Archive | September, 2018

Do you want to close more sales on your website? Then you need to answer more objections. If you were selling vacuum cleaners door to door, you’d find that prospects have questions they need answered before they will buy. Those questions are actually objections, and a skilled salesman will welcome them and answer them in such as way that the customer is more than satisfied with the answers.

Of course on a website we don’t have a star salesperson closing prospects, so we’ve got to rely on content to do it for us. Usually this is in the form of a sales letter, but the typical sales letter is rather lengthy. This is good, in that they cover the main objections and do a good job of explaining the benefits. But if a customer has a particular question, making them scroll through this long sales letter to find the answer may actually lose you the sale.

Imagine a customer on the brink of making the purchase. They just have one question, something that will be the deciding factor on whether they whip out the credit card or close the page. They’re busy, and they want the answer now. And no, they don’t want to scroll all the way through your sales letter 2 or 3 times searching for the information.

Solution? A Frequently Asked Questions section. That’s right. Adding an F.A.Q. to your sales process can increase your sales – sometimes dramatically. And it doesn’t have to be on your sales page. Installing a prominent F.A.Q. link to the top and bottom of the page is effective. So is having a F.A.Q. section either within the sales letter itself or off to the side of the page.

What should be in your F.A.Q.? Two things: First, all of the information a typical customer needs to make a decision. This includes what’s included in the offer, the major benefits, the price and guarantee, what they can expect, time frame to get results, etc.

Second, your F.A.Q. should include all of the questions you repeatedly get from prospects. These might be things you wouldn’t think they would ask, but they do, such as, “Does this work outside of the U.S.? Do I need to purchase anything else to make this work?” Etc.

Think of your F.A.Q. as a living, growing thing. Any time you think of a question that should be added, do it. Any time someone asks you a good question, add it. Typically, the better your F.A.Q., the more sales you will make.

If you’re a success at almost anything, sooner or later someone is going to ask you, “Can I take you to lunch and pick your brain?” And interestingly enough, if you’re a successful marketer you’re going to get his question a LOT. So how do you answer?

It’s up to you of course. Do you want to give your information away for free? Over and over? If you’re selling “how to market” type information, it’s perfectly reasonable for you to not give away services you normally charge for. After all, no one is asking doctors, “If I take you out to lunch will you look at my mole?”

Sere’s how you can answer that question…

Let’s say you teach Internet marketing, and you’ve got both free information that you give away and also paid products. Maybe you even do marketing consulting work. Someone asks you the take-you-out-to-lunch question, and you say, “I’d be happy to set up a consulting session with you next week, I’ll email you the details.”

Then you email them a link to your free information, along with the details of your paid product or service. Then they can choose if they want to move forward or not. It’s a nice way of letting them know that you don’t give away your best work for free.

Like it or not, the balance of power in the marketplace has shifted from sellers to buyers. Buyers have more information at their fingertips and more choices available than ever before. And because of this, if you don’t have a good understanding of your customers then your marketing is going to be akin to throwing mud against the wall in the hopes that something, somewhere sticks.

The trick to knowing your customers? It’s as simple – and as difficult – as turning halfway around so that rather than viewing your business through your eyes, you’re now looking at it through your customers’ eyes.

The more attuned you are to seeing your business through your customers’ eyes, the more successful you will become. Here then are steps you can take to make this transition…

Ask yourself, “What do your customers need?” What is the customer trying to accomplish and how are you going to help them accomplish it? What’s the result they’re looking for, and why are they going to contact you to get that result?

Understand the context in which they’re seeing your marketing message. Are they getting input from friends and family? From experts? What websites are they visiting? What kinds of offers are they exposed to?

What’s important to your customer? What is your buyer thinking, feeling, doing and saying?

What’s your customers fears? What kind of pain are they in? What keeps them up at night?

What are your customers’ aspirations and goals? What are they seeking, and what do they want to achieve?

Try to get in their head and speak as they would speak and think as they would think. Rather than saying, “My customer is afraid of losing her husband if she doesn’t lose weight,” say it from her point of view. “I’m afraid (terrified?) of losing my husband if I don’t lose this ugly fat.” See the difference? Your goal is to really channel that person and find out what it feels like to be them. As you can imagine, this is going to help you tremendously with your marketing message.

How does your customer perceive you, your business and your product? Your customers want to know how your product is going to really help them, if they can trust you, if they feel comfortable buying from you. Imagine being them: “Is this going to work? Will I get the results I want? “Does this guy know what he’s doing?”

And now we come to an element almost no marketer thinks about – justification. Your customer may have to justify their purchase to a spouse or boss. They’ve got to explain their decision. “What am I going to tell my wife? How will I explain to the boss that this is the best choice?”

Next – what style of buyer is your typical customer? Are they:

– The person who wants to have all the facts and details before they make a decision?

– Spontaneous, living in the moment, disliking details, making quick decisions and afraid they’ll miss out on something great?

– Slow to make decisions, placing others needs ahead of their own, looking at the big picture?

– Or are they curious, goal-oriented, highly motivated and focused on doing whatever it takes to be competitive?

Once you understand which general type of buyer your customers tend to be, you can personalize your marketing for that particular type of buyer, all the way from how they like to receive their information to how they make that final buying decision.

And lastly, where are your customers found? Not only in terms of geographic location, but also in terms of what websites do they frequent, when do they go there, and how can you attract their attention?

The more you can get into your customer’s head, the more you can tailor your products and the marketing of those products to exactly suit your customers, the more successful you will be.

I simply cannot stress this enough: Buyers hold the cards, and until you learn to sit down at the same table with them and play by their rules, your business won’t be nearly as profitable as it could be.