Why Web Developer's Sites Aren't The Best Marketing Tool
It always interests me as a web developer that we get the majority of our business from referrals from happy clients.
This site you're reading isn't really set up like a conventional web developers web site, but it does an excellent job for us at generating leads.
Many other web developers I speak with get very little from their site.
I'd say the majority of web developers spend more time on developing their web site than any other marketing tool................probably for the worst return on their time/money investment.
All Leads Aren't Created Equal
But all leads aren't created equal. And that's why we spend more time on things other than this web site.
Because the quality of leads from personal referrers is so much better than leads generated from a person who has found your web site.
And by quality of leads, I mean people who are personally referred are much more likely to become a client.
The Worst Quality Leads
The absolute worst quality leads we've received over the years have been from our Yellow Pages advertisement.
Almost without exception, the lead from our ad would be someone with a budget of $100 who was trying to find the cheapest web developer he or she could.
Most Leads vs Best Leads
You might know what form of marketing gives you the most leads.
But what form of marketing gives you the best leads?
And what form of marketing makes you the most profit?
Cheers
Brendon
P.S: If you'd like a web site created or marketed, simply contact us on 07 5598 4898 or admin@tailored.com.au.
The manager has to market the resort and keep it all humming along nicely. Which is all usually okay, until that huge Bus Tour that has booked 210 bed nights cancels at the last minute!
Then You Need To Move Quick
That's when you need to move quick. Real quick.
Just how do you fill your resort in ultra quick time?
Here's how in 4 easy steps:
Get your web site up to date offering great deals
Hit the last minute booking web sites with great deals
Send an email offer to all of your previous guests
Buy ads across various relevant tourism/holiday web sites
They're all web steps of course. Because nothing is quicker, has as great a reach and is as accessible to a wide range of demographics target as the web.
Are you making the most of your marketing resources?
One of the guys here was entering Reg's order and saw the problems. We have no stock. Reg has short changed us.
A) Do we send Reg a letter telling him we are sold out? B) Do we send him a letter asking for the $9 before we send the product out.
If you picked A or B, you're wrong. The answer is, of course, C.
c) Find a chemist that stocks our product. Pay full retail. Send it to Reg. Pop a note in letting Reg know there was a miscalculation in his adding up and say he can either send the $9 next time or consider it an early Christmas gift.
The Value Of Reg
Because a loyal customer who buys 4 times a year at $90 a time for 4 years is worth way more than $9 (assuming Reg doesn't send the $9 in next time).
It's not about screwing the customer for every last $. It's about giving the customer the best possible value for his $.
That's why Reg has been a customer for 4 years and will be a customer for another 4 years.
Don't you just love cheap labour your own children!
When sales hit it's great to have 3 kids who work for food :o)
Harry & Laura wrapping & packing....Jack is off posting
Thanks guys!
I remember when I was a kid I thought my mum had me just so she had someone to run up to the local shop for milk.......I'm creating those same sort of thoughts for my kids!
This post has nothing to do about marketing, but about psychology....which may well be the same thing.
Here's a blog post by Bob Parsons, founder of GoDaddy. Bob talks about a young elephant coming close and how "We both had our rifles at the ready, but it became apparent the charge was a bluff, so we didn’t shoot."
A day where the visitor numbers for one of our sites (sells Calendulis Plus cream) exploded.....along with the sales. An interesting day as we sought to take full advantage of the exposure the site received.
Saving Money Sites Do Work
Mel just gone home and I'm here finishing a few things off and got thinking about sites that are about saving money. There are a few sites sprouting up now that focus on giving tips for saving money - and I wasn't a big believer in them.
Until I stumbled across this blog post I wrote after one of my radio interviews. We chatted about saving money on phone bills - I ended up going with the Engin option I talk about and that has cut $1,800 per year off my phone bill.
$1,800 In My Pocket
That's $1,800 better in my pocket than the pocket in the giant telecommunications company.
So some of these sites provide terrific value - although I haven't seen an Australian one mention Engin as yet!
Just When I Was Feeling Good About Ways To Help People Save Money
Just when I was feeling good about ways to help people save money I say this thief in action.......... (Hat tip to Andrew Johnson's Web Publishing Blog)
Speaking with a client earlier today for whom we've tidied up their site a bit, written some copy and done some basic search engine work (work to get their site higher in search engines).
We worked on the site 1 month ago.
Leads from their web site convert to a sale 80% of the time.
A sale is $620. They work on a huge margin.
They've only ever generated 1 lead a month from their site.
18 Leads In Month 1
This past month the site has generated 18 leads.
That's 14 sales.
That's $8,680 per month in sales.
That's $104,160 per year in increased sales.
Took just 10 hours work. And this past month is traditionally their slowest time of the year.
Years ago I had a courier business - just me and a delivery van.
On Christmas Eve the van broke down. I still had a heap of deliveries to make.
I managed to get it to my local garage.
The guy at the counter looked and said they wouldn't be able to fix it until after the New Year.
They were about to close down for the year and there was plenty of jobs in front of mine.
15 Minutes Later The Van Was Fixed
15 minutes later I drove out with the van fixed. How Did I Get The Van Fixed?
Just how did I get the van fixed so quickly?
As I walked out to the van one of the mechanics came out to say hello and asked me what the problem was. I told him. Him and another mechanic fixed it on the spot.
The only reason the mechanic went out of his way to come and say hello - and ultimately to fix the van - was because the previous day I'd dropped in a couple of cartons of beer (and some cash) to say "Thanks" to the mechanics for taking care of my van during the year. Next Delivery Made Me $10,000
With the next delivery I made with my newly fixed van I got talking with the guy and that conversation ended up with us getting his firm's delivery work.
That was worth, from memory, about $10,000 a year.
All because of a carton of beer and a bit of cash.
My online mates Seamus & Dave both commented on the post about my mate's crane business being pretty much the same as my business (and probably yourself).
Business is about building relationships and getting the money in.
A lot of the time you don't even realize you're doing it.
A friend of mine, who is a client, just called and organised a bike ride with me for tomorrow. He happened to mention that his business manager's wife has a bad case of eczema flare up and they couldn't find anything to help it.
15 minutes later Mel was in his office with some products for this guy's wife, along with some brochures and tips on how to control the eczema. All at no charge.
You don't do it because it's good business. You do it because your mindset is helping people find solutions to their problems.
Managing Your Crisis Or Reputation - The Web Side Story
It's a fact that people search the web for information.
It's a fact that when disaster strikes a company or individual, the number of searches related to that company or individual will skyrocket.
And this is where a search engine optimization expert can provide some very positive benefits for the company or individual.
Pushing Down The Bad Stuff
You see, through implementing various strategies the expert can get the 'right' stories to the top of the rankings - pushing the 'bad' stories down the page, or onto the next page.
Only a small percentage will visit page 2 and page 3 etc of the search engine results.
Which means the bad stuff can effectively be buried, thus reducing the damage to the company or individual reputation.
# 1: Protect Your Name & Reputation
Anyone in business or the media or in any sort of profile position needs to protect their name first and foremost. Because the first thing a lot of people will do:
I was talking to good friend of mine last week who told me his "Pretty Woman" story (the scene where she gets laughed out of the store).
My mate walked into a boot store that sells only Red Wing boots. Red Wing boots are very famous top quality boots that sell for about $300-400 Australian ($280-380 US).
Anyhow, he walked into the store dressed how he often is - in overalls or working man's gear.
"...You do realise how much these boots cost?"
He was looking at the boots when the Sales Assistant came up to him with a look of disdain and said:
"Can I help you? You do realise how much these boots are, don't you?"
The thing about my mate is that he's a pretty knockabout sort of guy. Not a scholar by any means.
Looks a bit rough even. But he's a lovely fellow who enjoys working at manual jobs.
And he's worth about $5 million.
We all do make assumptions based on first impressions. We shouldn't but we do.
Just back from a few days away in Melbourne with a mate (Dave) who has a mobile crane hire business in Melbourne. We recently completed a site for him - that's it on the left, below.
Had a great time - we caught up with our old high school football coach and school teacher Peter Symons for a meal and a game of football.
I tried to get Peter to say what a great player I used to be but he held out valiantly! Maybe because I was crap??
Crane Business Just Like Any Other Business
What struck me about Dave's crane business is that it's just like any other business.
It's all about getting out there and selling.
It's all about making contacts.
It's all about relationship building.
Whether your selling web sites, crane hire, donuts, cars, houses, etc - the fact is you're selling.
On Tuesday Aaron Wall, author of the SEO Book and a guy widely acknowledged as one of the world's leading search engine rankings experts, mentioned me on his hugely popular blog.
Aaron was talking about how some dopey comment spammer spammed his blog with comments because my SEO Book review site talks about ugg boots. Aaron, as always, talked about that in the context of something bigger.
Example Of A Smart & Decent Business Guy
But the point is that Aaron linked over to my web site that reviews his book when he mentioned me. It's a great example of a smart, ethical and decent business guy.
By linking to my site Aaron lifts my site's ranking (which is essentially competing against Aaron's own site).
But that's smart because Aaron is encouraging the success of my site (at a very slight disadvantage to his site), which in the long term benefits him because I (hopefully) attract more readers for his terrific book.
Best Practice- Providing Great Information
And it's just plain decent because Aaron is using best practice - by providing relevant information and links to help his readers learn more.
Many other people in the same situation would not provide a link over - but Aaron's in the web industry for the long haul and has built his business and brand brilliantly (enough 'b's for you!) by provide great information....even when it can cost him money.
I went through and looked at each video. And then I looked at the choice influences on why I clicked on what I clicked on.
My decision making is, I think anyway, a great example of how many people think when it comes to clicking on a search result.
The Order I Looked
The red number above each video represents the order I looked at the videos in.
# 1 - first you have to be on the page when I look. Okay, so that is, for the majority of people, being on the first page of the Google results.
# 2: Most people will click on the top result. Then the second top result.
# 3: If you don't find what you're looking for immediately your mind starts to wander - you start looking at other criteria aside from top position.
As you can see, I just found the best looking graphic and looked at that. Heh, I'm a male and that's how we think!
# 4: Then the wording of the # 5 video interested me, so I clicked on that.
That didn't give me any joy so I went back to just clicking each one in turn.
The TakeAways
Most people start at the top and work down
If they don't get any joy very quickly they either try another search term or (like I did) look for a hottie/look at different criteria (a graphic or description).
The Best Video
The best video I looked at, by a country mile, was the winner:
# 1: Yes, we did do the search engine work on the site.
For an example of the sort of things we did to achieve solid search engine rankings, check out this case study where we helped take Seamus' site from # 426 to # 3 for his main key phrase.
# 3: And yes, we manage the client's Google AdWords campaign as well.
We generally charge a set up fee (varies according to how big your campaign is) and then 15% of the advertising spend for the ongoing management.
With the site I mention below we charge $75 per month, because 15% of his ad spend simply isn't enough to be profitable for us (15% of $150 is not much at all!).
My recommendation, if you wish to learn about Google AdWords, is this book.
He has spent $3,000 on search engine optimisation and general web updating in 12 months
He originally spent $3,000 on his site
He updates the site on a regular basis through a home page blog
He increases awareness through very simple and cheap sponsorship (i.e. he gives away free product)
He sends a monthly newsletter out to previous customers and subscribers
He spends less than an hour a day working in the business. He spends less than an hour a day working in the business. He spends less than an hour a day working in the business.
He grosses $1,000 per day. My guess is that half is profit.
Did I mention he spends less than an hour a day working in the business?
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But all leads aren't created equal.
The good folks at SitePoint - publishers of the greatest business book ever written ;o)- are ranked # 3.
Harry & Laura wrapping & packing....Jack is off posting
We worked on the site 1 month ago.
he Eczema Guru
thing a lot of people will do:
My mate walked into a boot store that sells only Red Wing boots. Red Wing boots are very famous top quality boots that sell for about $300-400 Australian ($280-380 US).
Had a great time - we caught up with our old high school football coach and school teacher Peter Symons for a meal and a game of football.
One thing I've found as I started my search is that I don't have any ideas about pool filters. I don't know one end of a pool filter to another.
I went through and looked at each video. And then I looked at the choice influences on why I clicked on what I clicked on.
If they don't get any joy very quickly they either try another search term or (like I did) look for a hottie/look at different criteria (a graphic or description).
s Google AdWords campaign as well.
to $1,000 in sales per day after 12 months.
