In Step 7 of our ongoing series on Lifecycle Marketing, we’re talking about expanding your marketing reach by gathering testimonials from satisfied customers. In our previous step, we looked at ways to increase the value of your existing customers by upselling.
Word of mouth is more than just advertising that money can’t buy. In many cases, it’s more effective. According to a recent Forrester Research report, 70 percent of US online adults place high value on brand or product recommendations from friends and family. The report goes on to say that nearly half of them trust online reviews written by customers, but only about 10 percent feel the same way about company sponsored advertising.
It only makes sense. For example, if we’re trying to decide whether to see a film in the theatres, are we going to listen to a longtime friend or rely on a critic we’ve never met?
on Tuesday, 23 September 2014.
Posted in Business Strategy
Delivering the Goods: Successfully following up on a sale
This is the fifth step in our continuing series on Lifecycle Marketing. Previously we focused on ways you can convert lead into sales.
As anyone who’s been in business for any length of time knows, making a sale is only the first part of the equation. How you follow-up can go a long way in determining whether you’ve made a short-term sale or created a loyal customer that will stay with you for the long-haul.
At a minimum, your product should meet their expectations and be delivered in a timely manner. A well planned follow up after the sale can help you go beyond those expectations and truly ‘wow’them.
A follow-up doesn’t have to be just an email or a phone call. You can use all the channels at your disposal to reinforce all the points you’ve made during the build-up to the sale and continue to build trust.
on Thursday, 04 September 2014.
Posted in Business Strategy
This is the third in an eight-step series about lifecycle marketing. Previously, we looked at how to attract traffic to your website and the various tools you can use to generate valuable sales leads.
Now that you have the attention of your potential customers, it’s time to nurture them towards a sale.
It’s all about following up on potential leads. Since everyone is different, there are as many possible ways to follow up a lead as there are customers. There are no limits to your creativity here. That’s why it’s so important to not only generate leads, but to generate quality leads. The more you know about a potential customer, the more you can tailor your follow-up efforts to their situation.
on Thursday, 21 August 2014.
Posted in Business Strategy
This is the first of an 8 part series on Lifestyle Marketing.
With a little patience and technical know-how, it’s fairly easy to build a website. The Internet is full of handy guides on it. If you don’t have the time to learn, the Internet is also full of people and companies eager to do the work for you. But now that you’ve gone to the trouble of building your site, is it doing what it needs to do to bring traffic in, or it is just sitting there in a sea of similar sites?
You need a reason for people to come to your site.
Marketing expert Andrew Davis believes he has a way to do just that. By creating valuable content on your site, you establish a brand and you can use that brand to sell your products. He cites Sesame Street and Disney as examples. By creating memorable stories and engaging characters such as Mickey Mouse and Elmo, both companies were able to leverage their content to sell millions of dollars in products.
on Tuesday, 05 August 2014.
Posted in Business Strategy
Twenty percent of your customers produce 80 percent of your sales. Named the Pareto Principle after Vilfredo Pareto, this concept is a simple yet powerful idea that can save you time, money and dramatically grow your business if used properly. Pareto, an Italian economist, noticed in 1906 that 80 percent of the land was owned by 20 percent of the population.
The interesting thing about this principle, or the ’80-20 rule’, is that it occurs with astonishing frequency in other situations. Twenty percent of your time will yield 80 percent of your results. Twenty percent of your products will create 80 percent of your revenue. The list goes on and on.
From a marketing standpoint, the applications are obvious. If 20 percent of the advertising efforts produce 80 percent of the results, then your marketing needs to focus on that 20 percent. If 20 percent of your webpages generate 80 percent of your traffic, then you need to highlight those pages to make them easier to find.
When it comes to customers, how do you zero in on your best customers, and more importantly, how do you find more like them? Using the ’80-20’rule allows you to develop more targeted marketing and more effective follow-ups so you can nurture sales.
on Tuesday, 22 July 2014.
Posted in Marketing Tips
Getting online customers to your website is one of the most important ingredients for growing your business, and when it comes to search engines, Google has the vast majority of the market share. If customers don’t know about you or can’t find a convenient way to reach you through the Web, selling your product or service becomes that much harder.
Google+ (Google Plus) is one of the fastest growing social networking sites available in today’s market. While it pales in comparison to the vastness of Facebook, Google+ is tightly tied to the Google search engine. Google+ has ‘+1’ votes, similar to Facebook’s Likes. Those votes let Google know that what you’re sharing is being read. Google+ profiles and pages can have a significant impact on search rankings.
Google+ separates itself from other social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter by offering increased SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Posts are crawled and indexed almost immediately, resulting in a greater likelihood of your page appearing at the top of Google search results when a potential customer begins researching a product or service.
on Tuesday, 08 July 2014.
Posted in Business Strategy
With the sheer variety of resources available online are many ways to get the word out about your product or service. Your official website, though a critical part of your online marketing strategy, is just one of many. Social media sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn, have become an increasing part of modern life. Smart entrepreneurs adapt.
According to Facebook internal estimates, the number of pages for small and medium sized businesses is close to 25 million. And there are over 750 million Facebook users daily.
With such a large environment, businesses have found that their sites and posts tend to get lost in the newsfeeds that users see. Since Facebook is a forum for people to share bits of their daily lives, the decorum tends to be a bit more informal. The professional appearance that companies use on official websites doesn’t always translate well into Facebook.
Many experts on social media recommend a more personal approach for a Facebook page. Rather than telling potential followers about what a great company you started, tell them the hardships you went through trying to found it, and why you did. Instead of posting about your company’s great relationship with the community, post a story about a community event you or one of your employees participated in. Celebrating company moments can help potential customers feel like they’re dealing with real people, not a company logo.
on Thursday, 26 June 2014.
Posted in Business Strategy, Marketing Tips
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on Monday, 16 June 2014.
Posted in Automation News, Marketing Tips