November 6th, 2011
It is no surprise that when the going gets tough, the tough must get going with the incentive being survival. Just about every company around the globe is finding new ways to do more with less while trying not to burn out their valuable skilled workforce. A survey by Deloitte of CFOs and other executive managers working at mid-sized companies demonstrated that 70 % of the nearly 700 survey respondents said they have experienced overall improvements in productivity over the past three years, with approximately half of those reporting gains of 5% or more. Most respondents attributed gains in productivity largely due to improvements in processing and technology. Investments in technology has required some companies to cut expenses dramatically to pay for systems, training and implementation however with remarkable gain.
Although technology has greatly improved our professional and personal lives, it is still human interaction coupled with technolgy that boost a company’s effectiveness. Your employees, vendors and customers want to know that if and when technology fails that there is a skilled and caring individual on the other side to help when needed. Nothing is worse that driving off a car lot with your new car then finding out a few days later that there is a problem and no one is there expect the automated attendant that answers the telephone.
In Call Centers across the world, a systems called call presentation delivers incoming calls very efficiently to representatives without them even having to pick up the phone. The representative simply hears a beep and in a few seconds a caller is waiting on the line and their account seems to magically present itself on the Call Center Representative’s screen. Seems easy but if that employee is not trained correctly, is stressed or is disgruntled, it is a recipe for disaster.
Do you remember the scene on the “I Love Lucy” show when Lucy and Ethel were working at a candy factory when all of a sudden the conveyor belt quickly speeds up preventing the two friends from wrapping each piece of chocolate? The belt goes faster and faster sending chocolates all over the floor causing Lucy and Ethel to panic! Soon the two best friends become stressed out due to lack of training, experience and become forced to look for ways to cut corners eating many of the chocolates before more landed on the floor thinking they could save themselves from being fired. It was one of the most memorable scenes of the show and something like this is just as memorable to your customers but without the humor.
Doing more with less is sending productivity higher however at what costs? Usually the first to suffer is quality because employees become tired and frustrated if cuts result in long term sacrifice. Without an incentive to hang in, stretch and grow accustomed adjusting to new demands, employees will make more mistakes and as soon as their is an opportunity, they will leave to greener pastures. Last month, a survey found that a growing percentage of workers are unhappy on the job and are looking for new employment. No matter what the economy, quality skilled workers will always have a place to go. Turn over is just as costly now as it was 6 years ago before the Recession however it is much harder to find those who are skilled.
As Managers, one has to become more creative, foster an atmosphere that is stimulating and provide incentives to push employees to higher standards during challenging times. If you are not a people person that gets involved and greets your employees at least a few times a week, you are not investing in your future. The way you manage your department today will carry you and your company ahead of the competition as the economy begins to turn around. If employees are left to continually think about getting a new job as soon as the economy changes because you did not demonstrate appreciation for their dedication, you will be spending more hours spent on recruiting than in planning for future growth.
Tips to Help Boost Productivity:
1. Make everyone fully aware of goals and expectations each week. Don’t badger just go over expectation, recognize employees who are doing well and train those who need help.
2. Brighten up your department with motivations posters, balloons when they reach their goals and Pep Rally type meetings on Mondays.
3. De-clutter your department and ask your employees to work on doing the same with their work space.
4. Create a contest and reward employees who can an opportunities list suggesting methods to cut waste and increase productivity.
5. Deliver a “Do it right the first time” campaign that often results in less phone calls and rework saving thousands of dollars.
6. Request that employees batch small tasks together and getting them done quickly each day.
7. Revisit individual employee talents. If you have someone who is a good researcher, have them be your point of contact for those needing to do research to complet requests. If one or two of your employees have good people skills, appoint them as your rallying team so they can help you engage other employees. There’s no reason not to use your team’s natural talents to your advantage.
8. Always be ready to capture new ideas as they pop up. Don’t put it off because you may forget.
9. Communicate clearly and often keeping everyone’s eye on the ball.
10. Keep them healthy mentally and physically by bringing in oranges during flu season and have fun frequent contests to provide an incentive to reach higher p
Tags: customer incentives, gift incentives, incentive, incentives, marketing incentives, motivate, reward
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May 5th, 2011
Why SMS is the Next Big Thing in B2B and B2C Communication
Over the last decade personal communication has undergone a revolution. Today, landlines are quickly disappearing; more than 1 in 4 homes already rely on cell phones alone. Originally, the cell phone was the evolution of the pager, a practical tool used by professionals to stay connected and on the grid. Then moms got involved, wanting to keep track of their kids, and BOOM – revolution. Quickly, everyone from middle school and up had a cell phone.
Today, with the advent of text messaging and smartphones, cell phones have become an extension of their owners. Rarely out of reach – if not rarely out of hand – mobile phones have become the gateway to social lives and more. Without a doubt, the cell phone has become the quickest, most reliable, versatile and personal way of connecting with an individual, and businesses have certainly taken notice.
The focus of marketing is to find the most effective way of getting the brand or the product into the minds of the consumer. For decades companies blindly poured large cuts of their budgets into print ads, television spots and telemarketing, only to get a very small return on their investment. The Internet opened the doors to many new possibilities and got marketing agencies thinking creatively.
Email marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Pay-Per-Click and Social Media Marketing were all creative new ways to connect with customers. The Internet changed marketing by providing quantifiable data for analyzing ROI and tweaking ad campaigns, and by forcing marketers and companies to provide value in their marketing messages. The Internet crowd wasn’t looking to be sold; they were looking to be informed and/ or entertained.
For years, SMS or text messaging, has been a tool employed by cell phone users to send quick, short, informal but personal messages to friends and family. As marketers learned while experimenting with Email and social media – informal, personal and to the point really works. If you think about it, social media and text messaging have similar roots – short, informal messages to people you know.
The text message floats in a happy medium between Emails and phone calls. A phone call can be intrusive and is immediate. It must be answered at that moment, and if the recipient is busy, an unknown caller will surely be told off. An Email sits in the recipient’s inbox until they log into their account, and can be buried by other messages and possibly disregarded. Email has become a complex and formal vehicle for communication. With Emails from family, coworkers, businesses colleagues, SPAM and Email offers, the unknown sender often gets ignored.
With a text message, however, the recipient is very likely to read it, and at a time that is convenient to them. With mobile marketing, your message is instantly in the palm of their hands. If you present them with value they can easily choose to act on it by responding. No lengthy explanations or sales pitches.
One benefit that SMS marketing shares with Email marketing is the ability to reach recipients in bulk. Personal phone calls are an expensive proposition when trying to reach hundreds, or thousands of potential or former customers. Considered a much more formal and professional form of communication, Emails can easily be overlooked. But that’s just the trick, the everyday consumer isn’t looking for professional or formal, they are more comfortable with a quick and colloquial message in a format they can relate to. Something personal.
An SMS gateway allows a business to reach hundreds of people on their personal phone at once via text message. It can take hours to craft a precise Email marketing message, and no matter how convincing it may be, it might still be ignored. A text message is typically 160 characters or less, meaning it will take far less time to create the message, and it is still a more personal and effective format of communication that is more likely to solicit a response.
In the business world, where time is money, SMS messaging also has great potential as a tool for communicating quickly between businesses and their partners, suppliers, vendors or employees. When time is of the essence, sending off a quick text message to a supplier in Texas, the shipping company in Minnesota, and your boss in New York will be much more efficient than Email or phone calls. Not everything has to be formal and lengthy, sometimes the ability to respond, communicate and take action in a second’s notice can make all the difference.
In this era we live in, inundated with information and communication, a business should look to vary their marketing strategies and communication practices to give their products and their business the ability to reach clients and colleagues as quickly as possible. Mobile messaging is both personal and efficient, and surely everyone that you want to reach has a mobile phone that they use throughout the day. Yes, you should certainly keep your Adwords and Email campaigns going, but consider adding SMS to your stable of marketing tools.
Clickatell: Mobile Touch. Multiplied.
For just $24.95 a month Clickatell offers small businesses an affordable messaging solution to virtually every mobile handset in the United States. It includes up to 1000 free messages every month, free incoming messages, a dedicated two-way number and 24/7 web-based support. Learn more about Clickatell!
Tags: marketing incentives, sales
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April 13th, 2011
Our donors and customers usually think about us when we think about them. We touch base with phone calls, Christmas Cards and emails but if we did not do any of those things how often would they think about us? Do they think of us every time they need a product or service? When they receive a call from your competition? When a new store opens in the area or they come across a website?
How can we move our companies to the forefront of our donors and customer’s mind and get them become our biggest fans, increasing our referral business:
- Provide an added benefit educating the customer with each contact, be their Subject Matter Expert distingushing us from the competition.
- Demonstrate appreciation each and every time when in contact with a donor or customer. They are investing their time and most importantly, their money. After living through this tough economy we will all become better shoppers looking for an incentive before we spend our money.
- Send coupons but not too frequently to get customers to buy. We us one major retailer as an example, they seems to have sales every other day which unfortunately creates no urgency and incentive. Coupons that are sent too often also may create a thought that perhaps pricing on products may be too high to begin with causing buyers to react negatively. Constant sales may also reduce respect for companies.
- Announce surprise sales as if it were the Fourth of July on emails and on your website that last for only 2 to 3 hours to build excitement. Add an incentives for those that buy the first hour and share the sale with others.
- Remember the Nordstrom promise customer service, customer service, CUSTOMER SERVICE! If something goes wrong or your customers have a concern do not view the situation negatively, this is one of the best opportunities to build loyalty.
- Survey your customers. Know how your customers think, are they Logical, pictorial, visceral thinkers? Tailor your marketing to each type of customer separately customizing sales to each type.
- Energetically launch a point reward program building momentum with each purchase and referral.
- Use benefits and incentives that will provide dental, vision, roadside assistance, discounts to theme parks and restaurants all in one incentive!
The Value of Vacation Incentives, Do Your Customers Think About You this Often?
1) When they receive their vacation incentive passport.
2) When they are selecting their destination with their family.
3) When they receive their vacation confirmation.
4) When their toes hit the sand.
5) Each time they share pictures and adventures with friends and family.
It really is all about their choice, their motivation. Get them thinking about your more often.
Tags: blood donor incentives, customer incentives, donor incentives, incentive, incentive programs, marketing incentives
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March 21st, 2011
Meet 3 entrepreneurs who never “made it big” until they started helping others reach the same dream.
Americans are known for many things, but perhaps our most prevailing characteristic is our can-do attitude. No dream is too big, and no goal is impossible to reach. As Barack Obama so famously said, “Yes, we can!” It’s this American spirit that has made entrepreneurs the backbone of our economy and why small businesses account for 99.7 percent of all businesses.
But no matter how much American spirit you have, sometimes your dream just isn’t in the cards. Sometimes you’re dealt a hand you never knew you wanted–until you start beating the house. For these three entrepreneurs, their ultimate dreams may not have come true, but they realized they could become even more successful by helping others make it big. Here’s how they found success once they stopped reaching and started teaching.
A Business Home Run
If baseball is as American as apple pie, then pursuing a career in baseball could be considered the ultimate American Dream. Since they were boys, Rob Nash, 40, and Joe Luis, 41, dreamed of turning their little-league dreams into major-league success as Major League Baseball players. The two grew up together and both worked hard through high school and college to reach their dream. Although neither one made it to the big leagues, they were both good enough to play in the minor leagues. But after several years, varying circumstances led both Nash and Luis to leave professional baseball.
Despite leaving the arena they always dreamed of playing in, Nash and Luis still shared a passion for baseball and continued to host clinics and give private coaching sessions. It didn’t take long for the two to realize that something was missing for kids today: a safe and structured environment to play in.
“When we were growing up, it was ‘go to the ball field at 8 a.m. and make sure you’re home when the streetlights come on.’ That just doesn’t happen too much anymore,” Nash says. “We quickly found out that parents will spend money for their kids to give them a greater advantage skill-wise or give them a safe place to play.”
Nash and Luis started Extra Innings, an indoor baseball and softball training center based in Middleton, Mass., in 1996. Kids loved the structured learning environment and nice equipment and facilities, and parents loved the price. Nash and Luis began franchising their business in 2004 and now have close to 40 franchises across the country and system-wide sales of close to $15 million.
But the biggest payoff for Nash and Luis is the ability to teach kids the same skills that helped them become successful. Many of their students have become stars in high school, college and beyond, including a former student who made his major-league debut this spring with the San Diego Padres.
So You Think You Can Dance
Helping her students reach the same dream that she once had is something Jodi Vaccaro shares with Nash and Luis. Vaccaro, 40, began studying dance at the age of 10 and was a dance major in college. With dreams of Broadway dancing in her eyes, Vaccaro began aggressively auditioning after graduation but realized after two years that auditions weren’t paying the bills.
“I gave up my dream so I could make money, because I just couldn’t survive,” she says.
Vaccaro never dreamed of being a teacher, but she began teaching classes at a local dance school to make a living. “I told myself I’d teach just to make some money while I was auditioning, but it turned out to be something I really loved doing,” she says.
Vaccaro never considered herself to be business-minded, but her two years as a teacher gave her enough confidence to start her own dance school, Starlite School of Dance, in Patchogue, N.Y., in 1993. Vaccaro says she learned through trial and error, but that she never would have become successful if she didn’t enjoy teaching her love of dance to others.
“If you don’t have a passion for dance in this business [of teaching], it won’t work,” Vaccaro says. “If you go into this just thinking you’re going to make a lot of money, you won’t be successful. It has to be about the kids and their dreams and making them feel confident and passionate.”
Vaccaro won’t disclose her annual sales, but says she teaches close to 300 students a week.
“I’ve become successful because I really have a passion for dance and I can emanate that to my students,” she says. “All my students see it in me. I always promote that you can reach your dreams, as long as you work harder.”
Making the Leap
Making the decision to stop reaching and start teaching your dream to others can be a difficult one to make, but it can be just as rewarding–if not more rewarding–to help others succeed at making it. If you’ve decided to make the leap, consider these three steps from business coach and consultant Erik Luhrs.
Step 1: Look at your talents on a macro level. “Look at whatever you’re doing and ask yourself, what is this on a bigger scale to somebody else?” Luhrs says. If you’re an actor, maybe it’s your ability to fully express yourself; if you’re a screenwriter, maybe it’s your ability to mold stories for marketing, selling and training. “By looking at your talents on a macro level, you’ll open up vistas of opportunity.”
Step 2: Create a clear and compelling message. Before you publicize yourself, know who your target market is, why your target market should listen to you and how you want to work with that market.
“From this you can create a compelling message or sound bite that will draw people to you,” Luhrs says.
Step 3: Get the word out. Let the world know you’re an expert. Attend networking events, speak for free at seminars, or write an article or newsletter. Get the word out that you have a business by doing free publicity, such as calling a radio show, setting up a website and doing a weekly blog or podcast.
Finally, have confidence in your abilities to teach. “Realize that your combined experience and talents are unique to you,” Luhrs says. “This is how anyone can become a leader, expert or guru.”
Tags: co-marketing, marketing incentive program, marketing incentives
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March 7th, 2011
What happen to the front porches? They came on to the landscape years ago in the South and later were part of American Culture throughout the United States. Either small in size or like a big beautiful ribbon wrapping around the entire front of the house they could be seen almost every where. Each porch had its own lovely character and charm.
Porches were commonly admired in the south when people walked by on a warm evening. You could hear the creaking of the old rocking chairs as they rocked back and forth. Laughter filled the air and the lemonade glistened in the setting sunlight. The porch seemed to welcome all passers by over for a conversation or at least offered a smile and a wave to all who walked by.
The neighbor porch wasn’t just a place to cool off, it offered a connection to people and nature around it. Life is busy and now our front porch is social media. Social media offers us all a far reaching front porch, reaching out around the world bringing us many passersby and an education of what is out there to see and learn about. The only question is, what is the incentive for someone to visit your Facebook Page or website out of the millions that exist? Do you have have that welcoming feel and glistening lemonade that will attract others to interact with you on the Internet?
How Do You Make that Connection and Motivate Others onto Your Front Porch?
- Does Your Visitor Feel Motivated and Confident About Your Website?
- Does it Provide Beneficial Information?
- Does Your Website Answer Their Incentive Question, the “What’s in it for Me” Question?
- Does it Prompt the Visitor to Share Their Positive Experiences with Others?
- Do You Survey Employees, Clients, Donors and Visitors About Your Website?
Combine old with the new! People are simply starving for good old fashioned service and respect. Someone that appreciates their business and does not take it for granted. Offer incentives and reguarly thank your visitors oftne. Each click and phone call is an opportunity to present your business in a positive light and demonstrate your appreciation for their contact.
Keeping Your Porch Attractive to Others
- Make regular sincere calls taking interest in on their personal lives asking about their kid’s teams, their favorite sport or charitable organizations.
- Send articles or pictures that are of interest to your client on a personal enrichment level.
- Be an advisor and not a salesperson.
- Truly invest in your client for the long haul. Make it your goals to be there for them.
- It is not only the first impression that is important, it is every single impression.
- Be yourself and be personable. Laugh and show your lighter side.
- When in doubt use the Golden Rules, you can not go wrong.
Make your passersby all feel welcome so they have an incentive to come back.
www.strategicconcepts-ca.com
Tags: customer incentives, donor incentives, incentive, marketing incentives, motivate, motivate employees, reward
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December 27th, 2010
I have many friends. Call them what you like – friends, acquaintances, colleagues, partners, allies, vendors, customers, confidants, teammates – I aim to build close relationships with everyone I know. It makes doing business fun and it makes living worthwhile. Oddly enough, earning the friendship and the trust of all those I deal with has contributed more to my success than perhaps anything else. It took my kids to point that out to me.
My daughters and I read stories to each other every night before bed (and sometimes, when I’m on the road, we read via Skype). Recently we stumbled upon an insightful book called A Bargain for Frances, by Russell Hoban and Lillian Hoban. It’s a classic sales book in disguise. Frances’s friend Thelma is a conniving and shrewd businesswoman (yes, I know she’s only five years old) who is masterful at creating demand and uncovering buying motives. Thelma takes advantage of Frances by selling a used tea set for far more than it is worth by misrepresentation. When Frances realizes what has happened, she devises a plan to undo the transaction and succeeds (although somewhat mischievously).
Thelma quickly understands that Frances has gotten even and remarks, “From now on I will have to be careful when I play with you.”
“Being careful is not as much fun as being friends,” says Frances. “Do you want to be careful, or do you want to be friends?”
Whoa. That question hit me hard. Real business, real growth, real partnerships, real relationships, and real friendships can only occur where trust exists and the necessity to “be careful” is absent.
I began to look at the people in my life and ask myself whether I am “careful” or “friends” with them. I discovered that I am both, but that the people I truly appreciate, trust, and wholeheartedly devote myself to helping give me an unspoken and unconscious feeling of safety. I wonder if you make your friends and customers feel safe.
I have a very close friend that has never been “careful” with me. This friend is part advisor, part confidant, part teammate, part opponent, part advocate, and all appreciated. Not having to be “careful” has resulted in higher quality output, higher revenues, and an abundance of enjoyable interactions (and transactions!).
Here are some of the qualities of a true business friend:
Willing to help. Sometimes it’s advice; sometimes it’s grunt work. Either way, friends lend a hand without hesitation.
Willing to argue. A friend knows when you need to be challenged and does not need to worry about hurting your feelings.
Willing to use tough love. Sometimes saying “no” is the best and the right thing to do for a friend.
Willing to defend. When you come under scrutiny, a friend always has your back.
Willing to criticize. A friend understands that criticizing your ideas or your work is not the same as criticizing you.
Willing to compliment. A friend does not have to be “careful” about giving you the upper hand or advantage by telling you when you do well.
Willing to believe. A friend accepts your claims and promises without waffling.
Willing to refer. A friend does not consider referring you to others a risk and provide testimony for your claims.
Willing to defer. A friend knows when you are best suited, most qualified, and apt to make the right decision. Your advice counts.
Willing to invest. Time, money, sweat, energy. But mostly time.
Willing to give. A friend gives without expectation. No keeping tabs.
Willing to take. A friend receives without psychic debt. Gratefulness without the “I owe you one.”
There are many more qualities of a friend, but children’s books have taught me another lesson – fewer words and fewer pages do not mean less impact. In fact, this time it was quite the opposite.
Tags: customer incentives, incentive, marketing incentives, motivate customers
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October 11th, 2010
Actually “There are three kinds of salespeople; those who make
things happen, those who watch things happen and those who are
wondering what happened.”
You’ve probably heard that one before. In fact, there are two
different types of salespeople and they are very easy to spot.
The first type is the improvisor. He seldom prepares, his
preferred style, is to take things as they come. He likes to
be spontaneous. He usually relies on his instinct and counts
on his intuition to carry the day.
His days are fun filled and exciting, because he literally treats
each sales call as an adventure. He’s the Indiana Jones of
selling, foot loose and fancy free, whatever that means.
The second type is the professional. He also enjoys his work, for
different reasons. He anticipates everything, especially the
routines and repetitive stuff. He knows the routines which gives
him the opportunity to prepare in advance.
For example, he handles recurring objections. He knows he’ll get
them over and over again, so he prepares in advance how he will
deal with them.
He plays with words, until he creates power phrases that work
like magic. Once prepared, he knows that to execute a perfect
delivery, he must practice what he’s prepared until he nails it.
He records his power phrases into a digital recorder and plays
them over and over until they are anchored into his subconscious.
His sales calls are different because he treats them as
opportunities not as adventures.
There are two types of salespeople and of course they achieve
two different results.
Each one follows a pattern, one is unstructured and one isn’t.
Each can be seen as a formula. One formula gets better selling
results than the other. Here they are:
I + I = I (Instinct + Intuition = Improvisation)
P + P = P (Preparation + Practice = Professionalism)
The secret to achieving consistent selling success is that there
are no shortcuts, no quickies just plain old fashioned hard work.
These are the formulas and you get to choose. One doesn’t require
much preparation.
One pays better than the other.
Remember this too, preparation trumps improvisation every day of
the week.
Also remember, your customers can tell the difference between
“Improvisation” and “Preparation.”
When you combine preparation with practice you get professionalism
which enables you to meet with a success you never before imagined.
Tags: blood donation incentives, marketing incentives, motivation, sales promotion, salespeople
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July 5th, 2009
We show how you can start, run and grow your business for, you guessed it, free.
Over the decades–heck, even centuries–philosophers, politicians, tycoons and other leaders have insisted that you can’t get something for nothing: “There’s no such thing as a free ride,” or “Nothing in life is free.” Well-known economist Milton Friedman once said, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Even Entrepreneur columnist Robert Kiyosaki’s rich dad told him the same thing.
But in our evolving Web 2.0 world and with Google leading the way, the rules have changed: You can get something for nothing–and for entrepreneurs, that something can have a significant impact on their businesses. Today, the web is full of free tools to help entrepreneurs start, run and grow their businesses for next to nothing. It’ll just cost you some time and an internet connection.
Gary Vaynerchuk, co-founder of Wine Library, has been taking advantage of free business tools for nearly three years to grow his 11-year-old wine retail business. Using a combination of web-based tools, such as social networking, blogging and video, he’s taken his company to annual sales of $50 million. His success with these tools has even landed him two book deals and regular speaking engagements across the country. “Building brand equity and connecting with your consumers through these social tools has a global impact on your business and your brand,” says Vaynerchuk, 33, who launched Wine Library with his father, Sasha, 65.
Springfield, New Jersey-based Wine Library uses Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to notify its “friends” about daily specials, something it used to do solely through e-mail. Its Facebook presence includes a custom app called Ask Gary, where people can ask questions about wine. And the company keeps a regular video blog, Wine Library TV. “Viral aspects of your message explode once you use these tools,” says Vaynerchuk. “When I think about how much brand equity I have with Wine Library TV and how quickly it happened for [so little cost], the fact that I spent millions of dollars building the brand prior to using these tools makes me want to throw up.”
As Vaynerchuk has found, “customers appreciate the interaction,” says Mike Whaling, president of 30 Lines, a social media marketing company that helps businesses expand their brands’ online reach. “Traditionally, it was one way. It was shouting: brochures, white papers, advertisements. Now it’s much more focused on multimedia and engagement.” And whereas brochures and advertising of days past had a price tag, more and more of today’s tools are free.
But aside from the obvious (duh, it’s free), what does this surge of tools mean for small businesses? “It starts to level the playing field,” says Whaling. “It gives small businesses the opportunity to put themselves out there and really compete with the larger companies.”
“It allows a little guy to look like a big guy,” says Drew McLellan, owner and CEO of McLellan Marketing Group. “It makes a small business look very sophisticated.” For example, an entrepreneur can build a website easily with various blogging and web design options. A company can launch a targeted marketing campaign across numerous social networks. A business owner can manage calendars, clients and projects using different collaborative and project management software. All for free!
Alison Boris and Kathi Chandler, 38 and 31, respectively, have been capitalizing on free tools since nearly the inception of their Los Angeles-based online bag boutique, AllyKatStyle, in 2007. Like Vaynerchuk, they’ve created a MySpace page for their company. They also have profiles on Digg and StumbleUpon, which are community-centric content sharing sites, to drive traffic to allykatstyle.com. Outside of the popular social networking tools, they use QuantCast (embedded in the website) to monitor traffic, frequency, demographics, geographics and more, and Skype is their official business phone. Says Chandler, “They’re great grass-roots tools to drive traffic to the site and provide free advertising through bloggers and word-of-mouth.”
Communication/E-mail
Dimdim: open-source web conferencing application; free basic service
I Want Sandy: keeps track of daily details
Jott: voice-to-text service for creating notes, lists, e-mails and text messages; free basic service
Oovoo: video messaging, chatting and conferencing
Paltalk: group IM, chat and video call application
Plugoo: direct chatting with any blog or site visitor
YouSendIt: send files up to 2GB; free basic service
Storage
Adrive: 50GB of online storage and backup for all file types; free basic service
JZip: data compression utility
Mozy: 2GB of online, data and remote backup solutions; free basic service
Financial
BizEquity: company valuations
Mint: personal finance, money management, budget planning and financial planning software
MyBizHomepage: financial dashboard for small business QuickBooks users
QuickBooks: small-business accounting software; free download (Simple Start 2008)
Wesabe: financial advice, analysis and planning
Content/Media/Video
Audacity: open-source software for cross-platform audio recording
Blip.tv: video blogging, podcasting and video sharing service; free basic service
BlogTalkRadio: radio network for users to host their own shows
DropShots: video hosting and photo sharing
FeedBurner: media distribution services for blogs and RSS feeds
Fix My Movie: video enhancement service; free basic service
Paint.NET: image and photo editing software
Phixr: picture and photo editor
Seesmic: video conversation platform
SlideShare: share and embed slideshows, PowerPoints and PDFs into web pages
VideoSpin: video-editing software
Marketing/Networking/PR
Blogger: blog publishing tool
Craigslist: online classifieds and job postings network
CollectiveX: create social networking and collaboration sites for groups
Entrepreneur Connect: Entrepreneur’s social networking site
LinkedIn: business social networking site
Pligg: open-source, community-centric site for discovering, rating and sharing content
PolicyMap: geographic and demographic information system for creating custom maps, tables and charts; free basic service
YouNoodle: networking for startups and valuation with Startup Predictor
Your Pitch Sucks?: PR pitch reviewing and advising
Office Productivity/Organizational
Adobe Buzzword: collaborative word processor application
CutePDF Writer: PDF creator; free basic service
Dabble DB: create, manage and share online databases; free basic service
Doodle: schedule and coordinate meetings and other appointments
FreshBooks: invoicing, time-tracking and expense service; free basic service
Google Calendar: shareable calendar and schedule organizer
Google Docs: collaborative word processor and spreadsheet applications
OpenOffice.org: open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets and more
Stikkit: organization and reminder system that integrates with productivity applications
SurveyMonkey: create and publish custom online surveys; free basic service
ThinkFree Office: office productivity suite; free basic service
WuFoo: HTML form builder for creating interactive forms; free basic service
Zoho: office, productivity and collaboration applications
Project Management/Collaboration
LogMeIn: remotely support and access digital information; free basic service
ProjectStat.us: project management solution and updates
Project2Manage: collaborative project management solution
Remember the Milk: task management solution and to-do lists
Socialtext: wiki and website collaboration; free basic service
Team Task: collaborative project management and community website builder
Yugma: web meeting and collaboration service
Security
Adeona: open-source laptop tracking and recovery software
BitDefender Online Scanner: virus scanners; free basic service
ZoneAlarm: firewall protection from hackers and threats; free basic service
Web
Google Alerts: e-mail updates based on choice of query or topic
KickApps: platform of applications to integrate social features into a website
Microsoft Office Live Small Business: create a company website, domain and e-mail; free basic service
Synthasite: web hosting and building
Weebly: website and blog creator
Widgetbox: web widgets for various applications
Woopra: web tracking and analysis application; free basic service |
Originally published in the January 2009 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine
Tags: incentive, marketing incentives, rewards
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May 27th, 2009
A couple of decades ago I introduced a friend who sold pianos to the manager of a local radio station. The manager suggested that the piano salesman consider radio advertising sales. The salesman refused.
“Sometimes advertising works,” he said, “and many more times it doesn’t. The worst part is you can never predict which is going to happen. I couldn’t in good conscience sell something that I don’t believe will work.”
Ouch. Is advertising more of a gamble than a science?
If advertising is an investment, you should expect to see a predictable profit from that investment. Invest a dollar in advertising, get back four, or five, or six. At the very least, shouldn’t you get back a dollar ten?
But if you you don’t know whether your ads are driving revenue, you can’t very well call it investing. If you don’t know whether you’ll win, or lose, or break even, you are gambling.
And if you put your money into ads that you “feel” are working, but but can’t measure their effect, you’re still gambling.
Noted investor Peter Lynch once said, “An investment is simply a gamble in which you’ve managed to tilt the odds in your favor.”
So, maybe effective advertising is that which has been tilted in your favor. Not so much an answer, as a process, which includes better targeting, more effective messaging, and improved media selection.
The purpose of an ad budget?
The reality is that most of us fear that we aren’t turning our marketing dollars into profit. Not consistently. Not directly. Which is why we have advertising budgets. To limit risk.
An ad budget serves the same purpose as going to the casino with a hundred dollars in your pocket and saying “When this hundred is gone I’m done playing. Maybe I’ll get lucky. But I’ve got to set a limit on how much I can afford to lose.”
Think about it. If you knew you were going to get back more than you spent, why would you ever stop spending?
Perhaps you don’t need a budget so much as a lever.
The Greek mathematician, Archimedes, understood leverage. He’s reported to have said, “Give me a long enough lever and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.”
When applied to advertising, leverage means doing more with less. Getting more bang for your buck. Controlling large sums of revenue with relatively small sums invested in advertising. Stacking the odds in your favor.
But, if you were capable of stacking those odds, wouldn’t you also be running more advertising?
A surprising number of companies try to avoid advertising, then force themselves run ads when sales are down or when they have excess inventory.
Unfortunately, they’re open for business all of those other days, too. And they need customers to come buy what they sell on every one of them.
That constant need for additional sales makes advertising the most important thing any of us can do for our own business. What other activity can multiply raw dollars with this kind of leverage?
First, measure.
Do you know your rate of return?
Note your sales levels. Run your campaign. Note any change in your sales levels.
Divide increase by the amount spent. This is Return On Advertising Investment (ROAI). If you are bringing in more money than you are spending, your ROAI is positive. Congratulations.
Of course if your advertising is not effective, the negative ROAI produces a constant drain on your resources. Is this why you don’t advertise often? Do you justify the resulting poor return as “getting your name out there?”
How effective is your lever?
Is your advertising an investment or a gamble?
The primary question you must ask is the rate of your ROAI. Until you know the answer, this is the only question that matters.
How well does your current marketing stack up? Are you gambling with your advertising budget without even realizing it?
__________
Chuck McKay is a marketing consultant who helps customers discover you, and choose your business
Tags: marketing incentives, rewards
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May 25th, 2009
When I walked into the dry cleaners the other day to drop off my shirts, I found a $5-off coupon on the counter for the pizza shop two doors down. I decided I wanted pizza, so I walked down to the pizza shop, redeemed my coupon, and found a coupon on their counter for $5 off at the dry-cleaning place I was just at. These two establishments were sending traffic to each other; they had formed a strategic business alliance. In the world of Guerrilla Marketing, this is known as fusion marketing.
As entrepreneurs, we always think we have to do things alone, but its amazing the synergy available from collaborating or aligning with others. Fusion marketing can take your business to levels you never thought possible before now.
Those that are likely collaborators or fusion marketing alliances are power partners. A “power partner” is a business that has a similar target market as yours but doesn’t really compete with you. Examples of this are an estate planning attorney and a life insurance salesperson; a graphic designer and a printer; a real estate professional and a mortgage broker; a wedding photographer and a caterer or disc jockey. I think when you look at these examples you start to get the idea. The number of power partners or fusion marketing partners is only limited by your imagination.
Fusion arrangements can come in many forms in addition to the coupon example above–you can join your mailing list with your partners and do a joint mailing; you can make joint sales calls; you can offer an incentive from your alliance partner for each purchase of your product and vice-versa for your partner.
I know a printer who offers a free pizza coupon or free ice cream coupon on the back page of their notepads. The pizza place and ice cream store get the benefit of the distribution of the notepads to the printing company’s prospects, and the printing company gets the benefit of offering their prospects something for free.
Easy Steps to Setting Up Your Own Fusion Marketing Arrangement
Here are easy steps you can take to set up your own fusion marketing arrangements:
- Step 1: Define your power partners. A power partner is someone who has similar prospects as you and who could benefit from the same type of prospects, but isn’t in the same business. Examples: landscaper/builder, realtor/mortgage broker, network marketer/entrepreneur, massage therapist/chiropractor.
- Step 2: Figure out with your power partner what your offer will be. Maybe the printer gives a two-for-one offer while the designer offers to design a logo along with the design piece of a direct-mail piece. Maybe the attorney offers a free consultation on wills while the insurance salesperson offers a tips list on avoiding probate tax. Maybe the massage therapist offers a free midday office visit for a massage break while the chiropractor offers a back adjustment. Figure out what joint offer makes sense.
- Step 3: Write up a general letter of agreement. This doesn’t have to be a major-league legal document, but the one thing that hinders an alliance is lack of communication. This assures who does what and gets what. It can be a simple e-mail exchange.
- Step 4: Package it up. Write all the verbiage: the marketing copy, sales letter, press releases (if appropriate), e-mail letters, etc. Either have both businesses write it up and compare notes or have one write it and let the other approve. Be creative here. Be benefit-oriented. What’s in it for the prospect?
- Step 6: Be responsive to any responses. Fulfill offers; make it easy to sign up, to buy, to take the next step and keep track. Follow up and attention will convert prospects into paying customers. Share leads and conversions for future follow-up and future marketing.
- Step 7: Follow up. Both businesses should continue marketing to each of the converted people as follow-up marketing.
That’s all there really is to it. It’s a straight set of deliberate, planned-out steps, with a high degree of communication and execution. That’s what all marketing is, and the more it’s spelled out and planned out, the higher probability someone will act upon in. That’s what all the marketing I get involved in does–this is the key to marketing. It’s not going to happen overnight but with steps, plans and accountability, you’ll increase your revenue. I prove it to myself every day, and I prove it to my clients.
Al Lautenslager is the “Guerrilla Marketing” coach at Entrepreneur.comand is an award-winning marketing and PR consultant and direct-mail promotion specialist. He’s also the principle of Market For Profits, a Chicago-based marketing consulting firm. His two latest books, Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days and The Ultimate Guide to Direct Marketing are available at www.entrepreneurpress.com.
Tags: collborative marketing, incentive, marketing incentives
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