Archive for March, 2010

For those that did not know, I started a new company a few weeks ago. I have not made a big media push or make any announcements yet because I had so much to do to get the business up and running, and most of all I needed to take care of those that needed immediate help with their online marketing efforts. There will be more to come on this very soon. This is my excuse for skipping last weeks Fueled Friday (my first and hopefully last).

Every day, I talk to someone about some form of online marketing. The one thing that people always want to know is “how much traffic will I get.” We discuss market potential, estimated percentages, and the like and they have a broad idea of what to expect over time. What is more important is knowing what percentage of your website visitors will do business with you. The sad statistic is that on average, 97% of the people that come to your website will not do business with you. Ask yourself how many websites you visit when you are looking for something before you buy. Your website visitors are no different.

A few strategies can help you increase the percentage of people that either stay or take the next step and contact you:

1. Give them a good match for their search query. If someone does a web search for “invoice factoring”, the page that they land on better speak specifically to the topic, otherwise you have lost that visitor. If you have multiple service offerings from your company, it is critical that you have specific pages that discuss each separately to help your prospect find what they are looking for.

2. Get their contact information (ethically). This is the most important because if you are able to send educational and informative follow up emails, over time you will find that you are getting more sales from these prospects that otherwise would never have heard from you again. There are several email marketing systems to choose from, but the most robust system by far is InfusionSoft. It is far more than just an email marketing system, but rather a business automation and enhancement system. As an affiliate, I am offering a free 15-day trial of InfusionSoft.

3. Using a Live Chat operator. Just a few days ago I was looking into some software and the live chat operator popped up. I didn’t chat, but it did entice me to call and I got all of my questions answered. Once such option is Website Alive, which also offers a free trial.

These are a few simple ways to make your online marketing efforts go further by engaging your website visitors. Do you have any techniques that have helped you increase your conversion rate that you would like to share? If so, please comment below.

Have a great weekend!

Well, it has been a very busy week which is why this weeks Fueled Friday is late. First, I launched a new Internet Marketing Firm this week (more to come on that later), and second, I attend InfusionCon which was AMAZING (more on that later as well).

So what I want to share with you today is the power of educating your prospects. Many people in the consulting field often ask the question “how much information should I give my web prospects?” My answer – Give them everything! This, of course, is within reason, but the bottom line is that if your prospect can figure out how to do what you do, they will. If the information is out there to be found, wouldn’t you rather have them find it from you? This was if they get stuck or have a questions, chances are they will look to you for help as opposed to someone else. Also, most people don’t want to become their own consultant (many have to due to sheer financial constraints), so your job will be to sell them on the benefits of having you do it for them so they can focus on making money in their business.

If you do sell a physical product, you still have an opportunity to educated your customers. Offering white papers, ebooks, and testimonials as to how your product can be used and how it has helped others will go a long way to helping boost sales. For those that don’t buy on the same day they visit, there is a high chance that they will return if they like what they read.

The big in giving it all away, is doing it in exchange for your prospects contact information. At a minimum, you want to collect their first name and email address to be able to send personalized emails. The more you follow up, the higher your chances of selling to them.

Years ago, I used to fear giving away information on how to do your own online marketing for fear that I would lose customers. Instead, because I write and blog on all topics related to online marketing, I have a fairly consistent flow of referral business.

Do you have any success stories to share about a successful follow up email campaign? If so, we’d love to hear. Next week I will be discussing the mechanics of how to set up these information sharing campaigns so stay tuned.

Have a great weekend and enjoy my birthday tomorrow

This may seem like a very basic topic, yet it is one that many people fail at and I have a personal frustration in dealing with it, so I wanted to take the time to share some etiquette on how to comment on blogs.

People comment on blogs for many reasons; for some it is to join a conversation (probably the best reason), for others it is to be heard, and for others it is simply a a matter of getting links from a quality blog. I have no problem with using blog comments to get links, in fact, I wrote a blog post of how to generate links by commenting on blogs.

When commenting on blogs, you want to actually dialogue with the blogger or another commenter. You don’t want to make a comment such as “thanks for the info” because that does not add any value and it makes it seem like you are just trying to scam a link (and you probably are). Even worse is when you use a keyword for your name. If your mother named you “business solutions in India” I simply feel sorry for you. I cannot tell you how many of these posts I get every single say where someone is trying to get “keyword value” from their blog comment. For the record, my spam filter is set pretty high, and the others that have to be manually administered are flagged as spam. I actually spelled out some guidelines to commenting on this blog, but perhaps people don’t read them, which is understandable.

Please know that posting a non-helpful post of one that is totally unrelated to the blog post is simply not acceptable and most bloggers with delete your comment or mark it as spam.

For those that spam, it is a huge missed opportunity because commenting is an opportunity to gather new followers that click through to your link. It is also an opportunity to show your expertise; trust me people take note.

If you have not ever commented on another blog, I encourage you to do a search for blogs related to your industry and go out and join a conversation. If it’s your first time, please feel free to come back and share your experiences.

Most of all, have a great weekend!

If done correctly, online marketing (SEO, Paid Search, Social Media, etc) is an investment in your business. Many people seem to get lost by focusing on the cost of engaging a professional to manage their online marketing campaign. I often ask people who tell me online marketing is too expensive if they plan on staying in business, and if so, how they plan on getting customers. The responses range from laughter to “we get plenty of referral business.” My goal is not to provide shock value, but a reality check because many business owners still don’t know where their next customer is coming from and often don’t see that they are on the quick road to going out of business.

I was recently talking to several local plastic surgeons about online marketing due to an opening that my company has for online marketing services. Among the many questions I asked was “do you realize how many people are searching for you every day?” Few know that answer, and for a plastic surgeon in Scottsdale, I can tell you there are over 1,000 DAILY searches just in the Phoenix / Scottsdale area. The next question is “of the 35,000+ monthly searches for your business Doctor, how many are finding your practice?” This question (regardless of industry) is often met with silence. In a face to face meeting, you can see the wheels turning thinking “that’s why my competitors are doing so well.”

A few weeks ago, I did a blog post about keyword research and finding your online marketing potential. I encourage you to find out how many people are search for you and not finding you, so you are fully aware of how many missed opportunities you have every day that you put off your online marketing campaign.

If you have a (non online) business development strategy that is working for you, then I commend you. I have never said that online marketing is the magic bullet to fix a business, but I have to say it is very often the low hanging fruit – especially for those businesses that rank on page 2 (62% of searchers never click past page 1).

Let me know how I can help you implement an effective and affordable online marketing program.

Have a great day!