One of my retail clients said to me, “People study our website. They know a lot about us before they come into our store.” In other words, they are “pre-sold” before entering his store. That makes the sales person’s job much easier.

Research confirms my client’s experience. Studies suggest that half of all buyers research purchases above $50 prior to entering a store. For larger B2B purchases, buyers who research are already 60 to 70% decided before meeting with the sales representative.

That’s because the Internet makes it super easy for buyers to conduct in-depth research before walking into a store or setting an appointment.

This means you must pay very close attention to your presence on the Internet, whether it’s your website or social media sites. If you blow off this advice and think your website is “good enough,” you are risking losing business to your competitor. Especially the competitor who has a friendly, helpful website that pre-sells.

There are some distinctions between conventional businesses vs. online businesses.

If you have a brick and mortar store or a service business, then “pre-selling” should be the goal of your website. You want folks to phone, email, or walk though your door ready-to-buy.

If you’re strictly an online businesses, “pre-selling” is also important for certain pages. But your goals are different. You want your visitor to commit while on your website. You want him or her to complete the sale online or fill out a form for a lead-generation goal.

When evaluating the pages of your website, try to figure out if the goal for each page is pre-selling or selling. Then you can carefully create your pages to achieve your goals.

Although one can argue that the terms “pre-sell” and “sell” overlap, for our purposes, it’s helpful to distinguish these terms for web pages as follows:

Pre-Selling

• Identify with your prospect’s need or desire.
• Describe your product or service that fills your prospect’s need or desire.
• Anticipate and answer typical questions or concerns.
• Tell prospects the story of your company.
• Let prospects see or read testimonials or customer reviews.
• If appropriate, provide detailed case studies of clients you’ve helped.
• How are your products or services different from those of your competitors?
• What else makes your company unique?

Selling (in person)

• Be warm, friendly, and helpful.
• Craft an offer that fills the customer’s needs fully.
• Stress the benefits of your offer.
• When pointing out a feature, stress its benefit as well.
• Make it easy to pay in multiple ways.
• Offer a money-back guarantee or warranty.
• Offer generous customer support.
• Put a time limit (if possible) on the particular offer.
• Put “supply limited” (if possible) on the offer.
• Be confident. Your customer is already inclined to purchase from you.

Selling (online companies)

• Draft text that’s warm, friendly, and helpful.
• Craft an offer that fills the customer’s need fully.
• Stress the benefits of your offer.
• When pointing out a feature, stress its benefit as well.
• Make it easy to pay in multiple ways.
• Offer a money-back guarantee or warranty.
• Offer generous customer support.
• Offer a free trial.
• Put safe and secure seals on your order page.
• Put a time limit (if possible) on the particular offer.
• Put “supply limited” (if possible) on the offer.

Please remember that a pretty website design is not enough to achieve the above goals. You need to pre-sell with words. The words can be written or delivered on a scripted video.

If you do the above well, you will have web pages that pre-sell and that get your prospects eager to buy.