How to Start a Business on the Internet: Lesson 7
Create a selling environment on your website by first helping the visitor perceive that your offer solves their prolem and provides the solution they want. Make it believable and fair. Make every offer easy to act on.
What Exactly is Sales?
Sales is one component of marketing. Marketing covers sales, public relations, advertising, direct marketing and promotions. It is important that you understand the demarcation lines between marketing and sales.
Sales Defined
Simply defined, marketing is concerned with putting out the word and attracting visitors to your site. Whereas sales is the process done so when people visit your site and need what you provide, learn about your offers and buy.
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Sales Conversion
In order to motivate web visitors to buy, web pages need to include sticky sales copy and persuasive reasons to place an order, request more information or a free brochure. You want to encourage some type of contact, either an order or fill-out-a-form so that you can maintain contact and build a relationship that eventually leads to an order.
The competitive environment rapidly changes. Customers are more demanding. Less forgiving. And show little sign of loyalty. A successful strategy requires business processes supported by information technology systems that lead to a closer relationship with customers. Too often the selling process is ill defined with disjointed steps, only semi automated, and with a non-integrated flow of information. You want to avoid these sales stoppers, because these conditions cause roadblocks to ordering, unacceptable error rates, and higher costs.
What Every Customer Wants
Every customer looks for three specific benefits when they do business with you. They may not directly ask for these benefits. But you're losing sales if you don't automatically provide all three of these customer service benefits.
1. Fast Results
Prospective customers may take a long time deciding whether or not they will buy from you. But once they decide to buy, they expect instant results. When people buy a car they want to drive it home today. When they sign up with a health club they expect to look and feel better by the end of the week.
Look for ways you can reduce the time your customers have to wait after a transaction before they can start enjoying the results of their decision to buy. Try to deliver your product at the point of sale. When that's not possible, look for creative ways to provide a benefit your customer can start enjoying immediately.
For example, a publisher I know recently created a special package combination of his latest "how-to" book in print and several eBooks on the same subject. When customers order his new book, they can immediately download the eBooks on their computer. They don't have to wait for the hard-cover book to arrive before they can start enjoying the benefit they paid for.
2. Easy Procedures
Customers want products that are easy to use and services that produce results without disturbing their daily routine. You can increase your sales by stressing the "easy to use" characteristics of your product or service in all your promotions. Convenience and ease of use are often more important to customers than price. Simplify your buying procedure too. Make it easier for customers to buy from you and you will get more sales.
3. Personal Attention
Every prospect and customer wants personal attention. One way you can provide it is by giving them an opportunity to ask questions. Only interested prospects will take the time to ask questions. Many will buy from you if they get valuable information from your answer. You can often include a promotion for your product or service as part of your answer.
Tip: If you find yourself personally answering a lot of the same questions, add a Questions and Answers page to your website. It will reduce the number of questions you have to answer individually. But remember, it also deprives you of an opportunity to impress prospects with your personal attention.
Every customer wants fast results, easy procedures and personal attention. Most won't ask for these benefits. But they won't buy from you unless they get them. Make sure you provide all 3 of these special benefits - and look for ways to improve the quality of each.
Your Sales Offer
When wording your offer, remember the only thing your visitor cares about is ‘what’s in it for me!” Here’s where persuasiive copy makes the sale. But as important as persuasion is, it is perception that must first be established.
Create the selling environment on your website by first helping the visitor perceive that your offer solves their problem: provides a solution that want. How a visitor perceives your offer is the difference between getting an order, or not.
Here’s What a Typical Buyer Thinks:
1. What are you trying to sell me (on this web page)?
2. How much is it going to cost me?
3. What’s in it for me?
4. Why should I believe you?
A money-making offer gives your buyer a tremendous value for what is perceived as a fair, but not-to-low price. It’s called ‘quid pro quo’ or I’ll give you something, and you give me something of equal value. The prospective buyer must feel as if she gets value, or a return on investment (even though often that return is not money, but satisfaction, resolution to a problem, or additional feel-goods). The return must feel like it is worth more than the price paid.
Finally, your offer must be believable. You can’t sell the Brooklyn Bridge for $99 and expect people to believe it is a real deal in today’s savvy marketplace. Quid pro quo! Make is a good deal. Good offer. Fair offer.
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