Small Business Web Design, Local Internet Marketing, Local SEO, Online Video, Training | LOCAL Na8ion West Palm Beach, FL

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Epsiode 7 (8:58) In this session we tackle (gasp) PLANNING. Not only that, we try to make it fun. Really! When it comes to a marketing plan, it’s best to think like Steven Covey of 7-habits fame – “begin with the end in mind.” Having a solid plan will greatly increase your chances of success and our simple plan takes just three easy steps: research, act and measure. This is part II in our Real Life series featuring my friend’s new local business FloridaFireFitness.com.

Watch the video below or download a copy for your iPod Video.

Any business can use our plan to hit the ground running while not wasting time you don’t have or making your marketing plan unnecessarily complicated. Enjoy the show and please let us know what you think!

You can download our free spreadsheet file template (.xls) featured in our video Podcast to use for your own business marketing plan by following this link.

Background

We started the series with part I on SuperBowl Sunday with the video Podcast Applying our three-phase local online marketing program where we outlined how we’ll follow the progress of FloridaFireFitness.com as we implement Local Na8ion’s three-phase online marketing method (create, publish, connect). Following our three phase method we will create relevant local content, publish it on the Internet using state-of-the-art online publishing methods, and finish by connecting with local buyers using the most effective online marketing techniques – everything from local search marketing to blog marketing.

My friend Ed and his partner are Fire Fighters by day in Palm Beach County Florida and on their time off they help people stay fit, strength train, run a faster mile, or you know… how to muscle a 280 pound man on to a stretcher for emergency transit to the Hospital. They have a practical and unique personal fitness approach that can work for young and old and the beginner to the advanced.

Is your web site pulling online buyers in to your local store?

If you’re a local business that can sell products in your store and online it’s much more likely that you have a well designed and optimized web site. Why is that and why should you care even if you don’t have a store?

Every business can apply the rules that make eCommerce sites more effective to make more local sales of products or services. There’s a lesser known secret about how your web site can drive offline sales that eCommerce practices make more clear: the secret is that good web sites influence almost $3.5 dollars of in store sales for every dollar spent online in a purchase. Three to one results should get your attention.

eCommerce has a way of driving sophistication in your web site design, offer, and ease of use (usability) honed from watching online shopping carts be abadoned or one sales offer beating the pants off a similar offer that was your worst performer. There’s a constant feedback look in the form of sales made and lost that keeps you honest. Since you’re focused on the transaction of a sale, your web site represents your business more like a star sales person, rather than the static brochure (read dull) that most local web sites are modeled after.

Here’s the latest proof of this concept.

An eMarketer study published today titled “Online Research Drives Offline Sales” reviews what eMarketer refers to as the “Precision Shopper.” That is, a person who researches a product online and then buys it from a store that is local to their current locale (hey, like we say in our Local Na8ion tagline, where you are is where it’s at). These shoppers are armed to the teeth with useful purchase information and if you’re doing your job that knowledge came from you. And why not, you’re an expert in your field.

”Today, online consumers think nothing of shopping across a retailer’s stores, Web site and catalog,” says Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report, Multi-Channel Retailing, “As a consequence, online product research is driving more in-store sales than online sales.” – source eMarketer

How much more in sales?

“Looked at another way, for every $1 in online sales, the Internet influenced $3.45 of store sales. ”Online consumers are becoming precision shoppers,” says Mr. Grau. “They are availing themselves of the wealth of information resources online to discover and evaluate products, compare them and find where they can be purchased.” – source eMarketer

What should you do about it?

You know from this information and loads of similar research that people want to use your web site as a buying resource to check your brands, inventory, location, directions, pricing, and read reviews. What are you doing about it? You probably need to start by taking a step back and looking at your web site with fresh eyes. Maybe you paid a web site designer to set your web site up four years ago and it hasn’t changed since? That’s often because most businesses have an Internet web site relic that you need a designer or web coder to update. There’s a remedy for that, watch our video series on a free and easy to update web site publishing system called WordPress.

Once you get your web site on an easy-to-update web platform and optimize it with your local relevant shopping content, you can start tweaking your messages and offers to pull people into your store. Offer them a specific in-store special or discount. Have your customer print out a coupon to bring to the store or make it clear they need to mention your special web-to-store special to receive their discount. This will help you track your online to offline buyers. Lastly, take a monent in the closing seconds of your sale to ask your precision shopper what got them to come in to your store. You’ll learn a lot that you can use to tweak your web site and make it even more effective. For example, you may think that it’s a specific brand or service that brought them in, when in actuality it was something completely different that you had burried on the last line of web site copy. That’s just the kind of real world feedback that will allow you to feature and promote one selling point over another, just like you might make a small change in a window display to improve sales of a particular item.

Do you have any ideas that you’ve found effective for pulling online buyers in to your store? I’d love to hear your feedback.

Your web site should be your star sales person

Most small to medium sized businesses have already declared by action, NOT INTENT, that their web site is a brochure and not a sales person.

Yes, even as an online marketing professional I have done no better at times. Want a real life example? Just look at my parent company web site at exceler8 and compare that to the focus and variety on my local online marketing site Local Na8ion. It’s like the difference between managing a sales force as a group of clock-punching employees and managing sales, guess which improves the bottom line more?

I recommend that you take a look at your web site as if it were your sales person and not a brochure because it will not so subtly change your attitudes and actions about your site and your online sales strategy.

Think about it, successful businesses have well trained, well paid and properly incented sales people. Without our sales people we wouldn’t have a business. You’re constantly managing, coaching, incenting, and helping your sales people to help you. We measure their success with daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual reports along with performance evaluations and customer feedback metrics. We recognize the importance of their physical dress and appearance, their ability to communicate verbally and in writing, and how cleanly they submit their orders and follow company practices. We do all this because our sales people are the face of our company and that means that our sales people are an asset we can’t afford to mismanage or we’ll face serious consequences.

Here are some questions for you and your online sales person:

First, be honest with yourself. Is your web site a star sales person or getting ready to pack their bags for greener pastures?

• does your web site know everything about your business that it should?
• do you measure your web site’s success (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually)?
• do you offer your web site ‘training’ on your business fundamentals, new trends, or economic changes in your local market or in the national business climate for your industry?
• does your web site have all your current products, services and pricing?
• do customers know how to contact your web site, your address, phone, and email address for your business?
• is your web site ready to take orders and provide a smooth experience doing so?
• does your web site make points succinctly and answer questions clearly?
• does your web site talk circles and marketing nonsense that customers neither care about or have time to read (ouch, talk about my weakness!)?
• is your web site, knowledgeable, professional and suited to your business image?
• how are your web site’s communication skills, do you offer email newsletters or RSS feed?
• how well does your web site sell against your competition?
• does your web site handle typical customer objections smoothly and confidently or fumble nervously with the keys in its pocket?
• does your web site know of current job openings at your company and always have en eye out for new talent?
• when someone goes looking for a product or service like yours is your sales person in front of them or out on the golf course?
• speaking of golf, can your web site play golf? Ha, just kidding.

If you answered yes to all those questions congratulations – you’re a star and so is your web site. For the rest of us (and I do mean US) it’s great to get a wake up call once in a while to remember what’s important.

Realistically, a typical small to medium sized business makes their web site when they open their business and then just leaves it. Maybe your site is one of those cut and paste beauties from 1999 that your kid cousin made for you. Or you have one of those cookie cutter web sites a media sales rep put together for free so you’d buy an ad from them in the Yellow Pages or Newspaper. Let’s face it, this isn’t how you’d treat your star sales person.

I know that comparing a live sales person to a web site is a little extreme. But it’s a much better way to think of your site than a static brochure. Wasn’t the old point from ten years ago that your web site was a sales person that never slept, got sick, or took a day off? Wasn’t that a relief. Yes, your web site DOES offer these advantages but you’ll never make a star sales person of your web site without investing in the same kind of process, management focus and attention to detail that you use with your sales team.

Should you really bother with all this work? Is it a worth while investment in your time? To sum it up, there are more people online today shopping and buying (both locally and nationally) than the people who DON’T refer to the web in buying situations. The days of ignoring your online sales person and not suffering any consequences are over.

What to do?

Business people aren’t ignoring their online sales person out of malice or indifference. We’re strapped for time and online marketing and publishing can be just as confounding as local business ordinances or an old fashioned media slickster in sansibelt pants and a clip-on tie. Use your search engine to locate sites that educate and inform you – there are multitudes of FREE resources that businesses have available to them on the web. In fact, there are more free and low cost methods to setup, design, and market your business online than ever before and it’s getting easier all the time.

Don’t let a fear of technical know-how or lack of marketing experience get in the way of your great company idea and vision. Remember, search engines, blogs, and business web sites are all available to your business. Do your research and then support, build, and train your online sales channel and web site like you would your own sales team: day by day, follow a process, measure your results, and keep tweaking your message and offers until your web site is the star it should be. Good luck!