Banner stands that work

If you’re attending a business event you may have the opportunity to display a pop-up banner stand.  They can be very effective in drawing attention - but they can also be a poor investment if you get your information in the wrong places.

Here’s a template for a great banner stand.

Three strategies to grow your business

Most people consider that this means getting more customers, but you’ve probably heard the saying that it’s harder to get a new customer than to increase sales to existing customers.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be looking for new business, but that your strategy needs to have more than one ‘spoke’ to your wheel.

Here are a few things that will grow your business - or at least your profit:

1. Networking - online and offline.  But beware of randomly contacting people, have a clear idea of who would be a good match as a client and start building relationships with people who match that description.

The secret is to get to know people, to ask about their business and understand what their challenges are.  How can you help? If you don’t have the right skillset, could you introduce them to someone who has (and who you trust to do a good job)?  Being known as a connector is also valuable and creates reciprocity.  They won’t forget you (and neither will the company you’ve referred in).

Ask better questions of your contacts as your relationship grows and help them to understand what a good client for you looks like.  Even if they’re not ready to buy they may know someone who is.

2. Get recommended.  Happy clients are usually also happy to refer you to others.  However, there’s a big difference between ‘you should contact X company’ and ‘let me introduce you to my buddy, John, at X company.’

Have conversations with your existing customers and ask them who they know who would value your skills/products and ask them to introduce you.  This might be an email introduction, better still a phone call or, best of all, taking you along to meet the new contact.

3. Play the numbers game.  You don’t need to get new clients to improve your profits, you just need to know how to play the numbers game.

When was the last time you put your prices up?  If it’s more than a year ago, now would be a good time to add 10%.  That means you’ll get more income for the same effort - and most customers don’t mind paying for good value.

Do all your customers know about everything you do?  If you educate them they might purchase more from you.  Even a 10% increase in purchases from each customer will make a difference to your profit - and with very little effort.

Small changes in your pricing and pitching will result in big differences in your bottom line.

These aren’t either/or tactics - do them all and you’ll be surprised at the difference.

Does your LinkedIn website link get clicks?

Your LinkedIn profile provides you with a section where you can add your contact info - and one of the options is to add your website link.  When you put the URL in you’ll be asked if you want to designate your website as:

• Personal
• Company 
• Blog 
• RSS feed
• Portfolio
• Other

Most people choose ‘Company’ if they’re using LinkedIn for business.  However, by doing this you’ll end up with a website link that shows up as:

Acmewidgets.com (Company Website)

If you’ve looked at my LinkedIn contact info, you’ll see my website link says:

insidenews.co.uk  (Reputation marketing and copy)

How did I do it?

It’s one of those clever little hacks that you either know or you don’t!  I didn’t discover it by accident, someone showed me how to do it about 10 years back!

The secret is to choose ‘Other’, instead of ‘Company’.

This pops out an additional box where you can write a limited description.  It’s only about 30 characters, but if you choose the right words it’s much more appealing than ‘Company Website’.

There’s more

You can list three websites on your profile.  But if you don’t have more than one, don’t miss out on the opportunity to send people to three different pages on your main website. 

These might be the home page and a couple of products or services - again choose ‘Other’ and add an interesting description.

For instance, my other two website links go to the ‘Writing a book’ and ‘Treasure Chest’ pages on my main website.

insidenews.co.uk/commercial-copywriting/writing-a-book/  (Want to write a book?)

insidenews.co.uk/treasure-chest  (Free goodies!)

Be creative, use this clever option to make your LinkedIn web links attract more people to explore your website.

Case studies and testimonials

There’s nothing like third party validation on your website to underpin your pitch.  Everyone expects your website to paint a glowing picture of your business and the skills or products on offer, but when someone else says your good, it has more power.

That means that testimonials and case studies are good to have as they demonstrate your expertise.  The problem is where do you put them?

You could have a ‘Testimonials’ tab on your menu, or a ‘Case studies’ tab.  You could even have ‘What clients say’.  But then your website visitor has to click, go to the page and read a few testimonials before they find one that’s relevant to their needs.  Do you do that?

No, probably not.  Most people will read two or three short testimonials, then lose interest.  Remember that our attention spans have reduced to a nanosecond and that finger is quick to flick to something else.

Case studies are an even longer read, so they’ve got to look appealing.

Here are some ideas to power up your third-party validation on your website.

Testimonials

1. Don’t have a separate page for testimonials.  Pick your best one for each product or service and put it on the page where that product or service is featured.  This means that people read the relevant testimonial as they’re checking out your product or service.  
2. Feature testimonials in the same way you would a quote - like a magazine pulls a quote out of the article and puts it in bigger text in a box or between two lines to make it stand out.  (This is known in the publishing industry as a ‘ragout’.)  
3. Avoid a scrolling marquee.  That’s where testimonials are shown, then a new one replaces the last one.  Firstly, something that keeps moving is distracting, especially if it takes the reader’s eye off the information they’re actually looking for.  Secondly, most scrolling marquees are set too fast and it’s not possible to read the content before it’s gone and a new one comes up.  That’s very frustrating and frustration is not the emotion you want associating with your website.
4. Don’t publish long testimonials in their entirety.  Pick the sentences out that tell the reader ‘what’s in it for me’.
5. Always attribute the testimonial, either with the name/company (Don Smith, Acme Widgets) of the writer or with the position/company (Finance manager, Acme Widgets).  Where there are confidentiality issues, consider initials and industry type (DS, parts manufacturing company).
6. Remember to ask your clients for their feedback!  Make it easy for them by asking specific questions, such as ‘What was it like working with us?’ and most important ‘What changed as a result of what we delivered?’  Measurable results are powerful.

Case studies

1. Try creating blog categories for each of your core services/products and post your case studies here.  
2. Link each blog category to the relevant service/product page so people go straight to where all the relevant case studies are for the page they’re looking at.
3. Use a consistent format for your case studies.  For example:  The brief, the solution, the outcome, what the client said.  Adding the measurable results and the client’s feedback make case studies very powerful.
4. Pictures are worth their weight in gold.  If your particular business lends itself to before and after shots, use them.
5. Keep your copy short and to the point.  Avoid long rambling descriptions.  At the end of the day their purpose is to persuade the reader that you know your stuff and get excellent results.

Using some of these tips will help your testimonials and case studies to work harder for you.