Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [83]
However, when looking at this page, there are a few hindrances. The first is the lack of a clearly visible point of sale. There is no “asking for the sale.” In addition, there is no clear distinction made of how this product will be sold—by the piece, by the pair, or by the entire set. The product copy goes on to describe two very different versions of the product, but there is no clear direction provided to the visitor and no clear request for action. A Buy Now button along with a pull-down menu indicating which version is desired would go a long way toward converting shoppers to buyers.
Figure 7-20: Dynamism’s USB sushi. Very cool, but there’s no “asking for the sale.”
Start with Just a Little Information
Asking for a small amount of visitor information early in the process is one sales tactic that is related to asking for the sale. Research discussed in 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by Goldstein, Martin, and Cialdini (Free Press, 2008) shows that people can be more easily persuaded to agree to an action when they have already made a smaller, less committed action. By inviting visitors to give a “small” yes, it is easier to get those same visitors to commit to the bigger “yes.”
Consider the case of DentalPlans.com; right from the home page, the visitor is focused on two primary means of finding information. The first is finding available plans available in the area. The second is finding a specific dentist. There are other informative links on the page, but those are not the primary destinations. DentalPlans.com is inviting the visitor to take the next step by having them enter information first.
By asking for small decision, a savvy salesperson can prepare the visitor for a larger decision. Once people agree to provide information, such as ZIP code, size of organization, type of industry, and so on, they will be more willing to invest additional information or commitment later in the process, because they have already invested personal information in the progression through the website.
Friday: Don’t Muddy the Water
This was a lesson I learned personally as a technical sales engineer. When I had a prospect who was ready to make the commitment, I made the mistake of continuing to sell and adding more to the discussion. I kept introducing new products and other options available in our line. Because I did not let the prospect commit to the sale, when they were ready, I nearly lost the commitment entirely.
When a visitor is ready to commit, let them.
Don’t “muddy the water” with more information than the prospect or visitor already need. If they have need or heard enough to make the decision, don’t make then view six more pages or loops of Flash movies and animations. Let the visitor get to the commitment and complete their initial task.
There are two distinct areas of online marketing in which people tend to muddy the water: getting the commitment and closing that commitment.
Get the Commitment
With the advent of the social media frenzy, I find that many businesses simply haven’t fully developed their online marketing agenda. This is evident in the calls to action on many websites. The phone number, contact form, Facebook, and Twitter links are all presented. In the same place and the same size is the same call to action. All elements are competing with each other for the visitor’s attention.
Ask any business what their primary call to action is, and they will jump to tell you to call or to contact! However, this strategy is not always evident on websites—all conversions are often visually treated the same. All conversions are not equal! Some make you more money than others, so the ones that make you the most money need to be the clearest, largest, and boldest visual conversion requests on the page. All other conversions need to be ordered in terms of the priority to the business, to the customer, and to the value that they provide. When web managers realize this and resize, recolor, or remessage their