These days your internet presence is vital aspect of your  small business marketing. Here are seven tips which will help you improve your online presence and so increase the number of enquiries you generate.

Write your copy exclusively for your target customer
If you have an accurate profile for your prospective customers, you know what they want and need and what will motivate them. Armed with this information you can tailor your copy to press their hot buttons. Make sure your copy is full of the words “you” and “yours” as opposed to “we” and “our”.

Use your website to generate contact details
Realistically the chances of everyone who comes to your website getting in contact with you are zero. But the fact that they’ve come to your website indicates that they are prospects so if you can get their contact details, you can market to them in the future. You therefore need “lead bait” – to offer them something of enough value that they will give you their contact details. This can be a special report or white paper, maybe a discount voucher or you could offer them some physical product as an incentive.

Update your site regularly
Whether you have a News section on your website or a blog or both it’s really important to keep them both updated. What kind of message does it send out if the newest news you’ve got is months out of date or if you only update your blog every few months. Not only does it make a bad impression on your readers, but it doesn’t impress Google either.

Blogging isn’t for everyone
Blogging has great benefits if you do it well but not everyone likes writing or is very good at it. If your blog posts are badly written or just dull they’re not going to do anything for your business. If this is the case, you’re better off forgetting about blogging and concentrating on other things.

Use video on your website
Video introduces personality to your site. In 60 or 90 seconds you can say a lot about your business and about yourself in an engaging and appealing way. Remember plenty of people prefer to receive information in audio visual form than in written form.

Think before you link
We all want inbound links but they have to be from the right kind of source. Before you set up reciprocal links, consider the linking site carefully. What does it say about you if you’re linked to unprofessional sites.

Reply to blog comments
If readers comment on your blog, you owe it to them to reply. In this way you can strengthen budding relationships and turn casual readers into raving fans.

Following these seven simple points will enhance your online

Whatever your business, we all have competitors and probably lots of them. None of us are lucky enough to work in a sector where we are the only provider of our product or service.

What this means is that our customers have a wide choice to choose from when looking for a supplier. So the question is how do you make your business stand out so that you  get chosen?

The answer lies in differentiation. How you differentiate yourself and so position yourself as the business of choice?

Whether you call this your USP, your standout or your point of difference doesn’t matter. What does matter is that in some substantive way, some way that adds value to your proposition, you raise your business above the competition.

There are a number of ways in which you can do this:

Your Product

What feature does your business have which sets you apart? This could be the product itself, the way it is delivered, the price (always dangerous to differentiate yourself by being the cheapest) maybe your refund policy or even the guarantee you offer.

Positioning

You can differentiate yourself by your positioning.  You can take the high ground and stand up for certain standards like The Body Shop does through its ethical sourcing. Ben and Jerry’s position themselves as quirky and alternative through the graphics on their cartons and the names of their flavours, while Wickes position themselves as the place to go for the serious home improvement market through among other things the voice used in their ads.

The Level of Service You Offer

Zappos, the online shoes retailer in the USA have built a billion $ business on the back of offering extraordinary service.  As well as free delivery, they also give you a 365 day return policy and next day delivery. A classic example that has been quoted for years is Dominos Pizza. While everyone else was offering 1 hour delivery, they offered 30 minute delivery guaranteed. If you are in a hurry that differentiator would sway your purchasing choice.

So if you want to give prospective customers real reasons to select your business, think about these areas and how you can stand out.

In all types of business you’ll find premium products.

These will be dressed up with exclusive sounding titles – “Executive service”,” Gold Standard” “Premier Club” etc.

So what is a premium product? Quite simply it is your standard product which you’ve added value to in some way. It may be that the packaging and presentation of the product has been upgraded or maybe the product is delivered extra quickly or perhaps it has more high quality ingredients in it.

A good example of premium products is currently being demonstrated by the supermarkets. They all have premium ranges these days. Sainsbury’s call it “Taste The Difference”, Tesco call their range “Finest” while Asda call their’s “Extra Special”.

Now I can’t claim to know the figures but while the cost price will be a little bit more, the margin will be significantly higher than the standard ranges.

The great thing about premium products is that they give you a really easy opportunity to upsell and increase your transaction size.

Now considering that we’re currently going through tough economic times, you might think that there is no place for premium products. But you’d be wrong. The fact is that something like 20% of consumers will regularly pay more for what they perceive to be a superior product. All you have to do is work out how you can add value to and upgrade your standard product so that you can offer it as a premium product.

I’ve been working with a removals company recently and have persuaded them to launch a premium removals service. The premium quality comes from the more robust packing cases they use, the fully comprehensive insurance they offer and the level of unpacking they do at the other end but the price is about 30% more and the margin about 40% more. And yes somewhere in the region of 20% of customers take it up.

The other thing about premium products is that it’s not a hard sell item. You simply make the customer aware that you have a premium product and the difference between it and the standard product and then leave them to choose. A classic example of this is Amazon and their delivery charges. You can pay one amount for standard delivery or a higher price for express delivery and you can bet that plenty of customers will opt for the express delivery.

So look closely at your own business and decide how you can dress up your product or service and offer it as a premium product. You may well be very surprised at the difference it makes to both your turnover and more importantly your profit.

As small business owners we all work hard.

In fact lots of business owners work 70, 80 or even more hours per week.

The cruellest thing about it is these people are often struggling and so they work longer and longer hours in a desperate attempt to turn their business around.

The problem is that if the basic strategy is wrong, doing more of the same isn’t going to help.

One of the hardest things in business is to accept that your strategy isn’t working and that you need to fundamentally  re-think the way you approach your business.

We’re All Experts

Running a small business needs a complete range of skills and we all have our particular area of expertise.

Unfortunately as a business owner you need to be an expert in everything:

• Financial expert
• Marketing expert
• Operational expert
• HR expert
• Sales expert
• Book keeping exert
• Logistics expert

All these are in addition to delivering the key product or service that you went into business for in the first place.

Realistically it is almost impossible to be an expert at everything so to try and get everything done, we work longer and longer hours.

So What’s The Answer?

The answer is to bring in specialist help in the appropriate areas.

Of course the classic objection is that it’s too expensive to bring in experts but ask yourself this question.

If, for example, you bring in a marketing expert, such as myself, how much additional business is that going to generate?

The answer will probably be a significant amount.

Not only will you have saved yourself loads of time but the additional business will more than pay for the time of the expert.

So you’ve cut down the time you have to spend plus you’ve generated more business and earned more money. That sounds like good news all round.

Of course this approach doesn’t just apply to marketing – it applies to all the specialist areas.

The bottom line is that if you’re not seeing the results you want from your business currently and you’re working all the hours God gives, then you need to change your strategy and get specialist help.

So, you’re a regular blogger, writing high quality content. Obviously you want to drive as many readers to your blog as possible.

There are lots of ways to drive traffic to your blog – social media being one of the most important. So you put out a tweet on Twitter with a link to the blog post and what happens?

Very little.

So why is this? You’ve got hundreds and maybe even thousands of followers. Why didn’t a substantial quantity click on the link?

Now of course at any one time not all your followers will actually have seen the tweet even if you repeated it several times.

However the main problem will be that your blog title or headline wasn’t compelling enough to persuade your followers to click on the link. We all only have so much time to devote to Twitter and we will only invest time in blogs which really attract and interest us.

The headline or blog title are the single most important part of a blog post in the same way that it is on an advertisement. The headline opens the door to the content. If the headline doesn’t hit the spot, then the chances of your content being read are greatly reduced.

5 Secrets For Successful Headlines

So if we take the title of this blog as our example, we’ll look at how you should write your blog titles.

Make the reader curious

The headline has made a promise but not given the answer. To find out what the five secrets are the reader has to click the link. The more you can arouse someone’s curiosity the more chance you have of making them take action.

The headline was relevant to my target audience

The headline relates to a marketing issue and the people I want to attract are interested in marketing. Marketing is all about relevance.

The headline made a compelling promise

The headline promised that by following the link, readers would get valuable and useful information that will help them solve a genuine problem. Of course the article must then deliver against the promise the headline makes.

The headline says it is easy

We’re talking 5 simple secrets. This isn’t going to be complicated and require specialist knowledge and skills and of course if people think something is going to be simple you are much more likely to get people taking action.

The headline is written in plain English

Many people believe the way to generate internet traffic is to stuff your headlines with key words. If you write for search engines as opposed to people, your text will read poorly and will act in absolutely the opposite way to what I’m suggesting.

So make sure you devote time to creating compelling headlines as they will definitely attract more readers.

We’ve all been given the marketing advice that we have to sell benefits rather than features. Of course no one buys a chair because it’s been ergonomically designed but because it supports our back.

But sometimes highlighting the benefits you deliver may not be enough. In my business I often run across people who tell me they don’t need any help with their small business marketing because they’re growing already. When I ask whether they’d prefer to grow at double, triple or even four times that rate, they normally admit that they’d like to but are totally sceptical about whether it’s achievable. Obviously that then gives me the opportunity to explain that if their marketing is done better than they are currently managing, then they could grow at a more exciting rate.

The point here is that these sort of people need to be sold on the fact that they have a problem before they are going to buy your solution. The challenge here is that many people who really need your services, don’t realise it. Your first job is to educate them that they have a problem that you can solve.

Another and slightly more dramatic example would be someone who uses a cheap accountant. While the client may be congratulating themselves that they are getting their tax returns done cheaply what they may fail to understand is that either low quality advice or even wrong advice may be costing them thousands of pounds every year. This client has a major problem but may be blissfully unaware of it.

So the benefits of your service are extremely important in your small business marketing  and you should continue to focus on the benefits you deliver to your customers  but on their own they may not be enough. You may also need to convince prospective clients that they have a problem in the first place.

If you pose that question to most small business owners, the most common response you will receive will be “Me – I’m the most valuable asset in this business”.

Now of course in one respect that answer is correct. In so many small businesses if you removed the business owner, the business would collapse. This applies of course to one man bands but often also to larger businesses with several people involved.

However that is not the answer I was looking for.

In terms of developing the business, maximising sales and your small business marekting, the most valuable asset is your database. Whether you keep this in a basic Excel spreadsheet or on more sophisticated database software isn’t the key issue. The vital point is that you have a database containing all the contact details and purchasing history of your current customers, past customers and prospects.

So why is the database so important?

The quickest way to grow any business is by leveraging your existing customers. These people have already decided that they like you and your products enough to buy from you.

For this reason when you contact them and tell them about new products or cross sell them into products that they don’t currently buy from you, they will be a very receptive audience. They already like you and trust you and if they have a requirement for your product, you have a very good chance of them buying from you.

Lapsed Customers

It is estimated that something like 80% of customers leave their existing supplier not because they are unhappy with the product but because they don’t feel loved. If this is the case they should be relatively easy to woo back into the fold if you offer then a powerful targeted promotional offer. Once you’ve started trading with them again, if you have any sense you will lavish attention on them and develop a strong and enduring relationship.

Prospects

Hopefully you have a separate list of prospects who you have some sort of contact with previously but failed to convert into customers. You know they are interested in what you sell, so now you can start marketing to them regularly until either they become a customer or they ask you to take them off your list.

The importance of segmenting your database

As you can see the approach to the differing elements of your database demonstrates how important it is to have your database properly segmented so that you are sending the appropriate marketing communication to the appropriate people. The success of your marketing is determined to a large degree by the relevance of your communication and the trigger which will motivate each segment will of course be different.

So if you currently don’t have a database and all your records are kept in a day book or something similar, the best marketing advice I can give you get a student in to transfer all the customer data to some sort of database system. If you have all your records electronically but they are all mixed up and incomplete, please invest the time to sort them out and segment them, I promise you it will be worth it.

When  you think of newsletters, what comes to mind?

The standard image of a newsletter is often an excruciatingly dull item where heavy sales messages are interspersed with the news that Doreen from accounts is leaving and Nicki, the boss’s secretary is expecting a baby.

If that’s the kind of newsletter your company produces then I recommend that you rethink.

Newsletters most definitely do have a place in your small company marketing but you have to do them correctly. The following tips will point you in the right direction.

1. The first thing you have to think about is what you want your newsletter to accomplish.
   The purpose of your newsletter must be to promote your company but the selling shouldn’t be overt.  I would suggest that newsletters should do their selling by strengthening relations with your customers and prospects and by enhancing their perceptions of your business.
2. Create an interesting and engaging title. The newsletter will need an identity so create one which relates to your industry and its subject matter but which will create interest and involvement.
3. A table of contents is a sensible thing to have on the front page. This shows readers at a glance what the newsletter contains and should encourage them to read it.
4. The first article is vital. Remember the success of your newsletter is all about connection and involvement.  No one will connect with a dry, boring article.
   Stories work well. Make it personal. If readers enjoy the first article they will read on.
5. As a rule of thumb you probably shouldn’t make more than about 40% of the content directly relevant to your business. The other 60% can be filled up with what you could call semi relevant content.  This might include:

• Customer spotlights
• Testimonials
• Welcome to new customers
• Q and A
• Competitions
• Trivia
• Seasonal themes
• Even jokes

Remember you want people to enjoy reading your newsletter so make it enjoyable.
6. The other vital element to include is pictures. Nice big, colourful pictures.There are few things more off putting than being faced by large screeds of solid text. Break it up with pictures, pull out and feature specific quotations, make it look interesting.
7. This brings us on to an important issue – the physical appearance of your newsletter. It must be visually attractive which probably means you will need to use a professional designer. This doesn’t mean it has to be expensive but the appearance will be vital.

If you follow these seven simple steps you should be able to create the sort of newsletter that your customers will welcome. They will consume it and so come to know more about and empathise more with your business and that can only lead to more loyal customers and more sales.

I was very surprised a couple of weeks ago as I was listening to a social media “guru” who was expounding his strategy about using Twitter.

He was using technology very cleverly. He had about 15 different Twitter accounts all with their own following so that he had over 14000 followers. All his accounts were linked so every tweet went to every account and so was put in front of his very sizeable audience.

All very clever but to my surprise he never once mentioned the concept of interaction – actually having conversations with and developing relationships with other Twitterers.

Now whether this guy is generating business via Twitter I don’t know. He implied that he was but who knows.

The Secret’s In The Name

Surely the secret to Twitter and other social networks lies in the name.

Social networking.

I always refer to Twitter as being like traditional networking but without having to get up early.

If you meet someone at a networking event and they are all “send and no receive” ie they talk a lot but don’t listen and interact, you are unlikely to feel drawn to that individual. We all know that people do business with people they like and to develop a friendly relationship you will have to have had a number of two way conversations. In those conversations you will decide that you like the other person and he will have demonstrated his competence and expertise in his specialist area.

At this stage you may consider doing business together.

To my mind this “guru” is missing the point. While he’s harnessing  the technological side very cleverly, he’s missing the human side, the social side. He’s using it exclusively as an advertising medium and while blatant self promotion is of course part and parcel of Twitter it shouldn’t be the only part of it.

Would you like to generate more high quality leads which convert to full fee paying clients?

To be honest I think all business owners, large or small are looking for this.

When I first start working with a new client I go through a process I call the “Marketing Fundamentals” in which we develop all the key building blocks of their customer proposition.

Target Audience

Part of this process entails defining as closely as possible their target audience. Who do they want to talk to?

The more precise we can be at this stage the better. If possible, in order to build up as accurate a picture of the ideal target as possible, we will create an avatar. What age is the ideal prospect, what sex, what does she do, where does she live, is she married, does she have children, what are her interests etc.

The benefit of this is that if you have a precise image of your prospect, you can create totally relevant communications to talk directly and relevantly to her.

The Benefits That You Offer

Your prospects have to be completely clear on the benefits of doing business with you. Therefore we identify and define the benefits that you offer which will make you the right option to do business with. These are the points that must be highlighted in your small business marketing communications.

What Makes You Stand Out?

Unfortunately we all have masses of competitors so for prospects to choose to do business with you, you must stand out. Now everyone talks about USPs. If you can find something which actually makes you unique that is fantastic.

However for many businesses that is not possible. To stand out therefore you will need a number of attributes which lift you above your competitors.

This could include:

• A Guarantee – a money back guarantee or perhaps a Total Satisfaction Guarantee – something which removes the risk for your customers.
• A Free Offer – a way that customers can dip their toe in the water with you at no cost.
• A Wow factor – some element of customer service that your customers aren’t expecting that really knocks their socks off and demonstrates your level of care and service.

Clear Thinking

You don’t have to have special training to develop these elements of your proposition but you do need some clear and focussed thinking.

Doing this on your own or with colleagues from your business is often difficult. Stepping outside your business and thinking about it differently can be a challenge so I advise you to involve an outsider who can add a dispassionate external view point.