Our very popular Trend Setter Package is so loaded with services that it is an extreme value, and one of the most valuable to many of our clients is our consulting. We help our clients get a website that is more effective because we understand sales and have taught sales and have been sales managers and business managers collectively for over 50 years. We're not technical web people. We use these Internet tools to help you grow your business and everything we do is focused on that concept.
Many times a client thinks they know what they want in a website and Internet marketing, but they often are going on what someone has told them or some misunderstood idea of how it works. Many times they are looking for the magic bullet in how the website is designed and magic keywords that will put them at the top of Google and more.
What we know from experience and what we have found helps the most is much more basic and sales minded than the technical web things. It is communicating and staying in touch with your existing clients. Indeed, people often take their existing clients for granted and forget to market to those who have already used your product and/or services. This is the value of the email newsletter that we provide in the Trend Setter Package.
Another basic thing is a phone number. Often what many people think is that they should somehow automate their site to move them from a landing page to gather their email and other info and then take them to an information page where they read gobbs of text, to a page where they buy and then expect that they will sell like crazy. Dream on. Let's work on getting the site interesting and content filled enough to try to get the phone to ring.
Another thing we advise is to get excited about YouTube, but not in the way that many people think about it. I know a car dealer who has 500 videos on the web and they aren't getting the full value of that because they are just trying to sell cars. Who wants to watch that? We advise that people change that idea and tell better, more interesting, and engaging stories. Tell us about the product in more detail. Stop the hype and get far better results. We have a number of commercial truck auto dealers and they need to talk about the body much more than the truck. Everybody knows the truck because the auto manufacturer spends millions getting that word out. Focus on the part few know about and how it will be of value to them; how it will be or can be used, etc.
Another basic thing is the website. Anything anyone could ever want to know about you should probably be there. You can have a 3 or 5 page website or you can have a 100 page website. All the pages do not need to be in the navigation and that would be a nightmare anyway, but the value is in the depth of content. Let me repeat: the value is in the depth of content. What Google is interested most in is Current, Relevant Content. The more information you put on your site, the more easily you are found. This is not buying an ad in the Yellow Pages, this is trying to grow your business and interest people who've never heard of you and so on. There's no need to fret about getting content, just do a page a month and you will be a superstar on the Internet.
Yet another very basic thing is the blog. To Upward Trend, this is the most powerful tool in our Trend Setter Package. For sure it is the most up to date content and the more often the posts, the more searchable you are. But beyond searchability, there is far more value in the blog. It is Current, Relevant Content. It is interesting information including photos, video and more. It has all your phone numbers, hours, website links and sometimes your people on the sidebars. It has your facebook, twitter, linkedin and other social media links and gadgets, and much more. If someone comes to your blog, they can easily find the rest of the info about you.
Then too, we have the social media. How can you ignore the awesomeness of social media. It is such an infant in the marketing world, and yet has become almost instantly powerful and has spread like a virus throughout the world. It's not too late to get in there and we can help. Back to the consulting, we advise clients on social media and how to get excellent value from it. One of the keys is consistency for so often we have seen people do a bunch of activity and then none for long periods and that will get you almost nowhere. We add content often throughout the month, every month, consistently.
We've seen some clients who ignore social media at their peril. To say 'I want to grow my business and make more money,' and then have nothing but bad reviews on Yelp is digging their own grave with those words. What is so important about social media is the power of word of mouth. Some people say it is high school all over again, and some of the stuff on there is absolutely that, but it is only part. Word of mouth can make you or break you. People can very soon see right through your false words by what others say about you. One or two bad comments people will give consideration to, but the majority of bad comments and you're in big trouble.
To say 'I'll just ignore this social media stuff,' will not do anything to help you. It is more like standing in the middle of the railroad tracks and digging a hole and putting your head in there so the train can't hurt you. All of the major corporations in this country are getting on the social media bandwagon because they are being convinced of its power. And, it is not just to sell more stuff, but to open up real time communications with their customers and potential customers. Again, I repeat: It is not just to sell more stuff. It is to open up real time communications with their customers and potential customers. It is one more thing along that same line: It is to build a tribe. A tribe is people who want to hear from you and pay attention.
One last thing about consulting and Upward Trend. We offer it as part of our service to each and every client. Yet, not all clients take advantage of it. What we do is interesting because we do it for you; however, on our agreement is states that we agree to do 80% and we ask our clients to do 20% because that is what creates synergy. We are very, very good about being you to the extent that we can, and with some clients we do pretty much 95-100% and we're happy to get that job done for our clients, but those who work WITH us by providing about 20%, get so much more results that it is pretty amazing.
On the surface, the value of our consulting is just an extra offered service, but when you go below the surface, the value is tantamount to being the most important and valuable thing that we do.
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