book.
(Another key to OTO success is matching the front-end product to the offer. It must be directly related and even more irresistible than the giveaway product!)
Since I'd been doing business online for nearly ten years I had developed quite a collection of books and software tools. I decided to update all my products, digitize my books and CD's and package everything into a Giant Do-It-Yourself Wealth Building Kit. The kit would be priced FAR below what it would cost to get each item
individually, so it should make the perfect one-time offer.
When I was done I loaded everything up on my work-at-home-site.com -- a site I had not done much with since building it a few years back. I tweaked the presentation and had my friend Heather Colman create some fantastic images depicting the new and revamped products. I then increased the value of my OTO further by adding more books and related products from my friend Scott Brinter. Finally, I opened a brand new
affiliate program for the launch.
(Letting others make money from your site is a big key to success online, and a powerful affiliate force helps an OTO site grow much faster than it could on it's own.)
Once it was all ready to go, I sent a test message to part of my subscriber list. I wanted to get a feel for whether this offer was any good or not. My answer came quickly when 15 orders arrived that day for the new Kit. And only 226 people had visited the site! That actually scared me a little. And it was just the beginning...
I launched the site the following week without any fanfare, hoopla or "anticipation build-up" period. Two weeks later it had racked up 723 sales and $101,256 in gross revenue.
Pretty effective web selling strategy, eh?
And those numbers were attained despite a server crash that knocked the site down for 22 hours during the peak traffic period. (I actually moved the site to a new host but that's a story for another day.)
Sure, that revenue is gross revenue, as affiliates made a good portion of those sales. (I'll be sending out some fat commission checks!) But it's still pretty impressive for a two week period.
Plus, the site is still generating sales and I have other JV partners who will be promoting it. What's more, since everything is all downloable, it requires less of my time than my other sites that ship hard goods.
So if you're wondering whether you should try the OTO strategy in your own business, my answer is yes. Give it a try. Give away a great product and immediately offer something else of great value, at a great price. That's really the formula in a nutshell. It seems so simple I wonder why nobody thought of it before!
Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you try this strategy ...
(1.) Be original. Try to do something unique with your site when using this strategy. As OTO's grow in popularity, the strategy's effectiveness will wane a bit. In other words, as people see more and more OTO's, the strategy simply will not work as well. That's normal, especially on the Internet. But if you run yours a bit differently, you'll avoid that problem. For example, I decided to have my visitors
click a "gold key" at my site to get my special report for free. That gave them something to act on and made it possible only for people who were directly referred by me or one of my affiliates, to get my report without paying.
(2.) Be ready to answer more email. You get more support requests than normal when you use this strategy. That's because some people quickly scan the site looking for the freebie and do not see where to get it at your offer page. Some of these people quickly decide they have to pay to get what was supposed to be free. Be ready to answer their requests explaining that you really DO have a giveaway product at the site and tell them how to retrieve it.
(3.) Use multiple payment gateways. If you setup and launch an effective OTO, with a truly irresistible offer, your sales can rise very rapidly. When sales volume increases rapidly it can raise red flags with payment processors. While my processor simply asked that I authorize a reserve account due to the high volume in sales, I've heard of other processors freezing processing in fear of fraudulent orders. That's why it's a good idea to spread your sales across a few processors such as a
merchant account or two, paypal and another processor such as 2checkout. That way you can continue processing orders if one gateway should give you problems.
(4.) Beware the bandwidth monster. While my own server's hard drive buckled during my launch, a more likely scenario for most businesses is bandwidth issues. If you are delivering downloadable products and you sell a ton of them, figure out how much bandwidth you'll use ahead of time. That way you won't be hit with a huge bill, and they can be huge, from your hosting company for bandwidth overages. I decided to avoid that by hosting my largest download (a full 170mb software program) off my server. When my customers download it they get it from fileburst.com - a great place to serve downloads inexpensively and effectively.
(5.) The OTO strategy works best when you have a subscriber list you can announce the site to. But even if you do not have a subscriber list of your own, you can get some great numbers by signing on a few good JV partners. Promise them you'll reciprocate their efforts in the near future and keep your promise. Then remember to make growing your subscriber list a priority at your OTO site. In fact, make it a
requirement for people who grab your freebie, to sign up for your opt-in list. That way you'll grow a customer list AND a subscriber list at the same time!
That wraps up today's article.
Jim Daniels - JDD Publishing Co.
P.S. Did you miss the Special Report? If so, come grab it for free by clicking the gold key at my new work at:
Free ReportYou'll also get to see my (Jim's) own implementation of the OTO strategy
up close and personal.
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Michael's sidenote: There's a great script that's available for managing One Time Offers and ensuring each prospect can only see them once. It's from John Delavedera and you can get it here:
http://www.e-bizresources.com/delavera/oto.html
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6. The Lighter Side of Life #2
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read.
Groucho Marx
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7. Grow Your Business With Video.
Are you thinking about using video on your website? It has proven to increase response, but if you do it wrong you'll be wasting your time, you could even do more harm than good!
Now you don't need to worry about that.
Dan Dennis (the professional video guy) has just released a package that shows you how to multiply your business with video...
http://www.e-bizresources.com/webvideotactics
Not only that but he is offering Resell Rights included :)
http://www.e-bizresources.com/webvideotactics
Don't waste any time because he is offering a HUGE discount now and he's limiting sales of the package...
http://www.e-bizresources.com/webvideotactics
Enjoy!
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8. Do You Want to Solve the Traffic Equation?
My colleague, Louis Burleson, is offering a great price on a new ebook called "Traffic Equation: Understanding the Science of Getting Traffic to Your Site."
It gives a run down on how the Search Engines work and an introduction to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
It's only $5 and comes with a customer only 100% commission affiliate program, plus 1000 credits at ViralTextExchange.com
You can get it here:
Traffic Equation---------------------------
9. Tell Me What You Think!
I'd love to hear what you think of this issue of the "e-BizResources Update" newsletter. And of course, if you'd like to share any suggestions for upcoming issues, please send those, too!
Just e-mail me at:
Suggestions Form---------------------------
That's all for now.
I hope you get a lot out of these gifts, articles and offers and I'll be in touch again fairly soon.
Remember that no matter what you learn from them, it's only useful if you put it into action.
Thanks and best wishes,
Michael Beauchamp
www.e-bizresources.com
P.S. Please forward this to any of your friends and associates that you think may enjoy it or benefit from it.
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