307 – How to Build an eCommerce Website that Gets Visitors to Buy with Matt Edmundson

how to build an ecommerce website with Matt EdmundsonAn integral part of making sales is where you direct your customers to go when they are ready to buy (hint: the ultimate best choice will always be *your* website). So, we’re diving into how to build an eCommerce website that gets visitors to buy!

Matt Edmundson is a real-world eCommerce entrepreneur and Coach, a digital business guy who has had more failures than successes. It’s just that his successes far outweigh his failures.

He’s the creator of the Jam Jar Course and the eCommerce Masterclass. He also hosts The Ecommerce Podcast.

Matt shows aspiring entrepreneurs sure and simple steps to getting a digital business off the ground and seasoned entrepreneurs on how to take their business to the next level.

BUSINESS BUILDING INSIGHTS

  • Figure out what your customers really want. Is there enough demand for your product online? Every good eCommerce business starts with a product that people want to buy.
  • Go where your customers are hanging out and connect with them. Get to know people and talk to them to better understand their story.
  • What’s your customer’s story? Understand why your product or service will benefit them – why would they want it? – so you can present your product or service in a way that resonates.
  • Understanding your market is necessary to generate the right traffic. You need the right traffic and right customers coming to your site who will most likely buy.
  • Tune in to hear the full conversation about finding your customer’s story!

How to Build an eCommerce Website That Gets Visitors To Buy

  • Do the legwork to understand your customer and market BEFORE you start building (or revamping) your website.
    • Visit your competitors’ websites and similar product sites to see what people say. Look at the comments and reviews to find what’s present and what’s missing.
    • What can you learn from those reviews to give you an edge? <– Hot tip! Tune in for more on this.
  • How to choose a platform for your website (WordPress, Shopify, Wix, etc.):
    • Every platform has pros and cons.
    • Two ways to choose a platform – 1) which one do I like? and 2) which one will work best for my customer? If you can find the answer to #2, it’s much better.
    • Sign up for free trials on eCommerce platforms to test and see what works for you and will work for your customers. Does it have the features and functions you will need?
    • Shopify is a great platform to start with for eCommerce and easy to test to see if it will work for you and your customers. But not the best for international markets or if you need something really flexible.
    • Listen in for more on choosing a website platform!
  • Think of your home page as a signpost. It should direct customers in the right direction.
    • What do they want to know? What are the big questions in their head? Get them to the answers to their questions as quickly as possible.
    • The Hero section (the first part of your home page before scrolling down) is the most valuable real estate you have. Include a clear (high res) image of your product or a photo of your ideal customer with your product.
    • Your primary headline should convey all of this information. Use this formula for a successful headline: verb + action + sexiness.  Let’s use Netflix as an example. For a long time their headline was: Watch (verb)  TV (action) Anytime, Anywhere (sexiness). <– Hot tip!
    • Add your personality to your website because that’s something no one can copy. Don’t be camera shy – photos don’t need to be perfect, they just need to be you. Celebrate your quirks and uniqueness.
  • Write content for your product that resonates with your customer’s story.
  • Tune in for so much more about eCommerce websites that get visitors to buy!

Resources Mentioned

Matt’s Contact Links

WebsiteFacebook | Instagram | Twitter | Linkedin


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Transcript
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Gift biz unwrapped episode 307.

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Go to get to your website is the right traffic,

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the right customer to come.

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And then they are way more likely to buy attention.

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Gifters bakers,

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crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

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Whether you have an established business or looking to start one.

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Now you are in the right place.

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This is give to biz unwrapped,

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helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

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Join us for an episode,

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packed full of invaluable guidance,

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resources, and the support you need to grow.

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Your gift biz.

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Here is your host gift biz gal,

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Sue moon Heights.

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Hi there.

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It's Sue and I'm so happy that you're joining me here

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today. Have you heard the news has a handmade product maker.

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You create the most beautiful,

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delicious, and life enhancing products.

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I'm so impressed with your talent and you always put a

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smile on my face.

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When I see your newest creations,

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I'm always watching and I'm also always listening.

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Let me back up here for a second in our Facebook

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group gift to biz breeze.

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You know this,

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and I've seen this.

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If you're already there,

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I asked what you need help with the most right now.

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And you totally surprised me.

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It wasn't email marketing.

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It wasn't doing video or any other number of topics that

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make up a solid growing business.

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Nope. What you overwhelmingly are asking for is help with social

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media posting because I was so surprised at your response.

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I really needed to know more.

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That's when you told me that you're putting in the time

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you're posting frequently,

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maybe even every day,

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and you're discouraged because you aren't seeing any of this move

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the needle for your sales.

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I hear your frustration.

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Some of you have even told me you're at the point

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of just throwing in the towel on social media altogether,

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wait, please don't do that.

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Here's the thing.

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Some adjustments are needed.

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That's all you see putting in more time posting in the

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same way.

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Isn't going to magically bring you the sales.

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You need to change the way you're posting and what you're

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posting. You don't need to put in more work.

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You need to put in the right work.

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And that's when things will change.

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So based on all your comments and my followup conversations,

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I've created your solution.

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It's called content for makers and is specially created for handmade

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product makers like you because when you get your posting strategy

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and topics,

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right, everything else falls into place.

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Content for makers will enlighten you as to why your current

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social media activities aren't converting into sales.

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It'll also show you how to put in less time and

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start seeing activity that will lead to increased sales.

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Just imagine a day where you know exactly what to post

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and get it done in less than five minutes.

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Then you interact with potential clients,

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deepen relationships with those you already know.

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And all of this just continues to build upon itself naturally.

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Yes, this is possible.

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Content for makers includes a step-by-step strategy to formulate your unique

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plan based on your business and your products.

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Then you'll get 375 social media prompts.

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So over a full year of ideas,

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along with a 375 prompts come a 375 image suggestions.

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So you're not left hanging on the creative.

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These prompts and image suggestions can be used for all platforms

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and all types of posting images,

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live streaming,

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reels, even email topics,

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but that's not all posts aren't going to work.

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If the right people aren't seeing them.

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So you'll also receive a video and worksheet on how to

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choose the right hashtags.

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This is the way to attract the right people who are

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most likely to become your customers.

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Most people are doing this all wrong.

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There's more to content for makers to,

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to see all the details,

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jump over to gift biz,

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unwrapped.com forward slash content for makers.

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But honestly at only $27,

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it's a no brainer.

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Why carry on posting as you've been doing all along expecting

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Sign up for content for makers now and see the transformation

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gift biz,

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instant access right now.

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Go ahead,

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Paul, this podcast for a second and come back right after

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it's that worth it.

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Let's move on and talk about today's show shadowy business struggles.

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As you just heard,

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the biggest one is how to post on social media to

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get the ultimate result.

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Meaning sales,

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of course,

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an integral part of this though is where you direct people

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to go when they want to buy.

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And the ultimate location will always be your website.

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Now, to be clear,

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that doesn't mean Etsy or Facebook shops because these aren't sites

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that you it's like the difference between owning a home and

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renting in your own home.

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You're in control.

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You can add on decorate and pretty much do whatever you

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want when you rent your apartment or home.

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You're limited by the restrictions put on tenants.

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It doesn't mean it's bad.

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It's a great stepping stone or an additional stream of income

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for your business.

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When you start off on Etsy,

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Facebook shops,

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any of those already constructed online platforms.

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But as I said before,

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the ultimate goal,

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the one you should be striving to reach is to have

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your own website today.

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We're going to be talking about how to get that done.

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Make sure to listen to the whole show because at the

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end we get into Matt's direction on verb,

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objective sexiness.

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Today, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Matt Edmundson.

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Matt is a real world.

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E-commerce entrepreneur and coach a digital business guy who has had

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more failures than successes.

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It's just that his successes have far outweighed his failures.

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He's the creator of the jam jar course and the e-commerce

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class. He also hosts the e-commerce podcast.

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Map's goal is to show aspiring entrepreneurs sure.

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And simple steps to getting a digital business off the ground

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and seasonal entrepreneurs,

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how to take their business to the next level.

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Matt, we need you so much welcome to the gift biz

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on wrapped.

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Well, that was an intro.

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Thanks. So it's great to be here.

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Really great to be here,

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Talking a little in the pre chat that I was like,

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the time is now,

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this is perfect.

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Yay. You're here.

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Yeah. The time is now like that for such a time

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as this,

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right, Exactly.

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But before we get into it,

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I want to have my listeners get to know you on

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a little bit of a deeper level,

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kind of a creative way.

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And that is through motivational candle.

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So if you were to envision this candle that really would

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resonate with you,

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like you went into a candle factoring,

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good, create anything you wanted share with us,

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what your candle would look like.

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Okay. Sure.

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The glass of the candle basically would be the union,

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Jack, the flag,

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the red,

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white, and blue of Britain.

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And I just love it.

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I mean,

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I live in the UK,

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as you can probably tell by my accent.

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I just love the union,

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Jack. I don't know what it is about that flag.

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I wouldn't say it's because I'm overly patriotic.

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I just really liked the design of it.

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So yeah,

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it would be very British.

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So would be the answer.

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Perfect. And is there a quote or a mantra or something

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you would put on the candle?

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Well, I think that yes,

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there would be.

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I can,

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I have seasonal candles.

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That would be my question.

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Go For it.

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This is yours.

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You get to do what you want.

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Okay. So I tend to find like most people,

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my life goes in seasons and the season that I'm the

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quote that is sticking in my head at the moment or

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the question,

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maybe let me put it that way.

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I'd put a question on the Kendall.

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And the question is simply this what's the story,

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because I find at the moment,

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this is the question I'm asking myself over and over and

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over again in everything that I'm doing.

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What's the story.

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Especially when I'm talking with people,

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just being that kind of investigative journalist,

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trying to uncover the story,

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to try and understand people better,

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The story behind any situation you're in,

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like you're meeting somebody new or you're in a certain situation.

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And you're trying to understand by context,

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what's going on just anywhere.

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What's the story.

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Yeah, exactly.

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And so the last time I was literally on a call

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very, very recently,

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and talking with a potential client who actually is going to

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be worth a lot of money for the business,

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but having a conversation with them,

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what they were asking for and what they actually wanted were

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two different things.

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And in my head all the time,

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I'm going,

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what's the story here.

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And so as we dug into their story,

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we started to understand their requirements a lot better.

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And now we're like,

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okay, actually,

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what you thought you wanted is this,

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but what you really want is this.

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And that actually opened the door to a whole fascinating conversation

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that we would never have had had.

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I have just not asked that question.

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That makes so much sense.

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And it actually brings the end result that will actually move

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them forward.

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Absolutely just brings to mind to me that so often we

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think we know what we're needing,

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but we're not connecting it with the right result.

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I mean,

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that's a place we may even,

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I'm not going to say waste money,

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but not get the intent that we have put an investment

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in because we really got to make sure that the connection

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is right.

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What we're asking for is going to bring the result.

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We're wanting everyone talks story now.

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So I'm sure we're going to get into that a little

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bit. I'm guessing with website development.

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So I'll leave that there for the time being,

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but share with me how you became interested in all of

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online. E-commerce all of that.

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A little path to where you are today,

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please. A little bit,

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a little path,

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a little path.

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Well, to be honest with you.

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So like most people,

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I kind of ended up here by accident.

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It was not by design and it was just a really

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unique opportunity presented itself to me back in 1998,

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I was working for another guy and a friend of mine

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wanted a website for his church.

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Actually he came and said,

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listen, I need a website.

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I've heard of these things called websites.

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Can you build one?

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I'm like,

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I have no idea how to do that.

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But if you buy the software,

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I'll figure it out.

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And so that started a journey into the digital space,

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just off the back of that conversation,

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which has been crazy.

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So I've been involved specifically in e-commerce since 2002,

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we launched our first e-commerce website back then this whole idea

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of being able to make money while I was asleep,

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really intrigued me.

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And so we got into e-commerce as early as 2002,

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I set up my first business then and actually sold it

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within six months.

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It was doing so well.

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We sold it to the suppliers was buying products from funnily

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enough. And since then,

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we've sort of set up multiple businesses.

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Most of which,

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as you quite rightly pointed out in the introduction have failed,

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but we learned something from every failure don't we sort of

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carry on and here I am all these years later,

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almost 20 years later,

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still in e-commerce and living every minute of it.

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Well, you must have from the very beginning to keep going,

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cause way back then it was a much harder task than

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I think maybe it is today.

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You have so many more tools that you can just enhance

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the websites with.

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I'm thinking.

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Yeah. I mean,

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in some respects,

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yes. Back then,

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I mean,

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this is code,

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right? Yeah,

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exactly. I had to develop and design the whole thing and

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I'm not what you'd call a natural coder.

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In fact,

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we have a whole development team now that works for us

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and none of them will let me loose on the code.

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It's a very,

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very different place right now.

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So in one sense,

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it was trickier,

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but of course the competition was a lot less back then.

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Oh, good point.

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Yeah. It was a lot easier to get a sale.

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It was a lot easier to get number one on Google.

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It was gentlemen and these things have got progressively harder as

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you journey through the whole thing.

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It's, you know,

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swings and roundabouts.

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I am.

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So with you on coding,

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I took a coding class in college and it was back

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when you were still doing the card decks for coding.

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I dropped it.

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It's the only class only thing I think I've ever said,

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not for me,

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not happening.

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I decided to take something different.

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Yeah. Yeah.

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I can't blame you.

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I've not done coding for years.

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And I'm just like,

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there's no way I see this stuff now.

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And I'm like,

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it's just insane.

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I'm sure that gives you a base of knowledge and a

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reference point that a lot of people who are just starting

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now building e-commerce sites wouldn't have.

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Yeah, it does.

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And what it does,

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I think more than anything is it gives you the ability

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not to be phased by the conversation.

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And what I mean by that is when you talk to

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a developer,

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they like to use language,

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which just is confusing.

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Right? And they like to use acronyms and letters and stuff

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to try and describe what's possible.

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The thing that I'm grateful for is I have the ability

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to be able to interpret that into actual,

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real modern day,

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everyday language that people can understand.

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Total sense.

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Let's dive into this a little bit in terms of relating

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to our listeners here this past year,

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it has become very evident that if we haven't had a

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website, we needed one and lots of crafters who were out

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doing craft shows because that is the way they always sold

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face to face with booths.

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Every single weekend,

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that was their life.

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All of a sudden were shut down and maybe threw up

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a website really quickly.

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We also have people who are listening,

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who have a website up,

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but it's not really performing for them because the products are

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sitting there.

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Why isn't anybody coming in by,

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you know,

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all these different things.

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If someone were coming to you for the first time to

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the point of they know they need a website,

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obviously. Right.

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But what's that first conversation you would have with them.

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Oh geez.

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Very good question.

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So there's six elements of e-commerce that you have to think

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about. And so whenever someone comes to me,

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I always start with the first one and this is every

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conversation I have.

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And that is,

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tell me about your product.

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Every good e-commerce business starts with a product that people want

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to buy.

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Now, if you've got somebody who is going around craft in

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stores and is making a pretty good living,

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going to these sort of shows and present in their craft

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and people love it and they buy it.

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Well, it tells me you've actually got a product that people

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will want to buy.

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The question you've got to ask,

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is there a big enough demand for this online?

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Yes or no?

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Right? Because you can have the most beautiful website in the

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world and all the traffic in the world.

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But if nobody wants to buy your product,

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it's not going to help you.

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I've seen really bad looking websites perform exceptionally well because they

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had really good products.

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Does that make sense?

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It makes complete sense.

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Yeah. Yeah.

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So the first thing you've got to get,

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right. And it's the first mistake everybody makes.

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Everybody's like,

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I've got to get my website looking pretty and beautiful.

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What you've got to do is make sure you have a

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product that people want to buy fundamentally.

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And so I see it all the time.

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I see people there's a big phase a few years ago

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where people would go to AliExpress or similar sites in China

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and they would buy or they'd find products like sunglasses.

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Do you know what I mean?

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Cheap sunglasses for like a couple of bucks.

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They put up a website,

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they'd put the sunglasses on there and sell them for 20

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bucks. But they'd get drop-shipped from China.

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So that the company in China would send them out.

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Once the sale had been made and everybody thought this was

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going to be the fast way to make profit.

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But of course,

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nobody wanted to buy the product.

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Why would I want to buy those sunglasses for $15?

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There was nothing distinctive about the products.

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There's nothing out of the ordinary about them.

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So they didn't want to buy them.

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Oh my gosh,

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you and I are on the exact same wavelength.

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Do you know?

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I have a course that helps someone validate if their product

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can actually be monetized.

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Well, there you go.

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Go do that course then would be my first coming.

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Yeah, take my course.

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And it's called start with confidence and virtually what it does.

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I mean,

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as makers,

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which is mostly what our listeners are doing is they're making

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their product.

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Of course they love it,

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or they wouldn't be making it and friends and family buy

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because they want to be supportive.

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But when you start going out to a general audience who

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it's true marketability or not like either people are really going

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to like it,

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or they're not without any emotional connection to you,

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that's where you have to start.

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So I am so right in line.

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And I will say also to people because some people might

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be right now saying,

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Oh my gosh,

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like, how am I even going to know?

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Because maybe that's the reason why no one's buying.

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It could be a reason.

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It's what you just started with.

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But there are also ways to tweak your product.

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It doesn't mean like,

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okay, no,

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one's buying my blank,

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whatever it is,

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you may just need to tweak it,

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adjust it.

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There may just be something that needs a little bit of

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refining where then becomes attractive to a market.

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Exactly love that.

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But most people don't talk about that.

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That's fundamental.

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And I agree totally with you,

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your friends will buy it.

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Your mom will buy every last one of you because she's

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your mum.

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Right. And that's what moms do.

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But I always have this saying,

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your mom is not the best person to go for to

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get business advice.

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Right. She's just not,

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she loves you too much to see the actual reality of

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what's going on.

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And so I think you're right.

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Spending the time figuring out,

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coming back to what's the story,

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what's the story for my customer?

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What is it that they actually want figuring that out and

Speaker:

spending the time in the early doors to make sure your

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product is right,

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is going to save you so much.

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Heartache later down the line.

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That's a really good point that you sat and it was

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a little subtle.

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So I want to underline it too.

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You were saying,

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what's the story for your customer?

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So I'm thinking you want two stories.

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You want your story of why you started,

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but you also want the story of why it's a benefit

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for your cost of R so both sides.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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And here's the thing sort of getting into story when it

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comes to your customers,

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they are interested in your story,

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but they don't really care about it.

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They care deeply about their story.

Speaker:

So this is why it's super important for you to understand

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the whole situation from their point of view,

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put yourself in their shoes,

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sit on their side of the table.

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You know,

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all these sort of cliched sayings that we have.

Speaker:

But once you understand their story,

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you can present your product or your service in such a

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way that totally resonates and connects with them.

Speaker:

So if I was just starting out,

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I don't have any customers yet.

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How do I know their story?

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It's another great question.

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So if you've been going around craft fairs,

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you will know what their stories are.

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I mean,

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this is where this is beautiful source of information.

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You just ask them,

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you talk to them,

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you get to know people and find out what was going

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on. But this is where I think you have to do

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the time.

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You've got to do the legwork in research.

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So just going around the internet,

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looking at similar products,

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what are people saying?

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What are they putting in reviews on other people's websites?

Speaker:

So if I'm doing crafts and I'm selling a particular product,

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I am going to go to a sites like Etsy and

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find out what other products which are on there are similar

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to mine.

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I'm going to look at the information.

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What kind of photographs have they done?

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How many reviews have they got?

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What are the people saying in the reviews,

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both the five star ones and the one star ones.

Speaker:

What are some of the language which is coming out that

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I can understand and I can pick up on.

Speaker:

And by doing that,

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just that simple thing alone,

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just from reading reviews,

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you'll start to build up a real good picture of your

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customer story.

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So reviews of customers who are saying,

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they love the product,

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what words are they using?

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What is the reason they're saying?

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Why they love the product?

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So the product specific,

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not just like fast delivery and things like that.

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Yeah, Absolutely.

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Like, you'll hear things like,

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I love the way this feels in my hand or this

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smells fantastic.

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Or it reminds me of when I was back in high

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school or gentlemen,

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there's going to be this sort of emotive language,

Speaker:

which is sort of getting the surface and you can start

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to pick it out and go.

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That's really interesting.

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Why would they say that?

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Then you start to delve and dig a little bit deeper,

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but don't just do it on the people that give the

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five star reviews,

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look at the complaints as well,

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because in the complaints and the bad reviews,

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you're going to find out what's missing.

Speaker:

So one writes a bad review because it smells awful.

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Right? Okay.

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Well, that's something that's missing is if I'm going to do

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this product,

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I need to make sure that it has a really good

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smell because obviously a lot of people are complaining about this,

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Right? It's a little hole for you to slip into and

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fill the void.

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Absolutely absolute,

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positively loosely.

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Yeah. Yeah.

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You know,

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I'm feeling like this would be a good exercise for all

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of us to do from time to time,

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go in and just look around and see,

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because it's great wording for social media posts,

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ads, website,

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copy, all of that.

Speaker:

You've hit the nail right on the head there.

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So, because I run my own e-commerce businesses,

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right? And so one of the things that I do on

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a regular basis is I will go and visit my competitor's

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websites. And I'll go and look at the reviews that people

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are saying.

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And I want to look through the comments,

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find out what's present,

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what's missing.

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What can I use?

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What can I capitalize on?

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What can I take advantage of?

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What's going to give me the edge from those reviews.

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And I love what you just said about social media and

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about content,

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because this is a big issue.

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Isn't it?

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A lot of people saying,

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I don't know what to put up on my website.

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I don't know how to write about it.

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You write about it in a way that resonates with your

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customer story.

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So if they're writing things like this smells divine,

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then actually on my website,

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under the product,

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I would have a heading,

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this smells divine with a photograph of someone smelling it and

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feeling content.

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I'd have a paragraph of text about how it smells describing

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it because that's obviously important for that particular product.

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Oh, that's so valuable.

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Thank you.

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This has been a great conversation about that.

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And we're only just beginning,

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but that shows to your point that a lot of the

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early work,

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if you put the time in everything,

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then starts to fall in place.

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As you move forward,

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It drives everything to be honest with you.

Speaker:

So once you understand the product and you've done that research,

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you've gone,

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you've looked at the reviews.

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You're starting to understand the customer story.

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You can use words like persona or avatar,

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and you're starting to build up this kind of image of

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the potential customers and what they want.

Speaker:

That point.

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You can then move on to the next stage,

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which is to think about the website,

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but you can understand why we start where we start,

Speaker:

because if you don't know that information or your whole website

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could be entirely wrong in the way that it's built in

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the way that it sort of flows and the way that

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it communicates and connects.

Speaker:

But because you know your customer,

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you know,

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what's important to them.

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Well then actually you can go to another website,

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needs to function like this and needs to kind of look

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like this.

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So if my is a 35 year old married lady,

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then that's going to look a certain way.

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Then if I'm aiming a man in their twenties,

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do you see what I mean?

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So now I'm starting to gather this information and I'm kind

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of bringing this forward and going,

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okay, this is going to help me determine the next phase,

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which is the website,

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but you can't jump into the website until you've done that

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first part.

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Right? Right.

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So we're talking here about the aesthetics of the website.

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So the colors,

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the fonts,

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the wording,

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the images,

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all of that needs to align with what you've learned,

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who your customer is and what they care about.

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Exactly. Right?

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Yeah. That's exactly right.

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Okay. A big question that comes up and I think this

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is appropriate to ask right here is I hear from a

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lot of people that they get stuck about all the different

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platforms that are available.

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Sure. So we're talking product based businesses.

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Perhaps we could talk about several of the options that are

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available. Absolutely sure.

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Are there any specific platforms you want to cover High is

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my all-time favorite.

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I have two different websites.

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One's on Shopify and one's a WordPress site for the podcast

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and blog articles and all of that.

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I'm using both of those platforms.

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I don't think right now we need to talk about things

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like Etsy or any of that,

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because that's not really a platform that you own.

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Yeah. So I think we go with things that are created

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that are your own platforms.

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I know a lot of people have been on Wix.

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I mean,

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there's so many platforms out there,

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so can you kind of help us figure out what would

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be best or what we should be looking for in a

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platform? Absolutely.

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So I think,

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again, the answer to this question lies in what's your customer

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going to want,

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right? There's two ways you can approach it.

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You can look at platforms and go,

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which one do I like?

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Or you can look at platforms and go,

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which one's going to work best for my customer.

Speaker:

And if you can find the answer to the second question,

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it's much,

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much better because you can learn just about any platform.

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If you put the time and energy in that said,

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Shopify is a brilliant platform.

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I've used it many times,

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my own e-commerce businesses in the past years ago,

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I would always use a Shopify site.

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I would set it up.

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It was quick,

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it was easy.

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And I could test relatively inexpensively whether or not that website

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was going to work and whether or not it was going

Speaker:

to resonate with the customer.

Speaker:

They have a lot of plugins,

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which you can buy,

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which enables you to sort of adapt the site to how

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you want it.

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I remember doing a website,

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we call it cocoa box.

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It never really took off,

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but this is one of my failures.

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I suppose.

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Coco box was an interesting website.

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We wanted to do this sort of website where you could

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subscribe to chocolate and we would send you chocolate once a

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month. But we sold the idea to men to buy on

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behalf of their partners.

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If that makes sense.

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So this would be a gift that would arrived in the

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mail. Like once a month,

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beautifully wrapped for your lady friend.

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And inside there,

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we would also put like her as well as a chocolate,

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we put like a little card saying,

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use this code,

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like a voucher,

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use this card anytime.

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And we will go on a walk in the rain,

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in our Wellington boots or something like that.

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You know what I mean?

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It was,

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they were kind of quirky little days.

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Yeah, it was great.

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And I think it was probably a bit ahead of its

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time. But what I wanted to do was to test whether

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or not this was going to work.

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So the first thing I did was we put it on

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Shopify. We shot a video,

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we put the video up and we put the site up

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on Shopify and I needed a plugin,

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which enabled me to do that subscription element of it.

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And Shopify was great because there's a whole bunch of options

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in terms of plugins that I could just drop and make

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work. So I do like Shopify,

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it's not great if you're doing international markets,

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I don't think,

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and it's not particularly flexible.

Speaker:

I imagine for the majority of people doing craft though,

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flexibility is not really what you need.

Speaker:

And Shopify would be a good out of the box solution,

Speaker:

especially if you're just starting out.

Speaker:

I know you say it's easy to learn,

Speaker:

but people who aren't really tech savvy and don't have the

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time quite honestly,

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to learn something like that.

Speaker:

Like they're certainly not going to go and start from scratch

Speaker:

and build a WordPress website themselves.

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They would have to hire out,

Speaker:

but Shopify could be a good platform for that type of

Speaker:

person who wants something professional.

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They have the themes.

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So I call it a template driven website.

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I don't know if you'd agree with me.

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Yeah. I mean,

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there is some flexibility,

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but you can go in and do this yourself on Shopify

Speaker:

if you wanted to.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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You can.

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And that's some of the raving benefits of Shopify.

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I mean,

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coming back to WordPress and Wix,

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I would never use them for e-commerce.

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I just wouldn't.

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I wouldn't go there.

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I would just scratch them straight off your list.

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I think I would look at Shopify.

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I would look at platform called Squarespace.

Speaker:

I think those templates are actually really quite nice.

Speaker:

And I would look at those too.

Speaker:

We have our own platform.

Speaker:

Now. I kinda cause we wrote our re all the originally

Speaker:

commerce websites.

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We've developed our own platform over the last 20 years.

Speaker:

And so it was great if it was a super advanced

Speaker:

website, but now actually we've developed a start-up version.

Speaker:

And so whenever I started an e-commerce business,

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I use a platform called curious digital.

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And that's also great.

Speaker:

There are pros and cons to any of these things.

Speaker:

I think my advice to you would be simply this right.

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Go to Shopify,

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go to Squarespace and just sign up for the free trials,

Speaker:

have a play,

Speaker:

see what works for you,

Speaker:

but also remember this,

Speaker:

right? You've got to do,

Speaker:

make it work for your customers.

Speaker:

So go and find out how this could work for your

Speaker:

customer. So if your customer's going to need a lot of

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video on the website,

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can your website platform do that right?

Speaker:

Will Shopify do that?

Speaker:

Will Squarespace do that?

Speaker:

Have a look at,

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have a play,

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see what's required.

Speaker:

And then you can make some decisions.

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Yeah, I like that.

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I've been telling people because they get so overwhelmed that before

Speaker:

you even go and look at anything,

Speaker:

make your list kind of like a shopping list of what

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you need.

Speaker:

You obviously need to have a place where you can show

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your products.

Speaker:

You need a shopping cart,

Speaker:

so people can buy.

Speaker:

You probably want backend analytics that are going to tell you

Speaker:

the story to see the,

Speaker:

you can adjust video,

Speaker:

like you just said,

Speaker:

so have a few of the make or break.

Speaker:

I must have things that you need.

Speaker:

And then go look at the websites and see how well

Speaker:

they match up with your list.

Speaker:

So that's what I've been telling people,

Speaker:

but I'm starting to feel like now all these platforms have

Speaker:

all these things,

Speaker:

is that right?

Speaker:

Yes. If we go with the Pareto principle that if you

Speaker:

take something like Shopify,

Speaker:

it's going to have pretty much everything that you need,

Speaker:

or there's going to be a way to expand it.

Speaker:

If you're starting out your business,

Speaker:

right. It's great for those business ups.

Speaker:

It really is at the speed at which it works is

Speaker:

great. I think that there are some issues around it.

Speaker:

And this is where I like your idea of the checklist.

Speaker:

Is it going to do what your checklist needs it to

Speaker:

do? Yes or no.

Speaker:

You've got to build that out.

Speaker:

And that checklist you will build by looking I think,

Speaker:

at your competitors websites.

Speaker:

So you can look at social media.

Speaker:

For example,

Speaker:

if I had a competitor,

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I would go to their Facebook profile and I would see

Speaker:

what all the customer complaints are saying on that profile because

Speaker:

you'll find out very quickly.

Speaker:

Oh, your website's hard to use on a mobile device.

Speaker:

Well, okay.

Speaker:

So I need to make sure that my website works well

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on a mobile.

Speaker:

Okay, brilliant.

Speaker:

So when I come to look at a template or when

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I look,

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come to look at Shopify,

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does this work well on a mobile?

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Yes or no.

Speaker:

That's what I need to know if the answer's no then,

Speaker:

okay, I'm onto the next one.

Speaker:

What's going to work.

Speaker:

And so having your checklist is super important.

Speaker:

Let your customer research drive that checklist is my advice.

Speaker:

We're not going to get into how you build and develop

Speaker:

a whole website.

Speaker:

That would Be a long and boring podcast.

Speaker:

But I like what you're talking about.

Speaker:

Go to websites that you already like and see how they're

Speaker:

put together.

Speaker:

Now you want it to be a product based site,

Speaker:

but see how the flow is.

Speaker:

You can take not to copy,

Speaker:

but to inspire.

Speaker:

So that could be helpful versus,

Speaker:

you know,

Speaker:

it's kind of like when people started writing blogs at first,

Speaker:

it's like a blank piece of paper.

Speaker:

What do I do here?

Speaker:

You know,

Speaker:

if you have your checklist and then you've seen a couple

Speaker:

of websites that you just really like the feel and to

Speaker:

your point,

Speaker:

Matt, it aligns with what your customer is needing and wanting.

Speaker:

So it's all in sync.

Speaker:

Then you can kind of use that as a guideline of

Speaker:

what you'd like to do on your own.

Speaker:

Exactly. Okay.

Speaker:

So we've got our website up.

Speaker:

I do have one quick question though.

Speaker:

Products versus service-based businesses.

Speaker:

Yep. You know how a lot of product based businesses,

Speaker:

I don't know if this is right or wrong.

Speaker:

So I'm just putting an image out there.

Speaker:

They have their products right away on the first page.

Speaker:

Like almost their whole product inventory just lined up right there

Speaker:

versus what you see more often in service-based where they take

Speaker:

you on a little bit of a journey about what the

Speaker:

product is not too much.

Speaker:

And then they maybe put several of the best selling products

Speaker:

on that home page.

Speaker:

What's your feeling about those two different approaches?

Speaker:

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker:

I think there's a place for both,

Speaker:

but again,

Speaker:

I think if I bring it back to what's the story

Speaker:

for my customer.

Speaker:

Okay. So if someone's coming to my website and my homepage

Speaker:

and I'm just starting out,

Speaker:

the chances are,

Speaker:

they don't know who I am.

Speaker:

They don't know anything about me,

Speaker:

the company,

Speaker:

they maybe even don't know a whole great deal about the

Speaker:

product. My homepage is going to look very different for that

Speaker:

person than if the person coming to say my e-commerce website

Speaker:

at the moment.

Speaker:

Well, we have a high return visitor rates.

Speaker:

So they're familiar with the website so they know what's going

Speaker:

on. So again,

Speaker:

that kind of drives the information that I'm going to put

Speaker:

on the homepage.

Speaker:

The way to think about your home page is literally a

Speaker:

signpost. Okay?

Speaker:

So whenever I go for walks in the countryside,

Speaker:

you see these wonderful signs in the British Hills where they

Speaker:

say New York,

Speaker:

3,761 miles.

Speaker:

And they point to the direction where New York is,

Speaker:

or London is 186 miles this way.

Speaker:

And they've got these amazing signposts,

Speaker:

which sort of point to Hong Kong and London or wherever.

Speaker:

And in effect,

Speaker:

your homepage is like that signpost in the field is you

Speaker:

want to use that to point your customers or your potential

Speaker:

customers into the right direction.

Speaker:

You don't want people to stay on your homepage.

Speaker:

You want people to get off it and into your website

Speaker:

as quickly as possible.

Speaker:

So the way that you're going to do that is you're

Speaker:

going to think very clearly and carefully about your customer coming

Speaker:

to your website.

Speaker:

What are the big questions in their head?

Speaker:

What do they want to know?

Speaker:

And how do I get them to the answer,

Speaker:

that question as quickly as humanly possible.

Speaker:

So they're going to want to know who are you,

Speaker:

how are you going to change my life?

Speaker:

And what do I need to do next?

Speaker:

Why should I care?

Speaker:

How do I benefit all of these key questions?

Speaker:

And so if you can answer those straight away on your

Speaker:

homepage and point people into the right direction,

Speaker:

that's the key to a successful homepage.

Speaker:

And however you lay that out needs to be based around

Speaker:

your, Got it.

Speaker:

And you need to have some type of image or something

Speaker:

so that people know the second that they get there,

Speaker:

what your product is.

Speaker:

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker:

Now one of this is one of the top tips.

Speaker:

We're going to go into a little bit of the detail,

Speaker:

not too much,

Speaker:

but a little bit.

Speaker:

So the first section of your homepage is called the hero.

Speaker:

Okay. So this is the name we have in the industry

Speaker:

terms is called the hero section and it refers to the

Speaker:

first that people see of your website before scrolling down.

Speaker:

Okay. So without having to scroll anywhere that section,

Speaker:

there is the most valuable real estate on your website,

Speaker:

the hero section.

Speaker:

So in that section,

Speaker:

I would suggest that you have a clear image.

Speaker:

Okay. I want to say clear,

Speaker:

I mean,

Speaker:

good resolution,

Speaker:

not dodgy resolution,

Speaker:

but a good,

Speaker:

clear image.

Speaker:

That image needs to be of several things.

Speaker:

It could be of your product and make sure it's a

Speaker:

well-taken photo.

Speaker:

And you can do that with most smartphones these days,

Speaker:

but a well-taken photograph or ideally a photograph of your ideal

Speaker:

customer, your avatar,

Speaker:

the person that's typically going to buy from you.

Speaker:

So if I go back to my example,

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if the person come into my website is typically going to

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be 35 year old women,

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then I want to make sure that in my hero,

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I've got a 35 year old woman holding or using my

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product in a way that makes them happy.

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Right? So you instantly convey that in your hero.

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So you've got the image,

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you need a headline,

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right? You need a heading and that heading needs to convey

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all of this information,

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right? So we have this formula,

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if you like that,

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I think most people can use on their website,

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which it goes like this.

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Okay. So the first part is verb.

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The second is your object.

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And the third part is your sexiness.

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Okay. What I mean by that is let's take Netflix as

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an example.

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I think they're a classic example of doing this really well.

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Their headline for the longest time,

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they had a family on the couch.

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So that was their hero image,

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right? They were aiming at families watching film together,

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doing family time.

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You know,

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all the things that we wish we could do as families,

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that was our image.

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And then you went in and it said,

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watch, which is the verb TV,

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which is the object.

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And the sexiness was anytime,

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anywhere. And that's how they grew their business massively just with

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that simple headline.

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So if you use that formula,

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if you're making handmade toys,

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for example,

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watch your grandchild's face,

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spring up with delight.

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So you've got watch,

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which is a verb.

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Your grandchild is the object.

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And then the sex part,

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what's going to happen as a result,

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just spring up with joy and delight or something like that.

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Well, that instantly tells everybody on your website,

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what that,

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what you're here for.

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Okay. So you've got your heading.

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You then need a subtitle,

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which just says,

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what's your grandchild's face lighter with delight.

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So petting handmade toys,

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which are guaranteed to bring joy to your prized grandchildren or

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something like that.

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So now the subtitle tells them exactly what it is that

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we do on the website.

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And then you just have a button which says shop now

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and another one next to it,

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which says,

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find out more.

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And that is by far the most powerful hero section you

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can have on a website Because then it drives them in

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one way or another.

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And it's not too much,

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like none of what you just said is a whole lot

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of words,

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which is another thing that I'll say people scan now days,

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right? With whatever you have,

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whether it's an email or a website,

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people like to scan and do something next.

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And are you saying Matt,

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when you say you want people to get off the homepage

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and dive deeper as quickly as possible,

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is that kind of like an unconscious commitment to the site

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to keep learning?

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Yeah, it is.

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And you've got to think of everything you want a customer

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to do,

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right? So if someone's on your website,

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the very first thing you want them to do is to

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click onto another page.

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You're holding their hands,

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you're taking them on a journey and that journey starts with,

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they've opened up my web page.

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Now I want them to go to another one because it's

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like, they're starting to say subtle.

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Yes. There's,

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I'm a bit interested.

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It's like when they come to your store,

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they pick it up,

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they start to touch it.

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They're looking around the different products so that they're on this

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journey. And that very first click is so,

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so critical.

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So important.

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So what about website?

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And we're just being honest here,

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right? What about websites that have their products on that homepage?

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And the next thing is buy now.

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So that's the products and the buy button already right on

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that homepage.

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This conversation will continue right after a short break to hear

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Yeah. Which is,

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I think that's fine.

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Further on down your homepage.

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So you've got to scroll to them.

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But I would say that actually,

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do people know enough about your products?

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Do people have enough confidence in you to be able to

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click that buy now button straight from the homepage?

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Or do we need to take them on a bit of

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a journey?

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Now, if you go to my e-commerce websites,

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then you will see products on the homepage.

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But bearing in mind,

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a lot of people come into my website are returning visitors.

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So what does a returning visitor one where they want to

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get to the product they want to buy as soon as

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humanly possible.

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And they want to buy it as quick as they can

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and get out of that,

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right? They don't want to mess about it's a convenience thing.

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So by putting my products on the homepage,

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I make it convenient for my returning customers.

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If I have unique products or one-off products or crafted products

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that actually people buy as a one off rather than a

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repeating gift,

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while I'm much more interested in taking them on a specific

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journey, which is like,

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now I need to give you the confidence to buy this

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product that you're actually making the right choice to buy this

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from me.

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Well, you don't do that just by shoving the product on

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the page and go and buy.

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Now there has to be something else beyond that.

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Okay. So I'm going to share with you,

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I'm going to try to verbalize with you what one of

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my websites looks like.

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So this is my Shopify website and we have people coming

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who are brand new.

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They are looking for the product,

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give as listeners.

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This is the ribbon print company.com

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website. On that site.

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We sell printers that small business owners can use to create

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their own custom printed ribbon.

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So when people come to the website,

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we have both people who are already our customers who want

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to buy product because it,

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they need to continually get supplies for their printers.

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Or we'll have people come to the website who are searching

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and they found us and they want to know more.

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So they are first time buyers.

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The way we're set up is when someone comes to the

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right on the top,

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there's a shop now button.

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So it accommodates all our current customers because they can then

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go directly to where they need to go to be shopping,

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to just replenish what they need.

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But then we start the journey a little bit about,

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we show the printers,

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we talk about it a little bit,

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but then we do like midway through.

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Are you an existing business who might want to add the

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printer to your business?

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Or are you just starting out in business?

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And those are download documents that show how the printer could

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be helpful for them.

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Yeah. So I'm trying to accomplish two things at once because

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I truly have two types of visitors all the time to

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the website.

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Critique that for me,

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if you would,

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what do you think of that?

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Yeah. Well,

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I'm actually looking at your website now.

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Oh no.

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Now I'm nervous.

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Yeah. I'd almost say to you say,

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well, listen,

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listen, how many people come to your website?

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Do you think are first time visitors,

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realistically, do you think it's a significant proportion,

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maybe 70,

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80%? Or do you think it's like maybe 2030?

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And it's just,

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most of the people coming back are return visitors.

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I'm going to say it's probably 60,

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40 to be really honest.

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Okay. So 60% of the people coming to your website are

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new people Are returning or returning.

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So they're returning.

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Okay. So they're returning people what you want to do.

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I think in your hero section,

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cause I'm looking at your hero now and I have to

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be honest with you until you told me what it is

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that you did.

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I didn't understand that from your hero image,

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I would look at your hero image and go,

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how can I make it really obvious?

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And for me,

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what you should do on your website honestly,

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is have instead of an image as the background you'll have

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seen him on websites,

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you know,

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that sort of moving video,

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scrolling video,

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or just a true video or just a video background,

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it doesn't play any sound.

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It's just a background video.

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And I think you could do some real simple shots,

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sort of showing a printer,

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printing stuff off,

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tying it.

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You could show the whole journey just in that video,

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just within sight of like 10 seconds,

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somebody designing something on a computer,

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the printer printing the ribbon coming out and then them tying

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the gift with that.

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And then finally the final scene will be them giving that

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gift to somebody as a gift.

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And then they're smiling,

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right? So from beginning to end,

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I've gone from designed to giving probably in about six or

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seven seconds.

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I've shown that journey,

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right? That for me would be super powerful because what you're

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doing in your hero section is your conveying the story of

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how you can help the person coming that is new.

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You've told them just an imagery alone,

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how you're going to help them in the journey.

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Bearing in mind,

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the printer is just a small part of that.

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Six or seven second clip.

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Right? Do you see what I mean?

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You've put it in the customer story.

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Okay. The bit that the customer is interested in is the

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fact that they can design.

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They can print and it's all done relatively easy,

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but it's the smile.

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It's the gift that person at the end,

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getting it and smiling.

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That's what they're ultimately buying from you.

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Right? They're buying from the customers who would be buying the

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printer. Not for me,

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yes. Okay.

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Because for me,

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they're buying the printer.

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They're buying the smiling customer at the end.

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Yes. Okay.

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That's great feedback.

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I don't want to turn this into a coaching session.

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No, no,

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no. Not at all,

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but that's what I would do.

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And then in that top section,

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I would actually put,

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you know,

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where you've got your books.

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You want to start a business or you're thinking about adding

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customization to your existing business.

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I wouldn't make those scrollable.

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I would put those in the hero.

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Oh, interesting.

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Okay. I Would put them much higher up on the page

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so that when someone comes to the website instantly,

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they can see how you can help them.

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Are you looking to start a business or you're looking to

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do this?

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Here's a free download show.

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What I mean?

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And we're drawing people in.

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Okay. Wonderful.

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Well, thank you.

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I have some work to do so give his listeners,

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but this is the type of analysis and thought process.

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Matt has just taken me through a new way of thinking

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about people who are approaching the website.

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So you can replicate that as you are,

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re-looking at your website or creating your own from scratch.

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All right.

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I do have another question for you.

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I have often heard that the about us page is the

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most frequented page on a website,

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but I heard that probably seven years ago.

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Is that still current information?

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Yes, it is.

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And it will be especially true.

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If you come across on the website as a small company,

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it's not necessarily the most visited.

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We always say it's the second most visited because your homepage

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technically will be your most visited page on the website.

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But your about page will definitely be in your top five.

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It is one of the most significant pages on your website.

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So you have to do a really good job with your

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about page.

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And this is where I see so many people make a

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mistake. It's just literally a paragraph like Jane was working from

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home and decided that she was going to start making belts

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for a living.

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And before you know it,

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she sold one tour on color.

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Now she's in a full-time business.

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Jane is a working mom living in Michigan and it's like

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three lines.

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And like,

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everyone's like,

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well, who cares?

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I genuinely,

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and it's no disrespect to Jane,

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but who cares?

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Why do I care about that?

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So again,

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coming from your customer's point of view,

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what is it about your story?

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That's going to help them buy.

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They want to know about you.

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They want that personalization.

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They want to know your story,

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but they want to know it in a way that makes

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them get to know you.

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They want to see images.

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I remember a few years ago we were looking at buying

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some lighting for our office and Michelle,

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one of the ladies that works for me,

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she goes,

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Oh, I found the website.

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We need to buy it from.

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And I'm like,

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why did you choose that website over every other website,

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which sells lighting.

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And you know what the answer was?

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The answer was simple because on the about page,

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there was a picture of their family with the dog.

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And that was it.

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That was the reason she purchased.

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I love that.

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Well, I think really this is significant,

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as you said,

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because all of the people who are listening are creating their

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own product.

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They're the soul behind the business.

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So to tell the story,

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but why it would be interesting for the customer.

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And I go back to your description,

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we should be talking to the customer,

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not third-party.

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Yeah. So it's like you were saying you,

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I started this bit,

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you know how,

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whatever the wording is,

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that's right for the customer,

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but in person to person,

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not third party.

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Yeah, exactly.

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The about us page is the page.

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You get to let loose,

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put your personality on there,

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let it shine.

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Let it come through.

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People, buy people at the end of the day.

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And you're doing crafts.

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You're a small boutique business.

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Be proud of that.

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Right? Don't try and be something that you're not be small,

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be boutique and add your personality to the website because that's

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the one thing nobody else can copy.

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They can copy your products.

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They can copy the designs they could buy from Amazon.

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They could buy from over here,

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but fundamentally,

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no other website can add you to that website.

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Does that make sense?

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Absolutely. This is one of the key ways you're going to

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differentiate is your personality that comes into that website.

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Don't be afraid to put it in there and just let

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it shine and get over the camera.

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Shyness. You take the photos,

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take the self is,

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take the videos,

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just put them on there.

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They don't need to be perfect.

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They just need to be you if you're kind of a

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bit quirky and a bit eccentric,

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but that on the website,

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because people will love that.

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And if they don't love that,

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they'll buy from somebody else and that's okay.

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But the customers that buy from you will become fiercely loyal

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to you because your personality comes through.

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Does that make sense?

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Right. Makes total sense.

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It would be the real authentic you.

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And don't worry about if people are going to like it

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or not,

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because you're going to attract the right people.

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And when you attract the right people,

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they're going to connect with you on a deeper level,

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to your example,

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about a family with the dog.

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Exactly. And probably stay with you longer and be a repeat

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customer. And we all want that versus one-offs for sure.

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Yeah, totally.

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I know.

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Now if we ever think about lighting shows,

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just going to go hang on a minute,

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I'm just going to go to that website with the dog

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over. It's done.

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That's it.

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She's never going to buy a license from any other company

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again, right?

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That's just the way it's going to be.

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And so this is the power of the personality,

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the power of you on the website and just bring in

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that true,

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authentic you over in a way that is engaging to your

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customers. You win people over all day long.

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All right.

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Now, so let's say we've got our website up.

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We did the research early,

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like you said.

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So we feel we have a really good handle on our

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customer. We have set up our website with the hero page,

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the way you say the verb.

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Objective sexiness got all that keyed in our website's up.

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We're so excited.

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We make it go live and we're waiting and we're waiting

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and we're waiting and we're not seeing any sales.

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Yep. The big problem.

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Yeah. So I wish I had,

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you know,

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that phrase,

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if someone just giving me a pound or a dollar,

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every time someone came to me and said,

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I've got a website,

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but it's not making any money.

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How wealthy would I be right now?

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It is the eight old age old prompts.

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And it's funny because when I first started in we're talking,

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going back 2002,

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like I said,

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at the start with our first e-commerce business,

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it was a case of you built it.

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And they came because there weren't that many websites out there,

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it was easy to get found.

Speaker:

It was easy to get discovered.

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But now when you build a website,

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you are operating in such a world of noise.

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That being heard is difficult,

Speaker:

but just being accidentally stumbled across.

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Well, you've got more chance of winning the lottery.

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What I mean,

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because people just don't do that anymore.

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It's a very,

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very different place.

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So we have to get a bit digital savvy to bring

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the right customer to our website.

Speaker:

Because so many times we have this thing,

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which says,

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I've not got anybody come into my website,

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so I need to get traffic and then I'll get sales.

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Well, it's not really a whole lot of research that will

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back that up.

Speaker:

What you've got to get to your website is the right

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traffic, the right customer to come,

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and then they are way more likely to buy,

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right? So how do we attract the right customer to our

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website? That is the million dollar question,

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Right? Traffic.

Speaker:

We'll go back to who you described as your customer in

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the very beginning.

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Exactly. So if you've done your research right at the beginning,

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and you can start to see the power of this.

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Now I'm doing this right at the start that determines who

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you are going to go after.

Speaker:

So I know for example,

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if my ideal customer is my 35 year old mum,

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well, then I need to go with 35 year old moms

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hangout. I need to go and meet with them.

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I need to go and connect with them.

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If I'm going to get really advanced and start doing Facebook

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ads, well,

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I need to target my Facebook ads to 35 year old

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moms. Right?

Speaker:

I don't need to target my Facebook ads to 20 year

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old dads because that just is not my market.

Speaker:

So understanding who your market is,

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is so hypercritical to start to generate the right traffic to

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your website.

Speaker:

Not only does that understanding drive the product,

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not only does it drive the website,

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it drives your traffic.

Speaker:

So you want to get word of your website out everywhere,

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in your opinion,

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if you're out at a physical networking event,

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chambers of commerce meetings,

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because hopefully someday we'll be able to be out with people,

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I guess.

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And your talking with someone,

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should you bring them to your Facebook page or should you

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tell them to go directly to your website?

Speaker:

That's a very good question.

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Well, let's go back to,

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why would I be at chamber of commerce in the first

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place? Because if they're my ideal target market,

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then I'm sending them to my website,

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right? If I'm you at the ribbon company,

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I'm like,

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listen, if you go to my website,

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we've got this free PDF thing,

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which you can download,

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which talks about doing exactly what you needed to do.

Speaker:

Check it out.

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It's free,

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man. It's awesome.

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And able,

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okay, cool.

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So you send them to the website.

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Okay. And I think that's exactly what I would be doing.

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In fact,

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more than that,

Speaker:

I would be saying to the guy that chamber of commerce,

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listen, give me your email and I'll send you the PDF

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book. Right.

Speaker:

So I would take off him his email because you know,

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as well as I do,

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how many times you go,

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Oh, I'll check out that website later.

Speaker:

And then two minutes later,

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you've completely forgot about it because there's so much noise in

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your head with everything else that's going on.

Speaker:

Right. We're all so busy.

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Exactly. So I'd be like,

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no, no,

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no. Give me your email address.

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I'll send that out to you.

Speaker:

And then I'll send them an email saying,

Speaker:

Hey, it was great to see you at the networking event.

Speaker:

Here's that PDF that I mentioned here,

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check it out,

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have a look.

Speaker:

And here's the link to the website.

Speaker:

Be great to talk to you some more.

Speaker:

So you're being a bit more proactive in that conversation,

Speaker:

but fundamentally you go where your customers are hanging out and

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you connect with them.

Speaker:

We started a skincare brand,

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right? So I'm sure many of your listeners have built their

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own beauty products and skincare products.

Speaker:

Okay. So we did that.

Speaker:

We built our own skincare brand and we're like,

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right. How do we get people to buy this product?

Speaker:

Okay. Now,

Speaker:

bearing in mind,

Speaker:

I have probably a distinct advantage in the fact that I've

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got a database of 120,000

Speaker:

customers who have already bought beauty products from me in the

Speaker:

past. Okay.

Speaker:

So I appreciate it.

Speaker:

I had a slight advantage,

Speaker:

but what we did,

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which was because I wanted to do this thing,

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I want to set a challenge.

Speaker:

How do we build traffic?

Speaker:

Let's assume we were to start it again from scratch.

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How do we do it?

Speaker:

How do we start to build it up?

Speaker:

Here's what we did.

Speaker:

We went on to Twitter and we had a search on

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Twitter, which says anybody that mentions these keywords,

Speaker:

we want to see their tweets.

Speaker:

And we've just refreshed that search every like hour to bring

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up who was talking about it.

Speaker:

So we were looking for people on Twitter who would get

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up and go,

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Oh, my skin is just lucking.

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So dull and boring today.

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Ah, do you know what I mean?

Speaker:

Those kinds of things that they put out on Twitter and

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you can do the same on Instagram.

Speaker:

You can do the same on Facebook.

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Can you just do these searches?

Speaker:

And then anybody that wrote that on Twitter,

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we instantly sent them a message back going,

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Oh, we know what you mean.

Speaker:

Listen, we think we've got some products that's going to really

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help you.

Speaker:

Can I send you some free samples of this product is

Speaker:

specifically designed to help deal with dull looking skin.

Speaker:

If you're interested,

Speaker:

just send me your address as a direct message and I'll

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get some stuff sent out.

Speaker:

Or if you're interested,

Speaker:

just hit this link,

Speaker:

put in this unique code and we'll send it all out

Speaker:

to you.

Speaker:

Free of charge.

Speaker:

Just put your name and address and email in there and

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we'll send it out.

Speaker:

No problem.

Speaker:

Let me tell you that was one of the most successful

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campaigns we ever did.

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Just sitting there.

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Literally every person we connected with almost bitter hands-off when we

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said, can we send you some samples to try?

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And you know,

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if you've got a great product,

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they come back and buy it.

Speaker:

So that works Right now.

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I could see where that could be really expensive to do.

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Yeah. You know?

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Cause you can't always send product.

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Did you have like those little sample packets already made up

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so you could literally throw them in like an envelope and

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send them Yeah,

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we did.

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So we had the little samples made up.

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Let's say I don't have the samples.

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What would I do?

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So I go,

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right, well I can't give them samples.

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What can I give them?

Speaker:

I know what I'm going to do.

Speaker:

I'm going to send them a message that says,

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Hey, listen,

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Sarah, sorry to hear.

Speaker:

You've got dual skin thought.

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You'd want to know.

Speaker:

I've got a video on YouTube,

Speaker:

which talks about that exact problem.

Speaker:

Right? I think you'll find it super helpful.

Speaker:

Let me know if you've got any questions.

Speaker:

Okay? You send that message out.

Speaker:

And instead of pointing them to some samples,

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which I agree are costly,

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I can point them to a PDF.

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I can point them to a YouTube video.

Speaker:

They're all very straightforward to do these days.

Speaker:

And I'm just going to do a 20 minute video on

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how to deal with dull skin.

Speaker:

And in that video,

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I'm going to use what my products,

Speaker:

as the demo,

Speaker:

I'm going to talk about the benefits of moisturizers,

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the benefits of exfoliating,

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blah, blah,

Speaker:

blah. I'll do that 10 minute video.

Speaker:

I'll put it on YouTube and then I will start sending

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people to it.

Speaker:

And in that video,

Speaker:

I'll talk about the products.

Speaker:

And if you want to go buy the products,

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go check out.

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Our website has a coupon for 10% off.

Speaker:

Love it.

Speaker:

And give his listeners.

Speaker:

You note that he's not selling right away.

Speaker:

He's going with a message of an offer of something that

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they're needing and looking for.

Speaker:

You could do also how to take care of your jewelry,

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home ingredients.

Speaker:

I don't know what the right words are for cleaning your

Speaker:

jewelry, different things like that,

Speaker:

but something that's valuable then to the customer.

Speaker:

And then Matt,

Speaker:

what you said.

Speaker:

So you're doing this really one by one,

Speaker:

but then what you said is from there,

Speaker:

if you like it,

Speaker:

or you're interested,

Speaker:

let me know.

Speaker:

I'll send you an offer for the product to try and

Speaker:

move them into the product down the line,

Speaker:

but not going from seeing their tweet to trying to sell

Speaker:

them. You want to go see your tweet to giving valuable

Speaker:

information and content.

Speaker:

Exactly. You're like,

Speaker:

okay, I'm starting the journey.

Speaker:

You're starting to understand their story.

Speaker:

They've got a problem right now.

Speaker:

Let's go on.

Speaker:

Can I take you to the next stage of the journey?

Speaker:

Yes or no.

Speaker:

That's all I'm interested in.

Speaker:

So this is stage one.

Speaker:

When you're at stage one and kind of take stage two.

Speaker:

When you're at stage two,

Speaker:

kind of take you to stage three,

Speaker:

or you may have like six or seven stages before someone

Speaker:

actually gets to purchase your product.

Speaker:

That's going to vary on your products and who your customer

Speaker:

is. But understanding there is a journey you do have to

Speaker:

on-ramp people,

Speaker:

especially in the modern world,

Speaker:

people are just tired of being scammed.

Speaker:

And so they're a little bit twitchy.

Speaker:

They're a little bit skeptical of just coming in and buying

Speaker:

something straight away.

Speaker:

I don't do it anymore.

Speaker:

I genuinely don't the first,

Speaker:

before I buy on anybody's website,

Speaker:

to be fair,

Speaker:

I try very hard not to buy an Amazon.

Speaker:

I always try and buy off other people's websites,

Speaker:

but I'm always looking at the about page.

Speaker:

Can I trust this person?

Speaker:

How do I know they're not going to run off with

Speaker:

my credit card details?

Speaker:

Are they going to ship it?

Speaker:

Are they actually based in my country?

Speaker:

Or is it somebody drop shipping from China?

Speaker:

You know what I mean?

Speaker:

All these questions,

Speaker:

which come up in our heads right.

Speaker:

More so now than ever.

Speaker:

Yeah, definitely more so now than ever With everything online.

Speaker:

Yeah, Because we've all been bitten by it,

Speaker:

right? You've all been on Instagram and ads come up for

Speaker:

a product.

Speaker:

You click on it,

Speaker:

you buy it.

Speaker:

And like 12 weeks later,

Speaker:

it's still not there.

Speaker:

You're like what is going on?

Speaker:

And people are becoming more and more skeptical of things like

Speaker:

that. So you've got to understand,

Speaker:

I need to take them on a journey,

Speaker:

define what that journey is going to be and just take

Speaker:

them along.

Speaker:

It Really important point,

Speaker:

Matt, because I think we often think about the customer journey

Speaker:

after they've purchased a product,

Speaker:

but we also need to think of that prospect's journey when

Speaker:

they've just gotten well,

Speaker:

we could have reached out to them to your example,

Speaker:

or they could have landed on the website and asked for

Speaker:

some information,

Speaker:

but where does that journey go from there?

Speaker:

Quick question for you on this.

Speaker:

And I think this has to be the last question I'm

Speaker:

looking at the time here.

Speaker:

How do you manage that back of house?

Speaker:

Cause that sounds super time consuming.

Speaker:

How do we manage the Hocus?

Speaker:

Magenic like this Idea like Twitter or Instagram,

Speaker:

wherever you would identify people who have a need,

Speaker:

they've already voiced a need that your product could help them

Speaker:

with. When you talk about reaching out to them via message

Speaker:

that's one-on-one contact.

Speaker:

So how much time can someone devote to doing that,

Speaker:

to see any results or how do you work that or

Speaker:

have your clients work that back at the house?

Speaker:

Because there's other things to do in the day besides,

Speaker:

I mean,

Speaker:

if you're starting out,

Speaker:

life looks very different.

Speaker:

If you're like me,

Speaker:

you've got a whole marketing team.

Speaker:

It's very,

Speaker:

very different.

Speaker:

But if you're starting out,

Speaker:

there's no reason.

Speaker:

And we've done this with startups.

Speaker:

I love the startup.

Speaker:

I've sat there.

Speaker:

I managed to get out 20 or 30 messages within the

Speaker:

space of like 45 minutes.

Speaker:

So while you're watching TV for now,

Speaker:

you can walk out 45 messages,

Speaker:

no problem.

Speaker:

And I think it's just learning to figure out,

Speaker:

actually, if I'm building,

Speaker:

I need to devote probably an hour or two a day

Speaker:

to start to build my audience.

Speaker:

I need to do that.

Speaker:

So you would go to the craft fair and the beauty

Speaker:

of the craft fair.

Speaker:

The reason you rent the table is because the craft fair

Speaker:

are going to bring in your traffic.

Speaker:

You're now on your own.

Speaker:

It's like you're in that big hall.

Speaker:

It's just you and your table.

Speaker:

How are you going to get people to come into that

Speaker:

big hall?

Speaker:

And you've just got to find ways that work for you

Speaker:

and work for your business.

Speaker:

And for me,

Speaker:

this direct method is a great way to start because it

Speaker:

doesn't require any money.

Speaker:

It just requires you just to start to connect with people

Speaker:

and what's going to happen when you do that.

Speaker:

Guess what?

Speaker:

You're going to start to understand the story of your perspective

Speaker:

customers. Okay.

Speaker:

And even if I think,

Speaker:

you know what I don't want to do,

Speaker:

I don't want to sit there and message people.

Speaker:

Cause that's just not me.

Speaker:

I'm just going to go straight to do Facebook ads.

Speaker:

I'd be like,

Speaker:

well, that's fine.

Speaker:

You could do that.

Speaker:

But if you just spent like a few weeks messaging people,

Speaker:

you would find out so much data and so much information

Speaker:

that when you do do the Facebook ads,

Speaker:

they are going to be so much more effective than if

Speaker:

you don't have that information.

Speaker:

So I think if you're starting out for me for the

Speaker:

first few weeks,

Speaker:

spend at least an hour or two,

Speaker:

just connecting with your potential customers,

Speaker:

wherever they hang out,

Speaker:

whether that's Twitter,

Speaker:

Instagram, Facebook groups,

Speaker:

Facebook, wherever they are just go and start talking to them

Speaker:

and see what information comes up.

Speaker:

You'll be amazed what you'll find out in just two short

Speaker:

weeks. I love that.

Speaker:

And I'm thinking another tip to make this less time consuming

Speaker:

could be.

Speaker:

So you're saying Matt,

Speaker:

like have the journey mapped out.

Speaker:

So you know what you would say,

Speaker:

and you might customize it a little bit based on the

Speaker:

conversation or whatever,

Speaker:

but you can also use that text expander on your phone

Speaker:

so that you don't have to re type out every single

Speaker:

thing every time.

Speaker:

And if you don't know what I'm talking about,

Speaker:

just Google text expander,

Speaker:

if you want and see what I mean.

Speaker:

But virtually what it is is you enter a couple of

Speaker:

symbols on your phone and it will automatically auto-fill whatever you

Speaker:

were going to say.

Speaker:

So anything that's the same over and over again,

Speaker:

you could use that for,

Speaker:

and that would help it not be as time consuming.

Speaker:

The other thing I'm thinking is if you one or two

Speaker:

hours a day,

Speaker:

or what if you said as you advanced and we're talking

Speaker:

with more people,

Speaker:

cause I'm thinking this would compile top of each other because

Speaker:

when you start talking with somebody,

Speaker:

then they're going to respond back.

Speaker:

So you'll need to respond back to them.

Speaker:

So maybe you even say,

Speaker:

you know what,

Speaker:

for the next two months,

Speaker:

I'm going to reach out to five new people a day

Speaker:

and just see where that takes me.

Speaker:

You're very good.

Speaker:

Yeah. Really good.

Speaker:

Yeah. Just set yourself that target and do it and talk

Speaker:

to your customers.

Speaker:

Even if what you're doing is you're saying,

Speaker:

Hey, listen,

Speaker:

you're driving them to a Facebook live.

Speaker:

You know what I mean?

Speaker:

And let's say,

Speaker:

I'm going to do a Facebook live once a week.

Speaker:

Even if no one comes to your Facebook live where you're

Speaker:

talking about the issues that your customers are facing and how

Speaker:

you can help them just get into the practice,

Speaker:

doing it.

Speaker:

And the discipline.

Speaker:

The thing about social media,

Speaker:

the thing about marketing,

Speaker:

the thing about the web is ultimately consistency is your key

Speaker:

weapon, right?

Speaker:

So if you are consistent in whatever it is you do,

Speaker:

ultimately you find a way to break through.

Speaker:

Does that make sense?

Speaker:

You're going to fail.

Speaker:

If you're like,

Speaker:

well, I tried Instagram for a week and that just didn't

Speaker:

work. Or I tried Twitter and that just didn't work.

Speaker:

And it's like,

Speaker:

well, how many tweets did you send?

Speaker:

Well, I sent five and no one come back to me

Speaker:

or the Facebook live thing.

Speaker:

Didn't work.

Speaker:

It's like,

Speaker:

hang on a minute on a startup.

Speaker:

We've been doing Facebook lives every week for the last 12

Speaker:

months. And it's really only in the last,

Speaker:

I would say just before Christmas that we started to get

Speaker:

some really key,

Speaker:

major traction.

Speaker:

That's almost a year after starting now.

Speaker:

There's been a lot of changes during that year.

Speaker:

A lot of things that we've moved and understood as we've

Speaker:

gone along,

Speaker:

but had,

Speaker:

I have stopped after month two,

Speaker:

I wouldn't have the TRIBE for want of a better expression

Speaker:

that I've gotten.

Speaker:

Right. Plus you've built up all that content that you can

Speaker:

reference people back to.

Speaker:

Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker:

Oh my gosh.

Speaker:

This has been wonderful.

Speaker:

So Matt,

Speaker:

do you have like another five hours to write?

Speaker:

Well, I'm going to be conscientious of your time and not

Speaker:

do that to you,

Speaker:

or even ask that of you,

Speaker:

but share a little bit more about what you do,

Speaker:

where people can find you and how you might be able

Speaker:

to help my listeners.

Speaker:

In addition to the conversation that we just had.

Speaker:

If anyone wants to reach out may be great to connect

Speaker:

I'm on Facebook,

Speaker:

Instagram, Twitter,

Speaker:

LinkedIn, they're all there.

Speaker:

The best thing to do would be to head on over

Speaker:

to the website,

Speaker:

Matt edmondson.com.

Speaker:

That's E D M U N D S O N.

Speaker:

Matt edmondson.com.

Speaker:

And you'll find all the links there.

Speaker:

You'll find bits about me.

Speaker:

There's if you want to know more about e-commerce there's the

Speaker:

e-commerce podcast.

Speaker:

We do.

Speaker:

Let me tell you we've got some,

Speaker:

I mean,

Speaker:

some amazing stuff on there,

Speaker:

which is all free to listen to,

Speaker:

which is a beautiful thing.

Speaker:

And then there's the e-commerce course,

Speaker:

if people want to really deep dive into e-commerce,

Speaker:

but that's all on the website.

Speaker:

Just head on over to Matt,

Speaker:

Edmondson dot.

Speaker:

Absolutely fabulous.

Speaker:

Matt, thank you so much for all the information that you've

Speaker:

shared with us.

Speaker:

I think we have enlightened some people of ways they can

Speaker:

upgrade what they're already doing.

Speaker:

Get started if that's the phase that they're in and this

Speaker:

has been absolutely so valuable.

Speaker:

So thank you so much for your time today.

Speaker:

No Worries.

Speaker:

Thank you,

Speaker:

sir. Oh my gosh.

Speaker:

That was great.

Speaker:

I'm so glad we got into the messaging and strategy behind

Speaker:

how your website should look versus the click here,

Speaker:

add this,

Speaker:

but let's face it.

Speaker:

Your website can have all the technical pieces fitting,

Speaker:

just so,

Speaker:

but if it doesn't connect,

Speaker:

when someone comes over,

Speaker:

it's just that over they move on and most likely you'll

Speaker:

never get a second chance.

Speaker:

Matt's talked us through how to avoid this.

Speaker:

Maybe it's worth bookmarking this episode,

Speaker:

just saying.

Speaker:

So we've talked about social media posting content to organically attract

Speaker:

customers. We've talked about your website.

Speaker:

So when someone comes over to buy,

Speaker:

they're attracted in and actually complete the sale next week,

Speaker:

we're going to talk about putting some money behind your efforts.

Speaker:

Tune in to hear more.

Speaker:

Thanks so much for spending time with me today.

Speaker:

If you'd like to show support for the podcast,

Speaker:

please leave a rating and review.

Speaker:

That means so much and helps the show be seen by

Speaker:

more makers.

Speaker:

So it's an excellent way to pay it forward.

Speaker:

It's also best to subscribe.

Speaker:

So episodes automatically download to your phone.

Speaker:

That way you don't miss a thing.

Speaker:

How do you subscribe?

Speaker:

Just pull up gift biz unwrapped on your podcast,

Speaker:

app of choice and tap the subscribe button.

Speaker:

It's that easy and now be safe and well,

Speaker:

and I'll see you next week on the gift biz unwrapped

Speaker:

Podcast. I want to make sure you're familiar with my free

Speaker:

Facebook group called gift is breeze.

Speaker:

It's a place where we all gather and our community to

Speaker:

support each other.

Speaker:

Got a really fun post in there.

Speaker:

That's my favorite of the week.

Speaker:

I have to say where I invite all of you to

Speaker:

share what you're doing to show pictures of your product,

Speaker:

to show what you're working on for the week to get

Speaker:

reactions from other people and just for fun,

Speaker:

because we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody

Speaker:

in the community is making my favorite post every single week,

Speaker:

without doubt.

Speaker:

Wait, what aren't you part of the group already,

Speaker:

if not make sure to jump over to Facebook and search

Speaker:

for the group gift biz breeze don't delay.

1 Comment

  1. Bobi Newler on March 3, 2021 at 7:58 am

    Thank you I found this to be excellent!

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