The Top 3 Problems Facing Business Today
October 17, 2011 by Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen
Filed under Sales And Marketing
The Top 3 Problems Facing Business Today are:
1) How do I drive traffic to my website?
2) How do I convert them into customers?
3) What’s my ROI?
Do you know what the answer to those questions are for your business? I’m going to briefly answer the questions and this is only the tip of the iceberg. Stay tuned though and see how you can get an even more detailed answer.
First, how do you get traffic to your website. Really, creating a website is easy. Unfortunately, some people actually pay $20,000 or more for a smoking hot website – that doesn’t get any traffic. A good website on average will cost you about $2,500 – $5,000. Of course you can always get a cheaper one if you know what you’re doing or can outsource it and be careful, because sometimes you do get what you pay for.
That doesn’t answer the question though. And really, there’s not one simple answer. So I’ll share a few. First and foremost, use social media to help drive traffic to your website. Facebook has over 800 million users now. Imagine if only 1% of 1% of those people went to your website. Do you have a Facebook page yet? If not, you should. And don’t forget about Twitter and of course LinkedIn. Having accounts on each of these sites helps your website visibility (when you set them up properly).
Secondly, write a press release. Tell the world about your company. Do you have a grand opening? Are you releasing a new product or service? What’s a newsworthy topic you can tell everyone about? Press releases have been used by the media for over 50 years and they still work. Make sure you’re using them for your events.
Next, write a great article (like this one ;o) and blast it out to cyberspace. Article marketing has been proven to help drive traffic to your website because you’re providing people with valuable information. Share something that they want to know. Answer a question or two (or three) and post it on the article directories online.
And don’t forget about video marketing. Youtube is the second largest search engine after Google. Record a funny video with some good information and post it online. Use the proper heading, description, and keywords and it will help drive traffic to your site.
Wow. There are way too many ways to talk about in this article. That should give you a great start though. So let’s go on to the next question – how do you convert them into customers.
Well the answer to this is quite simply build a relationship with them. Hey, people like to do business with people they know, like and trust. So when they come to your website (using the traffic methods mentioned earlier), make sure the website is about them – and not you. Give them something of value for free like a free trial, a free report, a free consultation. Start by giving something first because giving is the greatest marketing secret out there. Of course, when you do this, make sure you get something in return – their email address.
Once they’ve gotten a sample of what you have to offer and you have their email address, continue to send them messages. Messages which give them value and tell them about you. Messages which will start building that relationship with them.
And then after they’ve gotten to know you a bit, shoot them a special offer or discount. Send them a low priced product or service and get them to buy something small. Again, letting them test you out. Once they see what you have to offer, then they’re more willing to buy a bigger priced item or service. Keep building that relationship with them by keeping up the communication and special offers.
Finally, once the customer has purchased from you, you can now calculate your ROI over a period of time. How much money did you spend on advertising? How much revenue did you pull in? If you’re not pulling in that much, then consider revamping your offerings or increasing your marketing to reach more people.
Getting a higher ROI is a science and an art. You have to keep on testing to see what works for you and your business. The main thing though is to take action. Start getting the word out there about you and your business and go from there.
And if you want to learn more, then come to the next monthly meeting of the Chicago Entrepreneur Meetup Group on October 18, 2011 at 7 – 9 pm (6:30 pm registration and open networking) where we’re going to talk about it in more detail and show you real live examples. You can pre-register today at http://chicagoentrepreneur1018-lieml.eventbrite.com. It’s only $10 online or $15 at the door.
Here’s a short list of SOME of what we’re going to cover:
1) How to aggregate your social media message across multiple networks at once
2) How to use Press Releases to get on top of Google
3) How to write and distribute attention grabbing articles to hundreds of sites for free
4) How to promote the heck out of your events
5) How to Track Your traffic using free online tools
6) How to Capture your customers information
7) How to Automatically funnel your clients and stop wasting your time
And much, much more!
This is a crazy amount of information and content for one meeting, delivered to you in a controlled, concise manner for beginner and expert alike.
You can continue working on figuring things out while others are automating and getting sales or you can attend this meeting and learn this powerful information yourself. The choice is yours.
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See you at the meeting and Celebrate Life!
Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen
P.S. Here's that registration link again: http://chicagoentrepreneur1018-emlf.eventbrite.com P.P.S. Remember, we have networking before and after the meeting and EVERYONE gets to introduce themself, so come with your elevator pitch and a handful of business cards!