Easy Show and Hide WordPress Plugin

Price: $10

Easily show or hide any content in any of your pages or posts. For example, let’s say you are discussing the latest episode of Vampire Diaries, and you wanted to include a spoiler, but you want the spoiler to be hidden by default – only shown if the reader chooses to see it by clicking a link or image. This plugin lets you easily create those spoilers (or any other content you want to enable show/hide functionality on) on any page or post. Check out the video below to see how it works. Get the Easy Show and Hide WordPress Plugin

Slidenotes WordPress Plugin

Price: $11

This is a very cool little message box that slides into view when certain content is either hovered over or clicked on. So for example, let’s say you wanted to have a small extra-information message slide into view when your reader hovers over some text or an image on your page. There are lots of options, such as the option to have the note slide back out of view after a few seconds (or whatever amount of time you set), the ability to set the size, , the message text, etc. The screenshot below doesn’t show the motion of the note sliding into or out of view, but I’m sure you can imagine it sliding in from the left or right of the browser window. Get the Slidenotes WordPress Plugin

Visual Composer WordPress Plugin

Price: $25

Frankly, this plugin just makes my jaw drop in amazement and really excites me. We’ve all seen those cool WordPress themes that have the beautiful home pages that look similar to the one below. Different areas of the page have different sections that all line up beautifully.

You’ve wanted to create a home page on your site like that, but you’d have to learn a lot of HTML and CSS to ever hope to get your home page like that, right? Or, you’d have to buy a whole new theme, but you want that functionality with the theme you have right now! Visual Composer makes it super easy to do. Just edit your home page in your WordPress admin as usual, but with this plugin, you can easily add sections, drag and drop them all around, and create a kickin’ home page! Oh, and it’s not just for the home page. You can make any of your blog pages or posts all fancy too!

• Want to put 3 text blocks in a row on the page? Ok.
• How about a tabbed section or an accordion content section? Ok.
• Want a slider, or a call to action button, or social buttons, or a video, side by side with some content. Ok.

You can easily drag and drop things into nicely aligned columns, rearrange them, and edit them until it’s just right. Oh, and if you like that arrangement, you can even save it as a template, so you can reuse the layout on other pages or posts! Oh yeah.

I can’t describe this really well, so check out the video below to really see it in action. Get the Visual Composer WordPress Plugin

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In the season 3 finale of Vampire Diaries, Damon Salvatore (played by Ian Somerhalder) said, “You want a love that consumes you. You want passion, adventure, and even a little danger.”

That is indeed what people desire. That may not be what they need, but deep down, they desire it. They want the bad boy or bad girl to consume them with passion, take them on a wild, dangerous ride, and overwhelm them with love.

That kind of relationship may be bad for most people in the end, but knowing that doesn’t stop the desire to have it. Use that to your advantage in your website or blog.

Be The Brand That Feels A Little Dangerous

Whether you are a one-person blogger or own a Fortune 500 company, you have a brand, and you should consider the possibility of giving that brand an edge, or in this case, making your brand edgy. Obviously, when I suggest being the brand that feels a little dangerous, I am certainly not telling you to actually “be” dangerous. But if you can give your brand that dark, edginess that evokes a hint of danger when people think of it, you’ll start a fire simmering inside them. Even the most wholesome brands can occasionally run an offbeat, edgy campaign designed to shock their visitors into sitting up and taking notice. You’ll need to be careful that you don’t take things too far, but skirting the line of potential danger can bring a real boost of energy to your brand.

Offer The Product That Makes People Feel As Though Someone Thinks They Are Hot, Sexy and Desirable

If you offer a product or service of any sort, you can give it a makeover – even if it’s a temporary one – that doesn’t just speak to your visitors; it whispers to them in a sultry way. Literally? No, I’m not suggesting you animate a cartoon version of your product that whispers sweet nothings in a video on your site (although that could be loads of fun to make). But you can package it in such a way that it feels seductive. Again, when I say “package it”, I’m not being literal. Your product might not be something that has a physical presence, nor does it come in any physical packaging. Your product might be virtual. Whatever it is, it can be presented (i.e. packaged) in a way that sizzles. When you think about how to add sizzle to it, remember that the goal here is to make the site’s visitor feel desirable. Your product or service is designed only for him or her, because he or she is incredible. Can you pull that off by changing your product’s design or description? It won’t be easy, but I bet you can do it. Just remember to keep it subtle. You want to make your visitor feel desirable without being blatant about it. Go after the feeling…don’t be crazy obvious.

Make Your Site’s Visitors Feel As Though They’ve Just Stepped Into A Wild Adventure

Take a risk with your site. Amp it up. Let go of the tried and true, boring, and expected for a change. Immerse the visitor in something wild; something shocking; something crazy; something fun! Let your site’s visitors enjoy a few moments of wild abandonment and they will remember you for it.

You might want to try this type of “bad boy” marketing in limited testing. This could be perfect for a landing page experiment or a simple A/B test. Show the edgy page to some users, and the normal (boring) page to others. Track the responses, revise if necessary, retest, track again, revise, etc. If you get too much blowback from the test, then you’re probably going too far and need to scale it down a bit. Be a little less obvious, or a bit more subtle, and try again. If nothing else, you’ll be remembered and who knows…you might just end up being the brand that succeeds in filling your visitors’ deepest desires.

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Not bringing in the ad revenue you wanted? Here’s how to fix it.

You know you can write. Your blog has a clean, professional design, and all your feedback has been positive – so why aren’t you bringing in the kind of traffic and ad revenue you expected? If you’ve got talent and dedication, your ailing blog may be just a few tweaks away from real success. Here are a few things that might be preventing your hobby from blooming into a real small business.

Rookie Mistake #1: You don’t have a niche

This is probably the most labor-intensive fix on the list, but it’s essential. If you’re trying to run a generic “mom blog”, “cat blog”, “food blog”, or “comedy blog”, you’re competing with some of the biggest names in the business – people with SEO budgets, web designers, and professional writers – and your blog will forever languish in the wastelands beyond page 10 in the Google rankings.

The fix here is to specialize; you want to be a slightly bigger fish in a smaller pond. Find some specific aspect of your topic that you’re especially passionate about. If you’re running a food blog, for example, you might consider focusing on soul food or Mediterranean cuisine, and check Google keywords related to those topics. If the first page of search results for “falafel recipe” contains small, personal blogs like yours, then congratulations, you’ve found a niche where you can compete.

Rookie Mistake #2: Your niche isn’t as popular as you think it is

As killer as your haggis recipe might be, you might want to check Google Insight to see how many people are really interested in eating sheep guts. Google Insight will tell you at a glance how many people are searching for your keywords on an average day; and that’s the viewer base you have to work with. If your keywords only get a couple searches per day, recognize that only a portion of those searches will reach your blog, and an even slimmer fraction will click your ads. You can keep a blog like that for love of your subject, but don’t expect to make rent with it.

Rookie Mistake #3: You’re not writing for an online audience

This problem particularly afflicts blogs by English majors and print journalists; people read online content differently than they would read a book or magazine, and you need to prepare for it. Attention spans are shorter, expectations are different, and long blocks of uninterrupted text won’t fly, no matter how lovely a writer you might be. You’ll notice that successful blogs lean heavily on the following:

• Numbered Lists: Love them or hate them, numbered lists are everywhere because people read them. An itemized list is a convenient way to define the reader’s expectations of time, and breaks the content into chunks that are easier to process from a computer display.
• Visuals: Online readers appreciate some visual content to break up a stark white page, whether a couple of interesting pics or, even better, a relevant video or two. Respect the fact that blogs are partly a visual medium, and you’ll get more readers.
• Brevity: The average online reader won’t stick with you past 1,000 words, so try to make your point quickly. 500-800 words is a good range to deal with a sophisticated topic without tiring out the reader.

Rookie Mistake #4: You’re stingy with your content

There is no better way to pull traffic to your site than to guest post on every popular blog that will have you (aside from your direct competitors); and yes, that means sacrificing some of your best content. If you try to pitch your castoffs to other blogs, you won’t build the reputation you need. Most blogs will allow you to include your blog’s URL in a bio at the bottom of your post; and through that link, you’ll pull direct traffic from their viewers as well as ranking higher on search engines. This means you’ll be doing a lot more writing than just your own updates, but it also gives you a chance to branch out into broader topics, and will more than pay off as your network grows.

Tiffany Gantt is a staff writer for ApronAddicts.com, a website dedicated to the love of cooking and looking good while you do it! You can often find her getting creative in the kitchen as she whips up something yummy in one of her flirty, color coordinated aprons.

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The attention span of most people drops exponentially with every second that they spend on your website. You literally have a few moments to grab their attention and convert—either by making them buy your product, sign up for your newsletter, or click a link to keep reading—before they decide to move on and hit the exit button.

What more and more retailers, ad servers, and online publishers are using now in order to keep users online is behavioral targeting.

The 411 on Behavioral Targeting

Behavioral targeting is a set of techniques that aim to improve the user’s online experience while increasing the conversions on the provider or publisher’s end. This is done by gathering information based on the previous online behavior of your site visitors, including previous search queries, browsing history, clicked links, and so on.

The data is used to create a user profile, which is stored in a cookie that is saved on the user’s browser. This cookie is accessed every time the user returns to the site, which allows the server to show relevant content based on the preferences saved on that file.

Two Types of Behavioral Targeting

There are two types of behavioral targeting that are commonly utilized: onsite behavioral targeting and network behavioral targeting.

Onsite behavioral targeting is used by online retailers, e-Commerce sites, and content providers like blogs, news sites, and article directories. These sites make use of web analytics to come up with generalized profiles for some of the site’s most frequent visitors. These groups have preferences and interests that are connected with their respective profile. The next time a user visits the site, he or she will be segregated and classified into one of these profiles, and content that is based on the information contained in that group will be displayed.

On the other hand, network behavioral targeting is commonly used by advertisement providers and ad servers. These networks have to deal with a much larger user base, so they generate an approximate demographic map instead of user profiles. Certain sites are classified under specific sectors on this map so that ads relevant to the demography the sites are located under will be displayed.

Source

Behavioral Targeting and Increasing Audiences

When a user spots an interesting article or headline on a site, they click almost immediately on the link to continue reading. If nothing catches their eye in that split second, they move on, leave the site, and head on to other blogs. If you’re an online publisher, then the second situation is one that you wouldn’t want to happen. In order to make sure that your visitors read something from your site, stay loyal, and keep coming back for more, you’ve got to provide them with more relevant content that they will find interesting or useful.

To this end, behavioral targeting is useful because you will be able to display articles filtered and selected based on their previous reading history. When you’ve got a solid group of loyal readers, what follows is a chain of events that can only be good for your domain: recommendations from your pool of existing users will bring in more people to your site and these users might become loyal readers if they like what they see. As a result, your audience and readership will increase and so will your reach. Aside from this, the increased site traffic will also increase the income that you will be able to generate from your ad channels.

Everything balances out in the end, since content providers and the users end up benefiting at the same time from behavioral targeting.

This is a guest post by Ruben Corbo which writes about various topics including tech, online marketing and smartphone related topics. He’s recently been diving into Behavioral Targeting & Personalization and A/B Testing topics. When Ruben is not writing he is producing and writing music for short films and other visual arts.

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A virtual office gives you the chance to have a physical office address and contact number for prestigious centralised offices, giving off the impression that you are based there. You also have the benefit of access to a multilingual receptionist and use of a physical office and boardroom when required.

By setting up a virtual office, your business could become more profitable and more successful. Many people view virtual offices as being something that only freelancers use, because they don’t want to advertise they work from their dining room table! But modern approaches to business mean that a virtual office is a great way to make your company more cost-effective and win more business. These are the top 5 reasons to invest in a virtual office:

1. Reduce Your Outgoings

By using a virtual office, you remove the need to pay for expensive office spaces. With workspaces becoming more and more sought-after, it is common to find that many of the good quality office spaces in your area are out of price range. A company’s budget can only stretch so far, and it does not make good business sense to commit a large proportion of your annual spend on premises. You’d be well advised to consider alternative methods of working if this is the case – it’s all too easy to fall victim to expensive premises, even though they may be perfect for your needs. Consider strengthening your business and its finances before deciding to pay high prices for an office space.

2. Eliminate Overhead Costs

Sometimes an office which is priced attractively can hold hidden costs in the form of service charges or utility costs. An office may be part of a building that charges high rates for cleaning or maintenance – something which you might realise that you can do without, but are already committed to paying for.

There are other things to consider, such as heating, lighting and power bills. These can add up, especially in older buildings where insulation is lacking – but this can also be a feature of new buildings, which can be hot during summer, and cold during winter. You might be working from home, where there are ways to claim back costs associated with heating and electricity usage for the proportion of your home set aside for business use.

3. Avoid Risk of Over-commitment

One of the reasons that a new business does not survive its first year is because it is not financially sustainable. It can be easy to underestimate the costs involved, especially if your business struggles initially. Having too many financial commitments, such as an office to pay for, can add significant stress to any business, and so a virtual office is a great way to avoid this.

It’s not just new businesses that can be caught out – more established companies can suffer as a result of a poor quarter and end up in difficulty. Whatever stage your business is at, it’s always worth reviewing how and where you’re spending on your facilities.

4. Create a Professional Image

It can be tricky to persuade customers to trust you with contact details that contain a residential address, or a mobile number. You could have moved home since you last printed your business cards, and who’s to say you still have that mobile number? An important part of building consumer trust is by giving contact details which are clearly for business purposes – whilst they needn’t know you use a virtual postal address or phone number, you are able to make the right impression on them.

5. Tap into New Marketplaces

The beauty of a virtual office is that it can be located almost anywhere you choose. You might like to have a virtual office close to where you actually work; or perhaps in the closest big city so that you are still working with local businesses. The same applies for working in cities – or even countries – where you don’t have a presence but might like to expand into. For example, a virtual office in Amsterdam might give you a foothold in the Netherlands whilst still conducting business from the UK. There are many possibilities with virtual offices in this respect.

So there you have it, the top five reasons to use virtual offices which can benefit you no matter how established your business is, or how much you are able to commit financially.

Seyi Jobi has a passion for knowledge which eventually gave him the desire to contribute to his topics of interest. With a main interest in health, Seyi is now self-employed in that area which has led to a keen interest in start-up businesses and finance related areas. Seyi would like to share anything of benefit that he has come across that might be of benefit to others.

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Over the next few months, I hope to share more tips about time management, accomplishing tasks, and setting priorities. For now, though, I wanted to introduce the topic by talking about my own priorities that I began setting about six months ago. You may have noticed, during that time, that I’ve tended to share more guest posts here, and have written fewer of them myself. That’s because this blog, unfortunately, had to move down in my list of priorities for a while. That demotion isn’t permanent, however. But it did have to take a back seat while I concentrated on a very big project – one that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, by the way. But this project has been very time-consuming, so something had to give while I devoted lots of energy to it. So, what have I been working on?

The Grave Blogger

A novel! Yes, you may remember that I started this project as part of Nanonwrimo (National Novel Writing Month), but it has gone far beyond the initial month in which I began. I’ve been happily crafting this tale since then, and the book will be ready for publication this summer. I’ve had a grand time writing it, and I hope some of you enjoy reading it. As we get closer to the release date, I’ll revisit the subject so I can give away a few copies here. I’ll also be giving tips on the entire process for those of you who may be interested in writing your own book. After all, this blog focuses a great deal of time on working from home, and writing a book fits right into that discussion.

If you’d like to check out my book’s website, you can visit The Grave Blogger. The site will grow over the next few months, but for now, you can get a feel for the novel, sign up to be notified of its release, and of course… hint, hint … you can socialize it from there. You know, of course, that I’d really appreciate any tweets, likes, and plusses you might wish to give that site.

Priorities, Priorities

So that’s been my priority for a while, coupled with ongoing projects, client work, etc. I hope you continue to enjoy the sporadic posts here, either my own or my guest bloggers’. Once the book is released, I promise to supply you with lots more fresh content here, because at that point, priorities will be able to be re-shifted once again.

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When your potential lead clicks your product ad, he or she is led directly to your landing page. Your ad management service might tell you that your job is done here. It’s not. It only begins here. Find out how and why.

1. Avoid Using Multiple Columns

Put up your product offering information in a single column on the landing page. Multiple columns can be confusing to your visitor, apart from cluttering your landing page.

2. Avoid External Links

From your landing page, your visitor must be able to navigate only to specific internal links. Don’t link to external sites, even if they are authority sites. You don’t want your visitor leaving your site even for a moment.

3. Arrange Product Details Neatly

Use a large font size to display product name. Below the name, place your product video on the left side. On the right side of the video, put the description, specs and benefits, followed by a clear call-to-action button.

4. Include Customer Testimonials

Include previews of customer testimonials below your product details. Users who want to know more can click the links to expand the text. Mention special offers if any directly below them.

5. Insert Call To Action Buttons In Several Places

You’ll need to repeatedly prompt your leads to take action. Make sure you repeat the call-to-action buttons below product details, below testimonials, after special or bonus offers, at the end of the page and so on.

6. Include Your Privacy Policy And Copyright Statement

This should go at the bottom of your landing page. It should be distinct and visible so that your leads don’t miss it. Be sure to provide a link to the privacy policy at the top of the page as well, just after product details.

7. Work The Headline

Your landing page’s headline is of prime importance. Make sure the headline mentions the most significant benefit of using your product. For example, for a tax-based e-book, indicate how the book will liberate the reader.

8. Work The Opening Paragraph

Not everyone has the time to read through product descriptions. Use the first paragraph to clearly explain your product’s concept, who it’s meant for and how it will improve the customer’s lifestyle.

9. Don’t Turn It Into A Circus

Stay away from attention-grabbing popups, elaborate text, dynamic graphics and newsletter sign-up banners. Use bullet points and offer crisp value propositions.

10. Tell People Where They Are

When people click a link and land on a page, they need to know where they are. By clearly mentioning the purpose of the landing page right on the top, you can avoid confusion and frustration.

11. Custom Tag Each Link

This way you’ll know which links are used the most. Tracking your landing page activity will help you see where exactly you lose people – is it at the registration form, shopping cart, payment mode or survey form stage?

12. Don’t Offer Too Many Options

Your landing page does not need to have everything your other pages do. Remember they are stand alone pages as far as conversions go, so minimize distractions

13. Optimize Your Registration Forms

You will lose users for each additional registration field. Get your user’s email address for now and ask for more info later. Focus only on getting what you need for lead classification so you’ll know how to follow up.

14. Use Genuine Testimonials

Customers can spot false testimonials a mile away. Prevent loss of trust and credibility but uploading only genuine testimonials. If possible, get customer feedback on audio or video.

15. Include A Bonus Section

This section should only offer bonuses related to the products displayed on the landing page. If you misuse this section to offer unrelated merchandise, you will lose customer trust and your credibility.

16. Offer Free Samples For Signups

The right signup form with optimum fields combined with a great offer can increase landing page conversion rates. Offer free product samples when they signup; this will encourage more sales.

17. Display Your Pride In Your Product

Demonstrate your trust and pride in your product by displaying your brand, the awards your product has won, your traffic stats, AdSense earnings and so on.

18. Use Bright Call-To-Action Buttons

Put your call-to-action as a big, bright button that’s very visible. Use bright colors such as red, green, blue or orange. Don’t put call to actions as links.

19. Put Up Product Videos

A 1 to 5 minute video detailing product features and use is great to have. If you’re using people in your video, make sure they’re charming, smile a lot and can relate to the camera.

20. Test Everything

Do A/B test using tools such as Google Optimizer to test multiple landing pages. Add a new video, a new color button or new graphics and check the effect and loading times to decide on the best version.

This article is contributed by Dean of Invesp , a conversion rate and landing page optimization company that helps businesses in increasing effectiveness of their online marketing campaigns.

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He’s absolutely correct. And yet, billions – that’s billions with a “B” – billions of fortune cookies are sold each year. A truly crappy product can sell like crazy if it is elevated from boring to unique by simply adding a touch of something special.

Whether your product is a tangible item, or your product is a service, or your product is you, yourself, you can transform it by adding one unique quality. What one thing can elevate your product? What will make it stand out and be different?

How can you turn your crappy tasting cookie into a fortune? Think about it, and then make it happen.

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If you’ve been on the Internet for any length of time at all, you already know the basics about keeping a blog and networking. As a contractor (on the side) for Hampton’s real estate, I’ve been working from home for years and I’ve read the same articles that you have. However, what they never emphasize is how you can make the leap from being a simple blogger to being a columnist, that is, a respected professional in your field!

I’ve been working at home from ages, and it wasn’t until recently that I realized how I could turn my blog into a real resource that allows me to engage the blogosphere in general as well as the bloggers in my own niche. If you’ve been wondering if your blog is doing anything for you, the answer is probably no. This means that you need the answers that I had to work to find.

Audience & Engagement

First, reach out. The problem is that too many bloggers expect people to find them. The truth is that you need to make yourself a part of the web that already exists out there. Use things like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Tumblr to make contact with the professionals in your field and even with your fans. Once, I made a throwaway comment on the blog of an interior designer that I adored, whose work I hoped to emulate. Imagine my surprise when she commented favorably on my blog the next day! We had a brief exchange of comments that eventually lead to a sort of mentorship. The things I learned from her I put into practice every day. This is something that just goes to show you how powerful reaching out can be!

Authority

Don’t forget that you need to establish your authority on a subject matter. The truth is, if you are running an online business of any sort, you are an expert. You are someone who feels confident enough to put your goods or services out there for others. This means that you have knowledge to share.

Start by putting out articles or instructional tutorials. The more that people come to see you as an authority, the more they are going to be willing to come to see what you have to offer on a regular basis. Don’t be hesitant about what you have to say. People say that your audience can detect weakness like sharks detecting blood in the water, and while this is not necessarily the case, it is important to be confident about what you have to offer. The old adage is very true, where if you don’t have confidence in yourself, no one else will either!

Regular Contributions

What can really make or break your blog is regular posting. It’s a pain and sometimes it’s inconvenient, but if you want people to follow you, this is essential. Once, I was dealing with some troubles in my company and in my private life and somehow I let two months go by without a single post. When I finally went back to check my numbers, they had plummeted. It was like I had dropped a rock from a tall building; the drops were exactly that sharp. I went back to reread my last entry and I had to flinch. There was no sign I was taking any sort of hiatus and I even left everyone on a cliffhanger of sorts regarding what I was talking about.

Readership

Finally, I would always have fresh content up. When I searched around, I realized that it wasn’t as though other bloggers had vastly easier lives than mine. Plenty of them needed to take breaks and they dealt with it in a number of different ways. They got guest bloggers, they re-ran some favorite content, or they sent people to interesting sites while they were gone. All of these things kept the readership strong and coming back while during the bloggers’ absence.

Whether your blog is languishing from lack of love or you find that you are interested in starting one, now is the time to gear up. Consider what your options are and how you can create a blog that pulls people in and keeps them interested.

Sam Marquit is an entrepreneur, home improvement specialist, and part time blogger. Feel free to visit Sam’s blog, and don’t forget to connect with him @fmarquitv.

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This is a guest post by Kevin Ross.

My “area of expertise” is B2B Sales Promotions – particularly promotional products. This industry, like many others, has had its world turned upside down and its supply chain put through the shredder by the advent of the internet. Tell us something we don’t know. Well it’s not the internet per se that’s interesting, but the way it changes our world view and years of habitual behaviour that’s so fascinating.

Good Old Days

In the “good old days” when those unfortunates tasked with sourcing promotional products for a company event or corporate gift began their search, not unreasonably the main focus was finding the right product. Broadly speaking, buyers would make their decision based on;

1. Product characteristics
2. Budget
3. Availability
4. Speed of initial response
5. Building Trust

It may be time for some rose tinted glasses here, but I believe the slower pace of previous decades meant that, whilst customer service was always important, speed was not an important factor in what we considered to be “good service”. Availability? Well we were all happy and prepared to wait. As a supplier, we manufactured our standard products to order and took our time doing it. Most suppliers did the same, so the mind-set of both buyer and supplier were in harmony. This allowed buyers to look around for the right product with the time to get it at the right price. Now this would seem an intolerably long process and have us exasperated within minutes – never mind the days or even weeks it would previously take – but it allowed trust in the supplier to be built up before a final purchasing decision was made.

Then To Now: Modern Buying Drivers

Well that was then and this is now. And the difference between then and now is, of course, the internet. We all know the benefits this amazing phenomenon has brought us but at the same time it has profoundly changed the way we do things, and the way we view the world.

The million miles per hour buyers want it yesterday and expect it sooner – this mentality has turned the buying process on its head. And with it, business owners must rethink their view of how they interact with their customers and what their customers’ drivers are in 2012. And believe me, you’d better get with the programme, and quick, before your customers look for someone who is up to speed, or at least speedier than you are!

Now those buying drivers are inverted:

1. Trust
2. Speed of initial response
3. Availability
4. Budget
5. Product characteristics

Our beloved buyers in 2012 neither have the patience or the time to build up trust over a buying cycle – especially one that now can last just minutes rather than days or weeks. A website courting these buyers needs to convey trust within seconds to kick start the process. Fail in that and none of the other drivers matter. But that’s a whole other article.

Building Relationships That Work

So you’ve grabbed their attention and they haven’t bounced straight off the site. You need to be unfailing in your response to any enquiry in whatever way they want to connect with you; email, phone, social media, and even text. Any slip along the way and you’re toast.

As everything now is so immediate, planning ahead seems an almost outdated concept. Shoppers turning up at John Lewis in September to do their Christmas shopping is the domain of Grannies, now it’s an online shop the week before for the time poor internet generation. So availability is key; you need to have it now and be able to despatch it yesterday.

Of course budget will always be important, but our experience of buyers over the last couple of years is if they can’t get what they want, they’ll accept the next best alternative within their budget. As long as they still trust you of course. And so; from trust to response to availability to budget, theB2B buyer makes their final product choice right at the end of the process and with little or no emotional investment. Of course, there are always those buyers who know exactly what they want, but there is a growing tide of purchases that follow this pattern.

Is that a bad thing?

Well, yes and no. “Yes” if, as a supplier, you can’t or won’t change the way you interact with your customers. And definitely “no” if you can get your head around this new world order. The opportunities are huge for those suppliers who can tap into this new mind-set. Not only will you be talking to your customers in their language, you’ll have stolen a march on most if not all of your suppliers.

Author Bio

Kevin Ross is the Managing Director of The Corporate Gifts Company and has over 20 years’ experience of running a successful company. The Corporate Gifts Company specialise in premium executive gifts, including business Card Holders and desk toys.

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