Marketing Archives - Page 14 of 17 - Nadine MullingsNadine Mullings

October

27 2014

5 Virtual Events to Grow Your Business

I’ve mentioned in several of my blog posts that having consistent events for your business is a great marketing strategy. Events give people an opportunity to learn more about you, more about the business, and more about your product or service. Over the last decade or so, Virtual Events have become very popular. I define virtual events as any type of event that does not take place in person.

Here are some examples of types of virtual events you can have to market your business:

Tele-Seminars– Tele-Seminars have become very popular because they are easy to execute. All you need is a telephone and a conference line, and you will be able to conduct an event over the phone. Many companies are using this strategy to introduce prospects to their business, product, service, program, etc. Although teleseminars are a great strategy, the down side is the lack of visuals. A company has to rely solely on audio and many people need to see visuals. That is why most tele-seminars encourage listeners to go to a website to get more information and to sign-up.
Webinars- Similar to tele-seminars, webinars have become super popular with the increased popularity of the use of the Internet. Webinars are seminars conducted via the web and participants are able to both hear the speakers and see the visuals. Webinars are also very easy to put together, all you need to do is use a webinar software that either has VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) or you can also use a conference line for people to be able to hear the webinar. Including a consistent webinar in your marketing strategy can be helpful to growing your business.
Videos– Videos are a great way to conduct virtual events. Whether it’s a demo video, interview video, etc. videos allow you to create events and post them online to create a virtual event. You can pre-record the video or stream it live.
Livecasts– Livecasts have also become popular because you are able to actually conduct a live training or seminar which includes a live audience and then stream it over the Internet so that it can be viewed by others online. This strategy is not totally virtual seeing that you may or may not have a live audience when taping the livecast.
Livestreams– Similar to Livecasts, Livestreams are not totally virtual because a live stream usually occurs during an actual in-person event like a conference or seminar. The added ability to record it live and have people view the event via the Internet makes the Livestream a virtual event.

Are you including events in your marketing strategy? If so, are you also using Virtual Events to grow your business?

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Business Development, Business Events, Event Marketing, Marketing, Small Business

October

14 2014

Three Steps to Successful Event Marketing

Having consistent events for your business is a great marketing strategy. Events are a great way for people to get to know you, like you, and trust you, which we all know is the key to getting more business. However, putting on events is not always an easy task. The hardest thing about events is getting people to attend, so this article goes through the 3 steps to successfully market your next event.

Step 1- Pre-Event

Pre-event is the planning phase which involves all the activities that go into planning an event up until the day that the event occurs. The planning phase should include the following key elements:

Audience– who is the event intended for? Just like all marketing strategies, the first step is to understand who you are trying to reach which includes the usual demographics and the even more important psychographics of your audience. The demographics covers the age, gender, income level, etc. while the psychographics is going to cover lifestyle, beliefs, attitudes, etc.
Purpose– What is the goal of the event? Is the event mainly to get your name and brand out there so you can create brand awareness, is it to get sales, is it to grow your prospect list, is it to show appreciate to your customers, is it to educate the market on your industry, etc. There are so many reasons to have an event, and it is important that you are clear on the specific reason you are having the event.
Promotion– How are you going to get the word out about your event? Are you going to use traditional advertising channels like radio, TV, newspaper, etc., or are you going to use new media like social media, blogs, email, etc., or a combination of both forms of media? List all the ways you are going to promote the event and how often you are going promote it up until the day of the event.
Budget– It is important to establish a budget for the event. How much are you willing to spend on the promotion of the event and the actual event itself? No matter how big or small of an event you are planning, it is important for you to set an overall budget for the event.

Step 2- During the Event

The marketing of the event does not end while the event is taking place, in fact, some of the best promotion can be done at the event. Some ways that you can promote during the event include:

Live Stream– This has become popular for larger events. With the technology available to be able to broadcast the event around the world, many people are offering free or paid live streams for people to be able to have access to the event virtually. This helps to amplify your event goal, because not only will you be reaching the people who attend your event in person, but you can also reach people anywhere in the world. It goes back to the purpose of your event. If a live stream will help you reach your overall goal and it is in your event budget, then it may be something to consider.
Social Media– Social Media and Social Networks like Twitter and Instagram are great to promote not only before the event, but also during the event because it is a way for people who are at the event to connect, and also people who are not at the event to get some of the information presented, and to see some of the activity. The best way to be effective on social networks is to create a specific hashtag (#) that can be used throughout the event. This allows for easy grouping and visibility on the network when it comes to conversations and pictures about the event. Again it is another way to amplify the event to other people who may not be in attendance.

Step 3- Post-Event

The marketing of the event does not end after the event. Depending on how often you will be having the event or having other events for your business, the end of the event is a great way to market the next event.

Sign-ups– Be sure to promote the next event, and whenever possible even encourage individuals to sign-up for the next event on the spot. That helps you to secure your audience for your next event.
Feedback– Getting feedback after an event is not only great research on how you can improve your next event, but it also shows your attendees that you care about the events and their feedback is valuable. Event surveys are a great way to get this type of feedback and the information that you receive from the attendees can help you with the creation and promotion of the next event
Appreciation– Showing your attendees that you appreciated their attendance is also a great post-event activity. This could be in the form of an email or a thank you card. Depending on the size and scope of your event, you would need to decide what is the most appropriate way for you to show your attendees appreciation.

Do you have consistent events to promote your business? If so, what do you include in your pre-event, during event, and post event planning?

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Business Development, Business Events, Event Marketing, Marketing, Small Business

September

23 2014

The 3 R’s of Relationship Marketing

In my previous post, How to Grow Your Business with Relationship Marketing, I defined Relationship Marketing as the activities involved in building a greater connection with your clients, prospects and partners. This strong connection often leads to the sale of products or services, and also increases loyalty to your brand or company.

The benefits of using Relationship Marketing strategies in your business include the following 3 R’s:

Referral Business– Referral business can be one of the best ways to get business, because a referral basically comes with an endorsement from the person who is doing the referring. A great source of referrals comes from current clients, partners, and even your prospects, so building a strong relationship with your clients, prospects, and partners becomes vital for your business. In order for someone to feel comfortable referring you, they must know, like and trust you. When you use online relationship marketing strategies including, email, blogging, social media, etc., these activities help people to get to know you, like you and trust you, which in turn gives them confidence in referring your products or services to others. Referrals can be a great source of new business and can be a large percentage of where you get your business from, so nurturing your relationships with relationship marketing is a great way to grow your business through referrals.
Repeat Business– Once a person becomes your customer by purchasing a product or a service, your next goal should be to stay top of mind so that they will purchase that product or service again if they need it, or they will consider your company for other products or services that they may need. That’s why conducting relationship marketing with your current customers by practicing activities to nurture the relationship and stay top of mind will help with getting repeat business from your current customers. Some relationship marketing strategies you can use for current customers include; Customer Appreciation Events, Sending Cards on special occassions including: Birthdays, Holidays, Anniversaries, Offering VIP discounts for current customers, etc.
Retain Business– It tends to be more expensive to get a new customer than it is to retain the customers that you have, so it is important to nurture the relationships that you have with your current customers to make sure that you keep their business. Some relationship marketing strategies to retain business include, showing appreciation for their business by sending “Thank You” cards, making follow-up calls to make sure they are satisfied with the service they have received or are receiving from your company, providing an excellent customer experience. The customer experience includes pre-purchase, during purchasing, and post purchase. How are you making sure that each step is a good encounter for your customer?

Are you using Relationship Marketing strategies to retain business and get repeat and referral business? What are some other relationship marketing strategies you can use to grow your business?

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Business Development, Marketing, Small Business

September

10 2014

How to Grow Your Business with Relationship Marketing

Dictionary.com defines a relationship as a connection, association, or involvement. It also defines marketing as the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer.

My definition of Relationship Marketing is the activities involved in building a greater connection with your clients, prospects and partners. This strong connection often leads to the sale of products or services, and also increases loyalty to your brand or company.

With that said, Relationship Marketing is a key part of your overall marketing strategy, and should occur both online and offline.

In this blog post I will mention a few activities that you should include in your Relationship Marketing:

ONLINE

In order to build a connection online with your clients, prospects, and partners, it is important to have an online presence. Included in your online presence should be the following activities:

A Company Blog– In addition to having a company website, a company blog can help to build the relationship that you have with your audience, because a blog allows you to show your expertise, knowledge and personality in ways that a website alone does not accomplish. The key to a successful business blog is:
1. It should be updated frequently
2. It should contain valuable content relevant to your audience
3. It should showcase the personality of your brand
A Social Media Presence– It’s not necessary to be on all the popular social networks out there, but it is beneficially for your company to be on social networks that have a high percentage of your target market, and networks that will showcase your business well. Social Networks are a great way to strength your connection with your clients, prospects, and partners because it allows you to create a conversation around your company, industry, products, services, values, beliefs, etc. The key to a successful social media presence is:
1. Know your audience
2. Post content that is interesting to your audience
3. Create conversations
An E-Newsletter or EZine– An email publication that your company produces is a great way to strengthen the connection that you have with customers, prospects and partners. It is a great way for your audience to get to know you and get to know what your company stands for. The key to a successful E-Newletter is:
1. Know your audience
2. Give valuable information in each ezine
3. Provide 80% valuable content and only 20% company promotions

OFFLINE

Events– Plan events to show appreciation for your customers and partners. Taking the time to host these events can build a strong connection with you and your customers and partners. It also helps to solidify their loyalty to your company. You can also have events to introduce your prospects to your business or your brand. Grand Openings, Launch Parties, etc. are all great ways for people to get to know more about you, your company, and your brand.
One-on-One Meetings– When possible, schedule one-on-one meetings with your clients, prospects and partners. This is a great way to build a strong connection, and for people to get to know, like and trust you.
Send Cards– It is important to send your customers, prospects and partners cards on various occasions. This could include birthdays, anniversary, Thank You for Your Business, Thank You for Your Time, Happy Holiday cards and more. Taking the time out to send your customers, prospects and partners cards really helps to create loyalty and build trust.

These are just a few ways you can use Relationship Marketing to GROW your business. What other ways can you think of in which you can use Relationship Marketing to grow your business?

Posted by Nadine Mullings | 2 Comments | in Blog, Business Development, Email Marketing, Event Marketing, Marketing, Small Business, Social Media

August

26 2014

8 Tips for Creating a “Social Business” (Part 2)

Image Source: copyright Hootsuite

As mentioned in 8 Tips for Creating a “Social Business” (Part 1), having a “Social Business” is different than just being on a “Social Network”. In order to be “social” on a social network, you must have a “social business”.

In this blog post, I will share tips 5-8 for creating a social business. The inspiration and original content for this post is provided by Evan LePage. Originally posted on HootSource.

Tip 5- Collaborate

Be sure to encourage your team members to distribute new learning both within the team and your organization as a whole. Keep an ongoing loop of discovery and dissemination where best practices, positive messaging or common questions are put forward for comment or collaboration. Social platforms like Yammer and Hootsuite Conversations are exceptional tools for supporting secure internal conversation and exchange of ideas.

Ultimately better internal collaboration supports improved external engagement, keeping messaging consistent, intelligent and brand-appropriate.

Tip 6- Secure

Fear over losing control is an understandable barrier to implementing social media across an organization. It is important to note that mistakes are preventable. In many popular cases the missteps were handled well and the damage to each organization was more along the lines of temporary embarrassment than anything permanent, but why not stop them before they occur?

Hootsuite developed Secure Profiles specifically in response to instances like these to put a solid measure of prevention in place. This provides an extra prompt when publishing to important branded accounts, preventing errant posts intended for personal accounts.

Limited Permissions is another unique security feature. Hootsuite offers multiple levels of account access and places limits on which team members can participate in outbound social conversation directly. The Limited Permissions puts control over publishing firmly in the hands of those who are most trusted. Your social tools should too.

Tip 7- Measure ROI

Tie social to the big picture by linking it to organizational and departmental goals. Users can start with tracking the Like, @mention, Retweet or Follow, but tap in to the power to go much further and deeper. Build the capacity for measurement into every social action. Use URL shorteners, like Hootsuite’s ow.ly links, to track your click-throughs. Integrate Google Analytics and Facebook Insights to track on-site conversions or drill in to geographic disparities in data.

One of the more powerful, recent integrations at Hootsuite is the partnership with Adobe SiteCatalyst. For the first time ever, you’re able to track the path from social message to conversion and attach a dollar value to individual social messages against Key Performance Indicators. You’re able to see which social platform performs best against certain kinds of messaging, analyze which of your Social Advocates is driving more revenue per message and understand what times of day work best for which kinds of communication.

Reporting is important. With Hootsuite you can use data gained from Adobe SiteCatalyst, Webtrends, Facebook Insights, Google Analytics, Google+ Pages Analytics, Twitter Profile Stats, Hootsuite’s custom ow.ly Click Stats to generate easy, drag and drop social analytics reports shared easily by email. More importantly, you can analyze that data to optimize future programs and messaging.

Tip 8- Amplify

When you have a piece of content that is a “hit,” double down. One of the benefits of good measurement and understanding of your data is the ability to hone your messaging and understand what did and didn’t work from a content perspective. Organic social is testing your content for you. Paid social allows you to commit dollars with data-backed belief in your programs and messaging. Invest in promoted tweets, accounts or trends across social platforms or accounts that have already demonstrated the highest yield.

With paid social companies can drill down to microtarget users – either their own followers or people “like” their followers – based on literally hundreds of different interests, by country and city, gender and even device. Companies only pay when users “engage” with the Promoted Tweet in some way, i.e. by clicking on a link or retweeting it. Native ads are also very agile. Members of an organization can log in at any time, create a message and instantly push it to a global audience as a Promoted Tweet. An eBay-style bidding system means prime ad spots always go for the lowest price, minimizing ad spend. The time-consuming (not to mention pricey) requirements of traditional ad campaigns – design teams, creative agencies and media buyers – can’t make the same claim.

Summary:

Social is here to stay and to maintain a competitive advantage, businesses need to stay abreast of this ever-evolving space. Hootsuite Pro helps teams engage with audiences and analyze campaigns across multiple social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn from one secure web-based dashboard.

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Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Marketing, Small Business, Social Media

August

18 2014

8 Tips for Creating a “Social Business” (Part 1)

Having a “Social Business” is different than just being on a “Social Network”. In order to be social on a social network, you must have a “social business”. In this blog post, I will share tips 1-4 for creating a social business. The inspiration and original content for this post is provided by Evan LePage. Originally posted on HootSource.

Tip 1- Evaluate Your Social Goals

Ask yourself the following questions:

What social networks does your company currently reside?
What social networks do you plan to reside in the future?
What social goals does your company have?

Avoid considering social in a vacuum. Take the time to understand where it best fits your organization and how to integrate it into your company goals. You’re not reinventing wheels for social, just using it to make the ones you have turn faster.

Tip 2- Organize Control Over Social Assets

While you want to centralize control over your social platforms with a social tool like a dashboard, you want to de-centralize the conversations you have over them. To do that, you need to empower your team to engage your customers in conversation directly.

Your social tools should also be able to grow along with you, by being flexible to facilitate even further decentralization, expansion, and conversation.

Tip 3- Listen & Learn

There’s no question. People are talking about your organization or your industry. Don’t let your organization get left behind. Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos once described your brand as, “what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” Today, not only do you have an opportunity to be in the room but to take an active role in the conversation itself.

Good search practices start with monitoring for mentions – the good, the bad and the ugly – of your organization, but can also focus on topics related to your business where you may wish to become an influencer. With social, it is also possible to monitor certain users or organizations closely without them knowing you’re listening.

Gather your feedback. There are some interesting disconnects between consumers’ and businesses’ perceptions on why people engage with organizations via social media:

73% of businesses feel consumers want to learn about new products while only 51% of consumers give that as a reason.
61% of businesses think consumers want to be part of a community while only 22% of consumers support that thought.
61% and 55% of consumers want discounts and to purchase something respectively.

Better monitoring, listening and analysis of conversation and feedback could lead to programs to close these gaps and build more empathetic, customer-centric relationships.

Tip 4- Engage to Build a Community

While each brand will have it’s own communication style, there is a right way and a wrong. The most important thing you can do is to acknowledge the voice of the customer, really hear and respect what they are saying. If what you’re hearing is a complaint, let them know a resolution is being sought, then follow through on that resolution to the best of your organization’s ability. Once again, don’t consider social in a vacuum. Integrate your response with existing channels and let the most appropriate channel lead the way to resolution.

Listen and pick your moments. If sales are a priority, nurture potential leads with relevant and helpful content. Make sales through engagement. The age- old sales maxim, “Make a friend first, a sale second” still applies to social, only even more so due to social’s ability to amplify positive, or negative, experiences.

Give advice. Hilton Hotels takes an entirely non-sales oriented approach with @HiltonSuggests by taking an engagement for engagement’s sake position. Hilton monitors online conversation for travelers looking for recommendations all over the world. Acting as a quasi global concierge, @HiltonSuggests steps in to offer accommodation advice to travelers whether a Hilton is a viable option or not.

Perks don’t hurt. 61% of consumers use social to look for discounts. Social is obviously a great way to highlight promotions and deals, but make them appropriate and relevant to your brand. For example, why would a bakery give away an iPad? Promotions of this kind are common and can build vanity metrics such as Likes or Follows, but those need to be balanced with engagement. How engaged are iPad fans with bakeries? Fans of customized cakes are much more likely to be highly engaged and even influential to a fledgling bakery. Fewer more influential followers trump hordes of deal hunters every time. With Hootsuite’s custom URL parameters, our bakery could even track conversions arising directly from their posts to Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn and put that iPad to use around the office.

Original content provided by Matt Foulger. Originally posted on HootSource.

Summary:

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Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Marketing, Social Media

August

11 2014

5 Must-Haves for Social Media Management

Image Source: copyright Hootsuite

Social media has grown from a curiosity to an integral piece of a company’s strategy in the space of only a few years. Nearly overnight, companies have brought on whole teams of specialists to craft effective social media strategies and manage multiplying numbers of social media accounts. Companies are hungry for better social media tools to engage their followers. Below is a list of five features key to delivering on a social media strategy.

1) Scheduling

Social media doesn’t sleep, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to! Ensure your social media management tool of choice allows you to schedule messages in advance. So even if you’re in New York, you can schedule messages out to your customers in Tokyo during their workday.

If you want to take scheduling to the next level, look for a tool that offers the ability to schedule large batches of messages at once. This will be a super useful time-saver when it comes to managing campaigns or contests that require heavy messaging around a certain period of time.

2) Geo

When it comes to interacting with your customers, those in different locations may have different needs, speak different languages or follow different trends. You’re going to want a tool that optimizes your searches and filters your searches by language to help you curate relevant content for different demographics.

3) Keywords

Social media is also an effective way for businesses to keep their finger on the pulse. Setting up keywords or search streams provide insight into what is trendy among your customers. This can help you develop a marketing strategy that focuses on customer’s lifestyles and personal preferences.

Keywords are useful for keeping track of competitors’ activities but they’re also useful for tracking brands that are complementary to your offering. If your product is often purchased in conjunction with another product, keep an eye on the complementary product’s social media activity to take advantage of promotions or recent sales, as these are potential leads ready to be converted.

4) Collaboration

It takes two to tango especially when it comes to being social. Collaboration is key when it comes to developing and executing an effective social media campaign. Ensure your social media management tool enables you to seamlessly collaborate with your team to ensure you execute an integrated social media management strategy.

5) Reporting

Gone are the days of social media purely being about ‘building buzz.’ It is now a line item in budgets as companies invest resources in these channels and there is an expectation for reports which show ROI for social media outreach.

Make sure your tool has the ability to analyze important metrics such as click-through rates on shortened links, clicks by region and top referrers. It’s also important to have access to Facebook Insights and Google Analytics.

The most effective tools will provide the ability to access in-depth granular metrics on the efficacy of your social media programs. This will allow you to determine which messages resulted in the highest number of conversions, which platform is providing the greatest return and which time of day is most effective to drive traffic.

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Written by Matt Foulger. Originally posted on HootSource.

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized

June

23 2014

Business Blog v. Business Website

It may seem like a silly question, but what is the difference between having a blog and having a website? And when it comes to your business strategy, do you need both?

With the popularity of blogs and social media, some companies are thinking they may not need a website. Although a business can be successful without one, I feel it is important to have one. Your website is your home base, the place on the internet where your company/brand lives. All other places on the internet like blog platforms, or social networks are places that you rent space, so if you are serious about your business you don’t want to just RENT, you want to OWN!

WEBSITE

According to dictionary.com, “A website is a connected group of pages on the World Wide Web regarded as a single entity, usually maintained by one person or organization and devoted to a single topic or several closely related topics.” Your website really is the place where people will go to learn about your company. Since people go there to learn about your company, your website should include the following:

The story of your business, including the who, what, where, when & how
A showcase of your products and/or services
Appropriate messaging directed to your target audience
A way to capture leads by offering an email opt-in form
A way to convert your visitors to purchases with the use of links to sales pages
A way for people to contact you
Connections to your social media networks
Connection to your blog

BLOG

So what is a blog and how does it differ from your website?

According to dictionary.com, “A blog is a website containing a writer’s or group of writers’ own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other websites.” Your blog is where you express your opinions and share your insights about your particular topic with your audience. Your blog should be used for the following:

To show your expertise
To offer advice, tips, techniques related to your products and services, or your industry
To build an audience
To subtly promote your products and/or services
To build a community
To spread the word about your business
To capture leads when people subscribe to your blog
To convert visitors to purchase your product or service by using links to sales pages

So now that you know the difference between your website and your blog, do you need both? It depends! If you want to be known as an expert in your industry and you are committed to consistently blogging (posting articles) on your blog, then blogging should be included in your online marketing strategy, but if you are not sure you will have the time to consistently blog and be committed to maintaining your blog, then you should not start a blog. Although it has many benefits, blogging is not for everyone!

On the other hand, having a home base for your business/brand is important, so I feel having a website is a MUST for a business while having a blog is OPTIONAL.

So what do you think, does a business need a blog and a website? Do you have a business blog and a business website?

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Blog, Business, Business Development, Marketing, Uncategorized

June

10 2014

The best way for people to know, like and trust you online!

We’ve all heard the saying, “People do business with people who they know, like, and trust“. I find that one of the best ways for people to get to know you, like you, and trust you ONLINE is by BLOGGING.

So what exactly is blogging some may ask, according to dictionary.com, a blog is a website containing a writer’s or group of writers’ own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other websites. I will also add that a blog allows others to communicate with those writers by commenting on what they have posted!

First let’s take a look at a brief history of blogging. The first “blog” started in 1994 and was known as Links.net, and the term “weblog” was coined in 1997, a few short years later “weblog” was simplified to just “blog” in 1999.*

So how can blogging help your business? Well, the fact that a blog allows you as a business owner to write about your experiences, observations, and opinions, helps people to know more about you, your business, your business style, and the culture of your company. Therefore, helping you to build on the “know” factor in the know, like, and trust formula.

In addition, the content that you post on your blog helps people to figure out if they “like” your style, your information, your point of view. This helps with the “like” part of the know, like, and trust formula.

And thirdly, how consistently you post, how much you care about providing valuable information to your readers, and how knowledgable you are about your topic helps to build the “trust” part of the know, like, and trust formula.

In addition to helping you build your know, like, and trust factor online, blogging also helps you to become known as an expert in your field, which can lead to more business for you.

There are also technical reasons to blog for you business which includes Search Engine Optimization. Now I am no SEO expert, but the basics of how blogging helps with your SEO is:

It allows your website to stay current. Search engines prefer to share up to date information with the people searching for a particular topic, and if your blog is posting current information about a particular topic this could help you to rank higher in the search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.
The use of keywords in your blog can also help with your SEO. If someone is searching for a particular keyword and your website ranks high for the use of the keyword organically (existing on the page), then this can help you rank higher in the search engines.
When people find the information on your blog useful and link to it from their websites, this creates backlinks to your website, which is great for SEO.

This is a short and simple list of how blogging helps with SEO, as SEO is a whole other topic that could be a whole blog itself (and as I mentioned, I am not an expert on SEO).

So what do you think? Do you think blogging is one of the best ways for people to get to know, like, and trust you online? Are you using blogging in your business?

* Source- New York Magazine

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Blog, Business, Business Development, Marketing, Uncategorized

April

07 2014

7 Surprising Ways to Get Repeat & Referral Business

It is a fact that one of the best ways to grow your business is by building the relationship that you have with your current customers. Most small businesses overlook this fact and concentrate on new customers and new business, but don’t neglect your existing customers because they can really help you grow your business.

In this blog post, I will cover 7 surprising ways you can get repeat and referral business from your current customers:

Send your customers a birthday card. Yes, I am talking the old fashioned in the snail mail birthday card. Now a days, so few people take the time to send family, friends and customers physical cards that it would be a welcome surprise for your customer to receive a card from you. Depending on the size of your customer database, this could be an expensive undertaking, so I suggest if you cannot send a birthday card to every customer, make sure that you send one to your most loyal and repeat customers. It’s a great way to show that you care about your customers, and it’s a great opportunity to add a special offer for additional products or services. I get a birthday card and a $10 off gift card from a popular women’s apparel store every year, and most of the time I go in the store to use my gift card. I am pretty sure this strategy is working for this retail store because I continue to get a card every year.
Send your customers an anniversary card. You should have the date that your client started using your services on file, so wouldn’t it be great if you sent an anniversary card close to the anniversary date? It is a great way to stay top of mind, and to stand out in your client’s mind. An auto dealership used this strategy and sent out anniversary cards to all customers who had purchased a vehicle from the dealership each month. The card included a discount to use their auto parts & service department. It was a great way to strengthen the relationship with the customer and get them to come in for additional services.
Send your customer a “Thank You for Your Business” card. Whenever you close a deal or get a new account, it is the start of a new business relationship. Why not show your customers how much you appreciate this new relationship and send a thank you for your business card. You will be surprised how this can make you stand out as a business and strengthen the new business relationship. Paying attention to the little details also makes customers more encouraged to send referral business to you because they know you will treat the person who they refer with as much care as you have treated them.
Send your potential customer a “Thank You for Your Time” card. Sometimes you may not get the business on the first appointment. That’s why it is important to follow-up with the prospect with a card thanking her for her time. This will allow you to stand out and when the customer is ready to make a purchase because you took this additional step, your chances of being the one to get the business is much higher.
Send your customers holiday cards. Whether it is one of the popular holidays like Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, Independence Day, or one of those less popular holidays like President’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, etc. take the time to send your customers a holiday card for the holidays that you feel would be appropriate. I know I have said this before, but people just don’t get a lot of cards anymore, so receiving a card from your company on a special holiday can really make your company shine!
Send a customer a life milestone card. Sometimes you may know of a special event that occurred in your customer’s life, like the birth of a grandchild, or the graduation of a child, or an engagement or marriage. Whatever the special occasion may be, sending a nice card to your customer to recognize the milestone is great way to build the business relationship and for you to stand out as someone who cares about your customers.
Send your customers a special invitation to an upcoming promotional event. Having consistent events to promote your business is always a smart thing to do, but making sure you send a special invitation to your VIPs, loyal, or repeat customers is sometimes overlooked. Receiving an email about an event can sometimes get lost in the shuffle, so sending an invitation via the mail can help your event to stand out and will keep your company and the event top of mind for your customers.

You will notice that the common element for each one of these tips is to send a card! A great system to use to automate the sending of cards and gifts for your clients is SendOutCards. SendOutCards is an online system that allows you to select a card, customize the card, add the contact information for the recipient or upload a list of contacts, and hit send. The card will then be printed, stuffed, and mailed to the recipient(s) all by the click of your mouse. In addition, you’re able to keep track of all the cards and gifts that you send because the system keeps a record of everything for you.

For more information go to www.SendOutCards.com If you decide that you want to use the system to send your cards and gifts, you can use id#155454 to join.

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Business Development, Business Events, Event Marketing, Marketing, Small Business, Uncategorized