Grrr! Why Aren't I Making SALES?!

Grrr! Why Aren't I Making SALES?!
by Cathy Wagner

Selling online can be very difficult, more difficult
than in the 3D world because you do not get any
personal contact with your customer. People cannot
just browse like they do in a store, they cannot offer
feedback, and it is hard to build and maintain trust
throughout the entire online sales process. What
compounds this difficulty is the fact that most online
marketers have absolutely no experience in the field
of advertising and sales.

EVALUATE YOUR SALES PROCESS
There are many aspects that effect your sales process
online and it is possible to track the effectiveness
at each stage:

PHASE 1 is your advertising. The first step is just to
get people to your site.

To measure your traffic you must have some kind of
statistics for either your web site or integrated with
the ads you place, such as ad tracker URL's.

If you can't get people to your site, you must alter
your advertising methods or, more likley, your ad
copy, there is no way around it. Whether you are using
free or paid advertising, a good ad will get clicks
(at least some). Remember that no matter how good an
ad looks to you, if it doesn't do it's job, it is
useless. Keep a log of the ads you place along with
where and when; don't use ads that do not produce
results once they have been given a fair chance.

If your ads never seem to draw visitors, make
improving your ad writing skills a priority right
away. Today there are many resources available to help
you learn to write a better ad, including live
personal ad writing workshops and free ad writing
seminars.

To be sure that WHERE you are advertising is not the
problem, it is best to get recommendations from other
online marketers for advertising sites and tools that
produce results. This will save you the time and
frustration of trying them all out for yourself. It
will also allow you to stay focused on your offer
rather than spending your time searching for ways to
promote it.

Look for recommendations in marketing chat rooms
and ask for their results or find a reputable marketing
information site like ONE STOP Internet Business
Services (at http://www.onestopinternetbusiness.com )
that will give you plenty of free information along with
their proven recommendations.

AFFILIATES without control over their web site need to
pay special attention to getting traffic. Presumably
the offer you are selling includes a web page that
sells, after all it sold you.

If you find that you are driving targeted traffic (not
just click exchange hits) to your affiliate site, but
not making any sales, you need to reconsider your
offer: does it really have such a wide public appeal?
Maybe new competition has arisen that has made your
offer less of a value? Have you given people enough
time to consider your offer and have you followed up?
Be objective.

PHASE 2 is your web site copy and navigation. Are
people coming to your site and looking around, or do
they click away immediately?

To find out, it is best to have web sites statistics
that include the path visitors take once they get to
your site, but you can get an idea about this by
studying your web site statistics even if they do not
provide this type of information. You know which
page(s) you are promoting, are people looking at other
pages as well?

If not, you must alter your web site copy, design or
navigation. There are several places now where you can
have your web site reviewed for free by other internet
marketers. This can be very valuable information;
learn from it to build a site that makes visitors feel
confident enough to buy from you.

Also, be sure to send prospects directly to the page
that contains the information you promise in your ad,
it will make their visit quick, effective, and
memorable. If you advertise a particluar product, send
them to that page directly, rather than landing them
on your home page and trusting that they will navigate
to where you want them to be.

AFFILIATES can experiment with sending prospects to
pages other than the main page (if provided) to see if
that makes any difference in their sales ratio.

PHASE 3 would be your order process. Are people
looking around, going to the order page and then
leaving?

Here again, you need comprehensive web site
statistics. If you do not have site paths statistics,
pay close attention to the number of hits each of your
pages receive. If you see that many people go to the
order page, but do not buy, you will have to either
rewrite your text to clear up misunderstanding, lower
your price, display payment options more clearly, or
implement some other change that makes the ordering
process quicker and easier.

Try to capture email addresses with a contest, free
product, report or newsletter so that you can follow
up with potential customers.

Of course, AFFILIATES would have no control over the
ordering process with a replicated site. I think this
is important, so I will say it again: If you find that
you are driving targeted traffic (not just click
exchange hits) to your affiliate site, but not making
any sales, you need to reconsider your offer: does it
really have such a wide public appeal? Maybe new
competition has arisen that has made your product less
of a value? Have you given people enough time to
consider your offer and have you followed up? Be
objective!

DON'T GUESS!
When you are having trouble generating sales, you
need to track all of your activity (and the activities of
your visitors) to pinpoint where the trouble lies.
Only then will you know where you need to make
changes. Without this kind of information, you are
just guessing and that could be worse than leaving it
alone.