Startup Toolkit – How to Make a Hit on the Internet
First impressions are critical for entrepreneurs. People will buy depending on what they feel about you emotionally. Just like your bricks and mortar location, your Internet presence will be strong if you always remember why people will buy from you.
It’s important to tap into the psyche of your prospective customers – there are five value perceptions that motivate customers to buy.
That’s right, customers aren’t even aware of it, but they make a buying decision based on five psychological reasons about value: What they think about your spokespeople, image of your company, product or service utility, convenience, and price.
Yes, there are a lot of people who will only buy at the cheapest price, but ignore them. (For more on this topic, see this column.)
Now that you’ve laid a foundation for sales to make a hit on the Internet, here’s the remainder of your startup toolkit:
Create a credible name. Thanks to the recession, businesspeople and consumers have changed their outlook. The dot-com era of quirky names will not work as well these days. Also, your name has to be relevant and easy-to-remember. That goes for your branding slogan or tagline, and your logo. Product or service utility is important in a slogan and logo – answer the question that all visitors subconsciously ask, “What’s in it for me?”
If you really want to look professional, create a flavicon from your logo, which is also known as a Web site icon.
Establish a strong reputation. Demonstrate your expertise as an authoritative resource. Become known as a leader in your industry. Make informed statements in newspaper articles and other online forums.
Professional image. Your site needs to be low-key, but assertive in telling your story. Include a page that explains what you’re all about. That’s different from being too sales-oriented or ostentatious. Demonstrate you expect to earn your visitors’ business. Make certain your site’s layout capitalizes on the natural movement of the eye, which is to upper left, over to the right and then down the side. So a strong element needs to be on the left, too, such as a great graphic of video.
Professionalism also means an informative blog, which will help guarantee that you will have a higher search-engine placement. Encourage interaction. If you maintain a separate blog, make sure it’s synchronized with your Web site.
Showcase your team. Customers want to feel comfortable dealing with you and your staff. Buyers are impressed if you show pride in your workers. Show their images and bios on your site to point out their expertise.
Get media coverage and showcase it. It’s true more and more people are relying on social media promotions. But publicity in a credible news medium – newspaper, TV or radio – will generate the most respect. Flaunt it.
Testimonials. Become adept at generating testimonials, go for it.
Videos. Relevant videos now play a key role. Suggested topics include your philosophy of doing business or demonstrating the benefits of a key product or service.
Social Media. Your social media – Facebook, Twitter or even LinkedIn – should be coordinated with your site. Again, encourage inter-activity. There are two reasons to insert sharing buttons (i.e. the “add this” tool bar – www.addthis.com). It will enable visitors to share your Web site link with others, and you will be able to share your pages, too.
Proofread all copy. Obviously, errors do not promote professionalism. That means you need to budget time to double-check all spelling and links to pages.
Fresh looks. Update your content as often as possible. Search engines and visitors will take note. But take care not to extremely change your look so you can continue to capitalize on your previous marketing initiatives.
Optimize. Be sure to use search-engine optimization techniques and coordinate your site with your social media.
Contact. Make it easy, very easy for visitors to get contact information – your location, telephone number and e-mail. But include your information in graphics so unwanted bots and spammers can’t pick up the information simply by crawling your site. You’ll avoid countless unwanted e-mail spam, phishers, and telephone calls.
Prevent online threats. Remember British Petroleum’s online nightmare – the fake BP Twitter account? It generates 10 times the number of visitors than BP’s Twitter account. Be sure to take five precautions against threats from Facebook and Twitter.
From the Coach’s Corner, here’s more on online marketing:
5 Strategies to Sell More from Your Web Site
In SEO, Your Site’s Download Speed Matters to Google
5 Strategies to Sell More from Your Web Site
As countless would-be entrepreneurs have learned, Internet sales can be challenging. To paraphrase a line from the movie, “Field of Dreams,” it’s not always true that if you build it, they will come. There are many salient elements to keep in mind.
Naturally, you need to attract visitors, convert them into customers, continually study your site’s visitors’ data, and keep fine-tuning your approach.
A call-to-action strategy only works if you’re building relationships. Understand y0ur customers. Predictive analysis is a fairly recent buzz word, it’s a science but it basically involves understanding trends and human nature, and getting more from your data.
Oh, and remember this about human nature and quality relationships: Unsolicited e-mails or spam is annoying.
Here are five strategies:
Quality referral system. Make sure you’re easily found on the Internet and have a dominant presence. That means a quality referral system using every facet available from Facebook to press releases and key word selection. Participate in newsgroups and social-networking discussion groups, but use a soft sell approach and ask open-ended questions to establish a dialogue.
Don’t neglect your offline appearance. It must be synergized and consistent with what you’re saying online.
Conversion rates. Have you been frustrated by lack of success in your conversion rates? Even when shoppers enter your shopping cart, are you experiencing a significant double-digit frustration rate – shoppers leaving without buying? You’re not alone.
Many consumers shop online to save money. If your visitors don’t sense you’re offering savings and unique value, they will go to other sites and do more comparison shopping. That means you need to use more effective sales jargon and be clearer about your customers are getting and paying. I would stop short of offering a lowest-price guarantee.
Eighteen percent of the population will only buy the cheapest price not matter what else you provide. They make the worst customers by wasting your time complaining and returning products. They’re never satisfied unless you will sell at the cheapest price. It’s hard for most businesses to succeed as low-price leaders. History shows most low-price leaders don’t last in the marketplace.
Coupons and merchandising. Remember customers want to buy. They don’t want you sell “to them” or “at them.” They want to feel special. That means creating a happy buying environment. So exclusive deals and LTOs – limited time offers with coupons – will improve your sales potential. Consumers are turning more to the Internet for coupons than the Sunday newspaper. But again, remember the dangers in constantly selling on low-price.
Be defensive-minded. Businesses lose revenue when they offer deals to prospects but neglect offering the same deals to their current customers.
Trust. Consumers will spend more money with companies they trust. Obviously, consumers are increasingly risk-averse. You must take every precaution for security and present an appearance of security.
For the majority of consumers, 82 percent, here are five motivating perceptions – what they think about your spokesperson, image of your company and site, the product utility, convenience and price.
That means you need a site that downloads quickly, is professional-looking, and functions well. And your online reputation must be excellent. Guard against unfavorable reviews and blogs.
Speed of response to e-mail queries is also important. It demonstrates efficiency.
Site coding. Your site must have clean code and be well-written. It must be easy-to-maneuver and logically structured. There are countless tips site coding on the Internet. But some of the sources do not provide the correct advice. If you’re reading this paragraph, the odds are that you are not an expert. You need to find an authoritative, credible expert to write it for you.
And keep your site fresh without abandoning your central look or theme to promote consumer familiarity and to build a foundation for long-term relationships.
From the Coach’s Corner, for more on social networking and ecommerce, see: Surprise? Facebook and Twitter Increase Odds for Sales.
