i'm facing the same challenges with expanding my business over the internet. we're able to generate a small amount of daily traffic, but none of the customers are making any purchases. therefore it seems that the best approach would be to increase our customer base. would that help increase our chances of someone making a purchase? our market is 23 - 55 year old men and women.<
What you're talking about are conversion rates. You have visitors to your website, but your website is not converting them into customers. In other words, they're visiting but not buying.
More traffic is always good, but that may not be your answer.
Selling on the web, your main obstacle is the barrier of trust. You have to get your prospect across the trust barrier before they will be willing to buy from you on the web.
There are many ways to do this. Selling on the web often involves a series of steps. Each step increases trust until a sale is made. With some low cost, impulse-buy products these steps can all happen during the same visit. Higher cost items, particulary services, have a higher trust barrier and take more steps, as many as seven and multiple site visits or other web-based points of contact. Your first purchase at Amazon.com, in the early days, took a certain leap of faith across that trust barrier. Today Amazon has established trust with many people and sales low like water.
To sell successfully on the web, every element of your website and all your other marketing efforts need to increase trust. Frequently this is done by offering a free sample. And not just offering, because everyone offers free samples, but really selling that free sample. It doesn't have to be a physical product, it can be free information. But this is a good first step in establishing trust.
On my website, I sell web marketing and design services. I help people get results with their websites and web-centered marketing campaigns. Since this is a service with enormous competition, I have a high trust barrier. For a limited time (because I can only handle so many clients), I am offering a free website audit that analyzes a website's design, copywriting, content and offers and gives advice about what to change to improve sales results.
You may be someone who is interested in that type of offer. It seems to suit your needs. And why not? It's free. What do you have to lose? But first my website needs to sell you on my capabilities. After all, what good is free information if it's wrong or worthless? So, if you go to my website:
http://www.studio525.com
and you find that you like what you see, then you may feel comfortable responding to my offer for free advice to help your website get better results. If I deliver something you find of value and you like the way I did it, then we're more than half way over the trust barrier and on our way to a sale.
Now these steps can be much shorter with an impulse-item and can all take place on the website itself over the course of one visit. There are many ways to establish credibility and guide your visitor across the trust barrier, just as there are many ways to create an offer so compelling that few can resist it.
But these are the thing I get paid to help people with, so I've probably said enough.
I hope it's been helpful.
Peter
Peter Cutler
studio 525
We don't just create websites.
We create results.
http://www.studio525.com
in response to: RE.Manager
