Ten years ago all you needed to drive more business to your door step was just to create your webpage. These webpages of yesteryear consisted of your business name, address, phone numbers and your hours of operation. They were like billboards on the internet information highway. Like billboards though, you didn’t know if your website was displayed unless you physically looked at it. You weren’t sure who else saw it or if there was an interest in your products and services until someday in the future the customer happened to mention that they saw your billboard website during a transaction with you. Was the billboard a good investment in terms of advertising dollars? Exactly how much business could you attribute to someone seeing your website? If your business actually was the “last chance” gas station, maybe you would know that the website actually drove traffic literally to your door, otherwise, you were likely clueless. Do you have the proper tools on your website today to establish a relationship with someone who sees it? Get ready to do your inventory!
Today business websites are buzzing hubs of activity and can drive and conduct business independently of any human interaction. So what exactly do you need and why?
You will want to begin building a database of potential and current customers. The database will reside in an autoresponder program and the people whose information is contained in the database will need to have opted in to your database so that you can communicate with them and remain in compliance with anti-spam federal laws. There are many different autoresponder programs that you can use.
The people will enter in their own information into your database by way of your optin page which is connected to your autoresponder. Once they have agreed to receive communication from you, you can send them newsletters and advance notification of any sales that you might be having in the near future.
Having an online store is another way that customers can interact with your business. You have specialized knowledge and information that you customers are interested in and you can help them to solve problems with your specialized information. You can hold special online classes and notify your customers of the special classes via your autoresponder. If you direct them to a special page about the class, you can also have them register and pay for the class on the same page. You can arrange for payment via your merchant account or via PayPal.
The beauty of all of this comes in the next arena which is the online store. I love this part because this is where the the machines begin to work for the humans! Once you have created some products of your own or acquire the rights to sell other people’s products, you can create your own online store where your customers can shop anytime of the day or night.
To recap, you’ll need the following items to upgrade your website:
- Autoresponder (contains your database)
- Merchant account
- Online store
If you need assistance with any of these, an Action Strategy Session would definitely benefit you! Secure your spot at http://tungle.me/joanpounds so that we can have a conversation to take your website to the next level!
