Do You Make Your Web Site Visitors Jump Through Hoops?
Picture this: Your prospect has just learned about one of your products or services, and is now ready to buy from you. How you handle the next critical step can make or break the sale.
Always keep in mind that most consumers are understandably wary. They won’t hesitate to abandon an intended purchase if they encounter doubts or inconvenient snags in the process.
I invite you to do a bit of honest self-examination when considering the following tips, since problems in this area may be costing you dearly in lost sales, right this very minute.
Acting to improve on what you discover could very well help boost your sales immediately.
1) How Easy Is It for Your Customers to Access Information Needed to Buy From You?
a) For example, does the design of your web site make it hard to navigate, or is the information needed to complete a transaction within easy access to your customers, with minimal mouse clicks?
Poor navigation is but one of many, many different snags that hinder web site sales. Problem is, most site owners, designers, and webmasters don’t realize how much more a site could sell, if it were only more user-friendly.
b) While you may wisely reduce the amount of repetitive customer service issues by answering questions through a F.A.Q., (an acronym for Frequently Asked Questions) etc., some prospects may yet have additional questions not covered in it.
Do your prospects have a way to contact you to have such questions answered, and do you have an efficient system in place for answering them, promptly and efficiently?
Is the form of contact convenient to your prospects?
2) What Forms of Payment Do You Offer Your Customers?
a) Do you require your customers to send payment to you by check, cash or money order only via regular postal mail? If you’re selling online and not accepting credit cards, you’re likely losing many sales.
b) What types of credit cards do you accept? Virtually any type of business can increase sales by accepting payment by Visa and MasterCard.
But even businesses already accepting Visa and MasterCard may still be losing sales by not also accepting Discover and American Express (especially in the U.S.), as well as PayPal.
True, Visa and MasterCard encompass the vast majority of all credit card transactions. But there are many consumers who instead prefer to use Discover or American Express.
Do you want their business? If so, your existing merchant account provider is most likely equipped to easily get you set up to accept them.
3) How Easy Do You Make It for Customers to Submit Payment?
a) Suppose that you do accept credit cards. Even though the risk of online credit card fraud has been greatly exaggerated, and isn’t necessarily more risky than offline transactions, many consumers are concerned about submitting their credit card data online.
With this in mind, in addition to being equipped to accept online credit card orders through a secure server, do you provide alternate ordering options for those who hesitate (or refuse) to order online by credit card?
What about options to order with check, money order, or credit card, by phone, fax, or postal mail?
b) Is your online order system simple to understand and use, even for the most inexperienced users, or are they inconvenient and confusing? How do you know?
“Shopping cart abandonment” is a term used to describe when a would-be online customer abandons, or bails out of, an online order form or shopping cart, before completing an intended purchase.
Beware that this commonly overlooked problem robs Internet merchants of billions of dollars in lost sales each year, and that the selection and design of your online order system has a major impact on your profits – for good or bad!
c) Do you work hard to eliminate guesswork for customers, provide complete order details, and guide them simply and gently through the ordering process?
Remember: Any extra hoop you require prospects and customers to jump through is an extra obstacle in the way of a sale; another potential reason to change their minds about buying from you.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there’s always room for improvement – in every business in existence. So don’t feel bad when you find them in your own business. I guarantee you they exist; you just may not be aware of them yet.
Unfortunately, there’s not enough room in this article to cover all the obstacles possibly hindering your online sales, of which there are at least hundreds!
But the basic lesson behind the above tips is this: Make it as easy as possible for customers to do business with you. The easier you make it, the more likely they will.
Marty Foley’s site at http://ConvertMoreTraffic.com helps web sites generate more traffic and turn more of it into buyers, leads, and higher profit! Check out Marty’s free e-courses for boosting online profits: http://ProfitInfo.com/e-courses
Make Maximum Use of Your Autoresponder
Why use an Autoresponder? At first glance it’s easy to recommend using it to have your email answered when you advertise a product or service. It saves you from having to answer every email personally when all you want at this point is to get the visitor’s name and email. The autoresponder takes care of this, sends back a confirmation email and continues with whatever is needed.
But of course there are many more opportunities to fully take advantage of the unique features of an autoresponder. Here are some but I am sure that you can find many more by using your creativity.
Publish a newsletter. Your names and emails will be captured, the confirming email sent back and the newsletter mailing will start. Not only will the emails go out at whatever schedule you set up and you should be able also to send a one time broadcast whenever you want.
Publish a newsletter just for your affiliates. You would be able to keep them up to date with tips, advice and promotional materials. This will help you make more money.
Create a mailing list so you can let subscribers know when you have something new to offer them in a particular area. It might be a list where you send information on new products, or recommendations you have for new sites, or reviews on various sites or programs: whatever interest those subscribers may have. You wouldn’t be sending out follow-ups regularly but just when you want to keep them up to date.
Offer an internet marketing course in an area with which you are especially familiar. Write good content and don’t emphasize advertising as you want the subscriber to come to value you as an expert, where he can come to you for advice. Writing articles is an option too.
To gauge opinion on your mailings, send out a survey or a contest. Get the subscriber involved. He will become a more valued partner. Add a link page where you should include one or two of your ads.
I’m sure you can come up with many more ideas. This is just to get you started. The more you use them the easier it will be to find new uses.
Let me briefly mention that choosing an autoresponder should not be too difficult at first. Possibly your hosting website may have one. I say that because it’s not really until later that you will want to compare all the features of various ones so you can fully take advantage of the different features.
Free ones could be a good start until you become more experienced, but there are disadvantages to those because many put other people’s ads on your emails or they may not allow you very many leads. But if money is short it’s an option and you can research paid ones as you go along. You will then be better prepared to choose. But that is a subject for another time.
Nancy Stetson. She uses the programs on her website to show the beginner on the internet how one can begin with no experience and little money. Visit her
at http://www.homebased-opportunities.com/optin.html
How to Monetize Your Web Site Traffic So You Get the Most Out of It
Establishing your own E-commerce site is not like what it used to be. There is thousands of competition that is all too willing to get a bigger share of the pie. Every scheme and method you can find to augment your sales would be very beneficial.
We have got to admit to ourselves. Most of us are into it for the money. We are not going to waste our time and effort just for the fun of it. Many sites would not wait until hell freezes over just to see their profits. While there are some who takes things lightly there are always those who would rather see profit any given day.
It is common knowledge that without traffic we have no business. Like any business, without any customers you don’t get sales. Web site traffic represents all the people that get a chance to see what you have to offer. The more people who see your products the more people there would be to buy them.
Nobody puts up an E-commerce site that doesn’t expect profit. We have a startup capital that needs to be regained. With consistent traffic, we at least have a fighting chance to achieve that probability. Monetizing your web site traffic would optimize your chances of making the best out of it.
Making Money out of your Web Site Traffic
The best and most proven method of making a profit out of your web site traffic is using advertising. The internet generates hundreds of thousands upon hundred of thousands of traffic everyday. Most of them are searching for something. While some are just looking for information there is also a good percentage that is looking for something that they need.
Generating web site traffic is not an easy task. You have to contend with a great number of sites to generate a good number of traffic flow. But if done successfully this could open up a Pandora’s Box of possibilities. One of the benefits is monetizing your traffic flow.
So, to get to the core of it the more traffic you generate the more likely you are considered as a desirable business, in a sense that a good traffic flowing site is easily convertible to profits. Basically web site traffic equals profits. Advertising is the name of the game; with the good advertising scheme you can use your traffic flow to your advantage.
When you have good web site traffic you have a good number of potential customers, customers that are willing to pour money into your coffers. Other than that these are also traffic that can be redirected to sponsored links that are willing to pay you for a sizeable portion of the traffic that you have generated.
This scheme is called “pay-per-click”. With every click a visitor of your site makes on an advertised link you will be paid. The more web site traffic you generate and the more clicks that happen would spell to more profits.
Affiliate Programs
Another method of monetizing your web site traffic is affiliate programs. You can link up with other tried and tested sites and online companies and monetize your traffic by having a percentage of sales generated by traffic coming from your site.
The basic idea is, web site traffic generated from your site will go to another site that can offer a product that you do not carry. Many programs can keep track and make records of transactions that was made possible because of site linkage.
When purchases are made by customers that were led by your site to their site you get a percentage of that sale. Affiliate programs would give you the benefit of monetizing your web site traffic without the actual need of carrying or promoting a certain product.
There are so many ways and methods to monetize your traffic. All it takes is a bit of hard work and the desire to successfully launch a profit-earning site. The internet is a veritable source of information, many tips and guides are offered everywhere in how to monetize your web site traffic and make your site a good profit earner.
Get many traffic generating and list building tools at http://www.powerlistgenerator.com/loves/nexusgate/ now and also discover Brian Lam’s proven simple 3-step traffic generation system to unleash hordes of targeted traffic and monetize them into pure profits at: http://www.trafficwealthsystem.com/
You Have An Opt-In List, Now What?
You have built an email opt-in list of hundreds, maybe even thousands of names, email addresses, phone numbers. You gave out bonuses, tediously composed a series of seven follow-up emails, sent the opt-ins to your sales page. You made a few dollars, sold way less than you expected, and to make matters worse, your tests and tracking show that most of your emails are not even opened, let alone read. People are unsubscribing as fast as new ones are signing up.
What happened? You were made to believe that marketing via targeted email opt-in lists and composing a sales page is all that is needed, and the money will start rolling in. Apparently, something is still missing.
Think about how, where and why YOU buy what, and from whom. Very specific steps have to be happening in order for a potential customer to become a possible customer and finally a definite customer. The ultimate goal is, that your opt-ins become repeat customers.
First step: Does your product provide the solution to the problems your opt-ins have? Put yourself in the shoes of the people signing up on your email opt-in squeeze page. Could they be submitting their contact information simply to receive the freebie? Does your squeeze page give visitors a clear understanding of what your product offers and what problems it can solve? If you were them, would YOU opt in?
Second step: Assuming that your email opt-ins did sign up, because they think your product might be a solution for their problems. Now it is up to you to prove to them, that indeed, your product is the best, the only, solution. You must establish a level of trust between your potential customer and you, as the person who can help them. What makes your product better than that of the competition? Can they call you and ask you questions about the product? If you are not selling your own product, can you refer your potential customers to the maker of the product? Is he/she available to answer questions? Would YOU buy the product to solve their particular problem?
Third step: Making the sale. You have established a relationship of trust with your possible customers. The product will at this point be selling itself. No selling gimmicks, no sales-pitch is required from you. The customer is by now convinced that she/he must have your product. And the beautiful part is, that you now have a customer who trusts you and will purchase again and again, provided you keep delivering solutions to their problems.
You can accomplish the above-listed steps with conversations or exchanges of email, without putting pressure on your opt-ins or on yourself. The conversations focus on their problems and how your product can help them. Keep remembering what it feels like to you, when you are exposed to a sales pitch. It probably makes you want to run. So why would your list of people not want to run, in other words unsubscribe from your list, if they feel the sales presure? Focus on their problems and the solution you have with your product or service, and they will gladly purchase from you.
In summary: You don’t need a list of tens of thousands. It is much more important to establish a relationship of trust, between you and the opt-ins to your list. Selling then becomes easy, fun and financially rewarding, after you have been marketing to a targeted group, and built your opt-in email list.
C. Perrin has been a small business owner for four years and active in internet marketing for the last two years. Find out how you can learn to convert your opt-ins to paying customers at http://www.mysuccessrainmaker.com
7 Secrets To Make Money Using Nothing Other Than Your List
An opt-in list can be quite crucial to any website. Even for a small venture such as a niche profit site an opt-in list can make a world of difference and also add some extra income for your pocket. Rarely would you see an e-commerce site, big or small, that is without an opt-in list, especially a responsive one.
An opt-in list allows for a company to market their wares and site via an e-mail. With an opt-in list, a site and a subscriber consents to sending and receiving a newsletter from your company. Through this, you can keep your subscribers abreast of what is currently available in your site as well as whatever is coming out.
And because there is mutual consent between the two parties, any mail sent to the list is not considered as spam mail. There is a great number of successfully read promotional materials such as catalogs, newsletters and such that are sent because the subscribers themselves have signed up for them, meaning, they do want to be sent those items.
Building an opt-in list is crucial, only a small percentage actually subscribes for an opt-in list. Many people find promotional mails annoying but of you provide a good newsletter or promotional material, you will see your list build up and grow. You can also achieve this by having good content on your site. If people like what they see and read on your site, then they surely would want more. Newsletters would be a way to attract them back to your site. A little teaser or appetizer if you will.
But other than marketing your wares and your services, an opt-in list can also be used to earn extra profit. Not all lists can be used though. It would be good to first build a successful list with a huge number of subscribers. The more subscribers you have, the more money you can get.
Here are the seven secrets to make money using nothing other than your list.
1) Place advertisements. There are many corporations who will be willing to pay to put their banners and ads on a list with many subscribers. Selling or renting out lists is not a good idea so rather than doing that, many companies would just rather place ads with lists that have a huge subscriber base. Your newsletter could be placed with many ads and each one spells money.
2) Have affiliations with other companies that have at least a semblance or relation to what your site is about. Here other companies will provide links and brief descriptions of what they offer, products and services. With every click made on the link that directs or leads a subscriber from your list to their site, the company will pay you. This P4P or pay for performance.
3) Make deals with other companies by asking for a small percentage of sales done through your list. With every sale done by customers that have come from your list and have gone there because of your newsletter, the other company will pay you a small percentage of your sales. The more people who buys from them, the more earnings you get.
4) You may also get products from other sites on a consignment basis and sell them to your list via your newsletter. Place descriptions, articles and photos of the product in your newsletter. There will be those who will buy from you and when that happens, you can order the product from the other site and sell it to your buyer.
5) Sell e-books or a compilation of your articles on your list. Manuals and how-to articles are in great demand. Many people will be willing to shell out money to gain knowledge about a certain topic and subject. With your existing list trusting your expertise in that area, an e-book could be offered and sold or used as an incentive.
6) Create a network out of your list. Get people to invite more people to view your site and subscribe to your list. The larger your list is, the more people will be able to click on your links and affiliate links as well as make your advertisement rates higher.
7) Subscribers are willing to pay for information if they know that it can be trusted and relied upon. Use your list to get more and more people to subscribe to you as well as browse your site. Lastly, you can use your list to earn money by making them your partners. Your list will be the bloodline of your growth and increase.
Brian Lam is an online marketer with experience ranging from affiliate marketing, traffic generation to viral list building. Discover how Brian Lam is going to show you how you can boost your opt-in list by up to 1133% immediately with his proven techniques. Now at: http://www.powerlistgenerator.com