Or, put another way, how much would you pay?

This isn’t a test, just something to think about. If your answer is ‘nothing’ and you use Twitter to market your small business website, then read on…

Hopefully you already have lots of followers and they read and retweet your tweets (if you’re not sure about this then it’s time to start measuring these). A percentage of these people should turn into leads by direct messaging you or by visiting your website and triggering your conversion goals (again, if this concept is confusing, by all means ask for help)

How valuable are those Twitter leads? If you lost those leads what would that cost your business?

So now how much would you pay for Twitter? The sensible answer here would have to be ‘less than the value of the leads it brings you’ – but definitely more than nothing.

Again, this isn’t a test, but it is intended to help you think about whether you’re getting real value from Twitter as a marketing channel for your website. If after all these questions you still think it’s worthless then it might be worth re-thinking your tweeting (or your tracking, or your website and products).

PS. I wonder how many people out of the 0% used Twitter actively for business promotion?

More interesting articles:

Squeeze Your Twitter Lists

Are Your Tweets Search-Engine Friendly?

Now I’m not going to go on here about how you started using Twitter and immediately got sick of hearing about what people ate for breakfast. I’m assuming (hoping?) you’ve got over this stage already.

People join Twitter because they’ve seen other people using it. It’s a great story and this is certainly true around vacation rental owners. Once you’ve joined though, how do you actually use it to generate bookings?

Most people try the direct approach first:  ‘my vacation rental is available on 15th December’. Where are the inquiries though? Why doesn’t it work?

The problem is that your customers may not be using Twitter,  so they’ll never get to see your direct Tweets. Even if they are on Twitter, do they use it to look for your vacation rental?

Maybe.

Maybe there’s a small slice of people who search for info about your area. You might be able to pick up some interest that way, but may find that they are just looking for tourist info.

The best approach is to use something a little less direct, much like other forms of marketing. Here’s the plan:

Phase 1: Seek out relevant travel writers and tourist info websites with Twitter accounts – if they are savvy Twitterers they’ve probably published their address on their website or blog, so you can easily follow them. If not try the Twitter search facility (it works).

Phase 2: By following these people they should follow you in return and start paying attention to your work. It’s a pleasant surprise to see how many people follow you back, and it’s not all from auto-follow tools. If you are creating interesting and relevant Tweets then they may pay enough interest to retweet you, reply in public, or even write a blog post or article about you. If you’re feeling really brave, ask them!

Phase 3: This will increase your profile a little bit. If you do this enough you’ll start getting more attention. This is the best kind of attention – when other people start talking about you (and your wonderful vacation place of course)

These are just small steps, and don’t expect success overnight. The key is to start on the right path and take a long term approach.

PS. You can follow me @DrRichard42

Imagine you are standing in the crowd and you want everyone to look at you (all 50,000 of them).

No chance. It’s the same problem as the internet.

How would you get yourself noticed in the football crowd?

One answer is that you could be one of the famous guys on the pitch wearing a #1 jersey. People have already heard of you and they already have their attention focused on the place where you are standing.

Let’s assume though that you are not already a famous person on the internet.

So how would you do it?

Try this: get a small group of friends who are with you at the match.

Get them to stand up and raise their arms with you. Then sit down.

Do this again. Do it a few times.

Pretty soon you’ll find that 10 people sitting around your friends are copying the message too.

Soon after that 50 people are doing it. Then 100, then 200, then 500, 2000, 50000.

You might not have the whole stadium staring at you, but you’ve got them to spread the message that you and your friends started.

How did it work?

You created a message and then amplified this by getting your friends to copy it. You repeated it until other people near your friends noticed it and recognized it as a familiar message (a mexican wave) and started copying it, knowing that other people would do the same.

The key here is that the message is recognized, repeated, familiar and easy to transmit. That’s all it takes.

People notice people noticing stuff (read that again if you want).

OK – how do you apply this to your website promotion?

Same technique. Find a message about your site. It could be a story, or a tagline, or a viral video. Make it simple and easy to understand and base it on familiar things.

Find some friends who will copy your message, and make sure they do this a few times just to get it noticed.

They could talk about your story on some blogs, pass on your tagline in some emails or digg the viral video.

If the message is simple enough and interesting enough to pass on it will build and amplify over time as more people pick it up.

So there’s your website promotion. Easy (!) Clearly the key here is to get the right kind of message. Keep it simple, make it clever and give it a try…

This is my final post. After today there will be no more updates to this blog.

How does this make you feel? A little bit sad, maybe? It probably makes you feel like checking some of my previous posts. You’d better take a look before it stops and you lose the chance to benefit from all the great wisdom…

The truth is this isn’t my last post, but this demonstrates a technique that is often used to raise interest in a product, or a website.

“Available for one week only”

“$10 now but the price will be $30 after 15th May”

…and so on. I’m sure you are familiar. If you use this technique on your website then remember that you need to be authentic. If you’re pulling the product then don’t put it back 2 weeks later. If you do your customers may get angry and they may tell other potential customers that you are a fake.

Also don’t forget that this works for the short term only. “Available for one more year” doesn’t really have the same pull, does it?

The term is used a lot for systems that automate email marketing. It implies a system that just, well, responds to customer inquiries. This has its uses, of course. If a visitor to your site fills out a support request then it’s helpful to send a quick automatic reply saying “we will reply to your request soon”. However if you base your entire email marketing campaign around such a one-way interaction then you are ignoring valuable conversations that you can have with your customers.

Many autoresponders will take your signed up customer and schedule a set of emails to be delivered to them. You can choose when these emails are sent – let’s say once a week for a whole year. The problem here is that you’re sending every customer down the same path through the same set of emails. We all know that every customer is different. What works for Joe might not work for Jim. Also does the system allow you to get feedback from your customers and adjust the scheduled messages?

It’s time to stop thinking about autoresponders and start looking at email systems that allow you to tailor your conversations to the individuals that you have on your contact list.

On the way to the mall to look at an iPod Touch the other night Chris Daughtry’s Over You was playing on STAR 101.3. I like the song and it was good to listen to on a sunny spring evening.

Playing with the iPod in the Apple Store I popped up iTunes and there was the track again. Of course I listened to it and it sounded great.

Driving to the airport today while thinking about this post I noticed a billboard by the freeway with Daughtry’s face on it and STAR 101.3. Then I saw an ad for the iPod.

Can you achieve this amount of consistency in your website and online presence? Before you stop me and say “wait just a second, you’re asking us to control the airwaves now?” – let me explain. You have many different places and channels where your online business gets seen. Are you doing your best to make sure that your message looks the same across all these?

1. Is your blog integrated into your site or bolted on with a completely different look and navigation?
2. Do all your pages have a similar look and feel and consistent navigation?
3. Do your autoresponder emails use the same style as the website?
4. Do they come from the same domain as the website or from a provider with a different address?
5. Do the emails work with the message of your website?
6. Do you provide support and is this as friendly and helpful as the website?
7. If you talk to customers on the phone are you as helpful as your website says you are?
8. Do your online adverts share a consistent message or do they just grab visitors (and disappoint them when they reach your web pages)?

You may not have the marketing reach of iTunes and the airwaves but you have a number of channels that you can control. If you can make your messages consistent then they build on each other and reinforce each other and provide a better overall experience for the customer.

My experience with the iPod was enhanced by seeing and hearing consistent, familiar messages in places that I wasn’t expecting. Because it made the experience better it made it more likely that I would buy the iPod (I did).

The only thing I haven’t done yet is download the song from iTunes

I have an interesting conversation running in my head right now. Two nights ago I stood in the local Apple store playing with a shiny new iPod Touch.

I want one, but it’s $300…

Now I’m not generally one for impulsive purchases and I’m pretty analytical. The sound and video quality is great and the touch screen interface is amazing. But is Google Maps really useful if you can only use it where there’s a wireless connection? Would I really want to download YouTube videos and watch them on the screen?

In the end I walked out of the store empty handed. All the marketing in the store hadn’t convinced me.

Yesterday my colleague came in to the room and started showing off his new iPod Touch. He said how amazing it was and everybody crowded round to take a look and play with it.

Now I really want one, it’s $300…

What’s going on here? I now want the thing even more because a friend has one, other people are impressed by it and I could show it off to my family and friends. That’s not very analytical is it? But it applies to so many things that people buy.

If people feel that buying an item will satisfy a desire and improve their status with friends then they are much more likely to make the purchase. In some ways they are buying it for their friends.

You can apply this to your website too. What does it offer that visitors will desire? What will make them feel good? Maybe valuable tips & ideas, or some secrets, or a way to save money. What does your website offer that they can tell their friends and family about?

This is a hard thing to do and not many people get it right. If you can do it then you will have a better website.

I’m going back to get one tonight, I’ll find the $300…

I’ll let you know what happens

PS. So why did I use iPhone in the title when I’m discussing an iPod?