Selling Tactics

Egidijus Andreika asked:


Within the last few years, at an exponentially increasing rate, the internet has completely transformed the way business is done. There are no boundaries anymore to your business, nor any time constraints. The internet is always ready for your business - We are open for business; 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!

Making use of the limitless power and resources of the internet is perhaps now the easiest way to rapidly expand your business, or even start your own online business for selling digital products.

This article will offer you some insights as to why you should opt for selling digital products online and show you all the benefits of this digital e-commerce business:

1) No Limits Business, and NO Limits Earning - No geographical limits, No Borders!

Imagine selling your products in a physical world shop. Your sales area remains limited to a particular geographical location. When you sell digital products online, there are no limits to your potential customers. The whole online world is your market. Now if you are seriously considering selling products online, you have just exponentially multiplied the number of your prospective clients, and needless to say earnings. If you have a product suitable for multiple languages (i.e. not only English, but Chinese, French, German, etc.), then you can easily multiply your earning potential even more!

2) Digital Products and Information Is Not a Physical Product - No Costs to Sell Additional Copy

What can be sold? You can sell anything and almost everything that is digital. For example, software downloads, e-books, journals, subscriptions, music, videos, storage, etc. You can sell information and help people. Digital products are electronic, this means that there are no additional copy costs. Each additional copy of an ebook or other download doesn’t cost you a cent to produce, but it brings 100% profit.

3) You Receive Money Instantly - Sell Products 24 Hours a Day

When people buy digital products online, the payment modality generally employed is through online banking, credit/debit cards, etc. Herein, payments are reflected in your bank accounts instantly the moment your client makes a purchase. There is no need to deal to each and every customer eye-to-eye. Since there is no physical contact with the customer, your online store can sell products 24×7, 365 days per year automatically.

4) Expand Your Business With Digital Product Sales

Expanding your digital products online business is quite easy once you understand the techniques involved. For example, you can employ variety of powerful tools like article submissions, affiliate networking, social networking, etc. to promote your digital products, business, and ultimately - earnings. The more you promote, the more sales you will make.

5) The Simplicity of Transactions

Once you have started, you will be pleasantly shocked by the simplicity of all the transactions involved. You do not have to deal with your customers anymore. No talking, marketing effort required! This is something your website will do for you; even if you are sleeping or away on a vacation, your store never closes. It will literally make you money while you sleep.

6) No Inventory and Distribution Costs to Sell

You are selling a digital product. You pay for the product only once, or create it yourself, but you can sell it for unlimited instances. You can keep selling the same product over and over and over again! The more copies you sell, the more money you will make. Each of the copy doesn’t cost you a single cent, since it’s a digital product. You don’t have to store it in the warehouse or any other location, so there are no inventory and storage costs.

7) Build Good Reputation Online With Quality Digital Products

Your online business will quickly let you get a good reputation. The more number of sales you close, the more feedbacks, exposure and popularity you get. If you provide a quality product that solves problems for people or provides advice, etc. then it will be praised. People will talk about your product in forums, recommend it to their friends, etc. From here on, the number of your customers will only rise.

Product Delivery is Extremely Easy and Completely Automated

The purchaser simply receives the product by downloading it from your website or stored on the secure servers. No hassles and worries of delivery modes or charges. No other charges are involved either, like those related with maintaining a physical world shop. When you sell downloads you don’t have to be physically involved in delivering your product to customer.

9) Select a Good Digital Product Sales System to Manage and Automate Your Sales

Making use of such system will make your website very user friendly and clients will be able purchase smoothly. Such system Click2Sell.EU (http://www.click2sell.eu) will collect all payments for you, deliver the product to the buyer, manage all your sales and provide all other great benefits for you. So you don’t have anything to worry about. The only thing that you will have to do is just to promote your website and drive visitors. The more you market your website, the more sales and profits you will make.

10) No Cost to Start. You Can Start Within a Few Minutes From Now

You can get started right away, the moment you have made your decision. Just select a merchant system that will help you run e-commerce business (Click2Sell.EU) and offer to have your product and company listed on Marketplace. These merchant processing platforms allow you to start selling your products immediately, accept payments, and deliver products to buyers. All you need is product to sale, a website, and you are ready to start making good profits with selling digital products online.

Whatever you consider, you should start your own digital downloads business right away. This way you will not only earn money, but also build your business brand, reputation and awareness online. This will definitely help you in the future with your new business projects.



GALEN

Pawel Reszka asked:


Internet marketing industry has become one of the most saturated and competitive niches. The reason for that is because a lot of marketers buy almost any new product on impulse, thinking it’s going to help them automate their business even more, or just make more money. But after a few years this has changed too. Nowadays with all the marketing hype and new products people are not willing to spend money on something unless they truly need that product.

The easiest way to make a sale as an affiliate, or a vendor is when the customer has already made up his mind about making a purchase. When the customer knows he needs a certain product then there is almost nothing that will stop him from buying it. On the other hand, if you try to convince your prospect that he/she needs your product, or service, it’s going to be a lot harder to make that sale. It’s a human nature to prove yourself you are right, and if originally you didn’t think you need a certain product, then you will keep trying to find reasons not to purchase it.

So how can we help prospects make a buying decision without looking like a pushy salesman?

First, let’s look at some of the marketing tactics used in the industry to generate traffic and sales.

- Copywriting

- PDF files

- Email Marketing

- Article Marketing

- Press Releases

- Video

- Screen Captures

- Audio

The above marketing tactics are widely used by all internet and affiliate marketers. All of them are very powerful and if used correctly can generate a lot of sales and traffic.

But how can we use them to sell something without actually selling anything. It’s quite simple in fact. Instead of trying to convince people that your product is the best thing out there, you should concentrate on giving away free info on how you use it to help you run your own business.

By changing your strategy this way, you will gain more credibility and won’t look like a pushy salesman. People will actually like you for all the great free content you are giving away, and at the same time they will want your product.

So let’s look at some examples:

1. You could create a free PDF reports teaching people some cool new strategies that work for you. You could show people how your product makes the strategy a lot easier and automated perhaps. This way you are not trying to sell to them. You would actually just help them understand that they need it too.

2. Write Press Releases and Articles. The more articles and press releases out there about your product or service the better chance you have making a sale. People search Google for specific product names to find out more information. This could also help them make the decision.

3. Screen Captures are excellent for this strategy. Why not make a video showing people right on their Desktop your strategies, and how some products help you make it the best out of it. Screen Capture is probably the most effective marketing tool for preselling, so you should use it as much as possible.

4. Copywriting of course plays the major role in internet marketing. Some think it’s more important than getting traffic to your website. If you are a great copywriter then you could really make your sales copy sound less pushy and more informative.

That’s just a few examples that you could use in your selling strategy. As you can see it’s possible to sell things online without actually selling anything. People are getting immune to pushy marketers who simply try to push their products down their customer’s throat.



ROB

Omar Martin asked:


Urgency is one of the most under rated impulse factors. I have made an incredible amount of sales on my ability to convey urgency alone! If you are able to portray GENUINE urgency to your prospects, they will be compelled to buy now. This is a basic psychological fact and to deny it is just absurd. If you want to compete with the big boys then you must master urgency in your sales pitch. There’s just no way around it.

Always be in a hurry! “Now” is the time to buy the product not later. No.. I can’t sit down and discuss this for an hour with the prospect over a cup of milk and cookies. You have places to go and buyers to see.

“You’re going to miss out on this bargain if you don’t take advantage of this offer right now!”

“I have 35 people to get back to in the next few minutes.”

“I’d love to stay and chat but I’ve got some buyers to get back to right now and I don’t want to be late.”

Much like indifference, sense of urgency is not so much something you have to say as it is something that you have to portray. You need to make them “feel” like now is the only time because you’ve got to go.

For face to face selling: USE A LOT OF BODY LANGUAGE TO PORTRAY URGENCY! I glance down at my watch a lot when I’m talking to a prospect. It’s my favorite way to portray urgency. I also like to keep my car keys in hand and wiggle them from time to time as I’m pitching the customer.

Notice how you get coupons in the mail and they have an expiration date? That’s because they want to make you buy it right now.

I can’t even tell you how many times my wife tries to convince me of why she needs to run to the store to spend our money “right now”. She always says, “Honey it’s the last day.” Yeah suuuure it is!

Info-infomercials and TV shopping channels use the sense of urgency by showing you a timer that counts down on the screen. This clock is counting down the seconds till the end of the program or the begining of the next promotion.

“We only have 3 minutes left folks, operators are standing by to take your orders …. “

This is impulse building through the sense of urgency, they’re telling you straight out that this product disappears from your television screen in exactly 3 minutes. Order now or suffer forever!

On an internet sales page there are many ways to portray urgency. Some marketers even use it in the pre-headline with something like “DO NOT HIT YOUR BACK BUTTON! This is the ONLY time you will see this page.” That statement uses urgency AND fear of loss to captivate the visitor.

I’ve used the product countdown method on my sales pages as well. That is when you tell everyone that you only intend to sell 250 copies of this product and they only have 11:00 minutes to click the buy it now button. I then display a “countdown” timer that disables my purchase links when it reaches zero.

Many people are afraid of using this sort of sales tactic because it will cost them sales. Your fear will keep holding you back from making the big money. Simply put… Sense of urgency and the other 3 factors of impulse are what separates the men from the boys in sales. If you’re afraid to use them well, I’m sorry to say that you just can’t hang with the big boys and your income will continue to reflect that basic truth.



WILBUR

Titus Hoskins asked:


Copyright (c) 2009 Titus Hoskins

As we enter into what many enlightened souls are calling the most dire economic times since the Great Depression, online marketers need all the help they can get - regardless of the source. You have probably heard of Google; but chances are almost 100% certain, you have never heard of me. Lucky you!

Actually, the only thing you need to know about me is that I am a full-time online affiliate marketer and I make a very comfortable living from the web. Last year (2008), was my best year online so far, which left me scratching my head and saying what recession?

But that may be something of a false positive, as I will never know how much I could have made if the economic times had been good instead of bad. Plus, judging from my own limited experience, selling and marketing online may not have been hit as hard as those businesses in the real world in 2008, since consumers are doing everything to save a penny and shopping online has become a much cheaper alternative for many.

As we enter into these uncertain times, online marketers and webmasters need all the help they can get. Recently, Google mailed a small booklet to its Adsense users; in it Google gives “6 Top Tactics For Tough Times.” It is obviously referring to its Adwords PPC (Pay Per Click) program and clients but Google’s advice can be applied to your own general online marketing.

These tactics include: (quoting directly from the Google mail-out)

1. Focus your ads on low prices and savings.

2. Use Value-related keywords.

3. Ensure your ad groups are targeted and relevant.

4. Don’t waste money on irrelevant clicks.

5. Make it easy for customers to buy.

6. Focus your money on your high-performers. (End Quote)

Sound advice and I especially like the idea of focusing your marketing on low prices and savings mainly because people want bargains in tight economic times. I also like the fact that you must make it easy for your customers to buy… something as simple as putting your “order/buy link” above the fold can increase your conversions.

Also, targeting value-related keywords, is a very effective marketing tactic. Relating your keywords to “discounts, bargains, cheap, inexpensive, lowest prices…” will help increase your sales. So too, is catering to phrases that suggest the searcher is in a buying mind-set: gifts, presents, gift ideas, wedding gifts… shoppers searching those words are ready to buy.

Plus, focusing your time and money on your high-performers is solid advice. Sometimes succeeding online is simply finding a market niche that works/performs - then running with it. Once you have found the keywords and products that perform well with your site or sites - focus the majority of your time and energy developing those niche markets.

Now here are some of my most effective marketing tactics that have worked for me and tactics I will be relying on in the coming years - even in these hard times.

o Make Keywords Your #1 Goal

This is the single most important factor for my own online success. You have to make keywords and ranking high for them in all the search engines your main objective if you’re marketing online. Might sound obvious, but many beginning marketers don’t truly understand how important getting top rankings for your chosen keywords will be in your online success.

Target less competitive long tail (multi-worded) keywords to get started and slowly work your way up to more popular keywords. Center your marketing around getting those first page listings (Top Five) for your keywords. Achieve this goal, (especially in Google) and it will be almost impossible for you not to succeed and make a profit with your online marketing even in bad times.

o Autoresponders, List Building & Online Relationships

Keeping in contact with potential buyers is mission critical. You must use autoresponders to send follow-up messages to build trustful relationships with your potential customers.

So building a large contact list is essential. That’s why the social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace can be very effective marketing tools for building this online contact and trust. Truth be told, all these social networks are, more or less, just glorified autoresponders and list builders!

o Your Unique Selling Position

You must give potential customers some very good reasons for them to buy from you or your links. Offering special bonuses and discounts works wonders for your sales. Some of my most successful pages simply consists of coupons and discounts offered by different companies. If buyers can save $100’s OFF by buying thru your links, they will.

Always remember, besides looking for the best deal or bargain, consumers are also looking for a quality product. If you’re into affiliate marketing, only pick top quality products to promote. Picking top brand names also makes it easier to make sales. So too is only promoting popular online merchants like Amazon, can be an effective marketing strategy. Most importantly, always remember consumers are also looking for INFORMATION on the products they are considering buying, give them helpful information and you will succeed.

o Go With The Flow

If you’re marketing online, you have to follow what’s working for you. Most times you will try countless ideas or tactics - once you have found a process or system that works, really work it or scale it up. Making your first dollar is the hardest, but once you do something that earns you that dollar, just repeat that “something” a thousand times.

Tracking what works is very important so keep a close eye on your site’s traffic logs to find where your customers are coming from. Something like Google Analytics is simply priceless for “fine-tuning” your site and your online marketing. It will tell you what’s working and what’s not.

o Target Recurring or Residual Income

One of my most effective marketing strategies is to promote and sell products and services that give you a recurring or residual income. Make one sale and get paid for years or for the life of that referred client. Concentrate on services like web-hosting, telephone, marketing programs… once customers sign up to these services, they will likely keep them for years. I am still earning income from sales I made five years ago.

Building a large residual income could be the key to surviving in tough economic times. This will be income which will carry you or your business over the rough patches since it is based upon past performance and not on your current selling situation.

o Automate Everything

The real beauty of marketing online and using computers… you can automate just about every process in your marketing system. Make it a point of automating everything you do… use autoresponders to follow-up with potential buyers, use automatic check-outs, automatic reporting… just set-up your whole online marketing system that runs itself with little or no supervision from you. This will free up your time to concentrate all your efforts on marketing/promoting your site or product. Besides, nothing beats coming back from a vacation and finding out you have earned the cost of your vacation and then some - all the while you were lying in the sun and miles away from any computer.

o Find The Top Online Marketers

If you’re just starting with online marketing, you need to find the top successful marketers and “model” what they’re doing. This is relatively a new industry and you have to seek out the experts and pioneers who have set the groundwork. When I first started marketing online, I was quite fortunate to come into contact with some web marketing heavy-weights such as Marlon Sanders, Ken Evoy, Neil Shearing… and SEO experts like Brad Callen and Aaron Wall.

o Make Google Your Friend

Whether you love or **** Google doesn’t matter, you just have to make it your number one ally in your online marketing. Google has just about conquered the world-wide search market, Yahoo and MSN are still important, but Google is the deal-breaker when you’re selling stuff online. Consumers have enormous respect for Google, a number one listing for a lucrative keyword simply means money in the bank.

I have found using Google Search, Google Adwords, and Google Adsense have played a more than significant role in the success of my own online sites and marketing. Google tools such as Google Analytics, Google Alerts, Webmaster Tools… all have been invaluable and an enormous help in achieving my “web-based” lifestyle and livelihood. Of course, Google has also driven me around the bend more times than I can count, but no one is perfect. Besides, when it’s all said and done, anyone marketing on the web must truly embrace Google if they want to reach their highest level possible.



GIOVANNI

Mervyn Love asked:


First Principles. You should realise that your prospects do not buy from you based on how snazzy your website is or how brilliant your graphics are. They buy because you can convince them that THERE’S SOMETHING IN IT FOR THEM! Show them how their lives will be enhanced, how much better they will feel or how their bank balance will benefit by investing in your product. Prospective customers can be wooed at the two most basic of levels: Money or Emotion.

1. On your website or in your newsletter, paint a picture of your product so vivid and desirable that the reader can actually visualize what it would be like if they had already bought the product in your ad. Tell them what results they have achieved and how it makes them feel. They’ll become emotionally attached even before they hit the ‘Buy Now’ button or the link to the affiliate product.

2. Once you’ve got an ad that you like, turn it into an article. This is not difficult. You could tweak it into a how-to article, or you could turn it into a story. People love stories. Intrigue them with your ‘how-to’, or appeal to their emotions with an exciting story and this will lead them into your ad without them hardly realising it is an ad. By the time they get to the sales page they’ll have their credit cards ready.

3. We all like to think we are getting something for nothing. Appeal to the money instinct by showing your reader that they are getting a bargain. Tell them the usual price you sell your product for is $79. Then tell them if they order today they can buy it for $49.95. This tactic is not new, of course, but the amazing thing is it still works!

4. Consider who your target prospects are. Who are they and what do they want? Now direct your headline to this specific target audience. This uses the emotional appeal to your readers so that they feel important and belong to a select group of people who buy your product. For example; “Attention! Dog Lovers! Finding it difficult to train your dog? Customers who have used our 10-part email course…”

5. Make a point of telling your reader how fast they can receive your product or service. Appeal to the emotion of ‘I want it now!’ and you will pull in sales in preference to your competitors if you can promise speedy delivery. Their buying decision may be based on how fast they can receive your product. With downloadable products like ebooks and software, delivery is, of course, fairly instant, but - say it anyway!

6. Bullet points are extremely effective at highlighting benefits. Benefits are the key to selling anything. As we said earlier the customer wants to know what’s in it for them. Make your benefits standout in your ad. by the careful use of bulleted lists. You can use dots, dashes, or circles to highlight them.

7. Remember earlier we talked about turning your ad copy into an article? This idea applies equally to both ad copy or articles. What you do is make sure you are giving your website visitor useful information. Give them a few tips to help them with their problem. Then suggest that the product will many more useful useful, profitable, life enhancing information. You will benefit enormously from the respect and trust of your readers.

I hope you have benefited from these tips and tactics, and I wish you great success in your online ventures.



EARLE

Mike Schantz asked:


Marketing to niches is a great way to focus in on specific groups of people and sell them the products and services they want. But, doing business online has grown more competitive over the past few years. Increasingly aggressive niche marketing tactics are required as the landscape has become filled with marketers hawking their goods to the same groups of people. If you want to compete in many of these markets, you need to use tactics that other marketers are either too lazy to use or of which they are simply unaware. This article will give you a few ideas that you can use to competitively market to your niches and grow your business.

Watching Your Competition

Most markets have multiple competitors. One of the key niche marketing tactics you should be using is to closely watch what the existing competition is doing. For example, search Google for keywords related to the niche. Find who buying ads. Then, look at who is ranking organically for those keywords on Google. Take notes because both of these listings (ads and organically-ranked sites) will change over time.

Next, visit these sites and watch how they’re marketing to the people in that niche (take notes here, too). Are they asking for people to subscribe to a newsletter? Are they using a blog? Is there a forum on their site? Knowing what your competition is doing can provide a guide for your own marketing efforts. Watching the strategies of other marketers is one of the most overlooked niche marketing tactics in your arsenal.

Building The Relationship

A lot of marketers focus only on getting visitors to buy something. For some markets, that works well. For others, it doesn’t. One of the key niche marketing tactics used by top marketers is building a relationship with the people in your market. Get them to sign up for a free e-mail course. Start a blog and encourage visitors to participate through comments. You can even use pay-per-click marketing to draw these visitors to your site. Once there, you create a relationship by getting them involved.

Attracting Attention With Videos

Many people are bored with their lives. They crave something new and exciting that gives them something to look forward to. That’s why niche marketing tactics that leverage videos can be so powerful. Use small videos to attract a following in your market. Though simple videos are an incredibly-effective marketing strategy, this tactic is most effective when it’s a multi-prong approach.

For example, create small videos (Camtasia works well for this) that both teach people something and entertains them. Then, load those videos onto YouTube, MySpace and other social networking sites that allow videos. Get viewers to visit your blog, on which you can have a few additional videos. Once on your blog, ask them to tell others about your videos. If you can give a bit of helpful information while making the viewer laugh, cringe or cry, videos can be a fantastic tactic to attract attention to your site.

Marketing will continue to become more competitive. Your business will require more aggressive niche marketing tactics over time. By constantly watching your competition, building and nurturing the relationship with your visitors and using videos to attract people in your niche market, you can create a marketing process that keeps your business competitive. While others are trying to market to niches with boring ideas that everyone uses, you can use these niche marketing tactics to increase your sales and build your business.



ALTON