The sales sequence is similar to that of branded companies:

- The prospects know whom they’re dealing with.

- The prospects trust selling company, having dealt with them before at least once via traditional offline methods.

- The prospects are being offered some incentive to buy online.

- The company doing selling backs up its sales with good customer service.

If you’re responsible for online sales of this kind of company, and if you match your strategy to requirements above, then an effective online sales strategy should be highly feasible. The companies that failed were ones who didn’t give their prospects any good reason to shop online or simply had poor websites. Most companies of this type used web as another channel to help with customer retention and loyalty. The ones that did it best were ones that were most successful.

3) Non-Branded companies

Companies who do not have known brands and are not trusted at all can achieve sales conversions at same levels as branded companies. We found that by building levels of trust in prospect base via education and then selling product or service to educated, and therefore trusting, prospect base, same level of conversion overall can be achieved. The successful companies give away samples of their product or valuable information, in turn getting web visitors to give company their email addresses and permission to continue dialog. This allows companies to continue to educate their prospects.

The selling sequence is completely different from first two:

- Cold prospect (arriving as a web visitor) will not immediately buy because he doesn’t know with whom he is dealing.

- Prospect is educated by company through online content, email, articles, resources and free products.

- Prospect begins to know company and his appreciation of company grows.

- Prospect becomes a customer as he realizes value of proposition and trusts company.

- The company backs up its sales with good customer service, thus encouraging viral marketing and good word of mouth.

This is where most errors of judgment have been made when building effective sales channels through online means. Businesses have been copying what big companies have done, thinking that merely by having a website which does same as a brand name website, a similar level of sales conversion will be attained. Worse still, they have simply gone out and made poster sites with shopping carts with no thought as to why a web visitor would buy from them. Where companies tend to fail even using correct sales sequence is in not providing valuable enough information as education, thus damaging their reputations before they have even built them up. So, if your responsibility is to develop online sales strategy of a non-branded, unknown company, then our research shows that above strategy, while work intensive, does work.

Summary

One simple fact remains true no matter what kind of sales and marketing strategy is used. If buyer doesn’t trust seller, then sale will not happen. It’s been said that a prospective buyer doesn’t become a customer until he’s seen brand seven or eight times. While I don’t have a statistic to prove it, I am 100% sure this is why McDonald’s and Coca Cola have less work to do on their websites to get good sales conversion rates. By mentioning those brand names in this article, I have helped them with their marketing. You have a burger and a can of coke pictured in your head right now. If you’re a non-branded company, you have a great deal more work to do to earn yourself that consumer trust. But then who said sales and marketing was easy? Non-branded companies have more work to get customers offline, so why should it be any different online?

6. Distribute your information globally. Whether using Internet articles, advertising or any of other methods mentioned in #2 and #3. Find places in other English- speaking countries like U. K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

7. Announce your teleconference calls on other people’s teleconferences. You can slip it in with a question, when you are responding to a "what do you do" segment, or ask leader before hand for an opening as a complimentary service to theirs, for bartering, or even a commission.

8. Add a promotional paragraph to all your outgoing e-mail signatures.

9. Do you below to any discussion lists or boards that allow you to post your teleconferences. Some do and some don't. If you are not sure, ask group's moderator. Off a special price for members on list.

10. Write a press release for each teleconference. Become a member of PR Web, http://www.prweb.com/, membership is free. I found this site to be best for a Google pickup.

11. Begin a list of all your local newspapers that offer free community event announcements. Find out what their deadline are and submission requirements. Create what they need and send it to them about a week or two before their deadline. As you get good with your local newspapers begin to start expanding to other locations. Choose a city and then do same. When done, choose another city. Start a binder with all information and set up your Internet browser with categories and your e-mail software with a separate "Community newspaper" section to keep yourself organized. Eventually you will want to delegate this over to a Virtual Assistant.

12. Write a telephone answering script and change your voice mail frequently to mention your teleconferences.

13. Use f*r*e*e offers to attract people to come and find out additional information about your teleconferences. You can use an ebook, ecourse, special report or even a white paper. A transcript of another teleconference, if same target market, would also work well.

14. List your class in teleclass directories. Some of these listing posting sites require that you complete "their" teleclass-leading course. A big downfall in time and expense. These include:

http://www.seminarannouncer.com http://www.teleclass4u.com http://www.teleclasslive.com http://www.teleclass.com http://www.thefeelgoodplace.com/freetele.htm http://www.Yahoogroups.com has over 30 places to post your listing (depends on your topic).

15. If you give speaking engagements or attend seminars, give out flyers on your teleconference program. Works well in networking groups too. Take flyers to libraries, senior and civic centers.

Copyright 2004, Catherine Franz. All rights reserved.