Jeffrey Kirk

Social Media for Your Business

Website Conversion, Website Traffic No Responses »
Jun 222010

A question that I get from time to time is, “how can I use social media to benefit my business?”

Sure Twitter, FaceBook, and LinkedIn (among others) are interesting, but are they beneficial?  For business owners, entrepreneurs, sales people, and marketers is there really value in these tools?

Those who use social media extensively will argue they are certainly valuable.  Those who do not use them will cite that they don’t have time for such silly activity.

Rather than jumping into the argument, let me take just a moment to put social media in perspective for you…

Do you find value in face-to-face networking?  Maybe you attend Chamber of Commerce events or are involved in a chapter of BNI.  Or maybe you’re a member of a group like a Lions Club or Rotary Club.  If so networking is important to you at some level.

Picture how these things go.  You arrive at the designated location.  You enter and see a group of people.  You try to meet those who are interesting.  Perhaps some are good business targets.  Perhaps others can introduce you to people you’d like to meet.  Oops that one guy who can talk for hours just spotted you and he’s headed over!  Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.

You’re stuck in a room and your potential is limited to those in the room.  Everyone in the room has potential to interact with everyone else in the room, but that’s it.

Now imagine social media.  Picture that room you were in with the walls extending to include the entire planet.  However, just because the walls can include everyone doesn’t mean that they do include everyone.  No, with social media you are creating your own room, custom filled just for you.

Your Twitter followers are in your room.

Your FaceBook friends are in your room.

Your LinkedIn contacts are in your room.

If you don’t like someone, don’t let them into your room.  (Or kick ‘em out later, if need be.)

Now your task, just like face-to-face networking, is to wonder around the room and meet people.  Just like in the physical world, there may be some people with whom you will never do business.  There may be others who become great partners.  Still others may be able to introduce you to those who can make a big difference for you.

But unlike the face-to-face version, you’re not giving a business card and hoping the recipient goes to check out your website.  Instead they already have access to your profile with a link to your website.  They can get to know you and your business.  When they’re ready for your service they already know you.

So get out there and network in your own room.  And, you get to pick the meeting time.

(By the way, if you’d like to enter my room I’m available on Twitter  and LinkedIn.  Follow me or Invite me and I’ll join your room too.)

Posted by Jeffrey Kirk at 2:26 PM Tagged with: , , ,

Web Genius Summit – volume 1

Shameless Self Promotion, Website Conversion, Website Tips, Website Tools, Website Traffic No Responses »
May 282010

The Web Genius Summit has just concluded the first set of 12 interviews.  You can read about the first six sessions in the previous post at Web Genius Summit Update.

This current post will give a recap of the final six interviews of volume 1…

The second half of the series kicked off with Erik Stafford.  Erik is an internationally recognized expert in internet marketing and building easy website sales systems.  He took us back to some of the internet marketing basics to help you build a stronger online presence for your business.  His program Faster Webmaster is still available.

Kyle Battis showed us the power of teleseminars to teach others, create a following, and add additional revenue to your bottom line.  Much of the Web Genius Summit teleseminar series was based on the things that Kyle told us about. You can learn about teleseminars through the My First Teleseminar series.

Then we had Susan Hill.  Susan learned to create opportunity in a small niche by employing experts at various tasks using Elance.  You can use Susan’s experience and advice to propel your business forward too.  She has a book called Elance Made Easy available for download now.

Ben Mack, marketing strategist extraordinaire, taught us the benefits of thinking and planning ahead, not just one step but two.  How do you take your customer or your business from where it is at right now and move it to where it will be?  Thinking two products ahead, two sales ahead, two promotions ahead helps you capture more money in a systematic way.  This call closed out with an invitation for ecommerce owners to start planning Cyber-Monday with Christmas in July.

David Deutsch is an A-level copywriter and one of the top direct response marketing consultants in the U.S.  He told us several million dollar marketing secrets and how you can Think Inside the Box! to generate profitable new ideas for your business.  Did you get in on million dollar secret #3?  If not, click the link at David’s name to see how you can grab his ideas system and get the out-of-print book with 20 different secrets as a bonus.

The final episode of Web Genius Summit volume 1 was carried by Brian McLeod.  Brian is a direct-response copywriter, sales trainer, and creative marketing consultant who helped to bring all the pieces of the Web Genius Summit together, showing how you can integrate your offline marketing and your online marketing efforts for maximum impact!  Not only that, but he also introduced masterminding as a way to add a new profit stream to your business. 

While you’ve already missed these interviews you can register now to be invited to participate at no charge in volume 2 starting later this year.  In the meantime, upon registration, you’ll have the option to purchase volume 1 so you can get caught up on all these great lessons.  Details at www.webgeniussummit.com.

Posted by Jeffrey Kirk at 3:05 PM Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Web Genius Summit Update

Shameless Self Promotion, Website Conversion, Website Tips, Website Tools, Website Traffic No Responses »
Apr 232010

Now that we’re half way through the first set of guest experts on the Web Genius Summit, I would like to take a few minutes to summarize what you may have missed.

In case you’re not familiar with the Web Genius Summit, let me first give you a brief description… I am interviewing business and internet geniuses for 60 minutes each.  By listening in you get to discover strategies that will help your business too.

Some of the geniuses on the calls are authors, some are coaches, others are business people who have unlocked the key to internet success in their own business.  All are experts sharing their experience…

Mark Joyner was our Web Genius headliner.  He is a #1 best-selling author of over a dozen books. He is recognized as a pioneer of e-commerce and is responsible for inventing and popularizing technologies we take for granted such as remotely-hosted ad tracking and ebooks.  While we discussed a number of great topics for business, he presented one factor that would allow your business to take off like a precision missile.

Lewis Howes and Sean Malarkey joined us to discuss social media.  As LinkedIn and Twitter experts they helped us to define how to dominate social media in your niche without wasting all your time.

Brad Sugars came on board as a business coach to discuss strategies to grow your business now.  Brad is best known as the founder and CEO of ActionCOACH – a business and executive coaching firm that presently operates in 26 countries spanning six continents.  Brad is currently on a nationwide tour.  See if he’s visiting your area.  Register for free with ticket code SMIL010 at www.businessisboomingtour.com!

Ann ConveryAnn Convery taught us how to reach the Primitive-Brain — the one that triggers every buying decision your visitors make, and drives results on your website and in social media.  Ann has a class starting in May called “You’re so Brilliant! Why Don’t They Buy?“  It’s likely that her class would make an immediate and perceptible difference in your business.  Get registered now!

Ann also wins our Guest Expert of Distinction Award based on the extreme density of great information and from excessive positive feedback from our listeners!

Howie Jacobson, the author of AdWords For Dummies, showed us how to get better results for less money using Google Adwords.  Yes, you need to understand how to write your ads so that they attract buyers and repel everyone else!

Pat Marcello is an author who wanted to sell more books.  In the process she turned to internet marketing and became an expert in blogging and search engine optimization.  Pat talked about what’s important in SEO and how to use blogs to drive traffic, creating trusting, eager buyers.

We also had the pleasure of a bonus call with Audrey Kerwood.  Audrey is an ecommerce expert who showed us the 8 factors that every high-converting ecommerce site must have.  Watch for an announcement about Audrey’s ecommerce 3-day training seminar coming in July.  I’m going to be speaking at this event!

While you’ve already missed these interviews you can still get in on new ones that follow.  Registration to listen in on the calls is FREE!  Get on the guest list now and you’ll be invited to participate in our future calls.  Plus the existing calls are being put into a library of audios and transcripts.  You can pick these up at a great price.

Isn’t it time you learn what you need to move your business to the next level?

 

Posted by Jeffrey Kirk at 4:46 PM Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Powerful Newsletter Subjects

Product Recommendations, Website Traffic No Responses »
Mar 232010

Yesterday I left off talking about subject lines for your newsletter mailings.

To demonstrate the importance of a good subject line, I’ll use a different form of marketing to illustrate.

Think of movie posters, specifically the taglines.  Now even more specifically the poster for the movie Alien.  I’ll describe it in case you don’t know what it looks like…

It’s almost entirely black with a greenish egg in the center, glowing faintly.  The title “Alien” is spelled out above it. Without any form of tagline the poster means whatever comes to your mind.  If you were afraid of aliens it would seem ominous.  But if you had recently seen ET your perspective might be completely different.

It’s the tagline that explains the image.  It says, “In space no one can hear you scream”.  Yikes.  That makes it pretty clear it’s a horror movie.  If you’re a horror fan you’d want to see it.  If you’re not a horror fan you’re going to stay far away!

So how does this tie in with newsletters?  Consider that your customers probably subscribe to more than just your newsletter and they’re probably not waiting in anticipation for your next mailing.  Most likely they didn’t wake up this morning thinking, “Boy I hope that latest newsletter from XYZ Company arrives in my inbox today!”

If your subject is bland it doesn’t matter how well written the content is, or how amazing the images of your products look, because most of your customers will delete it without opening it.  With the pervasiveness of sales messages all around, people tune them out.  So, if your subject says “Big Sale at My Store” you’re not going to get a great open rate. 

Okay, what do you write instead?

Let’s go back to the movie poster example.  The image and title are basically neutral.  If the tagline had been the equivalent of “Big Sale at My Store” it would read “Humans Meet Alien.”  That is not the least bit exciting.  It’s not very descriptive and creates no desire for anyone to see that movie.  It’s true though, a statement that describes the movie in a completely general sense, but it conveys nothing about the content.  How is anyone going to make a decision based on a statement of nothingness?

Of course over communicating in a subject can be just as bad.  Let’s use another example from the movie.  What if the tagline read, “Sent to a distant planet for recon, seven deep space miners encounter a new species of destructive alien that rampages through their ship and kills all but one of them before being blown out of an airlock”?

Who’s going to read all that?  They’d probably have to create an extra large movie poster just to keep the font large enough!  Bringing that back to your subject line, this would be comparable to, “Three Day Buy One Get One Free Sale On Modern Art Tapestries Handmade and Imported from Belgium For Stunning Home Decor.” 

That’s just way too long, and it looks like its going to be spam.  The right subject message is a bite-size hook, not some long exposition that will be truncated by your customers email client.

Make your message clear and concise.  If you can include a call to action that’s a plus.  Based on the tapestry store example from yesterday, here are some possible subjects…

  • “Three Day Buy One Get One Tapestry Sale”
  • “Get a Rod with Your Tapestry Purchase”
  • “All Tapestries 20% Off This Friday”

These would all work fine.  Don’t use all caps.  No one wants to see that.  Avoid extra punctuation.  And don’t use more than one exclamation point if you must use any at all!!!  (oops)

Now that you’ve gotten your customer interested with your subject, they open the email to find the exciting offer you’ve prepared for them.  If they like what you say, they click through to your site.

Now it’s the job of your website to take the sales process to the next step and, ultimately, go for the order.

If you happen to be reading this between March 23 and March 29, you’re in luck!  You can join me on a live interview with Audrey Kerwood, founder of A2Armory, co-author of the 2002 classic Yahoo! Store Profits, and owner/operator of four profitable online stores.  You’ll get some great tips to move your store forward.

I host a series of interviews at Web Genius Summit.  I will interview Audrey on March 29.  This is a bonus call so it’s open to anyone who registers in advance.  To get on the call register here.  There is no charge for any of these calls.

Posted by Jeffrey Kirk at 12:52 PM Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Promoting Your Ecommerce Store

Product Recommendations, Website Traffic No Responses »
Mar 222010

Have you put together a plan for promoting your ecommerce store?

Whether you run a big business, small business, or you hold down the fort at your home office, you’ve got to have some kind of media plan which includes an email newsletter.  And that newsletter must go out regularly.

Many ecommerce store owners fail to send out newsletters on a regular basis, in part because they do not know how to offer their products.

Where to begin?  How about quarterly?  Or at certain holidays?  Planning much more frequent regular mailings will be beneficial, but you’ve got to start somewhere.  So pick a schedule that works for now and build on it.

But who are you going to send your newsletters to?  You have to start with a mailing list.  If your ecommerce store software has an opt-in mailing list program built in, go ahead and use that.  If not, you’ll need a third party program or service.

(I often recommend Aweber as an autoresponder service.  If you click this link you can get started for just $1.)

OK, once you’ve got the program or service in place, you’ll need to add an opt-in box to your website.  Part of this process is the creation of a compelling offer.  Note that “sign up for our newsletter” or “sign up for our specials” might have some appeal, but most likely you’ll have to do better than that.

People protect their email addresses these days so you’ll have to offer your visitor a nice incentive to give you their email address.  One idea that often works is to offer a percentage discount coupon that is sent to the customer immediately.

Your goal is to make whatever you’re offering as easy and fast for the customer as possible.  Don’t make them have to think or wait for something – you’ll lose both ways.

Okay, you’ve got your offer alongside the opt-in box.  Sign ups are starting to pour in.  Now what?  Time to start sending out the newsletters that will drive your business.

Holidays are pretty easy – New Years Sale, Mothers Day Sale, Fourth of July Sale, you get the idea.  But what about all those other days of the year?  What do you say then?  How can easily justify sending out these emails?  It’s really easy.  Just give them something for reading!

Here are some ideas that can work for you regardless of what you’re selling in your store:

  • Offer another discount coupon
    This can be for specific products or a storewide discount.  If you’re concerned about losing money on lower profit items, then set a threshold price for storewide sales, e.g. 10% off orders over $50.
     
  • Buy One Get One Free or Buy One Get One ½ Off or Buy One Get ABC Free
    An example of the latter could be “buy any tapestry over $200 and get a free hanging rod.”  This idea comes from Audrey Kerwood who says, “The rods cost me about $11 apiece and I charge $22 in the store so this promotion is a great way to get my customers to buy the next tapestry size up so they save the $22. It works very well for anything that can be accessorized; it’s one of my favorite promotions.”
     
  • Featured Product of The Week (Month, Day, Hour)
    Offers with a time limit capture a lot of interest.  When doing a featured product mailing try to describe the item in great detail and provide more than one picture if possible.  If you’re featuring the product, really feature it!  Talk it up big.  List all the virtues of the product and try to get the customer to feel what it would be like to own. Keep in mind that if you do a single product offer you’ll have to be much more specific on the benefits.  But the nice thing about this type of offer is that it’s always unique.

Now that you’ve thought about the content of  your newsletter, let’s talk about subject lines.  You can have the best offer ever, but if your subscribers never open and read the email, it’s as good as useless. 

Subject lines are truly just as important as the content and design.  Heck, the subject line might even be more important.  Your ecommerce store door is closed until the email is opened.

More on this subject tomorrow…

Posted by Jeffrey Kirk at 4:35 PM Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Social Media Domination

Book Recommendations, Product Recommendations, Website Traffic No Responses »
Mar 102010

Social media is a hot topic these days.  Should your business be using Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn?  We get asked about this a lot.

Last week I had the chance to interview Lewis Howes and Sean Malarkey.  Lewis is a LinkedIn expert and has co-authored a LinkedIn Success book on the subject.  Sean is a Twitter expert.  He got his experience using Twitter to generate tons of business for a real estate investment company.

We had a good hour together, but a few key points that I’d like to pass along to you are these:

  1. When you start using LinkedIn and/or Twitter be sure to complete your profile.  People read these so it’s your first impression.
     
  2. Be sure to link back to your website in your profiles.  If people like what they read in the profile, they’ll click through to your website to learn more.
     
  3. When creating a tweet or post, add value by providing good information.  If you contribute to the value of conversation, people will listen to you and you’ll gain influence.
     
  4. You CAN make progress with just a few minutes each day.

Lewis and Sean have put together an intense social media bootcamp complete with books, videos, and tools to help.  If you’re interested in some very in-depth training, consider this.  In addition to LinkedIn and Twitter, the bootcamp covers FaceBook, YouTube, and other media as well.

If you’d like to be invited to future interviews on web-business and internet marketing related topics you can register for the Web Genius Summit.  You’ll be among the first to get great information.  Did I mention registration is free?

Posted by Jeffrey Kirk at 3:16 PM Tagged with: , , ,

Web Genius Summit

Shameless Self Promotion, Website Conversion, Website Traffic No Responses »
Feb 152010

As an website development and internet marketing firm we often get questions like:

  • “how do I get more people to purchase on my website?”
  • “should we be using Twitter?”
  • “is search engine optimization really a good thing or just a waste of money?”
  • “how can we show up on the first page of Google?”
  • “what good is blog anyway?”

Instead of taking the time to answer all of these individually, I decided that it’s time to get some experts together.  Let’s combine the knowledge of a bunch of Business and Web geniuses and give access to business owners and entrepreneurs everywhere.

We’re launching the Web Genius Summit with a great list of experts who can drill down to specifics and answer all your questions on their topic.

Registration for this teleseminar and webcast series is FREE!  So get on the guest list now and take your business up a notch or two.

 

Posted by Jeffrey Kirk at 1:14 PM Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Your Customer is Waiting

Shameless Self Promotion No Responses »
Jan 152010

What is your customer waiting for?  YOU!

Do you want to connect with them?  Of course you do!  That’s what your business is all about.  You need to reach out and connect with your customers (and those who want to be your customers).

I talk about blogs a lot, and write about them too.  They are really great for connecting with your customers and prospects.  Sometimes I’m not sure if my message sticks.

So, this coming Thursday, January 21, at 8:00 a.m. Comstar going to have a 2-hour seminar on blogging called “Blogging – Connect in 2010.”  Register for the blog seminar.

You’ll discover answers to questions such as:

  • Why would we want a blog?
  • What would we write about?
  • What results can we expect?

Having a blog for your business might be the smartest thing you can do right now to move your business forward in 2010.  We’ll show you why and how to get results!

Once you register we’ll provide access to an anonymous survey that will allow you to submit questions in advance. 

We were going to charge a nominal fee, but we decided the information is too important to charge for.  So, consider it a thank-you for continuing to trust us with your website needs.

This is not a seminar held over the web.  You have to be present to enjoy.  It is being held in the training center at Citizen’s Bank of Mukwonago just off Hwy 59 on the south side of Waukesha.  Doors open at 7:45 a.m. The session starts promptly at 8:00.  We promise to have you out the door before 10:00 with your head swimming in powerful blog info.

You need to understand the importance of blogging so you can decide if it will be good for your business.  We’ll provide good information so you can make that decision. 

Seating is very limited so register right now while you’re thinking about it.  To get in for free, advance registration is required!  Only the first 70 to respond will get a seat.  After that we’ll take the registration down.

Posted by Jeffrey Kirk at 12:16 PM Tagged with:

Alexa Rank for Your Website

Website Traffic No Responses »
Jan 082010

From time to time people ask me about their Alexa rank.  Or if we’re doing positioning research for a client we may bring up their Alexa rank.  If you’re not familiar with the term, an Alexa rank, is a relative ranking of the “popularity” of a website compared to all other websites, based on the traffic a website receives.

Alexa cannot access web server usage logs so the data is collected from users of Alexa Toolbar and from other diverse sources.  The data is accumulated over a rolling three month period.

If you take a look at the Alexa rankings, the top of the list is most statistically accurate.  There is enough collected usage on those sites to be statistically meaningful.  But that means that sites with lower measured traffic cannot truly be accurately ranked.  According to Alexa, rankings with numbers greater than 100,000 (ranking 1 is the highest, 2 is second and so on) don’t have enough data to really be ranked properly.

So what does this mean for your business if you like to check your Alexa rating from time to time?  Maybe your rating is going down and that concerns you.

In that case, keep in mind that Alexa is a relative rank impacted by visitors to a site, but also to visitors to every other site on the internet.  If other sites are growing faster in popularity than yours, it would be natural for your Alexa rank to go down.  But keep in mind that Alexa doesn’t know about every visit to your site, so it’s only a guideline for you anyway.

What is an Alexa rank good for then?  It can be useful to look up your competition.  Relative position gives an idea of how popular your site is to theirs.  If you have a rank of 487,212 and they have a rank of 974,511 it means that Alexa believes your site to be more trafficked, based on the information they have collected.  It does not mean anything more than that.  Now, if over time, your site is moves down and theirs does too, then perhaps your industry is not keeping up to other industries.  Likewise if your and theirs are both going up, then perhaps your industry is making moves. 

Now, if your Alexa ranking is going down and theirs is going up, you might have something to worry about.  Perhaps they’re doing better search engine optimization or online or offline marketing.  Somehow they are making progress that you are not.  This gives you a chance to take a look at the market and make some corrections.

But an Alexa ranking, and its movement, compared to your own Alexa rank at other times, has no meaning whatsoever.  Moving up may seem like a good thing, but there is so much else to consider than just the rank.  Of course if you’ve broken into the top 100,000 then it’s time to start paying attention!

Posted by Jeffrey Kirk at 4:49 PM Tagged with: , , , ,

When is a Website Done?

Website Conversion No Responses »
Dec 092009

Let’s say you’re going to get a brand new website.  You might decide to create it yourself, hire your nephew, or have it built by a professional firm.  (I know which of those three you should choose, but that’s for a different article.)  Regardless of your choice, when will the website be done?

On the due date, before the due date, some time after the due date?  You’re thinking you’d like it done, all wrapped up and under the tree before the due date, right?  Keep dreaming.

I didn’t ask when your website should be published!  I asked when it would be done.  The correct answer is NEVER.  The proper website for your business is never completed.

Now you’re probably thinking that I might have gone off the deep end.  Maybe I should take a vacation, clear my head?  Well, let me put this in perspective.  Typically we see two different types of client mentalities…

  1. “The website is done and perfect when it’s published.”  This idea is that you’ve paid a lot of good money getting a site developed.  You might have even paid extra to get those developers that understand your industry (I have an opinion about this too) so gosh darn when it’s published it ought to be perfect, ready to start cashing in.
     
  2. “We can’t publish yet because it is not perfect.”  The idea here results in constant futzing, with never a website to show for it.  Since it is believed it will be perfect when published, like in mentality number 1, and yet it is perceived not to be perfect, then the client continues to request changes or stall until they can figure out what perfect will look like.

Here what should happen…  The original specs are met and the site is published.  Now the work really begins.  No one knows in advance whether the site will properly convert visitors into customers, so once it is published you can measure the real conversion rate.  Then change something and see what happens.  Did performance improve, great try something else.  Did performance go down, bummer, but try something else.

You see a new website just puts the stake in the ground.  Once its there the test phase begins.  There is no end to testing unless you get to the point of converting 100% of visitors.  If you get to that point then there’s nothing left to improve.  But until you get to that point, odds are good that you can get better results than you are today.  So, the site is never done.  It is always waiting to perform better.

Who’s going to test your site once it’s published?  Who will change different elements?  Are you going to do this?  Is your nephew?

Posted by Jeffrey Kirk at 4:19 PM Tagged with: , , , , ,
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