Improve your marketing strategies to get more people to buy your products! That’s what I heard at a recent conference, and while it seemed like a circular argument there is a kernel of truth in it. One powerful concept is the pre order. How can you possible get customer to order before the product is even available? You guessed it –Improve your marketing strategies. Well, more specifically think of your products as products before they are finished or completely available. That way you can begin promoting and hyping the products before they are able to be delivered. The promotion period is lengthened and gives you more opportunity to tell the story. As you begin to tell the story the feedback will help guide you through an adjustment of the final deliverable.

You will learn from your customers and because this information is so valuable it will feel great to reward them with early bird discounts and giveaways. These customers become part of the process and eventually part of your tribe. Now that the internet allows others to successfully promote our products for us we should help them tell everyone.

You might be asking, "How does preordering work, exactly?" The main idea behind this marketing strategy is to get people to be aware of an upcoming product before it hits the market, giving you more time to interact with the customer. Posting about the upcoming release of your product creates anticipation and excitement with your target clients; and with this, hype about your product is immediately created. People may wonder what it is, or does, and want to know more about its benefits – and having the preorder option available gives more incentive to buy now.

Now, knowing how to get customers to preorder is essentially a process. This process can best be described as a prelaunch of the product. The type you have experienced hundreds of times for blockbuster movies. Exposure and getting the word out is one cornerstone of the pre order launch. The next is to clearly describe the benefits of the product and how it solves a problem. You need to prove that others see this as a good solution and also clearly define how to get it. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• The main objective of offering a preorder option is to make people more enthusiastic about the arrival of your product. As you may know, customers are often enticed by freebies or benefits that would otherwise be unavailable to them if they do not opt for preordering the item. With this, you must provide something of value for your customers to get them to preorder: a sample of another product that you have, or a simple discount might be able to entice them more efficiently.

• You must get your customers to act immediately on buying your product – so you must set a time limit for the offer. This is a real time limit and must be enforced. There are powerful emotional factors at play here especially when there is a limited supply of the product. Think of people lining up during the holidays for the ‘hot’ new toy which is available in a limited supply. Help them realize that preordering is the best decision and it is a limited time offer.

• Help your customers feel special – if you make them feel their response is truly appreciated,there is an increased chance that they will preorder. To make customers feel special you need to actually treat them in a special way- and explain why it is special so they clearly understand the value on an emotional level.

Using your own website, social networking sites or other sites that you join forces with in this promotion would help you get the message out to a larger crowd. You have seen this many times before with cross promotions with the release of Movies. If you can create a buzz within the targeted community there is a high probability the preorder effort will be a success.