This section deals with how to PREsell effectively. Let’s
look at examples of how you can create negative mindsets in your visitors by
making how-you-reachthem, what-you-say, or how-accessible-you-are boo-boos...
1) HOW To Reach Your Visitor...
Free-For-All Sites (FFAs) are a great example of how not to
reach people. For the most part, they have become so seamy and useless, that no
matter what you say, you’re doomed from the start. You have no credibility.
Compare this with how smart and open-minded your visitor feels when she finds
you via a Search Engine!
2) WHAT You Say To Your Visitor...
Don’t write a site purely devoted to “h ard-selling”
yourself and your service. Imagine a visitor who hits your site and reads an
immediate sales pitch. That person will resist because she does not know you.
Develop related content that PREsells your expertise,
knowledge base and professionalism.
3) HOW Accessible You Are...
Scrolling to the final page of your site to find out how to
contact you creates unnecessary frustration and shows a lack of
respect/interest in your visitor. Ready access to your phone number and/or Web
contact means instant gratification when she wants to talk to you now.
Now for a critical Action Step...
Review your site or whatever other means you are using to
reach and talk to prospective clients. Put yourself in your customer’s brain.
What will she think, how will she feel, at each of the 3 major steps above?
Consider how much higher your Conversion Rate (CR) would be
if a visitor found you in a bona fide manner (ex., as a result of doing a
search on a Search Engine), then became your “friend” (or your trusting admirer
if you do a truly awesome job!) because you provided excellent content, and
finally was able to communicate with you... pronto!
The bottom line?
Get inside your visitor’s head -- realize how she will feel
each step of the way. Whatever you do, consider the impact on your visitor --
if it does not make her more open-to-hire, don’t do it.
PREselling is really all about selling yourself and your
service to your customer, every step of the way. You reach the right folks in a
proper fashion, deliver valuable, appropriate editorial content that inspires
their trust, and provide easy access to yourself so that when she is ready to
reach out, you are there.
Your CR will soar.
It’s a two-step process that builds to a job contract...
STEP 1 You PREsell to get an open-to-hire phone call or
response to your contact form... that first contact. Once you have that...
STEP 2 You “sell” your service and close the deal with a
contract.
So, whatever you do, however you do it, PREselling should
always pull your visitor one step closer to delivering your Most Wanted
Response... ... an open-to-hire contact call or response to your contact form.
If your visitors basically perceive a straight sales effort
on your site, you’re selling, not PREselling. That means that the two-step
process is now SELLSELL...
Redundancy = Turned OFF visitor = LOW CR.
But if you develop great content that leads to contact, you
become a friend she can trust rather than a stranger making a sales pitch…
Trust = Turned ON customer = HIGH CR.
In other words, don’t push your visitor to that first
contact, make her want to reach you. It makes all the difference if your
visitor feels that it’s her idea to deliver your MWR.
A question? Geez, I was about to grab a coffee. Fire away!
Can you give me a concrete example of using content to PREsell? You want
“concrete”? OK, concrete you get. Here’s a real concrete, non-Webbased, service
example that will succeed...
It’s all about creating a Theme-Based Content Site that is
loaded with Keyword- Focused Content-Rich Pages. Your theme?...
You love concrete. Yes, cement! It’s been your livelihood
for years. “Concrete Solutions” is the name of your company and your VPP
(“Valuable PREselling Proposition”) is “Service as Solid as the Rock of
Gibraltar!” It’s also been your hobby, your passion...
Concrete statues. Concrete painting. Decorative concrete. Concrete
in the garden. Repairing concrete. Concrete molds. The various types of
concrete. Hand trowels.
Anyway, let’s say that you decide to create a Theme-Based
Content Site that is all about concrete. Your home page explains how your site
is the site for everything concrete, from structural to esthetic.
And it includes references to your services which range from
consultations to customization to repair to custom molds/sculptures and
everything in-between... and references as well to your finely-honed skills
developed through years of experience and accumulated knowledge.
You also, of course, create high-value content-jammed
Keyword-Focused Content Pages. For example, your page about concrete statues
explains all about how to make striking statues for the home and garden. You
could even expand it into an entire “Statue Section,” with a page on the
history of concrete statues and another one about how to market and sell the
statues that the visitor makes. Your contact info is presented on the bottom of
all of these pages. By creating truly excellent, high-value content you deliver
exactly what your visitor sought at the engines and this content strongly
reinforces your expertise in the world of concrete -- which in turn earns her
trust and respect.
By providing great content, you PREsell yourself and your
services to your visitor. She sees you as a “Concrete Authority” and phones
you, thus increasing your site’s Conversion Rate.
In addition, you develop multiple streams of income by
representing related and excellent merchants on your site (earning affiliate
income from these noncompeting sites). You weave relevant, “in-context” text
links right in the content, as appropriate.
Links to...
• Books about the topic (ex. concrete statues, if that’s
what the page was about)
• A garden supplier for concrete molds, trowels, etc.
• And so forth.
She trusts you, so she also trusts your recommendations.
This is the way to go!
No comments:
Post a Comment