All of the flower shops were out of roses on the way home from work. Now it's 9 o'clock at night, on the eve of Valentine's Day. A thought suddenly pops into his head: "My girlfriend loves to go to the spa…" He hops on Google and finds a handful of local spas. The second one he clicks on has a nicely designed site that prominently promotes Instant Gift Certificates. Inspiration strikes — instant gratification is exactly what's called for at a time like this. He chooses a "Romantic Escape" package, types in a clever and endearing message along with his credit card number, and prints out his gift certificate and slips it into a Valentine's Day card.

Did he buy the gift certificate from your spa?

It's easy to sum up success selling online: how many people are you driving to your website (traffic) and how many of them become clients, by purchasing a gift certificate or scheduling a service (conversion rate)? These are the two factors that we're going to spend a lot of time talking about, because you control both of them. Drive a lot of people to your website with a high conversion rate, and you'll sell a ton online.

Let's focus on conversion rate. Relatively simple things have a large impact on how many of your website visitors purchase an Instant Gift Certificate:

• Do you prominently promote your Instant Gift Certificate capability? Does it say Instant or just Gift Certificates? A lot of spa websites have links for gift certificates that just take you to a page with a phone number, or a shopping cart where you don't know what kind of gift certificate you're going to get, and you don't know when it's going to arrive. You're different! Stand out by promoting your ability to deliver instant gratification.
• One of our best selling spas is Betty's Bath. Right there on their home page, front and center: "Instant Gift Certificates Now Available". Another very successful spa is Cascade Gardens, promoting a "Hawaiian Candlelight Couples Massage" for Valentine's Day with links to book an appointment and purchase an Instant Gift Certificate. When a prospective client goes to one of these websites, they know exactly what to do next. The result is more sales.
  
• How many steps does it take to actually get to Instant Gift Certificates? You'll have a higher conversion rate if your link goes directly to Instant Gift Certificates, instead of through another "shop online" page first.
• Don't open Instant Gift Certificates in a new window. This makes your client think they're going somewhere else, dropping your conversion rate.
• Include Instant Gift Certificate in the main menu / navigation for your site.
• Don't promote just the e-mail capabilities of Instant Gift Certificates. Almost 75% of purchasers print out their Instant Gift Certificate themselves.

Here's what I'm really saying: when I go to your website, can I immediately figure out where to click to buy an Instant Gift Certificate, or do I have to look around, search and scroll to find it?

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