Pre-selling assumes that your customers are usually on your website to find answers to their questions or problems, and not to buy. The difference between selling and pre-selling is how you present these answers.

Pre-selling is just the opposite of selling, which is perceived as something that pressurizes you to buy. Pre-selling recommends subtly through one or two links in the informative content, building rapport with the reader and positioning you as the expert. Wouldn’t you be ready to listen if your trusted consultant recommended something to you? And that’s what pre-selling does. Pre-selling works because when people think you’re selling, their defenses go up; but in pre-selling, people are ready to listen.

Just about anyone is capable of doing the hard-sell on a product or service on the Internet. What makes the difference between a consistently successful online business and the ones that are looking for a quick buck boils down to the website’s ‘tone’. Every website speaks to its visitors and when the visitor reads the content, it should create the impression that the website knows what it is talking about.

Depending on how this content is expressed, it can establish you, the website owner as an expert. Rather than publish yards of running text that most visitors on the move are unlikely to read, the content must be presented as informative bite-sized pieces. Obviously no visitor wants to buy without knowing more about the product or service. To reach that fine balance between no information and the overdose, “pre-selling” is the answer.

Around 400-800 words is acceptable for pre-sell content to position you as the expert even as you gently pre-sell your visitors on your product or service. Here are some benefits of pre-selling:

• Ever wondered why NASCAR, Wimbledon, the Olympics, etc. always start on time? It is because they are pre-sold. When you pre-sell, you set a deadline. On that date, you’ll have your product or service out with no excuses
• When you pre-sell, your project is already funded. Which means – you don’t have to get all stressed out. What you need to do now is create compelling content and attractive packaging!
• You get a good look into your customers’ behavior for your product or service. Based on this information, you can tweak and tone before you launch your product/service.

Your next thought is probably about what you can pre-sell – here are some ideas:

• Books – can be pre-sold long before you write them.
• Products – obviously
• Seminars and workshops – you probably know this already. Some marketers pre-sell a series of these ahead.
• Consulting sessions – where your customer pays you before the event
• Membership sites – can be pre-sold even before they exist.

Just imagine how motivated you will feel to deliver when your first customer pays you!