Case Study – Selling A simple Step-by-Step Guide

Last week I started promoting a simple step-by-step guide so this week I thought I’d share a few results and observations.

First let me explain how I decide on a topic for any step-by-step guide:

On a daily basis I visit internet marketing forums and keep an eye out for common questions asked by forum members. I keep notes on these questions and potential topics for step-by-step guides soon become obvious.

The best topics are those in which you can explain how to do something which will ultimately make the readers life easier and/or increase their income.

The Easy Keyword Research Guide I created was a result of questions I saw posted on the forums. Because it is based on common questions which are regularly asked, the guide has been well received and continues to make sales because it is so useful.

Here are the sales figures after the first week:

Total sales: 51

Total profit: $359.27

The sales include income from:

- WSO sales (with discount – 48.6% of profit)

- Sales to my optin list (with discount – 28.4% of profit)

- Direct sales from my blog (no discount – 11.3% of profit)

- Sales of product promoted within the guide (11.7% of profit).

While these are not particularly good sales figures, there is one important aspect to bear in mind – Anybody can achieve them.

How so?

To answer that let’s take a look at where each sale came from and analyze what is involved:

1. The optin lists which resulted in 28.4% of the total profit were built by:

   Giving away a step-by-step guide.

   Step-by-Step guides are incredibly easy to create, and when formated properly they become popular. No great skill is required, and with a little research anybody can create a useful “how to” guide (especially if you use the information in my “Easy Step-by-Step Guide Creation Manual” which details the method I use for all my guides).

   One easy method of building a list is to promote Step-by-Step guides through giveaway events and article marketing. All you need to get started is a splash page with an optin form, and a download page.

   Selling to existing customers.

   For every product I sell there is an optin form on the download page for customers to subscribe to an update/new product advisory list. 83.4% of customers of the Easy Keyword Research guide have opted into this, which means I now have more customers to sell future guides to.

   In my opinion, a list of customers is quite possibly the most valuable asset an internet marketer can own.

2. The WSO sales were possible because I have been a member of the Warrior forum for some time and and have a number of helpful posts behind my belt.Warrior forum members who regularly participate in ongoing discussions and create their own useful posts soon build up a following of like minded members. This following makes it easier to generate sales when you promote a product through a Warrior Special Offer.

   Of late the WSO forum has been overrun by new members who make just enough posts to qualify and then try to sell their own junk products. The end result is WSO’s are not nearly as profitable as they used to be:

   - WSO’s fly off the first page within a day

   - Forum members are wary of new products, especially those from new members.

   (This is perhaps a good thing because soon these people will realize that there is a lot more involved in running a successful WSO, and hopefully will pack up and leave…)

3. My blog is fairly new and I don’t publish posts daily.

   I can only imagine how many direct sales I could have generated if I had been posting to my blog daily and it was receiving more traffic…

   One of the cornerstones to successful blogging is to publish posts regularly. No great secret here – the more posts targeting relevant keywords, the more content a search engines has to include in their index.

   The more content included in a search engine’s index, the more traffic they can send your way (in the form of users searching for information).

4. More than one tenth of the profit came from promoting a related product within the step-by-step guide.

   Cross promoting either your own products, or affiliate products from within a Step-by-Step guide is a no brainer. Readers will click on links to interesting related products, and you will make sales through these links (an important point to bear in mind when creating give away products used for list building).

Like I said earlier, anybody can achieve these results, easily…

Personal Observations

1. I may have set the price too low. This is not based on any testing I’ve done, but rather from comments I’ve received from customers who were initially turned off by the low price.
2. I’ve dropped the ball by not using this opportunity to build a bigger list. By incorporating a 100% commission structure some customers would promote the guide which would result in a much bigger optin list to which I could promote new reports.

What’s next?

1. Create a 100% commission affiliate system to build a bigger list of customers.
2. Create new Step-by-Step guides to sell to existing subscribers and customers.
3. Start promoting the guides through other methods such as article marketing, Squidoo etc.
4. Start posting regularly to my blog; more traffic = more sales.

You can expect a follow up case study based on these 4 points.

Filed under My Views on Internet Marketing