Justin Bieber Marketing Advice

So yesterday I ordered/rented two of the most surprising marketing “resources” I’ll likely ever recommend.

The first is “Never Say Never”, the movie about Justin Bieber. I rented this on Itunes for a couple of reasons.

First, I’m from the same small Canadian city as Justin, and the same age as his parents, so it has a bit of personal interest for me.

Second, at lunch yesterday, between rounds of eel rolls, Joe told me that I have to watch this movie because it is one of the best marketing lessons I can get.

Did you know that 51% of the music sold in 2010 was Justin Bieber’s?

I’m sure 2011 will be different with Lady Gaga releasing a new album, but that’s pretty impressive market domination.

So if you have kids that want to watch it, “give in”, and watch it (or re-watch it) for your own selfish reasons.

The second surprising resource is a book I ordered called, “The Purpose Driven Church”, by Rick Warren.

This is a Dan Kennedy recommendation, and Kennedy has written extensively about how Warren’s organization can teach info product and membership site owners a LOT about growing your customers and clients into better people so that they remain members, and in turn get better results with your materials.

So I’ll read that sometime in June or July, and I’ll give you my thoughts, but almost every Kennedy recommendation is worth it, so if you run a membership site of any kind, “check it out”, as my friend Dr. Steve Brule would say.

Now for some QnA…

During lunch yesterday, Joe Polish and I talked about Clickbank quite a bit.

As you might know, the majority of my income comes through Clickbank, as both a vendor and an affiliate. But Joe – and some Internet Independence readers – still had some questions about Clickbank, so let’s cover those now.

Question: Do you find Clickbank is the best option for a final product that contains only downloadable files? – From Jared

Answer: Yes, I think it is still the best place to get started.

The benefits are:

a) You can tap into Clickbank’s massive affiliate network (now that’s not easy, but if you can do this, you’ll exponentially grow your business)

b) Clickbank takes care of the affiliate payouts, refunds, chargebacks (not that you’d have many), and all the “dirty paperwork” that could otherwise suck up your time

c) You don’t need your own merchant account

d) It only costs $50 to sign-up as a vendor and get started (and it costs nothing if you just want to be an affiliate for someone else)

e) It’s about the simplest and quickest solution to getting started online.

That said, there are some downfalls, and the biggest is the 7.5% (plus $1) that Clickbank takes on every sale. That can add up to thousands and thousands of dollars over the course of your business career, but if you’re just starting out, it’s worth that trade-off in order to get started online fast.

You can always change to another e-commerce solution in the future.

Question: How do you give 100% commissions during the Clickbank launch you describe in your 12-months-to-$100K plan? – Joe Polish

Answer: Let me start with a quick background of the plan.

First, I recommend creating a $19.95 introductory offer to build sales momentum in your business. You’ll also want to have at least one, if not two or three upsells (of $9.95-$29.95) to go with it.

Second, launch this to your list. Test your sales copy and upsell flow, if possible.

Third, contact affiliates to promote your offer. Do all the work for them, giving them your best converting sales emails. Also, offer them 100% commission on the front end sale.

That means for every $19.95 order, you’ll give your affiliate every penny of the sale. Normally, at least on Clickbank, affiliates are given 51-75% of each sale.

But to stand out, you’re going to give 100%. You make your money on the upsells, and during the lifetime of your business thanks to your new-found customer list.

But since Clickbank only allows you to offer a maximum of 75% commission through their system, how do you pay out a full 100% to your affiliates?

The answer is that you do it manually.

I’ve done this in the past, and I simply do the calculations and send my affiliates the remaining 25% by Paypal.

Now if you’re a sharp cookie, you’ll notice that when you combine the 100% commission with the Clickbank fees, you’ll actually LOSE money on each front end sale.

That’s fine for 2 reasons.

Reason #1 – You’ll make money on the upsells (where you only give 75% commission).

Reason #2 – You should be happy that you can buy dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of customers for about $2.50 each (that’s how much you lose to Clickbank in fees).

Listen, bottom line:

This is a mindset you must have – that you are willing to buy customers on the front end in order to build a big, profitable business on the back-end.

That’s how product launches work.

If you get that, you’re golden.

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Ok, that’s it for today. If you have any other Clickbank questions, let me know.

Next Week: The 3rd “strangest” resource for marketing advice…I’ll give you a hint…it’s advice from a character on Seinfeld.

Have a great weekend catching Bieber Fever,

Craig Ballantyne
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“The way to take over an industry is not to fix the current model, but to completely destroy it and replace it with a model you know is better.” – Spencer Booth