How to Market Online ?
Marketing has changed with the advent of the web. Here is a quick summary of how to market through your website.
Unique Sales Proposition
Who are your Prospects
What words might they use
Billboarding
Information Giving
Objection Removal
Call To Action
Getting on Google
Moving Customers to Advocates
Keep at IT
eMarketing
Unique Sales Proposition
The first thing you have to do is decide on what is your Unique Sales Proposition. Your USP is the concept or idea about your products that will make your prospects act - decide that your product or service is a better fit to their needs than any other competing product.
The USP is what you really sell - the goods and services are just its embodiment. The prospect has in their head some vision or image of what they will do with your product or service - do You know what it is? Get your USP very clear in your head. TOC
Who are your Prospects
With your USP clearly identified, think about who might be "turned on" by it. Think about the demographics - the special interests of your potential customers. What words might they use to describe the need they want to satisfy?
Avoid trying to satisfy two different groups with the same pages - try to separate their needs. TOC
What words might they use
So these people who might buy your product - what do they call the products, the things they do with the product?
You need to work on developing about 6 words or phrases that you think they might use.
Then try these words in Google - does Google find sites that are your competitors?
Read the competitors sites - what words are they using in their text, particularly in the Title at the top of the browser window. View source and see their meta-tags as Descriptions and Keywords.
Repeat on Yahoo and MSN.
Finalise this set of words and then use them in the first 250 characters of the relevant pages. Our tools provide specific places where you should enter these words. TOC
Billboarding
Your site will not show up in high rankings on search engines until it has been used by many prospects. So you must tell everyone about your website www name.
Put it on your shop front.
Put it on your business cards and letterhead.
Advertise in local newspapers.
Drop flyers in letterboxes.
Always ask shoppers for their email address and thank them for purchasing by email showing links to your website.
Attract these early visitors with Gifts, Special Offers, Competitions - anything which encourages them to go to your site.
Use Viral Marketing - reward both the referrer and the referee. Use Gift Certificates. We provide these facilities. TOC
Information Giving
Many of your pages will be informational. Yes, they will only buy what they know about!
Remember your visitor is looking for something - give them crisp answers - nothing clever and obscure. Summarise the obvious data a customer may be searching for. Use a link to more detailed information.
Show the price early in the dialogue - if it is not obvious it is annoying to some of your visitors. TOC
Objection Removal
When your visitor decides that they have found what they were looking for a whole series of "objections" come to their mind. This is particularly so with products which are technically complex or for parts that must operate with other products.
So provide this information in a detailed document. Use a Table of Contents to help them navigate a large document. If the details are information you would expect to ask an engineer it may pay to change the style of the page to look more technical - get rid of graphics (except for diagrams).
A special case is "Is this the same as I last bought?". Always show them their previous purchases if they are likely to want to buy more of the same. TOC
Call To Action
If the customer has found what they want, got through their perceived objections, make it easy for them to buy. Show the price then show an Add To Cart icon. TOC
Getting on Google
You will have already been very careful in naming your pages (Long Name) and in entering text in Search Description and your Meta-tags. Your site will be cross-linked with ours.
When the site is ready to publish let us know and we will perform the webmaster functions for Google. Our software automatically generates the SiteMap XML file needed for Google. It also generates a sitemap so that all your links can be found even if very deep. The Robot tag is automatically generated on appropriate pages.
We can then examine in detail the search words which bring up your site. We recommend that you use Google Adwords for the first few months.
Remember that graphics do not convey text content to search engines. Avoid graphics that may look like text but are not, particularly avoid navigation menus in graphics. TOC
Moving Customers to Advocates
A key issue for most sites is to encourage customers to return and continue to buy. Even more is to turn some customers into advocates - people who will recommend you to other prospects.
Plan to use the "3rd Column" facility for testimonials.
Encourage your customers to register and provide their details. TOC
Keep at IT
You need to review the WebStats to see who is visiting your site, where they enter, where they exit and the navigation patterns they follow. These WebStats show you search words which have lead to click-thrus to your site. TOC
eMarketing
Once your web site is properly constructed and promoted use our eMarketing tools to keep driving sales! TOC
