This is the P2PU Archive. If you want the current site, go to www.p2pu.org!
Entrepreneurial Marketing
My recent threads
You haven't posted any discussions yet.
Recently updated threads
- WEEKS 6-9 - PROJECT OR CONTINUE WITH PREVIOUS WORK Thu, 2011-03-31 01:53
- Course admin msgs Fri, 2011-03-25 02:22
- ** NEED YOUR HELP ** Mon, 2011-03-21 21:17
- WEEK 5 - Social media (and webinar tools) Thu, 2011-03-17 18:30
- WEEK 3 - Your enterprise's web presence Wed, 2011-03-16 01:11
WEEK 3 - Your enterprise's web presence
Go back to: General discussion
-
Think through the elements of our own enterprise's web presence
- Write a post about what type of web presence your enterprise should have; include information such as how your mission and vision will be reinforced by your web presence and a brief outline of your web site's content. If you like, you can also talk about what tools make most sense given your goals and budget but this should not be the focus. Then review and respond to at least one other participant's post. (Note: This assignment can be expanded into your project for weeks 5-9 by actually building a web presence for your enterprise.)
- (Optional) If you have never set up a web site below, try one of the simpler tools below to set up web site. (You don't need to get a domain or spend any money to do this.) You will probably be surprised how easy it is. If you already have a web site, look through the various options below and as suggested by course participants to see if there are options that might be easier/cheaper/better than how you do it now. You may post on this in the forum if you like but it is not required.
I love this assignment as I have just completely reworked my website. I have divided it into 3 main sections. About (design), print & web. As I said on the W3 case study, I had WAY too much information on my website before. This is a Much more simplified approach.
www.EpicLifeCreative.com -- also I revamped www.EpicLifeCreative.net (the blog/phone site)
Any feed back is appreciated.
Stoney,
First, I LOVE the look of your websites! They are very edgy and unique. My only feedback, (and sorry if I misuse/don't use correct terminology!) is on www.EpicLifeCreative.net, the background image took a while to load, and the majority of the image was covered by the text block in the center.
Thank you!! As for the background image on the .net site, I know! Boooo!! I've tried reducing the .png, even reduced it to 16 bit. Any pointers?
Stoney, I like the new site. The simple addition of the line "a graphic design company in Nashville" tells me immediately what you do.
I can't see the about, print, and web sections though. Am I missing something or is it perhaps a browser issue?
I can see "Connect" "Miss the old site?" "Blog" and "Free desktops." I clicked around but nothing seemed to happen. Could be just me??
Hmmm.. Sometimes because of how I've built it, certain images do not load. Those area's are there.. If you would please try reloading it. Hmmmm
Stoney,
You new .com looks great, the one change I would like to see is that it opened in the same window and I wasnt able to get back to this,my p2pu.org page.
I also like your .net blog, although it too opened in the same window and would not allow me to use the back button to get back to this page.
Thank you so much! Hmm, I think that would be how I posted the link in p2pu, not because of my website though.
Stoney,
Nice design and concept, it really showcases your talent and unique style. It transmits creativity and breaks down the expectations for cookie cutter web sites. The only detail I would comment one would be the name of your business on the top of the skyscraper which is rather in small font. The other consideration, the use of Flash, any thoughts on optimizing for mobile viewing?
Hey! Thank you! Great question. the .net site is where people are sent if it is viewed from a mobile source. I agree about the skyscraper, but it's kinda just the after thought since I have the logo pretty large on the left side. Thank you!
Hi Everyone!
My business is a photo library of cuisine pictures. We want to create a virtual store of photographs, and they are going to be sold only online. I have found several websites that allow you to create a virtual store with a template:
www.xopie.com
www.tiendy.com
We will began with it. If it works, I think that we can craft a personalized web. The costumer will download the picture in the resolution he prefers and will pay for it. I think it’s good to give the chance to pay via PayPal.
I don’t know yet if it’s interesting to be in Facebook or other Social Media Sites. Do you think that having presence in this kind of Social Media Sites give credibility to your business? Maybe, it depends on the kind of business and in your target customer. Do you agree with me? I think that it would be interesting to discuss about that.
Hello Christina, Really like the look of your site, although I am unable to read it since I only know English.
Cristina,
Using templates and pre-built content will certainly speed up your business deployment. It will also offer you with an opportunity to start measuring your market and refining your minimum viable proposition. Being and cultivating your Facebook and other social media site presence will give you access to a ready test market group and audience that can help you validate and provide feedback. This could also be used as a great networking strategy with other entrepreneurs to help you refine your business and take it to the next level. Before you go out and spend a lot of money in services, design ,etc.. You are doing the right thing by taking classes like this one to learn, gain experience and become a smarter business woman, web designer and marketer.
If I can be of assistance do not hesitate to contact me directly. javierdguez@gmail.com
Thanks for your answer Javier. I don't still see that Facebook can help. Don't you think that Twitter could be better to contact to target costumers? The experience that I have with Facebook is more for recreation and not for doing business. Or maybe if your target costumer is an individual person, it could work but not if your target costumer is a company. What do you think? Do you agree with it?
I would like to know some other opinions. I'm new in marketing world.
Cristina,
As a private user and consumer I do not like Facebook because of the lack of privacy and bizantine menu settings that force you to change 30+ settings to control and restrict how your information is disseminated. On the other hand, Facebook is a community builder and an a forum for interests as well as a great research tool for advertising and profiling. You can run a quick advertising campaign on Facebook and test or profile your customer base for less than $2 a day.
Furthermore, as you post to Twitter and Facebook, your followers or audience will link to your posts or website, therefore increasing visibility and hits which is what helps your site gets noticed by search engines and shown in searches. So it is important you build your communities because they are your core customers, the early adopters, those in the fringe that want to be in the know. I am enclosing two links that will help you. One is a free book download by marketing guru called Seth Godin, his 'Ideavirus" book is very interesting and talks about how ideas spread; the other is a link to an article that talks about how Taco Bell is wisely using his social media strategy to counter a lawsuit filed claiming they do not use real meat in their food. http://mashable.com/2011/02/17/taco-bell-social-media-defense/
Ideavirus book download
http://www.imnewswatch.com/2006/10/08/download-godins-free-ebook-unleash...
Thanks Javier!!
I will have a look to both links!!
My open dictionary has a web site (http://dictionary.k12opened.com/) but it is mostly focused on being a "building tool" not marketing it.
There are two things I want to do with the web site.
First, immediately, I want to have more about why the open dictionary is so great! When I talk to people about it in person at conferences or on webinars, everyone gets excited about it, but the web site doesn't convey that. I am thinking about doing a short video to accomplish this. I may do this for my week 6-9 project.
Secondly, longer term, we need to build out the part of the web site that is for people who want to use the dictionary content for other products. To date, I've felt that our product wasn't "finished" enough to do this, but already one developer has built a product around it so perhaps I'm wrong.
At any rate, we are getting pretty good traffic to the web site so now we need to capitalize on it more!
Hi Karen! I completely agree with you, there isn't much about why this project is so awesome and I can understand how people get much more exited when you talk to them about it. I think a short video front and center with you talking about the benefits and potential of this would be really inspiring and will act to liven up the site a little. The site is quite simple which works fine for it's intended purpose.
I would suggest changing the font slightly or making it a tad bit bigger, it just feels a little squished. And maybe add a little extra color somewhere to break up the monotone blue/black. I also feel a social media page like Facebook might be worthwhile. If you can get fellow educators and parents to follow your page you might be able to increase activity. For example you could post a 'word of the day' and ask people to submit their definitions, or post when something exciting happens like a particularly good contribution, a collaboration with someone, a developer using your product, etc. Overall, easy to use and understand :-)
My website, www.ThePowerofSelfHelp.com, needs to be worked on, and because of this class, its going to get done. There are several things I want to do, although don’t know what to do first…
In January my site had 1198 visits. I need to get something up on it to turn these visitors into business in some capacity.
~ start a blog that I update once or twice a week
~ Create an ebook for people to purchase at a nominal price ($9.97) to get my information out there and get my contact list going. (thinking about using parts of my present hard copy book, The Road You’ve Traveled)
~ Take my photography and create a page on my site for it for the purpose of feeding your soul with great stuff to get great stuff back out… (instead of GIGO meaning ‘garbage in, garbage out’, for me it means ‘greatness in, greatness out’
~ create a page with positive, uplifting quotes
~ another page with positive, uplifting music
~use facebook and other online social sites to promote my blog and ebooks
~ finish setting up chimpmail for my email marketing, I need to set up autoresponders and downloads of my pdf ebooks.
~need to figure out what I need to do to use my paypal account to begin taking in payments for my products.
~ Create content (articles) on the other websites I’m a part of: Selfgrowth.com, Examiner.com, my website, and others.
~ I also need to use online press releases to begin driving more traffic.
~ create videos and utilize them on my website as well on FB where I have nearly 4000 friends.
This is just a start!
Hey Jane,
I really like the ideas you have in place. I do have a question though - how effective are blogs? I know that a lot of my friends and family use social networking sites, however I havent really had much to do with blogs - perhaps its an Australian thing or perhaps its simply something I havent experienced yet.
I ask because I imagine blogs are a lot of work to keep fresh and up-to-date, most blogs I read are old and no longer relevant and this leads me to believe they are time-consuming and do not promote enough business to keep at them?
I love the idea for your eBooks - iPads are clearly the way into the future and purchasing paperback books dont seem as cost effective anymore. You are definitely heading with the times.
Quotes are awesome - I wonder if you can create this page in such a fashion that people can print these off to keep in their wallets or on their vision boards?
Perhaps matching the music to the quotes will be less work on your part - maybe even designing a power point presentation or video that people can watch to get inspired?
Just some of my ideas.
Thanks,
Lori
Lori, I will say that for myself, I have gotten a lot of actual business from blogs. (I'm sure it depends on the kind of business you have though....and how much you like to write.) They are a good way to provide solid "value-added" content and to show your talents or expertise. They are a lot of work though and maintaining a good flow of fresh content is important.
I have had some success with social media as well, but it harder for me personally to see the conversion into $. For me, it's been more awareness-building. Many of us use social media to push out links to blogs and other content as well.
I like the idea of doing a video with quotes and music and putting it on YouTube or something.
Jane, this is awesome! You have a great list of "to do" items. I naturally gravitated toward the one about converting visitors into business. Are workshops and books sales your main revenue streams?
I like the idea of asking people to host workshops themselves. I did that for another business and had good success with it. We gave the host a free spot at the workshop and had them help recruit other attendees.
I think your various content ideas are super! You have good content, and I think that pushing out good, value-added, free content can generate a lot of business. The trick is to balance between that and also asking for the business or making the revenue streams obvious to people.
Is your coaching done all face-to-face or are there other options? This was one question I had as a "consumer."
It was fun to look through your site. Thanks for sharing!
(Btw, very minor but there is a type on the URL link for Plymouth on http://www.thepowerofselfhelp.com/workshops.html)
Hi Jane!!
You have a lot of ideas! It's a great idea to create and ebook!! You can sell it for iPad, for the Amazon Kindle or other e-readers. There's an entrepreneurial coach in Spain who says that the entrepreneur has to create business that work alone for you. He says that a book is that kind of business, you work one time, when you write it and then you can sell a lot of them. I give you the link of him. It's in spanish but maybe you can see how is the design and what he includes on his website (some words are similar in English).
http://www.raimonsamso.com/
I can tell you that he gives conferences about one of his books, and if you want to assist, you have to pay 200 euros (272$). I hope it helps you... If you want me to translate something for you, please, ask me!
Jane,
I like your list of to-dos, looks like you are going to be busy creating, organizing and uploading the content you will be creating which may call as to how much content do you wish to present and share vs. the current navigation. layout and colors to balance usability and discovery with lead conversion and calls to action.
I can't wait to see your videos and learn more about your expertise. It is great that you had so many visitors, any feedback as to what pages are they visiting, how much time they spend on the website?
Jane,
I came across this website and wanted to share it with you. I like the ideas, navigation and personalization featuring the picture of the owner in each page with a nice color contrast, high impact and action oriented content.
http://blog.emergenceconsulting.net/2007/05/effective_meeti.html
I have written a very in-depth version to this question however to keep it interesting ill use key-points here:
I want my website to encourage the feel of community and the importance of wellbeing - I hope to achieve this by designing a website with the following features:
An eDiary with LIVE appointment bookings for the consumer and Staff with a one-person waitlist option for each time
Up-to-date information on products and services including a FULL price list, seminars and other events
One testimonial at the top of each new webpage (changed regularly)
5 title pages: HOME HAIR BEAUTY WELLBEING COMMUNITY
Spacious pages with well-written content that does not over-inform
Link for link exchanges with selected companies to improve SEO and united community feel
eStore for products
Download and print options for price lists, seminar information etc
I have not created a website before and will start using some of the tools available to see what I can come up with – just a question is there anyway to create a website that isn’t LIVE and give the link to you guys for viewing?
Thanks,
Lori
Lots of good ideas. I like having a full price list on the web site. Many people don't put pricing on their web sites, either for fear of scaring people off or in some cases, because pricing is too variable (such as for services). But I think that consumers like to know what the cost is online. For many businesses, I think you gain a lot by including pricing.
I recently did a web project for a construction company where we listed past projects and their costs. I thought this was a good way to show ranges of pricing in a non-committal way, since it depends on each project's specs.
On your question on creating a web site that isn't live, I think it depends on what tool you use. Some give you a link that you can share before it's live; others not. (We've done ones on our own server that we have a link we can use and give out before we move the site to its "real" URL. That's been useful.)
Type of web presence:
My Web presence will be spread across a number of platforms. It will include a blog and social media, but I will not concentrate all my energy on one web address. (Because many of the annoying behaviors of advertisers and businesses online have to do with trying to herd people from one place to another, like cattle.)
I will be active at social media sites for the purpose of reminding people that I'm around, and that I can be counted on to provide a certain kind of writing at regular intervals. But instead of driving them to a particular site all the time, or bombarding people with headlines, I may just post certain short articles directly to Facebook. So instead of asking you to go to my site to see the article, I'll just post it, and you can decide whether you want to read it. Likewise, I may send an email newsletter with short articles, or with excerpts from a longer article, but in a way that a person could just read the email, enjoy it, and be done with it. The blog may serve as a place where all my scattered writings can be found at one location; so it would be as much an archive or an index of my work, as it would be a promotional tool.
I have not worked out the complete details of what type of content will go in what place. I think this will take a certain amount of planning. And then of course it will all change, because it will depend on what works and what feels right to me, and at this point I can't really say.
The revenue will come from sale of books. The books will be at established ebook sellers, so I won't have to deal with shipping or storing inventory. The books I have in mind to start out with are more like long magazine articles or short books: 50 to 100 pages. There may also be a way to sell a hard copy book of short articles that were previously published on the blog.
This approach is consistent with the progressive worldview that my writing embodies. It's also consistent with my mission of writing well and writing for the purpose of the readers' enjoyment. When an endeavor is structured around a site, for the purpose of selling advertising, it changes a lot of things including how you reach people and how you treat them after you reach them. By attempting to sell writing directly to readers, you make the transaction a lot more straightforward because you have only one group of customers to satisfy. (Unlike a magazine, which has to convince potential advertisers that its readers belong to a trendy, high-earning demographic. The potential advertisers tend to give a lot of advice about what kind of writing, design, illustration and content a magazine should have, in order to reach the right kind of people. And all business owners think their customers are wealthy sophisticated, highly educated people--to the point that it is difficult to write about anything seedy, gritty, unseemly or hard-boiled, which many things happen to be.)
My web presence is still in the works but it will come out soon. Since my business involves consulting I am still working on the site's message. At the current moment due to school and work I cannot dedicate too much time to social sites but I am active and engaged on lean start-up mailing lists and forums learning and participating.
I see this class as another way to extend my web presence as well and a great way to build a "brain trust", a group of people and sites to serve as reference. Part of my web presence as a resource to market my site I plan to implement click to call and consulting interviews through video conferencing in order to give me the ability to work with clients overseas.
Mail marketing will be another avenue that I will use to reach my audience and I am already working on a series of 10-15 e-mail templates to use as marketing, auto-responses and follow-ups. I opened an account with mailchimp.com and I am in the process of creating the templates. My website will not just be by web presence but serve to streamline business processes such as e-mail marketing to free me and give me more time for my clients.
I see Youtube, Twitter and Facebook as important avenues but would like to approach them slowly since I would much rather do one of them really well than all three poorly.
Javier: I like when businesses have click-to-call or live chat for tech support. It gives the impression that they are tech savvy and they really want to help.
Thank you Clarence. I am planning to do that with Google Voice since I already have a number with them. The other alternative is a Liverperson chat applet but what would require a dedicated attendant.
My enterprise’s (I’m calling my company “The Good Life” for right now) web presence will include a company website, social media & the use of email marketing.
The company website will include an outline of services provided- at-home fitness education & training, and nutritional education & services. The website would also include various tools and resources that pertain to a healthy lifestyle, such as an online food & fitness diary, health related articles and healthy recipes (these would be fully accessible by a client, available for a limited trial period to potential customers, and a “sneak peek” partial view to site browsers). I would also like to include a price list, and various testimonials by clients. In addition, I would like to utilize e-mail newsletters to clients, informing them of new work-outs and recipes,etc. Maybe bi-monthly or so?
I feel that social media would be beneficial to this type of business. I would most likely use Facebook as the main social media platform, encouraging clients to interact with each other and spread the word about how “The Good Life” can help change YOUR life for the better! I think that a private YouTube page would be useful in posting videos for exercises, as well as cooking segments, though it might be better to have these on the main company website. I am undecided for a Twitter account (since I hate the idea of having one, just to have one, and not having a clear vision for its use).
I apologize for being so behind, I, along with everyone in my house, have been sick and struggling to keep up with all my classes and work! I hope to be feeling better soon and back on top of things!
My web presence is now the focus of my business at the moment. I have a website www.kjpcoaching.com I have just been working through the site updating it, adding a shopping cart and other information.
I still have much more work to do on it. I would like to define the market for this site clearer to only provide information about my coaching services, offering group coaching sessions and information for healthy lifestyle change. I would also like to include a way for people to obtain information in return for email addresses. I currently do not have a way of building a list of followers (so to speak)
I do have a facebook group ENERGIZE - positive health which is for coaches and clients interested in changing their lifestyle habits through delivering or being a part of the ENERGIZE program. I would like to build this group and encourage more sharing, valuable information for people to take away and work with in their own lives.
I am in the process of creating a wordpress site and buddy press site for ENERGIZE positive health. It is my aim to build a community on this site. One of the sub communities will be for coaches delivering the ENERGIZE program to obtain support, access training information, interesting articles that can enrich their coaching sessions. The other community is for clients undertaking ENERGIZE to post questions, challenges, information and resources and encourage themselves and others to continue making healthy lifestyle changes for life.
I have a number of blogs set up (not much written in them yet)with good intentions to somehow link all this stuff together..
I have a question about blogs, do people just start writing and put it out there for the world to see right from the beginning or commence writing articles until their is a healthy resource there and then release/ link it up to your business?
Every day is a new learning adventure with this marketing stuff.
I would like to eventually have an awesome, artsy website, but I think starting with a blog will be best. To just start creating some content, find my voice, learn a little about creating sites and build a following would be a good start. I will link it to a Facebook page and possibly Twitter (though I’m really not a fan of it), develop a LinkedIn profile and work from there to create a website. The Blog will be the main focus, highlighting my beliefs, experiences and realizations. Quality relevant information that helps people make a shift is important, whether it’s my own, a link to someone else’s idea or video, evaluation of techniques, suggested books, etc.
I would love to learn about web design and create a website that will act to inform people about myself, provide free information, inspirational messages and art for exchange of email, provide information about services and products for sale, etc. I would also like it to become a gathering place with a community forum, links to other quality information, services and products, and just in general, a place where people come to get un-stuck, to be inspired and uplifted, to learn more about themselves and the world, and to provide and seek support from their community.
For now I will be working on designing a logo and artwork for a blog and writing copy for it :-)
You might check out WordPress. It's free and open source, and you can use it for a blog as well as a web site (with or without a blog).