What Do I Do After They’ve Bought My Product? - The Podcast Report Episode #56

Okay, Paul. What I do after they've actually bought my product. It's the Podcast Report Episode 56 show notes things, conversation and more at the podcastreport.com 56 it's the podcast report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul. It's Paul Colligan and I've got a big idea for you. And it's a big idea that's actually bigger than podcasting. It's a big idea that's been around for a long time and it affects us podcasters in a very deep and important way. And it's this. Keeping a customer is always easier than getting a new one. Keeping a customer is always easier than getting a new one. Hey, this is Paul. My name is Paul Karligan. I'm a podcaster. I'm an author. This is my show. This is the podcast report. I've been in podcasting since the very beginning. I went to the first shows, I met the first people. I remember when we could all fit into a room. I love this industry. I've loved this industry since day one. And thank you podcaster for listening to the show. You are a podcaster looking to make your podcast a real business or do real business because of your podcast. The idea of a show about mic wars or hosting platforms, that type of thing isn't for you. You're here for what's happening in podcasting. This is the podcast report. This is not a massive play. It's never been a massive play, but it's a deep one. Welcome, dear podcaster friend. A quick update on Patreon. If you've been following along in past episodes. I've been playing with Patreon a little bit and and I promise to make a big announcement after podcast movement. We've got a couple more weeks to go. Definitely going to keep it. Patreon.com PaulCulligan if you are interested, it's going to have a new look but if you want to get in and you want to get in the report, you can go ahead and take a look at that. I've got a mini big announcement for you. I've got a big, big announcement coming out at movement. You'll hear about it next week's episode but go ahead and take a look@smstoooptin.com sms2optin.com I've got a link to that in the show notes as that's the first of my new games. So there we go. You here on the podcast report. Heard it first. So this topic, what do I do after they bought My product. Where does this come from? Well, last Week's episode, episode 55 was about podcasters selling their own stuff. And this episode, this one struck a chord. There are a lot of you who are very intrigued by this and responded and email and social with this idea that I can sell something. And the money behind selling something is actually better than a lot of the other monetization options and podcasting. And that's exciting. But then once they've bought the T shirt or once they've bought the book, or once they've bought the cd, what do we do? So if you didn't listen to last week's episode, definitely head out to the podcastreport.com 55. I've obviously got links to it in this week's show notes as well, but that's a b. I was listening to a podcast episode and I don't want to link to it because I don't openly criticize. But gosh darn it, it was a story of what should have been a dream come true. But it was a dream turned nightmare. Because this idea that it stops with one sale, it stops with one purchase, and it doesn't. The relationship with your audience should continue to grow, should continue to grow over time. I just saw three nights ago. What is it? Yeah, three nights ago I saw Bruce Hornsby in the range in conc. I saw Bruce Hornsby in the range in concert 30 years ago in high school. I have a 30 year relationship with this band. I bought albums, I've bought CDs, I have bought T shirts, I bought concert tickets. I have bought overpriced food at these events. I know, like, I trust. I love Bruce Hornsby. I love what he's done and that's the type of relationship that you can have with your audience. Now. I've had amazing experiences with long term customers. Some of you come from, you know, the old front page world days, who have moved from front page publishing into podcast publishing. And, and I know about just. Well, I know about selling stuff and I know it's selling stuff online. So I thought we'd share this here. Another thing that's really interesting, I was looking at the numbers and for those of you who are listening to this, you know, somewhat currently, there's some dates here for those of you who aren't. I try desperately when I do a podcast to make evergreen content that lasts a while. So I'm going to give you a stat that is important conceptually, but not necessarily chronologically here. And the concept is this. You know, I'm looking at the numbers for Podcast Movement 2015. I'm obviously interested who's coming to my session. And here's the thing. More than two times as many people are coming to my session as are coming to a panel session on podcast advertising standards, which is a very important topic with some very big hotshots in the space. Why? Why are they coming? Well, I can guess a number of reasons. The main reason, the big reason that I guess is just simply that we're realizing, we're understanding that monetization is bigger than advertising standards and the relationship that we can build is better than the price we can charge for our ads. So with all that said and done, I figured, let's almost do a part two to last week's episode. I've sold something. Now what? What do we do next? Where do we go from here? Let's have some fun. So again, if you haven't listened to last week's episode, do listen to that. Okay? Keeping a customer is always easier. I mean, think about it. That is economics 101. That is common sense 101. That is good business 101. If somebody has come in and decided to spend their hard earned money with you, if you have come in and decided to spend your hard earned money with me, that is a relationship. That is a moment of trust. And if I have something else for you and it still serves you and it still meets your needs and it still is in the genre of what you're looking for, why wouldn't you pick that up? You know, Bruce Hornsby had another album. Why wouldn't I pick that up at the concert that I'd spent all that money on and the food and everything, you know, he announced a new album that's coming out. Gosh darn it, I'm going to pick up that thing. Why? Because keeping a customer is easier. You know, if they want one thing, it's easier to want more. So let's think about a customer. Let's think about somebody who bought something from you. And it's easier to keep them than it is to get a new one. So what do we do? You know, you have one thing to sell. Well, the easiest thing to sell is some sort of membership system, because then it's week after week or month after month or episode after episode. Patreon is definitely an example of that. And that's why I'm playing with it as much to show you the model as much as it is anything out and there will be some new announcements there. Patreon's a great example. Gimlet Media, the guys behind Mystery show, the guys behind startup, they just launched a membership program. $5 a month, $60 a year. What's kind of funny is I signed up for the $60 a year program because they're giving a T shirt with that and Lord knows I love me my T shirts and that and I really did want to support the guys. But what's funny is once I paid my 60 bucks, there's a notice that, you know, I will be getting my t shirt in 12 weeks. Oh my goodness. About, come on guys, you can do better than that. The people who know like and trust you and give you money, treat them well. Please treat them well. But I'm in. I signed up. I've got links to their thing in the show notes, the podcastreport.com 56. I've got links to my tweet out to them calling them on this three month thing. I mean, come on. But it's interesting. Membership is there. If you go to membership. Digital is obviously easy because digital allows you to provide things digitally. But man, people like physical people like the physical manifestation of things they like to touch. I still sell a great amount of physical books even though all my topics are digital. Even though, you know, like 98% of all my sales come from Amazon where they can grab things right now to download. People like to touch and, and think about that for your membership program, you know, you look at products like systems like quarterly and some of these guys, I mean, consider just things like I chatted about last week, you know, Kunaki with a disc every month or maybe a disc every quarter, you know, all mailed out through them, still print on demand, still all the things we were talking about. But so one thing obviously is membership. That one's easy. The next one is just the idea of upgrades to what they've already purchased. Now, one of the least elegant, least recommended upgrade options. But if you've got nothing else, do this. Consider an affiliate type of thing. I mean, if your audience knows, likes and trusts you and they have just purchased something from you and there's something that makes sense from another, you know, provider of goods that comes with your recommendation, this is really, really an interesting option. You know, I have no money in a lot of Internet marketing ventures and podcasting ventures, Podcast Movement, for instance, I'm not an affiliate of, you know, but I, but I sure recommend them. And I'll tell you this, if Podcast Movement had an affiliate program and you know, I was able to recommend them and make a Few bucks in the process, I might conscientiously spend a little bit more time recommending them. And the same thing could be done for you on the thank you page. When they pick up something, you might want to give them an option to pick up something else from somebody else that at least you recommend. Not elegant, not perfect, but fast. It's easy. And you know, gosh darn it, could it pay for your marketing? I mean, imagine if everybody who bought your product, if you know one third of them brought a product that made you $30 and then that means you made 10 additional dollars per customer. And what if you spent that $10 marketing your show and getting new customers for your show? In the industry they call it the self liquidating offer. But you know, I'd like to call it, what if it could just pay for itself? Something to think about. If you do T shirts, obviously more than one T shirt, obviously the family pack other place for logo wear. You could do hats, you could do buttons, you could do bags, shirts, those kinds of things, everything. I mentioned the guys over at vistaprint, any kind of logo. Where is there if somebody wants to proudly tell the world that they like your show? Don't want to do that. A lot of ways give them an opportunity to do that. Stickers are great. All those things are there. Books. You know, if you're selling a book, this one's easy. The next book. People love to pick up the next book. Every time I do an event, people come, paul, when's your next book coming out? And what's interesting is if you were to sell your book on installments, a chapter a week, a chapter a month, a section of it a month or something like that. That make your books sort of the membership type of situation, you know, I'll tell you, there's nothing like a pre sell to keep your butt in line. Now the last two books that I produced had a podcast, 2015 and YouTube strategies 2015. The thing that kept me in line and got these books out the door on time was the fact that I kind of declared them as being sold and put them up for pre sale up at Amazon. And, you know, Nothing like getting 100, 200 orders for a book, knowing that if you don't deliver, you know, they take back the money. That's an interesting model. So books are easy, you know, the next version of the book, different versions of the same premium product is something that people forget. You know, people, some podcasters, maybe it's. You have the thought that like they can get this thing for free. Why would they pay for it? That's kind of step one, going to premium. Listening to an interview with the guy who wrote the Martian, if you don't know the story of the Martian, phenomenal. Look it up. A lot of fun. And what was interesting, he shared that more people in his initial release, in his initial marketing, not when the hype kicked in, more people bought the Kindle version than downloaded the free version. Why? Because of the simplicity, because of the ease. Because they know, liked and trust the guy. But what's interesting, the Martian now is available. Kindle for six bucks, paperback for nine bucks, Audible for $26.95. The book on tape version, for lack of a better description, is $27. It's more than four times between four to five times as much as the Kindle version, you know, and the guy in the interview said he had both. Why? People who know, like and trust you sometimes want a premium product. They sometimes want it in a different way. Amazon's whole whisper sync thing is fascinating. The idea that I can read it in bed and listen to it in the car, that might be something you want to do. I'm still selling transcripts for the podcast report. You know, I had volume one transcripts that still sells. People are still buying them. I've got a link in the show Notes, you know, yes, these are the same transcripts that I gave away for a text link. These are the same transcripts that you can get a bunch of other places. But people are buying them because wrapped up in a Kindle book. And this is a 999 Kindle book, by the way, is very, very nice, and that's working. People are still buying them. Another place that you can upsell, and this one's phenomenal. And I have to do more of this. I'll tell you that right now. Events and experiences. A number of podcasters are actually selling events in conjunction with Podcast Movement 2015. The one who's doing it the most exciting way for me is a guy named Lou Mongello. If you don't know Lou, to know Lou is to love Lou. Lou, I love you. Lou's one of the best. And what he's done is he has done a tremendous job in podcasting, and I've got a link to his site. But one thing, Lotus, is Lou sells experiences. And boy, when somebody experiences something with Lou and he's related to Disney, which is the king of experiences, but, man, they come back and they come on a regular basis and they bought once and they buy again and again and again. Definitely study Lou. Definitely go out to his website, take a look at what he's doing. If you get a chance to catch him at podcast movement, he's one of the keynotes and he's one of the best. But events and experiences are definitely great. Another option is branded extensions of what you already sell or maybe what we call the industry, a white label. Now, I've done this with my legal podcast music site. I've teamed with a friend and we've taken his product and we've made it available as podcast music. That's available legal and it's. He's done all the work, we've done the white labeling of it and that's an option as well. And no, you me this, it's not the only white label coming out. Hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. So branded extensions of what you sell is great. So in the upgrades, affiliate options, not beautiful, but they're, you know, the T shirts, you can go to other products, books, you can go to more books, different versions of the same premium products, events, experiences, branded extensions. You can sell other things to your audience. And they've already taken out the credit card. They already know you, they already like you, they already trust you. And if you provide them something good, I mean, obviously don't, you know, swag, junk at them or whatever the proper term is. Give them what it is that they need, what is they're looking for, and you're going to do well. Couple more thoughts. Number one, make it easy. Make it easy, make it easy, make it easy, make it easy. We should have Jeff Smith write a tune for that. Every time I have to pull up my credit card, I get frustrated. You know, it's that option when you know the one click, upsell, Hey, I already have your credit card on file. Hey, Paul. The cheap, easy, simple e commerce systems don't let me keep the credit card on file. Yep. And you might want to think about not going with one of those cheap ones. You might want to think with somebody with going PCI compliant. Keep that on file so you can go back in and charge them when they are looking for something new, when they tell you to do so. A new transaction is always harder than an upsell and upgrade on an existing transaction. Every time they pull out the credit card or every time you ask them to pull out the credit card, things can go south quickly. And then number two, think about affiliates. I mean, think about it. Those who know like and trust you definitely already want to introduce you to the people who know like and trust them. And you give them a financial consideration. Oh my goodness. This becomes amazing. Hey Paul, the E commerce program I work with doesn't have a good affiliate program. Well, there we go. Get a better E commerce system. So what I'm doing well, I'm going to start solving more than one thing for customers who know, like and trust me. I've got a suite of things coming and they're going to make sense and they're going to be perfect. And for those of you who have joined the happy family of purchase stuff, I'm gonna have some more options for you. And for those of you who haven't, fine. We still got the show, we still got other things. I might even start blogging a little bit more, but that's definitely where I'm going. I definitely recommend you do that as well. And I am going to make it a lot easier. I'm going to take the card, I'm going to keep the card. I'm going to make it so that upsells and upgrades and new things and bonuses and add ons and extensions and all those things. Very, very easy to do. Some things that you can do simply. You know, last week I asked you to write down a list of things you could maybe sell to your audience. Well, upgrade that list. I'd like you to sit down and make a list of multiple items you could sell and upgrades and additional paths and that kind of stuff. The very least consider an affiliate. Consider some sort of thing to just see what happens there. Because man, it's really cool to get $10, $20, $50 from somebody, but then get 10 more, 20 more, 50 more, sometimes 100 more, 200 more just because you made that opportunity available to them. There we go. That's the big thought this week. Between this week and next Week, Podcast Movement 2015 for those of you list, if you're gonna be there, great. If you're part of Patreon and you're gonna join us at the meetup, great. If not, know that the content remains. Keep coming and I'll have an episode for you next week. The links in this week's show notes the podcastreport.com 56. Got a lot of them. Got my how to podcast book. Got the podcast report at Patreon. I got my new project, SMS2Optin.com you can take a look at that. I got a link to last week's episode 55 which the podcasters sell their own stuff in case you missed it it I've got a link to that Gimlet membership thing great example for you to take a look at. I've got a link to my tweet to gimlet just in case you want to comment on there or see if they've responded. I'm sure they will. Alex has already responded to something of far less significance that I've said my tweet to gimlets. There the Martian. Take a look. You know, one product, multiple options audio. You know, what was it, six, seven times more expensive? The podcast report transcripts on Kindle. You can take a look at that. Of course I got a link to Louisiana. Always got to have a link to Lou. And I got a link to legalpodcastmusic.com if you want to get social here on the podcast report. Thepodcastreport.com Twitter, thepodcastreport.com Facebook it's all there. We love to have you. And of course just thepodcastreport.com is there. If this is your first episode, maybe you caught me at podcast movement. Great. Please subscribe, make it easy. Definitely go back, catch the back episodes, but set it up so that when I release a new episode it comes to you automatically. I don't care where you do it. ThePodcastReport.com iTunes so you know, make it happen at iTunes. ThePodcastReport.com Stitcher, PocketCast, TuneIn, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Overcast. They're all there if you want to send me a boy. I was about to say old fashioned email. I guess email feels a little bit old fashioned at this point. You can do that@the podcastreportoutlook.com if you have stayed on this long and you have because you're listening to this, reviews are always great. ThePodcastReport.com iTunes or ThePodcastReport.com Stitcher those are the two places I like to see reviews the most. Thank you so much. Chat with you next week. Bye.