Online you have access to far more customers this means that you have to target the customer more precisely. You must be familiar with the customer type that you are selling to and be clear why they would be interested in the benefits that your product offers. You also need to much clearer about the product that you are selling, because again customers searching on the internet can narrow down the company to the provider that best approaches their needs.

Know your customer

[Point one]

If your business is selling then you will know your customers well. However for successful online selling you must narrow this perspective and choose a particular segment to target.

Consider how you can segment and divide your target web customers. For example you may be able to do it by age or by geographic region or both. Remember on the web you must start by selling to a specific targeted audience, so here we are not talking about all your customers, just those you wish to reach over the web.

As an example supposing you are a shoe retailer and wish to expand online sales. Realising that younger customers are more likely to buy online you target them. This then leads to your opening page the home page displaying the latest trainers and your advertising strategy maybe incorporating some online game retailers. So your typical brick and mortar customer may well be a middle aged person, but your targeted online customer maybe teenagers.

Know your product

[Point two]

You must know what benefits your product offers to your target customers. List the benefits and then list them in order of importance. Remove from the list those that are contradictory or dilute the other benefits. In other words if you are selling the cheapest do not also list the most well made as this may plant doubt in the customers mind. Make sure you are selling one thing only and now you are clear about the benefits you are ready for your web pages.

[Point three]

Target your products for web sales that are most suitable for this. Many products do not sell well on the internet, but others sell like hot cakes. Consider factors other than simply the despatch cost and remember the target audience as discussed above. There is no point in trying putting children's shoes on the home page because they are the lightest, when you have decided that the targeted audience that you are advertising to is teenagers.

Web pages

[Point four]

Have a page for each benefit and additional pages for other things that you wish to achieve. For example a page to collect email addresses. Make sure that each page does one thing only.

The theme of simplicity rings through this document. Make sure that your customer is never confused. That you are never more than one click away from the home page. Keep the navigation system in the same place on all pages and only have two navigation systems if you really have to. (Navigation systems are the buttons you click to get from page to page on a web site).

Keep the bells and whistles down to areas that concern your target for each page. For example do not have fancy peripheral graphics and flashing images. These will simply detract from your pages purpose.

[Point five]

Remember each page has a specific purpose, usually to highlight a particular product benefit. Try to get products on the front page rather than fancy graphics and at all cost avoid graphic only entrance pages. The text on your home page is the most important on your whole site. The first paragraph must capture interest and explain clearly the benefits of your product in order to keep the attention of the fickle viewer. When browsing viewers may have more than one window open and if they lose interest they will simply click away.

Products

[Point six]

You knew we would get there in the end. Make sure that your product can be clearly viewed in the pictures. Make sure you have pictures of all your products and that they are professional and well presented. If you want the customer to part with their cash they must be able to see what they are buying.

Divide your products into your customer segments and the benefits they offer. Peripherals of interest to two segments can be included twice. Special offers can remain in all sections or can be targeted to the specific section they are displayed in.

If you really can't get your products on your front page, good product pictures must be viewed as soon as you click into the product section, which as we already know is one click from the home page.

[Point seven]

Once the products appear they must be well displayed and the pictures must expand if clicked on. The more expensive the product the more pictures and even video may be required. Remember if you were going t part with a serious amount of money online you would want reassurance that the product was not just as described but perfectly formed and suited for purpose.

Your Website

[Point eight]

Work with your website and let your website work with you not against you. Sounds stupid but how many times have you closed down a web site for a company you were interested in simply because it was so poorly designed you were lost and frustrated. I am constantly amazed by the number of times I have to use the site specific search engine to find a product or service that the company sells or in the case of one company three days ago I had to use the search engine to find its primary, yes its main product! Not only was it not on the front page it was hidden in the site.

More commonly websites are simply ignored. They are perfect when they are launched. But when a customer views the site two years later they see old adverts and pictures of products that have now been modified. Customers pick up on this lack of care immediately and assume that this applies to all areas of your business and indeed why shouldn't they. If you are featuring last years models on your website then they will put you down as last years company. You would be better without a website.

[Point nine]

The fact that are your most powerful and fantastic and invaluable source of marketing information about exactly what your customers want is available from your website is ignored by most businesses. Information on what key words customers are using to find your site is quite simply the most important information you can have for highlighting marketing trends. Your website may well be separated into pages which are organised by product type. Your statistics can tell you which pages are the most popular and which pages are ignored. This information is quite simply gold dust and once you get used to working with it you can introduce onto pages the products that you most want information on. You also of course introduce onto the front page products that customers spend the most time on. You also of course check the information on pages that customers leave your site from without purchasing a product.

[Point ten]

You can collect contact information from many of your key customers simply by offering them a free download, prizes for completing a survey, better rates, more information. Simply as soon as they log into your website you can gain their email address. As soon as you have a mailing list you can mail customers that are actually customers, not just people who you would like to be customers and achieve response rates in excess of 10% from your mailings.

Not only that you if you offer targeted offers of interest to your customers you can bring them back to your site before they buy from your competitors.