to blog well is to read

I am quickly beginning to realise that to blog well requires an awful lot of reading. That seems to be a strange thing to say considering blogging is all about writing, but for those of us that want to use blogging as a business tool, this is key to driving traffic to your blog.

The way it works is you comment on other peoples blog posts on your own blog. But to generate a conversation with that blogger, you need to link to his/her site to generate discussions and web links which should drive traffic back to your site. The more blogs you comment on and post links to, the more likely it is that they will link back to you and drive traffic to your blog. As you can imagine, the more people linking to your site, the more readers you will get, and hopefully participants. Of course links to your blog will also give you huge “Google Juice”.

This seems to be the engine behind building rapid blog popularity. Well, lets see how it goes. To be honest, I’ve been struggling with all the terminology and need to get to grips with tags, trackbacks, RSS feeds and more. There is a whole lot of jargon on the blogosphere!!

So you can see, if you want traffic, you need to write. But importantly you need to read other peoples blogs, comment on them and develop ongoing blog conversations.

Are your customers happy?

Did you know it’s seven times more expensive to sell to new rather than to existing customers? I’m not sure where that figure comes from, whether market research or guestimate, but it’s an interesting figure none the less.

So with that in mind, surely you want to be doing everything you can to keep your customers happy and where possible increase their expenditure. Right?

Well how do you go about doing that?

First of all and crucially, you need to supply a quality product or service that consistently meets your customers needs in the first place. It’s obvious that if you don’t it will be an even harder sell.

But once you’re doing this, how can you keep your customers happy and keep them buying? As with all good sales, there’s a huge degree of listening involved. It’s a well known fact that the best salesman are good listeners as well as good talkers.

So take the time to ask you customers how they are enjoying your product. Ask what they like and dislike, whether there are other products you could sell to them, whether they would prefer you to call twice a month rather than every week, if your product meet their needs or could it be improved?

What you want to know is, are you providing what they want, when they want it, in the way they like it. If not, what could you be doing better. Remember, good salesman are good listeners.

This doesn’t have to be an expensive process. You could issue an annual survey, check out www.surveymonkey.com for a free online survey tool. Or you could conduct a telephone research process with your 50 best customers. Alternatively you could implement an after sales service system such that your sales managers call all customers after a month and conduct a quick telephone interview. If you have lots of money you could even carry out focus groups to measure peoples experience of your product.

There are lots of methods available for listening to your customers. The important thing is that you do. Remember, it’s seven times more expensive to sell to a new customer than an existing customer, so do what you can to keep hold of them.

Limited companies, are your email and websites compliant?

The First Company Law Amendment Directive – a European law being incorporated into UK law – means that as a limited company you are now required to display more information on your website and company emails. Those who don’t comply risk being fined.

So what do you have to do I hear you ask? As of the 1st January 2007, you are required to include the following in all business emails: 

• company registration number,
• place of registration (e.g. Registered in England ad Wales)
• the registered office address.

On the website you are required to include:

• The name, postal address and email address of the website’s service provider.
• The name of any trade body or professional associations the business is part of, including membership or registration details.
• Your VAT number, even if the website is not being used for e-commerce transactions.
• Any prices on the website must clearly state whether they are inclusive or exclusive of tax and delivery costs. 

For more information check out this very useful legal resource:

http://www.out-law.com/page-7594

Make sure you don’t find out the hard way by getting fined!

How to improve your email marketing response rates!

It’s amazing how many companies there are providing marketing advice to SMBs - like us for instance. Many of them publish free articles and post newsletters that can be of incredible value, or sometimes a huge waste of time. I know because I read them all trying to find great material for my readers.

 

This one’s very useful. It’s all about improving the response rates from your email campaigns. Let’s face it, just sending out emails to your customers, clients, prospects and anyone whose address you have, doesn’t always provide the greatest return. The main problem is the sheer volume of email we receive. Apparently “Recent statistics show that over 50% of the tens of billions of e-mails sent daily are spam”. It’s no wonder our messages are not received.

 

So what can you do to improve your email marketing?

 

Well, for a start, read the article on BusinessKnowHow.com. It lists 8 top tips for you to think about (see below) and you can read the article by clicking on this link - http://www.businessknowhow.com/internet/email-response.htm.

 

1. Get permission
2. Focus on your Subject Line
3. Front-load your message
4. Pay attention to the spam triggers
5. Tighten up the body of your message
6. What’s on the screen?
7. Select appropriate font colours
8. List Maintenance – Keep your lists up-to-date

 

For me, you should also consider that:

 

- keeping it simple will create a bigger impact - too many “special offers” or options will reduce your conversion rates.

- providing two versions, plain text and html, will hit a wider audience.

- making sure any links to your website are correct will reduce instant deletions.

 

And finally. ADD VALUE! If you provide something of use in your emails, people are much more likely to read what you’ve got to say. They will also be more receptive to your promotional material.

 

Good luck!

7 simple steps to stave off the January blues!

With the start of the new year and after a god festive break, many of you will be back to work with a case of the January blues. After all, following a couple of weeks of eating, drinking and partying, how could sitting in the office possibly compare?

So what can you do to help ease you and your team back into a productive frame of mind? Remember your people are a key element of your marketing mix, regardless of whether you’re a goods or a services business.

Here are 7 ideas that shouldn’t cost you a fortune.

1. Re-organise the office. A change is as good as a rest as they say, and your staff may find a new lease of life from a refreshed view, a new desk, or a different working space. Of course, this will only have a short term effect but it will help in those first few weeks back.

2. Plants. Get some new plants into your work space to help “improve the atmosphere, reduce stress, and sharpen concentration” Nick Eason, CNN. Read Nick’s article at http://www.plantsatwork.org/pdf/CNNReprint.pdf or visit http://www.plantlady.com for more info about plants at work.

3. Arrange a new year kick-off party. Get your team together to reinforce the company goals for the next year, set priorities, develop camaraderie and more importantly to have a couple of beers. This shouldn’t be hugely expensive though, after all it’s likely you have just paid for a Christmas party!

4. Introduce some staff rewards. Why not start an employee of the month award, a little hackneyed but people will see the funny side of it and you’ll be surprised how much people actually like to be recognised like this. If you allow your team to vote for the employee of the month, it adds the extra dimension of being congratulated by your colleagues and not just the boss! Maybe the winner could borrow the pool car over the weekend as well?

5. Massage your employees. Not personally, but arrange for a professional to come to your office for a day of massage therapy. What better way to look after your staff in their time of need. Benefits might include reduced stress levels, renewed energy and motivation, and decreased absenteeism. Check out http://www.stressangels.co.uk/corporate/ for more ideas.

6. Introduce music to the office. OK, so not everyone will have the same taste in music, but if you can agree some common ground rules, for example no thrash metal or Radio 1, then you might find introducing music will improve the working environment. Research has even found some types of music increase productivity – read this article for more info: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1365/is_5_30/ai_57943400

7. Last but not least, give everyone an extra half day off. Assuming you aren’t snowed under with work, why not give everyone a surprise half day off. Today, Monday, next Thursday, whenever really, just call it a day after lunch so you can all head off into the sales before all of the bargains are totally snapped up. This one won’t be practical for everyone though unfortunately.

Of course, there are plenty of other ideas you could try and I’m very keen to hear of any experiences you have.

Andrew

How to improve YOUR customer service!

In an attempt to improve its customer service, internet company Easynet recently surveyed its customers to find out what they actually wanted from their business relationship. The conclusions drawn are very interesting and useful if you run a business to businesses operation. Easynet’s focus was on receiving good service as a customer, but to my mind, the ten ideas they highlighted could just as easily be used to improve service delivery.

You can read the full report at http://www.easynet.com/thecustomerexperience/ but below I’ve summarised some ideas for how you could use these tips to improve your own service delivery:

1. Know what your customers want – ensure you know what your customers objectives are before trying to sell a service. You can’t deliver an excellent product if you don’t fully understand why the customer is making the purchase. A good example is when you buy a mobile phone, the retailer always asks you about how you use your phone before trying to sell you a call plan – this way the product choice will better match your needs. The result, you’ll be happier with your purchase.

2. Choose carefully – if you are fortunate enough to be selective over your clients, then make sure you choose carefully. Think about whether you can deliver a quality product, but also factors such as can they actually afford to pay? When delivering your service, do you need to work with partners or contractors? If so how can you ensure they provide the service level you expect for your clients? Choose partners carefully.

3. Ask for and enforce a Service Level Agreement (SLA) – negotiate your SLA carefully with clients and don’t overestimate what you will actually be able to deliver. Always expect your clients to enforce the agreement, even if you think on a personal level they will not. For example, many PR agencies may be measured and paid on a performance by results basis, but the results target has to be fair to both client and agency.

4. Hold regular reviews – ensure you report to your client regularly on progress. If things are going badly, it’s better to identify this early and work out a solution with your customer, rather than burying your head in the sand. If you are performing better than expected, it doesn’t hurt to ensure the client is aware of this.

5. Integrate the supplier into your company – as a service provider I have often found myself kept at arms length from my client and unable to really get under their skin. I can always provide a more valuable service when I have a good feel for the culture and a good understanding of how the company works. With that in mind, I try to imbed myself as much as possible with my clients. Can you do the same? If you offer accountancy advice, would you benefit from visiting your clients premises ad getting to know some of the key staff?

6. Get involved – if you can allow your customers to participate in the service delivery, then they’ll better understand what they’re getting and how it adds value. For example, if you are an architects practice, can you involve your client more in the design process? If the client adds more to the design stage, can you demonstrate how their decisions impact service delivery?

7. Do unto others as you would do unto yourself – a no brainer really.

8. Be realistic – again another no brainer. Don’t over promise and under deliver, after all would you be happy with that? What is in your SLA?

9. Feedback and feedback again – this fits well with the regular reviews in point 4. If you are struggling to provide what your customer has asked for then let them know. But also feedback to your client if their performance is impacting your ability to provide a good service. For example if you’re a PR agency, you will need good information from your client to provide an effective service. How often do you get this?

10. Learn a language - this point is about the benefit of learning a few words of your customers local language. But it could just as easily apply to corporate terminology and industry jargon. The more you know about your customers and their industry, the better you will become at providing an effective service.

Overall an excellent and extremely useful report and I congratulate Easynet on taking such a proactive approach to delivering good customer service. One of the highlights of the report to me is this quote “It was clear that the key to success is to develop an open, honest business relationship” with business partners.” I agree entirely, be open, be honest and most importantly be clear in your communications and relationships.

Should you send Christmas cards or donations?

Have you noticed in the last couple of years an increasing trend for companies not to send Christmas cards? Instead, I’ve frequently received emails with words to this effect:

“We’re not sending cards this Christmas, instead we’re donating the money to the retired Santa charity fund.”

I don’t know about you, but this raises an important question in my mind – how much is being donated? It seems to me that this is often being done more as a cost saving scheme rather than a genuine interest in helping charity. If companies are really interested in helping a charity they should look to a longer term partnership, rather than a one off donation.

But what do you think? Should companies continue to send cards, or abandon cards for the charity donation scheme? Or is a mixture appropriate, where key clients receive personalised Christmas greetings cards?

Emergency Chairs

I had a poker night at home last week. I invited more friends than I could fit into my flat, assuming a couple would drop out. As you can imagine, I was quite surprised when everyone decided to come along. Great I thought, but then quickly realised I didn’t have enough chairs for them all. I didn’t have time to buy more, so I had to borrow some from a neighbour.

It reminded me of the importance of planning contingencies into your marketing campaigns. Ask yourself what would happen in the event that your marketing campaign or sales promotion is too successful? Does anyone remember the free flights offer from Hoover? Click here for the beeb’s write up http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3704669.stm

When you set up your marketing campaign, promotion or whatever, think about not only what will happen if it doesn’t work, but also what will happen if it exceeds your expectations. Hoover lost around £48 million pounds on this one. It was a badly planned campaign that attracted much more interest than Hoover could manage.

The basis behind emergency chairs is simple, plan for contingencies. Can you get hold of some extra chairs if you need to?

Christmas rush

Sorry everyone, I know it’s been a while since I updated my blog, but as with a lot of you I’m sure, the usual Christmas rush is keeping me tied up at the moment. Please feel free to browse my blog and add comments to any of the other posts in the mean time. Also if you want to email any questions I’ll post them up online for everyone to read and answer.

Thanks.

Andrew

Education Education Education

Sorry to quote Tony Blair in the headline there, but I suppose he is a great marketer (could you sell the Labour party all day every day?).

This post is about the value of education seminars as part of your marketing mix. It’s not a new idea, but one that I was recently on the receiving end of from a company called CMC Markets. They’re basically a spread betting company that provide a service where you bet on movements in share prices, the price of oil, or any of a variety of other indices.

The product is actually straight forward. You open an account and download their Marketmaker software. The software then enables you to very quickly start placing spread bets and then you’re away. The difficulty facing CMC Markets is two fold: people don’t understand how it all works, and there is a perception of its product being extremely risky – which to be fair it can be. You have the opportunity to make a lot of money very quickly, but conversely you can also lose a lot of money quickly as well.

CMC uses education as a way of countering both of these negatives. It’s education seminars help its clients to understand how to use the software and how to manage their exposure to risk. This helps to sign up customers, but also to increase the life time value of each customer. The seminars also help to dispel the perception of risk, as by increasing understanding, people are less likely to lose the shirt off their back.

So could this work for your business. In a word yes, why not? If you have a product that’s very technical or complex, where you need a specific licence or experience, then free education could help. It doesn’t necessarily have to be class room based, you could produce a small booklet, or better still a podcast, or online demonstration. This stuff is all accessible to even the smallest micro business.

Give it a try, education could easily be part of your multilevel marketing mix.