Internet Marketing

Your sales are drastically reduced when you fall victim to a very common problem. Prospects not getting past your Order Form.

WHY they run is simple. Lack of confidence.

WHAT to do about it is a bit more involved.

You can reduce your prospects vamoosing (is there correct spelling for synthesized words?) from your Order Form with a few simple adjustments and additions to your web sales process.

Overall, it’s about adding marketing copy at the top of your Order Form.  The online marketing and ecommerce system that I use, www.HandsFreeBusiness.com allows me to put HTML, audio and video at the top of their secure order forms.

The “Top Copy” on your Order Form should include some or even all of the following, as appropriate:

a) Interactivity - confirmation of the thought process with a check box, further supported by a “Yes! I want to take action today to stop by bad golf swing.”

b) Audio/Video - the sound or sight of someone extending a personal invitation to buy has been found to increase conversion 30% and more

c) Restating a summary of the Benefits of your product or service

d) Summarizing the Bonuses you’ve offered. You DID offer Bonuses, right?

e) Pointing out to prospects again the Deadline for your promotion or price break or limited availability of that particular product

f) Repeating your iron-clad, better than your money back Guarantee. Again, you can utilize audio, next to your picture, or a video of another trustworthy looking person (sort of kidding…), to clearly state your Guarantee is helpful too.

g) Add ‘Seals of Approval‘ about your service. Use graphics or logos to show Awards, Quality Standards, or Association memberships along the sides of your copy. You don’t necessarily have to write about them. Their presence alone is noted, as your visitors read through your copy.

h) Offer powerful Testimonials right on the Order Form for ’social proof.’ This is THE most under-utilized tactic and I believe, one of the most powerful final stimulants for closing the sale.

Of course, overall you must keep your Order Form simple in its design and professional in its presentation are contributing factors too. Try testing and then tracking, one or several of the above suggestions and see what happens!

Let me know how you do at Martin@ParadisePublishing.com too.

Popularity: 54% [?]

Well don’t rent them, not when you can easily create your own list of hungry buyers.

As I wrote previously, you can have the best product or service in the world, but if you don’t have a house list, one that’s eager to receive your emails-you’ve got no one to sell to.

Conversely, if you don’t have a product or service to sell, you can still sell other people’s products and services-if you’ve got a house list.

Now you can always rent a list, of course. But then you’ve got to introduce yourself, prove yourself, sell yourself. In short, you have to work a lot harder to sell these people-because they don’t know you, don’t trust you and don’t care about you.

But if they know you, have experience with you, through multiple contacts and sales-you can get right down to the business of selling your, or someone else’s, product.

Admittedly, there are times when you might need to rent a list. For example, when you want to mount a quick strike campaign to a new niche market (but never rent a compiled list-only rent a subscription list, one with attractive Recency, Frequency and Amount stats.)

So how do you build your own house list-a list of customers and prospects willing to consider your offer?

Lots of ways. And to get you started, here’s my short list of list-building ideas:

• Write, publish and promote a subscription-based, free or not, ezine (an online newsletter).

• Write, publish and promote a subscription-based, free or not, newsletter (an offline ezine).

• Write a blog and offer to notify readers of new posts if they provide their email address.

• Collect names and addresses at the point of sale-to notify buyers of upgrades, special announcements, etc.

• Conduct a seminar and collect names and addresses for a free, or not, CD/DVD recording of the seminar, bonus report, etc.

• Conduct a Webinar or Teleseminar (see above).

• Write a special report or white-paper, deliver it through a squeeze page (after name and email address are provided).

• Write articles, and place your email address and sign-up link in the resource box at the bottom, in order to receive comments and subscribers to your advertised ezine.

• Participate in trade shows and offer a chance to win a free-gift to those attendees who drop their business card in the fish bowl.

• Joint Venture (JV), with a complementary business-provide or contribute your “something” to a joint marketing endeavor-in order to access their list of names (you’ll therefore be introduced to the target market by someone they already know and trust.)

• Co-Registration (Co-Reg), hitch a ride with an offer on someone else’s marketing platform (e.g., on an order or thank you page)-it’s an implied endorsement by that marketer to his sphere of influence.

Remember though, these names and addresses that you collect are the key to your business’s continuing success-so treat them with all due respect and reverence.

Always promise, and keep your promise, not to abuse their privacy. Fully disclose, clearly, that you will be contacting them for various reasons, promotional and informational, in the near future.

And then ask them to confirm (and whenever possible, to double opt-in) their desire to receive communication from you.

You’ll then be on your way to marketing heaven.

–Barry

www.WritingWithPersonality.com

Popularity: 100% [?]

 No, it’s not a product.

You don’t need to invent, design or develop a product to be a marketing success.

You can sell other people’s products-as an affiliate marketer.

But that’s still isn’t enough.

You don’t need a library full of marketing books or an MBA, though it wouldn’t hurt (well, the MBA might, but not the books).

You may be an unread, uneducated dolt and a monumental bore at a party, and yet you may have an unbelievably intuitive understanding of what it takes to quickly persuade and sell ice cubes to an Eskimo.

But if you’re missing this one thing, you’ll still never be a success.

You may be a master at SEO, designing websites, adding video, and every Web 2.0 trick of the trade out there to your thousands of websites. And you may have enough money in the bank to run thousands of pay-per-click campaigns…

But you’ll never be a marketing wunderkind-you’ll never make a 6 or 7 figure income as a marketer, if you don’t have this one crucial, absolutely vital thing…

A list.

No, not a list of things to do, or buy.

A list of names.

No, not any names. Not names from the yellow pages, not names from a “compiled list” sold by a list broker-but a list of names of people who are hungry, who are absolutely dying to buy what you are selling.

Without a list of such hungry buyers, the best product ever invented, ever marketed by the most cash-flush marketing organization ever built-will go unsold.

And where do you easily and quickly find such a list-how do you cultivate such a list?

It should be right under your nose-it better be right under your nose.

It’s your house list, your customer file. It’s the names of people who have bought from you before.

Such a list is worth more than ten times its weight in gold-it’s more valuable than any product ever invented and sold.

Why? Because you’ve already successfully marketed to and sold these people-on you.

You don’t have to convince them again, though it wouldn’t hurt to remind them, that you can be trusted, that what you offer is of great value. They know it-they’ve experienced it and they want more.

With a house list your entire organization, your entire inventory of products can go up in smoke-but you won’t go out of business. So long as you have these names, you can dust off the ashes and get right back to the business of marketing and selling.

Without such a list, you’ve got to start from scratch, all over again.

How do you easily compile such a list, if you don’t have one already and never sold anything before…?

Stay tuned.

–Barry

www.WritingWithPersonality.com

Popularity: 87% [?]