Where to find your Web site links

We’re sure you’ve heard over and over again how people linking to your site can help increase your Web traffic.  However, there is a limit to the links.  You really don’t want to go overboard.  Better for you to have quality links over quantity.  It’s equally important for the links you post on your site.  According to this MSN article, “I’ve seen sites with 25 high-quality links outperform those with a thousand or more low-quality links,” professes Shari Thurow, a Chicago-area search marketer and the author of “Search Engine Visibility,” a 2003 book with a second edition published in August 2007. “Small businesses should focus on getting 20 high-quality links — all relevant to your business,” says Elisabeth Osmeloski, a former SearchEngineWatch.com editor who is now director of online media at travel site Zonder.com. 

So here’s some tips on getting those quality links!

1. Take your time in finding links.  Don’t add all the links in one day.  Spread them out over a period of time because it gives you time to do your research and find those that are high quality.

2. Don’t feel forced to reciprocate to a site that has posted your site on theirs.  If you don’t feel the quality is there, don’t add it. 

3. Check what links your competitors have.  And always check to see what other links a site features.

4. If you’re not sure, add the nofollow tag to the link.  By including the code rel=”nofollow” after a URL in any “href” link you include, you’re telling a search engine that you can’t vouch for the quality of that site.  Otherwise, the search engines hold you responsible for that link.

Some good places to obtain links include:

• Trade and professional organizations.  These have a lot of important content relating to your company’s business and industry.  If you are a paid member to a group, most often a link should be included from the organization’s page.  Make sure to contact them if not.
• Social networking sites in your industry.  If you have a Facebook fan page or LinkedIn profile, you can link to it.  But avoid the general social networking sites.  If you find a good one for your industry (more and more are popping up daily), try to contribute an article or information and include a link back to your site.  And think outside the box.  Real estate sites like Zillow and Trulia count as social networking for the real estate industry.
• Noncompeting sites in your industry.  Mortgage lenders should link to Realtors, real estate attorneys, home inspectors, etc.  And the same is true for those other small businesses. 

Some not-so-good places for links:

• Web rings
• Generic, free directories.  Oftentimes your e-mail address will be spammed and it’s not a reputable site for your industry
• Guestbooks

Just make sure to do your research prior to adding links or having your link appear on another’s site.  If you don’t trust the company, you can ask for your link to be removed, too.

Visit us online to get your Web site up and running!

Prepare your marketing for the holidays

Now could not be a better time to do your research and figure out what your customers are looking for this holiday season.  If you want it to be a successful season for your business, you’ll want to plan your marketing prior to the holidays.  It’s great to take advantage of this down time before the storm hits.  You’ll want to define your goals for this holiday season.  Is it to make more money?  Get past customers to spend more?  Obtain new customers?  That will also help you determine what kind of marketing you want to do.  Here are some tips from this article to use your e-mail marketing to your advantage this season.

1. Get a fresh lead on your market.  Go to your customers directly to find out what their plans are this holiday season.  If you’re a social networker, great.  Post questions on Facebook or Twitter for your customers to respond to.  Ask them what they’re planning on spending.  Ask them if they’re looking for specific gift ideas.  This will help you stock your items and know what a good price point is.  This is a great reason to get on Twitter and Facebook, too.  If you’re not, make sure to send out an e-mail to some past customers to find out these answers.  Send it via a survey for them to fill out.

2. Re-engage your current customers.  This is just a great way to get back in the minds of current/past customers.  You want them to make sure they remember you this season for their holiday shopping.  Ask customers what they use your products/services for or the best way they incorporated it into their business.  Publish the best ones in your next newsletter and award the “winner” with a free gift.  Ask them what they’re doing in their business, given the current economy.  Maybe you can work out a joint venture between your two businesses to be more profitable during the holidays. 

3. Refresh and expand your mailing list.  If you do have some down time, you might want to remove those addresses that are no longer valid.  Make sure that you’re still doing everything to gather new e-mails, whether it be from a Web site sign-up button or handing out your business card at networking events.  Have fans/friends sign up on your Facebook page.  That’s another way to drive business back to your Web site. 

With these tips, you’ll be sure to have a successful holiday season.  And always remember to reward referrals with handwritten thank you notes to the sender along with a small gift. 

If you’re ready to get your holiday marketing out, we can help!  Visit us online at http://www.completeresourceschicago.com

E-mail marketing tips for new subscribers

 

It’s always great news when you get someone new to sign up for one of your e-newsletters online.  Whether it was a referral, someone who came across your Web site, or a friend or past client, you’re thrilled for the opportunity to sell your products or services to a new customer.  Now is your opportunity to nurture this relationship and make sure the customer is getting everything that he expects.  You don’t want to bombard him with e-mails, either.  Here are some tips for new subscribers, auto responders, and when you have to say good-bye.

New subscribers:

You definitely want to make a good first impression when you get someone new interested in your e-newsletter.  Once you have the new prospect’s e-mail address, send them a welcome e-mail with a personalized note.  You’ll also want to set the stage for what’s to come.  Tell them how often they’ll be hearing from you, the type of information you’ll be sending (coupons, newsletters, etc.), and who it’s going to be coming from so they can add it to their address book.  Otherwise, it could end up in their spam box or junk mail folder.

Send them the last e-mail that went out to customers so they’re not waiting a month (if that’s your frequency) for the next one.  And in your e-mail, include a link to past newsletters they can view online or other online discounts for subscribers.

Auto responders:

All auto responders should have a call to action without asking for someone’s business.  You can have a link in the e-mail for an online discount or free consultation with you about purchasing a home.  Some readers aren’t ready for the whole enchilada when they give you your e-mail address.  Keep these messages less frequent than those you send to your regular subscribers.  You don’t want to bombard them with information and prevent them from signing up.  A monthly e-mail is a good starting point. 

Opt-outs:

To make it easy for all your readers, make sure that every e-mail does offer the option of them being able to unsubscribe.  Make it as easy for them as possible so they don’t get frustrated.  If you get a few of these, use the information to help you determine what future customers are looking for from you.  Here are some tips on these.

1. You have 10 days by law remove an e-mail address from your list if it’s requested.  It’s best to do it as soon as possible, however.

2. Send them a friendly note that their unsubscribe request has been received.  Something along the lines of “We’re sorry to see you go but hope to see you again in the future.”  You can always leave a note on how to resubscribe when the time is right or if they unsubscribed by mistake.

3. Give these customers an opportunity to write why they unsubscribed.  You will learn so much from their comments.  If it’s because they were receiving too many e-mails from you, you might think about toning down the frequency.  If they didn’t feel your information was valuable, consider replacing some of your newsletter content. 

More tips for e-mail marketing can be found in this article.

If you’re ready to get your e-mail marketing messages out there, let us help! Visit our Web site to get started.

Make your Web site easy to find

As we’ve mentioned several times in the past, it’s so important these days to have a Web site that your clients have the ability to access. Whether you’re a Realtor or a small business owner, you want potential prospects and customers to be able to find out information about you online, and even order directly through it if they’re not local to your area.  However, these days, having a site isn’t enough.  You need to make it easy for your customers to find.  Don’t get lost in the “needle in the haystack” of all online postings.  Here are some tips to help make you stand out.

1. Make your site easy to find online.  You want your site to come to the top of the list when someone searches on a search engine.  This is called SEO, or search engine optimization.  You will come higher up on the list if the searches have keywords that match a lot of what is on your site.  This Google tool will help you choose popular keywords based on your site content.  Also look at keywords that your competitor uses. 

The other way you’re ranked is by having a lot of traffic through your site.  One way for the search engines to pick this up is if you have a lot of people with your site linked to theirs and vice versa.  Contact your affiliates to see if you can add their links on your site.  Make sure they agree to put yours on theirs, too. 

2. Register as many similar sites as possible.  You want to help your customers out who misspell your company name or put the wrong ending (.biz, .net, .org at the end of your Web address).  Try to register as many sites that are similar to yours as possible.  Try to obtain ones that are off by one letter or two.  That way, if somebody inputs the wrong information, they’ll still be directed back to your site.

3. Market your site offline.  Make sure it’s visible on everything you do, including in your e-mail signature, your letterhead, return address labels, etc.  Have you ever seen a commercial or an ad where they direct you back to the site for more info?  That’s what you want to do.  If you can afford to market it in the weekly paper or on the radio, by all means, do.  If not, make sure you find every free way to get it out there.  And remember, word of mouth is great free publicity!

4. Set up a fan page on Facebook or MySpace.  You can put your site information on there as well as advertise to all your friends and fans when a new product has come in, you have a new listing, or there’s important news in your industry.  This is also a great way to find out what your customers are looking for from you and reach hundreds or thousands of people at once with new information.

More tips on how to stand out can be found in this article. If you need help developing your Web site, or making it rank higher on the search engines, please visit us online.

Make sure you schedule marketing time

We’ve talked the past few weeks about making sure your marketing messages were going to the right target, how to improve direct mail campaigns, certain mistakes not to make with your marketing.  While those are all important topics, it’s equally important to make sure you have time in your schedule to get your marketing done.  And we don’t just mean a few minutes on Tuesday and an hour on Friday afternoon if you get a chance.  You need to plan a schedule.  Just like anything else (an appointment with a client, a teleseminar on the housing market, etc.), you need to schedule time in your daily or weekly schedule to get your marketing done.

There’s two easy ways you can set this up.  The first is to break the activities up by working on a theme for each day of the week.  For example, Monday would be a day for communications.  This can be posting blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc., catching up on e-mails for the past week, or creating a new telephone script.  Tuesday could be client day.  Meet with clients, schedule time to meet with clients, handle paperwork related to clients.  Other themes can be writing (blogs, newsletters, articles, ad copy), research (test new marketing, collect new e-mails for e-newsletter, develop new ideas, find articles for newsletters), administrative (paperwork, pay bills, create to-do list), Web site (new pages, collect new e-mails, respond to leads, add photos), etc.  You should have no problem breaking down your week into five days so everything can get done.  Then set time in your daily schedule to accomplish everything.  Try not to answer phone calls and e-mails throughout the entire day.  Block off two one hour periods (once in the morning and once in the afternoon).  It will help you to accomplish a lot more.

The other way to set up your schedule is to devote a day of the week to a particular marketing activity, rather than a theme.  For example, Mondays could be about sales.  You could spend that day working on e-mailing your lists about a new promotion, writing copy for your next direct mail piece about your monthly sale, or make every Monday a sale for your business.  One day could be about adding to your client database by collecting new e-mail addressesand contacting past clients for referrals.

However you choose to set up your schedule, the most important fact is that you have a schedule.  Don’t just say I’ll work on it in the hour you have free time.  Schedule it in there.  You’ve heard the saying, “It’s as important to work on your business as it is in your business.”  Make working ON your  business a priority.  Promise not to go home for the day until you’ve touched base with 5 past clients.  Jody Gabourie, the Marketing Plan Queen, offers more tips here. For help with your marketing pieces, please visit us online.

Don’t lose customers with these marketing mistakes

One quick mistake in your marketing message or delivery might not only make you lose a customer, but could keep you from gaining a new one.  These tips should help keep you on track to make more money, and not lose any!

1. Signing up customers to your newsletter without permission.  Do you ever hand someone your business card and then start receiving their e-mail mailings or newsletter?  It’s very common, and unfortunately, could break a customer relationship.  People want the option to opt-in to these mailings.  They don’t want to receive it without being asked first.  This is especially hard if you just meet someone.  You want to develop a relationship first.  You also want to have the freedom to look at their information and then determine if you want to be on a mailing list.  If you send these newsletters out, make sure you have a sign-up form on your Web site or in your e-mail.  And always ask permission when meeting someone new if you can add them to your list.  Don’t just assume they want to be on it.

2. Changing your message because you didn’t get enough sales.  It’s also very common to see an advertisement: 30% off everything until Wednesday!  Then Wednesday is crossed out and it says 30% off until Friday!  You’ll create a much more powerful message if you stick to your word.  If you didn’t get enough sales, save the promotion for a few weeks.  It creates a lot more urgency and shows your customers that you are willing to offer promotions.  You’ll seem desperate for business if you keep changing your current promotion.  It can make customers think you’re going out of business. 

3. Making everything urgent.  Sending out mailings that say “Urgent!” or “Open Immediately!”  This tactic can definitely work, but once is probably best.  If customers continue to see the same messages on all of your mailings, they’ll know it is just a tactic and probably put it right in the garbage bin.

4. Spending it all in one place.  Don’t blow your entire marketing budget on one expensive TV ad or national magazine appearance.  It could be great to get new customers, but once you’ve done that, what’s left for other marketing?  Make sure to evenly spend your marketing dollars and find the best ways to do that based on your customer profiles.  We blogged a few weeks back about sending clear messages to the right target group.  Don’t get all excited about a new advertising stream without researching it first and determining that it’s right for you and your business. 

5. Fixing what isn’t broken.  Some companies think changing their marketing pieces is necessary, even if they’re still getting great success with the same old pieces.  This isn’t necessary.  If it’s working, that’s fantastic.  Don’t just assume you need to change something because it hasn’t been done in a while.  Use test markets and get feedback before trying something new. 

You can find more common mistakes in this article. Visit us online for help designing your marketing piece!

Your best tips for social networking

We’ve previously talked about how important social networking and social media can be to your business.  It’s great for making connections with past clients, former colleagues, and even high school and college classmates.  You can introduce your business to them in a less formal environment and get the word out about what you do. 

Lee Odden, an online marketing blogger, recently got 26 of his best tips on how to use social media for your benefit.   We’re going to post some of our favorites and why they’re so important.  Everything in bold is an actual tip.

1. Listen first. Don’t be the bullhorn in the party. Social media is a conversation, not a one-way stream.  A lot of people gave advice on listening.  Don’t constantly be the one putting your marketing and advertising out there.  Listen to what your customers have to say and how they interact with your online presence.  Find out what’s important to them.  Do they want to see more photos of your products?  Would they like you to blog on a daily/weekly/monthly basis?  If you just go out there talking about your business without listening to what people want, you’re really doing it all for naught. 

2. Find your employees who are passionate about social media and involve them — passion shows and they’ll do the best job.  This goes hand in hand with another tip: Have at least one person know whats going on and monitor / update in a genuine way the different social media profiles.  Find somebody that knows what they’re doing.  If you’re your only employee and you’ll be doing the updating, make sure to research how to post and upload prior to starting out.  You are representing yourself and your company, so you want to do it right.  And once you start, make sure you continue to update online, especially if you promise your clients and customers a weekly promotion or blog.  They’ll expect to see it, so you need to make sure it’s there.  If you don’t have an employee, maybe think about hiring a high school or college student who has an online presence.  They might know some tricks of the trade to help you out.

3. Don’t pretend you aren’t a company. Yes you’re hanging out with the cool kids on facebook but we know what you really are.   You need to act like the company that you’re representing, which is yours.  Be professional in your posts.  Of course, you can still have fun in your comments and your posts, but don’t change who you are.  If you have teen-aged clients, don’t talk to them like you’re their buddy.  Continue to represent the professional side of your business.  It comes across as a lot more genuine and makes you appear more credible.  Social Media is like a digital porch. People like coming to chat if the home owner is authentic!

4. I would tell them to DO IT! If they are not a part of their conversation, someone else is controlling it.  What this one means is, if you’re not on the social networking sites, your competition probably is!  Would you rather your competition be out there and communicating with your potential clients? Of course not.  If you visit Facebook, for example, a lot of stores and restaurants are now posting their promotions online and getting fans to follow them when something new happens for their business.  Yes, eventually, more stores and businesses will do it, too.  But won’t you remember the first ones?  Won’t it be more likely that you’ll have one book store that you’re interested in rather than 12?

Do you have any more important tips for these sites?  Please leave us a comment or visit us online.

Learning about your customers will drive up sales

Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in determining what next promotion to offer?  You realize that you haven’t put items from your fall collection, for instance, on sale yet, so maybe you should give that a try?  You should recognize that by learning about your customers and their past purchasing habits, you can earn more money by appealing to them.  Marketing Professional Ray Boucher has written an article on five important things you should know about your customers.  You’ll want to go through your database and make note of these, as it will greatly improve your marketing effort and sales in the future.

1. What is the most popular purchased product or service?  Let’s use real estate agents, for example.  If you’ve mostly sold condos in the past year to first time buyers, you’ll want to start marketing move-up opportunities for them.  Try to send them information about 3 bedroom single family homes, or the benefits of selling in their particular complex.  For a small business that sells handmade jewelry, what is your most popular product?  Let’s say it’s a bracelet with add-on charms.  Consider advertising to past clients about the new birthstone charms you have available.  If you buy 1, get 1 free.  Try to think outside the box with what products are the most popular.  It should drum up the most new sales if it’s tied to that.

2. What are your customers spending on each purchase?  Let’s say that an average purchase goes for about $50.  Find out what your competitors are charging.  If they have similar products and price, if you offer a product for $44.99, you should get more sales since you’re selling at a discount. 

3. Find out how many of your customers are repeat customers.  First of all, here’s hoping that most of your customers are repeats.  You want to keep them in your database and contact them at least twice a year so they don’t go to your competitor.  If you have their birthday, make sure you send them a card.  Always send them information when you’re offering a new promotion. 

4. When are you getting most of your sales?  Is it typically in a certain month?  Is it generally on a Friday during the week?  By figuring this out you’ll be able to offer marketing that has promotions during the slower periods to help generate more business.  But don’t forget to still market during the busy times so that those times stay busy.

5.  Where do your customers come from?  Are you getting referred from a certain Web site?  That’s where you’ll want to put a lot of advertising.  Do you have a local shop where customers from a certain neighborhood come from?  Sponsor one of their little league teams. 

This information will be extremely helpful when planning your marketing.  Do you have this information and now need to design the perfect marketing campaign?  Visit us online for more information and a free quote.

When price and value meet, earn more money

With this recession, you’ll probably notice that customers are buying less these days.  However, when people need something, they’ll still have to buy it.  The best way to get them to buy from you is to make sure that the value and price of the item or service is in balance.  Barbara Findlay Schenck, a small business author, recommends these  sales propositions to keep your sales up!

1. Value matters more than price.  Think of it this way.  Price is what you get out of the deal.  Value is what your customer gets out of the deal.  That’s more important for future business.  It’s important to advertise your value message, otherwise they’ll always go for what’s cheapest.  Do you offer same-day shipping?  Do you have customer service technicians answering the phone instead of an automated system?  Figure out what you’re best at and what unique benefits you offer.  Make sure that is the message that it sent out.

2. Not all products are price-sensitive.  Price is less important when an item is seen as valuable, rather than an item that is ready accessible and available.  If it’s one-of-a-kind and not something that you can purchase at every store known to man, then customers most likely won’t give you a hard time about what it costs.

3. Price cuts errode your bottom line.  If you are constantly slashing prices, then it’s easy for your competitor to come in and offer an even lower price.  There’s always someone out there that will offer it for less.  So instead of cutting prices, offer limited-time incentives to get customers in the door.  An example would be to lower prices if they purchase 5 of one item instead of 1, so a bulk order.  Another example is all the stores that sell their Christmas merchandise at reduced prices on December 26th.  It’s off season now, and people can stock up for next year.

4. How you present the prices matters.  Schenck offers some great tips here.  First, avoid disclaimers.  Don’t say the price is $99 with some restrictions.  Say it’s $99 if you purchase it after 4 p.m., for example.  Get rid of commas and cents.  It’s $1100, not $1,099.99.  That’s way too many numbers to look at.  Make it seem urgent.  Advertise that the deal is only good through the end of the week or for the next 48 hours.  Show them the savings.  Don’t say 1/2 off.  Say regularly $1000, now on sale for $500!!  That looks like an incredible deal.

Do you need help advertising your incredible business deals?  Visit us online for a free quote.

The social networking conversion factor

So you did a great job setting up your pages on MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  You’ve connected with old friends, past colleagues, and even met some new friends who are interested in your business.  You got them all to come visit your Web site.  So they’re all there and, NOW WHAT?  How do you get their e-mail address so you can add them to your newsletter list and keep in touch with them?  Christine Gallagher talks about just that.

You always want to have a sign-up form on your Web page.  Make it really easy and just ask for a first name and an e-mail address.  Make sure you mention something about privacy and not distributing their e-mail to any other sites.  A submit button after that should do the trick.  And let them know what they’ll receive if they put in their address.  Maybe mention something about a free drawing every month if they register.

Where do you put it?  Studies have shown that one of the most effective places to put the box is in the upper right-hand corner of the page.  Don’t make prospects scroll all the way to the bottom, if you can help it.  Try to make it one of the first places they see.  Also, you’ll want to put a sign-up box on every single page of your site.  If they search for you, they might not come in directly to the home page, so you want to make sure that there’s a way to sign up no matter how they found you. 

We mentioned a monthly drawing.  That’s one incentive, but you might want to offer something else for signing up.  People love free stuff.  You might send them your last newsletter that you sent out to clients.  It could be an interesting article related to your site, but make sure it’s something that they’ll find interesting and help them.  A real estate agent might offer an article on tips to keep your home safe while you’re showing it, for example.

Now that you have their e-mail address, it’s up to you to keep up your end of the bargain.  Make sure they’re getting regular e-mail mailings from you.  Send them promotional flyers with discounts and deals.  Don’t just let them think they signed up for no good reason.  And keep active on the social networking sites. You never know how much more traffic you can get.

Need help designing an e-mail newsletter?  Visit us online for a quick and easy quote.