The first month of the year is drawing to a close, but we are still curious to hear what others are saying about the state of the web in 2012. While technology may seem like it moves at the speed of light, we can count on Internet sales and marketing to adapt as needed. As search engine marketing experts are supercharging visitor engagement though social media and content marketing, website owners are taking note and making big changes. This is the year in which quality content is necessary for not only search engine optimization, but visitor engagement, conversion, and retention as well.

Keyword-Stuffing No Longer Works

A few years ago, it was quite easy for your website to secure a top ranking in search engines and drive a lot of traffic just by writing content loaded with keywords. Website content authors took advantage of this and would seize every opportunity to insert a keyword here and there to ensure prime real estate in Google’s search results. However, instead of finding the answer or solution to your search query, oftentimes what was returned to you was empty, meaningless content.

Take, for example, the following sentence: “We are an Indianapolis company located in Indianapolis, which is in the central part of Indiana, which is where many other Indianapolis companies reside.”

Although this is a bit of an exaggeration, it is obvious that this sentence was written to merely drive traffic and rank high in search results. Many websites might have performed well with this optimization trickery, but it has proven to be an ineffective and insincere method. Now that our search engines have gotten smarter and have upgraded their algorithms to sniff out lousy websites, website content authors can no longer rely on keywords.

Don’t get me wrong, though: keywords still are an important factor in the SEO equation. You still need to focus on strong keywords and terms to acquire new visitors to your website. However, now you really need to strategize about how your website content is going to engage, convert, and retain these visitors.

Engage Your Visitors

Your content should speak to the needs of your target audience and present solutions to their problems. Likewise, it should also entice your visitor to want to learn more about your company, products, and services. To take your engagement to the next level, set up a social media and email marketing strategy that will allow you to interact with your visitors on a more authentic level.

Convert Your Prospects

If you write content without regard to what it is your visitors are looking for, then what’s the point? It’s like throwing bait into a lake without putting it on a hook. By focusing on quality content, you create more opportunities to engage and earn the respect, trust, and (hopefully) the desire of those who visit your website. And when you have the respect, trust, and desire of your visitors, you are more likely to turn that opportunity into a golden one and, more importantly, that prospect into a loyal customer.

Retain Your Customers

It is important to plan to update your website content accordingly to keep it fresh and relevant not only in the search engines’ indexes, but in your visitors’ minds as well. By getting your visitor to come back to your website on a consistent basis, you know that your company will come to mind whenever they have a need for your products or services, regardless of search engine rank. Likewise, make sure the social media and email marketing strategies you have in place engage all of your visitors.

How will you engage, convert, and retain your website visitors this year? Please share your thoughts with us – we welcome the discussion!

Handing that baton off while running full speed is really a lot harder than you’d think it be. Despite how quickly it actually happens in real time, those teams have practiced it many times. The actual handoff occurs with a certain foot forward and a precise amount of time after the recipient of the baton has started moving. Most importantly, dropping the baton means losing the race!

Prior to any actual contractual agreements actually being in place for a project, it’s very likely that you’ve had several, if not many more, planning meetings with a sales-type person and probably even a pre-sales engineer. Think of this as the first lap of the race and playing the role of the baton are the project charter, initial project requirements, timelines, scopes of work, and situation specific details that could immediately affect the project.

In order for actual project, or second phase of the race, to get off on the right foot, it’s crucial that there be a clean handoff of this knowledge, or baton, to the members of the project team. How do you do this successfully? Just like a world class track and field relay team, it takes practice and an understanding of this fast, yet complex, interaction.

For our Galvin team, this occurs during the Project Kickoff meeting. If posssible, we prefer to have all key project stakeholders present. From the Galvin side, the personnel who are present are largely representative of the project scope itself. If its a database heavy application, we include our lead architect. Likewise, if we know that graphic or interactive design is a key component, we’ll include an interactive designer.

Once we’re able to get together there is a specific agenda that the meeting follows. This typically goes something like this:

1) Introduction to Roles and Responsbilities – We want to verify everyone’s role and responsbility in the project. Is there a 3rd party IT Manager who will be making DNS changes? Let’s identify and record that as a part of project foundation. Highlighting it early will avoid miscommunication later. Once again, no dropping the baton!

2) Highlight Project Objectives - This is where we’ll review the project scope of work and the Project Charter. This equates to not only what we’re setting out to do or how we’re going to, but to WHY the project has been authorized. In general, human beings work more efficiently when they understand the context in which they are working. We are at Galvin are no different. Bringing a general understanding of the project’s purpose can often generate new and creative solutions from unlikely places.

3) Project Specific Discussion Items - As a Project Manager, I always felt like this was the most important part of the kickoff meeting. This is because this is the spot where we openly discuss not only risks to the project, but how to mitigate those risks.

4) Next Steps – Very simply, where do we go from here? Next meetings, action items, etc.

At this point, we’ve succesfully handed the project off to the next runner in the race. Just like in a race, however, there are other handoffs that must occur as the project life cycle plays out. We’ll certainly cover these in later blog posts. In the meantime, just be thankful I don’t actually have any photos or videos from my high school gym class. It would be quite a sight!

Sales and marketing is an initiative of corporate websites and the content on those websites need to nurture and “close” the visitor. Here are 3 simple suggestions on how to portray free versions of your software.

Set Expectations
Free trials are oftentimes necessary for SaaS solutions playing in a competitive arena. But whether you are giving it away for free or for cost make sure you set the expectation on what is included in the version you are going to sign up for. Below are two examples from Salesforce.com and Surveymonkey.com.

Salesforce.com creates a grid view of their various versions and what the user will expect in each of those versions.

SurveyMonkey.com shows exactly what the user will receive with their free version and paid versions.

Don’t Overcomplicate. Less Might be Better
Most likely your SaaS solution has complexities that take time for the user to learn and understand. Don’t feel that you have to provide these in the free version. Although these features might set you apart from the rest the mere complexities of them could overwhelm the user and thus give the impression that your software is too complex and not easy to use. Give the user enough features to wet their pallet on the potential of your software for them to use during their trial period. Remember, you are still in “sales” mode and you ultimately want the user to buy from you. Give the user enough to get them interested to move onto the next stage of your sales cycle.

Remember to Upsell
For the features that are turned off in the free version you should still provide an experience so the user can learn about the features they don’t have but could have. If you have a feature in your free trial version that is not accessible then allow a user to click that feature so they are sent to a page that explains the benefits of that feature if they buy or upgrade.

In closing, your free trial version is to help the user become a paying client. When a free version is being used they are simply trying it out. When you get a free sample at the grocery store you only get a sampling but that is what you expect. They don’t expect a 3 course meal and you wouldn’t give them one. Keep it simple, don’t overwhelm them and keep helping them.

It sometimes seems natural to want to write content on your website that uses robust vocabulary and how good your company does something. But your website audience is on your website hoping your company can create a solution for their needs. Whatever messages you are trying to get across on your website remember one thing – you are selling. This doesn’t mean you are asking the website visitor to buy now but rather you are trying to create rapport by establishing though leadership, increase search engine rankings or maybe showcasing case studies. So your content needs to be engaging enough so your audience would consider your company.

Take a look at your sales funnel. As you examine the opportunities in your sales funnel you can start seeing trends about people are asking for or possible objections they may have. You may also see trends in what people are buying. Now you have subject material worth writing about that could engage more potential prospects. Here is how:

1. List each opportunity in your funnel by stage
2. Create a list of common objections or questions you may hear at each of those stages
3. Write content that addresses those objections or questions
4. Map your new content to those stages and let your sales team know where those pages reside so they are armed with relevant content while on the sales trail.

Let’s call a spade a spade. For most organizations, updating web content is a pain. We know we should do it, but with few tools to accurately and directly measure the return we get on the investment of time and resources, it often, if not ALWAYS, loses.

Why wouldn’t you finish that red hot proposal for a potential new client instead of update the website, when you can clearly and undeniably see the potential return on the time you invest in the potential client? Let’s take a moment to explore a few reasons why keeping your web content fresh is so important.

• 33% of consumers spend more than 3 hours online every day.

• In 2011, 61% of businesses will invest in “earned media” such as SEO, Virtual Events, Microsites, Whitepaper downloads, and Social Media. If you’re not investing in it consistently, it’s highly likely your competition is.

• Research and fact finding, the beginning of the “purchasing experience”, begins online before even one bit of personal communication is made. Stale content means less interest, less traffic, and less business…before you even say hello.

We know we should do it and we’ve explored a few reasons why it’s so important, but, at the end of the day, who is going to make this happen? All the stats in the world don’t make the day any longer, right? And we know that proposal isn’t going to write itself!

Furthermore, few organizations have the luxury of a dedicated resource to take on these challenging and never-ending tasks. Often it gets placed, or likely forced, on to the plate of someone whose job description doesn’t include ‘copywriter’ or ‘marketing specialist’. What happens when busy people are tasked with things they don’t want to do? They likely don’t get done, or if they do, can you be certain that they’re not done as often or with the quality that your organization prides itself on?

Of course, this is all easier said than done. If you need some help getting started give us a call. We’re happy to share few tips and tricks to get you started on the right foot.

Here are just a few small ways in which your clients will not only remember you, but they will look forward to your next meeting.

1.       Be Present – Be intentional when dealing with clients.  No one wants to feel as though they are an inconvenience.  Give them your full attention by looking them in the eye and focusing on what they are saying.

2.       Be Trustworthy – You need to be seen by your clients as someone they can trust and rely upon both personally and professionally.  Follow through with your commitments and be mindful of the persona you are projecting. 

3.       Be Grateful – Never forget that your client had other options but chose to do business with you.  Let them know that you appreciate their business and that they made the correct decision.

4.       Be Personal – Your client is more than their business; they are also individuals.  Address them by their first name.  Take an interest in their personal lives.  Show them that you are not only interested in their business; you are interested in them.

Never forget that the simplest thing like making eye contact and showing appreciation can make or break your relationship with your clients. 

I have a Blackberry and I love it but here are a few rules on how to use it while on a sales call:

1. DO take it on sales calls because you will need it.  It looks like you are unprepared if you leave it behind.
2. DON’T leave the ringer on.
3. DON’T ever take notes on it.  Although you are not but it looks like you could be texting or emailing.
4. It’s OK to take it out of your pocket and put it on the table but put it to the side.  This sounds odd but it’s a business tool and looks professional. Just DON’T ever look at it.  This rule does not apply to iPhones.  Keep all iPhones tucked away in your pocket or bag unless you need to bring it out for a reason.
5. If your prospect leaves the room for a moment DON’T check your email or voice mails because you don’t want them walking in on you.  Your mind is always on the prospect.
6. When entering or leaving the building DON’T check email on it because you don’t want your prospect seeing you check your email because they will think something is more important.
7. DON’T talk on the phone while entering or leaving the building for the same reason as #6.
8. Use the calendar to set the next date right then and there.  Don’t wait to get back to the office.