Seven Things I Changed This Year
Guys, I'm launching a membership site next Monday (December 15th) at 10:00 AM PST. Just wanted you to be aware.
2008 was my most important year in marketing. I changed a heck of a lot of things and actually took my marketing seriously.
The first thing I changed: a longer stream of upsells.
I've only started using upsells this year. An upsell is where you sell a low-ticket item for $27 and just as your visitor goes to order, you give them a choice to either pay the $27 or $97 for a higher ticket item.
Even better, get the $27 order first and on the thank you page, give people the choice between clicking over to the download or giving you the extra $70 for the full package.
Attending seminars made me realize how short sighted I was. Many of the attendees sell products in the $600 range and upsell coaching packages all the way up to $10,000.
As soon as I arrived home from my 4 hour flight and 90 minute drive from the airport, I changed many of my upsells that went from $27 to $97... to upsells that went from $27 to $97... to $197... and finally to $250.
I would bump the upsell to $500 or more but Clickbank has my price limit set at $250.
Do you have an upsell for your product? How many steps?
Please fill up this entry with ten comments so I can share the next big thing I changed this year...
Filed in: Clickbank • Seven Things
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I have been meaning to do more upsells on my thank you pages, thanks for the reminder. did you track the difference in sales after you incorporated the upselling? Just curious to see what percentages you experienced in the difference in revenue.
I don’t have any upsells yet… I’m still scared that the upsell with cause the total sale to be lost…
But upsells on the thank you page… why not? 🙂
Robert,
I see you have gone into membership sites as well.. I’m waiting for a blog post on that, too! 😉
You can work around the clickbank limit by making it a $250 a month membership fee, with the maximum number of billed months being “2”.
this would allow you to make a $500 sale.
What’s to stop them from cancelling after the first month? Err, I guess I would whip up a script to give them half of the stuff the first month, and the rest of it later.
maybe you can bill 2x bi-weekly or weekly?
this would allow you to space the billings much closer together- and give the stuff faster. 😀
Congrats on a great year Robert. Looking forward to interviewing you during our Predictions Call (www.PredictionCall.com).
Tips like these will make for a great presentation.
Take care.
Stu
Yeah I have 2 upsells behind my sales page but I find the whole deal of finding or creating extra products a real pain!
I know how powerful a backend system is and that’s why I’m keeping at it!
Seminars give you so many great benefits…
besides upsells, you learn the importance of tightly integerated products, downsells, relationships, joint ventures, testing, tracking, and on and on…worth their weight in gold.
I’ve got upsells on all of my offers, but usually just one. Now that I’m tracking all of the steps in the sales process, I see the need to get much higher-end upsells in place.
One of which is a subscription-based software tool for Infopreneurs. 🙂 Gotta get that continuity working for me.
I’m working on this as well. I learn that you couldn’t “live” without upsells from the Get Altitude training.
I made more money from day 1. Get altitude was my best investment ever.
Franck
Upsells are always a good thing. Is there a general figure between the gaps in product price? Obviously selling a $7 product then a $197 upsell will produce “sticker shock”. So how do you determine a close enough distance between upsells?
Upsells are fine if they are done well, but as a customer I get very unhappy when I buy a package that was promised to be a complete system, then am told on the upsell page that what I just bought is a teaser, and if I really want the whole package, I have to buy the upsell. I find that dishonest and infuriating.
If the upsell is something **else** that works well with the product that I just purchased, fine. I can see, for example, selling a good ebook but offering hand-holding coaching as an add-on.
But the upsell proposition **must not** invalidate the initial purchase and make a liar out of the sales page. When someone does that, I make a point never to buy from them again or to represent them as an affiliate.
Great reminder to us to include upsells in everything we do. Thanks Robert.
Great point. It sounds like that happened to you… do you mind sharing the details with us, leaving the names out?
That’s all the more reason that if you have a multi-part course, make each course stand on its own… instead of part 1, part 2, part 3, etc. of a system.
@Kathleen:
This is a world of liars and dishonest people, otherwise they would have a real job – cartographer, physicist, photographer, teacher, whatever. The more you lie, the more you make $$$. “Smart” people take this as a opportunity to make money off people. Not sure they enjoy lying. But sure they LOVE money.
Wow, what a cynical thing to say. There are plenty of honest marketers out there.
I have heard enough stories (Perry Belcher, Frank Kern, Kevin Trudeau, Vincent James, Don LaPre) that if you lie on sales letters, the FTC will shut you down.
It doesn’t make sense to lie in the long term, but a few people still do it… don’t let that distract you from the fact there are tons and tons of people who have graduated from what you call a “real job” who are 100% honest in their business.
Kathleen:
I’d also love to hear your experience with such a type of upsell.
were that done before the sale, i’d cancel the entire transaction, as would ‘most everyone!
But right after the sale.. that would be a real bummer!
Hi! what’s holding me back is money everything lost job, house. Ramon Thanks
18 December 2008 03:42:34 Central Standard Time
I think you have the ten comments you need so just let me say the following..
After being lied to and ripped off for about 8-9 years, you Robert, and a very very small cadre of others have graciously given me priceless information at an affordable price. Sometimes for free.
I empathize completely with those who feel bitter about their online marketing experience. Most really do not care if you make it online and will say anything they think you want to hear to make a big sale.
When it comes to Ramon I lost my house and everything about 13 years ago. I feel your pain. I could easily be bitter about getting worthless information and getting ripped off so many times.
However, Robert Plank has never ripped me off at all. I also recommend the blog NetProfitsToday.com by Rosalind Gardner as she fairly often lets loose with some real jewels of wisdom while answering questions on her blog.
So choose your online friends wisely and do absorb as much knowledge as possible so you can share, not rip off, with your customers etc.
Take Roberts advice about blogging about your experiences and fairly soon I will be naming the bad guys on my blog even if some of the big names try to retaliate against me. I don’t give a you know what. Catch me if you can. When duty calls I’ve got balls.
So now you think your an old fart instead of a punk kid. Well, the old fart is smart.
“Be defiant in defeat and be magnanimous in victory”
Your friend always,
Frank Funston Eckdall
P.D. The really old fart, but I can still pull in the girls er I mine women!
Okay Ramon, if you are homeless then you shouldn’t be in internet marketing.
That’s why all I share is tips. You can’t take in all the info at once. You won’t make a bunch of money at once.
If you lost your job, get a new one. I know people aren’t hiring as much right now but if you have no choice but to get a lower paying day job, fine. If you have to move into a small apartment for a while, fine. Just don’t feel sorry for yourself, that’s the worst thing you can do.
Get a job, get all your debts taken care of, then start freelancing on the side, then start infoproduct marketing, then start partnering up with other people.
If it helps: Walt Disney, Ulysses S. Grant, Larry King, Abraham Lincoln, Donald Trump, and Mark Twain… all declared bankruptcy and built themselves back up.
Robert,
I have a product on Clickbank for $97 however now I have a $7 report that I wanted to use as a lead generator to upsell to the $97 product.
However clickbank wont let you list 2 pitch pages. It would be interesting know how you get around this – do you need 2 accounts or would I have to remove the $97 product an only list the $7 product in the marketplace with an upsell to the 2nd product?
Hmm..