CASE STUDY: How I Increased My Sales Revenue By Nearly 800% In 3 Years

Good, so I seem to be blogging more consistently now. At least once a week.

I’ve been wanting to write about this since a long time ago but it took me a while to put everything together, including my stats and past notes when doing my launches of any scale.

These results were taken from my smaller time sensitive Private Label Rights sales since November 2006 up until June 2009. The gradual increase in sales revenue from these time sensitive sales came from applying different approaches throughout.

To the tune of 800% in increase!

November 2006: $1,890.00 in 24 hours

The sale pulled off quite simply. 30 copies available. No One-Time Offer. No back end. Just purely Front-End sales. I carried out a sale similar to this 10 times in the interval of months. No surprise that the results were similar, too - ranging from $1,400 to $2,000.

September 2008: $4,127 in sales

I decided to carry out these sales on a less frequency but it will have to make up in sales power. This marked the first mini PLR sale with dramatic changes like:

- more PLR products in the package than usual (6 instead of 4) but at lower price
- added a sales video to the sales letter
- added One-Time Offer (OTO)
- recruited 5 affiliates to push the mini PLR sale

I more than doubled my sales revenue! My profit share was also more than I did from the first sale model.

January 2009: $7,315 in sales in 3 days

This was a major trend setter for the coming mini PLR sales I have in the pipeline. After my success with PLRGold: Videos I saw a bigger demand in multimedia PLR products. So I produced less PLR E-Books and created more Multimedia courses with Private Label Rights (a.k.a. audio E-Books).

I experienced my first big breakthrough in the mini sale model with this one. The successful principles of the previous sale were carried forward to this one, and included the following changes and additions:

- PLR E-Books have phased out
- Started selling multimedia based product with PLR (audio, video, transcript, presentation slides)
- used a lower priced One-Time Offer for testing purposes (actually it’s better to sell a higher priced OTO and more profitable too)
- recruited more than 5 affiliates

In fact I have documented the break down of the 72 Hour PLR Sale model in an early blog post here.

March 2009: $10,851!!

I carried out another time sensitive sale which broke the 5 figure mark! The only difference was recruiting slightly more affiliates and more aggressive marketing on Twitter from them, which I had least expected.

However in the first 24 hours, I was too ambitious and tried to put front a $297 One-Time Offer. None were sold. So I had to put up an emergency OTO in place that was priced lower i.e. $97. I suspect the jump in price was too big for the Front-End buyers or many of them had already owned the products from the OTO.

June 2009: $14,747!!

The ultimate one so far! This time around not only have I carried out the successful recipes from the previous sale forward to this one:

- This was the first unique PLR title of its own, focusing on brand building and the first PLR product to have BOTH male and female voice over
- This time’s One-Time Offer (OTO) is truly brand new; never made and released before - unlike previous OTOs.
- The OTO touches on a hot topic that will never fizzle out i.e. social media traffic
- I’ve also included a Downsell a.k.a. lite version of the One-Time Offer if the buyer passes it up
- Added the Virtual Smart Agent script that saved 7% of the sales
- There were more motivated affiliates even though I invited 10 people officially; I paid out to 26 people at the end of the campaign

So if you observe the latest results and compare it to my first try, notice I make 8 times more now? I guarantee you’re getting loads of ideas from this. Will write again when I get my next breakthrough!

When Small Changes Make An Impact (seriously!)

To be really, really honest with you…

I wasn’t a big believer in small changes making big differences. Hardly.

Until recently.

After discovering new things, strategies and approaches that work for my business, I was excited to carry out the changes throughout my network of websites. In hind sight, I also cannot help but wonder how much money I have been leaving on the table on these while.

Better late than never, nonetheless.

In spite of my busy schedule, I put business optimization on priority for the past two weeks, tweaking my websites and implementing the changes I have found to have worked splendidly well. You will be surprised how small changes can make a HUGE impact!

1. Adding the Virtual Smart Agent script to my sales pages.
The VSA is a script that pops up after a visitor attempts to leave your website. A virtual agent will appear in the pop-up window to negotiate real-time on your behalf and save the sale for you. It’s an ingenious concept but I didn’t believe in it initially… until I saw VSA in action for Mega Red Packet. VSA has saved 28% of the sales which otherwise would have been lost! 28%. The same script saved 20% of sales for Vince Tan during his Biggest Firesale 2008. And recently, I saved 7% more sales for my recent 3-day Private Label Rights sale. I wish I had implemented this way earlier! (but again like I said, better late than never.)

2. One simple email boosted daily sign ups for one of my membership sites from 20-30 a day to 30-40 a day!
At first, I didn’t store in any follow-up emails for a particular membership site I own, where members would sign up and receive these emails periodically. I added an email that the member would get 1 day after he signs up, asking him to tell his other friends about the membership site and I gave his affiliate link on the spot. This small change boosted the daily sign ups by 30%. Just like that!

3. Restructuring and adding more follow-up emails.
After identifying which products I affiliate for sell well and don’t sell well, I removed the poor sellers from the line of follow-up emails in my autoresponder in favor of the proven sellers. I’m constantly amazed at how many people are not maximizing their autoresponder privileges, given that you can store in as many follow-up emails as you want. Doing this pro-longs the lifespan of your product, which means products you have released before can be continuously marketed to the new crowd without the need to manually email over and over again. Some time back I talked about storing 14 follow-up emails in your autoresponder instead of the usual 7. Now I am experimenting with 21-24 follow-up emails.

4. Centralization.
I have had JVManager1 since 2005 but it was only early this year that I have centralized all of my websites on one centralized domain www.amloh-central.com. Don’t ask me why I paid attention to this late; I wonder why too. Again, I wish I had done it right from the start. Because ever since I used the centralization approach business became more effective. Affiliates sign up only once (not multiple times) and get their links all from one place which is obviously acting as a hub. They can choose to promote any product they want from the AMLOH-Central database, and their affiliate ID will always be the same. Sales and tracking can all be done from one single place. Talk about time and effort saving, too. If you want to know who is the ‘Godfather of Centralization’, John Delavera is your man.

Other changes I carried out, which remains to be observed for results, include:

1. Changing all of my 404 Page Not Found error pages. Visitors are prone to going to non-existent pages especially if they manually type a link. This is where I attempt to capture leads where possible, using a free report gift as a bait.

2. Added rotating banner ads to my blog (which you are seeing now on your right) and the secured areas in my membership sites.

3. Most of my Thank You pages now use a uniformed layout, bearing the AMLOH-Central logo. I also add further recommendations using the Amazon.com style - “Customers Who Have Purchased This Product Also Bought…”

If you already have a substantial business up and running, it pays to take some time off just to make small changes and optimize your websites for results that matter. And if you are just starting out, this just goes to show that proper planning comes a long way!

I’ll report further in the near future on the results from the tweaks and optimizations I am making.

Mega Red Packet: Debriefing

It’s been two weeks since the Mega Red Packet launch ended, and it is now selling permanently at retail price. Although still busy with customer support and having just settled down in my new apartment in Petaling Jaya, I want to document the Mega Red Packet launch report while it’s still fresh in my mind.

This is my most successful product launch to date, with the 10 day launch special raked in $301,801 (or RM1,056,303.50) in sales.

Idea Conception

The idea on doing Mega Red Packet brewed on the same day I discussed the IMGuerilla project with Vince Tan over a cup of coffee at Starbucks, The Curve, back in late December 2007.

Mega Red Packet’s mission and objectives were very ambiguous back then as we were focusing on accomplishing one product launch at a time. We just agreed that Mega Red Packet should be a massive online sale that runs for 7 days.

Problems

It took another year before starting the Mega Red Packet project. In spite of him being my best business partner to date, Vince and I didn’t do well with the first two launches together.

And to do something that lived up to the name “Mega Red Packet” was more difficult than we thought. We didn’t want Mega Red Packet to be just another product launch. Or just another firesale. Since its goals weren’t clearly defined we didn’t risk carrying out the project with such a foggy direction for Mega Red Packet.

Admittedly, our personal lives and own relationships to deal with didn’t make it any easy.

Introducing A New Partner To The Project

I am choosy with who I work with on a partnership basis. And Stephen Luc passed my test. When we pulled in $100,000 in 10 days from PLRGold: Videos together, I knew right away that Stephen is an integral part of our success with Mega Red Packet. And not too long later, Vince did the Biggest Firesale event in the same month - November 2008 - and generated $170,000 in 10 days.

It was meant to be. Mega Red Packet is next.

Stephen is American. He can do good videos. Handle customer support. Take care of technical aspects with Vince. And he is of Asian descendant.

Vince wasn’t sold on the idea initially, until I convinced him to let Stephen join us to form the dynamic trio.

The years of experience with Internet Marketing and witnessing many strategies finally gave me greater clarity I couldn’t see just a year ago.

And I suppose this is where working at McDonald’s at the age of 16 paid off in dividends.

“What if we franchise out our success?”

This became a big part of the Mega Red Packet component: franchising out our current Internet Marketing success in the form of Reseller Memberships, Franchise Business and new Private Label Rights.

What about traffic? People always need traffic. The demand for it can never run out. If we didn’t answer that question well, Mega Red Packet would set itself up for failure.

And so the answer was Traffic Leopard - our upcoming home study course to be sold in physical format. Only this time we gave our our digital version as part of Mega Red Packet. We also talked and negotiated with other webmasters who own traffic building sites so our Mega Red Packet members could draw instant traffic from them.

Throw in other components such as Premium Software, member’s forum, and a series Fast Action Bonuses - Mega Red Packet finally saw its big picture.

It’s all work from here on.

Product Creation In 5 Months

Having learned our lesson from two failed launches together revealed its rewards. If Mega Red Packet is to be the best, we need to hire the best people. And we NEED to be the best people to run the big show.

All these while, we had always been trying to save whatever we can and go cheap. Vince and I were probably raised that way. Hah! But not this time.

Investing a lot more money than usual quickly grew uncomfortable for us since we were so used to low-cost, high-profit lifestyle. I challenged myself nonetheless. If I wanted to be really, really rich and successful I had to stop being too cheapskate.

Vince probably found his way around though. He’s a master at bargaining and quoting a friend, “With Vince, nothing is ever full price.” I still needed a good bargainer like him on the team though at times I wonder if he gets his daily newspaper free just by taking from his neighbor after they’re done.

And I found Stephen was just as much the same as us.

Anyways more time spent doing the project meant more profit potential gone so we needed to overcome the product creation. LIKE FAST.

We hired copywriters - 3 in all - to write our sales copies. One of them was Kenneth Yu, the master copywriter who formerly worked for Mindvalley Labs and his clients have raked in millions of dollars using his copy. I could write our own copy but like I said, we needed to outsource as much as we can if we wanted the product creation done faster.

We also got Zaizen Goro to do our graphics. Like Kenneth, he hails from Malaysia. But one of the best nonetheless.

Dennis and Vicky came in the wee hours of the launch to join our technical support team. And with Stephen operating on low-cost and man, he sure works like a machine, we got everything we needed down pat in 5 months.

It was relatively fast for a project THIS HUGE. I think if we had attempted to do everything on our own and tried to launch without Stephen it may take us a year.

Game Plan

This was going to be our first high ticket product launch and we wanted Mega Red Packet to stay even after the 10 day event is over. No more “sell for 7 days and close the sale forever”. It works - sometimes. The scarcity factor is good - sometimes. But there was no continuity of income and it would create the “fly by night” impression for newbies to the world of Internet Marketing.

So we had to find a space between all the advantages available to us.

SCARCITY: For the first 10 days, people can get Mega Red Packet at early bird price.

CONTINUITY: Mega Red Packet will sell at its retail price after the 10 days launch price is up.

BARRIER OF ENTRY: 3 EZY payment plans were made available.

Initially we set our sights for $497. Then $697. Then $997. Then back to $697. Yes, we panicked and we weren’t sure whether we could make it.

One of the major lessons I learned from my failed launch last year was “the message”. Is it clear this time? Will people know what it is? How can I explain Mega Red Packet in 30 seconds?

If I told one person, then he told the other person in the ear, and then another, then another… and to the 10th person whispering back into my ear - will the message be the same?

So I spent A LOT OF TIME writing a clear, easy message on Mega Red Packet. It boiled down to only this:

“We’ve Done Everything For You.”

The message was easy. Delivering the promise was another matter altogether though. And we can only find that out on launch day.

The Pre-Launch Strategy

Vince’s ingenious pre-launch strategy worked like a charm. It was the same strategy he used for Biggest Firesale 2008. Twitter and Facebook made it a whole lot more easy aside from people blogging about us.

4 weeks to launch day on 4th May, we kick started the Joint Venture recruitment drive and 2 weeks to launch, we started the pre-launch sequence.

We gave our existing affiliates at AMLOH-Central.com Twitter messages and blog posts to use, with a distilled message on “busting the recession using proven Internet formulas”.

And for every person who joined our Advanced Notification List, their referrer’s affiliate ID was hard cookied so on launch day, they will receive an email from our system with their referrer’s affiliate ID.

Just before launch:

- 3,210 web pages and blogs found on Google are talking about it

- 209 tweets (and counting) on Twitter about this online event

- 2,000 subscribers were on the Advanced Notification List, 3 of which would stand a chance to win a FREE copy by random selection

- This would run for 10 days only and 1,000 spots will be available at launch price special

We motivated affiliates to push the pre-launch with a pre-launch contest in an effort to generate buzz and interest in the Internet Marketing arena.

Joint Venture recruitment didn’t went so well at first. Vince did his best and so did Stephen, even though marketing isn’t his best skill in the hand of cards. Fortunately, my past reciprocal promotion efforts with some big players finally paid off in dividends.

Vince successfully got in Ewen Chia. I got Michael Rasmussen. I have never heard of people offering to make bonuses for their own top affiliates so I had to be the first to do the honor. I made a custom bonus package for Michael, Ewen, Calvin Woon, and also Ian del Carmen. Jeremy Gislason and Simon Hodgkinson came in the last minute, miraculously. I wasn’t counting on them as they had Marketing Main Event 4 to push, only to be postponed to a later time.

Mega Red Packet: Launch and Warzone

Stephen, Vince and I were nerve wrecks 1 whole day before the launch. We slept less hours, went on more walks, and anxiety built up. Were we going to make it or fall flat on our faces after 6 months of hard work, including pre-launch? Time would tell after we change the index.php page on the servers.

At 8:00 AM Eastern Time, we were in for it.

The soundtrack of the Russian March from Call of Duty: World at War kept looping in the desktop. Sales were slow. Could be times were REALLY horrible in the States?

For the first 2 days, I slept no more than 4 hours and spent most mornings walking out to calm my nerves. Then I had a brilliant idea. Why not introduce 6 EZY payment plans?

We also suspected Stephen could have done a better video so Stephen did one on the spot.

And all these DOUBLED our conversions. The sexy Virtual Chat Agents saved nearly 30% of our sales which otherwise would have been lost. And in the last 48 hours, we threw in a final 48 hour showdown to motivated JV Partners and affiliates for the final push.

The Mega Engines had to be introduced earlier than we needed if we wanted to make more sales and salvage a dying launch. Fortunately, not only did we save it in time - it turned out to be our best record to date for a product launch. For all 3 of us. And for our merry affiliates.

Amateur launch makers will claim they have hundreds of people on board their launch. Professional players in the field know that it takes only a handful of individuals to pull off the launch. And Mega Red Packet needed only a handful of key players.

To the tune of less than 60 people who have made sales for us in the first 10 days. And that was our ticket to $300,000 - or our first 1 million Malaysian Ringgits for a product launch. Damn, we make Malaysia proud.

But Mega Red Packet came with a price: massive customer support and technical servicing. We promised to set up the websites for our members. 9 per person. More than 500 members and you do the math.

Post Launch: Summary

As I am writing this, we have to help many members with their websites. Some needed more help. No matter. I am glad I took Vince’s suggestion in setting up a forum. I had second thoughts initially, knowing how fast forums die.

But it made the community grew tighter and closer.

Mega Red Packet, after everything, was NOT just a product launch. It was a platform to change everyone’s financial fortunes. Especially for our members. Launching it wasn’t easy. Introducing the idea was harder.

But I believed - we believed - that nothing is better than duplicating success. And if we can help hundreds of other shape their Internet Marketing future based on our current success, Mega Red Packet has done its job. Successfully.

And it wouldn’t be there without the help of our highly esteemed affiliates and Joint Venture partners. This launch has taught me many great lessons I wouldn’t have otherwise discovered before, and I am glad I was in this process with my best partners in business to date, Vince and Stephen.

The Hall Of Fame Is Erected Here:

=> http://amloh-central.com/halloffame/megaredpacket

I had set my sights on making Mega Red Packet the most successful launch for me - for us - to date. Even to beat my recent record with PLRGold: Videos.

The first time I did a launch that broke $100,000 was PLRGold Master Rights Pack 5 back in September 2007. That took 3 months.

In November 2008, I broke that again in a month.

And in Mega Red Packet, all 3 of us made the run and TRIPLED that in 10 days.

It’s only a matter of time before we go for the million dollar launch, and nothing is more satisfying than having a successful goal achieved before I moved on with something else in my personal life: settling down in Petaling Jaya to meet new people and challenges - and to re-enroll into college. Something that I would really like to complete now, since I didn’t have the chance 6 years ago.

Thank you all for your support.

CASE STUDY: $7315 in 72 hours

1. I wanted to experiment doing an online sale that can be pulled off in a quicker and faster succession compared to doing a full-scale product launch.

2. So I opened my Excel Sheet file where I have jolt down my “idea bucket”. After conducting a quick research by combing through the Main Discussions in the Warrior Forum and the search engines, I went to create an Information Product right away.

3. The product creation process took 2 days. I wasn’t writing an E-Book; I was doing a Multimedia Course.

4. The product I was creating was called Content Creation Secrets, named after the 2 hour presentation I had at the IPASS Seminar last National Day. Judging from the response of over 90 attendance, there’s a hot demand for this priceless skill - and what if you can create content on demand and sell?

5. Since I still have the PowerPoint slides, I did little modification to it and added new pointers. Then I turned on the microphone and fired away. I recorded over 5 different sessions, broken into 5 MP3 audios, in slightly above half an hour.

6. Now my voice isn’t exactly the sexiest but I focused on getting the work done than trying to strive for perfection (which is almost impossible because of the ‘uhhs’ and ‘ahhs’ I do on reflex!) So after the recordings were done, I submitted the MP3 audios to my sister to do the text transcription (omitting the ‘uhhs’ and ‘ahhs’ of course) and correct the grammar where possible. This is where having an in-house virtual assistant pays off.

7. While my sister was working on transcribing the audio, I worked on the sales letter and graphics for the product. I could do both on my own, and in spirit of challenging myself I chose not to outsource them. (besides, I am also working on a big project called Mega Red Packet so all the outsourcing efforts are going there)

8. The sales letter and graphics were done on the same day, and my sister finished the transcription by night time. I re-did the audio by following the printed transcription thus the quality of the audio is better - no stammering, audible mistakes, etc. All of the product creation aspects were taken care of over the weekend i.e. 2 days.

9. Day 3: I wrote the main sales letter that sells the Private Label Rights to the full-blown Multimedia Course. I kept one license for myself so I can sell it to the end-users at a later date, but for this round I wanted to release the Private Label Rights to my members and subscribers, who are mostly resellers and offline publishers themselves.

10. Next, I did a short video explaining the offer in 8 minutes. This is where having Camtasia Studio 6 comes in handy. I did the video, uploaded it onto YouTube and embedded the video on the parent sales letter, near the bottom of the headline. (SIDENOTE: have to keep the video under 10 minutes to be accepted by YouTube)

11. I didn’t sell the product right away. Since I didn’t plan for this to be a big launch (and I don’t want too many competitors by the time I sell this for myself to the end-users) I broadcast an email to my AMLOH Joint Venture Partners at AMLOH-Central.com to tell them about my upcoming Private Label Rights (PLR) Sale and if any of them were interested in taking part in promoting the 72 hour sale with me, I would send them the full info - their promotion link, promotion email and complimentary access to the product. I had also set a date for the PLR Sale to go live and expire in 3 days.

12. Since I still had some time left before the PLR Sale day, I added a One Time Offer quickly and priced it at $27.00. I was thinking that since I was going the customers in, might as well give them a shot at the One Time Offer and see how many of them would snap it up. I know one thing for sure: if I didn’t add the OTO I will never make more.

13. On the sale day, the order links went live on the sales page and I alerted my 9 JV Partners to start promoting the PLR Sale to their members and subscribers on their mailing list. I promoted to my own list too simultaneously. Other marketing mediums include Twitter and FaceBook. A follow up on all of these mediums was done the next day.

14. PLR to the product was priced affordable i.e. $47.00. Sales letter converted at 4.3%, probably thanks to the video I embedded. One Time Offer did its conversion at around 30%, meaning every 3 in 10 customers would also purchase the OTO.

15. Altogether, the PLR Sale made a total of $7,315.00 in 3 days. I was my own biggest seller, and the JV Partners made $2,312.50 leaving the admin (me) with $5,002.50 in gross profit. I suspect that if I had tried to sell purely on my own I would only have made slightly above $3,000. Still not bad for 3 days of product creation and set up, and the 72 hour profit was equivalent to 12 month’s pay in my previous office boy job.

16. Not to mention production cost was $0.00. I already had JVManager1, mailing list, hosting & domain, payment processors (PayPal, 2CheckOut), Camtasia Studio, PowerPoint, Word and PDF converter, and many others available, and they have already been paid for themselves along time ago. Thus it didn’t cost me a dime in the process to create the Multimedia Course.

17. I had done a similar 72 Hour Sale in September last year, and that brought in $4,241 in sales within 3 days. The $3,000 in increase in this sale is owed to having more JV Partners (the last one I had only 4), and this time product was multi-format (MP3 and transcript which sells better than just purely E-Books).

18. I have reserved myself a copy of the PLR license to my own product, which means I can still continue selling it to the end-users, thus will create another on-going income stream.

19. Oh, and did I mention that I did all these without leaving home?