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How to turn your prospects into paying customers

Guest post by: Russell Bowyer

Article Overview: One of the biggest battles in the search for business is getting your website found on the internet - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay per Click (PPC). You may be thinking that this is another article about SEO and if you were you will be forgiven for thinking this, but it's not at all... SEO is a vital part of your online business, but it is not where it ends! Let me explain further... People only buy when they: 1.Know your company; 2.Like what they see, and; 3.Trust you or your company. So once you have spent your money attracting people to your website, you now need to direct your attention to converting those prospects into paying customers by working on the above list, so how do you do this?

How to turn your prospects into paying customers

One of the biggest battles in the search for business is getting your website found on the internet - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay per Click (PPC). You may be thinking that this is another article about SEO and if you were you will be forgiven for thinking this, but it's not at all...

SEO is a vital part of your online business, but it is not where it ends! Let me explain further...

People only buy when they:

1.Know your company;

2.Like what they see, and;

3.Trust you or your company.

So once you have spent your money attracting people to your website, you now need to direct your attention to converting those prospects into paying customers by working on the above list, so how do you do this?

One way to get them to know your company or the products you sell is to offer free or very low cost options, so they can either try before they buy or not have to spend too much to find out if your service works. With thousands of scams and get rich quick schemes out there, people are quite rightly very cautious when buying from an unknown website on the Internet, so you need to help them break down that brick wall that stands between them and you or at least begin to remove some of those bricks from that wall.

It takes multiples of marketing cash to convert a prospect into a customer compared to the amount it takes to convert an existing customer into a returning customer. This is why it is important to get your visitors to experience your products so they not only get to know the products, but also how your business operates. Doing it this way will make the purchase decisions much easier and any initial objections they may have had will begin to disappear - brick by brick!

It will be a stage by stage process from your free or cheaper products through to your more expensive products. Obviously, not all customers can afford the more expensive items and possible will not even need or want them, but where they do it is important for them to know and trust you before they purchase.

If you imagine a funnel and you are feeding prospective customers into the top along with your spend on SEO and PPC etc, with the hope that you get trusting and satisfied customers out at the bottom along with the cash they spend on your products and services. You will need to attract a huge number of potential customers in at the top end, to gradually develop their trust in you and your products and services so that they end up coming out at the bottom of the funnel spending cash with you.

When you have enough happy customers ask for testimonials, as these are extremely powerful in helping to convert other potential customer into a paying customer!

Other free offerings in addition to your existing products include: Ezines; E-books, Webinars and special reports, with the idea being to entice your prospects along with giving them confidence in what you do. You could also try to produce an audio or video for your customers to watch online or to download for free so they can see that you are an ‘actual person' or that actual people exist in your business.

Videos are a great way to introduce you and to explain your products or services to prospective customers. These videos also provide an opportunity for you to demonstrate your expertise in your field. Also, don't forget that for a prospects to receive your free products or services, they will have to provide you with their contact details, name and email address for example, so that you can contact them again and again - but don't pester people unnecessarily!

It is important to recognise that people are different and as a result people will have different preferences as to how they would prefer to receive information. This preference might be to have a free version of your product to download or for them to read a free report. Other prospects might prefer to listen to the same material as an audio track or to watch a video presentation, all of which should be downloadable so that they can listen or watch them in their own time.

Once your prospects have experienced your expertise and have sampled your products and start to know, like, and trust you, they are more likely to open their wallets and spend more money on your services and products.

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Article Tags: customers, funnel, internet search engine, marketing, money, prospects, small business



Related Forum Posts
How to develop sales contacts? - Unfortunately starting off there isn’t a whole lot of easy tricks. But when you get those 2 interested prospects from sales calls and turn them into customers, you need to develop a referral system that gets 3-4 good prospects from each of them. That's the key to prospecting in sales, referrals from satisfied customers. Sometimes they'll give you the business without having to ask, but normally you'll have to pry a little and ask them who they know that could use your service or product.
Re: Email Marketing Benefits - Robert, Many lists consist of more prospects than customers. Customer lists are the best, but they are created because prospects successfully transform into customers.
Re: Dealing with businesses that won't pay... - [quote="TheAnonymousMan":39fp5wcr]What would you do in my situation? I have thought about saying "Would you mind paying at least ONE of my invoices first?" but it would most likely sour the relationship as he has told me "the business is trying to get some income quickly as you know so could you do this job to help me out" but this time I'm not quite convinced. The last invoice was for their web hosting and I could easily turn off their business by the click of a mouse but I know that would definitely turn things sour.[/quote:39fp5wcr] Hi TheAnonymousMan, Like the old saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me..." So I wouldn't give these guys the opportunity to "fool" you a 3rd time with another empty promise. Turning off their business may cause things to get very ugly, so don't do that just yet. Try explaining to them first how you can't do anymore work for them at the moment until you see some form of payment because you're tight on cash too. Say you're busy working for "paying customers" as you need the money for Xmas. If they pull the pity routine on you, you should use it back on them.
Re: Do Your Prospects / Customers Trust You? - All good points everyone and I'm learning as I read through. Gaining trust takes a lot of time and even if you're an expert or a startup in the field that you're promoting or excelling with, still, you have to put enough attention on how you'll be able to establish value among your prospects and customers by giving them what they need (contents, contacts, ventures, etc) and not only by offering them services and selling them products. Thus, customers do trust us with the way we give them satisfaction first before they give something back in return.
Re: What are reasons to stay in touch with your customers? - No problem. One could also send them cards for congratulatory type things in their family's lives (new house, graduating child, new baby, retirement). This really shows them that you are paying attention to them as an individual. Of course you would actually have to be doing that in order to find out. I know that we always contact our prospects when we are having a special. Especially if it's a blockbuster of a deal. This tends to bring in several sales. Ok, I'm out of ideas for now.


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