How to design an effective linking strategy for your web site How to write a press release that editors will love My favourite web sites and why! Your business in 2008 Your web site isn’t giving you the results you expected – what should you do? Should you sell online or stick to your offline catalogue? Using advertising for your business Your web site isn’t giving you the results you expected – what should you do? Why web site layout really matters Really good business books Want an easier way to sell your products and services? Top ten marketing tips to kick start or reinvigorate your business Why should you test the way you promote your products and services? Why is customer service so important? Which is easier to sell a product or a service? Internet & Web Site Definitions See more marketing and business advice in our newsletter The summit. Visit our entry at bestEzines and click on 'write a review' My Favourite web sites It takes several elements to produce an effective and successful web site. Some of these elements are design features and others are more to do with written content and quality images. Here are some of my favourite sites used to illustrate the elements that I believe make up a successful site. The sites I have chosen vary in size and belong to small and larger businesses selected to illustrate that any business can have a web site that delivers. Good copy - Some Internet Marketers believe that well written and key word rich copy is the most important element for any web site. I believe it takes a combination of the elements included in this article. It’s not that easy to find well written sites but here’s one. The Dogs Trust uses simple language to explain exactly what the charity does. It would have been very easy for them to have become over sentimental given what they do but they have avoided this putting across a strong argument for taking a rescue dog or for sponsoring a dog. www.thedogstrust.co.uk Good design There is no doubt that good design is the first thing site visitors see. Check out your web stats and you will see visitors who land on your site and are gone within 2 seconds. These visitors leave quickly either because your site content is not what they are looking for or because the design is unattractive. Good design does not necessarily involve large sums of money. Many small sites, simply designed achieve good design such as www.marksanderson.co.uk. Here’s one that probably did cost quite a lot to launch but one that definitely makes an impression. www.visityork.com Sticky Sticky sites are the ones you hit on and that entice you to delve deeper. A good example is Waitrose. It’s true that a company such as Waitrose no doubt has the resources to maintain a site with diverse content, but there are many elements in the site that smaller businesses can copy. When you consider that Waitrose sells groceries the content of the site wide ranging and interesting. For example interviews with celebrity chefs, seasonal recipes, information about organic food and much more. www.waitrose.com Says clearly what it does It’s amazing how many sites do not actually say what the site is for and what the company does and even large businesses fall into this trap. Check the Electric Cycle Company web site. A very simply designed site with good quality images it says what it does simply and effectively. www.electriccyclecompany.co.uk Great content This depends to a large extent on what you are interested in, but I love this site. It’s in your face and a bit all over the place, but considering what the boys sell they have made the most of the site. The business idea itself is original and the site reflects that. Even the tacky flash works on this site. www.bakinboys.co.uk Ease of navigation Perhaps not one of the more interesting elements of a web site but poor navigation means that you quickly loose site visitors and probably means they won’t come back. Simple navigation is often achieved more easily by small sites simply because they have less content. One of my favourite small sites with simple easy navigation is www.page2pagesecretarialservices.co.uk. And to show that big sites can also achieve this have a look at www.currys.co.uk, it’s not particularly good to look at but very easy to move around and to find what you want. Great images Great images are like good copy, not that easy to find. Generally larger businesses have the best quality images but not exclusively. Good quality original images illustrate products and services to their best advantage and make a web site look truly original. The country baskets site is from a medium sized business. The company provide interesting and original gift baskets and there are plenty to choose from on this shopping site. It is essential that a company such as country baskets show their products to their best advantage and show the basket contents clearly. The photography also creates the impression of the countryside which is exactly the image the company wanted to achieve. www.countrybaskets.com Your Business in 2008 If you are a small business owner, the day to day running of your business often means that you spend much of your time with your head down dealing with everyday tasks. But to grow your business you must take time to stand back and remember what it was you actually wanted to achieve for your business when you first started out. Use the new year as the time when you review your business direction and make some changes. A recent survey of 15,000 business owners valued their operations performance as high, but the marketing of their products and services as low. It might seem obvious but nothing happens without action so take action now. Check that the process of systems that you have put in place are in good order, then take an overview of your business activity in the last year. Consider: Are the products and services your business sells in the spirit of your original business idea? Are the markets for your business the original ones you anticipated? Have you developed new products and services? Which is your biggest selling product? and for marketing · Check last years marketing strategy to capitalise on your most effective marketing and to discard what worked less well · Or if you did not have a marketing strategy! In actual numbers write down where each sale has come from in the past year How many enquiries came via your web site Check your competitors to see what they are doing? Put together this years marketing strategy based on last years successes What can you do to increase profits? Put your prices up Decrease your costs Sell more to existing customers Find new customers Get customers to buy from you more often What can you do to increase clients? Look for new markets Ask your clients about other services or products you could provide they would like to use Improve your products and services Use Internet Marketing techniques to build a mailing list from your web site Based on your review consider for your business New Year resolution to Spend more time on your business rather than in it Clear out those outstanding tasks Use this years marketing strategy weekly Check your web site statistics weekly Using advertising for your business Advertising is probably the most expensive part of any business marketing campaign whether you are a large or small business. Advertising is expensive and the response rates to advertising campaigns are difficult to monitor. Multi nationals spend vast amounts on advertising across the media from TV to trade magazines and the glossy monthlies. For a small business with limited resources advertising can be a daunting prospect and many small business owners learn the hard way and using advertisements to launch their new business products and services. The response rate is often disappointing. So if you are a small business firstly ask yourself: Where does your business comes from now? Do your competitors advertise? What is it you want to advertise?
Where do your prospective customers and clients shop for your products and services? If you then decide to use advertising include what you propose to do in your marketing plan. Set yourself: A financial limit Goals for the response rate Goals for the number of actual sales you make A time scale for advertising
How do you plan an advertising campaign and how do you know how effective it will be. Start with research. What publications do your market buy and read. Don’t restrict yourself to the glossies look also at weekly publications and trade magazines, free newspapers and regional publications. Compare the cost of advertising in the various publications to the readership which will be higher than the distribution number. How often does the publication appear? Ask your customers or target market what they read. Work out the response rate you are aiming for and compare this to the cost of the advertisement to calculate the cost per prospective customer. A series of advertisements will be more effective than a single advertisement and you should negotiate a discount with the publication. Bear in mind that monthly and trade publications may have a deadline dates for advertisements weeks before actual publication. After your research you then need to consider your advertisement. Large business owners use specialist advertising agencies but for a small business this is simply not cost effective. So how do you write an advertisement? Obviously the size of your advertisement will dictate how much you can include, but essential is: Use your contact details on the advertisement to send customers to one specific route to making their enquiry or shopping with your business. For example include only your web address if you want prospective customers to go to your web site or your shop details if you want them to visit your shop. Sell the benefits of using your business products and services rather than the features. Consider what’s in it for your customers if they buy from you. Write in a style that will appeal to your market and if you can include a catchy headline. Don’t forget to set a monitoring system in place so you will know how successful your advertising campaign has been. Like some help writing your ads? September 2007 Want an easier way to sell your products and services? A good marketing consultant would advise any business to use a mixture of marketing and promotional methods to clinch those sales. Marketing is not predictable and so it is always difficult to predict which method of selling your products and services will bring in sales. If you have developed new products and services you must ‘test’ the market and test the way you promote those products and services. Doing this will save you time and money. However there is a way to promote your business services and products that a marketing consultant is unlikely to advice you try. It’s underused by the majority of businesses and it’s a method that works well for a new business. It is very effective in breaking down the barriers to making a sale. What is it – bartering? There are some disadvantages. If your deal is not carefully packaged you can be seen as being ‘desperate’ to promote your business products and services. Overcome this by your professionalism and treat the barter as you would any work or sale that you make to a customer and expect the same in response. Draw up a proposal and contract in exactly the same way you would an actual monetary sale. Offer to supply your part of the barter over a generous time period but make sure you provide an expiry date. This will make your proposal a really hard offer to refuse. Let your barter partner know you have no objections to them selling on your part of the barter to make it an even more difficult offer to turn down. The advantages of bartering far outweigh the disadvantages. Bartering shows flexibility and inventiveness and is something that larger more established businesses find difficult to do. Bartering is also an excellent way for an untried business to get services and products into the market and is a fantastic way to acquire testimonials, recommendations and referrals. If you provide a quality service and products of a high standard then you will have the opportunity to sell other products and services to your barter partner for real money. In addition to all of this many sales people find it much to sell barter than to sell a product or service for money. |
Top ten marketing tips to kick start or reinvigorate your business 1. Every business needs a Unique Selling Point to stand out from the competition. | As your business changes and develops a new powerful USP is an excellent way of attracting new business. It will give your business new life and a new appeal to prospective customers. Look at the new services and products you offer and look hard at how they differ from the services and products your competition offers. Look at the benefits and advantages to customers of using your competition and find ways you can improve on them, use that a basis for your new USP. 2. Review past clients and regain contact with them. Contact clients and customers you have not done business with for some time. Show them you value their business and tell them about how your business has developed and now offers……..Ask them why they have stopped buying from you. It need not be anything sinister, they may have simply forgotten the advantages of the products and service your business offers. 3. Increase the size of the sale per client. Let your customers know about all the products and services your business offers. You have already done the hard work and persuaded them to buy from you and if they like what they bought and the service you provided they will be receptive to other products and services you offer. This is not ‘hard selling’ it is offering valued customers an additional service. 4. Review or improve failing products or services. Look hard at your business. What products and service sell well? Which do you sell the most of? Where do you sell the most? What do you offer that does not sell so well? Is there something you can do to invigorate this product or service? If the answer is no then concentrate on developing the products and services that do sell well. 5. Increase the number of referrals you get from your clients. Whatever your business you should ask satisfied customers to pass on referrals to you. Reassure your customers that you will provide the same high standard of products and services to those referrals. 6. Update your web site regularly. Web sites should be updated regularly at least once a month. Updating your web site regularly helps to make your business look dynamic and of encouraging visitors to return to your site. Tell site visitors what’s new on the site and what’s new with your business. 7. Up sell and Cross sell – Consider the products and services you offer. Is there a way you can combine services and products together and offer these packages to your customers? Then consider additional products and service you can offer to your customers to compliment the products and services they already buy from you. For example an extended warranty, product support or an annual review of the services you provide. Use up selling and cross selling to increase sales. 8. Lower the barriers to buying. If you believe in the products or services your business offers, lower the barriers to buying for your customers by offering genuine guarantees. 9. Combine your marketing strategies. To be successful with marketing your business, it is better to be consistent than to come up with one ‘fantastic’ marketing idea. So be consistent and use more than one method of promoting your business e.g. direct mailings, networking and directory advertising. 10. Review your marketing. You would be surprised how easy it is for businesses to slip into habits of marketing and promotion. Simply because they are busy. But you should review your marketing at least annually. Look at what has brought in most business, review the wording and lay out of your advertising whatever form that takes. |
Why should you test the way you promote your products and services? It is surprising how few businesses actually test the way they promote their product or service in order to discover which of the present methods of promotion is the most effective in terms of sales and enquiries or what price and package of products appeal to markets. It simply is not possible to know in advance what aspects of your products and services will appeal to markets. How do you know for example what price will make your products attractive and remember that the lowest price is not necessarily the best price. The answer is to test. But what should you test? Begin by looking at all the aspects of your business that have measurable results and you must include the service you provide to your customers and your customer buying processes. Test for example advertisements and where you place them, your web site copy and headlines, variations in your customer ordering systems so that you can discover which is the most effective and productive. Really look at the way your products are communicated to your market. So how do you test your marketing? Advertising and direct mail campaigns are not an exact science and it’s impossible to tell in advance what type of headline on a flyer or advertisement will attract customers. So you should for example try different style advertisements, use different headlines on flyers, try positive and negative data together. Imagine you are a health and safety consultant, use data which supports a positive image e.g. 50% of companies using an independent health and safety consultant reduce accidents in the workplace by 25% At the same time try using negative data e.g. 65% of companies don’t have a dedicated member of staff to deal with health and safety requirements and consequently employees have an increased risk of a work placed accident. You can effectively test a direct marketing campaign by targeting different headlines on the mailing with similar groups of people in different geographical areas. Test offers, prices, services and guarantees against different and similar groups of people. Test simple and subtle changes against big changes. Remember to sell the benefits and advantages of your product or service as well as the features. Use different Unique Selling Points, try new phrases and wording, introduce new offers and try bundling your products and services together. And finally make sure you monitor responses to different campaigns. Use codes or ask responders where they saw your advertisement, so that when customers ring in with orders you know which advertisement or flyer they are responding to. |
Why is customer service so important? It is easier to sell to your existing clients than to find new ones, fact. It therefore makes good business sense to look after your existing customers. So make sure you really know your customers their likes and dislikes. Make sure your business ordering and delivery process is simple and easy to use and understand and make sure they your staff are familiar with all your products and services and trained to deal with every sort of enquiry in an efficient friendly way. Guarantee the work you do and the products you sell. Offer money back no questions asked. Customer service takes in all parts of a business, from the process of placing an order, to telephone answering and your sales staff. In short, every point of contact a client or prospective client has with your business. It is not immediately obvious that customer service is part of marketing, but for any businesses customer service is the most important part of a business and has to be promoted along with the products and services a business offers. You can successfully market and promote any business, but if the customer service is not in place then not only will you quickly loose customers, fail to gain that valuable repeat business but you will have the additional hurdle of having to overcome a poor reputation. It is a bit of a myth that providing a superior level of service for a large business is not possible, but it is difficult for a larger business to make sure the company superior customer service reaches and is maintained in all parts of the business. This presents an opportunity for smaller businesses to out compete larger businesses. This level of customer service offers a business in an already overcrowded market place can attain a truly unique selling point. A smaller business by the very nature of its size finds it easier to control all aspects of the business and to remember individual customers and their likes and dislikes and so it is easier for these businesses to offer a truly superior customer service and to control and maintain that standard of customer service. It is much easier to find a smaller business that is memorable for its excellent customer service. For example the deli in the high street that takes the trouble to ring and let you know they have finally managed to source your favourite cheese or the local nursery that rings to let you know that a variety of your favourite plant is now in stock. This level of service impresses and builds customer loyalty. |
Which is easier to sell a product or a service? The answer is a product, simply because it can be seen and touched. A service is in effect invisible. But if your business provides a service do not loose heart. Today few businesses actually sell a product, they provide a service. Think for example of a construction company that imports timber framed buildings to order. On the face of it and looking at their marketing material, their web site and their site vehicles they are a construction company. However when you enquire about your new home the first thing they do is provide guides and information which allows you to plan and customise your new home. They provide you with a selection of plots, arrange for the fittings you have selected to be added to your home, they arrange to have your new hone imported and finally they erect your new home. They are in reality providing a service for their customers. |
Which type of service are you? So then for the majority of businesses this presents the difficulty of marketing, promoting and selling something that cannot actually be experienced before you get it. The construction company at least has something tangible to show its prospective customers. They will have show homes you can see. A web site designer will have samples of web sites he or she has designed that prospective clients can visit. However an accountant e.g. will have only intangibles to describe to a prospective client and will not produce anything but will perform a service for his or her client. Research shows that consumers buy on appearance above price, so this presents the consultant or accountant with a double difficulty. How do you become visible? To overcome this problem a service business and in particular a service business providing an intangible service has to have a different way of looking at, and of promoting, the service it provides. One way is to help your prospective client to visualise the service you provide. Tell them what they will get, sell them the benefits and advantages of using your business. Structure carefully what you will provide for the client. Reflect your business in every face your business presents to the world e.g. your vehicle, premises, web site etc. and be consistent. This helps to reassure and to inspire confidence in your prospective client. Provide interesting case studies with successful outcomes. Keep your client and prospective client informed of what a good service you provide for your clients. Let them know about your successes! Internet Definitions Bounce Rate - the rate at which web site visitors leave a site without viewing more than one page Browser – Software program used to view web sites on The Internet. Netscape and Internet Explorer are two common examples. Hosting - A way of using software on line. Instead, all your software applications, database and files are located on a computer in the Internet, which is maintained by your host provider for a monthly fee. Internet - An electronic network of computers that includes nearly every university, government, research facility and commercial sites. Keywords - the words Internet searchers use to find the goods services and information they are looking for. You should include these keywords in your web site copy. Links – This is short for hyperlink and it is a way to move from one web site to another and within a site. For example http://www.summitup.co.uk Meta tags - Information placed in web sites codes that are not seen by site visitors. Meta tags are used to pass information to search engine web crawlers/spiders. Page views - individual pages of a web site that have been viewed by web site visitors Referral sites - Sites that are linked to your site. searchers arrive at your site from the link. Usability – the ease of use of a web site. This includes how easy visitors find it to move around a web site and how easy they can find and use the information provided on the web site. If the web site provides on line shopping, how easy it is to view and make purchases. Web spiders – otherwise know as a web crawler or web robot are programs used by search engines to browse web sites on the Internet in an automated way. www. World Wide Web – the Internet How to design an effective linking strategy Before you design your linking strategy you should know why you need links to your site Search engines rank web sites in part by the number of links to and from the site. Web site links (short for hyperlinks) come in four forms. They are: External links are links that point from one web site to another. They might include your clients. Recriprocal links are links from one web site to another web site which has a returning link. Back links are web sites that have a link direct to your site. These are the most highly valued links of all and might include the major search engines or the Open directory. Internal links these are links that are contained within a web site and take site visitors around the site from page to page. Planning your linking strategy As soon as your site is launched register with the main search engines, Google, MSN, Yahoo. Also register with the open directory. Most of the search engines use the open directory for their information. Doing this will provide back links to your site. Next make a list of your customers. Build a link from your site to their site include a logo if they have one and a few words describing what they do. This will provide an external link. Contact your customers and request a return link to your new site. This will provide a reciprocal link. Make a list of your suppliers. Contact them and ask for a link to your site. This will provide either a back link or most likely a reciprocal link. Look at the professional organisations you belong to. Most of them will have a web site and a directory of members. Make sure you have an entry. This will provide a back link. List the business networks you belong to. Most of these will have a directory make sure your business has a listing. This will provide a back link' Search for directories on the web that are associated with your business. This will provide either a back link or a reciprocal link. You can also pay for listings if you wish. Google etc . This will provide a back link. Look at the copy of your web site. Where you refer to information or products and services on another page include a hyperlink in the text to the relevant page. Keep the number of internal links per page to between 6 and 8, any more cut down on the actual copy of a site and irritate site visitors. Wherever possible include a few words as part of your links, and try to include some of your keywords in those words. Never link to sites that offer numerous links or to register your site with more than eight search engines. They are usually collecting sites for spam purposes. Return to the top Really good business books Whatever stage you are at with your business and however many workshops and presentations you have listened to and worked through there is always a place for looking at business books. Nothing can beat an inspiring talk or workshop to motivate and inspire you to work on your business and start a new marketing campaign or sort out your account system once and for all. But it’s not possible to attend a workshop every day, network meetings don’t happen every week and conferences can be far apart. Business books can fill that niche, but there are so many out there and not all are worth reading. Here are my choices of business books that really deliver. Starting a new business? Looking for inspiration and ideas on how to organise your business and how to take your products and services to market. Have a look at the E Myth by Michael E Gerber. This is not as you would imagine a book about the Internet and E marketing. The e in the title stands for Entrepreneur. The book was originally written in 1980 but has been updated since then. The ideas in the book are however still valid and are written with a case study running through them. This book gives you an alternative business plan model and shows how to look at a business in a different way. ISBN 978-0-88730-728-7. If you are simply looking for motivation and inspiration ‘Barefoot on broken Glass’ by John Timperley is an easy read. The marketing director of Price Waterhouse Cooper John Timperley reveals the secrets of his personal success in the business world. But more than that the book takes you through his five secrets of achieving business success, all of which are practical and achievable. Dip into it when you need motivation. ISBN 1-84112-126-6. There are hundreds of books about marketing available but many of them are repetitive and not practical. If you provide a service and most businesses now are doing just that, the best book on the market is ‘Selling the Invisible’ by Harry Beckwith. His book reads like a novel and is one you will want to reread. It does not contain any practical ideas on how to promote your business; rather it makes you see the way you deliver your business products and services to market in a different way. ISN 1-58799-066-0. Another interesting marketing book is ‘Do something different’ one of the Virgin business guides. Practical easy to read and easy to implement the marketing methods and ideas in this book would suit any business. ISBN 0-7535-0528-2. Wanting a guide to the Internet and web sites? Believe it or not this is quite difficult as books about this subject tend to be full of technical speak, have ideas that are difficult to implement or look at only one aspect of web sites and the Internet. ‘101 ways to promote your web site’ by Susan Sweeney is a good general overview of web sites and is particularly useful if you are in the process of setting up a web site. However be aware like all books in this category most of the web sites referred to in the chapters have either disappeared or changed completely ISBN 10931644-21-7. On the subject we all love to hate that is accounting for your business. ‘Basic accounting’ is part of the teach yourself series and while it probably goes into too much details for most small businesses and sole traders, it does simplify things and lay things out in an easy to understand and follow sort of way. ISBN 0-340-85897-4. Why web site layout matters How many times have you come across a web site and been unable to find out what the site is for and what you can do on it. Contrast that to a site that states clearly what it is and what it’s for and that has interesting easy to read content. Not only are you much more likely to revisit the well laid out site and you are more likely to buy from that site and sign up to the newsletter and mailing list request. Why is that? Web site visitors have a much shorter attention span than people scanning a newspaper for example or searching a library for information. Opinions vary but the time web site visitors will spend finding information on the site they have landed on, what they can do on that site and searching that site is no more a few seconds. Because site visitors have such a short attention span most site visitors scan sites and so look for and expect familiar things. For example scanning for a top navigation bar and for a clear indication of what the site is and what it does. A well laid out site will make scanning easier and site visitors will find the information they are looking for quickly. How easy is it to achieve a well laid out site and what should it look like? It is very easy to achieve but you must be prepared to forgo unusual web site designs and incorporate some traditional web site conventions. Sacrifice these conventions in order to achieve an unusual or unique design and you risk site visitors leaving your site very quickly and not returning. So stick with the basic conventions and build your design around it. But what are those conventions? State clearly what the site does on the top bar of the home page State clearly what the site visitor can do on the site Stick to common fonts Keep the colour of the fonts easy to read Keep backgrounds simple Make sure the font is an easy size to read not too small and not so big to be annoying Keep navigation to the top of the site and to the left hand side Keep search options and subscription requests to the right hand side
For an example of a simple style that fits the conventions then look at the newspaper style layout of the BBC www.bbc.co.uk and the Financial Times www.ft.com These sites might not set the world on fire but they fulfil web site conventions and receive large numbers of visitors. There are plenty of other styles you can choose that fulfil web site conventions and you should make sure that your web site design and layout reflects your business. For example www.amazon.co.uk and www.harrods.com. Your web site isn’t giving you the results you expected – what should you do? The first place most of us would go to solve the problem would be the Internet. The internet is a fantastic resource for free information and advice, but type Search engine optimisation, SEO or Internet Marketing into your search engine and you will be faced with any number of choices, advice and information. There will be many options for you from software to e books and web sites that offer you startling results in return for a financial investment. So what should you look out for if you want advice regarding the effectiveness of your business web site and how you can improve it? This advice applies whether you are searching for help on or off the Internet and while there is no doubt that genuine companies are out there on the web it is often worth checking with your business friends and the business networks you belong to see if they know Internet marketing specialists. Forearmed is forewarned so wherever you are looking for that help you need you should First decide what it is you want your site improvements to do for example Get more qualified hits Get more enquiries Then you need to ask the internet marketing specialist: How long they have been in business Do they undertake key word research Do they provide key word rich copy What clients do they have and check their web sites What their expectations for your site are – are they realistic How will your site be monitored Do they perform a competitor analysis And if you are a larger business - do they offer online reputation monitoring How do they charge – by the hour or by the job And this is what you should avoid Sites or Internet Marketing consultants that promise a high ranking for your site quickly Free downloads – don’t necessarily avoid them but treat them very cautiously
What are the dangers? Free downloads can include spy ware software without your knowledge will that use your site to collect information. This information can include your passwords and other sensitive information. Improving a web sites effectiveness whatever it is you want to achieve is not a quick process, does not necessarily involve lots of financial commitment and is something that every business should work on all the time. Return to the top Should you sell online or stick to your offline catalogue? In the early days of the Internet it was predicted that selling online would see the end of offline paper catalogues. The reality today is that the more successful and profitable online sellers have found that a combination of online sales with an offline paper catalogue drives sales. Why? Research seems to indicate that paper catalogues bring to life products in a way that a computer screen cannot and offline we can browse at our leisure and in comfort. However our buying tastes have become more sophisticated and despite some adverse press coverage the majority of us find buying online safe and secure, particularly if you use a credit card. Used in tandem online sales and an offline paper catalogue work for businesses of all different sizes from M & S to Lakeland and specialists such as firebox.com. and Royal Mail home Shopping research has shown that 60% of us buying online consult an offline paper catalogue first. So how do you make it work for your business? This depends on the sort of products you sell but generally use your paper catalogue as a bite sized version of your online catalogue. Use your web site to list your best sellers and new products. Listing your new products online in this way not only reduces the cost of reprinting a paper catalogue but also encourages your customers to visit your web site. You must of course remember to tell your customers to visit your site to view new products and special offers. Do this in the offline catalogue and when you send out flyers promoting your special offers or as part of your e mail campaign. Using your web site as a means to promote special offers or for one day sales will encourage your customers to visit your web site regularly and make your business and your web site look dynamic and exciting. What do the stats say? 61% of online buyers have consulted an offline catalogue & those buyers generally buy more than buyers using offline catalogues only 52% of the UK population now buy online On average we spend £609 on goods online each time we buy 75% of buyers who received a paper catalogue visited the companies web site Buyers who have received a catalogue in the last 3 months spend more online Clothing is the most popular online purchase The biggest catalogue spenders are aged 23 to 43 and they spend on average £473 Source Royal Mail Home Shopping Research Return to the top Copyright Summ it up marketing All rights reserved 2006 | 
