If you have been dreading setting up your social networking system but know that the time has come – after all, in April of last year the site welcomed its 200 millionth user, and that means 200 million potential “friends” and customers, if you know how to reach them – then do not stress too much. Facebook marketing is easier and more user-friendly than just about any other type of social networking.

To get started, sign up for a profile. However, you cannot stop there. Get your picture – a friendly but professional one if this is for your business – online immediately, along with valid contact information and links to your webpage.
 
Then, build your profile. Add comments, notes and useful observations about subjects to which your business is relevant. Add first your own personal friends, and then spread out to reach other people once your profile has some substance and volume in the form of interesting pictures, notes, comments, testimonials and information.

You can offer incentives for joining your page such as a discount on a service or a special coupon.
In no time, people will be visiting your page regularly and eagerly awaiting your updates to find out what the latest news and attractive offers are in your Facebook world.

However, your social media networking skills can also destroy you if you are not careful. Just as a good “buzz” about your business can up your sales and increase your client volume, a bad one can ruin your reputation and make you a laughingstock – far faster and more permanently than when referrals and reviews had to come by word of mouth. Here are some important things to avoid in the social networking world in order to make the most your “friends” out there:

Don’t Run Around Naked

A profile that simply has a picture of your business and your phone number is not going to interest people or attract customers. Before you start “friending” people on Facebook or following them on Twitter, build up your profile. Get some testimonials, some basic information and even some general, helpful and entertaining content on the sight.

Don’t Sell Too Hard

A lot of businesses start selling from the second you “friend” them. Doesn’t feel much like a friend, does it? Develop a rapport with helpful coupons and advice in your field of expertise before you bring out the hard sell. Creating credibility will go much farther in this medium than direct promotions will.

Don’t Let Yourself Get Stale

A social networking profile has to have fresh, exciting content. Otherwise, people stop “visiting” you and move on to someone else – and someone else’s business – that can provide more entertaining and varied viewing. This does not meant that you have to update your profile constantly with mundane and useless chatter (in fact, this can backfire), but rather that you need a steady, daily supply of new, useful information to subtly attract new clients and sell your products or services.

However, utilizing effective testimonials is much more than just scattering a few random comments on your website. So what makes for an effective testimonial? And how do you get people to give you the kind that you want?

Effective Testimonials Are Specific

Testimonials that include details about your product or service are much more powerful than a general comment like “I loved it!” General statements will not overcome whatever doubts your potential customers have.

Some great ways to start a specific testimonial are “Your service is great because…” or “Once I started using your product, I noticed….”

Effective Testimonials Are Credible

The best way to establish credibility is to include your customer’s full name, location and/or business name with the testimonial. The more detail you provide, the more believable the comments are.

It’s also important to refrain from rewriting customer testimonials. Of course you should correct spelling and punctuation mistakes, but once you start changing the wording, you’ll lose the individuality of the original writer.  All of your testimonials will end up sounding the same, which may make them seem fabricated.

Testimonials are an excellent way to convert your website visitors into paying customers. We know how to place powerful and effective testimonials on your website that will produce results. Contact us today to get started.

Fortunately, there are several ways you can increase the productivity levels in your business almost immediately upon taking action. The best thing about these strategies is that they can actually help you profitably reduce your operating costs.

Action Step #1: Work Together – You may feel like you’re alone right now, but there are many other successful business owners out there with values like yours that are also worried. Find a business that complements yours and work with them to expand your customer base.

Simply put, you’ll be marketing to their consumer base and they’ll be marketing to yours. And, it’s as easy as providing a coupon that the other merchant can hand out to their clients.

If you run a painting business, look for companies that do construction, renovations or interior design. Then, when you provide a painting service, you hand out their coupon for their services as a bonus. They will do the same for you. By making yourselves a package bargain, you will all gain more work.

Action Step #2: Use The Internet – Many businesses have gotten by using little more than email – even in this age of worldwide media. However, if you’re not marketing online, you need to start today.

There’s no better way to reach a targeted, receptive and pre-qualified audience for your goods and services than to reach them online. These are people who are actively searching for what you have to offer.

If you don’t have a website, email list or, at the very least, a blog, the time to get started is now. Ask us to show you how we can create a business website that will save you advertising dollars and reach more potential customers at the same time!

Once you have your website set up, the next step is to get it working for you – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  The best way to do that is to create an opt email marketing program.

Although email marketing opt in may sound intimidating, the idea is very simple. Your website visitor enters their email address into a box on your web page.   They “opt in” to your email marketing program, adding their address to your list.  In return, they’ll receive customer updates, special deals, etc.

This is where the fun starts.  Now that you have their email address, you can email them product updates, alerts about sales and upcoming events, “customer only” specials and coupons, etc.  The marketing potential here is unlimited.

We can even set up an automated system that sends email sales messages to your visitors automatically after they sign up; essentially a “one time offer” to turn those subscribers into customers immediately.

Would you like to offer them a new customer discount as soon as they join your list? No problem.  A coupon encouraging them to come to your place of business in the next 7 days?

How about automatically promoting your upcoming Mother’s Day sale? Again, no problem.

Setting up an automated email marketing opt in system like the one described above will give you an easy way to instantly and consistently contact your customers and prospects.  This is the perfect tool when you have something to promote or even if you just want to remind them that you’re open in the evenings or on the weekends.

Ask us about installing an email marketing opt in on your website today to get your 24 hour a day, 7 day a week salesperson working for you right now.

An internet website marketing presence is critical to the success of any business.  Today, even the smallest businesses are finding:

They can easily afford a website which looks professional and brings them business and increased sales.

• They can be listed with search engines and expand beyond their local area.

They can compete globally with much larger competitors at much lesser cost.

• Their professionalism can be communicated not only by the service and products that they offer, but also by the visual presentation of their website.

However, businesses are also finding that a poor online representation can actually hurt them. As more businesses start establishing web presence and the competition is heating up, it’s vitally important that your Internet marketing strategies are appropriate, timely, and effective.

Just a few of the mistakes we’ve seen on business websites are inappropriate content, words spelled incorrectly, and – the most serious error of all – not having a webpage that can be loaded and displayed correctly. Any one of these mistakes can create negative feelings with potential clients and customers and lead to lost sales.

Take a minute to think about this. Is your website up to the task at hand? Can it convert prospective customers into buyers? Is it working for you all day long – including nights and weekends?

Contact us today for a free, no obligation internet website marketing consultation to discuss your current web presence and how it can be improved. We specialize in low cost solutions that help small business owners make the most of the power of the Internet. Get your website’s marketing working for you today!

Adding Value with the User Experience

You’ll often hear website designers discussing the importance of a site adding value.  Adding value means providing useful information or services to people. You should think about your customers’ wellbeing.  Ask yourself what you can do to make their life better or easier when they come and visit your website, your virtual store.

Take Amazon.com for example. Their website is clearly designed to sell products. However, it’s also a good experience for the user. Products are grouped into categories, everything is easy to find, there are reviews, and discounts on some products. The creators of the Amazon website obviously took great care to create a good user experience.

Your business may not be as huge as Amazon, but you can follow their example.

Do you own a restaurant? A restaurant should always have an online menu. Many people search online for local restaurants and ratings. This is especially true of people who travel a lot. Visitors to your website will appreciate seeing your menu online, plus a list of locations and phone numbers. You will get more diners than the restaurant without an online menu or website.

Are you a watch repairperson? A watch repair shop website should have a list of services and prices. The address and phone number should also be easy to find. Once again, you’d be surprised at the number of small businesses that aren’t online. And those who are often miss the mark with their website.

Are you a contract manufacturer?  You should have your specialties laid out where they’re easy to find.  Be sure to state your certifications and qualifications.  Having the ability to submit for a quotation online is important, too.  Don’t make the user hunt for this information.  Make it easy to find.  You don’t need it all on the home page, but you need to make it easy to find.

Visitor Experience Tips

Make your website interactive. Let your visitors talk to you!  It could be as simple as having them participate in a survey, adding a comment to your blog or having a user forum so they can connect with other users.  Let them know you value their opinions, let them know you’re a human, too.  You care about them.

Create a subscription list. Offer a monthly newsletter or a free sample, or a book or coupons.  Let users become part of your community.

Keep your website up to date with fresh content. Not only will the search engines reward you with more visibility, but so will your visitors.  It will give them a reason to come back!  You have to think about your website as being similar to a newspaper; we all know where yesterday’s is, and if you don’t provide fresh content, that’s where your website will be, too!

Add video to your site. There’s a reason that YouTube is available on your iPhone.  It’s because people LOVE video.  Online shoppers find it very useful to see the product they are about to buy in action.   Adding video doesn’t have to be a huge project, something simple will do the trick. Take a few of your (best) products, make a video featuring them, add a call to action, and you’re ready to go.

Be social. A great way to connect with your visitors and customers is to let them know you are on Twitter, Facebook or other social networks. Chances are, they are, too.  It’s a great way to take advantage of that connection and build your relationship with them.

Product reviews. Give your customer the opportunity to review your products. This is not only helpful for visitors that may be looking to buy, but the feedback will help you improve your products and services, providing you with an opportunity to build an even tighter bond.

Create an easy navigation structure. Place the cookies on the lower shelf.  Don’t make it hard for visitors to find what they’re looking for.  Put the most important information within easy reach.  You don’t want your visitors to click more than 3 times to find that nugget.  If they can’t find it quickly, they will just leave your site, never to return. Create an easy to navigate website because less clicking means more buying.

By implementing some of those strategies you will be able to interact and appeal to more of your visitors and hopefully turn them into a buyer.

Thanks to website marketing, small businesses can now compete on a global scale. You never know who will visit your website. It could be a tourist from China or a local grandfather desperate to have an old antique watch repaired.

Make things easy for your visitors.  Give them a good website experience so they’ll want to do business with you.

Sell What You Already Do

Don’t ignore the obvious; find a way to allow customers to purchase your products and services online. You don’t have to sell everything you have, but at the very least, you should be offering your best sellers online. If your customer must come to you, make it easy for them to buy. For example, if you’re a hair salon, you can allow your customers to establish and manage their own profiles with favorite products and appointment calendars. You can establish automatic reordering of products. Allow your customers to set calendars on their own, online. This is a win for your customers, because your services are very convenient. For you as the owner, you’ve established an automatic, low cost way of connecting with your customers.

Don’t forget about shipping costs, “Free shipping offers drive online sales more than any other promotion, which is why they remain popular,” said Scott Silverman, Executive Director of Shop.org. But the main thing is convenience.

Lead Generation

Don’t forget that you have people that stop by your website every day. Who are they? Obviously they’re interested in you; you can capture these prospects’ information to hand off to a live salesman for follow up. If you’re selling custom services, do you have a quote request form on your site? Is it easy to ask questions? Another way to create leads is to offer samples or a free service that will get your prospect to raise his hand asking for you to contact him.

Sell Other People’s Products

A great way to leverage your presence is to offer complimentary products and services or direct visitors to another site for a fee. For example, Amazon.com has a referral program that lets you collect a commission on every book sold to a visitor from your site. Now, you may be thinking, “Well, books are not that big of a sale.” True, but these kinds of programs exist for all kinds of products, even big ticket items like industrial tools or appliances. You can establish your own private referral network as well.

Promotion

Are you having a sale or some other event? Your web presence is by far, the least expensive way to reach a wide audience of prospects, not to mention your existing customer list. Feature it on your website! Send a press release! A well done online promotion can generate hundreds of new customers and prospects.

Email Marketing

The least expensive way to reach your customers is by email. Why wouldn’t you reach out to them? It’s a lot easier to sell something to your existing customer than to find a new one. Email marketing is a great way to build relationships with your customers to turn occasional buyers into regular buyers. Daily, weekly or monthly messages will keep your brand fresh in your customer’s mind. When they’re ready to buy, they’ll think of you first!

Premium Content

Do you have special expertise you can offer your customers? If your content is rich enough, you can sell in the form of special forums or “how to” videos. Have someone write a small book about your business and sell the book online. For example, if you’re a restaurant, you could offer a cookbook or videos on preparation of your signature dishes. If you’re a consultant or accountant, you could offer special products on tax law or tips to reduce your costs. The point is, that your business has a lot to offer that can be sold to eager buyers.

These aren’t the only ways of using your website to make money, but for brick and mortar kind of businesses, these are the six most important.  Take advantage of the online consumer and start your website marketing initiative today.

For most companies, there is no need to have both a website and a blog, you can use the blogging software, WordPress, as both.  WordPress uses ‘pages’ for your static content, (like the description of your business) and ‘posts’ for dynamic content and news.  Pages can have pages and subpages, allowing you to create easy site navigation for your visitors.  Categories and tags make it easy for your visitors to move around your site, finding the things they’re most interested in.

Content for Static Pages

Every website should have the following:

• Information about your offer; your services and products
• Benefits; how do you help your customers?  Why should they choose you?
• Examples and testimonials.  Do you have happy customers?  Tell everyone!
• Frequently asked questions – what do most people ask about your product or service?
• Contact information.  Where are you?  How do people reach you?  Maps are always welcome.
• Ordering information.  Don’t make it hard for people to buy.  Can people book appointments?  Can they buy your products?  Don’t bury this, this should be foremost in your planning.
• Satisfaction guarantee.  If people don’t know you, why should they do business with you?

The dynamic pages of your blog can be used for relationship building with your customers and potential customers.  For your blog pages, think about:

• Are you running a special promotion? 
• Has anyone new joined your business?
• Do you have any tips you can share?

The amount of things you can share to build relationships is limitless.  You don’t have to be a great writer, just be yourself.

With WordPress, it’s easy to build a professional website with very little money.  There are thousands of free designs to choose from, you’re sure to find a design that fits you and your business perfectly.  You’ll have your website making money for you in no time.