You can safely ignore this post if you come across it.
Just want to check that a new plugin is working which I am soon to introduce.
If you want to see how it works properly, then take a look at:
http://movies.clarifywithben.com/movies/sdf-2
See you in a few days with the results 😉
Unless you are checking your stats regularly then you probably won’t even notice that your income has dropped for a particular site.
Sometimes you will see that it has actually gone down to zero.
The first thing to do is to check your web statistics. You may have installed Google Analytics or another tracking program. If you haven’t then you may automatically have something like AWstats installed.
If your stats are more or less the same, then you need to investigate further why this may be.
Some reasons it may be are:
1. There is an error on one of your pages which is not causing the page to display correctly.
2. Your site has actually been hacked. Ouch.
3. AdSense is no longer displaying on your site. Find out why. Perhaps the site has been banned or perhaps there aren’t ads which are targeted towards the content.
4. You have been hit by Smart Pricing. Not a huge amount that you can do, but are some steps that you can take.
The point really, is to make sure that you do keep an eye on all of your statistics and notice if anything changes. And then adjust as necessary.
Why do I mention this?
I recently noticed that the income on one of my sites that was earning about $15 a day fell to about $5 a day. Consistently.
There were no errors.
And hadn’t been hacked.
What I did notice though, was that AdSense was not being shown on the home page but was on the other pages.
The home page was a list of links to other pages in the site.
What I did, was to add a block of text which was targeted towards a particular topic and within 24 hours, the AdSense is showing again and the income is back up again.
About 10 minutes work for $10 a day ain’t so bad 🙂
Moral: Keeping an eye on your stats and if something changes for the better or for the worse, find out why. It’s not always due to the amount of traffic that is coming.
It is hard to create spun articles manually.
It is even harder to check the spintax to make sure that it is correct.
And if it is not correct, then to debug the problem.
As this is something which is very important to my company, I have just created a script which will do exactly that.
Go and take a look and let me know what you think at:
Keeping it VERY real!
Ben Shaffer
So, I mentioned a few days
ago how I was inadvertently
running a little test on one
of my sites.
(Worth going to:
http://theproductmachine.com/fbjacker/
if you have no idea what I am
talking about)
The reason why it was unintentional
was because I actually received the
salespage like that, so didn’t set up
the test on my own.
However, I was still very interested
to see how it would turn out.
What you will see, are that there
are three prices:
$9.95 – single site license
$19.95 – unlimited site license
$21.95 – multiple site developer license
The first thing that you will
notice are that the 2 higher prices
have very little difference is
price, but for the extra $2 there
is a definite benefit.
The second thing that you will notice
is that there is a really cheap option.
Cheap at a pricepoint where it should
easily break down the barriers of anyone
to buy if there is even an inkling
of desire of the part of the prospect.
So, what I want to do is first to tell
you what the results were, and then to
give you a bit of commentary on why I
think that the results were as they
were.
The actual results really surprised me
and probably will you also…
Just a quick note though. To give some
perspective, the results cover a few
hundred sales. Probably not conclusive
under total scientific conditions, but
good enough for me in order to come to
some conclusions.
So…….here is how they were:
Single license ($9.95) – 1 Sale
Multiple license ($19.95) – about 15% (of the rest)
Developer license ($21.95) – about 85% (of the rest)
Now, what really surprised me was the
fact that there was only one sale of the
single license.
At a price which I thought would be very
impulsive, I thought that a LOT more people
would buy at this pricepoint.
Personally, I know that I buy a lot of
downloable products online that I never
even look at. Therefore I tend to go for
the cheapest version and then upgrade if
I liked the taster.
Obviously, I am slightly unusual in that
way 🙂
In addition, on my second email, I made
a conscious decision to try and push the
cheap version as I thought that people
who were on the fence would be easily
pushed to spend $9.95 and just ‘give it
a try’.
I guess I was wrong.
I was also very surprised that 15% of
people bought the unlimited site option.
I thought that people would spend the
extra $2 to purchase the developers
edition which in my mind gave a lot
more value.
Here is what I have concluded from this
test:
1. This product at least was NOT an
impulse buy and the people who bought
were serious enough about their purchase
in order to know that they were going
to use it on multiple sites.
2. I suspect that I was probably slightly
unclear about the differences between the
three licenses and had I been clearer, I
would have seen more people buying the
developer rather than the umlimited. Perhaps
had I called the third version ‘unlimited
developer’ rather than ‘multiple developer’
that also would have made a difference
3. That you never know the results of
tests until you run them and running
by just a hunch will (almost) always
be wrong.
Many of you may recognise the set up
of the prices from a book called
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely.
If you haven’t read that book then
I highly advise you to get it.
Available from Amazon at:
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden
Forces That Shape Our Decisions
The basic premise, is that you should
have 3 prices.
The difference between the 2nd and 3rd
price is very little, but the value that
they get for the highest price is considerably
more than the 2nd.
On many things in life such as antiques
or collectibles in the offline world
or virtually anything downloadable in
the online it is very difficult to put
a monetary value on something.
By giving three prices, you are setting
different levels of value in your prospect’s
mind so that they can justify the price
which you are asking.
There is a lot more to is and suggest you
read the book yourself, but I guess that
this experiment did kind of prove his theory
to be correct.
Hope you enjoyed this analysis.
Please DO leave your comments in the box
below and feel free to share the link to
this post.
Keeping it real in an unreal world,
Ben Shaffer
Scarcity can be one of the most powerful reasons for someone to buy. As mad as it sounds, you can often make a sale with the major reason being that someone doesn’t want to miss out.
A wonderful example of this is the Groupon (and similar sites) model. If you are not familiar with Groupon, I will explain briefly how it works.
They have a deal of the day and then after that 24 hour period, the deal is withdrawn and as much as you beg, you are not able to get hold of that deal.
The way that they are using scarcity is based on a limited time model. If you purchase within that period then you are able to get the product for a much reduced price.
Here is where the psychology becomes clever and I will apply it to something that recently happened to myself. I saw that a manicure was reduced from around $50 to around $20. I saw what seemed to be a ridiculously amazing deal. And although I have no need (or so I think) for myself, I though who else I could buy that for and lo and behold my wife now has access to a manicure and pedicure!
Would I normally have bought my wife a manicure and pedicure? Chances are not. But because I did not want to miss out, I found a great reason there and then to buy it. The reason being that I had to make a quick decision and was sure that my wife would be happy with it.
We see examples of scarcity being used not only on the internet but also offline as well. A “SALE” sign can be enough for many shoppers to take action on items which they would not normally buy for example.
What I want to do, is to look at some different ways in which you can implement scarcity into your own marketing:
1. Timebound scarcity. For example, you must order before midnight tonight. The most important thing here, is that it is credible. Explain why the person must order before tonight. This is often combined with another sort of scarcity. eg. price reduction/additional bonus.
2. Limited quantity. People are very scared on missing out on something. By limiting the quantity, you can increase demand. One of the problems that people have here is doing it in a credible way. Limiting a quantity just for scarcities sake doesn’t work very well, especially online. As we all know, with digital products, there is in theory an unlimited supply so why limit quantity? Some reasons which I have used (quite truthfully) are:
– I can only support a limited number of people with my present resources. By using this reason, it shows potential customers that support is important to you.
– That I don’t want a method to be saturated.
3. Additional bonuses. You see it quite often and it works very well. That you will offer an additional bonus to the first 100 people. This gives a positive reason for your prospects to act right now.
One thing that I would like to make very clear, is that when you are using scarcity, that you should use it honestly. What I mean, is that if you say you are only going to sell a certain number, then do. If you say that you are going to remove an offer by a certain time, then do.
If you don’t, then it will come back to bit you…
I’m serious when I say that if you try it then you will see massive increases in profit. If you try and combine more than one, then you will even see a greater effect.
I think that my greatest use of scarcity was when I did a webinar and promised to sell only 100. Once those 100 were gone, I replaced the order button and said that it was sold out. I had around 30 people asking at the helpdesk to be able to purchase the product and I was able to let a few more in due to refunds and credit card problems. By creating that scarcity (which was real), I am pretty sure that it made customers more eager to purchase and that next time, they will know that when I say I am only going to sell a certain quantity, that I will.
Would love to hear any more examples of scarcity either which you have used or been susceptible to. Please do leave a comment below as would love to hear from you.