Posted by: Clayton Makepeace
September 8, 2008
Issue #498

Lessons Learned

Stuff we’re doing to make an upcoming product launch as successful as possible —
and that could help you hit your next online promo
out of the park …

Dear Business-Builder,

It’s no secret that direct response marketing gives us a huge advantage:  The opportunity to scientifically measure response to every part of a sales campaign and to constantly refine and improve our headlines, copy and offer.  And that, in turn, empowers us to drive our response, revenues and profits ever-higher.

So, unsurprisingly, as a 37-year veteran of the direct response wars, I guess you could say I’ve become addicted to post-mortems; studying not only the numbers I produce, but also the thought process behind both successful and not-so successful launches.

That’s coming in mighty handy today.  Because right now, I’m just a few days away from launching a new product.  This one is a first for me.  It’s not a copywriting or marketing product for my Total Package friends.  Nor is it a promotion I’m creating for a client.

This one is for me; the first “house product” my agency, ResponseInk, has ever introduced. And boy, are we learning a lot!  In fact, my guess is, a lot of what we’re learning could put a bunch of money into your pocket …

Now, I can’t tell you much about the product quite yet.  That’ll have to wait until next week when the sales pages are live online and available for your review.  Suffice it to say it’s a health product; a natural supplement.

So I figure it could be helpful for you copywriters and for you business owners and marketers to think about some of the things we’re doing to help make our new baby as healthy and successful as possible …

Nine ways to spot a likely winner
before you invest weeks of your life
and/or a not-so-small fortune promoting it

Needless to say, I thought long and hard before I decided to choose this product for our launch.  I had some very clear prerequisites in mind — conditions I’m hoping will also help you select more successful products to promote …

First and foremost, I wanted a product that really works.  That meant a product with an active ingredient that has been proven to help people in studies conducted by scores of major medical institutions and that offered me tons of testimonials and case studies to use in my promotion.

Second, I wanted something new; something that hasn’t been widely promoted before.  That would give me the opportunity to instantly establish market dominance in my niche before my successful promotions caused an army of competitors to flood into the marketplace.

Third, I was looking for a product that was proprietary; hopefully a patented formulation of two or more substances that competitors could not duplicate.

Fourth, in order to attract the largest number of prospects possible, I wanted a product that does more than just one thing; something that addresses not just one, but several of our most common health problems.

Fifth, in order to create intense interest in my product, I wanted it to address health conditions that scare us the most and/or that have the greatest negative impact on our enjoyment of life.

And sixth, I wanted a product that has something to offer folks who are already suffering with one of these common health problems and that also offers others hope of preventing the kinds of problems we all have nightmares about.

There was more, of course.  I knew from the outset that my product must also …

• Be reasonably priced relative to the health benefits it offers …
• Offer a significant-enough mark-up to enable me to rapidly expand my marketing budget as the sales begin to roll in, and …
• Provide maximum potential for on-going sales to existing customers and also create the opportunity to sell other complementary products to them.

Fortunately for us, we found a product that meets all of these requirements.  In spades.

How about you?  Do you have a system for identifying the products that are most likely to create a grand-slam for you?  If not, our little list below might be a great way to start your own checklist:

• Does it work?  Are there plenty of third-party endorsements, case studies and testimonials to bring credibility to your promotion?
• Is it new?  Does it have news value?
• Is it impossible or at least difficult for competitors to duplicate?
• Does it provide more than one valuable benefit?
• Is the result the product delivers desperately desired by prospects?
• Does it enfranchise people who are looking to both prevent and to solve a problem?
• Is the price reasonable relative to the benefits the product delivers?
• Is the mark-up sufficient to support a rapidly growing marketing campaign?
• Does the product come with a raft of related products that will allow you to immediately begin generating additional revenue from your new customers?

The Prime Directive:
Do it on the Cheap

In marketing as in life, there is never such a thing as a free lunch.

Direct mail, TV and other media are costly — but they give you unlimited potential to instantly put your product and sales message in front of tens of millions of your best prospects.

The Internet, on the other hand, lets you launch a product with very little up-front marketing expense — but response rates are a fraction of what they are in other media and it takes much more time to put your message in front of millions of prospects.

Nevertheless, this is a launch.  And my philosophy has always been that launches should be as self-capitalizing as possible.  That means I invest plenty of skull-sweat but limited capital at the outset.  Then, as the sales begin to roll in, I re-invest my revenues to grow my sales campaign; first, online and then, when the marketing war chest has grown, offline.

Plus, I’ve come to appreciate how driving low-cost traffic to an online sales page gives me the opportunity to refine it — get it razor sharp — before investing fifty or sixty cents per piece on a direct mail promotion.  When you’re contemplating spending a hundred thousand smackeroos (or more) on your first direct mail test, knowing your copy is solid is great insurance against loss.

So in this case, our strategy was clear:  We’d conquer the online health community first, and then set our sights on other media.

Now, I’d like to be able to tell you that we’re completely re-inventing the entire online marketing model for this launch.  But frankly, that wouldn’t be very smart.  After all; this is a new product and this is new sales copy.  That’s already two variables.  Adding a third — attempting to innovate in terms of online marketing strategy — wouldn’t be prudent.

So our basic strategy is straightforward:  Use every low-cost and no-cost opportunity available to drive traffic to a sales page.

That said, we are doing some cool stuff — both in terms of our messaging and our traffic drivers — that may spark some ideas for you …

Five things to consider for your next online campaign

As I mentioned earlier, I’ll give you a sneak peek at the sales page next week.  In the meantime, though, here are some things we’re doing that you may want to consider …

1. Try taking a modular approach to your copy:  Like many health products, our new supplement addresses more than one health condition.  Five, actually:  Heart attack, stroke, diabetes, arthritis and cancer.

The problem is, if we tried to cram all of that into our headline and lead, it would blur the vision of our sales page — not to mention, raise credibility questions in our prospects’ minds.

So we planned from the beginning to write our sales page in modular way:  Lead by addressing a single health problem, fully dimensionalize how the product addresses that condition, then move onto the next.

That gives us the ability to use this same sales copy to produce not one but four separate sales pages — one with a beginning focus on each major health condition — simply by juggling the order of the copy.

And that, in turn, gives us the opportunity to use targeted PPC and other paid ads to call out our best prospects by the health condition they’re most concerned about … to measure the relative difference in cost per lead, conversion rates and return on investment … and to focus our ongoing media investment on the conditions that produce the greatest return.

And of course, it gives us a big head-start on our upcoming direct mail campaign — the next step in taking this product to the world.  Before we lick the first stamp, we’ll know which of these leads is most effective at grabbing prospects’ attention and generating max readership.

2. Don’t forget the other 5.7 billion consumers on the planet:  Sure — there are 300 million Americans — and since every one of them has a body, 100% of them could be helped by our product.

That said, though, not everyone buys supplements; so I figure there are only about 60 or 80 million qualified prospects for our product here in the States.  Not bad — but that’s only one eighteenth — just 5.3% — of the 1.5 billion people who are now online around the world.

That’s why, as we speak, our pages are also being translated into Chinese and Japanese — and will soon also be popping up around the Web in many other languages as well.

Think:  How many prospects are you turning away with your English-only sales pages? 

3. Go for a million eyeballs on Day One:  Now, as you’d expect, I’m not having any wim-wams about the sales copy on our pages.  There’s not a question in my mind that it makes ordering the product a no-brainer.

But no matter how solid the copy is, it won’t do us any good unless people see it.  That means we have to create traffic — big traffic — beginning on Day One.

The quickest, easiest way to do that was to make a few phone calls; chat up friends who have e-mail lists and ask them to tell their people about our “free report” that introduces the product.

What’s that you say?  You don’t know anybody who has e-mail lists or who’d be willing to drive traffic to your sales pages in return for a portion of the revenues they generate for you?

My point exactly:  If you’re serious about building a business online and growing in quickly, the key word is “networking!”

That means seizing every opportunity to make friends with other online entrepreneurs:  Asking to interview them for your e-zine.  Helping them when they have a product to sell.  Attending every seminar and conference on Internet marketing, hanging out in the bar and buying drinks for anyone with an e-mail list.  The works.

Then, when it’s time to launch your product, a few quick phone calls can guarantee you significant traffic right out of the gate.

That done, the next step is to make your sales program as affiliate-friendly as possible.  And by affiliates, I mean the big boys — the professional affiliates who eat, sleep, live and breathe traffic and who, if properly incentivized, are capable of stampeding millions of prospects to your sales pages.

Here, once again, personal contact is a key.  Also:  Right at the outset, you’ll need to create a website just for your affiliates — a site that presents your product, your compensation plan and that allows affiliates to download links and sales materials in minutes so they can begin making money with you.

4. Traffic you never pay for is always the best:  Just because you don’t have to pay in advance for traffic sent by affiliates and joint venture partners doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay for it at all. 

Those 35% to 50% commissions on sales are a significant expense — a media expense, if you think about it — and every penny you pay for media is a penny you can’t spend ramping up your sales campaign tomorrow.

Now, I’m no search engine expert — but I have noticed one thing:  The Web address — the URL — you use for your sales pages has a LOT to do with how highly the search engines will rank you.  Maybe even more than the quality or quantity of relevant information on your site.

I learned this the hard way.  See, we have thousands of pages of copywriting advice on this site — more than just about any other site in the world.  And we’ve spent forever trying to optimize them for the search engines. 

But if you Google “copywriting,” we don’t show up for pages and pages.  Instead, you get page after page of sites that offer only a tiny fraction of the content we do … many of which have done no SEO work at all … and most of which have far less traffic than we do.

The big difference?  Unlike us, almost all of them have the word “copy” or “copywriting” or “copywriter” in their URLs.

Lesson learned.  So instead of posting our sales page at just one URL, we’re posting it at dozens of them — each one using a likely search term relating to a health condition that our product addresses as part of the address.

5. Declare an all-out traffic war:  OK — so your JV partners are giving you a big boost of traffic out of the gate.  You’re doing everything in your power to look your seductive best to super-affiliates.  Now what?

Well, now it’s time to unlimber your checkbook; begin paying up-front to drive traffic to your sales pages.

That means you’ll either have to become a PPC expert yourself, or hire one.  Unless you have plenty of time on your hands to learn the finer points of PPC advertising — not to mention to manage a PPC campaign day-to-day — I suggest you hire someone who’s up to their eyeballs in this stuff.  A top expert in this area will save you a ton of both time and money in the long haul.

It also means you’ll have to do some serious research.  Where are your most successful competitors spending their money online?  Subscribe to e-zines that are read by your best prospects; monitor who’s running ads in those e-zines and who’s sponsoring stand-alone e-mails to that list.

Go to every website that’s visited by people that are most likely to buy your product.  Watch who’s sponsoring the banners on those sites.

Well that’s what we’re doing … what are you doing?  What suggestions do you have for making our launch even more successful?

I’m all ears!

Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,

Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

P.S.  Speaking of launches — care to see how a past master does it?  I’ve been working with my pal Rich Schefren on a report that blows the doors off of anything I’ve ever seen when it comes to ensuring the success of online promotions.

You should follow everything Rich is doing now for three important reasons: 

First, everything Rich is doing to create buzz around this soon-to-be-released report is first-rate:  A classic case study of how to do it right online. 

Second, the report itself will revolutionize your thinking about online marketing and give you a massive advantage over every competitor you have. 

And third, the product that Rich will ultimately roll out is absolutely indispensable to anyone who’s looking for a way to rocket their online success.

It all starts with a FREE teleseminar at 2:00 tomorrow.  Check it out HERE.

Looking for resources related to this article? Try some of these.

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11 Comments »

1. Comment by chris pirkey — September 8, 2008 @ 5:11 pm

   I don’t have a website yet, but I will be getting one soon.

   This is a super article (as all of yours are!), and I thank you for doing it.  I especially want to thank you for printing it vs. having it in a video, webpod, etc., as I assemiliate info easier from the written word than from any other way.  Many times lately I have missed important info because of my viewing, etc., preferences.  Please continue to provide people like me with choices such as printed articles on such important topics.

   Chris

2. Comment by Caleb Osborne — September 8, 2008 @ 5:20 pm

   That sounds like a good plan Clayton.

    I especially like the modular approach to copy and getting it translated into different languages… something I’ve thought of before… but seen only a few companies ever do.

   Later!
   Caleb

3. Comment by John Anderson — September 8, 2008 @ 7:06 pm

   Clayton you are so generous with your time and energy. Thank you.  I am doing a product launch over the next month and that process will definitely give me a deeper more intelligent way of thinking about - and implementing - the launch.

   You have done it…AGAIN (Exceeded expectations that is…)

4. Comment by Marcelino Latorre — September 8, 2008 @ 8:08 pm

   THAT WAS COOLER THAN A POLAR BEARS TOENAIL MISTER- THANKS FOR YOUR SPIRT

5. Comment by Marcelino Latorre — September 8, 2008 @ 8:11 pm

   That was a slam Clayton as  always right on time. 

6. Comment by Mike — September 9, 2008 @ 1:30 am

   Um! Clayton. About SEO. Be carefully not to jump out of the pot and into the fire. Google doesn’t look to kindly on mirrored sites or multiple copies of the same site with different URLs. Google looks at this practice as "Spamming the search engines". Or at least, that’s my understanding and I heard it from more than one SEO specialist. Perhaps look into it a little more before diving in. Best.

7. Comment by Jeremy Reeves — September 9, 2008 @ 8:39 am

   That’s some great info!

   I can’t wait to study the sales page you come out with. I’m in the process now of writing for a health supplement so I’ll be sure to get some ideas from your copy…I’m sure it’ll be printed out sitting right at my desk so I can study it until my brain starts to hurt.

   

   Jeremy Reeves
   http://www.GetClientsIn20.com

8. Comment by Gerard LeBlond — September 9, 2008 @ 10:22 am

   Tactic of creating sales message in more than 1 language is an extremely powerful method for getting more customers… one ignored by too many marketers.

9. Comment by Timur Mourtazov — September 9, 2008 @ 11:34 am

   Thank you Clayton!

   I would love to give you more ideas on launching a product, however I don’t think I can given all your experience and expertise.

   Instead, maybe I can give back to you by helping you sell your product in Russia.

   First, let me take this opportunity to tell you that really YOU and YOUR TEAM have been giving me inspiration that I need… that we all need doing what we do day in and day out.

   Now back to Russian market.  It is a huge multi billion dollar market for health products and it is has been waking  up to direct response  very rapidly in the last couple years. Now, as we speak, people are buying hundreds of millions of products online in Russia.  I know because I am originally Russian, I regularly follow the trends over there. I  speak language fluently, I go there often and know the culture.

   Actually, right now I am working with one of my clients to help them sell the products in Russia. You know this client because I approached you with this project through Jackie and Wendy. Magic Peeling exfoliating glove. We had a couple discussions with Jackie and were supposed to have a conversation with you but it has been postponed and now I know why. You are launching your own new product. Thats so exciting!

   Sincerely I wish you good luck with your new product ,  I am sure though it will have nothing to do with luck with all the your experience and skills and preparation that is going into it.

   PS: By the way Jackie is doing a really great job! I promised her I will tell you that when I have an opportunity.  She is really great!

   Thanks again for everything.

   Timur Mourtazov
   http://www.oneplusone.info

10. Comment by Clayton Makepeace — September 9, 2008 @ 2:43 pm

    You’re right Mike — that’s why we have 32 satellite sites that link to our main site.  No dupe content that way. 

    I did check this with several top SEO guys and world-class super affiliates and this is what they suggested we do.

    Cheers!

11. Comment by Steven — September 12, 2008 @ 2:41 pm

    Can you recommend a top notch PPC Expert