Know your customers

One of the most important aspects for all businesses is to know as much as you can about the people you are selling your products or services too. Big business has done this for years, they have shopper club cards, and online profiles for you to fill out, all helping them gauge how much they can charge for the new products that are coming out soon.

As a small business you need to connect and really KNOW what your customer is looking for from your business. Perfecting your online web presence through email and a great web design is key.

With a website you can target your customers better by knowing exactly how many times a product has been looked at, helping you know which are fading fads, and your new hot items. You can track customer satisfaction through online surveys. You can gather feedback and reviews on your products.

Email is the perfect tool for businesses to use to reach out to their customers. You ask for it when they are checking out. You then use it for sending them special offers, or a thank you for shopping with us note, or ask them for feedback. It is perfect in the sense that it wont cost nearly as much as a post card with printing and mailing costs, just to get tossed out with the other junk mail, it can be personalized to help ensure they respond, and it is not as bothersome as a phone call interrupting dinner or another important event. It quietly waits in their inbox until they are ready to take action.

All these great options can be a little overwhelming so if you are a business looking for help with your website take a minute, and contact Bry.Net Web Services.

We would be glad to discuss our inexpensive and reliable ways to help you reach out to your customers more.

Part 6 - Join the community on the net

In the sixth installment of our ongoing series on how to increase traffic and sales to your website we are going to look into making you have a little bit of fun while promoting your website.

How can running your business be more fun? By contributing content back to the internet. My guess is that your passionate about your business, you want it to succeed. You love talking about it to almost anyone who will listen.

Take that passion, and pour it into the internet, there are a million ways to do so. We'll look at a few of them.

Message boards and discussion group forums - There are people just as passionate about your products or area of service. Seek out these groups on Yahoo groups, Google groups, or specific message boards all over the internet. Create an account, and start contributing, post a question your having a hard time answering yourself, or help someone else learn about something you know all too well. The key to it all is to mention your business, either in the signature part of your message, or as part of the actual answer.

Bry.Net Web Services' goal is to build your website, help you promote your website, and help with marketing your website to clients. With that in mind, we constantly are finding we can help fellow web designers learn more about Search Engine Optimization, or HTML. And we use these same forums to learn things ourselves.

Blogs and Video Blogs - There again are other people in your line of work, they probably have a blog. Find them, and leave them a comment, encourage them on a great job, or help them learn something they didn't know. Again the key is to leave your website link on the form, so they can come back and visit your blog or website as well.

The key to all of this contributing though is to be consistent. Again set aside 15-30 minutes once or twice a week, or less depending on your schedule, and find these places online, and check back, update a post, or add a new one. Slowly over time you'll build up a massive collection of links on the internet all pointing back to your domain. All while helping others learn more about your products and services, and they didn't even have to find your website directly.

We hope you've found this article useful, if you have any questions or suggestions, please let us know!

Part 5 - Email Newsletters - a key to good web design.

In our continuing series on ways to get new customers, and get the old ones to come back to your website we are looking at email newsletters.

If people have purchased something from you before, there has been a certain level of trust between your business and them. They obviously like what you are selling or providing, so allow your customers to be added to some kind of list.

Email newsletter lists are one of the best and easiest ways to help, they have several great points to consider.

1) Extremely low cost - sending out an email newsletter only costs a small maintenance fee, usually included in your website hosting, and a little bit of your time. Any other communication method with your customers is going to cost exponentially more.
2) Be sure your customers know what they are signing up for. Some companies want to keep you informed about new products. Others want to give you tips and ideas to help you. Some want to have a monthly special or promotion, many companies do a combination of all of the above.
3) Use your newsletter email system wisely. Too many emails going out will seem like junk mail, and people will unsubscribe and be unhappy. Too few emails lets them forget how great your company is. You will know your clients best, but a good way to start is at once a month. This gives you a regular schedule to stick too without taking too much of your time initially to see how it works out.
4) Include links back to your website. Besides informing them of the specials, or giving them a quick tip. Invite them with teasers or links to more information back on your website. Remember our goal here is to get them to buy something, they need to visit your website, or contact you to do that. So don't give away all the secrets right inside the email.
5) Make it easy to subscribe and unsubscribe, it should be in the footer of each email you send out, and be available online someplace on your website as well. Further more encourage people to forward your newsletter to friends and family as well.

There are many other great tips and things to consider when sending out an email newsletter, but either way Bry.Net Web Services strongly encourages you to give them a try. If you have any questions or want information on the email marketing and newsletter services we offer, just contact us.

Part 4 - Create competition

In the fourth installment in our series on how to increase website traffic, and in turn sales. We turn to a core value of democracy. Competition.

Of course there are other people out there selling the same products or services that you are. That is not the kind of competition that we're talking about. We're talking about your customers. Or people in general. They like to find a good deal. People like to find something that is special or one of a kind that they found.

A website that gets people coming back more often, makes more sales. Again I defer to on of our favorite websites, www.woot.com. They have perfected this model. Each day they have a new product, that is usually priced much lower than the competition. They only have so many of this product, whether it be 10, or 1000. In any case though, once they are sold out, that's it. No more.

So some ideas for you and creating a competition on your website. Give something away for free. Pick a product or service everyone would love, and give one away, say once a week, or once a month, or how ever often we want people to come back. Let them enter their email address, and get a chance at winning. It helps to build your newsletter base up, and gets them to come back once per day. Or offer them a chance to email this offer to their friends, to help spread the word.

If giving something away for free is too much for your business model, then give something at a good discount. Why does the grocery store sell that gallon of milk at such a low price? Because they know everyone needs milk. They are hoping that you also grab those oreo cookies on the walk back to the dairy section in the back. Most people will add those complementary products to help make their purchase complete.

So pick the services, or products you can give away for free, or at a deep discount, and start watching people stop by more often.

What do you think about Bry.Net offering a free website to a client? Would you stop back to enter your name into a hat? Let us know, we're trying to figure out what our contest and competition can be.

Part 3 - Update your site regularly

In our continuing series on how to increase traffic and drive more business to your website, we are looking at keeping it fresh and updated.

Your website is not a business card, brochure, or yellow page ad. You decide what it looks like once a year, if that, and it manages itself. A website is a constantly evolving project that takes constant attention and updating to make the most of it.

One of the most important aspects of your website is keeping it up to date, and relative to what is going on in the world. For example a car dealership is constantly changing its signs, balloons out front, commercials, and many other aspects. Just to help catch your eye and get you to stop back into their dealership and check on that new model.

Your website should be doing the same. If I stop by your site today, what is going to get me to come back tomorrow, other than I lost your phone number, or need directions again? Nothing. Keeping it updated, and adding in dynamic features will not only get your customers visiting more often, but it will help Google, Yahoo, and the many other search engines realize that something is new and different. They will come back more, and it will lead to increased rankings in the search results.

If I stop back to your site, and see a new special deal, I may read it. If I see a new blog entry, I'll read that too. If I see a different catchy graphic that is explaining a new procedure or how to, I may read that too. I mean I did come to your website at some point in time because I wanted to know something about it.

So keep in mind each time you change your store window layout, or update your answering machine message, or send out a new flyer in the mail, that you should also be doing the same thing to your website, if not sooner. It will really help in the end.

It doesn't have to be anything fancy either, spend 30 minutes once a week on it. Slowly over time you'll see it turn into the website you want and need it to be. Best of luck!

Part 2 - Topical Web Sites

In this second part of our series on how to increase traffic and drive more business through your website we need to look at another important aspect of the Internet. Knowledge.

More and more people are turning to the Internet for knowledge, information is power. From simple things like what is your companies phone number or email address, to more detailed things like how to make a superb soufflé, or where can I buy a Venus fly trap.

In whatever your business, you know your customers best. Help them realize that your website is a wealth of knowledge, and they will keep coming back for more "free" information. This will lead to them trusting you more, showing that you know what they really need, and in turn they will not mind paying a few dollars more for your product versus someone else, or they will check out the product on your website first.

So gather up all the one off emails you've sent to customers over the years, create a Frequently Asked Questions page on your site. Provide full detailed articles in how to hang curtains, or the best way to irrigate their flower beds. Whatever your business is strive to become an expert in that area, and share that information with them.

As you can tell, that is exactly what we are trying to do here with this blog. Show you that Bry.Net Web Services is more than just a website design company. We are here to make sure your Internet venture is a success.

Part 1 - Get customers coming back to your website.

Over the next several weeks, we are going to look at the many ways we can get customers coming back to your website. From product based sites, to service ones, or even ad revenue based websites.

So you have just built your website, or maybe it has been up and running for years. Once you have attracted a new customer, how do we get them coming back over and over again?

Short term specials are one unique aspect to explore. There is a fine balance too, as you will know your clients and how hard you can push them to come back. If your product/service is a low cost item, but one they may need weekly, then a weekly special is probably best, if it is longer term, you still want them to come back say once a month just to see if you have anything new to offer.

www.woot.com is one of our favorite websites, if you haven't seen it before, check it out. Their whole business model is based on the short term special. In fact it is a daily special. Each day they sell one product. From small headphones, to large plasma televisions. Each day is different though, and I find myself wandering back there at least once a day just to see what they may have.

Woot is much more than just what they have each day, it is the fact that they have it at an amazing price. It is usually well below the normal market value for the same product from other places like amazon.com or yahoo shopping. Then to top it all off, they offer 5 dollar shipping on everything. Even a 100lb plasma television.

So pick a product, make it a "loss leader" knowing that you'll loose money on that product or servce today, in the hopes of getting them to come back again soon, or to get those few other things they need right now as well.

The internet is a place to find the bargains, help your clients out by showing them.

Website pictures, a key element

A picture is worth a thousand words. How many times have you heard that phrase? How many times more do you need to hear it to let it sink in?

In the world wide web, anyone with Internet access can view your webpage. That includes everyplace around the globe. Although the more common language on the net is English. It should be said that very careful consideration should be given to each picture and photo on your site.

I know when I purchase something online, it gives me a sense of comfort seeing the picture next to it, knowing that is what I can expect. But it goes much further beyond product pictures.

Pictures can be used to represent a high level of quality that shows the service, not product, you are offering is neat, friendly, has great customer service. Photos can be used to provide more words than you can imagine.

Why are hollywood movie studios cutting out more dialog, and adding in more explosions? Because the explosion is universal, everyone can comprehend it right away.

So take a moment, review the images, and photos on your website. Minimize trying to describe an explosion, and put a photo of it in there instead.