Getting the word out
In the last articles we have gone from thinking about possible products all the way to fixturing your CNC equipment and then packaging and shipping. But how are your potential customers supposed to know that you sell the exact product they’ve been searching for? You’ve got to now get the word out. In this installment we will explore the possible routes you can take in internet advertising, and physical marketing. We urge you to think about the products you buy for your home or your business and recognize the ones you would rather just order online, or the ones that you feel more comfortable driving to a store to pick out in person. Then try to figure out where your product falls in those two categories. Some products aren’t suitable for online stores, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a nice looking website showcasing your work, which will ultimately bring your customers right through the door of your or someone else’s store to buy them.
More and more people are shopping online these days. Some find it easier to search the internet and research products from the comfort of their own home, rather than fighting traffic, and pushing through crowded stores to get the items they want or need. Others enjoy the ability to visit stores and shops just to see what all is out there. This isn’t to say that a single person does all of their shopping online, or all of their shopping in stores. In reality most people do a combination of both, so it is important to be represented in both places!
With that said, let’s start with the web….
Web Hosting and editing:
If you don’t already have a website, don’t worry, here are a few suggestions to get you started. The first step is finding a web hosting company that you feel comfortable with. The best idea is to talk to others you know and find out who they are using. We have talked before about using others’ experience to put you ahead of the game, and it is no different when it comes to choosing a web hosting provider. We have used DreamHost for years and are very happy with them. They offer services that make it easy for us to quickly implement new ideas to our website, and they have an active service team that responds quickly, and is helpful whenever we run into issues. Once you’ve picked a webhost, you need content for your new website. Some of the hosts will have a web based website creator which will allow you to fill in your content, but doesn’t let you have full control over the look and feel of the site, while others will require you to create your site externally and upload it to the server. If you are not very html savvy, you may wish to start with a more simple creation method, but we urge you to learn more about using the internet and utilizing tools such as WYSIWYGs (What You See Is What You Get) which is a computer program that will allow you to create webpages much like Microsoft Word lets you create text documents, and then generates the html code for you. We use a program called Dreamweaver, but there are literally thousands of different WYSIWYGs out there, and they all offer something unique and different. There are also sites on the internet devoted to selling premade templates for websites. They will start you off with a look and feel, and allyou have to do is load the content into your WYSIWYG and enter the information that is related to your business. Don’t feel rushed, take your time and understand how the different parts of your website come together and make it an effective tool for you.
Search Engine Optimization:
After getting your website up and running, you need to make sure your site is Search Engine Optimized (SEO) so people can find you using Search Engines and Crawlers. Google, Bing, MSN and Yahoo are just a few of the more popular Search Engines that people use, but there are many more throughout the internet. Each of these “crawl” your page in slightly different ways, but the general rules for SEO are the same. When you optimize your webpages, all you’re trying to do is make it easier for the programs to find out what your pages are about. You can use tools like “Meta Tags” to target words people search for, and the Search Engine will read those words and display your site when a potential customer searches for that. For example, let’s say we’re wanting to advertise our cutting board website, and we want to specifically target those who are interested in 3D carvings. We could use a Meta Tag that included the words “Cutting Board” and “3D Carving”. With a little searching, you can find days worth of reading about exactly how to SEO your website. This process never ends. Small things, like changing your website regularly can go a long way to bumping you up in the search results.
Paid Internet Advertising:
If you have an advertising budget, you can create accounts with Google AdWords or Microsoft AdCenter for example. These sites will display banner ads that you design for a fee. Part of this is learning how to target keywords that are specific to your products and services. You will also need to learn how to design effective ads. Advertising online is very competitive, and the services you use will rank your keywords, and your ads, and you will be placed in the search pages accordingly. You have the option of spending however much money you like, on a daily or monthly basis and this will determine your possible “impressions” which is how often your ad shows on any given keyword. Depending how much you spend depends on how high up on the search ladder you appear. Be careful, as you can spend quite a lot on advertising in a short time. These advertising services will also give you the option of joining their “Content Network” which is a collection of sites associated with them that have they’re own ad banners. You can recognize these banners if they are in the Google Network because they say “brought
to you by Google” at the bottom. This is a good example of an ad listed in Google’s Content Network, instead of their Search Network which only displays when you search a topic. These ads can be large and graphical, video, or just plain text, its all dependant on how much you want to spend. We can’t stress enough, that if you go wild on internet advertising you could find yourself with a large chunk of your profits flying out of the door, but like
everything in life, if you use it in moderation it can help significantly. Do a little reading, and find success stories and try to figure out the happy medium for your application. You may find that using AdWords or AdCenter will help you initially gain recognition, and after a while your SEO endeavors may make it so you no longer need to spend money with external advertising firms.
Along with the paid ads showing you will get the ability to do quite extensive analysis of the visits to your web site through AdWords and AdCenter. All of this data will allow you to get a profile of the visitors to your site, and enable you to fine tune your keywords and ads to better meet your customers shopping habits. Google offers a service called Analytics, which is separate from AdWords, and it gives you the ability to get information about your visitors such as, state, search engine used, time of day they viewed the page, and much more. All these tools will help you decide where to spend your money in internet advertising. Don’t think you can just set up an AdWords
or AdCenter account and never worry with it again. Just like technology, this is an ever changing environment, and without moderation, you can find yourself at the bottom of the “advertising food chain”. Again, go slow with this
and take the entire process one step at a time as you gain more knowledge and experience.
You can always spend big money and let someone else take control of your site and advertisements and have them just do it for you, but you are a builder, a creator of products, so shouldn’t you build your own knowledge base and web site? That is up to you.
Customer Interaction:
Now that you have the website up and running, remember to put the URL (Universal Resource Locator or “web address”) on your business cards and every thing you print, like invoices, flyers, etc. Let’s say I picked up one of your business cards and looked at it later, I would try to visit your website to remind me of what you make. If you make an item that is not on your web site, I may have forgotten you made the one I liked and continue to look for it
elsewhere. But if you had a picture on your website, I could contact you about getting one. Even if you work mostly on custom products for customers, you should have a gallery on your website showcasing what you have done for other people. This will accomplish 2 things. It will get your potential customers excited about the work you can produce, and it may give them some inspiration on what it is they want you to make. You can also more easily illustrate ideas when you’re on the phone with a customer if you can direct them to a gallery of pictures that is located on your website. If you’re interested in taking on jobs that are not easy to show on a website, be sure to include a small paragraph explaining what kinds of work you’re willing to take on.
Find a way to talk about your products to everyone. Someone will tell someone who will tell someone and somewhere in all of this, you will get connected with a buyer. We have found that “Word of Mouth” is an incredibly powerful tool. Social Networking plays directly into this. We will talk in a later article about Social Networking, because like you’ve seen with online advertising, it too is a huge subject for discussion.
Have you handed out free samples? If not, what are you waiting for? The power of having your products out in the field of buyers is often overlooked. If buyers cannot see your product, how can they get excited about it and purchase it? Don’t think of giving free samples as giving money away, because that is just not the case. Let’s think about it. If you sell a product for $14.95 and you give one away, how many people will that one person show? Maybe 1… maybe 100! That’s the gamble you play, but more often than not, if it looks nice and the person is excited about it, more people will hear about it. Even if it is displayed somewhere in their house, you can be assured that their friends and family will see it and tell others.
In this installment we talked about web advertising vs. “brick and mortar” stores. Have you talked to and shown your product to local stores who might put one or two of your items in their store? Remember these store owners and managers are not the big bad wolf! They need product to sell and are always looking for that something special that will drive their sales figures up. Your product just might be that item that they are looking for. Take samples and walk in and chat with them. Offer to leave the samples. Provide product for them to test their ability to sell by leaving them on consignment. The choice is yours; you can either have your product on the store shelves with customers looking at them or keep them on your shelf where only you see them. Store owners are sometimes leery of starting a new product line with
a supplier they have no experience with, so be patient with them, they’re only looking out for their own business as well. Also, try to be a one stop shop for them. If your product requires a rack to display, generate a possible rack for them as well. Try to be aware of the space requirements they have, and the color scheme in the rest of the store. Not only will this make the store owner more apt to use your products in their store, it will make your products more appealing to the customers themselves!
Next month we will focus on expanding your product line without starting over with part 1, where you started to think about and find a direction for what you were going to build. This step will become the cornerstone to keeping your products fresh and exciting. You will always have new items to keep your existing customers coming back to see what is new from you. We will also explore briefly Social Networking and how it can help you in the worldwide marketplace.
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