local business marketing

Recently, a new professional services client told me that “no one looks for financial advisors online.” The following email was my reply to his comment.

Just a quick note in reference to Earle’s assertion that “no one looks for a financial advisor online.”

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project:

• 81% look for information about a product or service before buying it.
• 73% get travel info online.
• 51% take a virtual tour of a location online.

And according to BIGResearch:

The 80/20 rule pops up all the time. And for good reason. It works. If you really take the time to analyze your customer or client base, you will find that 20% of your customers or clients are generating 80% of your revenues.

And the other 80% are costing you way more than they are worth in time, trouble and expenses.

So what’s the solution?

You need to really dig into that 20% and find out why they keep coming back to you. Because they are the answer to growing your business with only low cost, high return, premium clients or customers.

Yesterday, I was a guest on WCCO Radio and I was stressing that almost any business could be adapted to the Internet. The example I gave was a residential window washing business.

You might wonder how a window washing business could be adapted to the web. Here’s how he did it.

The guy had a residential window washing business. He contacted a web designer and had a web site designed where people could sign up for window washing service in his city. Next they designed a calendar with week days between Monday and Friday and times  between 9am and 5pm where people could sign up for window washing service.

As you may know, I’m a big fan of Jay Abraham. So when I’m looking for a new marketing idea, I often turn to his “Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You’ve Got” book.

Today, I was reading up on referrals. If you really are focused on customer or client satisfaction, this is a great way to leverage that relationship.

If you’re that kind of business person, sometimes it’s difficult to see the Return On Investment (ROI) from all that great service. Other than the customer or client coming back to you for more business. A formal referral system leverages or multiplies the essence of all that extra work you put into every customer of client.

A couple years ago, a friend and I were reminiscing over a few beers about all the rock bands we saw in our misspent youth. My friend grew up in Los Angeles and there was a bar nearby that Eric Clapton and Cream would show up at every year. And my friend would make a pilgrimage to the bar to catch his favorite band.

The only problem was, every year, he would watch all the bands leading up to Cream, and when the last band was cleared off and Cream was set up, three total strangers would come out on stage and start playing. One year, Clapton had on bright colored paisley and curly hair, then next year he had straight hair and sunglasses on.

A friend and business associate just sent me a link to a press release by WebVisible and Nielsen/NetRatings Report about their investigation into how Internet users interact with advertising. In the press release, they claim that their results show that “search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask have become consumer’s most widely used source to find a local business from which to buy“.

If you have a small business or derive a lot of your business from local customers or clients, you really need to read this report. As far as I’m concerned, the most important thing for you to note is that “Search engines are used by 73% of consumers when seeking local products and services — more than any other media type.”