What I’m about to share with you is a bit meaty, but it can have a huge impact on your blogging income. I want to address questions like:

• How accessible should you be with your readers?
• How do you deal with the issue of pricing of your products and avoid “sticker shock”?

I’m aware that some bloggers (those who aren’t making much money, mind you) may potentially take issue with what I’m about to share. However, this blog is all about being REAL with you and help you guys make as much money as possible from your blogging.

What Is Strategic Positioning?

Honestly, I just came up with that term off the top of my head. But, here’s what I mean…

It is the purposeful positioning of your personal/online brand in order to foster the MINDSET that you want inside the heads of your audience.

In other words, you can custom tailor how you want your readers to perceive you and your perceived value.

This can have a direct impact on the prices you are able to charge as well as the overall level of authority your readers grant you on your subject.

Have you ever thought about what you want your readers to think of you? Obviously, you probably want them to like you and like what you have to say. But, when we start taking this into the realm of business, it doesn’t always translate into income. Being liked doesn’t mean anybody is going to take out their wallet for you.

Likability is a key factor in the art of persuasion, however. You want to be a likable person and accessible, but with some thought put into how you do it. Let’s go deeper.

Make Them Reach A Little

There is a balancing act in life of reach and withdraw. The best way to illustrate this is the world of dating. Yes, dating.

We’re all familiar with this. You deal with a member of the opposite sex who is too “clingy”, who is always there, who is calling you all the time. What happens? You recoil. You need your space. It is just too much! On the other hand, playing “hard to get” stereotypically makes the other person reach more. They want you because you don’t overly want them.

Now, am I saying you need to play “hard to get” with your blog audience? Well, not really. However, this concept does still play a role in strategic positioning.

Let’s take two bloggers with an equal amount of knowledge on a subject. Blogger A is very accessible. He answers every email, replies to every comment, every tweet. He is a social animal. Then we take Blogger B. This guy is responsive to his audience, but not to the degree where everybody gets a reply. He has systems in place to handle communication. Perhaps he uses a VA to handle his emails. Most of his audience’s interaction with him is via the mediums he controls – the list and the blog.

When it comes time for Blogger A to sell something, he is much more likely to run into resistance because he is already insanely accessible. It leaves no room for added value. See, the truth is that in many cases, increased access to the authority is a major selling point. People want to have more one-on-one interaction with the person who knows. Blogger B is in a better position here. He is accessible enough to be in good communication with his audience, but he leaves enough of a gap there to provide an offer of increased access in the form of a paid program.

Having your audience be a little hungry is a good thing. It keeps them coming back and it makes them more open to potentially buying the right offer from you.

Admittedly, this is a difficult concept to communicate in words and hopefully I’ve done it. This is a balancing act. It is important to be accessible and to be REAL to your audience, however it is also possible to be TOO accessible. Having a slight level of authority and elevation within your crowd is good for your bottom line.

The Pricing Position

Now, you have a slightly hungry audience. What about selling them something?

Well, a common issue is the fear of charging too much. The audience may not place value in your offer, so you end up low-balling the price. You think you’ll sell more because of the lower price, but often the opposite ends up being true.

This is where price positioning comes in. If you’re practicing what I talked about above, then you have authority and elevation with your tribe. Next is to position yourself so that you can charge adequate amounts of money for your offers without them freaking out.

What you need to do is “train” your audience what to expect in terms of pricing. Give them a point of comparison.

This is why you need a high-end product for your market. Many people will include a one-on-one coaching option at a fairly high price tag on their blog. It isn’t expected that many (if any) will take the offer, but having it there provides a point of comparison. The high price tag serves to position you as a person who charges what you’re worth. It also positions you as an authority in your market, since most people equate higher prices with increased quality. Lastly, it provides a point of comparison so that future products you release at lower prices look much more attractive.

The Important Follow-Through

In this post, I’ve provided two important marketing concepts. Both serve to affect your perceived value in the mind of your audience.

There is one VERY important item that has to be included, though.

MAKE SURE YOU DELIVER LOTS OF VALUE.

Simply put, if you do the things above and you don’t follow up with delivering major value and be a straight-up honest person, then it only makes you a manipulative dirtbag.

Engineering authority and elevation in your marketplace when it isn’t deserved is not a good thing. Putting a slight separation in place between you and your audience and not using that to create and deliver truly awesome value to them is not a good thing. And charging higher prices for crappy products is obviously not a good thing.

All of the most successful entrepreneurs out there do what I’m talking about in this post (whether intentional or not). But, it can easily backfire on you if you’re not doing it with your readers in mind. Focus on value. Over-deliver. Treat your customers like gold. Then, all of this jives like a well-oiled machine.

Your Next Move Is…

I’m curious what you think of this material. In marketing circles, this information isn’t really new. For a lot of bloggers, this is probably not something you’ve seen anybody talk about before when it comes to positioning on a blog.

It works, however. And my job is to show people how to use a blog as the face of a successful online business.

What are your thoughts? Do you see how this works? Do you see it in practice?

Post a comment and do your thing!