• Four Things Customers Want to Know
• "Unexpected" Advertising
• The Power of Content

Archived Issues

Four Things Customers Want to Know

Want to convert more customers and increase sales? Of course you do, that’s why you’re in business! One of the easiest ways to do that is to cut through the clutter and provide answers to four simple questions that will tell your customers just about everything they need to know about doing business with you.

Simple Questions
The simple, one-word questions you must answer for your customers are: How, Why, What, and Who. Answering these questions can add clarity to your marketing message, and help turn your prospects into buyers more quickly.

1. “How does your solution solve my problem?”
Customers ultimately care about the problems or issues they face, and are looking for a way to solve them. Your job is to tell them specifically how your product or service will benefit them.

2. “Why is your product or service the best solution for me right now?”
Tell your customers why they should choose the solution that you offer, and tell them quickly. Get to the point and don’t waste their time with unnecessary details.

3. “What makes you the best solution for solving my problem, and what are your credentials?”
Customers want to know that they can trust your company and that you can meet both their needs and their expectations.

4. “Who else has used your solution to solve similar problems?”
Testimonials are a tried-and-true marketing technique that customers count on when making purchasing decisions. Be sure to share your success stories and client testimonials with the customers who are interested in your products or services.

By providing answers to these four simple questions, customers can quickly and easily understand the value of doing business with your company. Take the time to answer these questions carefully, then include this information in your marketing materials. Clearly differentiating your business from the competition will show customers why they should choose to do business with you, ultimately increasing your conversion rates and sales.

"Unexpected" Advertising

There are many ways to make the most your existing marketing strategies, and one of them is to place advertisements for your products and services in some new and unexpected places. Be creative – think of all the daily communication your company has with the outside world. Are there any places where you could place a small text ad? How about adding an attention-grabbing graphic or a coupon? The ideas can be as unique as your company, but to get you started, here are a few suggestions:

Order Forms, Confirmation Emails, and Thank You Pages
If your web site sells something, or if your visitors can sign up for something on your site (a newsletter, whitepaper, etc.), chances are that you already have an online order form and thank you page. These are great spots for small ads that promote related or additional products or services that your company offers. Also consider including an ad on the automatic confirmation email that is typically sent after a visitor places an order or subscribes to your newsletter.

Site Maps
Most web sites have a site map, which is simply a page that provides visitors and search engines with links to all the other pages in the web site. Since there are typically few headlines and very little text on site map pages, advertisements can be great attention-grabbers. By adding some accompanying text to the ad, you can also provide the search engines with additional text and keywords that could help boost your rankings in the search results, too.

E-Newsletter Ads
Sending a company E-Newsletter each month is a well-known, effective marketing strategy that many small businesses already take advantage of. If you send out an E-Newsletter, have you considered placing ads for your own products and services in your E-Newsletter? We’ve all seen E-Newsletters that carry affiliate or outside advertising, but often companies don’t think to include “internal” ads promoting their products and services, or a special offer or sale.

Email Signatures
At the end of an email message, you can sometimes find an email “signature” containing the sender’s name, contact information, web site address, etc. Creating a standard email signature for everyone in your company gives recipients an easy way to contact you, but it can also serve as an advertisement for your company. Be sure to add your logo, links to your web site, and any other compelling information about your company. Having a consistent email signature can also help reinforce your branding and name recognition as well.

Small businesses sometimes find it difficult to keep their web sites updated with fresh, relevant information, because they either don’t have the time or don’t have the content (or a combination of both). But in order to keep traffic flowing, visitors interested, and sales increasing, you simply must keep your site updated with great content.

Studies show that visitors will spend approximately seven seconds to decide if your web site is worth their time, or if they should click away to another site to find whatever it is they are looking for. What differentiates your web site from your competitors? After all, if you have products or services that are similar to what the competition offers, you may not be perceived as being very different at all. But your web site can be the differentiator! Give your visitors lots of interesting content that is useful to them, and they just might stick around long enough to turn into customers.

One of your site’s goals should be to give visitors enough information about your company, products, and services that they feel comfortable doing business with you. If you don’t have enough content on your site (or if your web site is outdated), visitors will simply move on to other web sites until they find the information they need. If a visitor leaves your web site without finding sufficient content, it’s unlikely that they will return – ever.

Another important reason to keep your site loaded with good content is because search engines evaluate your web site and rank it based largely on the site’s content. It’s true that things constantly change with search engine algorithms, but one thing that stays the same is the importance of fresh, relevant content.

So don’t underestimate the value of keeping your site up to date and adding fresh content on a regular basis. It’s well worth the effort!

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Copyright 2006 Five Sparrows, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
3889 Hartland Hills, Hartland, MI 48353
www.fivesparrows.com