Learn Internet Marketing Strategies For Your Business

We’re getting to the end of the second week of the 30 Day Autoresponder Challenge! It’s been a great 14 days so far, and I’m stoked about the progress of my new list that I’ve been putting off for so long.

Yesterday, I showed you how I am using a collection of 3 teleseminars to monetize my list at the point of subscription. At the same time, I’ve made this offer as irresistible as I can, saving my new subscribers money whether they buy the special offer price, or the standard price.

Today, I need to connect that offer to a payment system, and then to my list. So here are the tasks:

• Set up payment button at Paypal
• Put the button on the sales page
• Make the special offer page a true OTO
• Put a higher price button on the standard offer page
• Point my confirmation link to the sales page
• Make sure it all works

Yesterday I gave you this map, but in case you missed it, here it is again.

Get Mindmap | Get Freemind

We’re working mainly with the bottom half today.

Let’s get to it…

Set Up Payment Button On Paypal

I’m surprised when I hear people at networking events in person, or on Twitter or Facebook when they tell me they don’t know how to take credit card orders online for their business. Worse, that some merchant account is charging them monthly fees and exorbitant rates to process orders.

But then I realize that I take things like this for granted, especially since I’ve been using Paypal as my merchant account for so long. Paypal lets you accept credit cards, e-check payments, as well as Paypal (obviously), with no monthly fee for online processing. Just a 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction (less with higher volume accounts).

And in an age when there are all kinds of membership scripts out there (I’m personally relying heavily on Butterfly Marketing for my business) that integrate with Paypal, it’s good to remember the simple step of just putting up a regular old Paypal button on a website to take orders.

To get your button, login to Paypal (or create your Paypal premiere/business account here). Then check the Merchant Services tab, and click Buy Now buttons.

You’ll need to enter some information into a form, and I have some suggestions for you on what to enter.

For one, the item name is going to show up on the receipt of your buyer, as well as on the checkout page. So make this concise but descriptive. I like to start mine with the domain from which the purchase will be made. Since my receipts show orders from Shylar’s Quest, putting in the domain helps my customers track down what they bought later.

So for my button, I’m going to call the product AskBobTheTeacher.com IM Success Starter Kit. In the Item ID box, I put in IMSK-27, because that’s the abbreviation for the product and the price of the special offer.

I could put in my own payment graphic, but I’m going to stick to what Paypal has, keeping the credit card logos for higher conversions.

I could also enter a restrictive quantity in the inventory options, but since Paypal doesn’t display a countdown, it’s not useful to me for this particular product.

In the advanced features area, I can eliminate the need for multiple quantities, shipping address, or more info from the buyer. But I definitely want to put in the URL for canceling the order (back to the sales page), or after purchase (the download page I made yesterday).

At this point, I don’t know how to work with the advanced variables, so I leave that alone as well.

By the way, you may wonder why I’m only charging $27 for the one time offer, or even $47 for these 3 teleseminars that should be selling for $47 each, minimum.

The reality is I need to build confidence in my buyer’s mind that what they buy and what they get for the exchange is going to balance greatly to their benefit. If I undercharge and overdeliver now, then it sets a pattern of expectations later. Whatever price I’m charging will likely always be less than I should, therefore making future purchases no-brainers, as well.

I also know, from a business standpoint, that customers will likely buy additional products from me, or from my recommendations. So this one sale is not the final revenue transaction that I’ll see from this relationship.

Put The Button On The Webpage

With my button saved, I now get a code from Paypal that I can paste
into the HTML source code of my webpage – in my case a Blogi360
Marketing Pro page. After I do that, I center the button, and I’m all
set for taking orders on that page.

There’s also an Email tab on the button code page. I can use that shorter link in an email, but I can also use it as a text link throughout the sales letter if I want to as a call to action. For now, I’m going to leave that alone.

I test the button by clicking it and seeing that I do in fact go to Paypal’s checkout screen with my logo at the top of the page. With it working properly, I can move on to the next step.

Turn The Sales Page Into A One Time Offer Page

Most of the time you see those “One Time Offers”, they aren’t really one time. If you come back a few days later, it’s still the same page, with the same price, etc. With software scripts, you can make true OTOs that are based on members accounts showing the offer only once.

Since I’m using Blogi360 as my website generator/engine, and it comes with an OTO script built into the marketing pro pages, I’m going to use that. This is based on the browser history (i.e., cookies), and is pretty good at showing the offer only once.

Note – almost all OTOs can be reset or bypassed if you know what you’re doing. My take on this is: bad karma for the buyer, but I still receive revenue for my products. With digital profit margins as high as they are, it’s not really that big of a deal.

I started my sales page by creating the special offer version first so I could see it, and make sure it worked okay. Once I make it an OTO, I’ll only see it once, so it’s a pain if you don’t plan this right.

I make a copy of the entire HTML source code for my special offer page, and I click the Edit OTO in the Marketing Pro dashboard for my sales page. After pasting in the raw HTML, I make sure the language of the sales page is good, and it’s all set. The last step to make it an OTO is to check the “Make OTO” box next to the marketing pro page.

Easy, peasy.

If you don’t have Blogi360 you can…

• Get Blogi360
• Use something else that’s likely more complicated
• Not use one time offers, but call them limited time, or limited quantity offers (stick to what you say!)

Make A Standard Offer Page

With my special offer page now a true OTO, I need to return to the original sales page and change the language to a standard offer.

Now I never put language on a standard offer page that reminds the buyer that they missed out on the special offer. This is just not a great way to get higher conversions. Instead, treat the standard page as if the OTO doesn’t exist, and use other psychological triggers of urgency to and benefit-driven copy to make the sale.

Ideally, urgency should come in the form of – how long are you going to wait to make a change in your _______ (fill in the blank with where you help your customer). Not buy this today because the price is going up tomorrow when you know that you won’t be raising the price for a long time (if ever).

I also need a new payment button from Paypal. Here’s a big time-saving tip for you:

When you go to make the new button, click on Buy Now button, and then click the tiny link that says Go To Saved Buttons. There you can click the button you made before and “make a similar button”.  All the fields will already be filled in. Just change the price, and the Item ID, and the rest is likely to stay the same.

For me, the new button will have ID IMSK-47. These Item IDs are shown to the buyers, but in a very small font that’s hard to see. The real reason I use the Item ID is it helps me keep track of what’s selling a lot easier in my reporting.

Connect The List To The Sales Pages

The last thing I need to do to put this system into action is direct my subscribers to the sales page.

For this particular list, and this particular product, I want it to come right after they’ve confirmed their request for the free stuff from me. This is especially true because the first free gift they are getting is pretty similar to this 3-pack of additional strategy sessions.

So I log back into Aweber, go to My Lists/Confirmation Opt-In. At the bottom, I change the confirmation success page to my new sales page, and click save settings.

That’s all there is to it.

However, there is one more step that I think I’ll do before ending today. When my new subscriber confirms, they’re going to expect to see the download page. But now I’m sending them to a sales letter. So I need to add a softer message at the top of the sales page that lets them know the details for the download are being sent to their inbox.

Here’s the table I made and put on the top of the sales letter:

This should hopefully avoid most confusion that would otherwise arise from the process as it was.

Where We’re At In The 30 Day Autoresponder Challenge

At this point, we’re now finished with the first 2 weeks of the challenge, and I have to admit I’m pretty pleased with how much I’ve put in place with just a few minutes each day. I have a lot of other things going on right now, and doing this challenge for 10-30 minutes a day is really helping me maintain focus for a short time, get quite a bit done, and look where we are now 2 weeks later!

I now have…

• a new list
• 4 messages over 14 days
• new squeeze page
• links on Twitter and Facebook
• opt-in box on my blog sidebar
• a new opt-in free gift
• a revenue center in my new special offer for new subscribers
• revenue centers in the messages I’m sending
• most importantly – momentum to keep going for the remaining 16 days.

That feels pretty good. Now, I recognize that I did have quite a bit of working material to start with. But I also know that most of this list is not dependent on that, and I could just as well used new material or created free and sellable products during this time.

I’ve put off redoing this list for way too long, so it’s great to make a lot of progress.

I hope this is helpful for you as well. That you’re taking action on my tips, and starting to see behind the curtain of what goes into creating a profitable email list and campaign.

But this is not the end – we have another 2 weeks and change to go. And I can’t wait to get started!

Bob Jenkins

p.s. Having a great time? Challenged by what I’ve put together here? Please comment below. I want to know what questions are still unanswered for you, and see the progress you’ve been making during this challenge, too!

p.p.s. Maybe now would be a good time to remind you that video versions of all 14 days so far are available at DiscoverAutoresponders.com. You’ll see everything I’m doing, plus get some bonus commentary that doesn’t make it into these updates.

Previous related article Next related article