Last week I had a CyberSale and I tried a few things I had never tried before. First I announced it on my blog 2 days before it actually happened. In addition, I gave the people on my blog announcement list a 24 hour head start. Then I opened it up to everyone who visits my blog but is not on my blog announcement list. There was scarcity involved because I really do only have a limited number of these tools & courses to sell and I made that clear in my announcement. So what were the results? Here’s a little inside information gleaned from taking a few minutes to examine the results.

I announced the sale would go live at 9AM and that’s exactly when it went live. It’s important to do what you say you’re going to do. The timestamps of the first few orders were 9:02AM, 9:03AM, and 9:06AM respectively. It takes a few minutes to fill in and submit the PayPal information so there were several people waiting for the doors to open so to speak. More proof that scarcity is an effective sales tactic. Just don’t lie about it.

Do bonuses increase sales? Absolutely. I was giving $400+ of bonuses with all purchases. A few people bought only the lowest priced item and nothing else. I suspected they were buying only for the bonuses and one of them told me exactly that via email. That’s fine with me. I offered the bonuses to increase sales and there’s proof that it worked. Actually it’s interesting to note that I never referred to any bonuses. I said all purchases would get an extra $400+ worth of stuff. But the email response I got referred to bonuses and that’s exactly what the extra $400+ worth of stuff is even if I didn’t specifically call them bonuses.

What about sales to my own list vs sales on the second day when I opened the sale up to everyone? 89% of buyers were on my blog announcement list and 88% of sales were on the first day when the sale was only open to my list. As a matter of fact, 55% of sales were in the first 30 minutes and 83% of sales were in the first 90 minutes. I suppose if people trust me enough to join my blog announcement list, then they are more likely to trust me enough to buy something from me. In any event, there’s more proof of the power of building a list and building a relationship with the list.

Another thing I’ve noticed over the past month is that traffic always increases when something is for sale. Always. Not most of the time. Always. James mentioned this to me in Costa Rica and Richard Lee recently said the same thing on his blog. That doesn’t mean that every post to your blog should offer something for sale. But if you think offering something for sale every week will turn people off and reduce traffic, you’re probably wrong. You’ll have to test it on your blog but my actual results show exactly the opposite.

Throw all the SEO crap out the window and apply common sense. Do you like the opportunity to save money? I do and so do most people. It’s human nature. Whenever I need a new pair of shoes I go to DSW because there is always a sale rack at the back of the store. Sometimes I go when I don’t need a new pair of shoes just to see what’s on sale. I don’t always find a pair of shoes I want to buy but frequently I do. And I keep coming back to see what’s on sale. I wouldn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to save money.

The exact same principle applies to your blog. Offer your blog readers the opportunity to save money every week. Not every visitor will be interested in your offer of the week, but some will buy. They’ll feel good about saving money and you’ll make a sale. Everybody wins. And they’ll keep coming back to see what’s on sale…especially if there is scarcity as there is with a 24 hour special. People don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to save money.

So was the sale a success? I would say so even though it didn’t quite sell out. I may have only had a limited number of tools & courses but hundreds of potential customers had taken advantage of the Boca Conversations Software Package the week before and already had what I was offering. That had a major negative impact on the sales results but I knew that going in so it wasn’t a big surprise. I figured there were a few people that missed out on the 24 Hour Special and apparently I was right. So they still got tools & courses at a huge discount and I still made a small profit. Everybody wins.

And since I still have a few courses & tools available. I’m offering them at half price plus the $400+ worth of stuff I’m giving away with every purchase. You can find the details here: CyberSale I’ll keep that page up for at least a week.  I’m giving you another opportunity to save money.

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