Watching the Florida Gulf Coast University basketball team in the NCAA tournament you have to be impressed with their poise. The first 15 seed ever to make it to the Sweet 16, they have amazed the sports world.
If you had never watched a college basketball game in your life you would’ve thought that they were one of the premier programs in the country, equal in every way to Kentucky, North Carolina and other powerhouses. You would never guess that they were only in their second year in division one, and have only been around since the 90s. Why? Because they present themselves as a top notch, well coached program. They present a professional appearance, confident and strong. And of course they are talented, though larger schools passed on their players.
When you look at some large companies, some do have nice websites. But many are remarkably ordinary. I can point to several websites that the small company actually has a better site than the bigger competitor.
The funny thing is that you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg to get a good web presence. I repeat, you do not need to spend an arm and a leg. There are several ways to approach building websites. Of course there are many companies in our business that ask you what your budget is the moment they meet you. And if you say $10,000, they magically have a $10,000 website package for you.(which would have been the same site they would have built had you said $5,000) I don’t take that approach. I typically find different alternatives for clients at various price points. The client is then free to choose which alternative works for their budget.
As Florida Gulf Coast University enters the Sweet 16, remember, your small business can play with the big boys as well. If you have the qualifications, we can build you a site that will even the playing field. And who knows, you may even make it to the Final 4…..
When we make changes to client websites, one thing we like to have is metrics. We want to be able to quantify the benefits reaped from our efforts. One of the easiest things to add to your website and the simplest to measure is online coupons. Quite simply, who doesn’t like and use coupons? If you are going to your local pizzeria and they have a coupon, won’t you go to their website and use it? So 2 things happened, you get a visitor to your website that printed a coupon, and you know this was a successful conversion as the coupon is redeemed at your store. (or on an eCommerce site, they entered a coupon code)
Say you are working on an effort to bolster your “likes” on Facebook, coupons are a great way to add fans. You can have an app that makes tabbed content only available to people who have liked your page. People know that once they like your page they will get your news feed every time you post. As such, they are being far more selective than in the past. By giving them something for their loyalty, you are enticing them. As an example I added a coupon to a retail clothing store’s facebook page and within a week, they added 500 new likes. We also gave people the option to receive a coupon via email by signing up for our mailing list both on the website and through facebook. We added over 1100 people to our list!
Coupons are a great way to attract customers and offer an easy way to track how well your promotion did. You don’t need anything fancy, just a simple coupon for people to print out with an expiration date. Of course, you can add barcodes, etc if your business is set up to handle them. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me, I am happy to help.
