How Are You Selling Services Online?
It’s relatively easy to understand how to sell with your website when you sell books, clothes, even vacations or furniture. But how can you sell with your website when your service or product is high touch? A “High-Touch” service is one where the consultant and the client have a lot of communication, the service is very customized to the client, and of course the price is higher than a simple service that is the same for everyone. Some examples of high-touch services would be consulting, interior design, attorneys, and marketing.
The solution is to have a longer sales process and a lower barrier call to action.
That’s great marketing jargon, but what do you mean by that? I mean that we both know nobody is going to land on your site and immediately give you thousands of dollars without knowing you. So you need to build a relationship with them and start by asking them to do something small and easy, like sign up for your email list.
An email list where you provide real value to the subscribers on a regular basis (not a constant hard sell) will allow you to prove your expertise to your leads, establish trust, build rapport, and stay top of mind.
This process of getting someone to sign up for your email list (or call you, or like your page on Facebook etc.) is called lead generation. You want potential customers to reach out to you in a way that will allow you to keep in touch with them on a regular basis.
If only selling services online was this easy!
Why email? Isn’t Everybody on Social Now?
Think for a second…when was the last time you read everything posted on Facebook? Or everything everyone you follow has tweeted? Now if you received an email, what are the chances you’ve read it?
Exactly. The same is true for everyone else. It is an important key to selling services online.
- In 2014, email marketing was cited as the most effective digital marketing channel for customer retention in the United States. (eMarketer).
- 59% of B2B marketers say email is the most effective channel for generating revenue. (BtoB Magazine)
This is the first part in a series of posts I am calling “Selling Services Online”. In this series, I plan to detail the steps you can take to improve the marketing for your services. Be sure to check back next week when we talk about what a marketing funnel is, and where the entry for our funnel will be.