Small business owners, listen up: If you don’t have a website, you need one.
If you’ve got one, what does it say to your prospective customers?
If, per chance, it reads “Welcome to my website,” two marketing mavens have a few words for you:
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” said Ruth Maugeri. “They’re there. They’re happy to be there and ready to learn what you can do for them. Please use that space and bandwidth to explain why they’ll benefit from your services.”
Maugeri owns Vancouver-based design firm Gravitate By Design with her husband Steve. And recently, she’s teamed up with Colorado-based marketing expert Mari Davis to impart such gems of wisdom to small- and medium-sized business owners.
The two women – who have never met face-to-face – founded Small Business Big Money, a website and series of podcasts to reach out to businesses, and attract a bit of business to their own companies.
Marketing rules have changed, and Maugeri and Davis are practicing what they preach.
They say audio and video on the web is the next frontier of advertising. It helps make a prospective customer’s visit to a site personal and interactive, and has a bigger impact than traditional text.
“It’s an incredible way for them to get comfortable with you and get a good sense of who you are and how you do business,” she said. “It’s like having a sales person 24 hours a day.”
Their podcasts are a way to show how easy – and cheap – it is.
“We’re not even in the same studio,” Maugeri said.
They record each 10-minute podcast over the phone using Davis’ small recording studio.
They’ve covered topics such as how to effectively use audio and video on a website, when and when not to send e-mail newsletters, getting higher placement on Google and the value of website testimonials.
A new podcast is available by 2 p.m. every Monday at www.smallbusinessbigmoney.com and on iTunes.
“Small business owners don’t have time to be an expert in everything,” Maugeri said. “The podcasts are a way for us to answer some of the questions we get all the time, plus it’s fun for us.”
Maugeri’s background is in graphic advertising and marketing, and she started in the field prior to the computer age – “back when the earth was flat,” she said, laughing.
She was working for Hearst Newspapers about the time computers came into the forefront.
Maugeri taught herself how to use a handful of design programs and turned her efforts toward working electronically.
And when the Internet took off, she jumped head-first into web design and development.
“It’s been 20 years, and I’m almost as excited as I was the day I started to be involved with this wonderful tool we have,” Maugeri said. “I’m still amazed to learn about the amazing things we can do with the web and the things that are available to small businesses.”
Maugeri met Davis through her brother, who also owns a web design company in Vancouver, and the two hit it off immediately – and electronically.
They speak daily, and work as a team. When, as a designer, Maugeri’s clients need marketing consulting, she uses Davis. And when Davis’ clients need a designer, Maugeri steps in.
“Small businesses should know there are so many possibilities out there for them, and they shouldn’t think that just because they’re small, they’re not available,” she said. “There’s usually help in marketing or design within their budget.”
“There are many, many possibilities to grow as a business,” she said. “You don’t have to stick with the old thing. Just because you many not understand how to use them doesn’t mean you can’t have them – get help.
“You owe it to yourself as a business person to know all of the possibilities.”
