Danny Brown

podcaster - author - creator

Business

Change Your Routine Or Be Routinely Ignored

Your routine is killing you

You wake up. You wash or shower. You shave (or not). You brush your teeth. You comb or brush your hair. You get dressed. Have breakfast, drink coffee. You go to work.

Safe. Routine. You know what you need to do so well that it becomes automatic. You don?t even need to think about it. Routine is good. Routine makes your day easier.

But your routine is also killing you.

Think about your business. Your customers. Your clients. Your contacts.

Are you?routinely?writing a press release?and mass mailing it?

Are you?routinely messaging your email subscriber list?with the same routine message and the same routine deals and information?

Are you?routinely offering the same Happy Hour drink?deals or 2-for-1 meal offers?

Are you?routinely displaying the same point-of-sale banners?with the same discounts?

Why? Why are you doing this? Is it working for you? Or are you losing mailing list subscribers? Losing sales? Losing customers? Losing contacts from your media list?

Break the routine. Differentiate your contacts, your customers, your clients. Tailor the message. Look at your trends and who?s buying or reading and on what days, weeks or months. Make?that?information your routine.

Routine is good. Routine is safe. But routine also leads to automation and boredom. Break it up a little.

After all, would it really hurt you to brush your teeth?before?you shower?

image:?welovepandas

Introducing Social Media to Your Business

Social Media Landscape

Fact ? too many businesses still need to wake up and realize that social media is not ?one of these Internet fads? that will disappear.

Fact ? because of this mindset, too many businesses are potentially missing out on extra business that could mean the difference between staying afloat and going under. So why the problem?

One of the main reasons is that businesses ? whether it?s the CEO, top-tier management or otherwise ? are looking at social media as an individual medium, much like PR or marketing.

This is where the cracks start to appear. Social media benefits companies the most when it?s used as?part?of an?integrated?campaign.

Social media is also perfect for reaching out and connecting with your audience, as opposed to just selling them something. Sure, you?re still selling your brand or product ? but this time, it?s in an ?encouraging to ask questions? approach instead of ?this is us and you?ll like it? one.

Accepting that social media needs to be approached as an integrated strategy rather than a standalone campaign is the first step businesses need to take. After that, the job gets a little bit easier.

Define Your Audience

Just like any market or product, social media is made up of different audiences. As a business owner, you wouldn?t launch a new product onto a more traditional marketplace without some in-depth market research first ? don?t ignore this on social media.

Knowing your audience is key to succeeding in business social media. You need to know if your audience are participants or promoters. Why the need to differentiate? Simple –

  • Participants?are social media users that may use numerous social media sites and applications, but don?t really ?take part? in the medium. They?re like the visitors to your business website that may purchase something and then interact with you no further. There?s nothing wrong with this ? but as a method of expanding your brand, you may need to look elsewhere.
  • Promoters?are the users that like to share information ? whether it?s recommending something via Twitter or their blog, if they come across something they like they will pass that information on. This is where your use of social media can help build your name. Just remember that social media works both ways. Don?t try and cheat the system ? give back just as much (more, even) as you receive.

Have a Clear and Defined Goal

Another area where businesses are failing to adapt social media to their needs is that they don?t have a clear goal on what they want to achieve. Many hear the phrase ?social media? and immediately feel they need to be a part of this buzz, jump straight in without any forward thinking, and are then disappointed with the (lack of) results.

Ask yourself who you want to connect with and why, and then research the areas of social media that are most relevant to your needs. Demographics are one of the key points of knowledge for any campaign ? make sure you know where your demographics are playing online. A?social map?can help here.

Again, though, don?t try and play the system ? cheaters will soon be found out, and your brand can suffer irreparable damage if seen as merely a self-promotional company on social media.

Tools of the Trade

Once you have your audience and your goal set out, you need to use the tools that will help you the most. There are numerous available, and this is where building your social media connections can help, by advising what ones they use and what results they achieve.

Some of the best free examples of business tools include?Monitter?(which allows you a view on Twitter discussions of keywords);?Google Alerts?(giving you insight into what?s being said about you); and?Social Mention?(letting you gauge social reactions and reach to your topic or keywords and allowing you to jump in on conversations elsewhere).

Getting into social media shouldn?t be a hard decision for businesses to make ? it?s either right for you or it isn?t. Social media is a long-term strategy, not? a short-term fire sale.

Understand that, and you begin to understand social media.

Image:?fredcavazza

Looking After Business and the Real Profit Makers

Business and profits

If I asked you the most important part of your business, what would you say? Marketing? PR? Perhaps advertising or sales?

Now what if I said they?re all irrelevant? What if I said you don?t need sales to be successful? You?d probably say (fairly sarcastically),??Why not just hand my business over to my competitors while I?m at it??.

And you?d be right ? if I were serious.

Of course PR, marketing, advertising and sales are relevant, and hugely important parts of your business. But they?re not the most important part.

?But they?re the ones that bring the customers and make money, and money equals profits!?you might say. And again, you?d be right. But take a look at that sentence again.

?Customers? make money and money equals profits.?

That?s?both?sets of customers, new?and?existing. So why are so many businesses concentrating on the new and forgetting about the existing? Is the mindset, ?Well, they?ve stuck with us so far, they must be happy?? If it is, be prepared for a wake-up call.

Just because a customer has stuck with you doesn?t mean they?re satisfied. They may be tied into a contract or they may feel it?s too much effort at the minute to find a new vendor. But satisfied? Not necessarily.

Be Vocal

Have you asked them lately how they?re feeling? Have you asked how you can improve your service (don?t fall into the trap that your service has reached its plateau ? nobody?s?thatgood)? You?do?have ways of asking these questions, don?t you? If you?re not sure, ask yourself the following:

  • Do you have a?customer feedback form?on your website?
  • Do you have a?proactive approach?at asking your customers what they?re thinking?
  • Do you collect your customer details and use that information to?personalize your relationship?
  • Do you have some form of?customer service performance?in place?

If you can?t answer ?Yes? to at least one of these questions, you might want to check and see how many of your customers have dropped off the radar in the last 3-6 months.

As important as your sales team is, or your marketing team, or your PR team or your advertising team ? as important as all these elements are to your business?s success, they all cost money.

Your customers, on the other hand? A happy customer is your sales, PR, marketing and advertising teams rolled into one. Your most loyal employee. Your most vocal supporter ? and they don?t take wages from you. So look after them.

Be Pro-Active

If you collect contact information, use it. Call your customer up and ask how they?re finding their time with you. Ask how you can improve and what you can do to make their lives easier when shopping with you.

Don?t collect information initially? Fine ? have a feedback form on your site and have that (or a customer feedback phone number) printed on your receipt. Encourage interaction and communication.

Or, if you have a Twitter account, for example, have ?Don?t forget to tweet about us on Twitter? printed on your receipt and then monitor your mentions. And this works both ways ? you can salvage a negative impression immediately or emphasize a positive one.

Start a forum on your website where customers can chat with each other about how you?re doing, and how you can improve. Involve your employees throughout the company on the forum, and talk to your customers like human beings instead of just sales figures. Sure, you can advise on what employee can say what, but at least offer the voice to open up to and converse with.

The key thing is, sales and marketing and the rest of the new business team is exactly that ? new business. And you absolutely need that. But you also need existing business to build on and let you have the means to go after the new. Your customers ? and by association, your customer service ? are the?real?profit makers.

Isn?t it about time you treated them accordingly?

image:?Nemo?s great uncle

The Could and Need Effect

There are two basic ways of deciding on a course of action – the Could and Need Effect.

Both similar. Both different. Both entwined. Both separate. But each one defines your success and longevity.

Ask yourself a question and approach it from Could and Need to decide your next step.

This bill could wait until next week. I need to pay this bill to keep my business open.

We could make a change in design if necessary. We need to start from scratch.

This could help our strategy. This needs to be in place for any of our strategy to work.

Similar paths, but very different forks in the road at the key junction.

So. Could you, or do you need to?

Your Target Audience Is NOT Generic

Peas in a pod

There’s a mindset among many business owners that they need to be on social media. Specifically, they need to be on Facebook; or Twitter; or LinkedIn; or have a blog; or look ahead to business options on Google Plus.

This is usually fostered by fly-by-night consultants and agencies who tap into the fear factor so many businesses have about social media, and use blinding statistics and numbers about these platforms, and why a business needs to be on them.

You get the usual soundbites, like Facebook is the equivalent of the third biggest country in the world; or Google Plus has the fastest adoption rate of new users across all social networks; or if you’re not blogging, you’re not reaching your audience.

But so what? All these numbers and stats are doing is taking a generic approach to social media.

The consultants and agencies peddling them are doing so because they know big numbers sound impressive, and that any business owner would be a fool to miss out on 750 million potential new customers on Facebook, or 20 million and counting on Google Plus, or any other millions of potential customers on other networks.

But, again, that’s being generic. And customers are anything but.

The Collective Individuals

Sure, you can segment customers into groups. For example, you might have a product that appeals to women between 25-45, with kids and a sporty lifestyle. Or you might attract gearheads. Or teenagers.

But they’re still individuals, even as part of a collective.

There’s no guarantee that a million sporty moms will all love the same product; or that 500 gearheads will all be tempted by your latest sale; or 1,000 teens will all want to see the same teen movie.

As consumers, we don’t work that way – so why would we approach our business strategy that way to attract our audience? Why would we think generically? Because we’re told that’s where the money is, according to the people with the awesome social media numbers?

Be Your Customer

If you’re a brick and mortar store, and you attract a very niche audience based on location and age, do you think having a generic blog is going to attract new customers?

If you’re a mom and pop business that sells classic 78 RPM vinyl, do you think a Facebook group full of teens talking about video games is going to work for you?

Yes, social media and a solid online presence can – and does – bring in new business. But that’s after research defines where that new business is, not because someone tells you that you could reach almost a billion potential customers simply by having an account.

Seriously, if it was that easy, we’d hear more success stories of how social media is the secret sauce, as opposed to digging in deep and finding out for ourselves what we need to be doing.

You’ve built your success up so far by being smart about your business – why would you want to stop now, just because someone shows you some bright lights and inflated sales potential?

Sure, numbers are great (despite what girls tell us guys, size does matter, or so I’m told).

But size only matters when it’s appropriate – make sure you’re not getting sucked in by size, when you should be looking at the overall package…

image: MrWoodnz