This Is An Exercise In Words – ReubenRock.com

Have you ever created a product, watched it sell, then watched as it slowly faded away?Over time, a product can lose relevance and sales can dwindle. This is especially true in techy niches, which is where I will be revamping an old product in the next few days. Never fear – your sales don’t have to disappear. You can continue to renew your domain and breathe new life into a product. I’ll talk about that for a few minutes here today.

Around 2 years ago, I created a very popular product in a tech niche. It sold like fire, I made some money, and I ignored it for a while. Affiliates were driving tons of traffic to the page, and they still are today. But the product itself has lost some glitter and glory. It’s a bit outdated. And I was considering ditching the site so I could clean up my portfolio of sites. Terrible idea! Instead, I’ve researched and found everything I need to update the product and give it a brand new face.

You can do the same thing, too. If you have an old dog, teach it a few new tricks, and watch your sales spike back up.

Google search your niche, see what has been happening in the past few months or years. Decide what your product is missing. What are searchers finding online that causes them to pass up your offer? Whatever information they are finding elsewhere, you should add it to your old product. This is a simple process, but you should dedicate some time and effort to it. Once the product has some new content, you can move on to…

Revamping your sales letter!!! This step gets missed by a lot of marketers. Just because your product is current and people will love it, your sales letter may be sending a stale message. Something as simple as updating the firmware version you list in a sales letter can make a big difference. Go through your sales copy with a keen eye toward the outdated details it may contain. Update your message so it fits with what people want today.

Finally, tell your affiliates what you did. This is vital. Your affiliates may not even be thinking about your product anymore. If you redo the sales copy and product, they need to know about it. It might cause them to renew interest in promoting your product. Just send your affiliates a quick email, explain that you updated your product and copy, and send them a review copy if necessary. This can really help your affiliates deliver better leads and convert better for you.

Doing this for your products every now and then can only help – rarely will it hurt your sales. Remember that times change, and your site might need to change, too!

Good luck,
Reuben D. Rock

Humor me for a minute while I share a quick story with you. And yes – I promise there is a point to this little tale.

Last night, I was out and about taking care of some errands. I needed new floor mats in my car and the Netflix had to get dropped in the mailbox. My tires also needed some air, so I stopped by a gas station down the street from my house. Here is where my story begins.

As I parked my car by the air machine (whatever it’s called), I looked around confused. I wasn’t quite sure where the change machine would be. I knew there had to be a change machine, because these sort of car washes always have one or two. So I’m looking around, and a voice calls out to me. “The change machine is right over here.” It was a guy in shorts and a plain t shirt. He didn’t look homeless, but he didn’t appear well-off by any means. Living in a city like Memphis, you learn that poverty can look just like your friends and family.

I put in a dollar at the first machine and nothing happened. Suddenly the “out of order” light turned on. Great, it turned on after my money was already gone. A few seconds later, the light turned right back off. That’s sketchy – and it is probably fooling a lot of people out of their money. The same voice was behind me again. “Did it take your money? Somebody really needs to do something about that machine. You might try the other one, if you have an extra dollar.”

So I did. And it gave me 4 shiny quarters. I thanked the man for his help, then used $.50 to fill up my tires. While I was standing there, my new friend came back into view from around the building. “Hey, do you have any change to spare? I really need to get a sandwich or something tonight.”

He had me. And I handed over my leftover change.

That’s the end of my story. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it last night. This was one of those moments that writers like Robert Cialdini include in their books about persuasion. And I had to dissect it in my mind to figure out how it worked.

Two things happened that night. First, this stranger showed me a bit of kindness and sympathy when my first dollar was stolen. He was helpful and wasn’t intrusive the way some beggars can be. By the time he asked me for some change, I already liked him. I had to reciprocate his kindness, and I had to cough up the little bit of money.

Second, he “caught me red handed.” What I mean is this: after helping me FIND some change to put air in my tires, he was completely aware that I now HAD some change. He knew it, and I knew it. What was I going to say to this guy? “No, I’m keeping this 50 cents to add to my high-yield savings account.” Get out of here! Of course I was going to hand over the quarters.

Listen up marketers… reciprocation is powerful. Give and you will get. Even the smallest of niceties or a sign of compassion from a stranger can almost FORCE reciprocation. Always give freely to your customers or leads, because they will reciprocate the gesture and you will come out a winner.

Also, whenever you catch your customers “red-handed,” take advantage. Where can this be applied? How about upsells? You just spent money with me, your wallet is out, and I know you have the funds. Why not buy this product to complement your initial purchase?

Think about testimonials. If someone sends a quick email to say they liked your product, reply immediately. You have them trapped – ask for a full testimonial. You liked the product? Would you mind writing a few sentences about your experience?

So thank you to the man I met last night. Beggar or marketer? Who knows, but you reminded me of a couple great lessons.

Keeps your eyes open,
Reuben D. Rock

Every year around this time, I’m reminded of the seasonal nature of some of my products. Actually my top sellers are seasonal. Once winter sets in, sales begin to dwindle until spring. It leaves a tough couple months where my ad spending remains unchanged, but the clicks just don’t convert.

This is an example of when you should consider diversifying your product offerings. Getting into a new niche can really help you out in this situation. That’s what I’ve been working on in the last year.

My site, 90MinuteBusiness.com is a line of products that I hope will boost my income during the slow season for my physical products. When physical sales drop off, my 90 Minute Business products continue to keep me afloat.

What’s your experience with seasonal shifts in your sales? Have you been diversifying and trying new niches to combat the effect? If not, maybe it’s something you could work on in 2010.

Best of luck,
Reuben D. Rock

Here’s a quick post and a quick tip: use your Google Adwords managed placements.

If you are using Adwords to drive traffic to your site, you are losing out on low cost clicks if you don’t use managed placements. Use the placement locator tool to find some good potential sites to target. Content clicks can be had for a low CPC, and you will get higher CTR if you target sites properly.

Let me give you some stats from one of my personal campaigns:

• Average cost per click – $0.09
• CTR’s ranging from 1.3% to 5.73%

No, those CTR’s are nothing too special – but for the content network, it’s pretty good. I’m happy with it, and I’m making money from it.

But what I really like is the CPC of $0.09. That’s incredibly low, especially considering my CPC for search is between $0.50 and $0.79.

So go use the placement locator tool, get some low cost clicks, and thank me later!

That’s all for today – good luck,

Reuben D. Rock

Internet marketing noobs seem to get hung up in one major place: product creation. That doesn’t surprise me. I’ve been doing this for a few years, and I still have trouble in that area from time to time. When I can’t just outsource my product creation, and all the pressure is on ME – what do I do?

Well, I recently started taking advantage of Skypefor creating information products. This is not a new concept or idea. I don’t claim to be the ground-breaking inventor of the Skype product. Not at all! In fact, it’s really just a simple variation on a method that many many other marketers use. For instance, check out Perry Belcher and Ryan Deiss’ free audio:

Making Money With Your Microphone

In that audio, Perry and Ryan discuss using simple interviews as products. That’s as easy as it gets, right? Find an expert (or be the expert), interview the expert, and record the interview. 1-2-3 done.

The only thing I have done differently is using Skype as my platform. Why would I use Skype? Why wouldn’t I just sit down with my expert interviewee and record our conversation? Well, I don’t always have physical access to my experts. Sometimes they are on the other side of the country, or they are just too busy to sit down in my home studio. Skype calls are convenient for those situations.

I know there are free services for recording phone calls. Dial in, give an access code, and they send you an mp3 recording of the call. That’s awesome. But hey – we don’t all have unlimited minutes on our phones. And like many people these days, I don’t even have a home phone! So Skype is an excellent free alternative to this route.

Next time you are stuck on product creation, ask yourself if Skype can be your savior? Could you hook up with a know-it-all on the topic and get them on Skype? I bet you can.

After you have the call recorded, you essentially have a finished and ready product. I like to add a few additional touches to bump up the value. First, I like to transcribe the call. Not everyone will sit down and listen to the audio at work. Sometimes they want to read it or print it out for later. Give them that option. Also, including a PDF version of the transcription gives you the opportunity to embed links and other resources.

Think about that – LINKS and other resources. While your customer sees that you have provided extra value by showing them other resources on the topic, you can also get them to click through on affiliate links you embedded in the PDF. There are so many ways to incorporate a few affiliate links into your products, and I would encourage you to experiment with this idea.

That’s all I have for today, but I hope that got your gears turning. Best of luck!

Reuben D. Rock