Putting Your Small Business on the Internet

Today I'm going to be talking about one of the most important system in my marketing arsenal.  

With all the technological advances available to us today, if you're in business and not on the Internet, you are in the DARK AGES!

And just to be clear before we go into this, I'm not suggesting that you should abandon all the other practices I stated talked before.  In fact, when using them all in conjunction, it will create a more powerful marketing system.  More about that in another post.  

Just remember,  it's not always a bad thing to lose money or break even on your first transaction with a new customer.  If you've structure your business properly and maintain good relationships with your customers, the lifetime value of that customer will far exceed the money you lost initially by at least 10 times!

Sorry for the tangent...just thought that was important because people see how cheap it is to advertise on the Internet but don't realize everyone isn't surfing or don't respond to ads on here.

Nowadays, your website can tell your customers all kinds of information about your company as well as provide you with credibility and show proof to potential customers that your provide a quality product or service.

Your website can be a fancy business card or can be an all out portal that allows your customers to connect with you in multiple ways.  No matter the route you choose to take with it, there are key elements that every "successful" website must incorporate in order to make it a key component of your overall marketing plan.

Now if you want your website to be able to grow your company, the main purpose of your site should be to capture the contact information of your potential customers.  

The most difficult and expensive part of business is to capture the attention of prospective qualified customers.  Once you have their attention, you want to be able to continue to market to them and that is why its important to do whatever it takes to get their contact information.

Yes it is important to tell people who you are and what you have to offer on your site, but what good is your site if you don't know who is visiting it?

So how do you capture their contact information?

At the top of your homepage, the 1st thing the customer should see is a form that attempts to capture the visitors name and email address.  To persuade them to fill out the form, you should offer a free newsletter, report, cd, discount, etc...  something that the customers will really want.  

For my restaurant I offered 20% off coupon and a chance to join our "EClub" (which was pretty much an email newsletter).

Now that you have your prospects' email, you now have the cheapest way of contacting them.

When they requested your FREE report, these people are giving you permission to contact them again.

And you should do so..again and again and again, without paying a dime.  Email is FREE.

Now once you have the contact information, you can share with the prospect all the information you want...who you are, what you have to offer and the benefits they will receive from your products and services.

Remember, just like in all other instances, you must stress the benefits they will receive from purchasing from you.  Tell them all the tangible and intangible benefits that you can offer THEM, don't focus on you or your product.

Finally, you want your prospects to TAKE ACTION.  Do you want them to pick up the phone and call you?  Do you want them to request more information?  Do you want them to come into your store?  

Depending on your purpose you will drive the customer to do diferent things.  If you want them to request information put a form up on your site.  What ever you decide, you must make the customer an enticing offer to take the actions that you want them to.  

Now not to make this post too long, I've included a little bullet list of additional tips to keep in mind when creating your website:

- Simple is more effective.  Leave all the flashing, spinning, blinking text, loud audio off the page.  

- Always have an attention grabbing benefit laden headline at the top of each page.

- Adding professional pictures in the correct manner can skyrocket you credibility and response.

- Include as many testimonials as you can.  People believe others 100x's more than they believe you the owner.

- Make your site simple to navigate.  Not everyone is an Internet pro.

Well, of course there is a lot more to the Internet than just this short little article but this should give you the gist of what its all about.

Remember, if you have any questions about any of this feel free to leave me a comment below.

As always the main thing is to take action today on what you are learning.

Here's to sky rocketing your business,

John Barry

Use Joint Ventures in Your Small Business to Create Sales

Today I'm going to share with you one of the quickest, most powerful ways to drive new customers to your small business with no money upfront.

I will give you the technique and also give you multiple ways that you can utilize them.

I'm sure if you've been reading, or you know from your own experience, attracting people of interest and that are qualified is the biggest and can be most expensive task we have as business owners. Now the key to really growing your business and to really dominate your target market is to create a system to attract qualified customers "relatively cheap".

So how do you go about setting up these lead generating systems? Well, the first thing you need to understand is who is your ideal customer? What are they like? Where do they live? Where do they shop? What other services do they already purchase?

Once you are able to answer these questions, make a list of businesses, or other services providers that are already servicing your ideal customer.

Next step... approach the other business and then ask them if they would be interested in a "joint venture". For those of you who don't know what that is...its just a partnership where you help each other get more customers (like a referral system between two businesses).

The type of system you create will depend on the type of business you are dealing with, your goals of the partnership and how much you are willing to spend.

There are pretty much endless possibilities but I will give you two examples here to get your mind running.

If you are dealing with a place that makes transactions at the cash register like a restaurant, hair/nail salon, car wash, etc., you can create a business size card that offers a free or discounted service.

Just approach the business owner and tell them that you would like to give them an opportunity to reward their customers with a FREE gift. Explain to them what your free or discounted offer is and let them know that all they need to do is place a stack of cards next to their register. As their customers are paying, they will notice the card, see that it's a 'gift for being a valued customer', and take one.

When I had my restaurant, I printed hundreds of these business cards on my printer, the other side was a regular business card with address, phone, website, etc...

Notice this contains the elements of a direct response ad.  It has a bold capitivating headline, an offer, a deadline.

Many people thought I was crazy for giving away a FREE meal but when looking at the "life time value" (LTV) of a customer.  We were making out great.  The cost of one meal was about $4.00 but the average customers were spending $23.50 after the discount.  That $23.50 I wouldn't have had without giving something away.

But the best part was I gained a new customer.  If they liked us, they dined say once a month (conservative estimate) with an average ticket of $28.00.  That's $336 per year and many customers stuck with us for 2 or more years!

What a ROI!

The card shown above was one of my earlier cards because it had the restrictions.  When I changed it to read FREE Meal (up to $10) No Strings Attached!  That raised the response rates but the funny thing is people ended up spending more!  

You definitely have to test and track when doing these types of promotions.  Track where they are coming fom, how much are they spending from each place, tweak the offer at different places.  If your  LTV is really high, you can afford to "reward" your new customers more.  

Well, what if your ideal customers aren't at those fast transaction places?  If you find your best clients frequent nicer businesses like chiropractors' offices, spas, or live at a particular apartment complex you can use a similar tactic with a twist.  Create a flyer, but make it look like it is a gift from the business.

Here's an example of what I did for an apartment complex.  This flye made the apartments look good so they wanted to hand these out to everyone that came in and it worked great for us because we got qualified customers and the customers loved it cause they got Great food and an awesome price.  Win/Win/Win . 

With offers like this, if you make the other business look good and make their customers happy, they will be begging you to keep allowing them to promote for you.  In the future I will show you how I was able to make money from businesses who wanted these so badly.

As I said the possibilities are endless to this.  In the future I will give many more examples.

Now, as the name Joint Venture suggests, this is a two way street.  In the 1st example, most businesses will  want you to do something for them as well.  So figure out how you can help them get more customers as well.  Most likely "reward" your customers with their services.  Your customers will be appreciative and make your new partner happy as well.

Finally, the hardest part of this whole "joint venture" is finding businesses who will actually agree to participate.   Well, in reality...it only takes one.  Once you are able to establish at least one of these relationships and things are going well, ask the business owner to write a testimonial explaining the relationship and how beneficial it's been for them.  Then bring that around to other businesses you have on your list.  

The way I got started was just by asking loyal customers of my restaurant that owned businesses to participate.  

Well I could really go on and on with these examples but for many, this could already be a lot to swallow.  The key here is to take immediate action.  Make your lists up and get going.  The cards or flyers don't have to be fancy at first, just test and modify if needed.

If you have any questions or comments leave them below.

Until next time,

Crush it,

John Barry

The Marketing Guy

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