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Marketing Today Marketing is separate from advertising, advertising being a subset, part of the way to get your message out. With Marketing you are telling a story using all the tools available to brand youself / your business to create an impression in a persons mind that you are the one they need. Today there are many ways to market your business and any person in business that does not embrace them, is alllowing competitors an advantage. Having a decent website should be a natural part of business, it opens your shop door to the world even if the world is local The following by Patrick Neeman of http://www.usabilitycounts.com/ puts the case very well How to Make the Web Work for Your Business in 5 Steps I know everyone is looking for places where they can get more customers, so I'm going to tell a story. Let's call this the tale of two friends. I have one friend that I've known for quite a while, and a few years ago, I said to him, "Why don't you have a small website for your business?" He runs a small business where his client base spends their money with him on a discretionary basis - that is, it's for entertainment purposes. They have to physically visit his business location to use his services, and even though he could sell merchandise online, it makes no sense because most vendors could beat his prices. Looking around his office, he had some computer from the prehistoric era that had dial-up and nothing else. He would never, never really embrace the web like he needs to generate business from it. Another friend of mine, Bob The Chiropractor, just started his business recently in the face of the recession. He runs a chiropractic business, but I met him previously at a marketing company, so he's really a businessman that happens to be a chiropractor, instead of the other way around. Because of the nature of his business, the customers also have to come in to use his services. And it's extremely local. He's really embraced the web, and it shows. In fact, I'm not even going to list the URL - just type in Bob The Chiropractor at Google. How well is he doing? Sometime next month he's doubling the size of his office because he's overbooked. End of story. Not everyone should get a website, because like any marketing activity, to do it truly well you have to embrace it, and it does take some extra effort. But if you put in that effort and do it right, the rewards can be tremendous. Here's the five step plan for making it happen. Get a Decent Website My friend and I spent the time to put together a decent website. It's painfully easy to use, and the site has one goal: generate leads. The lead capture form has some required fields, but the main goal is to capture information in any form, so the only field we do true validation on is the email address: it has to be valid to go forward. Ironically, the leads he does get come mostly complete. He generates one lead a day from the site, on average, which achieves 50 percent of his goal of 40 new patients a month. But it takes work on his part: the reason the yellow pages is still around is because it's easy for businesses to renew. Most businesses just write the check every month, and have no idea how many calls they are getting. Bob spends the time to do a little keyword marketing and outreach, and it shows. I'll make it easy: a good website should cost at least what you're paying for one to two years of yellow pages advertising. Find a decent web designer. Get a good copywriter. It makes a huge difference (or do you want a website that 1998 wants back?). And expect to spend at least what you're spending on the yellow pages for your marketing, every month. I'm a bit overqualified for this, but I did his website. It might not be the most attractive site in the world, but it's designed for his audience, and it converts (roughly 20 percent of the users that visit call). It's higher than the industry standard, but mainly because he's got such a targeted audience: they're looking for help right now. Stick to the Message He's had a plan all along about his brand: Bob The Chiropractor, and we've kept the site pretty simple by focusing on that and Long Beach Chiropractic as keywords for search engine optimization. It took a while, but he's number one and number two in Google results on each. Bob has all kinds of trinkets, pens, breath mints, notepads and other swag, and every single one like clockwork has the logo, "Bob The Chiropractor", the URL, and the phone number. He's got a clever little logo that even looks like him. Every single action reinforces his brand, even on a local level. Embrace Keyword Advertising Because of his previous knowledge in keyword advertising from the marketing company (the client was spending upwards of $3 million a year on the web), he knows that advertising "chiropractic" is a bad idea. He picks less competitive keywords like "long beach chiropractic", and that generates the traffic he needs. He spends about $100 a month, which means he's spending about $2.50 per lead. He could probably spend a bit more, but he's happy where he's at. In comparison, he's spent some money with two local print publications, both free. His spend there has been over $1,000, and has generated exactly one lead. He has tried a bunch of different marketing avenues, and sticks with what works. Learn About Social Networking My friend rarely uses the computer for more than fantasy baseball, however, he's really embraced social networking to generate business and communicate with his customers. He has a Facebook page, and he regularly checks sites like yelp.com to make sure he's getting good reviews. For him, he does all the small things that small businesses do: he sponsors the local semi-pro baseball team (I think mainly to throw out the first pitch) and involves himself in local events. Every single time, his name is listed on those event websites. Track Your Results He doesn't have a separate phone number for the site as I would like, but he does a great job of tracking the results: he asks every patient where they came from, and notes it in his calendar. Bob's not too computer savvy (I act as his IT department, which is a scary thought in itself), but we've put some open source tools in place to track results simply. Because of this, he has a good idea of how much each costs, and can increase marketing costs appropriately for tests. Have Fun With It I talk with him about once or twice a month to see how he's doing, and every month, he's growing his appointment base. There's always turnover, but he continues to do record months, even during slow times. He had a growth plan sketched out, and he's actually ahead of schedule several months. Most importantly, he's having fun with it. He's not any more technical than my first friend, but he's put in the effort, and he thinks differently - a businessman who happens to have a specialist skillset. That makes all the difference in the world. Patrick Neeman of http://www.usabilitycounts.com/ Contact Us