WDTalk

What I mean by value add is your company’s unique blend of products and services, and how those are perceived by your prospects and clients.  You may be the absolute best at what you offer, yet aren’t growing as expected. This often happens when you don’t effectively communicate your expertise. 

Communication is key 

What’s behind your value add? If you don’t spell out everything you do, starting with your estimates and proposals – to invoices, your value add could be overlooked.  What does it take to provide your business solution? Infrastructure, research, surveys, reports, travel time, understanding the competition, proof reading, editing, revisions,  design work, interviews, phone calls, industry schooling and licensing? The list goes on and on, but are these communicated to your prospects and clients? If not, your value add will be negatively impacted.

Expertise is a business value add

Why do I pay my automotive dealer $95+/hour for labor? When I was repairing typesetters, our first hour labor rate was $180.00, and that was 25 years ago. Hair coloring and styling can run $100.00+. And these rates are invoiced and paid routinely because there’s a perception of value associated with each service.  The perception of your value can be elevated via marketing campaigns, blogs, case studies, testimonials and so on.

Web hosting value adds

Among the value adds I envision as important for a web hosting provider, infrastructure, 24×7 support and hands-on expertise rank high. Every provider, it seems, has bronze, silver and gold plans. For providers, if your value add is ecommerce, disaster recovery or managed services, how do you communicate what makes your service unique, and worth the price you advertise? If you offer collocation, how do your plans differ from your competition?  Would two 20AMP circuits per rack be a value add, or simply norm? If you offer business class shared web hosting plans, would that be a value add? Certainly, value adds are competition driven.  Do your prospects and clients know how you differ from your competition?  Telling them, or not, will impact your business.

None of us works in a vacuum. We all have competitors, some more than others. So what separates your business from your competition? What processes have you implemented to brand your business, get it noticed, become rememberable and drive profits?

Always versus Rarely
Cross industry, there are verticals that ALWAYS do business the same way, and there are those that stand out for RARELY doing business as usual. Now either can be good or bad, but separating yourself from the herd WILL get you noticed. I’ve been fortunate to be with a number of firms that didn’t just have satisfied customers, rather Raving Fans. 

The perception of your industry
Have you ever just sat down and jotted what everyone else in your industry ALWAYS does? And what others RARELY do? What category does your business fall into? For example, let’s take the medical profession. What does your local physician ALWAYS do? I’d say, they ALWAYS take Wednesday’s off (don’t have a clue why!) and they ALWAYS overbook their appointments. On the RARELY side, I’d say they RARELY …. you see where I’m going. Does your hosting provider offer 24 x 7 x 365 livechat and toll free phone support?

Search Queries
When prospects key queries into Google and Bing, they have a preconceived notion of what to expect. With literally millions of results for almost any keyword phrase, studies have shown that you should be in the top 3 results, and at minimum on the first or second page. If you are there now, are the search queries that drove these prospects to your site revelant to the products and services you promote? If they are, how are you any different from the last 5 sites they just visited? Why would they buy from you, if they haven’t purchased from the last site they were on?

Understanding your market and industry
This goes back to the ALWAYS and RARELY. Some prospects want tried and true, while others want cutting edge, or even bleeding edge. Understanding your market and your industry is key. This plays directly to developing an industry niche. And that will be a topic for another day.

I recently attended a local Chamber of Commerce afterhours party where - one of the discussions turned to Social Media Marketing as a business tool. An interesting point was made that prospects, cross-industry, aren’t as open to direct sales calls, but would rather search the Internet for information related to potential purchases for everything from shoes, cars, homes and restaurants - to web hosting.

Do you write content for your website or blog? It only follows that if prospects (for your products or services) are keying in search queries to find relevant  information on the Internet, that you should be there. I guarantee this – your competition WILL be there.

Writer’s Block - Don’t know what to write about? Select anything you’re passionate about. What do you know about your product or service that could be beneficial to the reader? Very often, if you just start jotting down notes throughout the day, some topic will jump off the paper and hit you square in the middle of your forehead.  The real key here to just do it. There are NO excuses for NOT writing. All of us lead very busy lives, bombarded with demands on our time and energy.

Providing information relevant to the search query is paramount - First, pick a topic geared to providing information, either how-to or solutions based – the goal being to help / provide insight. Start with a topic in your specific niche, like “Website Design” or “Automotive Repair,” then create a title based on emotion, or anything that you think would draw a click through. Some examples would be, “Unlimited space and bandwidth = unlimited risks” or “Increasing the quality of  marketing campaigns.”

Keep your paragraphs short - I realize you’re excited about your stuff, but loooooooooooong paragraphs turn OFF most surfers. Break your content down into specific thoughts or steps, with one paragraph leading or flowing to the next. Try to compile some fashion of chronological order. Hopping around will only confuse the reader and cause them to lose focus.

Touch as many of the five senses as possible - Of the five senses, I mean sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing.  Obliviously, these won’t all apply to each article, but through a combination of graphics, and painting pictures with words, you’ll create mental images that will reinforce your call-to-action.

End with a recommendation -  Recommendations can be tips, cautions or proposed solutions. Prospects are searching the Web to alleviate some pain or issue, grow their company or enhance their lives. Try to stay positive.