We’re bombarded with advertising messages.

Each and every one of us are exposed to adverts all day long.

Estimates vary between to a few hundred and quite a few thousand adverts.

The precise figure doesn’t much matter – it’s “lots” whichever way you look at it.

But it does mean we’re getting more cynical about adverts.

And that affects what we need to do on our websites and emails.

Your potential customers are only really asking the question “What’s in it for me?”

I visit a number of different forums online for various reasons.

One that I visit had an excellent post that was an open letter to marketers, salesmen and advertisers.

It started with the line:

“I don’t care about you. Really I don’t. “

It’s well worth clicking across to the post and reading the whole open letter.

Because it sums up what we all really feel about being sold to.

There’s a very fine line here.

Being nudged in the right direction for something we want or need or covet is one thing.

Friends can often persuade us to make that kind of decision, even if they tell us that we’ll only ever play that CD once (which I was told by a friend when I bought a CD by a group called Loud. I still remember thinking they were wrong. And I’ve still only played the CD once in the more-years-than-I-care-to-remember since it was purchased)

But that’s OK.

Because it wasn’t a flashy advertising campaign that made the sale happen.

It was a catchy track that was being played in a record shop – I’m old enough to remember when we bought records and CDs in shops rather than clicking something on Amazon or iTunes.

Personally I prefer looking at the artwork on a 12″ album than a much smaller CD (I don’t even know the size, which shows you how much it doesn’t matter).

But that’s a digression.

Kind-of.

Because it’s the thought process that’s going on behind every decision your customers make.

For music, I prefer a physical product.

Sure, CDs can and do “rot” but at least they don’t scratch as easily as vinyl. Even if they don’t live up to the original hype that they were near enough indestructible,

But they don’t crash as easily as electronics.

And they look nicer on a shelf.

You need to get in your customer’s mind!

Maybe not quite as deep as they went in Being John Malkovich.

But not far off.

The closer you can get to mind reading and anticipating all the questions your potential customer is asking in their head, the more likely you are to make the sale.

Because they’ll be subconsciously thinking that you know what they’re searching for,

That builds up a trust value that a sales letter simply can’t do.

For instance, if I get to a page where there’s a video sales letter, I’ll almost always instantly click away.

I know I’m being sold.

And, despite being a marketer, I don’t like that idea much,

I also know that video sales letters work – usually better than text.

Which is why they’re used for all sorts of products.

It’s basically the 30 minute late night informercial format turned into something we’re prepared to watch on the web.

Webinars are another option

They have a fairly bad reputation because they’re usually pitched as being “only” 60 minutes but turn out to be 15 minutes talking about the weather and checking (and re-checking) that the sound is working, 30 minutes of “information” that’s normally just a thinly disguised sales pitch, followed by the real sales pitch that drags the time on to well past 60 minutes before the once-in-a-lifetime offer is revealed.

And you know (especially if you’ve read that open letter) that there will be another once-in-a-lifetime offer in your inbox before the webinar has finished,

If you can flip that round and put your webinars back to how they should be you’ll find you get more sales.

A good format is something like this:

• A tightly controlled and scripted presentation
• A very brief “hi” intro coupled with a soundcheck (because it is embarrassing when you’re the only person on the webinar who can hear you)
• 45 to 50 minutes of solid information that can be used by people with no further purchase
• 5 to 10 minutes of pitch
• An open Q&A session where you can answer specific questions without resorting to “buy my stuff” answers

Some comedians can get away with that kind of answer.

When I saw the late Rik Mayall at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, lots of his answers were along the lines of “that’s on page 94 of my book” but that was all part of the talk (or really the show).

If you’re trying to sell to an audience on the web, whether it’s on a sales page or a webinar or anywhere else, it doesn’t cut it.

Partly because the answer you’re trying to pretend is classified Top Secret is readily available to anyone with an ounce of sense who’s able to use Google.

You know it.

And – sorry to tell you this – your potential customers know it.

So you need to add value to the freely available information

And the best way to do that is to help your visitors and potential customers.

If you want a full explanation, treat yourself to a copy of Youtility.

It goes into a lot of detail about how you can become customer-centric (or whatever the proper jargon term is).

The more information you give your customers, the more likely they are to trust you.

It’s that simple.

Because we’re all getting so cynical that our defences almost melt away when someone only sets out to help us.

Try it for yourself.

If your industry is visual, make a video.

If it’s better suited to text, put up a post on your website.

This will have several benefits:

• Your YouTube channel and/or website will grow bigger
• You’ll get picked up more often by the search engines
• You’ll get perceived as the expert (put 100 of those tips together and you’ve got a book you could sell on Amazon’s Kindle)
• You’ll gradually become perceived as an expert – because you already are an expert but this gently tells people that’s the case

This takes time and effort.

It’s not going to happen overnight.

But when you keep at it, you’ll find that the change happens.

You’ll get people linking to your site without you having to resort to anything spammy.

You’ll maybe get people asking to interview you – probably not breakfast TV but more likely blogs and podcast channels in your industry or niche.

You’ll get word of mouth referrals.

In short, your whole world will change for the better.

All because you set out to first and foremost help people rather than pitch them,

Think about it…

Who do you prefer to buy from?

The pushy salesman who’s almost clamped your car in the car park so that you can’t leave before you buy something?

Or the trusted friend that is either a real friend or, increasingly, a virtual friend. One up on the imaginary friends you had when you were younger but unless you’ve met every person on your Friends list, you don’t actually know whether they’re for real or not.

You’ve probably got a list of people who you’d let recommend stuff to you and whose opinion you’d trust,

Quite likely different people for different decisions – the foodie if it’s a restaurant, the techie if it’s a gadget, the fitness freak if it’s diet or exercise, that kind of thing.

The more information and help you give out for free, the more you’ll get back.

It’s actually a universal law – Napoleon Hill discussed it years ago in Think and Grow Rich.

New-agers call it the law of attraction.

It works – whether you think it does or not.

So put it to your advantage by putting your knowledge to your customer’s advantage.

Even if you’re sceptical and think this is just a sales pitch for something (it’s not, but you could always enlist my help if you wanted to).

Think about your customers when you write your next email or blog post.

Ask yourself what they’d be asking themselves.

Which will almost certainly be a variant of “what’s in it for me”.

Do that on a regular basis – not just a once-off, “I’ll give it a try” basis, but regularly.

Ideally daily for at least the next month.

At first, not much will happen because Google take forever to index new posts (thanks, spammers).

But if you blow your own trumpet a bit by Tweeting, adding to Google+, putting links on Facebook and LinkedIn, that kind of thing, then it will start showing signs of life.

Give it a try!

And report back if you want to – that’s one of the things you can do in the comments box below.

Because making yourself more accountable helps grow your success with this kind of thing.