Check your web-marketing savvy with this self-test. Then check our answers below.
1. |
TRUE FALSE |
If you have Facebook, you don't need a website. |
2. |
TRUE FALSE |
A website makes getting new customers easier. |
3. |
TRUE FALSE |
"Information products" are a quick way to increase profits. |
4. |
TRUE FALSE |
Pay-per-click ads - expensive but guaranteed to work. |
5. |
TRUE FALSE |
Our web developer is an e-commerce expert. |
6. |
TRUE FALSE |
It's expensive to do webinars. |
7. |
TRUE FALSE |
Social media (blog, Facebook, Twitter) is essential. |
8. |
TRUE FALSE |
We can't afford to market via the web. |
9. |
TRUE FALSE |
Our web developer is an SEO expert. |
10. |
TRUE FALSE |
Buying an email list is a good way to find customers. |
1. If you have Facebook, you don't need a website.
FALSE. First and most important, most folks are far more familiar with visiting websites than they are with Facebook. And making potential customers sign up for a Facebook account just so they can learn about your business is a really bad idea.
Plus, a well-designed website instantly conveys the personality of your business - something your Facebook page will never do. Yes, in theory you can put all the info potential customers care about on your Info, Events, etc. Facebook pages...but that's not a very user-friendly way to give prospects info about your business.
2. A website makes getting new customers easier.
TRUE. But websites are not silver bullets. You've got to put the right information on your site, so that potential customers can quickly tell whether your business is a fit for them. And even more important, you've got to have a strategy for getting people to your website in the first place. A great strategy is to combine a well-thought-out website with a strong emphasis on online customer reviews.
3. "Information products" are a quick way to increase profits.
FALSE. For most health and wellness businesses, "e-book information products" like cookbooks, workout guides, and healthy lifestyle programs are better used as marketing tools than as standalone products. If you do want to sell your e-book, plan on investing time, energy and money in marketing it. Simply creating a long "sales-letter" style landing-page won't make your e-book sales boom.
4. Pay-per-click ads - expensive but guaranteed to work.
FALSE. Online customer reviews work better than PPC for most health and wellness businesses, and reviews are FREE!
When you search in Google, notice that list of six or so listings over on the right? That's what low-budget AdWords campaigns accomplish. Does anyone actually look at anything except (maybe) the top business on the list? Nope.
5. Our web developer is an e-commerce expert.
FALSE. Most developers (do you have a trustworthy one? check here) will want you to license shopping cart software which they will then charge you to customize. It will have limited features, technical glitches and/or downtime, and poor tech support.Unless you remind them (and pay extra), they won't usually keep updating the software to the latest version - which means bugs and security holes aren't getting fixed.
We nearly always recommend using a hosted shopping cart like CoreCommerce. You can set up a customized store or add customized e-commerce to your site for under $50/month and get great features and excellent tech support with far less downtime and fewer glitches. Plus, services have "hooks" into the major search engines, so your products are likelier to show up in search engine results.
6. It's hard to do webinars.
FALSE. Webinars are great ways to market or provide wellness services for a fee. Just use the entry-level GoToMeeting service (not the higher-priced GTM Webinar service) to get started for about $40/month. Do you want to provide PDFs to people? PDF generation software is available free or if you want some extra features, at a very reasonable price from companies like Nuance.
Do you just need teleconferencing capabilities? Then your best bet is a service like FreeConferenceCall.com. You can hold small or big teleconferences at no cost to you - and your callers only pay their normal long-distance charges.
7. Social media (blog, Facebook, Twitter) is essential.
FALSE. Most health and wellness businesses shouldn't make social media the centerpiece of their marketing strategy. These sites don't present business info in ways that help people make buying decisions. So you can spend a lot of time on updates without seeing results.
Plus, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds often look like your favorite pizza joint's bulletin board - a jumbled collection of stuff that no one ever looks at. And look closely - is most of the activity on your wall coming from the same handful of people?
If your marketing plan relies on social media, leverage everything they offer. Capitalize on each site's strengths. For example, Twitter's great for event reminders and special promotions. Customize the look and feel, post events, get creative with the photo galleries, and post offers, promotions, information and other updates that will matter to customers. Configure your site settings to suppress external content.
And don't forget to cross-pollinate between your social media sites and your email newsletter.
8. We can't afford to market via the web.
FALSE. For example, online customer reviews (get our free online review kit here) are highly effective and cost nothing.
Event postings on local websites are usually free. And free article submission strategies to sites like EzineArticles can improve your organic search rankings.
9. Our web developer is an SEO expert.
FALSE. They nearly always lack general marketing expertise, they're not usually search engine optimization experts, and they aren't experts in PPC tools like Google AdWords. There are firms that specialize in all these things, and they will do a much better job than your web developer.
Look for: a firm that specializes in web marketing and has certified Google Adwords specialists on staff and/or a firm that specializes in local search.
10. Buying an email list is a good way to find customers.
FALSE. Here's our list of 50 GOOD ways to get email addresses.
Put it this way - would these email addresses cost only pennies each if they were actually worth something? Nope. You have no idea where these addresses came from, but one thing you know for sure: they have never heard of your business and never asked you to send them anything. So if you email them, the odds are very, very good that they will ignore you, or report your email as spam.