Dear Friends:

Last issue I asked for feedback and the requests were amazing, but over and over I keep reading the same thing:

"What do I need to do, exactly, to set up a good Web site for my business?"

I get emails every week asking me how I would approach a Web site. In response I'm sharing the 10 Keys that I apply to any Web site. These are the basics for beginning a business online. If you are selling Web sites, use these as suggestions; the more ideas you spark, the more likely you are to sell.

A profitable Web Site is one that:
• Focuses on generating leads and closing them
  
• Knows what its customers are buying (benefits!)
  
• Understands that they won't always visit a Web site to buy
  
• Accepts that they often won't buy on first contact with a business
  
• Develops it's follow-up process to make more sales
  
• Uses email as the central tool to provide most of this information.

A smart Web site tries to keep in touch with its customers by providing them immediate ways to exchange their mailing address for a free newsletter, special report, or consultation. Why is this smart? Because acting like this gives you the potential to generate significant profits through a developed mailing list of leads that you turn into customers. Web sites generate more leads than direct sales. The best way to develop leads and turn them into buying customers is with email.

Why? Because it's a pain in the rear end to go out and shop at every Web site. Think of it in real world terms; are you going to run from shop to shop to find what you want, or limit your time of window shopping. Email will allow you to keep in contact with your leads easily, cheaply, and repeatedly, so you can provide new offers and get them to buy from you. This issue will focus on setting up a Web site to help your business generate profits. Take a look and see how many of these keys your site contains. And how many you can sell to your clients.

Peace

Declan

Case Study: The Telecare Long Distance Network

I'm going to use a current client of mine, the Telecare Long Distance Network ( longdistance.com ) throughout this issue to show how I deal with setting up a Web site. During the month of January we are going to revamp their site and get people buying because they offer a great telephone service and want to generate more customers.

When I first talked with their president, Don Roudebush, we discussed all the content he could put on at the Web site. But like most newcomers, he wasn't sure of what to put up there. He figured that the cost was so cheap, why not put up as much information as possible. I'd worked with him once before, which had generated results. But he wants much more and he won't get it by putting up tons of content alone.

I could have given him some argument against his request, but instead I challenged him: how many times do you visit Web sites each week? He said two or three times at most, if he had the time. Then I asked him how often he checked his email; everyday was his answer. It's my answer. If it's not your answer, you're not working online. And you better be. Because this is the channel you want to promote, providing continual contact to your customers through email.

Begin designing your Web site by using email as a follow-up via autoresponders, mailing lists, targeted promotions, joint ventures, and any other way, shape, or form you can discover to let people know what you are selling when they are ready to buy your product or service.

Guess what? Often, that's not at your Web site. And it's not on your first contact. You need to develop several points of sale, with email being the primary means of offering, re-offering, and providing more products and services to your customers. Your goal is to get a visitor's address (willingly given to you in exchange for something of value like a free report) and go back to your list again and again with more offers. The Web site is your storefront where people visit when they want to buy; email is where you sell, keeping in touch with them, giving them reasons to visit your Web site, or even better, giving them reasons to order whether they visit your Web site or not. Let's begin exploring, in detail, the 10 Keys to a Profitable Web Site.

Key 1. Identify Where the Point of Sale Is:
Discovering Where and When Your Customers Buy

Often your customer will want to buy your product or service without being at your Web site. If you depend on them visiting you to buy, you'll lose. Think they'll come to your Web site just to buy your service? Consider this; millions of products, millions of sites too much work to do. Many times customers will be in different locations when they get the urge to buy. For instance, I was shopping for a Windows computer recently (a chore most of us MacHeads should be doing if we want to keep up online) and I had a question of how certain graphics software worked.

I talked to the salesperson who had never worked with Photoshop; he made a good attempt to lie and tap dance, but the bottom line was he knew nothing. I needed a book on Photoshop and Windows right then. Was it available? Of course not, I had to go down to the local Tower Book Store and look for it, then walk back to the computer store to make my decision. If they had the book there, I would have decided to buy. Or if I could have bought it, I would have come back. As it was, I was forced to visit several stores with one impulse.

When I talked with Telecare about their Web site, their idea was that people would only order there and then. I told him of several places he could market to, including my site. I get many small business entrepreneurs who, like me, need cheap phone service. I use his 800 number service for my ordering; why not let me refer him work, working him into my package, and generate leads? Then we brainstormed the other points of sale, such as:

• marketing Web sites
• home business Web sites
• entrepreneurs zones
• consumer Web sites
• Internet providers and many others

What we want to do is arrange it so he can work with others who have existing points of sale, i.e., places where people are already shopping. Why recreate the wheel? Telecare also has an agent program; I suggested he offer a free Web page to each new agent, a $1,000 bonus for a year; that way he could use the Web as a PR tool for his distributors. Telecare's Web site doesn't have to be the one place they go to for all this information; we need to set up a referral network, some agents, and other distributors of his service, people who have clients that want to buy good, affordable telephone service and save money.

To Do:
• Find 5 different Web sites in which people will order your product or service. How can you reach customers if they don't come to your Web site? Instead of setting up a link to your Web site from these 5 sites, suggest using autoresponders for a free report from someone else's site (i.e., just an email address), or even better, offer content to put up at their Web site.

• Create an advertorial. I offered an article I wrote to a client for his Web site, in exchange for a link; I'm giving him free content, he doesn't have to update, it helps the credibility of his site, and I get the traffic if it works. I'll let you know how it goes. The keyword here is advertorial, content as advertising; I'm selling my services by educating people on how to fool the search engines in an article. Content = advertising my services, AKA "advertorial".

• Find targeted email mailing lists for your product, or do an endorsed mailing via someone else's list or Web site. I'm working with a man in Florida who is joint venturing my products to his list, making good money and giving them added value.

Key 2. First Contact: What A Home Page Should Do

Put your initial headlines and content on that first home page screen, right away, and make them links. I still visit sites that think the pretty pictures will make them click. At cyberwave.com, the most visited pages are the home page, the Flame Free Marketing Article, and an issue of his newsletter with the headline, "Avoid The Seven Deadly Sins of Internet Advertising", all highlighted, bold, and ready to click.

Know why they are visited most often? Because the home page is the front door, and the other two have great headlines. Our cool newsletter button doesn't compare to a headline; people don't click it because it's doesn't invite them in like a good headline.

You need to use menus and give order to those people who want to explore your site intently, but use those headlines to get them to explore right away. Create two to three excellent headlines on your home page to invite people to explore your Web site. Build up your credibility by hitting the benefits of your product or service, establishing risk reversal by spotting a possible fear and promoting how your product or service overcomes this obstacle, and give them free reports. Headlines will exceed buttons and graphics in motivating people to act. Why not use a principle that has worked for hundreds of years instead of relying on buttons which force you to abbreviate everything into teeny, tiny menus that are good for general viewing, but won't make your first time visitors act.

To Do:
• Determine the most important content of your site and give it a headline on your home page. Don't rely only on buttons (but use buttons as an alternative for exploring the same content; that way you can use the headline as a text alternative). You should always have text alternatives to your graphics on your pages, especially your home page, so people who visit without looking at graphics, can see what you have.

• Use a direct letter to your audience on the first page; don't hide behind the company facade. This is your store, not some corporate hum-drum; make it personal by introducing the person they should be in contact with. Give them a compelling reason, discount, and/or bonus as incentives to contact you.

• Forget audio, VRML, and other techie tricks on your home page. I was invited to a site that would not appear at all, despite several tries. It was wild, I could see that everything was being sent to my computer, but nothing was showing on my screen! It turns out the guy planted some audio file with a special plug-in; since I didn't have it ready, nothing showed up. What a great example of technology undermining the effect.

Key 3. Put a Form on Your Home Page and Get Their Address!

Put a form on your home page offering a free report, special discount, free evaluation, free consultation, chance to be on a special mailing list, or other offer to put you into contact with them via mail. Get their name, address, even telephone, but to get them to respond, you have to give them something valuable in return. What you are doing is building your mailing list by trading them your free report for their address. This is the most important trick to a Web site I've developed. I've tested out forms, surveys, questionnaires, free consultations, anything you can name, and people will overwhelmingly fill in a form on the home page to any other. They'll even fill in the other pages offer on the home page.

Don't expect them to work for what you offer; make it a simple case of typing in their address and getting your newsletter, and follow-up quickly. Put a form on your home page like this:

Keep it brief so they'll fill it in. If you use a form on other pages, like for a survey, consultation, or evaluation, be careful of making it too long. I tried one at Inetdesign that no one filled in; a telephone call was the best follow-up. Think in terms of the follow-up.

People will rarely buy on first contact, but will order if you keep contacting them. Use emails to do second, third, and fourth inquiries; invite people to correspond and if they tell you to take them off the list, respect it. You want to build up a targeted list to offer your products and services again and again. Use a special tips newsletter, or email reports to maintain monthly contact; I don't like to do the weekly thing because it is too forced, often more full of pitches for my products than content. Write a short, two to three paragraph monthly newsletter reminding people to visit your site.

Don't put everything on your Web site; use autoresponders for those secret, special reports.

Use your Web site to develop a list that you can keep in contact with, developing value and providing an avenue for you to offer more and more products to. Email is your most powerful tool to keep in touch with everyone. People check their email every day, but they visit Web sites once in a while. Use email to get them to visit your site or even better, to continue buying from you.

Automate all first responses with your company; when they send in that first form, include a note with an autoresponder. Don't go crazy, but most good sites will use 2-4 autoresponders for first contacts, and will have follow-up emails ready to send. Get your emails and divide them into people who contact you, people who buy, and people who are long term customers. Any good email program will do that (Eudora's latest is very good). Here's what I include for filling in the form above:

---


Dear Friend,

   Thank you for requesting my newsletter about building your online business. I will mail you a copy titled, "Warning! Treating Your Web Site Like Some Glorified Ad Space Can Be Hazardous To Your Business's Health and Can Murder Your Bottom Line!"

   When you get the newsletter, take some time and read what businesses are really doing to make money online. Not all those hokey stories about technology, but small businesses putting their profits before looking cool. (That's why these sites, and mine, are making money; watch your bottom line.)

   Your report will be mailed out in 3 - 5 working days. Look for my spider in the upper left hand corner; it will be from Magalia, California. Make sure you open it and read through to get your business making money online and off-line. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Peace,

Michael Declan Dunn

P.S. Watch for the grand opening of my new site, providing
extra value for those selling and creating Web sites at:

http://webletter.net


---

Keep it brief, it's a thank you note. Follow up in a month if you don't hear from them and offer them assistance, another bonus, or a reason to contact you.

Key 5. Don't Rely on the Internet Only for Follow-Up; Pick up your Phone

Don't be discouraged if you don't make your sale on first contact; be encouraged you have that contact and develop it. Why not use email, direct mail, or your telephone to follow up inquiries? I can't tell you the number of times it's amazed people when I follow up an email with a personal phone call. Keep it personal. Remember to use direct mail and telemarketing also; the Internet is forming around the many different uses of the telephone. You can still pick it up and talk to them for a low price. And direct mail is still the most proven form of marketing there is.

When an Order Form Isn't an Order Form

If a Web site is better for generating leads, what does that mean as far as ordering goes? The answer is in your telephone. I can call anywhere in the U.S. right now for ten cents a minute; I offer free consultations nationwide, setting up a special interview. I don't do this with thousands of people...yet. I offer this to get my initial contact from a Web site to a personal level, letting them know how to get in touch with me.

My order form isn't just my online ordering, my 800 number, or even my fax number. My order form is me, the follow-up to a call that really personalizes the process. Using your telephone to immediately follow-up is a powerful tool.

Example: Why Telecare Gives a Free Consultation To Sell Telephone Service

Telecare came to me wanting to generate sales through its Web site. I think that's great, but the problem they face is their competition that everyone trusts (and really shouldn't): MCI, Sprint, and ATT. You know these names and since they're big, you trust them. Not the same with Telecare.

I suggested that we offer alternatives. In the telephone business, rates are tricky because they change, there are in-state rates as opposed to long distance, 800 numbers, phone cards, heck the list could go on forever. Bottom line is, there are many choices. We could either force the customer to figure this out by themselves (When is the last time you tried to become an expert in the long distance phone business? Isn't that what you call their customer service for?) or do something different.

We are choosing to do something different. In fact, I even gave into a suggestion to do some programming trick to give each visitor their own rates. But then Telecare's own staff decided that this was risky, that the personal approach was needed. Instead of ordering from Telecare, you get a free consultation by filling in the basic form. They will follow up with a direct phone call to you. No fuss, no muss, and the answer is given quickly. We also have included a form on the home page to get their free report mailed to you.

So we get them on the home page for development of a mailing list, and get them to give us information for a free consultation. For a telephone company, a telephone call is the best follow-up. Figure out your best follow-up and do it, online or off-line.

Key 6. The Content Pages: Educate, Invigorate, Advertise, and Sell

Okay, Just What the Heck does "Content is Advertising" Mean Anyway?

I want to talk to you first about one of the greatest examples of "Content is Advertising", written by someone who hates me even saying those stupid words: Jonathan Mizel's Flame Free Online Marketing Article located at http://www.cyberwave.com/article.html.

His article is what most of his visitors see, in fact it's what many of his visitors only see! They aren't sitting down to search his site, they stop on this article, read, and buy. His other pages pale by comparison, not because they lack of content (you should visit them) but because they become convinced to buy from the impact of that article alone.

Read that article and you discover why Jonathan is one of the leading online marketing experts. One thing about his content, it is always a sales letter, showing a style and insight into what he does. He doesn't list his credentials in some boring resume, fill you up with a bunch of hype of how the Internet is going to change your life and clean your underwear he tells you what to do, how to do it, and where to do it. Plain, simple, direct.

To Do:
• The key for content is, show don't tell. Stop talking about how great you are, or how great your product or service is, and show them why they should buy from you. Let your content act as a good salesperson; at first contact, they are looking into what you have to sell. The most likely thing you have to sell is your product or service, but don't just send them to a page featuring that. Your visitors haven't met you; your content is where they meet you in person, even when you aren't there. Make content do your selling by showing that you know what you are talking about, are reliable, credible, and most of all, available.

• Don't just put up a page with pictures like a catalog; if you are just selling desks, then use your content to talk about the company, the guarantee of quality, provide customer service to support them after they buy, creating a scenario of being in a store that won't dump you. Develop trust immediately by insuring that you will stay in touch with them; it relieves their fears and builds your mailing list. Their biggest fear is not meeting you in person; relieve this fear.

• Use a guarantee to let your audience know you stand behind what you sell. Guarantee that you'll do what you're paid for. Show them; if you're selling a service, guarantee the steps you will take to fulfill your end of the bargain.

• Take advantage of your current marketing materials. In talking with Telecare Long Distance Network, the suggestion came to include a telephone number for their customized, telephone information center. I thought it was a great idea, but why not also include the scripts from that phone service online? It doesn't matter where they hear or read it; providing it enhances the value you provide to the visitor, making it more likely for them to order.

Key 7. Focus on my Four Step Formula for setting up your Web site

A. Your Home Page Table of Contents
   1. Content
   2. Content
   3. Sales Letter
   4. Order Form

The formula is a simple premise; give your visitors two pieces of content to convince them to buy, to show you know what you are talking about, and center everything around your sales letter and order form. The most important act your customer needs to take is to order; the sales letter should be the closer of your site. Make it easy to get to the sales letter, your close, and to the order form from every page.

Most businesses begin their Web site with a product or service. They sit around and talk about the product endlessly, listing all these features and spouting out how great it is. A page that just talks about a product or service (or even worst, a page that just talks about the person that created the page) is the dullest thing on earth. They don't visit your site just to read about you or what you are selling; they come to see if your product will benefit them. You need to understand what they want to buy and the best way to guide them to it. Remember, "Content is advertising", leading them to buy from you.

It's simple; you go into a store and meet a salesperson. The salesperson gives you the content, leading you to the informed decision to buy (or you tell him to blow off and the information is left in his mouth). On the Web, your pages act as your salesperson, they are the content that convince people to believe in your product or service, in you as the owner of the business, building trust and credibility, and convincing them to buy from you. Just like a salesperson wants to lead you to the decision to buy, your content should always point people to the sales letter and order form.

What is it that you want them to do? Get Them To Order

A smart site designs everything around the ultimate goal, the order. Cyberwave's Flame Free Online Marketing article is a sales letter that convinces you to buy Jonathan's Online Marketing Power Package. Telecare offers a free consultation to sell their service. Knowing what you offer is the most important thing to begin with. That's the action you want them to take, but they'll have to look at a little content, i.e. talk to your salesperson, before they'll buy. Create a path to lead them to it, using my four page outline:

• Use one page as an informational page about you, your business, and whatever else lies behind the product or service. We want to know why to buy from you, so use this article to establish credibility.

• Use another page for customer service and support, showing that you stand behind your product. Use email for support and give them a way to get in contact with you. Sometimes it's good to include a picture of you or your company office, to establish a real business feel instead of this virtual, fly by night business where nobody is there to work with them.

• Create a sales letter that outlines benefits, benefits, benefits; you can mix this into your content, like Flame Free Online Marketing, or like Virtual Vineyards ( www.virtualvin.com ) does with its trademarked tasting chart. They convince you to buy if you like what you try; try before you buy is a great sales letter in and of itself. A sales letter is the thing that closes the deal at the Web site. This and your order form should be the first priority of any Web site, because this is where you really get them to take an action.

• Your order form should be easy to use, not too lengthy, and provide alternative ways to order instead of just online or a long distance call. At least include a fax number, your 800 number, and email addresses to simplify the process.

Key 8. Joint venture with others to build up your Back End Products

Offer more than just one product or service at your site. If you have only one product, then at least go to Amazon.com Inc. ( www.amazon.com ) and visit their bookstore. They will allow you to sell recommended books to your customers via their Web site. You get 5-8% of each sale (not a money-maker), but even better you get weekly reports of what books were visited. I use this as a market research tool, as well as an avenue to sell more products and services to your customers. Some you might not make money on, but they can lead to offers to someone else's list.

If you are going to keep in touch with your clients and offer them value, you have to have more than one thing to sell. There is plenty of it out there, just look around. Visit webletter.net at the end of January and you'll see many new products, books, videotapes, audiotapes, and t-shirts. Figure out other sites where your target customers might visit and try to set up a joint venture: that might mean an endorsed mailing to their customers, selling your products through their mailing list, or offering to contribute advertising together and dividing the gross profits.

Key 9. Tracing Success: Use Statistics Online to Help You Track Your Efforts

Get a statistics package set up at your site; pay for it, do what you have to do, but you must track to see what is working. I set up a site at prowebsite.com that's amazing for its statistical information; he knows where his clients are coming from (most from AOL with his recent mailing), and it showed me how I need to upgrade my own package (this package is available at www.mkstats.com ).

The value of the Internet is knowing your customers, but if you sit around and don't use it, you lose the value. Let them guide you to the sale. What you know about your customers is what you can sell to other people, or even better to offer them something else through your list.

Key 10. Test it out and adapt to what works.

Nothing compensates for testing; if you set up a site and use a statistics program you'll know what works. Evaluate your efforts by:

• Leads generated

• Visitors to your site; and

• Most importantly, sales generated.

If something doesn't work, adapt and find new avenues. A good business is one that studies what works and what doesn't, and keeps focusing in on what works.