I want to talk to you about an aspect of preselling that only a few marketers point out, because they don’t understand the process themselves. So how would you like to know more than many of the top marketers? Then listen up…

First of all, you need to understand the awesome implications of the following simple piece of research. Once you do this, you’ll truly grasp the hidden power of preselling:

Consider the results of a research experiment conducted by Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser. A researcher, posing as a volunteer worker, went door to door in a residential Californian neighborhood, asking the homeowners to display a very large “DRIVE CAREFULLY” sign on their front lawn. As you might imagine, only 17% agreed to the request.

However, one particular group of people reacted very differently. In this group, 76% of them offered the use of their front yards. What made them different?

A few weeks earlier, a different “volunteer worker” had come to their doors and asked them to accept and display a little three-inch-square sign that read “BE A SAFE DRIVER”. Since it was such a small request, nearly all of them had agreed to it – but the effects were enormous. Because they had complied with a trivial safe-driving request a couple of weeks before, these homeowners became remarkably willing to comply with the much larger request of having the large “DRIVE CAREFULLY” sign on their front lawn.

Now, although this experiment highlighted some psychological principles that I won’t discuss right now, we could say that the group of which 76% accepted the large signs, were presold the idea of supporting the cause of careful driving.

And this, in a nutsell, is the hidden power of preselling. It’s about getting people predisposed to buying, before you (or someone else) pitches the product or idea to them.

Why It Worked, And The Hidden Power Of Preselling

It worked for several reasons. The little sign was a small request, and was something that most people could agree to – “BE A SAFE DRIVER”. (Who is going to say, “No, I want people to be reckless drivers!”) They had now made a small commitment to the concept of safe driving, and their self-image could now include the fact that they supported safe driving.

In short, they were now receptive to the idea of having a very large “DRIVE CAREFULLY” sign on their front lawn, because in their minds they were now supporters of safe driving who had already committed themselves to the cause by accepting the smaller sign.

The best preselling should also do this. It should get people in the right frame of mind to be willing to hear and accept the sales pitch.

An Example Of Preselling

So you probably want an example, right? Well, I’m sure many of you reading this sell your own stuff on the Internet, and you’re as concerned as I am about conversion rates and making sales. For example, when you spend on a pay-per-click campaign, you want to make sure you earn more than you spend. You don’t want to waste money, or traffic.

The problem is that, if only 10% of your visitors are signing up to your opt-in subscription, that’s 90% who, for whatever reason, are not. Or if 1% of your visitors are buying, that’s 99% of them who are not.

Do you ever wonder what goes on in the minds of those 90%? What do they think, when they come to your squeeze page and don’t sign up? What’s stopping them? If only you knew, you may be able to convert them into subscribers or customers. The problem is finding out what’s on their mind in the first place – how do you do that?

For me, I use a Feedback Seeker on many of my squeeze pages. Since these 90% don’t want to hand over their email address initially, I ask them what is causing them to hesitate, and I give them the opportunity to tell me without them having to give out their email address.

Then, using the Intelligent Response system built into the Feedback Seeker, I can respond to their hesitation or objection instantly, and perhaps turn the hesitant visitor into a subscriber! And even if not, I have all that valuable feedback. I now know why they didn’t subscribe, and I can alter my squeeze page accordingly. For one campaign, I was able to increase subscriptions by 122% simply by asking them why they hesitated, and responding immediately and automatically to their feedback.

Now, that was just a very brief example of preselling. What I did was highlight the problem many of my readers might face, and then I gave the example of how I used one of my programs as a solution.

Of course, it didn’t fit in entirely naturally with the rest of this article, because it was an example – but if I wanted to, I could have written an entire article on the subject of why it’s important to know what’s on the mind of the 90% who don’t subscribe, or the 99% who don’t buy, and to try and “turn them around”, to quote a phrase used by salespeople when they convert a skeptical client into a customer.

You’ll notice I didn’t push the product in a hard way. Hopefully, if I did it right, I got you thinking about the X% of your visitors who don’t subscribe, and wondering in your mind, “What can I do about them? How can I win them over?” And hopefully I got you intrigued enough by the description of what the program can do that you will go and check it out or give it a test. (You’ll notice, I never actually stopped preselling there!)

The point is, preselling is not selling – at least, not overtly. Selling involves a sales pitch. Preselling is about getting people curious, intrigued, and in a state of mind that will make them want to go and read or listen to the sales pitch.

Let me give you a memorable analogy:

If sex is the sale, then I was going to say that preselling is the foreplay. But it’s not even that. Preselling is the teasing, flirting and playful touching that gets ‘em in the mood in the first place!

Remember, for the residents of a certain Californian neighborhood, it was the little three-inch-square sign that read “BE A SAFE DRIVER” that took acceptance of the large “DRIVE CAREFULLY” sign on their front lawn from a measly 17% to an impressive 76%. Those 76% were now “in the mood”. They had been presold the idea, and now saw themselves as active supporters of careful driving.

Next time, I’m going to talk about an even more powerful way of preselling that is hard to resist. So to make sure you don’t lose out on this valuable information, sign up to my updates list to be notified of new posts. Speak to you soon!