Posting a WSO (Warrior Special Offer)

If you’re not already familiar with the Warrior Forum, it is one of the busiest internet marketing hot spots on the web. There are so many new discussions every day, that new threads are buried in a matter of hours if they dont become “hot topics” – and even those rarely last on the main page more than half a day…

There is a special section at the Warrior Forum specifically for Warrior Special Offers – more often referred to as just WSO’s. The idea behind this section is that Warriors can get deals that they cant get anywhere else on the web. It’s a great place to find cool products and savings – and it’s a great place for Internet Marketers to hold a fire sale.

A Fire Sale is the sale of goods at extremely low prices – usually limited to a very short time.

I decided to post a WSO at the Warrior Forum this week myself, and actually it was my first. I’ve been a member there for awhile, though my Post Count is only up to 93 posts… as I lurk more than I participate . It’s a great place to find out what people are talking about, what they are asking about… and to pick up good deals too, of course. I’ve ordered several packages from the WSO section myself in the past year, so I had a good idea how it all worked.

If you have your own product or service, running a WSO (Warrior Special Offer) is a great way to pre-launch or to create a spike in sales. It has to be your own product, not something you purchased resale rights to or are an affiliate for.

The price also has to be a special deal for Warriors that cant be found elsewhere on the web. There is one exception to that rule, which is that you may offer the same deal to your own subscribers or members. When I read that note from Allen in the Guidelines thread, I felt comfortable going ahead with my idea for a WSO.

What I had decided to ‘sell’ was the brand new Ad Inventory on my Discussion Forum. I had just removed Google Adsense from the forum, replaced it with targeted advertising options, and wanted to run a sale to kick-start the buzz about this new feature.

But what I did NOT want to do is upset my own members and subscribers by offering a better deal to people outside of SSWT than I was offering directly to them. The Introductory Pricing for the Sponsorships was a great deal as it was, but the WSO was going to offer a super deep discount off of those rates.

What I did, and what I would suggest you do if you run a WSO too, was to email my Subscribers and notify my Members to let them know about the upcoming WSO. Not only did I extend the same offer to them, but I gave them ‘first dibs’ on the available Ad Inventory.

From a marketing standpoint this increases your sales potential, of course. From an ethical standpoint, it only makes sense. The last thing you want to do is alienate your loyal readers and visitors…

There were several Sponsorships sold between the time I set them up on the Forum, and the time I was able to send out the announcement and prepare the WSO. For those advertisers that jumped in early to grab premium spots, I went back and modified their Sponsorship to make sure their deal was just as sweet as what I was about to offer in the 48-hour sale.

Why punish them for being quick on the draw, right? And one thing that REALLY bothers me is when I see a WSO for a product that I JUST paid full price for the week before. I think that a lot of thought needs to go into a fire sale like this, especially a WSO on such an active Internet Marketing forum. Otherwise you could tarnish your reputation with a nice little invisible “I care more about money than YOU” banner that follows you all around the web from there on out…

I sent this email out as a “Courtesy Notice” and posted the contents of the upcoming WSO with a simple note:

This is a Courtesy Notice to let you know that I will be running a 48-Hour WSO (Warrior Special Offer) on the Warrior Forum later today. I wanted to give SSWT Members first dibs on this Special Offer, before the WSO goes live. This is the full WSO in detail:

My WSO at the Warrior Forum went live within 24 hours of sending out the Courtesy Notice, which gave my own subscribers and members and opportunity at first choice on ad placements.

This seemed like the best solution since Ad Inventory is limited to a specific number of spots on the Forum. I also limited my WSO to 48 hours only – or when inventory ran out, whichever came first.

A WSO can be a monster to manage if you are selling a product that requires work on your part (vs something completely automated). That being the case for my WSO, I knew I didnt want to be ‘tied to my computer’ for more than two days solid. Between answering emails, private messages, forum posts and setting up the Ads that were submitted… it’s been quite busy!

My WSO has been running since about 4am (my time) this morning, so at the time of this post it has been live for just under 18 hours. It will end at 4am on Saturday morning (or the closest I can possibly get to that hour, I should say!). You can see it live on the Warrior Forum here:

Targeted Traffic from Popular IM Forum! 48 Hrs Only

I hope that this gives you some ideas, and serves as a model for you to use in setting up your own profitable WSO’s!

Best,

Technorati Tags: warriors, warrior forum, wso, warrior special offer, fire sale, internet marketing

Category: Internet Marketing

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