I'm Angela, Director of Stop the Train. As a marketer, I’m a tough audience to sell to and can smell a generic letter from at least 10 paces away. It receives the amount of time it deserves from me; none! Likewise, it’s really obvious when the sender has made an effort and it’s not wasted on me. Your audience are likely to receive a significant volume of marketing approaches every day so you need to make more of an effort than everyone else.

This week I received one of the best direct mail letters I’ve seen for a while. I knew we hadn’t written it and I could tell that it had been written by the actual sender, rather than an agency. It wasn’t perfect by my standards, but it had some very good points worth sharing.

It was addressed to me and mentioned our company name in several places throughout the letter.

They’d written about the sizzle, and not the sausage, or in sales terms; the benefits and NOT the features. Nobody buys features; they buy BENEFITS! 

The sender had also referenced some very specific examples of sectors they were experienced in.

Why was this so relevant to us? They’re sectors we work in too. The only way they’d have known to mention jewellery software and industrial contractors, was by looking at the portfolio of work here on our website.

This effort, in conjunction with all the right messages of how they could help us, and outlining the benefits of using them, put them in a different league to the usual suspects that market to us!

If you’re planning to write your own letter, here are some of my top tips for writing one that works.

5 key questions your sales letter should answer
Why are you writing to them?
What’s the offer? (Be specific with your offer, and tailor it to your audience.)
Will it work for them? (Can you prove it?)
What’s in it for them? (Sell the sizzle!)
Is there any benefit to them to respond early? (Perhaps an early-bird incentive?)

5 great ideas to start your sales letter
Would you like…?
Wouldn’t it be…?
How many times…?
Save…
Free…

5 important points you need to remember
Keep your sentences, and your paragraphs, short.
Write like you’re talking to them.
Use the word ‘you’ much more than you use ‘our’, ‘I’, or ‘we’.
Check your spelling. Then check it again.
Always use a P.S.

5 must-haves for your sales letter
It must GRAB their attention.
It must explain the relevance of your offer to them.
It must convince them of the benefits.
It must close the sale.
It must have a ‘call to action’ – tell them how they place their order.

Now that you’re armed with these tips, you can start writing your most powerful sales letter yet. Good luck and don’t forget to send the sizzle and not the sausage!  Oh, and if you're struggling to write it and would rather we did it for you, enquire here.

Do you have a Company Facebook fan page? Are you ready for the new changes coming into effect on 30th March?

Like it or not, on that date, your Company Facebook page will be switching across to the new timeline. This does mean you have the chance to add a timeline cover photo/graphic. There are restrictions in place as to what can be on that new photo/graphic.

1. It can’t contain any price or purchase information, so you can’t include  ‘Only £1,500’ or ‘10% discount’ offers.
2. It can’t include your web address, email address, location or anything that should really be in your ‘About’ section.
3. It can’t mention any Facebook features, such as Like and Share.
4. It can’t have any calls to action that us marketers love. No ‘Visit us…’ or ‘Grab your free copy…’

So what CAN you include? Facebook encourage you to use a unique image, such as a picture of people using your product, or to be a little more creative. That’s where we come in!

We can create you something unique like ours… (see it in action here)

Or like this one...

Or this...

We can create some bespoke graphics for your Facebook page, starting from only £25 excluding VAT.  Order yours today.

(Don't worry if it's after 30th March 2012, we can create your new cover at any point!)

4 smaller social sites to check out 

You’re probably already dabbling in some of the more prominent sites such as Twitter and Facebook, but here are some ‘smaller’ ones to investigate.

http://www.nimble.com/
Nimble is a social media CRM (customer relationship management) package that keeps all your conversations, contacts and networks in one place.  A handy way of keeping track!

http://getglue.com/
A social network all about entertainment. You can see, and share, what you and your friends are watching, reading and listening to.

http://www.peerindex.com/
PeerIndex measures your social influence, based on your activity and following on social media sites. We’re not excited by peer scores but if you want a snapshot of all your activity and want to measure how influential you are; this will suit you down to the ground!

http://pinterest.com/
A virtual pinboard to ‘pin’ all your favourite pictures, videos etc. It’s generating a lot of traffic. In fact, more than YouTube and Google+ combined!

Happy Valentine's Day?

It's so easy to see instant information about what's actually happening right now. Let's show you an example of how times have changed and the information we now have at our fingertips...

Social Media keeps us up to date with what our friends and fans are up to. The news keeps us posted on current affairs. You can also use Google Trends to look at exactly what people are searching for on Google right now. It's based on trends in the USA but gave us quite a funny snapshot of how Valentine's Day might be shaping up over there this year.

Here are the top 20 searches today;

Steaming in at 6th place were 'free ecards', suggesting that perhaps a trip to the card shop before today was a step too far. Then in 13th place, those guys who leave everything until the last minute were furiously searching for a florist to save the day!

Joking aside, there are some useful applications for this tool. If you fancy checking out Google Trends, it's http://www.google.co.uk/trends/hottrends Enjoy!

Don’t gamble with your marketing budget; make sure you’re spending it on activities that generate results. Here are 5 tips on monitoring how effective each of your campaigns are.

1. Add a statistics package to your website

This type of package enables you to monitor the results and more importantly, adapt the site according to its areas of weakness. Amongst other things, it’ll tell you how many visitors you’ve had to your website, how long they spent there, which pages they looked at and how they arrived at your site. We can add Google Analytics to your website for only £165 excluding VAT, which includes setting up your Google account, adding the code to your website, setting up regular reports, and showing you how to interpret the results.

 
2. Add unique ‘hidden’ web pages to your website

‘Hidden’ pages? These are pages that are essentially ‘hidden’ from public view unless they have been given the specific page address to find it. This will enable you to have unique web page addresses on a specific campaign and see (because you’ve recently added a statistics package to your site) exactly how many people have visited that page. E.g. an advert that quotes ‘visit www.stopthetrain.co.uk/feboffer’ (fake link!) means that we’ll know exactly how much traffic we’ve generated by running that advert. 

3. Use different telephone numbers/email addresses/codes on your promotions

Having unique information on your campaigns will allow you to determine exactly which of your advertising media produced the best results. E.g. running the same advert in 2 different publications, each having unique contact information, will enable you to determine which publication deserves more investment!

4. Use email marketing software to send out your campaigns

There are lots of email programs to help you monitor the success of your email campaigns. We primarily use an online one called ConstantContact. If you’d like a free trial, drop us a line. Using this software, we know who’s received the email, who’s opened it and who’s clicked on which links. If you’re not confident running your own campaigns, we can run them for you.

5. ALWAYS ask how new clients found you

If you'd like more specific advice on how to monitor the results of your marketing, please call us on 01923 262189.

Hi. I'm Angela, Director of Stop the Train, and a keen networker. It's rare for me to hop on my soapbox but just this once, for a special 'how not to' on LinkedIn. 

I've been on the networking circuit both online and in the real world for just over 11 years. Over that time, I've experienced a wide variety of approaches, styles, comedy moments, and cringeworthy moments. Speaking of networking, that reminds me of a great e-book you must grab a copy of - Working from home by Russ King.

So, back to LinkedIn. I'm not a huge fan but it does have its place in our marketing strategy. Like other networking sites and events, there's an etiquette to consider. Even though most of us network to gain business, and we have an agenda (come on, you know we do!), we should do things in the right way.

How well do you think I'd get on walking into a networking event, (where everyone is there to sell), and thrusting my business cards in people's faces with a 'use Stop the Train for your marketing' pitch? I'm suspecting, and I admit to guessing here as I've NEVER done it, that I wouldn't do very well.

The same rule applies to LinkedIn for me. I don't recall ticking a box inviting people to pitch to me within seconds of connecting, and I really don't appreciate it. (If such a box exists, and I've ticked it, than I'll quietly clamber down from my soapbox and adjust my settings accordingly.)

If you're genuinely interested in pitching for my business through LinkedIn or any other networking, make the effort. Find a common interest. Sound interested in my business rather than telling me all about yours. Take the time to look around our website. Ask me a question. Ask me about BNI for example. Find out what sort of introductions I'd like, or who would be an ideal client. Make me laugh. Send me a Wispa Gold. But, for the love of God, make me feel special and not just a notch on your LinkedIn belt.

If you'd like some pointers, this LinkedIn blog is a good place to start.

Happy networking!

The Marketing Planner template is an Excel spreadsheet where you can add all the marketing activities you’ll do next year, and the costs for each one. Once completed, it will show you what you’re doing when, how much each activity will cost you, and a complete budget breakdown. All formatted ready to use!

It's ideal for new or existing businesses, and even includes some ideas on the activities you might like to do. It's a really effective way of planning out your activities and keeping an eye on your marketing budget, whatever size it is!

This 2012 Marketing Planner template is available for only £35 excluding VAT.

Order yours now!

Are you getting the right enquiries?

Part 1.

Perhaps those potential clients are based in the wrong geographical area? Or have too small a budget for your products/services? Sound familiar? If it does, and you're the person responsible for your marketing; it's all your fault! The good news is that it's fixable and quick to remedy.

Before I explain what needs changing, it's only fair to explain why a photo of my pumpkin features in this blog. Whilst I'm not adverse to a good party, and a giggle, I'm against Halloween revellers terrorising people in their homes (or anywhere else for that matter!). This year, I created a pumpkin (yes, the one with the spear through its head and fake blood dripping down its face) and left it on our doorstep. Aside from amusing me greatly, it sent out a clear message! Not one reveller rang our doorbell. It meant my emergency chocolate stash remained intact too!

Back to the point. Start by making a list of the recurring problems you have with your current enquirers. Are they too driven by price? Have they left it too late for you to fulfil their order in time? Perhaps they're based in an area your business can't cover?

Next, look at how those potential clients will have found out about your business. Did they visit your website? Receive a mailer? Pick up a leaflet? Take each one of these in turn, and read the words very carefully. If you're selling your product or service based on price, that's the type of clients you'll attract. If you've neglected to talk about your turnaround times (if appropriate to your business), then you're likely to have enquiries for deadlines you cannot fulfil. If you've not been clear about the geographical area that you cover, you'll attract enquiries from far-flung places! Do you see the pattern? It won't be the same for every business, but it might help you to look at your wording in a different way.

Now that you've addressed how to remove the wrong type of enquiries, (and not by putting my pumpkin on your virtual doorstep), in part 2, I'll tell you how to attract the right type of enquiries. Part 2 will be posted in the next few days.

If you're struggling with writing your content, you know who to call! The number here is 01923 262189.

Angela
Director of Stop the Train

P.S. Wait til you see how I plan to avoid the carol singers! ;-)

Our last public workshop for 2011 was a
huge hit! If you're interested in coming along to our next 'Calling with Confidence' workshop, or would you like to find out more about improving your telemarketing skills, let us know.

Have a read of what some of our delegates thought about our November 2011 workshop...

“Very informative and a great learning tool.”

“Fun, engaging and thoughtful."

“Very informative and a great help to our business."

“Great! Variety of ‘teaching’ delivery methods which kept my interest. Well done!"

“Very well thought through – totally comprehensive in fact! You made us think about our own particular challenges and lots of solutions!"

“Well structured and contained new items for consideration."

“Very informative and you gave me lots of different ideas on how to handle objections that I will implement when making these difficult calls, thanks. You covered a lot of different aspects that I encounter every day and I feel I can now overcome these objections in a much better way, gaining better results."

“Interesting and informative. Some practical suggestions on how to make and prepare for calls."

“Very useful. Informal and fun, as well as thought provoking. Lots of ideas to action."

“Very good and full of new ideas, thanks."

“Great and helpful. What I liked best about it was… Learning about objections and how to deal with them."

“Interesting and good fun. Good content, sandwiches are great and I will get Stop the Train to do my cold calling."

“Really valuable. We have to cold call at some time. This showed how to deal with the conversation to keep both sides happy and to achieve our goals."

“Very good. Clear information."

“Very informative and dealt with the topic in a comprehensive way. The interactive sessions helped to put the other points into perspective."

“Very insightful. What I liked best about it was… that I should be more confident when talking on the phone about personal subjects."

“Very useful. Although I already knew many of the techniques, there were some new things that I will be trying out over the coming weeks."

 “Easy to understand and make sense throughout."

'Calling with confidence' is a training workshop we run for individuals/businesses like you/yours to help them with their telemarketing.  

It's aimed at helping you to:

• Get started with your telemarketing
• Plan your calls more effectively
• Get around the gatekeeper
• Stay legal when calling
• Use better questioning techniques
• Handle objections
• Call with more confidence!

Date:   Thursday 10th November 2011

Location: Watford, Herts (venue details provided upon booking)

Time:  7pm to 8.30pm (networking & food from 6pm)

Cost:  £24 in advance

There are a limited number of places on this workshop and places are filling fast. To book your place, please call us on 01923 262189 or send us an email.

Comments from attendees...

“I found everything extremely useful, especially dealing with gatekeepers.”

Anon 

“Practical, easy to follow tips and guidelines, which I know are going to be very useful and beneficial to me.”

Claire Finney

“What I liked was that the worksheet is succinct and relevant to what is being said – surprisingly few courses have a worksheet that relates to what is being said!”

Nathalie Lewis

As you may know, Stop the Train are big supporters of The Peace Hospice. Don't worry, we're not after donations, just a minute of your time! 

They've applied for a £6,000 community award. There are only 6 days left to vote for them and with only 37 votes so far, they really need some help.  

Quick ways you can help...

1) Vote for the Peace Hospice by visiting the award website. You will need to register before you can vote, and once registered, search for The Peace Hospice project to vote for them. we promise that it'll take you less than a minute to do.

2) Post the voting page link on your Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn pages and ask your friends/fans/followers/contacts to vote as well. You could just share the links we've put up already - http://www.facebook.com/stopthetrain & http://twitter.com/#!/HertsMarketing

3) Forward a link to this blog or the award website on an email to people you know who could help to support The Peace Hospice. 

Thank you to any of you who can help.

The next installment in our 'Top 10 reasons why websites fail'.

Reason 8: The Payments

Yes, you did read that correctly; the payments. One of the best things about a website is that it’s working 24 hours per day, 7 days a week and even on Bank Holidays! This means that your business can potentially be selling your products and services even when you’re closed.

If the website content has done its job so well that the visitors are looking for a ‘BUY NOW’ button, it would be foolish for them to discover that they’ve got to wait until business hours to place that order.

Do you need more convincing that it’s a requirement for your visitors? Then take a look at your web sta tistics report and see if your potential customers are visiting outside of office hours. It's also worth looking at your popular 'exit pages' (the last page that visitors looked at before they left your website) on that report and trying the 'BUY NOW'  button to see if it makes a difference.

 Not all businesses can offer a ‘buy now’ option as their product or service is bespoke but the ones that can offer it; should. Otherwise it’s the equivalent of sending a sales rep in without an order pad!

Read the first 7 reasons in this series;

1. The Content

2. The Navigation

3. The Design

4. The Build

5. The Search Engines

6. The Marketing

7. The Pricing

‘I don’t get enough enquiries from my website’ is something we hear a lot from prospective clients. The first thing we always want to know is how the site is generally performing, so we can establish why the enquiries are too low and recommend a course of action to fix it.

Our questions would include;

How many enquiries did you have this month from your website? How many visitors have been to your website this month?
On average, how long did they spend there?            
On average, how many pages did they look at?                                  

If you don’t know the answers to the above questions, you probably don’t have a statistics package on your website or you don’t have access to it. This is easily fixed and something we can help you with. Call us on 01923 262189 or drop us an email, and ask about Google Analytics.

Web statistics information enables you/us to monitor the results and more importantly, adapt the site according to its areas of weakness. (This isn’t all the information available from the web statistics package, but it will give you an idea of how useful it really is!)

If we don’t look at the overall picture of a site’s performance, then there’s a strong chance that the wrong plan of action would be undertaken. This would be costly and not necessarily fix the enquiry level problem!

Let’s run a couple of different scenarios, both with the same number of enquiries. You’ll see from the examples below that there are 2 different plans of action, based on having more detailed information on the site’s performance.

Scenario 1.

Results

• How many enquiries did you have this month from your website?   
  Answer: 4 enquiries

• How many visitors have been to your website this month?          Answer: 4 visitors

• On average, how long did they spend there?                              Answer: 2 minutes        

• On average, how many pages did they look at?                            Answer: 6 pages

Our comments
4 enquiries from 4 visitors? Wow! This site is doing a great sales job of converting visitors to enquiries. It’s not, however, attracting enough visitors. Visitors are spending a reasonable amount of time on the site and looking at several pages, which is great. It means that the site navigation and the words are doing their jobs too.

Plan of action
Drive more traffic to the site! Let’s talk about Google Adwords, SEO, link building etc.

Scenario 2.

Results

• How many enquiries did you have this month from your website?         
  Answer: 4 enquiries

• How many visitors have been to your website this month?          Answer: 2,500 visitors

• On average, how long did they spend there?                               Answer: 20 seconds       

• On average, how many pages did they look at?                           Answer: 1 page

Our comments
4 enquiries from 2,500 visitors? A great number of visitors but this site is not doing a great sales job of converting them. Visitors are leaving quickly and only looking at one page. This would suggest that the site navigation and the words are failing to do their jobs, or that the wrong type of visitors are dropping by.

Plan of action
Rewrite the words on the most popular landing page (typically the home page) and review in 2 weeks to see how the results have improved.  

How we can help!

We run a bespoke training session on how to interpret your web statistics, which for the month of September (2011) is available at a discounted rate of only £55 exc VAT. This 1 hour session will be based on your site’s statistics and will show you precisely how to interpret your results on an ongoing basis. This valuable insight into your website’s performance will enable you to pinpoint the areas that need improvement. The session is by telephone so can be booked to fit around your schedule.

If you’d like to find out more about this training or want to find out why your site is not performing, drop us an email!

Here are some great pointers when writing your sales proposals.

1. The first thing to remember is the point (well, the 3 points really!) of the proposal; convince the reader that you understand their problem, have a solution to it and that they should choose you to solve it. If you’ve asked all the right questions to fully understand their problem, then it will make writing the proposal that much easier!

2. When you’re writing about their problem, try and include the language they used during your meeting or call. Perhaps they refer to revenue rather than profit, or customers instead of clients. Using their language shows that you listened.

3. Make it personal. We don’t mean ‘those shoes really don’t go with those trousers’, we mean that your proposal should be really tailored to their business. Don’t just fill in their company name on the front cover and in a few other random places. After all, you can’t say that you’ve tailored a solution to their problem and then present it to them using a template!

4. Talk about them and their business before you talk about you and yours. To be honest, nobody cares who you are, until they know what you can do for them.

5. Include testimonials from clients in the same sector. You saying how great you are isn’t anywhere near as powerful as somebody else saying it!

6. Write down a list of ALL the serious questions they’re likely to have about your solution. Does it…? Can we…? How will it…? You can use these questions in 2 ways. You could have a frequently asked questions page within your proposal or, and our preferred option, is that you make sure that you’ve answered these questions within the main content of the proposal.

7. Write out a list of ALL the concerns they’re likely to have about your solution or using your business. (E.g. Not sure it will work for our industry) Ensure that you’ve addressed all their concerns in your document, and not by writing ‘in case you’re worried about…’!

8. What priorities did they express in your meeting? Do they need it quickly? Does it have to be scalable? Make sure you’ve referenced their priorities adequately in your proposal, both in the problem ‘stage’ and the solution ‘stage’.

9. If you’re not selling a product, it’s harder for buyers to see it, so try and help them visualise it. Do you have photographs of your company providing the service? What about written testimonials from clients? These will help!

Here’s a great example…

“I thought I would drop you a line and let you know how the revised proposal document is doing! After you rewrote our proposal, the changes look great, the feedback well received and we’ve secured 2 new contracts for the New Year. Thanks!”

Director, Cleaning Contractor

If you’re struggling with your sales proposals and would like our help to increase your conversion rate and win more clients, just drop us a line!

Testimonials and 'thank you' notes are a regular occurence here at Stop the Train. Spoilt, aren't we?! Every now and then, a letter arrives that makes it all worthwhile. We had one of those lovely letters arrive this week and wanted to share it with you.

Dear Angela

I am writing to thank you for the excellent work you did on my company’s behalf when producing the copy for our website. Before you started you made sure you fully understood our remit, along with understanding what kind of website and business we have.  After going live with our website, we picked up 4 brand new clients straightaway!

Following on from this work you were then asked to come up with a letter for a very small mailing. This letter went down so well that we received many enquiries and are now fulfilling work for 3 brand new clients; again great work Angela!

My fellow director and I are so happy with your work that we would not hesitate in referring you onto to friends, family, clients and business associates in the future under the premise you will look after and help them in the same manner you have done with us.

Thanks for a great job!!

Neil

Once you’ve come up with your company name, it’s an ideal time to secure the domain name for it. There are a few things to think about, and to avoid, when choosing your domain name. Most of the examples given here are made up, so be mindful of clicking on them!

1. You don’t have to use your company name as your domain name; instead you could use keywords that people might use to find your business. A great example is B & Q, the DIY store, who has www.diy.com as their domain name.

You might want to add a location if your geographical area is very focused, e.g. www.taxiwatford.co.uk This won't work in the long term if you move area though!

2. Avoid using plurals of words, as there’s a huge potential for people missing it off and ending up at a competitor’s site!

3. Look out for potential mistakes with your domain name. Could it be overcomplicated or liable to be mistyped? See how it looks written down, could the letters be split into different words by mistake? This happened to www.WhoRepresents.com, which can also be written www.WhorePresents.com. (This is a genuine website!)

4. Don’t make it too long. Think www.shortdomainname.com rather than www.toomanycharactersinhereforpeopletoremember.com.

5. It depends on your domain name and the availability for what you’d like but I’d avoid hyphenated domain names wherever possible. If your ideal name is taken, come up with some alternatives rather than just the hyphenated version. Instead of www.pick-an-alternative-domain-name.co.uk, go for www.betteralternative.co.uk After all, you’d hate for your customers to miss out the hyphens and end up at a competitor’s site!

6. Try and avoid adding extra words at the beginning such as ‘my’ or ‘your’ or ‘the’.

7. If you’re a UK business with customers that are only in the UK, stick to buying a .co.uk name rather than one of the alternatives. Ideally, buy the.co.uk and the .com to stop a competitor buying it.

Struggling for ideas? Give us a call on 01923 262189.

The next installment in our 'Top 10 reasons why websites fail'.

Reason 7: The Pricing

A great way of really antagonising your website visitors is to convince them that they’ve found a supplier that can do everything they need but keep how much it will cost, a secret. Imagine seeing an advert (television or otherwise) for the latest must-have gadget, being poised with your phone and your credit card, waiting to find out how much it costs and they don’t tell you.

Although commercially it may make sense not to publish your pricing to your competitors, it may also lead to a considerable reduction in enquiries. Yes, they could well pick up the phone or click the enquiry button to find out, equally they could go to another website with prices on to make their purchase.

On the flip side, showing your pricing is one way of weeding out prospective clients that can't afford your services. There are other ways of attracting your ideal clients and putting off your other visitors, but that's a whole different article!

For those businesses that aren’t comfortable with including a price, or can’t because it’s a bespoke product or service, it’s worth considering adding a price range or guideline (‘Prices start from’). It won't work for every business model but it may work for yours.

If you've got a web statistics package on your site and can make changes to your content yourself, why not test the pricing theory?

Read the first 6 reasons in this series;

1. The Content

2. The Navigation

3. The Design

4. The Build

5. The Search Engines

6. The Marketing

With these 5 great ideas for your next sales letter, you're officially running out of excuses not to send one!

By the way, if your next excuse is "I haven't got time" or "I'm not great at writing", scroll down to the bottom of this article!

1. Get back in touch

Check your database for those customers who’ve not ordered recently. Tell them you’ve missed them and think about what might entice them to come back. A special offer? A product that you’ve recently introduced? Remember, if you’re not talking to them, your competitors might be!

2. Contact your prospects that didn’t buy

Unless you’re selling a one-off service or product and you know they’ve already bought it elsewhere, don’t give up! It might be a project they had to postpone for a variety of reasons and now might be the right time.

3. Promote something!

Depending on how your database is set up, you might be able to segment customers that would suit certain products. E.g. bought a new printer = time to talk about replacement cartridges. Or think about selecting customers to promote a specific product or service to. E.g. estate agents = property newspaper advert design.

4. Say thank you

When’s the last time you said ‘thank you’ to your customers? It’s a very simple way of showing them you value their business. You don’t HAVE to give them anything, but you could always offer them a discount or something for free as a ‘thank you’.

5. Approach other businesses

Approach other types of business who might have the same ideal customer as you and see if you can cross-promote your services to their clients and vice versa. E.g. if you're an insurance broker, ask if you can promote your insurance products to a printer's customers and offer to promote their print to your customers. Simple!

If you're looking to sell a property and plan to use an agent, this will be of interest.  The Code of Practice only applies to members of The Property Ombudsman, so do check the credentials of your agent. Please also note that this information has been primarily supplied for sales agents and therefore includes their industry terminology!

Thanks to The Property Ombudsman, we're counting down to 1st August 2011 when changes to their Code of Practice will kick in, literally! As an agency that works with a number of reputable residential agents, we're welcoming this. These significant changes also affect how agents can approach vendors and are mostly considered best practice.

4 of the key changes are;

1) Retention of comparable property information

Agents can no longer provide a valuation without comparable evidence. These should reduce the number of agents giving overinflated market prices to secure the instruction. Obviously, that never happens!

2) Cancellation of contracts

There must be provision for adequate notice before the end of the term, rather than at the end.

3) Energy Performance Certificates

Properties cannot be marketed without the EPC in place.*
 

4) How to approach vendors

Inappropriate canvassing practices now include door knocking or cold calling, continuous unsolicited calls/emails/junk mail, and using a compliments slip that has a statement such as 'contact me urgently' If you're an agent looking for new marketing techniques, please talk to us!

The following Ombudsman links provide further guidance.

Canvassing for New Business

Agency Agreements 

Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations

* If you'd like an introduction to the company we recommend for EPCs etc, please contact us!

The next installment in our 'Top 10 reasons why websites fail'. The links to the previous reasons are listed at the bottom of this blog.

Reason 6: The Marketing

Believing that because a website is there, people will stop by and enquire/order is optimistic. Just like a shop in the middle of nowhere that nobody knows is there, an invisible website will not be bringing in potential customers, or generating enquiries and sales. Search engines are one of the marketing methods to attract visitors to a website but there are lots of other approaches to consider, some of which are free.

It’s also important to evaluate the success of the site once visitors have arrived, what we describe as onsite marketing. Here are just 5 of the questions that we’d be looking to answer:

Is the site attracting the wrong types of customers?

Were ideal customers identified for the site?

Does it answer their questions?

Is the site compelling enough to bookmark?

Is the enquiry form asking for too much information? 

The right marketing can make a dramatic difference to the number of visitors and the volume of enquiries from a site. Starting, changing or increasing the marketing can be started at any time.

Read the first 5 reasons in this series;

1. The Content

2. The Navigation

3. The Design

4. The Build

5. The Search Engines

Sending us logos?
As well as creating logos, we often need to receive them to design other projects. Depending on what we’ll be using your logo for, we’ll need you to supply it in different file formats. If you don’t have your logo or illustration in a suitable format or at all, we can recreate it for you but this will incur an extra cost.

Sending us other images?
Whatever project we’re doing for you, you cannot send us images you’ve ‘liberated’ from the Internet. That includes any website that’s not yours and yes, even from Google images. If you don’t have the original image or photograph, the chances are that you don’t have permission to use it. It’s also likely to be too low quality for any of your projects. We can source images and photographs for you, or draw those images for you, or even have the photograph commissioned and we can quote for any of these options if you need them.

Don’t worry if you don’t have the relevant software programs to check the resolution and colour settings of your logo and images, you can send them to us and we’ll let you know if they’re suitable.

Artwork formats for print projects

These need to be high resolution and at a minimum of 300dpi (dots per inch). Any artwork less than 300dpi will print blurry and look a bit like our logo below. (This was done intentionally!)

We can’t increase the resolution of any images supplied. If your artwork appears really small, it would suggest it’s low resolution and although we can increase the size of an image, it will reduce the quality of it.

E.g. If we stretch it from this

it'll look like this!

Files for printing need to be in either spot colours (pantone references) or CMYK (4-colour process)/

Suitable formats include the following;

.eps
.tiff
.jpg
.bmp
.ai (Illustrator file)
.pdf (press-ready file)

Artwork formats for any online projects

These files can be used on your website, email campaigns & pretty much anything that doesn’t get printed. The images can be low resolution and as low as 72dpi. Files for online projects need to be in RGB colours, which are better suited to viewing on monitors. 

Suitable formats include the following;

.eps
.tiff
.jpg
.bmp
.ai (Illustrator file)
.pdf (press-ready file)

Any questions, give us a call on 01923 262189 or drop us an email! If you're trying to send us a huge file and can't upload it to our server, try using www.yousendit.com or www.transferbigfiles.com.

This month's topical question; What’s a QR code?

We’ve seen an increase in the number of questions about using QR codes for marketing.

What are they?
How do we scan it?
What can we use one for?
Does it have to be in black and white?

What are they?
If you’ve not seen one before, there’s one just under this text. It looks a bit like a pixelated bar code, doesn’t it? It’s a two-dimensional matrix barcode that can hold a huge amount of information. QR codes aren’t new but they are becoming increasingly popular and not just here at Stop the Train!

How do we scan it?
As it’s a type of barcode, you’ll need to be able to scan it. You need 2 things; a Smartphone (htc, iPhone etc) and a QR code reader (application). We use QR Droid for htc and QR Code Reader for iPhone. You might want to have a look at the Google one, zxing. 

What can we use one for?
Well, typically you’d have more than one and the good news is that you can use them in a variety of ways. The list of what you can do with it, such as ‘add a QR code to your business card’, is a subject for another blog, another day. This one is about some of the actual applications and should give you more ideas! The letters QR stand for Quick Response and that’s exactly what they’re used for.

To give extra information (text only)
To direct people to a website page
To show people your phone number (landline or mobile)
To show an email address
To view/save contact details (VCARD)
To send a text message or email
To show a location (Google maps)
To provide event details (VCALENDAR)
To give payment details (Paypal)

Does it have to be in black and white?
No, but do make sure there’s sufficient contrast between the two colours.

 
Over the next few weeks, we’ll add extra information on QR codes for you; how easy it is to set one up, what not to use them for, plus some great ideas on how and where you CAN use them!

If you’re refreshing your marketing material or looking at your next campaign and wondering whether to include a QR code or not, ask our advice first.

How exciting! A £50 gift card with your name on. If this is your first AdWords venture, please don’t rush into it without following Google’s guidelines and reading our tips! Do bear in mind that the latest gift card value drops down to £30 on 15^th June.

Reading this article won’t make you an AdWords master but it will give you some really useful advice if you're starting out!

Tips to help you achieve better results

• Using Google A dWords will increase your marketing vocabulary to include things like CTR (click through rate), PPC (pay per click), bid rates etc. Make sure you know what all of these things mean before you starting spending! 

• It’s all about the keywords. Do your homework on this, and thoroughly. Be really specific and remember you’re after shoppers, not window shoppers. Ideally you’re looking for keyword phrases that have high traffic and low competition. Place your keyword in the title.

• Look at the other ads selling a similar product/service. Obviously I’m not encouraging you to click on them and cos t your competitors money, this is about seeing what phrases they’re using and having a better ad than theirs.

• You only have space for a few words, so choose them wisely. Think about your ideal shopper and what would motivate them to click on your ad. Keep an ear out for my ‘benefits over features’ mantra.

• Make su re you’re sending those shoppers to the most relevant page for your ad. For example, if you’re promoting a particular product in your online shop, don’t make them click through to the home page and then find the product for themselves; send them straight to the page about that product. This will increase your chance of them buying it!

These are just a few of the many things you can do to improve the results of your own campaigns. Set your daily limit quite low for your free campaign. Watch, learn and adapt your ad accordingly.

We do offer Google AdWords through Stop the Train. If after your first attempt it’s all too much for you and you’d like to talk to us about managing a campaign for you, give us a call on 01923 262189.

Another reason why your website might be failing to generate the results you're looking for...

Reason 5: The search engines.

Although search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo etc) are n’t directly responsible for a website failing, they can make a huge difference to its success. The search engines help to make a site visible to visitors (potential customers). This involves a number of tactics from building the site in a way that attracts the search engines, to including words that potential customers are using to find products/services.  A website that doesn’t encourage search engines to visit or makes their life complicated when they do, is going to have to rely on other marketing methods to bring visitors to it. 

Our first job with an existing website is to find out exactly how it’s performing. This will include things like how many visitors are dropping by, where those visitors are coming from, how long they spend on the site, what phrases are bringing visitors in and what those visitors are doing on the site. All information we can source from your website statistics report. If you don't currently have access to the level of information about your site, we can sort that out for you.

Providing a site has been built with the search engines in mind, getting visitors in from them is a marketing project that can be started at any time, the sooner, the better.

Read the reasons in this series so far;

1. The Content

2. The Navigation

3. The Design

4. The Build

5. The Search Engines - you've just read it!

6. The Marketing

Reason 4: The Build.

Building a website is the technical part and for anything more than a very basic website, this really should be done by someone who specialises in this area. Self-build websites are answerable for some of the biggest complaints from visitors, and some of the biggest laughs! I could give you lots of examples here of self-build websites that look truly shocking but instead, I'll post occasional links to them on Twitter (http://twitter.com/hertsmarketing).

One of the major frustrations, and the one that is responsible for creating extraordinarily high bounce rates, is that the site takes too long to load. Most people don’t like to wait, so it’s a way of guaranteeing visitors leave to go to another site, and probably to a competitor. Having pages, buttons and links that either don’t work at all or send them to the wrong places, will also send visitors packing.

Fixing a site build that’s not delivering for a business or its visitors may just mean making some minor changes to how content has been ‘assembled’ and loaded, and fixing all the broken links, or it may require starting the build again.

If you'd like us to take a look at your site and tell you if it's a build problem and how we'd fix it, just drop us a line!

Read the reasons in this series so far;

1. The Content

2. The Navigation

3. The Design

4. The Build - you've just read it!

5. The Search Engines

6. The Marketing

 In no particular order...

Reason 3: The Design.

Although business owners feel it’s important for them to like the design of their own website, they mustn’t forget about the most important people who need to like the design of their site; their ideal customers. Does the site design portray the right company image? Will it encourage the right people to stop and look around the site, or to leave straightaway?

Popular turn-offs amongst visitors to a site could include:

Flash landing pages,
Pointless landing pages,
Animations,
Inappropriate cartoons,
Music or video that can’t be turned off,
Too many adverts,
Colours that make the text difficult to read,
Meaningless or inappropriate images,
Too many colours,
Too garish,
Distracting backgrounds,
Text is too small,
Too much on the page to look at, (referred to as 'too busy')
Underlined text that isn’t a link to another page/site, (not clickable!)
Having to scroll across or down to read the whole page.

This list goes on and on and on...

Like navigation, a new site design will mean going back to the drawing board, literally.

 Read the reasons in this series so far;

1. The Content

2. The Navigation

3  The Design - you've just read it!

4. The Build

5. The Search Engines

6. The Marketing

Celebrate our birthday with us by taking us up on one (or all!) of our very special offers. These offers run out at 17.30pm on 17th March 2011 (UK time)

1. Learn the basics of SEO (search engine optimisation)

This is a 60-minute telephone session with follow-up notes emailed to you afterwards. It'll give you a good basic understanding of how search engines work and you'll learn about some of the little things you can change on your website that will make a big difference. Only £49!
(You can read a lovely testimonial for this training session here)

2. 6 suggested improvements to your Social Media strategy 

Don't have a strategy? Don't worry! This offer is ideal if you're currently dabbling with Facebook and Twitter but think you could do better. We'll review what you've done and (you've guessed it already!) suggest 6 improvements you could make to get more out of it.  Only £25!

3. A punchy sales letter

Trying to write your own letter? Wish you had better results? Then let us loose on it! Get your punchy sales letter written for a special birthday price of only £130. What's even better than the price is that you'll be able to use the words in other places without paying us any extra! (You can read a glowing testimonial for our sales letters here)

4. 6 suggested improvements to your current e-newsletters

We'll review your last 3 e-newsletters or promotions and the open/click-through statistics you're getting and then we'll come back to you with 6 improvements you can make to get better results. Our current record of open rates stands at 69%. This valuable review is only £25!

5. Get an A6 marketing promo designed

Need a leaflet? Postcard? Flyer? Then you might want to take advantage of our birthday offer on design! We'll create you a double-sided A6 card for only £185. For this price, you'll need to supply the words and any images you'd like to use. (We can write the words and supply the images for you, but it'll add a little bit more to the price.) We also know some really good print companies that can bring this masterpiece to life! (You can have a peek at our design work here - these are intentionally low-resolution images.)

6. Get more from your web statistics!

Have you got Google Analytics on your website? Do you look at them? Do you know what you're looking for?! We'll help you understand how to use the information from your web statistics package to get more from your site. This is a 60-minute telephone session. Only £49!

All offers quoted will attract VAT at 20%. To take advantage of any of these offers, you'll need to place your order by 17.30pm on 17th March 2011 (UK time), either by email or by phone (01923 262189).

May your day include some chocolate cake, but obviously not ours!

Angela Ellis

 In no particular order...

Reason 2: The Navigation.

The plan with a website should be to lay the content out in a way that visitors can easily and quickly find access to everything they’re looking for. That’s why navigation menus are there to help with websites that have more than 1 page.

With the amount of time people spend online these days, they’re used to seeing things in certain places on websites. Surprising them by hiding what they’re looking for, calling it something else, or making them jump through hoops to get there is a guaranteed way to make them go elsewhere.

Navigation should really be thought about before a site is designed and built, so to fix the navigation on a current site will involve taking it back a few stages and starting again.

Read the reasons in this series so far;

1. The Content

2. The Navigation - you've just read it!

3. The Design

4. The Build

5. The Search Engines

6. The Marketing

In no particular order...

Reason 1: The Content.

Website content covers the elements of a website that form part of the visitors’ experience. For the purposes of this series, the content focuses on the words element of a website. The words used in any marketing are one of the major influencers as to whether people take action and get in contact or not. This means that what’s been written about (or not as the case may be!) and how it’s been written, could make or break the success of a website.

It’s easy to make mistakes with the content as it’s the area that most businesses feel they can do themselves, after all, everyone can write, can’t they? Communicating in a simple and concise manner isn’t as easy as it may sound though, particularly if it’s something you’re ‘close’ to. There are over 30 different content errors that are not only likely to stop visitors enquiring, but also to ensure they leave a site (and quickly!). These vary from writing too much or too little, having speeling misstackes (sic), right through to explanations of a company’s products and services that only focus on their features.

Providing a site hasn’t been built in Flash, the words on a website can be easily replaced with new words, and changing the content is a quick way of making a dramatic difference to enquiry results.

Read the reasons in this series so far;

2. The Navigation

3. The Design

4. The Build

5. The Search Engines

6. The Marketing

Spent a fortune on a website and it’s not delivering? Frustrating, isn’t it? You’re not alone. 

I’m Angela Ellis, one of the Directors here at Stop the Train and I've talked to hundreds of business owners in the same situation. I’ve listened to rants about web companies that have quite frankly stretched my vocabulary and the messages coming through are the same; you’ve all got websites that aren’t bringing in enough enquiries!

I’m not going to defend the web agencies but I am going to explain why I believe this situation occurs so frequently. Let’s see if this rings any bells with you. You discussed a budget, you explained what your company does, you talked about colours that you liked and disliked, you may have highlighted sites you liked and sites you didn’t, you gave them a list of features you’d like for your new site and you suggested a list of pages. Your ‘wishlist’ was perhaps bigger than your budget so the features and pages were then set according to your budget.

Still with me? Ok, then let’s rewind a little. Usually you’re talking to a designer that creates great-looking websites or a geek that builds them, which is why the features and style were discussed. As a marketing strategist and copywriter, I would also have discussed several other areas with you. It doesn’t matter how great your site looks and how cool all the features are if nobody visits or enquires as a result.

I’d have recommended that rather than writing the content yourself, that you asked a copywriter to do it – preferably one of ours! I’d have also suggested that we talked about how your ideal customers were going to find your website and agreed a strategy to make that happen. These vital components to your website traditionally make the difference between a site that’s has been a valuable investment for your business or a site that has cost you thousands of pounds.

I’ve produced a list of the 10 main reasons why websites don’t bring in enough of the right enquiries. It assumes that your business proposition is sound, your site has been up for more than a couple of weeks, and that you have systems in place to monitor where your enquiries are coming from.

The next reason will form the next blog, with the remaining 10 being added over the next few months. If you can’t wait, or would rather have it in a report format, drop us a line and we’ll email it over as a pdf.

Read the first 6 reasons in this series;

1. The Content

2. The Navigation

3. The Design

4. The Build

5. The Search Engines

6. The Marketing

Having advised you not to buy your email data in my previous blog, it seemed only fair to give you some ideas on how to get more readers for your fabulous email newsletters. There are lots of ways of growing your recipient list and I promise to keep adding more to this blog. I’ll start you off with just 3 ideas.

Firstly, promote it in your email signature. You know, the bit above the legal blurb. Add your compelling message there that promotes your newsletters and it’ll be broadcast to every person you send emails to. (I know I'm repeating myself from the last blog, but 'Sign up for our newsletter’ isn’t compelling enough) Including a message in your signature is a nice soft sell and is akin to leaving sweets by the till for people to see while they’re queuing up to buy something else. (Obviously I've never fallen for this!) This won’t cost you anything to do and you can amend the compelling message every few weeks to catch more attention. If you'd like some ideas for free, drop me an email.

Secondly, add a simple capture box to your website. It's simply a case of adding a little box to your website for people to type their email addresses into. Remember to make the reason for signing up compelling! Depending on how the data is added, those email address can be added directly into your email software programme, or sent straight to your email inbox for you to add yourself. Constant Contact is our preferred email software. Let us know if you'd like a free trial . If you need a capture box adding to your website, we have a geek that can help with that too!

Thirdly, and this one will take more effort, run a little competition where they need to supply an email address to enter. You can run this through your local business network and on relevant forums, right through to joining forces with a local paper, magazine or radio station. Remember to include terms and conditions and to ensure that you have the right permissions in place to contact them after the competition.

Good luck with growing your list!

Angela Ellis

The best database your business will ever have is one you’ve built yourself. You can buy email addresses (and we can help you with data sourcing) but we don’t recommend it for a variety of reasons. Aside from the obvious cost, the email addresses available for purchase are more likely to be generic and not reach your decision maker or influencer. Think ‘sales@’ or ‘info@’ rather than ‘Angela. Ellis@’. As I’ve said before, one of the reasons that newsletters are so successful is because your recipients are included on a permission-based email list; they want to hear from you. Bought-in contacts don’t! I can also tell you that you should expect a much higher percentage of undeliverable email than ever before, so they won’t get your emails anyway!

So, how else do you get more readers if you don’t buy them? There are lots of ways of growing your recipient list. Before my next blog, ‘3 great ways to get more readers for your newsletters!’, it’s important to know how to sell the idea to potential readers in the first place. ‘Sign up for our newsletter’ isn’t compelling enough, unless I really am a big fan of yours. Think about why I would want to sign up. What am I likely to get from you? Useful information? ‘Can’t leave without’ tips? Exclusive products? Special offers?

Angela Ellis

Next to come: 3 great ways to get more readers for your newsletters!

If you've arrived here because you've received a Valentine card from me, thanks for stopping by. There are more details about how I can help you on our dedicated estate agency marketing page. If you'd like a copy of the report I mentioned on the card, please call me on 01923 262189 or send me a message using this contact form. While you're here, why not have a look at a few of the fantastic estate agency projects in our portfolio? As you can appreciate, we can't put a lot of the current promotions on here because it shows competitior sensitive information.

I look forward to talking to you soon. Oh and Happy Valentine's day!

Angela

P.S. If you didn't get a card from me this year, feel free to complain to me using this form!

At last, our brand new website hits the world. It's been a project and a half. In keeping with 'cobbler's children syndrome', we've been busy doing websites for clients and leaving our own until last. That is until now. What you see here has been a fantastic combination of all our skill sets over the past few months and as the Director of Stop the Train; I'd like to blog a big thank you to the team involved in getting this new site off the ground.

This blog will be bringing a variety of content to you, from links to useful sites we think you'll like, updates on training events we're running, through to sharing our words of wisdom on a range of topics we know a lot about! If you have a burning question about how to market your business or have a marketing challenge you'd like our thoughts on, drop us a line and we'll endeavour to answer as many of them here on the Platform as we can.

Angela Ellis