December 3, 2011 by admin
Creating or revising your business website can be a huge investment in time, money, and effort. You want to be sure you “get it right” and have a website that effectively markets your business. Most business people are amateurs at website writing, and do it so infrequently that there is little incentive to develop expertise. Let’s look at the ten common website mistakes that can strongly impact your potential business results. Here they are:
1. No website at all.
It has now evolved to the state that for most people, a business does not even exist (in their minds) without a website. A business website is now as important as having a business card and written business materials. In many ways, a website is more important because, for the majority of people, an Internet search is their first and primary research tool when looking for a product or service provider.
2. An outdated website.
This is a common problem for business people. They’ve evolved their business but have been so busy with the business that the website is out of date. In effect the website is busy selling “last year’s” services. Your new offerings are not on the website, and things you no longer sell or want to sell are prominently displayed.
3. You make it hard to contact you or to even find the contact information.
Most of us are unreasonably fearful of being contacted at inconvenient times, or being inundated with prospect contacts. As a result, we unwisely make it hard to contact us about business. What is the point of a business website if you make it difficult or impossible to contact you to do business with you?
4. The information is too skimpy.
Most websites are wasted efforts because they do not provide enough information to help prospects buy from you. In effect they “say nothing”. It’s like having a conversation with someone who is inexplicably secretive. Afterwards, you know nothing more than before you started the conversation. You are not inclined to continue the relationship. This works the same with website writing.
5. The website never describes your target market and the problem you solve for them.
Instead, you go on and on about yourself, attempting to impress with credentials, bluster and bombast. However, no one cares about your credentials until they identify as your target market and decide that you may be the one who can help them solve their problem.
6. You do not give enough detail on your services or products.
You leave prospects with questions, or confusion about what you do. They do not understand how your business works, what they get, the benefits or the features or your services. They’re left guessing about many aspects of your offerings.
7. You give them no way to sample your work or don’t showcase your expertise in a free download.
If you have a free download, it has little or no value. It’s a mistake to think that “holding out” on value will inspire a prospect to do business with you. It’s better to give a lot of value and leave them convinced they could get even more value by working with you. Don’t worry, they still need your services. They won’t get full value without you.
8. You don’t paint a picture of the prospect’s life once their problem is solved.
You need to clearly show the transformations that your services and products provide. These emotionalized “word pictures” are strong and effective sales tools. They bring the prospect forward into the fantasy of their life once their problem is solved.
9. Navigation is confusing.
It’s not clear how to move from page to page or how to access desired information. This will cause a prospect to quickly click off your site and look for other, easier ways to find what they are looking for.
10. There is no call to action.
You don’t tell the prospect what to do next – to call you, email you, or fill out a contact form. Without this direct suggestion, there is too much inertia for the prospect to overcome on their own. It is a subtle point but a critical point.
Make sure that your business is not making any of these top ten website writing mistakes. They are costing your business revenue and clients.
By: Suzi Elton
Tags: Amateurs, Business Card, Business Materials, Business People, Business Results, Business Website, Conversation With Someone, Hard Contact, Inconvenient Times, Internet Search, Offerings, Outdated Website, Prospects, Research Tool, Service Provider, Time Money, Website Mistakes
Permalink | Posted in Business | No Comments »
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November 21, 2011 by admin
Website design is overlooked by many people, especially the importance of simple decisions such as picking out fonts and colors when it comes to online business website. Making a few wrong choices in this overlooked area can lead to some serious problems for your website, both immediately and in the future. You’ll turn off your customers and prospects and you’ll fail to generate much interest in your site with poor website design.
You want to choose colors for your website that are easy on the eyes. That means no bright yellows, pinks or greens, neon or generally outlandish colors. You want crisp, clean colors and you want to have a lot of contrast between the color of your background and the color of your text and links. The easier things are to read, the better your website will appear to any visitors and the more success you’ll have with your online business development.
White backgrounds with black text always work well. Using other text colors might look OK on your monitor but remember, not everyone has a modern computer and monitor and the text may look blurry if not black on white.? Use some common sense and some good judgment and be sure to always be looking at the site yourself as you construct it.
Choosing your font is also important because the font is of course what your text is actually displayed in. You want to choose fonts that are very common because you want to ensure that everyone has the fonts on their computer. Arial, Times New Roman and Courier are popular fonts that are offered on most computers.
Additionally, you want to stick with basic fonts rather than very stylized fonts. Research has proven time and time again that the most readable fonts for long blocks of text are serif fonts. A serif font is simply a font such as Times New Roman which has little demarcations on the ends of the letters. Therefore you have to apply this logic towards your online business development and choose fonts which will be highly readable. This is opposed to sans serif fonts, such as Arial, which do not have these markings.
You also want to make sure you pick just a few fonts and you stick with those. You might have a headline font and a body text font and maybe a few variations for things such as subheads or links. But you don’t want to use dozens of fonts, which just adds confusion to the page. Another rule is that you don’t want to use different fonts on different pages — you want to send a consistent image across every page of your site.
When it comes to online business development many people bypass simple decisions on website fonts and colors that have a huge impact on their success. Consider these rules and make judgments based on solid information, as well as on common sense in terms of what you would like to see on someone else’s website.
If you would like more information about online business development, especially for newbies, you can download our new free ebook.
Download the free ebook?
By: Sharon Zolna
Tags: Bright Yellows, Business Development, Business Website Design, Common Sense, Easy On The Eyes, Fonts Online, Greens, Judgment, Logic, Modern Computer, Neon, Outlandish Colors, Pinks, Prospects, Serif Font, Serif Fonts, Text Colors, Text Fonts, Times New Roman, Wrong Choices
Permalink | Posted in Internet And Businesses Online | No Comments »
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November 11, 2011 by admin
You never can think of a business without a proper strategy and a business website. Same is the case when you plan your marketing via Social networking. While considering Social sites for marketing you must have an exact Social Media Strategy that fits best as per the site you have for your business.
Social Media Strategy is actually about the changes which are capable of a massive contribution towards the optimization of the concerned site to bring more traffic/users/leads/prospects. It is rather a modern skill which needs to be adapted to strengthen business. The following would provide you with tips for the better usability of the social sites to optimize your business website. The first step towards improving your business website is to provide it a better link ability. There are many sites that are regarded as static, in the sense that they are rarely updated. Here comes the role of Social sites which are being updated almost every fraction of second by its large user base. So, a word promoted with these sites can hit the high graph of traffic.
The three important requirements:
1st: In order to provide the website a better link ability it is better to add a blog to it. This is the first step towards making your website a popular one. One must ensure the easy tagging or bookmarking of the website as per the applications of the social sites. Adding quick buttons to the website may also help and adding suitable links to social sites like YouTube, Digg, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, blogger, MySpace, LinkedIn would also be of a great help.
2nd: It is essential to give good amount of importance to the content and it is also desirable to have the content in the form of pdf, video etc wherever possible. They would simply enable content travel. One need not spend lots of money for re-inventing the same concept! Social networking in 2010 has a great scope.
3rd: Moderation of sites are available free of cost as Ning and similar sites give the freedom of moderating a website with ease. The website which is Ajax enable simply improves the response time of the site! So using these free services to implement a strategy that promotes your site through social networking site is a good idea. There is a strategy called the associative media marketing which would combine the concept of social networking and social media marketing.
Social Media Strategy concentrates around user driven sites of good repute and related communities used to build reciprocal links to other sites & blogs. They really can create good volume traffic and a healthy ranking of search in search engines. Blame it on the competition that there is an immense need to improve the uniqueness of the business websites & blogs to get higher amounts of traffic. Maintaining a website with a proper Social networking promotion strategy in place would definitely do a magnificent job in promoting the business.
By: Magnus W. Haga
Tags: Business Website, Digg, Fraction, Graph, Linkedin, Lots Of Money, Marketing Social, Massive Contribution, Media Strategy, Moderation, Networking Marketing, Optimization, Proper Strategy, Prospects, Scope, Similar Sites, Social Marketing, Social Networking, Usability, Wordpress
Permalink | Posted in Internet And Businesses Online | No Comments »
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November 1, 2011 by admin
To those a bit new to the Internet world may consider this quite a daunting issue. The MLM and Network Marketing industry is already rather vast, but the Internet Marketing side of things can be just as overwhelming to some people at the very beginning.
One of the many obvious things that are needed is a website. But a lot tend to ask themselves, how many websites are needed to get the ball rolling?
This is a tough question.
The easy answer is: One.
You need a website to get started, a place where prospects as well as current associates can gather to get to know you, to learn more about business and marketing, product news etc.
You need at least something that your prospects to see you and find out more about you and what you have to offer or at least get more information.
Then….before you know it you have three or five or more websites. They just kind of multiply as your business grows. That being said, don’t sit and worry about this or plan it out or “get ready” for it. The best thing you can do is to get your first website up and running then get to work on the rest of your business, which consists primarily of generating traffic to your website and contacting your prospects.
You will find out after a while that a simple “splash page” to promote your e-book works well while you reserve your blog for more communication purposes rather than recruiting.
After your business grows, you may wish to have a membership-type site that is reserved for the actual members of your organization. This is where you would post training videos, product videos and promotion, private session announcements and other communications.
Then you may wish to have a product promotion website on which people can have your personal perspective about your company’s products.
There are definitely other uses for websites that many find necessary but these are the ones you will see most often in our industry.
As said previously, they just kind of just grow out of nowhere. The more you stimulate your creative mind, you will find more and more ways to add value to your leads and prospects and continue to entertain your audience. Sometimes, there are just too much information to be contained within just one website.
However, if you are just starting out – again, the main thing is you have at least one website that your audience can view to get more information.
By: Michaelangelo Flores
Tags: Business Marketing, Communication Purposes, Current Associates, E Book, Internet Marketing, Internet World, Marketing Industry, Marketing Product, Membership Type, Mlm Business, Mlm Marketing, Network Marketing, People, Personal Perspective, Private Session, Product News, Product Promotion, Promotion Website, Prospects, Session Announcements
Permalink | Posted in Home Based Business | No Comments »
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October 31, 2011 by admin
This will not be a discussion on how President Obama’s tax plan will affect “Joe the Plumber,” or for that matter me, “Mike the Networker.” Instead we will analyze how an unknown Senator masterfully transformed, against all odds, into the President of the United States. And more importantly, we will analyze this in the context of how you can use the same strategies to build your Network Marketing business.
Regardless of your political affiliation, two things are undeniable. First, President Obama faced and overcame what to many seemed like overwhelming challenges and obstacles. The second thing we must also admit was the fact that he ran a masterful campaign. There was plenty of trash talking and mud slinging during the campaign, but after it was all said and done even the stanches republicans had to admit that Obama never veered from his message. In the following 3 points we will draw a comparison on how we can use the same strategies to develop a hugely successful Network Marketing home business.
1) Create a compelling dream; It all started with a dream in one man’s mind. And although President Obama’s dream must have been a clear and compelling thought in his mind, his brilliance was in not only creating and nurturing his dream, but more importantly in sharing and spreading his dream to others. The world is attracted to inspiring leaders. Especially in times like these when the entire globe is in economic, social and political turmoil. People want leadership that offers hope and a better vision for the future. In your business, are you providing that leadership that inspires hope? Do prospects see you as an attractive personality they are willing to follow? The key to recruiting is being able to articulate the message that your business will lead to a better future for your prospects. Otherwise, why would anyone want to follow and duplicate your steps? Anyone can dramatically super-charge their sponsoring by honing in on and mastering the art of sharing a compelling future for others.
2) Focus; Probably the biggest asset throughout the Obama campaigne was his ability to stay on point. He created the theme of “Change” and rode it straight to the White House. Not once did he divert from it. As more and more opponents launched assaults and accusations, Obama was able to maintain his vision, and therefore maintain the vision of his campaign. That stability, that unwavering of focus proved to be a very attractive character in his efforts to reach his goal. People are drawn to stability. People are inspired by the general who stands in the middle of the battlefield, bombs going off all around him, yet the general marches on. Although some followers may be afraid to continue going on, sooner or later they are infused with courage and they too move forward. This was clearly indicated by the polls. The more darts and spears thrown at the campaign, and the more he deflected them and continued moving forward with his message, the move he inspired others to join him.
For those of us building a business, focus is of absolute prime importance. In today’s world with the Internet, mass media and all the other information hitting us daily, focus is a commodity you must fight to maintain. Like the general in the battlefield, we are constantly bombarded with distractions. And like the courageous general we need to maintain our focus and move forward. Nine out of ten times when someone fails in Network Marketing it is because they have lost their focus. Since Network Marketing is inherently built on duplication, when the leader loses focus, the team loses focus. Before long everything falls apart. One key thing to remember is that the problems you face while building a Network Marketing business are not unique. These are all recycled problems that everyone faces. The difference between the person who quits and the top earners in the company is focus. Top earners don’t let the bombs going off around them stop them. They find ways around obstacles. They continue moving forward and ultimately win.
3) Surround yourself with a winning team; Although President Obama had the two fore mentioned success principles working for him, he was smart enough to ensure his success by forming and surrounding himself with a core team of advisors who were able to compliment his skills and fill in the gaps he may have been deficient on. Fund raising, day-to-day tasks, campaign details, TV and radio marketing, travel and appearance scheduling and hundreds of other important details were handled by experts. This freed Obama to continue drilling his mantra of “change.”
A perfect example of this was seen after the third Presidential debate. During the third debate John McCain proudly proclaimed that he was not George Bush. Within hours, literately by the next morning, the Obama campaign had TV ads showing McCain in the debate saying “I’m not George Bush” but along with that they played back previously recorded interviews were McCain himself was saying he had voted with George Bush over 90% of the times. That was a masterful display of political warfare. The question is, was that Obama’s idea? Probably not. Most likely he has someone in his expert staff prepare and launch the ads. And although he didn’t actually create the ad itself, he did get credit for it. That is the power of surrounding yourself with the right team of experts.
In our Network Marketing business having access to and surrounding yourself with the right team is of utmost importance. Having access to experts, getting inspiration from leaders, learning the short cuts and the right strategies is indispensable to success. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Are you being taught by expert recruiters? Are you learning how to train others by expert trainers? Are you learning online marketing skills from people that are actually getting real results? Who do you associate with in your business who can provide good effective answers? Good questions to ask yourself. Association and expert advice can make or break your business.
These three strategies have shown their worth in running a winning campaign. A compelling dream that inspires you and others, a dogged determination to stay on focus and key associations has the power to concur unimaginable odds. Employ these in your business and you too can make history.
By: Mike Martinez
Tags: Analyze This, Attractive Personality, Better Future, Better Vision, Brilliance, First President, Honing, Network Marketing Business, Networker, Obama, Obstacles, Overwhelming Challenges, Plumber, Political Affiliation, Political Turmoil, President Of The United States, Prospects, Sha, Stanches, Successful Network Marketing
Permalink | Posted in Home Based Business | No Comments »
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October 11, 2011 by admin
To get the very most out of your small business web design or any type of business web design for that matter, you need to address three very important essentials.
The reality though, for many small business websites and blogs is that very few even come close to addressing just one of these essentials for good business web design and as a consequence many fall well short of providing any real benefit for the business they represent.
As a consequence this leaves the door wide open for businesses who understand these three essentials, to really take advantage and out compete their competition when it comes to being profitable and staying around for the long term.
Therefore the first essential for good small business web design is to be able to attract prospects. Many business websites have the ability to attract large volumes of traffic but very few of them have the ability attract traffic that is 100% relevant to what they selling and the reason why is this.
Very few small business websites have their keywords set up correctly. They often use keywords that are too broad, they use keywords that are irrelevant, they use the same set of keywords on every page and in some cases they don’t even use keywords at all. As a consequence all the good off site SEO they may be doing, which can send large volume of traffic to their site, can be wasted.
Therefore to increase the amount of prospects to your small business website your web design first needs to take into account good keyword research and good keyword usage throughout your site.
The next essential for good small business web design is to be able to stop your relevant traffic from clicking away once they land on your site. One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is they talk too much about themselves and their business. All prospects want to know about is what you can do for them to satisfy their needs and what the benefits are to them in either buying your products or using your services.
You, as a business owner, need to appeal to your customers needs and you need to do it in a manner that earns their trust and displays to them that you are credible and can follow through with your claims and promises. This is by far the biggest area where many small business web designs fall well short and consequently lose customers there and then.
The third essential to good small business web design has to do with the process of turning the prospect into a customer. This process begins with the second essential but won’t be completed unless you have one final essential ingredient, a “Call To Action”.
Now many websites do have a call to action but in many cases they are way too soft. They either infer that a certain action should be taken or they simple list a long list of features of their product or service and then expect the prospect to then just hit the buy button, fill in the contact form or pick up the phone to make an appointment.
Therefore to complete the process you need to tell your prospect exactly what you want them to do. It needs to be clear, it needs to be enticing and it needs to be credible.
So these are the three essentials to small business web design. You need to attract more prospects to your site, via the use of well researched keywords followed up with good off site SEO. You then need to be able to engage those prospects straight away, so they don’t click away by satisfying their needs and wants. Then finally you need to have a “Call To Action” that is enticing and appeals to what the prospect is looking for.
If you can integrate these three essentials into your small business web design you will be well on your way to having a profitable business site that adds value to your business and sends you customers like you’ve never seen before.
By: Michael Bowater
Tags: Address, Benefit, Blogs, Business Owners, Business Web Design, Business Website, Business Websites, Consequence, Good Business, Keyword Research, Keyword Usage, Leaves, Prospects, Reason, Relevant Traffic, Small Business Web, Small Business Web Design, Website Design
Permalink | Posted in Internet And Businesses Online | No Comments »
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September 26, 2011 by admin
Search engine optimization or SEO is very important for your home business opportunity websites.You can get the most out of your web pages with the help of SEO and it is the only means to get good website ranking in the search engines.
The traffic which arrives to your websites from the search engines are the most targeted ones because the users are actually looking for the information which is related to your products or services.
More Traffic
The higher ranking in search engines translates into more traffic to your websites. More visitors will definitely mean more business for your company and you will see your sales figures taking an upward turn.
Today the simplest and most effective long term strategy is to get information is through the search engines on the net. That should be at least one primary goal of your website to bring more prospects.
On top of the search engine: (Oh Yes!!!)
The search engines provide the list of websites which are relevant to the search. All the good ranking websites are placed on the first page and the best occupy the top slots. By getting higher rankings, your home business opportunity website receives a higher number of visitors.
In order to occupy the top spots in the search engine results, you will need to constantly optimize your website along with implementing various other online marketing methodologies. Please be reminded that it is not a one time job and you will need to be on it at all times. It won’t take much time for your ranking to go down and therefore you cannot afford to get complacent.
SEO gets you repeat visitors:
Search engine optimization will primarily depend upon getting your website organized. It starts from using the appropriate keywords optimally on the domain name and on the content.
You’ll need to clearly explain your home business opportunity with your content. Moreover, you will also need to keep refreshing the content and making your website search engine friendly. Usage of the proper Meta tags and search engine submissions are very important.
Some key points to also remember is submitting unique content that has value to your readers to places like Ezine Articles and other high quality ezine directories etc. Two main benefits are instant potential prospects interested in your article and getting back links. The more quality back links you have, the higher in the search engine rankings your site will achieve.
It is pretty much an ongoing procedure to ensure that your website rankings stay high. If you do not have the expertise or the time to do it yourself, you could definitely outsource the search engine optimization process to the professionals. You could look up the internet for the various packages available.
Search engine optimization aims at exclusive and niche markets:
Through SEO, your website welcomes the audience to whom your business products or services are exclusively meant for. Search engine optimization filters the sites containing undesirable and irrelevant information. Your website will get less irrelevant visitors.
This way, your website will exclusively cater to the needs of your niche market. This niche label makes your website popular by generating more serious and interested visitors. There are many analytical tools on the internet from where you can get the traffic statistics of your website.
These visitors will hopefully become your customers and bring higher revenues to your home business opportunity.
By: Darrell Lischka
Tags: Business Content, Business Search, Domain Name, Home Business Opportunity, Marketing, Methodologies, Opportunity Website, Prospects, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Results, Search Engines, Search Optimization, Seo, Slots, Taking An Upward Turn, Term Strategy, Time Job, Traffic, Web Pages, Website Search Engine
Permalink | Posted in Home Based Business | No Comments »
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September 22, 2011 by admin
Mostly because of the poor economy, it seems as though everyone is jumping on the internet to either help make ends meet or to obtain untold wealth. Unfortunately, there are a lot of scams online and too many people get sucked-up into the “Riches Without Work” scams that promise that with the flip of a switch, or a push of a button, you’ll receive scads of orders filling your pay pal account. Sorry… It just does not work that way. If you want to learn how to start a website business, then you need to stay as far away from the scam type sights as you can.
As the old saying goes, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” The very first thing you need to do to start a successful web business is to learn about the business and exactly how it works. You’ll need to learn some skills before you do anything. The good news is skills can be learned, just like driving a car or lacing your shoes. Everything looks daunting until you understand it…then it’s easy. So, before you waste your money on get rich quick scams, learn how the business really works. You can do this by learning, step-by-step, how to build your own website and then how to market your site to your prospects. The best way to learn this business, inside and out, is to team up with a mentor that can guide you through this maze called the internet. A personal mentor will cost you the farm so you don’t want to do that, unless you have lots of money saved up.
The best way to learn the business is to hook-up with a service that will teach you how to start a website business via the internet. A service will teach you how to build a website of your own, how to market your products and exactly how the web business works. In other words, you must build your skill sets first, then you’ll have the necessary know-how to be successful in this industry. Warning: Be careful of the insidious monster called information overload. That’s trying to do to many things at once…like promoting 3-4 businesses at once.
My advice is to find a internet mentor and then stick with him until you learn the basics of this tremendous industry.
By: Randall Craig Justice
Tags: Build Your Own Website, Business Works, Driving A Car, How To Build A Website, How To Build Your Own Website, How To Start A Website Business, Information Overload, Internet Personal, Lots Of Money, Many Things, Maze, Monster, Pay Pal Account, Personal Mentor, Poor Economy, Prospects, Scams, Shoes, Untold Wealth, Web Business
Permalink | Posted in Internet And Businesses Online | No Comments »
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September 20, 2011 by admin
There are only two things that can happen in running a business: it can either fail or succeed. Most business owners would aim for the latter. But achieving success does not always come easy. You need to consider a lot of things and make sure you are reaching out to the right people. You need to also carry out an effective marketing campaign that will let you communicate your message effectively.
If you desire to reach out to your customers in the most economical and easiest way, then business card printing is what you need. In today’s fast-paced world, the business cards remain an effective marketing tool. Whether you are a small business owner or a seasoned entrepreneur, the business card will help you communicate with your customers in the most effective way.
Unfortunately, a lot of business owners ignore the importance of the business card. They feel that the paper based card is no longer viable in today’s high-tech business world. Marketing can now be done in just a few clicks of the mouse, eliminating the need to meet personally with potential customers. They assume that the cards are just a contact card and nothing more. What they do not realize is that these cards can be more things to business.
They can be the appointment card, survey form, reminder card, and discount card to name a few. You can always add valuable information in the cards that help you encourage customers to hold on to your cards.
There are a lot of ways to make your cards an effective marketing tool and a silent salesman. Here are some of them:
1. Provide an irresistible offer. Add something that will encourage your customers to keep your card. Use the back side to present great benefits to customers and prospects. Make sure that your logo or tag line is included in your cards to help improve your branding. With an irresistible offer, you can be sure that your card is attractive to your customers.
2. Make sure that you point out your offers to your customers so they know what they can expect from you. People can simply take your card and do not look at your offerings. If you point them out to your customers, it would be easy for them to know the benefits and decide on availing of your promos.
3. Be sure to use colors that will create a huge impact to your prospective customers. The vibrant colors you use will make your cards attractive and compelling. In order to pick the best colors, you need to understand the demographic of your target audience. If you do this, you will be able to pick the best color that will represent you in front of your customers.
The business card is an important part of business. Every business needs a card. Attract your customers with your beautifully designed cards and you can be sure to achieve your goals effectively.
Follow these simple tips the next time you design and print your custom business cards and you can be sure to create a card that will give a powerful punch to your marketing campaign.
By: Janice Jenkins
Tags: Achieving Success, Appointment Card, Business Card Printing, Business Marketing, Business Owners, Business World, Card Survey, Creating Business Cards, Effective Marketing, Entrepreneur, Marketing Campaign, Marketing Tool, Prospects, Reminder Card, Running A Business, Silent Salesman, Small Business Owner, Survey Form, Tag Line, World Marketing
Permalink | Posted in Business | No Comments »
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September 11, 2011 by admin
Let’s start by asking a simple question, “do I need a website?” Absolutely, positively, yes! At the very least, you need to have a small business website so that customers, prospects, local businesses and organizations can quickly and easily find out more about you. A small business website should be a key component of your marketing strategy.
Think about small business marketing this way…
You might not see it as important, but to everyone around you, not having a website leaves a big ugly smudge on your credibility, professionalism and willingness to work with customers.
What if you didn’t own a telephone? It’s a rather outrageous idea, but in all seriousness, what if you didn’t have a phone or cell phone? How would that impact your small business marketing? Would your customers look at you differently? Would they think less of you for making their lives a nightmare — just to do business with you? You’re darn right they would! And all silliness aside, the same can be said about not having a small business website.
But, I’m doing just fine without; why do I need a website as part of my marketing strategy?
Your business has done well over the years without a website. You’re continuing to grow at a comfortable rate. Your customers are happy and you’re happy. Why should you invest in a website?
Sadly, you’re failing to see past today. The train has already left the station — and you’re being left behind! Internet usage continues to steam ahead, and people from all walks of life use the internet daily.
In fact, a recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that a staggering 73% of Americans are online. That’s over 147 million adults! And even more importantly, the study revealed that 60 million Americans routinely use the internet to research products and services before making a purchase. So quit asking yourself, “do I need a website for my business,” and get moving already!
Customers expect to find you online!
You may be comfortable without a website, but the opposite is rapidly becoming a reality for your customers. They’ve already adopted the web as a standard for conducting business with everyone and anyone. They expect you to have a small business website. And in most cases, you simply aren’t “real” to them if your business isn’t online. A website is a vital component of small business marketing and the longer you shrug off putting up a website, the harder you’re going to have to run — just to catch up!
Small business websites are proven stimulants for growth!
Respected media research firm AC Nielson recently reported: small businesses that effectively used the internet as part of their overall marketing strategy saw a stunning 51% jump in profits.
And a whopping 58% of businesses reported increased growth and expansion because of their small business website. Proving that in today’s information-based economy, the web is a potent tool.
Even if you don’t sell products directly from your website, you can’t afford to be left in the dark any longer. From kicking up new business and cutting costs, to reaching niche markets and branding your company’s image — a website can have an enormous and immediate impact on small business marketing.
By: Michael Borowiecki
Tags: 60 Million, Credibility, Internet Usage, Left Behind, Local Businesses, Marketing Strategy, Nightmare, Outrageous Idea, Pew Internet And American Life, Pew Internet And American Life Project, Professionalism, Prospects, Seriousness, Silliness, Small Business Marketing, Smudge, Steam, Walks Of Life, Why Do I Need A Website, Willingness
Permalink | Posted in Business | No Comments »
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