How to Handle Complaints Through Social Media

If your business currently has a social media presence, you may have gone through the dreaded issue of having a customer post a complaint on the wall of your business page. This can be incredibly disheartening and make you wonder if it will cause you to develop a “bad reputation”, but the truth is that you can (and will) get through it with great success. In fact, it is how you handle this roadblock that will give you serious points in the eyes of prior and future customers.

 

The Basis of Truth

Your response to a complaint on your social media platform will depend on the validity of the person’s claim. Was it true that your company made a mistake, or was negligent in some way? Determining this first will allow you to form a quick plan and be as graceful and humble as possible.

If the claim is true, you should write a response within no more than a couple of hours. It only will look worse on your part if you do not have a ready answer, as it will appear that you are avoiding the individual and the topic. Discuss it in a public forum, such as right on the same post. Keep your statements brief, and ask for clarification. Then, offer a solution that will be in the best interest of the customer. Even if he or she chooses not to take you up on your offer, you will have the advantage of looking like a professional and compassionate representative of your company.

Rise Above and Beyond the Expectations

Many individuals who write about their negative experiences with a company on social media do not expect to hear back from said company within a short period of time, if at all. If you give him or her the benefit of the doubt, be as clear as possible, and stick to how you can help to resolve the issue, you are certain to make it right with the customer. Also, you will serve to maintain your company’s solid reputation.

Increase Your QR Code Scans With these 3 Tips

In the modern society, QR codes are essential marketing tools used by businesses. They make the aspect of mobile marketing efficient. It is a perfect way that necessitates the promoting of services and products to the clients. QR codes offer a direct link to the online sites of the firm. One aspect that makes them reliable for marketing is because they are applicable across the globe. Therefore, customers from every country can engage directly with the organization and view advertisements with ease at a lower cost. Therefore, it is advisable to incorporate QR codes as crucial parts of your marketing strategies. Below are essential tips that can help in increasing your QR code scans.

Offer Essential Guidelines Near the QR Code

Many businesses print plain QR codes on brochures and other materials without providing instructions on how to use them. Therefore, many customers do not know the need of those codes, and they just ignore them. It leads to low rates of QR code scans. If you want to increase your QR code scans, you must offer your customers helpful instructions on how to scan those codes on the printed materials.

Test the QR Codes

After incorporating the QR codes as a marketing tool for your business, you should test them to enhance efficiency before printing them on different materials. Testing is essential to ensure that they direct the customers to a mobile compatible website where they will be able to view different offers and advertisement of the firm. It will enable proper engagement with the company without complications and increase your QR code scans.

Ensure that the Destination URL is Short

QR codes are capable of holding a lot of data. However, the more the URLs are complicated, the harder it will be to scan the QR codes. Therefore, ensure that it is short to enhance efficiency. It will increase your QR code scans because clients will find it easy to perform the process.

Therefore, as a marketer, you should use the tips above to increase your QR code scans. Always make sure that the codes are attractive and that your people are aware of their existence on the prints.

Integrated Marketing Tips for The New Year

What is integrated marketing? Simply put, integrated marketing is a strategy that displays a consistent brand message across multiple platforms. There are various avenues to market your brand, whether it be the internet, television, radio or print media. In order to reach as many people as possible, many marketings opt to utilize more than one avenue. The point of integrated marketing is that the message consistent about what the brand is. With integrated marketing expected to be one of the bigger trends in 2017, marketers are looking for new tips to employ in the new year. Here are four tips for integrated marketing.

1. Find the Best Platforms to Integrate.

Once you know the target audience, you can figure out which platforms are best to sell on. For instance, if you want to target a younger audience, marketing strategies that involve the internet is the way to go. Meanwhile, an older audience is more likely to use traditional media like television. Do your research and find out what are the most suitable platforms to market your brand on.

2. Use a Marketing Management Platform.

Integrated marketing can become messy. It’s easy to forget one marketing platform when you’re busy cultivating another. That’s why you should use some kind of management software to stay organized. Resource managers are available to simplify the process for you.

3. Come Up with a Brilliant Message.

Because integrated marketing is about consistency, you need to come up with one clear and concise message to spread across all platforms. Not only does it need to represent your brand well, it needs to fit seamlessly with whatever platform it is being marketed in.

4. Look for New Ways to Integrate. 

Change in the marketing world is constant. It is ultimately up to the entrepreneur to stay ahead of the curb. Always be on the lookout for new ways to revise and improve your marketing strategy.

Direct Mail is Worth the Investment

When it comes to advertising, most companies feel that email is the best way to reach consumers.  All too often, they push aside print media options as they feel they are too costly.  In truth direct mail pieces are a great medium to turn those leads into customers.

Low Cost per Each Lead

While you may be right in thinking that emails are less costly than direct mail pieces, it is not the cost of the marketing that should be part of your strategy, but the actually cost per lead that the piece generates.  The cost per lead of your average, letter sized, direct mail piece is lower than emails, pay per clicks, print ads, and telemarketing efforts.  This number drops even lower when you utilize personalization in direct mail pieces or include personalized offers.

Mailing Lists for Direct Mail are More Accurate

Since mailing addresses are regulated by the post office, they are often updated and will have any bad or incomplete addresses removed.  Email lists tend to be less accurate as many people will use fake addresses or email addresses they never check when signing up for newsletters or logins they are required.  With emails, you also have a high chance of emails going to spam, where as a direct mail piece is almost always delivered to the recipient.

Direct Mail Lasts Longer

Basically in terms of shelf life, direct mail has emails and telemarketing campaigns beat.  People are quick to delete emails or clear voicemails without even listening to them or reading them and they are then gone forever.  While direct mail may sit around a little bit, either on a table or a drawer, many people will at least look at its contents once, even if it’s to just check for offers.  Either way your direct mail piece will be hanging around in a large percentage of homes longer than an email.

So when planning your next marketing campaign, give direct mail another shot.  You will not only pay less per lead but benefit from a higher conversion rate as well.

3 Reasons You Should Include Forms on Your Website

Whether you have a small business or a corporate website, including forms can be a low-cost way to begin customer interaction. Below are just a few of the reasons you should add forms to your website:

1. Capture Visitor Information

An online form can track and record a wealth of information that you may not be able to get (or remember to ask) during a phone call. The simplest and most common form across the web is a company contact form. While it may seem to only capture basic information like a person’s name and phone number, you can ask additional information such as where they heard about you or their job title.

If you use a tool that connects forms to a marketing platform, you can also gain insights to information not asked within the form, including which pages of your site they’ve visited, how they got there, and the dates and times of all activities within your site.

2. Provide Communication Options

People can be shy, busy, or just prefer to deal with companies electronically. It’s a good idea to give them options for ways to connect with you. Ever needed to contact a company after their business hours and then try to remember to contact them the next day? Forms provide a way for your company to be accessible anytime, so you don’t miss out on important communication.

3. Customizable and Versatile

One of the best benefits of using forms is that they’re completely customizable and can be adapted for many uses, including:

  • Blog/newsletter subscriptions
  • E-book downloads
  • Event registrations
  • Demo requests

Including forms on your website can help you gain valuable insights into how people interact with your site and provide a window into customer buying habits.

The Value of Direct Mail is Still Promising

So you think print is out, digital advertising is in, right? Wrong! Despite popular opinion, direct mail campaigns are still highly effective and can compete well with internet marketing. People are bombarded every day with words and images on their computer screens, and must continually fight these distractions if they are to get on with their day.

Your potential customers will at least have to hold your piece in their hand and glance at it before tossing it in the trash. If it is attractive or interesting enough they may look at it a bit longer and make a mental note that you exist. Who hasn’t paused to look at a travel brochure with colorful pictures even though they have no intention of taking an expensive trip? A physical piece of mail captures perhaps even more attention than it did before in this digital age.

Advertising through email is not necessarily the best approach to marketing either. As Craig Simpson writes in Entrepreneur Magazine, people are swamped with emails every day and often just don’t open them, partly for fear of spam or a virus. If they do open your email, they may be wary of clicking on a link or attachment they don’t trust.

Another factor, according to Simpson, is personal touch. People might just throw out a flier with loud, ugly advertising, but what if you received a nice, textured envelope with a real stamp that appears to be hand-written, shaped more like a greeting card than a business envelope? You would probably be intrigued and open it up just to feel the connection to a real human being.

The lesson that many successful businesses have learned is, don’t underestimate the power of direct mail!

It is 2017; You Need a Responsive Website

Responsive sites are not built with any device in mind. Instead, they are built to be scalable to any device, no matter its size. It is a huge leap forward from mobile sites. These were sites built only for mobile devices. It usually requires the site owner to create two sites; one for mobile and the other for desktop devices. On the other hand, responsive sites can adapt to any existing or future devices.

Shopping on Mobile Devices is growing

One of the reasons why you should create a responsive site is that mobile shoppers are growing steadily. Recent data indicates that 80% of all Americans have shopped through their phone at one time or another. Failing to make the site responsive could lead to some serious losses.

It Affects a Site’s SEO Ranking

With Google having recognized that most people now use their mobile devices to access the internet, it edited its algorithm. The new update to the Google algorithm ranks sites with responsiveness higher. Google considers a responsive site to be crucial to helping customers get the most relevant results from it.

It Reduces the Bounce Rate

When a site is built to be responsive on multiple devices, it helps with the retention rate. Bounce rate is another factor that may influence how Google ranks a site. Additionally, it affects how easily customers can navigate through the site. If they have a hard time navigating, there is little chance of successful conversion.

More Than Half of All Traffic Comes from Mobile Devices

Most sites now report that over half of their traffic is from mobile devices. It is not that hard to find a good web developer to augment the site. Additionally, the costs involved in making the site more responsive can be recovered from the increased conversion rates.

Increasing Your Bottom Line: 3 Direct Marketing Tips for 2017

The promise of lower taxes and fewer regulations has many business owners excited about what 2017 is going to bring. Will your bottom line increase in the new year? There’s a good possibility it will, but you shouldn’t wait on legislation to make it happen. Take matters into your own hands and make more money with these direct marketing tips.

Start Trending

If you haven’t jumped on the social media bandwagon, do it now. According to Aabaco Small Business, 74 percent of consumers say that social media played a role in their purchasing decisions. If you don’t have a presence on social media, you’re missing out on sales. In fact, social media is so influential and effective, that many small businesses and startups rely on it solely for their marketing needs.

Get Personal

People don’t pay attention to impersonal, bulk marketing campaigns anymore. Think about it, what’s the first thing you do when you get a letter that’s obviously junk mail? Do you open it? No, you chuck it straight in the trash bin. Your potential customers do the same thing. If you want to get their attention, make your marketing personal. Instead of sending a mass generic email, send a postcard that addresses a need they have.

Sell Solutions

Building on the above statement about consumer’s needs, you should always try to sell solutions and not products. If you can identify your base’s needs and address them through education and product knowledge, you will never have to make a hard sale again. Consumers will see the need for your product and make the decision to buy on their own and quicker.

This year is your year to make more money than ever before. If you want a huge bottom line in 2017, adjust your marketing strategies to make it happen.

Diversity is the Key for Effective Marketing

More than ever before, marketing cannot be one-dimensional and achieve success. Regardless of the business or brand that you want to promote, you’ll need to use an assortment of marketing strategies to achieve your desired results. Just like it takes a variety of building materials to build a house, it will take variety to build your marketing strategy. Here are some things to consider regarding marketing diversity.

Social Media

Many businesses still haven’t recognized that social media platforms are crucial for effective marketing. The big four include Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Although it can be overwhelming to think of mastering these, an attempt to master at least one starting out would be a good idea.

The reality is that this form of marketing takes time and that requires money. If you don’t yet have the resources to launch an all-out social media blitz, that’s no problem. Take small steps to start. Later, you can get involved in more of these platforms and post more frequently.

Personal Website

It should go without saying that if you don’t have a personal website, potential customers won’t take your business seriously. They may figure that you’re just a scammer or that you’ll deliver products or services that are below par. Your website is often the first impression that a customer has about your business. Invest the resources to make sure that it’s a good impression.

More and more businesses are investing in content marketing for their websites. This often means that a blog is present on their company website. Content marketing on your website accomplishes several key things.

It adds value to your website in the eyes of Google, causing your site to rank higher. It also gives your customers free, helpful information and sets you up as an authority who can solve their complex problems.

As already shared, the importance of marketing diversity can’t be understated. There are plenty of other forms of marketing to consider as well such as email, event marketing, calling, direct mail, print and web ads, press releases and more. By combining several, your marketing strategy will become effective.

Top Ways to Cross Sell Your Products

Cross-selling is the process of selling an additional product that is related to the customer’s original purchase. Cross-selling is a vital tool businesses can use to increase sales as well as add value to the customer’s experience. Here are some tips businesses should consider to help improve their cross-selling sales numbers.

Listen for the Cues  

It is incredibly important to listen to your client’s needs and react to what they are telling you will appropriate products. When customers are presented with products that have no connection to the current needs, they will perceive that you do not value them. For example, if a customer is shopping for a computer make sure you know who the computer is for as the product you cross sell if they are purchasing for their child needs to be different than if they are buying for their husband.

Create a Sense of Urgency

Once you have determined a product that may add value to the customer’s original purchase you should create a sense of urgency. This can be done by pointing out the additional product is only available for a limited time or that you are running low on inventory. If you are offering a discount on the additional purchase you can also remind the customer that the discount is only available for a limited time.

Use Incentives

You can increase your cross-sell numbers by offering your customers something for purchasing an additional item. For example, if a customer if buying an item for $35 offer them free shipping on all orders over $50 or offer 10% all orders over a certain amount.

Bundle Up

There is a reason fast food meal deals work so well and it is because customers are buying products that fit together at an attractive price. There is nothing stopping you from adopting the value meal strategy with your products. Bundle up products that make sense together and offer them at a good price and customers will be naturally drawn to it.

The holiday season is a wonderful time to up your cross-selling game as customers are always looking for one more gift to put under the tree!