In a recent blog post, Eric Ward, detailed a very successful strategy.  On your way into work tomorrow, make a mental list of some of the businesses you pass.  Many of them may be attempting to attract clients who would also be interested in your product or services.  Eric uses the example of a local scuba shop that established relationships with area hotels.  People who reserved a room with some of those hotels were sent email confirmations — and a recommendation for them to consider booking an excursion with the local shop.  The hotel didn’t lose any revenue by passing along a great tip.  The scuba shop provided a more memorable stay for the hotel guest.  Now however, those guest have a reason to tell others about their experience (and the shop).  Consider the power of a solid online recommendation!

Don’t get me wrong, a great search engine optimization strategy will do wonders for your website’s visibility.  If you’re already doing that, join the crowd.  Entrepreneurs are constantly on the lookout for innovative ways to drive awareness and sales.  Why not consider teaming up with some of your local businesses to develop low-cost synergies that might just help both of you?  Can you find a way to get a mention in another company’s communication?  Can you promote a product/service that compliments (not competes with) a nearby store’s product?  

Now that spring is here, take some time to reconnect with your local businesses. You might find that you can generate incremental traffic to your site that didn’t actually come through Google.  The surprising little fact is that those visitors might actually convert at a higher rate than the casual online browser.  

As an integrated, digital marketing agency, Oohology is always looking for ways to give our clients a competitive edge.  If you’d like to explore some of the innovative ideas we’re developing, give us a call.  The coffee’s on us.

There are many reasons for that line of questioning, but often it comes down to a simple fact:  Companies didn’t really set the right expectations for this tool, nor did they really know what business objectives they needed it to accomplish.  Because they didn’t define and communicate their specific goals, many didn’t know what to which metric to measure.  Unfortunately, that left many marketing departments in a situation where they barely received enough funding to get the site up, initially, and now they’re struggling to prove ROI and to secure additional funds.  Remember, the search engines constantly change and tweak the way they evaluate and rank websites.  Effective search engine marketing (SEM) is a journey, not a destination.

With that in mind, what are some steps you could take to give your Internet marketing efforts a realistic chance of success?  Let’s dive into a few basic ones for now.

First, consider where your company is in it’s life-cycle.  Are you a new business which really needs to establish brand awareness (i.e. exposure), or have you been around for a while?  The needs may seem similar (“we need sales”), but actually those situations are different.  When you’re just starting out, the fear we discuss with clients is the fact that they may have invested in buildings, inventory, people, and all the other things, but when the site goes live, people still don’t know you actually exist (does the sound of crickets chirping come to mind?).  The key with a new venture is to make sure you’ve taken other steps to increase your online visibility, while your website is still in development.  Here are some examples:  start a blog, claim your local listings, establish a social media presence and create some buzz about the launch of your new company and/or website, submit press releases to local business journals.

Take time to prime the pump so people actually know you’re out there.  You may actually pick up a few sales along the way thanks to those efforts.  Once the site launches, it still has to be found and indexed by Google and the other search engines.  This doesn’t happen over night.  So take those interim steps to increase awareness.  Key metrics to consider:  How’s your online traffic building?  Are you receiving inquiries?  Are you building trust in the market?  Remember, people may not initially need your product, but when they finally do, will they remember you?  Sales, actually, may not be the proper metric to evaluate the initial success of this site (scratching your head yet?).

Second, don’t try to be all things to all people.  If I have cancer, I don’t want a general practitioner, I want an oncologist.  If I’m serious about running, am I going to buy shoes at Wal-Mart, or would I be better off going to a specialty store?  Full disclosure, I’m thankful that neither are issues in my life.  The point is, people want to deal with a specialist.  Before you start typing pages and pages of content, think about your company’s products and services.  Which products yield the highest margins and which are simply ancillary lines or services?  Which enable you to enter the market with the least competition?  The thing to remember is that you need to get “granular.”  You’ll have better results if you build content around your most profitable or strategically important services — at least early in the game.  Google is looking for relevant content.  Consider building good content pages around a central theme and leave the secondary and tertiary items on the table.  By building this “silo” you’ll have a better chance of showing up for Internet searches.  Later, you can (and should) add pages about the additional topics.  Doing this will actually work well with Google because it indicates that the site is being maintained over time.  Your site’s like a potted plant.  It’s looks great when you first bring it home, but to really make it thrive, you’ve got to water it from time to time.  Key action to consider:  Focus on your higher margin products and services and build a silo of content for the sake of relevancy.  Focus on critical items.

Third, if you’re doing this in-house, or if you’re working with an outside consultant, discuss the above 2 points with your development team.  By dealing with the current situation and effectively communicating your needs, you’ll be able to set more realistic expectations.  Better yet, you’ll have an increased chance of actually achieving them.  If you do it right, your Internet presence (website, social media, blogs, etc.) will become a coordinated campaign, rather than just an initiative.  Either way, make sure you’re also asking for feedback.  Review your website’s performance, but remember to look for trends.  Anecdotal evidence may feel good (“Hey, we got an order from the web!”), but if you’ll monitor the overall performance, the trends will indicate additional opportunities for content that people are actually interested in reading.  When it comes to website content, “build it and they will come” is a bigger risk than building it where they already are.

We’ve worked with many clients in various stages of their business life-cycles.  There are plenty of great reasons to implement an online marketing strategy.  Setting the right expectations early — and monitoring them frequently — will help you to better understand how the strategy is impacting your business.  That information can lead to some very exciting opportunities.  If you’d like to discuss your goals, and how we could coach you along the way, let’s have coffee.  This year’s going to be more competitive than last.  Is your website ready for it?  

When you look back, it’s amazing how far things have progressed in a relatively short period of time.  Most people have a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to new things.  It might not be something we’re used to seeing.  It couldn’t possibly be as easy as they say.  We’ve been taken advantage of before.  But over time, we eventually warm up to some of those innovations.  That’s exactly what’s happening with the Internet.

Try Googling yourself or your business.  What do you find?  In 2 previous posts, I’ve spoken about the value of online reviews and how a website is your virtual front door.  People want to know something about the person(s) with whom they’re about to do business.  You can take advantage of this natural curiosity and possibly use it to your benefit.  Most importantly, use it to build trust.

In today’s world, not having a website is a liability.  A reputable company should (maybe even must) have a solid website that provides information about its philosophy, service, products and reputation. Unless you’re ashamed of it, why wouldn’t you make this stuff readily available?  

For most of you who already have websites, what type of image does it convey?  Is it simply a template that looks like your neighbor’s kid slapped it together for gas money?  If people find typos (it happens more often that you’d imagine), how does that shape their image of your work product?  If your site still uses Flash technology, did you know it might not work on iPhones and iPads?  Would that make you look out of touch?

Beyond simple pictures of projects your company’s completed, or long lists of awards that other people might not recognize, consider using descriptive content.  Go ahead and show that picture of the large project, but include a testimonial — better yet — a case study about how you solved the problem, came in under budget and on time.  Then, encourage the client to tell others if they’d consider hiring you again.  If you’re fortunate enough to have won awards, why not take the time to explain the significance of the award and why you earned it?  Now the reader has a much better understanding of your capabilities and the quality of your work.  Now you’re beginning to use your website to effectively market.

The Internet has become the de facto public record.  It’s rapidly replacing printed phone books as a way to find information.  Your website can be a great tool for attracting new leads and a way to drive sales.  But keep in mind that you’ve got to make it easy for them to learn about you.  Hey, we’re all a bit skeptical at first.  But given the chance to find out more information and to see what others are saying about you, I just might be inclined to give you a shot at earning my business.  So how about it, if I Googled you right now, would I be inclined to trust you?

For years, consumers have been able to go online and rate or review a business. You’ll recall the old adage, “If they like you – they’ll tell a few friends, if they don’t like you – they’ll tell EVERYONE!” Well, that’s become much easier to do thanks to Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp and a host of other Internet resources. However, if you understand this, and you’re prepared, those rankings can be a powerful sales promoter for you.

What I find interesting is that many businesses are playing ostrich by ignoring the reviews or failing to proactively monitor them. The fear is commonly express as, “Well, if I give them a way to comment, I might get a bad one.” First, admit that they have the ability to comment on you, your business, your service, and their experience, whether you want them to or not. In fact, it’s probably already going on. Search engines and directories (i.e. Yelp) have aggregated business data over time and probably have already published an unclaimed business profile. Once that information exists, people can use it to rate/rank you…with or without your permission.

Second, if you had a defective sales process, a faulty experience, or simply an employee who was having a bad day, wouldn’t you want to know about it so you could address the specific issue and possibly prevent it from happening again? As someone who’s managed sales operations, I know I’d want to know. At least there might be a chance to resolve the issue and turn a disgruntled customer into a neutral party or better yet, a brand promoter.

Third, Google has begun using the quantity of reviews a website is receiving as a factor in how that site gets ranked in the search results. It’s not the only factor, but one you can definitely manage. Look for future posts on the topic of Online Reputation Management.

For now, consider this concept. If I know I have a happy customer, wouldn’t they want to tell others about me? And if so, wouldn’t those comments tend toward the positive? If I could implement a simple system to enable customers to comment about me, would others want to know? Nielsen seems to think so. By the way, ever heard of Angie’s List?

Anyway, the key would be to train your staff to look for those opportunities and simply ask for the recommendation. Have the client go directly to a counter top PC and enter some comments, give them a card with the link to your online profile(s), better yet, ask for their email and send them that link. But remember, you have to look for those opportunities. Not every customer is going to follow through, but more often than not, if you’re team’s consistent, you’ll be surprised with the results.

Our company has developed some interesting tools to help you easily incorporate a “rate our business” campaign. You can communicate this face to face, on your website (you do have one right??), and even on your social media outlets (yep, we do that too).

Look, someone once said, “You can have your own opinion, but you can’t have your own facts.” When it comes to increasing business, why not take advantage of the comments that are already being made? It can lead to higher search engine rankings, better brand/reputation management, and as Nielsen’s data proves, it will have a direct impact on your customer’s buying decision. If you’d like to discuss how we can help, give me a call.

Here’s the link to the Nielsen report summary: http://marketingland.com/nielsen-consumer-trust-in-traditional-media-ads-fall-while-confidence-in-mobile-social-and-online-rise-9712

According to the Smartphone Foodies survey: 95% of those surveyed use their smartphone prior to dining out. The primary reason for using the smartphone before dining out was split fairly evenly between coordinating plans with others, searching for a restaurant, viewing food and beverage menus, and finding directions to a restaurant.

Almost a quarter of all respondents indicated that they use their smart phone every time they dine out, or almost every time.

With statistics like this, we’re continually baffled at how many restaurant websites are still created relying on Flash (which is not accessible on most smartphones) and don’t have consistent microformats allowing their location, hours of operation, and menus to be indexed semantically by Google to be served up on Android devices for relevant local, mobile searches.

You can read more of the survey results here. If you are responsible for restaurant marketing, and want to hear how we can help you promote your restaurant on smart phones, contact us today.

So let’s focus briefly on content creation.

In business, the acronym WIIFM (pronounced wiff-em), stands for What’s In It For Me. It’s a key question that I try to answer any time I’m adding content to a website, writing a blog post, or creating a presentation. Ultimately, to keep the reader engaged, you’ve got to remember that to some extent, we’re all selfish. In most cases, people are willing to give you precious time if you can provide something useful or valuable.

When you’re structuring your page, pick out a few key themes, but instead of simply dumping a bunch of facts and figures, consider how and/or why this information is important to the reader. Then, write from that perspective. Let’s look at some examples:

Example #1: Our business uses complex accounting software and has invested in hundreds of hours in developing ways to sell our services to more and more clients.
Consider the WIIFM: Our firm can help you to work through complicated accounting issues by utilizing the latest accounting systems and our first hand experience.

Example #2: I have established a suburban office so I can get home quicker.
Consider the WIIFM: Our convenient suburban location means that you don’t have to fight downtown traffic just to meet with us.

To be clear, I’m not saying you should manipulate the reader. What remains constant is you’re asking the reader/prospective client to spend a few minutes of their time considering information you have. If they see value in what you’re providing, you’re much more likely to have peak their interest and possibly convince them to either read further, or to engage with you.

The next time you’re about to upload a bunch of content, remember to ask yourself, “If I’m the reader, WIIFM?“

Advertising is meant to create awareness of your product or service.  It often uses expensive repetition in order to get people to remember your name, number, etc. Advertising can yield results, but isn’t always the best way to yield bottom line profits. Consider how many ads you see on TV, in a phone book, or on billboards along a stretch of interstate. You typically don’t have much time and they don’t have much space, so ads feature a phone number and/or a website. Again, the objective was to create awareness through targeted placement. Unfortunately, advertisements often simply add to the “noise” and may not convince consumers to engage.

Years ago, I attended a meeting of the American Marketing Association in St. Louis. The team from Energizer was there and gave a brief presentation on their Energizer Bunny campaign. The commercials were funny – everyone remembers them – but there’s an interesting side note. One challenge for this campaign was that some consumers confused the brand with Duracell, their competitor. Great commercials, maybe a confusing message.  

Marketing, on the other hand, isn’t simply about exposure. It’s about differentiating your product and/or service. In a crowded market, you’ve got to find a way to break free of the noise and really help the consumer to understand what makes you different. Their question, simply stated, is “Why Should I Hire You?” If you can answer that, you have a good chance of getting the prospect to engage with you. If your business is referral-based, people still want to know how your product/service is uniquely suited to help them.

If you’re competing in a crowded marketplace (especially dentists, physicians, attorneys, accountants and other professionals), consider marketing as a way of appealing to specific needs of your clients. Niche marketing can be highly effective.  To a certain point, you and your competition provide a similar service — so now explain how you’re different.

There’s a simple formula for growing and maintaining your client base:  Educate them and they’ll begin to trust you. If they trust you, they’ll consider doing business with you. If they’ll consider your company or product, it’s much easier to convert them from prospects to clients. If you’re the only provider of a particular product/service in the market, then just advertise so people will know how to contact you. On the other hand, if you’re competing among other alternatives, consider taking steps toward effectively marketing.  

Out of all of the websites you’ve seen recently, do any of them ask you to visit their yellow page ads, or tune in to see their next commercial? Not typically. However, it’s interesting how many advertisements promote their company’s website. That’s because beyond exposure (advertising), you’ve got to get them to understand why you’re the best solution (sound like marketing to you?)   

Oohology/Makespace has a strong reputation for helping clients understand their brands and positioning.  We’ve helped them develop messaging to stand out in a crowd. We’re a marketing firm. If you’ve spent a lot of money on advertising and question the return, consider letting us help you to more effectively market your business. You may be extremely surprised at the bottom line results!

It’s sometimes hard to know if it’s truly time to redesign your business website. The cost, in terms of time and budget, that must be devoted to a website redesign project has to be balanced against the potential gain from the new site. For some businesses, it might be better to balance the cost of a new website against the cost of keeping a poor performing website.

Here are a few things to consider when you’re weighing the cost versus the benefits of replacing your current business website.

Is the current website turning away potential customers?

One quick way to get the answer to this question is to conduct a brief online or email survey. Take a screenshot of your current home page. Give people the opportunity to rank your website homepage on a scale of 1-5 for whether it inspires trust, confidence, enjoyment or other feelings that would motivate someone to do business with your company. Sites like SurveyMonkey and UserTesting.com offer extremely inexpensive surveys and user testing that can quickly tell you if your current website is actually a business liability or asset. 

How difficult is it to update your current website?

The ability to refresh the content for your website internally, without having to call in a designer or developer, is something that can extend its value considerably. If your current website does not feature a content management system (CMS), then you may want to consider updating it. Especially for restaurants and businesses whose menu or services change frequently, the ability to update your site yourself can be a huge business advantage.

Have your business needs outgrown the current site?

Sometimes, your business model changes. Or you a new product or service set takes off in a big way. Sometimes, your business grows quickly, and your existing website is no longer an accurate reflection of who you are. If that’s the case, it may still be attracting visitors, but if they’re not the right visitors for where your business is now, it’s still not performing optimally.

Have competitors launched sites that are outperforming your current site in search?

Google has changed its algorithm considerably in the last five years to favor sites with frequently updated, fresh content and social integration. While your site may have established a lead in organic search upon launch, you may have found that competitors have surpassed you in recent years. If that’s the case, and organic or local search is relevant to your business, it may be time to update.

If all these factors are pointing to a decision to update or completely redesign your business website, we’d love to discuss it with you. 

In today’s world, you have two front doors:  the one to your physical office, and your “virtual” front door (i.e. your website) – which is probably the first contact they have with you.  More often than not, there’s a huge disconnect between the look and feel of the office, and the “virtual” front door presented on your website.

Your site should really compliment and re-enforce your brand and/or your other marketing tools.  Ask yourself an honest question, “Does my website fall flat?”  More to the point, “Based on this, would I hire me?” 

Your business environment is incredibly competitive, but have you really embraced effective marketing?  I don’t mean “advertising” in the traditional sense, rather “marketing” which is truly differentiating your company/practice from your competition.  That’s where your web presence can have an immediate, trackable impact.

Even if I get your name via a word-of-mouth referral, Google’s a verb.  I’m going to check you out (and probably several of your competitors).  Your site is a front door – an introduction to the business.  For those reasons, it needs to attract a prospective customer through testimonials (or case studies), good information presented in a simple layout, possibly a video about key personnel, and importantly, welcoming graphics that entice me to contact the office to schedule a consultation.

People love the Internet because it’s easy, it’s quick, and it enables them to size you up before they commit to contacting you.  So let me ask you again, based on your current website, would you hire you? If you’re not so sure, give us a call. We’d love to discuss some proven ways to correct that. 

There are a couple of reasons for that. One of which is an honest reason, and one of which should give you pause. The honest reason is, there is no secret sauce to doing internet marketing. There’s a wealth of resources out there on how to optimize your website to perform well in search. If you have the time, the basic intelligence and the willingness to learn and experiment, pretty much anyone can be successful in internet marketing.

The murkier reason is that there are some super sneaky things that you can do that will sometimes earn you big short term results, but which can also get your website penalized and labeled SPAM by Google. These “black hat” tactics are obviously questionable practices, even to a web layman. So their practictioners tend to talk in extremely vague terms. Either that, or they keep the level of explanation so technical that they believe clients won’t understand that they’re actually using code to hijack web surfers’ browsers, plant bogus links, etc.

At Makespace, we don’t have a problem with sharing our recipe for success, in as much or as little detail as our clients would prefer. That’s because he main ingredient is sweat. Creating beautiful, clean-coded sites with solid architecture and then keeping a steady stream of fresh, engaging and relevant content is a lot of hard work. Our clients recognize that just because they technically could do some of this work themselves, that doesn’t mean they should. Hiring us means they can focus on running their business, so the experience we’re helping to create on the web is just as solid as the one that happens in their place of business.

And that’s a recipe for success we actually hope gets copied by others.