Marketing Blog - Ideas That Work

In this week's More Business Marketing Newsletter I explained how to measure your web site's performance by evaluating your conversion rate. In addition I added a web site conversion calculator for you to use to calculate the numbers you need to assess your site's performance.

Now that you have your conversion rates for your site, what are the norms? How well could you be doing? What are the industry benchmarks? Remember these represent the average of companies doing it right and wrong. They are a baseline and you should be able to do even better.

According to information from Fireclick's Web analytics and e-consultancy, average conversion rates are:

Lead Generation
2-3% of visitors sign up for a free registration process
10-12% of visitors sign up when the benefits are promoted
50% of visitors sign up when incentives are used

Conversion of Free Subscribers to Paid Subscribers
1-7% will convert

Conversion of Browsers to Buyers
.5 - 8% depending on your target market, what you're selling, your site and how you phrase your offer.

How do your numbers compare?
Are you above or below the industry averages?
More importanly what can you do to improve your conversion rates?

The easiest way to lift your conversion rates is to clarify the marketing copy you use on your site, and your page design. In a word, simplify.

Want help increasing your web site conversion rates? Find out how with Creating Web Sites that Sell or contact Charlie to get help from a web marketing expert.
- Charlie Cook

When a prospect visits your business web site or reads your marketing materials, what are they thinking? Are they true believers in your products and services or are they ..

.. skeptics?

Unless they have bought from you before or were referred by someone they know and trust they are viewing your information with a healthy degree of skeptisim and they're thinking -

"I don't know who this small business is."
"I don't know what they do."
"I don't know how they can help me."
"I don't know if they are credible and can actually deliver on what they say they do."
"I don't know their customers."

Your prospects are asking themselves -

"Why should I read this page?"
"What's in it for me?"
"Why should I give this small business my money?"
"Do they give me any reason to contact them?"
"Is there a compelling reason I should pull out my credit card and buy from them and not just keep looking for another place to get what I want?"

Does your marketing give your prospects the answers?
Does it give them a reason to contact you and buy from you?

If your marketing doesn't answer your prospects' questions you're wasting your time on your advertising, web site and marketing materials and you won't earn the return on your marketing investment that you'd like to and you won't be able to grow your business.

Want to find out how to make your small business marketing work for you, instead of against you? You can with the marketing manuals on this site and my marketing services.
- Charlie Cook

Want to see what your prospects see when they scan your ad or your web site's homepage in 3-5 seconds in order to determine whether they are going to read the rest of it?

Before you launch an ad campaign pin your ad to the wall and step back, fifteen feet or so until you can barely read the words in the largest type. In the case of your web site moving back seven feet from your screen should suffice.

Which words do you see?

Do you see copy that appeals to what your prospect is looking for?

If you look at most small business web sites or ads, you'll see the company name as the easiest to read item and then a phrase like "our top three priorities" or "we're a .... company based in ...".

Most companies lose their prospects in the first 3-5 seconds with their ads and their web sites. Don't make this small business marketing mistake!

Use your marketing copy, your headline and the words that appear below it to grab your prospect's attention, get them to understand why they need your products and services and to contact you. Find out how to write a marketing message that gets results or use a business marketing expert to write your marketing copy for you so that your ads and your web site do what you want them to, help you grow your business.

"We are one of 15 competitors in the NY area all selling the same product. There are no real differentiators outside of price. Working for a coporate entity -- I cannot change pricing." - B.K.

How you talk about your services, the marketing copy you use can help to differentiate your business from others.

1. Identify your prospects' concerns.

2. Appeal to your prospects' emotional needs relative to your product or services.

3. Use your business marketing messages to focus on how you help your prospects instead of some meaningless mumbo jumbo.

Your small business marketing can help you differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Many decades ago Miller beer sales were in the doldrums, hitting new lows. The came up with a new advertising campaign that step by step explained how they brewed their beer. Never mind that other manufacturers did the same thing. In creating an awareness of the what was involved in making their beer Miller was able to become the top selling beer within a year or two.

Marketing, how you talk about what you do makes a difference to your small business results.
- Charlie Cook

"Up until now I have used my business website as a way for referred customers to view my work. I would like to expand my client base by marketing to people in my surrounding area for commissioned work. What's the best way to do this?" - Kathy Swantee

Currently your web site features your artwork but does little to explain the problem you help prospects solve or why prospects should contact you. You need to start by adding some marketing copy to your web site that details why people might be interested in working with you, taking your classes and how you can help them. You also need to give them a reason to contact you. You might offer some free postcard samples of your work in return for people within your surrounding area filling in a request for a more information about a commissioned work.

Once you have your business web site set up to explain what can do for your prospects take this same marketing copy and put together a one page business marketing handout/ mailer. Then take an edited version of it and create a postcard to use in marketing your business. Of course if you want help with putting together your marketing information let me know.

Call each past client, let them know you are seeking referrals and that you'll be sending them some information sheets to share with their friends. Then send them the information. Want to discover how to put your referral strategy into gear? I've detailed the whole process in The 5 Principles of Highly Effective Marketing for small business .

Do the above and you'll have a low cost small business marketing strategy which will bring in all the clients you want.
- Charlie Cook

Want to know the one idea that will make the difference between making your web site a success or a failure?

Of course you do.

Your website has one purpose, to get people to contact you, whether it is to buy from you or to give you their contact information so you can follow up and get them to buy from you later.

So what's the secret to writing and designing a small business web site that sells?

Your web site and every page in it are ads.

So what?

Each page of your site should be written and structured to work as a well written ad. It should get your prospects' attention in the first 3-5 seconds, keep their attention for the next 10 seconds most people spend reading ads, and get them to contact you. Both the visual elements and copy need to work together to create a path for your prospect to follow so they view these elements in the order you want to do what you want, buy from you.

Does your small business web site do this? Does it grab your prospects' attention and then in less than 15 seconds explain to them why they can't live without your products or services and motivate them to contact you?

If it does you are proably making hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars from it. It it doesn't work like a well crafted ad, stop wasting time and money and discover how to increase your marketing and your online sales with Creating Web Sites that Sell.
- Charlie Cook

I grew up with a father who turned the heat down to 50 degrees at night, shut off lights practicaly before you left the room and took great pride in seeing how many miles he could get out of a gallon of gas even when it was only a dollar a gallon. Like my father, I don't like to waste money on marketing my small business when there is a free or cheaper way of doing it.

Here are a couple no-cost, low-cost small business marketing ideas you can use to grow your business.

1. Get publicity for free
I write marketing articles regularly and then send them out to over 800 online and offline publications. This gets me a ton of free publicity, not to mention traffic back to my web site. You can use the same marketing strategy to get slightly famous, become known as an expert and generate traffic and leads.

Find out how you can get publicity for free.

2. Get web site traffic for free
I get almost a thousand visitors each day to my web site and that number grows each month. When I first launched my site I didn't want to spend money on advertising I couldn't afford and didn't use pay-per-click at all. Instead I used a few simple search engine positioning techniques to move my site to top ten and top twenty positions in the search engines for dozens of keywords. This along with the strategy of writing and distributing articles brings me tens of thousands of visitors each month for free.

Discover how to get traffic for your web site without spending a fortune on advertising.

from the Small Business Marketing Expert- Charlie Cook

"Which is the best format to send my marketing newsletter?"

Both newsletter formats have their strengths and weaknesses. Here are some of the pluses and minuses of each:

HTML Newsletters
+ Offer more control over the look and feel of what readers get.
+ Its possible to include live links and images.
+ Formatted type is easier on readers eyes.
+ Its possible to get better statistics on the number of people who opened the email.

- You'll need to create an HTML page, though with a template this shoudn't take more than 10-15 minutes.
- Odd things can happen to HTML sent through email systems. The HTML page which looks great on your computer may not arrive on your readers' computers looking exactly the same.
- Mail merge functions, where the software is supposed to integrate the reader's name, don't work as well and HTML newsletters may arrive addressed to <$firstname$> instead the reader's name.

Text Newsletters
+ Just, write, format to 60 characters width, check for spam words and send.
+ Mail merge functions work consistenly so its easier to personalize mailings.

- Harder to read plain text email.
- Not as distincive or professional looking.

Which to use?

One compromise solution is to use both, an HTML version early in the week followed by a text version.
Which do you prefer?
- Charlie Cook

"What is the critical frequency for running ads? My own opinion is that a prospect needs to be exposed to the ad at least 3 times per month. Is that right?" - Samuel Bernard

While frequency is important in advertising the first step is to make sure the ad you are using is written correctly to get prospects to contact you and buy from you. Most ads miss the mark and don't do what they are supposed to do. It doesn't matter how frequently you run them. Secondly timing, is everything. Run a B-to-B ad on Saturday or Sunday and you'd be wasting your money.

1. Start with an ad written to generate a lead and then a sale.

2. Run it when your target audience is paying attention.

3. Run it at least six to ten times. Better yet, run it twice a week all year long.

Find out how to write ads that sell and use them to generate leads and grow your business with More Sales with Less Selling. Better yet, have an expert write an add for you that sells. - Charlie Cook

I get calls from a huge range of interesting people looking for help with their marketing plan and their marketing strategy, and people interested in my marketing services. In addition to VPs of marketing at Fortune 500 companies, typical types of small business owners, service professionals and marketing professionals, my customers and clients include some of what I think of as unusual occupations. For fun I've listed a few here.

If you ever questioned whether the ideas in my marketing manuals and marketing services could you help you grow your business, take a look at the range of people, below, who have used these ideas to grow theirs. Here's the list:

A bush pilot in Alaska looking for ideas on selling ads during her traffic reports

Santa Claus. A jolly fellow in Utah (no not the one at the North Pole) who looks like Santa and changed his legal name to Santa Claus.

A cemetary plot salesman in Georgia.

A wholesale flower business importing roses and carnations from Columbia by overnight air.

A West Texas agriculture equipment salesman.

A consultant providing drumming workshops for corporate retreats (yes he lives on the west coast).

A kite store owner in Colorado.

The General Manager of an independent resort in Darwin, Northern Territory of Australia.

A fabricator of granite countertops.

A franchise consultant.

... more coming.

Have an unusual business that's not on this list? Buy one of my manuals or use me as your marketing coach and I'll add it.

- Charlie Cook

"I've heard the term landing page in regards to web sites. What are they and do I need one?" - Margaret F.

Landing pages are an internet marketing strategy some people use to increase sales. They are specialized web pages you can use for visitors to "land" when they link through from an ad or even somewhere else on your site. In general they include limited links and are designed to help your prospects take the action you want them to take, whether it's signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase. You've probably linked through to a few that consist of a long page of marketing copy where your only option is to buy the product.

For example you might use a Google Ad for your product or service. When prospects click on the ad instead of taking them to your home page where they have lots of options, you could send them to a product page that lacks any links to the rest of your site where the only option is to make a purchase. Some people even use separate URLs for their landing pages to keep visitors from finding their primary site.

Are landing pages a good idea?

It depends. Take out all the links to the rest of your site for a page and you may be able to force some people to make the decision you want them to make. The risk is that many others may want to explore your site in order to get to know you and trust your company prior to commiting to making a purchase or even signing up for a free newsletter. If you're not careful your landing pages could result in a high cost, low return advertising campaign. Not what you want.

Your results will depend on what you're marketing online, the price, the content on the page, and whether you know how to create instant crediblity and prompt prospects to buy.

Find out how to Create a Web Site that Sells your products and services with this step-by-step manual.

Add a comment and tell me what's your experience with landing pages as a site visitor and as a site owner.
-Charlie Cook - Use this link to signup and get the FREE Marketing Plan Ideas Guide immediately.