To be successful on-line, as in any business, you need to build three things with your customers – CTR: Credibility, Trust and your Relationship. And there are two further words which should be central to your whole web business approach… but we’ll come to those in a moment!

Credibility: When your prospect reads your ad or your website sales page, you want to make sure he believes any claims you make about your product or service. Because, if there’s any doubt in his mind, he won’t bite, no matter how sweet the deal. In fact, the “too good to be true” mentality will virtually guarantee a lost sale…even if it is all true.

Building credibility is all about showing that you – or your product – have a proven track record. There are many ways of building credibility and this requires you to give ‘social proof’ of the reliability and benefits that you and your product provide.

If you’ve been in business for a number of years, you can point to this and your hundreds or thousands of satisfied customers, providing testimonials from customers to whom your product has brought specific benefits or success.

But even if you’re just starting out and don’t have a ‘track record’ yourself, you can use a variety of ways to build credibility and increase the perception of believability – because, after all, it’s the perception you need to address up front!

Here are some tried and tested methods that will help boost credibility:

  • Avoid baseless ‘hype’ – make sure your copy is accurate and truthful.
  • For existing customers, who already know you deliver as promised, emphasize that trust.
  • Include testimonials of satisfied customers – include full names and locations, if possible.
  • Use 3rd party testimonials (endorsements of the product type or solution by industry experts) or “lift notes” (brief notes or letters from a person of authority, possibly a celebrity).
  • Pepper your copy with facts and research findings to support your claims (credit all sources).
  • If you can swing it, adding a celebrity endorsement will always help to establish credibility.
  • Give your own credentials or background (and photo) – or those of an expert if you’re using her/his real or ‘implied’ expertise (relating to your product or service, of course).
  • Cite any awards or third-party reviews the product or service has received.
  • Tell them a lot of your widgets have already been sold – “10 million people can’t be wrong”.
  • Include a GREAT Guarantee or return policy and stand by it! You may give more refunds, but if you sell three times as many widgets as before, it may be worth it – crunch the numbers!
  • Reveal a ‘flaw’ about your product (that’s minor or isn’t really a flaw). This helps alleviate the “too good to be true” syndrome and builds trust and your reader will start to subconsciously believe that you are revealing all of the flaws…
  • If you advertise a deadline, don’t keep changing your deadline – you’ll reduce credibility.

Trust: There are two simple words which should be absolutely central to your whole approach to marketing on the Internet: Underpromise and Overdeliver.

Just tell people you will give them one thing and then give them what you promised plus a little bit more. The results of adopting this simple philosophy and incorporating it into your Internet business can be truly remarkable.

What makes this concept so incredibly powerful for Internet Marketers is that it doesn’t really take a whole lot of additional effort to give people more than what they expect. The huge value we deliver on our training courses and to the Internet Tycoons Mastermind Group are examples of this.

But by spending just a little bit of extra time giving you a few things you did not expect we established ourselves as someone who not only delivers what we promise but gives you even more. Ultimately this translates into a rock solid reputation and long term customers (you) who will buy from me over and over again. All of which equals more value for you and more profits for us!

Basically, you need to be kind and generous – and to do this genuinely. But in this business being consistently generous results in more than just a personal feeling of satisfaction, it results in huge profits. The benefits of practicing the underpromise and overdeliver philosophy far outweigh the extra effort and expenses on your part.

Kindness really does pay – and on the Internet it pays in a big way!

Relationship: The third pillar of your internet business is your relationship with your prospects and customers.

You’ve probably heard it said many a time that ‘the money is in the list’. Well, this isn’t the way of the world. People buy from people – people they Know, Like and Trust. So just think ‘KLT’.

So the key is to build an excellent relationship with your customers – and ‘the money is in the relationship’ is a rather more appropriate approach to your business.

How to do this? Well, there is plenty of free advice on the web about building your relationship with your customers. But the crucial thing is to get in touch – and keep in touch at least once or twice a month – with your customers and prospects.

Make them know you value both them and their business – but do this in a genuine way, without hype and fluff. Give them value!

It’s amazing that less than 10% of businesses actually follow up with their customers! When was the last time you had an email from your local shops, dentist or hairdresser?

Web technology provides a wonderful platform from which to develop your relationship with your customers.

You can set up your own web log, or Blog (see ‘Blogging For Profit’ on page 14) and you can personalise email very effectively using autoresponders to stay in touch with your customers (more on autoresponders in an upcoming issue of ‘Web Biz Insider’).

But you need to make it personal in order to build your relationship – there are any number of companies that send you their standard brochures and expect you to be ecstatic, aren’t there (perhaps your bank comes to mind)?

Two of the easiest ways to generate greater profit in your business are to get your customers to buy from you more often and to increase the average value of each purchase!

And, if your customers appreciate your relationship with them, they are much more likely to do both!

So, get inside your customers’ minds and think how you can build your relationship and boost your profits!

John Thornely
© John Thornely www.johnthornely.com 2008

To learn more about how YOU can
Profit From The Internet – Fast, visit
www.Internet-Tycoons.com


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