Every day someone writes and asks me to “look at their site.” What they are wanting is a critique of their design, sales process, etc. Almost always there are a couple things they are missing that would greatly enhance the selling power of the site. This week I want to write a quick review of a couple of those things and even give you a file folder with some sample pages in it to show you how it all works.
Don’t you hate pop-ups? You go to a site and you are blasted with window after window advertising everything from casinos to mini-cameras.
Even though I hate pop-ups when I am surfing, as a web- marketer, I love them.
Pop-ups are one of the keys to making REAL MONEY rather than just surviving on the web. Here’s why:
You spend a great deal of time and effort to get a visitor to your site. If they leave your site without buying, then you have spent all that time and effort just to get ONE SHOT at selling them your product or service. That makes the cost of acquiring a new customer very high.
If you greet your visitors with a pop-up offering some kind of free gift for visiting your site, one that they have to give their email address to get, you will have as many as 30% of your visitors give you their address. Once you have their email address you can automatically follow-up on them with autoresponders and newsletters until they purchase.
A well-written and timed autoresponder sequence will result in as many as 25% of those people becoming your customers over time. Let’s see how that breaks down in terms of numbers:
Cost to get 1000 first-time visitors to your site: $ 100.
WITHOUT POP-UPS/AUTORESPONDERS:
10 buy, leaving a cost/sale of about $10.
WITH POP-UPS/AUTORESPONDERS:
10 buy during the initial visit. 300 give their email address (30%). 75 buy as a result of the autoresponder sequence (25%).
Total sales of 85, leaving a cost/sale of just slightly over $1.
That is a HUGE difference. Do you see why so many sites use those annoying pop-ups? Most of us couldn’t survive on the web without them!
Now, there is a debate. There are those who believe that your visitor should only see your pop-up upon entering your site. Then there are those who believe that you should pop every time your visitor comes to your main page. There is no clear cut answer, but here is the reasoning behind both:
THE ONE TIME POPPERS believe that you will alienate your visitors if every time they return to your main page they see the same message. You don’t want to alienate anyone.
THE EVERY TIME POPPERS believe that the more times your visitors see your pop-up, the more chances they have to sign up for your newsletter.
I am in the second group.
Because of the way that my sales page is designed (you can see it at http://www.all-in-one-business) once the visitor “lands” on the page, he is never directed away from it until he either leaves or buys. As such, he only “really” sees the pop-up once. But, if he clicks over to something else and then returns to my site, he sees it again. It works pretty well and I have NEVER had a complaint about the pop on my main site.
Now, even if you have a pop-up, you also need a sound sales process. In the sales page you have to create URGENCY TO BUY.
Urgency to buy is seen all over television commercials– especially here in the US. “Order in the next 10 minutes and you will also receive this bonus…” An effective sales site does the same thing–it gives you an urgency to buy.
Now, there are several ways that you can create urgency to buy. First, you can write into your sales copy something like “limited time offer” or even “offer good only until June 1st”. That means changing your page, etc. once the date has arrived, which can be tricky.
A better way to do it is to automate the whole process.
Now I am going to let you in on a secret…you can ALWAYS get my course at a 20% or so discount. No one pays retail.
But, on my site, it tells the visitor that they can get my course at a discount, “If they order by midnight tonight” and it automatically puts in that day’s date.
That handy little piece of script is the difference between selling one visitor in 250 and one in 100.
Now, I am not going to get into all the details of how this works…but I have put together some sample pages with a simple pop-up
A final, and simple, little trick is to learn to pop-up your links in a NEW WIDOW rather than having people leave your sales page.
For instance, on my main sales page you will see that I have several links–a privacy policy, a legal page, testimonials, etc. Once I get someone on my page, I want them to STAY there until they buy. So, when you click on one of those links, each one will open in a new window. That way the visitor never leaves my sales page and gets distracted by something else.
This is such a simple little piece of code that you will be amazed that not everyone does it. I have included it in the download file.
Well, I hope this helps you market and make money just a little bit better. Next week I am going to review a FREE service that allows you to put forms on your site without the hassle of learning CGI. Combined with today’s article you should be able to put together a site that will make you some REAL money.
To download the file with all the samples and explanations on how they work, go to:
http://all-in-one-business.com/tech.html
(And, yes, you WILL be asked for your email address!)
Kevin Bidwell is owner of
http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/cg-bin/at.cgi?a=274293
Kevin just finished a complete report on building a passive
income. Grab your copy here:
http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/cg-bin/at.cgi?a=274293&e=/pi
