Be real and be personal

I live in Tucson, and it is not unlike most American cities in that its economy is fueled mostly by local mom-and-pop shops and services. Yes, there are usually large businesses like Raytheon, U of A, or Davis Monthan A.F. base, newer biotech and semiconductor businesses, but local small business is the backbone that fuels it all.

Whether your business location is working at home or from a brick-and-mortar store, you need a web presence. We are currently in the third decade of 21st century and now more than ever your business is expected to be online. Your competitors are there, so your customers expect you to be too.

The big online companies like Amazon seem to dominate the marketplace, but as a small business, I believe you have an advantage! While often you’re beaten by price, being a small business means being personal and relationships matter more.

Connecting on the web is not as direct as meeting someone in person, but that doesn’t mean it has to be impersonal. Use the internets ability to reach more people and couple that with an enhanced personalized web presence and you will stand out and make your customers happy! How is this done?

Know your customer or client deeply

Spend time getting to know your customers or clients. You may have heard of customer personas or avatars. Think of this just like the movie Avatar. The humans inhabited the bodies of alien beings to understand them. To become aware of their history, culture, and their wants and needs.

Your goal is the same, to get into the body and mind of the ideal person or customer you’re trying to reach. If you can feel what they feel or think what they think you can deliver more precisely what they need or desire. Not just what you assume they may need. Do this, and you are already well ahead of your competition.

From collected data to web presence

Turn all your collected data into a website that caters to the client. Now take that information and use it to construct a web presence that reflects your Avatar or personas personality and connect it to your business. It’s like a second Avatar one that mixes both your businesses qualities with theirs.

You should talk to their pain points and offer them relief, which should be your product or service. Sometimes that means delivering a new service or goods based on the new persona.

So collectively your Website, Social Media, Email Campaigns, and Online Ad Marketing should all reflect the feelings, wants, and needs of your new persona.

The hub of all activity is your website

Your website is your most important asset! It is the center of your web presence it is your business, and it is you! It should always be where every engagement starts and ends. If you put it in human terms, you are the website, and Social Media are the parties or events you attend. Email and ad marketing are your primary and side jobs.

Your site’s personality should be a mix of your business and your Avatar. Just like your home it should be clean and inviting to your customers. It should not be cluttered with unnecessary information.

Your customers should understand why they are there and be able to find what they need and want quickly and easily. Your page or pages should be persuasive and tell the story of your client’s journey from want and need to you and your product and service.

A well-designed system requires less time and maintenance

All the parts fit, have a purpose, and run like a well-designed machine. Your hub or website should never be hit it and quit it. Just because you have a well-optimized site doesn’t mean you’re finished.

It’s like your web presence should be evolving and changing. We are no longer in the late ’90s where just having a telephone and address was enough. Treat your website and web presence as a living thing.

If you were a farmer you wouldn’t expect your cow to keep giving you nutritious milk if you don’t feed it, provide it with water, and exercise it? Also, remember the milk doesn’t just appear in a bottle, you have to get up early and milk the cow.

Although This may sound like a bunch of work, the good news is if you set it up right from the beginning and do a little testing and tweaking you will have to do less, and less work as time goes on.

When I studied Permaculture one of the ideas was that if you put your money, time, and energy in the beginning planning stages, and design a well-thought-out and executed plan or system, you build something that produces increasingly more as time goes on with less and less input over time.

A forrest garden where food keeps producing on its own vs. plowing, sowing and maintaining a field every season. After all your time is your most limited and valuable resource.

In summary

So to sum up; to generate more quality leads and customers to an online business presence you need to have a strategy, and if you don’t, you should start now. Plan and design a system with the customer or client in mind. Center that around your hub or website, make it consistent across your whole web presence and maintain and check it regularly.

My name is Rich and I’m the Owner of Big Sun Design. I bring a passionate desire to help small business owners, like coaches and consultants figure out how they can get the most out of their web presence and be successful online. If you would like any help with the things mentioned above or any website-related info, contact me.