Ecoair is up and running!

Cazbah is proud to announce the recent launch of the Ecoair Corporation Website, one of our newest customers, using our new, high-functioning, and more sophisticated technology.

Peter Knudsen, President of Ecoair, came to Cazbah with a need for a more contemporary, sales oriented Website.  Founded in 1991, Ecoair develops and manufactures highly reliable, efficient and cost effective alternators and electric motors, for specialty applications.  Their Eco-Tech Alternators are designed to address the need for high energy output at low engine speed, a significant challenge in the industries that they serve.

Although Ecoair is an expert in their industry, their Website didn’t show it and it was not functioning as an effective sales tool.  Before switching to Cazbah, their site was more akin to an online brochure and Peter realized that just having a Website was not enough.

Ecoair needed a Total Internet Marketing Solution that would drive traffic to the site and turn that traffic into revenue.  With Cazbah’s Internet Marketing expertise, Ecoair is now able to manage their website in a much more efficient and sales driven manner.

Cazbah’s robust, high-functioning and easy to use technology provides Ecoair with the ability to perform sophisticated tasks simply:

• Getting interested potential customers to find them online and come to their new and improved Website through  SEO (search engine optimization)
• Enhanced design capabilities allowing for a more flexible and improved look and feel
• A new and improve user interface allowing for easier and more efficient changes to all aspects of the Website

Cazbah’s new dynamic platform can handle all aspects of Ecoair’s Website content management needs. As a result, Ecoair is now generating more qualified leads and new sales through Cazbah’s Total Internet Marketing Solution.

To receive a FREE Comprehensive Analysis of your business on the Internet and learn how you too can generate more income from your Website CLICK HERE.

Do you ever sit in front of Google searching for your web site listing under your favorite key terms?  Do you feel a sense of anxiety when you notice your competitor ranked ahead of you on those key terms?  You do?  Great. Now STOP doing that!

I have encountered countless customers who create unending angst for themselves by indulging in the competitive SEO search.  There is nothing wrong with being competitive as long as it makes sense.  The problem is the search “strategy” that results from the “competitive search” often doesn’t make sense.

I recently had a customer tell me that key term X was a term they needed to be found on because their competitor was on that page and that they knew, for a fact, that their customers search on this term.  Although, both of these assertions might partially be true, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should do something about it.

Here are some questions one should ask themselves before acting on such an anecdotal theory:

• What does my keyword research tell me?  Is there high search engine traffic with low competition?
• Is the key term something I actually sell (i.e. “fringed tulip bulbs”) or is it a broad term that has cross-industry meanings (i.e. “Bulbs”, flower or light?) that has a low probability of converting (sale)?
• Do I have a good understanding of the key term traffic that is already coming to my site?  Am I doing everything I can to make sure that the content on my site helps that traffic convert or is it bouncing off my site? Most of my customer’s sites generate over 3/4 of their traffic and online sales from long-tailed key terms (i.e. “tulip flower bulbs”)
• If I do find a broad key term that is relevant to my business and I think I can compete for it do I really have an understanding of what my competition is doing to drive traffic and gain rank for their site? (i.e. ad spend, direct mail, email marketing, etc.)  It may seem like you are comparing apples to apples but really you might be competing with someone who is outspending you 10:1.  That could possibly be why they have a crappy looking web site but get “good rank”.

What most don’t realize is that they already have a large amount of qualified traffic coming to their site but they do little to make sure it converts. Some of the reasons visitors “bounce” off pages on your site are:

• Not enough information to make a decision.
• No call to action. “How to Buy”
• Price or Shipping is not competitive.
• Content is not relevant to their search. (I want light bulbs not flower bulbs)

What have we learned in today’s blog post?  Go with what you know, not what you think you know. What are my web site analytics telling me?  If you follow the competitive SEO siren song thinking you can OPTIMIZE your site to get ahead of your competition on a couple broad key terms, I can promise you, you will be disappointed. Be smart about where you want to rank in the search engines, develop a plan to convert your existing traffic, then execute your plan.

One of the things I hear most often from clients when we discuss further developing content for their website is something along the lines of, “I’m not really sure what to write” or “there is not much to say about X, Y, or Z”. Many of our customers, already busy with the other responsibilities of running a small business are not sure where to begin in developing additional content for their website. Bottom line is that quality content is important for your website because it helps to sell your product or service. Here are five questions to get the ideas flowing:

1.) Do your product descriptions provide enough information?
Often times, business owners are too close to their products to realize that they may not be giving website visitors enough information to make an informed buying decision. Product descriptions need to be detailed and descriptive. Take a step back, put yourself in your customers’ shoes and take a look at your product descriptions to see if they offer enough detail to encourage a visitor to take the next step and purchase the product. Even if you do not sell your products online or instead offer a service, visitors need enough information to take the next step to contact you, whether by phone, email, or request form.

Also, if possible, make sure your product has a (good) picture! No matter what the item for sale, a good picture of your product will only increase your chances of making the sale – people want to see what they’re buying.

2.) Are there other ways to shop your products?
Websites often present their products in one, singular way, with a list of major product categories available for sale. Ask yourself if there is another way that visitors might want to shop your products. For example, if you sell Widgets, you might display the categories on your site as: Red Widgets, Blue Widgets, and Green Widgets. Well, what if someone did not want to shop by the type of Widget, but rather what the Widget can do. You may then want to develop a page for your website that outlines some of the more common uses for your product and then list the various product options you have available that would fulfill those needs. A simple place to start would be to look at the markets you serve and determine which of your products meet the needs of that market.

3.) What questions do your customers ask on a regular basis?
Another easy place to start in developing content for your website is to take a look at the types of questions you get asked by your customers most often and begin to develop a list of frequently asked questions. Not only will developing this list of questions help you develop more content for the website, but you will hopefully mitigate some of the extraneous phone calls and emails you receive by answering a customer’s question through a list of frequently asked questions. Start with a couple and then add to this list as you begin to take note of what customers ask you most often.

4.) What are your customers saying about you?
What better way to sell your product than to have other people do it for you! Testimonials from satisfied customers are a great way to communicate the benefits of your products in a non-biased way. Testimonials can be a powerful tool in helping to make a sale; especially when the customer may not be able to physically see a product or if you are selling a service. Just as with the frequently asked questions, start with one or two and grow your number from there as more opportunities arise. Another, even more impactful method in gathering testimonials is to create customer video testimonials.

5.) What other information can you provide your customers to help you sell your product or service?
Think about the following questions: What are the best applications for your product? Is installation necessary and how is this done? How does your product compare to others? What are other ways to use your product other than the obvious features?  Anything that is related to your product or service can potentially help to sell it if positioned the right way. As when developing your product descriptions, try to put yourself in the shoes of your customers and determine what additional information might help them to make the purchase.

Keep in mind that in developing your content, keep it brief and succinct! You only have a few seconds to grab and keep a reader’s attention. Tips include:

-          Use bulleted/numbered lists or brief statements – not long paragraphs

-          Get to the point quickly – let readers know what’s in it for them

-          Have a clear call to action – tell your readers what you want them to do

What other questions can you ask yourself that will help you generate more content and increase sales?

“Our business has changed dynamically since we got going on the Internet. In the past, we had 88 sales reps on the street. Those 88 reps never produced 1/10 of what our Website currently produces. The way we go to market has changed completely. We no longer use sales reps and now we do all of our marketing and selling online.”

Tom Rich, Director at CH Ellis, Inc.

There’s nothing better than a fired-up client … a client eager to spend resources and energy on doing smart things in a smart way … a client ready for results and willing to do what it takes to get them.

And there’s nothing worse than having to tell that client to holster it back up because they aren’t ready to pull the trigger.

That is sometimes the situation we find ourselves in when our small business clients are interested in implementing social media strategies before they have made sure that the location they are driving traffic to – usually their Web site – is prepared to handle the traffic.

When it comes to marketing their own brand, many small- and mid-sized businesses are working with limited resources.  So a decision to increase focus in one area often inadvertently becomes a decision to decrease attention in another.

Embarking on a social media strategy is a major undertaking for any company, an effort that often manages to soak up a lot of internal resources.  This can mean that the more mundane efforts it takes to update the company Web site can often go ignored, leaving the place you are trying to drive more traffic to looking something less than its best. Why is this a problem?  Because social media efforts are just a means to an end, with your final goal being to convert traffic into sales.

It’s important that the first step of your social media strategy be taking a look at your Web site and making sure it is an effective end-destination for every tweet, blog post and shared video.

• Are there clear “calls to action” throughout your Web site?
• Are your products and service pages current, accurate and complete?
• If you are targeting a specific audience with specific services/products needs in your social media efforts, are those services/products easily found?
• Are your contact pages updated and complete?  Is it easy for customers to continue the dialog that you started with a social media vehicle?
• Is your Web site content of interest to your social media audiences?

Pages that need simple corrections should be taken care of right away.  Any section that needs more extensive effort should be avoided as landing pages for social media traffic.  Once you are comfortable that your Web site is ready and able to do handle the new traffic, your company can feel comfortable in taking its first shot at social media success.

Lately I have been spending a considerable amount of time visiting with our customers located all over the U.S. The purpose in my recent “road warrior” lifestyle is twofold: First, I’ve made a commitment to personally meet with our customers in 2010, and second, I’m presenting many of them with our additional value added services.

The acceptance rate of our community management offering has been unprecedented. As I mentioned in a previous post, this service has to do with our customers’ adoption of social media. Cazbah provides them with the technology, work processes, and dedicated service and support to increase their inbound marketing opportunities. It also establishes them as the center-of-influence within their communities, hence the name.

On a recent visit with one of our clients while presenting a community management proposal, we got into a discussion about the viability of social media within their particular industry. Our client admitted he wasn’t too familiar with social media networks and expressed his concerns about how social media was going to help him sell his products (a very reasonable and accurate concern). While I did take the opportunity to highlight some of the benefits of social media for his business, it became clear to me that we need to  educate all of our clients regarding new media techniques that can improve their businesses.

With a wry smile, the client  asked, “I wonder what Warren Buffet is doing in social media?” He stopped me in my tracks. I thought, “what a great question.” Even though he was half joking, he struck on something profound. Clearly, if you are considering a change, you look to the leaders to gain insight into your decision making process. Who better than Warren Buffet, one of the savviest business men in the world.

Social media plays a vital role in viral marketing and enables further brand awareness. This is accomplished by establishing word-of-mouth communication between community members regarding relevant information which induces purchasing by driving traffic to a company’s Web site. Additionally, social media removes the barriers that may normally exist between a company and its customers, giving them the opportunity to communicate openly and virtually instantaneously.

Warren Buffet’s holding company, Berkshire Hathaway now owns a diverse range of businesses including railroads, candy production, retail, home furnishings, encyclopedias, vacuum cleaners, jewelry sales, newspaper publishing, manufacture and distribution of uniforms, manufacture, import and distribution of footwear; as well as several regional electric and gas utilities.

A partial list of companies that Berkshire Hathaway either has a complete ownership, a controlling ownership or a significant ownership in include; GEICO Insurance, The Pampered Chef, Dairy Queen, Benjamin Moore & Co., BoatU.S., NetJets, CocaCola and H.H. Brown Shoes. For a complete listing of their subsidiary companies click here http://tr.im/RRM5.

Several of the Berkshire Hathaway companies are major consumer brands like Benjamin Moore paint for example. A quick trip to their company Web site provides a link to their blog and an invitation to join the dialogue on all things color – the newest trends, products, and latest stories on everything from fashion to food, from art to architecture – on the blog “Living in Color with Sonu.”

BoatsU.S., the boat owners association of the United States, provides a listing of boating groups, message boards, member services, not to mention 118 Web pages chock full of boating blogs dealing with topics ranging from trans-Atlantic crossings to how to overcome your fears of traveling to places like Columbia.

The Dairy Queen Web site sports a mug of Warren Buffet himself on their homepage alongside an invitation to download their iPhone app, DQ Craze. A trip to their Facebook page shows an active community of over 800,000 fans. Their Twitter page heralds constant notifications about new content being posted to the company’s blog which, is supported by a team of eight dedicated bloggers.

Who hasn’t heard of (or seen) GEICO or is it Gecko? Needless to say, they’re everywhere and the Web is no exception. You can check out their YouTube channel to see all those crazy commercials featuring that zany lizard, cave man or pile of money with the ‘googly’ eyes. They too have an iPhone app called Glovebox™ with all sorts of info to engage their customers. The GEICO blog shows active participation on the part of four dedicated company bloggers and customers from around the world.

I could go on and on but you get the point. Warren Buffet knows all about social media. All of the companies that Berkshire Hathaway owns, controls or is invested in are currently and actively engaged in all aspects of social media. The bottom line about social media is that it’s all about the bottom line, and Warren Buffet clearly understands the dramatic value and business revenue that social media brings.

For years now my customers have asked me about video on their websites and how that medium might be used to compliment their products and services sales. Until recently, I have always been a bit cautious because of the time and cost of producing videos versus the benefit received from such a marketing activity.

In the last year we’ve seen a number of tools introduced into the marketplace to increase value while decreasing the amount of time spent producing videos. Social media sites like YouTube and Facebook have made it very easy to upload videos and share them. Additionally, video camera and even cell phone technology have made it much easier to create videos and get them onto the internet for viewing.

Why
So why would you ever want to create a video for your ecommerce web site? You want sales. After all isn’t that why you have a commerce site? Video can give you a real competitive advantage by sharing your knowledge and advice on how to get the most out of the product or service you are selling. This will attract viewers who,if done correctly, can become customers.

How
I like to use a video camera called Flip Video. This inexpensive video recorder is small and easy to use. It creates quality video without a lot of complexity. Most importantly Flip Video has very easy to use software for editing and uploading your videos. Once you have shot your video you need to decide where to upload it. I use YouTube as the hub for my customer’s videos. YouTube allows you to store your videos for free and has a number of tools to allow you to promote them. Once I have uploaded the video to YouTube I can embed that video on my customer’s web site, blog, Facebook, etc.

Results
In the end the reason we do this is because we are creating value. We are showing the world what we know about our products and services so we can build trust and ultimately make more sales. This is precisely what a number of our clients have done. For instance take a look at my customer’s video listed on the Google search page for the term “saniguard spray”. My customer doesn’t just sell Saniguard spray, he creates value by showing how to use it properly. This video has done a lot to increase their sales of the Saniguard spray product line. Lastly I will leave you with a video that took me about an hour and a half to shoot, produce, and upload. I used a Flip Video, uploaded to YouTube and then embedded the video to my customer’s appropriate product web page. The “video value” my customer creates in this video will be sure to increase his sales. How can you increase your “video value”?

We’ve been at this specialty small business online marketing game for the better part of 10 years now, and we have hundreds of successful specialty small business customers, for whom we generate literally tens of millions of dollars in new revenue from the web…

So here’s what really chaps my set-upon; I would have to say that every customer (to a one) that we’ve gotten (and still have by the way) over the years, has had at least one (if not several) bad experience with another web development company or so-called guru or expert, before we’ve had the pleasure of their business.

In most cases this has cost them tens of thousands of dollars in fees for a mediocre website and whatnot, plus the loss of revenues, i.e., the money they should have made but didn’t. This can easily get into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Being completely objective, which is difficult for me to do in this particular case, this is a blessing and a curse:

The Blessing — There are an ever increasing number of hucksters out there putting out an incessant commentary on the virtues (not that they would know virtue if it bit them) of Internet Marketing, in all of its varied forms and functions.

That’s good, because whether they realize it or not, they are advancing the cause, so-to-speak, by raising the awareness of the relatively uninitiated small business owner or entrepreneur for all things Internet. If there is anything we can use more of it’s awareness.

The Curse — These maleficent marketers who shill, bait and switch, sell a pig in a poke, have no concern for the bad faith and jaundice they create in the industry as a whole. I can’t tell you the number of times we hear things like, “You guys are all the same.” Or, “I just talked to a group that does exactly what you do.” Or, “I spent 2o grand with the company who did my website and now they want even more money to fix it. Why should I trust you?”

Needless to say most small businesses are gun shy when it comes to Internet Marketing or the companies who profess expertise in this area. Can you blame them?

For this reason, I’ve come up with the following questions to help small businesses in their vetting process when determining an Internet Marketing company to work with.

How many customers do you have?

How many customers like me do you have?

What is your Federal Tax ID?

How long have you been in business?

Can y0u give me a list of a dozen customers, with their website addresses, that I can call and talk to personally?

Do you have employees (i.e., the kind you can touch), and if so how many?

Can you give me a demonstration of your work?

Who will I be working with if I choose to become a customer of yours?

Can you show me first hand examples of the results, SEO, Conversion, Sales that you have achieved?

Do you have your own technology? If not, who’s do you use?

Do you have any certifications, Google Analytics, Addwords, etc?

What are you going to do for me EXACTLY?

What is this going to cost, EXACTLY?

And of course; Does your mom still do your laundry?

For our part, I welcome all of these questions and any others that you can think up. We’ll continue to keep killin’ it for our specialty small business customers, under-promising and over-delivering every single time.

Get comfortable with saying “No.” It is the most important word in your small business vocabulary. One of the predominant issues that small businesses face, due largely to the absence of a CCI – Customer Composite Index (see previous post), is their inability to say “No” to a prospect or customer when they should.

Here’s how it works; they (small business) have a sales opportunity but it’s really not what they do. But, the customers or prospect trusts them, perhaps due to a pre-existing relationship. And that prospect or customer really needs whatever “it” is. Rather than saying, “I’m sorry, we don’t do that. But, I’d be happy to help you find someone who does.” Or, “I know exactly who to point you to, let me make a phone call…” The small business decides that there’s an opportunity to make a quick buck, and “it” really isn’t that far-afield…

Well, I think you probably know the rest of the story (thank you Paul Harvey). The small business takes the job and ends up scrambling (i.e., jumping through hoops) to get it done. They don’t really understand what they are doing so the quality isn’t there. They won’t deliver on time and they spent too much money building or delivering “it.”

Net, net…
Net result? A big looser! Not only did they alienate everyone within their own small business, they lost money on the job, (they would know this if they kept track of such things). And most egregious of all, they broke the trust of a customer who may very well tell all her friends and neighbors about what a pathetic job the small business did for her. Don’t even get me started about the social media implecations of such a message getting out about you. That’s called Word Of Mouth and in this case, it’s not good!

I wish I could say this doesn’t happen very often but I can pretty much guarantee that if you are reading this you have either been involved in such a debacle, been on the receiveing end or, you know of one first hand. Solution? Do what you do best and forget the rest! Your customers, your employees and your banker will love you for it!

If you are going to succeed on the web, be it as a manufacturer, retailer, dealer / distributor, consultant, coach or whatever, it is essential that you identify, as specifically as you possibly can, who your prospective customers are. This is the foundation upon which Target Marketing is based.

An easy way to tackle this problem is through the development of a Customer Composite Index (CCI). Your CCI is a detailed list of characteristics that very specifically and succinctly defines your customers. Ask yourself the following questions: who, what, where, when, how and why.

An example of some of these types of questions are; who are our customers, what do they do, where do they live, (in the case of consumer products)? Or, where are they located (in the case of businesses)? Does their location have any significance to the product or service I’m offering? Does how they live have any bearing? What business are they in – product, service, specialty, commodity? What’s their annual income or revenue? How many employees do they have?

Additionally, are there customer personality or lifestyle traits that are important to your business? And, who are their customers? This is especially important, because if you understand their customer’s needs, you truly know what makes them tick! What are their interests and hobbies? I am sure you can come up with many more relevant questions that will help you to define your CCI. The point is, if you know who your customers are, by virtue of your CCI, then you know what you are looking for in a new customer.

If you have trouble with this exercise, visit an existing customer (or five) and ask them these questions. This gives you the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. 1) You will meet with them and get some face time, for a very legitimate reason. Which means you can continue to build your relationship. 2) In your questioning, you will inevitably communicate your concern through your interest in understanding your customer better. You never know, you may just uncover an unmet need or two that you can convert into a sale!