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The_Dire_Need_For_Online_Credibility_Is_It_All_Smoke_And_Mirrors
| The Dire Need For Online Credibility; Is It All Smoke And Mirrors?
Yes and no.
With any business, credibility is a key element to building
trust which should ultimately lead to making a sale.
This is never truer than in Internet marketing for these reasons:
* People don't want to be sold to, they want information.
* People mostly use the Internet to get information at no cost,
not to purchase a good or service
* People are skeptical about purchasing online for fear of being
"taken"
* The "would be" customer most likely has no idea who the seller
is and isn't guaranteed any type of communication after the
sale, no matter what the website may say about a "guarantee"
* Internet marketing has been around long enough that savvy
prospects have seen their share of scams, shoddy products, and
outrageous promises and their defenses are heightened because of
it
So what does the newcomer and mid-level marketer do to gain
credibility amidst all this skepticism? Validate their USP
(Unique Selling Proposition) by ensuring that their prospect's
perception of who they are and what they have to offer is one of
quality.
Until the sale is made and the "prospect turned customer"
actually has the product in hand, the perception of quality is
just that, merely perception. Once the product is in the hand of
the new customer, the perception of quality is purely defined by
the customer, not the seller. How the customer views the product
after the sale is made determines his/her perception of quality
of the product. However, before the sale is made, the perception
of quality is largely determined by seller, and that's where
sales are made or lost.
Why is the perception of quality determined by the seller?
Because the prospect can't possibly validate a product's quality
without owning it...the seller tells the prospect what makes the
product have quality and how it will benefit them. The sales
copy on the web site, the clarity of the graphics, the proposed
benefits the product delivers, and the overall message that
validates the USP that is relayed to the prospect, all define
the perception of quality of the product as dictated by the
seller. It is up to the prospect to decide whether he/she will
believe the message that the seller is relaying to him/her.
Because of the prospect's skepticism, validating the USP and
establishing credibility can be a chore for the newbie and
intermediate Internet marketer regardless of the quality of the
product itself. Since the newbie or intermediate marketer isn't
a "household" Internet marketing name, action needs to be taken
to establish online credibility.
How? Have other Internet marketers and "would be" customers
help. Go to the well- known forums on the Internet and post
messages asking for feedback in return for a copy of the product
being sold. This is one of the most common methods to collect
testimonials for products and services. Another effective way to
gain credibility as it is perceived by the prospect, is to
gather testimonials by giving the product to their list or a
small portion of their list in exchange for a testimonial.
Yet another way to gain testimonials and thus credibility, is to
approach well known experts within the product niche and ask for
their impression of the product being sold with the caveat that,
if the expert was in agreement that the product was quality,
he/she would send you a testimonial. Experts won't endorse
products if they aren't quality because they've spent far too
long establishing themselves online and unwarranted testimonials
for sub par products damage their credibility.
Ideally, the newcomer and intermediate Internet marketer will
get "unsolicited" testimonials, but the tactics listed before
are simply ways to add to credibility. The fact that some
testimonials may be obtained through bartering, doesn't deter
from the testimonial's credence. If the product is truly
quality, how the testimonial was obtained is irrelevant to new
prospects because to them, the testimonials' origin is unknown.
Another effective way to establish online credibility is to
publish articles to various websites. The same principle holds
true here as with the "expert testimonial" scenario. If an
Internet marketer gets his/her articles published in newsletters
that have sizable subscriber bases, that marketer's credibility
is heightened. Many e-zine owners that have large subscriber
bases will not publish sub-par articles, because doing so would
damage the credibility of the publication. While getting
articles published in other popular e-zines doesn't deliver
specific benefits to prospects about the product being sold, it
will add to general online credibility of the seller.
Whether the newbie or intermediate Internet marketer use
testimonials or article publication to establish online
credibility, the true measure is of credibility is in the
product itself. Before the sale credibility is established by
the seller through the overall USP and through testimonials.
After the sale is made, online credibility is defined by the
customer. The question at this point is: "Did the product live
up to the sales message?" If so, online credibility with regards
to customer-to-seller "one to one" relationship has been
successfully established.
About the author:
Author, "9 Deadly Mistakes To Avoid When Starting An Online
Business" Publisher, "Starting Smart!" e-zine
Starting an online business
www.9mistakes-online.com
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