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
FOLLOWUP 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
followup 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 followup 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
committment.
4. You should test your website and ad copy. Take polls
on your website. Ask your prospects their opinion of your
website in guestbooks. 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?
1. Start an Ezine
2. Have a Guestbook
3. Give Free Downloads for Filling out a Form
4. Offer Low Cost Free Sample by Mail for Visiting
5. Take a Poll
6. Set Up a Free For All Links Page or Classified Site
7. Use Autoresponders which list the people who hit them
8. 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!
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