How To Sell Online Successfully

Have you ever wondered how to sell online successfully?

The rules are changing, aren't they?

Gone are the days of successful banner ad campaigns, relying on FB "like" pages to reach your audience and throwing up a "build it and they will come" online store.

Finding and converting customers couldn't be any more different than it is now...

Whether or not you have an existing online business or just thinking of starting one, you need to know how to do so effectively and efficiently.

As the creator of the "Video Start Smart"  series , I've helped many busy entrepreneurs just like you to work smarter, not harder, when it comes to selling online with success.

And today, I'm sharing my Top 5 Tips on how to avoid missing out on YOUR share of business online - Those who don't change their game WILL BE LEFT BEHIND!

Sell Online Successfully & Avoid Missing Easy Sales

If you've been following me around for a while now, you probably already know that I used to be a physical therapist for 15 years.

I also had an ice-cream storefront for 10 years (that I JUST sold for more than double what I paid) and they were both very successful. But, neither of them relied on online marketing to succeed.

When I quit my physical therapy job and went into the travel business where it’s virtually 99% online, I had NO idea what I was doing. So I ended up paying $7,000 to take exclusive business and marketing courses to figure it all out!

Do YOU have $7,000 lying around? 

Me neither.

BUT, I knew how important it was to INVEST in myself. And I'm sure you know how important it is, too!

(As my mentor once said, "broke money don't make money"...and I can't tell you how true that is!)

So I paid $7K to learn it all but, YOU don't have to! I'm going to give you the outline of what you need to do TODAY!

1. HAVE A CLEAR MESSAGE...blah, blah, right?

Yes, it's cliche. BUT, the first thing you NEED to do is to have a clear message for your business.

So what does that mean and how does it look like?

For example, if you were meeting somebody for the very first time tomorrow, you would want to know how to describe your business and your services EXACTLY.

My travel business is called "Custom Memories Travel". So this is what I write for MY clear message:

“Custom Memories Travel customizes all-inclusive vacations based on the needs, wants and desires of our clients.”

So in a nutshell, that’s what I do.

Instead, my message is very short, straight to the point and directly describes what people need to understand about every single thing I do. 

I don't say "We create travel memories."

I don't say "We're a full-service travel agency."

I don't say "We make your travel dreams come true."

These are WAY too generic.

If your message isn't CLEAR, people will MOVE ON.

So how do you figure out YOUR message?

I want you to think of three things that make you stand out from the crowd: 

• What makes YOU stand out from the crowd 
• What makes your business UNIQUE 
• What do you offer that people should people buy from YOU 

Start with those questions and really let your potential customers know what exactly it is that you do right away.

If they have to figure it out for themselves, they are likely to not even bother with you.

Sad but true!
 
2. KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE 

This is a statement that we hear ALL THE TIME but it goes so much deeper than that and I’m going to tell you why...

Let’s say that you’ve owned a bathing suit shop and you sell bathing suits for all shapes and sizes for all types of people.

You won’t have just ONE target market unless you’re a very niche bathing suit store. (Which would be a GOOD thing, actually)

But let’s say you’re a general one with a lot of different suits for a lot of people. When promoting your business online, you will have to sit down and think about each customer profile and what they are looking for so that you can speak right to that particular audience when selling each suit.

For example, let's say today you’re focusing on bathing suits for young women. You'll need to think about exactly who you’re speaking to when you’re promoting your business and what part of your business you’re promoting. 

If you have a millennial that you’re trying to target, think about what’s important to them and what they want when it comes to why they would buy from you. \

Millennials are all about getting things "instantaneously", so in your promotion, you could think about offering a "next day shipping" option so that they will get their bathing suit fast if they order online.

Or maybe you have a bathing suit that instantly slims them, instantly lifts or separates. Use those words to attract the type of client that you’re looking for if that is indeed what THEY are looking for.

Get inside their head.

Know what concerns them and speak to them in a way that they want to be spoken to. 

 

3. CONSULT THE KEYWORD PLANNER 

If you’ve come across this before, we all know that Google Keyword Planner is a tool that we use for creating ads through Google.

However, it's also a great way to get ideas of what people are actually searching for.

This is EXACTLY what we need to figure out when it comes to our ideal clients, again, because we want to speak to THEM and solve THEIR problems - not someone else's or the sale just won't work.

So if you go to the keyword planner, type in the search bar what your service or product is.

With my business, I would use the phrase “honeymoon planning” when I'm targeting my honeymooners.

Up will pop a list of related keywords and phrases that people are looking for along with their popularity. 

Some examples would be "how to plan a honeymoon", "honeymoon destinations", "popular honeymoon destinations" and phrases like that.

What do we do with these keyword phrases?

This is the language that you would want to use when writing copy and content to target your ideal audience.

BONUS HINT: You can also use Youtube by typing the phrase in and seeing a bunch of phrases and words similar to what you typed in. These words that appear in the form of a pop-up are words that you can also use. 

 

4. FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND BRANDING 

We know that first impressions are everything.

They are SO important that people will decide within 3-5 seconds of visiting your website or your video or your blog, whether they are in the right place or not.

It’s also the same span of time in which they will decide whether or not they will follow your social media accounts.

And because of this fact, I want you to go through your Facebook posts and see what you’ve been posting and putting out there as a "business" and even as a "person". Posts don’t have to be all about your business but they should reflect your brand. 

What exactly IS a brand? 

It’s something that people will come to know your business for professionally & what they can expect from you. 

Therefore, your "branding" has to be conveying a consistent "message" through everything that you do with your marketing materials, your videos, blog posts, website, social media posts.

They all have to have a similar look, feel and message. 

Your brand should always be AUTHENTIC.

Do not be fake. Be professional, but at the same time be yourself.

People don’t want to have a relationship with someone who is "fake".

They don’t want to do business with a business. They want to do business witha person and hopefully, that's YOU. 

Here are some questions to ask yourself to help you stay authentic: 
- What is your personality? 
- Where have you been in life? 
- What priorities are important to you? 

Convey YOU. That way, you won't have to put up a "front" to attract customers that you really won't 'click' with anyway.
 
5. PROVIDE AND GUIDE

How many people have you seen on Facebook selling jewelry and they do a video and say, “Hey! Aren’t my earrings beautiful? Don’t you wanna buy some? Go ahead and click this link right now and buy it now!”

And they expect people to buy instantaneously, right?

In some cases, some people will purchase right away. But in most cases, they won’t.

So you can’t expect to put a product out there or a service and have people busting down your door for whatever it is that you have to offer. You have to nurture the relationship and there are strategical ways to do that. 

First, get them on your email list.

The best way to do this, in my opinion, is to create a lead magnet.

Simply put, a lead magnet is a piece of information that is super-valuable that is given away to a prospect in exchange for their email address.

If you have a storefront business, it could be a coupon. It could be an invitation to preview a flash sale that only your subscribers get. Or it could be an email to pre-order a "hot" product.

If you’re a real estate agent, you could say, “Hey, if you'd like my Top 10 things to Do to Make Your Home Show-Room Ready, go ahead and leave your email here and I'll send it to you!”

In a nutshell, that’s "nurturing" and that’s what businesses is all about – nurturing relationships. 

Relationships build businesses.

That doesn’t mean just shooting them an email once in a while and saying," hey I have this for sale."  It’s about providing information that’s full-time because consistency is KEY. Your clients want to know that you're going to "show up" and that they can count on you to be working your business for REAL, not just "when you have time".

That’s exactly what customers want - but that’s where most business people "mess up". 

Your email nurturing funnel has to make the lead feel like you are talking ONLY to them and not an entire email list. 

They want RELATIONSHIP.

 

So what do YOU have to do NOW?

• You have to start learning how to create video NOW.
• You need to learn how to USE video as a way to connect with your potential customers.
• AND you need to learn how to AUTOMATE it ALL. (A whole different topic.)

Remember, 80% of the internet will is now video. That’s a HUGE number!

You need to update yourself and your business.

So, if you haven’t tapped on creating videos for marketing then NOW is the time to start. 

 

 

---> Want to learn the 12 Biz-Boosting Strategies 

To Sell Successfully Online While Cutting Your Work Day In HALF?

Take back your time & enjoy life again by learning how to make more commission in less time!

CLICK TO WATCH: https://www.tipsfortravelagents.com/biz-boost-optin

 

 

 

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VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION:

How to sell online successfully. Are you one of those people who maybe has thought of selling something online or just starting your own business in general and promoting it online but you have no idea how to go about doing that or maybe you already have an existing business and you’re promoting a little bit online but you really wanna figure out a plan to make that successful online or maybe on a store front you’re doing well but you just wanna boost your profits online. Or maybe you started a business online then things were great in the beginning but then you’re kinda fizzling out and you’re not quite sure what’s going on. Well if you fall into any of those categories I want you to stay tuned. My name is Erin Cook. I’m the creator of the Video Start Smart series and I help busy entrepreneurs and business people just like you to work smarter and not harder and today that’s exactly what we’re going to do. I wanna share my answers with you for the 5 THINGS YOU MUST DO TO BE SUCCESSFUL when you’re promoting and selling online with your own business or whoever you work for as well. So if you’re in the marketing business and you wanna figure out how to boost sales online, here’s your answer. 

Okay so if you have found me for a little while you’ll know that I used to be a physical therapist for 15 years, I also have an ice-cream stand storefront which really neither of those two things really needed any online marketing to succeed. They were very successful. So fast forward to when I quit my physical therapy job and went into the travel business where it’s like 99% online right? I had no idea what I was doing. So I had to spend $7,000 in business, in marketing courses to figure it out. I had no clue and I’m so glad I did but I wanna share it with people because I fee like we’re entering a time and I know we’re entering a time when gearing up for a time when every business is going to be having to market online. Where many businesses are succeeding now to have all that but if you really want to stay in the game online, it’s where it’s at. So we need to get ready for that. A lot of things are changing which I’m gonna talk about and at the end I’m gonna have a freebie for you to continue this video in more depth of few different trainings that I’m gonna offer you for free so I want you to stay tuned till the end for that. Okay so let’s hop in with your pen and paper and we’re gonna start with the very first thing, and absolutely you need to do before you market your business online or try selling anything online. 

Okay, first thing you need to do is HAVE A CLEAR MESSAGE for your business okay. So you wanna have a message that’s so clear where if you were meeting somebody for the very first time you know what exactly how to describe your business. It should be the general overall message of your business and what you do. So for this example, I’m just gonna take my travel business called CUSTOM MEMORIES TRAVEL so here’s what I write for my oram message. Custom memories travel customizes all inclusive vacations with the needs, wants and desires of our clients. Okay so in a nutshell that’s what I do I customize vacation based on my clients needs, wants and desires. Okay so that’s very short and sweet for all of my marketing, all my promoting, I have to make sure that people understand that in every single thing that I do. Okay so for your business, you need to figure out what the person whoever you talk to or whenever you talk to them you have to tell them what it is that you actually do. You have to make sure that message is clear. Okay so this is when you’re meeting somebody for a really short time and now we’re gonna take it a little step further because sometimes you’re gonna have more time with people. People may be coming into your business, you may be talking to prospects on the phone things like that. Maybe creating videos where they’re gonna have a little more time to get to know you so you’re gonna wanna dive a little bit deeper. Okay so I want you to think of three things that makes you stand out from the crowd. What makes your business unique? Why should people buy from you? Okay so you’re gonna have to think about this. So mine, three, I’ll just give you an example of what I mean. I want people to know I customize all inclusive vacations and specialize in group and family travel. Okay that’s my specialty. I want people to know that because if they’re looking for that those are the people that I wanna work with. I don’t mind doing other types of trips if I have time but this is where I want to be. Okay so I’m trying to attract the customers that I wanna work with by telling them that I specialize in group and family travel which is also inclusive and they would know that from this statement here. Okay the other thing that I want them to know is that we have a custom planning process. That’s how I separate myself. Many people will just have a phone call, the travel agent will just give them ideas and say hey how bout this package, how bout this package, and that’s not what I do. I’m different that way so I want them to know about my custom process for planning their perfect vacation. Alright so that’s my second thing. My third thing would be I would provide service before, during and after they travel which is also different from many of my competitors. Okay so I provide service before, during and after. I want these three things in my business to stand out and you need to do the same thing because all of your messages need to convey these points depending on the length of time that you’re talking, and that you’re with people and depending on which audience you’re talking to. Okay but if you wanna stand out from the crowd how do you do that? I want you to write three things so that you can remember this through your whole marketing message and promoting yourself online. 

And we’re gonna take it one more step further for more ideas of what you can promote online. You’re gonna promote two different things in each category. I say promote and what I want you to think about is I’m not telling you just to focus on these things but I want you to be clear on what these things are. Alright cause that’s gonna come into play a little bit later. If you’re not clear what your message is with your business, what makes you different, and the things that you do that make you different in these categories then your business message isn’t gonna be clear to other people. If you can’t answer this your customer won’t know what it is you do. Alright so this is so important so let me get you a quick couple things just to give you an idea. So for group and family travel I could tell them there’s bonus amenities and maybe discounts for planning that with us. Okay custom process I could tell you we have questionnaires and I’d give you custom itinerary when you travel. Okay those are things that are custom to me that other people don’t offer and I do the same thing that I do before and after. You get the picture. So I want you to go through and make the message clear. That is the first thing you need to do before you sell anything or promote your business online. 
Okay the second thing you need to do before promoting yourself online is TO KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE. Now stick with me because this is just a statement that we hear all the time, know your audience. Well it goes so much deeper than that I’m gonna tell you the reason. So let’s say you’ve owned aa bathing suit shop and you sell bathimg suits for all shapes and sizes for all types of people. You’re not gonna have just one target market unless you’re a very niche bathing suit store. But let’s say you’re a general one with a lot of different suits for a lot of different people you actually have to sit down and think about each customer and what they’re looking for. So let’s say you’re focusing today on children’s bathing suits. You need to know who your target audience is. Is it gonna be the children? No cause they’re not gonna be the ones buying the bathe suits. Right? So you have to really think who you’re speaking to when you’re promoting your business and what part of your business you’re promoting. Now if you have a millennial that you’re trying to target what is important to that millennial? What do they want when it comes to working with you for your particular service? So let’s say they are all about getting things instantaneously and having instant gratification, right? We know that about millennials and that’s no offense to you but that’s what they’re used to so maybe you have next day shipping so that you get your bathing suit fast if you order online. Or maybe you have a bathing suit that instantly slims you or instantly lifts or or separates whatever you know what I mean? Use those words to attract the type of client that you’re and we’re gonna get into it a little bit lster but to attract the type of client that you’re seeking, your target audience for whatever you’re promoting so you really have to get inside their head. What concerns them and you have to speak to them the way that they wanna be spoken to. Okay that’s what we’re gonna talk about in a second as far as doing that while you’re online but you have to know your customer and what they want out of your business and how your business concerns them best. Alright? So let’s get to talking to our customer online. Now we’re gonna use the language like we talked about before about what they want to hear. We’re gonna tell them what they want to hear in the way they want to hear it. We’re also gonna deliver information to them in the form that they want. Okay nowadays it’s gonna be video because it’s gonna be quick and easy but that’s not for everybody. People that aren’t online are gonna want their information maybe in the mail or something like that so think about your target audience. But when it comes to onli e I want you to think of not being creatibve. And you’re like, what do you mmean? When you’re blogging, when you’re creating videos, when you’re writing on your website about your business you don’t wanna write in a creative story-telling way as far as the words that you choose. So, I wouldn’t say when I’m planning a honeymoon for somebody I wouldn’t title the blog post, how to find the magic wand that makes your honeymoon dream come true. Okay? Now why don’t I wanna do that? Because people aren’t searching for that online. They’re not searching for those words. They’re not gonna fi d that post. That’s real,y gonna serve nobody. Okay or maybe just a few people that maybe come to your blog because they’re loyal to you. But if you’re trying to attract new customers and grow your business, you’re not gonna wanna use these whatever wording description titles. You’re gonna wanna use words that they’re searching for. How do we know what they’re searching for? Easy. I want you to write this down, BUILD A KEYWORD PLANNER. It’s a Google Keyword Planner that when you’re creating ads through Google they like let you use to get ideas of what people are searching for. So if you go to keyword planner right now go open up another tab, I don’t want you to go keep watching this video but you go and type in in the search bar your keywords. So mine could be honeymoon planning. I wanna know what words people are using to plan their honeymoon. Okay so maybe it will give me a list of words like how to plan a honeymoon, honeymoon destinations, popular honeymoon destinations, romantic destinations for a honeymoon. You know give me al, those keywords that people are searching for and how many times a month they’re searching for them. If somebody’s searching honeymoon planning four thousand times not one person but in general people are searching four thousand times a month for that word, I wanna write something that attracts people that are searching for that word. Do you get it? The keyword planner is a powerful too. The other search engine. Can you name it? YouTube. YouTube is a search engine now. People can find you by typing in keywords if you’re video and video is king and we’re gonna talk about that in a little bit but YouTube is a huge search engine. So when you are trying to name a video or even a blog post, go to YouTube, start typing in your phrase and you’ll see you’ve probably noticed this before, you’ll see a bunch of words and phrases similar to whatever you’re typing in that will pop-up on your screen it will be like a dropdown in the search bar. You’re gonna be able to se not what how many people are searching for but the pop-ups are the top ones that people are searching for on YouTube. So that’s also a great indicator of what words yoh could target when you’re writing on your website or your blog or title in your facebook post or titling your video to use those two tools to help you do that. Okay so that’s how you can successfully grow your business online and some people don’t egt that they try to be all flash6 and nobody can find you. So part of being successful is growing and that’s where a lot of people drop the balls. So in order to do that you need to know your target customer and you need to know the message that you wanna convey to everybody that you speak to. Okay it all has to gel it all has to mesh which brings me to point number four, so I’ve worked a lot on this next part and that is FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND BRANDING. Okay so we know that first impressions are everything. They are so important that people will decide in 3-5 seconds of visiting your website or your video or your blog wherever they’re going and if they’re seeing you for the first time they’ll decide within 3-5 seconds whether they’re on the right place, whether they wanna do any type of following on facebook or you know subscribing to YouTube if they’re even gonna consider that they make up their mind so quickly. So what’s important about that to note?  Always keep in at the back of your mind that this could be somebody’s first impression so what I want you to do this could be a little test of what you’re putting out there. If you’re conveying that number 1 that message that we talked about earlier if you’re conveying that the right way. Okay if that’s coming across in everything you do. So go to your Fechook and open it up and just scroll if you have a business page scroll through it and see what type of post you’re putting out there. Now they don’t have to be all about your business but they should reflect your brand. And what is a brand? It’s not scary it’s actually just something that people will come to know your business or professionally what can they expect from you as a business, what can they expect from you as a professional. Your brand has to be consistent through everything that you do through your marketing materials, through your videos, through your blog post, through your website, through your facebook post. Okay it all has to have a similar look and feel and message. Alright so that’s just what a brand is. You’re trying to come to people and maybe they’ve come to your page, maybe you’ve attracted them they want to have a good impression a good first impression and you want to do that. But here’s the kicker. I don’t want you to be fake. I want you to be authentic because let’s say that I got on here and I did like a hundred videos and only one or two of them that was like really my personality. The rest I was just trying to be super professional and super I don’t know sad and luxury travel. I just carried myself in a way that I don’t normally carry myself wore clothes that I don’t normally wear it will be all fake. That will come across your clients or your prospects. And you know it’s hard to uphold that image. So I want you to be yourself but be professional and that’s where you’re gonna make that connection with people. Now why is it important to connect with people? Because business is all about relationships. It is not something where people wanna buy from a business. They wanna buy from people. They wanna buy because of your story. What’s your personality? Where have you been? What you studied? How can you know? What can you help me? Those are all things your customers are looking for. And you need to convey it in an authentic way and a way that serves them without expecting anything in return. And that leads me to step number five of your must-haves.

This is the most important okay. Well, they’re all very important but this is what people don’t focus on. And if there’s one thing that you remember it’s this process okay. This is where I call it PROVIDE AND GUIDE. Okay people how many people have you seen go on Facebook and they’re selling maybe a jewelry or an oil and they’re doing a videpo and they say hey aren’t my earrings beautiful? Don’t you wanna buy some? Go ahead and click this link and buy them right noe. Or just write sold in the link below and I’ll send you your purchase whatever. Or I’ll send you the PayPal link so that you can pay for them and buy them now. There’s nothing wrong with that okay but people are getting frustrated because people aren’t buying when that happens. Okay they’re expecting to go on and just sell. But most people will not buy instantaneously. However some do some do and we’re gonna talk about this in a second. It’s trending that way but people buying for people is all about relationships and you can’t just do that instantaneous, okay you can’t expect that to put a product out there or your service and have people busting down your door for whatever it is that you have to offer . We have to nurture the relationship so the first way to do that is get them something and bet them on your email list. You already know this if you follow me. But you have to create a lead magnet which is something super special. If you have a store front business it could be a coupon. It could be an invitation to all the orevious flash sale that only your subscribers get. It could be you know a command and get $50 off your hundred dollar purchase or whatever you know. That would be a great deal but you know I’m just thinking at the top of my head. You wanna offer something that’s valuable to your customer to get them up on your list. Now if you offer service you could give them a PDF to solve a problem that they have. So if you’re a a real estate agent you could say hey if you like my top 10 things to do before you sell your home to get your home resdy 5o sell and be put on market and leave your email here send I’ll send it to you. Okay so that’s what a LEAD MAGNET is. You get that name and email. It goes to your email list. And that is where we nurture. Okay business is all about nurturing relationships. So you’re gonna provide by giving them the lead magnet information and then guide. You’re gonna guide them through the process of being a prospect and guiding them to the client zone okay. You’re gonna turn your prospect intp a client and that’s where we lead. Lead them to that process okay. That doesn’t mean just shooting them an email once ina while and ssy hey I jave this for sale. It’s not about that. It’s providing information that’s full time and that’s what people where people mess up. Now it sounds sll scary. Oh gosh how do I lead them? Okay here’s the big part. This is like the whole she-bang of selling online. This is where it’s gonna be at. In 2021 it’s going to be all vidoe that is on Facebook. Maybe all video that is everywhere online. We’ve seen this shift right? Facebook is starting to go to video, Instagram is starting to go into video so people are realizing that video is where relationships are built quicker okay so video is great and that’s why I choose to do video. If you’re here with me now, you’ve already been following me, you’ve watched my personality, you already love me or hate me, you can’t stand me or you want you know what the freebie I’m gonna tell you about in the end but you’ve made up your mind because we have a connection or don’t have a connection. But you can tell that through the use of video much faster than if you’re going to read my blog every day. Right? Doesn’t that make sense? So what do you have to do? You have to nurture people through video especially in 2019. 80% of the internet will be video. Okay that’s a huge number and that’s not far away. So you need to be prepared if you want your business and you’re not ,marketing online with video. Alright. So you can see how this process is just a little bit than just going on line and trying to sell. Alright this is the most important process that you’ll have to implement once everything else is in place. Your message, your target audience, you know the way you’re gonna target people through they keywords and also your branding. All that has to be in place but then from there on out you need to do this system over and over and over and automate that. Now I’m not gonna go all into that today. But I’m gonna tell you how we can do that. So if you wanna learn how to double your conersions in half the time whether you wanna turn full traffic into leads by getting that lead magnet converting or turn those leads into clients. You can double your conversion into it half the time with this simple system it’s just 4 emails that are gonna come to you, a video walk-through training I can walk you step by step in just a short jam-packed full of information so go to the link that I provided below and enter your name and email and I’m gonna send that right to your email and I want you be looking for it okay. And with your first video you’ll take a couple of days to take a look a it then the next one so on and so forth we’re gonna get four videos so don’t miss them once we talk about double your conversion and then I’m gonna break it down. It’s gonna be broken down into a sales funnel exactly how to do that, how to attract clients in your sleep and then it’s gonna go into the video part of online marketing. So this is worth its wait and gold. Okay I want you to go ahead and click on that link. I’m gonna send it to you for free and I want you to get out there, I want you to make money, I want you to do ut online and I want you to be prepared for the time when everything turns to video alright. So if you’re not in the game right now you need to get there before everything is in video and I don’t want tou to get stuck with still not wanting to be on camera. Alright thanks for watching. I want you to go ahead and subscribe right here we do these trainings every week. I want you to work smarter not harder with your business and in life. I hope you enjoy me. I’ll talk to you soon God bless.