Category: Business & marketing

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Websites are Marketing Hubs

Posted March 3, 2010 | Posted By Rick Sloboda
Categories: Business & marketing, Website promotions | Tags: , | 0 Comments | Share This

 

Websites are Marketing HubsSomeone in the printing business recently suggested to me websites are “overrated.” I was blown away. A website is not just a piece of the marketing pie; it’s the actual hub that connects all the marketing strategies and tactics, online and offline.

Regardless what business or industry you’re in, websites have evolved into the base of operations, where prospects and clients inevitably go to gain product, service, and company information.

Of course, other marketing elements play a role: postcards, e-mails, PR, commercials and much more. But these sources frequently push people to a website. Even TV commercials are trading in 1-800 numbers for website addresses.

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Stephen Colbert Invited to Search for Sasquatch

Posted January 7, 2010 | Posted By Rick Sloboda
Categories: Business & marketing | 4 Comments | Share This

 

Colbert Invited to Search for Sasquatch Harrison Hot Springs has invited Colbert Nation’s Stephen Colbert to embark on an official search for the Sasquatch during his upcoming trip to British Columbia for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

Harrison Hot Springs, a 90-minute drive from the Vancouver International Airport and the Richmond Olympic Oval, has been the focal point of the mysterious ape-like creature, also called Bigfoot, for more than a century.

If Colbert accepts the invitation, he will be provided transportation, accommodations and special training (which could include spa treatment) to help him prepare both physically and mentally.

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8 Ways to Kill an Idea

Posted November 23, 2009 | Posted By Rick Sloboda
Categories: Business & marketing | Tags: | 1 Comment | Share This

 

8 Ways to Kill an IdeaFinnish design strategist Sami Viitamäki put forth an amusing list entitled Eight Ways to Kill an Idea.

Here they are:

  1. 1. New marketing manager
  2. 2. Idea sent by email
  3. 3. Legal department recommendation
  4. 4. Creative review
  5. 5. New creative director
  6. 6. Global brand guidelines
  7. 7. Client thinks he’s creative
  8. 8. Budget

A few others that might fit:

  • It’s been done
  • It’s never been done
  • The boss gets wind of it

Check out the illustrated list.

Assumption Personas Provide Customer Insight

Posted November 9, 2009 | Posted By Rick Sloboda
Categories: Business & marketing | 1 Comment | Share This

 

Forrester Research recommends that customer experience professionals use personas founded in ethnographic research to guide the design of products, channels, and messages.

However, organizations often struggle to use personas effectively. To overcome common barriers to persona use, Forrester’s Jonathan Browne suggests customer experience professionals should brainstorm with key stakeholders to create roughly sketched profiles of target customers, called “assumption personas.”

This exercise helps build the case for creating real personas, gets stakeholders to think about their business goals in customer-centric terms, and generates hypotheses about target customers for testing in subsequent ethnographic research.

“Customer experience professionals must ensure that assumption personas are viewed as a step toward customer insight rather than an end in themselves,” noted Browne. “They are valuable tools for kicking off persona projects, but they aren’t fit for guiding design decisions.”

Service Seekers More Loyal than Price Seekers

Posted September 11, 2009 | Posted By Rick Sloboda
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Service Seekers More Loyal than Price SeekersService seekers are excellent customers to target, reports Forrester’s Bruce Temkin.

In previous research, Forrester created four segments of consumers based on their interest in low prices and good customer service: service seekers, price seekers, price & service seekers, and others. The research firm examined the loyalty of these segments across 12 industries.

“Across all industries, service seekers were more likely than price seekers to buy more products, stay with their current provider, and recommend their provider to friends and colleagues,” noted Temkin.

It validates our belief that merely positioning your product on the lowest price is a slippery route. There’s always a business that will come in and undercut you, and swiftly steal your marketshare.

Alternatively, the more reasons you give people to choose your brand, price becomes a less important purchase decision factor. As a result, you’ll attract people that value quality, are willing to pay for it, and will stick around for the long haul.

10 Tips to Increase Your Sales

Posted September 4, 2009 | Posted By Rick Sloboda
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Here are some valuable tips to help increase your sales, compliments of business consultant Mark Wardell.

10 Tips to Increase Your Sales1. Up-sell to your customers
For starters, they already know and trust you, plus they have demonstrated a willingness to buy.  So if they are given the option of a volume discount, for example, they just might jump at the opportunity to buy more.

2. Cross-sell to your customers
People appreciate convenience and choice.  Be sure to provide both by making additional products or services available that complement and enhance your customers’ buying experience.  For example, if a customer buys a product from you that requires batteries, be sure to offer him batteries at the time of purchase.  Otherwise he’s likely to be frustrated when he gets home and discovers that he needs to head back out to get some batteries… possibly from someone else’s business.

3. Ask your customers for referrals
The best place to find new customers is through your existing customers, assuming they are happy of course. So ask them. Believe it or not, they’ll be glad to help. One way to do this is to generate a list of prospects you think one of your customers may know. Show her this list and ask if she knows anyone on it. If she does, ask if you might use her name as a reference, or better yet, if she might make an introduction for you. If she doesn’t know anyone on the list, ask if she knows of someone whose name should be on the list. It’s a simple approach, but more times than not, it will get you in front of a warm lead.

To see the remaining seven tips, check out Wardell’s business coaching wesbite.

Overcoming Business Growth Challenges

Posted August 21, 2009 | Posted By Rick Sloboda
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Overcoming Business Growth ChallengesWhen a business is growing, it can be hard to keep up with the workload, which can negatively impact service quality.

Vancouver business coach Mark Wardell, founder of Wardell Professional Development, offers four tools in CGA Magazine that can help any business achieve sustained growth.

Business manual
It houses your strategies, your policies, your systems, and any other information you need to run your firm with cognizance. Not only will this manual help smooth out the daily management of your firm, it will also give everyone involved peace of mind that things are being done according to a plan.

Employee manual
A good employee manual should serve double duty as both a job description/orientation tool and an ongoing training manual. It should show your people not only what is expected of them, but how to do it. When you create this manual, your goal should be to make the process of bringing in new employees as smooth as possible and to educate and empower them to take ownership of their work.

Analysis manual
An analysis manual will record all the relevant numbers concerning the status of your firm’s growth. If growth is important to you, this is where you’ll track your progress. Certainly this manual includes your financial statements, but those aren’t the only numbers that are important. You may want to track the amount of overtime your employees are putting in per month, or the number of new clients being brought in, and how. Take time to identify the indicators you would most like to monitor, and begin tracking them on a monthly basis.

Also, don’t be afraid to share the results with your employees. Involving them in this way will help motivate them to reach the weekly or monthly goals needed to ensure you grow profitably.

Business calendar
A business calendar is a simple, yet effective tool for tracking the annual cycles of activity within your firm. There may be times of the year when you want to review your budgets, consider growth, hold employee reviews. If your goal is to grow profitably, it’s important to organize these priorities so they don’t fall through the cracks. Planning in this way also encourages you to continue to think strategically about your firm as a business, which is critical for achieving your goals over the long haul.

Fusion Discusses Direct Video Email Messaging

Posted August 19, 2009 | Posted By Rick Sloboda
Categories: Business & marketing | Tags: | 2 Comments | Share This

 

Businesses are hard-pressed during this difficult recession. Marketing budgets are being scrutinized more than ever and slashed. Fortunately, there are effective and affordable online tools and technologies to gain a competitive advantage.

To explore new technologies businesses can tap into, Webcopyplus spoke to Robert Bosley, CEO Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based Fusion Corporate Services Inc., which specializes in customized marketing solutions and business profitability.

Fusion Discusses Direct Video Email MessagingWhat is the key to marketing in an economic downturn?

FCS: Not to stop spending on marketing as you not only need to survive but you have a excellent opportunity to increase your market share as more and more companies are searching for ways to improve their business. You need to focus on spending on methods with a higher than average ROI. One of several areas we have achieved success is on cross-media campaign tools for customer acquisition and retention.

Cross media campaigns are those that use multiple media avenues to achieve the multiple touches necessary today to reach the customer or prospect.

Can you give us an example?

FCS: One valuable component of cross media campaigns is highly targeted direct video email messaging.

Please elaborate.

FCS: Let me be clear, we are not talking about static broadcast email blasts. Those can be impersonal and often end up in the spam mailbox. What I am referring to is a patent pending technology that has a proven track record. Clients normally experience view rates from 30% to 62%, compared to the typical response rate of 1% to 3% with a direct mail campaign.

This technology is a self-opening email that will communicate your message with video and sound with a much greater retention and action rate than standard email. Furthermore, and also very important, is the ability to provide you with the analytics to measure the effectiveness of the message and the ability to modify your campaign. You can see who opened, watched, explored, forwarded, and responded to each email communication.

Can you name some industries that have used this technology with success?

FCS: Manufacturing, wholesale, healthcare products, medical equipment, entertainment, gift giving, non-profit organizations, insurance, employee recruitments, newsletters to name a few. Also, banks and credit unions, universities, hospitals, sports teams, and radio or television stations are excellent candidates.

Is this method expensive?

FCS: It really is not, in many ways. For example, it requires no software investment or IT expertise on the client’s end because the program runs from the vendor’s servers. Furthermore, one measure of success is outcomes so mailing list size is not crucial to the success of the program. Also, it costs virtually nothing to send the message out two or three times.

This tool can be an excellent link to websites; it can qualify recipients for direct mail; and it can help salespeople target the most interested prospects. It can help your overall marketing and communication strategies.
To learn more, about cross media campaigns, you can visit Fusion’s website at www.fcs.us.com or contact Robert directly at robertb@fcs.us.com.

Talking About Yahoo’s New Display Advertising

Posted July 2, 2009 | Posted By Rick Sloboda
Categories: Business & marketing, Website promotions | Tags: , | 2 Comments | Share This

 

Google, Facebook, MySpace have all done it. Now another player, Yahoo, is dipping its toes into the self-service ad industry.

Talking About Yahoos New Display AdvertisingYahoo recently unveiled its self-service option for display advertising aimed at small-to-medium sized businesses. The display ad solution is called Yahoo My Display Ads, and according to Yahoo it “puts display advertising within reach for businesses of all sizes.”

Should small businesses jump on board and start advertising with Yahoo My Display Ads?

To get the scoop on Yahoo’s latest venture, we chatted with Tamara Brooks, co-owner of Vancouver-based October 17 Media. Tamara is a seasoned marketing professional, having working in online marketing and the branding industry for roughly 12 years. With her business partner Brenda Cadman, October 17 Media has worked alongside clients such as Future Shop, Fitness Town, Canadian Gene Cure Foundation, Leahy Music, the District of West Vancouver, Homeworks Services Inc, Pennzoil Quaker State US, NAPA Canada and DDB Canada.

Could you briefly describe Yahoo’s latest display ad product?

October 17: Well, what Yahoo is trying to tap into is the fact that display advertising has traditionally not been very accessible to small business. To run banner display advertising, you required a large budget and a web design team on hand to develop the ad creative.

With Yahoo My Display Ads, you have 800 templates from which to choose to develop your banner ad. Once you have created your banner ads, you’re set and can then run them across the Yahoo network. You can do all of this yourself, using Yahoo’s basic platform.

Is Yahoo display advertising any different from Google’s program?

October 17: Yahoo’s display advertising program is actually identical to Google, but with a few twists. You have added control in targeting because you can target your display ads geographically, demographically and within specific content network placements. You can also schedule ads to run at particular times of day.

Another interesting twist is that contrary to Google; Yahoo’s new display advertising is not linked to your Yahoo-sponsored search account. What this means is that you do not have to have a Yahoo-sponsored search account to advertise with the display ads.

How cost effective is Yahoo’s display advertising product for small businesses?

October 17: It is difficult to say at this stage what the potential ROI of this product is for a small business. There is a minimum budget of $30 per day, which is lower than the costs associated with traditional display advertising, but at the same time, $30 a day roughly equates to a minimum spend $900 a month. For a small- to medium-sized business, this could fall out of the budget they have allocated to online marketing.

What is the pricing model? Is it the traditional display advertising cost-per-impression (CPM) model?

October 17: Actually, there are two pricing models. Yes, there is the traditional CPM model, but probably the better option is the cost-per-click (CPC) model just like in regular Yahoo search marketing.

Why do you say the CPC model is better than the CPM model?

October 17: Well, I don’t entirely see why people would want to pay for searchers to simply see their ads. Certainly, the CPM model may have its benefits from a brand building perspective, but even if a searcher does not notice your ad on the page where it is displayed, you will be charged for the impression.
A click on the other hand, as in the CPC model, indicates a higher level of searcher interest and intent if they make the effort to click on your ad.

How easy is it to manage the creative aspect of Yahoo’s display advertising?

October 17: Yahoo’s solution to managing the creative aspect of the display banner ads is actually pretty cool. You can choose from different business categories and Yahoo will provide you with various display ad design templates that you can quite easily edit and customise to your business.

Another neat aspect is that Yahoo gives you the impression count and click-through-rate for each template. You can then choose your design based on the past performance of that template. Though, given Yahoo’s product is still in the pilot stage, this will probably become more useful over time as more data is collected.

What is your overall impression of Yahoo’s move into display advertising?

October 17: In general, I think the process is super easy! Anyone can create an ad with Yahoo’s templates and then customise it for their business with their own logo, images, information and ad copy. So people who are creatively challenged or previously could not afford to have banner ads professionally designed can now do it themselves.

Is there anything that you haven’t liked about Yahoo’s new product?

October 17: Overall, I’d say the solution is pretty neat. The only bad thing I noticed was with the budgeting. Whether I selected a CPC model or a CPM model, Yahoo recommended a minimum CPC / CPM based on my ads and the industries I targeted. If I tried to bid below that recommendation, Yahoo indicated that it was too low based on my targeting selections.

Based on this, the recommendation looks more like a requirement. If you choose more than one channel in Yahoo’s content network where you would like to display your banner ads, your cost-per-click could rise quite quickly.

Also, at the moment, Yahoo’s My Display Ads are currently only deployable within the US, but I look forward to the product becoming available in Canada so that we can give it a proper test run.

For more information on Yahoo’s My Display Ads or online marketing services, you can visit October 17.

Getting to know your PC

Posted April 27, 2009 | Posted By Rick Sloboda
Categories: Business & marketing | 1 Comment | Share This

 

For the average Joe, a close look at a PC reveals a frightingly complex string circuitry, wires and computer chips. But Chad Rushka of TSG Computer Services, says: “You need not be scared anymore.”

To help you overcome your fear of looking a little closer at your PC, and perhaps getting your hands a little dirty, Rushka offers the following advice and guidelines:

Your computer is running really slow and taking forever to start, or open programs.

Your first steps should be to take care of the obvious.
(The steps outlined below are for Windows XP)

Take a look at your system tray, which is located at the bottom-right hand corner of your screen with all the icons in it. The icons showing in the system tray represent all the third-party programs running in the background. These programs are using precious system resources that would otherwise be available for other applications.
Browse through these icons, and determine which programs are necessary and which ones are not.

Typically, programs that you haven’t used in a while, or maybe used a couple of times in the past, would be considered candidates for removal.

Hint: Norton’s AntiVirus Software is known to use approximately 30% of your system resources. Indeed, 30% is a HUGE percentage!

TSG Computer Services recommends using AVG or AntiVir over Norton. Both are noted to be excellent, have a small footprint, and come with free versions available for Personal Use.

•    Update your AntiVirus Software and run a Virus Scan on your computer. You might have to run the VirusScan from “Safe Mode” if you run into Malware that is difficult to remove. “Safe Mode” is achieved by rapidly pressing the F8 key on system startup prior to seeing the Windows splash screen.

•    Make sure Windows is set to manage your Virtual Memory on your Computer.

Some people set their Virtual Memory to a predefined size. This prevents Windows from increasing and decreasing the size of your Virtual Memory as it sees fit.

To set your computer so that Windows maintains control of your Virtual Memory, follow the instructions listed below.
1.    right click on “My Computer” and click properties
2.    click on the “advanced” tab
3.    click on the “settings” button under the performance section
4.    click on the “advanced” tab again
5.    click on “change” in the Virtual Memory section
6.    highlight C Drive (your system drive), and select “System Managed Size”, if it isn’t selected already
7.    click “set” and then “ok”
8.    click apply and/or ok to work your way back out.
9.    You may have to restart your system for the changed to take effect.

•    Remove programs from your computer that you no longer use. These programs take up space in your registry as well as your Hard Drive. If you don’t use them, you should get rid of them.

You can accomplish this by:
1.    going to your “Control Panel”
2.    select “Add/Remove Programs”
3.    go through the programs listed on your computer and determine which programs are not needed.
4.    remove these programs.

•    The next program we are going to use is called “SPYBOT Search & Destroy”. We are going download it, install it, run it, then uninstall it again. This is because even though the program itself is one of the best at removing SpyWare, it has a tendancy to use a substantial amount of system resources as well.

1.    go to http://www.safer-networking.org/en/ownmirrors1/index.html and download the program.
2.    when the option is presented, select “open”, instead of save.
3.    follow the installation instructions. Make sure “tea-timer” is selected when you get to that portion of the setup routine.
4.    launch the program “SpyBot Search & Destroy”
5.    watch and follow SpyBot tutorial
6.    shut down SpyBot.
7.    go to your “Control Panel”
8.    select “Add/Remove Programs”
9.    remove SpyBot.

•    The next program we are going to use is called “Glary Utilities”. We are going download it, install it, run it and keep it. We will use again many times.

1.    go to this site and download the program.
2.    when the option is presented, select “open”, instead of save.
3.    read and follow the installation instructions carefully. It will ask you if you would like to install the “ask toolbar”. Un-check  the box next to this.
4.    click “Scan for Issues”.
5.    click “Repair Problems”.
6.    Close Glary Utilities, and restart your system.
7.    You should run Glary Utilities once a month.

•    Run Disk Cleanup. Disk Cleanup is located under:
>>START >>Programs >>Accessories >>System Tools

•    Run Disk Defragmenter. Disk Defragmenter is located under:
>>START >>Programs >>Accessories >>System Tools

•    Run Glary Utilities once more, and again restart your system.

To recap, speeding up your computer system doesn’t have to be a daunting task. As demonstrated, by running a few programs and changing some settings, you can literally bring a computer back to life.

TSG Computer Services is a Richmond, BC-based computer maintenance and IT tech support firm that serves Greater Vancouver.