It’s no secret that a customer is most likely to purchase again right after they make their initial purchase.

So don’t be shy, make ‘em another offer!

Thing is… putting together an upsell sequence is not as easy as it looks.

You can’t offer just anything.

Right now, a client of mine is riding high with an upsell sequence  converting 70% of his initial customers.  That’s pretty damn good if I say so myself.

Can I reproduce the sequence here?  Sorry, I want to keep this client.

What I CAN do is tell you the secret to successful upselling…

Your upsells or “one time offers” must complement but never conflict with the front-end purchase.

In other words, they need to go hand in hand with whatever your prospects just bought… but not overlap.

As a rookie copywriter I used to obsess over my writing style.

Fancy metaphors… word pictures… slick copy skills.

Truth is?  That stuff is all important… but nowhere near as important as what it is you’re communicating beneath the shiny packaging.

It’s what you say, not how you say it.

Oooh shiny packaging!

What do you do when your customers move onto an entirely different model of consuming your product?

If you’re a record company, you scratch your head… refuse to let go of the past… and re-package existing product.

Sounds like a cynical cash-grab?

More like a last-ditch attempt to squeeze extra profit out of their talent.

Either way, for music lovers of my generation?  It works!

Record collectors of a certain (ahem) age love packaging, get a kick out of reading lyrics, and long for the days of a tactile experience with their record collection.  Sad but true.

It’s a damn shame to walk into HMV or any big record store and see the CDs and vinyl filed away in a darkened corner.

But for a few years yet, there exists a rabid “tribe” of nostalgia-hungry geeks who want their old favorites repcakaged and recycled.

It will be violent… relationships will crumble… and money will be turned away.  But…

I’ll feel a helluva lot better.

And those good vibes will spread throughout my family, friends and anyone else who puts up with me on a daily basis.

Over the past few months I’ve come to realize that it’s WAY more important to enjoy the people and projects you work with, than it is to stuff fat checks into your bank account.

(Curiously, when you really do get a kick out of turning up to “work” each day, more money is generated as a by-product.)

So if you’re a copywriter, freelancer or any kind of service professional… ask yourself if your working relationships are harmonious AND profitable.

Life is too short to suffer folks who don’t appreciate or value your skills.

Ok, off to pull the trigger…

Gossip and rumor about the future of Clickbank has been flying around forums, blogs and private channels for months now.

Some say it’s gone to the dogs — all the push-button bullshit eroding any credibility it may have had left.

Others say it’s shot itself in the foot by clearing out all the push-button bullshit that was in-fact making people a ton of (unethical?) money.

Me?  I say it’s entering an exhilarating period of rebirth.

Having just seen a webinar and talked with Beau Blackwell on Skype, I’m excited about the future.

For 2 reasons mainly…

1) The Joint Venture contract feature.  I’ve been trying this out for 3 or 4 months now and, from a copywriter’s persepctive, it makes product launches and evergreen projects way more exciting.

In the past, its been so hard to collect commissions owed from clients.  No matter how many contracts they may sign or how much you trust them… it’s far too easy for the client to cut and run with your cash.

The JV contract feature on Clickbank means your owed percentage is automatically depositied directly into your CB account when a sale is made.

Pretty cool.

And this means my preferred was of working… partnering with my clients… just stepped up a level.

2) The B2B markerplace.  The smart-cookies at ClickBank have realized there’s an entire ecosystem built up around CB products.

Copywriters, designers, JV managers, programmers and product creators all contribute.

And in early 2012 there will be a marketplace specifically to showcase their talents.

Plus there’s the up-coming digital product protection… the ability to sell big-ticket items… and — best of all — you’ll soon be able to sell physical products through CB.

Making money on the internet has always been a “people business”.  With these new features ClickBank just blazed a trail.  One I’m more than happy to follow.

If you’re like most people you probably cursed and felt a strong urge to abandon and start all over again.

Big Mistake.

It’s amazing to me how a few tweaks to a webpage can not just improve conversions… but turn a flatlining piece into a roaring success.

My point?  Don’t give up too soon.

No matter how bad you think your intial piece of copy is, you now have a base to work from.

Quick story…

When Dan Kennedy was called in to improve the performance of a sales letter, he didn’t rewrite or start over… he simply added one letter to the headline…

“Put The Magic Of Music Into Your Life” was the original head.  Can you guess what letter he added?

The letter ‘S’.

“Puts The Magic Of Music Into Your Life” ramped up conversions and boosted sales — all from one additional letter.

(And we’ll get to WHY that made such a difference another time).

So don’t despair… don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater… you may be only one letter from success.

Over the past 12 months I’ve been involved in at least 20 product launches. And truly irresistible offers have been as rare as hen’s teeth.

And when you consider that piecing together a tremendous offer easily ramps up your chances of a sale… you have to wonder why nobody seems to bother.

Is it a case of there’s nothing new out there… all the good product ideas have already been taken… or is it just laziness?

One thing’s for sure, over on Clickbank they’re taking very seriously some of the more — ahem — over the top copy that masks the crappy offer beneath.

And so I predict that The Offer is about to strike back.

Many copywriters would disagree with me but I personally think the copywriter/marketing consultant should be responsible for…

1) Identifying a great offer…

2) Building up a not-so-great offer into something worth at least double the price you’re asking for…

Case in point…

I’m currently working with a client who is charging $197 for 6 pretty nice pdfs on social media.  Now his original copy can be improved.  No doubt about that.  But the catalyst to much higher conversions will be creating a better offer.

So we’re adding interviews with some of the top CEOs and entrepreneurs in the country… a nifty bit of proprietary software… AND a 30 minute phone call with my client (who really knows his stuff).

Suddenly, the offer becomes damn near irresistible.  And we’ve yet more to add.

So look out marketers.  It’s time to go back to the “good old days” of crafting offers to die for.

It may be that the days of relying on fancy-pants copy alone are numbered.

Peter Buck -- Copywriting Guru?

Those three bands were tailor made for an adolescence spent in Nowheresville, Suburbia.

And I always remember an interview with R.E.M.’s guitarist Peter Buck.  I have no idea why this sticks in mind.  But over the past few months its become increasingly relevant to me and my work.

The exact quote I can’t find it anywhere online, but Buck reveals how the band spent 7 albums becoming more complicated  melodically.

They added more and more ‘layers’ and complexity because they figured it would improve the music.

But when it came time to record ‘Automatic For The People’ Buck realized the key was to strip everything back and simplify.

That made the music connect more directly with the audience.

And anybody who’s heard Everybody Hurts would probably agree it’s their most direct and affecting song.

So what’s my point?

Recently, I’ve seen way too much copy where the copywriter is drawing attention to himself.

Fancy metaphors, analogies and ‘word pictures’ get used so often they suffocate the copy and lose their power.

So if I ever find myself getting too “flowery” with my copy…  starting to fantasize I’m more novelist than copywriter…  I strip back to the essentials.

Let the copy breathe and it resonates that much better.

Thanks Peter for writing Man On The Moon and giving me a virtual kick up the behind in my everyday writing

In Malcolm Gladwell’s thought-provoking book, he puts forward the idea that our best decisions are made instantly.

And you better believe when prospects visit your webpage you have SECONDS (often less) to make an impression — good or bad.

Your graphics, sales copy, video opener, even your domain name all contribute towards that crucial first impression.

Bundle those in with any preconceived ideas your prospects may have about you or your product… plus the competition of 8 other tabs open on their browsers…

… and you’ll see why sales can be lost in the blink of an eye!

First impressions count.  And nowhere more so than online where dozens of distractions vie for our attention 24 hours a day.

(In case you’ve been on Mars, ClickBank is the no.1 affiliate network for digital goods.  And a great place to spot what’s working NOW in the marketplace.)

And what I saw was pretty… ugly.

Ok, not all bad.  In fact, there are some powerful tactics at play if you look closer than the screaming hype. We’ll get to those in the next blog post.

But right now, there’s a huge chasm between good quality products and trash software with excessively loud sales pages.

Why?  Well a client of mine put it best this week…

“You can’t sell candy when everyone else is selling crack.”

This is a guy with years of experience and millions of dollars in the bank who can’t get his product noticed because the top 10 in CB is filled up with (what I like to call) ‘push button bullsh*t’.

But just last week CB appeared to have woken up from their cash-induced slumber and declared war on over-the-top sales letters.

First a product claiming it had the secret to free Facebook ads was chopped.

And then, one of my favorite sales pages of the year (if you don’t take it seriously), Stripped Down Profits was also axed.

Side Note — anybody buying the latter in the hope that a stripper would give them financial aid deserved everything they got.

So what does this all mean?

Have ClickBank suddenly decided they better start actually keeping an eye on what’s happening in their network?

Or are they merely making an example of a couple of folks to keep the heat from the FTC at bay?

Time will tell.