Sara Holliday of Poway, California writes:
“I specialize in pre- and post-natal fitness and relationship issues.
“I’ve had a lot of press: Oprah & Friends Radio, Martha Stewart Living Radio, Playboy Radio, PBS Radio, KABC, KNBC and KTLA, and I’m a columnist for several women’s health and fitness publications.
“But it hasn’t led to an increase in sales on my website. I continue to write all my columns for free. Do your Hounds have any suggestions to help me use my media hits and PR to increase sales and get even more exposure?”
Sara, your PR efforts are obviously pretty good already. Are you seeing a spike in hits on your website after each appearance or publication? If your hits are up, but your sales are not, you have a “conversion” problem on your site.
My suggestion would be to retool the home page so that it’s obviously a place to buy stuff. Right now, it looks like a place to get free advice, with the store section as an afterthought. You can’t be all things to all people. If you want to concentrate on selling, make that your focus, with the resources and tips as a hook and for SEO.
I’ll be brutally honest about your store page: It doesn’t inspire confidence. Think about how you shop online — you want that feeling of trust that this is a legitimate business that sells things I want. Your store page starts with a bunch of scary-looking text. But what I want to see is gorgeous images of your products with persuasive marketing copy. What do you sell here? Why should I buy it?
Check out John Basedow’s site at http://www.fitnessmadesimple.com. Despite the obnoxious music and terrible design, he does a good job of promoting both himself and his products.
When I land on the page, I get the feeling that everything a person needs to know is there for free. So why should I spend money? (Okay I’m male, so I don’t need pregnancy care).
You seem to be giving it all away. You need to make it clear that there’s more they need to know and the way to get it is to buy something from you.
As Kim said, it’s all about being clear about “sales”.
Of course, once you’ve convinced them to purchase something, the process should be as easy as you can make it.
Great advise offered here already but my comment is to think about offering a free ebook with a purchase and have an expiration time as an incentive. You are obviously a good writer or otherwise you wouldn’t have landed the great publicity. I am a yoga teacher and would be glad to exchange links and add you to our links directory.
This is a great place to get wonderful feed back. Joan’s posts and tips are always helpful.
I would say a website redesign is needed to help focus the visitor on what you want them to do. You really want them to buy…but I had a hard time finding what you are selling. And I was looking for things to buy.
Remember visitors spend about 30 seconds before deciding on their next move — click away or click on your website. Currently there are just way to many things to do on your home page. I’d reconsider all that content and create laser focus on what your home page promotes. If your primary goal is building a list with a free newsletter, make sure your newsletter is full of sales copy — in addition to some solid advice. Then you can get sales after the fact.
If your primary goal is sales, then you should have product that is prominently promoted. I like the video– consider positioning it as free preview of a product you sell rather than “free tips.”
Free stuff is great — perhaps you should create a monthly program of tips that is customized to the trimester or postpartum stage. And charge for it. 🙂
Good luck! It is a hard habit to break from being too generous with information!
Lots of celebs getting pregnant these days might so you might want to put up a blog to design specific detailed programs for them.
Word will get out that someone is designing a pre/post natal program for them they might get curious to compare your’s with what they are already doing.
This also leads you into the possibilty of tieing your products to them like, “Best Working Pre Natal Health Program Female Stars Use To Look Good And Stay Healthy”