Advantages On Your Side

As you prepare for the webinar promotion, just know that there are a number of things on your side to make this as easy and effortless as possible (not to mention successful!).

1 – Authority. Matt has been teaching online business owners how to start and grow their businesses for over a decade. He was recognized as the top Affiliate Marketing Manager in the world by the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards in 2010 and has trained more than 123,000 affiliates.

2 – Make Money Sooner. Unlike a typical launch where you don’t see any results (in the form of sales) until the very end of the promotion period, with the List Launch Challenge launch, you could see sales as early as Day ONE!

3 – Shorter Launch. The launch is just 2 weeks long, whereas the typical product launch is closer to 3 weeks. That means less impact on your promotional calendar, and less strain on your list (even though there is little impact on your list when you promote affiliate offers!)

4 – Proven Results. This stuff works. Just check out what these testimonials:

Anatomy of a Successful Launch

I am often asked for a marketing plan from affiliates. Having studied more than 1,000 affiliate marketing plans and running dozens of my own, here is my five-part strategy.

1. Repeated contact.

One email, blog post, or podcast is not enough. It’s important to keep up the excitement and momentum, especially as you get closer to a deadline (early bird or final deadline)

That means:

• Soft promote the PRE-pre-launch content to warm your audience up.
• Promote each piece of pre-launch content.
• Send an email or two about the webinar.
• A follow-up email with the webinar replay.
• An email about the free bonuses we’ll be offering (HINT: They will each be available for only a couple of days and they rock).
• A deadline email or two on the last day.

That might seem like a LOT of contact…and it is. The key is to segment your list after the three pre-launch pieces into only people who clicked. That way you can hit them up without bombarding your entire list.

2. Use different outlets.

The word “Email” above could be replaced by “blog post” or “tweets” or “podcast episode.” The key here is to make sure you are talking about the course and content in different places. Do a 30 to 60-second spot on your podcast, make sure to keep Tweeting and posting to Facebook, and use Instagram to show your copy of the book, etc.

I often take the swipe email copy and turn it into a blog post. Works very well.

3. Get personal.

What has your experience with growing your list been like? Most people are intimidated by it or embarrassed at their results.

Share your personal story, struggles and all. Be funny if that is normal (or even if it’s not).

4. Offer an exclusive bonus.

Find something that fits your audience and throw it in as add-on. Simply ask them to submit a form with a copy of the receipt and they get a free e-book or workbook.

TIP #1: This is also a great way to grow your email list. Use the form as an opt-in.

TIP #2: Follow up with that list during the course launch phase and offer an additional bonus for buying the course.

5. Sell with “authority.”

The worst thing in the world is a scared seller. I spent nearly an hour on the phone once with a highly successful entrepreneur. Someone I look up to. And when he revealed his sales strategy to me, I cringed. He was selling scared.

It’s easy for me to judge…I do the same thing. But the key is to sell with authority. You are offering an amazing product that has the potential to literally change lives.

Be proud of what you are offering your audience because you’re going to be a part of some amazing transformation stories.

If you need any inspiration for copy, check out the Swipe Copy.

Best Practices for Offering Bonuses

How Bonus Packages Work

You may have used this strategy and you’ve certainly seen it done. You offer an exclusive bonus if people buy a product through your link.

I’ll go into more detail about what makes a good bonus package below, but for now, what you need to know is that an effective bonus package is one that takes an on-the-fence buyer to an actual buyer.

In other words, it’s something attractive enough to cause a person to take action.

Myths About Bonuses

There are two myths about bonuses that I will debunk here:

#1 – They don’t work
#2 – They have to be extravagant

Both are FALSE.

How I Know Bonus Packages Work

I’ve personally tested promotions with and without bonuses. And bonuses won…by 240%!

I believed the myth that they don’t work (despite having actually fallen for this “ploy” myself). I thought it was a waste of my time. I only offered bonuses because “every other internet marketer was doing it, so why not me?” I never took the time to ask if they actually work.

So I tested it with two promos last year. Here’s what I found:

Promo #1 ($200 product) – Bonus group made me $9,000. Non-bonus group made me $4,500. Not a huge lift, but still noticeable.
Promo #2 ($1000 product) – Bonus group made me $13,000. Non-bonus group made me $2,000. Just a little difference, there.

Overall, my sales increased by nearly 240% WITH a bonus.

In subsequent launches, I have had people tell me that they purchased through my link specifically for my bonuses, so I know that they are making a difference.

Bonuses Don’t Have to Be Extravagant

In both examples above, my bonuses were SUPER simple. I used a proven formula for coming up with my bonuses and made it easy on myself.

You may have seen the extravagant bonus packages and thought, “Good grief, I can never put together something like that.” And you DON’T HAVE TO!

In fact, the effort you expend might be almost nothing.

How to Put Together an Effective Bonus Package

Here is the three-part formula we use when we promote launches and that we share with our partners:

1. Use What You Have

Put together bonuses that you…wait for it, this is the good part…you already have! In the first promo I mentioned above, I created a special bonus just for that launch, but now I reuse it over and over.

2. Aim for 50-200%

Try to get the total value somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% to 200% of the value of the course.

You can go up to 400% of the course value, but 50% to 200% is the sweet spot.

If you go higher than 400% it starts to seem ridiculous and it destroys the effectiveness of offering a bonus.

The only exception to this is if you are offering a single bonus and it happens to be worth 5x the value of the product. That would be ok. The issue is when you are stacking 10+ bonuses and the value exceeds 400%.

3. Fit the Offer

Your bonus must fit the offer. While your course on writing might be worth $500, it’s basically worthless to someone buying a weight loss product.

The two best ways to fit an offer are to complement and close the gaps.

Complement: If the course you are promoting is about copywriting, for example, a good bonus might be a mini-course on sales page tactics or a software tool that allows you to create easy landing pages.

Close the Gaps: Gaps mean that the course is missing (or not super in-depth) something specific to your audience. If your audience is specifically writers, a mini-course on copywriting for book sales would be a great bonus. Or if you teach social media marketing, your 25 Keys to Social Media Headlines That Go Viral ebook.

The Key to Effective Bonuses

Sell your bonuses!

Seriously, play them up big time. Talk about them in every email.

Use them to close the deal.

Like a tree falling in the forest with no one around, bonuses are not effective if you don’t mention them repeatedly and really sell them.

In this post on how to close sales on the final day of a launch, I shared how the majority of the affiliates who converted 3x better than the average affiliate offered bonuses and mentioned them in 75% of their emails on the final day of a launch.

Offering a great bonus package is one of the five things that I found that the top converting affiliates did consistently.

One Last Note

Make sure you don’t deliver your bonuses until after the refund period is over.

Otherwise, people will buy through you just for the bonuses and return the course. Lame, but it happens.

How To Put Together a Bonus Package – Training with Ray Edwards

NOTE: This is actually one of the bonuses in my NPNP course!

If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask.

All the best,

Matt McWilliams
(e) matt@mattmcwilliams.com
(p) 317.825.8826