This takes barely three minutes to watch. Don’t miss it. If for any reason you don’t see the video screen below, you can click here to go to the TED.com site where the original is posted. Lots of good reminders for everybody.
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January 2010
Congratulations! Your New Year’s resolution is to get serious about marketing your small business. You know that email marketing is a fun, effective and inexpensive way to do it, so now you’re tasked with building your email list. Where do you start? Here are 5 tips to get you started.
1. Put a Guest Book in your store, office and/or on your website and ask people to sign it. Put a space for their email address with the message, “Would you like to receive offers and special members-only discounts from us? Join our mailing list!”
2. When you are networking and people hand you their business card ASK if they want to be included in your newsletter and/or special offers email list. Don’t put everyone who hands you a business card on your email list – believe it or not, that’s illegal.
3. Give something away for free. Either in your store, office or on your site; offer a free report, a free gift, a free session, for example. It can be a raffle or something you give to everyone who signs up (if you do this, make it easy and inexpensive, a white paper is perfect). It doesn’t have to be much, something educational, like a report or a free consultation – or anything a client or potential client will consider valuable and useful. Make it clear that when they agree to enter the drawing they will also be agreeing to receive emails from you.
4. Put an opt-in form on your website and Facebook page to sign up for a newsletter or special “members only” events and offers and drive traffic to it in your email signature, business card, signs in your office or store and in your social media accounts like Twitter.
5. Go through your Outlook list or Rolodex and contact each person one by one, asking for permission stay in touch via email more often. You can let them know that you publish a newsletter or send out special members only deals and you would hate for them to miss out.
Remember – as a small business, there are laws governing email. No matter how tempting it may be, never add people to your list who did not give you permission. Not only is it unprofessional and impolite it’s illegal.
For more information about growing your small business visit http://www.FortuneMarketingCompany.com
Carolyn Higgins is the President and founder of Fortune Marketing Company. Her personal mission is to help small businesses stop wasting money on advertising and promotions that don’t deliver and help you implement an effective marketing system that will bring you more customers – consistently.
For more information about Carolyn Higgins and Fortune Marketing Company please visit FortuneMarketingCompany.com
Email chiggins@fortunemarketingcompany.com or call us at 707.631.6340.
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If restaurants operated like phone companies, you’d never know where to go for dinner.
My family has a favorite little burger joint. Even with lots of similar places in town to chose from, we go there often. We know their food and their service, and we’re comfortable there. They recognize us as regulars, so every now and then one of our favorite waitresses will bring us a free order of hush puppies or a beer on the house. It’s not why we go there, but it sure is nice when it happens.
Compare that to how cell phone service providers operate. First of all, once you’ve chosen one, that’s it. You’ve committed to years with them and them alone.
Then, every time you turn around, you see ads offering better terms, cheaper phones, newer services. But not for you, Mr. or Mrs. Locked-in-Customer. Those specials are for new customers only.
To some extent, it makes sense. Each provider is trying to lure customers away from the competition, or to attract brand new cell phone users. In a recent post on his Planning Startups Stories blog, Tim Berry talked about this temptation to focus on the new customer at the expense of your existing ones.
The message this sends to current customers is just terrible. Back in September, my wife and I decided we needed to upgrade our phones and our service plans. But a call to our provider informed us that if we wanted those low prices on cool new phones, we’d have to wait until our contract on our current phones was up in January. And our service plans didn’t end until May, which meant we couldn’t change providers (and thus reap the rewards of their new customer offers) until then.
It’s sort of crazy, isn’t it? I’d been giving them my money for two years. Now, I not only want to give them more of my money for a new phone, but more money every month for a new, pricier plan.
But they wanted to charge me $400 in September for a phone they’d give a stranger off the street for $100 — a phone they’ll let me buy for $100 in January.
We limped through the next several months, using phones that were practically held together with duct tape, and paying the company less money each month than we would have if they’d let us upgrade. They were practically punishing us for being their customers! (And punishing themselves as well, in lost upgrade revenue.) It doesn’t make sense as a business decision or from a customer service perspective.
Now, can you imagine if restaurants worked that way? What if your reward for being a regular customer at your favorite burger place was to pay more for lower quality food? What if you ordered a dinner special and were told “Sorry, that dish is for new customers only”?
You’d probably head right to another burger joint. They’d have to make you sign some kind of service agreement to treat you that way.
Think about it. When was the last time you heard anyone rave about how much they love their cell phone service provider, the way they might about their favorite restaurant? I’m thinking there might a connection here.
A business needs new customers to survive, as the cell phone guys obviously know. But any good business person also knows that the customers you already have should be equally valued. As Tim Berry said “repeat business is golden.”
photo credit: flickr user compujeramey/ / CC BY 2.0
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Back in my high-tech business analyst days, it was hard not to focus on bells and whistles. There were so many. Computer speed, storage, input devices, monitors, software galore, everything new. Like fish with lures, we were attracted by the latest shiny new thing. Way too much.
I had to learn, back then, how much more important benefits are. Why does the customer care? What do you really do for them? Bells and whistles turn on the engineers and sometimes the reviewers; but people buy benefits, not features.
Along those lines, I enjoyed Carolyn Higgins’ “What Do You Really Sell?” post yesterday (and thanks to Anita Cambell of Small Business Trends for alerting me to it) about how a seemingly trivial detail pushed her to Peet’s Coffee instead of Starbucks. It wasn’t the coffee. It wasn’t the availability of wireless. It was the easy, immediate access to wireless–without an extra step.
It’s really a good idea to take a step away from your business to look at what people are really getting from you. Does Starbucks sell coffee, consistency, a place to meet, wireless access or what? Or, for that matter, is business plan software about the software or the business planning? Is a car for transportation, status, fun or what?
It’s an old story, really, but Carolyn’s post reminded me. It was hard for me to learn. Theodore Leavitt, marketing guru, once said people don’t buy drills because they want drills; they buy them because they want holes.
Good to remember, particularly in the startup stage. Think how this impacts your marketing message and, ultimately, your marketing strategy.
(Image: istockphoto.com)
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AmEx’s OPEN Forum is quickly becoming one of the best places to find new and informative content from some of the best minds in the business world. Along with great articles from people like Anita Campbell, John Jantsch and Guy Kawasaki, you can find short video’s from MSNBC and from the AmEx forum itself..
This video about the Cafe Circa restaurant in Atlanta is a great example of how a business can learn from mistakes and the effort that goes into creating a successful business.
Click the picture to watch the video on the OPEN Forum website
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There’s a good piece on WSJ.com today on Small Business Economic Indicators that may be setting the tone for the new year.
Author Diana Ransom looks at how these larger indicators affect startups and small business. She says:
In the absence of your own economist or strategic planning office, what indicators should you keep an eye on? Here are five that often matter most to small firms.
She looks at consumer confidence, producer price index, the US dollar, and the unemployment rate, with some analysis of how they might affect small business.
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Fascinating story in the New York Times about a New York based H & M clothing store destroying unsold merchandise and then dumping it into the trash. The article points out that in NYC, a third of the city is considered “poor” and in need of warm clothes, coats, hats and shoes. Finding bags and bags worth of unsold clothing destroyed and abandoned was pointed out as being unnecessarily wasteful on the part of the store management.
The other side of this coin, however, is the cost of business.
Where a consumer sees un-necessary waste, a business sees a program to safeguard their interest and business health.
Let’s say it becomes general knowledge that H&M will throw away racks and racks of perfectly good clothing at the end of every season. Would a consumer still be willing to go into the store and purchase that adorable green coat for $129 dollars if they could dumpster dive for it three months later for free?
After this article in the NYTimes ran, H&M released a statement saying they would no longer use this practice of disposing unsold product. Instead they would donate it to a local charity for dispersal to people who truly need it. [Kudos to them for seeing the need to react swiftly and decisively to a growing negative public discussion]
Interestingly enough, H&M Corporate has an entire section on their website dedicated to “Corporate Responsibility” which shows a real commitment to sustainability. This incident could have been a case of a single store not wanting to take the trouble to follow policy.
For the sake of business, I would love to know what this is going to do to this particular store’s bottom line. I am assuming they were destroying in field for a reason, not just for the fun of slashing hundreds and hundreds of items. There’s a cost to everything a business does. From shipping to restocking to disposing of the fabric in a “proper” manner. At what point in this decision process did the end game tip from “this is what we should do” to “this is what we will do”.
So, if you are H&M, what do you do? Continue to destroy clothing to avoid loss of sales and market saturation…. or switch to a more sustainable method and go through a charitable agency to donate that unused clothing?
‘Chelle Parmele
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Last night a friend tipped me off to this in e-mail. It’s a thorough, detailed description of one interesting company’s long and difficult Venture Capital Process. It’s written by Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz.
It’s definitely a long and winding road. Rand warns us at the beginning that this is not an ordinary blog post. That’s certainly true.
I think it should be required reading for anybody who is interested in outside investment for a startup.
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Have you ever thought that running a business, especially a retail store, is a lot like dating? There you are in your store and in walks Mr. or Ms. “Right”, that ideal customer who simply loves your store and goes wild for your stuff.
You have a great time and Mr. or Ms. Right leaves the store, hopefully purchases in hand, and you think, That was great! I wonder when I’ll see him/her again?
Hmmmm? Too often, you just wait until they happen to show up another time. You can sit next to the phone and wait for it to ring, or you can take action!
Remember that guy who used to have his “little black book” with the names and phone numbers of lots of cute unattached girls? He always had a date. Here’s how to be that guy in the retail world:
When he met an attractive girl, the guy with the little black book probably said things like, “May I have your phone number so I can call you?” By doing that, he got permission to call, because if they gave him their number, they were probably interested, maybe even flattered that he’d asked.
You need to get permission to follow-up too. “Permission to Market” is something you want to achieve with every one of the ideal customers who enter your store—those people who you’ve identified as the ones who are most likely to be interested in the things you have to sell—in other words, your “target group”.
This shouldn’t be too difficult; after all, they already came into your store and bought something.
But even if they didn’t buy there’s no reason to think they might not buy at another time. Maintain contact. While you’re transacting with them, say, “Would you like to be on our VIP list and receive advance notice of specials and sales events?” …or “We love to keep in touch with our neighbours. Can we have your contact information?”
You might simply have your own little black book next to the cash and ask people to sign up. Lots of them will. Or better yet, start a database on your computer.
Now you’ve got permission to market to them, so start with a simple message thanking them for their business. You might add an extra, like a coupon good for a small gift with their next purchase—whatever you can afford. You want them to know you appreciate their business and are offering a value added service by staying in touch.
Next, send them an invitation to a special event at the store, a preview of new fashions, a demonstration of something that’s of interest, or an exclusive pre-sale VIP customer night. Anything you can come up with to make them feel special and get them back to the store.
But be careful, don’t pester the people on your list, space the messages out, perhaps than a month or six weeks apart. Be sure the emails have an “opt out” provision as a courtesy—most people will not use this.
You’re thinking, when am I going to find the time to do all this? Good question! The answer is: you automate the whole thing with contact software. Check out Master of the Moment— the Art of Follow-up Marketing on the download section of the Marketing Masters.ca website to learn more.
Just as in dating, if the chemistry is right, your goal is to further and build the relationship. Having ideal customers that you see often, can be a marriage made in heaven!
Ken Burgin and Elizabeth Walker are the Marketing Masters (www.MarketingMasters.ca), a full-service marketing and advertising partnership that helps build busy businesses. Send your ideas on How to Thrive in Times Like These to liz@marketingmasters.ca or ken@marketingmasters.ca, or call 1-866-908-5720.
web: http://www.marketing,masters.ca
blog: http://thebuzzwithkenandliz.blogspot.com/
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Standards vs. Competition — Technical standards or choices galore? Tim Berry ponders which is better for consumers, and for businesses.
Despair Humor Success — Laughing in the face of adversity can create new opportunities.
Twitter, Mobile Gadgets, Tablets and eBooks — Entrepreneurs should be aware of the major technology trends.
7 Reasons Why Small Business Should Take a Look at Foursquare — Marketing expert John Jantsch says what this application offers (not just the application itself) is of great value to small business marketers.
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