Marketing tips, strategies, and secrets
for internet marketing, online advertising
and website promotion that will skyrocket
your small, medium or home based
business profits through the roof.

An alternative and very innovative way
to marketing your product.

A client of mine put a business strategy to use about 4 months ago and was astounded by the crazy results. After reading this you will be stunned at the "funny" things that actually make money. He was selling a $995 "Computer Business Package". It was a set of instructional video tapes that show you how to start your own home-based business and turn your personal computer into a $4000 a month income generator. He also gave over 500 business ideas to use. He was getting thousands and thousands of leads every week online.

Because of the price of the package, we both new that the conversion rate to sales would be very low (it always is with high-priced packages). I recommended that he use "three step" advertising.

He ran an advertisement offering free information on his program. Thousands of people would request this information from an autoresponder. The letter from the autoresponder outlined what he had to offer in about 3 pages. He then stated that it would take over 20 pages of information to show you what was available with his package. And much of that was almost impossible to explain on paper. If you were interested and could afford the $1000 investment it would take to get your business operational, he would be more than happy to send you a video outlining everything and showing all the details of what is included and how it works. All he asked was that you place a $20 "good-faith" deposit on the video tape to cover his costs in case it was not returned and to weed out the non-serious people. The customer would just have to return the video tape once they had reviewed the material, and he would happily refund their $20 "good faith" deposit.

He had orders for about 200 tapes a week. These tapes cost him approximately $5.00 to produce (including shipping). And he collected $20 (by credit card or check) for every tape sent.

Out of the 800 tapes he sent out every month, only 240 would be returned for refund of their "good faith" deposit. That means that 560 people did not return the tape (for which he collected $20 each).

Let's do the math:

560 tapes X $15.00 = $8,400 net profit!

He was making $8,400 just from the "good faith" deposit on the tapes. This does not include the 5-7 people that bought his $995 business package. Wow, that's a good chunk of change! He was actually making more money on the introduction video tape than he was selling the Computer Business Package.

You may ask, "if most of these people did not buy his $995 course, why didn't they return the tape?"

1. He got the initial sales a lot easier than selling the tape because it was presented as a "good faith" deposit, not a purchase.
2. He added some interesting tips on starting a new business on the tape so that even if people did not want the $995 course, they were tempted to keep the tape for the tips.
3. He made it clear that you must be able to afford a $1000 investment before you order the tape (most people that can afford this are not worried about $20).
4. He did not remind the customer when he sent the tape that they get their $20 back if they returned it. Most people just plain forgot.

This example just goes to show you that there are sometimes interesting ways to make money.

Update on the "Wheelchair Lady" Success Story:

As I mentioned in a previous "success story", there is as 43 year old woman that wrote a report on how to get a free wheelchair from the government. All she did was document how she went about doing this for her elderly mother.

She proceeded to sell this report for $10.00 on the internet (her cost was approx. $2.00). At last report, she was making $30,000 a month! It is hard to believe that such a simple thing has such a market and so much profit potential.

Due to her success on the internet, she proceeded into advertising in newspapers and magazines... and actually lost money!

The report only made money (and a very healthy income at that) on the net.

If you take a reverse look at this... in many cases (such as with two of my other products) you can take a product that has not been successful with traditional marketing (direct marketing, newspapers, magazines, radio, etc.) and make money with it on the net.

Although this is a rare case (making $30,000 a month from a simple report), it does happen. I thought you might want this update... it's another example that the simplest (and sometimes strangest) ideas work on the net.

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