Making the Most of your Marketing Budget

If you’re a small business or a start-up then you’re likely to have a very limited marketing budget. As such, any success you have in this area may well reside in your ability to develop a creative marketing strategy that makes the best possible use of your resources. This involves identifying your core strengths, understanding the importance of customer relations and knowing when to outsource and when to do things in-house. Here are some key things to think about when you’re planning your marketing activities for the next year:

Trade Shows: It’s important to keep networking in order to build new business contacts, and one of the most efficient ways to do this is to attend trade shows. At these events you will be able to meet large amounts of potential customers in one single place, as well as finding out what your competitors are up to. But in order to make the best use of your budget, you have to do your research thoroughly first: look at which shows have the best attendance, who will be attending them and make sure they are definitely relevant to your particular niche.

Online Marketing: One of the best things about taking the time to develop a really well thought-out online marketing strategy is that many of the avenues available t you here are completely free. Twitter and LinkedIn, for example, are great ways to extend your network or reach out to new customers. Think of them as just another weapon in your marketing arsenal – a chance to communicate with your audience on a more informal basis. You might also want to consider thinking about SEO, online advertising and blogging.

Email Marketing: As an extension to the above, it’s worth spending time on your email marketing. Again, it’s about working out a strategy rather than any large outlay which is great for those with a small budget. The most important thing to bear in mind when sending out marketing emails to those on your mailing list is that they should be targeted to their needs. To this end, you need to break your clients down into separate categories so they aren’t being bombarded with emails that have no interest for them.

Know Your Weaknesses: Another aspect of cost-savvy marketing is understanding when a certain amount of outlay is appropriate in order to get the best results. In short: outsourcing where necessary may save you money in the long-term. For example, it’s well worth paying a professional web design company to put together a really well-functioning website to begin with. Your website is one of the most important marketing tools at your disposal so it’s something that shouldn’t be rushed.
Measure Results: Lastly, in order to make sure you are spending your marketing budget wisely you need to make sure that every campaign you put in place can be tested for results. For example, with your email marketing, keep track of the responses you get so you can begin to build a picture of what works best and for which kinds of customers.

5 Essential Tools Your Business Needs To Boost Your Online Presence

Let’s face it, if you are still not marketing your business online than you are not reaching at least 80% of your total potential customers. With the internet evolving every day and most people having internet access, you cannot afford not to market your business online. By building a good online presence and building your brand, you can reach millions of customers from all parts of the world! It’s time to get educated! Read on…


You absolutely need a website!
It all starts with your own company website. You can easily register a domain name for your website and preferably use your company name as the domain name. Showcase your company brands and services offered on your site. Give more details and information about your company and make sure your contact details are on your site for potential customers to be able to reach you.
Your website will enable you to even sell your products online. Just add a shopping cart and online payment processer on your site and you are good to go. Your website can make sales for you 24 hours a day, while you sleep!

Once your website is up and running, it is important to update it regularly. You want to encourage your website visitors to be repeat visitors and to do this you need to always have new content on your website. Whether you update your site with your latest products, latest company news, products specials, related articles, anything! Just make sure you always have fresh new content on your site to make people come back for more. You want to use your site to build a loyal reader base that will later convert into customers.

Add a Blog to your site!
A blog is a great way to add fresh content your site. You can add just about any content in a blog, preferably articles relating to your company and products. The great thing about having a blog is that it allows reader engagement and allows your readers to comment on your blog posts. This interaction will help build a relationship with your customers and increase repeat visitors.
Not only will this be good for returning customers but this will help you get new customers. The more your online presence improves, the more likely your website will start appearing in search engine results such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Just make sure your blog is easily located on your website so that your readers know where to access it. Similar to your website, make sure you add fresh new blog posts on a regular basis to your blog so there is always new content for your repeat customers.

Add Social Media to your site
Make sure that you add links to social media accounts of your company on your website. Yes, you have to create social media accounts. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and even Instagram. They all work in building your brand online. Create these accounts using your brand or company name so they can easily be found on these sites.

For Facebook, you will have to create a Facebook page with the same name as your company. The content on here will be similar to a blog and very simple to run. Social media is powerful as it allows people to share posts and content. This creates the possibility of information about your company going viral. Your company will be reached by more users on these platforms.

More importantly you will be reaching potential customers who are using mobile devices. As technology is evolving, people are becoming more comfortable in using their mobile devices in buying products online. By aligning your business with social media you are tapping into those customers that do not use computers to access the internet. This places you 10 steps ahead from your competitors.

Go Viral with YouTube
Like social media, YouTube has also become very social. YouTube videos get shared everywhere! From blogs, tweets and Facebook even on instant messengers. Did you know that YouTube has over 1 billion users? How many customers do you think you can reach on YouTube…Thousands!
Make sure you create a YouTube channel with your company name and upload videos on a regular basis. Upload cool videos that people will like and share. Even YouTube videos end up in search engine results. This will boost your online presence.

Email Marketing
Email marketing on its own has been a successful way of converting leads into customers. There is no reason why you cannot take advantage of this. By adding an email submit form on your website, you can easily build a database of potential customers who are interested in your service or products. You can send them regular newsletter about your latest products, special and useful information. Just make sure that you do not spam them.
Building an online presence may seem like a difficult task for any small business but by implementing these 5 tools, you will be known to the world sooner than you ever imagined!

How To Improve Your Online Customer Service

Good customer service isn’t restricted to face-to-face interaction: these days it is important to ensure that your online customer service is just as professional. After all, your website is your virtual shop window so you want any customers to go away feeling they have been treated well – just as you would if they visited your premises in person.

There are many different areas you can work on to ensure this is the case, some of which are as follows:

Allow For Self-Service: You don’t need to patronise your clients: yes, you need to make the process of using your website as simple as possible for those who are less confident online; but just as you find self-service check-outs in most supermarkets today, you also need to offer the option of online self-service. Make sure you have a comprehensive FAQ page to enable users to find the answers to common questions so they don’t necessarily have to contact your customer service team about every query. You should monitor and update this regularly to keep up with changing demands.

Clear Contact Info: You should always make it as easy as possible for your customers to contact you: failure to do so engenders mistrust and they will very likely go elsewhere to buy what they’re looking for. The best sites will offer multiple contact options so you should too: give telephone numbers, email addresses, instant chat options and so on. Include several links to all of these to show demonstrate transparency. Making your contact details easy and accessible will show that you are serious about providing excellent customer service.

Encourage Feedback: In addition to providing contact details, it’s also important that you allow customers to leave feedback on your website. This will show that you have nothing to hide. You can do this however you like: via a dedicated ‘feedback’ link, specific product reviews or through allowing visitors to comment on your blog posts. You should then try to engage personally with your customers by responding to these comments.

Deal With Complaints: Every company, however good it is, will now and then have to deal with customer complaints. It’s simply a fact of life in the business world. What is important is how you respond to and deal with these complaints. The most important thing is to act quickly: if someone has posted a negative comment on your website, respond publicly and always apologise for any inconvenience they may have had. If you’re at fault then don’t argue the point – just admit to it and offer recompense. An example would be if a product is damaged in transit and arrives broken: don’t quibble, just send them out another one and even offer a discount if they have been very inconvenienced.

Common Web Design Mistakes And How To Deal With Them

If you’re setting up a business for the first time you will know that there is a huge amount to think about. Because of this, you may not be giving the design of your website the attention it deserves. There are lots of mistakes that many new companies make with their website and these can turn out to be very costly. After all, your website is your online calling card: it’s what you use to present your brand to the world.

To help you find out whether you have made any of these mistakes, here are some of the most common ones and how to deal with them:

Too Much Clutter: If you have an awful lot of information to convey then take care how you do it. The content on your website should be as simple as possible for the visitor to take in. One important rule is this: never cram too much onto your home page. This is the first thing most visitors will see, so it needs to convey the essence of what you do as quickly as possible. Don’t overload it with text and images going into detail about all your products and services. All of this should be in separate pages that are easy and intuitive to navigate.

Too Much Text: This is really a continuation of the above point: when it comes to text, remember that less is more.  Try to say what needs to be said using as few words as possible (there is quite an art to this). And what text you do have should be broken up to make it easier to digest. You can do this by adding bullet points, sub-headings and placing it in columns.

Over-Use Of Videos And Music: A few well-put-together videos can work wonders for your marketing so you should never overlook them altogether. But – and this is a big but – you should avoid using them on page load. Many companies do this and it’s hard to see why. All it serves to do is slow down the load, annoy customers and probably cause them to navigate away from your site quickly. Instead, provide clear links to videos, either from your website or social media pages. It’s better to give people the choice to watch or listen to something rather than force it on them. (Look at the outcry there was when Apple decided to plonk the new U2 album directly onto all iTunes accounts without anyone asking them to.)

Pop-Up Windows: You may be tempted to use these to draw attention to a new product or get people to sign up for newsletters. All we can say is: don’t. It is annoying for visitors and will also give your website a bit of a ‘cheap’ feel. Pop-up windows have associations with spam and nobody likes spam!

How To Create An Online Customer Survey

With the wide range of free online survey software available today, you will have no trouble finding something to help you gauge the priorities or satisfaction levels of your target customers. But finding the software is the easy part: what matters is that you spend time designing it carefully in order to obtain the most accurate market research possible.

In order to do this there are several steps you can follow, for example:

Define Your Goals: Before your write the questionnaire itself it’s a good idea to do some preliminary research. Be clear about the kind of information you want from your survey: are you testing the market for possible new areas of product development, for example, or are you looking for a more general picture of how your company is perceived and what customers want? What will you be doing with this information once you have it? Once you know the answer to these questions you will find it easier to target your survey accordingly.

Finding Your Target Audience: One you know what you’re looking for, it’s time to identify the target audience for your survey. If you want to know how you have been performing over the past year, then you’ll probably want to contact existing customers. In this case, you can use your mailing list. If, on the other hand, you want to test the market for future development possibilities then you will have to broaden the scope a bit and find other ways of getting your survey out there. You will also need to know the age and demographic of your audience as this will determine how you word your questions.

Writing Questions: It’s important that the questions you use are straightforward, unambiguous and encourage concise answers. This is for two reasons: first you want them to be simple for people to answer so they are more likely to complete the survey; secondly, you want to make it easy to analyse afterwards. Bear in mind that you are looking to produce some usable data, not gather a series of carefully-written essays on your company’s strengths or failings. For this reason, questions should also be organised in a logical way; for example, you can group them around specific themes if there are a lot of them. Also, people prefer to answer questions about their own experiences so your survey should always be relatable if possible.

Simple Layout: It is not just the questions but the formatting of the survey itself that needs to be clear and simple. Most free online survey software will allow you to customise the look of the final product so you should make the most of this feature. Leave plenty of white space between each question so they don’t run into each other and don’t be tempted to use too many colours.

How To Increase Newsletter Subscriptions From Your Website

Publishing a regular newsletter is a great way to keep customers updated on the latest events at your company. It can include any new products, special offers or recent achievements. But more importantly, every time you get a new subscriber to your newsletters you have also gained a new contact. And getting contact details from website visitors is crucial for any business. It’s not enough just to get them to visit your site: you have to turn them into proper customers.

But how can you modify your website to help ensure you get these all-important subscriptions?

Use The Top Right-Hand Corner: In case you didn’t realise it, the top right-hand corner of the page is the prime position to place any kind of call to action. Visitors seem to be programmed to expect an option to be available there, and it’s the place to which the eye is naturally drawn. If you place it right next to the main menu it makes it even more accessible.

At The Bottom Of Posts: Having a blog section on your website is a great idea. For one thing, publishing well thought-out pieces on the sector in which you operate sets you up as an expert in your field. It helps visitors to your website to see you as trustworthy and that is sometimes half the battle. But it’s also an excellent way to get newsletter subscriptions – but you should always put this at the bottom of the post. Why? Think about it: if a person has been interested enough to read all the way down to the bottom of the post then you have grabbed their attention. They may well be hooked. What better time, then, to ask them to sign up for future news or posts from your company?

Pop-Up Notices: Some companies don’t like to use these but they can really be very effective if you don’t overdo it. And there are several ways in which they can be employed. Some websites like to use a pop-up notice when visitors go to leave their site. This has the element of surprise to it and allows you to make one last-ditch attempt to reel them in with something new and fresh, or a particularly tempting special offer if they sign up to your newsletter. Pop-up boxes for first-time visitors are also becoming increasingly popular. These can redirect them to website content prepared especially for beginners.

Header Bars: Finally, you should always be trying to make the best use of your header bar to increase newsletter subscriptions. After all, this is probably the most prominent section of your website and it can now be made to float down as the user navigates the site – meaning that it’s always visible. Always have a special ‘newsletter’ section on your header toolbar and, once the user has clicked on it, make sure the text on your sign-up page emphasises the benefits they will gain from subscribing.

Tips For Writing Effective Web Content

Writing content for your website is very different to writing for print. Ideally, your visitors will be on the look-out for the kinds of products and services you provide. Hopefully they will have been driven there through an effective SEO or online marketing strategy. The idea is to get them to make a quick decision.

To convert them to paying customers as soon as possible. Here are some tips to help you achieve this:

Get your priorities right: 
Tell your visitors the most important facts first, and tell them quickly. Don’t waste their time on lengthy sales spiels, preambles or market reports. Think about what they need to know. What makes your products different to everything else on the market? What kind of discount are you offering? Any additional information can be added later on. After all, buying decisions are usually made in a matter of seconds. First get them through the door. Then you can show them the room.

Don’t Be Obscure: 
Where many companies fall down with their web copy is trying to be too clever or creative. People don’t have time to puzzle out what you mean. Or they may find your obscurity off-putting. Keep your text as simple as possible. Even if you’re a person who’s fond of a clever analogy or likes a sub-text, your website is not the place to indulge this. If you want to use jokes to keep the tone light, make absolutely sure your target audience will get them right away.

Use Familiar Words: 
When it comes to writing website content, you also need to think about your SEO strategy. Put yourself into the mind of your customer base: what kinds of search terms are they most likely to enter into a search engine? If you sell discount shoes, for example, don’t talk about your ‘competitive pricing’. Use the kinds of words that they might automatically enter – think ‘low-cost’, ‘cheap’ or ‘discount’. It may not sound classy but ultimately it will lead more customers to your website. It’s only when you are going for the very high end of the market that you can afford to use more specialised terms.

Scan-Friendly Design:
Many people will tend to scan website content to get the gist of it. They may not have time to read every word. With that in mind, your text has to be set out in the right way. Make sure that the most important phrases – the things that are likely to clinch the sale – are in bold or appear in cross-headings throughout the text. This way the scanners will pick up on what you want them to know.