When you are looking for a service provider — where do you start your search? The Web, right? Your prospects are no different.
In training, as in all industries, creating a vibrant, informative web presence is key to marketing your company effectively. In most cases, your prospect's first impression of your company is whatever you have posted on your website. Your website can cause prospects to pick up the phone and contact you, or it can chase them away.
A conversation with Kimberly Judd-Pennie of CyberMark
There’s no doubt that search engine optimization is the best investment you can make to increase leads and sales. There’s nothing better than plugging your keywords into Google and seeing your URL pop up in the top ten listing. The amazing thing is that you don’t need to spend a lot of money to get there.
To find out how to get that elusive top-ten listing, we talked to Kimberly Judd-Pennie, the founder of CyberMark International, who has been optimizing websites for search engines since the early 1990s, before the heyday of Google.
Q: What are the most common reasons websites DON’T get high listings on search engines?
Reason #1: Time to Market
On-line seminars directly address the three major marketing challenges facing every training professional. The first is Time to Market, or how fast can a quality training product be developed and introduced. How quickly can the product be moved from idea to introduction? How fast can you comprehensively respond?
On-line seminars allow the organization to concentrate on content, removing the variables (lead time, complexity cost and regionally-limited attendance) associated with place or location. Concentrated effort realizes the quick turnaround potential, which allows you to distribute the information quickly and accurately without regards to geography.
To reach out to your top prospects, you need to attend events where they congregate and provide information that draws their attention. Some prospective clients may be easy to reach via email, phone, or direct mail, but most are too busy to pay attention to your literature or sales calls and they are also being constantly bombarded by your competitors’ salespeople.
To get the attention of these hard to reach prospects, you need to promote activities that they view as valuable. The leading communication methods these days include webinars, Internet communities, electronic newsletters, email announcements, and industry conferences.
When you are looking for a service provider — where do you start your search? The Web, right? Your prospects are no different.
There’s no doubt that search engine optimization is the best investment you can make to increase leads and sales. There’s nothing better than plugging your keywords into Google and seeing your URL pop up in the top ten listing. The amazing thing is that you don’t need to spend a lot of money to get there.
Reason #1: Time to Market