Small Businesses - Big Marketing

How Strong is Your Call to Action?

If you've spent the time, money, and energy into securing your space on the web, you owe it to yourself to make sure your website is working for you.  Hopefully when you designed your website it was with a purpose in mind.  Whether you are looking to generate leads, sell products, or promote a service, you should know what it is you want your website to do and then ASK YOUR VISITORS TO DO IT.

Sounds simple enough, right?  But you'd be amazed at how many websites lack a strong call to action.  Take some time this week to evaluate your website's call to action.  Here's a few ideas for doing just that:

Ask friends (whom you trust to give their honest opinion) to visit your site.  Ask them about their experience. Were they prompted to act?  Did they know where to go?  Were they confused?  Use this feedback as an insight into your average visitor.

Review your website analytics.  What pages are your visitors viewing most?  What is the average progression through your site?  What page(s) are your visitors exiting from the most?

Simplify.  If you know your website has numerous calls to action, try to simplify it for your visitors.  Realize that one strong call to action will be more effective than several competing against each other. 

Remember, it's not just about having a website.  It's about having an effective website that works for you!

Building Your Brand

No matter what business you're in, branding is an essential component.  Not a business owner but trying to build your personal credibility?  Branding is also key.  So how do you build a brand using online marketing?  We've got a few ideas for you!

Your website.  A great starting point for your branding efforts is your website.  Think of it as your digital business card.  Spend the time and/or money investing in a quality logo (we've got some great tips on logo design coming up in a future blog post!)  The rest of your web design should be derived from your logo.  The key is to making your website aesthetically pleasing while also being functional, informative, and user-friendly. 

Your blog.  Carry your website's branding onto your blog.  Don't have a blog?  Starting a business blog is a fabulous way to develop your brand.  Giving you even more capacity to build your authority and expertise in your industry, blogging is a wonderful branding tool.  Already blogging?  Read our tips for better blogging. 

Your social networks.  A relatively new approach to building a brand is by utilizing social networks.  We've talked about how Twitter can help grow your business and why your company needs a Facebook Page, all of this can help catapult your brand.  The key is to be consistent across your networks and to develop a quality circle of friends and followers that will add authenticity to your brand.

You.  If you are a small business owner, essentially YOU are the brand.  Make sure your actions both online and off reflect the brand you want to build.

Building a brand is a process; it won't happen overnight.  But with a focused effort and consistency, it can be done...and we all know the power of strong brands!

Stay tuned till next week when we'll talk about managing your brand! 

Holistic Marketing: The Website

Welcome to our Holistic Marketing: a Step by Step Process blog series!  We're pretty excited about this chance to share our approach to online marketing through a series of easy-to-digest posts.

But before we jump into all the fun marketing stuff, let's talk websites.

If you're going to do any online marketing, you'll need a website.  Now, when it comes to websites the possibilities are endless.  Just like a brick and mortar location is the physical representation of a company, a website becomes the face of a company online.  Whether it's an extension of an existing offline company, or a completely web-based business, websites are important.

So how do you decide what kind of website works best for your company?  Or if you already have a website, how do you know if it's the right one for you?  A good place to start is to define if you're a Lead Generation or Ecommerce website.

Our experience is that websites need to be 3 things: Functional, Informative, and User-Friendly.  Let's explore each of these a little more.

Building Credibility on a Small Business Website

Is your site giving off “warm fuzzies” or scaring people away?

The internet is a scary place. Your website doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t matter if your business is one week or five years old, there are strategies you can use to give your company credibility and increase the number of leads/purchases you receive. Remember, the goal is to let your visitor know you are a company they can trust (aka submit information/credit card to online).

Third-Part Verifiers
Spend the cash/time to join the following groups and add their logo to your site (if they have a member directory be sure your website URL is included in your profile for a little SEO boost!) :

• Better Business Bureau
• Industry organizations & associations
• Local trade groups
• Local chamber of commerce

Do you accept credit cards through your site? Make sure our visitors know your site is safe. The following vendors are great options to join. Simply place the logo by your payment form (most SSL vendors offer a seal specific to their product as well - these work just as well):

• Verisign
• McAfee Hacker Safe

Customer Testimonials
Obviously, another great tactic is to use customer testimonials. Note testimonials have the most impact when you use the customer's full name. A photo is even better. Strategically place testimonials on every page you sell a product/service and throughout the shopping cart process (to reinforce the good decision the customer is making!)

Easy to Access Contact Information
Finally, visitors to your site should be able to access your phone number and address (not a PO Box) from every single page on your site. I like to put them in the footer of a site, but also include them on the About/Contact Us pages and any shopping cart pages.

It's easy to understand why this is important - it shows customers you are in the USA (immediate trust builder) and they can reach you if they have any problems with their purchase.

The points above aren't rocket science, but as a small business owner it's easy (common) to overlook them when you're building a new site. Take a moment and verify you have all of the above points covered on your site. You never know what sales you're missing if you don't!

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