Peter Grandstaff

Web Marketing for Your Small Business

Are you losing the reviews race?

I suggest this to all my clients. Very few follow through. The result of ignoring this advice can be awful.

Following it can catapult you ahead of your competition with minimal work and no cost.

I’m talking about asking customers to review you online. Ideally, you can make this automatic: a follow up email goes out to everyone saying something like:

Thanks for your business. We hope we’ve exceeded your expectations. If not, please reply to this email and let us know what we can do to fix things.

If you are completely satisfied, it would mean the world to us if you’d go online and write a review of us on Google: [and a link to your Google listing]

That’s it. It’s good customer service because it encourages people to get in touch if they aren’t happy and shows a willingness to solve any problem. It’s good marketing because customer reviews are more convincing that your best sales pitch.

One of my clients, an attorney, has done a great job with this. Here’s what people see when they Google his firm compared to his biggest competitor:

129 Reviews vs 7 Reviews

Which would you rather hire?

Now, you might think you aren’t really losing anything by not bothering with this. None of your competitors have a ton of reviews either, so it’s no big deal. The danger in that thinking is that one or two unhappy customers can take you from neutral to awful.

Here’s what shows up when you google a customer of mine who has failed to solicit reviews despite me suggesting it regularly for over 2 years:

Bad Reviews Example

Three bad reviews aren’t a big deal if you have 47 great ones. If they are all you have, you’re losing the reviews race.

How I Avoided a 14% Loss in Traffic

sw_TapeMeasure100_cs2014-05-02_07-42There’s an important lesson that’s very easy to lose track of.

It’s this: Don’t guess when you can measure.

Woodworkers don’t seem to forget this very often, but small business marketers do.

I managed an ad campaign over the past few weeks that reminded me how valuable it is to measure.

I had things roughed in and had built out the landing page for the ads. I had the final go-ahead, and then realized I hadn’t made a graphic for the ad itself. I didn’t have much time before my next appointment and further delay was not an option.

So, I made a graphic very quickly. I reused a photo that was already open in Photoshop and wrote the first copy that came to mind. I didn’t spend any time adjusting the wording. I just checked the spelling and set the ad to run.

My plan was to make a better ad the next day. [Read more…]

Three Ways to Spice Up Your Social Media Strategy

Spice Up Your Social Media StrategyIt’s been really interesting to see how small and medium size businesses have come to use social media. Facebook Pages are the norm these days. Twitter profiles are not uncommon. Instagram feeds are popping up everywhere.

But 95% of what I see is still just broadcasting. It’s social media, but it’s being used as a one-way communication medium.

Where’s the socializing? Where’s the engagement?

Here are three campaign ideas you can use to put some social kick into your social media strategy.
[Read more…]

What Great Ads Never Do

Not long ago, I wrote about how advertising works. I used the analogy of a boy at a middle school dance who has spent absurd amounts of time making himself look great, but none into asking anyone to dance.

That post covered the need for an ad to inspire action. This month, let’s look at how to do that, and the big mistake that great ads never make.

(Note: When I talk about ads, I’m talking about websites, print ads, TV ads, fundraising letters… everything. This has very broad applications.)

Everyone is selfish. It’s a fact. When faced with a spending decision, we’re out to get the most benefit we can. Ignoring this simple fact is one of the most common mistakes made in advertising.

Many ads simply display a brand and look nice. Some ask the reader to buy, which is a major step up from just showing off how great you look. But, it’s not enough. Such an ad is being selfish while forgetting that the reader is also selfish.

What’s in it for them?
[Read more…]

The Reading Rainbow Targeting Trick

Photo by Josh Hallett. It was actually taken at a social media conference. https://www.flickr.com/photos/hyku/13806493933/

Photo by Josh Hallett. It was actually taken at a social media conference. https://www.flickr.com/photos/hyku/13806493933/

Odds are good that you’re familiar with LeVar Burton from either Roots, Star Trek, or Reading Rainbow. My first exposure was Reading Rainbow.

I loved that show when I was little.

So, I was excited to see that LeVar Burton is running a Kickstarter campaign to bring back Reading Rainbow. It’s been super successful, raising over $2.5 million in the first two days.

I was reading LeVar’s AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit and realized that the story of Reading Rainbow has more to teach than just literacy.
[Read more…]

How advertising works, and how it doesn’t

Advertising is sort of a unique endeavor in many ways. A lot of business owners want to help with it–or get input from their friends and family–even though they don’t know anything about it. That doesn’t happen with the bookkeeping or janitorial tasks.

I think part of the problem is that people misunderstand how advertising works.

I have seen a fair number of business owners and managers agonizing over marketing materials and ads, getting lots of input and making lots of tweaks. Their focus is almost entirely on how they come across, how they look.
[Read more…]

Is That Ad Following You?

I bet you’ve noticed this growing trend in online advertising, even if you don’t know what to call it or how it works. You do some browsing around, maybe look at some things on Amazon or research some new software. Then, you start seeing ads for what you just looked at… all over the web.

It’s called remarketing, and it’s going to become even more common. Why?

Because it works.

It works, and it’s easy to do using Google Adwords. [Read more…]

Four Words that Make or Break a Facebook Strategy

There have been millions of words written about how to use Facebook to promote a business, cause or collection of funny cat pictures. What I’ve found is that you should really just focus on four words. Study all the words you like, but they won’t do you any good if you haven’t mastered these four.

Do
it
every
day.

Not only is that the most important lesson for benefiting from social media, it seems to be the hardest for people to master.

I’m not saying you should post to your Facebook page every day, or just once a day. Post as often as it makes sense. What you should do every day is log in and spend some brain power on it:
[Read more…]