The A-Z of running your online business
This is a handy guide to important aspects you need to be aware of when running or setting up an online presence.
We decided to run this as a daily partwork, one letter a day (in January and February), because we think that bundling it all together would make it easier to skim over too quickly. We want to focus on one issue every day, and provide fundamentally important issues that are vital for your business to move forward in the digital world.
But we WILL bundle them all up at the end and provide the whole set as a downloadable ebook, the first of several that we will publish in 2012. To get the ebook, you will have to be subscribed to our newsletter, but you can do that anytime between now and the end of January. And of course, you can unsubscribe at any time.
And it’s a live work-in-progress too. That means if you have something specific you’d like us to cover, all you need to do is just ask. If we think it’s worth putting in, we will.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A is for Analytics
Analytics can shed light on poor website performance
We say this time and time again, and if you asked us for one single piece of advice, it would be to have some way of recording traffic on your site and a service to analyse it. The easiest and most cost-effective way to do this is Google Analytics. Recording data from site visitors is the ONLY way you can track and measure what’s happening on your website and therefore the best tool with which to change poor performance.
We wrote about this recently in our blog (Five ways to improve your website… without a web designer)
Tracking and measuring sounds very clinical, but it is a necessity. It goes much deeper than counting ‘hits’, you can find out what content is popular, where most of your traffic comes from, what pages are not working, etc. If you blog, you can see what they click on after reading your content, you can monitor landing pages, social media links, contact forms, the list is endless.
Not only is Google Analytics free to use, it is simple to add to your website if you are a DIYer, or get your web people to do it – it won’t, or shouldn’t, be expensive.
It’s worth noting that the company that provided this service before Google bought them out, were charging £200 a month for a service which has since been massively improved.
So why do they offer it free of charge?
Many of Google’s services are free to use. Google make most of their money from Adwords, a pay-per-click service that delivers contextual advertising on search pages and other websites, and, if you choose to use this, the traffic data is also fed through your analytics. So Google are creating a customer opportunity for themselves by giving you their analytics services free of charge.
If you think you like the sound of this but don’t feel you are ready for it, it really is a good idea to get it up and running now rather than later. The reason why it’s so important now is because all the time it’s collecting data, it’s storing it, so if you decide in six months to do it, you will only be able to look at your traffic from that day forward, and you’ll have to build a significant level of statistics before you can tell what effect any changes might have. If you install it today, and only start looking at it in six months, you will have six months of data, and it will be a lot easier to measure changes.
And if Google’s not your thing, there are plenty of other web analytics software packages, some are free, others have a fixed or monthly charge.
B is for Blog
It' can be difficult to work out what to write in the beginning, but you can start by writing a few words before telling the world your blog is live.
Statistics show that businesses that blog get more website visitors than businesses that don’t. Way more (Ref: Study Shows Business Blogging Leads to 55% More Website Visitors).
Blogging for your business gives your customers and leads useful information about your products and service without a hard-sell. It gives your business more credibility and shows that you are knowledgeable about your industry.
Many bloggers have been invited to write and speak for industry publications, because they have already proved that not only do they know their subject, but they can write. You are also more likely to be quoted in the press and have your articles hyperlinked and commented on, extending your reach and further establishing your credibility.
Has that convinced you to blog?
If it hasn’t, I’ll hazard a guess that you want to, but perhaps you’re unsure what to write, or think you don’t have the writing skills.
The other ‘reason’ people don’t blog is because they’re ‘too busy’. Blogging is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to market your business. Don’t make excuses.
Firstly, if you discuss your work with colleagues, clients and family, then there is almost certainly something you can blog about. Whether it is articles about your business, your customers, or general observations and opinions about your industry, there is plenty to blog about. Remember, you are an expert in your field, people want to know what you know.
Blog style can be formal or conversational, depending on how you write and your business activity.
Maybe your staff would like to have a go. Budget for your time and make regularity more important than frequency. Use social media to distribute your scribblings and ALWAYS respond to comments and conversation that build around your blog.
Key points to remember
- Blogs can include video, audio and photos
- Blogs don’t have to be long
- Blogs can be categorised
- Blogs can be used for a ‘newsfeed’
- Offer your readers content of value
If your website is built on a content management system, it should be straightforward enough for you to add a blog, but there are many easy and economical ways to get started. WordPress.com is a totally free service that gives you a world-class blogging platform, with an upgrade path to a fully hosted, customisable platform.
C is for Context
Understanding context in social media adds a new dimension to your marketing
Make no mistake, context should be at the top of your social dictionary when planning your online strategy.
You’ve probably already been doing it for your bricks and mortar marketing, now it’s time to do it online.
What’s making context so important right now is the new tools – the social networks.
Most people will know that google Adwords is based on context, that is, it places ads next to your content based on its context, so if you go to a website about skiing that uses Adwords, the ads that will display will have a connection to skiing.
But it also goes much deeper than that, because if a particular ad is clicked on more than others, this is an indicator that it has greater relevance, therefore better context.
So by understanding context better, you can improve your ads without paying more.
But this is all automated, and it’s only one aspect of using context.
It’s relevant in your web and social media too, and not only in the way you deliver your content, but also in researching your buyer demographics.
On the social web, you can find out so much more about your customers. If you’re not using Facebook to research your users’ habits and lifestyles, then start now. This is context. Know what they’re into, poll them, eek it out of them if you can.
Make lists on Twitter based on contextual relevance to what you do. Don’t just separate them into random groups, based on their obvious differences.
Segment your email list.
Then build context into your marketing strategy.
Our social web allows much better flow of information than ever before. And that in turn allows us to use context to support your online marketing.
The Facebook like button is a great example of context. And groups are too as they collect people with a definitive interest. Their ‘open graph’ is all built around context – measuring how everything we do in relation to who we follow and what else we do.
You can say how great your product is till your blue in the face, but no-one will listen until it’s put into a context that’s relevant to them.
Facebook like does this. When a Facebook user likes your post, product or page, it has context to all his/her friends. It’s a real person liking your stuff, and this is one of the most important influencers in buying decisions.
Building relevance into your marketing is a great way to make social media work harder for you. We’re moving beyond the simple ‘make conversation, and engage’ message. It was a great way to get started, but now we need to make it pay.
D is for Design
Placing all your emphasis on the visual design, will render your website only as a work of art, nothing else.
It’s easy to think of it as being purely what we see. Even the late, great Steve Jobs, said: “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
And he was right. In any web project, many things are ‘designed’ as well as the look of the website. The database is ‘designed’ to make the storage of information easy to manage and access, but nobody ever ’sees’ the way the data is stored.
The user experience is ‘designed’, and so are many of functions that make the website work, and again, these are not visual things.
So design plays an important role throughout the build process. And it also continues to play a key role as your website evolves through the rapid changes associated with the web.
But, like any facet of your web project, it must not be overindulged.
Place too much emphasis (and therefore cost) on the design (and you will have to take something away from either the development budget, usability, or marketing.
And this is far too often the case as the visual aspect of a design is picked over by many pairs of eyes.
Few will question the way something is coded, clients are generally less familiar with the nuances of usability, and marketing is driven by cost, so is rarely negotiable.
But yet, important though it is, and assuming it is being handled responsibly, design is the least important of the four pillars.
Design-led websites often fail or perform poorly because of this imbalance.
By understanding the importance of design in a project means you’ll be able to manage it properly. It’s only by not understanding the importance of design, that it will then actually start to pull resources from other budgets, weakening the whole project.
Be clear from the outset what role design will play in your project and how it weaves into the user experience, and you will have not only a beautiful website, but one that converts your browsers into buyers, not just art-lovers.
The better your copy, the higher your response rate.
E is for Email
Email is a lucrative marketing method.
After 35 years, email hasn’t shown any signs of going out of fashion, and it still represents one of the most lucrative forms of online marketing.
It’s ideal for small businesses, it’s cheap, cost-effective, measureable and social.
What’s more, it’s permission-based, just like social media, so has a higher than average response rate.
We’re talking about mass marketing here, sending out emails to a list, not single emails or a few addresses bundled together in Outlook. If you’re serious about email marketing, you need to start using mailing list management software like MailChimp, Constant Contact, or Campaign Monitor.
These products will give you an incredible amount of inspiration and flexibility in your email campaigns. They are designed to do just that.
And if the term ‘mass marketing’ makes you think ’spam’, think again, these web-based services help you keep on the right side of the law… and morality. They also allow you to do clever things like A/B split testing so you can send different versions of your email to your list in an individual campaign. This will help you make improvements to your newsletters by trying out different ideas.
MailChimp is a particularly good example, as it uses what we call the ‘Freemium’ subscription model, in which you can sign up for a limited service free of charge, and pay only if you are a larger company with a big list.
But take the word ‘limited’ with a huge pinch of salt. At the last check, they allowed 12,000 emails a month to 2,000 subscribers – that’s a lifetime of free email marketing for many small businesses.
So what should you put in your emails?
That, of course largely depends on your business, but I’ll guarantee that you’ll be on at least a handful of email lists that you receive regularly, and if these are with big companies, you can assume that they’ve spent good money on getting it right. Use them for ideas and inspiration.
The beauty of regular emails (from a buyer’s point of view) is that even if you ignore them, you know they keep on coming back week after week, month after month. From a sellers perspective, they’re not particularly intrusive, and they are a great opportunity for your business to highlight seasonal deals, tell company news, give discounts, and keep your brand in focus.
The key to a good newsletter is good copywriting. This boils down to three things:
- Great headline
- Great copy
- Great call-to-action
With those three things in the bag, your email newsletter will work wonders.
Work hard on building a good list. Don’t be tempted to just fill it with random email addresses, or ones you buy from the internet. The best list members are ones who have come to your site and choose to receive marketing emails from you – that’s called ‘opt-in’ and in marketing terms, you’re half way there.
Have a box on your website to get people to sign up to your newsletter. Tell your customers how they will benefit. If you have a shop, encourage them to sign up with every purchase. You can use your list to promote your real-world store as well as your website.
Typical read rates for email campaigns is between 20% and 30%. From that, you may only get a few clicks.
But the statistic is that for every £1 spent on email marketing, you get £43 back, so it’s a worthwhile investment. Other forms of advertising have ridiculously small response rates, so email is definitely one of the better options.
And remember, the better your copy, the higher your response rate will be.
What also makes it so good, is that the software will allow you to measure everything in your list. The number of people who read your email, which links are clicked, how many people shared it on Facebook etc.
And you can use this information to build a better campaign next time.
Like most marketing, it’s just a case of making time and not thinking it’s easy.
If you bodge it, you will get poor results. If you spend time on it and make an effort, your returns can be lucrative.
Rememember the golden rules: headline, copy, call-to-action.
F is for Free
It’s a commonly-held belief that ‘you get what you pay for’, meaning that if it costs nothing, it’s worth nothing, but they also say that ‘the best things in life are free’.
And the web is awash with free, as well as very expensive, ’stuff’.
To further complicate mattters, some of the expensive stuff is rubbish, and some of the free stuff is actually very good.
So how do you sort the wheat from the chaff.
The answer is ‘personal recommendation’. There are some blindingly good things you can get from the internet which will help with running your online business
These are our top five
Google Analytics – website traffic monitoring
WordPress – the world’s most popular website building software
Google Docs – cloud-based suite of office applications
DropBox – cloud storage with paid upgrade
MailChimp – email marketing software with paid upgrade
But don’t take our word for it, go onto Facebook, Twitter and ask YOUR friends and colleagues what free stuff they recommend, and you’ll pick up something worthwhile based on their recommendation.
A lot of my customers have asked in the past, ‘how can they be any good if they are free?’, and it’s a good question. All these services rely on upgrades to make their money, and they know that if they can convince their customers that they have a good product, the upgrade process is a likelihood.
I started all the above offerings with a free account, and now have premium paid-for accounts with them all.
Free stuff like this is often better than a lot of chargeable services, and for small businesses, these are incredibly useful and provide a very cost-effective solution to common problems.
G is for Gamification
Foursquare has used gamification to attract millions of users
It’s currently going through a buzz stage, due to the number of startup companies employing the technique, and also the ability to host game ideas on apps and websites.
Social media has made it particulary easy to gamify business processes, with the ability it has to bring a large number of customers (and their friends) together.
In its simplest form, businesses have been using game mechanics in this way for a long time. Anyone who has a loyalty card will recognise the human desire to collect rewards.
Competitions where you have to perform a fun task is gamification, but in print marketing, there’s no dynamic element to keep people continually engaged.
But the internet has made this a whole new playing feld.
Like it or hate it, Foursquare uses gamification by prompting check-ins and offering badges for various achievements, eg checking into a lot of places locally, or many places in one day. It has built an incredible following on this principle and Facebook has followed with a similar check-in model.
Fizzy drinks and chocolate bars have been known to use gaming tactics, by drawing people into a website and asking customers to sign up for a game.
What benefit does this have to the business?
Well games not only raise awareness, it’s also an opportunity to capture contact details, which you can then market your products and services to.
As already mentioned, having a game online means you can do so much more, and then use the power of social networks to spread the desire to participate in these games with your friends, all the time publicising the host company.
Games don’t have to be complex, in its simplest form, a draw can work well, tying it in to social media can spread the message to non-customers, and attract further interest. Make the internet, and particularly your social networks, the key to the game.
You’ll find that doing business doesn’t have to be dull and boring. Businesses are run by real people who play games all the time.
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