andrae, Author at Andrae Palmer

3 mistakes businesses make when promoting their business online

One of the most frustrating situations I’ve faced when trying to get information from local business owners is googling them and finding nothing. Even worse finding a phone number that doesn’t work. The other thing is finding one big flyer with “everything under the sun” that they do, and no way to contact them.

This is one experience I have ever so often, and it’s a frustrating situation to be in.

You are ready to buy something, money in hand but you can’t get in touch with the business establishment because they are unreachable. That’s one of the reasons why companies like Amazon and other online stores profit. They make it easy for consumers to buy stuff.

I remember going to a local computer store’s website to find out if they have a printer I wanted in stock. It was difficult to find that information on their website much more, to find the printer section. Calling was even worse. All the numbers rang without an answer, or are out of service. This problem can lead to many businesses losing paying customers without even knowing it. Here are 3 mistakes I see business make online:

#1 Wrong contact information

This one is huge and also the most frustrating. Why would you put up a phone number or email address that is not working, or you no longer use? I’ve seen this with schools, government agencies, churches and business places.

It is important to put correct contact details that are up to date, and functional. Persons who contact your business are closer to buying than you think. They are either comparing prices or checking the availability of a product. This puts them at the bottom of the funnel and reduces the chance of getting prospects for your business.

#2 No contact information

The next mistake is that there is no contact information. This is downright stupid. Having your contact information on hand makes it easier for persons to reach you with questions they have about your offer. This makes it easier for potential customers to reach you. It’s almost like these businesses are allergic to making money. It’s very hard for customers to find them.

They are some business who are not listed in the yellow pages so facebook search or google is the natural places to look for them. They have a facebook page but no contact is on the page. The only option for me or persons looking for these type of services is to move on to someone else.

#3 Right contact no answer

The other mistake I see businesses make is their failure to respond when contacted. This is worse compared to not having the right information or no information at all. Calling someone multiple times only for the phone to ring without an answer. No matter the time of day, this creates frustration for the customer, and you might end up getting blacklisted even if you do good work.

The solution to these issues is to update your contact information so customers can reach you. Also, put a system in place to handle inquiries that come in. If they are frequent, put up information on your social media channels to answer those questions.

Why set up a landing page for your podcast?

A podcast is an intimate medium. You take listeners on a journey with you by addressing their problems, sharing stories and solutions that help them. But if you run a business, chances are you want to convert those listeners into paying customers. To do this you’ll need a conversion system. By this I mean an offer to give to your listeners, and a place for them to get it. An automated sequence to nurture the relationship. One critical component is a landing page.

When a listener hears your offer and decides to take action, they want to go to a webpage to get that offer. They will see the offer and find even more reasons why they should get it now. Instead of having them search for it, you can make it easy for them to decide.

Before anyone can become a customer they all have questions relating to your offer. Some might be sceptical, but visit the page to verify the doubts. So that’s what the landing page is for. This space should answer all questions, and help convert listeners into leads that eventually buy from you.

A distraction-free environment

While people are listening to your podcast they may miss some things you said about the offer. Why not repeat it on your landing page. Only your offer is on the page. They can focus on getting all the information they need to decide. It’s a distraction-free zone because only your offer is on the page. This is important because the listener only has one choice to take the offer or leave it.

This makes deciding easier and increases your conversion once you have a good offer. It also makes it less of a hassle to decide what to do next as your call to action will be on the page.

You can separate offers for customer segments

Chances are you’ll have multiple offers, free and paid for your listeners. Where would you put them? On a landing page, with each offer having its own page. You might cater to different people and have multiple products that solve various problems. This is a great way to separate your offer so that they don’t compete with each other.

This makes selling much easier because each of the solutions is separate. you can create different pathways for different customer segments. Also, you can track every step of the way to see what’s working and what’s not.

You can track whether your marketing is working

The last point is that you can track what’s working and then fix it. When you look at your podcast download numbers then how many persons visited the page. The real metric is how many persons took action on the page. This number can tell you how effective your offer is, and you can see how it impacts the bottom line of your business. Knowing how each landing page affect your revenues can help your decision making and your marketing in the future.

Those are some of the major reasons why every podcast needs to use landing pages.

How to use landing pages to convert more podcast listeners into leads

You are creating consistent content for your podcast and your audience is starting to grow, but there’s one question that’s on your mind, how do I get podcast listeners to check out what I do? How do I know if any of them are potential customers? The answer to that question is to use n a call to action. The next question is where do you send them? A dedicated landing page is an answer. Why use a dedicated landing page?

A Distraction-free environment for your offer

A landing page is a dedicated webpage without navigation links, sidebars. There’s only just your offer. What this does, is it helps the reader focus only on your offer and has to decide whether to take it or leave it. Using such a tool will help your cause of growing your business. There are multiple ways to design it but it all boils down to 2 options, a two-column layout with a form or a one-column layout.

Landing pages for free offers for list building

An email list is important to build your business, and a landing page is one of the tools used to achieve this. There is the two-column layout. One side has of the book or free gift and the other, the form and text explaining why they should get it.

I like this layout simply because it makes the reader see everything at a glance. There is nothing to scroll down to as well. So nothing to distract the reader just everything they need to know to decide.

Landing pages for selling

Single column layouts are one of the most common for sales offers. But it depends on what you are selling that will make its use effective. Courses, services, consultations, software, products are all the examples I have seen one column layout use.

The reason for this is for the purpose of filtering leads to the landing page. They can be long or short, and usually, there is the buy button multiple times on the page.

Two-column layouts are effective for selling as well. For things like books and physical products. It looks cleaner and helps readers to see the offer at a glance.

As you can see from the pictures and examples using landing pages with your call to actions go hand in hand.

How many emails should you create for a sales funnel?

You have lots of ideas for your podcast that create lots of value for your listeners. You have a system to get them on your email list to automate your marketing. The question is how many emails should you send them before they are ready to buy? This can be frustrating, but luckily I found some model sequences you can try out what works.

The question of how many emails you should create for your sales funnel might come up when you sit down to write. The number will vary depending on what you sell. For the sequence to work its best to follow a system.

What do customers need to know before they buy?

When writing the email sequence decide on what persons need to know to be ready to buy from you. Lay that out over a 3 to 4 emails before you send your sales email. How you do this is to follow a system to drip the content over a period to your list. Derek Halpern from social triggers follows a basic sequence when launching his courses. Pain, desire, many options, the final option, best option.

This is a sequence he uses daily to launch his courses. In each email. He addresses the needs of different types of buyers. So what are some sequences you can use?

3 – 4 email sequence

I first learnt about this sequence in Dan Kennedy’s book “Magnetic Marketing.” It’s a simple sequence you send 3 – 4 emails to your list. How it works you send a few emails adding more value to the lead magnet or free information gift. Then in the final email, you ask for the sale. This short sequence builds urgency and if your customers are ready to buy they will respond. These emails can be sent out every other day.

7 email sequence

This model I learnt from Ramit Sethi of growth lab. What he teaches is similar to the 5-day launch but the content is a bit different. The launch cycle is a bit longer. How can you apply this? In the 7 email sequence take the time to explain what you sell and the benefits. Explain the problem you address, talk about the solution and present yourself as the best option. You will be laying out all the emails you need to present your offer.

Test these ideas out in your business and adjust it base on the results.

How to create content to match consumer buying behaviour

A marketing funnel is a systematic way to convert casual visitors into paying customers. How you implement this depends on how people buy what you sell. One thing that will make or break your marketing funnel is your content. What do you say at each step of the way to move persons closer to buying from you?

Talk about the problem

The first stage of the marketing funnel is attracting your ideal customers to your website, or to listen to your podcast. What do you say at this point? Talk about the problem or issues they are facing. This is a great way to build a relationship with your listeners or readers and also to build their trust. Once they feel confident, they will want to learn more.

Recently I went to get my eyes checked and then went online to purchase my glasses. The company was zenni optical suggested to me by a co-worker. On the company’s website, they shared information about “blue light” blocking lenses. transition lenses are generally what is prescribed, but the blue light lense got my attention. I instantly started googling to see if I should really get it. The one question I wanted to answer was what is the difference between the blue light lens and transition lens. Once I became comfortable with the answers I got, I added the feature to my glasses on check out.

With all that said, the point is, there are questions that your customers will ask. Your priority is to make sure these questions are answered, and the answers readily available upon search. You may answer these questions on your blog or podcast for instance.

Make a list of all the questions potential customers usually ask and start creating content to answer these questions. This can then be used as a tool to get them to join your email list.

Teach customers how to buy your product/service

I’m not telling you to share all your trade secrets, your aim is to help people make better decisions and get value for money. In my case, it was buying a new pair of tested glasses. What led to my decision to buy online was the fact that it was very expensive to buy it from the local store, even with health insurance. My search on Zenni Optica, based on the recommendation, resulted in my purchase. (by the way, this post is not a paid post, I’m just a happy customer.) This experience is a perfect example of the idea to nurture your prospect. You get to build even more trust and prepare them for your offer.

When you prepare your customers to buy, they make a more informed decision and reduce the incidence of fewer regrets about ar purchase. Another plus to this is that customers are more willing to tell others about you as well.

Following my experience, I told my mom about it and I’m now considering to buy my son’s next pair from them as well. That’s the kind of impact your marketing can have with the right content.

Send customers an offer to buy

In sequence, following that phase of nurturing to where the decision is made to make a purchase you can send potential customers an offer to buy. Don’t wait too long though. After a few emails send them the offer. Who is ready to buy will respond. For the others just continue teaching them about your offer.

you can get customers to buy from you by offering discounts, special packages with your main offer plus add-ons.

Example a course plus one to one coaching, and live group interactions. Or in my case with the glasses, I got the glasses plus free features, the case and a cleaning cloth.

That’s how you go about creating content for your marketing funnel.

How consumers choose products and services and why you should care

The internet has changed how consumers buy goods and services. People don’t go to a physical location right away then buy what they want. They go to amazon, eBay, google to find options to solve their problem. Whether it is to buy a new phone, clothes or search for service providers. They go through a process before making a decision. What is this process and how does it affect your online marketing efforts?

Consumers conduct research before they buy anything

The first part of the consumer buying process is the research phase. This is where they go to search google, to learn more about a problem they have. This could be anything, back pain, a need to buy a new TV, repair a broken phone, food recipes, anything. These are common problems consumers have that they will go to google to research options. When they start their research, they are at a point of wanting to solve their problem and want a solution to solve it.

When they are at this point two things happen, they either ask a friend or google recommendations. this affects your marketing by you being apart of the conversation. By doing this you are “ top of mind” hence inline to be chosen as the solution.

Your online presence may take the form of posting articles on your blog, doing a podcast episode, youtube channel or content on your social media pages addressing the issues your potential customers have.

Customers Compare solutions before making a decision

The next step in the process once they found a solution during the research phase, is to narrow down the options found. This is where everything about the various offers is looked at and examined in detail. This answers the question of what will they get, and how much will it cost.

Your job as a business owner during this stage is to prove the value of your offer to the consumer. Sometimes people will buy from you based on trust. They know that you do good work, and make their decision on that alone. The price will never be an issue for them as long as you prove your value. That’s the beauty of putting out regular content, through your various online channels to answer their questions. This builds trust with the consumer which makes their buying decision easier.

CustomersMakes a decision to buy when…

At this final stage of the buying cycle, customers narrow down the choices to one. This is where they click and select the add to cart button on amazon or your website and makes a purchase. If your business doesn’t sell products online this is where they book an appointment. All the helpful content you put out online will play a key role in getting them to that stage.

As was mentioned earlier these decisions are made when they trust you and your solution. In addition to that, your offer has to be irresistible to push the consumer to pull the trigger. This can be done by adding extra items as an incentive to increase the value of your offer, at a price they think is a bargain.

You see, understanding how consumers buy makes it easier for you to create content, to market your business. In the end, it will make it easier for them to buy.

The reason why you should automate your marketing

Not having enough clients is one of the reasons why most businesses fail. To solve this problem you’ll need a predictable system to find customers, tell them about your offer and get them to buy. Now, this sounds like a lot of work and it is. But all of this work can be automated giving you the freedom to focus on serving your clients. So why should you automate your marketing?

Pre-qualify customers so you don’t have to

One of the beauties about automating your marketing is that you can set up the system to qualify prospects so you are only talking to people who are ready to buy. This makes selling easier because once you meet with your customer they are already sold.

It starts by mapping out your sales process and creating content for your marketing channels to attract your ideal customer. Systematically sending them out driving people through your sales funnel ever step of the way. They are given content that will bring them closer to buying.

Pre-qualifying people is a good way to weed out persons who will waste your time. You can do this through the type of free lead magnet you offer. The wording of your ads and even to the types of questions on your landing page forms. Not everyone is going to buy from you and that’s ok. Just focus on serving your ideal clients and your peace of mind will thank you.

A repeatable system to sell so you don’t have to

Apart from pre-qualifying customers which is part of the sales process, you need a repeatable system that you can provide all the information about your offer. A step by step system that turns prospects into paying customers. The reason why this is so good is you can answer questions potential customers ask and more through content. ANd move them closer to making a purchase.

Repeatable meaning you create the content once and show it to many people. This can be videos, audio, images or even blog content. There are so many ways you can package the content that you just have to choose the ideal one to reach your customers.

You can track the results

There is a quote that says 50 per cent of advertising works you don’t just know which half. Here’s the thing in order to build a predictable system you must test your first set of ideas to see if it works and tweak it until you start to see results. Tangible numbers and results can help you visually see how well your marketing efforts are performing.

Dan Kennedy in his book magnetic marketing advocates for business owners to track the results of their marketing. Because it can help you save money and show you what is working and what is not. You will see how many persons downloaded your lead magnet, how mich read the follow-up emails you send. Who opened your sales email and click to buy from you and in some cases where they are. This type of information is helpful so that you can strategically target more persons who respond to your offer. Giving you better results.

Market automation is a good way to get new customers and help you grow your business.

How to choose a domain name

Choosing the right domain is very important. This is how people will find you online. It is also used as part of your marketing to drive customers to your offer. The name you choose shouldn’t be too complex. So how do you choose the perfect domain name for your business?

Start with your business name

To begin, start with your own business name as your domain name. This is the basic place to start. Why because that’s how you can begin to claim your real estate online. Have a place to send customers with your name attached to it.

To buy it, go to a domain registrar, for example, ” namecheap.com” I use this registrar to buy my domain names. Enter your business name to see if it’s available, and purchase the .com version. It’s that simple. That’s how you buy your business name.

What if the business name is complex?

if your business name is complex, coming up with the right domain name may not be so easy. You have to find an appropriate abbreviated version that works. Make it concise and simple Don’t get too technical about it. You want something people can remember. yourself and your staff included. Example one of the local banks business names is National Commercial Bank but their domain name is jncb.com.

The other point I want to make is that if your business name is complex, maybe its time to change it. Or even modify it to something more simpler.

Use your own name

In his book “The brand called you,” Peter Montoya says people do business with people. SO its a no brainer, to buy your name as your domain name and use it to build your business. This solves the ‘complex name ‘issue and helps you build your personal brand.

you can have a little fun with his option because you have variations to choose from. Here are sine options.

Firstnamelastname.com
Firstinitaillastname.cpom
Firstnamemiddle.com
Iamfirstname.com
Firstnamewhatyoudo.com
Lastnamewhatyoudo.com

This is just to get some ideas flowing, for your domain name. Once you choose your name just go to namecheap.com or a similar site and buy it.

One last thing. you don’t have to buy your business name. What I’ve seen some other businesses do is have a blog and redirect searches for their business to the blog dedicated to their industry. Whatever the situation, claim your domain name today.