The Writer's Bundle (The Write Life)

Bundle of products for writers, aiming for $60k launch.

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The Write Life is a popular site for writers, including freelancers. We've run this online product sale three times before: 2017 (revenue: $53k), 2015 ($72k), 2014 ($34k).

September 19, 2020 Sold 700 bundles for $70K revenue

We wrapped up our bundle launch! In the end, we sold 700 bundles at $99, which aligned with our projections.

We'll pay thousands of dollars in affiliate commissions, thanks to many affiliate partners who shared the sale with their audience. Our top seller sold 90 bundles.

While I'm hoping to write a post-bundle results & takeaway post, I'm not sure when I'll get to that, so I wanted to post the results here. Happy with the outcome!

September 14, 2020 Launched The Writer's Bundle!

Launch day!

This sale only lasts 3 days, so there's no room for mistakes... and today went smoothly 👍

Our goal is 700+ sales, and we hit 100 at 6pm today, which puts us just barely on track to hit that. Lots of our affiliates shared the bundle today, but some didn't, so we're hoping for some traffic from those folks tomorrow.

Really pleased with how this turned out!

http://thewritersbundle2020.thewritelife.com

September 13, 2020 Created contest for affiliates

We have about 70+ affiliates signed up to participate this year. I wanted to try something new, whereby we create a contest to incentivize them! Here's what we came up with...

⭐ Make 5+ sales
🏆 Join us for a live, ask-us-anything call after the bundle to review results and learnings

⭐ Most sales overall
🏆 $500 bonus

⭐ Most sales on Tuesday
🏆 A mention of your product or website in our newsletter

⭐ Most sales from an affiliate who’s participating in our bundle sale for the first time
🏆 A mention of your product or website in our newsletter

⭐ Social post with most engagement (send us the link to be considered)
🏆 $50 Etsy gift card

⭐ Recruit another affiliate who makes at least two sales
🏆 $50 Etsy gift card for each referral

⭐ Best-performing underdog (our judgement)
🏆 $50 Etsy gift card

Excited to see how this goes. Especially the Tuesday incentive. Typically Tuesday, the second of the sale, is the slowest. I wonder if this might help sales keep rolling that day.

September 13, 2020 Pushed sales page live! Sale starts tomorrow

We used Carrd.co to build our sales page for the first time this year, in part because of recommendations from this community! Special thanks to MARTIN RYDEN (https://twitter.com/rydenmartin) who spent some one-on-one time with me to help me learn how to build a sales page. It looks miles better than the sales page we had three years ago.

Buy buttons will go live tonight as the sale begins on Monday, Sept. 14 at 6am EST.

One thing I love about Carrd.co is how easy it was to make the mobile version look good. I didn't have to completely rebuild it like some tools require, but I could make a few tweaks so it looks good on mobile. Brilliant.

Here's the page: http://thewritersbundle2020.thewritelife.com/

September 7, 2020 Hit 44,000 newsletter subs

With just a week to go until we launch The Writer's Bundle on Sept. 14, we have 44,150 newsletter subscribers.

This matters because it's one of the two most effective levers to pull that can affect the outcome of the sale.

The first is number of affiliates on board (see post below), or how many people share the offer with their networks. For those sales, affiliates take home 20%, unless the affiliate has their product in the bundle, in which case they earn 40%.

So for sales made by others, we take home 80% or 60%.

For sales made to OUR community, we take home 100%. While we have a number of social channels, our most effective way of making sales in the past has been through our email list. So we wanted to increase that list as much as possible before launch. We should be around 44,500 by launch.

September 3, 2020 50 affiliates on board (11 days to go)

We hit 50 affiliates who have agreed to share the bundle with their audience!

With the 12 companies/creators whose courses and tools are in the bundle, that brings us to a total of 62 affiliates. This is the most we've ever worked with for a bundle sale.

There's one HUGE wild card here: A lot of these affiliates are new to us. We don't know how big their audiences are, and, more importantly, how engaged they are.

In the past, we had previously worked with more of the affiliates before the sale, so we could guess at how many bundles they might sell. This time around, that's more challenging.

In my experience, about 1/4 of the affiliates who said they would participate don't end up sharing the link. Something comes up, or they forget. We do everything we can to stay on their radar, including sending them email reminders and prompts. But I'll work that "no-show" estimate into our dashboard for projections.

September 2, 2020 Sent completed affiliate guide to affiliates

Every time we run this bundle, we put together a detailed guide for affiliates that helps them share the offer with their community.

Here's what the completed one looks like this year: http://bit.ly/TWLBundle2020AffGuide2

What's included:

  • Explainer of how the sale works (they earn 20%, or $20, for each sale), plus how to get their affiliate link
  • Graphics for them to share on social networks
  • Swipe copy for newsletters they can use as is, or tweak so it feels good to them
  • Tips for making sales
  • FAQ

It's a lot of information, so we try to share it in a way that's not overwhelming. Most affiliates only end up using a few pieces that are most helpful to them.

September 1, 2020 Let our audience pick a charity to donate to

Because it's been a tough year for lots of people, we decided to give away 10% of the proceeds from this sale to a charity.

We let our audience pick it! First we asked for recommendations, then we picked five as finalists and asked our audience to vote in a Google poll.

That helped us narrow it down to two front-runners: Feeding America (supports food banks) and Together We Rise (supports kids in foster care). Because both of these orgs got multiple votes, we decided to split the donation between the two of them.

Based on our early projections, we're hoping to write two checks of at least $2,500 to these charities.

In addition to feeling good about giving back, this gave us an opportunity to talk to our audience about the sale weeks in advance, so they'll expect it when it goes live.

Launch is less than two weeks away!

August 31, 2020 Finished videos for promo

We worked with Patrick from Edit Video Calls to create a feature video for our homepage and shorter social videos for each of our partners to share.

He did a fabulous job at a reasonable price; I'm so impressed with this service and plan to use it for several more upcoming projects.

Here's one of the shorter videos he did for us! My favorite is the feature one, but I want to save that for our launch =)

https://vimeo.com/453459955

Patrick's company: http://editvideocalls.com/

August 28, 2020 Placed ads in several newsletters for freelancers

Every time we run this bundle, we purchase a few ads in different newsletters to spread the word to freelance writers.

This year we're trying ads in two outlets:

Both of these only cost about $100, so if we get ONE bundle buy at $99 out of the newsletter, we'll cover costs.

Of course, we use tracking links for these ads, so we can see exactly how many buys come from each of them.

Anyone have any other newsletters you think we should approach for an ad re: The Writer's Bundle when it launches on Sept. 14?

About

The Write Life is a popular site for writers, including freelancers. We've run this online product sale three times before: 2017 (revenue: $53k), 2015 ($72k), 2014 ($34k).