August 2007

5 tips for beefing up online marketing response

Dear GetMoreCustomers reader:

Okay, you have a presence online, and the website is looking good. But you're hoping to get a little more action from it. What can you do? Here are a few tips:

1. Give visitors a couple of options for interacting with you. If your main hope is that visitors convert to buyers, remember people seldom take action the first time they see/read/hear a message. It takes an average of 6 to 7 exposures to the same or very similar message for most people to decide to make a move--like open their wallet, or even just give you their phone number. Signups drop dramatically when forms require phone numbers in addition to emails.


2. Examine the way you describe things on your website. If you offer a "Product Overview," which sounds like a marketing brochure, but your material is actually more interesting--like an interactive tutorial or a virtual tour--you'll increase visitor interaction by calling it what it is.


3. Test your registration form. See how much information most of your visitors are willing to give--the more they give, the better qualified they are as a lead. But you don't want to lose the chance to capture other visitors--you never know when they will become interested enough to turn into a hotter lead. So experiment with a couple of different forms. See which one gets the best returns.
   
4. Make sure you have a search box on your site. Visitors love to be able to type in what they're most interested in and see what your site has to say. If their search turns up information that rings a bell with them, they'll generally start browsing the rest of the site. There's a f*r*ee one available at ATOMZ.


5. Mention your website URL in everything else you do--television, radio, print, in sales, promotional and instructional materials--everything you do. If you've done your homework and you know where you appear high in the search engines, you can include your keyphrase in your collateral, too. State plainly "search keyword: Chevrolet parts" or "Google: guitar lessons."

Marketing--online and otherwise--is a process that must be reviewed, revised and revamped on a continuing basis to lead towards the desired events: sales. But keep in mind, marketing works best when it makes things easy and it appeals to the minds and, especially, the hearts of the individual persons who make up that amorphous "target audience."

Sincerely,
Barbara

P.S. Still debating about a company blog? Check out Blog for Business:

* Can a manufacturer blog? Would Sears?
* Law of attraction works for corporate blogs
* What the heck is Web 2.0 and why should you care?

Give me a call if you have any questions about corporate blogs. 773.292.3294 or 216.472.8502

April 2007

Great products aren't enough. Your customers need more.


Dear GetMoreCustomers Reader:

If you sell commodities in the marketplace, you run a special risk. More than any purveyor of services or customized solutions, you can be lulled into forgetting that good products aren't everything. Your customers' needs and desires can change overnight—and if you’re not listening, your competitors will be glad to.

Here’s a powerful example. Read this story and answer this question: How are the manufacturers of power-saving fluorescent bulbs—and the husbands in this story and the editors who printed it—missing the “customer desires” issue? Answer in the P.S. below.**

Yet you face significant barriers—both organizational and people-related—when trying to shake a product-focused organization out of its complacency. At least four broad types of strategies can help, according to the HBR Spotlight in the May issue of Harvard Business Review:

• Change how people work together. If you're like most other product-focused companies, your organization has likely developed some silos in its structure. People at all levels with X responsibilities flock together and don’t interact a lot with people with Y responsibilities. And then there are those Z people... Try these:
  • Share customer information between departments
  • Either break down existing silos and create new ones based around customer needs, or reorganize processes and mechanisms so people can easily reach across without fear of stepping on toes.
• Create a culture of cooperation. The softer side of business has far greater influence than most of us realize. Consider these ideas:
  • Celebrate customer-service victories, no matter where in the company they occur. Regularly bragging in this way helps people appreciate each other—and can improve the ever-present misunderstandings and even hostilities that sometimes develop between, for example, floor workers and logistics, or technical people and sales/marketing folks.
  • Promote customer-oriented values; use symbols, logos, stories that celebrate successes with customer solutions—tell those stories internally as well as externally. Consider special terminology—Disney and Target call customers “guests.”
  • Treat your employees as you want them to treat your customers. What goes around definitely comes around in this area. Don’t stress hierarchy; make employees feel respected.
• Cross-train staff. Delivering customer-centered solutions means you need to have generalists on staff.
  • Make sure at least some people in each area of your company understand and can deal knowledgeably with customers on more than a single product line.
  • Help people develop relationships across departments within the company. You want them to be able to quickly find help from anywhere to solve customer issues.
• Connect with more external partners. Outsourcing non-core services (not necessarily overseas) and developing close relationships with partners can do a lot for you:
  • dramatically increase your efficiency
  • allow you to cut costs
  • expand your ability to respond creatively to customer needs

In short, breaking down boundaries will help you serve customers better. And it seems these are some of the same lessons we're learning about surviving in the global marketplace. Good to know they can work pretty well closer to home, too.

Sincerely,
Barbara

P.S. ** The answer to question above: How are they missing the point? They are trivializing the real issue that keeps many women from wholeheartedly adopting these bulbs. It's not about saving the earth--yes, most women care. It's not about saving money--yes, most women care. It's about how a woman feels about the atmosphere surrounding her. A sense of comfort here is critical to her optimal peace and productivity—and by extension, her family’s if she has one. No amount of good qualities in a light bulb can make up for giving off a light that makes a woman feel uncomfortable in her own home.

P.P.S. Want to reach your customers more effectively? Want help discovering customer issues that you may not be addressing? Give me a call. 216.472.8502 or 773.292.3294.