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In order for your website to deliver a regular stream of new business it needs a regular rotation of fresh content and updates. In addition to a dependable content management system that enables non-technical users to manage updates you will need bodies, human beings to keep the store shelves straight.

Your dream team

The number of people you assign to website maintenance duties will vary depending on update frequency, the number and variety of required changes.  Simpler business models can get away with a single site manager but more complex sites will require a larger team with more diverse skills. No matter your organization’s size below are some categories of content that will require your team’s attention:

1. General updates: Home page changes, product promotions, etc will require regular updates to keep repeat visitors engaged.
2. Newsletter management:  A veritable digital magazine, your newsletter will require an editor to decide what makes it into each addition, someone to write stories, add images and links.
3. Blog updates:  Blogging once a month or even once per week won’t cut it if you want to build a loyal following.  Think production of three to five new posts per week, editing, offsite promotion for each post and now we are at the front door of a successful strategy.
4. Email response:  That’s right if visitors can inquire, they will and you had better be prepared to respond.
5. Online store updates:  Someone has to manage store items, track orders, manage fulfillment, provide customer service, etc.
6. Tracking/reporting: To determine if your web strategy is working you have to know how it affects traffic numbers and conversion rates (the % of visitors taking a desired action).

What to look for…

I know this is a lot more than you expected but you would be hard pressed to find a successful business devoid of hard work.  No matter how you cobble together your team (outsourced or internal manpower) the team needs to bring these skills to the dance:

1. Graphic design skills:  Images are a huge part of your message; so the ability to edit, crop and adjust artwork is important.
2. Copywriting skills:  Perhaps the most overlooked but most important skill is the ability to write in a persuasive way.  Hey, the goal here is not pretty pictures but sales!
3. Organizational skills:  All of this effort takes coordination and working towards hard timelines.

If your website is going to inspire buyer trust, generate repeat visits and drive new business having a capable maintenance team in place is an indispensable piece of the model.

Bonus prize inside

Bringing on the right virtual assistant, one skilled in the kung-fu of web maintenance can be a boon for small shops with limited resources.  Listen to our seminar to get the skinny on working with virtual assistants to maintain your website and download the seminar audio file and next action worksheet while you’re at it.

If you are like most business owners you never have enough time to complete all the tasks necessary to make your business thrive.  Blogging, sending a monthly newsletter and hosting seminars are great ideas but you just don’t have the time, right? Like you I have struggled with this same dilemma as have many of my clients, which is why I decided to pull together a free Q & A conference call with a very smart person to answer all of your questions about hiring and making the best use of a virtual assistant.

Hiring the right virtual assistant can literally free up hours in the day by removing tedious tasks from your plate but the key is hiring the right person and having a plan to organize your VA’s work. 

Free Q&A Call….

On Thursday May 6th at 7pm, EST I will be joined by super VA Ninja Angela Myrtetus president of Independent Projects to answer all of your questions about working with a VA to reclaim your calendar and turn your business around.

Space is Limited…

Because the call is free we have to keep seats to a minimum, so register today.

Fear is the most powerful motivator in the animal kingdom and make no mistake your prospective clients are in a decision-making jungle when selecting among the many providers in your market. Your ability to overcome buyer resistance will have an immediate and positive impact on your website sales.

Before we dive into a discussion of a few tools to overcome buyer’s remorse let me say that you must first be confident in the quality of your service and the way you deliver that service to have the confidence to put these tactics into motion. Consider the following as you build or revamp your website copy:

1. Guarantee:  Offer a no questions asked money back guarantee or a make-right deal for your customers.
2. Free trial:  Let prospective customers try your service before they buy.
   Bite sized chunks:  Similar to the free trial offer you provide prospects with a free piece of your offering. For example if you run a paid employment site offer prospective employers 5 free resume searches.
3. 24 hour customer service: Knowing that there will always be someone a phone call, email or forum post away from solving their post purchase problem goes a long way toward comforting the resistant buyer.
4. Referrals:  People look to others to help them make decisions, so get ahead of the process by building a referral system that proactively introduces your company to the friends of your clients and business partners.

Fear of wasting money on a bad decision overrides the interest generated by your stated benefits.  To bring prospective customers around you must be prepared to overcome their resistance.

How do you overcome the resistance?

Do you keep a separate list of local media contacts as part of your email marketing strategy? If not perhaps you aren’t aware that building relationships with reporters, editors and bloggers for the purpose of pitching story ideas is an incredible opportunity to create awareness and  establish your authority.

The how…

In your bulk email management system (AWebber, MailChimp or a proprietary email application), create a separate mailing list called media. Once your list is created add press contacts to it making sure to include contact info for local reporters, television news station assignment desk editors and bloggers who cover your area of focus (your beat).  You want to avoid sending mail to anonymous “info@” contact addresses if at all possible.  Communicating directly with the person who will either write your story or assign it to a journalist increases the likelihood of your story getting picked up.

Another tip, take a few of these people out to lunch to establish a relationship and get a better feel for their story needs. Reporters get hit with hundreds of emails each day with business owners foolishly trying to influence them to write a story about their product or business. With a relationship in tact your email is more likely to get opened and read.

“I don’t have time…”

Okay don’t get negative on me now. That is your lizard brain (your mental resistance) trying to derail your successful push. To free up calendar time consider the following:

1. Hire a virtual assistant to research local media contacts
2. Find a lawn maintenance person to cut your grass (there’s eight hours each month)
3. Employ a PR agency to execute your PR strategy

Success takes hard work and sacrifice and as the great philosopher Forrest Gump once put it, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

What do you have to say?

In his book Linchpin Seth Godin sites the death of cheap and quick, noting that you can’t get much cheaper than $.50 mp3 music download.  What this statement says to me is that technology is making the creation of any product or service an easily delivered commodity but it won’t make the product remarkable and it is the remarkable product, the one that truly works that markets will reward handsomely.

How are you remarkable…

There is some way your services are or could be made outstanding but because you are a perfectionist you always see your work as falling short.  In truth your customers and clients are in a better position to reveal your remarkable brilliance.

The one question to ask…

The next time you communicate with your best customer, your raving fan make sure to ask her the following question, “What did we do that is not easily imitated?” You are likely to hear such responses as you took the extra time; you helped me understand; you showed me. The one thing you probably won’t hear is the mention of price because being cheap is not exceptional; anyone can achieve it.

Now put the answer to work…

This is not survey data or a focus group exercise.  Once you have input from 3 or so fans; replace your dead tagline or USP with your customer’s answer to our question.  Because this insight comes from a source much like the people you are attempting to reach, the message is more likely to be heard and internalized.   Add your new message to the top of your website, to your case study page and build a testimonial video around the new theme. Remember there is a groundswell of people who will reward the remarkable, so don’t let your fears sidetrack you.

Are you remarkable?

Psychologists have understood for some time that our brains are wired to look for short cuts in the decision making process. In the wild, the faster we made a decision the greater the likelihood of surviving a dangerous encounter. Imagine the disastrous outcome of having an intellectual debate with yourself over whether or not to run from a snarling tiger?

Fast forward a few millennia

The remnants of our wild side are still with us and your would-be customers are bound by an innate drive to short cut their product search process and look to others to tell them what to do. Testimonials are just the social proof your customers need to swing their buy decision your way but there are a few things you need to keep in mind to make the most of your testimonials.

1. One of us: Make sure the customers you select to sing your praises look and behave in similar ways to your BEST customer. People take advice from others who are like them.
2. Don’t get buried:  Don’t relegate your testimonials to some remote page on your website. Trust me, noone will take the time to find them. Add social proof to the header image atop your site, add  scrolling slides to your home page featuring your best client quotes, contextually insert testimonials within your web page copy and add them to employee profiles…
3. Use experts:  Win favor from experts in your niche and get their opinion on your goods. Reporters, trade group leaders and industry watch dogs hold sway with your prospects and can motivate a strong desire to do business with you
4. Add a picture:  Include a photo of your client along with their testimony. We are wired to respond to visual stimulus and an image of a person connects better than text alone
5. Trust assets:  Use testimonials to get site visitors to use your trust-building assets (register for your newsletter, subscribe to your blog, download your eBooks and articles

Make it a system

In the presence of ignorance people follow the example of those around them. Make testimonial acquisition one of the steps in your customer management process and insert them in just the right place and at the right time to make your website work harder.

What did I leave out?

Introducing your website visitors to helpful tools they can immediately put to use in their businesses and in their lives is a powerful way to build trust and liking in the minds of your prospects.  Just in case you didn’t know people do business with those they like and trust; so if you have adopted the strategy of offering useful content, the best way to accelerate your success is to show your prospects how to use the tools you uncover instead of simply pointing them out.

A quick break to make a point

Avoid the “now what” syndrome…

By stopping at simply identifying the resource you lose the game because anyone can do this and quite frankly you leave your prospects thinking, “That’s interesting, so now what?” For instance I can tell you that Feedly is a great gizmo for organizing the content from all of the blogs you read but if I walk you through the steps it takes to use Feedly to build strong alliances with influential people in your networks, this can have a bottom line impact on your business and is far more useful.

Always remain relevant…

Now replace that dead, lifeless page of resource links with a valuable blog or article database that teaches your site visitors to become master users of the resources you dig up. Finding resources, great….making them work for others, priceless.

How do you use resources on your site?

I bet you are much too savvy to jump on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn and start furiously posting your latest in-store specials or gift card offerings. If you are using this hopeless “jam it down my throat” technique by the time you reach the end of this post I hope you will see the light. If you have adopted this method, good news your competitors probably use it too and armed with a bit of magical information soon you will be leaving them wondering, “what just happened?” as you zoom to the top of your niche.

Online communities are not advertising mediums.  They are SOCIAL networks with people discussing and sharing ideas in communities of like mindedness.  You wouldn’t walk into your friend’s house party and start handing out advertising flyers would you? Well, I won’t be mailing that invite if you do. Adopt the “get what you GIVE” philosophy and start using social networking in place of social advertising.

Networking reloaded!

Just like its offline counterpart social networking is all about building relationships with interesting people whose goals and skills COMPLIMENT your own.  Helping others in social spaces is the best way to build your brand. Consider taking some time to expand your network of friends and associates becoming more interesting, educated and valuable in the process.

Get creative with your engagements…

Use tools like Twellow (the Twitter Yellow Pages) to find influential people in your geography who offer a service or product that is an exceptional compliment to your own.  Make contact with this neighborhood influencer by commenting at their blog, promoting their Tweets to your network (retweeting), or emailing them a tip that might help their business.

While your relationship grows you will ride the reciprocity waive as they return the favor and your profile grows along with site visits, newsletter registrations and your customer base. Haven’t you ever wondered why those companies whose products you know are inferior to yours always seem to get recognized at the awards dinner?  Chances are they understand the power of networking. Stop selling and start connecting.

Now, what are you going to do with that next advertisement?

Let’s face it we can be lazy at times even when it goes against our best interest. I know I should add the grocery items my wife requested to a written list but I don’t and to my detriment (slap upside the head, ouch!) I invariably forget something. Your customers and prospects are no different and by doing the hard, dirty work for them; your prospects will quickly turn into paying customers and raving fans who sing your praises on Twitter; become FaceBook fans and bring you more business.

Good News Your Competition is Lazy Too…

Its a fact that the majority of your top competitors are really good order takers who with McDonald’s-like precision deliver just what the customer asks for and nothing more. Below are some tips to separate yourself from the order taking crowd and own your niche by empowering prospects to change their lives.

1. Review complimentary products and services: If you sell real estate add reviews of local hardware stores or lawn maintenance services to your website.
2. Interview industry experts: If your store sells toys interview a product safety expert for safety tips related to a hot toy category and include the Q/A in your next newsletter.
3. Provide how-to’s: Fitness experts partner with a local video producer to create a video teaching your audience how to shop “healthy” at the local grocery. Teach them to read product labels, select fruit, etc. “Wow, I never knew that…” I can already hear them saying.
4. Book summaries: Read every good book in your space and write quick one page summaries trimming the fat and speeding the learning for your customers (Hint: get a Kindle ebook reader). Most people don’t read but you should!
5. Find opportunities: My friend Felicia does a great job here by connecting minority vendors to “real” project opportunities at firms looking for help. Everyone wins!

Feeling Inspired?

Stop selling stuff and start showing people how to improve their lives with your products. Expose them to resources they don’t know to seek or are otherwise too busy to look for.  This is game changing stuff, so fire up your site’s content management system or blog and get to doing the hard work (ha!). How do you help your customers hack life and make the days easier?

Because you are exceptional at what you do I am sure you have been asked to share your know-how with a local trade association, industry or community group. If not we have some work to do now don’t we?  Now enter Oprah Winfrey.

What is it that makes Oprah one of America’s most influential people; a mega-hub whose mere suggestion of a book or product, moves everyone to follow? Aside from her content, its her reach which has evolved from local to national distribution and like Oprah you too can expand your reach by producing and distributing video of your next seminar or business presentation through the web.

The Why…

All of those people in the audience wowed by the “Ah-Ha” moment you just delivered now see you as the go-to resource for your service (trust me here); afterall, the shop down the street was not asked to present to the audience, no you were.  Why limit this connection moment to the small audience in the room.  That’s right, by adding the taped session to your website, blog or partnering with a third party site your Wow moment can reach hundreds or thousands through web-connected networks. Some other things to note:

• It’s cheap: The client covers venue, audio and related costs
• No marketing:  Your client brings the live audience
• Instant reach:  Immediately broadcast from your client’s website

The How…

Now is not the time to go messin’ with your brand; so make sure you DON’T go the do it yourself route. To sweeten this deal partner with a local wedding videographer to shoot and edit the spot. These folks have the gear and skills to deliver to them what will be a simple shoot and I guarantee if you pitch the opportunity to plug the videographer’s services in the final spot the producer can be convinced to do it as a free-to-you service trade.

Bonus

Oh yes, there’s more payback here. No I am not an infomercial pitch man (geeze). In addition to the expanded audience, you can promptly turn your shiny new video into an information product to use as a lead generation giveaway, an incentive to join your email list, an inducement to register for your blog or even for resale.

I know you can’t contain yourself, so tell us how you plan on using this monster technique…