What Are You Losing By Not Using Audio On Your Web Sites?
If you do any selling online, you already know that using audio can make a huge difference in your sales and profits. But do you really know how big a difference it can make?
To find out how much you're missing, how many ways you can use it, and how easy and inexpensive it can be - just click the start button on the player below.
If you already know that audio can make you money, but you're just not sure how you can use it in your business, here's a short list of what you can do with it:
Increase Sales: Obviously, this is the place most people want to start. And audio really is a powerful way to increase sales.
The simplest and most common way it's used now is to include an introduction of the product that highlights the main features. This does a few things. It sets the tone and expectations for the written letter that follows, and it creates a more personal feeling on the part of the visitor.
That personal connection is where a lot of the power comes from. If someone hears the sincerity in your voice, they're likely to interpret the rest of your letter with that in mind. What might seem like hype otherwise becomes more believable - because you're believable.
That translates into a much higher level of trust.
Create Compelling Testimonials: In the past, testimonials were just a few lines of text on the page. As big an effect as they have on sales, they're nothing next to actually hearing the voice of a happy customer.
Face it, it doesn't mean much for you to tell someone why your product is the answer to their prayers. That's what they expect you to say. To actually hear your customers say it in their own words is a very different thing.
Put a quoted portion of the testimonial on your site, along with the person's name and (where possible) picture. Along side that, put an audio player they can fire up to hear your excited customer for themselves.
Then watch what happens to your sales.
Reduce Lost Orders: A friend of mine put a small audio snippet on the order page for one of his sites. It reinforces why the decision to buy was a good one, and thanks them for their order.
He was stunned at the result: Over a 400% increase in sales.
Entertain Your Visitors!: Some marketing folks will dismiss entertainment as an unproductive extra. But then, there are people in every crowd who just don't "get it."
Entertainment is a strong reason for people to remember you. If you make someone laugh, they're going to come back for more.
Offer Powerful Affiliate Tools: A good audio bit that puts people in the right frame of mind before they visit your site can make a huge difference in your sales.
It costs you next to nothing, and your affiliates will love you for it.
These can range from simple introductions to complete reviews, interviews, or even testimonials. You need to tell the listener what your product will do for them, and get them to click on the affiliate's link.
Using AudioRazor, it's very simple to make tools like this. Once you've recorded the audio, you just create the player code and give it to them to include in their pages.
Instant commission booster!
Kick Up Your Auctions: Audio can be a very easy way to get more and higher bids for your auction listings.
Why? People love stories. Tell the story behind your business or your product and watch what happens.
Create An Audio Blog: Some people make their points better by talking than by typing. If you're one of them, why not create a blog that's done entirely in audio?
After all, how valuable would it be to establish yourself as an online personality?
Of course, you'll need to do brief summaries of what each audio bit is about. And that type of copy is perfect for getting the right keyword density for the search engines...
Distribute Brainstorming Sessions: This one is a little less obvious than some of the others.
Get one or more people on the phone or in a room and do a little brainstorming on a specific topic. Post the audio to your site, with a brief description. This kind of recording is a great way to show your visitors how fast you are on your feet and how well you know your subject.
It can also lead to surprising ideas. It's not uncommon for these sessions to be good enough to be worthwhile commercial products all by themselves.
Offer Music Demos: This one's a gimme. Nothing sells music like letting people listen to it.
Add Value to Consulting: Record your sessions and give copies to your clients. Upload them to a private section of your site or send them on CD.
How often have you spoken with someone and later thought, "I wish I had better notes," or, "I wish I could remember exactly what he said about..." Or maybe you've tried to explain an idea to your associates and thought, "If these guys could just hear what he had to say about this, this would be so much easier."
Make it easy for them to use what you're teaching. This is a step beyond what they expect, and adds real value to your service. Your clients will love it.
Add Zing To Product Reviews: If you want your product reviews to be more convincing, type out the basic recommendations. Then record your feelings and observations about the product.
Let your visitors hear what you really think. It can make all the difference in the world. And it's easier to get people to click on a link when they hear you ask them to...
Offer Product Samples: Free samples are one of the oldest sales techniques in the world. People love them, because they get the feel for what the product is really like.
If your product includes audio, give them a "taste," and watch your sales climb.
Showcase Speaker Demos: Want to convince the booking agent that you've got what they need for their next seminar or training session? Let them hear a recording of a live presentation.
Think of it as "Show and Sell."
Make The Most Of Teleseminars: Teleseminars are a great way to teach people and to deliver information interactively. But some people can't make them because of the timing, and others need to be able to review the information to get the most from what you're teaching.
Record the seminar and make the audio available for free to the folks who attended the call.
For even more mileage, sell the recording separately. Or use it as a bonus or lead generator for an existing product.
Syndicate Your Audio: If you're promoting anything from editorials, entertainment or just plain old selling stuff, you want as many interested people as possible exposed to your message.
If that message is interesting, there are lots of people who would love to offer it to their visitors. That's the reason that submitting articles has always been such an effective technique.
Submitting audio for syndication is even easier. You send the code to the folks who want to use your material, they paste it into their pages, and the visitor can access it with a click of their mouse.
The hosting site doesn't have to format it, they don't have to create and link new pages to accomodate it, and it doesn't take up a lot of screen space. If you like, you can even change the audio yourself, without them needing to do anything with that code.
It's easy content, and a lot of sites are dying for easy content that's worth offering.
Create Profitable New Products More Easily: Instead of writing a book, why not write an outline and just talk out each point? Then have it transcribed, edit it, and get your book done in a few days instead of months.
You can even offer the audio as a bonus. That really increases the perceived value. Your customers won't know - or care - that the audio was created first.
Or talk about each of the major points of your product as a way to drive home the points you make in your writing. That adds a new dimension that can help a lot of people get more from your work.
And, as a nice side benefit, it allows you to charge more for your products.
Another idea... while interview products are very common in the Internet marketing field, they're not nearly as common in other, narrower, fields of interest. You might have a hard time getting someone with specialized information about marketing to agree to an interview. There's just too many requests for it, and they usually competing with themselves.
People in niche markets are not as likely to be selling their own knowledge, and they don't get asked for interviews as often. For them, it's like having Larry King ask them to be on the show!
Get More Subscribers: Want to get more visitors to sign up for your list? Introduce yourself, and tell them what they'll get from subscribing. Show your personality.
After that, they're not just saying, "Okay. Send me stuff." They've heard you speak and have decided, "Okay. You sound like a good guy. Talk to me."
Not only will you get more subscribers, they'll be more active. And that's really what it's all about, isn't it?
Another benefit: If you require your subscribers to confirm before adding them to your list, you know there's always a fair number who don't finish the process.
To help with that, just add a short audio reminder on your thank-you page, letting them know that they'll have to confirm their subscription. Make sure it plays automatically.
I have a friend who has one of the most carefully tracked and tested subscription processes on the net. He's been at it for years. You wouldn't think there'd be much he could do to improve on that, right?
When he added that little reminder about confirming, he boosted his completion rate by 5%. What's more impressive is that the increase carried through to the bottom line. That means his profits increased by the same amount.
A lot of firms would be happy to get that kind of increase from one division working a whole year. To do it in 10 or 15 minutes would just be unbelievable for most companies.
That's the beauty of the net. You can make a lot of small changes and find the ones that get you the big results, faster, cheaper and more conclusively, than offline.
Audio is one of the things that can bring you those big results.
