Category: Internet Marketing

Web Marketing: Stay Up To Date

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Liking an idea and executing it are two very different things.  Many consultant, trainers, and professional coaches want to leverage their knowledge into an online marketing campaign but struggle to put it together.  This is especially true if they see or hear an idea they like but don’t think through steps for executing and maintaining the campaign.  Online marketing campaigns are timely and if there’s no sustainability plan then the effort can cause more harm than good.

The most common example of this is an online blog.  Many consultants, trainers, and professional coaches will see a blog they like and then haphazardly set up a blog of their own.  This frequently is thrown up on a blog service website.  Those a little more dedicated might find suitable templates, customize a layout, and/or have the blog set up on their site.  This shotgun approach typically creates subpar results.  The blog can come off as disjointed or may never be properly promoted at all.

Creating content consistently takes time and if there isn’t an agreed upon system for creating the content then the blog will stagnate.  This is the most common fate of hastily done blogs and reflects poorly on the individual or company who created it.  It’s a clear sign that projects go unfinished if a blog is found stagnant.  Our blog is an example that it takes commitment to maintain.  Though we’d like to post more regularly we are committed to a new post at least once every other week and maintain that schedule regardless of other demands on our time.  At minimum, if you have a blog and find that it’s not being updated; remove it from your site.

A blog is just an example of how web marketing needs maintained.  Other common offenders are social media pages or news/press release sections of the site.  If you identify an idea or channel you’d like to use, then a sustainability plan should be top priority.  An even higher priority than design or technical details because if the content isn’t current, then it won’t generate results.  Keep up to date with your online campaigns so they are relevant and add new touch points with clients and potential clients.

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Online Marketing Campaigns: Have a Target

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A common mistake in online marketing is not having a clear client target for individual campaigns.  The thinking behind it is usually,  “cast a wider net to have more opportunities to catch something.”  The problem is there are a lot of nets in the water, so the people that know how to catch a particular fish stand a much better chance of landing them.  Every online campaign should be built around attracting a particular target.

The first step in making a target is the overview.  Consultants, trainers, and professional coaches usually focus on executives or business professionals of a certain job role.  Let’s use sales training as an example.  The overall target could be sales professionals, sales managers, customer service professionals, business owners, and service professionals.  This is the businesses target focus but not specific enough for a single online campaign.

The second step is picking out a subsection of your target market that is suitable for your call to action.  Let’s use sales managers from the example above.  If a manager event is coming up then the campaign should be built around problems that a manager faces.  Topics of making prospecting calls or dealing with budgets will have less impact than building a sales team and sales debriefing because these are topics that sales managers directly deal with. 

The third step is identifying group subsets.  The event might be centered on managing a sales team in a particular industry.  If this is the case then targets should be related to that industry with a certain size sales force.

The point is that every online campaign should have a very clear target.  Ideally communications via email will be segmented to that group.  For web and social media communications, (or in cases where email segmentation isn’t possible) communications should clearly define who the offer is for.  This casts a smaller net by eliminating poorly suited people but adds credibility to the message for the target group.  A side benefit is that people outside the target group can quickly see it’s not suited to them and are more likely to take notice when they fall into a target segment for a future campaign.

There’s nothing complicated about defining a target.  It’s simply a matter of taking some extra time to focus the campaign and having the guts to let people know who is and is not a good fit for the offer.

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Quality Web Help

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I had a question come up recently with a prospective client that interestingly comes up a lot.  The question was, “How do I know you’ll stick around to do these campaigns?”  I’ve had some clients go so far as to ask for a contract for a dedicated length of time to work on their project.  These questions and requests are all based on the same problem.  It’s hard to find good web help.

The internet is only expanding which helps explain why hiring web help is difficult as demand stretches qualified professionals and introduces unqualified “professionals” attempting to tap into the market.

It took me a while to get used to these types of questions.  The defining moment for me was when a business owner asked me for a quote on redesigning his website.  The site was already professionally done, so I asked why the person who created it didn’t do the redesign.  The business owner responded, “Because I can’t locate him.  He got most of the site done and right after that we had a few extra projects for him.  I guess we paid him what he needed because he disappeared.”

So here’s an insider’s view on what to look for if you’re going to hire someone to do any web, internet, social media, or email marketing work for you.

  • How long have they been doing the work?
    Don’t go with just a date established. Seek out testimonials or referrals that validate the individual or firm have been consistently providing a service.  A lot of between job web professionals become freelancers for a few months but then vanish as soon as their next employment opportunity materializes.
  • Who do they work with and what do they specialize in?
    Anyone claiming to be everything to everyone should raise suspicion especially for freelancers or small firms.  The web has grown too big to be an expert in all industries and media.  A lack of specialization might be a sign of casting a wide net but not being well equipped to service clients.  Make sure you clearly define what is needed and what the freelancer or firm will be responsible for.
  • Do they practice what they preach?
    A web design firm should have a website.  A social media expert should have a sophisticated social media profile.  To some extent it’s true that our own sites are the last to get attention but a lack of a professional presence is a sure sign that the individual or firm might not be as qualified as they need to be.

The good news is there are a lot of web professionals available that will do a quality job.  Just make sure to do some homework before hiring them so you’re not left with a poor quality or unfinished project.

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Reasonable Next Steps in Online Marketing

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Successful online marketing is part art, part science, and a big part common sense. However, when we work on our online marketing campaigns everything makes sense to us. We clearly see the value proposition and truly believe in the product, service, or offer being made. That zeal can blind us to common sense. The most common unreasonable expectation that crops up is how an audience will react to our call to action. Make sure that the call to action is suitable for what’s been communicated to the audience.

I recently had a conversation with a client who was frustrated by a lack of interest in a two day business event they run. We revued the email marketing metrics and my client stated, “See, we had 25 people click to the registration page and not one signed up. What’s going on? Our other offers consistently generate leads but marketing is not getting interest in this event.” So questions arose but 3 key questions told the tale.

How many people were ideal for the event?
About 20 was a good balance to make it a profitable event but small enough for personal interaction.

How many did they typically have register?
The events had averaged 10 people so they were operating at half the desired number.

If marketing was not filling seats how were people being registered?
On average 5 of the attendees came from personal invitations from the sales staff. The other half called in and after getting some more information about the event they would register.

So where did the call-ins come from? The assumption was that it was word of mouth or referrals but upon analyzing the dates it appeared that the call-ins were most prevalent when email communications were sent. The issue wasn’t that the emails weren’t working. It was that the audience was taking an unexpected next step by calling in.

Now correcting this situation can go down a lot of avenues. Was the landing page lacking enough information to convert interested parties? Was the sign up process unclear or cumbersome? Was the sign up process working technically? These are all valid questions but as is often the case the common sense questions are usually the most valuable.

The 2-day event this trainer was running was a $1500/person event. The email communications were largely being sent to prospects that were new to the list or only asked for basic information. The chances of converting an unengaged contact for a $1500 purchase on any online communication are slim to nil. However, the event might be of interest to them and they might want to call and ask questions. Some of the people that call to get information about the event will then decide they do want to attend, but they need that personal interaction. A promotional email just isn’t going to do it because it doesn’t intrinsically carry the necessary credibility for a purchase that size.

Any commitment over about $50 will meet with resistance unless the audience is already familiar with you or your company. My client’s future emails were sure to highlight their phone number so that interested prospects had a viable next step without having to commit to spending $1500. If you find that your conversions are performing well below expectations, it’s a good idea to review the call to action and make sure it’s a reasonable next step.

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Email and Online Marketing: Create Genuine Urgency

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Creating a sense of urgency is often noted as a best practice in marketing.  We want prospects to take action on an offer now rather than filing it away for “later” and then forgetting about it.  But urgency, like anything, can be abused.  Many online marketers create arbitrary deadlines or dates to force urgency.  Overusing the strategy causes problems in the long run because audiences become skeptical.  Rather than making up false urgency review your offers to find the genuine urgency that can drive your prospects to take action.

Here are a few sample offers common for consultant, trainer, and professional coach’s events.   It’s an outline on how subtle changes in an offer can be perceived as genuine rather than a hollow marketing ploy.  The same strategies can be adapted for products or item promotions.

Many event communications for business seminars try to encourage registrations immediately.  Below are some common incentives.  But remember only use these urgency building tactics if it truly fits your event.

  • Give Away – A certain number of people that sign up first get a free item.  If you use this promotion then you need a rock solid way of knowing who the first registrations were up to a certain point.  The attendees will notice if every person in the room has the give-away.  Be realistic about the audience size an event will draw.  If you are expecting 30 people, don’t do the first 30 to sign up because the offer will look disingenuous.
  • Reduced Pricing – Early registration leads to a discounted price.  This can be a powerful incentive but needs to be honest.  If dates are rescheduled or everyone is given a reduced price the audience will learn that any advertised reduction is just a hollow attempt to portray a good deal.
  • Limited Number of Seats – Unless your registration method has a counter on available seats it’s difficult to use this incentive early. An email stating that seats are filling up well in advance is often hard to take seriously unless it’s a well known event.  This tactic is most effective as events get closer. It’s often a good “last chance” communication letting potential attendees know there are a certain number of spaces left but it needs to be sincere.  Telling people that there are a limited number of spots and having them come to a sparsely attended event is a quick way to lose credibility.
  • Upcoming Date – The most overlooked urgency builder for events is the most obvious, the date.  The beauty of this urgency builder is it’s self-apparently genuine.  The event happens on x date.  If you don’t sign up by y date then registration will be closed and you won’t be able to attend.  This again is best served as the event gets closer. The only way this can be undermined is if dates are commonly cancelled or rearranged.  If dates move a lot the audiences will assume that it’s not an actual deadline.

These are 4 examples.  The key to using any of them is to do so genuinely.  Urgency is created when the audience clearly understands why a timely response is necessary.  If urgency builders are overused or abused then the marketing audience tunes them out.  When that happens conversion suffers because communications have less credibility and offers with urgency are disregarded.

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Online Marketing: Don’t Forget Your Clients

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When trainers, consultants, and professional coaches set up or maintain an online marketing campaign, prospects are typically the focus.  This makes sense as marketing to prospects is the most direct way of generating new business.  Unfortunately this focus often blinds trainers, consultants, and professional coaches to another, likely more valuable, group; their clients.  Including communications and exclusive offers to clients within an online marketing campaign is a good way to increase client loyalty and generate referral business.

Usually if clients are factored in to online communications it’s in the form of a client newsletter.  While a newsletter can be valuable, it’s just one channel of potential bonuses that can be offered to clients.  Some added options might be:

  • Client Portal on the Web – Do you have a client only section?  This could be a portal on the website or an exclusive group within your social media.
  • Client Offers – These offers could be free access to paid events, early access to whitepapers or reports, or discounts on materials.  Making the communication exclusive goes a long way toward making the offer credible.  For instance, sending a special email offer works, putting the offer on a public site or social media page doesn’t.
  • Online Supported Referrals – Referrals are a key factor for trainers, consultants, and professional coaches to generate new business.  Having an online referral form process in a client portal or sending a list of hot prospects you’d like to be introduced to can be a good prompt to getting clients in the mindset of providing introductions.

This is a small sampling but are pieces often overlooked by trainers, consultants, and professional coaches.  A client marketing plan can have two major benefits if done well.  It will produce warm prospects while strengthening the bond to your client base.

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Will Internet Marketing Sell My High Ticket Items?

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A question that trainers, consultants, and professional coaches ask is, “How will an online marketing campaign sell my services?  The typical price is x thousands of dollars.”  The simple answer is, “It won’t”.  At least not directly.  However, it is possible to break down the campaign into sections and make small sales/relationship builders that result in easier sales for the high ticket services.

When directly marketing a product or service, price plays a factor.  How often do you get an email asking you to buy a car?  Hopefully the answer is never because no one is going to spontaneously buy something that costs tens of thousands of dollars.  Even online car listings require interaction with a sales person on site to ensure a vehicle meets a buyers wants/needs.  Ads for particular events or vehicle models are prevalent.  That’s because the ads are designed to get a person interested in visiting a dealer so the sales force can take over the sales process.

Trainers, consultants, and professional coaches are no different.  Most of the services offered run into the tens of thousands of dollars and there is no layout/copy that’s going to convert prospects directly to clients.  This is due to price as well as complexity of the service being purchased.  Prospects usually need individualized information about the training, consulting, or coaching which is very difficult if not impossible to duplicate in a static communication.

So the strategy for engaging prospects changes to some smaller offer.  This is typically done through small items like books, materials, or events.  Prices range from free to thousands of dollars for these items.  Typically the more it costs/the more complex it is, the more resistance there will be from prospects.

The effectiveness of these offers typically mirrors how engaged an audience is.  Someone that’ already engaged in an informative email, social media, blog, etc. campaign will pre-assign credibility to your offers and is more likely to take advantage if it meets a need.  Prospects that are new or blindly communicated to, will put little credence to an offer and will be strongly resistant to even minimal pricing/complexity.

Don’t take this formula as a suggestion to compete on price. That is usually a losing battle online as someone is almost always willing to go cheaper.  What it does mean is that expectations should be set based on the offer being made.

Here are two examples of offers that should have different expectations/processes for engaging a prospect:

  • Purchase our $20 book – This is a small investment proposition. It’s reasonable to expect that prospects will purchase the book with no personal interaction from an individual with your firm.  The engagement funnel allows for people to make direct purchases of the book from an online marketing campaign.  This pool of prospects can then be followed up with by the sales team to gauge whether they are a valid candidate for higher ticket services.
  • Attend a 2-Day event for $1500 – This is a higher investment proposition.  It’s unreasonable to expect any but the most engaged prospects to purchase based off of a single promotional communication.  It’s more likely that the online marketing will introduce the idea and the sales team can use that as leverage for getting people to sign up for the event.  Metrics and data from the online campaign can be used to form a contact list based on people that have some interaction with the initial communication.

The exception to this is the amount of time/effort/money invested in promoting an offer.  National speaking events rely on pure marketing (online and otherwise) to fill massive venues but they also invest significant time (typically 4-6 months lead time) and a large budget to promote the event.  In many cases, large speaking events are an inverse model for offers made by smaller training, consulting, and professional coaching firms in that they spend a lot up front for an event in hopes of selling large amounts of materials to attendees.

This strategy is an unreasonable investment in time and money for many trainers, consultants, and professional coaches.  In these cases, setting reasonable expectations allows for an effective action plan to be put in place.  Rather than relying on a marketing juggernaut, offers can be tailored to fit the amount of personal interaction outside of marketing that needs to take place to sell prospects.

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Set eMarketing Goals Now

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Happy new year.  Like most business goals, now is the time to review your metrics and set goals.  And it can’t be a resolution that’s forgotten after January.  eMarketing is not a “set it and forget it” activity.  It’s an ongoing process of trial, error, and improvement.

Look over your email, social media, and website metrics and set target goals for the end of 2012.  Then break those target goals into quarters.  Finally break the first quarter into a monthly set.  In this way you can make a monthly plan that covers the year.  Each month should be assigned one enhancement that you believe will improve results.

After you set this plan you only need to track results.  Then at the end of the year you’ll have numbers that support or inform your plan of action.  So next year’s plan can be a bit more precise.  Over a few years time your eMarketing plan will be pinpoint accurate with reliable projections on what to expect.

But it all starts by setting goals now . . .

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Should I Include the Price?

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A question that pops up is whether a price should be advertised right off the bat or on a second level that people have to navigate to.  The answer to this depends on space limitations, price appeal, and communication vehicle. But as a guiding rule pricing should be included unless it’s a complex product, service, or offer where pricing is not easily outlined.

For something simple like a banner ad or a social media update a price likely shouldn’t be included unless it’s a selling point.  The reason for this is purely functional, there’s not enough room to focus on anything but incentives to click.  However the landing page should display pricing clearly if possible so that users aren’t frustrated in finding it.

For website pages or detailed communications the answer is yes, unless it’s a complex product or service where pricing models would be unreasonably complex.  It’s frustrating for users to see a straightforward offer or product and not see pricing.  Furthermore it becomes a headache for the site owner because they will be flooded with, “how much does x cost,” questions.

Basically the answer is to include a price as soon as it’s feasible.  If you are offering something simple and have a defined price it’s best to include it early.  Your audience is going to want to see pricing so it’s better to be direct rather than make additional steps that can appear like it’s trying to be concealed.

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Online and Email Marketing: There’s No Magic Bullet

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I’m often asked, “What should I change in my approach?”, or “What best practice should I adopt to improve performance?” I always struggle to answer these questions for 3 reasons.

The first is that it’s usually asked before I have a chance to understand the online and email marketing campaigns. The second reason is because the answer is always different for different people/companies. The third is that there is often an assumption that one thing will revolutionize the online and/or email marketing which usually is not the case.

The first 2 reasons are just circumstances of reality. But the third is a pitfall that leads to frustrations when expectations are unreasonably high. Sure, there are some common mistakes that can be easily corrected, but generally great online and email marketing campaigns evolve from a series of small improvements. It’s rarely a quick change that causes a major improvement.

Even when we read/hear/experience stories of drastic improvement, it’s rare that these major benefits are retained immediately. Rather there is a drop off that stabilizes as the change is integrated into ongoing efforts.

Email and online marketing is a marathon, not s sprint. Don’t look for a magic bullet that will dramatically improve performance but rather focus on continually making small improvements. If your effort is consistent over time you’ll see that your online and email marketing campaigns have become best-in-class without even noticing the change.

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