Part 2, achieving your goals

Automation is one of the biggest strengths of having an online presence. Whether it’s increasing sales, finding new customers or educating your existing client base, make your website and online marketing do all the heavy lifting for you. In step 1, we created good website goals. Follow these steps to achieve the goals you have set.

Step 3: Determine your marketing strategy

You will achieve the best results in your goal by achieving it from multiple directions at once. Some strategies which could help include:

Getting the right text

Writing good copy is important for all websites. Even if you are not a writer by trade, you can add relevant information to your website including service area, what you do, quality of work, qualifications/awards, testimonials, and good calls to action like “email us for a free quote” or “phone us now”.  Your You can do some of this work yourself in making sure the right text is in your website. I can help point you to some articles on writing good copy for websites. However, you could also invest some money in getting professional copywriting.

Getting the right people

This is a complicated field called “Search Engine Optimisation” and mainly comprises of two parts – targeting the correct information ‘on page’ (see above) and ‘off page’. Off page optimisation involves writing articles and blog posts which relate to your industry or service, and obtaining good links from related businesses or industry directories as an example. Get a qualified professional to do this for you. Get a referral from someone you trust, or contact some of their clients to get an unbiased view.

Hone your online offerings

Tailor your online offerings to ensure website visitors are helping to grow your business in the way YOU want it to. Analyse which products/services on your website:

• Get the most enquiries
• Have the most purchases
• Provide you the highest profit
• Are the most fun for you
• Fit your business growth plans

If you want to highlight a specific product range, emphasise it in your website! Don’t get much profit or enjoyment out of certain jobs? Remove all mention of them from your website. This makes sure your website is funnelling you the type of business you value the most. By updating your website offerings, you are allowing it to work hard so you can reap the highest rewards possible with the least amount of effort. Don’t limit this just to your website either, make sure you follow up in other mediums such as phonebook and newspaper advertising, trade show booths, brochures, project tender documents or business capability profiles.

Step 4: Followup and analysis

Give yourself a reasonable timeline to achieve these goals, e.g. within 12 months. Now divide that into 3 or 4 equal parts. This is the frequency you will be doing analysis of your growth. To measure how well your efforts are working, you need to be gathering statistics both online and offline.

One great way to do this is through a good online analytics program. Tools such as Google Analytics allow you to compare your website statistics to the same period last year, check how many people are viewing your website, how they have found you, which pages, times of day, or days of the week are most popular for your website. You can also set up conversion goals which will automatically track how many people have performed your desired action, e.g. submit an enquiry form, make a purchase, etc.

Search Engine Optimisation professionals will set up analytics tracking and goals for you, and will also provide you with written and/or verbal reports on a regular basis.

Don’t forget to use offline methods as well – ask all new enquiries where they found out about you. Check reports from your accounting software on product sales. Run customer satisfaction surveys. Make sure that you are saving statistics on all actions related to your goals.

Analysing your data will show you where you are achieving your goals, and where you need to make adjustments to your methods. You may find that you are getting lots of traffic from a keyword phrase, but that those visitors tend to lose interest in your website quickly. Change your strategies to emphasise the best performing methods, and scrap anything that isn’t working for you.

Conclusion

Now that you have perfected the strategy, you simply need to remember to reassess your goals and performance at regular intervals. If you are not an analytical person, delegate reporting and analysis responsibilities to your search engine optimisation provider, bookkeeper, or manager – someone who will enjoy the responsibility of creating reports to share with you.

Share your goals and successes with your entire team to keep everyone motivated, and celebrate together – your business is primed for growth!

 

Automation is one of the biggest strengths of having an online presence. Whether it’s increasing sales, finding new customers or educating your existing client base, make your website and online marketing do all the heavy lifting for you. Follow these steps to create website goals which will keep your business growing as quickly as possible.

Step 1: Website type and purpose

In order to get the best return on investment from your website, you first need to identify what type of site you have. A few types are described below:

Type A: Online portfolio / brochure

This type of website provides general information on your business, services and products offered. Its primary purpose is to educate website visitors and increase trust in your brand. Content of your website should include a visual portfolio of your service/product, with a detailed explanation.
Business type – Service based businesses
Customer source – Search engines, word of mouth, advertising. You may also personally refer new leads to the website to give them further information.
Desired interaction – Request for more information via phone call or contact forms.

Type B: Online store

This type of website exists to directly drive sales or specific product enquiries. Content will have a strong emphasis on the products available to your customers, including photos and detailed descriptions of each product offered online, and some general information about your business.
Business type – Product based businesses
Customer source – Search engines, advertising, referrals or word of mouth.
Desired interaction - Customers on these sites book and pay on your website, are directed to a separate booking/payment engine, or submit a request for a quote. Depending on your product and target market, customers may also wish to place an order over the phone.

Step 2: Define your goals

Step back, and look at your business as it exists right now. What is it that is holding you back? Where are you headed? These sorts of questions will help you to establish a business plan. This is a priceless document which will keep you define and meet your business goals.

Combine your business plan with your desired website goals to determine a list of ways your website can help you achieve these goals. This needs to be a very specific goal. Give yourself a goal which you think is a bit of a stretch, as it will help you keep focused on driving your business. For example:

• Increase online enquiries to an average of 10 per week
• Increase online sales to $100,000 per year
• Close 5 more deals each quarter
• Double website referrals to our members

Coming soon

In our next post, we will address how to achieve the goals you have set.

Even if your target market is not particularly facebook friendly, you can apply these tools and ideas to email marketing, website articles and day to day interactions.

Create an effective strategy:

1. Know your audience. Understand demographics of your customers, their likes and preferences, needs and desires. Gain knowledge about your followers through leading questions. Use this to target discussions, marketing and other customer interactions more effectively.
2. Increase your audience. Increase your marketing pool through traditional marketing methods. Add a facebook tag to your website, business cards, restaurant menus or brochures, and on print advertisements.
3. Encourage interaction. Any post followers make on your page will also show up on their network, telling all of their friends about their experience with you.
4. Mix it up. Use different methods at the same time. Intersperse responses, competitions and announcements. Different marketing methods will appeal to different people.
5. Keep it steady. Use Facebook regularly, even if it’s only half an hour once or twice a week. A constant stream of reminders will keep you on their mind better than a few big bursts.
6. Mod it up! Create a custom landing page and profile picture with calls to actions which will drive “likes” into sales.
7. Don’t over-sell. Your primary focus should be on creating and maintaining an active community of fans discussing ideas related to your product or service. This encourages sharing with their networks. Content which is too sales-heavy will drive people away.

 What to say, what to do?

8. Learn by example. Find other businesses that use Facebook well. Check out their activities and get ideas for your own campaign.
9. Respond to your followers. Answer all the questions and comments you can personally. Thank them for testimonials and constructively comment on criticism.
10. Share content. If you’re a restaurant, tell your followers what is fresh on the menu. If you’re a retailer, tell them about the new stock you’ve just gotten in. If you’re a service business, give them tips on doing things yourself. In tourism? The whales have arrived, or perfect summer weather.
11. Suggest “other items you’ll love.” You have a captive audience who loves your product. They are also likely to enjoy other related products. Share these ideas with your fans.
12. Get product feedback. Ask simple leading questions to get valuable feedback from your biggest fans. E.g. “What is your favourite?” “What would they like to see in the future?” Feedback on a new product or service
13. Exclusive promotions. Reward your followers with a deal which is just for them. E.g. a small free reward with every purchase over $50 next month.
14. Run a competition. Photo contests, Photo caption contests, 25 words competitions and “like” drives (where you reward followers for meeting a goal of followers) all will encourage your followers to engage with you.
15. Cross promotion. Use Facebook to direct people back to your website for more information. Convert facebook fans into followers on other platforms – link to your email newsletter subscriptions, twitter feed or blog on your Facebook page, and encourage fans to follow these links.

This situation is probably familiar: You have opened your email inbox, or received a letter in the post from a company you don't recognise. They are suggesting a domain name has just become available, or they are giving you an opportunity to register a domain name before someone else does. They may be asking you to renew your existing domain name as it expires soon. They could even be offering a free product with your purchase or renewal.

Should I ignore these emails and letters?

If the letter is unsolicited mail (spam) absolutely nothing at all will happen if you ignore it, and ignore it you should! However, if it is a legitimate renewal notice, allowing your domain name to expire will mean your website and emails will stop working, possibly bringing your entire business to a standstill until you can figure out what is happening.

But I can't risk my emails and website not working!

No one wants to risk a major disruption to your business such as email or website malfunctions. However, it's easy to figure out if you need to respond to the request. Only respond to requests from the company you purchased your domain name from originally.

Who did I purchase from?

Your renewal notice should always come directly from the business you purchased the domain name from. You can check your files, accounting ledgers, or old emails, to confirm who you have purchased your domain name through, but it's even easier to check online.  

Just type your domain name into AusRegistry for .au websites or click "Whois" on network-tools.com for other websites, and they will tell you what company you have registered your website through. If your renewal notice is from someone else, ignore it!

Are these people just trying to confuse or worry me?

Essentially, yes! Most of these companies are trying to sucker you into buying an overpriced product. Email and postal marketing is really cheap, and even if they only get 1 person out of 100 to accept their offer, they often make a profit.

Keep it simple

If you are time poor or a more basic internet user, register domain names through your web designer or developer. You have a good relationship with them already, and trust them to help you make decisions regarding your website. Their expertise means that any management costs are kept to a minimum, and any correspondence or invoices will always come from a place you trust.