| |
Competency: Sales and Marketing
Many seasoned professional speakers agree that you
can make more money selling your knowledge in the
form of products than you can speaking. |
 |
|
You can use traditional methods to sell
products such as direct mail, catalogs and advertising.
However, if you have a great online presence, the entire
world is your marketplace at a fraction of the cost
of most traditional methods. To easily sell to this
worldwide marketplace, you need a great shopping cart
system.
Choosing a shopping cart system is perhaps the most
important single decision you'll make in your online
marketing career.
This is because:
You're stuck with the decision for a long time.
If you buy into a system that isn't adequate, it can
cost you money-big money- because it won't maximize
the amount of money spent by each visitor.
There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of off-the-shelf,
free and alternative products out there vying for your
money, time or both. And most of them are junk.
Don't suffer like I did I learned the hard way. When
I started on the Internet I couldn't find a decent shopping
cart program, so I took one that was highly recommended
by my ISP (I now know the only reason they suggested
it was because it made them the most money. They didn't
care if it was the best one for me or not). What a headache!
The system wouldn't do anything but take the order,
but you had to have a PhD in computer science to work
on it.
Here are 21 questions you absolutely, unfailingly must
ask anyone trying to sell you a shopping cart. If you
don't hear positive answers to the majority of these
questions, put your wallet back into your pocket and
evaluate the next option. Don't get stuck with a crappy
shopping cart, even if they give it to you free.
If you have a poor shopping cart, get rid of it. I
know that hurts, because you may have spent lots of
time and money getting it going, but a bad one will
cost you many thousands of dollars by waiting to replace
it later rather than sooner.
Oh, and one more thing: if you hear the shopping cart
programmer answer one of the questions below by saying,
"Well, we could make it do that," run away
even faster, because you're going to get stuck with
a big custom programming bill with no guarantees that the cart is going to work the way you expected.
Every question below is very important when it comes
to having a quality shopping cart system that gets more
money out of the same number of visitors.
- Will it calculate shipping and tax?
- Does it handle specialized shipping like FedEx
and UPS?
- Will it automatically deliver hard goods and soft
goods (e- books and other digital products) in the
same transaction?
- Does it offer customizable "Return to Shopping"
pages without needing custom programming? This is
important so you can send your customers to the most
likely product they will buy next. Standard carts
just send customers back to the main catalog, which
forces them to search for related products. This is
both irritating and time-consuming. Any delays in
finding what they want could mean a lost sale, when
they finally throw their hands up in disgust and move
on to your competitor's site.
- Does it offer customizable "Thank You"
pages based on what the customer just bought? These
are pages where savvy marketers put affiliate links
and other offers specifically related to the customer's
interests. When a customer clicks on one of these
links and buys something from someone else, you get
a commission.
- Does it deliver receipt and confirmation e-mails
automatically? The customer wants to know immediately
that the order went through. If he or she is unsure,
you are going to have to field many wasted e-mails
and phone calls letting the customer know everything
is OK.
- Does it allow multiple order and dropship e-mails?
In many cases, several different people in your organization
and/or outside your organization need notice of an
order. Again, you don't want to have to do this manually.
- Does it have a Web-based administration page so
you can work on your cart from any computer that has
Internet access?
- Does it include encryption technology and a secure
server? Many companies make a fortune by sucking you
in with a cheap or free cart and then make money on
selling you an overpriced secure server.
- Does it deliver easy output to your accounting
software? You want to be able to import and export
data easily between the cart and whatever programs
you have that need to share the customer and sales
information.
- Does it have its own associate/affiliate program
or is it easily compatible with other major brands
of associate software? An affiliate program lets other
people promote and sell your products on their Web
sites. You don't pay them unless they sell something.
When I tried to get an associate/affiliate program
to work with my old cart, it cost me six months of
down time and untold amounts of money lost because
it wouldn't work. The associate program people blamed
the shopping cart people and vice versa. But ultimately
I was left holding the bag.
- Does it have integrated up-sell modules? The ability
to offer more related products to customers making
a purchase makes me a small fortune each month. We
call it, "Do you want fries with that?"
If you don't have this ability, you are leaving many
thousands of dollars on the table from people who
would have spent more if your cart just gave them
the chance.
- Does it have an integrated sales and prospect database?
In the old days I would have to print out orders and
then retype them into ACT or some other database program.
A good shopping cart system eliminates all this hassle
and potential for error and gives you instant access
to your sales reports and clients.
- Does it have broadcast e-mail capability? Good
shopping cart systems are able to manipulate your
customer database instantly and send e-mails to any
segment or sub-segment of your clients and handle
unlimited e-mail magazines. Again, in the old days
I would have to be genius enough to pick out segments
of the database, export them to a file, import them
into a mail program and then an hour later send the
darn e-mail. Now this is all done in a few seconds.
- 15. Does it have mail merge capability? The e-mails
sent are personalized to the recipients in any number
of ways. Their names can be popped in to the subject
line and in various portions of the body of the e-mail.
You can merge "what they bought," "when
they bought," "where they live" or
just about anything that will make them feel the e-mail
was just for them. Virtually all studies show that
mail merge gets a much higher response than plain
broadcast e-mail.
- Can it handle coupons and other discounts? You
can make a deal with Joe Blow that everyone coming
from his Web site gets an automatic discount -- either
a percentage or dollar amount. This makes Joe look
great to his visitors and makes more sales for you.
Here's a secret: Joe is your affiliate and makes money
on the sale too, so he's got a great incentive to
keep your discounts and coupons in front of his visitors.
Good shopping cart systems can automate all of this
and also handle any quantity discounts you offer.
- Can it work for multiple Web sites with no extra
fees? When I first started I had to get a separate
(and expensive) license for each site and a separate
merchant account too. Not only was this a great deal
of expense, the hassle with installation every time
you wanted a new site to go up was enormous. Modern
carts can sell bras on one site and bibles on another,
and no one knows the difference. The carts run on
their own servers so there is no expensive installation
and set-up is immediate.
- Does it have unlimited and fully integrated "sequential"
autoresponders? This is one of the most powerful features
when it comes to Internet marketing. This feature
follows up automatically over and over again to your
clients and prospects to provide them customer care
and to sell them more products and services. You can
even provide free or paid e-mail courses, and each
part of the course is delivered automatically.
- Does it have ad tracking tied into actual sales?
Simple ad tracking can be had all over the 'Net, but
it is pretty much worthless unless it is tied to actual
sales. This is called the "conversion ratio."
Your cart system should be able to tell you how many
people clicked on a particular promotion and how many
people bought. This is the only way you can determine
if an ad paid off. Good carts will also automatically
split test one of your sales pages against another
and tell you which page sells more. You keep the page
that sells more and get rid of the page that sells
less.
- Does it have a pop-up box builder? Even though
many people hate popup boxes, they work. I use them
judiciously to make all kinds of offers, and I have
the sales figures to prove they get more money out
of the same number of people. If you know how to use
them properly, no one gets upset.
- Does it have a printable off-line order form? Believe
it or not, many people are still afraid to put their
credit card numbers into a Web site. I still get lots
of fax orders and phone orders. If you want to maximize
your sales, your cart must take these kinds of orders
easily.
- Does it provide free training? You'll need training
in both the basic set up of using your shopping cart
and determining your online sales strategy, so that
you maximize the amount of money spent by each customer.
You may not understand what all the above questions
mean right now, but I can assure you they are important
in putting more money into your bank account. If you
want to know even more about this subject, you can download
a free e-book, How to Pick a Shopping Cart System That
Makes You Money at www.public-speaking.org/ebook.htm.
What shopping cart system do I use? I have my own private
label called www.KickStartCart.com.
About The Author
Tom Antion
http://www.netaim.info |
