Marketing Advisor Update

Sales and marketing tips, insights and advice for service businesses amd companies selling complex or technical products.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Being 'Standard' Can Win You More Business

A recent article from MarketingProfs highlights how rectangular product packaging has a 'golden ratio' that makes the size most appealing to consumers. Key point: The higher the fun factor, the less important it is to stick to the golden ratio.

My reading of this is that the more serious the purchase decision, the more buyers will want your service/business to appear to be 'standard'.

In other words, being standard can make the buying decision easier (and safer) for customers.

Think about it - if you are about to have serious surgery you don't want a doctor joking around. You want them to be like the 'standard' doctor - serious and deliberate. However for treatment a minor ailment a bit of unexpected humour may be appreciated.

YOUR ACTION...
* Consider how seriously your customers treat the decision to buy from you.
* The more serious it is, you need to pay attention to creating trust by being familiar to them.

In other words, just like the golden ratio for rectangular product packaging, be aware of what your customers prefer to see in their service provider. And make sure your service looks familiar (and reliable).

Although being standard may sound boring... it could win you more business.

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Sunday, May 11, 2008

How much should you be paying for search ad's?

I am often asked "How much should I be paying to advertise on Google?" A new report on actual Pay Per Click rates (from Efficient Frontier ) shows average costs for various industry categories. Examples: US$0.40 for Retail; US$9.49 for Insurance (yep. thats right. over $9 per click.)

This is interesting, but if you want to be advertising on Google - or the other search engines - you really should be checking that out directly. Or pay a specialist to advise you.

Feel like DIY? Go to Google Adwords now and get started.

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Thursday, May 01, 2008

Some of the secrets of Google revealed

Do you want to know a bit more about how Google 'reads' and indexes your website pages? This article about diagnosing the SEO health of your website by Jill Whalen gives some excellent insights into why your website may not be be listed on Google search results pages.

The article contains a tiny bit of tech-talk, but don't let that put you off. As a business operator you need to know about it.

I wont repeat it here, read the article for yourself. It's worth it.

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