Most of the tips here are common sense approaches to marketing but too many companies lose sight of the simple things that glue it all together.
Don’t just read this page then do nothing. Choose one of the tips here and impliment it this week. When you and your team are comfortable with it, move forward.
In a short time you will see the effects of these changes. Everything outlined here are basic sound business practice that if adhered to will make a difference to the smooth running of and profitability your business.
#1 Comunication comunication comunication…
This one always surprises me but many businesses are like couples in a stagnent marriage who have stopped talking and then still manage to be surprised when at breakfast one of them lets slip “I hate you and you ruined my life!” instead of “pass the toast please dear.” Even if you only have one team in the office schedule some time to get everyone together and get up to speed or have a brainstorm. Know your business!
#2 Use a whiteboard every day…
Ok this one slots in nicely after #1. I bet you have a whiteboard in the office (and if you dont why not?) but when was the last time you actually used it? They are an amazing tool for keeping track of every project you are currently working on. Get your team together every morning and do a round-up of progress and problems. Two three, four, five or ten heads are better than one and have a much better chance of finding a work-around for a problem. Everyone expands their skills set and can work with a greater understanding for the other cogs in your wheel. Every project should stay on the board until successfully completed and signed off. Get your team into the habit of adding relevant information to the boards througout the course of the day so these updates are instantly available to your entire team and can be reviewed at the meeeting next morning. It’s not a coat rack so go remove them, clean the sellotape residue off and you have a bright shiny new member for your team.
#3 It’s the little things that matter…
I have seen this time and time again, I will advise a client to make small changes on their website only to be met with apathy. Ok, when google changed the name of their adwords listings from ‘sponsored listings’ to ‘ads’ most people were not aware of the change. However the the click through rate for the ‘ads’ jumped by 11.5%. Google gets in excess of 35,000 searches per second, you can do the sums. Now do you still want to neglect the fine details?
#4 Is your house in order…?
You have a website and it is all singing all dancing, bright colours, maybe even falsh (god forbid), perhaps your nephew built it in his spare time at uni or you paid three fortunes to those grungy tech wizards that are the talk of the town, but… Does it actually work or does the unfortunate searcher who finds it feel as if he has stumbled into the labyrinth in a power cut? This is another bitter pill that prospective clients must swallow and for us as marketeers it is always a difficult one to tell you that you have an ugly baby. So take a long hard look at your website and watch someone who has never used it before try to navigate around it. If that baby is so ugly that even a politician wouldn’t kiss it, get a new one!
#5 Procrastination is your enemy…
I have a prospective client that I will never close or get on board. I call him every few months just to hone my sales skills, they have gotten a bit rusty as our reputation has grown. Since I first spoke to him nearly eighteen months ago I have placed three of his competitors on the first page for a plethora of terms and have built a nice strategy for all of them. Last time we spoke I had to tell him that most of the terms we had previously discussed were no longer availabe for him as I now had clients rankling well on the first page. When I speak to him I cant help but think of Jim Bowen on the quiz show Bullseye when he would pull back the curtain to reveal the top prize to the unfortunate loser saying “Here’s what you could have won.” The lesson is simple, do it now or someone else will.
#6 People buy people…
Buyer A wants a new car, he speaks to two salesmen, B and C. B and C can both offer A the car of his dreams, same model, same colour and they can price match. So which car does A buy? He doesn’t, he buys the salesman. He buys the whoever made him feel secure, whoever made him feel like a person and not a face in the crowd. Always has been that way and always will. The lesson to be learnt here is be personal and be real. Does it look as if there is someone real at the other side of the phone? Does your website have a postal address? You would be surprised how many don’t. Is the telephone manned or does an answer machine sit in a dark and dusty room where someone comes to check the messages once a week before passing your detaills to a boiler room in an effort to get credit card details. Think about it, is this the image you give of your business? The internet shopper needs to know that if what you sell doesn’t work that a real person will deal with the problem quickly and professionally and if you dont give them that feeling someone else a click away will.
#7 Don’t sell nightmares…
Always sell the dream not the nightmare. Buyers buy with the heart, remember that purchases are emotional even if they are essential. I have a client in the pest control industry who was in the top 3 for most of his keyterms but was resisting changes we had recommended to his site. Conversions remanied low and under protest he agreed to the changes we asked for. His site was like all the other pest control sites, using images of cockroaches, rats, and a thousand other things that made your skin crawl. Why? We changed the monsters on his site to images of a happy family playing on a spotless carpet and an in frame shot of a pretty girl next door type taking pristine fruit from a refrigerator. Gone were the sleep and nightmare inducing blah blah blah about organisms, death and disease to be replaced by an assuring promise that the property would be a clean, safe and happy place and that the insurgents would be gone for good. Result? Conversions rose dramatically and over the following months the client witnessed a steady increase in the number of referrals as his customers would talk with friends and neighbours about a subject that was previously taboo.
