It’s often the case that someone maybe looking for ‘babies prams’ today because they have only just found out that they, their partner, friend or relative is now pregnant. But they may not want to buy a pram today.
We all do it and that’s why we call looking around the internet ‘surfing the web’. But as business owners we do not want people to surf the web, we want them to stop at our website and do something. One option that a lot of websites offers is the ability for someone to make an order or an enquiry, but in the instance described above it’s highly unlikely that those visitors would do this unless the offer was something like; buy a wheel and the pram comes free. That was just a ridiculous example to make a point.
This is why you need a mechanism, a leverage a system in place within your website to gather visitors contact information. Asking someone to sign up to your newsletter is an old, boring ‘web designer’ idea that does not work effectively, if at all, unless your website is a member or society driven website.
People that buy prams from your shop do not want to know that Kate is your new procurement manager. But what those people and your website visitors do want to know is which pram is the best one they can buy within their budget. It’s this valuable information that people are willing to give you in return for that knowledge and essentially help.
A report, guide, sample, checklist or tips and tricks sheets are all great forms of leverage as they entice people to gain access to information that enables them to make an educated decision towards which product they buy.
Your branding should be over everything that you give away and you must use that persons contact information to full effect; emails, brochures, samples, PDFs etc are all great ways to build a relationship with your prospective client base. It’s through the building of relationships and awareness that a brand is built and a business succeeds.
The concept of permission marketing will reduce your need to convert customers into sales there and then; it will also significantly increase the percentage of visitors that turn into customers.
The use of auto responders and other automated systems will help you build relationships and convert leads into sales or enquiries on auto-pilot. Don’t get me wrong, automation is possible and certainly achievable, all successful businesses use it, but those businesses have also perfected the automation process. It’s the perfection aspect that most businesses are not willing to invest their time and money into achieving.