6 Quick Marketing Tips

Tip #1: Add a benefit to your headline

If the headline on your web site isn’t grabbing your visitors’ attention as soon as they read it, you’re losing sales. That’s a fact. And nothing grabs a visitor’s attention like a compelling headline with a clear benefit.

Here’s a great example from our SecretsToTheirSuccess.com archive:

Tammie Bowser’s site, www.mosaicquilt.com, sells packages, tools, and lessons on how to make quilts from photographs — an unusual holiday gift! In the past, when visitors first arrived at her site, they saw a headline that read:

While her visitors are likely to be interested in what quilted photography is, this isn’t a headline that really grabs their attention. In fact, it’s not even really a headline — it’s more of a sub-headline that would go inside the sales copy. We did a detailed site review for Tammie, and one of the first suggestions we made was that she use the following headline:

You’ll notice that this headline clearly states a couple of the main benefits of the product — that people can use their own photos to make a unique quilt, and that it’s something that will last for a long, long time. Try jotting down a few key benefits that YOUR product or service offers, and then working those benefits into an eye-catching headline.

NOTE: A message placed at the top of your page that reads something like "Welcome to Mysite.com" is NOT a headline. Your headline MUST emphasize a clear benefit of your product. If you don’t have a headline on your site, make this your holiday gift to yourself! A well-written headline has the power to literally double — or even triple — your sales overnight!

Tip #2: Feature specials in the first fold of your homepage

It’s important that your special be featured on the first fold of your homepage. (The first fold is the first screen of your homepage that is visible without scrolling.) Remember, you want to make it EASY for your visitors to find and buy your products. The best way to do this is by making sure that every single visitor to your site sees your featured specials.

And be sure to chose a product for your special that is a proven best-seller.

Tip #3: Send out an e-mail promotion

If you have a list of customers and/or subscribers, you’ve already got an incredibly powerful database of people who are just waiting to make purchases from you!

The reason they can’t wait to buy from you? It’s the 80/20 Rule: 80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your customers. People who have already bought from you are much more likely than anyone else to buy from you again, because you’ve already earned their trust.

Whenever possible, you’ll want to send out two different promotions — one to your existing customers and one to your subscribers. This allows you to approach each group from a slightly different angle.

Your existing customers, who have already bought from you, will want to be rewarded for their loyalty. What better way to thank them than by giving them a great deal on one of your most popular products? They’ll appreciate the fact that your offer is being sent to them and them alone, because we all like to feel special!

Your subscribers should be sent a slightly different offer. Tell them that this is a special promotion being offered only to your newsletter subscribers. Again, you’ll want to make sure that you’re offering a special on one of your proven best-sellers.

This little touch of personalization can go a really long way. It’s been proven over and over that people like to be offered a deal that they don’t think other people are going to get. By making your customers and subscribers feel special, you can dramatically increase the number of sales that your e-mail promotions generate.

Tip #4: Consider replacing third-party ads

Take a moment and think about whether or not your site is using the first fold of your web site effectively, especially if you’re hosting advertising for other companies.

Figure out approximately how much money you’ll receive from hosting third-party advertising. Include all revenue from any banners ads, skyscraper ads, text ads, etc. that are located within the first fold of your site.

Now, ask yourself whether you could make more by replacing these third-party ads with ads for your OWN products. For many businesses, even one sale would be worth more money than their banner ads generate for them in a whole month!

If it turns out that you could make more money advertising your own products in place of the paid advertising, drop those banner ads NOW and replace them with ads for your own products or services. This way, visitors who click on them will be taken to a product page somewhere on YOUR site, not someone else’s!

Tip #5: Offer fast, flexible shipping

If you use a major nationwide delivery service such as UPS or FedEx, you’ll want to feature this information prominently on your web site and ordering pages. People will feel much more comfortable ordering from a site that uses one of these services than one that ships through the mail.

Tip #6: Offer to ship gifts directly to recipients

If possible, offer to ship your customers’ purchases directly to the gift recipients. This saves your customers the hassle of waiting to receive the package from you and then sending it out to someone else. This is a great way to add value to your service without any additional cost to you!

If you do offer to ship gifts directly to the recipient, I can guarantee that you will have people asking if you offer gift wrapping. This is another way to give your customers a little extra attention without much additional cost to you. Of course, if you are expecting thousands of orders and you work by yourself, this may not be a practical option!

You can also offer your customers the option of adding a card to the package that you send out. Simply ask them what they want written in the card, and then include it with the package. You can charge an additional fee for this or offer it as a free service.

The  tips I’ve just given you can be implemented quickly and easily. Most of these should only take you an hour or two to set up on your site, and the results will make you wish you had started much sooner.

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