Subscribers: Pay A Fee or Get It Free

Why pay when visitors can get it free?

A lot of new website owners add subscriber revenues to their calculations when figuring their break-even date and potential for profit. Not a good idea. Subscriber sites are fast disappearing from the webscape and for good reason. Why pay when you can get it for free?

As a site owner with expertise for which others would pay to read, it’s hard not to think about subscription revenue but the plain fact is, online subscriptions have never really taken off the way we all thought they would. The New York Times went the subscription route with its Times Select but it wasn’t generating enough revenue to justify itself, so the critical features of the NYTs are now available free online.

Even Rupert Murdoch, the much-maligned media mogul, who just bought control of the Wall Street Journal is planning to give away fresh content on the WSJ website. Every day. And that’s one mogul who knows how to make money through advertising!

What happened?
Does anyone remember 2002? Seems so long ago. 2002 is antediluvian in web years. That was a long time ago. But back then, the web had grown substantially with the advent of the search engine in 1994 (along with numerous, subsequent refinements to search engine technology), and media outlets, big and small, saw dollar signs – a whole new revenue stream.

However, in 2002, in the wake of the dot.bomb debacle, online ad revenues took a major nose dive that digital marketers are still trying to overcome. The online subscription revenue model never really took off and, today, even the big players are leaving the field.

The reasons are pretty obvious. First, the web provides so much content from so many varied sources, you don’t have to pay a subscription for the latest in gold futures. Some site is giving it away. Second, add to this the development of RSS technology – the ability of individual web users to gather news and other content of interest with 100% customization, and it becomes pretty obvious why subscriber sites aren’t doing so well.

There are other reasons people give for staying clear of subscriber sites. They’ve been scammed before by another e-book download with nothing to say. They don’t want to give you their credit card number. You use a high-pressure sales approach making untested claims, predictions and guarantees. They figure you’ll sell their contact information and they’ll be bombarded with spam. An online subscription is a tough sell, so what’s the small, self-published guru to do about that $49-a-year online newsletter that subscribers delete without opening after a week or two?

What to do?
Change your revenue model. Change your website. Change your bottom line for the better.

It starts by changing your view of site content. Owners of subscriber-based websites depend on readers’ “need to know” – whether it’s a professional financial advisory, a “top secret” stock report, or the latest news on what’s happening in China’s shoe industry – somebody needs that information. And, if this information proves useful, subscribers will stick with you.

Useful information is information that works to the benefit of the reader. It could be a self-help website with a monthly affirmation newsletter, or a pet owner site that sends you weekly tips to keep your kitty happy and healthy. If the content is actually useful a subscriber site might survive – until some other visionary comes along and starts giving away the information you’re selling.

Change your view of content. Don’t think of content as something to be sold. Give it away. Use it to entice readers to visit your site often. Daily, perhaps. Now, no doubt, there are a lot of entrepreneurs shaking their heads as they read this. These are people who have spent years learning their industry, a new system to win at poker or how to use hedge funds to fast-track your retirement years. They have knowledge.

However, others have that knowledge, too. And if web users can find that information free, they sure enough aren’t going to pay you for the same thing. So, instead of thinking of content as something to sell, think of it as bait to attract regular readers and improve links popularity.

So how do I make money with this new revenue model of which you speak?
Indeed, web-based ad revenues did decrease for a short time in ’02. But since then, there’s been a marked increase in revenue growth, closing in on $2 billion in ’07 and projected to exceed $11 billion in just five years. The web has become one of the most potent marketing tools available to advertisers.

You can pick up some of that ad revenue using the content you once sold to draw in the traffic and keep your PR high, with ad revenues to match. You can also develop affiliate partnerships with companies that want to reach your target market.

Here’s how the numbers break out. In the summer of ’06, survey respondents were asked if they would rather receive free content with advertising or paid content with no advertising. More than 70% of those surveyed opted for free with advertising. And that’s why you see ads for Coke before a music video download on AOL. AOL is giving away the content and making its money on that 15 second Coke ad. Even so, 78% of Millenials (ages 13 – 24) found web ads more intrusive. Clearly, they want the content free – free of cost and free of advertising.

e-Marketer analyst, Lisa Phillips, recently stated, “Advertisers pay up to three times more to reach print readers than online users. They’re not convinced online readers browse a news web site the way they believe print readers still browse through an entire section of a newspaper.”

Excellent point and one that clearly demonstrates why print media is so heavy on advertising and light on content. All you have to do is check today’s newspaper if you want proof.

Time for a change
If you have a successful, subscriber site – congratulations. You must have something very interesting or useful to say to your subscribers. However, if you’ve seen your subscriber list dwindle and re-ups shrink, it’s time to change your business model and use that subscriber content as the lure.

Use the online ad revenues as your reward.

What About Conversion Ratios: Why Aren’t They Buying?

What converts web site visitors to buyers?

If you own a commercial site and you’ve performed all of your search engine optimization (SEO) chores, you should be listed with the major search engines and visitors should be finding their way to your on-line boutique.

Driving traffic to a commercial site is difficult in the first place. So, once that traffic starts showing up, the last thing you want those potential buyers to do is to leave before making a purchase, especially true if they found you via PPC because that visitor is going to cost you money for that unfruitful click through.

The question becomes: once you have a visitor on site, how do you induce that person to make a purchase?

The Trust Factor

Most on-line purchases are made using a visitor’s credit card and those names and card numbers are hacked all of the time. So, before you ask a buyer to make a purchase using a credit card, you must first create trust between you and the potential buyer.

Get SSL Certified
Use SSL encryption to secure the on-line transaction. You’ll need an SSL certificate to transmit encrypted data. Sometimes, a web host will let you use its SSL certification but regardless, any savvy on-line buyer is going to avoid making a purchase unless s/he sees that little padlock in the lower right hand corner and an https in the address box. The “s” stands for secure.

Another trust building factor is the VeriSign logo. VeriSign provides SSL encrypted solutions for on-line businesses. They have an excellent reputation for security and regular on-line buyers and retailers know this. So, use the VeriSign logo throughout your site to build consumer trust.

Subscribe to the On-Line BBB
You can also build visitor trust by becoming a member of the on-line Better Business Bureau which indicates a commitment to service and honesty. The BBB logo displayed on your site’s home page and checkout pages is a comfort to new buyers.

Provide Assurances
Many visitors are reluctant to buy because they’re afraid of being inundated with spam – from you and other companies to which you sell your buyers list. Place a prominent notice on all zone pages and especially on the checkout page assuring buyers that you don’t sell sensitive, personal information. If you do use direct e-mail as a marketing tool (it’s a good one) let buyers decide whether to receive or not receive future offerings, newsletters and other digital clutter. If they click the ‘OK’ box, e-mail them. If they don’t, put them on the “Do Not Bother” list. And respect their wishes.

The Buying Process

Buying anything on-line (or off) is a process. The visitor arrives, searches for the item, reads the product description and so on. At any point during the buying process, you risk losing a potential buyer. And again, once you’ve got them there you want that sale.

Ease of Navigation
It may be clear to you. You designed it. But, if your visitors arrive on a home or zone page without a clue about how to find what they’re looking for, they’re gone. Easy and unambiguous navigation is critical to making that sale.

If you sell a variety of products, provide a product menu that takes visitors directly to the product they’re looking for. That product category menu should be available from any page on the site. Most commercial sites make it a part of the navigation bar at the top of the page.

Product Descriptions
They should provide information. Buyers want to know whether this is a product worth buying. Are batteries included? How big is it? How much power does it have?

If your product descriptions read like sales hype and you don’t provide essential information required for making a buying decision, those visitors will look elsewhere.

Product Pix
It’s always a good idea to include a picture of the product. It’s a good selling device because people like to see what they’re buying. Now, this may not be necessary if the buyer is purchasing 10 tons of cold-rolled steel, but it’s essential to the customer buying jewelry, clothing – in fact any personal or home products.

If you provide a thumbnail product picture, enable the visitor to enlarge the image by clicking on it. Again, the more information you provide a potential buyer the more likely you are to make a sale.

Offer Incentives
“20% Off Your First Purchase” or “Free Shipping” get buyers’ attention and make it more likely that they’ll (1) place the item in their shopping carts and (2) actually go through the checkout. And speaking of the checkout….

The Checkout
In a recent Market Live report called “The Perfect Shopping Cart,” researchers reported that 57% of visitors never complete the process of buying. More than half of those who put items in shopping carts fail to make it through the checkout.

Shipping Costs
One reason for this, according to the report, is shipping costs. The buyer has found the item, added it to his or her shopping cart, clicked on “Go to Checkout” and then abandons the sale when s/he sees the total cost of the item with shipping costs added.

You can do a couple of things, here. First, if you’re trying to improve your margins using profitable shipping costs, you’re losing more in sales than you’re making on shipping and handling. If you keep your shipping and handling costs down, you’ll generate more sales.

Second, offer “Free Shipping.” Of course, nothing is free. Shipping costs are built into the retail price of the item but it makes buyers feel better when they get something “free.” Keep shipping costs as low as possible and offer incentives to make one more purchase, i.e. “Free Shipping on Orders Over $50.” You’ll be surprised at the number of visitors who add that one more item to their carts to avoid paying shipping. (For a great example of how this works visit Amazon’s checkout.)

Payment Gateways
Provide as many different ways as possible to pay for an item – credit card, PayPal, check or money order – there are dozens of money transfer sites that charge a fee but it’s a convenience your visitors will appreciate.

Terms of Sale and Returns
Make your purchase and return policies crystal clear. If you charge a restocking fee of 20% you better believe buyers will want to know that, and you can save yourself a lot of headaches and time by letting buyers know how you handle returns and other terms of sale.

Follow Through
Once the sale is made, follow up ASAP. Your site should be set up to generate an automated e-mail receipt providing all details – including order number – as soon as the sale is finalized.

Indicate in this e-mail when the buyer can expect to receive the purchase. You can even indicate how it will be shipped.

Include all contact information in this important informational e-mail as well in case questions come up.

Use a CMS (content management system) or d-base to keep track of orders. And, if you realize an order is going to be late, notify the buyer. In many states there are laws that require notification if the product is going to be more than 30 days late.

Ship promptly and work to resolve customer complaints. That’s how you build repeat business – the best business you can have.

Once you’ve optimized your site for search engines, you’re only part way there. Now comes the hard part – optimizing your site to convert visitors to buyers. It takes some time and effort, but if you intend to be an on-line success, that time and effort will more than pay for itself.

Need some helpboosting your site’s conversion rate? Give me a call. Often, it’s something real simple.

Webwordslinger.com

Give Your Conversion Ratio a Boost:Seven Simple Steps

 

 

'Slinger on Selling The Goods

If you’ve spent a lot of time (and money) on improving your search engine page rank (PR) but you’re still not generating sales despite increased foot traffic, time to examine your site from a human perspective. The site may be absolutely perfect for search engine spiders but confusing or unattractive to human visitors. And they’re the ones who make purchases. 

 

Lots of Payment Gateways Boost Conversion Rates

You have to optimize your web site to improve your conversion rate – the rate at which visitors become buyers. Window shoppers won’t pay the rent. Buyers will. You don’t need more site traffic (of course, there’s no such thing as too much site traffic) you need more visitors who actually buy something. So, how do you optimize your site for humans? It’s not expensive. It’s all in the site design.

 Keep It Simple

Just because you can have a flashy homepage with lots of bells and whistles doesn’t mean you should. Your home page should be free of distractions. Do you really need that Flash animation? Does that chart or graph really make the point? Use your site’s home page to explain what your site is about and what you can do for the visitor. Lose the animated banner, the 20 links and pictures from a clip art subscription service. Just give visitors the key points. There’s plenty of time to sell once you’ve convinced a visitor to click off the home page.

 Adsense = Nonsense

Google’s Adsense program automatically places “Ads by Goooogle” on site pages, paying the site owner on a PPC basis. These ads are contextual meaning that if Google has identified you as an on-line florist you’ll see a lot of ads for flowers and florists.

 In other words, you may be providing ad space for a competitive site. Now, you can set parameters for the ads you’ll allow to avoid marketing competitors, but each one of those links is a doorway off of your site, providing more opportunities for visitors to pursue another search path.

 Some on-site retailers swear by Adsense and the passive income it delivers. However, you didn’t build your commercial site to generate PPC revenue. You built it to generate sales revenues and frankly, that’s where the real money is. Adsense ads also diminish the overall look of quality you’re going for so most designers shy away from PPC programs. Do-it-yourselfers are more likely to sign up for Adsense but you pay a price for those contextual ads.

The More Payment Gateways the Better

The more payment options you provide visitors, the more sales you’re going to have. Most payments are made by credit card so, at the very least, you’ll need a merchant account and an SSL (encrypted) certification to accept secure orders. But many buyers don’t like to use credit cards on-line because of all the fraud and identity theft stories in the media.

PayPal is a common option that many people prefer. PayPal is an eBay company that enables payments to be made for a fee depending on the dollar amount of the transfer. It’s simple to open an account. All you need is an e-mail address. Fill out the secure PayPal form and you’re ready to accept on-line payments. You have the option of having checks sent or of having the payments deposited directly into your business account. (recommended).

Eliminate Hidden Fees

The are lots of e-tailers improving their margins by charging “$10 shipping and handling” fees for low-cost items. It’s going to make buyers angry if they go to the trouble to shop your site, move to the checkout and discover that S&H adds 30% to the total cost of the product.

Restocking fees and other “hidden” fees won’t make you a lot of sales or friends. The buyer will find the fees soon enough so, if you’re going to improve margins with high S&H costs, make that point clear right off the bat.

Add a Strong Call to Action

The call to action is usually the last section of text the buyer sees before making a purchase. “Act Now!!!” “Call Today and Save 25%” “Don’t Wait Another Minute to Relieve Back Pain!” are all examples of calls to action.

A good call to action does two things: (1) it tells the buyer what is expected of him or her and (2) it should make one last, strong sales pitch: “TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS MIRICLE CURE, JUST CLICK HERE FOR ALL OF THE INFORMATION. FREE!!”

Add Indications of Reliability

Trust builders come in all shapes and sizes. Most are logos that you can display prominently to add to your site’s prestige and trustworthiness. If you have any affiliation with a professional organization (American Association of Optometrists) display the organization’s logo.

The on-line Better Business Bureau seal instills confidence. The PayPal logo is comforting to some. Add association and security logos throughout your site to build visitor trust.

Keep Conducting A/B Tests

Most web hosts provide site metrics software that enable you to quickly determine how successful site changes are to your conversion rate. To be effective you need an A/B test. The A test determines the site’s baseline performance. The way things are now. The B portion of the test measures the same performance parameters against the baseline A test.

Not all changes are going to translate into improved conversion rates. That’s why it’s essential to monitor site performance any time you make changes to site design, navigation or launch a special promotion like a series of auto-responders. In order to determine how well a marketing campaign is working, you need a baseline against which you can measure up or down ticks in site performance.

Every site owner is concerned with improving PR and they’ll spend a ton of dough to improve their site’s SEO. But many site owners don’t consider how simple it is to improve conversion rates and the bottom line. With a few tweaks here and there, coupled with regular A/B testing, you’ll grow your site faster with a much improved conversion rate.

No money required. It’s all in the site design.

 

Paul Lalley

editor@webwordslinger.com