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Designing your own website versus hiring a web designer

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web designIf You Build it, Will they Come?

So, you’re a small business owner and you need a new website. Should you build it yourself or hire a professional web designer? To help you decide which option is best for you and for your small business, I’ve listed five major considerations.

Time: How much is your time worth and do you have enough time to develop your business website without neglecting other duties? “Out-of-the-box” websites can be fairly simple to design, but the project may still end up taking much more of your time than you bargained for. Meanwhile, other areas of your business could suffer – or the website could take much longer to “go live” than you want. However, if you have the time, then perhaps building your own site would work for you. “There are a lot of services out there that provide ‘templates’ for people to use to build their sites, and these services can work quite well,” says Kevin Schueller, an award-winning web designer based in Philadelphia, PA. “I recommend Squarespace and Weebly, although Weebly can be somewhat more limited.”

Knowledge: Even when using a template, you may need guidance on picking out a theme that will work for your type of business and that can meet your goals for the site. You also will need to know how to work with plug-ins, programs and html to customize your site. “You need skills to modify the template’s code to get around the limitations and create a customized site,” says Schueller. “A lot of my clients come to me because they tried to build their own site and now they’ve hit a wall. They can’t make it function the way they want and now they need help. That’s where the real value of a web designer comes in.”

Customization and Flexibility: Rarely does a website start from scratch these days, which has greatly lowered web development costs, says Schueller. “Using templates that you can modify, we have been able to build websites for $2,000 when it would have cost more than $5,000 before,” he says. The key is the modification, he notes. Just building a site from a template without customization runs the risk of having a cookie-cutter result – leaving you with nothing to distinguish yourself from the competition. For example, my agency (The Elliott Group) built a site for a realtor and we wanted to add a mortgage calculator. However, that type of enhancement required a specific plug-in and further coding to work within the context of the theme we had selected.

Search: It takes a lot of research, careful copywriting, and special coding to ensure that your site appears on the first page of search results. The hard truth is that search engines like Google are how many people find products and services these days. Not only that, many people search ONLY on a mobile device. So, your site needs to be optimized for search, as well as mobile-friendly (responsive design). This is another area where a good web designer can help you.

Copy: How comfortable are you with your grammatical, spelling and persuasive writing skills? When you create your own website, you are also the person doing all of the writing. The last thing you want is a site with misspellings, or worse, a site that doesn’t motivate a visitor to act (contact you, get more information, visit your business, buy something). Consider having a professional copywriter develop the text for your site, or at least find someone who can proofread it for you.

“It all comes down to this: small business owners need a site that they can easily edit on their own, but they shouldn’t necessarily do the initial development,” Schueller says. Using a web designer can ensure that you get a fully functioning site that you can edit quickly and easily. “We just finished a website for a new Philadelphia restaurant,” he says. “They needed to be able to change menu items, hours, announce specials and more.”  Their new site allows them to do just that, with minimal effort and no need for coding knowledge.

5 Small Business Marketing Tips

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Couple running a small bookstore businessWhile the responsibility of owning your own small business can be overwhelming, it can also be very satisfying. It’s no wonder that small businesses continue to be the backbone of America’s economy. Almost 28 million small businesses employ 50% of the nation’s workforce and have created 65% of the country’s new jobs since 1995. Small business success doesn’t happen overnight — and it doesn’t come without a lot of work and worry. Small business owners are extremely skilled at providing their services or making their products, and usually, that’s what they like to spend their time on most. Dealing with other aspects of the business, such as accounting, HR or marketing can be either daunting or a drag. But, if you don’t send out invoices, you won’t get paid, and if you don’t do marketing, you won’t have anyone to invoice. Here are a few basic tips to get your small business marketing program underway.

1. Set a marketing budget. This is critical, because without a somewhat firm marketing budget, you run the risk of either spending too much or too little. Spending too much can leave you extremely dissatisfied when the results don’t measure up. Spending too little can stunt efforts that show promise. Ideally, your marketing budget should be about 7-8% of your projected annual revenues; but up to 15% if you’re running a start-up.

2. Develop a marketing strategy. With your budget in hand, map out your goals and plan the strategic marketing efforts that will help you achieve those goals. Identify your primary and secondary markets and research how those markets shop or search for your products and services. Are they mainly using their phones to search for your business?  Do they still read the newspaper every day? Do they use social media — and if so, which outlets?

3. Be part of the community. Your small business marketing plan should include ways to demonstrate your commitment to your community. Whether it’s through sponsorships, educational offerings, social media, donations or volunteer work, take an active interest in the people, businesses and happenings around you and your business will be rewarded. Remember, people do business with people they like.

4. Solve problems. A key component of your marketing strategy should be helping your customers solve problems — or get answers to their questions. Rather than using all of your marketing budget on hard-sell tactics, be sure to include some soft-sell techniques, like content marketing. E-newsletters, blog posts, webinars and instructional videos can all help you establish expertise, form relationships, get more referrals and increase search rankings — all while you’re providing a valuable, relevant service to your customers.

5. Be consistent. Part of your marketing plan should be a carefully timed schedule of all of your activities along with who is responsible for accomplishing each step along the way. Be sure to keep track of the plan’s progress. Lack of consistency and ill-timed promotions will kill the best of marketing plans.

BONUS: Don’t do everything yourself. As a small business owner, I can guarantee that you already have enough on your plate. Marketing is not an aspect of your business that you can afford to let slide, no matter how pressing your other priorities are. Delegate marketing tasks to other capable employees and hold them accountable for staying on track (and on budget). If you can’t delegate the implementation of your marketing plan to others in your organization, consider using an agency. Best wishes for small business success!

Content Marketing: How to Write Great Blog Posts

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Blog imageOriginal blog posts have become de rigueur in content marketing strategy.  And, while many small business owners know they should be writing a blog, they often don’t know where to start.

Why write blogs?

One of the most important things to realize is that your blog is an inexpensive, yet highly effective, marketing tool.

Blogs help small businesses achieve several important marketing goals at one time:

  • Building robust website content
  • Appearing higher in search results
  • Establishing their expertise in the community and marketplace
  • Helping customers get to know them
  • Developing a loyal customer base
  • Engaging customers and potential buyers
  • Attracting social media followers

Plan Blog Topics and Keywords

Map out your topics 3-6 months at a time, keeping in mind that everything you post should have a strategic purpose that directly relates to your business and marketing goals. There should be a regular interval between each post, as well as a deadline for every article. Make sure you identify who in your business will be writing each post and that they stick to the schedule. Your article plan should include an article title; keywords that you want to appear in the title, subheads and body; and a brief description of what you want the article to accomplish.

Basic Blog Format

If you look at blogs as a very subtle soft-sell marketing method, rather than a press release or a news article, you can start to envision where you want to go with the copy.  What types of challenges/problems/wants/needs do your customers have and what do you do to help those customers? Educate your customers, and then provide tips and solutions for them.

I usually shoot for an ideal range of 500-800 words per post. I like to use subheads because they help with SEO, as well as make the copy “skimmable”. Other ways to help readers skim your text is by using bullets, numbers and lists.

Provide Links in the Text

It’s important to include some text links back to your website to help with the post’s SEO rank. I am not a big fan of overdoing text links. I think it’s a turnoff and, anyway, most people view articles with too many links as overt selling. The whole point of doing blogs is to NOT be too obvious. That being said, if you have a good opportunity to link to more information on a certain topic, especially if it’s another post you wrote, include the link.

Don’t Plagiarize

Your blog needs to be ORIGINAL. It should be in your words, written in your tone, in language that you use and that your customers understand. Statistics and supporting quotes should be cited.

Your entire site’s search rankings can be seriously penalized if Google detects too much duplication on even one page on your site. That means, if Google deems that your site contains too much duplication of any other online page, even one on your own site, your site will start appearing lower in search results. And believe me, Google CAN and WILL know. To protect yourself from plagiarism, invest in Copyscape, an inexpensive and very easy to use tool that can check each article for duplication/plagiarism.  There is no hard and fast rule about how much duplication is OK. In my opinion, your duplication rate should be less than 10% of the text for any one source.

Be Relevant

Your blog posts need to provide relevant, valuable information that people are searching for online. Google and other search engines are always looking for ways to provide more value to their users and customers. The more valuable your information (i.e., the more people that are searching for it), the more Google will reward you with higher search results.

For more information on content marketing and tips to write effective copy, visit my blog or contact me. Look at all those links!  I just broke my own rule.

How Small Businesses Benefit from Content Marketing

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content marketing image

While it’s not a new strategy in big business, content marketing is still a somewhat foreign concept to many small business owners. Many small businesses aren’t quite sure what content marketing is exactly, and how it could benefit their bottom line.

 

What is Content Marketing?

Social media, articles on your website (blog posts), e-newsletters, case studies and videos – all of these marketing strategies can be classified as content marketing. Each serves to provide content that educates your target market and provides them with relevant, valuable information that appeals to their specific interests and needs. This sharing of information with your potential and existing customers helps develop a deeper and more trusting relationship with them than you could with traditional advertising methods. Because content marketing is more of a conversation, it allows your target market to learn how they can benefit from your business without them even realizing it. It’s a soft-sell technique that positions you and your business as an expert in the trade who is willing to provide free helpful information.

Benefits of Content Marketing

Besides helping you establish your brand and grow your customer base, content marketing (when done correctly) can help you build a positive reputation in the local community. Content marketing can also help you increase your website’s search rankings. The goal of Google and other search engines is to provide users with the highest quality and most relevant content possible. Creating and posting valuable, relevant and original content adds meat and depth to your site – giving the search engines more important keywords to index and thus improving your site’s ranking in search results.

The Need for Quality Content

When developing content, it’s important to focus on quality. Original ideas, original copy, original positioning – your articles and social media posts need to truly convey your philosophies and ideas. The information you present needs to be transparent and accurate, presenting a real picture of what you are doing and why it’s interesting or beneficial to the consumer. Avoid plagiarism at all costs. Not only will you not be saying anything uniquely interesting to your market, but your entire site could be penalized if Google detects too much text that duplicates other online pages. One plagiarized blog post could ruin it for your entire website. Last, remember that content marketing is different from traditional marketing in the sense that you never want it to sound like a sales pitch. The goal is to deliver substantive information that your customer wants and needs.

Content Marketing is on the Rise

For now, content marketing is not only here to stay, but it’s a strategy that’s being adopted by more and more businesses around the globe. With the explosion of online content that will result, it’s more important than ever to have a solid strategy that hinges on unique ways of relating to your clients. Many small business owners don’t know where to start with developing the ideas, plans and writing for their posts. Or, they simply have too many other pressing projects to handle. If you don’t have the time or skills to devote to mapping out and executing a comprehensive content marketing strategy, consider hiring a professional writer or agency to put it together for you.

7 Keys to Effective Marketing Writing

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writing-520x359For many business owners, writing marketing copy does not come naturally. But whether they are managing their social media pages, developing website content or writing letters to clients, many business owners need to write marketing copy at one point or another.  I recently spoke at a marketing session for the Lord Fairfax branch of the Virginia Small Business Development Center, and after my talk, more than a few people came up to me for pointers on effective copywriting.

Effective Copywriting Starts with a Goal

Well-written copy can make or break an ad or marketing piece. For marketing writing to be effective, it needs to accomplish your goal. What do you want that bit of writing to do for your business? Do you want it to generate solid leads, brand your company, establish your expertise, reinforce a message, raise awareness, combat a negative perception or increase referrals? Once you know your goal, you can begin crafting your message.

Here are the seven main steps I take when writing copy for a client:

1. Give the reader a reason to read. What is the benefit to them? Why is your service or product valuable to them? What can you do for them that your competition can’t? What is the added value that you provide to your customers? Knowing all of the benefits (big and small) and being able to clearly communicate them up front is essential.

2. Be the person you are selling to. Get to know what makes your target demographic tick. What are their wants and needs? What irritates them? What “language” do they speak? Are they male or female, young or old, educated or not? What are they passionate about? When you can get into the mind of the person you are selling to, and can speak their language, you will naturally be able to communicate appealing information about your products.

3. Don’t make it all about you. Eliminate most of the “I, me, my, mine, we, us, our, ours” and instead focus on “you, your, yours” when writing copy. This will also help you accomplish step number 1, above. When you have to talk about them and not you, it’s easier to focus on what is important to them. Instead of writing copy that explains what your company does and how it does it, tell the customer how their lives will be easier, better, more fun, more beautiful, richer, less stressful, healthier and more. Readers connect quickly to copy that identifies with aspects of their own lives. This connection personalizes your copy for them and makes it more effective.

4. Clean up the clutter. When you provide too much information and detail in your copy, you risk losing the prospect’s attention, or worse, the possibility of them forgetting or missing the most important part of your message. Stick to what they need to know to make a purchase, make a phone call or whatever it is that you want them to do. People don’t need to know all the technical details of how it works – they need to know how it benefits them and how it is better than the competitor’s product (faster, cheaper, more reliable).

5. Tell them what to do. The whole reason you are writing the copy is to motivate your audience to act. But, so many pieces of copy fail to actually tell the reader what to do. Include a strong call to action every time. Create a sense of urgency and give them instructions (“Call now”, “Share for a chance to win”).

6. Get a proofreader. Don’t lose credibility because of mistakes in your copy. Your word processing program’s spelling and grammar check is not going to tell you when you are using a word in the wrong context, and there are many other types of errors those programs cannot catch. So, you need to print out your copy and read it carefully and then show it to a proofreader who is an expert in spelling and grammar. This goes for social media posts, too. Don’t post on the fly. Type it, check it, have it checked again, then cut and paste.

7. Ask for help. If you still find the task of effective copywriting to be daunting, ask for help. Ask yourself if doing the writing is an effective use of your time. The Elliott Group provides extremely reasonable copywriting services to a variety of businesses and has expertise in every type of marketing medium. Let us craft an effective marketing message for you.

 

Should Your Small Business be on Facebook?

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Elliott Group Facebook Page Screenshot

I have a couple of clients who really hate Facebook. For one client, it’s a privacy issue and for the other client, a learning issue. The first client is a very private person and even the thought of a business Facebook page makes him uneasy. The second client does not use the internet much for personal purposes and has a huge learning curve when it comes to social media. And, human nature is sometimes to distrust what we do not know. Both of these clients own small local businesses that rely on search and referrals; therefore, even though they don’t particularly like it, they know they SHOULD be using social media to market their businesses.  Maybe you should, too. If you have a local target market, Facebook can help you:

  • Reach people who live within a few miles of your location
  • Strengthen your relationship with your known customers
  • Advertise directly to your customers’ friends who live nearby

Four Types of Businesses Who Should be on Facebook

Not every small business can truly benefit from advertising on Facebook. In their book Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising, online marketing and Facebook ad experts Perry Marshall, Keith Krance and Thomas Meloche describe the four types of businesses that might do well with a robust presence on Facebook. Examples include local businesses with a physical location where consumers regularly come to purchase goods and services — from doctors and fitness clubs to restaurants and bakeries.

If your small business falls into any of the four categories below, Facebook can be a winning part of your marketing plan:

  1. You have unique products.

Facebook is a highly personalized medium. So, it’s not the place to sell the same products that consumers can find easily online or in the big box stores. It IS the place to sell unique, personalized and customized products – ones that allow for individual expression.

  1. You sell to consumers.

Facebook is mainly used by consumers to connect with friends and family.  If you sell to other businesses, you probably won’t have much success on Facebook. But, if your business is consumer-oriented, then you, too, can connect with individual consumers and people in their personal networks. 

  1. You sell great experiences.

Facebook is also where people go to connect, to play, and to socialize. It’s a great place to sell events, club memberships, experiences, personal improvement, travel and entertainment. All of these products involve fun and positive emotions, and offer plenty of naturally social subjects for posts. 

  1. Your business appeals to people with strong convictions.

Does your company — and your target customers – lean toward a particular religious, political or social direction? If your business harmonizes with a person’s identity, that person will be predisposed to do business with you. You can take advantage of this harmony between your business and your customers by targeting them on Facebook and discussing the issues they care about.

Don’t Know Where to Start?

I’m a big believer in social media and its power to help small businesses grow. My own small business owes all of its clients to social media. And, my business technically does not fall into one of the four categories above. Imagine what an increased social media presence could do for your company? If you’re not sure where to start – or simply don’t have time to manage a social media campaign, know that there is affordable help available. The Elliott Group can build a strategy for you and also ensure that it is executed. We manage every detail. Contact me today for a free consultation!

 

Where Is Your Small Business Going?

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Many small business owners spend more time planning a vacation than they do planning their killer marketing strategy for the next 6 months or a year. But, just like planning a vacation, having a written marketing strategy is critical to its success. If you don’t have a vacation plan, you might end up on stand-by, in a tacky hotel, or worse. If you don’t have a marketing plan, you can never be sure that you’re getting the best value for your marketing dollar, and getting the best results possible.

The Destination: Where Do You Want to Go?

Just like planning a vacation, the first thing you need to know is where you want to go, otherwise known as your marketing goals. Do you want to increase sales by 5-10%? Do you want a higher customer retention rate? Do you want to increase referrals? Whether your business goals are big or small, they are your “destination” and marketing can help you get there.

The Travel Budget: How Much Can You Spend?

You generally know how much money you’re willing to spend on a vacation. You need to also set a budget for your marketing plan. A good rule of thumb for allocating marketing expenses is to set aside about 7% or more of your annual gross income. And, just like deciding on how much you’ll pay for vacation lodging, transportation, meals and sightseeing, you need to divide your marketing budget into various initiatives, such as advertising, social media, public relations, direct marketing, collateral materials, trade shows, website design, search engine optimization and more.

The Transportation: How Do You Plan to Get There?

Once you have your destination and budget spelled out, you can start to think about the best ways to get there. This will largely depend on your type of business, what has worked well for you in the past and what has not worked. Typically, you will want to put the lion’s share of your budget into what has worked well, but you should also allot some funds for testing other initiatives. Be sure to be able to track and analyze the results from all of your efforts, so that you can see your expenses versus orders, and know each cost per order.

The Details: Should You Use an Agency?

Lots of people rely on travel agents to plan their vacation, especially if it’s a big trip with many details that need to be worked out. Having someone else who is more knowledgeable and has more resources at their fingertips frees you up to pack your bags and enjoy the trip. For the same reason, small business owners can use a marketing agency to help them plan their strategy as well as execute its components. Agencies can put your marketing plan in writing, devise all of the materials and sub-plans needed for each initiative, track results and more. This allows you up to focus on your product or service and the daily operations of your business. Bon voyage and best wishes for success!

5 Simple Rules for Successful Public Speaking

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Many experts recommend public speaking as an excellent way to promote your small business. When addressing a group, you have a captive audience and a chance to position yourself as an expert as well as persuade attendees to buy your products or services. The problem is that not all of us feel confident about our public speaking abilities. Anyone who knows me would not describe me as shy or lacking in self-confidence. It is a little-known fact that I struggle with speaking in front of large groups. And, sometimes it’s worse if I know many of the folks in the group. I’d rather do it anonymously for some reason. But, I can’t always control the audience, so I’ve developed some ideas and techniques to help small business owners prepare for — and nail — their speaking engagements.

Rule #1: Believe in Your Message
In college I took a class that involved delivering a speech every week. While usually a straight A student, I was getting a C in the class. I was nervous while delivering the speeches. I tried to pick topics that were humorous but my jokes fell flat. My professor was not impressed. But, for my final speech, I decided to get serious and talk about something that I really believed in. The speech was about the need to end apartheid in South Africa and it earned me an A+. What’s more, I was not nervous at all while I gave that speech. And, my professor made me realize that my confidence and passion showed because I was being myself and talking about a topic that meant something to me. So, the moral of the story here is always talk about something you really believe in. If you’re not a natural joke teller, then don’t tell jokes. Just be yourself and show your passion for your business.

Rule #2: Be Prepared
In small groups or one-on-one, I have no problem “winging it”. But, important speaking engagements demand your full preparation. Pick your topic, develop your presentation (think of every word you want to say and get it on paper), and prepare handouts and visuals. Preparing presentation materials can be a daunting task for some of us, so consider getting professional copywriting and graphic services so that your visuals are as effective as possible. The more prepared you are, the more confident you’ll be. During your presentation, you should plan to engage your audience with questions and answers to make it more of a conversation. This will help you relax as not all of the focus will be on you for the entire presentation.

Rule #3: Practice
You can do all the prep work in the world, but if you never actually practice your presentation, you will never know where it has the potential to go wrong. And then you won’t have time to fix it. Practice delivering your presentation, along with your visuals, and make sure it all runs smoothly. This should be done a couple of days before your talk, so that you have enough time to get Powerpoint slides fixed, etc.

Rule #4: Get a Good Night’s Rest
This may sound elementary, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t take the simple advice of getting a solid night’s sleep prior to their presentation. Also, eat a healthy breakfast and don’t overdo it on the caffeine intake. If you are tired and stressed out, it will show. You want to be well-rested and relaxed when you get up in front of the crowd.

Rule #5: Relax
You are going to be talking about a subject near and dear to your heart. You have prepared a killer presentation with excellent materials and have practiced it thoroughly. You have gotten a good rest and had a healthy breakfast. You have done all you could to put yourself in an advantageous position and now is the time to seize the moment. You can do it!

Small Business Success Depends on Marketing

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In a down economy, businesses look closely at expenses and cut costs where possible to offset declining revenues. Cutting marketing expenses, however, is a bad idea. To build business and increase sales, marketing is critical, especially for small businesses who may be competing with larger companies. It’s tempting to think of marketing as just another expense. But, for small business success, marketing should be viewed as an investment with long-term value. Research shows that, during the past five recessions since 1971, companies that actually increased their marketing budget were more likely to have stronger earnings than those that did not.

Marketing covers advertising, public relations, promotions and sales. A process by which a product or service is introduced and promoted to potential customers, marketing keeps your product or service top of mind with potential customers. It helps you reinforce benefits to the consumer, distinguish yourself from the competition, clarify misconceptions, build your brand and establish your company as reputable and reliable.

Tips for Low-Cost Marketing Efforts

Not all marketing needs to be expensive. Here are a few ideas that will help you keep your business in front of prospective customers without breaking your budget.

Trade Show Alternatives: While you may not have the budget to attend your biggest trade show with a splashy booth this year, you can often work with trade associations to find other ways to get your marketing materials in the hands of trade show attendees. Often there are literature bins, tote bag stuffers, sponsorships and other lower-cost opportunities offered by the association. Consider having a special piece designed just for that purpose that really speaks to that specific audience with your benefit-oriented pitch.

Public Relations:  Do you have a new service or product, or an enhancement to an existing product? Generate free publicity with a well-crafted press release delivered to the right media. Find out who to send it to (specific names and email addresses) and follow-up to be sure they got it and answer questions they might have. Include images when possible to make it graphically appealing.

Social Media:  If you don’t already have a Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn presence, set it up and put a plan in place to frequently post updates and answer questions/comments promptly. Post activities, images, promotions and other news that puts your business in a positive light and also encourages engagement. Offer incentives to your followers that will increase business and word-of-mouth referrals.

Sales Collateral:  Does your sales team have the most up-to-date materials that convey a clear, compelling benefit to the customer? Or, is the benefit lost somewhere on the page? A new sales flier, brochure or e-blast can give your sales troops, as well as sales, a boost. These materials do not need to be high cost — rather, they need to put your company’s benefits front and center. Good writing and design can help you achieve that.

Advertising: If you feel as if you’ve been burned before by spending a lot of money on a big ad that didn’t produce results, you are not alone. Many small businesses fall for the premise that a big ad will get them big results. A key component to advertising is repetition. Running smaller ads more often reinforces your message and reaches more people than a one-time ad. Another key is to have a strong message. A series of ads that builds on a running theme can help you tell a big story.

Website: When was the last time your website was updated? If it’s been a while, now is a good time to evaluate ways in which your website could be driving more business to your company. Posting a blog that tells your customers more about what your business can do for them is a great way to keep fresh content on your site and move it further up in search engine rankings. Also, the navigation should be easy and important information — your key message — should be front and center.

Without marketing, your potential customers may never be aware of your business offerings and your business may not progress. Using marketing to promote your product, service and company provides your business with a chance of being discovered by prospective customers. The Elliott Group can help with low-cost marketing efforts and advice to help you succeed.

 

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540-539-3409
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