It’s been said that on the Internet “Content is king.” Well, if content is king, then relationships go cha-ching!

Of course, cha-ching is the sound of the cash register ringing—the sound of making money.

Another popular online marketing adage is “The money is in the list”—meaning if you have a list of prospects and customers, the money is in farming the list.

In reality, the “Money is in the relationships,” including relationships that are embodied within mailing lists.

No relationship = no money.

Great relationships = great money.

These “Circles of Trust”, as illustrated at the top of this post, are where the real money is made. Get inside one of these major circles, and you’re in the money.  And the more of these circles you become a part of, the easier it becomes.

Tapping into these circles of trust is probably the biggest untapped potential for social networks to create tangible value for online businesses.

One of the fastest and most reliable ways to make money online is to build relationships and then turn them into money.  Sounds simple enough…

RELATIONSHIPS = MONEY

For example, let’s say you have a friend or business associate that has a newsletter and blog in your target market. Let’s assume this person has built a following of 30,000 newsletter subscribers and 20,000 regular blog readers per month.

These aren’t uncommon numbers on the Internet; in fact, these are relatively small compared to many people I know personally.

So, you convince this person that it would be in her subscribers’ best interest to know about your new product. As an added incentive, you agree to pay her a 20% commission on every sale you make from her subscriber base and blog. Never mind exactly how we will track those commissions (it is easy) for now.

I am going to use this concept of a “Trust-O-Meter” (below) to depict how much trust a prospect has developed in us. The following Trust-O-Meter shows how much our associate’s audience trusts her:

Like a thermometer, the Trust-O-Meter represents the level of trust and relationship strength, in a simplistic way, so we can conceptualize it better.  As we see above, our friend’s audience not only trusts her, they like her.  We might even consider extending the scale further to the right by adding “Respected” (not shown here).

Why Affiliates and Bloggers Are Trusted

Continuing the affiliate example above, since most of her audience has been with her for some time, they have not only developed a high degree of trust in her, but they also like her. Going beyond trusted to liked is a sure way to make more sales—a lot more sales.

So, we were introduced by our friend and associate to her audience. What is our Trust-O-Meter reading with them at the start?

Because we were introduced by a person the audience (those on the affiliate’s list) both trusts and likes, we get the benefit of the doubt and begin in a semi-trusted state with her audience.

We will have to earn the rest of their trust…

Together, you and your friend come up with a strategy for communicating and involving the subscribers:

• An initial email and blog entry that introduces you to her community
• A free teleconference where she interviews you about a hot topic of interest
• A recording of the free teleconference posted on the blog site and a brief email note sent to the subscriber list
• A free giveaway item you provide that is relevant to her audience
• A “special offer,” a time-limited discount on buying your product!

Assuming your product can interest the majority of the 50,000 audience your associate has just introduced you, guess what just happened from the above steps?

First, a foundation of trust and respect existed between your associate and her subscribers and readers. Second, she introduced you to them. You are no longer considered a stranger, so you instantly became semi-trusted.

Next, your free teleconference gave those who attended an opportunity to learn firsthand what kind of person you are and to ask you questions and see how you responded. In effect, you became an authority who is operating at nearly the same level as your associate, and perhaps even at a higher level in your particular area of expertise.

Incidentally, everyone who actually registered for and attended that teleconference just became qualified leads for your product, since they invested some time with you.

Next, everyone else who listens to the recorded teleconference audio also trusts you more (assuming you didn’t blow it during the interview by trying to sell something!) Notice how you have moved up in the Trust-O-Meter!

Next, you gave away some of real value to her audience. This shows what a stand-up kind of person you are, someone who cares and is trying to help.

Finally, she pitches the special offer for your product to the subscribers and audience. In this pitch, your friend is effectively endorsing you and your product, which confers an even greater amount of her trust equity onto you.

I call this “transitive trust,” since her audience now implicitly trusts you primarily because you have been endorsed and approved. Why do you think companies pay so much to get celebrities to endorse their products?  Because they are both trusted and liked by so many.

Now, let’s run some numbers to put this example of ours into the proper perspective.

Out of 50,000 subscribers, only 50% are even mildly interested in what you have to say or offer them, leaving 25,000 potential prospects.

By the time she makes these 25,000 the offer, around 40% have enough interest and familiarity to open the email and learn more (This is your email “open rate.”) That is 10,000!

Out of those 10,000, about 25% click through to get more details on this special offer— that is 2,500 qualified prospects that now show up at your website (instead of her blog).

Let’s assume your offer is truly special and motivating to the buyers who have an immediate need and budget, and now trust you enough to buy from you. Let’s assume that 20% end up buying your product over the next 30 days as a result of this campaign.

So you make 500 sales! About 1% of her total subscriber base ended up buying your product. Not bad for a brief campaign with this associate of yours. Let’s say your product sells for $100. You just generated $50,000 in sales.

Let’s say your product sells for $995. You just generated $497,500 in sales!  Now you are talking!

What just happened here? You went from zero to half a million in sales and 500 new customers in a matter of a few weeks. That is what happened. What other business do you know of where those kinds of results are possible?  It happens somewhere on the Web every single day.

The truth is, this happens in online businesses all the time. In fact, I’ve seen product launches orchestrated with multiple partners who have large subscriber bases sell many thousands of units in less than 24 hours—generating millions of dollars in just hours.

All of this is only possible when you have the right relationships in place.

Remember what I said:  Relationships go cha-ching! It’s so true.

And, it’s good to be King!

Related posts

• Crossing the Chasm of Doubt (1)
• How Successful Email Marketing Is Done (2)
• Email Lists – The key to sustainable online profitability (4)
• B2B Lead Generation (0)
• Your Relationship Development System – Profiting or Costing You? (3)
• Psychology of Social Product Launches – Part 2, Proof (1)
• Effective Tactic for Email Relationship Development (3)
• When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead: Useful Stories (9)
• Network Influence IS the Launch (2)
• Groundhog Day Website Marketing (7)

TRUST

The number one reason people don’t buy from us online (besides price and no need) is the fact that we’re strangers and they don’t know us and don’t trust us.

We’re all taught from childhood not to trust strangers. This carries over into business, because most of us have been burned at one time or another by someone we didn’t know.

The old saying that “trust must be earned” is very true.

Big brands like Amazon.com or EBay do not face this same barrier, as they’ve already earned their trust in the market. Unless you have the wind of an established brand blowing behind you, you will certainly have to face and overcome this trust issue. Even if you have a brand, it may not be enough to carry you, especially in new markets.

The other reason people do not believe or trust you is because they realize you are trying to sell them something. In addition, they often have developed an instinctive distrust for sales people because of experiences buying things (and being “hard sold” on things that turned out not to be in their best interest or of value to them).

Lack of trust and belief is probably the single biggest cause of online selling failure (probably offline, too). Fortunately, you can do plenty about this.

When people do not trust or believe us, there is a gap or chasm between us and them. Notice my use of the term “us and them” here. They do not trust us.

To maximize our online sales, we must change this “us vs. them” perspective.  We do this by building an online relationship – that eventually blossoms into a customer relationship.

Every relationship begins with a Chasm of Doubt between the two parties. This chasm is often filled with fears, anxieties, questions, misperceptions, and other forms of doubt.

There are those risk-takers who will simply leap right across this chasm, but more often than not, they are the exception instead of the rule.

To attract the big, mainstream part of almost any market, we must convince risk-averse people that they can safely do business with us.

Consider the following picture of the chasm.  How many people will put themselves at risk to jump across it?

It is as if we are standing on one side of the canyon or a large gorge, and our prospect is on the other side looking across at us.

He can see us and hear us but isn’t ready to try to jump across this dangerous-looking chasm to join us on the other side, where we can help.

Yet to sell to him, we must somehow help him across this Chasm of Doubt onto our side, where we can have productive conversations about his desires and his needs and how we can best help and serve.

So how are we going to help our prospects cross to our side?

By building a metaphorical Bridge of Trust across the Chasm of Doubt – by removing the perceived risks of being on the same side with us – and avoiding the risky-looking jump we see here.

This “chasm” has been written about before, so this isn’t really new.  Remember Jeffrey Moore’s famous “Crossing the Chasm”?  Another place I saw this concept being applied to email marketing was Michael Cheney, an accomplished Internet Marketer, who portrays this chasm in his River of Doubt metaphor.

To get across this famous chasm, we must build a  ”Bridge of Trust” and get our prospects to start walking across the bridge to reach us on the other side –  one-step at a time.

You might be wondering: what can we use to build such a bridge?

Trust is built one step at a time.

It begins by being honest and sincere about helping the prospects get the results and achieve the positive outcome they seek.

Each step of the bridge must be built. We provide the prospects with something that causes them to consider us as trustworthy.

They then take a step closer to being on our side of the Chasm of Doubt.

Here are some examples.

We offer the prospect something valuable for free (perhaps a free offer that attracted them to us  in our original advertisement), and then we deliver it to them.

We ensure they will be satisfied with what we give them. Gift giving has long been a good way to help build a relationship, and it is no different online.

Next, we give them something else that is completely unexpected for free, like a free video, report, or something else even more useful.  These gifts must not be self-serving, with embedded sales messages, links to buy your product or service, etc.  Real gifts aren’t Trojan horses – they’re honest to goodness useful, valuable things that can be appreciated.

By giving useful, free stuff to our prospects, we are accomplishing several important steps:

• We’re demonstrating that we are trustworthy by trying to help them
• We’re proving that we are interested in them and their needs
• We’re showing them that we actually do have something valuable to offer them
• We’re helping them along the path toward solving the ultimate problem (our product can fully resolve)
• We’re staying in front of them and keeping our company/product in the foreground (vs. not following up with them at all and allowing them to slip into the ether).

Another way to gain their trust is to confide in them by letting them in on something special, telling them a secret, or even sharing something personal with them. When people confide in you, they are signaling that they trust you. Therefore, you should trust them in return.

Think of all the ways you would go about building a relationship with someone and evaluate whether that same approach could work in building bonds of trust with your prospect.

Sometimes it is easy to forget all the stuff we learned when selling to people in the offline world—how our sales people go about their process of selling.

It begins by establishing rapport, finding common ground and establishing some nominal amount of trust that the sales person has your best interest at heart.

It is no different online.  Our brand (if we are an established company) helps to bridge the trust gaps somewhat.  If you’re like most small businesses, you don’t yet have an established brand in the eyes of your prospect, so that’s not going to help.

Instead, we must invest the time and effort required to develop the relationship and bonds of trust with our market. Then when our email arrives in her inbox, she will open it and actually read it more often than not.  When we recommend something, that recommendation will be taken seriously and not pre-judged as just another sales pitch.

So if developing these relationships is this straightforward, why don’t more companies do it?  Because it takes time, work and a sincere interest in our market and customers.  It takes doing things that aren’t in our own selfish interests and instead investing our time for someone else.  And that’s not nearly as much fun as building more stuff to sell…

So the next time you’re wondering what you can do to increase sales in your market, step back and ask yourself this question.

Which side of the chasm is my market waking up on today?

Related posts

• It’s good to be King (3)
• How Successful Email Marketing Is Done (2)
• Email Lists – The key to sustainable online profitability (4)
• B2B Lead Generation (0)
• Effective Tactic for Email Relationship Development (3)
• Your Relationship Development System – Profiting or Costing You? (3)
• Psychology of Social Product Launches – Part 2, Proof (1)
• Groundhog Day Website Marketing (7)
• Why don’t businesses invest more in online lead-generation? (0)
• When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead: Useful Stories (9)