Butterfly Reports

Yesterday Mike Filsaime told me about a new project he's just released into beta, based on an idea that sounds vaguely familiar.

(You remember Mike Filsaime right? From Butterfly Marketing?)

Here's how he describes the project:

"... it has to do with

• Using Free Reports to build a list.
• Branding the reports with your ClickBank affiliate Links
• Making money by giving away reports.
• Or even making your own reports to drive traffic to your site."

It sounds a lot like what I've already written in $7 Secrets about creating your own information product and building your list. There's a good reason, though, why you should look at what he's offering (other than the fact that it's free).

It's a simple idea, really: Butterfly Reports delivers two reports to you each month, one created by their staff and one from their community. These reports come with cover graphics and they are branded automatically for you with your affiliate links, so you can make money when you give them away.

I think it's a flawed idea, though, for two reasons.

First, my experience with the $7 Secrets report -- which has a moderate number of affiliate links inside -- tells me that the income generated from affiliate links in a report is likely to be very small. With $7 Secrets, my income from sales of the report has out-paced earnings from affiliate links in the report by 18 to 1. Unless you are going to be able to get your monthly reports into a large number of hands, you won't see significant earnings from those affiliate links.

Second, the premise is that you'll give these reports away, which I think is a bad idea. If the information in the reports has value, then you should be charging for it. The customer fully expects to pay for a quality product. If the report is crap, however, giving it away doesn't make up for the impression that you leave your prospect about you and your business.

So why do I think you ought to be looking at Butterfly Reports? Because you can get your hands on (presumably) fresh content that you can sell -- and you don't have to pay a dime for it.

I know a lot of you have purchased $7 Secrets and have done nothing with the information inside except create your affiliate link to promote my report. Ladies and gentlemen, that's not why $7 Secrets was written! You should be producing your own reports and promoting them. If you still haven't written a report, though, Butterfly Reports is a great place to start.

When you sign up, Mike's going to ask you to upgrade to a paid version. There are some significant differences between the free and paid versions, but I recommend you purchase the upgrade only if you are selling the reports or if you are giving them away in large numbers -- and then only if you are using the $7 Secrets software.

(Remember, if you use the $7 Secrets software, you will be able to sell or give away these reports and capture the purchaser's information for later followup sales, and you should have a One-Time Offer that immediately follows the capture of that information.)

Currently the site has only a dozen reports to choose from, with a mere five having been written by the BR staff, but I expect that will grow quickly as more people become aware of the service. Other areas of the site are still unfinished, but Mike and his partner Rod Beckwith would welcome your feedback.