It has been widely reported in the media about the growth in expenditure on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) worldwide during the recession of 2008 – 2009 yet this growth has been against a backdrop of falling advertising spending for traditional media such as newspapers and television. Why?
SEO of a website leads to more visibility in the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. In other words a well optimised site will benefit from higher rankings when users search using relevant key terms.
Users are searching for over 300 million search queries per day using Google alone. Many of these searches (I’ve heard it estimated at 40% of all searches) are for products and services that someone wants to purchase. The truth is that most people only look at the organic search results (these come from having a high natural ranking through good SEO) on pages one, sometimes two and occasionally three together with paid search results from Pay Per Click (PPC). Have a look at picture which shows where people click with the red being the most click areas – highlights the importance of being near the top!
The challenge is to therefore try and get on to the first page for all the major search queries that your customers might search using and stay there bearing in mind there may well be thousands of other businesses doing the same thing. The investment is well worth it with over 1.5 billion users worldwide and 50% of them searching the web using a search engine every day!
Google, Yahoo and MSN account for 90%+ of all searches made with Google taking the lions share. Our own research and experience has highlighted the following important facts:
So what does this mean to you?
Your business must get towards the top of search engines for as many relevant terms as possible not only in order to grow your business but also now to survive as competition becomes fiercer.
How can you do this?
Search Engine Optimisation encompasses two key factors:
There are a lot of criteria that determine your ranking especially with Google. The main goal of SEO is to positively influence search engine’s relevance algorithm. The algorithms used change frequently as search engines strive to make sure users get the most relevant search results. Currently, some of the key determinants include keyword relevance included in title tags and text body as well as quality and quantity of inbound links.
Staying on top of what is required is a difficult and time consuming business largely due to the complexity of what is required together with the changing nature of search engines and all the competitors vying for higher spot around you.
A strategy to improve your ranking in the major search engines would include:
The strategy needs constant monitoring and analysis to monitor the effect of work done.
T & C Addison
Copyright 2009
In this presentation we’ll look at a common problem facing most small & medium sized businesses – competition and how to differentiate your business by focusing on a profitable niche.
Tim Addison will identify just why most business lose out to competitors together with the three ways you can grow your business – guaranteed! You will end up with ideas on choosing your niche and how to ‘competitor proof’ your business – fast.
These videos have been put together to answer on of our subscribers questions.
In the is presentation Tim Addison shows you how to prove to potential customers you can do a great job if they choose to buy from you. With scepticism rife with UK consumers not trusting businesses Tim will help you unlock an easy but incredibly effective way to gain your potential customers trust and turn them into profitable customers!
Part 1 Of 3
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGNI4dP1kMc
Part 2 Of 3
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCUbfWy_0lQ
Part 1 Of 3
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbSxtcLGbDk
These videos have been put together to answer on of our subscribers questions.
In this presentation Tim Addison looks at a common problem facing most small & medium sized businesses – competition and how to differentiate your business by focusing on a profitable niche.
Tim will identify just why most business lose out to competitors together with the three ways you can grow your business – guaranteed! You will end up with ideas on choosing your niche and how to ‘competitor proof’ your business – fast.
Part 1 Of 3
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS-gCjRa6as
Part 2 Of 3
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2juB27xwz0
Part 3 Of 3
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVVzDwU4HIk
In the is presentation we’ll show you how to prove to potential customers you can do a great job if they choose to buy from you. With scepticism rife with UK consumers not trusting businesses Tim Addison will help you unlock an easy but incredibly effective way to gain your potential customers trust and turn them into profitable customers!
How to transform “Thanks but I’m just looking” into “I’ll have that one please”.
Is there anything more painful for a business owner than seeing a shopper walk in the door and walk out empty-handed? The sale goes up in smoke as does the potential for turning that shopper into a repeat customer and maximising their lifetime value. In effect you’ve missed an open goal!
Every sale counts – or at least it should. You don’t have customers flooding your phone lines or swarming your showroom, so you have to make the most of those who do turn up. If you have 100 inquiries and close only 1 of those into a sale, your conversion rate and your bottom line will probably be poor (unless of course your selling very high value goods).
It’s not just from the lost sales alone. You invest time, energy and money into promoting your business with advertisement, flyers, direct mail, referral programmes, public relations etc. The fewer shoppers you convert into buyers, the higher your cost per customer acquisition.
The first step in increasing sales is to calculate your actual conversion rate. For a brick-and-mortar business, this is a relatively simple matter of comparing the number of callers or store visitors to the number of actual sales. For an internet-based business, web analytics software does the trick.
The optimal conversion rate will vary with the business. It will be higher if you’re selling shoes than if you’re selling cars, for example. But knowing the ratio is important because many businesses vastly overestimate the figure.
Seeing the actual numbers usually alerts the business to focus on improving sales techniques. It also helps you measure the success of any changes you make.
Once you’ve determined your conversion rate, you’re ready to tackle the challenge of improving it. These basic strategies can help you close more sales.
1. Communicate your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – Figure out what makes you different from the competition and deliver that message loud and clear to all prospects. For example, a training business client had an amazingly successful ‘Job Search’ package which had a 93% success rate but they didn’t tell students until after they’d started training! Telling them before they’d committed improved conversion from 0.7% to 2.5%.
2. Identify bottlenecks in your sales process – Analyse the steps required to get customers to buy from you and determine your weak spots. If you’re a plumber for instance, to make a sale, you need to schedule an appointment, show photos of your work, take measurements, propose a design, price the job, provide references and so on. So, do you need new photos for your portfolio? Does your proposal package need a clean up? Are you failing to make follow-up phone calls? If you fix these types flaws sales will most likely follow.
3. Use the telephone for telephone inquiries correctly – Never let a caller get away with simply asking for price information. Train your staff to say, “Thank you for your call. So that I can be of the most help to you, can I ask you a couple of questions?” This opens the door to engaging the customer. This will allow you to add value to your business by giving customer advice and service as well as engaging with prospects and building trust.
4. Ban your staff saying “Can I help you?” – Why? Because generally the customer will answer “No thanks, I’m just looking” and end the conversation. Instead, instruct salespeople to ask, “Hi, have you been in our store before?” If they say no, the answer should be “It would be my pleasure to show you around”. If they say yes, the response should be, “Welcome back, let me show you a couple of new things we just got in.” That way, you don’t give them an opportunity to say they want to be left alone.
5. Rewrite your sales script. A lot of what goes wrong in selling can be traced to communicating the wrong message. Don’t be negative when talking to prospects or customers.
6. Adjust your sales pitch to the customer. It sounds basic, but most people don’t do it. It is vital to frequently train and monitor your staff so they are confident and competent to do this. Train your sales team to ask questions to flesh out the customer’s needs and to cater to different buying styles. Using role playing situations with real life examples helps everyone learn.
Remember, marketing can help make the phone ring or bring people in the door, but you can’t win the war unless you convert a high percentage of your prospects into paying customers.
Give all your front line staff the right tools, and you’ll have a lot fewer shoppers getting away and a much more profitable business – fast!
All the best,
Tim & Chris
Are You A Robot Or Unique?
Is it true that you are unique? Of course, we all are. We all have looks, traits and characteristics that are unique to us.
So you agree that you are unique? Well picture this.
Let’s say that you weren’t unique. That you looked, spoke and acted like everyone else and everyone else was exactly like you. You were a robot.
Picture yourself standing in a room with 50 other robots.
Then a human enters the room. This human was told before entering the room that they had to select 1 of the robots based on their answer to a question.
You and all of the robots were asked the same question:
“What makes you unique?”
Now if you acted, thought and said the same things as the other 49 robots, wouldn’t you agree that you will all have the same answer? Yes.
Now this makes it difficult for the human to select someone, doesn’t it?
Okay here’s the point.
A high percentage of businesses are like robots – And so too are the customers.
Let us explain.
The majority of businesses all say the same things and make the same claims. They are like an army of robots.
Pick up a Yellow Pages or your local paper – all of the adverts are very similar (not necessarily in style, but in the messages they convey).
Very few businesses stand out from the crowd and appear unique. It is not enough for a business to simply say that they offer great customer service, or stock the leading products.
Every business makes these claims – and in fact they should be a given anyway. If you are in business it goes without saying you have great customer service, have qualified and professional staff, etc, etc…
So most businesses are in affect like robots.
Customers are also like robots. Human nature is such that many of us all have the same basic emotions, needs, wants and desires. Robots need to be programmed and it is your ethical responsibility as a business owner to take the customer by the hand and lead them to your business – because what you offer is so much better than your competitors.
It is up to you to set your business aside from your competitors (robots) and compellingly show the customer why your business is unique and why they should do business with you.
You need to stand out from the crowd of robots.
So how can you achieve this?
The best way is to develop a short statement that conveys why your business is unique.
This is known as a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). You may or may not have heard of this term before.
Now the word USP is well overused these days, to the point where a lot of business owners unfortunately ignore it.
But having a great USP and communicating it is an extremely powerful thing.
Basically, your USP is a distinct, compelling difference that separates you from all of your competitors and answers the question, “Why should I do business with you rather than your competitors – or rather than not doing business with anyone?”
Here’s a breakdown of what a Unique Selling Proposition is:
It’s a unique claim or promise of benefits about your product or service…
… that’s distinctly different from your competitors, and …
… is so strong and attractive that it motivates them to do business with you rather than all the other alternatives available.
Let’s take two common examples of companies with great USP’s:
“When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.”
FedEx
FedEx grew into the international, multibillion pound giant it is today because of both its business design and a simple USP that it hammered over and over again in all its initial marketing.
Anyone can readily recognise that this USP promises the benefit of overnight delivery for customers. But the real craft in this USP is the fact that it subliminally offers real credibility for the promise they make through the words, ‘positively, absolutely.’
Those two words convey that FedEx means what it says – it means business – you will get your package delivered tomorrow.
Now look at Dominos Pizza. Dominos became a hugely successful pizza franchise in a very competitive market. How? By having a simple business model along with a killer USP, this helped to make the company stand out from the crowd.
“Hot, fresh pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed.”
Dominos
Dominos knew that if they followed this USP they would clean up. The majority of pizza delivery firms at the time delivered cold, soggy pizza LATE.
Dominos slowly went national by sticking to their word. If you didn’t get your hot pizza on time, you didn’t pay! The company organised itself for fast delivery.
They didn’t say great tasting pizza, or fresh ingredients – that should be a prerequisite – they promised fast, reliable delivery of a hot pizza – guaranteed. Brilliant!
Your USP must articulate loud and clear to everyone who sees or hears it whatever it is that your product or service offers and how it stands apart from the competition.
Below is a list of characteristics that make up a winning USP:
1. It boldly conveys the promise of big benefits for the customer.
2. It claims you are unique and different from the competition.
3. It doesn’t try to appeal to everyone – keep it focused.
4. It addresses the important concerns that the customers have.
5. It is short and simple, concise, memorable and easy to articulate.
6. It grabs attention – it’s interesting or exciting.
7. It is believable and credible – it makes no outrageous claims.
8. It is persuasive and compelling – it makes the customer want to take action.
9. It must be economically feasible for your business to support and live up to.
Until next time,
Tim & Chris
How Your Current Customers Can Help You Develop Your Business In More Ways Than You Can Imagine
Customers are powerful creatures.
They have the potential to make your business and also break it.
Is being a customer just about buying from you? Believe it or not this is only part of the story if you want to unlock some of the true potential of you customers.
How can the following be achieved?
# Create a more loyal customer
# Get your customer to generate you referrals
# Increase the life time value of your customer
# Help you improve and develop your products/services
# Generate potential customers who can better visualise your products/services in their life
# Help your business increase its media exposure
# Give your business extra credibility especially as they’re unbiased
# Increase your marketing collateral
Simple – use case studies!
So what is a case study?
Simply, I’m not talking about a dry academic or scientific document. They are essentially product or service success stories.
Case studies tell a happy tale that goes something like this:
ACT ONE. Customer A has a problem. He looks for a solution …
ACT TWO. Customer A is introduced to a new product by Company B. Hopeful, but cautious, he decides to give it a try.
ACT THREE. Happy ending! The product from Company B works like a charm. Customer A is delighted. It solves all his problems. He raves about it.
What do they look like?
Case studies are usually a page or two in length (although some are longer), and published online, or in print or as an Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format), or any combination of all three.
You’ll find case studies featured on websites, handed out by salespeople, incorporated into press releases, used in ads in fact, just about everywhere as marketing collateral.
In this type of project where copy is king and design plays an important, but supporting role.
Case studies are astonishingly versatile. You can use them in just about any sales, marketing or public relations communication or campaign. You can even created a successful print advertisement based on a case study.
How can we use a case study?
1. Use it in a press release. A case study can quickly be abridged and reformatted into a press release. Be sure to note in the release that a more detailed, expanded case study version is available. Editors might pick it up.
2. Mail or email it to prospects and customers. This is a terrific way to keep in touch, raise awareness about a new product or service, and even convert prospects into customers.
3. Give it to salespeople. Salespeople love case studies. They use them in presentations, to illustrate key points and as testimonials. A case study is often more convincing than a brochure.
4. Post it on your web site. Want to improve traffic to your site? Adding new, valuable content is a proven strategy. A case study certainly qualifies.
5. Use it as a story in your newsletter or e-zine. Success stories based on real-world applications get the highest readership in company newsletters and e-zines.
6. As a speaking topic. When an executive needs to give a talk at a meeting or conference, a case study makes an excellent presentation. The content can easily be converted into PowerPoint slides. The printed case study itself can be used as a handout.
7. In lead-generation programs. A case study makes a terrific free giveaway in an ad, email, direct mailer and on a website.
8. For testimonials. Testimonials help make benefits believable. The quotes gleaned from happy customers for the case study can also be used with permission, of course in ads, brochures, websites and more.
9. As a trade show handout. Case studies are a great way to break through the clutter of flyers and brochures that permeate trade shows.
As you can see, a case study is a valuable asset to any marketing toolkit. Go and talk to your customers today and get them involved in a case study. Remember the benefits you can gain.
Until next time
Tim & Chris
