Three Keys To Selling Services On Line
by Matthew Stone
Filed under Ecommerce
New business ventures begin every day. Many of these new enterprises are consulting firms operated by workers that may have found themselves in possession of good skills, but no job. For many, operating a business after working in the corporate world is one surprise after another. Business functions such as accounting, management and sales – as well as the requirements of providing the consulting service – must now be handled by only one person.
Many new enterprises face stiff challenges in generating new sales and revenue streams. New businesses probably don’t begin with a long client list or an established list of contacts. Even talented consultants may not have extensive skills in the sales arena, so each business operator must confront the issue of revenue generation. There are really only two methods for bringing in new revenue though; personal selling and external marketing.
Personal selling is simply the outreach each business professional performs to reach those that he knows in the target market. External marketing is the method by which an enterprise prospects for potential customers. Many consumer behavior studies have shown that the most effective method of prospecting for new clients is via the internet. As consumers researching the purchase of a high-ticket service or product will utilize the internet search engines to find information, internet marketing has emerged as the most popular and effective way to reach prospective customers that are ready to buy.
The major search engines – Google, Yahoo and Bing – are the main systems that customers use to find service or product information. The consultant’s web page can be configured so that these search engines will display the page when a prospect is researching a purchase. Getting the consultant’s web page into the view of a prospective buyer is a highly efficient way of generating new sales prospects.
The central ingredient to any on line marketing effort is the web page. Web pages can now be easily produced by anyone with access to a computer and professional web designers can develop one for a fee. Once the page is constructed and deployed, there are three areas that the page owner must focus on in order to get the most out of the on line marketing effort. Optimization Including supporting content Establish value
Optimization: Web page optimization is more commonly known as Search Engine Optimization or SEO. The principles of SEO hold that the web page must be constructed in a fashion so that the search engines will understand the page content and then rank the page above competitors’ pages. Then when customers look for information, the consultant’s website will be among the first to appear and will invite the reader to visit the page. Low Cost SEO strategies exist to help new organizations get the most from their internet presence.
Supporting Content: A web page is highly useful for providing more detail than an entrepreneur would normally have time for during a face-to-face conversation. Inviting others to visit the web page can provide the extra information that a prospect would need to make a buying decision. A good web designer will interview the business owner to find out details about the enterprise and design a page to address the reasons why investing in the consulting service will return value to the hiring organization.
Establishing Value: Internet readers have very short attention spans. Therefore, the core value of the service or products must be established in the mind of the reader within a few seconds of opening the page. Bold claims or statements that give the reader a good reason to continue on the page are necessary to hold reader attention. These bold claims – such as “increase sales by 35% in one month” can be catch, but have also got to be backed up with facts and testimonials if possible.
Social sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and others offer some potential for on-line marketing as well. Unfortunately, the marketer is required to invest a great deal of time in managing the process. And as most new consulting practices are ‘one man shows’ this kind of time is difficult to find.
Learning the intricacies of page optimization requires time and research. On top of that, specific keywords and product descriptors require time to identify. But, by taking on the pieces of the on line marketing process one at a time, new customer can be reached via the internet.
Matthew Stone delivers Low Cost SEO and Search Engine Marketing services to businesses across the country. Assisting companies of all sizes compete for new revenue and sales using the internet search engines, Matt’s company drives new business to client web environments.
