Be a standout on the Web.EXECUTIVE SUMMARY * A WEB SITE IS A VALUABLE DIRECT MARKETING TOOL when it has action-oriented copy and graphics, reader involvement devices and promotional offers that prompt readers to respond. * FOCUS ON WHAT CLEARLY SEPARATES YOUR FIRM from the competition and can be locked into the minds of your prospective clients. * WHEN YOU IMPRINT A STRONG ASSOCIATION in the minds of your prospects and clients, you create something marketers call "mind share." Brands that are synonymous with synonymous with adjective equivalent to, the same as, identical to, similar to, identified with, equal to, tantamount to, interchangeable with, one and the same as their products (Jell-O, Kleenex, Xerox) have successfully gained mind share. * YOUR WEB SITE WILL HAVE A GREATER IMPACT if it focuses on your clients' needs and interests instead of aggressively telling them how wonderful you are. * WEB SITES SHOULD BE INFORMATIONAL. Based on your positioning and market focus, present news, articles, facts, insights and helpful data that clearly show you are an authority in your areas of expertise. * TO COMPETE EFFECTIVELY ON THE INTERNET, your site should be ranked high by search engines and directories such as Google and Yahoo! Reciprocal links A reciprocal link is a mutual link between two objects, commonly between two websites in order to ensure mutual traffic. Example: Alice and Bob have websites. If Bob's website links to Alice's website, and Alice's website links to Bob's website, the websites are reciprocally linked. with other businesses can help achieve this goal. It also is useful to link to relevant government and nonprofit agencies. Having a digital presence is now unquestionably un·ques·tion·a·ble adj. Beyond question or doubt. See Synonyms at authentic. un·ques  tion·a·bil an important part of doing business, but the trick is in how best to use it when the growing number of Web sites makes it harder and harder to get noticed. The Internet weaves words and pictures into interactive information accessible to a huge audience, and the sites it serves are many. (There were more than one billion Web pages on the Internet in 2000.) CPA (Computer Press Association, Landing, NJ) An earlier membership organization founded in 1983 that promoted excellence in computer journalism. Its annual awards honored outstanding examples in print, broadcast and electronic media. The CPA disbanded in 2000. firms need to learn some basics about applying Web direct marketing in a way that makes their sites competitive, effective sales tools. To successfully market CPA services on the Web, you first must have a clear understanding of how your firm is distinct from the competition. Emphasize its unique capabilities as you use the technology to draw clients and readers in. Sharing valuable data that visitors can access readily is an excellent way to do this. A Web site becomes "direct marketing" when it has action-oriented text and graphics, promotional offers, data and devices that prompt reader response. YOU'RE SPECIAL--TELL THEM The basic strategy starts with positioning, a form of differentiation that can help create a perception about your business among clients and prospects based on your firm's strengths. Positioning is central in all marketing and no less so on the Internet. Start by determining how your business is different from key competitors'. You know your marketplace, so to uncover ideas, answer questions such as the following: * Does your firm serve specific industries or focus on a business specialty (construction, fashion or retail clients; litigation An action brought in court to enforce a particular right. The act or process of bringing a lawsuit in and of itself; a judicial contest; any dispute. When a person begins a civil lawsuit, the person enters into a process called litigation. , audit or tax services)? * Is your business built on a solid reputation, such as "one of the oldest, most respected small accounting firms"? * Is your firm a family business whose members offer a personal, solicitous so·lic·i·tous adj. 1. a. Anxious or concerned: a solicitous parent. b. Expressing care or concern: made solicitous inquiries about our family. approach? * Do you insist on achieving complete client satisfaction (staff turn projects around quickly; answer phone messages promptly; treat all clients as if they were the firm's most important ones)? * Are your services more complete or comprehensive than your competitors'? The idea is to focus on what clearly separates you from the competition and can be locked into the minds of your prospects and clients. Once you decide which qualities make your firm special, write the information out as a simple statement. Then use it as the framework for your Web site, publicity mailings and print and direct mail advertising. Volvo is an example of a business that has used positioning well in its Web--and other--marketing. Its media tag line tag line also tag·line n. 1. An ending line, as in a play or joke, that makes a point. 2. An often repeated phrase associated with an individual, organization, or commercial product; a slogan. Noun 1. is "drive safely," and it promotes its cars to families with children. As a result, Volvo has become identified with safety. CPA firms attempting direct marketing on the Web may need to take a few pointers from consumer approaches. WHAT'S YOUR FOCUS? Business consultant Al Ries Al Ries is a marketing professional and author. He is also the co-founder and chairman of the Atlanta-based consulting firm Ries & Ries with his partner and daughter, Laura Ries. , who with co-author Jack Trout Jack Trout is an owner of Trout & Partners consulting firm. He is one of the founders and pioneers of positioning theory, and also marketing warfare theory. Bibliography
For example, if you're a CPA with experience in the fashion trade, you might determine your target by noting the following points about your practice: * Predominant specialty? The clothing and fashion wear business. * Client base? Mostly midsize clothing manufacturers, distributors and retailers. * Located where? Primarily in Georgia and the Southeast. * Clear field? Only a few CPA practices with this specialty in the South. From these positioning notes, you could narrow your focus and write a statement such as: "The experienced CPA specialists for midsize clothing and fashion businesses in Georgia and the Southeast." Midsize CPA firms offering diverse services should go against instinct and base your direct marketing on core competencies A core competency is something that a firm can do well and that meets the following three conditions specified by Hamel and Prahalad (1990):
properly speaking, to be precise , direct marketing). Steer clear of making your firm sound like an ordinary commodity in your positioning statement. Clients respect CPA expertise and recognize there are accounting-skill subsets that can contribute greatly to the health of their businesses. "It's analogous to a medical practice," says Ries. "There are general practitioners general practitioner n. Abbr. GP A physician whose practice consists of providing ongoing care covering a variety of medical problems in patients of all ages, often including referral to appropriate specialists. and specialists. If you have a problem that needs special attention, your primary doctor may send you to a specialist. He or she not only will be highly trained in a specific area but will charge more, too" When you imprint a strong association in the minds of your prospects and clients, you create something marketers call "mind share." Brands that have become synonymous with their products (Jell-O, Kleenex, Xerox) have successfully gained mind share. Try to position your firm based on uniqueness, strengths or specialties so that it's the first one to be thought of by your targeted group. "Mind share is market share," says Hewlett Packard CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. Carly Fiorina Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina (born Cara Carleton Sneed; September 61954 in Austin, Texas) is an American business executive, best known as former CEO (1999–2005) and Chairman of the Board (2000–2005) of Hewlett-Packard (HP). . TELL CLIENTS WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR THEM For greater impact, focus on your clients' needs and interests in your Web message. Say little about the history of your firm or how wonderful you are; instead, tell site visitors how your services, experience and abilities can benefit them. Give your professional credentials and expertise, and introduce mini case studies to illustrate your client focus. Based on how your CPA firm is positioned in the market (and its niches), the Web site should highlight the advantages of the firm's specialized services. Ideally, the presentation should consist of short paragraphs that lead into bulleted bul·let·ed adj. Printing Highlighted or set off with bullets: a bulleted list. copy. It's important to keep the copy brief and informative and have a visual format that's easy to understand. The CPA sites in exhibits 1 and 2, at right, offer a broad menu of services, but they are fast-loading, have short, clear paragraphs, drop-down menus See pull-down menu. drop-down menu - pull-down menu and an uncluttered, consistent graphic format. [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] To maintain a client point of view, use a "you" rather than "we" approach to tell your story. Here's how the text might weave together the prospective client and the advantages of using your firm: "Our capital-raising efforts can save you time and help you learn more about the many financing options other than bank loans available to you. Talk to us and you'll learn about our 25 innovative methods for raising debt and equity capital that can help you expand into new markets, get the equipment you need and launch products fast." HAVE BENEFICIAL WEB CONTENT Your Web site gets an enormous marketing advantage if it offers useful data, such as news, articles, facts, insights and information--preferably showing that you are an authority and specialist in certain areas. Zero in on tips, techniques, ideas and tax-saving methods. Present it all in a friendly, one-to-one style. Pack the site with helpful content, and visitors will return. This puts your firm's name in front of potential clients again and again. CPA firm Carlin car·line or car·lin n. Scots A woman, especially an old one. [Middle English kerling, from Old Norse, from karl, man.] , Charron & Rosen LLP'S home page has a "Links" link that takes you to sites ranging from government to legal, life-style, auction and dental information among other categories (see exhibit 3, below). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The best way to develop external links to information is by establishing alliances with one or more related businesses, business consultants, universities or government agencies. When a visitor to a CPA's Web site clicks one of these links, he or she connects with the partner site. It provides the visitor with the information but appears to be part of the CPA firm's Web site. Work with your site developer if you want to build in a function that takes the visitor from the linked site back to the CPA site. SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS Search engine ranking is a measure of the online promotional success of a web page or website. Most search engines default to ten organic or natural listings per page. Many include sponsor links before or to the right of the results. To get attention and compete even more effectively on the Internet, your site should show up on search engines and directories such as Google and Yahoo! One of the ways the engines find your site out of the multitudes is to count the number of links to it. When numerous professionals and marketers link to your site, they are, in effect, recommending it to visitors. The more links, the higher your site is "ranked"--that is, the higher the probability of being tagged by search engines and directories. To accomplish this, create an ongoing alliance with other Web site marketers and professionals with which you will trade links. Your site's links take visitors directly to your marketing partners' sites, and your partners do the same for you. Also: * Offer information links. For example, you can offer links to government sites (Department of Commerce, Federal Reserve, IRS An abbreviation for the Internal Revenue Service, a federal agency charged with the responsibility of administering and enforcing internal revenue laws. , SEC, Small Business Administration) and club and association sites. (Except for government sites, you must get permission from Web site owners before you link to theirs.) * Share your expertise. Develop partnerships with sites by supplying them with something they can use, such as original content for articles or electronic newsletters. A small publisher of business books might welcome your articles on tax-saving tips in return for attribution at·tri·bu·tion n. 1. The act of attributing, especially the act of establishing a particular person as the creator of a work of art. 2. or a link to your site. * Keep key content up front. The first 200 to 300 words on your home page are critical for search engine submissions Search engine submission is how a webmaster submits a web site directly to a search engine. While Search Engine Submission is often seen as a way to promote a web site, it generally is not necessary. . Here you must clearly focus on positioning your strengths and key services. Search engines have their own methods and formulas for ranking a Web site listing. Most drill down only about two layers to locate and index Web content. If vital information is too deep within your site, prospects and even clients may not find it using search engines, so keep key content at the first two levels. For example in the hypothetical Web address www.richardsiedlecki. com/file3/marketing/direct/retail/, many search engines would search only as deep as "marketing." * Use search-listing services. These can help save time (see "Search engine managers" in "More About Web Marketing." page 47). KEEP YOUR SITE SIMPLE AND FAST Since confusing sites turn off visitors, yours must be easy to use. Be sure your site: * Is intuitive and simple to navigate. * Has buttons that are descriptive and easy to locate. * Loads quickly. For example, if you have a "newest services" category, your visitors should be able to go to that page quickly. Don't bury an important category three or four clicks deep. Speedy access is very important. Most visitors won't have high-speed modems or DSL DSL in full Digital Subscriber Line Broadband digital communications connection that operates over standard copper telephone wires. It requires a DSL modem, which splits transmissions into two frequency bands: the lower frequencies for voice (ordinary services, so use photos and special graphics only when necessary because they delay loading. Include key information about your firm, especially multiple ways to contact you (phone, fax, e-mail and street address). Offer online and offline human contacts. Visitors should be able to "talk" to a human being, via either e-marl or phone. A Web site based on profitable direct marketing methods will increase your success rate on the Internet, no matter what your budget is. What stands out is how you compete based on your market positioning, your target niches, the usefulness and simplicity of your Web site and its consistency of presentation. On the Web, the size of your office or staff isn't important. CASE STUDY The Benefits of Links Carl Roth, CPA and partner of Roth & Spellman, New Milford, New Jersey New Milford is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the borough population was 16,400. New Milford was incorporated as a borough on March 11, 1922, from what remained of Palisades Township[3] , was involved in developing the firm's Web site. The firm leases links on its Web site, but visitors to the site are never aware of the alliance. Links include "Tax Tip of the Week" "Business Tip of the Month," "Financial Planning Financial planning Evaluating the investing and financing options available to a firm. Planning includes attempting to make optimal decisions, projecting the consequences of these decisions for the firm in the form of a financial plan, and then comparing future performance against Tip of the Month" and a new link called "2001 Tax Guide." There are also links to 16 different calculators, including one for IRAs. Roth tracks the hits on the site but not the conversions to clients. His firm has been successful in getting new clients through a three-step process: The prospect first learns about the firm from another individual or an ad; the prospect locates the firm's Web site to get more information; and, finally, the prospect phones the firm to explore a business arrangement. RESOURCE LIST More About Web Marketing You'll find these resources of benefit to marketing your practice. Educational Web Sites Promotion Base www.promotionbase.com/ This is a highly informative site. Readers can pick and choose a wide variety of articles, such as "The most effective way to easily acquire links to your site," "How to list your site with the major search engines," "The complete guide to portal listings" and more. Swiftfox Web Design www.swiftfox.com This Web developer offers a tip on linking from your site: To link to another site (or to a page that resides on another server), use a method called absolute linking. It requires a complete URL URL in full Uniform Resource Locator Address of a resource on the Internet. The resource can be any type of file stored on a server, such as a Web page, a text file, a graphics file, or an application program. in the reference. The HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. code for doing this might look like this: <a href = HTTP HTTP in full HyperText Transfer Protocol Standard application-level protocol used for exchanging files on the World Wide Web. HTTP runs on top of the TCP/IP protocol. ://www.swiftfox.com> VISIT SWIFTFOX>COM</a> This would display the phrase VISIT SWIFTFOX on your screen and when the user clicked the link, it would transport the user to the specific page. Search Engine Managers MetaMend.com www.metamend.com/1053/ MetaMend will enhance your Web site's search engine ranking. The company monitors and updates your site automatically for a low monthly fee. ROIbot.com www.roibot.com/r.cgi?IM7800nl101a You can register every page of your Web site on all major search engines by using this sophisticated registering submission server. WebPosition Gold www.promotionsoftware.com A software program that allows you to see if your company name, Web pages or Web site appears in the major search engines. Magazines SAM 117 W. Micheltorena, Suite C Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara is a city in California, United States. It is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 92,325. 93101 805-965-5858 www.sammag.com Brief, thorough articles on marketing, including Web site marketing, are available here. Marketing Web Sites About.com http://marketing.about.com/small business/marketing/ This site can steer you to basic information, such as targeted marketing. Its General Resources/Articles link connects to a large collection of marketing articles and resources. Free subscription. Larry Chase's Web Digest for Marketers www.wdfm.com A subscription automatically links you to a list of other free e-newsletters you can-subscribe to (or go to the newsletter list at http://www. wdfm.com/thanks.html). Jakob Nielsen/Nielsen Norman Group www.useit.com This Internet consultant offers a wide range of articles on Web marketing and keeping your site efficient and effective. Free subscription. Wilson Internet http://www.wilsonweb.com Includes three free electronic newsletters you can subscribe to Verb 1. subscribe to - receive or obtain regularly; "We take the Times every day" subscribe, take buy, purchase - obtain by purchase; acquire by means of a financial transaction; "The family purchased a new car"; "The conglomerate acquired a new company"; : Doctor Ebiz, Web Commerce Today, and Web Marketing Today. Check the extensive archive, too. Books * Business-to-Business Internet Marketing See Internet advertising. : Seven Proven Strategies for Increasing Profits through Internet Direct Internet Direct, also known as "Indy", is a free software / open source socket library written in Object Pascal, an object-oriented version of Pascal. It includes clients, servers, TCP, UDP, and raw sockets, as well as over 100 higher level protocols implementations such as SMTP, Marketing, 3rd ed., by Barry Silverstein. Maximum Press, Gulf Breeze, Florida
Read about structuring direct marketing, creative plan execution, implementation and analysis and promoting products and services. * Guide to Marketing on the Internet: Getting People to Visit, Buy, and Become Customers for Life by Dan Janal. John Wiley John Wiley may refer to:
New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. . Learn how to create your marketing message, do business-to-business selling online and earn lifetime customer loyalty. (Janal's Web site, www.janal.com, has free articles.) * Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner Books Inc., New York City. How to position your business, find and use the competition's weakest link and reposition the competition. * Guerrilla Marketing  The of this article or section may be compromised by "weasel words".You can help Wikipedia by removing weasel words. Online: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Earning Profits on the Internet, 2nd ed., by Jay Conrad Levinson and Charles Rubin. Houghton Mifflin Houghton Mifflin Company is a leading educational publisher in the United States. The company's headquarters is located in Boston's Back Bay. It publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers Co., New York City. Techniques for marketing online, plus ideas for marketing more effectively and successfully. Ten Tips for Web Marketing Success Keep these points in mind for a more effective Internet sales presence. 1. Put a marketing executive in charge of your site--not a techie A technical person. See hacker and programmer. . 2. Ask visitors to bookmark A stored location for quick retrieval at a later date. Web browsers provide bookmarks that contain the addresses (URLs) of favorite sites. Most electronic references, large text databases and help systems provide bookmarks that mark a location users want to revisit in the future. your site (if 2% actually do, you're marketing effectively), and be sure to ... 3. Update your site regularly. 4. Use a consistent presentation format to reinforce your firm identity on each page. Include your logo on each page (linked to your home page). 5. Use easy-to-read type fonts A set of print characters of a particular design (typeface), size (point size) and weight (light, medium, heavy). See font. that are not too large. A serif Short horizontal lines added to the tops and bottoms of traditional typefaces, such as Times Roman. Contrast with sans-serif.  type (Times Roman) is easier to read than a sans-serif (Helvetica). So is type that's upright (roman) rather than slanting slant v. slant·ed, slant·ing, slants v.tr. 1. To give a direction other than perpendicular or horizontal to; make diagonal; cause to slope: (italic). For body text, use 12-point roman or larger (and more white space between lines than you think you need). It makes type much easier to read. 6. Break up long paragraphs with subheads. This will help visitors scan your text and skip to relevant points. Subheads also improve layout. Always check spellings, grammar and usage. 7. Keep visitors involved. Calculators, chat rooms and a forum for getting answers to questions will keep them there for a while. Have them push buttons, check off boxes, answer questions and click for money-saving offers. 8. Include a checkbox where the visitor can request free weekly e-mail tips. 9. Provide an internal search engine to help visitors retrieve key articles from your archive if the site has 100 pages or more. 10. Promote your site everywhere--in ads, direct mail, publicity and on brochures. If you're speaking at a seminar or conference, you might respond to a query by saying something like: "I hope I've answered your question. Our Web site features several articles on that topic." RICHARD SIEDLECKI is an Atlanta-based consultant specializing in direct marketing via mail, catalogs and the Web. His e-mail address See Internet address. e-mail address - electronic mail address is sied@mindspring.com. |
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