When I moved into my condo, it took me a couple of months to find a tile guy to replace my kitchen floor. The job was “too small,” one contractor flat out said to me.

When I was writing articles for an insurance company, two brokers and one attorney (the company’s contacts) kept agreeing to phone interviews and blowing me off. “They’re hard to nail down when they’re busy,” sighed my client.

When a friend was looking for a company to build a fence, one contractor showed up nearly an hour late (with no “heads up” call) just to write an estimate.

When another friend was looking for a handyman, she waited two weeks for a callback because the guy came highly recommended. She hired someone else.

Hubspot recently pointed to data from Harvard Business Review that found:

Companies that try to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving queries are nearly 7 times as likely to have meaningful conversations with key decision makers as firms that try to contact prospects even an hour later. Yet only 37 percent of companies respond to queries within an hour.”

While not everyone needs to have a 60-minute window, every business has to be responsive.

Customers have choices. I wonder how many of the folks my friends and I contacted are still in business today.

Is your business responsive?

Photo by Darwin Bell (Flickr).

Have you grabbed a free copy of Your Social Media Checklist? Download it today to get 9 tips for being findable and attracting the right customers for your business.

Original article: Is Your Business Responsive?

©2013 Steigman Communications. All Rights Reserved.

I was just looking over a short report on business-to-business marketing put out by MarketingProfs and Forrester Research. According to What Works in B2B Marketing 2010, the top three challenges facing marketers are lead generation, increasing product/service awareness, and reaching decision makers.

While the first one was no surprise (lead generation is consistently one of my top challenges too), I was a bit surprised to see the other two on the list. Maybe that’s because, as a small business owner, I find that social media has made it far easier to identify and reach out to key decision makers in companies. It’s also made it easier and more cost effective for small companies to build brand awareness.

What’s your take?

Have you grabbed a free copy of Your Social Media Checklist? Download it today to get 9 tips for being findable and attracting the right customers for your business.

Original article: What’s Your Biggest Marketing Challenge?

©2013 Steigman Communications. All Rights Reserved.

Your Web site has great content, but are you using it effectively to generate business?

I’m guilty of this. I know prospects are visiting my site, but I don’t have a strong call to action–so I’m missing opportunities to build these relationships. I’m working on remedying that right now, so last week’s MarketingProfs Webinar on tips for increasing Web conversions was very well timed. Amy Africa offered a lot of great information, including 8 keys to the perfect lead generation form:

1. Only ask relevant questions (relevant to the user). The aim here is to get someone to fill out the form. Once you have their information, you can always survey them later.
2. Make sure your privacy and security policy is clear and on every page. Aren’t you more likely to fill out a form if you’re confident that the recipient isn’t going to turn around and sell your name?
3. Make sure your full contact information is visible in every page view.
4. Use only vertical capturing fields (i.e., put city, state, zip code, each on its own line so that it’s easy for people to spot if they make an error).
5. Pre-fill data where you can. I think you’re more likely to be able to do this with an e-commerce site, but it goes to ease of use.
6. Use the middle column. Africa said that most forms work best in the middle column.
7. Deploy colors that work. Blacks and reds work best. (Hmm… Since my logo (and secondary site color) is green, I’ll have to make an exception on this one.)
8. Big buttons help. You want to make sure the “Submit” buttons are easy to find–and to hit.

Finally, I thought I’d reiterate something Africa stressed several times: that relevancy is in the user’s mind. So look at your current contact forms (or the ones you’re getting ready to put onto your site) and make sure they’re quick and easy to fill out–and are only asking for information that your prospects are willing to give.

Photo by Chris Chappelear (Flickr).

Have you grabbed a free copy of Your Social Media Checklist? Download it today to get 9 tips for being findable and attracting the right customers for your business.

Original article: 8 Keys to the Perfect Lead Generation Form

©2013 Steigman Communications. All Rights Reserved.