Launching Your First Product – How We Did It!
Table of Contents
- Creating and Launching Your First Information Product
- So what was different this time?
- CB Wealth Formula
- Exit Splash
- The longer you give yourself to do something the more likely it will not get done in my experience.
- How To Launch Your First Information Product
- This is how I did it.
- Find a problem, create a solution and bill your customers!
- Sales Page
- The Thank You Page
- The Shopping Cart
- The longer you give yourself to do something the more likely it will not get done in my experience.
- Conversion Boosters
- Finding Affiliates
- In Conclusion
- When Are You Going To Launch Your First Problem Solving Product?
Creating and Launching Your First Information Product
As many of you know I recently launched my own product. This post is about that experience, what I learned from it what you can learn from it also.
I have been asked for quite sometime when I would release my first ‘product’ and frankly up until very recently I had been having so much fun and doing very nicely promoting other peoples products that I really did not see any need to have my ‘own product’.
This video and enhanced transcript tells you how I did it — but first I’d like to make a confession. PopUp Domination is not my first product idea – indeed previous to PopUp Domination I had been working on two other Make Money From Blogging Information Products – but somehow never got around to finishing them / releasing them. I confess this because as much as I am about taking ACTION, I certainly have dragged my feet about launching my own products.
So what was different this time?
I suppose the main difference this time was ‘speed of implementation‘. My development team, James and myself had already created PopUp Domination for use on IncomeDiary so launching a product in a matter of days was a real possibility.
This is critical – Speed of Implementation.
Recommended For Creating Your Own Product
CB Wealth Formula
Learn how 2 young guys (still in their 20′s) finally get cornered into revealing their secret affiliate system that makes them over $103,569 a month on complete AUTO-PILOT!
Exit Splash
I used this simple script to sell 40% more copies of Popup Domination and you can to! It’s really simple, when customers go to leave your site, they get alerted that they can get a special discount if they buy now. Everyone with a product needs this!
The longer you give yourself to do something the more likely it will not get done in my experience.
There was also one other strategy that we used that I have become more familiar with over last 7 days. It is the ‘READY, FIRE, AIM’ approach. (Rather than Ready…aim…fire)
I did not consciously consider that I was doing that – but having now launched a software product that is I think perhaps the best way to describe it:
Steve Pavlina explains READY FIRE AIM perfectly in this article:
As Steve explains – the ready-fire-aim approach, rather surprisingly works a lot better than the more common ready-aim-fire approach.
“The reason is that after you’ve “fired” once, you have some actual data with which to adjust your aim. Too many people get bogged down in planning and thinking and never get to the point of action. How many potentially great ideas have you passed up because you got stuck in the state of analysis paralysis (i.e. ready-aim-aim-aim-aim-aim…)?”
Of course Ready Fire Aim does not always work — just look at the trouble Apple has got into with ‘reception issues’ on the new iPhone 4 – but hopefully you get the picture.
Really when it comes down to it, taking action and getting something done and out the door now – even if it is not your best product is better than never launching at all. Dangerous talk I know and of course you can’t release a totally rubbish product but especially with software the only way to find out all the BUGS is to release it. That is why just about every decent piece of software I know has regular updates – to cope with those Bugs! I have to admit PopUp Domination is no different and we already have a number of tweaks and updates planned – as well as increasing the price as we continue to improve the product.
Enjoy the video (and enhanced transcript) – as always I look forward very much to your feedback and comments.
best wishes
Michael
PS: Enhanced Transcription is really worth a read – I have included some extra information and links there.
How To Launch Your First Information Product
Enhanced Transcription – with additional resources.
Today, I want to show you these some very exciting. It is exactly how I launched my first product – a WordPress Plugin called: PopUp Domination . A Plugin that allows you to easily add a Lightbox Opt-in to your blog which can get you 4, 4 or even 10 times more Opt-ins.
This is how I did it.
First, I found a problem which was that people wanted to create lightboxes and get more opt-ins but they were struggling to create Lightbox Forms that had compelling offers, nice graphics etc.
All the best Product Creators go with this premise – create a product that solves a problem. No matter what your industry people have problems that need solving. Can you solve their problems?
In my case I personally needed a way to even better monetize my blog and get more opt-ins. I had been looking at using Lightbox opt-ins from AWeber and while I liked the idea, most of them did not really inspire me so I set about creating my own easy way to add a AWeber Lightbox to my blog. In the end I can up with 4 distinct designs that are easy to edit from the admin area along with a multitude of color options. (Not only that we adapted PopUp Domination to also work with: iContact, GetRESPONSE and Mailchimp plus more to follow.)
This became the basis for me launching: PopUp Domination
To solve problems is pretty much why you need to create a product.
The product could be a resource or it can be a software. It could be a WordPress Plugin like PopUp Domination
Or, it could be an ebook or a membership site or an ecourse or an interview of the month or a Daily Industry Alert (or Tip) to name but a few.
Find a problem, create a solution and bill your customers!
Once you’ve decided what YOUR PRODUCT is you need to work out how you will deliver it to your paying customer. This could for example be via email, a membership website or a Download link on a Thank you page
Decide what’s going to work for you and then we can start building this sales page, and the thank you page, and doing everything else.
Sales Page
I really encourage you to add video to your sales page – that is what is working right now! People like video. The more authentic the video the better (indeed a professional sounding “radio voice’ can actually be a disadvantage in some instances)
Personally, I’m not great with video. (well, I’m improving) It went all right. We sold a few hundred in the first day. And, we’re still selling more every single day. So, we’re getting ready to have a big launch.
Quick Tip: Don’t show how long the video is on the player controls – in my case I set video so that if some one clicks on it it pauses and then to start playing again the just need to click again. (Less controls, less distractions)
Most important – have a Prominent BUY BUTTON – - or Add To Cart Button.
Lots of little tweaks can make such a difference to conversions. Check out the Belcher Button – from my friend Perry Belcher.
The Thank You Page
Never assume buyers are inside your head and what is obvious to you may well not be obvious to them. So explain everything very carefully and in detail. Including an email address for contact on thank you page is a good idea as people don’t always download straight away.
We all mess us and people creating thank you pages often don’t think like their customer so they miss essentials. Make it real simple with plenty of “Click Here” , Arrows and “Download here” instructions. If you’re going to sell a lot, have a Customer Support area … so you don’t get bombarded personally with emails and all service requests go straight to Support. Later it is also a good idea to add FAQ’s to cover the most frequently asked questions.
The Shopping Cart
For us, we chose Clickbank but there are loads of different places you can go for delivery of digital products such as Nanacast, and E-junkie, and a bunch of other ones. Clickbank works for us because we wanted to get lots of affiliates and Clickbank has TONS OF AFFILIATES!
But if you have your own affiliates in mind then there are other alternatives such as Nanacast. Typically you pay Clickbank 10% of sale for their service but with Nanacast you just pay a monthly fee to use their software.
With ClickBank, it took us just three days to get accepted. Clickbank often ask you to make some changes in order to be accepted as they did with us. I really like Clickbank – they know what they are doing and getting accepted within three days is pretty good considering we hadn’t fully created the product. Indeed, we started creating the product only 11 days before we actually planned to sell it.
As I mentioned in my introduction – Speed Of Implementation is Everything when it comes to launching a product! Also, as I said:
The longer you give yourself to do something the more likely it will not get done in my experience.
You need to learn to just take action. So, many people think, “Oh, I’m going to launch in like six weeks. And, when you know you’re going to launch in six weeks, they often just bum around and come launch date they have only half the work done!
Once I decided that PopUp Domination would be my first product we spent the next 11 days hard at it with programmers working around the clock. Quite insane really – but fun as well!
Conversion Boosters
OK, once you have your sales page up and running you may like to consider some conversion boosters. One that we tried (that you may well have seen on many other Clickbank Product pages) is that of offering a discount if someone does not buy and attempts to close the page.
Personally I have never been super keen on this approach but I was encouraged to give it a try. I will admit it works – but it is not without its disadvantages. For a start you upset all your customers who bought at full price. So what we did in the end is offer a $10 discount but buyers at that price did not receive the Product Presentation or the Photoshop files.
You really need to have a reason to offer the discount in my opinion – it has to be credible so if you go with this approach I suggest you bundle the product slightly differently, leave something out.
This in fact increased our sales by 40% which is an incredible number, so anyone who has got a product or service online, you definitely need to check out the software we used, it’s called Exit Splash!
Of course the other angle to this is to also offer an more expensive option (an Up-sell) — for example offering to install the Plugin for an additional $20. That is not something we have done, but I wanted to give you that angle with Product Offerings as well.
Finding Affiliates
Affiliates is the driving force of your business. The more affiliates you have – the more sales you’re going to make. (I like to think of this as Work Less, Make More money strategy)
We found our affiliates through ClickBank. My product is about Blog Marketing so I went to every person who had a Blog Marketing product on Clickbank and offered them the opportunity to be a Joint Venture Partner (JV / Affiliate) Of course not everyone responds but those that did generated a substantial number of additional sales that I would never have otherwise had.
I really encourage you to go with this approach to finding affiliates for your product offering. Believe it or not most of these other product creators are actually happy to hear from you.
If you would like to promote Popup Domination – Click here!
In Conclusion
Of course this is not everything you need to do — but it is the most essential first steps. So now the QUESTION is:
When Are You Going To Launch Your First Problem Solving Product?
About Michael Dunlop
I'm Michael, I created this site back in 2009 and since then it's received over a million visitors from all around the world. We offer tutorials and inspiration for online entrepreneurs wanting to achieve more.
37 comments so far… Leave a reply
Nabeel | Create Your First Website
Hi Michael, Congratulations on your successful product launch and thanks for sharing your experiences in launching your own product (Popup domination). Although creating a product looks daunting, it is also really rewarding. "Never assume buyers are inside your head and what is obvious to you may well not be obvious to them. So explain everything very carefully and in detail." Exactly. We should never assume that customers will know something. Spell it out to them. Make it really easy for them. Kindest, Nabeel
Dev - Technshare.com
Hey Michael, Congratulations on the success man. The Plugin looks awesome :) and you did great job. Thanks for sharing your experience. Really awesome work. ~Dev
Jeremiah, Pay Per Click Management Company
Michael, Thank you for this information on launching your own product. I bought popup domination and I love it. It works great and I'm already seeing a lift in my leads. Thanks for the exit software recommendation as well. I've been looking for something like this. Your product launch formula here is right on. Don't delay set aggressive deadlines our you'll never get the product done. I am really bad with my own personal deadlines, without strong deadlines I would never get anything done :-) Thanks again Michael! Jeremiah
John Paul Aguiar
Great product and post... I went thru some of this with my ebook release. It took me much longer then needed to get the product together since I said I had time,, if I was more strict I would of had it done in half the time.. lesson learned.
iYingHang
Congratulations Mike on such a great post and successful sales. So what's your rough sales figure? $10k++? Cheers!
Justyn
You're just genius Mike...just genius!! I love what you're doing and how much your blog helps people!! "Ready Fire Aim" (just not like Apple lol)
Clive at BlogBriefing.com
Hi Michael, Congrats on the 'Dunlop Pop' - I bought pre launch to test before recommending to my visitors and it's a great improvement on my previous 2 options ( a lightbox type one, not nearly as customizable as yours, and a well known Footer pop-up).
Chase Brumfield
Interesting read... I like the "launch before it's quite ready" section. Sounds like "rework" from the guys at 37 signals. Like you said though, it can't be a crap product and I would just suppose it also helps to have a community who supports and feels like they know you. That way when something goes wrong they're not at your throat, but rather they're understanding because you're "friends" or at least feel like "friends." I think for the most part people are much more forgiving than I give them credit for. It's not about not having problems, you're always going to have problems or bugs, it's about how you react to those things... do you go above and beyond for your customer when they really need your help? I think that's what people truly look for and appreciate. Give. Get. Give. Chase Brumfield
Michael Dunlop
Hello Chase, Honestly wouldn't of ever got it done if I didn't set a close deadline. Your right about customers, most are great but you will get some idiots who just want to work against you, not with you. I had a few people who bought and refunded instantly, not because of the product because I see them using it on their site, but rather because they know they can get it for FREE that way. Sucks. However, we keep going for the 99% of people who are great :) Michael
Chase Brumfield
That's the ticket buddy. You're always going to have the ones who just want something for nothing, but the hope is that you create a community so strong that these become the outcasts and your community takes care of eradicating them. It's mob mentality... strong enough support and the nay-sayers are trumped by all the positivity. New audiences see how awesome your product is and how much it's done for people - then they see someone post that it sucks - then your audience fights back for you, discrediting the nay-sayer... that would sure sell me. P.S. - A testimonials page would be rockin' for you (but i'm sure you're working on this)
Felix Albutra
Congratulations for the success Michael. You are really great buddy.
Leon
Michael? If someone buys and cancels for a refund, but is still using your product, isn't that pirating? Maybe you should talk to ShoeMoney and take legal action. I imagine there has to be stiff fines and penalties for every day they use a pirated plugin. You have several options and lying down isn't one of them, like: a) Email them a cease and desist (with a link showcasing ShoeMoney's video about legal shenanigans). b) Followed by contacting their host about their use of pirated software (I don't think host companies will turn a blind eye to thievery). My site should be functional by end of the week. And yes dammit, I think your plug-in rules (especially if you get the split testing feature added) (evil grin).
Kerwin
Michael, Awesome! Thanks for sharing this. I'm in the process of launching a few products, so this is helpful indeed. I always wondered how that give a discount off pop up did, so good to know. Nice work.
michael
Hi Michael, I got this pretty soon after you launched it. I'm testing it over the course of a week or so but I've no doubt it will increase my opt ins - I'm also going to try it with different looks a colours see what works best. Haven't decided yet what text to settle on though or the amount of time before it actually pops up. Be interesting to hear what others think on this issue. My site www.sellmyknowledgeonline.com attracts different people for different reasons and it will also be interesting which 'type' likes it and which type doesn't. Great little product Michael Well done. Michael
Chase Brumfield
You and Dunlop have the same name! Is this you from the future Michael? Haha Give. Get. Give. Chase Brumfield
David Edwards
Nice work, how much do you think the product will make per day after the launch has settled?. I have been thinking of launching a coaching course, just need to get organised. Just one other question, my email list is an "in house" system with my host. Do you think I could buy your product and plug it in ok?... I wanted to fit my character in the box!. ;]
Azad @ Internet Geeks
You are really quick. Just launching the popup domination you came up with you product launch formula. Great work. I had subscribed yo your youtube channel. Keep it up :D
Pyysician Assistant
Way to go! From idea to product in a flash. I am going to follow in your footsteps. Great work. Dave
Luke Etheridge
Hi Michael, I really liked this post mate! I liked the bit about Ready, Fire, Aim - That really hit home for me and what I'm going through with my blog. I think sometimes it's better to get lots of great posts out there and tweaking them as you go along, learning new things rather than over-planning and not taking action. Sometimes the smallest of things can be a massive eye-opener so thanks Michael. As for the product launch - perfectly executed, turned out great! Cheers, Luke
Lisa at Practically Intuitive
Just a note to say thanks for addressing a question I had about installing it so nicely and quickly. :-) I'm not a fan of those shadowboxes myself but I am willing to give it a try and see how it can work for me. The discount surprised me (and yes, encouraged me to buy) but I think it is a good idea to offer a different option for those that paid full price. The "business" end of this is all new to me but I'm a quick study and am happy to have something to wrap my head around. Like the video (you do talk a bit fast but it was fine for me to catch) and like the product. Good luck to you - thanks again for being so nice in the email. Lisa
Felix Albutra
This information is really a great help for those people who wants launched their own product. To tell you the truth, I have something in mind that would also benefited to all bloggers. But like you have said about ready -> fire -> aim, I think I don't have the capacity of implementing that principle, because there's one thing why people get stuck of launching their own products - and that is MONEY. But anyway, this is a great tips. Thank you for sharing it.... - Blogging Access.com
Felix Albutra
I noticed the place where shot this video. Are you a friend of Aaron Darko? Because I watched his video earlier and I noticed that you used the same room or studio explaining your topics. I saw that picture behind you that looks like Jimi Hindrix.
Nick Tart
Hey Michael! Great video, dude! You are getting a lot better (not that you were bad before). Your demeanor and the tone behind your words is completely genuine and that lets people know they can trust you. Good work. I'm wondering... What do you use to embed the video on your sales page?
Dean Saliba
I shall bookmark this post and hopefully use it when I finish my first ever ebook. :)
Frank Goldsmith
Nice work Michael. Sharing this information is beneficial to many people. We all learn so much from you. That is a wonderful gift. Thank you buddy.
jojo
miachel,love your website,keep up the good job
Josh
When will you be releasing the video we were suppose to get with your product?
Andrew - yournetbiz
Hello Michael Having a home based business and understanding how to get traffic to a website is just the start, this business is world wide. Have a product can increase your monthly profits by a massive amounts. thanks for sharing your information and good luck with the product.
Chris Frost
Excellent and very thorough information Michael, thanks for sharing!
Anthony Myers
Hey Michael, I'm new to the blog... I really like the design, the content and everything else... I really admire what you're doing. I too am 21. I've gotten a lot of cool tips from this blog, so I figured I would go ahead and shoot over a tip of my own. Lots of people have been telling us that this little trick boosts conversions 200-300% - We didn't believe it! Even after close, trustworthy marketers and friends like Ryan Deiss, Trey Smith, etc told us... we had to try it for ourselves. The big secret: Inserting a javascript code that doesn't allow the "add to cart" button to be revealed until AFTER the price is revealed or until a point in the video that you let them know they are being sold something. Our results: Just like everyone was telling us... It boosted conversions 2-3x INSANE! It works bro and it's so easy to do. If you can't figure it out, shoot me an e-mail I'll get you the javascript code. Here's exactly what we did: We have a blank white page with our sales video playing. The video does not reveal that a produce is being sold until 27 minutes and 10 seconds into the video... I thought it would hurt conversions... I'm 21 and my attention span isn't exactly my strong point. I figured most people are like me and would have closed out the web browser or fell asleep watching the video... The results were crazy! 2-3x higher conversions.
Joshu Thomas ( OC webmaster Blog)
Man !! u gonna be responsible for so many good new blogs on the web !! That was lot of good information and well documented. Thanks again !! cheers Joshu OrangeCopper Solutions Pvt Ltd.
James Tayo
Great stuff, Micheal.. I have been following the launch of Popup Domination closely and it realy looks like a well-oiled machine. I own Popup Dom and it really does work. Congratulations. I am also about to launch a wordpress plugin that targets email marketing. It complements PopUp Dom ver well ... Good to see the UK guys also doing well online
Welly Mulia
Hi Michael Great tips! Thanks for sharing them. I can especially relate to the "ready fire aim" approach. Sometimes I tend to be a perfectionist, wanting everything to be "perfect" first before actually launching something. I've improved quite a lot though, now I know that nothing can be perfect and I can always tweak after firing :) Nice! Welly Mulia
Michelle Dale a.k.a. Virtual Miss Friday
Wow this is perfect timing - thank you so much! This has really made me focus in on what I need to do to launch my product.
Rachel Henke
Hi Michael I heard about popup domination a while ago and it was on my list of to do's. I finally got round to it just now and am SUPER pleased with the ease of installation. It looks fantastic and I'm excited to see how much it will increase my opt in rate. Thanks
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Travis
This is great info, any suggestions on what platform to use in creating the sales page. For instance what platform did you guys use for pop up domination? I've been playing with wordpress but can not get the look I need for my sales page. Thanks!
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