Recession-Proof Your Business With Online Marketing Part Two by Bob Regnerus

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March 9th, 2009
Filed in: Online Marketing

This is the second article in the series by “leads king” Bob Regnerus. To read part one of the series go to http://tinyurl.com/cw83qj.

Part Two: Information Isn’t Everything, It’s the Only Thing

In the first article in this series, “Riding Out the Storm,” I described two of the reasons Internet marketing is the way to keep your business going in a bad economy: it provides you with a to-the-penny accounting of where your money is going, and it gives you a to-the-person account of how your customers are responding.

That’s just the beginning. In this article, I’ll talk about some of the other ways online marketing can help you, and they have to do with the most valuable commodity in tomorrow’s economy: information.

Information is what the Internet is all about, and no matter what you’re selling, you need to harness the Internet’s ability to present, collect, and manipulate information. Specifically, you need to do three things:

1.    Give your customers the information they need to make a purchasing decision.
2.    Collect the information you need to make a better sales pitch to your customers.
3.    Gather information about the effectiveness of your website and sales funnel.

When you build the right kind of website and use it the right way, you’ll give your business a competitive advantage and establish yourself as a dominant force in your industry.

Give Your Customers What They Want

When times are tough, everyone is slower to spend money. People who have been hurt by the recession need a lot of convincing to buy something, even if it’s something they really need. And those lucky folks who still have plenty of cash? They’re going to shop around, because they know there are bargains to be had.

Whether your customers are rich or poor these days, they need extra information before they make a purchase, and extra information is what you need to provide if you want their business. The key to providing that information, and providing it the right way, is the “lead-generating website.”

This is something I describe in more detail in Chapter 4 of my book Big Ticket eCommerce, but here’s the concept in a nutshell: asking your website visitors to make a purchase as soon as they arrive at your site is like proposing marriage on a first date. Even if you want to do it, you have to hold back, because your date (or customer) will think you’re crazy and run for the hills. When you want someone to make a commitment, you have to convince them that it’s a good idea before you ask them to take the plunge.

So, instead of using your website to ask for immediate sales, you should use it to guide your customers through their decision process. A lead-generating website is a website which provides the right information to your customers at the right time, and lets them get comfortable with what they’re doing as they move toward a purchase. Here are a few of the questions your customers are asking themselves when they visit your website:

Do you sell what they’re looking for?
Are you running an Internet scam, or are you a reputable business?
How do they know your product or service will work for them?
How is your product or service better than the competition?
Do you protect your customers with a money-back guarantee?

Notice that “How do I pay?” is not on the list. When they get to your website, your visitors may not be committed to making a purchase at all, and even if they are, they’re not convinced that they should be making that purchase from you. If you’re sensitive to those facts and use your website to present the information your visitors really need, you stand a much better chance of winning their business when they are ready to make a decision.

Unlike other media, which charge you by the inch and the second, the Internet provides essentially unlimited space and unlimited time. When you market your business online, you can afford to make your customers comfortable. Use your website to provide as much information as possible (in manageable, well-organized chunks) and let your customers set their own pace. They’re likely to visit your site at least seven times before they buy anything from you, so don’t push them to make a purchase on the first page they see. Tell them what they need to know, and they’ll reward you with their business and their loyalty.

Get What You Need

Giving your customers the information they need is one side of the coin. Getting the information you need from your customers is the other side, and it’s just as important.

In a recession, people make fewer purchases, and they take longer to do it. To keep your business alive and thriving, you need to know who your potential customers are and what they want. The best way to collect that information is—you guessed it—the lead-generating website.

In Chapter 4 of Big Ticket eCommerce, I describe the goal of the lead-generating website and the five key elements which help you achieve it. What it comes down to is this: when you’ve attracted someone to your website, you need a sure-fire way to gauge their interest in your product or service, and you need to get their contact information so that you can follow up with them later. By offering a free product or service, rather than demanding a purchase, you can collect that information right away and use it to connect with your sales leads for years to come.

Building an email list is one of the best things you can do for your business (more on that in my next article, “The Personal Touch”), and a lead-generating website will do it for you. If you let people leave your website without telling you something about themselves, you’ve wasted a huge opportunity, and that’s something no one can afford to do in this economy.

Your own website is the best source of information, but there are plenty of other places to gather intelligence about your customers. By reading blog comments (on your blog or others), registering on social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, and reading online message boards and forums, you can learn more about the people you want to attract. You can take an active role on these sites by posing questions or answering others’ questions, or you can just lurk in the background and find out what people are thinking. Either way, you’re sure to pick up valuable information which will allow you to improve your sales materials and relate more closely to your customers.

Test Everything

Information about your customers is a must-have these days, but there’s another type of information you need just as much: information about your marketing campaign. Using the Internet to market your business gives you the ability to test multiple marketing techniques without spending a lot of extra time or money.

I’ve created thousands of websites and attracted millions of visitors to them, but even I never get things right the first time I build a site. To ensure that you’re getting the maximum return on your investment in online marketing, you have to do what I do: test different approaches and choose the ones which work best.

I help my clients test everything: ideas, strategies, offers, products, services, discounts, ad copy, keywords, graphics, EVERYTHING. It’s a lot of testing, but it works because it’s cost effective—you can change the elements of your online marketing campaign in a matter of seconds, often at little or no expense. If you don’t like the results you’re getting from your newspaper ad or television spot, on the other hand, you’re looking at a major investment of time and money to try something new.

Running an online marketing campaign is like owning your own market research firm. You can test new concepts and find out what your customers are thinking, and you won’t need to shell out thousands of dollars or stand behind a one-way mirror.

These days more than ever, you need to remember that information is a weapon. If you wield it more effectively than your competitors, you’ll win the battle you’re fighting today and the ones you’ll face tomorrow.

Bob Regnerus is the creator of the Big Ticket eCommerce System™, a four-step process that helps businesses with complex or high-priced products and services maximize their sales using the internet. Utilizing the proven methods of this system, he has created thousands of websites, attracted more than 35 million website visitors and generated 2.2 million leads for clients in more than 30 industries. To get a FREE copy of Big Ticket eCommerce sent to you by mail, visit http://www.FreeBigTicket.com right now.