Does Just Being Helpful Sell?

Right. You cannot motivate someone else. You have to find their existing motivation and demonstrate how your offer helps to satisfy it.

This.

I have found that doing this, were 95% of the time you are just being helpful and suggesting products that help when they are relevent.

Then once you have a trusted following, when you pull out the hard sell for the 5% of the time.

Because people like you, trust you, find your shit helpful, they will whip out their credit cards straight away.

My experience anyway.

My attitude to freeloaders is this: I can make them a buyer. So the more people i can entice on my list. I will eventually get a sale from them. They will keep looking at my emails because they are a mix of value/sale/valuesale at same time. Eventually they will just buy something. Especially if you offer at different price points.

At the end of the day, it costs nothing to have someone on your list. If you send them 1000 emails over say 10 years, they will buy once, some will buy 10 times etc. Its just about being prolific imo. But what do i know, i only make $5-10k month, im not a bigtime guru.

Thanks guys.

I figure most people are tire kickers anyways... so even if they don't buy, at least they learn something useful... and who knows, they might come back later.

I actually read a sales page about 15 times over the course of a few years. I was even an affiliate for the product (in the fitness market). I sold dozens of copies of the product but never actually bought it.

But I always referred to the sales page because the guy actually had some rock solid info on his sales page. He earned my trust like crazy. And when the time was right, I eventually bought.

Perry Marshall does a great job of this in the IM niche. I also really like Rusty Moore's approach in the fitness niche. His muscle building salespage has 4 short videos with really unique information... then he very subtly says you can buy his full course for more detailed information.

I really like that. Even if I don't buy right away, these guys stay in my mind for a long time and I eventually come back when the time is right.

To Clix's point...

I'm shocked at how well the hypey approach works. There's a high converting offer in the fitness niche that totally turns me off. I'd never buy the product, but apparently it converts like gang-busters.

You guys are all giving great advice...

Thanks!
Raza

Clix,

That's a really insightful point. I never looked at it like that.

I'm using Facebook ads and while it does convert, it's lower than I would have expected.

Like Shawn said, you probably have to use a combo of both styles... flash intro to get their attention, but solid tips so you don't seem like a blatant sales pitch.

That's one approach, and as Andrew said, you'll attract tire-kickers and free-loaders who not only won't buy, but will complain about you even trying to sell to them.

But another approach is to offer something of value at a small cost.

While the offer will attract less people, they'll be much more likely a) value the content, b) remember you, and c) become customers in the future.

I don't know about giving away the profits, since part of the idea is for the buyers to become used to paying you for quality information. The associations of value, credibility, and authority get built at the same time, too.

If it's quality information that took time and effort to put together, then it could be sold on its own at a higher price. They're getting the reward and satisfaction of a good deal (value) in a way they'd not get if it was free. If the money is just going to be given away anyway, would that lessen the perceived value?

That initial small payment is a means to controlling the selling process, starting with that first premium to get them into the marketing funnel (your selling process). If there is no system for selling and reselling to customers, then the somewhat random buying processes of the customers are in control.

If they raise their hand and say they are interested enough to make that small investment, then that's a quality customer and someone that is a buyer. As Dan Kennedy said, "A buyer is a buyer is a buyer."

Of course, this depends on having a selling process and something to sell (and upsell, cross-sell and otherwise keep them engaged while providing value along the way as the OP asked). If the idea is just to get signups for a blog, then a free report in exchange for a signup is probably fine.

Freebies definitely have their uses in marketing, though. For example, Rich Schefren's free Internet Business Manifesto helped to launch his business in a big way. Because it was free, it was able to go viral.

Likewise, freebies can be a way to provide extra value to the customers on your list that did commit to the initial purchase (perhaps educating or training them to need future products, like Copyblogger did).

Kennedy does go into this free-or-not-free angle, although I don't have a citation here. TJ Rohleder does too, and I know I've seen it elsewhere.

Exactly. Sometimes gurus say you can be an expert in any field. True, but unless you are interested in the topic, it's a grind. Your tribe will sense your lack of enthusiasm, and drift to other experts.

You make an interesting observation, Claude.
If I may expand on that, I think it has much to do with the tangibility of the product.
More often than not, when we're writing about intangible products online, we're actually selling a dream. And dreams are anything but honest (damn you, Tina Fey and Alfa Romeo 4C)!