49 Driving business to your website

If you are about to get a website designed the first question and most important question you need to answer is…

What do you want your website to achieve for you?

Maybe you want to use your site

• as an online brochure
• to create a professional and credible image
• to sell products directly
• to take orders
• to attract new potential customers to contact you for information
• to provide information
• to generate the email addresses of subscribers to your newsletters and free reports.

Whatever it is that you want to achieve, it will require you to drive traffic to your site to get it.

How to drive traffic to your site

Tell your customers about your website

Publish your website on everything that you use to promote your business. Your business card, your brochure, your sales letters, your compliment slips, your company magazines, your invoices, your advertising, your vehicle livery, as part of your window display. It is useful if the website name is both easy to remember and contains keywords in its title.

Give your customers a good reason to go to your website

Give your customers a good reason to go to your website. Invite them there by offering something of value when they get there.

• An article.
• Free information.
• Book a free consultation.
• A free trial or test.
• An online demonstration or presentation.
• A competition linked to information on your website.

Promote these incentives in your daily communication with existing and potential customers.

Increase your link popularity

Link popularity is the total number of websites that link to your site. Good quality link popularity can dramatically increase traffic to your website. Well placed links are an excellent source of consistent and targeted traffic. They can also even generate additional search engine traffic to your site.

Increasing the number of quality relevant sites which link to your site can actually improve your search engine rankings.

What is a good quality link?

A good quality link is another organisation that already has achieved search engine popularity and is relevant to your business. A link is when your website address appears on another business site. They can be achieved in a number of ways.

• Joining online directories for your specific industry niche.
• Joining networking directories.
• Banner advertising on relevant sites.
• Article writing for other sites.
• Reciprocal links with partners and host relationships.
• Banner advertising.

How do you know who to link to?

The trick is to run a test search and find your most popular competitors. Go to www.linkpopularity.com and type their details into the free search box. You can find out how many links they have and who those links are. This will give you a head start. Research all the links they have and choose the ones that you think will work for you. You can also use this tool to find out who is linked to your site already. It will allow you to research Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

Improve your search engine ranking

Search engine optimisation means making the most of your website content to enable you to rank highly in search engines. The higher your rank the more likely people are to find you when they search for the products or services you offer.

This is a highly skilled and time consuming process which is why many companies recruit a specialist website marketer to work with them over time to build up and fine tune their approach.

How do the search engines rank your website?

It depends on a number of factors.

• How many sites link to yours.
• How many pages your site has.
• The words in your website name.
• Keywords.
• Words in bold.
• Words in URL.
• Having more than 300 words on your home page.
• Keyword density.
• Google page ranking.

If you are prepared to go through a steep learning curve there are things that you can do yourself.

Find out what your keywords are

Keywords are the terms and phrases you would naturally associate with whatever you sell. Ask yourself if you were searching for your products and services using a search engine what would you type in the box.

Brainstorm all the words that you think a prospective customer/visitor would enter into the search engines. Ask your customers, friends and family what they would enter. You can put yourself into the position of someone searching for your product and service. How do they think and what would they be most likely to put into a search engine?

The Overture search assistant tool is one of the most useful resources I have found for exploring how many searches in the last month were made on particular key words. Here is the link for this free tool and some basic steps to take: www.overture.com

• Choose your country.
• Go to the basics of search marketing.
• Go to right tool for the job.
• Click on to keywords which will take you to the keyword assistant. You can type in all the keyword combinations on your list and find out how many times they were searched for in the last month.
• Look out for the search term suggestion tool.

You can also:

• include your keywords in your website title
• include your keywords in your copy
• repeat in different ways on each page on your site.

Google search for your competition

You can also type your keywords into the Google search engine and see what comes up. This will be your competition. Look at the top right hand corner of the screen and see what the results are for the number of sites that come up with that particular keyword combination.

The best keywords to use are the ones that have the best website to search ratio. This means the keywords with the highest number of searches (found through overture) and the least number of websites using that combination. The better your website: search ratio the less competition there is for you to beat.

Article publishing

Did you realise that thousands of business owners use a simple technique to generate targeted visitors to their websites without paying a pound in advertising?

How is it done?

By creating tightly focused articles other people publish in their ezines (online magazines and email newsletters) and post on their websites. This method rates so powerfully that some even call it ‘the web’s best kept traffic secret’.

Now, you may ask, ‘Why would an ezine publisher or website owner publish my articles for their subscribers?’ The answer: content!

Over a 100,000 ezines and e-newsletters operate on the web (along with millions of websites) covering everything from pets and cooking to investments and property. Many of them need tightly focused content and they simply can’t produce all of it themselves.

You can get valuable publicity, exposure you often couldn’t even pay for if you wanted to, by providing valuable, content-rich articles in exchange for a byline and a link to your website.

Pay per click

Pay per click advertising simply means paying to put an advert for your website at or near the top of the search engines. When you search for something on Google or Yahoo! you may have read the term ‘sponsored listings’ that is pay per click advertising. You are paying to get to the top of the search engines. It is called pay per click because you only pay when someone clicks on the link to visit your site. The site that comes out top of the search engines will be the one which has bid the highest amount per click. You have to put in a bid for the top position. To set this up for yourself you will have to sign up for a pay per click account for the search engines that you wish to advertise in. You can take a look at the top sites in the sponsored listing for the search term you would like to use and see what their current bids are. If the top site bid was £1.40 per click you would have to bid more than that to take the number one spot. It is the same for each level. To generate a good level of traffic to your site it is best to be on the first page.

It is up to you how much you want to spend per day and you can set your own budget. You can set a maximum daily budget and when that budget is exceeded you would drop out of the rankings until the next day. That will make sure that you only spend what you are comfortable spending each day to get the clicks to your site.

There are online tutorials that explain step by step how to achieve your pay per click programme. Google and Overture are the main search engines that sell pay per click.

Email and e-newsletter campaigns

Email and newsletter campaigns are another great way to drive traffic to your site. A direct link to your site can be used which makes it easy for readers to click through immediately. You will need to provide a good reason for the customers you are targeting to click through to your site. You need to provide something of value to your customers that can only be retrieved by accessing your site.

When you get traffic keep them there!

Ninety-nine people out of 100 when surfing the web will visit sites and leave within eight seconds unless the site gives them a very good reason to stay. So when you get traffic to your site you need to make sure that the site is attractive enough to your visitors.

The best websites are the ones that have clear, obvious navigation buttons, an attractive professional image, are visually appealing, communicate instantly what is being sold, are easy to read and give you all the information you need at the click of a button. Websites that use all the bells and whistles are not usually the best selling sites.

How to use this information

Implementing and fine tuning strategies for driving traffic to your website is an ongoing task. You may find that now you understand the basics of what is involved and can see the potential you may decide to utilise the services of those that specialise in website marketing. Alternatively you may have someone in your business with the aptitude for creating and implementing your own internal website marketing plan.

50 Networking for the right reasons

What is networking?

Networking is all about developing business contacts and relationships that enable you to expand your business base. It is also about increasing your knowledge and building your profile in the community.

The purpose of networking is to make connections with people and build new relationships and trust.

Networking is a two way process. It is about giving as well as getting. As you meet new people and build up your contacts you may find yourself able to refer or recommend people or use their services yourself.

Networking can be a longer term strategy for building new business. You may not see a return from it for months or years. It can also be immediate. My own personal experience of networking has been very positive and I have found myself making at least one very worth-while business relationship at every networking event I have attended.

Networking is a great way to meet new people. There are so many different types of networking events to choose from. If you are an early riser, a breakfast meeting might suit, or an evening event if you prefer. There are speed networking events, profit clubs, lunches, boat trips, theatre visits, trade shows, conferences, presentations, speaker sessions, discussion groups and more.

The most important thing is to choose the networking event, locations and target audience that most suits what you are looking for.

Why is it important?

If you work alone, attending a regular networking event can ensure that you continue to get out and about and mix with people. This is important. Meeting and communicating with people is a vital part of business building, and keeping up the habit will make the task easier. If worked correctly, networking is an excellent way of generating more leads and clients for your business.

Your challenge

To be a valuable marketing method, networking needs to be practised in the correct way otherwise it can be a complete waste of time. You will need to make sure that you attend the events that give you the best chance of meeting people who fit with your ideal customer profile. You will also need a method of ensuring that you both meet and follow through on any potential new relationship.

If you find it hard to walk into a group situation and communicate with new people, you could initially find the nature of networking challenging. Networking lunches, educational or sporting events can be good places to start as generally they create a more relaxed social environment with something enjoyable for you to share.

How to get the most out of networking

• Focus on relationship building not selling.
• Be clear what your own networking goals are.
• Do your research and pick the right events.
• Remember that everyone there is open to talking as they are all there for the same reason.
• Find out about people by asking questions – resist the temptation to simply talk about yourself and your business.
• Listen for some problems or needs that you might be able to help with.
• Speak to as many people as you can – mix and mingle.
• Concentrate on building rapport not selling.
• Enjoy yourself and relax.
• Take some business cards with you (I know this is obvious but some people don’t).
• Follow up the people you meet with a brief email or letter.
• If you meet someone you think you could work with set up a meeting to talk in further detail.
• If you get a chance to speak for a few minutes about who you are and what you do, know your USPs and have a short statement that you can make that gets that across and keeps it in people’s minds.
• Have an elevator speech that you feel comfortable with – be able to speak easily about how your business helps people and solves problems.
• Be clear about what you are looking for in terms of new business. If you are presenting what you do at a profit or referral club you will get the opportunity to explain what kind of customers you are looking for.
• Build up a few events that you like and go on a regular basis for a while – this will make it easier to build stronger relationships and trust.
• Review your success. How many new contacts made at networking events have ultimately led to more business? Which have proved to be the best events?
• You may need to try and test a number of different events before you hit on exactly the right formula for you.

MAKING NETWORKING WORK FOR YOU – SPECIAL RESPONSE CHECKLIST

• What do you want to achieve through networking?
• Which networking events could you try that fulfil your criteria?
• What do you need to prepare in order to get the most out of networking?
• What is your budget for networking events?
• How will you measure the success of your networking?

How to use this information

Get out there and get started. What are you waiting for?

51 Telemarketing for leads

What is telemarketing?

Telemarketing is a term given to any form of telephone communication with customers that is designed to generate new business.

Telemarketing can be used to:

• follow through on any sales campaign
• follow up on leads generated at networking events or conferences
• follow up leads or contacts made at talks
• survey or research your market and identify potential prospects
• build and progress relationships
• follow up sales letters sent to your customers and prospects providing a likely 20%–50% increase in sales and results
• make preferred offers on your products and services to your best customers
• research or test new ideas.

Telemarketing is anything that is done on the telephone to communicate with existing and potential prospects to generate or progress sales leads.

Why is it important?

Telemarketing is the most direct way of communicating with your potential prospects. Providing you are able to get through to the decision maker you will have an opportunity there and then to move your business marketing forward.

There are some fascinating statistics on telemarketing follow-up calls: 92% of people will have given up after four negative responses, and only 8% of people ask for the order a fifth time. Yet Market Research studies show that 80% of all significant sales result from people who followed up at least five different times after the initial sales contact, before getting a positive response. When you consider that 80% of customers say ‘no’ four times before they say ‘yes’, the inference is that 8% of people are getting 80% of the sales!

Consider how long it takes to convert a completely cold prospect for your product or service. How many follow up calls does it take before you finally get the deal or even the first appointment? If you had not followed up religiously would you have been successful? Probably not. So, disciplined telephone follow-up is not just important, it is vital.

We are all busy and your customers are no different. They may well be very interested in a lot of the offers and propositions you have made but they get diverted. They lose things. They forget to respond. They don’t get around to acting on it.

You actually do them a fabulous service if you or someone in your business picks up the phone and follows up. The call doesn’t have to be pushy; it just needs to be respectfully timed, with the outcome of re-alerting or informing.

If the person who makes these calls always asks if it is convenient to talk and reminds the customer of the last contact with them you cannot fail to increase your chances of doing business with this customer.

It’s exciting to know that telephone follow-up can increase the effectiveness of any letter or email contact you send out by up to twenty times.

Your challenge

Telemarketing takes time, the right person to do it, focus and discipline. If you are going to make this part of your marketing strategy you will need to plan it well. It may be that you need someone in your business specifically focused on this one job. It is pointless to make this a haphazard activity. Details of all the calls made and outcome of those calls will need to be recorded religiously. A good customer contact system is vital. Your challenge will be to set up the system, operate it and measure the return on your investment.

What makes telemarketing successful?

• When it is delivered in a non-scripted manner, with a clear outcome and confident approach.
• Treat each person and each call as if it was the first.
• Understand the person you have called may be in the middle of something, driving or just about to go into a meeting. Always ask if it is convenient to speak.
• Introduce yourself and explain the purpose of the call.
• Have something to say that is likely to grab the person’s attention and make it worth giving you some time.
• If you are using the telephone to make direct contact with prospective clients make sure you qualify the person against your own prospect criteria.
• Follow up.
• As you probably have already experienced, there is usually a right time for your prospects to buy and you need to find out exactly when that is and make sure that your follow-up coincides with that.
• Keep the calls short.

MAKING TELEMARKETING WORK FOR YOU – SPECIAL RESPONSE CHECKLIST

• What are you going to use telemarketing for?
• Who is going to do it?
• Get your target prospect list.
• Set up your customer relationship management system.
• Decide on the purpose of the calls.
• Decide on how you are going to open the call and get the listener’s attention.
• Prepare a list of relevant questions to ask.
• Set yourself some targets.

How to use this information

Take an element of your business where you consider telemarketing may help boost results and test it out. You will need to fine tune your approach until you get it absolutely right. Telemarketing is worth working at as it could give you the edge over others in your market.