Business Principles
Getting Prospects to Buy
How do you turn a prospect into a buyer? Here are a few simple ideas that might help you become a better online marketer.
Grabbing the attention of an Internet surfer or a casual prospect that has noticed your marketing is challenging enough. But the real problem is turning as many viewers as possible into actual buyers. Not only that, you want to entice buyers into becoming loyal and repeat customers.
Once you’ve told the product story, how do you get a prospect to push that “buy button” at your offer? Here are some traffic conversion “hot buttons” to add to your marketing ideas today:
1. Expose your competition’s warts.
You can expect popular products to attract many competitors and it always helps to understand exactly what your competition is selling and how they’re employing their marketing. Study the competition and find the weaknesses or differences that you can exploit. Do you offer a more comprehensive product, better bonuses, deliver faster, offer discount shipping, give choice of downloads or CDs, gift wrap, ship internationally? Let buyers know what sets you apart from your competitors by highlighting the advantages you offer. If you don’t have any advantages, you’d better work a little harder to implement some right away!
2. Go ahead – name drop.
Find a celebrity or a niche expert to endorse your product. Not necessarily a movie star, just someone who is known and respected in your niche market. Send your product out to niche superstars and ask for their honest review as well as permission to use the comments on your website. Find something you can do for them (like do a mailing of theirs to your list) to reciprocate their help and offer to send to your list first. You will benefit from the star power, the credibility, and the association with these powerhouse endorsers.
3. Prove it!
Find research that advances or pushes your product to the forefront of the niche in your marketplace. Even a basic study that shows “7 out of 10 people who regularly exercise are less likely to get prickly heat,” might be linked loosely to your product. Make the connection believable and reasonable. If there isn’t any research, make your own by using results from an online survey or poll. The basic idea is to show why your prospect would be foolish to purchase anywhere else. Consumers love to feel like they are making an informed decision and the proof in their mind is that research indicates your product is best.
4. Test yourself.
Create three different pitches that tout your main product. Use each pitch for 10 days in your offer. At the end of the month, compare your results of each pitch. The one that captures the most buyers isn’t always the one you may like the most; but remember, it’s about what resonates or “clicks” with the buyer that will make you money – even if it isn’t your favorite way to push your product.
5. Befriend to win.
Make sure that your sales copy creates engagement and a connection with your prospect. You can make money with straight sales copy but you’ll nearly always make a heck of a lot more money when you build a relationship with your audience on a personal level. Each prospect will be more anxious to buy if he feels you are speaking to, and taking a personal interest, in him/her.
Let your prospects into your life enough that they know about you so they can care about you! It is often said that prospects buy from people they know, like, and trust. One very good way to nurture your prospects and customers is to set up a forum in your niche and work to build a viable community. Such forums are a great way to engage your customers, show them your personality (outside your offer pages), and give them valuable information without charging them for it.
6. Feature a buyer with a photo and candid interview.
When you give buyers reasons to drop by regularly, then you are developing rapport and a relationship with them. Needless to say, your “special offer” email gets read when others’ offers are rejected. Marketers that only send offers to their customers are a “turn-off” for many people because it seems that the marketer is interested in nothing but taking the prospect’s money.
7. Always over deliver.
Yes, it’s become a very trite phrase in marketing circles. Nevertheless, the principle is tried and proven in every marketplace. By delivering more value to the customer than he expects, you are endearing him to your company and elevating your business above the other direct competitor’s in your niche. Who doesn’t like to be pleasantly surprised? Who wouldn’t want a buyer to exclaim: “Oh my, this purchase really was a great idea!”
8. Make the purchase process intuitive and simple.
New merchants are often surprised at the number of sales they lose at the online “check out stand.” If the purchaser is confused in any way, he will abandon his cart and often never return. Smart marketers lead the buyer by the hand ever step of the way through the purchase process. The fewer clicks the better. Take a lead from Amazon, Godaddy and other experienced retailers. They have managed to implement “One Step CheckOut” procedures that greatly simplify purchases for return clients. You may not be able to duplicate their complete method … but the point is very clear … easy purchasing means more sales.
There you have it – eight easy principles that will help you to get your prospects to become loyal purchasers. Remember, a buyer is much more likely to buy a second time, and a third, and a fourth … so it’s important that you provide the very best buying experience possible.
To your online business success!
Steve Browne
www.stevebrownedirect.com