However, there were also several points I was surprised that the article did not make (it’s a wide-open topic, after all), so I thought I’d share these:

1) The primary job of your web site, company-branded social media, and other communications is to build trust: that is, to convince your prospects and customers that you understand their needs and concerns, and can meet those needs (in that order).  Why?  Because people buy from those whom they trust.  This is nothing new, but it’s becoming truer all the time, as the Web becomes more social, and the number of your competitors grows.

2) Conversation, participation, and interactivity are now essential to any company’s web presence.  Why?  Because they are how you build trust (see #1).  With those three words I’m referring to three different forms of web presence:

• Conversation is any dialog your company has with customers and prospects on its own web site, blog, or a third-party social-media page that it controls. On these properties you are more able to “lead” the discussion by choosing a topic, educating your audience about it, and moderating an ongoing discussion of the topic.

• Participation means getting your company’s voice and image into discussions you didn’t initiate.  These are almost always on sites your company doesn’t directly control.  Guest blogging, participating in industry-forum or consumer-forum discussions, and sponsoring online events, are just a few examples of this type of web presence.

• Interactivity is any feature on your web site, blog, or social-media page that allows the visitor to give feedback, customize their experience on your site, or otherwise do more than simply read.  Games, videos, and audio are the most familiar examples, but the exploding world of apps and widgets is taking interactivity to a whole new level.

3) Identify and Reach Influencers: Of course you have to know your target audience and tell them what you can do for them.  But it can be even more valuable to know which members of your audience are most influential, and get them to share your story with their followers.  Think of the 80/20 rule: If a community tends to follow the recommendations of one or a few key members, it makes sense to invest more time and resources “winning over” those influencer(s).  Again, this is not a new idea, but Twitter and other social-networking sites are amplifying the effect of it.

4)  Make Appropriate Offers based on Segment, Lifestage: However you choose to segment your audience (for example, by industry, by job title, by level of spending with you), just do it in a way that’s simple enough that you’ll actually use those segments to speak intelligently to their members.  At the same time, understand that each prospect or customer is at a particular stage in their relationship with your company.  An example of these stages is:

• Awareness: they know of your company
• Consideration: they’re willing to try your company
• Trial: they have made an initial purchase from your company
• Habit: they are buying from you habitually (not necessarily loyally)
• Loyalty: they prefer to buy from you rather than other companies
• Advocacy: they not only are loyal to you, but willing to recommend you
• Former customer: alas, we all have some of these–don’t ignore ‘em!

Based on the segments you use to view your prospects and customers, and the fact that they are spread across various “relationship stages” with you, use your web site or other web presence to make appropriate offers.  And as Rich notes in his article, be diligent about measuring the results of those offers.

Let’s keep this conversation going: What else should growing-business owners keep in mind about building a strong web presence for their businesses?

Yes, it does matter, especially when working with a copywriter, designer, or other marcom-service provider.  Compare your marketing campaign to a trip you need (or want) to take.  The first thing you need to know is your destination.  It’s OK to start your planning with a broad answer like “Phoenix” or simply “Arizona” . . . but you quickly need to zero in on a more specific location, such as “The Downtown Hilton” or your trip will not be successful.

The lesson for us marketers is simple: Clarify your objectives—the more specific, the better—before you even think about strategy.  In our trip analogy, strategy is the short list of basic options we have for getting to our destination.  For example: flying, driving, taking a train, teleconferencing (a ‘virtual’ way to be there), or even bicycling (if our destination is close enough).

Just as these are the common options for traveling within the U.S., most companies have certain basic strategy options to choose among when deciding how to market their product(s) or service(s).  They can emphasize high quality, low price, great service, innovativeness, or other benefits.

And while your trip might involve more than one mode of transportation, it’s usually most efficient and effective to use only one.  The same is often true for marketing strategies: Choosing one and emphasizing it in your marketing communications tends to deliver the best results.  Yes, you can discuss more than one benefit in your copy, but the main message of your marketing should be based on a single, focused strategy.
Once you know the strategy for your marketing (whether it’s a particular product, service, or your company in general), then it’s time to think tactics.

Going back to the trip analogy: If you’ve chosen to drive, are you going to drive yourself or take a bus?  If you’re going to drive yourself, are you going to take your own car or rent one?  If you’re going to rent, which company will you rent from?  These nitty-gritty questions about how to execute the chosen strategy are what tactics are all about.

Too often a company’s marketing decision makers will focus on tactical issues before fully understanding their company’s objectives or choosing a strategy.  Even when objectives and strategy are given their due, it’s easy to lose sight of them if the tactical-execution process is very rushed <em>(“we don’t have time to think about that!”) or very prolonged <em>(“uh, what did we agree to in that meeting six weeks ago?”)

What to do about these challenges?  Make the words objective, strategy, and tactics—in that order—a common part of your company’s daily vocabulary.  Make phrases like, “OK, just to confirm, our strategy on this campaign is . . .”.  And at least once a week, remind yourself and others of the difference between strategy and tactics, in terms of the taking-a-trip example above.   Don’t hesitate to share the trip analogy with your copywriter, designer, and other marcom-service providers.  The better they understand your thinking, the better they can do their jobs for you.

1. Because the Internet has always been, and still is, primarily an information tool—much more than TV is.  A study released May 18, 2008 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project (see summary) emphasizes that consumers use the web to learn about products and services, and then combine that learning with information from offline sources, before buying.

Jeffrey Grau, Senior Analyst at eMarketer and author of the report, “Multi-Channel Retailing” (http://www.emarketer.com/Report.aspx?code=emarketer_2000476), explained in February, “Online consumers are becoming precision shoppers. They are availing themselves of the wealth of information resources online to discover and evaluate products, compare them and find where they can be purchased.”

2. Because the web is an increasingly social place, given the rise of Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and other social-networking sites.  More than ever before, it’s about conversation and relationship-building.  On these sites and across the web in general, users are unlikely to “talk up” any company’s video if it’s blatantly self-promotional (more likely they will comment negatively on it).

3. Because your site’s content probably isn’t, um, compelling enough to justify TV-commercial style video.  No offense . . . just don’t be misled by the fact that slick TV commercials are turning up more and more beside online entertainment.  Viewers tolerate those promotional spots in order to get the premium entertainment they want, on demand and for free.  In contrast, your web site (mine too) is already one big ad for your company, so why would a visitor want to see a highly self-promotional video for it?

Given these and other realities of today\’s online environment, what should be your company’s approach to using web video?

Be useful: create videos that give your audience information they can use to solve real challenges.  If you’re a furniture store, for example, why not make a video explaining how to determine if a couch is truly well made?  It’s something most people don’t know, but presumably would like to know if they are shopping for furniture.

Yes, in the previous post I said that your video need not be directly related to your business.  That’s still true.  In general, I recommend featuring a mix of videos on your site, some directly related to (but not heavily promotional of) your business, and others that simply make visiting your site more enjoyable and/or interesting.

All very true. Smart marketers recognize that web surfers increasingly can zero in on the exact product or service they’re interested in.  As a result, many web sites and pages are very narrow in their subject-matter focus.  In addition, many competitors in a given category offer nearly the same items at prices very similar to each other’s.

What’s the impact on people visiting these sites?  Sooner or later, it’s boredom: you and your competitors all feel pretty much the same to the visitor.  So . . . the more competitors you have, and the more your audience tends to analyze or comparison-shop for the product or service you offer, the more that your web site (and all your marketing communications) needs to engage the audience’s heart and mind.

Now, let’s not forget: Job #1 of your web site is still to provide content that’s relevant to the needs of your audience.  That content, most notably the top-performing keywords and phrases in your category, is also essential to pulling in visitors from Google and other search engines.  But once they’re on your site, what can you do to ensure that their experience there is not just relevant, but enjoyable . . . even memorable?  Lots of things, actually.  Let’s start with this:

It’s now easier than ever to have video on your web site. You don’t even have to produce a video of your own.  Sites like YouTube and Yahoo provide the HTML code for nearly all the videos, right there next to the screen where the video plays on their site.

Find a video you like, and that you think your audience will like, right-click on the box labeled “Embed Code,” select save from the dialog box that appears, and e-mail the HTML code to your web master.  OK, if that sounds too complicated, just do this instead: Find the video you like on YouTube or Yahoo, then tell your web master to go pick up the embed code for that video and put it on your web site.

The video you choose does NOT have to relate directly to your business. Remember, people who visit your web site are interested in more, much more, than just your product or service, as long as it provides some value to the visitor.  Allow them to take a break from the routine of that search, and start building a relationship with them, by featuring a music video, a how-to video, or just a slide show of interesting photos (you can pick up plenty of those on the video sites) on your web site.

A word of caution: Although the video doesn’t have to relate directly to your business, remember that its tone and content will reflect on your business.  Choose carefully, and before adding the video to your site, get feedback on it from a few of your best customers, vendors, or advisors.  Explain to them that you are trying to make your site more interesting, enjoyable, and memorable for the people who visit it.  Once you add the video to your site, consider adding a “Rate This Video” graphic beside it (your web master can add this for you easily).

A well chosen, non-promotional video on your site will do more than simply engage your visitors. It will increase the time they spend on your site—and in some cases, give them a reason to come back—which in turn, increases the chances that they will buy from you. For an example, take a look at this video from YouTube:electric music.

How about that: two major blunders in the opening sentence of a B2B e-mail.  First, what should I think when someone puts my company’s name in quotation marks?  Are they suggesting that the name is an alias, or that my business isn’t even real?  Feels that way to me.  Misplaced quotation marks tend to cast doubt on whatever is inside them.

In this case they also seem to emphasize that my company name is just one of the hundreds (maybe thousands) being slugged into this position in the e-mail by their software’s “personalization” function.  At first glance it’s a small thing, but look at it from the reader’s point of view: If you highlight the spots where you’re inserting data variables into the text, it doesn’t feel personal.  It’s more like a total stranger calling you by name and trying to get chummy with you: just plain creepy.

And then there’s the jargon: “BPM.” I think it stands for Business Process Management, but I don’t really know.  And sure, if I worked for a bigger company, in a certain job, I might throw around the term “BPM” all the time.  The larger facts are (a) not everyone on their mailing list knows what BPM stands for, and (b) there’s simply no reason not to spell it out the first time it’s used in the e-mail.  Then use the acronym throughout and every reader is on an equal footing.

But they didn’t do that, so my first impression of this e-mail (and the company sending it) is that it’s for someone else, a jargon-speaker . . . not for me.  No doubt the writer could have included a sentence or two about what BPM is and why the (“newbie”) prospect should care, without losing readers who have more BPM savvy.

The more complex a service or product is, the more its marketing communications need to educate (at least a little) while selling or attracting leads. If your copy makes the reader feel uninformed or “out of the loop,” your chances of selling to that reader are greatly reduced.

Google and other search engines seek to provide the most relevant search results possible for any phrase searched. In determining how relevant a given web page is, one of the factors they evaluate most heavily is the text (both headlines and body copy) on the page.

So it’s essential that the key phrases that describe your business appear on your web pages.  The problem is, search engines can’t “see” any text that’s embedded in a graphic object, such as a .jpeg or .gif file. And if they can’t see the text, they can’t index the page based on those words of text . . . which, in turn, reduces the chances that the page will rank highly on the results page when the given phrase or word is searched.

It’s no mystery why this problem occurs. Smaller companies increasingly realize that their logo has to convey more than just their business name and visual identity. So they ask their logo designer to include the key descriptive words about the business, usually at the bottom of the logo design, so those words are closely associated with the logo.  The finished logo design, usually a .jpeg or a .gif, is then handed to their web site designer for placement on the company’s web pages. And once it’s there, everything looks fine . . . but in the fact is, an opportunity to improve search-engine rankings has been missed.

When looking at a web page, how can you tell if a piece of text is embedded within a graphic?  Try moving your mouse so the cursor hovers over the text you’re wondering about: If the cursor changes from an arrow to a little vertical line, the text probably is not in a graphic.

Next, left-click (that is, press and hold the left button of your mouse) and drag your mouse within this text: is the copy now highlighted in blue? If so, the copy is NOT part of a graphic, and therefore is visible to the search engines.

Granted, in the quest for better search-engine rankings, there are other opportunities to place keyphrases on pages. But considering how intense the competition is for rankings on virtually any search term, an issue like this can make a difference. And considering how easy it is to put keywords as plain text below or beside a logo, there’s really no good reason not to.

Research: Find out from your customers (and if possible, from your competitors’ customers) which benefits of your product or service they consider most valuable.  Talk to them directly, or survey them, or conduct focus groups . . . but find out somehow.

Brand Statement: Develop a brand statement for your product that reflects how your audience prioritizes the benefits of your product.  See the earlier post here (Part 3, “The Art of The Ask”) for details.

Ask for Testimonials, using the best practices outlined in the previous post.  Sounds fairly simple, doesn’t it?  Probably the most challenging part is #3, for a variety of reasons: Your customers are busy, some of them may not want to be “featured” by name in your marketing communications (even if they love your product), or there may be other reasons.

Obstacles such as these are why many companies, even smaller ones, choose to hire a copywriter to work on obtaining testimonials for them.  A good marketing copywriter can create or help refine your brand statement, and then use it to ask your customers for the specific testimonial you want from each of them.  Another advantage: the writer can work with your customers to ensure that each testimonial is focused on the benefit it should be.  A professional copywriter also will ensure a consistent level of quality across all testimonials.

The point here is that testimonial editing is a key part of the process, it should begin as early as possible, and it should be handled by a professional.  The result you’re looking for is a group of testimonials that work together to reflect and increase the power of your brand statement.  In editing your customers’ testimonials, your copywriter should seek a balance between broad superlative statements (“Their product is the best I’ve ever used”) and specific, factual statements that prove the superlatives.  Too much of either is not a good thing: all of us absorb so much advertising day after day that our minds tends to dismiss short, empty claims of how ‘great’ a product is.  On the other hand, testimonials shouldn’t be too long.  So cramming in too many facts about why a product works so well is likely to lose the reader.

One other thing to remind your copywriter is that even customers who say they are going to provide a written testimonial . . . sometimes just don’t get around to it.  Always start by giving the customer an opportunity to submit a statement of their own, but if they keep putting it off, your writer should offer to interview them, develop a testimonial based on the discussion, and give it to the customer for review.  The more testimonials you’re trying to get, the more likely it is that your writer will need to do this at some point.  And as long as the customer gets to review and comment on what’s been written, it is a valid way of creating a testimonial

1) Do you have one or a few customers whose opinion(s) are likely to have a strong impact on other customers or prospects?  If so, work first on getting this customer(s) to discuss a primary benefit of your product in his/her testimonial.  Getting this high-profile endorsement early can help you persuade other (usually smaller) customers to give their testimonials, which could help you build a large collection of testimonials sooner.

2) Are you  sure your product will get a positive review from each of the customers you plan to ask?  Like a job seeker hoping for positive recommendations from former employers or co-workers, this is not the place to make casual assumptions.  Before you ask for a testimonial, “put out some feelers” to try to confirm your likelihood of getting a strong thumbs up.  One way is to do this in a B2B setting is to have your assistant talk to the assistant of “Ms. Big,” the well known client from whom you’d like a testimonial.  If asked, Ms. Big is more likely to speak candidly about your company to her assistant than she is to you.  If the word comes back that Ms. Big is (or was) actually less impressed with your company than you had hoped, don’t immediately ask for the testimonial.  Instead, begin trying to address her concerns, so that when you do finally ask for the testimonial, you’ll be in a stronger position.

3) Ask your customer in writing for their testimonial: Yes, it’s fine to use a phone call to make the initial ask for the endorsement.  Just remember, everyone is busy, and you are asking for a favor, so follow up with an e-mail to make it as easy as possible for your customer.  If you don’t, chances are you won’t even get a testimonial. Besides, you want the customer to focus on a specific benefit of your product in his/her testimonial, so you need to reinforce that point in writing.  Your e-mail should:

- Start by thanking the customer for her willingness to help build your business (that’s literally what they are doing).

- Explain that this testimonial can also help build her business as you plan to feature it prominently on the following marketing communications (list them).  Also very important: emphasize that you will show the testimonial to the customer before you use it, so she can have final-edit privileges.  Do this even if the customer doesn’t ask you to: it will increase her trust in you.

- Ask that she begin her testimonial  by focusing on the benefit(s) you specify.  Don’t tell the customer what to say (unless asked!), just ask him to write as factually as possible about how that benefit(s) helped his or her organization achieve a key goal.  If you can, also have the customer explain why that goal is (or was) so important to her or to the organization.

- If it’s a B2B testimonial, ask the customer to confirm her current job title, so you can use it in your marketing pieces.  If it’s a personal (non-B2B) testimonial, confirm the customer’s city and state of residence, and ask for permission to feature both her first and last name. 

- Be sure to hand-write a thank you note to the customer after you receive his/her final OK on the text of the testimonial.  They deserve this.

These are the best practices that came to mind first when I started thinking about how to ask for a testimonial.  I’m sure there are many others which have been or are being used successfully today.  Please log in and share any that you know of or, better yet, have used.

In earlier posts I didn’t mention the importance of audience research, so here it is:  Your brand statement should be based on more than your own “gut feeling” about which benefits of your product matter most to your target audience.  You need some real feedback from those people, who should be defined as specifically as possible.  For our fictional Sunrise Rent-a-Car, the audience is not just “travelers” or “Central Florida visitors,” but “budget conscious families and business people visiting Central Florida.”

The more your product is like those of your competitors (and chances are your offering is more like theirs than it is unlike), the more essential it is to know how your specific audience prioritizes benefits.  If your company is small and can’t afford to hire a research firm, at least do some online surveys.  Free, web-based tools like surveymonkey.com make it easier than ever to create and administer surveys, and even allow you to graph and analyze your survey results.  Especially if you have a relatively small number (say, fewer than 100) customers and prospects willing to be surveyed, these online research providers can be an ideal solution.

The main point is to take what you learn from your research and use it in creating your brand statement.  Others in your organization may feel a particular benefit has to be the star of the brand statement . . . but if you have the facts on your side, stick to them. If your research shows that benefit X is by far the most important one to your target audience, your brand statement should “lead with it,” and you know you’ll need more than one testimonial focused on it.