Google_ for Business_ How Google's Social Network Changes Everything - Chris Brogan [47]
• Don’t sell 100% of the time: Post content that relates to your community in between sales. To skip that step risks you being uncircled or ignored.
• Help others sell: If you want a magic trick in affiliate marketing, help others sell. Some programs actually offer two-tiered affiliate relationships, which means that you can recruit people and also make a cut off their sales. However, do it just because it can help your sales. This might mean resharing someone else’s affiliate promotion. It might mean teaching people your best tips for selling. When you’re helpful to others, they tend to reciprocate.
• Try a hangout: What if you did a live hangout showing off the product or service you’re thinking of selling. Think QVC for the social network crowd. And before you poo-poo that idea as terrible, realize that QVC and related platforms get millions and millions of unit sales a week from doing simple promotional video coverage. A hangout would be a more intimate version of this—and definitely worth considering.
It’s early to know whether Google+ will be useful for affiliate marketers, but anywhere that millions of people gather, there will be people testing whether it’s of value. I think that making sure you sell in a human, relationship-minded way is always useful, and the platform certainly offers many ways to augment the methods you might use to sell.
Remember that the people who have joined Google+ haven’t joined to buy things. They use this social network for many different purposes. Simply pushing sales into their stream would be a less successful method, so think accordingly.
The Two-Tier Sale
Another way to use Google+ to build sales is to not push for a sale right out of the gate. For instance, if you’re a real estate professional, most people aren’t actively seeking your services on any given day. However, when the time comes that they want to make a move or sell their place, you want to be top of mind. But nearly every business opportunity is like this. If you push directly for the sale and it’s the wrong time, you risk falling under the waves and not being top of mind when the person is ready to buy. Therefore, you might encourage a sustained relationship before the sale in many ways.
Encourage subscriptions to your weekly email newsletter. Remember that Google+ is “rented” space. If the rules change, if something catastrophic happens, if the trends shift such that it’s no longer the most amazing place to network, you’ll lose all the work you’ve put into relationship building, if you have all your eggs in that basket. To that point, make efforts to invite people to get your weekly newsletter, where you control the mailing list, so that you have sustained access to those people. Ninety-three percent of people still prefer email to any other method to have a relationship with a brand, according to a study from Citi. Oh, and if you’re not producing a useful, interesting, personable weekly email newsletter, you’re missing a powerful part of your sales potential.
Another way to look at this is to consider Google+ as your warm networking in between sales calls. Sales people often look for ways to connect with their prospects in between pushes to move the sale along. For instance, if you sell something huge such as data center equipment, the cycle to buy might be 18 months or more.
While everything is coming together, another great way to use Google+ is to simply stay in touch and talk about whatever else is going on in your buyer’s world. The more contact you have without pushing hard on the sale, the more your buyers can see you as someone who cares and shares value. (A great resource