Archive for: April 2007

Small businesses sometimes find it difficult to keep their web sites updated with fresh, relevant information, because they either don’t have the time or don’t have the content (or a combination of both). But in order to keep traffic flowing, visitors interested, and sales increasing, you simply must keep your site updated with great content.

Studies show that visitors will spend approximately seven seconds to decide if your web site is worth their time, or if they should click away to another site to find whatever it is they are looking for. What differentiates your web site from your competitors? After all, if you have products or services that are similar to what the competition offers, you may not be perceived as being very different at all. But your web site can be the differentiator! Give your visitors lots of interesting content that is useful to them, and they just might stick around long enough to turn into customers.

One of your site’s goals should be to give visitors enough information about your company, products, and services that they feel comfortable doing business with you. If you don’t have enough content on your site (or if your web site is outdated), visitors will simply move on to other web sites until they find the information they need. If a visitor leaves your web site without finding sufficient content, it’s unlikely that they will return – ever.

Another important reason to keep your site loaded with good content is because search engines evaluate your web site and rank it based largely on the site’s content. It’s true that things constantly change with search engine algorithms, but one thing that stays the same is the importance of fresh, relevant content.

So don’t underestimate the value of keeping your site up to date and adding fresh content on a regular basis. It’s well worth the effort!

If you’re already using email marketing, then you know that it is a very cost-effective way to communicate with your customers and prospective customers. Email is fast, inexpensive, and quite easy to use as a marketing strategy, which could be why it has become so popular with companies of all sizes. There are many tangible, measurable benefits to email marketing, but here are five benefits that are particularly noteworthy:

• Boost Your Bottom Line – Studies show that the average consumer needs to hear or see your message about seven times before he or she will buy from you. That’s a lot of repetition! With email marketing, you can create marketing campaigns consisting of a series of emails to reinforce your message and build your brand so that when they are ready to buy, they think of your company first.

• Name Recognition – Using email marketing is a great way to generate name recognition and stay in front of your customers regularly. You can send newsletters, special offers, coupons, announcements, or anything else that might be of value to your customers.

• Keep ‘Em Coming Back – A happy customer is a loyal customer, which often means more repeat business for you. Happy customers also tend to refer their friends and family, generating new customers for you as well. Use email marketing to keep in touch with customers, offering them special discounts or add-on items, or letting them be among the first to know when a sale is coming up. Email marketing is a great tool for enhancing customer retention and satisfaction.

• Two-Way Communication with Customers – With email marketing, it’s pretty easy to get feedback from your customers just by sending a quick follow-up email after the sale. It’s a good way to find out what they think of your products or services, and gives them another opportunity to interact with you, too.

• Generate Extra Sales Offline – Lots of people use the web to research the products and services they need, then make their purchase locally from a store in their community. In fact, a recent survey by MarketingSherpa found that more than 60% of web users do this on a regular basis! Email marketing can help you stay in touch with the customers in your area, creating awareness for your company and bringing more shoppers through your door.

Be consistent with your email marketing efforts and they may become even more effective than some of your other marketing activities. Email marketing is cost effective, measurable, trackable, and easy to do – what more could anyone want in a marketing strategy?

When it comes to marketing your small business, it sometimes feels like you need a marketing wizard to determine what will really work the best for you. But with a little planning and creativity, you can identify the marketing ideas that are worth trying, and which ones are a waste of time and money for your business.
To help you find a marketing mix that will work for your business, here are four ideas you can use to create your own “marketing magic.”

Start With Some Research
First, you need to gather some information about your customers. You really should know everything possible about the types of people who buy your products and services. Write down the characteristics of your customers; such as how old they are, their income and education levels, marital status, where they work, the problems they face, where they live, their technology usage, where they shop…you get the idea.

Then think about your competition. Why do customers buy their products and services? What is unique about what they offer? Where are they located? Do you compete with other businesses only, or is there a do-it-yourself component that influences your customers? (For instance, if you cater gourmet Thanksgiving dinners, you may be competing with people who prefer to cook this meal themselves at home.) And don’t forget that “doing nothing” is also your competitor – people often do nothing when they don’t feel compelled to make a decision or when they feel overwhelmed.

When you understand who your customers are and the alternatives offered by your competitors, you can begin to focus your marketing strategy on the customers who matter the most to your bottom line.

Meet Their Needs
If you did a good job of researching your customers (above), then you probably already know what their problems are. Think about the ways in which your products and services fit with your customers’ needs, and how you do this better than your competitors.

Who are the customers that need your products and services the most? Can your typical customer afford to buy from you? How will things be better for your customers if they purchase your products? Really take some time to think about the benefits that you provide to customers. Remember, benefits are very different from product features. You may be thrilled with the latest bells and whistles in your product, but your customer really cares about how your product will improve his or her situation.

Make a List of Current Marketing Strategies
Make a list of all of the marketing activities you’ve tried this year. Did you publish your business listing in the Yellow Pages? Offer any coupons? What types of advertising did you try? Also consider things like:

1. Web Sites & Blogs – are yours up to date? Do they have fresh content? Correct info?
2. Newsletters – do you currently send out an e-newsletter to your customers? Do you send out a printed newsletter? How often?
3. Search Engines – how are your search engine rankings? Has your site gone up or down over the past year? Do you know how to check this?
4. Printed Collateral – is your corporate brochure up to date? Did you send out flyers, postcards, or other direct mail pieces over the last 12 months?
5. Press Releases – when is the last time you sent out a press release?

Once you have your marketing activities listed, cross off the ones that did not drive any business your way. One common mistake that small companies often make is that they keep doing what they’ve always done, even if it’s not working for them anymore!

Create a New and Improved Marketing Plan
Take the marketing activities that did work for you and repeat them. Then, use the information you discovered about your customers to really target your marketing to reach customers where they live, work, shop, etc. Examine your competitors, and take note of the areas in which your company is superior or different. Focus on the benefits, not the features, that your product offers to customers. Think of creative ways to get your message out, and don’t be afraid to try new marketing activities!

Once you have determined the best marketing ideas for your business, implement them on a regular basis, and make sure that you track the results of each activity. That way, it will be easy to identify the activities that aren’t working (so you can drop them), and focus your time, budget, and attention on the ones that are getting the best results.

A diamond might be “forever”, but your search engine rankings certainly are not! With advancing technology, algorithm updates, and new web sites appearing every day, it can be challenge to keep your web site visible on the search results pages. So if you’ve noticed your rankings aren’t what they used to be, here are some tips you can use to give them a boost:

1. Fresh Content
Search engine “spiders” love fresh content. Adding new content to your web site attracts search engine spiders (or “bots”) and gives them new material to add to their databases. Even small updates matter – adding new FAQs, press releases, product updates, or even pricing updates will trigger the search engine spiders to pay a visit to your site.

2. RSS Feeds
Speaking of fresh content (above), RSS feeds are a great way to keep fresh content flowing to your web site every day. If you haven’t heard of RSS feeds, these are “Really Simple Syndication” feeds from other web sites that you can display on your own web site, usually for free. RSS feeds can contain information on just about any topic of interest to your visitors. News feeds, current industry information, or relevant publications are all good candidates for RSS feed topics.

3. Directory Submission
One of the quickest ways to gain visibility on the web is to add your site to top-performing online directories. The benefits are two-fold; first, your business gets listed and is exposed to more web users, and two, directory listings also serve as “inbound links” that can help your web site rank better in the search engines.

4. Local Search
It’s often easier for your business to get good rankings in local search results since they are focused on a specific geographic area (instead of competing with all web sites across the entire web). You get a two-fold benefit here as well; your business is more visible to web users, and the local listings create inbound links that help your placement in the larger search engines.

5. Blog Posts
If you don’t already have a blog or use a blog, you really should consider giving it a try! Try visiting blogs that are relevant to your business or industry, or that you think your visitors would be interested in. You can add posts, pass along links, or even advertise on some blogs. Blogs are typically very niche-focused, so by participating in a blog you are interacting with other bloggers who are already pre-qualified!

We all know just how important it is to have a web site for your business. In today’s world, you pretty much have to have a site – it’s often the first place customers look for information about your business and the products and/or services you provide. But once your web site is live on the web, do you know who owns it?

The answer to this really depends on the web developer that you select to build your web site. Believe it or not, some web firms actually retain ownership of your web site files, and sometimes they even retain ownership of your domain name! We have had clients come to us for help with updating or upgrading their web sites, only to find out that they don’t own their own web sites.

You might think that it doesn’t really matter, especially if you don’t need access to your site files very often. The problem with this comes in if you decide, for whatever reason, that you want to move your site to a different hosting company, or if you want another web developer to update or work on the site. If you don’t own the site, you will not have access to any of the files, and you won’t be able to move it or have another web team work on the site. The same is true for your domain name; if you didn’t register the name yourself, you may not actually own it, even though you paid for it!

So before hiring a web developer or firm, be sure to ask who will own the end-product, as well as the domain name. If you already have an existing web site, ask your web developer for a copy of your web site on a CD. (Note to Five Sparrows clients – of course you own your web site and domain name!) The same is true for other materials that you pay to have created – whether it’s a newsletter, logo, flyer, coupon, etc., you should be given an electronic copy (like a .pdf file) of the final product.

After all, if you paid for it – shouldn’t you own it?

What does your web site say about your business? The reality today is that your web site represents your entire company, and visitors make judgments about your business based on their impression of your web site. Often, businesses focus on creating a professional image, which of course is vitally important for making a good first impression. But what is often overlooked is the value of web site usability, which can be even more important to your online success.

We’ve all seen web sites that look great, but the important information is buried, unclear, or just plain missing. Most users will spend a few minutes attempting to find what they are looking for, but then abandon the site to find another that is easier to use. Making sure your site is usable is like a gift to your visitors that pays back rewards in customer satisfaction and a positive user experience. If visitors like your site and find it easy to use, they will come back.

When designing or re-designing your company web site, visitor satisfaction should be the guiding principle. A good, consistent navigation system is essential for any web site, especially sites with a lot of pages. Use a common menu system on all pages and include drop-downs or sub-categories if necessary. Make sure your visitors can get to any page on your site, yet find their way back “home” easily. Keep your navigation design to only two or three levels deep, and always include a site map. The end result will be visitors who can find their way around your web site and get to the information they need quickly and easily.

Sometimes, businesses find they have differing goals for their web sites, depending on which department you talk to. Goals range from “make the investors happy” to “meet the deadline no matter what” and everything in between. Although these are things you probably have to consider, keep the goal focused on the user experience and it will pay off in the end.

Paying attention to your web site’s usability adds enormous value. The advantages to a web site development process that incorporates usability standards results in fewer problems or “bugs,” and increases customer satisfaction when your site goes live. It all comes down to the end-user experience, the ultimate test for a successful, useful, and profitable web site.

Having a local web strategy is an important part of your company’s overall search engine strategy, but don’t wait too long to take action. The web is already the tool of choice for most shoppers today, and your company needs to be where the customers are – on the web.

The latest trend in web search is called “Local Search,” which helps connect people and places in local communities. For businesses, it’s a great way to reach customers close to home.

Customers today use search engines, online business directories, review sites, online communities, and follow links from other web sites or click on ads in order to find local businesses. This means there are many opportunities available for you to advertise your business on the web and target the local shoppers in your own geographic area.

Older types of advertising such as newspapers and paper Yellow Pages books are losing popularity with consumers, while online advertising is growing very rapidly. A recent report by Borrell Associates predicts that by the end of 2007, local online advertising will grow by 31 percent to $7.7 billion, and local paid search will grow by 86 percent to $1.8 billion. If you want your business to be found locally by the people in your community, you need to be found online!

Many small businesses think that search engines like Google and Yahoo are the key to online success. But unless you have your web site professionally optimized to perform well in the search engines, it’s pretty unlikely that you will see much in the way of search engine results. Local search and local advertising, however, provide you with a variety of opportunities where you stand a much better chance of being found by the shoppers who are already looking for you – on the web.

Remember the phrase “Build it, and they will come…” ? Well, that may be true for baseball fields in the movies, but it’s certainly not the case for web sites! In order to bring traffic to your web site, you are going to need the help of the web’s most used resource – Search Engines – and their “itsy bitsy spiders.”

There are many search engines on the web, and they all use different methods of gathering and indexing web site information. The most important search engines, Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask, account for about 75% of all internet searches, while a handful of smaller search engines are responsible for the remaining 25%. The biggest obstacle to getting your site into a #1 position, though, is the sheer number of competing web sites out there. Think about it, of all the millions of web sites on the internet, how can you make your site come up first in the list? Or in some cases, the question may be how can you make your site show up at all?

Well, it’s not an exact science, but by understanding more about how search engines work, and understanding the importance of search engine spiders, you can improve your chances of getting noticed by the search engines.

Be Nice to Spiders
Search engines send out “spiders” (also called “bots”) that look for new information on the web, and they collect as much information as possible in the shortest amount of time possible. Since they are in such a hurry, your web site needs to be friendly and inviting, providing the spider with exactly what it is looking for, which is web site text (content), lots of links, and clean HTML code.

The search engine then takes all of the information the spider gathered and analyzes it to determine how “important” your web site is (in their opinion, of course). Then, when a visitor types in a search term, the search engine displays results in order of importance, based on the information gathered by the spider. Depending on how important the search engine thinks your site is, your web site may or may not be displayed in the search results.

Food for Thought - and Spiders
So you can see how important it is that your web site be spider-friendly in order to have any chance of showing up in the search engine results. To be successful, you must feed the spiders what they want the most – good content, abundant links, and clean code. The words people use when they search – often called keywords – ultimately determine which web sites are displayed when a search engine finds sites that match those keywords, and all of it is based on what those little spiders said about your web site!

So be very careful with what you “feed” the spiders, it could mean the difference between good search engine positions, and not showing up in the search results at all.

If you’re a small business, you may think that branding is just a luxury that only the “big guys” have. But even the smallest of businesses must have consistent branding in order to be successful, and it’s not really a luxury but more of a necessity if you want your business to thrive and grow.

Branding your business does not have to be expensive, either, although it’s a good idea to invest in having some of the basic elements designed by a professional, such as your logo and your web site. Beyond that, the most important branding that you can do is to be consistent with every piece of communication you touch. For instance:

• Put your logo on everything – business cards, letterhead, your web site, invoices, advertisements, email signatures, and every piece of marketing collateral that you produce.
• Stick with a consistent color palette – if your corporate colors are shades of blue and gray, don’t send out something that’s lime green and orange just because it’s trendy.
• The same goes for fonts – make sure your company name and information always appears in the same font. Save the fancy fonts for headlines or other parts of the marketing piece.
• The quality of your marketing materials (business cards, web design, etc.) is a direct reflection of the professionalism of your business, so don’t attempt to “do-it-yourself” unless you’re sure the result will be credible.

Another key element to successfully branding your business is reinforcing your message through all of your business communications. A slogan or “tag line” can help with that. (For example, if you need to buy insurance, where will you be “in good hands”?) Make sure that the tone of your writing conveys the underlying message you want to send, and is consistent with the overall impression of your business that you want the public to have. If you are “the company that cares,” say so in all of your communications across all channels.

Establishing your brand is a necessary part of building your business, no matter how big or how small it is. Branding will not only help people remember your business, but also make it easier for them to understand the nature of what you do and why they should pay attention. Branding is your corporate identity, so make sure your brand sends the right message to the right people in everything you say and do for your business.

Many small businesses are busy with day-to-day activities with no time left over to create a marketing plan to follow. Well, summer is a great time to put together a plan that will help build your company’s image and provide guidelines for marketing your business for the second half of 2006.

Step 1: Determine Your Value Proposition
What makes you better and more valuable to your customers than the competition? What is your major selling advantage? How do you solve the problems facing your customers? Write down the answers to these questions, then write a summary of them. Try to narrow in on your value proposition until it is a concise statement of 1 or 2 sentences.

Step 2: Create a Brand Identity for Your Business
All of your marketing and promotional materials should have a consistent look and feel, and also have a consistent message. Logos are important; if you don’t have one, consider having a professional create one for you. Also think about coming up with a tag line or slogan.

Step 3: Develop Your Web Site
It is an expectation today that even small businesses have a company web site. Visitors must be able to quickly find information about your company, where it is located, and how to contact you for more information. It’s okay to start small and add features and content as your business grows, but make sure you have a professional, useful web site available as soon as you can.

Step 4: Create a Marketing Kit
We are all familiar with the standard “leave-behind” brochure, but for small businesses it can be an expensive investment that becomes outdated very quickly. A more useful approach may be to create a marketing “kit” as an alternative. Try using a regular manila file folder with a color label on it that has your company name, logo, and slogan. Then add an introduction letter, a data sheet of products and services, a press release, a short biography or history, a current company newsletter, and any other collateral that makes sense for your business. This way, your information is “file-cabinet-ready” instead of ready for the “circular file,” making it more likely to be read and saved.

Step 5: Promote and Advertise
Map out a plan to do something each week (or month) to help promote your business. Send out press releases, sponsor community events, and place ads in local newspapers or industry magazines. It takes approximately six impressions before a customer will begin to remember your company and what it does. Be creative – think of ways to be visible and active in your community, and don’t forget to look for opportunities on the web, too.