Will Anyone Be Saved by the SBA’s New ARC?

Just a few days ago I wrote another article for Entrepreneur Magazine which was picked-up by Reuters and and several other publications. See the entire article here http://entrepreneur.com/money/financing/article202382.html
It references the new America’s Recovery Capital (ARC)loan program. The ARC loan is a $35,000, interest-free, deferred-payment loan, fully guaranteed by the Small Business Administration and available to established, viable, for-profit small businesses suffering “immediate financial hardship.” This program is meant to be a savior for small businesses in touble but it seems to be nothing more than a publicity stunt by the current administration. There are 30 million small businesses in this country yet only 10,000 loans available. Huh?

I spoke to several of the supposed “participating banks” and they are quite nervous about the fact that they will be required to issue funds without receiving any of the loans’ principle from the SBA for a full year. In addition, the SBA is offering a lower interest rate than other loan programs.

The Coleman Report, a newsletter for banks, states that “the ARC loan program is already being positioned to be a failure, and lenders are going to be the key players behind that failure.” Even the SBA says it expects ARC loans to default at a higher rate than its other programs.

Is this the best our government can do to help small businesses to survive in this difficult time? As America’s small businesses continue to “take on water,” the jury is still out on whether the ARC loan program will be a lifeline to thousands of small businesses.

Why Google AdWords Is So Important: And How it Can Give Your Business a Huge Competitive Advantage

This is all about getting in front of people who are looking for what you sell right this moment and getting them to respond. It’s about understanding your audience, refining your sales message, perfecting your sales process and determining your Return On Investment, faster than ever before in the history of marketing – and doing all of this for a very modest sum of money.
When you use the simple process I’m about to show you, you’ll achieve the dream of “Marketing on Autopilot” faster than ever before!

Let’s Put This in Historical Perspective

Direct marketing has been around since the late 1800s when mail order marketing began. Back then you would run an ad in a magazine with an order form, and the reader would have to cut out the ad, write a check, enclose it in a letter and mail it. Four to eight weeks later, if the vendor was honest, you’d get your stuff in the mail.

Advertisers quickly discovered that they could “key” the order forms with a code, according to which magazine, which advertising copy and offers were used, etc., and get enormously different responses. Within a few decades this became a rigorous science, and some of the very best books on direct marketing were written almost 100 years ago. The guys who did this lived and died by their ads!
The biggest obstacle to direct marketing is that it’s always taken lots of time and patience to test things and get it right. If you advertise in magazines, you’ll rarely get feedback in less than two months.
Pay Per Click has changed all that. Now you can test ideas in minutes and hours, not days, weeks or months! And you can do it for tens or hundreds of dollars, not thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This takes 90% of the risk out of starting a new business or launching a new product!

And the messages that work in your Pay-Per-Click marketing campaigns will usually also work in other media. So PPC is the first place to test your marketing.
As long ago as 1996, forward-thinking people viewed the Internet as the ultimate marketing machine. Of course by 1998, it was so “obvious” that the Internet was a killer marketing medium that millions of investors blindly dumped their money into DOT COM companies and created a huge bubble – and the recession that followed.

Ouch.

Why did this happen? Why was the DOT COM era such a bomb?

It’s basically because thousands of companies were spending $200 to get a $60 customer – and they were too dumb to know it!

Understand this: Advertising is an investment, just like stocks, bonds or real estate. It has to pay for itself, without smoke and mirrors. Direct marketing is the art and science of making advertising pay.

And Google AdWords is the fastest way to become a direct marketing master that the world has ever seen.

So Here’s What’s Going to Happen:
A Simple 5-Step Plan that Sidesteps All That Waste!

Here’s an incredibly simple way to get a website up and running successfully:

1. Put up a web page that tells your visitors what you can do for them – and asks them to respond. The response might be in the form of a purchase, an opt-in to receive a newsletter, information in the mail, a report, guide or paper – but most importantly, get the person to tell you who they are.
2. Generate a list of keywords that your customers would type into a search engine.
3. Write a Google AdWords advertisement, and start buying traffic. Here they come!
4. Monitor your results.
5. Tweak the details and improve your performance – and watch your profits grow.

Why Pay-Per-Click is So Important

Pay Per Click advertising is not a fad or flash in the pan. It’s here to stay – permanently. As a matter of fact, in my professional opinion, history will show it to be the most important development in advertising during this decade.

Why? Because it combines two enormously powerful concepts: 1) You only advertise to people who are looking for what you have right now, and you only pay when they respond and click through to your site; and 2) Pricing is determined by an ongoing, real-time auction based on true market values.

Google vs. Overture

There are two major players in Pay-Per-Click: Google and Overture. I believe Google is far superior for my customers. Why?

Google caters much more to technical audiences, B2B buyers and savvy Internet users. They disable ads that have low click-through rates, and reward high-click-through rates with better pricing. Google is instantaneous – you get instant results and can make instant changes, while Overture has a 3-6 day waiting period while their staff reviews what you submit. And Google lets you market to specific countries if you need to.

Google’s instantaneous capabilities make it the ultimate, highest-speed direct marketing tool ever devised in the history of mankind. I’m not exaggerating. Google is head and shoulders above everyone else in the search engine world.

Learning the Google System

In April 2002, a few weeks after its inception, I began buying Internet traffic on Google AdWords both for myself and for several of my corporate consulting clients. Many people found my website and became my customer or client through this powerful tool.

So I’ve been using AdWords intensively – some might say obsessively – for three years now. AdWords was a very exciting new ingredient to add to the mix.
A Word of Caution:

In using AdWords there’s initially a tough learning curve for the uninitiated. Most people find their Google AdWords experience very frustrating at first, getting keywords and campaigns disabled because they can’t get the requisite 0.5% click-thru rate, or else they overpay for popular keywords that have high bid prices.

Those who don’t truly understand direct-response marketing will have a particularly hard time, considering this is the ultimate direct-response machine.

Why Google Succeeded – and Why it Matters to You

Google was a relative late-comer in the search engine game. When I started marketing on search engines in 1998, Google was brand new, a tiny little player in a world of established giants. Yahoo, Altavista, Lycos, Hotbot, Inktomi, Excite, AOL Search, Northern Light, AllTheWeb and dozens of others were duking it out.

On most of those search engines, it was hard to find what you were looking for. And while most of them were cluttered with ads and links all over the place, Google had just a clean white screen with a search box. And Google’s results were always easy to read.

Eventually Google became my home page. “Who needs ten search engines – if you have one good one?”

You probably felt the same way.

And THAT became the key to Google’s success.

Google’s guiding philosophy is RELEVANCE. Give the people what they’re looking for – as fast and as easy as possible.

Relevance in Advertising

So when Google decided to sell advertising, they had to make sure it didn’t compromise the quality or usefulness of their search engine. Done properly, advertising would actually enhance it.

So when they came up with Google AdWords, they decided to provide up to 8 or 10 spaces for advertisements (“sponsored links”) on the top and right side of the page.

Except for the top two, the listings going down the left are FREE listings, positioned according to Google’s complex, secret and ever-changing ranking formula. The ads on the right are AdWords ads. The advertiser pays every time you click, and only when you click.

And the lowest position, usually a few pages back, is available for 5 cents a click.

Google’s Partner Sites

Google Syndicates their results to other search engines – normally only the top 2-4 results are included. AOL buys the top 3 AdWords positions from Google. Earthlink and Ask Jeeves show the top 4 positions.

This means that being in the top 3 or 4 gives you exposure to a larger audience – perhaps twice as many searches as Google alone, in some cases. It also tends to drive the bid prices up even more, for those special top spots.

What It All Means for You

So when you write an ad and place it in AdWords, you have access to an audience as large as 100 million people – instantly. You get instant feedback. You can test fast, succeed fast, and profit fast from the quality Google experience.

This article was written by our friend and partner, Perry Marshall. He has been a guest on our radio show multiple times, and is the preeminent expert on Google AdWords and Pay Per Click advertising on the web. Perry Marshall helps businesses beat the learning curve and profit from Google AdWords. You can get the skinny on Google AdWords with Perry’s FREE 5-day course via e-mail: Visit http://www.PerryMarshall.com/google

Have a great week!
I hope that this “Business Update” has been helpful in assisting you to improve the performance of your organization. For more information on how the Small Business Advisory Network assists companies in improving their performance, please feel free to contact us at 310-320-8190 or email mark@markdeo.com

Mark Deo
Print this article.

Web Site Presence

So…you’ve just created your first website and Boy, It’s Real Pretty! It has your name and phone number, some blinking logos, flashing banners, loaded with lots and lots of information..yeah, really pretty!!

Hey, everyone knows the internet is where you’ve got to be. You’re going to make money and there are millions of surfers every day on line..and after all, with a site as nice as yours, you’ll be raking in the dough real soon.You wait. A week goes by. You check your site once more – 14 hits on the counter – all yours (you check in twice every day to admire what a great site you have and see if anyone has stopped by). OK, OK, it takes time for your site to be listed in the search engines… and when that happens…whooh, look out traffic! After all, your site’s real pretty and it’s packed with information and features, features, features!Two weeks go by. Then three. No difference. Your saddened, discouraged. This Internet stuff is a crock you tell yourself.Welcome to the real world! What you have done up till now is akin to putting up a billboard in the middle of the forest. Given time, a hunter will stumble by, take a look, and continue the hunt – hardly a way to make money!I’ve spent time looking at quite a number of sites. Most are woefully lacking in both traffic and ways to market their products or business to surfers who do happen to stumble by. If you want to make money with your website, this has to change. A mentor of mine says that one of the definitions of insanity is to keep doing what you’ve always done and expect to get different results. Yet that’s
what many, many website owners do every day.A successful web presence requires:creative design concept
relevant, useful content for your target audience
gives a reason for people to return often and consistently
exceptional domain packages
proper website design
secure website service
enabled for E-Commerce
automated credit card processing and check verification
a hosting service that allows you to EASILY and QUICKLY make changes yourself
fast and easy navigation
banner ad exchange programs
search engine placement and improved rankingI hope this helps you to learn some new ways to create a strong web presence.

The E-mail Trap

E-mail is a great tool but sometimes we can fall in to several traps that make e-mail our enemy rather than our friend. I thought I’d use this business update to look at a format for business related emails or what many call, “e-mail etiquette.”

Professionalism

Spelling and grammar communicates “who” you are

Use your spell checker. That’s what it’s for. Don’t rely entirely on the spell checker though. If you’re using the wrong spelling for a particular use of a word, i.e. two vs. to vs. too, the spell checker won’t pick it up. Don’t try to guess the spelling of a word. Look it up. A great tool is the Merriam-Webster Online . Also, keep a dictionary handy! Sometimes it is faster than using the online version.

Good grammar is important. I believe in using a conversational tone when writing. It sounds friendlier. Contractions are often okay. Slang is not. Under no circumstances should you use offensive language.

Choose the right words. Take your time putting together a well-written message. Once you hit the send button, you won’t have another chance.

Be careful with abbreviations. Today there are all sorts of abbreviations — U instead of you, 2 instead of to or too, plz instead of please, and thanx instead of thanks. These may be fine for personal messages; in a business, communication should be more formal. Of course, frequently used abbreviations such as Mr. and Mrs., FYI (for your information), inc., and etc. are fine.

Be specific – don’t leave any opportunity for crossed wires or misunderstandings

Read and re-read your email several times from the perspective of the recipient

If you don’t change anything when you are composing an email, then you are going too fast.

Make sure to ask answer all of the questions that have been posed by the client

Salutation – Some are very sensitive to being addressed by their first names or worse yet NO NAME! When in doubt, use Mr., Mrs., or Dr. (if appropriate). When you are replying to an email and the sender of the original message has used his or her first name only, then you could safely assume it’s okay to use that person’s first name as well.

Avoid writing your message using all uppercase letters. It might be faster to type but it looks like you’re shouting. Don’t use all small letters either. Some people say it will make it seem like you’re mumbling.

Creating the right “tone”

E-mail lacks the formatting of print and the body language of in-person communication; the words themselves carry more feeling. Moreover, e-mail messages are read quickly, so an inappropriate tone can distract your reader and obstruct your message.

It’s easy for e-mail writers to let their tone slip from professional to edgy or sarcastic. E-mail emboldens writers to express thoughts they would never say to a reader’s face. And e-mail is written quickly then sent.

Remember the letters: F.A.R – Come across as Friendly, Approachable and Respectful

You don’t want to sound curt or demanding.

What three words have only 14 letters yet carry a great deal of meaning? Please and Thank You – these are 2 of the most important words we can use in our emails

Sometimes just rearranging the paragraphs will help.

If you’re writing to someone you’ve communicated with before, you might want to begin by saying “I hope you are well.”

Emoticons are little faces made up by arranging parentheses, colons, and semi-colons. Use good judgment here. If you write to someone frequently and you have a less formal relationship, then emoticons are okay. If, however, you’re writing to a prospect or a client that you don’t know very well, stick to words only.

Angry e-mails – Abe Lincoln

Try to appeal to the clients personality and language orientation

Efficiency

Don’t waste words.

When possible, be brief. Get to your point as quickly as you can. However, don’t leave out necessary details. If providing a lot of background information will help the recipient answer your query, by all means, include it. You may even want to apologize for being so wordy at the beginning of the message.

Use client folders and sub folders.

Careful with “Reply To:” You may be including a thread of previous emails that are inappropriate to the recipient

Use the “Blind Copy” feature when sending to a group. Remember Outlook will only support a specified number of blind copies

Use links to reference material and to your web site

Attachments should be added for more information rather than placing data in the dialog box.

Timing is critical when sending emails

Always place an appropriate, meaningful message in the Subject Line

Don’t get trapped into answering emails instantly unless needed.

E-mail as a Tool of Persuasion

Always pose a question at the end of the email.

Leverage their curiosity and interest

Write a compelling and truthful subject line – As with all e-mail, the first hurdle is to write a subject line that says “must open.” Great subject lines telegraph the content of the message and promise a product, service, or outcome of real value.

Smash through preoccupation – Your readers are busy – they don’t have time to figure out what you’re offering. They’re impatient, too. They don’t want a tease, a clever anecdote leading up to the main point. Be direct and succinct. Start with a clear statement of what you’re offering.

Many e-mail sales messages open with a lengthy reminder to the reader that he’s opted in to the mailing and detailed instructions on how to opt out. This statement is an important courtesy, but at the beginning of the message it squanders prime real estate, the first screen. You must give the reader the “opt in” information, but put it at the end of your message.

Deliver one message – If you are trying to get the attention of a prospect, don’t inundate them with EVERYTHING you have to offer. Less is more! Focus on one topic and end with a question.

E-mail readers have short attention spans — long enough to digest one message, no more. The best strategy for delivering multiple e-mail sales messages is to write a separate message for each thing you’re trying to sell.

Provide Value – In return for opening and reading your communication, give readers something of value: useful information or a special offer, and perhaps something free or discounted.

Show Readers How They Will Benefit – It’s not enough just to tell readers about what you offer

Include A Call To Action – Your compelling subject line and customer-oriented lead have done the trick: you’ve gotten the reader to open your message. You’ve offered insider information and showed readers how your product or service will benefit them. Now go the distance and tell your readers exactly what you want them to do.

I hope these tips help you to improve the effectiveness of your emails. Email can be a powerful marketing and management tool. Take the time to avoid the traps and it will be well worth the effort.

Searching for Answers

After coming home from a stand-up comedy show, I decided to feed my ego and check the stats on my website. Did any of the persons who have seen me lately go online and check it out? Well, my ego was dealt a crushing blow, since it appeared that they had not. What I discovered, however, was that lots of people were looking at my website- and in many cases not to find me, but to find other people’s websites. It shows that people found me when looking for fellow comedians (and friends) Joey Medina, Dante, Jeffrey Steele, Dan Rosenberg, Jimmy JJ Walker, and Josh Nasar- even keywords such as, “comedy central white edgy”, “hey hey hey rerun”, and “latino comics in los angeles”. How am I getting hits for “latino comics in los angeles” when I just may be the whitest man in America? How am I getting hits for “comedy central” when I’ve never been on their channel performing stand-up? I mention each of these things in a running commentary on my site, as well as link to many websites that do fit that search criteria.

It all comes down to knowing how to get your site ranked well by search engines. Most websites are either not optimized at all to encourage search traffic, or are optimized using outdated techniques. Many misconceptions are still commonplace- persons fret over “Meta tags” and “search engine submission” techniques that quite honestly in most cases are a waste of time and money. There are many site owners who spend money on firms that offer to submit their site to hundreds of search engines, when 98% of all traffic goes through a very small number of search engines, rendering most of that effort worthless! So what can you do?

Many websites still operate under the “Great and Powerful Oz” theory when it comes to search engines- they know very little about how they work, and they just leave it to the man behind the curtain to determine where their site deserves to come up. But with a little coaxing, you can get him to give you some courage, a heart, a brain, or even send you back to Kansas if that’s what you want. More importantly, you can get him to include your website in the search results for specific terms.

Here are some techniques that WILL help you with search traffic. These are all things that a site owner can do themselves, and these are all FREE! There are other techniques you can employ that involve very targeted paid advertising which are not discussed in this article. Please note also that search technology changes constantly- when this is being written (April of 2004) these are considered good practices. In the future, different techniques may be recommended. Now that the warnings are out of the way, let’s get to it!

1) Optimize your site content for keywords
Make sure that the content on your site (especially on the homepage) mentions the things for which you want people to search and find you. On my site, the homepage reads: “Welcome to the web home of stand-up comedian and talk show host Matt Walker. Inside you’ll find links to essential comedy resources, Matt’s schedule, video clips, and much, much more! Be sure to tune in every Sunday at 7 AM to The Small Business Hour on KLSX, 97.1 FM in Los Angeles, just before Breakfast with the Beatles. Check out the schedule to find where you can see Matt Walker doing stand-up.” Notice that I mention “Matt Walker” repeatedly, I mention “stand-up comedian” and “comedy”. I mention “KLSX”, our radio station. These are all things that people may want to type into a search engine when looking for my site. Also note that I use these terms in a way that makes readable sense- just listing a bunch of keywords will often be ignored by search engines.
2) Get listed in DMOZ
“DMOZ? What’s that?” That’s what most people are probably thinking.http://www.dmoz.org is probably the most important directory on the Internet these days, yet it is still a well kept secret. It is a directory that sites may apply for listings with for free. No regular person will ever go to this directory to search for anything, however. So why bother? DMOZ is the seed directory for the Google search engine and a few others. That means that if you are listed in DMOZ, you are much more likely to appear in Google than if you simply submit your site to Google to ask to be listed. Getting entered into DMOZ is a time consuming process- it is managed by humans, not computers, so the time between submission and listing is often 2-3 months. Also, make sure to submit your site in the category that is most appropriate for your site to ensure the best chance of getting listed.
3) Make frequent text updates
Have you ever seen a site that was listed very high in a search engine (perhaps you paid someone to get your site ranked high) and watched it slowly slip down the rankings into the oblivion that is the Internet? This is likely due to having stale web pages. Search engines love fresh content. If you are updating your site constantly, search engines will come back more frequently to grab the contents of your site. More frequent indexing usually leads to better rankings. So set up a “Blog“, change your home page often, and find a way to add newsletters, articles, or other informative content to your site frequently.
4) Get rid of the flash
Flash animation sure can look great- The only problem with it is that you can’t print it out, right? Wrong! The biggest problem with flash is that search engines can’t index what goes on in the flash file. You may have a killer presentation on your latest products in a flash animation on your site. Everyone who sees it loves it- but when Google crawls your site, it is ignored. Make sure that if you have Flash on your website that you duplicate the content as regular text and pictures elsewhere. Otherwise, you are hiding content from search engines, meaning it’s harder for people to find the Flash animation in the first place!
5) Inbound Links
A major part of search engine rakings these days is based on inbound links. Get relevant sites to link to you, and you will automatically be considered more “important” in the eyes of search engines, and will thus get better rankings. When other sites link to you, it is best if they use a short line of descriptive text as part of the link- for my site, I ask people to use the phrase “Los Angeles comedian and talk show host Matt Walker”. This means that when sites link to me they are using some of the very same keywords that I am trying to improve my rankings with.

The web is undergoing constant change. These tips will not guarantee you a top ranking by themselves. You must stay on top of the latest trends in the industry if you want to stay on top of the rankings. I don’t have the time to do so personally, which is why we at the SBA Network are lucky to have a great search consultant with whom we work. Cayley Vos with Netpaths web design is who taught me all that I know about search engines, and he stays in touch with other webmasters and search professionals. I encourage you to find a search consultant with whom you can work- for more information about Cayley and his services, e-mail Mark Deo atmdeo@sbanetwork.org. We’ll be happy to facilitate an introduction.

In conclusion, getting search traffic can be a lot of work. These tips WILL help with your rankings, but they are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to driving large amounts of traffic to your website. The Internet is a great resource to businesses and individuals alike- use it!

P.S. If you’re interested in seeing my comedy site, go to: http://www.funnymatt.com. Please be advised that the content on that site may be considered offensive by some viewers, so it’s not for everyone.
This Business Update was written by SBA Network Sales Technology Specialist Matthew Walker- for more information, please contact him at 310-320-8190 or mwalker@sbanetwork.org.
I hope that this “Business Update” has been helpful in assisting you to improve the performance of your organization. For more information on how the Small Business Advisory Network assists companies in improving their performance, please feel free to contact us at 310-320-8190 or email mark@markdeo.com

Mark Deo

Proper Web Planning

Millions of new websites are launched each year, and millions close down. Most are destined to fail at educating customers, selling products and services, generating PR, or even just improving your branding efforts. Why? Lack of planning. Most website are just thrown together with little thought or guidance from the business owner. There’s no need to launch a website that flounders, however. Proper planning can help ensure that your website meets the objectives you set. I have developed a seven step planning guide to use BEFORE you spend any money on the actual development of the site.

Audience– To whom is the site directed? It is important that we define who we want the site visitors to be up front. By doing so, we can make sure that all of our planning and development takes place in a manner consistent with this audience in mind. Ask yourself throughout the design and construction phases, “How will this appear to our target audience?”

Uniqueness– What about your site will make it different from the competition? If you have a site that does exactly what your competitors do, congratulations, you’ve just wasted your time and money. If your competitors have a site that seems to do EVERYTHING, then create a site that has fewer functions but works better at doing them. Specialization on the web works just as well as in the real world.

Direction– The key question is what do we wish to have our visitors do? Every page on your website should have some direction for site visitors. Seth Godin writes about this concept in his book, “The Big Red Fez”. If you want visitors to buy a product, make that the dominant feature on your homepage. If you want them to sign up for a newsletter, make that obvious at a glance. Whatever your goal for a site visitor may be, make sure that it is obvious to everyone that it is the designed action for them to take.

Simplicity– Less is more, especially on the web. We can probably all think of numerous websites that are so cluttered, so filled with things to click on, watch, play with, etc. that we do none of the above. Too many options for a site visitor will scare them away from your site. Keep it simple, and you will have far higher conversion percentages of visitors taking action than if you pack everything you can think of on your site.

Functionality– What do you need the site to do? List all of the core functions your site needs to include. Write out how these should work. If you have a site that will let someone check the status of an order on the web, plan out exactly what someone will need to click on, type in, and how their information will be returned to them. By doing so, you can find cumbersome processes and refine them before you build them.

Branding– How does it relate to your branding strategy? Some websites look like they are from a completely different company than their other marketing efforts. Consistency in your marketing efforts is vital- so make sure that whatever is designed fits with the rest of what you are doing.

Visibility– Who can find your site? Who do you want to find it? How will people find you? You should put together a web marketing plan before you develop your site. This way you can include tracking options as part of the structure of your site. Whether that is conversion tracking for Google AdWords, different URLs with promotional codes used in advertising efforts, or even just good stat tracking. It is important to figure out where people are finding you if you want to be able to improve the quality of site traffic in the future.

I hope these items help you with your web construction efforts. Please call or e-mail me with any comments or questions.

This article was written by SBA Network Sales Technology specialist Matt Walker. You can reach him at 714-269-4123 or mwalker@sbanetwork.org.

Planning for Online Success

Millions of new websites are launched each year, and millions close down. Most are destined to fail at educating customers, selling products and services, generating PR, or even just improving your branding efforts. Why? Lack of planning. Most website are just thrown together with little thought or guidance from the business owner.

Proper planning can help ensure that your website meets the objectives you set. If you think through the goals you have online and how you plan on getting there, you can greatly increase your chances of achieving those goals.

Below is a planning guide to use BEFORE you spend any money on the actual development of your site. These questions will help you work with your web developer to come up with accurate timeframes and a working budget for the project.General
What are your website expectations (higher sales, more leads, etc.)?
When do you need the new site up?Audience
To whom is the site directed? (Current clients, new clients, partners, etc.?)
What are the specific industries the site needs to address?
What do you ultimately want visitors to your site to do (call you, send an e-mail, complete a form, etc.)?Uniqueness
What about your site will make it different from the competition?Functionality
What do you need the site to do? List all of the core functions the site needs to include.
What forms will the site include (request a quote, contact us, etc.)?
What pieces of information are required to be gathered on these forms?
To whom should the information gathered be sent?
Will information gathered on this site need to be accessible via reports in a specific format?
Will leads generated need to be automatically put into other databases?
Will visitors to the site need access to their order history or other database functions?
Will there be any payment acceptance online?
Will you maintain a blog, or other type of self published content on the site?
Does the site need to include forums or message boards?Branding
How does it relate to your branding strategy?
Will you use your existing logo, and will it need to be modified in any way?
In what format will you provide the logo and existing graphics to your web developer?
Should the site match the “look and feel” of your existing marketing materials?
What domain name will be used for the site?
Are there alternate domains (common misspellings, alternate company names, etc.) you have?
What additional domains will you need to register?Design
What sites do you like the look and feel of?
What sites do you NOT like?
Do you have a preference on navigation on the site being on the top, left side, or other location?
Are there particular colors that should be used?
Are there particular colors that should be avoided?
Are there particular fonts that should be used?
Are there particular fonts that should be avoided?Content
How many pages will the site consist of?
What are these pages?
Will all copy be provided, or will your developer write some of this for you?
Will you need to shoot any photographs for this site?
In what format will images be provided?
Do you have any video content you wish to include?
Will you need to shoot any videos for your site?Visibility
Who do you want to find your site?
How do you want them to find you?
What keywords do you hope people will use to find you in search engines?
Have you budgeted for an Internet ad campaign?Hosting
Will this site maintain its existing host?
Will your e-mail remain with your existing e-mail service?Marketing
How many e-mail newsletter templates will be created?
How many e-mail lists do you have? (Customers, partners, etc.)
How many e-mail addresses are on each of these lists?
In what format do you have these e-mail addresses?I hope these items help you with your web construction efforts. Please call or e-mail me with any comments or questions.This article was written by SBA Network Sales Technology specialist Matt Walker. You can reach him at 714-269-4123 or mwalker@sbanetwork.org.Care to submit an article or just have a comment? Email me at: mark@markdeo.comHave a great week!-Mark Deo

Jack of All Trades, Master of None

As I sit here watching the NFL playoffs, I can’t count all the people on the sidelines. You have 65 players on each team, broken down into offense, defense, special teams, and a head coach with offensive and defensive coordinators. These are broken down even further into smaller groups- the offense alone has quarterbacks, running backs, tight ends, wide receivers, and the offensive line, each with their own coach. These groups are then often further segmented into possession receivers, big play receivers, speed backs, power backs, 3rd down backs, blocking backs, receiving tight ends, blocking tight ends, guards, tackles (left and right), and centers. Whew!

What we see is specialization on a massive scale. Every player on the team has a very specific job, and how well they do the small tasks they are responsible for is often what determines the winner and loser for each game. Even the referees are specialized. Every member of the officiating crew has an individualized job- certain players to watch for specific rule infractions.
When I play football with my friends on the weekends, we don’t have the same type of specialization- we often trade off who plays quarterback and receiver, and we all play both offense and defense. We also, not coincidentally, aren’t very good at any of these positions. We also aren’t being paid millions of dollars, because we just play for fun.

What do you do to market your business on the Internet? Are you just playing for fun? Or are you hoping to make it a major part of your business? If you really want to use the Internet to generate revenue, you can’t afford to be a weekend warrior that just plays around. You need to display the same type of specialization seen in the NFL. It is what makes the difference between successful Internet marketers and unsuccessful ones.

The best tool available on the Internet for savvy marketers is pay per click advertising. These small ads show up on Google and other search engines and websites when you search for a term specified by the advertiser. The great thing about them is that it costs nothing to have your ad displayed- you just pay a small amount (usually somewhere between $.05 and $10.00) each time someone acts on your ad by going to your website.

Let’s say someone wanted to market a product to small business owners on the Internet using pay per click advertising. What many novice Internet marketers would be tempted to do is run ads for the term “business”. They would then run an ad that describes their product in general terms, hoping to attract as many visitors to their website as possible. Because there are so many people advertising with the term “business”, the cost per click is probably up near the $10 mark. If they sold their product for $200, they would need to convert one out of every 20 visitors as actual sales for the program to pay for itself. When you factor in the cost of development, labor, delivery of the product, and other factors, they probably need to convert more like one of every 10 visitors. While possible, this is very difficult, and far from an optimum use of their time. What they lack is proper specialization.

A savvy Internet marketer would take the same product and advertise using the same method. Instead of advertising on the term “business”, they would come up with hundreds of terms that relate to the benefit received from the product (“lower costs of communication for small businesses”); because there are far fewer people advertising with these terms, they can probably get clicks for about $.10. They will then run ads for each of these terms that are specific to the search term. One ad should mention items such as “business communication”, “lower costs”, and “small business”- the words used in the search term example. This means they only need to sell their program to one in every 2000 visitors to turn a profit. The use of specialization hasincreased the profitability of the marketing effort by a factor of 100!

So let me ask again- are you a weekend warrior with your Internet marketing? Or are you a championship contender?

These techniques take a while to learn and apply. If you are considering a pay per click campaign or already have one that is receiving marginal results, we offer a full analysis that includes suggested ads, keywords, and bid prices, with ad text and more advanced techniques to receive greater results. Contact me at mwalker@sbanetwork.org to find out more and see a sample analysis to learn how this can apply to your business.
This Business Update was written by SBA Network Sales Technology Specialist Matthew Walker- for more information, please contact him at 714-269-4123 or mwalker@sbanetwork.org.

Have a great week!
I hope that this “Business Update” has been helpful in assisting you to improve the performance of your organization. For more information on how the Small Business Advisory Network assists companies in improving their performance, please feel free to contact us at 310-320-8190 or email mark@markdeo.com

Mark Deo
Print this article.

It’s blog, it’s blog, it’s better than bad, it’s good!

You might not remember the classic Ren and Stimpy cartoon’s Log Song which I co-opted above, but you certainly have heard about the hype surrounding blogs. ABC News even named bloggers as their persons of the year for 2004.

What is a blog and why should your business care?A blog (short for web log) is a section of a website that is extremely easy to update with little to no technical knowledge. The reason these are important to businesses is that you now have a way to quickly and easily disseminate information to clients, prospects, employees, partners, and just about anyone to whom you care to preach your message. They also can dramatically help you with search engine rankings, meaning more visitors coming to your website. Want to see some in action?Check out our blog here, and one we set up for a client here. Pretty nifty, eh? Companies of all sizes are jumping on the blog bandwagon, and you should too. It’s good enough for both GM and neighborhood businesses, and you should try it for yours. Sounds great you say? Well, not so fast!Blogs can have their downsides as well- when not properly implemented, they can look tacky and added on to your existing site, instead of an integrated part of your web presence. When adding a blog to your site, don’t settle for a pre-defined template. Insist on having it become a seamless experience for web visitors. How can you ensure this happens? Have your web designer check out our new Quick and Dirty Guide to Blogger Integration. This is a 21 page step-by-step guide through the process of adding a blog to a website using the popular blogger.com free service from Google. Please let me know when you have blogs established on your website- I’d love to check them out myself to see what all of our readers are up to. I’ll even link to any blogs right from our home page that readers of this update send to me. Send me your e-mails at mwalker@sbanetwork.org. Have a great week! This article was written by SBA Network Sales Technology Specialist Matt Walker. You can reach him for more information at mwalker@sbanetwork.org, or 714-269-4123. Attract More Business One Day Workshops
By popular demand, we are now offering the Attract More Business one day workshop. This full day workshop incorporates content from our “Attract More Business” learning program and 8 week class. The workshop will be held from 9am to 5pm on July 23, 2005 in Monrovia, CA and August 25, 2005 in Long Beach, CA. Attendees of the workshop are eligible for 2 follow up 30 minute coaching sessions.Sign-up at: Attract More Business One Day Workshop.

Internet Specialization

The NFL draft is upon us in just 7 days. All across the country football fans are trying to figure out where each player will go. Each team has needs at different positions, and they will try to fill as many of these as possible with next weekend’s draft. With 65 players on each team, broken down into offense, defense, and special teams, it’s hard to keep track of what each team needs. These are broken down even further into smaller groups- the offense alone has quarterbacks, running backs, tight ends, wide receivers, and the offensive line, each with their own coach. These groups are then often further segmented into possession receivers, big play receivers, speed backs, power backs, 3rd down backs, blocking backs, receiving tight ends, blocking tight ends, guards, tackles (left and right), and centers. Whew!

What we see is specialization on a massive scale. Every player on the team has a very specific job, and how well they do the small tasks they are responsible for is often what determines the winner and loser for each game, and what share of millions of dollars they can take home. Even the referees are specialized. Every member of the officiating crew has an individualized job- certain players to watch for specific rule infractions.

When I play football with my friends on the weekends, we don’t have the same type of specialization- we often trade off who plays quarterback and receiver, and we all play both offense and defense. We also, not coincidentally, aren’t very good at any of these positions. We also aren’t being paid millions of dollars, because we just play for fun.

What do you do to market your business on the Internet? Are you just playing for fun? Or are you hoping to make it a major part of your business? If you really want to use the Internet to generate revenue, you can’t afford to be a weekend warrior that just plays around. You need to display the same type of specialization seen in the NFL. It is what makes the difference between successful Internet marketers and unsuccessful ones.

The best tool available on the Internet for savvy marketers is pay per click advertising. These small ads show up on Google and other search engines and websites when you search for a term specified by the advertiser. The great thing about them is that it costs nothing to have your ad displayed- you just pay a small amount (usually somewhere between $.05 and a few dollars) each time someone acts on your ad by going to your website.

Let’s say someone wanted to market a product to small business owners on the Internet using pay per click advertising. What many novice Internet marketers would be tempted to do is run ads for the term “business”. They would then run an ad that describes their product in general terms, hoping to attract as many visitors to their website as possible. Because there are so many people advertising with the term “business”, the cost per click is probably up near the $10 mark. If they sold their product for $200, they would need to convert one out of every 20 visitors as actual sales for the program to pay for itself. When you factor in the cost of development, labor, delivery of the product, and other factors, they probably need to convert more like one of every 10 visitors. While possible, this is very difficult, and far from an optimum use of their time. What they lack is proper specialization.

A savvy Internet marketer would take the same product and advertise using the same method. Instead of advertising on the term “business”, they would come up with hundreds of terms that relate to the benefit received from the product (“lower costs of communication for small businesses”); because there are far fewer people advertising with these terms, they can probably get clicks for about $.10. They will then run ads for each of these terms that are specific to the search term. One ad should mention items such as “business communication”, “lower costs”, and “small business”- the words used in the search term example. This means they only need to sell their program to one in every 2000 visitors to turn a profit. The use of specialization has increased the profitability of the marketing effort by a factor of 100!

A truly smart Internet marketer will have their visitors sent to pages on their website that deal with the specific terms they searched on, which also usually increases the conversion rate for these ads. This means that not only are your ads much less expensive, the likelihood they will turn into sales is greatly increased!

So let me ask- are you a weekend warrior with your Internet marketing? Or are you a championship contender?

These techniques take a while to learn and apply. If you are considering a pay per click campaign or already have one that is receiving marginal results, we offer a full analysis that includes suggested ads, keywords, and bid prices, with ad text and more advanced techniques to receive greater results. Contact me at mwalker@sbanetwork.org to find out more and see a sample analysis to learn how this can apply to your business.

This Business Update was written by SBA Network Sales Technology Specialist Matthew Walker- for more information, please contact him at 714-269-4123 or mwalker@sbanetwork.org.

I hope that this “Business Update” has been helpful in assisting you to improve the performance of your organization. For more information on how the Small Business Advisory Network assists companies in improving their performance, please feel free to contact us at 310-320-8190 or email mark@markdeo.com.

Have a great week!