Web Success Secret #3) Pre-selling is far more effective than selling.

The first two parts of this series were geared towards both the search engines and your visitors.  This article focuses directly on your visitor- more specifically your relationship with your visitor.  You must gently and effectively pre-sell your visitor on your goods or services.

Anyone can sell a product or service online.  All it takes is a link to a payment processor such as Paypal.  The difference between successful online business owners and those wishing to make a buck is in their ‘voice’.  A website has a voice.  The look and feel of your website gives your visitor an impression.  When your visitor reads your words they should know the persona of your business and think of you as an expert.

These words, or content, should provide tons of information in small, bite-sized chunks of text.  No one likes to read 8 pages of content on a website.   On the flip side, no one likes to buy a product without knowing more about it.  You need to find the perfect balance between no information and providing too much.

Generally speaking, 400-800 words can do the trick.  It can provide content, position you as the expert and gently pre-sell your visitor on a product or service.

In addition to how much content you provide you should focus on providing specific answers to your customer’s problems or concerns.  Most visitors are on your website because they want answers.  They are not surfing your site to buy something.  They want answers.  So give them answers!

It’s how you provide your answers that matters.  There is a difference between selling and pre-selling, and how you provide the answers or information your visitor wants is that difference.

Selling is cold, distant and forceful.  Pre-selling is the opposite.  Pre-selling can be thought of as a recommendation or side note to all the great content you provide.  You want your website voice to develop trust and rapport with your visitor.  During that time you are positioned as an expert.  Any soft recommendation that you make will be considered by your visitor.

Forceful selling causes people to put up their defenses.  It causes them to take a step back and wonder what your motives are.  Pre-selling does not affect people this way.  Pre-selling should lead those that are interested to your product without hesitation and those that are not interested should be led to more general content on your website- that will again attempt to gently pre-sell them.

Pre-selling and content (part 1 of this series) are closely related.  You must provide information to your site visitors.  You must be viewed as the expert and as a helpful friend making a recommendation.  People will not feel sold by that.  People will respect that you are providing answers to their problems and making a recommendation for a product that can provide even more helpful info.  It’s seen as a favor instead of a hard sell.

Previous parts:
4 Secrets to Turn Any Business Into a Successful Web Business – Part 1
4 Secrets to Turn Any Business Into a Successful Web Business – Part 2

Download Here The FREE eBook “Make Your Content PreSell” (139 pages!)… and learn all about how to optimize the content of your web site…

Almost every book author wants to know: When is a good time to start marketing a book? While still writing the book, while looking for an agent or publisher, while going through the self-publishing process? When the book is available on Amazon?

There are few certain replies to this question except for one: It’s rather late to start marketing your book when it is already out on Amazon.

So what’s the answer as to when is the best time to start marketing a book? It depends.

And what it depends on is a great number of variables, including is this your first book, do you already have an online reputation, are you a renown newspaper journalist who is about to write a first novel, and any other variable that you care to name. (Such as, do you have a famous last name, such as Mary Higgins Clark’s daughter had when she started writing mysteries?)

If we can agree that we can’t pinpoint an exact right time that applies to everyone, are there general guidelines that can help all authors?

Yes, I believe there are. First, if you’re interested in promoting online, the earlier you start establishing yourself online the better. And the first step is to decide on your brand as a book author.

What do I mean by brand? I mean how you plan to position yourself in your marketing and promotion. What is it that will make you stand out from other writers of non-fiction or similar fiction? What will make people interested in you (and hopefully want to buy your book)?

The strategizing of your brand definitely takes place as early as possible in the publication quest for your book. And as part of this brand strategy, it’s very important to consider the proposed title of your book. This is even more relevant if you’re going to self-publish. You should check out your title with others even if you love the title.

Does your book title “read” the way you think it does? Or does your proposed tile have a different meaning to some people? For example, today I saw someone’s proposed book title that will be very hard to remember, let along spell on Amazon or for a URL. This is probably not the best name for a book.

And does the title stand out? Does it create an image in a potential reader’s mind so he/she can remember the title? A generic title such as “A Good Trip” doesn’t create a specific image, whereas “Six Sunny Days in Paris” creates a strong sense memory.

Once you are clear about your brand and have a good “working” book title (it still may change), you can begin to add elements to your brand positioning.

You can, for example, have someone create short videos (less than three minutes) of you talking about the stages you’re going through in researching and writing your book. Then you can use software such as Sony Vegas Movie Studio to edit the video and to put text such as your name and, if you have a website, your website’s URL on the video.

And you can upload these short videos to YouTube and other video-sharing sites. Remember, it’s important to tag these videos with good keywords that relate to you and your brand so that people will have an easier time finding your videos.

You can start a blog, detailing the stages of your book’s process and sharing sample chapters with your blog readers. Getting feedback early on can help you refine your book. And you can offer to write guest posts for other people’s blogs, again staying true to your brand in what you offer to write about.

And then you’re ready for a website – a site that you can control yourself without waiting days for your web master to make one little change. That’s why I recommend having someone build you a website using WordPress.org. Once all the backend steps are done, you will have a website (and blog if you want) that is hosted on your own site and can be completely controlled (read “changed”) by you.

Finally, it’s time to establish a sincere presence on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as well as various book sites and other social media sites. Gradually build up your presence on these sites by engaging in conversations with others, offering advice when you can, and establishing relationships that will come in handy when your book is published.

Having a website or at least a blog hosted on another site such as blogger.com provides you with your own arena of visibility when you set up your profiles on social media sites. By using your website URL or blog URL as part of who you are on the internet, you’re more firmly establishing an online foundation for your book’s publication and marketing.

Next, Discover Here More Tips On How To Promote eBooks and Websites… And Then Watch This FREE 26 Step-By-Step VIDEO Course

Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.

Permission

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.

Subscriber Addresses

When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

List Maintenance

Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.

Message Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If
sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

Content

Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.

Website URL:

Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.

Words/phrases:

Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.

Images:

Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.

Attachments:

With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.

CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honoured to remove the subscriber from future messages.

Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:

• http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
• http://www.bondedsender.com
• http://www.habeas.com

Relationships & White listing

Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific white listing programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.

Writing an effective web copy begins with an understanding of what the goals of your website are. Are you trying to get your visitors to purchase something or have them sign up for your newsletter? Remember you are trying to get someone whom you can’t see and have never met take a step towards building a relationship with you or your company.

1. Create a customer profile—Who is exactly your target audience?

• Are they young, middle aged or senior?
• Are they primarily male or female?
• Are they financially secure or budget-minded?
• What gets him or her excited?
• What are his or her most pressing concerns?

2. Create a Unique Selling Position (USP) — Find out what are the needs and desires of your visitors. Brainstorm a list of topics that might interest your target audience. Then based on these evidences, propose a statement of 2–3 sentences that explains why you are different from everybody else. This is the unique factor that sets you apart from your competition. Make this the first thing your visitor sees when they arrive on your home page.

3. Focus on benefits — Most web users want to find the information about the product or service they need as fast as possible. If they land on your site, they want to know how they will benefit from buying your product or subscribing to your e-zine. You will need to answer that question as clearly and concisely as possible or you will lose that visitor.

4. Use headlines — Provide a summary of your information by clearly communicating the main purpose of your copy. Use informative headings and subheadings with a paragraph of 4–5 lines that supports them. You only have a few seconds to grab your visitors’ attention. Most will simply scan for the information they are seeking.

5. Use bulleted or numbered lists, boldface or colored font to emphasize the points you wish to make.

6. Include links within the text to direct visitors to other pages of your site for more in-depth information. Effective navigation also helps visitors easily find the main sections of your site.

7. Write in an informal or personal style — It is your own unique way of differentiating your presence from other small businesses in a similar niche. It doesn’t have to be too elaborate or super-creative. You simply provide a style that gets the attention of your visitors.

8. Keep your sentences simple — You are not writing to impress. You are writing to communicate. Make it easy for a 13-year-old to understand why you want to sell your product or service.

Don’t use large words but opt for strong verbs over weak ones. Use the active voice instead of a passive one, i.e. instead of “a good score was achieved by the team”…say “the team scored a season high”. Speak “to” but not “at” your visitor. Keep your sentences short and snappy. Sometimes straight-forwardness is all it takes to bring results in the shortest time.

9. Include searchable keywords — Use targeted keywords in your web copy that will allow the search engines to find your site. Include these keywords in your meta tags, links and file names.

10. Eliminate the fluff — Don’t waffle on in your writing. You will only bore your visitors and they will click elsewhere. Try to remove filler sentences that contain phrases like “for those of you” and “all of you”.

11. Proof-read your web copy — Errors in your web copy give the impression of being unprofessional or sloppy. Read the copy aloud to yourself or get someone else to proof-read it. Often they will find more errors because they are more objective.

Use the spell checker but don’t rely on it. Often it doesn’t pick up grammatical or vocabulary errors. Print a copy of your content. It’s easier to find such errors on a hard copy this way.

12. Take a break — Revise your web copy after taking a break from it for several hours or a few days. This allows you to see it from a different viewpoint. You may find a better way to say something to further improve your copy.

13. Use images sparingly — Images should only be used if they relate and support your web content. If not, they will only distract the visitor from reading your web copy. Too many images will slow down the time it takes for your visitor to load your site in their browser.

Writing an effective web copy is the key to converting visitors into buyers. Getting thousands of visitors to your website doesn’t guarantee sales. The types of words you use and how you combine and string them together is absolutely crucial to pressing the hot buttons of someone who would finally say, “Yes, I MUST get it!” Once you achieve this, your website will become very profitable.