When you promote a product launch as an affiliate, you know that the last day is the biggest day. On average, 40-60% of sales can come on the last day. I’ve even seen some affiliates at the top of leaderboards with 70%+ in the final 24 hours. Today, I’ll show you how to close with a bang and double or even triple your commissions on the last day.
I was reviewing the stats from the past year of launches that we’ve run for awesome people like Michael Hyatt, Ray Edwards, Jeff Goins, and others and I noticed an interesting trend. It was almost universally true.
Among the top 10 affiliates with the most sales, half of them would close 3-5 times as many optins as the other five.
In other words, five affiliates would close at 10% and the other five would be at 2-3%.
Here are some actual breakdowns from three launches:
Launch #1
- Top 5 closers – 11.4%
- The other 5 – 3.1%
Launch #2
- Top 5 closers – 5.3%
- The other 5 – 1.7%
Launch #3
- Top 4 closers – 7.3%
- The other 6 – 2.5%
This happened across niches, price points, and different sizes of launches. It didn’t matter if it was a multi-million dollar launch with a $2,000 product in a huge niche or a $300,000 launch with a $497 product in a small niche.
The same thing happened over and over again.
The Difference in Closers and Non-Closers
I went back and reviewed the strategies for as many people as I could over the past year. In the end, I’d reviewed:
- 341 emails
- 13 bonus pages (many did not exist anymore)
- More spreadsheets and graphs than I care to recall.
So…what was the difference between the closers and non-closers?
Ultimately it came down to five things. Here they are in order of impact:
- Frequency of emails in the last 48 hours.
- Bonuses offered.
- Traffic sent to end-of-launch webinar, AMA, or livestream.
- Length of close cart emails.
- The “X Factor” – A subjective measure I am using of creativity and personalization.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these factors in detail.
The 5 Keys to Closing a Launch Well
1. Frequency of Emails in the Last 48 Hours
The number of times an affiliate emailed in the last 48 (and especially 24) hours was the number one factor.
Of the 37 affiliates whose lists I am on and I still have data for, here’s what it looked like:
- Top 5 closers – 4.1 times in last 48 hours
- The other 5 – 1.8 times in last 48 hours
What you see there is the difference between closing 2-5% of your optins and 6-12%. That can literally mean thousands of dollars, even for the smallest affiliate.
The number of times an affiliate emailed in the last 48 hours is the number one factor in how well they close sales.
I’m about to share with you something that at first glance seems completely insane.
But I will tell you that of all the strategies I’ve implemented as an affiliate, this is the simplest and most effective. It has the largest bottom line impact of anything I’ve done.
Why You Should Email Four Times on Cart Close Day
As you know, much of what I share with you is based on my tests. I consider my own list to be like my little playground, minus the sandbox, Tonka trucks, and that one kid who always wiped his nose and then…well, nevermind.
So, last year I tested some stuff with two promotions, I tested the number of times I mailed on the last day. I had already tested once versus twice and it wasn’t close. Mailing only one time on cart close day is just not an option. You must mail at least twice.
Here were the results of my test:
2 times (7am and 7pm): $4,790
3 times (7am, 2pm, and 8pm): $6,209
4 times (7am, 1pm, 7pm, and MIDNIGHT): $9,437
In other words, four emails made almost exactly TWICE as much money as two emails.
And what about UNSUBSCRIBES?
Well, no one unsubscribed from my list because I was using my optin list (those people who’d opted in to the free Pre-Launch Content or webinars).
And the number who opted out of that segment after the last two emails was only TWO. Total. Two people.
And who cares about that?
My point here…
Emailing more works. Simple as that.
Four times destroyed two times. It doubled my income and had NO negative side effects. I even got a couple of thank you emails to the my midnight email, which is particularly effective.
Click here to get my #1 cart close email…my “midnight email.” Just promise me not to copy it exactly or it will lose its effectiveness.
If you study what the closers are doing, you will flat out see that they are emailing more on cart close day than others.
That is the biggest difference.
2. Bonuses Offered
The next biggest factor was the bonuses that the affiliates offered.
IMPORTANT SIDEBAR: I think it’s important at this time to mention that most of the top converters utilized three or more of these strategies. That makes it difficult or even impossible to get a 100% accurate measure of what move the needle the most. The actual order of these factors is my own interpretation. You would do well to follow their lead and employ three or more of these strategies.
I’ve written an entire post about affiliate bonus packages and their effectiveness. In that post, I share why they work, what kind of bonuses work, and how to put together an effective package yourself. Go read that post now if you haven’t. I’ll wait.
When I reviewed the top converters’ emails, one thing stood out in nearly each of them: their bonuses.
Of the 11 affiliates who converted at 3X the average or greater, 10 of them had a killer bonus package and the other had a pretty good one.
The key, as I mentioned in my full post on affiliate bonuses, is this:
You must sell your bonuses!
Seriously, play them up big time. Talk about them in every email.
Use them to close the deal.
Like a tree falling in the forest with no one around, bonuses are not effective if you don’t mention them repeatedly and really sell them.
Each of the 11 highest converting affiliates mentioned their bonuses in at least 75% of their open cart emails.
- 6 mentioned them in every single email.
- 3 mentioned them in all but one.
- All 11 mentioned them in every cart close day email.
- 5 had a dedicated email about their bonuses.
- 4 recorded a video explaining their bonuses in detail.
- 8 created a special page for their bonuses.
- 4 followed my advice and used live chat on their bonus page!
RELATED POST: How I made $2,269.85 in affiliate commissions in only 90 minutes using live chat.
Here’s the short version of how to put together a killer bonus package that helps you close sales:
- Use what you have. Don’t create a new product unless it really makes sense.
- Create nothing if possible. A great way to offer an amazing bonus package is to go through the course with them. People love that and it essentially amounts to group coaching with you.
- Fit the offer. Only offer bonuses that complement the main offer.
- Aim for equal value. I used to think that 50-100% of the value of the course was the target, but the more I study this, the more I think that equal value is the target. In other words, a $500 bonus for a $500 course.
- Sell them like crazy. See above 🙂
Bonuses work. Don’t go through all the effort to get people into a sales funnel and not close them because you didn’t offer some bonuses.
3. Send to End-of-Launch Webinars, AMAs, or Livestreams
If you are promoting a product launch as an affiliate and they are doing any live events near the end, make sure to promote them!
When I studied the optins for the top converters vs. the average or below average converters, here’s what I found:
- Top Converters: 21% of optins came for end-of-launch webinars or other live events.
- Everyone else: 12% of optins came for end-of-launch webinars or other live events.
The top converters had nearly twice as many of their optins come from the end-of-launch events.
An even deeper dive was more revealing:
- Top Converters: 13% of sales came directly through end-of-launch webinars or other live events.
- Everyone else: Only 5% of sales were directly through such events.
That 13% represents sales whose last click on an affiliate link was to the live event. That means that, in all likelihood, that sale would not have occurred otherwise.
Live events such as webinars, AMAs, livestreams with special guests or past students are great objection crushers. People come, get their questions answered or see other people like them who’ve had success, and they buy.
They are also non-pitchy for you. You are simply offering a valuable live event.
ONE WARNING: Be careful not to get your messaging mixed. In other words, don’t try to sell the course and get them to go to the live event at the same time. Focus on one call to action in each communication.
4. Length of Cart Close Emails
I’ll keep this short and sweet…because that is what your close cart emails should be.
I used the Word Count tool in Microsoft Word to count the average number of words in the final three emails that affiliates sent. Here’s what I found:
Top Converters
- Average length was 132 words.
- Only 14% of emails were more than 200 words.
- 27% of emails were less than 100 words.
- The most popular length was 100-150 words (57%).
Everyone Else
- Average length was 203 words.
- 41% were more than 200 words.
- 14% were more than 400 words.
- 6% were less than 100 words.
It’s obvious what works on cart close day…short and sweet.
The remarkable thing is that the top converters also had more bonuses to mention, which takes up words. But even with the bonuses, they still used less than 2/3 of the words that the average or poor converters used. That is telling.
Your goal on cart close day is to get them to the sales page or your bonuses page. That is it. It’s certainly not to write a novel.
Remember, short and sweet on cart close day.
5. The “X Factor”
This is the one factor that I can’t measure. It’s just something I noticed as I reviewed all the emails.
That’s why I call it the “X Factor.” I have no data to share and no tangible takeaway on this one.
But what I noticed is that the top converters were more creative in their approach. They seemed to go outside of the box and do things that no one else (even other top converters) were doing.
A great example of this was a recent email I got from Ray Edwards about Jeff Walker’s PLF launch:
SUBJECT: hey – Jeff’s on FB live!
I just got an email from Jeff Walker.
I thought you might be interested in this part:
“NEWS FLASH: I’m doing a Facebook Live session – I’m going to do a “Top Ten Launch Debriefs” and sharing lessons from 10 really cool recent launches.”
It starts at 4pm Eastern (I’m sending this about 15 minutes before he starts)…
Click here to join the Facebook Live Session.
Hope to see you there!
To Your Prosperity,
Ray Edwards
I love the way the email feels so spontaneous (and it might have been…I haven’t asked Ray yet). It feels personal and more of a “just passing this along” email than a “here’s another email about a launch” email.
It’s personal and creative. And ridiculously effective.
I’ve done this myself very effectively in the past. I’ve copied the text from someone’s email and “forwarded” it to my list.
Every time I do that, open rates skyrocket and my PayPal account has a lot of extra money in it.
Like I wrote above, you cannot measure this stuff. But I encourage you to think outside the proverbial box once in a while, especially at the end of the cart close. Here are seven ideas (of thousands) to get your creative juices flowing:
- Forward an email from the product creator (like I have and Ray sort of did).
- Forward an email from someone who bought (or attended a webinar or liked the free training).
- Offer a very limited time bonus (4 hours or less).
- Record a video walking through using the product or course (get permission first).
- Share an embarrassing confession related to the product (like how I bought PLF and didn’t go through it for a year…dumb).
- Share a success tip about the using the product (for example, how once I did go through PLF, we did it as a team and that really helped).
- Send an email that is vastly different from your norm (time of day, length of email, include an animated GIF).
I loved this email from Michael Hyatt recently:
Matt,
Let’s talk about your unique LifeScore™!
I made this video because I’ve been where you are… click here to watch it!
Something as simple as that animated GIF can be very effective.
Here’s the thing…you work hard to grow your list and you work hard to send great leads to the people you affiliate with.
So why not close them into sales? After all, that is where the money is at. And, more importantly, that is where the transformation is at.
Learn from the closers I learned from. Follow these strategies and become a closer extraordinaire!
Click here to get my #1 cart close email…my “midnight email.” Just promise me not to copy it exactly or it will lose its effectiveness.
What are your keys to an effective cart close?
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