The Secrets of Getting Your Clients To Refer You New Business

According to guerrilla marketing guru Jay Conrad Levinson, it costs you 6 times more to sell something to a new customer than to an existing customer.  Regardless of your business, continuing to rely on new customers to support you is an extremely expensive endeavor, one you don’t even need to take part in.  There truly is a better way, one which not only saves you a fortune in customer acquisition, but improves your reputation at the very same time.

The easiest, least expensive and most effective way to get more customers like those you value most, are to get the ones you value most to get them for you.

But how?

Follow the guidelines below and you’ll soon turn your best customers into your best salespeople!

The First Rule of Referrals

Right now, your very best customers are probably already referring you more customers on an irregular basis.  Even better, these referrals are quite likely to be very similar to your best customers in several ways: similar interests, desires and buying habits.  If you truly want more of this type of customer, you have to revere what you do and really believe that you are providing a beneficial product or service that improves the lives of your customers.  If you don’t believe that, why should someone else?

4 Easy Steps For Building A Custom Referral System

1. Let your best customers know how much you enjoy doing business with them and their importance to the success of your business. Tell them you realize they probably spend their time with other people who share their same values and qualities.
2. Let these same customers know that you’d prefer their referrals over any other source of customers or clients.
3. Next, help these customers understand exactly what kind of people or businesses they know that would benefit from your products or services and how they’d benefit from doing business with you.  Be specific and help them see a clear picture of who they know that they could refer.
4. Lastly, extend to them a risk-free, no obligation offer to their referral.  Let them know that you’ll consult with their referral without expectation of purchase so as to advise them of the best solutions to their needs.

Revere the benefits you provide for your customers, follow these steps with each of your best customers and very soon, you’ll have a healthy stream of new, happy customers enjoying the products and services you offer.

3 Ways To Make Your Referral System Even More Powerful

While the steps above will earn you plenty of new referrals, there are a few other ways to increase the power of your referral systems.  Here are three:

1. Offer a Special Incentive – Provide a discount, special bonus, free sample or some other gift to your customers for referring their family, friends or other businesses.  You can also a reduced rate available only to those who are referred to you.  Your customers are even more likely to refer people if they can approach them with an insider’s deal available strictly through their referral.
2. Organize a Preferred Customer’s Club – Open your business at special hours or invite special guests to speak to exclusive members, say those who are most active in your referral system.  Allow your referrers to invite guests of their own, thereby expanding your referral network. 
3. Try More Than One System – Brainstorm different ways to generate referrals, then rank each one by likelihood of actually getting referrals.  Then once you have established one system, go ahead and implement another, then another.  There is no limit to how many referral systems you employ.  If one doesn’t work as planned, get rid of it and replace it with another. 

Over the next week or two, call five or ten of your best customers and tell them how much you appreciate their business.  Take them to lunch or organize a get together.  Let them know you’re trying to find more great customers just like them and that with their help, it would really improve your business and allow you to provide them with even better products or service. 

Remember, the customers that are referred to you will buy more and more often than a customer you gained through advertising or some other marketing effort.  They’ll also refer more customers and buy from you for a longer period of time.  The benefits of taking the time and putting in the effort to build your custom referral systems are endless.  Don’t let the opportunities of building these systems into your marketing plan pass you by.

6 Action Steps You Can Take Right Now To Get Referrals

Setting up your referral systems is not enough. Like everything else in life, success depends on action.  To get you started, here are 6 action steps you can take right now to start getting referrals today.

1. Make a list of the names of your ten best customers
2. Contact each person on your list and ask them to recommend you to their friends, family, etc.
3. Offer an incentive to those customers who send you a referral
4. Ask other business owners and professionals to recommend you to their customers
5. Offer special discounts or other incentives to businesses that send you referrals
6. Use holidays as a time to offer special incentives for giving you referrals

Use this promotional calendar (PDF) to pinpoint holidays and special events you can use to ask your customers to send referrals or to create special events.  Once you look over this promotional calendar, you’ll see the truly wide-ranging and great deal of occurrences you have an opportunity to ask your best customers to refer business to you or to create special events to create preferred customer clubs.  The only limitation is your imagination.

6 Tips For Optimizing Your Referral Systems

Now that you’ve got your referral systems set up and have taken some time to ask your best customers to recommend their family, friends and other businesses to you, then next thing you’ll want to do is optimize your systems for best performance.  Answer the following questions as thoroughly as possible to maximize the benefits of your referral systems.

1. Who are your ideal prospects?  What type of customers would you like to have many more of?
2. What benefits do your ideal prospects want or need?
3. What does your competition provide that you don’t and what do they do better and worse than you?
4. What benefits do you provide and what things do you do better and worse than your competition?
5. What problems do your ideal prospects have that are not being met and how can you help them solve them?
6. What are your goals and how can more of your ideal prospects help you accomplish them?

The key to making these questions work for you is to answer them as completely as possible.  Use as many specifics as you can think of, then take a break and come back and add as many more specifics as you can.  Once you’ve answered these questions to the best of your ability, you’re ready to turn your referral systems into massive rewards.

To help you answer these questions, use these guidelines to get your mind in the habit of thinking specifically.

1. What are the demographics of your ideal prospects?
• Income
• Financial Worth
• Gender
• Type of Business
• Marital Status
• Age
• Ethnic Group
• Geographic Region
• Hobbies
• Political Views
• Religion
• Memberships in Associations/Groups
• Automobile Type
• Magazine/Newspaper Subscriptions
• Type of Investments
• Physical Health
• Mental Health
• Buying Preferences
• Alcohol/Smoker
• Other
2. Who can refer these prospects to you?
• Your vendors
• Your customers
• Your employees
• Your competitors
• Your relatives
• Your prospects
• Your unconverted prospects
• Your neighbors and friends
• Your church members
• Your association members
• Other businesses and professionals in your area
• Other businesses and professionals outside your area
• Leaders/celebrities your prospects respect or trust
• Magazine/newspaper editors and writers
• Special interest groups
• Businesses your prospects do business with before and after doing business with you
3. Prepare for getting referrals.
• Make sure you have a valuable product or service
• Revere what you do
• Reposition yourself to stand out from your competitors
• Show interest in other people
• Educate prospects why your products or services are of better value
• Be professional
• Thank referrers and referrals
• Explain why your customers should give you referrals
• Make giving you referrals a condition of doing business with you
• Give incentives for referrals
• Have referrers call or directly contact referrals
• Keep in constant contact with people who have provided referrals
• Ask for referrals
4. Help your best customers locate referrals for you by asking them who they know who fits the descriptions above.  Referrals will usually come from one of two groups:

1. Group 1 – People They Interact With on a Regular Basis
• Current and past vendors
• Current and past customers
• Current and past employees
• Current and past competitors
• Relatives
• Prospects
• Unconverted prospects
• Neighbors
• Church members
• Association members
• Other businesses and professionals in your area
• Other businesses and professionals outside your area
• Community leaders
• Special interest groups
• Friends
2. Group 2 – People Certain Events Remind Them Of
• People that come in their office
• People they meet in their professional circle
• Someone who is retiring
• Someone who is getting married
• Someone who is having a child
• Someone who is getting a divorce
• Someone who has bought something (house, car, boat, etc.)
• Someone who has sold something
• Someone who has moved
• Someone whose children have moved
• Someone who has had a death in the family

Referrals are by far the best way to increase your business, and with the ideas and guidelines above, you’re well on your way to starting some successful referral systems for your business. 

Need a little help to get started? 

Bonus Tips To Help You Get Started Right Now

Some effective techniques for securing your first referrals:

• Write satisfied customers a letter telling them you are about to make a major marketing effort for new customers, but before you take it to the public you’d like them to have first chance to tell their friends/family/associates
• Offer incentives to customers for bringing you referrals
• Offer incentives to their referrals on their first purchase
• Offer to perform a free service or consultation for any referral prospect
• Provide clinics, seminars or training sessions for your customers and their invited guests
• Offer free service for one month to your referrals as a gift from the referrer

These ideas are sure to get a few new “best customer” types in your door in a hurry, but if you’re ready to take your referral systems to the next level, we’ve included one last section for the bold.  Or perhaps you’re out of customers to ask for referrals, or you’re a new business and didn’t have many to start with.  If this is the case, follow the advanced tips below and you’ll see just how powerful a custom referral system for your small business can be.

Advanced Referral Technique

Whether you’re the type to really take action or simply don’t have any customer left (or any to start with) to ask for referrals, there’s still one more great way to get your custom referral system off the ground and new business in the door.  You might be wondering how you can ask for referrals without customers and the answer is actually quite obvious:  go to complimentary businesses in your area (or even outside) who don’t compete with you directly and persuade them to allow you to send a letter to their customers, written on their letterhead and signed by them, making a preferential offer to them as a reward for their valued service.

How do you go about convincing another business owner to take this seemingly odd action in your favor?  You’ve got four options, depending on your situation:

1. If you’ve got customers of your own, you agree to reciprocate and endorse them to your customers.
2. Whether you have customers of your own or not, you can offer to rent their list for a fee.
3. You can trade your products or services to them for the right to mail an offer to their list.
4. Even if you don’t have customers of your own, you can offer them a percentage of the business that is created from the mailing.

This may all sound confusing at first, but hopefully you can begin to see the power a custom referral system can have on the future of your business.  Even if you’re just starting up, you can use one of the ideas above to get your very first customers and grow from there.  Maybe your business is stagnant and you need a boost.  Implement one of the ideas above and inject new life into your business with a very small investment you can control. 

Don’t Procrastinate, Get Started On Your Referral System Today

With the information provided in this article, you should be able to quickly and easily start your very own successful referral systems within a week and start enjoying a flood of new customers within a month.  Remember, the most important things to keep in mind are to revere your products and services, to truly believe you are offering a valuable benefit to your customers and to actively ask them for their referrals so that you can provide the same level of service to their family, friends and associates.  Then once you’ve got your first referral system in place, start another and another until you are happy with the amount of new customers you are getting. 

What other techniques have you used to earn referrals for your business?  If there’s something we’ve left out here, please leave a comment so that we can add more resources and ideas to this guide to share with others and help them grow their business.

A Marketing Review of The 2010 Super Bowl Commercials

Each year, companies spend millions of dollars per minute to promote their goods during the Super Bowl, the single largest annual event in the United States.  Some of these commercials are memorable, others not so much.  While I enjoy the ads for their entertainment value as much as the next guy, typically I’m far more interested in the marketing behind the madness.  Below are my reviews for each of the ads shown during Super Bowl XLIV.

1st Quarter

Product: Bud Light

Summary: A pretty typical Bud Light commercial:  young co-eds having fun with lots of Bud Light; actually a whole house made from cans of the stuff.

Review: The commercial served to embrace Bud Light’s party reputation, but seemed to subtly define the company as anti-environmentally responsible.  Not sure that’s the best message, but I think the commercial was meant more to launch the brand’s new tagline “Here We Go”. 

Score: 6/10

Product: Snickers

Summary: Betty White and Abe Vigoda are the stars of this commercial.  A group of friends are out playing football and because they are hungry, are apparently playing like old people. 

Review: Another pretty typical commercial, though Betty White has amassed a cult-like following over the last decade or so and really helps this ad stand out from some other recent Snicker spots.  Another new tagline: “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry”.  I guess some of these advertisers think it’s good to change their taglines every few months.  I’m not so sure. 

Score: 8/10

Product: Focus on the Family

Summary: Tim Tebow’s mom tells the story of how her Heisman Trophy winning son almost wasn’t born.  Son thanks her at the end.

Review: The only commercial this year centered around a political hot topic, this ad got lots of attention pre-Super Bowl.  All in all, had a pretty tame pro-life message starring college football’s most famous player.

Score: 6/10

Product: Hyundai

Summary: Introducing Hyundai’s newest Sonata model and new paint jobs.

Review: The commercial itself is pretty boring, but at least it makes a solid claim and attempts to back it up with visual appeal. In a down economy, it’s very likely that Hyundai can take market share away from Mercedes.  We’ll have to wait and see if their claim of better paint gets people to “Think about it”.

Score: 8/10

Product: Boost Mobile

Summary: Recreates the 1985 Chicago Bears Super Bowl Shuffle, starring members of the team. 

Review: Entertaining, especially for those who remember the original version, Boost does a decent job of getting its message across: $50 unlimited talk and text.  Also a good idea to lead viewers to your website, which the spot does fairly obviously at the end. 

Score: 8/10

Product: Doritos

Summary: Typical human teases animal, animal gets revenge spot. 

Review: This breed of commercial has been played out in recent years, and other than a 1 second chuckle at the end, gets very little for its money. Slightly less funny than the Bud Light spot and equally forgettable. 

Score: 6/10

Product: Robin Hood Feature Film

Summary: Trailer for upcoming release of new Robin Hood movie. 

Review: Didn’t move me at all.  Considering the competition it will be going up against this summer, doesn’t seem to have a great chance.  Left me wondering where Brian Adams was this time around. 

Score: 5/10

Product: Doritos

Summary: Child protects his home turf from mom’s new friend. 

Review: Was a crowd favorite at the Super Bowl party I attended and was far superior to the first Doritos commercial. Apparently Doritos’ goal was to get viewer reaction, and for that, I guess it did its job.  Will be one of the longest-remembered spots of this year’s Super Bowl.

Score: 9/10

Product: Bud Light

Summary: World is about to end.  Astronomers spend their last moments enjoying Bud Light. 

Review: Yet another typical Bud Light spot.  There’s something to be said for consistency in branding, but when the spots are consistently subpar, it’s probably not the best use of millions of dollars.  At minimum, ad reinforces new tagline and continues Bud Light’s claim to be the drink of choice for the party set.

Score: 7/10

Product: Coca-Cola

Summary: Characters from the Simpsons come to life as Mr. Burns loses his fortune and becomes depressed until of course, he gets his hands on a Coca-Cola. 

Review: I knew this was a Coke commercial from the moment it started, so there must be some elements of subtle consistency.  I also thought it was a clever way to tie in the current state of the economy and remind people that there is happiness in the little things.  If Super Bowl ads teach us one thing, it’s that multi-million dollar commercials during the big game are a prime vehicle for unveiling new taglines.  For Coke, it’s “Open Happiness”.

Score: 7/10

Product: Go Daddy

Summary: Typical Go Daddy commercial.   

Review: The only good thing about these Go Daddy commercials is that they lead the viewer to the website, but I don’t know anyone who has ever done so, at least not admittedly.  I’m square in their target market and haven’t the slightest inclination to see the supposed racy endings to one of these spots.  If anything, I would think these spots hurt the company overall, but since they keep running them, they must know something I don’t.

Score: 5/10

Product: Doritos

Summary: Man fakes death to watch Super Bowl and eat Doritos in peace.   

Review: The onslaught on unwitty Doritos commercials continues.  Obviously Frito-Lay subscribes to the school of quantity over quality.  Slightly better than the first Doritos commercial, not quite as good as the second.  Doing their best to keep chips on your brain during the game, though I’m sure people had already stocked up on chips prior to these commercials airing so I’m not sure how much they gain from these spots.

Score: 7/10

Product: Bud Light

Summary: Weak recreation of the classic “What’s Up” ads.   

Review: Auto tune has been a popular trend in music and T-Pain is a popular online figure.  I guess Bud Light felt they could use the issue to recreate one of their past commercial hits, but I think they missed badly.  Another case of quantity over quality.

Score: 7/10

Product: Monster.com

Summary: Violin-playing beaver uses job search provider to find his true calling in life.   

Review: I think Monster really missed out on an opportunity to connect with those out of a job right now.  Instead of inspiring those seeking employment to use their new “precision job search”, they chose to use a puppetry with little or no emotional value to drive traffic to their site.  I doubt it will work.

Score: 6/10

Product: Wolfman Feature Film

Summary: Trailer for upcoming release of new Wolfman movie.   

Review: Commercials for this film seen throughout the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl were actually far better (and longer).  I guess the goal is just to get the word out to as many people as possible, and I suppose, that was accomplished.

Score: 5/10

Product: Bridgestone Tires

Summary: Cheap (and blatant) knock-off of the Hollywood hit “The Hangover”.   

Review: You really could see the punchline coming a mile away.  In my opinion, you do more harm to your brand than good when you so blatantly rip off hot pop culture bits.  They may get some publicity, but at what cost?  I don’t think it’s true any longer that all publicity is good publicity.

Score: 5/10

Product: Skechers

Summary: Promotion of new line of “body shaping” shoes.   

Review: About as lame as the Bridgestone commercial but in half the time. I doubt anyone believes Joe Montana is actually using this product.  Poor misuse of a Super Bowl legend, but at least they accomplished their goal of promoting a new product line.

Score: 6/10

Product: Cars.com

Summary: Completely recycled their commercial from last year’s Super Bowl.   

Review: I’m guessing Cars.com got a spike in traffic from last year’s ad and figured why not try to catch lightning in a bottle a second time.  Something about being totally unoriginal that in my opinion hurts a brand more than it helps.  Basically gives the viewer permission to get up and use the restroom instead of watching the rest.  And a whole minute?  Really?  Shame on whoever gave this the thumbs up.

Score: 6/10

1st Quarter Score – Advertisers 0, Viewers 7.  Commercials have been more entertainment (not very good entertainment, but entertainment) than effective.

Product: Budweiser

Summary: With the town bridge out, it’s up to the town’s people to help the Budweiser truck get across.   

Review: Slightly better than the Bud Light commercials, but barely.  I think Budweiser is smart to stick to using their famous Clydesdale’s in their ads, but at least the commercial was slightly entertaining.  Sadly, when I see this type of Bud commercial, it just reminds me that the company is longer American-owned. 

Score: 7/10

Product: Shutter Island Feature Film

Summary: Trailer for upcoming release of new Shutter Island movie.   

Review: See Wolfman review above.  Something about upcoming release commercials that seems like a might big waste of money, brining nothing new to the table that hasn’t been showing on television breaks in weeks leading up to the big game.  Commercials we’ve seen before = bathroom breaks.

Score: 5/10

Product: Late Show

Summary: Dave, Oprah and Jay on a couch.   

Review: If nothing else, it made you pay attention.  I thought it sort of odd they had three television celebrities from three different networks, but it was kind of interesting and got a chuckle from the crowd I was with.  Decent use of tying in current events. 

Score: 6/10

Product: Careerbuilder.com

Summary: Casual Friday’s taken a bit too far.   

Review: In what turns out to be the beginning of a disturbing trend of commercials featuring people with less than enough clothes on, Careerbuilder actually does a little bit better job than Monster did in inspiring job seekers to take action.  Seriously, would you want his job?

Score: 7/10

Product: Dockers

Summary: Men declaring their right to wear no pants.    

Review: A second commercial in a row with pantless men.  A relatively witty, metaphorical shot at the lack of masculinity in today’s society.  However, I just don’t see Dockers as a legitimate answer to their request to finally wear the pants once again.

Score: 7/10

Product: Hyundai

Summary: Brett Favre continuing to play on his off the field antics.    

Review: Completely different from the first Hyundai ad.  Mildly humorous vehicle for reinforcing the company’s warranty.  I remember the commercial more for Brett Favre than the actual product, which in my mind, isn’t the best use of money.

Score: 7/10

Product: Bud Light

Summary: Stranded passengers from a plane crash prefer Bud Light over being rescued.    

Review: Again, Bud Light’s intention is to position the brand as a party favorite, and accomplished the feat with a blatant ripoff of the “Lost” pilot episode.  Mildly amusing at times. 

Score: 7/10

Product: Dove For Men

Summary: Man goes through life’s big moments to finally feel comfortable with himself.    

Review: The song featured in the commercial is kind of entertaining, but in my opinion, Dove is committing one of marketing’s cardinal sins: that of line extension.  They would be better off creating a new brand for this product instead of trying to stretch a successful brand to cover new ground.  My money is on Axe in this battle.

Score: 7/10

Product: Dodge Charger

Summary: Emasculated man gets to enjoy at least one thing in his life.    

Review: The commercial was fine, Dexter’s voice was cool and the car itself is pretty awesome.  Just tiring to see commercial after commercial featuring men who aren’t really men at all.  Especially during a game which is supposed to be a “man’s game”. 

Score: 7/10

Product: Teleflora

Summary: Flowers in a box will get you nowhere with the ladies.    

Review: Another recycled commercial from last year’s Super Bowl.  While the commercial is not all that entertaining, I think it does do a good job justifying an actual purchase of the product, as opposed to most of the commercials so far.  From a marketing perspective, increasing sales should trump entertainment value, but you wouldn’t know it from the majority of the ads played so far.

Score: 8/10

Product: Papa John’s Pizza

Summary: People at the Pro Bowl love pizza.    

Review: As a marketer, I can live with commercials like this. Probably didn’t cost much to make.  Reinforces the brand’s position (better ingredients, better pizza).  And invites the viewer to visit the website for a special offer.  Can’t ask for much more in 30 seconds.  I’d bet Papa John’s gets far more mileage for this type of commercial than just about any of the other ads run so far. 

Score: 9/10

Product: Alice In Wonderland Feature Film

Summary: Trailer for upcoming release of new Alice In Wonderland movie.   

Review: I don’t recall having seen this commercial before except as a 3-D trailer before Avatar. Probably got some people excited to see a new live-action version of the classic. 

Score: 6/10

Product: Dr. Pepper Cherry

Summary: A play on a kiss of cherry with the rock legends KISS.   

Review: Seems pretty much the same as their previous ads for this product.  Not as effective as the Cherry Dr. Pepper ads with the Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, etc.  Yet another high price to pay for very little pay off. 

Score: 6/10

Product: Tru TV

Summary: Troy Polamalu plays groundhog to promote new NFL series on Tru TV.   

Review: Maybe the strangest commercial so far.  Regardless, it does a good job teasing the audience and leaving them in need of more information.  Decent use of celebrity as Troy is an NFL superstar, a fan favorite and a rising star in commercials. 

Score: 7/10

Product: Universal Orlando

Summary: Grand opening of new Harry Potter theme ride at Universal Studios Orlando.   

Review: I want to say it looks cool, but the fact they only show the ride for about 1.5 seconds tells me otherwise.  I think kids will probably be pretty excited about it, especially Potter fans, but I’m guessing that in this economy, not many families are going to pack up and travel cross country to check this out, no matter how much their kids plead. 

Score: 6/10

Product: Flo TV

Summary: Man forced to go shopping with his girlfriend instead of staying home to watch sports.   

Review: Spineless is right. The recurring theme of this year’s Super Bowl ads appears to be that men have absolutely no spine and no longer wear the pants in the relationship, and any other metaphor you can think of for men being emasculated.  Is this really the best way to sell products to men?  If so, it’s quite sad.  Very cool product.  Not so cool sales tactic.

Score: 6/10

Product: Intel

Summary: New breakthrough in processors is bigger achievement than humanoid robot.   

Review: Cute commercial featuring one of the company’s icons.  Semi-effective message introducing new core processors, leading viewer (falsely) to believe they are powerful enough to power a lifelike robot.  Will probably be effective overall as competition doesn’t really advertise.

Score: 7/10

Product: Flo TV

Summary: Life’s memorable moments are caught on TV, so don’t get caught without a television at all times.   

Review: I have to say this Flo TV commercial is exponentially more effective than the first one which is simply offensive. Why will.i.am needed to be involved I’m not sure as it didn’t take a musical genius to “remix” the classic Who song being played in the back (the commercial also led into the Who halftime show), but the commercial as a whole will probably sell some product.  Definitely one of the more effective commercials of the first half.

Score: 8/10

Half Time Score – Advertisers 3, Viewers 7.  Second quarter commercials have been slightly more effective marketing-wise, allowing the advertisers to creep back into the game.

Ten Steps To Creating A Website That Surpasses Your Goals

I remember when I built my first website.  I had not a clue in the world, which made it fun, but not necessarily effective.  The internet seemed so much more carefree back in those days, when eBay was king and Yahoo the crown prince.

One thing I’ve realized over the years is that the internet is growing up right before our very eyes.  It must be nearing puberty because the good ol’ days are gone and all we’re left with is angst.  Google rules the drawbridge doors with an iron fist and there are so many other townspeople now, it’s harder and harder to get a good space at the market to sell our wares.

Luckily, instead of spending my virtual teenage years out of place and unsure of myself like I did in real life, I spent time reflecting on all the changes around me and even took notes.  That way, when the next Holden Caulfield comes looking for a better world wide web, I’ll be prepared to catch him and offer a guiding light.

Don’t fret small business owner, your first (and even second) attempt to bring your company online will go far better than mine did, and despite failing (miserably), I eventually made it up that mountain and stand before you today offering “The 10 Commandments of Excellent Web Design”, the product of years of trial and error (not to mention frustration) before finally getting it right.

The 10 Commandments of Excellent Web Design

1st Commandment – Thou shalt RESEARCH – Like most marketing tasks, it’s wise to do your due diligence first and conduct thorough research on things like programming languages, web hosting, uptime, future costs, the amount of time you’ll need to invest to get the results you expect, what your competition is doing (and perhaps more importantly, what they are not doing) and what other popular sites are doing.

If you’re going to build the site on your own, this research could very well be the longest part of the process.  If you’re having someone else build your site, you’ll also need to do some research on their past projects, what kind of feedback they’ve received, whether or not they follow up with their clients once the project is completed and any number of small print detail.  Either way, you’ll thank yourself for being so thorough once the project is complete and you are presumably happy.  If you’re not, maybe you should have done a little more research.

Instead of getting frustrated later, get busy now.

2nd Commandment – Thou shalt PLAN – What exactly do you want your new company website to do for your business?  Is it just going to be a brochure?  Will it allow visitors to interact with your company?  Will it be selling products or services directly online?  Is it just to generate leads for further down the pipe?  You need to have a clear answer for all of these questions and then find the best solutions to support those answers.

I royally screwed up my first few sites simply because I did not have a clear picture of what I actually wanted my sites to do other than help me make more money.  Your entire sales process needs to be fleshed out and adapted for the web.  You also need to find tools you didn’t even know existed and put them in place to automate some of the new tasks having a website will ultimately create for you.

After many mistakes, I learned to use mind-mapping software to lay out the general plan of each website I build.  You can find a very good, free mind-mapping software here to help you get started.

3rd Commandment – Thou shalt focus on DESIGN – The word “design” has become somewhat of a catchphrase these days, but for good reason.  Good design plain and simply allows users to get the very best experience with a product, whether it’s saving time or letting people create a community around it that lets them build on what those before them have established.

Think about how an iPod makes listening to preferred music so much easier than it used to be or how Wordpress has grown from a humble blogging software into a versatile web-wonder capable of doing just about anything you can think of thanks to its legion of passionate users who help improve it a little bit every single day.

Your website needs to be nearly as well-thought out as these pioneers, perhaps even more depending on what you’re selling and how long your sales funnel is.  Get some paper and sketch out the design of your site and see if it makes sense.  If it doesn’t, tweak it.  If it does, get someone else’s feedback and then tweak it again.

4th Commandment – Thou shalt create valuable CONTENT – Perhaps the best rule I’ve learned over the years is that content is indeed king.  Without valuable content, your site’s not that useful no matter how you try to cut it.  Cool features and the latest bells and whistles all become commonplace quickly in the ever-changing world wide web.  The stuff that stands the test of time is content that speaks directly to your customers’ needs.  Whatever it is they are looking for, you better be sure to give to them or they’ll surely find it elsewhere.

This is where some of your research really starts to pay off.  By now, you should know what kind of information is lacking on your industry and have maybe even developed a unique voice you’d like to write with.  You should also know what type of keywords you are going to focus on which gives you a pretty good idea as to what your content should be about.

Use the mind-mapping software linked in the 2nd Commandment to establish a blog schedule or some other editorial calendar for publishing your content.  You can also use sites like Rusty Budget to organize your topics and Technorati to see what other people in your industry are talking about.

5th Commandment – Thou shalt provide INTERACTION – Even with the best content in the world, many people are going to get bored of learning and want to socialize a bit.  Let them socialize on your site and build relationships with them in the process.  Today’s web is vastly different than the one we watched take its first steps and collapse in the last millennium.

In fact, it’s changing so fast, it literally took about 10-20 years to go from Web 1.0 to what is fondly known as Web 2.0, the web that brought us all together to socialize at places like MySpace and Facebook.  But then it only took another 1-2 years to move on to Web 3.0, the name given to the web that’s quickly coming into view, that makes informed decisions and connects basically every site to every other site and completely leverages the power of numbers in ways that until now were totally unheard of.

Publish your content but also allow those reading it to comment and take that content with them as they travel around the web from Twitter to Facebook to their own blog and back again.  Incorporate tools that help other online communities share your content and connect with other like-minded individuals.  Not quite sure how to do this?  Take a look at StumbleUpon and see how they turned sharing content into one of the web’s biggest brands.

6th Commandment – Thou shalt PACKAGE the previous commandments – By building your site with the first 5 Commandments in mind and packaging them together as a cohesive website deserving of promoting your company name, you’re well on your way to far greater success than you probably originally thought possible.   Why?  Because the majority of people building websites have spent very little time if any on each of these important steps and YOU have.

That means you’ve got a leg up straight out of the gate.  But that doesn’t mean you are guaranteed success.  It just means the first live draft of your website has entered the virtual world with all its fingers and toes per se.  In the old days, that would be enough for applause, but in today’s internet, tomorrow is almost yesterday.  If you launch your site and leave it at that, I assure you failure is in your future.

To overcome this constant change, you’ll need to create another package of the remaining commandments, a package you’ll need to commit to for perhaps the rest of your business’s life.

7th Commandment – Thou shalt SUBMIT to social networks – Especially to our older peers in the business community, social networking and media doesn’t make a lot of sense.  But to the rest of the world, it makes all the sense in the, er, world.  Only through social networking and media do you as a small business owner have the opportunity to reach millions and millions of potential prospects in literally the click of a button.

Take Twitter for example.  Once you publish some great, new content on your website, it would be wise to promote the link to that content through Twitter because it not only reaches every single one of your followers instantly, it has the potential to reach all of their followers, too!  That’s what viral means, to be able to spread a message to the entire world (or better yet your target market) as quickly as you spread butter over toast.

Now becoming viral is not a task for the weak at heart.  It does take time to build a community around each of your social networks and things will most likely seem very slow at first.  Keep your eye on the end goal.  Think of these tasks as performing mandatory networking duties you’d probably be doing in the real world, only you get to do it from the comfort of your own home or office.  Then think of the value it will create later down the line, as those who are enthusiastic about your products or services have the ability to tell hundreds and even thousands of people at a time.

I bet you wish you could get referrals like that, but you will if you put in the time and effort to systematically and strategically submit your content to whatever social networks you deem necessary.  One vitally important tid-bit: submit your site to Google as soon as humanly possible.  If someone knocks and Google doesn’t hear, they may as well have knocked elsewhere.

8th Commandment – Thou shalt FOLLOW UP with your visitors – Just like the real world, following up and answering questions and comments from your prospects should be seen as a privilege, not a duty.  Chances are, no one can sell your wares better than you can and by being accessible to your market, you are doing your company a great service.

While your website won’t completely remove the need to contact your business by phone, fax or email, it can get pretty close depending on how well you do at the new ways of following up: answering Tweets, updating your statuses, adding friends and followers and spending time answering comments about your content.  One of the great things about following up online, is that your answers remain for all to see and have a much longer-lasting effect than a simple one-on-one phone conversation could.

Remember that for every new task you find yourself being a part of, there are at least two benefits to outweigh any discomfort you may have.  First, your answers become a part of the web as a whole and will continue answering other peoples’ questions for months and even years to come.  And second, the more your market becomes comfortable with you being accessible, the more likely they will be to contact you through one of these new avenues instead of through interrupting you with a phone call or sending an email that may very well get lost in translation.

9th Commandment – Thou shalt PROMOTE your website at every opportunity – Your website is sort of like the best employee you’ve ever or will ever have.  It doesn’t sleep.  It takes orders without rolling its eyes.  You can yell at it all you want and it will still perform the same for you each and every day.  Eventually, you’ll learn to get used to that dedication and allow your website to work harder so you can work smarter.

Just because your company is now online, doesn’t mean you should go and neglect all the tools and strategies that helped get you this far.  One of the first things you’ll need to do is add your website to your business cards, letterhead and other marketing materials.  The next thing you’ll want to do is build a presence on as many social networks as you have time for, keeping in mind that consistency and branding still matter online.

Especially when your site is new, you’ll probably be excited to share the news with others that your company has finally arrived in the 21st Century.  Take every opportunity to invite others to check it out and provide you with their honest feedback.  Remember, even though it’s your baby, it’s got a life of its own out in internet land and things change quicker than you can likely keep up with. As I’ve always said, the best feedback is constant feedback.  Asking for suggestions is also a great way to promote your site and make people feel like their input matters.

10th Commandment – Thou shalt MAINTAIN your website constantly – Unlike the rest of your marketing materials, your website is a living, breathing entity that requires constant attention and care.  Now, that doesn’t mean you have to do it necessarily, but you will need to find a capable person that understands your vision who can spend a few minutes a day and several hours a week updating your site.  Of course there is a line, but generally, the more care and attention you give, the better off (and more efficient) it will become.

For me, our website IS our company.  It’s the heart and soul, the customer service department, our best salesperson, our very own media, the receptionist, the union leader, the night watchman and the accountant all rolled into one.  The reason for this is simple: because we’ve taken the time over a period of years to cultivate the site into those things and built in every tool to streamline the business and cut waste out of our company culture.  We spend countless hours researching new and improved tools we can add and writing and publishing valuable content that keeps Google satisfied enough to continue sending us a steady stream of traffic.  And it pays off.

Follow these 10 Commandments vigilantly and you too, can see your baby grow up and assume as much responsibility as you are comfortable giving it.  If you put in the time each step of the process, you will virtually assure your new website’s success.  And just in case it seems too overwhelming now, I’ll add one bonus commandment to help you focus.

11th Commandment – Thou shalt ENJOY growing with your website – What seems like a chore at first you’ll soon learn to cherish.  Much like your child is born and is grown and off on their own faster than you ever could have imagined, your website will also begin to carry on a life of its’ own.  Honestly, if you do everything right, you’ll be so busy growing your business that you won’t have time to spend with your website anymore, a task you’ll undoubtedly throw to a lower-level employee or even someone unaffiliated with your company at all.

I can’t ever imagine having to do that myself because I’ve enjoyed growing the site from just a single page a few years ago to hundreds and hundreds of pages today.  Even when business was down, we were always there for each other, letting each other know that if we continued to work hard and improve ourselves, we’d have a long and prosperous future together.

By following these commandments, that prosperity will surely come your way, as well, but before you become too successful, I highly encourage you to spend some quality time to get to know the best employee you’ll ever have.

Enjoy!

What is your relationship with your company website like?  Let us know and hopefully we can offer some more personal advice or point you to a tool or two.

SLO Web Design Challenge Final Results

In the SEO world, there are some keyword terms that are easier to obtain than others and other keyword terms that are practically impossible to breach.  In simple terms, there are keyword terms that command $20-$100 or more for the sponsored results listings that appear on the front page of Google when a search is made, and there are others that cost only a nickel.

Here in San Luis Obispo, the upper-echelon terms are those related to tourism, wineries, lawyers, financial planning and other professional services.  But no matter where you go, ownership of the top spot for “web design” will always be a fierce competition.  As more and more people jump on the web and leverage its uses for business, good web designers will continue to be in high demand, a recipe for saturation as web designer supply outweighs consumer demand.

To stand out in this flooded marketplace, web design companies can either focus on SEO or they can build their business on referrals.  In my opinion, they should do both.  By providing GUARANTEED RESULTS for our clients, we’ve been able to grow through referrals, but 60 days ago, we decided to challenge ourselves publicly and prove to all that we can back up our claim of getting you front page Google results within 60 days or your money back.

The challenge was pretty straight forward: get front page Google results for our targeted keyword term “San Luis Obispo web design”, a term that as we’ve discussed is highly sought after.  After a week, we had improved from irrelevant to on the map, debuting at #39, still wallowing in obscurity deep on the 4th page.  Not long after, we posted about our move all the way to the second page.  Yeah it was #19, but at least we’d made it to one-click territory.

Not bad for a couple weeks of work.  But the real test was coming up.  It’s nice getting to the second page, but each spot from here on out would need to be earned, as the others ahead of us were all established companies that have been doing business in the county for far longer than us, sometimes by as much as 12 years!  They’d earned their spots by delivering satisfaction over years of time.  Our challenge was to earn ours through method and testing, experience and experimentation.

After 20 days, some of our efforts began to appear on the front page, however, our domain itself was still making strides landing in at #15.  After 31 days, our halftime report card was very encouraging.  Two of our posts routinely showed up on the front page, and our main domain made surprise visits from time to time in the Top 10.  But we still had work to do.  Now that day 60 has finally come, it’s time to take a look at where we stand.  Will we have to give our money back or will we earn another happy referral?

And The Top 10 Google Results For “San Luis Obispo web design” Are…

1. Spider Web Logic

2. Corvus Art

3. iTech Solutions

4. A national ad for freelance designer jobs

5. AP Logic

6. The 805 Collective

7. Website Ink

8. PREVAIL PR

9. SLO Web Promotion

10. A craigslist ad for a web design job

We’re thrilled to say that we’ve actually cracked the Top 10 coming in the 8th spot, and expect in the coming weeks or months to move up even further.  We’re also #7 for the term “SLO web design” and routinely trade places with our longer-established counterparts.  Time may not be on our side, but effort, know-how and a passion to be great at what we do have gotten us this far.

To help us celebrate completion of our challenge, we’re offering all San Luis Obispo County small businesses the opportunity to put our Search Engine Optimization skills to the test with a 20% discount.  If we don’t do for you at least what we’ve just done for ourselves, you get your money back anyway, but your starting cost will be a little lower and we hope that combination is enough to get you to give it a try.

More and more of your prospects are researching products and services just like yours online before they buy, and if they can’t find you on the front page, they may very well never find you.  Are you ready to see the difference guaranteed front page Google results can make for your small business?

If so, give us a call or fill out the form below and we’ll set up a free consultation to discuss your needs.

Make More Money From Each Of Your Ad Dollars

If you’re like most small businesses, you’re spending quite a bit of money on display ads, direct mail and/or PPC and possibly even relying on these ads and sales letters for all or most of your leads.  For maximum profits, small businesses should build and implement multiple streams of lead generation, but if the majority of your marketing budget is tied up in ads, it’s still possible to literally double your business without spending any extra money.

How?

By optimizing your current ads to increase the response you get from them.  To help you get started, follow these 11 time-tested laws to boost the response rate of your ads and sales letters.

The 11 Time-Tested Laws of High-Response Ads

Law #1 – Include Coupons and/or An 800 Number – Coupons increase your response rate for several reasons.  First, people like to save money and so take notice of coupons.  Include an expiration date to improve your response even more.  Coupons are also powerful because people tend to cut them out, thereby increasing the likelihood they’ll see your ad again later.  As far as a call-to-action goes, not many are more powerful than 800 #’s because they encourage people to make a free phone call, which research shows they often do.

Law #2 – Use 8, 10 or 12 Point Font Only – Fonts are rarely the make or break reason for your ad getting read, but it can have some impact if you use the wrong font.  Don’t try to get too cute here.  Use a font type and size that people are accustomed to reading in the publication you are running the ad with.  Typically these fonts are between 8-12 point and in a more popular font style like Times New Roman, Verdana and Tahoma.

Law #3 – Don’t Use Capitals – Using capital letters throughout your ad actually makes it harder to read because the typical human eye is used to reading text with mostly lower case letters.  Instead of taking chances on ideas you aren’t sure will perform, stick to the laws that are time-tested.

Law #4 – Don’t Use Pictures – Display ads are expensive and to get a good ROI, you must use your space wisely.  Unless your products must be seen, use the space instead to deliver benefits that persuade the reader to take your desired action.

Law #5 – Give As Many Details As Possible – Having trouble filling your ad with valuable details that translate to benefits?  Ask your customers why they buy your products and services and fill your ad with benefits culled from their feedback.  The more you tell your prospects why they should buy from you, the more you’ll sell.

Law #6 – Use Facts & Figures – Today’s consumers are blind to outlandish and unproven claims; if anything, they work against you because you sound like everyone else.  Claims of superior service and great quality are vague and in reality are already expected from consumers.  Instead, fill your ads with specific figures and the facts to back them up.

Law #7 – Use Positive Language – Negative language has a way of lingering in the consumer’s mind.  Instead of using negative language to describe your products and services, always focus on the positive results they provide.  For example, a chimney cleaner should promise a warm, smoke-free house rather than removing all the dirty soot that’s clogging their chimney.

Law #8 – Focus On Solutions, Not Prevention – Consumers rarely look far enough into the future to worry much about preventing problems that may or may not arise.  Focus on helping them solve the issues they have now.  Focus your ads on promising these solutions and your responses will skyrocket.

Law #9 – Promise Free Trials & Samples – One of the easiest ways to get people to read and respond to your ads is to offer a free trial or sample of your products and services.  It will cost you some money to give your goods away, but if they are as good as you say they are, you’ll make far more profits in the long run from repeat customers and is actually the cheapest way for you to build your business.

Law #10 – Use A Headline – Headlines are by far the most important part of any ad, sales letter or commercial.  More than 4-out-of-5 people read the headline ONLY.  Without one, you may as well be throwing away your advertising dollars.  Come up with some headlines that promise your most important benefit to your ideal prospect and see which one works best.

Law #11 – Test Everything – Think your ad is as good as it gets or that testing isn’t worth the time it takes?  Think again.  Every aspect of your ad should be tested, one at a time.  This includes your headline, call-to-action, guarantee, free offer, P.S., time limit, font and anything else you can think of.  No matter how satisfied you are with your ad’s response, testing will help them improve.

Stop spending a fortune on underperforming ads and sales letters.  Even when the economy is down, your ad responses don’t need to be.  Follow these laws religiously and invest time into testing and improving your ads over an extended period of time (forever) and you’re business will grow all by itself without spending any more money than you already are.

Looking For A Guaranteed Way To Improve Your Ads?

Let Prevail PR do it for you.  We guarantee we’ll improve your ads and boost their response to generate more money than you paid for this service within 60 DAYS or we’ll refund your entire purchase price.

We Either Make You More Money Or We Give Your Money Back.  Simple As That.