Have a look at some of the latest work on our Facebook gallery here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.249891421736144.63929.100001458631903&type=3

They specialize in supplying sports kit and leisurewear to clubs, schools and universities throughout Ireland. In addition, they also supply school wear in small, medium or large volume orders. They also provide Training equipment, flags and bunting.

A long-standing Chooboo customer, Perform Sportsgear have just had their site overhauled by the Chooboo design team. The site now has a much cleaner, easier-to-navigate look and feel.

Also included in the refresh is an online shop offering the firm’s latest range of International Supporters’ Shirts – they are limited edition and reasonably priced!

The client was very happy with the end result – “Brilliant – simple but effective – I really like it!”.

We will now begin the process of making sure the site is well-ranked on Google.

You can view the site here – www.performsportsgear.co.uk

Depending on your business model, you might use Twitter to conduct customer service, see what your competitors are up to, or promote your brand.

But more and more of our clients are asking us: “How do I actually make money from Twitter?”.

Create a Strategy

Before you can think about making money on Twitter, make sure you have a strategy or plan for using Twitter.

Some tips would be:

- Use a desktop application such as TweetDeck to manage your accounts.
- Setup different Twitter accounts for your personal and business sites.
- Establish yourself an THE definitive authority in your particular area.
- Follow lists that relate to your area and then create lists.
- Retweet others, especially influencers, to get on their radars.
- Work on Twitter (not play!) for at least 30 minutes every day.

Once you’ve got this discipline in place, start looking at how the most successful businesses use Twitter.

For example, some share quality information, others generate buzz, others inspire, and some are deliberately controversial. They use different styles to attract readers, engage, and increase their sphere of influence.

So, before you start selling on Twitter, monitor how others do it, adapt their tactics, and then see what works for you. The key fact here is:  if your audience trusts you as a person, they’ll be more likely to buy from you in the end!

Let’s Make Some Money On Twitter

Now that you have the tools, made observations, and seen mistakes others make, how can you start to make money on Twitter?

Sell your Product

Start by developing a Twitter following around the benefits your product offers – not the actual product itself.

An example? Instead of selling websites, share tweets about the benefits of having a website, how to use websites more effectively, tips and tricks for website marketing, and other useful information that encourages others to share your tweets.

Then, once you have a critical mass of interested followers, drop in a subtle tweet selling your product and ask your followers to retweet it.

Find leads via Search

You can use the search function on Twitter.com (or, even better, use a social media management platform like TweetDeck) to find leads and generate sales on Twitter.

Enter, for example, ‘web design?’ (note the question mark). This returns tweets with questions about web design.

Answer the question and direct people back to your site. In other words, use the search to find problems others are having and then position yourself as an expert in this area. This is a very simple and effective way to interact with potential clients.

This will take some trial and error, but once you’ve got up to ten good keywords, you have a great source of potential leads.

Tip: in order to reach out to potential leads, you will have to send unsolicited messages via Twitter. You should send an @mention to possible leads using a very soft sell, and letting them know that you found them via Twitter.

Interact with Followers

Social media isn’t like any other type of communication. It offers businesses new ways to connect to potential customers in two-way conversations.

You can make money on Twitter by getting your followers involved in your business. Run a campaign asking for creative input from your customers, like getting them to design a logo or write a product description/ review for you. This may not initially lead directly to sales, but it will increase your visibility on Twitter as well as the brand loyalty of your followers.

Sponsor Tweets

Once you have a critical mass of followers in a specific area, for example, developing web sites for the Financial Sector, contact companies in this sector and offer sponsored tweets.

Some final tips and tricks to making money on Twitter

- Avoid hard-sells: Twitter users are looking for real connections and valuable information, not hard sales pitches.
- Don’t use Twitter solely for making money: build a community, a brand presence, and engage with your followers.
- It’s not all about the followers: quality matters much more than quantity, so if you have a low follower count, you can still make money by achieving a high conversion rate or by generating leads using search.

Conclusion

Twitter is a numbers game depending on your following (and quality of followers), but it works once you get followers who share, retweet, and spread the word about your business. And the key word here is Share. Having followers is fine, but actually connecting with those who spread the message – that’s how you’ll make money on Twitter!

Designed and built by Chooboo, the site outlines in detail the various treatments available and enables users to book an appointment online. As with all Chooboo websites, the client has full control over the content of the site via our in-house Content Management System. This is a good example of our £599 website package (see our price list).

The client is delighted with the end result and gave us the following feedback:

“The website is fantastic. Exactly what I was looking for, professional and it conveys everything I wanted it to from the information I provided. The guys at Chooboo are clearly experts in this field. I had no problems with them at all. Thoroughly recommend them.

Excellent service & excellent end result. Minimal effort from me required. Chooboo produced an excellent professional website for us at Causeway Footcare. Love the way it flows and it conveys all information I require. A real professional job. Thank you so so much!”

Visit the site at www.causewayfootcare.com

We are looking for talented sales people to join our team – if you are passionate, enthusiastic, and hungry for results this could be for you…

OTE of £22,500

The Company

Chooboo specialises in Small and Medium-sized Business Websites, Email Marketing, e-Commerce, Search Engine Marketing and Online Marketing Training. Our Websites are professional, affordable and secure. They are designed by our professional design team and supported by our dedicated online marketing team.

We have over 8,000 customers across the UK & Ireland, and partnerships in place with major public & private sector organisations.

This is an incredible opportunity to become an integral part of our sales team.

Responsibilities:

• Making appointments to visit clients and deliver propositions
• Selling over the phone
• Providing clients with relevant information about our products and services
• Continually establishing client relationships
• Producing accurate and timely paperwork in line with customer and company requirements
• Meeting monthly sales targets

Skills Required:

• 18 months business-to-business field sales experience dealing directly with customers, preferably within the IT/ web design sector
• Excellent presentation, communication and negotiation skills with the ability to sell
• Time management skills that allow you to manage your own time effectively
• Must have current experience of generating new business
• Have a good knowledge of the internet
• Having your own car would be preferable

Package:

• Paid on commission-only basis with OTE of £22,500 (Uncapped – so there is no limit to what you can earn)
• Flexible working hours
• Training: Initial induction training and ongoing training as required

To apply for this role, please email your CV, before FRIDAY 16th MARCH, to Colin Seifert at Chooboo: colins@chooboo.com

Chooboo built and managed the website for Alternative Fuel Company about 6 years ago and we were very happy with the service we received – it was always efficient and the few problems we experienced dealt with quickly and professionally.Running a small business can be very stressful so is vitally important you can trust and rely upon the company who is setting up your lifeline – communication with the outside world and global markets.

When we founded LPG Cleaner which is a sister company of Alternative Fuel Company we were sure we could depend upon Chooboo to provide us not only with a professional website and reliable email facility but also a friendly service where nothing was too much trouble.

We were launching our new product at an exhibition in Warsaw and so needed various changes made on a very tight deadline and in a small time frame. This worked well and was obvious the team at Chooboo actually worked skilfully as a team.

Our business also has another 2 websites which are e-commerce websites. We are transferring these for Chooboo to revamp and manage as the service we have received has been terrific, often the team would be working on the weekends to ensure the job is done.

When working as a small business it is necessary to know you are getting value for money and resources used in the most effective way possible. Chooboo go over and above their obligations to provide a hassle free service that is tailored to meet individual needs.

Thank you Chooboo!

You can view the site at www.lpgcleaner.com

They offer advice on all aspects of financial planning for personal, business & corporate clients.

The site, designed and built by Chooboo, recently went live.

The client has provided the following testimonial:

“As we all know, one of the must haves in today’s world is a bespoke, professional website – it is essentially your company flag. Whilst researching different web developers Chooboo were recommended to us. My first conversation with them was all I needed – we are in no way technically minded & the guys cut out all the jargon & explained their services in our language.

The only doubt I had was if they could actually deliver all they promised for the price they gave me which was more reasonable than the best I could source.

Needless to say they did deliver and went beyond their remit on more than one occasion. When you have your own business there is no 9-5 – I was emailing Chooboo late at night & getting immediate replies! Their service levels are second to none – their value for spend top class and we are delighted with our website and have had great feedback from our clients & colleagues in the Industry.

These days we all want value for money & for our service providers to go more than that extra mile- that is what we at Total Financial Advice strive for & it is what Chooboo deliver!”

View the site at www.total.ie

Our team are working on 38 brand new projects which are at various stages of production from design brief to final testing.

You can take a sneak preview of some of these projects on our Facebook Gallery

It must be stressed that these projects are in production and are not yet live on the Internet – we’re constantly setting sites live as we get them done!

We have recently upgraded our offerings and all our systems. As a result, our customer satisfaction levels are through the roof and we are still striving for continual improvement.

If you have a new project, why not get in touch?

Call us on 0800 440 2942 or complete a Quotation Builder 

Would you ever consider having a shop on the high street and refuse to pull your shutters up?

This sounds unimaginable…..

However, the greatest crime committed by small business owners is to fail to make their business visible to potential clients.

With numerous companies falling into administration overthe last few years or not making it past the first hurdle; we firmly believe ALL small businesses can gain significantly from having a better understanding of how to raise their business profile.

You do not need to spend large sums of money on expensive ‘old hat’ marketing techniques such as business directory listings, newspaper advertisements or leaflet campaigns. This is because the most cost-effective way to promote your small business, and connect with a wider audience, is through developing and maintaining an online presence.

During the last 15 years, Chooboo have helped over 8,000 small businesses to successfully build and market their business online.

We would very much like to pass our expertise and knowledge on to you by formally inviting you to accept a special invitation to our free ‘Getting Your Business Online’ seminar, on Friday 10th February 2012 in The Coffee Yard, High Street, Holywood, BT18 9DP.

We understand that every business will want to take advantage of this fantastic opportunity, however, places for this seminar are limited. Therefore, it is important for you to register your interest immediately by simply clicking “Join” or “Attending” on our Facebook page (link below).

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.249891421736144.63929.100001458631903&type=1#!/events/151265771651852/

Or, you can register your interest by completing the following form: https://chooboo.wufoo.eu/forms/register-now/

Over 15 years and 8,000 websites later, I feel like I have a reasonably strong understanding of what makes a good website.   Sometimes however it is easier to explain the “Don’ts” rather than the “Dos”, so here are my top 5 common mistakes that businesses make when it comes to their website.

Why oh why do you need a Website?

I apologise for seeming glib, but it’s important to ask yourself that question.   You would be amazed at the number of businesses who build their website without understanding what it is there to achieve.  Is it there to generate sales leads?  If not it is likely a complete waste of money.  So, before your geeky website developer lays their pimply hand on a keyboard, write down how you see the website generating sales leads and make sure everything stems from there.  These are your website objectives.

I can’t find your phone number

Tell me this.  Have you ever wanted to reserve a table at a restaurant but can’t find their phone number on their website?   Me too, and it’s very frustrating.  Surely the point of the website is to encourage reservations?  Certainly the website visitor may like to peruse the menu and marvel at the gallery of photographs, but there comes a point when they will want to act and that means picking up the phone (or going to a competitor’s website).  So, based on your website objectives, make sure your Calls to Action are clear and accessible.  These Calls to Action may be your phone number, your e-Mail address and your Contact Form.

Too much information

People seem to have become incredibly impatient these days.  The Internet facilitates abundant choice, allowing your prospective clients to flit between competing websites in an instant.   The information you put on your website has therefore got to be just right.

I have just completed the website for a major Financial Services company, where their intention was to publish large amounts of information about mortgage products, insurance policies and so forth – probably enough information to confound the hardiest of visitors and send them to slumber.    Most businesses love to go into incredible detail about their product or service on their website but trust me, the average visitor won’t take the time to read it.

The fact of the matter is that visitors to your website only need a taste of what the company can provide – only just enough for them to pick up the phone or fill in a Contact Form.    It is fundamentally important not to lose the sale on the website by providing too much information.

So, with your website objectives in mind ask yourself, “What is the minimum I need to say about my business on the website to encourage the visitor to perform a Call to Action?”  Write your website content accordingly and ask someone else to review it – you are far too close to be objective!

No Free Offering?

Imagine you received 1,000 visitors to your website last month but only 10 people contacted you to enquire about your services.  It’s agonising to think that 990 people walked away from your website without doing a thing.  What if you could begin a conversation with these people, with a view to selling them something at some future point?

This is why I recommend a Free Offering – a no-obligation, free, no strings attached, free, complimentary offering.  Your Free Offering could be a Free Publication or better, an offer of a Free Consultation or Health Check to review some aspect of the visitors’ legal position in this world.   People love things for free.  And of course, you and I know that a Free Consultation will build trust and a sale may be on the horizon.   But, I hear you say, I can’t afford to offer such things for free, because they cost time and money.  I say to you, how much is an average client worth to you in gross margin over their lifetime?  If it’s less than the cost of your Free Offering I would be very much surprised.

There’s no point in having a Website if people can’t find it

Many businesses spend thousands building a website that is a work of art.  The contact details are clearly accessible, the information is just right and the Free Offering is in plain view.   The problem is that no one can find it on the Internet.

The common mistake is that when the website is built and live on the Internet it then needs to be promoted.  It is important to register with Search Engines like Google and with appropriate online Business Directories, including Google Places.   If you have built up a list of your client’s e-Mail addresses, now is the time to send them regular e-Newsletters encouraging them to visit your website.

Everything that is covered in this article is explored in a series of Free Online Marketing courses available (at no cost) from www.Chooboo.com

If you would like to register for this free course simply fill in the following form: