Dumb Strategy #1: Faking Social Proof

So you come to a launch blog and there’s 200, 300, even 400 comments on each post. You get thinking, “hmmm something’s up.”

Yea. It’s called faking social proof. Maybe you’ve seen it before. And it’s the #1 Dumbest Strategy you can make when launching your product.

Here’s a little story…

A buddy of mine was promoting for a “ultra-successful” launch and every blog post had over 200 blog comments. As an affiliate, you know you’re about to make a boatload of money when you see that many comments for each post, especially if you’re in 2nd place for the affiliate prizes.

As the buzz built up and the doors opened, day 1… 1 sale. day 2… 1 sale. day 3,4,5,6, and 7… no sales.

What the heck went wrong?

It’s faking the buzz. Something Robert Cialdini calls, “A bungler of influence” and egregious (Jay Abraham word) mistake.

You could probably guess what happened to this guys business.

Instantly done.

Creditability shot.

True story.

Don’t make this DUMB mistake and fake your social proof with fake blog comments. Karma will bite you hard.

I will personally smack you. I’m sure Jeff Walker will agree… to smack you too.

Dumb Strategy #2: Having Your Son/Daughter Write Your Sales Copy

Yes, I understand you want to save money and not pay a copywriter to write your emails or sales letter. I was there and most everyone is…

BUT…

This is a DUMB mistake.

Here’s why…

Copy is King in direct marketing. It doesn’t matter if it’s actual written sales copy or copy that you are reading in a video sales letter, the words you say, the inflection you have all comes down to the “salesmanship in print.”

Small changes mean huge profits. It’s all about conversions. Here’s a simple chart to show you the difference between a low conversion of 0.005% (half a percent) vs. a great converting sales letter at 3%. The difference is between a $50,000 business vs. a $1,000,000 business. Ask Rich Schefren.

Conversion % Traffic Sales Price Revenue
0.5% 1,000 5 $500 $2,500
1.0% 1,000 10 $500 $5,000
2.0% 1,000 20 $500 $10,000
3.0% 1,000 30 $500 $15,000

NOTE: Typically on product launches your conversion rates can skyrocket on the first day because of all the anticipation, curiosity, and other persuasion and influence factors working in your favor. I’ve seen conversion rates as high as 22.4% on launch day!

Talk to my friends Chris Haddad, Rachel Rofe, and Francis Ablola they’ll tell you the horror stories of bad copy on launch day.

Your affiliates will hate you. If your sales letter doesn’t convert and they don’t make any money… it’s a tough sell to go back to them for another promotion.Treat your affiliates like kings and make them a ton of money because in the end they are the lifeblood of any info product business.

Dumb Strategy #3: “Oh #%$… I Need Affiliates!?”

I’ve seen it happen time and time again. You plan the pre-launch, you mastermind like crazy planning each elemental step, “Scarcity is here, and ahhh the social proof works there. This is going to rock!”

Then it hits you.

“#%$… I don’t have any affiliates!”

It’s a week before your launch, you struggle to make deals happen all while creating the content, writing the emails, creating the product (because you’re not done yet), and the other 100 million thing you have to do, and you soon realize that no one knows about you or your product.

That million dollar launch will not happen UNLESS you plan.

“He who fails to plan, plans to fail.” – Proverbs

About 2 or 3 years ago at Bradley’s in West Palm Beach, FL, Todd Brown from Strategic Profits and I talked about the importance of actually “launching” your affiliates, not just launching your list.

So think about creating a pre-launch plan and campaign JUST for your affiliates. Involve them in the story from the beginning.

Dumb Strategy #4: No Backend

Great. So you built your product got it polished and cleaned and ready for launch, but what about your backend? Did you build that out yet?

Don’t make this DUMB mistake and NOT have a backend.

Yes, in “some” rare cases you won’t need one, but honestly it’s really dumb not to have something in place.

Ok, so you have 1-3 days before you launch and your struggling to find a upsell. You can’t create a product in time and time is definitely not on your side.

Here’s some quick and easy upsells you can offer…

4 Week Coaching Program

A friend of mine, Maria Andros’, had a couple of days left before he highly esteemed launch of her coaching program “Social Media Blueprint” and needed some quick guidance on her upsells. With the help of Harlan Kilstein and some semi help from me she formulated her upsell as a hands on personal coaching program.

They’re simple to do and if time is not on your side, a “hands on” personal coaching program is the thing for you.

In-Depth LIVE Webinar Series

The keyword here is LIVE.

You’ve got too much on your plate already and creating more videos for launch time is NOT happening. So host a live webinar or teleseminar series. It’s simple, there’s virtually no cost and people can gain instant access to you.

In this series you discover and go deeper into your product’s overall benefits.

Don’t make the mistake and not have a backend. Honestly, you’ll be doing a major disservice to the people that want more, want personal attention, and want to learn from you.

Dumb Strategy #5: “I Can Do It Myself”

Can you do it yourself?

Of course you can. Will you pull your hair out. Without a doubt.

Is it smart to go at it alone?

Ask any successful business person. Actually, you already know the answer.

“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.”
- Ryunosuke Satoro

So true. Without the team, you will never be as powerful as you are together.

From my experience with doing many six figure launches, the elements and team are pretty much always the same.

• Graphic Designer
• HTML coder or programmer (or multiple)
• JV relationship manager
• Copywriter

Those are the core elements. Now, try and do it all by yourself. Your results will probably suck, especially if you have no experience programming, designing, creating web pages, writing good converting copy, or managing relationships and jvs.

Don’t think you can do it all.

This is the single biggest dumbest mistake I see many new and veteran entrepreneurs fall into… trying to do it all themselves. Heck, I’ve been there.

Here’s what I recommend…

Programmers

In my experience I found the best programmers are on odesk, rentacoder, and scriptlance. I use scriptlance for small projects, rentacoder and odesk for larger projects with developers with more experience.

Copywriters

I could definitely recommend a few. The best place to find aspiring copywriters is through Michael Masterson’s company AWAI, WarriorForum, and Copywriting.com.

You can find some great copywriters that are just beginning. Most are quite inexpenesive and provide some good work.

Graphic Designers

I recommend checking out 99Designs.com and a secret site that I think is better is use called DesignOutpost.com. You can simply post your project and have 5, 10, 15 designers created a rendition of what you are looking for.

From webpages, logos, banners, flash elements, you name it – they have it. And the best part, it’s super cheap.

If you’re this far, I hope you enjoyed the post.

I’d love to here your feedback. Drop me a comment below.

Muchas Gracias,

Chris

I’m writing this from Orlando at Rich Schefren’s Strategic Profits event and good lord is this a killer conference. Back in July 2007, I went to Rich’s event here in Delray and that rocked my world, but this is by far one of the best conference that I’ve ever been to.

I left Sunday morning pretty early in the morning, like 5:30am, and arrived in Orlando at around 7am. you know, everytime I come to Orlando I get lost and end up paying an extra $10 in tolls because of all of the wrong turns.

Anyhow, I got to the hotel and instantly felt the energy from the people in the room. I began to meet entrepreneurs and business owners from all over. Some people who I’ve heard before or knew from seeing them on the web. (“on the web” sounds like were’re in 1996)

So the day started out going right to Frank Kerns’ presentation for his Mass Control students. It was funny, since I was so early I struck up a conversation with a cool guy Mick from the UK and Chris from Canada. After that conversation, I knew the weekend was going to rock.

Frank Kern’s Mass Control Presentation

So I took a seat and 5 minutes later, Frank “the dude” Kern walks in with a surf t-shirt, jeans, and sandals. He said, “All right, all-right, all-right.” that’s the line Matthew McConaghey said in the movie, Dazed and Confused. I knew I was in the right place.

I can’t go into the presentation but I’ll give you one tidbit…

“Find the CORE of your market.”

After Frank’s presentation, he was instantly bombarded by the huge crowd in the room. So instead of talking to Frank, Jeff Walker, the creator of Product Launch Formula 2.0 was standing alone, so I decided to chat with Jeff. We chatted for a couple of minutes and exchanged cards.

What a cool dude. (nice meeting you Jeff)

Here’s the speech from Frank’s Speech (not his Mass Control speech)

Rich Schefrens’ Presentation

Man, Rich truly knows how to build a business. Everytime I hear him speek I’m always blown away with his thoroughness in each marketing piece he puts together.

Rich went over his entire business and how he went from ZERO to an 8-Figure business in less than 18 months. He talked about each marketing piece he gave away over this time: Internet Marketing Manifest, The Missing Chapter, The Final Chapter, Startup To Freedom, and the many other FREE info he gave away.