There actually is a difference between data and information. In a fairlt general sense, data is information without contect. For example, 1970 could be “one thousand nine hundred and seventy”, “one nine seven zero” or “year of birth, Ninetenn Seventy”.

Whenever we collect data from a customer, it must serve a purpose. A couple of common misconceptions:

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• If you’re asking for date of birth, there’s no need to ask for age as well.
• If all your customers are from the same Town, State, and/or Country, is the information needed?
• If you can’t actually see a person sign a form, why ask for their signature?
• Name, Date of Birth, and Address are not good security questions – they are usually printed on any driver licence. Unless the licence is a photo id and you can see the photo, you cannot verify the person on the other end of the phone line.

The information you collect will determine the design of the form you create to collect that information. Be quite sure of (i) what you need to know, (ii) what you might like to know (for marketing purposes), and (iii) what you either don’t need to know (or if you ask for it, might turn the customer away) BEFORE you even start to design your collection form. It usually makes little difference whether the form is online or offline, the information you’ll need remains the same.

• search engines discover you
• visitors find what they’re looking for
• your web page content speaks to your target market

If your website isn’t performing, if it’s not converting visitors to sales (or sales contacts, or whatever other measure you use) its wasting your money!

Your business MUST be remarkable. If you can’t be remarkable in the industry within which you operate, at best, you’ll grow at the same rate of the industry. There’ll be no giant leaps forward.

A good story might be about how your business started, the way a person might feel from dealing with you, or the cat that lives on the shop floor. Use your imagination! Don’t lie, make sure everything you tell your potential customers is absolutely true (because they’ll find you out eventually anyway), and place yourself as far away as possible in the market from where your competitors are.

Find those customers that are looking for something different. If they’re impressed, they’ll tell their friends. Word will spread, and before you know it, your competition will be trying to imitate you.

There are numerous online marketing opportunities that will have different effectiveness for different businesses and industries.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) involves producing and maintaining a website that uses targeted keywords and programming code that is “search engine friendly”. The rules are unclear, and the goalposts often move, but one thing remains constant: use commonsense when designing your website and both your customers and the search engines will find you, and importantly, like what they find.

We know of proven marketing and sales strategies that go outside the usual thinking for how a website should look and feel. You can have a web presence without going through a web design agency and successfully sell your product on line. We can help make your web site profitable and keep you away from the hidden pitfalls.

There are more than purely perceived up-front financial considerations when you make a business decision. For example:

• the value of lost sales due to a cheaper, but delayed, delivery
• the extra administration tasks as a result of poor training
• your time that could be better spent on the golf course

With a thorough cost-benefit analysis of the possible options, the business decision can become suddenly blindingly obvious.

T A N S T A A F L

or in other words…

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch

When making a business decision, it’s important to determine if a proposed option:

• falls in line with the strategic objectives
• maximises the net benefit for the resources that will be used
• HAS a net-benefit
• has achievable timing considerations
• has acceptable ethical, moral, and/or legal implications
• does not affect cash flow in an unmanageable way
• has an acceptable risk and/or return (particularly in relation to external factors)