Good vs Great Web Marketing Strategy

Are you struggling with how to create a web marketing strategy? As a web designer with 12+ years experience, I come in contact with many business owners embarking on the journey of creating a web site for the first time, or businesses who have shifted in some way or another and need to redesign their existing web site. The best advice I recommend is to sit down, map out your goal, and take the four following major areas into consideration. Focus your attention on these four key marketing strategy elements, they will make the difference between a good web site and a great web site.

Establishing a Business Brand

Unique is the most important word for your business brand. Your brand becomes the unique identity for your business, and it’s all the thoughts, feelings and expectations that are associated with that identity as well. People think about brands in terms of the overall impression they have of them, including logos, colors and images; personal experiences of the product or service; and even news reports about the company. This total perception, living in the heart and mind of your customer, is your brand.

Brands need to be positioned, which means defining who they’re for and why they’re the best choice. For example , if we have an intended audience (families on a budget) and a differential (kid-friendly, stylish rooms); this is the beginning of brand building. In addition, you should articulate a brand promise that lays out what to expect from an experience of your brand.  

Examples of a brand

• Volvo promises its cars are the safest.
• Ben and Jerry’s brand promises innovative ice cream flavors and social responsibility.
• FedEx promises your packages will be delivered overnight.

I promise you can increase sales without selling out. What’s your brand promise? Unenlightened marketers skip this step entirely and doom themselves to commodity status. Do you want to be just another entry in the Chamber of Commerce directory? Of course not! You want to be the Starbucks of your profession.

Starbucks proved the power of branding by transforming a measly pennies-per-cup beverage into an experience its audience would pay scads of money for. They expanded the coffee playing field from simply aroma and flavor to include atmosphere, skilled service (not from wait staff, but “barristers”), fair trade and more benefits than my poor little truck stop coffee counter had ever heard of. How can you transform your own commodity into a brand? (Hint: differentiated value)

The irony here is that almost every business has a brand identity of some kind, just not necessarily the one they want. You've heard people refer to “the expensive place,” or “that weird guy who does something tax-related.” Then there's the reference “cars for old people,” or “the ones made in sweat shops.” You see people brand you on their own. The point is to brand yourself on purpose and put the information out there where your potential clients can see and hear your business brand identity. Work at making it as prominent in the minds of your audience as the other impressions they receive. If you don’t do it, someone else will do it for you, and you might not like the results.  

Know your audience Know who buys your product. What are their interests? What is precious to them, enough to prioritize above other purchases? Well-positioned brands have a clear audience, a unique selling position and make a compelling promise.  

Not sure you have what it takes to be a brand? Visit my website and click to leave a voice message and Lynn K. Thompson, the branding pro, will help you develop a branding package for your business. Whether it's a logo or a complete marketing package, she can help you put your personal stamp on your business brand.

Develop A Twelve Week Strategy

Create a twelve week strategy to take you through the second quarter of 2013. As we end the first quarter, many business owners should be evaluating their bottom line to see what they can improve on for the rest of the year. The biggest challenge increase sales. Don’t stop by just adding a dollar value, make sure you add a goal with a number to help you know you have accomplished the goal. A great example, “I will increase customer base by 20%”.


Begin by thinking of new and different ways to attract customers. Use this as an opportunity to build on what’s already working. If you have a product or service that’s successful, create an add-on to keep your customer engaged, and interested in your service. For example, if you successfully provide group travel, think about offering group trips to travelers who frequently travel. Building add-ons also help to attract new and similar customers.

Understand the Sales Process

If you analyze the steps a customer goes through in order to make a decision to purchase, break down the steps and focus on improving them, you will become better at the sales process. Break down the steps and work through them every 12 weeks. You will absolutely improve.

How To Attract Customers

Many business owners only deploy a handful of ways to attract customers. Make a list of your products and services. Once the list is created, sit for an hour and make a list of ways to attract customers. Revise and rework the list every 12 weeks. For example you are a travel agent, what kind of travel group subsets can you attract? Can you provide travel for skiers,  golf tours, ministry groups?

Capture Your Best Buyers

Build a special program for your best buyers. Work on them regularly. If you focus on your best buyers your business will grow rapidly. Let’s face it we all know and love our best buyers, our favorite customers. Can you imagine what it would be like to have a list of favorites?
Create a profile of what your best buyer looks like. Use traits like, industry, business type, look at where you would find similar buyers. Focusing on attracting and retaining the best buyers will help to lower your marketing cost.
Looking for a way to attract new customers, need help creating a plan? Call me for a free consultation 678-460-7781, or click here to send me a message. I love to help small business owners become more successful. Know someone who needs to read this information, what not share the knowledge by clicking on the links below?

Do What You Love

Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting with two women who are starting a new publishing company. Excited about the meeting with them for weeks, and I had no idea just how much sitting and meeting with them would enrich my life.

In conversation, they shared the evolved circumstance of how they became partners in business. Longtime friends, brought together initially by their children, Pattie had lost a job and struggled to find something she could do without a long commute into the city. Jackie’s husband discovered the business concept through a happen chance meeting. Jackie brought the idea to a group of friends, they contemplated, they prayed. Out of the group two people responded, Jackie, and Pattie, a new company was born.

The constant stream I want to enlighten you with throughout this story is partnership. The idea was shard with them, and together they share the birth of a new business. For anyone who is a parent, do you remember the birth of a child? The excitement, the shared love, the care that strengthens the union, the partnership. I could actually feel the love, partnership, and sisterhood the two have developed not only in business, but friends as well.

According to the dictionary partnership is a relationship resembling a legal partnership and usually involving close cooperation between parties having specified and joint rights and responsibilities. Beyond that it requires trust, love, honesty, and revealing all of yourself, gifts and talents for the good of the business. It means looking out for another before yourself, and for the good of the team.

Are you struggling to create a marketing plan, handle your accounting, or launch a company website. Are your skills and talents best served doing something else? Several new books emerging have encouraged the theme do what you love, and leave the rest to someone else. Bishop T.D. Jakes, author of “Reposition Yourself” at a recent conference encourages partnership. Strategic partnerships free you to do what you love. Partnerships when in concert can be the best strategic move a business can make. Are you handling tasks best served by another business or an employee?

Action Step: Make a list of the tasks that you perform for your business. Rate them in order from one to ten, one being the task you like the most and moving down to ten the least favored task. Review how you can either outsource to another company. Make this day the day you join in partnership, share, and do what you love!

When Do You Sleep Martha Stewart?

Macy's newest commercial introduces Usher and the enterprising the Martha Stewart. Usher notes that it took him 2 months just to find the right bottle for his new fragrance. As they walk and talk the last screen shot reveals all the of the products developed which proudly wear the Martha Steward brand signature.
Usher exclaims "When do you sleep?"

Are you sleeping when it comes to producing new products and services for your company? In the last newsletter I encouraged business owners to come up with one idea to make someone declare "great gadget, great service"- and then go do it. People like Martha Stewart have what I like to call Intellectual Property and they are not afraid to use it. Someone invented the mattress, the pillow, pots and pans. Martha is showing they how to mass market. Okay, I know what you're thinking; well she's got the dough, the chutzpah, to make it work! Clearly her $638 million new worth is a financial place we all want to not only visit but also reside.
The question I put forth to you today, "What are doing with your intellectual property". Are you sleeping, when you should be in production of your next marketing blitz, product development or service improvement?

Action Assignment: Develop one idea, or product that will solve a problem. Make an outline it’s benefits and survey 5 current clients. Based on the feedback reveal it to the rest of your client base.

There Is No Secret!

Many people are always looking for some untold truth; why some people have abundance and prosperity in their life, while other just seem to get by from pay check to paycheck. I tell you there is no secret! Successful people live better because they work smarter. They seek out what they want and go for it. Is there a secret formula to getting what you want from life? The short answer is yes! Let’s explore the long answer.

But, before you get to the long answer you have to ask these questions:
What do I really want from life?
What am I willing to do or change to get to that place?
What action will it take to get there?

What do you want? Is it a better job? Better social circle.? Own a business? More business? It takes true honesty to know what you really want. They never move past their wants. In Spencer Johnson's story “Who Moved My Cheese”, it illustrates four mice when faced with challenges, instead of just having cheese show up, they’re forced to fend for themselves. The real secret is someone is stopping your success. You just knew it all along! Did you know that someone is YOU!

What does success look like? It’s beautiful, it’s rich , enticing and simply marvelous. But pull the face off of it and it you see a long road of trial and error, disbelief and disappointment, some failures. There’s bumps and valleys in every journey. You learn through the experiences, you change, you grow.You succeed.

The question: Is there a secret formula to getting what you want from life? The long answer yes.. The formula is your personal answer to the above questions. What will YOU do to achieve it. Success takes exploration, a decision, a commitment, and action. If there is a secret… you hold the key to unlocking it in your hand. You see Vince Lombardi said it best “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.”

If you want your business to grow..if you want success.. you have to do something different than you've done in the past. I want to encourage you to reach, get uncomfortable...You can't grow unless you are uncomfortable. Write a book. Start a radio show. Create a podcast. Start where you can. Can't set up a website; set up a webpage.You are so much bigger than you are allowing yourself to be.

Give us a call or click here to request a free 15 minute consultation. It's our pleasure to help you look professional, attract more business, retain more clients and start generating more revenue with your web site.