2010: Where’s the Money?

As internet marketers we all like to see our profit increase year in and year out – not always possible, but it gives us a warm funny feeling if we do it. So, with 2010 just over a month away, what will you do different next year? What will you do to increase your bottom line?

Well, recently I’ve been racking my brains to identify the basic skill or skill-set that essentially all marketers (especially affiliates, like me, you and every one else that reads this blog!) should improve and even try to master. What fundamental skill should we all really focus on improving?

After a lot of deep thought, the answer is Pre Selling

What is pre selling? Here’s a simple quote I found while reading some blog: “Pre-selling is basically getting the user to buy the product in his/her mind before he really even buys. So by the time the user gets to the actual buy now page (landing page), he/she is already ready with credit card in hand to buy.”

Collectively, the affiliate networks have paid out BILLIONS (1,000,000,000s) to affiliates, and this figure will only INCREASE over the coming years!

Now, ask yourself how much money have you lost because you have not bothered to pre-sell to your visitors? Or your pre-sell copy/tactics sucked so much you made minimal conversions? Don’t worry, we’ve all been there!

I’ve been delving into pre-selling tactics for a while now, and to be honest, I’m floored! An entire realm of marketing dynamics exist that I knew virtually nothing about! The more I delve into it, the more astonished I am!

I’ve found a myriad of concepts and tactics that can be employed to increase sales by 3, 4, 5 times or more! I admit some of these concepts and tactics are certainly on the dark side! Such as:

Using social proof to increase trust;
Invoking negative emotions to amplify proudct desire and interest;
Employing isolation to reduce buying resistance;
Combating primary and secondary buying objections;
Emphasizing primary and secondary buying motives with social proof;
Cult-like dynamics (don’t ask – lol)

These pre-selling tactics can be used on blogs, forums, typical websites, landing pages, etc, etc. For instance, instead of a banner linking directly to a merchant’s site, you could link it to a post on your blog where the pre-sell strategy begins.

To improve your pre-sell skills, start by reading this: http://makepeacetotalpackage.com.s3.amazonaws.com/udcc/premiums/CopywritingConspiracyLoRes.pdf

Then look for the following torrents/downloads:

Forbidden Key to Persuasion – Blair Warren
Triggers – Joe Sugarman
Keys to Power Persuasion – Alan Tutt
How to Write Killer Presell
Etc, etc.

There are many more books to read but that will get you moving in the right direction.

Because of the importance of this subject, I’ve created a new section in WPBlackhat called Presell Mastery, here: http://wpblackhat.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=12

And I’m scheduling an online chat about it too very soon, because it’s more important to convert existing traffic than to be constantly chasing more traffic!

If you learn/improve one skill in 2010, make it the art of pre-selling and you could increase your income dramatically!