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How to Sell Online
Author:
Mark Brassington
Online
you have access to far more customers this means that
you have to target the customer more precisely. You must
be familiar with the customer type that you are selling
to and be clear why they would be interested in the
benefits that your product offers. You also need to much
clearer about the product that you are selling, because
again customers searching on the internet can narrow
down the company to the provider that best approaches
their needs.
Know your customer
[Point one]
If your business is selling then you will know your
customers well. However for successful online selling
you must narrow this perspective and choose a particular
segment to target.
Consider how you can segment and divide your target web
customers. For example you may be able to do it by age
or by geographic region or both. Remember on the web you
must start by selling to a specific targeted audience,
so here we are not talking about all your customers,
just those you wish to reach over the web.
As an example supposing you are a shoe retailer and wish
to expand online sales. Realising that younger customers
are more likely to buy online you target them. This then
leads to your opening page the home page displaying the
latest trainers and your advertising strategy maybe
incorporating some online game retailers. So your
typical brick and mortar customer may well be a middle
aged person, but your targeted online customer maybe
teenagers.
Know your product
[Point two]
You must know what benefits your product offers to your
target customers. List the benefits and then list them
in order of importance. Remove from the list those that
are contradictory or dilute the other benefits. In other
words if you are selling the cheapest do not also list
the most well made as this may plant doubt in the
customers mind. Make sure you are selling one thing only
and now you are clear about the benefits you are ready
for your web pages.
[Point three]
Target your products for web sales that are most
suitable for this. Many products do not sell well on the
internet, but others sell like hot cakes. Consider
factors other than simply the despatch cost and remember
the target audience as discussed above. There is no
point in trying putting children's shoes on the home
page because they are the lightest, when you have
decided that the targeted audience that you are
advertising to is teenagers.
Web pages
[Point four]
Have a page for each benefit and additional pages for
other things that you wish to achieve. For example a
page to collect email addresses. Make sure that each
page does one thing only.
The theme of simplicity rings through this document.
Make sure that your customer is never confused. That you
are never more than one click away from the home page.
Keep the navigation system in the same place on all
pages and only have two navigation systems if you really
have to. (Navigation systems are the buttons you click
to get from page to page on a web site).
Keep the bells and whistles down to areas that concern
your target for each page. For example do not have fancy
peripheral graphics and flashing images. These will
simply detract from your pages purpose.
[Point five]
Remember each page has a specific purpose, usually to
highlight a particular product benefit. Try to get
products on the front page rather than fancy graphics
and at all cost avoid graphic only entrance pages. The
text on your home page is the most important on your
whole site. The first paragraph must capture interest
and explain clearly the benefits of your product in
order to keep the attention of the fickle viewer. When
browsing viewers may have more than one window open and
if they lose interest they will simply click away.
Products
[Point six]
You knew we would get there in the end. Make sure that
your product can be clearly viewed in the pictures. Make
sure you have pictures of all your products and that
they are professional and well presented. If you want
the customer to part with their cash they must be able
to see what they are buying.
Divide your products into your customer segments and the
benefits they offer. Peripherals of interest to two
segments can be included twice. Special offers can
remain in all sections or can be targeted to the
specific section they are displayed in.
If you really can't get your products on your front
page, good product pictures must be viewed as soon as
you click into the product section, which as we already
know is one click from the home page.
[Point seven]
Once the products appear they must be well displayed and
the pictures must expand if clicked on. The more
expensive the product the more pictures and even video
may be required. Remember if you were going t part with
a serious amount of money online you would want
reassurance that the product was not just as described
but perfectly formed and suited for purpose.
Your Website
[Point eight]
Work with your website and let your website work with
you not against you. Sounds stupid but how many times
have you closed down a web site for a company you were
interested in simply because it was so poorly designed
you were lost and frustrated. I am constantly amazed by
the number of times I have to use the site specific
search engine to find a product or service that the
company sells or in the case of one company three days
ago I had to use the search engine to find its primary,
yes its main product! Not only was it not on the front
page it was hidden in the site.
More commonly websites are simply ignored. They are
perfect when they are launched. But when a customer
views the site two years later they see old adverts and
pictures of products that have now been modified.
Customers pick up on this lack of care immediately and
assume that this applies to all areas of your business
and indeed why shouldn't they. If you are featuring last
years models on your website then they will put you down
as last years company. You would be better without a
website.
[Point nine]
The fact that are your most powerful and fantastic and
invaluable source of marketing information about exactly
what your customers want is available from your website
is ignored by most businesses. Information on what key
words customers are using to find your site is quite
simply the most important information you can have for
highlighting marketing trends. Your website may well be
separated into pages which are organised by product
type. Your statistics can tell you which pages are the
most popular and which pages are ignored. This
information is quite simply gold dust and once you get
used to working with it you can introduce onto pages the
products that you most want information on. You also of
course introduce onto the front page products that
customers spend the most time on. You also of course
check the information on pages that customers leave your
site from without purchasing a product.
[Point ten]
You can collect contact information from many of your
key customers simply by offering them a free download,
prizes for completing a survey, better rates, more
information. Simply as soon as they log into your
website you can gain their email address. As soon as you
have a mailing list you can mail customers that are
actually customers, not just people who you would like
to be customers and achieve response rates in excess of
10% from your mailings.
Not only that you if you offer targeted offers of
interest to your customers you can bring them back to
your site before they buy from your competitors.
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