Visibility, Credibility, and Usability are all essential parts of a website, but they will not generate sales unless you implement a results-focused Sales Process.
Creating an effective sales process involves two elements:
Headlines
The purpose of a headline is to capture the attention of your target prospect and get them started on your sales pathway through your website.
Sales Pathways
Sales Pathways consist of all of the text, images, and web pages required to increase your prospect’s interest and desire for your product/service and then to create a call to action to get them to contact you or purchase from you.
An example of how to create an effective sales process for your website:
Identify your target prospect
For example, Joe’s Fine Wine and Dining in New York City holds Italian Wine Tasting Dinners every Wednesday night. Joe has been in business for 20 years and has pretty much tapped out the local scene but still has room for new customers.
Joe knows that there are 5 upscale hotels within a 10 minute driving distance of his restaurant. Business travelers from all over the world come to these 5 hotels to stay while doing business in New York City. Joe decides that targeting these business travelers will be an ideal way to get new customers to his Italian Wine Tasting Dinners.
The Marketing Vehicle
Joe visits the website of these 5 hotels and discovers that each hotel has a list of a few nearby restaurants, but Joe’s is not listed. Joe calls up each hotel and gets put on the restaurant lists. The hotels only put Joe’s website address and phone number so it is critical for Joe to create an effective sales process on his website to target the business travelers.
Create the Headline and Sales Pathway
The first step of the sales process is to do a “customer profile” to outline the factors his target prospect would consider in their buying decision.
Business Traveler Buying Factors:
1. Date and Time
2. Wine Selection
3. Menu and Quality of Food
4. Service and Atmosphere
5. Price
6. Location/Convenience
Joe then uses this customer profile to develop his headline and sales pathway. The goal of his headline is to capture the attention of his prospect. With this in mind he chooses to use the word Business Traveler and Special in his headline, as he knows these words will immediately grab the attention of his prospects.
Headline: Business Traveler Wine and Fine Dining Special
He then follows up the headline with a description of the Wine Tasting Dinner that addresses each factor of his prospect’s buying decision.
Next Joe creates his sales pathway. He knows that his prospect will want to see what is on the menu and wine list so he creates two pages for those. In case the menu and wine list are not enough to win over the reservation, Joe adds customer reviews and a frequently asked question page and, finally, a reservations page
Joe’s work results in the following headline and sales pathway:
Business Traveler Wine and Fine Dining Special - Come taste New York’s top 10 wines and dine on authentic Italian cuisine made fresh by our 30 year master Italian chef. Enjoy our relaxing atmosphere and first class service without the first class price tag.
When: Every Wednesday from 6 to 9 pm
Where: 1212 Broad Street, New York, NY >> Get Directions
Price: $39.95 per person or 2 for 1 Business Traveler Special. Show us your out of town Business Card and get a second Italian Wine Dinner Free!
>> Menu
>> Wine List
>> Reviews
>> Frequently Asked Questions
>> Reservations
Headlines can increase your conversion rate by several times so it is highly recommended by any good marketing company to test several headlines to determine the one that delivers the highest return on your investment.
Here are a few websites with headline writing tips:
http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/techwriting/a/headlines.htm
http://www.wordbiz.com/archive/5easyheadlines.shtml
http://www.klariti.com/business-writing/How-Headlines-Work-Best.shtml
http://blog.prleap.com/archives/press-release-optimization-how-to-write-an-effective-headline/
Read about the other 4 driving forces behind a profitable website:
Website Visibility
Website Credibility
Website Usability
Website Operating Costs
