Before you decide on selling anything online, you need to first determine who your customer is, what they often purchase, and why they are purchasing online.
This is called "customer comprehension". The better you understand your customer, the easier it will be to sell stuff to them. Obviously, at the core of any business, the ultimate goal is to create a profit. To create a profit, you must have customers and you must be able to sell to these customers.
One of the most common mistakes I see people make is promoting to a customer (or audience) before they fully understand who their audience is. It is very easy to waste money promoting what you "think" people want, rather than what they are actually looking for.
Don't make assumptions on your customers, gain an understanding. You will be much more successful.
Before we go any further, we need to understand the steps someone takes between the time they learn of a product or service, to the time that they actually make a purchase. That is what my goal is to help you understand.
Let's look at some known facts about a customer:
(1) Customers rarely buy on their first point of contact to a product
(2) It typically takes a person 7 times (this could be website visits, email newsletter, etc.) before they make a purchase online.
(3) Customers do not buy from people they don't trust
(4) Customers are exchanging "money" for something that will improve upon their existing situation
(5) Customers have more access to product information and reviews than they ever have
(6) Most customers can see through scammy promotions, in fact are turned off
I am going to show you how to catch people later in their buying cycle so you can increase your chances of someone "buying" versus having to walk them through all points of contact. This will simplify the selling process drastically!
Sandy
Basically, that if we create a search path and options that we find helpful and that would steer us in the right direction... than those that come to our site because our keywords and focus on a particular niche, should find it helpful too - we are actually all the same web users - just some of us are being innovative here :)
Thanks to all the WA crew for being so helpful and maintaining my motivation,
Kind regards
Sandy
This, in turn, opens up a dialog eventually between the two of you and they begin to listen and take baby steps to at first. Once they see positive results from that dialog they move closer and start telling their friends. At some point, the continual expansion of telling their friends, and their friends telling their friends, etc will ultimately explode.
Then you start slow telling them about some little book or product you have that was instrumental in these results you have been talking to them about -or you may put your information in a newsletter format they can subscribe to and then pass on to their friends.
In conclusion, this is the gist I get of the Customer Purchase Lifecycle - interested in your feedback and dialog to help me solidify and know I am on the right track.