For a brief period of time I worked reselling IT products to corporations in the UK.
You maybe thinking what does this have to do with SEO?

I believe this strategy could easily be applied to online marketing and websites:

Establishing new customers

Firstly, I learnt quite early on it’s not easy to make 40+ cold calls per day. You need to have a strong back bone and the ability not to take personally brush off responses or abusive comments.

(I have a lot of respect for the people who continue to work there.)

The worst bit is getting past the receptionist who gets so many cold calls per day she is barely audible, sounding like ET on cigarettes, tired of making excuses not to put the call through.

Reach the decision maker make sure your message is clear and don’t be afraid to say what you do

A guy there taught me you must build a relationship with any potential new customers; don’t go in with the hard sell it just won’t work. Establish their needs, what is going on in their lives TALK to them LISTEN, remember their birthdays, wife’s name, pets, holidays anything that gives you an excuse to call them back. Don’t read off a script they can hear it in your voice.

So the same then could be applied to your website

Think of your customers needs, personalise it and make sure they have a number of reasons to visit your site again.

Ask open questions all the time. Not for example “Are you interested in our products at all?” Response: “No”

Better to say our products are this, you need this because, and we are different to other companies because..

Promote benefits of your products, levels of service what they can expect

You have to keep going.  You’re sat there with no customer database, you have made too many calls to remember in the week and nobody is taking the bait, your barely covering your salary. What’s going wrong?

It’s all too easy after a while to start sounding like a robot on the phone, everything you say sounds the same your tone becomes as dull as train spotter in the shade and you realise you sound just like the guy sat next to you.

The more calls you make, the greater your chance of getting new clients is. Therefore the more effort put into promoting you website the more people you are likely to reach; the more you are likely to sell.

Website promotion takes time, be unique in what you say keep with it even when times are hard don’t get distracted

It’s all too easy to think of other ways to dedicate your time in reaching potential clients with your services. In my own selling experience, nothing beats talking to the prospect directly on their level with their needs in mind.

I used to think of ways to avoid making cold calls, sending out letters instead, emailing, leaving messages on the answer phone this didn’t generate any sales for me.

Focus on your key products believe in what you sell

With every business there are always key products to be sold, ones that stand out from the rest, make the most profit for you or simply are the ones you believe in the most and are most enthusiastic about.

Be imaginative with your sales

Sometimes to boost your sales it’s inevitable that you need to run a promotion, you may have too much stock of a particular item. It’s not a good idea to ring the customer and say you have ordered too many network cables and ask would they like to buy one.

However, if you were to call them and say “Hey, this week we are doing a promotion on network cables, if you buy ten I’ll throw in another ten at half the cost be quick though because the 10m ones have already run out.”

So why not do something similar on the website?

Make customers think they have the choice even if there isn’t one

Right you can have this one in black, green, red or a blue which colour would you like?
Notice I didn’t ask would you like to buy one.

You can try this with price as well; set one item at a low price another at a medium price and the final one at a really expensive price. You will be amazed just how many people don’t pick the cheapest item.

Closing the sale

This is the worst bit for most people, actually pinning the customer down to buying your product or service, I have heard so many excuses for not placing an order that they will call you back later or need to think about it.

Similarly, I have heard so many people stutter when it comes to closing the sale.
Others ask outright and this gets results fast so really you need to have a whole armoury of answers as to why they should buy your product here and now this minute.

Make it easy for them to say “yes”

If your website is hard to navigate then the customer already has doubt established in their mind

The close of sale online needs to be equally to the point, easy to complete with no doubts established in the customers mind about what they are buying or why.

The key to Online Marketing

The key is to reach out to customers in a non-intrusive way, to establish their needs and by building a good customer relationship BY LISTENING you can work together heading towards success.

Database

Ok you have been making cold calls for the last 3 months every day all day, you need a telephone number from 3 weeks ago, but where is it?
Don’t worry you kept a log of all the calls you ever made, who you spoke to what business it was, what service they were most interested in.

Same applies to the website, when you start getting visitors and levels of interest try to keep in touch with people on a regular basis, with newsletter email subscriptions etc. Look at the analytics,find out who is interested and why and hang on to those contacts!

Dan Horton