The Full Noise

Blenhiem Graphic Design and Website Designers

Al

How Choosing a Specific Market Can Skyrocket the Success of Your Marketing

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You need to choose a highly specific market for your products and services.

Most businesses want to sell to everyone. I get it, the thought is that the bigger the market the better the chance of getting a good slice of it. But here is why targeting a smaller market can make you more money:

4 bankable benefits of choosing a specific market

  1. More likely to become the number one business catering to that market
  2. Easier to find who they are, and where you can reach them
  3. Easier to understand their specific problems, needs and motivators
  4. They feel like you are talking to them personally

The best marketing lesson I learned from my weird science teacher

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be specific
be specific

I have to admit I had a few weird science teachers over the years. They can’t have been all bad though because I ended up graduating university with a bachelor of science. Ok it’s possible probable

I’m just as weird as them…

Anyway, I had one great science teacher though who was very cool… Don’t get me wrong, he was weird alright, as in running twice a day weird, recycling like crazy before we even new what it was.. Oh and he had a cockroach farm!

Ok, this crazy scientist he taught me something that I have never forgotten. At the time I thought he was joking, and he probably was, but joking or not he was right.

Listen up, this is going to sound stupid, but the thing he told me was: [Read more…] about The best marketing lesson I learned from my weird science teacher

How to harness the power of images for marketing (and be cool)

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The Local Socail Business ShowImages have long been used for communication of ideas since the dawn of human societies, well before any forms of written language.

We are hardwired to process our world visually, to judge threats, opportunities and make fast decisions.

A few thousand years later, images began being used in advertising and marketing. As soon as people worked out how powerful they are at communicating desires and emotions. You know the saying – ‘a picture says a thousand words’.

And now, with our ability to publish content to the world at will, in just a few seconds, the majority of sharing and interaction on Facebook and the other large Social networks are images. So much so that I would suggest that Images are the currency of the social web.

As Web and Graphic designers, we are essentially dealing in images constantly. Whether they are photos, logos, advertisements. Almost everything we do has a visual aspect to it.

We get a lot of requests from clients or potential clients to ‘just get an image from Google images’.

This is something that except for a very few (legal) circumstances we won’t do. Images on Google images ARE NOT FREE. They are not there for anyone to use as they wish. Somebody has taken that photo of created that image (in the case of graphics), and they own the copyright.

One more thing… an image from Google Images, isn’t your business. It isn’t helping you relate anything about you and your company to your website visitors, or readers of your brochure.

Be cool.

My opinion is you should whenever possible, create and use your own images from your own business, your products, your customers, your staff and your events. Make them authentic… People can tell.

If you have some important images you need to showcase your business for branding purposes, use a professional photographer.

If you need some shots for your social media efforts – take your own. Get into the habit of taking photos just for the sake of it. If you’re developing a new product – take some photos; running a workshop or seminar – take some photos; attending an event – you get the picture (sorry).

While most of them won’t be great, you’ll be amazed how often some shots you took will come in handy.

Want more about the power of images in marketing

One of the recent episodes of our podcast ‘The Local Social Business Show’ covered a broad range of uses of images to promote your business online. From Blog posts, to Facebook and Pinterest, we cover it all.

Jump over and have a listen to the episode here, and subscribe to the show in iTunes to listen to all of our marketing tips for free every fortnight.

Why your website doesn’t make any money (and what to do about it)

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How to fix your website from loosing customers like a revolving door

You have a website for your business, but you’re still not seeing the promised customers streaming in the door. Sound familiar?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone…

The internet is now used by approximately everybody, (over 2 billion people anyway) giving businesses the opportunity to get their products and services in front local or global audiences of prospects who are actively looking for their products or service. But still, most businesses aren’t seeing the leads and sales.

Here’s why…

It’s well known in sales and marketing, that a prospect must view a sales message 5 to 7 times before they make the decision to buy.

And this is a problem because the internet is a place of infinite distraction.

Even if your site does a great job of grabbing a visitors meagre attention, they read the first page, and they love your product or service. Even if they think it is a perfect solution to their problem…

Ooooh, Facebook…

No wait, come back!

See, all it takes is one distraction – a phone call, an email alert, a text message… once they close the window, they are gone forever… they are never coming back to your site. Unless:

What’s the solution?

You need to give your reader excellent value as soon as they hit your website, and offer them a compelling reason to come back, and even better give you permission to contact them.

How to make your website Sticky

What do I mean by ‘sticky’?

A sticky website attracts visitors to return again and again. The best way to do this is by regularly creating interesting, useful information, that is helpful for your ideal prospects and adding it to your website.

Call it a blog, a journal, or simply a news section, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it is relevant, useful and interesting. Bonus points for making it entertaining.

Two key points:

  1. Keep it regular.
    • If your content is good, your visitors will want more. When they come back you need something new for them to read.
  2. Keep it focused on your customers
    • Help them. Teach them. Keep giving until you feel like you’re giving away your secrets. The more you give the more valuable it’s likely to be for your readers.

Ask their permission to keep in touch

A nice polite invitation to come back to your website is the most effective way to make sure they do come back. (And remember you want them to come back and read your message 5 to 7 times.)

So when you have published a new post or made a new product, you can contact them directly and invite them to have a look.

But how do you do this after they have left your site? Plan their experience from the moment they load your website.

Get their permission to contact them as soon as possible.

First up, give them what they came for, and give them more than they expected. (of course this requires you know what your potential customers want).

Since you gave them some great information when they first visited, of course they want to come back and see what else you have.

Now’s the time to make them an offer they can’t refuse.

Offer them a bribe for their permission

Ok not a cash bribe (hmm, maybe), but give them even more high value content. Free regular updates, a video course of how to get what they want, or even regular discounts (I’m not a fan of this technique).

The point is, your bribe needs to be of as high perceived value as possible. You are paying them for their permission with valuable content. As well as getting their permission, you want the bribe to be so good that they can’t wait until the next time you offer them something else to read, watch or listen to.

To take you up on the offer, you then ask your visitor to enter their email address, or ‘like’ you Facebook page. Whatever works best for you to keep in close contact with them. Email gets you the best access to them, but a Facebook like might be easier to get.

The best bribes are information that adds value to any of your products or services that they are looking for on your website. Because information is relatively cheap for you to create, but can be massively valuable for your potential customer.

The money is in the list

Direct marketers have said for years, that the money is in the list. Which is true. Maybe.

If you have an email list of a few hundred people who have voluntarily given you their email address because they are interested in your products or services, you can from that point on advertise to them anytime you want or need to for effectively free. How does that compare to paying for ads in the newspaper?

The truth is, the money is in the relationship with the list.

If you have that same list of 500 people and you continually send them lame offers to buy from you, they are very quickly going to get annoyed and unsubscribe, or worse mark you as spam.

The trick is to keep giving your subscribers cool, interesting stuff. That could be more great content, insane deals, whatever. Just make sure they know you appreciate them.

conclusion

The goal of your website shouldn’t be to make a sale on the first visit, but to get your visitors to put heir hands up and show they are interested in what you can offer. From there you are building a relationship that solidifies you as a trusted expert and moves them to the point of becoming a paying customer.

What is the lifetime value of a customer for your business?

photo credit: l.e.o