Making your promotions work harder

When you're advertising, leafleting, sending out direct mail - what do you suggest the reader does next? They could just give you a call, or you could give them a web site address for further information. That could be your general web site, or you could put together a special page - a landing page - that relates to your promotional campaign. How helpful would that be to encouraging sales?

Say you are offering special prices for your products or services for a limited time. You could:

• Add a page to your web site called www.xxxx.com/specialoffer or something similar
• Put this URL on your promotional materials as a "call to action" for more information
  

Use this special page to:

• Give extra details about the offer and prices (very important that you expand on you said in your direct mail or advertising - don't just repeat yourself)
• Clearly and obviously explain how to book or buy
• Provide a link to your main web site to explain more about your business
• Include any relevant approved comments from current customers
  
• Provide links to any other relevant sites - perhaps product suppliers, good review sites or anything else that gives your customers a fuller picture about your offer
• Gather together any data sheets, case studies and more that you can provide as downloads in pdf format
• Provide a Frequently Asked Questions section
  

By focusing on a particular offer and giving your potential customers answers to their likely questions you'll raise customer satisfaction and the likelihood of making a sale, as well as doing no harm at all to your professional credibility.