The 5 Pillar Marketing Guide

PREselling is the heart of what makes an affiliate successful. Knowing how to warm-up your visitors and put them into an open-to-buy frame of mind is important for high conversions and great commissions.

Check out this article on PREselling in the Marketing Guide.

And understanding "where your visitors are at" in the buying cycle is critical. From getting your customers' attention (the earliest stage of PREselling) to shifting into SELLING mode (the final step!), this article examines how to think with your potential customers and how to match the appropriate landing page to their mindset and readiness for Site Build It!.

Remember... you PREsell and SELL. But your visitor buys. So put yourself into your customer's mindset to succeed.

The Five Stages Of The SBI! Buying Cycle

Your visitors arrive on your site (or read your zine, blog, etc.) at various stages of readiness to buy Site Build It!...

1) Get attention! Use landing pages designed to create awareness and get attention for customers who are...

completely unfamiliar with SBI! or online marketing
slightly interested in online marketing or building an online business
considering if/how to make money online
failing at current efforts and looking for a better way (a huge category)
seriously looking for ways to make money online (but don't know SBI! yet).

2) Grow interest! Once customers know about SBI!, they are ready for the next set of specialized landing pages! These people may be...

interested, but want to know exactly what the heck SBI! does
seeking more information about the process and tools
ready for benefit-focused copy that is specifically relevant to them.

3) Build credibility! At a certain point, your pre-customers move from info-gathering to credibility-seeking! These prospective new lifetime customers are...

currently evaluating various online marketing products, including SBI!
considering SBI!, but are unsure or otherwise have questions
seeking reassurance about SiteSell (history and position)
comparing SBI! to others (ex., "Get Rich Quick" and old-fashioned Web hosting).

4) Involve! Some customers are extremely careful, diligent info-seekers. Repeat exposure to high-value, free information and tools is perfect here. These folks are...

getting closer, but need more exposure or "comfort" about SBI!
procrastinating, so stay in front of them with free tools and info
thinking seriously about SBI! and just need reassurance.

5) Close the sale! The entire process funnels down to the final two landing pages. These pages shift from PREselling to SELLING. "Get the sale" from customers who are...

ready to buy SBI! but have not made the final commitment
99% of the way there and are merely looking for the final reason to buy
all the way there and are merely looking for the Order Page!

The above stages are meant to help you think about your customers' mindset stages within the buying cycle. Keep in mind that they are not discrete stages...

Each customer is at a slightly different place in the buying cycle.
One customer buys within 24 hours of "attention-getting," another may take months.
And of course, you don't deal with just one customer at a time. Of 1,000 visitors, each will be at a slightly different spot along the "Attention-to-Order" process.

So... your job is to move them all ever-closer to the final two "closer pages." How do you address all of their needs?

By understanding who your customers are and what they need (some only need 1 exposure to SBI! by you, but it needs to be the right one!).
By choosing the appropriate landing pages to blend into your editorial content.
Through repeat exposure, reaching them in different ways with different messages.

Your "time to sale" and Conversion Rate are directly related to how well and how many times you reach your target audience through different landing pages. And you have over 60 landing pages to use in your PREselling-to-SELLing efforts.

Which ones work best at each stage of the cycle?

Good question! We just happen to have organized the landing pages for you!

The discussion below covers the most prominent/effective landing pages within each stage in the buying cycle. For a complete list of landing pages and to get your RR URL for each...

1) Visit Snippet Build It! (especially useful for beginning affiliates).

2) Visit the SiteSell Promotion Center (useful for experienced affiliates who just want to grab a specific RR URL to create their own HTML).

Stage 1: Get Attention!

There will always be visitors to your site (or readers of your blog, zine, etc.) who do not know about SBI!. Even 5P Affiliates who have been promoting SBI! since its inception "talk to" brand new prospective customers every day who have never heard of SBI!.

Create articles that get attention. If you are an SBI! owner, tell your story on your Web site. If you have a site that reviews Web hosting, announce Site Build It! as the perfect all-in-one, success-focused solution.

If you reach newbies, emphasize the concept of online marketing and earning income by building a real business from home. SBI! really does change lives.

It's important to connect emotionally with your visitors at this stage. Talk about how an online business, through SBI!, can give them financial freedom, satisfaction, enjoyment, and the opportunity to quit their day jobs. This connects and creates the motivation to investigate SBI! more deeply (the next stages).

The key to getting attention is to employ unusually strong and/or emotion-provoking landing pages...

The first two landing pages above are the two major ones, of course. And the next three are especially effective attention-getters. "Where else have you seen videos (or a family bulletin board) like these?" And speaking of videos...

In addition to Snippet Build It!, use Video Build It! to embed the perfect-fit video into your attention-getting Web page, article, or post. The Video Ads and "I Love SBI!" Videos fit well at this stage.

This discussion focuses on the buying cycle and landing pages, not on the actual creation of content. Suffice it to say here that your content (ex., a review, personal experience, announcements, etc.) may focus on one specific stage, or it may cover some or even all of them. For example, SBI! owners often tell their personal success stories using a few well- selected text links, one to each stage.

Stage 2: Grow Interest!

Now that you have their attention, deepen their understanding of what SBI! does. A link to The SBI! Video Tour is especially effective at this stage, as is a short explanation of the C T P M process.

If you reach a "general audience," encourage them to find the business that best fits their situation to see how SBI! can help them. On the other hand, if you reach a "specific target market" (ex., affiliates) or a "specific demographic" (ex., Work At Home Moms), send them to those specific landing pages.

You'll find a complete list of specific interest-growing pages at Snippet Build It! and at the SiteSell Promotion Center. If your visitors are retirees, Webmasters, real estate marketers, students, network marketers, auction sellers (eBay), and so on... we have landing pages specific to their needs.

And Video Build It!'s "Introductions To SBI!" and "Build Your Own SBI! TV" also do the job at this stage.

As always, mix and match links that best fit your approach and audience.

You can strike a positive chord with your visitors by showing how SBI! connects emotionally with its customers, the way Apple or Google does. That type of connection occurs for only one reason...

SBI! is much more than site-building or Web hosting. It's even more than about building successful businesses. It's the end impact that is so important, creating lives of freedom and independence.

By the end of this stage, you should have some very interested pre-customers who want more information.

Next, move your visitors from "high interest/emotion" to logic and verification...

Stage 3: Build Credibility!

This is the stage where you convince your visitors that SBI! is the right choice for them. Actually, when done correctly, they convince themselves!

This is probably the easiest stage to accomplish because SBI! really does OVERdeliver on every promise. As a result, we have a ton of impressive landing pages and videos to help you. Show off SBI!'s delighted customers and other evidence of powerful results and you'll make the sale!

The old phrase "people buy on emotion and justify with logic" is very evident during this stage. They need to feel the "emotion" from happy customers and find solid "logic" in the extensive proof of success, and comparisons with competitors, that you deliver. And you can deliver... in spades

A few of the more effective SBI! credibility-builders are...

Video Build It! will again furnish you with videos, this time for building credibility (check out "Whole Lotta Love," for example, as well as whatever "I Love SBI!" video best fits with your audience).

Build emotion as you build your "logic case." Challenge your visitors to find proof of success. Challenge them to find a package so complete or a company that really cares as much. And...

Remind them to return to www.sitesell.com one last time if they are ever tempted to fall for "the lure" of any other system. If they compare, if they weigh the proof, if they use "Choose It!," your Conversion Rate will soar.

By the time your visitors complete this stage, they should (must!) understand that SBI! is so much more than Web hosting, more even than business-building. SBI! changes lives in so many ways, beyond any shadow of a doubt.

Naturally, your visitors also want to be sure about SiteSell, the company.

SiteSell is a reputable, trustworthy company with a strong track record since November, 1997. It has no "satisfied customers," only "raving fans." Tell them so. You can find background information for your "SiteSell credibility" content at...

Landing pages that "quietly" reinforce SiteSell's credibility are...

SBI! Video Action Guide (high-quality SBI! videos)
Long Tail Interview (sophisticated interview with WIRED executive editor)
Global Radio Show

Stage 4: Involve!

As mentioned above, some visitors purchase within 24 hours after getting their attention. More buy within days. Some take weeks, even months. SBI! owners have reported in the forums how they had first seen SBI! even a year or two earlier, wasted that time at Yahoo! or 1&1 (or been conned by a "Get Rich Quick") and then...

They remembered SiteSell and SBI!. Do you know why?

They took one of the Masters Courses. Or they use Search It! regularly (or Value Exchange, a real favorite). Or they read one or more of our "Make Your _____ Sell!" books ("Make Your Content PREsell!" is a convincing lead-in to SBI!).

The lesson? Involve those who procrastinate, those who made mistakes previously, in short those who fall into the "long sales cycle" category. The 3 sets of "Involve" landing pages (Masters Courses, Free Trials, and E-books) are powerful long-term sales-makers.

These are easy to promote. Everyone loves a freebie. Just tell your visitors that these are no ordinary freebies. For example, the #1 affiliate guru in the world, Allan Gardyne, has called The Affiliate Masters Course "the best course of its kind at any price, and it's free!" Here are some of the more effective "Involve" PREselling landing pages...

Affiliate Masters Course
Service Sellers Masters Course
Search It!
Value Exchange
5 Pillar Affiliate Registration (grow your team and earn a permanent cookie)
Make Your Content PREsell!

You'll find many more "Involve" landing pages at Snippet Build It! and at the SiteSell Promotion Center.

Stage 5: Close The Sale!

OK, it all funnels down to this final stage. It's time to make the sale. We're down to the final two landing pages. Over 60 RR URL landing pages have ultimately led here. There are two types of "ready to buy" visitors...

Type #1) Ready to buy but have questions. Those final queries need to be answered. But who knows what those questions might be? You'd be amazed at what customers think about. It's so hard for some people to make that final click. So...

Send them to...

Have A Question?

Use the skilled SBIers at question.sitesell.com to answer the unforeseeable questions for you. Yes! They convert for you! Use this landing page until we beg you not to! After all, we are paying these folks to make the sale for you!

Type #2) And then, of course, there is the large number of customers who are simply ready to buy. After you've gained their attention, grown their interest, convinced them SBI! and SiteSell are real, they're ready. All you have to do is...

Mention how the The Money-back Satisfaction Guarantee turns their purchase into a "no risk trial." There really is no risk involved! Every day that they delay is a day that they fall further behind, for no reason. Then, without pushing, send them to the Order Page to "try SBI! risk-free"...

SBI! Order Page

It all comes down to these final two order-getting landing pages. You can either create a snippet of HTML for each at Snippet Build It! (right at the bottom of the drop-down), or grab your RR URL for each at the SiteSell Promotion Center.

Use them, as the context allows...

Click kaCHING!

Conclusion

The PREselling-To-SELLing Cycle is real. Follow the example of seasoned affiliate marketers who understand this. Select specific links over multiple exposures to move your visitors through the cycle to the Order Page.

It's the big secret to high conversions and great commissions.