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NB: This newsletter is published every Monday. Point your browser to www.tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets to read at least ONE new post added to my SD Nuggets blog on a different category from Tuesday till Saturday (sometimes even Sundays) in line with this publishing schedule 
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IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS newsletter is published online on the “reincarnated” version of my Self-Development (SD) Nuggets blog. I continue to put finishing touches to the content. If you encounter ANY bad/dead links, and you can spare the time, email them to me via tayo at tksola dot com. Thanks in advance
No. 174: Achieve Superior Selling Success With a Database of Pre-qualified Prospects [Hint: Why You Need an Effective Online Presence (EOP) & NOT Just a Website]
An Online Presence is NOT the same as a website. It’s good to have the latter, but it’s BEST to have the former. Sadly, many business owners do NOT know the difference, and focus only on a website. I explain how they differ, and why investing in an Online Presence guarantees YOU Superior Selling Success in 2015, and beyond!
1. A website is one entity – a specific location online – where information about you and the solutions you offer can be found.
Typically, it will be accessible via a URL e.g. www.boostyourfarmprofits.biz (for my Cost-Saving Farm Business Ideas website) or www.tayosolagbade.com (my flagship website).
If you have ONLY a website, potential buyers (who do not already know you) would need to discover that website to learn what you can do for them.
This can happen if it gets indexed by search engines, causing it to turn up in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Many website owners take advantage of FREE website submission services provided by the engines – Google.com being the most popular. They also do submissions to FREE directories and also post FREE ads on forums etc. Some people also place ads online to make their websites get found, but I’m focusing here on zero cost website promotion tactics often used.
Having said the above, in today’s competitive marketplace, a website ALONE is no longer enough to generate the marketing reach and impact needed for selling success.
Some questions for you, if you currently have ONLY a website…
What does your website do for you?
Does it bring more money into your business or is it a drain pipe for your profits?
If you’d like it to help you make money, at zero cost, keep reading.
2. I define an Online Presence as a collection of specific locations online where information – presented in multiple friendly formats – about you and the solutions you offer can be found.
Notice the difference from a website?
In this case, there is more than ONE location where information about/related to you and what you do exists.
But not just that – the information is presented in a variety of formats.
Most importantly, unlike when you have ONLY a website, having an ONLINE presence means potential buyers (who do not already know you) would be able to find you and discover what you can do for them through a variety of different channels. That dramatically increases your chances of getting found – boosting the likelihood of sales conversations happening.
Every business owners wants that!
To achieve superior selling success, you need what I like to call an Effective Online Presence (EOP) or what I call a Web Marketing System.
By this I refer to a collection of intelligently interlinked locations online where information – presented in multiple friendly formats – about you and the solutions you offer can be found.
I like to call it a Web Marketing System (WMS) because that term, for me, better captures the value it delivers.
Now, like I have repeatedly said in many of my articles, a Web Marketing System (WMS) has several key components, four (4) of which I always recommend that EVERY business owner ensure s/he adopts.
Those key components are shown in the mind map displayed below:
From the above you can see that a website is only ONE of the key components of a Web Marketing System (WMS) or Effective Online Presence (EOP).
But it is not the most important. The website is just one of several platforms from which your sales and marketing information can be presented and propagated.
Note also that it’s not just any website we’re talking about here. In a WMS, what you have is called a Response-Generating Website i.e. one that gets the target audience to take the action that YOU want e.g. to contact you or at least leave his/her contact details (by subscribing to an offer on the site).
Now, more critical to the selling success of a WMS or EOP, are the other components i.e. Search Engine Attracting Article Writing, Sales Leads Generating Email Newsletter Marketing, and Traffic Building Blogging and Social Media Marketing.
The above mentioned, and others shown in the mind map, have the effect of boosting your ability to get noticed for what you offer, even when you are NOT there.
In other words, they present your content to potential buyers in a cumulative manner, so that nothing goes to waste.
For as long as you keep adding more to them, the new stuff gets put on the existing stuff, adding to the visibility and impact of your work. Simply put, each time a person considering buying from you encounters your WMS, s/he finds that there’s often something new and valuable that’s been added since the last time s/he visited.
Over time, the psychological effect of this is that s/he feels drawn to make contact with you.
I say all of the above based on the successes I achieve on an increasingly frequent basis using my own WMS or EOP.
Many of my clients today, within and outside Africa, found me via various parts of my WMS – my Google+ page, my Youtube Video Demonstration Channel, my Excel-Heaven Facebook page, my Daily Multidisciplinary Blog, Ezinearticles.com, my Guest Posts on other websites and even my Twitter page.
Note that several of the above channels are automatically updated based on content I publish on my Daily Multidisciplinary Blog. This saves me major time and effort sharing new content I have – while giving me considerable visibility and name recognition.
But the most crucial job they do for me is that they work together to influence more of those who encounter my content, to contact me, thereby adding themselves to my database of Pre-qualified Prospects.
Pre-qualified Prospects are people who have already indicated interest – by reaching out to you – in the solutions you offer.
These people have let you know, by so doing, that given the right terms and conditions, they are likely to part with money to get your products/services.
If you really want to achieve selling success, your EOP or WMS must help you GROW your list of Pre-qualified Prospects. The more people who add themselves (with their contact details – name, email, phone numbers etc) to your database, the more people you have that you can make sales offers to, with increased assurance of making a sale.
Once you have an EOP or WMS that enables you do the above, your ability to close sales will dramatically improve.
This is because you will basically have a captive audience of people looking for the solutions you offer. It will not be up to you to THINK up creative ways to MINE that database of subscribers for the sales you need.
If you’d like to learn more about how to use this strategy I’ve described here to succeed better in 2015 and beyond, click here to let me know.
PS: Key Assumptions on Which the Above Ideas are Based
In discussing the above options, I argue, and have done so for years, that business website owners from our part of the world (Africa), whose primary target audience is NOT in developed societies are not likely to get returns on paid online advertisement as rapidly and reliably as our those over there.
This is because the web based buying behaviour of people in Africa is very different from that of people out there. My experiences and achievements as an African who sells mainly digital products and services to buyers in both parts of the world convince me that I am right.
I have tested this repeatedly, and found that it is more prudent, for the long terms, to employ zero cost web marketing, like the one I advocate here, than to invest in paid online advertising, especially when seeking cost-effective and sustainable/long term selling success.
Keep the foregoing in mind in evaluating the ideas I’ve shared here.
Here’s wishing you better sales and marketing success in 2015 and beyond!
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Learn about Burt Dubin’s speaker mentoring products (books, audios etc) below…
If you need help purchasing ANY of Burt’s products (like “Presentation Magic”), call me on +229-66-122-136 (in Benin Republic, my base) or +234-803-302-1263 (in Nigeria) or email tayo@tksola.com
Have a great week :-))
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