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10 Steps to Profitable Web Site Sales by Sara Edlington
The Internet ranks amongst one of the most powerful sales tools yet devised. Yet thousands of frustrated Web site owners find sales from their Web site so-so at best, down right awful at worst. It's not what they are selling is at fault, it's the way they're presented and written about. All is not lost however! By borrowing a few tried and tested ideas from successful sites, you can turn your site into a powerful sales tool. Step 1: Start with the basics. What do you want your Web site to do? Do you want to generate sales leads and enquiries? Generate sales directly from the site? Which are you going to do? Doing both isn't easy. Some companies do succeed, but they are far outweighed by those that don't. Do one, and then when that's successful, you can do both.
Step 2: How to get your customers from A to B (your bank account). Your next decision is what to say to your potential customers, so here are some general principles to follow: 1) If you want to generate sales leads and enquires from your site, you need to build the perception that your product or service is 'the' solution to your customer's problems. 'Solution' is one of those much talked about words, in this case, how your service will help them do their job faster, more effectively, at lower cost and so on. You also need to build the perception that your business really knows its stuff. And you need to show people that other people think you can both solve their problems and you know what you're talking about. Testimonials are a great way of doing this. As a general rule, talk about their problem, 70 per cent of the time, and your solution 30 per cent of the time. And make it easy for them to get in touch with you.
2) If you want to generate sales directly from your Web site, then your site has to not only do the above but also lead the visitor to the decision to pick up the phone or hit the e-mail button To give an example, a client of mine sells his 'ready made' software help packages on-lines. Actually he wanted to sell them, but they weren't selling. So he re-did his site. It has an interesting front page, which entices you to click on to the next page. Then you're carefully lead through a series of help questionnaires to find out what problems you're having with your software. All these forms are simple and filled in with the click of a button. You then end up with a personalised solution, and carefully written descriptions of the packages that will help you. There are also testimonials from happy customers who bought the packages you're looking at, statistics, facts and a lot more. Quite simply you 'have' to buy from him, because it feels right to do so. The up-shot is, the site was so successful, that the site had to be taken off-line so he could cope with the orders! Step 3: Your one and only chance. Is to grab them with your front page. If your visitor isn't grabbed by what you say, then they'll click away somewhere else, where the territory is more interesting. It doesn't matter how good the rest of the site is, they'll have gone. So get right down to it on the very first page.
Step 4: Forget you, what about me? Like it or not, everyone is interested in themselves. So answer the first question they'll think of when they visit your site, 'What's in it for me?' What problem does your site solve? Talk about them, more than you talk about your company. Visitors will love you for it. And so will your bank manager. This goes throughout the whole site. Check your wording, if it has a lot of 'I' or 'we' or 'Joe Bloggs Associates can' and the like in it, it's talking about you rather than your customers. Many businesses simply put up their existing sales material on-line and hope it will do the job there as well as it has done off-line. It rarely does.
Step 5: Use direct mail tactics. Direct mail is a powerful sales tool, and if you want to generate sales and enquiries, using DM tactics will help boost your sales and enquiries. For example, let's say you have a service you want to sell on-line. Your front page, could tempt the reader in, the next page talk about their problem, the page after that tell them about the 'pain' of their problem and hint at a solution and so on. Some of the best business direct mail does this, you can use the same ideas, but adapted for on-line. One way of doing this, and which is tied in with Step 4, is to lead the visitor through the site in a subtle way, so they don't feel they are being led. Everything they see leads them to the service they want. And then they 'naturally' end up at the enquiry form or order form.
Step 6: Community. Building a community feel to your Web site is another powerful way of combining some subtle sales talk, with a reason for people to keep coming back to your site and buying or enquiring. Many of the big 'content' Web sites, trade on the community feel of the Web to keep their visitors coming back and buying from their advertisers. You can do the same, but in your case to keep them coming back to buy from you.
Step 7: Be different. Have something unexpected, but useful on your site. A 'return on investment' calculator. Or a free limited use e-mail help line. There are many ideas, but make sure yours is both different and relevant to what you're selling and your customer base.
Step 8: Freebies. Everyone loves something for nothing on the Net. It's part of Internet culture. But the market is now saturated with newsletters that are nothing but company PR, software that isn't relevant to the market area and so on. Instead provide something that could only come from your business. Preferably something useful, a bit different and that is easy to download or to get from you. It doesn't have to be something expensive, often the simplest things are the best.
Step 9: All change. OK not all change, but your site must keep changing, if nothing else to help keep your ranking on search engines. But most importantly, because customers don't want to read last year's sales materials. Would you buy something from a site that hasn't been up-dated for two years? I doubt it. The prices could be wrong for one thing. If your front page is successful, by all means leave it how it is. But by changing the inside of your site, a customer who didn't buy the first time might well buy the second time around. People often check out several sites before making a decision, so by changing your content, they come back and discover something new about your service they didn't know before. And that can be the difference between getting the sale, and not getting it. Step 10: TEST! The most important thing you'll ever do with your Web site is to test it. Testing is legendary in the world of mail order, only a strange company wouldn't test its sales materials before they go for a mass mailing, and the same goes for a Web site. Every bit of your site must be tested to see whether it works. Every element has to pull its weight. Every page must lead the reader closer to the sale. Every word has to work. Because it can be just one element of your site, one page that's no as good as the others, that blows the sale.
This report has been written by Sara Edlington, author of 'How To Market Your Business on the Internet' and author of more successful Internet material than she cares to think about. This report forms part of the 'Irresistible Sales Material' package. This package is designed to help make your next mailing or marketing campaign irresistible to your customers or clients. Further details on the package are available from Sara@imarketingservices.co.uk Or visit Copyright 1999 Sara Edlington return to previous page |
