HOW TO CREATE A BUNDLE SALE THAT SELLS (AND IS A WIN/WIN/WIN SCENARIO FOR EVERYONE)
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, you’re probably familiar with the concept of a bundle sale.
Oh, what’s that you say? You just came out of hibernation and moved out from under your rock? No problem, here’s the quick version:
A bundle sale is usually an online sale where you can get a “bundle” of products for one low price for a set period of time.
A typical offer could be get over $1k worth of business books for $97!
On the surface this might sound salesy/schemey, but when put together properly it’s one of the best examples of a win/win/win scenario I’ve seen online.
- Customer wins – Often they’re getting $1k+ worth of products for under $100. Even if they only use one or two of them it can make the purchase well worth it.
- Product creator wins – Instead of being paid to contribute the product the product contributor gets a higher affiliate commission for everyone they refer to the sale. So if you have a sizable audience you can easily bring in thousands of dollars per sale.
- Sale creator wins – They have the potential to drive thousands of visitors to their site, build their email list, and make a considerable profit in the process.
Anytime you can create an offer that really benefits everyone involved you have a recipe for a winner.
But today I want to go deeper than that. How do you specifically create a sale that everyone is going to love and want to buy?
This week I’m contributing a blueprint out of Location Rebel to a bundle offer for lifestyle entrepreneurs that want to travel called The Paradise Pack. I’ll use them and some other sales I’ve been a part of to illustrate how to do one of these things right.
While I’ve never created one of these myself, I’ve contributed products to nearly a dozen of them and have a lot of experience marketing them – so I know what works and what doesn’t.
With that, let’s jump in!
Make Sure You’ve Defined Your Niche
This is one of the most important factors in any sale. If you’re going to do it right you want to make sure it appeals to a very tightly defined niche.
For over a year I was planning on running one in the photography niche, until Location Rebel member Griffin beat me to it! They did an awesome job with their 5 Day Deal and made over $400k.
Why was it so successful? It all started because they chose a fantastic niche that no one had done a sale like this in.
My buddy Todd did well into 6 figures on a paleo diet bundle. Again, passionate audience, and a no brainer buy for them.
The Paradise Pack is a little more broad, but still a very clear niche: entrepreneurs who want to travel. It covers both how to travel on the cheap, as well as some resources for getting your business up and running – and I haven’t seen a sale that truly hammers on this niche.
Include Good Products by Authors With Good Reputations
A great niche is important, but if you don’t have reputable people with good products then you’re dead in the water. Spend a lot of time researching the products you’d like to be in the bundle once you’ve decided what your sale will be about.
Ideally if you’re thinking of doing this in the first place, you’ll already want to have many of the connections in place. A new bundle sale is an entirely new business, so if you haven’t built up your reputation, the only thing your buyers have to go on is the reputation of the people joining.
Give GOOD Commission Percentages.
A standard commission for bundle sales if 50% – the entire business is based around people successfully promoting the sale, so you need to make it worth their while to promote it for you.
Over time if you do more deals, reward the people who have driven the most sales.
Historically my audience has really resonated with the Only 72 sales. I’ve been one of their bigger affiliates on some sales, so because of that I’ve gotten a slightly higher commission as a thank you.
You could even do it in your current sale. If you’re starting at 50%, bump it up to 65% if someone sells over 50 copies – you’ll still be making money, and people will be much more excited to promote for you.
Include Higher Commissions for Contributing Authors
As we mentioned earlier, the quality of your products and authors is what makes or breaks a deal. This current Paradise Pack along with myself, has Natalie Sisson, Derek Johanson, Nora Dunn – and more. All of these people I really respect as entrepreneurs, and I’d listen to advice from any of them.
If you want to get quality people to essentially donate a quality product, you need to reward them. Authors should never get less than 70%, and ideally they should be at 80% commissions.
They have the audience, and the chances are they’ve spent much more time creating their product, than you did creating your sale, so make sure you let them know how much they’re valued.
Also, Surprise Them…
I’d never seen this before, but the 5 Day Deal team blew me away earlier this year. I only really promoted the offer to my HDR Software list, and I made some sales, not a ton, but I was happy with the amount.
After the sale was over, apparently there was a clause that as a bonus all of the authors would split 5% of the gross sales (it was something like that, may not have been exactly 5%). All I know is because of this I got a lot more money than I was expecting, and the goodwill it earned them will make me very likely to want to promote for them again.
You could also reward high contributors with other prizes like Amazon Gift Cards or something similar if they really went above and beyond.
Make a Very Clear Timeline
These sales are most successful when they’re between 2 and 5 days long. My Location Rebel promotions always last 48 hours. I find this to work really well for individual offers because its short enough that it encourages people to buy now rather than wait.
With bundle sales, you want to make sure you give affiliates enough time to make the sales, without going so long that people just forget about it and never take action. 72 hours seems to be the preferred timeline for this, but as mentioned, I’ve seen people do up to 5 days with success.
Make Sure the Site Looks Good and Runs Smooth
Often I think design can be secondary to a really good offer from a reputable source – especially when there’s a long selling period and ramp up to the offer itself.
With bundle sales you’re sending someone to a site they may not have ever seen before, telling them about an offer that isn’t going to be there for long, and usually relying on the reputations of others.
Because of this, you need to make the best first impression possible.
Spend the time and money to get a site professionally designed, pay a little bit more for the high end email/affiliate software, and show everyone that you’re taking this project seriously.
Donate
These sales have the potential to make a lot of money. Donating 5-10% to a worthy cause can have a tremendous impact on the organization you choose, not to mention it makes people who might be on the fence that much more likely to buy.
With the Paradise Pack they’re donating $10 from every sale to Pencils of Promise, an organization designed to help young children in developing countries get access to quality education.
One More Thing…Do It For the Customer
Word has gotten out there is a lot of money to be made in these types of sales – but don’t do it just for the money.
Spend the time to get quality products that truly make it a valuable resource for the person who buys it. If you do this, word is going to spread like wildfire, you’re going to have people who buy every time you do a sale, and you truly will have created a win/win/win scenario.
So far I’ve been really impressed with what I’ve seen with The Paradise Pack – I think they’re totally doing this, and I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy for myself!
The deal ends at 12:01am PDT Friday morning, so get in early!
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