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Case Study

Can A Website Increase Your Sales?

How An Offline Business Increased Their Sales With A Website

The question many business owners have is how can a website increase their revenue. My answer is that a website is an additional advertising channel that extends your marketing reach. Whether it can get you more prospects depends on how committed you are in extending your marketing activities online. It is not enough just to have a website on the internet. A website by itself does nothing for you unless you use it to get new prospects.

Case Study Of MifaSabah.com

This is a client of mine who is involved in the sales and installation of the popular Panasonic and York air-con brands, in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. He does not know how to access his website, neither does anyone in his office. In fact, his staff is more active on their facebook page than he is. But all you need to know is to check your emails.

His website was built in the second quarter of 2010, and ranks on the first page of Google for the brand, industry and location. These were the keywords we were after. Ranking well for local search will be the priority for most of my clients. Within the first 6 months, he closed a 5 figure deal to supply a secondary line of product to an off-shore client. The only reason why it was not a 6 figure deal was because of the incompatibility of electrical demands of the off-shore client. How would you like to increase your revenue by 5 figures?

In 2011, a local business owner needed help to meet his dateline to open a new restaurant in the city. It seemed that he had an issue with his previous air-conditioning contractor and they had a falling out. What the local business owner did was looked for an air-conditioning company using the search engines. That was how he found my client. I do not know the details of the job but I can tell you that in all probability, it added another 5 figure to his revenue.

Does this happen for all my clients? No. You still need an in-demand product or service, and you still need to be competent in what you do. I have had clients increase their bookings for tours, and increase their enrollment for their business. Both these clients typically go above and beyond what many businesses are willing to do where customer service is involved.

As website providers, we can get your website to rank on the search engines. We can help create content and videos for your company. We can connect you to social media sites. But you need to conduct your business in the most professional manner you can to succeed.

What You Website Must Do

Tell your prospects what you can do for them.
Show proof - awards, news articles, testimonials, videos
Detail information on the inner pages for prospects who like to research your services
Always make your contact information visible
Tell them who you are, how long you have been in business
Create a blog on your website and update it with news, products and promotions
Enable comments and use a contact form
Get them to opt-in to your auto responder
Use social media and link them to your site
Check and answer your emails, comments and social posts

Above all else, be involved. Many business, after doing all this just let it slide. It does not work that way - it just shows how uncommitted you are to your prospects who are online. This does not mean you have to be online every minute of the day, but having a same day response to inquires or comments is not too much to ask

About My Services
If you have a website and it does not contribute to your business, drop me an email and I will take a look for you. That part is free of charge, at least. My website design services can be found here.

Recommended Resources: Business Strength Mastery Advantage

Social Proof, The Good And The Bad

8 commentsWritten on September 1st, 2011 by adrian
Categories: Case Study
Tags: Social Media, social proof

Social Proof Is Using Other People To Help You Make A Decision

Social proof is becoming increasingly more important today, and has an impact on your business. With more people having conversations on the internet, using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, social proof should play an important part in your marketing strategy. It is what people are saying about your brand.

Does your product work? Is your customer service doing its job? Do consumers like your products? These are the conversations going on today on the internet. If you care about your brand at all, or the way your business is performing, you should practice public relations online and offline.

The Bad About Social Proof

Social proof is following the herd and has a bandwagon effect. It gets worse when people believe what they read without giving some thought about the source. Very often, people end up believing in rumors and unwittingly help spread those rumors by sharing it with their friends and family. When something, even though it may be totally baseless, gets repeated often enough becomes accepted as the truth.

So how do you counter baseless accusations? This actually happened to one of my clients on their Facebook page. This client operated a chain of kindergartens across the city. The dissatisfied parent made a post on my client's Facebook page accusing the school of not accepting her son back into the kindergarten after an absence of more than 4 weeks. The parent went on to say that her child got food poisoning in school which caused the long absence, and when she brought her child to class, she was told to find another kindergarten.

My client called me on the same day and suggested removing the post. Bad idea, I told her as that would not address the issue of the dissatisfied parent. So I asked her if she wanted me to reply to the post, which I did.

Without accusing anybody and in calm manner of writing, I laid out what had occurred.

The parent had previously informed the kindergarten that her entire family suffered food poisoning
The kindergarten was informed that the child will no longer attend class as they had made other arrangments
After weeks of absence, the kindergarten had reached its full capacity
When the kindergarten informed the parent, the parent was visibly dissatisfied with the explanation
In this case, nothing could be done to accept the child as the kindergarten had to follow the Ministry of Education's guidelines
In the event the parent was unhappy with the way she was informed of the situation, we offered the kindergarten's apology
Then we invited the parent to contact the school management if she was still dissatisfied with what had occurred

Rather than just forgetting about the case, we felt that it was more important to resolve it. We wanted to demonstrate that my client ran her business in a responsible and professional manner.

The Good About Social Proof

What followed demonstrates the positive side of social media. Friends of the kindergarten, which was made up of the parents of their pupils, came out in support of the kindergarten. The open manner in which the kindergarten discussed the issue gained the trust of other parents. While they felt that this issue should have been discussed with between the school and the parent, they felt that since it was brought to light, the manner which we discussed the issue was important.

How To Resolve Customer Complaints In Social Media

Get all the facts and interview the people involved
Take the high road and face up to the issue
Discuss the issue in a calm manner, regardless online or offline
Present your side of the story and stick to your guns
Practice professional conduct at all time

Perhaps not everyone will accept your side of the story, but I believe in most cases, issues can be resolved amicably. The business must first be seen to care and be active in resolving the conflict, and to do so in a professional manner. It is not a matter of who is in the right or who is not, it is in how it is discussed and resolved. Showing that you care goes a long way to customer satisfaction.

How To Add Value To Your Business

1 Comment »Written on March 14th, 2011 by adrian
Categories: Case Study
Tags: free website, local business, Offline business

How To Increase The Perceived Value Of Your Service

Imagine if you went up to a local business owner and tell them that you will give away free websites to their customers, and the websites will be associated or branded with their company name. The websites will be done-for-you, and will be given free. Not only that, the website contents can be updated any time for free. The objective is to increase the business owner's value to their customers.

If you were the business owner, would you say "YES"?
You get to give away a website, you don't have to do anything except give it away. There is no cost involved and no inventory. To sweeten the deal, I will brand the website with your brand.

The question I get is inevitably, what's in for you?
One, I still own the domain name and the advertising space.
Two, I get extend my network and get people to push my products and services for me.
Three, not all but some of them will want their own domain and hosting which I will provide.
Four, they will know who to look for when their company wants a website built.

Make Money By Giving Away Your Service For Free

The free website is used to get their attention. The upsell is a simple information website of 5 pages that I offer for a few hundred dollars. If the business owner sells one, he gets a cut of the sale. The second upsell is a business website or an ecommerce website that sells for a few thousand dollars. Again the business owner gets a cut of the sales.

Very often, the business owner will want you to create their company website for them as well. So all in all, it works out for everybody. Needless to say, you should prepare a blueprint to the owner to tell them how this is structured and so forth.

In essence, you are creating joint ventures with offline business owners, exactly as you would do a JV with an online partner. You can get the business owner excited at the thought of doing internet marketing. Every business owner wants to extend their product lines, services as well as increase their sales and profits. So far, it has been a win/win situation all.

Increasing Value For Customers

More PowerPoint presentations from Adrian Lee

How To Launch A Website

No Comments »Written on January 23rd, 2011 by adrian
Categories: Case Study
Tags: business website, website launch

Launch Your Local Business Website

Many business owners I work with pay little thought to launching their websites when it is completed. A website is an asset, not an expense. Your business website introduces your company and services to prospects, it builds and reinforces your brand. A website can also qualify your prospects for you. If your prospects contacts you by email, chances are a) they have a need for your products or services and b) you can set up a presentation or sales call with the prospect.

Smart Business Owners Will Create A Launch

One of my clients launched their website during one of the biggest event on their calender. After I had handed over the website to them, they asked me to support their launch during their annual dinner. They had invited all their customers, representatives from relevant associations and state departments, and their guest of honor was a State minister.

The website was launched by their guest of honor, and they got me up on the stage to introduce their website. The launch itself was relatively simple, the entire process was shown on the large screen television all around the ballroom. The guest of honor clicked a button and the website was revealed to audience. With loud music, party poppers and a television screens, it looked great.

At the end of the day, it was a great show, with plenty of performances and awards being given out. The customers are impressed, and the client is happy that everything went as planned. So all in all, everybody wins.

Launching a website for my client.

How to Launch A Website

1. Tie your launch to an important event.
2. Have an emcee for the evening.
3. invite lots of people.
4. Invite VIPs from relevant associations and organizations.
5. Invite someone famous or well-known as guest of honor.
6. Set aside a portion of your speech to introduce your website.
7. Make the launch loud and fun.
8. Give recognition to the members of your organization.
9. Have your webmaster explain the benefits of your website.
10. Put on a great show with live performances.
11. Give out awards.

Before The Launch

1. Complete the website.
2. Create accounts in social websites.
3. Upload videos to video sharing websites.
4. Use book marking websites.
5. Get the website to rank well on local search.
6. Advertise in off-line channels.
7. Published the url to all your office stationery.
8. Prepare powerpoint presentation.
9. Do a press release.
10. Tell everyone you know.

Tadika Sabah Website

4 commentsWritten on January 7th, 2011 by adrian
Categories: Case Study, Website
Tags: local business website

Having a business website can increase awareness of your products and services

In this case study, I will show you how a business website can help your business connect to your prospects.

The primary objective of this website is to connect with potential clients on the internet, and to act as a communication channel to the parents of this kindergarten.

Prior to this, Tadika Sri Kandi had no internet presence, but the owner could see the potential of having a website. The owner contacted me and we discussed how a website can create awareness for your business. We wanted to keep it simple, while at the same time to get results from the website.

Keywords
All projects start with keyword research. We have to identify what are the keywords that are used in this particular industry. We look at the number of searches per month, and collected the keywords that were relevant.

Search Engine
Then we look at the number of websites for these keywords in our local search engine results, looking at the placement of existing websites, pagerank, links and so forth. This lets me know what I have to do to ensure my client's website will rank well for local search.

Domain Name
Once we know the keywords and search engine competition, I will come up with a list of domain names that includes the company name, or a generic name, or a combination. In this case, I could not use their business name, Tadika Sri Kandi. They managed a few kindergartens in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, including Tadika Permai Ria.

So I proposed the domain, www.tadikasabah.com, which will give us a head-start as this is the equivalent of Kindergarten Sabah. in one move, we commanded the keyword for tadika in Sabah.

Search Engine Optimization
Creating the contents using our list of keywords, as well as the company name made sure we ranked in the first position of the search engines. With the addition of videos, articles and social marketing we had a strong start.

The Launch Of The Website

We launched their website during their annual concert and graduation ceremony, with the Minister of Industry, Plantation and Commodity, Tan Sri Bernard Dompok in attendance. As well as representatives of the Education department and the Kindergarten Association.

After The Launch

After the launch, we followed up with the kindergarten's Facebook Page. This enabled us to connect to friends, families and parents of the students of Tadika Sri Kandi. This gives us an additional channel to promote the kindergarten and to let people know the type of activities in the school. It also allows prospects to connect with the teachers personally.

As you know, if your business can build connections with your prospects and existing customers, you have a strong competitive advantage. Facebook provides an easy communication channel that is interactive, and lets you incorporate other social media sites together. Used properly, this is a very powerful marketing tool.

The Results

1) We can see that the website, www.tadikasabah.com has regular monthly traffic.
2) We can see that registration forms are downloaded from the website.
3) We have had friends on Facebook register their child into the kindergarten.
4) We have had potential teachers approach the school to offer their services.

So my client is pleased with the results. A website gives a kindergarten prestige and adds to their business branding. They now have advertising and communication channels that work for them through word of mouth.

The Return On Investment

The addition of a few new customers may not sound like much, but when you start calculating the lifetime value of the customers, that adds up to more than 5,000 dollars a year per new customer. Acquisition cost per customer is virtually nil.

Contact Me to find out how a website can help your business.