Back at it with another feature from a friend to our community!

Today is a fun one! We (honestly) hadn’t even considered this as a monetisation option, but it makes sense.

And this Volume is all about running auctions in your emails!

But, today’s author is also somewhat of an “enigma”… and it took a fair bit of time to even do his intro justice here.

Meet John Bejakovic, meastro wordsmith, author, fellow newsletter operator, and someone who comes highly respected in the email space for his writing about creating tangible revenue from your email list.

John’s ability to distil influence into words alone illustrates his prowess with words, but his skills and ideas, especially in the email arena, stand out, so it’s a privilege to have him contribute to our community.

Ready to see some of those ideas in action?

Going once. Going twice…read on!

Auctions are a novel and exciting way to monetise your email list.

They can replace product launches, live webinars, and masterclasses.

In my experience, audiences love auctions, and so this is a way to engage and nurture your list as well as sell.

Back in December, I ran an auction inside my community of ~400 people, which is a subset of my email list. (By the way, you don't need to have an existing community to run an auction.)

I had never sold anything over $3k to my audience. At the end of 24 hours, the winning bid stood at $31k.

Plus, the auction identified a dozen other high-intent leads who are willing to pay me tens of thousands of dollars to work with me.

Let me show you how you can do something similar.

Ultimately, the core of an auction is an outcome, an emotional desire, that your readers already want.

For example, since you have an email list, it's almost a given that you want your email list to be bigger.

If I could promise to 10x your email list with the right kinds of readers, guaranteed, this promise would likely get you excited.

(In fact, this is very similar to the auction offer I made back in December.)

Of course, people on your list might not be email marketers and might not want a bigger email list.

But they have an outcome they want, whether that's getting clients... getting a six-pack... or getting closer to their hero.

Once you're clear on the outcome your readers want, craft a unique auction offer to actually deliver that outcome.

Your offer can be made up of:

… or whatever other offers you normally sell.

The goal is to make this offer irresistibly good, something people would pay significant money for... but that they can in theory win just by bidding $1.

(If you want some inspiration, here are 3 “auction offer” templates, each of which is based on an auction that brought in at least $13k.)

And your offer-making doesn't stop there.

Come up with several downsell versions as well.

These are offers that promise the same outcome you identified in step 1, but do so with fewer or less spectacular deliverables.

(In Step 5 below, we will be selling these downsells to bidders who don't win the auction.)

If you already have a community or group, you can run your auction there.

If you don't have a community or group now, you can spin one up, specifically for the auction.

The tech required is minimal.

Any place that allows posts, comments, and DMs will work. (I've seen auctions run on Facebook, Skool, Telegram, and Twitter.)

Getting people into your group for the auction is easy.

Simply send an email (or five) to your list before the auction, announcing the opportunity to get the incredible offer from Step 2, starting at just $1.

If you've figured out your audience's emotional desire, and if you've crafted an exciting offer, this alone will drive people into your group.

Plus, since auctions are novel, even folks who aren't yet committed to bidding will come for the spectacle.

You can run the auction until you feel bids have topped out, or you can run it for a set amount of time.

The work of running an auction is easy and even fun.

It mainly consists of:

It doesn’t have to be complicated to work.

Eventually, the auction concludes, and there is a winning bidder.

But the magic of running auctions is that the winning bidder is not the only person you can sell to.

That's why online auctions can replace product launches, live webinars, or masterclasses.

At the end of the auction, you might have a dozen or more people who have raised their hands, saying they are willing to pay you real money to get the promised outcome.

That's why you prepared the downsell offers in step 2.

Reach out to all the bidders by DM, and make them an offer.

In this way, it's common for an auction to bring in 3x - 12x the winning bid by selling to everyone else who bid.

If you want to run an auction yourself, you now know what to do.

Here are a couple of additional resources you might find useful:

Of course, maybe you're intrigued by auctions, but you don't have the time or bandwidth to run an auction yourself.

In that case, maybe I can help.

For the past few months, I've run auctions for partners, with their audiences and with their offers.

My offer is that I handle all the 5 steps above for you, including creating a group or community if you don't have one yet.

Also, I charge nothing up front. For every $10,000 I send you in sales, shoot over $2500 to me AFTER the money is in your bank account.

In case you're interested, write me here, or hit that button, and I’ll help you make it happen.

Your friend, John.

59% of Americans say most marketing emails offer no real value. That's not a threat, it's an opening. Get the AI-powered playbook for building email campaigns that actually convert.

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Bet you haven’t considered auctions as a growth channel, have you?

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Your friend in email,

Des