Before you decide on selling anything online, you need to first determine who your customer is, what they often purchase, and why they are purchasing online.
This is called "customer comprehension". The better you understand your customer, the easier it will be to sell stuff to them. Obviously, at the core of any business, the ultimate goal is to create a profit. To create a profit, you must have customers and you must be able to sell to these customers.
One of the most common mistakes I see people make is promoting to a customer (or audience) before they fully understand who their audience is. It is very easy to waste money promoting what you "think" people want, rather than what they are actually looking for.
Don't make assumptions on your customers, gain an understanding. You will be much more successful.
Before we go any further, we need to understand the steps someone takes between the time they learn of a product or service, to the time that they actually make a purchase. That is what my goal is to help you understand.
Let's look at some it. Some known facts about a customer:
(1) Customers rarely buy on their first point of contact to a product
(2) It typically takes a person 7 times (this could be website visits, email newsletter, etc.) before they make a purchase online.
(3) Customers do not buy from people they don't trust
(4) Customers are exchanging "money" for something that will improve upon their existing situation
(5) Customers have more access to product information and reviews than they ever have
(6) Most customers can see through scammy promotions, in fact are turned off
I am going to show you how to catch people later in their buying cycle so you can increase your chances of someone "buying" versus having to walk them through all points of contact. This will simplify the selling process drastically!
I now also realize that if you *do* get visitors on your site in the research phase, it's an ideal opportunity to build some initial trust.
For instance, by telling them things they don't know yet about the products they are looking into. Or about things to consider that they hadn't thought of yet.
Also, talking about the drawbacks of any product is also a great opportunity to build trust.
And - being a customer myself - I know that I like to read or see an affiliate marketing disclaimer. It makes me feel that the site is not trying to con me into clicking on links. And is just open about the way they make money. Which is just an understandable thing - of course the site has to make money in order to pay for hosting, the time invested in writing high quality content and reviews, etc.
Additionaly, when the affiliate disclaimer is in informal language, this enhances the trust for me as a customer. Makes me feel I'm dealing with a human on the other end (not some scammy, aggressive sales person)
I understand now I should just focus on building that trust.
The rest (revisit, sales) will follow later, and will be a logical result of the trust I build. The better I am at creating that trust, the better traffic will convert.
And the best way to build trust, is to be authentic, true, trustworthy, honest.
Thanks Kyle for that lesson! :)
Seriously though, I hadn't thought of doing some introspection to help meet others when they're ready to buy.
I literally did all of the above before buying into Wealthy Affiliate!
It's like you know me....lol!
Thanks Kyle,
-J
It's a lot to soak in mostly because we don't typically think about the buying process even though we have all been consumers since we got our first paying job.
Golden nuggets for sure!
We all do it naturally without thinking, slowing it down and breaking it apart as you've done here, gets us to look into the mindset of people who are on a quest for a product and like myself, once I've researched an item through reviews, videos and images I'm hooked. At this point I'm then looking into cashback from websites, voucher codes and who is selling it at a great price, then there's the "trust in the brand" issue as you mentioned, do you buy your products from "Amazon" for example at a slightly lifted price or "Joe's Stuff.com" that includes cashback on your purchase.
Everyone will think and act differently, some will carefully buy and cover all bases, others will just blow the cash because they want the product yesterday, especially if it's trending well.
I will try and keep all this I've learned above in mind as I develop my website and business niche as it sounds spot on to what we are like. Would love to know how you learned all this, was it from personal experience, statistics and a working website, business teacher?