By
Robert Smith
©
2000 All Rights Reserved
Launching
A Complementary Product
Your
most profitable product will always be your own product. This
is because you have total control in every phase of its
marketing.
Selling
complementary products helps make your business become more
profitable. They help you attract more customers to your
website and will help establish your creditability as an
expert within your area of expertise.
For
example: Lets say you sell drift boats and your target
market is fly-fishermen. A natural complementary product
line for you might be to sell fly rods and tackle.
Today
I will share the process I follow when I launch a
complementary product.
Buy
The Product Yourself
I
can't over emphasize the importance of owning products you
sell. This is a must, and hardly anyone does it. Most products
you buy on-line offer a guarantee so there isn't much risk to
you involved. If you won't buy it, chances others won't
either.
You
will naturally be able to answer questions with authority, if
you own and use the product.
If
your complementary product is marketed through a multi-level
affiliate program, encourage your reps to buy the product
also.
For
example: I have over 200 second tier affiliates in a web
hosting affiliate program. In the last 2 years over 90% of
all sales by my second tier were made by reps who were also
customers.
Collect
Information
Spend
considerable amount of time collecting all of the information
you can find about the product before doing any marketing.
Most on-line products provide you a free website, and usually,
additional copies you can use to help market their product.
Create
List Of Features And Benefits
Create
a list of points - features, & benefits, as well as
concise text. Microsoft Word 2000 has a great feature that
will create a summery of all the information in a file. It
will pull out the key points for you. The feature can be fine
tuned to collect a higher or lower percentage of the total
material into a summery. It can also be done manually
Organize
Your Information
The
News media always place the most important information up
front, and the least important at the bottom. The reason they
do this is because most people have limited time and patience
to research. This is especially true on-line. Most people are
satisfied with a little information, but others want as much
as they can get.
In
order to satisfy everyone's needs, I place the most important
selling points at the top and the least important at the
bottom. I follow that same process for the features bullets
and again within the text within each paragraph.
Create
Opt-In Follow-up Messages
Everyone
is impatient, especially on-line. Most people will not buy the
first time they see your ad or visit your web page. That's why
it's vitally important to offer an opt-in follow-up messaging
system for every product you sell. I have found that following
up with informational and/or educational messages are the most
effective tool in my marketing arsenal.
I
make it as easy as possible for my visitors to request more
information. I create 3 to 10 opt-in follow-up messages for
each product I sell. These messages are delivered over a
period of days or weeks. Each message embellishes one or two
of the most important benefits my product offers. These
messages gradually build a positive relationship that converts
prospects into loyal customers over time.
Collect
Or Create Graphics
Graphics
and banners are not the most important marketing tools;
however they can be useful. I use banners and text links on my
content pages if they are related to page content. I ask
myself the test question, "Will placing this proposed
graphic on this page add value to the content?"
Create
Your Own Web Page
Prospects
are more likely to buy from a web site they know and trust,
rather than the obvious reseller URL. Most affiliate programs
offer a free web page. I link to these supplied pages only as
a source of additional information or to use the supplied
order page or affiliate sign-up page
It's
important to brand your website's look and feel with your own
introduction page. Trust is developed over time. People buy
from merchants who are invested in the products and services
they sell. Your own web page helps tie your business'
complementary products and services to you.
Make
It "Sticky"
Make
your page as simple and organized as possible if you want your
prospect to stick around. Place the most important information
first in short, choppy sentences, with lots of bullet points.
In addition, make it more interactive by offering to answer
specific questions. Offer links to additional sources of
information from your supplied website, your follow-up
messages, and to you directly.
Generate
Traffic
One
of the secrets of attracting more traffic is to develop very
specific answers to anticipated search engine information
requests.
Start
by creating a list of keywords using the content you already
collected. You will find additional keywords using Jimtool's
great keyword generation tool.
This
is where you can use all the information you collected
earlier. Create a separate page consisting of a single feature
or benefit. Include liks to your complementary product's web
page and to your other web pages.
The
following is an example of a useful doorway page. This page
helps sell virtual hosting services by dealing with one
specific subject.
http://www.smithfam.com/hosting/buildit.html
Remember,
we attract visitors by offering the specific information our
prospects are seeking. Doorway pages help us by helping the
search engines results yield the most reverent information for
a given search term.
In
Summary
Your
most profitable product will always be your own product.
Offering complementary products will help make your business
more profitable and establish your expertise and credibility.
Always
buy products yourself before considering selling it to others.
Use
of interactive opt-in follow-up messages to help you sell by
repeated exposure.
Create
your own web page to establish your brand and show your
investment in your complementary products. Use banners and
graphics sparingly. Create additional doorway web pages that
focus on solutions your prospects needs, and use the search
engines to attract prospects to your solutions.
If
you want to research a couple of tools I use to generate over
a million hits a month, visit the following pages.
Web
Position Software
http://www.smithfam.com/wpg/
Traffic
Builder Software
http://www.smithfam.com/spider/
ROBERT
SMITH helps thousands successfully market their
Internet based home business. You'll find tons of free
marketing tools & resources on his Internet Marketing web
site at: <http://www.smithfam.com/>.
You
can reach him by phone at: (541) 689-1847 PST, and by email
at. <mailto:bob@smithfam.com>
TRAFFIC
BUILDER SUBMISSION TOOL - FREE DEMO
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other program even comes close at any price. Recently awarded
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program on the net. 100% satisfaction guarantee.
Download the FREE DEMO
<http://www.smithfam.com/spider/>
Additional
Resources:
Make
Your Knowledge Sell
Make
Your Words Sell
Make
Your Site Sell
Make
Your Price Sell
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Affiliate
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very own Infoproduct.
Affiliate
Programs:
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Read
Other Free Articles about Online Success........
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