I just helped a client set up a tabbed interface for their Google Earth placemarks. It took a lot of searching to figure out how, but in the end it wasn’t that tough. I used the “tabber” javascript and css tabifier. It looks good “out of the box” and it’s the lightest I found. Here: http://www.barelyfitz.com/projects/tabber/

I tried to find a way to have the Javascript and CSS as part of the placemark code, but ended up hosting it on the client’s server.

For the header I also pulled in an image from the client’s site and we made it a clickable link with the same technique people use to put header graphics in their Thesis Wordpress themes.

I’ll expand this post with details if anyone’s actually interested. Make a comment if you want to see code and more tips.

If you touch this, it will fall down

The other day at a coffee shop in Anacortes, WA, I saw one of these nail balancing puzzles at the counter where people stand to wait for their espresso drinks.

It had a sign under it reading:

If you touch this, it will fall down.

I asked the woman making my latte how often people touched it.

She laughed and told me that she was performing an experiment.

At first the sign read,

Don’t Touch.

But people touched it all the time. It got knocked down four or five times a day.

Then she changed the sign to:

Don’t Touch. For sale. $500.

People STILL touched it.

But once she changed it to a clear statement of action and consequence, people stopped touching it.

The lesson: People pay attention not when they’re told what to do, but when they’re given the tools they need to form their own conclusions about whether or not a certain course of action is a good one.

Photo by Elisfanclub via Flickr

Last night I taught the first session of a six-week “Social Media Marketing For Small Businesses” course on Orcas Island. The class is sponsored by The Funhouse, based on suggestions from the Chamber of Commerce and the Orcas Green Business Alliance. The attendees are a mix of small businesses and non-profits working in both the tourist economy and the “locals” economy.

One of our key efforts on this first night was to define what social media is, and how we can use it to grow our businesses.

I made a deliberate choice to focus on strategy first and tools second. Instead of defining social media as “Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn,” we focused on how the whole idea of two-way communication can help us build authentic connection with our customers or clients.

Together we came up with a list of 6 ways to use social media:

1. Broadcast/Annoucement
2. Word of Mouth
3. Market Research
4. Become an Expert/Connect with Potential Customers
5. Damage Control/Customer Service
6. Build Traffic

Obviously there are more, but we’re trying to focus on finding a clear path of action for each business or non-profit to take through the confusing minefield of social media.

We had an interesting discussion about word of mouth marketing, and how we can get people to spread the word about our businesses.

Much of the time, we think about what we want to tell other people. The mindset shift is to start thinking about what other people want to tell other people.

I like to think of it as giving someone the gift of something interesting to talk about at the water cooler.

And it just happened that a perfect example of this appeared in my email this morning, courtesy of Michael Martine at remarkablogger.com:

He wrote:

I ran across this website last night and sat, spellbound, for over an hour as I went through it. I was so moved by it that I wanted to share it with you. It affected me so much that I had to shut everything down for a while and just think about my life.

http://beforeidieiwantto.org/usa_nyc.html

I hope that you are also affected in the same positive way I was.

After all, there isn’t really much time, is there?

Michael

P.S. – If you want to share this site with people, I think you’ll be doing one small thing to help the world be a better place. To make it easy for you to share this on Twitter, just copy the text below and paste it into Twitter:

RT @remarkablogger What do you want to do before you die? -  http://bit.ly/3J0Yy9

P.P.S. – Did this site move you? I would love to hear your thoughts and reaction to it. Feel free to reply to this email and tell me what you think. I want to hear from you.

Here are a few things he did really well:

1. He sent something interesting, authentic, and unselfish.
2. He gave me an easy way to spread the word that required minimal thought and effort.
3. He asked for feedback and ongoing communication.

Thoughts or responses? Please make a comment!

I just ran across a fantastic explanation of all the moving parts involved in setting up credit card processing for online purchases. The guide is illustrated (helps a lot) and will explain in 10 minutes what will otherwise take you hours to figure out on your own with the unhelpful help files at most providers.

Go here: http://jumpstartcc.com/

While we’re at it, remember that the people who sell gateways and merchant accounts make their money off the setup charges and fees. You can negotiate. I remember some years ago being told I could set up an account for a $795 activation fee. I balked and asked if they could negotiate on that. They cut it to $250 in the next sentence. Yuck.  (I found someone who offered the exact same service for only $95.)

I touched on this in my post yesterday, but not explicitly:

There are two different kinds of objections. (An objection being anything that makes a customer hesitate before making a purchase.

The first is an objection to YOUR particular product or service:

• Price
• Size
• Color
• Timing
• Availability
• Guarantee, etc

And then there are objections that are much more general. These are the objections that would apply for any business similar to yours.

To use my example from yesterday, if someone wants to take a dinner cruise from Orcas Island, they might have certain concerns that apply to any activity they would do in the evening, such as the weather, when sunset comes, etc.

The upshot is: You have to convince customers to choose you not only over the competition, but over the option of doing absolutely nothing at all.

Understanding your customers’ possible objections is tough. But it brings results.

Here’s a lesson from the e-commerce world that applies to a lot of small businesses with websites.

According to a Marketing Sherpa article published 12/23/09, “Any time a visitor leaves your ecommerce site to research a product, your odds of converting them decline.”

Pretty obvious, right? Let’s say you’re looking for a particular sleeping bag. You find one at the right price, but then you need to be sure it’s really the right kind of bag. So you go off to research what sleeping bags are best in particular conditions, and along the way you either a) get distracted and leave the computer, never to return or b) find a different sleeping bag from a different retailer based on an advertisement or link on one of the pages you find while researching.

So let’s translate this to the non-ecommerce world.

(Because, actually, every small business website is an e-commerce website. You may not have a shopping cart set up, but the purpose of your website is to get people to make a transaction with you.)

What information do people need to complete a transaction with you? Are you providing it?

Maybe you run a boat chartering service. Obviously some of your prospects will be comparing your service to the services provided by your competitors. You can’t stop this. And you probably don’t want to spend valuable space on your site describing your competitors’ offerings.

But there will definitely be unanswered questions in your prospects’ minds. And they might look elsewhere to find them.

Say I’m planning a vacation on Orcas Island for late July. I’ve found the site of a charter company that will take my family out for a dinner cruise. The site has plenty of information about what the cruise itself is like. I’m sold on it.

But just as I reach for the phone, I start wondering…

What’s the weather usually like in late July? How cold will it be on the water? What are the chances that it will rain?

If the site answers my questions, great. But if it doesn’t, I’ll look elsewhere.

If I type “july weather on orcas island” into Google, the top result is actually a website that tries to convince me that I will lose precious vacation days if I try to go to Orcas Island, suggesting instead that I stay in Anacortes and choose from several activities it presents: sea kayaking, fishing charters, etc.

There’s a real chance you can lose a prospect if they have to look elsewhere for information.

How do you fix this?

Two ways. One is to sit down and think HARD about what might be going through your prospects’ minds as they decide whether or not to pick up the phone and book a cruise with you (or whatever it is in your business). Then address these concerns on your site.

The second is to give people a very clear way to ask you a question, right on your website. At the least this should be an email address you check regularly. Better if it’s some kind of form that doesn’t make people leave your site to ask the question. You could even invite people to text their question to your cell phone.

Then add any significant questions to your site’s FAQ or to the section where you address people’s concerns.

Try it and let me know how it goes. Have a question about this idea? Put it in the comments. Or send me a text message at 360-298-2869…

Do you collect names from customers who walk into your shop? Maybe even email addresses?

If so, have you ever actually done anything with those names?

I was just talking to a friend who runs an outfit where people seem to be very happy to put their names and addresses on the clipboard he leaves on the counter.

But what does he do with this?

Nothing.

This list is a gold mine of information waiting to be tapped. These are all people who walked in the door and interacted with him. They have important feedback to give on their experience. They have friends they can tell.

What’s stopping you from using the information you’ve been collecting? Are you just not sure what questions to ask? How to get in touch with them? Just haven’t made time?

Make a plan.

Are you considering advertising on Peter Shankman’s HARO newsletter?

It reaches thousands of sharp, well-connected people. And it’s an undeniably great place to advertise.

But if you’re not ready for it, you’re throwing good money away.

Here’s why: HARO will bring you a rush of great traffic, but HARO readers are busy and distracted. If your site doesn’t grab them by the throat and deliver whatever you promised in your ad text, all those people will disappear as quickly as they came.

With HARO, you only have one chance. Your ad goes live in a single email. You’ll see traffic for a few hours. A day at most.

There’s no chance to fix things if your site isn’t working as well as it should.

Unfortunately, the advertisers who are making mistakes with their web sites are the ones who can least afford to see that money go down the drain.

Click here for a checklist of things to fix before your ad goes live.