The first sale is the toughest. I am sure you know this old saying.
That first purchase through your site takes so much effort. It gets easy after that. You learn and get better at customer interaction, you earn testimonials that you can show off, you get people talking about you. In short, things get busy. And, it’s much easier to sell when things are busy.
It all looks so much different when you have made no sales at all though.
You need to get people to your site, get them interested in what you are selling and most importantly, get them to see you as a credible supplier.
One of the best ways to achieve that is by convincing the customer that you are the expert in your field. As the old sales adage goes:
only when they know you, believe you and trust you, they MAY buy from you.
From my experience, there is a number of things you can do to achieve this. Some of them relate to elements and the content of your site, others to the brand you can build for your business.
On Site Factors
1. A Buyers Guide
We all know the power of custom product descriptions. They do help in many ways but from my experience they are not enough to convince the buyer that you are the one they should buy from.
Instead, show your customer that you know the product back to back. Create a comprehensive buyers guide section on your website where you can include all the information about the product, it’s types and variations, installation or any other instructions, manuals, usage advice and more.
Don’t make this section a one pager though. Create a separate page for each piece of advice. A single page of advice can be useful but a large dedicated section on the website will look much better.
2. Blog
There is a strong misconception about using a blog on eCommerce sites. For most business owners, this is a platform they use to either talk about themselves and their business, or provide product information.
Nothing is further from the truth.
In reality, a blog is your opportunity to offer tips and advice that might not even relate directly to your product. That’s what your buyers guide section is for (at least when it comes to the product).
A blog is your chance to target a completely different group of people, the ones who seek specific solutions to their problem but don’t have a product to purchase in mind yet.
To illustrate this by example. A home storage store might use their blog to offer tips for better organization, home decor, practical interior design and more. This way they can attract a completely new, potential clients to their site. None of these people might have been looking for a specific product when they landed on the site, yet they might make the decision to buy a suggested solution based on the content of the post.
3. Videos
Nothing works better in showing your expertise than showing it off by yourself. This isn’t for everyone, however, if you can, create a series of videos where you give specific advice on the product or type of a solution you sell. They will have a tremendous effect on building your position and brand.
Off Site Factors
1. Guest posts and publications
Guest posting on your product or industry related blogs is a great way to show your expertise and introduce yourself to your target audience. Readers usually remember the people that offered them good advice and might connect the dots between your post and you when they land on your site.
2. Professional profiles and company pages
It is becoming more and more common for customer to not only shop for price or product but also to research their potential vendors. They type in your company name into their favorite search engine in order to see what they can find.
By their nature, profile pages you can set up for your business might rank higher than anything else (and if your business is still new, even higher than your website!), therefore make sure that you have an impeccable profiles on social networks.
3. Industry publications
Just like guest posts, you can share professional information on your industry publications. Chances are that your customers are reading those and will remember your name from a such publication.
4. Presentations
This is one is in fact quite easy. If you have been posting your advice online on your blog, turn it into a presentation as well. You can upload it to such sites as Slideshare.
If you optimize your presentation well, chances are that it might even outrank your blog post and provide you with a greater exposure.
Remember, people remember who offered them an advice that has chanced their life.
About the Author
This post was written by Pawel Grabowski from The Happy Bike. Pawel is an eCommerce owner and digital marketer.