Building and Maintaining Relationships with Your Subscribers

The first thing you must realize when building your website is that your prospects don't trust you. Unless you're a nationally recognized brand name, your visitors will be reluctant to send you a penny of their money. How do you build trust with your potential clients? Build a relationship with your website visitors instead of going after the first sale.

Instead of using a fancy sales page and hoping people will give you their credit card info, spend more time helping your client understand why they need the product or service you're offering. This is a better long-term strategy as internet surfers become much more savvy - and skeptical of flashy advertisements. When you develop relationships with your potential clients, you'll earn more trust with your prospect than any number of testimonials ever will. Incorporate the following ideas to start building trust with your customers.

You're Not Going to Succeed on the First Try - Use Autoresponders

Selling to somebody who already knows you is a lot easier than selling to a stranger. Use autoresponders to turn online strangers into people who know you.

An autoresponder is a tool you can use to automate email marketing. Here's how it works.

  1. Write a series of emails that you want prospects to receive.
  2. Set a time interval between each email you want to send.
  3. Create a signup form that adds a user to your autoresponder list.
  4. Each time a user signs up using that form, he'll be added to your list and sent the emails in the order and time interval that you set.

This allows you to do a few things. First, it keeps your small business in front of your client so they won't forget about you. Second, it gives you the opportunity to prove to your clients that you understand their needs and know how to help them. Finally, it allows you to show the subscribers that they need what you're offering.

Getting People to Subscribe to Your List

The first step in relationship building is to convince your website visitors to give you their contact information. The best way to do this is to give away something for free. For people selling information or services, this is usually best done by giving away information that your subscriber is looking for.

Let's go back to the realtor example. We know that most people who visit the site are looking for a realtor who specializes in condos in the Downtown Los Angeles area. This means that we could give away one of three things that our visitor wants to know. The first is a report on Downtown LA. Answer the questions that a potential buyer would ask about the area, such as:

  • How safe is the area? What are the crime statistics?
  • How is the school system?
  • How have property values appreciated in the past?
  • What are the benefits of living in this area?

Other information we could share would be information on condo purchases or information for first-time homeowners. Another example - I know people who visit DesignLX.com are small business owners who are looking to start or improve their online marketing system, so I'm giving away this course that teaches the basics of website marketing.

If you're selling physical products, you could give away product comparisons or information on new and upcoming products. For example, a cell phone retailer could do a product comparison between your top selling phones, or preview upcoming products. Remember to answer the most common questions that your buyer would ask.

Keep Yourself In Front of Your Subscribers

Don't abandon your prospects after they've given you their information. Be sure to follow up with prospects after you send them their initial gift. Give yourself a reason to continue to contact your list subscribers. You could send an email to discuss current news or events that affect their purchase decision, announce new services, give away coupons, or promote special discounts. After convincing your subscriber that you're an established expert, you'll be able to make your sales pitch with much less resistance.

This concludes the free small business marketing basics course. You should have the right mindset to promote your small business the right away. Once you choose your market, research your market and keywords, and build long-term relationships with your subscribers, you'll be ahead of 90% of your competition.

If you have any specific questions, contact me and I'll be happy to answer them for you. I can be reached at Alex@DesignLX.com.