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Building Trust (Part 4 of 5):
How product offers can reinforce trust.

October 19, 2006

This is part four of a five part series on building trust in your visitors in order to convert them to customers.

Step 4. The visitor reads your product offer.

You sparked the visitor’s trust when they read the article that led to your web site. Then your fanned the spark into a flame with your web site’s professional appearance and quality content. That flame became a bonfire when the gifts you offered convinced the visitor to join your mailing list, throwing logs on the fire of their trust as they read more and more of the advice and helpful information you provided.

Now, and only now, do you directly offer products to your visitors. Sure you’ll catch a few ad clicks and affiliate sales from links around your site, but the real money is in the product offer.

The end goal of any commercial web site is to sell something. Almost all of your visitors recognize that it costs money to run a web site, and that a web site is a business out to earn money for its owner.

So don’t be afraid to send your list a product offer from time to time. Few list members will be put off by that, and those few who are can always unsubscribe and never hear from you again. The rest of your list members trust you, and they want to read about the products you find valuable.

That’s why it’s so important to pick top quality products to promote. Your list members expect anything you recommend to them to be of the same quality as the information that you have been giving them. Their trust in the products you promote is an extension of their trust in you.

Any reactions (positive or negative) to the products you recommend impacts your visitor's trust in you. If they love the product that you recommended, they'll be more likely to listen to you again the next time. If they hated it, at best their trust in you will be dented and they will think twice before acting on another of your recommendations. At worst you’ll lose them forever.

So be very careful when selecting the products you will recommend. Don't recommend a product just because it seems related to your subject and will earn you a great commission. Buy the product yourself (or see if you can get one for free so you can review it). Examine the product and make sure it's something your visitors will find useful. If you can't honestly praise it yourself, don't try and sell it to your customers!

But if you can praise it, and you do praise it, the list members who have grown to trust you and are in need of a product of the sort you are promoting will buy from you.

Sometimes, however, a list member just isn't ready to buy. They like what they're hearing from you, and they have some trust in you because of it, but they need a little something to push them over the line from undecided list member to paying customer.

That's where free bonuses come in. If you can promise something extra to the user if they buy the product through you, then the list member will often be tempted to take that leap of faith in you and buy the product you're recommending. If you're recommending only top quality products, they will be happy that they decided to purchase, and their trust in you will grow.

Giving free bonuses with products you're promoting that you did not create also helps ensure that your list members buy through your link instead of somebody else's.

But even with the addition of free bonuses, not everyone will be ready to buy. That's why following up after a promotion is needed.

Tomorrow's post will examine the final step that leads to converting a visitor into a sale by building trust: following up.

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