5 STEPS FOR ONLINE SUCCESS

Web site success is not achieved by chance, and the old adage 'build it and they will come' is a recipe for disaster. It takes planning and an integration of intuitive marketing strategies to ensure the success of your site. In this article, we propose the concept of online success is a process of five steps. Following these steps is the difference between a web site that costs you money to create and maintain and a web site that offers tremendous return on investment. Your business may not be involved in retail sales or have products that can be sold directly over the internet, but every business sells something.  The purpose of the web site has to be to promote your company, add to its credibility, offer online assistance, educate your customers and convert web site visitors into lasting customers. 

As all the business analysts and forecasters agree, if your business is not online it will not survive as you will be dominated by competition. This competition could be from the office next door or across the world. The internet destroys logistics barriers, creating a chance for you to not only survive, but to expand your market and service it more effectively than ever possible in the physical world. 

If you are prepared to make an online commitment then simply following these steps will ensure your success. The creation of a web site is an ever evolving process and your site should be in a constant state of improvement and development. The internet is constantly changing and so are the demands of the online community. The public is becoming more educated and more adaptable to new technologies and expects business to offer them what they know is available through technology. To think of your online business as a one off project, where you build a web site and then leave it for customers to find and use, spells certain disaster. Yet to realize it is digital and can be changed and updated in an instance can lead to greater success, higher profits and lower overheads.

Online businesses success can be simplified to 5 clear steps. 
 

Step 1
CREATE A WEB SITE THAT IS ATTRACTIVE AND JUST AS IMPORTANTLY, USEFUL TO YOUR TARGET MARKET WITH WORTHWHILE CONTENT.

The Look:

A web site is the like the receptionist or salesman of your business, where first impressions are the longest lasting. How a current or prospective client perceives your company consciously or subconsciously is the decision maker of the client. You must have a professional yet attractive look and feel of your web site, just like you need to for your physical office. The beauty is that as with most areas of internet we will cover, you can create these perceptions incredibly cheaper on the internet, than you ever could physically do, and achieve greater results.

If your web site does not look professional, cosmetically attractive and easy to navigate, visitors will not feel confident to deal with you, nor will they make the effort to try navigate your site. This means they leave with a poor impression of your company and have not allowed you to promote you credibility, professionalism nor your products and services. The result - a poor or lowered perception of your company/products where you would probably be better off having no web site at all. 

The Content:

This is a bold statement I know, but we at Purpose Group believe;

"people do not go online to buy, they go online to research".

Think about it... Say you were looking at getting a new mobile phone. You know of an Optus or Telstra retail shop up the road but first you want to do some investigating and see which phone has which features and would best suit your needs. Rather than get accosted by a pushy, bad breathed salesperson, you go online to do your research.

So you are intending on buying a phone, but rarely would you be thinking "I'll go online and buy a phone (computer/shirt/cars or whatever)". Yet if you come to a web site that gives you every bit of information you want about phones and their features and the web site answers all the questions you have, you will feel grateful and now relaxed and confident that this company can help you.

So if the information was presented in a non-pushy manner, so you haven't felt that all they wanted was the sale, you are very likely to place your order with that company. Why wouldn't you? You now have no reason to hesitate as all your questions and hesitation have been answered!

If it were a professional looking site, enabled you to place an online order, easy to navigate and allowed answers to all your research you would feel 100% comfortable that this is a professional and established company who can help you and who you want to deal with.

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Step 2
PLAN, DESIGN AND IMPLEMENT THE MARKETING AND ADVERTISING STRATEGIES TO DRIVE MASSIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEB SITE.

Ok, so you have  the right look and design of your site with great content. The money will soon start rolling in!.. No, sorry. That's like saying you built a magnificent house, on prime land, with a pool, spa, tennis court and it is a real bargain, and without telling anyone or advertising expect you will get a line of prospective buyers. 'Build It and they will come' just doesn't work. You have to now promote your web site and market it's usefulness and features.

As mentioned before, everything can be done cheaper and more effectively in your online business than with a physical business. Online marketing can have greater reach and effect than would ever be possible in the physical business, if done using the tried, tested and proven methods that years of online marketing experience has taught us.

Online marketing is cheap and can have a tremendous impact on your bottom line, if it is planned and used effectively. Using haphazard methods or shotgun approaches can be dangerous, as done incorrectly they can create more of a negative effect instead of creating customers.

Marketing your website is achieved using 3 methods:

·        Online marketing

o       Emailing, e-newsletters, opt-in mailing lists, newsgroups, bulletin boards, banner ads, link exchange and sharing your content with others

·        Off-line Marketing

o       Promotion of your web address on all literature, company stationery, mail outs, newsletters, advertising the www address, word of mouth,

·        Search Engine Optimisation

o       Making your site list in the top 10 - 20 results of search engine under your researched keywords

Finding the best method is a very important step. The result can vary dramatically according to your market. As with any marketing strategy, you need to be where your market is. A little research can improve the effectiveness of your marketing tremendously. Researching

ü      where your market is online

ü      what they want from a web site

ü      what they want from your products/services

ü      what frustrations do they currently face in your industry

ü      the language or way your present your message to them

1. Conduct a survey of website visitors. Ask them how they found out about your site.
2. Survey your existing customers for the same information.
3. Track your advertising. Run ads in various places and track the effectiveness of each.

Step 3
EDUCATE AND HELP VISITORS OF YOUR WEB SITE AND ENCOURAGE CONTINUAL RETURN VISITS, WHILE ALSO OBTAINING THEIR DETAILS AND THE PERMISSION TO MARKET TO THEM.

As I stressed in step 1 of this process, people are most likely not at your site with the complete intention of buying, not on their first visit anyway. So the main focus of your site needs to be to HELP YOUR MARKET. If you can answer all the questions of prospective clients and settle their frustrations, they will of course want to deal with you. You may not be able to offer every possible piece of information on your web site, and if you are clever and not pushy for the sales, you can obtain greater number of sales through offering a newsletter or e-mailing list where you will send past and potential customers information tailored to their interests. This is of course Permission Marketing. Getting the visitors permission to send them information and marketing materials. Be warned, if these are a blatant 'sell job' and not a help tool, your database will disappear a lot quicker than it grows. Make sure you are still HELPING your visitors, not imposing on them

By integrating into your site methods where visitors can interact, ask questions, learn about your method of business and what you can do for them, you will educate your visitors about your products and your business and they will return to your web site whenever they wish to purchase the products/services you supply.

As the most effective method of online marketing is opt-in mailing, you want to encourage visitors to leave you their contact details. On the first visit they may not feel ready or comfortable to do this, (as most of us are hesitant of giving personal info for fear of being bombarded with unwanted and irrelevant information), so on repeat visits the visitor will feel more comfortable and is more likely to give you more information about themselves on each return visit. The more information you can obtain about your market the more effective your marketing will be and the greater percentage of sales you will generate.

So with each visit you want to persuade visitors to tell you about their wants, purchasing habits, products they are interested in, demographics and psychographics enabling you to build profiles of your market. With clever and planned objectives and strategies, you will continue to build an online database that becomes a gold mine and constant revenue stream. You use this database to create and test new products, segment the market, and turn on sales like a tap whenever you wish to generate sales.

Your ability to help and satisfy your customer needs is your key to return visits and repeat sales through your web site.

Step 4
CONVERT THIS ONLINE TRAFFIC INTO SALES THROUGH ONLINE SALES PROCESSES AND FOLLOW UP EMAIL MARKETING.

So you are constantly building your database through offering helpful materials online, (or running a competition or similar), and helping your customers as possible. So how do you turn all this work into sales? How do you convert this database and these processes into sales?.

If you have followed the other steps, done your research, learnt about your customers, found out what the want and what their frustrations are, it is easier. By this point you understand your market and you know what they want, and how they ant you to present it to them.

Use your database now to email out a newsletter, report or even just a tip sheet, to stay in regular contact with your visitors, promote your products/services, release new products and continue to educate your market.

If you have a product that is not selling well it may be because your market doesn't understand it. You can use this mailing to educate your market as to why it was invented, what frustrations it alleviates and how they can benefit from it.

Offer your email list special deals not available through your physical locations so they continue to see a value in receiving this list, even if they feel they have learnt all they wanted about products that relate to them.

It is a statistic bantered around again and again, "a customer who has already bought from you is 6 times more likely to buy from you again". So use your mailing database to encourage customers to not just buy once, but make repeat sales with special products or deals.

Step 5
CONSTANT MONITORING THE TRAFFIC AND SUCCESS OF YOUR WEB SITE THROUGH SITE TRACKING ANALYSIS USING THIS INFORMATION TO UPDATE, IMPROVE, AND MAINTAIN YOUR SITE.

How do you know how well the previous 4 steps are working? What percentage of visitors have you converted into sales? How long do they stay on your site or spend viewing each page? Where do most people access your site? Most are from what country?  How many view your opt-in mailing pages but don't subscribe?

You name it and there is most likely a piece of software to track and analyse any information you want from your site and its visitors. It is impossible to know how well or how poorly your site is doing, unless you have accurate figures to gauge your progress.

1. how do people find out about your site?
2. why do they initially visit your site? 
3. what makes them stay? 
4. what makes them purchase? 
5. and what makes them come back for more? 

Once you have this information you are then armed with the knowledge to adapt, edit, change and mange your web site for greater impact. You can change a page or a method and find out an exact response and change it back or make further changes depending on the tracking information about your visitor response.

The digital world is constantly changing as are the needs and wants of your customers. The internet can give you instant control to analyse, change and adapt your web site, and you must do that for your continued survival. A web site that is perceived as not being up to date, modern and offering online visitors the features they know are available to them online, will just have them go elsewhere and never return, as they see no need.

On the other hand, a site that is constantly changing and adapting and keeping contently fresh will have visitors returning again and again, as they know it will be different and better each time. Your customers will know that you are listening to them.