The Art of Preselling

What is Pre-Selling?

I have to admit that I first heard the term preselling many years ago from Ken Evoy and it immediately clicked with me... it just made sense.

After all, preselling has been the lifeblood of marketing for decades... it's what divides the successful marketer from the marketer struggling to make ends meet.

Oh, I can hear you now... "I'm not a marketer!"

Well my friend, if you have any kind of business, online or offline, you are in the business of marketing... you are a marketer. In fact, if you aren't spending about 95% of your time marketing your business then you aren't achieving the kind of success you should be.

And one of the keys to a successful marketing campaign is preselling.

What is Preselling?

Any useful discussion of pre-selling must start with an understanding of exactly what pre-selling is.

By definition, pre-selling means:

1. To promote (a product not yet on the market) by means of advertising.

2. To condition (a potential customer) in advance for later purchase of a product.

The first definition of preselling really doesn't apply to our discussion. If you were selling tickets to a big show in advance of them actually being available to the public, that would be called preselling... but that isn't the kind of preselling we're talking about here. We'll take definition #2.

To condition a potential customer for purchase of a product... In reality, pre-selling is the art of building relationships. In the "real" world, business people do it all the time. Here's a couple of examples:

Whenever I take my six year old son to our local barber for a haircut, he always gets a lollipop when the haircut is done. In fact, he usually gets one for his two sisters too.

As a consequence of the relationship building by the barber, my son can't wait until it's time for another haircut and we always go back to the same barber.

Whenever I take the kids with me to the grocery store, the smiling people at the bakery always have a cookie with each of my children's names on it.

The bakery at the grocery store have done so well building a relationship with my kids that I can usually get them to behave through the entire shopping trip so that they can go to the bakery and get their cookie.

The point here is that these business people have gone to great lengths to build a relationship with our family so that we'll continue to come back to their place of business. They have learned the art of preselling and are using it very effectively. You can probably find all kinds of examples of this from your own neighborhood... real estate agents, veterinarian, family doctors, local pizza restaurant, school fundraisers, etc.

Now let's talk about relationship building online…

Whew! That's a whole different ball game isn't it?

After all, you can't give out lollipops and cookies when they stop by your website. Add that to the fact that people are much more untrusting of the internet and you have a real relationship building problem.

That's where the art of preselling really comes into play.

In the online world, preselling is the art of warming up your visitors, building trust, and putting them in the frame of mind that they want to do business with you.

If you're an affiliate, pre-selling is the art of warming up your visitors and putting them in a willing to buy frame of mind before you send them to an affiliate merchant's website.

Key Evoy of Site Build It! fame has become famous for preselling and really brought the concept to the online world... especially for affiliates. But the art of preselling is really crucial for anyone doing business online.

There are several techniques, tactics, and strategies for preselling your website visitors. Over the coming months, I'll be adding new articles to this section of the website so that you can learn the art of preselling for yourself and start preselling your own visitors. I guarantee that preselling will seriously increase your income.

In the meantime, you can learn more about the art of preselling by downloading this free ebook all about preselling called Make Your Content PREsell. I guarantee you'll get some great information in this meaty ebook... and it's completely free -- no strings.

Best Wishes,

Arvada Yates

Recent Article Additions on Preselling

Preselling With Content - I'm absolutely sure that you've heard the phrase: Content is King. Well, if content is King, then pre-selling is even more important. It's kind of like the Emperor or Pharaoh of content because preselling is crucial to making money with your content. Without acquiring the skill of pre-selling, writing content is a waste of time for the internet business. After all, we all write content so that we can gain traffic and earn revenue in one form or another. Pre-selling is really your major ticket to earning revenue from your content.

Building Rapport Through Value - Whenever you write any sort of content, one of your main goals is to build rapport with your target audience. Rapport building strategies can come in all kinds of forms, like infusing your content with personality, telling jokes, and appealing to emotions, but the easiest way of building rapport with your target audience is through offering value. Not only are you building rapport through value, but you are also using one of the best preselling methods available.