how do you guys actually sell, i mean how is it even possible to sell something without telling them we are selling?

[shree_]

So basically i am an engineer i can code,i can build things,but now i want to learn what to do,i asked my friend he is an insurance agent,and he is making money from reddit,and i was like,isn't that banned ??
i mean i don't understand, how do you guys do it,i want to learn that,i tried it once,but i am always, like see,here i built this website,do you like this?
if someone says yes,then good,if someone says no,then also good,how is everyone making profit from this?
sorry,this is my post,and very unstructured,and if i violated any rules i would edit if poosible.
just here to learn from you guys,i am sick of chatgpt at this point.

 

[Ryuzaki]

You're talking about what we call around here as "Traffic Leaking" and often selling something directly isn't the goal, but just getting eyeballs on webpages that served ads. This is more "top of the funnel" and easier to indirectly sell, since the conversion is simply the eyeballs and page loads.

The middle of the funnel, like your insurance agent friend, would be collecting leads. So still, just getting eyeballs (but the right eyeballs in this case) is what matters. You let your targeted exposure (posting on sub-reddits where people need insurance) do the work, because they're semi-targeted and warm leads, and from there it's a numbers game. If 1% convert, then you just keep getting eyeballs and then these leads are sold to insurance groups that have their own backend phone call centers or other means of actually disqualifying warm leads and converting hot leads. But you can just sell leads and it's on the company to convert them. Or you can get bigger commissions only on the leads that convert, but then you have to trust their tracking and honesty versus your own.

When you're working the bottom of the funnel, it's a much harder thing to pull off. This kind of free marketing is hard because nobody likes to be blatantly sold to. So you have to either disarm the people online. People try all kinds of dumb stuff to fly under the radar like "does my website design look good?" but those people aren't going to be interested in buying.

The best method to pull this off is to offer massive value both in your posts on forums and to whatever blog post (and rarely) a sales page. You usually funnel them from something of value like a blog post or video, and then from there to the sales page. You naturally drop your conversion rates doing this but that's fine, because you're filtering for people who would or will buy, so who cares about the rest.

But don't feel like this kind of indirect marketing (or Traffic Leaking) is the only means. You can do a bunch of things:

• Indirect marketing like you're talking about
• Search engine optimization so your website ranks for keywords where hot users are clicking through
• Building social media profiles and using them and attracting attention there
• Guest posting on other people's websites
• Growing a blog on your website (that you can promote on search engines and social media)
• Using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising on search engines, social media, forums, websites
• Using Pay-Per-1000-Impressions (Cost Per Mille - CPM) ads in the same fashion
• Opting people from those places into your email newsletter and educating them there, warming them up to you, and selling directing in their inboxes
• Creating a YouTube channel to teach about your "thing" and having small sales pitches in the videos
• Paying for placements in other people's newsletters
• Getting on podcasts for your industry

You can work the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel. But the nice thing is, if you're selling directly at the bottom of the funnel, that means you should be earning enough to earmark a chunk of your earnings as a budget for advertising and marketing. If you aren't earning enough, you'll need to raise your prices until you meet resistance so you can afford this.

If what you're selling is worth buying, and you can get enough cash-flowing (especially with recurring monthly subscriptions) you should be able to basically print money based on the amount of money you can spend. Tinkering around with SEO and Social Media can make you good "passive" money, but you can skip all that headache and just pay for advertisements, optimize your campaigns, figure out your profit margins, and then expand your campaigns as your budget allows.

None of this is easy, and a lot of it is slow with little ROI for your time and effort. To skip the slow part and much of the effort part, you have to pay for advertising, and now you're risking money instead of time. But that's the real path forward if you have an actual product or service. Trying to do Guerrilla Marketing is a tough nut to crack, period.

You can bring in those "reputation and trust" building activities later. At the start you just need a well designed website with some social proof and reviews on it, and then optimize that site to improve conversions too. Because if you want to survive, you have to get to the cashflow ASAP, unless you have a big war chest of money that can afford you to do it the slow and tedious way. But then you're not working on your business and core product or service. You're working on marketing.

 

[Nonbeardedman]

A lot of marketing is basically "proof-building". Thing is, we also don't really know how selling works. We just use different techniques and ways we know how to market and sell things and apply them to people. The real difference between marketing people and others is that we do things more strategically and intently.

You can learn a lot if you've never touched on any marketing/sales stuff before, but here are some pointers to get started:

Proof building​

We make a hypothesis (i.e. an educated guess) and say something like "If I answer people's beginner questions, they will find me helpful -> if they find me helpful, they will trust my advice and opinion -> if they trust my advice and opinion they will probably be willing to buy what I recommend them -> If I recommend them something I can make money from (maybe your own product/service or an affiliate product), then they will buy and I will make money."

Now we don't know if the above is true, so you have to collect evidence to prove if it is true or false.

So you test it. You'll do this for a few days or weeks on a platform that maybe you frequent i.e. reddit, forums, Facebook, etc. After a few days, look back and evaluate your hypothesis.

• Did you end up winning people's trust?
• Do people give you a good/positive response?
• Did some people start to follow you? If so, why?
• Did your Karma, points, impressions, etc. increase?

etc.

You can choose how to track this.

Filtering out buyers from lurkers​

Many people online are just looking around, not actively buying. However, this depends on the platform. Like in real life, where do you think more active buyers would be: the market or a cafe?

Of course, in the market, where buyers and sellers meet. So it's easy to find active buyers there. At a cafe, people are there to grab a coffee, or maybe work on their laptops - they're not actively looking to buy anything. If you try to sell something at a cafe, don't be surprised if no one pays attention.

You can also distinguish between active buyers and passive buyers

Active buyers are people who are actively searching for something to buy. They have already made up their mind that they want to buy something. They might just be researching some options, looking for deals, etc. for that final touch before swiping their credit card.

Passive buyers are people who are not actively searching for something to buy, but they can be convinced to buy. For example, a person who has an old mobile phone may not be looking to buy a new one if his old one works fine. But you can convince him to buy a new one by telling him all about the features and benefits of the new one. You won't get them immediately, but after repeated exposure they might budge and think "what the heck, I'll buy one!"

Providing value​

Here, I'll just tell you to read through @Ryuzaki 's answer. He advises you to provide people with value in your posts. As an engineer, you can think of ways to offer value to people. For example, what would you as an engineer think of as a helpful post? Or something you feel would be worth your time?

You could perhaps:

• Give your input/opinion on something shaking up the industry
• Tell people about a helpful tool/library/feature that made your life easier
• Give tips on managing certain parts about engineering (kinda like what this post is doing)
• Build a tool and share it with people

I would advise tho that you should probably keep to a certain area of expertise rather than post whatever is trending or you feel like. Remember, you'll attract the same type of people your posts are like. So if you post about a certain thing often, but offer a completely different service, don't be surprised if people ghost you after getting to know you better.

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Having money to throw at advertising sure does help, if you can afford it. Otherwise, you'd have to put in more time and effort than a business with money actively running ads. The best thing to do, at your stage, is to be consistent. Consistently post stuff, engage with people, and have a passion for what you do, and the money is sure to follow. Once you have an audience, THEN you can think about selling something to them - that's usually what's worked from me, since I haven't ever had a customer BEFORE anyone knew me.

I started selling my content writing services a few years back. All I did was answer questions and give advice on a FB group. I didn't do it with the intention of making money or getting noticed etc. I was just a regular member of the group. One day, after two years, a guy noticed my profile and saw I drop some pretty good, valuable advice and tips for writers. He offered me a long-term contract but I was hesistant since I hadn't professionaly worked for anyone.

To my surprise since I had developed such a positive rep for being helpful in the group, many other members pushed me to take the work, and no one intervened offering their services instead (which was pretty common since it's a saturated market). That was my first client and now I have 3x the work with 6x the pay.