Your website has the potential to be the most reliable salesperson in your business. It never takes coffee breaks, gets sick or goes home early. It always responds to your customer's inquiries instantly. In fact, using a few simple strategies, you can build a website that has a continuous and predictable positive effect on your business.
Let's say that you sell newspaper subscriptions. You use telemarketing as the primary way to contact your potential customers. Would you ever start a call with "Hi. My name is Joe. I want to sell you a newspaper subscription"?
I guarantee that you would have to make a lot of calls to sell a handful of subscriptions if this were your approach.
Instead, wouldn't it be better to try to get them to agree to listen to you before you try to close the sale? You might have better luck with, "Hi. My name is Joe. I'm calling to tell you how you can save hundreds of dollars every week by subscribing to the newspaper. You like to save money, don't you?" If their answer is yes, they have agreed to listen to what you have to say.
This approach would certainly sell more newspapers.
The copy on your website needs to be set up the same way. The first thing your website should do is get your prospective customer to agree to read the first paragraph of your sales copy. In the first paragraph, they should be convinced to continue reading the next few paragraphs...
...where you talk about the benefits of your product or service. Notice that I said benefits, not features. With few exceptions, most buying decisions are made based on perceived benefits, not a fact-filled feature list.
After they've read about the benefits, you might want to consider adding a few testimonials. If you have a yoga studio, get some of your long time customers to talk about the health benefits they've received from your classes. If you are an auto repair shop, have them talk to you about how you gave them honest service at a fair price.
Whatever your business is, you have customers that are happy that they did business with you. Talk to them. Ask them permission to use a quote and a picture of them on your website. If most of your customers are other businesses, offer to place a link back to their website after the testimonial.
Finally, always remember to ask for the customer to take the next step. If you sell directly from your website, ask for the order. Give them the opportunity to sign up for your newsletter. Ask them to call you to set up an demonstration. Whatever the next step in your sales process is, always ask your prospective customers to take that step.
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Modern Webspace provides services and coaching to local small- and medium-sized businesses that want to energize their Internet marketing efforts. We focus on finding solutions that are both sensible and affordable to your business. Call or e-mail for a FREE, no obligation consultation.
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