Did you know that 95% of coaching businesses fail because their owners don’t pay enough attention to sales copy?
Whether you are a professional speaker, coach, or entrepreneur, every business wants more clients. Even more, they want to entice clients to continue an ongoing relationship. Your online sales copy matters. Here’s 10 top ways to get new clients and keep your present ones:
1. Make sure your Web site, email, or phone sales messages serve your potential client’s needs and desires.
When we don’t convey our convincing message of why they should choose us, we lose them. Ask yourself these questions, “What does my Web site say about me? Does its messages take my readers by the collar and convince them to read more?”
Do your words inspire your readers? Will they know what they should know to arrive at an educated decision? Will they be eager to contact you and buy?
2. Check and correct your links on your home page and through out your sales letters.
We lose many potential clients when we don’t make it easy for them to order or contact us. If your links don’t work, discouraged by your disorganization, your possible clients will leave and try some other service.
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made is not checking my links or having my web master check them regularly to see if they are clear and working. Not only did these confuse my wonderful coaching potential clients, it cost me sales.
3. Create and send a targeted ezine regularly.
If you are a professional counselor, consultant, coach, speaker, seminar leader, author or other business professional, you need to develop and offer one of the most powerful Online marketing tools around–the eNewsletter or ezine. Two best advantages about this choice are that it is totally free, and you can send it directly from your email address. When you send anything that is opt-in (your subscribers agree to receiving it) you serve only those who want and need your information.
4. Give your potential clients information that benefits them.
If you don’t give your potential clients and customers something that benefits them, such as tips, articles, resourcesand special offers, you miss attracting new clients. Subscribers want information and they love a bargain. Your ezine will offer all former clients, present ones, and potential ones particular how-tos and other useful free information. In turn, your subscribers will become your loyal supporters. After 5-7 exposures, many of them will buy.
5. Acknowledge your subscribers.
Let them know how much you appreciate them. When they participate in a survey or give you feedback, thank them with a gift, perhaps a free special report or free answer to any one question they may have. Staying in touch with your groups means they see your name often, and when the time is right, will look to you for either your service or product.
Remember, it’s not the numbers of subscribers that count; it’s the targeted ones who want what you have. Build your list by connecting with your best potential audience. The more targeted your subscribers, the more chance you have of selling your services.
Tap into your creative side, either with a friend, associate, or an Internet Marketing coach who knows this uncharted territory–the language of sales. Part two of this article is available.
6. Create your Web Pages With Important Key Words.
Think about what people will type in when they do a search for your service. Make sure you include those key words and phrases on you home page and every other page. The search engines look for these to place you. The more appropriate key words, the higher you go in the search engines. Key words put me in the top three places for Google and 35 other search engines.
For instance if like me, you offer Internet marketing, these words will work: online marketing, free articles, increase online sales, increase profits, copy writing, sales letter, coach marketing, speaker promotion, links, web site marketing, internet promotion, coach marketing services, increase ezine subscribers, increase targeted web traffic, web site headlines, benefits and features for client, features, internet tips, book coaching, Judy Cullins, San Diego, eBook marketing.
Many Web sites suggest you always include your name, location, and business category. Many clients hired me by looking for a local coach.
7. Create Benefit-Driven Home Page and Sales Letter Headlines
The number one mistake we make when we put up our first Web site without the direction of a professional copy writing coach is that we don’t give them a reason to buy.
If you pay attention to your headlines on your home page and on your sales letters to include a few key words and the specific benefit your client will receive, you will start seeing an upsweep of sales.
Search engines look for these key words and will use them to up your listing number.
Are your homepage headlines so powerful and convincing they force your client to click to your sales letter? Do they describe benefits your potential client can see, hear and feel? Or are they wishy-washy saying something like: Welcome to my site. My bio is…. My mission is…. or “click here” to subscribe to my fabulous ezine?
Create a variety of headlines that have marketing pizzazz. They can be in the form of a question, a command, a shocking statement, but they are all full of specific benefits.
Which is better, “Quadruple your Online Income in Five Months with Free Articles,” “Ten Steps to Online Marketing” or “Increase your Coaching Clients and Get Them to Choose You Over and Over?”
8. Make it easy for your clients to buy.
Some people hate to buy Online because they fear the security of their credit card information. Give them these options: an order form they can print and either send by regular mail or fax to your free 800 number, your toll free number, and instant downloading your product throught ClickBank or PayPal.
9. Give Up What’s Not Working-Follow a Success Model
Don’t make your home page a virtual brochure with your qualifications and offerings. It should contain only “Passion Headlines” that pull sales, one outstanding testimonial near the top, your ezine offer, and a few questions from your reader’s point of view–all leading to yours sales message.
Include one sentence about you on the home page. People don’t care about you; they want solutions for their challenges.
Model your web pages after a successful Coach’s pages. Her pages made 30X the original $75 a month sales in just eight months. Why? One reason–her headlines seduced Web visitors to go to the sales message on her coaching services and eBooks.
The original first month’s profits–$75. At the end of six months, they added up to $2250. Amazing to some to grasp, but totally possible for others who are willing to learn the Online marketing game. And, those numbers kept climbing the next year to over $3000 a month. She not only reached the top three places in Google and 35 other search engines, her Web site URL was listed on over 950 other Web sites with a link back to where she offered her coaching and eBooks. If you wonder why she was so successful, and all her efforts didn’t cost a dime, email the author for a free report on Online Promotion.
10. Realize the power of copywriting with pizzazz.
If your Web site has been up more than a few months, and you haven’t gotten enough business, consider reconstructing it so it pulls sales.
Apply these five writing exercises before you waste your time and money on a Web master. Some know sales language; some are techies. Get the right service first.
— Know your specific audience, their needs and desires. This profile needs to include their problems, interests, values, resistance, and how they like to receive a service. Include how your service can benefit them specifically.
— Use a worksheet to preplan your Web site. You must include your purpose. Do you want to make money, gain credibility, share your unique message? List each product and service in the order of importance. Then, focus your Online promotion on only one at a time. When I realized that my coaching services made up 2/3 of my Online income, I stepped up a special “soft sales” message I use both via email and phone to attract the right clients to me. Within two months, my one-on-one clients grew to 17.
— List at least 10 benefits your service provides. Discover the five best benefits. Too many coaches and speakers don’t know how to talk sales language for their services. They mistake features for benefits. Features don’t sell, benefits do. You can use this list for your 60-second “tell and sell,” your Web sales letter, and your email subject lines.
— List 10 features too. Features explain your service. These are features:
–You offer phone sessions for the convenience of the client -you email back up support and information to help solve a particular problem -you take quick phone questions in between coaching sessions-you give a specific strategy session to accomplish a client’s goal
— Connect your five best benefits with your best features-the how you will accomplish the benefits. For example, “Finish your short book in 30 days with two methods that help you write each chapter fast and include the 7 “hot-selling points” to make it a great seller.” Many books include features on the back cover: 5 Tips to, 7 Steps to, 9 Ways to. These features need the benefit added so potential clients or customers will have a reason to buy.
Tap into your creative side, either with a friend, associate, or an Internet Marketing coach who knows this uncharted territory–the language of sales.
Judy Cullins 2004 All Rights Reserved.
*Previously published at ArticleCity.com
Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in people’s lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Author of 10 eBooks including “Write your eBook Fast,” “How to Market your Business on the Internet,” and “Create your Web Site With Marketing Pizzazz,” she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, The Book Coach Says…and Business Tip of the Month at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 145 free articles. Email her at Judy@bookcoaching.com.
