Impressions - April 2014 - 34

Use progressive messaging to stay connected.
ast month, we talked about lead generation and the importance of specialization and creating a complete offer
for potential customers. This month, let's
continue the conversation by discussing the
process of developing a sales funnel.
The term "funnel" references the visual
of a wide mouth that spirals down into a
small opening. Large quantities of people
will come to your website, but only a few
will leave as new customers. Your job is
to design a funnel process that delivers a
steady stream of proﬁtable customers for
the business.
The concept behind a sales funnel involves multiple steps, using progressive
messaging until you get prospects ready to
accept to your offer. The messages delivered are designed to move them one step
closer to making the purchase from you.
The idea is to keep you in front of your
market, providing expertise and value
to them in advance of the sale. It greatly
helps your prospects become comfortable
with you as you increase their trust and
familiarity of your business and services.
People don't make purchases the ﬁrst
time they visit your website for many
reasons. They may just be shopping and
are not ready, or they may need approvals.

It's more likely that they may need more
information before they're comfortable
with you. They also may want to check
out companies on other rating and review
sites, such as Yelp, BBB, Merchant Circle,
Google+ or others.
It's well documented that more than
90% of the people who leave your website without purchasing won't be back.
Thus, it's essential to capture their email
addresses when they come to the site so
you can continue to stay in touch with
them. The idea is to provide continuing
education so they can make the best possible decision, while building trust and
authority in their eyes. Of course, the
content will be crafted to position you as
the only complete solution. In the process, you'll also connect and engage with
the prospects in a way they'll appreciate.
The education process serves another
purpose. Even if someone does not buy
from you, he will know much more about
your operation than any of your competitors. When friends ask if anyone knows
someone who prints or embroiders Tshirts, your company will be top of mind.
While we wish this would happen naturally, the reality is we need to push it along
with some help.

By Mark A. Coudray,
Contributing Writer

VISITOR TRAFFIC
The process begins by attracting Internet trafﬁc to your site. This can come from
more than 100 different sources, but the
most common are paid ads like Google
Adwords or Facebook Ads. These ads are
known as pay-per-click (PPC) because you
only pay for them if someone clicks the ad
and are sent to your landing page. Done correctly, they can bring you more business than
you can handle. Done incorrectly or poorly,
you'll ﬂush your money down the drain.
Another approach is to spend a ton of
time and frustration with search engine optimization (SEO) for your pages to show up
ﬁrst in the search results. This isn't nearly as
effective as it once was. Today, the biggest
sources of trafﬁc to your site come from
YouTube, content sharing and social media
referrals. This is a big change and will be the
subject of another future article.

LANDING PAGES
Landing pages and your website's
homepage differ. The landing page, where
paid trafﬁc "lands," is very speciﬁc, whereas
your homepage is more general. You can
have dozens of different landing pages
based on the speciﬁc target areas from
which you're driving or attracting trafﬁc.
Use Info*Action #19 for Epson at impressionsmag.com/infoaction

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Impressions - April 2014

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