Blog

List Building Tip #2 – How To Turn More Leads Into Customers

When a prospect fills out your lead form, it’s usually because they want something. Generally, they want to be contact and see what you have to offer. If your leads are not contacted right away, they can grow cold, lose interest or otherwise forget about you entirely.

Also and unfortunately, due to the hectic lives of most of us, leads often forget when they’ve filled out a lead form if they’re not contacted right away. Also, things can come up and they might have to postpone their original plans.

We’ve seen clients sign-up for services months or even years after first filling out a lead form. Continued follow-up via email and phone with your prospects can turn them into your customers.

If you’re a WFN Pro member, you have a built in lead follow-up system you can use to stay in touch with your leads on a regular basis. But in any case, you should have some type of follow-up system even if it’s just using your computer’s email program or the phone.

Keep this in mind throughout this New Year and turn more leads into customers!

List Building Tip Of The Week - Free Offers Make People Respond

Free trials, free reports or other free introductory type services get the prospect started with your company very easily.

Many of your potential competitors are also using free offers and you don’t want to be out promoted by them. Coming up with a free offer can be as easy as writing an article about something on which you’re an expert or giving away a free sample.

Keep this in mind when planning your marketing and use free offers to grow your list FAST!

Making A Website Sell - By Toli Cefail

I’m continually fascinated by people’s viewpoints on websites and what it really takes to create a website that gets results.

I’ve met many people who expect to just build a website and automatically have it start getting sales from day one.

Well… sometimes this happens but most of the time it doesn’t.

Building a website is really like setting up any BUSINESS. You can’t really expect to open a brick-and-mortar store for example, and have customers just start coming in and buying things. I mean this can happen, but most often it doesn’t.

If you open a store you have to:

· Stock the shelves with things people want

· Promote to get people into the store

· Observe the people while they’re in the store regarding their reactions to the merchandise

· Re-stock and add new merchandise according to those reactions

· Adjust the presentation and pricing of the merchandise according to those reactions

· Communicate with the customers both inside and outside of the store to get them to buy

· And many more things.

In short, it’s a PROCESS. And it is a process unfortunately that many business owners are not prepared to confront when they set up their website.

The average lifespan of a website is about 18 months. I’ve built cutting edge type websites that have held their own for 3 or more years but you really should be prepared to redo your site at least once every 2 years. This is because the internet and web technology is constantly changing and improving.

It is also because the needs and expectations of your website visitors will also change as time passes. What a website will need to deliver today to be considered “good” or even “great” is not necessarily what will create the same effect tomorrow.

You should plan to adjust your web content on a monthly basis at a minimum. The more often your site content updates, the more the search engines will like it.

When launching a web site don’t be fixed on anything. Be prepared to change it on the fly, make corrections, add and remove features, etc. as you go.

Based on my experience, it can take as long as a few months to get a launched website really humming. And this is a few months with at least 2 people working on it full time - a site promoter and a webmaster/designer/programmer.

Some webmasters can do it all but this is rare. You will seldom find a good artistic designer who is also a good programmer and if you do, it will cost a lot to hire this person.

When hiring a company to build your site it’s fine to hire one that is great technically if you have in-house marketing personnel. But if you don’t have web savvy in-house marketing personnel (and I mean really web savvy with regards to internet marketing and promotion as well as marketing in general) then you’re better off hiring a web marketing company and letting them work with your webmaster to get the site built.

The way we work is we have teams of designers, teams of programmers (of all types) and our own in-house web savvy marketing experts who supervise these teams. Then when it’s all done, we turn the site over to our client’s webmaster with our recommendations and continue to work on whatever additional marketing plans the client wants and needs.

Many times we will work with a client’s in-house marketing team. I particularly like to work this way as marketers think alike and don’t overdue the technology forsaking the consumer.

So to sum this up: when you’re building a website recognize that it’s a commitment and a process. Be prepared to roll up your sleeves, make adjustments (many, many adjustments), and take the TIME to respond to your visitors’ behavior to make your site perform.

Anatomy Of A Website

Many people take for granted the creation and deployment of a website. They often think of it as a purely a technical thing and that its content comes from some mystical place such as the webmaster’s or web designer’s mind.

It is very very far from that and in fact, contains many elements both in its formation and continuing operation over time.

Think of a website much as you would a home or a building in which you plan to live or work.

Approach the creation of your website as you would the building of your home or workplace. After all, your website is your virtual “home” or “residence” on the World Wide Web.

If you think of it this way, you will begin to see the estimation of thought and work required to properly create, deploy and manage a website.

Let us take say, a restaurant as an example. If you were building a restaurant you would ask yourself a variety of questions (hopefully) before you began construction. Questions such as:

1. What kind of customers to I want to cater to?
2. What impression do I want to make on them when they enter the establishment?
3. What kind of food do I want to serve?
4. What kind of equipment do I require to adequately prepare and serve this food?
5. How do I want the food to be presented to the customers?
6. How many customers do I want to be able to serve simultaneously?
7. Do I want to serve alcohol? What types? Do I need a wine cellar since I plan to have a large wine selection?
8. Do I want televisions to display sporting events?
9. Do I want to provide WiFi internet to my patrons?
10. What type of wiring do I need? Lighting? Music?
11. Do I want a maître di?
12. How will phone calls be handled? Will I take reservations?
13. How will the restaurant be decorated?
14. How will I promote it to get people in the door?
15. What do I want them to be able to do when they get there?
16. What are your personnel requirements to stay in business and service your customers?
17. What will those personnel need to do their jobs?
18. Etc., Etc., Etc.

In other words, you would make a fairly complete assessment of your needs, desires and those of your potential customers and employees BEFORE you began to invest the time and money to build your restaurant.

Well the same degree of thought and planning should go into the creation of your website.

In fact, most of the highly successful websites and internet companies that you see employ this degree of planning, forethought and management, and then some.

Below are the key overview points that should go into the successful planning and creation of any website.

The more sophisticated the site, the more users you plan to have, the more work and time is involved on each of the steps below.

Simple brochure type sites of only a few static web pages take less time, BUT, each of the steps below still applies.

1. Purpose & Function Planning
2. Content Planning
3. Content Creation
4. Copywriting
5. Design Planning
6. Design Implementation & Execution
7. Functionality & Programming Execution
8. Hosting Planning & Set-Up
9. Promotion & Marketing
10. Sales & Lead Management
11. Content Updating
12. Content Management
13. Hosting Management
14. Site Performance Management (Technical)
15. Site Performance Management (Marketing & Sales)

Use these key 15 steps to successful website planning and development and your next website will be more likely to perform the way you envisioned.

The next article in this series will discuss and define each of the above points in some detail. You will learn what each means and what is involved in each stage.