The Internet is a wonderful place, but along with all the great services and products you can find, there’s plenty of garbage and scams. Because of this, people shopping online can be hard to convince. Most shoppers want to make sure they’re going to get value for their money, so people want some proof your product or service works before they buy. Unlike a brick and mortar store, they can’t pick up an item and look at it. They can’t even tell whether you really have merchandise to sell, or whether you’re simply going to take their money and disappear. Just like a wedding photographer without a portfolio of previous work, you’re going to have a hard time selling anything if you don’t provide proof.
Fortunately, it’s easy to provide proof. In fact, here are two good ways to go:
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Testimonials: Most sites selling something have plenty of testimonials. On the Internet, they take the form of customer quotes in boxes that make them easy to find. In fact, the more testimonials there are, the bigger the price tag tends to be. Whether you’re marketing a product or service, get as many testimonials as you can and put them on your website.
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Examples: There are many ways to show examples of your previous work. You can post samples if they can be digitally converted, or make videos demonstrating your product or service similar to the commercials of the late, great Billy Mays. You can put up case studies describing your client’s problem and how your product or service fixed the problem. Better yet, you can describe how fixing that problem positively impacted your client. Using examples is a powerful way to provide proof to people interested in buying your product or service.
In either case, make sure your proof can be found. Put the proof on your sales page and everywhere else on your website to make your customer believe your products and/or services are valuable. You’re not going to convince the buying public, otherwise.
