Don’t Make This Mistake, It Could Set You Back Years!

My brother had a vision when he was kid to “Live On An Island”. I can remember it as clear as yesterday. I just figured it was kid stuff. You know, “When I grow up I’m going to be a policeman or a nurse or fireman”.

But go figure, my brother has done it!

“Harry” Butler, my brother, met Jim Alston 6 years ago, and Jim had exactly the same vision when he was a kid.

Jim already had a big head start on Harry and had created the unique “Wilderness Island”. So with Harry’s expertise in fishing and the gulf area the logical step was to partner up.

So Jim and Harry are now living that dream (I’m so jealous).

That started 5 years ago. Let’s fast forward 4 years.

Imagine if your business was featured on National TV.

How good would that be?

You would have your website all set up, right? So you’d be able to market to the flood of enquiries?

What about if some of the countries top journalists did a huge feature article on you?

Complete with a professional photo shoot and you had absolute rave reviews in this article.

You’d want to show the world, right? You’d do a “Show and Tell” on your website? Of course!

What if you’d made it to the TOP Australian Publications, at least 7 times?

So you’ve featured on TV and the best of the best in the print media, multiple times!

When I watched my brother, “Harry” Butler, feature on National TV I was rapt for him. Here were 2 great mates, in not only 1 but 2 separate 30 minute TV segments all about them and Wilderness Island.

They’d hit the big time with all this free publicity.

You’d expect that phone to ring, of course! And ring it did!

But like this instant world we live in it only rang hot for a week or so and then it was back to business as usual. This was back in September last year, 2010. Business after the show was marginally better but not cranking like it could, or should, still too many gaps between bookings.

Fast forward to January 2011.

Oh, what else I found out in the meantime was they’d had other national media exposure. Imagine being featured in at least 7 national magazines. Unbelievable, all this free publicity! Wouldn’t that be a boon to your business?

The trouble is these guys were great hosts at the island, but they weren’t marketers.

These guys were sitting on a gold mine but the dots weren’t connected (and not enough money was flowing their way)

What was missing? A lot!

Very little credibility, no real relational aspects on the website, no lead generation, no social media connection, no guarantee and also hard to navigate! Apart from that it was all good! (sarcasm intended)

The website experience was like going into a furniture store, walking around, nobody even acknowledging you and so you walked out.

Too many dots not connected. It only takes one piece missing in your marketing and sales process and it’s an uphill battle.

So check your own site!

Here are the 5 Quick Checks.

Credibility!

Do you have any? Easiest way is to use testimonials. “What others say about you is infinitely more powerful than what you say about you!” People underestimate the power of this.

How many sites say “We care” or “Our clients come first”? OMG, seriously, whatever! Boring, inane, meaningless crap the same as everyone else’s crap.

Other ways are to show the evidence of what you do works.

Relational!

Try to connect with your prospects at an emotional level.

Who are your prospects? Remember, you might like your site, the colours, the logo, the content, the whatever, but what do your clients “feel”?

What do they need? You want to see them convert from a visitor to a prospect or client right?

How can you fix their problem or meet their needs and connect with them?

Don’t make this mistake!

Online marketing of your business and conversion is often a 2 or 3 step journey. If you think they’ll visit your site, pick up the phone and be ready to part with their hard earned cash or sign up then good luck with that .

In the Wilderness Island project I didn’t really know the audience. It turns out they have 2 ideal client types –

• Those wanting a private island wilderness getaway experience.
• Those passionate about fishing.

Obviously we wanted to leverage from this free publicity. So we got permission to use some video footage of the TV series showing the outcome of the user experience, in this case, big fish being caught.

That also helped to build the other need on your website.

Authority!

By using that video footage showing these guys in action showed they know their business. Remember, we need to try and capture the imagination of 2 types of clients here so that makes it a little trickier. It doesn’t have to be video but you need a way to show that you know your stuff. Read on…

For the private island getaway wilderness experience prospect:

Who are they? Those who want something quiet, away from the night light glow of the cities, solitude perhaps but certainly peace and tranquillity. So we’ve used imagery on the peaceful and tranquil scenery, details and shots of the simple down to earth activities and testimonials and posts around previous guest’s feelings about their stay on achieving that experience.

For those into fishing:

Who are they? Fishing is not a matter of life and death to these people, it’s much more serious than that! They border on being fanatical, some almost obsessive. We need to paint the picture of them catching their dream “prize catch”.

How do we do that? Using lots of stories, photos and videos of the thrill of the experience! So this is a content driven style website.

Authority (and credibility) can be established in many ways – before and after images, statistics about results, valuable content that actually helps your audience (tell them what to do but not how to do it) and it goes on.

Great, so we’ve got both our ideal clients there now, they’re engaged them but what’s next?

Lead Generation!

Give them lots of content to get them engaged but have something extra up your sleeve. Simply have an offer of “I’ll share this with you and all I need is your details to send it to you” process or sequence.

Then you can start the 2 or 3 step journey to converting them into a client.

To have success online we need to take what it is we do in real life and try and take that online. And sometimes it’s not as easy as it sounds. You might not “get it right” first time round.

When I started one of my own “compelling offers” it didn’t convert that well, but with fine tuning, well, you too can create an online lead generating money making machine.

With the Wilderness Island project we’ve had an extra measure of success.

My bonus! I’m up in Wilderness Island now as a bonus simply because of the results. And we’ve got some brainstorming scheduled so it’ll be a win win. And I know I’ll actually catch a decent size fish cause that’s what they gurarantee!

Which is a great segue into the 5^th key.

The Guarantee!

What guarantee do you offer that removes the fear from the prospect from doing business with you?

It’s like any objection in any sales process, if you can craft your guarantee to deal with their objection, their fear or concern then you’re miles ahead of your competition. No time on this post to drill down into this, that’s a post in itself.

So your own personal website checklist!

• Credibility
• Relational
• Authority
• Lead generation
• Guarantee

What about your business?

How did you score? What can you change?

How do you show the results, the outcomes that people achieve?

If you’re a networker, meeting lots of people but not converting then why?

How do you convert visitors into prospects? If you get web visitors and don’t get their details then why?

What credibility measures do have in place? Are you “connecting”?

If your website is not giving you the results you need maybe we should talk. I’ve never done this before but this is a one off opportunity to talk one on one with me.

Just give me a quick call and we’ll talk about reviewing your website and sales process. Here’s my number – 0413 733 272.

Big post, time to wrap up, got fish to catch.

Plus, don’t forget to check out the website to see how we achieved all of the above –

http://www.wildernessisland.com.au/

and you can also join our FaceBook page if you like eco island and nature experiences or fishing (Plus you can keep a check on our marketing if you “Like” us) –

http://www.facebook.com/WildernessIsland

Talking to Jim he now realises that he wish he’d known that he needed a marketer to build his website, not a web designer. It cost him years. Here’s Jim’s rave –

Hey Peter,

Just wanted to say thanks for the fantastic job you’ve done on the new Wilderness Island website.

It’s already out-performing the old site which has been up and running for nearly 3 years.

I’ve found it very easy to navigate through the pages and it is very comprehensive in the detail.

I loved your idea about the social media, (Facebook and Twitter). I’ve been reading up a bit about it and all the smart businesses are getting onto it so I was very pleased to know that you are keeping a pace of things in the web world.

We already have a heap of fans and steadily building.

A lot of my friends and business associates have commented on the new site and are considering changing web masters so I have and will continue to pass on your details to them.

Thanks for all your effort, the new site is really starting to generate some serious business results.

Cheers,

Jim Alston, Wilderness Island.