Want Increased Sales?
Posted On: 2008-08-21
Wow this week is certainly motoring along. I don't know where the last three days have gone but they sure have gone fast and now it's Thursday and that means that there's one more day till the weekend ... I can hardly wait.
We spent some of last weekend partying with family and the other part of it working like crazy to get a couple of jobs finished on time ... so maybe this weekend there'll be some 'us time' ... but I'm not holding my breath.
If you've been following my writings over the last few years you may have noticed a recurring theme about the similarities between online and offline business. So many of us who work online like to think that we're special ... we're different to all those plebs who work in the oh so boring real world.
Sadly though anyone who does think like that life is different online really is delusional because the principles of business and marketing apply whether you're business is online or in a bricks-and-mortar building.
You may have also noticed that in some of my writings I've talked about the lessons that we can learn from supermarkets. How they place their goods is important ... where they place their goods is just as important ... and the signage that's used in supermarkets is also important when it comes to making sales.
If you haven't thought about then get out of the house for a couple of hours and head down to your local supermarket to do some research. Look at the signs and colors that attract you and ask yourself why those colors caught your eye.
Look at the position of items on the shelves and think about which ones you see when you're shopping and which ones most people miss. Then take what you've seen there at the supermarket back home with you and look at the sites you're building and compare them to what you saw down at the supermarket.
Maybe even head over to phychologytoday.com and have a look for an article titled 'The Urge to Splurge'. That article doesn't look at supermarkets, it looks at department stores and there are some lessons there for us too.
For example have you noticed that the first 10 feet inside a department store is often set up to actually slow people down? People arrive in most department stores direct from the car park or from the walkways in the mall and they're probably moving rather quickly so the stores want to slow people down ... but they don't do it with important merchandise ... stock that puts a lot of money in their pockets ... they do it with other things.
So what's your first 10 feet ... sorry I meant index page like ... is it going to slow the surfer down and get him or her interested in actually looking? Of course if you're producing TGP galleries then you have hardly any transition zone so how are you going to slow your surfer down long enough to actually see your ads.
And what sort of signage do you use in your store? It seems that in department stores signs that consist of just two or three words may work best. Hmmm ... perhaps that's something you already knew ... maybe?
Did you know that there's one thing that you can do that will definitely lower a consumer's opinion of what you're trying to sell? There is and it's something that we're locked into doing all the time ... and we wonder why there's no respect?
So what is this one thing that has such an adverse affect on how surfers perceive us? It's giving stuff away for free. Damn, if there's no respect now there sure isn't going to be any in the morning either.
Putting a spotlight on important items is also something that department stores will do to attract potential purchasers. Is it something that we could be doing with our adult sites?
Maybe we don't have to put a real spotlight on it ... perhaps we can just put that important piece of marketing in a much better spot ... a prominent spot on a web page where surfers often look. As I write this I'm thinking of a mainstream site where I could do just that.
When you hit a department store do you like to be bothered by sales staff? I know I certainly don't; I just like to go in and browse and make my own decisions in my own time. Maybe that's why I like bookshops so much.
If you're like me you're going to be forever annoyed by sales staff in department stores where the management understands the psychology of making a sale. You see, the chances of the store making a sale are increased if the salespeople are in your face.
Now is there some way we could always be getting our message in the faces of the surfers who hit our sites?
And you thought that making a sale online was just a matter of throwing up a few freebie pics and a couple of banners?