Steve Johnsen

Personal and corporate growth for business owners, executives, coaches & entrepreneurs

Your website as the Great Leveler

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Pre-Internet, judging the size of a business involved a brick and mortar assessment. You walked down the street and looked at the buildings. You might have seen one company with a 10-story building and realized that was a big company. Then you might have seen another business that had a single storefront, part of a small building, and you realized that business was much smaller.

Today online, the world wide web is the great leveler. Because we’re dealing with bits and bites, the cost of producing a high quality website for a small business is not any higher than the cost of producing a high quality website for a huge organization. This allows a small company with a smart investment in their web design to look just as stunning as a huge organization, and in many cases even more stunning. On the web, a small company can have a huge image.

How would you like to present your business online?

To your success!

A website that made a dream come true

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A while back, a friend came to me for help redesigning her e-commerce website. Her current site wasn’t producing much. So I spent quite a while exploring what were her goals for the business and for the website.

I discovered two things. First, even though she wanted to sell products online, her real goal was to get her product onto the shelves of the large chain stores. Second, she had a dream of building up the business to sell it so she could retire.

As we were meeting and talking, I noticed she had a really cute product.

She shared with me that whenever she showed the product to someone, people on the other side of the room would perk up and say, “Oh! Can I look at that?” I realized we needed to showcase her product and her product’s personality on the website.

We designed the e-commerce site with an eye toward our real goal of branding and showcasing the product to catch the attention of the large chain store buyers. The following week after we launched the website, she went to a trade show and came home with $130,000 – $140,000 in orders for her product to go on store shelves.

Several of the buyers mentioned to her that they were really impressed with the website. She went on to get the product onto the shelves in PetSmart. Then she got a call from Bentonville, inviting her to develop an OEM product line for Walmart.

Within two years, she had sold the business and retired to her dream home in Utah.

How can you apply this to your business? First, we must identify the real goals for your business. Once we know that, we can design your website to achieve those goals.

To your success!

Why would you want your website optimized?

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One of my clients is a home builder. Another company had been doing his search engine optimization, without results.

He switched to working with us for his search engine optimization. Within a few weeks, he began getting phone calls from his website. However, most of the calls were not his ideal clients.

He did high-end, custom work and most of the people calling him were not looking for that quality of work. So, we spent several months getting his website positioned and optimized until the right people started to find him.

The next year, his business doubled from new sales from his website.

Should you immediately do something different with search engine optimization? If your business serves people locally, it might be worth looking into.

To your success!

Filed Under: SEO

Which marketing generated the best ROI?

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When I ran a software company here in Denver, we marketed our software several ways. We used print advertising, direct mail, trade shows, and online marketing, including search engine optimization, banner ads and email marketing.

I carefully analyzed the results of each of our different marketing campaigns. What I found was pretty interesting.

Our most expensive leads came from trade shows. We spent about $150 to acquire each lead from a trade show. When we turned the sales team loose to follow up on that lead, many of them turned out to be a huge waste of time. These expensive leads had a low closing ratio, around 5%.

We did a bit better with print ads. We acquired leads at $20 – $40 each. When we followed up with them, we had a slightly better closing ratio than the trade shows.

The least expensive leads were generated through our online marketing. The leads cost us only a couple of dollars each. We had a high closing ratio, sometimes as much as 40% because they were highly self-qualified leads. They were people looking for a solution to their problem, and they had taken the time to engage with us through our website.

Compare a lead obtained at $150 with a 5% closing ratio to a lead that cost $3 with a 40% closing ratio. The cost of acquiring a client through our online marketing was a tiny, tiny fraction of the cost of acquiring clients through other channels. The gap became even more significant when we factored in the cost of the sales rep’s follow-up on the trade show and print ad leads.

As long as we continued to get a positive return on the trade shows and print ads, we did continue to use those methods. However, we put most of our attention and focus on our online marketing because it gave us our best return. By far.

To your success!

Byte to Byte with Steve Johnsen
Multiplying Your Marketing ROI

One way for your website to create trust

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A website can create trust and get a handshakeOne of the benefits of having a professionally designed website involves the “wow” impression when people land on it. And, there’s another more subtle, but perhaps more important, benefit.

Studies have shown that often people will decide whether or not they trust a company based on the design of their website.

Most people are not consciously aware of what creates this feeling of trust. Yet, when they’ve been surveyed after viewing professionally designed sites that give a positive impression, the trust ratings were higher than for non-professionally designed sites.

This means that when a prospective customer visits your website, they will make a decision (unconsciously) about whether or not they trust you as a service provider or as a company.

To your success!

How many of your referrals are getting lost?

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Last week we talked about the three different types of websites–a placeholder, a branding website, and a website that functions as your number 1 employee. The job of a branding website is to engage your prospect enough to compel them to take the next step with you.

Whether your prospect met you at a networking event, heard about you from a friend or received your advertisement, they’re going to check out your website. It’s hard to measure how many referrals get lost at that point.

Picture this scenario: someone has recommended you to a friend. Then, before that friend calls you, they check out your website.

When they visit your site, they’re going to have some variation of these three reactions:

  • They could be turned off if they don’t like your site.
  • They could say, “Okay, this is a real business. Maybe this is the kind of service provider that I need.” Then, they’ll put you on a list with a bunch of other names that they’ve gotten. They may or may not call you.
  • They could look at your website and say, “Wow, I’ve got to talk to this person. This looks like the person I want to work with.” It’s that “wow” impression that you’re really going for with a good branding website. This requires professional design and really good copy.

Does your business thrive on referrals? If you sense you may be losing out on some, take an objective look at your site through the eyes of your prospect. What might it need to create that “wow” factor for them? Here’s a link that can help.

To your success!