Here’s the juiciest stats and observations I made from this jam-packed session:

• “Continually improve how you can obtain data about your clients, customers, target audience. The more you can refine your message and deliver it best, the more effective your communications will be.”

TRANSLATION: Get email addresses whenever possible. Ask questions at any touch point with customers, patients, etc. Connect with your prospects in language, look and ways that fit the way they really talk to each other.

• 54% of bloggers post daily.

TRANSLATION: Whatever you are doing online and in social media isn’t enough. Find people who can help you expand your efforts in these areas. (Note to self: Blog more!)

• Build your personal brand.

TRANSLATION: As we live our lives more publicly, we need to craft the story about our own personas conscientiously. People are now more likely to “know” you before ever meeting you. Make sure those impressions are in alignment with your business and career goals.

• Since women do 80% of the buying in the consumer marketplace, be sure you are speaking to them.

TRANSLATION: Do your homework and find out exactly who makes the decisions about buying your products or services. Imagine your best possible client/patient/customer and craft marketing messages that speak directly to them.

• Look for the “passion points” in the group you are targeting.

TRANSLATION: Do you know what excites or inspires your target audience? Beyond the old marketing model of talking about what “pain point” motivates buyers, this approach addresses tapping into positive motivations whether for fun, success, fulfillment, etc.

• “Understanding the new media means you’ve gotta live it.”

TRANSLATION: Not a big stretch here. Kari King of Glam Media put it bluntly in that statement. To meet customers where they are online, you’ve got to be there, too. Actively. Regularly. Dabbling is a good way to get your feet wet. But don’t expect to win new clients/patients/customers with just a Facebook page and a never-checked Twitter account. Carve out some time and make social media a priority in your marketing efforts – especially if you know your prospects are already living there.

On the morning of April 14, 2010, an earthquake struck a remote area of Tibet. The damage was catastrophic. Some kids didn’t make it to school. Some who were already there didn’t make it out alive.

Hours later here in the U.S., reports and news links were shared furiously via email and phone calls. That place halfway around the world made powerful emotional aftershocks. Tibet Girls School, a small but hearty place dedicated to educating and empowering Nomad girls, was leveled. The community here in Evanston that created and supported the school tossed their priorities and tears aside to immediately activate a plan to raise money and awareness.

Since the project began in 2008, I’ve been working with Asang and Nancy Floy, founders and leaders of Tsogyaling Meditation Center, the 501(c)3 organization that runs the school. I designed the logo, created the website and developed materials for their exhibits, events and more. Yet beyond the intrinsic connection I feel through my work, my friendships with Asang, Nancy and many Tsogyaling/Tibet Girls School board members made this tragedy deeply personal.

The news was no longer just a series of sad stories somewhere else with abstract political and economic implications. This time, my friends had lost nephews and nieces. Collecting money didn’t mean just sending a check to some giant agency with hope that some small amount actually helps a real person. This time, our time and money will benefit these girls and their families directly. Through their grief, Asang and Nancy are working with officials and lawyers to expedite their travel visas so that they can get to Tibet, helping the girls and seeing family in person.

This photo was taken just days before the earthquake. Tibet Girls School is now gone.

Not surprisingly, this experience puts many things into perspective. Beyond my gratitude for being alive and my compassion for the pain and sorrow of the earthquake victims, I am pleased to see how my work can be so meaningful. My priorities that Wednesday morning became writing and circulating a press release, updating the web site and putting an online donation system in place. Within hours, our team connected with media and benefactors resulting in television, radio and print exposure. Donations to help topped $5,000 in just days and efforts continue as plans to rebuild a strong new school to educate more girls and young women emerges.

Donations are still needed and can be made at www.evanstonmeditation.org. Many thanks to all for your support.

Sometimes the petite pepper provides the
right amount of heat for a tasty recipe.

The best approach for reviewing the site is to aim for what I call “right-size web design”. What are the next best upgrades for your site that will bring you the most bang for your buck? Remember exactly who you most want to reach when pondering an upgrade or makeover and consider these questions:

How often can you update the site?
Keeping content fresh for SEO (search engine optimization) and returning visitors is more critical for some types of businesses than others. Retailers need to keep product and sales info current. Service providers in health and technology need to showcase their expertise in a rapidly changing environment. But monthly content updates may be sufficient while you use your blog for more transitory or conversational info.

Do you need any interactive features?
A calendar or RSS feed can add depth and interest to your site. But if you don’t change up events or info often enough or the site is too busy, these features can also distract visitors and postpone or thwart a potential call or sale.

Can you integrate your social networking activities?
Get your Facebook page, Twitter feeds, blog and more tied in with your web site. A simple icon link will do for some; up-to-the-minute, simultaneous posts work better for others.

Take a good look at your site and talk over the options with your marketing partner or web guru. You can get the right sized upgrades for your site without spending a fortune or settling for the status quo.

Consider these different access scenarios:

• Is your aging aunt in a wheelchair but itching to roll to the polls and cast her vote? Election officials can see accessible voting machines, as well as ramps and signs via the web store.
• Are you deaf or hard-of-hearing and wish you could pick up a quick meal at a drive-thru restaurant as you come home from the late shift? Find out how Inclusion Solutions offers OrderAssist to streamline communications (and sales!) between customers and employees in several videos available on the web site and YouTube.
• Do you own a store in an old building and wonder if you might miss business if people can’t get in the door? See how their BigBell — an affordable, ADA-compliant system — can help seniors, people with disabilities and even moms with strollers come on in and shop.

The new site Grotto created not only sells a wealth of products, but it reflects the heart of the Inclusion Solutions brand by embracing their commitment to advocacy with links to resources and statistics. Check out the relaunch at www.inclusionsolutions.com and pass it along to fellow business-owners or people in your life who are looking for greater access.

Inclusion Solutions web site

1. Be Online and Keep Up

If you have any kind of online presence — blog, Facebook page, Twitter account — do something with it! Don’t forget it or let it go stale (and please ignore any weeks-long gaps in the blog of yours truly). It happens. Life and work get in the way. Do it again anyway. I just saw my alumni association post a request for blogs via Twitter. Piped right up and offered the Grotto blog in a Tweet right back. Every link and listing can bring new people into your world.

2. Stay in Touch

Previous clients, colleagues and all manner of network connections can provide not only referrals and ideas, but help and support. Think about it. Are you leaving money on the table by not following up with somebody about their random question from last month? Could it lead to a new project? Or, maybe that phone call or email will hit them just as someone asks them if they know anybody who does what your company does. Little touch points can make the difference when timing is everything.

3. Update Something

If you have a web site that looks like a brochure at least freshen up the content with some new samples of your work. Post a review about a new product. Update your client list. Add a widget to feed a Google application (news feed, word of the day) to your site. Anything — let’s make that anything relevant! — to keep it looking like someone pays attention to it and to help keep the search engines stopping by. Web site in decent shape? Tackle a sell sheet or pick apart your elevator speech for a better angle to meet buyers where they are today.

4. Step Outside of Your Comfort Zone

Don’t like to network? Vow to attend one new event and engage with some different people about what you do for a living. Do your project management skills leave something to be desired? Ask others how they begin a big project or keep track of little details. Stretching into some new territory may give you just the boost you need to win more clients.

5. Do a Brand Audit

After a while, your logo and all your marketing materials can start to veer away from one another. Some degradation is bound to happen over time when print, event or sales deadlines are rushed and guidelines are out-of-sight/out-of-mind. Gather up a bunch of your materials and look them over with a critical eye. Do they look like they come from the same place? Do they inspire trust and encourage people to choose you? Tighten up your brand and amp up the professionalism of your company.

The Grotto gang partnered with title sponsor NorthShore University HealthSystem and Turin Bicycle to deliver a press conference announcing the race and all its features just last week. Newly minted Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl lent her support: “Evanston is a world class city. It is events like this one that help define Evanston as a lively, engaging, and fun place to live, work, study, dine, shop, and play.”

Come out and join us for a really great day. With more than 70 restaurants to choose from within mere blocks of the race (half of which are RIGHT ON THE COURSE), you can enjoy tastes and beverages from around the world. Bring the kids (BYO-bike!) so they can race right on the course at 3:15 pm. And scope out deals and free stuff in the Festival Area and shops around town. We love promoting the NorthShore Grand Prix and invite everyone to come down and see what all the excitement is all about.

Secondary navigation access replaced the confusing frames-based format of the old site and gave us flexibility in guiding two unique audience groups — parents and practitioners — to the info they would find most useful. For example, within the Find a Provider section each specialty area is just one click away.

Response from members has been positive and we look forward to watching traffic reports to see how the site is growing up.

Maybe it is high time you hired an intern for some marketing assistance or a bookkeeper to handle invoicing, etc. Our bookkeeper Linda not only takes care of AP and AR at Grotto, she offers ideas that have streamlined our processes and improved the bottom line. (She’s with us just part-time so holler if you want her number. She’s great!)

Asking for help doesn’t always mean adding staff or expanding your list of vendors. Remember to ask colleagues, friends and even clients for advice when you are puzzled by something. The whole online social networking phenomenon has some degree of call-and-response built in where the most interactive hubs depend on a give and take of information.

Think nobody wants to help? Especially “in these times”? Think again.

Check out tweenbots. Proof positive that people—even NYC busy people—are always willing to help. Just ask.

Thanks for the link, Charley.

• Do you find yourself apologizing for your web site when you send someone to it? (“Just ignore the pictures/flashy thing/out-of-date stuff.”)
• Do you feel like the site could actually motivate more people to call or buy?
• Does it just seem like the site feels a little dated or out-of-step with what you see on the Internet these days? Or, it doesn’t even mention your current services or product lines?

Whether you update content on your web site frequently or just every so often, a regular—perhaps deeper—review could improve search engine results (which means bringing new eyeballs to your info) and make sure the site is technically up to snuff.

You don’t necessarily have to scrap the whole site to get some added benefits. Even a few tweaks can bring real results. For instructor Arlene Faulk, we improved her page rank in Google and delivered more inquiries and students simply by changing the words “t’ai ch” with an apostrophe to “tai chi” (without) on her site along with some other minor copy updates. Renaming page files with search friendly words, converting image-based navigation terms to HTML text or rewriting content on key landing pages just might give your business the bump it needs.

Your web site check-up might point to some of these action steps (depending in part on when the site was built and the techy chops of your web designer/developer):

• Streamline the underlying code to make sure the site functions well on all popular browsers.
• Update copy and images to tell people exactly how your products or services will help them.
• Experiment with new keyword phrases in the copy, page titles and file names to match what real people are typing into search engines.
• Rethink (and probably remove) flash-based opening pages.
• Add alt tags* and restructure content to meet standards for the disabled and for mobile devices.

Of course, a full redesign may be necessary at some point. Web standards (including the explosion of Internet access on mobile devices) are continually being refined to help us deliver information more efficiently. Don’t let your web site stagnate!

*alt tag = A bit of code that says what an element or image is even when it isn’t being displayed. For example, a visually-impaired person using a screen reader would hear the text of the alt tag in place of seeing the image.

Have you ever hesitated before trashing yet another unsolicited email about improving your marketing efforts? Wondering if this one is the one that might really work? Honestly, most of those direct mail tactics are aimed at getting cash away from the desperate. And while many more business owners may be edging toward that scary edge these days, it really is better to look for tangible help from your own community.

Our philosophy here at Grotto Communications is to provide meaningful marketing communications help to our fellow entrepreneurs. Clients and networking buddies alike should come away from interactions with us with a realistic way to apply an idea to get a better response from prospective buyers and connect with the people they want to reach.

That’s why I’m confident and delighted to help promote an upcoming seminar led by my partner Jim Marsh and our colleague, business coach David J.P. Fisher of RockStar Consulting. Check out “Making the Most of Your Marketing: The Tools You Need to Grow Your Business NOW!” The session takes place on Friday, March 27, at the Rotary Building in Evanston. This unique event gives you the opportunity to learn from a marketing expert and a business coach at the same time. Integrate your marketing materials with your sales process to attract new clients, customers or patients. Have fun and let us know how it goes!
Register now >>