Service seekers are excellent customers to target, reports Forrester’s Bruce Temkin.

In previous research, Forrester created four segments of consumers based on their interest in low prices and good customer service: service seekers, price seekers, price & service seekers, and others. The research firm examined the loyalty of these segments across 12 industries.

“Across all industries, service seekers were more likely than price seekers to buy more products, stay with their current provider, and recommend their provider to friends and colleagues,” noted Temkin.

It validates our belief that merely positioning your product on the lowest price is a slippery route. There’s always a business that will come in and undercut you, and swiftly steal your marketshare.

Alternatively, the more reasons you give people to choose your brand, price becomes a less important purchase decision factor. As a result, you’ll attract people that value quality, are willing to pay for it, and will stick around for the long haul.

Most of us are aware of the golden rule for plain writing on the Web: Keep It Short and Simple.

But there’s no getting around it — at some point you are likely to have a long piece of complex material that you have to put up on your website.

It might be a ‘terms and conditions’ page for a contractual agreement. A set of instructions for a new product. A detailed explanation of a business policy. Whatever it is, you want your customers to read it because it will improve your business.

You can’t force them to read it, but you can encourage them to read it. You can make it inviting. Enticing. Kissable. Here’s how.

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Many web content writers create urgency in a bid to get visitors to buy products or services now. It’s often in the form of a limited time offer. The logic: visitors might not come back, so get them while you can.

However, if a web content writer is overly aggressive, it can hurt credibility, diminish trust, and backfire. So it’s best to maintain a professional, tasteful tone. That way, people don’t get their backs up against the wall, and end up with a bad taste in their mouths.

I recall a website that indicated: “This One-Time, INCREDIBLE DEAL is ONLY Available for 4 Hours and 24 Minutes!!! Act Now, Before it’s Too Late!!!”

The time ticked away. Out of curiosity, I checked back the next morning, and the clock was reset—16 hours and counting! The ‘incredible’ offer stood. Scammers! That was my perception, anyway, and they weren’t getting my money.

You can stop visitors from procrastinating without appearing like a fly-by-night con artist. For example:

Order before Dec. 15, 2009, and you’ll get a free bonus!

You can also include a “while supplies last” element. Just go easy on the exclamation marks, as using too many can get you labeled a spammer.

On the other hand, if you want to contribute to the spam-filled Web, be sure to start a long-winded letter with “Dear Friend,” and include four or five P.S.’s at the bottom of your pitch.

Before you start your website’s development, it’s a good idea to determine who will be in charge of website updates and how much time will be required to stay on top of them, suggests Brad Haima of Circle, an Abbotsford-based Vancouver web design firm.

“Many companies have great expectations but are often too busy to do simple website updates,” said Haima. “Having a good game plan ahead of time will allow you to prepare for how much time and staff you are willing to commit to website updates.”

He points out there are a number of pros and cons for each site editing option:

Outsourcing to a Web Design Firm

Pros:
1. Work will be done professionally and reflect the image your company deserves.
2. Because each page is edited manually your site can have a unique look throughout rather than a website that uses the same template over and over on every page.
3. Many web firms can also provide automated software solutions.

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Here are some valuable tips to help increase your sales, compliments of business consultant Mark Wardell.

1. Up-sell to your customers
For starters, they already know and trust you, plus they have demonstrated a willingness to buy.  So if they are given the option of a volume discount, for example, they just might jump at the opportunity to buy more.

2. Cross-sell to your customers
People appreciate convenience and choice.  Be sure to provide both by making additional products or services available that complement and enhance your customers’ buying experience.  For example, if a customer buys a product from you that requires batteries, be sure to offer him batteries at the time of purchase.  Otherwise he’s likely to be frustrated when he gets home and discovers that he needs to head back out to get some batteries… possibly from someone else’s business.

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It’s one thing to learn about nature in a book. It’s quite another to see mother nature and its amazing creatures up close.

That’s what Webcopyplus helped Canadian tour operator Expore Travel get across with its recently overhauled web content. Through a series of stories, their web content brings to light several outdoor adventures in BC, each designed to connect with and inspire people.

In fact, well delivered stories can entice visitors to become fond of a company and ultimately prompt purchases. That’s because people make decisions emotionally and then rationalize them logically. On and off the Web, stories can be very influential communication tools.

By the way, if you’re looking for some of the best BC travel guides in the business, you should talk to Nick Gudewill or Cory Matheson. You can reach them through their adventure travel website.

More than 113 billion searches were conducted in July 2009, representing a 41% increase versus a year ago, reported comscore.

Google Sites attracted significantly more searches than any other engine with 76.7 billion searches conducted, or 67.5%.

Among the five global regions, Europe accounted for the highest share of searches at 32.1%, followed by Asia Pacific (30.8%) and North America (22.1%).

Google—whose brand is estimated to be worth $100 billion—is the king of search. There’s no arguing that. But can someone take them down?

Time provides an interesting perspective on the search industry, discussing the yet-to-be-approved Microsoft/Yahoo marriage.

Reporter Frahad Manjoo also brings to light an irony: Google and Microsoft share a similar problem. Google derives about 97% of its revenue from advertising, while Microsoft makes the bulk of its money from just two products—Windows and Office. Hence, the reason they’re attempting to diversify with products like Chrome and Google Docs.

Read: Can Microsoft’s Bing, or anyone, seriously challenge Google?

The mapped story format is an interesting way to make longer news stories more reader-friendly.

Devised by the Calgary Herald’s David Hedley—a friend and former colleague—the mapped story format begins with the summary written in a classic inverted pyramid style.

The body of the story is organized into mini chapters, dealing with one news element at a time. The mini-chapters are led by informative subheads, signaling to readers what comes next.

Hedley suggests the mapped story format offers several advantages over the commonly used inverted pyramid, including improved clarity, scannability and comprehensibility.

While this guideline focuses on news, the principles apply to any field of writing. In fact, it works very well on the Web, where well-versed designers frequently utilize anchors, links, subheads and digestible chunks of layered web copy to promote positive online experiences.

Read entire report: Mapped story format helps readers

When a business is growing, it can be hard to keep up with the workload, which can negatively impact service quality.

Vancouver business coach Mark Wardell, founder of Wardell Professional Development, offers four tools in CGA Magazine that can help any business achieve sustained growth.

Business manual
It houses your strategies, your policies, your systems, and any other information you need to run your firm with cognizance. Not only will this manual help smooth out the daily management of your firm, it will also give everyone involved peace of mind that things are being done according to a plan.

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