Establishing such relationships is infinitely easier when interactions are face-to-face. But if you’re selling online, you may never meet your customers in person.

So how do you build enough rapport to make a sale when you can’t smile at someone or shake their hand?

One technique that direct-mail copywriters and subsequently internet marketers have used for decades is to give away valuable free content.

It eliminates barriers to response, demonstrates your expertise and starts a relationship on a firm footing.

And, as a new study shows, it lets you powerfully engage the rule of reciprocity.

Why you should give to get

Ever find yourself smiling back at a complete stranger, just because they smiled at you first?

Ever accepted a follow-up appointment with a door-to-door salesperson for a product you didn’t want in the first place?

Blame the rule of reciprocity.

In his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, social psychologist Robert Cialdini explains  that we’re hard-wired to repay someone when we receive a gift.

Study after study has shown that this works in face-to-face interactions, which has obvious implications for marketing and sales.

But does it also work online, when nobody’s looking? For example, if someone downloads free content that you created, or takes you up on a free offer, are they equally obliged?

Researcher Jerry Burger and his colleagues from the Department of Psychology at Santa Clara University have shown that the answer is yes.

We’ll even repay a gift when we believe our response is anonymous.

It works when nobody’s watching

As recently reported, Burger asked participants to take part in a “personality and perception skills” test—a cover for the actual study testing the powers of reciprocity.

During the study, one of the research assistants, acting as a fellow study participant, gave certain participants an unexpected gift—a bottle of water.

In another instance, the research assistant didn’t hand out bottles of water to anyone.

At the end of test, Burger asked half the participants to complete a survey and return it a few days later. He also told them that the gift-giving participant would be present on that day.

The remaining half of participants were asked to leave the survey anonymously in a drop-off box.

The result? Hugely significant (especially to marketers).

Many more people who were given a bottle of water completed and returned the survey compared to the group that was not given a bottle of water (30% vs 5%).

And importantly, the people who believed their response would be anonymous were just as likely to return the survey as those who believed that their act of repayment would be witnessed.

How to use reciprocity online

So, how do you put these findings into practice?

Here’s how you can turn a free, valuable gift into an ongoing relationship and, ultimately, sales:

1. Offer prospects a gift that has value. If you’re selling car audio systems online, for example, offer a free e-book that reviews the top 10 products for the year.
2. Ask for your prospect’s name and email address in exchange for the gift. Because of reciprocity, they’ll be much more willing to give you their information. (Just remember to let them know they’re giving you permission to contact them in the future.)
3. Send your prospect a follow-up email to further establish rapport. Introduce yourself, use your prospect’s first name and write your message in a warm, friendly tone.
4. Continue to engage reciprocity and cement your relationship with your prospect by giving away tips, tools and advice.
5. Offer your prospect your product or service. Because you’ve established a relationship and engaged reciprocity, your prospect is more likely to become a happy customer.
6. Practice good content optimization and constantly test and tweak to improve your results.

And let us know: have you ever used reciprocity in your campaigns?

Leave a comment and tell us how well it worked!

So when people tell you to give stuff away for free, you might think they’re insane.

But successful internet marketers would disagree.

Leading them is Eben Pagan, whose concept of "moving the free line" has proven infectious.

The question is: How much free stuff is too much (or too little)?

Why free stuff puts cash in your pocket

Moving the free line may seem counterintuitive.

But when you understand how it works, it makes sense.

The thumbnail version goes like this:

1. You give away something valuable.
2. Your prospects see this and recognize you have the goods.
3. They feel more comfortable buying.
4. You enjoy more selling.

What Apple, detergent and your website have in common

The concept isn’t new.

Direct marketers have known for many decades that sampling drives sales.

(Ever get a bag of laundry detergent in the mail?)

Retailers like Apple know this also applies to product interaction in stores.

So it makes sense that internet marketers would follow suit.

Particularly since establishing credibility is essential to online sales.

And online, a great way to establish credibility is to demonstrate your expertise.

(Confession: That’s why we publish our Breakthrough Web Writing e-book and our online guide to web writing.)

Obliterate the competition with generosity (and steal their customers in the process)

But how much must you give away?

The answer, in part, depends on your niche’s competitiveness.

Use competitors as a gauge.

And if you really want to destroy them, give away more value than their paid products provide.

Think about it.

If they’re charging $50 for an e-book, create a better e-book and make it free (preferably to people who give you their contact information).

Your absence of cost creates a vacuum.

The cost of their paid programs drives prospects into your arms.

And then?

Create higher-value products for higher cost.

Who needs $50 for an e-book when you can charge $1,500 for a set of DVDs?

If you’ve never found yourself daydreaming about a flawlessly executed landing page, perhaps you’re not aware of just how important the design and content of your landing page is to your conversion rates. Consider this scenario:

You’ve finally honed a masterful AdWords ad and you’re off and running with a polished email campaign. Prospects are visiting your site in droves, and it’s just a matter of time before your conversion rates match your click-throughs. Job well done, right?

Not by a long shot. Without an effective landing page—one that grips visitors once they’ve arrived and propels them through the conversion funnel—your potential customers will leave your site just as quickly as they arrived.

So what makes visitors stick?

Well, since we’re science nuts who get excited about doing research, we like to think of stickiness in terms of a nifty little equation reported in Marketing Experiments Journal. It goes something like this:

c = 4m + 3v + 2(i – f) – 2a

Got all that? Neither did we at first. But then we put it into words, with which we’re a bit more proficient than algebra. It essentially says that conversion is a function of the motivation of your visitor plus the clarity of your value proposition plus the net impact of your visitor’s incentive vs. the friction they encounter minus any anxiety created by your landing page.

In other words, for a landing page to be sticky, it has to communicate your site’s value immediately and clearly so that it counters visitors’ doubts (anxiety) without distracting them (friction) from the end goal—conversion.

To further unpack all this technical mumbo jumbo, let’s look closer at what you can do to guarantee your landing page actually lands you customers. The following tips should make things clearer.

Keep your promises

Like my single friend who got tired of clicking on one person and meeting another, prospects who click on your ads expect your landing page to be consistent with your claim. Make sure your landing page shares a purpose with the link that got them there—don’t just direct visitors to your site’s home page. An effective landing page will always make good on its call to action. If a visitor has clicked “learn more,” your landing page should have more detailed information. If you’ve lured them with “order now,” see that an order form is waiting for them. And if they’ve clicked “read the full article,” your landing page should have—you guessed it—the full article.

Make it easy

Any time you force a visitor to jump through hoops, you create friction. In other words, don’t make them work any harder than necessary, or prospective customers will move on. Friction can take any number of forms: visitors having to scroll to find a call to action, important content hidden by mouse-overs, links that don’t look clickable, non-natural content flow (up-and-down rather than left-to-right), distractions that dilute your offering, requests for personal information—all of these factors can cause visitors to become irritated and click off.

Display value

Research shows that when a prospect visits your landing page, you have just 13.2 seconds to convince them they’re in the right place. That’s a mere 13.2 seconds to effectively communicate your site’s value. The "benefits before features" mantra is always a safe bet, but it’s absolutely essential for a landing page to quickly and clearly let prospects know what you’re offering and why they need it—and to present a prominent call to action so they can get it—or you’ll risk losing them.

Be credible

It may sound like a tired tactic, but there’s a reason why promotional copy always mentions awards or relates the praises of satisfied customers—it works. Whether your landing page includes testimonials, certifications or even links to your privacy statement, these credibility indicators make you seem trustworthy. They also lend your site an air of authority and contribute to social proof—both of which act as powerful mechanisms of persuasion. 

It’s better to give

By offering incentives—special offers or gifts that encourage visitors to stick around—you’ll do more than keep visitors on your site longer: You’ll encourage reciprocity when it comes time to seal the deal. It’s a simple fact of human evolution that we feel compelled to return even the slightest favor. Give something to visitors, and you’ll significantly increase the odds that they’ll give back. At the very least, you can use the offer to obtain useful information (no more than a name and an email address) about them that could lead to conversion later on.

Find the motive

How motivated visitors are (and the type of motivation that drives them) will determine how much friction they’ll put up with before bouncing. Know their motivations, and you’ll know how to make them stick. This principle is especially applicable in deciding how much copy to include on your landing page. "Less is more" tends to be web gospel, but research has shown that the opposite is occasionally true. If a visitor is motivated from a rational/analytical perspective, longer copy is actually better. But if they’re coming from an emotional/impulse perspective, short copy is the way to go.

Look your best

Do I even need to say this? Does anyone doubt that design reigns supreme when it comes to capturing the attention of potential customers? But effective design involves more than just dazzling colors and captivating images and fonts—it should also be consistent and intuitive, with a common theme that keeps visitors from ever wondering where they are and how they got there. A landing page that is visually distinct from the rest of your site will cause friction when a prospect decides to delve deeper, so be sure to define a clear path from your link to your landing page and through the rest of your site to keep visitors on the road to conversion.

Still not sold on the value of an effective landing page? Consider one last fact: If your ads are already sending potential customers to a landing page, then any increase in your conversion rate is pure profit. Use these simple principles to refine your existing page, and your site will be stickier than you ever thought possible.