How would you react to such an introduction?

If we’ve just met, and I ask you to buy something, you’re probably going to resist my offer for a number of reasons. You don’t know me, you don’t trust me yet and you may not even understand what I am selling.

Naturally, a more experienced salesperson would instead ask you a question with far less friction, such as “may we sit down and discuss your needs?” or “Do you use widgets in your business?”

This request has less friction, because I am asking for a smaller commitment from you than I did when I was asking you to buy from me.

Oddly enough, if we spend enough time together, and I demonstrate enough value to you, there may come a time when you have almost no resistance to buying from me. In other words, the friction can be removed from the relationship.

This is a simple concept that even the most inexperienced salespeople understand. But, I use it to parallel the sales process that is used online on your website and in your Internet marketing.

How can I ask you to buy something from me without building trust, demonstrating value and reducing your objections. This is where I should point out the direct correlation between the size of the commitment you are asking for and the friction that you will encounter.

In physics, friction is the resistance that will slow a moving object down. Similarly in sales, friction is anything that will slow down or stop a potential customer in the sales process—the process that you design.

It’s important to script the experience a visitor has from end to end with this in mind.

Just as our salesperson is hoping to secure an appointment or an order for his widgets, your campaign or website should be targeting an end goal.

When setting that goal, it’s important to keep the perceived friction in mind of your call to action. For instance, there is not much friction in asking a user to download a free guide that educates them on your industry or products. But, there is much more friction associated with asking a new visitor to hire you or buy from you. A free estimate or consultation might fall somewhere in between the two.

The Call-to-action Friction Curve (Click to enlarge)

The point here is that a high friction call-to-action will require you to demonstrate more value to the user and build more trust. Make sure to design enough value and trust into the website or landing pages based on the call-to-action you target. It doesn’t take a ton of marketing experience to learn that a free guide that requires only your name and email will convert at a more successful rate than selling a $300 research report.

Takeaway: Strategically match the commitment you ask of people with the level of trust and value they have in you at every point in your marketing.

Let me show you what I mean by that.

If you’ve ever researched a problem online, you’ve surely ran into a company who is happy to help with some key information at no charge. And, it’s no surprise that this information is designed to help you come to the conclusion that the sponsoring company is the right company to help you solve this problem and other related problems.

By reducing the friction of your call to actions, you can convert more visitors into relationships that allow you to continue marketing to them over time. However, it is also important that you find a call-to-action that supports your sales process and actually provides value to you. Since you are likely paying for your website traffic one way or another—in the form of search engine marketing, social media and/or advertising—you should be seeking a balance of value to you and ease to the visitor.

The sweet spot will deliver valuable leads for your business without encountering so much resistance that the traffic fails to convert.

To design a successful marketing campaign, understand how much friction might be associated with your call to action based on who you are marketing to by plotting it on a chart like the one below. If you are marketing to complete strangers, you may want to start low on the friction curve with a free download or consultation. If you are marketing to a list of current customers or warm leads, you might be able to move up the curve with more confidence and find success.

Use a chart like the one below to map out where your call to action might fall. Ask yourself if the traffic that will coming to those pages will have enough trust in you by that point, and if you can safely demonstrate enough value based on what you asking that user to do.

Understand where your call-to-action fits in (click to enlarge)

Avoid a call-to-action that is overly aggressive based on the value you are providing on your website and landing pages. Start small and build the relationship and your Internet marketing will start to take off!

Consider attending our free webinar to learn more about generating leads online for your small business.

A few of these people can really isolate their target customer and articulate the value they provide to this customer. In these cases, we’ll spend our time brainstorming where we can profitably reach more of their target customers and how we can sharpen their message to be more appealing to these targets.

But quite often, the business owner or marketer focuses on all the reasons why their prospect doesn’t buy from them. They’ll explain that the customers “just don’t get it” or how they object to the price and end up not taking any action. In most cases, I have learned that those businesses have no product/market fit.

I’ve found that a surprisingly high number of established businesses fail the fundamental test of offering the right product to a reachable market. In other words, they have no product/market fit.

Let me explain what I mean by product/market fit.

Back in 2009 I discovered this post, called “Three things you need if you want more customers”, on Seth Godin’s blog. I have saved this ever since and revisited it dozens of times. In a nutshell, here are the three things you need if you want more customers:

1. A group of possible customers you can identify and reach.
2. A group with a problem they want to solve using your solution.
3. A group with the desire and ability to spend money to solve that problem.

Seeing this list, you can start to imagine the questions I ask my clients who dwell on their customer acquisition problems. They might not agree with me or want to hear it, but the root cause is almost always the failure to satisfy one or more item on the list.

You really do need all three to find a product/market fit. If you have two and lack one, you’re swimming upstream. It is worth your time and effort to fix whatever you need to in your business to squarely satisfy all three.

Seth’s post has some great examples of business models who each fall short of one of the items, so I won’t go into that here. Instead, let’s focus on how to uncover your product/market fit (or lack thereof!).

We’ve developed a short questionnaire to help define your product/market fit. This is a great aid in brainstorming marketing campaigns for your business—it will result in an understanding of how to reach your target market, what you should focus on marketing and the value you offer. This won’t be the complete solution, but it is a natural catalyst to start the process.

Answer these questions for your business:
1. Who is your ideal customer (be as detailed as possible)?
2. Where can you reliably and repeatedly reach them?
3. What problems do they have that you can solve?
4. What product or service is attractive to the largest portion of your target audience? Does it lead to other (upsell or repeat) business?
5. Is your solution worth their time and trouble? What can you say to make sure they pay attention?
6. Will they be open to your solution? Can they afford it? Do they value it enough to pay that?

If you can provide honest and detailed answers to all six questions, you can quickly match the three things you need to attract new customers for your business. Additionally, you’ll start seeing where to market, which product to focus on, and the value you offer to your target customer.

If you’re struggling to answer those questions, or if you feel that your responses are weak, then you are likely failing to meet one of the three key ingredients we’ve been discussing. Invest the time now to make sure you fix these gaps before you ramp up spending on marketing. A true product/market fit paired with effective marketing programs is the start of a system that will feed your business with new customers.

Juicy Results can help you identify your product/market fit and create marketing systems that will generate leads for your small business using Internet marketing. Call us today!

You built a website to get more business, but nothing has materialized since the launch. How are your competitors generating constant quality leads from their website while your incoming leads are at a standstill?

Lead generation requires a solid stream of traffic, conversion-oriented landing pages and a system to measure and optimize the entire process. While there are expensive solutions available to maximize these strategies, this webinar will show you how to use your website and other free or inexpensive tools to generate similar results for your small business.

• Learn how to generate quality traffic for your website
• Avoid the common mistakes that cause potential clients not to do business with you
• Understand how to track, measure and optimize the entire process
• Get a custom framework for planning your business’s lead generation strategy

If you’d like to grow the number of leads and sales your website generates, you’ll be happy you attended this event. We always leave room for live Q+A with the experts at the end of our webinars to ensure maximum value for your time commitment.

If you’re interested in generating leads for your small business, check out our complete Small Business Lead Generation Website Packages!

This webinar will be lead by Juicy Results Founder and CEO, Jeremy Pound.

Like it or not, Facebook has become one of the best places to market business on the Internet. Whether people are absoribing content, noticing new events and/or sharing your page and content with their peers and friends, Facebook is keeping many business relevant. And then Timeline happened. And life as we knew it changed forever.

Since the mandatory change-over to Timeline that Facebook initiated on March 30, 2012, all pages have been converted to this bizarre new format that has stumped many and continues to prevent awesome content seeding from businesses. With the standard layout, standing out will be hard; follow some of our tips on how to pimp out your business’s Facebook page.

Learn to Adapt

The first thing people will notice when they come to your page is the cover photo. This is technically a background photo, and no links are allowed on this image (not working ones, anyways). The profile photo is what most companies are using as their logo, but can also be a headshot if you are the owner of the small business. Headshots are really great for giving your page a personal feel as well as showing that you are a legit company with humans employed.

You’ll want to fill out as much information as you can in the About section, and definitely link back to your website. Address, phone number, description and website information need to be consistent with every citation you have around the web and the description should be blurb-style: you always want to redirect people to your website to get more info about your business. Those of you who are using Facebook as your sole website need to have this optimized like it’s your job!

A Little Help From Your Friends

A fun little free tool that most small businesses don’t know about is the tab from tabsite.com. This started out as a landing page for people who had not yet liked your page but with the advent of timeline has become a secondary way to snapshot your company’s website and redirect people to it. You can use the content widget which is a wysiwyg editor, images, email sing-ups, maps and more options that you can pay for. You can stick html links anywhere on these guys and you will have something akin to a baby website that will redirect people to your website or even capture their emails in a sign-up widget that you’ll use ethically and only for your own content-driven purposes, right? (Btw, Facebook has a similar feature in their Reveal Tab, where you can use Facebook Analytics to track the traffic on your landing page tab!)
[Don't want to do this yourself? Hire someone to do it for you!]

Once you’ve gotten your page all pimped out with images, links, tabs, maps, etc., it’s time to get that content out there! Now, don’t go crazy and spam all your friends’ walls and post all creepy-like on your friend’s baby’s pictures, but do share your page with the world. Whether you’re running a campaign with Facebook ads trying to get likes and paying per click, or you just want to ramp up your audience as quickly as possible, remember to be polite and let your content and images do the selling. Post an article, share a picture, inform your subscribers about things pertaining to your business and they’ll be much more likely to a) share your stuff  and b) not unsubscribe from you and if they know you, stop inviting you to things. Ready to pimp out your page? Like!

The elevator pitch is so overused, it’s become a cliche to most business people. But, cliches usually become that way for a reason: they’re just so naturally true.

In case you’ve somehow never read a business book, seen Sharktank or gone to a networking event; an elevator pitch is how you would describe your product, yourself or your business to a key executive if you only had 30 seconds in an elevator with her.

Hollywood writers and agents are famous for pitching new movies and shows this way. They use previously successful movies to position new ideas. They’ll say things like “It’s Titantic meets Star Wars” or “It’s Friday the Thirteenth for Generation Y.” People want to surmise new ideas into powerful and familiar references.

The problem most entrepreneurs I meet suffer from is an over familiarity with their business. In other words, they know so many reasons why you should do business with them, they can’t present their business with a singular clear and compelling message. Even worse, most don’t understand why this is imperative to their success.

Your business needs a clear and compelling message.
Every small business needs a clear and compelling reason that a potential customer should do business with you. That’s not to say every person should do business with you, but everyone should be able to determine what you do and who is a good customer for you based on your message. In fact, if you really do have a good position in the marketplace, then it will be clear that you’re not trying to be everything to everyone. Many business owners will find this counterintuitive, but the truth is, the world is a huge place, and no business is right for everyone.

Let’s say you’re an architect. What kind of work do you do best? Do you design smart and efficient work spaces for fast growing companies, or do you build rich, traditional and signature offices for established firms. Each of these messages will appeal to an equally important, but very different customer. You can also see how these messages will cut through a crowded marketplace and attract the right customer, while filtering out the wrong customers for your business.

As someone shopping for a commercial architect, I want to know what you do and who you do it for. Tell me that you’re “a miami-based design firm with experience designing over 100 smart workplaces for fast-growing companies since 1995.” Just as well if you “design and build signature office environments for uncompromising clients with a focus on the legal and financial industries.” I will know immediately who to inquire with about my upcoming project.

While those are both clear and compelling, it’s worth pointing out that the sky is the limit here. Imagine if you were a firm that “creates remarkable urban retail space with 100% carbon neutral practices.” There may only be a handful of companies who require those services, but they would beat a path to your door.

Why you need a clear and compelling message.
Every day you will run into new people who are unfamiliar with what your business does. This includes potential new employees, new customers, the media and even potential networking partners. With or without you, they will end up with a tidy perspective on your business. It’s your job to shape the way the world sees your business, and a clear and compelling up front value proposition is how you do that. It should be known by you, your staff, your partners and anyone who markets your business.

When your message is sharpened (with clarity) it cuts through the noise of choice that we experience every day. If it is dull, it just blends in and potential customers overlook you for competitors with more compelling messages.

The good and bad news is that it is easier than ever to spread your message because of the Internet. It’s bad news that there is so much noise out there you have to compete with. The good news is that you have a better chance to connect with your customer and get your compelling message in front of them, no matter where they are.

Attention is precious in marketing. Attention is someone seeing your ad, someone hearing about your business, the first thirty seconds someone walks into your store or the first time someone lands on your website. Don’t waste this precious opportunity with vagueness and generality (all noise). Tell them exactly who you are and why they should care.

What a clear and compelling message looks like.
It’s pretty simple to define clear and compelling:
Is it Clear? Do I know I what you do without requiring a lot of clarification?
Is it Compelling? Is it worth noticing.

If you don’t think there is anything compelling about your business, you’ve got problems above the scope of this article. More than likely, it’s the clear part that can use some work.

You need to find the one reason people should care, rather than a list of reasons that you think add up to value. This is not all the reasons they should choose you, you’ll have the opportunity to share those as well—but only if your initial message wins you more attention.

For example, Ikea is known for a lot of things, but at the end of the day, they are Scandinavian, modern-style furniture and accessories at unbelievable prices. Their customers know this, and they spread the message for them. Papa Johns has better ingredients, and their customers believe this results in a better pizza.

Both of those companies know who they are, and they live up to their positioning. Not surprisingly, both have enjoyed monster growth over several decades.

At Juicy Results, when we are learning about our clients businesses and products, we’re digging for their clear and compelling message, because it is central to the marketing campaigns we design for them. While building a website, we focus the site on delivering and supporting that same message.

Often, at the end of the day, we need to help our clients crystallize that positioning. They are already delivering the value, but an outside party can help you package that value in a way that is clear and meaningful to your customer. This is the heart of all marketing work, and it is imperative to your success in attracting new customers to your business.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
- Albert Einstein

In advance of speaking at the Medical Entrepreneur Symposium this weekend in Delray Beach, I have been thinking about and researching how medical practices can use the Internet to attract new patients. We find that most doctors invested in a website early in the setup of their practice, but are disappointed that it never becomes a large source of new patients.

This dissatisfaction is common with many small businesses in professional services. However, the truth is NO new website will attract new business without persistent effort. Just as a car is of little value without fuel, your website is a tool that requires marketing effort to get you where you want to go.

Assuming that your services are in demand and you have a solid reputation, there are two core reasons a medical practice may not successfully be attracting a steady volume of new clients. Simply put, either your website is not effective at converting visitors into patients, or you do not have a high enough volume of visitors to your website.

I would say most medical practice websites I come across suffer from both problems equally:

Problem 1: Your website is not effective.

Avoid designing a website solely on what you or your family members think “looks good.” The goal of the website is to match your services with a need, establish credibility, and encourage visitors to consult you.

Make sure to download our free Medical Practice Website Checklist that we’ve put together to make sure your website is an effective marketing tool.

Problem 2: You need more traffic.

An effective website will convert some percentage of new visitors to your website into patients. This actual percentage could vary dramatically, but will probably be far lower than you think it will be. If you are driving quality, targeted traffic via search advertising, it may only be 1 – 2% of visitors. It is important to set realistic expectations.

So, let’s assume you are setting appointments with 1% of new visitors to your website. If you invest in 200 visitors per week, on average, you should expect 2 new appointments each week. Some forms of traffic—such as targeted keyword advertising on Google—can convert very highly, while less targeted traffic, such as a sponsorship banner or link, may convert less positively.

And, again, if you have problem #1 above, you might have a conversion rate of zero.

Seek a mix of traffic from search engine optimization, social media, pay-per-click search engine advertising and other paid advertising on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and targeted medical websites. Page two of the checklist mentioned above has some tips on optimizing your website to attract search engine traffic.

Make sure you understand the lifetime value of your clients, and use the conversion rate math to make sure you are acquiring new patients at a profitable rate.

Now that you understand why you are not obtaining new clients online, go fix your two problems!

If you need professional help with solving problem #1, see our Medical Practice Website Package and review our Medical Practice Website Checklist.

QR Codes are little scanner boxes generated on many free sites that link to a website, be it an actual site or page or even an event or promotional product. Companies are tailor-making these little guys to fit with company logos and even code portraits into them. They are intriguing and useful, and they save a lot of printing, but why aren’t they even more prevalent? The challenge of these doo-dads is that the only way to use them is if a customer has an application on their phone (iphone or droid) that will scan the code and link the person to your site. Thus enters “deck syndrome”: a person doesn’t want to go the the app store and download something new that isn’t already included in their phone’s repertoire. But don’t worry, the “cool factor” will force smartphone owners to jump on the bandwagon and download the free apps soon enough.

You want to be able to say so much to your customers and hook them in without having to spend extra money and use precious ad space on content. “Read about the vineyard from whence this bottle of wine was forged” becomes a burden and thus steps in your little QR code. Point, shoot, scan, boom!…you got yourself a visit from an interested patron. It’s so easy, even winos can handle scanning the codes!

In Korea, you can scan products on a big sign at the train station and when you return home your groceries will be delivered to you. You can create a spotify remix and the person goes right to that mix you made, or record a voice message and a QR tag on a present will lead the recipient to the recording. Big companies like Best Buy are using them to link you to a product’s description. No more Google searching to try and match up a serial number; these companies are benefiting greatly from having pages of content and customer reviews readily available in a tiny little picture box.

If you have amazing content and/or an incredible event to promote, create your own QR Code logo so you really stand out. The codes are still so novel that people will actively scan them, but when the novelty runs out you’ll need pretty pictures and snazzy paragraphs just like in the old days.

There are thousands of places to put QR codes to utilize them effectively:

• on business cards
• in museums to describe a piece of art
• on a real estate sign outside of a house
• on free giveaways at conferences
• on a t-shirt at a charity walk
• on products in stores
• on stickers you can stick anywhere

The QR Codes are awesome and fun and extremely helpful, but in order to use them to their highest potential, there are a few guidelines:

• you must have 1 pixel border around the edge so the phone will scan it
• don’t print them in too light a color
• DO test them on multiple phone types
• shorten the URL so the scanner reads it easier
• the word “QR Code” is a registered trademark—don’t forget!
• don’t just let it lead to a homepage; make sure the content is worthwhile
• don’t put them out of reach (like on the side of a bus)
• don’t put them in emails—just paste the link to your content!

At the end of the day, if you don’t show the consumer immediate value in the content to which they are directed via the QR code, you’ll not only lose out on a customer but you’ll be letting down all the technology users in the whole world. So get your content entered and make sure it will be worthwhile before you create a QR code. Scan on, my friends!

So here I share some of their Internet marketing predictions for 2012, along with my thoughts of what they mean to you, the small business owner (because after all, that’s really what you should care about.)

Google+ will continue to grow but…

Still haven’t tried Google+? You’re not alone. Many experts, like Susan Payton in a post on Small Business Trends  say it’s picking up momentum but is not even close to matching Facebook in terms of users.

What this means to you: Now that brands can have their own account, it’s really not something you can afford to ignore just yet. If you already have your bases covered on Facebook and Twitter and have built up followings, devote  time to Google+. (See its connection to SEO trends below.) But if you are new to social media, you are probably better off sticking with Facebook or Twitter for now (unless you know for sure your target audience is a Google+ audience – then focus your time there.)

Google appeared to make a much more public push for Google+ then it ever seemed to do for Google Buzz or Google Wave  (which while not exactly like Google+ were aimed at sharing content.) Both Google Buzz and Google Wave will be no more in 2012. So even Google can get it very very wrong. That is why you should be cautious before jumping wholesale onto the bandwagon.

However, Google is the reigning king of search engines and it is expected that Google+ will have impact on search rankings. So if you do nothing else with Google+, do add the Google+ button to your sites and blog posts. Doing this encourages your visitors to “plus one” something even if you aren’t active on the network.

Understanding “social search” and seeking to connect with influencers will gain in importance

Accoriding to Sam Fiorella in his post “Trend Currents: Social Media in 2012“, Social Search will make “Influencer Outreach” the No. 1 activity for brand marketers.

…search engines will push relevant content from our personal engagements, not our Web sites to the top of search results. ….the impact of Social Search will dramatically change the focus of marketing. It’s no longer about relevant content but identifying and influencing people that can help you to “ENGAGE” your target customers in social engagements.

While consistent sharing of content will get you more followers (see research by Dan Zarrella of Hubspot), Sam’s point dovetails with the idea that not all followers are equal. Some are more equal than others and you should find those that share, those that share a lot. Google and Bing are paying attention to the “sharegraph”, if you will, of content. So focus on sharing yes, but also focus on finding influencers to notice you.

Buzzword of 2012:  SoLoMo for “Social, Local, Mobile”

According to an article by Outspoken Media’s Lisa Barone, “The year 2011 saw a 400 percent increase in the number of mobile searches, with 74 percent of people using their mobile phones to search while running errands.”

What this means to you: All the experts say mobile is hot, this is the year of mobile, etc.. Okay, I think we’ve heard this one before, but this year, if you’re a business that depends on local customers, it’s time to take the prediction seriously. This can mean making sure you have a mobile app (especially if you are restaurant, nightclub or other entertainment venue), making sure you enable the mobile listing in your Bing Local account, and use check-in deals to encourage people to share where they are with their social networks.

And while you are getting your mobile on, you should be making sure your local listings are in order. Here at Juicy, we’ve seen clients make great strides in their business, simply by paying attention to their visibility on local listings. Ranking for local searches is only going to get more difficult, so jump on this now. It’s the easiest of all tactics to get started with in Internet Marketing.

So where does the social come in? The listings are one thing, but getting people to talk about you is something else. Reviews are one of the single biggest factors people use when making a buying decision. (Barone cites a Nielsen study that shows “that 63% of social media users list ‘consumer ratings’ as their preferred source for getting information about a business, product or service.”) Reviews are also a ranking factor for Google Places. Get customers to give you reviews.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) predictions

We all have our gurus and mine for SEO is Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz. I share with you 3 of his 8 Predictions for SEO in 2012:

Prediction 1:  SEO without social media will become a relic of the past

Prediction 2: Google will make it very hard to do great SEO without using Google+

SEO will rely even more heavily on social media signals. The integration of Facebook results in BING and (at one time Twitter in Google) was only the beginning. Google, with it’s 80% plus share of search traffic in the US, has made it clear that it will not only show you your own social network results in the total list of organic results, but will use the social cache of an item in its ranking algorithm. Many in the biz think this is Google’s way of pushing Google+.

What this means to you: If you are depending on search to deliver the goods in your internet marketing plan, you need to ramp up the social and get started with Google+, especially if you are in a market that is already highly active in social media – think restaurants, specialty/boutique stores, salons, gyms, etc. But as we mentioned above, don’t do this at the expense of Facebook and Twitter.

Prediction 3: Google Will Finally Take Stronger Action Against Manipulative Link Spam

Over 2011, a lot of sites lost rankings in Google because of what is known as “Panda updates” which are in simple terms changes to Google’s algorithms. The main target of these updates: sites that engage in link spam or low quality, junk links.

What this means to you: If someone comes a knockin’ saying they can get you to rank #1 for a highly competitive keyword in a few months, run. If someone says they can guarantee you 100 links to your site in a few days, run. Link building the right way, that is getting quality, relevant links is hard work. Relevant links from quality sites to your site is what you need, not links from pornography sites or “blogs” that are nothing more than spun articles in bad English. This has always been true. Now it’s just more true.

Okay here’s a few of my own (and even if they don’t come true, they are still good advice.)

Prediction #1: Small businesses and start-ups that talk to customers like they are people and not just the means to a “bottom line end,” will win customers over those businesses that stick to the old-school corporate-speak way of communication. If you are using words like “leverage,” “value proposition,” “world-class,” or “exceed expectations”—stop. If you have mission statements and a list of corporate values on your website, delete those pages. Seriously. With our new social media-ized culture, people feel a little more personal with the business they choose to work with. Be that personal business.

Prediction #2: Small businesses will get more used to using social media as a way to enhance, not replace regular networking. How many people do you network with on a regular basis that you are not LinkedIn to or following on Twitter? Small businesses need each other for referrals. That’s why you network. Why not extend that networking online? Why not form a small group of online network buddies where you are particularly attuned to sharing each others’ content? See where I’m going with this? (You can read more on this subject in Supercharge Your Business Development.)

Okay, now go out there and make 2012 a great year for your business!

So you have all of your business information listed online on multiple sites, consistently with the same info, right? Check to make sure. But you’re still not getting the people to come in droves like you were promised. What gives? Well, your listing might not be as “sexy” as another business’s—you’ve gotta use tricks to get the people to click on you and be intrigued enough to read about you. It’s the same as with an online dating profile: what separates a man from the 5 million others listed online? Picture? Bio? “Likes”? What will make someone choose you over another site with a flashier logo?

Don’t Miss an Opportunity to Stand Out

Your typical listing will offer fields like name, address, email, website, logo and a short bio. Now, you can’t make your address stick out, but if you use every field offered on each site your listing will look full and thus catch the eye of your customers. Don’t be afraid to post staff pics, as people like to see with whom they will be working. Google now has “Offers” as well as updates and reviews: make an offer, post an update and ask your clients for reviews, nicely (here’s how). A video will go a long way, not just with preference from Google, but from your existing and potential customers to see inside your operations and really know what they’re getting themselves into. Having a strong tagline will also help people remember your business as well as what you do: “Squeeze More Out of Your Website” is pretty action-oriented and let’s you know that we deal with optimizing your website for everything it’s worth.

Your business description should be the right mix of formal and informal to give the potential customer the idea that you know what you’re doing but also know how to talk to people and give them what they want. You want your page to be full and juicy (no pun intended) and the more valuable content, the better. We squeezed what we could out of our Google Place Page and although from the pictures it looks like one man and his harem, you get an inside look at what the team is about and (don’t lie) it makes you want to know more about us.

Good ‘Ol Facebook

Facebook is gaining more trust with business owners as gradually everyone builds themselves a Facebook Page for people to ‘like.’ These ‘likes’ are reviews for you and you should utilize this tool to the best of your ability (as previously mentioned); thus landing pages for business pages need to scream “pick me!” and demand the attention of our over-stimulated society.  All Facebook pages look the same, so use Facebook tabs to create a colorful, informative peak into your operations to entice people to go to your website. Don’t go overboard with it; you still want people to go to your actual website, so keep it simple and a little mysterious to draw the people in.

Don’t Lie And Stay Consistent

Overall, your information needs to be the same on every listing—especially your basic name, address, website—and you need to put info in every field that you can on every listing site. The more address citations your listing has, the more weight you have on Google. Pictures, videos, updates, offers and reviews weigh in heavily as well, so consider these things when you look at your Google Places profile. Don’t make up reviews just to have them or add services you don’t perform and especially don’t take credit for things you haven’t done. It takes time to build an online reputation, so just make sure you follow all of Google’s rules—they’ll suspend your listing in a heartbeat if you don’t!

As a business owner, I understand the value that traditional networking and personal relationships bring to the business development process. No less than half of our new clients at Juicy Results come from referrals form current clients and others in my professional network. I’ve been at it for over ten years!

One thing I’ve noticed in others is how they subconsciously separate their networking efforts from any kind of Internet marketing activities we introduce them to. One exception to this is how quickly everybody is racing to Facebook and LinkedIn to grow their contact list. But, as an isolated tactic, this alone isn’t going to supercharge your business development efforts; just lightly compliment them.

I want to inspire you to use a number of Internet marketing methods to truly supercharge your business development and personal networking with this post.

Make sure you have something to say

First things first: successfully translating networking activity—such as conferences, events, groups and just sitting down for coffee—into real business requires you to have a clear and compelling message about what you do. We’ve all met too many lawyers, too many financial planners and even too many whatever-you-do to remember much about you after just one meeting. However, a clear, differentiated message about what you do and why I should care is your silver bullet in winning referrals from your network.

This is so important that if you do not have your message crystallized, spend time doing it now rather than reading the rest of this article!

When people find you online, you need to make sure your message is front and center. That means your website, LinkedIn profile (both yours and your company’s) and all other trails that lead to you should be clear, consistent, professional and focused. People will Google you, so make sure you know what the first page of Google looks like when you put your name or company name in the search engines.

You must be managing your reputation online.

Reinforce your position with helpful content

Just like in-person networking, you want to add value before you try to ask for value. You can provide value to your contacts with relevant information and answers to their problems. Useful introductions and recommendations are another great way to add value to your network—more on that later.

To use the strategies in this article you need compelling content about your product, service, destination, company or whatever you are selling. This blog post is an example of useful marketing content, as are social media posts, YouTube videos, newsletters, website content—it all counts. Engage the people who stumble upon your profile or website and show them how you can help them or why they should visit or contact you.

And trust me, creating compelling content that will win you new customers isn’t as hard as you think. You just have to start. This content will serve you in all your Internet marketing activity (search engine optimization, social media, email, etc) in addition to your personal networking efforts.

There is one shortcut: while custom content that is specific to your business will be the most effective, many of the following strategies can work with links to well-selected content on the web written by others. You probably already have a number of PDFs or blog posts that you can share with your potential customers. Use ‘em!

Now that your Internet presence is in shape and you’ve got some content to work with, let’s discuss a few ways to get your message in front of new potential clients and partners to generate some real business.

High impact follow ups

My favorite way to integrate Internet marketing with networking is with a high impact, helpful follow up after any meeting.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you’re an attorney who specializes in estate planning. You have a great networking meeting with a financial planner and discuss how you might refer business to each other. During the meeting process you naturally educate each other on your backgrounds, services and opportunities to introduce clients to each other. One thing you might mention is that a perfect referral for you is someone who is about to have their first child because this is the time people might reflect on their living will and other affairs. Pretty typical networking conversation.

But, imagine if your follow up email to this financial planner included a simple, well designed checklist in PDF format called “Five Easy and Important Things to Secure Your Children’s Future.” At the bottom, of course, is a short line about who you are along with your contact info. Of course, the checklist would mention a few things that would benefit from estate planning. That is a powerful tool to solidify the referral opportunity and enable that financial planner to refer you lots of business.

Once you begin writing blog posts regularly, you’ll find an abundance of opportunities to send a relevant and useful piece of information to new contacts.

This solidifies everything you told them in person and will dramatically increase the chances that the person will remember you when a need arises. This is crucial when you meet a dozen or more people at a networking event. Remember your discussions, and select the right information to send them. Make sure to add them on LinkedIn, and follow up a week later and ask if the information was helpful.

Targeting the right people

For most people, the first thing that comes to mind when you mention networking online is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great way to connect and stay in touch with your professional network, but it’s an even greater way to meet new contacts online.

If you have a very specific client based on age, industry, position or location, you should take a look at the premium targeting tools on LinkedIn. You can generate lists of contacts and reach out. Notice that I say “reach out” and not spam—it’s an important differentiation.

Many times in business we’re looking for a specific business partnership with a key supplier, client, potential employer or employee. There is a good chance whomever you want to meet is on LinkedIn. Find that person’s profile via the search box and find your shared connections. You’re looking for a personal introduction here, by seeing who he/she knows that you may be able to contact via your network. This is a real life version of the Kevin Bacon game, but it works.

I like to write a very concise paragraph about why I need to meet this person and what I am hoping to accomplish. Keep that goal small, favoring a quick call or an email address over mentioning that you want them to hire you or do business with you. This makes it easy for your mutual contact to simply forward along that note with the introduction.

This potential contact will likely Google you or at least check out your profile, so be sure that you’ve done the above homework first!

After you finally get in touch with your target, remember to make a high impact follow up and add them directly to your network.

Imagine if you did this once per week? You’d develop a very powerful network of your own in no time.

Attracting the right people en masse

Attracting perfect customers online is all about content and, fortunately, you now have that. When people are searching for solutions to their problems or are interested in new things, they are hungry for information. They want to see photos and read reviews of that new restaurant in town before visiting or they want to see how an attorney might handle their business contract dispute before calling her.

When you think about it, this is what made the web so powerful in the early days. You could think of something to do or buy at 2am in the morning, log on and learn all about it (remember “logging on?”). This kind of instant access is something we completely take for granted today, but it’s center to the search process.

Remember that people use the Internet AND their personal and professional networks to find answers to their problems. Make sure all of these paths lead to you!

This is why you are going to spend time creating articles, videos and worksheets for potential customers. Then you’re going to broadcast them on your social media channels, in your newsletter and on your website. Make sure your family, friends, associates and networking partners are aware of this information, and ask them to share it as well. If it’s quality stuff, they’ll be proud to do so.

Occasionally, you may even post some of this professional content on your personal Facebook page to remind your friends and family what you do.

Remember to be strategic about what you share; it should be valuable to others and reinforce your areas of expertise. Nobody likes spam or noise.

If you do this consistently over time I guarantee perfect clients will find their way to your front door.

Adding value to your network

The result of your networking activity will be a large audience, each of which is an opportunity to connect on any given day. Review your LinkedIn or Facebook (or internal CRM) on a regular basis—daily if possible—and find someone you haven’t connected with in a while. Ask yourself: How can I help this person today?  Have you met someone recently whom you can refer to them? Maybe you can surprise this person by leaving a nice recommendation on their LinkedIn account or make a public Facebook update letting everyone know about their product or service. Trust me, this is a powerful gesture when it comes out of the blue and is sure to reengage that contact!

Starting today, review your list regularly and find long lost contacts to introduce to others, give business to or promote.

Remaining visible

The exciting and tricky thing about marketing is that you never know when someone can use your product service. It may be today, next week or seven years from now. This is why consistent, quality and regular contact with your network is important. The Internet has made this easier than ever. Here are ways to keep your message in front of your network:

• Email newsletter
• Facebook fan page and account
• LinkedIn updates
• Twitter
• Blog
• Press releases

You’re looking for the sweet spot: stay top of mind, but don’t over expose your network to the point where they tune you out. Find new and compelling ways to package your message.

Get Started!

Hopefully this article has inspired a mindset of blending your personal networking efforts with your Internet marketing. Here’s your action plan:

1) Crystallize your marketing message. Who are you, what do you do, who can you help and what is unique about you?
2) Standardize your web presence with that message.
3) Create or identify useful and relevant content for your market related to what you do.
4) Build your network online.
5) Get your network involved and share that valuable content.
6) Make meaningful connections with those contacts via phone or in-person and use high impact follow ups.
7) Reengage with long lost contacts regularly.
Stay in front of your network and keep your message front and center.

Let us know if you have additional networking ideas in the comments below.