GRAPHIC DESIGN
RESOURCES
|
SUMMER 2004 - BOLD PRINT Articles:
Make your
Online Store Work For You and Not Against You
Susan Lawrence, Bold Print Design Studio
Seven Keys to Writing Powerful Online Marketing Copy
Scott T. Smith, MarketSTART
Top 10 Signs Your Site Needs an Overhaul
Sandi Hunter, WorldProfit.com
This Month's SPECIAL OFFER: !?????!
You can't get it here... it's only available in the newsletter!
Make your Online Store Website Work For You and Not
Against You
Susan Lawrence, Bold Print Design Studio
As a professional in the field of business presentation, I tend
to take note of the way other businesses present themselves. For
instance, I tend to analyze the quality of a restaurant by finding
misspellings on their menu. I can’t help it, it’s instinctual. I
spot them before I notice the daily specials. “If they can’t be
thorough on their main communication to their customers, how can
they be thorough on their food preparation?”
This is also true with visiting websites. I am overwhelmed by the
websites out there that make it nearly impossible to buy something
from them. They make you search high and low for a product, only to
find out later it’s out of stock. This would never work in the real
world, and shouldn’t occur online, either.
Here are some things to check to make sure your website works FOR
you and not against you.
1- Make it easy to find and enter your store. A real-world
retailer must make it easy to find their store location and provide
free and clear access into their store. An e-tailer, however, must
bring the store to the customer, and make it a quick and easy
process. Work on getting established in the search engines. Make
sure your home page is not burdened by slow-loading graphics or too
many ads.
2- You must appear credible. Despite the internet era we
are living in, there are still many people who are hesitant to buy
products or services online. Don’t give the visitor any reason to
feel uneasy. An “About Us” page is a great way for the visitor to
“get to know you” and the way you do business. It’s comforting for
people to put a face to a name or company. Also, be sure to have an
SSL certificate to provide secure transactions.
3- Consider your “staff” – or lack of staff. A retailer
has a staff that provides a friendly greeting to visitors, guides
them around the store, answers questions about the products,
explains their policies, and hears their feedback. An e-tailer must
rely on their website to do all of these things, without you
watching over them! Every page of your site must make it easy to
find the area of the site they would like to visit next. Offer solid
information and advice about your products, don’t just spout
marketing hype. Let your customers to offer feedback.
4- Make it easy for a client to contact you. List your
email and physical or mailing addresses, and your phone if at all
possible. If a customer feels like they can get a hold of you, they
will be more comfortable in placing an order. Also, they may have
questions about your products – and you’re not there to answer them.
A “Contact Us” page is necessary.
5- Make it VERY easy to order from you. Once you
get them into the store and their cart loaded, don’t make it easier
to walk away then to follow through with the purchase. It’s not the
time to gather marketing information. Don’t make them waste their
time filling out unnecessary forms. If you must have additional
information, compensate for it. Offer a future discount in exchange
for filling out an optional survey, AFTER the purchase is complete.
If your website doesn’t appear to be professional and established,
and doesn’t make it easy for customers to buy from you, they will
simply click on to the next site that does. It’s as simple as that.
Susan Lawrence is the owner of
Bold Print Design Studio and
Bold Print Logo
Design. View the portfolio of
recent online stores Susan and her team have created. View the wide
array of features included in
every Bold Print Design Studio online store design.
[TOP]
Seven Keys to Writing Powerful Online Marketing Copy
Scott T. Smith, MarketSTART
In order to maximize sales and profits, these are the essential
elements you must have in all your online marketing communications:
Open With A Benefit-Rich Headline
A strong, enticing headline is the most important element of any
marketing copy. Studies show the right headline can increase
response to an offer exponentially.
Did you know that only one out of five people get beyond the
headline to read the body of the copy? It's true! So spend the time
to make your headline work.
Avoid the cute or witty approach. Why? Because it always says more
about your company's sensibilities than it does about your potential
customers.
The secret is that customers are far more interested in reading
about THEMSELVES than about a company.
State a benefit in your headline that clearly enhances THEIR LIVES,
using power words such as: "Discover"; "Announcing"; "Breakthrough";
"Facts"; "New"; "Now"; "Yes"; "Sale" - all words that are active,
grab the attention of prospects, and promise them something. (The
two words of most value to your customers are "You", and "Free".)
State A Prospect-Centered Proposition
State a proposition that is prospect-centered. It is all about your
customer. Either it states their current tough situation, and
"...isn't it awful", or it reveals an attractive dream they have
about what their life could become: "If only..."
Go back to the roots of the product or service being offered. Why
does it exist in today's world, and why does your company sell it?
The proposition section of your marketing copy sets up a kind of
vacuum, which you are about to fill with... benefits.
Offer Multiple Benefits
A benefit is anything that will make a customer's life better by
using your product or service. This is the payoff, and the crucial
section of your marketing copy where you must deliver the goods.
Take a good look at what is being promoted, and then...
Write down each and every benefit that you can, with no thought
about which is the most important. You'll order them later. Write
down everything that can possibly do your customer some good.
Everything.
After finishing this "brain dump", go back and prioritize. Try not
to prioritize as you list the benefits - that will only inhibit you.
List first, order second. When writing your marketing copy, begin
with your primary benefit first, then the second, third and so on
down to least significant.
List Comprehensive Features
A feature is a fact about a product or service, such as "wash cold,
hang dry", or "made in Morocco". Features demonstrate how things are
created, delivered and maintained. Think of this section as the
support system behind the benefits. Be comprehensive here because it
demonstrates your professional ability, understanding and level of
competence.
Use Long Copy
It's a fact - longer copy sells better than shorter copy.
Consumers are hungry for information, particularly if they are
shopping online for a big-ticket item. If they read beyond your
opening headline, they are a good prospect for the product or
service being sold. It's your job to tell them everything they need
to know.
Highlight Your History
Not until "the finale" should you talk about your company and
accomplishments in any detail. Think of your company as the magician
who, after showing their wonders for the total delight of the
audience, at last reveals their true self.
Marketing copy fails because it so often congratulates the company
magic before any tricks have been performed. The result? No sale.
Ask For Response NOW
All marketing copy must deliver a clear call to action. Do you want
the consumer to phone, or write? How about, place their order now
online?
As residents of the 20th century, we are conditioned by hundreds of
thousands of advertisements a year to respond. So make the call,
firmly and directly.
Summarize your main sales points, and then: is there a reason why
your prospect shouldn't act now? Perhaps offer a benefit: a
limited-time offer, or money-back guarantee. Empower your marketing
copy to close on just the right selling note.
These are the seven keys to writing powerful marketing copy for your
business. Remember, content drives the Internet, and that definitely
includes the words on the page. Make sure this aspect of your online
marketing serves you well, because "Content is your primary
marketing tool"
Brought to you by: World Wide Information
Outlet - http://certificate.net/wwio/, your source of FREEWare
Content online. Scott T. Smith delivers hands-on Internet marketing
support through MarketSTART.net and Copywriting.net.
[TOP]
Top 10 Signs Your Site Needs an Overhaul
Sandi Hunter, WorldProfit.com
# 10 - The images used on your site include a revolving globe,
bevelled horizontal line separators, and one of those animated mail
box icons that were popular in free image libraries around 1995.
If this is you, listen up. If your site looks dated and
unprofessional you will not make any sales. The key to generating
sales on line is with a professionally designed web site. People
form an impression of your business, and whether or not they will do
business with you within 30 seconds. Cheesy graphics used in an
amateurish web site will do nothing for gaining the trust of
prospective customers.
# 9 - Your hit counter is of the free variety and after one
year reads "You are the 38th visitor to this site." A site that
publicized for all to see that no one has visited is doomed for
sure. Remove the counter, and see point number six below for help
with this one.
# 8 - Your site starts with the words "Welcome to our site.
Please bookmark our site. Click on the links to find what you are
looking for" If your site starts off like this you need a lesson
in marketing and copywriting. When you read a magazine or the
newspaper, notice how headlines and powerful copy are used to get
your attention and motivate you to do something. Your web site
should use the same strategies to get people's attention. This
starts with an easy-to-read layout, and wording that is interesting,
motivating, and most importantly is about the reader, and not about
you. People know the internet well enough now to know how to
navigate it. Books do not tell you to look up content in the Table
of Contents to to flip the page at the end of reading that page.
# 7 - There is no easy to find contact information anywhere on
your home page. Contact information on the main page of your
site is convenient for your readers and makes you look credible, and
accessible. To make a sale, you've got to earn people's trust, and
this starts with giving them lots of ways to contact you. If they
have a problem with an order they place, they want to make sure you
will be there if they need you.
# 6 - You don't have a way to analyze your web site traffic
and determine where your traffic is coming from. Without this
you are marketing your web site wearing a blindfold and simply
praying for the best. Web site statistics software can reveal
valuable information to help you evaluate your marketing efforts.
Information about search engine traffic, including which search
engine was used to find your site, what key words did they use to
find you, what pages people are looking at when they get to your
site, referring URLS, and much more!
# 5 - You don't have a way of tracking leads or prospective
customers when they visit your site. How can you do this? Track
visitor information by providing prospects with a form to complete
to request additional information, or to find out more about your
products and services. The form allows you to request important
details including name, address, phone, email address, budget, level
of interest and so forth. You get more detailed information for
follow up, and your prospective customer gets faster service because
you have all of the relevant information before you.
# 4 - You've not had a lead off your web site for more then a
week.
Your web site should complement your traditional methods of
business. Be sure to include your web site address on all of your
print marketing, business cards, letterhead, shipping inserts and
more. The more people who see your web site address the more likely
you are to get business from your site. If you are not getting leads
from your web site, or inquiries by email it's time to rethink what
you are doing.
# 3 - You've NEVER sold one thing at your web site either
directly or indirectly. If you've had your web site online for a
year and not made one shiny nickel then you need to reassess what
you are doing. You aren't doing something right. It could be your
web site, perhaps it is not professionally designed. Or it could be
your traffic; no traffic = no sales. Either of these factors can
affect your sales.
# 2 -Your web site address is of the free variety and is so
long that you have no hope of ever fitting it on your business
cards. If this is you, get a domain address. They are cheap,
easy to set up and give instant credibility to your business. Free
web site addresses make your business look fly-by-night, a domain
address says "I'm a legitimate business because I've paid for an
actual address for my business site." The same goes with email
addresses. Upgrade from the free variety. Email comes with the
domain name, after all!
and the number one reason your site needs an overhaul....
# 1 - Your "last updated" time stamp reads March 19, 1996!
Sandi Hunter is the Director of Web Site
Development for Worldprofit.com. Reach Sandi at sandi@worldprofit.com.
[TOP]
|
