Promoting Your Business Online and Offline to Boost Sales

In today's business world, people expect that you would have a website. This means either having and eCommerce online store, or just a basic "brochure" website about your business. Even if your business does not sell a great deal online, it will lead new business to your doorstep.

In one case study we did for a company, who did not sell a great deal through their online store, their e-catalogue store did indeed develop new business for them!  What they found out by asking new customer contacts is that many of the customers had visited their web site. But, did not purchase online. In their particular case the website lead the customer to call directly and start asking further questions about their products. Because all their products were of high value (over $100.00), some customers prefered to call and make contact - allowing the closing of the sale to take place quicker over the phone. Those customers who did not purchase online also said they liked the idea of having the option to buy online as it positively re-inforced their perception that they were dealing with a viable company.

This is where the sales process becomes easier for the company.  The case study also showed that most customers, once they purchased their initial product, did return to the online store to purchase consumable and service goods for the product they owned. Some customers said it was convenient and quick.  Others still prefered to call orders in over the phone.  Those customers who phoned in their subsiquent orders - had the company's website up on their computer when they called to provide the part number to the sales representative.

The interesting thing about this study is that through either purchase process, whether online, or on the phone, the customer had accessed the company's products and inventory "online" with each contact. Once the marketing figures were completed it was found that 64% of new customers had first come through the online store, while only 7% of that business actually purchased online with out contact. 24% purchased service products online later on with-out phone contact.

Of the 64% of new business, only 9% found the company by way of a search engines.

So where did the additional new business come from if not from search engines? Well - through other offline marketing activities like referrals (to the website), printed material and direct mail marketing.

The important factor in marketing any business is not to rely on just one form of advertising and promotion. Marketing is made up of a mix of these things and having a website with or with-out an online store or catalogue is just part of that mix. But as the above study showed - having a website is a very important part of the marketing mix. The website lead their customers to initiate contact through other means, the by-product of that was they were able to close sales more quickly over the phone and earn their customers trust and future business.

What was not expected from this company's study was this: of the 64% of new business - 76% of the new customers said they would have gone elsewhere had the company not had a website catalogue to browse through and talk about with the sales rep. on the phone.

Home Business Blues

By: David Cohen, Radio Host of The Small Business - Big Ideas Show

So what do we do when sales are flat? I say you have to dig those heels in a little and get re-focused. Yes, there is no doubt that slow selling times bring forth anxiety and fears. Although anxiety and fear can seem real to you…I assure you it’s not. The real way to get over these feelings is to get into action. Take time to analyze all areas of your business and make a strategic action plan.

I was working with one business owner who has all kinds of thoughts and areas to focus on in their business and they just don’t seem to be accomplishing anything. There is just too much to do in their business and it has them on “overwhelm” mode.

My recommendation is take it all on, but manage each area of the business separately and divide them up into smaller projects. For example, your sales, web site, accounting, marketing, production can be broken down into categories and headings. The next step is to assign the necessary tasks to accomplish the goals and address the issues in each area of your business.

I do this on a large piece of Bristol board and use 3M post-it-notes to write down each action step I need. On the Post-it-notes are the tasks or goals. Once completed, I remove each note and put up a new task that needs to be done.

The post-it-notes act as big reminders for me and give me focus. On each note are the actions I need to take in each area of my business. The Bristol board can be decorated and fun. If you want, you can include motivational sayings and pictures as decorations and to help keep you motivated during the lean times. (continued on part two...)

Part two of our eCommerce TIPS Quarterly Newsletter release...

QUARTERLY ISSUE
Issue 1 - November 2006

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Important Website T.I.P.S.

Common S.E.O. Mistakes:

Focus on "keyword phrases" in your meta tags. Just adding key "words" is incorrect. Studies show most people do searches for phrases - not single words.

Use separated, discriptive wording in naming your site images:  "image1.jpg" will not work for your search engine exposure.
Use file names like: "e_marketing_book.jpg" to describe your image. Use the "_" (underscore), not a space on all web file names.

Put alt. tags on both your images and links.  If your web site software program allows it - alt. tag your linked images as well.

Spilling counts for search engines.  Ah, I mean "spelling" counts. Always double check and recheck your content and meta tags for correct spelling.

Double check that ALL YOUR LINKS work. These lead search engines to other pages in your site and if you have a broken link, the search engine robots will not be able to find those pages. Simply publishing a web page to your hosting server with-out proper linking from other pages will not allow the page to be found.

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