Building websites and guaranteeing sales

[spirit]

I have read on this forum that websites should be solely built to drive sales. Also, that when cold-calling/cold-emailing potential clients, you should tell them their sales will increase.

How do you know for sure their sales will increase? How do you point an entire website towards sales?

Does anyone have advice, or a book to read, or a course to take to learn this? It seems like it would be an extremely valuable thing to learn.

I've read some of the psychology behind this from Robert Cialdini's book Influence.

 

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[spirit]

Excuse me, I'm a newbie!

I found this great website on copywriting: What Is Copywriting: Uses & Definition of Copywriting

I'm going to get some of the books he recommends and apply it to web design for clients.

My question now is this: how do you guarantee the specific value you'll give the client? I mean actual numbers of business growth or sales?

 

[sparechange]

@Fox is your guy, respected member on the forum.

Check his links

 

[Stargazer]

You can't guarantee sales and you should not be promising that you will otherwise you will never get paid if you don't generate any.

As a business owner I take risk. But it is mitigated risk. (Remember this bit. Write it down)

Your job is to roughly:

A) Get me to think about how useful an image only Website really is compared with what a Direct Response Website can do for me. (Or any service/product)

B) Explain why you are the person to do this.

C) Make me an offer that makes it as close to a no brainer as possible when it comes to my perceived value for money.

Assume A has been achieved. ie We are still talking. I have agreed to the premise.

B) A top notch copywriter/design duo with a 20 year history in my xyz industry with abc results mitigates my risk much more than my neighbours 16 year old son who is just starting out.

However

C1) I am a local Fish & Chip Shop with a gross turnover of £100,000 a year and although the top notch duo is the better bet in experience, they charge £2500 a month which is not worth it. The 16 year old is worth the risk to me at his level of experience and price point of £250 a month so I go with him.

C2) I am a National Pub Restaurant Chain that does £10 million a year and the top notch duo package is now the no brainer.

Does that help you at all with where you are at your stage? Be sensible in who you call, what you offer them and what you charge.

They will work out if the risk is mitigated enough for them to take a punt. No need for you to guarantee anything. Newspapers don't guarantee sales to Advertisers do they?

Dan

 

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[Thiago Machado]

Websites that are built to generate sales are called “conversion optimized.”

Traffic + conversion = sales

If you approach a business offering to improve their website sales, then you are focusing on the conversion side of this equation.

When speaking to a potential client, be sure to ask them about their traffic sources too. If no one is visiting their website, then the best site in the world won’t do a thing for them.

Ask to see their google analytics or any data that shows how many people visit their website.

After that, you should analyze specific elements of a web page that are causing them to lose leads / sales.

For example:

• Is your offer clear upon a users first impression?
• Does it have a clear CTA?
• What’s the attention ratio on the page?​

Focusing on these 3 things alone are enough to increase conversions for a company.

Then you can focus on things such as the website look and feel.

To approach businesses offering this sort of help, you need to learn Conversion Rate Optimization.

I highly recommend this course and this one too.

Both are a great starting point and will help you see website building from a new perspective.

Good luck!

 

[spirit]

I suppose a lot of clients simply want interested customers who will phone, email, or visit them. These clients don't really sell a product directly online, they want people contacting them or coming to their establishment.

I think I'll be doing the copywriting on my own for now. When I get bigger, I'll hire one if need be.

I won't "promise" or "guarantee" anything when cold-emailing clients, but I'll inform them how it'll provide them value.

Does this sound good? Thanks for your help!

 

[Thiago Machado]

I suppose a lot of clients simply want interested customers who will phone, email, or visit them. These clients don't really sell a product directly online, they want people contacting them or coming to their establishment.

I think I'll be doing the copywriting on my own for now. When I get bigger, I'll hire one if need be.

I won't "promise" or "guarantee" anything when cold-emailing clients, but I'll inform them how it'll provide them value.

Does this sound good? Thanks for your help!

Conversion = any action someone takes on the site.

This isn't something exclusive to online selling.

If they want calls - you optimize the website for phone calls.

If they want people to sign up on a form - you optimize it for them to fill out a form.

If you want people coming in - you optimize it so they can take their action offline.

Your job is to get people to take an action.

This isn't just copywriting either. It's a mix of copy + traffic + landing page.

Again... look into the resources I've given you.

 

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[spirit]

Conversion = any action someone takes on the site.

This isn't something exclusive to online selling.

If they want calls - you optimize the website for phone calls.

If they want people to sign up on a form - you optimize it for them to fill out a form.

If you want people coming in - you optimize it so they can take their action offline.

Your job is to get people to take an action.

This isn't just copywriting either. It's a mix of copy + traffic + landing page.

Again... look into the resources I've given you.

That makes sense. I'm getting the Udemy course right now!

Thank you.

 

[Thiago Machado]

That makes sense. I'm getting the Udemy course right now!

Thank you.

If you want to see websites that drive calls, sales, sign ups, and people coming into stores, have a look at the following:

Unbounce
Astra