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Tap into What Your Customers Want in a Website

As entrepreneurs and small business owners, we’re proud of our self-made success-and we should be! It takes a lot of determination and grit to get to where we are.

But entrepreneurs and small business owners often think too objectively when it comes to their website.

Here are three ways they miss the mark:

1. They feel they only need to share what it is they do or provide or facts about why they are qualified.
2. They focus on the product or service specs, not on how it can make their customers’ lives better.
3. They get lost in the humble-or not so humble-brags about their accomplishments, state-of-the-art facility, high tech or highly educated team. When that happens, the story of how they connect with customers, or why they’re passionate about what they do gets lost.

This is not at all what your customers want in a website, nor is it how people make decisions to purchase or revisit your business.

I’ve got three great ways to make your eCommerce site about your customers, not about you:

1. Use empathy-based marketing.

Empathy-based marketing has become a much-talked-about topic since COVID-19 hit. It was around before then, but it’s really gained momentum in the past six months.

Basically, empathy-based marketing means thinking like your customers, and putting yourself in their shoes. (It sounds similar to compassion, which is related to sympathy).

Here’s an example: you have a retail store that serves a wide range of age groups, and you notice that elderly people aren’t coming in as often. You think like one of your customers. Maybe you’re tired, or frail or extremely anxious about COVID-19 because you’re immunocompromised.

So, as an empathetic small business owner, you update your site content and create store signage for this segment of your audience. Between 8 and 9am, your store is going to open just for people over the age of 65. Everything will be sanitized, there will be free coffee and staff will be available to help people shop.

Now here’s a real-world example: when hundreds of Delta Airlines passengers had to sit for hours on runways due to extreme weather, the airline ordered hundreds of pizzas.

The passengers were in a much better mood, and I’m sure were way more likely to use Delta again or give positive feedback thanks to the extra-cheesy empathy.

2. Don’t build an eCommerce site for yourself.

Often when small business owners are building their eCommerce site, they concentrate on the design aspects they prefer.

Really liking the colour green or having a collection of already-purchased images from a stock photo site are not good reasons to make them part of your eCommerce site.

It’s all about doing the research before you make a website for your target market. It’s important to do an in-depth analysis of things like:

• Your target audience. Are they middle-aged, high income empty nesters? Or tech-savvy, time-strapped moms? You need to speak their language; show them you care and get to know them.
• Your target market’s values. For example, if a questionnaire you send to your clients shows the majority of them are very concerned about sustainability and the environment, images of happy people drinking out of disposable coffee cups could be a deterrent.
• Your competitors. You don’t want to copy a site design from a competitor in your space-you always want to be unique!

This is why I frown upon purchasing a pre-made theme. It’s been used by hundreds if not thousands of others and your unique brand will not stand out as a result. But doing proper research can give you an idea of the look and feel that your audience might gravitate towards.

For the better mode of communication between a business and a customer, phone call is one of the most prime modes. Therefore, PBX phone systems are one of the integral and vital decisions you need to focus. Today, most organizations are relying on PBX system, as it is one of the most sophisticated and digital way to stay connected with your client. As there is advancement in technology, digital systems are taking the game. Finding a good phone system is an integral decision you need to take.

PBX Phone System is the Right One

PBX is also known as Private Branch Exchange. This is a special type of private phone call network which is used by many businesses. The clients of this PBX share various external lines equipped for settling on outer telephone decisions – these calls are done of people in PSTN. PBX telephone is used by huge endeavors; however, throughout the long term the costs in establishment and running expenses have been decreased fundamentally; which implies any business would now be able to put resources into an office telephone framework.

Highlights of PBX telephone incorporate; welcome messages, call holding, call conferencing, programmed call conveyance, a registry of expansion numbers and chronicling of call records. There are numerous different highlights accessible relying on the sort of framework you put resources into and in the event that you require outsider modules.

Basically, there are 3 types of PBX system – traditional, hosted and VoIP.

Conventional PBX or simple telephone frameworks exist as a physical trade box on your organization’s premises. The general expenses of PBX phone systems may appear to be higher than different frameworks, however because of scaling and costs determined per representative, the cost really diminishes with the quantity of ports required. With a Hosted PBX, including new highlights is as simple as downloading another module for your internet browser.

You can at present have the entirety of similar advantages of a PBX however your trade box is found and adjusted for all intents and purposes by the telecoms supplier. Facilitated PBX telephone frameworks are the best telephone frameworks for private ventures as they don’t need an in-house IT group to oversee or keep up any equipment. The IP PBX will change over the voice into information and move it over the system as bundles. Utilizing information systems for voice can fundamentally diminish the expense of significant distance, and global calls; and impressively decrease the overheads of customary line rentals.

Compare Cost before Buying PBX Phone System

The expense of a PBX phone system relies on the sort of framework, the highlights you require and the quantity of augmentations your business needs. To get an exact thought of cost for your independent company, you should look for a cost comparison service provider. With the help of cost comparison, you will get a free quote on the benefits of the product and also the current cost. Hence, if you are planning to buy PBX phone system for your office, then avail service of cost comparison service online and know details in a hassle free manner.

How Will Changes to Facebook’s Terms of Service Affect Your Business?

To say that 2020 has been a year of changes would be an understatement! While we never know what the future will bring, one thing I can say for certain is that social media will continue to change and evolve.

And it seems like not a week goes by that there isn’t a social media update! It’s enough to frustrate even the seasoned marketer.

One of the new Facebook guidelines in 2020 was FB5, otherwise known as the “New Facebook.”

I’m sure you’ve noticed this change, which has altered the look and feel of the platform on desktop and mobile. Facebook claims this new design will make the user experience simpler and faster and put a focus on communities.

From what I’m reading in my feed, so far that hasn’t been the case! But like any changes, we often need time to get used to the new layout of the land before we can embrace the benefits of the change.

What has been your experience so far with the new layout? Love it or hate it? Let me know below!

TOC Update Effective October 1, 2020

And another important change is coming up: Facebook has just announced an update to their Terms of Service, effective October 1st. Many users this week saw the following pop-up message:

“Effective October 1, 2020, section 3.2 of our Terms of Service will be updated to include: ‘We also can remove or restrict access to your content, services or information if we determine that doing so is reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate adverse legal or regulatory impacts to Facebook.’”

You may be reading this and thinking… so what? They update their Terms of Service all the time.

But these new Facebook content standards are getting attention for a few reasons, one being that the social media giant usually doesn’t tell us about updates-there are just way too many, and most are pretty minor.

Here are a couple of theories I’ve seen as to why this message is being shared:

• They plan to remove or censor content in advance of the U.S. election. They’ve been accused in the past of censoring certain political messages.
• The social media platform recently threatened to block Australian publishers and individuals from sharing news stories, after lawmakers proposed a rule that could require the social media platform to compensate media organizations for use of their stories. That could cost them a lot of money, so they want to be ready.
• This new rule is an editorial policy to reflect their attempt to become a ‘real’ media company, not just a social media platform. Before news becomes a core focus of the site, they’re putting editorial guidelines into place.

Whatever the reasoning, these changes to the Terms of Service are facing a lot of scrutiny from users all around the world.

It will be very interesting to see what the new Facebook content standards mean for businesses of all sizes around the world.

What Does the Update Mean for Small Business Owners?

Of course, we won’t know for sure what impact these new Facebook guidelines in 2020 will have yet. But I have a couple of suggestions to ensure you’re prepared for whatever the new Facebook content standards bring:

1. As small business owners, we rely a lot on social media for our leads, whether that’s selling on a social media marketplace or through a business page.

But there’s a danger in putting too much emphasis on social media for leads and neglecting other marketing tactics like paid advertising and email newsletters.

And of course, it’s crucial you keep your website optimized-both for the customer experience (e.g., site speed, appealing images) and for the search engines (e.g., targeting the right keywords in your copy, making sure all of your pages have relevant title tags).

2. And speaking of website, I see many entrepreneurs rely solely on Facebook to generate sales for their business. This is a precarious way to run a business! No matter where you generate the most leads from, it’s imperative to have a website that serves as the foundational base for your business.

By relying on social media for your entire business operation puts you in an extreme risk of having it all be shut down due to inadvertently doing something against the terms of that platform.

If Facebook decided you were in violation, boom! Your profile, page and/or group could be shut down in an instant.

3. How will the new service terms affect advertising? This is a huge question. But if you put budget and effort into paid social media ads for your small business, make sure you have adequate exposure on other platforms such as Google Ads.

That way, you’re all set in case your social media-driven paid traffic suddenly declines or drops off completely.

4. Pay close attention to what you’re posting. This is a good rule of thumb anyways. Double-check your social media posts to ensure you’re not sharing anything that could be deemed inappropriate or offensive.

I recommend avoiding political posts (or posts on any other topic you wouldn’t discuss at a dinner party). That way, you’ll always avoid being censored or penalized by sharing something that could be classified as offensive under these new Facebook content standards.

I’m not saying this change is going to drastically impact your small business. These changes to their terms of service may simply mean a decrease in fake news and offensive content.