Posts made in December, 2013

on Dec 17, 2013

Social media has exploded over the last decade and many businesses still view all social media interaction to be the responsibility of the marketing department. The reality is social media impacts on all departments in your business.  Don’t make the mistake of not being open and engaging with customers problems.  Social media gives you a great chance to apologise if you get it wrong and the opportunity to make amends.  Ultimately you have to be honest and likeable in all your interactions.  If you are truly authentic your customers will respect you and endorse your brand and its values. Make sure your customer service team listens to and respond to requests and ask your customers to feedback across the channels they communicate on.  “Like-ability” is the key to an engaging social media strategy.  You can learn so much from your customers, your R&D team can gain brilliant  insight from carefully constructed surveys.  CEO’s can serve as online spokespeople providing key opinion formers with information. TOP TIPS:  Do you know the top 10 reasons consumers like Fan pages on FACEBOOK. To receive discounts and promos To show support for brands to friends To get a “freebie” (e.g., free samples, coupons) To stay informed about company activities For updates on future projects For updates on upcoming sales Just for fun To get access to exclusive content To learn more about the company For education about company topics Source: CoTweet & ExactTarget Its all about the development of relationships!  Social media is a great window into your clients world, your sales teams can review LinkedIn and Facebook profiles to meet and engage with new prospects.  The key thing is to make sure that as many people as possible in your brand are fluent in social media and know the objective is to treat every customer with respect! Its all about being inspirational!  Give your customers lots of reasons to want to like you and they will spread the word! So find what your customers want from you and don’t forget to make sure your Likeable!...

on Dec 17, 2013

How often do you hear in the business world, I wish I had known that before I started! It’s easy to look back at a project with hindsight and its great to be clever after the event. What you really need to be successful in business is foresight. The eternal question asked by many a man is “what do women really want?” The strange thing is how often do men actually ask the right question? The harsh reality is not nearly enough. This is also true in business; it’s worth asking yourself the question, do I really know what my customer wants? It should be the foundation for every business, but sometimes you can loose sight of the fundamental fact that you: Serve your customer needs! As your company becomes more successful new opportunities will be presented. So how do you choose which new business venture to pursue? Where shall you invest for the future health of your company? Talking to your customer to gain a clear understanding of their needs today and discussing their future requirements should help you gain the insight to make the right choice. No excuses allowed! Make sure you are engaging your customers through social media, be clear on your performance metrics through on-going customer satisfaction tracking and find ways to understand and define needs going forward. If you don’t… your competitors...

on Dec 11, 2013

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success” Henry Ford We like to build long term successful relationships.  The only way to truly understand the potential of a business is by working closely with the team who run it. Why not give us a call. Contact...

on Dec 11, 2013

I have been working commercially on the internet since 1999 it’s been fascinating to see the explosion of virtual trading over the past decade. Everyone now has a web site and they been convinced by family, friends, consultants or designers that the internet is essential for their companies long term growth. It’s true to say that every year web activity grows exponentially and more business is migrating online. E-commerce is not just about putting up a few pages on the Internet to highlight your company or your facility. It’s a shop window to the world and it’s your opportunity to stand out from the crowd. You need to think why would prospective and current customers come to your site and why is it going to add anything to their lives. The web provides a wealth of free information and content and if you don’t give prospects and customers a good reason to visit your site, quite frankly why will they. Most people now use the internet for research. It might be for finding a restaurant, a holiday, a car, music, friendship or just free stuff, the list is endless. But most importantly they use it to compare the different service providers. So if your competitors web site is easier to use or it has some great content that makes prospective customers lives enriched or it just appears higher in Google’s search engine. Guess where those prospects are placing their...

on Dec 11, 2013

The first and most important thing is to be very clear and specific! If you have gone through a robust selection process the Agency you have got into bed with should have already ticked the boxes on all of the key attributes you need.  The account management team you have met will work with you directly, you’ve established a personal rapport and you have agreed the functional aspects of your relationship like how they charge you for their services. So what next!  The most important thing is to give them a vision of what you want to achieve, be as specific as you can as this will get the best out of your team.  After that the agency relationship should be viewed as a virtual extension of your team.  They need to immerse themselves in your operation and understand what makes you and your customers tick. From that point onwards I want my agency to come up with lots of creative ideas but specifically to meet the challenges I have set.  I want them to push the boundaries of the current marketing whilst not alienating my customers. The best way to achieve this is write a good brief with realistic project timelines.  You will then get the best value for money from your agency and usually you get the best creative results.  However, we all know that life does not always allow you to be well prepared so the better your agency knows your business the better they will respond to last minute intense project deadlines. I don’t want my agency to be bunch of wine swilling ego maniacs but I do want my agency to comprise a team of people I can rely upon, bounce ideas off, give me a fresh perspective and not to be constrained by internal pressures.  Most importantly I want experts who can provide me that something special to make my brand come to...