The internet marketing questions never cease. This past week, fellow marketer Amy McTobin (@AmyMccTobin) asked an important question regarding what to look for in an SEO vendor. Here is a quick review of our Twitter dialogue:

I am not an SEO specialist.

Now I don’t consider myself a top expert when it comes to search engine optimization. I am more of an internet marketing generalist than an SEO specialist. It could be that six months from now it is absolutely necessary that your SEO provider also be your Social Media expert. I would certainly like to believe Winding Staircase is a “one-stop internet marketing shop” for our clients, and I know we can provide the internet marketing expertise they need.

To provide the highest quality search optimization AND social media marketing expertise, however, your firm would need to be large and working with large budgets. For local companies needing local search optimization, you don’t need to work with a large and expensive agency. A small and knowledgeable shop like mine will get you much more “bang for your buck.”

How much Social Media expertise should your SEO vendor have?

Any decent internet marketer knows that social media is increasingly affecting your search engine rankings. (That is why Amy had the forethought to ask the question.) If, therefore, your SEO provider says Facebook and Twitter do not have any influence on your rankings….FIRE HIM IMMEDIATELY!

At a minimum, your SEO expert should be able to talk intelligently about G+. He should know Google seems to be updating their algorithm to increase the importance of social media. He should also be able to identify niche platforms and forums that could help grow your credibility online.

Lastly, I would expect anyone you pay for search optimization to ask about your current social network usage and partners. Who manages your fanpage? Do you have a social media strategy? How dated is that strategy and are you following it? He shouldn’t be expected to correct the issues he sees, but he should be confident enough to tell you when he sees an error in your thinking.

What I would not expect a local SEO provider to know about Social Media

There are many things I would expect a “social media expert” to know that I would not expect a “local SEO guru” to know. For starters, there seem to be about a dozen new “big” social media or sharing platforms launched each month. Your common SEO expert is not going to be hip on the latest and greatest. As an example, even though internet marketing is my business, I have not yet begun to learn about Pinterest.

Second, an internet marketer that only provides help with your Google rankings should not be expected to help grow your Facebook fanpage audience. Asking him to get you your next 500 FB fans is like asking your butcher how to make a good pasta. He might have an answer, but you shouldn’t give his advice much weight.

Third, if you are working with a small SEO provider, such as a 1-3 person shop, you shouldn’t ask them how to invest the rest of your web marketing budget. Their answer will likely be either “more seo” or “we also provide pay-per-click marketing.”

Last, an SEO expert is likely to be more analytical than creative. Other than optimizing tags and copy, you shouldn’t take any web design recommendations from him. More to the point, he shouldn’t be so bold as to tell how to improve your color palette or what font you should be using.

Enter the “Small Firm” Internet Marketing Generalist

There is definitely a need for “seo only” experts. In general, however, most businesses are better served by trusting their internet marketing budgets to a generalist. A credible generalist will know when your needs are too large or specific for their staff, and more to the point, a true generalist will know who you should work with when you need a unique solution. That is, if one of my clients ever needs SEO help my team is unqualified to provide, I know exactly who I will recommend they call.

Each week I talk with several small web marketing companies from across the United States. Most of us provide general web marketing: website design, email marketing, social media, seo, and search marketing. We know our limitations, but we rarely exceed our skills.

Launching an email campaign to a new or infrequently used list can be tricky. Variables such as geography, recency of contact, recency of sale, and recipient demographics all need to be considered. There are some constants when launching a campaign to a new or “sleeping” list.

Here are some tips:

1. Keep it short

Your first email should be brief. You have small window of opportunity to gaining the recipients’ trust. Preventing opt-outs is a primary objective.

2. Avoid link-stuffing

At most, your first email should have two links. Ideally, you really don’t want any links at all. High numbers of links increase the chances your email will be automatically sorted into the spam folder.

3. One offer maximum

You might consider not including a promotional offer in your first email. Introduce yourself, remind the recipient who you are, and keep it simple. If you do send a promotion, limit yourself to one offer.

4. Sincerely thank the recipient

Any customer allowing you to send them emails is granting you access that they can choose to revoke. Always be sure to thank your customer for allowing you to contact them via email. It saves you time and expense, and they can choose to opt out at any time.

5. Include a P.S.

As with all direct marketing, the headline and the P.S. line are the most likely to be read. Consider using the P.S. line to request the customer add your email address to their address book, which will prevent you from landing in the spam folder in the future.

Narrowing your “target market” to the right size is difficult. Successfully marketing your company demands that you constantly review your marketing investments. All of your dollars and most of your energy and focus should be allocated to the marketplace you have defined.

How big should your target market be?

There are many ways to narrow your marketplace. The real question is, how wide of a lense should you be looking through? My experience in direct marketing and website optimization has helped me to define a narrow target market. Here is what my basic formula looks like:

(Population of target market) x (target share of market) x (sales per customer) = Sales

This formula may seem obvious, but few people take the time to apply it. You need to have good information, or assumptions, for three of the four variables in order to calculate the remaining value.

Here are two examples of when I have used this formula in the last 60 days:

Example 1 – Aligning marketing with company abilities

In this example, I was evaluating a potential niche for Winding Staircase. We are a small company, and our ability to handle incoming phone calls and information requests is extremely limited.

We found a marketplace of about 15,000 independent institutions that we could sell to. Based on some past experience and conversion rates, I believed we could use direct marketing to achieve a 2-4% sales rate. For illustration purposes here, we will say each account would be worth $1,000 in annual sales. When we plugged in the numbers, here was the outcome:

(15,000 in marketplace) x (3% estimated sales rate) x ($1,000 per customer) = $450,000

For my young organization, this growth would have been too great to handle at one time. So we decided to narrow the target market. Using geography to filter the market, we found that there were approximately 1,000 of these institutions within Ohio. So I ran the numbers again:

(1,000 in marketplace) x (3% estimated sales rate) x ($1,000 per customer) = $30,000

Thirty new accounts is perfectly manageable for us. We could avoid the damage that poor service can do to a brand, and if all goes well, we can expand our lense to include a larger segment of the market over time.

Example 2 – Expanding the target market from the ideal customer

A retail business client sells to consumers through a local store. The retailer knows most of his customers live or work within 5 miles of his location. He also knows his best customers are professionals with above average incomes. His absolute best customer is the owner of an accounting firm that has been married for 30+ years, has grown children, and is “semi-retired.”

This retail client wants to “upscale” his current customer base. He is fine with having fewer total customers if his new customers are more like his absolute best customer. Ahh, the dream of having half as many customers and twice as much revenue….

For illustrative purposes, we will say this client has annual sales of $1,000,000 and that his best customer spends $8,000 each year in his store. Here is our starting formula:

(1 in marketplace) x (100% estimated sales rate) x ($8,000 per customer) = $8,000

Our objective is to increase sales to $1MM. How many customers does our retailer need?

(# of customers) x ($8,000 per customer) = $1,000,000

My seventh grade algebra tells me that our retailer needs 125 customers to get to one million dollars in sales. What if there are exactly 125 semi-retired, once married, business owners with grown children within one mile of the store? Have we found our new target market?

(125 in marketplace) x (100% estimated sales rate) x ($8,000 per customer) = $1,000,000

What is wrong with this picture? Chances are, no matter how well Winding Staircase helps this retailer market his business, this retailer will never have a 100% sales rate within his target market. From past experience, we estimate a 15% sales rate for this very specific marketplace. How big does our marketplace need to be?

(Population in marketplace) x (15% estimated sales rate) x ($8,000 per customer) = $1,000,000

A little pencil work tells us that my retailer client needs to expand his target market to 833 potential customers. We can now evaluate the best ways to expand his marketplace lense, by expanding one of the limiting variables of his current lense.

Your target market: What is the right size?

What is the right client for your business? How many customers can you properly service? When did you last compare your website, web advertising, direct mail, and other marketing efforts against your target market?

New Websites are Exciting!

Now that you have an impressive new website for your service business, it is time to entice some prospective customers to look at it. There so many options to generate traffic to a website, let’s add some limitations to our conversation. For this program, I am assuming you have the following limitations:

• You have a monthly web marketing budget of $100.
• You only have time to write one new article or blog post each week.
• Your social media presence is weak or non-existent. (Twitter? What is Twitter?)
• You only want to spend, at most, 30 minutes each week managing the promotion of your content.
• You are more interested in adding buying customers than adding massive amounts of traffic.

Successful web marketing is not a matter of time and money. Successful web marketing is primarily about knowledge and focus.

Weekly service business web marketing plan

The first eight weeks of the “$100 per month” web marketing plan are below. Based on your feedback, I will post weeks 9-16 soon. (If you find this helpful, please be sure to let me know in the comments.)

Month 1, Week 1: Pick a key phrase

Where to invest your 30 minutes:

Your budget, both in time and money, is extremely limited. Going for a key phrase like “flower shop,” with two million monthly Google searches and huge competition, is going to lead to extreme frustration. Targeting something like “florists in Cincinnati Ohio” is a better idea. (1,600 monthly searches)

Now, this is important, you are not going to limit your paid online advertising to just this phrase. You are, however, going to limit all of your writing efforts toward this one key phrase. For your paid advertising, list another 3-5 key phrases you think might want to try for.

This week’s article:

Your first article is going to go on your own blog. Hammer your targeted key phrase properly but aggressively. Put it at the front (the left side) of your article title, and use it at least twice in your first 250 words. Make this a long article, try for more than one-thousand words. You want people to spend a fair amount of time on your website the first time they visit. A long and engaging article is a good place to start. For our example, I would write an article titled “Florists in Cincinnati Ohio: 25 Ways to evaluate your local flower shop.”

This week’s advertising:

Your keyword research should have taken every bit of your 30 minute management budget. We don’t have any time left to create ads this week.

Month 1, Week 2: Creating advertising opportunities

Where to invest your 30 minutes:

If you want to spend that $100, you better get some advertising set-up. The two big places to start are Google and Facebook. Creating accounts in both places is fairly straightforward, and there are plenty of tutorials to help you with the process. You should be able to set-up accounts in both places in about 15 minutes. Create 3-5 different ads for each platform. Do not launch the ads yet, but put together some ads you think will grab the attention of your ideal customers.

This week’s article:

Your second article will also go on your own website. Keep your targeted key phrase in the headline, but you can move it deeper (to the right). A good “how to” article of 500-700 words should work nicely. For example, “How to thank your florist in Cincinnati Ohio,” while a bit awkward, could be a nice short article on how a customer of yours expressed his thanks for your outstanding service.

This week’s advertising:

You still are not spending any money for advertising, but not to worry, you will be soon.

Month 1, Week 3: Testing your Ads

Where to invest your 30 minutes:

This week you are going to launch some ads! Revisit the ads you created in week 2, and you will notice that many of them now seem ineffective. For Facebook, pick your 3 favorite ads and launch them. You will want to be sure they are pointing to a landing page or a popular article on your website. Since this article is about advertising for your website, we are not looking to send people to your fan page, so ignore that option. Set your total budget for $50. For Google, launch your best two ads, and set your budget for $50. If you have a promotion code as a new Adwords customer, raise your budget to use the promotion credit. (Google has been offering a $100 credit for new Adwords users.) Because your ads are already built, launching your ads will take 10-20 minutes.

Spend the rest of your 30 minutes listing some local blogs that you will contact about supplying a guest article.

This week’s article:

You will be adding content to your own website again this week. (Give it time, you will be writing for other sites soon enough.) An expertise article will help avoid a high bounce rate from the visitors coming to your website from your newly launched ads. Continuing with our florist example, I would write an article like “The Definitive Guide to Rosebush Trimming – From your Cincinnati Florists at X.” (See how I still managed to get the key phrase in the headline?) Be sure to include “deep links” to your other articles in the first few paragraphs.

This week’s advertising:

You have now launched your ads, and they are set to use your entire monthly budget. For the next two weeks, let your ads run, until the budget is exhausted.

Month 1, Week 4: Your first guest post

Where to invest your 30 minutes:

This week you are going to submit an article to Ezine Articles. You will need to spend most of your 30 minutes setting-up your account and familiarizing yourself with their requirements. With your remaining time, start contacting the webmasters or primary contacts of your list of local websites from last week. You want to know if they accept guest articles, will they allow a backlink to your website in the article, and do they have editorial guidelines. Not all of your communications will be answered, but you should be able to find at least one local website that is interested.

This week’s article:

You are going to be submitting an article to Ezine Articles, so you will want to write according to their guidelines. You don’t need to use your key phrase in the title of the article, but you will want to use the key phrase as the anchor text that links your biography to your website. Also, be sure to point the link to one of your earlier articles that does use your targeted key phrase in the title. Other than that, just write something relevant to your business that customers would be interested in. For our florist, I would write an article titled “10 Reasons Flowers will always be used in Weddings.”

This week’s advertising:

Your ads on Facebook and Google Adwords should still be running. Do not even look at the reports both companies will send you regarding “your weekly ad performance.” You will evaluate your ads on your schedule, not theirs.

Month 2, Week 1: Building your KPI report

KPI ?! What is a KPI?

Where to invest your 30 minutes:

You are going to start monitoring your key performance indicators (KPIs). It is easy to become overwhelmed with marketing metrics. With the small amount of time you are dedicating to online marketing, you will want to keep your dashboard simple. You need to be knowledgeable with your analytics package. List each of your traffic sources: search engines, Google Ad #1, Google Ad #2, Facebook Ad #1, Facebook Ad #2, and Facebook Ad #3. Now, being a service business, it is likely your sales are not happening online, so you can’t directly measure sales. For each of your traffic sources, though, you can note how much time a visitor is spending on your website. How many pages are visitors looking at? Lastly, how many visitors are making it to your “Contact Us” page? If you look closely, you should see visitors from one or two sources are spending more time on your website. You want more of these visitors.

You don’t need a fancy spreadsheet or database to track this; personally, my web KPIs fit on a one page dashboard. One last thing for your KPI report: where are you ranking on Google for your targeted key phrase? If you are in the first 30 listings, note what position you are in. If you are not in the first 30 listings, make a note that you are not ranking yet.

This week’s article:

You should have at least one local website that has agreed to a guest article. Follow any editorial guidelines you were given, and write an article that aligns with the audience of the website you are submitting to. Let’s pretend I have permission from a local dirtbike club to submit an article for my florist client. I’ll need to find an article that matches both my expertise and their interests. For my florist, I would submit an article, “How you can aerorate your flower beds with your dirtbike.” Be sure to include a backlink in your author biography, and if permitted, include a link to one of your articles in the first paragraph of the article. Be sure to use your key phrase as the anchor text in at least one link to your website.

This week’s advertising:

If you have any ad funding left from last month, let the ads keep going. Otherwise, be patient, we will be using your month two funds next week.

Month 2, Week 2: Dropping weak ads, Deep-linking your content

Where to invest your 30 minutes:

Update your KPI report with data from the last week. You might notice you have some visitors coming from your guest articles; if the number of visitors is more than 5% of the total, add those traffic sources to your report. Your report converts data into information. You, as a business owner, are now going to turn that information into knowledge. What ads are working well? Why do you think those ads work best? Are you getting phone calls from any of these visitors? Cancel your two weakest advertisements. It might be that both of the weakest ads are from Facebook, what does that tell you? Fund your strong advertisements, with your full $100 budget. (Feed the strong, kill the weak.)

This week’s article:

It has been two weeks since you added new content to your website. Google wants new stuff, and if you want to rank for your key phrase, you will need to keep feeding the beast. With this article, you will want to achieve two things:

1) Reduce your bounce rate – You will never rank for your key phrase if the major search engines see most of your visitors for that phrase bounce without looking at deeper content on your website.

2) Improve your time on site – The more time a visitor spends on your website the better. Your brand is in front of them longer. Your credibility with them grows. They become comfortable with you.

Your article for this week needs to be engaging and tactically effective. Pick a topic that people constantly ask you about when they find out what you do for a living. Write a lengthy explorative article about the topic. Make it an essay, not a summary. Consider 800 words a minimum length. Include well-anchored links to your other articles and website pages within this article. You should be able to include at least 4 “deep links” to your other website content within this essay.

This week’s advertising:

You are launching your ads again this week, but you are only investing in the strong ads you determined to support above. Put the entire $100 budget out there.

Month 2, Week 3: Your second guest article

Where to invest your 30 minutes:

Refresh your KPI report with last week’s data. If anything sticks out, investigate. Based on what you have learned so far, create 3 new advertisements. At least one of these new advertisements should market your long essay from last week. If the essay is well received, you will have an ad ready to drive more traffic to it. Do not launch the new ads, but keep your existing ads going.

This week’s article:

Write another guest post. If you have another local website that has agreed to post an article, prepare an article for them. If not, submit another article to Ezine Articles. In either case, be sure to use your targeted key phrase for as the anchor text for your backlink.

This week’s advertising:

If your KPI report indicated a problem with one of your advertisements, fix the problem. Keep your “old” ads running, and leave your new ads for later.

Month 2, Week 4: Reality Check

Make it stop, I wanna stop!

Where to invest your 30 minutes:

You are now at the end of your second month in the program. You have written 7 articles, spent many hours, and invested $200 so far. With your updated KPI report in hand, how are you doing?

• Have you gained business from your web marketing?
• Are you ranking in the top 30 on Google for your targeted key phrase?
• Is your ranking improving each week?
• Do you have a high bounce rate for visitors?
• Can you continue to write new articles each week? Are you stuck?!

Two months is the minimum commitment required to discover if web marketing on an extremely small budget is for you. Is it?

This week’s article:

List posts are quick to write and visitors love a quick article. Write a list post for you website. It should be 400-600 words, and you will want to format each item on the list as a “header 2,” with the details below. Include at least two deep links to other articles or pages on your website.

This week’s advertising:

There probably isn’t any of the $100 budget for month two left.

End of part 1 – How to Market your Service Business Website for $100 per Month

After reviewing the first eight weeks above, are you finding this guide helpful? Are there any parts that are confusing or unrealistic? Would you like to see the next two months of the plan? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Successfully marketing your company will involve spending money.

Spending money is easy. Spending money intelligently is more difficult.

Marketing your company is hard work.

Before we start, take out a notepad. There are going to be some questions for you to write down, and your honest answers will lead you toward more business and higher profits. Reading this article and then moving on to the next article is not going to help you. Marketing your company requires work, hard, risky, intense work. So let’s get serious, shall we?

I will only repeat myself only once today, and now is the time:  Stop reading. Get something to write with. Let’s close this office door too, shall we? Ok, now let’s talk about how to get some sales.

Question #1 – What do you sell?

What is it, exactly, you sell? I don’t think you know. In fact, if you are like most business owners, you have no idea what you sell. Many businesses survive for years, decades even, without understanding the value proposition of their products.

Here is an example: Most of my networking partners tell their customers that I build websites, create effective direct mail, or provide sales efficiency expertise. While all of these statements are true, I am not in the business of selling websites, direct mail, or sales consulting. I sell sales. More specifically, clients come to me with one consistent demand: “help me sell more!”

These clients often think they know what they need (a website, for example), but their real desire is to increase revenue. (Actually, their root desire is probably less stress, more free time, or more toys.)

So what do you sell? What basic need or desire are you fulfilling?

Question #2 – Who do you sell to?

Knowing who uses or benefits from your service is not the same thing as knowing who you sell to. There are several categories of people you might be selling to.

End User – The end user is who most people think of when marketing. Who benefits from your service?

Economic Buyer – The economic buyer is the person with the money or the permission to spend money for your product. Who has the budget authority?

Gatekeeper – The gatekeeper is anyone that stands between you and either the end user or the economic buyer. Besides the economic buyer and end user, who else is involved in this transaction?

You may need to market to one, two, or all three of these groups to succeed. Take a moment and identify who the end user, economic buyer, and gatekeepers are for your business. Are you marketing to the right people?

Question #3 – Why buy from you?

Why should I choose you? There are a lot of (insert your business type here) out there. Tell me. Enlighten me. Educate me. Is your company different from the competition? How?

If you have the best solution, what makes it the best?

Marketing your company – The difficult part is free

You have identified what you sell, who you sell, and what makes you the best option. So far, you have not spent a dime, and your confidence your marketing should be increasing by the minute.

Let’s see how you did. In the comments, tell me who you sell to and why they should buy from you.

Starting a new company is tough work. If you have navigated the legal requirements to start-up, you know what I am talking about: taxes, accounting, employment law, zoning restrictions, and the list goes on and on.

Now that you have put in all of that work, it is time to start marketing your company! Yippee!  Here is the problem:  being legally able to sell is not the same thing as being able to sell. Here are some tools you will want to invest in to help with gaining some early sales:

1. Brand Identity

You will be paying to market your business. Business cards, flyers, letters, and other basic required collateral all cost some amount of money, even if you are printing them “in house.”

Before you start printing anything, hire the best graphic designer or marketing firm you can afford to create a business logo and simple brand identity. Your nephew, who is a design student at the local community college, is going to be cheaper than someone who actually knows what they are doing. Even so, if you are truly boot-strapping, paying for someone with some knowledge of design is better than doing it yourself.

2. Website

Even if you are planning to mow lawns for a business, you need a website. Yep, service businesses need a website. If you plan on being a “referral-based” business, know that most of your prospective customers are going to check you out online before they make the first transaction with your company. (Referral-based companies have marketing expenses, ask any owner of a highly referred business.)

Ideally, you should hire a reputable firm (ahem) to build your website. You can review my tips on finding and hiring a good web design firm to get started. Some firms, like Winding Staircase, offer payment options that enable start-ups to get going without crushing your cash flow. Always ask.

3. Business Cards

Business cards have been declared unnecessary since the mid-90s. People still use them, and you still need them. Please, do not print your cards in your office. Again:

DO NOT PRINT YOUR OWN CARDS.

The costs to print a business card are miniscule compared to the cost of running a business. The cost of making a poor first impression as you try to find your first clients, however, is huge. I use and recommend a local printer to my clients. If you ask a few established business owners, you will find a quality printer that will be both more convenient and likely cheaper than online solutions.

Many graphic designers will “throw in” a business card design when you buy your logo design work. If you can get if done for free or a low cost, a well designed business card is nice to have.

4. Company brochure

Assuming you went into business knowing what you were going to offer and why (big assumption), you must have a tool that enables others to sell for you.

Decisions are not made in a vacuum. The bigger the investment, the more likely it is the person you pitched is not the only person making the final decision. Giving a prospective customer a tool to talk through with others will have a huge impact on your business:  business partners convince business partners, husbands convince wives, wives convince husbands, owners consult with mentors, and executives consult with legal. You get the idea.

I recommend you have materials specific to each major service or product you sell. Assuming you want to start simple, though, you really should have a company brochure that explains:

• who you are
• what you sell
• the value of what you sell
• why you are the best choice
• how you can be contacted

Your brochure should help convince a prospect to become a customer. As an added bonus, prospects that aren’t sold right away will have something to remind them of you later.

5. Follow-up materials

Most of the prospects you meet will choose not to buy from you. That is ok. You can decrease your missed opportunities by having an established follow-up process. This process can happen a week or two weeks after a missed sale, or it could be more appropriate to launch your follow-up campaign months after the initial contact.

The phone can be an effective method of follow-up, and I do use the phone to follow-up with prospects I felt were promising. However, you probably don’t relish the idea of calling on lost deals.

Use a series of letters to try to reestablish contact with prospective buyers.

Have a process where you send 3-5 mailers to leads that became prospects but never closed. Here is a simple order of mailers, sending 1 every 10 days, you can use:

1. Brand reminder postcard – Send a general offer postcard or brand awareness postcard
2. 1-page letter – A short letter reaffirming your interest in the original deal proposed
3. Long-form advertorial – Re-pitch the business via the mail
4. Discount postcard – Offer a narrow time-limited discount
5. Event invitation – Invite the prospect to your next seminar, open house, or training session

This process will not work for every lost deal. Your response rate will be higher than with cold leads, however, and closing prospective customers you have already met will take less time.

Marketing Your Company – What tools do you use?

The above list excludes general advertising. I have also not included industry-specific awareness tools, such as signage and on-site merchandising. (You might not need your logo on the side of your truck, but every business needs the tools listed above.)

Excluding advertising and niche-specific marketing, what tools did you find were especially helpful when marketing your company? Share your experience and tips in the comments.

Sales of your service business are weak. You can blame the economy. You can call it bad luck, bad timing, or bad karma. Maybe your service business just had some bad sales reps.  Maybe your service business needs a branding facelift and a new website.

Poor assumptions cause poor sales

There are many causes for poor sales. My bookshelves are filled with sales and marketing books, and every one of those books sketches potential reasons for poor sales.  In my experience, service companies overwhelmingly suffer from poor sales due to poor assumptions by owners and staff.

Here are some of the assumptions I commonly see:

• “People know what this type of service costs.”
• “Homeowners demand I be priced at or below my competition.”
• “My company delivers the same service as my competition.”
• “We deliver better service, and customers know it.”
• “Prospects know what we are selling, they just can’t make a decision to buy.”

That last assumption is a business killer. It is lethal to your business to assume your prospects understand the specifics and value of your offer. You should communicate every little detail and benefit of your service as if your prospect is from another planet.

Service business marketing: Talk about the obvious

Your clients know very little about all of the extras your company provides. Often, your most loyal clients are the ones that switched to another provider at some point, and then they recognized the true value of working with your company. Why is that?

The simple answer is that the competition failed to deliver. The correct answer is: most of your clients do not understand or appreciate your service because you have not helped them see what makes you better. It is not their fault; it is your responsibility to communicate what you believe is obvious and apparent.

Reinforcing the obvious benefits – When, where, and how

You company is unique. It is your responsibility to be sure the benefits and uniqueness of your business smack your current and prospective customers in the face. You can make it obvious to everyone why you are the best choice for your target market.

Obvious benefits – when should I communicate?

Always. Nonstop. Relentlessly. The old rule used to be to “3+” anything you want another person to remember. That is, it used to be you had to say the same thing three times to be sure the other party remembered you saying it.

The 3+ rule was considered a minimum in a time before all of the additional messaging noise we have today. Your prospects today receive thousands of messages each day. You need to reinforce your value consistently and relentlessly.

Obvious benefits – where should I communicate?

There are lots of paid platforms to communicate your message:  television, radio, billboards, and mail are some quick examples. There are also many free platforms you can communicate on.

Your website – Your service business website has a difficult job. It must reinforce your messaging to customers and partners, but it must also introduce your company to new prospects. You can start by checking your website against my 7 design tips for service business websites.

Your print materials – Take a look at your marketing brochures, sell sheets, and information kits. If you removed your logo from them, do they really communicate anything unique about your business?

Social Media – Reinforce obvious benefits of your company as you engage your audience on forums, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Do not promote, but inform those audiences about your industry and what makes your company unique.

Obvious benefits – how should I communicate?

Your messaging should not be coming like 105.1 MPH fastball. Slow it down. Bite-sized portions are best. Identify the top three benefits of your service, and repeatedly communicate each of them individually.

In five words or less, what is a major benefit of your service? In copy and in advertising, this is how you should be communicating what makes you better.

What are the obvious benefits of your service?

Let’s all give this a try. In the comments below, tell me, what are the obvious benefits of your service? Have you ever had an “A HA” moment where you realized a prospect was not seeing the obvious?

Is your service business in desperate need of a website overhaul?  Are you losing potential customers because your website makes a poor impression?

Service business websites – Keep it simple

Everything about your business needs to be efficient.  Your website is no exception.  Here are 7 Web Design Tips for service businesses.

1. Build a site that loads quickly and properly

People are impatient.  You have worked hard to get a prospective customer to visit your site.  Do not lose them now!  Check that your website loads properly in all of the major browsers (Internet Explorer, Safari, and Chrome).  If your service business can’t quickly and effectively serve up a simple business website, why would anyone trust you to service their home or business?

2. Make a good first impression

The header image, logo, color palette, and layout of your site are critical.  These are the first aspects of your website visitors will notice.  Your website is likely the most comprehensive and interactive engagement with your brand a prospective customer will have.

The subconscious question each visitor is asking himself is, “Does this company seem reputable and ‘put-together?’”

3. Include a phone number

Many visitors to your website are actually referrals.  A friend, neighbor, or family-member gave the visitor the name of your company.  After a quick search, they found your website.  If the site makes a good first impression (see tips 1 & 2), they are ready to make the call.

Can they find your phone number?  Is it on the home page?  Is it on every page?

4. Answer common questions

You probably answer the same half dozen questions before you close any sale.

Are you bonded and insured?  Are you a member of a trade association?  Are you certified?  How long has your company been in business?  How long have you been doing this type of work?  Do you guarantee your work?

Answering these questions on your business website will help build trust with visitors.  Equally important, it will make your conversation with the client more focused on his needs rather than on the qualifications of your company.

5. Show me what you look like

You don’t necessarily need to show a picture of YOU, the owner.  Just show website visitors what your company looks like.  Do your technicians wear uniforms?  Does your company use vehicles with your logo on them?

You can help potential customers visualize what it would be like to work with your company if you allow them to see some of your company.

6. Tell me how to buy from you

Do you go to a prospect’s location and provide an assessment?  Is the assessment free?

How often/long will your company be at the same location?  Do prospects need to be on-site when you are?

Your prospects should never call you feeling unsure about how “this works.”  Letting prospects know what to expect builds their confidence and reduces friction in the sales process.

7. Get a real-life conversation

You have been told at least two dozen times this month about the importance of “engaging your customers.”  Social Media is all the rage right now, and suddenly you want people to connect with you on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and 15 other social sites.  You want them to give you permission to email your newsletter.  You would sure love for your prospects to “digg” or “stumble” your blog articles, even though you really don’t know what that means.

Remember:  The objective is to move your prospective customer one step closer to becoming a paying customer.  For your business, the quickest and simplest way to do this is to talk to your customer.  I mean talk to him, as in, on the phone or in-person.

Be selective in asking your prospective customers to do anything that does not get you a conversation with them.

What is your advice?

Do you have advice for service business owners looking to improve their website?  Add your $0.02 in the comments.

You have decided you are ready to have a new website built for your business.  Congratulations.  Web marketing is an efficient and effective way to add sales to your business.

2 Web design questions to ask yourself

Your website will be the first impression of your business for many potential customers.  The two questions you should be able to answer before meeting with any web design firm are:

1. Who is my website for?

Your website has two primary audiences:  prospective customers and search engines.  Yes, other parties should be kept in mind:  investors, creditors, and current customers are just some of the other folks that will be looking at your website.

However, the primary goal of your website should be to convert prospects into customers.  Knowing who your ideal clients are is critical to a good website design.

A word about search engines:  A good web design shop will help you optimize your website for the major search engines.  There may be conflicts between what you want and what your designer recommends.  Balance the pros and cons of each method carefully.

2. What do I want my website to achieve?

For most small businesses, the goal of a website is to help prospective customers find the business (similar to the yellow pages) and to convince those prospective customers to take the next step toward becoming customers.

You need to know what that next step for your prospective customers should be.  Do you want the visitors of your website to subscribe to your email newsletter, call you, email you, “like” you on Facebook, or fill-out an online quote form?  Tell prospects what you want them to do, and make that action as clear and simple for them as possible.

How to find a web designer or web design shop

For starters, web design and optimization is one of the three main services of Winding Staircase.  I encourage you to consider our web design packages.  Assuming for a minute, however, that you are unsure of our team, there are several ways to identify a good web design firm.

3 Ways to identify a good web design company

Finding a good web design company is like finding a good accountant.  Who you should work with depends on your budget, the complexity of your needs, and the firms in your market.

1. Ask your network – Ask other business owners who they used, and why.  Please be sure to ask if they are related to or are “good buddies” with the designer they used.  Look at their sites while they talk to you.  Do you like what you see?

2. Look at competitor websites – Take a look at your competitors’ websites.  If you find one you like, see if you can tell who built the site.  Often a web design firm, if the client is happy with them, will be allowed to include a link to their website in the footer of a client website.  Look for a small “web design by” link in the small text at the bottom of the page.

3. Google it – When all else fails, search engines can help solve the riddle.  If you live in Cincinnati, for example, search for “web design Cincinnati” or “website designer Cincinnati,” the search engine will return several local listings, organic listings, and advertised listings.  Review the website of as many of the firms as you can.  Unlike Winding Staircase, most web design firms will not publish pricing on their websites.  You will need to make calls and meet sales reps from different firms to get an idea of the cost.

Before you meet with any of the firms you are choosing from, keep in mind you will likely be working with your web marketing partner for more than just this “one and done” new website project.

7 Things to ask your potential web design partner

Unfortunately, web design and web marketing are similar to other business services.  You don’t know what to ask when choosing a partner, and you wouldn’t know a good answer from a bad answer anyway.  Think about other professional services you have hired for your business.  How many people are still working with that accountant you fired years ago?  That guy is costing his clients money and aggravation, and they don’t know enough to know how much better working with a good accountant can be.

Here are a few aspects of web design to ask about.

Web designer question #1:  How will you determine the structure and content of my website?

Your web designer is not in your business.  He is not a plumber, painter, architect, or financial planner.  How is he going to know the best keywords, layout, and content for your audience?  At Winding Staircase, we call this Discovery.  Other firms use other names, but essentially, you need to know how much time is going to be spent getting to know your business, industry, and competition before the design process is started.

Web designer question #2:  What code languages will be used?  Will my site have an admin panel or other moderating/updating functionality?

Will the designer be using HTML, CSS, PHP, SQL, or Flash?  Some combination is likely.  Don’t worry if you don’t know what any of these things are.  You own a successful business, and you can tell when somebody is faking knowledge.  Does this guy know what he is talking about?  RUN, not walk, RUN from any designer that wants to build your site using a lot of flash animation.

I recommend all business owners use a framework that includes a content management system (CMS).  You might never use it, but it should be made available to you, even in limited function.  You will want a CMS if you plan to blog, add pages, or update content on your site.  (If you publish pricing on your website, you will need to update that pricing eventually.)

Web designer question #3: Who will be creating the content for my website?

The text and pictures on your website are referred to as your website’s content.  Most programmers are poor copywriters.  The designer might be expecting you to provide the content, and you need to decide if you have the writing and layout skills to do so.  If the web design firm is going to write the content, ask about the qualifications of the writers they will be using.  Do you have images and photographs, or will you need to hire a photographer or buy stock photos?  Are the photography and writing charges included in the web design estimate?

Web designer question #4: Who is going to provide graphical design?

Many small businesses do not have a comprehensive brand stylebook.  A website, however, needs more than just a two-color logo.  Your website should have a complete (yet defined) color palette.  If you have a brand identity with defined colors – the web design firm should have a graphic designer that can apply those colors appropriately.

Often a website is the most interactive branding element of a small business.  Make sure you are not letting a salesman or programmer make these decisions.

Web designer question #5: How will we measure success?

Most firms charge to install analytics packages on your website.  It might be that you decide to simply measure impact by the number of phone calls your business gets after the new website is launched.

Whatever you decide, you are investing your marketing dollars into this project.  You should ask your web designer how they recommend you measure the results.

Web designer question #6: Will my website include any search engine optimization (SEO)?

Your web designer should be including basic “on-site” optimization as part of the design.  Some items to ask about include:  title tags, meta tags, and load speed.  You can pay your designer or an SEO firm to determine the best keywords and phrases to target.

Do not be surprised if your web designer charges extra for improved on-site SEO work.  You need this done, however, so you should be sure you are comparing apples to apples when comparing web design services and prices.

For a quick SEO review, read my article “The 10 Simple Rules for Solid SEO.”

Web designer question #7: Who pays for implementation and hosting?

I have yet to meet a web design firm that did not sell domain and hosting services.  Do you want to manage these aspects on your own (and save a little money), or do you want the web firm to handle this?

Often a web design firm will include some period of hosting as part of your web design price.  Find out what the costs will be after that first year.  Know that if you change hosts to another service, you will need to pay the web designer, or someone capable, to move the site to the new host and point the domain to the new server.

Final thoughts

Your business needs a website built to help you sell.  Your website is not a defensive investment, but rather you should expect your website to help you generate sales.

If you have additional tips for business owners searching for a web designer, or if you have a question about finding a web designer, please let me know in the comments.