Do you know the secret of making clients, repeat clients?
Posted on | January 6, 2009
I’m going to break a bit from the technical issues with this post and talk about the single most important aspect of any service oriented business, customers or clients.
So, the secret to increasing your client base and making repeat customers out of everyone that walks through your doors? It’s customer service! If you own a service oriented business the number one proven way to get your customers to come back to your business and to impress them enough that they will recommend your business to other people that they know is to provide superior customer service. No matter what industry your service business is in customer service is the key to making customers want to come back. Customers always have a choice of where to spend their money. They will spend money at a business where they feel that they are welcomed and valued. So doing everything you can to make them feel that way is the best way to get them to choose your business.
What do customers want when it comes to customer service? There are lots of ways that you can provide great customer service that will make your customers happy but in general you need to make your customers feel as if they are old friends and that you really value their business. How can your employees improve their customer service? Here are some easy ways that employees can make every customer feel special:
Greet customers by name. Employees will usually learn repeat customers names but train them to sneak a peek at a customer’s file or at least greet the customer and ask his or her name as they enter the office. A warm welcome by name is a great way to give clients a good impression of your business.
Actively listen to customers. Active listening means making eye contact with the customer and really focusing on what the customer is saying instead of trying to answer the phone, write in a file, make an appointment for another customer and do something else on the computer at the same time the customer is asking a question. Sometimes it’s hard to find the time to focus on each individual client but it’s necessary to do that if you want to turn the bulk of your clients into repeat clients.
Acknowledge mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. Most of the time clients will be understanding about mistakes like billing errors or scheduling mistakes but only if your staff own up to the mistake and take responsibility for it. Admitting the mistake and apologizing will go a long way to soothe a ruffled customer. So even if a staff member makes a mistake you can still turn that customer into a repeat customer if your staff members are trained in the art of great customers service.
Quality Link Strategy for your site’s SEO health
Posted on | January 3, 2009
Content is King. But external links are the loyal subjects that keep the king on the throne. OK, kind of corny but its true. On-page factors will only do so much for your site in terms of search engine optimization. Links are the votes of confidence your site needs for Google and the other major Search Engines to take notice of your site and give it some props in the SE Result pages.
In the good old days, you simply paid for some directory listings and banner ads and link farms. These techniques are for the most part dead. There are some directories that are still worth their weight in gold (Yahoo, DMOZ, BOTW, STPT) but we now live in a Web 2.0 world and you’re going to have to get out and earn quality links if you want to rank highly in the search engines.
Link building is nothing new. What is new is that now you’re forced to look for quality links, not just any old links. We know the best kind of links are one way links that use proper anchor text and are located in the body content of a web page, as opposed to the footer or margins or simply on the links page of a website. But most established websites and webmasters are not going to give you the time of day, much a less a coveted link on their site. What we have begun doing with some success is finding smaller blog owners and simply asking for a link on their blog.
Most blog owners are very active online and thus are accessible. Many of them are approachable. And, if you offer them $25 or 50 for a quality link in a blog post, using anchor text you specify, this could get you some very high quality links. So how do you find them? Let Google show you the way.
Hopefully by now you have been exposed to (or using actively) the search tools AllInText, AllInAnchor and AllInTitle. If not Google them now and learn about these invaluable tools for your SEO toolbox. What I recommend is starting at http://blogsearch.google.com and type in allintext:”Your Keyword Phrase”. This will bring back all the blog posts in the Google index that contain your keyphrase. Next try it with allintitle for a smaller more pinpointed list of blogs. Try some advanced search options within the google tool itself, or cross reference the lists to get a list of high quality blogs for your keyphrase.
Next, spend a couple of weeks posting some comments. Nothing spammy, nothing over the top and maybe only a couple of posts per blog each week should be enough. Then email the author and let them know you have been enjoying their blog. And by the way, would they be willing to link to you. Then let the conversation unfold. If you have a quality site that is relative to one of their posts, they may not even want payment, but you could offer if they seem hesitant. A link on a quality blog will be worth any small amount you need to pay.
My only caution with this technique is not to be too agressive. Approach only 5 to 10 bloggers a day with a unique email, not one copy and pasted over and over. When you have success with an email, note it. Note the tone and wording of the email. Use it as a control for your next round of emails and continue to test, perfecting your introduction and approach to the bloggers.
One last piece of advice. If the blogger you approach does not respond and its a blog you really want, find a phone number and call them. Ask for the link. Its the only way you’ll get it! Too often today, in this world of wi-fi, facebook, blackberry’s and all the technology, we sometimes overlook the most effective tool of all, the telephone. Don’t let that happen to you.
When looking for links, I approach it like I do everything in life:
You don’t get what you need in life.
You don’t get what you want in life.
You only get what you ask for in life.
Web Video Marketing Profits - The Most Important Chapter
Posted on | August 19, 2008
Web Video is now in as an advertising channel. The banner ad, while not out, is slowly diminishing. If you’re not using web video in your online advertising campaign, I have to ask, “Why not?”. I recently discovered and published a book called “Video Marketing Profits - 10 Steps to Explode your Online Profits Using the Power of Video.” Do you think I’m here to promote it? Absolutely! But now without giving you some useful tidbits that you can go out and put into your business today, right now, and improve your bottom line.
I am including Chapter 9 - Video Marketing Tips for you, with my compliments. Let me know what you think. Click on this link today to get the whole book and learn what’s possible with web video marketing. I’ve just lowered the price for this post and my readers.
By now you realize just how much videos added to your website can do to not only improve your website, but generate leads and sales. The type of video that you use will have to depend on the type of business you have. You can use video in many different ways. The examples given of Henry’s bed and breakfast and the shower filter company both used humor in a positive way to attract customers.
There are other ways that you can use video as well without having to pay any fees to producers who may own the video. Remember in the last chapter how we talked about coupons? People like to save money. They like to feel that they are getting a deal.
Observe commercials on television. They will often say that if you call within a certain amount of minutes you will get an extra product or discount. You can do this as well, either on your own website, through e-mail or even on a free video site, such as You Tube.
For example suppose you have an excess of a certain product you would really like to move. One way to do it is to introduce the product in your own home made video. Tell people how wonderful this product is, and that it is now available at a special rate. And if they call or order right away, they can get free shipping. Make sure that this is cost effective to you. If you have your own business, you probably already know about different ways to market certain products. One method includes marking the product up a bit to cover the “free shipping.” You do not want to lose money on this promotion. However, this will only work if it is a new product that you have not previously advertised on your website. If you have this product on the website for $24.99 and suddenly you are sending out a video that it is now “marked down” to $29.99 including free shipping, your customers will feel cheated and you will lose your credibility. This method only works with overstock that you cannot move or a brand new product that has not yet been advertised.
So you make your video and put it on your website. Is that good enough? No. You want to make sure that you send your video to all of your customers through e-mail, particularly those who have purchased the product in the past. E-mail is free advertising, it doesn’t get any better than that.
You can also advertise your product on You Tube or other free avenues. This is not going to cost you a dime and may generate much income, as well as rid you of some products that you are dying to get rid of. www.TubeMogul.com is a site where you can upload your video and send to many video sharing sites, all very quickly and easily. Best of all it’s a free service.
Another way to use video to market your product would be if you had a restaurant of some sort. Again, you advertise a “special” on your site that will be good on only a particular day. For example on Tuesdays during this month pizza will be 20 percent off. Restaurants often get business through word of mouth but if one person sees the ad they will tell others. Be prepared for an onslaught of customers on Tuesdays and make sure you have plenty of ingredients to make a lot of pizza.
If you sell strictly over the internet, you should have a database of all of your customer’s e-mails. If you have not done this begin doing so immediately. You can easily send them a video advertisement each time you have a special. Make it short and sweet and give them an incentive to ‘act right away.” People often purchase on impulse. One example would be to simply advertise that you are giving free shipping on all orders that are placed on the website within 24 hours. See how well that does for you. It will give the customer an incentive to act quickly and you will make a sale. The longer you give them to act the better the chances are that they will not act at all and talk themselves out of making the purchase.
If you have a car dealership, you can take tremendous advantage of such a video ad. “From now until Friday, prices on all new models have been slashed!” You can even offer a free gift for those who visit the showroom before the deadline. Car dealers often do this just to get the customer in the door. Once the customer is inside the door, the objective is to not let them leave until they buy a car. Some dealerships take this approach a little too far, such as the example of the car salesman who threw my father’s keys to his old car on the roof of the showroom. This was not good salesmanship and car dealers seldom behave this way anymore. But they still want to get you into the store so they can use every tactic, short of kidnapping, to get you to purchase a car. Because they know once you walk out of that showroom they have lost a sale. People seldom come back.
Another way to keep people interested in your website and keep them coming back is to use the “progressive” ad. Do you remember the old “Folger’s” coffee commercials? They were popular on television in the 1990s. It featured a man and a woman who were flirting with each other throughout the commercial. Each commercial became a bit more progressive, it was like watching a soap opera. People enjoyed seeing these commercials because they wanted to see if the man and woman would ever get together. This advertising campaign was very popular not only in the
Why not do that on your website? It doesn’t have to be a soap opera format but as videos are easy to continue to create, upload and delete, you can keep changing your video from time to time and make it a progressive commercial. The soap opera theme always works. A murder theme, while macabre, may work on certain websites, depending upon what you are selling. People will continue visiting your website to see if the love affair works out or if the murder is solved. And if you can manage this yourself, it won’t cost you anything. Much less expensive as the Folger’s coffee ad, but just as effective.
No matter what type of business you own, use marketing techniques combined with video in your sales. Sure, the videos on your website can be entertaining and make your site more attractive. These alone will generate more sales. But when you combine them with old fashioned marketing techniques, you’ve really got is a winner.
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