First off I should probably mention if you own a webstore - which is basically a catalog type website listing heaps of products with a shopping cart - then you’re probably not selling as much as you could be. It seems to me that this is the most difficult way to sell online for the sole reason that you give the visitor too many choices. You basically make sales to people who know what they want while the browsers disappear through the cracks.

Now since most of the people who hit your website are browsers in the beginning you can see why this is a serious problem. Luckily there are several ways to increase your conversion rate of visitors to buyers. The biggest secret is to stop trying to sell everything and focus on particular products instead.

The truth is you don’t want people to buy first time

Now this may sound like a weird statement but let’s explore it. Approximately 1-2% of visitors who arrive on your website will buy the first time. So you have the choice to focus on the 2% of people who are impulse buyers or the 98% who aren’t.

The good news is we can still sell to our 2% of people while maximising our results with the other 98% as well. All we have to do is add some form of data collection to our website so we can begin to build a relationship. Generally the most effective way to do this is to offer a gift in exchange for their email address but this process can also be done via social media like Facebook and Twitter.

Stop trying to get into their pants before you get their phone number!

If you walked up to a stranger on the street and asked them to have sex with you I’d say your odds of success are pretty slim unless money is involved. But if you started a pleasant conversation, got their phone number and went out on a few dates your chances increase significantly. It’s exactly the same with visitors to your website.

Once you have a way to communicate with your visitors you can start to build a relationship with them. By offering them good value in the right way they will grow to like and trust you. And people are much more likely to buy from those that they like and trust.

Give them a reason to buy now

Most stores have hundreds of products available for the same price all day every day. It’s far to easy for a visitor to your website to say “I like that but I’ll buy it when…” You can insert whatever excuse you want at the end but the fact is people won’t buy from you unless there’s a reason.

If I sat on the footpath outside your house selling water I probably wouldn’t have a very successful business. But if one day your house starts burning down I bet I’d have a very eager customer ready to buy everything I had. The product’s the same… but suddenly your desire and urgency went through the roof.

Make them an offer they can’t refuse

This is why all big retailers are always having sales. They know they need an urgent reason for you to come into the store. And once you’re in the store you usually walk out with something.

You can do the same online by creating special offers of your own. You can take the obvious route and discount but you can also combine products together to make special packages. Then simply make those packages available for a limited time.

Just rinse and repeat

By making regular special offers on different items and packages you’ll increase your sales dramatically. Part of what makes this so effective is people love a great bargain and hate missing out. But you don’t need a degree in psychology to do this… you just have to watch your sales figures.

One week you might have a special appealing to a particular interest of your followers. The next week it could be something else. This way you also cover all the wants and needs of your subscriber base.

What you do next

Put together a special offer for your current subscribers or customer base. You should also read this post called 7 tips to improve website conversion today and make sure you hit all the points outlined there. Then just hit the send button and watch what happens.

That’s right you can now make your very own commercial and Google will help you place it on cable TV stations (with more to come I’m sure). Imagine being able to make your own little infomercial (with less cheesy smiles) and have a massive TV audience. I think we’re going to be hearing a lot about this in the future.

Here’s a video showing how it works with an experiment:

Thanks to Frank Kern’s post where I found the video.

If you ask a web designer how to increase website sales you’ll probably be met with a blank look. In the worst case scenario they might start talking about redesigning your website to match current online trends or current design principles. The problem with this is… web design doesn’t sell anything.

It’s hard for business owners to finally admit to themselves that their brilliantly designed and fantastic looking website isn’t selling anything. By this point they’ve sunk thousands (if not tens of thousands) of dollars into the project and are yet to see a result. Website sales come trickling in but it’s nothing compared with their offline methods.

So how do you really increase website sales?

The first step is to accept that web design and selling online are two completely different fields. Let’s compare it to art:

First you have the artist who toils away behind closed doors creating their masterpiece. They’re not worried about how the art will sell or it’s commercial viability… they’re just engrossed in the creative process. This is just like your web designer.

However while the whole “starving artist” persona is fun for a while any smart artist realizes that if they want to make a living from their work someone has to sell it. But rather than spend their time out in the streets trying to sell their own art they call on the help of an art gallery… a place dedicated to selling art. And this is where I come in for your website… I’m a person dedicated to making online sales for your business.

Salesmanship in html

Selling stuff is not an accident although it might seem that way sometimes. There are carefully laid down rules of selling that have existed for over a hundred years. Now while these rules are sometimes improved upon and refined the basics are fairly simple:

1. Find someone who wants what you have
2. Make them a win/win offer
3. Give them a reason to act now

It doesn’t matter whether we’re doing this in person, in a letter, over the phone or online. The principles remain the same and you just have to adapt them for the media you’re using. So why do most websites fail to sell much of anything?

Let’s start at the very beginning…

When you’re selling in your store you have a basic idea of what each customer wants and how to provide it to them. You probably have certain things you say all the time and you tend to get the sale more often or not. So why does this not follow through onto your website?

If you look at most websites you find that they’re completely different to the selling experience in your store. They rabbit on about your company and provide a whole bunch of boring information that your visitor doesn’t really care about. And the problem with a website is people don’t have to be polite due to social convention (like when faced with a hapless salesperson)… they simply click on their back button and leave your store forever.

Taking your offline sales pitch online

Once you identify what is actually selling your products in your store you can take the same approach online. You just have to refine it down to it’s core essence and get rid of all the extra junk that might give someone a reason to leave. Your online sales message has to be clearer and even more effective than your store version.

The reason for this is the extreme Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) we all seem to suffer from nowadays… especially online. It’s easy for someone to be browsing your website, checking their emails, updating Facebook, Twittering, reading the news, watching YouTube and any number of other distractions can pop up along the way. You’ve simply got to have a message so compelling that you drag their complete focus back to your website long enough for them to complete the transaction.

How do you know what works?

By now you might be thinking that selling online is really, really hard! And in some ways you’d be right. But there are a lot of advantages to selling online.

One of these advantages is the level of testing we can do. If you’ve ever wondered if you should use one word versus another in your sales pitch you can now easily test this online using free software tools. You can test everything including headlines, copywriting, offers, guarantees, pricing, images, calls to action and anything in between.

Don’t get overwhelmed!

Of course you don’t have to go this extreme (it’s usually recommended to test headlines, the first few paragraphs and your offer) but it’s great to know the power is there if you want it. The truth is a few little changes (like adding an effective headline instead of “welcome to our website”) can make a huge difference to response. You just need to apply some selling logic to your website.

There are other things like creating great offers and using strong guarantees that will boost your results online. I talk about many ways to do that throughout my blog and my subscribers receive plenty of examples as well. There are also plenty of resources about selling available around the internet and in these weird things called books.

What you do next

You now know how to increase website sales… work out what it takes to make a sale in your store and then transfer it online. And I’m not talking about the people who walk in, pick up what they want, pay and walk out the door (your website hopefully already caters to these people). We’re talking about the people who you actually have to sell to.

By outlining your offline sales process you can start to outline your online sales process. Then it’s just a matter of testing and refining the various components. It’s really not that hard if you learn about selling and this is why I’m able to take any website and increase its sales as soon as I upload the changes.

And you’ll find the same if you take the time to apply the advice written here and in other places on the blog.

A few months ago I identified a belief within myself that work = bad. On reflection I realized that it came from all those Rich Dad Poor Dad books by Robert Kiyosaki and the belief they formed that I never wanted a job. Unfortunately I took this one step further where…

job = bad
job = work
therefore work = bad!

The truth is I’ve never been particularly good at maths so messing up this formula isn’t much of a surprise!

The belief runs deeper

Since I do internet marketing there’s been a lot of reinforcement of this belief by marketers trying to sell me products. While “sitting on the beach while you make money” sounds like a nice idea it really does a lot of damage to our lives. Because while you can make money while sitting on the beach or while you sleep… is that really how we want to live our lives?

I would say when it comes down to it most of us want more fulfilling lives… but that doesn’t necessarily mean doing less work. It’s a choice of how we spend or time and what “work” we actually apply ourselves too. It can come down to a simple definition of the word “work” which we’ll get to in a second.

Have you ever fought against yourself?

The frustrating thing about our beliefs are how they can block us from what we really want. Personally I’ve found that most of the battles I’ve fought in my life haven’t been with outside invaders… they’ve been with myself. I’m constantly amazed how I can reveal little blocks in my thinking that hold me back from the result I desire.

And - believe it or not - the result I desire is hardly ever sitting around doing nothing.

Poking holes in the fantasy

I think most people have this fantasy of not having to work and having plenty of money to spend. But the reality of the situation is if we really spent all day sitting on our butts we’d get bored very quickly. I don’t know about you but I always find myself having to do something during holidays or I go a little crazy.

A month or so back my girlfriend and I went to the beach and I hadn’t bought a book or anything to do. I did my best to sit there quietly and “relax” but I got bored very quickly. I ended up exploring the beach and building a sandcastle to pass the time.

Because who says relaxing has to be sitting there doing absolutely nothing. Maybe relaxing for me is doing some activity that isn’t work related. But then if I enjoy my work activities who says I can’t be “relaxing” all the time?

An interesting viewpoint

A friend mentioned to be today a belief of one of New Zealand’s top NLP experts. He had said something to the effect of “NLP is my number one hobby.” Just by changing the language associated with his “work” he’s changed the game completely.

This leads back to doing what we’re passionate about… what excites us. If we really focus on the work (or hobby) we enjoy then we can’t help but be successful. Sure there’s going to be some icky tasks along the way but if we look at the big picture our working lives become a lot more pleasant.

How does this affect you?

I’m going to go out on a limb and say if you’re really honest with yourself you can find bad belief systems that are stopping you from attaining what you want in life. I know I’ve found them throughout my life (and continue to find them) even though I would be considered by many to be a fairly high achiever. The reality is that we’re constantly fighting these battles with ourselves no matter what level we’ve reached.

So I suggest looking at your life and what beliefs may be holding you back. Then try some different strategies for removing them. From my own experience having a coach (actually multiple) has helped me face my inner mind much more quickly and effectively and I would recommend the same to anyone reading this.

Anyway… hope this all makes sense as my chain of thought meandered a little in the process of writing this. Another helpful (and therapeutic) tip can be to get your thoughts out on paper. If you do it without the usual internal censoring you might find out some useful stuff about what your beliefs really are.

Hope you enjoyed reading my dear diary moment… please share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments.

I’ve taught many of my subscribers that most people start a business the wrong way round. Now I’m not pointing fingers as I’m guilty of it too but why do we insist on creating products and then finding a market for them? It’s much easier to find out what people want and then provide it to them.

Imagine if you could find out exactly what your clients wanted before you actually went through the trouble of creating it. And if you could do it with a simple survey. Now while this approach isn’t foolproof it’s a lot better than putting on a blindfold and throwing darts at the target.

So here’s a product idea that’s been rolling around in my head for a while. It would be great if you could answer these quick four questions about it and then we’ll see if it gets created:

The Quick Four Question Survey

Thanks in advance!

I went to Chris Howard’s Breakthrough to Success event in Auckland in September and I must say I was blown away. The content he delivers is fantastic and while there’s a sales pitch it doesn’t get in the way of what you’re learning. I had planned to go back this time as a volunteer helper but I’ll be in Sydney for another seminar that weekend.

Oh and I should mention that it’s free if you click here to claim your tickets (blatant affiliate link… explained at the end).

But even though you won’t get the chance to meet me (shame I know) I still highly recommend you go. It’ll be a great experience and you’ll be surprised at all the crap that you dig out of your brain. While it’s not a one weekend fix everything seminar (that’s simply impossible) it’ll give you a much better understanding on what might be holding you back and tools to eliminate it (plus you’ll be taken through group exercises to get rid of your biggest hurdles right there).

I wrote my Chris Howard - Breakthrough to Success review back in September so I won’t harp on about it again. The only thing I’d change about my review is beware of purchasing too many seminars. I’ve just found that it’s a lot of money and you have to wait a while for your events to occur (I’m still waiting for one of mine).

However the monthly (or more regular) coaching has been great. My coach is awesome and we seem to breakthrough more crap every time we get on the phone. Doing it again I would consider getting more frequent coaching and hold off on the seminars for a while.

Not that the seminars  aren’t great but for the price you’d probably be better served going out and finding a qualified NLP practitioner to work one-on-one with. This is something that’s been brought to my attention again recently and will have to follow through on this time! Either way Breakthrough to Success will definitely give you a breakthrough… I’m even willing to bet imaginary cookies on that one as long as you fully engage with the experience (no point going if you’re going to say “This is stupid” and sit there with your arms folded the whole time).

Anyway… you can read my Chris Howard - Breakthrough to Success review for more info.

If you decide to go click here to get 2 free tickets (or really as many as you want). Note that this is my affiliate link and the deal is you get free tickets and I get a commission if you buy anything. However I think you can tell I’m not in this for the money since I just recommended you didn’t go overboard on the seminars!

I’d also be keen to hear from those who are going on their experience and how you feel about the personal development stuff I share. I think it’s important but do you?

Final Magic Free Ticket Link

Unfortunately most business owners don’t look at how to improve website conversion. They are sucked into the vicious cycle of getting more website traffic and forget all about the visitors they already attract. This post is designed to give you 7 quick ways to improve the way your website converts visitors into clients.

Tip #1 - Get their attention with a headline

I’m not sure why most websites don’t use effective headlines. We’re surrounded by them all day in newspapers and on magazine covers yet few business owners apply the same principles to their websites. By simply adding a good headline you can increase the rate at which visitors stay on your website.

Various studies show you have about 3 - 7 seconds to grab your visitors attention and that’s where your headline comes in. It needs to both catch their eye and explain in one short statement why they should stay on your website. That’s their one job… to explain the biggest benefit of reading what you have to say.

Tip #2 - Explain the benefits

Most business websites don’t explain why the visitor should do business with them over their competitors. They vaguely promise the best service, quality and prices (like everyone does) but give no reasons why their business is unique. If you want to have a successful website you need to have a unique reason for visitors doing business with you.

I like to ask the classic Dan Kennedy question “Why should I - a potential prospect - do business with you over all other alternatives including doing nothing at all?” If you’re reading this I’ll put money on the fact you don’t have a really good answer to this question (feel free to challenge me in the comments). But once you get your answer clear and succinct your website’s conversion will go up dramatically.

Tip #3 - Back up everything with proof

Going back to our example above about the best service… how do you prove you have the best service? Maybe you really do but because everyone else claims the same thing your voice is lost in the crowd. So how can you show that you have hands down the best service in town?

You might have really amazing testimonials presented in an interesting way. You might have an incredible guarantee (which we’ll talk more about in a second). You might have stories about how you bent over backwards to exceed your clients expectations.

The important thing is that you must back up all your claims with proof or no one will believe you.

Tip #4 - Create an irresistible offer

I’m constantly amazed how many businesses fail to make offers and they lose a lot of sales because of it. You need to clearly state what you’re going to give the prospect in return for their hard earned money (or even their contact details). You must show them they’re going to get an incredible amount of value for money.

Now this doesn’t mean you lose money on the deal but you do need to increase the perceived value of your offer. Maybe you can add in items that cost you very little but have a high perceived value. Get started by at least offering something and improve it as you go.

Tip #5 - Take away the risk

When people buy from you (especially online) they fear getting ripped off. Maybe your offer won’t live up to it’s promises or your product will break in a few weeks. To sell effectively and improve website conversion you have to remove as much of this risk as possible.

This starts with an amazing guarantee that ensures your clients are always amazed. But there are also many other risk reversal techniques to use such as free trials or buy now and pay later approaches. You probably already have a guarantee that’s required by law hiding away somewhere and all you have to do is jazz it up a little and put it on display.

Tip #6 - Have a call to action

Nearly all of us are serial procrastinators whether we like to admit it or not. We hold back from taking action because we’re afraid of making a mistake or a bad decision. This is no different when someone is looking to buy your products and services.

Therefore you can increase your website conversion rate by having a solid call to action that helps the prospect commit to the decision right now. It isn’t about having some strong arm sales tactic but rather helping your visitor over that hump to making a purchase. Your prospects are much more likely to buy if they realize they might miss out on something if they don’t act now.

Tip #7 - Have a personality

I find many (if not all) business websites are incredibly boring and business like. They look the same, sound the same… and put their visitors to sleep the same. Sometimes all it takes to have  a successful website is to take what other people are selling and add some personality.

Now it doesn’t have to be some big dramatic performance where you where an eye patch and talk like a pirate. But you should at least appear as a real person and not get hung up pretending to be a big company. At the end of the day people buy from people - not companies - so use this to your advantage.

What you do next to improve website conversion

Well there you have 7 tips that should increase website conversion very effectively and they don’t take much time to implement. However reading about them won’t do much for your sales… you have to take action. So go and pick one tip above and start by implementing it… then once you see your website sales rise I’m sure you’ll want to come back and use the other tips as well.

As a business owner you definitely want to learn how to increase traffic to your website. However there is a big difference between knowing a web marketing strategy and putting it into use. This article is all about the lies that propagate the web marketing landscape and how you can avoid getting burnt.

There are a number of commonly used methods and a quick list would include Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, article marketing, video marketing and social media (including websites like Facebook and Twitter). However not all methods are created equal and choosing the right one (and the right advice) to start with will help your website grow faster.

Search engine lies

SEO is often a popular way to get traffic as the website owners believes they can pay some expert to get their website to the top of the rankings. While this can be true there’s a lot of risk involved in this approach. What’s most important is that the expert you listen to be able to show you measurable results to your website traffic and sales.

In my website travels I have seen countless search engine experts claiming how they can get you to the top of the search engine rankings in no time flat. They list examples of other clients that sound great and sure enough they’re at the top of the search engine results for keywords like “quick plumbing repair” or “choose tiles for my roof.”

But with some quick research I find out no one is actually searching for those terms. And if no one is searching for your keywords then your traffic isn’t going to increase and neither will your sales. So that’s just hard earned cash handed over to some dodgy so-called “expert” and unfortunately very common.

Look for a SEO expert who explains what keywords are best for your business and why. They should be supporting this with traffic numbers and the results you can expert. While no one can really guarantee you a top ten ranking the true experts will get you there if you’re committed to helping them as well.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) disasters

The biggest mistake I see with PPC is the business owner trying to do it themselves. If you’re going to pay money for every visitor then you have to be very sure you’re making that money back. If you don’t have the expertise to do this then make sure you find someone who does.

For example most people think Google Adwords operates solely on a bidding system i.e. the more money you pay the higher up in the rankings your ad appears. It shocks clients when they discover that you can actually pay less for your ads and still outrank your competitors. And you can achieve this by writing a better and well targeted ad that more people click on.

Article and video marketing mistakes

While filling the internet with your content can be great for your business you definitely have to have a clear strategy behind this process. Creating and submitting articles or videos can give you a huge amount of credibility in your market. But again this only works if people are actually going to find them.

You can put millions of videos onto YouTube but if no one is watching them how does it help you? Do you know how to get people to watch your videos or rank them in the search engines? You’ll want to find someone who’s done what you want and then use their expertise as well.

The same goes for articles and putting them on article sharing websites. Are people reading your articles and – perhaps more importantly – are other publishers taking your articles and using them for their websites and newsletters. This is where the real benefits of article marketing start to pay off.

Social media mistruths

The latest craze to sweep internet marketing is the social media phenomenon. Don’t be swayed with impressive figures of how many millions of people use services like Facebook or Twitter. Only be concerned with how many quality visitors they can bring to your website.

Lately many people who just learned how to use these programs are now turning around and declaring guru status. Again you want to see examples of how much traffic they’ve attracted to websites (consistently and not with a one hit wonder) and how that led to sales. Anyone can get an impressive number of followers just by going out and adding random people so make sure you see cold hard data before you go down the social media track.

So how do you avoid being ripped off?

If you want to increase your website traffic you need to find an experienced expert to help you or teach you what to do. You want to see a proven track record of what traffic and sales looked like before they started with a client and how they’re doing now. The good news is once you find someone like this you’ll be able to work with them for a long time thanks to the money they’ll make you.

The key to ensuring that you aren’t taken advantage of is that you have to get involved. If you take the time to learn how to increase traffic to your website and what your web marketer is doing for you then you’ll start to recognize the difference between good and bad work. Plus your expert will only be keener to work with you if you provide the support and attention they need.

Your website is not some isolated part of your business that you build and forget about. Sure it can be a great automated system for bringing clients into your business but it still needs care and attention. Just like any marketing you do for your business you have to put in the time and money in order to get the best results.

What you do next

Investigate a few ways to getting traffic to your website and then pick one. Learn how to increase traffic to your website using this method, draw up a plan to implement it and then keep doing it on a consistent basis. I find once you have the right strategy the biggest difference between success and failure online is just doing the work required!

I’m currently reading The Ultimate Marketing Plan by Dan Kennedy (always listen to Dan!) and it has a useful list in it on the 5 steps people make before they buy something. The steps are:

1. Awareness of need and/or desire
2. Picking the “thing” that fulfills the need/desire
3. Picking the source of the thing
4. Accepting the source’s price/value argument
5. Finding a reason to act now

Now all of these steps are important but I want to hone in on steps 2 and 3 as it applies to a client that I’m currently working with.

What are you really selling?

While I can’t get specific with client details this is an interesting dilemma that I find many businesses face. It involves different levels of what they’re selling and how we break those down. It’s also about answering all of the questions in a buyers mind.

To explain better I’ve made up example to substitute for my real client.

The different levels of car buying

If you want to buy a car then there are a few different levels of decisions to make. I would say the first one is if you want to buy a new or used car. So if you own a used car lot you want to first sell the benefits of buying a used car over a new one.

On the next level you realize there are also a number of other used car businesses in the world so you’ll need to sell the benefits of buying from your particular used car lot over all other competitors.

When all this is done you can finally start trying to sell the actual product to the prospect (in this example one particular car). You’ll also notice that there might be other levels such as a particular brand or type of car the person wants.

Why is this important?

Consumers are surrounded by choices. They are pulverized with marketing messages every second of every day. This makes their buying decisions very hard.

I believe our main job as business owners is to provide our prospects with the best possible solution to their need or desire. This involves making them aware of the possibilities but then guiding them towards the best choice for them. The sale doesn’t come from railroading someone into buying your product (at least not if you want a repeat sale) but from helping them make the right choice for them.

By stepping through the various levels we clarify why they should buy what we suggest. We back up their emotional feelings with logical reasons. So when the time comes all they have to do is hand over the money.

The dangers of not following this process

I find many clients who only compete on a 2 dimensional level rather than the 3 (or more) dimensional levels we discussed above. Why this may seem like a silly example imagine a car dealer who has marketing that only states “We have used cars!” And then stop laughing because many businesses do this on a daily basis without realizing.

While you may not spell out every level in the process completely (or let people skip levels as required) you still need to be aware of the levels and be ready to guide people through them. At the end of the day it’s important to ensure your prospects turn into buyers.

What you do next

It’s time to go back and step through the process like someone who has never even heard of you before. Ask yourself if you’re answering all the questions and giving enough justification to purchase what you’re offering. I think  you’ll find you aren’t and if you really want to challenge me on this then feel free to post in the comments.

And of course you can also post if you want help breaking down the levels in your own business or industry based on a complete outsiders ignorance. This is usually the best way to go as it gives us a fresh perspective and allows us to see how other people view our business.

If your business operates online you probably realize the power of email marketing. However the very way you use it can be reducing your results significantly. And the biggest problem is this is the way the “experts” tell you to do it as well.

If you’re like most companies you send out email with pretty formatting that displays your company logo and looks similar to a brochure or your website. What if I told you I thought this was the worst possible way you could send your email? Unfortunately it’s hard to have exact figures to back this up due to its nature but allow me to explain my logic.

Why do most people use email?

What is the first thing you do when you check your emails? If you’re anything like me when you check your emails you first do a quick scan to see what personal emails have arrived. You want to see the emails from your friends or family.

You read those emails and reply to them first every time don’t you? I’ve never heard of anyone checking their email and going straight to their email newsletters to see what some company had to say about itself today. It just doesn’t happen.

Problem #1 - The subject line

The subject line of your email is what gets it opened. You need to think of it just like a headline that would get your newspaper story read. If you’re sending emails that have subject lines that include the word “newsletter” it gives permission for the reader to skip over it. How many times have you told yourself you’ll come back and read all the newsletters one day but not right now?

So the first key is getting your email opened with a great subject line. You need to show the benefit of reading this email right away. It can also help if you can invoke some curiosity of what’s inside.

Problem #2 - The content

Most company emails read like a company wrote them. They’re impersonal and - quite frankly - boring. I’m sorry but no one has the time to slog through your boring emails anymore.

First you need to offer something of value to the reader. Basically you deliver on the benefit you promised in the subject line. If you provide lots of value to your readers then they’re much more likely to ensure they read every single one of your emails.

Second I always recommend writing in a personal style. Many small businesses try to make themselves look bigger and appear like faceless corporations. My experience has shown if you take a personal approach and write like a real person you’ll get much better results.

Problem #3 - The purpose of your email

Have you ever stopped to wonder why you’re sending a weekly/fortnightly/monthly email to your clients? Are you doing it just because some marketing guy said you should do it? Ask yourself what you really want to happen from the emails you send.

The job of most of my emails is to provide value. So the purpose is to get the reader to click the link inside and then visit my blog or wherever I’ve posted my valuable content. It’s also important to have them click through to a website as no one wants to slog through pages and pages of email.

Problem #4 - No clear offers made

When I do have an offer for my subscribers I make sure I’m very clear with what I want them to do as well. I’ll also link to the offer as I don’t want to try and sell something in the body of the email either. So my purpose becomes to have them click the link, then read the sales letter and finally make a purchase.

The point is I always have a reason for writing my emails and I know what that reason is. I don’t pack them full of a million different things and wonder why no one did what I wanted. I make my purpose of emailing very clear at all times.

Hopefully you’ve learned something valuable from my views on email marketing. The biggest takeaway you should have is start writing like a human and not a faceless corporation.  That’s the only way you’re going to create a strong bond with your audience that just can’t wait for what you have to say next.