|
Home / Business / Sales
Bonuses: How To Raise the Value of Your Products
By:Kathryn Beach
Whether you create and sell your own products, buy reselling rights or rebrand other people's products, adding value with bonuses is a well-used tactic in affiliate marketing. Why? Because a good bonus is valid, honest, and truly does add value to any offer. Perhaps most importantly, it makes the customer think that NOT to purchase would be a very unwise decision.
The challenge is that almost every marketer is using bonuses, so customers are wearying of the hype. What you need to do is offer them bonuses that do add genuine value to your product, and off them at the right place and time, and in the right way.
Some examples of good bonuses are:
*your product is an ebook about how to buy a used car, and your bonus is a report on how to check to see if a vehicle has sustained damage.
*your product is software designed to simplify obtaining reciprocal links, and your bonus is a report about how to create search engine optimized website title, description and keywords.
A bonus with genuine value:
*can be put to use immediately and is directly related to your product.
*provides motivation that is a match for the motivation to sign up for the newsletter or buy your product, and serves to add to that motivation, not detract from it.
*can allow you to put a price on a product that others give away for free.
The right placement of a bonus is:
*immediately before your prospect makes the last click to complete a sale. This will eliminate any last minute hesitation and will reinforce what you are asking for your product.
A bonus works well if you will only be selling your product for a limited time:
*If you can tell people that if they order by July 15th 2006 they will get a discount or free bonuses, there will be a sense of urgency compelling the customer to buy now rather than risking missing the bonus.
Here are examples of appropriate free bonuses:
1. Physical Product
If you are selling a physical product, it's easy to slip in a free sample or free gift. Anything with your logo, url and/or contact info reminds your customer to return to your website. Pens, mousepads, coffee cups, and refrigerator magnets all get used frequently.
2. Special Report
Information in a condensed form that relates to what you're offering and would be very helpful for the customer makes a great bonus. If your product is information explaining how to do something, your bonus can be a detailed description of some aspect of that. A great bonus to add to Opt In Master Course would be a report outlining how to get the most out of your favorite traffic exchanges or safelists; or, how to write a good email advertisement.
Titles that are exciting and include numbers, such as "10 Killer Steps to Writing Email Ads that Sell", are proven to be highly successful. An easy way to write your report is to write it in Microsoft Word, format it so it looks professional (using white space, highlights, and bulleted lists, for example), and then use Adobe Acrobat to save it as a PDF file for easy downloading. Be sure to promote your business, website, and relevant affiliate programs in there too - remember it may get passed around. If you would like to make your report available for rebranding, then use pdf995 instead of Adobe Acrobat. Rebranding rights encourage other marketers to pass it around. You can offer your report for free, and sell rebranding rights.
3. Resource List
Compile a list of your personally recommended resources, websites, books, and vendors that will help your list grow their lists and run a successful business. You can set this up as a PDF file as well, or create a password-protected area of your website that your list can access.
4. Checklist
Are there any checklists that would be a good tie-in to what you offer? That help people do what you're teaching them to do, better or easier? A checklist of a daily traffic exchange surfing schedule, or weekly website promotion activities, would help your list members run their businesses more efficiently. A common question I receive is, do you really use ALL the resources in OMC? Your answer to that could be your checklist of what you use.
5. Collection of Articles
My favorite way to advertise my site and add valuable content is to write articles and post them to article directories and on my website. Your list of article directories, or a collection of your best 10 articles, would make a valuable bonus ebook.
6. Workbook
Since OMC includes marketing principles, strategies and tactics, put together a separate guide to help your list members do assignments, stay on track, and document their progress. A workbook is something people recognize and appreciate because it infers step by step guidance, with measurable results. This would be a step up from a checklist.
7. A Coaching Session With You
A consultation is a great bonus to offer, for several reasons. First, it helps you get to know your list members and their questions will
help you decide on the direction your website should take. Second, it's a great opportunity to add backend sales to your free products. For example, if they appreciated the coaching you provided, they may be interested in buying an ebook that expands on this info.
Digital or Physical?
If you're offering printed material as a bonus, don't go nuts spending a ton of money making it look great. "Good" is okay! A simple printed-on-demand report from Cafe Press fits any budget and is fine. First you sign up for a Basic Shop for free. On the " My CafePress" page, click on the "products" link under Shop Management. Next, click on the "add products" button at the top of the page. This will direct you to the product list where you can select the products available for you to choose from. The book is the last product in the list. The system will then walk you through each step of creating your book.
What's most important is the cover -- even if you only produce a digital report or audio product, having a graphic of it will help
increase your response and make you look more professional.
Give Your Wallet a Bonus This Month
So get some bonuses together, make note of your sales so far, and then add some bonuses and watch how your sales rise.
Digg
del.icio.us
Blink
Stumble
Spurl
Reddit
Netscape
Furl
Article keywords: bonus, bonuses, product bonus, value-added products, affiliate marketing tips, Kathryn Beach
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com
Be forewarned: Cafe Press is addictive. You can create your own store, create your own products, and it's ridiculously fun and easy. You may find yourself spending more time there than you planned. Besides playing around with Cafe Press, Kathryn Beach also is queen of her domain at Affiliate Marketing Tips and would love to share her queendom with you.
|
|
| Top Sales Articles |
- 1). Why Use Lead Management Software? By : Halstatt Pires
Having a popular website, or popular company of any type, is entirely dependant on sales. Effective sales at that. Maintaining a healthy profit is key to the long-term survival of your web site or business and this means knowing the difference between your effective sales leads and your ineffective sales leads.
Small Business Owner
Lead management software is perfect for the small business owner or webmaster of a website.
|
- 2). Power Words By : Wendy Weiss
I conducted a teleconference a few weeks ago with people who were new in sales and new to prospecting. The focus of the call was to help participants get beyond fear and understand their prospecting process.
One of the participants on the call told me that she had been given the telephone prospecting script that her team leader uses to set appointments.
|
- 3). Secrets to Getting Paid for Your Creative Ideas and Proposals By : Kirstin Carey
Many creative professionals such as event planners, interior designers, and decorative painters are frustrated when potential clients steal their ideas and take them to cheaper companies. They present their ideas in a proposal or presentation and later find that they didn’t get the client and their designs are being used by someone else.
PROTECT YOUR IDEAS
In order to protect your ideas and still get the client, you have to change how you deliver your concepts and specifically what you present.
|
|
|
- 5). What’s the Objective of Your 1st Sales Appointment? By : Jeff Hardesty
Have you defined what you want to happen at the conclusion of your 1st appointment? Only then can you actually set up a proficient sales methodology to achieve the defined objective more times than not. And with a pre-defined objective to your 1st appointment you can (1) set a realistic benchmark of success and (2) measure the outcome. It becomes part of your sales performance scorecard.
|
- 6). Stop Cold Calling and Double Your Sales in 30 Days By : Hartley Pinn
Everyone knows what “cold calling” is, but how about “warm calling”? That’s easy, warm calling involves contacting your former clients and people you have already identified as prospects.
These are the people you had made previous contact with and are listed in your database or on your Rolodex. If appropriate for your industry, I recommend spending one hour a day calling your database.
|
- 7). Restaurant Supply a Lifesaver for Caterer By : Kingston Amadan
A few years ago, I was working as a catering manager of a local historic hotel. The hotel had been in terrible condition for many years until a group of investors purchased it and began the long arduous process of renovation. They were able to get the majority of it renovated before the funding started to run out, at which time they opened for business to offset some of the costs of ownership.
|
- 8). Employers Keep Screening Out Great Sales Candidates By : Robert Cameron
Companies hiring sales reps stick to the same old hiring practices, and hire low performers that turn over, while screening out some of the best candidates. Robert Cameron examines two hiring myths and shows you how to easily select sales people who can sell.
|
- 9). The Five Cardinal Sins Salespeople Commit By : Bill Brooks
We have very candid conversations with the sales professionals who come to our seminars and through those discussions we’ve discovered five critical errors that most salespeople make. Of course, we help them correct those mistakes, but it’s somewhat surprising as to how common they are.
Here are the mistakes, see if you commit them in your own sales career.
|
- 10). The Downlow on Buying and Selling Concert Tickets Online By : Jared Lock
Buying concert tickets online isn’t scary. In fact, it’s as easy as visiting Google and typing in the event you are looking for and follow with the word “tickets”. However, a couple of questions may come to mind when browsing for sports or concert tickets.
1. Why are tickets so expensive on the internet? On Ticketmaster the tickets are so much cheaper.
|
| New Sales Articles |
|
|
- 2). 7 Strategies for Loan Officers to Guarantee an Awesome 2006 By : Joe Pahl
With the coming high interest rate market, loan officers who follow these seven strategies will guarantee having a successful 2006. The stratgies include new technology, proper planning, business referral groups, and maximizing your "geese that lays golden eggs" among others.
|
|
|
|
|
- 5). Dealing with the RIGHT Decision Maker By : Tim Hagen
Dealing with different decision making styles and decision makers appropriately is a big part of being successful in sales. This article will provide background to the different types of personalities that can be encountered in the sales process.
|
|
|
|
|
- 8). Closing A Sale: Promise and Deliver! By : Hartley Pinn
One of the chief complaints from customers about the way business is conducted these days centers on customer service. Either the service aspect is completely lacking or what has been promised to the customer hasn’t been kept. Dealing with the latter category, it is easy to see why customers are disappointed: sales people routinely over promise and then fail to deliver.
|
|
|
- 10). Sell Services Online By : Eggbilly
Is it possible to take a normal offline service business like a legal practice, private medical practitioner or even a real estate business and make money with it from the Internet?
As someone who’s been doing this since 1996, I say the answer is a resounding “YES”.
If you are a business owner, or even an affiliate marketer, you know how hard it is to make a living online.
|
|
|
