Never has there been such discussion on this blog as the comments I’ve seen in regards to AdSense Resurrected. I’ve been really busy over the last week and a bit buying a new car (when the mechanic calls you up and says your existing car needs work that’s worth more than the value of the car, it’s time to change!) and then traveling to New Brunswick for a short holiday (a 2 day trip that took 3 days thanks to a snowstorm…. at least I got to test out the Volvo XC70′s well-deserved reputation for snow handling) that I really haven’t had much time to respond to these comments. Now that I’m settled for a few days, I can contribute something to the discussion.
Despite what others might tell you, launching any kind of product, whether or not it’s an information product. Even after the product itself is ready — and that often takes longer to do than you plan for — getting the product out the door and into your customers’ hands takes a lot of work. I know all of this because I’ve participated in various product launches at work and on my own. And I’ve watched others go through the process. Having a product (and we’re not even saying it has to be a good product!) isn’t enough. Real life isn’t like Shoeless Joe — it’s not enough to build the product, you have to go out and sell it.
One of the difficulties with product launches is that you have to need to decide on dates for certain things before really knowing if you can actually meet those dates. If you’re selling an online product, you need time to sign up joint venture (JV) partners, to create your affiliate program, to prepare your site(s), to get the graphics done, etc. You also want to build a buzz, to create some excitement, because most of the money you’ll make from your product will be made in the first week — really, the first 48 hours — after the product launch. So you have to get started early and hope you can meet your launch date.
When the launch date arrives and you’re not ready (which happens more than you’d think) you have two options: you go ahead with what you have or else you push off the launch until everything’s ready. Most product creators choose the former: they go with what they have. Because if they don’t, they’ll annoy their JV partners and they won’t sell as much product as they could. Because those JV partners have limited timeslots for promoting products. They promote one product and move onto another. It’s a business, after all, and they only make money when they sell something to their audience. If the product isn’t ready, it screws up their promotion schedule and they’re not likely to promote it again. And no one should fault them for this attitude.
So making the decision to pull the plug on launch is not an easy one to make, because it angers people. It angers JV partners. It angers customers who were waiting for the product to launch. It’s very risky to do. But it’s also the right thing to do in certain cases, no matter what others think.
Let’s be clear here: I’ve never met Mo and Zeila Rich. (Those are pseudonyms, of course.) I’ve had long, extensive email conversations with Zeila, however. It’s these long conversations that have convinced me their product launch is worth waiting for. They’ve revealed the basic tactics they’ve used to me to make their AdSense fortune and I in turn have let them play with my software and made changes to it to accommodate their tactics. In fact, they have a whole list of things they want AdSenseResurrector to do that I haven’t had time to implement yet, which I plan to get to in the coming weeks. We’ve done all of this solely on trust. No lawyers were involved, no money has changed hands. It’s been refreshing to do it this way, and I’m willing to cut them some slack because of it.
But that’s just me, of course. I completely understand why everyone is skeptical. I would be, too, if it weren’t for our conversations. But this isn’t the case where you’ve paid for something and haven’t received anything in return. So my recommendation is to just be patient and wait. I agree the way the launch has been continually postponed is annoying and could have been handled better, but ultimately it shouldn’t matter as long as the product delivers. Will it deliver? Well, I know my software will — I have a good 70 or so customers using its predecessor who are happy with it. And I’ll keep improving it. As for the rest, we’ll just have to wait, but I’m confident at this point that the final product will be useful for a lot of people.
Feel free to leave some comments here if you want to argue these points of have some more questions. I’ll be heading back home in a few days, but until then I have Internet access and can discuss this stuff.
Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.
