Sales Success! + Questions on First-Time-Visitor Sales

[BMo]

Hi everyone! I wanted to let everyone here know that, after about a year of ideas, attempts, and probably 10 different websites, I finally made my first series of sales! I sold 7 copies of my e-book for $19.95 each. Not too much compared to some of you here I'm sure, but it's a big start for me!

Now for the debriefing, and an opportunity for you to share your thoughts:

I found that I was having 0% success by sending people to my site via Adwords as FHWW recommended. I sent them to the sales page and they all just left.

So I rethought my strategy. I built a blog for my target market and over three months got about 75 subscribers and about 3,000 visitors a month. Then I had a one week sale for my e-book, which resulted in the 7 sales I mentioned. All of the customers were frequent blog visitors.

My conclusion: Building rapport with potential customers and getting them familiar with you and your company makes them more likely to buy. Almost no one is going to buy from someone they've never heard of (at least not on the first pitch). It takes some amount of pitches before they'll consider buying something from you. I don't know what that amount is, but it's more than one.

Setting up a blog is one way to build enough rapport to make a sale, but it's very time intensive, takes a while to grow, and Tim said in one of his lectures on blogging, "There are easier ways to make money than blogging."

MY QUESTIONS FOR ALL OF YOU:
If you can't make a sale the first time that the customer sees your site, does that mean your product isn't good enough? Or would making a sale under those circumstances be impossible even if the product is fantastic? Finally, if first-time-visitor sales ARE impossible, what are the ways to quickly build enough rapport to make a sale?

Please share your thoughts! Thanks!

[David-Andrew]

I read this forum once in a while and am really happy to see your post. I hope others will also see it and finally learn something crucial.

I found that I was having 0% success by sending people to my site via Adwords as FHWW recommended. I sent them to the sales page and they all just left.

So I rethought my strategy. I built a blog for my target market and over three months got about 75 subscribers and about 3,000 visitors a month. Then I had a one week sale for my e-book, which resulted in the 7 sales I mentioned. All of the customers were frequent blog visitors.

So, if anyone else still doesn't know: ADWORDS IS DEAD! Read all you can about permission marketing and inbound marketing. I earn tens of thousands (cant give you exact numbers) a year with 0, nothing, nada going to "advertising" costs. Just a blog with less then 50 articles.

"There are easier ways to make money than blogging."

I think Tim meant "There are easier ways to make money than blogging yourself". I just posted an article written by my assistent last week and its the most popular article on my blog to date. Time it cost me? Just 10 minutes to publish it. And I am in a technical market! Find a good VA, they will do wonders. Note, I did not say cheap, I said "good".

If you can't make a sale the first time that the customer sees your site, does that mean your product isn't good enough?

No, it can mean a million things! Maybe:
- they dont like paypal
- they dont like you
- they dont like the price
- they dont trust you
- they dont value the offer

Or would making a sale under those circumstances be impossible even if the product is fantastic?

No, but a trust building blog definitely makes selling easier.

Finally, if first-time-visitor sales ARE impossible, what are the ways to quickly build enough rapport to make a sale?

Quick sucks, dont go there. :-)

Plan your stuff, but make sure you only plan. Get some assistents to do the writing.