110 The Financial Times Guide to Business Development
retail fashion shop, the more you’re able to present the individual people
behind the business, the stronger the potential emotional connection will
be.
With this in mind set up blogs, show photographs and biographical details
and even better show short video clips on your website.
S = specialisation
Always remember, people buy in order either to solve their problems or
to meet their specic needs and wants. With this in mind the more your
website can appear to specialise in their concerns and desires, the better it
will be. It will also make it easier for others to nd you on search engines.
Ask yourself when constructing your web presence how you can position
yourselves as specialists.
For example, suppose you have a shop selling ladies’ dresses for party and
formal wear. Here are a few things you could do to create the feel of real
specialisation:
Find and register specialist website domains for certain types of
products, for example www.motherofbridedresses.com or www.special
partyfrocks.com.
Have special landing pages for any such domains.
Create and promote a blog about these areas.
Create articles and put useful information on your site perhaps
about current fashions, style, colours that work best with certain
complexions, different manufacturers, etc.
Show video clips highlighting how dresses can be tted and altered to
t.
Always remember why people visit websites. People visit websites for one
of three reasons: either to buy something then and there, get information
or advice on a topic, or for entertainment of some type. You need to make
sure that your site does one or more of these three things.
Don’t distract visitors with pointless technical design features. I come
across far too many websites that have been designed by ‘techno junkies’.
These are people who go out of their way to use every conceivable ‘gizmo’
and function at their disposal for no other reason than they can. There is
nothing more distracting than trying to read potentially inuential copy
while pop-ups, moving animated gures, sound effects and changing
graphics keep getting in the way. Just keep it simple.
7
Priority 3 – Externalise business development efforts 111
Include certain things on every page. One of your objectives should be
to make navigating your site as easy as possible and therefore there are four
things that should appear on every page:
1 contact information (e-mail, telephone or both);
2 menu information;
3 a direct link back to your home page;
4 a reminder of your call to action.
Make the site easy to read. Here are a few very simple tips:
Have plenty of clear space on your pages.
Don’t clutter your page with too much information or dense text.
Don’t have a dark coloured text on a dark background or very light
coloured text on a very light background.
Don’t forget it is all about converting enquiries. Getting zillions of
visitors to your site is often seen as the holy grail of internet business
development, but getting them there is rather pointless if you don’t then
get them to do what you want.
You should recall the three priorities mentioned earlier in the book and
that Priority 1 is the need to focus on converting enquiries into protable
business. This holds good for the online world too. You must give this as
much, if not more, thought and importance as website design and copy
content. To aid the conversion process here are a few tips:
Harvest a database of prospects to whom you have given useful
content and information, in return for them lling in a simple form
with their contact details.
Build a relationship with them through keeping in touch with them
on a regular basis with more information that will help.
Build personal credibility by showing video clips of your people
talking about your goods and services.
Build word-of-mouth through social media networks, to get those you
are in touch with to spread the word about your business.
Get them interacting with you through a blog.
Build functionality, which makes it easy to buy from you.
Give contact details frequently.
Have calls to action mentioned frequently.
112 The Financial Times Guide to Business Development
How do we generate website trafc?
There are three general methods and issues to be addressed and considered.
You must decide which is most appropriate to your style, operation and
comfort zone.
1 General search engine optimisation (SEO)
There isn’t a day that goes by without somebody, somewhere, wanting to
tell me how they can boost my natural rankings on the internet. By that
I mean those that I am not paying for directly. Of course there are many
genuine businesses out there with some real IT geniuses who do know their
way around various internet search engines and who can guide you, at a
price.
From a business development perspective I have an aversion to this paid-for
solution for two reasons. Firstly, I don’t like handing over control to other
parties, particularly in relation to an ever-changing technical goalpost.
Secondly, in terms of cost it is quite literally a bottomless pit, requiring
never-ending investment and commitment. It seems to me that no sooner
have you achieved the objective of getting into the top few on the rankings
list than somebody else with a better IT genius or more cash overtakes you.
2 Google ad words and pay per click
If you can do it, then in my opinion this is much better. For those of you
who aren’t familiar with this concept, take a look at the rankings on the
right-hand side of a Google search page and you will see what Google ad
words is all about.
Providing you learn how to play this game or outsource your requirements,
you have the opportunity to attract only relevant trafc to your website by
effectively sponsored keywords. At its simplest, Google ad words enables
you to produce visitors to your site who t a certain prole, have particular
interests or problems and are based in a specic geographical location. As
pay per click might indicate, the great thing about this solution is that you
only pay for actual visitors to your site.
The key of course is understanding how keywords work and what people
actually search for. Be careful, however, because the most obvious words
might produce visitors who have no interest in what you do. For example,
including the word ‘cruise’ could easily produce visitors looking for cruise
clothes or Tom Cruise the actor as opposed to your cruising travel agency,
which you are seeking to promote.
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Priority 3 – Externalise business development efforts 113
3 Social media
We have already dealt with social media in this chapter, so let me simply
reinforce the message. Participating on social media networks is a great
free way to encourage people to visit your website. If you are not using
social media opportunities to promote yourself or your business, you are
potentially handing chunks of revenue – that should be yours – to your
competition.
What are the most common traps in using the online
world?
Forgetting there is an ofine world
I have come across some ‘technology’ gurus who tell the business com-
munity to forget everything they have ever learned about business
development and marketing communications and to direct every scrap of
their efforts and resources into the online world. I fundamentally disagree
with this approach and have one word I want readers of this book to take
on board . . . ‘integration’. What you need to be doing is taking advantage
of the momentous and almost miraculous potential of the online world to
develop your business, but in a way that enhances and ts in with other
things you are already doing which work. Having all your eggs in one
business development basket is not the best bet.
Failing to keep up the momentum and lack of patience
I have encountered many businesses that dive in with huge amounts of
time and effort, highly excited by the potential of the online world, only to
lose interest when results aren’t instant. Don’t be inuenced by the miracle
claims that you can read on the web every day, which tell you how one
man and his dog made £1 million in the rst few weeks of internet busi-
ness development. Even if some of these claims are true, it is not the norm.
You should know and expect to have to work hard, sustain the momentum
and anticipate that it is likely to be at least six months before you see
sustained development, growth and success.
Spending too much time on the internet
I have come across a number of business people who get so hooked and
addicted to being on the internet that they actually take their eye off the
business ball. By all means invest time on the internet but don’t enjoy it
too much. After all, it is just another business and communications tool.
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