A website communicates the style, level of professionalism and theme of a business. It reveals what a company is all about and having one is instrumental in today’s marketplace. When viewers visit a site, the amount of information, level of usability and functionality all go towards creating an impression on a potential customer.

Keep in mind that your website can often be the first point of contact to your business. What is the impression you want to give of your company? Often I visit websites that have poor navigation, or the graphical design is too complex and confusing thereby overpowering the actual message that is trying to be delivered. Often times the site looks as though the web site was created by an amateur.

These all give off bad impressions to the visitor, making them question the rest of your business as well. After all, if so little effort and consideration is given to this, their first contact with a customer, then how are their services and products?

Providing a first-class service or product is reflected through ALL of your contact with the customer. This includes forms that are photocopied to the point of un-readability, brochures that are obviously quickly created, business cards that have perforations around the edges, and websites that are poorly done. Is this the image you want to give to your customers?

Customer Service

Whether or not you are selling a tangible product, you want to be able to provide enhanced customer service that will give you a competitive edge in the market place. In being able to provide 24/7 access to information, forms, products, and marketing to your customers, you place yourself at a higher level of customer service than your competitors who do not have an internet presence.

You can do this by offering the following:

• Detailed information about your company and your services.
• Highlight menus, products, descriptions, etc.
• Sell your product & services online with an online shopping cart.
• Get leads online with easy to use quote forms.
• Post business hours or a change in address/phone number.
• Provide knowledge and industry related articles.
• Reveal achievements, awards, testimonials, reviews and memberships.

Cost Savings

Companies that provide services such as catering to individuals and businesses would benefit greatly by allowing their customers to view their menu online and place orders online. This eliminates the need to send out menus, inform clients of changes in pricing or menu selections, as well as save time on the phone, email and/or fax answering questions and confirming orders.

Reduction of printing costs can be realized in many situations, including brochures, newsletters, patient information sheets, protocols, hand outs, etc. Many of these items are given to a client and end up in a file or in the garbage simply because we run out of room to keep them. Directing a client to a link on your website saves time and money.

Closing

In closing let me simply state that in this day and age, where people have little time, work long hours, have many commitments and little patience to spend a vast amount of effort in attempting communication, a website is the perfect opportunity for you to be available at all times for their convenience.

While I realize that not all of your customers and clients would use your website, it is a simple fact that more and more people are using the internet to conduct various forms of business. Are you willing to give up that market of potential clients?

These are the questions you need to ask yourself, and perhaps you are not sure of the answers. In the following article I will present to you the benefits of having a web site and how it will help you and your business.

Present Yourself….Well!

Prospective customers are more informed than ever due to the wealth of information available on the internet. Younger generations perform many daily functions via the internet that their parents never dreamed of.

When searching for a dentist for example, the ability to get a “feel” for the practice by viewing their website is critical. Even though a dental practice may never actually sell a product online, the ability to show prospective clients your services, extended training and features that your firm provides, your staff, extended information all combine to give your practice a modern, informative image.

When a potential customer searches the internet for a particular service or product, they can only find you if you are there. Many people, like myself, use the Yellow Pages as a last resort, simply because of the lack of information that is presented and the sheer amount of competition.

This change in the way that products and services are delivered, requires a business to have an online presence. For allowing customers to get an overall feel for your business, as well as to compare services and products without having to spend time on the phone and take time out of their work day to reach you during business hours.

Free Advertising

Are you currently advertising on TV, radio, Yellow Pages, etc.? In each of these instances your advertising message is limited, either by space or time limitations. You are trying to get your potential customer to call you or visit to get more information, to be able to convince them to visit you, to buy from you, or to use your services.

While these advertising strategies are an important part of your marketing campaign to get your message out there and to catch quick attention, however, where do they go when you have caught their attention?

24 Hour Marketing Tool

The benefit of having a web site is like having a marketing promoter 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your site can be referenced from your other advertising media, directing them to more extensive information. Your practice is now available at all times, selling for you for a minimum cost once past the initial layout to create the site. Basic maintenance and hosting fees are negligible when compared to other forms of advertising.

Google Analytics (GA) is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. Its main highlight is that the product is aimed at marketers as opposed to webmasters and technologists from which the industry of web analytics originally grew. It is the most widely used website statistics service, currently in use at around 57% of the 10,000 most popular websites. Another market share analysis claims that Google Analytics is used at around 49.95% of the top 1,000,000 websites.

GA can track visitors from all referrers, including search engines, display advertising, pay-per-click networks, email marketing and digital collateral such as links within PDF documents. Integrated with AdWords, users can review online campaigns by tracking landing page quality and conversions goals. Goals might include sales, lead generation, viewing a specific page, or downloading a particular file. These can also be monetized. By using GA, marketers can determine which ads are performing, and which are not, providing the information to optimize or pull campaigns.

Is GA Effective?

You bet it is. GA’s approach is to show high level dashboard-type data for the casual user, and more in-depth data further into the report set. Through the use of GA analysis, poor performing pages can be identified using techniques such as funnel visualization, where visitors came from referrers, how long they stayed and their geographical position. It also provides more advanced features, including custom visitor segmentation.

Users can officially add up to 50 site profiles. Each profile generally corresponds to one website. It is limited to sites which have a traffic of fewer than 5 million pageviews per month (roughly 2 pageviews per second), unless the site is linked to an AdWords campaign.

Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you’re more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites. Google Analytics is a magnificent, easy to use tool that empowers businesses to take control of their online marketing. Rio Online Development can help.

Google Analytics & Rio Online Development

Rio Online Development has been using Google Analytics from the very start. We provide our customers with Google Analytics so that they can be empowered in understanding their traffic, visitors and conversion rates. Having Google Analytics allows our customers to understand the changes that occur within their website traffic and marketing campaigns. It allows them to focus on marketing campaigns that work. Because at the end of the day, it is all about results.

And when going with Rio Online Development for your web needs, that is exactly what we focus on – results. We offer professional, clean and easy-to-navigate sites starting at just $399.

Call us today to get started!

One of the best ad’s I have ever seen! Clever, charming and witty.

Here is a 2007 ad made for renewable energy company, EPURON. The ad itself was made by famous German-based ad agency Nordpol Hamburg which is regarded as one of the most creative agencies worldwide. The ad was shown to EPURON’S international B-2-B customers, on TV (business and news-channel) and on-line. It’s a clever ad. In fact, it’s one of the best I have ever seen! The ad, titled “Power of Wind” won tons of awards, which are listed below.

But don’t take my word for it, watch the Ad yourself and let me know what you think.

“Epuron invests in alternative forms of energy like wind energy. The wind has got enormous potential. Someone’s just got to detect it.”

Did you get it? If not, it’s ok. Watch it again. It’s well worth the eye-opener. The Spot cleverly demonstrates in a very charming and poetic way the strength of the wind – when used intelligently – everyone benefits. The main character, “Mr. W.” is the wind. It’s a brilliant piece that engages the viewer with a sense of curiosity, humor and personality that I’ve never seen before. They took an intangible thing like wind and made it into an odd-looking character who yearns for belonging and purpose. Not to mention that it’s clever and funny.  I love it.

This project also drew the support of the German Federal Ministry of the Environment, Sigmar Gabriel – “when I saw ‘Power of Wind’ for the first time I was drawn by the motive and the humor of it. The Nordpol team did a great job in interpreting the meaning of wind energy into image and sound. It was an excellent ad for the future of renewable energies.”

I wish I saw more intelligent ads like this one.

Ad Information

Agency: Nordpol Hamburg
Production Company: Paranoid Projects
Advertiser: Epuron/BMU
Brand: Epuron/German Ministry for the Environment
Product Name: Wind Energy Initiative
Date of First Publication 4/30/2007
Country of Production: Germany
Creative Director: Lars Ruhmann
Art Director: Björn Rühmann, Joakim Reveman
Copywriter: Matthew Branning
Director: Les Viking

Awards:

Epica Awards 2007, Meribel Ad Festival Winners, Eurobest 2007, Eurobest 2007 Grand Prix, Eurobest 2007 Gold, Cannes Lions 2007 Winners, Epica 2007 Film Gold, London Awards 2007 TV Direction Visual Gold, Cannes Lions 2007 Film Gold, Andy Awards 2008 Television Gold, Andy Awards 2008, ADC Awards 2008, TV Gold, ADC Awards 2008 Craft Gold, ADC Awards 2008 Craft Silver, One Show 2008 Awards TV Gold, Clio 2008 TV Gold, Clio 2008 TV Silver, Golden Awards Of Montreux 2008 TV, ADCE Awards 2008 Film Gold, ADCE Awards 2008 Grand Prix, The Cresta Awards 2008 TV/Cinema/Digital Grand Prix, The Cresta Awards 2008 TV/Cinema/Digital Winner, The CUP Awards 2008 Winner.

Watch the “Charlie Rose” of entrepreneurship interview the leading expert on marketing!

If you haven’t heard of Andrew Warner by now, now is the time! Andrew Warner is the founder of Mixergy – a place where successful people teach ambitious upstarts. With having interviewed nearly 250 successful tech entrepreneurs, Andrew is known as the “Charlie Rose” for tech start-ups. Andrew has interviewed some amazing people such as Robert Scoble, Neil Patel, Jimmy Wales and renowned marketing expert Seth Godin. Just last week, Andrew Warner interviewed Seth Godin about the release of Seth’s new book: “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?”

A Linchpin, as Seth describes it, is someone in a company who is indispensable and who is extremely valuable. So valuable because they are true artists deep down inside. The message that is revealed in his book is that everyone is an artist. He describes an “artist” as being someone who does “emotional work” which essentially is work that matters. It’s work that allows you to become a true artist in a desired field of work. Linchpins are non-conformists but rather true artists that lead the way. Seth encourages his readers to make the leap from normality to indispensable artistry.

I was really, really impressed with Andrew’s latest interview with Seth Godin in his Mixergy video blog. I highly encourage everyone to watch! In order to watch the full interview, you have to register your e-mail. I would highly encourage it as I gained so much insight into the mind of Seth Godin. I really enjoy Andrew’s interviews and will continue to watch to gain more insight into some of the greatest minds in business.

You can register for free and watch the full interview here.