On I-85, between Greenville and Atlanta, there are a series of billboards that make me laugh. They don’t make me laugh because they are good, they make me laugh because they are impossible to read and I wonder what in the world the ad agency that did them was thinking.

See, the thing is, you’re going about 80 mph, talking on your cell phone, so you have about 3 seconds to read the billboard. For these billboards in question, there’s no chance you will pick up half of what they’re trying to say.

Isn’t that about the same thing with web sites? We have about 3 seconds, we’re talking on the phone and surfing the web and we come across a web page (billboard). Does it grab us? Do we get it? Do we know what the company does?

Zoom. We fly by and go to the next web site.

Back to the billboards. One company that I think has it right is Cracker Barrel. They’re “Comin’ up” campaign has one main image, their logo and a 5 word (large type) slogan — ending in “Comin’ up.” For instance (sorry, this was the largest image I could get):

Cracker Barrel Billboard

conveys Quality, Fast and Convenient, Wholesome, Good, Filling, etc. All in 4 words and one picture. They nail the brand messaging, and do it with an easy, simple approach. Remember, these are billboards so you have to keep it simple! Simple is what you have to do when you’re creating a billboard.

And it’s not much different for web sites. You have 3 - 10 seconds to grab the attention of the user and make sure they know what you do and why they need it. Big image. Simple messaging. Then send them to the next page–that’s the role of the home page.

Bottom line: Think billboards when you’re designing (or redesigning) your web site. Make the message easy to get, and your users will stick around.

Paid Search, typically known as Pay-per-click, is probably one of the best investments you can make. Paid Search typically shows up on the top or right-hand side of search results. These are “ads” that businesses buy on a per-click basis. An example is below:

Other forms of Paid Search includes contextual advertising, banners, video and almost any form of media you can think of. You can simply pay to show up in search results or on certain web sites.

Here are 6 reasons Paid Search is such a great investment:

1. Target. You can target who sees your ad. It’s like buying a billboard, but only those who are prospects can see your ad as they drive down the street.

2. Efficiency. You only pay when somebody actually clicks. Your ad can be seen a thousand times, but if nobody clicks, you pay nothing. It’s your web sites job to “convert” the prospect once they click through to your web site.

3. Tracking. You can track the results, from Click-thrus (a percentage of actual clicks / impressions) and conversions (a percentage of those who took action / number of clicks). Therefore, if you spent $500 on Paid Search and you received two new clients from the efforts, you know that you spend $250 per client. You can determine quickly if the investment is worth it or not.

4. Budget You’re in control of your budget. You tell Google, (or whoever your Paid Search provider is) how much you want to spend per month. They’ll tell you how much traffic they’ll send you and then you can decide if you want to participate. They pace the traffic over the month (or send the clicks all up front, as fast as they’ll come) and then turn your ad off so you don’t go over budget.

5. Fine-tune. You can run multiple ads for the same campaign and see which one’s are the most effective. You can turn off an under-performing ad at any time. Fine-tuning the effectiveness of your message is entirely up to you.

6. Beyond Search. You can also place your ads on web sites that target users by demographics. Advertise on web sites such as CNN or Martha Stewart.

Convinced this is a great investment? This is how you get started:

1. Setup a Google Adwords Account.

2. Click the Start Now Button.

3. Choose the Starter addition, and input your telephone number.

4. And you should be off…Google will walk you through a myriad of other options to build your campaign, write your ad, select your keywords and more.

For all of the details, see Google’s guide.

And of course for any further assistance, let Merge help you.

This will be one of the best investments you ever make, and I hope you end up making it!

Yesterday I met two people who were “in-transition.” One can joke the people I met are trying to figure out what they want to do when they grow up. They are at a point in their life where they’re asking, “what is it I really want to do with my life?”

Golden Career Strategies is a firm in Greenville, SC that helps people in-transition. And more often than not, the services they provide to their in-transition clients are life changing.

Merge’s primary client is in-transition as well. They’ve been in business for 15 or more years, have almost always sold or marketed the same way, but now they’re looking at the web wondering if there’s a better way. We get alot of requests for “just web sites” but we resist the urge to be a web site factory. Instead, we develop custom strategies for our clients to leverage the web–we align their web objectives with their business objectives. Then we develop the web site that will help them accomplish their goals.

Like Golden Career Strategies, we keep the end in sight. Golden Career doesn’t want to simply provide a job. They want to get their candidates into a fulfilling career. Merge doesn’t want to just give our clients a web site. We want to provide a solution that moves their business forward in a significant way.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

This weekend I rented a movie from Blockbuster, and I couldn’t think how the web has completely changed their game. Truth be told, it was probably Netflix that made the movie giant change their distribution model, but nonetheless, Blockbuster has masterfully used the web to do so.

Think about their old model of:
1) Go to the store
2) Walk around for 15 minutes trying to find a movie you want
3) Rent the movie (if it’s in) and then pray to God you don’t forget to bring it back on time
4) Return in 1-5 days with the movie.

Now its:
1) Browse online in the comforts of your home to find the movie you want
2) Read reviews from other people to decide if you want to use it.
3) Add it to your queue
4) Movie shows up 1-2 days later
5) You return it whenever you want
6) And oh, if you want another movie NOW, simply take your movie to the local Blockbuster and exchange it for an in-store rental.

With one fell swoop, Blockbuster made mom-and-pop rental stores obsolete, made Netflix one-dimensional and dominated the movie rental business once again. But, Blockbuster better not get too comfortable because another web distribution model has arrived (and has been trying to make a breakthrough for sometime): the online, download-it-now-and-watch-it model.

Apple’s iTunes movie rental and other services are coming. Blockbuster even has its own service, Movielink, which it acquired in 2007.

Either way, the web is rapidly changing how businesses do business. Look at your current distribution model. Can the web change how you distribute your products or services?

Bottomline: Leveraging the web can completely change your company, if not your industry. Don’t be changed, change it yourself.

A good salesman knows they need to ask for the business at the end of the meeting (and they aren’t afraid to ask).

For most companies, their web site is a sales tool. Yet many never ask the user to do anything except “contact us.” That’s like going to a restaurant that doesn’t provide you with a menu–you wouldn’t know what to ask for.

A great example are web sites that ask for donations. Web site owners make $1,000’s per year simply because they ask. Think of the tip jars. They earn their keep because they ask. I think of my four year-old daughter. She gets what she wants because she asks, asks, asks and asks.

Ask and you will receive. Don’t ask, and you still may receive, just not much.

Bottom line: If you want your web site to be a sales or lead generating tool, ask the user to engage with you.

Trust. It’s amazing how much our economy depends on this simple virtue.

Ebay is all about trust (I’ll prepay you and trust that you’ll ship it).
USPS mail (I trust that if I put this check in the mail, you’re going to deliver it).
Employer / employee relationship (I trust you’ll do the work and you trust that I will pay you).

When trust is established, transactions move seamlessly. But trust must be earned. What are you doing in your business, relationships or even on your web sites to build trust? Without it, you’ll have a hard time succeeding.

Look at your website. Does it convey that you are trustworthy? If not, what can you do to improve that?

Here are some ideas:
- add testimonials
- add a guarantee
- list your high-profile customers who have entrusted you already

Bottom line: Build trust to build your business.

Today I attended training on “Building Effective Boards” for non-profit boards.

Merge is a for profit company mind you, but I currently serve on a non-profit board. So I wanted to sharpen my board skillz. (Yeah, that’s with a z.)

Here was one take-a-way today: the #1 reason people give is:

They know about the organization (65%–the leading indicator by far). You might have thought the leading reason people give is because they believe in the cause, the non-profit is really efficient with donations, etc., but nope, it’s: “Does the donor know about your non-profit?”

So the strategy of non-profits is to make sure potential donors know them. And when I say “know,” I’m not talking “about” them. That donors know the organization. They know the mission, the purpose, how they run, who the people are, etc. There are many, many ways to do that. Surely part of that approach is their digital strategy, right? Most likely a newsletter + blog + online video + web site, or a combination there of assists them in this mission.

I truly hope they’re leveraging the web to help their donor base “know them” (it’s only a $300 Billion market). If not, I think they’d see donations go up if they executed such a digital strategy.

And by the way–if knowledge is key for non-profits, do you think that applies to the selling process for “for-profits?” How well does your web site allow prospects to get to know your company?

Most business owners write a business plan and then “shelve” it for the next 360 days. Come late December, they pick it up, dust it off and tweak it for the new year.

An effective business plan is one that lives and breathes, and therefore is constantly reviewed. Don’t wait until December or January. Do it in May, or August or October. Plan to review it once a month or once a quarter.

What you put into is what you’ll get out of it holds true for your business plan. Put more into it by reviewing and tweaking it more often throughout the year.

And keep this in mind: Reviewing your plan is not for the business plan itself; it’s to benefit your business.

(By the way, the same goes for your web site…).

One of the most important part of a web site’s digital strategy is the use of an electronic newsletter (Merge often refers to as an eletter).

This isn’t brain science, but it’s a recommendation I’ve seen prospects becoming less receptive to and quite frankly, I’ve noticed that I get less newsletters from my personal network.

Why?

Newsletters are hard to do. They’re time consuming, and you have to think about the content to put a good one out. Some of our most successful clients use a newsletter, and here are 3 advantages that they reap from sending out their newsletter:

(1) Top of mind. A newsletter sent on a regular basis (at least quarterly), at its root, serves simply as a reminder for “hey, we’re still out here.” Simple but powerful–you rise to the top of your customer’s and prospect’s mind for that all important mind share.

(2) Brand Extension. The consistently sent newsletter is a simple way to get another brand-touch out to your audience, helping you solidify your differentiation and value proposition.

3. Drive Traffic, Increase Conversions. Your newsletter will have links (of course) back to your web site. If you have compelling content, the user will click through to your web site, where your web site is then optimized to for conversion.

These are just a few of the advantages. Merge highly recommends you incorporate a newsletter campaign as part of your overall digital strategy, even though it will be an investment (mostly of time). I’ll have future posts with more advantages and the overall process for creating a successful newsletter campaign.

We’ve all heard it and said it. But if there was a test where your life depended on it, could you define the following terms?:

-Mission
-Values
-Vision
-Strategy
-Measurement

Ok, values and measurement are easy. But I sense you’re nervous about vision and mission. Defined:

-Mission (Why we exist)
-Values (What we believe and how we will behave)
-Vision (What we want to be)
-Strategy (What our competitive game plan will be)
-Measurement (How we will monitor and implement the strategy)

What I love about business blocking and tackling is it relates so well to your digital strategy. Why does your web site exist (8 out of 10 execs don’t have a good answer for this). How are your values communicated through your web site? What do you want it to be (the vision)? We often ask, in two years from now, what would you like to say your web site did for your company? What is the overall strategy–how are you going to competitively compete amongst 100’s, if not 1,000’s of other web sites? And lastly, what is your plan for measuring the web site’s results?

Mission and Vision. Strategy and Measurement. How does your web site measure up?

Oh, there’s so much to having more than just a web site. For your web site to matter, it will need to answer these questions.

—–
adapted from HBR’s 2008 article Can You Say What Your Strategy Is?