Internet Marketing Digital_marketing_for_dummies | Page 55

Offering Value in Advance
Doing business online is different from doing business in person or even over the phone.
In many cases, the prospective customer has no further information about your business
than what is presented to her online. To acquire new leads and customers, you need to build
trust and lead with value to build a relationship with your prospects or customers.
A successful relationship is a two-way street. Both sides of the relationship must benefit
from the relationship, and because your company wants to begin this new relationship with
a prospect, it makes sense for you to provide value first. Prospects won’t become loyal
customers if you don’t first provide some value that builds trust in advance of asking them
to buy. The good news is that you can provide this value with something as simple as an
insightful, informative blog post or podcast that helps them solve a problem. You offer this
value for free and with no strings attached to begin a healthy and mutually beneficial
relationship.
We call acquisition offers that lead with value entry point offers, or EPOs. An EPO in a
dating relationship equates to offering to buy someone a cup of coffee. This coffee offer,
which has begun many healthy dating relationships, is a relatively risk-free proposition
that provides value upfront. When your goal is to acquire a customer (and not a spouse),
the EPO is a way of allowing large amounts of prospective customers to get to know, like,
and trust your business without much risk.
There are three types of EPOs:
Ungated: You usually present this type of offer in the form of a blog post, video, or
podcast, and it does not require contact information or a purchase to get value.
Gated: A gated offer requires contact information (name, email address, and so on) to
get value.
Deep discount: This offer requires a purchase but at an extreme discount, usually 50
percent or greater.
It pays to provide tremendous value to your prospective customers when you’re
trying to gain their trust. This idea can seem counterintuitive to some people because
they don’t see the immediate return on this investment.
The goal of your marketing is to transform people from being completely
unaware of your products or services to being raving fans who promote your
products and services to anyone who will listen. The foundation of the relationships