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Search Engine Marketing - The Importance Of The "Easy Sale"

Written by: Rich Gaasenbeek

Article Overview: In our previous post, we discussed the concept of the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) two-step, and ended by introducing the concept of the “easy sale”. What’s the easy sale? That’s the offer on your Website that allows your prospect to sign up for an e-newsletter / request a whitepaper / complete a scorecard – anything that allows them to learn more about your company without the risk of having to speak to a live human being – or worse – the dreaded “Sales Representative”. In return, you capture their contact info (email address minimum) which now allows you to continue marketing to this prospect on an ongoing basis and puts you in control of the sales cycle.

Search Engine Marketing - The Importance Of The "Easy Sale"

In our previous post, we discussed the concept of the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) two-step, and ended by introducing the concept of the “easy sale”.

What’s the easy sale? That’s the offer on your Website that allows your prospect to sign up for an e-newsletter / request a whitepaper / complete a scorecard – anything that allows them to learn more about your company without the risk of having to speak to a live human being – or worse – the dreaded “Sales Representative”. In return, you capture their contact info (email address minimum) which now allows you to continue marketing to this prospect on an ongoing basis and puts you in control of the sales cycle.

For products or services that are fairly complex or sophisticated (quite common in B2B), the easy sale is key. People don’t buy what you sell on first contact. Rather, it’s the beginning of a communications and sales cycle that could last weeks or months. But if you don’t get their contact info when they visit your site, the conversation is usually over forever the moment they click away from your site.

For simpler products and services (think B2C), the concept of the easy sales still applies. It just happens to be the same as the REAL sale. But your Website still needs to make the visitor’s purchase of your product or service, easy, intuitive, low risk and pain free.

At this time, SEM is probably the single best marketing investment most SMBs can make. It’s relatively low cost, delivers a high ROI, and is easy to measure.

So to summarize:
Step #1: Use SEM to get found by those looking for what you sell.
Step #2: Use the easy sale to convert visitors into identified prospects.

In future posts we’ll look at the components of SEM in more detail, and discuss the Do’s and Don’ts of effective SEM for SMBs.

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Related Forum Posts
What Do You Want To Be Taught? - Hi, My name is Jeff Foster, I will be moderating this new section. I want to get your opinion on topics you would like to discuss & be taught on. I see a great need for small business owners to learn how to perform basic Search Engine Marketing (SEM) which would include the basics about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). What do you want to be taught on? Jeff
Re: Let’s talk about the ways of marketing your products, servic - I agree with some of the others who responded it depends on what your selling... but to answer your questions here are some of the methods I use. Forum Marketing Yahoo Answers (I need to use more of) SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Bum Marketing or Article marketing P-P-C (Pay Per Click) Marketing Online Directories Hope this helps.
Re: Search Engine Marketing - Optimization For Local Businesses - Nice information about SEM / Search Engine Marketing... It's very help me to know benefits if using SEM for local business.. Thanks for sharing this information..
Re: Search Engine Optimization - If you are interested to get more information about Search Engine Optimization you can visit Search Engine Watch site gives you a great way to keep up with what’s going on in the search engine world. This site provides a ton of information about a very wide range of subjects related not only to search engine optimization, but also the flip side of the coin; subjects related to searching online.
Website SEO Marketing Consultant from India - Hi all, I am search engine marketing consultant, and has worked on seo marketing of several online websites. In case you need any help or facing any issue related to SEO/SEM, you can post your query. I have 4 yeards of experience in following :- a ) Search Engine Optimization/Marketing b) PPC Promotion c) Website Development too;)


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