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By Yanik Silver
Unless you’ve been in a cave, you know that Harry Potter mania is a worldwide phenomenon. Kids and grownups alike eagerly await the release of each book and movie, and I'm one of them. I even devoured the last book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," in less than a day. But even more interesting than the stories, from a business point of view, anyway, is the fact that 6.9 million copies of that book were sold in just 24 hours. Wow!
Actually, I had my own “big” release just a few days before the boy wizard – it was for the tapes of my "Underground Online Seminar," which are now sold out.
However, I have to admit I didn’t fare anywhere near the multi-million dollar payday J.K. Rowling had, but it still wasn’t too shabby. I raked in over six figures (actually $193,380 to be exact) in the first 24 hours of my release.
So what do these two releases have in common? One word...anticipation.
Whether it’s for the next blockbuster summer movie (think Start Wars or for Harry Potter or even your product – if you really want a big, monster payday you’ve got to create an event. I’m going to let you step behind the curtain a little bit so you can use some of these same strategies I used.
First of all, I need to give credit where credit is due. My friend, Jeff Walker, helped me formulate the plan for this release. Jeff was one of my featured speakers during the same "Underground Online Seminar" and his topic was on exactly this same point – "how to create six-figures in less than seven days with a product release." So let’s dive right in…
Secret One: Create Anticipation
We’ve already talked about this, but let’s give a few more specifics. I started an "early-bird" list from my subscribers and customers. I got people to raise their hands and say "Yes, I want to know first when you’ll be releasing these DVDs." Then once people were on this list we started "dripping" on them. We used a blog to post everything from "spy photos" of the product (which came in a very cool, individually numbered suitcase) to actual video clips from the event. Each communication whet the person’s appetite for the upcoming release. Please keep in mind, these updates were planned out before the start of the promotion so it wasn’t just thrown together by the seat of our pants.
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