Social Selling Is Now As Easy As Engagement

Authors, experts, and influencers sold $10 million dollars worth of eBooks in 1995 almost exclusively through Amazon.

In 2014, they sold about $1.6 billion dollars worth of eBooks on Amazon alone.

Now influencers, experts, and authors are becoming more digitally savvy and have built email lists, Facebook fan pages, and Twitter accounts.

They’re using these channels to sell their digital content using a new tool called Heyocart.com.

Heyocart.com allows authors, experts, and influencers to sell to their Facebook fans by asking their fans to simply comment “buy” to purchase. I talked about it at my Social Media Marketing World presentation!

Now, I’ve got additional data to add along with the process, and best practices.

Here’s how it works (you can do this too, it’s free):

1. Go to http://heyocart.com and click “Try for Free”
2. Select the fan page you want to sell on then type your status update, upload a strong image of the eBook, put in a product title, set the price, then click the orange next button.
3. Next, upload the product (Heyo Cart takes care of product delivery for you) and type in how you want Heyo Cart to pay you (either a debit card or your bank account) when you get sales. Click next.
4. View a live preview of your post and when you’ve got it set how you want, click publish to publish now or schedule it for later.
5. Once your post is live, fans can comment Buy to purchase and Heyo Cart will automatically respond to them telling them to finish their purchase:
   
6. The best part about Heyo Cart is that once fans buy once from you, they never have to put their information in again (they don’t have to click any links!). They simply type “Buy”, and Boom! You’ve got a new sale:
   
7. Once your fans have paid, Heyo Cart then takes them to the product page where they can easily download their new purchase:
   
8. As sales come in, use the Heyo Cart back end to see who is buying. You’ll get first name, last name, and email (many people say buyers lists are the most valuable – so segment this list in your email marketing or CRM tool for future upsells and product launches).

3 Tips For More Sales From Heyo Cart

Heyo Cart is just a tool- you need a good product and the right price, too!

1. Price your product between $5-20 dollars (any more expensive and it becomes too big a decision for Facebook buyers)
2. Put the “Comment Buy” call to action on the image like Kim Garst did here.
3. Tell your fans to “Comment buy to purchase for $5.99” within the first 3 sentences of your post. During the rest of the post, tell them more about the product.

It’s a good idea once you post your product to alert all your email subscribers and social contacts as well. The sooner you get responses on that Facebook post, the wider it will go.

Brian’s Tip: Never Start With a Wedding Cake

Have you ever spent dozens of hours creating an infoproduct and then debuted to lackluster sales?

I have. I’ll admit it.

Even though I ran a poll about it before creating The Awareness Blueprint… what people say they’ll buy is different from what they actually buy. You can’t find out what they’ll buy until you’re selling it! I only made about $1500 from that, which is not good enough given how many hours I put into it.

So instead of creating a whole wedding cake first, create a cupcake to see if they’ll buy it. If they buy, then make a wedding cake.

In other words, create a small $7 or $17 product first, sell it with Heyo Cart, and then if that goes well, create a bigger version that’s more expensive!

Read more on cupcakes and product design in this great piece by Des Traynor.

I’ve tested a couple cupcakes now with Heyo Cart, and got radically different responses to each. I’m already saving time by not continuing to work on the less “buyable” one.

I’m going to create 3-5 more and then whichever one does best, I’ll create a bigger product for that one.

How Influencers, Authors, and Experts are Making Money with Heyo Cart

In a recent A/B test conducted by author and info-marketer Sue Zimmerman, Amazon and heyocart.com were both put to the test. Sue posted her latest eBook for sale on Amazon and also to her Facebook page using Heyo Cart to see which would drive more sales.

On Amazon Sue sold 15 copies, earning her $106.76 over the first 10 days.

Using Heyocart.com, Sue posted on Facebook and sold 95 copies, earning her $591.05 in the first 10 days.

“An additional benefit we gained from using Heyocart.com was that it gave us the ability to collect the email addresses and names of our buyers. This made it easy to put them into our CRM like HubSpot, InfusionSoft or OntraPort for future upselling and content marketing. Amazon doesn’t do that,” said Zimmerman.

Heyo Cart CEO, Nathan Latka expects that trend to continue in 2015. Heyo Cart allows authors and infomarketers to sell on Facebook by having their fans simply leave a “buy” comment on a post.

“There’s an enormous opportunity for experts and influencers to sell digital products to their consumers inside of Facebook,” said Nathan Latka, CEO of HeyoCart.com. “This is where consumers spend their time and it’s where they’ll buy.”

According to internal data from heyocart.com gathered in Q1 of 2015, the best price point for authors and infomarketers to sell ebooks and other digital content on Facebook is $9.00. This was based on a sample size of product prices shown to 1m people who are fans of influencers and experts.

According to Heyo’s Q1 2015 data, the best price point for authors and infomarketers to sell ebooks and other digital content on FB is $9.00 <- click to tweet!

As influencers, experts, and authors look for ways to spread their content, make more money, and gain in popularity, Latka anticipates this trend toward social commerce to grow exponentially.

“Total transaction volume done on social media networks on both mobile and desktop will surpass $40 billion by 2025,” said Latka.

If he’s right, heyocart.com might be the next Amazon for authors and info-marketers. Click here and you can try it for free.