When it comes to talking to your prospects or customers online, do you come across as yourself or as an automated purchase taker? Do you make it personal or keep it all business? Do you find a new prospect and try to sell them your big ticket item on the spot?

The best piece of advice a mentor gave me on this topic is this: See your prospects as though you’re dating them for marriage… you don’t go to fourth base on the first date – you’ve got to go on quite a few dates before you take it to the next level!

I often see business owners try really hard to make a sale by blasting out an offer on the spur of the moment, then sit by the phone and wonder why it’s not ringing.  Have you ever been sold to by someone you haven’t heard from in a while but ignored the offer?

Statistics from recent research tell us that it takes on average 7-9 touches to make a sale.  I have prospects who have taken longer than that, and who have required MORE than just an email every week.  My prospects like to communicate with me personally and get a sense that I understand them and that I’m adding value to them and their business.

How are you ‘courting’ your prospects?  Asking for fourth base on the first date?  Or are you taking your time to get to know them?  The truth is in the sales results.

As our web-based communication age continues, we are being challenged more and more to find new ways to promote and sell our products and services.  Remember that it’s not all about the latest design and pretty pictures.  It’s more than a great offer.  And it’s more than power words repeated ad infinitum.

It’s a mixture of ALL of these things, and the magic ingredient of the human touch.  People want to buy from people – and that’s who you are after all.

The Ladder of Loyalty

The Direct marketing system is built around a five step ladder of customer commitment, dating back to the 1930s.

On the bottom we have Suspects – people we think should have an interest in doing business.

Once they show interest in our business they become Prospects – we communicate to them to encourage a sale. Once they buy something they become Customers. But this is not where it ends.

If you continue the communication, giving Customers added value and real  information, they move up to the Clients level. So they are happy to buy only/mostly from you when they need those products or services.

By asking these Clients to refer friends who need your services, they then become Advocates. Advocates willingly encourage their acquaintances to try your products/services.

All businesses should nurture the customer through to the Clients and Advocates level – where most leverage happens. After all, look at your business you will likely find the Pareto Principle at work – 80% of the business comes from the top 20% of all people you trade with. These are your clients and advocates.

When surrounded by all the talk of social media and SEO, it’s important to reconnect with why we do marketing at all – to eventually make a profit.

No matter how great your website is, how many followers you have on Twitter or how well found you are on Google, if visitors fleetingly cross your path and don’t hang around, contact you, buy from you or tell anyone about you, then it’s likely you’ve ignored the basics of marketing.
– Carolyn Tate, Connect Marketing (author of Small Business, Big Brand)

Those of us who have online businesses or rely on website leads are always looking at new ways to boost our reach. This often involves a variety of online efforts to build a following.

But sometimes being a “netpreneur” can have its drawbacks. A friend of mine who owns a couple of online based businesses (successfully drawing 5000 visitors a month), working and writing until the wee hours while her children are in bed, struggles to make a living from her main business. The reason for this struggle, I believe, is the hole in the plan – enough sources of revenue.

While you must take into account all costs, your time is your most precious commodity. If you run around like a headless chook, Twittering, Facebooking, ‘being helpful’ in forums, gaining links, etc, don’t forget to have a solid plan to earn revenue from either your website or your core skill.

If your profits for FY ending 2010 are looking less than great, now is the time to draw up a new kind of Marketing Plan, one that involves AUTOMATING your time, LEVERAGING your ability to create leads/customers, and bringing in new streams of LOW COST INCOME. In addition to using the latest Infusionsoft technology to achieve all this, here are some ideas to get you started:

• Create your own digital products, eBooks, DVDs, audio, white papers (a writer or editor can tidy it up for you),
• Create your own book to sell (you will need expert help here to make it a success, but you can use digital “print on demand” to trial publishing)
• Sell high end coaching (sold from a free educational webinar).
• Sell a new service to a highly targeted audience (from email marketing to a list you have captured with a really focussed offer)

If already successful in the traffic attraction stakes, why not sell appropriate advertising? Or joint venture with a compatible education provider to exchange marketing offers to each other’s lists? You would be surprised how approachable some well-known authors and speakers are.

See more about automating your marketing on InfusionOz.com.au.