by Willie Crawford
Picture this... a person sees your link SOMEWHERE and clicks
through to your site. When they get to your site, it's a real
challenge figuring out what the site is all about. There's
just a lot of talk on the site about the opportunity, or the
president of the company.
Forgive me for bursting your bubble... but I know beyond a
shadow of a doubt that if you have a site like this you'll
NEVER make any real money. Most people aren't going to
struggle trying to figure out if the site is really about what
they're looking for. Instead they'll just click back to the search
engine and look at the NEXT site.
If they think they've figured out what your site is about, and
they think they're interested, they wonder how reputable the
company is, but can they find any information about the person
or company behind the site? If not, you don't have a snowball's
chance in purgatory of making a sale. People buy from people
they know, like and trust. If your site doesn't tell them who's
behind the site they CAN'T feel this way about you.
But suppose.... even with two strikes against you, they consider
contacting you with a few questions, but they can't find any
contact information. All they find is a very cold, impersonal
form that they assume will take weeks to be responded to.
They wonder if they should even bother and most people won't.
But suppose... that they DO think that they really want what you
have to offer? So they're ready to proceed. However, your
online form asks for 50 pieces of private information. They look
at all of the information you're requesting and decide to look
elsewhere. You should ask for only as much information on
your contact form as necessary.
But FRANKLY, I'm Confused! Why do you make potential
customers jump through hoops in the first place? If you're
trying to get people as customers, why are you doing
everything you can to make it extremely difficult for them to
become your customer?
For your site to be a selling machine, it needs to be just the
opposite of the all-too-common site that we've just described!
When a person first gets to your site, they should instantly know
what it has to offer that'll make their lives better. They
should also instantly know what they should do to take advantage
of the benefits your site offers them.
Your site should tell enough about the person or company behind
the product or service to build a feeling that they know, like
and trust you. That generally means that they need to know
something about WHO is personally behind the site. People
relate to other people, one-on-one! Even if it's a
business-to-business site, the person making the buying decision
relates to individuals.
Tell your potential customers who you are, why you're qualified
to solve their problems, why OTHERS say that you provide
top-notch service, and why you're the ONLY choice for them.
Then, make it incredibly easy to purchase from you, and
incredibly easy for them to contact you if they have questions.
Give them an email address, a physical address, and a phone
number. Alongside your physical address, confirm what time
zone you're in and give them your business hours if you conduct
business over the phone.
You should consider offering them the option to order by phone or
fax.
Consider offering them a toll-free number. If you live in the
continental United States, you can offer your customers this
option for as little as $39.95 per month. That's all I pay to offer
this option to my customers :-) For a little more than $1 per
day, your customers can just pick up the phone, speak to a
reassuring voice on the other end, ask a quick question or two,
and give you their order.
If you'd like to know what service I use, it's at:
http://TheRealSecrets.com/toll-free-numbers.html
Since you should be offering them a toll-free number, you
probably also want to be able to just jot down their order right
over the phone. That means you need a merchant account that
allows you to key in orders from your virtual terminal or into a
physical terminal. You can get set up with merchant account,
virtual terminal and gateway for less than $100 if you live in the
US. So you have no real excuse there either.
If you'd like to know what company I use for taking my order
right over the phone if I want, just visit:
http://TheRealSecrets.com/really-cheap-merchant-account.html
One final thing you need to do to make it REALLY easy for them.
Give them a printable order form that they can fax or mail to
you. There are people who still don't trust online forms for some
reason. Don't make it hard for them to get your stuff. You ARE
trying to make a sale aren't you?
If you see yourself making any of the mistakes above, then you've
just figured out why you're not making 1/10th the sales that you
could be making. You've also just discovered how to FIX the
problem. Now all you need to do is just do it!
--------------------------------------------
Willie Crawford has been teaching others how to build an on-line
business since late 1996. Frequently featured in radio, magazine
and newspaper articles and interviews, Willie teaches the average
guy what the top marketers are doing but seldom talking about.
Willie provides detailed how to information in his newsletter,
through his personal coaching, and at his annual how to workshop.
Subscribe to Willie's free course at: http://williecrawford.com/
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
|
