The above title is an axiom reiterated many times in the sphere of internet marketing. Apart from the purely business perspective of the saying, it is an axiom associated with good life skills too. One of the issues which underpins online business (in comparison with traditional off-line business) is that we almost never meet our customers face to face. They are likely to know a bit about us, the marketers, because of what they read on our websites but, to us, they will often be just a name on our opt-in list.
This last point should not be reflected in the way we treat our subscribers. Always treat them as friends, people to be valued, and I don’t mean that in a mercenary sense. Never forget that these people chose to sign up to our list so we must treat them with respect. We should never bombard them with offer after offer, trying to prise money out of them at every opportunity. We should nurture our list so that when we do email them about a new product or service, they will receive it in a positive frame of mind and not believe that we are taking them for granted.
This attitude to both our subscribers and our customers is so important. Always be totally honest and up-front. Never mislead! Promise quality and provide quality! To repeat that axiom again, always under-promise and over-deliver. Your customers and subscribers will appreciate that and continue to happily receive your emails. All these issues apply equally to low cost, even free, items that we offer as a frontend product just as much as they apply to high value, high cost backend products. Our subscribers must see us as suppliers of quality. Frontend products are often offered as a first step in a marketing strategy which ultimately leads our customers to much more valuable backend products, that’s valuable both to them and to us. If our frontend products are poor quality, the recipients are hardly likely to stick around and eventually buy expensive items from us.
We are taught that in a sales letter we should always concentrate on the benefits and the value of what you have to sell. This is where we always under-promise. We never over-state our case but are conservative in the claims we make for our offer. Our free bonuses, which are an essential of any online offer, will help to enhance our conversion rate. If we then add an extra free bonus when a purchase is made (eg – additional DVD, an extra e-book, etc. which we don’t pre-advertise) the customer will feel that they are being well treated, – which of course they are. This extra bonus could be sent with the ordered item if it is s physical one. If it is digital it could be sent via a link in a follow-up email. Always under-promise and over-deliver!
If we treat our subscribers and our customers well they will look forward to receiving our, emails, newsletters, etc. and are far more likely to look closely at the purchasing opportunities we send them from time to time.
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