A First Sale?……..Maybe TWO!
Today I had an early start again as our coaching webinar started at 5am Thailand time.
Dragged myself out of bed at 4.30am to be sure I could get my internet connections organized in time – we have to recharge the home power supply batteries and check our electrical wiring conductors first – only joking but some days it seems like this!
My PayPal Emails
Anyway, I had a few moments to spare before our webinar started so checked my blog for any comments, looked at Google analytics to see if my visitor trends were still going up (and they were!) and then had a quick look in my email….and wow…notification from PayPal of my very first ever sale!
And not one sale, I actually had landed TWO SALES! What a great way to start my day. The tiredness left my body immediately and I was like a kid with a new toy.
It was still dark before 5am but I let out a yell that woke up the entire Thai village where I live. Folks thought I was having a seizure or a crazy fit. After all it was still pitch black outside and this half-dressed Aussie guy was running around scaring the buffaloes, waking all the dogs and acting like a loud bloody clown!
But I needed to cool down. Our webinar was about to start. You don’t know how many times I had to stop myself from sending a message to my mentor and coach in the middle of our webinar telling him about my first sale.
Allen Davis – One of Life’s Good Guys
Anyway following our webinar that contained some fabulous ideas about Joint Venture and Affiliate marketing (more on this in a later post) I spent some valable time on Skype with my special friend Allen Davis.
Allen runs a great blog called For Internet Newbies Dot Com that specialises in helping new-comers to internet marketing. I recommend you visit his blog as he has lots of ideas and opportunities for people just starting out online, like me.
We are working together in preparing for my very first giveaway event as part of my list building strategy.
It’s called the World Cup Giveaway event and the link will take you there. Whether you want to be a contributor or join as a free member for all the free gifts, the visit is worth it as it’s one of the biggest of the year.
I am hoping to get a kick along with my list building from participating but I also suggest you visit and download some gifts in order to see just how some people operate..and to start building some relationships with potential JV partners.
Oops…The Penny Drops!
During our Skype discussions Allen showed me, using the fantastic “screen share” facility in Skype, exactly how to upload my two new products and download pages to the giveaway event. And then just as we were about to finish our session he quietly mentioned about the “possibility of a refund.”
Yes you guessed it. Allen had been testing all my systems including my opt-in pages and as well my two “One Time Offers” we added to the free gifts…and that testing included my PayPal buttons!!!
So my two sales disappeared. But I did learn how to provide a refund in PayPal!
Simple Anatomy of a Giveaway
Amazing things these Giveaway events. To me it’s a bit like an auction. Your capacity to place gifts into the event and the position your gifts are placed in the members’ area is determined by the number of points you have.
The more points you can allocate to your free gifts, the higher “up the totem pole” your gift will appear. After all you really wouldn’t want to have your free gifts (the very source of your new subscribers) located way down on page 50. Similar to doing a Google search, how many of you have ever bothered to look at your keyword search results on the 30th or 40th page of Google results? Never!
How To Decide?
So it’s a balancing trick in allocating your points. Do I use them all to position one of my products up as high as possible or just share 50/50 or do I use some of my points and allocate them to banner advertising or allocate points to another opt-in arrangement.
Even after I decided on my point’s allocation the position my gifts were placed in is also very fluid. The event starts today but many of the big players have yet to submit their gifts…and when they do they will have large existing mailing lists that they can leverage to promote the giveaway and earn stacks more points.
Allen Davis tells me that I can accumulate more points throughout the World Cup Giveaway be recommending people to visit the free site via my membership link. So how about helping this Thai village idiot out and click the link or the banner.
For sure the big players will come in and try to swamp the event at the last minute but hey, it’s worth the effort.
Let the Games Begin
I am very happy with my two free gifts offers, the opt-in pages and download pages also look very professional. Fortunately with Allen’s help, we located some free gifts that were fairly new and linked very closely to my key interest of helping people to get established online. With some luck I might also get some OTO sales and make up for my early morning disappointment!
Love your Feedback
I will let you know what happens and give you my feedback on this list building getting started strategy. As always please leave me your feedback in the comments below.
Important Notice
My blog is not designed to be a monologue.I already know what I think.
So please tell me what you think or what you disagree with or perhaps don’t understand OK?
No related posts.
Hi Peter,
Nice post. I guess I should have warned you that I like to test everything (including Paypal buttons) before we drive live traffic to it. I didn’t mean to cause a village uproar.
I just thought I’d mention that people have to actually opt in to the giveaway for you to get points. Clicks aren’t enough. But a lot of the gifts I have seen in there are well worth an opt-in.
Not all giveaway events have the amount of flexibility that this one does. There are two main Giveaway scripts in use today: Giveaway Manager 3 and The Ultimate JV Giveaway Script.
This event is using Giveaway Manager 3 which is really more suitable for more advanced marketers because of the complex point system.
Other events using The Ultimate Giveaway Script might be easier for a novice contributor to get started with their list building.
I made the offer to help people get set up in this giveaway mainly because it looked like an event that would get people a lot of subscribers at the time that I decided to do this project.
I may do a similar project on an event using the Ultimate JV Giveaway script in the future, to do a comparison of the two scripts.
Good luck in the giveaway.
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Hi Allen,
No problems…the village is getting used to me. Well we have been here nearly 6 years now after moving back from Bangkok.
I hope other readers of my blog see your comments and contact you – you are my “giveaway guru”
Thanks again for all your support and patience with me!
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Peter,
Even thopugh they became refunds, well done on actually getting the sales. Some people will never see that.
Also, well done on the press release.
I’ve used giveaway events before and you WILL get subs using them.
Try monetizing your exit traffic as well, just another way for you to profit from the event.
Reach new heights and well done again.
Nathan
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Peter Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
Hi Nathan,
What a simple but really good idea…many thanks for that.
Your feedback is always greatly appreciated
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Hi Peter,
I can imagine your excitement over your first 2 sales, not the refunds. But it’s good to know everything is working and in good shape for the giveaway.
I haven’t done one myself. I’ve entered a few
Keep up the good work, have a great weekend!
Scott
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Peter Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Hi Scott,
Well the giveaway experience is just that….a real experience for me.
I thought that once you entered then you just had to wait for people to sign up and build your list.
BUT that’s not how is works…every day there is a lot of changes and movement by contributors who add more members or pay more money to have their free gifts upgraded and closer to the opening pages of the free gift catalog. Just like Google where you really wouldn’t want to be located on the 100th page of a search for your keywords….same applies in a smaller way to giveaways and its easy for your initial position to be completely eroded by other contributors getting their free gifts placed higher than yours.
Anyway, I am enjoying the “learning curve” and at least I will add a few subscribers to my list…and I will treat them “like gold!”
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Hey Peter, refunds are just part and parcel with working online unfortunately, even though yours were not actually refunds in the normal sense.
I would have signed up under your link had I not already signed up a few weeks ago, Sally
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Peter Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
Hi Sally,
You’re right but at least it was exciting for a few hours!
Will just keep at it as I truly want to experience that feeling of my first REAL sale.
Thanks for the nice support Sally
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You are on fire Peter – love your speed of implementation. Seeing sales is a great feeling – keep it up and they will come.
I signed up for your email list. You might want to try to tie the page that new subscribers see to the opt-in form on your web site (maybe a reference to the webinar) because I felt like there was a small disconnect. Shoot me an email for clarification.
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Peter Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Jason,
Great feedback…I will email you
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[...] I may do a similar project on an event using the Ultimate JV Giveaway script in the future, to do a comparison of the two scripts. Good luck in the giveaway. Allen Daviss last blog ..Is This a Scam? My ComLuv Profile. [Reply] …Click Here [...]
Hi Peter:
All the best, Gigi
Thanks for visiting my blog. You wanted to know how I got the audio on my blog. Well all you have to do is get the plugin: Odiogo Listen Button . That’s it! Hope you enjoyed my free Email genius ebook and congrats on your first 2 sales even though they did refund
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Id love to help you out peter! This is very iteresting pretty lucky to have a man like Allen on your team =D
seems like one hell of a guy ^_^
Congrats i can understand the excitment you must have had lol (stinks about the refunds though) but hey when it really goes live at least you’ll have all the numbers =D. Just gotta remember to get back up my man.
Keep it up man things only get brighter =D
Talk soon,
Ashawndra Michelle
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Peter Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
Hi Ashawndra. Thanks for the encouragement. It was a good learning curve but not the end of the world!
Best wishes to you
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