Do Your Customers Trust You?

Believe it or not, there is a group of people out there who don't trust the Internet when it comes to purchasing products and services. Even now it is quite common to hear customers saying they would rather go to a good old-fashioned book or music store and buy in the "real world." There is, of course, nothing wrong with this. In fact, this basic human need to hold a potential purchase in your hands is exactly why Amazon and other book sites allow visitors to read pages onscreen.

But there is a deeper issue here, one that affects many different industries. Take consumer electronics, for example. This is a famously crowded market. There are hundreds of thousands of products sold by hundreds of thousands of firms. You can buy the latest widescreen television from a thousand different places online. And because the market is so saturated, and any independent seller can have a website within weeks, prices are competitive. In fact, a lot of online sources are significantly cheaper than brick-and-mortar stores.

Try it yourself. Search for a widescreen television on the Internet and pretty soon you'll hit a site that promises to find you one at a low price. And that television could well be $100 cheaper online than it is downtown.

But even though online is cheaper, many people still buy from the brick-and-mortar stores. And that's because deep down, they feel that they can't trust a store unless they are standing in it. It's a classic problem for online businesses, and it turns off millions of customers.

So how do you build trust? How do you assure customers that you are a worthy online store, and that they are safe to buy from you? How do you assure them that you are selling something real, and that you aren't going to take their money and run?
Here are some things you can do with your online presence that will assure customers and clients that you are to be trusted with their money. Bear in mind that this is a real problem. You might not see the problem, because the customers aren't actually contacting you. Instead, they are looking at your site, and then walking away because they would rather touch and feel what they want to buy.

So, let's start with what you are all about.

Company information.

Get this part right. Anything that is important about your company, make sure that it is on your site. Use your "About" page to link to FAQs and use photos of your offices, etc. to give that "real world" feel. Clearly place your phone number on the homepage and answer when it rings.

Get in touch.

Basic stuff. If any customer emails you, get back to them within the hour if possible. We all know what dead email feels like. Do you really want to do that to the people who put food on your table?

Feedback.

If you can get feedback, make the forms professional, and let them know you appreciate the feedback. Refer to it in your website or on your blog. Show your customers you value their input. Everyone likes to see this.

Money.

Make it 100% clear that you have secure transaction capability. Use logos, links to privacy assurances; shout your financial trustworthiness from the rooftops. Your customer's money is safe with you. Period.

Advertising hell.

Don't clutter up your site with ads, even if they bring you money. It isn't worth it. When it comes to ads, anything more than five per cent of your page is bad news. It feels like going to a dollar store.

Leverage branding.

If you offer recognized brands, put them front and center on your online store. If you don't offer branded products, make what you sell a brand. Give it a logo, a tagline. We'll cover branding in a later post, but for now, don't underestimate the power of clear and memorable product presentation.

Returns.

Make your return policy clear and jargon free. If you offer a service, make the problems and complaints policy as open as you can. Just remember that the best firms have nothing to hide.

Put yourself in your client's shoes.

You owe everything to your customers and clients. If you're savvy enough to have a company, you know that sales drive it and you just operate it. So stop them from going to the brick-and-mortar stores by assuring your customer base that you are a firm to be trusted. Imagine the experience of going to any big department store and getting a bad deal on delivery, or a broken product that the store says you can't return.

Would you go back?

End of the year maintenance

It's the end of the year, and do you know where your web site is? Is some of your content outdated, or worse, not showing up at all? Making an annual assessment of your site is a great idea, and here are a few suggestions on what to look for.

1. Is your "About Us" page updated?
Have you been in business for 8 years for the last 3 years? Check on how current this page is. Update any time sensitive items and any services you may or may no longer provide.

2. Are your contact forms working properly?
Make sure that when a customer wants to contact you, messages get to the correct person. Be sure that a form, whose recipient may not always be obvious, is sending messages to your current sales person and not the one who left six months ago.

3. If you have other email addresses or contact information on your web site, are they correct?
Review all your published contact information. Nothing can turn a potential customer away faster than not being able to contact you.

4. Do all your links work -- both within your site and especially those that link off site?
When you're linking to content that you don't control, it's critical to review those links regularly to make sure they're still valid. Check all links, even the ones within your site, to make sure that your customers are getting to the correct place. There is a free online tool to check them here.

5. Check your WHOIS record.
This record is used by your registrar to contact you in case your domain (web site address) is about to expire, or for other important notices. Check yours at Network Solutions.

6. Do an overall review of your web site.
Check photos and see if they're still current and representative of your business. Are any graphics dated? Should you update any content? Do your pages load fast enough or are they slow?

This sort of review should be done yearly at a minimum. Some items can be checked quickly, and others may take some time, depending on the scale of your site. But in the long run, the advantages of a well-maintained website make it worth your time and effort.

A little D.I.Y. SEO

A recent marketing research study lists SEO as the tool with the second highest return on investment, just behind an in-house mailing list. So putting in even a little elbow grease can go a long way towards improving your online marketing plan. Here are a few quick and easy SEO tips that you can use to get better results from your website.

1. Find the right keywords for your website. Pick a small list of words that are relevant to your business. If your market is a local one, include the town and state. In particular, think about the words that people would normally type into search engines to find a business like yours. Pick a few of these phrases and include them throughout your website.

2. Put the keyword or phrase in your page title. Don't put just a list of keywords as your webpage title. Combine your search phrases and business in a way that makes sense. For example: "Plumber Business - fixing and repairing your plumbing in Rochester, MN" Keep it short and make it descriptive.

3. Put the keywords in your meta tags. Web pages generally have extra information (metadata) in their headers that's intended to describe the page contents to other software, like search engines. If you have the ability to edit this area of site, updating this content is a must. Keep this short as well. Focus on your main keywords.

4. When updating any page on your site, think about including keywords. Always make the text readable for human beings first, but when you can do so naturally, include a keyword or search phrase. This will help communicate to search engines that the page is really relevant to those specific topics.

Remember that you must give search engines time to find your site and pick up changes when you make them. It may take a while, but each change can help boost your ranking little by little. These are just a few simple ways to help improve your online marketing. If you're interested in learning more about your website's ranking with search engines, let us know.

Computers Are Like Cars

Every so often I receive a call from my brother about his computer. You see, he has one of those "technically challenged" personalities. He can tear apart a car engine, replace the pistons, and put it back together; but he can't maintain his computer. This amazes me, because there are really only two things you MUST do with a computer:

1) Make sure your Anti-virus software is installed, updated, and is not EXPIRED.
2) Make sure your Windows updates are installed on a regular basis.

There are other things you can do to enhance your routine maintenance, but these two are the only ones you MUST remember. As an added convenience, both tasks have automated reminders and warning systems built in! You know, those little pop-ups that say "ANTI-VIRUS IS EXPIRED" or "UPDATES ARE READY TO INSTALL".

This seems pretty simple to me, but for some reason I see computers all the time with expired anti-virus software. When I ask about it, the person usually says to me "That pops up all the time and I just close it".

Hello? Didn't that raise an alarm for you?

If the breaks in your car start to sqeek, most people have it checked out (especially if it continues or gets louder). You don't ignore the situation by turning the radio up... do you? You wouldn't consider driving your car for 20,000 miles without getting an oil change, but that's exactly what you're doing by avoiding these two things. Just like a car, a little routine maintance can avoid big (expensive) problems down the road.

So, my advice for you today is to LISTEN TO YOUR COMPUTER. Treat it like a car and when you notice something "unusual", have it checked out. Spend a little time and "change the oil" every few months. Don't call your computer guy after 15 months (20,000 miles) and request routine maintenance on your virus infected computer. As one of those "computer guys", I can speak for everyone that we'd rather answer your questions every 3 months than rebuild your computer every year.

If you still have a problem with this concept and don't understand the value of routine maintenance, suggest to your "computer guy" that he/she start charging you for major problems.

Is Your Website Confusing?

When planning for a new website your design team should spend considerable effort in analyzing the navigation structure. A common mistake is to organize the website into general categories instead of your customer's needs.

For example, most navigation structures are organized in ways that seem logical to you and your company - by "products," "services," "solutions," etc. But if your prospect doesn't already know what your product or service names mean, they're not likely to find what they need. Guide your readers by using rubrics based on customer challenges, pains or desires, such as "Planning for Retirement" and "Reducing Taxes," for a financial planner. In short, think like a customer.

A good example of end-user navigation can be found on the Bigelow Homes website where we categorized the navigation based on homebuyer needs (finding a lot, floor plan options, etc). If you're not sure you "have it right", show your navigation structure to someone unfamiliar with your business. Based on their reactions, you'll be able to tell right away if they are confused about where to go.

Source: www.marketingprofs.com

3 Tips for Viral Marketing

You may have noticed that we received a large quantity of comments on the "Digg Hooligans Take Over Website" post earlier this week. This was the result of the article being "Dugg" by thousands of users on digg.com. Our story hit the digg.com homepage just after 11pm on Monday. This lead to over 2400 visitors in a matter of hours.


This was all made possible through "Viral Marketing".

Viral marketing is based on the idea that if someone finds something interesting, they are likely to pass it on to their friends. Sometimes what is being passed does not appear to be advertising at all. In this case, as users "dugg" the story they were in fact telling others that they should read it too.

Viral marketing gets its name from its similarity to a virus. The point of viral marketing is to "infect" one person with your marketing idea, who will then spread the news to someone else, thereby "infecting" them.

The earliest use of viral marketing is usually attributed to Hotmail, a web based email provider. When Hotmail was first starting out, they would attach advertising to the bottom of emails that were sent from their users. The idea was to have people sign up for Hotmail because they got the message from their friends.

Viral marketing is very successful because it works to create a buzz about the product and then subtly encourages people to tell someone else. Because of this, the advertising doesn't have to reach the secondary user directly. The person initially "infected" by the viral marketing can "infect" many others with no additional work required on the part of the advertisers.

As an email user, you have probably contributed to viral marketing campaigns without even realizing it. Remember that interactive game or funny video that you forwarded to all of your friends? Most likely, somewhere within the "message" was a link or logo of the company who created it. When you passed the video on, you gave them free publicity and brand recognition.

"This is cool... I want some viral marketing traffic", you say.

No problem... here are three very important tips to get you started with your own viral marketing campaign:

1. Make people feel something
The most important thing is to create a very strong emotion. You need to have an opinion and express an idea with commitment and dedication. You want people to:

• be filled with love or hate.

• be very happy or insanely angry

• be an idiot or a genius
  

You want people's blood to be pumping of excitement. Viral marketing is 100% about emotions. Your story must spark an emotion or it will never catch on.

2. Forget about you, your product or your company.

Focus exclusively in creating a good and interesting story. Sure, you can add your product into the mix, but it must not be the most important thing. Nobody cares about you, viral marketing is all about a good story.

3. Make it easy to share.

The whole purpose is for others to share your story, so make it easy. Everything you do to make sharing easier is going to improve your chances of success. That means that you need allow people to easily play your file, send it to friends, link to you, etc.