Some of us can visit a car dealership online and in person, find a car to fall in love with, and drive it off the lot after providing all the needed info and signing the documentation.

Others may find something they like at the dealership but not get the features or color they want. They have their car special ordered from the factory so it’s just what they want.

Still others will buy the make and model they want and then get to work customizing the body, motor, suspension, wheels, lights, etc. until they build the “hotrod” they’re happy with for all it’s customized look, feel and performance.

There you have an automobile analogy to sum up the different ways website clients go about designing new sites.

Some websites come together quickly, such as when clients articulate their design preferences, have written page content and provide an image library ahead of time. They see their new site design and are excited to launch it.

Other client sites take some time to fine tune a few of the design elements, write new or additional content and gather images.

Finally, some clients will buy a web design as a basic shell and customize it from header to footer and margin to margin, clarifying their message and evolving their brand in the process.

In the end, all these clients get what they want and the latter two ways add progressively more time to the process, and oftentimes more money. That’s reasonable to expect and completely okay. A good web design company will communicate up front what post-approval changes and add-ons cost, and improving the user experience is usually well worth the extra development work.

What kind of website client are you?

Choose an agency or designer who will accommodate your style – ideally one that works well with diverse client types. That way, you’ll work with someone well accustomed to how you like to be treated as a customer.

That’s how Chuck Sink Link works with each individual client. We have experience serving so many different professionals over the years that we know how to listen, understand and accommodate practically everyone.

So whatever your work style and web design preferences, feel free to speak with us and get an estimate for your next website project. We’ll ask the right questions and provide what you need for a sound decision and ultimately the best results.

The post Website Design – Realistic Expectations for Unique Clients appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Plenty of companies try to compete using the same keywords to describe their products and services on websites and promotions. They might try to differentiate by claiming the best customer service in the industry but so does everyone else. You’ve heard it, “Our service makes the difference!… We pride ourselves on providing the best customer service!… You’ll experience the difference our service makes…”  Sure, you might say, but how much does it cost? The point here is that your differentiation needs to be recognizably different, relevant and worth paying for.

An Exercise to Help You Differentiate

Avoid joining the chatter of your competition. Speak a differentiated language; one that’s native to where your best customers’ goals reside. You’ll want your website to be found in searches for certain keywords and phrases. Equally important is linking your own unique value message to those common industry terms. Let’s say for example that your business is an accounting firm or CPA office. Look at the keyword value association exercise below:

Notice how the right-hand column brings the keyword phrase into a uniquely valuable context for business clients. This exercise works well for manufacturers, financial services, product marketing and service companies alike.

Refresh Your Content with Relevant Value

Review your marketing content across the board and be sure to speak and write from your client’s perspective which sounds like, “problem solved, smooth sailing ahead,” instead of your company’s perspective – “we do all this and more….” When you put your messages in the right context, your audience feels a sense of comfort; that their need will be met or their problem solved.

When people shop, they generally don’t want a bunch of options thrown at them. They just want the best solution that works. Therefore, back up your keyword content with relevant messages that meet your customers’ goals and take care of their needs.

If you aren’t happy with current marketing & sales results, refresh your content from strictly your customer’s perspective and make every sales conversation about them instead of your company. You’ll sound refreshingly different and break away from your competitors.

The post Differentiate Your Keywords! appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

A “conversion” in marketing terms is any action a consumer does as a result of receiving your message. So if your message fails to generate conversions, your target audience may as well be you and your dog. And if your dog, like most, hasn’t the ability to make purchases, you’re out of business!

You could reach a thousand or a million members of your primary target audience and still fail to generate a single sale if your message isn’t clear and relevant. Your message must have value in it; a reward associated with taking a converting action like clicking a link, sending a text or picking up the phone. The value can be as little as satisfying a curiosity or as big as finding hidden treasure.

In sales, put the cart before the horse!

Who says a horse can’t be harnessed to push a cart full of goods instead of pull it? Before you spend too much money and time on developing the best media execution plan (the horse), make sure that the message delivered to your audience is deliciously enticing (the cart – full of perceived value). Push the cart yourself if you need to. It’s your message that converts people into believing they should “buy now, download or learn more.” Focus on what’s in the cart while you continually push, steer and course correct your trusted media workhorses.

What’s My Message?

Find out from every good customer what brought them to you. What first made them tune in and think, “I think this is the right fit?” What tipped the scale in your favor? What is it about your performance and delivery that keeps them with you? Do you enjoy doing your best work? Why?

The Media of Neighborhood

I was struck by the story of one business owner’s largest sale which catapulted him to “set-for-life” success. He received a call from the uncle of a teenage boy who used to wash his car. The kid happened to ask him what he did for work and the man took the time to engage the youth in a careful explanation of the exact nature of his business, even though he was running a bit late for an appointment. Thinking nothing of it, a few days later he got a call from the boy’s uncle who explained how his nephew described this man’s business as exactly the kind of service he had been searching for and couldn’t find until now. There was no media involved here, just a brief conversation with the car wash kid for the biggest sale ever!

Internalize Your Message to Externalize It

What about your company is truly world-class, i.e. best-in-class? Understand this deeply! Ours happens to be brand-directed content writing and creative production. Every sale I’ve made resulted from my message being understood by one person at a time. A few of my best clients are referrals from non-clients; people who read or heard my message and recommended me without knowing much about me or my background. They just liked what they heard and how it was presented, so they told someone.

Take the time to get your message straight and great! A great business message has the power to convert complete strangers into your best customers.

When ready, ramp up the horsepower!

When you have great messages that are proven to convert, by all means, develop a solid media plan to make a few good prospects aware of your value. And if some kid happens to be curious about your work, fully satisfy that curiosity and thank him for being interested.

The post Media channels don’t convert. Messages do! appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

This very thought goes through the mind of your prospects after you share a great blog article from someone else’s website. If the article is relevant to their needs, your prospects will be immersed in someone else’s branded online environment, reading their unique spin and losing sight of your company in the process. Thats why you need to own your content or fade from memory.

The post Create your OWN content! appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

One key word or turn of a phrase in the subject line catches your eye as you go through the daily delete routine in your email. You “mark as unread” so you’ll go back to it. A similar thing happens as you glance at the notifications on your phone. Someone commented on one of your LinkedIn posts and it’s a person of influence. You immediately open the message. This is what relevancy is all about. If something relates to your current interests or issues, you first pay attention and then likely take action.

Content driven marketing is taken to extremes by some marketers and the Internet is cluttered with mind-boggling volumes of information. How much of that information has any value? More importantly, to whom might it offer value and why?

The quality of information you develop or share carries far more importance than the volume or frequency of material you blast out. One really interesting article might reach one key audience member who then shares it. His network could be full of new business prospects who can actually do business with you and refer clients. Exciting new ideas and demonstrable best practices spread fast without the need to invest lots of media dollars.

As you determine what content to offer your target audience, ask yourself first: If intheir shoes would I want to consider this or learn more about it? Better yet, run it by a couple of customers and get their feedback to help assure its relevancy and value. It’s important to run such mental tests or surveys before you produce and publish content.

The extra time is well worth it. When other people start talking about your ideas and how much they appreciate you as a resource, you become the go-to guy or gal. You’re the authentic authority on your product category within your market. Doing business with you becomes the natural choice and might even be considered fashionable in your commercial sphere.

The post Relevancy Attracts Viewers appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

The inbound marketing model is working well for the companies that have discovered the successful formula. The formula works in B2B as well if not better than in B2C markets.

The first question that comes up is what do we talk about? The simplest answer is anything that might come up in a business conversation with customers and suppliers in your industry. In most industries, that covers a wide range of topics!

Offering favorite family recipes in your newsletters is nice but what can you offer that’s valuable to the recipient and relevant to the business? If readers like the recipes, go ahead and include them – along with the valuable business information your readers can use; compelling material that keeps your brand relevant to them.

There are many more questions to answer. What topics are interesting to people? Are there experts available to interview? What about using video and audio podcasts versus the written word? What about mailing lists, frequency, social media and web integration?

Perhaps the most important question is, how do I plan, develop and implement a successful content driven (inbound) marketing strategy?

Okay, I’ll give you all the answers right here, right now. The best part for me? I’m letting someone else do the heavy lifting to provide an excellent how-to book on successful content marketing. The book is yours free. Just click for an instant download of It Takes a Content Factory – A Guide to Creating and Delivering the Content Your Company Needs to Attract and Retain Great Customers by Open View Labs.

The post Content Marketing: Time + Quality = Money appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Engaging your audience is easy when you know what motivates them. You can grab their attention, hold it and then persuade them to take action with more ease if you use one or more of The Six E’s of Audience Action.

Way back during the dawn of social media marketing development (like around 2010) I worked for a marketing agency that talked about the “3 E’s of social media engagement.” They were Ego, Entertainment and Education. I knew there was more to it than those 3 things so I’ve been striving to come up with a short yet comprehensive list of motivators that would cover all or most of what moves us humans to take action, and maybe even buy things.

Striving for simplicity, so I can understand my own concepts, I wanted a simple guide or formula that could make business communications resonate with target audiences. I wanted a set of guiding principles which work across a broad spectrum of constituencies and media. Serendipitously, the 6 best keywords I considered happened to start with E. Therein is the simplicity of my new guide to audience engagement.

When you examine each of the motivating factors that move people to action, you’ll see that each one fulfills a strong human desire or need. Beyond basic survival (food, clothing, shelter) these motivators are all part of our instinctual nature. In a manner of speaking, we were born to respond to them, and so they are very effective when used for strategic communications. Let’s take a look at the 6 E’s:

Ego

Empathy

Education

Enrichment

Enthusiasm

Entertainment

These are not in any particular order other than making a word pyramid, but Ego being at the top is actually quite helpful. We all have an ego! To discount it’s power over the individual would be remiss. Everyone loves to be recognized and we love hearing our own name called out in a positive way.

So, let’s look briefly at all 6E’s of Audience Action:

1. Ego – You make it happen. Thank you!
2. Empathy – I totally identify with you and know exactly how you feel.
3. Education – Understanding this material is the key to your success.
4. Enrichment – This will bring you security, comfort, fun and enjoyment.
5. Enthusiasm – You are delighted by my energy and excitement.
6. Entertainment – You will enjoy passing the time this way for hours.

• Egos aren’t stroked by manipulation.
• Empathy can’t be faked. You have it or you don’t.
• Education should edify or it’s meaningless.
• Enrichment can’t be given if you don’t have value to offer.
• Enthusiasm can’t be put on or faked because it’s an internal gift.
• Entertainment is the result of real talent, creativity and skill.

The post Motivate Your Audience with E’s appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

It can be the very best idea you ever had; one that will change everything and lead to fortunes… And it’s gone, probably forever!

This article is not what I had in mind to write about earlier this week. A flash of brilliance hit me while driving and I was so excited to write an article about it. It was perfect for the audience. It was an extremely important and valuable message. I had a list of instructions to include and I couldn’t wait to write the article so people could begin to benefit from it. That’s as much as I remember about it. Now it’s gone. GONE!

I intended to record the idea, got distracted and figured it could wait because there was no way I’d forget an idea that good. Well, I didn’t pull over to write it down nor otherwise safely record the idea. Now, no matter how hard I try to recall, it’s a total blank. This has happened to me before and it won’t happen again!

Writing about forgetfulness is the last thing I had in mind this week. This exercise, however, is good for me and it’s good for you too. The very act of drilling this notion so deeply into my subconscious by writing about it will help assure  that I act on my future good ideas.  This reminder about the importance of keeping a journal or recording device with you always will help you remember to catalog those great ideas that can help your customers and improve your business.

Some of our most creative and useful ideas occur to us when it’s least convenient to stop and record them. These situations include:

• The shower – ideas go right down the drain.
• In bed – ideas vanish like forgotten dreams.
• While driving alone – ideas go out the window and get run over in traffic.
• While jogging, biking or working out – ideas get weaker as your body gets stronger.

Figure out a way to record your good ideas in all of these situations and make it a habit to keep a journal with you always. Recording ALL of your good ideas the very moment they occur is the only way they have a chance at being implemented.

Some people are like elephants when it comes to memory and they can mentally index and classify ideas for recall when needed. Those people are rare exceptions in the population. As for you and me, lets’ make a pact right now to start writing down every good idea so more of them will be implemented for a better world.

And just think, when I start practicing this habit of recording ideas and keeping a journal, you’ll have more interesting articles to read and better tactics to implement for your business. Please stay tuned…

The post The best ideas are sometimes forgotten. appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

While analyzing the reports from our first round of email newsletters, my client instinctively knew where to focus on improving open rates and conversion results. Before I could begin to demonstrate my experience in this area, the client was already talking about the subject line and the newsletter content itself. The other part of our discussion concerned the mailing list – how it was gathered and the company’s relationship with the contacts on the list.

Noted in the previous paragraph are the three things on which you must focus for your email marketing to be successful.

• List
• Content
• Subject Line

We’ll offer a succinct overview of each email marketing success component. The technique I will mostly use here is to ask questions. The answer machine in your head will guide you toward improving your email marketing.

Who is on your list? Who should be on your list? Who should NOT be on your list? Are your contacts signing up or opting in from online and offline marketing and events? Is your sales team gathering prospect contact info with each conversation and at every networking event? Simply mentioning that you have an informative newsletter and would like to send a free copy will add willing new recipients to your list. Include as many prospects or potential referral partners on your list(s) as you and your team can gather in your prospecting work.

Your content must be excellent. Your target audience is mostly indifferent regarding how successful your email will be, so how can you reward them for opening the email and reading it? Promise them something in the subject line and deliver it the content. Ask a compelling question that exposes pain in your customer’s or prospect’s business. Deliver solid recommendations and solutions. Include research, strategy and tactics when possible – provide meat for carnivorous consumption. You may also want to veer off topic with something of general or human interest as your audience grows to know you.

The subject line must arrest and attract. A good subject line will make any inquisitive professional pause and read an email now or mark it for an edificationbreak when they have time. Examine your own behavior when it comes to scanning through your emails. Which sources do you consider authoritative? What in a subject line makes you pause from the delete button and think: “I better have a look at this one…”?

To close this article, thank you!  I’m extremely grateful that you took a few minutes with me today to read this blog post. I hope that you find value, even if just reminders, in the 3 success drivers of email marketing.

The post Email marketing success – 3 things you must do well appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

“When you care enough to send the very best…” Actually, in my opinion, most Hallmark greetings are downright cheesy. I’ve received my ration of cheese over the years during Christmas and New Years. How ’bout you.

Most companies order from a catalog of stock cards, and have their names imprinted with a watered down “holidays” message. It is nice, however, when someone or the whole office signs the card by hand. That one personal touch is enough to touch me with some warmth.

This year, two holiday greetings stood out from the crowded incoming mail. One of my clients sent a Thanksgiving card with an absolutely beautiful art print image, suitable for framing. In it were 11 unique hand signatures of real people.

And then I was blown away by a gift that my media partner sent me. First off, these folks are on the West Coast and we only communicate electronically. Secondly, this newsletter is one of many around the country they place ads in for their clients. By the way, thank you for clicking on the ads! Finally, They go out of their way to manually email me ad snippets and take the time to build a relationship with me in their weekly messages. They know something about me because they take the time to engage me and communicate in ways that are uniquely personal.

This shout out to LaunchBit has a clear business lesson. Hard work and adding real value to a relationship is still the only way to grow in business. It’s hard work to sit down, think about each person among hundreds of individuals with whom you deal and hand write a unique message to them along with a thoughtful (and delicious) gift. In this case, slight flaws in the hand writing and the scribble corrections in the message are just the kicker. Kaitlin’s personalized greetingcard message inside a hand addressed envelope along with a bag of some amazing gourmet cookies got me thinking that nothing is valuable without real effort behind it.

Putting effort – hard work – into your product and service delivery as well as your special communiques with customers & associates means real value and real money. This principle extends to content marketing (inbound marketing) in a huge way.

Adding value to the Internet with original, relevant and valuable content is rewarded by the search engines as well as those who consume that content. There will be more important information about this leading edge SEO/Internet marketing concept in the coming weeks. Thanks for your valuable time!

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The post The Best Cliche in Business: Add Value appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.