Welcome to the February issue of Biz Talk! This publication is a free, subscription-based resource from Five Sparrows, LLC, which specializes in new web site development, web site re-designs, and complete online marketing services for small businesses.

We welcome your questions, comments, or inquiries at editor@fivesparrows.com. Enjoy!

Eight Essential Marketing Steps Your Business Should Take in 2009

Looking to jump start your marketing efforts this year? If so, you’re in good company. Many small businesses are looking to improve their marketing activities to help boost sales in a time of economic uncertainty. If your small business could use some marketing inspiration, here are eight things you can do to be more effective with your marketing and promoting your business in 2009.

1. DO SOMETHING each month, or at least each quarter
   Now is not the time to cut back on your marketing efforts; instead, ramp up as much as possible to make sure customers don’t forget about you, and that competitors don’t gain any ground. Do at least one thing each month, whether it’s updating your web site, sending out a press release, or monitoring your positions in the search engines. If you just don’t have the time or resources to do something each month, make sure you do something at least quarterly.
   
   
2. Start an e-newsletter
   By sending out a weekly or monthly e-newsletter, you can keep your company name and message in front of your customers and prospects, which helps build your brand, trigger additional purchases, and drive new sales. It’s also a great way to stay in touch with your customers and keep them updated about special offers, company news, or new products and services. E-newsletters are inexpensive to create and send, and they make it possible to reach ALL of your customers and prospects regularly, not just the ones who happen to walk through your door or give you a call.
   
   
3. Update your web site
   It is critical that you don’t allow your small business web site to just sit there untouched, getting more stale and outdated by the minute. Users today expect fresh content, current technology features, and interactivity that comes from staying on top of current trends and staying a step ahead of your competition. Be sure to add your latest press releases, e-newsletter content, and upcoming events to your site, and consider adding user-friendly features like widgets or product reviews. Keeping your site up to date can help your business attract more new leads, improve your search engine rankings, and increase your sales and bottom line.
   
   
4. Get social
   Social networking is truly changing the way we use the web, and you are going to need to know at least the basics about this new trend. Sites like LinkedIn and Facebook; Technorati and de.licio.us; and blogs and micro blogs (like Twitter) are all designed to make it easy to connect with others through social interaction on the web, and they can be useful in marketing your business, too! You can find more information and tips on social networking in last month’s edition of Biz Talk in the article “Social Work – Get Busy and Get Social.”
   
   
5. Get a blog/ participate in a blog
   If you don’t already have a blog on your web site, you really need to consider adding one. Blogs are great for attracting search engine spiders, since they are updated often and contain lots of great content for the spiders to index. Blogs are also one of the most basic interactive features you can add to your web site, and are extremely popular with users. Even if you do have a blog (and especially if you don’t), it’s important to visit other blogs in your industry and start participating in the conversation. Leave comments and feedback, and always include a link back to your blog (or web site) in your signature. The most important thing to remember when commenting on other blogs, however, is to add something useful, and don’t self-promote or advertise your business on someone else’s blog.
   
   
6. Use landing pages with your email marketing campaigns
   Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective strategies that small businesses have today (see article #2 “Using Email Marketing to Save Money”, below), but you need to use specific landing pages for each campaign that you send. It’s tempting to use a call to action that says “visit our site at www-dot-whatever-dot-com”, but sending recipients to your home page is not the most effective way to convert sales. Instead, create specific landing pages that contain the following:
   

   A re-statement of the offer and/or subject line of the email campaign – let them know they have landed in the right place Specific marketing copy and a “pitch” Product information and/or testimonials Simple, uncluttered content with no unnecessary elements – use only what’s needed to convert the customer A simple, clear call to action - make it as easy as possible for your prospects to respond to your offer; you can always collect more details later

   
   
7. Offer something for free
   Nothing motivates users more than getting something for free! Don’t be afraid to offer them a product sample, a free trial, or something of value like a whitepaper or e-book. Offering a free gift with every purchase or using limited-time offers are also effective ways to motivate customers to make purchases and do business with you.
   
   
8. Become more visible
   One of the most effective ways to promote your business is to become more visible. Increase your visibility online, at community and networking events, and in the press. Don’t give in to the temptation of hiding your head in the sand until the economy turns around; instead, get out there in every way you can think of. Use email marketing and your web site to your advantage, offer to speak at industry or Chamber events, send out regular press releases, volunteer at community events, write articles in your area of expertise, and attend every networking event that you can. The more your business can be seen and heard, the more exposure you gain, and the more your customers and future customers will remember you!

Using Email Marketing to Save Money

With today’s tough economic conditions, many small businesses are looking for ways to save money or at least make their money go a little further. When it’s time to trim costs, marketing budgets are often the first to get cut, especially if they contain expensive items like glossy printed pieces, a one-time radio ad, or pricey direct mail campaigns. To make your marketing dollars stretch further, you need to use high-impact, low-cost marketing strategies that get the word out about your business yet don’t break the bank. One low-cost strategy you can implement is an email marketing program to help you communicate with customers, target the right prospects, and market your business effectively without spending a lot of money.

In 2008, the Direct Marketing Association reported that the return on investment (ROI) for email marketing was more than $45 for every dollar spent on it. That’s amazing! Email marketing is also incredibly effective, since nearly 87% of adult internet users open the opt-in emails they receive from businesses (according to MarketingSherpa). With numbers like these, it’s easy to see how email marketing can help small businesses save money on marketing while reaching their target audience at the same time.

Email marketing, like other marketing strategies, is most effective when used consistently and with repetition. Research suggests that target audiences need to see a message anywhere from 3 to 7 times before they will take any action or respond. Many small businesses have found success with using a three-step approach to their email campaigns. A typical example might be:

• Email #1: Educate recipients about your product or service, and highlight how it solves the problems they may be experiencing
• Email #2: Educate recipients about how your company differs from the competition, and reinforce the message from Email #1 that highlights how your product or service benefits customers
• Email #3: Send recipients a great offer – now that you have educated them about how your company can help solve their problems, offer them an incentive to give you a call or place an order today.

Also, be sure to use a strong call to action in your email campaigns, and always provide recipients with multiple ways to contact you (via a web form on your landing page, a toll-free number, direct email links, etc.).

Targeting
One critical component to your email marketing efforts is to always use a professional listserv service to send out your campaigns. Don’t risk appearing amateurish – or violating CAN-SPAM laws – by sending email campaigns from Outlook or other email programs! Also, make sure you select a listserv service that can provide you with delivery reports on click-thru rates, unsubscribes, bounces, and the number of opens for each campaign. That way, you can measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and track what worked so you can repeat it for future campaigns.

Segment Your List
Another benefit of email marketing is that you can segment your email list according to any criteria that you’d like. This enables you to send targeted emails with customized messages that are tailored to each specific market segment. With print advertising, targeting typically involves choosing a publication based on key demographics. But, publications like this still go to a very broad audience that may or may not even notice your ad. With email marketing, you can target the message according to whatever criteria is important to you, then send targeted emails to each segment of your list. And as mentioned earlier, nearly everyone who receives an opt-in email from a business will open it.

Investing in Results
Since email marketing can deliver a $45 ROI for every dollar spent, what percentage of your marketing budget should be devoted to an email marketing program? The trick to smart marketing in an economic crunch is to invest in the marketing strategies that deliver the best results, and drop the things that don’t contribute to your bottom line. By investing in email marketing, you can effectively communicate with your target market, help your business generate more leads, and ultimately improve sales, all while saving money. So if you’re looking for ways to cut costs, consider implementing an email marketing program for your small business and make that marketing budget stretch just a little further this year.

Top Five Web Mistakes Small Businesses Make

Today, most consumers check out a company’s web site first – way before they consider making a purchase or contacting a business for more information. It’s often the first encounter they have with the company, and can result in them making snap judgments about the company and whether it’s credible or desirable to do business with. These types of judgments are based solely on their impression of – and experience on – the company’s web site.

Making a great first impression and establishing credibility are vital to turning web visitors into paying customers, so it’s important to avoid the web mistakes that can drive them away, rather than drawing them in.

Here are five common mistakes that small businesses make with their web sites, so be sure you site isn’t guilty of any of these offenses!

1. Not updating your web site.
   Let’s face it, there’s not much point in a visitor coming to your company’s web site if it is outdated, uses old technology, or never gets new information added. There are millions of web sites to choose from, so why would a user want to spend time on a site that isn’t useful and that you don’t seem to really care about? Today’s users have very high expectations, and if you don’t meet them, they will simply move on to a site that does.
   
   
2. Skipping SEO.
   How are customers going to find you if your site doesn’t come up in the search engines? Even if you have the best web site ever built, it’s not doing your business much good or generating new leads for you if customers can’t find it. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a necessary step if you want web visitors to find and visit your site, so don’t put it off. It’s a great investment in your business and helps you leverage the investment you’ve already made in building your web site in the first place.
   
   
3. Using Flash-based or image-based architecture.
   This is a big issue for small businesses that have already been talked into creating a Flash-based or image-based web site. These sites are typically more expensive to build and maintain, nearly impossible to update in-house, and are not WC3 (World Wide Web Consortium) compliant for accessibility. They are also invisible to the search engines, which means you cannot implement the SEO techniques necessary to get your site read and indexed in the search engine databases. The best thing to do with a Flash or image-based site is to convert it to a standards-based web site as soon as you possibly can.
   
   
4. Talking too much about the company and not focusing on the customer.
   Web visitors do not want to read about how great your company is, how many awards you have won, or how your grandpa taught you about the family business. They want to hear how your company can help them solve their problems, and what the benefits will be (for them) if they decide to do business with you. Don’t go on and on about yourself – instead, focus on your customers’ needs and how you can improve their lives, jobs, families, or whatever it is that you solve for your customers. Limit the company bragging to a separate “About the Company” page, so users can decide to read about it only if they are interested in doing so.
   
   
5. Using a “splash” page or “enter here” page before displaying the actual web site.
   Few things are as frustrating to web visitors as wasting time trying to access the information they are looking for. If you display a splash page (or worse, a Flash intro!) before users can access any useful information, you are making them take an unnecessary extra step just to enter your site. Today’s users are extremely time-sensitive and impatient, and studies have shown that when faced with a splash page, Flash intro, or “enter here” link, they would rather click on the browser’s “Back” button than take that extra step or wait any longer to access information. The goal should be to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to get to the information they are looking for, not create barriers to it. The same principle applies to graphics-heavy pages that take too long to download – users simply won’t wait (plus these pages are invisible to search engines, since search engines cannot read Flash files or images).

Your web site communicates with more than just the text on the page; the site as a whole tells visitors a lot about your business. But you need to be careful that the message your site sends to visitors is an accurate one. By avoiding these five web mistakes, you can also avoid sending an unintentional message that your business is behind the times, doesn’t have the time or resources necessary to maintain your site, or that you don’t care about the impression you make to the world.

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Biz Talk is a Free Publication of Five Sparrows, LLC

Five Sparrows is a Michigan web site development firm and search engine optimization provider offering a complete line of web site marketing strategies and services designed especially for small businesses.

Because Five Sparrows specializes in working with small businesses, we understand their specific needs and challenges.  We offer a full range of products and services at a fraction of the cost of what traditional marketing and web site firms charge, all designed to help small businesses get a big-company presence on a small company budget.

Our services include web site development and re-design, online shopping, search engine optimization, e-newsletters, email marketing, search engine reporting & monitoring, and more.

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