I’m finished with my BeBiz site and I have to admit that I’m a little disappointed …
Firstly, though, the site certainly fulfilled it’s promise to get a ’sales oriented’ web-site up and going pronto with a kick-ass sales letter, but as another reader pointed out, it produces one of those ’sales letter sites’.
Even though long sales letters are the marketers friend (this is a little known secret outside the direct marketing industry: thise long letters really DO sell!) there are so many of them out there on the web that we need to something really clever to stand out.
So, to the problem:
BeBiz sucks at generating site traffic …
… basically, their whole ’system’ of generating site traffic boils down to three pages of commentary on how to drive search engine traffic (buy entries in yahoo Directory and similar … fuggedaboutit!) and how to by Google Adwords.
Well, I don’t need BeBiz to spend more money!
It would have been really nice if they had some sort of ‘magic traffic tree’ but they don’t so we will have to make our own 
So, what’s my problem?
[AJC: I'll give you a 'sneak peek' at my killer idea in tomorrow's post ... but, you'll need to watch 12 minutes of me rambling on a video to get to it ... and, then I will do a whole series of posts to implement this step in the not-too-distant future].
My eBook sells for $2.99 …
…. to buy a Google Adword ad (you know those little text ads that you see all over the internet and on Google’s own search results pages, you will need to pay a minimum of $0.16 – $0.25 per click through to your site. Even if one-in-ten buy (they won’t), I will be operating on the smell of an oily rag.
In fact, I’m currently operating on a revenue of $0.03 per visitor … I can’t afford to even pay more than 2 pennies for advertising!
The simple solution is to create a product from the ‘get go’ that sells for more …
… I will do the same eventually, but it was more important to me to get A product up and going to show you where this is all heading than THE product.
I haven’t bought any Adwords ads yet, but I will … look at it this way: if I can’t pull in traffic that will pay $2.99 for an eBook then I certainly won’t get them to pay $49 (or even $29)!
8 responses so far ↓
Jeff // October 28, 2008 at 7:25 am |
@AJC – I’ll be watching closely as you roll out your traffic generation plan. I have several niche sites that I’m using to run adwords ads that rely upon search engines for traffic and money. Keyword targeting and using a WordPress blog have been helpful in raising the traffic.
A blog with 5-10 posts that target a specific keyword(s) can do a lot to move you up the google rankings. In my case, a couple of my niche sites are appearing on page 3 of Google for my Keywords. Not too bad for only a couple months of time.
One of the down sides of Search Engine Optimization is that it is not a “fast” way of generating traffic. It takes time to work your way up through Google’s search engine.
If you’re interested in these techniques, there are a wealth of Internet Marketing websites out there. One of my favorites is Court’s Internet Marketing School (Courtenytuttle.com).
Sorry to hear Beebiz was a traffic bust.
-Jeff
AJC // October 28, 2008 at 6:19 pm |
@ Jeff – One of my favorites is Derek Gehl’s (formerly Cory Rudl’s) Internet Marketing Center … because they are such experts on Internet Marketing, I immediately expected more on traffic generation when they came out with BeBiz.
Josh // October 29, 2008 at 12:51 am |
I think increasing the price of the e-book may actually increase your customer conversion rate. Customers may feel if you think it’s only worth $2.99, then it must not be that important.
Tim Ferris also talks about this theory in T4HWW. If something is priced as a premium product, then people will believe it’s worth paying a premium for, although it may be easier for Tim since he’s selling dietary supplements…
You may need to extend the e-book if your going to charge a premium, just add more posts from 7million7years, almost everything there is good enough to be included in my opinion.
AJC // October 29, 2008 at 1:36 am |
@ Josh – I agree; I only price it at $2.99 because I don’t think that a 5-pager is worth any more than that … there is an ethical component to what I do.
Jeff // October 29, 2008 at 9:12 am |
@AJC – Sorry for the double comment above. Internet connectivity from Germany has been a bit spotty and I wasn’t sure that the comment went through or not.
I understand the ethics point you raise. No criticism intended, but I would be disappointed if I paid $30 for the five page product you currently have. I also agree with Josh about raising the price, but I’ll diverge a bit and propose that you charge more money for a different product.
Have you considered giving away the current e-book as a “teaser” intro/free report? It could be the bait where you bring people in, wet their appetite for your information and then you move them into a much more detailed book (basically further and more detailed discussion of what’s in the “free report”). You could then sell the detailed version for a much higher price.
AJC // October 29, 2008 at 1:46 pm |
@ Jeff – Have you been reading ahead … ?
What I’m doing here is laying down a framework/model for readers to follow … but, I will need to create the ‘real product’ that you recommend sooner rather than later … new downloadables, a couple of tweaks to the sales letter and price, and we’re off and running ….
Jeff // October 29, 2008 at 11:26 pm |
@AJC – Not reading ahead, thinking ahead….I hope.
I can see several products that you could develop just from this one idea/concept.
1. Teaser free report
2. Teaser free emails that contain a financial tip of the day or week. This will help you build an email list that you could market future products directly to.
3. A paid detailed report
4. A paid audio/podcast of the report so people can take it with them….not everyone likes to read.
5. A paid online course that contains exercises similar to what you’ve been doing on 7MIT.
6. A paid monthly subscription service where you release new wealth exercises/information on a monthly basis. Kind of continuing education for your paid course.
7. A paid personal coaching product where you consult with the customer on a monthly basis either via phone, live chat or a personal meeting if they’re in your area.
I think you could pull all of these off. They are more or less just refinements of what you already have on your blogs and in your head.
Good Luck
-Jeff
AJC // October 30, 2008 at 2:20 am |
@ Jeff – It’s interesting to see your list progress from a low-cost (potentially) high margin on-line business, to a high ‘cost’ but (potentially, both high revenue AND) high margin real-world business at Step 7. Is this a good thing? Maybe.
If you really want to take this step (well-trodden by the likes of Michael Gerber and his ‘E-Myth Academy’ and Brad Sugars and his ‘Action International’ coaches), the key here would be to use revenue-sharing consultants (definitely phone based for the low monthly per-client revenue that this typpe of consultation would support) rather than doing it yourself (after you have ‘ironed out’ the process and created good systems that they can follow) … smells too much like hard work for a guy who’s retired, but for those of you trying to strike it big, this is certainly a possible way to go!
BTW: Really like your Step 3. – hadn’t thought of also offering a podcast / downloadable MP3 (as a ‘free bonus … $79 Value!!!!’) for people ‘on the go’ …. nice!