Marketing Articles
Do you ever wonder about the first impression visitors have of your site? What does the average person think when they stumble onto your site? Well wonder no more! CLUE is an app by Zurb that creates memory tests of your web page, then gives you the results. Remember my article about the "5 Second Rule"? You only have 5 seconds to capture a new visitor's attention when they first land on your site, or they will click away. CLUE gives the user 5.5 seconds to look at your site, then asks the user to jot down 5 things they remember about your site.
You can view the results of my site here: http://www.clueapp.com/50269+
Or learn more about CLUE here: http://bit.ly/p8Pwee
If you would like for me to run a CLUE test on your site, just ask! It's quick, easy and free!
Interesting article, written for the travel industry but applicable to all industries. It offers three basic steps in marketing to build customers' trust, that all come down to being trustworthy, behaving in such a way they believe in your integrity, reliability, honesty and competence.
- Demonstrate mastery of your subject.
- Show commitment to your clients. Use language that speaks to their benefits. Testimonials are valuable as well.
- Recognize they are individuals with unique needs. Empower your client, educate them, soothe their fears.
http://www.travelresearchonline.com/blog/index.php/2011/08/trust-me/
My last article was about how you only have 5 seconds to grab a person's attention with marketing, and how that applies to websites as well. Five seconds may seem difficult, but what's worse is after they decide to stay on your site, you only have a couple of minutes to communicate with them. Whether it's to sell a product, inform, educate, or engage, most people won't remain on a website for more than two minutes according to this article. My own site stats are a little more favorable, indicating that visitors tend to stay on a site for a little over 3 minutes. The linked article below provides several ideas for how to maximize those 3 minutes.
http://www.bryaneisenberg.com/2011/02/the-2-minute-customer/#axzz1Gxb2BuE0
The tips provided fall into the "usability" category, something I emphasize when developing a site. Millions of sites are just a click away - you can't frustrate your customer or s/he will go somewhere else in the blink of a click. As an example, think of your own experience performing a search. Typically 10 site results are presented for your search. You click the first link, glance at the page, then hit the back button because either it wasn't what you wanted, the site didn't please you, or it took too long to give you the information you wanted. Your visitors are doing the same!
In today's fast-paced society, you only get 5 seconds to sell your stuff. Forget the 30 second elevator pitch, you're down to 5 seconds. This article has some good ideas about how to make the most of your 5 seconds when advertising on billboards, TV/radio, direct mail and email:
http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/marketing-sales/2011/03/09/second-rule/#
What the article doesn't mention is it's applicable to your website as well. Most people choose to click to a website (opposed to being presented an ad or commercial,) and testing has shown that you actually get a little more for a website: about 7 seconds. Remember though, this includes load time! Make sure you home page loads quickly, and make sure your message is prominent and easy to understand. If a visitor can't easily identify what they're looking at and confirm that home page is where they want to be and that site has what they're looking for, you'll lose them.
There are many ways to measure the success of your website, and they don't all involve the "hits" mentioned in the previous post. Some relate almost one-to-one with your standard brick-and-mortar store success:
- Word of mouth
- How many contacts you receive via the website (email form)
- How many website-only coupons are redeemed
- Use your imagination. Place a call-to-action on your site that isn't anywhere else.
However, you may want to measure more than this, ater all, you probably spend quite a bit of money on your site, and it's the most difficult to measure success. Analyzing your website logs can provide a lot of detail about your visitors' online experience, as well as about your visitors themselves. An easy and useful tool for analyzing traffic for any site is Google Analytics. This is a free service provided by Google, requiring only a free Google Account to get started.
By placing a hidden JavaScript at the end of each web page on your site, each time the page is viewed by a visitor, all information available about that visit is collected by Google. Based on this data collected, they provide your site statistics for your study. Information includes the basics such as how many times a page is viewed, allowing you to see which pages are your most popular, but also information such as profiling your customers (location from country and state and even city, languages, browser and operating system used, speed of Internet connection, and more), visitor loyalty (how many returned to your site vs, how many were first time visitors), length of time on your site and how many pages viewed, and more. Traffic Sources analysis offers such information as how many came directly to your site and which search engines provide the most referrals, and search terms used to find your site. Content information includes top "landing" pages - the first page viewed by a visitor, as well as top "exit" pages - the last page viewed on your site. Google Analytics offers a lot more advanced information as well, but we'll get into details about all of this later.
For now, if you're not using it yet, contact your webmaster and ask them to add Google Analytics to your website. For more information about it, go here: http://www.google.com/analytics
While many small business owners have that nagging voice in the back of their heads telling them to build a website so they'll get more customers, it takes a little more effort than just building it. One of my clients had a book he had authored, with a couple thousand copies sitting in his garage waiting to be sold. He wanted a website to sell his book. The site turned out well, promoting the book appropriately, with excerpts and videos of how to use the book in an educational setting. The domain name was perfectly suited, matching the title of the book and also the subject matter. Google ranked it number one for a variety of searches. But the books didn't sell. Oh, he had a few sales from the Internet, but he refused to put in any more effort. He would go into schools and demonstrate his book, but wouldn't remember to tell them the web address. He had flyers and business cards, but he didn't want to spend the money to get the URL on it, not even hand-writing it on them. Despite all our conversations about it, not once did he ever make any effort to tell his customers his website existed. How are they to know they can buy his books online if he doesn't tell them? He eventually gave up on the website entirely, frustrated because although it looked good, functioned properly, advertised it appropriately and even ranked #1 in Google, it didn't succeed.
It is a common misconception to rely on search engines alone. Search engines are fabulous, they have their place, and they are necessary to the success of a website. But in reality, it's generally not what is going to drive your customers to your website. YOU need to do that. But it doesn't take much effort to make it a success; your customers want to see your website, you just need to let them know where it is. Put your website address (domain name) on:
- Business cards
- Invoices and receipts
- Printed materials (flyers, brochures, pamphlets)
- Free bookmarks or other give-aways
- A sign by your cash register
- A sign or banner on your wall
- Your store window
- The yellow pages
- Newspaper ads
- Shopping bags
- Press releases, magazine articles
- Use your imagination: t-shirts, mugs, dog leashes, Christmas cards...
Any time you mention your business name you should always have your web address listed. Every time a potential customer sees your name, you need to give them the opportunity to find your business online. To counter the above story, here's a success story from a very small effort. Winter months can be slow months for any business, so I decided to create a Facebook Fan Page for one of my retail clients. I even included it as a Facebook Fan Box Widget right on his website so people could see it. For the first two weeks he had four "fans" that were strictly friends and family (the only ones we had told). Last Friday afternoon he put a sign by his cash register that mentioned you could find him on Facebook, and by Monday morning he had 15 additional fans, and that number is steadily increasing. One little sign by the cash register is all it took to get people looking at his website. Do this yourselves!
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