Neil Shearing’s Internet Marketing Strategies

On his weekly webcast, Joel released some news about his forthcoming book, “Click Here To Order” (not an affiliate link) and the marketing he’ll be doing to promote it.

With regards to the book itself, which will be available on Amazon, Joel said he interviewed 28 big names in Internet marketing, especially those whom he considered had the most impact on the Internet marketing niche and were instrumental in its development (think John Reese and his “million dollar day” in 2004). Joel said that there has never been a biography of the development of the Internet marketing niche… and “Click Here To Order” fills that hole in the market.

With regards to the marketing, Joel said that there would be a blog competition where blog visitors could leave comments answering the two questions, “Why would you want to win a copy of Click Here To Order?”, and “How would a day with Joel and his team in Loveland, Colorado change your life?” The winners of the competition will be announced on July 31st, the day before the book launch. The runners-up prizes will be two 30-minute phone consultations with Joel, and the grand prize will be an all-expenses paid trip to Loveland, Colorado to spend the day with Joel and his team seeing how they run their business.

Pretty cool.

I hope you enjoyed that “breaking news”.

I’m not promoting Traffic Secrets 2.0.

Why?

Because I haven’t seen it.

I suggest you read a review by someone who has reviewed the product such as Alice’s PDF or Lynn’s blog post. Andy Jenkins also reviewed TS 2.0 in a looong audio podcast.

I’ve no doubt Traffic Secrets 2.0 will be a great product… but because I haven’t seen it, I’m not promoting it.

As a prelude to his new Instant Resale Templates, Joel Comm has released a movie showing the countdown to launch of his previous product, Instant Adsense Templates. You can sense the high levels of stress and anticipation during the countdown to launch, and see the relief and excitement as the orders start to flood in post-launch.

As someone with experience of big launches, I can easily relate to the stress of hoping the server stays up and the order process goes smoothly. It’s quite nice to watch someone else going through the same sky-high adrenaline rush. Check it out for yourself here.

For anyone who’s interested in MMORPG’s (massive, multiplayer online role-playing games), the launch of Lord Of The Rings Online is a big event. LOTRO (as it’s known to its players) is a highly anticipated MMORPG set in Tolkien’s fantasy world.

What’s interesting, from an Internet marketing point of view, is how the marketing rollout of LOTRO has been handled. It’s been a multi-stage process… which can easily be adapted to selling your own products online.

Instead of just saying, “here’s the game, come and play”, the phases of launch have been…

1: Stress testing. (a few players who had to apply to help test the server load)
2: Pre-Order Beta (more players, but only those who had pre-ordered the game)
3: Open Beta (a few weeks free play, available to anyone.. starts today I believe.)
4: Game launch (the retail pack ships and is available in stores)

If you paid $10 for the Pre-Order pack, you get a special “Founder Offer” including unique in-game items (Enchanted Cloak of Regeneration, Ring of Agility), the chance to explore the world before everyone else and the chance to “lock in” early pricing of either $9.95 per month or $199 lifetime play… plus your character will “roll over” into the full launch… so you won’t have to start afresh. You still need to purchase the full retail box ($50 approximately) to redeem the Founder Offer, but I can imagine that early game access and discounts on pricing is an enticing proposition for many people.

If that sounds like “early bird discounts” or “first come first served bonuses” to you, then you are probably already aware of Internet marketing tactics used during the launch of new products. It’s interesting, to me, to see a MMORPG launch using similar tactics… rewards for being one of the first customers.

Of course, this ties in very nicely with my Insider Rollout Secrets product where I describe making sales of $250,000 from an ebook launch.

Michael Cheney said, referring to Insider Rollout Secrets, “I’ll be honest with you - I studied it word for word over and over and applied everything from it to my own launch.”

And what did Michael do? Yes, make $250,000 in sales within seven days during his Adsense Videos launch.