"Collecting
Follow-Up Information Can Be a Life Or Death Experience."
By Terry Dean
Let me tell you a story. It is a sad story, but
it is all too common. A man or woman one day decides that they
can have more in their life or in their business. They are told
there is a "Secret Weapon" for marketing available now
to anyone who wants to use it called the Internet.
They get a local internet connection and then venture out into
this brave new world for their business. They hire the best web
designers they can afford to have a website developed for them
so that they can share their products with the world. Then, they
wait...and wait some more. Nothing happens.
Then, they are told you have to advertise online.
Everyone doesn't show up just because you have a website online.
Yes, that's right. You are going to have to learn the online advertising
methods such as banner advertising, ezine advertising, classifieds,
trading links, press releases, etc.
So, like good little internet marketers, they
begin their quest for traffic. This sometimes is a hard road to
proceed upon, but they finally accomplish their goals of getting
hundreds of visits to their site daily. Low and behold though,
one further problem presents itself.
Even though they now have a well done website
and hundreds of visitors coming daily, they aren't making any
sales. There is NO money coming in. They have spent money on web
hosting, web design, advertising, and more. Their income has been
next to zero up until this point though.
For most internet marketers, this is the moment
of truth for their online business. Will you do what 95% of people
who reach this point do...Give Up and Quit? Will you be another
person who leaves the internet market declaring "People just
don't buy products online!"
This is when most people bury their internet
businesses. I have seen this happen hundreds of times already
to friends or associates online. Even though they are in different
industries and markets, almost every marketer seems to come to
this crossroad in their online business.
There are two paths available to you at this
point. Will you be like most and take the path of failure...giving
up right before you find your breakthrough? Or will you do what
every successful online marketer does and research out the difference
between those who make money online and those who don't?
I have done my research already and I am going
to let the cat out of the bag right here and now. The big divider
between those who birth a successful online business and those
who bury their dreams and quit is very simple actually. The secret
is...
If You Want to Be Successful...You Must
Collect the Follow-up Information!
Stop and think about that for a moment. This
one aspect of your online business is so important I could draw
you a line in the sand and divide up who has been successful online
and who hasn't. The successful marketers are constantly developing
new ways of Collecting information about their prospects or customers.
Throughout my marketing online, I have found
an interesting secret. Web sites do not make sales. Email follow-up
makes sales. Ask any marketer online and you will find that their
closing rate from just the website is horribly low. Most websites
get between a 0.05% and a 1% sales rate from their visitors.
Once you add constant follow-up by email though
to the same prospects, you can get those same percentages up to
.5% to 10% sales rate. This is an increase of up to 10 times in
many cases just because you applied constant follow-up to the
equation.
Let's run through a few quick tips I have for
you on collecting information about your prospects and about how
to do it.
What Type of Information do You Want
to Collect?
1. You absolutely have to get your prospect's
email address. I make that the number one priority of my website.
Once you have the email, you can start following up on all of
your prospects as often as you want to for FREE. Now, money is
no excuse for poor follow-up skills. Email is free.
2. You want to collect their postal address so
that you can mail a follow-up sales letter by snail mail. I know
that snail mail isn't as glamorous as email, but IT WILL HELP
YOU CLOSE SALES. The response rate on direct mail is still higher
than online so if you collect postal mail information, you can
follow-up online and still get a hard copy of your materials into
their hands.
3. You may want to collect their phone number.
This tip is most often true if you are giving away something free.
For example, if you give away a free audio tape, MAKE SURE that
your prospect has to turn in their phone number before you mail
them something with this type of cost. Internet people are often
trying to just collect any free thing they find even if they have
no intention of doing anything with it. Don't send out expensive
packages unless you get a phone number which shows a higher commitment.
4. You should test your website and ad copy.
Take polls on your website. Ask your prospects their opinion of
your website in guest books. Get their input. Ask for it. Give
away something free if they give it to you. Let your prospects
tell you what you need to do to make more sales online.
How do You Collect This Information?
- Start an Ezine
- Have a Guest book
- Give Free Downloads for Filling out a Form
- Offer Low Cost Free Sample by Mail for Visiting
- Take a Poll
- Set Up a Free For All Links Page or Classified Sit
- Use Autoresponders which list the people who hit them
- Run a Contest
See, it may take you a little thinking time to
produce the right method for collecting follow-up information
on your prospects. Don't even take my list above as an all inclusive
list. Think up your own ways. Those people who are the most successful
in any venture are the ones who are innovative.
Whatever you do though in your online marketing, DO NOT FORGET
the follow-up. The fortune is in the follow-up. Collect information
on your prospects and then get to work developing a simple follow-up
system for contacting each of them as many times as possible.
Most marketers will tell you that it takes at least 7 contacts
with a prospect to make the maximum number of sales. Online, I
think this number is much higher.
So get out there and start collecting follow-up
information if you want to make money on the web!
|
