Driving Sales Online--Taking Care of Your Company's Virtual Office

First, ask yourself these few questions:

1. Is your site appealing to all of your customers? Does it have a different section for each of your market segments? (For example, if you are an online clothing store, can men and women easily find their gender-appropriate items?) Is your site only speaking to your target market, or do you consider it capable of attracting new customers?
2. Is your content interactive? Engaging? Do you have previews of you products, or a size chart, or a color selection? Remember, people hesitate to buy online if they are not sure of what exactly they are getting -they are not able to feel the product, to try it on. This is why it is your job to provide them with as much descriptions and pictures as possible. The result? Your satisfied customers will come back again and again.
3. Why you? Can you persuasively demonstrate to your customer why should they buy from you? How do you promote your best products, courteous 24/7 service, and fast deliveries? The answer is testimonials. If you are fortunate to already have satisfied customers, let them express their opinions. Have a feedback sections, and display the comments. Such recommendations are worth more than all the promotional advertising you initiate yourself. People know you think you are the best. They expect you to say you are the best. But when someone else says it, your site's good reputation grows.
4. Are you ready for media coverage? Is your press-kit present at your website at all times? If not, it should be. It will be easy for any media channel to simply download your information as you wish it to be seen, and this ease will gain you media goodwill for the future.
5. Provide direction. Present on each page of your site should be a clear direction that you would like the customer to take next. Proceed to checkout? See similar items? Sign up for a newsletter? All those are examples of such directions. If your customer is on your website to do something, make it easy for them to do so. If they are browsing, lead them on a path of action through the site, encouraging them to take action, capturing their attention with your content and interactive features.
6. How does the general public become aware of your site? You know where it is, but does everyone else? Do a quick check and search for your site on Google, Yahoo, or any other search engine. Does it come up? What if you search for the type of products you sell? If your site is on top of the results, congratulations. If not, follow this link. This article will tell you more about getting your site into the search engines.
7. Remember to follow up. Find a way to track your visitor traffic and be aware of your customers' preferences. Without this knowledge you have no way of knowing whether your marketing efforts are paying off.

Hopefully, answering the questions above helped you to draw some kind of a mental map of your site and the direction in which you would like it to move. Do not panic even if you realize that your site has room for improvement. The web is an area of constant change and even the most frequent-visited popular sites have to maintain the novelty to stay afloat.

Need help implementing a new sales or marketing program?  We've got two suggestions:

a) Check out our free marketing templates and tools on this site.  There's ton's of them.  You might want to bookmark the site now, you could be here awhile.
b) Have someone do it for you, check here for options http://www.mymarketingguide.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=25

Want more articles like this? 

Just become a registered member (it's free) of the myMarketingGuide.com website and you can download hundreds of other articles, templates and more.  Don't worry, we respect your privacy.

Have a marketing or technical question that just can't wait?

Check out our Instant Support Options -- Delivered over the Web:

Other Questions?  Call us at 888-215-0820 or drop us a note...