How Do You dress For New Business?

When it comes to new business there are generally three types of customers:

• People with immediate needs
• Researchers
• Personal referrals

People with immediate needs

These people are short on time, they use search engines and phone up or email the first few results they see.  They reckon that if you can appear on the first page of Google then you probably know what you're doing.

If this is your typical new customer then you should be driving your content strategy hard and your website should be utilitarian - function should drive form and it should be super easy for the customer to see what you do and how to contact you.

Researchers

These are people sitting at home in the evening on their iPad or grabbing time at work on their desktop.  They have plenty of opportunity to look at the competition and compare products and services.

Website form becomes more important as people have time to reflect on how things look - if you appear lame next to the competition you're going to lose.  Social media and social proof become more important as they have time to read what people say about you.

Personal Referrals

This is the lifeblood of most smaller businesses - mine included and they can be either of the above.
These people are less worried about your digital footprint, sure it's got to look professional but it acts as a verifier rather than a converter.

Does your website match your customer?

Go back and look and your last 20 transactions, is there is a typical customer type?  Now look at your website and marketing strategy.  Do they match?

Let's Talk

Call me on 310 980 2499 or contact me using the form below.

Contact Andrew

Dress For New Business

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Written while listening to: music2work2 - Fibonacci Series Playlist

Image Credit: Business Fashion by Barbie Fantasies on Flickr

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What I've learned about web design in the last 12 months

(or - why websites are kind of like human beings)

• There is no one design that works for everyone
• Your website should be as unique as you are
• The only way to find out what that looks like is to change and measure the results
• It costs less to change your website today than it ever has

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Think about it, we've evolved over millions of years - sure we're pretty recognizable as humans instead of say gorillas, or fish, or sofas even, and yet we're all unique!  We're different shapes and sizes, colors and creeds, we have different languages and behaviors and we dress in a myriad of ways to help us get what we want.

But this didn't happen overnight - there had to be change, there had be a selection process in order for the most "successful" traits to win out.

The Takeaway For Your Website

There is a utopian design for your business' website, one that turns all those visitors into paying customers or clients.  The only way to get there is to try different versions - hell, call them generations,  of how it looks and functions.  So do this:

• Decide how long each generation will have to develop useable data - say two to three months
• Choose which metric you want to improve
•  Make changes to your site and / or strategy
• Measure the results
• Discard what didn't work
• Rinse and repeat

 God With a Fast Forward Button?

The only question you need to ask yourself right now is how quickly do you want to evolve?

Big Caveat

This isn't just about the design of your website, it's about your content too.  What you put out into the world has a huge impact on who visits you and whether they choose to engage.  When it comes to SEO, website design is inextricably tied to content strategy so to evolve successfully, you need to be looking at both.

Let's Talk

This isn't complicated, it just requires a little strategy, planning and execution.  If you'd like some help setting it up, call me on 310 980 2499 or email me and let's talk.

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Written while listening to: Drive (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Image Credit: Dog Reads Newspaper by Steve Eng on Flickr

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The Content Marketing Myth

I like this image - it sums up a lot of conversations I'm currently having with clients.

Some questions for you:

What are you doing to ensure you can consistently repeat steps 1 and 2?  Are you allocating enough time in your calendar or resource in your budget?

Also, if it takes several interactions with new clients before they think of purchasing, does your digital footprint make it easy for them to hear from you?

And, how do you get new visitors to choose to listen to you?  Should the front page of your website promote your product or should it promote your mailing list?

Do something

These are the types of questions you should be obsessing over and acting on.  Every business is different but you all have one thing in common - the ability to try different things and track the results.

If you'd like help answering these questions email me or call on 310 980 2499 and lets chat.

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Written while listening to: Most Popular Playlist - music2work2

Image Credit: Unbounce.com

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The Infographic

I've been working with infographics quite a bit recently, it's a great way to communicate with your audience.  Here's a few things you should know:

65% of people are primarily visual learners. 

The brain also processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text!  If you can express your message in a graphical way you make it easier for people to take the information on board - and we're all about making it easy for the customer!

Infographics should tell stories

Good Infographics are hard to produce - you can't just dump a few icons and colors on a page and hope people will be wowed by your design skills.   If you removed the text from an infographic would you still have an idea what it was about?

They're Images!

You should already be familiar with the idea that "an image is the sail that moves your content through the sea of Social Media."  People share images way more than they do text articles - an infographic  is the perfect content type for the social media world.

They're fantastic for SEO

Because people are more likely to share your infographic you tend to generate more links, more social shares, more interest in your content and visits back to your website and that's what it's all about isn't it!

They can be about anything

Here's one we just commissioned for my parents 50th anniversary from UK designer Adam Richardson.  It's unique, tells a great story and is eminently shareable!  Click the image to see it in its full glory!

View fullsize

What kind of infographic do you think would work for your business?  Call me on 310 980 2499 or email me and let's chat.

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Written while listening to: Study music Playlist - music2work2

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It's About The Tablet

Those of us  from Scotland will now be thinking of a tasty sugary treat - but you - my dear reader should be thinking of a thin piece of electronics.

It's that time of year again when Mary Meeker produces her "Internet Trends" report.  If you have some time you should read it - it's a fascinating insight into how people are going to find your business - if you don't have time - here's one of the big takeaways:

Your parents are getting connected!

I can speak from experience when I say my potential luddite of a father in his mid seventies would now need the iPad surgically removed from his hand - but let's steer clear of anecdotal evidence and look at this slide:

• Mobile is storming ahead but phones still kinda suck for browsing the internet
• Growth is coming from people sitting in their armchair at home and looking at the tablet in their hand.
• These people are discovering the internet in the same way that we did back in the day with our work computer.
• Tablets will become as ubiquitous as a TV, and fast!

What does this mean for you and your business?

Well - most of all - it means your website has to look good on mobile and in particular on a tablet.  It also means that your business is becoming more visible to the grey dollar, which opens doors into mobile advertising and product positioning.

Interesting huh?!

If you'd like to discuss how this information could be used to grow your business, email me or call on 310 980 2499.

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Written while listening to: Fibonacci 34 June 11 by music2work2

Image Credit:  Tablet on Wikipedia

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Apostasy!

You Must Convert!

It's time!

It's time to leave the ranks of the masses still obsessing over website visitors and page views.

Time!

Time to look at conversion.

What are the specific behaviors you want your website visitors to do?

•    Email you?
•    Sign up for your mailing list?
•    Download your eBook?
•    Enter your contest?
•    Buy from you?

Do you know what your conversion rates for those actions are?  

Google analytics allows you to set up goals and have the conversion rates delivered in your weekly analytics report. 

Focusing on conversion rate will help you get more out of your existing visitors and that's an easy way to grow your business.

It's always time to grow your business.

Of course it takes time to set goals and dashboards up, if you'd like to buy some of mine, email me or call on 310 980 2499.

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Written while listening to: Fibonacci 55 bpm - music2work2

Image Credit: Blinded by the light - by David Edwards on Flickr

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