HR Legal Consultant Shelly worked with small businesses in setting up their human resources areas and helping them with legal issues related to HR. She soon realised there was a niche in the market to help more businesses in this area and came up with the fantastic idea of creating an online resource where business owners could get free information and guidance - and also sign up for her services. To make this a successful business venture, Shelly had to build a large database of followers so she needed a professional functional web presence as well as cost-effective marketing strategies.

Stage 1 - Website presence

The Bloomtools team built Shelly the perfect website - clean and simple for both her and prospects to use, but backed with lots of great functionality. Because there was a lot of content, the web design was clean with lots of white space to make it easy for users to find the information they want. Features included:

Promo spots - the website has several attention-grabbing promo spots running to get visitors to take action. The spots direct traffic to specific pages within the website, including the page with information on Shelly's consulting services and sign up pages to build the database.
Free downloadable checklists - Shelly wanted to give away something to site visitor's to get their details for her database, and create some pain so they would realise they could use her services. So she created some simple PDF checklists and made them available for download in exchange for contact details.
Case studies - many business owners aren't even aware they might need the services of a consultant like Shelly, so to educate them on the issue, Shelly wrote some simple case studies about a few businesses she helped. Business owners find it easy to relate to stories like this so it helped build the need for her services and increase enquiries.
Testimonials and guarantees - testimonials from other business owners, information on Shelly's qualifications and service guarantees helped to build the credibility of her business and removed the prospect's fear so they felt comfortable dealing with her.
Articles and blog - to show that she is the expert in her field and is up to date with the latest knowledge, Shelly wrote regular articles and blog entries on her website. This also helped with SEO.
FAQs - to answer common questions that many business owners had about HR, Shelly set up FAQs on her website. She planned to develop this into a comprehensive knowledge base for her clients to access as part of her service.

Stage 2 - Driving traffic to the website

Because Shelly's business was such a niche market, search engine optimisation was her main focus for driving traffic to the website. She optimised pages throughout the website with keyword-rich content and the Bloomtools SEO team built good quality links back to the site to improve it's ranking in the search engines. Because she didn't have a lot of competition, Shelly was soon appearing high up on page one for her important keywords.

Shelly also used Pay Per Click advertising on the search engines. She aligned her ads with targeted landing pages to get prospects to sign up to her database. She had great success with this strategy and was constantly testing and updating her landing pages to increase conversions.

To reach her target market of small business owners, Shelly advertised her website on as many directories, chambers of commerce websites and business forums as possible. This helped with her SEO while also sending qualified traffic to the website. She also worked closely with her alliances and networking groups to raise awareness of her business and promote the website.

Stage 3 - Regular communication

Shelly's main priority was to build a large database of loyal followers that were interested in receiving information from her, so she could send them regular email communication.

She sent a monthly newsletter to her whole database with all her latest articles and blog entries to help them keep up to date with the HR world. She also included teasers and special offers to encourage people to sign up for her consulting services - because the newsletter showed her expertise and built relationships with readers, a few of her subscribers signed up for her services every month.

Shelly also utilised email marketing for automated communication with clients after they signed up. She created a series of letters that welcomed clients to her business, set their expectations and explained the process. This helped reduce buyer's remorse and made clients feel comfortable about dealing with her. Plus, she only had to set these campaigns up once and they would go out automatically - so we was interacting with her customers and building the relationship with no effort.

Tools used

Does your business need an Internet marketing plan like this? Contact us here if you would like one of our expert consultants to evaluate your business and recommend strategies that will suit your unique business and target market.

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