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Marketing executive, Steve Hartkopf shares all in this informative yet personable blog.
Web entrepreneurs consider this the point where the rubber meets the road but, too often, it’s where the runner meets the pothole. Here are four of the most common mistakes and what you can do to correct them:
1) You’re not asking for the order:Every page of your site should have a clear focal point, a place where the eye is naturally drawn to, and a clear call-to-action.
That call-to-action can be to actually buy something from you but it can also be a request to have your visitors register (call, click here, etc.) to receive more information, such as a free whitepaper. Different pages may have different calls-to-action.
The good news about this problem is it’s the easiest to fix. You may be able to do this yourself but contact me (800-707-9150 or shartkopf@aligned-marketing.com) if you need help.
(Yes, that was a call-to-action in my blog)
2) Your visitors are confusedOne of the first laws of selling is a confused mind says “No.”
If your website has lots of motion graphics, four or more fonts, poorly contrasted or unappealing colors, clutter, too many choices, unclear copy or 100 other things that distract and confuse the mind, you’re not going to sell anything.
The KISS (keep it simple stupid) approach works best. Again, a clear focal point, call-to-action and lots of whitespace are all that’s needed.
Video and customer testimonials are great for SEO and to help build credibility, see next bullet, but they are more icing than cake.
3) CompanyspeakYour copy, call-to-action and value proposition, your business message, needs to be clear, concise, compelling and written in simple language. It also needs to be believable.
Talk to your visitors in terms of benefits to them, which are usually very different than the way your internal team talks about your product. Internal audiences tend to get wrapped up in features and function. Customers care about benefits. How will your product make them money, healthier, more attractive, save them time, etc.
Similarly, people are skeptical. They know advertising lies, marketing manipulates and even Tiger can’t be trusted anymore. No one can afford to waste money and no one wants to feel foolish.
Talk to your audience in simple believable words.
4) Ouch!This one hurts a bit so brace yourself; they just don’t want what you’re selling.
A lot of webpreneurs are so passionate about their product or service they just can’t understand why people aren’t beating a path to their door. Well, I’m sorry, but if you’ve done everything else right, or mostly right, then the market has spoken and you lose.
As one prominent Democrat recently said when they were struggling to sell the Healthcare Bill to the American people, “The problem is the dog doesn’t like the dogfood.” You can fix the message, the packaging, but if the dog won’t eat the dogfood you’re not going to be selling any.
The fix here isn’t redesigning your website or more creative copy, the fix is transitioning your product from something you think people need into something people actually want.
Steve
800-707-9150
He was referring to me being a consultant and, indeed, there’s evidence to support his statement. The industrial market is heating up. The Industrial Supply Association’s (ISA) most recent Economic Indicator Report was up for the second month in a row. Their Manufacturer Index was 66.42% in February while the January index was 60.63%. The Distributor Index saw similar gains (61.1% and 65.72%, respectively). Anything above 50% indicates those surveyed expect economic expansion.
The subjective evidence is equally strong. I talk with frustrated marketing people every week. Their complaint is with management and goes like this: “They laid off half my staff so we’ve been struggling to keep up for over a year. Every month we fall further behind and are getting our butts chewed out. Now, because business is getting better, they want us to do a bunch of new stuff. We can’t complete our work now! I have no idea how we’re going to get any new projects completed.” Maybe you can help them?
If you’re an unemployed or underemployed marketing professional consider becoming a consultant. As my CEO friend said, the timing may be perfect.
The client benefits because they can rent the expertise they need (from you). You simply augment their staff as a variable cost solution. A competent resource they can eliminate quickly without a long HR process.
Do a great job and maybe you get hired full-time, if that’s what you want. Here are a few things you need to be prepared for before accepting your first consulting job.
If you have skills and are either unemployed or underemployed I encourage you to think about consulting. The market is getting stronger, it’s a great way to leverage your strengths, and may get you the inside track on a full-time job if that’s your ultimate goal.
Feel free to call me if you want to discuss further.
Steve
800-707-9150

by Chris Brogan
Always a URL. Always
If you’re going to wire up people and connect them to an event in the real world, you need a web page of some kind or another. People need all the details. They need some kind of intangible tangible that they can pass around to point out what’s what. Give them a web page.
If it’s just a one-off, use an event system like Eventbrite. If you’re going to do this over and over, consider setting up pages on your own website of choice, and then maybe double-up with an Eventbrite to manage the signup.
Extend onto Event Sites
Here’s where you can really get things moving. If you want this event to really spread, use sites like Upcoming.org and Eventful, to name a few. If you’ve got a Facebook group, put up an event notification there. If you’ve got a LinkedIn group, and the event matches, put it up there, too.
Status, Status, Status
Without being “that guy” (and never forget, I mean this for either gender), mentioning your event is easy across your Twitter, your Facebook, your LinkedIn status, and all the other social sites that make sense to promote. A word of caution: this gets close to what feels like carpet-bombing, so go gently. In fact, out in front of such a promotional effort, make sure you’re doing your good deeds and promoting others, and sharing other good information. People don’t like a tireless self-promoter, but they don’t mind someone who shares the good stuff, even when some of it’s their own.
Email Marketing
Do you maintain an email list? Don’t forget to drop a gentle note of your event into there, too. Again, the goal is subtlety and just a gentle pointer to your URL.
Flickr and YouTube
Want to amp up your event’s pre-buzz as well as give it some love on the day of the event? Here are two things: use photos and videos for pre-event invites and promos. Then, encourage people to take photos and videos AT the event. If at all possible, make it easy for the folks who might be into making media to have something to take photos and make movies about. (A side note: if you’re bothering to throw an event with a lot of web presence, use a tag – metadata – to denote the event, for people’s blog posts, for Flickr and YouTube, and for Twitter. For instance, we’ll use #trustsummit for our event in NYC.)
Blog Posts Matter
You can do much worse than to find local bloggers and bloggers who care about the subject matter to cover the event, should they find it useful. If you’ve a budget to do so, invite some to attend in exchange for blogging anything that might be of interest to them. Realize that in the new world, bloggers are rarely obligated to do whatever you ask, and yet, if you make it interesting and worthwhile, folks love to tell a story.
Getting a few posts out about the event ahead of time, and/or after give you a lot more traction and appreciation before and after. Again, make sure the event’s worthy of coverage. If it’s just a straight product pitch or the like, that’s tricky to justify.
Twitter on the Day Of the Event
To me, Twitter’s the magic sauce in making your NEXT event really light up. It’s too late for your event by the time folks start tweeting about it, but it’s a great way to really warm up your future events. If people are tweeting that they’re having a fun time, that they’re learning, that there are still a few hours to get down to the event and have fun, magic can happy. That’s why Twitter’s the Serendipity Engine.
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