Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:41 pm Post subject: Hard product
Hi all.
It seems like years since i first started reading on this site (and it actually is!).
I design and make a commercial product that sells for about $2000 into a niche industry (so I am constantly struggling to make sales).
However, my industry is one that still attracts new people into - they can start from home very easily.
It's a well-known industry - ink cartridge refilling. And my product is an ink refill machine that achieves very high quality filling results.
I have a lot of knowledge of the industry, and have been contemplating setting up a website specifically to assist people to enter the industry with the ability to invest in a good refilling machine (and other products, including SBI etc...) and get themselves a 'business-in-a-box'.
The full 'business-in-a-box' will be about $5-6000 and will include the machine, supplies, ink, accessories etc.
So I'm looking for a little advice on how to approach this. I am also open to setting up my own affiliate program if people are interested.
I understand you wish to remain vague, but you will find you will get better responses to more specific questions. It is difficult to give advice when the poster is keeping so much under the cuff.
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Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 1:28 am Post subject:
Hi Malcolm, I've never done something like what you're planning, so I'm just thinking aloud...
As I'm sure you know, a product costing $5,000 to $6,000 is a long way from being an impulse buy, so it's going to be quite a tough sell.
You may need to collect email addresses and phone numbers and do follow-ups by email and phone.
One way to do that would be to promise to post to people the stories of five customers who have successfully set up businesses using your product. People would have to enter their physical address in a form to get the report. If they're not prepared to give you their address, they're not really serious.
Once you have their details, you have repeated chances to make the sale.
Give them a nice full color brochure that they can hold in their hands and sit in a comfortable chair and read and think about it.
I think you need very prominent links to powerful testimonials. It would be really good if those testimonials were on video, so that would-be customers could see real people describing how they've bought the product and used it to create a successful business.
Your PDF brochure might look good when it's printed out, but online those large headings force me to do a lot of scrolling for hardly any reading.
Your brochure is an excellent opportunity to answer the "What's in it for me?" question that every prospective buyer is mentally asking. It doesn't really doing that.
As a prospective affiliate, I'd take a quick look at your current website and assume - rightly or wrongly - that you have a very low conversion rate. I'd decide that there are much easier products to sell. You'd have to work hard to convince me that promoting your business was a good idea. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but there are many thousands of affiliate programs out there. Affiliates mostly follow the money.
In more than a decade as an affiliate, I doubt if I've ever chosen to promote a product which didn't have obvious, strong testimonials. Perhaps I did in the early days, before I learned better.
By the way, your signature belongs in your signature file. You can click on Profile and create one. If you leave it where it is Wally the moderator may delete it. _________________ Allan Gardyne
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