SiteProNews |
- 3 Ways Small Business Owners Confuse Their Prospects
- How To Get Great Copy Without Hiring A Copywriter
- 16 Questions Critical To Starting An Internet Business
- Google’s Need For Speed Means You Need to Check Your Website
- Website Development Strategy That Will Drive Customers
| 3 Ways Small Business Owners Confuse Their Prospects Posted: 06 Oct 2010 02:00 AM PDT 
Imagine you’re at a networking event and you’re talking to someone who could be an ideal client. You’re really focused in on them. You’re listening carefully to their every word. You begin to realize they’re not talking about their business, but about their life. You may think to yourself, “Yeah, yeah, we’re all really challenged economically right now in our personal lives, but how’s your business doing?” And before you know it, you’ve let that slip out and their eyes kind of glaze over. You wonder, what just happened here? This, after all, is a business event, so why are you talking about your personal life. Well in case you missed it, for a lot of small business owners, their business is their life. That’s how they support themselves financially and spiritually! And this points to the first reason you can confuse a prospect! #1 You don’t understand their problem If you’re not “hearing” the problem and the pain it’s causing them, you may address the symptoms and not the underlying cause. Here’s an example. Let’s say you are an expert in providing health and nutritional products. A prospect complains they’re not feeling well and is in need more energy because they’re balancing work, family, etc. You “hear” the possibility for “supplements” could be helpful to boost their energy. What you may miss is their lifestyle may require an “overhaul” meaning diet, exercise, valuing who they are, etc. So the “supplements” will only give them the energy to stay out of balance! #2 You don’t understand your comprehensive solution So you focus on the supplements, however your “comprehensive” solution might include an overall plan for this person. An approach that includes “wellness” of which supplementation is only a small part (even though it’s you’re core business). But you have to know your full repertoire, i.e. all of your available solutions in order to be effective in solving the prospect’s problem. And if you don’t offer it directly, who could you partner with to address the prospect’s problem? #3 You can’t help the prospect bridge the gap Continuing with this example. If you were focused on listening for the “business challenge” and not asking the questions that help you see the connection between their lack of business clients and the lack of life balance, you will overlook how the two are, in fact, affecting each other. Your role is to help the prospect clearly see the connection; you have to help them bridge the gap. Otherwise, your prospect will not see how your solution will help both in their personal and business life and the opportunity is lost! And they walk away confused as to what you do or The moral of the story is? Truly listen to all aspects of your prospects “being” because it will serve as a rich source of information. It will also help you determine if your solution will solve their problem. And after all, isn’t that the business we’re in? And remember, a confused mind never buys. Chris Makell helps coaches, consultants, and other solopreneurs create profitable businesses by showing them what to do and how to do it, using proven marketing strategies. To learn how to make more money doing what you love, visit www.RadianceMarketing.com to claim your free special report, “7 Surefire Ways to Get the Most out of Your Time and Marketing Dollar.” Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| How To Get Great Copy Without Hiring A Copywriter Posted: 06 Oct 2010 02:00 AM PDT 
Most of these do require a nominal investment. But nothing compared to the huge fees for copywriting. A big part of the value a copywriter brings to the table (aside from marketing knowledge and being a wordsmith) is a fresh perspective. It’s that second set of eyes from a new perspective that can catch mistakes and provide new more successful approaches. Unfortunately copywriting is deceptively simple. Almost anyone that can write to any degree thinks they can write great copy. Creating a piece of copy that causes the reader to take the action of spending money simply from reading words on a page is no easy task. *How A Simple Copy Critique Can Improve Your Copy* Perhaps the simplest way to improve your copy is getting a copy critique. In the direct marketing industry this is a common term. Professional copywriters use copy critiques to sharpen each others skills and copy. You can either hire someone to do this for a few hundred dollars typically, or you might be able to find someone to do it for free. Just be careful that you are getting someone who knows what they are talking about. The biggest value here is having things pointed out to you that you missed. It could be a headline that’s unclear. Or a part of the copy that causes the reader to stop or bail out. Even your entire approach may be all wrong. These are all things you can find out with a simple copy critique. If professional copywriters can improve from a copy critique, imagine what it can do for someone who’s not a copywriter. *How A Simple Rewrite Of Your Copy Can Help* The next step up from a copy critique would be a copy makeover. Not all copywriters offer this, because sometimes if the copy is way off track, it’s more work to rewrite it than just starting from scratch. The key to this is you are doing most of the legwork. Not recommended for rank beginners at copywriting. However, if you’ve got a sense of good copy and you can get something together in rough form, sometimes a simple rewrite of your rough draft can produce some great copy. And again because it takes a lot less time than writing from scratch you’ll save a bundle on copywriting fees. Be careful because not everyone has the same definition or scope of what a rewrite entails. Some just fix the worst parts. Others do a complete rewrite and edit of what you’ve written. So read the fine print and find out exactly what you are getting before you commit. A rewrite is more expensive, but still a fraction of hiring a freelance copywriter to create your copy from scratch. *Get A Free Consult From A Marketing Consultant Or A Professional Copywriter* Most copywriters and marketing consultants offer a free consult upfront. There’s nothing wrong with calling a few of them to get some contrasting opinions. In the process you’ll most likely pick up some great ideas that you can apply to your copy. Just having a short conversation with someone who knows marketing can give you some great insights. You can generally tell pretty quickly whether you are dealing with an experienced copywriter verses a rookie. Be careful in putting too much stock in anything they say. Test it out for yourself first. Make sure that it’s a direct response copywriter/marketing consultant. They are the only one’s who use methods proven to sell, as opposed to just creating general awareness of your business. If you are speaking with a marketing consultant focus the conversation on the sales strategy and positioning of your product. If you are speaking with a copywriter focus more on the specific aspects of your copy. The most important parts of your copy are the headline/opening and your offer. *Model Your Copy After Proven Marketing Promotions* If you have to do the copywriting yourself without any help, be sure to have a successful model available. Avoid generic templates. Model your copy after an example that’s already proven to work. Only then will you be sure to at least have the structure in place that follows proven sales formulas. What you want to do is copy the structure, not the content. Try to stay close to the structure because the further away you get from the original the less likely you’ll end up with a winner. For example when modeling this classic headline, “They laughed when I set down at the piano, but when I played…” I’ve seen some people leave off the second half of the sentence. That destroys the curiosity building power of the headline. Also changing it from “laughed” to some other emotion like cried can be risky. So be careful. Try to make a fill in the blank template out of it. Here’s a simple example. “They laughed when I _______, but when I _____” Do this with every sentence in the copy, not just the headline. This is probably the single best way to write your copy if you aren’t a professional. *Record Your Best Sales Pitch And Then Have The Recording Transcribed And Edited* The other simple way to write copy your self is to do this. You need someone that knows how to sell. If you aren’t good at sales then have someone else in your company or else have a friend help you. The key to this working is to have a good sales person, record their best “pitch” live and uncensored. Then have it transcribed and edit it to take out the um, ah, etc. Do NOT edit into something that takes away the conversational tone. Be careful to maintain the essence of what they said. That’s why you really don’t need to write copy. You can record it being spoken by a sales person. You end up with the same end result. Just make sure you have a good sales person and they know your product well so they can make the best pitch possible. These are the five best ways I know to improve existing copy or create it from scratch. The power is in getting an outside perspective, using proven principles of selling, and using the time saving of rewriting rather than starting from scratch. Ken Hoffman is a strategic business adviser and direct response copywriter. He is the author of “Scientific Advertising For The New Economy.” Download his free report, “17 Website Conversion Strategies To Boost Your Bottom Line.” Download it now from www.goodmarketingforbadtimes.com/ezine.html. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| 16 Questions Critical To Starting An Internet Business Posted: 06 Oct 2010 02:00 AM PDT 
What with the many aspects he has to consider. 1. Does it matter whatever domain name I pick? 2. How much should I invest in this online business initially before it starts generating revenue? 3. What advertising sources do I invest in and which do I get free? 4. What website type do I use – static or dynamic? 5. What online marketing training program do I join to put me through? Which are the best of these online marketing training programs? 6. Which forums do I hang out at where I can find my colleagues in a similar niche? Which are the best of these forums? 7. How do I get my website set up? Do I design it from scratch, use templates or even go for an already completely set up website? 8. What plethora of internet marketing tools and resources am I required to keep and utilize? 9. On completion of my website set up, how do I subsequently keep updating it? Update myself or outsource? 10. If I learn to update my website, what software or web platform is most ideal for me to get this done? 11. What blogging platform do I use – blogger or wordpress? 12. Do I start with just one internet affiliate program and after making some progress begin to add others? 13. Of the available internet affiliate programs, which do I join? 14. How will the internet affiliate programs I intend selecting pay me my commissions? 15. How fast will I start to make money online with affiliate program? 16. Can my country’s nationals fit perfectly into the internet affiliate programs I intend getting involved with? As you can see, these are all valid questions that arise in starting an internet business and I can go on and on. It should by now be apparent that there are so many other necessary questions that you cannot even imagine, given the depth of your training and experience in internet marketing as at now. It is thus best you seek guidance in starting your own small business, as some mistakes made at the outset cannot be corrected later on, along your internet marketing journey. The objective of pointing out a microcosm of the necessary questions that should arise in starting an internet business therefore, is for you to get assistance before it is too late. This assistance is best with an online marketing training program and many are free. When you join such a program, it is like killing many birds with one stone, as you discover that most of these questions get addressed and you get tailored towards achieving your objective. Of course, you have to join the best of these online marketing training programs which has the characteristics of a good online marketing training program, to get value, as there abound many out there that are mere theoretical programs which will not serve your purpose. The questions identified above are not theoretical such as can be addressed in an e-book or a theoretical course but requires a multidimensional practical approach which is best given in a good online marketing training program. Let us quickly drill down to just one of the above questions – How do I get my website set up? Do I design from scratch, use templates or even go for already completely set up money making websites? When you are new to internet marketing and web designing, I will advise you to go for pre-setup money making websites as there are a lot of things to take into consideration in setting up a website for internet marketing purposes such as on-site search engine optimization. It is also for this reason that it is advisable you get money making websites from an online marketing training program rather than just have a web designer design one for you as many things that are internet marketing related have to be taken into consideration if your website is to perform optimally in the search engines, which you may not know contributes about 70% of traffic to websites on the internet. Again, perhaps you do not know yet, traffic is the lifeblood of any internet marketing business, as your website is as good as dead without traffic. Is it any surprise therefore that in starting an internet business, you have to carefully select an online marketing training program to lead you along the right path? Dele Ojewumi is the webmaster of www.homebiz-supermarket.com. He is an Internet Marketer, Chartered Accountant and Economist who has helped many internet marketing newbies get the right online marketing training at his website. You can also visit his blog => www.homebiz-supermarket.com Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| Google’s Need For Speed Means You Need to Check Your Website Posted: 06 Oct 2010 02:00 AM PDT 
Putting aside the privacy issues and the file Google has on each and every one of us, let’s look at how this will affect your website and your search placement. In that same Google interview they stated they will pursue all options to shorten search times. At the top of the list was site load times and robot read times. We already know there are rules to govern the code to content ratio, keyword density and placement, and content quality but this rule goes right to the foundation of every website. This rule speaks right to the background code, which by the way, has changed a lot over the years. Under this new rule the load and read speeds of your website will have a direct affect on your ranking. How do you know if your website needs to be updated? 1- Web code standards and browser capabilities have advanced a lot in a short time. If your site is pushing five years since the last tune up, it is time to look. 2 – Was the original site written with outdated or obsolete WYSIWYG software? These are notorious for adding tons of erroneous code (Google already penalizes for this). 3- Copy placement. Search bots only read so many words in to a website. It is important that these be the important words. We call that “strategic copy placement.” 4- On-page optimization. Is your website easy for Google to find and more importantly, understand where you want to be listed? Older sites have little or no optimization at all. This is especially true with WYSIWYG and templates. How do you fix this problem? Sorry, there is no short answer. The best thing to do is find an experienced website designer and get an evaluation. Not an artist turned developer but a good design / code / search optimization team. I have argued this point many times in the past and won’t go into here. But, other than the graphic design there are two other components to a website. These two parts together are the most important components. First, the way the site is written and second is the search optimization, which includes current market research. What the code should look like, again that is too deep to cover here. We coined a phrase a couple of years ago “search engine positive code”. This is how your website is presented to the search engines. You need to give it to them the way they want it. This is now critical to website placement and that is important in this competitive environment. Once you have the evaluation tackle it one step at a time. You can re-do the code with minor changes to the design. Another option is to just re-do the index page. The occasional overhaul is part of the normal evolution of maintaining a website. Technology changes and you have to also, you can bet that your competition will. Chris has been owner and head designer since he started LBS back 1979. His marketing experience crosses all media and Chris is settled firmly into web design and marketing. With his first website going up in 1997 Chris has himself as one of the leading Web Design Studios in Western North Carolina. Based in Asheville Lone Bird Studio has a proven record of results and satisfied clients. Check him out at www.lonebird.com. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| Website Development Strategy That Will Drive Customers Posted: 05 Oct 2010 10:00 PM PDT 
What should be the first step in developing a website? 1. Creating a design to use as a basis, 2. Deciding how the content needs to be integrated and managed, 3. Gathering content from corporate collateral, 4. Developing a strategic plan for your specific needs, or 5. Choose the most cost-effective hosting plan. In just about any profession other than website development, your answer would be choice 4. After all, you couldn’t build a house without considering the layout, number of bathrooms, and features of the home. You wouldn’t create a design for a major advertisement and then plan the content and message of the ad. Yet, when it comes to website design, often the design comes first and the strategic plan for the site comes last. Being a veteran of about 20 years in marketing and design, this issue has perplexed me for years. It seems to me that the development process should be: 1. Discover the reason a business needs a website and the expectations of the business. 2. Understand your typical customer and what influences their purchasing decision. 3. Have a clear understanding of how the website fits into the marketing plan. 4. Research to find what customers are searching for in Google, Yahoo in relation to the business (keywords). 5. Carefully plan a site architecture which is best for the demographic, online search trends, and have a site that’s easy for search engines to follow, is designed with the target market in mind, and has clear definitions of conversion goals. 6. Create a design which speaks to the target demographic. 7. Launch the site and begin an internet marketing plan to fulfill realistic expectations. 8. Modify strategic marketing plan as needed in response to real-time data. Then issues such as server configuration, hosting service, domain registration variables, proper site construction, CMS, SEM, PPC, Social Media, and many other features need to be researched and fine-tuned. For example, choosing a hosting package with an IP that has been associated with a “bad neighborhood” in the past (bad neighborhoods are pornographic sites, etc.) can cripple your website marketing plan before it begins. Instead the plan is usually: 1. Create a design. 2. Add content. (most plans end here because there usually are no marketing goals for a site.) 3. Contact SEO firm who performs keyword research based on content of site. 4. SEO firm proposes keywords. 5. Site is optimized by SEO firm by editing original site to make it more SEO friendly. 6. Results vary. 7. Usually followed by redevelopment IF business doesn’t lose faith in the internet. All the details are usually never dealt with because the average designer doesn’t know they exist. I think the reason the internet world can get away with a backwards strategy is because the design portion is fun, is more tangible, and looks impressive. It gives a client the opportunity to suggest colors, logo position, interactive media, position of the navigation system and other elements. The process usually goes smooth because the developer gets the excitement from the client and the client is impressed by the nice design work. BUT… that’s also why over 99% of all internet businesses FAIL. Because there is no quality infrastructure and strategic plan in place. Either the site is poorly marketed, keywords are unfocused, or it doesn’t fit into the overall business marketing plan. In most cases, this is where the business owner begins to think the internet is all hype and will not work for their particular business. They disregard stunning statistics, such at 65% of all Americans begin their search for local services on the internet FIRST. This is followed by a competitor leveraging the internet as a strategic advantage and ultimately leads to a loss of revenue by the disillusioned company. So What’s the CURE? Your website needs to be planned. A thorough understanding of your expectations, target demographic, and geographic influences have to be considered. The proper research needs to be done to assure your internet marketing plan has the right infrastructure and architecture and then you can eat the “cake” (design). BUT… This is easier said than done for the following reasons: * It’s more expensive to create the right plan. * It’s not as fun to start off with planning, expectations, and realistic goals. * A good team to create your plan has to understand design, marketing, social media, SEO/SEM, custom development, and customer service to get the job done. * Most website developers mask their weaknesses. Some are good at design, others technical work, others SEO, but few are good at it all… * College students and novices practically give away website design which is hard for the business to turn down. * Consultants usually do not have a complete understanding of the entire process. AND THE WORSE PART… Is now the internet developing world has realized that cheaper, do-it-yourself systems sell better than a comprehensive plan. (See our article on “canned solutions.”) So companies like Intuit offer “simple solutions” (because it is high profit, low overhead), and the only one who ends up suffering is your business. Be Smart and Eat Your Vegetables First… Then have Dessert. Proper planning is the only cure. Hiring an experienced company to help you is the only way you will truly have an opportunity to dominate your market online. It will cost a little more, it won’t be as fun up front, but it will be worth it in the end. John Carroll is A.C.E. and SEMPO certified and has almost 20 years experience in marketing and design. His internet marketing plans have helped many organizations reach new levels of success using both the internet and traditional marketing techniques. John Carroll is founder of www.MaxWebGear.com. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
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