Last week, during Frank Kern’s List Control launch, he offered the templates and full strategies for the 4-Day Cash Machine technique. Essentially, you pick a product, drop the price by half, add 5 cool bonuses, and mail your list for 4 days. On the List Control web site, Frank described the technique as something that would generate thousands of dollars and create good will for you with your list, even if you’ve got a relatively slow-responding list.
I thought, “Hm.” And decided to try it out. I’ve done this several times with other internet and information marketers. I try out their free stuff and if they promise certain results and give you strategies to get there, I test them. If the techniques they recommend work, then I think they might be pretty good at teaching me other stuff that might work.
Since this technique was billed as something that generates good will and positive feelings among subscribers (ostensibly because of the free bonuses and generous discount being offered), I wanted to see if that was true. I figured it would go one of two ways: either my subscribers would be excited about the promotions and would ultimately forgive me for mailing them every day for four days, or they’d be pretty mad.
How’d it go?
I lost a total of 17 subscribers, had 3 complaints, 1 spam report, and my sales actually dropped lower than normal. The thing I’m most bummed about is the lost subscribers. The number of people who unsubscribed doesn’t really make a blip on the radar of my subscriber list, but I’m bummed that there are 17 people out there who were bothered by my experiment and now have a negative feeling about me.
So what went wrong?
My subscribers are pretty unused to seeing me wearing the shoes of an overly-salesy marketer. And they’re not used to seeing e-mails from me every day. Generally, my subscribers are used to me sending my e-zine every week, and occasionally an additional e-mail to let them know about something cool I’m launching (and I hope they’re getting used to my experiments, LOL).
So four mailings in a week plus their regular e-zine….too much. I’d say that’s about 90% of it.
But there’s more. Okay, look….I’ve been working a lot of hours lately. We’ve got two clients launching new web sites and I’m working on a new book, and I made a huge mistake in the last mailing. The instructions for the 4-Day Cash Machine tell you to change certain lines. I followed the instructions and maybe because I was overly-tired, forgot to change one line.
So people were probably pretty confused to see me talking about a “dog training” system. When I saw that in my own inbox, my heart just about stopped. I was horribly embarrassed that day, and felt so bad about the whole thing that I sent an apology to my subscribers. (I have to say, though, in retrospect…the dog training thing is a little bit funny…you have to be able to laugh at your mistakes, people…really.)
On the plus side… When I fail so publicly, I think it’s a cool thing because it gives me an opportunity to show other people that you really can be successful, even if you make big mistakes sometimes. You don’t have to be perfect to be a success!
But you do have to own up to your mistakes and you do have to apologize when you mess up. So I really hope my subscribers forgive me. And in fact, I received quite a few wonderful responses to my apology e-mail, and that was really awesome.
What did I learn?
Well, first of all, I learned that there’s one more info marketer on my list of folks who are teaching an old bag of tricks that no longer work.
My theory is this: As long as a strategy works well, they keep it quiet. When it slows down, starts to dry up, and isn’t serving them as well, they cash in and share it with the world, teaching their “private secrets.” I’ve seen this happen quite a few times.
The bottom line is:
From here on out, I’m going to trust my instincts and stick to my own way of doing things. I’m turning off all e-mails from information and internet marketers and I won’t be experimenting with their techniques anymore. I will, however, continue to learn from the folks I’ve come to trust, like Bob Burg, Jack Canfield, Jack Trout, Seth Godin, and other bestselling authors and real experts. I’ll rely on the old school business fundamentals I talk about so much, and I won’t try to throw in new techniques that jar my people as much as this one did.
Now don’t get me wrong. Frank Kern is a success for a reason. He’s got a brilliantly-crafted brand, a genius videographer, and his copywriting is pure inspiration. I’m sure his private clients are very happy folks, and maybe even the people who pay for his $2000 programs. But make no mistake about it, the 4-Day Cash Machine strategy does not work with every audience, it did not build good will among my people, and it did not impress me. So…there you go.
