Continue reading »]]> Think about it. Your company’s website is the face of your company for the hundreds or thousands of people daily that find it each day, looking for the solutions you provide. What they see there, and how they interact will determine the success or failure of the website, and quite possibly, your business as well.

Here are some common business website design mistakes that can keep your visitors from spending money with you and possibly becoming a lifetime customer. They apply whether you have an Internet only business, a small local business, or a huge, multi-national corporation.

No matter what the size of your enterprise, the consequences of a website failure can be just as devastating. Here is how to avoid becoming an economic statistic, and have a thriving online portal that generates revenue for you on a daily basis, whether that means driving customers to your store, or selling products and services online. After all, that’s what your business is all about, right?

Business Website Mistake #1 – What’s It All About?

Your visitors should know what your site is all about immediately upon landing there. It’s purpose should be clear, and there should be no question who the site is for or who it represents. Ensure your logo is prominently feature at the top. If you have a tag line, it should be easy to spot as well. There should be no doubt about where your visitor is when they get there.

Ask this important question: “What is the main thing I want my website to do for me?” There are many purposes, and the site may fulfill more than one, but the site’s primary mission should be the focus.

Is it an e-commerce site, where you will sell your company’s wares, or those of another? Is it primarily to establish or build your brand, deliver information, or solicit funding? Are you using it as the online face of your restaurant, healthcare office, hair salon, auto care establishment, or other local business, and need your site to help get your phones ringing and customers through your doors? Maybe you have a non-profit, and your website is there to explain what you do and solicit donations?

No matter what the sites chief focus is, keying on that is vital during the design process to ensure that the site meets the requirements.

Business Website Design Mistake #2 – Where Do We Go From Here?

If it is perfectly clear what your website is all about when a visitor arrives there, it should be just as clear how they can find what they’re looking for once they’ve arrived. Make the navigation options clear, easy to find, and easy to understand.

This is an incredibly common mistake, and is made just as frequently by huge corporations as a local mom and pop operation. When you stop and think that large corporations routinely spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for their websites, there I no excuse for this design fas paux.

After all, if a visitor has to thin too much about how to find that they’re looking for, they’ll simply look somewhere else for it. That somewhere else is typically a competitor. If it is information that only your firm can supply, such as company specific information, leaving a visitor frustrated and feeling like they’ve wasted their valuable time is no way to engender the warm and fuzzies that lead to them spending money with your company.

Business Website Design Mistake #3 – No Social Integration

Social media is increasingly taking over people’s lives, and that trend is only increasing. Riding trends is a path to business success you can capitalize on. Make sure your company has an active social media presence, including the major players; Twitter, LinkedIn (especially if you are in the B-to-B space), Pinterest, and of course, Facebook.

This article is not about building your brand through social media, but you should ensure that visitors can easily find your social media presence from your website. Have your social media icons prominently featured on all your site’s pages, so no mater what the visitor’s entrance page is, they will see them. One caveat here; build up your social presence before you link to it, so it doesn’t make your company seem too small.

There are many ways to do this fairly quickly, which I’ll cover in the future.

Business Website Design Mistake #4 – Ignoring Your Visitors Because of How They Got There

There are 4 major players in the browser business: Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Apple Safari. There are some others too, but these encompass 90% of your visitors.

Most (by an increasingly shrinking percentage) use Internet Explorer, but the others have significant percentages as well. Your site should appear just as attractive on all. If it fails that test, you could be basically ignoring a significant percentage of our potential customers.

Based upon April 2012 Wikimedia statistics, browser use is as follows:

• IE – 25.93%
• Chrome – 24.99%
• Firefox – 21.79%
• Safari – 14.09%

If there are major problems viewing your site, or it doesn’t load properly on any of these, you are effectively saying to those visitors, “Take a hike!” You wouldn’t turn away a customer because they walked to your store vs pulling up in a car or taking a bus, would you?

Be sure you view your site in all the major browsers and refine the design if necessary so that it displays properly in all of them.

Business Website Design Mistake #5 – Keep it Clean

No, I’m not talking about the language or images. After all, you know your customers better than anyone,so be it.  and if they want something a bit racy, or more, well, the customer is always right, just be aware of your entire customer base when making that decision.

I am referring to the latest trend of websites with crisp clean design and plenty of white or open space. Studies have shown that people respond best to sites following that basic design principle. Avoid the clutter, it creates confusion, and confusion is the enemy of conversion.

No matter what kind of response you’re trying to create, whether it is getting visitors to sign up for your newsletter, find out information about your business, purchasing directly from your site, having them use a portal to interact with a project your company is working on for them, or wowing them with pictures of your past work, confusion is your enemy, so avoid it all costs…. because that’s what you’ll end up paying.

Business Website Design Mistake #6 – Ignoring the Other 35%

35%, it’s a big number. It’s also the percentage of visitors that now access the Internet using a mobile device. Not having a mobile optimized version of your site is falling down on the user experience side of the equation for all of those visitors.

If you’ve ever visited a website with a smart phone and rapidly grew tired of the endless zooming and scrolling, you know why a mobile optimized version is so critical. If there is one thing web surfers, and society on the whole has right now, it’s impatience. They want it now.

What’s “it”? Just about everything! If you make them do the old wipe, pinch, slide thing on their phones so they can see what they’re looking for on your site, you’ve already lost half of them. They’ll just go somewhere else. If your business is so robust you can afford to throw away 17% of your web traffic, congratulations, you’re doing better than most.

Business Website Design Mistake  #7– If it Moves, Please Don’t (always) Kill It!

Video is huge, and people love it. With ever increasing broadband market penetration, speeds and bandwidth, it is now viable for you to have video on your site. In fact, a growing number of visitors expect it.

Don’t let them down, but here is the key – it must make sense! Don’t simply throw up some video content because you think you have to have it in order to keep pace. While incorporating video on your site can be a huge conversion booster, and enhance the visitor experience, it doesn’t always so that. If it makes sense for your business, don’t wait, use well made videos to deliver a better experience for your visitors. On the other hand however, don;t simply put video on our site just to have some.

Business Website Design Mistake #8 – There is Gold in Them Thar Hills (but you don’t have to spend all of it)

Websites run the gamut from having one of your employees who “knows about the web” do it in their spare time, to paying a high dollar web design firm hundreds of thousands or millions. In most cases, going to either extreme is a mistake.

I worked for an e-commerce start up in the 1990′s, during the Internet boom (Who didn’t?). We were faced with paying a prominent web design company several hundred thousand dollars for our site, or choosing. a small Seattle firm, who would do it for only $85,000. In the end, the executive management team choose to spend the better part of half a million dollars because the goal was taking the company public, and they felt that the larger agency’s reputation was worth the extra money.

In retrospect, that was a huge mistake. One might think that Wall Street may well have respected conserving scarce capital resources during the start up phase. While web site prices have declined since then, due to the number of design tools available and such content management systems as Word Press and Drupal, the basic choice remains; how much to pay for your company’s web site?

Look at examples of the design company’s work, and get several proposals before committing. Get recommendations from business associates as well. Remember, as with any other marketing you do, it is all about ROI. The more you spend on the site, the more difficult it will be to generate a respectable ROI. On the other hand, if the site doesn’t do it’s job, the ROI will be poor, no matter what you spent.

Keep in mind that if you need a specialized custom solution with special programming, it’s going to cost more. Also be aware that there is not always a need for a custom, from the ground up solution with special back end programming that would cause an aneurism when the bill comes due.

Business Website Design Mistake #9 – Old and Cold

Visitors and search engines alike like regularly updated content. This is true no matter what kind of business you run. Keep your company news updated. Be sure your product line, menu, and any other pertinent information people may want to discover about your company. Visitors come to your website,  often looking for info on our latest products.

A key website strength is that it can be updated instantly, unlike printed lit, so take full advantage of that. Think about your reaction when you go to a company’s site looking for info on their latest products, personnel, or new industry developments, only to find it hasn’t been updated since the Bush administration.

Business Website Design Mistake #10 –  Uninvolved

Getting consumers to interact with your site is huge. You want them to become invested and involved, so they’ll be back  more often, and share your content and message with others. Invite user comments, and have contests, polls, and other elements that stimulate interaction.

Business Website Design Mistake #11 –  Why So Different?

For any business a consistent brand image and message is important, and your site should reflect this. Make sure your site accurately delivers your company message and has a  look and feel consistent with your other marketing materials. If you have a physical location your customers visit, it should be an extension of that, with images and identical branding.

Business Website Design Mistake #12 – Low Res is Just Plain Low

Make sure your graphics and other images are all high resolution. This is the HD age, and your visitors expect to crisp, well rendered images, graphics and video. Using poor quality visual content makes your site, and thus your business, look unprofessional.

Business Website Design Mistake #13 – No Way to Keep Them

Neglecting to have a way for the user to opt in to your mailing list or email club. A rule in marketing is that it typically takes 7 contacts before the sale. If your prospect visits your site once, then leaves, never to return, you have a tough job indeed.

Getting them on a permission based mailing list, where you can contact them is a vital part of an integrated marketing campaign. Deliver truly valuable content that helps the prospect and cements your brand image and authority, and don; simply fire out sales message after sales message. Your’re trying to build the most precious of things, a solid relationship, which will lead not only to a sale, but in many cases, a lifetime customer.

For the best deliverability, flexibility, and ease of use, you’ll want to use an auto responder email service, such as Constant Contact, Aweber, or Get Response. Those services will help you build visitor opt-in forms, manage your different mailing lists, and ensure high deliverablity rates, because they have earned the trust of the email providers.

You can build and manage our own list, and host your list on your own servers, but a self hosted solution ignores many of the benefits these email marketing companies provide. In most cases, you’re also putting your list at greater risk by going the self hosted route.

Don’t just slap up a “Join our email club” with the opt in form and expect to get a flood of new sign ups, either. Find something that creates a compelling reason why they should opt in, and give it to them in exchange for their opt in,.

So, here they are, the design mistakes thousands of businesses make on their web sites every day, that you can avoid.

(P.S. – I know SEO isn’t on the list)

1. Unclear Message and Purpose
2. Poor Navigation
3. No social media integration
4. Failing to ensure it looks good in all browsers
5. Having a cluttered design
6. Not having a mobile optimized version of your site.
7. Having no video
8. Spending too much or too little for your site an design.
9. Failure to regularly update your content
10. Not involving your visitor and getting them to interact
11. An image or branding inconstant with the rest of your business
12. Using low res, poor quality visual content and graphics
13. Not including a way for visitors to opt-in to your email list, and giving them a compelling reason to do so.

Avoiding this bakers dozen of business website design mistakes will not guarantee your success, but making will all but ensure your website never  does what it should for your business; deliver you new customers, and bring more revenue form your current ones.

If I left any out, please let me know in a coment. If you enjoyed this post, please give social love on FB, LinkedIn and maybe a Tweet, thanks!

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Steve Jobs, in his element, extolling the virtues of his company's products to an enthusiastic crowd.

What Steve Jobs Could Teach You About Small Business Marketing

In his all too brief time among us, Steve Jobs redefined the way many of us live out lives. But what could the founder of Apple, a company on pace to sell roughly $200 billion worth of electronic gadgets and content downloads this year, teach you about small business marketing?

Do they apply if you’re doing business strictly on a local level? After all, even in their infancy, Apple was still larger than your local corner store, pizza place, hair salon, or auto care provider. Jobs couldn’t possibly devine the intricacies of how to sell more pizza, bring in more dental patients, or ensure that your shop is THE place in town to get a transmission fixed, could he? Well…..

In fact, Jobs was the consummate marketer, and the lessons one can glean from Apple’s rise to being one of the preeminent brands  in the world today are just as applicable to business owners when their market extends for a 10 mile radius, as it is to huge, multi-national corporations.

Jobs Marketing Lesson 1 – Make your customers fanatics about your brand, products, and services

. Apple is about to enter the TV market, and whether or not they redefine the category, they’ll doubtlessly pursue the same marketing strategies that have served so well in creating generics in the consumer’s mind for portable music player and tablet computer.

It’s all about the product or service you provide. Make sure your products or services have their intended customer firmly in mind, and no mater what the competition is doing, find a way to hit the proverbial nail on the head when it comes to meeting their expectations.

In fact, go beyond that, and do what Apple has so often done, redefine the customer experience with what you’re selling, so that your customers would rather buy from no one else. Take it a step further, and you’ll get what Apple has so successfully created time and again; viral products and services; ones that consumers can’t wait to recommend to their friends, family, and associates.

That’s how you build a brand that stands on it’s own and has so much equity that when you release a new pizza, the place is packed and customers are lined up for one. Give them what they want, and then some. Take it past that point of mere satisfaction, to deliver something they didn’t even know they wanted.

Obviously, you’re not going to redefine your products if you’re running the local mini-mart chain, but you can redefine the customer experience, no matter what business you’re running. Only then will your customers take over the marketing for you, and run with it.

Obviously Steve Jobs was a master at creating the kind of products and services that consumers evangelized to the point where competition was almost pointless (Sorry, Zune). Innovate correctly and customers really will beat a path to your doorstep. It wasn’t all about Apple, either. Millions have enjoyed the Pixar creations he had a hand in too, such as Toy Story, Cars, and Finding Nemo.

Jobs Marketing Lesson 2 – Be Highly Recognizable.

Stand apart, in a good way of course. You’d never mistake an Apple product for anything else, or anything else for an Apple product, and that’s just the way Jobs intended. Make your products, services, and your brand be a shining beacon that can’t be missed and attracts consumers like that compelling angler fish light in Nemo….. You might not want to bite them, though.

Ensuring your brand and products are recognizable not only helps them stand out among them plethora of other things competing for their attention in our stimulus packed world, it  makes it hard to forget, easier to talk about, and more likely to be shared. There’s that viral component again.

Jobs Marketing Lesson 3 – Cross Channel Marketing Rocks!

Jobs implemented masterful, cross channel marketing campaigns, combining creative print, online, PR, viral, and broadcast  elements in a synergistic way that delivered far more than either could on their own. He also mastered the art of the personal appearance, especially for product introductions, which  saw teeming throngs, hanging on his every word. Of course, the fact that he was akin to a god in the minds of some consumers, media members, and industry figures surely didn’t hurt, but it does segue nicely into the next Jobs marketing lesson……..

Jobs Marketing Lesson 4 – Become the Authority.

That’s right, become THE one people turn to in your area when they need what you’re selling. Jobs did just that with Apple. How do you do that? Well, excelling is surely a great place to start, but the fact is that for every Dr. Oz, Dave Ramsey, and Martha Stewart, there are hundreds, or even thousands, of others who are just as well qualified.

It’s true, you can become the authority people turn to, even if you are not always the best qualified candidate for the job. It all comes down to shameless self promotion and skillful media mastery. Sing your praises, or better yet, get a recognized authority figure to do it for you. Press releases, personal appearances, and guest spots on local radio and TV shows do wonders in this regard.

Think it’s impossible? Hogwash! Editors and producers are looking for high quality content every day, and need to interview subject matter experts on nearly any subject you can imagine. The exponential demand increase for media content has been a real boon for this kind of marketing. It takes very few such appearances in your local market, provided you don’t make a complete ass of yourself, to cement your reputation as the place to go for whatever you provide.

Another highly effective strategy to achieve expert status in consumers’ minds is to become an author. Can’t write? Well, many of those experts whose books you’ve got stashed on your Kindle can’t either. That’s what ghost writers are for. Nothing is more impressive than being a best selling author, but you needn’t achieve a spot on the coveted Amazon best seller list in order to gain a significant reputation and visibility increase through authorship.

It’s also easier now than ever before to pull this sort of thing off. You don’t need to have an uncle who’s a Random House exec to get your book published anymore. You can self publish to start, have your book print on demand, and get it sold on Amazon for a song. High quality, free lance editors would be happy to take on your project for a relatively affordable figure, which is important, even if you can write, because there’s nothing like another set of eyes.

What it comes down to is that having “Author” after your name carries some weight, and can be leveraged to create more business for you. The same is true for any authority boosting media coverage, and even better, most of this is f-r-e-e, just like your credit report. If you don’t have the time or knowledge to do it yourself, there are many companies that are all too happy to give you a hand in turning you into the Steve Jobs of Seattle auto repair or Orthodontics.

Steve Jobs was a true master who developed his companies into industry leaders using the power of innovative marketing. He embraced a product driven, multi-channel strategy, with a highly recognizable brand,m products and services, and positioned himself as the authority people turned to. You can do the same for your business, too.

Let me know what you think, and if you’ve used any of Job’s marketing strategies in your small business.

If you liked this article, please give it a Facebook like, give it a Tweet, and share it on LinkedIn. Thanks!

Continue reading »]]> Important Mobile Trends Small Business People Should Know for 2012 (and What to Do About Them)

Mobile marketing is not only here to stay, it could well be one of the most important marketing tools you can use for your small business. Okay, as a mobile marketing service provider, I’m slightly biased, but the trends are impossible to ignore. It’s simple, if you want to reach people, you go where they are, and where they are, increasingly, is on their mobile device.

More importantly, it’s not only where your customers are, it’s where they look for what they want to buy, and where they recommend the stuff they’ve bought, and love, to their inner circle. In this day and age, their inner circle can include their 1,884 Facebook friends, 762 Twitter followers, and the 8 dozen Pinners watching their every move on Pinterest.

As a business owner, the choice is clear, offer current and prospective customers compelling reasons to spend money with you, and do it where they will see and share those reasons with their significant others, oh, and their spouses, too. Fortunately, it’s not only easier than ever to do that, people have come to expect it, and even look forward to it.

After all, there’s nothing like a buy 1, get the second at 50% off beer and appetizer coupon for your favorite hangout showing up on your phone Friday afternoon at 2:30, when you’ve already mentally left the office, and are only waiting for your body to follow. Your customers welcome deals, and you’re in a great position to deliver them, using a device they just can’t live without (their words, not mine), and would sooner leave the house with than their asthma medication. Even better, this is not just  a trend among teens and twenty somethings, it’s spread to all but the most seasoned demographics, and it’s making inroads there, as well.

Here are mobile trends for 2012 and beyond that point to the future of mobile marketing as being very bright, indeed, whether your business is small or ginormous:

Smart Phones Close the Gap

The smart phone split is now nearly 50/50. As of February 2012, 49.7% of mobile Americans own smart phones vs regular phones (Neilsen, Feb 2012). Smart phones are catching regular phones, there is no doubt about it.  The trend has been steady, and inexorable. In Feb of 2011, a mere 12 months ago, smart phone use was only 36%. Also, in upwardly mobile areas, the split now favors smart phones.

As I’ve discussed before though, small business owners should stick with SMS marketing (for now), vs migrating to apps or video. The reason is simple. Smart phones read texts, too, while apps and video don’t work for half your customer base. In addition, texts a cheap, fast, easy, and most important, effective.

Android is Pulling Ahead, and Fast

While”iPhone” may be generic for smart phone in the eyes of many, and did record an uptick with the iPhone 4s intoduction, the fact is that Android powered devices overtook them with dizzying speed, and now lead the smart phone OS race. As of Feburary, 2012 (Neilsen), 32.1% of smart phones were Apple iOS devices, vs 48% running Google’s Android OS. New purchasers choose Android over iOS by a factor of 48% to 43%.

You Need a Mobile Website

If you’re a small business owner, you’re shooting yourself in the foot, and possibly a more vital body part, by ignoring an version of your website optimized for mobile users. Why? It’s overwhelming; that’s where your customers look for what they want to buy, even when shopping locally. That holds true for everything from hamburgers to Humvees. At the end of Q3 2011, 38% of customers reported using their mobile device to compare prices while actually in the store, and 24% were searching for and/or using online coupons. Judging by current trends, that figure has doubtlessly risen in the 6 months since those figures were published.

Can’t they do that on your normal website? Sure, they can, if you don’t mind them having to scroll and scan around to read it. It’s all about the experience, and if customers don’t like it, they’ll just leave. If they are already in your store, or looking for coupons, it’s your job to make things as easy and enjoyable for them is possible. Make buying easy, and they will.

Optimize for Local Search or Stay Lost

You need to optimize your Google, Yahoo, and Bing places listings so potential customers can find you. 18% of mobile users reported they use local search information to find local businesses while on the go (Neilsen, Feb 2012). That figure ignores those who also use their laptop or desktop computers to do so, it’s strictly for mobile devices.  Think about it, if someone is already out in their car, on the bus, or walking around, and they search for a business that provides what they’re looking for, they are going there!

Sleeping With Their iPHONE?

Maybe not, but people are using mobile devices more than ever, and the trend isn’t slowing down. Between 2008 and 2011, the amount of time that people spent using their mobile devices increased a staggering 88%. (eMarketer, Dec 2011)  Contrast that to time spent reading newspapers, which showed a nearly 58% decrease in the same time period. If you’re a small business owner trying to reach customers and prospects, it’s clear where the majority of your resources should be concentrated.

Mobile is Exploding Among the Big Players

The big players have embraced mobile, and so should small business owners. eMarketer projects that mobile ad spending will increase an astounding 80% in 2012, compared to 43% for social media, and 15.6% for non-mobile Internet ads. There is a reason that large companies, who produce the lion’s share of ad revenues, are pouring resources into mobile marketing and advertising. Their mega-buck market research initiatives reveal that it’s where the customers are.

More Mobile Marketers Power the Boom

Why will spending increase 80%? eMarketer’s research (Dec, 2011) points to this: 65% of companies marketing online report they will increase spending on the mobile channel through 2012. That compares to only 49% planning to increase online video ad spending, and a mere 26% who plan to increase their ad network (Google Adwords, Bing, etc.) spending. Again, the money follows the ROI.

See and Hear It

Mobile video ads will be huge in the coming years. It is projected that mobile video ad spending will increase 614% in the next 4 years. That correlates nicely with the increase in smart phones toted by prospective customers, and their propensity to use them for viewing online video. As the percentage of customers who can watch videos on their mobile devices leaves behind those who can not, marketers will put videos persuasive and power an viral ability to good use.

Expect the easy ability of videos to become viral in the mobile medium to be targeted heavily, and produce some exciting marketing. If you’re a small business owner, creativity is the key here. A great viral marketing campaign need not be expensive to trend like Katy Perry or Krysten Ritter, but it has to be creative and shareworthy.

How to Use These Trends to Grab More Business for 2012, and Beyond

Mobile is not only here, and growing, it could well be the one thing that lifts your business from the realm of “just getting by” to an

Consumers love great offers, and here is how you deliver them now, and have them instantly join your list in the process, so you can send offeres in the future too.

embarrassment of riches.

Make it Easy

While making it easy for customers to do what you want should be at the forefront of any business owner’s priorities, relatively few are doing it with regards to mobile marketing. Give them an easy way to join your SMS list, so you can market to them over and over again, at times that help your business fill in those slow times. This works very well for both consumers with smart phones, and those without.

Here are a few:

Keyword texts for discounts or free stuff. If there is one thing consumers love, it’s discounts and free stuff, so oblige them. You should have your campaign visible everywhere you can, without looking like that’s all you’re in it for.What am I referring to? You’ve seen them from savvy small business owners already, such as:

• Text “pizza” to 12345 for a 35% discount off your next large pizza・E
• Text “showtime” to 12345 for show time information a free large popcorn at your next movie.
• Text “back” to 12345 for 50% of your first adjustment.

Optimize for Mobile

Having a specially optimized landing page that automatically shows up when a mobile user hits your website is relatively inexpensive and easy to implement, especially considering the ROI it generates. Your regular website company can do this, but there are also many firms that specialize in mobile marketing and can do the work, as well.

Do Both –

Make it easy and optimize. Make sure your mobile landing page isn’t simply mobile a version of your regular website, but an engaging reason for

your customers to either opt in to or mobile marketing list or call your office, establishment, or shop. You can even make a “tap to call” button they can click to instantly dial your phone. They’ll appreciate how easy it is, and you’ll love the business you get. Remember to include a link to the mobile optimized version of your website on the landing page for customers that need more than simply a coupon or quick access to your phone. See More Examples Here

Trends reveal that mobile is the future, but increasingly the present as well. If you’re ignoring this vital aspect to marketing your small business, you’re turning your back on a significant percentage of consumers, and they’ll likely return the favor.

Does your company have a mobile website yet? If not, why not? Also, have you embraced other mobile marketing initiaves, such as SMS? Have they been successful for you?

Speaking of favors, if you liked this post and think it could help someone, please share it using the buttons below, thanks!

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SMS marketing is truly the small business owners friend.

SMS marketing, also called text message marketing, is one of the most powerful small business marketing tools to come down the pike in a generation. Why? Simple, nearly everyone has a cell phone, carries it with them everywhere they go, and text message open rates are sky high (>95%). Marketing emails, on the other hand, do well to be opened half the time, and that’s if your copywriter is a whiz with headlines.

It Gets Even Better

Not only are texts almost always read, they’re read right now, in contrast to emails, which, when they’re read at all, average almost 48 hour response times. While nearly 48 hours is too slow for a marketing campaign to rescue your Thursday night dinner business, “right now” is perfect for it. The combination of ubiquity and timeliness has more small business owners discovering the power of text message marketing to not only get the word out to customers, but do so when they sorely need them to come back through the door.

You want to pull in more guests? Nothing succeeds like appealing to both their palette and their wallet. One SMS technique that’s proving to be an overwhelming favorite is the “instant special”, which works equally well for many different establishments, from bars and restaurants to boutiques. It works like this:

Here is one place where text message marketing thrives. If your restaurant is slow in the period between the lunch rush and your dinner, you can “fill in the blanks”, or in this case, your empty tables, with a well chosen special and a compelling text coupon. Send it out immediately after the lunch rush subsides. If it is right on target, and you servers are well schooled in upselling, you can get a nice little business boost, when traditionally you’d have nothing.

All the Time, or Show Some Restraint?

If you’re blasting texts every day, one of two things will happen. The worst outcome is that your customers will ignore or unsbscribe from your list, effectively negating it’s effectiveness. On the other hand, if your offers are truly compelling, they will come to expect them.

While they may not come in for your $4.00 crab stuffed mushrooms every Tuesday at 3:00pm, they will at least on be looking for something great from you, and will show their smiling faces at your door on occasion. Better, they will probably mention those fantastic offers to their family, friends, and business associates. It’s all in the offer and how you present it.

Expect the Unexpected

Text marketing can be equally effective for a wide variety of local businesses, not just restaurants. Virtually any business where you have traditionally slow times effectively use the technique to bring in business, and even better, it can work wonders on those unexpected slow days that can kill your bottom line. After all, you’ve already factored in those slow Tuesday afternoons, but what about when Friday night’s just not shaping up like it should?

Auto service and oil change businesses can also profit handsomely from a judiciously applied SMS campaign to fill in the slow times. For example, if your Saturday afternoon is not seeing the typical full bays, you can send one of your employees out on the street with sign boards, or you can broadcast a text to your loyal customers with a half price oil change.

Another great use of SMS for auto care providers, and others is for weather related services. For example, on the first really hot day of the season, you can send out a special on an A/C service or cooling system flush. The same techniques works well on the first cold day also. A friendly reminder about the effects of old antifreeze on their expensive engine, coupled with an attractive special is normally enough to bring in at least a handful of anxious drivers seeking t ward off disaster.

Own a marina or tanning salon? Sure those are disparate businesses, but they both have one thing in common, demand rises when the weather is nice enough to take your shirt off. On the first really nice day of spring, it’s time to fire up the text message marketing machine. A “Get ‘er in the Water” special, or 5 for 4 tanning package on that day will nearly always create a flood of phone calls and visits.

In the marina example, you’re normally just trying to get maintenance appointments scheduled. It’s one of those things people know they need to get done, but don’t seem to get around to, unless they get a friendly reminder, coupled with an incentive. Of course, you’ll use their visit to sell them all manner of other things, too.

Tanning salons are a perfect fit for text message marketing. Their customer base falls exactly into the demographic that most uses cell phones and texting, as you’re no doubt well aware if you’ve ever seen a pair of teens or twenty-somethings madly exchange text messages from across the room (or even the table), when a spoken word would have more than sufficed.

Why Does SMS Marketing Work?

Th aforementioned open rate of 95%+, for one, but it goes far beyond that. Texting and mobile devices are now well engrained into the American lifestyle. According to the latest studies, statistics more than bear out what parents everywhere could have told marketers 5 years ago; texting is more than just here to stay, it’s taken over as the preferred communication method.

To wit:

• There are 5.9 billion mobile subscribers (87 percent of the world’s population)  More people use mobile devices than toothbrushes!
• Mobile advertising revenue doubled from 2010 to 2011, and is predicted to explode to 8 times its 2011 level by 2015 (Gartner research) That shows consumers are accepting of mobile marketing, or at the very least, marketers are seeing a heck of a return from it!
• 70% of 17 year-olds text everyday (2010 Pew Internet Study)
• More than 7 in 10 (71%) of cell-phone owning parents of teens 12-17 say they send and receive text messages on their cell phones (2010 Pew Internet Study)
• 8 trillion text messages are predicted to be sent world wide in 2012
• 83.3% of advertisers used SMS marketing in 2011, an increase from 58.3% in 2010. This illustrates the medium’s effectiveness.

Stay Tuned In

Another powerful advantage of texting is that you know exactly how well a specific offer works, and you get that feedback very quickly. That kind of info allows you to fine tune your marketing campaigns and maximize your ROI. As with any sort of marketing, through testing is the key to complete success, Test everything, refine and repeat. This includes the offer, the headline, the time the text is sent, and virtually any other possible variable. Your mobile marketing provider will (at least they should) carefully track this and report what works and why.

How to Get Their Number and Permission to Use It?

One of the most effective and simple methods to do this is to offer a coupon on your website and a mobile coupon in your establishment. For example, you can have various print media, such as posters and table tents with an offer customers can redeem by texting a keyword to a specific number. It is similar to offering an incentive for an email opt-in.

Make sure you have your offer attractively placed where it can benefit both existing customers and bring in new ones as well. Put it in the window or on other outdoor advertising, such as billboards or other promotion methods you may be using.

This is very effective and will not only bring in your existing customers more often, you’ll reach new ones as well.

The Next BIG Thing in Mobile Marketing? Video Messages

While text message marketing is highly effective, trends point to more mobile marketing messages being video messages. While people love online video, and there is no doubt video marketing works (Just ask YouTube), there are solid reasons why, as a local business owner, you should stick with traditional SMS for now.

1) Deliverability – While video sure looks slick on your customer’s smart phone, those without smart phones just don’t get it. Your aim is to deliver your message to as many potential customers as possible, so stick to text.

2) Text is Easy and Fast – While some folks can create a compelling 20 second video message in a few minutes, most business owners simply can’t make that happen, but they can crank out a great text marketing offer and send it out in about 30 seconds. More easy-to-use tools, such as Vimeo, will come down the pike to help on this score, and you can re-use video messages with minor changes, but it will never be as quick and easy to make an on the spot video offer as it is to create and send a text.

3) Cost Effective – Texts are cheaper to send than video and have very high response rate, meaning the ROI on marketing dollars spent is hard to beat, and that’s what is important to most business owners.

It’s the Law

As with anything in our society today, there are some important legal ramifications from text message marketing. For example, all marketing text communications must include an unsubscribe, or stop, similar to what’s required with email marketing messages. Check your federal, state, and local laws, and work with your mobile marketing provider to ensure you stay on the right side of the statutes.

SMS Marketing is the Small Business Owner’s Friend Indeed

All the evidence points to the fact that SMS marketing is one of the best friends a local business owner can have. It’s ability to drive customers through the doors virtually at will, and keep them engaged is hard to beat, and it’s easy implementation and tracking ability will combine to keep you, as a business owner hooked once you try it, too.

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People have their cell phones with them everywhere, and respond to them quickly, making them the perfect marketing delivery vehicle. Combining the power of SMS text marketing with the traditional punch card customer loyalty program is creating a whole, new paradigm in small business marketing.

Text Message Punch Cards – The Latest Trend in Customer Loyalty Programs

Text message punch cards are the latest spin on the customer loyalty program. You know, the ubiquitous punch cards used by virtually every local business, from flower shops to tanning salons, and restaurants to autocare providers, and just about everything else in between……

Well, there is a new sheriff in town! We’re talking about bringing the lowly, but effective punch card system into the modern era by combining the same basic principle with the one device that it seems everyone has at least one of, never lets out of their sight, and probably couldn’t live without; the cell phone.

Simple Messaging Service (SMS), usually referred to as text messaging has been with us for a while now, probably since the first business owner realized that they could use their customer phone list to supercharge their marketing efforts. There is a great reason for this.

Get the Message….. Well, Maybe Not!

While on the surface, text message marketing may seem more expensive compared to old fashioned (?) email marketing methods, a quick look at the overwhelming effectiveness of SMS marketing reveals that overall cost definitely isn’t everything. According to recent studies, while email marketing messages experience limited open rates, even with the best subject lines your copywriter could devise, SMS delivery experiences no such problem.

For example, restaurants, one of the heaviest SMS marketing users normally have email marketing message open rates on the order of 25% – 30%, while hitting over 95% with their SMS campaigns! There are many reasons for his. An email could get caught in a spam filter, buried in the avalanche of emails the average person gets, or simply ignored. Many people routinely ignore the vast majority of emails that don’t come from family, close friends, or business associates.

Obviously, the SMS campaigns justify their higher initial costs. Marketers and business owners don;t really care about the cost per message sent. The cost per message opened is the only figure that matters here. Well, actually there is another statistic in SMS marketing’s favor, as well.

Timing Really is Everything

In marketing, as in life, timing is everything. If you’re sending out a message about your Friday evening dinner or drink specials or coupons, you’d like it to be opened Friday. That’s when your customers are making dinner plans, not late Friday evening or Saturday morning, when they are are either sitting at another restaurant’s table, or lounging on their couch, nursing a hangover from the money they spent at a competitor’s establishment the night before.

That’s another area where SMS marketing walks all over traditional email marketing. Statistics show that your temporal targeting ability is tremendously improved with text message marketing over email. SMS messages are perfect for exactly this kind of marketing, because they tend to be opened within 15 minutes of being sent. For local business owners, it doesn’t get any better than this for being able to connect with customers for timely messages that can drive substantial business into their establishments……

The Next Big Thing in Marketing for Local Businesses – Text Message Loyalty Programs

Except that maybe it does… the newest evolution of the lowly (but highly effective) punch or stamp card loyalty program is poised to take SMS marketing campaigns by storm. The reasons are simple, they have all the advantages of normal SMS marketing, combined with the powerful components of a loyalty program, and none of the drawbacks of a physical card program.

Why Local Business Owners Love Text Message Punch Cards

Build a Large, Loyal Customer List – Obviously, that’s the goal of nearly every business, whether they use a loyalty program or not. These systems simply facilitate and accelerate the process, while simultaneously increasing their effectiveness. That’s a rare combination. Even better, in addition to the loyalty program, you can reach out and touch them with new offers at will, providing them with new reasons to spend money at your store or office.

Decrease Advertising and Marketing Costs – Most small business owners have a significant marketing budget, often divided between direct mail, Internet advertising, email marketing, newspaper advertising, event sponsorships, and the myriad of other marketing and promotion methods. Even if they are using some high ROI guerrilla marketing techniques, and are publicity masters (pub can be an extremely effective  marketing tool if implemented correctly), they’ll be hard pressed to get a better ROI than with a well run SMS based loyalty program.

Increase Customer Value – One of the best ways to stay in business and expand your customer base is to over-deliver value. You’ll build a rabid fan base of loyal customers and make them love you. SMS loyalty programs enable local business owners to do just that, by giving them exclusive discounts, products, and specials they’ll find nowhere else. The customers not only stay loyal, they sing your praises to their friends, associates and family members, providing even more value to your marketing initiatives.

Bring Your Customers Back Sooner -It’s no secret to most business owners, whether they be Fortune 500 execs or mom and pop deli owners; there are only three ways to increase sales.

You can:

• Acquire new customers
• Sell more to your existing customers with each visit
• Sell to your existing customers more often

Text message loyalty programs enable you to do all three, but excel at increasing visit frequency, because they give you pipeline to your customers with a powerful reason for them to to come back to your place more often than they otherwise would. It maters not whether you’re running a restaurant, auto dealer, chiropractic practice, or veterinary clinic, you will have your customers coming back sooner.

Increase Marketing Effectiveness – As noted, deliverability and temporal relevance are orders of magnitude ahead of traditional email marketing, and virtually every other marketing method in use today. That enables business owners to target their marketing very effectively, and be sure that it hits the bulls eye nearly every time.

Customers Will Happily Accept This Form of Marketing – While many people, okay, nearly al of them, despise email marketing, most will happily jump on the text message punch card bandwagon. You only need ask them. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to get customers to accept traditional punch cards, and it is much the same with this new method. In fact, it much better for the customer, as they get all the advantages of a punch card program with significant additional benefits.

For example, if you run a burrito shop with a stamp card program, your lunch customers can not only get their free burrito for every 10 burritos they order, but you can also send them a coupon for your Friday special, too. They’ll love you for saving them even more money on something they were probably going to buy anyway, just maybe not on Friday. They’ll probably bring a co-worker or two along to eat with them (who will not only pay full price, but also opt in to your program).

You can see the advantages of these new marketing systems, and why they are ready to take off. Soon, they will be in wide use, just as punch and stamp card programs are today. If you run a local business, jump on board the text message punch card bandwagon now and get ahead of the crowd, so you’re positioned to take full advantage of what these systems offer.

For more on how this can help your business prosper almost overnight, see Text Message Loyalty Program

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Continue reading »]]> How to get customers; if you run a small business, unless you’re one of the rare few, it’s a thought that occupies your mind most of your waking hours. Sure, you probably have other concerns as well; employee retention, taxes, customer service, vendors, accounts receivable, and so on, but unless you keep the pipeline full, little else matters.

Your business likely depends on a steady stream of new customers walking through your doors. Leave aside for a minute that is is much easier to keep an existing customer, and sell to them again and again. If you want to grow, it’s new business you need.

Whether you sell these or just want to drive one, it is essential to keep a steady flow of new clients, customers, or patients coming through your door. Unlikebusiness owners of only 10 years ago, small business owners today have extremely powerful tools at their disposal to get them.

You’re fortunate to live in a time with the greatest communication medium human kind has yet seen, the, as we called
it back in the ’90s, “information superhighway”. Whether Bill Gates himself could have envisioned the extent to which AL Gore’s baby has grown is open to debate, but the fact remains that one thing at which it excels is delivering information for which people are searching.

The Information Superhighway Goes Right to Your Door

Even better for you, as a business owner, is that with the proliferation of mobile devices and cheap computers, one thing that people search for the most is where to find the products and services they need. If you know how to make the Internet work for you, you can capture new prospects at precisely the most advantageous moment; when they are searching for the products and services you offer.

Customers are On Their Way to Your Store Right Now, If You Only Show Them How to Get There

It doesn’t get much better than that, except that it actually does. With the advent of mobile, there is a strong likelihood that the prospective customer is actually driving around with the need or desire to purchase your wares as they’re searching online for it.

Done properly, it is a relatively simple matter to show them that your establishment is a perfect fit for them and their desires. If they’re not searching on a mobile device, chances are they are checking from the office or home immediately before heading out the door to buy whatever it is that you’re selling.

Because humans love nothing if not convenience, and mobile prices keep plummeting even as the devices improve by leaps and bounds, mobile use is poised to overtake PC use by 2015; just around the corner. Market research powerhouse IDC predicts that by that year total internet users will number 2.7 billion, and that the annual mobile growth rate for all mobile device will be 16.6%, culminating with 1 billion smart phones being sold in 2015.

Furthermore the company said yesterday that by 2015, Android powered tablets will outpace iPAD sales, thanks to more affordable Android devices, and Amazon’s KindleFire tablet. This year, the company projects Android device sales will grow by 54%. “Soon, more users will access the Web using mobile devices than using PCs. It’s going to make the Internet a very different place.” according to an IDC spokesperson.

So, What? How Can I Use This to Drive More Customers to My Store?

What’s that trend mean for you, as an auto care provider, chiropractor, dentist, restaurant owner, or roofer who’d just like to see more customers, clients, or patients call for an appointment or walk through the front door? It is a potential gold mine, provided you position yourself to take advantage of it. It’s a case of position or perish. Those owners who’s business’s are found precisely when when people are looking will thrive, provided they are set up to handle the influx of new customers. Even if you, as a business owner have no ability or desire for growth, it will allow you to upgrade your customer base, by taking on the more desirable clients and leaving the rest for your competitors.

If you are looking for growth, as an astute business owner, you’ll go to where your prospects are looking, and increasingly, that is online. More specifically however, for local small businesses, it is not to the traditional search engine results, although those can still deliver tremendous benefits when used correctly.

What Developments Will I Be Using to Power This Customer Acquisition Revolution?

Relatively recently, Google, Bing and Yahoo introduced local listings. Thee are not to be confused with traditional search engine results. You’ve seen them near the top of the search results pages when you do a search for a local provider, with the cute, little pins stuck in a map, denoting business locations. In the case of Google results, they take up to 7 first page positions, which is the prime search engine results real estate.

This is a boon to local small businesses. People tend to stay on the first page when to comes to finding what they’re looking for, with about 85 percent of searchers clicking on a page 1 result, and around 30% picking the result in the top spot. Local search has modified this behavior somewhat, by directing people’s attention away from the normal search results (known as “organic”) and toward the local listings. Google itself says that 20% of a all searches and 40% of searches from a mobile device are location related.

At first, many business owners were slow to grasp local search significance, but that appears to be changing now, as those who find their businesses prominently featured there are reaping the rewards far beyond what they typically get from more traditionally advertising methods, such as yellow pages and newspaper ads. That kind of thing gets passed around relatively quickly in business circles.

Why does this work so much better than many of the more established methods? Simple, it’s because people are increasingly turning to the power and convenience of their smart phone, tablet, or laptop, and eschewing the older, print-based provider location methods. Judging from the number of newspapers either disappearing or going entirely online over the last decade, this trend will only increase.

In fact, according to the industry journal Editor and Publisher, the first decade of the 21tr century saw 20% of newspaper jobs vanish, and many large, established city papers, such as the Rocky Mountain News, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Tuscon Citiczen, and Minneapolis Star Tribune either went out of business entirely, filed for bankruptcy reorganization, or migrated to an Internet only format. Many o the large newspaper firms evaporated or filed for bankruptcy as well, as readers increasingly turned to the Internet for their news and ad revenues dried up.

Ad revenues went elsewhere because local merchants found they got much higher ROI from alternative marketing and advertising methods. A quick check of your local newspaper reveals that with the exception of auto dealers and theaters, few local businesses choose to advertise in a medium that doesn’t work as well as it did in days gone by.

How about the phone book advertising? Again, somewhat passe’. When was the last time you used the cumbersome volume to find a local business? Exactly the point! Few others do, either. Many marketing experts now advise eliminating the large, expensive display ads, and leaving only a single line, bold listing.

So, How Can I  Get My Business Into the Local Search Results My Customers Are Using Now?

For one thing, although it is certainly a great idea to have one, you technically do not even need a website to appear in local search results, such as Google Places for Business, or as of early March 2012, Bing Local. This is a stark departure from traditional search engine results which are listing your website. If you have no website, you have no chance to be listed. Admittedly, the “no website problem” plagues fewer and fewer business owners these days.

You may already be there, but if your business doesn’t appear, here is how to at least give it a shot. In larger metro areas some business categories are fiercely competitive, with business owners fighting tooth and nail to gain one of the coveted places listings. In Google Places, only the top 7 businesses for any search term appear, leaving the remainder fighting to either get there, or land an organic search result on the first page.

While getting a first page organic (as opposed to local search) result is certainly possible, it can be difficult, time consuming, and expensive. Most business owners simply don’t have the time or expertise to do it themselves, and hiring a company to do what’s necessary can cost many thousands of dollars per search term, and then you need to keep working (and spending) to keep your results there.

On the other hand, local rankings are much easier to achieve, and Google doesn’t charge to be listed in Places, unlike their pay per click platform, AdWords. You will have to do some work to get listed there however. First, you’ll have to claim your listing, and here is how to do that, so that you have it, and it doesn’t get hijacked to be sold back to you later; and yes, unfortunately, people have tried to do that.

Claiming Your Places Listing

1 – Sign up for your Google account and Places listing. – Don’t have one yet? Go to

https://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=142902&topic=1660711&parent=1656746&rd=1

to sign up for your Google Places listing. Click the, appropriately enough, “Sign Up for Google Places” button that is featured prominently in the center of the page. You’ll be taken to a Google account sign in page. If you have a Google account you use for your business, sign in with that. Otherwise, create on now.

Do not use your personal Google Account for your business listing, create a new one. It will be much easier to attain a featured spot in the Google Places listings with  dedicated page for your business.

2 – Set up your GP listing – Once you’ve gotten your account, it’s time to get everything set up. Log in, and you’ll notice a “List Your Business” button . You’ll enter your phone number, ad Google will check to see if they have your business listed already. If you’re unsure,they probably do not.

Once you’ve done that, you will be able to enter business details. Here is where it gets tricky. Some things, like your address and phone number are pretty self explanatory, while others may seem easy, but how you set them up now can make all the difference later. For example you are able to enter a description. This is capped at 200 characters, slightly longer than a Tweet.

It is very important that you include in your description the same terms that people use to search for your business online. You can use one of two methods to determine what those are. The first, and most technical, is to use a keyword tool, such as Google’s to list what terms people use to search for business related to what you do. The second method, and sometimes just as effective for local search results, is to ask as many people as you can what terms they would use if they were searching for what you provide.

Choosing the correct search terms is vital if you want actual customer traffic however, and should not be left to chance. Google will match your description with those terms to help determine where your listing appears in the search results. Now you can see why you have to get this right.

You’ll have the ability to enter your website address, email, and business category, as well. If you have a contracting business, such as a plumber, roofer, exterminator, or electrical contracting firm, choose the appropriate service areas and location information. Check the “Yes, this business serves customers at their locations” button. You will also want to specif a service area, either by radius or name(s).

If your business operated out of a fixed location, such as an auto care provider, medical office, accounting firm, restaurant, or any other business where customers come to your shop, click the “No, all customers come to the business location” button.

To ensure that you are the business owner, Google requires verification before publicly showing your listing. To do this, they send a post card to your address with a PIN, which you must enter in your places listing to confirm it is valid. Once this step is complete, your business places listing will be online for all to see.

Great, Now Where Am I?

Except that well, they might not see it. Sure you now have a listing, but if more than 7 other businesses in your category with your search keywords also have one, Google uses other factors to determine which is the most relevant listing to display for searchers. So, you could be forced out by competitors for many of the most advantageous search terms, even if you now have a Google Places listing.

How to Stake Your Claim at the Top

Seems like a bit of work, only to be eclipsed by your competitors, doesn’t it? It is not an unusual situation, however. Just think how many different dentists, plastic surgeons, Chinese restaurants, accountants, and transmission repair shops there are in a large, or even medium sized city, and you see where the trouble lies.

What can you do to increase your chances of appearing at the top spot, or at least somewhere in the coveted places listings? Well, you can always hire a firm to get you there, and that is certainly a popular option, especially for time strapped business owners who have enough on their plate already. If you do choose that route, you’ll be pleased to discover that it is typically much less expensive, and the results appear much faster, to pay a firm to get your Google places listing featured for your desired keywords than it is to pay for traditional search engine optimization services.

If you want to do the work yourself, here are the most important things you need to do. These are often enough to vault you past most of you competitors, many of whom have not done the extra work required.

1 -  Make sure you’re business is verified. You can have a listing, but not have been verified. Request your Google verification PIN postcard and enter the PIN in the form box when it arrives.

2 – Add Pictures and Video – In your places listing, you’ll see an area where you can enter pictures and videos describing your business and what you do. Google didn’t do this simply because they had extra space. Take them up on it. It is another factor they use to help you rank higher in Places.

Here is a powerful tip. When you upload the photos, make sure they are named with the descriptive keywords you’re trying to rank for. So, if you have a diesel repair shop in Auburn, be sure that at least one of your pictures is named something like: diesel_repair_shop_Auburn.jpg.

Make some compelling videos about your business. They don’t have to be Marty Scorsere blockbusters, just quality, descriptive videos that highlight what you do and why you’re the place to go for it. Upload those to YouTube (it’s owned by Google), and paste the video’s URL (address) into the box in your Google places account manager where it asks for you to enter video. As with your pictures, make sure the YouTube title and description match what you’re  trying to be found for.

You can add up to 10 pictures and 5 videos. Start gathering the photos and making the videos now! They will help your listing rank higher.

Next you’ll want to get something from your existing customers; reviews. These are powerful for two reasons. One is that the social proof they provide makes people feel more comfortable about your business, but the second is that those gold stars make your business really stand out among all he other places listing, making yours more likely to be clicked on, even if it is not near the top.

You’ll need at least 5 reviews before the gold stars appear. Do not, under any circumstances, forge these reviews or even submit genuine reviews yourself. Your customer needs to submit them from their own Google account.

You can incentivse them to offer an honest review, but you can not simply pay them for a good one.  Your Google account, at the very least, will be in jeopardy should you do so. Train your staff to ask your customers to leave reviews on your website, and offer them complementary coffee cards or something else for taking the time to leave an hones review. It will pay off handsomely for you.

More On How to Get Customers Into Your Shop Next Time

You should now be at least on your way to getting a flood of new customers from the Internet. In many areas, thousands of customers monthly search for exactly what you offer. It’s shame if you’re not getting some of them. Next time, I’ll examine additional strategies to help your GP listing rise to the top, in addition to other powerful ways you can help your business get, and keep customers using the Internet and powerful methods..

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Continue reading »]]> Creating a Customer Loyalty Strategy

There’s a saying in the so-called Internet marketing industry; “The money is in the list.” Leaving aside for a minute that the term “Internet marketing” describes a communication medium applied to marketing, not an actual industry, that’s true not only for business owners selling online, but to any other type of business as well.

Your Company’s Value

A large part of the intrinsic value of your company is in your customer list. If selling your company is part of your exit strategy, having a long list of existing customers is going to be a large component of the value others see in your business. Simply put, you’ll be able to sell your business for a much higher price if you have a long list of satisfied customers.

When considering ongoing operations, having a list of loyal customers makes reaching your business profitability goals so much easier. Instead of focusing your marketing efforts on creating new customers within your target market, you can aim at a list of proven buyers. You’re much more likely to generate another sale from a customer who you have an ongoing relationship with, and who has bought from you in the past, than one who knows little about your business, products, or services.

Think about it, would you rather have a list of 500 prospects, or a list of 500 accounts? I thought so. Whether you have a contracting business, accounting firm, or consulting company, having an ongoing business relationship means the customer will call you first when they need something, rather than seeking out someone new. People generally take the path of least resistance when trying to get something done. It’s just human behavior, and marketing is nothing if not the study of human behavior. Calling your business when they need what you provide should be that path for your existing customers.

If your business exists in the online or traditional space, the ability to mine a list of existing customers for new sales is of incalculable value. Weather you’re an Internet marketing newbie or a “Guru” building a list is of primary importance. One of the first thing that any new Internet marketer is told is “capture that email” so they can begin an email marketing campaign. While that is definitely an important part of generating sales and profits, a list of actual customers, not just prospects, is of much greater importance.

When someone gives you their email address in exchange for a report, e-book, or newsletter, all you know is that they have some level of interest in what you do. You really know little else about them. How qualified a prospect they are you’ll not know until you begin your email marketing campaign. A list of actual customers,as in those who have already purchased from you, is infinitely more valuable. You absolutely know they are a qualified lead because they have demonstrated such by handing over their hard earned money to your business in the past.

The reality is that if you have no customer loyalty, your business is just a marketing and promotional campaign, not a viable, long term business. Eventually you’ll exhaust the supply of new customers in your market, or the ROI of your marketing efforts will be too high to sustain your operations.

Why No Love?

Given the importance of customer loyalty, it’s amazing that so few businesses create a formal customer loyalty strategy. Sure, many businesses have a rough idea about creating customer loyalty, but few formalize the strategy. Business owners will talk about good customer service, selling quality products, delivering them on time, exceeding customer expectations, and making sure they attend to the details that keep customers coming back. While all that is certainly important, it’s not a formal strategy that can be refined over time to maximize performance.

To have a formal customer loyalty strategy, you need metrics that can be measured to determine the effectiveness of your efforts. That way you can see if your strategy is effective, and make changes in an effort to improve it. You’ll know weather or not your changes are working or not and be able to create an actionable strategy.

It points to discovering as much as possible about your customers, what motivates them to buy from you, and why they return. You’ll want to measure their overall customer experience, and if possible, improve upon it. Your business depends upon it. A 1997 study by Patterson, Johnson, and Spreng found 78% of the decision to repurchase something from a business was based on customer satisfaction.

How can you measure and increase customer satisfaction and use it create a customer loyalty strategy?

It depends on the metrics you use to define your customer’s experience, but some of the more effective ones are delivery time, product selection, relative price, ease of use of your website, call back time, ease of contact, and satisfaction with the product / service as delivered, and proximity/convenience. Some things, such as time can be directly measured and assigned a value. Others must be measured on a scale with multiple points. In many cases a 5 or 7 point scale is used to define such variables, with responses ranging from extremely unsatisfied to extremely satisfied or some variation thereof. You get the point.

To make your measurements even more effective, the different attributes should be weighted. This will help in defining which components have the greatest impact in the overall level of customer satisfaction. For example, satisfaction with the product or service may have more weight than delivery time. That will depend upon your customer base and the type of business you’re operating.

One of the most important findings in the 1997 study was that meeting or exceeding customer expectations was the prime factor in reported customer satisfaction. It makes perfect sense, but if your business meets or exceeds customer expectations, they’ll give little thought to using your services again, fail to do so and you create a disconnect in their minds that soon extends to their wallets. Basically you’ll not get them to extract that Visa from their wallet again if they weren’t happy the first time.

On the flip side, studies indicate that customers give little or no thought to using your business again if you exceeded their expectations. That’s the best thing you can have, a loyal, repeat customer that automatically buys from you.

Your strategy to create customer loyalty at that level should focus first on customer satisfaction and the customer experience, and second on ensuring that you are staying at the forefront of offerings in your field. As trends emerge, you need to be at the front of them in order to give your customers no reason to turn elsewhere to satisfy their future needs. They’ll be your loyal customers until the end, and that’s the real key to reaching your business profitability goal.

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Continue reading »]]> How Can I Get Traffic Through My Doors?

How to get free, targeted traffic to their websites and through their front doors is one of the questions I’m asked the most by those starting out in their small businesses. After all, if customers aren’t coming through your door, whether you have a small business or a multinational corporation, you’re not making any money.

As a small business owner, fewer things are more frustrating than knowing your company provides a great product or service, but being unable to get enough customers through the door to prove it. Try this technique. It will bring your business increased visibility, and increased customer traffic at the same time.

Be The Authority Customers Turn To

Another common question small business owners ask is “How can I increase my credibility?” Although there are now thousands of small businesses in every major city in the country, gaining credibility is still something that many owners are worried about.

What if I could show you how to supercharge your small business marketing, get more free traffic and increase your business’ credibility all at the same time? What if I also told you that none of this, not the increased traffic, the boost in cred, or the new customers banging down your door, would cost you a penny?

Would you be interested? I bet you would be, because once you master this skill, the question of how to make money from your small business will be answered once and for all. Did you know that there are thousands of hard working people whose job it is to help people find your business and learn more about it? Really! That’s their job. They come to work, (or work from their home office) every day with the goal of helping you to grow your business.

Well actually that’s not what their stated goal is, but it’s the effect of what they do. Who is this army of professionals that are standing by, at the ready, waiting to help you succeed in your small or small business?

They are publishers, reporters, bloggers, and anchors. One thing they need, unfailingly, each and every day, is fresh, new content. They will willingly write about you, your employees, your products, your industry, and your business if you give them a reason to do so. That’s right, these people’s job is to write about things, and in many cases your business, or something related to it, can be the object of their efforts.

Think of the momentous job it is to produce fresh, new content for your newspaper, magazine, blog, e-zine, or TV program. It’s not easy, and if you can help make their job easier by giving them good stories, than you’ll be rewarded; well rewarded. The skill you must master to help these people, and by extension your business, is the skill of publicity.

“Better Than Free” Advertising?

Publicity is like free advertising, but better, far better. Why? Publicity is seen by the public (your customers) as coming from an unbiased source, the news and media. In other words, publicity has credibility. It has credibility that advertising can never match, not in a million years. With advertising, no matter how compelling the headline, or how good the ad copy, people are well aware they’re being sold something.

The beauty of publicity is that the sales pitch can be just as strong, yet far fewer people ever raise their “ad blocker” defenses against it. They know that it’s news or valuable information, after all, and they should soak it up like a sponge. They do, and your message right along with it.

The other huge advantage of publicity is that, as I alluded to earlier, it’s free. That’s right you don’t have to pay for this wonderous marketing tool. In fact sometimes you can even get paid for it! Really! I’ve made thousands of dollars over the last few years writing feature articles for consumer magazines about products and services that some of my business offered.

Marketing Gold

Not only does it increase awareness, interest and understanding of the products and services, but in most cases you get a nice little blurb explaining why you’re so qualified to be spouting off about the item in question. You get to put the name and location of your company, the contact information and something about your background. Talk about pure marketing gold!!

Now you’re positioned as The authority figure in the minds of the publication’s readers. Who do you think they’re going to turn to when they have a question, need advice, the services you offer or want to buy the type of products your company offers?

That’s right, they’re going to go to the person who’s article they just read. You provided value to them, they will return the favor. It works so well that I’ve had many people ask “How much did you have to pay for that?” They were amazed to discover that not only did I not have to pay the magazine for featuring the story, the magazine actually paid me to write it (and very nicely, too).

Whether you’re spreading the news about a new product, service, opening a new office, hiring a key employee, unveiling your new website, or explaining a new process, there is a magazine, news outlet, special interest publication, or trade journal that is only too happy to help you do it. That is their job, remember? Your job as a business owner is to take advantage of that to help grow your business.

How can you do that? You need to discover the wonders of press releases, articles, and interviews. A well worded and timed press release can be worth far more than a picture or a thousand words, although either of those is nice, too.

Why do think the book tour was invented? Have you noticed the staple of the afternoon news magazine show in major TV markets is someone who just wrote a book? There’s a great reason for that.

From the TV station’s perspective, people are interested in what they have to say, so it it helps ratings. From the author’s perspective, well you don’t have to be no missile scientist to figure out how being on live TV in all the major markets helps the book’s author, do you. Almost anything can be a newsworthy event if it’s presented correctly.

More Ways to Get Great, Free Publicity to Help Your Business Grow

Did you just promote someone from the community into a management role? Well, you can get that in the business section of your local paper. Are you introducing a new product? Depending upon the type of product, it’s uniqueness and your market, that screams magazine article, or at should at least rate a paragraph or two.

Are you holding or sponsoring a charity event, supporting local law enforcement, or helping out neighborhood schools? Properly structured, it can be a newsworthy event to someone, somewhere.

The point is that almost anything your business is involved in can be a news event or publicity worthy in some respect. If it’s not, you can always create a publicity event around some aspect of your business.

One skill you’ll need to master is the press release. After all, you need to trumpet the fact to those that can help you the most, and the press release is one of the preferred formats to do just that.

I’ll go more into this in a future post, including how to write press releases that will get read, and acted upon, rather than tossed, and who to send them to. Send your press release to the wrong person, at the wrong place, and you just wasted your time.

Stay tuned for more on how you can use this amazing power to increase your traffic, boost your credibility and supercharge your small business marketing. Until next time…..