Make Money Blogging: How To Pre- Sell Products

The goal of many of my students is to sell products that they recommend on their blogs.  This is a great way to make money blogging, but requires more interaction and skill than selling an Amazon product from a widget ad or make a few cents from an Adsense click.

If you want to sell a higher dollar product or even a home study course from a banner ad on your blog, you are going to have to make sure your readers can clearly see why they need to have this product or service.  They are going to have to see how this product will solve one or more of their problems.  

A single banner ad is not going to do it very well, and I don’t like to send my readers to a sales page cold.  This is where the “Pre-Sell Process” comes into play.  When I can successfully show my readers how a product or service will benefit them in one or more of my blog posts, my chances for a sale go up dramatically.  Here are some things I have picked up over the years that have helped me immensely in pre-selling products to my readership:

1.  Let Readers Know What The  Product Is —  There are so many products that are for sale online these days that do everything but tell you what the products is.  This is very bad form, and has caused people to become even more skeptical about purchasing online products.  If you can not articulate what the product is and what it can do for your readers, you are not going to sell very many units…period.

If the product is worth the price that is being charged for it, it will be pretty easy to explain what it is and what it does.  I do my best to let my readers know what the product is, and is not… in my own words.  I find that this helps people get an understanding of what the product is and what it can do for them.  I do not want people just buying products from my link with no idea what they are getting.  All that will do is lead to refunds and bad feelings all around.

2.  Make Sure You Have Used The Product —  I do not recommend products and services that I have not used and know very little about.  This is bad business in my opinion, and can do a lot of harm to my relationship with my readers.  It will be pretty obvious to people when a review is done for a product that the person has never seen or used.  I do not do business that way.  In the rare cases where I recommend a product I have not used personally, I will have a partner or close friend that has used it.  A key part of the pre-sell sequence is allowing the potential customer to see if the product is a good fit for them and their business.

Not all products are for everybody.  When you get good at matching products to people’s current needs, you will make sales and have happy customers.  This is what real long term business is based on.  The lifetime value of a satisfied customer is very large.  It is in your best interest to do your best to have happy readers who trust your judgment and recommendations.  Do not take this trust for granted, and you will do fine in your online marketing and blogging.

3.  Share Who Should And Should Not Look At The Product —  Not every product is a great fit for each person that visits your blog.  The sooner you learn this lesson, the better off you will be.  You should not try to sell all products to all people that visit your blog or join your list.  This is a poor way to make an impression to your readers.  When you tell your readers who can and can’t benefit from a product, you will be providing them a real service.

If the product is way too advanced for “newbies”, you should let your readers know this.  If a product may not help a person that is very experienced, it is good to highlight this in your review of the product.  Once again, it is not only the right thing to do, it is a great long term business strategy.  When your readers truly believe you are making recommendations based on helping them succeed, you will make far more money from your blogging.

4.  What The Product Does —  This is another area where a lot of product sales pages come up short.  Let your readers know what the product actually does or will teach them.  There is no need to have a lot of “mystique” around the product and what it does.  That is poor marketing in my opinion.  When you let your readers know what the product actually does, it allows your readers to make an “informed decision” on if the product is for them.

This kind of informed decision really allows your readers to build trust in you, your word and your motives.  This is worth far more than the commission you may miss from just “selling stuff” to “whoever wants to buy it”.  This is the last thing you want to do to your precious readers and fans.  You don’t want people to do that to you.  You don’t want to send that kind of vibe out on your blog as well.

5.  Problems The Product Solves —  This is the key part of your “pre-selling”process.  People have problems and want to solve them.  They don’t want to read about solving them, they want personal solutions.  When you can clearly articulate what a product can really do for that particular reader’s problems, you are well on your way to making a sale.

You become a “matchmaker”, where you match solutions to your readers problems.  When the products that you recommend actually help your readers, your reputation gets a big “thumbs up” and you have happy readers that will keep on coming back to your blog.   They may even recommend it to their friends and family.  This is a great way to build up a nice sized group of “raving fans”.  You want to take care of your readers and they will return the favor.  It is no different than the pizza shop where you regularly go to get your pizza.

Why do you go back?  You go back because you like the pizza and the service that that shop provides to you.  If you didn’t like the service you got, you can find good pizza down the street.  Keep this in mind when you are recommending products to your readers.  Take care of their problems and you will have “fans for life”.

6.  Shortcomings Of The Product — Do not be afraid to let people know what shortcomings you may see with a particular product.  Once again, honesty is the best policy.  Your readers will understand that any product will have pluses and minuses.  They will appreciate your candor and will still buy products very often if the value is high compared to the price.  This is why I highly recommend to recommend products you know about and don’t sell junk to try to make a buck.

If you can not clearly give a product a “thumbs up” review based on your experiences and standards, why are you asking your readers to spend their hard earned money on it?  You do not want to come across as a person that just recommends products to make money.  There are thousands of people out there online that behave that way.  You want to “stand out in the crowd”, so always take the high road when covering a product’s shortcomings.

7.  Any “Insider Information” I May Have —  If I know a “nugget” of inside information about a product, I like to share it.  If one of my friends used the product and they increased their list size by 25%, I will be sure to highlight that.  If I used the product and got great results using a particular source of traffic or special sales techniques, I will cover that.  The key in “pre-selling” is to let your readers know if the product is a good fit for them or not.  The more information you can share about a product or service, the better it is for your readers.

8.  What Results You Can Expect From The Product —  If you truly believe that your readers will benefit from owning the product, you should let them know this and why.  If you have real data to share you should do it as best you can.  In the age of “maximum hype”, you may not feel like your results are that great, but share them anyway.

People are looking for real products from reals sources that can help them.  Most rational people are not expecting to make $23,781 next month from buying a particular product.  They know the real world doesn’t work that way.  Simply share your experiences and what you feel your readers can expect from using the product.  That is what is reasonable and what your readers will expect from you.  I don’t guarantee anything about a product.  That is up to the vendor to do.

9.  Why You Should Go To The Sales Page — If you have done a good job in your review of the product, your readers will have a good idea if they are going to go to the sales page.  That is pretty much what your “pre-selling” process is designed to do.  If the product is not a good fit for part of your readership, you should expect them not to go look at the product.

If the product is a great fit for part of your readership, you should expect a lot of them to go to the sales page.  When you have adequately reviewed and “pre-sold” the product, your readers will have a much greater understanding of the product and they will take a good hard look at the sales process.  That is what you can do.  That is where your input stops and the sales page takes over.

Once you have taken your readers through a solid “pre-sell” sequence a few times, they will realize that you are looking out for their best interests.  When you get good at understanding your reader’s typical problems, you can provide recommended solutions to them that just make good sense.  This will help you maintain a great reputation with your readers, and will allow you to make steady money from your blogging.

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