Chasing after the magic pill.
No matter how much progress and evolution move, nevertheless, a significant proportion of managers and business owners still hope to find some secret in the Internet marketing, able to provide a boom in sales and frantic growth of customers.
Yes, the tools for promotion on the Internet are becoming more and more. It is very difficult for any business owner to understand them. But, do not despair to start chasing after a magic pill or a magic button “sell”. Neither of these things exist in nature.
It is necessary to approach systematically and strategically the issue of business promotion and the value of such a solution will be discussed in the next paragraph.
Lack of marketing strategy.
Any way should start with an action plan. Almost everybody knows this truth, but only a few follow it. And it is not surprising that those who have a marketing strategy in place (regardless of the professionalism of its preparation), bypass those competitors who neglect this important component of any business.
All business schools from Harvard to Shanghai teach one key skill – to make effective business plans and marketing strategies.
Having a strategic goal and a marketing plan, which will describe your target audience, its problems, which solves your product or service, sales cycle, stages of decision-making, etc. – Having all this, you will be able to easily determine which advertising tools are best suited for your business.
For example, if you want to place on your site an online consultant widget, and the strategy states that the main task of the site – to motivate to call, where the manager will “sell” your product (and no matter what the product or service is), then within the framework of this strategy is immediately clear – through the online consultant visitor to the site will quickly get an answer to your question and the reasons to call you will be much less.
As a result, you will not be able to keep the contact of a potential client and will not be able to call him back in an attempt to “twist” it before buying. The conclusion is that you don’t need an online consultant for such a strategy.
No uniqueness.
Any company, its goods and services must have its uniqueness. Do you know what a potential customer does when he does not see any difference between products? Begins to compare by the same criterion available to him – the price!
That’s why so many business owners think that the lowest price is the main reason for buying. As we can see, this is true only when your product is no different from that of a competitor.
But it’s worth bringing uniqueness to your product, separating yourself from your competitors and you will notice that users will ask less for a price, will not trade discounts, will buy with great desire and will increase the percentage of re-purchases.
The worst thing you can do for your business is to make it stand out in the eyes of potential customers.
No UTP.
UTP is a unique trade offer. The most frequent purpose of UTP – to beat the uniqueness of the business in a simple to understand advertising expression.
UTP can be based on false benefits. For example, toothpaste, which differs from the previous model only in the color of the package, but is presented as one that is 5 times better whitens teeth than the previous one. If you put together all the promises made by toothpaste producers in each of their new advertisements, then the entire population of the planet at least a few years ago should make each other shining white teeth every day.
It can also be based on true benefits. For example, “the best hotel in Ukraine with dolphins”, or “Farmer’s restaurant with all-natural products”.
UTP must be used by marketers and advertisers in the implementation of any advertising campaign, and it is not important on the Internet this advertising will be held or offline.
Advertising does not correspond to the stages of decision making.
In the tourism business, the average decision making time of a potential client is measured in several weeks and sometimes even months. And, at decision-making, the person passes 5 known stages of the decision – from the first stage of full unawareness to the fifth – full awareness.
In the process of conditional passing through these stages, the visitor needs different content of information.
For example, first visitor to the site will think about what country he wants to go on vacation. After selecting a country, will choose the most appropriate city. After the city will be determined with the hotel, and after the hotel – will look for the best prices for this offer.
This logic may differ slightly from person to person, but it is this detailed chain is shown in order for you to understand that at different stages of the visitor needs different kinds of information, but only 98% of advertisers do not take this into account and lead the visitor to the same page, forcing him to independently find what he is interested in at the moment.
But you should provide the necessary information on your site for the visitor to each of the 5 stages of decision-making, and your sales will increase significantly.
Ineffective site.
Around this point you can nto write a whole book. The main problem lies in the fact that the site is developed without understanding the marketing strategy of programmers who not only have no idea about marketing, but also do not understand the peculiarities of Internet advertising.
As a result, often, the owner gets a site that can be very nice to the eye, but will be very bad to sell when launching advertising.
An example of another kind of error on the site. For most travel agencies it is very important that the potential client can easily find the address of the company on the site, as well as easily and without difficulty to get to the office, well, and on the spot quickly orientate and get into the office of the travel agency.
Why is it important? Because if your potential client will be looking for your office for a long time or, even worse, will get lost, he or she will not get to you, or will get in a bad mood, which, in turn, will reduce the likelihood of sale.
Surprisingly, you can very easily make life easier for your potential customers by additionally posting a photo of your office facade or the building where your office is located on the Contacts page. This way, the potential client will be able to orientate themselves very quickly, find you quickly and appreciate your concern for your comfort and will be in good spirits, which will increase the likelihood of selling.
How much effort does it take to implement such a solution? Up to an hour of work. And how much do you know about the travel agencies that have implemented it on their website?
