Grow Your Business…Even in Tough Times with Effective Marketing
New Marketing Plan Class Starting October 6th, 2010 – Final chance to enroll in 2010 Wonder how the new social media marketing fits in with your business? Not sure how [...]
Research Shows Websites Influence 97% of Clients’ Purchasing Decisions
This following article appeared on the HubSpot Blog on 1/20/2010. View original article here,
Your website may very well be the most powerful tool in your marketing kit. Not only is it the place prospects and clients go to learn more about you and your services, but it has a huge impact on their ultimate purchase decision. In fact, only 3% of the 200 buyers surveyed – from companies of all sizes – say a provider’s website has no influence whatsoever over their purchase decision.
The survey was conducted by RainToday.com and included more than 200 buyers responsible for more than $1.7 billion in professional services purchased, such as accounting and financial consulting; architecture, engineering, and construction services; human resources consulting; IT consulting and services; legal services; management consulting; marketing, advertising, and public relations; and training services.
The influence of professional services websites on purchasing decisions has increased significantly over the past four years. According to the survey, 74% of buyers report the service provider’s website holds at least “some influence” over their ultimate decision to buy services from the provider. This is 23 percentage points higher than in 2005 and represents a significant increase in the importance of websites.
It’s clear that professional services firms must take advantage of this power. With well-designed websites they can:
- Establish that they are professional: through professional design, writing, and arrangement of content.
- Establish that they are worthy of consideration: through an overview of their services, their client list, biographies of their professionals, and case studies that show how they helped clients and delivered what they promised.
- Establish themselves as an authority: through blog posts, publications, videos, and other resources to help build credibility, reliability, and trust-all essential elements necessary to win clients
How important is your website to growing your business?
You Can’t Teach What You Don’t Know
One of the guiding principles in my life has been to only take advice from those who have solved problems and personally experienced success. So many times we take financial and business advice from those who have not actually lived what they are professing. They “heard” through other sources that you should do this or that. However, they have never actually done or followed the advise themselves. There is a big difference between recognizing something and truly understanding it. One of my business mentors always says “If you listen to them, you will live like them”.
Case in point…many people profess to know about Search Engine Optimization based on articles they read 2-3 years ago. However, if they haven’t been optimizing web sites themselves over the past year, they would not be aware of the profound changes in the industry due to social media outlets.
So, the next time a “friend” or colleague gives you marketing or financial advice, evaluate their lifestyle and business success. Do they truly know and live what they are telling you or is it just a theory based on their own opinion?
MTECH has followed new marketing trends, but holds back on giving a lot of advice until we successfully implement the new marketing strategies and see in real world examples how they fit into the overall picture. For example, you may recognize you need a blog, but if you do not understand how fresh content and engaging with other social media channels affects your blog success, then you will not get the same results that others are experiencing.
Here is a great article from Colorado Biz magazine that speaks to the same issue:
http://www.cobizmag.com/articles/how-to-think-like-a-billionaire/
Web Sites in 2010 Need Broader Goals
Shoeshoeing with my husband/partner and daughter in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Photo by Norm Vance of Pagosa.com
Being a web designer for the past 14 years has taught me a lot about flexibility…technology continues to evolve and when it does, your web strategy needs to transform as well. Over the past 6 months, I have been teaching my clients that their web sites need to have a greater purpose than being an online brochure. In addition, the owners also need to continually re-focus and stay grounded in what is working and what needs tweaking.
As the world of social media, SEO and lead generation continue to merge with Web 2.0, it is essential that a company’s websites start becoming more interactive and customer-response focused. So, how do you do that? Here are a few starting tips:
1. Embrace the world of blogging and add a blog into your existing hosting account. In order for your new blog traffic to help the SEO of your existing website, make sure the blog is installed on your hosting account and that you link back and forth from your website to your blog. This will require you to have a separate blog strategy and outline. For example, your blog could highlight the “personality” of your company, your vision and your employees. Engage the staff and find out why they love your company…use customer testimonials in your blog and start a dialog with other customers, etc…
2. Make sure all of your advertising activities tie into specific landing pages on your site with calls to action. Don’t just measure web visitors…measure the conversion rates of each advertising vehicle as well. What may have worked in early 2009 may not work now…
3. Track everything! Are you monitoring your web traffic, most popular pages, keywords, and geographic information on your visitors on a monthly basis?
4. Make sure your website and blog both have links to your Twitter and Facebook pages as well as any other company social media pages, such as YouTube or Flickr.
Feeling overwhelmed yet? I know I do…that is why I also take time to get outdoors, look at our incredible San Juan Mountains, breathe in deep and make sure I remember my top priorities. Sometimes I realize that I really need to hire someone to do something that is taking too much of my time away from my strengths and other times I realize that a certain advertising channel is not very productive.
In 2010, MTECH is here to help you uplevel your existing web sites or just provide guidance!
Online Spending Hits New Record
Published in the December 21st Research Brief from the Center for Media Research
A new comScore survey reported that, for holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 41 days of the November – December 2009 holiday season. $19.9 billion has been spent online, marking a 3% increase versus the corresponding days last year. The most recent week saw above average online spending growth of 4% versus year ago, as two individual days surpassed $800 million in spending, led by Thursday, Dec. 10, with $852 million.
ComScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni, anticipates that “… Monday, December 14, otherwise known as Green Monday, is likely to produce our heaviest online spending total for the season and represents our best opportunity to finally surpass that elusive $900 million spending threshold… “
Since comScore began tracking e-commerce spending in 2001, it has witnessed thirteen individual spending days eclipse $800 million, each of which has occurred during the past three holiday seasons. The heaviest online spending day on record was Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2008 with $887 million, which squeaked by Monday, Nov. 30, 2009 (Cyber Monday) by a mere rounding error. Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009 was on a par with those totals with $886 million in spending. Of the top ten spending days on record, four have occurred in 2009, four in 2008, and two in 2007.
For additional information about the survey and comScore, please visit here.
NeXT Level Leading Edge in Pagosa Springs
Looking to start a business or expand an existing business in Pagosa Springs? Then, the NeXT Level Leading Edge Training Class is a great opportunity! Class starts on February 4th, so register today!
For more details, download the flyer
Trying to Hang On to Success?
Business today can be a tricky balancing act. Trying to keep up without falling can be exhausing. During these times, the human tendency is to pull back, conserve and start thinking smaller. The problem is that thinking may not only prevent a business from pulling out of the downturn, it will also position it weaker to take advantage of the recovery period.
Most small business owners forget the most basic truth – your business is more reliant on internal factors (an owner’s attitude, perspective and willingness to learn) than external factors, such as the marketplace. Your mind is like a parachute…it only works when it is OPEN.
The recession has given entrepreneurs a great opportunity to evaluate their strengths, learn new skills, and let go of practices that are not conducive to growth. All businesses experience peaks and valleys in their business because you cannot control external factors. However, you can definitely influence the time spent in a valley and how long it will take to get your company up to peak performance. Here are a few things to evaluate:
- 1. Sense of optimism – Rate yourself on your current expectation for growth. If you don’t expect the best from yourself, you won’t expect the best from clients and it will reflect on your sales.
- Positive Approach to Challenges – People are like tea bags – you see what they are like when you put them in hot water. Every problem has a lesson inside. You will only grow when you figure out the lesson and SOLVE it.
- Law of Association – Our circumstances are primarily a result of our thinking. Our thinking is directly affected by those we hang around and the books, websites, newspapers and Emails we read and classes we attend. Check your circle of influence. Is it surrounded by people who look for solutions or spend most of their energy blaming others or whining about the problem?
- Law of Attraction – This is closely related to the law of association. You attract what you are. So, if you want high integrity, hard working clients that value timely payments, quick response times and positive spirits, make sure you project those same values. If you are focused on growth, you will attract mentors and clients who will work with you to solve problems and grow. If you focus on lost revenues and blame, you will attract those people who are constantly struggling and won’t have as many resources to provide.
- Self Discipline – It is the deliberate choice for delayed gratification. Your ability to set goals, search for knowledge, and work consistently to keep those goals directly affects your self-image and results. Success is more the result of daily deliberate actions than any one big splash or sale.
MTECH is committed to helping owners learn new marketing skills and expand their thinking. Contact us today to discuss your Internet marketing challenges or needs.
Marcy Mitchell orginally posted this article on the AEDAED.org blog in September, 2009.
Social Media Tips for Small Business Owners
With Facebook users topping 350 million people and Twitter increasing by 1700% in 2009, social media is no longer a “phase”, but a new way of doing business that will stay. The majority of large companies and executives are now embracing these tools as mainstream, but only about 20% of small businesses are incorporating them into their current business practices.
Why? Because these new tools not only require a learning curve, but they also require staff and/or consultants who can help set everything up. With tight budgets and small staff, how do small businesses adopt these new tools? Here are just 5 simple ways to get started:
1. If you have a local college near you, call the Marketing department and find out if they have any “interns” available. Most college students are already using these tools, so it is a simple switch.
2. Contact your local SBDC or Chamber and find out if they are offering any classes or seminars on these subjects. MTECH has spoken at a number of Chamber and SBDC sessions in Pagosa Springs, Durango and Cortez and these sessions break down “next steps” into small pieces for the individual business owner.
3. Start with One Social Media Channel. Create a WordPress blog. Set up a Facebook page for business. Upload a video in YouTube. Don’t feel you need to master the entire world…just start small and get comfortable with it.
4. Survey your staff and find out if anyone is interested in pursuing this as an extra job. You might be surprised by the talent you already have on staff!
5. Talk with your web designer and find out what he/she knows about social media and how to integrate it into your overall web strategy.
These are just a few first steps that can get you started. Break them down into baby steps, take a breath and just move a little forward!
SEO is a Moving Target
In this fast-paced digital world, Search Engine Optimization is an-ever moving target. Now that Google is indexing Facebook comments and Tweets, the competition just got even stiffer. So what is SEO anyway? SEO is the organic results that appear just below the “paid advertisements”. In order to rank high in the “organic results”, you have to have a well-designed site that is “search engine friendly” as well as employ some other basic strategies.
These “friendly” strategies include but are not limited to:
1. Well-written title tags and description tags that are not too long or too short.
2. Make sure all of your website images have “alt tags” that contain your keywords.
3. Work on getting quality “inbound” links from web sites. Those are links from other websites that link to yours. However, understand that not all links are weighed the same. A website with a higher Google Page Rank will be worth 5-10 links of smaller web sites that have little Page Rank. For example, a link from your Town’s website or Chamber of Commerce will be worth more than a link from a small plumbing company web site that has barely any traffic.
4. A blog that has new articles on a regular basis. Make sure you have links from your blog back to your website and there is a link in many of the articles as well.
5. Updating new content on your website on a regular basis.
SEO is an moving target. Strategies that worked just 6 months ago may not be working as well today, especially those by “SEO firms” that try to “trick” the system. If you produce quality content and spend time and effort of increasing quality in-bound links, your results will pay off!
Marketing is Profoundly Changing
As a Marketing for Smarties instructor and Internet marketing consultant, I have witnessed a profound shift in marketing over the past 2-3 years. Most small business owners are currently trying to keep their head above water and may not realize these dramatic changes in the way to market. As a result, many are falling behind and a gap is starting to take place. 
MTECH is committed to providing the tools and resources to help these small and medium sized business owners jump the knowledge hurtle and actually used these tools to advance in business. As owners start thinking more like publishers and educators and less like advertisers, they will not only realize greater revenue, but they will also learn to divert money away from less productive media channels. As a result, they will become more knowledgeable and profitable.
