The Five Fundamentals Of Internet Selling!
In this week's article:
- Five powerful and supremely profitable guiding principles that should direct your thinking as you develop your online promotions …
- A simple five-point checklist that uncovers 20-minute website changes that could make you a bundle, including a rich case study …
- The subtle tactic rarely used online that will get more people to read your website copy with an open mind …
- Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about advertorial copy but were afraid to ask …
- And much more!
Dear Web Business Builder,
I just read something entirely profound in a book by Nido Qubein that got me thinking about how important the fundamentals are in marketing. And how frequently they’re violated.
Qubein’s book isn’t about marketing. It’s about communicating in general. But in my book, they’re one in the same.
He says effective communication is really very simple. It’s simply a matter of the right person, communicating the right message, to the right audience, at the right time, and in the right way.
Picture this if you will … A couple strolls hand in hand down a moonlit Caribbean beach. There’s not another soul in sight. The only sound you can hear is the gentle lapping of the waves beneath their bare feet.
As if by predetermined signal they stop. Slowly they turn to face one another and he speaks. “I love you,” he says softly. “I love you too” she replies. “Will you marry me”, he asks. “Yes” she responds.
For a long time they gaze into each other’s eyes before coming together in a kiss … and then stroll off happily hand in hand down the beach.
That my friends, is effective communication!
It was the right person, communicating the right message, to the right audience, at the right time, and in the right way.
The message was heard, understood, and most importantly … produced the desired response.
And that little analogy – in just 100 words – holds the guiding principles that should govern your thinking when it comes to marketing your business on the Internet.
Allow me to explain …
Apart from the symbolic sacred bond of trust that marriage represents – which should be analogous to the way you treat your customers, and the way they treat you – there are a number of very practical lessons here.
Let’s break them down, one by one …
Guiding Principle #1 -
The Right Person Communicating
You and I both know the Internet is inherently a very impersonal medium. That’s one of its primary business advantages. Machines can automate much of the interaction required to service customers and sell them products and services.
People come to your website, they fill out forms, obtain information, even buy things and all you do is sit back and count the money at the end of day.
But paradoxically, our tests show that people respond far more favorably … and buy far more frequently when they feel as though they’re interacting with a real person – even though they know they’re not.
What we’ve discovered is that by its very nature, the Internet demands you communicate with p-e-r-s-o-n-a-l-I-t-y.
So how do you do that?
Our tests point to the following as being the most overlooked yet powerfully effective ways to inject personality into your online communications …
Have a spokesperson pictured prominently on your website looking your online prospects squarely in the eyes when they arrive.
Use conversational language. Structure the words you use on your website to read like a personal conversation between your spokesperson and your online prospect.
Use specific slang and jargon that people most likely to buy your products and services use in everyday casual conversation, AND …
Make your webpage look like a personal letter with a salutation at the top and your signature at the bottom.
All of these personalization queues make a huge difference in results, yet how often are they ignored?
Of course your choice of spokesperson, and the way you portray that person in your copy also have a tremendous impact on your conversion. More on that in a future issue …
Guiding Principle #2 – The Right Message
There are literally dozens of techniques for crafting effective sales messages, and you’ll read about plenty of them here … but if you get this next one idea firmly implanted in your mind, you’ll instantly put your website head and shoulders ahead of 99% of the other websites on the Internet.
Are you ready for this?
The right message begins with a simple, easily understood, ultra compelling promise. Goes on to prove the business or product or service in question can fulfill on that promise. And ends with a singular, clearly defined, easily measurable call to action!
You would think this would be obvious to people selling online, but it isn’t: 99% of the websites you visit FAIL this simple litmus test MISERABLY. As you travel the web today, look for those three elements and you’ll see what I mean.
Guiding Principle #3 – To The Right Audience
When I was in corporate sales, I used to feel a little sorry for the new sales people who when telephone prospecting would jump all over just about any prospect who’d agree to an appointment.
Many of these “so called” prospects had such an incomplete idea of what they were looking for that to get in your car and drive clear across town and back and spend an hour with them was rarely worth it … when a few qualifying questions over the phone could tell you instantly whether you could help that person or not.
I see the same thing happening on the Internet every single day. People spending all kinds of money and effort on banner ads, pay per click, and search engine optimization to attract visitors to their website who will never respond, no matter what. Wasting bullets on targets that even if they hit them – it doesn’t count.
Effective Internet marketing is all about leveraging resources. Spending minimal time and money attracting maximum eyeballs and profits.
Let’s assume you’ve lovingly crafted a great marketing message. In order to leverage that message, you now have to focus on communicating it to high probability prospects.
Here’s how it can be done.
On the Internet, there are only two types of people you want to attract to your website. On the one hand, are those people that you know are interested in what you are offering, and on the other are those who have proven their propensity to buy products and services like yours.
Which one of these two groups do you think is more valuable to you? Of course: the proven buyers.
But how do you tell the difference?
There’s only one practical way to know if you’re expending your precious marketing resources communicating with proven buyers. And that is through database marketing. The world of customer lists.
Out there somewhere on the Internet are competitive and complimentary businesses with customer lists, and an interest in leveraging those lists. Their customers are your ideal audience. Those are the people you should be spending maximum time and money communicating with.
These proven buyers represent your best possible opportunity for creating quick profits. If you do everything else right, tapping into the goldmine that exists within the customer lists of competitive and complimentary businesses can catapult your online business to the top of the charts in a heartbeat.
Does that mean you ignore the other group of prospects that is “looking”, but hasn’t yet proven its propensity to buy? No. But what it does mean is there’s a very good chance you’ll have to communicate with this B group of prospects very differently.
This second camp is much less likely to buy in sufficient numbers on the initial contact to justify your investment in reaching them. The key of course is to spend a small amount of resources to test and see how these people respond. If you can make an instant profit, then I say go for it. If not. Try this …
Offer these people FREE information in exchange for their email address and permission to stay in touch. And build a relationship with them over time.
Walk them through the courtship phase by educating them about the solutions to the problem that caused them to click on your ad and make their way to your website in the first place. Which brings me to the fourth principle …
Guiding Principle #4 – At The Right Time
You’ve positioned yourself as the right person giving the right message to the right audience. Now, consummate the sale at the right time.
The right time to consummate the sale is when you’ve won the trust of your prospects, and given them enough promise and proof to convince them to take action.
If you’re selling something complex, or high ticket, or you’re working with your B list of interested but not yet proven buyers, trying to make the sale on the first encounter is likely to lead to frustration. For these prospects, your first message should be, something quite different.
It still begins with a simple, easily understood ultra compelling promise … goes on to prove the business, and product or service in question can fulfill on that promise … and ends with a singular, clearly defined, easily measurable call to action. But the call to action is not BUY NOW!
Your goal is to enroll these prospects in a virtual consultation. Think of it as a FREE education – FREE to both parties because you’re going to create it once, and deliver it forever using machines.
You’re going to educate your B list prospects about the solutions to the problem that caused them to visit your website in the first place. A carefully planned series of touches, each one with a clearly defined call to action that gets you closer to building the kind of trust and customer knowledge required to ask for the sale and get it.
Here, let me give you an example …
This is the first page of a web campaign that Clayton and I put together for a Response Ink client who sells investment advisory services online. The client put banner ads on investment news sites like CBS Marketwatch, Forbes.com, and Yahoo Finance, and attracted people to this site with an interest in investing, and in particular natural resource investing.
Let’s review each principle.
First, it’s a message from the right person. Larry Edelson. There he is right there, looking you squarely in the eye, and his credentials are impressive. Summarized in the first pre-head bullet “internationally renowned natural resource analyst Larry Edelson, arguably the FIRST energy analyst to predict oil prices would skyrocket from $10 in 2001 to $60 in 2006.”
Second, It’s the right message. After you’ve seen Larry, the first words that grab you by the eyeballs convey a simple, easily understood ultra compelling promise … Information that could make you a bundle, “4 Startling Reasons Why Oil Prices are Set to Double – AGAIN!” … reinforced by the second pre-head bullet … “ …whose energy stocks could have already made you up to 60% RICHER in the last 12 months alone!”
And as you scroll down, you’ll see the message culminating in a singular, clearly defined, easily measurable call to action. Access the bulletin NOW – FREE!
Third, it’s the right audience. As long as the client is advertising on the pages of sites that deal specifically with the same subject matter, we know that the people we’re communicating with here are likely to be at least interested.
And fourth, it’s the right time. For cold prospects, who in all probability have no idea who Larry Edelson is, and may have never bought an investment newsletter in their life, this is the right time for them to receive this kind of a message.
Nothing to buy, no risk what so ever, just free information to help you better understand and solve the problem that brought you here.
Guiding Principle #5 – And In The Right Way
Your prospects are incredibly skeptical, especially online. They don’t want to be sold anything. What they want is information. So the right way to communicate with them is by giving them what they want.
And that’s why, by far, the most powerful copy structure online is the advertorial.
What’s an advertorial you ask?
It is essentially a sales promotion that in and of itself contains valuable information.
Your prospects are compelled to read it, not because it offers information about a product that can solve a problem. They are compelled to read it because it contains information that can help them solve a problem.
You may have to read that last paragraph again because the difference is subtle.
Subtle, but critically important …
A blatant product promotion, raises all kinds of alarm bells in the prospects head, and sets up resistance to every word that’s being said. A skillfully executed advertorial on the other hand, because it reads like editorial in the front half, gains attention and interest much more easily. And that attention and interest is of a higher quality, and more likely to lead to a sale.
At some point, usually around the half way mark, the advertorial turns (seamlessly if done well) into a promotion, introducing the product, building desire for it, and asking for the order.
If you’d like to see an online advertorial in action, you can see the 4 Startling Reasons Why Oil Prices are Set to Double, AGAIN flash bulletin that was offered in the above screen shots by clicking here.
When oil prices were raging higher that page routinely pulled at least 9% conversion on cold leads … and the best part is … powerful advertorial copy like that is not commonplace on the web.
With very few people using it online, becoming proficient at creating kick ass advertorial copy gives you an incredible advantage.
So here’s what to do now …
Go through your website and ask yourself these four crucial questions.
First - Who is communicating with my prospects when they arrive at my website?
If you realize you don’t have a spokesperson, you know what to do. If you discover you’re communicating in the “royal we” on your website, as in we do this, and we do that, versus in the form of a personal conversation between your spokesperson and your website visitor with him or her at the center of the dialog, you know what to do.
Second - Are you communicating the right message? Look at the first words that catch your eye when you open up your website. Do they convey a simple, easily understood, ultra compelling promise that resonates with the dominant emotion of your target prospect? If not you know what to do. If you pass that test, keep reading.
Do you provide a preponderance of proof that your business and product or service can fulfill the promise you just made? If not, you know what to do. If you pass that test, keep scrolling and look for a singular, clearly defined, easily measurable call to action. If you don’t find one, you know what to do.
Third – Are you communicating your message to the right audience? Consider your current or planned time and money expenditures put toward to attracting people to your website and ask yourself. Am I certain these people are at the very least interested in what I have to say and sell?
If you can’t honestly answer that question with a resounding YES, curtail those expenditures. Put maximum time, effort, and priority into finding lists of proven buyers to target.
Fourth – Is your timing right? Remember, SELL proven buyers, and ENROLL interested lookers in free education.
Fifth – Are you using advertorial style copy to maximum advantage? Look at your web flow and observe whether you’re leading with problem solving information, or information about a product that solves a problem. If you’re leading with your product, you know what to do.
And finally, test, track, and measure each step in the process, and work on continuously improving your execution of these 5 fundamentals.
Resource of the week:
If you’d like to learn more about advertorial copy, I can’t think of a better way than immersing yourself in Clayton’s direct mail promotions. They are almost always advertorials.
I’ve painstakingly prepared a comprehensive package of some of his very best advertorial promotions along with detailed tutorials, and a unique 5-step process for quickly turning what you learn into second nature skills. Click here for details.
Until next time, Good Selling!
Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE
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