a little less conversation – the ascending close

An interesting trend in Internet marketing is to deliberately under-inform prospects re what your product is about.

You provide just enough info to get them to click on the link to the next thing, which provides them with just enough info to get them to the next thing… etc, etc, etc until at some point a conversion around a call to action occurs.

The thought just occurred to me that this is an analog for the “ascending close” – An old and time-honored sales call strategy. In essence the ascending close involves getting the prospect to say “yes” to questions that start off trivial but gradually ramp up in their level of commitment. The idea is that by the time the question of sale rolls around they are so used to saying “yes” that it just happens.

So, perhaps its time to rethink your content when it comes to how you introduce what you’re doing to cold prospects… Keep it simple… Boil it down to the USP… Or do what Hipster did and provide a cryptic teaser with no useful information at all (WARNING: might not work…).

On the Internet – any sort of action or engagement from the prospects is a little “yes”.