How To Pursuade Buyers Online

Again, from Rise to the Top blog. It's a good article on something that I know more about in the bricks and mortar world than in the virtual. So I'll reserve any snarky comments because of that ignorance.

But then again I'm in the midst of "Semmersion", my own path of total immersion into search engine marketing. Here's a snippet from Rise to the Top on how to sell people on your product online:

Show Them The Trend – Show What Others Like To Do

The finicky mind often plays an important role while making a buy. People often tend to look at what others are doing. The more number of people doing the same thing means greater comfort level they have in buying. The psychological phenomenon is called ‘Social Proof’. This means decisions are often based on the reactions or doings in mass. The feeling of the buyer is that his knowledge is bettered by knowing others are buying too.

1. What can you showcase as ‘Social Proof’? Here are some ways to establish yourself.

• Show a ‘most popular items’
• ‘People who bought this also liked…’ (go to Amazon!)
• Top selling items testifying the product or service

2. Online ‘User-Generated’ Reviews

Another method of guaranteeing an online purchase is to have reviews and ratings for products or services on your website. User generated reviews have a great impact on the minds of the buyers. In the age of Web 2.0 and social media and networks like Facebook this is one of the most popular ways to promote your product or service.

It’s a good way to have reviews and ratings on your website. After all; it’s a FREE way to promote your products/services, isn’t it?

Reviews on a website have to be open, clear and true.

For more on how to sell people online, without resorting to trechery, click here.

Online Marketing Trends for 2009-Probably the First of Many Reports

As I was looking through my iGoogle sites this morning (well, I'm still looking through them), this was one of the first things to get my attention. Perhaps because it was a 2009 trend report, perhaps because it was free, perhaps a little of both.

It's from the Strange Corporation, and is a concise and easy read. Here's their take on RSS for 2009:

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an ideal platform for online marketing and communications as it provides marketers with 100% deliverability and a qualified audience. Having come through the early-adopter doldrums, RSS will most likely see a surge in uptake in 2009, moving into majority usage thanks largely to built-in support in the new IE 8 browser.

Strange view: There are three main advantages with RSS for both users and marketers: 1.) users only get data they’ve subscribed to, thereby avoiding any spam issues, 2.) users can increasingly select segmentation of newsfeeds so they only receive specific topic information, and 3.) the user can receive RSS newsfeeds in a plethora of ways – with their Internet browser, an email client, desktop or web aggregator or on a mobile or handheld. This freedom to receive the feed in any number of ways means the user is in control, making recipients a more qualified audience that those receiving email marketing.

I would have to agree. Partially because I know so little, partially because I know that RSS could be a way to further segment your customers. For retailers an RSS feed allows retailers to better target offers and products, and better insulate the overall customer base against unnecessary discounting. There are other reasons, but these were the first two to come to mind.

The other 15 trends are good, and the writing is easy to follow. Download it now, before they start charging $1000 for it.