ACT! User Group Meeting   (for details, click here)

ACT! On-line Training   (for details, click here)

Related posts:

1. What’s New At True North
2. Get Positive!
3. Database or Rolodex?

Bob Parsons 16 Rules for Success in Business and Life in General

1. Get and stay out of your comfort zone.
I believe that not much happens of any significance when we’re in our comfort zone. I hear people say, “But I’m concerned about security.” My response to that is simple: “Security is for cadavers.”

2. Never give up.
Almost nothing works the first time it’s attempted. Just because what you’re doing does not seem to be working, doesn’t mean it won’t work. It just means that it might not work the way you’re doing it. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and you wouldn’t have an opportunity.

3. When you’re ready to quit, you’re closer than you think.
There’s an old Chinese saying that I just love, and I believe it is so true. It goes like this: “The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”

4. With regard to whatever worries you, not only accept the worst thing that could happen, but make it a point to quantify what the worst thing could be.
Very seldom will the worst consequence be anywhere near as bad as a cloud of “undefined consequences.” My father would tell me early on, when I was struggling and losing my shirt trying to get Parsons Technology going, “Well, Robert, if it doesn’t work, they can’t eat you.”

5. Focus on what you want to have happen.
Remember that old saying, “As you think, so shall you be.”

6. Take things a day at a time.
No matter how difficult your situation is, you can get through it if you don’t look too far into the future, and focus on the present moment. You can get through anything one day at a time.

7. Always be moving forward.
Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop doing something new. The moment you stop improving your organization, it starts to die. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge advantages.

8. Be quick to decide.
Remember what General George S. Patton said: “A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow.”

9. Measure everything of significance.
I swear this is true. Anything that is measured and watched, improves.

10. Anything that is not managed will deteriorate.
If you want to uncover problems you don’t know about, take a few moments and look closely at the areas you haven’t examined for a while. I guarantee you problems will be there.

11. Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you’re doing.
When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at a distance. Even the planet Earth, if you get far enough into space, looks like a peaceful place.

12. Never let anybody push you around.
In our society, with our laws and even playing field, you have just as much right to what you’re doing as anyone else, provided that what you’re doing is legal.

13. Never expect life to be fair.
Life isn’t fair. You make your own breaks. You’ll be doing good if the only meaning fair has to you, is something that you pay when you get on a bus (i.e., fare).

14. Solve your own problems.
You’ll find that by coming up with your own solutions, you’ll develop a competitive edge. Masura Ibuka, the co-founder of SONY, said it best: “You never succeed in technology, business, or anything by following the others.” There’s also an old Asian saying that I remind myself of frequently. It goes like this: “A wise man keeps his own counsel.”

15. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
Lighten up. Often, at least half of what we accomplish is due to luck. None of us are in control as much as we like to think we are.

16. There’s always a reason to smile.
Find it. After all, you’re really lucky just to be alive. Life is short. More and more, I agree with my little brother. He always reminds me: “We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time!”

If you want to visit Bob’s site, here’s the link.

Enjoy your day!

Ken

Related posts:

1. Get Positive!
2. Effective Processes
3. Thanksgiving thoughts.

How’s your week been? I hope productive and successful and you’re looking forward to a refreshing and relaxing weekend filled with idle moments and sunspot naps.

Seems as though my week was filled with administrivia. One of those weeks where every day you get in to your office, look at the things you need to get done, then get to work. At the end of the day, you look back at your accomplishments and wonder what happened to the day! Yikes, I hate it when that happens.

We did make progress on a few things though.

We launched our ACT! On-line training series this week with a GoToMeeting class on Thursday morning and another this afternoon. Both sessions filled to capacity pretty quickly with ACT! users hungry to learn more about segmenting their database using Groups, Companies, and Relationships. Next week our On-line series will be on Activity Management in ACT!. We will be talking about some advanced techniques in how to make sure you get done what you need to get done, when you need to get it done.

On April 28th, we are hosting an ACT! User Group meeting at the Southdale Library in Edina. Our topic for April is Eat That Frog! Have you read it yet? Awesome book by Brian Tracy. Brian goes in to great detail on his 21 ways to stop procrastination and get more done in less time. Great read. At our User Group meeting on the 28th, we are going to discuss and demonstrate what Brian teaches in his book applied in an ACT! environment. Should be an entertaining and perhaps even educational meeting.

I would love to hear back from you especially if you have any suggestions for topics. You can add a comment to this post if you want and let me know what you would like to see as an on-line class or discussed at one of our User Group meetings.

Enjoy your weekend and I’ll be back in touch soon.

Ken

Related posts:

1. Events
2. Database or Rolodex?
3. Thanksgiving thoughts.

As many of you know, my background is contact relationship management (i.e. CRM) and most of my experience centers around the ACT! product.

Here’s a question for you. Is your company database a rolodex or a database? In previous articles, I’ve talked about how your company database is your most valuable business asset and that this database holds the key to your company’s success. Regardless of what you use as a software tool to manage this database, be it ACT! or SalesLogix or SalesForce or whatever, the most important concept is that, a) you have a company database and a good tool to manage it and b) you’ve customized this database to be specific for your business. If this is the first time you have seen the words customized and database in the same sentence, then read on because this information is spot-on for you.

When I think of a rolodex, I think of those index card holders that would sit on your desk, circular in design, and it would hold 3×5 index cards filled with contact information. It had a big knob on the side and when you turned the knob, the index cards went around like a ferris-wheel at a theme park. If you had a lot of cards, and you turned the knob fast enough, this thing doubled as a cooling fan and could blow-dry your hair (OK, maybe not in my case, but you get my drift). Each of these rolodex cards contained information on your contacts, or if you got one of the fancier ones, it actually held their business card. The trouble with these rolodex files though, was that you were very limited in the information you could keep on a contact. If you wanted to keep track of information in addition to what was already on the business card, you either had to write it on the card, or maybe add another card. If you were just looking for an address, or a phone number, it didn’t work too bad. However, if you wanted to keep track of their interests, or their kids or birthdays or anything extra, it got cumbersome fast. Depending upon how you filed the cards, as long as you remembered the contacts name or company name, you could get to the card pretty easy. On the other hand, if you wanted to do any kind of special search, forget it. The rolodex file just wasn’t set up for that. Now, enter the digital era and the concept of the database.

With a database, and a good contact manager, (like ACT!2010), now you have some power. Not only can you store the business card information, but you can also store all kinds of things about this contact. You can keep information on their family, hobbies and interests, purchase history, annual events like birthdays and anniversaries, contract renewals, on and on limited only by your imagination. Best of all, not only can you store all this great information, but you can access it in seconds. You can find all the people you haven’t contacted in the last 90 days, or all the clients that have a shared interest in a particular event or hobby. You can group contacts together based on common themes like all those that should receive your catalog, or that have indicated an interest in a specific product and now when you have a promotion going on, you can get this information out to them in just a couple of minutes. Either by a mail-merge to a letter or through an email blast where each recipient gets their own personalized letter or message, customized for them because this information is all stored in your database.  Now that’s powerful!

You can even take it up a notch if you want. If you’re using a product like ACT!2010, there are tools available that will let you synchronize your database to your cellphone, wirelessly, and in real-time. You can add tools that will do calculations on fields stored in your database, and store the results of those calculations in other fields. You can have the database automatically create an activity based on a value you select in a field. You can add contacts to groups or take them out of groups based on information you enter into their contact record. You can have the database create a call list of your hottest prospects, so you can get in touch with them when they are ready to buy. Tools like these (and there are many more) can turn a flat-file list of contacts into a living, breathing repository of client and prospect intel that puts you in control of your sales cycle and allows you to drive new sales even while the economy around us is in slow motion.

Speaking of a slow economy, in the spirit of Cyber Monday, we are offering a special incentive to upgrade to ACT!2010.  If you schedule your upgrade with us by noon on Monday, December 7th, you will save 20% on the cost of your installation and services. Upgrades must be scheduled to occur on or before January 31, 2010.

For more information and to schedule your upgrade, please give us a call at 952-292-3420.

Have a great day!

Ken

Related posts:

1. Have you hugged your database lately?
2. It’s just a database!
3. Thanksgiving thoughts.

So, is it me or is everyone feeling like the days are just flying by? I feel like the Adam Sandler character in the movie “Click” with the fast-forward button stuck in fast-forward mode. Good grief! I certainly don’t remember time going by this fast when I was waiting for my 21st birthday to come around.  Sorry, I’ll stop whining now.

OK, so here we are at Thanksgiving. What are you thankful for? I’ve got a list, long as my arm of all the things I can think of, right off the top of my head. You probably do too. Top of my list are our troops. God bless them and the work they do! Without them, we wouldn’t have the freedom to be an entrepreneur, or own a business. Sure, times are tough right now. Economy is down, job market is tight, belts are tighter, but in this Country, life is good, and for that, thank a soldier!

You know what else I’m thankful for? Technology. I LOVE technology! Bring it on and bring me more! I’ve got one television in my house and five computers. The computer on my desk that I’m using to write this has more processing power, memory and hard-drive space than the computer that ran the entire hospital I worked at back in the 80’s, and that computer filled a room. A very big room. This computer sits under my desk.

Speaking of technology and being thankful for things, I’m really thankful for backups. In the last week, I’ve worked with two clients that had to recover data from their backups. The recovery process was smooth and their systems restored perfectly, but I’m reminded that it’s easy to become complacent and take that sort of thing for granted. A few months ago I worked with a client that wasn’t so fortunate. Their backup didn’t restore, and that recovery process was an entirely different story. Painful, to say the least. So, what’s in your backup? Have you tested it lately? Do you have the peace-of-mind that if you had to restore from backup you actually could? Are you backing up all the mission-critical files you need to keep your business running smoothly and of equal importance, have you tested your backups to make sure recovery is possible, not impossible. I really do love technology but I love it more when it works! Stop back again next week as I’ll share some more insight on some awesome technology designed to save you time and make you more productive.

All of us here at True North Partners wish you and your family a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving holiday. Enjoy your freedom and say a prayer for our troops!

Related posts:

1. Database or Rolodex?
2. What’s New At True North
3. 16 Rules For Success by Bob Parsons

So far we have talked about  3 of the 4 tools in the ultimate THRIVAL kit:

• Loyal Customers
• Economical Marketing Strategies
• Effective Processes

Along with each of these tools, we have provided tips and tricks and specific things you can do implement them in your own business. The final tip is a bit difficult because it all hinges on you. It is a positive attitude combined with a little creativity. With all of the negative news it can be hard to maintain a positive attitude. But being positive is exactly what can give you a competitive advantage and that little extra“oomph” to succeed.

History has shown downturns can be a great time to start a new venture. General Electric traces its roots to the Panic of 1873.  William Hewlett and David Packard founded HP during the Great Depression.  Microsoft launched during the recession of the early 1980s.  Disney, Oracle, and Cisco, and countless others took the leap during difficult economic times, and reaped tremendous rewards for their efforts.

You too can be a bright light in a dark market!

Downturns are actually a great time to sign up new accounts. Because companies are examining every expense for ways to save. If you can demonstrate higher Differentiating Values than their curent verndor, you will have a decent chance of winning their business.

Get Creative!

“Innovation is ultimately not an act of intellect but of will”
                 (Joseph Schumpeter)

All too often the first thing large corporations cut during tough economic times is R&D, making it a great time to get your hands on talented innovators or to escalate your idea before the rest of the market. During a time when everyone is playing it safe, creativity really stands out. Focus on experiments and innovation that have low impact on the bottom line but the potential to help you stand out above the competition. When budgets are cut it forces you to get creative with your marketing so use this time to test out-of-the-box concepts that don’t cost a lot.

Plan for the future!

Now is the time to act in the present while preparing for the future. What you do now will directly impact your business stability and long-term growth.

•  Those who have the customer in their back pocket when the purse strings loosen are more likely to come out on the other end with a post of gold.
•  Just because prospects are not buying now, does not mean they wont buy later. Maintain your relationships and realize your sales cycle may take a little longer.
•  Assemble a long-term nurture plan for prospects who are not ready to buy today
•  Show prospects how they can get value from you now, even if they don’t pay everything up front.

Trends Taking Small Business Into the Future

• Small businesses will expand their use of online marketing tools because they’re effective and efficient.
• Small businesses will focus on customer loyalty to build lasting revenue streams
• Small business will drive new customer acquisition through creative, new business models
• Small businesses will need to turn to technology and automation in order to cut costs
• Small businesses will rely on developing relationships to stay competitive

I hope you were able to distill a nugget or two of useful insight from our discussion on marketing in a down economy. I would love to hear your thoughts on the following:

• What is your business experiencing?
• What have you tried?
• Who are you collaborating with?
• What resources are you going to use?

I look forward to your comments!

Enjoy your day!

Ken

Related posts:

1. Make Your Business Thrive!
2. Effective Processes
3. Economical Marketing Strategies

Today, I want to start a new series of blog posts aimed specifically for the ACT! users. As many of you know, I’ve been an ACT! Certified Consultant for several years, and an ACT! user for many more (since 1988 actually). As an ACT! consultant and trainer, I try and stay up to date and plugged in to the ACT! community and as a result will provide to you, the ACT! user, the latest updates and highlights that ACT! has to offer. The best way I can think of to accomplish this is through weekly blog posts to my site as ACT! Tips. My intent is to provide you with content that you will find valuable and if implemented, save you time, increase your productivity and perhaps even save you money. I would encourage you to respond to my blog posts with your comments and even suggestions on additional topics you would find helpful.

Today’s topic is a general overview of the newest ACT! release, ACT!2010 (version 12).

If you’re already an ACT! user, I’m sure you’ve received several marketing pieces from Sage over the last several weeks encouraging you to upgrade to ACT!2010. Some of you may have already taken the plunge and upgraded, while others are on the fence, waiting to see or waiting to hear if the buzz about the new version is all that it’s cracked up to be. In my humble opinion, it is.

The look and feel of ACT! has had a major overhaul with many new features introduced. I won’t go into all the details here, but will instead refer you to the ACT! page on my website where you can actually view “mini-demo’s” (called demoettes) of the primary new features. Go here, to take a look for yourself. Right now, the link to check out a free 30-day trial of ACT!2010 hasn’t been enabled, but I hope to have that available in the next few days. When the link is enabled, you will be able to request a CD from me that will include the full version of ACT!2010 Premium, in trial mode, that you can install on your system and see for yourself if it’s something you want to take advantage of. Please just bear in mind that before you install the latest version of ACT!, there are a few things you will need to be aware of, so your current production ACT! system doesn’t become compromised. All of this will be spelled out for you in great detail in the supporting documentation that accompanies the CD. I had considered offering the free trial version as a download from my site, however, the file size is in excess of 350MB’s and for a lot of folks, their internet bandwidth just isn’t robust enough for that size of download. I also wanted to make sure that anyone interested in checking out the newest version had made adequate preperations to insure the new version would run on their existing system and they didn’t run any risk of jeopardizing their current installation. That’s why I am including pre-printed supporting documentation.

So, in the mean time, check out the mini-demo’s (available here) and as soon as I have all the pieces put together, I will let you know how to request your CD. If you have specific questions about the new version, post them as a response to this article, and check back frequently (or subscribe to my RSS feed here) for updates.

Have an amazing day!

Ken

No related posts.

Automation is a great way to improve processes across all divisions including….

• Technology
• Administrative
• Marketing
• Sales
• Customer Service

Man power is often the largest small business expense. Today’s hosted technology can offer incredible efficiencies without the hardware and licensing costs of previous solutions. Look for Software as a Service (Saas) companies that can help you interaction with your customers, employees and vendors without as much human interaction. New technology offerings are available everyday and many allow you to try before you buy.

Many small businesses mistakenly try to cut costs by doing everything themselves. The truth is, you’ll probably save a lot of time and money by implementing effective administrative processes such as:

• Use technology to manage administrative tasks such as billing, collections and data management.
• When human resources are necessary, consider interns, virtual assistants or shared resources.
• Make sure you have systems and processes in place. When your business grows you want to make sure your company can scale with the growth and not come unraveled.
• You can’t be an expert in everything.
• Don’t be afraid to outsource. For more great tips check out: http://www.insidecrm.com/features/78-ways-save-economy-101408
• Don’t be afraid to renegotiate your lease…now is the time
• Renegotiate with your vendors/suppliers
• Turn to your employees to ask for efficiency ideas
• Lease equipment instead of buying
• Consider bartering or exchanging product/services
• Hold off on new hires and consider contract labor
• Negotiate discounts based on volume or longer-term commitments
• Go green – turn off unused electricity and find ways to cut waste

There are efficiencies that can be made to your marketing processes.

• Use data and analysis to make sure you are cutting cost only on those programs that are the least productive.
• Don’t just turn off the faucet all together, cut marketing expenditures only when the analysis proves it is your least effective form of driving revenue.
• Maximize your time and resources.
• Learn how and when to delegate and outsource.

Nurture Your Leads!
How well do you keep in contact with your leads? Remember, being out of touch can quickly lead to being out of business.

Once a lead is created, the worst thing you can do is let it slip through the cracks. Are you guilty of this? Before you jump on Facebook, spend money on Pay-Per-Click, re-design your website to capture leads and kick your affiliate program into high gear, make sure you can properly manage your leads and lead conversion.

Make sure you have a lead management process:

• What happens to new leads
• How are you following-up
• How often are you following-up
• How are you tracking the lead source
• What is your average conversion rate
• How can you improve conversion rates
• Are valuable leads falling through the cracks

Put processes in place to manage leads and ensure you are doing everything possible to convert leads into sales (I am currently working on a series of blogs regarding Fixing Follow-up Failure so stay tuned as those will be posted in the very near future). In short, there are tools to help you manage your customer leads and help you follow-up effectively.

The process of tracking your marketing success is important too. Don’t spend money unless you can prove its value…

• Ask – where did they hear about you
• Use unique phone numbers for different ads
• Use trackable links for online ads
• Use promo codes to track the success of campaigns
• Split test email and website ocntent and design
• Track all referral programs with unique identifiers

Once a lead is passed from marketing to sales, you must be confident that there is a good process in place to convert leads and close deals. A good process will help you:

• Increase sales effectiveness
• Warm leads
• Shorten the sales cycle

Implementing better sales processes will pay off quickly. If you’re looking for a great book that describes how to put together a “bankable” forecast, then take a look at Sales Revenue System 2.0 by Carl Moe. (check it out here)

The average sale closes at 5 or more contacts but sales reps often give up after 3 attempts. What does this mean for you? It means you are losing deals because of follow-up failure. According to Marketing For Success – 80% of potential sales are lost due to lack of follow-up. What is follow-up? Follow-up is simply establishing a long-term relationship with prospects through a series of ongoing communications. Prospects will buy when they are ready to buy, not when you are ready to sell to them. Follow-up positions you to be in-front of the prospect when they are ready to buy. Proper follow-up can be time consuming if you don’t have the right tools to manage the process. Automated follow-up will allow you to easily and effectively manage the process.

Visiting your store or talking with a live sales rep should not be the only way a prospect can buy from you. Make it easy for a customer to purchase when they wish, how they wish by leveraging ecommerce. Ecommerce does not always mean a tangible product. Offer service packages, memberships, content downloads, etc via a shopping cart or online order form. Encourage ecommerce transactions with special incentives for online orders. Make sure your ecommerce tool has the ability to add upsells and cross-sell offers to an order. Use electronic transactional receipts to offer additional, relevant products/services. By implementing these ecommerce features, you may quickly discover that your website is your most effective sales rep.

Customer service is a critical factor in client satisfaction and retention. You must deliver excellent customer service to create and keep loyal customers. There are several ways to automate components of customer service in a way that will:

• Cut costs
• Increase the Quality of your Service
• Increase your ability to scale your Service Offerings

Some other thoughts on ways to leverage your customer service experience:

• Use the Internet to post FAQs and other self-help content.
• Use community software to encourage customers to help other customers or to post answers to questions that your general customer base might be looking for
• Create weekly webinars to assist customers in a one-to-many environment vs. one-to-one.

So far we have talked about  3 of the 4 tools in the ultimate THRIVAL kit:

• Loyal Customers
• Economical Marketing Strategies
• Effective Processes

Along with each of these tools, we have provided tips and tricks and specific things you can do implement them in your own business. The final tip is a bit difficult because it all hinges on you. It is a positive attitude combined with a little creativity. Next week, we will conclude our segment on marketing in a down economy, by discussing Positive Attitude and Creativity.

Enjoy your day!

Ken

Related posts:

1. Get Positive!
2. Make Your Business Thrive!
3. Economical Marketing Strategies

In order for your marketing tactics to be effective you must first have a strong strategy. Your strategy must include:

• Making Marketing a Priority
• Focusing on highly-targeted prospects
• Taking advantage of bargains and discounts
• Leveraging your relationships
• Marketing through new channels.

Many companies react to economical slowdowns by cutting budgets – and marketing always seems to be on the chopping block. In fact, how many of you have already cut your marketing budgets this year? If so, it is an understandable reaction but not necessarily the right one. Here is why:

Analysts tracking companies in previous recessions found that, during the recovery period:

• firms that cut marketing experienced a small decrease in profit
• firms that maintained marketing experienced a small gain, and
• those that increased marketing enjoyed a substantial increase in profits.

In short, it is in your best interest to invest in marketing now!

With all the great opportunities to improve your marketing it can be overwhelming and difficult to discern where to begin.

Why not try a small ball strategy? (a concept designed by Andy Liu of Inspired Startup.com)
The idea is simple. If you are constantly looking to hit a home-run, you are less likely to win the game. It takes a combination of plays and maneuvers to figure out what is working best.

• What works today may not work tomorrow.
• Look at your marketing in bite sizes
• Don’t put all your eggs into one basket
• String together a bunch of small initiatives
• Try different marketing tactics for different results
• Optimize, replicate and scale what works best
• Be adaptable to change as your market changes

Along with the small ball strategy, the next key to marketing in a down economy is focusing on highly-targeted prospects. The benefits are clear:

• Marketing to a smaller list has lower costs
• Targeted lists have higher response rates.
• Focusing on fewer targets results in shorter conversion cycles.

In order to focus on highly-targeted prospects:

• Know your target market
• Deliver them value
• Remember your value has to outweigh their own fears of the economy
• Emphasize urgency
• Create exclusivity

All of these combined mean higher ROI! You can tell your efforts are working through testing. Target, Track and Test Everything you do! Stop throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. That kind of spaghetti marketing is a waste of time and money. Test multiple strategies. Create a clear plan-of-action.

Bartering and trading is a great way to get a lot of bang for your buck. A few examples include:

• I will put your ad in my newsletter if you will do the same for me.
• I will put your banner on my website if you will do the same for me.
• Donate your products/services to a charity in exchange for exposure

Not all marketing has to be high-dollar ad spends or flat rate sponsorships. Are you familiar with the old marketing adage “I know that 50% of my marketing works – - I’m just not sure which 50%”? It doesn’t have to be that way. Today’s marketing is more flexible than ever. Today you have pay for result options. Examples include:

• Affiliate marketing
• Performance based advertising models (Example – TrialPay)
• Pay for the traffic you are driving (Example – Pay Per Click – Google Ad Words)
• Pay-per-results blog marketing
• Performance based marketing plans/programs developed by marketing agencies and consultants

A killer way to market in a down economy is to leverage your relationships – - beginning with your customers.

• “When customers are truly thrilled about their experience with your product or service, they can become outspoken “evangelists” for your company. This group of satisfied believers can be converted into a potent marketing force to grow your universe of customers.” Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba “Creating Customer Evangelists”

How do you get your customers to actively participate in your success?

• Offer Incentives
• Ask for support
• Give referral gifts
• Target new customers

The value of a great customer referral is clear. “Customers referred by existing customers spend an average of 50 to 75 percent of the referrer’s spending over the first three years of their relationship.”

You can also leverage partner relationships to market effectively in a down economy.

• Partner with “Up market” or “down market” companies in your industry to share leads
• Partner with complimentary companies. (Example: create product bundles that add additional value to customers at a lower price.)
• Partner with companies already reaching your target audience.
• Create partner programs that pay for referrals or sales.

Creating a formal referral program is a great way to reward customers and partners for what they do to help you grow your business. A good referral program must be well designed and supported with processes and technology:

• You need a database for capturing data in a structured format.
• You need to track leads and follow-ups with an effective sales team for growing your business.
• You need to acknowledge and reward your referring customers promptly.

There are a lot of ways you can market but some strategies are more economical than others. In times like this, your best bets are:

• Email
• The Web
• Social Networking
• Traditional Media
• Events, Webinars, Seminars
• Incentives
• Networking

Email marketing is cheaper. Consider this: Average costs of 3 to 10 cents per email, versus $2 for direct mail and up to $3 for telemarketing. (Source: McKinsey & Company)

Customer acquisition costs average only $24 for email versus $82 for PR, $958 for print ads, and $1,457 for radio ads. (Source: Fiore & Collins)

In order to benefit from email marketing, you need to have an effective email system in place to manage contacts, deliver targeted messages, and ensure high deliverability (there are a lot of factors that affect email deliverability).

• Email can be used as a relationship builder to build relationships with customers and prospects over time.
• When email provides true value it is often shared (goes viral).
• Email is easy to track. Valuable information for other business decisions can be gathered quickly.
• Email can be automated with the right tools.

Email marketing is not the only way to market using the Internet:

• Use landing pages to produce the best YPV (yield-per-visitor)
• Don’t just sell. Create simple tips. Blogs. Forums. Etc.
• Nothing in life is free. Offer value in exchange for data, but don’t always go directly in for the sale online.
• Make sure your website is a first impression that builds trust
• Add with new daily content: event listings, product/service announcements, blog posts, your latest testimonials, press/news, etc.

Social media is another great marketing tool but you need to be careful how you use it:

• Actively participate, just creating an account is not going to get you anywhere. Join niche groups within the different networks.
• Address any customer complaints that arise in social networks, quickly and carefully. Comment on other third party blog posts and forums.
• Make sure your posts are conversational not sales pitches.
• Unleash your customers and staff by encouraging them to communicate via forum posts and blog comments.
• Track results so you know which activities are driving your leads.

While social media is being utilized more and more, traditional media still has its place:

• Get friendly with your local business reporters and not just the major newspaper: local business journals, smaller/independent newspapers, community papers, university papers, etc.
• The press is looking for good news stories, especially from small businesses and entrepreneurs. Contact them about awards/recognition, industry tips, client successes, charitable activities, and speaking engagements/events.
• Most publications will only accept email submissions so make sure you have a catchy subject line and are following all email best practices (don’t spam the media).
• Write or co-write articles that are pertinent to your industry. Submit completed articles or article ideas to editors, local and national – especially vertical, that might have an interest.

Free seminars and webinars are great ways to engage new audiences and provide clear value that helps you to gain trust and recognition in your market. Find a possible partner to co-host an event. Offering valuable content from two sources is even better than one. Partner with non-competing third-parties that would be interested in sponsoring your event to help you market and gain exposure for your event. Ask your local churches, universities, banks, chamber of commerces, etc if they will host your event. Webinars are a low cost way to execute your event. Invite your prospect and customer base and ask them to share the invitation with friends.

Incentives can be a great way to get your prospects to take action. Here are some incentive ideas:

Low Cost Gift Ideas:

• Company logo items (hats, water bottles, mouse pads, etc.)
• Non-related materials (stuffed animals, candy, paperweights, etc)
• One of your products or services at no cost to them
• Calendars
• Food

No Cost Gift Ideas:

• Free Whitepapers
• Free Reports
• Newsletters
• Admittance to webinars
• Industry specific bonuses
• Trial offers

When done properly, networking can be the single most effective way to grow your business.

• Socialize, don’t sell
• Create personal connections
• Focus on quality vs. quantity
• Find a fit
• Make an investment and commitment
• Get involved
• Look for ideas not just people

In Part 3 of Making Your Business Thrive in a Down Economy, we will discuss the third pillar – Effective Processes.

Have an extraordinary day!

Ken

Related posts:

1. Get Positive!
2. Make Your Business Thrive!
3. Effective Processes

Entrepreneurs and small businesses alike are facing unprecedented economic challenges. . . but within every challenge is a hidden opportunity.

Dark times breed innovation from our brightest entrepreneurs. In fact, more millionaires were created during the Great Depression than during any other era.

So how can you turn the recession into an opportunity for your business to thrive?

How do you turn a deserted island into a relaxing oasis?

Over the next several days, I will be writing about how you can make your business thrive by…

   1. Wowing your customers
   2. Employing effective marketing strategies
   3. Concentrating on ROI
   4. Creating efficiencies
   5. Staying positive and getting creative

Face it. The economy stinks right now and there are a lot of key indicators that show the economy will stay this way for awhile.

As an entrepreneur and small business owner, you have a choice.

One – - You could keep doing what you’ve always done. You could hunker down, hide from the world, and wait out the storm. It won’t be a comfortable ride and you won’t turn a big profit. . .but you could survive.

Or Two – - You could admit that whatever you were doing last year is not going to cut it today. You can adapt your strategies and create a new battle plan specifically to address what is happening right now. If you do. . .you won’t just survive. . .you’ll THRIVE.

Surviving through the current economic crisis is a lot like being shipwrecked on a deserted island. You can battle the elements and struggle to survive. . .or you can adapt to the island lifestyle, kick off your shoes, and enjoy a much deserved tropical vacation!

But your island detour can only turn into a vacation if you are equipped with a kick-butt survival, I mean thrival kit.

Here are the tools you need in your “Down Economy Thriving Kit”:

• Loyal customers
• Economical marketing strategies
• Efficient processes
• Positive attitude and creativity

Let’s begin exploring the first tool in your Ultimate Thriving Kit – - Loyal Customers

Loyal customers are essential to the long-term survival and profitability of your company but many business owners do very little to proactively manage this precious resource. You don’t have to make the same mistake.

One critical factor in generating customer loyalty is to find the right customer to begin with. You can do this by defining your ideal customer through:

• Demographics (size, industry)
• Psychographics (behaviors, attitudes)
• Buying behaviors and Patterns
• ROI (cost to revenue for acquiring and maintaining that customer)

Recruit those customers who are most likely to be loyal. Take some time to evaluate your customer base and look at how you have acquired your most loyal customers. Are there any patterns you can duplicate? Ask your existing customers to help you bring in new business, like them.

Strengthen your relationships with quality customers through ongoing communications, value add, involvement in your business.

Part of finding the right customers means avoiding or getting rid of the wrong customers. So don’t be afraid to “fire” your worst customers. You can fire them simply by not spending marketing and service efforts on them. Segment them into a “poor” customer group and avoid targeting your marketing efforts at them.

So now that you’ve found the “right” customers get to know them better.

• Ask your customers what they want.
• Make sure all your strategic decisions focus on the real voice of your customer not what you perceive it to be.
• Explain major changes in your organization so uncertainty does not turn into fear. Fear turns into rumors. Rumors turn into negative brand images.

A key factor in getting to know your customers is maintaining (clean) data about them. Before you assume that your customer data is fine, consider this:

• At least 10% of customer and prospect data has critical errors.
• Poor data issues compound (more than doubles) every 12-18 months if nothing is done.
• Data quality best practices can increase revenue by 66%. (Sirius Decisions)

You need a system in place to ensure that your data is accurate. This will allow you to collect and gain sight of a 360 degree view of your customers. How did they learn about you? What offers have they been presented? What offer closed the deal? Once you have a view of your customers you can group them according to patterns and market to them with a more personalized, effective message.

Everyone talks a lot about customer retention because it is so critical and cost effective. If you don’t know what your customer acquisition costs are, this should be a top priority of yours. You should be looking at all your marketing cost for acquiring a customer and their lifetime value.

What percent of your customers do you think are currently considering leaving you for a competitor? Are you in danger of losing clients/customers?

The truth is a whopping 60% of your clients/customers might be thinking of switching to a competitor! And as the competitive environment continues to intensify, it’s likely that other firms are marketing more aggressively to your own clients and, as this data suggests, a good portion of your clients may be open to having these conversations with your competitors.

Keep Your Customers!

Customer attrition is a real threat right now. Customers cut budgets by:

• Reducing purchase frequency (eating out, going to the movies).
• Switching to lower cost providers.
• Canceling service entirely.

You need to prove to them that you’re worth their money, even in a time of budget cuts. The little things can go a long way. Take time to thank your customers for sticking by you in the tough times.

Reduce Attrition by keeping an eye on profits!

• Customers (both B2B and B2C) are looking for bargains.
• Everyone wants to save money – this means your customers.
• Create deals that bring them in the door and value that keeps them coming back. 
• Maintain a markup ratio that allows you to remain competitive and drive sales
• Offer discounts to your top 10% of customers

Reduce Attrition by Providing Great Service!
“87% of respondents said good customer service influenced the decision to do business with a company again.” (source: CRM Magazine)

What are you doing to ensure your customer service is bringing back your customers time and time again? Be customer service centric. Focus on providing GREAT customer service. In today’s economy, customer service is often the key differentiator in a competitive market.
 
Empower your staff to solve customer service issues. Make sure your staff understand the importance of the customer experience and is empowered to take action to improve it. Allow them to write self-help articles for customers based on common questions, etc.

Maintain high levels of employee satisfaction. This has a trickle down effect that improves customer service. As part of this, you must communicate well with your employees. Uncertainty can be very de-motivating.

Be positive. Your customer facing staff can make or break retention. A negative staff creates a negative impression on your customers.

So, now you have:

• found the right customers
• learned all you can about them
• and, discussed ways to keep them.

These are all necessary to survive. But, we’re not here to just survive. We want to thrive. So, let’s explore how to leverage loyal customers to THRIVE by selling them more.

• Thank Them
• Market To Them
• Segment Them
• Incentivize Them
  • 22% average Incremental sales growth
  • 82% of customers report a rewards program has a positive, direct affect on their attitude towards the company and its products

In my next post, we will take a look at the second tool in our “Thrival Kit”: Economical Marketing Strategies!

As always, we love to hear your comments. Please post a response and let us know what you intend to do differently with your loyal customers.

Enjoy your day!

Ken

Related posts:

1. Get Positive!
2. Effective Processes
3. Economical Marketing Strategies