Melanie's Marketing Tips for Small to Mid-Sized Businesses

This page includes articles in a variety of areas in two categories, Internet marketing and traditional marketing. Although most of the focus in marketing today is on Internet marketing, traditional marketing principles still apply and the most effective marketing programs combine both disciplines.

An effective website defines your company's positioning and branding strategies and should be results and benefits oriented. The medium has changed, but the message is the same — how can your products or services help your customers and what makes you different from the competition?

Internet Marketing

11/08 - Is your website search-engine friendly?

1/28/09 - When it comes to websites, content is king

5/6/09 - The basics of search engine optimization

5/6/09 - Building website traffic

Traditional Marketing

11/08 - Positioning your company for growth

1/28/09 - Branding strategies for small and medium-sized companies

 

Internet Marketing Tips

Is your website search-engine-friendly?

Search engine optimization is no easy task. With every company clamoring to come to the top of Google searches for their product category, SEO is unaffordable for most smaller companies. However, there are some things small companies can do to maximize search results for their company.

First and foremost, your website should have a search-engine-friendly design. The web is changing constantly and Google spiders are crawling the Web everyday to look for new content. If your website hasn't been updated in a few years, than most likely, Google has forgotten about you. The more you update your website, the more your site will be crawled and indexed by Google and the better your search results will be.

Here are some simple guidelines for creating search-engine-friendly sites:

If you follow these simple guidelines for your website design, your search engine results will improve. It takes a while for Google to index your site, so don't expect immediate results, but if you start with a properly designed site, you'll be well on your way to attracting more customers and prospects to your site.

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When it Comes to Websites, Content is King

How many websites have you gone to that look nice and seem to have lots of information, but where do you find what you want? Does the website speak to you and your needs, leading you through the buying process to the information you need to make an informed decision? Do you know where to click next or do you just push the back button and move to the next site out of frustration?

Website design is important, but only part of the website development process. How do you create a site that keeps your prospective clients on your site, leading them through the buying process and convincing them to buy from you?

Your website is your company’s primary marketing tool. If you want your website to work, the right content is the key to your website’s success. You have a few seconds to grab someone’s attention and engage them in the buying process or risk losing them forever.

Content development is a complicated process with many different factors to consider. The overall challenge is to take all the information you can gather about your company and its products and/or services and organize it into logical segments of tiered information that can be accessed quickly and easily.

Since different visitors have different information needs, the goal is to make it easy to skim quickly for some, while offering more information for others. In addition to being well organized, your website content should be well written and persuasive, making it easy for readers to move to the next step when they are ready.

Optimizing your content for search engines
Fancy Flash pages are no longer the focus of today’s websites. Google ranks your site by crawling the pages and searching for relevant words. Google spiders don’t see Flash movies and photographs. In fact, a Flash home page blocks Google from crawling and indexing your site’s content.

When someone initiates a search in Google, the search begins with the searcher entering the words they think best describe the information they are seeking. These words are considered “keywords”. Google’s spiders crawl the Web to find the websites with the most keywords in each search and ranks them according to how many of these keywords are included on a given website. There are many factors that go into this process, but this is the basic premise behind search engine optimization.

For search engine optimization purposes, your home page should have lots of relevant keywords so that people will find your site. When they get to your site, they’ll scan the page and quickly decide where to click next. Perhaps your home page will pull them in and they will read it if they find it engaging. Or, maybe they will go directly to the about page to learn more about your company. Another person may go directly to the products or services page.

Once people get to your site, how do you know where they will click next? You don’t. Everyone is different and you have no way of knowing where your website will lead them. This is not a brochure. You can’t assume because you said something on your home page they have read it. They could go anywhere. Once you determine the primary benefits of your company’s products or services, how do you ensure visitors get your marketing message?

Developing Your Website Content
Since you don’t know where people will go when they get to your site, you should write each page as its own entity. This means you may have to repeat the same message on several pages, but since you don’t know which pages a visitor has read already, you’ll want to say it a different way so it doesn’t sound repetitive. (For example, your home page may give some information about the company which you’ll need to repeat on the about page.)

The advantage of this strategy is that it reinforces your marketing message throughout your site. For engaged visitors who are the right prospects for your company’s products and/or services, everything they read will lead them towards buying your product or service. If your message is compelling, you’ll pull them in wherever they land and they will drill into your site for more and more information until they are ready to buy.

Encourage your visitors to take the next step by including calls to action throughout your site. Since you have no idea when your visitors will be ready to take the next step, make it easy for them to respond. End each page with a sentence like, “Call xxx.xxx.xxxx today or email for more information”.

There are many other aspects to consider when developing content for your site including:

In summary, if you want your website to work for you, develop well-written, informative and organized content. If you are not a skilled writer, work with a professional writer to develop content for you. Your company’s website is your most important marketing tool, so don’t underestimate the value of carefully crafted content. The success of your website depends on it.

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The basics of search engine optimization

The basics of search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is a complicated process with many different factors to consider. Basically, there are two types of SEO:

Organic SEO
Organic SEO involves optimizing your website for search engines so that when people do searches for your product, your website comes up on the left side of the page under search results. Ideally, your website should come up on the first page of searches for your product or service, preferably in the top three listings.

This was fairly easy to accomplish a few years ago, but now this is where everyone wants to be, making organic SEO more difficult to achieve. Depending on the type of product or service you are marketing and how competitive your industry is, organic SEO can run from a few hundred dollars a month to thousands of dollars a month.

If you have the budget and your product/service is conducive to selling on the Web, you should seriously consider an organic search engine optimization program. The first step is making sure your website is optimized for search engines and has a search-engine-friendly design. If not, you may want to consider revamping your site first to make it easier to accomplish organic SEO and improve your search results or implementing a paid SEO program.

Paid SEO
If you don’t have the budget for organic SEO and your website is not search-engine-friendly, you can still drive traffic to your site for a relatively small investment with Google Adwords. Google Adwords are links that come up on the right side of the page when you do a search. The process involves choosing the right keywords for your product and bidding for placement. The advantage of Google Adwords is you only pay if someone clicks through to your site. You can set a limit as to how much you are willing to spend per day, and Google only sends you that many clicks. This can cost as little as a few dollars a day and is a very affordable way to bring traffic to your site.

Read more about implementing a SEO strategy for your company’s website.

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Building website traffic

If you build it they will come….
When it comes to websites, this is true, but only to a certain extent. The results you get from your website depend on many factors and building a website is only the first step, and not a panacea to bring buyers to your door.

A website is just another marketing tool, and although it’s the primary marketing tool for most companies today, every business is different. Your website marketing strategy should depend on many factors and one-size-fits-all doesn’t apply to websites.

Developing a website marketing strategy for your product or service
Here are some of the questions to answer before developing a website marketing strategy:
1. Is your business local or national?
2. Are your products or services inexpensive and simple to buy or expensive and complicated?
3. Is your product or service something that people would search for on the Web or something they would most likely get a referral for?
4. What is the competition like for your product or service? Are there many other companies in your space or is your product or service specialized and unique, filling a certain niche?

Local or National
If your product or service is generally sold locally, search engine optimization (SEO) is easier to accomplish. People will tend to search for your business using the name of your town or state, which narrows the field significantly. Be sure to register your site with Google Local Business. It's free to register and searches for your company the include your city will bring up your site and contact information.

For national products, bringing traffic to your site can be more challenging, and depending on the nature of your product, a search engine optimization program may be required to boost traffic.

Simple and inexpensive or complicated and costly?
For products and services that are simple to understand and easy to buy on the web with no human interaction, search engine optimization is very important. If you can drive people to your site and give them the right information when they get there, you will most likely garner sales from your website. In this case, a comprehensive search engine optimization program could be very beneficial.

If your products or services are more complicated, search engine optimization is also important, but in a different way. If your product/service is specific and your market is relatively small, search engine optimization will be easier to accomplish. A well-designed, search engine-friendly website may be all you need to drive traffic to your site.

Web sales or referrals?
Even if your product/service is inexpensive and simple to buy, it might not be something that people tend to search for on the Web. Some things people just feel more comfortable getting a referral for. Things like massages, local restaurants, or more expensive products/services like contractors and lawyers, people like to ask for referrals first, and then they may go to the website to learn more about the company they were referred to. In this situation, make sure your website has all the information they need to sell them when they get there and that it’s easy to find. Search engine optimization is still important, but not the focus of your website marketing program.

Competitive market or niche product?
If the marketplace you compete in is extremely competitive and people tend to buy your product or service on the web, search engine optimization should be the focus of your website marketing strategy. However, if you have a niche product that is very specialized, a search engine-friendly website may be sufficient in conjunction with a few simple traffic-building tactics.

Developing a website marketing strategy you can afford
These are some general guidelines in developing a website marketing strategy for your company. Although search engine optimization is important to all types of websites, in some cases, it’s more important than others.

Once you’ve determined what the focus of your website marketing strategy should be, the next step is implementing a program you can afford. Search engine optimization programs can cost thousands of dollars and if your product or service warrants it, it’s well worth the investment. However if this isn’t in your budget, there are inexpensive ways to drive traffic to your site. It’s always best to start with a well-designed, search-engine-friendly website, but if your website is a few years old and you don’t have the budget to revamp it, you can still drive traffic to your site with a paid search engine optimization program like Google Adwords. Learn more about the basics types of search engine optimization.

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Traditional Marketing Tips

Positioning your company for growth

Let's start with the basics of any marketing communications program — positioning. Many companies overlook this crucial first step, but positioning is the key to creating a successful marketing communications program.

The goal is to define your company's unique position in each market you compete in. A clear-cut positioning strategy sets the stage for all marketing communications, and gives you a foundation for your company’s branding strategy.

What is a positioning statement?
A positioning statement is a one or two-sentence statement that clearly and succinctly explains how your product (or company) differs from your competition.

A positioning statement should:

How to position your company and products
Here are some questions to consider when developing a positioning statement:

To quickly develop your own positioning statement, fill in the blanks in this statement:

“For people who [describe the target users], [insert your company or brand name] is the company/brand of [describe your competitive set] that provides [tell the benefit that makes you different and better].”

Target users are those customers who share common needs, and demographic characteristics. The competitive set may be as simple as a product category, but should always be worded in the same way customers describe that category. The benefit that makes you better is the one point of difference you want most closely associated with your product or brand.

Your positioning statement should tell your audience the following about your company:

A positioning statement is a good first step, but to do it properly you should do a thorough evaluation of all the players in your industry, the products they offer and their benefits. Once you have a positioning statement you feel is on target, sit down with the relevant people in your company and get their input. Your company's position is something all the key players of your company should agree on to ensure the success of your marketing communications program.

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Branding Strategies for Small and Medium-Sized Companies

What is branding?
Branding creates an identity for your company and products. It’s a marketing process that you can use to establish a brand name for your products and services, giving customers confidence in your company, and strong reasons to purchase from you. Once you’ve established a strong brand identity for your products, you’ll increase the value of your products by gaining your customer’s trust, and as a result, you’ll increase profit margins.

Often, companies that don’t have a strong market position and brand identity resort to cutting prices to increase sales. Price-cutting leads to increased sales volume, but lowers profit margins, leading the company down a descending spiral of profits. However, if you can create value for your products and services, you can command a higher price and increase profit margins.

Branding for small and medium-sized companies

Big companies like Intel, Gillette, Nike and Proctor & Gamble spend millions of dollars on branding by hiring large sophisticated advertising agencies to help them build their brands. But even if your company is small and you have a limited marketing budget, you can still incorporate basic branding strategies into your marketing program.

In all reality, branding is just a sophisticated term for good marketing practices. Here’s how to create a branding strategy for your company:

  1. The first step is to do a thorough positioning of your company and it products.
  2. Then, use your positioning strategy to differentiate your products or services from the competition by identifying the one big bottom line benefit that your company offers. Pick ONE THING that you do better than anyone else in your industry. Of course, there will be many benefits to using your company’s products or services and you will want to mention those benefits as well, but to build an effective marketing campaign, focus on the one big benefit.
  3. Once you’ve identified your one big benefit, develop a tagline to support that benefit and display it prominently in all your marketing materials. In addition to your tagline, reinforce the one big benefit in your copy by saying it different ways throughout your marketing materials to keep supporting your message.

The Three C’s of Marketing

Now that you have a handle on the elements of your marketing campaign, simply follow the three C’s of marketing: consistency, consistency, consistency. Look at all your marketing materials and ask yourself these questions:

    • Do all these materials look like they came from the same company?
    • Is my company’s logo consistently and prominently displayed?
    • Do I have a meaningful tagline that supports my company’s position in the marketplace?
    • Is my messaging consistently supporting the same key benefit throughout all my marketing materials?

With the focus on Internet marketing and cost-cutting, many small to medium-sized companies skip these important steps. Most business owners are not marketers and don’t see the value of hiring marketing professionals to help them with their messaging. The result is often a website with no personality that doesn’t speak to customers about their problems and how to solve them. Or email newsletters that focus on what the company wants to say and not what the customer wants to hear.

Think Like a Marketer

If you incorporate the right messaging into your marketing materials, every dollar you spend will work harder to grow your business. Think about your marketing materials from your customers’ point of view. How can you help them? What problems can you solve? It’s not enough to have a website. Make your website work harder with a little thought and effort up front. If you do your homework, your marketing program will get better results and your company will grow quicker. If your business is slow, now is a good time to rethink your marketing materials and your website. Be ready to take advantage of the upturn when it comes, and it will.

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For more information or a free website consultation, please call Melanie at 978.921.2650 or send her an email.