Turn Your Web Site into a Supercharged Selling Machine in 7 Days
Time for a little pop quiz. Do you have a tireless worker on your sales staff? Does that person work endless hours, never complaining, always providing the right information needed to close a sale, never forgetting to ask for the sale, even helping customers with their order form? Does this person work 24/7, even weekends and holidays? Finally, does this salesperson work virtually for free, having only minimal costs associated with their job?
I wouldn't be at all surprised if you were shaking your head and saying, "No way, what kind of salesperson would be so great and cost me so little?" Well, you do have one, you just don't know it: it's your web site!
Most small business owners usually view a web site as some kind of online brochure (in other words, a marketing expense), which is extremely unfortunate. In reality, a web site can be a lot more than just a line item in your marketing budget — it should be a powerhouse sales asset.
In part one of this cover story, we're going to teach you how to inject your web site with sales power in 7 days. In part two of this cover story, we’re going to teach you how to start a new eBay business or expand your existing eBay business, by following a few easy steps.
Are you ready? Then let's go!
Day 1: Get Back to Basics
Whether you've had a web site for years or you don't even know where to begin, it's a good idea to cover Good Ecommerce 101. For example, do you know what sections any effective web site should have? Anyone buying your products and services online wants to see:
~A Contact Us Page, where you list your phone numbers, fax numbers, physical address, e-mail address, and points of contact. The more information you provide, the more assured your customer will be.
~An About Us Page, where you tell the customer a history of your firm and list off key employees or partners. They'll want to know that you've been around for x number of years, or have partnered with well-known companies or brands.
~A Testimonials Page or Testimonials Sprinkled Throughout Your Web Site. Make sure that you provide the full name and geographic location of each person giving a testimonial.
~A Privacy Policy Page, in which you spell out how you deal with their sensitive information. You can get a good privacy policy page from the Better Business Bureau web site.
~Consistent Global and Local Navigation throughout your site. Nothing is more frustrating then a site you can't navigate. If customers get lost on your site, they won't buy from you.
~A Newsletter Sign-Up Form. Not everyone who arrives at your site will buy from you right then and there. Some of them want to see what you have to offer and may defer their buying decision until you've proven your worth. Don't pass up this chance to capture customer contact info!
From a hosting standpoint, you have to make sure that your web host supports shopping carts and SSL security. There are plenty of web hosting companies out there that can set you up affordably (in many cases, for less than $30 a month).
For more information on site structure, design, and hosting, visit Home Business Magazine's web site, http://www.homebusinessmag.com.
Day 2: Add E-Commerce It's time to set up your e-commerce pages. To make your e-commerce web site work, you'll need the following components:
~Product Description Pages ~Shopping Cart ~Credit Card Validation (usually included with most systems). ~Internet Gateway (this gets the money to your merchant account). ~Merchant Account (this will get the money into your bank account).
There's usually a lot of confusion over these components. Some business owners wrongly believe that just having a shopping cart on your web site is enough to accept credit card payments. They don’t know that they need a gateway (like Verisign) and a merchant account to get any money.
What's the easiest way to get started? Set up an account with Verisign or Authorize.net. They can show you how to set up an easy product page with a special form that "hands your customer off" to them for key parts of the transaction — like securely gathering credit card numbers. This is an especially good way to go if you just have one product for sale. Verisign and Authorize.net can also get you hooked up with a merchant account through either your bank or any number of third party vendors.
Day 3: Rev Up the Web Marketing Engine You won't make any sales on your web site if you don't market the site! Plenty of web marketing strategies abound (see this month's feature story, "7 Ways to Market on the Internet" for some examples), but I'd like to share one strategy that has served me very well over the years.
I like to think of this web marketing strategy as an effective combination that will keep the traffic flowing to your site for months and months. The key to this strategy is to combine promotional and informational messaging to your current clients and future prospects. This combination of promoting and informing can quickly build a solid marketing base.
Tell everyone on your newsletter subscription list about your new e-commerce site. These folks will be your current circle of friends, colleagues, customers, and prospects. If you can create enough buzz with this group, they'll tell everyone they know about your new e-commerce site.
Take out an ad for your site in an e-zine or a blog that's related to your product offering. If someone runs an e-zine with 10,000 subscribers, you could easily add hundreds of new subscribers to your own newsletter. These ads are usually very affordable and extremely targeted.
Create a Google Adword account and start bidding for keywords related to your products and services. You could own significant mindshare among customers and prospects for 5, 10, or 20 cents a click.
Write one short how-to article and try to get the article reprinted for free in as many e-zines, blogs, online magazines, local/regional dailies and weeklies, and business journals as you can. Most of these publications are hurting for good stories, as long as they're written well and aren't one long advertisement for a company or product. For example, if you sell a home security product, write a short article that covers home security tips.
Offer your product on eBay. Yes, this is more akin to selling, but it’s also marketing, as you'll gain incredible exposure to thousands of potential customers on eBay. Day 4: Diversify with Affiliate Programs Do a search of companies with products similar to yours. If they offer an affiliate program, you can set yourself up as their affiliate and then link to their pages from your site. Most affiliate programs provide full instructions on how to set up your link such that your personal affiliate ID is tracked each time someone clicks a link on your site.
Becoming an affiliate immediately gives you a wider range of products and services to sell. For example, if you are selling a home security product, you can become an affiliate to a wide variety of other products and services, ranging from self-defense books, pepper-spray manufacturers, Krav Maga classes — the possibilities are endless. Each time someone clicks on a link on your site and then purchases something at the destination, you get a commission.
Another way to build up your sales is to create your own affiliate program. Many shopping cart systems offer affiliate management systems. With affiliate management, the hard work of keeping track of affiliate members and affiliate traffic is simplified. It's like building a giant sales force that is constantly working for you day and night. Day 5: Communicate with Customers You've already set up a contact us page, so you're open to customers reaching out to you. You're also making it easy for them to sign up for your newsletter. However, at some point, you will need to take some extra steps to add value in the communication cycle. Remember that as long as you provide useful information, you will strengthen and not weaken your customer relationships.
For example, if you're selling a piece of software or other product that requires technical expertise, allow customers to interact with you via instant messaging or chat session. Usually a few minutes working with customers in this fashion is enough to build customer loyalty for life.
If you're keen on putting out a regular newsletter, think about using a vendor like eROI (eroi.com) or Microsoft Small Business Center (bCentral.com). Why go with an outside vendor for e-mail newsletter management? Because those guys have figured out view tracking, click tracking, bounce backs, unsubscribes, and CAN-SPAM. That way you don't have to worry about any of it, just create your newsletters and maintain your e-mail addresses.
Finally, get signed up on PRWeb.com. It's free and you can send out news releases as often as you like. For a small fee of $40 per press release, you can upgrade the kind of access your press release gets when you send it. This is a small fee compared to the hundreds you'd get charged on other wire services. Day 6: Tackle Back Office Issues If you're small fry, you may not have to worry about any back office issues, but then again, you never know how fast you're going to grow. Let me give you a few examples.
You might be running a contact database like ACT or Microsoft Outlook to keep track of customers and prospects. Everything is running smoothly until you set up your e-commerce site and start gathering customer information there. How do you integrate the two sets of data, remove duplicates, and synchronize?
Here's another example. You may have a small retail outlet or catalog-driven business. You've worked out inventory issues quite well, but now you have to deal with web sales. How do you get your shopping cart software tied in to your retail inventory management software on your laptop?
In both cases, you'll need to figure out some way to integrate those data sources. Luckily for you, there are hundreds of companies out there that have figured out just about every data integration method you can think of — for a price, of course. My best advice is to do some searching on Google for the problem you're trying to solve before you lay out big bucks for any custom integration. You may think that your problem is unique, but chances are it isn't and that a product exists to solve it.
Day 7: Offer Special Online Services As promised, we've made it to day 7! We've already discussed a lot of ways to make our web site a supercharged selling machine. What else could we possibly do to make things better for our customers? Offer them special online services!
Set up a password-protected part of your site where customers can get exclusive content, reports, or other premium information. This password-protected part of the site might also even include a discussion forum or special search engine.
Provide paying customers with exclusive offers 24 hours before you send out regular e-mail offers. That way your existing customers get an extra discount or premium content or giveaways before the regular crowd of prospects. This kind of perk only works if you tell them what you're doing and why!
Offer your most loyal customers a chance to post articles on your blog. Sound far-fetched? You never know — some of your best customers are probably trying to show their appreciation for your product or service in some way, if only they knew how. Show them what they can do for you. 7-Day Wrap-Up A great e-commerce site doesn't happen over night. However, by taking it one small step each day, you can create a sales powerhouse for your home or small business. Now turn to page 22 for “Part 2: eBay Startup Guide.” HBM
Thomas Myer is the owner of Triple Dog Dare Media, an Austin, TX consultancy that specializes in web site development and e-commerce. Triple Dog Dare Media has been in business since 2001 and has worked with companies like IBM, Abbott Laboratories, Hart InterCivic, TrendFund.com, and dozens of SOHO entrepreneurs. Thomas can be reached at 512.420.8870 or
Previously published in the August 2006 issue of HOME BUSINESS® Magazine, an international publication for the growing and dynamic home-based market. Available on newsstands, in bookstores and chain stores, and via subscriptions ($15.00 for 1 year, six issues). Visit www.homebusinessmag.com
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