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.
If you’ve followed me for any length of time, then you know I advocate testing everything to see what works rather than simply taking the advice of others. In fact, I tell my readers to test what I preach as well. Just because I say something works for me doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for you.
For example, let’s talk about bonuses – those things we’re all told to attach to offers to increase conversions. We sometimes spend as much time building bonuses as we do creating the product itself. But did you know that bonuses don’t always increase sales?
And that sometimes they can actually HURT your sales?
I’m not sure why that happens, but I can remember a time or two when I’ve been tempted to purchase a product and then noticed the bonuses. Inside I groaned… “You mean I have to download and read all that stuff, too?” It’s too much, and I close the page rather than make the purchase.
Bonuses can distract from the main product, dilute the main product’s value and even make the whole product package too big and too complicated.
Plus, bonuses sometimes cause confusion or point out a flaw in the product. “Why are they adding the bonus on getting traffic? Oh my gosh, that’s right, I’ll need to get traffic to make this work. How hard is it to get traffic? It must be difficult or they wouldn’t add that bonus. Forget it, I can’t do this…”
This is why the smart marketer tests out each bonus. Try making your offer with and without the bonuses and see what happens. If you have more than one bonus, you might also test having more or less of those bonuses until you find just the right combination or no bonuses at all, whichever converts the best.
And here’s a bonus for you: The next time you create a product, don’t assume you have to make a half dozen bonuses, too. Maybe you can save time and increase sales by simply offering your product as is. Now wouldn’t that be great?
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 a 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.
One little notebook could be worth a million dollars to you. Or more. Here’s how…
Keep track of everything you do and especially all of your ideas. When you start something new, keep a running record of what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.
Two things will happen:
First, you’ll have more and more ideas, and better ideas, too. The simple act of writing ideas down drives your subconscious to create more ideas. Review your ideas weekly and find the gems. Test out the best ones, choose one and run with it. It could be a million-dollar business.
Second, teach others how to do that business. If you find an awesome new way to build an email list, build your own lists and then teach others to do the same. If you discover how to launch a product from start to finish in 3 days, teach others to do the same.
Keep your notebook with you at all times. Write in it when the mood strikes, and even when it doesn’t. Resort to an online journal only when necessary. There’s something about the brain and handwriting connection that inspires more creative thinking than simply tapping keys.
So, do you have your million dollar journal yet?
If not, get one and get started. Here’s one I found on Amazon:
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 fact 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.
The U.S. elections are over now, but the impact they had on many people still resonates strongly. Thinking I might like to revisit a U.S. show about the White House called ‘The West Wing’, I found it on Netflix and started binging.
The West Wing was a serial political drama series that ran from 1999 to 2006 and it enjoyed a large, enthusiastic audience.
The funny thing is, the #2 actor on the show, Rob Lowe, doesn’t appear in many of season 4’s episodes. And by season 5 he’s gone. Why did he leave?
It’s rumored that he was disappointed the network wouldn’t raise his salary. It seems the $75,000 per episode they were paying him wasn’t enough to hold his interest.
And if you think that was a lot of money… 15 years ago, Martin Sheen the lead actor was earning $300,000 per episode.
I bring this up for one reason: Are you possibly thinking too small?
I realize it’s good to have realistic goals that are achievable. But if your goal is, for example, another $1,000 per month, what would happen if you make a second goal to be earning $1,000 per week? And then $1,000 per day?
Odds are you are providing as much value to your customers as actors provide to their audience. In fact, if you are teaching new skills then you are providing more value than someone who merely entertains. You’re just not doing it at the same scale… yet.
Please realize that you are indeed worth more than you realize. Think of this as permission to raise your goals considerably, and take the action needed to get there.
Why is it when we want to be at our most creative and innovative, we resort to using the most worn-out cliché at our disposal? “We need to think outside the box on this one!”
Ugghhh.
First of all, that ‘box’ is there for a reason. It gives us boundaries and guidelines on what we want to accomplish. For example, if I say I want you to write an article on new ways small businesses can use social media, I’ve just given you a ‘box’.
But if I tell you to get to work and give you no idea what to do, you’re going to be totally and utterly lost.
Second, if we want to be more creative, let’s start by abolishing the “think outside the box” phrase and make a pact, just between you and me. From this point forward, if you or I say or write ‘th*nk o*ts*d* th* b*x’, we owe $5 to our favorite charity payable immediately.
Agreed? Good.
Now then, what can we say when we want to express our desire to think differently, get off the beaten track, search for an innovative approach, break new ground and take an imaginative leap?
Seriously, I’m asking you for your help on this one. Even the phrases I used in the previous sentence sound worn out and tired.
I did have one thought, but if you’re a Star Wars fan then you might not like it. For whatever reason, people seem to either gravitate towards Star Wars or Star Trek. I’m told Star Wars is for dreamers and Star Trek is for science geeks. This might be wrong, but I can see some truth to it.
Here’s what I do know: In the very first Star Trek series during the opening credits, we hear Captain Kirk saying…
“Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before.” What do you think?
Can we boldly go where no one has gone before?
It beats thinking outside some cliché box.
Whoops! That’s $5 I owe… now where did I put that checkbook… 😉
Have you seen, ‘Self-Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker’? It’s a limited series on Netflix, and the first 8 minutes just about hit me over the head with what might be the most important marketing lesson of all.
The scene opens with a small street market in St. Louis, U.S., in 1908. A middle-aged woman stands in her Sunday best next to a barrel, looking shy, a little bit scared and without confidence. But she is determined to see this through.
On the barrel we see a couple dozen small silver tins of, ‘Magical Hair Grower’. It’s clear she wants to sell them but doesn’t have a clue how to start. She’s just standing there awkwardly as people walk past her without a glance.
Finally, she takes a deep breath, pastes a nervous smile on her face, holds the tin up and begins shouting, “Magical Hair Grower, fifty cents a tin, get your Magical Hair Grower right here.”
No one responds.
Taking a different tact, she tries to interact with passersby. “Got dandruff ma’am? Got bald patches? I got your fix, right here ladies.”
Again, there is no response and we, the viewers, fear she might cry.
Offscreen there is a voice: “I’ve heard of that stuff.” We see a woman holding a large basket of laundry, her hair covered in a scarf. “Does it work? Quietly and with emotion, C.J. tells the woman, “It saved my life.”
And then she tells her story. Extreme poverty. Debilitating stress. Terrible work for a pittance of pay. Hair falling out. A once-loving husband turning abusive. She wonders why God even allows her to live.
Then the product appears at her darkest hour. Months later her hair is full and beautiful once more. Now she has her confidence back. She has a new man who loves her. Her life is so much better because of this product. It saved her life.
A crowd has gathered to hear her speak. There is a moment of suspense – will they believe her story? Will they purchase the product? There is one sale. And then a second. And now she has more customers than she has tins to sell.
But while telling you the story of the first 8 minutes of this show, I’ve left something out. Despite her beautiful hair and the new man in her life, C.J. is still working far too hard for too little money. She is a wash woman, which means she spends her days hand scrubbing clothes on a washboard with lye soap. She wants more in life. She wants to sell Magical Hair Grower.
But the Snooty Product Owner doesn’t want C.J. to sell the stuff. Snooty Product Owner wants C.J. to continue doing her wash in exchange for a tin of Magical Hair Grower.
Never mind that C.J. has an incredible testimonial. Never mind that C.J. has already referred 8 paying customers to the Snooty Product Owner. Nope. It’s not said but it is implied that C.J. needs to ‘stay in her place’ because she’s not pretty enough to be a salesperson.
And so C.J. steals those tins to prove she can do it. She is willing to risk everything – even prison – to get herself out of poverty.
There are two lessons here. I don’t need to spell them out for you because you already know what they are. Take a look at your own business and your own life and ask yourself what C.J. would tell you to do.
