If you sell services one of the biggest challenges is identifying qualified prospects who want what you have to offer and are ready to buy. It is possible to waste time on cold calls and other marketing activities that turn up little in the way of sales. Wouldn’t you rather have a steady stream of hot leads, leads that not only include contact information but give you an idea of what the prospect needs, the problem they want solved?

You have a web site, and hundreds if not thousands of people visit your site each week. If your site is working well it should be providing you with a list of hundreds of people who want to be on your marketing list each week and dozens of qualified leads, people who want you to call them right away about your services.

Use the following five tactics to generate a list of qualified prospects.

1. Collect Contact Information

Strive to collect the email address of every person who visits your web site and is interested in the problems you solve. Offer a free article, tutorial or guide as bait to motivate people to give you their email address so you can market to them again and again.

Offer prospects something they want, and place your sign-up form prominently at the top of your home page and in a side navigation bar on the other pages of your site. This should help you capture the email addresses of 10-20% of the people who visit your site each week.

2. Use Auto Responders to Collect Detailed Information

If you use a free giveaway and the briefest of sign up forms to get people to give you their email information you can market to prospects but wouldn’t it be helpful to have more information?

Use an autoresponder to send people a confirmation when they request your free article or sign up for your newsletter. In the email ask them for detailed contact information and ask them a couple of questions about what they’re interested in.

3. Get People to Tell You How You Can Help Them

Many people use the web as tool to find solutions and to hire people who can help them solve their problems. If you are a financial advisor, giving away an article on financial tips is a great way to get contact information but what you really want to do is to identify those people who have an immediate interest in your services.

Prompt people to contact you by including an inquiry form on your web site, but don’t make the mistakes made on most web sites. Too often inquiry forms are buried on the site, multiple clicks away from the pages most frequently viewed by your visitors. Include your form on high visibility pages, at the bottom of your homepage and other key pages about your services and products.

Use your inquiry form to both collect contact information and to identify the services your prospects are interested in and how you can help them. When you make your follow up calls you’ll know where to start the conversation.

When you receive completed inquiry forms you can sort through them to identify which ones are worth following up on based on the answers provided. Then pick up the phone and use these qualified leads to find new clients and grow your business.

4. Collect Feedback and Learn More About Your Prospect’s Needs

When people visit your sell pages, the web pages that describe your products and services, they’ve expressed an interest. Some will move directly to purchase, others will discover they don’t have any further interest and a large number will fall into the middle. These are people who are interested but not ready to commit.

Before visitors leave your web site sell pages, you can use exit pop up windows to collect feedback and to find out what they are looking for.

Offer a free article to motivate visitors to fill in the form. When you get these feedback forms, follow up with a call. Use this conversation to find out why they didn’t buy the service or product or to get further information about the problems they want solved. Once you have these prospects on the phone you’ll be surprised how many you can turn into clients.

5. Send out Surveys to Identify What Sells

If you have a newsletter you can leverage the trust of your readers to collect ideas of what they want to buy. If you’ve been sending out ideas and information to your target market periodically they will be more than likely to respond when you ask for their input.

Two to four times per year, send an informal survey to your subscriber base, asking for their ideas. Ask them which of your product or service ideas they like best and what they need and want. Tabulate their responses and develop the products and services they asked for.

Use these five lead collection strategies to identify prospects with a problem, one you can solve. Once you know who needs your help, its easy to follow up, close the sale and grow your business.

-

2004 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.

About The Author

The author, Marketing Coach, Charlie Cook, helps independent professionals and small business owners attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive the Free Marketing Guide and the ‘More Business’ newsletter, full of practical tips you can use at http://www.charliecook.net
ccook@charliecook.net

Share This:

 I just bought six square pieces of spongy fabric for $20 and walked away happy - “victim” of an impulse purchase.

I was at one of those big show events and walked past a demonstration booth. I even knew it was coming. About 50% of the people walking out were carrying two bright yellow cylinder-things.

As we walked toward the convention center, I told Tim (my other half), “There’s one of those guys with a microphone in there, doing a demonstration. He gets people so excited they think they have to buy those things. They over-pay then never use them.” I said this a bit smugly. I know of such things, so I wouldn’t succumb.

Yeah, right. This guy was good. So good, I came away with five ideas for increasing sales from impulse purchases. Next time you evaluate short-term sales and marketing strategies, think about and apply these five impulse purchase lessons…

Impulse Purchase Lesson 1: Demonstrate an impressive, relevant feature.

If the product is chocolate, sold at a retail checkout stand, you have no need for this one. Human nature takes over. When you are selling unrecognizable cylinder things, people need some encouragement.

You would never know it to look at them, but these things were super absorbent shammies. They can suck 8 - 10 ounces of soda out of your carpet in nothing flat AND it makes for an impressive demonstration. When the demonstrator mentioned they could dry a sweater in three hours, I was hooked. Never mind we have about two spills a year in my house and I don’t own any “lay flat to dry” sweaters.

This ability to get people to “live in the moment” is one key to a successful impulse purchase demonstration. The salesperson has a lot to do with it, of course. Repetition of an incredible, attractive feature, however, is key as well.

Think of any infomercial or “Billy Mays” product. There is always an “AMAZING!” feature - cooks in minutes, instantly removes stains, easily pulls dings from your car, etc.

2: Try to “time it right”.

Quite coincidentally, one of those semiannual spills in my house happened the day before I bumped into the yellow cylinder guy. I was thinking “If I’d had these yesterday, right now we wouldn’t have books stacked in the middle of the living room floor.” Quite by accident, he had related to something that was top-of-mind for me.

Fortunately, you do not have to rely on coincidence. At any one time, there are usually six or eight generally popular “themes” you could tie into. Better yet, your target audience is likely to have it’s own unique interests.

On the Internet, you can “time it right” by associating complementary products or services. If someone is researching monitors, for example, perhaps they need an ink cartridge for their printer.

Showing or highlighting ink cartridges on the screen along with the monitors may incite an impulse purchase. Better yet - and this is impossible unless you have order histories or detailed profiles - show them the exact cartridge they need.

3: Make it easy.

It turns out the cylinder things costs a flat $20. There was no change to mess with, no stopping to fill in order forms, and no multiple pieces of currency. As people pulled $20’s out of their pockets, the demonstrator took them and handed over the shammies in a single motion.

On the Internet, you can make it easy in two ways - ordering and delivery.

Make the order process as simple as possible. Amazon’s “Quick-Click” links are a good example of making ordering easy. Impulse purchasers simply click on the “Buy from Amazon” button and order straight off a pop-up window. You can see how it works here, in the left column under “Amazon ‘Quick-Click’ Example”: http://WebSiteMarketingPlan.com/Arts/ImpulsePurchase.htm

Easy delivery is another way to encourage impulse purchases on the Internet. Immediately downloadable digital items are an example. For physical items, quick delivery - overnight, same day, or local store pick-up - can increase sales.

4: Give an enticingly presented discount.

A roll of three shammies was $21 something, but the guy was taking care of the sales tax, which made it an even $20 (But wait, there’s more!). Because it was early he would throw in another 3-roll for no additional charge. Caught up in the moment, we nodded agreement. We were getting a deal - no sales tax plus three free.

The way a discount is presented can make a deal sound either appealing or “not such a deal”. Which sounds better?…

1. “Buy One, Get One Half Off.” OR “Buy Two and Get a 25% Discount.”
2. “3 for $5.00″ OR “$1.67 each.”
3. “40% Off Sale” OR “On Sale, $12.00 each.” (Assuming $20 item.)

Another way to encourage impulse purchases is to give a discount by bundling. Offer to reduce the price on a second, related item (Like in example #1, above.).

Online, I have seen this done with books. Some booksellers offer you a chance to save money on shipping and/or book price if you also purchase a related item.

5: “Keeping up with the Joneses.”

Instead of putting the shammies in a bag, the demonstrator rolled them up into a cylinder. This way, people at the show would see others carrying them around and wonder what they were missing.

The same concept can be applied to the Internet. I have seen messages like: “Others who bought ‘x’ also bought ‘y’” on order forms, at check out, and on product screens.

So there they are - five tactics the yellow cylinder guy used to convince me (and nearly everyone around me) to happily walk away with six shammies. By correctly applying these same techniques you can see your sales soar as well.

Share This:

It’s impossible to sell a product or service without demand – no matter how low the price or how big the discount.

Education-Based Marketing creates demand by showing the prospects why they need your products and services, how to make intelligent buying decisions, and how to best use it after they buy.

Education-Based Marketing creates a ‘halo’ surrounding everything you sell.

When you promote an individual product or service, only that particular product or service benefits. But empowering customers and prospects benefits every product and service you sell.

Information pre-sells and differentiates. It builds customer confidence and positions you as credible, knowledgeable and trusted. Information sets you apart. You become a unique, trusted advisor.

Education-Based Marketing answers questions that must be answered before prospects will buy:

1. Who benefits from the product or service?
2. What benefits does the product or service provide?
3. When is the product or service needed?
4. Where is the product or service used?
5. How do you choose and use it?

Conventional advertising is hard to create because it’s judged by its creativity – how effectively it attracts attention, how cleverly it delivers its message and how memorable it is.

Education-Based Marketing, however, is easy to create because the goal is to inform, rather than interrupt, manipulate or show-off. All you have to do is answer the five questions listed above.

Education-Based Marketing saves you money because technology has caught up with technique. You can do most of the production yourself using desktop-publishing software, saving on expensive outside production costs.

You can distribute educational messages for free as web site downloads or as e-mail attachments. Five ways to educate your prospects include:

• White Papers. These analyze challenges and trends and show how to benefit from your products and services.
• E-books. These offer in-depth, procedural descriptions that demonstrate your competence and communicate how-to-buy and how-to-use tips.
• E-mail newsletters. You can keep in constant touch with customers without addressing, printing and postage costs.
• E-courses. You can automatically deliver information in chunks over a period of several days – or even weeks.
• Teleseminars. You can also present teleseminars, which permit prospects to get to know you in an informal, interactive environment. Free line rentals are available; others cost about $25 an hour.

Education-Based Marketing works best when you keep in touch and deliver information at frequent intervals.

A monthly One-Page Newsletter, for example, is far more effective than a bimonthly four-page newsletter or a quarterly eight-page newsletter.

Customers and prospects give you their total attention when you offer information that helps them achieve their goals.

Education-Based Marketing’s effects are cumulative. The more information you share, the more your market will look forward to your messages and refer coworkers and friends to you.

Share This:

So your traffic is going through the roof yeah? It’s all becoming a bit too much? You’re getting lots of sales enquiries through your website every day? You want to send visitors away from your site for good? Just follow these five Sure Fire Ways and your site will be a tumbleweed ghost town in no time.

Way No. 1 - Clog Up Their Internet Connection

Imagine it. They’re happily surfing around on Google looking for your ‘widget’ and everything’s going smoothly. Your website appears in the first page listings (congratulations you must have employed magnet4web or another highly-esteemed website marketing company!) and they click through to you. Then their internet connection starts to clog up. It is positively groaning and creaking under the strain of downloading your homepage which has so many images on it takes over 30 seconds to appear. They look at the progress bar at the bottom of their screen. It reads ‘20%’. They look at their watch and then click on the little ‘X’ at the top right of their screen. Well done - you’ve just sent away a visitor - for good.

Way No. 2 - ‘I am not a number - I am a free man’

Along come some more visitors. They lick their lips in anticipation of viewing your widgets which they are very interested in buying - they have their credit card handy.

They land on your homepage and all is well, at first. “The benefits of choosing Widgets Inc. are as follows…” Your homepage is laden with customer-focused benefits and selling points - excellent. But wait a minute. What’s that at the bottom of the page? It’s not what I think it is, is it? Oh dear, there in black and white is one of the fundamental no-nos in web design that is guaranteed to send the message “This website was built by my dog”:

“Welcome - you are visitor number 102″

Regardless of the number (and let’s face it 80% are either you or your family!) you will be sending away people in droves. Well done - your site is becoming less busy by the day. Let’s move on to way number three..

Way No. 3 - “Help me buy from you - please…”

They’re lost. You have built the site around what seems a logical approach but your visitors are lost. You’ve given most prominence to testimonials but they just want to send you an email. They click on three, four and sometimes five pages but can’t find your phone number or email address anywhere. But it’s okay - of course they have a spare quarter of an hour to hunt through your website (that doesn’t have a site map) to find your contact details when they already have another window open with your competitor’s website - complete with email address, phone number, fax number, street address, mobile number, map and GPS coordinates..

Yes - you’ve guessed it - you’re one step closer to that ghost-town..

Way No. 4 - ‘Please Let Me Watch Intro’

Yes, admit it - you once thought the best thing on the planet was a website that started up by having a revolving animation of the company logo that exploded, span round a bit to an 80s sounding techno tune and then re-constituted itself in the centre of the screen with the immortal words:

“Click here to enter site”

Strange that - “enter site”. That’s what all your visitors were trying to do when they typed in your web address or clicked on your link but instead they were faced with Jean Michelle Jarre and some possessed bit of code that replicated the effect of someone regurgitating your business’ corporate identity over the screen. Nice. Flash intro = trash intro. Use em (the intros) and lose em (the visitors).

Way No. 5 -”I am five years’ old - I like things that flash”

One day in the future a law will be passed that will make it illegal to use scrolling text, flashing images, rotating heads, animated animals and boucning cursors on a website. Your website is here to do business. It is supposed to be a serious tool in your marketing armoury. It should be used to convey useful information to your visitors and convince them that you are worth doing business with. Dress it up with flashing icons, swirling graphics, flashing logos and spinning pictures and the merry-go of visual delights will just make your visitors sick. They will leave your glitzy fairground never to return..

Share This:

This could be the most amazing article to ever be released as you read this please keep in mind that the tips I am about to share with you are from my experience with my own successful website HaileysComet Weekly Ezine.

(1)List Building: One of the most POWERFUL ways to promote any website is to have your own list to promote with. This is something that you have heard many times and it is the first thing you should be doing to start your way down the road to success. Building a list is not something that is hard nor is it costly. There are many ways that you can do this one would be to start your own newsletter or safelist. This is something that is easy to do and it is very very profitable.

(2)Ezine Advertising: Still the most powerful advertising that you can get on the internet. Ezine’s have subscribers that are looking for ways to make money or increase their incomes. Solo Ads are the best! They are sent to the publishers data base by their self with no other adverts, Also TopSponsor Ads are a great source of advertising because it is the first thing the readers will see when they start reading the Newsletter Issue for that day.

(3)SearchEngine Advertising: Now with Affiliate programs you do not have much control over the way that the webpage is built. So in order to get your affiliate program ranked in searchengines is to use a Frames Page Template. This is a text template that can be put in HTML to mirror your affilate page with your affiliate link. This way you can add your own meta tags that will help you get a higher page rank.

(4)Leads And Traffic: This can be very responsive advertising because you can target your market of buyers, Alot of time these lead companys are using FFA and Classified Ads lead pages to get email addresses of people that are looking for ways to make a income. Good Lead companys use a Double Optin Process to capture leads of people that are looking for ways to get advertising or affiliate programs to join. You can do a search for Leads and Traffic sites through your searchengines like google and excite.

(5)PPC (Pay-Per-Click): PPC advertising can be some of the best ways to advertise any business on the internet. There are many of PPC’s that you can place your advertising with. Just do a search with google and excite and you will find that they are many of them to pick from. These PPC’s can drive all types of targeted traffic to your website or affiliate program for pennys on the dollar. You can also own your own PayPerClick system and send traffic to your site and at the same time use it to build your own targeted list!

The above information is what has pushed HaileysComet Weekly Ezine to the success that it has become and it will work for you as well. 90% of all people that are successful in marketing and advertising have the above or started out with the tools that it takes to make a living online. If you are wanting to jump start your success there is one tool out there that you can use that is proven to pull in loads of cash and help you build a business with the profit you make.

The product is called The Total Resale Package. It has every tool that you need to start,run, and succeed with your very own business. You can pick up a copy of the Total Resale Package here. http://www.haileyscometweekly.com/total-resale/

This is just one of the tools that will put you in the life that you want. It works for me and so many others that are just starting out and I share it with everyone. You can learn more about minisites and the above information with out any cost by coming to my site at the link below and signup for our weekly newsletter. It is packed with some of the most helpful hints and tips to get you started and keep you going in your venture to freedom!

Good Luck In Your Quest!

Share This: