Purpose Web Design Blog

Large and Broad vs. Small and Targeted Advertising

Aaron Dahl — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 22:31:57 +0000

One of the biggest parts about advertising is lead generation. Well, here is an accurate perspective on advertising.

Big numbers are better for ads that are ignored by most people. Small numbers are better when you adudience wants to hear what you want to say.

If you create a huge advertising campaign, but get few results. It is because no one wants to hear what you’ve got to say.

3 steps for effective advertising:

Ask our customers what they want
Listen to them!
Create advertising campaigns on what they want

If you follow those 3 steps, your sales will skyrocket! Pretty simple, eh?

Do Not Reply………Why?

Aaron Dahl — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 06:37:52 +0000

Everyone gets emails from companies that explicitly say “do not reply to this email.” Why would a company do such a thing? Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? I mean they don’t want to read 1,000 emails of people replying to it. That is bad reason for doing that!!

If a company thinks that a message is important to send to you, don’t you think that if you have a message for them, that it is equally important? Marketing is not a one-sided conversation! Marketing is a 2-way conversation. If you tell me something, then I can tell you something.

So, please, do not send out “no-reply” emails. In essence, you are saying that the customer’s opinion is not important to you. The customer’s opinion is VERY important!

Your company gets better by listening to its customers, not ignoring them.

People DO Judge Books by their Cover, as well as Websites

Aaron Dahl — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:56:21 +0000

The old adage of, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” is good advice, but people never follow it. Think about the last time you walked down the book or magazine isle. Only the flashy book covers actually get picked up. So, how does this relate to websites?

The business is the book, and the website is the cover. Unless someone knows something about you and your business, they are going to decide whether to “read” into your business based on how your website looks. If the website is cheap and looks like it was made in 10 minutes, then the visitor is going to associate that with your business.

There are a lot of phenomenal books out there that have bad-looking covers, and people don’t buy them.

There are a lot of phenomenal businesses out there that have a bad-looking website, and people buy from their competitor that has a better looking website; Even if you are better priced and offer more quality.

So, don’t lose potential customers simply because you didn’t want to spend a couple hundred dollars for a professional looking website!

Your Customers Are Not Ignorant…

Aaron Dahl — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:14:46 +0000

Have you ever taught something to your customer only to have then forget everything they learned 2 hours later? How does this happen? Is it because they are ignorant and have a learning disability?

People aren’t ignorant; They just don’t care about the same stuff that you do, and so they don’t take the time to learn it. They are so busy and have so many things on their mind that they have prioritized everything in their life. There is not enough time in the day to learn everything, so we decide what is important to learn and what isn’t.

Therefore, your customers aren’t ignorant, they just don’t have the same priorities as you. You have made your business a priority and have learned everything about it. So, don’t get frustrated when your customers don’t want to learn what you think they need to. Isn’t that why they hired you anyway?

A Marketing Lesson from Soap

Aaron Dahl — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:35:27 +0000

A man walks into a convenience store and walk to the soap isle. He is standing there staring at all the different kinds of soaps. They have soap bars, liquid soap, body wash, soap for sensitive skin, dry skin, etc.

The clerk asks the man, “Can I help you find a specific type of soap?”

The man answers, “Yeah, my wife gave me a specific kind of soap to look for…”

“What kind?” asks the clerk.

The man answers, “They kind that matches our shower curtains and towels…”

Today, people are purchasing things they want. I wonder how much time the marketing analysts at Dove, Ivory, and other major soap distributors spent on designing soaps that match most bathrooms. The man did not care what kind of soap he got. The only concern he had was to get a bar of soap that matched the bathroom.

What is the moral of the story? Listen to your customers. Discover their reasons for buying your product, not what you think they need.

The ONLY Reason to NOT Have a Website…

Aaron Dahl — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:56:15 +0000

I recently read Seth Godin’s post entitled “Silence is a Virtue” which was about how amateur marketers shoot themselves in the foot. The moral of the story was that it is better to say nothing, rather than say something and make a fool of yourself and your business. It reminds me of the old saying, “Better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you are smart, than to open it and remove all doubt.”

Well, I believe the same is for a company website. There are so many poorly designed websites floating in the internet. Many times, your website is the first impression of your business to potential customers and if it doesn’t look professional, it takes a couple seconds for them to hit the back button and never return. A professional, custom-made, and clean website is mandatory!

What does it matter if you have great search engine rankings, but everyone leaves your site before it even loads?

In it’s simplest form, I’ve decided that a website needs to do a minimum of two things:

Your website must look better than the competitors’
Your website must rank higher than the competitors’ in search engines

Are you making a mockery of your business because your website looks like it was designed by a barrel of color-blind monkeys?

I’m curious. What do you think are minimum requirements that a website must have today?

3 Easy Ways to Lower Bounce Rates

nphaney — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:14:43 +0000

Quoting the Founder & CEO of Purpose Web Design Aaron Dahl, “If you have read any of our website, you have found that we like to establish a purpose for everything.” Now STOP! When you read that statement what do you think, what gears in your mind begin to turn? Or… Does your mind begin to turn at all? Ok, now read the next sentence that Aaron so plainly puts out there for any person considering a website as a mode of increasing profit margins to read. “If something doesn’t have a purpose, then it shouldn’t exist.” I’ll tell you exactly what you’re thinking, right now. You are sitting there looking at your computer screen or walking around with your PDA in hand wondering, what is the purpose of my business and am I exercising that purpose to the fullest potential?

I’m here to tell you that without a properly designed Landing Page on your business web site that you ARE NOT exercising the full potentiality of your business’ purpose. So, now I would like to stress the importance of 3 main ideas that will help make your landing page a SUCCESS in the first 10 seconds of a web surfer opening it. Because Let’s be honest SUCCESS is the ultimate PURPOSE behind any business web page on the net.

1. What is the first thing a web surfer sees when they open your landing page? Is it easy on the eyes, is the picture or logo place behind your main menu easily remembered as that person browses through the rest of your site? These are questions you should ask yourself as you are developing your wire frame for the landing page. Make this picture something easily recognized and not complex because complexity of the first item a potential client sees causes frustration and frustration causes a desire for change. Leading that potential client to your competitor.

2. Establish the PURPOSE of your web site early. DO NOT I repeat DO NOT make your potential client search for the reason they are on your web site. Make them hungry for more by developing a simple yet desirable mission for your web site. Make sure this mission is placed somewhere easily found “above the line”, so the client is excited about the product your are about to offer them.

3. This is possibly one of the most important items in this list. As you develop the wire frame for your web site make sure your graphic designer places your product links in easy to find, obvious, and bold places. The last thing you want is for the potential client to have a hard time or to be over whelmed about what product it is they are looking for because remember complexity breeds frustration and frustration leads to a desire for change and change means your lose business to your competitor.

In close I hope these three items will help you find purpose and direction for not only your business web site as a whole. But more specifically for the first thing every potential client sees when they open your web site, your landing page.

Carpe Diem,

Haney, Nathaniel P

Owner

Purpose Web Design Launches Blog

Aaron Dahl — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:18:07 +0000

If you have read any of our website, you have found that we like to establish a purpose for everything. If something doesn’t have a purpose, then it shouldn’t exist. I say that to preface the purpose of our blog.

The purpose of our blog is to provide relevant and useful information for small business owners who have a website.

The blog will be geared to making your website better. The best part about it is that you don’t have to be a client of ours to use the information. We want to help business owners make more money using their website. Some people aren’t convinced that a website can help their company. Well, we are going to provide research-based resources that you can use to help your company.

We do ask one thing. If you find the information useful, please share the information with your friends by linking to our blog.

Thanks,

Aaron Dahl
Owner