I may need a marketing expert at this point

That activity level can steer you towards the right affiliate partnerships and lead sources, too. Someone's list may be terrible or it may be great in terms of fit with your offer. Now you have targets to rate by, achievable targets, that will help you choose what is best. You want to propose a partnership? Now you can run a quick test with a sample from their list and find out how good or bad it is. Again, things most marketers with the "I'll try to make as much money as I can" mentality never think to do.

After you have run some live traffic you can measure Planned versus Actual results and see whether you need to zero in first on your Traffic or Conversion side of the equation to make improvements...and get the biggest bang for your buck.

If that's your target, then you know what you need to be looking for or building to.

Are you going to get 1000 visitors a day from organic traffic alone? I'd say not. So that shows you the direction should be partnerships, affiliate traffic, paid traffic.

I would figure out your cost of customer acquisition and lifetime value (both estimated at this point) and see how much you can invest in getting a buyer.

Sometimes when you're just learning the ropes of Internet marketing, it pays to work as though it were a full time job. You can cut back on your hours working after you have a profitable selling system in place - that will happen naturally unless, of course, you desire to take your business into overdrive and ramp things up significantly.

". . . steady growing revenue within the first three months" is certainly a possibility, depending upon what you do from this point forward, and depending upon how the market receives your product. Word (and reviews) will spread quickly if your buyers feel like your product is a dud.

But assuming it's a great product and assuming there is healthy market demand (which you should have researched prior to creating your product), I personally would suggest you put every effort you can into launching your product and begin watching your stats.

If you have already been at this for a long time ("I did enough SEO, but long time ago") and you're still not sure what you're doing (gathered from what you've mentioned in this thread) then I would say you need to focus all your effort in getting some initial sales and getting set up so that you can build a subscriber list. Working hard at first will lay the type of business foundation from which you can launch all kinds of products. Without a list, you'll always be chasing the coldest prospects.

The very best to you,

Steve

That's why the "real money" is in marketing, not in coding or product creation.

Lousy product + Great marketing
beats
Great product + Lousy marketing
Every Time !!!

Unfortunately ... because my product skills outshine my marketing skills. But luckily new skills can be learned...

So basically what you are saying is you really don't need marketing advice... you need the green light from others to hire out your SEO efforts?

Again.. you are basically starting a business.. lets throw out an example here.. do you know what the standard operating costs of a big chain restaurant is? were you aware they run in the 60% category? So even at $3.00 cost per sale on a $5.00 item that throws you with in the realm of not great but still turning a profit operating expense.

One marketer to another.. as it stands right now, you do not have a proven flow of traffic. Your idea is to turn and burn at low cost to the consumer... sell for less but sell more. You do understand that the same amount of effort is put into place at selling your product for $5.00 as it is $10.00 let alone $79.00.

I suggest you use the search function of the WF and read up on pricing strategies. I can only imagine that Mr. Kanigan might step in with a word or 2 on the subject.

I am going to be very blunt here.. You have already set the seeds of failure in motion with this. You are asking for marketing advice, which I gave. but what you really want is to pawn off the SEO efforts ( because you are filled with self doubt in your ability to actually develop a decent flow of traffic ) so you can blame it on them when you aren't selling the numbers you want.

I will assume you have no standing proven formulation for success in such an endeavor ( selling digital information online ) I will assume that you have yet to test any of your sales funnel to ensure it is optimized to actually perform. ( as in make sales ) I will assume that beyond the idea of selling this 1 product, you have not looked beyond this effort in terms of what to do with your client base once they have bought. So my suggesting the video that discusses AARRR is pretty on point.

You are starting / running a business and because you created the product, you are so invested in its success you are blind to all of the indicators of failure you are throwing out Take a moment step back.. re read what Jason posted about goals and expectations and requirements to obtain those goals. Forget the product itself... do you have in place what it will take to get you there?

The answer to that question is no... You have a dream.. you have created a product... and with that, its needs to be making money in 3 months. ok you don't have the time to exert the effort needed to create SEO traffic.. so push the time line to 6 months to a year. Make it reasonable. Rome was not built in a day - let alone a year. The only one applying pressure here is YOU - to yourself no less ( I hate it when I do this to myself )

Focus on building your baby.. take your time.. do it right, and reap the benefits from it later!

AAAAAAA! Please let me head off this problem with you before you experience it.

1. The idea that "lower price leads to higher sales" is a fallacy. I'll explain more in a sec.

2. Low price = low margins = low ability to pay for traffic (remember what I was saying above about understanding your cost of customer acquisition?). And that's bad.


OK, let's start with the low price thing. Walmart and McDonald's can do it because they've a) created a distribution channel to push that much product out there; b) their empires, particularly McD's, are also about real estate--something the average person doesn't know about--and they are making money investing in the properties of the distribution locations, too; and c) they and their cousins have made some big mistakes on thinking they could just go to the lowest price and that would bring in customers in droves.

I was trained as an operations management & process improvement guy, and with that skill set I have seen organizations on their way to selling themselves into bankruptcy. Restaurants with owners who don't understand food costing do this all the time: each plate served costs more to bring it to the guest than it brings in revenue. Please do not think that just because your business is "online" and has fewer fixed costs that you are exempt from this possibility. ;-)

Now to concept #2: Price Elasticity. I have tested this concept myself over many years and can tell you if a person will buy a product at $7 they will buy it at $11. If they'll buy it at $37, they'll buy it at $57 without a blink and at $87...but probably not $97. Look at the margin differences.

That margin gap is what pays your profit...gives you more and better quality traffic...improves the product, the sales page, the design as you can invest more.

Additionally, a low price will be a turnoff to buyers who look for quality and value. If I offered you a BMW car for $750, what would you ask about it? Something must be wrong. It can't be very good.

Again drawing from my own experience, I could not sell a program at $97. I couldn't sell it at $197. But at $297, it took off and sold for years until I closed the offer. Why? Because it passed some magical point where people believed it had to be good because the price was high enough.

A lower price does not mean more customers.

What I'm trying to share with you here, and I'm not alone, are ideas about your business model. You've heard of the 80/20 Rule? This is one of those few decisions that impacts the majority of what you experience.

I have friends who wouldn't buy my sales training program because it doesn't cost $80,000. That's not a typo. In their minds, $80K is the point where something must be good. I should raise my prices lol. What you believe is a high price is still low ticket to someone else. The perception of quality and value is more important. Also, do you want halfhearted toe-testing buyers who don't even take the thing out of the wrapper, then demand a refund a week later because they went on a shopping spree and overspent? (Happens frequently here.)

You're a software engineer. Use that engineering mindset. Design your business model. Figure out how much profit you want to make...not "as much money as I can" because that's a fool's errand and how so many people stay dirt poor...understand how much room you need in margin to pay for your hard costs and advertising...that tells you your cost of customer acquisition...and set your price first that way. Then go build a product that matches that price point.

And please, please, PLEASE...put something for sale on the back end of the funnel. Have an upsell. So many people miss this. You invested in getting that buyer. They've proven they'll buy. And the easiest customer to get is one who just bought from you. Use the laddering concept and give these buyers more goodness to get from you. Then you'll make some money.