Competitive Advantage and Call to Action Part I

Competitive Advantage
As defined by BusinessDictionary.com, competitive advantage is:
“Superiority gained by a firm when it can provide the same value as its competitors but at a lower price, or can charge higher prices by providing greater value through differentiation. Competitive advantage results from matching core competencies to the opportunities.”

This definition might sound a little academic, but competitive advantage is what sets you apart from your competition.

Your competitive advantage could be:
Price
Quality
Shipping and handling fees (or lack thereof)
Experience
Customer service
Credibility
Something unique to your industry.


It is important to understand that having a competitive advantage is not an event, but a process. In other words, making and keeping a competitive advantage is ongoing. It becomes a game of trying to stay one step ahead of your competition. You should never feel comfortable with the status quo, but continue to find ways to improve your advantage.

Determining Your Competitive Advantage
The first step to determining your competitive advantage is to know your competition. Take time to research the main players in your industry. A good way to learn about your competition is to do several product keyword searches on Google. Look at each website listed on the first page of the results, both the sponsored and natural listings, to review their products and services.

Now rate your competition based on the list of possible competitive advantages listed above. One of the best ways to do this is to organize a spreadsheet, listing the possible competitive advantages across the top of your page, and then list the companies down the left side of the page, with your company as the top listing. To make things simpler, you might just focus on one top-selling product per spreadsheet.

Compare price, quality, shipping options, and so on. You should start to see some areas where your product or company outshines you competitors, and some areas where you can make simple adjustments that would give you an advantage.


For example, many years ago, when Heritage Internet Technologies started out in the web design industry, this process was used to determine what we had that was unique and different. One glaring item stood out: pricing. No one in our industry could design a custom website for the price point we were offering. For HIT, price became a strong competitive advantage. It is still used today in all of our advertising.

How to Choose an Autoresponder Program

There are several autoresponders to choose from. As you’re deciding what one to use, consider the following: You’ll want an autoresponder that allows you to measure results. Why even use an autoresponder if you aren’t able to find out how many of your emails are being opened, deleted, etc? Many autoresponders provide a great deal of reporting that will help you measure your ROI (return on investment).

You may also want to find an autoresponder that doesn’t send out on the weekend. Many autoresponders don’t have this feature, but it is an important one. Readers are more likely to open your email if they receive it during the work week.

Personalize your autoresponders as much as possible. Gather information about customers so that you know what autoresponders should be sent to them. This means that you’ll want to gather information about your customers by using a customized form.

Use autoresponders to show how much you know about your industry, introduce customers to a new product, or to countdown to a product launch or new store opening.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

Simplify Your Website Pages

Selling multiple products on your website? Make it simple for your customers to find the product(s) they are looking for. If you have multiple product lines, you should have multiple pages. Don’t try to squeeze all of your products onto one page! When you have multiple pages, you can have a dropdown menu that allows your customers to quickly find the product they want.

In addition to multiple pages and dropdown menus, you can add a quick-search to your website. Using a HIT product, HIT Search, customers can do a keyword search that will bring up related items that are on your site. HIT Search also provides you with valuable reports that let you know which words and phrases your potential customers are searching for. This allows you to cater your website to your actual visitors by building your website around the items they search for the most.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

How Much Time Should I Spend On Social Networking?

Back to Basics: Quality and Word-of-Mouth Advertising

As a business owner, you can benefit by harnessing the power of networking sites, but you must employ extremely subtle strategies. According to David Meerman Scott, marketing strategist and author, “The online community at social networking sites hates overt commercial messages.” (See The New Rules of Marketing and PR, p. 229.)

Before diving into the details of actively using social networking for marketing purposes, however, considerable time must be spent focusing on your business itself.

• First, you must make sure your have good quality products and excellent customer service, not just lip service, empty promises, and hype.
• Second, you must make sure your website is artistic, professional, and effective—meaning it contains well-written, substantive content that is presented in an aesthetically pleasing way.

Why? People talk.

There are over 200 million members on Facebook, while MySpace has about 100 million. Many of these are asking each other for product recommendations, directly or indirectly. If your product or service measures up, they will speak highly of you. If they go to your website and like what they see, the will bookmark you. Either way, you benefit.

A recent study shows that women are turning to social networking for fun, entertainment, and to connect with friends at a higher rate than ever before, and they are twice as likely to turn to blogs verses social networking to get product recommendations. (See Social Media Optimization.)

If your products or services don't cut the mustard, look out, because, according to Mike Grehan, online marketing guru, the algorithms that drive search engine results are changing to include, with much more added weight—

1.) product recommendations on social networking sites and blogs for your products or services, and
2.) bookmarks placed by unique visitors to your website.

Thus, the days of key word manipulation to get to the top of the list of search results are going by the wayside. Soon, it will be your good products and services that get you there, not just your good use of key words. (See Mike's Is There a Link Between Search and Social? article, pp. 12-13.)


Time Well Spent

Knowing this, you can see that your efforts to use social networking as an avenue to promote your brand and your business is crucial to long-term growth. The key to success is to experiment! Try placing videos on YouTube, inserting interesting articles into your Blog, creating profiles on MySpace, and establishing Groups on Facebook—and see what happens. You might find the next internet spokesperson star is sitting inside the walls of your own company!

You can track your hits easily by employing the technology at www.bit.ly, where you can enter web addresses (say, your YouTube video, for instance) and see how many people are stopping by to see it. Spending time to measure and analyze results is the only way to see if your efforts are paying off. It will take some time to find the right niche or angle for your business, so dedicate enough time and resources to see the effort through. Don't cut things off prematurely.

Also, it's important to update your material frequently, even daily. Since web users want the latest information available on the subject they are searching for, search engines in turn look for the freshest material online. By changing your content, you can insure optimal results in search engine rankings. (See Content Optimization.) This of course will require a committed and dedicated staff to manage, and the unflinching support of the organization behind them.

For more tips on optimizing your web presence and harnessing the power of social networking sites, contact the professionals at HIT Web Design.