One of the major values that separate the successful from others is commitment. Striving to be successful and being serious about what they do. One of the things I’ve always said is, “Never become comfortable with your successes or failures.” Some people don’t want to be successful; they want to work all their life doing something they don’t like, without any true compensation. – They don’t save, invest and they don’t have a long-term financial plan. You must believe in your product/service, your business… yourself. If you don’t make it happen, it won’t. The difference from work and paid play is whether you enjoy it or not. The Internet has created an opportunity to expand, and add life to your existing business or birth a new one. If your not serious about your service/product why should your client be? The way to convey seriousness and commitment is your presentation.
Your web site is your digital presentation; its how people see and form opinions about your business. A quality web site solution will give you a worldwide presence on the web making it easy for potential clients to find you. The Perfect Web site is the perfect web site for your business. A site tailor made to fit the needs and aspirations of your company, one that conveys professionalism and business rapport. People want to believe that every dollar they spend will bring a profit. You must become friends with them through your web site. You have to communicate and interact. They should be able to leave you a note, read some type of FAQ page, and request more information. And most importantly the viewer (your prospective client) must be awed, enthused, and excited. But how is your “client” going to find you. I don’t suggest advertising.
Advertising is dead. There are only four situations in which you should advertise: You just opened or started your business - because no one knows you exist. You have no competitors or your competitors aren’t advertising. – Find out why. You are in retail. Your revenues are over one million dollars a year. Advertising is not branding. A few clarifications: listing your company or web site, joining chambers of commerce, and being in directories is semi-justifiable advertising. If you must advertise try one of these methods; also look into pay per action advertising. Such as pay per click search engines, which will be covered later in this report. When advertising always offer the reader a deal, and make sure they know it’s a deal! So why use Public Relations (PR) over advertising? A well-written 4”x 4” story is more valuable than a 4”x 4” ad in the same location with the same readership. My college I met through networking recently had an article about his company in a major business magazine and received many inquiries, about 10 signed contracts, and an influx of revenue. He decided to run the article in the form of an advertisement; everything was the same except for the work “Advertisement” as a disclaimer at the top. There was no activity, not one call could be traced to the ad. He told me he hasn’t advertised in this form since.
A good publicity tool is letting editors and journalist know that you are an expert in your industry and if they every need a source about your industry you’d be happy to give them a quote. Ask them if you can email them your bio sheet (make sure it includes you name, company web site, address, phone number, list your email address, what your company does and a link to your press page) so they can contact you. If you haven’t heard from them, follow up in about three months. Also you can write an article about an industry specific concern and submit it to industry journals, newsletters, industry specific magazines, and ezines.
Have a professional write and distribute your press releases. Why? Because of the quality of their work, journalists ask to be sent releases by them. The PR firm sends the release with special codes or identifiers to let the journalist know this is one of the releases they actually asked for, just not spam. There are only a few web design firms that include public relations in their web site solution. Grab the opportunity. This is very important for your web site to stand out from the crowd your PR must draw attention to the site and make it easier to attract clients and strategic partnerships.
Shared risk, shared profit. So much can be accomplished by partnering with other companies that have a large client base or have access to your target audience (people who buy what you sell). Let’s review the basic forms of partnerships: Reciprocal Links- this is when you link to a web site and the site links back to you. This allows you to share traffic and helps in your meta tag search engine rankings. About one hundred reciprocal links and you’ll see a drastic improvement in traffic and ranking. Shared Content- for example if you have an information web site you can trade article or sections with other sites that compliment yours. And let your visitors know it. Cross Promotions- this is a great one. By purchasing one of your items your clients receive and item free or a coupon discount from your partner – or any popular product. The price for the original item should cover the cost of the promotional item. This adds value to your product and promotes your partner.
On your strategic partnership page on your perfect web site recommend their product. For example, if you have an ISP service but don’t offer computer consulting in your list of services, add computer consulting to the list. When users click on it recommend your partner who does provide the service and link to their site. Your client will see it as a testimonial and it will build trust with your partner. Make sure your partner ask all clients where they found them (service business) or add a special link to track sales (product business). Have a predetermined agreed commission or fixed dollar amount for every client sale that comes from your promotion. Publicized Partnerships- its important that you engrave every partnership into the very foundation of your business and web site. If other companies trust you, so will your clients. Have a PR professional write and distribute a release about the new partnership and a review of previous ones.
These variations when coupled together will create the complete strategic partnership, increasing sales and marketing your business.
Sales? Or Marketing? Or Both.
In service and retail businesses it sales; in product businesses its marketing. For a successful business it must be both. A skilled and professional sales team leader is vital. Sales people are needed to get into the door. They must be responsible for going out and bring business in. Only pay sales people on commissions and bonuses – this makes the sell a little bit better. This will only attract serious individuals; if you must, offer them stock options. Sales should be the backbone of your revenue generation. The Perfect Web site will strongly assist in this function. Profit is established two ways: increasing sales or decreasing expenses. You can only decrease expenses so much before you decrease the value of your service/product.
Marketing is influencing your target audience to come and buy from you. The two major forms of marketing are advertising and public relations. As covered in detail earlier in this report don’t advertise. Should you list your company and web site in local yellow pages, industry directories, where you competitors are not, especially in retail, of course. But instead of mass marketing concentrate on viral marketing, putting you name and web site on your product, and on your clients identity. The overused but unparalleled example of Hotmail: At the bottom of every email the client uses you see, “Get your (insert unique selling point here) at http://Hotmail.com." Clothing designers do it all the time. In fact the selling point is their name being on their product.
You must put your web site address on everything your business name and/or phone number is on. If you don’t your wasting each dollar you spend on marketing. Always ask the client where they found you – this is a must. After the sale is made ask them what the deciding factor was. Find where most of your business is coming from. Increase time, funding, and emphases in that area. Sales and Marketing balance each other. When one entity is lacking the other must be strong.
Networking
Word of mouth works for start-ups, big businesses, and everything in between. Everyone “knows” Bill Gates, but how many people does Bill Gates know. “Its not who you ‘know’, but rather who knows you.” Public Relations, happy and angry clients produce word of mouth. Every happy client will tell three friends. However, every angry client will tell over ten. Treat your clients like they have the power to bring or turn away more business for you – They do have that power. Its important that you give every one you know or meet a business card. The very people you think can’t help you are the ones that can bring you business. In business you must go deeper than what you see on the surface.
Find networking events and business luncheons. When you speak to people build rapport, ask them about their business first. Ask for a card, on the back write: the date, event, and one of their articles of clothing with color. Then share information (not explain or sale) how your business could assist (not help) their business achieve their goals. Word of mouth (is all about wording). If they can’t use your service immediately let them know you’d appreciate any referrals they send you. Leave it at that; if they ask about compensation then let them know how your program works. Some people will promote you for reasons that don’t have anything to do with money. People don’t like the idea that they’re being bribed or recruited to do something; if they want to be compensated they’ll let you know. Make sure your referral/compensation program is visible on your web site to those who are looking for it.
Extremely Important Questions to Ask a Web site Solution Firm
- May I see some testimonials?
Most design firms will try to show you web sites that they’ve designed - which is good but they don’t tell you what their clients THINK about them. Designing the site isn’t the big picture, how did the site impact the clients’ business, is. Did it make or save the company money?
- Does my domain name and web hosting come with my web site?
You need to know whether they provide these services and if you’ll have to pay and extra fee for them. Its important that the web design firm provides the web hosting as well as design services. This way you have one bill and won’t get the run around if there are any problems
- What do you guarantee?
What are you getting for your investment? What will this do for your business? Is your web hosting guaranteed 99.9% uptime?
- Do you provide public relations to amplify exposure of my perfect web site?
- Do you have a web-marketing program for your clients?
- Can my web site be updated and can my current site be re-designed?
Make sure you find out how their web site maintenance programs work. Is it flexible? If you already have a site can they rework the architecture and layout?
- Can you build me a personalized sample?
See if you like the sample. Is it professional? Does the web site convey seriousness and commitment? Is this the best digital representation of your company possible?
Chris Diggs is the CEO of SandoteWebsites.com which provides custom built website solutions for dot.com startups to Fortune 500 organizations. Have them build a sample webpage for you at no charge.
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