That’s a good start, but don’t stop there. Your website can be one of the most effective marketing tools you have. It is by far one of the best values as well.

In the past, if you wanted to do business you’d get a yellow pages ad, for thousands of dollars, and then you took out ads in the paper also, maybe canvasing and area with fliers or something. You knew you had to spend the money because that is how you were found. You put it in the budget and organized your business around it.

But for some reason people approach things without the same business commitment. People seem to think that spending as little as possible is somehow going to achieve a satisfactory result.

It seems to me that if we think about our websites in the same way that we used to think about our yellow pages ads, we’d realize that for it to be truly effective for us, we will need to spend a little time and money getting it working for us. Only then will we get the return we are looking for. The difference is that you will spend far less and get far more through your website than through a yellow pages ad. Sorry little yellow book sitting in my drawer unused, but you just will.

The key is not to simply hang your website like a sign then walk away expecting customers to just show up. It just doesn’t work that way. What this means is that someone needs to do the work necessary to make sure your website is designed correctly (structurally), is optimized so people can find it (Search Engine Optimization) and is easy to use (usability) so that your website can be found by people looking for your products and services and when they get to your site, they find what they are looking for and hopefully take the next step.

You Get What You Pay For

If you decide that you are going to manage your own website yourself, be prepared to spend a lot of time learning about website design, search engine optimization rules and writing content for the web, which is very different than other writing you may do. You must learn all this so that your site will perform effectively. If you don’t, your website is not going to be effective and you will have spent your time for a less than desired result. You might not like this next statement, but it’s not the websites fault if it’s not working for you.

Think about this. If you hired someone to do your website and they could not get it to where you want it, or couldn’t make it look how you want (EG: to match your branding), you’d fire them, right? Well, maybe it’s time to fire yourself.

Don’t Skimp

One of my challenges, surprisingly, is to convince business owner not to skimp on their marketing efforts. This is a bit odd to me as your marketing is what prospective customers use to decide if they are going to take the next step and move forward in doing business with you. Is it really worth saving a few bucks to take that chance? You don’t want people to look at your website and think “This says they’ve been in business for a week” do you? Or to simply hit the back button because they couldn’t find what they were looking for?

I see people with those paper brochures that they printed themselves. Cheap? Yes. (Actually maybe not when you look at what ink costs). Easy to update? Yes. Effective? Not really. So, is that a good use of your money and resources? Is it a good business decision? I see the same thing with business cards people get for free from certain companies as well. A bunch of people have the same business card because they’re all picking from the same templates.

Not Like The Old Days

Keep in mind that we’re not talking about the same kind of dollars that yellow page advertising cost. I’ve heard of people spending $5-30k per month! Yes, you read that right, per month. A brand new website doesn’t cost near that and if you have a website, you can get it hosted and professionally managed for around $40/mo.

It’s not personal, it’s business

If you want a professional result, you need to hire a professional. Just make sure you define your goals and make the necessary choices to achieve them. You may take your business personally because it represents who you are. I understand that, but when you need to make a business decision, keep your emotions out of it. Find someone you trust and see how it goes. If they can’t get it done, choose someone else.

Job done, right?

Maybe.

Your website is one of the most powerful marketing/selling  tools you own. For the money there is no better way to accomplish the task(s) you set for it. Once in place, it never sleeps, takes a break or complains. It performs the task perfectly every time, never day-dreaming about being out on the open road.

Where to start?

Think about information that you offer your customers on a regular basis and consider making that information available on-line.

• What are your hours?
• Where are you located? (you can even give directions and a map).
• Got any specials?

Websites are perfect for this kind of information because it give it out when your customer (or prospect) asks for it. The moment they want to know your hours or location, your website is there to give it to them. I will assume that if you have a site, you have this information available and very easy to find. If I can’t get the answer within one click, your site is not built right.

The Next Step

But what about the third example up there. Do you have any specials or coupons that you offer regularly? By having this on the website, you give the customer the ability to “find that good deal” that we all seek when we shop. Tell people to check out your website for the latest deals you’re offering.

• Buy one, get one half off
• 10% off an oil change
• Bring in your last receipt and get some discount of special thing

Now your website is being anticipated by your customers as a place to provide you savings, a deal, etc. And while it’s doing that, if your offer is aimed at existing customers you will build customer loyalty. Remember, it’s something like three times cheaper to keep a customer than to get a new one. Reward them.

Extra Special

You can even add another layer to that and offer something for everyone to get (some coupons or whatever), but offer even more to people who will “register” (this solution does not require a special database program. Please contact me to learn more about implementing this functionality) . That is to say that they give you their name and email address and now they get your monthly, weekly, etc, special offers that you don’t offer on the site. They are special.

This way you get to market to them and they get to save money. Say it with me, “It’s a win-win”

Envision it.

What does it look like? Do you have a new car, another machine that does whatever it is you need? A bigger warehouse?

I know if may seem silly, but if you cannot define what you are hoping to achieve, how will you ever get there? Just being hopeful that you might get more business is nice, but what about being bold and defining how much more business you’d like to have?

For one, just starting out, it might sound amazing, something like 3 times as many customers for another it’s 10% growth. Whatever it is, you will find specific value in writing it down and even telling someone.

By doing this, you are holding yourself accountable, yes, but you are also giving yourself a specific target, a goal to shoot for. This is vital. When we have something specific to achieve, we are far more likely to reach it. We are all like this, at least those of us bold enough to try.

Think about mountain climbers. Do they just start by walking around? Where are you going you ask? They say, “Not sure, just keepin on keepin on”. How successful do you think they’ll be? A silly example yes, but think about. Really think about. The climbers who scale mountains, plan for it, they tell people about it, they map it out, then they make decisions that support that goal every single day, and then, as they climb, the goal (the summit) is fixed in their minds and helps them overcome all hardships, pain and fatigue.

It is the same in your business and your life. You must have a concrete goal if you want to succeed. Heck, write it down and put it somewhere no one can see it if you think it’s silly or you’re embarrassed, at least you’ll be able to look at it.

So, as we approach our new year, Envision Your Success.

I believe that as a business with integrity, one should bring that up to the customer, explain why what they’re asking for may not be the best solution and offer them the better option in your opinion.

Many do not want to do this because they don’t want to hurt their chances of making a sale. This is short sighted. By not “arguing” with a customer and just doing what they want, you may be “in the right” but that can sour the relationship, especially if, when a better solution comes to light, you just say, “This is what you asked for” or “I did what you told me to do”. You’re right, you did, and they owe you money for it.

But, you are the expert and your customers are relying on you to give them all the information they need, even information they didn’t know they needed. They want you to help them get the best product for their money. You know far more than they do about it, so who else is better equipped to guide them and educate them?

Listen, I am not, for a minute, suggesting that you TELL a customer what they should do and that’s that. What I am saying is that you should listen closely and if you have an alternate solution than the one they are asking about that you fell is better (better value, better benefits, etc), say to them, “It sounds to me like you want “X”. There is a much better (product/service) that can accomplish that for you”. Now your customer may listen to you explain it and through that conversation more details may be revealed that would point you back to their original choice. That’s fine. Don’t act like “Oh, I’m sorry, you’re right, I was wrong”. You didn’t have all the information needed. You simply tell them, “Aha, yes, now that makes more sense. I’m glad I asked because I wanted to make sure you were getting the right thing.”

Let your customers know that you truly have their best interest in mind. If you do, and they come to understand this, they will come back to you because they know you are not going to just try and (up-sell, nickle-and-dime) them, etc.

From this trust will come longer term profit as you will have a customer that requires very little work on your part to keep selling to. And, they will be much more likely to refer you, because you treated them well.

So, what happened?

Well, chances are you never explained why the information was important (if it even truly was) in a way that the customer could really latch onto it, or you just overwhelmed them with so much that you kind of killed off their ability to process it.

You are excited about your business, you love the technical stuff and know why it matters; you customer does not care.

Because you know the ins and outs of your business and have interacted with many customers, use that information to figure out better ways to explain things and better ways to understand what is being said and what you are trying to communicate. Just make sure you do it in such a way so that your customer does not feel stupid, and make sure you are not given out more than is needed. I’m not saying hide anything from them, just use your expertise to give out important information in a “benefit to them” format and not just throw everything you’ve got at them hoping that it’ll make a difference.

Here’s an example, I have a customer who came to me for a new business venture he’s starting. Essentially it’s a new division of his existing construction company. He needed a logo and a website. He doesn’t know anything about the technical inner workings of websites, domain names and website hosting or image formats or how search engine optimization functions. He just wants the website to work, and knows he’ll need signs for his truck and t-shirts for his crews and all the rest.

By listening to what he’s asking for, I was able to speak in simple terms, technically speaking, and focus on the results; benefit and deliverables. EG: Because he’s paying me to create his logo, I will give me a set of graphic files that he can take to his t-shirt guy, sign guy, etc as needed. I did not tell him about vector graphics versus raster or any of that. I just told him, “Your guys should be able to find something on there and if not, have them call me”. Bam, now he knows the benefit; I’ll take care of him!

He does not care like I do about these things, he cares about having the marketing and advertising materials that HIS business needs.

Even if you really think a customer should want to know something first make sure that it really matters in the interaction. If it’s something truly beneficial to the customer, by all means; that is your customer service proposition. But, if it’s just something cool to know or something you’re excited about that does not really have a direct benefit leave it out.

If you feel like you’re going to burst at the seams with all your excitement, you can always start a blog or newsletter.

Can I ask, how’s that working for you?

Are you getting lots of new customers? Are people finding your site, learning what they need and then calling you or sending you a contact through your email form?

If your website is not performing like you want it to it’s time to do something different. If you keep doing the same thing you are going to have the same result, aren’t you? Most people do it themselves because they feel that it either costs too much to pay someone else or they need updates to happen in a timely manner and the guy they’ve worked with was hard to reach and never got back to them.

The problem with doing it yourself is just that, you’re doing it. Think about it for a minute, you are a professional and an expert who makes money doing what you do (hopefully). You’re pretty good at, you enjoy it, whatever. Why take time away from that to work on a website? Worse still is doing it after hours and taking time away from your family. Would you recommend that you’re customers could do just as good a job doing what you do for them?

And for what?

You see, most people’s perception is that having their website managed professionally is going to cost a ton. After all, most pro web shops charge something around $70-80 per hour. They figure that each time they need a small change, they’re going to have to think about, “How much will this cost me?” And for most out there, you’re right on the money. That is how it works.

The other complaint I hear all the time, and I can’t even fathom this, is that their web guy is hard to reach and doesn’t get back to them in a timely manner. The last update I sent him took two weeks, and on it goes. Are you kidding me? How are they still in business?

That is what is so great about the Envision Design Solutions website management service. It covers both of those concerns because you can have your website and email hosted and get all your website updates handled for a low monthly fee. You need a photo added or a new email listed? No problem, it’s included. I want a button that people can click to download a top ten list of recipes. You bet, included.

As far as timeliness goes, our contract guarantees that your update will occur in no longer than one business day and often much sooner than that.

The other benefit of having website design and management done by Envision is that you get a professional making sure that everything is put together the way it should be to get maximum results. It may look easy, but there is a lot to it. Everyone can type in word or use their web builder tool, but if you don’t know about ‘Meta tags’, the ‘Title’ tag, ‘H1s and H2s’, ‘title’ attributes, ‘alt tags’, ‘keyword linking’ and on it goes, then your website will not perform as well as it could in the search ranking battle for page one.

Envision Design Solutions would love to hear from you to talk over what your website needs to be a success.

I’m also a big proponent of having your direct mail piece go out and ask the recipient to go your website to fill out some form or whatever to get the deal being offered or be entered into the drawing, etc.

But what about the content? How much do you put in there? There are decidedly two camps:

Less is more: Some are of the notion that people don’t want to sit and read through a bunch of text and that you should just get to the point, give them a header or two, nice photo(s) and maybe a bulleted list. In my previous company we tried that and got basically nothing. Was it what we offered, the list we were using or the economy? Maybe.

More is more: The other camp promotes the use of lots of content and goes so far as to say that a good multiple page sales letter has far better results (profitable responses) and is far more valuable. They say that we should thoroughly and exhaustively describe our services and its benefits.

When you are marketing yourself whether it is your website or a direct mailer or sales letter, who is likely to accept your offer? I used to think that everybody is a potential customer and they just needed to know what benefits I offer and give them some incentive. However, I have changed my viewpoint slightly.

The only potential customers you have are people who are actually interested and may have already been thinking about it. You’re not going to get someone who has no interest at all to read your postcard and decide, “You know what, I am going to do that” out of the blue. Granted, often times it seems like that because they are ready to make a decision and since they get your postcard they call you.

So you may think, see it does work, but think about it, someone else has spent their marketing dollars essentially advertising for you. So you need to decide about if that is a useful, if not somewhat lucky or random way, to spend your marketing dollars. Essentially companies are advertising for each other and the lucky one wins. How lucky do you feel with your money?

Changing tactics

How about focusing your message on those that are already interested and give them all the information they need to make an informed decision? If someone is thinking about your service (which may be the same or similar to many others) and you give them a lot of good information you are building trust. You are letting them know that you care that they have all the information they need so that they can decide knowing all the facts.

The bulleted list folks look graphically very flashy and nice, but I’d bet that the company that speaks clearly and comprehensively will be far more compelling.

Remember, we’re no longer just sending out semi random mailers out hoping we’re luckier than our competition, we are targeting the few that are already interested and ready. We want THOSE people. Those who aren’t interested will toss your wordy card or letter for sure, but keep in mind, they’d toss your bulleted list card too. They aren’t actual prospects yet.

And, if you think about it, the wordy letter or card actually advertises less for you competition because the person who isn’t interested is not likely to make the connection between your marketing information and the others’

I have no problem asking for someone’s business, mind you, but I’m not going to sit there and hit them with “This deal isn’t for everybody” or “My boss will be real mad that I’m giving this away” or something.

I guess I’ll never be a good sales person.

Really?

Well, Facebook and Twitter have brought to the forefront something very interesting in a way we knew fundamentally but maybe never defined:

Relationships matter!

They matter a lot. More than fancy business cards, embroidered shirts or slick haircuts.

We all know that it takes a number of meetings with someone before we are willing to trust them enough with our business. So we spend our time trying to tell them all the great features our products and services offer and maybe even the benefits to them. However, it will still take repeated interactions typically, to make the sale. All the while, they are getting information from our competition.

If we make it clear that our customer’s needs are important to us, you’ll stand out from the guy down the street.

But, if someone refers us, we are willing to skip right to talking about what color and how many, aren’t we?

So, what should we be focusing on? Building those relationships! Our time with customers and prospects needs to change from “selling” to learning about them; literally befriending them. Don’t fake it, really make an effort to change how you interact.

When you meet someone, don’t think of them as someone from whom you need to squeeze for every last dollar. You may get money out of people doing that, but you’ll be forced to put that much effort into everyone you meet again and again, and at the end of the day it’s just you with your money and lots of people who aren’t really sure what just happened.

If, instead, you focus on treating people as friends you’ll find that they are much more receptive. The walls drop and they interact more fully because they aren’t defending themselves from your sales pitch. Be honest with people especially if there is a shortcoming, a mistake or you honestly feel that they will get a better product (IE: something that better fits their need) from someone else.

This kind of forthrightness will not be forgotten and I promise it will pay dividends as people will refer their friends to you because they know you won’t attack them, but will treat them with respect, honesty and friendship.

I’ll leave you with this thought. Who would you rather be doing business with anyway, people that were cold and stern or warm, receptive and friendly? I don’t mean you as a customer, I mean YOUR customers. Yes, you can have customers that actually like hearing from and seeing you.

I may not have every customer over for dinner or ask them to watch my kids, but a wave and a “How are you doing” is very fulfilling and makes the entire process relaxing and enjoyable.

In the end it is those relationships that will create real success with less effort

• Humans will actually be reading it and they may not know you or anything about you, your product or your service.

• Your website has one or many actual business goals to achieve.

If you haven’t heard this term yet, you should make sure you try and understand it (or make sure your web designer does).

It’s Usability.

The concept is not new at all. We all like products that are easy to use, easy to understand, that don’t frustrate us and, whenever possible, don’t require instructions.

With the advent of the internet and websites, there are tons of people creating sites and content that have not training in this arena, but because they can, they do.

There are plenty of tools and products out there that let anybody put a website together.

This is nice enough, but, as you might expect, you end up with websites that are:

• not the easiest to navigate,
• not the most organized and in fact
• often hinder visitor conversion (IE: Site visitors actually becoming customers).

Much of my effort in web design is making sure the content is written properly, there is a good balance between white space, content, and graphic elements, as well as, making sure the site fundamentally looks professional enough so that visitors can see that the company put some effort into making their website presentable.

I’ve written a previous article which covers much of the pitfalls and enhancements one can use to improve their website so I won’t rehash all that information again.

I am simply challenging business owners to make sure they put enough time and energy into the company’s website. Whenever possible hire someone who is both competent as a web designer and is business oriented. You don’t need, nor do you want an artist who happens to do websites.

If you’d like more information on usability, here is a great article. It is focused on blogs, but the priciples apply to all websites.

So, in this article I want to bring to you attention a very important premise around the idea of what business you’re in and the marketing you do.

Premise
Each of us believe we are in the business of…(put your product or service here), but in fact, each of us would be wrong.

You may think your business is plumbing or insurance or photography, but it is not.

You are in MARKETING

Think about it, you do “sell” insurance or photography services or websites, but really and truly those things are simply the product you currently sell. They are the object of your marketing efforts.

If tomorrow you could make twice as much selling some food supplement, you’d still be marketing, only now you’d have a different product.

New Viewpoint

Ok, so now that you can see this with me, try and shift how you approach everything you do. That is to say, every interaction you (or your staff) have/has with customers and prospects.

If I was going to marketing your business, I’d sure be doing things in a very specific and purposeful way. I would not be lazy or sloppy in my presentation and how I dress or even how I answer the phone.

Each day I would plan out my activities, I would look ahead and see what promotions we could run, direct mailers and website tie-ins. Then I would do some prep work with my staff (if I had any) to get them all “on the same page”. We’d refer people to the special information available online or ask them about joining our Gold Members Club or tell them about a special promotion giving them “x” when they purchase “y” or whatever.

We’d greet each customer as if our business depended upon them, because it does.

The point is simply that if you believe you are not a marketer, you will spend most of your days functioning as a simple employee working for someone else.

Take charge of your future and start promoting your business with the vigor it deserves.

Chris Shockley is owner of Envision Design Solutions and has been building websites for over 12 years. He can be reached via the web: http://www.EnvisionDesignSolutions.com/contact.php