You have the product, you have the web site, now all you need is
customers. Well that's easy... send an email to a targeted list and
the customers will visit right?...
... well probably WRONG (90% of the time) - but it's the trap most
people fall into.
It's not enough simply to show people your products, even targeted
people, unless there is some compelling reason why those people
should buy your product *NOW*.
Without that compelling reason, simply showing those targeted people
your product leaves the time of purchase entirely to them - and the
honest fact is, that if they don't buy now, and they never hear from
you again, they will probably have forgotten you when they ARE ready
to buy.
So the first task is to decide if your product does offer a
compelling reason to buy now. This does not just mean offering 20%
off your product for the period immediately after the mailing
(although that can help sometimes). The problem that you face is
that $12.95 is no different to $15.95 if the prospect does not see
an immediate need for your product. So what is a compelling reason
to buy now?
Lets look at an example - offer cigarettes to smokers at
significantly lower than store price for a limited period. To
smokers, cigarettes are an essential purchase, and here the price
reduction is important.
Try the same discounting method on a site offering hand made
porcelain dolls and you are unlikely to see any increase in sales.
Another example - You sell books, and you have a new release from a
very popular author coming up. This will be a compelling purchase
for fans of that author, and the chances are you can even add a
premium to your price.
So firstly consider your product. Is it a porcelain doll, a cut
price cigarette, or a popular new release? For those of us with the
latter type of product life is easy. Find the right targeted list
and sales come in. Unfortunately for the rest of us (and we are in
a majority), we are trying to sell porcelain dolls. That is to say,
we are selling a good product, but with no compelling need to
purchase now. This type of product will only sell to the right
person AT THE RIGHT TIME.
And there lies the root of the problem. A mailing to a list of
people in the 'compelled to buy now' group might see 10% purchasers.
A mailing to a 'porcelain doll' list might also contain 10% buyers -
but their purchases might be spread over the whole of the next year,
and unless you do something about it, they probably will not buy
from you!
What can you do about it? Well the key has to be capturing email
addresses to allow you to be proactive in chasing those 'future
prospects'. To capture a visitors email address you need to capture
their interest - so a well designed, informative, *trustworthy* site
is also essential. At the same time, you must still make it easy to
buy from you - so don't let the information hide the sales message!
HTMail helps you to capture email addresses from those list members
that visit your site and are interested in your products - you
normally get a list of email addresses with your final reports
after a mailing - but did you follow these up on a regular basis?
Do you send out newsletters or updates to these prospects? Do you
collect email addresses on your own site for this purpose?
If you don't do these things, then all of those people that visited
your site, liked your product, but did not want to buy it *right now*
will buy in the future from someone else. The chances are that you
are reducing your sales by a factor of ten!
Of course this doesn't only apply to email advertising, but also to
banner advertising, search engine traffic, and traditional media.
Visitors that come to you from a search engine are most likely to be
'buy now' customers (they were actively looking for your product NOW).
Those that come looking for your site as a result of 'traditional
media' advertising (newspapers, magazines, TV) are also more likely
to 'buy now' (they have taken a lot of trouble to come to your site).
Opt-in email visitors rank third, and banner click through visitors
usually rank fourth. However, amongst all of these groups a large
proportion will be 'buy later' customers - so following the advice
in this article will boost your sales whatever your method of
advertising.
Change your emphasis when you do your next mailing to an opt-in list.
Gather email addresses, and follow up regularly, and you will find
your web site profits increasing at the same rate as the size of your
mailing list.
Dave Broadway
January 2000
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