Internet Marketing Strategy

20 Ways to Instill Trust and Make More Money

By Christian

As I mentioned in my last post, trust is a hot commodity. It’s essential to instill trust with your readers if you want to get good business results from your blogging, social networking and internet marketing. So how do you instill trust?

The methods we use to market products and services these days are changing rapidly, and if you’re reading this blog you’re obviously aware of these changes and are taking steps to learn. Kudos. But it’s important…absolutely essential…to understand one simple fact.

The way people buy things is changing, but the REASONS people buy things haven’t changed at all.

In other words, people may be searching for information differently, they may be hyper-connected and using new resources to find out what they want to know, but deep down they still need the same things. People want to avoid pain and increase pleasure. They have the same hot buttons: greed, envy, love, etc. And they also need to trust you if they want to buy from you.

Here are things you can do to instill trust:

Create quality content, specifically written for your target audience.
Respond to your comments. Be thoughtful.
Respond to your email. Take time to be helpful.
Be everywhere. The more your audience sees you “out there”, the more your credibility increases.
Offer a guarantee for everything you sell. Take all risk upon yourself, leave only value for your customers.
Honor your guarantee. It should be just as easy to get a refund as it is to place an order.
Don’t spam people.
Leave thoughtful comments on other blogs. Use comments on other blogs as a conversational tool, not a promotional tool. People know comment spam when they see it. If you think real customers are going to click through your comment spam on other blogs and buying things from you, you’re deluding yourself!
Be honest.
Be consistent.
Make your products and services targeted. In other words, don’t just produce what you want. Confirm there is a need first. Targeted product creation instills trust, because it speaks directly to your customer. They will really feel like you really know them.
Don’t post blind, stupid links on Twitter or in your social networking status. Would YOU click on a link that says “hey check this out! crappyaffiliatelink.tinyurl.com”? I’m not against affiliate marketing of course. Not at all. I’m just saying, blindly blasting out affiliate links, hoping some of them will stick is NOT the way to build trust.
Before you post anything, anywhere, ask yourself “Is my goal to create value for my customers, or am I just trying to sell something?”
Be around for a while. There’s really no getting around this. The longer you are around, the more credibility you’ll build and the more your reputation will proceed you. This is a key element of trust, and it takes time.
Make your site easy to navigate.
Be an active member of other forums or a guest author on other properties that are valued and trusted by your target audience. This is another element of “being everywhere”, from #4.
Avoid overzealous claims in your sales copy, even if they’re true.
Don’t ignore complaints, and don’t be rude…seriously, someone who has taken the time to complain or leave a stupid, hateful comment on your blog is EXACTLY who you want to interact with. They care enough to let you know…99% of the time, it’s a simple issue you can resolve immediately with very little effort, and when you do this, you come off like a hero. If you choose to attack back, you will be justified in doing so, and you will also lose at least one customer forever. You can choose between using such an event as an opportunity to grow trust in your brand, or you can choose to come off looking like a jerk. Your choice!
Testimonials. This is a classic. It works, and it will ALWAYS work. Show people proof that your product or service has produced favorable results for others. Produce a system for getting testimonials from your buyers today!
Be good. This one might sound like a cop out, but I think it might be the most important one of all. Being good requires constant hard work, networking, staying on top of things and really putting your honest, full effort into your business…every day. These are all things the “gurus” claim they can teach you to skip. Learn all you can from the gurus, but then go out and bust your ass implementing what you’ve learned. Don’t skip the hard stuff, because doing what your competition is not willing to do…that’s exactly what will turn the tables in your favor. Can you make money online by doing very little? Yes, you can make chump change that way. Of course, if you’re in it for chump change, you’re reading the wrong blog 🙂

Of course, I don’t consider this to be a masterfully comprehensive list, but it’s a few things I consider to be absolutely crucial for instilling trust with your buyers.

Do you have any to add? Let me know what you think!

Why You Must Focus on Creating Trust More Than Anything Else

By Christian

Trust is essential. And when it comes to internet marketing and blogging, instilling trust is a unique challenge. People have always bought brands they trust, and trust has largely always come from two places: mass media and word of mouth. If you’ve been involved in internet marketing or otherwise working to make money online for any length of time, you’ve no doubt come face to face with the concept that just because you put up a sales page or a blog doesn’t mean anyone will visit. And just because they visit most certainly doesn’t mean they will buy! So what gives?

Once Again, Prevailing Wisdom Fails…

Here’s where most people screw it up. The prevailing wisdom is that in order to get the sales you want, you just need to “get more traffic”. It’s all about traffic. If you get more traffic, you’ll make more sales. Well, I can’t really argue with that in theory, but it’s so wasteful, and please don’t ignore the fact that you can get WAY better results by simply learning to be tactful about your approach. I have proven many times that you can bring in plenty of money with what most people would consider very low amounts of traffic to your site, if you learn how to apply the “fantastically simple rules” I describe here on Next Level Blogger. And one of the key rules is instilling trust. Bottom line: if your buyers don’t trust you, they’re not going to buy from you.

Let’s face it, not every niche is a high traffic niche. You need to learn to make money even with low traffic.

In other words, you can try to make up the lack of trust by simply driving more traffic to your site. If you get enough people to your sales page, you’re gonna get some suckers! And of course some of those suckers are going to buy from you. But look at the cost of doing business this way:

To drive more traffic, you will likely have to spend more money on advertising. Higher costs mean you make less money per sale.
To drive more traffic, you will spend a lot of time on things like link-building, seo, etc. Not bad activities, but time that could be spent on creating better content, interacting with your customers, etc. In other words, which do you think creates a better user experience, improved content or link-building?
By being dependent on high traffic, the moment something happens and your traffic drops for whatever reason, your sales dry up also. If your income is based on more organic and natural human interaction and real relationships, your income will not be nearly as sensitive or volatile.
By focusing on getting more and more traffic to increase sales, you are not allowing yourself to really zero in on improving your actual offering. Who needs to really improve anyway? Just get more traffic, and that’s all you need to worry about. Believe it or not, most people working to make money online use this mentality…

It’s All About Trust

In a post coming up soon, I will write specifically about how to instill trust. In this post I simply want to motivate you to look at your business a little differently than most people do when they approach internet marketing. If you create trust with your buyers, you’ve closed an important gap. One that separates you from your buyers. You won’t be dependent upon huge traffic to make sales and make money online, because your visitors will trust you. Your closing ratios will explode, because your visitors believe what you say, and they will see the value. Trust goes a long way. It will transform your business, if you are willing to do the work to harness it. It’s all about trust!

Why I Often Refer to Visitors as “Buyers”

By Christian

Have you noticed that? Often when I’m writing a post, and I’m talking about the visitors to your site, I refer to them as “buyers”. It’s important what words you use. I believe so anyway.

The reason I call visitors “buyers” is because that’s what they are, right? Do you want your readers to visit, or do you want them to buy?

I highly recommend letting this idea take full hold on your blogging and internet marketing, because it’s a lot more powerful than it might seem on the surface, and the most powerful concepts are almost always the simplest and easiest to miss! Focusing on the fact that every visitor is a potential buyer can have a significant effect on nearly every aspect of your internet marketing.

If you think of every visitor as a potential buyer (instead of just “traffic”), you will be compelled to customize the experience for every visitor possible. Instead of just “driving traffic”, you will focus on building a unique and valuable experience for EVERY visitor, not just the 2.3% who happen to buy from you. This effort alone can seriously increase your closing ratio, because it forces you to look at the details. It’s easy to look at 1,000 visitors and be pleased with the fact that you’ve gotten a few orders and made some money. And don’t get me wrong…that’s a good thing. You should absolutely be happy when you’re making money from your business! But look at the fact that HUNDREDS of people left without buying anything or communicating with you in any way. This isn’t defeatist or focusing on the negative, because what you’re doing is searching for opportunity. You should care about the ones that get away. You should focus on the fact that THEY are buyers too…they’re ALL buyers!

The people you sell to are hugely important, but the people who DON’T buy from you…those people are an even larger asset, because they show you what you’re doing wrong, where you’re dropping the ball, where you’re failing to provide value. They can show you, if you’re willing to do the work, how you can improve.

We should always be seeking to improve. We’re not “closing traffic”, we’re selling to people. And when someone doesn’t buy from you, you need to realize that is a real person who didn’t find value in what you’re offering. Why? The answer to that question is what will make you a millionaire. But you will only have the guts and tenacity to continue asking yourself that question day after day when you realize your traffic is more than traffic. They’re people. They’re buyers. They’re customers. Every single one of them.

Are You Wasting Time on SEO?

By Christian

Search engine optimization. It’s a huge concern for anyone involved in internet marketing. Perhaps you want to sell products online. Maybe you’re an affiliate marketer. Maybe you run a home based business of some sort. Maybe you’re in real estate. Maybe you’re a lawyer. Any number of businesses are well-served to have a strong online presence. Some of us sell products; some of us sell services, but we all have something in common…we want to show up in the search engines! So how do we do it?

Perhaps it has not escaped your attention that search engine optimization (SEO) is a significant concern for nearly every business these days. And perhaps, if you’ve looked into it at all, you’ve witness that sheer magnitude of information on this topic. Perhaps you’ve become intimidated a bit? How can you possibly become an expert on SEO as well as everything else necessary to be successful and make money online?

Here’s the answer…and it’s an answer you might not like. The answer is, you can’t. You don’t have time to become an SEO expert. Don’t waste your time. Hire an expert. This is a fundamental principle of success in business…

Don’t try and do every single thing yourself!

So many of us are still wrapped up in the the idea that the internet should be free and easy. Truth be told, there is a LOT of free content. Take this site for example. I post all these articles for free, just like bloggers do. And I will eventually charge money for the information products I’m developing, and I do charge for consultation. But 99% of this site is free. That’s the way the internet works, but it has taken me years of reading, trial and error, many many late nights and working through a lot of frustration to learn what I’ve learned.

Do you have a business you want to promote online? Do you want to set up a social networking strategy? Do you want to set up a blog? Do you want to get rockin results from your internet marketing? No doubt you’ve said yes to at least one of these things…or else why are you reading this blog? 🙂

If you have years to learn the ropes, then get started and do it that way. It is the most comprehensive and economical way to solve your internet marketing problems. But if you have a business to run, and you want to concentrate on selling stuff and living your life, don’t try to become an SEO expert on top of everything else. Just don’t go there. You honestly have better things to do with your time!

A Fundamental Business Principle

Should you hire an SEO expert for an hour to solve a problem? The hour will probably cost you $100-200, which is a good amount of money. The question should not be answered by deciding whether or not you think $200 is a “good deal” or not. Look at your options.

Solve the problem by paying a professional ($200).
Solve the problem yourself (investment of your time…how much time?).
Don’t solve the problem.

First, of all let’s look at the last one. Don’t skip over it. Maybe your problem just isn’t important and you can do without addressing it. Trying to handle every single little thing that comes across your desk is business suicide. You have to pick and choose. But if your internet marketing solution is something you’ve decided really needs to be addressed, you have to solve the problem.

Second, consider what solving the problem yourself entails. Do you have the time? How much is your time worth? How much time do you think it will take for you to solve this problem yourself? If you estimate you can do as good a job in an acceptable time frame, then you should solve the problem yourself. If not, you should hire someone to handle it for you.

If you want to run your business like a real business, the last thing you want to do is to try and do every single thing yourself.

Is Your Niche a Good Niche or a Bad Niche?

By Christian

I’d like to take just a minute to dispel, as well as I can, the myth of there being such a thing as a “good niche” or a “bad niche”. Do you think there is such a thing as a “good niche” or a “bad niche”? I’m going to argue that there is not. You’ve either done adequate research or not. That’s all there is.

No Such Thing as a “Bad Niche”

There is no such thing as a bad niche! You can make money on nearly anything. The point of this post is to hopefully get you to look past the niche and to look at what really matters. What you sell doesn’t matter nearly as much as how you sell it. Look at all the millions of dollars being made around the world by selling substandard, crappy products. I’m not advocating low quality of course, but I’m saying that your business plan matters much more than what you’re selling.

Thinking about whether your niche is good or not puts the focus on the wrong place. The focus needs to be on research and planning.

Is there strong demand for what you’re selling?
How have you verified this?
What are you offering to fill this demand?
How much is your target market willing to pay for this?
How do you know?
How do you plan to reach your target audience?
What sites do your target buyers visit most regularly?
Do your visitors prefer text or video content? How do you plan to engage them?
Are your buyers more inclined to respond to a free ebook as a premium, or are they more responsive to a physical product, or perhaps a service of some sort?
Again…how do you know?

These are questions you should be able to answer. You don’t need a “good niche”. You need a good business plan!

No Such Thing as a “Good Niche”

Just as there is no such thing as a bad niche, there is also no such thing as a good one. There is no magical niche that will make you successful. If you’ve done your research and found that you have an actual, valuable solution to a real demand that exists, and you have a solid plan on how you’re actually ready, willing and able to supply that solution, you will be successful, period.

Likewise, if you have an awesome product that people really would like, but you fail to connect to the right people, or if you fail to market the product properly in any number of ways, you will fail, period. So it’s entirely possible to have a “good niche” and still fail. Your niche doesn’t matter. Your plan matters. Research matters. Do the work up front. It’s worth it!