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Casual Articles - Meeting Your Targeted Audience's Wants and Needs
Whenever I speak with new salesreps and entrepreneurs, I hear a similar frustration: "I call a lot of prospects each week, most of which are really hard to get a hold of. When I do get someone on the line, I am thrilled just to talk to them. I sell a great product, yet very few of these people actually buy, even though they sound very interested." So I usually ask them, "Did you get a commitment?" The answer is... well you can guess the answer. Without a commitment, you are left hanging as to whether or not the sale is really moving forward. Now this doesn't happen only with new salespeople. It happens with experienced salespeople also. I see experienced salespeople going after competitive deals all the time, forgoing commitments in the process. This is usually rationalized away as "I had to, otherwise the p
In each case, each of these sites serves an entirely different purpose with unique content. Even though someone can easily determine that all three sites are related to some degree, they are each unique entities going after different audiences looking for different things.
Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
If you sell products or utilize a shopping cart system in any way, you can easily increase conversion rates simply by improving your shopping cart system. The fewer clicks visitors have to go through to finish the buying process, the less likely they are to abandon their cart midstream and move on. Make the process simple, have them fill in only what is necessary to process the order and get them out the door.
Think of your shopping cart checkout process like the checkout line at any store. If the line is long many people, especially those making only small purchases, are more likely to set their products down and leave. Maybe they’ll come back another day, or maybe they’ll find the same item at another store with a smaller line. I don’t know about you, but I’ve done that more than once. Shorten your checkout line and capture every sale possible, no matter how
With all the interest in the Internet, everyone and their grandmother has a site available for viewing. Well maybe everyone but you? Perhaps you have considered creating a site, but found the task too daunting. By using the following tips, your personal site will be up and running in no time at all.1. Create your domain name – Not only should a domain name be easy to remember, it should in some way assimilate with the contents of your site. After choosing your domain name, you must register it online. Once you choose your server site, (see step two) they will be able to give you information on how and where to register. 2. Select a server – There are hundreds, if not thousands of servers available. Sites like Yahoo offer both paid and free sites. Take some time to research various offers to see which is the best option f
Display Contact Information
This was mentioned earlier but important enough to repeat. Be sure your contact information is easy to find, don’t make your visitors hunt for it. Every page of your site should have a “contact us” link taking them to the page that provides all the information necessary to allow them to contact you with their preferred method of doing so.
Having a prominently displayed phone number on every page can increase phone traffic and resulting sales significantly. If you target a national or international audience, be sure to display a toll free number.
Create Fast Loading Pages
Even though broadband access is increasing, there is still a significant portion of those still connecting to the Internet via dial up. Keep this in consideration when you design your site. Be sure that every page downloads relatively quickly, with minimal lag time. Don’t make your audience wait for you because they won’t.
Using CSS and external scripts can significantly decrease download time of your pages. Use them! Limit your images and, whenever possible, compress them into smaller byte sizes.
Focus on a Single Theme
Don’t try to do too much with a single website. Unless you have a nationally recognizable brand name, such as Wal-Mart, that sells both Barbie dolls and car batteries from the same store, you need to keep your websites focused on a single theme. Focusing your site(s) accordingly will help drive customers to the closing sale with minimal distractions, as well as enhancing keyword targeting for search engine placement. The less your website is about, the better you’ll be able to focus the engines and the visitors to what you have.
Developing Multiple Sites
If you wish to sell products from different industries you’re better off creating multiple sites to do the job. Few people will trust a clothing website to sell auto insurance! When going after different markets, it makes good business sense to create a new site for each industry you are targeting. When using this strategy, be sure to follow a couple of simple guidelines:
Target a Unique Audience: You want to be sure that each site is targeting a substantially unique audience or customer base. If you own a site selling house plans, don’t go build five new sites with each one selling a different version of the same thing: garageplans.com, houseplans.com, customhomeplans.com, colonialhomeplans.com, etc.
This tactic is often used by those trying to dominate the top results of the search engines, edging out all their competitors. It is also considered a severe form of spam by the search engines. Each site that you set up must have a unique purpose with virtually no crossover with your other sites. Some examples of uniquely targeted sites are: houseplans.com, landscapingplans.com, homeofficeplans.com.
Somebody looking to convert a room into a home office is not necessarily going to be crossing over with someone looking to build an entire house. On the other hand, someone building a house might also be looking for landscaping plans, but that is essentially an entirely different area of design altogether. Each of these potential websites can be built to be substantially unique and target seekers of different needs.
Use Unique Content: Each site that you build needs to contain substantially different content. In our examples of acceptable unique sites above you want to make sure that you don’t use similar content from one site to the next. You also should avoid using the same design template as well as the same business name and contact information on each site.
When I first started a blog for my business I had incorporated it into my main business website. About a year later I decided to roll it off into another completely new site hoping to garner some broader exposure. I could have easily kept the Pole Position brand for the blog but instead decided to create an entirely new name, look and feel for this new site.
On the other hand, I also created a small web directory where I kept the Pole Position branding, but chose a different name: PolePositionDirectory.com.
In each case, each of these sites serves an entirely different purpose with unique content. Even though someone can easily determine that all three sites are related to some degree, they are each unique entities going after different audiences looking for different things.
Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
If you sell products or utilize a shopping cart system in any way, you can easily increase conversion rates simply by improving your shopping cart system. The fewer clicks visitors have to go through to finish the buying process, the less likely they are to abandon their cart midstream and move on. Make the process simple, have them fill in only what is necessary to process the order and get them out the door.
Think of your shopping cart checkout process like the checkout line at any store. If the line is long many people, especially those making only small purchases, are more likely to set their products down and leave. Maybe they’ll come back another day, or maybe they’ll find the same item at another store with a smaller line. I don’t know about you, but I’ve done that more than once. Shorten your checkout line and capture every sale possible, no matter how
Every internet marketer knows the potential of the eBay market place to either be used to generate potential clients to their other online businesses, for quick cash generation to fund their other business ventures or even as a method of launching a brand new internet business. EBay is an excellent resource that no marketer should avoid and this article outlines the three major methods to generate an excellent revenue stream using the power of eBay.Method #1 to squeeze more cash from eBayEBay is renowned for its viral power. It is a market place designed with sellers in mind and fully utilizing this fact can lead to excellent profits for your internet business. By distributing viral eBooks with your website and affiliate links inside you can profit immensely. All it takes is one or two 99c listings by you of your eBook, 10 bu
Create Fast Loading Pages
Even though broadband access is increasing, there is still a significant portion of those still connecting to the Internet via dial up. Keep this in consideration when you design your site. Be sure that every page downloads relatively quickly, with minimal lag time. Don’t make your audience wait for you because they won’t.
Using CSS and external scripts can significantly decrease download time of your pages. Use them! Limit your images and, whenever possible, compress them into smaller byte sizes.
Focus on a Single Theme
Don’t try to do too much with a single website. Unless you have a nationally recognizable brand name, such as Wal-Mart, that sells both Barbie dolls and car batteries from the same store, you need to keep your websites focused on a single theme. Focusing your site(s) accordingly will help drive customers to the closing sale with minimal distractions, as well as enhancing keyword targeting for search engine placement. The less your website is about, the better you’ll be able to focus the engines and the visitors to what you have.
Developing Multiple Sites
If you wish to sell products from different industries you’re better off creating multiple sites to do the job. Few people will trust a clothing website to sell auto insurance! When going after different markets, it makes good business sense to create a new site for each industry you are targeting. When using this strategy, be sure to follow a couple of simple guidelines:
Target a Unique Audience: You want to be sure that each site is targeting a substantially unique audience or customer base. If you own a site selling house plans, don’t go build five new sites with each one selling a different version of the same thing: garageplans.com, houseplans.com, customhomeplans.com, colonialhomeplans.com, etc.
This tactic is often used by those trying to dominate the top results of the search engines, edging out all their competitors. It is also considered a severe form of spam by the search engines. Each site that you set up must have a unique purpose with virtually no crossover with your other sites. Some examples of uniquely targeted sites are: houseplans.com, landscapingplans.com, homeofficeplans.com.
Somebody looking to convert a room into a home office is not necessarily going to be crossing over with someone looking to build an entire house. On the other hand, someone building a house might also be looking for landscaping plans, but that is essentially an entirely different area of design altogether. Each of these potential websites can be built to be substantially unique and target seekers of different needs.
Use Unique Content: Each site that you build needs to contain substantially different content. In our examples of acceptable unique sites above you want to make sure that you don’t use similar content from one site to the next. You also should avoid using the same design template as well as the same business name and contact information on each site.
When I first started a blog for my business I had incorporated it into my main business website. About a year later I decided to roll it off into another completely new site hoping to garner some broader exposure. I could have easily kept the Pole Position brand for the blog but instead decided to create an entirely new name, look and feel for this new site.
On the other hand, I also created a small web directory where I kept the Pole Position branding, but chose a different name: PolePositionDirectory.com.
In each case, each of these sites serves an entirely different purpose with unique content. Even though someone can easily determine that all three sites are related to some degree, they are each unique entities going after different audiences looking for different things.
Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
If you sell products or utilize a shopping cart system in any way, you can easily increase conversion rates simply by improving your shopping cart system. The fewer clicks visitors have to go through to finish the buying process, the less likely they are to abandon their cart midstream and move on. Make the process simple, have them fill in only what is necessary to process the order and get them out the door.
Think of your shopping cart checkout process like the checkout line at any store. If the line is long many people, especially those making only small purchases, are more likely to set their products down and leave. Maybe they’ll come back another day, or maybe they’ll find the same item at another store with a smaller line. I don’t know about you, but I’ve done that more than once. Shorten your checkout line and capture every sale possible, no matter how
OK, so finding customer commonality is important. If we know what traits our customers share we can find more customers like them…and market smarter to our existing customers.Employees contact customers on a regular basis. This employee experience is a malnourished asset small business marketers fail to utilize as a vital resource for developing further insight into customer commonality. This is understandable in large companies, where marketing is often far removed from any employees with frontline customer contact. But, in a small company, chances are you have plenty of direct customer contact. If not, then at a minimum you rub elbows with the people in your company that do.So, the problem in the small company is a bit the opposite of that in the large company. Large company marketers sometimes don't know the employees wit
Target a Unique Audience: You want to be sure that each site is targeting a substantially unique audience or customer base. If you own a site selling house plans, don’t go build five new sites with each one selling a different version of the same thing: garageplans.com, houseplans.com, customhomeplans.com, colonialhomeplans.com, etc.
This tactic is often used by those trying to dominate the top results of the search engines, edging out all their competitors. It is also considered a severe form of spam by the search engines. Each site that you set up must have a unique purpose with virtually no crossover with your other sites. Some examples of uniquely targeted sites are: houseplans.com, landscapingplans.com, homeofficeplans.com.
Somebody looking to convert a room into a home office is not necessarily going to be crossing over with someone looking to build an entire house. On the other hand, someone building a house might also be looking for landscaping plans, but that is essentially an entirely different area of design altogether. Each of these potential websites can be built to be substantially unique and target seekers of different needs.
Use Unique Content: Each site that you build needs to contain substantially different content. In our examples of acceptable unique sites above you want to make sure that you don’t use similar content from one site to the next. You also should avoid using the same design template as well as the same business name and contact information on each site.
When I first started a blog for my business I had incorporated it into my main business website. About a year later I decided to roll it off into another completely new site hoping to garner some broader exposure. I could have easily kept the Pole Position brand for the blog but instead decided to create an entirely new name, look and feel for this new site.
On the other hand, I also created a small web directory where I kept the Pole Position branding, but chose a different name: PolePositionDirectory.com.
In each case, each of these sites serves an entirely different purpose with unique content. Even though someone can easily determine that all three sites are related to some degree, they are each unique entities going after different audiences looking for different things.
Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
If you sell products or utilize a shopping cart system in any way, you can easily increase conversion rates simply by improving your shopping cart system. The fewer clicks visitors have to go through to finish the buying process, the less likely they are to abandon their cart midstream and move on. Make the process simple, have them fill in only what is necessary to process the order and get them out the door.
Think of your shopping cart checkout process like the checkout line at any store. If the line is long many people, especially those making only small purchases, are more likely to set their products down and leave. Maybe they’ll come back another day, or maybe they’ll find the same item at another store with a smaller line. I don’t know about you, but I’ve done that more than once. Shorten your checkout line and capture every sale possible, no matter how
I wonder if the human touch, which people have, is not one of the greatest assets that one can have. You meet some people, and immediately you feel their warmth of mind or heart. You read a book, sit before the performance of a fine actor, or read a poem — and there it is — something that streams into your consciousness. . . . Those who keep climbing higher, in their chosen work, all have this outstanding something. The nurse in the hospital, the man who delivers your mail, the clerk behind many a store counter, and the effective minister or public speaker. Without this human touch, hope has little on which to feed or thrive.- George Matthew AdamsLet’s face facts. In a leadership role you are paid for making hard decisions that others don't want to make and perhaps can't make. You may remember the old saying “rank has its pri
Use Unique Content: Each site that you build needs to contain substantially different content. In our examples of acceptable unique sites above you want to make sure that you don’t use similar content from one site to the next. You also should avoid using the same design template as well as the same business name and contact information on each site.
When I first started a blog for my business I had incorporated it into my main business website. About a year later I decided to roll it off into another completely new site hoping to garner some broader exposure. I could have easily kept the Pole Position brand for the blog but instead decided to create an entirely new name, look and feel for this new site.
On the other hand, I also created a small web directory where I kept the Pole Position branding, but chose a different name: PolePositionDirectory.com.
In each case, each of these sites serves an entirely different purpose with unique content. Even though someone can easily determine that all three sites are related to some degree, they are each unique entities going after different audiences looking for different things.
Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
If you sell products or utilize a shopping cart system in any way, you can easily increase conversion rates simply by improving your shopping cart system. The fewer clicks visitors have to go through to finish the buying process, the less likely they are to abandon their cart midstream and move on. Make the process simple, have them fill in only what is necessary to process the order and get them out the door.
Think of your shopping cart checkout process like the checkout line at any store. If the line is long many people, especially those making only small purchases, are more likely to set their products down and leave. Maybe they’ll come back another day, or maybe they’ll find the same item at another store with a smaller line. I don’t know about you, but I’ve done that more than once. Shorten your checkout line and capture every sale possible, no matter how
Search engines are still an awesome way to build traffic to your site without having to spend our money. One of the biggest myth in the web is that you can get search engines top rankings easily.You probably heard of this statement before.Believe it or not! You and me together are going to break this myth!Yes, we are going to join the coveted TOP 20 rankings ...the Easy way! Please, let me explain how this could be possible...Back to The Basics:All in all, there are only 3 ways in order to get top rankings:Method #1: Hire complete SEO solutions to increase your rankings:The downside is that search engines change their formats and algorithms monthly. So you have to pay your "experts" team $2000 every time you want to maintain your positions. Otherwise your ranking will drop down the list as q
In each case, each of these sites serves an entirely different purpose with unique content. Even though someone can easily determine that all three sites are related to some degree, they are each unique entities going after different audiences looking for different things.
Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
If you sell products or utilize a shopping cart system in any way, you can easily increase conversion rates simply by improving your shopping cart system. The fewer clicks visitors have to go through to finish the buying process, the less likely they are to abandon their cart midstream and move on. Make the process simple, have them fill in only what is necessary to process the order and get them out the door.
Think of your shopping cart checkout process like the checkout line at any store. If the line is long many people, especially those making only small purchases, are more likely to set their products down and leave. Maybe they’ll come back another day, or maybe they’ll find the same item at another store with a smaller line. I don’t know about you, but I’ve done that more than once. Shorten your checkout line and capture every sale possible, no matter how small.
Eliminate Those Annoying Ads
If you operate a commercial website don’t clutter your pages with advertisements. Ads may be a great way to generate additional income but they also might be taking away more than they are generating. Everything on your site should be designed to draw the visitor toward the sale. Ads are designed to draw attention as well and therefore they often do no more than to draw the visitor away from one sale (yours) and off to another (a possible competitor!).
If you operate a non-commercial or information-only site, ads can be great, but use them sparingly and be sure stay away from useless banner exchange programs. If you’re going to sell ad space, then determine what that space is worth and sell it accordingly.
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