How to Use Incentives to Get Extra Sales

Today's guest post is by Jimmy D. Brown of the website iBusiness Owner.

Jimmy is talking about a subject that I'm sure will resonate with many self-publishers, and especially with buyers of my 10-Day E-Book course (which discusses writing and publishing a money-making e-book on ClickBank).

Take it away, Jimmy...

* * *

The vast majority of your prospects aren’t all that passionate about your offer.

Truth is, they’re kind of lukewarm. They’re interested, but they’re not taking their credit card out. Instead of making a buying decision, they decide to “think about it.”

Of course you know what happens: They forget about your offer. They don’t return to your store or sales page. Some of them may even make the conscious decision to NOT buy your product.

So what can you do to get your prospects to get excited and take action NOW?

Simple: Offer them an incentive if they order now. Do it right, and you’re virtually guaranteed to make more sales!

Generally, an incentive can take two forms:

1. You offer a discount. One idea is the straightforward discount, such as offering a percent-off. Another ideas is to offer a discount on the overall package, such as by offering free shipping.

Tip: You can even make it a limited-time discount so that your prospects feel a sense of urgency.

1. You offer one or more bonus products. Again, you can even make the bonus offer limited to increase the sense of urgency.

Offering a discount is a pretty straightforward incentive. So let’s talk about how to offer a bonus as a buying incentive.

Here then are the seven keys to offering bonuses that generate extra sales:

• Make sure the bonus is desirable. Point is, if your prospects don’t care about the bonus product, then it won’t help you generate any sales. So make sure it’s something that your prospects already want. Something that gets them excited!

• Create a valuable bonus. Just because you’re giving the product away for free with a purchase doesn’t mean this bonus should be worth little to no money. Quite the contrary – it should have a high perceived value in the prospect’s mind.

• Choose bonuses that are easy to deliver. This is particularly true if you’re selling downloadable products online, such as software or information. Point is, you want to be able to deliver the bonus instantly – right alongside the main product – without you having to manually deliver the bonus.

• Supply an exclusive bonus, whenever possible. If the prospect can get the bonus somewhere else, he might just do that. So try to offer exclusive bonuses to help make the buying decision easy.

• Offer a bonus that compliments the main product. For example, let’s say you’re selling a book about retirement planning. Offering retirement-planning worksheets and software as a bonus would be a great incentive.

• Sell the bonus. If you’re selling via a sales page, don’t just list the bonus. Instead, sell it just the way you’re selling the main product, meaning you should list the benefits of this bonus product or service.

• Remember that you can offer products OR services. Let’s say you’re selling exterior landscaping supplies and information. As a bonus you can offer a free consultation where you provide specific landscaping ideas for buyers. Or if you’re selling a copywriting product, you can offer a sales letter critique.

Conclusion

Offering an incentive is a simple, yet highly effective way to generate more sales and grow your business. To discover still more ways to grow your business, visit http://tinyurl.com/6rtt8sl – you may just learn strategies you never even knew existed!

* * *

Thank you to Jimmy for an interesting article.

I do agree that offering extra bonuses is a powerful selling technique. My publishers, WCCL, always include a few extra bonuses with the products and courses they offer. In addition - as with my Kindle Kash course - I quite often add a few extra bonuses myself when people order from me personally!

If you have any comments or questions about this post, as ever, feel free to leave them below.

Photo Credit: Scared Candy by Enokson on Flickr. Licensed under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic Licence.

Review: CreateSpace for Profit

CreateSpace for Profit is a report currently on sale via the Internet Marketing Warrior Forum as a Warrior Special Offer (WSO). It's written by Alan Petersen and Peggy Baron.

CreateSpace is, of course, the popular print self-publishing service operated by Amazon.com (see screengrab above). As this is an area of publishing I haven't particularly explored, I decided to shell out the modest fee of $4.97 to see what it was all about.

So I can reveal that what you get is a concise, well-written 28-page PDF that sets out five different methods for writing books for CreateSpace without totally starting from scratch. All are interesting, and I was impressed to see that the authors include links to examples of CreateSpace books they have written and self-published using the methods described.

The methods involve a combination of using and adapting PLR (private label rights), public domain material, and material bought or commissioned from other authors. It wouldn't be fair to give away all the details here, but I was pleased to see that none involves simply copying and pasting low-cost (and low-quality) PLR/public domain books. The authors point out that Amazon has been cracking down hard recently on low-quality, duplicate-content books. Interestingly, their examples show that by removing the spammy books and e-books, Amazon has actually done genuine authors a big favour.

CreateSpace for Profit doesn't include much information on how to publish to CreateSpace - it's essentially about quickly devising and creating non-fiction titles with good sales potential. The methods could just as well be used to create Kindle e-books, and in fact the authors do recommend publishing to this and other formats as well. If you want in-depth advice on the actual CreateSpace publishing process, though, you will need to look elsewhere (the actual CreateSpace site would be a very good starting point, of course).

Overall, I found this an eye-opening report with some clever ideas I am certainly going to consider applying myself in future, even if I choose not to go down the CreateSpace route. For $4.97 (around 3.50 UK pounds), I have no problem recommending it.

CreateSpace for Profit would also be a good purchase for anyone interested in publishing e-books for the Amazon Kindle, including buyers of my own Kindle Kash course. Bear in mind that the report is currently on offer as a WSO, so I don't know how long it will remain available at the current low price (or at all).

Any comments or questions, as ever, please leave them below!

Disclosure: I am an affiliate for this WSO, so if you buy it via one of the links above a proportion of the (modest) fees will go to me. This has not affected my review in any way.

katy is my idol, i just love this song

katy is my idol, i just love this song

Five Literary Devices to Make You a Better Writer

I'm pleased to welcome to my blog today writer and blogger Chris Campbell.

Chris believes that writers in all genres, fiction and non-fiction, can improve their work through the judicious use of literary devices...

* * *

While the fiction writer often uses literary devices to move his story along, these writer's tricks are not limited to fiction. A non-fiction writer working on a blog or a feature article can utilize them as well to infuse a story with life and action.

Metaphor

Very often the best way to help people understand something or someone is to use metaphor. Metaphor involves the pairing and comparison of two things that are unrelated, but give the reader deep insight into the person or thing being described. For example, in "The Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, the metaphor "In exterior he resembled a butcher in a poor neighborhood" reveals that the manager's uncle is a rough character. He's used to living a hard life on the streets without directly saying as much. While a writer can literally tell the reader that he has these qualities, metaphor offers a richer and more visceral glimpse of the person.

Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism relies on the principles of metaphor, but in a specific way. The definition used to pertain to giving human-like qualities to a deity or god, but now is largely used for any inanimate object. An author trying to explain conditions leading up to a hurricane might use a sentence like this to set the scene, "The unrelenting storm battered the travelers back with vicious sheets of rain as they prayed for the vengeful skies to clear." This tool provides a dimension of character to an otherwise mindless force or object.

Foreshadowing

The prophesies of the three witches in Shakespeare's "Macbeth" provide a good example of how a writer can use foreshadowing. Macbeth consults with the three several times throughout the play. However, their latter prophesies are ignored, because they don't seem to make sense. The quote "The power of man, for none of woman born/ Shall harm Macbeth" foreshadows MacDuff who was taken c-section, so he was technically not born of a woman. Using foreshadowing sets the story up for the readers, giving them an invisible framework for understanding not only the story, but more specifically where things are headed for a particular character.

Doppelganger

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde represent one of the most famous examples of the doppelganger in literary history. This device allows a writer to explore the two sides to a person's character and often has a supernatural element to it. Additionally, a doppelganger can also foretell of a tragedy that will befall a person; the doppelganger that appears to the dying person can be that person's future spirit self foretelling of the character's demise.

Archetypes

Archetypes represent universal character types, offering the writer the ability to quickly develop a character. For example, Romeo and Juliet not only symbolize tragic, eternal love. A feature writer who refers to Shakespeare's famous couple tells the reading audience that the people in the writer's own story are doomed lovers as well.

Conclusion

A writer - regardless of the genre - can create mood and characters more quickly and realistically if she uses a few literary devices. This is especially valuable to the writer who's limited by the constraints of a short piece of writing.

About the author: Chris Campbell is a blogger for GradeSaver, who really enjoys writing posts about reading, literature, and learning.

* * *

Thank you to Chris for an interesting article. I agree that the careful use of literary devices such as those mentioned can lift a piece of writing from the ordinary to the memorable.

My one extra tip would be to strive to ensure that any such devices you use are original (one definition of a cliche is an over-used figure of speech) and apt. Forced metaphors that don't really work are a particular embarrassment!

If you have any comments or questions for Chris or myself, as always, please feel free to leave them below.

Photo Credit: Double, Double, Toil and Trouble by Jeff Hitchcock on Flickr. Reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic Licence.

some hot lyrics, thanks!

some hot lyrics, thanks!

This is still my fave Lady Gaga song. It's a g...

This is still my fave Lady Gaga song. It's a great pick me up on bad days :)

Interviewed by Ruth Barringham, my co-author on The Wealthy Writer

A little while back I was interviewed by Ruth Barringham of the websites Writeaholics and Cheriton House Publishing.

I'm pleased to say that the audio is now available as a podcast via Ruth's site, and you can play it from here or download it.

As you'll discover, our discussion was quite wide-ranging, covering everything from my working methods and how I market myself, to my attitude toward housework and cats in the office!

The whole interview is a shade over an hour, so if you want to sit and listen to it all the way through, I recommend getting a cup of tea and a slice of cake first :-)

As indicated in the post title, Ruth and I collaborated on The Wealthy Writer, a guide for writers on making money writing for online markets. The Wealthy Writer is published by my regular publishers (and blog sponsors) The WCCL Network. More information about the course can be found on this page of my website.

During our discussion we mentioned a number of other websites as well, so for convenience I've listed all the ones I could think of below. If there are any I've missed out, please let me know and I'll add them as well...

The Authors Licensing and Copyright Society (ALCS)

The UK PLR Office

Nick Daws' Homepage

The Nick Daws Daily

MyWritersCircle forum

Write Any Book in Under 28 Days

Kindle Kash

Think Yourself Lucky (audio course)

I do hope you enjoy listening to the interview - here's the link to it again. I certainly enjoyed talking to Ruth, and was pleased that she wanted to discuss so many aspects of my work.

If you have any comments or questions, as always, please feel free to leave them below.

Photo: My office desk, on one of my tidier days. Photo by yours truly.