At the end of the day, we should never forget we are running a business. Though it should never be all about the money front and centre, it is important for a business to make money.
The ‘how’ a business makes money, should be considered front and centre.
If we boil it all down into simplicity, a business needs to sell something for it to make money. IE: It needs to make a SALE.
So what are you going to sell?
- What is your “product”?
- What is your “sales pitch”?
- How do you “find leads” to your sales pitch?
This is “marketing” folks and making sales are the core of any business.
Whether it’s your business’s time through a service, the sale of a product, or both. Either digital, physical or otherwise. It all amounts to selling something. Selling something for a profit to be exact.
Rule 1: The “Product”
Yes we sell a “product”, but in return your product provides value to the purchaser, so it works out be a fair exchange. You get to keep some money, and the user gets to benefit from the “product”.
What are you going to sell? or What is the product you’re selling?
This can be different with each different business model.
For example. If you are using advertising as a monetisation strategy. What is your product?
In this case, an ad impression or a click-through would be your product. Your content would be your sales pitch, and you would target free traffic from search and social.
Another example. What if you provide a service?
Then the service is your product. The content on your website is the sales pitch. And you would get traffic from an email list, which you would grow through paid traffic.
Rule 2: The “Sales Pitch”
Understand the relationship between your product and your sale pitch. Build these guiding principles for your website. Display it on every page of the site. And do this from the very beginning.
Everything you do and all the content you create should have these principles in mind.
Now! ..after saying that. You can’t make every page on your website a sales page.
That would be terrible and it would make it look like all you cared about is the money. Which we don’t want.
We generally have a rule for this, and it’s a gut feeling (intuition) but we try to keep it to a third. Two-thirds is interesting and informative content and the rest is all about selling.
- Informative Content – How-to’s, User guides, Knowledge base, Everything (Who, What, When, Where and the Why)
- Social Content – Light content about your industry. Either shared or created with the intention to ‘be shared’ on social platforms
- Money pages – Pages that ‘directly’ or ‘indirectly’ offer your sales pitch. Whether it’s subtle or with a right hook. This should not exceed 1/3 of the total pages
Disclaimer: This information is subjective and may not always be the case. As there is room for balance in every industry.
There are many times when I do have a sales pitch on every page and a link to a sales page.
But it should never make up more than 1/3 of the content on the page.
The idea is to provide value to the people visiting your page. You want them to say.
“Wow these guys really know their stuff!, I have that exact same problem, and I think I may have just found the solution.”
Happy 🙂 Customer.
You don’t want to be all up in their face with your offer.
If they want to use your service, the information on how they can do that should be clearly displayed on every page. This is a “Call to Action” for your ideal customer to respond to.
This is where we use copy that says if you want to know more about such-n-such, then do this action. IE: A link to a Web form, email sign-up, product page, or whatever you want them to do. A clear concise reminder of your offer.
This is a very simplistic explanation and is the tip of an extremely large iceberg. I go into more detail about calls to action and sales funnels in this course.
So how do you go about weaving your sales pitch into your content without being salesy?
Again, there is no exact answer. It depends on your business model and the monetisation strategy you are using.
We go for friendly and informative content.
Show you understand the reader’s problem. Empathise with them, and get to know your ideal customer.
Write your content in such a way that it speaks ‘directly’ to them. Then get them to respond, right now! to take the next steps.
This could be to a product page for a sale.
Other times customers need to be ‘warmed up’ with more information. This is our primal need to ease fears or to ask more questions. And a reassurance of the benefits.
Rule 3: How to “find leads” to your sales pitch
Work out who your ideal customer is.
Find out where your ideal customer is hanging out. How are you going to get them to your offers?
Which of the different types of marketing channels best suits your ideal customer? Choose that first.
- Search engines – Keyword content marketing
- Social media – Social content marketing
- Paid traffic – PPC advertising
- Email Marketing – by using a lead magnet
- Video – Youtube and other video content
- Outreach – Build relationships to get other people’s traffic
Pick one (only one) from the list above and focus hard on this until you make a profit or you reach a pre-set sales goal.
The Conclusion
The key takeaway here is to focus first on your website from the beginning.
- The core “product” you offer
- The key sales pitch to your ideal customer
- A clear strategy to get visitors to your offer
If you have any questions send me a message on the contact form.