Progress Thread: PK's Internet Product #3

[piotrkrzyzek]

Hello Fastlaners,

Internet marketing is a big part of my life. Why? Cause I'm a geek. The internet, as we know, is a HUGE resource and has made more millionaires than ... well, anything.

Today I'm taking a crack at it ... again.

This is my 3rd internet information product and it's also the topic of this thread.

What is it? I'm not going to say yet. But it's a niche product in an area many people are expanding into. Once I have more of the base research complete I'll post the title/link/all-that-jazz here for you all to see how it's going live.

I have nothing to hide (except for the name and link for now), so I'll explain how the idea came about, how I made the site, design, seo, the plan and the usual progress intel.

Pre-launch date: July 31st, 2011
Real launch date: 1st week of August

Why the different? The prelaunch is to make sure everything is working, complete and most importantly of all: the payment processor integrates nicely into the sales funnel. Also, gives me a little bit extra time after completing the product to build up excitement, traffic and e-mail list.

Two goals for the site:

1. Make sales
2. Build e-mail list

How will I market the site?

• SEO
• PPC: Facebook, Bing, Yahoo, Other (I'd say what the others are but I don't remember their names)
• Social networks
• Media buys
• Forum posts
• Blog comments
• Articles
• Videos
• Guest posts
• Press release online and offline through a magazine journalist (by heart) and president I met last week. (Tip for the kiddies: Go network already!)
• Direct ads on sites I control
• Offline: flyers and newpaper ads
• Offline: networking with local businesses
• Offline: 'rat droppings' at local businesses

Task list:

• Preliminary research Stage 1: Done
• Preliminary research Stage 2
• Complete product: 25% complete
• Domain: bought
• Secure videos, download page, & product
• Secure S3
• Site design: 98% complete
• Site coding: 60% done
• Autoresponder list setup: 90% complete
• Opt-in form: done
• Opt-in form on site + video for preliminary design and funnel check: done.
• Logo/product design
• Payment processor integration
• Inform payment processor of impending tidal wave of funds
• 1st round of articles
• 2nd round of articles
• 7 series of blog posts
• 1st round of guest posts
• 1st 8 video series
• Connect with journalist guy to get Press releases made
• Have flyer created
• Rat droppings
• Setup PPC campaigns
• Setup automated social posts
• Post ads in newspapers

Budget: $1500.

Time limit until game over: August 12th.

So, I have until August 12th to make sales and recoup any funds.

Money spent so far:

• $70/m on upgraded hosting
• Several $$ per month of AWS S3
• Aweber: $149/y
• Design: free.
• Coding: self, thus free.

Expected costs:

• $150 to $400 on sales/marketing videos (if any, will most likely do sales video myself to save on time and money)
• $800 per week in PPC
• $30 for flyers and driving around to local biz
• $300 for offline ads

That's all the tasks I can think of at the moment with a migraine on the horizon for tonight.

If ya'll have any questions about online marketing, I'll answer what I can.

Quick note about Facebook ads, won't be using them much. Just need to test to see if FB is a good market for it or not. I'll explain why I don't like FB ads much a little bit later.

[Mike McAleer]

Thanks for sharing.

Good luck in your venture.

Mike

[wallstreet]

Look's great I'm def using your checklist. Consider me subscribed!

[piotrkrzyzek]

Today, completed pretty much all of the preliminary research, finish a 'top' list (a 'bonus'/extra), setup analytics and split testing on the landing page.

Analytics and split testing:

* Google Analytics
* Google Webmaster tools
* Google Website optimizer
-- Website optimizer is currently setup with 3 variations of the headline in the content area and 3 variations of the content.

Tasks for tomorrow:

* Setup e-mail
* Add legal pages and all that jazz
* Get logo/header graphic designed
* Quickly design powerpoint template that I'll use for sales video.

If time allows: start writing ebook.

[JamesF]

Great action!

[Strewth&Dodgy]

Hey there,

Just checked out your product & signed up to your lists. I like the music on the video and the concept.
Looking forward to following your progress and success.

K.

[piotrkrzyzek]

Hey Strweth,

Kinda hard to find my product as it hasn't been indexed by google yet o.O Maybe you're thinking of one of the other ones?

Which one did you find?

@JamesF: Thanks! I have found that this is the only way I can live: by making someone's life better while being 'free'. Thus, I need to work for now until I have enough passive income! Woot!

--PK

[piotrkrzyzek]

Got a bit delayed on the product creation.

Now I have:

Main product - item 1 - done

To do today:
Legal pages
Splice page design into shopping cart
Add product with one price level (for now) into the shopping cart system
Setup download/final page (no upsell yet)
Make test purchase
setup presell mailing list sequence
if I have time: setup post-sell sequence

Tomorrow:
Make sales presentation design (based off of page design)
e-mail list sequence
main product

wednesday:
work on main product
start marketing it on forums, blog comments, backlinking, bookmarking
Post link to product here for all of you guys and gals to check it out.
Setup special members only discount coupons for sites (like this one)

Thursday:
Research how to 'lock'/protect the website pages, the download page, the product and the thank you/upsell pages
Finish product
Outsource 10 articles (with at least 60% spin)

Friday:
Launch
Create video version of product for upsell

Saturday:
Buy MJ a bruskie/tea/coffee (or anyone who is in the Chicago-land north-west side area)

[Strewth&Dodgy]

Hey Strweth,

Kinda hard to find my product as it hasn't been indexed by google yet o.O Maybe you're thinking of one of the other ones?

Which one did you find?

@JamesF: Thanks! I have found that this is the only way I can live: by making someone's life better while being 'free'. Thus, I need to work for now until I have enough passive income! Woot!

--PK

found QFPL which looks cool and is definately indexed.

[piotrkrzyzek]

Ahh ... QFPL. Before Facebook went and changed everything I had an awesome plan for it. Well, now it's on the backburner.

Once I finish with this new project, I'm going to hire out a ghostwriter and sales manager for QFP and QFP-lite. All I can say about it: there is some SERIOUS monies to be made with marketing white-hat Facebook services (and products).

My new product site was indexed recently when I put up analytics and webmaster tools on it.

[piotrkrzyzek]

To simplify my life for now and the whole process, instead of creating a custom download solution I've instead used the shopping carts delivery system.

The only download is that it automatically creates a "24 hour live" link, and after that 24 hours the link is dead. Eh ... I'm not too happy with that. What if someone wants to download it 1 week later? Or RE-download?! ... this requires further investigation!

[piotrkrzyzek]

So, been delayed by real life (again).

Also I'm having trouble thinking of quality e-mail sequences. This is gonna take some thought. I might just toss up a PLR product in there (or 10) and call it a day.

The shopping cart and payment processor are all ready and tested. Yey!

And just setup e-mail forwarding from the payment processor to Aweber to handle the post-sale mailings.

I've decided NOT to go with a picture logo (for simplicity sake) and stick with a (nice) text logo. Might split test that later.

[piotrkrzyzek]

The site is ready for launch! The product is still being made and so are the autoresponders. But that's ok. Great time to start marketing.

The video there is just a placeholder for now. It'll be updated the closer I get to launch.

Check it out and let me know what you guys and gals think:

xGB | Piotr Krzyzek

[JDub07]

Staying tuned- Good luck!

[piotrkrzyzek]

Today's been a long day. I'm no content expert, yet I'm not outsourcing my articles. I'll go and do that tomorrow. I need at least 30 articles created for me. It'll cost me a pretty penny, BUT in the time that I could write one article I could be out there marketing my product.

Sheesh, I should have done this earlier. It's 4:40pm as I write this, and I'm only on follow up #5 for the presell! YEEK!

Also, I wanted to switch over to mailchimp, but that was a futile effort.

Why NOT MailChimp and why I'm sticking with Aweber?

I wanted to switch to mailchimp because it's a lower cost solution. So I was going to port over all my mailing lists to it (small lists). But then after digging around a bit I learned that in mailchimp you

1) Cannot do affiliate marketing
2) Cannot have an autoresponder for free anymore as a 'new' free account. Old accounts get grandfathered in, but all new accounts CANNOT have an autoresponder.

Even if I paid for MailChimp, it would end up being cheaper than Aweber but then there still is the problem of NO affiliate marketing. MailChimp even states this in their on blog that they do NOT WANT serious internet marketers on their system. Hmm .... ok....

Oh well. I'll stick with Aweber and their wacky hard-to-customize forms T.T

Sometime in the future I'll try out MailChimp again and see how that goes (with a new list).

For now, off to write the main product and hire out articles.

[JDub07]

What type of content articles are you looking for?

[piotrkrzyzek]

It'll be easier for me to just post the Freelancer.com link:

http://www.freelancer.com/projects/Blog-Articles/Need-articles-written-related-online.html

[Likwid24]

Just signed up! Intro Looks Great!!!

[piotrkrzyzek]

Rock on, thanks Likwid! I plan to make it even better this week!

[77startup]

Today's been a long day. I'm no content expert, yet I'm not outsourcing my articles. I'll go and do that tomorrow. I need at least 30 articles created for me. It'll cost me a pretty penny, BUT in the time that I could write one article I could be out there marketing my product.

Sheesh, I should have done this earlier. It's 4:40pm as I write this, and I'm only on follow up #5 for the presell! YEEK!

Also, I wanted to switch over to mailchimp, but that was a futile effort.

Why NOT MailChimp and why I'm sticking with Aweber?

I wanted to switch to mailchimp because it's a lower cost solution. So I was going to port over all my mailing lists to it (small lists). But then after digging around a bit I learned that in mailchimp you

1) Cannot do affiliate marketing
2) Cannot have an autoresponder for free anymore as a 'new' free account. Old accounts get grandfathered in, but all new accounts CANNOT have an autoresponder.

Even if I paid for MailChimp, it would end up being cheaper than Aweber but then there still is the problem of NO affiliate marketing. MailChimp even states this in their on blog that they do NOT WANT serious internet marketers on their system. Hmm .... ok....

Oh well. I'll stick with Aweber and their wacky hard-to-customize forms T.T

Sometime in the future I'll try out MailChimp again and see how that goes (with a new list).

For now, off to write the main product and hire out articles.

Have you consider OfficeAutoPilot ?