For the longest time, salespeople were under the impression that they can basically convert anybody. In other words, if a person walked through the door, there is a chance that if the salesperson was skilled enough and knew their craft enough, they can turn that customer into dollars and cents.
Now, we all know that this isn’t true. You can walk into a store for a variety of reasons. Maybe you just like the display, but you really have no intention of buying anything. Maybe a friend brought you. Maybe somebody told you that there’s something interesting going on in the store.
But if you look at all these instances, none of them had the magic ingredient that would translate to a sale. I am, of course, talking about an actual interest in whatever the store is selling. This is where classic salesmanship fails.
And unfortunately, on the internet, marketers are making the same mistake.
They think that traffic is traffic, and regardless of where it comes from, and regardless of the initial context in which they generate traffic, they have a good shot at turning those visitors into sales.
Talk about wasting your time. There is such a thing as pre-qualification. It turns out that this is the key to sales. You must know where people are coming from. Things must be set up in such a way that when people come in, they are predisposed to listening to you, and eventually buying from you.
A lot of this has to do with where they come from. The great thing about the internet is that it’s easier to pre-qualify people.
How?
Well, let’s put it this way: If you are selling baby shoes, where do you think your ideal target traffic would come from? Baby shoes Facebook groups, baby shoes Facebook pages, baby shoes online forums and message boards, and of course, baby shoes hashtags on Instagram.
In other words, when you get traffic from places where people are already talking about topics closely related, or directly related to what you’re selling, your chances of success go up dramatically.
But if you spend all your time and effort just trying to pull random traffic from all over the internet, you’re going to have a tough time on your hands.
A lot of this is interest targeting.
A big chunk of it is also geographic targeting.
Let’s put it this way: If you spend a lot of time promoting your high price tag product in developing countries, you may be able to attract people who really want to buy your product.
The problem is capacity. They are willing to buy, but they are unable to buy because they don’t have the money. So, the key to modern salesmanship, as far as online conversions go, is pre-qualification. They have to come from the right places.
They also must come from places that indicate a high level of preexisting interest in whatever it is you are promoting. These two factors must be present. Otherwise, you’re going to have a tough time converting that traffic into dollars and cents.
At the very least, you are going to be settling for pennies. At the worst, you’re not going to be making any money at all.
To learn how to build an effective system that pre-qualifies and converts your online traffic into big paydays, click here.
