Earlier this year, I wrote a brief $7.00 report entitled How to Develop a Profitable Website Marketing Strategy. In it, I went over the 7 steps for small business owners to accelerate the growth of their business online. Today, I want to give you a brief synopsis of what’s covered in that report.
In my three years of working with small business owners, I have found that many did not have a real marketing strategy in place. A simple word for strategy is ‘plan’. Business is a kind of war. Your marketing strategy is your plan of attack. Without one…you are more likely to fail than you are to succeed.
The seven steps below, if not followed, will be weak links to your marketing.
Weak Links Will Kill Your Marketing Strategy
Weak Link # 1 — Not Doing Market Research
Too often, I speak to business owners who have not done any real market research. In many cases, business owners have a great idea, and a real talent for doing something. Unfortunately, those two ingredients are not the the only ingredients to a successful enterprise. Being successful in business has less to do with what you have to sell, and more to do with what your prospects wants to buy. Learn to use market research to identify the pain and problems of your market, and build your solutions around what you learn about your market.
One of my mentors, Alex Mandossian, earned over $428,000. in a twelve month period from home using just one strategy, because he started with market research. He found out what the market wanted to buy, and gave it to them. Do not underestimate the power of letting your market tell you what direction your business needs to go in.
Weak Link # 2 — Not Having a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
With this being a global market place, it’s easier than ever for potential competitors to start a business online, and attempt to influence your prospects (or existing customer base) by creating solutions that appeals to the needs, wants, and desires within your market. Therefore, when prospects are shopping online and comparing service providers, you must position yourself to win by having unique and valuable selling points that promise to eliminate the problems of your prospects.
Without a compelling USP, you’ll be behind the eight ball when it comes to being competitive. Bear this in mind, in order to be competitive, the points of your uniqueness need to match the pain ( or the chief concerns) of your prospects. When I was fresh out of college, I took a job selling cars. They taught me early to identify the hot buttons of the person I was attempting to sell. It was called ‘taking their temperature’. We would ask the person looking, “what’s important to you when it comes to a new car? Economy, safety, performance. etc.? Never emphasize performance to a mother of four. She’s more interested in safety.
Market research is a critical component to developing a compelling USP. This is where you ask your existing and potential clients what’s really important to them. The answers they give you are the points you should emphasize when developing a USP. Without it, you’ll sound like a ‘me too’ when shoppers size you up against your competitors.
In addition, research shows that the average adult will spend 8-10 seconds on a website before deciding if it’s worth their time to stay on that page. Therefore, you need to make certain that you communicate the benefits of doing business with you as soon as possible, or your opportunity to win that prospects business will be missed.
Weak Link # 3 — Not Having a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy
Even with the advent of the internet, and the number of prospects who do business there, do not make the mistake of not developing a comprehensive marketing strategy. By comprehensive, I mean the intentional steps you take to make sure you are not taking a one-legged approach to developing a growing clientele. Here are the three foundational pieces of an effective marketing strategy.
The Right Market — The Right Messsage — The Right Media
Market research will help you to identify all three of these components. Depending on your products and or services, you may have a very narrow niche that you serve, or you may have primary and secondary markets that you target. Those two markets may need two different messages. Between those two markets, there may be four types of media that are ideal to communicate your message. You may not use all four media year round because the ROI doesn’t justify the expense. But you won’t know this until you research the market and test your results. One media vehicle (say radio) may bring leads in at a return of 1:1; whereas the internet delivers leads at 2:1.
Be careful not to omit the internet media because you get a lower ratio of return on the front end. The lifetime value of those clients may be more profitable than those you derive from your radio exposure. Therefore, you’ll want to employ both choices of media as long as it fits within your budget.
Weak Link # 4 — Not Having a Well-Designed Website
Even in 2008, the few times I have taken 10 or 15 minutes to do a little surfing, it’s not hard to find websites that were not well thought-out. Many are heavy on graphics, and short on message. We employ the method of Direct-Response Accountable Marketing. In short, we design campaigns that are designed to generate a response that can be tracked. When the response produces a sale, or a lead, we know that we have a winning method. Without either of those two, it’s time to cut the losses and re-engineer the campaign.
Here are four things your website or blog should be doing:
- Bring in visitors
- Cause those visitors to tell you who they are
- Get them to spend money — or talk to you further so that you can convince them to spend money
- Cause them to come back, talk to you more, and spend more money
Every website or blog needs to be developed with those objectives in mind. Every piece of copy, and every photo needs to somehow contribute to accomplishing one of those goals.
Here are five critical components to a well-designed website:
- Gain the attention of your ideal market with well-written copy and appealing graphic design
- Hold their interest with clearly define products and services using a compelling Unique Selling Proposition
- Arouse desire with a message that is benefit-oriented from the buyers perspective (that maintains interest)
- Develop irresistible offers (with deadlines) that motivate your prospects to the favorable actions of (a) submitting their information (so that you can build a database for further marketing); (b) buying at that moment.
- Utilize clear calls to action that tell your visitors what to do next
I go into a lot more detail about a well-designed website in my report if you desire additional information.
Weak Link # 5 — Not Kowing How to Get the Right Traffic to Your Website
Have you ever heard the statement, “All clicks are not created equal?” If not, do not let anyone tell you that all you need is more traffic to get your website to produce. In the internet world, quality traffic and sales are unquestionably tied to keyword research. There are certain keywords that shoppers use when surfing as opposed to the keywords used by buyers.
For example, a client of mine who happened to be a plumber, offers several core services. When studying the keywords that his visitors were typing in, we were able to see that ‘plumber’ did not yield as many phone calls as “septic tank atlanta” did. This highlights a mistake many business owners make when attempting to market their website. They optimize around words that don’t convert to opt-ins, phone calls, or foot traffic. In order to have a profitable website, you must know what keywords and strategies will get the right traffic to your site.
Weak Link # 6 — Not Testing and Tracking the Conversion-Friendliness of Your Website
The only way to know if you are getting the most out of your website is to systematically test and track your results. The most seasoned marketing professionals understand that testing is everything.
For instance, according to John Caples in Tested Advertising Methods, there are ads that have proven to sell 19½ times as much goods as another. This illustrates the gi-normous difference between good ads and bad ads. Anyone can increase their chances of writing good ads if they take the time to learn the scientific principles behind effective advertising. Contrary to popular belief, effective advertising is more scientifc and formulaic than it is creative.
To check the truth of that statement, all you have to do is check with any of the leading copywriters who earn upwards of $15,000. for one sales letter, and they will tell you the same. These professionals are not able to command these exhorbitant fees on bravado alone. Quite the contrary. They deliver exceptional results to their clients that justify their expense. One of their disciplines is to test and track the results, and make changes accordingly.
Let me give you five different things you can test to see how conversion friendly your website it:
- Headlines
- Sales Copy
- Offers
- Graphics / Pictures / Photos
- Pricing
Now that’s a start for things that you can begin to track when working on improving the ROI of your online presence. For addition information, go to How to Develop a Profitable Website Marketing Strategy.
Weak Link # 7 — Not Having a Plan to Strategically Multiply Your Profits
- New Customers
- Improve Your Conversion Rate
- Increase the Number of Transactions
- Increase the Average Dollar per Sale
- Systematically Cultivate Referrals
Many independent professionals are so wrapped up ‘working in the business’ that they don’t have time to ‘work on the business’. The five items listed above are things that require a calculated and skillful effort to plan and implement. It often requires an investment of time and skill that many professionals do not have.
A good friend and client of mine who’s an author and professional trainer knows what to do when he gets in front of a room. His experience in working with people as a trainer, coupled with his motivational and speaking skills makes him a highly sought after individual. But his travel schedule and lack of insight prohibits him from implementing the five points mentioned above.
As a result, he is looking to use our services to move his business to the next level.
Again, these seven weak links…if not addressed, will diminish the potential your website has to be a profitable aspect of your overall marketing strategy. Feel free to get additional information by going to How to Develop a Profitable Website Marketing Strategy.
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