The Small Business Marketing Blog

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We’ve been online for quite some time now, and have seen a lot of websites…

I don’t know if it’s just me, but when I get to a website and it has poor web design, it turns me right off of whatever they could possibly be telling me or teaching me…

If I came there with the intention of buying a product or service, I am immediately dissuaded from following through with the purchase…Why is that?

A website may be all that someone knows of you and/or your product or service. If they get there and it is messy, unorganized, poorly formatted, or simply not interesting, they are likely to leave and quickly! They’ll likely be looking for somewhere else to spend their money.

…The thing is, you may only have a few seconds to entice the customer to stay put and search through your site. Make it easy to find what they are looking for…make it visually appealing and interesting for them…Goodness knows, it’s not difficult to find some good looking sites out there, even with products that may be inferior to yours.

You may have the best product in all the world, but it if you have terrible web design, no one will ever know it…

Okay, so how in the world do I create an amazing web presence?

Maybe you don’t know programming, html or javascript, and that’s okay! Absolutely okay…It’s getting easier and easier to just plug in an application on your site, or simply find some great web templates to try out.

If you can, it’s always lucrative to use free templates, but it can now be quite inexpensive to find “thee” design you have to have for a reasonable price.

Kenney and I have created a bunch of websites in our day, and when we see a good resource, we take note…

???????? ????? ????????I “stumbled” upon a site called DreamTemplate.com and they give you 300 free templates to choose from and use…Not only that, they are selling unlimited access to all of their templates for $59.95.

From what I can tell, they have nearly 3000 web templates on the site in every category you could possibly think of…From vivid color and very creative, to super professional and conservative. Check out this one…It’s luscious: Apple & Sky

There are some really unique templates I’m crushing on in actuality…I’ve got my sights set on them for some new ideas I’m planning…

Considering, this is how you make your money if you’re an online business, it’s well worth that investment to ensure you have a website with good design, gains your reader or customer’s interests, and has good functionality.

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I hope you found website to be a Good Resource from The Small Business Marketing Blog! Until next time…

Happy Marketing,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. Add me as a friend on Stumble Upon.

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There’s an old saying that you should find a need, fill it, and you’ll get rich.

It’s not really true. You need to find a want and fill it. People don’t always want what they need. They need to eat right, but they don’t. They need to stop smoking, but they don’t. They want to be more healthy. You want to sell them what they want, but give them what they need.

Your prospects and customers are people just like you and me and they’re going to respond to messages similar to ones we might respond to. They’ll get turned off by the same things and exaggerations that we do. Filling their needs and wants typically involve things that we’ve talked about - convenience, long-lasting, time-saving, better-looking, more functional stronger guarantees, better service, etc.

We never know which hot button is their buying button. We need to test one feature or benefit against another until we discover what their hot buttons are. Your objective is simply one of matching your marketing mission to the functions of the products or services that your business offers. If your business offers products and services that by design are problem solvers, then you need to use this function in your marketing approach.

You want to exaggerate and accentuate the types of problems they may have because your product or service will solve them. Point out a problem in detail and tell just how your product or service is designed to solve that problem.

Here’s an example. A diet program. You don’t want to sell the powder or the vitamin, but you want to sell better confidence, better health, greater attraction, and long life.

How do you uncover their real wants and desires? If you listen, you’ll discover the customer talking back to you in many ways. They might speak directly with you, your employees, the media, other customers. You have to pay attention. You’ll hear more of what they don’t want instead of what they do want.

They might say prices are too high or there’s not a big enough selection or the quality isn’t high enough. That’s telling you the opposite of what they really want. However and whatever they say - listen to them! You’ll learn something every time you do.

Happy Marketing,

Kenneth & Kimberly Edwards
Founders of FinancialBreakthrough102.com

P.S. Free Report for Business Owners. Tired of not enough sales and profits? Discover ways to sell more, cut cost and double profits with tons of low-cost marketing strategies revealed all in detail…

Financial Breakthrough 102

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Since those of you who read this blog are business owners, you must be concerned with hiring employees, and making sure those people are fine, upstanding individuals to keep your business on the “up and up”!

The hard work you put into marketing your business can be shattered if you have some Better Business Bureau complaints, investigations commenced, or charges filed against you, etc.

Problem is, how do you find out what type of people you are hiring?

Many business are turning towards Criminal Background Checks.

A little extreme, you may think…Well, not really…If you have a business that has anything to do with children or children’s products, you probably aren’t going to want to accidentally let a known child sex offender on board…That’s a vivid case…

However, if your business is one of financial services or requires employees to acquire payment information, you may not want a convicted felon for fraud taking orders…Criminal Checks could alleviate some problems you might encounter in situations such as these…

I say all of this to tell you that I “stumbled upon” a neat service online at a site called SentryLink.com, which does National Criminal Background Checks.

They can check felonies, misdemeanors, sex offenders and more at state and county levels. Their services also include the ability to pull credit reports and driving records.

I guess I don’t need to harp on why this is so important, I just wanted to share it with you because I thought it could be indispensable when hiring for your company.

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I hope you find this a Good Resource from The Small Business Marketing Blog! Until next time…

Happy Marketing,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. Add me as a friend on Stumble Upon.

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Well, just wanted to say “Hello” since I’ve been away for 1 week up in cottage country in Ontario!

I had a very relaxing time “Up North”, spending most of my time on the beach and in the hot tub!

I’ll be back on it tomorrow with some great posting for the week! I’m looking forward to it!

Until next time…

Happy Marketing,

Kimberly Edwards

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