As it turns out, the history books are littered with product launches gone bad – some costing literally hundreds of millions of dollars.

Fortunately the bigger the disaster, the more we can learn from the experience. So let’s pick apart some of the biggest ever failed product launches to highlight not only the risks of launching a new product but also what we can learn from these shocking case studies.

IBM PCjr

Once upon a time IBM were the manufacturers of business computers in the form of their IBM PC. Buoyed by their success, and keen to expand their market reach even further, IBM decided to venture into the consumer market by offering a computer specifically designed for home users. Thus, the IBM PCjr was born.

The pre-launch excitement was palpable – it was the “Apple cult” of it’s day. Computer lovers weren’t just lining up ready to buy the new system months before it’s launch but they were even shunning equal machines released by IBMs competitors. The pressure was on.

Sadly, rather like many over-hyped product launches, the reality failed to live up to expectations. For one, the keyboard was so small and so ugly as to be virtually unusable. Indeed, as sales flagged IBM even swapped out the keyboard for a better one at huge expense but sales failed to recover.

However this didn’t address the two core issues that led to the IBM PCjr’s failure; firstly the machine cost almost double what similar machines were selling for with no obvious benefits.

Even worse, the limited processing power of the IBMjr meant that in many cases software, and even individual files, weren’t compatible between the IBM PC and the PCjr. This meant that anyone wanting to transfer information between the two machines – such as business owners who wanted to do some work from home – were setting themselves up for a fall.

Shortly after launch, when monthly sales were only in their thousands, IBM pulled the plug on their greatest product launch failure ever.

So what can we learn from IBM’s dismal failure with the PCjr? Firstly, if you’re going to sell a product, it must be worth the money you’re changing. Many brands over the years have shown that premium products will sell, but only when customers still consider them fair value.

Before launching any kind of product, market research is essential. Get your product into the hands of your potential customers and ask them for their thoughts. Do they like it? How can it be improved? How does it measure up to their expectations? And arguably most importantly of all (for IBM at least): what will customers willingly pay for your product?

New Coke

One of the classic product launch failures involves one of the most iconic and well-known brands in the world; namely the Coca Cola company. For years, Pepsi and Coca Cola had been fierce rivals for the title of “cola king” but what worried the Coca Cola company was that they seemed to be losing the battle. Pepsi’s sales continued to grow while their own faltered. Alarmed at dropping sales, Coke decided they need to take massive action.

Taste tests suggested that many customers preferred the sweeter taste of Pepsi over Coke so experts set about creating a “new Coke” that was more appealing than Pepsi’s offering. Researchers found customers largely in favour of New Coke and so in 1985 the product was officially launched.

The response was almost immediate. While some cola drinkers did indeed prefer New Coke over the old formula or even over Pepsi, there was a problem. A vocal customer base felt cheated that their beloved drink had been tampered with and started to boycott the new version. Sales dropped still further until, with a heavy heart, executives at Coke had to perform a “u-turn” and reintroduce the old formula.

The really interesting thing about the New Coke saga from an entrepreneurs perspective is that in theory the product should have been a winner. Coke poured huge amounts of time and money into their research and development and indeed on average people did prefer the new, sweeter beverage over the old one. So what really went wrong?

In essence, Coke forgot to consider one vital element – and that was their brand. Not the price, the appearance or the flavor of their drink but rather the feelings people had about the company. For many people, Coke was a part of their identity. They’d enjoyed it for years and rather like supporting a certain football team the Coke/Pepsi divide helped to define who they were as a person.

Indeed Coke’s branding was so strong that when they stopped producing the old formula, some die-hard enthusiasts even started importing it from overseas where New Coke had not yet been introduced. Their customers felt cheated and deceived. The brand had changed – and they didn’t like it.

So the biggest lesson that entrepreneurs can learn from the dismal failure of New Coke is the importance of really understanding your customers. By interacting with them through the enquiries they make and through surveys and social media, you’ll gain a better understanding of what works.

Try to gain an understanding of how your customers view you and what your brand traits are, so that you can live up to these expectations. Consistent branding works; it builds trust and makes customers feel comfortable. It’s how Ray Kroc grew McDonalds into one of the biggest companies in the world, because wherever you see the “yellow arches” you know exactly what you’re getting. Imagine walking into McDonalds to find it selling only vegeburgers and imagine how cheated you’d feel.

In other words choose a brand and stick to it, no matter what.

Tetris

“Tetris, a failure?” I hear you ask? Right now you’re probably remembering the Gameboy you lovingly owned years ago and the many happy hours you spent playing Tetris. So how could a game that has become such a part of popular culture be considered a dismal failure?

The reason to consider Tetris a product launch disaster concerns the secret battle between Nintendo and Atari. Before it hit the big time, every software manufacturer that encountered Tetris saw the games massive potential and wanted a piece of the action.

Soon many of the biggest names in the industry were battling it out for rights to produce and sell the game on their platform and two of the biggest rivals were Atari and Nintendo. In theory Atari won the race; they got approval to mass-produce the game long before Nintendo got to the table. But there was a problem; they were negotiating with the wrong person. Nintendo may have been late to the game but they rapidly identified the “go-to” guy and began negotiating in earnest.

The outcome was that Atari incorrectly thought they had won sole rights to the game when infact they had been beaten by Nintendo. As Atari had negotiated with a more junior person, the Nintendo deal won out after some unpleasant legal wrangling.

Unfortunately by the time Nintendo was finally crowned the victor, Atari had already manufactured vast supplies of the game to distribute. On losing the case Atari were then faced with an expensive and embarrassing obligation to dispose of all their Tetris game cartridges. In all, they recalled and destroyed over a quarter of a million games, a mistake that cost them millions of dollars.

So while Tetris may have been a major success for Nintendo it also represents a massive disaster for competitor Atari who failed to do their research properly and eventually missed out.

There are a number of points that we as entrepreneurs would do well to learn from this unfortunate saga. Firstly, try to identify the real authorities in your chosen business niche and build trust and rapport with them. Relationships are just as important as ever when it comes to growing a venture and having the right friends can make or break a business.

Secondly while entrepreneurs tend to be impatient, action-oriented individuals, it’s also important to have someone on staff who is well-grounded and will look at the finer details of a project. Whether you employ a staff member specifically or outsource as necessary, don’t underestimate the importance of the right counsel in the form of lawyers and accountants when you’re making important decisions in your business. One badly-checked piece of paper really can bring the roof down if you’re unlucky.

Dasani

Poor old Coca Cola. As if the New Coke fiasco weren’t enough of a mistake, the UK release of their bottled water product was an even greater disaster leading to possibly more bad press than any other major product launch in history.

By definition, most bottled water sold comes from natural springs where it is considered to be fresher, purer and more healthy than tap water. Many people also believe it tastes better too. All the major bottled water brands sold in Britain such as Evian and Buxton follow this most basic rule. However Coca Cola decided to do something different…

Upon the release of the Coke’s heavily-marketed Dasani water, consumers were outraged to discover that the water they were spending good money on hadn’t just bubbled up from an anchient aquifer but had instead come from a tap in London. No matter that Coca Cola claimed the tap water was put through a purification process and had trace minerals added to it – the fact is that bottled water is seen as natural and healthy while tap water and artificial processes aren’t.

In other words, the product was at odds with consumers from the very outset. Just like the New Coke scenario, the taste wasn’t what mattered. What counted was what consumers thought about the product – and that was over-poweringly negative.

With a PR crisis on their hands and customers feeling cheated and lied to the story just got worse; abnormally high levels of a cancer-causing agent was also identified in the water. As the mineral wasn’t present in the original water, Coke’s “purification” process must have been inadvertently adding it somehow.

Coke quickly withdrew hundreds of thousands of bottles and as consumer confidence sunk to an all time low, the drink was finally discontinued. Indeed, while Dasani is still sold in some countries, the negative publicity in the UK not only led to the product’s withdrawal here but also shelved the launch of the product in mainland Europe too.

There are two lessons here that we entrepreneurs need to keep in mind. The first of these relates to quality control. If Coke was properly testing their water then the harmful chemicals would have been noticed in advance. Never make assumptions about your product or business; instead try to experience it as a customer with fresh eyes and see what your own experience is.

Secondly, your customers aren’t stupid, so don’t treat them like it. The overwhelming response from customers about Dasani water was that they felt cheated and conned. They felt like Coke had tried to take advantage of them, and nobody likes to feel like that.

Remember that your customers are the lifeblood of your business and they should be treated with the utmost respect at all times. Think about how your product lives up to expectations and, like Apple or Dyson, find ways to exceed those expectations in every interaction. When you succeed, you’ll build massive trust and loyalty in your business that can explode your growth.

Premier Cigarettes

When the dangers of smoking cigarettes started to become public knowledge in the 1980’s, tobacco firm RJ Reynolds hit on a novel idea to grow their customer base; a cigarette that doesn’t give off smoke. The theory was that a smokeless cigarette would not only be more socially-acceptable but would also appear healthier to customers who were concerned about the risks of smoking.

Sadly, the reality was rather different. While the developers made good on their claims of a smokeless cigarette, the complicated process of making a tobacco that didn’t produce visible smoke had two major shortfalls. Firstly the cigarettes were virtually impossible to light and secondly customers found the taste repulsive.

For most customers, one packet was enough before they scurried back to their old cigarette brand. Shortly after it’s launch, the smokeless cigarette was withdrawn from sale, as RJ Reynolds flushed over $300 million of development costs down the drain.

The simple fact is that there’s no point in trying to run before you can walk. It’s doesn’t matter if a cigarette doesn’t produce smoke if the most basic elements aren’t there. If you can’t light a cigarette and it tastes vile then nobody will want it.

As an entrepreneur, remember the old adage that “form follows function”. Ensure your product does exactly what it says on the tin – smoothly and efficiently – before you start trying to add any gimmicks on top to try and make you unique.

Imagine if Popup Domination – the most popular WordPress plugin for building your mailing list – wouldn’t actually add subscribers to your autoresponder. It wouldn’t matter how fancy the popups looked or how easy it was to install – if the core functionality isn’t there then your product is going to fail.

And as a final point, try to keep your product development costs as low as possible. The more money you spend, the higher your risk is. While you may have grandiose ideas about a new piece of software, a mobile app or whatever else, try removing things from the project to see if you can save time and money on development costs without giving up the core purpose of the product.

Entrepreneurs have a saying: “fail fast and fail often”. The more products you release, the sooner you’ll find a winner. And when you land that “big catch” you’ll be in a perfect position to reinvest some of your profits into new features and really turn your product into a market leader.

Betamax

Many of us have heard the story of two competitors battling it out for dominance in the video cassette market. Strangely, while we all know that VHS was the ultimate winner, with Betamax dying a painful death, the most obvious question is why? After all, most people who tested both formats preferred Betamax citing it’s far higher quality as the reason for their preference. So if a “better” product lost out to an inferior one, what really happened, and what can we as entrepreneurs learn from the experience?

It turns out that Betamax had an Achilles heel that led to it’s downfall; namely the video tapes they made weren’t very long when compared to VHS which made putting a whole movie on a Betamax cassette almost impossible.

As a result of this shortfall, the major Hollywood studios opted to release their movies on the longer VHS format which helped it to almost instantly corner the market. While Betamax may have been a superior product, there simply weren’t enough videos worth watching and so, slowly, even die-hard Betamax aficionados found themselves admitting defeat and investing in VHS in order to enjoy their favourite films.

They say that “no man is an island” and this can be applied just as easily in business. A really smart way to get big fast is to piggyback off an already successful company. In many ways this is why Paypal has become such a big name because they set themselves up as the payment service for Ebay sellers. It’s also one reason that Buffer has become so big – by creating a simple solution to a problem that millions of existing Twitter users have. Piggybacking works, big time.

When you’re considering launching a product take a long, hard look at the market and your potential customers. Try to find related products and services that you can align yourself with and use their success to build your own business as break-neck speed.

So now it’s your turn. If you’ve ever launched a product of your own – whether it was a success or not – please leave a comment below and tell us what your experiences were and what your learned. We’d love to hear from you!

The post The 6 Most Disastrous Product Launches Ever – And What You Can Learn From Them appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

How do artists, inventors, and entrepreneurs raise money for their big ideas?

Increasingly, the answer is crowdfunding. As the Internet becomes a faster, friendlier, and better-connected place, it has never been easier to raise large amounts of money online.

Kickstarter is the website leading the pack. Since launching in April 2009, 26 million people have joined Kickstarter, together pledging over $328 million dollars to 28,000 projects. Though it’s only available in The United States so far, Kickstarter recently announced that they’ll be expanding to the UK in fall 2012.

The site’s gaining momentum rapidly. In its first two-and-a-half years, no single Kickstarter project raised a $1,000,000. In the last six months, there have already been eight $1,000,000 projects – including one that raised $10,000,000.

Though Kickstarter bills itself as “a funding platform for creative projects,” it’s also a platform for business projects. Crowdfunding expert Scott Steinberg, says that crowdfunding is “about to grow up very fast here,” and that “inevitably, more businesses and profit-minded organizations are going to gravitate there.”

Keep reading if you want to learn how to raise money with a Kickstarter campaign of your own.

But first…

The Story of $10,000,000 Kickstarter Project

The Pebble E-Paper Watch is a “smart watch” capable of being connected to iPhone and Android devices through Bluetooth. It can alert you to incoming calls, emails, and messages with a silent vibration on your wrist or connect with your phone’s GPS to give you information about your speed and distance traveled.

The only problem with the “first watch built for the 21^st century” was that it was just a prototype – and 24-year-old founder Eric Migicovsky was having trouble attracting additional money from private investors and venture capital firms.

In April 2012, Migicovsky decided eschew traditional funding in favor of crowdfunding. Pebble Technology launched a Kickstarter campaign with the lofty goal of raising $100,000 in 38 days. They reached $100,000 just two hours after starting. Six days later, the people had already pledged $4.7 million to the project. The final tally was a whopping $10.2 million, making it the most-funded campaign in the history of Kickstarter.

Pebble’s E-Watch clearly struck a nerve with the public. The project was destined for success because the product at its heart was sleek, innovative, and useful. But the funding wouldn’t have rocketed to the stratosphere if Migicovsky and his crew hadn’t done such a fantastic job of crafting their Kickstarter campaign to begin with.

It was perfectly executed, from top to bottom. That’s why I’ll be using Pebble’s “E-Paper Watch for iPhone and Android” campaign as a case study throughout the article.

Is Kickstarter Right for You?

The first step is to have a bright idea along the lines of the Pebble E-Watch. Your project needs to be one that you would actually want to fund with your own money if somebody told you about it. This could be anything from an invention to an app to an ebook.

If you’ve read this far, I’m guessing you’ve already got a bright idea. But if you’re not sure, you don’t have much to lose. Think of Kickstarter as a way to gauge the feasibility of your idea out in public without having to invest any money up front.

Before you dive in, make sure Kickstarter is right for you by checking the requirements below. One in four project proposals are declined by Kickstarter.

Projects Must be Clearly Defined

Kickstarter only funds projects. According to them, a project is something with “a clear goal” that “will eventually be completed, and something will be produced by it.”

That means that they won’t help you raise money for anything open-ended or that requires ongoing maintenance.

Projects Must Belong to Certain Categories

Kickstarter doesn’t allow just any project to be on its site, either. Every campaign undergoes a review process and must be accepted by Kickstarter before it goes live. Yours must fall into one of these categories:  Art, Comics, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film, Food, Games, Music, Photography, Publishing, Technology, and Theater.

These categories are pretty broad and there’s a good chance your idea could fall into one of them. But there are also many potential projects that don’t fit under the Kickstarter umbrella (e.g. cosmetics, health supplements, and pet supplies).

Neither does philanthropy. Kickstarter doesn’t allow project creators to raise money for a charity or a cause. And you can’t use it for personal expenses like your tuition or a new iPad.

You can see a full list of Kickstarter guidelines and restrictions here.

What If My Project isn’t Eligible?

Kickstarter is just one of many options for crowdfunding.

Indiegogo is less popular, but also less restrictive. According to Indiegogo’s “Learn More” page, “No matter what you are raising money for, you can start right now with no fee or application process.” Indiegogo is also international, so you can create and fund a project from anywhere in the world.

If you do decide to go with a site other than Kickstarter, that doesn’t mean you should stop reading here. With a few exceptions, the advice contained in this article is applicable to all crowdfunding websites, including Indiegogo, GoFundMe  and  GoGetFunding.

For a comparison table of crowdfunding sites, you can visit this helpful Wikipedia entry.

One Last Thing before We Begin

Don’t start a Kickstarter campaign expecting the money to flow to you effortlessly.

It will take hours of work to develop the project (you must build it, create a video, and determine the rewards) – but it will take even longer to maintain and promote the project through the funding process. Once the project is successful, your job is far from over. You must then use your newfound capital to complete the project and distribute the rewards to your backers.

Still ready to create your own campaign? Good.

Getting Started

Begin Early

You should start building your project a month in advance of when you’re planning on launching. That will give you plenty of time to fine-tune it and build up anticipation amongst your network.

You’ve also got to account for Kickstarter’s review process. According to Kickstarter Cofounder Yancey Strickley, they strive to respond to each new proposal within 24 hours. But they do get bogged down with submissions and it can take as long as a week in some cases.

Start early and you won’t have anything to worry about.

Create a Kickstarter Profile

In order to use Kickstarter, you must create a simple account. It requires only your name, email, and password and takes about 30 seconds to set up.

But if you leave it that, you’ll be represented by an amorphous blue square in all of your Kickstarter activity for the rest of your days. You’ll also miss the opportunity to make a personal connection with the Kickstarter community and to link to your website.

Many founders set up a personal account, but Eric Migicovsky decided to make a profile for his company, Pebble Technology. This has the benefit of making his project seem more official, reputable, and dependable. But it also makes it harder to create a human, emotional connection with the Kickstarter community.

How to Start Your Own Successful Kickstarter Project

Choosing a Project Image

Your project image is the single most important branding element of your project. It will be most of your backers’ first impression of your project. So try to get an eye-grabbing, iconic image that can represent your project well whether it’s small or large.

Kickstarter recommends dimensions of at least 640×480 pixels and a 4:3 aspect ratio.

Choosing a Project Title

This isn’t very different from choosing a title for a blog post. Try to include some important keywords while still striking up curiosity.

How to Set Your Funding Goal

This is one of the smallest but most difficult tasks when setting up your project. While I can’t tell you how high or low you should set your goal, I will give you a few factors that will help you make that decision for yourself.

It’s All-or-Nothing:  Kickstarter uses an all-or-nothing funding model. That means that the pledges are only redeemable if you meet or surpass your goal. You can always exceed your goal, but if you come up a dollar short, you get nothing.

The Cost of Your Project:  This is the single most important factor in determining your goal. You must raise enough money to advance your project and fulfill all of the rewards – or you’re doing yourself and your supporters a disservice.

The 20% Threshold:  Statistically speaking, when you start your Kickstarter project it has a 56% of failing. If you don’t like those odds, don’t fret: once a project a project is 20% funded, its chance of failing drops to a measly 11.3%.

When considering your project goal, think about that 20% threshold. Will you be able to surpass it with your initial burst of funding? If the answer is yes, then you’re likely in good shape to proceed.

Setting a Project Deadline

A Kickstarter project can be last as long as 60 days, but longer isn’t necessarily better. In fact, projects lasting 30 days or less actually have a higher success rate.

Kickstarter explains why:

How to Create Effective Kickstarter Rewards

An angel investor doesn’t make an investment out of the goodness of her heart:  she does it for equity in the company.

Likewise, people need an incentive to invest in Kickstarter projects. But instead of equity, they’re happy to receive rewards in exchange for their pledges.

Rewards are the engine behind every successful Kickstarter project. They are most often something tangible, like a product or memento from your campaign. But they can also come in the form of a creative experience or a collaborative role in the project.

I’m going to go into special detail about rewards for two reasons. (1) They’re the main reason crowdfunding works and (2) they’re the easiest part to mess up.

What Should Your Rewards Be?

The most effective type of reward is one that flows naturally from the completion of the project. Your campaign is at a big advantage if it will yield a product that people want (e.g. a book, album, movie, or piece of software). It just makes sense: if somebody likes what you’re planning to create, they’re going to want a piece of the final product, and they won’t mind laying down some moula to pre-purchase it.

But your campaign will be missing out if that’s all you have for rewards. Kickstarter commonly observes three other types of rewards:

• Creative collaborations: a backer appears as a hero in the comic, everyone gets painted into the mural, two backers do the handclaps for track 3.
• Creative experiences: a visit to the set, a phone call from the author, dinner with the cast, a concert in your backyard.
• Creative mementos: Polaroids sent from location, thanks in the credits, meaningful tokens that tell a story.

These types of rewards have to be unique to your project, but if you want some help getting the juices flowing I suggest you check out http://www.kickstarter.com/discover.

How to Price your Rewards

According to Kickstarter’s school, the most popular pledge amount is $25, but it’s best to offer something for everything from very small to very large budgets.

Even if your product is expensive, it’s important to create at least one reward for less than $20. Projects without a reward less than $20 succeed only 35% of the time, whereas projects that do offer a reward less than $20 succeed 54% percent of the time.

Above all, price your rewards fairly and make sure you’ll be able to fulfill them after your project is successfully funded.

Consider making the pledge cost less than the eventual cost of the product. It’s a nice way of thanking your backers for their early support and it will encourage more pledging. In Pebble’s case, the default pledge amount to receive a watch was only $115, whereas the planned retail price is $150.

Case Study in Effective Rewards:  Pebble Watches

Below are lessons in rewards from Pebble’s campaign:

Format Clearly

It’s important for your rewards to be concise and easy to read. Otherwise people won’t bother to see what you have to offer.

Look at the example from Pebble’s page to the right. Notice how they use capitalization to make the reward title obvious and to get people’s attention. They then use parentheses to further distinguish between the details of the reward.

This formatting style is very effective given the limited space and options available.

Get Momentum with an “Early Bird” Reward

Pebble created a sense of urgency at the beginning of their campaign by offering a limited number of their watches for just $99. Here’s the text from the reward:

Since this reward was only available to the first 200 backers, it encouraged the first wave of people who viewed the project to act immediately (always a big plus when it comes to encouraging action online). I would guess it also contributed to the project’s virality early on, because people are more likely to talk about a purchase when they see it as a deal and because they want their friends to get the early-bird discount too.

Encourage Buying in Bulk

Offering multiples of your product is a good way to make some high-value rewards and start taking bigger bites out of your funding goal.

Pebble offered four rewards that offered discounts for people who wanted more than one E-watch:  two for $240, an “Office Pack” of five for $550, a “Distributor Pack” of ten for $1,000, and a “Mega Distributor Pack” of one hundred for $10,000.

Believe it or not, they had 31 backers of the Mega Distributor Pack. So that’s over three times what they initially hoped to raise right there.

Note:  According to Kickstarter’s official guidelines, projects aren’t supposed to offer rewards with bulk quantities of more than ten. It’s possible that Pebble’s Mega Distributor Pack slipped past the Kickstarter team because Migicovsky didn’t add it in until after the project had already been approved.

Offer Limited Edition, Premium Rewards

Pebble offered a prototype E-watch and early access to Pebble’s Software Development Kit to the first 100 people willing to donate $235 to their campaign. This “Hacker Special” was only available to the first 100 eager software developers.

Pebble also offered a custom-designed watch face for the first 20 people willing to lay down $1250 to receive a one-of-a-kind Pebble E-Watch. Believe it or not, even at that high price-point all 20 of the custom watches sold out.

Some backers will be looking for rewards that set make them feel special. Give them a reason to pledge by making a limited number of unique, creative, or potentially collectible rewards.

Offer a Discount Option:

Eight days before Pebble’s Kickstarter campaign was supposed to end, they decided to limit any further preorders. They already had millions of dollars and about 85,000 watches to manufacture and distribute.

But instead of shutting down the project entirely, they created a new reward for a pledge of just $1. Here’s the text from the reward:

Even though there was only a week left in the campaign at this point, this $1 reward still attracted 2,615 backers. Not only is that an extra couple thousand dollars in the bank for Pebble, they just built a healthy and well-qualified email list through Kickstarter.

Don’t Forget Shipping Costs

You should factor the price of shipping the rewards into the reward price point. Keep in mind that some backers may live outside of the country and will therefore be more expensive to ship to.

Pebble concluded each of their rewards with shipping information:  “Free shipping to USA. (Add $10 for shipping to Canada, $15 for international shipping.)”

How to Tell Your Story on Kickstarter

Now comes the fun part: making a video and filling out the project description. This is your opportunity to explain why your project matters and why you need people’s help.

Make the Perfect Kickstarter Video

I’m guessing you know how important video is to increasing conversion in online sales, but the exact same is true of crowdfunding. According to Kickstarter, “projects with videos succeed at a much higher rate than those without (50% vs. 30%).”

There are no rules when it comes to video, which is part of what makes it intimidating to some people. If you’re looking to get some ideas flowing, Kickstarter spotlighted their 12 favorite videos from 2011 on their blog.

Those videos are jaw-dropping – and a big part of why their campaigns were successful – but your video can be as simple as you sitting in front of a web camera and telling your story.

On the other hand, some campaigns call for a professionally produced video. Pebble’s video clearly has extremely high production values, but don’t let that intimidate you. What makes their video effective isn’t the quality of its production; it’s the quality of its message that really matters.

Watch it below and then I’ll walk you through why it works so well.

Case Study in Effective Video:  Pebble Watches

 Click the Image Above to Watch the Video

Begin on a Personal Note

The first shot is of founder Eric Migicovsky introducing himself. This allows viewers to begin feeling a personal connection to the project. The human element is reinforced about fifteen seconds later when Migicovsky introduces “the dream team.”

Summarize the Project Early

Some videos spend 45 seconds dilly-dallying before they even explain what the project is all about. That’s a good way to lose a lot of people’s interest.

Before we’re 20 seconds into Pebble’s video, we know exactly what the Pebble is and whether or not we want to keep watching. You should follow suit by summarizing what your project is all about in a ten second blurb.

Tell Your Story

The story is a powerful communication tool. Pebble’s video begins to tell a story and it invites the viewer to be a part of that story’s triumphant conclusion. The most amazing part is that this takes only about 15 seconds.

Pebble used a series of images to tell the story more quickly, including screenshots of their old website and articles that had been written about them.

Get into Your Project’s Features, Advantages, and Benefits

The bulk of the Pebble video is spent communicating all of the amazing qualities of the Pebble E-Watch. Migicovsky talked later about the importance of making sure people realized how the watch could make their lives better:

Wrap it Up with a Call to Action

The Pebble video concludes brilliantly. It lets people know what stage of development the project is in and informs the viewer that they “need help” in order to bring the watch to market.

Of course, thanking your viewer at the end is a nice touch. After all, they’ve just taken time out of their day to consider funding your vision.

Still Have Questions about Video?

Video is my forte and I’ve produced a handful of videos for Kickstarter campaigns through my video production company. There’s too much that goes into a great video to cover fully here, so if you still have questions feel free to ask me a question in the comment section below and I’ll do my best to respond promptly.

Writing Your Description

This is the place where you can go into full detail about your project. Unlike with the video, there’s no time limit and people can skim through to the parts they’re interested in.

For that reason, you may as well go all-out and think of the description area as a long-form sales letter. Include all the little details about your project, where it’s at, and how you’re going to bring it into fruition. Explain exactly why you need the money and where it’s going to go.

Above all, make sure you address any concerns or objections that a potential backer may have. It’s a good idea to show a few people your project prior to launch and then pick their brain. They’ll probably have a few questions you never thought about – and you can address them there.

Case Study in Kickstarter Description:  Pebble Watches

Not surprisingly, Pebble did a fantastic job with their description area. The best way to understand it is to simply go their Kickstarter page and check it out for yourself.

Direct People’s Attention to the Video

At the very top of Pebble’s description area is an image pointing up and making sure people watch the video first. This is a good idea, as your video will be the most engaging part of your message.

Put Updates to the Project at the Top

Pebble updated its description area as the project advanced. This is a good idea if there are any big updates, new rewards, or changes to the project.

If you get some great comments or media publicity, you may want to share these in an update as well.

Get into the Nitty Gritty

Pebble used over 1,200 words in its description. It went into detail about how you could customized the watch, how it actually works, what it can do, where the project’s at, what rewards they’re offering, and finally they offered a list of frequently asked questions.

Not only does a robust description area help answer people’s questions, it also shows them that you’re taking this project seriously and willing to put in the work.

Interested in a Pebble E-Watch?

You can learn more and pre-order a watch of your own at their official site.

Prepare for Launch

After you complete your description, all that’s left is filling out some account information that will allow you to get paid upon the successful funding of your project. In other words: you can breathe a big sigh of relief.

If there’s anything I missed, please feel free to let me know. Like I said, I’m happy to answer any questions in the comment section because I would truly like this to be a comprehensive Kickstarter resource. Another great resource is Kickstarter School, which the website offers to help guide project creators.

What’s Next?

So, you’ve set your funding goal, determined your rewards, and told your story. Congratulations – you’ve successful created an awesome Kickstarter project.

But if you think you’re all done, you’ve got another thing coming.

This is when the promotional work begins. Filmmaker Whitt Scott explains how he promoted his project and raised $34,133 to make a movie about throwing toilet paper rolls at houses:

Promoting and updating your Kickstarter campaign doesn’t have to be a full-time job, but it is important that you don’t expect it to be on auto-pilot from there. The more you put into these things, the more you’ll get out of them.

Once you’ve successfully funded your project, the fun begins:  using your newfound wealth to bring the project to fruition and delivering the rewards to your project backers.

Best of luck and happy funding!

The post Ultimate Guide: How to Make a Successful Kickstarter Campaign appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

During his lunch break, Bartlett would buy products from local stores and flip them online for a profit. It started as a hobby, but Josh soon became one of the country’s first “Platinum Power Sellers” on Ebay.

Bartlett decided to write an ebook on how to make money selling on Ebay. He priced it online at about $40 and was soon making a consistent income. Just like that, Bartlett was hooked on the idea of selling his own products online – ones that would never run out of stock.

Josh Bartlett Today

Bartlett has since moved from selling ebooks to software. His product, Easy Video Suite provides a platform to help people build their email list and make sales through interactive video. The highly successful product has gone through several iterations in the last few years and now even includes the ability to record and edit video as well.

What You’ll Learn

• Refining an Idea for Software
• Why Software Sells
• Where to Find Coders
• How to Manage a Team
• The Two Lists You Need
• How to Deliver Your Software Product
• The Importance of Customer Support
• The Future of Software Creation

Getting Started With Making Money Creating & Selling Software

Identify a Problem to Solve

The very first thing that we is ask, “What are the common problems out there right now?”

A lot of people like to think that their problems are unique to them and so they’ll sit there and think, “I wish that I knew how to do this like everybody else does.” But problems are not unique. And that means that if you can solve your own problems, then you’re going to find a marketplace of customers who want to buy that solution.

Since we know nobody as much as we know ourselves, we always start with us. We look at our own problems and ask, “In a perfect world, what do I wish somebody would come along and give to me as a solution that problem?”

The Power of Offering a Solution

The two most powerful ways to sell something to somebody is to either solve their problem or prevent a problem, in that order.

If you can solve somebody’s problem, they’re going to be very, very thankful. They’re also definitely going to buy.  If you can prevent it, they’re also going to be very interested in that.

Market Analysis

Then we’re going to look at the market. We’re going to look at social media, forums, and our customer base. People will tell you what they want if you listen to them and if you give it to them, they will buy it. People often don’t look at their most valuable asset (which is their customers) and listen to the feedback.

It’s literally that simple. By looking online, we can find out if the problem is one that a lot of people are struggling with, a few people are struggling with, or everybody is struggling with. Based on that, we can decide how important the product is.

Find out what people want and then give it to them. You don’t have to convince people to buy stuff that they don’t already want. You’ll find that you really don’t have to do a huge amount of marketing because they will come to you.

Keep it Simple

No idea is too small. It’s not about the number of buttons you have or the amount of features. Users are paying for the benefit and the solution of a problem. Sometimes the simplest product is the best product that you can make.

Think of your product like an elevator pitch. Can you describe it in a short elevator ride? What is this product? Why does it benefit me and why should I buy it? If you can’t explain it simply, then it probably already is too complex.

Sometimes the more we put in it, the more bloated the product becomes.

Benefits to Software as a Product

High Value

We all know at this point that it has a much higher perceived value than ebooks and video products. There are just not as many software products around, especially good ones.

One reason why software has such a high perceived value is that we’re conditioned to spend more on software. Look at Adobe Photoshop, which can cost thousands of dollars to buy, versus the most expensive book you’ve ever bought. Therefore we’re more likely to spend more for software.

Secondly, not everybody can make software. Although it’s not that difficult, it’s definitely a lot easier to type on a keyboard and write an ebook. Because software has a higher barrier to entry, it is perceived as being of higher value.

Safeguarded

It’s also harder to copy. With text, you can obviously copy and paste something and then you can put it elsewhere.

Unfortunately, that does happen. With software, you can basically build in very simple safeguards to stop people from easily being able to just take it and put it elsewhere without paying for it. So that really attracted me from day one.

Effective

Software can really solve people’s problems probably better than anything else. Software is kind of magical because if you think it, you can make it. There’s only so much you can do with a book or a video. But software can actually guide you through a process while you’re on screen and make it interactive.

Less Competition

With software, it takes longer to make the product (compared to ebooks or video), so you’ll find that it is harder for the competition to catch up. You’ll have more longevity with a software product.

EasyVideoPlayer has been around for a couple of years and it’s still selling very strong today.

User Feedback

With software, you can really track what people are doing. I know what tabs people are clicking on, what buttons people are clicking on, and what pages they’re in. In new versions, we’ve got things built in, if people click for support on a specific page, it will tell me exactly what they were doing at that point.

Obviously, this is all without sharing any personal information. It just allows you to get intelligent information which helps you make better products in the future.

Market Differentiated

Anything can be software.

You can take an information product and turn it into software by making it a web app. If you do that, then immediately you are unique in your market place. You’re not just another ebook. You are probably one of the only software solutions.

Finding and Working with Software Developers

Quality First

I find that a lot of people are trying to save money, so they ask, “Where’s the cheapest place I can outsource to?” That’s not the question you need to be asking. At the end of the day, you need to be looking at who’s going to be giving you the best quality product.

I’ve seen so many people make the mistake of trying to save money up front just to lose 50% of the sales they could have had in the back end. They end up saving a couple of hundred dollars to lose thousands and thousands of dollars later on down the road.

I’ve had success in using Upwork. You won’t find the cheapest people on Upwork. There are other forums and outsource areas that are cheaper. But I do find that you get better quality.

But my biggest trick and tip for finding really good, motivated people to work for you is to go to coding forums where the coders hang out. A lot of coders code because they love it; it’s a pastime for them. Therefore, whereas a music enthusiast might be in a music forum, a coding enthusiast might be in a coding forum talking about the new changes to a coding language.

So if you go directly into that forum and just spend a couple of days keeping an eye on the posts and the threads, you’ll start to see the thought leaders.

There might be five or so on each forum. Approach those people directly and explain to them that you have a vision for something really exciting, a great project. You’ve noticed that they’ve stood out to you and you think that they could do a great job of helping them with this project.

You’ve appealed to their ego and you have given them a money-making opportunity (a lot of these people code for free). After a very short space of time, you’ll probably find somebody that will be interested. For them, it becomes a very exciting project that they’re going to work on. You’re not just another number and so they’re going to probably do the best work that they can do for you.

It’s Not Automatic

People have this mentality of, “Ok, let’s just outsource.”

Outsourcing is great and of course you do need to do that, but people think that the word ‘outsource’ and ‘automated’ go hand in hand. The truth is that when you’re working with somebody to create your dream, you can’t expect somebody else to do a good job of realizing your vision for the product if you try to automate the entire process.

You can’t just send them one email and say, “Get back to me when it’s made.” You have to get your hands dirty and roll up your sleeves and get involved.

Getting Involved

You don’t have to learn how to code. But you do have to be there with them every step of the way and make sure you give them feedback. A lot of people may not agree, but a coder is a person too. And they’re stuck there trying to make the product.

So answer their questions immediately. Really work with them and keep them motivated. Make sure they understand your dream and your goal and your vision. Make sure they’re excited about it.

You may think, “This is just a coder on Upwork. He doesn’t need to know my grand vision.” But of course he does, because people save their best work for the stuff they’re really passionate about. You can help people be passionate by just working a little bit closer with them.

Feedback System

You can’t just give a list of to-do to somebody and then expect to receive the finished product a month later. You have to get involved in that process, get down in the trench with them, and talk to them about why these changes should be made.

Ask them to send you previews very, very regularly. I get previews weekly, as a minimum. A lot of times, I’m seeing stuff every single day and I’m giving feedback right down to the placement of a button. Although there’s a little bit more work involved in doing it that way compared to being hands-off, you end up with a product that is that much better and that is therefore that much more profitable to you.

Managing the Project

Create Milestones

What’s the best way to eat an elephant?

One slice at a time.

That quite honest saying means that you have to break big things up into bite-sized pieces, otherwise it gets overwhelming. You need to do that with your project.

People often get bogged down because they’re trying to look at the whole picture without breaking it down. So, sit down with whoever’s developing this with you and break it into smaller milestones that you can track.

Milestones as Management

Make your team accountable at each milestone. This milestone needs to be completed by the end of the week. Then once that milestone’s completed, this milestone needs to be completed by the end of the next week. This way, you can find out when you’re a day behind on a particular milestone and you don’t have to be managing the whole project.

Payment by Milestone

You can pay per milestone, rather than paying them up front. You don’t have to split it up equally either. You can say, “This is avery complex milestone that’s going to take a bit longer and this is very integral to the project, so a little bit more money into that one.” This keeps the person engaged and motivated to reach the next milestone and get that extra little bit of money.

Bonuses

I also personally have small bonuses for people hitting milestones early and doing a great job. You don’t necessarily want to rush things, but if they’re doing very well and kicking ass, then I’ll give them a small bonus. It’s all worth it to me in the long run, because if we get something done really well quickly, then I’m going to launch sooner and make more money.

Must-Have List / Wish List

Always attribute the features and the ideas that you come up with either to your must-have list or your wish list. That way, it doesn’t affect the time scale for the overall project.

It doesn’t matter how great your product is: if it’s not launched, it’s not going to make you any money. So, you need to make sure that you’re very strict about keeping your initial vision very simple. The features and improvements on your wish list can always be added in after it’s been launched.

Project Budget

I never, ever, ever pay per hour. Hourly pay makes it in everybody’s interest to take longer, rather than finish more quickly. Also, it’s extremely difficult to track the actual hours that people are working when they’re not right next to you. On top of that, it creates a distrusting environment.

Instead, do a project budget. If you just go to somebody and say, “How much will it cost to develop this?” Well, they don’t necessarily know if you’re a Fortune 500 company or whether you’re just some guy sat in his back room. So they could quote you anything and you’ll see massive ranges of pricing from a couple hundred bucks to tens of thousands of dollars for the same project, depending on what they think they can get for it.

So, you need to set the expectations early. At the end of the day, your budget is your budget. That’s what you have to spend on this. So, work out what your budget is and let people know. In life, as with everything, it pays dividends to be transparent and honest with people.

Clear Thinking Leads to Clear Communication

What you need to do is be very clear about what you want developed before you go to a developer. If you just have an idea and then ten minutes later you’re trying to find somebody to build the idea for you, then you don’t have your idea perfectly formed yet. The problem will be that you get into discussing with somebody and they’ll start asking you all these questions that you didn’t expect. You just get overwhelmed.

So what you need to do is just have a sit-down. Think to yourself, “Here’s my idea. It’s great. Let’s just think about it for a little while and throw it around.” Once you’ve got that perfectly formed picture, then when you go to somebody they will be able to see what you see. That means there’s no confusion and they can do their best work for you.

Testing

Testing is the thing that I think a lot of people brush over and miss. They launch the product thinking, “Oh it doesn’t matter if there’s a problem because my customers can just tell me.”

But you never want people to pay for something and then be your tester. It needs to be working before they get it, because this is their first experience with dealing with you and if they buy something and it just doesn’t work then it’s going to be a bad experience for them from day one. You’re probably going to have to fight very hard to get that customer back. Actually, you’re probably just going to lose them.

So before you get launch this thing, test it and make sure that it’s ready. It’s very, very simple.
All you need to do is use the product in every way possible. Try to break it. Literally sit down and just try to break it. Then once you’ve done that, get your developer to do the same thing. But don’t just rely on them, because your developer is not a user or a customer. They think in code and they don’t necessarily use it in the same way because they made the thing. So get somebody to test it who could be your customer as well.

Once you’ve done that, I think it’s really important to have a beta process. That can just be opening up to some of your friends and people that you know, either in the industry or just in real life, and get them to use it as well and give you feedback and listen.

Just tweaking it can be the difference between a product that just kills it when it comes out and a product that people kind of miss when they hear the idea.

At that point, if you’ve got a customer base already, then roll it out to those people next, before you do a big launch. Then after that you can gear up and get ready for launch.

Selling Software

Do Something Good in a Great Way

There are a lot of products out there that everybody hates because they’re complicated to use, but they still use them because they do really powerful things.

But there aren’t a lot of products out there that do good things and do them in a great way. If you can get that, then you’ve got a hit on your hands immediately, because people use it and they go, “Wow – that was enjoyable to use and it was easy to use.” That’s key.

Marketing

With software, you can make the product the star. What I mean by that is that when you’re trying to sell something abstract like a mastermind membership group, you have to put a story in your sales pitch.

You don’t really need to do that with software. If your product solves a problem, then simply show them that product easily solving the problem. Just make the product the star. Keep things very simple: this is what it does and this is why it benefits you. If you can explain that to people, then they’re going to want to buy it.

Selling More with Affiliates

We wouldn’t have been able to get as many customers without our affiliates. Affiliates have been very, very successful for us. You’re never going to be able to reach as many people as a network of affiliates will.

One of the best affiliate networks for me is ClickBank. You can sign up very simply and very easily. It’s also very simple for an affiliate to start selling your product. You don’t have to do anything.

Delivering Software

Platform

I use WishList Member, which is a great membership site platform, to create a members area. (Optimize Press is another great product where you can do the same thing). They both can integrate with ClickBank as well.

Helping People Use the Product

Some people just take a product, put it in there, and forget about everything else. But it’s extremely important that a user has a good experience with the product the first time that they use it. Otherwise they may think about refunding. Ultimately, we want them to keep the product. If they’re using it, they’re going to talk about it and that’s going to lead to more sales.

Our goal is to get them thinking, “Wow – the transaction I just made to buy this product was well worth it and what a great product it is!”

Videos

Make sure that you surround your software with as much support as possible. You can make “how-to” videos just by recording your screen and using different parts of your software. Keep them quite short and to the point: a minute or two minutes at most. People don’t want to sit through a half-hour training marathon. They’re going to not have time to do it.

Never underestimate how people might still need to understand how to use it, even if it is quite simple. We’re all at different levels of knowledge and ability when it comes to using a computer.

Read: The Ultimate Guide to Making Online Video Tutorials

Checklists

People love checklists and they don’t want to leave them half-finished. So, if they do step one, two, and three out of five steps, psychologically they’re going to want to go back and finish step 4 and step 5.

Whereas if you just say, “Watch this video and then download the software and here is some other stuff you can do…” they may not come back to it.

Customer Support

Categorically, the most money you make will come from after the transaction and how you treat those customers. Ultimately, you want them to be customers for life and to buy your next product. You want people to be talking about your product. The best kind of marketing is a good product and great customer service.

Customers that are happy, who are surprised by how well you treat them, will go out and talk about it on social media and you’ll find that they’ll bring in customers.

Start Off Simple

You don’t want to start off trying to have everything in place. You’re going to start off simple and grow as your customers grow. As your customers grow, so does the money you’re making. That means you can invest in other solutions and you can make things a bit more streamlined.

Systemize Support

We now use a product called Zendesk, which I absolutely love. It’s not necessarily the cheapest service out there, but it integrates really well with pretty much everything and it’s very easy to manage. You can have all your staff working in it at different levels of administration. It gives you great reports and has the ability to let customers give you satisfaction ratings and all that kind of thing.

When you’re just starting out, email is enough. Just having a support email is enough that they can email. What I would recommend doing is having a separate email. You can go into Gmail and create filters as well, but the simplest thing is probably to have an email specifically for the support of this product. Just checking that is enough to begin with.

Be a Hero

Do anything you can to help your customer. Be your customer’s hero.

For example, we have the video player. If they try to incorporate that into WordPress and they have a theme that isn’t compatible and creates a problem, rather than saying, “Well, we don’t make that theme. We advise you don’t use it or go speak to the guy that makes the theme,” we’ll get in there if we have to and work with them on it.

Whatever you can do in your power, do it to help the customer – even if you have to go in and talk with them about it on Skype. The time and effort you put into that initially will pay dividends in sales and reputation in the future.

Looking Forward

The Rise of Software

I think the software part of the industry is going to go from strength to strength. There’s going to be more and more software being made.

Years ago, there was an evolutionary process from ebook to video. That shift created a lot of revenue for a lot of people and it actually helped the way that people learn because videos can be much more effective in teaching people.

Today, I see another shift where a lot of people are willing to take the information that they’ve got and turn it into web apps. You can take pretty much any course and turn it into a software solution, where the content is delivered modularly and it’s interactive. There’s a really big chance for a lot of people right now. It’s wide open.

Better Software

I really hope that people focus on making good, polished products that solve problems. I think we’re going to see a lot more smart, interesting software solutions.

I’ve seen a lot of people create a software product quickly, try to make some money out of it, but then they don’t stick by it. Software does not need to be like that. I stand by my product. We keep working on it and we keep developing it.

A product can be an entire business. It can fuel your entire business and it can do great things for you. So, stick with a product.

Last Words

When you really look at the huge successes that are happening right now around the world, you see things like Draw Something being sold for millions of dollars. You see things like the rise of Facebook, which is a software platform.

We don’t need to be Instagram, which was bought for a billion. But we can take lessons from the amazing staggering successes we’re seeing from companies and say, “Okay, software is something that I need to be involved in. It’s already growing. It’s hot. This is an area that’s very, very interesting and very attractive. There’s a massive amount of potential and opportunity there and we only need tiny percentage of that kind of success to do really, really well.”

Actionable Takeaways

• Choose a problem that software can solve.
  Look at the problems that you face online. Other people have those problems as well. No problem is too small. You just need to develop a good solution for it based on customer requests and feedback.
• Find a talented coder.
  Upwork is good. Also go to coding forums, work through the threads, and find the thought leaders. Send them an email saying that you’d like to pay them to work on a great project of yours. Convince them of your vision, tell them your budget, and get them excited to be involved.
• Take an active role in the project.
  Sit down with your coder to create a project brief with milestones based on your must-have list and wish list. Tell them how much they’ll get paid at each milestone and offer bonuses if they finish early. Stay in constant communication until the project is ready to test and beta test it by trying to break it.
• Set up a system to sell the software.
  To sell the software, set up a website or landing page. Drive traffic to it from your existing audience or through affiliates. Once they get there, simply and straight-forwardly communicate how your software solves their problem. If they buy, let them download the software or give them access to use it from your website.
• Treat your customers like damsels in distress.
  Be a hero to your customers. Start with a simple support email address and eventually upgrade to Zendesk to manage your customer support. When they have a problem, help them as best you can. People talk about wonderful customer service which results in more sales down the road.

Read more: ‘10 Ways SamCart Will Increase Your Checkout Page Conversions’

The post Creating and Selling Software Online – How Josh Built a 7 Figure Business appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

You’ve got your slick sales page up and running.

You’ve emailed your list, tweeted the link, posted the promotion on your facebook wall, scheduled a few webinars, published videos, set up some ads…

But it only resulted to sales far fewer than you imagined.

Put simply, you’re getting a lot of traffic but your conversion sucks.

What happened?

Wouldn’t it be awesome if you were converting more like these websites:

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It’s not because these websites have super powers or because they’re using magic voodoo tricks. It’s simply because they’re doing things that you’re not doing – yet.

Conversion Optimization involves many things: market intelligence, developing hypotheses, split testing, measuring results, web analytics, etc.

In this article I’ll make things simple and give you 7 easy tips that if you apply to your sales process, will surely help improve your conversion rates.

1. Cover the Basics!

Just like you shouldn’t wear your pants before your underpants, it’s better to optimize your conversion rate after you’ve got the fundamentals right.

Start by ensuring your sales page or website is functional and accessible.

Functional

At bare minimum, make sure your site:

• Loads quickly
• Has no broken links
• Has a shopping cart that takes payments hassle-free and glitch-free
• Has data-capture forms that actually work (lead generation forms, ‘contact us’ forms, ‘request for proposal’ forms, etc).

Lets not forget about the backend and ‘customer fulfilment’ sides of your business; if a payment goes through but nobody in your team gets notified (due to a technical glitch or misconfiguration in your ordering system), you won’t be able to fulfil the order which could result to very unhappy customers. Not cool.

Accessible

Website accessibility refers to things like:

• The readability of your content. Evaluate your choice of font, font size, text color, background color, contrast between elements, etc.
• Site compatibility with popular browsers, including mobile devices like tablets and phones
• Loading times for different internet connections – will the dial up users in your audience have problems loading the site?

2. Know Who You’re Trying to Persuade

Ultimately, conversion optimization really boils down to how well you can persuade your prospects to take the action you want them to take. But you won’t persuade these people if you know jack shit about them.

Knowing the people you wish to serve is elementary stuff but are you really learning about them? Or are you just making assumptions, imagining what they must be thinking, arrogantly believing you know exactly what’s going on in their heads?

Go find out as much as you can about your niche market. Let’s say that your niche are Nazi-loving, one-armed, pregnant hermaphrodites (by the way I’m the market leader in this fast-growing niche so don’t even try to steal this from me). To effectively convert them into buyers, you must find out:

• What keeps them up at night?
• What’s their wildest fantasy?
• What are their biggest questions, their deepest fears, their worst doubts?
• What conversations are they having inside their head?
• What keywords are they typing in the search engines?
• What websites do they visit and why?

If you knew the answers to these questions, then:

• You would be able to come up with effective hooks to get their attention.
• You’d be able to produce the type of content they’d devour and pass on to their peers.
• You’d know exactly what questions they’d be asking at which stage in the buying cycle – and so you’d know how and when to answer.
• You’d be able to say the exact words that would trigger the needed emotions to help them decide and take action.
• You’d be able to put together an offer they simply won’t be able to refuse.

Conversion Optimization goes beyond the demographics and psychographics. If you’re serious about increasing your conversion, you must ask questions like:

What’s stopping people from buying? What are their buying criteria and how do they make buying decisions?

When a qualified prospect doesn’t buy, it’s rarely due to the price. Most often, a low website conversion rate is partly due to inadequate information. So explore what questions your prospects have that your sales page is not answering – then answer them persuasively!

Another cause of low conversion rate is that you haven’t clearly demonstrated that what they’re going to get is worth at least 3x the asking price. WIN-LOSE is the new win-win. If you make your prospects feel your offer is a WIN-LOSE situation (they ‘win’ because the value you’re giving is so great and you ‘lose’ because you must be out of your freakin’ mind to offer it at that price) then the investment becomes a no-brainer for them.

What made your existing customers buy? Exactly why are your happy customers happy? What do they think makes you awesome?

If you found out you’re a massive hit to your tribe because of your fast turnaround time or your competitive rates or your impressive portfolio or your amazing case studies (or whatever) – shout about these! From these you’ll find your core strengths, your unique value propositions, your unique positioning statements – so declare them, use them, proclaim them! Put them in places where your prospects will most likely find them helpful or influential to their decision-making process.

3. Serve Relevant Content

When a visitor lands on your site, the very first question they’ll have is: “Is this content relevant to ME?”

Every click that a visitor makes is made because they have a specific intention, they have a question they’re seeking to answer, or a need they want to meet. If they click a banner ad (for example) but your landing page does not satisfy their question, they will click away. This results to a high bounce rate.

Did you know that studies show visitors decide within 5 seconds whether your page is relevant to them or not? So you’ve a very short time to capture their interest!

To minimize bounce, create and maintain relevancy. Keep the consistency between the traffic source and landing pages.

For example, make sure the advert has similarities with the landing page in terms of the copy, the unique value propositions, the general look and feel, and of course the offer must be consistent.

Looking at the banner ad below, the value propositions are:

• “Instantly adds 2 cup sizes”
• “Free Shipping on U.S. orders over $100 then there’s a code supplied (SHIPVS10)”
• “can be worn as crossback or halter”

Notice also the headline (“Hello Spring, Hello Bombshell!”) and the Call to Action (“Shop Now”).

The banner ad took you to a page with a different tag line (“Dream Angels Forever”) – where is the “Hello Bombshell”?

Also now it talks about ‘needs a little lift’. If you’re the type of woman who felt compelled by the tagline, “instantly adds 2 cup sizes” do you think you would get excited by “need a little lift”? I don’t think so!

Also, the “Free Shipping for orders over $100” value proposition has been changed to “Free Shipping with any full priced bra purchase”.

Confusing, isn’t it?

You see there’s a massive disconnect there. No relevancy has been maintained. The continuity was broken.

You’d think it’s pretty common sense, but this happens a lot.

So if you have a high bounce rate (50% upwards), it’s likely that your campaign materials are failing to establish relevancy, or you have set up traffic sources that are attracting UNtargeted traffic.

When you design a banner ad or a PPC/PPV ad, when you write an email subject line, make sure you pair it up with targeted content. When you create a call to action, make sure the link takes them to a page with relevant content. When you promise to give a specific freebie, make sure the link takes the visitor to a page showing exactly the promised freebie and how to get it. Don’t be a douche by taking them to a sales page.

If your main traffic source are affiliates, you must educate your affiliates heavily about the importance of how they pre-sell your offer, what the best creatives to use for what situation and what link each creative must lead to.

4. Test your Unique Value Proposition (UVPs)

Unique Value Propositions are positioning statements or incentives that make your offer unique or extra attractive or gain more perceived value in the eyes of your prospects.

I’m sure you’re familiar with statements like:

• “Try it free for 30 days. Download now.”
• “Free shipping on orders over $35” or “Free shipping if you order today”
• “Instantly increase your opt-in rate by as much as 500%”

To increase your conversion rates, test which UVP is attracting the most number of clicks. For example, this campaign test was featured in Whichtestwon.com:

The above is a screenshot of the improved version of a Hotel Booking page. The ONLY improvement made was adding FAQs on the right hand side of the page. Just by adding this Point-of-action Assurance, this page got a 9.2% increase in completed hotel bookings, which, as you can imagine is probably worth hundreds of thousands of increased revenue for this hotel chain.

Other POA ideas you can use are:

Conclusion

Conversion Optimization is not about manipulating people to do what YOU want them to do regardless of what’s best for them. Neither is it just a matter of randomly changing elements in your site like colors, shapes, sizes, layout and seeing what seems to be convert better.

Rather, Conversion Optimization is about truly knowing your prospect inside and out, aligning your offer with their needs, anticipating and answering their questions, and addressing their fears, uncertainties and doubts.

Apply the seven simple tips above and you’ll surely be ahead compared to many of your competitors. If you want to learn even more advanced Conversion Optimization principles for your website, join me on my next webinar: “Why Your Website Sucks and What to Do About It: How to Make More Sales Without Getting More Traffic”

About Marj Galangco

Marj Galangco is a certified Conversion Rate Optimization and Web Analytics Practitioner. She’s also the co-director of Easisell, a company offering premium web design and web development services to savvy internet marketers.

The post 7 Fast Fixes to Increase Your Website’s Conversion Rate appeared first on How To Make Money Online.