Most small business owners I know are looking for the same things: more money, more personal time, more energy, smarter employees, more customers, and the return of the forty hour work week.
Let’s look more closely at one today…more customers and clients.
As you’ve probably heard, it is easier to keep a customer than it is to find a new one. Small business owners reward loyalty in a variety of ways: preview invitations to seasonal sales, birthday freebies, buy one get one at a reduced price, email specials and even the familiar fish bowl that allows visitors to throw a business card in for the lucky draw.
I read an article in the ClickZ Archives dating back to 2004 about an effective approach towards customer loyalty that was provocative and award-winning. It wasn’t a small business but we can take a lesson from it, I think. No suspense here…it was Avis. Remember the commercial slogan “We’re #2?” That campaign was so successful it “won the prestigious Brand Keys Award for the most loyal brand in the U.S. three years running.” I’m quoting the author of the article, Fredrick Marckini, the original founder of iProspect. His company was the first SEM only firm in the country in 1996. Talk about being ahead of the curve on ‘going green.’
Mr. Marckini was writing about Ron Masini, who at the time was in the development department at Avis.
Three of Mr. Masini’s propositions stand out in the article:
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The summary is, I think, that we are better off scratching our heads about how we can deliver the value behind the price we put on our goods and services, rather than throwing a sign up offering a free belt with every pair of pants.
Free or cheap prices rarely, if ever, keep the customer or client coming back for more of the same. There is always somebody out there cheaper.
Have some fun with your business! The 4th of July is coming…dress up as Uncle Sam and charge full price with a smile.
The short answer is, yes. Social networking offers a kind of publicity you won’t find anywhere else: free, word of mouth advertising.
If you’ve ever bought a product or gone to a restaurant on the recommendation of a friend, you’ve already seen the power of social networking in action. Sites like Facebook and Myspace take this same idea and add to it the power of the Internet. The result is that people can instantly share recommendations with hundreds of friends and family members in blink of an eye, or rather, with the click of a mouse.
There is no type of advertising that is more effective than word of mouth. The most expensive and colorful advertising campaigns can’t compete with the power of one person telling another person what to buy or where to go. But that’s not all…
Search engines like Google base their search results on more than just keywords. Of course, a good website must have strong content and keywords to be of any use, but even the most well-constructed sites need traffic.
The more traffic a site receives, the more likely it will show up in search results because Google (and others) will assume that this site has the potential to answer questions and solve problems. Search engines also give preference to sites that make use of interlinking. Imagine the Internet as a series of rooms (sites) with hallways (hyperlinks) leading to and from the rooms. The more hallways lead to a room, the more visitors the room will receive, and those visitors will discuss and hopefully recommend the room to others. In this metaphor, social networking is a source of hallways for your room.
While Facebook and Myspace were invented with the intention of keeping people connected with friends and family, they have also presented businesses (particularly small businesses) with a new way to advertise a brand or service. Research on advertising tells us that people are bombarded with upwards of 50,000 ads per day, most of which we ignore. But at the end of the day, the endorsements we remember are those of our friends and family.
One of the services our company offers is help with social networking. Building and maintaining a profile on one of these sites takes very little time and the payoff in visibility is enormous. Please contact us if you are interested in taking advantage of this service.
It’s true, there are many things small businesses can’t afford. Advertising, at hundreds or thousands of dollars per inch for newspapers and magazines, is one of those unaffordable things. You might think that because you can’t afford print or radio advertising, you can’t afford advertising, period.
While it may be that you can’t afford traditional advertising, even if you don’t have a website you can take advantage of e-mail marketing to increase your revenue from existing customers, and even find new customers. The secret to making the most of e-mail marketing is simple: doing it well.
Creating a customer contact list can be as easy as putting a pad of paper next to your cash register. You can ask for as much demographic information as you like, but the less information you request, the more people will sign up. Most people will be willing to give you a name and e-mail address.
You’ll need to purchase a program that supports e-mail marketing in order to comply with spamming regulations. The program will allow anyone who has given you permission to send them e-mails to be entered into the program. Most will also include an e-mail designer with attractive color schemes and easy-to-use templates. This program will double as a way to manage your contact list. Web-based e-mail marketing programs are offered by most web hosting companies and are very inexpensive.
Once you’ve gotten your list started and you’re ready to start sending messages, follow these guidelines to make your efforts more successful:
Do: Tell customers why to sign up. Will they receive special discounts? Sale announcements? Special event invitations? Updates?
Do: Assure customers that you will not sell or share their contact information with third parties.
Do: Consider offering a “thank you” to customers who sign up. You can e-mail them a code for a free or discounted piece of merchandise, or something more personalized like a gift for visiting you during their birthday month. (Note: For this last option, be sure to ask for the customer’s birth month and day, but NOT the year, when they sign up.) Tell people about this incentive when they sign up, and this will encourage them to open the first e-mail they receive, which hopefully sets a pattern of interest in your e-mails and keeps you on customers’ safe lists.
Do: Tell customers your e-mail address so they can add it to their safe lists. Also, be sure to include a reply-to address in every message.
Do: Tell customers how often they will receive messages. (Never send more than one e-mail per week, unless the content is completely unique.)
Do: Keep your messages short (preferably under 300 words). Organize your messages in lists and short paragraphs, like a web page. Use formatting such as bold type and headings to help customers find the most important information quickly.
Do: Get right to the point in your writing. If you’re having a sale, don’t waste a paragraph introducing it. Remember, most people will scan your message rather than read it word for word. That said, be sure to include exceptions, expiration, special conditions, and other details of any offer you describe in an e-mail.
Do: Encourage your readers to forward the e-mail to friends who might be interested. Also, include an opt-in link so that people can remotely subscribe to your list. Your e-mail marketing program will help you with this.
Do: If you aren’t a good writer (be honest with yourself!), find someone else in your company to write your e-mails. If you have to, hire someone who can do the job well. If the writing is awkward, misspelled, or otherwise unprofessional, readers will be distracted from your message.
Equally as important as what to do is what not to do:
Don’t: Sell or share your customers’ contact information, under any circumstances.
Don’t: Include duplicate text in your messages, or customers will quickly stop reading or even opening your messages. Most people can recognize a quick “cut and paste” and they won’t appreciate it. If you just want to remind customers to visit your business but you don’t have a special event to advertise, consider running an e-mail promotion like a special discount. Don’t send a message unless you have something to offer.
Don’t: Paste articles or secondary source material into your messages. It just makes the message overly long. Instead, add a sentence or two and a hyperlink to the original source.