Have You Tried Giving Away a "FREE CD" Instead Of The Normal Sales Letter Like Russell Brunson??

I'm familiar with Russell's theories, but have never done it so far.

The results from this method come from psychology of persuasion, and one particular technique called "foot in the door". You offer free CD/DVD but they pay for shipping so they need to pull the wallet out and since they have it in their hands and paid the s&h charges, they're more likely to buy something if you present your offer right away.

The other side of "foot in the door" works this way:
1-free info - hooks the customers,
2-free CD - hooks them more plus, they committed to pay shipping so subconsciously they justify their own choice as a proper one and are more likely to commit again; in their mind they did not pay you but only covered shipping charges they don't think they bought the product but if fact they just covered all sellers product charges as well.
3-main product offer - committed customer had decided to trust you ad will pay again and again - you 've got your foot in their door.

This method working together with simple video (sign up for free to find out more) opt-in page works miracles if you sell the right type of content.

It is an amazing presell tactic but be prepared to give lots of free but valuable stuff to build the trust.

Try it!

I think its a great system for someone who is already established or has a great partnership but for newbies I would not use it as it can end up costing you more than you expect as you have to pay for CD, CD duplication system, packaging and shipping and most times its a loss so you better make sure you have a great system in place to upsell etc.

I see this being done a lot these days or off shoots of the system.

It's an old concept that is time tested and proven. The only thing Russell did was affix a term limit to the information "course" run... hence "microcontinuity".

And yes, it's a very workable model, even for beginners who drive one visitor to their website at a time.

Ok I checked out their site and it seems that it will cost you $5 to ship a CD in a jewel case. Still not bad at all. So if you charge anything above the $5 you make a tiny profit.

So say you sell 1000 people request your CD and you charge say $6.95 you make a tiny profit of $1950 not bad at all.

I am doing my first design project for a "russell bronson' theory, haven't heard of it before, so for me it is unique. using Kunaki, its really automated as well
never hurts to try!
Linda

I'm going to throw out a great opportunity for some talented warriors who read this...

This concept WILL make some warrior a lot of money.

Any warrior with talent who likes to create prl or resale rights offers could whip up some pretty nice WSO offers off this concept...

Create PLR or resale rights "micro c" funnels.

1. Create a DVD with content on some in demand niche how to subject or another... could be in IM or other good targeted niches but they would have to be niches warriors want to be in.

2. Create a squeeze page offering instant access to a video giving away some cool info on the subject.

3. Create the video that is given away on the next page and that leads into the free plus shipping offer and write or get written copy for that offer.

4. Optional - Create additional content that can be used as membership content on the back end for an automated "micro continuity" style site.

...

Now here are a few ideas how to make money with it right here in the WF:

1. Offer resale rights to what I listed above.

2. Offer PLR rights to what I listed above.

3. Offer resale or plr rights and offer to set up the entire automated funnel for them on their own website using a Nanacast account to automate every part of the funnel including the print and ship of the dvd and the forced or optional continuity of the micro continuity offer....

Offer the setup as an upsell... and you might even offer them additional resale rights and plr to be used as upsells for their funnel as an upsell.

4. Or run a wso offer telling them you will give them everything for free if they sign up for a nanacast account with your affiliate link.

I would be willing to partner with and assist the right person who would be interested in the nanacast aspect....

However, I'd also be an interested buyer for this type of PLR as well because I personally would set up sales funnels offering it to our publishers who want business in a box setups.

Copying and pasting a complete funnel like that into our system would only take a few minutes.

At any rate... even if you did not do anything along the realms of setting up the actual funnel and all you did was create the resale or plr packages there is money to be made with WSO offers like that.

I'd think there is at least a half dozen warriors who might jump on an idea like that ;-)

I think there are some important points being missed about this business model.

You are not trying to make money with the free plus s/h cd-rom.

The point is to separate your list into prospects and customers as quickly as possible.

And you do this by giving them something for free, but you have them pay shipping/production/processing etc.

The point of this is so they have to use their credit card. This identifies them as customers, not freebie seekers.

Then...

There is the microcontinuity program that is always connected to the free cd-rom offer. He does not allow someone to opt-out of this. If you take the free cd you must take the free trial of the coaching program.

So, the percentage of people who stick (and I am sure he has the math on each website of his that uses this model) is where the guaranteed money and the beginnings of profit come from. And they keep coming month after month.

Also...

He uses many upsells and downsells to get people to make large purchases while they have their credit card out. This is another avenue for profits.

And then he makes them other offers when the continuity program is over or if they cancelled before they completed the program and can market to them aggressively because they have identified themselves as buyers.

To focus on if he makes money off the free-cd is focusing on the wrong thing completely. It is not meant to be a money maker at all.

I am really new to IM. I just launched my first site and it was a micro c site with free +shipping, so I dont have anything to compare it to. my email list is about 476, but I didnt have any emails regularly sent out to them. Here are the numbers I got so far.

sent out the offer to 476 of my subscribers

131 opened the offer

56 went to the page and opted in to see the free video (p2)

3 people ordered the free cd at 7.97-8.97 (I changed it)

1 member stayed on the $37 weekly video program after the 14 days and ordered $1,500 worth of private coaching with me.

I have no idea what good numbers are etc. And I am still learning. I set up my account with nanacast and used kunaki. The CD cost about 5.50 to ship and about .50 in paypal fees.

I'll happily give away a CD for $6.95 in order to capture a qualified "buyer", email, physical address and phone number. Even without the micro-continuity, you have several channels to pitch offers.

Russel has stated that the free shipping offers double his conversion rate.
He also stated that it works better than the one dollar trial offer.

I launched a Micro-C website in the beginning of Oct in a non-IM niche that I knew nothing about...just partnered with a buddy who does it for a living. First week spent about $1500 in PPC costs and sold 90 orders of our "Free CD". I currently spend about $100-$200 a day now to get 7-12 orders a day, which rolls into a dual continuity at $37 a month for 4 months and $9.95 a month until the cancel (value trojan).

I use:

- 1shopping Cart
- Kunaki for Fulfillment
- Optimize Your Cart for Upsells

I do nothing except handle new advertising channels and customer support, which is a pretty sweet gig.

Problems:

- People are unaware of the continuity program. That's probably the biggest one. I'm pretty clear on the sales page..no small text and very upfront with costs, pricing, timeframe, but you need to be extra clear or you'll be getting a lot of support Q/A's. As we all know, most people don't read an entire sales page, especially outside of the IM niche. You need to put it on the actual checkout page too and have it STAND OUT or you'll be dealing with a lot of customer support. Your call on that. Classic biggie quote for this "Mo' Money...Mo' Problems".

- Merchant Account/Processor: If you have a lot of angry people who start doing chargebacks because of the above, your processor can potentially hold your money till the chargeback to sale ratio is below what they tolerate. If you're running your Micro-C "to the wall" then I'd recommend having a few merchant accounts ready to go and rotate them as orders come through. The last thing you want is to have your Merchant hold funds while you're still spending money on marketing, etc...

There are "high risk" merchant accounts (Google it) who work with the adult, casino and other verticals and this might be an avenue if you want to play that game.

I'm rolling out several Micro-C style programs in the next 6 months as it's a scalable model that a one-man show can easily do (even with outsourcing customer support). Setting up your first one will be kinda costly, but after you have it all setup (programming mostly), rolling out future Micro-c's aren't too costly, besides developing content and advertising.

They get access to our forum and the "expert" is in there daily answering specific questions, as it's in the disorder niche and they always are having questions.

Matt, didn't you teach Russell this concept?

I'm averaging about 550 unique visitors a day to my Micro-C and out of those, I'd get around 10-15 orders (so about 2-3%). The sales page hasn't been split tested yet.

But that "2-3%" isn't completely accurate. That's just people going to the homepage video. Of the people that actually put there name/email and then go to sales page, it's converting at 8-10%.

I've got a lot of traffic channels, from Youtube videos, to satellite sites (autoblogs), to EzineArticles.com to Forum marketing. My best converting are traffic channels Adwords and Facebook.

I followed a few templates. Like you mentioned, Brunson gave a few swipe files to use... I used those, as well as adding a few additional pieces to it, as I always do to the sales page.

Yes, I followed his guide to put it all together. I have everything, even the "one-click upsell" product too. I've learned a lot and it has been very successful. Like I said in my previous post, my biggest problem isn't making sales at this point, it's collecting the money from the processor.

wow it's great to see a thread in here about this technique, I am planning to try something like this in the "mmo" niche. I know it is extremely saturated but I think I can make it work. Does anyone have some input on this? If I was going after newbie marketers do you think I could make this work or is there simply too many products out there right now? I just want to hear what you guys think but I will probably try it no matter what you say haha

Give it a try!

I set this up for my business and this Free + shipping ----> Continuity is making me a few grand a month a 2 months after starting it!

What script are you using for the membership site?

That A good idea,how do you burn all of the cds? or do you buy them in bulk ?

As I said in my earlier post - I have a client that officially launched her site and her contintuity program on Wednesday. This is pretty much based on the Micro-C, however is slightly different in that it starts with the free DVD and then the sales funnel is a bit more complex. It also has a membership area aswell as the straight out continuity.. But essentially it is Micro-C. As I said we launched it on Wednesday and these are the figures thus far:

Email sent to a very small list of 600

124 opened the email

32 opted in

3 took the DVD

0 cancellations as yet

2 purchased upsell offer of complete e-course ($197.00)

The client is very happy- it was a pretty modest launch but she is super excited about the outcome (the first major sale was in the first 10 minutes of the email so that was pretty cool).

I am thinking it works...

Rhiannon

Shawn Casey offers a free DVD with IM videos and putting your credit card info will automatically set you up to receive a new DVD a month.

I didn't read the find print so was surprised when I got billed.

I think if someone is going to this, they should make the print bigger so the customer knows that it is a recurring billing.

I've kept the DVD's coming as they are good quality.

I use this in my Offline Marketing business and it works better in some niches than others.

You don't lose out when you use Kunaki and if you offer content of high perceived value and promote where your qualified prospects go and will see your offer it is a good model for any level of marketer.

I have actually had simple sheets of paper with a url distributed by local high school students (in conjunction with an event they had going) to local businesses and that too worked well.

The Offer?

Nothing ground-breaking but important - Attract more business on autopilot; Offer free special report

Perry Marshall gives away a CD for FREE.

No + shipping. No continuity.

Of course, the kind of person that would request it would be an extremely qualified buyer of at least his minimum basic membership of around $700.

nice tactic.

I havent tried this, but I have a few niches that this coudl work in very well.