Article on how to attract customers

Saajan · 19-07-2006, 09:01 PM

Hi,
Do you have a website, were you sell products? Then I think this article will help you. In this article I will provide steps and tips on to how to attract customers to your website.

Communication
Keeping in contact with customers is very important. When ever they have a question or query you should reply ASAP, and if you don’t, then the customers might become inpatient and change there minds about buying from you.

Even a simple newsletter is good enough. Newsletters can inform people about your website e.g., what discounts you have available and when’s the next time your going to maintain your site. If you do this regularly then customers know that you are very reliable as you keep in contact mostly all the time.

Not a newsletter? Well you can even send an email about updates of your products, e.g., what new products you have in stock and what’s sold out.

Want to go even further? A Forum would help you even better. A Forum can make a huge difference, as they are fast, quick and easy to use.

MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger can also help. There’s not much work you have to do for it. Just make an email address (on hotmail or yahoo) and then download MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger, and then you’re done!

You don’t just have to use the Internet to communicate; you can give customers a telephone help line, or even allow them to send you letters through the post.

Products
You should first research different types of product categories, as you might already know; Computers Products, Video Games/Consoles and Electronics are big and are selling everywhere. You can pick any category of your choice but the main thing it must do is make sales and force people to buy from you.

Products that you are selling should be marked at competitive prices. They shouldn’t be to low, as you might not get enough profit, and they shouldn’t be too high as customers would think they are too expensive.

Product descriptions also play a vital role. If customers don’t know what they’re getting then there will be confusion all the way round. So you have to make sure that you put enough detail into Product Descriptions.

Product titles also should be clear. They are the first things that customers look at.

Advertising
Again, advertising is another major step in getting sales. The best way to get started is to submit your store to major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AltaVista etc. Free Search Engine Submission doesn’t really help a lot, so you should normally go for the paid submissions, but it’s up to you.

Then you can move onto other things such as posting flyers, adding your site to signatures of emails and forums etc.

Logos and Slogans
Logos are very important as well. A good-looking logo makes your company look good and professional. A simple, old and boring logo can drive customers away from your store. A good logo doesn’t have to be a fancy picture, with multicolour text, it can be anything. But it must stand out from the rest; people must recognise it and should be unique and simple.

Slogans are phrases or words, which sound catchy and represent a company. Well know slogans such as Mc Donald’s (I’m loving it) & Pizza Hut’s (You do the Maths, we do the Pizzas) are remembered very well as they are catchy and they stick in your head all of the time. Before making up a slogan, you have to make sure that you, yourself can remember it and that it sounds catchy.

Store Layout
The looks and feel of your store also do affect your sales. If you have a very poor design then there’s a very high chance that customers won’t buy from, but if your layout looks professional then customers would go for it.

Even by placing a PayPal or a Nochex logo, customers see that you are using safe payment methods, which use high security.

You should also place some information about what you’re selling on your Main Page. Pictures of your products also help

Hope this article helps people out.