DIGITAL SALES STRATEGY
Nowadays we run most of our businesses over the internet. Selling has gone digital. A Digital Sales Funnel has replaced old-fashion order-books.
Online Stores have become the main distribution channel for many physical-product-based industries. But also Service-Provider, Agents, Lawyers, Doctors or any self-employed specialist depends on people finding their offer on the internet. Marketing products and services over the internet has become a major topic on ever companies agenda. Everyone is trying to get everybodies attention and seeks to attract visitors to their website. The key to achieving this lies in succesfully get the attention, secure the attention, channel the attention and convert attention in enough desire to want to buy a certain product.
The GSCC-Approach (Get-Secure-Channel-Convert) was developed over the course of several websites that I built for various industries. It has proven very successful and can be adopted by almost every business. If you follow this approach, there is not much more you can do, to increase sales and revenue over the internet.
Get Attention: On the internet, attention can only be generated with paid-for ads or organic links to your Website. There is only a limited number of places, where ads and links to a website can be placed. Advertisers need to bid for ad space and time by offering a certain amount of money for a click. The higher the bid, the more likely the ad will be considered during placement. Visitors will be presented with ads that match their personal profile. While money can get you ad time and placement, it is the relevance of the website and the ad that will determine where the ad or the organic website link will be placed. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing a website in a way that it will be deemed highly relevant for a certain search term. If you manage SEO well and invest in online ads, attention is almost guaranteed.
Secure Attention: Getting attention only gets you a click. Securing Attention is about presenting something to the visitor, that is not only interesting, but makes him want more. The time before a user clicks away is typically less than 2 seconds. What that means is, that withing 2 seconds, your content needs to convince the visitor to stay. The most popular approach to achieve this is to offer something that the visitor can hardly resist taking. At this time, the objective is to lead the visitor away from the marketing site and to a landing page where no other ads or competitors links are shown, but the visitor still finds what he/she is looking for ... and more.
Channel Attention: The next step is to honor the trust and investment that the visitor has already shown by taking him/her to a special offer page, that shows your appreciation and willingness to value the visitor as a customer. The special offer should comprise several options that cover almost all possibilities, so that the visitor will be likely to pick one option. Typically this offer includes something free of charge. There are several objectives here, 1st: find out more about what offer attracts the visitor most, 2nd: increase his level of engagement and 3rd: turn the visitor into a prospect who is willing to sign up for more and freely gives his personal details
Convert Attention: Once the visitor has identified him or herself and signed up for more, you can market products directly to him, using the knowledge about his preferences from the previous step. The objective is now to turn a prospect into a customer.
SEO for better Search Results
On the internet, attention can only be generated with ads or links to your Website. There is only a limited number of places, where ads and links to a website can be placed. While ads are paid-for, links can be placed without any cost involved. But in either case, the number one objective is to be on the first page that visitors are shown, when they search for a vendor. Most internet users don´t even look at the second page.
The space to present ads and website-links on search engines is of couse limited. There is only a certain number that will be shown on page number one. Typically, search engines divide the space between paid-for-ads and so called organic website-links. While paid-for ads offer the possibility to invest a high amount of money and almost guarantee to have a place on page number one, organic website-links only show on page number one because of their relevance. This is why either SEO (Search Engine Optimization) using proper keywords and content or Google/Facebook/other ads are the only possibilities to get attention.
SEO: Whether or not, an ad or a website-reference (link) is shown on the first page is determined by relevance. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing a website in a way that it will be deemed highly relevant for a certain search term. Relevance is defined by the usefullness of the content that the ad or the website link points to, in relationship to the search term specified by the internet user who wants to find something. This search term must be met by one or more keywords in the ad or on the referenced website. Automated website visitors (algorythms) called bots and crawlers analyse websites to find out the relevance in regards to certain keywords. Only websites that are optimized for this kind of search, will have a chance to be found on page number one. SEO
In addition to organic search optimization, you can pay a high amount of money for placing an online ad. However, that still doesn´t guarantee a page number one placement after all. Even amoungst the ads on page number one, there is a ranking that, again, is based on relevance. Basically, what that means is, that SEO is always a must have, while paid-for ads can get you additional attention.
With several years of experience in professional website development and online marketing, I will assist you in getting the most attention for your website.
Google & Facebook Paid-For Ads
Apart from Google, other search engines, social networks like Facebook, XING or LinkedIN, there is an increasing tendency to involve specialist sites, usually called the partner-network. All these sites collect data about their visitors in order to determine preferences, desires, demographic details, usage behaviour and connections the visitor might have. On the other hand, there is a huge number of businesses and professionals who want to place an ad that seeks to address certain desires, preferences and demographics. Bringing these both sides together, is like a gigantic auction for ad-time and ad-space. Visitors will be presented with ads that match their personal profile and advertisers present their ads to the most prospective group of people. Advertisers need to bid for ad space and time by offering a certain amount of money for a click. The higher the bid, the more likely the ad will be considered during placement.
A Marketing Heaven come true, one might think. Placing an ad is however, expensive, time comsuming, complicated and not a sure-bet after all. Paying a high amount of money for an ad, only helps in getting the ad space and time. It doesn´t guarantee a page number one placement after all. Even amoungst the ads on page number one, there is a ranking that, again, is based on relevance. Basically, what that means is, that SEO is always a must have, while paid-for ads can get you additional attention.
I will assist you in setting up ads on any platform you prefer, helping you to devise proper keywords, text and messages as well as select the right target audience, channel and bidding options.
Effective Landing Pages with WordPress
WordPress Landing Pages have just one objective: drawing the visitors attention away from everything else, but your offer. The moment someone clicks on your ad or your website link, he/she will be redirected to your landing page, which shows nothing else, but your offer. This step is critical because, it eliminates all options for any other ad or competitor website link. The moment the visitor is presented with your landing page, all other alternatives are gone.
The second reason, you need a landing page, is that it focuses on leading the visitor to a conclusion that is similiar to "ok, this sounds really good, I can´t loose anything and I shouldn´t miss this". The only outcome that you want from the visitor being on your landing page is to confirm a participation or a download or free digital product. All the visitor should be asked to do is, leave his/her email address and click a button that confirms the interaction.
BEWARE: A landing page is not your website! A landing page does not have menues. A landing page doesn´t offer any links to sub-pages. A landing page only presents your offer in as many details as possible, be it text, tables, lists, videos, graphics, photos, bullet point or slideshows AND a field to enter the visitors email address plus a button to confirm the interaction (which is to downoad something, to join a group, or to agree to be send a digital product (e.g. a pdf with lots of interesting stuff)).
On your landing page you specify only the details for this interaction, not all your products. This means, that you need to offer a give-away, such as the participation in your focus group on a certain subject, a download of a pdf-file that outlines the highlights of your research or a free newsletter that you will send out regulary via email. Any of these give-aways, and more, will do. You will have to find your own give-away. But make it something that the visitor cannot resist!
Once the visitor confirms the interaction, you can again redirect the page ... now to your Channeling Page.
Effective Selling
When we started out improving sales process, we tried things like strategic selling more conceptual selling. Today, despite the buzz about online marketing, emotional selling seems to be the trade of the day.
We have come to realize, that overloading our business partner with too much detail is not going to cut it. Instead, we now understand that primarily the clients needs ought to be our focus.
Still, selling, especially effective selling, is no walk in the park. Our capabilities of communicating and interacting have grown with the complexity of our language. Rhethorics and semantics aren’t always clear. Trust and authenticity have become more important than product details. Emotions, perceptions and relationships are the new currency of sales channels. Online Marketing, Automated Email Systems, Landing Pages and Social Networks are the new means for lead generation.
Clients buy from people they know and believe to be delivering on time, with the highest quality and at a fair price. But first of all, clients only buy from vendors they know. In times of overwhelming email ads, firewalls and spam filters, getting through has become the biggest challenge.
I can improve your sales process and ultimately increase revenue through the proper use of language, profiling and a coaching like approach to selling. I can also assist in setting up a highly effective online marketing system.
Conversion - From Visitor to Customer
Conversion as a unit for measuring the success and the associated conversion rate has established itself in many areas. This is because conversions can easily be measured and evaluated using common web analysis tools such as Google Analytics. Furthermore, more comprehensive tools can be used to outline the path to a conversion through the so-called customer journey across different platforms and devices.
Conversion is a definite process in which a visitor to a website is guided into carrying out a concrete action. A classic conversion is, for example, a purchase, a download, or registering for a newsletter. Converting a visitor to a customer requires a smooth flow of interactions, from the presentation of your offer, to the product details selection, to the shopping basket and payment details, to the review page and the final confirmation of purchase. A great deal of technical issues can get in the way and an even greater deal of options to handle variations of the "standard" flow need to be thought of and taken care of.
The conversion rate is the measure of the conversion. This can be calculated using a simple formula and is given as a percentage.
Conversion rate = Number of executed actions / ((Number of all visitors)*100)
All marketing measures that contribute towards increasing the conversion rate are referred to as Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). Conversion rate optimization is a sub-discipline of search engine optimization and online marketing. In affiliate marketing, payment of publishers is mostly done based on successful conversions. There is usually no ideal value for the conversion rate as this is highly dependent on the overall performance of a website.
Multiple conversions can be specified for a user journey. Every click by a user to access advertising material or a newsletter on the website counts as a conversion. On the website itself, every conversion represents a clear action such as filling out a contact form, subscribing to a newsletter, downloading, or the classic purchasing of a product.
Anyone who uses the Google AdWords advertising program can use it to define their own conversions in order to measure the success of their SEA campaigns. Google Analytics can also be used to define conversions as the so-called “goals”. Goals can, for example, be a certain amount of time spent on the page or even the sending of a particular form. These goals can then be exported to the Google Adwords account and used to measure the conversion of the advertising program. Linking of Adwords with the Analytics account is necessary for the export.
The chance of a conversion can be raised significantly if the user is able to access the sought product much faster. Therefore, you should always be careful to ensure that your website has short loading times, a sensible navigation as well as highly relevant content.