The Internet has made our lives better at work, home and play. If it has brought so much joy into our society and sorted out so many things for us, then the presence of online translators means our content will be immediately available in every single language without anyone breaking a sweat, doesn’t it?

At least not yet. While online translators let individuals understand basic information, these tools are not ready for grammar, double meanings and regional variations. Human translation will, for the foreseeable future, be better.

For instance, try looking up the Spanish word “esposas”. It can mean “wives” or “handcuffs”, but Google Translate tells you it means “handcuffs”, “manacles” and “bracelets”. Thus, if you used automatic translation for your paper on polygamy, it would be off-topic to mention that businessman Saleh Al-Sayeri has 58 bracelets. On the other hand, “gato” means either “cat” or “jack”, and Google Translate suggests you use your feline friend to lift your car off the ground.

Free online translation websites don’t exclusively misunderstand Spanish. The same – or worse – mistakes can happen when companies in other languages try to use them for marketing and informational purposes. Engrish.com documents the disasters that come from relying solely on automatic translation. Ill-fated copy, with phrases such as “don’t play dog in park” or “sheet iron sauce bums the frog”, might be hilarious to look at; but it’s not funny when such atrocities are printed on your products.

Hiring a professional, experienced, and above all, human translator will spare you from these embarrassing situations. It will make you and your company look not just like you know about your foreign target audience, but like you care about them. And that’s what you do, don’t you? It’s a good investment that will pay itself sooner than later.

Cynthia Rodriguez is a writer, copy-editor and translator. Born in the north of Mexico and currently living in Leicester.  She has been featured on the People Per Hour newsletter and the blog of plus-sized smart clothing label Dea London. You can follow her on twitter @cynthiaescribe

When sitting with a potential client recently we did a little bit of competition analysis and quickly realised that many businesses online see to want to make it very difficult for website visitors to get in touch.

We were both amazed that so many websites out there seem to want to make visitors go to a Contact page to find a phone number or email address. This, is absolutely bonkers really and very similar to putting the phone number on your business card in really small type in a corner on the back. Contacting you should be easy, and here’s why:

contacting you should be easy – taken from the top right corner of a client website, this is on every page on the website

The aim of all websites should be to get some kind of response. This could be in the form of picking up the phone, sending an emailing, completing a contact form, buying something, downloading something and so on.

So why, oh why, do so many websites hide contact details on a Contact page? Or, worse still, give no clear direction as to what action the website visitor should take to get in touch.

But this isn’t just about your website, it’s about all of your business communication. Everything you send out with your company name on it should have a clear indication of how the reader/viewer/listener can get in touch if needed.

So, have a quick think right now: are your contact details easy to find on your website, your business cards, your brochures, your email footers, your company vehicles, your company stationery, your company uniforms and whatever else you put your company name on?

If the answer is no to any of the this then you need to rethink what you’re aiming at and ask yourself if you could be missing a trick or two here.

As an example: how many times have you seen an ad on the back of the bus with clever graphics but the phone number or web address are really small or (sometimes) not even there? I promise you’ll go and look now.

You see, in the small business world we don’t have the time or the money to go for branding exercises.  So you need to aim for response, getting your potential customers making enquiries or buying etc. If your contact details are missing or hard to find then the likelihood of you getting a response diminishes considerably.

However, the solution to this is really simple: make sure that your contact details can be quickly, easily and obviously found on every page of your website and all other forms of communication that your company sends out! Contacting you should be easy!

Hope that helps,
Karl

If you’d like some help with this then give us a call on 0116 3552194 or let us know about your thoughts on this in the comments below:

First off, Linkedin has over 200,000,000 (that’s two hundred million) users and most of these users are there to try and raise their professional profile and connect with like-minded people in business.

Whilst it’s, technically, a social media it is actually a huge business networking site.

And this presents a few opportunities for using Linkedin for marketing and I’d like to share just a couple of simple tactics for now.

• Finding people in your target organisations

This aspect of Linkedin is grossly overlooked by the majority of its users. So let me give you a couple of helpful examples:

We currently have 2 clients who are using Linkedin to laser target individuals in organisations they want to work with.

The first is Nigel, he is an expert in helping businesses make more effective and efficient use of warehouses and storage space.

His approach is to make a note of potential client businesses when on his travels, look the business up on Linkedin when back in the office, and then try and connect with people in that business with a view to eventually connecting with the guy in charge of storage etc.

The second is Clare, who is a specialist in domestic abuse training.

Her business is to help those in the police and social services to recognise and tackle domestic abuse situations. Her target market is incredibly well defined but she has only a few hundred potential clients in the UK. So she’s using Linkedin to reach those target individuals so she can offer and training and consulting services.

Obviously just connecting isn’t going to be enough. From there you need to nurture the relationship and that’s where your marketing savvy plays its part.

• Becoming known as an expert in your field within your target market

This one will take a little more thought and something of a longer-term view but can be very effective if consistent effort is applied.

The tactic is simple: find a Linkedin group where your target clients hang out and offer help and advice in that group to your audience.

My solicitor, Marie, (who is a sole practitioner) wins regular paid work by doing just this. She’s involved in a few groups and has pitched herself as the group expert for small business legal issues. But there are some problems that go beyond the scope of the groups and that’s where she wins business.

A word of warning on this one though: don’t let it take over your life. It’s easy to get hooked on spending time on social media and Linkedin is no exception. You should not be spending more than about an hour a week on this strategy.

So, hopefully you’ll begin to see how using Linkedin for marketing isn’t as complex as many of the experts and social media gurus would have you believe.

If you’ve any examples of where you’ve successfully used either of these tactics to win business then please share them in the comments below.

Hope to hear from you,
Karl

And instead of reiterating what we wrote in our post ’5 reasons why your business needs a blog‘ I’d like to share a simple example of what can happen from blogging.

A very good friend of ours, Marie, is a lawyer and started writing on her blog about stuff happening in her legal world. But one of the things she has become particularly good at is picking on the absurdities in the English legal system and how inefficient it can sometimes be.

As a result her blog was spotted by one of the people involved in the online Law Society Gazette and, as such, has on several occasions been asked to contribute her view on issues that the website was writing about.

Not only that but she also wrote an ‘opinion’ on something which they published in its entirety naming her and her company: http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/opinion/letters/claim-caveat

Now you might think “so what?” to all of that but you’d be missing something very important: The legal industry in the UK is very crowded and standing out from the competition can be very difficult indeed. This added exposure has done wonders for her profile as a lawyer and the owner of a small business.

This added exposure can also help Marie to become something of an opinion leader in her field. If she’s being asked for her opinion by the website of the Law Society then her opinion must have some value in this context, otherwise she wouldn’t be asked.

With some leverage and a bit of pushing in the right direction Marie could become known as a valued expert in her field and that can easily add collateral to almost any marketing message.

And all this from a simple business blog.

So next time you’re thinking that blogging for business isn’t going to help, just think about this one example and try and imagine how something similar could happen to you.

If you’re not sure how you can started in blogging for business then give us a quick call on 0116 3552194.

So here’s a few ideas that will, hopefully, encourage you to more actively take part in the biggest marketing shift the world has ever seen (and I mean the biggest).

1. Targeted marketing has never been easier
   In many ways websites like Facebook are a marketers dream-come-true because of how well you can target your advertising and marketing. Imagine you run a local driving school. Your biggest target market is going to be young people who are 17 and 18 years old who live within a short drive of where you’re based. With Facebook Ads you can target these demographics and show ads to just that group.
   Another example is a friend of mine whose target clients are senior managers in local authorities and she’s using LinkedIn to connect with people in that sector relevant to her field of expertise.
2. You can find out what customers really think
   Social media is the great outlet for people’s enthusiasms and also their gripes. If they like something they will share it with their friends but they will also publicly deride companies that hack them off.
   With some time spent in researching what folks are saying you could find out what they’re saying about you but also how much they like your competition. This could lead to improved customer service and/or client retention.
   Here’s a great example http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130207152835-15077789-the-1-thing-every-business-executive-must-understand-about-social-media
3. You can find gaps in the market
   Looking at point 2 above also gives you the chance to find out where people are struggling with respect to what you offer. If you read the article above you should see the point in listening to what folks are saying about you and your competition. And if they’re whining about your competition you need to ask yourself if there is a gap there that you can fill.
   But also you can listen out for what folks are saying generally in your field. We use social media to try and find out whether people in business feel like they’re paying too much for their website and web services or whether they feel that customer service is lacking in their relationship with their service providers. This is gives us the opportunity to examine how we can do better and become the go-to folks for great customer service in our field.
   You can also listen out for sayings such as “I wish someone would invent something that does this…” or “Why does nobody seem able to fix this…” or “This really hacks me off, all I want is…” and so on. These are areas where potential customers are screaming for someone to say “Actually, we can help”, could that someone be you?
4. You can get help in your marketing
   This is a biggie in business and it’s really simple. Every time someone shares what you’re saying to their followers and friends on social media they are advertising for you, they promoting for you, they are supporting your cause, they are lending their credibility to you. This, in itself, should a major reason why you need to be doing social media.

To be honest we could be writing all day about whether social media for businesses is really worthwhile, there are dozens (if not hundreds) of reasons. But ultimately only you can decide for yourself.

Our advice: get help if you don’t know where to start. But, please, make a start.

If you need help with getting to grips with and/or improving your use of social media in your business then give us a shout on 0116 3552194 and we’ll have a chat.

However, what really emerged for me was that “It was not just a blog that I needed”, or even “a revised and improved web site, incorporating a blog”, but something much more fundamental – my real need was for a proper overall online marketing strategy and plan – and not just an improved web site and/or a blog in my web site.

Karl did not just “discern my need and immediately tell me it” (I then might not have listened to him) but over our time together it just became clear to me what I really needed. (And guess what, effectively marketing the business has always been my main weakness, since day one of the business). Not what I wanted to hear, but what I needed to hear……..

I’m certain that Karl will design me a great blog, and indeed a great new web site, however what I did get from my time with him was something much more fundamental – even if it means some more initial “thinking time from me” – an overall in-bound (and maybe some out-bound?) marketing strategy, of which blog and web site are just a part.

And when I require further outside help to create, then implement, this overall online marketing strategy and plan, Karl will be my first port of call……

Steve GreenfieldGreenfield Enterprises Ltd

In our view, the most important aspect of web marketing these days is producing quality content in sufficient quantity to ensure that your website is being loved regularly by the search engines.

And this proves to be something of a frustration for us when working with clients as we try and ensure that their websites perform well. And this is because the search engines, with Google in particular, are doing their best to make quality content the single biggest factor when ranking your website in the search results.

But if content is king, and we’re all so busy trying to run our businesses, how on earth can we be writing on our blogs or writing articles all the time? Well, we can’t. It’s simply not feasible to be writing on a constant basis.

But here’s a few helpful hints that may encourage you to think a little differently.

• You could use a blog-writing service. That way you’ll have regular content added to your site but not have to spend hours each month writing it.
• You could use voice recognition software such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking. This way, with a little practice, you could write content in much reduced time and also write in much the way you speak (which actually aids understanding).
• You could use guest writers. There’s plenty of people out there willing to write content for websites in exchange for the authorship credit and a link back to their website.
• How about spreading the load? A small law firm here in Leicestershire has a policy that every member of staff has to write two blog posts a month. Quite a lot of content gets published (about 20 posts a month) but it’s not down to just one person.

So, there you go. Hopefully you’ll appreciate that while content is still king (and will likely be so for some time) you can still have content regularly added to your website without having to slave away every day all day.

If you’ve any other ideas for getting content added without having to do all the work then please share it in the comment section below.

And if you need help with content creation or how blogging could help your website marketing then give us a call on 0116 3552194 or use our contact form.

It’s not that we think that design isn’t important but we build websites for businesses and a website is an investment in marketing and should be expected to bring in new leads and customers. Thus the return on investment is vitally important.

But let me explain that a little further:

In our experience most small businesses don’t adequately measure the return they get from their marketing spend. They don’t analyse where new clients come from and whether advertising and marketing campaigns have been profitable.

A friend of mine recently wrote on Facebook that he’d spent over £1000 last year on business networking and that it hadn’t brought in a profitable response. So he’s rethinking his marketing strategy. But that kind of in-depth analysis is unusual in the small business world.

And the same kind of monitoring should go into all of your marketing, especially with a website which is often considered a ‘big ticket’ item in a small business. There is no excuse for not finding out exactly where your clients come from and what element(s) of your marketing they responded to.

But, coming back to websites, our clients are often surprised when we spend so much time examining how we’re going to make the website profitable. In fact we spend more time on this to begin with than we do working on design.

Design is important though, your website needs to appeal visually before the marketing message does its thing. But the design needs to support the marketing message and not the other way round.

We’ve seen small businesses spend thousands on beautiful websites that will never pay for themselves because all of the effort has been put into making it look great but with little or no thought for how the website will bring in new customers.

On the flipside of that I’d like to share a quick story:

In the middle of 2012 I was asked by a business colleague (who owns a successful restaurant) whether I’d seen his website lately. I said yes and asked him why he was asking. He told me that some of his friends had mentioned that his site was looking a little dated. My next question was something like “does your website bring in new business? Has it paid for itself?”. His response was “loads”. So I suggested that he not mess with it, don’t shoot the goose that lays the golden eggs.

A few months later he’d had his website redesigned and, in my view, it doesn’t look nearly as good as the old one. The message of a ‘great place to eat’ has been totally lost. In my opinion, he’s unnecessarily spent money on his website and has killed it. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if his response rates drop significantly and his website return on investment is badly affected.

But having said that, I’ve seen ugly websites that make good money for a business because the sales and marketing messages were very well written and they converted site visitors into leads or clients.

Now I want to re-emphasise that your website design is very important, of course it has to look visually appealing.  But, when thinking about a website, remember that it’s main function is as a sales and marketing tool and not a design exercise.

Make sure that you spend as much time and effort (if not more) on the website return on investment than on the design.

If you’ve any thoughts or questions on this then feel free to write them in the comments below. I hope to hear from you,
Karl

I’d like to answer both of those two questions in reverse order from what’s written:

So, what is a CRM?

Well, in short, a CRM is a database of contact and customers. CRM stands for Contact/Customer Relationship Management and this system enables you to keep track of contact with those on the list. The system also enables you to develop marketing campaigns and track success rates.

There’s plenty of stuff out there on what a CRM is but the key point of this post is why you should use CRM.

So, key question: “Why use CRM in your business?”

• Centralised data on clients/contacts
  First off, a CRM helps to keep data on your clients and contacts all in the same place. So, your sales and marketing or client handling staff should be able to quickly find out about what communication you’ve had with the people in the CRM.
  This should help to prevent duplicate efforts between staff and sections of the business.

• Sales lead tracking
  A CRM gives you a great way of tracking what’s happening within a sales team in that lead tracking is quite easy. A sales person would be able to easily make notes on contacts with potential customers and then the effectiveness of the process could be monitored and improved where necessary.

• Relationship tracking
  this is an area where almost all small businesses fall down: keeping track of who said what to clients. With a CRM system you can keep a handle on contact with clients so if you speak with a customer you will know much more about the history of the relationship and won’t run the risk of embarrassing yourself by repeating stuff.

• Marketing campaign tracking
  One of the most common problems with many businesses that don’t do as well as they could is that they don’t track the effectiveness of their marketingMany companies, especially small businesses, will spend money on advertising and promotion and then fail to track whether the activity has generated a profitable (or even desirable) response. A CRM enables you to do this so that if you decide to repeat a marketing activity you’ll know what kind of response you got last time and whether it’s really a worthwhile activity.
  A good example here is email marketing. Using a CRM system you’ll be able to find out how many recipients opened the email and who is clicking through to look for more information and how many of those will buy (especially if what you’re selling is sold online). Have a look at the image below for an example report.

Graphical CRM report of email campaign effectiveness.

• Automated campaigns
  In our view, one of the best things about CRM (particularly online CRM) is the ability to automate certain elements of campaigns. In our case we have a free report on our home page and if you register for this you’ll get an automated series of emails that further promote what we’re about and encouraging you to get in touch.
  On top of that we’ve run automated email campaigns where we set up a series of emails that need to go out and then the system just sends them out at the scheduled times. It really helps to make marketing so much easier. This can also work with SMS marketing too.

• Data segmentation / Targeted marketing
  The strength of CRM and how it supports your marketing can be how well you segment the data that you’ve gathered. Many CRM users break down their data into parts according to how they want to market their products and services. An obvious way is to separate your clients from the other contacts in your database so you can target your marketing messages depending on whether they’ve bought or not. You could even break your client list down into smaller lists of products bought so you can maximise cross-selling opportunities.Many businesses segment their data along the lines of common demographics such as age, gender, where the contact lives and so on. But, whichever way you use the data, being able to put it into groups for targeted marketing campaigns can mean the difference between poor and good responses from your efforts. You’re also less likely to hack off the other folks in your database who may not be interested in what you’re offering.

• Data capture and Autoresponse
  This is slightly different from automated campaigns. Autoresponse can be used to send automated messages (email/text) to contacts who take certain actions, such as download a free report from your website (as we have done).
  This means that you can build a database of interested names and keep in touch with them without having to manually send the messages (unless you want to at some point).In the example on our home page you will see a form which is linked to our CRM system and when you complete the form you will receive a series of emails about us and the report. Although the email is personalised, it’s all been automatically sent by our CRM.

• Newsletters
  Most businesses that use CRM just do the basics and this can be as simple as sending out a newsletter. The benefit with a CRM system is that you can track how many people have opened the email and how many have clicked on any links within the email. This way you’ll know whether your newsletter is being read and by whom.

• You choose
  There are loads of other reasons to use CRM and it’s wise to think about what you want out of the system before you go full steam ahead into buying.Some words of advice though: choose carefully, take your time, try some out before committing.  The reason we say this is that you’re going to be investing time (quite a bit of it), money and effort into this system. So make sure you know what you’re letting yourself into.

In many ways we could rave about CRM all day since it’s helping our business to grow through targeted marketing campaigns, autoresponders and email newsletters.

With any business product there is a large variety of CRM systems out there. We’ve tried a few and now use a company call InTouch CRM who are based here in the UK. The reason we use InTouch is because their system is very comprehensive, it’s affordable, their customer service is outstanding and they are always willing to look at ways of improving the system if you have a good idea.

You can try InTouch for free by clicking on the image to the right but if you’ve any thoughts on using CRM or have any great examples of how CRM has helped your business then let us know in the comments below.

So what should a website marketing plan look like?

Well, here’s a few key points:

• You need to be clear on who your target market is
  This is most important facet of all marketing. Until you’ve identified who your target market is then you’ll (most likely) be wasting large chunks of your marketing efforts trying to sell to people who are not natural customers for your offering.
• You need to have activities to promote the website 
  This could be in the form of social media activities (Twitter, facebook, Pinterest etc), blog writing, offline marketing (all company branding and literature etc), advertising, email footers and loads more.
• The website needs to be very clear in presenting what you can offer to clients
  If you spend any time on the web you’ll find loads of sites where what the company offers is obscured by the clever design (web designers have a lot to answer for sometimes).
• Your website needs a very clear call to action
  It’s pointless driving traffic to your website without telling visitors what to do when they get there.
• You need deadlines on your planned activities
  Deadlines get stuff done so make sure you plan activities properly. This could be things such as: tweet something daily, write a blog post a week, connect with 10 people on Linkedin each week.
• Measure the objectives and aim for ROI
  Your website is more than just a brochure online, it’s a marketing tool and should therefore provide a return on investment. So make sure you can track all enquiries that come through your website.

In our view your website is a sales and marketing channel and should be used to help you win and keep clients. So a website marketing plan should be one of the first things you consider when thinking about having your website built.

I’m sure there’s plenty more we could include but hopefully this will get you started in developing some kind of website marketing plan to make sure that your website meets your objectives and also pays for itself.

If you’ve any further thoughts on this then please feel free to write them in the comments below: