You can do 50 different things to bring people to your website. But what about actually MARKETING to those prospects so that they eventually buy from you? 

One business owner I know had a website in a very crowded marketplace – gift baskets. Her site was nice enough but her conversion was very poor. If you’re in the gift basket industry in Sydney, you’d better be ahead of the game. If studies show that it takes an average of seven contacts from a business to convert a sale from a qualified lead, why do website owners often expect the people just browsing their site to instantly buy? Capturing people’s emails (with a tantalising offer just for subscribers) was my first piece of advice to her.

Where is Helpful Advice on Email Marketing?
Although there is a plethora of info on attracting people to your website, actually marketing to them and getting action (sales/calls/bookings) is often left to chance. 

Email marketing has been around for awhile now, but it is rare to get advice on what to send, how often, how to segment your list, and how to get a great response. So most business owners just send untargeted offers, which seriously under-utilises this low cost avenue for customer acquisition. (Of course I work with Infusionsoft, the tool to use to get those high performing results you want).

In addition, pay-per-click advertising to attract customers can get quite expensive if 95% of the prospects sail away before any contact. Email marketing works brilliantly with PPC advertising because it allows businesses:

• to tell them more details about the services/products
• to learn more about their visitors’ real interests
• to offer value through information prior to purchase (i.e. handy tips, news, events)
• to keep the relationship between business and prospect alive, right after they showed interest

Fortunately, I am working on a solution to help end the marketing confusion generally circulating in the small business world. It will be an exclusive Business Builder’s membership program. Stay tuned for some interesting, results-focussed advice.

Some E-marketing Tips

You need to encourage people to give you their email address, so what do you give them in return? While it is the most popular, you don’t necessarily have to offer a newsletter. Other options are: a free white paper with some facts about your industry, a free consultation or evaluation, or a free webinar or teleseminar.

Thank them for signing up to your list (automatically of course), personalising this message based on their encounter with your website. Once they read your newsletter/email, track which links they clicked on, and then target mailings to their interests and habits. You can even segment people who found you through search engine marketing in a separate mailing list from your general list.