The single biggest mistake most small business website owners make is trying to sell a product or service on the prospects first visit to their site, and not building a list of future customers. It's amazing that so few business owners treat list building and email marketing with the urgency it requires.
Most websites find that over 98% of people who visit for the first time will leave without buying anything. By capturing your visitor's name and email address when they arrive, you will have a chance to build a long-term relationship with your readers, and you can potentially turn them into a long-term customers.
Focus On Building A List Instead Of Getting A One-Time Sale
Instead of focusing your site on making a sale, encourage your visitors to opt-in to receive a free Report of some kind. Ask them to give you their name and email address to access the information, and you'll multiply your profits over time. Once you've got your prospect onto a list, continue to follow up regularly with information and offers for products and services. Using this two-step system will give you a much better chance of making sales to your readers.
You'll see that all the best Internet marketers use tools such as mini courses, free eBooks or other forms of "ethical bribes" to encourage visitors to opt-in to a list. You should be doing the same thing because it flat out works. By building a list of prospects who are interested in your area of expertise, products or services, you are creating a real asset. As smart marketers say - the money is in the list. Or more accurately, the money is in the relationship you develop with the people on your list.
Business Is Not About Products And Services - It's All About Relationships
Building a profitable business is all about creating relationships with people one at a time and solving their problems. if you do this and you will prosper, but if you miss this key point, you will never be as successful as you could be. I've heard marketing genius Dan Kennedy say that the only real asset your business has, and the asset that gives you virtually unlimited leverage, is your list of customers. Your future success depends on having a loyal list of repeat customers - without this group of people, you ultimately have no business.
It's been shown that your most difficult sale will be the first sale to a new prospect. Buying from you instead of somebody else is a high risk proposition to somebody who has never dealt with you before. Research shows that your existing customers are at least 4 times as likely to buy from you again than somebody who you don't have a relationship with. Having a list of prospects and customers who know, like and trust you, a group that you can follow up with easily via an email autoresponder system, is one of the surest ways of setting up a series of auto-pilot streams of income you'll ever find.
Building Your Customer Email List Should Be Your #1 Priority
If you haven't given list building the attention it deserves, I urge you to get started today. By capturing your website and in-store visitors names and email address (and their physical address too if at all possible) you could double or triple your profits as you follow up with your customers and prospects. And once your follow up sequence is set up, it works in the background to increase your sales automatically.
You simply cannot invest time more effectively than by building a list of people who are interested in the benefits they will receive from the products and services you offer. It really is a no-brainer, and nurturing that list should be part of your core business strategy.
About the Author:
Rocky Tapscott is a Site Build It expert and mentor who works with small business owners to boost their sales and profits. He has developed a Free 27 page Report which shows you how to create autopilot income streams using a simple but deadly effective email marketing system - Grab your Free Report now.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
