CleverNews January 2009
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A few words from the Founder and MD of CleverLink, Camtu Pham
 Camtu Pham  Camtu & family at Nan Tien Temple
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Happy 2009 and may your business not only survive but thrive throughout the year! I trust you had a great time with family over the Christmas and New Year break. I certainly had a great relaxing time with my loved ones. As an Australian Vietnamese, I have two New Years’ every year and a bonus this year as our traditional Vietnamese New Year falls on Australian day so we had a double celebration last week! What a special occasion as this hasn’t happened in the 25 years that I’ve lived in Australia.
As this is still the beginning of 2009 – My team & I acknowledge and thank you for your support, confidence and collaboration. We look forward to another great year with you! Yes – let’s Aim High Fly Fast together!
Camtu Pham
Founder & MD of CleverLink
Author, Aim High Fly Fast: How to create a wonderful world for yourself and others!
(A book you should read if you haven’t read it) Click here to purchase a copy
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What’s News at CleverLink
Business Expresso Success
The CleverLink “Business Expresso “was a great success! On one of the hottest days this year our office was buzzing with business people keen to share their ideas with each other over fresh roasted coffee and some of the best sweat treats ever! We were delighted that Baker Street came on board and having Gabe Corbin and Siulin Double there to contribute their ideas as well as their fare, was a great bonus.
After the session, all comments were in the positive with people saying that they have “been looking for something like this for a long time” (Donny Giles, Australian Rail Training) and what “a pleasant afternoon and a great opportunity to market and network your services” (Lou Kinnas, Akele Kinnas). Someone even made the comment that we had over 100 years’ experience in one room!
As it happened a few of the attendees knew of each other previously but through this meeting were able to hear each other’s stories and can now use their new business relationship as leverage. What a great outcome!
Business Expresso will be held on the last Thursday of each month at the CleverLink offices. If you would like to attend, please see the flyers or contact us. For those in remote areas – we may run this online in the future.
Client Spot Light
T B Resources
Now that the school year has begun in earnest, it seems timely to mention one of CleverLink’s favourite success stories: T B Resources.
Initially, Trish found CleverLink through a Google search and found she lived just 10 minutes away from our office. This meant it was easy to conduct our meetings face-to-face and we have gotten to know Trish well.
Trish Bartlett Resources provides religious education material that follows the current curriculum and is available to schools in a ready-to-teach format.
TB Resources had an existing website that worked like an online brochure and allowed her to direct potential clients to something visual online. Working this way took a lot of our client’s precious time in taking information, processing payments manually and posting our information.
With CleverLink’s help, TBR now has a professional and attractive Website that works with our client by providing:
- Online products & customers database
- Order online with shopping cart and real time payment (Money will get transferred directly into TB Resources bank account within seconds)
- Fully automated member subscriptions services
- Individual members & schools can access resources online after log in
- A back end system that allows our client can add/change/delete products the site themselves
Besides helping Trish with her new website, we also created her new logo, letterhead, business card & brochure. A complete professional package! She runs an online business with minimal manual work involved (besides her time to design and write new materials) and this has saved her a lot money! Who wouldn’t want to run a national business where almost everything is automatically done by the website?
Does your school need religious education support? Why not contact Trish today – or let your school know about T B Resources!
"Camtu and her team at 'CleverLink' have supplied me with not just a web site but the whole package – logos, letterhead, brochure and business cards. The end result is great with each of the components linking together to form a cohesive entity.
I have found working with 'CleverLink' easy and informative as they have provided me with invaluable knowledge and direction in both a friendly and professional manner.
I have no hesitation in recommending Camtu and her team to others. "
Trish Bartlett
Trish Bartlett Resources Pty Ltd.
www.tbresources.com.au
If you would like to talk to us about your Web Design & Marketing needs, contact us
Up Coming Events
Event 1: Business Expresso at CleverLink
Event 2: CleverLink will be host to two seminars in the next few months
- Seminar 1: 17th Feb 2009 – “Be Seen on Search Engines (especially Google!)”
- Seminar 2: 24th Feb 2009 – “Online Tools for your E-Business Success”
Places are limited so if you are interested in attending please
contact us
Power Words
Will your sales copy improve your stats? Take this quiz and find out!
Once a business owner decides they need brochure or website sales copy, the very next step they take is critical.
Too often small to medium businesses think that slick sales copy is for the big players, so they either decide to write the copy themselves or get a staff member to do it –often with mixed results. Even your most vibrant sales person is not necessarily going to turn out great sales copy, because traditionally their skills will be in building rapport in person or over the phone along with the promotional materials to back them up.
Wouldn’t it be great to know for sure whether you are the right person for the job before you spend your precious time on one of the most important elements of promotion?
1. When I write a headline, I always:
- Give it the title of my product/service. People need to know what I’m selling.
- Make it a questions I know my idea client needs answered
- My headline focuses on the features of my product/service
2. In my sales copy I always use:
- ‘You’ to make it more personal by speaking to the individual
- To make sure it sounds professional, I keep it formal and always use ‘we’
- I write as though someone outside the company was writing about the company so it doesn’t sound too pompous
3. Once I have finished my opening sentences, I usually follow with:
- A list of the features
- An examples of exactly how my product/service can solve your problem
- Details about my business, so they know who they are dealing with and get a sense of trust
4. In the body of the sales copy I let people know my product/service is guaranteed by:
- showing them some evidence by way of facts & figures, testimonials or research to
show that what I promise is what they can expect.
- by offering a ‘money back guarantee’ .
- by reiterating my points about how the product/service can works for them
5. Once I have finished my sales copy, I always end with:
- my contact details so they know who to contact for service
- a summary of my product/service and a link to my contact page
- a direct request that asks them to call/email/download/pay etc
Results:
1 = b, 2 =a, 3 =b, 4 =a, 5 =c
Summary:
Of course, writing is subjective therefore you can’t really be wrong. However, as you may know, there is a large body of research into sales writing which tells us there are very definite ways to make sure your sales copy speaks directly to the kind of clients you want for your business – and encourages them to act. The ‘correct’ answer s are those that follow the tried & true methods of some of the best advertising copywriters in the world.
How did you do? Is your sales copy sure to help you improve business?
You have two or less correct
While some of your sales copy might hit the mark, the rest of it may not be working to its full potential. If you are interested in writing sales copy keep going, there is more for you to learn. But! If it’s not your passion, why not leave it to the professionals and concentrate on your strengths?
You have three correct
Good work. You definitely either have a natural talent for sales copy or you have worked hard and smart and you are getting there! If it is your own business you are writing for, why not get a professional to look at your finished product for you. Then you will not only learn where you can improve, but your hard work won’t be wasted because key details were left undone.
You have four or more correct
You’re a star! If you’re working for a business, but ‘copywriter’ is not really in your job description, congratulations! You’re worth your weight in gold! And if you would like to see just how much your golden fingers contribute to your company’s bottom line, get some ‘click’ statistics and compare the before and after…
Contact us today for help with your sales copy/professional writing – and make sure you’re words are working for a healthy bottom line!
Traditional Marketing
Your Website: Exactly how critical is ‘design’ in your web site’s performance?
While design generally means aesthetics, to a professional Web Development company it’s about the architecture of your website. The entire structure, not just what you can see on the screen. Putting it bluntly, design can make the difference between your website being profitable or not. Whether you sell online or have a non e-commerce site, the bottom line is the same; you need to attract, retain and inform.
In last month’s newsletter we briefly mentioned the seven major areas of web site interface design, the 7 C’s. This month we will look at the first of them, context, in more detail.
Context
In this instance, context is defined as ‘the look and feel’ of a screen-to-face interface. It is categorised by both its aesthetic and functional criteria.
A site that’s functionally oriented at its core offering, be that a product, service or information. A good example of a functionally orientated site is the Canberra Raiders supporters’ forum www.thegh.com.au. The Greenhouse allows supporters of the Canberra Raiders Rugby League club to exchange views on the club and discuss current rugby league matters. Forums are a complex automated system and they absolutely must work smoothly and look easy. Navigation on this site is simple and of course, functionality is the major priority.
An excellent example of a site that focuses on aesthetics as its core offering is www.marknolan.com.au. Mark Nolan is a photographer based on the South Coast of NSW. His work needs to be presented in the best possible light and his site allows his work to be presented in just this way. Mark Nolan’s site looks good and navigates smoothly. It doesn’t have a lot of automation like The Greenhouse. It has a high utilisation of flash and, despite the amount of data on the site, loads quickly and easily, so his potential clients don’t have to wait.
In most website development projects an optimal balance between both the aesthetic and functional components is best. Achieving the right balance is a skill that many web developers simply cannot deliver because either they are graphic designers first, in which case they will focus on aesthetics, or they’re programmers first in which case their focus will be on the function. So, as you can see the perspective of a web developer can often be skewed either one way or the other. This, of course, is exactly why it so important that your website is designed by a web developer who consistently achieves that balance for you, so make sure you ask the tough questions before signing on the dotted line!
If you would like a no obligation review of your current web site or would like to discuss building a new web site, please contact us and we can have a brand new or revitalised web site for you in a matter of months.
Digital Marketing & SEO
Using Segmentation to Improve Site Conversions
Times are tough and many companies are trying to squeeze more out of their websites than ever before. We're now willing to try new approaches (which are inexpensive) that we thought we didn't have time for in the past. Web teams are now more focused than ever on the ROI of Websites.
So what are these new and inexpensive steps toward improved returns?
The most obvious way to improve returns on such an investment is through conversion rates: getting people to your site and keeping them there long enough to influence their buying decision.
As you may know, many of the measures to increase conversion rates require a significant amount of investment. As an example, two well-used ways to increase site traffic is through paid media (newspaper, radio, tv, etc) or search (Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, etc), in an attempt to get more raw conversions on your site. But it's a tough time to get approval on incremental funding for new approaches, so what are the alternatives?
An often overlooked option that could have a significant impact on any website and isn't that complex is: segmenting your messaging. Segmenting is where different customers will actually see a different home page or landing page when they access your site.
When we hear "segmentation," it can sound like a big, slow, time-consuming project. But it doesn't need to be. You can choose one or two elements to focus on – and there are some basic and easy ways to start:
What are the benefits of basic segmentation?
- Targeted, more applicable messages to site visitors
- Anticipating the needs of visitors
- Avoiding marketing something to someone with zero interest
As an example, take a lawyer's website with a client login section. One of the simplest ways to segment your audience is to target login cookies (information kept by the computer so it will remember customer details). You can split your audience by those who do and those who don't have the online account login cookie. You can then target your messages to those particular groups of your audience. You are then free to tune some of the promotional or call-to-action space on the site to promote different things to each group:
- Visitors with an online account login cookie. If visitors have this cookie, we can assume they're an existing customer and have logged into the account information before. So we would promote the cross sale of new or complementary offerings or special promotions targeted toward existing customers (i.e. "Special Promo for Existing Customers...").
- Visitors without an online account login cookie. For this audience, we might want to promote "Open an Account" or "Benefits of Working With...”
More importantly, you won’t waste space, and time by promoting anything to these two groups that isn’t of value or doesn’t make sense to them. You wouldn't want the number-one promotion to be “open an account” to someone who already has an account. This kind of one-size-fits-all promotion conveys irrelevant messages and this is the fastest way to lose your audience’s attention because if it doesn’t interest them they will tune out and perhaps miss other messages that are targeted to them.
Remember, there's a margin of error in this approach. A prospect could use a public computer where an existing customer has previously logged into the same site. Or, an existing customer may be using a different computer or has simply cleared their cookies.
Acceptable Risk
You should still segment and deliver different experiences for both the new visitor without the cookie and the visitor with the cookie -- even though some percentage of each group could be miss-categorised. Say 2% of each group falls into the wrong category, you could still segment your message and convert the 98% left, in each group. And, of course, you wouldn't hide the login to the account information for the people without the cookie or hide the new account information for those who don't have the cookie.
While this example revolves around a legal services company with a client login function, you can segment your audience any number of ways. Drop a cookie, and then key off that cookie and while this isn't the ideal way to segment your audience, it's a great way to start.
I can't talk about conversion rates without touching on the importance of site optimisation (A/B, multivariate testing, etc.). If you’re not doing this now, it’s time to get serious about the success of your website and get started!
If you would like to discuss exactly how SEO can benefit you and your business, contact us today!
B2B & B2C
Website of the Month
http://www.managementhelp.org/ - The Management Help site is a free integrated online Management Library where you can read articles and tips and even enter your own tips. It’s worth a look!
Food for My Brain
Don't let fear of the recession guide your goal setting plans for 2009
This is a BIG mistake...!
Fear is an emotional response, only good for short-term survival.
Internet shopping is predicted to hit $145.1 billion in the coming year, a significant 14% increase -- despite the recession!
Consumers will be spending more time at home, using their computers for everything from bargain hunting and product research to upgrading skills.
Now is the time to make sure your website is professional, up to date and all your marketing materials are creating a lasting impression for you and our company. CleverLink can help! We are just an email or a phone call away! Contact Us today!
Positive Mind
The ‘L I T T L E’ things.
Some of you may know that there a number of office workers who survived 9/11 because of the “little things” that happened to them that day. Here are some of the reasons people survived:
- The head of a company survived 9/11 because his son started kindergarten.
- Another man is alive because it was his turn to bring donuts.
- One woman was late because her alarm clock didn’t go off in time
- One was late because of being stuck on the freeway because of an auto accident.
- One of them missed his bus.
- One spilled food on her clothes and had to take time to change.
- One’s car wouldn’t start.
- One went back to answer the telephone.
- One had a child that dawdled and didn’t get ready as soon as he should have.
- One couldn’t get a taxi.
The one that struck me, though, was the man who put on a new pair of shoes that morning, took the various means to get to work but before he got there, he developed a blister on his foot. He stopped at a chemist to buy a Band-Aid. That is why he is alive today.
If you’re stuck in traffic, miss an elevator, turn back to answer a ringing phone .. all the little things that can annoy you... think of these situations as this could mean you are where you supposed to be at this very moment..
May you continue to be blessed with all those annoying little things and may you remember their possible purpose.
Sent to us from a client of ours, Anthony Killeen from
www.linkperformance.com.au
Laughter
Two guys are walking down a dark alley when a mugger approaches them and demands their money. They both grudgingly pull out their wallets and begin taking out their cash. Just then, one guy turns to the other, hands him a bill, and says, "Hey, here's that $20 I owe you."
Clever Tool Box
How to sell sand in the desert
Once you discover a few of the strategies for selling sand in the desert imagine how many more sales you can make for your business! Like sand, we get our water free – and still we buy it! Why?
Did you know that there are around 1000 different companies selling water in Australia? These include well-known brands such as Mount Franklin, Pump and now there’s a new brand called ‘Another Bloody Water’! Just like selling sand in the desert – selling water where we have easy access to it sets an important precedent - and it can give us the courage to make more sales for our business!
According to an AC Nelson report, bottled water sales reached $431mil over 2006-2007. This is the equivalent of 280 million litres of water sold in bottles from supermarkets and convenience stores across Australia (and this is not including home & office deliveries!). This is quite impressive in a country where most of us can get drinking water straight from the tap!
The question here is – why do we buy bottled water? According to the Go Greener site, most people can’t tell the difference between tap and bottled water in a taste test - and in Australia, the health benefits of bottled versus tap water are negligible. So why does it sell so well? Because it’s not water we’re buying, it’s benefits.
We’re buying “pure”, “bottled from the source”, “filtered”, and ” imbued with minerals”. We’re buying the convenience and the association (such as supporting the Breast Cancer Foundation through Mount Franklin, etc). We’re buying a lifestyle, where a bottle of water is a symbol of health and well being. You might have noticed that now all the bottled water companies have caught up and because all water is now “pure” and “from the source” now ethical water’ is one of the fastest growing niche products!
So, how do you sell sand in the desert? With benefits! Think about what makes people buy your product or service. What benefits can you come up with?
If you want to get to the top of your profession, learn whatever you need to learn and persist until you reach your goal. Remember, those who are at the top 10% were once at the bottom!
CleverLink can certainly help you to increase your sales through our services such as website design, brochure design and printing, copywriting, etc. Check our full service by visiting our website now www.cleverlink.com.au
If you have interesting news or topics you would like us to cover, please email us and we will do our best to slot it into the format!
