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One of the most powerful forces in marketing is a deadline.

Like other skeptical observers of the techniques Internet marketers pull to land more sales, I feel a sense of discomfort when told that a product is going off the market at a certain date. Yet, at the same time, I feel compelled - if I really want this product, and that isn’t necessarily today, but any time in the future - shouldn’t I buy it now so I can lock in the cheaper price or secure my order because there is “very limited supply” on offer?

Now that I am an Internet marketer myself, I sometimes sit on the other side of the fence. I’ve played with the scarcity trigger like the best of them, telling my audience that there is only so many days or hours before a deadline comes, at which point things will change forever.

And wow, is it ever powerful.

Just last month I was faced with a decision. I knew Blog Mastermind, my membership site for bloggers, needed some changes made to the back-end that handled the membership and the affiliate system. During this time it would make things a lot easier if I did not let new members sign-up. There were also other elements that needed considering because of my plans for 2008 and the evolution of the Blog Mastermind program itself.

Needless to say, due to a variety of reasons, some I can’t talk about at this time because details are not cement, I decided the best plan of action was to close up shop to new members. I told my team the deadline so they could prepare for the technical changes and then proceeded to construct a plan for a mini-push to drive new sign-ups before the deadline.

Having been a participant, victim, casual observer and customer in many product launches dating back to the Butterfly Marketing launch in January 2006 and then conducting my own launch in June 2007, it’s safe to say I know product launches in the Internet marketing industry pretty well. Oh, and of course, I bought Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula home study course too (you can read my review here).

I never had a second thought about doing some promotion for my membership site once a deadline was in place, it was simply a matter of brainstorming what to do and then doing it. If you read my blog in early December or subscribe to my newsletter, then you already know what I did to convince people to join Blog Mastermind before the deadline, perhaps you even joined and are working your way through the program right now (hi students!).

Here’s how I rolled out closing doors promotion…

1. I informed my affiliates that the doors would close in 10 days and asked that they reserve some space in their schedule on their blog or email list for the upcoming week to send some great resources out to their readers, all embedded with their affiliate tracking code of course.
2. I made an announcement to my blog and to my list about Blog Mastermind closing to new members and the circumstances justifying the move.
3. I released a free sample lesson from the program and let my affiliates promote it first, 24 hours before I did so they could get the commission for any sales.
4. I released the free sample lesson via my own blog and email list.
5. I published links to third-party reviews of Blog Mastermind and a program outline to my blog (see post here).
6. I posted a video case study taken from Blog Mastermind to my blog and to my list and also gave my affiliates a custom link for the video they could use to promote embedded with their affiliate code.
7. I sent out final emails to my list and a post to my blog just hours before the deadline.

Throughout this entire process everything was time stamped with the deadline and I had countdown timers on the pages to signify the urgency. The samples I provided were taken directly from the program so people could see what they receive as a paying member. I also included a risk-reversal - a 30 day money back guarantee, so if someone was not sure, they could try my program without any risk.

The process was a huge success, more successful than I anticipated, as we welcomed over 150 new students into the program by the time the deadline hit (that is over $11,000 in ten days) . This is testament to the power of the launch process and as you can see in this case, you don’t have to do it only during a new product launch, you can use the process for all kinds of purposes.

If the launch formula is new to you and you want to do any kind of online promotion, I strongly recommend you grab a copy of Product Launch Formula, the process can literally make or break you.

Why A Deadline Is Powerful

A deadline forces action. Many people know about Blog Mastermind. Many people want to join too, but for all kinds of reasons something is holding them back. Without a deadline, it’s always possible to tell yourself that you will join later, when you have more time or more money or you decide it’s time to focus on your blogging, etc. There are plenty of mental justifications you can give yourself for not doing something, especially if there is no compelling reason to decide right now.

When you force a decision with a deadline, people have to do something, it’s either a yes or a no. It’s just like eating out at a restaurant when you can’t decide what to order and you need the pressure of a waitress standing over your shoulder waiting to take your order to force you into a decision.

A deadline is a form of scarcity, similar to producing a limited quantity of stock or taking a certain number of members into a membership site. This creates exclusivity, a perception that your customers are part of something unique that only a privileged few get access too (which is true). You have to act fast in order to ensure you are one of the “lucky ones”.

Justification Is Critical

A deadline with no justification is not a good idea. If your readers think you are placing a deadline just because you want to drum up sales then you are going to tarnish your credibility. Even worse, placing a deadline that appears false with weak justification, or you revoke the deadline after the fact, will not make you any friends and guarantees you are placed into the “lying Internet marketer” category, which unfortunately is how the Internet marketing industry if often judged, at least initially (even more unfortunately, that judgment is sometimes quite accurate - there are plenty of shonky Internet marketers out there).

A deadline can be justified in many ways, but obviously it helps if it is believable and you follow through with your statements. If the deadline passes, that means you don’t let anyone buy in unless they have a pretty good reason for missing the deadline. People will always be skeptical of your justification for doing what you do, especially if you potentially gain financially for doing it, but if you stick to your guns and tell the truth, you will keep your credibility intact.

Incidentally, I will not reopen Blog Mastermind to the general public for several months into 2008 and the price is going up, so the deadline I presented was certainly very real. There may be a few windows that open for special promotions, but I’m not sure when or if these will occur.

Isn’t All Of This Misleading? Can’t You Just Sell Your Goods And Let People Make The Decision To Buy Because Of The Quality You Offer?

This is exactly what I thought before I started selling my own goods on the Web. If you have a great product, why not just let the product speak for itself? Can’t you just rely on positive word of mouth to help drum up more sales, rather than use marketing “tricks” and long sales pages to convince people to buy?

If you were to assess the general perception of any product the initial reaction of a potential customer is skepticism. Very, very few products reach a point where their impact is so positive to such a wide range of people that only word of mouth is required to drum up enough sales to sustain and grow a business.

This of course should be the goal of every company, to create purple cows that the market devours with a virally induced, word of mouth frenzy, but that’s not something that happens to many products. In fact, most products simply don’t have the right ingredients to get enough critical mass for this sort of outcome, the market is just not large enough.

Simply put, you cannot expect success just because your product is great, you have to demonstrate that it is and break down the layers and layers of resistance every person has before making a purchase. As long as money remains a scarce commodity that most people have a limited supply of, motivating the purchase will always be the great challenge every marketer faces.

Because of this, triggers are necessary to encourage sales. With testimonials, social proof, free content and deadlines, more people buy what you offer. The assumption here, is that your product is great, and of course, that means people who buy from you end up very satisfied that they did and then word of mouth can kick in. However, If you didn’t use some form of “sales techniques” to motivate the purchase in the first place, then they would never have benefited from what you offer, and would still be skeptical.

For example, I know Blog Mastermind offers tremendous value for certain people. Not for everyone of course, I fully understand that some people don’t fit my offer, but there are plenty who do benefit from what I teach and it’s my purpose as a marketer to find and help as many of the “right” people as I can and of course make a profit doing so.

If I didn’t use certain marketing techniques to make sales, then less of my product makes it into the hands of people. That also means less people benefit from what I offer. In the grand scheme of things, that really doesn’t mean much, however from my point of view, if I am successful, I can run a business doing what I love and I can help others improve their lives through blogging - that’s a pretty good outcome for everyone involved.

I realize it’s not always going to work out that way and you can’t please all of the people, all of the time, but to even have a chance of realizing your goals, you have to get your product into the hands of a very skeptical consumer. It makes sense to use whatever methods are at your disposal, within the framework of what you consider acceptable marketing practice, which will vary from person to person, marketer to marketer.

Bloggers Are Not Marketers

I notice a trend in the blogging world that to me, demonstrates how far from marketing some bloggers are, even though they are attempting to sell online.

Let’s state a pretty obvious point - plenty of bloggers and blog readers don’t like long sales pages, don’t like hyped copy and don’t want to be seen as “selling out” in order to make a buck.

As a result, they go to market with a product that is possibly fantastic, one of the best resources out there on a certain topic, but they fail to get it into as many hands as they could if they just utilized a few simple marketing techniques that work.

Here’s a few mistakes I’ve observed bloggers make when releasing products online:

• Charging too little or using formats that are not built for profit (the $19 e-book for example). This in turn results in very low commissions to affiliates, thus failing to inspire them to push the product
• Not collecting emails and discovering that selling just from their blog and RSS doesn’t convert well
• Failure to build buzz, anticipation or conduct any form of product launch process
• Discovering that their blog readers don’t want to purchase their paid-for product because they position it as much the same as what is already delivered for free from their blog
• In an attempt to avoid hype, their sales copy fails to present any compelling justification for making a purchase - blog writing and copywriting are NOT the same thing, although they can be weaved together by those who know their craft

Sure there are exceptions where bloggers are achieving great results despite the above conditions being true, but I expect these occasions are very rare and usually involve a very high profile blogger, who can simply leverage their built-up credibility in the market to push through product sales. The majority of bloggers can’t rely on this alone for success.

I expect the gap between marketer and blogger will reduce over time, but for now I urge all bloggers to look at Internet marketing with an open mind. You don’t have to embrace anything you don’t want to, but understand the principles and the techniques so you can adapt them to your situation and benefit from what has worked for years in the offline marketing world.

Yaro Starak
Marketing With Blogs