Sea Monkeys are little people aren't they?
What makes people almost buy your affiliate marketing idea?
What makes them get most of the way there and then drop out of your stats at the last page? (check your Google Analytics for examples)
What makes them stare at your home page for a minute, an eternity in surfer time, looking at what you have to say then move on to something else?
It turns out there’s a hideous troll hiding under the bridge. Every time you get close to making a sale, the troll springs out and scares your prospect away. Get rid of the troll and your copy will start converting better than it ever has before.
The ugly, smelly, dirty, bad-mannered troll is prospect FEAR
And it’s sitting there right now, stinking up your landing page and scaring good customers away.
Fear of wasting money
Remember when you were a kid and you went to the carnival that came to your town? After eating all the pink fluffy sugar you could manage — and nearly chucking it all back up again on the fast spinning waltzers, you see the ping pong balls that you lob into goldfish bowls. Easy Remember that persuasive bloke who convinced you to spend a whole month’s pocket money throwing them at the gaping openings
It looked so easy. He showed you exactly how to do it. Toss the ball land it in the bowl, win a cool stuffed animal for a prize. Simple.
You spent ages trying to do it yourself.
When all your pennies were gone, you got an inkling. It looked easy, but if you were actually standing at the throw line, it was pretty close to impossible. Now the carnival guy had all your money, and you didn’t even have a huge stuffed bear to show for it.
The troll of FEAR is born.
Fear of mockery
When the sting of the carnival wore off, you were innocently minding your own business and ran across an ad for an amazing product called Sea-Monkeys.
They were little people!
And they had tails!
They looked pretty awesome on the cover of the package. You begged your parents to get them for you and told everybody you knew. Your little brother. Your best friend. Your entire class.
This was going to be so cool.
The ad said you could even teach them to do tricks. You planned on getting them medicine, vitamins, special formulas, everything they needed to be the happiest pets ever.
You followed the instructions to the letter. You waited breathlessly.
You told anyone and everyone how amazing this was going to be.
It turns out the Sea-Monkeys were just brine shrimp. No way did they resemble little people.
They resemble fish food, which is what they are.
Your little brother, your best friend, and your entire class now thought you were an idiot.
And they delighted in letting you know that at every opportunity.
Your credibility has suddenly gone.
Fear of feeling stupid
Every time we’re betrayed by a sleazy salesperson we become doubters. The troll grows. Our mistrust grows and our inclination to believe shrinks.
And then a blogger shows up with a helpful article or podcast episode that will solve a problem that’s been really bothering us. Let’s call that content marketer … you.
We want to believe you. We want to get the benefit from what you have to offer. We want to have something — anything — work out the way it was promised.
We would love to be able to trust our own judgment.
But the troll keeps whispering in our ear, with his truly horrendous breath, how stupid we’re going to feel when we fall for that again.
How to kill the troll
Be honest and trustworthy with good advice and good content. These things and just plain old decency are your best weapons to combat the troll.
Everything on your site needs to show you can be trusted: Real contact information. Your photograph. Thorough responses to FAQs. Clear, reasonable calls to action.
Every detail matters. Everything you do needs to build trust and kill the troll.
Little thing like setting up your email account which uses your domain are also trust builders. What other things do you recommend that build trust.. comment below please :)
Recent Comments
9
Every thing we do is a step in the right direction, it all helps to remove doubt. Really like your approach Colin, and how you express it.
Yes the troll loves to kill momentum and creativity and it feeds on anything you have stored in your mind so Let all of us KILL THE TROLL ! all the best Max
I like how you refer to this as the troll. You suggestions as also great to combat the troll!
Thanks Colin for this...oh did that sea monkey add bring back memories! LOL I actually got some when I was a kid, loved them, then learned they were actually brine shrimp? I was all ready for them to perform their circus acts. don;t remember how long they lasted, but I thought they were pretty cool.
great advice my friend. Thanks for the lesson, and indeed honesty is always best policy and will build trust as time moves forward.
All the very best to you!
Jim
Sea monkeys were a great example of marketing just to fool us the customers. Had to laugh at the ad in my post ' so eager to please and you can even train them. I believed that too :)
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Really enjoyed reading your article this is probably the biggest barrier just one click away from the final act of buying...