Monday, February 27, 2006

The "one time special offer" phenomenon

Dear friend,

today I'm going to briefly touch the "one time special offer" phenomenon that's been going on for some time now.

You probably saw such offers several times as they become very popular in the last 7 months or so. You usually get one of those when you sign up for a free download of a product, sign up for almost anything free or after you've purchased some product.

Why are such offers so popular?
Well, you probably already know the answer to this question... because they are so very effective. Especially the ones where one sells a product and then after the person has purchased it, as a "thank you for buying" the customer gets offered another great product for "a fraction of it's normal cost".
It also works great for free sign ups where a vendor provides a free product or service and after the sign up the customer gets a "one time special offer".
"You will never see this offer again..." is what's usually written there.
Why do such offers work?
They work because they very effectively take advantage of human psychology. There are at least two very powerful "psychological triggers" involved:
  • Law of consistency
  • Fear of loss

Law of consistency

When a person has already bought something from you or signed up for something you provide, it's hard to say "no" to that special offer. It would be like contradicting themselves and no one likes to do that. If you make the offer really special, there will be very few who don't buy what you offer -- as opposed to just having the offer flat out there in the beginning.

Fear of loss

Now this is the most powerful drive that helps making a buying decision. Fear of loss is a much, much greater motivator than possibility of gain. Thus if the customer has this great offer, he or she is afraid to loose it if they don't buy. This is why a "one time special offer" is so powerful -- it's now or never... and majority of people will choose now!

For more such techniques, follow this link: The science of Influence (a book by Kevin Hogan, Psy. D.). I very warmly recommend this book. The link will take you to Amazon's site where you can read more on the book and see the customer reviews.

An example...

Follow this link: Underground interviews by Ewen Chia

Thank you for reading. I hope this gave you an idea or two. Again, this method can be a great means to make many "back-end sales" and increase your profits. Just imagine... with such an offer you can turn a free surfer into a customer or a $47 customer into a $64 customer! Not bad, is it :-)

Have a great day.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Viral marketing ideas

Hi, how are you today?

I'm fine although the weather isn't too great here. Today I'd like to share with you some ideas on viral marketing.

You probably know by now that one of the best ways to get high numbers of quality traffic to your web site is via viral marketing.

Viral marketing is in essence "word of mouth advertising". So in order to have a great viral marketing campaign, you must first make sure you have the following:

  • a newsworthy web site -- think "Would I want to tell my friends about this?"
  • quality product or service
  • a way for people to spread the news faster and to make them want to -- a reward etc.

After you've established the above, you can go about creating your viral marketing campaigns. Here I'll give you some ideas.

Tell a friend script

One way is to simply install a tell a friend script to your web site. This is one of the not so good strategies, but it still works. So why not try it.

Who else do you know...

For some people it works great to put a tell a friend script to their "Thank you page" after people sign up for the newsletter. There you simply put a large heading saing "Who else do you know would be interested in this newsletter?" You can sweeten the pot with an added bonus if they tell three friends about your web site.

Resell rights

Why not sell resell or master resell rights for your ebook to people... In the ebook you could put your web site's URL and description.

Viral reports

These are good, but resell rights books work better. Anyway, you could create a 5 -- 10 page brandable report and give it away. People can change the links to their affiliate links and will have a reason more to give it away to others. Make sure that the report is of real value!

Put a funny video on your site

Funny videos are probably one of the fastest ways to get a lot of traffic. You have to know however that it will probably be much less targeted than with other ways.

Affiliate program

Don't forget to have your own affiliate program (or use services that allow them -- clickbank etc.). It is probably the best way to get a lot of free targeted traffic that's willing to buy your products.

OK, these are some great ideas you can implement right now. It's much less complicated than you think. Just put some effort into it.

Have a great day!

Monday, February 13, 2006

As promised -- LIMITED TIME, HURRY

Hi again...

As promised, I'll give you two ebooks to download for free. The deal is only good for the next 24 hours. After that it's closed.

You don't have to opt in or anything. Simply right-click on the links and choose "Save Target As" and save it on your computer. The two books are in .exe format, but you will download them as .zip and will have to unzip them. You can use a free trial of Winzip to do that. It's very easy.

BONUS #1: Video ebook that will show you 10 steps to optimize your site for Google.

Right-click on the link and choose "Save Target As" to save the file on your computer.

>> 10 Google Steps Video Ebook (.zip file) -- Sorry, the offer expired. Check back soon for more similar offers.

BONUS #2: Ebook on Google Adsense for beginners.

Right-click on the link and choose "Save Target As" to save the file on your computer.

>> Adsense Guide (.zip file) -- Sorry, the offer expired. Check back soon for more similar offers.

EXTRA BONUS #3: MP3 Audio Course on Copywriting. A must have.

Right-click on the link and choose "Save Target As" to save the file on your computer.

>> Copywriting Course MP3 (.zip file) (33,1 MB) (Only 5 downloads and then this is gone!) -- Sorry, no longer available.

Go ahead, download, read, watch, listen and apply
Now that you have such powerful resources in your possession, apply what you learn and never quit! You will make it.
Have a great day and hope you really succeed!
Respectfully,
Blaz Banic
P.S. In case that you can't download the products immediately, please try again later. Thank you and good luck.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Great news!

Hi, today is a very special day for me and I really want to share it with you, so read on...

When I woke up this morning something was different. Something I couldn't put my finger on. But in just a few seconds it hit me... OH YEAH, I GRADUATED YESTERDAY!

That's right. Three years of work finally paid off. Yesterday I successfully defended my graduation thesis. I am now an University graduate in biology.

What does this have to do with internet marketing and where's the great news for me, Blaz?
Well, although my thesis has nothing directly to do with internet marketing, I did however, during the whole process of my education, learn the value and the traits of real scientific research and analysis. And that, my friend, is worth gold in internet marketing and in marketing in general.
I learned that a single simple observation without proper analysis and taking other factors in consideration can lead to drastically wrong conclusions and can bring a company to it's knees.
When observing and analyzing something, you must always ask yourself some basic questions:
  • Do I know exactly how I'll come to my results?
  • Am I using the right method?
  • What other methods are out there?
  • What other factors do I have to consider?
  • Is my study group large enough and random?
  • What is my control group? - (you must have a group you study, where you change one variable and see how the group responds and you must have a control group where you change nothing. After the test, you can compare how that single factor influenced the outcome). For example: You want to test your headline against another. First, you'd have to create another identical web site with only one change: the headline. Then, you'd drive the same amount of similar traffic to both web sites and see the conversion rate. Your original web site is here the "control group" or better just "control".

After you have the results, you have too ask yourself the following:

  • What analysis tool will I use?
  • Is it the right one?
  • How do my results compare to other studies (if there were any)?

Only after you've verified all this, you can go and draw conclusions.

OK, now for the great news for YOU... Today, it being a very special day to me, I've decided to give out some incredible ebooks on internet marketing I have resell rights to. I didn't assemble them yet, but come back in a few days and they'll be here for you.

Bookmark this site (put under "favorites") and come back soon.

There will be no "opting in", just right click and "save target as". It will be worth it. See you soon!