Making Money Online | Product Launch: Splash or Tsunami?
Your first product launch is such an exciting and absorbing prospect, it can be easy to become short-sighted. What follows a product launch is the embarrassing secret that people don?t like to talk about.
This is the way it plays out?
A new exciting product is about to be launched and the pre-launch fever is high. Joint Venture (JV) partners are stacking their autoresponders and compiling their bonuses.
When launch day arrives, the hype explodes into action like an energetic puppy on a caffeine drip. In a flash, sales go from zero to astronomical, and within 1-2 weeks the owner is able to announce impressive sales figures.
If you were to plot this on a chart, you?d see a red line plotting an almost vertical ascent. But if you were to keep charting sales over the weeks AFTER the product launch period ends, you?d see a corresponding, almost vertical descent, as the volume of sales almost flat-lines.
Affiliates enjoy the flurry of commissions during the launch period but, rather than continue promoting the product in the long-term, they move on to the next forthcoming product launch. The owner, while pleased with the instant payday, is left wondering where future income is going to come from.
Admittedly this isn?t always the case but many internet marketing product launches follow this pattern. This is one of the main reasons why the owner will be back 6-12 months later with? yet another product launch.
There is a way out of this cycle and in fact, if you?ve yet to mastermind your own product launch, you can even avoid getting onto this treadmill in the first place.
It won?t surprise you to hear that the vast majority of profitable launches owe their success largely to JV partners with responsive mailing lists. What you might not be aware of is how few of those JV partners are needed to achieve significant results.
The 80/20 rule applies here, approximately 80% of affiliate sales will come from 20% of your affiliates. Put another way, if you manage to find 20 people to promote your product as affiliates, the vast majority of your sales will probably come from just 3 or 4 of them.
Among aspiring internet marketers, the dream of a spectacular six-figure profit launch is a common one. The truth is that this rarely happens by accident. Now more than ever, the competition in the internet marketing industry is strong and, if you want ongoing success, you need to be making a long-term plan that gradually scales upwards as your business success increases.
It?s the difference between a product launch that makes a few ripples, and a product launch that goes on to whip up a tsunami of sales that continues to grow and expand.
Let?s start at the beginning?
Get Noticed
Listing your product on Clickbank and hoping that word of mouth will propel you towards a fortune is unlikely to do the job. Before you launch your first product, you need to get the attention of some competent affiliates. You may not be able to attract a huge number to your first launch but all you need is just one or two of those initial JV partners to have ?super affiliate? status, and you?re up and running.
How do you get the attention of affiliate marketers, particularly those with the hefty, responsive mailing lists? There are two methods that can work individually, but can also be combined to maximize your results.
The first method is to focus your energies on networking. Attend every internet marketing seminar and workshop that you can find. Be friendly and look for ways to help people out. The main goal here is to build a network of marketers who view you as someone pleasant and helpful, but you must be genuine in your attempts to engage with people. If you?re entirely self-serving, this will be noticed.
The consequence is that, when you begin planning your own product launch, you?ll have a group of people whom you can approach and ask for support. Don?t be offended if some people still decline your invitation; successful marketers receive more joint venture invitations than they can handle, so they have to be selective. If your networking has been successful you should still manage to find a handful of solid JV partners to assist with your initial promotion.
And always, always, always, ask if they can recommend you to anyone else who might be interested in joining in your promotion. Especially from those who have declined to take part, you will receive some helpful suggestions and contacts.
Along the same lines, a good way of being noticed for being a helpful individual is to join in other people?s product launches. Building a list, promoting a quality product, and making the owner X number of sales, is a sure-fire way to gain someone?s attention and gratitude.
It?s worth putting in some extra effort to try and make enough sales to rank in a JV competition; this will also get you noticed by other marketers who participate. This can result in more private JV invitations, and more friends in your network.
Practice one, or both, of these techniques and you?ll have an excellent chance of having a good pool of affiliates promoting your product launch.
The Long Haul
If you?re thinking that none of the above is going to prevent the ?boom and bust? effect of a product launch, then you?re right. That part comes next and is most effective when you?ve used the above system.
As shallow as it may sound, once you?ve had a successful product launch you will be viewed by many in a completely different light. Even if your initial sales volume was modest, you?ll be astounded how your perceived status changes. This will probably be most notable in the tone and volume of emails you start to receive from other people seeking your support for their project.
By all means help out where you can but don?t be drawn into spending all your time on product launches. You still want to be perceived as a helpful individual but if you?re going to receive long-term affiliate promotion for your project you need to keep moving forward.
The next step is to find more JV partners and arrange private, individual promotions that will be exclusive to their list. The product will be the same, but the price or the package may be a little different. Think of it as arranging a series of mini product launches, one affiliate at a time.
The pay-off from each individual promotion may be less than your original launch (although a single affiliate with a responsive list, can be very lucrative by itself) but you?re now building long-term income that pays for the hard work you put into the pre-launch.
Additionally, if you invite each new batch of customers to promote your product, even if you only add 2-3 new affiliates each time, the eventual snowball effect can be very effective. Many affiliates are all about the product launch, but there are some out there who will promote a product continually if they are seeing results for their efforts.
Finding JV partners for these ongoing promotions is an extension of the first step. Start with the contacts that were unable to take part in the initial product launch, but seemed reluctant in their refusal. Approach them a second time ? with conversion rates to bolster your request ? and invite them to choose a convenient date.
Widen the Search
Keep on the lookout for new JV partners but, if you?re running dry, try and find a good JV Broker to help you expand your reach.
A JV Broker is a marketer who connects list owners with product owners. They will usually work on a commission basis, taking anything up to 25% on top of the commission received by the affiliates they refer to you. The income you receive from this arrangement may be less but, even if you only break even, you?re building an ever wider network of affiliates, some of whom may be willing to promote for you again and again.
You can do a Google search but you?re more likely to find the best JV Brokers through personal referrals. This is where attending offline events and building a network of contacts is so important. Ask experienced marketers for some recommendations for JV Brokers and you?ll receive one or two names to get you started.
Give It Up
As the number of your active affiliates and JV partners grows, so will the volume of work required to support their activity. Before it reaches the point where you expend so much effort on affiliate management that you don?t have time to locate new affiliates, invest some of your profits in hiring a dedicated Affiliate Manager.
The job title misleads many into thinking that this job is merely about finding new affiliates. While that is one of the duties of an affiliate manager, the role is far more varied and includes:
- Creating promotional material
- Training your affiliates to be more effective
- Responding to support queries
- Identifying and taking care of your most effective affiliates
A good affiliate manager will take this work off your hands and continue to grow your affiliate network on your behalf.
As you can imagine, this is a demanding role that requires marketing expertise, a good sense of customer service, and highly tuned organizational abilities. You need to be confident that your affiliate manager can represent you well and help, rather than hinder, the relationships that you?ve worked hard to build up. You need to recruit carefully and not without a great deal of consideration.
Every internet marketing entrepreneur dreams of the successful product launch and there?s nothing wrong with that. But it?s only those that consider and plan for long-term results that do more than make a single splash.
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This article first appeared in the June 2009 issue of the MarketingDotCom newsletter. You can get a free copy of the latest issue for the price of shipping at ://the7figuresecrets.com
Source: http://marketingdotcom.com/product-launch-splash-or-tsunami/
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