An interesting thread started at the MJ forums yesterday:

“Great Formula” freebie contributors should have read “Irresistable Offer”

First of all it is a fantastic list of surprise bonuses that you can have when you order Mark’s new book “The Great Formula” and I look forward to reading and listening to some of the products while I wait for Amazon to deliver the new book.

But… there are some lessons to be learned just by scrolling through and signing up for the list of offerings.

I think SOME of the people that contributed freebies as part of the promotion should have read Mark’s last book about “Irresistible Offers”.

Here is a chance to gain access to lots of new prospects and some of these contributors are not putting the best foot forward.

Here are some things I noticed:

  • Links that didn’t work…
  • Boring text that doesn’t “sell” their “free” offer…
  • Confusing hoops to jump through to get access to the freebie (and I’m not talking about collecting emails)…
  • Outdated pictures…
  • No benefit laden headline…
  • Only a couple of contributors put me in front of an offer after I subscribed to their ezine…

…and some of these people are trying to present themselves as marketing experts!

I guess the thing that stuck out to me the most was that the contributors that were offering something “specific” and presented themselves as a “specific” type of expert came across better than the others who were trying to be all things to all people ie. generic marketing expert or generic success expert.

I realize that I’m probably going to get flamed for writing all this, but there just seemed to be a great divide between those that ‘get it’ and those that don’t.

Does anybody else out there have some ideas how some of the contributors could have done better? (so we can all learn from this.)

Best,

Rob Shanon

I was discussing this with my good friend Valerie Booth last night on skype and she mentioned she had only received 3 signups for her bonus offer since “The Great Formula” was released. It couldn’t have been because the book wasn’t selling well. As you probably know it’s become a #1 best-seller at Amazon today and that doesn’t happen with 3 sales a day…

At this point Valerie’s headline was formulated as follows:

Enter the Food Gift Gourmet Sweepstakes

Followed by a down-to-earth message about how you could win $150.- worth of delicious chocolate mints that are individually wrapped and imprinted with your company logo or message.

Why was nobody inclined to sign up for this bonus?

I personally find that being exposed to 88+ bonuses is a rather stressful experience. Here you are offered a chance to get 12K of products and services all for nothing. You know you don’t want to miss this chance. Yet you also know there is no way you’ll be able to make use of everything which is offered…

Basically you are dealing with information overload here and to save you time and more stress you need to make quick decisions about what’s valuable for you. So most people will most likely skim through the headlines to make these decisions.

Only when the headline triggers a first interest you will continue to read the bonus description and its benefits to you. And only after that you’ll make a final decision about whether or not the bonus is worth your time to sign up for it.

Val’s headline was definitely not getting the desired results…

So what was the hidden message in this headline?

  • You’d have to enter a sweepstake, meaning that there is only a small chance of being rewarded for your effort…
  • This offer is about gourmet food, while “The Great Formula” is targeted at business people…

Yes, I know… The bonus is actually not about gourmet food at all. It’s very much targeted at entrepreneurs instead. However, you only find out that this is the case after you get passed the headline…

So Val made some significant changes. And personally I find that her new headline is now actually the best of them all!

Check it out for yourself:
http://patriciarits.thegreatformula.com

I would be very surprised if she isn’t seeing her signup rates increase manyfold…

Let me know if you agree with me!

Patricia Ritsema van Eck

P.S.
If you don’t want to take your chances at winning the sweepstake, here’s where you can order these sinfully delicious mints yourself:

http://www.mints-usa.com

Bookmark to:
Add 'Did the Bonus Contributers Read The Irresistible Offer?' to Del.icio.us Add 'Did the Bonus Contributers Read The Irresistible Offer?' to digg Add 'Did the Bonus Contributers Read The Irresistible Offer?' to FURL Add 'Did the Bonus Contributers Read The Irresistible Offer?' to blinklist Add 'Did the Bonus Contributers Read The Irresistible Offer?' to My-Tuts Add 'Did the Bonus Contributers Read The Irresistible Offer?' to reddit Add 'Did the Bonus Contributers Read The Irresistible Offer?' to Feed Me Links! Add 'Did the Bonus Contributers Read The Irresistible Offer?' to Technorati Add 'Did the Bonus Contributers Read The Irresistible Offer?' to Socializer 

 Votes | Average: 0 out of 5 Votes | Average: 0 out of 5 Votes | Average: 0 out of 5 Votes | Average: 0 out of 5 Votes | Average: 0 out of 5 (No Ratings Yet)
Loading ... Loading ...
Posted by Patricia Ritsema van Eck | Print This Post | EMail This Post
Tag: , ,