Category: Business Owner

How to Perk Up Your Social Media Efforts

10/14/2018

Are you posting more but getting less from your efforts? As a small business marketer or owner, you only have so much time and resources. Explore the eight questions below to see how you can increase your social media impact.

Eight Questions you should ask

1) What is your goal for your Social Media efforts?
Take a step back (or grab a cup of coffee) and remember why you started doing social media in the first place.
What did you want to accomplish? For example, a new healthcare practice might be trying to grow awareness and interest. An established service business may be more interested in engaging existing customers for referrals and repeat business.
Your goals could include:

Building awareness
Generating Leads
Converting more leads to sales
Quickly responding to customer questions
Engaging existing customers
Creating upsell opportunities

Tip: It is better to focus on one or two goals and do them very well than to dilute your efforts by trying to do too much.

2) Do you know how well you are doing?
If you already have metrics in place, review how well you’ve done so far and make the needed adjustments. If not, here are a few example measures that might be helpful:

3) Are you reaching the right people?
The businesses that experience the most success with social media have a clearly defined target market. Think about who your ideal customers are and what would interest them. For example, a gift shop surveyed their customers and found that they were interested in the locations where the products are made. The shop began posting fun facts, short videos of landmarks, interesting places and the people they met on their buying trips. The result - likes and sharing increased.

The key is to build followers that are truly interested in your product or brand. It helps to have someone in mind and feel like you are talking to them when creating posts.

4) Do you have a content plan?
Don’t have a content strategy or plan? Planning your themes, channels and posts for the next six months is well worth the time.
Planning and gathering ideas and images in one place will save time when creating posts. In addition, checking the month to month calendar will make sure you don’t miss important seasonal or holiday activities. There are many fun but little known holidays and it’s hard to keep track of them unless you have it on your plan.
In addition to regular holidays, there are lesser known, specialized, and sometimes even wacky days. For example, the fourth Saturday in October is Make a Difference Day. Seems like a great day to celebrate if your organization does good work for the community.

If your plan feels overwhelming, check to see how your channels are working for you.
Which channels are the best fit for both your ideal customer and your business?
Maybe you need to try a new channel to better connect -- and delete those that aren't working. If you haven’t posted on Instagram or Twitter in three months, think about why and determine whether you should continue.

You do not have to be everywhere. Formulate a plan and use what works best for you and your business.

5) Have you offered to guest post?
This is a way to get your name/brand out and extend your reach to people beyond your normal circle. It is also a way to set up "backlinks" that help with search engine optimization.
It's a popular tactic, but it takes work. Before you ask for the opportunity to post on someone’s blog, do your research to make your addition relevant, advantageous and complementary to the blog host's businesses. And be prepared to follow through on the opportunity if they agree.

6)Are you engaging?
Are you asking questions? See what types of questions your target market responds to. Facebook has made it harder for business pages, but engagement still is key to extending your reach and having more people see your posts.
Listen -- if you get comments, reward them with a reply!
Keep experimenting to see what works best. Monitor which posts and topics get the most shares and likes and use them as a model to create more like them.

7) Can you create “Evergreen” content?
Evergreen content is not tied to trends and can be reused or repurposed on multiple channels.
Examples of evergreen content include:

Answers to frequently asked questions from your customers or followers
Industry tips, "how to" explanations or advice (like back to school tips or how to change a tire)
Explanations of common industry concepts that may be confusing for readers (customer success vs customer service)
Here is an example from our blog

8) Can you add a fun factor?
Show that your company or brand is made of real people. Tell stories, show what’s behind the scenes and seek to connect on an emotional level. One way to do this is by describing any unusual traditions, people or company celebrations.

Does your company participate or have events that benefit the community? Show how you and/or your employees help make a difference. (Then you can celebrate Make a Difference Day!)
Do you have a fun side? It’s okay to show the lighter aspects of your brand. The days of perfect video are over – you can show outtakes, improvisations and mistakes as well as achievements.

In conclusion, building a social media presence or brand takes time and effort. Through a focused, consistent and discipline approach, social media can be a valuable tool in your marketing toolbox that drives your business towards success. If after giving social media a good try you find that it's not paying dividends, your business might be better served by focusing your marketing resources on more effective tactics. Don't feel bad -- there are many ways to market your business and you can still use social media in support of your other efforts.

If you need help determining which marketing tactics work best for your business, please contact us for a consultation to see how we can assist you.

Thanks for reading!

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36 Small Business Marketing Ideas to Give Your Sales a Boost

8/5/2018

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Are you feeling like you need to step up your marketing efforts?
If that’s the case, here are some ideas to consider. Some may be new, but you may also be reminded of ideas that you’ve been wanting to do but haven’t had time to implement.
For quick reference, we’ve organized the ideas by category. Take a look and see if any of these would help build your business!

Market Planning and Research
1. Update or create a marketing plan for your business. To make sure you get optimal results, your business should have a marketing plan that aligns timing, tactics and implementation with market opportunities.
2. Ask your customers how you’re doing -- revisit or begin customer satisfaction research.
3. Revisit your Value proposition – does it still ring true?
4. Refine your target audience and niche.
5. Explore the advantages of offering a new product or service in combination with your current business. Example - conduct focus groups and get input from your target market.

Check over your Marketing Materials
6. Take a close look at your business cards -- do they still represent the right image and convey key information about your business?
7. Think about printed materials – does your business need to create or update a brochure / sales sheet to leave behind with customers?
8. Evaluate if you need to update your website.
9. Check your online directory listings and get listed in desirable directories.

Person to Person Networking
10. Update your (and your company’s) voice mail message – keep it current, change it when you have new events or specials.
11. Enhance your email signature.
12. Revisit your elevator pitch. Does it still fit? Can you make it better?
13. Introduce yourself to other local business owners – you can do this in person or using Alignable.com. Explore creating a promotion with other local businesses.
14. Find a creative promotional product that fits your business and brand -- give them to prospective customers and referral sources.

Direct Mail
15. Launch a targeted direct mail campaign. Think through your offer and call to action. You can create and test multiple approaches and measure their impact.
16. If you’ve used direct mail before, add tear cards, inserts or attention getting envelops to increase the impact of your mailing.
17. Contact past customers; send them an incentive to refer you or revisit your business.

Consider Advertising
18. If your business appeals to a wide target market, explore radio, billboard or even local TV advertising.
19. Use your car as a billboard – add a magnet, sticker or car wrap. If you have employees, see if they would be willing to add your magnet to their cars.
20. Use a sidewalk sign for specials or to attract walk in traffic.
21. Run a Google AdWords (Google Ads) campaign
22. Create a Groupon to attract new customers or get them to try a new product or service.

Social Media Marketing
23. Experiment with social media for your business – or evaluate the results of your current efforts.
24. Advertise on social media to attract new followers.
25. If your business sells to other businesses, try advertising on LinkedIn.
26. Evaluate starting a business blog.
27. If you already have a blog, try using video – add a video blog, and short video posts for your social media accounts.
28. List your business on Google My Business.
29. Add photos and videos to your Google My Business profile.
30. Create a post for your Google My Business profile.

Email Marketing
31. Add an email opt-in on your website or blog.
32. Create an offer that encourages people to add their email address to your list.
33. Send periodic email campaigns to your list.
34. Measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns.

Less Usual Marketing
35. Create a business mascot to help promote your brand. This can be fun!
36. Take a stance on a hot industry or community topic, one that you have in-depth knowledge of or that aligns with your brand values.

We hope you found this post of value. Did you find some ideas to try?
Please be aware that not all ideas will fit your business --
and the success of many of them depends on having the right messaging and timing.
For help with planning or message development, contact us.

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The Customer Success Mindset - Can Your Business Benefit?

12/18/2017

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You may have heard the term “Customer Success”.

What does it mean to you and your company?
Is it just a new way to say customer satisfaction or customer service? Can any business use this type of thinking?

Customer Success is focused on ensuring your customers achieve their desired outcomes while using your product or service. This focus can improve loyalty and reduce customer churn.

How does it differ from customer service or satisfaction?
Customer Success is proactive, while customer service is reactive. Good customer service increases the chance of customer success by solving problems as they arise, on a case by case basis. Documenting re-occurring problems is important feedback for product/process improvement.

Customer Success helps companies better understand what the customer is experiencing, how the customers use the product and/or services – from the customer’s perspective. Customer success can use feedback from Customer Service and other sources to see where customers are succeeding and where help is needed.

Customer Success is a vital part of Customer Satisfaction. If the product doesn’t perform to expectations, or the buyer isn’t informed/educated in the proper use, then it’s not likely the customer will be satisfied. But since customers perception is formed through multiple experiences with the company, there are other factors that can also affect overall satisfaction.

What does Customer Success look like in action?
Software companies are leading the effort to implement the customer success mindset. For example, Pendo, located in Raleigh North Carolina, makes software for product managers. They measure the number and frequency of features used in a certain time period. If a customer seems to take longer than average to implement, they follow up with interviews to find out why. They also measure the NPS (Net Promoter Score) which reinforces that customer success is everyone’s job.

So, you might be thinking, this is great for software companies, but what does this mean for my product or service business? It may be easier to implement in a software product (where more feedback is automated) but most businesses can benefit from using the customer success mindset to improve loyalty and reduce churn. You can start by asking “what else can we do to make customers successful” when looking for new product ideas or process innovations. Here are a few keys to implementing Customer Success thinking:

1) First, define:

What does “success” mean to your customer?
How can your product/service enable your customers to achieve that success?
Does that change over time?

2) Test and measure which factors have the greatest impact on customer success – then emphasize them. Identify and interview customers who aren’t achieving success with your product to out find the reasons why.

Where are the pain points? What would help alleviate or bypass them? – For example, are your forms user-friendly? Could communication or explanations be clarified?
What you can do to make your customers more successful. For example, are there items, features, or points of contact that need to be added, modified or removed?
What’s the appropriate timing for engaging and monitoring customers?
Are there media or channels where the customers would prefer to get support information?

3) Get your whole team on board with Customer Success

Make sure the whole team recognizes that they are responsible. A good way to do this is to track the NPS as a main metric. Align your teams, reward systems, and communications to proactively retain customers and strengthen relationships.

The customer success mindset can be applied to a wide variety of products and businesses.
How do you apply the Customer Success mindset to your business? What key metrics do you use?
Feel free to add a comment.

Thanks for reading! Best wishes for a wonderful holiday and a great start to the New Year!

Nancy

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Not sure you need a marketing plan? 5 Reasons Why You Should Create One.

11/8/2017

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Marketing plans aren’t just for big businesses; every organization can benefit from one. But if you are a business owner or part of a small marketing team, it might seem like a luxury - something you’d like to do when you get the time. In fact, only 56% of small businesses with fewer than 50 employees have a marketing plan developed.

Marketing plans aren’t the only thing that organizations are missing -- many admit they don't have specific marketing goals. And outlining specific goals is important -- as the saying goes, if you don’t know where you’re going, how are you going to get there?

5 important reasons why you should take the time and effort to develop a marketing plan:

1. It helps you think through your business strategy and align your marketing efforts effectively.
You’ll then formulate marketing objectives that help your business achieve its mission and become successful.

2. It keeps you – and your team -- focused.
There are many marketing tools and opportunities -- it’s easy to become distracted, losing sight of your intended business goals. The marketing planning process helps focus on your priorities so you’re not spending time and resources on activities that won’t help you attain your goals.

3. It formalizes ideas and concepts.
You may have some great ideas for your business you’d like to try – including them in your marketing plan will help you determine how feasible they are. Once they are in the plan, you’ll be focused to work on them.

4. It helps you establish tasks, timelines and milestones.
A good marketing plan includes clearly defined objectives and tactics, outlining these makes it easier to identify the tasks that need to be done, who should do them, and when they need to be done by. This will help you get the most out of promotions and seasonal or local events.

5. It can help you obtain financing.
A business plan is a must if you want to obtain financing, having a well thought out marketing plan shows that you mean business (pun intended)!

So set aside some time to create a sound marketing plan for your business – chances are you’ll be glad you did.

Need help creating your plan? Get your copy of our market planning ebook to help your business grow!

Free e-book

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Marketing Tips for growing businesses

How to Perk Up Your Social Media Efforts

Eight Questions you should ask

36 Small Business Marketing Ideas to Give Your Sales a Boost

The Customer Success Mindset - Can Your Business Benefit?

Not sure you need a marketing plan? 5 Reasons Why You Should Create One.

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