Posts Tagged ‘B2C Internet Marketing’

Value Added Selling Online

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

We all want the best possible deal. However, the best possible deal is not necessarily the lowest price we can find. That is the point I try to make to people when showing them how to find what they are looking for online.

The internet gives today’s consumers much more power than they had 20 years ago. Today, I can easily compare the selling price of TV in California with the same one selling in North Dakota. The problem this causes for sellers is that they have to put as much emphasis on added value as they do on price.

Low prices are simply not enough anymore. Sure, it will get you listed at the top of an ascending search for having the lowest price, but that is just the starting point. Are you expecting all your clients to buy on pricing alone? What if your price isn’t the lowest in the world? Remember, this is the World Wide Web we are dealing with here. Users can research retail information from around the globe.

You have to do more today than just deliver a low price. Don’t get me wrong, price is a great starting point…but do you want to build your business around first-time and one-time shoppers?  Or, do you want to do business with shoppers that come back to the same place because they feel like they get more from their purchases than just a low price? (more…)

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Posted in B2C Internet Marketing, Online Business | 1 Comment »

Internet Shopping and Marketing: A Consumer’s Perspective

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

The web, as many know, is a new beast. Long gone are the days of first grabbing your phone book, flipping to the “Moving Company” section, and looking for the best looking ad or simply the nearest company. Back in those days the “leg work” of the sale was done after the initial contact. The rise of the internet era has completely reversed this train of thought.

Consumers are now looking to have the work done by researching online, reading other customer’s reviews, and gathering as many facts as possible BEFORE any contact is made with the business. As potential buyers, today’s shoppers first leverage the power of the internet in their shopping experience. They don’t want to be contacted until they are ready to be. A shopper empowered with search engines is able to gather vast amounts of extremely precise decision-making data before even thinking about contacting a seller. (more…)

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Posted in B2C Internet Marketing, Online Business | No Comments »

Don't focus on making more money …. focus on providing more value!

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

Most of us get caught in the trap of constantly focusing on how we can make more money with our businesses.  You know how it is … some nights you lay there in bed tossing and turning trying to figure out how you can increase your sales just an additionally $10k each month to afford that new employee, or maybe to simply stop ending up in the red each month.  That can be a horrifying feeling and often eliminate any chances of you getting quality sleep until you figure it out.

Well, I am here to tell you that as long as you find yourself chasing the “almighty dollar” you’ll continue to be sleep deprived.  I know this may sound crazy but it’s absolutely true.

For years I wondered why our company seemed to live “paycheck to paycheck” or “payroll cycle to payroll cycle,” when I spent so much time each day trying to figure out how to increase the companies revenue.  I just couldn’t figure it out.  Finally I brought this concern up to a mentor of mine and was surprised when he told me, “You are focusing on the wrong thing.”  I was a bit irritated when I heard that response.  Heck, I am intimately familiar with the “Law of Attraction” and know that we attract the things and circumstances we focus on most of the time.  I figured I’d set all my preconceived notions aside and ask him what I was supposed to be focusing on, if not increasing the companies revenue.

He told me the perfect way to build a thriving company is to make sure you have clients that are raving fans, and the best way to have raving fans is to provide a tremendous value to them.  The Internet has conditioned people to focus much more on “What’s in it for them” than ever before.  If you build your business while keeping your focus on giving your clients much more than they expect, they’ll tell everyone they know and your business will soon go through the roof.

Wow.  I was amazed at how simple this concept was, and even more amazed that I couldn’t figure it out much sooner.  I knew it was important to focus on providing solid customer service, but when I looked at my business from this perspective, I realized that simply good customer service wasn’t going to cut it.

The bottom line is if you are focusing on taking care of your clients and prospective clients by delivering excellent content for free, they will begin to like you.  Once this happens they will happily take out their checkbook when you have something to offer them.  Focus on giving and you will receive much more in the end!

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Posted in B2B Internet Marketing, B2C Internet Marketing, Online Business, Website Development | No Comments »

If you JUST build it … They WON'T come!

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

You may be one of those frustrated companies who spent tens of thousands of dollars on your website and feel like you want to jump out the window because you are getting absolutely no results and very few visitors from that huge investment.  In fact you may be viewing your site as a HUGE expense and it doesn’t feel as if that expense is ever going to deliver any revenue.  Well I am here to tell you that doesn’t have to be the case.

I realize you may have blown through your entire budget simply having your website built and the thought of sinking just as much or more into the promotion of your site is something that makes you feel sick to your stomach.  Stand up and head over to the medicine cabinet and grab a zantac for your sick stomach.  Everything is going to be ok.

The key to increasing your position in the search results is building “votes of confidence” for your website.  Search engines view links pointing to your site from external sites as these “votes of confidence.”  It’s important for you to know how to effectively structure these links so you can gain the most benefit and not end up fighting over some keyword that has no relevance to the content on your site.

Use Keywords in Your Link

You need to help the search engine know what that “vote of confidence” is for.  If your link says, “For the best prices on shoes CLICK HERE .  You have just effectively included your website along with all the millions of websites competing for the search phrase, “CLICK HERE.”  I am sure you’ll agree that if someone did a search on CLICK HERE, and ended up on a page within your site they’d be sorely disappointed since the liklihood of that page having any relevance to what they were searching for is about ZERO.  Conversely, if your link was “For the best prices on shoes“, you would have entered the competition for the keyword phrase “best prices on shoes.”

Create Links Where Your Buyers Hang Out Online

If you understand your buyers fully, you’ve identified where they hang out online and the types of content they prefer to consume.  If they happen to participate in blogs and spend a good deal of time online reviewing news sites, you should focus heavily on commenting or writing blog entries and submitting online news releases.  If you include the keyword phrases you are focusing on with links to pages within your site that contain relevant content, you’ll be in excellent shape.  Don’t create links that simply link to your homepage.  If you do this you’ll be forcing your visitor to dig deeper for content once they arrive, and THEY WON’T.  They’ll just leave and find a site which makes it easier for them to find the content they are looking for.

You can create links by participating in blogging, forums, social media, article writing, or a number of other ways.  The important thing is that you spend a consistent amount of time each week building these inbound links if you want to continue to work your way up to the top of the search results.  Link building not only helps your search position, it also increases the size of your digital footprint and will increase the liklihood your potential customers will find you.

Please feel free to leave comments telling us what you have done for linkbuilding or asking any questions you may have.  If you have questions outside of this topic you can always visit our “Ask the Web Marketing Expert” page.  If you leave a question we might just blog about it or create an article in the future.

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Posted in B2B Internet Marketing, B2C Internet Marketing, Online Business, Website Development | 2 Comments »

Things to Consider When Planning Your Website

Monday, March 16th, 2009

For some of you the thought of planning your website might be a foreign concept.  Please don’t let that statment get you upset, it is simply a reality.  Most companies put very little thought into the structure and flow of their website and the results reflect that lack of thought very clearly.  If you are a company that has taken the time to think through the structure and flow of your website … CONGRATS! I am sure you are seeing excellent results.  Even if you have, this post might help you improve those results.

The best way to tell if you have an effective website structure and the flow of your site is working is by looking at the analytics of your site.  If you don’t currently have some type of analytics program on your website, DO IT NOW! You can get a Google Analytics account set up for free and have it installed on your site within minutes.  I understand that looking at your website statistics can be an overwhelming task since you will be presented with such a vast amount of information.  Don’t worry.  We’ll make it easier for you by pointing out what is the most important information to focus on.

What is your Bounce Rate?

A bounce rate is a term used in website traffic analysis.  It essentially represents the average percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.  Basically, if your bounce rate is 65% for example, that means that 65% of the people who arrive at your website are leaving your site without making even one click deeper into your website.  If you had a store and knew that high of a percentage of people that stepped into your store left without looking at anything beyond the first display they saw, you’d do something about it IMMEDIATELY!  Why wouldn’t you do the same thing with your website?

Each Page Must Have a Purpose

When you’re planning your website and developing the site map , it is extremely important to spend time thinking about each individual page of your site and ask yourself the question, “What is the purpose of this page?”  When a visitor arrives at your website they have a goal in mind and know what it is they are looking for.  If they immediately get the sense that it is going to be challenging to locate that information, they will leave.  If you’ve taken the time in the planning phase to clearly identify what the purpose of that page is going to be and you’ve created content which will answer the questions the visitor is looking for, they are far more likely to dig deeper into your site to find more information.  That is if you’ve made it easy for them to dig by having a clear navigation path.

Logically Lead Your Visitor to Take the Next Step

When you are creating content its important to keep in mind “What’s Next” in the mind of your visitor.  If, for example, you have an organization that is focused on spreading an idea and gaining further awareness of a particular social issue.  The content on the page should cover as many angles of this issue as possible and give a clear, compelling explanation as to why your organization feels the way it feels.

This is where you can take the opportunity to provide a clear path to the next steps. If your visitor wants to get involved in your cause you should provide a clear link within the content to a page on your site that allows them to view and sign up to volunteer for upcoming events.  If your visitor is a potential donor, you’ll want to provide an easy way for them to click a link within your content that leads them to a page which has the purpose of providing them with all the benefits they’ll receive by becoming a donor.  If your visitor is analytical and would like deeper information on something which you have found to be a fairly confusing part of the issue, you should provide a link in the content to another page which gives much deeper information on that aspect of the issue.

I am sure this makes logical sense but the challenge is it also takes time and thought to accomplish.  Well, it’s worth it!  Unless you are happy with 65% (or much worse in some cases) of your visitors leaving your site without looking at even one more page of your site, then you need to take the time and effort to work through this process.

I’d love to get some feedback from you on this issue.  If you’ve already taken the time to plan your website in this fashion … Please share your results with us.  If you have questions, please feel free to leave those as comments as well or you can go to our “Ask the Web Marketing Expert” page and submit your question.  We’ll follow up with a blog post that addresses your question.

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Posted in B2B Internet Marketing, B2C Internet Marketing, Online Business, Website Development | 1 Comment »

Developing the proper mindset to maximize your online revenue (PART 1)

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

Many companies simply don’t take the correct mental approach to developing their online strategy.  Without this, the foundation will be weak and the opportunity for success can be greatly diminished.  It is easy to SAY you want to make a whole lot of money on the Internet, but fully developing a plan and having the patience for it to play out is much more difficult.  Let’s face it…we are all VERY busy running our companies and overseeing the day to day operations.  Launching a new Internet initiative can seem to be a monumental task that will require much more effort than it is worth.  Many companies find themselves overwhelmed early in the process, and quickly abandon their initial plan.  Although they may not realize it…this abandonment may be costing them thousands or even millions of dollars. 

Great business leaders become great because they are effective in setting initiatives and delegating responsibilities in such a way that the initiatives can be accomplished with as little disruption to the normal course of business as possible.  Even if you haven’t reached the level of a “Great Business Leader,” you can at least do what they do, and soon become what they are.  

IDENTIFY WHAT YOU WANT

It is easy as a leader to focus on what you NEED in your business rather than what you WANT.  Due to this, many companies reach a plateau because they are constantly working on getting enough money in the door to cover their financial responsibilities every month.  Once they have reached this goal, they find themselves running to make sure they can do it the following month.  They are so busy meeting their needs, they don’t have the opportunity to determine what they truly want.

The first step in the process of developing the proper mindset is to sit down and take the time to write out the specific outcome you would like to receive.  The natural instinct will be to allow reality to creep in and you will resort to listing out the items you need.  It is VERY important not to fall in this trap.  You can look at this time as a “dream session,” but know that once this dream session has been completed, you will definitely be taking the time to implement a plan utilizing your available resources to accomplish this outcome.  You may find it difficult in the beginning to shake off the tendency to reign in your dreams, but with a little practice, you will find a new level of energy and excitement as you take the time to go through this exercise. 

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