In our last post we discussed how redoing a website can challenge your business model. We highlighted three company examples of businesses that quickly realized why repackaging and repositioning what they do and how they do it on the web was making them rethink what they sell and how they sell it.

In doing research for this week’s post, we came across a great resource that everyone who is considering redoing a website, should read before they do it.  Knock knock by Seth Godin is not only helpful, it’s liberating.

Here’s why: Godin highlights three questions you must answer on every single page you build:
1. Who’s here?
2. What do you want them to do?
3. How can you instantly tell a persuasive story to get them to do #2?

If you can’t pull off #3, then don’t bother building a page. Or a website for that matter.

Your website is a series of steps; steps people take in the buying process to make a decision to buy something.  Your website should reflect this on every page as the pages are put together to tell a story. You need to not only tell that story as persuasively as possible but you need to think about your site in terms of who is there and what you want them to do. This is the number one problem with sites today that are underproducing in business results: websites need to encourage people to do something when they visit a site. If the content is not compelling enough to get them to pick up the phone and call you, then what else have you got?

Let’s go back to Company Example C from our last post:

• Sells audio visual equipment; a competitive space full of people who sell and set up equipment. This company needs to use their website to sell the vision of what a company is trying to achieve when they buy audio visual equipment - a collaborative ecosystem for their employees. This means their business model changes. It’s no longer just about recommending equipment and setting it up. It needs to be about selling the value of achieving business goals and outcomes.

When I search for audio visual equipment, here are the search results I get:

• I see results coming back that provide me with the top three companies paying for Adwords (yellow box).
• I see the local search results.
• And if I had scrolled down the page I would have seen AV companies from across Canada.

I click on the first organic search result and here is what I get:

Jerry’s site looks pretty much like the next ten – companies hawking AV equipment and trying to get interested parties to their sites because they have a deal on a particular unit. I can’t buy the equipment from the sites I visited and I had to dig pretty hard to even find a way to contact the company. Finding them on Facebook did little for me as well as a business owner. So if everyone is selling equipment and the only differentiating factor is price, what are my choices as a buyer? Let’s go back to Seth Godin’s three questions:

1. Who’s here?
2. What do you want them to do?
3. How can you instantly tell a persuasive story to get them to do #2?

Would you buy from Jerry?

Of the entire page of search returns, here is the only page that caught my attention:

1. Who’s here? Event planners.
2. What do you want them to do? Get started planning their event. The” Get Started” button goes to a simply designed page that allows me to enter the details of my event that is coming up and what I might require. It’s even right in the URL – avquote.com. The singular purpose of this site is to get an AV quote.
3. How can you instantly tell a persuasive story to get them to do #2? By making me feel like a VIP, that I am “in the club” and simply stating why I should work with AVQuote. This is available right on the home page; no assumptions about products, price or clutter that I may or may not want, just a cleanly stated request for details about my event.

Is AVQuote in the business of selling and renting AV Equipment? Yes they are but the story they are telling to engage a prospective customer is direct and it’s specific. They likely have to rethink how they price their products and services to accommodate the event consulting they have to deliver up front at the beginning of this process but they are not just about equipment at the lowest price. The way they package and sell their services is impacted by who, what and how.

Today, small business owners need to consider the importance and value of their website and web presence. They also need to consider that anyone who comes up ahead of them in a search result is a competitor. Before you redo your website, do yourself a huge favour and answer Seth Godin’s three questions. You will not only save yourself time and money you will make it back in spades because the end product will set you apart in the marketplace and have droves of customers knocking at your website home page.

Marie Wiese is founder of Marketing CoPilot, www.marketingcopilot.com and the author of the eBook, “Why marketing fails... and what you can do about it!”  Marketing CoPilot provides outsourced marketing services to business owners that want to create a two-way dialogue with past, current and future customers. Marie is a 20 year veteran of the B2B marketing world, past Chair of the York Technology Alliance in the greater Toronto region and a workshop leader at Regional Innovation Centres (RICs) in Ontario where she teaches early stage companies how to build online lead generation engines that deliver measurable business results.

In my last blog post I promised to share with you why I have found it beneficial to write on-line articles and how this can help your small business.

When I founded Motivational Steps in 2001 I was an unknown entity. I had no budget for advertising and I wanted people to know who I was. I realised that during the slow times in my business I needed to find ways to reach out to my target market, and build those all important foundations I keep on talking about.

One of my friends suggested I write motivational articles and add them to my web site and this would eventually bring more traffic and also showcase my expertise. As I got better at writing the articles I noticed that a lot of them were being re-published by other sites. I looked for opportunities that would allow me to publish my articles on other sites such as Evan Carmichael, Gather, and Facebook. This allowed me to reach out further, which in turn led to more exposure for my business. Online magazines are always looking for articles, as long as they fit with the theme of the particular magazine, and this also affords more chances that your readership will become quite diverse.

Newsletters are another great way to share your content: look for opportunities to contribute articles. This is something I do through my own monthly newsletter: Stepping Stone. This is a win-win situation for both the editor of the newsletter and the person offering the article. The owner of the newsletter gets to feature different viewpoints via the articles and the writer gains a wider audience.

Along the way, once you find your articles are becoming popular there are organizations that will pay you to write for them. This can be quite a commitment, especially if you are writing articles mainly for the credibility and not as a full time job.

Obviously not everyone likes to write articles but today more than ever, if you do like to write, most small business owner can benefit from sharing their expertise through their articles.

Some examples of articles of mine that have been of interest to many people and also offered me the chance to grow my business are:

• Inukshuk: an article I wrote about the Inukshuk story and how it relates to modern business networking.
• How Will The Roller Coaster Changes in Life Affect You? This article is about change and how people deal with it.
• Prevention Versus The Cure: is an article about health & wellness.

The three articles above offer my readers a chance to get to know me, but also showcase my expertise in public speaking, as all three examples relate to some of my keynote topics. Human resource professionals, Speaker Bureaus and a variety of organizations that are looking for professional speakers read my articles and this can lead to engagements for Motivational Steps. As an example: say your particular business focuses on Internet security, I would hope that your articles would feature such topics as ‘How to Protect Your Computer From Viruses’.

A comment to my previous blog post asked about more information on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I am not an expert in SEO but do find online resources such as those offered by Google to be invaluable.

As with anything we do in life, but in this case our small business, our expectations can sometimes overtake us and we are left feeling we failed. In the early days of writing your articles may or may not get a lot of feedback, no comments to speak of other than spam, and you might think the entire exercise was useless. Patience is a virtue and it will take time for your articles to become known.

I have found TELUS Talks Business a fantastic resource. For example if you have an article that you think prompts debate and discussion, why not post it to the Ask The Community section.

Always remember there are many ways to grow your small business, lots of different strategies to create credibility and exposure, but always chose the best way for YOU. If writing articles appeals to you, your passion will shine through and your readers will gain a lot more insights about you. I offer ideas based on what has worked for me, and for other successful small business owners. But as with any popular recipe take what works for you and add your own ingredients!

"All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea."

- Napoleon Hill

Linda Ockwell-Jenner is a President of Motivational Steps and Co-Founder of the Small Business Community Network (SBCN) based in  Waterloo Region. Find out more about Linda at www.motivationalsteps.com and www.sbcncanada.org

Every successful business starts with a great idea.  But a great idea doesn’t always equal success.

At TELUS, small business matters.  We're committed to helping small business owners navigate the complexities and “unknowns” of getting started. Learn more at: www.telus.com/startup. 

In this series, we will be highlighting excerpts of some tools and resources available in the website to help turn your great idea into a successful business.  Today’s post will focus on marketing your business.

1. Define your unique selling proposition

To get customers, you have to identify exactly what you offer and why people should come to you rather than to your competitors. In marketing terms, this is known as your "unique selling proposition". The secret is to identify the one thing about your business that's different. It could be as simple as you. With your special attention to service and the way you care for your customers, you offer something that people can't get anywhere else. Or perhaps it's the little extras you provide, like home delivery or after-hours service.

One model that may be helpful to find areas of differentiation is a SWOT analysis - where owners have an honest discussion around their business' (S)trengths, (W)eaknesses, (O)pportunities and (T)hreats.

Wikipedia defines a SWOT analysis as, specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieve that objective.  With this information in hand, you will have the information you need to create an appropriate marketing strategy that will help you achieve your business objectives.

Industry Canada provides some tips and tools on how to create a targeted SWOT analysis.

2. Create a Web site

It can be easier and less expensive than you think. A good Web site makes it easy for prospective customers to find you, and then gives them enough information to buy from you.

Start by thinking about the words you would use if you were searching for a business like yours. Think of the most obvious phrases – like “auto repair, Kelowna”. Try to incorporate those words into the headline or first paragraph of your home page as this is where search engines look first. Remember also that people won’t stay on your Web site for more than a few seconds unless they find what they’re looking for. Be sure to give them as much information, with as little padding, as possible.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is key to maximizing traffic to your website.  Google’s Matt Cutts provides small businesses with some free tips on how to get better visibility on Google:

3. Stand out in the crowd

Surprisingly, being a small business actually gives you a number of advantages. You can make decisions faster, process orders quickly, get to know your customers better, offer them the benefits of your lower overhead and more. The secret is to be different and the trick is to figure out what will work best for you: a back to basics approach, innovation, or looking for new opportunities by selling to larger corporations.

PT Barnum was a master at promoting his business and differentiating himself from the competition.  In a previous blog post, Evan Carmichael provided practical advice for small businesses on how to sell, promote, and showcase your business like P.T. Barnum.

Many small businesses are ‘standing out’ by using social media to engage with their customers in new and unique ways.  Entrepreneur Magazine provides some great advice to small businesses with “the top 5 things you should know about social media”:

Ali Jafri is the Vice-President, small-medium business for Alberta, at TELUS.