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Motivating Shoppers with Online Coupons (Part 2 of 2)
Last time we discussed how online coupons and promotion codes can motivate buyers. We discussed examples of coupons and some of the aspects of these offers that can boost sales and generate urgency to a purchase. Today we'll focus on how to create great landing pages and the use of affiliate programs to further enhance your marketing efforts. Creating good online coupons to offer customers is not the only thing you need to do to maximize your sales. Using an enticing landing page that meets the customer with the deal they're being offered is also an effective tool leading to a sale. There are two ways that let the customer know the benefit of the coupon they're using, and both can be equally appealing choices. Option 1 to creating an appealing landing page for a coupon is to restate the coupons terms and offers and to reiterate the promotion code that needs to be entered upon checkout. This way the customer knows they are getting the deal they had anticipated receiving, and makes them aware of potential expiration on getting the discount. As we discussed in our previous article, that sense of urgency is a good way to provoke your shoppers into a buy mentality. Option 2 takes this a step further by automatically applying the coupon at checkout, so when the customer gets to the checkout page, their discount code is applied and actively showing them their deal. This also benefits the customer because they don't need to go back to get the code, where they can be distracted from the point of purchase. By adding something to the landing page like "Your 10% coupon code will be automatically applied at checkout" in a highly visible area, you are able to keep customers from being confused about what they're getting. You can also use cookies so the next time they visit, if they remember their coupon, they will be more likely to realize they can still get a great discount. Affiliate programs can also be beneficial when used with coupons to promote your products or sales. New and expiring coupons are littered on coupon web sites throughout the internet bringing more attention to you! Just check out this coupon code homepage for an example of who can be displaying your coupon. In addition, many affiliates will be happy to promote your store when you have a great coupon code or promotion to offer. These high traffic sites bring a ton of added exposure and drive a large customer base of shoppers ready to buy - you know this because they clicked on your coupon! Another secret tip to getting affiliates to put your coupons on their homepage is to increase commissions temporarily upon proof of good placement. Sometimes these affiliate sites can get many more buyers than your own! Coupons have migrated to the web in a big way, and should be a part of any serious marketing campaign. If you aren't using online coupon codes and one time deals to promote your site, you're missing the boat on driving incremental customers to buy your products. Gary Gray
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At a minimum, store records for at least one year. Communicate like a professional. This is a vast topic that I could never do justice to, and in an article of this length, I also run the risk of losing the original message. Allow me, instead, to focus on written communication since this is probably the most common form of communication that you will have with clients, and in most cases, it will be the first communication that you have with a client. Your writing abilities either are one of your greatest assets, or one of your greatest liabilities. That's it. A Japanese friend found herself in the un-enviable position of having to e-mail the entire company alerting them to an error she had made on a project that she was the lead project manager for. This was a critical error on a major project on which everyone had been slaving away for months. Tempers were very short. She asked for my input. I immediately realized that she was so stressed, and in such a hurry to fire off that e-mail that she had not done the best job she could have done on format, grammar or style. I explained to her that normally people would overlook such issues as trivial, but in the current situation, she would probably be put to the stake! We re-worked the e-mail several times, took a lazy dinner, and then re-worked it some. How did her colleagues respond? In her words "Oh... it was good response!" Written communication is incredibly powerful. Take writing courses if you have to. Definitely re-work everything that clients get to read until it is perfect. And remember this, once it is out there, it becomes a permanent record that you have no control over (i.e. can not edit) for ever. You can dominate the line up by projecting an image of a true professional. Researching the client, listening carefully to identify what the client wants, tying up (legal) issues that are of concern to the client, employing project management tools, and communicating in a clear and concise manner all serve to focus that image and polish your translation style. Do Not Make Clients Look For You Getting referrals, putting out resumes, working the phones, and pressing the flesh are marketing approaches that I am sure you are employing to stay on the client's radar. What more can you do? If you maintain visibility by employing any of these approaches, then like the rest of us, occasionally you drop of the client's radar. How does this happen? Well, physical addresses change, as do phone numbers, when you move. Maybe your e-mail address changed with your new ISP that you got a great deal on. Or, simply, you changed your e-mail provider because you were unhappy with the service. Do you even remember all the places where you have posted your contact details? The point is this: your hard work at staying visible is all for naught because the client will not be able to contact you about a proposal during this transitional phase, if at all. An internet web site offers a permanent solution. Most professionals shy away from a web presence for a number of reasons. They assume that the cost is too prohibitive, that they do not have the technical skill requirements, or that the commitment is too great. This could not be further from the truth. Unfortunately, these misconceptions may be preventing you from harnessing the full potential of the web to grow your freelance business. A web presence is within anybody's reach! What are the possibilities? Your internet address, or domain name, will never change, which means that you will have a permanent sign pointing to your office door. You will always have the latest version of your material in front of the client that can be accessed from anywhere at any time. In effect, you will be open for business 24/7. A web presence will not only stabilize your income, it will provide the opportunity for growth-planning for the future. Stay accessible to clients, stay in the line up. Who Do You Do Business With Let's revisit that major purchase decision that we happily made a while back. Sure, the product (service) came with a good reputation, the operation was professional, and we did not have to look too hard for it. In other words, even before we made the purchasing decision, we were already quite comfortable with the idea of making a purchasing decision. In effect, we were already "pre-sold." However, pre-sold is not quite the same as "sold." That fleeting interval between pre-sold and actually making the purchasing decision-laying out the green-is where it all happens. Sales people refer to this as "closing the sale." And sales people know that in order to close the sale, the client must not only feel comfortable with the deal, but must also like the person making the sale. Surprised? Do not be, you do it all the time, and so do your clients! All things being equal, we buy from those we like. That bears repeating: 10 candidates offering the exact same qualifications and benefits, and clients will always go with the professional they feel most comfortable with and like. I am afraid that there is not much that can be done about character-we are who we are. But, there definitely are some things that you can do to improve your "likeability" ranking. A good, positive attitude attracts clients. Clients do not want to work with professionals; they want to work with professionals that project a positive attitude. Just as we avoid colleagues that are unpleasant to be around, so do clients avoid contracting professionals that do not project the right attitude. Show appreciation for having the opportunity to work with a client. Send a card, nothing fancy or expensive, with a personal and original thank you message. You should try it-it works wonders. Have a genuine interest in your client's best interest. Share you insider knowledge of the industry with your client. When you can not take on a job (maybe you have enough work, or are not qualified for that particular subject matter), reach out to your network and forward the job to a colleague. You can also point clients to web sites that can handle their translation project. Clients appreciate these small acts of kindness, and they certainly do not forget about them! After completing under graduate school in Japan, I returned to Zambia briefly to help in the family business. We made it a policy to recommend customers to establishments-even if they were competitors-that most likely carried the product that we could not provide. Did customers ever appreciate it! They ended up coming around more regularly and making more purchases. Not only that, but even our competitors started referring their customers to us during stock outs. Of course, we made sure not to run out of stock too often-clients also have businesses to run? The customary caution is not to introduce the client to a nightmare. A good rule of thumb to follow is to never introduce the client to a product (service) that you yourself would not layout money for. When clients like you, you are the line up. Conclusion Ultimately, the success of your translation style can only be measured by the number of your clients, and the number of projects that those client entrust you with. That is very much a function of how successful you are in making your clients feel comfortable with your deal-as defined by reputation, professionalism and visibility-and by climbing in the "likeability" rankings. Are You Attracting or Repelling Prospects? There are basically two ways in which you can either attract or repel prospects. I call these Attraction Marketing and Repel Marketing. 51 Ways to Say Thank-you in a Fundraising Letter for a Non-for-Profit (Includes Examples & Samples) One of the hardest jobs in fundraising is crafting original thank-you letters. You want to be thankful. But you also want to be fiscally responsible. You cannot afford to write a unique thank-you letter for each of the thousands of donations you receive each year. Here are some ideas for keeping your appreciation original.
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