Are You Demonstrating Enough Proof?
If you’ve been reading my blog over the last few months you’ve seen me publish quite a few successful case study podcasts with my coaching students. Stories like Alborz Fallah the million dollar blogger, Leigh Peele making $4,500 a month in the fat loss niche (and recently another $11K in a relaunch), Miami Mitch attracting thousands of readers to his college football blog and Leslie the freebie guy who made $31K last year in the freebies market while still working a full time job as a teacher.
I love case studies as learning tools, and podcast interviews make great blog content, so I’d publish these regardless of whether the people involved are students of mine or not (most of my podcast archives are full of successful people who are not my students), however it makes smart business sense for me to showcase my best members because they offer the most powerful demonstration of proof I can present.
Proof, in my opinion, is the single most persuasive element of any marketing campaign, especially if you are an information publisher. I think it’s safe to say that most top Internet marketers agree with me simply by how they market their own products. There hasn’t been a single sales page or launch process that doesn’t involve people talking about how successful they became after studying the information the product offers.
Proof is so prevalent as a marketing hook today, that many successful launches are hinged on the back of just one success story. The power of the story – and the proof demonstrated within – is enough to convince hundreds and even thousands of people to purchase the product. If you don’t understand this and use proof to your advantage with your own marketing campaigns, you’re making a huge mistake.
Why Proof Works
There’s a very clear reason why proof is a powerful marketing tool. When making a purchasing decision, some of the big concerns a customer has is whether what is on offer is a scam, or won’t work for someone like them, or is more hype than substance. Regardless of the objection, proof is the best psychology we have to destroy it when it comes to purchasing decisions.
I don’t really need to explain this to you, you already understand and experience proof. Most of the new product buying decisions you make today, especially online, occur usually because you have some kind of proof that it’s a good product. The proof may simply be a friend or trusted expert recommendation, like for example me talking about how amazing AWeber has been for my business and showing how I use it to build profitable email lists.
What Kind Of Proof Do You Need?
Proof comes in many shapes and forms. It can be something simple, like a text testimonial from a previous customer, or even just a comment left to a blog post. You can take it further by recording a video interview, or doing full blown case study podcasts as I do.
In general there are two kinds of proof that are prevalent in most information product marketing campaigns, they are –
Are You a Master of Meta-Thinking?
In highschool and the first few years of university I played a strategy card game called Magic: The Gathering, or just “Magic” for short. Magic is a serious game and much like professional poker, there is also a professional tournament series that sees players compete for over six million dollars in cash prizes each year. The pro tour of Magic travels around the world and culminates in the once-a-year World Championships, where the winners walk away with over $50,000 in prize money.
Needless to say the competition is quite fierce and I took the game very seriously for a while, studying deck construction strategy and competing in tournaments around Australia and even overseas in Singapore, Japan, Toronto and once to the World Championships in Seattle.
With such a strong tournament scene a huge support network grew online with many websites available to help Magic players improve their game.
One of the interesting concepts that grew out of the tournament environment is what is known as the “meta-game“. The meta-game is the study of the game environment, what decks and cards should work given what decks and cards you expect others to play. It’s a unique way of strategizing, where you attempt to predict what an environment will be like and use certain cards that specifically counteract other cards.
If your strategy is wrong you will crash and burn since you won’t have the right cards to beat the other decks, but if you study the meta-game well you will come prepared with the specific foils necessary to beat other players.
I like the concept of the meta-game because it gives you a distinct advantage over people who do things blindly, without asking themselves why they are doing something. It’s the study of what motivates others to do something to give yourself an advantage.
