17 Nov 2008

Proper Thank You Pages

Oh my, they had me thinkin' again...

Last Saturday I attended a free seminar arranged by Affiliate Funnel. The topic was: Open house with Jon and Paul. Jon being Jon Olson, known from I Love Hits and SWAT Traffic. And Paul is of course Paul Kinder, known for his Traffic-Splash. So you understand that the main team was to be traffic exchanges. And some really good information we got ourselves too, learned a few new things that evening.

Afterwards there was an opportunity to ask questions, and one that always comes up, came up. "How do I make money from my list?". Yes, well. That question is one that I bet is asked hundreds of times every day on various places, so I let that one be. However, that question led to a followup question, and the same thing happened with the answers as they usually do, and suddenly the talk was about "Thank You" Pages.

Everyone in that seminar, I believe and hope, agreed that those thank you pages are extremely important for ANY kind of business you do online. No matter if you sell flowers, cars or simply try to build a list. BUT! That was about it! One example of what such a page can look like, and nothing more! Oh yes, those exclamation marks came to me on Sunday, as I was thinking through what I'd learned.

So half of the Sunday and the whole day today (Monday) I've surfed around the net trying to figure out WHAT they are, HOW to do those pages, and what exactly to put ON them. Believe me, it was harder than I had imagined, finding any useful information.

But here we go:

What is a Thank You Page?

A Thank You Page is a page your prospects see after they have taken some action. Bought a car, an e-book, signed up for your newsletter. Whatever your business is, when your customer press that submit button this is where he should end up.

The thank you page have a few goals. It is more than just a common way of being polite, altough that too is important. It should also provide some "Next Step", or "What To Do" information for your customer. But most important of all is; Getting your customer to verify that so important e-mail adress of his, placing him-/herself on your opt-in list.

How do I set up a good Thank You Page?

Well, basically this is easy. You have to ways of doing this;

1 - Redirect your customer to the thank you page immediately after the pressing of that submit-button, or
2 - You can send the page as an e-mail. With the verification link.

The method you use is entirely a choice of your's and I have no opinion on what methos is better. I suppose it depends on the product and your style.

So what do I put ON that page?

- You begin your message by thanking your customer, and informing them that their choice of action has been successful. Remember you can send them to a thank you page even if they don't buy!
- This is also where you can briefly remind them of their brilliant taste in choice of dishwasher or whatever you are selling.
- Hopefully you use a system that requires a double opt-in, so you'll need to remind them of this fact here.
- Another great idea is to offer them a possibility to refer a friend/family member to your site. This means more contacts for you to market to, so perhaps you could offer the referring persons a reward for their efforts.



I know this is only some vague toughts about an issue that many people get paid big bux to do for a living, but the way this page is treated seem strange to me. After all, this IS the most important page you have. If you want your customer coming back!




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