Is Your Website Marketing Sabotaged By These 2 Wrong Assumptions?

As we all know from hard won experience, your prospects…

 

DON’T often pick up the telephone and call you when they are looking at your web site.

And very few, if any, will actually use the ‘contact us’ form via your web site navigation.

 

Yet these two tactics are what 95% of web site owners rely on to encourage enquiries from their web site!

 

It’s no wonder their web site delivers next to nothing in terms of hard ROI.

 

Think for a minute, how many visitors or hits has your website had since its launch?

 

Perhaps 5,000, 70,000, 250,000 or maybe more yet the vast majority of them haven’t simply found you by accident. They’re actively searching for the solution to a problem or a need which makes them serious potential buyers.

 

So how many of these pre-qualified prospects contact details did you get, to enable you to market to them?

 

Thought so!

 

Now, if you had a means of capturing their names and email addresses before they left your site, you would soon posses a priceless database full of eager prospects.

 

These are people you know are in the market for your product or service. The time may not be right for them to buy right now, but when it is, if you continue to talk to them after they leave your web site, you’ll be head and shoulders above your competition when they are ready to buy.

 

But how do you get their contact details?

 

Well, remember that these visitors are doing their research, and they’re looking for answers and helpful information.

 

So package your valuable knowledge and experience to create a regular bulletin or special report or white paper.  Now, promote this critical information on your homepage with the aim of helping your prospects do their ‘research’ better.  Do this consistently, and you will soon be watching the enquiries flood in daily.

 

Free content can include mp3 downloads, PDF or printed reports and white papers, buyers checklists, spreadsheets, software downloads, case studies, videos, recorded interviews, webinars, free product samples and so on.

 

The title of your free information is very important, because these are effectively the ads to encourage your prospects to sign?up.

 

Remember the questions your sales people are often asked need to be your guide to what your free information should be about. Specific lists and tips and questions work very well such as:

 

7 Ways To Avoid X,Y & Z

5 Essential Questions You Must Ask Before Buying X,Y & Z

The 11 Most Expensive Mistakes People Make When …

 

Free e-newsletters can also work very well as a means of capturing prospect details, BUT you must work hard to explain to the prospect WHY they should sign?up and what they are going to gain by doing so. The Marie Claire UK subscription page below demonstrates this well. It clearly states that its newsletters includes news, beauty buys, competitions and offers in the top left corner.

 

 

Can you see why this tactic is so successful? You’ve acknowledged your visitor, offered them something valuable and created a favourable impression of your company.

 

By giving away all this information and knowledge, you become the industry expert. And in return you get literally hundreds of opt-in prospects who are happy to hear from you! By offering valuable, helpful and independent information to guide and educate your prospects in their decision-making, it will enable you to:

 

• Grow your database literally tenfold or more with new, hot prospects
• Give you everything you need to distribute a newsletter or special report
• Ensure you stand out from the competition
• Educate your target market about the results and benefits your company delivers and advance your sales efforts
• Deliver the contact details of those difficult to reach decision-makers to your Inbox

 

Your web site home page is the equivalent to having a stand at an exhibition. You’ve invested thousands in a new stand and that’s before you’ve even thought about the cost of floor space, staff wages, give-aways etc.

 

You’d be livid if you thought your staff made no attempt to capture the details of those prospects who visited the stand and showed an interest in your product or service, wouldn’t you! You web site home page is no different to an exhibition stand in that one of its primary objectives must be to generate leads.

 

 

Regards

 

 

 

 

Richard Lomax