When educating new or current clients on the benefits of social media I often hear “I don’t get Twitter” or “How can Twitter help our business?” After spending some time on the subject, I get most of the point across, but there are still some suspicions present.A case study or real world example always helps, so I am going to share an experience I had with a company that has begun to utilize Twitter to reach out to their customers.

I use @Task, a web based project management tool to keep track of client accounts. While viewing a webinar a couple weeks ago, I logged into my @Task account to check on a few things (yes, I multitask). My Gant Chart screen was acting a little flaky so I sent out a Tweet to see if any of my followers were having the same issue:

I did not get much of a response from my followers, which I expected. What I didn’t expect was to have an @Task representative call me within 3 minutes!

Unfortunately, I was not answering my phone due to my webinar participation but I still appreciated the prompt follow up and concern nevertheless.

The issue ended up being my browser’s fault, not @Task’s.

I even received a follow up Tweet from their Twitter account administrator making sure the problem had been rectified:

That was the icing on the cake. The whole experience made me feel like a valued customer, even though the firm I work for is small compared to many of their clients.

There you have it: real world proof that Twitter is good for your brand and your customers.

Posted by Paul under Internet Marketing & Internet News | No Comments »

Internet entrepreneurs have been compared to early gold prospectors so often the comparison is now a cliche, but those prospectors still can provide valuable insight in running a lean operation. Did the early prospectors invest in large equipment upfront to sift through tons of dirt? In fact, the earliest prospectors invested in just enough equipment to reap an initial reward. Often, he bought only a pan to swirl the mixture of river dirt and water, a shovel and a mule to transport the precious flecks of gold found in the pan. his tools were easily obtained and (pardon the pun) “dirt-cheap”. Only after the opportunity cost of using these portable tools became too great did he switch to fixed equipment and mining.

Organizations using hosted solutions at the application and infrastructure level save in both time and money, as both are readily available, usually at a low cost monthly basis. Customers can still add their unique branding to public-facing sites, while skipping the development costs for dedicated back-end management applications. Whether your gold is social media, e-commerce, real estate marketing or a mixture, hosted solutions are the modern equivalent of the prospector’s pan. Looking at today’s Internet prospectors who choose hosted solutions, the old-timers would surely be proud.

Posted by Paul under Internet Marketing | No Comments »

According to a Forsee Results survey, a staggering 1/3 of consumers used their phones as a supplement to their in store shopping process. That means that 29% of the shoppers actually pulled their phone while in a store to learn more about a product instead of consulting a sales associate. This shows a significant gap that retailers could fill.

According to the survey, these mobile-enabled shoppers did not head right for the retailer’s website while in the store.

The survey also found that these mobile-enabled shoppers acted almost exactly like non-mobile-enabled shoppers—except that mobile shoppers are a little more likely to buy the product offline. This is understandable, as it wouldn’t make sense to do in store research, drive home to use a home computer for more research and drive back to the store.

This there is definitely evidence of a gap to be filled here. For example, an offline retailer could work on an app for their customers to post and read product reviews and compare prices, then advertise the app in their store, right alongside the products that people will surely be comparing.

Forsee Results had this to say:

“Going forward, retailers should encourage smart phone users to adopt retailer-generated mobile apps, not only to ask about a product or send a picture of a product to a friend, but to compare online prices, remember specs of something they were researching online, and identify the proper model or version of a wish list item.”

Mobile Internet and Mobile Applications have not been widely adopted yet, but will be a major force in the coming years.

Will your business be ready?

Posted by Paul under All Content & Internet Marketing & Mobile Marketing | No Comments »

Too many developers focus on increasing traffic, when conversion (gaining customers) should be getting as much, if not even more, focus. Michelle Howe of Internet Word Magic has an excellent view on how to address this issue.

The average internet site has only a three percent conversion. In other words, out of 100 people who come to your internet site, only 3 will make a purchase. So the challenge is how to get those other 97 people to make a purchase and increase your conversion rate.

Just getting internet site traffic is not enough; they need to buy, or at least make contact through an e-mail or phone call.

Relate to Your Customer

Your homepage should immediately start building rapport with your visitors. Make sure it is very clear who you are, what you do and why they should do business with you.

Think about what you need to do to start a conversation with your customer. What are the buying habits of your customers? What language is being used in the searches to find your internet site?

Align yourself with your customer so that you are looking out for their best interests. Think of ways you can improve their buying experience on your internet site by using words that are familiar to your customer. Give them enough information so that it is easy to make a decision to do business with you.

Build Customer Relationships
Let your potential customers know that you understand their problems and that you have a solution to their problems. One effective way to do this is to put testimonials on your internet site Make them feel that you can be trusted by posting testimonials from other satisfied customers. You can tell them how great your product or service is and how it is the right choice, but why believe you? It’s better to have the positive statements coming from someone who has successfully done business with you.

Don’t you tell people how you solve their problems; let someone else tell the story. Testimonials are powerful and necessary to a successful Internet Presence / Presentation. Testimonials not only say you can do the job, but they say how well you can do the job. And they are so much more believable than you trying to promote yourself. Let others speak for you.

Include testimonials throughout your Internet site. Don’t make the mistake of having one page just for testimonials. Rarely will someone click to a testimonials page and read the whole thing. So, you are in essence wasting your time and resources with a testimonials page.

Instead, sprinkle testimonials wherever you think they might help convince your audience that what you are saying is true. Back up your statements with testimonials and you start building relationships with your readers.

Make It Easy to Find Information
The navigation on a internet site can make or break a site. You can have the best content in the world, but if readers can’t find what they are looking for, they will leave.

Use simple, descriptive headings and subheadings to direct visitors throughout your Internet site. Put keywords in the headings and subheadings so that the search engines have an easier time indexing your pages.

Think about the problems you solve for your readers and make sure you offer solutions to those problems. Remember, people are searching for information and solutions to their problems.

The easier you make it for them to find information, the more likely you will be able to entice the visitor to stay awhile.
And, the longer they stay, the more likely you will gain a customer.

Conclusion
More than ever, in these bad economic times, companies need to improve communication with customers to increase website conversion. Making sales on a website is more than generating traffic. To increase the conversion rate, consider relating to your customer with easy-to understand language, build your customer relationships through testimonials and make the website navigation easy to find information.

Posted by Paul under All Content & Internet Marketing | No Comments »