Your primary focus as an Internet marketer should be on
"permission marketing"* and not be quick sales!
Sure, you can set up a website with some great content and
plaster it with banners and links to pages that pre-sell
products and then link through to the products themselves.
You can even succeed in making a nice little income this
way, provided you are driving enough targeted traffic to
your site.
But how much of the traffic drives off again without a
trace, never to return?
And how many of the people who do click through and buy the
product return to you to buy again?
If your site is well designed and targeted then it is quite
possible that some people will return and buy again.
But, how much better would it be if instead of trying to
get people to part with their cash as soon as possible, you
actually focused less on the quick sale and more on
building a relationship with the customer?
By focusing on your prospect's need for trustworthy advice
you would stand a much bigger chance of turning your
prospect into a life-long customer who trusted you, was
eager to hear from you and bought your recommended products
time and time again.
Sounds great, doesn't it?
Here is a list of the steps you need to take to move
towards a method of marketing that places the customer's
needs at the centre and turns the relationship into a
dialogue rather than a shouting match!
1. Focus on gaining people's permission for you to contact
them about their needs.
Do this by making a squeeze page (or several) and also by
adding a form to each page of your website. Include an
incentive for people to sign up, like a compelling free
report about stuff they need to know but haven't seen
elsewhere.
2. Link the form on your page to your autoresponder, which
has been pre-loaded with a series of messages that will now
go out to the subscriber.
3. While you might like to include a link or two to your
products, don't over-do the sales at this stage of the
game. Instead, remember that you have not yet won your
reader's trust.
What you have to do in the early stages is set up a
dialogue and also provide useful services and
recommendations.
To do that, your email newsletters should be packed with
useful information that is written in a lively and personal
manner and focuses on the customer.
Also, provide free resources, tips and information that are
genuinely useful. Don't be afraid to include links to sites
other than your own - subscribers will appreciate your
generosity and return for more.
4. From time to time make your subscribers a new opt-in
offer. Give them a good incentive and require that they
give your some more information that you can use to focus
on their needs more closely.
Those who opt in will be transferred from the first to the
second mailing list.
The second list will be your more powerful list of clients
with whom you have developed a stronger relationship of
trust and who will be eager and happy to hear your offers.
That is the list you make your money on in repeat sales and
sales of your primary products and services.
But remember, it is also the list you must look after most
assiduously. The subscribers on the list have learned to
trust you and building trust online with your customers is
the key.
If you are tempted to sell them short at this stage for a
quick profit, you will soon find that you have succeeded in
undermining your credibility and your hard work will have
been wasted. Remember, you are seeking to build a long-term
relationship of mutual benefit, so don't muff it by
succumbing to short-term greed.
I have only described a couple of stages of this
"permission marketing" model.
Moving your customers "up the permission-marketing ladder"*
is the key to success. It does not have to be just a
one-step move. You can implement several steps, each one
moving the customer relationship to a higher and more
personal level.
The role of sub-niches is also important here. As you talk
to your list and invite a response, you should also be
prepared to place different responses on different lists at
the higher level.
With fewer subscribers on each niche list, you now have the
opportunity to get to know each customer more personally
and open up several lines of 1-on-1 dialogue with
subscribers who are now repeat-buyers.
Because they have moved up several rungs of the
permission-marketing ladder you know a lot more about them
and are now in a position to offer them exactly what they
need, and they are in a position, based on experience to
trust your offers and enjoy your mailings.
They are customers who are eager to hear from you and
willing to buy from you, so treat their trust like
gold-dust.
== NOTE
*See Seth Godin's "Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers
into Friends, and Friends Into Customers" (available on
Amazon.com)
----------------------------------------------------
David Hurley is an Internet marketer who is based in Japan
and is the owner of http://grasp-the-nettle.com , which
focuses on success mentoring for Internet marketing
start-ups. Get your own work-from-home Internet business
set up free and find out how you can build an online
business at ==> http://grasp-the-nettle.com/pips.html .
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