Confessions of a Six Figure Professional Blogger

$2,918 In 55 hours With A Blog – How It Was Done

December 4, 2009 | Making Money, Marketing

Yes, this last Black Friday weekend, I ran a special (as pretty much everybody does) and I brought in almost 3-grand in a little over 48 hours. I thought I would give you the scoop on how it was done. It is so insanely easy, and the marketing behind it is just about as simple as it gets.

The special began on Friday at a little after 1PM EST when I sent out my first email to the mailing list. On Sunday at 3AM EST, I sent a “final notice” to let them know the deal was coming to a close. The deadline was 8PM EST on Sunday. Why 8PM? Because it would be easy to pop onto the computer after dinner and turn the special off. :) And why did I send the last notice at 3AM? So that the people on the west coast would be after midnight and I could tell them that the special was ending on the same day (more urgency).

So, in total, the entire promo consisted of 2 emails to the list, and about 15 minutes of work on the site itself. I think I had about 45 minutes of my time in this promotion – total.

Here’s how it was done…

The deal was 30% off of the yearly membership. There was clear urgency because of the pending deadline. And just to drive that home, I put a timer on the top of the sales page to count down to 8PM on Sunday. I also made clear the money-back guarantee (which is always there). I also made clear that there would be no renewals (no obligation or contract, as some people perceive membership sites). I didn’t disable renewals so much as part of the deal, but mainly because the refund rates on yearlys seems to be higher anyway (members forget after a year).

Also, the emails I sent to the list were low-key. I was not in sales mode, really. I just told them what the deal is. And by telling them I wasn’t in sales mode and that I’d rather be with my family (all of which was true – after all this was Thanksgiving), it enhances empathy. It is also a pattern interrupt from all the overt marketing people get around Black Friday.

As usually happens, people wait until the last minute. The last day saw over half of the total sales, many of them coming in the last few hours.

Here are the “take-away’s” you should employ in your own marketing:

  1. Always employ urgency in your marketing. It drives people to take action. Give them a reason to act and a clear deadline.
  2. Visually show the deadline with a timer. It works.
  3. Give a reason why. Every time I conduct a promotion like this, it is tied to an event (such as me traveling). This time, the event was obvious – Black Friday. Everybody was in a retail mood (the society more or less trains it into them). Take advantage of it.
  4. Tie a membership site in with your blog. Marketed right with quality content and it will turn into a cash cow.
  5. You need a mailing list. The reason this promotion was so easy was because I had an established mailing list. Without it, it would have gone over like a fart in church.

So, there you go. A small behind-the-scenes look at a recent promo. Pretty simple stuff, actually.

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  • I think urgency is definitely the key. I just hope my blogs will reach your stellar status one of these days. Inspiring!
  • Nice. How is the new opt-in form working so far?
  • Heh. I got a bump, but there is still work to do. The copy isn't compelling enough. Got things in the works. :-)
  • Awesome. I am planning to turn my best product in a membership site, launch it and use scarcity (urgency) to make more sales. The launch formula style with a membership is really effective.

    Franck Silvestre
    the Body Guard Marketer
  • Absolutely.
  • Hey David,

    Another great post my friend. I think points 4 and 5 are the real takeaways here. Without a list and a strong membership to offer, this would have been much harder to accomplish.
  • 55 Hours! A really good addition would be a running clock with a cash balance to show it going up!
  • Congrats.
  • Hey David,
    You're the machine I inspire to be. :)
  • Nice you were earning approx $3890 an hour! A handy hourly rate there ;) hehe. (if 45min was total time spent on promotion)

    The thing I find with the timers is that I sometimes don't believe them, I always think they're there adjusted just to ME and if I were to visit the site on another computer the timer would just reset back to the start. Anyone else feel similar?

    I think this is based on past experience, or maybe being uncomfortable with the urgency of some sales pages that I sometimes wonder why is there a timer? Obviously it works as you've shown on this post so if I ever create a dated sales page I will employ this techinique.

    Thanks for sharing valuable info David!

    Sarge | BeginnerBlogger.com
  • Fantastic. Really highlights the importance of that mailing list, as you've pointed out so often. Marketers are dead without it, plain and simple.
  • Awesome! How does one go about adding a timer?
  • It is just a simple javascript timer. I forgot which one I have, but Googling around will find you plenty of them.
  • Always nice to see the step by step behind the scenes. Just shows you how important the list is.
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