Sales Momentum... At The Cost Of Frankness?

First of all, I promised to give an example of how to properly get people to review my stuff. It's forthcoming... meaning I wanted to write it today but decided it was too much work and, therefore, I put it off to another day.

Second, I invite you to visit my (free) WSO here:

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...-pre-sell.html

If you read the WSO and sign up, you will get access to The Trinity Method Playbook, which I'm sure you'll find at least a little bit useful and/or entertaining.

But even if you don't care about my playbook, I'd like you to read the WSO and at least click through to the opt-in page.... even if you don't then actually opt in.

Why? Because this will allow to follow my ramblings today in context and understand exactly what I'm talking about. Like following a live case study.

Please read the WSO now and return when you are finished. Open it in a new tab or whatever.

---------
INTERLUDE - PLEASE READ THE WSO
---------

(By the way, if I was actually selling something this could be construed as a fairly aggressive marketing tactic.

"You wanna read my blog? Read my advertisement! Do it!!!! Do it NOW!!!!")

---------
INTERLUDE - PLEASE READ THE WSO
---------

Finished? Good.

Okey-dokey. Sales momentum.

Or, more accurately, action momentum - since there is nothing for sale here.

What is this momentum of which I speak? It goes by different names, depending on it's particular context in the vast kingdom of persuasion.

Foot-in-the-door
Commitment/Consistency
Reading "gravity"
Slippery Slide

Not that the above are exactly the same thing - but they teach similar principles - basically they all say:

Once people are already upon a course of action,
it is much easier to get them to continue along that course of action
than it is to get people who are doing nothing to get up and take action.

So... here I am, running my WSO, and my goal is to get people to opt-in.

As you can see, I am very upfront about my opt-in requirements... so much so that it almost becomes a take-away ("if you're not serious, you can't have the carrot...")

Notwithstanding:
- The advantages of a take-away sell
- My qualification requirements (I'm looking for potential affiliates I can work with - not a bigger-is-better list of names to shower with Clickbank hoplinks)...


Here's why:

Because it goes against the principle of building momentum. I'm trying to get them to commit to opting-in right off the bat. To go from zero -> opt-in.

If I were to elegantly ignore the issue of opt-in and spring it upon them... as many do in, say, The War Room... all I'm asking the prospect to do in the WSO is just to "click here to download".

Then, once they've taken that action...i.e. clicking through... it should, theoretically, be a much easier task to get them to opt in.

Because they're already on that course of action.

And yet...


A little sleazy.

"Yes, I know I said you can click here to download... but there's another hoop you need to go through."

By telling them about it upfront, I feel better about myself. More candid.

NOTE: This is not good advice. As you will see, this is over-sensitivity which stems from some personality defect.

I may feel better... but the question is, do my prospects?

I'm sure they do. I'm sure I generate at least a modicum of pissed-off-ness in some prospects when I spring a squeeze page on them out of the blue. Thanks to the wonders of economics, we can magnify that feeling of discontent over a large sample size and express it as a fraction:


If I had the data (which I don't), the question would be:

To what extent is the advantage gained by "momentum" offset by the "pissed-off-ness"?

We could tell with precision.

So let's talk about what we do know rather than what we don't.

At the moment, here's the data I do have:

Aweber informs me of 17 submissions over 23 unique displays. Given that I can account for at least 2-3 uniques, that gives me an opt-in rate of about 85%.... of those who click through. Not bad.

My WSO has received approx 100 views. 23 displays means a click-through rate of 23%...

and an overall opt-in rate of 17%.

Still with me?

17% is not bad under the circumstances... especially with my qualifications.

Here's what I'm thinking will happen if I change the copy so it doesn't include reference to the opt-in form... and I "spring" it on them...

a) the 85% will go down
b) the 23% will go up

The only question is - by how much... and will the final rate by higher or lower?

Oh, the joys of testing. I'm going to leave it until approx 250 views - still not a large enough sample but it will have to do under the circumstances and then substitute.

If I can get over my sensitivity issues :rolleyes:

Gil-Ad