Another three weeks have flown by pursuing passive and easily managed income for a regular guy. The launch of my first product taught me so much in so little time, and it’s just as I was told and even told myself, if you are considering a digital product, just do it. The challenge was in launching a product to virtually no audience, on a topic thats typically not thought of to be productized like tech support. The results were and continue to be encouraging, not just because it’s amazing to make money while you sleep, but the process and level of ownership you take on when you have something to give the world, changes your online business mindset. Here’s my log and the initial results of launching, The Backup Informer. Note: The logs are rough copy, unedited, think of them as notes.
Preview Reviews and Changes
Send your digital product to everyone in your inner circle (Skool of Life elaborates on the “inner circle”) to look at, review, and own. It sounds a bit backwards to give away a product but your not just giving it away to anyone, you’re giving an exclusive look to those you’ve had some point of internet interaction with. Important point, DO NOT ask for them to promote it unless you are 100% confident you’re not stepping over the line, otherwise just offer it to them, think of it as a networking tool and casually mention when your launch date is, people will help if you’ve built a good product and they want to be part of it. Considering IT Arsenal has a very small audience right now, this was very important.
LOG
- I sent about 60 e-mails, and received about 13 with constructive changes to the book and several more that were happy to have it, and found it really useful, including, journalist David Pogue. A few offered to write review posts of their own accord, to which I was and am blown away, honored and encouraged to continue providing value with my work.
Resources
I read up on launching a digital product and reached out to a few coaches for last minute tips and tricks. I continued to keep Pat Flynn’s “eBooks The Smart Way” around me, and I picked up Dave Navarro and Naomi Dunford’s How To Launch the *** out of your eBook, which is very word heavy but filled with great advice. “People” were also key elements of my launch process, and while people aren’t just resources they are live relationships that I’m psyched to have, they are also business assets. One theme that continues to creep up on this blog is that relationships are fuel, you need to be open to them and wake up to their possibilities from day one. See Adam Baker and Corbett Barr if you need to gain the right perspective and context on your product launch. The conversations you have with these guys will be very casual but jammed with insightful tips, tricks, and experiences to help you along the way. Adam reminded me to keep a log of all my launch activities and really made me see that getting on big blogs (something I didn’t really do) was the only way the book would take off. It was a great dose of reality after having my head in my book and re-crafting my site.
LOG
- coaching session with more experienced content provider (adam baker)
- “go big, and learn from this” “you’re too cheap”
Buzz Building
I hate this part. I’m not good at it, I’m not good at drawing attention to myself, but I’m starting to learn. You must generate buzz about your product, especially if you don’t have a large existing audience. I had 2 RSS subscribers and about 800 monthly hits before this launch (mostly lurkers and search traffic), I now have about 50 RSS subscribers and there were 500 hits in the three days over my launch.
There are several ways to create buzz, the product page itself needs to have “buzz elements” such as a limited release, or a sale price, or great bonuses, these will help people pull the buying trigger but the biggest impact will come from other collective spots on the web sending you traffic. I failed at getting to this early on, it’s as important as writing the book for exposure and sales. It’s the largest part of my log. Next time, as part of the writing process I will create a few side reports or posts that can be used as a skeleton for other audiences.
LOG
- considered adding ebook to amazon and focusing on keywords in the future…but not enough time.
- http://stickyebooks.com/2010/06/23/ebook-on-amazon-and-ibookstore/
- wrote a sneak peak blog post
- a lot of responding to the custom e-mails i sent out over the last few days. good response overall
- reached out to other bloggers, big names, possibilities, friends
- under30ceo guys are awesome, scope them out
- getrichslowly connection
- young entrepreneur forums post
- 4hww forums posts
- gave book to dave from marketing minute
- my wife quit – e-mail
- untemplater
- web worker daily – too hard to connect
- pat flyn – e-mail
- sent it out for free to a lot of friends, prominently asking them to promote it
- pogue – e-mailed me back
- thursday bram – did a questionnaire post on me! awesome!
- copyblogger – didn’t look into
- problogger – came up with a really unique way to contact him, but not enough time
- denise oberry – sent e-mail
- dropbox – said would post in forums!
- bfackup – happily said yes to promote
- mozy – hard to get in touch with
- note: contacted big names just to say i respect them, like their content and give them the book. DON’T PITCH, just be in the game…pogue, denise oberry, pat flyn
after mining my own e-mail, alliance groups, I realized there were so many people I wasn’t doing justice. I grabbed RSS feeds, friended, or followed people I’ve talked with before but never connected to…this really brought attention to how many people i wanted to be following or connected with but wasn’t. wasn’t following or aware of probably 20 people that i love, want to promote and can easily connect with because i have in the past in passing. turning these people that i will love learning and validating their efforts in testing there ideas and content into an “inner circle list”
Perspective and Emotions
There was a shift in my mental state while launching this product. IT Arsenal, the business, the website, my services took on a much more “serious” connotation. I realized the people hitting my website and seeing a product for sale changes things. It also makes you go…”oh crap what am I doing”, which is a good thing. It opened my eyes once again to how obvious and laser specific your offerings need to be for people to be interested and it also woke me up to the fact that I need to be generating more content. The thought was re-inforced that I need to dig into similar blogs in my niche and continue to offer myself. You can’t just want to help people, be a resource and gain exposure, you have to do it.
LOG
- 7/16 after sending out so many e-mails i’m gaining this sense of happiness in making it happen, a sense of realness to my efforts, creating a product, being an online business and not just a freelancer. there’s also the scaredness that these people are looking at something i created. the oh crap, what have i done, can i go back and hide on my couch behind hulu now. it’s made me look at my website, how i’m presenting myself, scoff at the fact i’m not posting more. i’ve also noticed twitter followers keep trickling in and i’m not exactly sure why…i’m networking, visiting websites, leaving comments, sending some tweets but i’m not pushing twitter following or anything…these things make a difference.
- reaction: reached out to Untemplater and Get Rich Slowly…wow did I really just do that and submit posts? holy crap….
What I Didn’t Do (What I Learned)
I thought I had the system down, and although I didn’t run into any technical snags I did hit a lot other walls in the product selling process that I could have improved before. Note: If you’re having any trouble launching a product dealing with the technical side of things, I’ll be glad to help.
LOG
- tech note: only way to take discounts through ejunkie nicely is to use their shopping cart first (can’t go directly to Paypal), otherwise you need a form on your salespage … that sucks…needed to change this for untemplater discount
- scanned through the launch part of how to launch the *** out of your book. i needed a lot more time to create buzz content relevant articles, give away free content like the table of contents type information or small content sections…should have learned this earlier! live and learn
- note: add more bonuses…someone suggested to add a social media backup bonus which I started to draft…a social media backup “report” to add as a bonus…but just didn’t have enough time to add it in…maybe in post launch.
- reader suggestion: put that it’s a ONE TIME FEE, confusing
- seth hosko, awesome brand management strategist: tout your expertise… you have it!
- note: i didn’t prepare early enough for guest posts…no change at getting on a big site’s radar or in their post que with only 3-4 days notice…you need to think 3-4 weeks ahead of time.
Results
The numbers speak for themselves. I didn’t get rich, but it was a great way to commit myself to IT Arsenal, gain exposure and build my offerings. The income was a great bonus this month.
Reports from launch day July 20th to the 23rd. There were roughly 400 hits and 16 sales, about 4% conversion. I had nearly 40 signups for my newsletter at IT Arsenal also.
Very interesting how there wasn’t much time spent on the site, I’m not sure if this meant they were sold before they got there (which would make sense if they were reading a review) or why this might be.
Finally, the first real dent in creating the income part of this life designing journey. It’s not easy, no one ever said it would be, but it’s all together possible, doors open up every day once you put your feet to the ground.
There was plenty to learn from this experience, a big thank you to everyone who helped! I want to hear about your experience, do you need any help? Do you have any questions?