Internet marketing

Why your website doesn’t make any money (and what to do about it)

December 13, 2011 by Al

How to fix your website from loosing customers like a revolving door

You have a website for your business, but you’re still not seeing the promised customers streaming in the door. Sound familiar?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone…

The internet is now used by approximately everybody, (over 2 billion people anyway) giving businesses the opportunity to get their products and services in front local or global audiences of prospects who are actively looking for their products or service. But still, most businesses aren’t seeing the leads and sales.

Here’s why…

It’s well known in sales and marketing, that a prospect must view a sales message 5 to 7 times before they make the decision to buy.

And this is a problem because the internet is a place of infinite distraction.

Even if your site does a great job of grabbing a visitors meagre attention, they read the first page, and they love your product or service. Even if they think it is a perfect solution to their problem…

Ooooh, Facebook…

No wait, come back!

See, all it takes is one distraction – a phone call, an email alert, a text message… once they close the window, they are gone forever… they are never coming back to your site. Unless:

What’s the solution?

You need to give your reader excellent value as soon as they hit your website, and offer them a compelling reason to come back, and even better give you permission to contact them.

How to make your website Sticky

What do I mean by ‘sticky’?

A sticky website attracts visitors to return again and again. The best way to do this is by regularly creating interesting, useful information, that is helpful for your ideal prospects and adding it to your website.

Call it a blog, a journal, or simply a news section, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it is relevant, useful and interesting. Bonus points for making it entertaining.

Two key points:

Keep it regular.
- If your content is good, your visitors will want more. When they come back you need something new for them to read.
Keep it focused on your customers
- Help them. Teach them. Keep giving until you feel like you’re giving away your secrets. The more you give the more valuable it’s likely to be for your readers.

Ask their permission to keep in touch

A nice polite invitation to come back to your website is the most effective way to make sure they do come back. (And remember you want them to come back and read your message 5 to 7 times.)

So when you have published a new post or made a new product, you can contact them directly and invite them to have a look.

But how do you do this after they have left your site? Plan their experience from the moment they load your website.

Get their permission to contact them as soon as possible.

First up, give them what they came for, and give them more than they expected. (of course this requires you know what your potential customers want).

Since you gave them some great information when they first visited, of course they want to come back and see what else you have.

Now’s the time to make them an offer they can’t refuse.

Offer them a bribe for their permission

Ok not a cash bribe (hmm, maybe), but give them even more high value content. Free regular updates, a video course of how to get what they want, or even regular discounts (I’m not a fan of this technique).

The point is, your bribe needs to be of as high perceived value as possible. You are paying them for their permission with valuable content. As well as getting their permission, you want the bribe to be so good that they can’t wait until the next time you offer them something else to read, watch or listen to.

To take you up on the offer, you then ask your visitor to enter their email address, or ‘like’ you Facebook page. Whatever works best for you to keep in close contact with them. Email gets you the best access to them, but a Facebook like might be easier to get.

The best bribes are information that adds value to any of your products or services that they are looking for on your website. Because information is relatively cheap for you to create, but can be massively valuable for your potential customer.

The money is in the list

Direct marketers have said for years, that the money is in the list. Which is true. Maybe.

If you have an email list of a few hundred people who have voluntarily given you their email address because they are interested in your products or services, you can from that point on advertise to them anytime you want or need to for effectively free. How does that compare to paying for ads in the newspaper?

The truth is, the money is in the relationship with the list.

If you have that same list of 500 people and you continually send them lame offers to buy from you, they are very quickly going to get annoyed and unsubscribe, or worse mark you as spam.

The trick is to keep giving your subscribers cool, interesting stuff. That could be more great content, insane deals, whatever. Just make sure they know you appreciate them.

conclusion

The goal of your website shouldn’t be to make a sale on the first visit, but to get your visitors to put heir hands up and show they are interested in what you can offer. From there you are building a relationship that solidifies you as a trusted expert and moves them to the point of becoming a paying customer.

What is the lifetime value of a customer for your business?

photo credit: l.e.o

5 lessons in web marketing from a door to door salesman

August 12, 2011 by Al

Imagine traipsing cold dark empty streets in the depths of winter, luring sane people from the warmth of their lounge in front of the fire and trying to convince them to buy… something. This was a period of my life, which though hardly glamorous, was surprisingly educational.

It was my fault. I had deliberately put myself here. I had a theory. If I could sell stuff door to door, then I could sell anything. It was also a crash course to harden the hell up and stop worrying what people think.

I want to save you knocking from having to knock on hundreds of doors (and two or three pairs of shoes), Here are 5 tips I learnt from doors sales, that you can use to market your business on the web.

1. Grab attention in 7 secs

As a door salesman, the person answering the door is already planning how they close the door before you even say hello. You need to grab their attention in 7 seconds or less. You need to have the best one-liner you’ve ever come up with. No second chances. If it doesn’t break their pattern and make them listen to what you are saying.. they will slam the door in your face.. If you are lucky. If you’re not lucky, they’ll let you talk for five minutes before making an excuse to slam the door in your face.

On the web you’ve got the same problem. Your visitors are likely stumbling around the web like cyber-goldfish. You need a jaw-dropping headline that makes the reader stop and think, “wow, that’s exactly what I didn’t know I needed”.

2. Tell a story they can connect with

Telling a story keeps the person engaged and listening to what you are saying. If it is good enough to make them want to know what happens in the end, they’ll let you keep talking.

You need to pull them into the story. It’s really about them. Their problems, their hopes and dreams and their view of themselves.

A story works on the web as well. I know, this seems crazy and completely at odds with the idea of short attention spans and…. for goodness sake, don’t make them scroll. But if the story is good enough, they have to keep reading to find out what happens at the end. and how it all relates to them.

There is an excellent example of a woman in the US who sold a baseball on ebay for US$1125.00. And all she did was tell the whole story of how how her kids smashed a light with the baseball kicking off the day from hell. The story was so good because it was something every parent can relate to.

3. Benefits

Back on the doorstep, I needed to give some incredibly compelling reasons why the person to buy from me right then. The best reasons give quantify-able results Otherwise known as benefits.

Your story needs to be packed with benefits. – Using highly specific examples to highlight your benefits makes them more compelling.

4. Everyone else is doing it

Social proof…. I know what you are thinking. How can you use social proof when you are standing in the cold. Alone.

Here’s how it works…
“Do you know your neighbour? Ron, next door? – Yes
He decide to pick up two of these turtle scrubbers. One for himself and one for his son who has just bought his first turtle.

Give them ideas on how they can use your products or a reason to buy them (holidays, birthdays,).

On your website, this is a thousand times easier. Showcasing glowing testimonials on your website is a must. Text, images, audio all work, but video knocks it out of the park.

5. Make an irresistible offer

Selling door to door, you’ve got to get the sale before they close the door or you don’t get paid. Your website has a few more options than that. But even if your website is designed to provide customer support or just information, you need to get your visitor to take some action. You’ve done the hard work, now you need the pay off.

The first rule is to make them an irresistible offer. Either ‘order now and we’ll throw in this unbelievable bonus’, or sign up for this free report. The options are endless.

Assume the sale – They’ve just spent their time finding out more information about your products, and you’ve told them how great they are. Now you need to tell them what you want them to do next.

How many of these tips are you using on your website?

Be cool and share this on Facebook, Twitter or with someone that’ll get some value from it. Everyone else is doing it.

Thanks

How to put your word-of-mouth marketing on steroids

June 6, 2011 by Al

Everybody in business knows that word of mouth is the absolute best form of marketing for their business.

Having a third party recommend your business is more credible in the eyes of the potential customers. Numerous studies have shown that recommendations from friends and even complete strangers have much higher levels of trust than advertising.

The problem with word of mouth marketing is that it is really hard to instigate, encourage or control. For someone to recommend your business, you need to be top of their mind when they happen to be having a conversation with someone who needs your products or services. Basically the right person needs to be in the right place at the right time, having the right conversation to make the referral.

Enter social media

Social media removes some of the barriers of word-of-mouth referrals and makes it easier for your customers to refer or recommend your services. In fact, it makes it so easy, often times, people don’t even realise they are doing it.

Staying Top of mind

Social media, be it Facebook, Twitter, a blog, or even email, allows you regular contact with the fans and customers of your business. That regular contact is critical to reminding your fans that you exist.

Here’s the thing… The contact doesn’t have to be anything heavy. It doesn’t have to be a sales call, a product offer or any form of ‘marketing message’. In fact, it is better if it isn’t (of course there is a place for promoting sales from time to time).

The point is purely to let them know you are still here. Doing your thing. Helping people.

Make it easy to share and promote your business

Before social media, contacting people was slow and expensive. But now, taking 10 minutes to post a photo or a tip on Facebook, and you’ve made contact with all of your fans who are interested enough to follow you.

The trick is posting something interesting that inspires your fans and followers to want to have their say. To share it with their friends.

It only takes 2 seconds to click the ‘like’ button or send a retweet on Twitter, or a minute to compose a comment. On Facebook, every interaction with your content spreads your idea and the visibility of your business further, to reach a larger audience. Effectively removing the barriers of referring your business.

How to make this work for your business

If you haven’t already, set up your presence on these platforms.

Think about what sort of content would be useful or interesting for your customers, and plan some cool content. Remember, content, can be short text tips, long articles, photos or video.

Get some fans. Spread the word with your staff, friend and customers, and give them all a reason to follow you on these services.

Get publishing. Be cool.

Speaking of being cool. If you found this article helpful, I’d appreciate it if you took a moment to write a comment below or share this article on Facebook.

3 things all top influencers do on Twitter

December 14, 2010 by Al

Twitter continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. And still the mainstream struggles to get it. Meanwhile others are building huge audiences and loyal fans all targeted to their particular industry or niche.

Twitter becomes more interesting the more followers you have. While engagement is the goal, more followers increase the readership of each update you post.

Over the years I’ve been on Twitter I have noticed some common characteristics of popular tweeters.

Here are 3 characteristics of top influencers on twitter that you should be emulating

1. Tweet more than average

By tweeting a lot, you increase your visibility. If I only log in to twitter a few minutes per day, I’m more likely to see your tweets than others. BUT before you run out and start tweeting like mad, influencers don’t tweet a lot purely for the visibility, their volume is related to spending the time on the points below.

2. Engage in conversations with others

Conversing with others shows you to be a real person with real opinions. It shows you are listening to and willing to engage with the community. The best tweeters really do build and maintain valuable relationships, which often lead into ‘real life’ relationships and opportunities.

On twitter, conversations has the added bonus of being public – you are sharing your audience with those you’re talking to, again increasing your exposure to new and wider audiences.

3. They promote others

Reciprocity is valuable on twitter as with all networks whether online or off. Nothing gains loyalty from someone faster than promoting them or their cause. Hailing someone as an expert or someone worth listening to is a huge compliment. And it is as simple as passing on their content or mentioning them in a tweet.

Two bonus tips:

4. Have a core message

Aside from the conversation and promotion of others, influencers have a core message. They specialise in one or two topics and become a hub of information and discussion around these topics. While they may make up less than 25% of their tweets these topics are consistent themes. It is much better to be a specialist rather than a generalist on Twitter (until you get at least 30 thousand followers).

5. Produce valuable content outside of Twitter or Facebook

Whether it is a blog, video on youtube, or photos on Flickr, consistently producing great content that people can use is the number one way to gain credibility in a field. It reinforces a core message and gains links and notoriety as it gets passed around Twitter and the wider web.

The most influential tweeters have most if not all of these factors in their twitter profiles.

How many of these characteristics apply to you?