If you are in business trading in some products, if you are manufacturing some thing or if you are rendering professional services to a number of clients, you enter into some deal with your customers, your suppliers or your clients every day, every time you are in process of clicking some deals – that may be beginning or in mid way or in finishing stage.
You need to review your policy to make your deals more effective every time with new experience. For early success, you can take many actions in accordance with your circumstances, your budget and your needs as well. You may:
- Change your advertisements regularly. Your prospects could get bored seeing the same ad all the time. Statistics show people usually see the same advertisements 7 times before they actually buy. Just change them enough to keep them from being over-exposed. For example, if your ad said. “FREE Killer Marketing E-book!”, you could change it later on to “FREE Sizzling Marketing E-book!” after a few insertions.
- Lower the chances of negative word-of-mouth marketing. You’ll always have customers who are dissatisfied. Try to please them as much as possible. You could give them a refund, discount, a free product, a coupon, a rebate, a compliment, etc. Just be polite and stay calm if they are angry or frustrated with your business.
- Give people a deadline to order. Tell people if they order by Sept.20, 2010, they will get a discount or free bonuses. This will create an urgency so they don’t put off buying. Another example, “Order before 8:00 p.m. US/EST and get a second product of your choice for free!”
- Offer people a money-back guarantee. The longer the guarantee, the more effective it will be. It could be a 30-day, 60-day, 1 year, or lifetime guarantee. You could also offer them double or triple their money back or a set amount of money back, like $25. You could also allow them to keep the product if you can afford to do that, even if they ask for a refund.
- Offer a free on-site repair service for products you sell. This is convenient for people because they won’t have to send it away for repairs and they won’t have to be without the product for a long period of time. If they have to send the product to you to get repaired, offer them free shipping.
- Publish testimonials on your ad copy, with the phone numbers/contact details of the persons who gave to you. They will give your business credibility and you’ll gain people’s trust. It’s important to include the person’s full name and location with the testimonial. For example, “Jon Smith, Auto Mechanic, Wooster, Ohio.”
- Give people free bonuses when they order your product or service. The free bonuses could be books, jewelry, reports, newsletters, etc. Make their bonuses sound extra valuable by listing their retail value, either separately or together in one amount, or limiting how long you will offer the bonuses.
- Allow people to make money reselling the product or service. Tell people they can join your affiliate program if they order. You could pay them per sale, per click, per referral, etc. Just provide them with proven and tested marketing materials, detailed statistics and plenty of affiliate training.
- Offer free 24-hour help with all products you sell, in terms of technical information, their end uses etc.
- Advise customers to ask you questions by e-mail, by toll free phone, by free fax, etc. If for some reason you can’t offer this service, answer their questions and concerns as soon as possible. You could also let them know you received their message and you’ll get back to them as soon as possible.
- Provide free shipping with all orders. If you can’t afford it, you could offer free shipping on orders over a specific amount. You may also offer a rebate on their shipping costs. Most customers most probably won’t send in the rebate card unless it’s a huge shipping cost.
- Give away a free sample of your product. You will gain people’s trust when you allow them to try out a free sample of your product. If they like it they won’t hesitate buying it. Your sample should only give them a small taste of what’s in it for them if they buy.
- Offer a buy-one, get-one-free deal. If you sell more than one product, this type of deal works great. People will feel they are getting more for their money and will order quicker. You could also offer them a ‘buy one, get one half’, ‘buy two, get the third one free’, ‘buy two, get a free watch’, etc.
- Increase the number of visitors who revisit your web site by publishing a free course right on your site. Just release a new lesson once a week. You could even offer a live chat room class every week or a class published on auto-responder.
- Make sure your graphics load correctly on your web site. Broken graphics will make your business look very unprofessional. That also goes for broken links and slow loading graphics. People can find other web sites to visit with a click of a mouse.
- Avoid using scrolling marquees on your web site. They take the attention away from your ad copy and make your web page load slower. Just type the message on your web site. You can highlight it with flashing, color or bigger text.
- Make the text on your web site exciting to read. You can use emotional words, descriptive adjectives, highlighted keywords, exclamation points, etc. You can also get your prospects excited by showing how much passion and excitement you have for your product or service.
- Remember to reach out and touch your visitors offline when your visitors give you offline contact information. You may use it to send them some non-selling greeting card by mail, a friendly phone call, a little gift, etc. This is actually pre-selling them back-end products because when you eventually try to sell them one, they will be more receptive to your offer.
- Use guest books to improve your web site. Your visitors will leave good and bad comments. Review the comments and use them to improve your site. You can find out critical things, like how people like navigating around your web site, if the design looks professional, etc.
- Regularly check and resubmit your web site’s search engine rankings. They can drop very quickly because of all the competition. Keep informed of new search engine strategies by visiting informative web sites, subscribing to related e-zines, buying search engine how-to e-books, etc.
- Divide your product’s price over a period of time to make it sound less. Offer a payment plan, or show the per day price. For example, “Only 33 cents per day!” If it’s an information product, you could divide it by the number of pages, tips, chapters, strategies or minutes/hours/days it took you to create it.
- Promote your products within the content of your web site. If you write and offer free articles, include a mention of the product or service you’re selling. You could include it in your resource box or subtly reveal it within your article if it’s related.
- Update the content on your web site regularly. You’ll want to add new content and update the old content. People want timely information that tells them how to do something ‘now’, not how it was done 10 years ago. That’s another reason you should constantly be educating yourself.
- Ask visitors to subscribe to your e-zine. It’s a good idea to also give them a freebie when they subscribe. Once they are subscribed, they might read your content, see your advertisements, join your affiliate program, buy advertising, revisit your web site, etc. The benefits are endless.
- Have them sign up to get access to download a free e-book. The subject of the e-book should be related to your target audience. You could have them sign up to a opt-in list or your regular e-zine. The e-book should have high perceived value so they’ll take the time to sign up.
- Give your visitors a free membership inside your Members Only web site. Have them sign up to receive a user name and password. You could create a Members Only e-zine to capture their e-mail address and membership updates so they will revisit your web site again and again.
- Hold a free contest or sweepstake at your web site. Ask them to give you their contact information to enter. Just get their permission to send them new product offers. You could also announce the winners to them, as well as sending new contest announcements.
- Offer your visitors free consulting via e-mail. Have them fill out a web form to e-mail you with their questions. When you answer their questions, include an offer for a product you sell or highly recommend products that could help them. You could join the product’s affiliate program to earn commission if they take your advice.
- Hold an interactive poll on your web site. Ask your visitors to e-mail you their vote or opinion. You could send them a “thank you” e-mail and also mention a product you’re selling. Tell them to subscribe to your e-zine so they can see the results of the poll.
- Ask your visitors to sign up for a chance to get a web site award. Have them e-mail you their contact and web site information. You can e-mail the web- master and tell him/her if they are the winner or not. Include your signature file at the end of your e-mail mentioning a product you sell.
- Have visitors fill out a survey on your web site. Give them a free gift as an incentive to complete the form. You can e-mail the results of the survey and offer them a free e-book as a gift for completing your survey. Of course your ad will be in the free e-book.
The above suggestions may help you in making your deals more effective. You can implement them after making modifications as you feel appropriate keeping in view your circumstances and resources.
Be Happy – Make Your Deals More Effective.