Whether you run a fish and chips shop or a global business, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get away with not having a website. And once you do invest the time and money into getting one, the next step should be how you can make it work for you.

The other day, my friends and I wanted to order takeaway from a chicken shop. Our first reaction was to look up their website for a menu and contact number, only to find they didn’t have one. Much to our annoyance, we had to faff around with business directories to look up their number and guess at what we wanted to eat.

Yes, we assumed that this chicken shop would have a website and why wouldn’t we?

My friends and I are no different to other customers out there who rely heavily on the net to browse and assess their choices. Indeed, 97% of consumers surf the web for information on products and services before making a purchase.

If your business doesn’t currently have a website, then the fact is, you are missing out on many sales opportunities. And if you are planning on getting one, then here are some tips for building a successful website:

1. Research
A little can go a long way. Spend a few minutes browsing the sites of your competitors and any other websites that you enjoy frequenting to make a note of layout, features and content that impressed you. These notes can then be taken into consideration with your planning and your discussions with your website developer.

2. Plan ahead
Why is this important? Because it helps you to cement in your mind exactly what you want and to ensure this aligns with your business vision. By doing this, you are less likely to be sold unnecessary “guff” by website developers.

Start by writing down your business objectives and what you want your website to achieve in specific and measurable terms. Write down who will be your target markets, their characteristics and what sort of features and content would they be expecting from your website.

You will then need to focus on the specifics of your website in terms of what content you would like on the site, what sort of content it should have to appeal to your target audiences, who will be responsible for updating content and when.

Consult your staff to identify what website features or content could make their lives a little easier. For example, I recently met a seed supplier who used to produce weekly price lists that he would fax out to his client base. Not only was this a cumbersome activity, but his customers and sales staff often got confused with which was the latest price. Thus, he created a special login section to his website, where customers and staff could view the most current and up to date prices.

Finally, look at any future business directions or initiatives and how this might impact on the needs of your website. This is quite important because it will save you time and money in the long run. It is better to have flexible website structure and functionality that can adapt to your changing business needs upfront, than to find later that your website can’t do what you want it to, in which case you will need to start again.

3. Select the right website developer
Many small businesses overlook the importance of this step. Instead, they get their neighbour’s kid or a friend to quickly knock up a website for them. If this is possibly you, then warning bells should be ringing! Trying to cut costs by doing this usually results in more money being spent later to correct mistakes, inflexible website structures or poor functionality.

Firstly, understand that whilst they are a dime a dozen, not all web developers are created equal.

Next you’ll also need to understand that you generally get what you pay for. There is a broad pricing spectrum for websites, but this usually depends on what technology features, etc you want.

At the cheaper end you’re probably going to get little more than an electronic brochure that has few features and requires the web developer to make the simplest of changes for you. This means you will have to pay them every time.

At the more expensive end, you’re going to get a website that looks fantastic and has every feature under the sun. This too can be a mistake, because you don’t want to pay for what you won’t use.

You’re best bet is to get a few quotes and choose the middle ground. You want something that looks great to reflect the reputation of your business, you want a few features such as a content management system so that you can easily make changes yourself and you want to be able to “turn on” any additional features with little effort or expense should you choose to in the future.

Finally, warning bells should sound if your web developer doesn’t have a set process outlined, whereby they take your business objectives and website objectives into consideration with their “brief”. This process should also outline specific points at which you can review what’s been done and have your say. In many cases where this review process is left open (ie. you can review it as many times as you like), you are actually being charged for this additional time, unnecessarily blowing out the cost of the project.

4. Properly explain what you want to your chosen web developer
This is where your research and plan comes in handy. Use these to explain to your web developer what it is you want your website to do as well as what it looks, feels and smells like.

You don’t need to know the technical “lingo” to know what you want – you’re web developer will interpret this for you. You just need to be specific and don’t leave things open ended, or you could end up paying for things you don’t need.

5. User testing
The development process should allow you at least a couple of opportunities to review and test the site before it goes live. To keep your costs down and prevent the need for any costly changes in the future, you should use these review opportunities well.

Basic rule of thumb is, the fewer times you need to go back to your website developer with changes, the lower your development costs. So make sure you properly review your test site in the first review round towards the beginning of the project. Use your family, friends and staff members in doing this and then provide your developer with a comprehensive list of changes. This should result in there being fewer changes or improvements to make when you next review the test site.

When reviewing and testing the site, don’t just look at the aesthetics. The technical testing should be done by your website developer, however, you will need to make sure that the look and feel is consistent with your brand, contact details are easy to find, the site is easy to navigate around, there are no spelling & grammatical errors and that any instructions or actions required are easy to follow.

In addition, check that people can easily find what they are looking for, information is clear and easy to read and that page download time is not excessive.

6. Actions for success
Once you have your new website, you will need to work out how you will promote it and encourage people to regularly come back to it to increase your chances for success. A good starting point would be to review your marketing plan and seeing how you can include your website into your promotional activities.
Websites can increase your opportunities for sales, but the process of getting one can be difficult. Don’t just jump in the deep end! Make the process easier on yourself, minimise the risk of mistakes and reduce cost blow outs by planning adequately, selecting the right web developer and developing actions for success.

By Vanessa Tsui

This article is brought to you by Australian Business Marketing Services, giving you no nonsense, results driven marketing at a price that you can afford. Contact us today on 1800 505 529 or via email for assistance with your marketing needs.

Click here to subscribe to our e-news!

Many small businesses follow the philosophy of “if it aint broke, then don’t fix it”, choosing instead to put marketing on the backburner until that elusive day arrives when they may actually have some spare time to think about it. Unfortunately for most small business operators, that day rarely comes.

What then happens in reality is that when “it is broke”, “it” becomes a lot harder to fix. Not to mention that this is also a very reactive approach to marketing.

To prevent your small business getting to this point, a more proactive approach is needed.

Why is marketing important?

1. It helps boost sales
Marketing’s primary function in most small businesses is to generate more sales. Commonly, this could be through either selling more to current customers or increasing the number of customers. How marketing does this is by creating variables in one or more of the 4Ps (ie. product, price, place or promotion).

In the end, no marketing activity should be undertaken unless you are sure it will generate a decent return for your time, money and effort.

2. It helps you identify and focus on new opportunities
In cases where budgets are low, sales are stagnant or where you have too many ideas that you don’t know where to begin, then the marketing planning process helps you to focus your time and resources on where it will count. This could include developing new product or service offerings, targeting new potential customers or even entering new markets altogether to achieve your overall business objectives.

3. It helps you maintain or improve market share
Marketing is a fantastic weapon for nurturing your current customers so that they stay with you or lifting your head above water in a competitive environment. Success here will depend on people’s perception of your business, your ability to develop meaningful relationships with them and what value you can give them.

4. Marketing can steady out your revenue flows
This is particularly a big issue in many small businesses (for example: florists, gift shops, etc) who experience seasonal peaks and troughs in their sales. Unfortunately, when you’re busy, you probably won’t have time to look at building sales during quieter periods and when you are quiet, its already too late. One of the many functions of marketing is to create a more even revenue flow, but forward planning is of the essence.

What to do:

1. Understand your markets
This is all about research and information collection so that you get a clear picture of who your current customers are (ie. demographics, personal interests, buying behaviour, etc), what will influence their likelihood to buy and who else could be buying from you.

Great places to start are customer feedback surveys, talking to your sales staff, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the internet.

2. Develop marketing strategies that will help achieve your business objectives
There is no point in spending time, effort and resources on a marketing idea that sounds exciting if it doesn’t contribute to your end goals. By spending time to create the right strategies, you will avoid unnecessary risks, wastage of resources and get the biggest bang for your dollar!

3. Create a realistic marketing plan
To do this, you will need to generate ideas that fit with your strategies and business objectives. Marketing activities should increase in the lead up to quieter sales periods and must take into account your current available resources (not just budgets). You also need to understand that a marketing plan is a dynamic document, so it should be regularly reviewed especially as conditions change in your operating environment.

So, whether times are good or bad, marketing needs to be recognised as a fundamental operation for any small business, not just to fix problems “now” but to also ensure future success. This means forward planning is of the essence.

By Vanessa Tsui

This article is brought to you by Australian Business Marketing Services, giving you no nonsense, results driven marketing at a price that you can afford. Contact us today on 1800 505 529 or via email for assistance with your marketing needs.

Click here to subscribe to our e-news!

Mobile is an exciting new frontier in marketing, providing a meaningful way to reach the right person at the right time with the right offer or message.

What’s fascinating is how we can’t seem to live without our mobiles. We carry mobile phones with us at all times. We do business, stay in touch with friends and even use mobiles for entertainment.

What does this mean?

It means the potential for instant access to customers anywhere, anytime. It means a new communication channel for increasing response rates to marketing campaigns. But above all, it means we have a very clever and more intimate way for businesses to engage with customers.

In the previous blog, The fundamentals of mobile marketing, I explained some of the basic considerations for a successful mobile marketing campaign including compliance with the Privacy Act, SPAM Act and the Do Not Call Register.

Now, I want to explore some interesting ways mobile marketing can be used to boost your business.

1. SMS vouchers and coupons
This is one of the easiest ways to get started with mobile marketing! Why not try sending your loyal customers a voucher or coupon which entitles them to a discount or gift next time they make a purchase from you?

Recently, a well known doughnut chain in Australia increased their sales through an SMS coupon campaign. They asked people to respond to their radio, outdoor advertising and in-store promotions via mobile. As people responded, they received an SMS coupon for free gifts and special offers, which could then be redeemed at any outlet.

2. Alerts, updates and appointment reminders
This is particularly good for service related industries and can feed customers back you’re your sales cycle.

For example, some mechanics and dentists are now sending clients an SMS to let them know their car is due for a tune up or their teeth are due for a check up. I also know that some banks and mobile phone providers send reminders via SMS to check and pay your bill online.

3. SMS voting and polling
We’ve all seen these before. Some examples that immediately spring to mind are Australian Idol and So You Think You Can Dance, where viewers are given the opportunity to vote via SMS.

SMS voting and polling is a great way of getting people to participate and engage with your brand or business.

4. SMS and MMS Competitions
Recently, Australia Post held an SMS competition whereby customers who purchased a specified item from their stores could enter into a draw to win $1000 by texting in a code word, their contact details and the serial number of the purchased item.

Australia’s Next Top Model also recently held an MMS competition, whereby viewers were asked to complete an online form via their mobiles and send in a photograph of themselves via MMS.

5. SMS Payments
I don’t know about you, but for those of us who are forgetful, travel a lot, frequently misplace our letterbox keys or seem to always run out of internet download limit just when all the bills start to roll in, then SMS payments are an easy, fast, convenient and paper saving way to pay bills.

Systems now exist for businesses to send payment reminders and receive a reply from the customer with the payment via SMS.

6. SMS auctions
I recently saw an interesting reverse SMS auctioning idea by Limbo Auctions Australia. Here, you bid via SMS on items like electronics, holidays and plasma tvs. The person with the lowest unique bid gets the item!

7. Bluetooth proximity marketing
The opportunities for Bluetooth are only limited by the imagination! You can send images, ads, business cards and audio direct to people’s phone without needing their number.

This is especially great for tradeshows, events or activities where the recipient’s mobile phone is in close enough range to your Bluetooth transmitter. I’ve even heard of visitors overseas receiving dining menus via Bluetooth as they walk past the restaurant!

8. Mobile phone applications
Finally we get to my favourite… mobile phone applications!!!

I, like an increasing number of people, use my mobile for almost everything. From looking up cooking recipes to finding my nearest ATM location, there is a mobile app for virtually all your needs!

The popularity of mobile apps has grown fiercely in recent times for a number of reasons. Influencing factors include the growth of smart phones (mobile phones with advanced capabilities such as the iPhone and Blackberry Storm) and their quick uptake by users.

But most importantly, mobile apps provide a new model of engagement between creator and users. They are doing for mobile what social media has done for the internet – enter the age of mobile 2.0!

In the days of yesteryear, the internet was a one way communication tool and acted much like a brochure. Lately, we have seen the rise of web 2.0 with social media and other advances that enable greater interactivity through collaboration, sharing, community building and much more.

The same is true for mobile phones. No longer are mobile phone users just passive sponges for communications and content. They use and want their phones to provide an experience and relevance. And so we see the popularity of mobile apps.

This experience may be in the form of a new benefit, reward, entertainment, creation, collaboration, community connections or a shortcut for daily needs. Currently, most successful mobile apps are free and tick most of these boxes. For example, I recently read that Amazon has a new mobile app that enables shoppers to search for products by taking a photo of what they want.

I’ve only blogged about 8 ideas today, but there are many more including Mobile Advertising, MMS postcards, orders via SMS and Interactive mobile websites. As you can see, the possibilities are endless.

Mobile marketing allows for meaningful, interactive relationships with your customers. It can provide instant access to people, anytime, anywhere and has a higher response rate than a lot of other communication channels.

But the stakes are a little higher. In this world, mobile users want you to give them an experience and because of this branding must be more than just slapping your logo on something and customer retention is more than just checking in every now and again.

By Vanessa Tsui

This article is brought to you by Australian Business Marketing Services, giving you no nonsense, results driven marketing at a price that you can afford. Contact us today on 1800 505 529 or via email for assistance with your marketing needs.

Click here to subscribe to our e-news!

1. Set your mobile marketing goals
Don’t just get swept up in the hype of doing something cool. Actually know what it is you are trying to achieve with your mobile marketing activity and set this out in terms that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound (SMART goals). Make sure that these goals are aligned with your business and marketing objectives.

2. Create an integrated marketing campaign
Don’t just shoot from the hip with a one off activity. Build greater synergies by ensuring it feeds into your other marketing activities and vice versa.

3. Research and planning
For a mobile marketing campaign to be successful, it must be compelling to your target audience. What are their hot buttons?
By researching the characteristics of your target market before developing your campaign ideas, you will come closer to developing a winning idea without wasting money on trial and error learning. This process also enables you to scenario plan possible reactions and outcomes for each of your ideas.

4. Remember the rule of value exchange
Define your market and your offering before you put together your communication to ensure that it will be relevant and valued by the end recipient.

5. Build up your database of mobile phone numbersLike with any targeted marketing activity, you need a database. You can achieve this in many ways including asking for mobile phone numbers on order forms or you may want to consider competitions. However, if you are using competitions to collect data then don’t forget to register your competition with the NSW Office of Racing Liquor and Gaming.

A well known recent example of a campaign designed to build a database was for Barrack Obama, whereby an offer was made to text Obama fans the name of his running-mate in advance of the media.

6. Ensure compliance with the Privacy Act, SPAM Act and Do Not Call Register
I’ve spoken about this in my previous blog “The fundamentals of mobile marketing”. Use best practice principles including getting permission to use people’s contact details, privacy policy statements so that people know who you are and what you intend to use their details for and an easy way for them to stop receiving communications from you such as an “unsubscribe link”.

For more information, please check out the privacy commissioner website at http://www.privacy.gov.au/business/small/index.html.

7. Shop around for the best deal
There are many mobile marketing agencies, bulk SMS and MMS providers and Bluetooth marketing providers out there. So as I always say (even clients who approach us for quotes), always get a few quotes and shop around!

8. Be creative!
Really, the biggest stumbling block to mobile marketing success is your ability to creatively use it. The technology certainly exists to do almost anything and people are openly crying out for you to deliver convenience, connections with wider communities, entertainment or relevant updates.

By Vanessa Tsui

This article is brought to you by Australian Business Marketing Services, giving you no nonsense, results driven marketing at a price that you can afford. Contact us today on 1800 505 529 or via email for assistance with your marketing needs.

Click here to subscribe to our e-news!

Apologies to those who have been asking for more blog posts – was on tour delivering our seminar series “50 Great Marketing Ideas on a Shoestring Budget”. One thing that came out of these was a keen interest by business owners in mobile marketing, hence the inspiration for today’s blog…

The potential for mobile marketing is enormous. There are approximately 23 million mobile phone subscribers in Australia, according to a recent BuddeComm report. Yes, this means that there are more mobile phones in Australia then there are people because for some of us, one mobile just isn’t enough!

Our mobile phones have become a way of life. We conduct business, trade stocks, stay connected with peers, surf the net, store memories, share content and much more via our mobiles. No wonder why we virtually carry them with us round the clock. Indeed, as someone told me the other week, Australians take on average 24 hours to report their wallets missing, alarming compared with the mere 30 minutes it takes us on average to report our mobile phones missing.

Because of this, we have an interesting relationship with our mobile phones. The type of phone you have, your ring tone, the mobile apps you use, the mobile carrier you choose and even the accessories you buy for it says a lot about who you are. Mobiles have become an extension of our personalities and social connections, giving instant access to our daily lives anytime, anywhere, and as such is a very personal and intimate communication channel.

Yet despite the potential, mobile marketing is still in its infancy in Australia, waiting to be fully realised by the backbone of our economy, the small and medium business community.

Today’s blog will look at the fundamentals behind mobile marketing, beginning with some common questions you’ve asked me:

1. What is mobile marketing?
Mobile marketing involves the use of mobile phone technology to communicate, promote and sell including SMS (Short Message Service – ie. text), MMS (Multimedia Message Service – ie. a slideshow of text, images, video and sound), Bluetooth, applications and mobile websites.

Mobile marketing easily enables the right message to be sent to the right person at the right time by taking into consideration what, where, when and why the consumer might be using their mobile.

Some of the advantages of mobile marketing include the ability to personalise messages, targeting based on location and interest as well as instant access to customers.

Mobile is also the best way to get a response. I recently read that 96% of us respond to SMS’ within 20 minutes, whereas average response time to emails is a few hours.

2. Is it only Generations Y and Z who use mobile phones?

From tweens right through to senior citizens, mobile phones are widely used across the board. However, the types and levels of usage will vary depending on the audience you are trying to appeal to.

3. Is mobile marketing expensive?

The short answer is it’s a lot cheaper than you think.

I talk a lot about average cost per sales lead (basically the cost of your marketing campaign divided by how many leads you got out of it) and return on investment and am constantly astounded by how many people seem to enjoy clinging to marketing activities that deliver poorly on both these fronts.

From personal experience, on average you could expect to spend around 18c per SMS and 35c per MMS (prices will vary across providers depending on any setup costs, volume, size of message and destination). So, as you can see, there is a relatively low average cost per lead.

But more importantly, there is a significantly higher response rate to mobile marketing than many other types of marketing. Around the traps you will hear that direct mail has approximately a 2% response rate and advertising has approximately a 1% response rate. Mobile marketing on the other hand has up to a 98% open rate with a 9% response rate, giving you greater potential for a higher return on investment.

4. Do people see it as an invasion of their personal space?

The answer to this depends on your marketing permissions, frequency of marketing, the relationship you have with your target audience and the rule of value exchange.

If you have permission to use someone’s mobile contact details, then you are more likely to get a warmer reception. Permission based marketing revolves around getting permission to use people’s contact details so that you abide by the Privacy Act, SPAM Act and the Do Not Call Register for all your marketing activities. I will talk about this in more detail in the next question below.
Frequency of mobile marketing becomes an important factor as it’s never a good idea to pester people to the point of annoyance with any marketing, let alone through mobile which is seen as more personal.

The relationship you have with the person you are marketing to will also play a key role in the success of your mobile marketing activity. People will generally be more receptive to communications from a company they already engage with.

Finally, I also talk a lot about the rule of value exchange. That is, when we are marketing to people, we are interrupting their time and we expect them to pay attention, so we should give them something of value in exchange. Don’t just waste their time with a communication that is pointless or irrelevant. Given that mobile phones are perceived as a personal and intimidate communication channel, its important that you strongly abide by the rule of value exchange.
This is when quality of content becomes critical. Your content needs to consider the way people use their mobiles, at what time of the day and where they may be located to create a message or offer that will appeal.

5. What about the Privacy Act, SPAM Act and Do Not Call Register?
Yes you need to abide by these! The legal ramifications can be serious and the fines can be BIG, so this is not something to be taken lightly.
Privacy and permissions can seem confusing. My advice is to cover your backside with best practice principles. These include getting permission to use people’s contact details upfront at the point where you collect their information, include a privacy policy statement so that people know who you are (the sender) and what you intend to use their details for and always include an easy way for them to stop receiving communications from you such as an “unsubscribe link”.

For more information, please check out the privacy commissioner website.

By Vanessa Tsui

This article is brought to you by Australian Business Marketing Services, giving you no nonsense, results driven marketing at a price that you can afford. Contact us today on 1800 505 529 or via email for assistance with your marketing needs.

Email is fast, cheap, easily personalised, gives you flexibility to test different campaigns with different markets and is easy to track results.

However, if your customers and prospects are anything like me, then they could receive a couple of hundred emails a day. Accordingly, they will develop cognitive short cuts to quickly determine what’s important, what can be read later and what can be ignored.

Assisting this cognitive process are improvements with email packages like Outlook, which provide little red flags to indicate urgency, preview panes (so you get the gist of the email without wasting precious time clicking it open) and pop ups when a new email arrives.

Your target audience is now better equipped to make a split second decision on whether or not to hit the delete button. This is why you must fight for your right to be read!

Here are some pointers on how to increase your chances of being read:

1. From name
One of the first things people look at is who the email is from. If it’s from a friend or someone they are familiar with, they are less likely to file it in the SPAM category. Use a consistent “from name” and email address when you send your email campaigns so that your audience know it’s you. You may also find greater readership when the email is from an actual person rather than just sales@abccompany.com.au.

2. Create compelling subject lines
You only have a split second to capture the reader’s interest before you are erased forever, so write subject lines that are compelling, informative, relevant to the reader and upholds the value of your brand.
For example, “30% off move tickets – ends this Thursday”.

Because subject lines are important, it’s worthwhile spending some time developing these and testing them on friends and colleagues before sending your email.

3. Personalise your message
If you can, try to personalise your email like you would a letter. This is useful as it indicates to the recipient that the email was meant for them and not just a generic message.

4. Be aware of preview panes
Many people these days have their email client (ie. Outlook) set to preview panes which reveal the first paragraph of the email. As such, you should make your first paragraph compelling and get to the point quickly.

5. One message doesn’t fit all
When planning your email campaign, its good practice to think about which groups of people from your database you are trying to reach. Remember to speak their language and don’t be afraid to create a few versions of the campaign for different customer and prospect segments, tailoring your message for each.

6. Remember to keep it short, sharp and to the point
Don’t be afraid to use links to drive traffic back to your website for more detail if need be.

7. The rule of “value exchange”
You are taking someone’s precious time when they read your communications. To ensure they continue reading and won’t forever blacklist your emails, give them something of value for their time such as an exclusive offer, prize or valuable information. Because of this rule, relevance is far more important than frequency, particularly when it comes to communications with existing customers.

8. Call to action
What would you like your reader to do in response to your email? You need to make this very clear to the reader and give them a time frame. For instance, if your email contains an exclusive prize offer, then you may want to say something like “ To redeem your prize, please call 1800 123 123 today!”.

9. Unsubscribe link, permissions and privacy policies
Be sure you have permission to use the recipient’s email address and that your email contains easy to find “unsubscribe” and “our privacy policy” links so they can see what you use their contact details for or choose to stop receiving any future emails. This is important due to the SPAM Act and Privacy Act. Please check with the Australian Direct Marketing Association for full details on how to comply.

10. Measure your success!
Its always good practice to go back and measure how well your campaign has gone to identify areas for improvement or if it’s even worthwhile repeating it. Many email software solutions will enable you to track click throughs and open rates.

However, there are other means of gauging and this will depend on your call to action. Using the prize offer example from above, you could measure the increase in calls to the 1800 123 123 number or how many prizes were given out.

Other tips you may want to consider regarding email marketing include:

11. Make your email easy to scan
Format your email so that its clean and easy to look at. If you choose to use images, then use them sparingly and only small image file sizes please! Also, try to avoid using animated elements like flash as not everyone is capable of viewing these.

12. Let your customers do the promoting for you!
You may want to consider encouraging recipients to forward the email to their friends by offering incentives.

13. Welcome emails to new customers
Email can be a handy tool to increase your level of customer service. Why not try a friendly welcome email about what they have purchased, what they can expect from you and other offerings they may be interested in?

14. Follow up
Try using email as a quick and easy follow up for another marketing campaign to ensure maximum results. For instance, you send out a discount offer to prospects via post, and then a week later you email them a reminder that time is running out for the offer.

The rules for best emailing practices are changing as laws, technology and people’s behaviour change. However, I hope I have given you some useful tips today and if you have any others, please leave a comment!

This article is brought to you by Australian Business Marketing Services, giving you no nonsense, results driven marketing at a price that you can afford. Contact us today on 1800 505 529 or via email for assistance with your marketing needs.

By Vanessa Tsui

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The web is one of the most powerful communication and promotional channels you can use to boost sales for your business, but many business owners feel that working on improving their website is too complicated, they are too busy or that its too costly.

Today, I’ll go through some common questions that clients ask and give you some easy tips to improve your online marketing and website performance using free online tools.

1. I want to see how many people go to my site
Google Analytics and Yahoo Web Analytics are excellent free tools which show you how many people visit your site and can display this information according to date, common search terms and how long they spend on your site.

These can also be handy for measuring the performance of your promotions by seeing if more people visit your site during the time the promotion is on offer and if they spend more time browsing your site.

2. I want to see how my site performs in search engines
Did you know that the major search engines provide free tools which identify how your site is performing in search engine results and ways to improve it?

Google’s Webmaster Central is probably the most widely used site enhancement toolkit which allows you to see how Google indexes your site content and discover who links to your site. Most importantly, Google provides content analysis to guide you on how to improve your site for better search rankings. Another similar toolkit is Yahoo Site Explorer.

3. I want to find out what customers are looking for
How do you know if you are offering what customers really want or if your marketing is aligned with your target markets? An excellent way to conduct such market research is to look at what people are entering as search terms.

Suppose you run a flower shop in South Australia and so your website is all about flowers. You may already rank on the first search page for the search term “flowers”, but through a keyword search tool you find out there are a lot of people searching for “roses” and “roses South Australia”. It would be in your best interest to change your sales and marketing pitch to include the latter two search terms.

There are many tools for identifying keywords including Keyword Discovery, Wordtracker and Google Adwords. Google Adwords’ keyword selection feature which not only gives you a comprehensive list of other keywords that relate to your business but also shows you how many people and the peak month they use these in the search engine.

4. I want my site to rank higher in search results
Why is this important? Because very few people know the exact web address they are after. Most people use the search function in search engines to bring up a list of sites matching what they are looking for.

Once you’ve identified the top ten or so search terms that your site should rankly highly for, you should then check how well your site ranks for each. You can either use a tool like Search Status or you can type in each search terms individually and have a look at where you site is ranked.

To improve your rankings for your chosen search terms you can either use Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or a combination of the two.

SEO refers to non-paid natural or organic search results. One way to improve your SEO is to re-write the content on your site to include your chosen keywords.

SEM is basically when you pay for listings against chosen keywords, often these will appear as “sponsored links” at the top or the right hand side of a search engine page. Once again, Google Adwords can help you (and at the same time, you can avoid paying management fees from SEM agencies).

5. I want to see how my competitors’ sites are performing
How do you know if your website traffic is reasonable? How does your site compare against competitors? Use Search Status to find out. This tool allows you to see how any website in the world is performing.

There are many other reputable free online tools available to help you improve your website performance and achieve a higher ROI from your online marketing. The key is to take small steps so that you avoid risks and also see the direct impact that a single change can make to improving traffic and sales from your website. If you know of any other useful free online tools, please tell us about them!

This article is brought to you by Australian Business Marketing Services, giving you no nonsense, results driven marketing at a price that you can afford. Contact us today on 1800 505 529 or via email for assistance with your marketing needs.

By Vanessa Tsui

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Feeling the crunch? As the sharp decline in economic growth hits most of the developed world and government bailouts attempt to ease tension, the smart and the entrepreneurial are sitting quietly, about to make their next move.

The slowing economy can actually present many opportunities if you know how to spot them, but winning in this climate depends on how well you strategise and play the game.

As the economy slows, first reactions are commonly based on fear and emotion, driving changes in the key areas of:

1.    Consumer behaviour – the world doesn’t stop so nor does consumer spending. However, decreasing consumer confidence means they will be more cautious, gearing towards lower value items and cheaper alternatives or delaying high ticket purchases.

2.    Business behaviour – initial responses are to preserve or downsize rather than grow. Reductions in budgets and activity are commonplace. As a result, business development, innovation and marketing are minimised and many businesses will try to source cheaper inputs.

Next, businesses are likely to want to get rid of excess or slow moving stock via heavy discounting and “just-in-time” processes will become more pertinent.

3.    Market forces – As property prices, currencies, commodities and stocks, begin to tumble, just trying to keep abreast of what’s going on will further perpetuate caution and confusion. Thus, it’s important to pre-empt the actions of your stakeholders including supply chain members, investors and competitors. 

The silver lining

As competitors scale back their activities, there has been no better time for your business to achieve marketing success. However, you need to act with logic (not emotion), using a clear strategy and be ready to pounce quickly on opportunities as they arise.

This sentiment is echoed in a recent UK study by the Small Enterprise Research team at the Open University. Small business owners responded to questions about the slowing economy and most believed that “increase(ing) marketing spend” was a sound investment to drum up business to get through tougher times.

Furthermore, when times get tough, people get creative. Another silver lining is the possibility of new innovations resulting from a necessity to be smarter. Take for instance the dotcom crash of the late 90’s and early 2000. One of the many lessons learned from this disaster was how to reduce the cost of acquiring new customers and hence, today we have web 2.0 technologies.

Playing to win

1.    Re-align your offering and business strategy with the changes in consumer behaviour and needs. An easy example would be with fuel efficient cars – if the pitch was environmental friendliness, it now switches to savings on fuel costs.

2.    As competitors consolidate activities, they may leave some customers stranded. Marketing to such potential customers enables you to seize market share.

3.    In such uncertain times, it’s important that you’re business is seen as reliable and stable. For example, with the impact of the economic downturn in the US in early 2000 and the 911 attacks, the food industry suffered a harsh blow. According to Tera Johnson from Chrysalis, those companies with weaker brands could not sustain profits whilst the stronger players were able to increase their pricing.

4.    How you spend your budget should focus heavily on maximising return on investment. Thus, there’s likely to be a greater shift towards online marketing initiatives. Online marketing offers many benefits over traditional including greater reach, only paying for targets you do reach (ie. pay per click advertising) and easily tracking results through Google Analytics. 

5.    The tough times ahead will create difficulty getting new sales, so keeping your cash cow customers should be a key marketing strategy. Protect your own backyard by keeping your high value customers loyal. You should start by isolating which 20% of your customers bring in 80% of your income? Then look at how you may get repeat business from the 20%.

6.    Simultaneously, you may wish to aim for the low hanging fruit by adopting the strategy of more sales at lower per unit value.

7.    When aiming for the quick and easy sale, there’s no need to immediately start discounting. This frantic act only serves to create price wars, diminish your brand (which you’ve probably spent many years and dollars to develop) and will set a false market expectation. A better approach would be to source and offer a cheaper alternative. This also enables you to capture market share at multiple points (ie. high, middle and low prices).

The old school reactions of downsizing activities in a slowing economy may not always be the best move. With our current knowledge and technology, experts recommend increasing your marketing with new strategies to fit the climate. Remember, marketing is an investment for future business and sales growth– you only get if you put in.

This article is brought to you by Australian Business Marketing Services, giving you no nonsense, results driven marketing at a price that you can afford. Contact us today on 1800 505 529 or via email for assistance with your marketing needs.

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thinkBIG Business Forum 2008

For those of you who run a small business and are keen to find out the latest in sales, marketing and business development, then I whole hearted recommend you attend the thinkBIG Business Forum – ANZ Stadium, 3 September 2008.

What makes this forum like no other is that it brings to small business operators information that up until now, was only privy to marketing and sale professionals including the latest techniques in sales and marketing, technology and the future of your consumers. Moreover, thinkBIG provides you with this information at a level that is more pratical and tangible so that you can walk away with ideas and tips on how to apply it to your business. You will be given a “homework book” to complete throughout the day so that by the end of the forum, all attendees should walk away with a marketing plan for their business.

So, if you are a savvy small business owner, an entrepreneur, an outside the “box” thinker or an aspiring business leader, then this is definately the event for you.

Click here to view the thinkBIG video
www.thinkbigforum.com.au

Many small businesses fall into the trap of believing that one good marketing is going to get them to sales heaven. But when it doesn’t work, they feel they’ve fingers have been burnt and marketing is usually the punching bag.

I’m going to get into a lot of trouble for telling you this next story, but here we go….a family member approached me some time ago with an idea his workplace had for marketing their business.

“We want to send out these really cool emails with videos in them. Everybody at work is so impressed. Its better than YouTube. We’ve got a pretty big database of a couple of hundred email addresses and its only going to cost ten thousand dollars.”

I asked him how sending a video email creates a sale. The response – “ Umm…I dunno”.

Arrgghh! Sometimes, I wish I could be the Gordon Ramsay of marketing.

I’m not saying that small business owners don’t have good ideas. Far from it. I believe that most are incredibly savvy and have too many great ideas.

What I am saying is that to make your marketing work, plan properly and include the following in your considerations:

1. Is the consumer ready for you?
Take a look at the general decision making process a person will go through before making a purchase below.

Problem recognition -> information search -> evaluation of alternatives -> purchase decision -> post purchase evaluation

Your marketing efforts should facilitate a prospect’s progress through each step to optimize the chances of a sale.

So when most small business owners say a promotional activity didn’t work, one reason maybe because it did the wrong thing at the wrong stage in the process.

Let me explain with a simple train of thought from the mindset of a typical consumer – I didn’t need your product before, so just because you sent me a video email doesn’t mean I’m going to buy from you now. I may however, buy from you when I find that I do need a product like yours, assuming that I’m thinking of you at the time.

2. Is there support?
Cool idea or not, in isolation it’s about as useful as shooting in the dark and hoping that you hit your target.
Successful marketing is often based on a series of integrated activities rather than just one big initiative. One good reason for this is to ensure that you guide a prospect through the decision making process with continued engagement, staying at the top of mind when they finally do decide to purchase. In this respect, the more you engage with a prospect, the higher your likelihood of getting a sale.

If you know what your activity is trying to achieve and in what part of the decision making process it facilitates, then you can create support for it (such as following up leads via telephone) to increase your chances of a sale.

3. Is this the best way ?
Look at the characteristics of your current and prospective customers. How do they live and work day to day?

Nowadays with the increasing use of technology, people are consuming information from a myriad of sources including broadcast, print and digital media. As such no one type of communication holds the same level of power and influence like it used to. Known as media fragmentation, this means it is often worthwhile using a combination of ways to communicate and promote your business.

4. How much does it cost per sale?
To answer this question, you first need to calculate your average cost per sale for your marketing. Looking at the basic equation below, you can quickly determine if you are likely to make money for the effort or not.

Av. Cost per sale = cost of marketing activity ÷ estimated likely no. of sales

Lets take a closer look at the video email example:
- cost for video emails is $10,000
- database of 200 recipients
- Assume sales strike rate is 50% (a very generous assumption)
- Average open rate for email marketing is 20% (according to Vision6)

Based on the average open rate for email marketing, we can expect 40 people to open the video email. Out of these people we assume that 20 will become customers. Thus, the average cost per sale was $500.

For most small businesses, this cost per sale is far too high. As you can see, whilst the idea wasn’t a bad one, its probably not worth pursuing until they can significantly increase their database to lower this average cost.

Now you can see why sometimes what appears to be a great marketing idea can end up being a big mistake. Avoid the pitfalls through research and planning.

This article is brought to you by Australian Business Marketing Services, giving you no nonsense, results driven marketing at a price that you can afford. Contact us today on 1800 505 529 or via email for assistance with your marketing needs.

By Vanessa Tsui