Social Proof

If you have only a single product to release, you can use any method of scheduling you like, from a paper calendar, to a word processing document, to project management software. If you are releasing multiple products, it is a good idea to use a calendar that allows individual schedules to be combined into a master schedule, so that your overall marketing obligations can be seen at a glance.

Start at the end

You need to know what product you will be releasing, as well as when you will release it. You must know exactly how your product matches the market’s needs, and be able to communicate the value of the product to that market. Consider important dates for your industry, such as trade shows, regional holidays, and releases by industry heavyweights, and plan your product launch around them. Depending upon the goal of your launch you will need to ensure that you have both the capability to measure your goal and the infrastructure to serve it.

Build excitement

The pre-launch part of your product launch builds excitement and creates demand for your product. You can use affiliate partners, direct mail, email, teleseminars, videos, webinars, and other means of communication. Each type has a different lead time. An email campaign to existing customers may consist of three emails that go out prior to the launch, one the day of the launch, one after the launch, and one before the offer ends. An affiliate marketer campaign needs to send these emails to the affiliates prior to the distribution dates. Direct mail campaigns require time to print, proof, and if necessary re-print the pieces prior to the mailing dates. Schedule when things must be sent out, as well as when they must be written and reviewed.

Use all available resources

Other buzz-building options include contests, review copies, and beta-tests, all of which need to be added to the schedule. One popular style of contest requires everyone who enters to give a testimonial, which establishes social proof for your product. Allow time to add the testimonials to your sales copy. Leverage the power of your affiliates, the press, existing customers, thought leaders, investors, industry analysts, family, and friends to get the word out.

Create urgency

You can create urgency for your product by having a limited number, by having it available for a limited time, or by releasing it at a deeply discounted price for a limited number of customers or days. Tell people why they must buy your product immediately, and then follow through on that promise. Otherwise, you risk destroying your credibility, and with it all sense of urgency in your customer. The post-launch phase of your product launch begins the moment your product is available for sale, and ends when the window of availability closes. During this time, continue to stress the need to act with urgency.

Thanks!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

The Internet Marketing Academy

http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com

(Image: MorgueFile)

To increase your conversions from website visitors, you need a professional website that visitors feel can be trusted. A clean, uncluttered website design that can be easily navigated lends a professional feel. One simple way to make your website more trustworthy is to use certification logos from your shopping cart system or other authentication system. The best way to make your website more trustworthy, however, is to use testimonials.

Text testimonials

Software exists that allows you to create a JavaScript text box on your website that can display a variety of different testimonials from your happy customers. Depending on implementation, the text may be replaced at various intervals or may slowly scroll up the box. This sort of feature lends itself to short testimonials of no more than a sentence or two. Because you are showing a great volume of testimonials, the individual testimonials do not have to be perfect. The human touch of unique phrasing, odd spellings, and unusual focus adds realism and additional believability. If your company is known for one thing, such as rapid delivery, the occasional testimonial talking about other facets of your company, such as customer service, rounds out the picture of your company as trustworthy and reliable.

Showcases

Showcases are longer testimonials, usually including photographs or other visual information demonstrating the situation for the customer before your company was hired, or your product was purchased, and the vastly improved situation afterwards. They are frequently multiple paragraphs in length. Because of this, they are often located on a separate webpage devoted to customer success stories. You can feature one showcase on your main webpage, or offer links to them in a JavaScript box similar to the one used for text testimonials. Because of the nature of showcases, images that capture the essence of the customer experience as well as a few key words make the best links.

Video testimonials

The most believable testimonials are video testimonials. After all, people have a finely developed sense of when another person is lying. They will trust someone giving their testimonial in video format more than they will trust that exact same testimonial in text format. The keys to making a convincing video testimonial are to connect the video with the product or service. Instead of simply filming a “talking head” against a boring backdrop, show the person using the product or service while talking about how wonderful it is. This engages the viewer and makes your product or service seem more familiar even while it stresses the value and trustworthiness. You can also intersperse video of a customer speaking with voice over still images. That lets you demonstrate the before and after nature of the testimonial much as a showcase does while keeping the power of video.

Thanks!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

The Internet Marketing Academy

http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com

(Image: MorgueFile)

At this time of year, many people are putting large amounts of energy into cleaning and tidying their homes, getting ready to receive guests. But how much attention has your business given to receiving guests to your web site? Your web site should make it easy for visitors to find three crucial pieces of information about your business – your unique selling proposition, your niche knowledge, and your track record.

Unique selling proposition

Your business is not the same as other businesses. Whether it is the attitude you bring, your particular blend of past experience, or simply the types of jobs you take on, there is something about your business that makes you unique. Your web site should showcase this aspect of your business so that it is clearly visible to the potential customer.

Consider plumbers. One might stress that they have been in business longer than anyone else in that particular city, another might stress that they have 24×7 response teams for plumbing emergencies, another might stress that they quote prices by the job rather than the hour so there are no surprises, and yet another might stress that they use the newest high-tech tools for diagnosing potential plumbing issues before they become expensive problems. These are all the ways in which those particular companies are unique, and which will shape the rest of how their websites are presented.

Niche knowledge

Some companies are generalists, but most companies have one or more niches in which they have developed more than just a surface level of skill. That niche knowledge makes the company more appealing to other businesses in that niche, who feel that the company will understand the details of their industry already, and be able to focus on what makes their business unique and different within that industry.

This also allows you to refine which areas you would prefer to work in. You may have done work with a car dealership, and developed significant knowledge of the new and used car industry. However, while doing that work, you may have determined that you do not want additional work in that industry. By specifically defining the niches in which you have knowledge and experience for your potential customers, you encourage businesses in the industries in which you want to continue working, and discourage businesses in the industries in which you don’t want to continue working.

Track record

Finally, you should include your track record on your website. This can be a list of satisfied customers, before-and-after photographs of successful jobs, a page of customer testimonials, or some combination of all three. The point is to show prospective customers that you have done something similar to the job they are considering you for, and done it well.

Thanks!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

The Internet Marketing Academy

http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com

(Image: MorgueFile)

Once again, Google is causing a flurry of panic among webmasters and SEO practitioners. They recently released a new webmaster tool that allows webmasters to disavow links, in effect refusing to accept the bonus or penalty that would normally accrue to their website from having that link.

Why do webmasters need a disavowal tool?

With the Penguin update a few months back, websites began being penalised for having low-quality links. These links could be from link farms, or clearly purchased links, or links that came from a “bad neighbourhood” such as a web hosting service that filled its servers with spammers and porn sites. Webmasters saw their site rankings drop in response to Penguin, or received the note from Google informing them that they were being penalised for bad links, and tried to eliminate the bad links. Unfortunately, unscrupulous webmasters at these sites realised they had honest businesses over a barrel, and demanded as much as £2,000 to have a link removed!

A cottage industry sprang up, targeting the businesses that were most vulnerable to these types of attacks. Additionally, “black hat” SEO firms would target their client’s competitors with a flurry of bad links, forcing the competitors down in ranks while standard SEO practices lifted their client up in ranks.

The disavowal tool is intended to level the playing field again. Businesses that have been targeted by malicious link-building, or who mistakenly used easily available but poor quality links to try and get attention on the Internet, are no longer held hostage by the sites that link to them.

What’s the downside?

If this was all that the tool accomplished, there would be a sigh of relief from those impacted by Penguin, and a grumble from unscrupulous link farmers whose source of easy money is gone. However, what has the Internet Marketing community in an uproar is wondering to what use Google may put the lists of sources of bad links.

Some people worry that Google is effectively crowd sourcing its algorithm for detecting bad links. As a result, they are concerned that sites which receive multiple disavowal requests will be blacklisted, and all sites that the blacklisted site links to will get penalised for those links.

There are two avenues of abuse this would open up to black hat SEO practitioners. The first is to mimic the links coming in to a competitor’s site, and then disavow those links, making them worth less or even incurring a penalty for their competitor. The other is to somehow trick a competitor into creating a link to a special site set up for this purpose, and then disavowing that link, again penalising their competitor.

For now, unless you need to use the disavowal tool to recover from a Penguin hit, the best thing to do is to watch and wait until it is clear where this is leading.

Thanks!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

The Internet Marketing Academy

http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com

(Image: Morgue File)

It’s one thing to have a “pretty” website. However, it’s another thing to have a site that builds trust in the prospect.

Here are 5 elements you should have on your website that builds trust. These tips would work great for a homepage-style website that’s the face of a company.

1) Testimonials

People only buy from vendors they trust. If you have proof that other people have obtained the benefits they are looking for through your product/service. Having plenty of testimonials on your site can boost credibility.

2) Case Studies

These are testimonials that are more involved and go into more detail. Case studies are in general more credible since they include more information regarding how the prospect obtained the desired benefits.

3) A Phone Number

Most websites do not have phone contact information. Just having a phone number people can call builds credibility since most people consider a “real” business to have a phone number. These days, you can get an online phone number for very cheap through Skype and other online services.

4) “About Me” Page

The more you tell about yourself the more you’ll sell. Like I mentioned before, people only buy from people they trust and they want to know if you are qualified to help them with their problem or desire.

5) Links To Your Blog And Social Media Accounts

Having a blog and social media accounts via Twitter and Facebook shows you are active in your niche and aren’t just a “fly-by-night” operation. It also gives people another way to keep up with you as well.

Trust and credibility is extremely important now more than ever–especially in today’s competitive marketplace. These tips could boost your conversions if you implement them on your website!

Live, Love, Laugh!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Internet Marketing Academy

So having a good “about me” page is critical to getting sales!

There are several things you need to have on your website if prospects are going to do business with you. Very often, many marketers leave this off their website or making it confusing to the visitor.

Here are 4 things prospect want to see on your website. If you are missing any of these 4 or you don’t think it’s clear on your site, then you need to make it clear.

1) Social Proof

Words on a website mean nothing if there isn’t any social proof on your site to show potential customers other people have achieved the benefits they are looking for. You need to have testimonials or case studies on your site as proof that you know what you’re talking about.

2) Clear Navigation

You should have clear navigation for the visitor to go wherever she wants on the site without having to hunt around forever to find it. Usually these should go along the top or side of the website. Don’t confuse your visitor, this could lead to them disappearing from your site.

3) Clear Contact Information

People like to see name, address, and phone number on the site at the bottom. Or an obvious “contact” link. They like the fact they can contact you if they have questions about the product or a problem with a purchase.

4) Clear Value Proposition

Why should they buy your widget instead of the other companies? You need to make this clear above the fold on your website. Don’t make your visitor hunt for this, you need to make this prominent because they want to know what’s in it for them.

And do not go on and on about how you’ve been in business for 34 years and how long your company has been open. Customers don’t care about this, they want to know what you’re going to do for them.

If you have these 4 things on your website, you have automatically boosted trust for your site visitor and that increases the chance they will do business with you.

Live, Love, Laugh!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Internet Marketing Academy