Making Websites Work - A Few Right Ways, A lot of Wrong Ones

I have learned a lot about the ins and outs of making a website work on the vast Internet. There are a few right ways and a lot of wrong ones. Here is some free advice about websites and the internet, that if followed, will make you very successful with your business on the internet.

Many people have believed that by having a website customers will magically visit their website and contact them on how they can buy their product or service.

You can't really expect this to happen! It would be like building a retail store that has no windows, doors or signs and is located on a piece of property with no roads or sidewalks and expect customers to find you and flood you with business.

An Internet website is really no different than a physical store front, it is just an electronic store front that, if set up and marketed right, will become your most cost effective way of generating business. Internet usage is growing at a rate of 146% per year and people who purchase goods and services online is growing at a rate of 153% per year. You can't ignore this growing medium of online customers.

You are probably feeling the way I did several years ago, thinking that I needed to get a web presence, but did not understand how it all worked and was fearful of doing something wrong.

Well, after a lot of studying and testing I have completely changed my marketing focus away from direct mail, print ads and telemarketing to a 100% online marketing program. For the dollars I am spending on internet marketing I am receiving a 400% return on my investment. That is hard to beat with the old conventional ways of marketing.

Here's what I have learned:

You must have a fully developed and coordinated web marketing program that includes a "sales oriented" website, an online vehicle for driving customers to your site, a process of converting them from lookers to buyers and a way of tracking your progress. (Most people just put up a website and expect the traffic to flow in...but it just doesn't work that way)

Here are some Free Tips:

Your Website:

1. The front (home) page should answer the question of what your prospective customer is looking for. Give them reasons to buy. Keep your text short and to the point. You only have a few seconds to hook them. If they don't find what they are looking for in those few seconds they will be gone to one of your competitors.

2. After the front (home) page, your other pages should give just enough, not too much, information to motivate your customer to call or email you. YOUR MAIN GOAL WITH YOUR WEBSITE IS TO GET THE CUSTOMER TO CONTACT YOU. Nothing more, nothing less. If you have too much information, or not enough information, they will move on.

3. Each web page should have a "call to action" on it. A reason for them to call your phone number or fill in a form with their name, email address and phone number.

4. It is important for you to obtain their contact information so that you can start developing a relationship with them. If they don't buy from you today, you want to stay in contact with them so that they will buy from you in the future. The best way to do this is with an auto-responder program.

5. Use colors and font styles that are easy to read and pleasing to
the eyes. Be careful to not get too fancy with your pages. Keep them simple and easy to navigate.

I hope you found this information useful. Next time I'll share with you some internet marketing ideas that will drive people to your website.

Warmest Regards,
Heritage Web Solutions
http://www.heritagewebdesign.com/web
1-800-211-0743
list@heritageusa.net

A partner with www.AgentCampus.com

The "Secret Ingredients" of Postcard Marketing Success

The "Secret Ingredients" of Postcard Marketing Success
by Brandon Cornett

Remember a few years back when all the fast food chains crowed about their "secret" sauces and ingredients? It sure added some mystique, didn't it? Nothing improved the flavor of a hamburger or drumstick like good old-fashioned secrecy!

Now let's transition to postcard marketing, where a similar concept applies. A small percentage of real estate agents have discovered the "secret ingredients" of postcard marketing. As a result, they enjoy huge success each time they conduct a mailing.

Other agents, however, do not enjoy such success. They send postcard after postcard, but, alas, no response. These agents do not know the secret ingredients of postcard marketing success.

Let's uncover some secrets, shall we?

Postcard Secret #1 -- Don't Rely on Technology

You first need to realize that technology alone won’t lead you to postcard marketing success. If it were that easy, all agents would enjoy record-breaking responses from their mailings.

In fact, technology is the most straightforward part of the equation. A postcard marketing service will handle all of the technology for you. But there’s the rub. Technology can help you deliver a powerful message, but it cannot create that message for you. That’s your job.

Nobody knows your audience or your skills better than you, and nobody cares about your success as much as you do. So the message, and everything that brings it to life, must begin with you.

Postcard Secret #2 -- Know Your Audience

When creating your postcard message, start by identifying your audience. This might seem obvious, but it’s a critical step upon which the rest of the process will rest. To identify your core audience, you simply have to ask yourself a series of questions. What area do I want to represent? Am I focusing on buyers or sellers? Where might I find these people? What's important to them? What do they want to know? What do I have to offer that might motivate them?

When you've answered these questions, you should be able to write a paragraph from the combined answers. This paragraph is your audience statement, and it will help you set your postcard marketing objectives accordingly. Once you've defined your audience, you can more easily determine the kinds of offers that might motivate them.

Postcard Secret #3 -- Identify the Desired Response

Now that you know your audience (and assuming you’ve done some research to really get to know them) you can set the objective for your postcard campaign. Ask yourself, “What do I want to happen as a result of sending my postcards? What's the ideal response?"

Here’s the key to this step. Don’t ask your postcards to do more than they’re capable of doing. I see real estate marketers using postcards to try and convince recipients that they offer superior service. That’s a lot to ask of an 8" x 5" piece of card stock.

Scale back your objective until you find something that (A) gives the postcard a more realistic task, (B) follows a more natural sales progression, and (C) capitalizes on known behavior.

What's a good response to aim for? How about a phone call or an email? Now that’s something a postcard can handle, especially if you give people a good reason to contact you (like an insightful report on future construction in your area). And that leads to our next "secret"…

Postcard Secret #4 -- Offer Something Great

We know from statistics that most consumers end up choosing the first real estate agent they contact. So you can capitalize on this known behavior by aiming for that critical first contact. This is where your offer comes into play.

The value and relevance of your offer will determine the size of your response. That's a fundamental principal of postcard marketing that many agents overlook. A postcard without explicit value is a postcard destined for the trash.

Think of it this way. The postcard is only a messenger. A messenger without an important message is worthless. But if the messenger has valuable news or information, everybody wants to hear what he has to say!

Here's an example. If I lived in a residential area suffering from "commercial creep," and somebody offered me an exclusive report on future commercial development and how it might impact my home value … I would want that report! And I'd contact anyone to get it.

Postcard Secret #5 -- Leverage Your Website

Have a website? If so, you have a perfect marketing partner to complement your postcards. The reasons are somewhat psychological:

The goal of any marketing program is to gain new business, but sometimes you have to offer indirect paths as well as the direct ones. Direct paths are for direct people. A direct path on a postcard would be a phone number. Some interested prospects will choose the direct route and call you straightaway.

But those who are less direct would rather learn more about you first. They need to get comfortable before they "raise their hands." So why not build an informational resource section of your website and point to it with your postcards?

The point is to offer different response channels for the different personality types. A direct phone number for the direct people, and an indirect website path for the more timid souls. Then mention both paths on your postcards, and you've increased your chance for response -- be it direct or indirect.

Postcard Secret #6 -- Measure Your Success

Make sure you have some way to track the responses you get back from each mailing. This will allow you to compare one postcard message to another to see which one performs better.

First, establish a baseline response based on your first mailing (out of X number of recipients, X responded). Next, try to improve one element of the postcard, such as the offer. You won’t know if it’s truly an improvement until the test is complete, but that’s the whole point.

Lastly, send the new version of your postcard to the same list, the same number of recipients, and with all other things being equal. Track the results as you did before, and compare the two mailings. You’ve just completed a simple A/B test to determine which of two offers is more effective.

You can continue this testing in one of two ways: You can keep putting your winning offer up against new challengers. Or you can move on to other aspects of the mailing, such as the design, headline, list, timeframe, etc. The goal is to have a postcard that combines the best of all elements.

Conclusion

I hope you see now that the "secrets" of postcard marketing success aren't really secrets at all. They are proven methods that have been used by direct mail marketers for years. And now that you understand them, you have everything you need to create your own postcard marketing success.


About the Author

Brandon Cornett is the editor of PostcardSmart.com, the Internet’s largest library of postcard marketing advice. He also represents ColorDirect, a web-based postcard marketing service. Learn more by visiting www.PostcardSmart.com or www.ColorDirect.com.

ColorDirect and PostcardSmart are printing partners with www.AgentCampus.com