Exit Strategies For Your Website

I listened to a fascinating Guerrilla Marketing Association interview last night with Greg Cesar, "webmaster to the gurus". Greg has designed websites for Internet Marketing masters including Rich Schefren and Stephen Pierce so you can be sure that he excels.

I picked up much from the call but the area I will focus on here is the topic of website exit strategies.

It seems that most of us don't have an exit strategy for visitors to our websites but we should. Now that I've heard the interview I am kicking myself that I haven't focused on it before.

I am not a techie so I have no idea of the complexities involved but you will see some of these practices on other websites.

Why Do People Visit Your Website?

For any website, some of these factors will apply.

1. They are looking to buy something.
    
2. They want to find out more about you.
    
3. They want information about a particular topic.
    
4. They want to be entertained.

What Do YOU Want People To Do When They Visit Your Website?

You probably want some or all of these actions to happen when someone visits your website.

1. They buy something.
    
   
2. They sign up to your newsletter or RSS feed< (you have signed up to mine haven't you?)
    
3. They download your white papers and reports with your contact details.
    
4. They click on your affiliate links.
    
5. They take the time to have a good browse and appreciate the effort you have gone to putting the website together.

On the basis that all marketing exists to fill customers needs and wants and a highly satisfied customer is likely to be a repeat customer, most of all you want your visitor to find whatever it is they are looking for on your website.

People Don't Stick Around

Your website visitors will be very impatient and make quick decisions about whether your site is relevant to them or not. Those decisions may be wrong.

I watch my traffic to this blog and I see some people land on one page for a search term when I know that there is a much better page elsewhere on the blog. So what if there was a way to help your visitors achieve their objectives on your website.

You Need An Website Exit Strategy

Imagine if you could send one last message to someone who decided to move away from your website.

Options include:

1. If they have bought, then while they have their credit card in their hand and they are still in the buying mood, offer up-sells and cross-sells.
   
   You will see this on many business information sites which tempt you to buy a $29 e-book and then offer an audio program for $79 on a related topic. Amazon also do it - "people who bought this also bought this" with the implied "you should too".
   
   This is a classic Jay Abraham style method for increasing your transaction values.
    
2. If they hadn't signed up to your newsletter, a pop up or final screen could appear.
   
   Yes, I am sure that you will have made the offer elsewhere but it may not have been noticed. This Stompernet video shows how little people see at any one time.
    
3. If they came from a search engine and didn't linger on your website, what if another page appeared that said "you may find these pages relevant for business prosperity" (or whatever it was they searched for).
   
   You may have the answer people want, but if it doesn't appear on the page they clicked, they will often assume that they need to move elsewhere.
    
4. If a visitor came to buy a product but didn't, what if a page appeared that said "thank you for visiting our site and we are sorry that you didn't buy. To help us provide a better service to you in future could you please answer a few questions about why you visited our site and why you are leaving. As a thank you, we will give you this e-book or a $10 voucher to redeem against future purchases."
   
   Can you see how valuable that information would be? Perhaps you don't sell what they wanted but you could if there was enough demand. Perhaps people find it difficult to navigate around your website, don't like its appearance or find it difficult to read.
   
   All this feedback would allow you to improve your marketing because it is coming directly from prospective customers.
    
5. Following on from this, if people gave a price based reason for non-purchase what if another offer was made at a lower price.

In my opinion, website exit strategies offer considerable potential for increasing your profits provided you do them well and without causing too much inconvenience.

You don't want offer after offer appearing with the customer finding it impossible to get away. Just one "Are you sure we can't help?" message could make a big impact on your website profits.

Testing & Measuring Your Website Exit Strategies

There are many possible alternatives that you can try so I fall back on my standard rules for profit improvement:

1. Be clear on your goals. For example if you are going for the relationship building approach, you would use the newsletter reminder rather than offering an expensive, probably irrelevant product.
    
2. Learn from how other people use website exit strategies. Now that you have read this, you will notice many more. What do you like and what do you find intrusive? Ask other people what they think.
    
3. Experiment. If your website has a number of main gateways, you may want to try implementing an exit strategy on one while you watch what happens.
    
4. Test and measure. Try different things but set your metrics up to measure what happens. Keep testing alternatives against your goal.

The recording with Greg Cesar is available through the Guerrilla Marketing Association - probably the best small business marketing service in the world.

Comments

[John]

I know of an affiliate marketer who makes enough from his exit page to cover ALL his advertising costs.