Simple Trick For More Sales

[Louise Green]

Many of us sell info products via direct download which is a fantastic business model, however in my own experience there's a highly profitable tactic that a lot of marketeers over look..

Converting your products to CD or DVD format for sale through your site, ebay etc isn't a new idea (you can often charge more for your products this way) but here's a little trick that I discovered a few years ago, quiet by accident, that sent my sales through the roof.

I had a batch of 'seconds', CD's that had misprinted labels.. colours where off and smudged.

Not fit for sale, or so I thought.

What would I do with a batch of 50+ CD's that looked terrible? The content on the CD's were exactly the same as the perfectly printed CD's.

What a waste! Trying to salvage some of my costs, I emailed one of my lists and told them of my problem and offered to sell the CD's at a much discounted price.

To my surprise my inbox was over run with people wanting to grab a bargain.. I sold them all and sold them faster than I had sold the product on launch day.

Amazed with this result I took it a step further by intentionally creating a batch of misprinted CD's, and even tearing the labels a little, placing scribbles etc making the batch look a complete mess.

I took pictures of this batch and sent it to another email list, again with a massive discount on these 'second' CD's, that were every bit as good as the 'normal' CD's, just not as aesthetically pleasing.

They all sold out and I had to create more 'bad' CD's to meet the demand.

Now I regularly produce bad batches (plus discount) to entice those who didn't purchase my products first time around.

So here's what I do in order (for those just skiming this thread):

1. Release digital product as normal
2. Create CD version
3. Create a 'bad batch' CD version
4. Offer the 'bad batch' to my list at a massive discount, weeks after launch.

Hope this little trick has given you some ideas

[Tom Brite]

I can understand doing it with the bad intial batch but then doing this intentionally is kinda stupid unless it does actually save you money on producing the cd's themselves!

You should instead looking at buying those cheaper flimsy cd covers or sleeves and then saving money on packaging and then being able to make more profit even with the discount.

However can see this as being a good strategy for people who do have batches of physical products with 'problems'.

Tom Brite

[Louise Green]

It makes money, it's not about saving money.

Let me repeat that. This increases your profits.
This is not a way to save money, it's a method that makes money.

If you put yourself in the mind of potential customers I've found it works like this:

Product launch, priced at $100+ or whatever. Many will buy it on the launch day but also many on your list will not.

A couple of weeks pass and they are offered the same product for $20 or so but it doesn't look as pretty. A huge discount and many will snap off your hand to grab the deal. A 80% discount is rarely ignored.

Meanwhile, your existing customers who paid the $100 do no feel bad because they bought the 'proper' version, without mistakes and still view their version as value for money.

The cost to me of doing this?

A CD and printing costs around $2.50 each, so even selling at a discount you're making a nice profit of $17.50 per CD.

Remember the people who are buying are only doing so because they can't afford the product price of $100.

It's a win-win for everybody. The customers get a good bargain and I get more sales and more profits. I've done this time and time again for years, some of my IM friends have also tried it with hugely improved sales. Don't knock it 'till you've tried it

[zapseo]

Yes, I've heard people say that the "scratch'n'dent" sales are so successful that the employees often go in the back to scratch'n'dent some more items when the original set runs out.

What's the sales principle?

"Reason Why" -- with a great offer.

Give people a great deal plus a "reason why" they can get this great
deal (to ameliorate their skepticism.)

[Anonymous Affiliate]

Hmmmm... interesting concept. Worth giving it a thought. Obviously, you need to segregate your list so people who buy the "good CD" at the original price opt-in into a new list and get automatically deleted from the old list, so whenever you mail your old list with the "bad CD" discount your "good CD" buyers dont get upset.

Segregating mailing lists between prospects and buyers is VERY important.

[IdeaLady]

I have a "hurt" book sale every now and then. Books that were display copies or that got slightly bent corners in shipping, etc. get discounted 40% and sold to my list. It always gets a good response.

It is tempting to go hurt some books to hold a sale! ;o)

[Jacer]

Brilliant! How have I never heard of this before? Thanks for sharing your story with us.

[bertuseng]

Great idea, I will definately try this for my offline marketing.

[lklein]

Hmmm, but the karma just doesn't feel right...

[xbokcom]

Wow this is a strange way of marketing. But I will not do this very long.

Thanks for sharing.

[mbenton]

There's nothing strange about doing this. And Karma has nothing to do with it. It's nothing more than offering a product to your list to 1. Increase your bottom line and 2. Help your list. (If anything, it'll build your good karma.)

I read an article in the paper about one of those Arabian Carpet dealers who always held a going out of business sale...every day for months on end. He wasn't going out of business. He was raking in the money by getting people through his door with the promise of huge savings.

It's all about the perception, and obviously we can create the perception we desire by offering scratch and dents and misprints not good enough for full price.

The city finally clamped down on him (this is what the article was about) when he changed the name of his business to Going Out Of Business!

I'd say this is a smart way of marketing, as long as you segregate your lists so those who paid full price do not receive the discount email.

[travlinguy]

It's one thing to offer legitimately flawed goods at a discount. It's entirely another to 'create' them and claim they are flawed. Smells pretty bad to me. But it's no surprise that people think it's okay, that's the world we're in today. Sad...

[rayjay777]

I would think that if you offered the product at the same discount as a one time offer to your list it would work just as well, if not better, than having to make up damaged CD's. I appreciate that you stumble onto this but I don't think the attraction is the damaged CD's. I think it is the discount.

[AidanKay]

This is the same reason I like to look at the "discounted" area in the grocery store.

You get cans of stuff, little dents with big discounts. Mainly d othat for cat food.. damn 3 cats eat a lot! Lol.

But yeah, your idea will help plenty of people make sales I'm sure.

-Aidan.

[Anonymous Affiliate]

Originally Posted by rayjay777

I would think that if you offered the product at the same discount as a one time offer to your list it would work just as well, if not better, than having to make up damaged CD's. I appreciate that you stumble onto this but I don't think the attraction is the damaged CD's. I think it is the discount.

You're wrong here, and I have tested it extensively. Your market not only needs the discount, it needs a "why".

Last year, I made a one-day sale to my list on my birthday. I was offering my product at 50% because it was my birthday and I felt all cheered up and generous with the world. The response was massive. I tried some other one-day sales (without the birthday component) on other occasions and the response wasnt anywhere near as powerful.

If you offer a discount, you need to state a "why". It's a basic marketing rule that's taught in college actually.