Why Should You Use Customer Surveys to Grow Your Business?

Are you performing customer satisfaction surveys in your business? Do you take the time and effort required to find out what your customers thought about their experience with your business?

If you don't, you're missing out on huge opportunities to improve your services and increase your profits.

What Kind of Questions Should Your Survey Ask?

Your business is unique and your survey should be, too. There are a couple of standard questions that you should ask on every survey, though.

    The friendliness of your staff or support personnel
    Ease of interaction with your company
    Willingness to recommend your company to friends and family members
    Areas in which you can improve

If your survey only asked these four questions it would prove incredibly valuable. It would provide data that you could analyze and act on in order to improve your business. If you improve the way your customers view their experience with you then you can expect more repeat business and referrals.

Take the time to think about your business and come up with some specific questions that might be extremely relevant. You may also want to ask questions about interest in new products or services you are thinking about selling.

Open Ended Questions Can Be Hit or Miss

Studies on customer satisfaction surveys have shown mixed results when it comes to asking open ended questions. These are questions that require the customer to share their thoughts as opposed to choosing from a list of multiple choices.

Many people don't feel comfortable writing, and simply won't share their thoughts. Many individuals, though, won't hesitate to give you a piece of their mind. The real challenge isn't getting the information that shows you where you can improve - it's getting feedback about what you're doing well.

If you want to encourage people to actually put thought and effort into the open ended questions on your survey you should formulate them carefully. Ask this question to learn about positive feedback:

"What have we done to improve your experience that other companies you have used in the past failed to do?"

If you want to find out why your customer decided to go with your product or service instead of a competitor you can ask directly. It's a two part question:

    Did you consider any of our competitors before deciding on us? List your biggest competitors
    Why did you pick us instead of the other options?

You might be surprised that most people chose you because you were the first business they encountered. Others might tell you about the terrible experiences they had with your competitors in the past. No matter the information they provide it will be extremely helpful when it comes time to growing your business.

Unexpected Bonuses from Surveying Your Customers

You may know that testimonials are a great way to help convince new prospects to go with your business instead of other options. Performing regular customer satisfaction surveys shows you who is willing to provide a good testimonial.

If someone sends in a good survey and takes the time to write a few sentences proclaiming how excellent your company is you have a good lead for a solid testimonial. Contact this customer and ask him or her if they would be willing in providing a testimonial. The best are video testimonials, but many people will be hesitant to do this. Consider offering an incentive or discount on future services for anyone willing to provide a written testimonial, a voice recording, or a video. It will be well worth the investment.

Survey Software to Use Instead of Mailers

There are tons of choices out there when it comes to performing these types of surveys. Survey Monkey provides a free tool that allows you to track the results. It provides data analysis tools that help you identify trends that might otherwise remain hidden. All you have to do is remember to send your customer an email with a link to the survey after they have completed their transaction. If you mail your surveys it will be expensive and many people won't take the time to respond. You can use an URL shortening service to put the link to your survey on a postcard if you don't typically obtain your customer's email address when doing business together.

Niche Marketing: The Golden Source of Online Business Success

Niche marketing is one of the most effective ways to make a lot of money off the web. It's about taking a general market and stripping it down into targeted and focused segments or niches. One then develops solutions that meet the needs of a specific segment.

Banks for example operate in many niche markets. At first glance, they may appear to focus on one market, the financial market. There is no doubt that this is correct, but banks perform a number of different functions by serving many different niches.

A typical bank has a number of products and services, such as:

    Investment products
    Home loans
    Vehicle finance
    Financial planning and
    Personal loans

Each product or service caters for a select group of individuals or niche market: Investment products for investors, vehicle finance for vehicle owners, home loans for real estate players, financial planning for seniors or retirees and personal loans for individuals seeking short-term finance.

Does this mean that a bank offering the above-mentioned services is able to compete equally well against all other banks in the respective service categories? Generally it's very difficult for a business to dominate every market it participates in, but it's certainly possible for a company to establish a significant presence in a certain niche.

Of the four major banks in South Africa, ABSA Bank is the 'go-to' bank for home loans, Nedbank tends to be the business bank of choice, First National Bank is well known for their innovative products and Standard Bank for their stock trading platform.

Whatever the business or industry, a market leader will typically enjoy a healthy revenue stream. And by operating in other niche markets (not necessarily dominating them), a business can easily diversify or supplement its primary source of income. The same principle applies to online businesses.

Niche marketing works impressively well in the world of electronic commerce. VirtualBank for example is an online bank that specialises in providing financial services over the internet. Google dominates the search engine market and News24 pride themselves on being the premier news source in South Africa.

What does this mean for your online business, pick a niche market, sell some stuff and Bob's your uncle? Unfortunately it's not that easy. You can't expect to start a new business, offer everything from A to Z, take on the major market players and become the overnight leader.

As a start-up, you simply cannot bite off more than you can chew.

You are not going to compete against News24 for news readers or against Amazon for book sales. However, you might be able to trump News24 in the sports news category or Amazon in the Self-help book category.

The point is taking on a niche market is one of the best low risk ways to start and grow your business. There are three good reasons for this:

1. Niche markets tend to be less competitive than larger markets. Your chances of being successful or dominating the market is a lot greater.

2. Niche marketing can be extremely cost effective. For instance, suppose your business sells books on dog training techniques for German Shepherds. Instead of designing mass marketing campaigns (television or radio) which could potentially cost millions, brochures and flyers situated at select dog training schools may be more than sufficient to attract customers to your business.

3. A niche market is a great way to build a business on a subject that you find interesting or enjoyable. It may be a good model for you to convert those hobbies or passions into a home-based passive income business.

Not too long ago I received an email from a reader asking whether it's a good idea to start an online business in the mattress industry. If you have a look at Google's Keyword Tool, you'll notice that there are over 9 million online searches every month for the keyword 'mattress'. With search volumes like this, the chance of finding a profitable niche market and business model may be good.

Starting your business with a niche market is a good idea. Most successful entrepreneurs will attest to this. However, niche marketing success is dependent on three basic rules:

1. Know exactly what your customers want. Your products and services have to appeal to your market's unique needs. Building a business around mattresses in general may be pointless if your market only has an interest in mattress covers.

2. Learn how to communicate with your customers. You need to understand the psychology or deeper reasons behind their needs. In other words, speak their language and use marketing messages that evoke feelings of action.

How do your customers feel about mattress covers? What words resonate with them? If people are concerned about the 'scratchiness' of mattress covers against their skin when buying, your products and services must speak directly to this.

3. Understand your competition. How will you differentiate your business against all the other players? Look at their websites, products, services and marketing messages. Find out exactly what benefits they are selling. Try and pick out any gaps or under-serviced areas in the market. How could you do things better?

Are there any competitors in your niche? It may be a bad thing if there are no other players. The market may simply not want what you have to offer. Alternatively, the market is untapped and has yet to be exploited.

The key is to ask your customers what they want and value, and then test how they respond to your products, services and brand. This precept is central to niche marketing.

Effective Dental Marketing Tips

"Fixing a tooth is an interesting job, only if you know how to fix it right." Well, the dental world has gone far beyond just fixing teeth. Recent developments in dental procedures such as teeth whitening, bonding and porcelain veneers have left patients craving for dentists. As a result, many dental practices have come up and they are due to increase in coming years seeing the rise in number of patients.

As a dentist, you may feel you are not getting enough patients since the competition is so severe. It may be the case with other dentists in your locality as well. If that is what's bothering you, look no further than marketing your practice. A bit surprised? For all the years you have been practicing dentistry, you must have thought marketing is only for big profit-making firms. Wrong. Your clients are your customers too and customers need to be informed.

It all depends on which methods you chose to inform your patients. If you are anti-marketing, you will realize that you have made a big mistake in a matter of few days of opening your clinic. Going with the marketing aspect, internet has opened several avenues through which you can inform patients and simultaneously carve a niche for your practice. What's more, it is result-driven and cost-effective. Below are some dental marketing tips that you can very well integrate in your marketing plan.

• Enter the world of online dental marketing with a website. A well-crafted website is the first you need to establish an influential online presence. Although there are thousands of dental websites, a good investment is required to hire a professional web designer. Remember: quality never comes cheap. If your website looks dull, it will give a wrong cognizance. While creating your website, focus on appropriate keywords that are frequently used by patients to find a dental practice online. It is crucial to covey your dental marketing message through your website.

• To reap full benefits of a strong online presence, it is not adequate to create a website. Your patients will not come to you just like that. Your website needs to be among the top pages of leading search engines. For example if a prospective patient searches randomly for dentistry, your website should be visible in the first page of Google, Yahoo and Bing. One of the best ways to move your website in search rankings is to hire SEO experts.

• Social media is the newest way to communicate and stay connected with friends and family. If you are an active member of the social media community, you should know how crucial can it be for your practice. Firstly, it gives your patients a chance to connect with you even after the office closure. Secondly, any positive review on your profile will spread like fire in the jungle and subsequently you'll get more referrals.

By virtue of these affordable online marketing ideas, your dental practice will sure reach new heights. Full appointment books, a relatively higher number of satisfied patients and of course, a good cash flow will just be the beginning.

When Marketing To Hispanics, It Is About Culture

The cultural mosaic of the United States has never been more intricate. Varied cultural groups - many in their second and third generation - continuously blending together, maintaining and discarding various aspects of their own heritage while adopting, adapting and integrating different aspects of the new one that surrounds them.

U.S. Hispanics are no exception. Take something as (seemingly) fundamental as language, for example: according to a 2012 Nielsen report, only 56% of U.S. Hispanic adults speak only or mostly Spanish, while a full 40% speak only or mostly English. Four out of every ten Hispanics in the United States now speak more English than they do Spanish!

However, this doesn't mean that Hispanics are losing their culture in the wake of Anglo-American assimilation. Quite the contrary: the Latino culture is a vibrant, emotional, meaningful culture that continues to grow and thrive. But it does shed light on one of the most important lessons for today's marketers and brand managers: when marketing to U.S. Hispanics, culturally-relevant content is primary, and language is secondary.

Director Robert Rodriguez (Once Upon A Time In Mexico, Spy Kids, Sin City) understands this shift and its implications, announcing in February his plans to launch El Rey, a television network which will contain original Latino programming - entirely in English.

"I have five kids of my own," he said, adding that while they're bilingual, they converse mostly in English. "They want to feel integrated into the mass community, but [still] have something they can point to that really reflects their identity."

Rodriguez isn't the only one picking up on this linguistic shift. Cosmopolitan for Latinas is taking aim at bicultural readers, recognizing that even though Hispanics want content that resonates with them on a cultural level, they read, speak and work primarily in English. Blogs like Mamas Latinas and TV channels like NBC Latino are following suit.

Recently launched network MundoFox, on the other hand, is doing the reverse: seeking to emulate American programming "in every way except the language in which it is delivered... That means television that feels, looks, sounds like American shows, but just happens to be created in Spanish." So instead of creating traditionally Hispanic programming in English, MundoFox wants to create traditionally American programming in Spanish.

Although MundoFox might target a different subset of Hispanic consumers than El Rey, and the two approaches may seem to contradict, both apply the exact same principle: when marketing to U.S. Hispanics, culturally-relevant content is primary, and language is secondary. It's no longer a given that marketing must take place in Spanish. Consider the content first.

The same goes for any company, product or brand looking to tap into the Hispanic market. The content of your messaging should be strong enough to transcend the language in which it is presented. Make sure you understand who you're talking to and what resonates with them before jumping to any conclusions about their preferences. The answer - and the language - may surprise you.

The cultural mosaic of the United States has never been more intricate. Varied cultural groups - many in their second and third generation - continuously blending together, maintaining and discarding various aspects of their own heritage while adopting, adapting and integrating different aspects of the new one that surrounds them.

Wining Words in Effective Telemarketing

The phone rings, someone on the other line answers it, now what? Someone has finally stop to listen and you only got less than thirty seconds to explain who you are, what you are offering and why the person on the other line needs to listen to you.

In this fast- paced business environment that we have today and with the continuous declining of people's attention span, having a telemarketing campaign is indeed a risky marketing process to deal with. As a telemarketer, you are like a blind man trying to sell a black cat at midnight. You can't see your customers and neither do they see you and your products and or services.

So, how do you find or make lines that work best for you to offer your product or service in such a small amount of time? Here's how to keep the ball rolling:

Magic words are the sweetest sounds in the decision makers' ears.

Name names- everybody is most likely to feel an instant connection with people who call them directly by their name; so don't just pick up the phone and say "hello there;" try starting and ending a call by saying the name of the person on the other line.

Be polite- keep your manners intact, every time, all the time; make it more than just a habit, rather, make it a practice and will serve as your foundation in selling. Words like "please" and "thank you" are your best buddies in generating sales leads.

The Greeting

"You had me at hello"- it's the biggest moment. Your voice is modulated. You have your goals settled. You know your product well. You know whom to call. You dialed the number and the phone rings. The decision maker answers it. Silence prevailed. Cat got your tongue?

In sales, a warm and delightful "hello" is a plus point for you. You must keep feeding the fire and exude that excitement and energy in your tone because it will surely reflect on your voice; thus, possibly transforming those elements to the decision maker's attitude towards you. The result? a definite good start to jump-off with business.

The Introduction

Getting through your "essential message"- after the greeting and the introduction of your name and your company, your next step is to communicate the "essential message" about your product that in a way, that will make the decision maker wanting to hear more about it.

The "essential message" is a short statement that describes what your product is and its benefits and assets to your prospective sales lead, delivered in fifteen minutes or less. It should be a statement that will give an impact to the buyer and will make him remember when he forgets everything else in your script. Stop fussing around with other non-sense statements. Go directly to your point. Deliver that "essential message." After all, it's only the message that matters.

The Script- hit the highlights! Repeat your name and your company's name. Ask permission to continue. Request for immediate reaction. You are asking not to solicit any final decision regarding your offer, but you are asking to get all the cards out of the table as much as possible.

A minute of Overview

Pitch transitional questions- your call doesn't end with you presenting what your product is all about and bugging the decision maker to purchase the latter. Turn right. It is the best way to keep the conversation going. Ask rhetorical questions to further understand the buyer's needs; you are there to listen and to figure out his necessities, not to manipulate him.

By now, you've greeted the decision maker, introduced your self and your product, delivered the "essential message," and ended with transitional questions; the verdict now comes down to the decision maker. If it's a big "yes" then great job! But if it's a dispiriting "no," then try again; if you keep calling, you will always end up generating qualified sales leads.

Mobile Shopping This Cyber Monday and Black Friday

We noticed a large percentage of our client's traffic comes from those using mobile devices. This observation made us wonder; for this year's biggest shopping days, who is doing their shopping via mobile, and what kinds of mobile shopping trends are we going to see?

The mobile shopper
Mobile shopping has nearly doubled every year since 2010. From a demographic perspective, among mobile consumers, the majority are men, but women more than men use their smartphones to save money with mobile coupons. It isn't just based on gender of course, there are are regional differences as well, an interesting article comparing mobile shopping on the East and West Coasts finds East Coasters are 26% more likely to click on nightlife deals than West Coast shoppers. Mobile marketing makes way for a lot of targeting, be it by their location, which sites your consumers visit, the time of day, income, etc.

Where are they shopping?
We have seen a $24 million increase over last year's online sales and the prediction for next year is an increase of $26 million. Taking a huge piece of this pie are the most popular online shopping websites, number one being Amazon.com. Amazon might be king on the internet, but for mobile shopping, it trails slightly behind EBay according to this Nielsen report. This difference could be because consumers perhaps feel more secure using PayPal on eBay from their phones vs. Amazon because PayPal doesn't expose payment information to the merchant. It could also be because of the gamification aspect (auctions) of eBay that keeps people engaged more regularly.

What can we expect?
After perusing various websites, it seems retailers offering Cyber Monday and Black Friday deals will be offering a majority of their deals on electronics like tablets, portable laptops, gaming consoles and more. From a strategy perspective, we think in the future we will see marketers take a hint from Amazon.com for holiday shopping as Amazon built an impressive lightening deals page for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. These pages will not only help people who want to look at deals ahead of time, but it also has deals daily leading up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday which helps keep their consumers engaged.

And now we wait
It would be nice to see more shopping done online and less people being trampled over in the stores. Cyber Monday already offers this and now Black Friday is getting in on the online action. All signs point to more mobile shopping and it seems that many marketers were prepared for these colossal shopping events and have their online mobile deals ready

Can Internet Marketing Really Help My B2B Business?

My Marketing Still Works Just Fine.

While it is common practice for manufacturers and industrial businesses to have a website, these businesses often shy away from online advertising and instead invest most, if not all, of their marketing budgets in more traditional forms of advertising. Traditional advertising is where these businesses feel most comfortable, as they have a long standing history with these mediums and know what to expect. However, while each business has its own methods of attributing income to each marketing campaign, the reality is that most traditional methods of marketing offer no way to calculate an exact return on investment, as the true level of exposure the business is receiving is often unknown.

Take print campaigns, for example. If you place an ad in a niche trade magazine, you may know the number of subscribers the magazine has, but how many of those actually read the magazine? How many readers actually saw your ad? How many took action based on that ad? The same holds true for direct mail campaigns. Of the targeted addresses you delivered to, how many reached their destination? How many did a clerk or secretary toss aside? How many actually made it in front of the CEO?

Can Internet Marketing Really Do Any Better?

Unlike traditional methods of marketing, Internet marketing campaigns provide businesses with statistical analytics that they can use to track the outcome of their marketing campaign and determine their exact return on investment (ROI). While Internet marketing can provide accurate tracking of exactly what works and why, it is not cheap, and some manufacturers may struggle to justify the initial investment in an environment that demands lean operations. Internet marketing is also not an overnight fix. Campaigns have to be conducted for a number of months to achieve the vaunted ROI, and it takes highly trained technical work by optimization experts, such as those at Net Site Marketing, before businesses will begin to see an improvement in revenues.

However, statistics show that online marketing is well worth the investment, provided you do your homework and go with an accredited Internet marketing company. According to a 2012 State of Digital Marketing Report, 59% of B2B marketers credit Internet marketing with having the biggest direct impact on lead generation. And while the initial fees charged for Internet marketing services may seem pricey, a 2011 Hubspot study found that inbound Internet marketing actually costs 62% less per lead than traditional, outbound marketing.

That's Great, but My Business Doesn't Rely on Website Sales.

Even if you don't use your website to generate leads or sales right now, a properly optimized website will help your target market to find your business when researching product vendors and suppliers. According to a 2012 Buyersphere Report, 73% of B2B industrial buyers use the web to gather information prior to making a purchase. This means those buyers you used to receive through distribution chains and trade shows are turning more and more to the Internet as their primary means for making a purchase decision. This behavior is the driving force behind a trending shift in marketing budgets away from legacy marketing streams and towards Internet marketing.

In addition, younger industrial buyers are much more likely to use the Internet for information than older generations. As the workforce matures, the Internet will become increasingly relied upon as a primary resource and will steadily continue to dominate sales in the marketplace. Those manufacturers who have invested in optimized websites to the point where they are achieving high positions in the search engines, will continue to have an edge over the competition, and will be primed to capitalize on this ever-growing revenue stream.

Commercial Contractors: Marketing Yourself Is Key

The industry of commercial contracting relies mostly on new clients or jobs to gain income. Thus, it is highly crucial for them to embark on marketing themselves. Commercial contractor marketing strategies include personal marketing to other businesses or cooperate and use of the internet. A selling point for anyone is this business is the performance of timely, professional and complete work. This majorly helps your contracting business to get potential new client through referrals.

Strategies to Marketing Yourself

Personal marketing of your contracting company is highly recommended by most experts in marketing. It involves establishing a long-term relationship with potential, reputable companies. This is helpful because most of these companies like having personal relationships with local contractors.

After acquiring the necessary knowledge, you can then design portfolios, business cards and distribute theme to these companies. The portfolio should include:

    Contact information
    Previous work done
    License verification

In addition to your commercial contractor marketing, a personal visit is recommended, as you will get a chance to answer hiring mangers' questions as well as offer any other necessary information.

Marketing Yourself through a Website

Designing a perfect site for your company is another strategy in commercial contractor marketing that can help win new, potential clients. The website should include:

    Your business logo
    Information regarding areas of specialty work done previously
    Information regarding ongoing work (if any)
    Previous clients

The contact information should not miss in your website, which should include your telephone number and email address. In additional, having someone who can answer calls day or night will be helpful.

Marketing Yourself through Promotional Products

Another strategy for marketing yourself is the use of promotional products. Some of the promotional products that will help your business standout from the rest include coffee cups, metric rulers, tape measures, key holders, pens pencils and any other unique gift that comes to your mind. All these products should bear your company logo and contact information. They will help amplify your presence in the market and possibly turn potential clients to seek your contracting services.

Your New Word of Mouth Marketing Plan

Word of mouth marketing is when your efforts are put into empowering your consumers to tell other consumers about you. This can come in many forms such as a viral video that is shared by your consumers, to an online community where your consumers share their interests, content and information.

Word of mouth marketing is a far more effective way of getting your message out and can do wonders for your brand awareness & reach. So below is a plan that you can follow to make your word of mouth marketing as effective as possible:

Encouraging Communications
First things first, you must make it easy for your consumers to share your message. These are the essential things you should do:

- Get yourself on Facebook & Twitter, and then on LinkedIn, Pinterest & Google+ dependent on your industry.
- Add share buttons on your website so people can share on various social networks
- Add social network buttons in your email signature
- Encourage visitors to your establishment, add you on your social networks, and talk
- Chat with followers & fans on social networks
- Add a feedback page or widget to your website

Give People Something to Talk About
Now that you are connected with your consumers, you need to give them something to share! This is where you can get creative and generate lots of content in different forms. Try doing some of these:

- Take pictures of your food, drinks & venue and share them online
- Create funny related memes
- Write blog posts about the happenings at your venue
- Give people useful recipes to your dishes and drinks
- Give offers to loyal consumers

Connect People
Now that you have your consumers connected with you, it is time to connect them to each other. The more that they talk you up between themselves, the better!

- Create groups, events and fan clubs on social networks where they can hang out and discuss
- Put on nights & events just for hand picked customers

Identify Influencers
In order to grow your reach, you are going to need to get in front of the industry influencers at some point. The influencers on your social networks will be really approachable and really honest so make sure you are ready to impress them when you do get their attention!

- Identify bloggers & critics in your local area and ask them to check out your venue
- Ask them to share specific content of yours to their networks
- Support their work too by sharing and replying to their stuff

Customer Feedback
So many people visit restaurants, bars and clubs on a weekly basis yet not many venues capitalise on the opportunity to get a lot of customer feedback. Start now by asking people to tell you about their experience and ask them to go one step further by sharing their experience with others:

- Give people an incentive to leave reviews & feedback online (as a status or on review websites such as trip advisor)
- Track all conversation about your organisation on social networks and review websites
- Respond to all reviews, regardless of whether they are positive or negative

Involve your Consumers
One way to really seal the deal is to get your consumers actively involved in the development of your venue & co-create.

Personnel That You Don't Want to Break at Any Cost

Marketing to the government is very different than marketing to commercial customers. With most commercial customers, you can wine, dine, and entertain them. Not so with the government. If you do, there are two outcomes: government personnel will either start avoiding you outright because they will know that you don't know how to work with the government, or they might be corrupt and accept your gifts-and when that gets out in the open, you will lose your job, and your company will lose government business in a big scandal. It's simply not worth it.

You have to know and abide by the rules. Government employees cannot solicit or accept gifts from any entity that does or seeks business with the government. A gift is any item with a monetary value, except for very modest items of food and refreshments, greeting cards, or plaques and certificates. There is a small exception: all gifts given in a year must not exceed a total of $50 in value from your entire company, and no single gift can be worth more than $20. You can give a personal gift to a govie if they were your relative before business-related contact was established, for example, but you cannot be reimbursed by the company.

If you go to lunch, it should be at a place where your government contact is able to pay for lunch out of his or her salary, which is probably lower than yours. Govies will normally offer money to you for their portion of the food, which you should not refuse. When they visit you at your facility and you offer food to them, put a donation jar there so that they can contribute a symbolic amount of money-otherwise they might have to do a tremendous amount of paperwork.

If you offer a discount to a government employee, make sure that it does not discriminate against other government employees. In other words, once you give a discount to one government employee, you have to give it to others as well. You can offer free training to the govie if it can be considered a "widely attended gathering."

So, as you can see, there is much to learn in the world of interfacing with the government and building customer relationships-but it is not as complicated as one might think.

The government will meet with you, but you have to start early-at least a year ahead of the RFP-to prepare in style. You can do many things in capture as a last-minute crunch, but building relationships is not one of them.

Olessia Smotrova-Taylor is the President and CEO of OST Global Solutions, Inc. (http://www.ostglobalsolutions.com). She is a currently practicing capture and proposal manager who has won more than $17 Billion in new business. As one of the proposal industry leaders, she is on the Board of Directors of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals' (APMP) National Capital Area (NCA) chapter and served as the editor and chair of the APMP NCA Executive Summary e-zine from 2008 to 2011, and as a chapter President for 2012.

Lead Nurturing and the Sales Funnel

When it comes to running a successful business, it is all about making sure you have a solid sales funnel that brings in consistent customers who are loyal to your brand and spread the word of their experience to their own networks. However, before you can capture a bunch of strong leads to turn into customers, you need to first understand the metrics of lead nurturing.

Knowing how a person thinks before they become a fully fledged customer of your business might sound difficult, but it really doesn't have to be--especially with how many metrics and analytics are now available to diagnose why prospects are finding you. This data will enable you to create calls-to-action and marketing campaigns targeted at those visitors and create warm leads. All it takes is a little reporting savvy, the ability to act fast, and most importantly: quality aligned content that really shines.

Think Like Your Leads

A great way to see what type of content is working for you is by reverse engineering your own sales funnel and web traffic. Work through it so that you understand where the majority of your leads are currently coming in from--are they being predominately directed from your Facebook Fan Page? Your blog? Email campaigns? Do you have specific search terms that are generated a lot of high converting niche traffic? Whatever it may be, keeping reverse engineering your customers and traffic until you get to step one and know what is helping you generate leads. Analytics will especially help with this part.

Obviously, there are going to be a few different paths a majority of your customers will take. From here, you should have a couple that stand out from the rest which give you a good snapshot of what to do next.

Focus On The Majority
You've established major pathways that most of your leads take to become buying customers, now you have to focus your energy on making sure the process of going from interested visitor to lead to buyer is dialed in. Using your newly found data from reverse engineering your sales funnel, you can now provide even better content that your leads want and need.

Some of this high quality content might include white papers, free downloadable guides, monthly trials, free consultations, archives of how-to videos, infographics, and much more. But, what kind of content should go where? Here's a shortlist to consider:

    Top of the Funnel: Content like downloadable ebooks, white papers, videos, infographics and other easily "consumable" content are perfect for that initial awareness of your business to the lead. They can be informed of what exactly you are providing without being given a sales pitch. You are just providing useful information for their buying decision.

    Middle of the Funnel: The second stage of lead nurturing happens when the lead is interested but needs that extra push to become a buyer. Content like case studies, comparison sheets with competitors, demos, and open contact between you and the lead all fall into this category. At this point, you can start exposing them to your business's purpose.

    Bottom of the Funnel: Finally, the buying stage! It's time to bring out the big guns at this stage with promotional deals, sales, coupons, free consultations, estimates, and other incentives to make them become a customer.

All of your content should be aligned with your sales funnel, easily and seamlessly directing leads to the final sales pitch. This should be done in a way that is highly customized based on lead behavior. Drastically segmenting the leads by group at the top of the funnel will only increase the potential of isolating them before uncovering their true buying intent, so having a comprehensive content and lead nurturing strategy is a must.

Filling in the gaps within your own sales funnel can now be much easier, allowing you to ramp up sales and see a significant increase in conversions simply by rearranging content to fit the needs of prospects during that particular stage while remaining cohesive throughout the entire funnel.

How Text Reminders Can Help Your Business

These days almost everyone owns a mobile/cell phone. We carry them with us at all times, which is why SMS text reminders are such a useful tool for businesses of all kinds.

SMS reminders have proven to be the most effective way to reduce the likelihood of a forgotten appointment. Emails are useful, however it's not uncommon for email appointment reminders to be ignored, lost in a flood of emails within our inbox, or sent to the junk mail folder. Text reminders are always read and never ignored, which results in a much smaller risk of clients forgetting their appointments.

Using text reminders in your business is very easy and affordable thanks to online text reminder services. These online services work by using your web browser to schedule SMS appointment reminders from your laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Internet technology has come a long way in recent years, which makes it possible to schedule SMS reminders for your customers in seconds.

Using SMS reminders is surprisingly a very low cost way of communicating with your customers. Most online SMS reminder services don't charge any monthly or setup fee's. You simply purchase text credits in pre-paid blocks and use them as required. Each text message costs just a few cents, but could potentially save you thousands of dollars each year in prevented no-shows.

Appointment reminders are not the only way SMS technology can be used in business. Many online text reminder services include features such as the ability to send out bulk text messages. This is a great way to notify your existing clients of deals and specials. Some reminder services will even let you receive SMS replies from your customers free of charge.

Another useful feature you will find in some of the leading SMS reminder services is the ability to schedule recurring reminders. Recurring reminders let you set up "happy birthday" text messages to go out once per year, monthly bill reminders, or daily/weekly reminders for patients to take their medicine.

Text reminders are an innovative tool you can start using today to help your business and customers. Thanks to today's advanced online text reminder services your business and customers can now benefit from SMS technology with minimal expense and effort on your part. Your customers will thank you for it, and your businesses bottom line is guaranteed to improve as a result of reduced no-shows and missed appointments.

How to Successfully Advertise Your Company in This Tough Economy

There is a saying that without advertising, nothing happens. If you own and operate a business, I'm sure that you can appreciate the truth of that statement. Of course, the type of advertising and promotion that you do for your business is going to differ, depending upon the particulars of your business and your budget. Fortunately, there are some things that can be done to help promote your business successfully, even when an economic downturn is looming. Here are a few suggestions which can help you to successfully get the word out about your business during the tough times.

One thing that you should consider is the possibility of using business promotional items and marketing giveaways. It is important for you to test this thoroughly, as you would not want to spend a lot of money and get nothing in return. When done properly, it can really help to promote your business and to brand your company. The type of promotional items that you use for your business will differ, but some of the better suggestions include pens and pencils, notepads, small alarm clocks and stress balls. These are things that tend to be used regularly or that will lay around, helping to remind them about your business, each and every time they see it.

Social media also offers you a way to promote your business and to really increase your success. Facebook is the king as far as social media is concerned but that does not mean that you have no other options that are open to you. If your business thrives when you are connected with similar businesses, you may also want to include the LinkedIn service as a way to extend your reach. It is important for you to understand, Facebook and other social media networks are not all about advertising and promoting your brand. You need to make sure that you are interacting with those who like your page and have friended you. You will then see better results when you actually send an advertising message about what you have to offer. Don't neglect using the other social media networks, such as twitter. They can really help to extend your reach and can get the message out about your business to those that may have an interest in what you have to offer. Just make sure that you balance the social media efforts with any other online efforts that you may currently use.

Finally, don't be afraid to get out and make yourself visible in your local area. Your local Chamber of Commerce and other business groups may be quite beneficial, particularly if you live in the metropolitan area. It is also important for you to do a little bit of local advertising, particularly if you have a service or product which is sold to people at a physical location. It will still be to your benefit to use the Internet and promotional products but you can do so in a much more effective manner when you actually show yourself at the events that are being held in your area.

Top of the Funnel Offers for Lead Generation

Top of the Funnel Offers

As content marketing and other forms of inbound marketing continue to grow at a rapid pace, marketers need to understand that all facets of a sales funnel still count in their strategies, not just the bottom of the funnel when the user is finally ready to become a loyal customer. However, more and more businesses are focusing their content, services, and marketing in an effort to drive the "buy" action and not as much making sure to maximize incoming lead volume at the top of the funnel.

One way of making sure people who are interested in your services or product, but are not yet ready to buy have the best chance to eventually become customers, is utilizing top of the funnel offers which initiate the interaction with your brand. These can come in many forms: eBooks, top ten lists, free offers, special promotions, demo, etc. But, which ones are the best top of the funnel ideas?

The Buyer Persona

First and foremost, any marketer knows that the key to capturing more leads is creating different buyer personas which define likely potential customers. Through market research and current customer analysis, you can uncover characteristics of who is interested in your business, what exactly they want, and why they enter your funnel.

Once you have a good understanding of buyer personas, then the top of the funnel offers are much easier to create and control.

Top of the Funnel Ideas

Now that you have your personas identified, it is time to dive into the ideas and inspiration for the best converting top of the funnel offers you can provide to these potential customers. Content is going to vary from business to business, but these best practices should get you started in the right direction:

    It's all about the content! Make sure you have a fleshed out content marketing strategy that includes at least blogging, online articles, and images (two of the most popular forms of content marketing). Engage your audience and make sure to keep it specific to their persona. Create content that addresses a need that they have during an early stage in the buying process and ask them for their details in exchange for that content.

    Keep data gathering simple. You don't need a customer's address, phone number, and other personal information right at the get-go. In fact, your main focus should be their email address. Once you have that, you have a method to entice them further with targeted and automated lead nurturing programs through email.

    Inform your readers, there's no need to try to pitch them your product or service at this point. They are interested, but need to know more without a loosely masked sales pitch.

Once you have mastered top of the funnel offers, bottom of the funnel offers become a breeze. All it takes is a little content know how and a strategy for integrating it for your business.

Pinterest for Business

Social media has changed the way businesses approach marketing. Facebook, Google+ and Twitter brand pages have allowed your company to have almost real time interactions with your customers and clients. The newest addition to the commercial social media sphere is the website Pinterest for business.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a social networking site that is very different than it's peers. While Facebook and Google+ allow companies to post photos, videos and text to create brand awareness pages, which their visitors can comment on and interact with, Pinterest has a rather unique approach. The site allows individuals to visually share, curate, and discover new interests and products by posting (also known as "pinning") images or videos to their own or other users pinboards. A pinboard is a collection of "pins" usually with a common theme such as Men's Fashion, or Antique Furniture. Individuals can upload unique images from their computers or can "pin" items they find on the web using the Pinterest pin it button or just adding a URL.

Pinterest for Business

With many brands and retailers already active on its platform, the transition to accounts designated for marketers, was inevitable. Pinterest's new business accounts are free of charge and are not brand pages in the tradition of what Facebook and Google+ have rolled out. They will not look any different than what is currently on the site. What is different is that Pinterest will allow you to simply enter the name of your business when registering, streamlining the sign up process. As part of the migration to more commercial usage, Pinterest has created new tools specifically for business users to help enhance interactivity. New widgets enable you to embed pins and boards on your company's website.

What Are the Advantages For Your Business?

Pinterest is taking an active roll in working more closely with businesses. The new widgets are designed to help you drive traffic by attracting more followers to your pinboards and profiles. More traffic means more brand awareness. By opening the Terms of Service to business users, you can now actively promote your presence on Pinterest in all of your marketing materials and across the web. Embedding the Pinterest widgets on your company's website allows visitors to your site to go directly to Pinterest where they can interact with your boards and share links to your products or services with their friends across all other social media platforms.

By opening up Pinterest for business use, your company has another outlet to engage prospects. Creative promotions like contests, development of apps, websites, and other services designed for use with Pinterest, offer new ways to reach potential customers, and to continue to engage your existing ones.