The Computer Consultant Marketing & Computer Repair Marketing Brief - Computer Consultant Marketing & Computer Repair Marketing Strategies By IT Marketing Guru Ryan Kristopher

It’s funny – web sites are something that every brick and mortar company feels compelled to have but very few know why. Test this for yourself. The next time you are talking to a business owner ask them what purpose their web site serves.

Answers will vary but the real reason is basically this: everyone has one so we need to have one too.

This is a shame because web sites are the most valuable real estate in the world.

Millions of dollars can be funneled through a space that is not even a square foot in size.  Your web site is also your company’s face to the world. It is quickly becoming THE way consumers research, compare, and purchase products and services, even if the transaction is not done online.

With the right strategy you have the same chance of selling products and being seen as Microsoft, Boeing, or Amazon. Entrepreneurs in a home office can outsell a multi-million dollar corporation.

Although the tactics that work for your site will vary depending upon your target audience, product, and site purpose, the following 10 steps are ones that I have found to dramatically increase conversion regardless of the company, customer type, or product being offered.

I’ve incorporated all 10 steps into the website template that comes with my Computer Consulting Business In-A-Box. You too can get the same results my clients get by doing the following:

Step 1: Start With A Clearly Defined Objective You Want Your Site To Produce

Do you want to produce leads for your sales team? Sell products? Attract investors? This is the first and most critical step in designing any site.

Unfortunately, it is also the one that most people overlook.

Before you unleash your web developer on building a site you should know exactly what types of visitors you will be attracting and what you want those visitors to do.
Plan your web site so that every sentence, link, and graphic moves them towards taking that action and eliminate everything else.

Step 2: Structure Your Web Site Like A Funnel

Imagine trying to put oil into your car’s engine using a funnel that had a narrow opening and 6 different outlets at the bottom. Impossible, right?

You will only get 1/6 of the oil actually into your car and the rest will go spilling out everywhere else. You would have to put in 6 cans of oil to get what one can of oil would have done with the proper funnel.

This goes for your web site as well. Is it a proper funnel focused on producing one result or is it simply an electronic page turner for your company brochure?

To develop the funnel for your site, fill in the answers to these questions:

• What is the ultimate result I want my web site to produce?
• What is my prospect’s buying process?
• What is the first thing I want my visitors to do?
• What incentives will I offer to entice them to take that action?

Step 3: Get As Many Web Visitors As Possible To Join Your Mailing List

E-mail newsletters are the oldest, and in the opinion of some, best tactic in getting web site visitors to join your mailing list. In essence, web visitors are requesting that you stay in touch with them by sending regular e-mail communications.

However, as more and more companies flood our inboxes with e-mail newsletters and promotions, more and more web visitors are becoming hesitant to opt-in for fear of getting overwhelmed with spam.

Think about the e-mail newsletters you subscribe to. I bet you now delete some of the ones you use to read because over time you’ve accumulated so many that you just don’t have the time to read them all.

Chances are you have two e-mail accounts: the one you read day in and day out and the hotmail or yahoo account you use to sign up for all web offers and newsletters. This is why the conversion of opt-in newsletters has dropped to a measly 1% or less for most companies.

So what is the secret to securing double digit opt-in rates?

Simple. Create an “event” offer instead of promoting more e-mail that they don’t want. An event offer is one that they receive immediately. Think instant gratification.

Some examples of this include:

1. A sample of your product
2. A whitepaper or report
3. A free audio cassette or CD
4. Free software
5. 3 Free chapters or an excerpt of a book
6. A free video
7. A free service
8. Free webinar or teleseminar

Step 4: Prominently Display Your Offer And Opt-In Box On Your Home Page

This is a simple yet often overlooked strategy for increasing web site conversion.
On a previous website of mine, I increased conversion by 4% simply by moving my opt-in box to the top right corner of my home page. Same offer, but now it was the first thing to catch your eye when you visited my site.

Another trick is to use a picture of an attractive person near or around the opt-in box to draw attention to it. When I’ve used this tactic in the past, conversion always bumps up several percentage points.

Alex Mandossian uses a picture of himself lifting his opt-in box over his head on marketingwithpostcards.com. Alex swears by this strategy claiming it has a considerable impact on conversion.

Step 5: Use An Auto Responder To Follow Up

The whole purpose of getting shy prospects to opt-in is so you can follow up and close the sale. Auto responders help you do this with zero effort.

Follow up is critical because the majority of your visitors won’t buy right away. As a  matter of fact, I have found that most people won’t buy until after the 3rd or 4th contact.

How many follow up messages you send is something that needs to be tested. I would recommend starting out with at least 3 in a relatively short period of time (within a week).  If they don’t respond, simply add these people to your monthly e-zine list.

Auto responder e-mails should follow the same rules previously outlined in the chapter on e-mail marketing. They are:

1. Personalize the subject line and body of the e-mail.
2. Write it with the same passion as any sales letter.
3. Ask for the order.
4. Always give the recipient the opportunity to opt-out.

Step 6: Pop-Ups

I currently have a love-hate relationship with pop-ups. On one hand, they annoy me and interrupt my web searching activities. On the other hand, I cannot ignore their ability to increase conversion rates.

If you are not familiar with pop-ups, they are basically mini web ads that open automatically when you enter or exit a site.

There are 3 types of pop-ups: entry, delayed entry, and exit all referring to when they appear. There is also a pop-under which is the same thing except that it opens behind the page you are currently viewing.

I personally prefer exit pop-ups or entry pop ups because delayed entry pop-ups interrupt the visitor while viewing your site. If someone is reading your sales letter, why disturb them? You also might annoy them to the point of leaving your site. More people dislike them than like them so test them conservatively before rolling out on a larger scale.

Here are a few of the ways you can use pop ups and pop-unders to increase conversion on your site:

• To promote a sale or limited time offer. Both Amazon and Barnes and Nobel use entry pop ups to promote free shipping, volume discounts, and other items on sale. This type of entry pop-up alerts the shopper early on in an effort to affect their buying behavior. After all, free shipping on orders over $50 may encourage a visitor to buy a second book they might not have otherwise purchased.
• To get visitors to opt-in. Again, free white papers, reports, samples, and other gifts make for great “bait”. Even if the pop-up has the same offer you currently have on your web site, you will see an increase in conversion from the pop-up. Be sure to test the pop up on entry and on exit to see which one works best.
• As a “last ditch” effort to get a customer to buy. One friend of mine sells a marketing how-to manual for $250. When you leave his site an exit pop-up appears offering a CD version of the manual for $150 to capture those prospects who are interested in buying but who are a bit leery about spending $250. This simple strategy has put a considerable amount of money in his bank account and has enabled him to capture customers he would have otherwise lost.
• To make a buck from your affiliate partners. It’s a simple fact of life; not everyone will want what you have to offer. But they have come to your site because they have some level of interest in the types of services and products you offer. Why not use an exit pop up to promote one of your affiliates products or services?

Step 7: Oh, And Let’s Not Forget To Make Your Site Sell

Motivational sales copy is the most important element you can give your site.
If you don’t do an exceptional job of capturing and holding the attention of your web visitors to the point of motivating them to action, you are cheating yourself out of a considerable amount of profits. It’s that simple.

Here are the 2 biggest mistakes companies make with web site copy:

1. They confuse visitors.
   I wish I had a nickel for every web site I’ve visited where I just can’t figure out what they do. Maybe you have had a similar experience? See if you can guess what this company does:   “XYZ was founded to help your business succeed. In today’s complex world the businessperson is faced with huge challenges everyday. To succeed you must identify the one area you will focus on constantly. Your survival and success will depend on how well you maintain that focus. At XYZ we are here to help you reach your goals. We strive to serve your business and your customers with quality products, friendly service and tremendous attention to detail.”

   As obviously awful as this is, thousands of companies post up this type of corporate speak on their web sites with the grand illusion that someone is actually going to read it.

   And guess what – your customers EXPECT you to deliver “quality products, friendly service, and tremendous attention to detail” so there is no advantage to tell them this. Toting quality and service as your main benefit is about as effective as a restaurant promoting “When you leave our restaurant, you will be less hungry than when you came in.”

2. They bore visitors
   Take another look at the above paragraph. See anything else wrong with it? It’s boring to read and does not pass the “so what?” test.   No one cares about your company, how long you have been in business, or other boring facts about you. They want to know what’s in it for them – specifically.

   So how do you write a mesmerizing sales letter for your web site that hooks visitors and causes them to want more? The same way you write any great sales letter.

Step 8: Know What Your Visitors Are Worth

Now that you’ve created a killer site that is converting a high percentage of visitors to leads or customers, it’s time to focus on getting as many qualified visitors to the site as possible.

Getting visitors to your site is not free and before you start spending money on e-mail lists or other traffic, you need to know how to calculate what your visitors are worth, also known as visitor value.

Let’s say you sell a $100 product and make $80 gross profit per sale. If 1 out of every 100 visitors buys your product, you have a 1% conversion rate. At $80 profit per sale, each visitor is worth $.80 ($80 x .01).

This means you could spend up to $.79 to get a prospect to visit your site and still make a profit (albeit a very SMALL profit).

You need to calculate two things to determine your visitor value:

1. The average profit you make per sale.
2. Your site’s conversion rate.

To calculate conversion rate simply divide the number of unique visitors to your site by the number of leads or sales it produced over a given period of time.

Warning: Be careful not to confuse “hits” with “unique visitors” or your calculations will be off. On average, each unique visitor is responsible for about 2-3 hits to your site. Any good web tracking software tracks unique visitors by unique IP address.

Step 9: What You Should Be Tracking And How

There are several good web tracking software pages out on the market today that will help you track unique visitors and other important site activities such as visitor session time and exit and entry pages.

Chances are that your web host already provides you with some type of web tracking software included in your monthly hosting fee. These “free” programs are usually pretty basic and can only give you general information such as hits, errors, referrers, and pages viewed.

If this is the case, ask your provider if they can upgrade you to a better program such as Urchin Reports, LiveStats or WebTrendsLive. You’ll pay a little bit more per month but the information you will capture is well worth it.

Here is a list of 5 things you should be tracking in addition to unique visitors:

1. Opt-ins. This is the number of people who join your list.
2. Visitor session time. This is the amount of time someone spends on your site. This is a good indicator of how compelling your sales copy is.
3. Entry page conversion. This is the same as visitor value; divide the total number of sales by total number of unique visitors.
4. Order page conversion. Similar to entry page conversion, you divide the total number of sales by the total number of unique visitors to your ORDER PAGE.
5. Auto responder conversion. How many follow ups did it take to convert that visitor to a sale? What offer worked the best?

Every one of these elements contributes to your sites overall conversion ratio and each one tells a different story. If you are not getting very many people to opt-in then your offer needs improvement.

If visitors are only spending a few seconds on your site before surfing away then the headline and copy is not grabbing them.

If a good number of people go to the order page but then don’t follow through, you need to work on the order page copy or layout.

If a lot of people opt-in but never order, than your auto responder needs fixing.
Tracking these elements allow you to “see” your web site funnel and discover where the holes are. Once you discover a “leak” you want to start testing different headlines, offers, layout, and approaches to improve the overall conversion of your site.

The most accurate way to test different offers, headlines, copy, and graphics is to set up two separate sites that are identical except for the element you are testing. Drive traffic through both and measure the results. Just be sure to test one element at a time so it is a fair and accurate analysis.

Step 10:  The Fastest Way To Get A Large Number Of Qualified Visitors To Your Site

Unless you run a local company that services only a small area (like a dentist or carpet cleaner) search engines are still the best way to drive a large number of qualified prospects to your site.

Search engines come in 4 flavors with each having its own method for ranking sites.

1.) Search Engines – Although this is the common term used for all search engines, true search engines send out spiders or robots to search the web and gather information. True search engines include AltaVista, HotBox, Excite, and Google.

2.) Directories – Search directories such as Yahoo and Open Directory (Dmoz) rely on human beings to review and categorize your site. You submit your title, description, and web site and the editor will decide whether or not it should be included in the directory.

3.) Price Comparison Search Engines – Websites such as Shopping.com, MySimon.com, and Epinions.com all offer a pay per click service for businesses to advertises their e-commerce products.  When visitors perform a search for your product, you pay a bid amount only when a user clicks on your link.   If you are working with a shoe-string budget and you sell e-commerce products, I recommend giving Froogle.com a try.  Froogle is a price comparison search engine from Google and you never have to pay for an account or clicks.  It amounts to free traffic.

4.) Pay Per Performance Search Engines – Also known as “pay per click” search engines, these engines allow you to bid for top ranking position on the keywords you select. You pay the bid amount only when a user clicks on your link.  While there are over 390 different pay per click search engines on the web, the two 800lb gorilla’s in this space are Overture.com and Google Adwords  When you set up an account with Overture or Google Adwords, you will also get ranked at the top of several other major search engines like Yahoo, MSN, and AltaVista, as well as thousands of smaller sites. This is because Overture and Google have set up affiliate agreements with thousands of websites where they will list the top 3 listings from Overture or the top 5-20 listings from Google at the tops of their sites under “Sponsor Matches”, “Sponsor Sites”, or “Google Ads”.

If you’d like to completely take the guesswork out of launching a website, marketing online, and securing new business for your computer consulting company, consider investing in my Computer Consulting Business In-A-Box.

Dedicated to your success,

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