When most people begin any kind of business they seem to have a lot of expectations. They think the money will come rolling the moment they place their adds, get a webpage, or spend on advertising and a promotion campaign, etc. If you have a business you pretty much can tell that that is not necessarily the case. However, this particular article I am going to dedicate it to Internet business. I figure, you are online reading this article right now, maybe you may want to learn a little bit more about how to sell your products or services online.
By the way, don’t think because you are a construction worker for example, that the internet could not be of use to you. You get a little creative and you’ll be surprise with the ideas that can come about that could help you generate income online. But let’s continue with the article shall we?
I am not going to deny the fact that a lot of profit can be generated in short periods of time. It has happened in the past and will keep happening in the future. There is an old saying, “There’s nothing more powerful than an idea who’s time has come!”
In other words, you can have a very lucrative idea, but the market is not ready for it, therefore you may end up loosing your investment just to find out months later that that very same idea becomes a huge success for someone else. Basically, being at the right place at the right time certainly helps. And you will ALWAYS be at the right place and the right time if you listen to your heart. To the guiding Spirit within.
Then off course, there is the other side of the coin. Having a great idea, being at the right place at the right time, but not being able to capitalize on it. Well, this is what this article is going to address. We are going to explore the reasons why people buy! And I am going to dissect each topic briefly so you can have a much deeper understanding as to how all of the following pieces of the puzzle fit together.
First, I am going to address the importance of the word VALUE. When you have something to offer where there is an open market for it, and more than likely there is a demand for your product, your efforts revolve around advertising. If what you are advertising is being offered by other businesses, then you have what is called competition. That being the case, you have to be able to create an urgency for people to buy from you, otherwise you could loose your potential customers to your competition, not because their’s are necessarily better. But because of the fact that not everyone buys on the first visit. Sometimes customers need a little bit of time before they make a decision. So if you already exposed them to what you have to offer and later on they see the same product on someone else’s site, they may be ready at that moment to purchase. They may end up ordering from someone else that product or service which you took the time to educate them on the first place.
Since internet surfers are what it’s called impulse buyers, you got to be prepared so that when a potential customer visits your site, she/he is ready to make the decision at that moment!
If you are advertising a video tape that teaches people how to market products online, you need to figure out ways to increase the “VALUE” of what you have to offer. You need to answer questions such as;
- Why is your video better than the rest?
- What is in your video that you feel would make someone say, “I want this!”
- What are they gaining from ordering?
Since the beginning of time, marketing is all about figuring out ways to sell people on the idea that if they acquire whatever is you have to offer, they will “gain” something from it. If you have been subscribed to few newsletters and have read marketing articles, they summarize what I have just said in one word. BENEFITS. If from the very beginning you can point out what is it that your visitors will gain from your product or services, you increase dramatically the value of your product.
This is not the only way to add value to your product. But this is the best way to establish rapport and generate interest. So you must always begin by letting them know how your product or service is going to make them feel, or improve their life, or help them win, etc.
Once you have been able to add value to your product or service, honesty, integrity and credibility play a very important role. Maybe right at the moment of purchase, depending on how much your asking price is, they may wonder, “how do I know this person knows what she’s talking about?”
So how do you add integrity? If you are an expert on something, can you tell me about your experience? Do you walk your talk? Does your site reflects what you talk about? For example, don’t go telling me how using frames and JAVA language can work against search engine placements and how bad they are for me, meanwhile, your site uses both, JAVA and frames. To me it means one of two things, you don’t know what you are talking about and therefore just passing along what others have told you, or there is something you know that you are not telling me.
Does that mean that if you do not have a great resume people wont buy from you? Absolutely NOT! Your resume could be your website. Here is what I mean, if someone visits your site and you don’t have a degree as a nutritionist, but your site is filled with very convincing articles and valuable information that shows that you know what you are talking about, that is enough to add credibility.
Let me take it one step further, if you create a very powerful sales letter, you can have your visitor so engaged in the information that she/he wont even bother to figure who you are, or what you do. However, to pull that off, you must offer a product that has great value, and if possible, a money back guaranteed!
All you need to do is to come from a place of honesty and service, and as long as you can show credible ways in which your product will benefit your market, you should be able to sell your product(s) and/or service(s) online.
So you have something of value and you have been able to gain credibility. What can you do to add more substance to your product or service?
Let’s say you are giving a speech and want to quote an article regarding your subject matter which you have written on a piece of paper, if you hold the paper and read the words from it, it holds more credibility than if you were merely saying the words. Why that is? I don’t know. But that is just one of those interesting mysteries we come across every once in awhile.
So by having someone saying something positive about your product or service, it helps add credibility which in turn helps also increase the value of what you are offering.
What we have done so far is, we have strategically created leverage. We have given a solid foundation as to why people not only should, but must obtain whatever it is you are offering. Assuming that you are placing all these strategies in the RIGHT ORDER, positive results should be way within your reach.
So what makes people buy is:
- Value-Benefits (What am I gaining from this.)
- Value-Honesty (How do I know this is true.)
- Value-Endorsements (What others have to say about this.)
Notice that I used the word “value” along with every example because value is what people consider before obtaining anything. Benefits, honesty and integrity as well as endorsements, even when each play a role in itself, they all have once thing in common. They “add value” to your product.
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