Author Archive | Johnny

PLR or private label rights don’t always enjoy the best reputation. Most marketers figure PLR was written by someone who either doesn’t speak English well or has no background in the subject matter. Oftentimes the PLR is cobbled together with a lousy sales letter with amateur graphics and sold as a package to unsuspecting marketers.

Is that how you view PLR? If so, it’s no wonder. Many PLR packages aren’t worth the money which is why potential buyers are leery of new offers. But there is a way to still sell boatloads of PLR to marketers, and it works like this:

Before you sell PLR licenses, sell the product as it is. Launch the product on its own without rights. Sell it to your list, put it on JVZoo or wherever you want. Make no mention that you will be selling the PLR rights to it, not even as an upsell.

The idea is to let it stand on its own. Now it’s tried and tested, there is no question it sells, and it stands apart from every other PLR offer out there because it’s proven.

Wait a couple of weeks and then offer the rights to it. Often the people who purchased the product from you in the first place will be the first people to buy the rights, too, because they’ve seen the product and they value it.

If you want to sell the PLR licenses for a higher price, then simply restrict the number of people who can purchase a license. And you won’t need to convince anyone that your PLR is of great quality because it will already be a proven seller.

We talk a lot about storytelling in marketing, but what’s the meaning of it all? With one simple story – the right story – you can turn an unsuccessful business into a success, and a successful business into a behemoth of customers and sales.

Stories are 22 times more memorable than facts and figures alone. And our neural activity increases five times when listening to a story. Storytelling lights up the sensory cortex in the brain, allowing the listener to feel, hear, taste and even smell the story.

And because consumer attention is the ultimate commodity, it’s more important than ever to tell the right story.

Since the best stories are often not your own, Land Rover tells their customers’ stories. They find people who depend upon the Land Rover vehicle – such as a team of local transport drivers in the Himalayas – and share their remarkable stories.

IKEA uses puns and humor while sharing stories of how their products improve the private lives of their customers. They shared funny stories of how their products are used in the bedrooms and bathrooms of customers with tremendous success.

Sanlam Bank educated South Africans on the importance of saving money by filming the trials and tribulations of a young professional who got paid only in rand coins. These coins were worth about 7 cents in US dollars or .34 pounds sterling. Combining the story telling with valuable personal finance advice earned the video series 900,000 South African views on YouTube and generated 74 million media impressions.

Here’s how to get into the right mindset to uncover your own story. And guess what? It’s in the form of a story…

This guy is walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, “Hey you, can you help me out?” The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

A priest comes along, and the guy shouts up, “Father, I’m down in this hole, can you help me out?” The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

Then a friend walks by. “Hey Joe, it’s me, can you help me out?” And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, “Are you crazy? Now we’re both down here!” The friend says, “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before, and I know the way out.”

Be the friend to your customers. Jump in the hole with them. Let them know that you’ve been in that hole before, but you know the way out. Tell them your story, show them how it parallels their own story, and then show them the solution.

Would you like to know how the highest-ranking affiliates are making their sales?

Here’s how to find out:

Research the top selling evergreen products at places like JVZoo and Warrior Plus. See who is winning the leaderboard competitions and then get on their lists.

You might have to do a little Googling to locate their sites, blogs, squeeze pages or whatever, but it’s not that difficult.

Join their lists and then watch their emails.

You’ll see how they warm their lists as well as the exact email sequences they use to sell products.

Don’t copy their emails word for word, but do study them and figure out what makes them work. Then write your own.

You’ll have email sequences for all of the best evergreen products, written in styles that you already know convert. Plug them into your autoresponder and make sales!

I once knew a marketer who wouldn’t lower his prices no matter what. He lived in constant terror that old customers would be mad that the course they bought last month or last year for $197 now cost $97. Heck, they might even demand a refund of the price difference. I’m pretty sure he imagined that every one of his customers was sitting at the computer just waiting for the price to drop so they could complain.

News flash: They weren’t.

And I’ve known plenty of marketers who wouldn’t raise their prices. Again, they were afraid of angering customers and losing business.

But Dan Kennedy’s first advice to almost every business owner is to immediately raise their prices. Most of his clients balk at this and some are so opposed they even throw a fit. But Dan wears them down until they acquiesce, and guess what happens? The sky doesn’t fall down, customers don’t disappear and the business starts making a whole lot more money.

As marketers we bring our own psychological ‘money baggage’ to the business. All those things we were told as kids about money can still cause us problems, and it’s usually our business that pays the price.

Next time you want to raise or lower your prices, you might refer to this list to find a way that makes both you and your customers comfortable with the process.

1: Timing. If you want to permanently raise prices, first make sure that your customers are happy with your product or service. Use the good feedback, reviews and testimonials when you explain your new pricing.

2: Sound the Alarm. Before you raise your prices across the board, consider telling EVERYONE that it’s going to happen. While some marketers prefer to make as little noise about price increases as possible, other marketers take advantage of the situation by telling the world that if they want the lower price, NOW is the time to jump in.

3: Add or Subtract Something. You can justify raising or lowering your price by adding or subtracting something from your offer. Maybe you add another product – such as an older course you stopped selling – to the mix to justify an increased price. Or if your product’s sales are dropping, you can remove one of the bonuses – such as coaching – and lower the price to make it more accessible to everyone.

4: Bundle. Offer discounts if they purchase more than one item.

5: Play with Numbers. Let’s say you sell a tangible product. You offer 10 units of a product for $100 but you want to raise the price to $115. Add two more, different-sized packages such as a 5 pack for $75 and a 3 pack for $50. This makes the 10 pack look like a good deal, even at the higher price.

6: Add fees. This only works with some product categories, such as gym memberships, mortgages, cars and so forth. But it can be possible to add in a ‘fee’ for signing up. You can call it an administration fee, set up fee or whatever you choose. If fees are standard in your industry, then it’s certainly an option.

I’m not fond of fees, but they can be especially effective as incentives when you offer to waive the fee if they join today. It’s like having a sale without having a sale, if you know what I mean. Yes, that is a gray area, but something to think about.

7: Improve the Offer. Do you want to sell your $197 course for $297? Update it and add some new content, making the old version look obsolete. Let the buyers of the old version know they can upgrade to the new version for whatever fee you choose (in this case, $0 to $100).

8: Change Sizes. If your product’s size can be adjusted – more or less of a product or service – then you can change the price accordingly.

9: Schedule Price Increases. If you schedule your price increases in advance – such as every January or July – and you let customers know about your schedule, they won’t be surprised or upset.

10: Target a Different Demographic. If you find you need to significantly raise your prices, consider targeting a different customer base altogether. For example, maybe you’re helping yoga instructors with their marketing and you realize they don’t make much money and thus can’t pay you much money. Switch to plumbers, dentists, chiropractors or lawyers and you can likely double or triple your prices without doing any extra work.

Last thoughts: If you’re raising your prices, it’s best to plan ahead. It doesn’t turn out well if you tell your customers you’re going to raise prices just once this year only to discover you have to do it a second time before the year is over.

If you lower prices, such as when you have a sale, then there might be a previous buyer or two who notices and sends you a disgruntled email. Write back and offer them a free electronic product of their choice. It costs you nothing and they will likely be happy that you responded to their concern.

Let me preface this by reminding you that the greatest selling tool in all the world isn’t the internet, or sales letters or sales videos or even word of mouth. It’s stories.

Stories sell like nothing else because we are hard wired to listen to and love stories. It’s in our genes. There was a time when storytelling could literally save our lives. Think of primitive man coming back from a hunt and telling everyone in camp the story of how ‘Bob’ was killed by a saber tooth tiger in the sixth valley to the south.

Do you think anyone would venture into the sixth valley to the south after that? No way, because they knew the story of how Bob got killed by the tiger who lives there.

Now then, here’s how to get experts to practically write your blog posts for you AND get them to do it in story form:

Ask them a question that invites a personal story.

For example, your blog is about investing in commodities. This week you want a blog post on pork futures (I’m making this stuff up right now) so you send out an email to every commodities expert you know of, asking them about their most memorable pork futures story. It doesn’t matter if they made or lost money, you just want to hear their story. A dozen of them write back and you put those stories together into a post.

You’re doing a few things here:

First, you’re getting experts to weigh in on an interesting question, which means you get to ‘borrow’ on their credibility, making you look good to your readers and customers.

Second, you’re doing this in story form, and since people love stories, they are coming back to your blog every week for more of these stories.

Third, you’re building a relationship with these experts. Sure, some of them won’t respond to you, but others will be eager to share their stories. And down the road, who knows what might happen. They could end up promoting your product to their lists, or asking you to do a JV, or even becoming good friends with you.

Fourth, blog posts like these tend to get shared on social media which brings in more traffic.

Fifth, your experts might also share your posts with their followers. “Hey, my hog futures story is featured in this post, check it out.”

The trick here is to phrase your questions in such a way that it invites personal stories.

And don’t forget to ask your readers the same questions. Sometimes it’s the everyday guy or gal you don’t know who has the best story – the one that makes your article go viral or even get referenced on other major sites.