Category Archives: Small Business Online Marketing Strategies

Marketing your small business online can be an effective way to market your products and services. It can also be an enormous waste of time and effort, especially if you are using the wrong online marketing strategies

First, your design, writing, and offer all have to work together. Poor copywriting, bad design, and painful user interfaces can all drive away your hard-won traffic. Using social media to shout at people can also drive people away (instead of drawing them in).

Get tips on the right way to write for the web. It’s different than writing for print and you may have to toss out some of the rules you learned back in school.

Small businesses make plenty of other online marketing mistakes, such as using too much jargon, or concentrating too much on a pretty design, instead of usability. Hard to use designs are just as bad. If visitors can’t use your site, they will leave.

And, of course, there’s landing pages. Landing pages are your 24/7 sales team. They’ve got to answer all the questions you can’t answer in person. If they’re not working, neither are your sales (or your profits). Learn the most common landing page goofs and how to correct them.

5 Ways to Build Credibility Online

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Jodi Kaplan

Image thanks to steelcityhobbies

Do people think you’re great? Do they tell their friends? Or wear your colors (like the fans in the photo)?

People are naturally skeptical, but you can build your credibility online with something called “social proof.”

Here’s how it works. Say you belong to an online group. Bob emails you to say his friend Jill just joined. You go look at her profile, and see she’s also a friend of Betsy’s (another friend of yours). You think, well any friend of Bob and Betsy must be good people. You already like her (because your friends recommended her).

The same thing works for companies and products. If someone asks me for a good ebook designer, I strongly recommend Kathie Rokita. If that person trusts me (and I hope they do), they go to Kathie prepared to think she’s great (which she is).

How can you get social proof for yourself?

Make referrals

If someone asks you for a referral, make a recommendation. It works three ways. The person who asked is happy with you because you helped her. The person getting the referral is happy because you sent him a potential client. And, you’re happy because you helped someone.

Get testimonials

Ask your clients for testimonials about the work you did for them. Solicit their opinions of your service (good and bad). Tell them it doesn’t have to be anything formal, just make a few notes. Asking for both the good and the bad will help you, and also help your clients (as you’ll know if anything is bothering them).

Cite statistics

McDonald’s used to have a sign counting up the millions and millions of burgers sold. The idea was that all those numbers proved that their burgers were good (see, we’ve sold 60 million of them).

Get interviewed

Reply to appropriate queries on HARO (help a reporter out) and get your name in the news. Being interviewed shows you’re an expert. Put out a press release when you come up with a new product (not about you, but about how the product solves a problem – there’s a difference). This can also generate more press and interviews.

Be social

Commenting on blogs, activity in forums (for your ideal customer) and answering questions all show your expertise. After a while, people will start to recognize you, your name, and your avatar, as they see you around the web. They’ll feel they know you.

Share your thoughts

What have you done to build your own credibility? Especially online? Share your tips.

Get More Sales by Offering a Refund

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Jodi Kaplan

Image by 1stlogodesign

Ever see a big guarantee on a web site?

You’re happy, or your money back.

Risk-free trial. Try it for 30 days, if you’re not happy, we’ll refund your money.

Here’s one from Bob Bly:

“Best of all, Cheap Car Tips and Tricks comes with our iron-clad money-back guarantee. If you are not 100% satisfied with the guide, just let us know within 90 days for a full and prompt refund.That way, you risk nothing. So what are you waiting for? To order Cheap Car Tips and Tricks, just click below now.”

Here’s mine:

The backwards and forwards guarantee

“I’m stealing this idea from Megan Elizabeth Morris, who stole it from Naomi Dunford (who stole it from Mark Silver at Heart of Business). Here’s how it works. Buy the checklist. If you decide you don’t find it useful, I’ll refund your money. All you have to do is ask— and forward the website review checklist to someone you think can use it. Let me know why, and I’ll improve it for the next version or suggest other people or resources that may help.”

How a money back guarantee increases sales

Is a guarantee required? No. However, it’s a good thing to do. Why? Because it shows you have faith in your product. And, it reassures people that if they have a problem, you’ll stand behind what you do.

This is called risk reversal. It transfers the risk of buying from the purchaser to the seller. This doesn’t just make you look good; it will get you more sales because it makes you look more reliable and trustworthy.

A creative guarantee is even better. It stands out in the reader’s mind.

Longer guarantees are better than short ones. So is a guarantee that lets you keep the bonus “all about widgets podcast,” even if you return the widget buying CD that you ordered.

Try it. I guarantee you’ll like it. 😉

How Online Marketing Tracking Gets You More Sales

Posted on May 13, 2010 by Jodi Kaplan

Image: stellablu

John Wanamker once said, “Half my advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half.”

Actually, there is a way to tell where your sales are coming from.

Set up online marketing tracking systems on your site

If you don’t have Google Analytics installed on your site, go do it now. You set up a Google account, add some code to your site, and you’re good to go. This will tell you where your clicks and visits are coming from. And here’s a Google Analytics tutorial with tips on what to look for.

Track marketing campaign clicks and ads

If you run a print ad, use a unique URL (such as www.mysite.com/logo). Keep this fairly short and easy to remember. The harder it is to type, the less likely it is that people will do it.

Do the same for a direct mail or postcard marketing campaign. Add a unique URL or a keycode (a series of numbers or letters, like LOGO1, for the first logo offer mailing) that identifies which mailing it is or which list you used. You can also add tracking links to your ebooks.

Update 2016: Google now lets you track clicks by adding a bit of extra code to your analytics tracking information. That means it’s easier to see every click on every link, without having to mark each one individually. More details are here.

Offer a bonus

Add an incentive to go to the landing page. Offer an additional discount or bonus for using the code. Put a box to your home page that says, see us in ______ magazine? Enter your code here. The code would be the unique URL name, which sends them to the landing page.

Welcome new visitors

If you’re driving visitors from another web site, welcome visitors from XYZ blog. right on top. For banners, or AdWords campaigns, send people to a landing page set up for that particular campaign.

Google can track all of this, as well as the conversions (sales/sign-ups) for each one. Once you know where your sales are coming from, you can shift more time (and money) to what works. Then, do a happy dance, cause you know more than John Wanamaker ever could.

Got any other ideas or tips for tracking? Anything I missed? Share in the comments.

The Truth About Beautiful Web Sites and Sales

Posted on May 4, 2010 by Jodi Kaplan

Photo thanks to: sheilaellen

Have you ever been to a designer showcase? If you haven’t, here’s what happens.

An organization takes an empty house and recruits interior decorators to fix up each room. They raise money, often for a charity, by charging admission. As a result, the designers get publicity, and the public gets design ideas and entertainment. All great.

The trouble is that those rooms are often unusable. The sinks are at one end of the kitchen and the stove is at the other. The forks won’t pick up food. You can’t sit in the chairs, and the bathrooms are all-white (ha)!

Great design isn’t enough

The same sort of design mistakes can happen with web sites. You know, the kind that gets featured in a Smashing Magazine web texture showcase. They’ve got clever widgets, jaw-dropping graphics, beautiful colors, even designs that change every day!

They’re amazing. Some of them are unusable.

Beautiful is great. So is award-winning. Neither one necessarily makes money.

Great design, or even OK design, won’t sell all by itself. Good design makes your site easier to read, easier to use, and facilitates the actual buying process. A site that’s hard to read, and hard to use, can’t sell anything.

Design has to be functional, not just pretty

What the design should do is:

Reflect your company’s personality and industry; a crayon-colored design would look out of place on a law firm’s web site
Be easy to use; the design should guide visitors to finding whatever information they are looking for, whether it’s marketing tips, contact information, or how-tos.
Establish your credibility (that crayon-colored site wouldn’t reflect well on a law firm)
Build trust that you are an expert in your field, and can provide solutions to visitors’ problems.
The colors, typefaces, testimonials, and the copy should all reflect your understanding of your audience, what you do, and why you are worth the money you charge to do it.

Amazon’s site isn’t beautiful. It’s very functional though. Apple’s site is beautiful, but the design is unobtrusive.

Yes, have design that serves the function of the web site – but don’t let the design overwhelm everything else. Design doesn’t sell by itself.

Design your site for other people

Don’t make decisions based solely on what you like (unless you’re darn sure you match your “tribe”). I’m not saying you should hate your web site, just that you’ll do better if you keep your visitors’ preferences in mind. Don’t make your site purple because you love purple.

Paint mental pictures

Write content that talks to your readers and about your readers. When you do want people to buy, they should be able to see, taste, and smell how great they’ll feel if they buy from you.
Here’s a simple example from online grocer FreshDirect (I don’t know who writes their copy, but he or she is good!):

hint of cloves and tart pineapple. Juicy as a honeydew. This all-purpose pear holds up well when cooked, but it’s just as good right off the tree.

That’s for a pear. Are you hungry?

How to Educate Your Clients and Reduce Your Stress

Posted on April 23, 2010 by Jodi Kaplan

Image thanks to: Valeriana Solaris

Are you tired of having the same “fights” with your clients? You know, the conversations where they keep asking you to make the logo bigger? Or the ones where they insist that you must code for IE6?

Here are some tips on how to educate them, reduce your stress, and get more done.

Speak their language

Explaining that IE6 is outdated and has security flaws might get through, but telling them “it has a poor rendering engine” will go in one ear and out the other. It may be as foreign to them as the words on the book in the picture (unless you speak German).

Instead, describe how their carefully crafted web site (and logo) won’t display properly. The images may overlap. Or, there may be big white spaces or missing text. Even better, show them how IE6 wrecks someone else’s site.

Listen carefully

There may be a good reason behind a seemingly bone-headed insistence on IE6. It could be that their own customers have cash terminals that use it. Or, many of their clients are still using Windows XP and don’t want (or know how) to upgrade to IE7.

Logos, logos, logos

The logo isn’t big enough. Can you make the logo bigger?

First, understand why they want it bigger. It’s not logical, it’s emotional. If you argue, frame it in business terms, not design considerations.

The purpose of their web site is to engage visitors, encourage them to return, to remember them, to get information, to build trust, and to buy things. If the logo is too big, it will overshadow everything else.

Amazon’s logo is small. Apple’s is tiny. They want you to shop. The logo is important, but it’s not the goal of the site.

Choose your battles

If they insist on making the logo bigger than you’d like, give in. I know. But, they are the client. They’re paying the bills.

You can tell them that no, you can’t use Photoshop to turn a sitting cat’s picture around so you can see her tail. And, you don’t have to wait for payment until after their new product makes millions.

Share your thoughts

Have you had situations like this? How did you solve them? Are there any design wins you are particularly proud of? Share them in the comments (with a link).