Sales & Marketing

Does your website attract customers or turn them away?

A good small business website is a critical part of your marketing. �It helps you:

• attract target customers
• demonstrate your knowledge
• generate leads and�build a sales pipeline
• build great customer relationships

However, it’s easy to make mistakes which will do the opposite and send prospects running for the hills.

Here are ten mistakes to avoid.

 

Mistake #1: No Focus

Your website must answer the visitors question “what’s in it for me“? �Show the visitor the benefit to them and how you meet their needs before they click away to another site.

Add a tagline to your header that shows at the top of every page.

Use your tagline to quickly explain what you do and who you help.

Not every visitor will start at the homepage. �It’s important that visitors can quickly understand if you can help them or not. �If they can’t decide they are much more likely to look for someone else.

Mistake #2: No Personality

The first step in building customer relationships is helping people get to know you.

Use pictures of yourself and your staff so that people can start to build a connection with you as soon as they visit your website.

If you work on your own don’t try and hide it. �Don’t use “we” – large companies won’t be able to show their personality in the same way which can give you a massive advantage.

 

Mistake #3: No Purpose

What specific action do you want people to take when they visit your website?

Sign up for your email list, download a whitepaper, call you to discuss your services?

Ensure that you know exactly how you want to start the relationship with a new customer and design your website around this purpose.

 

Mistake #4: No Call to Action

To accomplish the purpose of your website you need to ask people to take action.

Position your “call to action” prominently throughout the website.

You’ll notice that I include my email signup form on my homepage, at the bottom of my about page and in both the sidebar and bottom of each blog post.

 

Mistake #5: Unprofessional Design

Your small business website projects your image to prospective and existing customers.

An unprofessional design, unfinished pages and bad graphics make you look unprofessional and leaves people wondering about your services.

A professional small business website doesn’t have to cost thousands. �You’re better to start with a small website that looks professional than have twenty pages of poorly designed, poorly written content that creates a bad impression.

 

Mistake #6: Ignoring Conventions

We all get used to certain conventions that give us a feeling of comfort when we visit a website.

Call your about page “About” and your contact page “Contact” – it’s what your visitors are used to and will help them find these two important pages.

 

Mistake #7: Poor Navigation

Website navigation is like a map to your best content. �It’s pointless writing excellent content if no one can find it.

Use a simple navigation structure so that visitors can get straight to their destination.

You’ll notice that on the Fresh Eyes Consultancy homepage I use one menu for the page titles and a secondary menu for each of my blog categories making it quick for visitors to find posts of interest.

 

Mistake #8: No Regular Updates

This has to be one of the worst mistakes. �Taking the time to create a small business website but letting the content go stale.

Google favours websites that have regularly updated content and your readers will be more engaged with you and return to see what else you have to say.

 

Mistake #9: No Optimization

Google wants to give it’s searchers the best content for each search, the best answers to their questions.

No amount of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will help you build a long term business if you don’t have good content – but if you’re creating good content it’s a mistake not to pay some attention to optimization.

Optimizing good content is like spoon feeding it to Google and ensuring that it’s indexed in a way that will get your content noticed in relevant searches.

 

Mistake #10: Bad Use of Twitter Feed

I’ve seen several small business websites where a Twitter feed is added to the sidebar of the website – every tweet is shown in this feed.

Whilst this can be fine, I’ve seen many where the website owner tweets about topics such as their opinion on the latest TV talent show hopefuls after a few beers at the weekend – it might be fun at the time but doesn’t create a professional image when these tweets are on the front of your website for your next prospective customer to read.

Either remove the feed or use a private Twitter account for tweets you don’t want to share with everyone.

 

Small Business Website Critique

Are you making any of these mistakes? �Is your small business website helping you generate leads and fill your sales pipeline?

My Small Business Website Critique service can highlight all of the areas you can improve on your website and use it to help you grow your small business.

For more information and to order the service please check out the Small Business Website Critique page.

 

What Mistakes Would You Add?

Can you think of any more mistakes that I haven’t included in this list?

Please join me in the discussion by leaving a comment.

Do you have feast and famine months in your small business?

Times when you’re so busy you don’t know where to turn and then times when it’s so quiet that you�re desperately willing the phone to ring with a new customer?

Avoiding the feast and famine cycle is one of the hardest parts of small business sales and one of the key early focuses of my small business coaching.

It�s hard because in the famine times:

• you’ll be frustrated at the lack of activity
• you’ll be stressed about maintaining cash flow
• you’ll doubt your ability and business idea
• you’ll waste money with knee jerk advertising

But I�ve got some good news for you.

I�m going to show you exactly why the feast and famine cycle occurs and how to rid your business of it forever.

 

Building a Sales Pipeline

The key to ending the feast and famine cycle is to build a sales pipeline.

Like the pipeline that comes into your house to carry water.

If your water supplier has a problem, and the water stops flowing through the pipe, your supply dries up and nothing happens when you turn the tap.

That�s the feast and famine cycle in a nutshell.

You have to ensure that you feed your sales pipeline with a constant flow of new opportunities.

The more opportunities you have coming into your sales pipeline, the lower the risk of famine.

 

How to Find New Opportunities

I suggest that you pick five small business marketing activities that you focus on every day to�pro-actively�add opportunities to your sales pipeline.

Such as building a blog for of compelling relevant content, connecting with people who could use your services via LinkedIn, using small business email marketing visiting local business in your town or city to start relationships. �The list is endless, hence why you need to focus.

Why five?

It’s not a magic number but if you do less than five you risk not having enough new opportunities coming into the sales pipeline, and if you do more you risk getting overwhelmed and not doing your best at any.

 

Building a Small Business Marketing Mix that Works

Consider these three questions to help you pick your five focused small business marketing activities:

 

1. What�s already working?

How did you find your current or past customers? �Take a look at all of your current and past customers and review how you found them. �Review any activities that worked for you previously, has anything changed, have you stopped doing something? �Can you make that activity work for you again?

 

2. What can you start today?

Don�t pick things that will take a long of time to get started.

If you�re already in famine you need to get opportunities into your sales pipeline quickly, don’t wait two months to get your website redesigned or to go on a course about how to use Twitter for business.

Focus on things you can start today, when you have opportunities in your sales pipeline you can easily review the results of your marketing mix and decide if you should add something that will help you build for the future.

 

3. What do you enjoy?

It�s no good having an activity in your small business marketing mix that you don�t enjoy, you�ll put off doing it and hate every moment of it. �That isn�t the best way to build your sales pipeline.

Focus on marketing activities that you are willing to commit to 100%, that you�ll be motivated to spend enough time on to get results.

 

Don’t Copy Your Competitors

Notice that I didn�t say �look at what your competitors are doing�.� That�s because you need to stand out from your competitors and pick five methods that you are happy with.

It�doesn’t�matter what your competitors are doing – build a small business marketing mix that you enjoy and that will work for you.

 

Get Help to Fill Your Sales Pipeline

You don’t have to fill your sales pipeline on your own.

It’s good to have five focus small business marketing activities for continually adding new opportunities to your pipeline, but you can get other people to help you – more hands to the pump as the saying goes.

Remember to ask past customers, colleagues, friends and family if they know anyone who could use your products and services or if they have requirements themselves – you’re looking for new opportunities, not always just new customers.

One of the reasons you should build customer relationships�is that�customers who are willing to be advocates for your business can spread the word and help build your sales pipeline.

 

Never Turn off the Supply

The two dangers with the feast and famine cycle are that you are not proactive enough to constantly fill the sales pipeline and that when you get too busy you stop.

If you stop adding to the pipeline the supply will go dry, contacts will go cold and sooner or later you’ll be in famine.

Always ensure that you keep adding to the sales pipeline. �Find ways to be more�efficient with your small business marketing when you’re busy but�never stop your focus activities, the more opportunities you have in your pipeline the better.

 

Summary

To end the feast and famine cycle in your small business you need to be constantly proactive, focus on a small number of marketing activities and never stop filling your sales pipeline with fresh opportunities.

Have you experienced the feast and famine in your own small business? �Please leave a comment and let me know how you’ve coped with it.

If you make any of the common email marketing mistakes you’ll look dumb in front of your prospects and customers.

I’ve talked about why use small business email marketing and also given you the exact steps to get started with email marketing for your small business.

Now I’m going to show how to avoid damaging your reputation.

Avoid these mistakes and you’ll not only build a successful small business email marketing campaign but you’ll generate on-going leads, sales and profits for your business.

 

Mistake #1: Emailing Without Permission

Sending unwanted emails without permission is not only a mistake, but you could be breaking the law in some countries, such as the UK and the USA.

It doesn’t matter where you got a person’s email address from, if they haven’t specifically requested to receive your messages, don’t add them to your list.

A common mistake is adding people who have given you a business card, or have emailed you – perhaps even because you’ve asked to be on their email list.

Successful�small business marketing is about building trust and sending marketing emails without express permission will destroy trust, not build it.

 

Mistake #2: Not Using An Email Marketing Service

Don’t start your small business email marketing campaign using your normal email account in�Outlook or GMail. �This is a mistake for three reasons:

• the software isn’t designed to send bulk email (more than fifty at a time)
• you risk your emails not being delivered
• you won’t have the detailed delivery and response statistics

Email client spam filters are very aggressive, if you don’t use a professional email marketing provider that has agreements with the major email and hosting companies you risk many of your emails not being delivered.

I recommend MailChimp as they provide a free account for lists with up to two thousand email addresses and their service is very easy to use.

 

Mistake #3: Not Having A Purpose

As with all small business marketing you need to be clear about what you are trying to achieve.

Yes, you want to grow your business and get more customers but in which way? �Are you trying to gain customers for a specific new product or service? �Do you want to learn more about your customers problems so you can be more relevant? �Think carefully about what you want to achieve.

The more specific you are with your purpose – the most chance you have of achieving it.

Your email marketing list and every email you sent should have a specific purpose.

 

Mistake #4: Irregular Emails

There is no right or wrong answer to how many emails you should send and how often.

Pick a schedule that you can commit to, such as one email a week, and stick to it. �You can create emails in advance and schedule them to be sent on a specific date or time so there is no excuse not to keep to your schedule.

But don’t send emails just for the sake of it, people will soon lose interest. �Spend time delivering quality, useful information.

However, if you send too infrequently your�subscribers�will forget about you and someone else will steal your customers.

I’d recommend starting at once per week as subscribers will be happy to hear from you that regularly and four emails a month should be an easily�achievable�amount to write.

If you are going to write a series, write the whole series before you�announce�it, it’s a mistake to tell people to expect your series for the next ten weeks and then struggle to have enough time to write next weeks – remember it is all about trust!

 

Mistake #5:�Panicking�About Numbers

Don’t panic about the number of people on your small business email marketing list. �You will have low numbers to begin with, everyone starts at zero.

Always write your emails with the same effort as if you had thousands on your list, but with the same personal touch as if you are talking to one individual.

It’s better to have fifty people who are engaged with you, replying to your emails, commenting on your blog posts, sharing your email with others than have thousands who just ignore you.

 

Mistake #6: Ignoring Results

Regularly review how many people are opening your emails and clicking on the links you’ve included.

Adapt your style according to the types of headlines that get more people opening your emails and the subjects that more people are reading.

Results help you make your small business email marketing a success.

 

Mistake #7: Writing Poor Headlines

Good headlines get emails opened – poor headlines get them deleted.

Spend time writing a great headline that will promise your reader something worthwhile inside the email.

“10 Best Tax Tips” is nowhere near as compelling as “10 Ways To Pays Less Tax And Save Thousands“.

I’ll show you how to write headlines in a future part of this small business email marketing series.

 

Mistake #8: Writing Irrelevant Content

A good headline will get your email opened but if you don’t give your subscribers relevant information within the content that fulfils the promise of that headline, they will quickly lose interest.

At best they will stop reading the email but at worse they will unsubscribe from your list completely or ignore your future messages.

Pack as much useful information into each email as possible!

 

Mistake #9: Not Building Relationships

Small business email marketing is a great way to�build customer relationships.

Make an effort to get to know the people on your list, reply to comments and feedback and invite people to engage with you.

The better the relationships you build, the more enquiries, sales and profit your email marketing campaign will generate.

Write your email in a natural style, almost as you would talk to a friend.

Don’t be formal, email marketing is not like sending memos – you want people to get to know, like and trust you.

Help subscribers recognise who the emails are from by using your name and email address in the from fields – you can’t build a relationship with a “don’t reply unattended mailbox”.

 

What Mistakes Would You Add?

Have you seen or made any other email marketing mistakes? �Have you experienced people making some of these?

Please share them by leaving a comment.

Is your small business marketing standing out?

Are you getting a constant stream of new enquiries and leads?

I’m going to show you how minimising your message will maximise your marketing and generate more sales.

If you’ve ever watched Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares” series you will have seen many long, complicated menus replaced with shorter, simple versions.

Fewer dishes on the menu means:

• Less stress in the kitchen
• Less ingredients to order, stock and waste
• Less for waiting staff to learn
• Better overall customer experience

Simplifying how you present your products and services isn’t just a great lesson for restaurants, it’s a lesson for all small business marketing.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

Confucius

Keeping your small business marketing simple helps:

• concentrate your focus
• customers see how you can help
• makes it easy for staff to explain
• makes it easy for existing customers to refer you

To keep your small business marketing simple you need to focus on four things:

 

Who You Are

People like to buy from people.

As a small business owner you have a massive advantage over larger businesses because you can focus on building strong customer relationships.

Don’t be afraid to show your personality through your marketing. �Tell your story, explain why you’re in business and what part of your experience makes you different from everyone else.

People need to get to know and like you before they’ll trust you enough to make a purchase. �If they can’t see enough of you to like, they will find someone else.

 

Who You Help

You wouldn’t walk into an Italian restaurant and expect to order an Indian Curry, or Chinese Sweet & Sour Chicken at the local French fine-dining establishment.

Small businesses can’t cater for everyone, you have to specialise.

Use your small business marketing to help people understand who you work with. �The closer you get to attracting the perfect clients the more you’ll enjoy being in business and you’ll see your small business grow.

 

How You Benefit Them

This is the most important part of small business marketing and the part that is often overlooked.

You need to ensure your prospective customer knows “what’s in it for me?”

You can have the best product and best price on the market, but if you’re prospective customer can’t recognise the benefit your sales will be terrible.

Every time you find yourself writing a “feature” of your product or services ask “so what?“. �For example my daughter’s eBook reader will hold thousands of books – so what? �The benefit is that she can take lots of books when we travel without carrying extra baggage and she has fewer books on her bedroom floor.

Whenever possible include customer testimonials in your marketing that show the impact of your products and services on other customers. �Always remember:

Well done is better than well said.

Benjamin Franklin

 

How They Take Action

Each individual piece of your small business marketing should lead to a response.

Whether it’s a letter, a website page, a social media profile, a flyer, a newspaper advertisement,�etc.�they should all ask the prospective customer to do one thing.

If you ask me to visit your website, “Like” you on Facebook and call you on the telephone all at the end of one advert I’m likely not to bother doing any, it’s too confusing.

If you have more information on your website that will help me know, like and trust you then tell me to go there, if you’ve given me lots of knowledge in the marketing and want me to talk to you on the telephone ask me to call you.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t have both your website and your telephone number on your marketing materials, you really should. �Just be clear on what you want me to do

The best small business marketing tells me about one thing per piece of marketing and asks me to do one thing when I’ve consumed it.

 

Summary

Keep your small business marketing simple. �Follow the Gordon Ramsay example and keep your customers coming back for more and bringing their colleagues, friends and family.

Focus on who you are, who you help, what benefit you bring and then give simple, clear steps for prospective customers to contact you and take the next step.

 

Free Prize

How simple is your small business marketing?

Go and look at your last piece of marketing and see how many of these you can find. �Please come back and tell me what you’d change next time by leaving a comment. �I’ll pick a comment at random with a number generator and review your next piece of marketing with you for free.

Photo Credit: Gordon Ramsay Holdings

You might have heard the phrase “the money is in the list“?

It’s true.

In the first post in this series I showed you seventeen reasons you should use small business email marketing.

But how do you get started, how do you start building an email marketing list?

Firstly you need to create an account with an email marketing provider, I suggest MailChimp as their service is simple and free for up to two thousand subscribers.

The following two videos will show you how to get started and then below the videos we’ll talk about how you build your email marketing list.

 

How To Create Your Small Business Email Marketing List With MailChimp

 

How To Add A MailChimp Sign Up Form To Your Website

 

How To Build Your Small Business Email Marketing List

There are five steps to building your email list, follow these and you’ll have your first subscribers in no time.

 

Step 1: Make Your List Compelling

I can’t tell you how many websites I’ve seen where the signup form says “get my free updates” or “get my free newsletter“.

The reality is that unless you’re a celebrity and people just want to hear “anything” from you, then you need to make signing up to your list compelling.

Don’t tell me about the process, tell me what’s in it for me, show me the benefit of signing up.

You’re not only asking for my email, you’re asking for my time.  You want me to spend the time opening your emails and digesting your content and have you seen how busy my email inbox is already?  It’s going to take a lot more than “get my free updates” for me to put my email address in that box.

If you’re an accountant, you could tell me that you’re going to save me time by giving me tax updates, budget information and cash flow tips in small manageable pieces so that I don’t have to spend time looking for them, or save me money by avoiding fines by sending me reminders when I need to submit tax returns.  If you’re a caterer you could take away the time I spend thinking about what to eat tonight with simple, quick recipes.

You get the picture?

Show me the benefit, not the process.

 

Step 2: Make Your Form Obvious

Regardless how compelling your sign up is, I’m not going to hunt for your form.

Put it in places that are obvious so it’s easy for me to sign up.  Here are some of the places that you should consider:

• Homepage: either obvious like mine, or at least in the side bar.
• About page: when people learn more about you offer the sign up, like mine.
• Blog Post: at the bottom of each post and/or in the side bar.  I use both in this post.
• Sidebar: in the sidebar of any of your other pages of products, services or information.
• Dedicated Page: create a dedicated page to explain the benefits of your sign up in more detail like mine.

 

Step 3: Make Your Form Easy

The less information you request, the more likely you are to get people signing up.

You only need the email address, when the person becomes a customer you can get the rest.

Some people also ask for the full name or first name so they can personalise the email and write “Hi Rob” or “Dear Mr Peters” but we all know the emails are going to multiple people, we’re not kidding anyone so ask for less, you’ll get more people signing up.

Less information means less resistance.

 

Step 4: Make Your Sign Up Attractive – Use A Giveaway

As well as making your list compelling you can increase sign ups by offering something for free.

Create a piece of information that will be of immediate benefit to your potential customers and offer it free for anyone who signs up to your email marketing list.  You’ll notice that through this website I show the image of my free eBook “How To Grow Your Business In Any Economy” on my sign up form.

Here are some examples:

• Free short call with you via telephone or Skype (great for coaches, consultants and trainers)
• Free report, eBook or whitepaper that contains interesting, relevant information (great for accountants, solicitors and architects)
• Free video or audio that demonstrates an activity (great for software providers, caterers and fitness trainers)

Just ensure that you free giveaway is a preview to your full service.

If you offer too much the customer won’t need you, offer too little and they’ll wonder if you really know you’re stuff.

 

Step 5: Make Your Sign Up Visible – Promote It

Now you’re ready to start building your list.  Now it’s time to promote your sign up.

Here is a list of places that you could promote the benefit of your email marketing list and link to a page with your form:

• Email Signature: add it to the bottom of every email you send
• Forum Signature: promote it every time you post in a group or forum
• Social Media Profile: add it to your Facebook page and link to it from Twitter, LinkedIn, etc
• Offline Advertising: include your free giveaway, benefit, and where to get it, in all of your offline advertising, flyers, newspapers, radio, back of your business card, etc
• Current Customers: email your current customers and give them the link, you can’t just add them to your list as I explained in the first small business email marketing post in this series.
• Customer Referrals: ask your customers to direct their friends, family and colleagues to your website to get your free giveaway and join your list

 

Summary

In order to build your email marketing list you need a compelling benefit, an easy, clear sign up form and your free giveaway.

Once you have these ready you can get people signing up to your list and grow your business with small business email marketing.

Has this information helped you?  Are you ready to benefit from email marketing?  Do you have questions?

Please let me know by leaving a comment.

The Grand National is one of the most famous horse races in the world.

Since 1839 horses have raced the 7,242 metre course at Aintree, near Liverpool, UK.

Many factors will decide the winner including weight, speed, ground and endurance.

Very few horses are capable of the gruelling challenge proving there are “horses for courses”.

As with “horses for courses” there are many different social media networks.

Each with different user groups, features, benefits and potential results.

It’s important not to get overwhelmed by using too many social networks, you’ll sacrifice core business activities.

Not every social network will be suited to growing your small business and building customer relationships.

Which is best for you?

 

Facebook is the largest social network with 845 Million monthly active users at the end of December 2011.

People use Facebook in “me” time to keep in contact with their friends and family.  Not as a place to buy products and services.

You can choose a unique link for your Facebook small business page.  Please connect with me using mine:  https://www.facebook.com/fresheyesconsultancy

Businesses that will do well on Facebook offer consumers an experience that they want to share with their friends.  Examples include:

• restaurants
• hotels and venues
• beauty salons

 

Video is great for building trust.

Viewers see what you look like and how you sound.

In a crowded niche, YouTube can help you stand out and offers an alternative to those who prefer watching to reading.

Viewers can view and subscribe to your channel.  Please connect with me at mine:  https://www.youtube.com/fresheyestv

Small businesses that share knowledge or can demonstrate a product are perfect for YouTube.  Examples include:

• accountants
• marketing consultants
• software developers

 

A fast moving social network where updates are shared in a maximum of 140 characters.

Twitter is good for building contacts, engaging with users, sharing links to your content and demonstrating knowledge.

You get a Twitter ID in the format @fresheyesconsul but the link to your profile would look like this:  https://twitter.com/FreshEyesConsul (note there is no @ symbol in the link).

Twitter suits most types of small businesses due to it’s variety of users but be selective – if you’re a takeaway restaurant in London you won’t grow your small business by following people from Boston.

 

LinkedIn is the “professional network”.

You connect with business associates, suppliers, ex-colleagues, and customers.

Joining groups and getting involved in discussions is an excellent way to show your knowledge and build authority in your subject area.

You can choose a custom link to your LinkedIn profile.  Please connect with me using mine:  https://uk.linkedin.com/in/robertcpeters

LinkedIn is used for recruitment and unlike Facebook is very much a network for people interested in doing business, there is little social element, which is why it suits small businesses such as:

• accountants
• solicitors
• coaches and consultants

 

A new social network in 2011 with a growing usergroup.

Although still growing, definitely not one to ignore as it is an integral part of Google search.

The features of Google+ suit any small business but beware that you might not find many target customers using it at present, especially if your business is based on a small geographic location.

Google+ plan to launch a custom link function in the future.  Please connect with me on Google+:  https://plus.google.com/u/0/109159464954029722848/ 

 

Pinterest is fairly new as a popular social network although it’s been around since March 2010.

Using online pin boards you “pin” images and web pages with links to the original content.

Pinterest users can choose and change the custom link to their boards like mine:  https://pinterest.com/fresheyes/

It’s highly visual nature makes it perfect for florists, artists, photographers, web designers and food producers.

 

Which Social Network Will Work For You?

You need to choose carefully, but you do need to choose.

Social media can increase your exposure, traffic to your website and help build your small business email marketing list.

But, spending too much time on the wrong social network will leave you frustrated at the lack of results.

Are you already using social media to grow your small business, are you struggling to choose which is best for you?

Please let me know in the comments, we can discuss and I’ll help you choose.

The best way to grow your small business is to build trust and develop fantastic customer relationships.

Building relationships requires regular contact with your customers.

Small business email marketing is one of the most powerful ways to help you build relationships and grow your business.

I’ve recently received several questions on the topic and decided to publish an entire series that will give you everything you need to get started.

 

What Is Small Business Email Marketing?

Email Marketing can be split into three stages:

• building a list of people who want to hear from you
• regularly sharing your knowledge and teaching your readers
• creating opportunities for your readers to become paying customers

As your list grows, the greater the return you’ll see in the third stage.

Here are 17 reasons you should use small business email marketing:

 

Reason #1: You Can Get Started Easily

You need three things to start with small business email marketing:

• an internet connection
• a computer
• an account with an email marketing provider such as MailChimp

You very likely have the first two and the third will only take a few moments to set up.

You need the account for the ease and added functionality rather than using your standard email client such as Outlook or GMail.

 

Reason #2: You Won’t Have To Sell The Ranch

MailChimp offer a free account until you have two thousand subscribers to your list.

I’ll be using MailChimp for examples throughout this series and will include detailed step by step videos on creating your account and getting started.

With a free account you only pay the price of your Internet connection to send your emails – regardless where your customer are based in the world. �A large saving against direct mail, flyer distribution and other forms of marketing.

 

Reason #3: You Can Share Your Message Quickly

You can get started with small business email marketing quickly.

The same day you create your account you can start building your list.

When you send an email, it is received immediately, no delays for printing, postage and distribution.

 

Reason #4: People Want Your Emails

When talking about email marketing I am not talking about buying a list of email addresses and blasting out unwanted messages.

If you spam people with unwanted email you’ll get into trouble, not build trust and you won’t build customer relationships.

By building a list of people who sign up for emails you gain permission to send them your best content, share your knowledge and show them how good you are in your subject.

 

Reason #5: You Can Keep In Regular Contact

It can be hard to find time to visit or call every customer to keep in touch and share your knowledge.

But not doing it gives others the chance to steal your customers.

Regular emails help you stay connected with your customers, keep them involved in your business and ensure they continue to learn from you.

 

Reason #6: You Can Personalise

Depending on the information you gather when people sign up to your list your emails can be personalised.

However beware that the more information you request, the harder the person will think about signing up.

 

Reason #7: You Can Be Highly Targeted

You can have more than just one email marketing list.

You can have multiple lists, or allow people to sign up to a specific segment of you list.

An accountant might have a specific segment for subscribers particularly interested in accounting software tutorials, an artist for people who have shown an interest in watercolour painting and a book store for people who love murder mysteries.

 

Reason #8: You Can See An Instant Response

Every email should invite the reader to do something.

It shouldn’t always be to buy something.

It could be to leave a comment on your blog, to share the email with a colleague or even just to try the information that you’ve provided.

These responses can be instant.

Unlike traditional advertising and direct marketing you can see readers doing what you’ve asked minutes after you’ve sent the message.

 

Reason #9: You Can Trace Your Emails

Using the analytics provided by your email marketing provider you can check several factors including:

• # emails sent
• # received or bounced
• # opened
• # links within the emails clicked

and many others.

Unlike other forms of marketing you have very specific data on what people liked and didn’t like about your email.

 

Reason #10: You Can Adapt Your Message

Closely linked with #9, emails can be tweaked based on your detailed results.

Once you know which headlines get the best opening statistics, and which subjects get the most people clicking the links, you can adapt your future emails to give your readers more of what they want.

This is an�incredibly�powerful tool in growing your small business.

 

Reason #11: You Can Be Flexible With Your Content

Traditionally email was based on text but this is no longer the only option for email marketing.

Your emails can contain embedded videos, audio clips and images to attract the attention of the reader.

Analytics will show you which your subscribers prefer so you can provide more.

 

Reason #12: You Can Generate Traffic For Your Website

Small business email marketing is a great way to build traffic to your website.

Links within your emails will lead people back to your website and your entire library of useful information.

 

Reason #13: You Can Help Your Subscribers Share

Email Marketing gives your subscribers something regularly in their inbox that is easy to share.

Very few people will take the time to pass on a flyer or recount the message from a radio advert. �But they will press a simple button in their inbox to send a colleague, customer or friend a relevant message from you that will not only help them but makes your subscriber look good for passing on the information.

This sharing helps you build your exposure and gain new subscribers for your list.

 

Reason #14: You Get More Than One Chance To Get It Right

Not every email you send will appeal to every reader.

However, as you send them regularly you will no doubt write enough over time that one of your emails will appeal to everyone on your list.

Unlike adverts, flyers, cold calling and other types of marketing, email marketing gives you multiple opportunities to connect with your readers and multiple opportunities to convert them into paying customers.

 

Reason #15: You Can Reach Your Subscribers Anywhere

How many of you check your emails on your smart phone or tablet device?

First thing in the morning or when just leaving a meeting?

Mobile email is very important and email marketing enables you to connect with your readers while they are mobile.

There are very few forms of marketing where your audience can actually carry around your relevant marketing and view it whenever it’s convenient for them.

 

Reason #16: You Can Level The Playing Field

It doesn’t matter how big or how small your business is, email marketing “levels the playing field”.

If you build a list of people who want the knowledge that you have, and write to them in a relevant and engaging way, you can succeed in email marketing.

 

Reason #17: Doesn’t Take Time Off

Email marketing doesn’t take days off, doesn’t get sick and won’t moan it is has too much work.

Emails can be written in advance and scheduled for sending, blog posts and articles can be sent automatically, a whole series of emails can be scheduled in an auto-responder so your reader gets the very best of your content in the order you design.

If you’re a busy small business owner email marketing can quickly become a very, very good friend.

 

What are you waiting for?

Small business email marketing is the centre of many businesses success.

Are you already using it to grow your small business?

If you’re not, be sure to sign up for my email updates below as I’m going to show you what you need to do to get started and make it a success.

I’ll show you:

• How to create an email marketing account
• How to grow your permission based email marketing list
• How often to email your list
• The various types of content to use
• How to build an email auto responder
• How to write compelling headlines to get your email opened
• How and when to introduce products and services

If you’re already using email marketing, or have questions about it, �please leave a comment below.

I want to introduce you to Tim.

Tim taught me more about relationship marketing than any book I’ve ever read.

Who’s Tim?

Tim was my Father’s insurance salesman when I was a young lad.

A really nice guy, never in a rush, and always welcomed at our house.

 

What Is Relationship Marketing?

People like to buy from people.

Relationship Marketing is about helping people get to know, like and trust you enough to become customers.

This method has many benefits including:

• long term customer retention
• multiple opportunities to convert prospects into customers
• increased chance of customer referrals

 

Use Your Small Business Advantage

When was the last time you called a call centre and the person knew you, asked how your family were and bantered with you about a shared interest in sport or music?

Large companies struggle with relationship marketing.

Small Businesses can use it to gain an advantage in the marketplace.

Here are five steps to get you started.

 

Step #1: Get To Know Your Customers

Tim knew my Father well.

His visits to our home were always welcome. �My Father enjoyed their conversations about sport and work over a cup of tea.

To succeed with relationship marketing you need to really get to know your customers. �You need to know:

• what they like
• what they don’t like
• your common interests
• what keeps them up at night

But be natural.

Record the information in your notes or your CRM software if you can’t remember it all but don’t treat getting to know your customers as a marketing exercise – it’s not a fact find.

Getting to know your customers needs to be something that you enjoy doing – it mustn’t be a chore.

It’s a fun way of doing business, not a business process.

 

Step #2: Keep In Regular Contact

Tim visited our house as regularly as clockwork.

It’s not as easy when customers are not local but you can use the telephone,�Skype, email and social media to keep in regular contact with your customers.

Make sure that your customers never go too long without hearing from you and always know how to get hold of you.

If you don’t stay in regular contact you give someone else an opportunity to steal your customers!

 

Step #3: Share Knowledge

Tim didn’t just chat with my Father about sport and work – he also shared knowledge.

He told him about developments in products, how his policy was doing and gave him advice.

The best way to build a relationship with a customer is to share knowledge.

I doubt that your most fond relationships are with people who only ever ask you for things?

If you always try to sell to a customer they will get bored of hearing from you.

However, everyone has time for relevant knowledge that will make their life or business better.

Share as much of your knowledge as possible, show yourself as a real expert in your field.

 

Step #4: Build Trust

Tim advised my Father on life insurance – a serious product.

It took trust for my Father to act on his advice and buy his products, trust that took time to build.

Sharing relevant, useful knowledge builds trust.

Make sure you do what you say you’ll do and keep the promises you make to your customers to keep that trust.

Trust is the same in customer relationships as in any relationship, it can take years to build but can be lost in seconds.

 

Step #5: Make Relevant Offers

Being friendly and likeable is great, but sooner or later you have to sell.

Else you’ll never pay your bills.

Tim wasn’t a salesman. �I would guess he probably didn’t like selling at all.

But from time to time he would give my Father advice about other products and services and because of the trust that they had established my Father would buy these services, without Tim even having to try hard to sell.

Once you’ve established trust, use the knowledge of your customers to introduce products and services that will help them.

 

Relationship Marketing Is Here To Stay

One thing is for sure.

The more people experience large businesses becoming more impersonal – the greater the advantage for small businesses.

Are you already seeing the benefit from relationship marketing? �Please let me hear about your experiences in the comments below.

Customer loyalty isn�t what it used to be.

With comparison websites and online shopping it takes seconds to find the best deal.

The world has become smaller, it�s much easier to reach customers anywhere, without having to travel, without large costs and without a large sales force.

What does this mean for the small business owner?

If your customers don�t remember you, they will call someone else.

Another business.

A business that is in your marketplace right now trying to steal them.

 

Why make it easy?

 

Who are the easiest customers to sell to?

The ones you already have.

The easiest element of sales is to sell current and new products and services to existing customers.

Yet, so often I see businesses who put all of their efforts into finding new customers, which is the hardest part of sales, rather than keeping in regular contact with their existing customers.

Here are four reasons why it’s so important to keep in contact with your�existing�customers.

 

Reason #1: Existing Customers Know You

 

Before a customer will purchase from you they need to know, like and trust you.

Existing�customers have already been through that process, you’ve already gained their trust, you just need to keep it.

Keep your business in their memory.

We all live busy lives, our customers are no different.

If they don�t hear from you on a regular basis then you move out of recent memory, the longer you are out of their memory, the more work you have to get them to know, like and trust you all over again.

 

Reason #2: Existing Customers Give Referrals

 

Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends – Walt Disney

 

If you’re a solicitor specialising in property sales you won�t expect to hear from every customer every year, but what about your customer’s friends, family and colleagues?

Keeping in contact and in the memory of your customers makes it easy for them to refer you to other people, building your customer list.

Referral business is especially good because the personal recommendation from the person referring you makes the process of know, like and trust easier. �A lot of�the work is already done for you.

 

Reason #3: The Long Sale

 

Customers respond to different messages and have different needs and issues.

Often a marketing message will be relevant for one customer and not for another.

Keeping in touch with customers gives you the opportunity to use a variety of marketing messages and topics with your customers. �Increasing the chance of a message being relevant and the customer wanting to purchase more of your products and services.

This is a much better small business growth plan than relying on a single message and a one off sale.

 

Reason #4: Keep Competitors Out!

 

Staying in the recent memory of your exisiting customers helps keep others out.

In most industries there will be several businesses keen to steal your customers, as an old boss of mine used to say �trying to eat your lunch�.

Don�t let them.

Make sure when your customer thinks of the types of products and services that you sell they immediately think of you.

 

How do you get started?

 

Would you like to learn more about developing long term profitable relationships with your�existing�customers?

Would you like to know:

• How regularly to contact them?
• What methods to use?
• How to share information that they will find valuable and relevant?

Great!

Because I’d really like to help you and give you the answers to these questions and many more.

I’ll be publishing a number of posts on this topic. �To be sure that you get notified as soon as they are published enter your email address in the box below and click Sign Up.

Don’t worry, you’ll only receive relevant information about growing your small business. �I hate SPAM as much as you do.