online | Bigg Success

running_away Most businesses and non-profit organizations have a web site by now. Good thing since more and more people are searching online for services instead of using the phone book.

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Hear George & Mary-Lynn share tips for your website on The Bigg Success Show! Click the purple player to listen while you read: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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There’s a lot of advice about how your website should look. It’s important to pause to realize …

It's the experience that counts the most!

Just like in the bricks-and-mortar world, people value the experience.

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marylynn I've had two bad user experiences recently. The first one has to do with a local not-for-profit organization for which I volunteer. I produce the audio for the radio and television commercials that promote the event. The commercials mention a web address to get more information. However, that address takes you to the organization's national website. I spent ten minutes trying to find the page with information about our local event.

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george If memory serves, Mary-Lynn, you told me that you saw a link, “Find your local event.” But it directed you to sign up or log in to get more information.

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marylynn Right! It’s crazy. I shouldn't have to sign up to simply get information. Regardless, I finally recovered my user name and password. Then I logged in, but I still haven't found the local page. I ran out of time and will have to go back.

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george People who aren’t as invested as you probably wouldn’t put that much effort into finding the local information. Worse yet, they may never go back to the site.

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Tip #1: Create a landing page specific for what you are promoting.

Make it easy for people to find the information they want. For example, our local branch could have a page that ends with the name of our city. They could set up an address like this: nameoforganization.com/champaign.

That's a landing page. It’s the address you want to promote to people in your area for information about your local organization – especially when you’re using local TV, radio, or the newspaper.

Here's another example for a business: If you are promoting a deal, use a web address like one of these:

yourbusinessname.com/deal

yourbusinessname.com/summersale

Create your landing page in advance. It can reiterate the most important points of your advertisement and provide more information. Also provide links to your home page and any other pages that people interested in this promotion might find useful.

Integrating your offline marketing with online marketing makes all your marketing more productive. It’s a time-tested strategy. If visitors to your site get the information they want quickly, they’ll be more likely to take the time to visit other areas of your site.

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marylynn The second bad experience occurred when I read an article online about a local tech series that is free and open to the public. The article was on our local newspaper's website. It gave details on the upcoming session and offered a link to the organization's website to get more information on all of the sessions in the series.

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george So you went to the website to find out more information, and I remember hearing a … how should I describe it … a frustrated sigh coming from you.

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marylynn That’s a good way to say it. I was frustrated because I couldn't find anything about the series. I clicked on several page links, including their events link. Nothing. I used their search tool to search for the name of the event. Still nothing. Finally I went to their calendar and typed in the exact date. The first session in the series came up. It contained the same information that was in the article. Nothing further about the entire series. I was planning to put all of the dates on my calendar. I guess I’ll have to call them.

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Tip #2: Make it easy to find the information you promote.

If you want people to know about your events, make it easy to get that information. Especially if your event is getting press!

Create a page like we suggested above. If you prefer to link people to your home page, create a link and highlight it so people can find it quickly and easily. For example, in the case we mentioned above, you could highlight it this way:

"Tech series starting in August"

Make it very visible on your site. When people click on that link, it will take them to the page you've created with all the information about that event.

Your site is an excellent tool to compliment your other marketing efforts. But if you don't make it easy for people to find what you’re promoting, they won't participate in your sale or event.

Prepare your web site for visitors before you advertise or send out a press release. That will help make your campaign a bigg success!

Do you have any tips from your bad user experiences? Or maybe a good experience combining your web site with traditional media? Share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG (2444) or e-mailing us at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com.

Thanks so much for reading our post today. Please join us next time when we’ll discuss artificial dissemination. Yes, you read that right! Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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(Image in today's post by woodsy)

balancing We were recently invited by Jon Gatrell to be guest posters on his Spatially Relevant blog. We wrote about networking – both online and offline.

What sparked our post is a friend of ours who says she thinks social media is a waste of time. We can see her point – she has a stable job in a city she’ll probably never leave. She’s active in her community so she does do plenty of networking. She also cares for a young family at home.

Hear us discuss today's topic on The Bigg Success Show. Just click the purple play button.: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

She’s not alone in her opinion. There’s no doubt that online networking benefits some more than others. But we think everybody should at least dip their toes into the water.

Online networking makes it easy to find people that you may not have talked with in some time. Like that colleague at your first job who’s now the President of a company.
You can catch up, keep up, and meet up.

We have another friend who said that if he hadn’t talked to someone in twenty years or so, he didn’t need to talk to them now!

marylynn I disagree. A prime example – I’m catching up with some of my old high school classmates. It’s interesting to see what businesses they’re in now. Some of them are in similar businesses to what we’re doing here at Bigg Success. So we can talk and help each other with some of the ins and outs of the business.

george It’s easier for me to keep up with people using social media. I know me – I’m not going to write a letter. I’ve probably lost their phone number years ago. Their e-mail address may have changed and I forgot to note it. Social media is just a great way to stay in touch.

It’s also important to build relationships offline as well. We’ve learned this – Bigg Success is, of course, an online business – but we found that it’s vital to meet people offline as well.

In fact, we met Jon, and his wife Emily, at a conference. We liked them instantly! Since we met them offline, we got to know their full personalities in a way that wouldn’t have been possible online. However, we’ve been able to keep in touch with them because of the online world.

The power comes from merging the two

When we hear about a merger in the corporate world, the word “synergy” usually comes up – the whole is greater than the parts. We think the same thing happens when you merge your networking worlds.

To take this one step further, think about marketing principles. You don’t just use one form of marketing in a campaign; you use a combination to create better results.

And networking is marketing – at least that’s part of the reason we all network. By putting the two together, the results will be better than if you just use one forum. You have two hands … why wouldn’t you use them both?

The bottom line – online or off – it’s all about people and building relationships.

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(Image by bjearwicke)