anoadmin - Old City Web Services

Customer Retention Part I: Build Your Business Community to Build Your Business

June 29, 2015 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

The most important part of your business is the customer base you have, and ultimately the community that you build around your business. Sure, a customer is a customer, but loyal and long-term customers that form a community around your business are what will keep you running strong.

How to Build Community with Value:

Unfortunately building a strong customer base and community around your business isn't one-size-fits-all or a trick that can be done overnight. It takes a lot of time, a lot of patience and a lot of hard work on your part. But at the heart of building community is offering something of value. Value is something that holds worth. Something that is important to someone. Something that serves a purpose.

Value will be something only you know based on listening to your customers, seeing what they gravitate toward when they come to your business. Why are they there? What are they looking for? This is all about them and not about you. You may have your favorite room, product, meal or item in your shop, but if that isn't what your customers are after, you have to listen to them. Provide what they are seeking. Loyalty will come naturally.

Use Social Media to provide Value:

Value is something that you can offer regularly. With social media, you can build on your customer base by offering self-less ideas. Share ideas of people or businesses in the same niche. You don't need to just compete. Share others' ideas. Share others' opinions. Show you hear others and what they need and they will appreciate and respect you and your business and come to trust your brand for the honest voice you use with your community on social media.

Next Week, we'll continue discussing Customer Retention and social media when we look at Customer Retention Part II: Using Social Media for Word Of Mouth Marketing.

What Does That Mean? Internet Terms Defined

May 27, 2015 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

You have your business that you know in and out. You understand everything there is to know about the services you offer and the products you stand by. You also know you need to market your business, and in today's world that means using the internet to reach customers. That is where we come in, but often you are left without knowing what WE are talking about. Here is a quick list of terms to help you understand more about what we do and how we use our expertise in this area to help your business.

Internet Terms You Need to Know:

URL: This is the address that a user types into the address bar to reach your website. Ex: http://www.oldcity.com

Browser: Examples are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. These are what platform you use to browse the internet and each is a little different, offering a unique experience for web visitors.

Landing Page: This is the page that a web user "lands" on when they arrive at your website. It's the place where you welcome a visitor to your website, share an overview of your business and provide your first impression to them about who and what you are as a company.

Content Management System: A content management system (CMS) is a back-end tool that allows publishing, editing and modifying content on a website. Using a CMS can make it easier to change the design of a site independent of the site's content or pages. A CMS doesn't require downloading software to your computer and can be used from anywhere with an internet connection, making it a user-friendly and streamlined way to manage your website.

Backlink: Links from other website pages to yours, used to increase a site's popularity with search engines and to get more people to visit your site. The quality of a backlink and its anchor text is factored into Google's algorithm when deciding how much importance to place on it and therefore where to place it in search engines.

Blog: a blog, short for weblog, is an online journal or diary and a very popular current method of sharing your thoughts with the world. It is also very popular as a marketing tool. An Example is http://oldcity.com/city-blog.php

Give us a call or email us today! Call us (904.829.2772) or e-mail us today!

Tips for Creating a Compelling Website Landing Page

May 20, 2015 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

When you are getting started on designing your website, there are things you need to keep in mind about the first impression that a viewer will have when they arrive at your site. From the moment a visitor clicks on your website, you want them to be drawn in. Many businesses make the mistake of not creating a landing page for their website that draws a web viewer in, and keeps them there long enough to ultimately get that person's business.

Here are some tips for creating a compelling landing page that will help with this problem:

Show your product or Service - Make sure that someone who comes to your site immediately knows what your business offers. Do you sell products? Let them know. Do you offer a service? Make sure it is prominent. Your website is way more than just a nice design. It has to be informative too.

Explain Your Business - Don't assume the viewer knows your business inside and out. You eat, sleep, and breathe the work you do, they don't. If a person has to look around to find out what exactly your business is or what it does, you've lost them. Show them what you offer and explain who you are as a business and do it succinctly and with good design presentation.

More Images, Fewer Words - Speaking of design, while a website is more than just a pretty page, it has to be visually appealing. It also has to be easily skimmable. This is made possible with larger headings, bigger text, shorter paragraphs (if you have any at all) and larger images. The truth is, people don't read on the internet. They skim. Make it look good and make it informative and don't waste the viewer's time.

Does your website do these things or do you need some help giving your landing page a facelift? At Old City Web Services, we are skilled at giving you the best combination of all of these elements so that when a viewer clicks on and arrives at your site, they have the best experience possible. Give us a call or email us today! Call us (904.829.2772) or e-mail us today!

Get Your Message Heard: How to Increase Your Email Open Rate

May 13, 2015 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

One of the best ways to keep your customer base engaged is with recurring contact with an email newsletter. One hurdle in this segment of marketing is getting the customer to actually open your email. Here are some strategies for having your message heard after you've spent the time crafting it.

Be Specific: Your subject line should be short, sweet, and tell the customer exactly what you are going to say in the email you've sent. Email subject lines are not a place to get too cute or too casual. Make it feel important and interesting.

Get Personal: This seems like a no-brainer these days, but it's worth repeating that it's important to use the customer's first name if you have it. Make them feel valued in this small way.

Experiment: Try short subject lines, longer subject lines, informative subject lines, and ones that tease the viewer into clicking to see more. Analyze your email response open rates and go with what seems to work with your clients. First and foremost, knowing what YOUR email base wants to read is important and what they are looking for will be obvious once you analyze your email statistics after experimenting with different formats.

Get to the Point Fast: Many email programs now display a preview of the email so the more valuable information you put in the first two lines, not just the email subject line, matter. Give the reader a glimpse of what is coming when they click your email open to draw them in and promote your business.

Do you need more small business marketing ideas? Old City Web Services specializes in helping your small business grow through online media and marketing.

Give us a call or email us today! Call us (904.829.2772) or e-mail us today!

Tips for Building Your Social Media Strategy

May 6, 2015 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Setting up social media accounts and posting to them occasionally is not a sufficient social media strategy designed for success. You have to have a plan and a way to implement it to find success on social media and to have that success result in positive results to your business success. Here are some tips for formulating a strong social media strategy and how to implement it for success.

1) Know who your audience is, what they want, and what attracts their attention. This takes research and experimentation. Drop ideas that don't work or get little feedback and keep going with ones that draw attention.

2) Social media is a vehicle of your overall business strategy not the entire strategy. Use it in unison with the overall marketing strategy for your business. Measure your social media results. Experiment with your marketing approach, your social offers, your choice of social platforms. Then measure again.

3) Before you build a profile on yet another social site, make sure that you have the resources (people and time) to post consistently and respond speedily to all customer and prospect activity. Measure the effectiveness of your choices with analytical tools for social media. Don't start a Pinterest board if you don't have the time to dedicate to it or it doesn't fit your brand. Don't spend too much time on Facebook if the majority of your followers are on Twitter and they continue to expand your reach. Put your resources where the people are.

4) Choose and use a social media management platform like Hootsuite to coordinate all of your social accounts and RSS feeds from one screen, schedule posts. This will make the time spent on social media more organized and efficient and eliminate wasting your time.

5) Have one employee dedicated to the job of social media. This will streamline the message, give your brand a familiar voice, and will keep things simple and less confusing. Having someone posting to social media for your business who doesn't know the answers to the questions in #1 above will be worse than having no social media presence at all.

6) Be helpful, while promoting your business. Share useful information. Don't small talk and don't clutter people's lives and social media streams with information that doesn't help them or you. As with any marketing effort, your social media postings must have the ultimate goal of gaining and retaining customers and increasing sales.

Does this sound confusing or overwhelming? How can we help you understand social media better? Give us a call or email us today! Call us (904.829.2772) or e-mail us today!

Analyzing Google Analytics

April 29, 2015 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Analyzing Google Analytics

You've got your website
You've got Google Analytics Installed
You get a report monthly
And you have no idea what it means
Don't worry - you are not alone!

Google Analytics can be extremely helpful in honing in your message to your audience but only once you understand who your audience is, how they interact with your website, and why they are there in the first place. Everything in your analytics report is telling you something about your audience and how you can improve your online presence and experience for users.

There are many different insights that Google offers you through Analytics.

How you are acquiring web visitors?
Typing your URL (domain) directly in their browser?
Clicking on your website from a search engine?
Arriving via links you have posted to social media?
Arriving from websites where you advertise?

All of these are important things to know, and can be determined in the referral section of your analytics report.

Understand the behavior of your web visitors. Once you know how they are arriving at your site, you can analyze what they are doing once they get there.

Are they clicking on your coupon?
Are they clicking for directions?
Are they going deeper into your site and onto other pages to find out more about your business?
Or are they leaving immediately?

Understanding who your visitors are can help you market better, too

Have more females or males?
What is the age group of your viewers?
Domestic or international?

Knowing the answers to these questions, you can tweak your marketing strategy accordingly to bring in more from certain demographics.

What device are they using to get to your website?

Phone - Is your site mobile friendly?
Tablet
Desk Top

If most of your website visitors are coming to your site on their phone or tablet and your site isn't optimized for a mobile experience, there is no way you can keep them around long enough to keep their business. If most of your viewers are on desktops, investing in a custom mobile website doesn't need to be at the top of your priority list.

All of the information on your Google Analytics report is there to help you help business grow.

Knowing
Understanding
Changing with your audience is key to keeping your business growing.

How can we help you understand how to get you the information you need from Analytics? Give us a call or email us today! Call us (904.829.2772) or e-mail us today!

Email Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

April 22, 2015 by anoadmin

Email marketing is an excellent way as a small business owner to reach your client base and build your business. It is inexpensive and a way to keep a personal connection with your customers. Remember with your email marketing strategy that people are very particular about who they share their email address with - make sure what you share is mutually beneficial in that it gets your message across and doesn't waste their time.

Here are some tips for making email marketing effective and useful for both you and your customers.

Make it Easy to Subscribe. Have a way for customers to sign up for your email list either in your brick and mortar business or your online website. Don't ask for too much information - just their name and email address is sufficient. Don't make them jump through hoops!

Design Your Email to Fit Your Brand. Your email campaigns should match your brand's look and feel. If you're using a template, you might want to customize it to include your company's colors and logo in the header. Keep your brand consistent so they feel comfortable and familiar when they receive your messages, and they always know it's you that is talking to them.

Make it Scannable. Providing line breaks and making your content easily readable for those who are in a hurry is imperative. Get to the point and do it well. Most people scan an email for the most relevant content and skip ahead to it. Use italics and bold to draw attention to the most important aspects of your message.

Keep it Relevant. To ensure this, you can break your mailing list up into groups and only send what certain groups are looking for. You can also know your audience, know what they respond to, and why they are signed up in the first place. Knowing your business and having confidence in what you do and the services you provide and sticking with this is very important. Don't try to be something you or your business are not. Be consistent and trust your brand.

Be Consistent. Your customers will come to know that you send your email at a certain time or a certain day and they will come to look for it. Be consistent in your message and in your timing so you can always be a brand your customers trust.

Old City Web Services can help you with all of your marketing needs. Just contact us today and let us get started!

At Old City Web Services, we specialize in marketing so that your online presence is optimized to its maximum potential. Call us (904.829.2772) or e-mail us and we will be happy to offer our services!

Feeling Invisible Online? 3 Tips for Being Seen on the Web

April 15, 2015 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

You have a website, social media pages, and send out a newsletter or emails to your clients on a regular basis. Yet you still aren't getting the results you'd hoped for, the online sales you are seeking and the social media response that is warranted after all the effort you put in.

There are plenty of times that as a business owner you can feel like you are doing all you should but you still feel like you are talking to a wall at times and you just aren't sure that the online world is giving you the results you expected.

Here are 3 tips for no longer feeling invisible on the internet:

Update, Update, Update: Keeping fresh content on your website will not only keep your online audience interested, it will keep search engine ranking up. You have to be high in search engine rank to be found and once you are found, you have to give visitors a reason to come back. Keep a blog, post updates about sales or specials, or simply update photography and content so that your page is always fresh.

Keep your social media updates compelling: Great photography gets shared more than anything on social media. Share a photo that will stop a web surfer in their tracks, compel them to click and read more, and to share what they've read afterward. More people will find you and continue to share, and your online presence will become more visible bringing you the results you hoped for when you set up your Facebook and Twitter pages.

Add social media share buttons on your webpage: Adding buttons to your website that not only take people to your social media pages but that make it easy for them to click and share your website and the content on it is a top way to get people sharing and ultimately seeing your business online. Providing a special or a deal for social media shares only is another way to encourage users to spread the world about your business online.

At Old City Web Services, we specialize in optimizing your website and training you in social media so that your online presence is optimized to its maximum potential. Call us (904.829.2772) or e-mail us and we will be happy to offer our services!

The Importance of Good Photography for Online Marketing

April 1, 2015 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Your business has a web presence. You have a website, a Facebook page, Twitter, and even Instagram. The best way to maximize your exposure and increase your reach on these platforms is to use really good photography.

Your website has a great design, but there aren't enough photographs, or they are small and not the greatest quality. Believe it or not, your website being visually appealing has a tremendous impact on a site visitor's impression of your business. Large, eye-catching photographs will draw a site visitor in, and will put forth the professional image that brings consumers to you and keeps them with you.

Your Facebook page has great information, where you share what's new, what sales you have going on, what your upcoming events are, or what is on your menu. Nothing enhances or draws a viewer in to these facts and gets them to stop scrolling and actually pay attention to your words more than a good photograph.

People on social media are much more likely to share your information if there is a photo attached. This will expand your reach and influence and bring in the business you are seeking with your online marketing strategy.

Photos do a few things that make a big impact:

Visually appealing - Draws the viewer/reader in
Breaks up text - information is more easily scannable when reading
Shareable- users of social media are much more likely to share status updates with images than without.

All of these things will have a great impact on your online marketing and the image you present online. Consider professional photography for your website or social media presence today. At Old City Web Services, we can provide photography and photo-editing services to help boost your online appeal. Contact us today!

If you'd like for us to help you in taking your business to the next level, call us (904.829.2772) or e-mail us and we will be happy to offer our services!