Most websites don’t work. Or at least, they don’t achieve what the site owners originally intended them to do, which is to bring in more business. Why is this? What’s the secret?  In this post, I will reveal that secret.

It’s very simple. Most websites have been designed to induce visitors to make a direct enquiry. More specifically, to attract visitors from search engines and then persuade those visitors to contact the business either by phone, email, or by completing an online contact form.

But how many people are going to visit a company’s website for the first time and make a direct enquiry? I contend, not very many. No matter how attractive the website, how persuasive the web copy, and how many testimonials they see, they are unlikely to be persuaded on the first visit.

Most people will take note of the site and then go and check out the competition. They may eventually come back, if they remember the site, but once they’ve click away on that first visit you’ve potentially lost them.

Statistics show that it can take up to seven interactions with potential customers before they can be persuaded to buy. So how can you hold on to people after that first visit to ensure that you can interact with them again?

The answer is by capturing their email addresses.

Your site should NOT be designed to steer people to that contact page. There is no point, because not many who even get there are going to contact you anyway on the first visit. Instead your site should be designed to capture visitors’ email addresses.

Once you’ve captured them on your email list they become potential leads that you can follow up with later. So how should you go about capturing visitors’ email addresses?

Ensure that your site has an opt-in subscription form

Such as the one at the bottom of this blog post, strategically placed so as to be prominent to visitors. You need to offer something in return for subscribing. Free eBooks or reports are typical giveaways. Or, as I do, offer a subscription to weekly newsletter. Whatever it is you offer, it must be good quality and offer something that people who subscribe will perceive as offering value.

Then you need to keep the potential leads on your email list warm. Regular communication with, say, an online newsletter is one way to do this.

But the real value comes from sending out direct sales emails to your subscribers.

In this way, you can promote new products, services, and special offers from time to time. This is where the real value of the email list comes into play, because the people who have opted in have done so because they have an interest in your company and what you have to offer. So they are already warm leads before you even start to market to them.

An email list is gold for your business. The more subscribers you have, the more warm leads you have, and the more potential customer you can reach with offers.

To use an analogy

Your email list is the fuel that drives your marketing. Your website and everything associated with it comprise the engine. But without the fuel, the engine is useless. No matter how powerful the engine, unless you have enough or the right kind of fuel, you’re going to go nowhere.  So it is absolutely vital that you build up as much fuel as possible.

So the secret to bringing  in more business online?

Three things – email, email and email!

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