Most people land on web sites by using search engines. Original content helps your site’s rankings on top search engines like Google. More pages with original content = higher search rankings = more visitors.
Fundamental marketing practices still apply on the web. You must gain your customer’s attention and trust first, then move to selling your product or service.
“Instead of asking how you can get more message into less space on your B2B web site, ask how you can expand your content to make it worthwhile to more people and earn greater respect from the search engines at the same time.”
Some ideas:
Break products and services down into smaller pieces. Segment by product and service, different industries you sell to, and add supplemental information like video demonstrations.
Create online publications, white papers and webcasts to publicize trade shows or events and build reputation. Add educational content or an industry news section to position yourself as an industry leader.
Create a customer support area full of manuals, FAQs and forums.
Add sections to your site listing your B2B customers’ customers, your suppliers, investors as an information center for stakeholders who are not leads or clients.
Add a section for media and press, fill with informational materials about your company.
You’ve done the SEO, and made the first page of Google. You’ve designed your page for maximum usability. Your products are easy to order. But the person landing on your page is just looking. So how do you keep them there and more importantly, keep them coming back?
For many site owners, the answer is widgets and links to free goodies.
Widgets are small downloadable applications that relate to your customer’s business or personal lifestyle. For example, a realtor might include a desktop mortgage calculator prospective clients can place on their own computer and use as they house hunt. An elementary educational supplies site might want to add a widget for creating word search puzzles or word of the day lessons. Trainers and managers might find the Citrix’s Extentrix Widget, an online meeting organizer, a great addition to their computer.
Sites like Widgetbox or Yahoo Widgets can provide you with hundreds of free or low cost widgets visitors can use on your site or in many cases, download to their own PC or Mac – either way, it’s a great way to associate your site with value and functionality.
Widgets and freebees that help the client or prospective in their personal life are also a way to create value and “stickiness.” Consider creating a catchy free ring tone that visitors can send to their own handset – sites like PhoneZoo will let you create a ring tone all your own.
Or use one of the many ring tone-creation software packages to create free tones to embed directly in your site for download. Either way, every time the phone rings, your customers will think of your site — a free and simple way to help brand your company among site visitors.
Whatever type of widget or freebee you choose, be sure to test it first from several computers over a variety of OS platforms. While widgets and freebees are a great way to add value a site, there is nothing worse than offering a prospective a give-away that won’t work.
Presenters at the 2007 HR Technology Conference & Exposition revealed that social networking and Web 2.0 are key marketing strategies for software vendors this year, according to a Workforce article.
Programmers are building tools into HR software that help users sync their in-house goals with online tactics. For example, one presenter at the technology conference demonstrated how their set of HR software tools can allow employees to post jobs from their firms career Web page directly onto their Facebook page.
HR software is adopting highly interactive tools and embracing social media. The latest generation to join the workforce has grown up with Facebook, YouTube and MySpace. When they start looking for a job, the first stop is usually online.
HR software companies have analyzed how people search for jobs and have created programs to help HR professionals hire the best.
Today a friend sent me this great little article, “Two of the Biggest Hurdles.” The author brings up an interesting question - why do small businesses have trouble marketing themselves consistently?
The answer is because there are two big hurdles in the way - perfection and fear of failure. The author goes on to give some tips on getting over or around the two.
Hurdling perfection:
Obsession with perfection can delay work significantly.
Perfection is not bad in itself, but can be when it holds you back from putting a “good enough” idea out.
Put your ideas out there, then pull them back in and analyze how you could have done it better. Keep repeating the process until you get as close to perfection as possible.
Be willing to start somewhere, accept mistakes and learn from them.
Focus on the pursuit of perfection.
Hurdling fear of failure:
Marketing takes time and effort and everything doesn’t always work when you first try it.
Failure can be positive, because it allows you to learn from your mistakes.
The important thing is to keep trying, even if you make a complete mess of it the first go around.
Be courageous. Focus on achieving the ultimate result.
First test your marketing efforts on a small group. Make tweaks where needed, test again and then go big.
Do your best to clear these hurdles and get your ideas out there. Don’t let perfection or the fear of failure stand in the way of a potentially great marketing idea.
The 27th installment of the Carnival of HR is up at Three Star Leadership. You’ll find a wide array of valuable HR info and discover some new blogs to read. Enjoy!
Web 2.0 (pay-per-click advertising, blogging, podcasting, press releases, etc.) will be used for the first time this year by one fourth of smaller HR product and service suppliers to generate leads.
Large vendors, with $50 million or more in annual revenue, remain slow to join Web 2.0, according to a survey buy HR Marketer.
There is an overall trend in the HR world to adopt new Web-related marketing and public relations activities. After lead generation, HR product and service vendors find their biggest marketing and public relations hurdles were search engine optimization and Web 2.0 technologies, according to the survey.
An article in the New York Times, “Hoping to Make Phone Buyers Flip,” follows the struggles of LG Electronics through designing a new cell phone model. Phone consumers are “gadget conscious” shoppers, buying a new phone every nine months. The deciding factor if a phone will fly off the shelves - popular appeal.
The world has changed,” said Jeremy Dale, who is in charge of marketing for mobile devices at Motorola, Images where fortunes tumbled with the decline of its once popular Razr. “There is more relevance in what other consumers say than what the company is saying.”
“The strongest marketing tool is the first 20,000 people who buy the device,” Mr. Dale of Motorola said. “If they like it, they will tell their friends.”
We all know that you made your widget, you are the sole expert on its functionality, its design, and all the fancy little details, but we (as consumers) don’t care. We want to know how everyone else likes it. Does it work? Will it fill my need?
Encourage consumers to give you feedback on your products. Share that feedback where customers can see it - on your website, a comment section on product pages or mixed into email copy.
I’m not saying that we don’t trust you, we do. We just trust our friends more. Sorry.
On the same note, here’s a video I found from Microsoft recommending word of mouth marketing.
With email design, less is often more according to a recent blog post from email marketing leader ExactTarget.
“When dealing with designers on certain email projects, I have been reminded of the old saying:
To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Or, to put it in design terms:
To a designer with Photoshop, everything looks like a canvas to be filled.”
There should be a single purpose to your email communication with customers. Don’t clutter the email with too many messages, images or hard to read text.
An email can be deleted as fast as the blink of an eye. So, be sure to get your message across quickly and keep your primary message at the very top of the email.
Think about how your email will be viewed by the recipient. If the email is delivered to an Outlook account, you may only have the space alloted in the preview pane to catch someone’s attention.
While your designers may want to create a fancy, jam-packed email to wow customers, remember one thing - keep it simple.
Copyblogger.com is a tactfully written blog focused on copywriting for online marketing success.
A post from last week gives some useful advice on how to keep your writing clear and direct. From product descriptions to landing page copy and everything in between, there are three “enemies” to stay away from when you write for the web.
1. Metadiscourse - a big word that means writing about writing. Examples include: “to sum up,” “I believe,” “note that,” and “I would like to point out.”
A sentence full of metadiscourse would look like this:
“I would like to point out that we should cancel the meeting.”
Get rid of the unnecessary words:
“Cancel the meeting.”
Get to the point, you don’t have to tell us that you’re pointing it out. You’re saying it, so we know it’s your opinion.
2. Redundancy - don’t use two words where you could just use one.
Examples: “Screaming loudly,” “past history”
3. Pretentious words - don’t try to impress us with “smart” sounding words. Say what you want to say, simply and clearly.
Examples of pretentious words and their better, simpler replacements:
Utilize = use
Comprehend = understand
Inexorable = determined
Also, don’t forget who you’re speaking to. You wouldn’t use the same terminology for a product description when writing for a product vendor as you would a new customer on your website.
I’ve got to thank those gurus over at MarketingSherpa for sharing their tricks of the trade and some great copywriting tips. In a recent blog post, the author shares the wonder that is the ellipsis (you know “…”).
Especially on the web, people don’t read, they skim, catch a few words here and there, maybe read a sentence if you’re lucky.
This is why the bullet point list is so handy. You give the people what they want quickly in short lines.
But you can’t write up a landing page full of bullet points, which is when you can put some ellipses to use.
The art of getting a paragraph — or a long sentence — read is all about catching the eye. An ellipsis gives you five glorious letter-free spaces in the middle of the paragraph to grab the eye with. An example:
Acme’s widget helps you make more money … lower your costs … impress your boss … and keep your career going strong.
A word of caution - use your ellipses wisely. If you go too far it may start looking like you the period button got jammed on your keyboard.
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