Lessons

Lesson Info

Enticing the Handmade Goods Buyer Into Your World

We've talked about high, right? We know how people confined us and we have tons of ideas now in your workbook for how you're actually going to improve some of those ways that people are going to find you. But the next question after people find you is what do they dio once they're there at your home on your site? Where do they go? What happens? You know, if the first part of the path was them just stepping on the path, the second part is like, what leads them on what moves them closer to you now your goal of your site is really you have two goals. The first one is to turn visitors into buyers so people show up they buy, but not everybody is ready to buy, so the second goal is to just bring them closer and what I mean by closer is closer to being ready to buy. But for most people, getting closer to being ready to buy also means closer to you like they know you, they trust you, they like you, they know at least something more about you and they feel like they can trust you enough to give...

you their money again. We're kind of all strangers on the internet, so until they come a little closer to you, they might not quite be ready. So that's the two things your site is going to dio on dh we're going to focus in this section on if they're not ready to buy how to bring them closer the last section will talk about turning them into buyers but since that's not everybody let's talk about this middle part in fact is this is where most of your marketing activity from day to day comes in once you set up your home your home's good and set up, you can kind of stop thinking about that on a data but day basis once you optimize for people to be able to find you, you'll be reaching out and doing some of those relationship buildings with people in their platforms you're enabling your things to be shared, but most of your marketing day to day activity is going take place in the come closer when you think about how to get people to come closer, you really need to prioritize what it is that you want them to dio what are they going to dio when they come closer because like I said, this is where most of your marketing activity takes place. So this is blog's is newsletters emails pinterest instagram, facebook twitter, so to prioritize which one of those tools to pick you wanna ask which action is most profitable for you on what I'm referring to is the action that the visitor is going to take in your sight so if they're not ready to buy yet what other action could they take that will be most profitable to you in other words, what drives sales and then the next thing they think about is what action is most helpful for them what will actually bring them closer to you what will inform them and make them ready to buy and for this you need to think about what are the questions that prevent them from buying and how can you answer those through your ongoing content? And then the third thing is what builds a strongest relationship over time what leads them to keep coming back to you again and again when we were first talking about the customer path and should you mind I said that I I know that people take a long time on the path and these are the steps they work through so I know what I need people to kind of do that will build that relationship on one of the steps that I didn't even mention is a lot of times I send a weekly lesson that chris mentioned to my email list and I will at the end say you can't reply and tell me about your something whatever that lesson was about tell me about your business and how this applies to your business kind of giving people homework like I'm doing for you now and I get people replying back to me well that built our relationship me sending that email them replying back to me one on one and then we have a conversation I replied all of my e mails so I talk back to them maybe give them some advice say we'll have you thought about it like this and that all builds relationships to get to that point where they feel comfortable investing in something that's kind of intangible like education for businesses intangible so I know that we have to have a lot of points of contact were to build a strong relationship known some of your products you're not going to need that kind of strong relationship, but they'll be something you can dio like for example, you mentioned testimonials that will build a strong relationship, having them click to the testimonial page when they're not ready to click through to buy that's going to build that relationship and they're going toe trust you. Another thing in this section that will lead them to keep coming back to you is having an email newsletter and we're going to get into the details of that in a minute. But if you go to page thirty four in your workbook, I ask you to come up with the priorities for coming closer if coming closer is that in between step where you build relationships first, what do you do right now in your path? If a person isn't ready to buy do they have any other options? Do you have any other way for them to connect to? You get to know you, even if it's about page one your website, if that's all you have, if you do have social media where they can follow you, write down. What are the pieces of this come closer step! And then I remember at the end of the last section, I asked you to think about your own customer path and what actually the pieces of it were so here I want to know what do you know about your last five sales that you had and it's ok, if you haven't had five cells yet, but if your last five cells, how did they engage with you before those cells happened? I'm able to tell you that I connect with people over email because I've actually paid attention to them when I get a sale to say, oh yeah, I know that person we e mailed so you could do the same thing when you get a sale, you can really do. I know them on twitter on facebook, did we connect in some way? Did they follow me on this or that? And that will help you discover not just stock that person, but that will help you discover what actually leads people to take the next step? And then I ask you to think about what you would like them to do. What are your priorities for people coming closer? And then I'd like to hear from you guys what actually are your priorities? Because this will help me shape kind of what we talk about in the class, yeah, question one the second one about how else did they engage? What if, you know, like you're new at the etc shop and they're just random people that, you know, search through and just randomly decided to buy your stuff? Like, what do you know about those people? Not a lot, you know, that they came to you, you know, that your path for them was search by, yeah, that's it until they skipped the come closer step, except for that little bit where they read your description and they saw your photographs so that's, that's all you know and that's ok, because over time you'll have people find you, the more sales you have, the more different channels you'll see people were taking the different paths. So for those people you can't really know, you can see if they're following on twitter you khun searcher, you know? Yeah, see if they have a twitter account linked up with your etc shop and semi stock them that way just to get an idea on what we're talking about is just occasionally looking at where your sales and if you know those people and what you know about him it's not something you need to track constantly every day should not obsess over it. You should not stalk people for the people that are newer tonto had fewer cells it's harder for them, tio yeah, I understand there their customer, especially if they don't back or leave the feedback exactly. So and I always look at this there's kind of two ways to look at this in the first way is a that when we talked about yesterday with your right people like some of it is made up because you're always going to be learning. But if you have customers look atyour riel customers look at the fact that you have but if you don't have the facts, it doesn't mean that you don't need a path for people to come closer it it means that you just don't know yet exactly what people use. So after maybe ten sales, you have a better idea and that's again why this is not about perfection or like having the answer that's why I make this all about your business because I don't have the answer, I can't tell you what will definitely work your customers will tell you you can try a bunch of things and we'll talk about experimentation, but you know, you can't know for sure until you, until you learn about it, you definitely will still do this, even if you don't know what people are doing or people, you don't have any sales yet. You definitely want to think about this step because this will be like I said, more of your marketing activity day today. So, really, what come closer is all about is connecting via content. This is where all of your content writing whether it's, your blogged, your email list, your social media, you're in person connection. This is the part of the path that covers that. The high part was really just getting people to your site and your site, having everything they need. But this is where you're doing stuff day in and day out, you're writing your block, you're writing your email, lessen your being on twitter, we're going to talk about these a little bit in detail. Next let's, talk about connecting the epilogue where does a blogger if it on this customer path and want to get something out of the way? Right away? The question everybody asks, I have to have a blogged no. You absolutely do not have to have a block if you don't do not worry about it this is one way for you to connect with people regularly but we're going to go over what a block it's great at and what it's not great at so you can decide if it's going to work for you or for you to determine if you've been using yours in an effective way for your business and again earlier we talked a little bit about the difference between using it for personal reasons and using it for business reasons I just want to reiterate we're talking here for you want to use it to drive sales in your business that's different than personal journal and journaling in memory keeping and where your blog's fits on the customer path kind of tricky because for a lot of you guys are bloggers your home page so that's like people just meet you they step into your world there's your block they read your block so that blawg post that you write need to be for that person who's just discovering you but also hopefully kind of the point of block says that people come back and read them day after day week after week so that somebody that's a little bit further down the path and they love you so much they're coming back maybe they've subscribed maybe they just have you bookmarked and they come back again and again and so that person wants a little different kind of information they already know who you are they know that they like what you make and they're keeping up with you so that's where those personal stories like about your family or about the progress you've made on a project or about your customers that all speaks to that person who knows you a little but wants to know more so it's a couple of different places in the path but you want to keep that in mind as you write so that you're writing things based on the idea this could be a complete stranger I read so many block posts that are so full of referential inside jokes two you have to have read the block for two years and I understand what they're even saying but if your block is is out there a major part of your home that people are going to land on and they're going to be strangers that's off putting that makes it hard for a new person to come in and feel part of your world now and if that's your goal for new people to come in and feel part of your world in your blood needs to be welcoming to them so when you use technical terms when use anti jokes when you use references to something everybody might not know just a quick explainer explanation of what it is you're talking about really helps strangers feel welcome because that's, the thing that we're gonna get to put a block is great at next. But that's one thing that it's amazing at is making people feel like they're part of a group like the part of blogged readers a part of your world because they're getting to read a little bit more about because the block it's kind of personal, you know, even if it's about your business it's a more personal style of writing it's, not a formal newsletter or sales that are or product description it's more about sharing things, so these are a few things a block is great at. We talked a lot about inviting a reader into your world about creating the world that reflects the qualities your product reflects. The block is amazing at that. You can know stories, we keep using your scarves and his example, but if you tell stories about being a young mother that's going to really help those young mother buyers of yours feel like they're in the right place and let them know they're in the right place. When I sold happy, colorful yarn, my world was happy, colorful. I shared a lot of pictures of like sheep and bright colors and flowers that, like inspired me, and then I would show the yarn that I spun from those flowers so is part of the world being inspired colors and and texture. It's also going to inform readers about your product, your process, your philosophy, you can use your blogged to create content. But then you refer to over and over in the life of your business. When somebody asked the question like we talked about with the yarn, how do I use hand spun yarn? I answered that one time in the block post, and every time somebody sent an email to say, how do I use this? S I said, you know what I wrote about that here there's a whole list. Go here. Bam! It was a service I was providing and I could refer to it again and again. You can talk about why you choose to use certain supplies. Talk about why you choose to use certain processes. You wrote that blawg post about why you chart the way your chart and that's part of your product that is something then you refer to again and again. So the blood is a great place to write what they called evergreen content content that's always going to be useful that people can come back to again and again, you point people back to again and again and it's also really great introducing your readers to other customers block is a perfect place to do case studies or examples or stories or even testimonials if somebody is willing to talk a little bit more about him. It's a great place to share fashion photos of how different people look wearing your product to share photos of people's homes, how your heart looks and different kind of people's homes to share stories that, like I was really looking for this and struggling with this, and then this product changed it for me. Block is a great, chatty place to share that, um, it's also great at inciting, sharing what we talked about about making your work more share, a ble, blogged posts or the kind of things people share, the kind ofthing you tweet about or you tell your friends, did you feed that blood post on this? One of the things my friend lindsey and I bonded over after we graduated college was the pioneer woman. I don't know if you're familiar with that web site, like a huge blawg, we wouldn't be like, did you see that recipe on that blawg? Did you read that story that was so hilarious? Would like email back and forth about someone else's, blawg so it's the kind of thing it's easy to share its a link, people can talk about it, it's also great at building a portfolio, you can show even work that you're not selling that's already sold old and they'll give people an insight into the kind of work you've been doing and see your growth is an artist, that kind of work it you're able to dio if you do custom work ah block is amazing for showing off. This piece is that you don't have for sale, but gives me an idea that's, what custom would look like on me? So those are the things that a block is really great at, and these are ways you can use a blogger to connect and bring people closer to kind of getting a feel for what it would be like to buy your work. Now look is not great at inciting action and here's why is that people are in a different headspace when they read them when they buy? Think about it like you often? Well, if you are a block greater or a news reader, you will sit down to read things, but if you want to buy a dress or a scar for whatever that's, probably maybe a separate process, you sit down specifically to do that, he says how I work and when I'm reading something, even if something's referred to that, I would like to buy a more likely to like, bookmark it and come back later or just try to remember, oh yeah, I should go back to that so while the block is great at bringing people into your world it's not so great at making people act right now now what it can do is it conform people about action they could take and then you can use other tools to actually remind them to take that action. I can send them to your sales page where your sales pages a lot more effective at answering all of their questions and getting them to take action. It's also it's not great at giving you information about the reader you have no idea who's reading your website even if you use analytics and I give a little description about how to get that set up in the resource guide even if you use that you don't have that much information about your reader you don't know about her and commenting is becoming less and less common people just don't leave comments in the same way because instead they're having these conversations on facebook and twitter so you don't really get to know her you don't know what's happening, you know and that can be frustrating and if what you want is to interact, another tool is going to be better at that than your blawg um the book is also not great at empowering you to take any action because you don't know who that reader is, so you don't have any way of reaching out to her says why I so strongly suggest having an email list where people sign up, give you their email address, and then you can contact them because you're in charge of that relationship. If someone's a blogger reader, you have no control over when they see your contact, they're just coming by right, like, oh, yeah, I did love that block. I'm gonna go click over there so you can't take any action towards them. You can. You can write your post as good as you can. You can make an amazing you can share it in all the places, but it's, not the same, is reaching directly into their inbox, which is what you can do with an email newsletter. So and I actually have an example of someone who thought this over and decided that she did not impact when a block one of my students, gabrielle and she told me I could use your story so I can actually use their name. She has an in person business she's, a bricks and mortar shop in boise. You're in boise. You should go and check it out. And she figured out that on her website she needed one hundred visitors to create just one sale. And she had a bricks and mortar shop. But she also had an online shop, and she was creating this beautiful blawg, but she needed one hundred visitors to create one sale were in her in person shop. She needed only eight visitors to get one sale, so she stopped working on the blawg and started putting your energy into connecting with the local community. And that makes a lot of sense, right? Because you can create a block of a thousand readers. But if none of them are in boise nobody's going toe, come into your shop, so she figured out what would be most effective, and she went the path that would be most effective. So actually want you guys to look at page thirty five in your workbook and, um I asking you some questions to think about if you have a block if you don't have a bug, you do not need to fill out page thirty five, but if you do, I think it's important to take a look at the role it serves in your business and if it's really serving your needs, your goals, you're right people because you can always shift and change it and your blood doesn't have to be what it is today, just like everything on your website it's going to shift and change if you don't have a blogger, you don't have to have one because we talked about what it's good but it's not good at you can decide if that fits in on your customer path many people I think they have to have blog's and then through doing this process decide that they don't have to or that they've been blogging so sporadically it would be better, more effective to communicate with customers by doing something else consistently than a block sporadically. And yet others decide that this is just perfect and they love it and perhaps you take a lot of photos, perhaps you have a lot of progress pictures, perhaps you just have a lot of words you want to say ah block is great if you're a word full person, so then a block would be perfect for you but you get to decide if it fits in and how it fits into your path so then that's my question to you if you guys have a blawg how does it move people down your customer path how have you find found that it's worked for you do you get I have a blogged um but I don't know that it's really moving people down my customer path okay, do you would you have the experience that you think people read your block and then they ordered a custom piece no ok, so you know, rethinking your whole life not my whole life but and most a lot of the custom pieces that I saw are two people that I know and like through word of mouth I've sold um a few on my empty shop but mostly my sales are, um bracelets like I do non custom bracelets they're too okay and I sell a lot of those ok, so um so is this changing your mind about what you're going to dio decided to stop making custom no no no, no I'm in the blogged oh no, I still will block yeah yeah, because it does something else for you. All right? Well, I just think that it's not a nim pulse purchase on and I think that the blawg helps people to get to know me my process and I'd write bribe in detail how not like my secret because I wouldn't give that away but how focused I am on quality right? And you know and that's great and what's good about a block as you keep telling that story again even in different ways so new people are going to come in contact with it, right? I love that anybody else wanna share what is one of second that about the blawg especially re shells that just for me it's that cold how to get people to come closer but nothing that's going to take a long time to build trust and when there's so many people selling something, I really not interested in buying it most the time from somebody I don't know, right? Right that's the whole thing is that all of this that will talk about basically creating content and again and again just that consistency really builds the relationship it makes them feel like they can trust you on that or as the buyer that you can trust that person because you see they keep showing up again and again and again so it might not be that the that the borg post itself moved him down the customer path, but the fact that you're doing it consistence consistently is like just another trigger that says ok, and we kept talking about what do your customers need to know? Part of what they need to know is that you are going to be there like you're not gonna take their pictures and money and run off there's something I've really started just using my blood for is a way to put thing put content like to facebook, where I don't personally want to spend a lot of time so I can automatically send my black purse to facebook and on days that I don't feel like going, then I put something there, but I didn't have to actually go there, absolutely, or, you know, like days I teach or whatever. Yeah, and that's the other great thing about the block is that we're talking earlier about how there's this kind of a process where, like you create a product and then you listed and then you share it, maybe on your block and social media, where europe log can be another we're saying, it's, good to have new stuff because you can't talk about the same thing over and over your block is like a new thing. Each new block post is a new thing you could be talking about on twitter, social media, it gives something people something new to pin or to share it just it's just a reminder that you're there, that you're happening any other questions about blocks from that? Well, we have some examples and people are I think everyone is stopping and reassessing what they do with their blocks so far. But this is a great comment from twin set jan. They say I want my block and my podcast to build the reader's desire to be connected to our farm. As their familiarity with the animals grows through personal stories about them. I want them to become enamored with the idea of spinning. Admitting with their fleece is so I think I need to add stories about individual animals that can note which products come from which block posts absolutely seems like a good plan. Yeah, that's such a good boy in and especially with farms where people are buying the products, hooking up those products to that animal, because so that does a few things, actually. So she could tell the story of the animal show beautiful pictures which everybody loves. Pictures of animals it's, adorable, and then and then in that block post linked directly to the products. So this is the this is the yarn I spun from buttercup. This is the roving that you can get from duncan this, and it gives you a chance to be linking to your products in a very natural way. That's not sealed it all that's, actually. Giving the reader what they want, because don't you hate when you read a block posted you like? But where did you get that? Like, I want that. Where did you get it? So it gives you a very natural way of linking and talking about it, and definitely one of her, like back to session one spotting your sparkle, one of the things about selling a product from your own farm, that's, your sparkle, the fact that you know all of your animals names, and then you have wolf from that that is huge and that's, what makes you stand out, and the fact that you're willing, like, tell the stories about your animals, makes you stand out from either other farmers who maybe aren't as savvy with her blog's. So the thing about blog's, remember, I said, you don't have as much control. You can't make sure people see it.