Focus on Direct Response
What is the purpose of your web site?
A lot of webmasters have not asked themselves this all important question.
For some reason, they seem to think that the purpose of their web site is to
give away free stuff. Or it could be to be a showcase for their products.
Or it could be to create links to all kinds of resources. Or it could be to have
fancy Flash graphics and build a brand name.
Hogwash!
If you're a business, the purpose of your web site is to SELL something.
Generate a million visitors to your site and you just have to pay additional
bandwidth fees with many hosts. Generate a million buying customers to
your web site and you're on the way to the bank.
Your web site should have ONE main focus. It should not be selling a
dozen products, a dozen opportunities, or linking to 10 different affiliate
programs.
Having a dozen links (or even half a dozen links for that matter) on your
main web site just CONFUSES your visitor.
When someone visits your site, it should be clearly obvious what ONE
action you want them to take.
There are only two possibilities for this one action:
Option 1: Buy a product or service.
Option 2: Leave their email & other information for follow-up.
If your strategy is option #1, then the best way to accomplish this is to use a
strong selling letter as the primary text on your web site. No, you don't want
a lot of links. No, you don't want to make people click continue to go to
the rest of your sales piece.
Simply have a powerful sales letter written for your product or service and
post it to your web site. You can add a few graphics if you like such as your
picture, a picture of the product in action, pictures of happy customers, and
even a header graphic. The focus of your web site is the sales copy.
Graphics don't sell・nd a picture is NOT worth a 1,000 words! Give me a
1,000 words and I'll beat your picture every time in the selling process.
Yes. I know what you're thinking. I've heard it a thousand times, but
Terry, my product or service is different because ___________.
Insert whatever your complaint is in the blank above. I've heard it
already・nd my answer has always been your product is NOT different.
If you're selling to humans, then the psychology is the same. Whether
they're marketing humans, software programming humans, golfing humans,
etc., it doesn't matter. They're still part of the human race and they're still
motivated by the same system.
Unless your customers are from a different planet, this is the system you
follow.
Having multiple links to all different sites may be what 的nternet guru's
have told you to do, but that's why they're still having trouble selling their
$19.95 book.
Having a catalog will just confuse your visitors. You want to sell your
lead-in BEST product upfront (the one which they buy the quickest and
easiest), and then only show CUSTOMERS your full catalog after they've
purchased something from you (at that point you'd have their contact
information to follow-up and sell these others products also).
There is only one reason to not have a sales letter as your main page・and
that's if you choose option #2 above for your web site purpose.
If you're selling $2,000 widgets to a cold audience, that's a hard sale. If
you're selling $10,000,000 airplanes, that's a hard sale. They're probably
not going to make up their minds and buy right now while they're at your
web site.
So in comes option #2. This is the ONLY other possible purpose of your
web site・to collect email addresses and other contact information.
My web site at http://www.bizpromo.com follows this purpose. People visit
the site and they leave their name and email address in exchange for my free
report. This is the ONLY option they're given at the site. They either leave
their information or they don't.
They either get the free report or they don't. Visit the site above. Is there
any confusion about what I want you to do? No. It's simple. That's the
key. I basically tell you that if you do A (give me your information), you'll
get B (these benefits in the report).
When people leave me their contact information I can then follow up on
them. I'll send them good training material by email, but I'll also make
special offers for my products. If I have one dozen products, then I can offer
them those one dozen products one at a time・nd tell them all the
incredible benefits of each one.
So I may only give them a freebie today・ut I end up earning money from
them for years to come. Having a qualified targeted opt-in email list is as
good as money in the bank.
The way to get them to give their email address is to offer them something
special・ free report, an e-course, etc. Tell them what they'll get and all
the benefits from it.
You don't have to stop at email addresses. If you're a medium size or large
company, you may also want to get their mailing address and phone number.
You could send them out a letter, audio, or video in the mail. You could
follow-up by both email and direct mail. This would increase your sales
conversion rates, but of course it increases your costs substantially as well.
You can also follow-up by phone. If you're selling the $10,000,000
airplanes, then I would definitely want to do phone follow-up in addition to
my email and direct mail follow-up. Phone follow-up has the highest
response. Direct mail is second. Getting people to leave their phone
numbers is the most difficult so you only get the most qualified prospects
(and cut down on your leads dramatically).
Email follow-up actually produces lower response rates than direct mail or
phone, BUT it is free. You can follow-up one time or a 100 times・n one
prospect or 1,000,000 prospects・nd the cost for your email will be the
same (very cheap).
So when you're building your web site you have to choose what your
primary goal for this site is.
Will you have visitors buy your product or service・r will they simply be
signing up for a freebie?
If you're selling a product under $50 with high conversion rates (2% or
higher), then selling the product is often the best choice. You can use what
we call a pop-up on exit to give away a freebie to get their email address.
If your product is $97 to $197, then it depends on your conversion numbers
and strategy. You may have to test to find out which approach makes you
the most money.
If your product is a higher ticket item, then you are most often better off
with the free lead generation page first. Then take subscribers to your sales
site. The email you send them will have their freebie and will begin
following up to sell your product.
If you're an affiliate selling someone else's product, then the free lead
generation page is almost always the best choice. You advertise your web
site, get people signed up for your email list, and then you promote the
affiliate products.
All my top selling affiliates have their own opt-in email list which they
concentrate on building. So if you want to be a top selling affiliate, guess
what you should do? You should concentrate on building your email list.
