Why you should be using ?Collaboration Marketing? to grow your business quickly.
October 21, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
What is Collaboration Marketing?
Collaboration Marketing is an abstract mind-set used to describe a business building process that involves two or more entities (with similar, but non-competing products, services or ideas) that agree to contribute their existing assets (people, time, money, processes and resources) for the synergistic betterment of a newly formed relationship, business, or process.
What?
Ok, here?s a better way to understand “Collaboration Marketing”.
Collaboration Marketing
Collaboration Marketing, (CM) often referred to as a Strategic Alliance (SA), Joint Venture (JV?s), or Corporate Partnering (CP) can be defined as “a mutually beneficial relationship between two or more parties”. Collaboration Marketing can range from being very simplistic, quick, informal one-time events to very formal, long-term projects, relationships, or even the creation of a completely new company or company division. The power and possibilities that you can accomplish from a well-planned “Collaboration Marketing Process” are numerous, exciting, and (can be) quite profitable.
In this article, I?ll focus primarily on giving you some high level examples on the benefits of using an informal Strategic Alliance for getting new clients quickly.
The underlying principle that makes a Strategic Alliance so powerful is that they work on the basis of a “trusting relationship”. Trust among the participating parties, trust between the network of clients, members and any other circle of influence you or a potential Strategic Alliance partner may have. Trust that in most cases has taken you or your future Strategic Alliances partner months and even years to develop, cultivate, and nurture.
Ok, stay with me while I give a you an example of “the reason why” Strategic Alliances work…
Think about how you make your buying decisions. What?s the first thing you usually do when you need to make a product or service purchase that you?ve not used or consumed before. In most cases you?ll ask your a family member, friend or business associate for a referral. Are you asking for a referral because you don?t know were to find the product or service you?re seeking? Unlikely, the Internet, Yellow Pages, and 411 information services are overflowing with invasive ads for products and services (this is also another reason to use Strategic Alliances, but we?ll talk more about penetrating the “Noise Barrier” in a future Collaboration Marketing article) More then likely, your asking someone you “trust” because they have already gone through the sales experience with a particular vendor and can possibly save you time, money, and frustration based on their experiences.
Let?s take an example of how a start-up company used a Strategic Alliance to generate new clients within one week with little to no marketing and advertising cost.
Simon opened his Web Design Company with a passion for creating websites, logos, and custom graphics for his clients. Simon was a skilled graphic designer, but his sales and marketing skills were based solely on theory and what he learned from a few books he had recently read. Simon wanted to do a promotion offering 25% off his services for new clients. Simon and I had a conversation about this promotion and asked me my advice and thoughts on this type of promotion. His objectives were to find new clients quickly without spending a lot of money on marketing. I told him that he had two primary objections to overcome since his business was new, he currently had only one client and his competition in the Web Design space was fierce and while competing strictly on a discount price point may work, I suggested he use a Strategic Alliance to keep his prices at a competitive market rate to obtain new clients, while creating a “leverage switch” with a complimentary business owner that already had the a trusting relationship with the exact type of clients Simon was looking to provide service to. I suggested Simon call local printers, illustrators, and web programmers in his area. I had him pick local vendors (so he could actually go meet these other business owners, which builds rapport and trust) that work in complimentary, not competitive businesses. Simon contacted a local print shop, introduced himself and offered to provide a “Web Design” division to the print shops existing base of over 300 clients. Within one week, Simon and the owner of the print shop wrote an email letter to his existing clients announcing the new service. Within two weeks Simon gained an immediate influx of client requests with an acquisition cost of zero!
The reason this relationship worked is based on the established trust the printer had with his clients and the trust that Simon built with the printer. By showing him his portfolio, proving to the printer that Simon was capable and skilled, meeting him in person (not necessary, but it?s an added way to build trust and rapport) and offering the printer an added profit stream opportunity to open a new “web division” with minimal to no out of pocket costs. This was clearly a win-win Strategic Alliance. The printer was able to provide a profitable service (that his clients were asking for) and Simon was able to position himself in front of an established “warm market” of prospects.
What Strategic Alliance opportunities could you use to expand your business this quickly?
Copyright (c) 2007 Christian Fea
47 Simple Ways to Build Trust in Your Website or Blog
June 13, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
If your website does not create a sense of trust in your visitors, all your efforts will be in vain. Your online business will never succeed. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it is very easy to create and build trust in your online visitors. Below, I have listed all the techniques used by the hundreds of websites I have helped launch. If you have additional techniques, please add them to the list.
As the old saying goes, you have only one chance to make a first impression. Building trust cannot be achieved by one single action. Trust is achieved by hundreds of little things you do throughout your website that, when taken together, give readers a sense of honesty, legitimacy and stability.
The other bit of good news is that few website owners focus on building trust in the minds of their visitors. If you do it well, it can become a real and sustainable competitive advantage.
Here are 47 simple actions you can take to get started.
1. Trust is built by lots of small actions on every page of your website.
2. Your website design is the first impression. Make sure it is professional and relevant to the subject matter.
3. Navigation must be intuitive. If visitors can’t find what they are looking for easily, they will question your competence in providing what they want.
4. Make the website personal by giving it its own tone and voice. People buy people.
5. Follow the HEART rule of creating online content. (Reminder: HEART stands for Honest, Exclusive, Accurate, Relevant and Timely.)
6. Use language that is appropriate to the audience. It will build empathy.
7. Regularly add new content to your site. It shows that the business is alive and kicking.
8. Check all links. Doubts will quickly form in your visitors’ minds if links don’t work or, worse still, take them to error pages.
9. Good grammar and spelling matter. Errors give the impression of sloppiness and carelessness.
10. Never make outrageous and unbelievable claims, like “Read this blog and you’ll be a millionaire by the end of the week.” People are used to scams, get-rich-quick schemes and rip-offs.
11. Publish REAL testimonials and third-party endorsements. Try to always use real names and link to websites where possible. Some sites show images of letters sent by happy customers.
12. Publish case studies about customers you have helped, who use your product, etc.
13. Don’t put down, curse or insult competitors. It’s unprofessional. It is better to offer an objective comparison of competitive services or products.
14. Focus on building your long-term reputation, not on making quick sales.
15. Write articles for humans, not search engines.
16. Make your ?About Us’ page personal and comprehensive. It plays an important part in making visitors feel comfortable that real people are behind the site.
17. Publish your photo or the photos of the key people involved with the site. Again, this reinforces the fact that there are real people behind the screenshots.
18. Clearly identify who is behind the site. Nothing creates more suspicion than a site that tries to hide the identity of its publishers.
19. On the ?Contact Us’ page, provide an email form, phone number, fax and address of the company. In Europe, it is a legal requirement for sites taking money, but even sites driven by advertising will benefit from openness.
20. Provide a telephone number that people can call and talk to a person.
21. Provide Web addresses linked to the website domain, not addresses from free webmail services such as Hotmail and Gmail.
22. Never lie to make money. The most common way is to write a glowing report about a product or service to earn affiliate revenues. It is very short-sighted to lie to visitors to sell them rubbish. They’ll never come back or, worse still, they’ll actively condemn your site on forums and blogs.
23. Think carefully about reciprocal links. If your site is about organic food and you have links to Party Poker, people are going to question your integrity.
24. Think carefully about the adverts you display on your site. Ensure that they are relevant to your subject and audience.
25. Be explicit when you are being paid to endorse a product or service. An advertorial is fine as long as it is transparent. Paid-to-post is corrupting the Web and will experience a user backlash. I never read websites that accept payment for posting.
26. Write and publish your privacy policy. Be clear about what you will and will not do with any personal data you collect. State that you adhere to all data protection laws. Make it easy to read and don’t use legal gobbledygook.
27. Write and publish a security policy. State what measures you take to ensure that all transactions are secure.
28. Ensure that you have a security and privacy policy which is linked from the footer on every page. Make the link more prominent on all the order pages.
29. Clearly publish your guarantee. I would recommend making it a 100% money-back guarantee if possible.
30. Clearly state your refund and returns policy.
31. Piggyback off reputable brands. If you use PayPal, put the PayPal logo on your site. If you have a merchant services account with a major bank like Citibank or HSBC, put its logo on your site.
32. Use Google search on your site for two reasons. First, it is a great search solution which will help your visitors find what they are looking for. Second, having the Google name on your site instills trust.
33. If there are well-known industry associations for your subject, join up and put their logos on your site.
34. Have a forum on your site and respond quickly to questions. Have the attitude that you are happy to help others without receiving immediate reward. As the old saying goes, ?Givers always gain.’
35. Allow people to comment on articles. Interactivity and an exchange of views build community and a sense of involvement.
36. If people provide constructive criticism or comments in the forum, don’t delete them, but respond with your point of view.
37. Put photos on the website of the owners, publishers and/or team. Let visitors know there are real people behind the business.
38. Put images of the credit cards you accept on every page of the order process.
39. Use the words ?secure website’ whenever you try to get any information from visitors, including newsletter sign-ups, forum input and payment.
40. On every page, state, “We take your privacy and security very seriously.” Link the statement to the security and privacy policy.
41. Remember, reputations take years to build and seconds to destroy.
42. If you are selling a subscription, offer a low-cost, entry-level option. This could be a one-day taster, ?a week before billing starts’ or a monthly trial.
43. Use a high level of security when processing credit cards. Make sure you make your clients aware of all the steps you are taking.
44. Never send credit card information or personal details over the Internet unencrypted. Tell your customers that their data will be encrypted.
45. Only ask for information from customers that you really need. For example, for an email newsletter sign-up, the only information you REALLY need is an email address, so that is all you should ask for
46. If you have pricing on your website, make it transparent. I recently went to buy a book which was advertised for $10. When I checked out, they added tax, post and packaging, and the final bill was $19.50. I didn’t buy it as I felt they had deliberately tried to mislead me.
47. Keep your SSL certificate up to date. Let people know you are using SSL encryption and who the provider is.
You can never do too much to build trust. Most of it comes down to common sense and good business practice. To ensure that you are continually improving your trustworthiness, every time you go to a website, ask yourself whether you trust it or not. Then ask yourself why you have formed the opinion you have. Continually try to learn what makes a site trustworthy or untrustworthy and implement the relevant changes to your site.
If people trust you, the money will follow!