By Corte Swearingen
Every business owner with a website has some particular goal for visitors. It can be as simple as signing up for a newsletter or as complicated as completing a large purchase.
Whatever the conversion goal is for your website, there are three basic strategies you should follow.
Strategy #1: Find Out What Your Visitors Want
As a business owner, it can be easy to convince yourself you know what your customer wants. But that assumption can prove false many times over.
The only way to really find out your customers wants and needs is to simply ask them. If you already have an electronic newsletter, then send out a link to an external survey in your next issue. Ask questions that will help uncover the need for your product or service idea, and be sure to offer an incentive for your customers and prospects to complete the survey.
If you don't have the ability to create online surveys within your website, than try a 3rd party service like Survey Monkey.
Another great way to uncover potential demand for a product or service is to see how many people are searching for that particular topic. This involves investing in a good keyword research tool. Yes, there are free keyword tools out there, but if you own a business and are serious about utilizing Internet marketing, than you really must subscribe to a good keyword research tool. I recommend wither Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery or Wordze.
Researching keywords will allow you to identify high demand keywords with low competition, giving you the ability to rank high for these keywords in the major search engines. Without knowing the best keywords to target, you will have to rely on luck to carry the day. And you may have already heard, luck has a peculiar habit of favoring those who don't depend on it!
Strategy #2: Create a Compelling Landing Page
Your product can be a hard good, a service or a downloadable report. Whatever it is, you need to find a way to convey the benefits of this item in a direct and simple way. I recommend you create a focused landing page for each of your products or services.
An effective landing page:
- Concentrates on a single compelling message
- Has a clear call-to-action
- Captures contact information
- Avoids distractions
- Contains bonus offers
- Contains testimonials
Today, it is quite common to see landing pages existing by themselves with no real content-based website wrapped around them. This strategy forces you to rely heavily on pay-per-click to drive traffic to the landing page. I recommend you leverage your own free organic traffic and only use pay-per-click as a supplement, if at all
Strategy #3: Test Your Landing Page
How do you determine the best price for your product? How do you decide the best photos and images to use in order to increase conversion rates? What's the best headline to grab your visitor's attention?
The answer is - I have no idea. But there's one way to find out - test, test and test again!
The easiest way to test multiple parameters within your landing page is to use the Google Website Optimizer. This free service allows you to perform A/B split testing. An A/B split test allows you to test one page parameter against another in order to determine which yields a higher conversion rate.
For example, suppose you're unsure about how to price your product. One way to zero in on a price that yields the greatest profits is to test. To test three different pricing levels, you would simply upload three versions of your landing page. Each page would contain a price you wish to test. The Google Website Optimizer would then randomly serve up one of the three landing pages to each unique visitor on your site. These pages would be served evenly and conversion measurements calculated for each one. At the end of the testing session, you would get a summary of conversion results to determine which pricing structure brought in the highest profits.
The Google Website Optimizer is free and one of the most powerful tools you can have in your marketing arsenal. Use it to test headlines, pictures, captions, bonus offers and anything else that affects conversions.
Taken together, these three tips will help maximize your website landing page conversion rates.
Corte Swearingen is the creator of the Integral Marketing System and CEO of SmallBiz Marketing Tips. For additional information on landing page strategies, visit Website Marketing Campaign Tips.
Showing posts with label Strategy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Strategy. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Powerful Marketing For Free - Strategies
By Leonardo Wood
Marketing doesn't have to be expensive, in fact some of the greatest and most powerful forms of marketing cost no money to implement. If you are willing to spend some time working on your marketing it will make a real difference to your business.
When times are hard the phone stops ringing, so what are you going to do about it? Give marketing for free a try before you start sacking people.
Here's a list of ways you can market your business for free:
Call your previous customers - They are the easiest people to sell your products and services to.
Networking - Get out there, meet people and spread the word, if you are quiet you may feel deflated, but you just need to get out there and promote yourself.
Stop Advertising - I don't mean stop advertising altogether I just mean stop advertising in the places where you are not sure if its working or not and spend the money you save on testing other forms of marketing and advertising.
PR - Get in the media talking about what you know best, your trade or business etc. You are an expert on what you do and the media will feature you if you have something of interest to say.
Check out the stories already in the papers etc to see if you can piggy back any of the stories that are already in the news.
The Papers need stories and there is no reason why you can't get your business some free publicity.
Upselling - This is a great FREE way of getting more from your sales, at the exact point that someone buys from you they need to be offered something else which will increase the amount of money they spend with you.
You could offer a more expensive version of the original product or maybe an extra service that compliments the original purchase.
What else can you offer your customers at the point of purchase?
Emails - Are you regularly emailing your previous customers and potential customers? It will help you get more work and it costs nothing to implement.
Testing - You need to test and measure your existing marketing and advertising to see if its working or not, it costs nothing to test and it helps to eliminate ineffective advertising and marketing.
You need to keep track of where your calls come from, how many leads are generated from a particular ad, how many sales are converted and how much profit was made as a direct result of each ad.
If you do not have the answers to these questions how are you going to know whether or not you are throwing your money in the bin.
There is no excuse for not implementing the strategies above. Go for it!
Discover very easy to implement marketing and internet marketing strategies to recession proof your business with this free E-Book from Marketing Man. Marketing Tips for Small Businesses
Marketing Man has hundreds of Marketing Tips to help you recession proof your business. If you run a small business visit his website today to get instant free marketing tips to help you fight the credit crunch. Marketing Man
Marketing doesn't have to be expensive, in fact some of the greatest and most powerful forms of marketing cost no money to implement. If you are willing to spend some time working on your marketing it will make a real difference to your business.
When times are hard the phone stops ringing, so what are you going to do about it? Give marketing for free a try before you start sacking people.
Here's a list of ways you can market your business for free:
Call your previous customers - They are the easiest people to sell your products and services to.
Networking - Get out there, meet people and spread the word, if you are quiet you may feel deflated, but you just need to get out there and promote yourself.
Stop Advertising - I don't mean stop advertising altogether I just mean stop advertising in the places where you are not sure if its working or not and spend the money you save on testing other forms of marketing and advertising.
PR - Get in the media talking about what you know best, your trade or business etc. You are an expert on what you do and the media will feature you if you have something of interest to say.
Check out the stories already in the papers etc to see if you can piggy back any of the stories that are already in the news.
The Papers need stories and there is no reason why you can't get your business some free publicity.
Upselling - This is a great FREE way of getting more from your sales, at the exact point that someone buys from you they need to be offered something else which will increase the amount of money they spend with you.
You could offer a more expensive version of the original product or maybe an extra service that compliments the original purchase.
What else can you offer your customers at the point of purchase?
Emails - Are you regularly emailing your previous customers and potential customers? It will help you get more work and it costs nothing to implement.
Testing - You need to test and measure your existing marketing and advertising to see if its working or not, it costs nothing to test and it helps to eliminate ineffective advertising and marketing.
You need to keep track of where your calls come from, how many leads are generated from a particular ad, how many sales are converted and how much profit was made as a direct result of each ad.
If you do not have the answers to these questions how are you going to know whether or not you are throwing your money in the bin.
There is no excuse for not implementing the strategies above. Go for it!
Discover very easy to implement marketing and internet marketing strategies to recession proof your business with this free E-Book from Marketing Man. Marketing Tips for Small Businesses
Marketing Man has hundreds of Marketing Tips to help you recession proof your business. If you run a small business visit his website today to get instant free marketing tips to help you fight the credit crunch. Marketing Man
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Marketing Automation and Business to Consumer Strategies
By Paddu Govindaraj
Marketing automation is a popular method of using modern information technology tools and internet to automate the marketing process. Marketing planning, budgeting, interaction and management can all be automated to a great degree. Automating the marketing processes can boost productivity by making routine processes out of an otherwise long and tedious manual process, and add more possibilities to the mix, as well. Automating your consumer marketing strategies can have a serious positive impact on your customer base, and help you manage your time much more efficiently.
Effectively marketing to new customers and existing clients are both crucial to the longevity of your business. Consumers are more interested in finding the information they need quickly and efficiently, and aren't willing to waste time waiting for a response. Effective marketing automation tools can respond to consumers immediately, giving them exactly what they're looking for to pique their interest until they can get to a live person.
Perhaps the most appealing aspect of marketing automation is that it can deliver personalized answers instantaneously, something not even a marketing expert can do. Automated marketing can be customized to your company's specific needs, and be used to give certain responses to certain inquiries. Used correctly, consumers may not even be aware that they aren't dealing with an actual service representative.
Automated marketing can also help you maintain and manage your leads and prospects much more effectively. This affords you the opportunity to track and respond to the sales inquiries quickly and efficiently, and flag important leads for further review. This can save you time and money in the process, by saving you from wasting effort on weak leads. Marketing automation can help you weed out leads that aren't worth pursuing, or that don't need you to focus as much attention.
With an automated marketing software system, you can keep your entire team of employees on the same level with regards to your marketing leads. The chances of leads being accidentally ignored, or contacted multiple times, will be drastically reduced by using a good software system. Employees will be able to manage all of your company's leads from one central place on the web, and reduce the amount of time they waste, which will boost your marketing efficiency and save you money at the same time.
Marketing automation solutions are available with a wide variety of features to meet your company's specific needs. It has also become increasingly affordable within the past few years, making it an excellent investment and a great way to improve your current consumer strategies without making a big change to your marketing practices. Marketing automation will allow you to maintain continuous contact with your leads, help you better retain your current customers, and show you where you can make improvements in your marketing techniques. Even the most seasoned marketing expert can benefit from the features that marketing automation has to offer. For the best results, just remember that marketing automation software is by no means a replacement for your current consumer marketing (also referred as B2C) strategies, but rather, a way to increase your efficiency and ease the current struggles that many businesses deal with in regards to sales and marketing operations every day.
Paddu Govindaraj, architect of LeadPro, specializes in Email Marketing, Auto-responder, Lead Management and Marketing Automation Software solutions, tools and resources for Small and Medium Businesses to embrace online marketing. He provides design, consulting, customization and implementation services in Email Marketing and Lead Management areas. He blogs on Sales Lead Management Best Practices, Web Analytics and Email Marketing subjects.
Please take a look at the features of LeadPro to see how it will help you grow your business by visiting the LeadPro Lead Management and Email Marketing services website. Request a free consultation and find out how to use LeadPro marketing automation tool for capturing leads, nurturing prospects using email marketing, and automate lead tracking processes for your business.
Marketing automation is a popular method of using modern information technology tools and internet to automate the marketing process. Marketing planning, budgeting, interaction and management can all be automated to a great degree. Automating the marketing processes can boost productivity by making routine processes out of an otherwise long and tedious manual process, and add more possibilities to the mix, as well. Automating your consumer marketing strategies can have a serious positive impact on your customer base, and help you manage your time much more efficiently.
Effectively marketing to new customers and existing clients are both crucial to the longevity of your business. Consumers are more interested in finding the information they need quickly and efficiently, and aren't willing to waste time waiting for a response. Effective marketing automation tools can respond to consumers immediately, giving them exactly what they're looking for to pique their interest until they can get to a live person.
Perhaps the most appealing aspect of marketing automation is that it can deliver personalized answers instantaneously, something not even a marketing expert can do. Automated marketing can be customized to your company's specific needs, and be used to give certain responses to certain inquiries. Used correctly, consumers may not even be aware that they aren't dealing with an actual service representative.
Automated marketing can also help you maintain and manage your leads and prospects much more effectively. This affords you the opportunity to track and respond to the sales inquiries quickly and efficiently, and flag important leads for further review. This can save you time and money in the process, by saving you from wasting effort on weak leads. Marketing automation can help you weed out leads that aren't worth pursuing, or that don't need you to focus as much attention.
With an automated marketing software system, you can keep your entire team of employees on the same level with regards to your marketing leads. The chances of leads being accidentally ignored, or contacted multiple times, will be drastically reduced by using a good software system. Employees will be able to manage all of your company's leads from one central place on the web, and reduce the amount of time they waste, which will boost your marketing efficiency and save you money at the same time.
Marketing automation solutions are available with a wide variety of features to meet your company's specific needs. It has also become increasingly affordable within the past few years, making it an excellent investment and a great way to improve your current consumer strategies without making a big change to your marketing practices. Marketing automation will allow you to maintain continuous contact with your leads, help you better retain your current customers, and show you where you can make improvements in your marketing techniques. Even the most seasoned marketing expert can benefit from the features that marketing automation has to offer. For the best results, just remember that marketing automation software is by no means a replacement for your current consumer marketing (also referred as B2C) strategies, but rather, a way to increase your efficiency and ease the current struggles that many businesses deal with in regards to sales and marketing operations every day.
Paddu Govindaraj, architect of LeadPro, specializes in Email Marketing, Auto-responder, Lead Management and Marketing Automation Software solutions, tools and resources for Small and Medium Businesses to embrace online marketing. He provides design, consulting, customization and implementation services in Email Marketing and Lead Management areas. He blogs on Sales Lead Management Best Practices, Web Analytics and Email Marketing subjects.
Please take a look at the features of LeadPro to see how it will help you grow your business by visiting the LeadPro Lead Management and Email Marketing services website. Request a free consultation and find out how to use LeadPro marketing automation tool for capturing leads, nurturing prospects using email marketing, and automate lead tracking processes for your business.
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