Recently, Ewen Chia advertised with us again in one of our advertising channels. He was trying to promote one of his offline seminars in Singapore.
Whenever Ewen advertises, there is something we can learn.
In Singapore, most seminar organizers sell their seminars via free previews. I believe this method of selling was copied from the US. The idea is to give you a 1-2 hour free seminar which will then upsell you with a $1000+ full seminar. This method works.
Of all the seminar organizers who advertise with us, almost all of them advertise their free seminars directly. That means they advertise a sales page that tells you about their free seminar, how you can benefit and how you can register for free.
This method of advertising is direct and you get attendance to your free seminar immediately. But it’s a short term strategy.
Guess what’s the long term strategy?
It is to put list building as the first priority.
Here is what Ewen did – Instead of advertising a free seminar, he advertised to give away an ebook that he is currently selling in the market for $19.90. It’s a no brainer, even I opt-in to download the ebook!
And here is the smart trick – As a ‘bonus’, those who opt-in are entitled to attend a free seminar by him!
Can you see how powerful this strategy is?
If you simply promote a free seminar, people will check their schedule and if they can’t make it on that day, they will not sign up. On the contrary, if you give away an ebook that you are currently selling in the market, many people will opt in to your list to download the ebook. At the same time, they know that they have the privilege to attend your seminar for free. If they can’t make it this time, you can always follow up with them for your next seminar.
Building a list is no longer a secret. But when it comes to paid advertising, most people still tend to sell the actual product directly instead of giving away something of value to build a list. I believe that’s because most people have the mentality of “if I pay to advertise, I want to make sure that I earn back the fee.”
This mentality is not wrong. But there are smarter ways to do it.
Like what Ewen has done, instead of selling the product directly, you can give an irresistible offer to entice people to opt-in. Once they opt-in, I rephrase, immediately after they opt-in, you can show them whatever offer that you want to sell to them. This way, you can build a list and make sales at the same time.
An important thing to note in this strategy is that you must present your offer immediately after your prospects opt-in, not via autoresponder or after a day or two. This is because if people bother to opt-in, you have already gotten their full attention. You want to continue showing them your offer when they are still with you. Once they divert their attention to some other things, it will be harder to sell to them again.
To make sure that you grab the concept behind this strategy, here’s the flowchart:
Give an irresistible offer > Opt-in > Once prospects opt-in, show them your offer (it can be an affiliate product you’re selling, a network marketing opportunity, a seminar you’re promoting or your own product) > Follow up
If you put list building as your first priority whenever you advertise, your list will eventually grow and when that happens, you can do traffic exchange with other list owners and grow your list even bigger.
Look at your advertising campaigns today and ask yourself if you are putting list building as the first priority. If you are not, you may want to re-think your strategy.
Hi, I’m new here.
A very useful post for home business, especially the strategy of retaining potential customers.
Thanks for the tips. It’s very useful.
Ewen does it again.
This is why he is the worlds best affiliate, year in and year out. Thanks for sharing this strategy Kenneth. I love learning from the things that Ewen does.
Great stuff here today! Ewen has been one of my heroes for a long time now. If there is anyone who I would want to emulate he would be one. This post explains why. I hope everyone realizes the value in this information!
I’m strongly agreed with you that list building is the most important key factor to determine success or failure of online business.
“Money is NOT in the list” BUT is “in the relationship you build with your list”!! Follow up emails to update your subscribers and build relationship with your list.
Once you build the “relationship and the trust” with your relationship with your list, the money will “flow” like the “river” into your account.:)
You can upsell to your list with the higher value products/information once they already became your customer.
To Your Success
Bryan Hee
Ewen is definetly one of the masters of internet
affiliate marketing.
I have several of his ebooks and every one of
them was was well written, contained good
information and was well worth the price.
I am also giving away a FREE book titled “Bring out The Best in You.” I have written but NO FREE seminar yet. :) May be later. BTW that include a FREE autoresponder without sponsor ads. One of the earliest product I bought online is from Edwin.
SK
http://blog.successdynamic.com
Absolutely perfect
This is a great technique, it’s a no brainer, very effective.
Thanks for sharing the idea. Is a good strategy, please give us more details infos on how we can make money quicker with this websites, I mean to explain how the strategy to make money with this website —
Thanks
Couldn’t agreed more,buiding list is the most crucial in internet marketing.Thank you for sharing
Give it up to Kenneth. Your doing us a great service Ken. Thank you! Marketing Manager Thomas R.
Great post and i agree there is a lot of advantages in this strategy, on a different note you should login to your MyBloLog and say hello.
You can find me at maxhomebits
Great post once again and I agree that building a list is an essential part of your internet marketing business.
This is an excellent strategy and, with the net the way it is, something that we can all have a go at.
Keep these posts coming Kenneth.
Tony
This is an excellent strategy and I agree that building a list is an essential part of your internet marketing business.
Nice idea. I will try to implement this idea for small and local businesses for whom I provide online advertising services.
http://bizzblogs.weebly.com
This is good information. Hopefully these tips will propel my success.
http://www.savvyshoppersonlinemall.com
Thanks for the informaton I will definitely try this, hopefully with better results.
Interesting article. Very helpful for people who don’t realize the power of opt-in lists.
When I was first learning how to start an internet business. The last thing I thought about was how to get website traffic and visitors to my site. Thanks to pages like this I can learn from people who have already been through this.
Thanks
great idea. i don’t know about how to make a new website to give something away for free. I am just trying to promote Instant Buzz
Get Free Website Traffic , which gives away free traffic to websites. Does this work?
THanks, jeff
Excellent!
That extra little step is just what I was missing. I will have to implement that one right away.
Bill Darton
And at the end what did you mean by ‘Follow up’?
This is a great strategy! I have seen others use it and it works well, even if you aren’t promoting a seminar you can use this method for like you said above, affiliate products.
Most of the riches affiliate marketers online will swear by their lists and recommend newbies to create their own, lists have a lot of leverage and can open you up to many advertising opportunities(JV’s).
Although the click through rate for banner advertising in the Big Bear Valley is well above the national average, you may see better results by animating your banner or “dressing it up” for the upcoming holiday season.
Thanks
You know currently the most effective way to get people to visit your website is to purchase keywords in search engines and directories. You can also trade links with non-competing friends. Some of the search engines are looking at the number of links coming into your website and using it to help determine your ranking.