 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:
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.
3) Get your whole team on board with Customer Success
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 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! Need more leads? If the answer is yes, you are in good company. According to a recent report 63% of business leaders named generating traffic and leads as one of their top challenges.  So how do you generate more leads? Successful companies use a combination of tactics that best fit their market and objectives ( see the list below). Since prospective customers might not be ready to buy immediately, they also design a follow up system to nurture the leads. There are many tactics to choose from including advertising, mailings, social media and events.   Which tactics will work best for you? Puppies are great (I love puppies) ! But even with these cuties on your side, you will get the best results when you start your lead generation efforts with a solid process like the one outlined below:  For example, Sally Forth Products is new retail business that creates high-end, customized products for individuals. They’ve gotten great feedback from current customers, but this type product is only reordered once a year. Looking at their overhead and other costs, they realize that need to double their customer base by 50% by the end of the year to break-even.  Sally Forth's current customers are in a high-income demographic and women drive the majority of purchase decisions. They have found that customers can be segmented by the way they approach the purchase decision. 1) Nina Needitnow -- has an immediate need for the product, knows the style she wants and the sales cycle is short. This type of customer needs a minimum of nurturing but needs polite, personal, responsive service. 2) Greta Gather -- is thinking and planning. She may love the concept, but may consider it for over a year before deciding.  The team at Sally Forth Products decide they to promote awareness and attract more "Ninas". Both target customer types tend to to to the same sources for information, so they chose tactics to suit each buying cycle.  Sally Forth Products is currently running traditional and search engine advertising, experiencing varying levels of success. To address the immediate needs of "Ninas" they added the phone number in their search engine ads, then streamlined the contact process and trained the team to answer the phone in a friendly, professional manner by the first or second ring. They've also decided to compliment the ads they are running with a digital campaign to nurture "Gretas". They're developing two downloadable pieces of content to gather the emails of interested individuals and a series of emails to follow up the download. To deliver this content, they are beefing up their social media presence and plan to promote posts to their targeted audience.  Sally Forth Products put their plan into action; they logged the source of all new customer calls and are eliminating ads that did not generate customer interest. Their email list has tripled with some of the "Gretas" converting earlier than expected in the cycle.  Lead generation is important to building your business and following these steps will help you get better results. If we can help you determine the tactics that will fit your business situation, please contact us. Thanks for reading ! Nancy Need ideas? Get the 14 Tips to Build and Grow Your List today!
While marketing a business takes thoughtful planning, implementation, feedback and adjustment, developing a clear positioning statement can make your efforts easier and more successful. This is because the positioning statement helps guide your tactical marketing efforts and internal operations to work together for better outcomes. 4 Steps to Create a Successful Positioning Statement When creating your market position statement, focusing on these four elements will help ensure you have a quality end result. 1) Identify and articulate the profile of your most profitable customer Take an inventory of your past and current customers. Which ones have provided you with the most sustained and profitable business? Identify them and list out what you know about them. For example, a B2C business would want to list socioeconomic characteristics – demographics such as age, gender, education level, income level, marital status, occupation, or average size of family. Highlight the characteristics they have in common to create your optimal customer profile. This is the target market that you offer the best solutions to fit their situations/needs. Remember – keep it narrow! You are not eliminating others who may purchase your offerings - just focusing your efforts and resources towards those most closely aligned with your business success.
2) What / Who is Your Competition? Potential customers have a wide range of methods to research buying solutions and comparing competing offerings. This increases the importance of clear, concise messaging that enables the researcher to find, and easily understand, your business offerings and how they differ from your competition. So find out where you stand.
3) Why Are You Different and Better for Your Target Customer? Now that you have clearly identified your target customer and competition, define how your company offerings are superior to the other alternatives. Begin by brainstorming a list of all the ways your company and its products/services are different and better than the competitions. Next, prioritize this list by the perceived value to your target customer. (You may want to survey them to find out which have the most value to them.) Select the top two or three differentiators -- you'll need these for the next step. 4) Write your Market Positioning Statement This is a short statement describing your business and its remarkable qualities -- what you offer and how it uniquely solves your target customer's problem. It must be a memorable phrase - one you can use when introducing your company. Remember – shorter is better! Have it contain the top two or three distinguishing aspects you identified in the step above, coupled with the specific characteristics of your target customer. Test it out on many people to ensure that employees, customers and those you meet can all recite it with ease. Using our previous example, the firm might have found that their personalized knowledge of the client’s situation, quick response and ability to work to prevent legal hassles was most valued by their clients. Their statement might read – Our business offers highly personalized legal expertise and rapid, proactive response to small for- profit environmental lobbying organizations. In conclusion, taking the time to go through these four steps helps gain the perspective and understanding necessary for creating market positioning statement. Ultimately, your positioning statement can be used as a guide for your company’s culture, marketing efforts and allocation of time and resources. A laser like focus on your preferred target customer will increase the return on your marketing efforts, the top line and ultimately impact the long-term success of your business.
Thanks for reading! If you have questions or need help with positioning your business, please Contact us. Social media and review sites are here to stay. In fact, 47 percent of patients check a provider’s online status before scheduling an appointment and 24% of physicians reported getting new patients from social media. So like it or not, your profile is out there and you’ll get reviews. How do you protect your online reputation?  First of all, be proactive to avoid getting negative reviews. Emphasize keeping in touch with patient needs and perspectives. Timing is important -- the key is to give patients a chance to give feedback and comment to you first -- before they broadcast it on social media. Having an option for patients to flag and address concerns in the office will help improve the patient experience; reducing the chances of the patient airing that issue online. Patient satisfaction feedback can also be complimentary; helping highlight what you and your staff are doing well. There are many ways to obtain and measure it, either in the office or immediately following the visit or service. But even the best practices occasionally get negative feedback, so be prepared. How you handle the response affects your online reputation as well.
What are the keys to handling a negative review? Act Promptly. Monitor reviews of your practice. Although it might be tempting to ignore a bad review, it's not going to go away. If an unflattering review or complaint comes up, it needs to be addressed right way. But before you answer, take a step back and try to see the situation from the patient’s perspective. Respect Privacy. It’s important to be careful of any HIPAA protected information. Even if the patient shares their medical information, make sure you don’t confirm or deny its validity. Ask them to contact your office, and if the patient identified themselves, contact them privately to discuss. Acknowledge their viewpoint. If there was a misunderstanding or mistake, apologize. Show them what is being done (or has been done) to address the situation. Often, once you solve the problem with the patient, they’ll take down their post. Be courteous and professional. While it may be tempting to answer a rude post with the same tone, or hide, delete or even ban a reviewer, it’s much better to show the reviewer that you care about all patient opinions. Always thank patients for taking the time to share their opinions and let them know you value the feedback they provide. There are some exceptions: If a review contains libelous statements or is from a person who has never visited your practice, have them taken down immediately, before it causes any damage. If you send them a clear explanation as to why the content is problematic and why it is important for the content to be removed, most review sites will take down any libelous statements; legal action can be used as a last resort. In this world of social media and reviews, it’s important to keep your online reputation positive. Get regular feedback from your patients and encourage them to leave you reviews. A variety of reviews can dilute any negatives. It will also give individuals researching a better perspective of whether your practice will be a fit for their needs. Thanks for reading! Nancy MacCreery Broad Reach Marketing provides practical, effective marketing for healthcare providers and other professionals. Contact us if we can help you with branding, patient satisfaction or communication processes. Business cartoonist Chris Lysy asked me what I thought was the biggest challenge small businesses face. In a quick note back, I said "It varies from business to business, but I’d say wearing multiple hats — managing the many facets of the business in the amount of time available." I thought that was a pretty good guess ... but is it? Agree? Disagree? Voice your opinion on the poll below or in the comments. Hope you enjoy the cartoon!  Once again someone has asked when you are going to get a new website. You're definitely not excited about spending the time and resources it would take to get it done. Do you really need to do it? It's an important decision – in this digital age, your website is a critical part of your business’s success. It’s often the first—and in some cases the only—interaction customers have with your business. Answering these questions might make your decision easier ...  Is your site:
Why are these important? 1) A great representative of your brand? Because first impressions are important -- you should evaluate if the site makes the impression you'd like. Has your target market changed since you launched your site? If you’re not sure, try asking recent customers or prospects what they think of your site. 2) Fast loading and easy to navigate? As companies grow, they often add pages to their websites. Adding pages that way can create a site that is difficult to navigate. Customers may become frustrated if loading is too slow or it takes too many clicks to get to their information. You can check if this is a problem with Google's free analysis.  3) Mobile friendly – Mobile is becoming increasingly important. Over half of internet traffic now comes from a mobile device. If you love your site, it may be possible to transfer the content to a template that looks good on both a PC and mobile phone (responsive design) at a lower cost and effort than building a new site. 4) Attracting needed traffic? Your website might be fine, but you can generate a higher ROI by enhancing the digital strategy that drives traffic to the site. A digital strategy can include complementary components, like SEO organic traffic, Adwords and / or Bing Ads for paid traffic, content marketing and social media. Thanks for reading!
Broad Reach Marketing provides practical, effective solutions to connect with your customers. If you’d like to discuss any of these points or find out more, contact us ! Social Media - it's everywhere!  Both large and small organizations use social media. Large companies are most visible and usually use multiple channels, but small businesses are active as well – in fact, over 41% of small businesses use Facebook to support their marketing efforts. And no wonder -- social media can be used for both outgoing and inbound communications. Organizations can listen and monitor for customer service and public relations feedback as well as communicate and engage their target market. But you may have noticed that some organizations get more out of their efforts than others. Their audience likes, shares and comments more often, resulting in greater awareness and better connections. What are the keys to these successful social media programs? 1) Specific Goals First, these organizations are not just "doing" social media. They start with objectives that are aligned with organizational goals and values. Social media is often used to support specific objectives, like growing awareness for a new offering, communicating brand and organizational values, or supporting recruitment. 2) Audience Knowledge The program is built on knowledge of the target customer and what interests them.
3) Offers Value Social media should include information and topics of interest to engage. Posting information that is entertaining, or that customers might not find elsewhere (like exclusive notices of sales or coupons), and encouraging interaction is key. These organizations think of social media as a conversation with their followers rather than a sales announcement tool. With social media, you have to earn your following, so any sales messages have to be subtle and sprinkled through the other messages – less than 20% of the content. 4) Prioritized Tactics Successful social media programs take time and consistent effort to build a following. To maximize resources, efforts are focused on channels that appeal most to the target market and fit the organization’s content. They try to be where the potential market is, but don’t try to be everywhere! Better to excel at two channels than have a scattered presence on five.
5) Team Effort and Coordination Coordination helps get the best out of social media. For small business as well as larger ones, a designated team and coordinated calendar are essential. Planning consistent messaging across platforms, knowing in advance of events and other initiatives, leveraging the following on one channel to point to content on another, and having a reliable source of fresh content are benefits of a well-coordinated team. 6) Clear Guidelines Many industries have regulations and restrictions on what can be made public. In addition, it is a good idea to have ground rules that employees may refer to when posting or re-posting/retweeting information about the organization. 7) Measurements, Analysis and Adjustments Success social media efforts are tracked and measured so they can be continually improved. Simple measures like shares, likes, retweets and comments can indicate engagement. A growing number of followers can indicate awareness. Depending on the goals, there are other measures as well:
Great social media programs have their finger on the pulse of the audience and stakeholders. Feedback collected from customers and employees is used to refine the content and can be valuable to marketing and business growth decisions. Thanks for reading! How does your organization run their social media programs? What have you found that works best? If you have questions or would like to explore team-based social media marketing, please contact us. Image credit: John Atkinson's Cartoons Broad Reach Marketing helps professional practices and local businesses engage and retain customers with practical, effective branding, strategy and promotions.
We love to help good ideas and organizations grow! Other articles you may find interesting: How to Make it Easier for Patients to Find Your Practice 4 Tips for Protecting your Online Reputation This is the third and final blog in our series of three focusing on rebranding a business. The first blog, “When is Rebranding the Answer?” concentrated on the questions to ask and situations where rebranding may be the strategically right thing to do for renewing or expanding your business. The second, ” So You’ve Decided to Rebrand- What’s Next?” focuses on the process of researching and defining your new brand. Our final blog, "The Nitty Gritty Rebranding Check List" is just that - a tool developed to assist you as you go about your re-branding effort. The Rebranding Checklist Phase I – Creation Complete your market research Gain Feedback - Inputs from: Critical Customers Clients Employees Management Key Stakeholders Re-define your positioning Gain Stakeholder Consensus on Re-Branding Profile Finalize your new strategic direction: Clear Vision Statement Company Culture & Values Statement Clear Marketplace Value Proposition Finalize Creative Logo tag line and styles that represents the organization as defined above Phase II – Internal Re-alignment Employee / Management Education and Consensus: Why the new emphasis – What’s in it for the business and them How it affects everyone behaviorally How the change will be measured Phase III – Non Web-based Re-alignment Marketing Collateral:
Phase IV – Web-based Re-alignment
Images On-page SEO: Titles, Keywords, Meta Descriptions RSS link Analytics Opt-in form for Email Newsletter Phase V – External Notification Who to Contact How to Contact Customers Clients Vendors Contractors Regulatory Bodies Others Notification methods may include: Written Notification (letters, forms etc) Social Media Announcements Meetings Launch Luncheons or Festivities Thanks for reading! Contact us for a free copy of this checklist (spreadsheet format).
This is Blog 2 of a three part series on Rebranding. The first post is "When is Rebranding the Answer?"  It’s the beginning of a new year and you plan to make some changes to your business. And one of them is to rebrand as you revitalize or expand. So what steps do you need to take? As you work through the process of creating a new brand, please keep in mind the definition of a “brand” as defined by Seth Godin: “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” 1) Understand your current image Using that definition, the first step to successful rebranding is finding out what current customers, employees and key stakeholders REALLY think of your organization and the brand that represents it. When gathering this feedback, pay particular attention to:
2) Identify Brand Characteristics Once the feedback is collected, the next step is to identify the key characteristics of the new brand.
The output from this analysis will be a statement of brand attributes.  3) Get Creative
Now the fun begins! Set up a brainstorming session to generate options for the desired brand name, logo, tag-line and/or other branding symbols. Then, keeping in mind target customers’ demographics and perspectives, narrow the brainstorm list down to 2-3 potentials. Even if you hire an outside agency, be sure to invite key employees, management and stakeholders to participate in this process – they can be sources of creative ideas and their participation will help to increase buy-in and support. 4) Check Availability Sometimes everyone’s favorite option isn’t available, so be sure to check the availability and suitability of the final choices.
Here’s an example of what can happen if you skip this step. A local Pesticide company wanted a new look to reflect a change in management. The old branding included a dark brown logo of a tank. The updated look included lighter colors, predominantly yellow. Seemed like a good change. But when they implemented the new branding, they ordered new yellow shirts for the service crew. Unfortunately, the shirts showed dirt and sweat easily; the technicians disliked them for this and customer impressions were poor. After a while, the company listened, reversing their decision and returning to brown shirts, but this could have been avoided by involving key individuals in the rebranding creation process. 5) Test When selecting your new brand, remember to test before full implementation takes place. Does the new brand convey the right message? Is the tag line appropriate? Does the logo have a hidden (unintended) meaning or symbol? Testing may seem time consuming, but even well established companies have made the mistake of not testing and incurred embarrassment and negative impacts. What can happen: When Airbnb unveiled this logo, it generated a wave of criticism for its design. Some likened it to a triangular paperclip or something else unintended. 6) Plan Implementation Finally, the devil is in the details! Take the time to plan for every aspect of implementing the new brand. The best branding is consistent; therefore updating everything customers come in contact with is important. Often it is advisable to include a “soft launch” before announcing your new brand. Our third and final blog entitled the Nitty Gritty Rebranding Checklist will include a handy list of common items to update during your implementation phase. Please watch for it! Thanks for reading, and as always comments and additional thoughts are appreciated. If you have questions concerning your rebranding efforts please contact us! |
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