You hired a website expert, attended a bunch of strategy meetings, looked at charts, graphs, forecasts, colors photos etc., on how to make your website look great.
And you know what it does! The color schemes, the text, the content, the photos – they all look great. You’ve even gotten compliments from friends, family and industry experts. Not only that, you are getting tons of traffic to the site.
Here’s the problem though. Unless you have a systematic way of capturing the names and e-mail addresses of your visitors, you’re website it not working hard enough.
Let’s face it, you can’t market to someone that you don’t know. Right now, you website is a one way street – information out only. What you need is information coming in. What information? The names and contact information of prospective buyers.
Just having a “Contact Us” button or page is not enough. That approach is too passive and takes too much work on the part of your website visitor.
9 Ways To Persuade Your Web Site Visitors To Give You Their Email Address
1. Ask visitors to subscribe to your e-zine. It’s a good idea to also give them a freebie when they subscribe. This is a great “call to action” Here’s a good example of how a good local business marketing website gets new subscribers.
2. Have them sign-up to get access to download a free ebook. This is an easy small business marketing strategy. The subject of the ebook should be related to your target audience.
3. Give your visitors a free membership inside your “member’s only” website. Have them sign-up to receive a user name and password.
4. Hold a free contest or sweepstakes. To enter they need to give you their contact information. To increase sign ups, I would just ask for a first name and e-mail address.
5. Offer your visitors free consulting via e-mail. Have them fill out a web form to e-mail you with their questions. You could offer an in-home consultation on “How to Select the Right XYZ Product or Service for You and Your Family”.
6. Have visitors fill out a survey on your website. Give them a free gift as an incentive to complete the form.
7. Offer a free online service from your site. Have visitors fill out their contact information to sign-up to the free service. This could be something as easy as a free oil change reminder or even a -email birthday card with a savings coupon attached.
8. Ask visitors to sign your guest book. Tell them they will get a free gift in return. The “freebie” could be a special report titled, “7 Questions You Must Ask Before You Buy Your Next XYZ”.
9. Give people who visit your website a free course sent via e-mail. Just ask them to fill out their contact information to receive the free course.
When you capture contact information, you increase your odds of capturing more sales.
To Your Continued Success,
Dave
