7 ways to find out what your customers are thinking and build loyalty
“I don’t feel like you value our relationship…” Those words have been spoken at the break up of many marriages, friendships, and even family relationships. While they may not be spoken, the feelings those words express also reflect why many customers and clients stop doing business with companies. The challenge for small business owners is to make sure customers and clients know that their relationship is valued and one of the best ways to do that is to ask people what they think. Here are seven ways to find out what your customers are thinking using both online tools and in-person strategies. Live chat. It’s not difficult to get a live chat feature built into your website today. If you get a lot of traffic and your website is central to your business, explore your options. (Sara Angeles does a good job describing some of the best providers in her Business News Daily article, 7 Live Chat Solutions for Small Businesses.) I’m using this term in its broadest sense. If a web-based tool would work for you, directing customers to a survey can be done a number of ways including via a pop-up, email, or mobile device. However, telephone surveys are also good and I especially like the “casual follow-up call” when it comes from an important employee or owner, not a survey company. Suggestion box. We all know about “employee suggestion” boxes, how about doing the same thing for customers? You can also build an online suggestion box into your website. Review software. As with live chat, there are good third-party review apps available for your website. Social listening. Monitor the Internet for mentions of your business or for hashtags that directly relate to what you do. When something hits your radar screen, jump into the conversation in a positive and proactive way. Your social media channels. Respond to comments made to posts on all the social media channels you use. Feedback cards. I mentioned using a suggestion box above. You can make it easier for your customers if you hand them a feedback card. Alternately, you could put a stamp on it so customers could simply drop it in the mail. Another important tip is to solicit an opinion soon after you have an interaction with a customer. If you’re in a service-based industry, following up every time you render your service with a request for a rating and general comments is a good...
read moreEmail marketing graphics: Opposites are attractive
I always find it interesting when seemingly opposite strategies can be successful in a given situation. We see this today with email marketing graphics. Some businesses invest a great deal of time and effort crafting beautiful emails that are loaded with gorgeous images. Other businesses are sending nothing more than the most plain, text-only newsletters. The crazy thing is that both strategies can be successful. Let’s start by looking at the minimalist approach. Here’s one of Neil Patel’s recent newsletters. Few people know more about online marketing than Neil. Given the fact that he has been sending this style of email newsletter for a long time, we can be certain that it’s performing well for him. Note that Neil’s newsletter has no email marketing graphics. He even uses a typeface that looks like it came out of my old Underwood manual typewriter. However, that traditional type face and the fact that it’s an all-type email give it a personal touch. It’s almost like receiving an email from a friend or relative. I’m tempted to point out that it’s a very short email. However, I have seen successful online marketers use all-type newsletters like this that were fairly long. But generally, I think shorter type-only email newsletters are preferred. And, if you send these kinds of newsletters, you can send them often as long as you are providing value with each short email. Follow this simple format Open quickly Deliver the value Say goodbye There’s no secret to any of that. Keep the language personal and a bit breezy and you’re home free. But here’s the brainteaser: These short text-only emails work well for online marketing, but so do those loaded with email marketing graphics. Below are a handful of the many templates available at Constant Contact and Mail Chimp. They make it easy to fill your emails with beautiful photos and graphics. There are certainly some commercial areas that benefit more from graphics than others. But there’s no commercial area that can’t, in some way, leverage graphics to its benefit, yet not everyone uses them in their emails. I’m pointing this out so you might consider some in-depth A/B testing. However, don’t cut your test short. Divide your list in half and send one group emails that are dense with email marketing graphics and the other half emails that are bereft of email marketing graphics. Keep this up for a couple of months so the groups get accustomed to the style of the emails they receive. After you’ve established these routines, do a little experimenting: What happens when you send an image-rich email to the text group and vice versa? Do you get a one-time bump in the response rate? These kinds of tests can give you a small edge that will add up to a major increase in profits or website visits over...
read moreHow to set goals for your employees that lead to success
I was talking to a young professional the other day and he mentioned that he was signing up for an online course. He explained that it was one of the goals he and his boss agreed on during their last performance review session. The course he was going to take would benefit his work to some degree, but more than that, it was an area he was interested in and the course would broaden his professional skills. I was impressed that his boss included that type of direction, investment, and encouragement in a yearly performance review. In business, whenever we describe someone as being “goal oriented” it’s a good thing, and if we allow it, that fact can do a lot to push our organizations toward greater success. We must, however, approach goal setting wisely. Goals and priorities are closely related and we all know that you can’t have more than one “first priority.” Therefore, priorities and goals should be limited in number. Generally speaking, it’s wise to start with company goals and then work your way to employee goals. Picture an inverted pyramid with a base of a few company goals, a middle layer of more team goals, and then the biggest top layer of individual employee goals. You may know the SMART guidelines for setting goals. The should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bounded. These apply to goals at all levels: company, teams, and employees. Company and team goals generally relate directly to the mission of your organization. However, some employee goals can go in different directions. Business has been stuck with the label “Yearly Performance Review” for generations and I think it’s very outdated. I suggest taking a more holistic approach to employee reviews and conducting them more frequently. Consider professional and personal growth. Find out areas of interest that are undeveloped and give employees the chance to explore them. Let your team members know that you are invested in their personal and professional growth and not merely in meeting some departmental or job-specific performance improvements. This will lead to far greater loyalty to your business and far less employee turnover. We often say that it’s much less expensive to retain a customer than acquire a new customer. The same principle applies to...
read moreThis week in small business: Become a master of DIY market research
I was really pleased to find some good guidance on market research to share with you this week. It’s a topic that doesn’t get much attention, but one that can make or break a startup or any plans for expansion. Marketing and sales Need a DIY guide to market research? In his SurveyGizmo article, Chris Watkins does a good job hitting all the bases. (A little nod to the young MLB season there!) To go a little further, check out Vikas Agrawal’s “5 market research tips every startup should know.” Jayson DeMers asks and answers the important question: When it comes to SEO, how cheap is too cheap? And if that makes you a bit concerned about your SEO, you’ll probably want to check out the three SEO tips to get your small biz noticed from John Swanciger. Anyone directly responsible for content creation (blogging) for the purpose of SEO needs to hear what Lisa Montenegro has to say about “keywords versus topics.” While Pepsi’s recent ad featuring Kendall Jenner caused a media storm, Jake Romm argues that it was actually a resounding success. Check your website against Jennifer Lobb’s list of five things it must have…unless you want to lose customers. Leadership, management, and productivity Rasha Khawaja, Toucan founder and CEO, is the woman business leader profiled in this article by Laura Emily Dunn. There’s no question about it: We’ve been in a productivity funk for several years. Philip Salter says that small business adopting technology is the key to raising productivity. And while they aren’t techy, the six productivity hacks in this article by Christine Warner are solid. Munira Rangwala offers three easy ways to help women succeed in business and we all succeed when more women succeed. Entrepreneurship, startups, and innovation Not all networking strategies are good and in his Entrepreneur article, Kimanzi Constable outlines one terrible way of networking via social media for entrepreneurs. Need convincing that a strong social media presence is required for your startup? If so, this Social Media Daily article lays out the reasons. Finally, are you primed for a little inspiration and guidance? Try this piece by Brian Roberts: How I came up with a million-dollar ecommerce idea in 20...
read moreThey give you a few free square inches, here’s how to make the most of them!
Leveraging a consistent 1-percent edge to outpace the competition means taking advantage of every opportunity you have to further your small business. And in your social media accounts, this requires you to use every tool at hand and one of those tools is your cover photo or cover art. I’ve grabbed some Twitter cover art that illustrate how this space can be used to your advantage as well as a couple of things to avoid. Let’s take a tour together. As I explored Twitter accounts, I was mildly surprised to see that IBM’s Watson Analytics is among the accounts to make the best use of cover art. (By the way, although all the examples I’m going to use come from Twitter, the same principles apply across your social media accounts.) The IBM Watson Analytics cover art communicates an offer, web address, and IBM branding. Wow: A three-fer! Netflix uses its cover art to promote a recent release in its lineup of original television programming. And, if you were to watch this account over time, you would see that it changes its art very often and that brings us to one of the biggest lost opportunities that we suffer on social media: failing to keep our cover art fresh! Schedule in some mandatory updates throughout the year and stick to your schedule. We see a similar timeliness with Wendy’s cover art. When I took the screenshot, we were just going into March Madness season and Wendy’s was using the basketball tournament to promote itself. After having a lot of nice things to say about these brands so far, let’s look at Snapchat’s Twitter cover art. I understand that there is a certain degree of competition between Snapchat and Twitter, but nonetheless, Snapchat has a lot of Twitter followers. In any case, I think it could be just a bit more creative with its cover image. If it thinks its minimalist approach is good, it’s not working with me. Personal branding expert Leonard Kim makes a common error with his cover art. The profile picture covers up an important element of the cover art, in this case, a person’s face. It’s not Kim’s, but it still doesn’t feel right. Sometimes important type will get covered up by the profile picture. Avoid these mistakes. Cynthia Johnson, on the other hand, has every element in her cover art strategically placed so her profile picture does not overlap any important element. Also, note how Johnson is looking into the page. That helps lead the end into the content. I like what Canva does with its cover art. This is a site where you design your own graphics, so “creativity” is part of its brand. It’s cover art looks great and often has messages that inspire users. And, note that you don’t have to fill up every bit of the space with either imagery or type. For a legacy brand, Coca-Cola does an excellent job with its Twitter cover photo. It promotes the drink and the joy/fun that the company wants you to associate with its products. Contrast this to IBM’s Watson Analytics, where the point was to give people concrete information about the product. If you’re smart and creative, you can communicate important intangibles via your social media cover images. Now it’s time to...
read moreAre Your Small Business Goals Too Low?
National “Reach as High as You Can” Day is on April 14, and no, it’s not a day to make you feel guilty about not doing your calisthenics. For small business owners, it’s a day ask if your small business goals are what is holding you back. “How can my goals be holding me back?” you ask. When you first started your business, you likely had a very specific goal in mind. You knew what you wanted to be doing in five years, and you wrote your business plan accordingly. If you were aiming to get a loan or investors, you had to be realistic with your goals so you could convince potential backers that you could actually achieve those goals in a reasonable time. But now that you are set up and well on your way to reaching those goals – You are, right? – ask yourself this question: What if your original goals had been 10 times bigger? What would you have done to achieve those goals? What additional risks would you have taken? How more focused would you have been on moving your business forward? The curious thing about goals is that they can turn into shackles that hold us back. If we low-ball our goals, thinking we’re being sensible, we limit ourselves to what we believe is possible. Your business goals are probably too small if: You aren’t feeling challenged every day by the work you are doing. You are comfortable with your daily routine and don’t regularly consider doing anything extra to be more productive or successful. Your unmet goals aren’t scaring you a bit. (If you know beyond any doubt that you will reach your next business goals without breaking a sweat, you have a problem.) National “Reach as High as You Can” Day is an excellent annual reminder to check your goals and make sure that you are truly challenging yourself to better and more successful tomorrow. Not only does this make your long-term improvements more exciting, it also makes you more resilient in the short-term, because you realize that you have something huge that you need to achieve ASAP. Next thing you know, you’ll be banishing procrastination for good and working out brand new ways to make your business more efficient so that you can reach even higher....
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