Business Marketing and Technology

There’s just so much good stuff in this book, I might have to turn this into a multi-part series. Chapter 4, “Direct Response Marketing” (from Guerrilla Marketing on the Internet by Jay Conrad Levinson) really got me thinking about how many sites I’ve come across that don’t do anything for the business. In very few cases, having the simplest of ‘brochure websites’ (strictly informational and usually for credibility purposes) may be appropriate, but there are so many opportunities to get your web site to do more for your business.

The easiest thing any website can do is collect your visitor’s contact information. This can be used as a targeted list for your marketing offers (as long as you have their permission of course). There are many things you can offer your visitors in exchange for their contact info (specifically, e-mail address):

• Free “White-Paper,” E-Book, or How-to-Article (ex: see our web design landing page offer - 9 Tips for Better Web Marketing)
• Subscription to your informative newsletter or periodical with the latest industry information
• Special offers or discounts only available through e-mail
• A free, no-obligation quote, consultation, or trial product to demonstrate the effectiveness of your product/service
• Anything else irresistible that your visitor can’t help but be intrigued by (ex: ‘Little Known ______ Secrets Revealed!”) - it may sound corny, but it works!

Your website can be your support team.

Generating a list of your frequently asked questions can save you (or your staff) tons of time on the phone answering the same questions over and over. By making the support section easily accessible on your site, you can avoid annoying, time consuming, and costly calls to your support team.

And, obviously, your website can sell your product.

By writing clean sales copy, you can effectively sell your product using only your website. Having a full-blown online retail store is a smaller investment than you think, and certainly much less expensive than a brick-and-mortar location. A professional-looking, custom-designed site will give your small business a much bigger and more trustworthy look and feel than a template-based, hosted e-commerce product.

Depending on your client base, most Internet users feel comfortable making purchases online if they trust the website. Through other online experiences, your visitor has psychologically programmed him/herself to trust a site that meets their expectations. Conforming to these expectations is the name of the trust game. You don’t want to have any unexpected steps between the visitor first landing on your web page, and the end of the checkout process. Find a web design company who has experience in this area, and they’ll help you make back your investment many times over.

Your website can do its own advertising.

By optimizing your website for your target keywords, you can get more search engine traffic from organic searches, which cost you exactly $0.00/click - a REALLY good price Equally (if not more so) important, is external optimization: getting other websites to point to yours. Both internal and external optimization are simple concepts but time consuming to implement correctly (without getting you black-listed).

The gold-digging step-sister of SEO is SEM, or Search Engine Marketing. She’ll bring you as much or as little traffic you’d like - for a price. This is an excellent complementary strategy to instantly attract visitors to your website. I wouldn’t rely strictly on this type of marketing, but if you need instant traffic, you can’t beat it.

There’s so much more to glean from this book, so I’ll be back with another brain dump when I come across another topic I can expand on. Stay tuned for the next edition…

Tags: guerrilla marketing, internet marketing, ecommerce, web sales

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Tony Kau is co-founder of Portland web design and Internet marketing company Vanivo.  For service inquiries, you can contact him directly at tony -at- vanivo.com.

Related posts:

1. Guerrilla Marketing on the Internet - Brain Dump
2. Websites - Why You NEED One…
3. Website Marketing in the Recession - Make These 3 Adjustments to Survive
4. Creating an Effective Call to Action
5. Web Sales and E-Commerce 101

Tony Kau call to action, customers, E-Commerce, Guerrilla Marketing, internet marketing, sales, web design, website