Are You Wasting Money on Your Website?
Let’s face it, a lot of money gets spent on websites. I’m sure if you have a website, or are thinking about making one, you too are looking to hire professionals to design a beautiful and professional site.
However, if you leave out this one important thing you are wasting money!
There is one thing that every website must have. If it doesn’t have it, the site is or will become a money pit. Might as well start flushing $100 bills down the toilet, because at least you’ll get the full visual experience of your cash swirling around the drain and finally being washed away in to vast nothingness.
I am amazed at how many sites out there don’t have this one thing that could change their money sucking sites into productive and profitable sites. Actually, when someone asks us to build a site for them and they leave this out I suggest it immediately; however, you would be amazed at how much resistance there is to this.
Some people either flat out reject this, or they come up with excuses as to why they can’t do it or why it won’t work for their site. Well, we have been in the web business for over 10 years and have seen a lot of sites.
I can assure you, everyone can implement this and have success with it. EVERYONE!
So what is this secret? What is this thing that can turn my cash draining site into something worthwhile?
It’s not really a secret at all. In fact, most of you out there will say “duh, that’s common sense!” and I would agree. It IS! But a quick look around and you will see that a huge number, the majority really (especially with small / med business site), are not doing this.
All they have to do is:Offer something for sale!
Yeah, I know. Duh, that’s common sense. So quickly, take a look at your site. Do you have something for sale?
I don’t mean implied for sale or an implied service or something that you can offer in the future after a brief talk or appointment with a sale rep.
I mean FOR SALE! Now!That last bit is really the kicker that gets most people and businesses. Most people will talk about their services and products. Talk about their company. Talk about how wonderful they make customers lives after they start servicing them. But right now, at this very minute they have nothing I can click on and buy immediately at this visit using the internet exclusively to pitch, offer, and close the sale and collect the check.
(If you have something to sell but it’s not selling, see our information sections in our SEO and Marketing section for help with your online sales)
Online Brochures are 10 years behind the times. They were behind the times 10 years ago! The internet and web is such a powerful medium, it is downright foolish not to use it.
That’s why building a website and not offering something for immediate sale is a waste of money. If you are going to spend the money to build a site, do it right and at least leverage some type of electronic commerce with it.
It’s not as expensive as you think!In Fact, It's More Expansive and Will Cost You More Money in the Long Run If you Don't Do This Immediately!
First off, I want to address all those naysayers who tell me that they have nothing to sell immediately online, or that their service doesn’t fit that sales model, or that their products can’t be sold that way without a sales representatives interaction.
All of that is just B.S. and is just plain entrepreneurial laziness. If you are in business then you have something you can sell immediately, I guarantee it. Now you might have to do a little bit of brain work and critical thinking, but I’m willing to bet if you spent 1 hour a day for a week you could come up with 10 different ideas that you could implement. Not 1, but 10! Most people don’t stop to think. They just look at what they have and what they have always been doing. The interent is a powerful new platform that people are using to make billions every year.
Billions! Not Millions…Billions! (Apple Computer Anyone? Google? Microsoft? Yep, they all have it!)
If that doesn’t grab your attention and make you want to think, well, you probably should just stop reading and go back to your normal business routines. Almost anyone who owns or runs a company can write a 50-100 page book that covers introductory questions about their industry. Using your company FAQ is a good place to start. Take 10 minutes a day, only ten. Write as much as you can in those 10 minutes and in 3-4 weeks you will have a great introductory book. Does it need to answer all questions? Of Course Not! In fact, it's better if it doesn't because that’s precisely why you have an advanced sales team to help them with further questions. Sell this as an eBook for $10-20 dollars. Now you can educate your future clients, stop wasting your time and sales rep’s time with rudamentory questions, get only highly qualified leads from return calls, AND make money through sales of your introductory eBook. This is only one example that will fit almost any business. But you can literally come up with an unlimited number of ways to sell information and help like this to non-customers.
An Artist friend of mine has a website. He has nothing for sale on it. He has images of his work and can update his image galleries himself as well as communicate with people and post information to his site.
One night at a gallery I was speaking with him and he was talking about galleries, showing his work, how to sell his pieces, and how people need to see the work several times before they actually decide to buy it for their living room / home / den / etc.
He has high resolution images for all of his artwork. It’s all neatly organized on his computer, and he does digital slideshows of his work in galleries so he can show more pieces without having to transport everything. Also is helps when he has limited wall space.
I told him that he needs to create a coffee table book and sell it on his site. A nice high quality, hard cover, large page coffee table book with 50 or more of his pieces printed on nice matte or glossy paper. He then sells the book on his site for $50 / 75 / 100 dollars based on what his costs are.
He doesn’t need to spend a lot of money on printing, because he can wait until he gets an order and the payment clears. Then email the print ready Book PDF or take to printer in CD if the PDF file size it too large and print out 1 copy for that customer. Sign each book and Ship it with a personal letter /message inside.
Then sell the book on the site (and create an explanation page in the book) asking the person that if they like a piece of his, to tear out the page and stick it on the wall where they thought of putting a full size print. Leave it up for 1-2 weeks to see if they like it. If so, they can then call him and place an order for the actual print in the actual size!
Walla! He just made money on the coffee table book and he has a great opportunity now to make an up-sell. He has the customer’s contact info and can send postcards of upcoming shows, questionnaire’s of their favorite pieces for his future work…well, the possibilities are endless.
All because he now has something for sale NOW on his site.
Anyone can do this and to be honest, most web developers love to add this functionality to their clients site. I know web developers that love to brag about how much their client x and y are making off sites they built for them.
So do not be afraid to ask. Usually it will only cost a small fee to implement some basic selling options. Most people can get started using Paypal and maybe a couple hundred dollars extra in web design costs to add an eBook or something similar.
Quit wasting money on your website! Start making it productive now!
If you need help or assistance with your web design or development, please contact us and we will be happy to help. If we can’t help, we guarantee to locate someone that can.
|
