Anyone can write words, but not everyone can do so in a way that inspires people to take action.
Any experienced web copywriter will tell you that there’s an art to writing web content that converts sales on an online sales page (sometimes called a “squeeze” page). It starts with identifying your target audience and ends with a call to action that encourages the visitor to buy what you sell right away.
Identify and Speak to Your Target Customer
Like any business, it is crucial to write a marketing plan for a web business. A marketing plan identifies the 4Ps – the product you’re selling, the price, the place where you’re going to sell it, (which is on your website) and your promotional plan. It also gives you a clear idea of your target customer. So if you haven’t do so already, write your marketing plan.
Talk to the customer in his language, and if you’re not sure how to do that hire someone who better understands the demographic. For instance, if you want to sell skateboards and other gear for extreme sports you need to learn the lingo. Use terms like shredding and doing a Popsicle (you don’t want to know). Keep it as authentic as possible.
The Offer
Next develop your offer. What are you offering to the customer? Narrow it down to the specific items or services. Drill down both the features and benefits. Features describe the product or service while benefits tell the customer how it will make him smarter, faster, better, happier, richer, or more satisfied. Keep it as succinct as possible – you don’t have many seconds to grab the attention of fleeting online visitors.
The same is true for web store descriptions. Tell the viewer what the product will do for him (benefits) along with the description of product features.
Besides a rundown of the product or service, also include any discounts or deals you’re offering to the potential customer if they buy today. Sometimes that’s the clincher for someone who’s teeter-tottering between buying and leaving the web page.
Ask for the Sale
One mistake that some inexperienced sellers make is failing to ask for the sale. Seems simple enough, but not everyone does it. Asking for the sale is sometimes called the “call to action.” For instance, “click here to order” is a common call to action and a way to ask the reader to make a purchase. You could also try integrating your offer with the call to action, for instance, “Click Here and Use Code YLRJ34 to Get 10% Off Today.”
You could ask for the sale more than once on the page, but don’t ask too soon in your web content so that you seem too eager. Allow the reader time to take in what you’re offering first. Sometimes he’s just browsing and plans to come back later to buy after checking out other options or waiting until payday. Give him the information he needs.
Final Tips
Even one huge glaring spelling error or grammar mistake could cause you to lose a sale, so take the time to clean up your web sales page. And this doesn’t apply to something minor, like not putting a dash in between high quality. Using “their” instead of “there” could turn a stickler off. Writing in choppy English on a squeeze page is like saying you don’t really want a sale. You’re just putting up a website for fun!
One last note on this matter: other factors play into whether you convert sales, such as your overall website design and your offered price. If your price is out of this world compared to online competitors you’d have to be a writer magician to get a sale — all a visitor has to do is a quick web search. So if the content seems to be on point, take a more complete view of your online sales page and the offer to discover what might be holding you back from converting more sales.
Does Your Online Sales Page Convert Sales?
Sales Leads: Maximize Your Sales With Longer-Term Sales Leads
Want to learn how capture and nurture three-quarters of the sales lead market through effective communication efforts?
First, you must learn to slow down. Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare?
While business-to-business marketers race to snatch up the most promising and qualified short-term prospects that come in from any marketing-lead-generation initiative, nearly three-quarters of the sales leads that can convert to sales are being heavily ignored.
Why? Because salespeople are measured and paid for winning the race for short-term sales, usually causing them to focus on the easy sales opportunities and to ignore the longer term prospects. And because there usually is no process in place, the job of nurturing, managing and tracking the longer-term pipeline opportunities falls by the wayside.
This lack of a sales leads development process may be costing your organization big bucks in lost sales.
Do you have the patience to move slowly and steadily for the sales in those longer-term sales leads? Or have you, in essence, ended the race to win these latter-day sales?
Industry experts estimate that only one-quarter of those who are going to buy do so in the first six months. Yet, roughly another quarter buys within a seven- to 12-month period, another quarter buys in a 13- to 18-month period and the final quarter will purchase sometime after 18 months. If your organization’s concentration is on the first quarter, for quick selling turnaround, you are leaving the remainder of those sales leads (three out of four sales opportunities) out there for your competition to pick up.
These longer-term sales leads must be nurtured with a series of communications efforts designed to move prospects along in their buying cycles. In other words, the philosophy to getting your share of those future sales is simple-stay in sight, stay in mind and stay in the race.
Here are 4 questions to ask yourself when designing your sales lead nurturing programs:
How do we best deliver messages to the people who will influence or make the final buying decisions? How do we stay with them as they move through their consideration and buying process? How can we communicate in a way that addresses the prospects’ issues and reduces the perceived risk of buying from our company? What can we offer that will cause the prospects to engage when they are ready to move forward with their buying process?
Want to engage prospects and start a sales-winning relationship with sales leads? Here’s how:
Use a series of ongoing communications-by mail, e-mail or phone-designed to keep pace with the prospects’ information needs to make decisions about your kinds of products or services. I’ve found that, as an added benefit, sales revenue per customer is usually significantly higher for those who are included in the prospect relationship-marketing program versus those who are not.
Be sure to include multiple offers that appeal to all stages of a prospect’s buying process. For example, if prospective customers are still early in their buying process, they will be more receptive to offers for free information in the form of how-to guides, white papers or e-mail newsletters. As prospects move further along in their buying process, appropriate offers may include those that require a higher level of interest or commitment on the part of the prospect. These include webinar invitations, demonstrations and checklists, and other decision-making tools. As prospects approach the buying ready point, they will be more receptive to such offers as longer, in-depth seminars, needs assessments or meetings with and getting proposals or quotations from your sales and marketing department.
If you use effective and efficient relationship communication skills and not just focus your company’s efforts on the easy or short-term sales leads, you can pick up the three out of four sales that others are leaving on the table. And that how you to win the business marketer’s sales lead race.
Luggage Sets on Clearance
Finding luggage sets on clearance is one of the best ways you can save money on all of your luggage needs. Clearance sales are something we think about only happening once in a blue moon but the truth is that they happen more often then you might think they do. The beauty about clearance sales for luggage is that you can often pick up many expensive pieces such as designer luggage at a drastically reduced price.
The only thing that can possible be better then a luggage sale is when these particular items go on clearance. The key to any clearance sale is having realistic expectations as to what you can find. It’s hard to find and expect each and every single piece of luggage to fall into this category; the trick is to catch these pieces when you know newer or updated versions of a certain collection are about to make their debut.
The entire purpose of luggage sets on clearance is usually to clear out old inventory to make room for newer inventory. If you are able to catch the rumors of newer pieces of luggage about to come out then you can make your move or play the waiting game until you can secure exactly what you want. Another good thing to keep in mind is that online luggage stores tend to have more clearance events then traditional brick and mortar locations. If you think of how many of these luggage stores online exist then it is safe to assume you can find some great deals if you learn exactly where to look.
You shouldn’t discount a good luggage sale either because you can often find exactly what you are looking for drastically marked down into a price range that is both reasonable and comfortable for you. The rule of thumb is that you should always make the best effort to search diligently online for whatever it is you are looking for and see what kind of deals you can find. Often you will notice that your local establishments are willing to do price matches on things you can find online which will save you expensive shipping and handling as well as return fees if it comes to that. Between all of the luggage sets on clearance or luggage sets on sale you should be able to locate exactly what you are looking for at a price that is a right match for you. Don’t be afraid to do a rigorous search until you can honestly say that you are happy with the luggage you have purchased for yourself.