I was hit with a massive tidal wave of orders

[Chris Thompson]

This is unreal. My product (Talking To Toddlers, see signature) has been on the market for about 5 months at ClickBank. Things are going well, momentum is gaining, and order flow has been building. I celebrated a sales milestone over the weekend.

Then yesterday something big happened. I started getting orders literally pouring in almost faster than I could count them. Incredible traffic and sales numbers like I never expected. We're talking well over 1 month of "normal" sales happening over the course of 12 hours.

I was worried because my hosting account probably won't like tens of gigs of bandwidth consumption in a single day. It made me realize that perhaps it is time to play for life beyond shared hosting. But, so far the host has help up incredibly well.

I can't actually tell WHAT happened because the affiliate responsible for all of these sales has not contacted me. I would love to congratulate him/her on a successful campaign. I imagine it was someone with a massive list of interested buyers, because I can't believe this traffic could come from any other method other than email marketing.

Anyway, a few "take aways" from my perspective:

1) Focus on affiliates. I pay 75% commission because I want my product to appear very attractive to affiliates who work hard to promote it. Every sale they bring me is money I would otherwise not have, so being greedy is not necessary nor is it wise.

2) Email marketing lists are incredibly powerful. Whoever owns the list behind this campaign has put a lot of money in his own pocket by promoting my product. Well done.

3) I need to outsource backlink building efforts, and focus my attention on finding people who can be great affiliates to produce regular traffic. The SEO stuff will produce more of my own sales (no commission) but the affiliates diversify my income and don't put me at the mercy of Google

4) Everyone should use an on-exit popup. The size of my email list has massively expanded because of the affiliate traffic I'm getting. If my conversion rate is 2% that still means 98 people exit and leave forever. If I capture 5 of them via email my list grows immensely. See point 2 above, because a list is very valuable. I need to learn more about how to profit from my list by building a relationship with them. I already provide good free info in my autoresponder, but after 8 messages the communication goes dead and they hear nothing from me. I need to learn what to do next to keep the relationship alive.

5) I need to figure out IN ADVANCE what I'll do when I get 2-3x the traffic that this wave brought. I'm sure it will drown my hosting account and I would rather be proactive. Any ideas are very welcomed!

That's it. I just wanted to share my success and what changes in thinking I've had as a result.

[reynald2790]

Congratulations for achieving that goal. Keep it up.

[Chris Thompson]

Hey Jennifer - I tried this. I hoped I'd find whatever marketing campaign was used in an online form. No luck. The traffic coming from this (amazing) affiliate is clearly from email marketing. I can tell because my "referral" traffic is coming from places like webmail.aol.com, mail.yahoo.com, webmail.att.net, etc. It's all webmail portals for the big ISPs and such.

Several customers have emailed me for various questions to be answered, etc. I'm going to ask them to email me the promotional email they got so I can figure out who it is and make contact. I usually build very good rapport with customers via email so some of them will be happy to send me the promo email they got.

[Chris Thompson]

I got a copy of the promotional email and tracked down the amazing affiliate. The email was REALLY DEAD SIMPLE.

The list was "very old" according to the owner and he hadn't used it in a couple of years, and was going to delete it, but decided to test it out first. I was the "lucky draw" as for the test product. The guy made thousands of dollars in one day from his email so we have something to learn from it.

Here is what he essentially wrote:

Hi (name),

I came across this site and figured you'd be
interested. It's about talking with toddlers
and getting them to listen.

As a parent of 3 myself, I know what you go
through sometimes.

Here is the link (tinyurl-used-here)

I am also going to release a few new books.
Here are the sneak peaks.

Title 1 goes here (removed)
Title 2 goes here, also involves the parenting niche
Title 3 here, another paenting title

If you don't mind I may ask your feedback when
we are ready. But I'll let you know when that
time comes.

Anyway here is that link again to that site
I mentioned above.

(Tinyurl link repeated)

- signoff name here

***********************

So what have we? An old list that was not used in a while. A short email that establishes rapport, offers something (in the future) for free, and gives a link to a product that is recommended.

It was incredibly effective.

[Floyd Fisher]

Don't you just love the smell of a server literally smoking?

Smells like........money!

Congratulations.

[rhondaklewis]

What are you going to do about the bandwith? I mean what could you do?
Rhonda

[peter gibson]

This thread basks in a sea of awesomeness. Congrats!!!!!!

[Nathan Hangen]

Rock on...that is awesome! I love seeing success like this...again I say - product creation is a great way to make some cash.

I don't use an opt-in form on my CB product because I've heard a lot of affiliates don't like them...it looks like you are having the opposite experience?

[Terry Crim]

I am not surprised.

There have been a lot of publicity going on right now with various experts in the niche on talk shows, infomercials being aired more on the baby and toddler market.

Anytime the market, any market, has current events and/or publicity everyone in that market benefits. Your market right now is having a lot of movement, enjoy it.


- Terry

[Chris Kent]

Congrats Chris - I know the feeling of suddenly getting a ton of list traffic out of nowhere.

One of my competitors actually promoted my product on his list, and said my product was better than his!!!

I got about 20 sales in a day from this affiliate alone, carried on for a few days.

Out of interest, how many sales were you getting from this guy? I ask because you mention potential server issues?

[Matt Helphrey]

Thats great Chris, congratulations!

Thanks for the tips as well and keep up the great work.

Matt

[shan beach]

wow! this is very inspiring! i HAVE to create my first product! i heard that some WF members would review. is that so? still learning... thanks!

congrats chris! this has so inspired me, i cannot thank you enough

much success...

[Chris Thompson]

The orders are still trickling in after 28 hours. To answer ProductCreator's question, I believe the total is close to 130 sales in the first 24 hours of this one affiliate promoting to his list. I was worried about server issues because my download is 150 megs.

He was surprised by the result, clearly. So was I, but I didn't even know this was coming, so I'm floored by the results of list marketing out of someone who admittedly neglected the list for 2 years and was "about to delete it", but decided to do a test email first. Man, that test email was a smart decision.

Having this happen was inspiring to make me want to grow my list to a large number, build a solid relationship with them, and promote other useful products to it. It also inspired me to want to go after other list traffic.

I am betting that since this affiliate obviously knows what he is doing, he'll send out a "reminder" email in a couple of days, and that will probably get another 20% boost to sales.

I also expect to close some of the people who signed up to my list. I am having about an 8% opt-in rate to my exit popup from the people on his list who visited ... so I've added hundreds of people to my list because of this affiliate. So yes, to answer Nathan's question, I'm definitely having a good experience with an opt-in form but I'm not using it on my page. It is an exit popup (standard AWeber configuration). But I tell ya, I would not hesitate to promote a product for a site that used opt-in. I would simply opt-in first myself to see the autoresponder series and make sure there was no funny stuff going on. The clickbank cookie will give credit to the affiliate for 30 days so if I close a sale with my emails, the affiliate gets credit. After 30 days they probably are not buyers.

[Michelle Adams]

Congratulations! Thanks for sharing the email details etc. Since I increased my affiliate commission to 75% I've seen a marked increase in sales/number of affiliates promoting it. One or two affiliates are responsible for most of the sales but I couldn't call them "super affiliates". I hope I get lucky like you and have someone with a big list promote my product.

This is just the beginning for you. You now have proof of how a mail out converts your product so you can use that to pitch to others with lists in your niche. Enjoy your new found profits.

[AlbertF]

Congrats, this makes me think more about creating my own item and offering it to affiliates as well.

I hope your sales will continue to rise!

[Vince Courtney]

Great stuff Chris - hope the sales bonanza continues.

What exit pop software are you using?

Regards,
Vince

[Popstar]

That's interesting.

I have a cold list in your market, too. Haven't emailed them in a year or two because I moved on to other things. They were a rabidly responsive list at the time, though.

I figured their kids grew up by now. But if the other guy could get responses...

I just might check out your product and send an email later this week.

Got one question, though. I've never used my Clickbank account. Can I start a second Clickbank account to market this product? (I've heard that Clickbank deducts money from accounts that have been inactive too long.)

Thanks.

[Paul Coleman]

Originally Posted by Chris Thompson

I got a copy of the promotional email and tracked down the amazing affiliate. The email was REALLY DEAD SIMPLE.

The email doesn't seem like a marketer at all. More like a buddy who is also a fellow parent. I can see why it worked.

Paul

[JamesMSpacey]

Awesome - this is the best kind of story to hear. Thanks for sharing it, and I enjoyed your insights!. Gotta love surprises like that!

[domaingamer]

I really like the tone of the email used for that list. It's not pitching anything overtly and helps to build trust. Great job with all the new sales, hope it keeps going!

[GeorgeO7]

Very nice... Perhaps he could be persuaded into sending it to a "good list"!

[Chris Thompson]

Michelle - exactly! I'm now using this as evidence to pitch to other people who have lists, and website owners who I'm approaching that are not currently affiliates. The whole mommy blog scene is a big opportunity, as would be any vendors who have been around longer than me and have related products (potty training, kids activities, ebooks on anything child-related, etc).

Vince - I use aweber. Just go to my main page and you'll see the popup when you go to exit. It's really basic and I could make it a lot nicer. I should re-invest some profits into getting my graphics guy to do a nice graphical pop-up box. That would be smart. Something to add to my list!

Popstar - absolutely you should do this. Nothing to lose here and everything to gain. Your list is an asset. My list grew by HUNDREDS because of the traffic this affiliate sent me, which is more exciting than my measly 25% share of the sale. So if your list responds, we both benefit nicely.

Paul and domaingamer - the comment you made about the email is EXACTLY what I noticed also. The author built rapport by saying "I have 3 kids, I know what it's like" (or to that effect), and did not make a "pitch". Funny ... this whole rapport building strategy is how I teach parents to deal with their toddlers (among other tricks) So age has no limits on this strategy.

...and now I'm on day 3 of the spike. It's definitely subsiding but still WAY above my average sales levels. What motiviation this has given me!

[DrewG]

That's awesome Chris, congrats! Nice demonstration of the true power of affiliates.

Enjoy the wave!


~D.C.

[warlords]

Chris, server overload is something that you should enjoy.

[tylerjaysen]

Yeah sounds like you found one of those diamonds in the rough niches that are perfect to sell on the internet. Most of the people that are interested in your product are probably moms who want to better communicate with their kids and are rabid buyers of anything that can solve their problems.

So congrats on that!!

[dave147]

excellent stuff and a good post - thanks

[DrewG]

EDIT: wrong thread

[chris_surfrider]

Chris,

Good job.

Hope you have a backend...

That's when it really gets exciting :-)

-Chris

[Ben-Jones]

Well done mate

Good to see warriors succeeding

[nanexist]

Congratulations and thanks for the inspiration!

[Chris Thompson]

Update: I emailed another affiliate who was sending some pretty OK traffic already and having like a 5% conversion rate on this traffic. She is in the child care industry and well respected, so that explains the conversions.

She emailed her list last night. Sales wave #2 now happening and her conversion is 8% so far. This is unreal. Shows the power of having credibility with your list. These list subscribers love her emails, love her stuff, and since she was a fan of my work she gave it a good honest plug.

Wow. This is so cool.

[Jason Keith]

Chris,

Congratulations on your success. This is a really inspiring story. Thank you for sharing so much detailed information about your success. It is eye opening.

[Adaptive]

Congratulations, Chris!

I'm sure it will drown my hosting account and I would rather be proactive. Any ideas are very welcomed!

I've been thinking for a while that someone should make automatically scaling-up web hosting. While I was thinking about it, someone went and did it! Check out Joyent: Welcome to Joyent. I have no association with them. Their Accelerator system looks like it might be just what you need.

Regards,
Allen