Let's say you want to sell an eBook.
What do you do?
Well first, you spend $4 on this eBook that tells you how to set up your store – in detail.
But your objective wasn't to set up a store, right? It was to sell the eBook. And even after you had everything installed, you noticed sales weren't really working as you hoped.
So the next thing you do is you read my post on pricing experiments to see if you need to adjust your price. Right?
And in there, you read about the power of story. And so you go back and rework your product details page – which is easy to do because you're using WordPress and Easy Digital Downloads.
Telling a great story
The last time I wrote about selling, I told you that you wanted to focus not on features, and not even on benefits. I told you to focus on destinations.
The best way to do that is to leverage the power of great stories. Check out this example to see what I'm talking about.
I loved the destination they were taking me to. I loved how they shared it. And you'll notice I'm not talking about story as in, “once upon a time.” I'm talking about the story I find myself in when I read the page and it transports me into being an incredible artist, or designer, or sketcher.
It was so powerful a story, that in November I bought one, and bought more for my friends.
But there's one part of the fiftythree experience I didn't love.
Five Clicks to Purchase
Because the story they were telling, and the destination they took me to was so awesome, I was willing to sustain my eagerness as I moved thru their checkout process.
But it was five clicks.
FIVE!
It tells you how compelling their story was. But even if a few people fall off that process, it's a frustrating loss for the company that worked so hard to get us motivated to buy.
Three tips to help you trigger a purchase with storytelling
1. Help people imagine the future.
The power of a great and compelling story is that it transports you. It does that by helping you imagine a different world.
This, by the way, is the same way people sell timeshares. Because while you're on vacation, it's easy to envision a lot more vacationing.
So if you're selling an eBook, don't focus on the content of your eBook. Instead, focus on the result of a changed life after reading the eBook.
2. Remove distractions and roadblocks.
The second thing you want to focus on is limiting the number of roadblocks to collecting money. Once you've transported someone to a destination they want, you don't want to have them spend the next twenty minutes forgetting about it while clicking thru your site. So streamline everything.
3. Check out this new EDD extension.
Lastly, if you've indeed bought the eBook I told you about, and you got your WordPress and EDD site up, like I suggested, and you know how easy it is to use Gravity Forms – then you have to check out this new EDD extension.
Why?
Because you no longer need to have people click from one screen to the next. Instead, you can let people check out directly from the product / story page.
That's how you leverage the story while removing all the roadblocks. Check out this video.
Now, with a few plugins (and that eBook), you can set yourself up to earning money while you sleep. And if you're going to do that, maybe you should pick a new destination to sleep, like Hawaii, or my personal favorite, Cabo San Lucas.