Small business web sites - bite sized pieces

Yesterday I gave a workshop to a few WiRE members who wanted to get to grips with their websites. The desired outcome was a list of changes they could brief their web designer on. During the session I was reminded again how important it is that a business owner considers a web site as a three part project.

Content - Look - Build
(navigation is a core consideration of each of these).

• content falls into the realms of 'marketing communications' . I would urge clients to bash some wording about in a word processing package before they even consider contacting a 'web designer'. Start to section it in a way that makes sense to your reader to help them navigate through your information. 
• the look of the site requires design and branding skill. Your web site is a highly visible application of your brand. Select some images or take some photos that will resonate with your readers. 
• Building the site is the techy bit, which is where most 'web designers' (in most cases web technician is a better description) are most comfortable. Web technicians are brilliant if they have a great brief they can comment on - hence the importance of business owners taking responsibility for the two points above. 

A website needn't be a huge elephantine project. Break it into these bite sized chunks. Contract the support or learn the DIY toolset to help you put it together and manage it. Conduct a strategic review to ensure it meets your marketing needs.

If you would like to join our next group 2 hour strategic review workshop or have your own private review session please email us.

Training and thinking, marketing forum 15th June, Derbyshire

Ideas + Strategies -----> Making Connections
We are planning a new style event on 15th June at Cromford Mill. We'll facilitate IT and Marketing-based subject discussions and provide the environment for you to join other forward-thinking business owners to take a little time out to concentrate on your business, generating ideas and workable strategies.

Broadly, the morning session will cover strategic marketing and IT subjects, delving into some how-to and top tips for success with the tools and techniques we showcase:

• Ways to keep in touch with your customers and create champions and referrers.
• Seamless ways to collaborate with associates and present work to customers.
• The mindset and toolset to create a more marketing-led organisation.

. . . and it will be lively and interactive with presentations, case studies, thought-provoking exercises, peer group discussion. More than that we have built into the agenda an extended 'let's take that off-line' break-out session designed to be free flowing. Choose between the opportunity to pose detailed questions to the experts or engage in discussions and networking with other attendees.

Ideas & Strategies – Marketing and Technology

9.30am – 12.15pm Facilitated interactive sessions (as above)
12.45pm – 2pm Freeflow and break out sessions - Marketing and IT questions answered and debated.
£15 + VAT (book in advance cw@cwoodhouse.com)
Lunch and refreshments available at the on-site cafes

Why not arrive early and include some breakfast networking taking place in the same room.
7.30am - 9am Matlock Business Club – networking and business support group meets
£5 including breakfast payable at the door (book in advance web@henmore.co.uk)
Call or email us to reserve your places at these events.

Facebook for Small Business Owners

I met up with some enterprising women from Staffordshire and Derbyshire at the local WiRE meeting last week. The highlight of the evening was obviously the delicious local Staffordshire food provided by Emily and Maggie of Simply Staffordshire in the relaxing environment of Dove Farm. The main notice of the evening was the launch of the WiRE Doves Networking pages on Facebook. To accompany the launch I was tasked with presenting on the subject of using Facebook for business. This post is a follow up for those that want to get started or work a bit harder at using Facebook.

A show of hands revealed that most of the women in the room were small business entrepreneurs who were either sceptical about Facebook or inactive users. With a couple of advanced users in the room we were well set up for some lively discussion.

1. Mindset for Facebook

Adopting Facebook does require a different mindset to having a web site and using email. To some, it is uncomfortable when their interface with the online world becomes potentially more personal, more visible, possibly less controllable. Maybe I was too harsh and modern when I suggested that it was time to 'get over ourselves'. But I said this with true passion to the women in the room simply because I really want them to take action asap to help their businesses. Right now there is still opportunity to get in on the act while this space is less crowded. If they wait until the culture is fully adopted and they are inured to this whole way of doing business then it may become harder to gain a foothold. And mistakes will be more obvious to the world. I was an early adopter and made some mistakes along the way - we all did at the start- but Social Media Marketing is becoming more established and part of this means that ways of conducting yourself are becoming established. Why do humans so love to create rules of conduct, I wonder?

2. Manage your Personal Brand on Facebook

I am always banging on about how your business has a brand, an identity, a personality, that it is not necessarily the same as that of the owner or founder. You and your business are different (I have a fun exercise on this for another time). But on Facebook you are required to join as an individual first. You have to sign up as a consumer and are encouraged to provide some information and a picture just to get going. Nb Leter when you set up a business page your identity and your business identity become seperate again.

• Think really hard about the information you provide. Choose the Interests you list. This is info about you as a consumer and will drive the adverts and information that is placed on your page. E.g if you list Travel and the Far East as interests you will receive special offers and adverts from holiday companies operating there, that may be useful. By being female and over 40 you will be bombarded by dieting and debt ads. Obscure and quirky things may seem fun just to position you versus other people, but it all forms part of your online personal brand so please sanity check what you offer – and set your privacy for who can see this information.
• Get comfortable with the Privacy Settings and activate them. They are much easier now than before. You need to be in control of this!
• For more Privacy sophistication, put your contacts into Lists and control the privacy levels associated with these lists accordingly. Start as your mean to carry on with this. (Parents take note – your children, when they get savvy, might put you on a List and you will be in blissful ignorance of their real online outpourings).
• The Wall is something to manage and understand. You can write on your own to distribute your status (aka a thought/deed/update) to all your Friends; you can jot something on your Friends' walls; you can also write something on the wall of a Business or Organisation e.g WiRE Doves Network or Alton Towers. Just remember that whatever you write stays with you publicly on your wall.
• If you 'Like' something you see then click to say so. The fact that you have done so is shared to all your Friends. In organisational terms this is a great viral way to raise awareness of brands and issues. It also work conversely if you complain by writing a negative Comment – so use this tool to hold businesses and organisations to account. Organisations also have online reputations to maintain.
• Quick word on Marketplace – it is a place to flog or give-away stuff, visible to your friends – and Groups – indicators of the collective state of mind and vehicles for the collective voice. Groups are mainly for lobbying and spreading trends. If you feel strongly about something there will be a Group for it or you could start your own.

3. Manage your Business Brand on Facebook

Really, really easy to set up a business page (once you have a personal account). And a lot less personal as there is no need for your mug shot or your name to be on the page (although you will be the first fan to join your page so at that point the connection remains obvious).

• Think about the name you use for the page and picture/logo you add. As an example, the holiday cottage has benefited from being called 'Barks Holiday Cottage near Alton Towers' because it positions it clearly. On Facebook adverts this vital geographical fact has been in the headline. When people search Alton Towers on Facebook, up pops the cottage in their search list. FYI www.facebook.com/barks.holiday.cottage
• Choose and add other pages: Add Notes, Info, Boxes, Photos, Video, Events and any other Apps (.e.g Twitter feed) that suit your business. Try and get it all sorted out before you get people to join/follow your page because changes are notified to your followers.
  Contact details – A good spot is in the little biog bit on the top left of your page and in the Notes section.
• Set which page you want to act as the opening page – it is not necessary to have the Wall as the main page and wouldn't be suitable for some businesses.
  There is a place to show 'Favourite pages' of your business so add wisely to suit your business brand and ethos and to support your associates' businesses (e.g. other WiRE Dove networkers' businesses.)
• Import your blog to your Notes page using the RSS feed from your blog. Choose carefully whether you want your blog posts to be published onto the wall (and thus automatically sent to your followers) as this may be overwhelming or may be perfect, depending on your business. The blog can be a good opening page.
• Post status updates. How often? You know you get it right when interesting snippets please your followers and they post comments or click the Like. Gratifying sure, but more importantly they are spreading the word to all their friends. You know you get it wrong when your followers decide to hide your feed, or worse still leave altogether by unfollowing your business. A negative comment would be better than have them unfollow!
  

4. Facebook Business Targets

First Target = 100 Fans / followers: then you can set the page name for your business from a whole load of numbers and squiggles to a meaningful name that you can publish on your business cards. I will deal with how to find and keep followers another time.

Ongoing target and primary goal: Engage with your followers and fans

Right now this is relatively easy. Users of Facebook have not yet become so discerning about what they follow and like and join. There is still a level of innocence to it all, especially with the older users who are signing up in the droves right now. It doesn't take long before you want to start weeding out the 'noise' by paring down what you follow.

Management Target: to maintain the post quality and the number of likes and interactions so that you can measure and maximise the level of engagement you are achieving with your followers. Because Engagement is what it all about.

As a business using Facebook think really hard about what you post and how frequently. Your goal is to elicit Likes and Comments from your followers and getting testimonials and fan photos from them.

BTW – if you are a friend of the business owner, remember it is not helping them promote their brand and business if you write personal, non business-related comments on their wall. It could actually be damaging.

Engaging with customers and prospects so openly can have its downsides too. If you do get a negative comment then deal with it to your advantage - clarify, apologise, offer recompense, rectify as appropriate. (If all else fails there is always the Remove comment button.)

Long term target: If you can manage to get 10,000 fans you can get some serious analytical insights into each post and who read it etc. We'll come back to that another time perhaps when everyone is a bit nearer this target.

In the mean time, I wish everyone in the room every success with their online marketing.

5. And Finally

A quick plug for us - Henmore has services and packages that cover set up and management of most online marketing methods in case you, or anyone you know, is short of time or patience for handling all this Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc stuff. Drop me a line for further details or call to discuss.

This post has now gone on far too long, as did my talk. I admired the forebearance of those not interested in the subject of Facebook politely waiting to be allowed to sample the delicious desserts on offer; thanks for your patience. My effort of preparing and giving the talk was rewarded by those that set about creating or improving their Facebook pages the very next day. Thank you for your enthusiasm. I was amused by the Twitter activity between @HenmoreLtd and @SimplyStaffs next day. LOL!

If I can help you further please do get in touch.

If you would like further details of the WiRE Doves Network please visit the new Facebook page.

New web site - we're like those cobblers' children

Do you ever get completely fed up with your website? We certainly have with ours! The old one stayed up way too long and became an embarrassment. It's not that we lack the skills, far from it, the trouble is we always priorise our clients' requirements. . . Cobblers children!


We have prepared ourselves a brief, at least, and put up a 'holding site' while we prepare a new site. The reality is that it will take a while. This is what we are planning:

•Give reassuring examples of the ways our current clients successfully add our marketing communications expertise to their organisations. It's important that potential customers understand what we are all about. It is also vital that existing clients know how to make the most of our range of services. A few case studies should show how we handle ongoing marketing activities and specific projects on behalf of clients.

•Raise awareness of our work with Midlands-based entrepreneurs and business owners that keeps them in charge of their own marketing. In particular we'd like to promote our popular consultancy offerings: the Strictly Marketing Club, a group business development programme, and our hard hitting half-day Team Workshops for marketing trouble-shooting. We have been experimenting with lots of the 'free' marketing tools recently, so that we can advise clients on what works and what doesn't. We created a Google site for Strictly Marketing and a private forum on LinkedIn for members to share ideas and give feedback. Check out the Google site so far, its been a bit of a fiddle: Strictly Marketing Business Development

•Position our business as having seasoned marketing, design, copywriting and web experts. We have been going for almost 20 years. We would like to inspire some extra confidence for potential customers to try us by showcasing our team and focusing on our years of experience organising all sorts of marketing-related projects. We put links on the holding page to LinkedIn and this blog.

Making preparations for the holding site has taken quite a bit of effort. I am reminded how much work goes into preparing a whole new web site. This is a timely reminder of what our clients go through, even with our direction and support. They also have to prioritise working IN the business rather than ON it.

So, cobblers children that we are, a new holding page will have to suffice for the time being

Categorisation of online directories

A thought on websites and marketing. Most companies have their own websites. Many companies strive to increase visitors to their websites using search engine optimisation techniques, search engine adwords and online adverts. There are, amazingly, still a few businesses that are under the misapprehension that having a website and putting the address on their business cards will be enough to bring them sales enquiries.

Sensible use of directory sites can be a useful technique to drive traffic to your website and generate sales enquiries for your business. Some directories will achieve this and some will not. A good directorty will achieve much more, by positioning your business and adding to your credibility and enhancing your brand, but be warned, some directories will do the reverse - they might damage your reputation.

We have made some generalisations below that attempt to categorise online directories. We would be interested in your thoughts on this subject.

1. National sites with free/cheap listings whose main objective is to drive web traffic to banner adverts rather than actually provide the info you searched. They can be frustrating when you are looking for information because they frequently seem to offer false promises and dead ends. When composing this article we searched cafes in Belper and one of these sites offered us 1 -10 of 1635 coffee shops in Belper. How many? We clicked and were offered coffee shops as far afield as Sheffield.  We say, don't pay to advertise on this type of site.

2. National, recognised brands that used to be primarily paper-based do at least provide the type of contact details they promised in the search results; useful if all you need is an address or telephone number. If you are doing online window-shopping looking for a reputable local supplier the results of this search don’t actually provide sufficient information to make an informed choice. This is a pity because being listed on such a site takes a large chunk of a company’s advertising budget. We say, there are other ways of using this budget to attract traffic and give them the information and the motivation to make an informed choice.

3. Local sites set up by well-meaning individuals. They can sound great in concept because they are often really cheap. Trouble is they rarely have sufficient budget or technical back up to actually drive meaningful web traffic to your business. Some of these sites will imply you'll be front page of Google -  they rarely explain that will be via Adwords for approximate 5 mins at 6am!  Don't be fooled, they probably don't mean you'll be top of Google in the organic listings.

4. Official directories for your industry sector or established ones in your niche market. These industry sector directories, particularly those offered by professional bodies, are really useful to prove your credentials or support your ethos. Similarly there are often a number of sites aimed at each niche, such as eco-tourism sites, parenting sites etc. In many cases we would recommend that businesses prepare suitable entries on these specific directory sites.

To maximise the effectiveness of your directory entry, cross reference your listings to other aspects of your marketing, e.g using the logo of the professional body on your stationery or the link to your eco-tourism directory entry in your email signatures.


Now ask yourself this question.  Do you have any niggling doubts about the quality of your web site? The thing is, interested people are being sent to your web site by most directory sites, and if this traffic bounces (leaves again without contacting you) it may be time to review your site. Sometimes the smallest change can make the biggest difference, but that is another subject for another day.

Please contact us if you would like additional support with any aspect of your online marketing.