A Quick Update

So what’s taken up all my time I hear you ask? Well primarily it is all my Web Design projects that I have been doing over the last few months, as this is my primary source of income for my business.

Most of the jobs have come from a combination of referrals through my personal network (not all marketing is done online – important!) and also via this website, as well as my company website.

Other than that, I’ve been revamping Feedmelah.com to become a more lucrative income stream – currently it ranks very high in the local and some regional search engines, gets more than 30,000 visitors a month, but income generated from it is relatively low.

A Client’s Case Study

Over the last few months I have been working on a project for one of the readers of this blog, which is essentially a membership site selling access to a niche online application.

The website can be found at www.protectionrelaytest.com and the idea was conceived by my client, the owner of a newly formed company, Forcast Avenue which targets engineers in the power industry.

A little background – protection relay testing is done by power engineers throughout the world to find the best settings for very heavy duty, very important industrial equipment. However, to do so they need to rely on expensive, bulky testing equipment, which not all engineers or testing companies have access to in bulk.

Protection Relay Test replaces the need for this testing equipment by allowing you to input the same test parameters online as those that you would put on the testing equipment and using a series of formulas he has developed, it will give you the same results as the test equipment, except at the convenience of an online website.

The cost of using the application is only a few USD$ a month which represents barely a fraction of the cost of the testing equipment, which can run into the thousands of dollars, excluding maintenance and electricity usage.

Pay his website a visit to see the end product.

The Power Of Niche Targeting

Targeting a small target market may seem counter intuitive, as most people know the Internet is all about the numbers. But the thing is, the Internet is all about competition and saturation as well.

Take my industry for example, web design. If you do a quick Google search on web design services or web design company, you’ll see just how many people are vying for positions on the search results. It is quickly become a very saturated market, where competition is popping up left, right and centre.

So a niche market can make a lot of sense.

Yes there are less people searching for niche terms, such as protection relay testing above, but at the same time, there are less website competing for these keywords, hence you may actually get a bigger piece of the pie and more visitors/ potential customers.

Cheaper Advertising Costs

Google Adwords costs (and probably Facebook advertising as well) go down when there is less competition. Since Google Adwords works on a bidding system, where the highest bidder gets top spot, niche markets have the advantage of having less bidders.

Less bidders equals lower average costs.

Google Adwords is a great marketing tool that is severely underutilised in Malaysia, but that topic is for another blog post.

So have a good idea but think that it’s too specific? Well with niche marketing/ targeting, it may be more lucrative than you imagined. Anyway, with the power of online businesses, you can always give it a try – if it works, great, if not, it has unlikely broken the bank, so you can try again.

And again and again and again (like me).

Hybrid – Something having two kinds of components that produce the same or similar results, such as a vehicle powered by both an electric motor and an internal combustion engine as sources of power for the drive train.

Now I’m pretty sure you can’t get the picture of a Toyota Prius out of your head right? Well, I’m not talking about eco-friendly cars, but more so of what happens when you take your marketing, mix it up and go both online and offline.

The typical response to any sort of marketing is for a business owner to go, ‘Hey, I’ve got a new product, it needs a website!’ or ‘Hey I’ve got a new product, let’s try and get it into the newspapers or magazines’.

But that’s not the only option a business owner has.

Focus Your Offline Marketing On Your Online Presence

As a advocate of Internet marketing and having an online presence as a must-do for any and all business owners, my main focus is on a company’s website. The main reason is that with a website, you can pre-sell your product or service by telling them about:

• The benefits of the product
• The cost
• The product’s story

And a host of other bits of juicy information at a much lower cost than doing this solely in a magazine or newspaper.

So how do you go about doing it? Well there are a few ways, but possibly the best is just by asking the journalists in your local newspaper/ magazine if they could feature your new product or service. But specifically by telling them about your spanking new, well designed and useable website that showcases all your product’s benefits and abilities.

Firstly, the Press are always on the lookout for new and fresh content and they’ll be glad for a lead, any lead. Secondly, they’re more likely to drop by your company’s website instead of your office. (I bet you’re regretting not having a website made right about now…)

However, this method works better for some businesses (like my own, where the service is wholly online – Feedmelah.com) or if you have a very interesting product – tech/ health/ lifestyle products seem to generate the most buzz and interest when it comes to the media.

But you never know, so open up your local newspaper(s) and find the section which suits your business the most. You see those reporters email addresses and names? Go ahead, shoot them an email, it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Remind People Online That You’re Famous (well almost)

So maybe you’ve managed to get yourselves in the news using the above method, or maybe you just paid to place and advert (remember to list your website clearly!), but whatever, you’re now in the news! Congratulations!

But don’t stop there, it’s time to tell people that you’re a celebrity… ok that’s not the main point. Getting featured in the news, even if it’s a paid advert (I’ll discuss how to write a good advert in another article), will give you something which is sometimes quite hard to come by, credibility.

Imagine this scenario, John comes up to you and says, ‘Hey I’ve got the newest best gadget in the world, would you be interested?’

An alternative setting, Chris comes up to you and says, ‘Hey I’ve got the newest best gadget in the world, would you be interested? By the way, it was featured in Times magazine and I quote – This product could change your life!’

So which person would you be more drawn to?

Which person seems more credible?

I’m guessing you’re saying Chris, because that’s what my example wanted to demonstrate.

You see, credibility is hard to gain from a stranger who’s just stumbled onto your site for the first time. Sure, you may have a great product and so much so that your previous clients find your business the most credible in their minds. But what about the first timers to encounter you?

Imagine seeing “As seen in Times Magazine” or “As seen in [Insert your local newspaper here]”

So when you’re planning your next advertising campaign, remember to hit multiple bases at once. And ALWAYS, I repeat ALWAYS ask people to take the call to action of heading over to your website, for that is the place where you can persuade, nudge, impress and ultimately make your brand impression onto them.

Here’s to you being in the news,

-William

(Click for larger image)

Being a small business, your marketing budget is probably one of the last things on your mind, with your operational costs and managing your bottom line the first thing on your mind when you get in to work each day.

Many business owners discount the fact that Marketing is what brings in the leads, which if converted, turns into sales. Increasing the total number of sales is by far the best way to increase your profits and get you back into the black, but it usually sits on the shelf.

Why? Because many businesses don’t have much of a budget to maintain their current operations, what more to advertise with online or offline methods? But marketing CAN be done on a shoestring budget you just have to know where to look.

[Nett Magazine] gives these great cost saving tips for marketing your product or service if you’re on a small budget:

1. Email newsletters. The business owners in our survey rated this as their most effective marketing tool. It’s generally easier and less expensive to win more sales from your existing clients than to go out and find new ones, and a newsletter is a great way to build a community of interest and make clients feel engaged. The key is to provide genuinely useful information, then build an offer around it.

2. Networking. The cheapest marketing method of all, networking is essential for service-based businesses, especially those who sell to other businesses. But effective networking is an art in itself. Start by writing and memorising an effective 20-second elevator pitch that explains what your business is, who it services and how it benefits your clients. Then use it at every opportunity. Your eventual aim is to secure a meeting where you can gather information about a potential client’s needs and explain how you can help.

3. Referral programs. Nothing is more powerful than a personal recommendation and nothing generates recommendations more effectively than a referral program. It can be as simple as giving customers a couple of specially designed cards to pass on to their friends, perhaps with an incentive to do so. Referral partnerships with complementary businesses are also a great idea.

4. Frequent buyer programs. From the coffee shop that gives you every 10th latte free, to the fashion retailer who offers a sneak preview of next season’s styles, frequent buyer programs help businesses retain their best customers while encouraging them to buy more.

5. Free trials. Nudie juice famously built a following by hiring bright young people to hand out their product to wilting commuters. A similar approach can work for a huge range of products and services, provided you use it in the right way. For example, let’s say you’re an IT support business. Imagine how powerful it would be if you could earn an online Bernard Tanner is the Chief Operating Officer of Commonwealth Bank Local Business Banking, a specialist division dedicated to the needs of small business clients. Bernard has more than 20 years experience in the financial services industry, including roles in financial and management accounting, banking and stockbroking. recommendation from five top bloggers who used a free trial of your service.

6. Public relations. If you don’t have the budget for press and TV advertising, there may be a less expensive way to get your name in the media. It costs nothing to send out a press release and, with the right story to tell, you could generate coverage with substantially more credibility than paid advertising!

7. Search engine optimisation (SEO ). For any business with an online presence, SEO should be a very high priority. While it takes time, it doesn’t need a huge investment. Start by using a tool like Google Analytics to target the right keywords, then build active content on your site with blogs, forums, photos and video. Genuinely useful content will encourage others to link to your site and give your customers a reason to come back.

8. Online ads. Online advertising is typically much cheaper than traditional advertising, and it comes with the added benefit that it’s easy to track and analyse.

9. Invoice mailings. Why not include a product promotion with your next invoice or statement? After all, you’ve already paid for the stamp…

10. Letterboxing. Sometimes the oldest methods work best. For local businesses, a well-designed flyer dropped in neighbourhood letterboxes can offer a good return on investment, even though the number of leads per thousand flyers may be small. That’s because it’s so cheap to do.

[Web Design for Small Businesses]