Sex Sells But Who's Converting?

It's a bit tricky - because the article/resourcebox is very targeted (here's a link to my article - just scroll down to the call to action to see what I mean), so based on what I know, I'm limited to where I can send them in order to convert - or am I wrong about that perhaps?

Capture - email. Stop trying to convert for the sale. Don't send them anywhere but to your aweber. If you dont want to bother with this, then at the very least put an adsense banner on the page. You will make $5/day.

After seeing the article/call to action, I agree - build a list.

Maybe you can do a free report that answer's your call to action (the free report can even be losely based on the product you are selling - something to hype it to make them want more of it...) - get visitors to opt in to get that so you have a list, then surround the page with other "somewhat" related cpa offers to at least possibly capture some dollars from visits. Then, once you have your list, you can build a bit more relationship, then sell whatever you want to sell.

You're way off.

Actually - I have to say... your resistance is futile! LOL

Seriously - it can either be really easy or really difficult to set up your autoresponder list. The first time I did it, I was attacking it without a plan, and trying to figure it out as I went... THAT took a long time... I was using a server-based A/R that was relatively easy to use, but has its "quirks". But the ultimate issue was content - creating appropriate easy to follow content that had a flow.

Now that I've done it, I realized that I could have made my life a LOT easier if I had a plan BEFORE writing anything. SO, with that in mind, I created a template of my first 10 or so email subjects before writing the emails themselves. Then, it was a case of sitting down and writing them out in Text pad. From then, I decided to try aWeber, so I set up an account online.

Time spent:
+ planning the emails: roughly 30 minutes to draft up 10 - 12 subject ideas. You need at least 7 - more is better. The only key is - stay ahead of the first person in your autoresponder.
+ writing the emails: I cranked out 6 inside an hour. I was in a coffee house that was full of noise and distractions - probably could have done this sooner... but I'm pleased with the outcome. 6 more to go for the next round.
+ creating aWeber account - 15 minutes
+ inserting pre-written messages into aWeber - 20 minutes (tops).

Essentially, within 2 hours you can have your first 6 or so emails queued up in your autoresponder - if you space them a few days apart, you've now given yourself over 2 weeks of buffer before you need anything else in there.

Putting the forms on your page is SUPER easy. aWeber gives you the form code and all you do is drop it in your web page (any decent autoresponder does this). And if you use Wordpress - it's even simpler with the aWeber add-on. Because I wanted to see if I could do it, I actually dropped the Aweber code with a picture of my ebook givaway into one of the columns of my blog. Now with that one drop of code, it's on every page of the blog. Easy!

Now - don't get me wrong - having 30+ messages in your A/R is a fantastic idea. BUT, you don't need to worry about writing them all now - just get the first few in there and you're ready to roll!

Finally - I was talking to a friend of mine who's a super-affiliate. It took him a few years of no list-building before a mutual friend told him to get on the program. He figured he'd sent a million people to various pages... a lousy 1% uptake on an opt-in would have built him a list of 10,000 people. And that's with a lousy uptake... imagine what it would be like if you didn't have to re-buy that traffic? THAT'S why its a great idea to have a list...

PM me if you have any more questions! Happy to help!

gr8tocre8...

Ignore anapest (just kidding)

But it does take a fair amount of work. Setting up the system is not that difficult, but finding and/or creating a stream of messages for your AR is a huge amount of work. For best results, you'll want to start with around 30 messages to get you through several months on auto pilot. You can start with 7, which is easily achievable, but you will need to continually add more messages over time to keep in contact with your members.

Regarding your OP...

The news that your niche is not converting is a bit surprising, since it was revealed on some TV show the other day that during tough economic times like this, sex gets a boost. Supposedly, it's because people are so stressed they are looking for a release and sex has long been the answer.

Have you checked out the product you're promoting? Run it through Google Trends and see what it reveals. Look to see if the product is gaining in popularity or falling. Are there more or less affiliates marketing it? Look for a conversion rate. Get a peek at the product itself and see for yourself whether it has true value or not.

If products are bad or don't work, word will spread and they will not sell or they will bring a lot of refunds.

The other thing to consider is how many others are promoting it. Run a search for the product and see how many competitors come up. Check out their sites and see what they are doing and whether you can do something to top them.

How many similar products are coming up for your search term? It's possible there are too many products competing and taking the sales. Take note of which products come up when you search using your keywords (not product names, but topic keywords). Check how many top listings are the vendor sites and how many are affiliate sites.

If the vendor site is at the top, there's a good chance it's doing well, whereas you could get lots of affiliate sites that aren't making sales. Track a few of the Adwords ads for awhile because if they are running over a period of time you can be pretty sure the advertiser is making sales.

Just a few ideas for you.

Sylvia

All of your helpful responses really made me think - this is why I love this forum!

I ended up finding a directory of free e-books in the category of my article. I'm going to compile a few of those and re-write it into a product that is hyper-targeted. And of course, throw CPA aff links in the book. Plus I'll give them a bunch of the books I found as free bonuses. And do the opt-in list.

Considering that conversions in this niche are virtually non-existent these days, I'm thinking about selling the book for $4. At the same time, perhaps $2 is a better price - this is where I'm asking for some input again:

What is a price that "everyone can afford". In other words, if I set up a strong sales page, what do you think is the price that will bring in most profits - $2, $4, or____?

Experience with this, anyone?

Again, thanks for all your input so far - you guys seriously rock!