14. Bonuses
We all love freebies and your customers are no exception. Ideally you should pile on the bonuses to get people excited. Sometimes they will buy the main product only to get the bonuses. The easiest and least expensive are informational products – reports, articles, ebooks. You can find literally thousands of these on the internet. Simply go to your search engine and find one that would appeal to your target audience. For example, if you sell wedding cakes, you may wish to give away ebooks or reports on planning a wedding. If you sell children’s clothing, you may wish to give away tips on parenting or ebook which features activities to do with your children. Ivana KatzWebsites 4 Small Business
www.web4business.com.au
13. Autoresponders
Email autoresponders work like a fax-on-demand system. If you send an email to an autoresponder address, you’ll get back a pre-written message. Autoresponders have come a long way in the last couple of years. Not only are you able to send HTML messages with graphics, but you can set up a whole sequence of autoresponder messages going out on any day or at any time you choose.
Once you set up your email messages, everything gets done automatically. As soon as a prospect sends an email to your autoresponder, the system keeps working over and over again, like a tireless robot making sure no prospect ever slips through the cracks. Most autoresponders systems now handle your whole mailing list, so you are not having to manually manage your prospects.
Because the vast majority of customers will not buy from you on their first visit to your website, it is extremely important that you have an automated way to follow up with them several times to entice them back. You can use autoresponders to cross-promote various products and services your business offers.
Follow these tips and you can’t go wrong:
1. Make time sensitive offers in your email follow up.
2. Build extra incentives into each follow up, until your prospect can’t resist any more. Offer free reports, free ebooks, freeware programs, mini-courses etc
3. Include a survey as part of your autoresponder sequence, so you can find out what your customers like about your messages, what they dislike and what other information they want.
Some great autoresponders include:
GetResponse
www.aweber.comIvana Katz
Websites 4 Small Business
www.web4business.com.au
12. Affiliate programs
Affiliate programs also known as reseller programs are an agreement in which a website owner displays an ad for another company in exchange for a commission on the resulting sales and/or leads.
There are two ways you can start your own affiliate program.
1. You can have a service bureau take care of nearly everything for you. They’ll handle the recruiting and administrative functions like sending out payments, tracking, reporting etc. A good example of a service bureau is Commission Junction – www.cj.com
2. Set up an affiliate program yourself, using on-line services. Some you may wish to check out include:
www.synergyx.com
www.marketerschoice.com
www.assoctrac.com
Tips for setting up successful affiliate programs:
1. Should be free to join.
2. Offer real time statistics so that affiliates can check their sales and commission without having to contact you.
3. You should provide your affiliates with proven tools they can use to sell your products (eg. Sales letters, endorsement letters, banners, ezine articles, ezine ads)
4. Technical support 24/7
5. Stay in touch with your affiliates to keep them motivated
6. Give your affiliates the highest commission you can.Ivana Katz
Websites 4 Small Business
www.web4business.com.au
11. Domain Name
Your domain name represents one of the most important decisions you have to make in going online. The purpose of a domain name is similar to that of a street address or telephone number. The domain name directs customers to you on the Internet. The most popular domain names in Australia are “.com.au” and “.com”.
Ideally your domain name should be rich in keywords (words relating to your business) to ensure on-line success, especially with search engines.
If for example, you are a florist based in Sydney, it would be preferable for you to have one of the following domain names:
www.sydneyflorist.com.au
www.florist.com.au
www.sydneyflowers.com.au
You will, however, find that generic names such as the above are already taken. In that case, register something like:
www.cindysflowers.com.au
www.sydneyflowersandgifts.com.au
If your business name is for example “Jim & Sons”, ensure you include a description of what you actually do, eg.
www.jimandsonscarpetcleaning.com.au or
www.jimscarpetcleaning.com.au
We all love freebies and your customers are no exception. Ideally you should pile on the bonuses to get people excited. Sometimes they will buy the main product only to get the bonuses.
