Whats the story on "pay S&H only" offers these days?

Hi Sharp

The free + S&H has been around for years and its also coined as a 'trip wire'

Oddly enough, the book on funnels you signed up for gives him your email address and mailing address to market click funnels / how to make funnels products to you for eternity - have fun LOL

jk

But on the bright side - it is a solid product and his whole Traffic & Funnels empire he has built is super helpful - the key really is just bits and pieces that work for you and your business and evolve from there - trying to do it all at once may cause alot of wheels to spin!

What made you want to get his book?

It is a marketing strategy that is becoming common nowadays. You get what you want in exchange for a chance to receive more marketing info. It is fair deal.

yeah they are the beginning of a self liquidating funnel. after you get the book, you'll be popped with 3 upsells, sometimes less, sometimes more. it's how to make you a customer with the least possible resistance. it certainly helps with ad cost for the seller as well.

J.

yes it's quite simple, you get a quality product which should help you and/or solve a certain problem with the intention that you got so much value that you want more from this company in future and purchase more products which result in a profit for the seller.


a win win situation.

So there are two common perspectives on this that you can take.

The first is yes, you have to make money on these sales.

That is the sign of an amateur IMO, but I have also seen situations where good marketers DID make money on these sales and then went on to Step Two, below.

The fact is people move on "Free Plus Shipping" much faster than they do on "Product Cost Plus Shipping". So you build the product cost into the "Handling" part of things, charge twelve bucks for the S&H instead of eight dollars for the product plus four for shipping, and presto! You get the result you want, people actually buy.

If you feel this is dishonest marketing is probably not for you. Things need to be moved around and configured through testing in a way that results in buyers. That's a fact of business; otherwise, we'd all be broke.

The starting point has to be that you KNOW your offer will definitely help the right person. But that is not enough. You must then induce them to take action and get the thing...or else it will never have the chance to affect their lives.

Now as to the Step Two...

Those who only have one low price product are IMO small time. Small-minded. Inexperienced. You see a lot of that here.

What is needed is called a "back end to the funnel".

That's Step Two: the higher-priced, complimentary or expanded offer, where you make your money--and really impact the lives of your customers.

Why people stay stuck on Step One is they don't understand value ladders and the principle of ascension.

They don't understand the reason behind an initial low price free plus shipping offer.

You want a Buyers List.

People who buy.

People who saw what you offered, took out their credit card, and decided to buy.

The "You only pay S&H" is to identify BUYERS when it's done correctly.

Make money/don't make money on that first purchase...who cares? If a certain percentage of these buyers are going to ascend and buy the back end upgrade, you're doing fine.

Now the math of all this is beyond 90% of the people on this forum, which is a constant source of disappointment to me.

You can plan this out. Planned first, then actual as you get real data. You can target and make the money you want to make. If you conservatively estimate that 1 in 20 or 1 in 10 people who get the front end (S&H) offer will get the back end, how many front end buyers do you need to hit your money target?

Most people on this forum lack a money target, BTW, and are trying the fool's errand of trying to "make as much money as possible." That's no target at all.

This equation shows you how much traffic you need, when you go out to the end and calculate the number of initial leads required. And then you can figure out, "Where do I need to go to get that level of traffic?" or "Do I need to raise my prices here?"

I can tell you that after 7 or 8 years of doing funnel strategy calls, most people are beaten before they start--they have nowhere near, not even a tenth, of the traffic they need coming in to make the vague money target they dream about...beaten and they don't even know it. That's scary and sad.

Now a success story.

I worked with a great product creator and marketer on a project where we ran a funnel like this:

- paid $3000 to an investing magazine for 3000 leads who had signed up through that magazine to be shown appropriate offers about finance and investing

- put them in front of a free-plus S&H offer for two books, under $20

- showed those who bought the front end S&H a two week educational sequence, using Brunson's invisible funnel for $197 at the end if they liked it

- made a $2K offer to those who paid for the invisible funnel offer.

This is not rocket science yet it is light years beyond Warrior Forum thinking. And we did this years ago.

Look at the math.

We were set up for success: can you see it?

We only needed say 7% conversion on the front end to BREAK EVEN AND START MAKING MONEY on the front end! That is very achievable, and achieve we did.

The front end paid for itself. So you can do that...provided you can find a quality traffic source as we did.

Then the ascension model. We did not go straight for the high ticket sale. Most of you would lunge out there with that offer.

Instead, we got them to pay us for educating them. Now this training was original, fantastic, and had money invested in the production design. And my client solved a very real, urgent problem for the target market.

Then, after the education phase, we showed them the $2K product that now automated everything we had educated them about being important. This is where the real money was made.

My client made $600K in a week, a figure that is unbelievable to nearly all of you. Again, sad. And he kept nearly all of that money, as we did not use affiliates and operated far away from the IM world. That amount is a spit in the ocean and clients have far exceeded it since.

This is what an ascension funnel looks like done right, and why "Free plus S&H" offers can be powerful at the front end. Remember, we liquidated that front end traffic expense on just 7% conversion. The math has to be set up for success. This kind of offer can definitely be useful for that purpose--and you've identified a buyer. Separating the wheat from the chaff as quickly as you can, and then concentrating your effort on the wheat, is one of the most powerful things you can do in marketing.

Those books you buy are not free. You give your email IDs in return.
And these are then used to spy on you.
It is a tripwire.
I would rather stay away from them.

It's a low ticket front end offer Russell uses to bring in new customers while paying for his advertising. Probably has up-sells as well. He's a marketing genius.

Jason kanigan great reply. Appreciate the time you put into that response!

Book Free... shipping handling 9.95....To Ship Media Mail about $3.00.....takes about 20 seconds to package...pretty good profit giving something away for free

al

During a random trip to my local P.O., they told me if you ship any media, like a book, postage costs a flat rate of around $4.

Anything more than $4 bucks is mark-up my friend.

Russel Brunsons book, really new name to me. Well, I will read this book to know about the topic shared by you.

Sorry for the delay in reply; I've been offshore.

I've finished the book and he breaks down the entire ladder. The book costs $16 to deliver, but once the average cart price is accounted for, the entire book campaign ends up making a small profit. So he is essentially getting paid for taking on sales qualified leads.

Jason, your explanations have been great, thank you. What you described is exactly what he's doing. I take your point on thinking I'm in this on my own and have started looking at sub-contracting some aspects.

And further point taken about long form copywriting being king! That's the key skillset I'm working on now.

Just so you know. On Youtube, Russell breaks it all down. You don't need outsiders. He tells you all you need to know. Frank Kern does the same thing on his $ 5.60 offer.

P.S. Offer is King. Copywriting isn't. The right offer to the right audience trumps copywriting. Source: Professional Copywriter ... Me!!!