Gimzoo

Improve your marketing: three ideas

Marketing your products and services is an ongoing job.

It never ends. Marketing is an continuing process that should become part of your daily business activities.

No one can simply get up in the morning and say, "I'm going to do some marketing today", as if that will bring clients and customers to their door.

One way to market your business is to provide superior service. Over the long term, strong customer service will keep your existing customers happy. It will also add many more new ones.

A strong track record for going that extra mile for your customers will attract new business like a magnet. In effect, you are saying. "Try us and we'll provide service that no one else will!"

A second idea is to "customize" your products and services to fit your individual customer's needs. You may be offering much the same items and services that your competitors do, but you can make yours as specific to the customer as possible.

Phone or visit your existing customers, and ask them about your products. Find out what they like about them. Ask what they don't like, and how they would like them changed and improved. Perhaps they may have suggestions that would make your product or service more convenient or easier to use.

Put this do it yourself market research to work by redesigning your products, adding new ones to your sales list, and dropping items that no longer are uselful to your customers. You will not only find happier customers, but more of them!

A third concept is to build strong customer relationships. Develop a personal bond with your customers. Make them feel they are part of your business family. Emphasise their importance to your company, and how you are there to help them in their lives. Treat every customer and client as important and they will reward you with their loyalty and referrals.

By employing these simple but ongoing ideas, your business can grow without spending a lot of money. In place of cash, you are sharing yourself and helping your customers meet their personal needs.

That's the best marketing system of all.

Relationship marketing and blogs

Relationship marketing.

You've often heard the term used, but were never really certain what it meant. It does sound kind of touchy feely, doesn't it? Really all it means, however, is building good long term customer relations.

To turn your present marketing system into relationship marketing, you have to change your outlook somewhat. Traditionally, marketers have located their target market segments, made their offer, and made the sales. It's always been a single step process.

Relationship marketing looks at customers and clients over a longer term. It takes into account the lifetime value of a customer. Many experts think it costs anywhere from six to ten times as much, to find a new customer, than to sell to an existing one. With those financial realities in mind, the approach makes some sense, and some real dollars.

Relationship marketing is based on the idea, that people prefer to do business with people, they know and like. After all, it's easier to buy from a friend, than from someone you've never heard of before. The focus is on a multi-step marketing system that works for the lifetime of the customer. It's said that people need to hear an offer about seven times before they buy. That concept certainly works against the single step marketing method.

That is where a business blog can be really helpful.

As you write your daily blog entries, your readers get to know you and your business on a more personal level. Your blog begins that all important relationship with your prospects and current customers. As they read about your daily business activities, your problem solving ideas, your business advice, and your various products, they begin to think of themselves as a part of the company.

They are!

The prospects for your products and services begin to turn into customers over time. Since they already know about you and your organization, it naturally follows that they will buy from you.

Your existing customers will remain loyal to your business, through the regular personal contact of your blog. Your customers will not only stay loyal, but they will often bring tons of valuable referral business to your company. Happy customers are your best marketing friends.

By creating a business blog, you can develop strong bonds with your existing and future customers. Instead of treating them as numbers, you have formed a long term relationship with them. Their purchases, of your products and services, are a natural response to your blog entries. It is certainly not a one step sales system!

Creating a relationship with your customers and clients doesn't just pay off financially for your company. It is also rewarding personally for you; and for them.

Start your blog and build those long term relationships.

You'll be glad you decided on a blog for your relationship marketing!

Business blogs vs E-mail newsletters

As recently as a couple of years ago, people looked forward to receiving your company's opt-in newsletter.

Is that the case anymore?

Opening an e-mail box, only to see hundreds and even thousands of e-mails, is a sight that scares off even the most e-mail loving person. Included in that batch of unread messages are many good informative newsletters. You may have specificially signed up just to receive them.

Unfortunately, they often get lost in the flood of spam e-mails you most certainly did not request.

Many times, installed "spam filters" will block out your fully authorized permission based newsletter entirely. Your message never reaches its intended audience. You may never know.

While fully permission based opt-in newsletters are still welcomed by most recipients, there is another alternative.

It's business blogging.

The great thing about maintaining a business blog is there is no need to worry about it being blocked by spam filters. Since a blog is not sent by e-mail, it can't be blocked.

A blog can't be accidently deleted along with unwanted spam sales pitches either. Newsletter recipients often set aside some requested e-mails for later, but instead wind up deleting them in the end. Unread, with dozens of other "saved" e-mails.

Barring a failure of your internet server, your business blog is available at all times. All it takes to read it is a click of a bookmark.

It takes time and effort to build up a permission based e-mail newsletter subscriber list. That is no different from adding more readers to your business blog. Both require strong marketing and promotional efforts to be successful. There are no easy methods for gaining more readers in either case.

In many ways, a blog is more timely than a newsletter. The blog can be updated several times a day, while a newsletter is more likely to be sent every two weeks. Even a weekly newsletter can't be as immediate as a daily blog.

That is not to say that a fully opt-in, permission based newsletter is a bad idea. In fact, it is far from it. Properly used, a newsletter can provide great information and product offers to your subscribers right on their desktops. They still have a powerful place in your marketing and customer relations programs.

The main purpose of an e-mail newsletter is the same one as a business blog. Their role is to build up a relationship of familiarity and trust with your readers. In that capacity, as a customer relations vehicle, both have their places in your business.

While most entrepreneurs look to the conventional e-mail newsletter, perhaps it's time to look at the less used blog approach. The e-mail newsletter is an established method of reaching customers. That's why it's popular. That's also why it has been invaded by spammers.

Properly used, an e-mail newsletter campaign can remain effective. You can reach your customers and maintain a steady relationship with them.

On the other hand, a business blog can be equally effective at communicating your message to your customers.

Because the business blog is still in its infancy, it's on the cutting edge of business communications and public relations.

Isn't that where you want to position your business?

Blogs as news sources

Business blogs help create news stories for the mainstream media.

In a similar fashion to press releases, blogs provide journalists with potential articles and story "angles."

In fact, blogs are often written in an editorial style, similar to the opinion pages of the newspapers. In that sense, blogs are close enough to the standard media formats, that their acceptance should eventually be assured.

As with any new delivery medium, not everyone will be up to speed. Some members of the mainstream media may need to discuss the goals of your business blogging efforts. You must eliminate any confusion with the better known personal journals and online diaries.

Business blogs are often the first place where company news and new product ideas are seen. Because of their ability to serve as early alert systems to the business press, blogs are right on the cutting edge of journalism.

With that public role in the business's public and media relations efforts, solid working relationships with journalists and editors must be cultivated and maintained. That cooperation often involves getting to know some of the media people in your business's field of endeavour.

To establish a professional relationship with the media, contact them. Find out who is the editor who would be assigning the business stories. Meet with them and with the appropriate reporters. Get to know them, their story preferences, and their deadlines. Let them know about your blog, and that you are available to discuss its content at any time. If your blog contains good useful information, the editors and reporters will read it.

Be available to answer any questions about your industry in general, and your business in particular. Should a reporter call you when you are out, have someone in your office page contact you immediately. Call back as soon as you can or the reporter, pressed for a deadline, will simply call someone else.

If you are completely unavailable, arrange for someone else in your company who can answer questions fully. Often a team works best, with one member finding the needed facts and figures, and the other talking directly to the press. The important thing is to be professional and show respect for the journalist's time.

Don't just call your media contacts when you have a story on your own business either. Provide solid leads to other potential articles in your industry. They don't have to involve your company. Develop a reputation for honesty and a source of strong story ideas, and not one as a shameless self promoter. Over time, you can submit news stories involving your own company as well. They will certainly be written about as newsworthy.

By following these tips, you will establish yourself as an authority in your industry. By making yourself available to give quotes, on a moment's notice, you are helping the journalists to do their jobs.

They will appreciate that.

They will also read, and refer to your blog articles, providing your company with tremendous media exposure.

Isn't that what you want?

Business blogging: is there a downside?

I have been recommending that businesses start a daily blog to add content to their web sites in general, and their company as a whole.

Along with the fresh daily content, so loved by the search engines like Google, MSN, Inktomi, and AltaVista, comes an improvement in their search results for your keywords. Your business can use the daily blog to increase your marketing efforts, their public relations work, and their relationship with their customer base.

That's all great. So what's the catch?

There is a downside to everything, and blogging is no exception.

First of all, a committment must be made, by one or more individuals in the company, to post articles on the blog. That is often easier said than done! Busy schedules will often take precedence over what may be perceived as "just the blog". There may be simply not enough time left in the day, to devote to a meaningful posting, about the company's activities.

Secondly, there may have been a lack of proper internal company communications, about the value and importance of the blog. Its place in the overall business goals may not have been well defined by its supporters. Failing to spell out to employees, the results expected from maintaining the blog, the entire project may find itself abandoned.

Thirdly, the personnel selected to write the regular posts may not be skilled writers. While no one expects Pulitzer Prize level prose, the written articles must make some sense to the reader. Very bad writing will doom the blog to oblivion. Care must also be taken to ensure the entries don't turn into jargon laden, unreadable tomes, understood only by specialists in the field. Readership by the target customer audience will drop dramatically, making the blog useless in achieving its goals.

Fourthly, disgruntled employees must not use the blog for venting their frustrations with the organization. While blogging entries that discuss current challenges facing the company are often healthy, vindictive rage is not. The blog is not a scandal sheet. On the other hand, some other staff may use the blog as a personal diary, detailing their lives outside of work. Again, that is not the purpose of the business blog. Individual diaries fall under the umbrella of the personal journal, kept separately from company issues.

As you can see, there are some potential problems with setting up and maintaining a business blog. If neglected, those potential difficulties can end the blogging program before it begins.

The difficulties mainly stem from a failure, on the part of company management, to state clear goals for having the blog in the first place. Proper communication and honesty with the staff, about the blog's purpose, can go a long way to resolving those problems. With the employees on board with the blogging concept, strong writers with a dedication to the daily work of posting, can be found.

With a little planning, and a well defined set of goals, the blogging effort can avoid the downside entirely.