Creating Urgency in Your Sales Copy

Posted on April 14, 2010 by cgseo

Humans are apathetic creatures by nature. We don’t bother to take action unless we’re threatened. Back when we were wearing pelts and living in caves, a “threat” was a life or death situation – but our evolutionary roots are still there today. Except instead of saving our young children from a saber-tooth tiger, we’re fending off sales messages that threaten to quickly snatch our cash right out of our wallets. For online businesses – this is a state of mind we want to engage in our prospects. But the only way to do that with the printed word is to create urgency. Keep in mind that you have to start with an offer so unbelievably good – your buyer already instinctively wants it before they even reach for their credit card. No amount of urgency in the world will budge a bad product. Likewise, saying you have “Only 5 Left” when it’s really a digital product and there’s an unlimited supply – will serve to do more harm than good to your business. I’ve actually known users who have seemingly bought “the last 5 copies” of a resale rights product so as to minimize their competition. Imagine their anger and disbelief when they refresh the page hoping to see “0 left” but instead getting the same “Only 5 Left!” message. Word travels fast on the internet if you don’t back up your words with real action. Create Urgency with Digital Products There are several ways to create urgency in sales of digital products without being dishonest. You can limit the number of bonuses to the first X buyers or limit the timeframe that bonuses will be available. Remind them of the pain, insecurity or problem they’ll keep facing without your product or service . Enthusiastic, detailed testimonials can help create urgency too – but subconsciously reminding the buyer of how relieved/happy/secure they’ll feel as a result of ordering. When someone reads a testimonial that shows concrete (and realistic results) – such as “ I was able to lose one dress size within just two weeks – a total of 10 pounds of pure body fat, gone!” your customer can’t help but imagine themselves getting the same results. Experimenting With Urgency Offers No matter what you sell, it’s crucial that you test different offers to see which ones people respond best to – and when. If the offer is only available for the next 24 hours – make certain (or have programming in place) that takes down the page when time is up (and puts up a mailing list form in case people missed out and want to be notified if or when the offer returns!) This way, you’ll stay true to your original promise and create urgency via real scarcity, while bringing through interested leads who waited too long to act on that particular offer. What Has Worked for You? What are some ways you’ve added urgency to your copy? What worked, and what didn’t? Share your results in the comments below! Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Creating Urgency in Your Sales

Cold Calling For Links: Advice from Door to Door Sales

Posted on April 5, 2010 by cgseo

About 8 years ago, I was offered a job in door to door sales. I thought it would probably be the scariest, hardest job I could ever do. So I took it. I figured if I could spend a summer selling coupon cards to strangers on their doorsteps then I could probably do anything. I was right. I learned that selling anything door to door pretty much sucks. But I also learned that being positive and resilient is an asset in any line of work. Hell, my door to door sales pitch even helped me get hired to my first SEO job. Link builders can pull a lot out of a sales person’s bag of tricks; here are just a few of the ones that have proven true in my experience. Have a Great Opening, and a Killer

Does Your Company Twitter? 10 Tips To Become A Great Business “Twit”

Posted on April 5, 2010 by cgseo

What do you think of when I mention Twitter? Do you think about teenagers posting what color socks their wearing to school today? Or do you think about the sales/conversions your company makes by utilizing these accounts? Social media is a fantastic way to increase your brand exposure. By creating a successful Twitter account you essentially have a direct line to your customers. Utilize the following tips to gain “followers” and to maximize your company’s Twitter experience. 1. Carefully Choose Your Twitter User Name Make sure you put some thought into what username you want to use on Twitter. Do you want to use your company name, brand name, or your full name? Each one of these types of user names has an advantage, for instance we use @DKS_Systems for our Twitter user name. @billgates chose to use his real name even though he is the founder of his company Microsoft. It’s up to you; decide which one is the best fit for your company. 2. Your Twitter Image Your Twitter image is what everyone will see next to your username. Every time you publish a tweet people will see this image. Does it make sense to put your company’s logo as the image? Alternatively you can post a picture of yourself. Considering Twitter is a social network I like to suggest that everyone posts a picture of themselves. This I believe adds more of a community feel and less of a B2B connection. I find that it’s easier to get people to follow your account with a personal picture than a company logo. This is an issue you can always test as Twitter easily allows you to update your picture within your account settings. 3. Twitter Profile Optimization The search engines will index your Twitter profile so it’s important to optimize as much as you can. Below are a couple fields you can change to help your profiles search rankings. Title Tag – This is your “Name” followed by your Twitter user name. Meta Description – Google shows your profiles “BIO” as your meta description. So keep in consideration whatever you type here is what will show up in the search engines. Your website URL – take the www out of your URL. This way people can see more of the actual web address. Twitter only shows 17 characters. Our website address just makes the cut and shows “http://dkssystems” 4. Customize Your Twitter Background Twitter allows you to create and display your own custom background. Create a background image that displays more information about your company! (I will freely admit that I too really need to work on this tip!) This is by far the best resource I can point you to on how to create the best Twitter background for your account. 5. Be careful who you follow You may not have any control over who follows your account however you do have full control over who you choose to follow. Don’t follow any accounts that you wouldn’t be willing to explain to your boss or even your clients. I have never seen this being an issue however it would be a real shame to lose a sale/client over you choosing to follow a specific political candidate or questionable celebrity. This tip doesn’t apply to every user; however it’s something to keep in the back of your mind. 6. Use Hash Tags In Your Tweets It’s very important that you use Twitter just like everyone else on the website. #hashtags help categorize your tweet in with a specific topic. If you’re talking about SEO you might want to consider adding #SEO at the end of your tweet. This way anyone who is searching for “SEO” tweets will find yours in the results. 7. Don’t Spam People Who Follow You! Remember how I suggested that you be careful who you follow on Twitter? If you send out ten tweets in a one minute period your followers are going to be annoyed. If you annoy them enough they may just un-follow your account. You need to publish your tweets sparingly. I would suggest a couple of tweets an hour at most. This is just a general rule and is something you will need to figure out as you get use to your Twitter account. 8. It’s Not All About Business Don’t bombard your followers with your company’s products and or offers. Twitter is a virtual hang out space for everyone. If someone in real life got in your face and tried to make you buy something wouldn’t you avoid them each time you saw them on the street? However, if one of your “buddies” suggested you go see the latest movie or buy a certain product wouldn’t you take it into a little more consideration? Make sure to tweet about everything. The color of your socks, your amazing fast food lunch, and a funny joke someone told you etc. After several of these posts you can slide one or two tweets advertising your product or service. 9. Think Before You Speak… I Mean Tweet How many times have you read in the news about a celebrity or a successful business person putting their foot in their mouth? People don’t always think before they tweet. Twitter is not a place for you to complain about your clients or customers. You don’t want to say anything that will sabotage your brand or company either. My rule of thumb is before I submit a tweet I ask if my boss would be ok with reading this. If I think it’s questionable I will re-phrase it or choose not to tweet that message. Just remember to think before you tweet, if you don’t you may get yourself and or your company in trouble! 10. Personal Messages and Re-Tweets As mentioned before, Twitter is all about being social. Talk to your followers, ask them questions, and make sure to answer any questions they may ask you. You want to maintain a form of friendship with your followers. Twitter allows customers/clients to have a direct access to you that they otherwise wouldn’t have. Take advantage of this, write them personal messages. (Tweets only they can see) Also make sure to re-tweet (RT) their tweets if you find it interesting. Building these relationships may help you create some sales in the future. Have You Created A Twitter Account Yet? I hope that this article has shown you the value of investing time into Twitter. Twitter is a fantastic way to keep in touch with your existing clients and customers. When customers get a sense of satisfaction they are more willing to make additional purchases. Twitter also gives your company an opportunity to reach out to people interested in your niche. Engage with them and answer their questions, you may just have another customer in the future if you do it right. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Does Your Company Twitter? 10 Tips To Become A Great Business

Qualifying SEO clients; keeping Pareto at bay

Posted on March 25, 2010 by cgseo

For the longest time now I have wanted to write about this topic as it’s one that has legs when I am talking to my fellow search warriors. Deciding on which clients one takes on is paramount to not only keeping your sanity, but the success of your company in general. I’d even go as far to say the process has a lot to do with the success of an SEO program. But how does one get there? I have had great clients, not so great and bloody horrid ones over the years. How does it happen? Well, most of the time it is over before it begins. So today we’re going to talk about the process of qualifying clients. I have some of my own thoughts, also parts of this from recent group sessions I’ve held… and even some Tweeple chime in at the end. I hope you find some points of interest and feel free to add your own 2c in the comments What to look at While it can vary, we need to establish some of the parameters by which we can evaluate a client prospect. You can even cover some of these elements by creating a form for clients (RFP style). How you go about it, or how much weight you give to each point can be more personal, but here’s a list to get things rolling. Qualifying the project The first thing we want to do is look at the project parameters such as; Budget Control Profitability Resources (client side) Benchmarks These are fairly straight forward. Is there a realistic budget in place to compete in the space? Will you have enough control to be effective? Does the site have the potential for growth? Are the benchmarks realistic? If you aren’t scoring high on these ones, I doubt there is really a need to continue on with the process. The last thing you want is to be in a situation where success is all but impossible. You need to be realistic.

Picking Wise Search Projects

Posted on March 11, 2010 by cgseo

Whether you work in-house or take on several clients, there are going to be projects that make you cringe and projects that feel good to work one. A lot of this depends on the project manager and/or client. Here are some things to look out for when deciding if a project is for you: Enthusiasm. When a client is enthusiastic about driving traffic to their web site and all the possibilities that can occur because of that traffic, it general means that they get it. They understand not only why their web site is important but also why search marketing is important to the success of that web site. They understand that their web site is an extremely important marketing tool and a good web site can mean a successful business. Flexibility. Here’s a huge, gigantic red flag for you – “I want to increase my organic search ranking, but I don’t want you to touch anything on my site. It’s perfect the way it is.” Well unless you’re the best link builder out there and are trying rank for a 10-word keyphrase chances are, you’re not going to have much success. A lot of clients or project managers are super protective of their current site and aren’t willing to be flexible about the necessary changes for search marketing OR usability. If they’re not willing to budge, you won’t be able to do your job properly and that won’t end well for anyone. Involvement. This one can go two ways. On one hand, it’s always nice when a client sits back and trusts you to complete your work timely and well. However, I like a project manager to be engaged in some of the details of the project. For example, on a large e-commerce site that has seasonal products, it’s helpful to know when the sales cycle starts to shift from one product to another. Without historical data, a search marketer isn’t likely to know this. It’s important for the project manager to be available to answer questions that can make a big difference in a search marketing campaign. Respect. Does the client or project manager respect you as the expert in this area? If they start pulling the “I know someone who could do this for free/cheap” card, it may be that they don’t understand the value of your expertise and knowledge. Or if they scoff at your hourly rate when they charge just as much or more for their own services. These types of clients are the ones who make excuses about not paying the full amount of their invoices or insist that the work completed didn’t meet their expectations. If you’re not seeing some respect early on, you can expect to run into trouble down the road. Awareness. There are a lot of clients and project managers that are absolutely clueless about search marketing and some that have read a few blog posts and know all the buzz words. In the first case, you may have a hard time convincing that client why search marketing is so important. This is often the case for big companies, and an issue I faced while trying to introduce SEO to a major international brand when I worked for them in-house. They didn’t get it, didn’t want to learn and therefore they couldn’t be sold on it. These people need data, graphs, case studies and a lot of education to be convinced. So unless you’ve got the time to invest in selling to this type of client, you may want to pass and move on to your next lead. The other person, the one who knows a thing or two, can be obnoxious with his or her “expert” opinion. You know, making sure that you’ve got all the meta keyword tags filled out. Hey, maybe we should put a bunch of words in the footer but make the text color the same as the background color. These types don’t take it well when you turn down their advice. Since maintaining a good relationship with your client is so important, this can result in a lot of awkwardness. A good client or project manager is aware, but respects your expertise (remember that? I just talked about it). Comfort. You’ll know early on if you’re comfortable working with someone. This is important, particularly for big projects where there will be a lot of communication. If you’re not comfortable with someone, or they’re not comfortable with you, communication will break down leading to delays and complications with the project. That’s frustrating for everyone involved so it’s important to be aware of. While small businesses or new businesses may not be able to be overly selective in choosing their clients, the right decisions can lead to success while the wrong decisions often lead to frustration and failure. Good clients are usually great at referring good services to their friends or network, leading to more good clients and continued growth. The wrong clients can mean losing money, getting frustrated, and not getting new clients without a good referral. Consider these things the next time you’re meeting with a potential client or project manager. Making sure they’re the right fit for you and your business leads to success for everyone. Lyndsay Walker is the Director of Online Marketing at Canada’s Web Shop , located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is responsible for the strategy and coordination of all online marketing tactics and internal marketing efforts. Her experience includes several years of working with internationally recognized brands and some of the most competitive industries such as Internet pharmacies, payday loans and travel. Also involved in web design and development for over ten years, she brings a technical background to compliment her marketing skills. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Picking Wise Search

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