Web 2.0 Equation for Local Businesses
We released our press release today on a study of our MerchantCircle members and their activity online. I'm live-blogging right now from the Kelsey Conference, where Darren Waddell, Vice President of Marketing, MerchantCircle, just gave a speech on the panel for 'The Web 2.0 Equation: Community and Viral Effects.' Below are some of the slides Darren used for his talking points. Essentially, business owners teaching business owners about the benefits of their MerchantCircle listing.
Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations
Labels: Darren Waddell, Kelsey Conference, local business, Merchant Circle, MerchantCircle, MerchantCircle.com, Small Business, Web 2.0
posted by
MerchantCircle Staff
at
11/19/2008 04:18:00 PM
,
3 Comments:
The bottom line is that MC needs to create a opt in page that will allow business owners to capitalize on the web traffic. Mole Busters uses MC as a second website to drive local traffic to our telephones. If that prospect has a problem with moles, voles or gophers and doesn't pick up the phone and call us.. guess what we just lost a potential client!!! We lost REVENUE! We lost a CUSTOMER for LIFE! With this economy we have to watch every dollar earned and spent! MC can optimize its potential by allowing us to use it as a Landing Page to generate future leads. Web Browsers/Clients/Customers/Prospects/Etc. don't mind filling out a simple form with a first name, last name and email. There is no harm in that information. We as business owners need to have our acts together and invest into a CRM (customer relationship management system) that can begin to educate that customers through a series of emails about your business. Guess what ? If you can at least capture that simple information today; you may have a client after you educate them on the "value of your service or product" through emails. The cost of contacting that prospect through an email campaign $0.00 (emails are free) Prospects buy when they want to not when you want them to buy. Waiting for a prospect to pick up the phone and call a local business your WRONG!! Consumers are to busy and in fact if they do have to pick up the phone they will shop you at that point and if your not the lowest offer your gone. You may be known as "they are too expensive" and they will not return. That can earn a business a bad reputation just on pricing alone.
Business Owners:
Here is how you can optimize the use of MC. Create your web page and update it when you can. Keep on a hope and a prayer for a customer to pick up the phone and call your business. Then when you service that client ask them to post something about your service on your local reviews. Tell your sales team if you have one to have their customers post reviews about their experience with your services. The more posting of reviews the better it is for your business. MC is a great way to establish a business in the local areas and to gain the recognition your looking for in your business. I would never pay for the service because I know that the web marketing that is going on here is not worth a dime of your hard earned money. However, If you know what you can get out of MC as a landing page then optimize it to your advantage. If you are a business owner and you think that MC is going to drive thousands of dollars to your front door? Guess again! MC is not designed to do that for a business. It's designed to have business link to one another, tell locals about your service, create a buzz about your business and exchange business ideas. Anything more then that is expecting the goose to lay the golden egg.
Merchant Circle and Business Owners:
To the Executive Staff if you are reading this forum here is how you can create re-occurring revenue for small businesses and MC it's a win win picture.
Business owners who do not have a CRM system may not be able to have the capability to answer phones, send emails, type up proposal etc. here is how you can make it efficient for them. You create an HTML code that allows the business owner to receive emails every time a web browser fills out the simple web form for further information first name, last name, email address. The email gets sent to the business owner and then the business owner can send the email back to the prospect. At that point it's out of your hands. Charge a monthly fee for this service.
Lets do simple math: EXAMPLE
100 people visit my website on a monthly basis.
30 people fill out the web form with F/L Name & Email address.
The business owner now has 30 prospects that may buy from him. If your product cost $25.00 per unit your exposure dollar is $750.00 that month. If the business owners keeps up on the contact over time this number will multiply. If you multiply that by a year your exposure dollars is $9000.00 for a business owner in a year. If your running over 100 people visiting your MC web site monthly, business owners will begin to praise you!
(For business owners like myself.) If you have a CRM system allow us to use our HTML codes on our MC web pages. CRM can make you an affiliate and have a very accurate way of tracking leads from a source. Every lead that is sold a percentage of that lead will go toward your operations creating RE-OCCURING REVENUE. In which you can create a staff that will support small and large businesses. You are a LPPS (Landing Profit Page System!) You are a creation of new web marketing, SEO and CRM's! If I was your CEO you would be going public in the next two years.
I am willing to fly to your headquarters and explain myself in person. My direct line is 408.326.9992 or 1.866.960.6653 EXT. 716. I have been waiting for anyone from MC to contact me. Allows us to grow with you!!
John W. Powell Jr.
Chief Executive Officer
Jwpowell@mymolebusters.com
www.mymolebusters.com
Mole Busters LLC
The Mole, Vole and Gopher Specialists
We are waiting for your feedbacks
Hi John,
Thanks for the great feedback. We are working to create a product that should meet the needs you brought up in your post. Look for an email from us as we would love to get your insight as we develop this product.
To get more feedback like yours, we've created a new forum called "MerchantCircle Product Suggestions". We invite all of our members to go here to tell us how we can make MerchantCircle more valuable for local businesses.
To your point: in addition to receiving phone calls, many of our merchants tell us they are seeing great value in terms of lead generation from: 1) our "Talk to Me" feature where merchants can converse directly with potential customers and 2) from the "Request a Deal" feature where consumers can directly ask merchants about upcoming promotions. Every month we are proud to deliver nearly 75,000 "Talk to Me" and "Request a Deal" messages from local consumers to local merchants at no cost.
Thanks again, John, for your feedback. I look forward to speaking with you soon about how we can improve MerchantCircle.
Regards,
Darren Waddell
MerchantCircle
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