This has been a big week for us at Webvantix as we’ve taken our giving program Websites 4 Food live. The premise is simple, when Webvantix is hired to create a new website for a customer, we will donate a website and its hosting to a food pantry.
Food pantries in the United States have been heavily leaned upon throughout the years, yet with the recent economic upheaval they have become more important than ever. In the U.S. alone, there are almost 50 million people who do not receive the proper levels of food on a daily basis. At Webvantix we believe that is far too many people hungry in this land of ‘food plenty.’
Therefore we’ve started a one-for-one giving program entitled “Websites 4 Food.”
New customers at Webvantix will be able to choose a Food Pantry to receive a free website that will enable them to win the attention they need and increase their donations.
Are you having a tough time thinking of specific points that differentiate your company from your competition? Yet, at the same time are your margins being squeezed by your customers because they have little perception of your value–like why buy organic milk vs. regular milk, as if milk was not expensive enough!
How can we create not just a perception of value, but actual value for our customers and prospective customers of which they are acutely aware?
Remember the old adage, you can lead a horse to water but you cant’ make him drink! Therefore, your customer must see for themselves your value–you can tell them all day long–ultimately, they must tell themselves! So, how do you get them to tell themselves? Questions. But not tired, open ended questions that you then pounce on with your gilded solutions. Properly executed, your next move is to ask the right follow up question, essentially guiding them through the proper questions to a place where they see your product or services value on their own, and you are no longer trying to sell them something, you have become a ‘trusted advisor.’
More to come on asking great questions and how to do it….
As we continue to discuss differentiation as an absolute necessity in this economy of squeezing margins here are 5 quick ideas you can focus on to begin to differentiate your company from your competition:
Review Your Competition’s Website
If you haven’t done this, get on it ASAP! Take an objective look at what they are doing, how does their site look, is there quality content, are they creating new and fresh ideas on their site? Looking at your site and their site in two open windows, if you were a customer, with whom would you be most likely to offer your business? Understanding what your competition is doing is the first step in beginning to differentiate yourself and make your company more attractive.
Add Fresh Content
I’ve said it again, and again, adding content for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) purposes, as well as customer interaction is key to becoming a resource that visitors will return to again and again. Otherwise, your site is just a big advertisement, growing stale by the minute.
Offer Value
Key in this economy is offering value, if your customers don’t see the value in what you do, they will simply find a cheaper provider, or force you to squeeze your margins. Consider ways that you can work with your customers on the same side of the table, consulting, instead of selling. Even if your company has competition on every corner, consider what you can do to win and keep customers. Hint: It’s not selling to them, it’s offering them quality consultation. For instance, are you a just another seamless gutter company, selling gutters and gutter caps? How about an annual cleaning and inspection that goes along with purchase? You might be able to even charge more, if you tie these services together.
Create Easy, Flowing Navigation
Does your site have obvious “Calls to Action” that prompt your visitors to an overlay contact form, or do they have to skip to the “Contact Us” page themselves. Offer your site visitors professional quality navigation that will minimize bounce and dramatically increase conversions from visitors into leads.
Avoid Tired ‘Salesy’ Buzzwords
Phrases like “Total Solution” and “What keep you up at night” are old and tired, and everyone’s heard them. Do a better job of asking quality questions that are not only open ended, but have a purpose, like “can you articulate your company’s specific long-term goals?” Quite simply, in order to promote your company, stop promoting it and focus on being a valued resource.
Differentiate your business, or get ready to have your margins squeezed, perhaps squeezed so much that you can no longer survive. What can you do? How about becoming an online resource for your customers; consider ways to offer content that can be helpful.
Bodies in Balance wanted a way to manipulate and self-deliver time sensitive, important information to their members right on their homepage.
Here’s what was created:
If you’re interested in talking to Webvantix about how you can begin to differentiate your company online, CONTACT US
Differentiation is a must for all businesses in this economic climate. Solutions, while thought to be the answer when a customer has a problem, but that’s a short term fix. Businesses now are looking deeper at how they can differentiate themselves from their competition. Can you help them? Started to focus on this theme this past week and will continue in the near future.
Our Monday Morning Quick Tip was a quick primer on adding a plugin to your WordPress blog, and as there are 1000′s of plugins to help drive your website, this video will show you the specific steps necessary to download, activate and set up your desired plugin.
This post is an introduction to moving beyond offering a ‘solution’ and creating real differentiation in your customer’s and potential customer’s eyes. Don’t skip this one!
We’ve created a very to the point whitepaper, that when downloaded will give you 36 links to sites where you can register your website and begin driving more traffic. This is a great resource to have–and it’s free!
Be sure to check us out this coming week as we are rolling out new pages to our site and our new giving program Websites 4 Food will go live!
All businesses want more traffic, and one of the best ways to get your site noticed is to register it with various search engines, aggregators and directories.
We’ve created a whitepaper entitled, 36 Websites to Grow Your Local Business, and it’s a simple listing with links to many of the best places to register your website, like Yelp, as well as several you may not recognize.
Each link takes you directly to the site, so there is no need to type in the URL, just link, register and that’s it.
So, if you’re looking for something to do to help promote your company’s website, click the image and follow the steps to download our whitepaper.
I hope you find this helpful…let us know what you think!
Commoditization, the bane of the current business world. What is it? It’s where a business niche matures and competition that previously did not exist, now exists to the extent that people can choose from many providers offering the same product or service, and therefore choose based on cost alone, causing the intense squeezing of margins. Is this happening to your business? Commoditization has even morphed into “Googlization,” where everyone expects services and even products for free–are you guilty of this–where you want everything for your company for free, yet expect people to still pay for what you offer?
How can this be thwarted?
Accept It
Understand this there will be no turning back and because of the opportunities that have arisen via the Internet, you will now have competition from places you never expected it. Sell a clock in a cute bedroom community? Your potential customer can note the clock they like, head home, and find it online, and you’ve lost business.
Differentiate Yourself
This is the linchpin for businesses; you must begin to look at your business not from your eyes, but from your customer’s eyes, and begin to define how you can offer “value” without squeezing your margins so tight you can no longer generate positive cash flow.
Become a Resource
Can you move past just selling a product? Consider ways that you can become a resource for both your existing customers and potential customers–essentially past selling your services and acting as a trusted ally. Answer Questions
Mountain Brook Home of Asheville, NC recently added a blog page to their website. One question they often had was “How is a Modular Home Set?” In his second blog post J.D. Wallace, president of Mountain Brook dropped a video into his site on how this is done, and traffic in only a week is up over 30%. Very impressive!
Don’t Discuss Your Product
Yes, you read that correctly! Work to understand the longer term goals and enterprise objectives of your clients; essentially create relationships that are based more on just selling something. Talk with them about what they are looking for long-term, speak to their employees about what’s needed and talk to their customers. You might just overturn ideas that become extremely important, and all of a sudden, instead of being a salesperson, you’re helping them navigate the treacherous waters of commoditization and Googlization!
A Task for Your Company
Here’s a task for you and your employees: Send out an email to your employees, asking everyone how your business currently differentiates itself from your immediate competition, how they believe it can do better to differentiate itself. If you are bold enough, ask your customers. Then meet, and choose the best three suggestions, and implement them.
I hope this gives you a little push towards differentiating your business!
WordPress plugins are one of the main reasons to use WordPress, there are thousands of them that offer a great deal of flexibility to your blog/site. Taking advantage of them is simple, usually free, and can help you drive more traffic and get noticed. Here’s how to add a WordPress plugin to your blog.
If you have any questions about plugins, feel free to contact me HERE
So often business owners are looking for a quick fix to help their websites get more traffic. The issue is attention, and in this world attention is capital, so what must be reviewed is the quality of the content on your site. We’ve spent some time this week on this subject and will continue to offer thoughts and ideas for creating great content and enabling your businesses’ website to win more attention.
Our Monday Morning Quick Tip focused on backing up your data and the importance in doing so. Just remember, a crash, regardless of your system’s platform will happen. Prepare for it!
Microsoft released it’s 9th version of its SIR, along with a great 15 minute video that highlights the current dangers, and points out that adherence to simple security issues can plug most of these holes–just remember, and ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure (oh, I loved using that!)
A great little post that offers solid ideas that you can jump on quickly to begin a transformation of your website from a static-information only site, to a true resource that will win much more attention
A quick video that introduces how to use RSS to automatically push your new blog posts to your Twitter account, and therefore create additional blog traffic. A must watch for anyone blogging and using Twitter.
Stay tuned for next week’s posts, we will have a video on setting up recurring tweets and lots of other goodies!
My name is Preston Ehrler and I started Webvantix to bring professional website design and website redesign to businesses that desperately needed help. Additionally, Webvantix blogs about ideas and tips for marketing your business online. Our team is comprised of individuals who are highly skilled in the fields of social media marketing, design, coding and programming. If you need our help, or simply have a question, we welcome your contact!
My name is Preston Ehrler and I started Webvantix to bring professional website design and website redesign to businesses that desperately needed help. Additionally, Webvantix blogs about ideas and tips for marketing your business online. Our team is comprised of individuals who are highly skilled in the fields of social media marketing, design, coding and programming. If you need our help, or simply have a question, we welcome your contact!
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