It happens
that I own a developer's license (and have some skills) for a
powerful software platform that... develops software!
Among my other gifts as a strategist, copywriter, and
video-marketing know-it-all I can work with you to develop
software to create a HUGE GAP between the perceived value of
your product offer and the perceived value of your competitor's
offer.
Here's a
sample video I produced promoting one such viral software
product:
Competition is
reality - we
must content with it as marketers, every day.
The
premise:
Adding
software to your product line can boost your bottom
line in
amazing ways. You can sell the software, offer it for
free with advertising inside it, give it away with upgrade
options, or include it as a bonus to massively increase
the perceived value of your product.
Software is in
many ways the ideal product to sell - it has high perceived
value, and it costs virtually nothing to deliver it via
download.
Bill Gates,
possibly the world's most successful entrepreneur, built his
fortune on software. Could it be he is on to
something?
I think
yes.
The
Problem:
I've been
involved in the internet marketing world for several years
now. I've seen the market evolve and I've seen a lot of
folks charge out into the marketplace with their own products
and fail to get traction.
Often these
products are "information products" and usually that means some
sort of "how to" information.
In order
to make some real money selling information products you have
to persuade visitors to your site that the value of your
product exceeds the money they will pay to get it. This
is a very relative thing, but with the virtual avalanche these
days of "ebooks" claiming to teach you how to do just about
everything the market has become aware that perhaps it doesn't
want to pay $47 or $97 for a downloaded PDF document unless the
information is SUPER HOT!
Enter
the BONUS!
It is not,
really, so easy to persuade a person to spend $30 or more on
your ebook about training a dog from a salesletter when, if
thinking rationally, they could buy a real book with more
information from a bookstore for substantially fewer dollars.
The advantage to you, as the marketer, is you don't pay for
printing, stock storage, binding, and so on - all substantial
costs associated with paper publishing.
The problem is
compounded because if you deliver similar page-count in an
ebook as a print book in order to legitimately claim some sort
of completeness to the information - you'll create a lot of
work making an info-product that may or may not be much of a
winner for you, financially.
To make any
real money with information products you need to charge enough
money for them so you can advertise, or split the price with
affiliates who need to see a certain dollar amount in their
pocket, per-sale, to be motivated to promote.
Hence the
common price-point of $27-$197 and UP! for what is arguably
usually not the best information, incomplete, overpriced,
and in most ways inferior to what you can get in print!
The main appeal is you get
itRight
Now!via instant
download - thus the big sellers are
products which are well-targeted at
"desperate buyers".
To sell these
overpriced (let's admit it) PDF documents we have to prove to
the reader the information is:
1.
valuable because it is little-known, secret or will
help them attain instant results where other similar
information does not. (ie. acne, seduction/dating,
weight loss, golf).
2.
(with marketing material) give the buyer an unfair
competitive advantage in making
money.
3.
is the latest and most up-to-date information and
thus having it will increase the buyer's
advantage in many ways or self-esteem (the
latest electronic gadgets are sold the same way
because the "early adopters" tie their sense of
self-worth to owning the latest
technology).
4.
offers enormous additional value in the BONUSES
included with the purchase.
Merely piling
on more ebooks as bonuses is... well, not as persuasive as it
once might have been.
What's
the solution? the
best bonus?
Answer: Custom not-availble elsewhere
software
Including this
kind of software as a bonus for your info-product can increase
response substantially. It can get prospects to instantly
choose to do business with YOU instead of your
competitor. It's a real competitive advantage in today's
marketplace, and I can give it to you in a customized marketing
package so you can stop worrying about whether your offer is
going to make you money and focus on driving traffic and
getting customers.