Free Isn't Always Good - Why You Need Your Own Website

Written by Kara Kelso


Often time I've browsed sites and seenrepparttar same thing - general rep websites or free hosted sites. Pop ups irritate me fromrepparttar 104252 free sites as doesrepparttar 104253 blatant ads getting inrepparttar 104254 way ofrepparttar 104255 text, and if you have seen one rep site you literally have seen them all. Boring, unoriginal, and unprofessional.

But after all they are free, and free is good right? Wrong - not when it comes to your image online.

Regardless ofrepparttar 104256 business you are in, it's important you have your own website. Meaning you have a unique domain name with purchased hosting. There are many benefits to owning your own website and I'll explain why:

1. Ability to Track Visitors If you don't know where your visitors are coming from, there is no way to know if your advertising is working or not. It's a shot inrepparttar 104257 dark, andrepparttar 104258 internet is too large to take a chance like that.

While some free hosting companies offerrepparttar 104259 ability to edit your pages and add trackers, general rep sites usually do not.

2. Eliminates unwanted information/ads Most free hosting company will place their own ads on your website. How many potential customers could you be loosing with this? The same applies for company information on rep websites. Should your potential customer contactrepparttar 104260 company directly instead of you, you've lost that commission/sale.

3. Ability to give your site a personal feel Company rep sites of course all look alike. Very few giverepparttar 104261 option of editing, so you are "stuck" with their design, their content and descriptions, and their information. Many free hosting companies only have templates to use, so your sites would look like many others online. Giving your website a personal feel with your own design, descriptions, and information sets you apart from your competition.

Engage Your Customer – Write About Benefits

Written by Glenn Murray


You’re welcome to publish this article free of charge provided: - you includerepparttar byline - byline includes a functioning link to http://www.divinewrite.com - you don’t changerepparttar 104251 article in any way - you provide a courtesy copy once published

Engage Your Customer – Write About Benefits By Glenn Murray *

Think quick. In 10 seconds, can you listrepparttar 104252 5 key benefits you offer your customers?

I bet you said “Yes”. But are you sure you listed benefits? If you’ll bear with me for another 10 seconds, I’d like to test out a theory on you.

Recap your answers – maybe even write them down. Now listrepparttar 104253 5 main things your business does. In other words, what are your 5 core services? What arerepparttar 104254 5 core features of your product?

If your first list looks anything like your second, chances are you’re mistaking features for benefits. As a result, it’s likely that your marketing materials aren’t engaging your customer. Customers don’t want to know what you can do. They want to know what you can do FOR THEM.

Don’t talk features – talk benefits.

Don’t be alarmed. You’re not alone. Most business owners and marketing managers are so close to their product or service that they have a lot of trouble distinguishing benefits fromrepparttar 104255 features of their offering. Ask a web host “what arerepparttar 104256 benefits of your service?”, and you’ll likely hear something alongrepparttar 104257 lines of, “we offer load-balanced server clusters.” But that’s not a benefit… that’s what they do. The benefit is superior uptime and performance.

In fact, so many people think features instead of benefits that it can work in your favour – to dramatic effect. If you can accurately identify your benefits, and convey those benefits to your market, you’ll be light-years ahead of most of your competition. You’ll be converting leads into sales while they’re still bogged down trying to promote features.

So if you’ve ever sat down to write a sales letter and wondered how you’re going to grab your reader’s attention, or you’ve ever gone ‘round in circles writing draft after draft of web copy without ever hittingrepparttar 104258 mark, now you know where you were going wrong.

The only question remaining is, how do you do it right? Advertising copywriters and website copywriters do it allrepparttar 104259 time – and most ofrepparttar 104260 time, they do it with benefits. Benefits arerepparttar 104261 copywriter’s holy grail. But if you’re not a seasoned copywriter, how do you identifyrepparttar 104262 benefits you offer your customers?

There are any number of ways to identifyrepparttar 104263 benefits you offer. This article discusses just three: 1) Customer Research 2) Speak to Your Sales Team 3) Make it Easy for Your Customer to Get Buy-In

The method you choose depends on your time constraints, budget, and level of customer interaction.

1) Customer Research The most obvious way to identify benefits is to ask your existing customers. They’re spending a lot of money on your offering, so you can be sure they know what benefit they’re getting from it. (In many cases, it can be handy to ask them what benefits they’d like to be getting from you too!) Unfortunately, like everyone else, your customers are busy people. In most cases, you won’t get useful feedback by simply sending an email enquiry. You have to make it easy for them to respond, and you have to make it worth their while. Think about questionnaires and surveys for quantitative data, and interviews and focus groups for qualitative data. These arerepparttar 104264 simplest techniques, but you still have to make sure you interpretrepparttar 104265 results appropriately. And always remember that they’re self-report methods. People will sometimes tell you what they think you want to hear. (That’s also why you have to word your questions very carefully – try not to ask leading questions.) Of course, there are plenty of other research techniques around. Do a bit of homework and findrepparttar 104266 methods which best suit your business requirements. But don’t get carried away byrepparttar 104267 possibilities. Allrepparttar 104268 research data inrepparttar 104269 world is pointless if you’re not talkingrepparttar 104270 language of your customer.

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