Demonstrate your expertise via e-marketing

Reputation matters to all of us. Unless you are running a monopoly, you need to prove (and keep on proving) that your business is better than the competition. According to a study by Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), 70% of people say that recommendation is the most important influence on their purchasing decisions. If this is true for your market, then your reputation really, really matters.

How can you influence your reputation? With email, websites and social networking, you can pick the perfect mechanism to tell people about your business and extend your reputation beyond your offline networking group. But where do you start? Try one - or more - of the following ideas to get you going:

1. Shout about your happy clients - include testimonials and case studies on your website. They showcase your happy clients and customers. These tell ‘stories’ about your business and bring your service ‘to life’. Of course there are sceptics who assume that you have fabricated your quotations but, even at a subliminal level, testimonials make visitors to your site feel that you work with real people and you make them happy. You can also use online discussion forums to have a ‘public’ conversations with your customers. This might sound scary but people will be very impressed if you handle customer feedback in a professional and timely way.
2. Demonstrate your expertise – this can be done in several ways on your own website and on 3rd party sites:
   1. Provide free resources and information on your website. One of our clients, Sensetoys, sells toys for young children and those with special needs. Many of the toy descriptions include ‘play tips’ to help parents and carers engage with their children through play. These ‘play tips’ demonstrate the deep understanding that the owners of Sensetoys have which gives their customers confidence in the company and its products.
   2. Use e-newsletters to tell your existing contacts about what you are doing and let them know about happy clients and awards you have won. You can also provide useful, relevant information to help them in their own businesses.
   3. Submit reviews of issues to article directories to boost your online credibility and saturate the first page of Google results on a search for your company name or individual names.
   4. Keep clients, customers and contacts abreast of time sensitive information using Twitter or SMS. This is useful for reminding people about deadlines, letting them know about new products becoming available or passing on delivery information for example. Banks now offer a text service to give account balance updates and even small businesses might find they can add value to customers in a similar way.
   5. If you are putting effort into regular communications online, you might find some of the content can go into a blog on your own site. This can be particularly valuable if search engine rankings are important to you.
3. Extend your business ‘personality’ – a presence on Facebook or MySpace gives you an opportunity to bring your business and your team to life in a different format. You’ll probably need to create personal accounts too which you link into your business one. In broad terms, MySpace is more popular with creative people and Facebook attracts ‘career professionals’. You can also provide information about your latest business activities, communicate directly with customers and upload information and articles which are of interest and relevance to your target market. For some businesses, they can use sites like this to create a ‘club’ feel and charities make great use of them to raise awareness and gather supporters.
4. Take your professional networking online – using Linked In, Ecademy, Spoke and other similar sites. These allow you to participate in special interest groups (and extend your reach) and then demonstrate your expertise or interests by asking and answering questions and letting your contacts know what you are working on. I have received enquiries and won business through my extended Linked In network.

With a varied mix of activities, you can support your own business’s reputation in a way which fits the time and resource you have available. It can become a quick and easy way to ensure that people remember you and pass on your details to others. After all, you don’t want to miss out on hearing from the 70% of people who say that referrals are the major element in making a purchase decision.

If you would like any help getting started or would like me to carry out a project for you, please call on 01608 737653 or email Kate for a free, confidential and independent conversation.

I am proud to offer independent strategic advice to help you market your business effectively.

Kind regards,

Kate Barlow

You may copy or distribute this newsletter as long as this copyright notice and full information about contacting the author are attached. The author is: Kate Barlow of Branch Out Internet Marketing, The Paddocks, Lower Nill Farm, Hook Norton, OX15 5DG, UK. Contact Kate Barlow or Tel: 01608 737653, Fax: 01608 737653.

Our subscriber list is confidential. We only send e-newsletters to those we understand have given their permission to receive them. Branch Out Internet Marketing never release, sell or give a subscriber's e-mail address to any party outside of the organisation without your expressed permission. Our subscribers only receive email messages that contain requested information, new monthly articles or announcements of new services.

We use reasonable endeavours to virus scan all e-mails leaving the firm but no warranty is given that this e-mail and any attachments are virus free. You should undertake your own virus checking. The right to monitor e-mail communications through our networks is reserved by us.