Using Polls to Sell

You have a certain level of trust for my word.

You probably have a higher level of trust for the words (or votes) of your peers.

There is only ONE reason that people do anything: faith.

Faith that in exchange for their hard earned money, they'll get what you say they're going to get.

Faith that when they subscribe to your list, you will live up to your privacy policy and deliver what you've promised (and that what you've promised is worth while).

So any way that you can add to the "faith-factor" is a plus vote in the right direction.

Now a lot of us have a high level of skepticism in this niche we call Internet marketing. (Warrior's, especially, seem to forget they know a significant amount more about this game than the rest of the world.)

When X says, "this is good - I rate it a buy" that goes only so far, because you know I'm going to get paid if/when you buy. I have a biased intention and no level of integrity is going to hide that intention in your mind.

But, if I put a poll on my blog - which I tried for the first time - and I give you and everyone else the opportunity to vote a product as "good, bad or ugly", then the trust/faith factor increases. And this appears to be a successful tool so far - I produced more sales via my blog (that's NEVER happened before) than I did using email or PPC.

Example here: Agency Adwords Elite : Black Books Blog

Is it exploitable? Yes. In both directions - either the product creator, or blog author posting favorable votes - or miserable no-goods voting "lousy" just because that's how they feel even though they have no experience with the product. The process isn't foolproof, but it's more valid than review sites created only with intent to sell a product or Amazon where I've known a number of authors who incentive customers and give marching orders to employees to leave great feedback on their books.

Give it a shot - next time you promote a product, give your readers the opportunity to cast their vote.

X