Shaping Your Product/Service

Customer feedback is probably one of the best ways to make your business successful. Think of it like this; through negative feedback, you can shape your product/service into something you know the market will love.

Most people think that bad feedback comes from people they have never even done business with, or with some of their ‘bad’ clients, so they decide to ignore it. This is, in fact, a complete myth; most of the negative feedback you will get will be from some of your most loyal customers. Not because they want to put you down; because they want to remain your best customers.

Think of it like this; ‘bad’ customers, if they encounter a problem of flaw with your product/service, they will simply move on to the next company who will solve this problem for them. Whereas for a loyal customer, they want to tell you about the problem, hoping that you will fix it and they can remain customers of yours.

Think of it like this; customer feedback is a free way to conduct market research. Your clients will tell you how they want their product/service. They will tell you about any problems they have; although you may have to prompt them to do so; perhaps through a quiz of survey.

Free Marketing

Well, who would say no to some free marketing? Quite a few businesses actually, so it seems! Customer feedback, when it is good, can be used in a multitude of ways, the obvious one being testimonials.

Every time you get some good feedback, you should ask the client if you can use it as a testimonial on your website, leaflets, sales letters; anything which you send to a prospective client. Likewise, when you get bad feedback, you should act upon it immediately, because it really will result in not only your product/service getting better, but perhaps some more business!

Think about it; if you had a problem with a company that you bought from, and you complained about the problem then it was solved, how much more likely would you be to talk about that than just receiving a product and there being absolutely no flaws to it?

We regularily publish white papers, tip books, interviews with small business experts and research on industry-relevant topics and issues you may find useful for your business.

Be sure to visit our Small Business resource document library and download the various documents you’re interested in.

It’s not about one marketing piece, it’s about the whole thing. To be effective, your business needs a presence both offline and online. It needs to use print and digital marketing tools. It needs both advertising (paid) and publicity (free). It’s the marketing mix that gets and keeps your company message “out there” in front of your target audience.

Here are five marketing mix tips to seriously consider and implement:

1. Brochures & Business Cards
Print marketing items are not dead yet. Sometimes our technology doesn’t work like it should, and having that business card and brochure as a backup could save your marketing opportunity. Besides, there are a lot of people who just need to have something in their hands in order to remember you, so give it to them. Have your calling card ready.

2. LinkedIn
Use this business social network as an extended business card. As people hear your name around the Web and at conferences, there is a good chance that they will check you out on LinkedIn So fill out that profile and link it back to your website.

3. Website & Blog
Your website is your digital home, so make it count. Let them know who you are, what you do, and how it could benefit them. And then solve a problem for free by answering a question that your target audience would care about. You could turn that answer into a little ebook or white paper for download, or make it a blog post. Just make sure it’s something that truly helps, because you’re building a relationship, and “fluff and foolishness” is not good for business.

4. Press Releases
Use press releases to let the local media know about your business and upcoming campaigns. Your company probably has some awesome events, but nobody cares if they don’t have a chance to know about it.

5. Email
It’s about the relationship, and email is one of the most enduring ways to build that relationship, so take the time to grow your list. For a beginner most of the initial work is in getting the code and placing it on your Web pages. But the email service that you use should have a guide or “how to” page showing you what to do. Once the code for your email subscription form is in place on your site, then you can begin to focus on what to send your subscribers each week or month. Remember, it’s disciplined and consistent marketing and marketing messages that makes the difference.

Just remember, it’s about consistency and the total marketing package. It’s up to you to believe in your business—and to get the message out.

You’re ready to launch your next big direct marketing campaign.  The offer is set, the creative piece is ready, now you need to determine who to send it to.  You’ve put in a tremendous effort to create an attractive direct marketing piece with a great offer.  Effective marketing is all about getting the right message, to the right prospect, at the right time.  When it comes to getting your message to the right prospect, the quality of the data in your list has a direct influence on the success of your campaign.

The Importance of Coverage

Depth of coverage is a critical measuring stick for evaluating the overall penetration and effectiveness of a direct-marketing campaign. The greater the coverage, the more likely a campaign will be successful in reaching an optimal number of prospective customers. With larger contact quantities, more sales conversions are possible. While you may not be interested in a national campaign, greater coverage also means that more individuals and households are available within your local market, ensuring that you reach as many people in your marketable area as possible.

Modeled vs. Actual Data

A common question we receive from businesses purchasing lists is, “How do we know the specific demographics of the prospect?”  List providers compile data from a variety of sources.  In some cases, customers provide actual data. It is also common practice for data suppliers to develop predictive models to fill in data elements where the information is unavailable or unknown.  Modeled data is not necessarily bad and enables you to reach a larger audience.  However, many suppliers do not indicate if the data provided is based on known information or if it is an estimate from a model. Having the ability to differentiate between known versus inferred data is often important to the success of your campaign. For example, if your marketing campaign is specifically tied to prospects of a certain age, then it’s important that you select prospects with known age data rather than modeled.  If however, your campaign targets a broader age range, then you may have greater coverage by including known and modeled data.  What’s important is knowing the kind of data that is available in order to make the best match to your campaign.

Don’t Be Fooled by Higher Counts

It is often said that direct marketing follows the law of large numbers. You need to get your message to as many people as possible.  While there is some truth to this approach, with limited budgets, small business marketers need to use each dollar wisely. Spending limited funds on bad data can seriously impact the effectiveness of your campaigns. Some list providers will include records in their data files that may not be the most accurate, such as unoccupied, deceased, commercial, or households that have moved, resulting in significantly inflated counts.   You may think that you are getting a much larger list of prospects, but often it is more important to have a smaller, but highly clean, prospect list, rather than one that may be full of irrelevant or bad data.

The Bottom Line

In the world of direct marketing, not all marketing lists are created equal.  Selecting the right list will enable you to accurately target and segment your prospects which will help to improve both your customer experience and your bottom line.

Entrepreneurs have to wear many hats when a business is just starting. Many things need to be delegated to others in order for the business to run smoothly and there are a few things that you must do yourself. If you can create a habit of performing these 5 things every day, some for just a few minutes, then you will see your business grow right alongside your dreams:

1. Plan for the future a few minutes each day. Assume that your product has stopped selling all of a sudden. What direction will you take your company next? What new income stream can you add? This is a time for day dreaming and recording notes in preparation for the future. You don’t necessarily have to take action on these items, but you need to think about them daily in order to bring out the golden ideas.

2.  Develop or strengthen your business network. You need to join or create a business network where you can help others and they can help you back. This is a great place to get free customers through referrals and an excellent mentoring opportunity using the mastermind principle.

3. Work on closing a sale every single day. Whether you are doing this on-line, on the phone, through the mail, or face-to-face you need to be selling every day. Without the close of a sale there is no business. This is not something that you can delegate all the way. Even if you have a sales force you need to be out there looking for deals.

4. Work on your marketing in some aspect every day to get new customers. If your prospective customers don’t know about you they won’t buy from you. Work on getting your message out every day even if it is just for a few minutes.

5. Contact your current customers. Don’t ever forget about the people that have already purchased from you. These are your best customers. They already like what you have to sell and they don’t cost anything to acquire. Contact your current customers frequently, even if you are just saying hello. They need to know what you have to offer and they need to know you are still breathing. They won’t seek you out. You must go to them.

Keep the Momentum Going!

Like its Black Friday and Cyber Monday predecessors, Small Business Saturday is the kickoff to the holiday shopping season. As you prepare for Small Business Saturday, keep in mind this is just the beginning. Create a plan to keep the momentum going all year long. Here are some things to consider:

• Capture email addresses for your customers and prospects so that you can begin an ongoing dialogue with them. Create a special Small Business Saturday offer to get them to register with you and provide their email addresses.
• If you don’t already have one, create a newsletter that you email to your customers to keep them involved in what’s going on in your business. Ask for recommendations on content so the newsletter is as valuable as it can be to your readers.
• Use social media as part of your Small Business Saturday campaign to build a base of followers and fans. Then continue to engage with them throughout the year in the social channels.
• Create a loyalty program. Small Business Saturday is about building loyalty to local small businesses. Be sure to give your best customers something in return and make them feel special.
• Plan ongoing events and campaigns to reward your customers throughout the year. Include your refer-a-friend messaging in these communications with your customers.
• Find prospects who look like your best customers – click here to learn more about how to clone your customers, and continually reach out to new segments of your market to grow your business.

Don’t let Small Business Saturday be a one-time event. Use our tips to create a plan now on how you will continue to build relationships with these new customers throughout the year.

Direct Mail marketing is very effective tool that small-medium businesses can leverage to prospect and acquire customers. It is both an art and a science that requires giving a serious thought to every direct marketing campaign and improving it over time by testing and incorporating the learning. And even when you have mastered the above mentioned approach, it is possible that your arduous efforts might not yield the expected results, if you don’t take the following factors into consideration –

Do’s:

Test and change: The success of Direct mail marketing relies heavily on testing. Segmenting your customer base, trying different Ad copies, experimenting with different offers and even changing marketing collateral every time could yield varying results.

Proof read your copy: Make sure your messaging is thoroughly proof read for grammatical mistakes and that the sentences are easy to read. The message should be clear, crisp and precise to stick with the reader.

Leverage existing studies: Scour the internet and Direct Marketing resource for case studies that might be relevant to your campaign and capture key insights from those studies. Not only will they help you manage your expectations from the campaign, but also provide you with best practices to incorporate in your own campaign.

Plan ahead: Think ahead and plan what you want to do with the response for your campaign. For example, if your campaign is geared towards driving users to a website, plan the flow that you would expect a user to follow. Do you want them to fill out a questionnaire or do you want them to register, or perhaps you want to learn more about their demographics. Think through these aspects before you send your mailing.

Don’ts:

Confusing call to Action: Don’t make it difficult for the prospect to figure out what you want him to do. He should be able to quickly understand the action that the mail piece wants him to perform.

Bloated/Hyped content: If your mail piece has extensive content or you mention something that is hard to believe, chances are that the prospect will immediately lose interest and get rid of your mail piece.

Unattractive headline: The headline of your mail piece says it all to the prospect and he is immediately going to decide whether to read further or not. Don’t write a cliché headline or something that is not going to get noticed.

Marketing piece design: Don’t use design and themes that have no relevance to your product/service or for that matter your core message. Make sure the art, graphics and pictures etc. strengthen the underlying theme of your campaign.

Build a Small Business Saturday campaign.

Make the most of Small Business Saturday by creating a multichannel marketing campaign plan now. Here are some things to consider as you build out your own Small Business Saturday campaign:

Create a complete campaign that leverages different ways to communicate with your customers and extend your reach to new prospects. Sequencing your outreach is critical. You want to be relevant, not annoying. Calendar out all the activities so you can see how many contacts you will be making with your customers.

• Create a unique message for your business that ties into the Small Business Saturday theme but highlights the value you deliver to your customers.
• Don’t miss out on the future relationship-building opportunity this campaign creates. Capture contact information from your customers and prospects so you can continue to communicate with them.

 Here are some tactical things to consider within your marketing campaign:

 Website customization

-          Add a banner to your Website in support of Small Business Saturday.

-          Add a landing page to your Website where you can feature your special campaign offer. Using coupons is a great way to give value to your Website visitors. Twenty-two percent of U.S. adults say their household uses digital coupons from email or the Internet. Allow your customers to redeem the coupon either in-store or online on Small Business Saturday.

• Direct-marketing campaigns

-          Create a series of emails to your current customers that tie into Small Business Saturday with special offers and coupons. Send two to three emails regarding the promotion, and if you have a retail location and are looking to generate in-store sales, make sure the last email is sent the day before your event as a reminder.

-          Always include links to your social sites as well as refer-a-friend options in your customer emails.

Use direct mail to target prospects and attract new customers to your business. Direct mail recipients buy 25 percent more items and spend more than non-direct-mail recipients, according to recent data published in a study by the U.S. Postal and Deliver Magazine, “How Direct Mail Strengthens Online Sales.” Direct mail is a great way to reach out to prospects and encourage them to begin a dialog with you via future email campaigns. Ensure that you are targeting the right customers with your direct-mail offers. Services like Experian’s Clone My Customer can help with refining your target audience for your direct-mail campaign.

-          Create a personalized URL (pURL), or landing page, for your direct-mail campaign where you can capture email addresses of new prospects. Use a special offer on the landing page to encourage consumers to give you their email addresses.

 Social marketing

-          Add new content to your blog that features the value of shopping local. Tie into the Small Business Saturday national advertising theme to make the most of blog postings.

-          Use Twitter and Facebook to promote your Small Business Saturday event. Link your tweets back to your landing page and your special offer. Facebook is a great way to not only get your message out and dialog with your customers, but also give special offers to your fans.

 Event marketing

-          Don’t forget to plan out the day of the event. Include messaging on your Website or in your business location that promotes your support of Small Business Saturday.

Capture email addresses from your customers. The best way to capture email is to offer a value, such as a free gift, a special discount or a newsletter subscription. These are all ways to encourage your new customers to give you their contact information.

Click here to download our entire ebooklet of tips to get your business prepared and ready for Saturday, November 26th.

Last year, more than 1.2 million consumers participated in Small Business Saturday. It is expected that the event will grow significantly again this year. Now is the time to start building your own momentum.  And, good place to start is with your own customer and prospect list. Use the time leading up to Small Business Saturday to collect customer information through your Website, such as email addresses, product preferences and so on. Here’s how to get customers to join in.

Let customers know now that you are participating in Small Business Saturday. Ask them to join your mailing list so you can keep them informed of the special offers that you will be promoting that day and in the future. Develop a refer-a-friend program that will enable your best customers to help you through word-of-mouth marketing. Make sure you offer an incentive to encourage their participation.

 Also, the more information you can gather on your customers, the better you’ll be able to meet their future needs. Consider developing a quick survey to find out why they buy your products or services and how you can better meet their needs. Customers, especially at this time of year, are looking for great deals. It’s an ideal opportunity to gather names and build your customer file. Once your customers opt in to your mailing list or email list, make sure to continually deliver value. Nurture the relationship and provide exceptional service, and they will stay.

For more easy ways to build your customer list, check back at some of our older postings.  Don’t forget to get  your copy of our Small Business Saturday tips.

As the owner of your company you are responsible for casting the vision of your company and then communicating that vision to your employees. Without a leader who develops and communicates a vision for the company, employees will wander about their day jobs aimlessly.

Your mission is to transfer your passion to your employees through the communication of your vision. Here are three tips to communicate your vision:

1. Are We Moving Toward Our Vision?

As the owner of your business, you are responsible for moving your company toward its vision, but you don’t need to keep it a secret. Update your employees often on the company’s progress in moving toward its vision. If you can show your employees how their work creates positive results for the company they are more likely to continue working hard.

2. What Are We Doing to Accomplish Our Vision?

As an entrepreneur you have a vision of where you want your business to go. It may be a small vision, but at the very least you should have some purpose to your day-to-day activities. As a leader you must constantly proclaim your vision for the business to your employees, and ensure that your employees understand how their daily work helps to accomplish that vision.

3. What Can We Do To Continue to Move Toward Our Vision?

Not only do you need to show your employees how their work contributes to the progress of the company, but you need to empower your employees to help identify new ways to improve the business moving forward. If everyone in the business understands what their goal is and how it fits into a bigger vision they will be more likely to suggest innovative ways to improve the business.

Ultimately, as a business owner you hold an incredible amount of power when it comes to encouraging and motivating your employees. Your leadership should be centered around your vision and helping your employees realize their role in accomplishing that vision.