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SEO marketing: Discover which sales triggers are most effective!
by John Alexander
We all know the importance of gaining top visibility to a specific target audience on the major search engines. After all, you really need qualified traffic or those who are actually searching for goods and services that you are offering. While most of the time, we teach folks about the importance of doing good keyword research and/or behavioral research to ensure they are attracting an "ideal" target audience, there is another more natural aspect that I'd like to just touch on here.
Writing for search engine robots is not enough:
Many search engine optimizers are empowered through training, with the ability to write for search engine robots and have crafted their skills to score exceptionally well for top relevancy. It surely is essential but there is another element that we need to reflect on besides just writing for search engine robots (as important as that is). I am referring to the importance of compelling your visitor to respond right now once they have landed on the Web page as a result of finding you in the top results. Just what is the exact reason that your target audience will make a buying decision? Why will they decide to buy or not to buy? What do they need to read within your copy that will get them to act right now?
There are only so many reasons why your visitors buy:
When I first started my business, I use to love to ask questions like....Can you explain why I should buy from you? Invariably the client can often point out a number of important reasons why you might buy from him instead of the guy down the street. What you want to do is try asking a series of questions to help profile the client's target audience. After all, this is the most important group to try and understand....the "target audience". At our live SEO Mastery Workshop, we teach people powerful ways that they can research their target audiences behavior. But let's start by arming you with a few basic questions that should help you think about your writing style and communications.
Online or offline, most human beings have certain mindsets which can trigger buying. The challenge however, is we often behave a certain way without ever giving an ounce of thought to the REAL REASON why we buy. If we understand the real reason that get visitors to respond, we can suddenly write much more effectively for the human brain as well as the search engine robots.
Let's start by listing a 5 simple reasons that will trigger buying decisions:
- People will buy to save money
- People will also buy to make money
- People will buy something if it saves them time
- People will buy a product or service if it makes life easier
- People will buy something if it improves their safety
Okay, now in each of these 5 examples, ask yourself the following questions:
- If people will buy to save money -
then ask yourself...
if your product or service saves them any money? (This is a trigger)
- If people buy to make money
then ask yourself...
does your product or service offer your audience any opportunities to earn?
- If people buy to save time
then ask yourself...
....how might this apply to what you offer?
- If people buy to make life easier
then ask yourself...
are you able to name some improved conveniences?
- If people buy to improve safety,
then ask yourself...
does your product improve security or make people feel safer?You can see how having an understanding WHY people buy, can actually change the way you present your content. T hese types of questions will often help you with writing much more compelling copy because you are writing with a focus that includes a reason to respond now.
But wait!...
Are these the only reasons why people buy? Absolutely not!
Start by creating a list of your own "triggers" or things that caused you to "make up your mind" to buy.
The more you explore your target audience's mindset, the more fascinating this can become. Of course we have not even touched on a fraction of the many "triggers" that are at work in people's minds when they are reading Web pages.If you want some more buying triggers to consider, I'll give you a few more .
- People will buy to for specific brands (usually it has to do with prestige)
- People will buy to educate themselves
- People will buy to improve their health
- People will buy to settle their fears
- People will buy to have some fun
- People will buy to satisfy their curiosity
- People will buy to streamline their processes
- People will buy to prove they are right about some issue
- People will buy to improve their image or appearance
- People will buy to improve their quality of life
- People will buy to uniquely set themselves apart from the crowd
What other reasons can you think of that will compel your target audience to buy now?
Best regards,
John Alexander
John Alexander is Co-Director of Training for Search Engine Workshops. Together with his partner Robin Nobles, he teaches stress free formulas for obtaining top visibility on major search engines to workshop students from all around the world. John operates a Web site for professional search engine optimizers, Beyond-SEO.
Net Facts & Figures-
By 2007 there will be 1.1 billion Internet users worldwide. - Source: IDC, 2004
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Worldwide broadband subscribers exceeded 150 million in 2004. - Source: Point Topic, 2004
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Over 40% of all Americans have made a purchase online. - Source: NDP Group, 2004
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Over 75% of online consumers do not care whether an online store is run by a large or small company. - Source: TNS, 2004
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$1.6 trillion was made via e-commerce in 2003; $7.1 trillion is expected in 2007. - Source: IDC, 2004
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A recent UK study indicated that 82% of Internet users go online to research products and services. - Source: UK National Statistics Office 2004
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More than 60 million Europeans now shop online, an increase of 50% since 2003. - Source: Forrester, December 2004
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US online retail sales will more than double over the next six years, reaching $316 billion by 2010. - Source: Forrester, August 2004
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61% of small and mid-sized enterprises believe the Internet is a significant advertising medium. - Source: The Kelsey Group, November 2004
- In 2004, paid search advertising grew by 51% to $3.6 billion in the US alone. - Source: eMarketer 2004
Email MarketingGetting Smart with Email Marketing
So, why email marketing?
Throughout the world, telemarketing is being gradually voted out as a marketing channel with the introduction of 'Do Not Call' legislation. In comparison, direct marketing is more expensive than online marketing, while mass media advertising is expensive and quite difficult to measure for effectiveness through customer conversion. Email marketing on the other hand is growing rapidly across all industries, is relatively less expensive when compared to other marketing methods and all aspects are measurable. In a survey by MarketingProfs in November 2005, 40% of marketers stated that email earns the highest ROI, followed by search engine marketing at 28% and direct mail at 18%.
" 40% of marketers stated that email earns the highest ROI, followed by search engine marketing at 28% and direct mail at 18%"
Source: Marketing Profs
The Bottom Line:
Email marketing continues to offer a better balance of lower costs and higher response rates than most marketing media. The challenge is to maximize its effectiveness through improved content and enhanced measurement techniques. The two fundamental principles of email are: driving direct response and cultivating ongoing relationships. Customer retention is the prime objective for most email marketers, while customer acquisition continues to play a smaller yet significant role.
Surprisingly, many companies that engage in email marketing treat it almost as an afterthought and don’t bother to track the performance of their campaign. This is confimed by a recent survey of email marketers conducted by MarketingSherpa which revealed, 24% don’t track open rates, 31% don’t track click-through rates, and 52% don’t bother to determine the conversion rates of those clicks. In addition, a recent survey by CMO magazine stated that 26% of US marketing executives have no formal marketing measurement system in place. Your WSI Consultant can provide you with practical advice and affordable email marketing solutions which provide enhanced measurement tools to track the performance of your email marketing campaigns.
"2 6% of US marketing executives have no formal marketing measurement system in place"
Source: CMO
With lower costs than most other forms of marketing, email can be a great leveller for small businesses competing against larger enterprises, in part because small businesses have increased opportunities to establish real relationships with their customers. Many consumers are likely to give permission to a small business to receive their marketing messages as long as the company makes it clear that they will never share the individual’s personal information with any other organization.
As a small business owner how are you leveraging email marketing to grow your business? Contact your WSI Consultant today to learn more about our affordable email marketing solutions and proven Internet Marketing strategies which will help you effectively communicate and measure the success of your e-business.
Provided below is a brief overview of standard and advanced email marketing measurements to help you better measure the ROI of your email marketing campaigns.
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Standard & Advanced Measurement Metrics Among the various metrics email marketers track to gauge effectiveness, some are standard and used by nearly all, while the usage of other metrics depends more on the company's and campaign's objectives. The range of standard metrics includes the following elements:
More detailed metrics which are often overlooked include these factors, according to EmailLabs:
The fundamentals are open rates, tracked by nearly 76% of email marketers, and click-through rates, tracked by nearly 69% of respondents to the MarketingSherpa survey. Conversion rates, however, which assess the whole point of email campaigns, get tracked by only 48% of email marketers. |
