The Internet never sleeps! With that in mind, let me ask you a point-blank question: Is your website poised to take advantage of that?
There is one thing you can be sure of, and that is that the Internet never sleeps. So with that in mind, let me ask you a point-blank question: Is your website poised to take advantage of that? If it’s not, you could be leaving some big money on the table.
Face it; you’ve paid the same amount of money to create and maintain your website, whether it works part-time, full-time, or overtime for you. So why not make it serve you 24/7, 365 days a year? How? Well, here are five ways to squeeze more value out of your website:
➊ Use It as a Lead Generation Tool
To survive and succeed in business, we all need to constantly generate and maintain a list of prospects or otherwise known as a ‘sales pipeline’ to sell to.
The easiest way to do this using your website is by offering your visitors something for free, such as an e-zine (electronic newsletter) or an e-course, typically a how-to tutorial delivered via email in exchange for their contact information.
➋ Use It to Personalize Your Visitors Experience
The Internet, over the years, has received a bad rap as being impersonal. While this may have been true once, back in the stone knives and bearskins days of the Internet, today’s powerful technology has done its part and given us the tools we need to take our businesses and the Internet to new levels.
There is simply no reason for our websites to be impersonal any longer. So the ball is in our court now – it’s up to us, the developers and users of the content that makes up the Internet, to make it personal and effective. So how can you make your website more personal? Well, here are a few examples for you.
How about getting rid of those stock clip-art images and replacing them with real pictures of you, your clients, and your business? How about adding audio and/or video to your website so your visitors can hear you and see you speak? How about including case studies and testimonials of success stories? Remember, people like to do business with people they feel comfortable with, so the more personal your website, the more possible your desired results are.
➌ Use It to Communicate With Your Visitors More Often and In Real-Time
There is simply no substitute for constant contact with your target market.And today, there are plenty of Internet-based tools available that are either inexpensive or even free that can be implemented immediately on your website to enable you to do this.
Some examples could be setting up an email marketing system that works in conjunction with your website, periodically sending out an e-zine, implementing a real-time forum for your subscribed members to converse on, or hosting a blog where you can post content and allow your visitors to respond or comment on your postings.
➍ Use It to Sell Products
In today’s world of instant gratification, why not capitalize on it? Allow website visitors to buy and pay for some or all of your products and services through your website. Also, why not add more value to your visitor by making available someone else’s non-competitive but complementary product through your website? And while we’re at it, why not take advantage of impulse spending by up-selling your visitor with other low-cost, almost no-brainer impulse items during your website’s shopping cart check-out process?
➎ Use It to Empower Your Visitors to Make Proper Decisions
There is no greater way to become a trusted advisor for your target market than to consistently provide them with the information they need when they need it to make a proper decision.
How do you do this using your website, you ask? How about providing relevant, informative articles, some e-courses or tutorials, case studies, recommended tools or books, or maybe adding a frequently asked questions section to your website, just to name a few.
The bottom line here is to be a generous giver, not a taker, and although there are no guarantees here, your visitors will eventually respond to you the way you want them to.
Implementing one, some, or all of these ideas will differentiate you from your competition and position you for success.
