Consider these 4 Steps to a Profitable Website

What’s the secret to making money on the Internet? Although many have become rich off their website, many more have tried and failed. Today I’m going to reveal the 4 secrets to making you successful with all your Internet marketing.

And without these 4 basic steps, you are sure to fail! So please read on…

My friend, I’ve spent 37 years in marketing. Creating numerous direct mail and catalog companies as well as showing numerous marketers how to make big money. Hundreds big name catalog companies have paid me big bucks to help them improve their response!

A number of years ago, when I started in Internet marketing, I already knew the secrets, I knew how to make money.

When I see these hopeful entrepreneurs today trying to make money off their websites, I realize that so many of them are doomed to failure. Some of them may have snazzy, products, great ideas, lots of enthusiasm and the ability to create a powerful website, but there’s more…

Before you even start marketing your website, make sure these 4 building blocks of websites are in place or you are libel to stumble. And please, don’t leave a single one out!

Here goes…

Website building block secret #1:

PERCEIVED AVAILABILITY: You have to be the one they need to go to for this product you offer. They must feel that you are the best or only one that has it!

Thousand of websites may be offering this same product, but you must stand out. That’s why I said “Perceived” Availability. Don’t just count on reality, it’s what’s in that prospective customers mind that really matters.

Now how to we make them feel that this product is more readily available from you than anyone else?

Somehow you must make your website and the product or product line seem like one. Don’t just put together a snazzy looking website and then throw in some products. Your website has to appear to think, eat and breathe that product.

What about your design? Your color scheme? Your writing style? Even your website name?

OK, let’s say you are selling crates of Florida Oranges. I hope you don’t have a blue or pink border around that website. Make it orange. Have a border of orange branches with big, luscious oranges hanging off those branches.

Make it look like you are Mr. Orange, not someone just reselling a few oranges off their computer from their New Hampshire apartment. We do this by showing the steps to harvesting and packing those oranges. And then there’s a shot of you holding up a big juicy orange.

This is something that some more successful marketers learned many years ago, people like to buy from people. Today, you’ll find so many cold websites. You don’t even know who’s behind it or even where they are at!

Show them who you are, tell them a little about you, talk to them! Yes, have a lot of friendly copy on your website that appears to be coming from you. Can’t do that? OK, check out my website copywriting secrets: http://www.internet-copywriting-secrets.com

OK, now you are talking like someone who really loves these oranges, your website makes them feel like they are right there in those orange groves.

Want to really cinch it? Really convince them that you are Mr. Orange? Have a sidebar with orange facts. Like the secrets it takes to growing great oranges. Don’t know how to do that? OK, once more: Better check out my website copywriting secrets: http://www.internet-copywriting-secrets.com

Now you can sprinkle some orange recipes throughout your website. Are there really such things as orange recipes? My mother used to make an orange and onion salad. But don’t use that, my brother and I hated it. Let’s stick to some orange smoothie or orange cocktail drink recipes.

Now that you look, talk and act like oranges, why would they buy from someone else? Let’s not chance it, let’s go in for the kill.

The oranges you are selling have a special ingredient! What is it? Don’t ask me, they are your oranges. I’m sure there is something special or different you can find to play up.

Years ago in the marketing business, I discovered that you could pull out a benefit or feature that was in the products everyone else was offering. And then play it up and it would appear (remember, we are talking about appearances not reality) that only your product had that benefit.

I remember when the FDA outlawed certain additives in chicken. And along came Tyson advertising that there chicken didn’t have it. Of course all other chicken didn’t have it either.

Vitamin D is played up in advertising oranges. But what if your oranges had Vitamin D3? Wouldn’t everyone want them then? You are the only one advertising it, so it must be exclusive with your oranges! (I believe that the Vitamin D in oranges is Vitamin D3 since that’s what we take in from the sun.)

Now that we have them sold (we hope) on our oranges, we must be sure they don’t do some of that price comparison stuff that’s so easy on the Internet. After all the work we’ve done, we don’t want some price-cutter to steal our customer!

Do we lower our prices to compete? How are we going to make those big bucks if we give everything away? Why don’t we just throw in some extra stuff? Another bunch of oranges? A gift? Some kind of special orange slicing gizmo that they’ve never seen before?

One habit I developed is hating to mail out anything that doesn’t have an offer in it and won’t bring me in new orders. I like free gifts like orange recipe books. They can be cheap to produce plus you can be pitching your oranges with each one and have a special offer or discount coupons and order forms scattered in it!

Years ago there was this very successful mail order business, they used a 4-page newsletter format brochure called the “Cheese Lover’s Club” it was stuffed so full of marketing genius. They gave the owner a French name, Pierre something, actually he was from Brooklyn.

These were the days when you couldn’t get the good gourmet cheeses at your local market, such as the Huntsman and similar kinds of exciting cheeses. I loved it.

Sure you probably paid a lot for that cheese, but you always thought you were getting a bargain because you got all those little free gifts. The more you spent, the more gifts you could choose.

I loved all those cheese slicing knives and stuff like that. I ate a lot of cheese, spent a lot of money, but had a lot of fun. (and now weight 240)

See that’s what I’m talking about… Market the hell out of them, make it fun and exciting and they’ll keep coming back and thanking you for taking their money!

This Pierre guy was like a friend, I wouldn’t have even considered buying my cheese from anyone else. Can you build that into your website? If your website isn’t all that it can be, better drop everything and check out my website critique offer:

http://www.internet-copywriting-secrets.com/Critique-of-Website.html

Can’t figure out how to create an image out of thin air for your website?

Here’s another example:

Gevalia coffee. How many consumers pay inflated prices for that stuff? Come on, it comes out of Iowa. Did you think it really came from Sweden? They don’t grow coffee anywhere near Sweden and I’m sure they don’t ship it to Sweden for special roasting.

A number of years ago I sold a house I owned in Connecticut to General Foods’ top coffee expert (General Foods must have paid him well, this house I sold him sat on top of a hill, had 7 bedrooms, 6 baths, offices, library, wine cellar and electric entrance gates).

Anyway, he was telling me about Gevalia and the quality of the coffee!

Gevalia Coffee ad

But there’s an image created by Gevalia. You can drink that coffee and be taken back to a cozy kitchen table overlooking some foggy seaport in Stockholm. The merchandise such as coffee cups and canisters with the Gevalia logo help to promote the image.

And what about those gifts you get from Gevalia? Maybe a coffee machine for signing up and Gevalia coffee cups with shipments of coffee? We are all easy to bribe.

OK, go ahead and create an image like Gevalia for your website.

Website building block secret #2:

YOUR AUTHORITY: What right do you have to me making those claims on your website? Why should you be believed?

Every successful website will have some kind perceived authority. It may come from the website owner. Is he or she famous for other accomplishments? Caruska was famous as a model, designer, store owner, and her Carushka catalog (which I wrote a lot great copy for), all before she opened her website.

Someone running a successful business then bringing it to the Internet, brings along authority. Just play it up so they will know who you are. Stew Leonard was famous and well-known from his store before he opened his website.

What about your location? If you are selling skiing equipment on you website, and you are located in Aspen, there’s your authority! Say you are film critic; a Hollywood location is instant authority. Of course you have to play up those locations on your website.

Your authority could also be built on the quality of your products. If you are selling bike accessories and you also race bikes, play it up, put those photos on your site. What, you don’t race them? You are too clumsy? OK, put on some outfit, head over to the bike track, and get your picture taken in front of it. Maybe no one will realize you fudged on this one.

Of course you have to let your authority be known on your website. Besides telling them, and showing them photos, spotlight organizations you belong to. And of course the most believable method of selling there is… keeping your mouth shut and letting your customers sing your praise. Most of the time they won’t believe everything you say, so use testimonials, they are more believable!

Also consider featuring a celebrity spokesperson or someone skilled in your field. A column or a few facts from an expert will give you credibility. Of course you can give yourself credibility just by acting like an expert and stuffing your website full of advice that goes with your products.

Website building block secret #3:

VALUE, PERCEIVED VALUE: This means the right price for your particular audience. Of course there are things you can do to make the values easier to perceive.

How? You tell them! Explain to them what a deal they are getting. Compare to other sellers. If your prices aren’t really that competitive, then explain about the added value.

Whether this is the additional services, quality, customer services, quicker shipping, better shipping or packaging, guarantees, the way you stand behind your products, and the lifelong friend they just made!

Explain why if you have low prices on some items. Or regular prices, then weekly specials. Give reasons: You are buying direct from manufacturer, Out-of-season items, Volume purchase, Remainders, Introducing new item at low price to establish it, Special offers to entice new customers, Last years models to make room for new merchandise.

Website building block secret #4:

SATISFACTION, PERCEIVED SATISFACTION: Since they aren’t buying in person, as in a store, they need to be convinced.

You have to convince them that you are going to live up to your end of the bargain and that your products and service are what you say they are. As I mentioned earlier, that powerful guarantee is so important. Then you have to back it up. Talk about and show some satisfied customers.

Explain how important customer satisfaction really is to you. How you live and breathe customer satisfaction.

Stew Leonard's "written in stone"

Stew Leonard of Stew Leonard’s Dairy Store has it written in stone! Right there when you enter his store is a giant stone that has “The Customer is No. 1” chiseled into it. And of course he’s got that on his website.

And now a little summary on these 4 website building blocks…

After 37 years in marketing and seeing certain things that anyone who was trying to succeed learned to include in their ads, direct mail and catalog, it always surprises me to see so much of what really works left out of websites.

You may believe that this is a new age. The Internet is different, everything moves at the speed of light, commerce works different today, no need for all these gimmicks from direct marketing.

Maybe we need to think again. Today with some many folks nervous about using credit cards to purchase on a website, and not knowing who’s really behind it, and if it’s really just a scam.

We used to reassure our catalog customers that they could trust us, even though we weren’t in their hometown, but maybe a state or two away, it was safe to order from us. Now we expect customers to order from our website and we may be located on the other side of the World from them.

Often we don’t even tell them where we are located, or it’s buried somewhere on the website. Maybe I’m still in the old days, but I like to see where someone is located.

When I hear so many Internet marketers complaining about how difficult to convince their customers to buy from them, maybe we need to consider some of those old ideas that worked for so many years. After all, the speed of the medium has changed, but human nature is still the same.

If you haven’t picked up a few ideas about what I’m talking about, here’s a heads up… Lots of selling copy. (Don’t know how to write that stuff? Check out my website copywriting secrets.) And Copy that’s friendly, that me-to-you stuff.

Include elements that make you appear sincere and solid: Testimonials, photos of yourself, employees, your building (Unless you work out of your apartment up there in New Hampshire on the ski slopes.)

And include what will convince them to buy from you: Write copy that addresses all their fears and doubts. Props to make them buy: Comparison charts showing your product is the best deal, lists of features, then write copy that demonstrates all the benefits to them of those features.

Use testimonials, photos of your product in action. Before and after photos, Guarantees. And so much more.

You may want to check out my special offer and get a critique of your website!

Gil Carlson is now sharing these additional marketing secrets with you at…

http://www.internet-copywriting-secrets.com

http://www.free-catalog-marketing-tips.com

http://www.mailorder-copywriting-secrets.com