Monday, April 23, 2012

Is it time to revamp your website?

If you feel that rebuilding your website from scratch is too daunting a task, then you could consider revamping or re-skinning your website. Below are some reasons why you should consider revamping your website:

1. Quicker turnaround time
By using the basic structure and content of your existing website, you can achieve a new and revitalised look and feel for your website in a very shorter amount of time then if you were to rebuild a new website from scratch.

2. Custom designed website
A web designer can work with your existing website structure and create custom designed mock-up to suit your company’s branding and personality.

3. Updated graphics and styles
All it takes to make your website look fresh and modern is some new graphics, or a simple layout update. This could include fresh and updated colours, updated photos etc.

4. Lower initial cost
A revamped website could be a cheaper option then designing a whole new website from scratch.

5. Increase conversion rate and ROI
Revamping your website could help increase your website conversion.

If you would like more information about a website design for your business, speak to one of the marketing consultants at TA Fastrack today on 1300 659 289.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Top tips to get more 'likes' and fans on Facebook

Below are some tips for businesses who have a Facebook page and want to increase the number of fans.

Share great content
It’s important to keep the needs of your customers in mind – why are you on facebook and why should they like your page?

We recommend sharing relevant, informative and useful information. For example, links to interesting videos, articles, blog posts, news, photos etc. Content is central to driving likes and engagement and it's important to always have fresh and relevant content to get new customers and keep existing ones.

To keep fans interested, we recommend the 80/20 rule - 80% of all content on your page should be targeted at the customer and their interests (eg links to videos, photos, ask questions etc) and the other 20% can be sales focused updates about your products and latest promotions and specials.

Keeping your fans interested

The key to attracting more ‘likes’ and to keeping the attention of existing fans. We recommend building a lifestyle or concept around the brand. For example, posting photos of the view, or links to major events in the area to entice fans to visit your property again.

The new timeline look
Facebook recently changed the layout of business’ pages to display posts as branches on a timeline. The most recent content appear at the top of the page. The new timeline best suits photos and businesses can pin a special offer at the top of the page.

Run a competition
One of the easiest ways of getting more fans is running a competition with material incentives.

Research shows that 57% of consumers follow a business or brand's facebook page so they can enjoy a discount at that business. The second most popular was giveaways, with 45% of respondents indicating this as a motivator for engaging with a business or brand on social media, followed by invitations to events and product information (41% each).

Before you run a competition, make sure you adhere to Facebook's contest regulations and guidelines.

Facebook Ads

Another easy way of building fans is by using Facebook Ads. The ads work in a similar way to Google’s AdWords as they are priced on a pay-per-click basis that businesses bid for. The beauty of Facebook ads is that it can be targeted to your specific demographics or interest, for example, female aged 25-45, living in Sydney, who have expressed an interest in travel etc.

Facebook ads are very learn to set up and flexible.


If you need any further information about Facebook marketing, speak to TA Fastrack today on 07 3040 3588 or visit www.tafastrack.com.au for more details.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Get customers for life

What is the purpose of a business? Every time I ask this question during a business seminar, the immediate answer that I get back is, “To make a profit.”

The Real Purpose of a Business
But this answer is wrong. The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.

If a business successfully creates and keeps customers in a cost-effective way, it will make a profit while continuing to survive and thrive. If, for any reason, a business fails to attract or sustain a sufficient number of customers, it will experience losses. Too many losses will lead to the demise of the enterprise.

Why Businesses Fail
According to Dun and Bradstreet, the single, most important reason for the failure of businesses in America is lack of sales. And, of course, this refers to resales as well as initial sales.

So your company’s job is to create and keep a customer, and your job is exactly the same. Remember, no matter what your official title is, you are a salesperson for yourself and your company. And the best way to increase your value as a salesperson is to build your customer base.

Why Businesses Succeed
The two most important words to keep in mind in developing a successful customer base are Positioning and Differentiation.

Positioning refers to the way your customers think and talk about you and your company when you are not there. The position that you hold in the customer’s mind determines all of his reactions and interactions with you. Your position determines whether or not your customer buys, whether he buys again and whether he refers others to you. Everything that you do with regard to your customer affects the way your customer thinks about you.

The Key to Competitive Advantage
Differentiation refers to your ability to separate yourself and your product or service from that of your competitors. And it is the key to building and maintaining a competitive advantage. This is the advantage that you and your company have over your competitors in the same marketplace - the unique and special benefits that no one else can give your customer.

Select Your Customers Carefully

When you begin to think about acquiring and keeping customers for life, you need to think about the particular types of customers for whom your competitive advantage is so important that they would be poorly served by using anyone else’s product. You need to then emphasize again and again that the special features and benefits you offer are so important that they should not even think of going somewhere else. If, for any reason, you fail to do this, you may lose the customer and all the work you’ve done in building that relationship in the first place.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, determine exactly what your current positioning is today with your customers. How do they think about you and what do they say? How could you improve your positioning?

Second, determine your exact competitive advantage, your area of superiority in what you do. How can you increase in your area of excellence and then convey it better to your customers?

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

How to monitor your presence on social media

Below are some tips on what you should be tracking on social media.

Facebook
Facebook is a great way for you to jump right in and start interacting with past and potential customers. Your business page wall allows you and your fans to interact directly with your business. Fans can post comments, feedback, questions etc.

On Facebook, you should be monitoring:
  1. The wall post - fans who post on your wall, provide feedback, reviews or who like your page.
  2. Comments - fans who interact with you, answer your questions, polls, fun games etc
  3. Likes - anyone who 'likes' your post, photos etc means they like the content of that post.
Twitter
Twitter lets you and your followers post short and sharp tweets, comments or links quickly. Because the tweets are limited to 140 characters, it may become overwhelming as the tweets will come through quickly, but the tweets and information you should be monitoring for on Twitter include:
  1. Questions - be ready to respond quickly to anyone's questions about your business or products and services. Be helpful by answering anyone's questions about your industry too. It's a great way to build credibility and will showcase you as the expert in your field
  2. Support - it's important to respond quickly to anyone asking for help. If you respond quickly to a person's question or request for help, it will show that you're listening and you care.
  3. Feedback - be sure to acknowledge any complaints or negative feedback and resolve any issues as soon as possible. Acknowledge any positive feedback with a thank you or even retweet it to show your other followers what people think about your business!
  4. Monitor any other conversations or 'mentions' about your competitors. Keep up-to-date with what they are doing, so you can keep ahead of the game.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a great social media platform for networking, recruiting, promote relevant content written by you and for showcasing you as a thought leader in your industry.

Below are some items you should be monitoring on LinkedIn:
  1. Use LinkedIn Answers - showcase your expertise and build your credibility as an expert in your field.
  2. Group discussions - answer questions or link to other relevant resources.
Blogs
Blogs are a great way to create content that's relevant to your business and can be used to drive traffic to your website. Providing relevant and quality blog articles can also position you as a thought leader in your industry.

With blogs, you can track:
  1. Comments - view what people are saying about your articles, your competitors or the industry. Provide your comments or feedback if relevant
  2. Links - are there other websites or blogs linking back to your blog articles?
Monitor what is being said about your business - some simple tools include:
  1. Check into Twitter and view any twitter mentions about your business. You can use the search function in Twitter to check for industry tweets or terms, mentions or @replies or hashtags
  2. LinkedIn has a RSS function for question categories, which provides a feed to you when someone asks a question in that category.
  3. Set up Google News or Google Blogs which are great tools for collecting and searching for articles that are important to your business
  4. Set up Google Alerts, which tracks any relevant articles on a particular keyword (eg your business name or industry term etc). You can set it up to receive alerts in real-time or for it to send you an email once a day/week.
  5. Log into your Facebook page and scan your wall for comments.
For assistance with social media monitoring, or if you would like more information about social media marketing, speak to one of the marketing consultants at TA Fastrack today on 1300 659 289 or visit www.tafastrack.com.au.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Website design and usability

First impressions count. Your website represents who you are as a business and brand and shows everyone what you offer. The website design needs to set people's minds at ease and show them that you are credible, your business can be trusted and it's professional. Your website also needs to make them feel welcome and be easy enough for them to navigate, find the information they want straight away and lets them book or call you without any hassles.

Below are some of our tips for great website design and will do the above things mentioned above.

Colour
Use the right colours to draw attention to specific aspects (eg your phone number or book now button). Don't make everything jump out, otherwise, nothing will stand out. We recommend keeping the website clean and avoid using too many colours.

Avoid using too many animations, gadgets or media
Avoid anything unnecessary. Keep flash animations to a minimum and only use media if it helps support your content, information or easily puts your message across quickly. Also, flash files cannot be read by search engine spiders and some browsers may block flash. Flash also cannot be viewed on smartphones.

Easy to use layout & navigation
Organise your webpages so that people can find the information they want quickly and easily. Create a clear navigation structure. Don't be afraid of using white space. Avoid clutter. Surveys show that approximately 76% of survey respondents say that the most important part of a website is the ease in which they can find information. We recommend including a navigation in the footer of your website, use breadcrumbs on every page and include internal links to other pages within your webpage copy.

Typography
Make sure that the content can be read easily. Use fonts, font sizes and colours that can be easily read. Break up the content using headings, sub-headings, bullet points and keep the paragraphs short.

Images
Images say a thousand words and are a powerful element of a website that can entice customers to stay on your website further and book with you. Use images that will be relevant to your audience. For example, if you are a holiday accommodation on the Sunshine Coast, you would use photos of families on the beach instead of businessmen in suits. Showcase your apartments with high resolution photos of your facilities, rooms and building.

Make it accessible
Make sure that your website can be viewed in all major web browsers, smartphones and tablets.

If you need help with a new website design for 2012, or if you would like some recommendations on how to improve your current website, speak to one of the marketing consultants at TA Fastrack today on 07 3040 3588 or visit www.tafastrack.com.au.