[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hi, I'm Maile Ohye, and this is the second video in our series
to help local business owners build an online presence.
For this video, we'll discuss the preparation stage.
Our objective is to determine your value-add
and clarify your online goal.
First, how would you answer the question,
what's your business's unique value-add?
A value-add describes why a customer
would select your business over the competition.
What makes your business special?
For example, my cousin, Scott, the Realtor,
might emphasize his high-touch approach
with clients and his knowledge of not only real estate
but mortgages as well.
Knowing your value-add comes in handy
during the implementation stage.
As Scott creates his Google+ profile,
he'll include his value-add-- Realtor dedicated to providing
high-touch services in Campbell and the South Bay Area.
Extensive knowledge of all steps to assist your home buying
process.
The next task in our preparation stage
is to answer the question, what's
the goal of your online presence?
Answers from local business owners
usually fall into three categories--
the desire to increase revenue, decrease costs or save time,
or increase customer satisfaction.
We'll just focus on the most common goal, increasing
revenue.
Increased revenue often results from reaching new customers
or helping existing customers become repeat customers
by listing your hours and contact information.
However, as you become more sophisticated online,
your goals might also include decreasing costs
or saving time.
For example, Scott could make his resources
available to clients online so that he spends
less time responding to email and more time viewing
properties.
Or in the future, your online goal
might broaden to increasing customer satisfaction.
To increase satisfaction online, Scott
could publish an article that would be helpful to clients,
like "Five Biggest Mistakes When Buying a House."
Or if short on time, Scott could share an article written
by someone else that he thinks his clients would enjoy.
With the goal of your online presence determined,
the next step is to determine what
action constitutes conversion.
Conversions are the actions a person performs
to become a true customer.
For Scott, online conversion happens
once a customer calls him to set up a meeting
or emails him for more information.
For my sister who owns a jewelry store,
conversion means a customer walks through her storefront
or buys goods online.
Before we go any further, to give this better context,
let's look at the online customer
funnel to visualize how you can increase revenue.
At the top of the funnel there are potential customers
visiting your business online.
Next, a portion of those visitors
will engage with your business.
A subset of those visitors will notice the call to action.
And a subset of those will convert.
Conversions accumulate to increase revenue.
At the bottom of the funnel are your loyal customers
who return to the funnel and convert again.
Looking at the funnel, notice that we've
completed this video's objective.
We defined your online goal-- increase revenue--
we determined your value-add, and defined conversion.
Later videos will address or expand
on the other stages in the funnel
to help your business online.
In the next video, we'll discuss how
to find potential customers so that more visitors enter
at the top of the funnel.