How do you like this "one time offer" strategy?

[Chris Thompson]

Alright folks - looking for your opinions on this strategy:

My product is an audio course. When people visit my website I either sell them a course, or I try to capture their email via exit pop-up by offering a free audio lesson. I also capture blog readers with the same offer (sidebar signup form).

I have a series of autoresponder messages loaded into my system. They are a bunch of free tips that last for about 20 days.

I think that sometimes we need something to "push them over the edge", and this brings me to the one time offer.

My plan is to add another follow-up to the autoresponder that essentially says, "If you are still on the fence about buying my program, let me give you the first two audio tracks for free". Then I give them the URL for the two free tracks (played with an embedded audio player, NOT downloaded). If people are at all interested in the course, they will probably check out the free preview of track 1 and 2.

Right under the embedded audio player I make the one-time offer for a discount by using a script that shows a countdown timer, and a "buy now" button advertising the lower price. When they click, it takes them to clickbank's order page where they pay the lower price. If they let the timer expire the offer changes and says "Sorry, timer expired - you can still buy at the regular price" ... and the "buy now" button now takes them to the regular clickbank order page.

Affiliates: Some of you might wonder what happens to the affiliate commission. I tested it. Sure enough, if the clickbank cookie is on your computer you STILL get the commission as an affiliate. So this process should help my affiliates make even more sales.

I was hesitant to do this because I thought existing customers who are on my list (and paid full price) might complain. But this way they are unlikely to ever see the offer because I'm not going to advertise the discount in the email. Only people who go to the page will see the offer.

Another detail: I'm going to set the timer to something such as 13 hours, 52 minutes, 19 seconds. That way it will *appear* to the viewer that the countdown is not specific to them (but it is specific to each IP address tracked by the script). I want people to feel that they got lucky in still having this offer available to them.

Thoughts?

[Chris_Willow]

Hey, man
I bet this would work, but you should make a test run and see the results for yourself. Except I don't like the countdown feature, cause it's kind a cheesy and many people think you' re not serious when it comes to actually taking down the order. Again you might want to try it out with the countdown or simply put something like "this offer will expire (insert whatever the date of tomorrow is with javascript)"

But, hey, I like your idea. Might even try it for myself.

Thanks

Chris

[Floyd Fisher]

Why not give them the first two audio tracks upfront in exchange for opting in?

Wouldn't that be a better solution?

[superstarsmarketing]

There is nothing better than testing it yourself however I feel it is always a smart thing to put this kind of special offers to subscribers not customers.

Since you don't have a separation between customer and subscriber list, the best thing would be to clearly call out in your email subject line as well as int he email copy and mentiont that this special link is only for subscribers not customers.

You may consider giving some other extra bonus to the existing old customers to balance out the rare chances of unhappiness.

hope this helps.
-Gaj

[Nathan Denton]

i think it is a good strategy to try and capture additional sales from those who don't buy initially. Your OTO on the download page would work well after they have listened to the free audios therefore I would make an additional follow up say 1-2 days after they download. Not quite a OTO but could result in extra sales.

[Chris Lockwood]

Originally Posted by Chris Thompson

I was hesitant to do this because I thought existing customers who are on my list (and paid full price) might complain. But this way they are unlikely to ever see the offer because I'm not going to advertise the discount in the email. Only people who go to the page will see the offer.

When they buy, take them off that list and put them on a buyer list. Then they won't get ads for something they already bought and won't see any special you offer after they've purchased.

[Chris Thompson]

Chris - Your idea of moving customers to a special "customer" list rather than having them on my opt-in list is a good idea. I thought of the same thing but I have no idea how to implement this.

The main problems are:

1) I would have to manually go through all clickbank sales and check to see if my aweber list had a matching email address, and then remove that customer

2) I would have to get them to opt-in again to the new list because you can't just add a lead yourself.

I'm on a mailing list for a guy I really respect in the fitness industry. He puts promotions in place pretty often. My feeling is that *most* customers, should they see a promotion, will just suck it up and realize that sale prices happen. If you miss them you miss them. BUT - my strategy of using a one time offer through email autoresponder is to not actually advertise the offer. I'm only advertising the ability to listen to track 1 & 2 for free. Existing customers are very unlikely to bother checking out this offer.

Any thoughts are welcomed.

[Chris Thompson]

Originally Posted by Nathan Denton

i think it is a good strategy to try and capture additional sales from those who don't buy initially. Your OTO on the download page would work well after they have listened to the free audios therefore I would make an additional follow up say 1-2 days after they download. Not quite a OTO but could result in extra sales.

Nathan - I'm not sure I understand what you are describing. The free audio tracks would show up on a special URL that I would email out to my leads. The OTO would show up on this same page. It's not a download page. It's an offer page.

That said ... maybe you really to mean to put the OTO on my existing customer download page? This is something I never thought of before. Example: My product teaches parents how to use NLP principles to communicate more effectively with toddlers. I also sell a related product on a separate website (self hypnosis MP3, not my product but I'm the exclusive online vendor). My toddler parenting course customers might respond well to a OTO for a deep discount on the hypnosis MP3 files. I could present that offer on the download page. Hmmm ... the possibilities here are enormous.

[Chris Thompson]

Originally Posted by Floyd Fisher

Why not give them the first two audio tracks upfront in exchange for opting in?

Wouldn't that be a better solution?

Floyd - this is a very interesting idea. You know, I thought of it many months ago and meant to test it, but forgot.

My current opt-in form offers a free audio lesson. It is *separate* from the material in my audio program. This free lesson presents 3 simple techniques for parents to use, and then goes through the whole "here's what you get in the full audio program". So far, this free audio lesson is getting very good reviews (and converting visitors into buyers), but there are plenty of people who probably feel that this free lesson is not compelling enough to give up their email address. So I lose them forever.

If, instead, I did as you said, and changed my opt-in form to say "Give me yoru email and I'll send you the first 2 tracks of my audio course" ... then this might cause *more* people to sign up to my list, and might convert them without the OTO.

Thanks for the ideas.
I suppose I could change my autoresponder sign-up page to say something like,