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If You Bitch About OTO's You Won't Learn From This Thread...

by BIG Mike Banned
23 replies
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#bitch #learn #oto’s #thread… #won’t
  • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
    Mike, from a business standpoint on a technical level, your model makes 100%
    sense.

    Problem is, if you've been doing business a certain way and have been
    attracting customers who expect a simple buy process from you, as I have
    over the years, and then hit them with something like this, it's going to be
    culture shock for them and they just might stop being your customers.

    I am speaking from experience as this has just happened to me with one of
    my lists.

    So my suggestion is this. If this is the business model you're going to use,
    use it from the beginning. This way, your customers know what to expect
    from you.

    Changing mid stream can produce disastrous results.

    But all in all, for what it is Mike, excellent business model for those who
    want to use it.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kyle Tully
      Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

      Mike, from a business standpoint on a technical level, your model makes 100%
      sense.

      Problem is, if you've been doing business a certain way and have been
      attracting customers who expect a simple buy process from you, as I have
      over the years, and then hit them with something like this, it's going to be
      culture shock for them and they just might stop being your customers.

      I am speaking from experience as this has just happened to me with one of
      my lists.

      So my suggestion is this. If this is the business model you're going to use,
      use it from the beginning. This way, your customers know what to expect
      from you.

      Changing mid stream can produce disastrous results.

      But all in all, for what it is Mike, excellent business model for those who
      want to use it.
      Yes if your customers have been buying a certain way from you and you suddenly change it may confuse and/or annoy them.

      The trick is they were "trained" to buy that way from you and you can fairly easily "train" them to buy another way.

      For example, say you've never done an OTO before and want to use one on your next product.

      During your pre-launch (which could be as simple as a single email) you let your prospects/customers know that when they buy your product you're going to immediately offer them a very special deal on another product -- you literally walk them through your new sales process in advance, so when they buy there are no surprises.

      You re-train them.

      Sure, you'll still lose some people along the way -- people won't read the initial email, won't understand it, just not like it... whatever... but in the long run switching to a more robust business model will pay off, even if it means lower sales in the short term (your next 2-3 products MAX).
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      • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
        Originally Posted by Kyle Tully View Post

        Yes if your customers have been buying a certain way from you and you suddenly change it may confuse and/or annoy them.

        The trick is they were "trained" to buy that way from you and you can fairly easily "train" them to buy another way.

        For example, say you've never done an OTO before and want to use one on your next product.

        During your pre-launch (which could be as simple as a single email) you let your prospects/customers know that when they buy your product you're going to immediately offer them a very special deal on another product -- you literally walk them through your new sales process in advance, so when they buy there are no surprises.

        You re-train them.

        Sure, you'll still lose some people along the way -- people won't read the initial email, won't understand it, just not like it... whatever... but in the long run switching to a more robust business model will pay off, even if it means lower sales in the short term (your next 2-3 products MAX).

        Kyle that's a good point and well taken...Thanks.
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        • Profile picture of the author Justin Michie
          Great post Mike!

          There's a lot of people who don't get how marketing and a sales funnel are supposed to work... though that is a lot of OTO's.
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        • Profile picture of the author ExRat
          Hi Mike,

          But in the big picture, apart from the fact there's a logistical nightmare involved in setting this up and making sure it works properly - (added to which, once you have segregated them onto different lists, what do you do when you make your next offer to them? Segregate them again?) - the facts are that you are offering them one time offers and then following up later with bundles at reduced prices - therefore they are only one time offers in terms of them never being that expensive again.

          The perceived notion of a true one time offer is that it will never be that cheap again.

          So overall, apart from them jumping through a crazy amount of hoops (and your best customers jumping through the most) to take $60 off them, in the longer term there's a chance they will see you as shady purely because you deceived them.

          And I reckon the percentage who decided to bale-out halfway through would be high. With this system are they paying for each item as they go or are they being added to a cart? If they pay as they go, I doubt they'd be pleased having to make five payments for a $60 package.

          If it's a cart, then the bale-outs might not buy anything at all. To be honest, I think this is overkill and I don't think the benefits of being able to mail them about items they didn't want in the first place makes up for it. Sorry, just my opinion mate.
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          Roger Davis
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  • Profile picture of the author Andy Fletcher
    Thanks Mike. That's really good stuff.
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  • Profile picture of the author David_Thompson
    BIG-Greek, I love the layout man
    that is a solid OTO process to follow
    and any and everyone can use...

    OTO's is a must and if done right
    it could make anyone a killing...

    --David
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  • Profile picture of the author Stanley Tang
    It's a superb business model. I personally dont mind using it... but many of your visitors might get pissed off if it's going to take them 47 minutes just to go through the entire order process.

    Many were already complaining when Mike launched his 7figuresecrets, where he only had 2 OTO with 2 downsell.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dana_W
    Big Mike, I just copied that and saved it! You rock, Drunken Grek.

    I've paid for ebooks which were nowhere near as helpful as what you just gave away for free.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kim Standerline
    Hmm

    Mot sure if I'd want to be hit by that many OTO's, after testing etc, I find I can get away with a max of 2 before people start sending me death threats
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    • Profile picture of the author Lance K
      Originally Posted by Kim Standerline View Post

      Not sure if I'd want to be hit by that many OTO's, after testing etc, I find I can get away with a max of 2 before people start sending me death threats
      Kim...AWESOME comment. Spoken like a true business person.
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  • Profile picture of the author Scott Burton
    Originally Posted by BIG Mike View Post

    Assuming they bought it or signed up to your list (if free), hit them with the first OTO for the remaining two templates at a ridiculously low-price.

    Whether they buy or not, you are going to hit them with another OTO for a 10 Pack PLR Article set related to the niche the templates were built around. Again, a low price, making it compelling to jump on at the moment.

    Again, regardless of the decision, the next OTO is for a short ebook or report related to the articles and template. It is an ideal companion product for them and can be used to build their own list or sell outright.

    This is where we part company with the non-buyers - we will come back to them later.

    <SNIP>

    Your goal should be to maximize revenue at the point of sale and then follow up afterwards to try and pull the holdouts back into it.
    Are you proposing that all these OTO's be part of one single sales encounter?

    If you've already got my money, why are you going to bombard me with 'give me more money before you even see what you've already paid for' ?

    While I do understand the value of OTOs, if I say yes to your 3rd OTO, you hit me with 2 more, placing a total of up to 5 OTOs before I get what I already agreed to buy.

    While an at the time OTO is very useful and lucrative under the right conditions, it's worth mentioning that some of these OTOs might better be follow up offers.

    Before I'm ready to shell out more money for your subsequent offers I'd like the chance to see if I like what I just bought. Especially if I'm fairly new to your products.

    Obviously one plan doesn't fit every marketer, and every marketer should have more than one plan, as the 'perfect' plan for one product line may not be perfect for another. So there's always wiggle room with general overview plans
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    • Profile picture of the author Frank Bruno
      Mike your post with the image is supposed to be a joke right? A parody on the recent posts about the Stompernet oto nightmare?

      If it's not, I do apologize, but I found it pretty funny.

      This is what I would consider to be OTO nightmare that already wary customers wake up screaming in the middle of night at.

      I'm sorry I'm still laughing. LOL

      Frank Bruno

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  • Profile picture of the author BIG Mike
    Banned
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by BIG Mike View Post

      Wow - LOL. That's what I get for going off and taking a nap!

      @Roger - No problem; but this also relates to another thread I started the other day - stop theorizing and start Engineering. We can argue whether or not a theory/process works all day long, but unless you go out, set it up, test it and tweak it, you won't know for certain. You can only "Guess".
      Going back to engineering, the only real way to know the breaking point of an object is to push it to failure.

      Back in the day, our team designed a new widget. We wanted to guarantee is would last through a million cycles.

      Test #1: Take prototypes of our widget with various options and cycle them until they broke or reached a million cycles.

      Predictably, many of the variations failed before reaching one million. Those were analyzed for the cause of failure. Another story for another time.

      Test #2: Take a number of production models for each successful variation, and run them to failure.

      Production models of some variations failed to reach the required million cycles. They were added to the first group of failures.

      The test was ended when two models reached two million cycles. Those two models were added to the catalog, and became very successful.

      The kicker is, one of the models that made it into the catalog should have been one of the early failures in theory. It was added to the initial test to fill out a matrix.

      Back to marketing. You'll never know how many OTOs and other upsells, downsells and cross-sells are "too many" without testing to the breaking point.

      Start with one OTO. Keep adding more until you reach the breaking point, then back off to your last successful test.
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      • Profile picture of the author ExRat
        Hi Mike,

        Fair point - it's just that if you read the description you gave under the picture, and then read my reply - it doesn't matter how many OTOs there (unless there's only one) - I think my points are still valid?

        But regardless, I did read your thread the other day, and appreciate the nudge, because there is a little too much theory and not enough practice going on here. But I can't promise there won't be ANY more theory spewed...

        A little less conversation, a little more action...
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        Roger Davis
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