How to convert customers and prospects to engage and purchase - part 2

Today we look more closely at the moment a customer or prospect engages with your business. We will assume that all is well in the business, everyone is in good spirits and confident about their roles and responsibilities.

We will also assume that you are confident that your proposition is competitive and in some way unique in the market you seek to serve.

So now with a notional level playing field ask yourself these 4 questions:

1. If a prospect landed on the website right now looking to buy what we sell,  how easy is it for them to find a way of actually making a purchase or contacting us?
   
2. Are all the benefits of using our product or service clearly identified or do we focus just  on facts and features?
   
3. Are there a named individuals for visitors to call or email?
   
4. Do we offer any "comfort" in the way of introductory discounts or guarantees?

If at this point you you don't have a positive answer to all of the above - just think about the fact that your competitors do and they will be getting the calls you never get the chance to lose.

But let's assume that you have all of these in place and perhaps even a few more - how can you improve the engagement process - try these ideas:

• Include very good quality professional looking photos of everyone in the team that has contact with customers and prospects. This single action is a powerful way of improving engagement. How we look and are perceived by others is very organic - you can see this in the way the physical characteristics of those in the public eye are always picked up and used to support the way individuals feel about them
  
• Give these individuals a bit of character with a small bio - add a bit of humour if possible
  
• Explain in great detail what happens when people engage. What happens to their order, who will handle their project, what happens if they are not happy, what sort of guarantees are there and very importantly what do others think about the service you provide

Bottom line is this - if a visitor to your website or high street shop or even when visited by the MD, is left in any doubt about engaging with your business - they won't. And you will never have the chance to miss out on the sale, because they will get what they want to buy from someone else.

Check out Part 3 when we look at the power of genuine testimonials.