Selling online comes down to three parts:
1. Traffic
2. Product
3. Sales page
1. Traffic
Traffic is the big road block for most start ups. You can have a great product and a well designed sales page, but without traffic you can’t sell anything. The fastest way to start sending traffic to a sales page is with paid advertising. This typically makes small businesses scream that they don’t have enough of a budget for paid advertising. It’s not about how much you have to spend on advertising, it’s about how much you want to make. How much you want to scale your business. A business that does not have an existing following and lacks an advertising budget will be finished before it can even take off.
If you do already have a large audience, from a blog, podcast, or even an Instagram page you have a huge opportunity.
Free Traffic Sources
Facebook, build a community around a group or fan page by offering value in information and you will be developing a place to advertise your business for free.Instagram, study the Instagram algorythm and learn how to grow an audience on Instagram. This takes time but can be an amazing traffic source for the right type of start up.SEO, Always have all of your website optimized for search engine optimization.Email, Build a large email list and you will always be able to keep in direct contest with your customers.
2. Product
If you are trying to scale a business to major level, you need to consider how many people need your product or service.
In terms of price, I would never recommend focusing on being the cheapest. As Seth Godin says, competing on price is a race to the bottom. Rather, focus on offering something that nobody else can. If you have a quality product that nobody else can offer then you have the second piece of the puzzle.
3. Sales Page
The majority of small businesses have sales pages that are far from high converting sales machines. The sales page should read like a long form sales letter, and make it very easy to figure out exactly what you are selling and what problem it solves. In addition to having all the right features and benefits listed, it should make it very easy to buy. Include call to action elements all throughout your sales page, either a phone number, buy link, or ability to schedule an appointment. Also include as many objections that a person could have from buying your product and service, along with a detailed way to resolve the concern. In between all of these elements always include a call to action, a way to ask for the sale.
If you have all three of these parts you are on your way!
Chris Phillips
Evolve Marketing LLC
Kalamazoo, MI