157 - Honey traps for website clients

Discussion - Honey traps for website clients

This discussion is another based on the book Watertight Marketing by Bryony Thomas which gives us 13 areas where we (or our clients) could be leaking potential business. With this series, we are working our way up an imaginary funnel which shows us how we might be losing clients.

It might be a good idea (although it’s certainly not essential) to go back and listen to the following episodes with you have not already. These are the episodes which came before this one:

• 149 – Marketing funnels don’t exist!
• 151 – Are we leaking clients?
• 153 - Losing clients before you even get them
• 155 - Are we boring?

So in this episode we tackle a really important aspect in any sales process - the idea of 'try before you buy'.

A good way to sum this up is the notion of clothes. Although many of us purchase clothes and make use of the returns options, there is zero substitute for trying clothes on. You want to know what they look like on you. You need to understand how they are going to feel on you. So you... try before you buy.

When you think about it, this is crucial. It cements in your mind that you're happy with the product on offer and allows you to move happily into opening your wallet.

But we sell websites, what can we possibly do which even comes close to this? We can't build potential clients a website and let them have a go with it... try it out and decide if they really like it or not. That would be a disaster! Most of our work would be speculative and our earning would fall through the floor. So what do we do?

What about a product ladder? This is the idea of offering things which you can give away. Things of lower value which might lead to more profitable, higher value items at a later date. These have to be meaningful, as well as driving the client towards trusting you and your processes.

These might include:

• a website audit - this could be an online tool or a manual process
• freebie courses and email funnels
• low risk discovery period - some initial scoping they could take to another agency
• live demos (Page Builder Backend experience if selling this - MotoPress / WP Ultimo)
• webinar - are a nice freebie
• doing a “make a site with WordPress” live event freebie
• perhaps running a forum or group is a way for some

I guess in all of this, you've got to be careful not to giveaway too much value for zero return. You've also got to be mindful about creating something which has actual value. What I mean by that is... can you remember the time that you took your car to be repaired? If you're like me you have no knowledge at all of how a car works. You hope that the mechanic is going to look at the car and tell you honestly what needs to be done. But I'm sure that we can all point to a time when you had that nagging feeling that you were duped - you were told that a problem existed, when in fact it didn't and you have no choice but to pay. It's the reason we go back again and again to our 'trusted' people, because we know that they do good work and don't overcharge for problems that simply don't exist.

So view these product ladders through that prism too. Your offer needs to be transparent, the potential clients want to know that you're not just making things up. After all you could say that their site has 45 real issues that need addressing, but does this approach instil trust, or will they start to worry that you're going to take them for a ride?

Both David and I are no experts at this at all, but given help from the Watertight Marketing book, we're at least able to share the experience of someone who does know!

Mentioned in this episode:

WP Ultimo

MotoPress

Watertight Marketing by Bryony Thomas