Five Reason Why Facebook Is Good For Your Business

No doubt you’ve heard about Facebook and how it’s a great way to connect to, and share information with, your friends and family, but did you know that you can setup a Facebook page to promote your business?

Here are my five reasons why you should think about Facebook for your business.

1. Viral Marketing

What is Viral Marketing I hear you say?  Well it’s marketing that spreads like a virus - quickly.  Facebook is great for this as you’re not only marketing your business, products and services to your “friends”, but also to friends of friends of friends – you get the picture.

2. Targeted Marketing
Facebook has a paid advertising service, similar to that offered by the search engines but with some added advantages.  Because members of Facebook provide information such as location, gender and age you can more effectively target your specific market.

3. Showcase Your Business
Facebook is designed to connect people and allow them to interact with each other, share information, photos or links to websites.  Why not take advantage of this and share some information about your newest product, latest project or great testimonials you’ve received from your customers?

You can use your business Facebook page to post a “teaser” and link back to your website.  This will help drive traffic to your site.

4. Reconnect With…
With millions and millions and millions of people (a post on the Facebook blog in December 2009 cited more then 350 million users) there are bound to be some of your customers, friends, family or past colleagues online.  Reconnect with them and you’re suddenly able to promote your business to their friends, and their friends friends.  You never know who needs your product or service, or who they know that needs your product or service.

5. It’s Free!
And finally, it’s FREE!  Setting up your business Facebook page won’t cost you a cent.  All it takes is a little bit of your time.  Of course their paid targeted advertising will cost, but that’s completely optional.

So there you have it – the potential to increase your customer base and market your business to millions of people around the world.  What have you got to lose?

See you on Facebook. (click to view the web.d3 page)

Also note on the right how we've integrated Facebook into our website.

Planning is the key to a successful website

Like all areas of your business your website requires planning in order to get it right and make it work for your business, so this month I have a tale of two websites.

This first story is of a client who has put a lot of time and effort into planning their website and the marketing of their new products.

A new client came to me recently with the task of building a new website for a range of products they were about to launch.  During our first meeting they were very clear about their goals and had done a lot of research, planning and had a clear strategy for marketing their products, including a high-profile product launch.  The timing of this meeting was 3 months before the launch.

Working closely with the client, and the copywriter they had engaged, we put together a solution that achieved their goals within their timeframe.  Their solution including a custom designed website to help promote their products, integration with an online store to manage the sales, integration with an auto responder email system to manage the dissemination of information to customers, and one of the most important things to achieve good search engine rankings and customer follow through – professionally written website content.

So what step were followed that made this project so successful?

1. The client had a clear understanding of what they wanted to achieve;
2. The client had done their own research so they knew what they were looking for and what questions to ask;
3. Their timing was realistic to ensure a successful project; and
4. They saw the value in engaging a professional copywriter to produce effective content for their website.

Read more about this project.

The second story is a story of ill planning.  Several months ago I was contact by someone who needed a couple of small updates done to their existing website.  I reviewed their website completed the updates for them.  Their existing website was build several years ago by a family member and during my review noted many areas where the site can be improved, most notably in the area of design and search engine optimising.  I gave my recommendations to the client who agreed with them, but wasn’t in a position to act on them.

A couple of weeks ago the client contacted me again with a couple of other changes to the site, one simple, several not so simple.  These changes needed to be done ASAP as they had engaged a marketing company to carry out a marketing campaign for them, which was days away from beginning.

The simple update was completed, however the no so simple updates, which came back to my initial suggestions, could not be completed before the marketing campaign began.

This lack of planning, and not having all parties involved, could mean be the difference between a success and failure in the campaign.

What could this client have done to ensure success?  Well it all comes down to planning, planning, planning, and communicating your goals to all parties involved.

Are you planning updates to your website?  Are you about to start a marketing campaign?  Have you spoke to all people involved in the process?  If not it may be time to step back, review, plan and communicate.

Who is your website for?

One of the questions that I ask new clients is “who is your website for”.  Most of the time they answer with “for me and my business”.  While this is somewhat true, the correct answer is “for my customers and potential customers”.

One of my favourite shows is called Property Ladder.  It’s a show about everyday people who decide they can make millions from property by buying run-down houses, renovating them and selling them on.  They key to being successful in this market (according to the host) is to research your potential market and renovate the property towards their needs.  A common trap that 90% of the people on the show fall into is not following this rule and renovating to their taste and needs.

What does all this have to do with websites you ask?  Well the concepts are the same.  While your website is all about your business ultimately you’re not the one using it every day.  The aim of most websites it to sell products and services, so it should be designed with the needs of your market in mind.

With this in mind it’s also important to ensure that the design of your site is consistent with all of your other branded material, so if you hand someone a business card and they go to your website they can visually make the link.  Not only does this make your business look more professional, but it also helps you stick in peoples mind.

Here are my top 3 tips for your website:

1. Know who your website is targeted at, and ensure your site is designed with this market in mind
2. Provide relevant and easy to read content (a professional copy writer is well worth considering)
3. Keep your content up-to-date because content is king.

Are you making it easy for your customers?

Doing what I do for a living I look at many websites every day and speak to lots of people about their experience with the websites that they come across. Quite often the website experience is not a good one.

In business what is the purpose of a website? Personally I think it’s about selling something, be that product or service. Your website is there to provide information about your product/service to potential clients, and to entice them to purchase right away or make contact with you.

So with this in mind think about your own website. If you were looking for your product/service would you find what you are looking for on your website? Is it easy to find your contact details?

If you think from the point of view of your potential customers, what is it that you want to find on a website? I offer some suggestions as to what I’d be looking for:

1. What do you do or sell
2. Why should I buy your product or service
3. How can I contact you

These are three simple points, but not always easy to find the answers to.

Here are my three tips that can help you make your website a better experience for your potential clients.

1. Make your content to the point and clearly state what it is that you do or sell, and why they should buy from you. If you don’t feel the words you write are doing your business justice, a professional web copywriter can help turn your words into content for your site that will grab the attention of visitors.
2. Ensure you update your content on a regular basis. If you want people to keep coming back to your website then you need to give them a reason to. Think about starting a blog and on a monthly basis post an article that your target market will find useful.
3. Make sure your contact details are easy to find, and give options. Some people will prefer to email you, while others would rather speak to you on the phone.

With these three tips in mind sit down for a few minutes and have a look at your site. Is it time to update your content?

When free isn’t always good

Recently I was stopped behind an electricians ute at a set of traffic lights.  They had some eye-catching branding on their ute advertising their business that made me take note.  I can’t recall the name of the business now but one thing that did stick in my mind was the fact they had a Hotmail email address.

This got me thinking.  Why would a business, any size business, use a free email service when having your own domain name and email accounts is cheap, and makes your business look more professional?

Over the past few weeks I’ve had the need to research various trades and am surprised at the number of them that have not registered their own domain name.  Think about it, would you first contact someone via email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ?  Personally I’d contact the latter.  While Freds Electrical might not have a website, just the fact they have gone to the extent of registering their domain name makes them look more professional.

Going back to the electrician I was behind at the lights – they were happy to spend a couple of thousand dollars branding their car, but missed the opportunity to boost that image by registering their own domain name.

Here is some food for thought…  Something that isn’t very well publicised is that free email services are often block by Internet service providers because of the high amount of SPAM emails that are generated from such accounts, so no matter how many times you send an email there is the potential for it never to be delivered.  While this might be slightly acceptable for personal use think about what it means to your business if an email doesn’t get through.  It could mean the loss of a sale or a business deal.

There is another social aspect to think about too when using these free services.  Recently I read an article about “Email Domain Shame”.  People are starting to judge based on your email domain, and again not such an issue for personal email, but can any business afford to be judged on such a small thing?

The solution?  Well registering a domain name for your business and setting up email will only cost a couple of hundred dollars a year.  For this you can also have multiple email accounts, for example, fred@ info@ accounts@ sales@.  While ultimately these additional email addresses may end up in the one mail box, checked by the same person, it does give potential customers the impression that you are bigger then you actually are, and there is nothing wrong with that!