I was watching the crazy late night infomercials yesternight… Like I always do. Just that all the time they have been totally invisible, and there playment (Is that a word?) in my bedroom is because of the sheer fact that I love keeping my big, larger than life sized TV on. It might sound weird, but having that big lump of LCD shout into my face actually turns me on. Yes, it does. Of man! I am kinda embarrassed to admit this…
So, what happened yesterday? Well, whatever it was, it completely changed my perspective on how I understand reverse engineering. I thought that these big advertisers were creating ads that are radically different from OUR ads (The online copy ads). Now, its a known fact that if there’s an ad campaign on PPC that has been running for a while, then it muyst be a profitable one as no one would like to run a losing campaign, right?
Well, why do we forget the same thing with TV ads? Or the infomercials?
For me its simply because I used to think that these guys are not profiting kon the front end, and maybe they have a very sophisticated sales funnel in place that adds to their confidence level as maybe they are making multiple sales at the point of first sale and then following up with a lot of marketing materials thereafter.
But, that’s simply not the truth.
The truth is- A company selling chocolates just doesn’t have the sort of backends we marketers do. They are just not going to sell $1000 chocolates. It won’t work. PERIOD.
What customer do you thinmk would go out and buy a 1000 dollar choc?
Exactly…
So what’s my point here?
My point is that even though these big guys do not have the opportunity to sell as much stuff as we do… In terms of number of products offered (IM’ers can literally get 10 products created in a day. I have- so I know), in terms of backends (Remember the last $2000 information product? Great. Remember the last $1000 chocolate? Neither do I.). So if they are able to hire Jessica Alba for their ads and still profit from only their tiny $2 sales (With no upsells or backend possibilities at all), then why aren’t you? Your conversions are more like 1% where there conversions would be great at 0.01% … And that kind of ads would set records. Just doesn’t happen. Why are they profiting more than you?
There are multiple factors….
1. Mass Appeal
Problem: This is a corner stone of their success. While we need targeted traffic for our products (Not every 40 year old has arthritis), their products have a HUGE, gigantic appeal.
What this means? This means you have two options… Either to get out of your tiny niches and start thinking large markets, or even better, larger segments of audiences (Kids like candies, and so you have an audience of billions of people if you are selling candies). Or… the right way… (That’s the solution below)
The solution:- Market segmenting. If you have a book on cooking for all occassions, and if you are charging $27 for it, then STOP selling it. It’s just too generic info. Or at least you have positioned it to be too generic. Instead, what you should do is- Segment your markets. A book on “How to cook” for young girls, a book on “How to impress your girlfriend with ___ ” for teenager guys, another book “How to cook a Japanese Sushi for your husband” for housewives, and so on. This way you can target by demographics and get a book rolling for every section of society (classified by age, sex, occupations, hobbies, etc.). And then sell each of these. The best part is- Its easier to write such books. Since you have your customer in mind, you know EXACTLY what to write to please them and so refund rates will be significantly lower. Its easier for the customer too– They are getting just the info they want. And they will pay a higher price for it since its actually saving them the time and trouble of warping through the pages. But what makes this strategy extremely irresistible is that you have the option of parallel advertising. For example- Lets take the book called “How to impress your girlfriend with cooking ….”, you know who your target audience is, and where they are hanging out. So you can just do a placement targeting ad campaign on dating forums. And you do not need searchers looking for the book.
So there you go- you now have the first secret to success.
2. XXX
I know you are excited for more, so here it is…
Hi. I am Lakshay… An E-Business consultant and Info Product Marketer. I also love copywriting and specialze in that. I run several membership sites online providing content, services and products for online businesses and training and services for offline businesses. I also have quite a lot of offline business owners as my clients whom I have helped get online and also successfully reduce their advertising costs to one half while increasing the number of sales rapidly. And 99% of those people have just these words after they see what we could do for them.. \\\”Lakshay, I\\\’m speechless\\\”. Hi. I am Lakshay… An E-Business consultant and Info Product Marketer. I also love copywriting and specialze in that. I run several membership sites online providing content, services and products for online businesses and training and services for offline businesses. I also have quite a lot of offline business owners as my clients whom I have helped get online and also successfully reduce their advertising costs to one half while increasing the number of sales rapidly. And 99% of those people have just these words after they see what we could do for them.. “Lakshay, I’m speechless”. I’m not saying this brag and boast. In fact I can’t… Here’s why… Read more from this author
