The $7 system
You might have seen a rash of mini-products (usually eBooks) come out lately, priced at $7. It's all to do with a report released by someone or other advising those who know "something" to memorialise it and sell the information.
It's a great idea, and something which I first did 3 years ago when I was running osC Books.
Why $7?
Well, a number of reasons;
- Any price ending in $7 is the marketers best friend
- $7 is a large enough amount to add up over the course of a months worth of sales (after paypal fees etc)
- Anyone and everyone can afford $7
- Hardly anyone is going to try to claim a refund for a $7 product
Typical examples of $7 products are "how to create an affiliate link", "how to make a shadow using photoshop", "how to speed up your computer", "how to install linux" and so on. As you can see, this style of report is really quite basic stuff.
The way forward, for you
Basically, if you know something, anything, memorialise it in PDF format and sell it for $7 (or whatever).
Assuming you create 10 such reports, and make just 5 sales of each in a month, that is 10*5*7 = $350 — and for doing next to no work. An AIS, if you will. So, what do you know? Do you know about online services such as Squidoo or ezinearticles or myspace or facebook or {whatever} – create a report and sell it for $7.
The report need only be a few pages – if you can include screenshots so much the better! How about making a $7 MP3 – perhaps this would work for your area of knowledge? Or maybe a video – it's simple to create a video of a web application (Camtasia, or Camstudio do well). Perhaps even a video of you talking, and answering questions sent in by readers of your blog or site.
Conclusion
There are people out there who would rather spend a smallish amount of money than spend time researching for themselves. I know this for a FACT – my mini osC Books reports sold well, and still sell to this day.
By the way, if you wanted to spend $7 on getting the $7 system eBook, feel free to click here. Note that this is an Affiliate Link – I have purchased, and tested the system, and it is excellent – simple and effective.
Comment by James — February 19, 2007 @ 9:43 pm
I bought it.
It is a cool system and includes the scripts to set it up yourself. Also, it is designed to be viral in order to increase email lists for you.
And hey, its just $7 and I have already got that back.
Comment by gary — February 20, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
Also, not forgetting the ability to moentise your $7 product in other ways. For example, embedding affiliate links within the product (this is something I spoke about previously).
Also, bear in mind that buyers of your product(s) will also be joining your "list" – a list of people who have bought from you and may well do so in the future. Even if you have just 100 on a list, the chances are that if they liked your 1st product, they'll like your next one too…internet marketers are always saying "the money is in the list"…
Comment by gary — February 22, 2007 @ 11:14 am
I also succumbed to buying the $7 secrets report. My explanation above is pretty much a short version of it. Create and sell a product for $7. However, what I missed out is important; the ability to easily have other people sell your $7 product for 100% commission, it works like this;
1. A person buys your product for $7. They download it and like it.
2. They are able to get code (like an affiliate code) which allows them to receive their referred sales immediately into their own Paypal account. What marketer wouldn't want that?
Next up, a question, why would a seller want to give away 100% of the sale fee? To get more sales from a "sales force". Remember that every sale builds your mailing list, and of course there is an opportunity to promote a higher priced back-end offer.
It's stunningly simple and incredibly effective.
The main value of the $7 report, is not the report. Buyers also receive the $7 scripts which power the whole process – making it a snap to get set up and running.
Conclusion
Absolutely worth $7. The scripts alone would cost you more than that to have coded by a decent programmer.
Comment by James — February 22, 2007 @ 4:26 pm
The script now offers a one time offer(OTO)at the time of sale. You can use this to still make money while giving the affiliate his 100% commission on the original offer.
Also the OTO can be set to give a % of commissions to the affiliate on the OTO.
I really like the way this is set up so everyone wins.
Comment by Oli Allen — February 22, 2007 @ 7:40 pm
I'm not sure if I like the idea of the commissions going straight to the affiliate's Paypal account.
Person A might buy from Affiliate A, something goes wrong and Affiliate A issues a refund via Paypal.
Person B hears about this, but orders through Affiliate B, Affiliate B refuses the refund and throws insults at the customer for asking. It's your name on the sales page. Person B never buys from you again.
Comment by gary — February 23, 2007 @ 12:03 am
Who cares if Person B never buys again – if they want to attempt a $7 refund, they are not the sort of customer I want to deal with, ever. Something like that anyway
Comment by mark from 45n5.com — March 3, 2007 @ 1:32 am
just bought 1 through the link, thanks for the tip