Bedford Business Club Andrew Goode Blue Dolphin Presenting Generate More Sales

Bedford Business Club – Generate More Business From Your Website Presentation Notes

Following on from the presentation in March to Bedford Business Club by Andrew Goode of Blue Dolphin Business Development the following were the key points from the presentation

Bedford Business Club 7 Key Factors

If you want to watch the video summary click Bedford Business Club Website Presentation

1. Make sure that your website is seen as different. This could be achieved through
• great design
• good navigation
• superb content
• Top Tip – ask some Bedford Business Club members what they would expect from your website
2. What first impression does your website create
• When someone lands on your home page is it easy to find what they want
• When someone lands on the page is the key information where they would expect. Don't save all the good content for the bottom of the page put the good content at the top
• Make sure that its really easy for a visitor to know exactly what you do
3. When designing your home page make sure its easy for people to navigate away from it
4. Scrolling on a web page
• If you are interested in the content on a website you will potentially scroll down to read more. make sure you engage with your customer with great content to increase the chance of vertical scrolling
• You should never design your site to be viewed with the need to perform horizontal scrolling.
• Want to see how scrolling affects the performance of your web page just call Andrew Goode on 01733 361729 to find out more or e mail andrew@bdolphin.co.uk
5. Capture the details of visitors who come to your website
• If you get a visitor to your site (its a bit like a person walking into your business premises – if they did you would probably ask for their name and contact details), well why not try to capture their name and e mail. You might need to give away something to encourage this i.e. information but how much would it be worth to capture your visitors details
• Top Tip: when at your next Bedford Business Club event take time to ask other members what would encourage them to give you their details if they visited your site
6. Make sure that all your contact details are easily found on your website
• Your telephone number should be easily visible on every page
• Why not put your opening hours on the site
• Make sure its easy for people to e mail you
• You should always show your business address details
7. The website will need words (content in it ) but can you use
• Images – make sure they are your images and not stock shot pictures (that aren't typical of who you are)
• Videos – can these be used to better communicate hard to explain issues
• Illustrations can be very effective at communicating complex subjects
• Top Tip: when at your next Bedford Business Club event get someone to review your site and give you honest opinion about th eimages you are using and what they communicate
8. Its no good having a brilliantly designed and styled site if you don't have any visitors so the bonus tips below are designed to help you get traffic to your site
9. If you need to get traffic to your site quick, consider Google Adwords (essentially advertising on the web) but be very careful these can be a licence to loosing money if you do not know the guidelines
10. For many getting found for organic search is the ideal i.e. Your site is structured and developed in such a way that it ranks without the need to spend money on advertising. This is a subject in its own right so at this stage i would just suggest these 5 points
• Make sure you know what words your customers are searching for (there is absolutely no point in being ranked number 1 for a search term that isn't used)
• Identify how many people are searching for these exact terms
• Evaluate if these searches carry any commercial intent
• Can you economically win the search battle. It may be that the term you want to rank for is very very competitive and you will struggle (or have to spend allot of time and money to get a top 10 ranking)
• Are there better non web ways to get traffic to your website – an advert in the trade press perhaps
11. Is Google local of relevance to you. Again this is another big subject which I will cover another day
12. Last but by no means least 'Your Web Site' is never finished. You should be constantly looking to see where your site can be improved from a traffic and conversion perspective. Carrying out simple A/B testing can produce significant improvements if conducted carefiully

Green Marketing Peterborough

Green Marketing Peterborough Seminar 16th May

Microsoft Dynamics CRM seminar

Microsoft Dynamics CRM seminar 29th March

During a business growth spurt, you might have observed the mayhem / disruption / inefficiency caused by systems that don’t keep up with demands of new customers.

Don Wiid of ContactEdge CRM  has observed first-hand how Microsoft CRM solves a number of business and marketing issues:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Benefits

• Better organisation of customer data and information
• Significantly reduced sales cycles, and better sales conversion rates
• Visibility of sales metrics – for the sales person and management
• Predict which 50% of your marketing will work. Extremely useful if you can then stop doing the 50% that wont work
• Get a handle on customer service. Where are the areas for improvement, which elements are providing a bottleneck, where are you storing up potential problems
• And much more!

The first of these two seminars has already been fully booked and places for the next seminar are limited to just 15 in order for Don Wiid to deliver a detailed and personalised seminar tailored towards the audience.

If you would like to book your place at the FREE  Microsoft Dynamics CRM seminar please click on the link

The half-day interactive seminar is taking place at the Kettering Park Hotel on the 29th March, from 08:30 to 12:30.

Additional benefits on customer relationship marketing  (specifically related to Microsoft Dynamics CRM)

• Better coordinate with sales by tracking leads in one centralised system.
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM automatically assigns or scores leads based on predefined work flows.
• Instantly identify the most promising leads with conditional formatting so you can see those that light up.
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM uses guided dialogues to streamline the lead qualification process.
• Ensure your marketing staff are working on the most current leads.
• Use natural-language queries to instantly segment customers or prospects.
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM creates highly targeted lists and associate them with campaigns.
• Set up personal or public views for reuse.
• Easily share target lists with colleagues and vendors.
• Export lists into multiple formats for bulk email or direct-mail communications

Marketing Purpose

Marketing Purpose – How things have developed

Marketing Purpose since 2008

Background: Since the global  economic challenges and changes of 2008 we can no longer continue just doing the same old same old

Fact: When the sense of purpose is big enough people will do amazing things. Just think of of a major incident and how it can pull people (who previously seemed disperate together) e.g. Queensland floods of 2011 the Premier called for 6,000 volunteers and got 80,000. The marketing purpose provided a common goal that everybody could work towards.

Marketing Purpose – Value and Values

In an interestingt book Spend Shift by John Gerzema" published in 2010 following extensive research he observed. "We believe that the future face of capitalism will be defined by delivering value and values" followed by "Those that embrace this reality and adapt will find extraordinary opportunities"

A snapshot of some of the observations

• People have a new found sense of purpose
• 88% of people said that possessions did not have much to do with happiness
• Generosity is now the glue that binds a company and provides marketing purpose

The 6 key elements to marketing purpose

Web Designers In Peterborough

Web Designers In Peterborough Can They Build Great Websites

Web Designers In Peterborough The Types

There are lots and lots of web designers in Peterborough  (and individuals) who will suggest they can build you a website. The unfortunate fact is that they will all build you a website and these will range from

• The Graphic Designer site which will probably look visually stunning and be capable of winning a multitude of awards for looking pretty.
• The Nerd site – often built by a computer genius in a bedroom on a platform that you need a degree in nuclear physics in order to be able to access, let alone modify
• The Home build – started as a project on a FREE web platform (because it was free) many, many months ago, but you never quite get round to finishing
• The internet marketing company – who will be able to build a site that can get found and importantly will lead to conversion and ultimately the phone ringing, orders being placed or customers walking through your door.

 Web Designers In Peterborough The Questions To Ask

If you are looking at having a website created or having your existing website modified or redesigned by web designers in Peterborough then asking the following questions may help you in your selection process

1. First ask yourself why you want a website – WOOH . Yes the first question you need to ask is what do I want the website to do. Now this can range from being a simple on line catalogue, so that when someone in Peterborough types in my product or service in a search engine, your company will appear in the search facility. So that quite possibly they can find your telephone number and then call you.
2. So there's a crucial point, for many companies its not about having a website, its about ensuring your telephone number appears.
3. At this point it may be that having a fully optimised Google listing could be  a good investment, and that having a beautiful looking website will never provide you with a return on investment. This takes us to the next most important question ROI on internet activities which I will cover in the next article

Marketing Peterborough Wow Why Woow

Marketing Peterborough – what's needed to create effective marketing

Marketing Peterborough – What is your point of differentiation

As a Marketing Peterborough consultancy sometimes we fall foul of jargon (just like any industry). So key elements of the process

• Segmentation – to make sure we understand the customer profiles that choose our product / service
• Differentiation – what makes us different from the others
• Positioning – how we rate on a price / value basis
• etc

Inspiring Enterprise

Three keys to an inspiring enterprise

At a recent event I attended the speaker identified 3 keys that go towards developing an inspiring business for the 21st century

The three keys to an inspiring enterprise

1. Adding speed
2. Adding purpose
3. Changing lives

Adding speed

MOT Peterborough Garages

MOT Peterborough where to go

MOT Peterborough

There are lots of garages in who MOT Peterborough but where should you go to get an MOT and why do you need one. Everyone who uses a vehicle on the road must keep it in a roadworthy condition. The MOT test checks that vehicles meet road safety (i.e. it will brake, corner, perform) and environmental standards (i.e. its not kicking out huge quantities of CO2) . The first MOT test for a vehicle is required when it’s three years old and will be required to be MOT every year thereafter. Note: There are different rules if it’s used as a taxi. This is as a professional taxi not a mum and dad taxi for the kids

Where to go for an MOT Peterborough test

There are around 19,000 garages authorised as MOT test stations across the country(and about 40 in Peterborough) that can carry out your MOT peterborough test. The blue three triangles logo is displayed to identify authorised test stations. The maximum fee for the test must be displayed on a poster inside every test station. The station, however, can charge less than what is on the poster if they want to. Many garages do this as a loss leader to get you to try there garage capabilities. Also if the car fails any elements of the test they may offer to carry out the corrective repairs

Often we develop a business presentation format (content, tone, style, format etc) and expect to be able to replicate delivery of this set presentation. The challenge – You cant deal with everybody the same way

So how does this manifest itself in the business presentation situation

• Firstly – individuals listen / follow differently. This is a really simple example "No Problem" could mean there is no problem or could mean "No; Problem" i.e. No we cant do, that it would be a problem. The challenge exists of miss communication where I say one thing and you interpret something completely different
• Listening abilities; apparently we think at 500 words per minute.
• So we start a presentation,
• In presenting ideas the recipient is processing the ideas and information provided and working out what you said.
• During this processing stage they miss some of the key content
• The process of persuasion varies i.e. what gets the Financial Director excited, possibly wont excite the Sales & Marketing Director. The challenge being "Whats in it for me" and if there are different people involved appealing to them all

Sequence of persuassion for business presentation

4. Once the business presentation has finished what do you want the person to do

• How will you respond to questions
• What support information do you have
• How do you establish the next steps.
• How do you establish that the person has fully understood