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The true power of the Internet is the power to reach a
massive audience with your selling message.
But the Internet marketing gurus have tried to convince
us that the path to success is selling "big ticket"
items.
"Earn a $7000 commission" they say.
"Earn a six figure income with only one sale a week"
they cry.
But is selling a big ticket item really the best choice
for most of us?
Or is it better to sell a product that every visitor
can afford, then let time become your ally as loyal
customers buy again and again?
Ultimately, only you can decide what is right in your
situation.
The problem with big ticket items is this ... making
big ticket sales is hard - very hard indeed.
Let's look quickly at what it takes to successfully
market a big ticket product.
With a big ticket sale, you have to ...
- Establish credibility or play on your reputation.
- Have a killer (read: expensive) sales letter.
- Overcome the human tendency to be skeptical.
- Justify the price.
- Convince the reader you will honor a guarantee.
- Provide lots of proof that your product works.
- Have a merchant account that takes big payments.
- Offer a payment plan (usually).
- Ship a physical product (usually).
- And more.
Selling big ticket items is hard work, and best left to
marketers who can afford to wait a long time between
sales, and can afford expensive advertising as well.
For these reasons and more, many people choose to offer
lower ticket items as their primary focus - especially
when starting their online careers.
After all, how much easier is it to convince a reader
to spend $25 than to convince the same reader to spend
$497?
A lot easier.
Think of it this way - do YOU buy big ticket items
online as an impulse purchase?
Would you be likely to visit a site you had never seen
before and complete a transaction for $500 or $1000?
Not likely ... not very likely.
But you WOULD (and probably have) order a product for
$10 or $25 if you were convinced that it would help you
solve a problem now. And you would order that product
on the very first visit to the website that offered it.
After all, what would you have to lose? Even if the
product was horrible, and the merchant refused to give
you a refund, you would only be out a few dollars!
Anyone can afford that if they had to.
After all, when you get your credit card bill do you
look closely at the $20 charges or the ones that have
three digits or more ... the ones over $100?
*** Four Tips When Selling Small Ticket ***
If you are going to focus on selling smaller ticket
items at this point, here are four tips that will help
you.
===> Use Small Ticket Items To Create A Big Customer List.
One great thing about selling small dollar items is
that you can sell so many of them! When I first started
offering products at under ten dollars, I thought that
the same group of people would buy each product, and my
customer list would not grow.
Happily, I found just the opposite to be true. Not only
did I create a group of loyal buyers (thank you if you
are one of them) but also created more first-time
buyers in six months that in the previous 18 months.
And guess what? The new buyers have now become repeat
buyers too.
Now that is a win-win situation.
Once someone has a good experience with a low priced
item, they will get to know and trust you, which makes
them a very logical prospect for both repeat sales and
higher dollar sales.
Trust is the key. Low priced products that pack a big
value punch work wonders to build trust.
HOT TIP: Having a large list of buyers gives you real
marketing power when it comes time to recommend a new
product or set up a joint venture. Yet another benefit
of this simple approach.
===> Use Small Ticket Items To Build A Powerful Mailing List.
It's as true today as it was in 1999 - the money is in
the list. No doubt about it.
But *how* can you build a big list?
With low priced products of course!
Now this might sound like tip #1, but there is one
subtle (yet powerful) difference.
In this case, you are not trying to make any front end
money at all ... just using a low dollar product to
build a list.
Here's how you do it.
Find or create a product with a *true* value of about
$25 ... then sell it for a dollar if the person will
refer three friends.
-------------------------------------------------------
VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: **Always** honor the resale
rights agreements on products you buy. Never sell a
product under the price suggested when you bought the
rights. There are lots of products you can use for
Tip 2 without violating resale rights and risking
your reputation.
-------------------------------------------------------
Now, you will notice that I said to *sell* the product
for a dollar, and might be wondering why. After all,
why bother collecting one dollar when everyone likes
free stuff?
The reason you want to sell the product, instead of
giving it away under a viral marketing idea, is that it
separates the freebie seekers from the real people who
might buy something.
Freebie seekers rarely ever buy. One dollar buyers
almost always will buy under the right circumstances.
===> Find Small Ticket Items In Resale Rights Packages And "Source Code" Sales.
You might be wondering where to get enough products to
pull off a marketing strategy like this.
There are four excellent sources of material that you
can tap.
- 1. Resale rights packages that allow it.
-
- 2. Source code sales where you get an edit-able file and have permission to change the information.
- 3. Articles that people use to market their product.
- 4. Sites that specialize in providing information "in the raw".
The point here is to find or create information rich
products that people want. No person wants to buy a
book - even for a dollar - that is little more than a
list of affiliate links.
Give great information and readers will reward you.
It's the one marketing strategy that works every time.
===> Establish Your Own "Pricing Brand".
This one is subtle, and rarely discussed, but very
effective.
The goal of the overall 'low priced' marketing tactic
is to provide a helpful product and establish yourself
with your customer so they will buy more. This is
business, after all.
One excellent way to do that is to offer an odd price,
and offer the same price on every special.
A long time ago, I settled on $9.97 as my price point.
Now, when my readers get a message with the subject of
"Another $9.97 special" they open the email quickly,
and act quickly too.
This is great because it saves us both time. I don't
have to write a long email "selling" the offer (since I
have proven these offers to be an excellent value
already) and my reader saves time too.
Pick an odd number and make it your own. Your readers
will remember you for it.
===> Are There Downsides?
As with all things, there are some downsides to the low
cost approach. Here are the top two.
1. You won't build an affiliate army because you can't
pay commissions. But, candidly, building an army of
affiliates is much harder than the books say it is, and
it's time consuming too.
We have over 3000 affiliates now, and I outsell them 10
to 1 with my one little ezine. To be clear, it is *not*
their fault (and I sincerely appreciate every sale they
make) ... it's just that I think about my business all
the time and they are busy promoting lots of products.
That's the real world.
2. You won't do joint ventures because there is not
enough profit to share. But how many people would take
your joint venture offer seriously anyway?
HINT: The *will* take your JV offer very seriously
indeed when you have a mailing list of over 1000
buyers, which can be done rather quickly with small
ticket sales.
Well, there you have it - the case for offering low-
cost, easy to buy products.
If you make low cost products a part of your marketing
mix, or if you make it your primary focus, you can look
forward to building a large list of buyers who will
reward your hard work with many more purchases (and
larger purchases too) as time goes by.
And THAT is a beautiful thing indeed!
*******************************************************
Charlie Page teaches real people how to market on the
Internet at http://www.RealWorldTactics.com
Want to know what works in the real world? Find out now by
visiting Charlie online, or calling his toll free
number.
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