Starting a small business for proven step-by-step results

The hard facts guide to small business marketing

This is not for the faint hearted so if you are easily offended then this article may not be for you.

When starting any business venture there are two big problems to face head-on. How are you going to make potential customers aware of your business and convince them that you offer the best solution for them?

With no track record, this is going to be a tough hurdle for anyone. If these two areas are not a major focus of your business then you’re in for a shock.

Marketing for business start ups

If you are considering marketing for your business then a few options you may have thought of are, press advertising, direct mail, a website, public relations and radio to name a few.

To be effective most of these options will cost your business huge amounts of cash to work for you. The only option that’s effective for your business is a website. Why? Because likes of Google, Yahoo, and MSN are itching to provide you with traffic FREE!

It’s far cheaper to set-up a website and get free traffic to get your business started than it is to do any other form of advertising.

In today’s market with so much information available free even if you did advertise your business a customer will probably Google you or your business to see first if you're trust worthy and second to find out more information about your business and what you are offering… so a website is a must… right?

Actually no… because there is a catch!

If you’ve ever had a website or if you have spoken to other business website owners the story is likely to be the same. Their website is doing nothing for their business. Even the ones that brag about “my site gets 2000 hit’s a month” have misunderstood that a hit is not a visitor. E.g. 2000 hits could mean only 100 visitors.

The simple truth is the vast majority of small business websites are not working…and I’ll tell you why…

“Web designers and the small business start up sting!”

Small business website design are usually missing critical components that make websites work in the search engines. Web designers are too eager to sell to those starting a business knowing because your budget is low that if they tell you what it costs to getting working you won’t buy. Worse still could they lack the knowledge to make it happen. Either way the result is the same.

Making a website look nice and just making, it live is pointless. Even if the web designers make you aware of the changes it’s more cash for them and even then, there are no guarantees it will work.

It’s your responsibility to know what you are buying.

So if you don’t know what you are buying or what to ask for then you could end up loosing more than you think. I'm going to share with you the solution for your business, but before I do you let’s discover the cost of getting it wrong.

How much could a wrong decision cost Your business?

You will loose the price of your website + the potential business lost by not capturing that free search engine traffic + repeat business from that audience + the word of mouth that results from that business.

Work it out for yourself, how much would it cost you if you got it wrong?

For example: If a massage therapist business gets one client from Google who spends £30.00 and has one massage once per month. That’s £372.00/year. That customer tells 10 friends and 3 decide to buy. One decides to have a massage once per month and the other two come just 8 times over the year between them both. That £372.00+£240.00

So far, that’s £984.00 from one customer.

Now imagine that those 3 new customers tell their friends and the word of mouth quickly escalates this is not unusual for any business. All this potential sits in just one customer that found you on the internet.

Now imagine if 10 people a month find you.

If the hypothetical formula above was applied to only 10 buyers that came from the internet in one year the sales would be 10 x £372.00 = £3720.00
Each of those 10 referred 3 people = £6120.00

If those 3 referrals also referred just 1 person each that’s 10 new customers with a potential sale value of = £3720.00

In total that’s a potential loss of £14,544 just from choosing the wrong website on a £30 sale.

Of course, referrals are not a guarantee, but if you attracted 10 new customers per month and no referrals and each of them only came once that’s still a loss of £3600 in one year.

What would ten new clients a month mean for your business?

Would you love to have 10 new clients a month? I had a look to see how many people were searching for massage therapist so you can see the potential of 10 customers a month is small fry even for this business.

According to Google at the time of writing this article, the search volume is 40,000/month across the county, and 6600 in Oxford using just one keyword so you could at least double those figures for all the niche areas such as sport massage, back pain etc.

So if you were a massage therapist in Oxford the potential market is huge and even better if your website got you on page one for that term.

Now you know the cost of getting it wrong and the potential that’s out there for all businesses.

What website solution will work for your small business start up?

If you want to be armed with the knowledge for what will work both in the search engines and to convert those visitors into customers, either call us today on 01844 201 822 or to find out more simply sign up below.

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P.S. Remember if you are the wrong choice of website is likely to cost you thousands. Your potential customers need you to prove you are the expert in your field so they need regular information. So how will you give them what they need?

Signing up above will provide you with these answers and more!

To your success.

Stephen Hedger