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Your 25-Point Post Product Launch Flash Sale Checklist

Once the excitement of your Product Launch Formula launch has settled down, and your new customers are happy and contented with the product they bought from you, running regular flash sales is a great way to generate a lot of sales and buzz in a very short period of time.

The best way to do this is to plan each promotion a few weeks in advance, and invite your PLF marketing partners to promote the event with you. Having some of them on board will help to build anticipation among your prospects and customers and increase your sales significantly.

So you don’t miss any of the critical steps in running a successful flash sale, make sure you follow this 25-point checklist every single time…

1. Define A Goal For Your Flash Sale

The first step is define your goal for this sale. Ideally you’ll set one primary goal to focus on, though you may have secondary goals as well.

Your goals might include:

  • Acquisition of new customers with an irresistible low priced offer
  • Generating more sales for one of your front-end profits
  • Boosting the sales of a higher ticket product or service
  • Creating some excitement among your affiliates
  • Creating some buzz for your products or services in your market
  • Establishing yourself as a “big player” in the niche
  • Cross promoting different lead magnets to build your mailing lists
  • Generating excitement about the launch of your NEXT product

So pick your primary goal, and then let’s move on to Step 2…

2. Pick A Product Or Service That’s Already In Demand

No matter what your goal is, for best results you’ll want to promote something that’s already in-demand. And throwing a flash sale for one of your most popular products serves this purpose perfectly. Of course you can also run a flash sale on a newly released product, but you’ll want to be sure it’s something your market really wants to buy.

In other words, do your market research first! Specifically, you’ll want to:

  • Search marketplaces like ClickBank.com, JVZoo.com, and Amazon.com to see what the hottest selling stuff is in your niche
  • Run a survey or even run an ASK Campaign like Ryan Levesque does to discover what people in your market really want to buy
  • Do some snooping around to see what the top marketers in your niche are selling on their websites, promoting in their newsletters, and offering to their social media followers
  • Search Google and look at the products people are paying top dollar for to advertise with Google Adwords
  • Look for banner ads on the top sites in your niche, and study the ads you see coming through your Facebook newsfeed
  • Use a keyword tool like the Adwords Keyword Planner or MarketSamurai.com to uncover what customers in your niche are looking for

Once you’re sure you have a popular product to promote, then move on to…

3. Choose A Date For Your Promotion

When you are choosing a date for your flash sale, keep these points in mind:

  • Choose a date that is at least 2 or 3 weeks away, so both you and your affiliates have plenty of time to prepare and schedule in a mailing date
  • Research the date on sites such as JVNotifyPro.com to see if there is anything major going on at the same time. If a really popular marketer in your niche is opening the shopping cart for a huge product launch on the same date, you’ll struggle to get affiliates onboard or customers to take notice of your messages

Next…

4. Decide On Your Irresistible Offer

Here’s where you decide on the following points:

  • What components will you include in the offer? For example, are you going to include extra bonuses to make the offer even more attractive?
  • Are you going to offer a big discount to increase the number of sales? Hint: A flash sale will have the best results if you make a really attractive offer, such as 40% or more off the regular price
  • What percentage of the sale price will you give to your affiliates? The percentage you pay out is partly going to depend on your goals. If you’re goal is to build a big list, getting your affiliates really involved and generating backend profits later, then you might want to give all or most of the frontend sale price to affiliates as commission. If your goal is to generate a lot of frontend profit, you can offer a more standard 50% commission to your affiliates. (Of course this assumes you’re selling digital products. The commission percentages are going to be smaller if you’re selling physical products.)

Next…

5. Determine How Long Your Flash Sale Will Run

As the name implies, a flash sale happens in a flash – it’s usually over in a matter of hours, but it may run anywhere from four hours to twenty-four hours. So…

  • Determine the starting and ending times of your sale
  •  Plan on running your sale for at least 8-12 hours to get maximum exposure
  • Consider your prospects’ time zones and activities (such as work) when deciding the start and end times of your sales. In other words, you don’t want the entire sale to fall within the working day of your audience, or you’ll probably have a lot of people missing out

Next…

6. Create Your Marketing Materials

Now it’s time to create sales materials for your marketing partners to share with their audiences. These materials are for these three purposes:

  • To build anticipation for the sale in the week leading up to the sale day (similar to Product Launch Formula’s pre-launch content)
  • To announce the sale itself (like Jeff Walker’s ‘Open Cart’ email)
  • To send out one or more reminders about the sale during the day of the actual sale (to create scarcity and increase urgency)

Think about the types of communication channels you and your affiliates will be using to reach prospects, and create marketing materials for those channels.

For example:

  • An email sequence covering the full period of the promotion
  • A series of story-based blog posts leading up to the sale
  • Social media posts with links back to pre-sale content and the offer itself (short messages for Twitter, longer messages for platforms like Facebook)
  • Text messages with links to your promotional content

Once you’ve created these materials, upload them to the affiliate centre so they are ready for your partners to grab them.

Next…

7. Let Your Partners Know About The Upcoming Sale

If you already have a group of affiliates or JV partners, then now is the time to let them know about the sale.

  • Give them at least two weeks notice of the sale so they have time to prepare. More time is preferable because top affiliates usually have a full mailing schedule
  • Give your affiliates login details so they can access the product (in case they want to do a product review)
  • Let them know how they can promote (e.g., how to get their affiliate link easily)
  • Give them links to the marketing materials inside the affiliate centre and ideas on how to use them
  • Generate some excitement around the event. Talk about the commissions they can earn, the current conversion rate on the sales letter, etc
  • Give your affiliates a detailed timeline so they know when to send out your pre-sale materials

Next step…

8. Reach Out To And Recruit New Marketing Partners

If you’d like to turn your sales day in to a really big event, you may want to reach out and recruit some new affiliate partners to help you out. You can do this yourself, or you can pay an affiliate manager or JV broker to do it for you.

Of course it’s going to be easier to get people to say yes to your request if they already know and trust you. With this in mind, here’s an example email or social media message you can send to your potential partners…

Subject line: just wanted you to be the first to know…

Hi [First Name],

[Your Name] here from [your website]. I’ve got a flash sale coming up in [number of weeks], and I’d like to extend a personal invitation for you to join in on this unique event where you can generate [percent] commissions – that works out to be [$ amount] for every sale you bring in.

This sale is for [name of product] which is one of my best converting products, and [give them a quick description of the product]. This would be a good match for your audience because [explain the reason their audience will like it].

You can take a look for yourself and download a free copy of the product here: [download link]

This flash sale starts at [time and date] and ends [insert when it ends]. Because the sale period is so short, we’re expecting conversion rates to be higher than normal, which are currently [percent conversion rates]. That means those [$ amount] commissions are going to add up for you fast!

I’ve already set everything up for you so it’s quick and easy for you to take part in this event.

Here’s your affiliate link: [insert link]

You can get a complete set of emails and ads to promote the event here: [insert link to affiliate centre]

Shoot me back an email to let me know if you’re on board or if you have any questions! I’m looking forward to working with you [First Name].

[sign off]

p.s. The people who jump in early get the biggest commission rates. Hit reply to let me know you’re in, and I’ll lift your commission rate to [percentage]…

9. Take Care Of All The Technology

A popular, well-promoted flash sale can create a lot of traffic to your website. And in turn, this sort of heavy load on your web server can create a lot of problems on your site. That’s why you’ll want to sale-proof your systems.

These 3 steps are important:

  • If you’re not every technically minded, or if your time is better spent running the rest of the launch, then hire a tech person to handle hardening up your system
  • Make sure you have a premium web hosting account that can accommodate a big spike in traffic and requests
  • If you already have a dedicated server, make sure it’s ready for higher than normal traffic

And then…

10. Prepare Your Customer Service Department

Another area where you’re likely to see a big spike is in your customer service requests. Most of them will be minor (lost logins, difficulty access the downloads, refund requests, etc.). That’s why you’ll want to ensure your customer service people are ready to handle the load.

This includes things like:

  • Hiring additional short-term help to answer emails or man the help desk if needed
  • Training both new people and existing staff on how to handle the inquiries they are likely to get during the sale
  • Creating some new FAQs and other materials to help cut down on customer service load during the sale
  • Offering multiple ways for prospects and customers to reach you, such as a direct email address, live chat and a 24 hour help desk

And then…

11. Test And Track All Of Your Product Launch Promotional Copy

The goal here is to optimize your ad copy, email copy, and sales page copy so that you get maximum conversions during your sale. You’ll want to:

  • Use something like Google AdWords or Facebook ads as a quick way to generate traffic for your testing
  • Focus on optimising the factors that will have the most impact, such as the offer, the headline, bulleted benefit list, the P.S., your price and call to action

Next step…

12. Prepare Your Email Messages and Blog Posts

By now you’ve will have created materials for your affiliates and marketing partners to use in their promotions. Now it’s time to create these same materials for yourself. This step is pretty easy because in most cases, all you’ll have to do is tweak the affiliate materials to make them unique.

For example, you might have an affiliate email that refers to “John Doe’s new product is…” so you would tweak this to first-person language such as, “My new product is”

13. Create Your Sales Video

The next step is to create a short sales video to help generate excitement on the day of your flash sale. This is especially important if your sales page is a text letter, because offering a pre-sale video will help you reach and convert more people into customers.

Some sales video pointers include:

  • Keep it short, just two to three minutes highlighting the biggest benefits
  • Present a problem, highlight what that problem is costing people, and then offer your product as the best solution to the problem
  • Showcase the main benefits of your product and the results they can expect
  • Provide a strong call to action, making sure to remind them it’s a flash sale to create urgency

On the day of the sale, you’ll be posting this video on YouTube and on your social media pages, as well as on your blog.

The next step…

14. Prepare Your Facebook Ads

To generate as much excitement as possible on sale day, running some paid advertising is a great strategy. Facebook’s ad platform is a good choice, although you’ll need some experience if you’d like to maximise your returns.

The idea is to launch your ads on sale day, but of course you’ll want to have them prepared and ready to go in advance. This includes:

  • Choosing an eye-catching graphic
  • Writing some persuasive ad copy
  • Selecting a tightly targeted audience using Facebook’s ad editor
  • Setting it all up to start running at the correct time and day
  • Double checking everything to make sure the links, start time and end times are all correct

Next…

15. Buy Some Ads On High-Traffic Niche Sites

Same as we discussed above, you’ll want to prepare ads and set them to run on the day of your sale. Most niche site owners like to set up and run ads manually, so you’ll want to make arrangements with the owner and pay in advance so everything’s ready to go.

16. Start To Build Product Launch Buzz On Social Media

If you’ve followed any of Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula launches, you’ll know that he starts ‘seeding’ his audience several weeks before he releases the first piece of pre-launch content.

You don’t have to go as far as that for your Flash Sale, but you can certainly do simple things like:

  • Building anticipation for the upcoming sale by hinting that something big is coming
  • Sharing cryptic or normal graphics, videos or other content that are likely to go viral
  • Using a specific call to action hinting at something cool coming up, and encouraging people to share the content with their friends

Next up…

17. Warn Your Payment Processor Of Increased Volume

Even though for the most part online marketing doesn’t have the same shady reputation it used to have, there are still plenty of crooks around doing some pretty dodgy stuff.

For this reason, your payment processor may suspect suspicious activity if you suddenly have a huge surge in sales without warning them. And if they suspect suspicious activity, they could temporarily suspend your account.

In fact, this still happens to lots of people, which can cause all sorts of problems. From not getting paid yourself, to being unable to pay your affiliates, to not being able to pay for any physical products or bonuses you have to deliver.

That’s why you’ll want to do two things:

  • Let your payment processor know about the expected surge in sales so they don’t get the wrong idea. It’s best if you speak to a real live human on the phone about this, get that person’s name, and ask them to email you the details of the call so you have proof in writing that they knew about your sale.
  • Make sure you have a “Plan B” just in case your payment processor does go down for any reason. You’ll also want to ensure that your Plan B gives credit to affiliates, where applicable

The next step is…

18. Set Up One Or More Backend Offers

If you haven’t done so already, make sure to build out your sales funnel on the backend of this offer to increase sales and profits for both you and your affiliates. This may include:

  • Adding an order form upsell or ‘bump’ offer that allows customers to add something to their order by clicking a checkbox
  • Inserting a range of backend offers inside the product itself
  • Setting up a multi-part autoresponder sequence for these new customers that makes backend offers for other related products and services they’ll be needing

Next…

19. Remind Your Partners Of The Upcoming Sale

Now it’s time to remind all of your marketing partners of the approaching sale, and let them know the final details of when they can start promoting.

So, for example:

  • Let people know two weeks before the sale date that they can start promoting in one week’s time
  • About a week and a half before the sale, remind them that they can start to promote in 3 days
  • Remind them to start pre-selling 4 days before the sale day
  • Remind them the night before the sale that it’s game day tomorrow
  • Remind them the day of the sale and ask them to promote hard for maximum results

TIP: You can automate all of these email messages by pre-loading them into an autoresponder such as Aweber or another reliable service.

Next…

20. Send Your Promotional Messages To Your List

Now’s the time to begin building anticipation by sending your pre-sale emails, starting at around one week before the sale starts, and then three or four days before the sale starts.

21. Email Your List The Night Before

Now send one final anticipation email the night before the sale to generate anticipation and excitement. Be sure to list the benefits of the product and the results people can expect get from owning it, as well as reminding them how short the sale period is.

22. Upload The Offer Page

You can do this early on the morning of the sale.

23. Test The Entire Sales Process From Start To Finish

Do a full systems check by placing orders through different browsers and making sure everything works correctly. Run through and test all the links, forms and payment processor steps to make sure everything is ready for your sale.

24. Send Out Your Sale Day Materials

When the sale starts, send out all the sales materials you’ve prepared, including your emails, blog posts and social media posts.

25. Publish Your ‘Last Chance’ Materials

Later in the day (and a few hours before the sale ends) send out your ‘last chance’ emails, release your final blog posts, and make some final social media posts reminding people that this is their last chance to get the product at a big discount.

Conclusion

So there you have a complete 25-point checklist for running your very own super-profitable post-product launch Flash Sale. Now print out this checklist and get to work setting up your sale today!

And if you would like to learn more about everything to do with launching your own product or service, including seeing more examples and case studies of people who have used PLF with outstanding success, check out Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Masterclass here.

Talk soon,

Rocky

P.S. Being able to create a Perfect Product is a great start, but you also need a way to generate sales in a consistent way. Running a Product launch is a proven way to not only build your list, but generate Social Proof and make a large number of sales quickly. To learn how to launch your product successfully, check out Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Masterclass here.

PLUS: When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you to grow your business using product launches:

1. How To Build A Profitable Launch List.
Building an email list is critical if you plan on doing a launch for your product, service or business. List Warrior will show you a proven way to use free software to build a responsive list of prospects who are ready to buy from you during your launch. Click Here.

2. How To Create The Perfect Product 
Creating a product that is perfect for your audience does not need to be difficult. How To Create The Perfect Product shows you how to build high value products your audience will love one after the other. Click Here.

3. How To Attract Buyers To Join Your Launch List So They Can Purchase Your Perfect Product.
Once you have created your Product Launch List and your Perfect Product is ready to go, you need to attract people into your world so they can buy from you. One Minute Free Traffic gives you a proven way to attract buyers with ‘Automated Traffic Machines’ so you can send those people to your optin page, your sales page, your Facebook Group or anywhere else you choose.    To learn more Click Here.

And don’t forget to check this out 🙂

How to Earn $20 in 20 Minutes With Any Topic, Niche or Hobby

Disclaimer: If you purchase PLF through my affiliate link I may receive a referral fee from Jeff Walker, however you will pay no more to purchase the program through me than if you went directly to the Product Launch Formula website. If you would like my personal help as you create your first launch using the PLF process, check out my PLF Bonus offer here.

9 Blog Post Ideas For Driving Traffic To Your Product Launch

No matter what kind of launch you are preparing for with the Product Launch Formula process, a blog is going to become your go-to resource for driving traffic to your website, both while you’re preparing everything, and during the process of releasing your product or service.

And if you have a blog, then you are going to need a good deal of content to engage with readers and keep them coming back.

But this is were many people get stuck…

It can take a lot of time to create the volume of content you’ll need to drive significant traffic to your blog.

Of course you can outsource it, but it can take a lot of money to get others to create the type of quality content needed to position you as an expert. So regardless of whether you create it yourself or pay others to do it for you, creating content is a big investment…

But there are a number of shortcuts you can take, and to get you started, here are 9 blog post ideas you can use to create awesome blog posts in 10 minutes or less….

1. Create Blog Articles Out Of Private Label Rights Content

The first hack is to buy some PLR (private label rights) articles that you can edit or make slight tweaks to so they are unique and up to your high standards, and then post them to your blog as your own.

Alternatively you might copy excerpts out of PLR ebooks or reports and then post these as articles on your blog. Either way, it takes just a few minutes to create unique, valuable content and post it for your readers to enjoy.

Here are 2 more ideas for using PLR to create content:

  • Have a PLR video transcribed at Rev.com to create an article or a series of articles for your blog. You may even be able to buy these sorts of transcripts as part of a package, or you can create your own using Rev.com

TIP: This is especially easy if the video includes slides, because you can simply write your article from the content contained in the slides.

  • Compile several pieces of PLR content to into blog posts that are entirely new. For example, you could take parts from three or four PLR articles and weave them together to create an entirely new article

And speaking of excerpts…

2. Repurpose Excerpts From Your Products

Taking excerpts from your existing products is a super-quick way to create any number of blog articles. The other benefit of this strategy is that you can quickly insert a pitch at the end of the article to promote your product launch’s lead magnet.

There are 2 ways to use these types of excerpts:

1. The first way is to simply pull the excerpt directly out of the product, add an introduction and a conclusion, and post it to your blog.

For example, let’s suppose you have a report that gives people 9 ways to cut calories. You can take out 3 or 4 of these strategies to create your article, then at the end you can invite people to join your launch list to get more great ideas.

2. The other way is to cut some of the content out of the excerpt so people will want to join your list to get the rest of the details.

Let’s take the example of the report with 9 calorie cutting strategies again. You might excerpt out all 9 ideas, but you remove some of the details. This way readers will get an article that tells them what to do, but they don’t get the exact instructions of how to do it. They’ll need to join your launch list to get those exact instructions.

Next…

3. Driving Traffic With Valuable Link Lists

People LOVE link lists because when done right, they help them save time when finding valuable information on a topic or subject they are interested in.

A link list can come in a variety of formats, including:

• A gear or equipment list. You could list the most valuable tools and resources you personally use and recommend to others. A list like this can save beginners a lot of hassle, because they don’t have to do as much research, and you can save them a lot of valuable time and money by helping them get it right the first time.

For example, you might list all the WordPress plugins you use on your blog. Or if you’re writing for weight lifters, you could share your goto list of all the “must use” supplements.

• A list of the top niche related free resources. Here you might link to videos, reports and expert’s blog posts, along with other free sources of content that will help your readers achieve some specific goal.

• A list of the best value paid resources. In this case, you could write a short review for each resource to let people know who can use it, why you prefer it, and its benefits.

• A list of the best free and paid resources. As an example, you could create “The Top 10 Resources Every Day Trader Should Read.”

The point of creating these lists is to save your reader time by doing a lot of of the research and legwork for them. As you’ll know yourself, it’s much easier to get quality recommendations and content all in one place from someone you trust, instead of having to find products and sources from all over the place.

These days having someone they trust separate the wheat from the chaff is a blessing for most time-poor, overwhelmed consumers.

Next…

4. Do Recaps Of Your Popular Recent Posts

The idea here is to build an “in case you missed it” list of your best or most popular blog posts of the last few weeks or months. Rather than just listing those blog posts, you could curate your own best content across platforms, including your social media accounts and newsletters, and put it into one place (on your blog).

Another way to do it is by curating your most popular content based on a very specific topic.

For example:

  • 6 Blog Posts That Will Change the Way You Think About Trading The Markets
  • The 3 Posts Every Skiing Beginner Ought to Read
  • The 5 Keys to Improving Your Baseball Score

To put this together, just write an intro to the post, list the resources along with a short paragraph explaining why people should read each one, and then wrap it up with a succinct conclusion and a call to action (like joining your product launch list to get more info maybe…)

Next up…

5. Driving Traffic By Interviewing Experts In Your Market

Interviewing other experts a great way to create content fast: just let them create hyper-targeted, relevant content for you.

To get started, create a list of questions and send it to potential interviewees by email and let their answers become your article. In exchange, your guest gets a byline with a link back to their site.

Here’s an example email you could send to arrange these interviews…

Subject Line: Hey [name[ I’d like to feature you on my blog

Hey [First Name],

It’s [Your Name] here and I run the popular [type of] blog over at [your domain]. Thought I’d drop you a line because I’d like to interview you and feature your interview on the blog.

The interview is just [small number] questions, so it would only take about [small number of minutes] to complete.

In return, you’ll get a byline in the article and link back to your site, along with exposure to the [number] people in my audience. I’ll also send a link to your article to my [number] of newsletter subscribers to maximise your exposure.

If this sounds like a great way to showcase your business to a targeted audience, just reply back and I’ll send over the questions right away.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Warm regards,

[Your Name]

——-

This is important: the easier you make it for someone to comply with your request, the more likely they will say yes. So don’t expect your interviewee to spend hours answering questions. Instead, send a few quick questions their way so they can answer them in just a few minutes. Then if you want more info, send a couple of follow up questions.

Here’s why you want to keep it simple…

Once a person has answered your first few questions, they’ll tend to feel invested and committed to your project. So if you ask for 10 more minutes of their time to answer a couple additional questions, they’re quite likely to agree.

Here’s a great example: Bob Serling only asks his interviewees to answer ONE question, and it’s this:

“What’s your favorite business building strategy or technique that’s working well for you or your clients right now?”

Can you see how succinct and powerful that is?

It allows his guests to go anywhere their imagination takes them, while keeping them focused on only sharing the best ideas.

The added beauty of this approach to driving traffic is you can bask in the ‘halo effect’ of association with other experts in your market, and some of them may even become your Joint Venture partners during your launch.

6. Tweak One Of Your Previous Articles

The next idea is to comb through and find the most popular articles in your existing content, tweak them to freshen them up, and republish the new version.

Some examples might be:

  • If you’ve published a list of 10 tips previously, excerpt out 5 of the best tips, expand on them for clarity, and republish the new article
  • Update one of your older articles with new information. You could include new research that has come on the scene since you originally published the article, and let your newsletter subscribers know about the updated information
  • Maybe you’ve changed your mind about a product, idea or another topic? Go ahead and update an older article with your revised opinion and ideas

Those are just 3 ways you could take your existing content and quickly turn it into something new. If you get a little bit creative you may be able to come up with dozens of new articles from your old content.

7. Turn Your Existing Content Into A Powerful Infographic

Another great way to quickly create valuable content is to change your existing posts, videos and articles into a different format. And one way to do this is by turning them into a infographics.

Here are 3 examples of articles that would make good infographics:

  • An article discussing multiple ways to generate more subscribers to an email list
  • An article explaining how muscle confusion works
  • An article that talks about different household pests and how to eradicate them using organic or natural pest control methods

Just make sure your infographics include social media buttons next to them, because these are the kind of content people love to share with others.

As an example, because being able to create irresistible offers is so important to the success of your launch and your business’s future, I took an article I’d written earlier and created a Free Cheat Sheet that shows you how to create the perfect offer.

8. Ask For Content From A Product Vendor

Do you promote products or services an affiliate? If you do (and you should), a great way to quickly get your hands on some free content is by asking the product vendor to create it for you.

Your first stop is to check the merchant’s affiliate centre if they have one available (most do). That’s where the vendor has likely given affiliates all sorts of content, often including blog posts, videos, White Papers and successful ads.

The thing is, you want your content to be unique, right?

So don’t just go straight to the blog post category and copy and past those articles into your blog, because all the other affiliates are likely to have done that. Instead, look through the other content provided such as reports, emails and similar.

Look for something suitable, and then ask the vendor if you can modify it to use on your blog.

If you don’t find what you like within the affiliate center, then write to the vendor and ask for an article. The key here is that vendor is more likely to give you content – especially your own exclusive content – if you’ve already proven yourself by making a few affiliate sales.

TIP: Here’s a powerhouse combo you can use to promote affiliate products while getting unique content for free: ask the vendor if you could interview them.

Most product owners will be happy to get the exposure and extra sales. You can post a text interview, or you might even consider interviewing the vendor during a short webinar or podcast.

9. Create Multimedia Posts

Up to now we’ve been talking about how to quickly create text articles. However, you don’t need to write a single word if you don’t want to.

Instead of writing, pick up a camera to record a short video on a topic your audience will find helpful.

TIP: You can also just turn on a microphone (I use a Blue Yeti and it’s awesome) to do a quick podcast. You don’t even need expensive editing tools. A simple tool like Audacity will let you capture and edit audio for free.

You can get the latest version of Audacity at http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/files/

For example:

  • Use your smart phone and just spend 5 minutes talking about your top 5 weight loss tips
  • Film yourself at home trying out and reviewing a new product
  • Give a live on camera demo, such as how to teach a dog to come when he’s called
  • If you’d like to demonstrate something on your computer screen, such as how to set up an email autoresponder message, then use screen-recording software such as Camtasia (PC) or Screenflow (Mac)

Then just upload the video to YouTube.com (so you get greater exposure), and then post the embedded video on your blog with a short intro and summary, along with a call to action at the end.

Cool, you now have 9 blog post ideas for driving traffic to your product launch. And because you’ve made it this far and stuck with me, I wanted to reward you with a bonus idea that can really help you to create content quickly.

So here goes…

10. Copy And Paste Your Email Messages

One very good and often overlooked source for articles and other content are from your own email messages. Here I’m talking about 2 things:

1. If you broadcast an announcement, article, run a promotion or deliver other content to your mailing list, then put that same content on your blog as well.

TIP: Tell your newsletter readers you’re posting the content on your blog, and then encourage them to click through and discuss the topic.

You get many benefits from this.

  • Your email open rate and click through rate will improve
  • Your ISP will see your readers interacting with your messages and will be less likely to block their delivery
  • And the more your audience interacts with you, the more they are going to get to know and trust you, which should mean more sales over time

2. If you reply to a customer’s comment or question and you realize it would make a good post, then post it as an article. Of course you won’t use any of the customer’s identifying information, but you might say something like this at the beginning of the post…

“Nearly every week, the same question seems to pop up in my email from people just like you. Check out this post and see if you’ve been wondering about this topic too…”

To sum up…

As you can see, you don’t need to spend a lot of time or money creating great content to drive traffic for your launch. All you need is ten minutes or less, and you can have blog posts ready to go one after the other.

I’m betting you could create one of these awesome blog posts right now and get it up right away. Go ahead and see for yourself just how easy it is to create content quickly using these 10 ideas.

As you can see, the list you build during your product launch is going to require lots of visitor traffic, but having that list will give you the perfect springboard for creating a profitable, long-term, sustainable business for yourself and your family. To learn more about everything to do with launching your own product or service, check out Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Masterclass here.

Talk soon,

Rocky

P.S. Being able to create a Perfect Product is a great start, but you also need a way to generate sales in a consistent way. Running a Product launch is a proven way to not only build your list, but generate Social Proof and make a large number of sales quickly. To learn how to launch your product successfully, check out Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Masterclass here.

PLUS: When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you to grow your business using product launches:

1. How To Build A Profitable Launch List.
Building an email list is critical if you plan on doing a launch for your product, service or business. List Warrior will show you a proven way to use free software to build a responsive list of prospects who are ready to buy from you during your launch. Click Here.

2. How To Create The Perfect Product 
Creating a product that is perfect for your audience does not need to be difficult. How To Create The Perfect Product shows you how to build high value products your audience will love one after the other. Click Here.

3. How To Attract Buyers To Join Your Launch List So They Can Purchase Your Perfect Product.
Once you have created your Product Launch List and your Perfect Product is ready to go, you need to attract people into your world so they can buy from you. One Minute Free Traffic gives you a proven way to attract buyers with ‘Automated Traffic Machines’ so you can send those people to your optin page, your sales page, your Facebook Group or anywhere else you choose.    To learn more Click Here.

And don’t forget to check this out 🙂

How to Earn $20 in 20 Minutes With Any Topic, Niche or Hobby

Disclaimer: If you purchase PLF through my affiliate link I may receive a referral fee from Jeff Walker, however you will pay no more to purchase the program through me than if you went directly to the Product Launch Formula website. If you would like my personal help as you create your first launch using the PLF process, check out my PLF Bonus offer here.

How To Recruit Your Competitors BEST Affiliates To Promote Your Product Launch

When it comes to using the Product Launch Formula process to run the most successful launch, one of the keys is to recruit your competitors best affiliates for your own affiliate program so you can have other people sending you their best customers who then buy your product.

The hardest part of this process is recruiting GOOD affiliates who know what they are doing, who have an email database, and who are prepared to add you to their mailing schedule.

That’s because the top affiliates aren’t just sitting around waiting for opportunities. They don’t have to, because so many great opportunities come across their desks every single week.

So if you want to build an affiliate program that’s full of serious marketers who have a proven track record, and who know how to drive targeted traffic to your product launch, you’re going to have to go out and compete for the attention of these in-demand professionals.

These affiliates will already be making tons of sales for your competitors, and you’ll need to recruit them and get them to do the same for you.

But how?

Let’s start with 5 great ways to find your competitor’s most valuable affiliates…

1. Look For Product Reviews And Pre-Selling Content

The first step is to search Google for the names of your competitor’s products along with search terms such as “review” or “comparison.”

The reason is pretty clear: affiliates are most likely to be the people putting up product reviews and comparisons, and that makes this a quick and easy way to find those affiliates.

TIP: By doing this, you’ll also know which affiliates are good at search engine optimisation (SEO). If the same affiliate is able to hold multiple key rankings for a range of competing products, that’s a pretty good sign they will be able to drive traffic your way as well.

You’ll want to do is search Google for the titles of your competitors’ lead magnets, as well as the titles of their articles, blog posts and their other content. You could search for excerpts out of articles that link to the affiliates main content.

Where do you get this information?

One good way to do it is by joining your competitors’ affiliate programs, because you’ll have access to the promotional content they create for their affiliates. Then you can search for the titles and excerpts from this content to uncover affiliates who are actively using that content to promote offers.

And checking our your competitor’s affiliate programs will also give you insights into how you can make your own products and services even better. The fact is the best affiliates go where they are rewarded the most. And if your offer is absolutely crushing it, they’ll naturally gravitate towards you anyway.

Because being able to create irresistible offers is so important to the success of your launch and your business’s future, I’ve put together a Free Cheat Sheet that shows you the 3 Steps to creating the perfect offer. To make sure you don’t miss anything as you develop your offer, Click Here

And now that you’re logged into your competitors’ affiliate centers, you’ll also want to check out this next idea…

2. Check Your Competitors’ Product Launch Leaderboards

Here’s a quick and dirty way to know who your competitors’ BEST affiliates are: look for the people who win their affiliate contests.

Of course you’ll most likely need to be a member of your competitors’ affiliate programs to get access to this privileged information. But once you’re in, you should be able to see leader boards for both past and current contests. If you compare these boards across a range of competitors, you’ll see which affiliates consistently promote product launches and drive sales.

3. Join Affiliate And JV Facebook Groups and Forums

The next way to find your competitors’ affiliates is to visit the places where they all congregate online. In other words, participate in the affiliate forums and social media groups.

Specifically:

• Go to Facebook and use the search box to uncover groups using words such as “affiliate”, “affiliate marketing”, “jv”, or “joint venture”.

• Search Google for affiliate forums. You can search for terms such as “affiliate marketing forums” and “affiliate discussion”, “JV forum” and “joint venture forum”.

• Look for joint venture networks. Again, use Google to easily uncover these platforms in your market. For example, “stock trading affiliate network.”

Once you find these platforms, join the biggest and most active ones. Then follow the conversations to get an idea of which affiliates are promoting which offers, and which affiliates tend to be the super affiliates in your niche market.

4. Follow The Flow Of Money

Another way to find out who’s generating the big sales for your competitors is by checking to see who is running ads for them. If an affiliate is consistently placing paid advertising for a product, that’s a great sign that they’re making money with those ads.

Here’s how to find these advertisers:

• Search Google for your competitors’ product and brand names. You’ll naturally find reviews and other content using this method (which is very helpful), but you’ll also be presented with text ads. These ads may go to lead pages if affiliates are using a two-step advertising process, or other content that’s designed to get you to click through to the merchant’s site. But whether one-step or two-step, this strategy will give you an idea of who is promoting what in your niche.

• Check niche sites that accept advertising. Then take note of who’s placing the ads, because these could be your potential affiliates.

TIP: Sometimes it’s hard to decipher an affiliate link to know who is behind it. Here are two tips that might help:

1. Check to see if they are using a redirect URL. Many affiliates redirect their affiliate links through their own websites. If they do, visit the domain to see if it’s clear who owns it. If not, run the domain through a whois search such as www.whois.com.

2. Run a search for the affiliate link (or even just the affiliate ID). If it’s an affiliate who is direct linking, then search for that link in Google. If the link isn’t a tracking link, then there’s a good chance the affiliate has used it in other promotions, such as on his own website or blog.

Next idea…

5. Keep A Record Of The Highest Selling Products

The idea here is simple: some of the top product owners in your niche are often your competitors best affiliates too. That’s because these vendors have used product launches and paid advertising to build big email databases of prospects and customers.

You probably already know some of the top sellers in your niche, and some of your biggest competitors could become your top affiliates. Once you draw up your list, you can add to it using these two tips:

• Check marketplaces such as Clickbank.com and JVZoo.com. These affiliate marketplaces often rank products based on popularity, so it will only take you a few minutes to determine which are the best-selling products in your niche on that platform.

• Use JVNotifyPro.com to keep track of the big product launches. The marketers who are rolling out the biggest launches will probably also have the biggest customer lists in your niche.

There you have it – five good ways to find your competitors’ affiliates. If you use all of these methods, you’ll be able to easily uncover all the super affiliates operating in your niche, as well as dozens of other really good affiliates who can help you build sales in your product launches.

Which brings us to this important question…

So, How Do You Recruit These Proven Performers?

As we’ve discussed, these top affiliates get a bunch of great promotion requests crossing their desks every week. That means that just saying, “Hey, wanna make some great commissions?” isn’t going to get their attention.

Because of all of this competition, you need to have a standout product and create what Jeff Walker calls a “Crushing Offer” before the top affiliates will promote for you.

Here are tips for making it happen…

Build Relationships With People In Your Market

People like to do business with people they know, like and trust. So when an affiliate gets two identical offers from two different vendors, the odds are they are going to join the vendor they already know, like and trust. That’s why it’s a good idea to build relationships first before beginning your recruitment, especially when you’re trying to recruit super affiliates.

Here are three tips for building these relationships:

• Do something for the other person first. For example, if the person has their own product, sign up for their affiliate program and make some sales for them first.

• Interact with them online. Make helpful, thoughtful comments on their blog that help their community. Connect with them on social media. Send an email to them to talk about a recent newsletter issue or blog post. The point is, just start talking to these potential super affiliates so you get to know each other.

• Make a name for yourself in the niche. If you create great products and build a good reputation for yourself, people will naturally start approaching you. They’ll know you and trust you through your authority and reputation. This means you don’t need to necessarily go out into the niche and invest a lot of time building one-on-one relationships, since everyone will be eager to work with you when you approach them, but it will take time to achieve this for yourself.

Next up…

Give Your Competitors Best Affiliates Free Access to the Product

You should never hesitate on this point. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling a $17 ebook or a $997 home study course that’s shipped to the customer’s door, you MUST give your potential super affiliates access to the product.

First, any affiliate with their salt isn’t going to promote a product without reviewing it thoroughly themselves. And secondly, since you are approaching this potential affiliate, you need to give them access to the product as a gesture of goodwill.

Don’t make your potential affiliate ask for it, and certainly don’t expect them to pay for it. Just send access at the same time you’re sending your recruitment email.

Which brings us to the next point…

Offer Your Affiliates Something Extra Special

If your goal is to recruit the top affiliates in your niche, it’s a good idea to give them special perks that you don’t offer everyone else. This includes benefits such as:

• A higher commission rate
• Exclusive bonuses for their customers
• Exclusive discounts for their customers
• Special personalised landing pages
• Instant commissions, daily commissions or weekly commissions
• The opportunity to promote the product before everyone else
• Higher commissions on upsells and backend sales

To get you started, here’s an example of the email you might send out to a prospective affiliates (especially ones with who you’ve built a relationship):

Subject: New product – Thought you’d like to hear about it first…

Hi [First Name],

I’m just about ready to launch a new product, and I wanted to be sure you heard about it first. That’s because I think it’s a great fit for your audience, and I’m also offering a special commission rate if you come on board to promote.

The product is called [name of product], and [describe in a sentence or two what the product does – in other words, why would this person’s audience want this product?]

Here, you can check it for yourself: [download link to entire product]

Right now the sales letter is pulling a [%] conversion rate in our initial testing, so this is already proving to be an in-demand product that gives you the potential for a lot of sales.

And here’s the best part: you’re getting a special “inner circle” commission rate of [%] – that’s a full [$amount] in your pocket for every sale you make.

What’s more, you also get [insert any other perks… exclusive promotional opportunities before the affiliate program is open to the public, special discounts, etc].

I’ve taken the liberty of setting up your affiliate account. Here’s the info:

[affiliate link]

[affiliate log in info]

Once you log in you’ll get access to all sorts of emails, articles, banners and other ads and creatives you can use to promote this product.

We’re launching on [date] – are you in?

Let me know if you have any questions or if there is anything I can do for you to make promotions easier…

[sign off]

P.S. This is going to be a big event… I hope you’re a part of it!

A Few Parting Thoughts

If you’ve always wanted to enjoy the benefits of a big product launch (including a big list-build, massive exposure, increased authority and huge profits when done right), or you just want just get the increase in sales that only a really good super affiliate team can deliver, then finding and recruiting the best affiliates in your market is the key.

And finding your competitors’ most productive affiliates and persuading them to promote your product launch too is a fantastic way to do this is.

This crash course has given you the exact step by step plan for doing that. So what’s your next step?

Get started and work through each step to start finding those affiliates, because recruiting just ONE top affiliate could add hundreds of prospects to your email database and thousands of dollars to your launch profits.

That means the sooner you get started, the sooner you could have a big JV launch under your belt, which is the perfect springboard for building a profitable, long-term, sustainable business for yourself and your family that will allow you to prosper for many years to come. To learn more, check out Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Masterclass here.

Talk soon,

Rocky

P.S. Being able to create a Perfect Product is a great start, but you also need a way to generate sales in a consistent way. Running a Product launch is a proven way to not only build your list, but generate Social Proof and make a large number of sales quickly. To learn how to launch your product successfully, check out Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Masterclass here.

PLUS: When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you to grow your business using product launches:

1. How To Build A Profitable Launch List.
Building an email list is critical if you plan on doing a launch for your product, service or business. List Warrior will show you a proven way to use free software to build a responsive list of prospects who are ready to buy from you during your launch. Click Here.

2. How To Create The Perfect Product 
Creating a product that is perfect for your audience does not need to be difficult. How To Create The Perfect Product shows you how to build high value products your audience will love one after the other. Click Here.

3. How To Attract Buyers To Join Your Launch List So They Can Purchase Your Perfect Product.
Once you have created your Product Launch List and your Perfect Product is ready to go, you need to attract people into your world so they can buy from you. One Minute Free Traffic gives you a proven way to attract buyers with ‘Automated Traffic Machines’ so you can send those people to your optin page, your sales page, your Facebook Group or anywhere else you choose.    To learn more Click Here.

And don’t forget to check this out 🙂

How to Earn $20 in 20 Minutes With Any Topic, Niche or Hobby

Disclaimer: If you purchase PLF through my affiliate link I may receive a referral fee from Jeff Walker, however you will pay no more to purchase the program through me than if you went directly to the Product Launch Formula website. If you would like my personal help as you create your first launch using the PLF process, check out my PLF Bonus offer here.

Why A Seed Launch Is The Perfect Springboard For A Profitable Online Business

Product Launch Formula Seed LaunchThere’s a reason why Jeff Walker recommends using a Seed Launch as the first step you take when you are thinking about creating a new information product.

And that’s because a Seed Launch allows you to create a product you KNOW has proven demand before you create it, and it allows you to create what we call the minimum viable product to test the market quickly and inexpensively.

We all know people who have spent weeks, months or even years creating products that nobody wanted to buy.

Don’t do that…

By using a Seed Launch to ask people in your market for their ideas and feedback on what they really want to buy, you can get paid to before you even create a product, and include everything your customers want included so the finished product is tailor made just for them.

And you can use a series of these small, low-risk launches to start and grow an information product empire in just a few years…

So how do you create one of these cool little launches?

Step 1 – Find Out What People Want To Buy

The first step is to survey your market and ask people what they want to buy.

You can use a free tool such as Surveymonkey.com to ask people what their biggest problem is, what they’ve already tried that didn’t work for them, and what their ideal product would have to include to make them really blown away.

Step 2 – Outline Your Product Into 4 – 6 Modules

The second step is to outline the content of your product into 4, 5 or 6 modules, starting chronologically from the steps your customers should take first, and leading through each step until they can achieve they outcome they are looking for.

Once you’ve got your outline, fill in each Module with the 5 – 6 minor steps needed to complete that Module.

Now once you’ve done this for all 6 (or whatever) Modules, create the content for MODULE 1 ONLY. You don’t want to fill in every piece of content for every Module yet because you are going to be using feedback you get from your students as you complete each module of the training.

Step 3 – Schedule A Live Webinar For Each Module Of Your Seed Launch

You are going to deliver your Course content via a series of weekly live Webinars. I know this might sound scary, but honestly it is the fastest and by far the best way to create content on the fly that people will actually find valuable.

The format will be along the lines of:

Week 1 – Deliver the content you have prepared or Module 1 over 40 – 90 minutes, and then answer every question your students have. The day after you’ve delivered your content, send students the Webinar replay along with a survey and ask them if they have any unanswered questions, tell them what Module 2 is going to cover, and ask them for their questions on that topic.

Week 2 – Take 60 – 90 minutes to answer any questions from the previous week, deliver the second week’s content based on what your students told you they wanted to know (along with your own insights), and then answer every question you can.

The day after you’ve delivered your content, again send students the Webinar replay along with a survey and ask them if they have any unanswered questions, tell them what you’ll be covering in Module 3, and ask them for their questions on that topic.

Week – 3 – 6 – Take 60 – 90 minutes to answer any questions from the previous week, deliver the third week’s content based on what your students told you they wanted to know in the survey (along with your own insights), and then answer every question you can for as long as it takes.

Each week continue sending the Webinar replays along with surveys asking them if they have any unanswered questions, tell them what the next Module is going to cover, and ask them for their questions on that topic. Keep delivering your Webinars until you finish going through the entire course.

Step 4 – Make An Irresistible Offer For Your New Product

Once you’ve scheduled your Webinar series, it’s time to start enrolling students. Because you are trying to test the market, and making a profit during your Seed Launch is not the primary objective, you can afford to make an irresistible offer for your new product in order to get as many virtual “bums on seats” as possible.

You should aim for at least 50 people at the start of your course, because your must have interaction with your students (by getting them to ask questions and complete your surveys) and as your course gets towards the end, a good proportion of people will drop off and simply won’t show up.

If you really have to, you can give some people complementary access to get the numbers up, but you don’t want to be giving access away to everyone because the goal as we said is to test the market.

One final thing. Being able to create an irresistible offer is so important to the success of your Seed Launch that I’ve put together a Free Cheat Sheet that shows you how to create the perfect offer.

Step 5 – Deliver Your Seed Launch Training Webinars

Now it’s time to deliver each Module, surveying your students and answering their questions as you go.

At the end of your course’s scheduled content, it’s a good idea to overdeliver and give a free Bonus Webinar to cover additional insights and answer any final questions your students may have.

When you’ve completed your training, you’ll have an awesome course created with the help of your students that gives people in your market exactly what they want to know about the topic you covered.

Having your new product allows you to do regular Internal Launches, and when you’ve tested your launch content, you can roll out a big JV Launch, build a huge email list, and clean up financially.

That’s how you can use Jeff Walker’s Seed Launch as the perfect springboard for a profitable, long-term, sustainable business for yourself and your family that will allow you to prosper for many years to come. To learn more, check out Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Masterclass here.

Talk soon,

Rocky

P.S. Being able to create a Perfect Product is a great start, but you also need a way to generate sales in a consistent way. Running a Product launch is a proven way to not only build your list, but generate Social Proof and make a large number of sales quickly. To learn how to launch your product successfully, check out Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Masterclass here.

PLUS: When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you to grow your business using product launches:

1. How To Build A Profitable Launch List.
Building an email list is critical if you plan on doing a launch for your product, service or business. List Warrior will show you a proven way to use free software to build a responsive list of prospects who are ready to buy from you during your launch. Click Here.

2. How To Create The Perfect Product 
Creating a product that is perfect for your audience does not need to be difficult. How To Create The Perfect Product shows you how to build high value products your audience will love one after the other. Click Here.

3. How To Attract Buyers To Join Your Launch List So They Can Purchase Your Perfect Product.
Once you have created your Product Launch List and your Perfect Product is ready to go, you need to attract people into your world so they can buy from you. One Minute Free Traffic gives you a proven way to attract buyers with ‘Automated Traffic Machines’ so you can send those people to your optin page, your sales page, your Facebook Group or anywhere else you choose.    To learn more Click Here.

And don’t forget to check this out 🙂

How to Earn $20 in 20 Minutes With Any Topic, Niche or Hobby

Disclaimer: If you purchase PLF through my affiliate link I may receive a referral fee from Jeff Walker, however you will pay no more to purchase the program through me than if you went directly to the Product Launch Formula website. If you would like my personal help as you create your first launch using the PLF process, check out my PLF Bonus offer here.

How To Use The Product Launch Formula To Position Yourself As An Expert

The old advice we often received from self-help gurus of “fake it till you make it” (especially if you are running a big product launch formula style promotion), where you’re pretend to be an expert even if they aren’t one CAN work in some situations. The problem is that once you get exposed as a fake and a fraud in your market, there’s usually no way to come back from that.

So here’s what: you need to do to become a REAL expert so you can legitimately position yourself as the ‘go-to’ person in your market.

While some people refer to the 10,000 hour rule that says it takes 10,000 hours to become a true expert, depending on how narrow your niche market is (and the narrower the better, at least at the start, you CAN become a recognised expert much more quickly if you want too.

You can’t do it by just reading a few articles or watching a few Youtube videos, but you can go a long way to expert status by following these steps…

Step 1: Study Everything You Can Get Your Hands, Your Eyes And Your Ears On

The key here is to jump straight to the source and consume in-depth and unbiased information.

Say you want to become a copywriting expert. There’s plenty of copywriting information available for free online, or inexpensively in books, but most (but not all) of it just rehashed and repackaged from the original (and more recent) masters of direct response marketing.

So the secret to forming a good foundation is to go back to the original sources and learn directly from them. These sources include older masters like Robert Cialdini and David Ogilvy, and more precent examples such as Jay Abraham, Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, Clayton Makepeace and Gary Bencivenga.

Then once you have an understanding of the core fundamentals, stay on top of new and developing information based on the work of these masters.

Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula takes what he’s learned from many of these experts and codifies it into a step-by-step blueprint for launching or relaunching any product or service quickly and profitably.

If you don’t have the time or money to incrementally grow your business over months or years, and you’d like to start earning more and making a bigger impact now, check out Jeff’s Free Product launch Masterclass here.

Step 2: Experiment To See What Works In The Niche

Once you’ve absorbed as much source information as you possibly can, jump in and start testing the strategies you’ve learned yourself.

For example, using our copywriting market, start testing headlines, copy leads, different calls to action, your offer (as Jeff says, you’ll want to come up with a ‘crushing offer’), your order page (order page abandonment can be up to 90%!), your optin page and email sequence, and the rest of your funnel to see for yourself what really works.

In other words, don’t take anyone else’s word that something works. If you’re trying to position yourself as an expert for your product launch, it makes sense to find out what works for yourself before you start teaching it to others.

Teaching stuff that doesn’t work is a sure way to have a very short career as one expert. The internet is littered with scammers and marketers who over promised and under delivered. You don’t want to join them.

When you’ve proven things to your satisfaction, recruit a small group of people (you could call them ‘beta-testers’ or founding members) to help you by testing your ideas in their own markets (even if you give your product away or at a large discount).

This process also gives you real case studies and proof that your ideas work. Then you can honestly show how you’ve helped people solve real problems, giving you proof and social proof, which are two of the most powerful Product Launch Formula mental triggers.

This is so powerful because you’ll be able to share real results, examples and case studies from real world experience, and people can see that you’re not just theories and untested ideas.

Step 3: Develop Your Own Teaching And Delivery Style

Once you start experimenting and testing some of the ideas you’ve learned, you’ll want to start putting your own personal spin on these old methods. In other words, develop your own style when it comes to completing tasks and achieving goals in your niche.

Todd Brown talks about two critical features most new products and services need these days in an over-saturated and over-marketed to world.

These are what he calls The Big Idea, and The Unique Mechanism. I don’t have space to discuss these here, but check out Todd’s work on them and work out how you can incorporate both of them in your product launch, because combined they will make a huge difference to your results (in a good way) 🙂

Step 4: Condense Any Complex Concepts To Simple Steps Or Processes

By the time you’ve completed your studies and proven your ideas, you’ll be well on your way to becoming an expert in your market. Unfortunately, the problem for many true experts is they teach at such a high level, their students fail to benefit because they don’t understand the basics enough to grasp the higher level topics.

So one of the keys to truly becoming an expert who creates lasting change is your ability to simplify a complex concept to its most basic and simple parts – and then teach it to other people in an easy-to-understand way.

A lot of people get overwhelmed with information in a niche, especially when they are new to it. One of your jobs is to be able to show people what’s important and what to focus on, what to ignore, and what steps to take to achieve the results they are after. If you can succeed at this,  you’ll start to be seen as an expert in the eyes of your potential clients and customers.

And finally…

Step 5: Keep Yourself In The Loop

With change coming at us at such a rapid rate these days, it’s rare that you can learn something once and consider yourself an expert for life. You’ll need to continue learning and growing in your expertise so you can stay relevant. Thing are going to continue to change in every market, so you’ll need to change to capitalise on them.

To Sum Up…

You can’t expect to become an expert overnight, you won’t become one simply by reading, listening to podcasts or watching a few Youtube videos, and you certainly don’t stay one if you don’t stay current. But focusing down to a small but profitable area instead of trying to be all things to all people, and then using the 5 steps we’ve discussed in this article, can help you become a true expert in your field in much less than the legendary ‘10,000 hour rule’ demands.

And to learn more about becoming and positioning yourself as one expert before, during and after you use Product Launch Formula to launch or re-launch your product or service, check out Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Masterclass here.

Talk soon,

Rocky

P.S. Being able to create a Perfect Product is a great start, but you also need a way to generate sales in a consistent way. Running a Product launch is a proven way to not only build your list, but generate Social Proof and make a large number of sales quickly. To learn how to launch your product successfully, check out Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Masterclass here.

PLUS: When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you to grow your business using product launches:

1. How To Build A Profitable Launch List.
Building an email list is critical if you plan on doing a launch for your product, service or business. List Warrior will show you a proven way to use free software to build a responsive list of prospects who are ready to buy from you during your launch. Click Here.

2. How To Create The Perfect Product 
Creating a product that is perfect for your audience does not need to be difficult. How To Create The Perfect Product shows you how to build high value products your audience will love one after the other. Click Here.

3. How To Attract Buyers To Join Your Launch List So They Can Purchase Your Perfect Product.
Once you have created your Product Launch List and your Perfect Product is ready to go, you need to attract people into your world so they can buy from you. One Minute Free Traffic gives you a proven way to attract buyers with ‘Automated Traffic Machines’ so you can send those people to your optin page, your sales page, your Facebook Group or anywhere else you choose.    To learn more Click Here.

And don’t forget to check this out 🙂

How to Earn $20 in 20 Minutes With Any Topic, Niche or Hobby

Disclaimer: If you purchase PLF through my affiliate link I may receive a referral fee from Jeff Walker, however you will pay no more to purchase the program through me than if you went directly to the Product Launch Formula website. If you would like my personal help as you create your first launch using the PLF process, check out my PLF Bonus offer here.

Here’s How The Sideways Sales Letter Powers Product Launch Formula

Now that Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula launch is over for this year, it’s time for all of us students to get to work on creating our own launch. Over the next few posts as I go through the PLF training once again, I’ll be sharing my thoughts and the lessons I learn (or re-learn) along the way as I prepare to launch a new training program.

So, let’s get started…

How The Sideways Sales Letter Came To Be

For decades, one of the best ways to sell stuff to a mass audience, both in print and online, has been by using a sales letter. Now the typical sales letter uses the Problem, Agitate, Solve framework, which works pretty well as a way of helping people realise they have a problem, and explaining how a product or service can solve that problem for them.

The problem with sales letters (or sales videos) is that they don’t create a lot of value for the people reading them, and therefore they aren’t all that efficient. Typical conversions for sales letters or videos are between zero and 2%, which means there’s a lot of money left on the table

That’s why Jeff Walker came up with what he calls the Sideways Sales Letter.

Now some people looking at a launch sequence without the benefit of owning Product Launch Formula still think you can just take any old sales letter or sales video, split it into 3 pieces, and deliver it as content.

But the problem with this is there’s still not a lot of value created, and it relies on the Problem Agitate Solve framework which still doesn’t work all that well.

The Sideways Sales Letter is completely different in that it teaches, inspires, and sells over a period of time, using what Jeff calls Pre-launch Content (PLC). And he typically uses 4 videos for the content of his Sideways Sales Letters.

How To Structure Your Product Launch Formula Style Pre-launch Content

So how should this Pre-launch Content be structured, and what should you cover in your pre-launch videos (or posts, emails, podcasts or other content). Here’s how I’m going to be doing it for my next launch…

The working title of my new product is currently Digital Message Secrets, and it will show business owners and managers how to use email and text messages in unique ways to sell a lot more of their products and services with very little effort.

PLC #1 – The Opportunity

I’ll be using video for my Pre-launch Content, and my first PLC video will look at the opportunity my audience has once they understand the power of using highly personalised email and text messages to build relationships, and then promote their products and services to (and through) those people.

At this point in any product launch, most people will not be aware there is a going to be a product for sale, but I’ll be doing what Jeff and others do, and subtly ‘hinting’ that the videos they are watching are part of an upcoming launch of a new product.

The goal with this first video is to start to develop trust with your audience by sharing content that is outstanding and truly helps them to achieve a result. As Frank kern says, you want to help them by actually helping them!

Who knew that would actually work LOL?

In your first piece of PLC, you’ll want to do what I’ll be doing and teaching your people how to solve the biggest problem you KNOW they face. Throughout your training, you should sprinkle in mental triggers such as:

  • Authority (show how you know your stuff)
  • Likability (just being a nice person)
  • Social proof (reviews, testimonials, comments from others)
  • Anticipation (tell what’s coming next)
  • Proof (testimonials, screen shots of results)
  • Interaction and Conversation (have Facebook comments installed and invite people to comment below your PLC)

My audience’s biggest problem is generating very targeted leads in a cost effective way. The solution I’ll be sharing with them is a simple way they can re-purpose and re-activate many of the leads they have already generated, instead of trying to attract more new people.

I’ve spoken about this with dozens of people, and when I ask them if they ever have leads or prospects who fall through the cracks and don’t end up buying, they always say ‘YES”. So my first video will show them how to get a good percentage of those people back into the business, and then get some of them to become repeat customers or clients.

Then after I’ve helped them solve what is their biggest problem, I’m going to highlight another problem they are facing (which is being able to follow up with their audience in a low-stress, no-pitch way, that also sells heaps of products and services).

Then I’ll let them know that in the next video, I’ll show them how to solve that problem as well, which will open a mental loop that they’ll need closed before they feel comfortable again.

NOTE: In Jeff Walker’s case, he promises to teach the three types of product launches, and how to know which one is right for you and your business.

PLC#2 – The Transformation

The second PLC video should close the mental loop you opened at the end of the first video, and should teach about the potential for transformation, (in my case, how to follow up regularly while ‘selling’ without always having to ‘pitch’ products and services), and how their lives will be better once they understand how to use these personalised messages in their own business.

The goal for this video is to get people to believe that THEY can achieve the transformation. NOTE: In Jeff’s case he teaches the 3 types of launches and how to choose which one suits where you are in your business. The mental triggers you can use in this video are:

  • Authority
  • Credibility (show results and other credibility boosting elements)
  • Social proof
  • Proof
  • Likability
  • Reciprocity (people will usually want to reciprocate when you do something for them)
  • The common enemy (if possible, bring up a common enemy and position yourself on their side against this perceived enemy)
  • Reason why (giving people a reason why makes everything your doing much more believable)
  • Community (build the conversation in the comments section)

Then at the end of my second PLC video, I’ll be highlighting the next biggest problem my audience faces, and that is in not having enough products or services of their own to fully satisfy their markets desire for more stuff. I’ll promise to help them solve this problem in the third PLC video.

NOTE: The problem Jeff brings up at the end of PLC 2 is, “Well now you know the 5 major types of launches, but you also need to know the details of how to launch if you are going to do it successfully”, and he lets people know that he’s going to go through The Product Launch Blueprint in the next video (which opens another loop that people will feel the need to have closed).

PLC#3 – The Ownership Experience

In the third PLC video, your goal is to cover the ownership experience and what it’s like if people in your audience really had this transformation, along with what it’s like to own your product or service.

In my third PLC video, I’ll be sharing the simple system I have for turning any business into a ‘Distribution Centre’ for a range of high profit products and services. This system takes very little time, effort or money to implement, and gives exceptional results for just about everyone who uses it.

The mental triggers you can use in this video are:

  • Scarcity (your launch is coming to an end, and now’s the time to mention the class is coming up, and there will be some kind of deadline or limit to places)
  • Social proof
  • Proof
  • Likability
  • Reciprocity
  • The common enemy
  • Reason why

I’ll be starting off by revisiting the two techniques shared so far, and will then teach them the system for turning their business into a high profit Distribution Centre for a range of other products they don’t have to source or create, stock, handle, deliver or supply customer support for.

NOTE: In Jeff’s content he starts off by saying, “So now you know about the sideways sales letter, and you probably know which launch you are going to do, now I’ll take you through the Product Launch Blueprint” which is an overview of how to do a launch. The Blueprint is awesome, but it cannot possibly give all of the nuance and details on how to run a launch.

At the end of that video, I’ll be letting people know that my new program is starting in a few days, and in the next video I’ll give them all the details if they’d like to join up.

Jeff announces his Product Launch Formula training is opening up for new members soon, and the next video will give them all the details and show them how to join.

PLC#4 – The Open Cart/Sales Video

In the 4th piece of pre-launch content, you release your sales video or sales letter. The format of this content is (courtesy of Frank Kern as taught to him by John Carlton):

  • Here’s what I’ve got
  • Here’s what it will do for you
  • Here’s what to do next

When people have gone through your prelaunch content and you have helped them by actually helping them, and if you present your audience with a great offer, this 3 step process works like gangbusters for converting people into clients and customers.

In his 4th PLC, Jeff releases the sales video that explains a very compelling offer for PLF, and invites people to join.

Once you’ve released your Sales Video, you’re in the ‘Open Cart’ period, which we’ll cover in another post.

For now, remember this…

According to Jeff Walker, this product launch process has helped him make millions of dollars for his own business, and has helped his students make around a billion dollars in sales through product launches.

There are NO guarantees, but when used correctly, the PLF process can probably help you too.

So if you’d like to learn more about how to successfully launch your own product or service by using Jeff’s Sideways Sales Letter process, check out his Product Launch Masterclass by registering here.

Talk soon,

Rocky

P.S. Being able to create a Perfect Product is a great start, but you also need a way to generate sales in a consistent way. Running a Product launch is a proven way to not only build your list, but generate Social Proof and make a large number of sales quickly. To learn how to launch your product successfully, check out Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Masterclass here.

PLUS: When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you to grow your business using product launches:

1. How To Build A Profitable Launch List.
Building an email list is critical if you plan on doing a launch for your product, service or business. List Warrior will show you a proven way to use free software to build a responsive list of prospects who are ready to buy from you during your launch. Click Here.

2. How To Create The Perfect Product 
Creating a product that is perfect for your audience does not need to be difficult. How To Create The Perfect Product shows you how to build high value products your audience will love one after the other. Click Here.

3. How To Attract Buyers To Join Your Launch List So They Can Purchase Your Perfect Product.
Once you have created your Product Launch List and your Perfect Product is ready to go, you need to attract people into your world so they can buy from you. One Minute Free Traffic gives you a proven way to attract buyers with ‘Automated Traffic Machines’ so you can send those people to your optin page, your sales page, your Facebook Group or anywhere else you choose.    To learn more Click Here.

And don’t forget to check this out 🙂

How to Earn $20 in 20 Minutes With Any Topic, Niche or Hobby

Disclaimer: If you purchase PLF through my affiliate link I may receive a referral fee from Jeff Walker, however you will pay no more to purchase the program through me than if you went directly to the Product Launch Formula website. If you would like my personal help as you create your first launch using the PLF process, check out my PLF Bonus offer here.

Join This FREE Last Minute Live Product Launch Formula Training

Jeff Walker has just announced a last-minute Live online training where he’s going to share some of the behind-the-scenes stuff going on with this years Product Launch Formula launch.

Specifically Jeff is going to cover

1. How his team have been doing “Super Secret Segments” that have been revealing the behind-the-scenes ebb and flow of orders during the launch. This is what they are doing behind-the-scenes to test and tweak their systems and increase conversions, and will be specifically about how you can finish strong in your launch (sometimes 50% or more of your sales will come on the final day).

2. He’ll be doing live question-and-answer session to cover any last-minute questions you may have before the launch closes later on today.

3. He’s actually doing this while he’s on the road with no support staff, so you can see what’s possible nowadays with the absolute minimal tech and support.

If you’d like to attend Jeff’s final Live event before this years Product Launch Formula launch is over and he closes the doors until next year, you can go here (no email address or optin required).

I’ll see you there,

Warm regards,

Rocky Tapscott

Disclaimer: If you purchase PLF through my affiliate link I may receive a referral fee from Jeff Walker, however you will pay no more to purchase the program through me than if you went directly to the Product Launch Formula website. If you would like my personal help as you create your first launch using the PLF process, check out my PLF Bonus offer here.

Jeff Walker Answers Three Questions About Using Product Launch Formula

QUICK NOTE: Registration for Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula Coaching Program closes down at midnight on Friday, 9/28. The class is starting next week, so he has to close registration on Friday to make sure they have everyone on-boarded properly.

For more information on the Coaching Program click here.

So there’s been a lot of questions coming in about launches during this week’s Product Launch Masterclass…

The 3 main ones are:

#1. Do I need a list to use Product Launch Formula?

The bottom line is whether you’re doing launches or not, if your goal is to build a sustainable business, you need to build and continue to grow an email list as your #1 priority. This database of prospects and customers gives you long-term security (because you can create money on demand), and will be a huge leverage point in your business.

And a lot of us who have spent the last few years doing that believe the best way to actually GET a list is with product launches.

If you’re starting from zero now and you have no list at all, then you would use Jeff’s “Seed Launch” to get your list started… and then you’re off to the races.

If you already a small email list, then an “Internal Launch” is the way to go. An Internal Launch will make you immediate sales, and it will also help to build your list through word-of-mouth viral traffic.

And finally, when you’re ready, there’s the “JV Launch” – which will grow your list faster than ANY other list building strategy ever devised.

(One more thing: Jeff is such a huge believer in list building that he’s included an entire List Building course as a free bonus for anyone who registers for Product Launch Formula. It’s called “Launching Your List” and it’s all about building a list of people who want to buy what you’re offering.)

CLICK HERE for details about PLF

#2. Do I need my own product or service?

There are literally thousands of ways to make money online… but they all generally boil down to two primary strategies. You’re either selling someone else’s stuff, or you’re selling your own stuff.

(And by “your own stuff” – I mean it could be an online course or training program, a membership site, physical products, a personal service, coaching, artwork, a book, antiques, homes or properties, etc.)

Honestly, I think the best online businesses tend to mix a number of those revenue models to diversity their income. Selling other people’s stuff can be lucrative and easy, and it can help to smooth out your cash flow.

But in the long run… you really need your own products – at least if you want to have real control and lots of leverage over your business.

So the way that many people start out is by first selling other people’s products as an affiliate, and then developing their own products – and that’s really a GREAT way to go.

And on that note, one of the best ways to sell affiliate products is with the “Shadow Launch” that Jeff teaches in PLF. This is where you put together a simple and easy email sequence (similar to a product launch sequence or PLS) for a product that you’re selling as an affiliate.

It’s staggering how effective the “Shadow Launch” is… it immediately sets you apart from all the other affiliates selling that product, regardless of what market you are in.

That’s a great way to get started… but remember, in the long run you should be thinking about creating your own products. That’s where you get total control over your business and your destiny.

(Jeff feels so strongly about having your own products that he’s created an entire Product Creation course – and you get it as another bonus when you register for Product Launch Formula.)

CLICK HERE for details about PLF

3. What if I’m “not technical”?

Good news – I’m not technical either!

These days lots of people get intimidated by the technical stuff of an online business… but here’s the thing – you don’t need a big fancy website. You can get started with a single web page – and there are some amazing tools that allow you to create that single page in a matter of minutes.

Personally I use LeadPages, but there’s any number of powerful, inexpensive tools you can use to get a website up in just a few hours (or you can outsource it for a few dollars).

Don’t get me wrong – you’ll have to learn some stuff to get your business going. But it’s all 100% “figure-out-able”… and because of the great tools that are now available, it’s so much simpler than it’s ever been.

AND since Jeff is dedicated to taking any obstacle out of your way, he’ll have a BRAND NEW bonus inside the PLF Coaching program – it’s called “Your Tech Stack Quick Start”.

The whole idea of a “tech stack” is simple… it’s the software tools that you use in your online business. And this bonus is his team showing you how to pick the tech for your business, and get it set up. So if you’re just starting out and you’re intimidated by the “technology question”… they’ve got you taken care of.

CLICK HERE for details about PLF

One last thing… registration for the Product Launch Formula Coaching Program is open right now. The last time Jeff opened it up like this was a full year ago. And registration is about to close down – the deadline is this FRIDAY…

But please don’t wait until Friday… you don’t want you to forget about the deadline and then have to wait a year to join us in the program. Here’s the link:

CLICK HERE for details about PLF

See you inside,

Cheers

Rocky Tapscott

P.S. Jeff mentioned today that he was looking through the comments from the Product Launch Masterclass replays, and in the Facebook Group… and it got him thinking about something he wanted to add to the Product Launch Formula Coaching Program…

He noticed a lot of people are full of enthusiasm and drive and energy… but they’re just getting started in this online business world.

And even though it’s been 20 years since he started out, he reckons it feels like it was just yesterday. There were lots of things that held him back, and he can remember all those early hurdles.

He said he can remember the mistakes he made… and the few crucial things he did that made all the difference.

So, he’s got a pretty cool bonus for folks who are just starting out…

It’s called “Operation Quick Start” and gets right to the heart of things in six sections…

He covers the “Fast Start Mindset”… which is about getting your mental game aligned with your new business (and new life). This is probably the single most important factor when you’re starting out… and it’s something Jeff has worked on consciously for the last 20 years.

He also covers the “Fast Start Tools”… this is about the tools to get you started. And even more important is the how behind picking the right tools for your situation.

This isn’t a sexy topic, but it’s the nuts-and-bolts that you have to get right.

And then there’s the “First Steps”… and this is the step-by-step of what you should do first to get rolling. It sounds simple, but it’s oh-so-easy to get sidetracked into a thousand different directions.

But what you really want to do is put on the blinders and focus on getting the first steps done first. And that’s what this section is about.

Sound pretty cool? 🙂

So this is the deal – you’ll get the “Operation Quick Start” mini-module as a free bonus when you register for the Product Launch Formula Coaching Program.

The only “catch” is that we’re about to close down registration so we can get the class started… so you need to go check it out now:

CLICK HERE for PLF + Operation Quick Start

(There’s a timer on that page, so you can see how long you’ve got until registration closes down.)

See you on the inside 🙂

Disclaimer: If you purchase PLF through my affiliate link I may receive a referral fee from Jeff Walker, however you will pay no more to purchase the program through me than if you went directly to the Product Launch Formula website. If you would like my personal help as you create your first launch using the PLF process, check out my PLF Bonus offer here.