GO! STAY! COME BACK!
Index
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Purpose of Your Website
Chapter 2 The Marketing of your Website
Chapter 3 The Content of Your Website
Chapter 4 The Design of Your Website
Chapter 5 The Benefits of Your Website
Chapter 6 The Value of Your Website
Chapter 7 Bringing it into perspective: REFFERALS
Appendix A
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INTRODUCTION
This isn’t about training your dog or any other pet. It has nothing to do with animals whatsoever. Well, maybe it does have to do with dogs. What if we were to suppose that we treated our prospective clients and customers like dogs? If we look at a dogs behavior there are of characteristics that we would really like to have in our clients. Loyalty, friendliness, happiness to see us. I never had a dog growing up. I’m not so sure I really ever wanted a dog, but if you think about how a dog can become a friend for life, who wouldn’t want that?
Back to the title. The title says it all if you look at it in the right context. What we all really want is simple. And really we need to take the time to express our goals in the proper setting. This is the motto and goal for every website owner. The objective every web marketer, website owner, and internet entrepreneur is to have people do exactly what the title says: GO to their website, STAY there and benefit from the features of the website and then see the value of their site and actually COME BACK. Return customers are the most valuable assets a business has. It is cheaper to retain a customer than to find and sell another.
We are all to ready to pay for people to come to our site. Yes, I agree that’s important. Actually it’s very important. If no one ever gets there it really doesn’t matter what it looks like, because you won’t make any money off of it. Even the most inexperienced business person knows that. No prospects equals no clients. No clients equals no money. And that’s a problem. You will not be in business very long if you aren’t making money.
GO
Chapter 1
The Purpose of Your Website
To start off with we need people, and let’s face it qualified people to go to our website. It doesn’t matter how awesome the product or service is, or how cool your website looks, we need prospects. I receive just about ever piece of junk email that I think exists. I typically get well over 100 emails every day that have virtually no value to me, or at least they were unsolicited. I don’t mind so much because I want to learn from them. Analyze them. See what they do well, and see what they do poorly. Most of them fit into the later segment.
Let’s start with some marketing basics. The most basic and fundamental marketing need is for you to have a position. A clearly defined position. This is more important you’re your name or even your product line. Al Ries & Jack Trout have several awesome books about marketing. Their book entitle POSITIONING is simple mind-boggling. An entire book about how to set up the position you want to obtain in your clients mind. I hope you’ll find a copy and study it carefully. They don’t focus on online businesses in that book, but rather a global look at all kinds of companies. As Mr. Ries & Trout start out, I guess I need to clarify what the position is and what it means. “INSERT QUOTES HERE FROM POSITIONING BOOK”
Basic marketing philosophy of positioning, and clearly defining ones position
Have a clear objective of what you want the visitor to do
If You’re selling something – ask for the sale – don’t assume they know what you want them to do next. People don’t assume what you want them to. You need to make a sensible process. From the point at which they enter, to the point where they can make a decision, has to be streamlined and flow well. They have to be asked to make a purchase. I don’t mean hard selling; I mean they have to be given the opportunity to make a purchase. They have to be given the choice, the option to take advantage of what you have to offer. And every time they are asked or given an opportunity, you need to make sure that it is NOT a yes or no decision. You are after all not trying to make them leave or say no. You want them to choose between Yes, I want to order now, and I need some more information before I go ahead with the transaction. Don’t let them start thinking they can say no. Let them decide what information they need, offer it to them and then offer the transaction again. This may happen several times. They might need to reconsider the information they’ve been given. And every time you give them more information it might need to be clarified, or might raise a new question.
If You’re Informing them, make sure they understand
Not every website is geared towards making a ‘sale’. Many non-profit companies or service companies are using their websites as informational tools and as a tool to help their face-to-face selling.
When you design your website, you make certain assumptions. Often we assume that the visitor knows what we know. They don’t. You know a lot about your business. You know more than anyone else (or at least you should). Let’s assume that you do. You need to tell them why they are at your website and what information it is that you can offer them. You need to have links to places they can get additional information if you don’t happen to offer it.
Sneaking in banner ads and other sales like information is dangerous. You can seriously side track a prospect. Many websites post banners from other companies in order to gain income from click-throughs or pay per click ads. This is OKK, but you have probably just given your client away to the company placing the banner ad.
I think banner ads are great. If you have the option to put them on other people websites, DO IT. It’s worth it. Especially if you set up a pay per click fee structure, you can’t loose. Even if only a low percentage of visitors can be turned into clients, it makes a lot of sense. If you’d want to put my banners on your site, please let me know, but I wouldn’t suggest it to be a good move.
Alright you might be able to find an exception to the rule and that’s OK. If a big company like Microsoft wanted to put a banner on my site, I’d think about it. Having them associated with my company might do well for my image. If I lost some click throughs, I could figure that out after a while by keeping an eye on my hits and entry and exit points. If suddenly too many people are exiting via the Microsoft banner, I’d know it was time to pull it and put my own attract banner in its place.
Chapter 2
The Marketing of your Website
Online Marketing
There are a lot of online venues for marketing your site. Obviously you need to adapt the list to fit your needs. Your business will have some special features that make it distinctive from other companies, but of course you already know that.
Here’s a helpful list to start with. You should keep a log of every ad you submit and monitor hits after you try something new. This will help gauge the effectiveness of each campaign. “Someone once said that 50% of all advertising is a complete waste. The hard part is that no one knows which 50%.” Monitoring your campaign especially at first will help you avoid spending time and money on those items that don’t have the pull they should.
1) Banners
2) Ebay
3) Directories
4) Search Engine Submission
5) Email Campaigns
a. Mass
b. Targeted
6) Newsgroups
7)
And this is only a start. When you start promoting your website, you find all kinds of fun ways to spread the word. Some of the best ideas come by looking at your competition. First of all, knowing who your competition is will put you several steps ahead of your competition. Most businesses don’t have a firm grasp on who their competition really is. They might have a vague idea about other businesses in the industry, but they don’t really know whom their clients would buy from if they decided not to come back.
Offline Marketing
PLEASE don’t think you can just market your website online. Please don’t make that mistake. Unless you have some special niche business that only targets online clients, where you don’t want other publicity, you need to pursue offline marketing. Just about the only online businesses that would fit into this category are the online adult websites.
As an owner of Starmaker Marketing, I have developed the most comprehensive guide of marketing methods. I only give this list to actual clients, and most of them only see the parts that I recommend to their company. We’ve studied all the books – even the creative ones like Guerilla Marketing, Marketing for Dummies, and more. I’ve looked at their lists and when someone has to put items like stationary as separate category, then they are trying to make a long list, and not offer quality advice. Of course by saying that I obligate myself to say that your stationary/letterhead is important. It should match your business cards, your website and other printing. All of your printed material should look like it is from the same company. If you lay it on a table and some of it clashes, then I think you’ve discovered something that should be changed pretty quick. That is called Cross Collateral Uniformity. It is very important.
Let’s look at some basic concepts of offline advertising
Here are some of the most basic categories that you should consider:
1) Print –
a. Magazines
b. Flyers offering or pointing primarily to site
2) Audio/Visual – TV, Radio, Cable, Infomercial etc
3) Identity – Use existing media and ad pointing to site
STAY
Chapter 3
The Content of Your Website
Fun, interesting, usable,
Pictures, the information they are looking for,
You need some time to convince a visitor that they’re:
1) At the right place,
2) You can help them, and
3) They should let you help them
I ran a marketing campaign on my website, and was later examining the results. I could tell how many people came to visit, which pages they looked at and how long they stayed. I realized that I had not hit the right equation because they only looked at the first page and only stayed for less than 10 seconds. It almost seemed like they saw the page and before being able to understand what the site was about, they left. Although I got a lot of hits I did not benefit substantially from them or get many leads out of that campaign.
Keeping it up to date and current
Chapter 4
The Design of Your Website
Logo, clean, easy to navigate
Some interactivity or animation – not overdone
Standards such as staying within common buttons, terminology, header and side panel
Some exceptions are k1010.com – look at how awesome that is
I think a good term for those websites that are over crowded would be web-sty. Just like a pigs sty.
Have pages look consistent
Don’t overdo it – Like the old adage – KISS Keep it Simple Sweetie – well some of course have substituted the meaning of the last S with the word Stupid. Simple doesn’t mean boring and too plain. It means easy on the eye, understandable. Don’t think for a minute that simple is a contrast to classy, or that it would contradict having you website look attractive and professional. No simple means well put together, all parts fit well and are simply well organized. The background should be white or a simple color that doesn’t detract from the content. I’ve seen people use high color pictures or collages of pictures for the background, and you can hardly tell what the text says. I’ve seen other sites with this amazing graphic 3D animation in the background with moving parts, spinning wheels and so much action, that the load time was horrible, the overall effect was clutter and it suddenly looked like someone had opened a new piece of software and was playing with every option. Have you ever seen videos that a friend has shot just after he got the video camera? They zoom in and out quickly, have to use the fade in and out several times, have text pop up and every other option the camera has. If you compare that with a professional program, you notice that they use very few of the add-ons. They zoom in and out very methodically and have a game plan for each shot. That’s what we want to achieve with the website. Have a systematic approach to the design. If you do not have experience designing pages, then you need to get someone good that can create the product you’d like.
COME BACK
Chapter 5
The Benefits of Your Website
What are the benefits of your website? You need to have a list that is as long as possible. You need to be personally convinced that there is a benefit to them. As you compile this list it will become apparent that some benefits will appeal to different types of prospects. For example, if you sell to various age groups and education levels, making the website extremely simple to use might be a super benefit to some, but might be to simple or slow to navigate through for someone whose been using the internet for years. That’s OK. You can not have a website that appeals to every one. I’ve listed some examples of great websites, but each of them targets only a certain market segment and they know that. They are not trying to fool themselves or you. www.K1010.com is not targeting everyone in the world. My kids love to visit the website and I enjoy it from time to time. I would not got back there every day, and I don’t even have it book marked, but I think it is extremely well done and presented properly to their target.
So what are some benefits people might see in a website?
In our next chapter we’ll cover value which means if they are spending money or making a commitment of any kind that they need to know the product or service they receive is worth what they are paying.
Chapter 6
The Value of your website
Probably the number one benefit people would want from a website is value. INSERT WEBSTERS DEFINITION OF VALUE HERE
People do not want a great deal, because people are learning more and more that there is never a real deal. There’s always a catch. So don’t try to fool them with hype. If you do have a great offer that will entice them, do it in a real way. Don’t try to cover up if you have a little catch in the program. Use that to prove that you will be honest. When people see that you are willing to point out even one possible flaw or problem with the deal you’ve just gained their trust. Their Confidence. Their Respect. That’s how you get a customer that understands the reality of value.
The Close
Chapter 7
Bringing it into perspective: REFFERALS
A referral based sale is almost as easy to close as an existing customer. Sometimes it could be easier. They come in with the extreme readiness to buy. They have already heard some of the benefits, and have a predisposition that heavily favors you. They are very likely to become a Come Back customer themselves and recommend others.
How does a Company Generate Referrals on the Internet? Can they be tracked?
Profit
The basic idea of work and our lives is to profit. Everything we do should be geared towards making a profit. Buy low, sell high is sound stock market advice that you’ll here as an old cliché.
For us as entrepreneurs and business owners, it’s about actually getting paid. For a long time I thought is was about being in business. Having your doors open to the public and the lights on. I now know I wasted so much time being ‘in business’ rather than making a profit. I was too anxious to keep my clients coming back, that I would under-price my services. I would always tell my self that the profit would come on the next project, or that if they would order a lot, then I would make more money. Of course more of not much, still is not much. SO not so much later I found myself having no more money than when I started. That’s pretty silly we’d all agree, however too often we live that way without realizing it.
It’s about making a profit consistently. Not just once in a while. It’s about finding a method. I’ve heard it referred to as finding your black box. Someone spent time teaching me this simple process. He drew a little box and told me this: “Find a method, system, company or structure of any kind. You put money in on one end and more than you put in comes out the other. That’s what business is about.” That sure makes more sense than just trying to stay in business. Marketing is one of the best ways to insure that there will be a consistent flow of orders and customers to your black box. Marketing may not pay off immediately, however it will pay off. No matter what marketing you do, do it, and do a lot of it. It will be the main reason for your survival.
Credits – Websites listed as examples – K1010
