Top Five: 2012 Small Business Trends
Unsurprisingly, the NO.1 trend is in mobile - search, geotargeting and having a mobile friendly website.
The year end national team rankings from FIFA are in. Spain finishes the year where it started, ranked #1. I’m sure not many would have predicted that Uruguay and Croatia would finish ranked ahead of traditional power Argentina. The rough year for the United States team continued as they dropped to #34 (not pictured here).
Thoughts from you?
How To Get Customers Without Losing Your Shirt
Most small business owners do their very best to get customers for their business. I don’t doubt that for a minute. They usually put in a lot of effort, investing time and money on various strategies to attract customers but often they overlook one of the most efficient and cost-effective strategy that’s readily available to them.
And that is to have a webform (aka an opt in box) on their website to capture leads. It is a tried and true lead system that helps any business to build a great list of prospects that they can ethically market to but unfortunately too many business owners are still not taking advantage of it. For the proof, all I need to do is to look around the web. Sadly, what I will find is far too many business websites without a webform.
So, what makes an effective webform? Here are the main points:
People tend to read from left to right, meaning that their eye will be be drawn naturally to it.
2. Put the webform above the fold.
This simply means that visitors to your website don’t have to scroll down to see it. The idea is not to make it hard for your visitors to find the webform by having it in a less prominent position on the website.
3. Ideally, just ask for their first name and email address in the webform.
If you ask for too many details like a telephone number or an address, you will not convert as many visitors. The less details you ask for, the better conversions you will receive.
4. Make sure the webform contains a clear privacy statement, linking back to a privacy policy page.
Importantly, you want to reassure your visitors that their information will be kept confidential and secure.
Now that your webform is in place, you need an incentive to offer to your visitors in return for them giving you their name and email address. Unless you give them a good reason why they should part with their contact details, your visitors will be reluctant to readily do so. Therefore, the incentive must be something of real value to them and it can be free.
Here are some ideas:
free consultation
free webinar
free trial
free video
free report
exclusive discount
Once you’ve chosen the incentive that you will offer as a lead capture, it’s a good idea to include an appealing image/graphic of the incentive into the presentation of your webform to your visitors. This will serve as a little extra motivation for them to hand over their contact information.
By using a webform in this way, it should not be too difficult for your business to get customers. If you execute this lead generation strategy properly, you should have no problem turning a good proportion of your visitors into red hot prospects and, eventually, satisfied customers.
I LOVED this show!!!
(via the-white-lodge)
Organization is a competitive advantage in the creative world. Scott Belsky explains how every meeting, brainstorm, or a personal project can be reduced to just three things.
See more from our Work Smart series.
By 2014, mobile internet users are expected to exceed desktop internet users. If you haven’t made the effort to make your website mobile friendly, you’re missing a huge opportunity to connect with real customers who want to buy your products or services.
You Can’t Ignore Mobile Any More.
