Do you realize how close you may have come to winning some business – from a company you didn’t even know was looking at your business?

Every day, businesses unknowingly miss out on opportunities to engage potential prospects, primarily because of some simple things they may have overlooked on their website.

Could you be winning more customers who are looking for your products or services?

Here are 5 ways businesses lose sales and how to fix them.

1. You don’t show up well in online searches.

Studies indicate that more than 85% of people start their search online for products and services. So more than 5 out of 6 prospects use online searches to identify and qualify (or disqualify) providers they potentially want to do business with.

The fix: Improve your online visibility by optimizing your website for search engines. Understand the key words prospects will be using to look for your products. This is relatively simple when addressed by an SEO expert, and extremely valuable. There are at least three vital SEO components you should address: domain name selection, use of keywords on site tags and content.

2. Visitors to your website can’t tell what you do.

In doing business development exploring for my own company, I have come across any number of websites that say the company delivers high quality products and customer service and will exceed your expectations. But you have to dig to find out what they actually do, or what products or services they offer.

The fix: The way Google and other search engines index a website is by looking at the content and what that content says or how it is defined. At a minimum, you should have one sentence on your home page that clearly defines what your company does or offers, and make sure all page, headlines, photos, etc. all have proper tags that show up in your website code. For example, as a company description “ABC Industries makes hubcaps and bumpers for ’57 Chevys” is very specific and searchable. “DEF Industries makes high quality products for consumers and delivers outstanding customer service” is not very specific or searchable. Get this right and you’ll get more visits – and you’ll be better understood by those who do visit.

3. You don’t engage your visitors with online offers.

When prospects visit your website they are sizing you up. You may be one of 10 to 20 companies they are taking a preliminary look at to get an impression. They want to find a company they can trust, but your website makes it hard for them to determine that trust level.

The fix: Providing additional content lets visitors get to know you. For instance, offer free downloads of reports or white papers that provide useful information that don’t include sales offers. By exploring this type of information, prospects get a feel for how you might relate to them and how you might be to work with. Today, website content is king – and can be remarkably helpful to your prospects.

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4. Website metrics are not being tracked.

I’m amazed at the number of companies that don’t know the metrics or statistics related to their website. They may not even have the free Google Analytics installed. Taking this one step alone can provide massive information on how to improve your website and make it look highly attractive to your prospects.

The fix: Install Google Analytics or another analytics package so you can see where your traffic is coming from, especially if you are advertising online, and what keywords visitors are using to find you – and what keywords you should add to your site. This is so important that we have added Google Analytics to some websites for free, even when we ended up not working with that prospect. Adding analytics can help put you ahead of your competitors online by providing you with vital information.

5. Not collecting visitor information.

Many websites provide a lot of information, but don’t collect information from visitors that can be used for future follow-up contact, such as email marketing or enewsletter marketing. In other words, building a database of visitors who are already interested in your company.

The fix: Email marketing remains one of the most used and best methods of reaching customers and prospects with product offers, sales information or simple and useful information. Put a prominent contact form on the right side of your website, above the fold, in order to let visitors sign up for your newsletter or email offers/notifications. Tie that form to an email software program such as Constant Contact or MailChimp that automatically captures the names and email addresses entered into the form. It also can send out an autoresponse thank you and notify you of new sign-ups via email.

By implementing these 5 tips, you can vastly improve your company visibility and the chance to snag that new business that you didn’t even know was out there.

Customers don’t buy on price alone.

Ever selected a product that is more expensive compared to a similar one sitting right next to it? Ever wonder why you do that?

It’s because you have got an emotional connection with the brand. It takes unique insights about your customers to build those kinds of brands. And, talented people who know how to utilize those insights.

Because the purpose of a brand is to differentiate a company and its offerings, we use a proven proprietary process called the HRB BrandPlan™ to build strong brands. The process includes research, brand building, repositioning, management and communication. It also features workshops and seminars to educate your staff on how to “live” your brand.

Who’s thinking about your brand?

Photo Credit: Jacob Bøtter.

Isn’t it wonderful how all of your prospects and clients rolled out of their beds this morning, rubbed the sleep from their eyes and immediately thought to themselves, “Gosh, I sure hope I’ll see an advertising message from fill-in-your-brand-name-here.” Wow, that makes your job so much easier, knowing every one of them is totally psyched to hear from you.

Okay, so that didn’t happen, nor will it ever. But surprisingly, some companies really do act like that implausible event occurs in their marketplace every morning. They believe that whatever message they put out, in whatever medium, no matter how trite, complex, boring or forgettable it might be, viewers and readers will be attracted to their brand like geeks to a Star Trek convention. Bless their pointy ears, but no way. Sorry, Spock.

What does attract viewers and readers are messages from brands they know and respect. Brands that provide them with an expectation of being rewarded … with valuable information, by being entertained or by something that will make their job or life better.

It starts by using words and images they haven’t read or seen hundreds of times before. By not force feeding them more details than they can possibly consume. By engaging them in unique and uncomplicated ways that say “we respect your time, your intelligence and what you care about.”

Your brand is not what you say it is.

Remember, your brand is not what you say it is, it’s what your customers and the marketplace says it is based on their experiences and connections to your company. Ultimately, it’s about differentiation – how your brand stands out in a crowded marketplace. You must claim a unique position in the market. What is your point of difference?

A digest of interesting marketing stories.

Google AdWords for Video Goes Beta on YouTube

YouTube has launched its beta version Google AdWords for video. The goal of this new tool is to simplify online video ad campaigns and allow advertisers to use a dynamic, auction-based platform to place and manage ads on YouTube and the Google Display Network. The platform, built on top of AdWords technology, uses the same pipeline to serve ads. Is this something you can use for your business? Take a look at the video on YouTube produced to introduce this service, or read about AdWords for video.

Want Free Publicity? Sign Up With HARO.

If you like to get free editorial coverage for your business, there is a way to monitor requests from editors and reporters. It’s called HARO, or Help A Reporter Out. This service has been around for several years. Here’s how it works once you sign up. Several times a day, five days a week, you receive an email containing 20 to 40 links to descriptions of articles reporters are planning. The reporters are looking for expert content sources. Here are some examples.

If you are a topic or content expert, or have one in your company, you can respond directly to the reporter. The topic areas include Biotech, Healthcare, Business and Finance, High Tech, Lifestyle and Fitness, Sports, Travel and more. To sign up, visit HARO and click on Become A Source. There are four participation levels, including FREE.

Twitter Ad Revenue of $135.5 Million Expected in 2011

Twitter is looking at a 210 percent increase in global ad revenue in 2011 over 2010. In its first full year of selling advertising (2010) revenues reached $45 million. According to a study by eMarketer, Twitter’s revenue projections for 2013 will reach $400 million. “Since their debut in April 2010, Twitter’s Promoted Products have proven successful in the U.S.,’ said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson.

Corporate America is on a Hiring Binge for Social Media Workers

One billion users on Facebook and Twitter make an appealing audience for many companies. Ragan’s HR Communication reports on an article in The Los Angeles Times, which finds that experts in marketing a company’s name and wares on social network sites are in big demand. The number of social media-related jobs on Monster has surged 75 percent over the last year. About 155 positions are available each month, up from an average of 88 per month a year ago. If you need help in this area, HRB has social media experts on staff who can get you started, integrate your social media with your traditional media, or help you take it to the next level.

Call us at 800-728-2656. Request ext. 121.

Marketing that defines brands and drives business growth. That’s how we describe what Henry Russell Bruce does for its clients.

Are You Converting Your Leads Into Sales?

Do you have an established sales funnel that generates leads on a consistent basis? Do you have a database for email marketing? Are you able to convert any leads from trade shows to sales? Do you use offers, such as white papers, reports, contests, Pay Per Click or email marketing campaigns to draw visitors to your site? Do you have forms in place to capture data on visitors to your website? Could you use materials or program development for your dealer network? If not, HRB can help.

You Know Your Website Needs a Redesign When …

1. Your site looks like a brochure and does not generate any leads.
2. There is no offer or call to action on your site.
3. Your site has not been optimized for keywords visitors use to find services like yours.
4. No one on your staff can make changes without calling the guy who designed it.
5. Your site is not optimized for the rapidly growing volume of mobile devices.

Are You Getting Your Share of Free Media Coverage?

Ever wonder why your competitors show up everywhere online and in the trade industry media and get all the attention? It’s usually because they have launched a public relations campaign to build awareness of their company and its products. Repeated coverage in business and industry media builds credibility and keeps a company top of mind. How can you start a PR program to generate free coverage? We’ll explain step-by-step how to get started with creating awareness and media coverage for your company.

We’re grateful for the iPhone and iPad app for Cover it Live. Texas Governor Rick Perry addresses the national media and some 60 D. C. Taylor Co. employees Tuesday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Maximizing a PR Opportunity

The HRB public relations team got a chance to flex its media relations muscles this week and to help a client capitalize on a rare event.

Just three days after announcing his candidacy for the U. S. presidency, Texas Governor Rick Perry visited our client D. C. Taylor Co. Tuesday morning in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, his only stop in the city. D. C. Taylor Co., one of the 20 largest commercial roofing companies in the nation, learned about the visit just last week. Out of thousands of companies in the city, Perry’s advance team chose this one to introduce the candidate in person in the intimate setting of a roofing warehouse. Perry’s wife and two daughters were there, too.

We met with our client late last week to discuss what we could do to promote the event to benefit the client. We decided that the client would want to capture this and create a video and media package and to provide live coverage of the entire event on Cover it Live. To house the Cover it Live feed, HRB had to create a landing page on their website. So there would be more relevant content for D. C. Taylor customers, HRB set out to repurpose educational materials and created an eBook, and designed a banner for the homepage to direct visitors to the see the coverage and comment. Additionally, we helped create an email notification to the company’s opt-in list to notify them over the live coverage. We developed a media brief to hand out and send out to the media and an updated news release is going out Tuesday afternoon recounting details of the events to customers and prospects and the trade media.

During the hour-long event, we feed photos and text to an HRB team member who posted the material in real time. A news release went out to the client’s trade publications and out to the rest o the world via PRWeb. Dozens of people signed on to the Cover it Live account to follow the event and comment on it.

Most exciting for our client was the list of media that showed up for the event, including:

• Reuters
• Associated Press
• NBC National
• CBS Evening News
• The Gazette
• ABC National
• ABC Evening News
• Des Moines Register
• CBS Local
• Republican Caucus
• Dallas Morning News
• New York Times
• KCRG
• World Magazine

Their website traffic has doubled due to our efforts. The client is happy with the event support we provided. And , just as importantly, we all had fun with it.

Are you maximizing your public relations opportunities at every turn?

As a Web design and marketing firm, HRB is receiving more requests from its clients to develop websites that generate leads and sales.

Your website is the most powerful sales and marketing tool available. It works 24 hours a day, rain or shine, and represents the face of the brand to the marketplace.

Successful websites are not just pretty online brochures. They convert traffic into leads and sales. So, if you are going to put time, effort and dollars into driving traffic to your website, why not ensure you have the tools in place to capture lead information, automate responses to inquiries and offer content visitors want to see?

Many websites are missing these critical elements.

Build a Site for Leads

If you want your website to generate leads, it must be designed and optimized for that purpose. That means offering valuable free content about your products and services (in text, video or audio), giving visitors a form to sign up for your email marketing and optimizing each Web page with your Web keywords and keyword phrases.

Build Trust with Quality Content

In order to do business with you, prospects and customers need to trust you. Trust that you are who you say you are and will do what you say you will do. During the research and buying cycle, visitors are looking for the vendor that presents the lowest risk. Ensure that your website establishes your credibility by sharing your expertise through helpful blogs, articles and white papers or ebooks.

Use Offers to Attract Visitors

Offers such as free information, a limited time sale, or “buy two and get one free” are great ways to draw attention and traffic to your website. It’s imperative that when you get good traffic to make sure you are prepared to collect lead data on your website and follow up on each lead.

Always Use Calls to Action

In order to make it easy for your visitors, let them know what you want them to do next by including a call to action. Don’t make them guess that you would like them to sign up for your enewsletter, download something, take part in a contest or to contact you for further engagement. You can number the steps, if necessary, or provide a prominent form for them to fill out on all your Web pages. And, in general, increase their response by reducing the choices they need to make.

Respond Quickly to Leads

Companies often spend substantial dollars to generate Web leads, and use lead management and CRM systems to track them. Sometimes companies overlook how slowly they respond to these leads. A Kellogg Study on Lead Response Management revealed the odds of connecting with a lead increases by 100 times if attempted within 5 minutes versus 30 minutes. And the odds of converting a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes increases by 21 times.

Focus Content on Benefits

Website content should address company or product benefits, not just features. Potential customers want to know what’s in a visit to your website for them. Focus your content on how your product or service will make their lives easier, better or richer.

Analytics are Key to Success

Every website should have analytics software installed in order to see what’s happening on the site. If you never establish a baseline measurement for key performance indicators such as visits, unique visits, bounce rate and downloads you will have a hard time determining if you are achieving your website goals. Analytics are vital to determining site performance and can help you with testing to improve online results.

Great Websites Generate Great Leads

If your website is not generating any leads for you, it may be that one or more of the key items listed here is missing from your site. Contact us for an assessment of your site. We offer Web design and development services, as well as optimization for conversion of leads to sales. Let us know if you would like to take the first step to turning your website into a lead and sales generator for your business.

Golf Best Shot to Fund Scholarships.

Two and a half years ago, our friend and partner Brian Carr passed away while HRB was displaced by the flood and temporarily located in Hiawatha with our friends at Fastek International. It was a staggering loss for his family and friends, and for the HRB family. He was athletic, witty, bright – and as a CPA – great with numbers. He always kept the scores on the golf course. We think of him often.

To honor their father, Brian’s children have put together a memorial golf tournament to raise funds for the Brian Carr Memorial Scholarship Fund. The event date is September 30, 2011 at Ellis Golf Course, Cedar Rapids, with a shotgun start at noon, followed by a grilled dinner, awards and prizes. These kids have gone to a lot of effort to honor their father. And, we want to help them do that.

Brian attended both MidAmerican Nazarene University in Kansas City and Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids and had a positive impact on countless students through his roles as mentor and coach. He was a gifted accountant, father, husband and golfer. The Scholarship Fund benefits accounting students at MNU and MMU.

Brian was a good guy and a good friend. Feel free to pass this message along to anyone else who may have known Brian or just wants to play golf to support a good cause.

All of the information about the event, including registration and sponsorship opportunities, can be found at this link: http://www.wix.com/bcmemorialgolf/2011.

I hope to see you there. And so do Brian’s kids – Pete, Maggie, Hilary and Quinn – and his wife Linda.

No related posts.

The first thing I noticed upon entering McCormick Place on Sunday was the overpowering, but very pleasant, aroma of food. Enticing smells of pork, beef, fish, teas and spices filled the air. It’s all part of the fun at the National Restaurant Association’s annual convention and exhibition. I spent part of the weekend in Chicago in support of a new client who was exhibiting at the show.

Over the years I’ve attended many trade shows, most of them related to supply chain, bar codes, RFID, electronics, IT, aviation and aerospace and even rental products. But I’ve never before been greeted at the registration desk with such an attention-getting gastronomic assault on the senses. Foods and beverages of all types were being prepared throughout the enormous North and South exhibition halls. Each dish or drink was presented in an attractive and inspiring setting. Free food was everywhere and freely distributed to anyone who happened by. That was a new experience for me.

There is a sense of irony here because our client is in the technology business, one of our specialties. Numerous technology providers were at the show demonstrating their wares. What struck me most was the amount of automation software available to restaurants to support loyalty programs, geolocation couponing, online ordering and a lot of integration with Facebook and Twitter to drive store traffic and grow the database.

Generating and managing data was a major theme for those providers, a key message they were trying to get across to the restaurants.

At the end of the day, the trip made me think about you and your business.

Are you managing your data? Are you making offers and creating calls to action that generate leads for your database – leads that you can use for your email marketing campaigns? Are your lead generation efforts integrated with your CRM and email marketing platforms? Have you been able to bring some automation to these efforts? We’ve been able to integrate and automate our online marketing efforts. And, it has paid off by generating more leads through our website.

How important is lead generation and data tracking to your operations? Please post a comment and let us know what’s working – or not – for you.

If you and your clients are interested in applying search engine optimization (SEO) to your blogging, user data and mobile communications efforts, then this blog is a must-read.

Not only have we been reading some interesting news about trends in blogging and blog optimization, but we’re learning how and why there will soon be a major shift in the way companies acquire user data and present their brand via mobile applications.

Technorati’s 2010 State of the Blogosphere Report Discusses New Trends in Blogging

The significant growth of mobile blogging is a key trend that Technorati® noticed and analyzed this year in its sixth annual blogosphere report.  Taking a deeper dive into the behaviors of the entire blogosphere (with a focus on female bloggers), this year’s topics included: brands embracing social media, traditional media vs. social media, brands working with bloggers, monetization, smartphone and tablet usage, the importance of Twitter® and Facebook®, niche blogging and changes within the blogosphere over 2010.

Like to Make Your Blog Content More Searchable? Optimize it!

If you are not applying strong SEO techniques to the content of your blog, there’s an app for that—an online service, actually. It’s called Scribe®. Scribe analyzes your natural, reader-focused content and tells you how to gently tweak it to spoon feed search engines based on 15 SEO best practices. It actually provides you with a numerical percentage rating for your optimization and shows you how to improve your SEO results. You can select from a variety of subscription and feature options.

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Why There Will be a Shift From Buying Impressions to Acquiring User Data

Zephrin Lasker is the CEO and co-founder of Pontiflex®, a digital Cost Per Lead generation company. His company asserts that trends in media consumption and media buying have got to change to increase the effectiveness and growth of advertising efforts. Since this also improves SEO results and given there has been such a profound change in the way people consume media, it stands to reason that marketers need to recalibrate the approach they take to their branding campaigns.

In a recent article he wrote for MediaPost®, 4 Trends That Will Shape Q4, Year Beyond, he claims that, to date, branding campaigns have relied on broadcasting a message to a universe of anonymous people. Marketers have traditionally purchased impressions—on TV, radio or the Internet for their online banners. But that’s an approach that’s not relevant in a user-centric world. He makes some very good points here. 

Mobile Apps are Growing Rapidly, But Good User Experience is a Must

Did you know that a new online study conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by EffectiveUI in October found that the majority of mobile phone users who download and use applications choose them based on good recommendations and user experience? That’s news to the companies and organizations who are releasing them. They’re assuming that people are downloading and using their applications based on their opinion of the brand name. So where is the disconnect happening?

According to Rebecca Flavin, CEO of EffectiveUI, “Mobile applications are the sure fire way to extend a brand. It’s time for organizations to understand how to fully leverage the mobile channel and optimize a user-center approach to drive adoption, as well as reinforce and drive brand loyalty.” Read this article from the Bulldog Reporter about why 40 percent of mobile app users are disappointed with the current apps from their favorite brands.

What are your thoughts about these studies? I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments section below.

Why Social Behaviors Are Plateauing (by Augie Ray of MediaPost)

Since 2007, Forrester has tracked the growth of social behaviors. For years we’ve seen increases in more complex communication techniques from “Creators”—those who generate social content such as YouTube® videos and blog posts.

But for the first time in three years, we’re seeing a change in social media marketing trends. The Forrester 2010 Global Update of Social Technographics demonstrates that many social behaviors have reached a plateau. Why, and what does this mean for marketers, their clients and their portfolios?

Trends in Mobile Barcode Usage by Marketers

Mobile bar code scanning is growing exponentially, according to reporting data collected by Scanbuy™. The company calls itself the world leader in mobile bar code scanning applications. It’s one of several technology innovators that lets you download a bar code reading application to your smart phone and use the camera function to capture the bar code image. The image then takes you to information on the Web–much like actually clicking on a Web link.

According to the company’s information, mobile scanning traffic increased 700% between January 2010 and October 2010. This technology is being rapidly adopted for marketing and advertising purposes. Various types of bar codes are showing up on printed materials and websites that can be photographed with a mobile scanning application to take the participant to additional information on the topic of interest.

Microsoft®, among other companies, also offers a free Tag Reader application that mobile Internet users can download to their phones. How many of you actually use such applications and what are your thoughts about the future of them?

iPad Leads Tablets Into Workplace (by Thomas Claburn of Information Week)

In a blog memo by Microsoft® Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, marking his decision to step down from his position, Ozzie asks us to “close our eyes and form a realistic picture of what a post-PC world might actually look like, if it were to ever truly occur.” For some, the post-PC world is already here. As Forrester analyst Ted Schadler sees it, tablet computers, exemplified by Apple’s iPad®, are post-PC devices—and like it or not, they’re now being used by businesses.

In a report issued last Tuesday, Schadler observes that new tablets seem to appear every day. He cites Google® Chrome OS tablets, the Cisco® Cius, the Dell® Streak, the Samsung® Galaxy Tab, the RIM® PlayBook and the HP® WebOS-based PalmPad as examples. Even if it’s only Apple that’s currently selling the most tablets—4.19 million during its most recent quarter—Forrester is predicting 13 million tablets will have been sold by the end of 2010 and 59 million will be sold by the end of 2015.

Google Improving Local Search (by MediaPost)

According to Search Engine Land™, Google® this week debuted “Place Search,” which offers a new way to experience local search results. According to the company, “There appear to be some fairly major SEO implications.” Officially, Google says that its algorithm has been improved and refined for Place Search.

“Now, fully fleshed out Place Pages will assume much greater importance, as will being present and reviewed in the various sites featured in the ‘clustered’ links,” notes Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling. As a result, he says, local directories like Yelp®, Citysearch® City Guides, Insider Pages® and Urbanspoon® will benefit greatly from the change. Visually, maps have been moved to the right column and “floats” or scrolls down the page as users move down results.

Selected third-party sites referencing a particular search topic are “clustered” with the listing. In cases of ambiguous queries, if Google isn’t sure whether users are seeking local information, there’s another type of result that will appear, which Google refers to as “Places Mode.”

What are your thoughts about such news? We’d love to hear your opinions in the comments section below.