My Latest Client

We’ve just launched a new website for The White Swan Pub & Restaurant in Bosham , West Sussex.

We’re especially proud to have an association with The White Swan because while pubs are closing all over the UK, Nick and Tina Irish have re-opened what was one of the most popular watering holes in the area after quite a long struggle against a very small number of objectors.

True, The Swan does have a recent chequered history, but long before that; for 300 years; it was a landmark on the East-West Brighton to Portsmouth coast road, and until very recently a popular pub and eating place. I think it’s safe to say that the pub suffered it’s lowest point when it was not run properly and allowed to deteriorate, probably giving rise to the lowering of it’s reputation.

Nick and Tina have completely reversed the pub’s fortunes by successfully re-opening the pub and restaurant with a stylish, very warm and welcoming ambience.

The reason we were involved is that between the period of applying for the licence to the pub, right through purchase and complete refit, The Swan had in place a ‘community’ or ‘newsletter’ type website to keep the local community fully informed of progress and to allay fears of any objectors to the pub re-opening. Excellent PR at the time. You can see the original website here
http://TheWhiteSwanBosham.Food.officelive.com.

When the Swan re-opened, it was clear to Nick and Tina that the community website had done it’s bit; and now they needed a more commercial approach, so as a local company, they approached us.
We took a very short brief from Tina, and set to work. The result can be seen here www.thewhiteswanbosham.com

The website is what we call a ‘brochure site’ in that it’s not trying to ‘sell’ anything, but serves as a 24/7 brochure. A site like this doesn’t need us to design in any specific consumer psychology to get the customer to take action as a lot of our SME sites do.

Tina has full control over what goes on the website, and she is able to update the website herself quickly and easily 24/7 with our Content Management System, or by dropping us an e-mail. We will generally make any requested updates within 48 hours.

A site like this STILL needs to be found in Google because The Swan is situated in a tourist area, and therefore wants to be found by people planning to visit the area. The Search Engine Optimisation for the site reflects this.

All our sites are built and delivered with getting found on google uppermost in our minds, as well as delivering a visual experience that reflects the product and the target clientele.

Should you have a similar enterprise and want an affordable website design (the cost of this website was less than £600) yet also a quality solution to being found on the web, please contact us at 07767 304509. I don’t charge for chatting !

HW Marketing UK are the Affordable Website Design Company of choice for Small or Startup Businesses in the area. Easily understandable pricing 

Are you about to make your first BIG MISTAKE as a new business owner ?

Well, you’ve done it! Congratulations! You’ve decided to set up a business, and whether it’s your first foray into the small business world or you’re a very experienced business person, you are probably smart enough to realise that your new business is going to need a website.

Now how would you know that? Because you are aware;

• Your competitors can already be found on the web.
• Your prospects will expect instant information.
• It shows you respect your prospect’s and customer’s need for information.
• That 80% of potential customers will look for you using search engines first and foremost.

Now, in order to get this website, you might be thinking along the lines of

“D’you know what, it’s easy to get a website, I know from the telly adverts I can build them for free, and I know someone who is quite techy about these things, and money is tight because I’m a start-up, I can’t really afford a website professional if I can get it for free”

This, is what could quite possibly, be your first BIG MISTAKE

That’s a BIG statement. Let me explain why I said it. First, here’s some stuff you might not know;

• 90% of Websites don’t WORK for the business.
• A website has up to 8 seconds to create the right image in a visitor’s mind. If it doesn’t, they leave, perhaps for ever.
• Websites don’t get found by search engines unless they’ve been optimised correctly.

Now I’m not going to pussy-foot around this subject. I have seen some websites that even the business owner believes are horrendous. That’s because either the business owner has built the site themselves or trusted it to a non-professional. Even with a smashing looking DIY website, it may not perform properly.


I get at least one call a week from small business owners who 6 months on realised they made the same mistake. They realised that the web site visitors they expected just weren’t happening or that the website really doesn’t look good to their market or people are looking at the site, but they don’t DO anything except, well, leave. Yes, even if the website looks good.

What those business owners had not realised, is that when they got a non-web, non-marketing person to do the job, THEY ONLY GOT 10% OF THE JOB DONE

I don’t want you to make the same mistake. Many people think that any sort of web presence or a web site will magically bring instant demand for goods and services, and all you have to do is build it and they will come. Well it WON’T bring instant demand and visitors WON’T just come. Not unless you get the other 90% right.

Even if you DO get visitors, having a website that doesn't engage your visitor immediately is just as bad as having a receptionist or a sales assistant chewing gum, scratching their backsides and ignoring your prospects when they walk in the door; or someone who answers the telephone in your business sounding disinterested and not able to answer the simplest of questions. A shoddy employee or an inadequate web 'presence' will BOTH drive YOUR business to your competitor. The difference is that an inadequate website will do it MUCH faster.

SO, THERE’S THE PROBLEM – WHAT’S THE SOLUTION ?

First, I run a web design company that knows about web marketing. When I design, write and build your site, I know how to get you found on Google. I know what people expect to be able to do when they reach your site. I know I only have 8 seconds to get their attention before they surf on, and I know how to design your site so that visitors stay a little longer and ‘do’ something; whether that's to pick up the phone and call you, or send you an e-mail, or even buy something from you. I even know how to make those customers ‘Customers For Life’. Think of the return on your affordable investment if THAT happens.

Secondly, the price I quote is the price you pay and all of my experience in online marketing will be channelled into making your site get found, and it will then WORK FOR YOU as hard as a good employee would work for you.

Third, I want to increase your visibility, your sales and your success. If I do, that makes you my customer for life too. Partners.

Lastly, I’m only going to ask an affordable £250 to £600 to build you a ‘proper’ website.

Call me. I don’t charge for chatting.

07767 304509 or 01243 573615

www.hwmarketing.co.uk

Another Customer I Badly Let Down

It's happened again. That's at least twice this year and it makes me feel responsible for not convincing a prospect I have a part to play in growing a business.

See, I'm so passionate about what I do, and how what I do can really help businesses, that if I spend time with a prospect and yet at the end of it I've failed to convince that prospect that they really must buy what I have to offer (I offer a Return On Investment); then I feel as though I've let that customer down.

My websites and services are (pretty much) more affordable than many other web agencies, and yet even so, there are prospects who simply go ahead and cut out website investment.

Usually, when this happens, I visit any website that they may have sourced (usually via DIY or by using a non- professional) and I analyse the site.

Generally what I find is something like this..

In case you can't read the image, it says that the web page analysed meets 0% of the requirements for a Page 1 appearance on Google. If someone spends 3 months (on and off) creating a website with that profile; that's a BIG OUCH !! Trouble is, most people who DIY a website would have no idea that their web presence is so ineffective.

Incidentally in the case above, that particular search phrase was searched for 1000 times a day in the UK in the last 12 months (30000 times a month or 360,000 times a year) . That's a big audience these guys are now missing. It will take real investment to claw that potential audience in. Statistics say that, in this instance, there could be the potential to create a mailing list of 1,800 ring fenced prospects to relate to

And we don't just do websites here. We are a website agency that 'knows' about web surfing behaviour, and we work with the biggest marketing experts in the UK and US to ensure that once your site IS found; then those visitors will drop into your sales funnel. That's a rare combination of techy and savvy marketeer.

At least once a month I get enquiries from businesses that didn't realise the value of website investment with a professional,. They phone up asking just how they can make their website 'work' for the business as a lead generation tool, instead of just sitting there watching visitors waft in and out again without making any contact. Sometimes we can work with the website they have, sometimes we can't; then they rue their misunderstanding of the technicalities and the time they have wasted, all for the sake, usually, of a couple of hundred pounds.

If you hear of anyone who is starting a business, and yet thinks they can build a working website, please, please , please let them know it's much more than just building a presence on the web; that's easy. Making the site work is the other 90% and for that they need a professional marketer. Use the analogy of an iceberg, because building a simple web presence yourself really IS only the tip of the iceberg !

You'll be doing them a favour and stop them wasting time on building a site that doesn't give a ROI.

HW Marketing UK are the Affordable Website Design Company of choice for Small or Startup Businesses in the area. Easily understandable pricing packages start at £250. The Company was established in 2009 by Neil Holley-Williams who worked for 25 years as a Freelance Consultant for IBM, Skandia Life, Invesco Perpetual and Carnival UK.

Your Website Has Just 8 Seconds

Researchers have found that when people arrive at a website, at least 50% of them will leave that website within 8 seconds.

Who says ?

We know this because it’s worth a lot of money to huge corporations to know how people use the internet. They want to know what people like and dislike, and what they do and don’t do. These huge corporations have spent millions on research so that they can figure all this out.

All of this information is in the public domain and we can access it. The best bit is that the information these corporations have funded is just as valid for knowing how your website visitors behave.

So again

To repeat, researchers have found that when people arrive at a website, on average 50% of them will leave that website within 8 seconds.

In other words, if your website doesn’t do something WITHIN 8 SECONDS to keep them there, at least 50% of them will leave. For you it could even be 60% or 80%.

There was an old metaphor doing the rounds when the web first started, and sadly it’s how a lot of businesses still view their websites. “The internet is like a huge gigantic shopping centre and your website is a shop. Everybody gets to come and browse your shop”.

It’s more accurate if we imagine that the people in this mall are walking at 60mph and they are looking for something very specific, and they only have 15 minutes to find it. They are only ever going to go into the places that obviously provide those services or goods, and if the shop looks as though it doesn’t, or they wouldn’t feel comfortable in that shop, they aren’t stopping, let alone coming inside.

Think about how you use the web. You SURF THE WEB. Think about the phrase ‘surf the web’. It means you go from one site to the next, to the next, to the next. You do it because you can, and you don’t stop until something interests you or catches your eye. You now know that even when you do stop, there is a 50% chance you will probably leave in 8 seconds if it doesn’t quickly become apparent that it has what you’re looking for.

That’s the challenge you and I face.

WE HAVE TO GET VISITORS TO STOP SURFING AND INTERACT WITH US

How do we do this? Here are three ways

Use Headlines

Look at your own website. If you don’t have a headline in the form of words, then your ‘headline’ is whatever your visitor first sees when they arrive at your page. It might be a logo, a graphic, a picture or a piece of blank screen, or worse a lame piece of text like ‘Welcome’, or ‘We have been in existence since 1982’. Be honest with yourself and ask, would this stop ME surfing ? If you have nothing to grab the visitor’s attention, then they’ll be gone.

Remember that the headline is the first thing that’s going to grab me, and interest me; and it needs to be strong enough to stop me surfing.

Just making this one small change will make a big difference for you. If you are using a headline on your brochures or any other advertising and it works, then use it on your website.

This is a fantastic article on writing compelling headlines, with some great examples.

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/whoneedsheadlines/

Use ‘The Fold’

Make sure that your compelling headline and content appears above ‘the fold’ of your website.

‘The Fold’ is a newspaper phrase. Imagine you are reading a large newspaper, and you have to fold it in half to read the top half before turning over to read underneath.

The equivalent on your website is what people see before they have to scroll down the page to read the rest.

So, going back to your website, what do you see before you have to scroll down? This plays directly by the 8 second rule.  If you haven’t given the visitor sufficient reason to stop surfing, they probably won’t even scroll down.

Your visitor is not going to be staying if above the fold you are announcing your new CEO or the fact you just won an industry award or a long winded introduction or history of your company.

Why is that ?

Walk  in Your Visitor’s Shoes

Put yourself in the shoes of your potential client. They have found you on the web because they have specifically looked for you, and Google has considered your site relevant to what they are looking for.

What are they interested in ? What concerns them ? What problem do they have that they want someone to solve ?

As a business owner, you are of course close to your business. You know it inside out. The temptation then is to write about your business on your homepage, and that can be a big mistake.

The truth is people don’t CARE about your business

Don’t take it personally. I’m sure they are all very nice people , and so are you; but that’s not what they are there for.

They are there because it’s likely that you have something they need.  In short they have a selfish self-interest and it needs meeting.

If you can meet that self-interest by talking directly to them about how to solve their problem and challenges, you will have a chance of stopping them surfing.

Challenge

Go to your website as if you were a first time visitor. Be tough on yourself and ask yourself if you are really captivating your visitors in those first 8 seconds in a way that stops them surfing.


HW Marketing UK are the Affordable Website Design Company of choice for Small or Startup Businesses in the area. Easily understandable pricing packages start at £250. 

Not Using A Web Professional Can Hurt Your Business

Due to the layman’s impression of the web, many small business owners decide to undertake the responsibility of, or to get someone they know, to create a website for their business.

On the surface, this approach makes sense to most business owners: Why hire professionals for between £250 to £1000 or even more when you could read some tutorials yourself or use an online template? Your Brother’s lad is also pretty good with techie stuff, so give the job to him; or a friend who’s in IT. Why not ? Building a website is easy. No it’s not. Done through ignorance, it’s a car without an engine.

While advocating the Do-It-Yourself approach to your business website seems like an efficient way to minimize cost and maximize revenue, poorly designed websites actually cost your company much more than professionally designed websites.

One of the most damaging myths, and one that will cost a small business lost revenue, is that it doesn’t matter who builds the website, as long as one gets built, and it sits on the web. I’ve met small businesses who have been really smug about it too. “No thanks, what would we need you for, we can fix it ourselves”. Might as well fix your own car instead of using a mechanic or turn the gas board away when there’s a leak outside your house.

Your business can have the prettiest, most stunning website on the web; but if it doesn’t get visitors, or if it does, but doesn’t convey the right image in less than 8 seconds or get the visitor to take action, it’s worth exactly zilch to your business, and you might as well not have the website at all.

Website designers are professionals. Building a website is like building a house. You need the skills of an architect, an electrician, a plumber, a carpenter, a heating engineer, a roofer, a builder, a decorator, a plaster, a tiler, etc, etc ,etc.

You can build a house with just a builder and a roofer, but when the fantastic outside shell is up, looking great; it’s actually a completely useless house. No heating , no plumbing, no electricity, no inside walls finished off, etc, etc, etc

It’s not about just throwing up a superficial entity that looks good. Your website is an intrinsic part of your business and needs serious thought because it actually has to work for your business.

An analogy might be to design a billboard advert for sand, and then place it in the Sahara Desert. Wrong place, wrong target, no business

Also, one of the easiest ways to lose a potential customer is a mediocre website. What does it actually mean to lose a potential customer?

If you fail to grab the interest and trust of a potential customer, they will not think about exchanging their hard-earned money or call you to ask about your goods or services. If your website continually turns people off your product, the amount of initial sales lost will begin to accumulate. Good websites convert visitors into contacts and customers, not just because they look good, but because they carry the right message to the right people in the right way. Mediocre websites simply cause the visitor to hit the back button and never return.

Professional designers understand the form and function of the web and can implement visual, copywriting and other marketing strategies to increase conversions/sales. A website that fails to convert traffic into eventual sales serves no purpose.

If a potential customer has a problem they need solved, they are going to pay someone to solve it. Your website is your first impression, and if the impression is unimpressive or uninspiring, and you fail to show how you will solve that problem, in less than 8 seconds, potential customers will take their money elsewhere.

Every business action taken has a cost. Simply stated, each moment you spend doing something could be spent doing something else. If you are a baker, you should spend your time baking. If you are a painter, you should spend your time painting. If you are an accountant, you should spend your time accounting. These painstakingly obvious truths stem from the economic idea of comparative advantage, or the idea that better products and services are created when individuals focus on their strong points. The web design process requires a considerable amount of time to execute correctly. Extensive testing, brainstorming, design, and development goes into the creation of effective websites. An accountant who makes a website, in most cases, simply becomes an accountant behind schedule with only an ineffective website to show for that lost time. When you or anybody else undertakes the creation of a website without extensive experience, your business suffers.

Sub-par websites, ranging from do-it-yourself projects to premium templates, all have one major similarity: their inability to fully capture the image of a business. One of the 5 Principles of Web Marketing is knowing your customers and catering to their wants. A member of an exclusive country club wants to feel exclusive when he visits a website. A young child wants to feel happy when they visit Nick Jr. online with their parents. A young adult wants to feel cool and relaxed when on Facebook. All these sites give their respective target audiences exactly what they want and expect. Crafting a design that encompasses the wants and expectations of your target audience takes immense skill, research, and experience. When customer expectations are satisfied, customer trust grows, leading to sales. However, when customer expectations are not met and that critical element of trust crumbles, customers become confused.

Once a customer is confused and unable to render the business image in their minds and feel comfortable with it, they will take their business elsewhere.

A professional web design company can create a beautiful, functional website that lasts as long as you need it to. You may think you can’t afford a professional website. The truth is you can’t afford NOT to have a professional website. Settling for a mediocre website only hurts your business in the end.

I am so passionate about this that if I fail to persuade a prospect that they need my services to grow their business, I actually feel as though I have let THEM down.

HW Marketing UK are the Affordable Website Design Company of choice for Small or Startup Businesses in the area. Easily understandable pricing packages start at £250. 

ONE is the worst number in business

ONE supplier, ONE key employee, ONE key customer, ONE source of leads, and I could go on and on and on....each of these risky scenarios has impending financial disaster written all over them.

I was speaking to a potential client some months ago now, a conservatory manufacturer and installer, and he was advising me to use radio advertising. Now the reason he was advising me to spend thousands on radio advertising is that he said that it was working for his company, and they relied on it. In fact, they relied on it so much, that they had scrapped any other form of advertising and lead generation in favour of it.

Well that’s great if it’s working, and it certainly appeared to be working… “but”, I asked “what if a competitor comes along with a better advert, better radio slot times, more coverage, and offers something you don’t, what have you got in place to fall back on immediately?” He couldn’t answer.

Amazingly, some small businesses rely on one lead source, for example directories like Yellow pages or Thomson Local, and I’m sure many of them are doing great. But this is so dangerous, what happens if next time the directory is printed and there are 3 other businesses doing exactly what you do and their adverts are better than yours, or worse, what if there was a mistake and your number was printed wrong or you were omitted completely?  Your trusted source of leads has now GONE. Put simply, every business should be propped up by multiple sources of ‘Lead Generation’, or ‘Pillars’.

This is known as the ‘Parthenon Plan’. Bear with me ! The Parthenon of Greece was created over 2 millenia ago and was built on more than 60 pillars to withstand unknown challenges. In the late 17^th century, it was used as an ammunition store and suffered a direct hit exploding the munitions inside. However, most of the building and columns are still standing.

It’s about realizing that in order to grow, or even survive, you must use 8, 10 or even more pillars of lead generation so that if one or three start to perform badly, then you still have strong foundations propping up your business.

But isn’t cost restrictive? Most businesses have a marketing budget and it just won’t run to adverts here and there, leaflet drops, internet advertising etc etc ; and anyway what else is there?

Ok here’s a list of what you can employ as lead generation pillars.

• ·         Direct Mail
• ·         Pay Per Click Advertising
• ·         Search Engine Optimisation
• ·         Leaflet Drops
• ·         Telephone Marketing
• ·         Email capture
• ·         Autoresponder
• ·         Direct Sales
• ·         Joint Ventures
• ·         Online Public Relations
• ·         Run Competitions
• ·         Open Days
• ·         Systematic Referrals
• ·         Internet Advertising
• ·         Offline Public Relations
• ·         Shows, Events
• ·         Affiliate Programs
• ·         Networking
• ·         Teleseminar
• ·         Print Advertising
• ·         Radio and TV
• ·         Newsletters
• ·         Sponsorship
• ·         Mini Courses

And on and on and on. I could fill this list with a HUNDRED ideas.

Action Steps –     

1. Make a list of your existing lead generation strategies
2. How much business do you generate as a percentage on each strategy ?

If you have less than 8 strategies (pillars) and any one of them (or two or three) add up to more than 40% to 50%, you don’t have a Parthenon, you have a Leaning Tower of Pisa, and you may have to prop it up.

The ideal spread would be to have 10 strategies, each bringing in 10% of your leads, but any spread is better than relying on one or even two key strategies.


HW Marketing UK are the Affordable Website Design Company of choice for Small or Startup Businesses in the area. Easily understandable pricing packages start at £250. 

What on EARTH are you in business for ?

Over the next few months, and hopefully for as long as you decide you want to stay with me, I will blog specific examples of how you can increase your turnover. I’ll go into these in some detail so that you can set about using them easily.

However, first I’d like to challenge you to make one cataclysmic, fundamental, generic change to the way you and the people in your business, do business.

If you can embrace this concept, and maybe some of you have already, in which case this is affirmation you have it right; then this ONE change alone can change the way you do business from this day forward, and it won’t cost you a penny. It’s about a change in your state of mind, it is really, really easy to grasp

So then, let me ask, why are you in business, what is your purpose?

The answer I would usually expect to this question is “To make money”; and of course that’s an excellent answer. To make money.  Absolutely nothing wrong with money and all that accompanies it. We love money.

But I want to get you to think about something else.

I heard a story the other day from a marketing genius called Chris Cardell which illustrates perfectly what I’m driving at, so I’ll start with that.

“At one point in time, Microsoft had over 40 BILLION dollars liquid just sitting around in a bank account earning interest. So what drove Bill Gates to get up in the mornings?  Was it that he wanted to make more cash?

Clearly not. He loves his cash, don’t we all….. and the more of it the better.

Bill Gates is driven by the belief that by continuing to do business and to drive development of his products, that he is MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN PEOPLE’S LIVES. He is bringing REAL BENEFIT to people with his products.”

I spoke to a website customer of mine a few months ago, while we were designing his site; I asked him how he would describe what it was he did.

“I cure stress”, he said. “I cure stress”.

So what was he this bringer of immediate relief? A doctor ? Hypnotherapist? Did he sell herbal remedies? No. He was a packaging machine engineer. He’s the guy that visits a packing plant when the packaging machinery breaks down, and he fixes it. Now in the fast moving consumer goods industry where the packing company has deadlines and quotas to meet, and is being kicked by the manufacturers of the stuff he’s packaging, crisps, biscuits or whatever; my customer really does “cure stress”. He fixes the machine and makes sure that the quotas can be met.[1]

This mind shift, if you can adopt it in your own thinking and introduce it around your company, will make you PASSIONATE about what it is you do, and why you are doing it. The best thing is, this will NOT COST you ONE PENNY. Change the way you think about what you are providing and why you are providing it, and you are half way to winning the war.

If you can start to make this make this shift and become passionate about what you sell, you will be the best ever salesperson for your products and services, and it works for every business. You will be proud of what you do for a living. Proud of your products and services.  

A Hairdresser could say “I’m in business to make people feel great”

Cosmetic Dentist “I’m in business to make people smile more”

Health Club “We re-charge people” or “we prolong people’s lives”

On a business card I was given today by another local web design company, it said “Hello, I’m Clive. I want to help your business grow.”

Why am I in business ? “To improve your turnover and hopefully improve your standard of life”

You may even get to the point, like me, that if I fail to convince someone that they need my products or services, and they walk away, I FEEL as though I’ve let THEM down by not being able to convince them that I can improve their lives.

So, I’ll ask YOU the question again. What are you in business for? What is the purpose of your business?

When you figure it out, write it in big letters and stick it all over your place of work…. and put it on your stationery and cards.

It can instantly change the way your customers look at you and will change the way you look at your purpose in business.

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HW Marketing UK are the Affordable Website Design Company of choice for Small or Startup Businesses in the area. Easily understandable pricing packages start at £250. The Company was established in 2009 by Neil Holley-Williams who worked for 25 years as a Freelance Consultant for IBM, Skandia Life, Invesco Perpetual and Carnival UK. Neil is also a trained Life Coach

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[1] The packaging man is at www.winslowengineering.co.uk