Increasing Online Sales Opportunities

By Michelle Howe

Are you aware that most of the people, who visit your website for the first time, will not do business with you? A website is really like a storefront. Many people will visit your store, and not everybody will make a purchase. However, your online sales can increase with just a few changes.

Create a Sales Path

Make sure your website is easy to navigate, and that your products are easy to purchase. Think about the way you have your products organized throughout your website. Starting at the home page, visitors need to know exactly what path they should take to purchase a product.

If you walk into an unfamiliar grocery store, and you want to buy a carton of milk, you would naturally go to the dairy section of the store to find a carton of milk. However, if you walked into an unfamiliar grocery store to purchase a can of pinto beans, it might be located in the canned vegetable section, a special section for vegetarian food, or maybe it's situated in the ethnic food section. So, instead of going straight to the aisle where the food should be, you end up wandering the store until you get to the correct isle.

Sometimes the way a grocery store is laid out makes complete sense to you. Other times, the logic to the organization of the store is confusing to you, and therefore the shopping experience becomes negative. The same thing can happen on a website.

If your website visitors cannot easily figure out what path they need to take to purchase the items they want to buy, they will become frustrated and leave the website without making a purchase.

The purchase path on a website needs to be simple and logical.
Organize your products the way you customers will look for them. For instance, if you are selling skincare products, you might group them by brand or if you are selling just one line of skin care products, you could group them for men or women. The main point is to organize a logical path for the customer to make a purchase.

Offer Freebies

Maybe the visitors that come to your website are not quite ready to make a purchase. In that case, give them some other options to do business with you. One idea might be to ask them to sign up to be on a special mailing list so they can receive discount coupons only available to the mailing list. Generally, this mailing list is an e-mail database. However, if you'd like to start building an off line database for a postcard mailing, try to get their physical mailing address too.

An easy way to get a physical mailing address is to offer to send them a freebie through the mail. The product they receive is free and all they would have to pay is shipping.

Build a Relationship

The online marketing plan for your website should include e-mail marketing and autoresponder e-mails. Rather than making a sale as the number one goal for your website, your primary goal should be to gather as many customer e-mail addresses as possible. That way, you can continue to market to people who have already shown an interest in your business. What you want to be able to do is start building a relationship with your potential customers. You want to gain their trust and make it easy for them to do business with you.

A 2007 survey sponsored by RightNow Technologies showed that, "68% of consumers said they were prompted to browse a website after receiving an e-mail from a retailer." It may take weeks or months before someone is ready to make a purchase on your website. However, if you are continually marketing to them through a monthly e-mail campaign, the chances are quite good that eventually they will make a purchase from your website.

Another way to continue building a relationship using e-mail is to set up a series of autoresponders that come into play as soon as someone makes a purchase on your website. In fact, the 2007 survey by RightNow Technologies showed that, "73% of consumers said they would appreciate any post-purchase follow-up." Customers not only expect, but they want to receive follow-up from a retailer when they make a purchase.

Conclusion

A website is more than just a storefront for a retailer; it is the whole shopping experience. The more pleasant the shopping experience, the more likely sales will increase.

© 2007 Michelle Howe

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