March 2009 Archives

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Market Research: The Promise and the Challenge

Market research can help you not only evaluate the initial development of your product or service; it can also facilitate more effective targeting of your advertising and other promotional campaigns. Nevertheless, market research can be tricky, and knowing the best way to plan and execute an effective market study can mean the difference between success and failure for your product, your service, or even your business.

The following resources will help clarify the market research process.

Market Research Guides and Tutorials

The Small Business Administration's Small Business Planner answers the "what," "why," and "how" of market research, offering a step-by-step guide for creating your own personalized market research program.

In the above guide, the SBA states the following about the process:

Marketing research is not a perfect science. It deals with people and their constantly changing feelings and behaviors, which are influenced by countless subjective factors. To conduct marketing research you must gather facts and opinions in an orderly, objective way to find out what people want to buy, not just what you want to sell them.

Marketing Research tutorials, from KnowThis.com's Principles of Marketing Tutorials series, provide varied and helpful marketing-related guidance, including the following sections, specifically related to our topic:

• Marketing Research
  
• Planning for Market Research 
  
• Finding Secondary Research

Market Research Articles

Inc. Magazine offers numerous marketing research-related articles, from How can I find an affordable market research service? to Grandma got run over by bad research.

Market Research Information Centers

Another great resource for all things market research is Market Research World, which provides information and resources of many types, including a selection of helpful writings in its multi-section Library of Research Articles.

 

Market Research Videos

A number of videos are available online which provide greater insight into the market research process, from short niche marketing videos to a full-length, in-depth assessment of the all-important customer, offered by Google.

Niche Marketing: Niche Market Research (a 9+ min. video on online market research)
 
Niche Marketing: Finding Hungry Buyers, (approx. 4 min. video)

Conducting Market Research (2-1/2 min. video from Idea Buyers - offers online marketing research resources)
 
How can we better understand customers? (a 50+ minute Google Tech Talk video)

Check out the above group of valuable marketing research resources, and learn how to successfully lay the groundwork for your next product or business launch.

 

Social Media: A Great Way to Get the Word Out

Doing business on the Web offers you the opportunity to place your product or service before an audience of millions, with the added potential of attracting tens of thousands of customers. But, that's only provided you can get the word out to the right people, and that's where social media come in. Social media provide a simple, dependable, and free method for promoting your business or professional expertise and increasing the visibility of your product, service, or skill.

Brad recently covered various social networking sites here at The Whoa Factor, highlighting the ways they can be used to get the word out about your company, thereby maximizing profits. (See Brad's roundup post, Recap - Can Social Media Help Your Business?) The current post focuses on LinkedIn, another social site which, though similar in approach to other social media, offers an added dimension for business and professional people.

The Changing Social Media Landscape

Social media have undergone a few changes since their inception, the main change being that they aren't just for finding friends anymore. The popularity of social media for connecting with colleagues, employers, service providers, vendors, and potential customers is on the rise in our globally focused, Internet-driven economy - primarily because social networking works. Social media marketing is old-fashioned networking upgraded and repackaged for the new millennium. It's traditional marketing with a new twist. Any company that ignores this modern social/business phenomenon, does so at its own peril.

LinkedIn: Its Mission and Focus

The LinkedIn name provides a hint to the purpose of the site, which is specifically to link businesses and professionals together in mutually beneficial relationships. As mentioned above, unlike most social media sites, LinkedIn was originally intended for more than mere social networking; rather, its primary focus has always been professional networking. And, while other social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., also offer valuable opportunities for professional networking - in addition to their social connection component - LinkedIn is built around the business networking model.

The LinkedIn website would be the best place to start if you'd like to learn more about the network. When you visit, be sure to check the About page, where you'll find the following rationale for this free networking service, along with a great deal of other information about the site:

Our mission is to connect the world's professionals to accelerate their success. We believe that in a global [sic] connected economy, your success as a professional and your competitiveness as a company depends [sic] upon faster access to insight and resources you can trust.

You'll also find other helpful info on the LinkedIn Blog and elsewhere on the site. Take the time to explore what's available and get a feel for the LinkedIn network.You can also learn more about LinkedIn on other sites, via blog posts and videos posted by various individuals. Some of these resources follow.

 

LinkedIn Resource Links

CrunchBase offers some background info and stats in its LinkedIn Company Profile, which you may find relevant, as you consider how beneficial the site might be to your own business or professional endeavors.

For a simple explanation/demonstration of how LinkedIn works, check out the following brief YouTube video: What Is LinkedIn?

Another YouTube video that can help clarify the potential of LinkedIn for your company's development is How LinkedIn referrals helped build a company.

To learn more about the practical value that LinkedIn can have for your business or profession, in terms of online visibility and search engine marketing/marketability, visit Guy Kawasaki's definitive post, Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn, at How to Change the World.  It should give you some workable ideas for making the most of your LinkedIn networking opportunities. (Guy's post was later republished on the LinkedIn Blog.) 

If you still aren't totally convinced of the potential value of LinkedIn to your company's or your own success - or you simply want to know more about the site - watch the following 9+ minute YouTube video presentation, by Matt Dickman, of techno//marketer: Inside//Out: LinkedIn. In this video, Dickman provides a fairly extensive overview/review of LinkedIn that you're sure to find helpful.

If you're looking for a new way to network, why not get linked at LinkedIn!

Two of the most important places to insert keyword phrases are web page headers and subheads. In the first place, human readers are much more likely to read titles and subheads than the body text of a given page. Second, search engines give more weight to keywords that appear in those positions than in plain body text.

Avoid using shorthand when writing headers and subheads. It's an easy habit to fall into, especially when copy is being written in-house. Employees are so familiar with their business terminology and close to the action, they forget people will search for their products and services using the full search term.

Keyword Optimized Headers: Examples (keyword phrases underlined)

Weaker - Our Boxes Reduce Damage Claims
Stronger - Heavy Corrugated Boxes from ABC. Corp. Reduce Damage Claims

Weaker - Computer Parts Shipped Next Day
Stronger - Dell Hard Drives and Other Computer Parts Shipped Next Day

Weaker - Call Now for a Complete Assessment
Stronger - Call Now for a Complete Life Insurance Risk Assessment

People are unlikely to search for "boxes" when they want "heavy corrugated boxes".

People are unlikely to search for "computer parts" when they want "dell hard drives".

And nobody will search for "assessment" when they want a "life insurance risk assessment".

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tips for Headers and Subheads

1. Use your primary keyword phrases.
   
2. Never sacrifice keyword phrases to score style points - visitors come to your b2b or b2c site for information.
3. It's OK to have longish headers and subheads - if they are informative, visitors won't mind at all.
4. Have someone outside your firm read your headers and subheads without the body text - how clearly does he or she grasp your product, service, feature, or benefit?
5. Keep your keyword phrases pinned to your cubicle whenever you're writing - out of sight, out of mind, out of search engine ranking!

Relevant Reading - Header and Subhead Copywriting

A Few Words About Keywords
How to Write Exquisite Subheads

Image via Microsoft Office Online

 

An effective call to action is the gold standard of sales techniques. It also may very well be the single most important factor in moving a potential customer from thought to action. We might have the most wonderful product in the entire universe or the most helpful service imaginable. We may even have managed to convey that fact to our prospect quite effectively during our sales message. Yet, without an effective call to action, we can still lose the sale.  What, exactly, does it take to craft a call to action that actually inspires our prospect to act?

The 10 Keys to an Effective Call to Action

Here are 10 key factors to consider before, during, and after the creation of your next call to action:

 1.  Understand precisely what you have to offer your customer.

• Take the time and effort to fully understand your product. 
• Know what makes your product better than someone else's.
• Decide what added value you'll provide that will set your company apart from all the rest.

 2.  Believe in your product or service.

• Choose to offer a quality product that your company can proudly stand behind.
• Sell yourself first on all the features and benefits of owning your product.
• Offer something that you yourself would be happy to own and eager to purchase.
• Allow your own enthusiasm about your product to become contagious.

 3.  Know your ideal customer.

• Understand what's important to her. 
• Know what motivates him.
• Study your market data and know what it takes to reach the type of customer you hope to attract.

 4.  Attract your ideal customer.

• Draw him in with a lead he can't ignore.
• Address her known interests.
• Demonstrate that you take every customer seriously by treating each one like your only customer.

 5.  Appeal to your ideal customer's needs and interests.

• Identify with your customer by putting yourself in her place.
• Envision his frame of reference and validate it. 
• Find common ground and frame your appeal in the context of that created connection.            .

 6.  Address your ideal customer's most pressing problems or concerns.

• Sell solutions - not just products. 
• Tackle a specific need or desire that's critical to your customer's quality of life. 
• Demonstrate your ability to competently solve the problem or satisfy the need of your customer.

 7.  Give your ideal customer a reason to care about your company, as well as your product.

• Use goodwill gestures to build rapport. 
• Offer your customer or prospect something for nothing. 
• Demonstrate your genuine commitment to customer satisfaction.

 8.  Make your ideal customer eager to respond without delay.

• Create a sense of excitement about your offer. 
• Sell the sizzle, instead of the steak (Wheeler*) - the intangible but very real "payoff" of owning your product. 
• Promise something extra for a limited time or for the first so-many customers who respond.

 9.  Keep your call to action simple.

• Don't confuse your prospect with multiple calls to action. 
• Focus on a single, easy-to-understand response. 
• Make the desired action intuitive and easy to complete.

10.  Build customer loyalty, while creating anticipation for your next call to action. 

• Offer an excellent product. 
• Stand behind that product. 
• Provide unfalteringly excellent customer service. 
• Continuously upgrade your product quality and customer relations strategies. 
• Devise a customer appreciation program.

Once your initial call to action has transformed your prospects into customers and your unwavering commitment to excellent customer service has turned your customers into fans, you've paved the way for a continuous cycle of satisfying customer encounters that will virtually ensure a favorable response to your future calls to action.

And who could complain about that!

Relevant Links:

For more information about creating effective calls to action, check out the following content:

Those with business blogs would clearly benefit from reading Darren Rowse's Calls to Action - 12 Tips to SNAP Readers Out of Passivity, at ProBlogger.

For some practical examples of great call-to-action headlines, visit Ads from Scratch and read People to take action: How to write a call to action headline, by Markus Allen. (You'll also find a number of links to other helpful "Call to Action Discussions" on this page.)

In fact, if you'd like to Find Answers to Your Burning Marketing and Advertising Questions, check out Stump Markus, a free, live, interactive weekly talkcast offered by Markus Allen which covers "all things related to marketing" and takes place every Thursday at high noon (NY time).  (A recording of each discussion is available for seven days after the original talkcast.)

________________________________________

 

* From Tested Sentences That Sell, by Elmer Wheeler. The foregoing link will allow you to read the full text of this popular out-of-print sales classic completely free online.

To enjoy the immediate benefit of Wheeler's wise insights - more commonly known as "Wheelerisms" - on the best techniques for getting the sale (aka, creating an effective call to action), jump ahead to Chapter 11:  The Best-Looking Dotted Line Won't Sign Itself. Though this chapter focuses on face-to-face selling, its timeless principles are sure to help you craft more effective calls to action. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Riddle

Question - How do you optimize a 10 or 100 or 1000 page website?
Answer - One page at a time.

If you are trying to improve your visibility on Google - and every company ought to be - concentrate on creating high interest entry pages. An entry page might be a landing page designed to immediately convert prospects into customers for a particular product or service. Or, an entry page simply might be a page containing information a searcher is very likely to be looking for. For instance, a company that services copy machines might create a web page dedicated to an extremely popular make and model.

Entry Pages Capture the Attention of Qualified Visitors
You might think, why not optimize the home page for this particular copy machine? The company could do that - and most do - but an entry page specifically designed for the job will fetch the company better results. Visitors come to the home page for a variety of reasons, but seldom because they expect to find specific information there. Potential customers looking for help on that machine may not even notice the relevant content ... and click off.

Entry Pages Differentiate Your Brand
If I'm looking for help on a copy machine, I want to see a website that dedicates attention to it, that talks about it, that concentrates on it. I'll be impressed by a whole page devoted to it. If the company mentions the machine in passing on the home page, to me, it's just another copy machine company.

Home Pages Can't Handle The Workload
If the copy machine company gets results with this entry page, it can create another one around another machine, and keep going as long as it wants. Trying to optimize a home page for, let's say, 10-20 machines would be nearly impossible - the page would contain so much technical, detailed content visitors would run for their lives.

The irony is, SEO is a discipline many companies view as an utter mystery, yet they know exactly what their customers are looking for and are perfectly capable of determining what kind of entry pages to create. SEO specialists can isolate the best keyword phrases and take care of the (in many cases) complex execution. But strategy? The company itself already knows it.

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Old content is the kiss of death on Google. Search engines prioritize fresh content, presumably because currency is the currency of the web. Yet, how often do companies throw up web pages and leave them sitting there idle for one, two, five years at a time? Not only does stale content cause search engine visibility to plummet, it makes a terrible impression on human readers, who can usually sense when a company's website was an exercise in going through the motions, as opposed to a mission to energetically and authentically communicate.

Content creation for the web isn't a project - it's a process.

Adding a business blog to your site is a stupendous way to ensure your site is getting healthy doses of fresh content, but even without a blog, there are many ways to get this job done.

1. Create a Media Room. Post newsworthy blurbs about your firm
2. Create an Employees page and rotate bios/human interest profiles in and out
3. Add a Featured Products or Featured Services section to your home page
4. Add a Deal of the Month section to your home page
5. Create an FAQ page - and actually update it
6. Rotate important/timely FAQs in and out of your home page as a "Question of the Month"
   
7. Add and Industry News section to your site and post excerpts from blog posts - you might generate some search engine optimizing back links in the process
8. Create pages that speak to current issues ...
• How to survive the recession with our products/services
• How we can help you get out of debt
• How our products/services make more sense under current tax law
• How our products/services make more sense with the Stimulus Package
9. Create a Case Studies section and keep adding to it - besides being great for SEO, case studies are persuasive
10. Create a Client Testimonials page and keep adding to it - also the perfect blend of SEO and persuasion

Not an exhaustive list by any means, but certainly enough to get you thinking. The key point I want to make is that all these suggestions are not only going to help raise your search engine rankings, they present information that customers want and need.

 Also - implicit in these 10 fresh content suggestions is the notion that the content will change. Extremely important. A "Question of the Month" implies there will be a new question next month. "Deal of the Month" - same thing. A "Featured Product" or "Spotlight Employee" implies there will be a new product or new employee showcased at some point.

The danger here is to set something like this up and then forget about the updates. If your site displays the same Deal of the Month for three years running, visitors will roll their eyes instead of their cursors.  

Bottom line -The more valuable your site is to human readers, the more likely they will be to return. Stale content has limited value at best. Fresh content is what online visitors expect and demand.