Kikabink News

You’ve probably heard many Internet marketers extol the virtues of “name squeeze” pages - pages designed to force a visitor to give you their name and email address - and join your email list - before allowing them to enter your website. I’ve certainly discussed the benefits of doing so too - the major one being to yield a much higher optin rate than is typical for an “open” website.

But here’s a timely newsflash: a name squeeze page may be killing your sales.

For a few of our own sites we tested (a) having a name squeeze page fronting the website and (b) providing open access to the site i.e. allowing visitors to navigate all public pages in the site, and to choose to optin to a mailing list if they wished. We found that while having a name squeeze page certainly yielded substantially more optins, sales were much higher when we did without the name squeeze page.

Looking at customer orders in these particular niches gave us a clue as to why sales were higher - the vast majority of customers bought when they visited such sites for the first time. It seems that having a name squeeze page caused a lot of people to sign up who were curious about what lay within our site… or wanted the free offer available as part of signing up (i.e. each of our name squeeze pages had a free report, email mini-course or something else to entice subscribers). But not necessarily customers.

Meanwhile, legitimate customers seemed deterred by our name squeeze page. Perhaps, in these particular niches, our name squeeze page undermined the perceived trustworthiness of our site and product/service offering among potential customers.

We are certainly not alone in finding that most of our customers in these particular niches were more likely to buy on their first visit to our site rather than later. The head of a large corporate Internet marketing department told me that 60 percent of his company’s online purchasers bought when they first visited the company’s website. Furthermore, 80 percent of customers bought within two days of visiting the website for the first time.

So… what is YOUR sales data telling you about your customers? If they tend to buy on their first visit to your site… and if a name squeeze is likely to detract from your perceived trustworthiness or legitimacy… you may be better off ripping that name squeeze page off your site. Sure, it may mean you build a smaller list… but if your main aim is to generate sales, it may be the way to go.

Of course , a name squeeze page may still be optimal in other circumstances - for example, where your primary goal is to build a list. One site where we have kept our name squeeze page is the website of our motivational newsletter, Success Accelerator at http://www.successaccelerator.net Because the main aim of that site is to build a list of subscribers and to subsequently promote various of our own products, affiliate products and advertiser products, a name squeeze works best.

All this just goes to show that, as Internet marketers, we can’t afford to blindly follow what others - even experts - advocate. By all means, try lots of things, but always look at results and data to work out what works, and what doesn’t, for your particular niches and offerings.

Last Thursday I closed my Facebook account. No, it wasn’t out of protest against the new Facebook design… or because I don’t like my Facebook “friends”… or because I have anything against Facebook.

It was simply because… I just don’t use Facebook!

And rather than continue enduring that nagging thought, “I’ve gotta do something on Facebook to promote my business”… I realized I had fallen into the same trap so many Internet marketers fall into: thinking we need to do EVERYTHING to promote our businesses.

Having worked with both small Internet businesses and large corporate Internet marketing departments, I am yet to meet an individual OR an entire team that is able to pursue every single avenue for promoting their business, product or service. Everyone has limited time and resources. And with the Internet evolving all the time, it’s hard enough to stay on top of one aspect of Internet marketing, let alone several.

I’m not saying anything you probably haven’t heard before, but let this article serve as a gentle reminder: it’s better to do a few things really well, than do a lot of things half-baked. And just because you hear some guru preaching about how you MUST get involved in social networking… or blogging… or article marketing… or podcasting (see above!) or anything else… it doesn’t mean you have to at all.

Jay Abraham - a true marketing genius and guru in my opinion - wrote a book called “Getting The Most Out Of All You’ve Got” and that’s really what we should focus on as entrepreneurs. We should do what we can to get the best possible results based on what we have in terms of time, money, skills and other resources. This principle should guide us in deciding what we do in our businesses, and if that means stopping or cutting back on certain things - or closing a Facebook account we never use - so be it.

Of course, let me say that closing my Facebook account doesn’t mean I don’t see value in social networking. Or that you should do the same. It’s just not where I can get the most out of what I’ve got right now. You may find that it DOES work for you, while other things don’t.

P.S. One social network I AM loving at the moment is Imeem. Not sure about a business angle yet (if ever), but I just LOVE creating playlists and listening to music while I work. Check out my Imeem profile here: http://www.imeem.com/annaj/ I also use Twitter. You can follow my “occasionally regular” ramblings at http://www.twitter.com/annajohnson