Archive for Communication
Marketing Monday - Twist on reminder letters
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Unfortunately, my kids have inherited both mine and my mothers teeth, meaning we have been spending quite a bit of time sitting in the dentist office lately. My mother has also been receiving reminder letters from her dentist. These reminder letters are typed up & printed on letterhead to remind her that she needs to make a follow up appointment.
This all got me thinking. One of Brenda Thomson’s favourite strategic alliance story is about a dentist and a masseur. I won’t tell the whole story here, but if you want to find out more, check out her site. In a nutshell, the masseur made the return visits a lot more attractive.
For children, the dentist can be a scary place. Can you imagine what would happen if the dentist teamed up with someone who created letters from the tooth fairy and sent reminder letters from the tooth fairy?
Keeping this in mind, if you need to send out reminder letters, is there a creative way you can send them out? For many of us, this may not be relevant, however if you find you send reminder letters and they aren’t getting results, think outside the square.
I know that if my kids received a letter from the tooth fairy suggesting a check up so their teeth would be perfect when it came time to collect them, they would be hassling me to make an appointment for them.
Do you have a creative way to send reminder letters to your clients?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyE-mail doesn’t always work…
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Email isn't always the best form of communication
Recently I changed the way people can get a newsletter from my business. Now, they can either get it via email or in the post. A number of people questioned this and the answer is simple - not everyone wants to get an email newsletter, some people prefer something in the post, and others simply don’t sit on the computer as much as we do.
I run a number of workshops and events - one is tonight - and I sent invitations to my database via email. Looking at the statistics, less than a quarter of the people I was inviting opened the email, and even less clicked on the link to book or for more information.
Thinking about my own habits, I often receive an email newsletter and leave it marked unread until I have the chance to go back and read it… and sometimes it stays unread until I delete it to clear out my inbox.
So, what have I learned from this?
Simple, communicating with your customers solely via email doesn’t always work.
It’s helpful to communicate via a number of methods, both online and offline. This could include sending something in the mail and picking up the telephone.
What am I going to do next time?
Next time I run an event, I plan to send a postcard or invitation to my database as well as send them an invitation via email, Facebook and other places they hang out.
How do you communicate with your customers? Is it solely via email, or do you have other strategies as well?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyIt has to suit YOU!
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Choose a date that suits you!
One issue with social media is you can be too accessible to your customers and their thoughts.
I recently saw some posts on Facebook from a number of different people trying to find a date for a chat and/or an online party plan style sale. The gist of the posts were trying to find a date that suited everyone. It seemed that every customer had an opinion in the date and time, leaving the poor business owner in a tizzy because she was having trouble choosing a date.
Whenever you are trying to choose a date for something, you will always find there are people who can’t come. You can’t please everyone. The best thing to do is make sure the date suits YOU!
It may be that an evening after the kids are in bed is best, or first thing in the morning. There will always be someone who can’t make it, that’s a fact of life.
The best thing to do is to have an alternative available. For example:
- If you are running a webinar, record it for those who can’t attend
- If you are having an online party, give customers the opportunity to order from a catalogue before hand
There will be some things, for example a market night, where you may not be able to offer an alternative that exactly matches what you are doing, however by having an online shop, people can still purchase from you.
One thing to keep in mind - it is your business, it has to suit you and your family.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyFriday Five - Location
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I look at many Facebook pages, websites and blogs, many of these have no indication of where they are located!
This week, I will give you five reasons to let people know where you are. I don’t necessarily mean to give an exact location, especially if you work from home and don’t want just anyone knowing where you live. In most cases a state and country is enough, or even something like “Melbourne, Victoria, Australia” if you want to narrow things down further.
- Buy local - there are many people who want to support a local business. This could be businesses in their direct local area or just in the same country as they are. If people have no idea where you are, they may move on to the next business.
- Postage - if you are an online store, postage may be cheaper if you are in the same country or state. Having a location on your Facebook page as well as your shop may help customers decide to buy from you as the postage costs won’t be as much as they would be if they were further away.
- Local information - one blog I read regularly has great business information and are located in the US. Because I know they are in the US, any information to do with tax or regulations I ignore because they don’t apply to us in Australia. The same with many recipe’s, metric and imperial measures are different. If you share information, it can help your readers to know where you are.
- Local Products - even with the Internet, there are some products that are only available in certain locations, or if you are the local distributor, it is helpful for people to know where you are. Another thing to consider is DVDs have different zones and something that is for zone 1 may not work in a DVD player in zone 6 (for example).
- Meet You - especially if you blog about markets or networking events, your readers and customers may want to meet you face to face. This is another place where it’s helpful to have a location. For example, if you say you will be at the local Farmer’s Market this Sunday, it is helpful to know where that market is. Also if you are travelling interstate to attend a certain event, let people know so customers know you aren’t in the same state all the time and to attend that event to meet you.
For me, the biggest thing about having a location is I love to support other Australian business mums, and I know there is a whole community of business mums out there who feel the same. At the very least, please put your country on your Facebook page, blog and website so we know where you are.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyWorld Colouring Day - May 6
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World Colouring Day - Tomorrow
I just found out that tomorrow is World Colouring Day. This is a fundraiser by Save the Kids foundation to raise money by sponsoring children to do some colouring in.
Other than being something fun to do with the kids, they have colouring sheets and resources parents and schools can use to get involved.
Why am I blogging about this here? Apart from the fact that business mums have children who may want to get involved, colouring sheets are also a great promotional tool for your business.
If you have a colouring sheet available, please add a comment so we can find them.
The other thing that I liked about their resources is everything was there ready to download, even a letter for the schools to print out and distribute to families. It’s even in a word format so the schools can easily edit it or put it on their letterhead.
Having everything ready so people can get involved is a great thing. It means that things are much easier and all the information is there at hand.
In your business, it could be as simple as adding an FAQ page to your website and every time you get a general question from a customer, add it to that page.
Are there any other ways to can add information to your site so everything is there ready for customers and clients to buy from you and get involved?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyHobby to Business - Where are you?
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Where are you?
Recently, I heard about a business that was making it hard for people to contact them. The only contact methods were a mobile phone number and an email contact form.
When turing your hobby to a business, include as many contact details as possible on your site. This includes:
- Postal Address
- Office Address
- Mobile phone number
- Landline phone number
- Fax number
- Email address
- Live help details
You may not have all of these, and there may be some you don’t want to give out. For example, I don’t include my mobile number anywhere. I don’t want to be contactable all the time and have one more as an emergency contact for my kids school.
In the same way, you may not want to put your home address on your site. In that case, invest in a PO Box and/or a virtual office so you have at least one address to put down.
By having additional contact details available, you come across as a legitimate business, rather than a hobbyist, and you’ll find that instantly people will trust you more, especially if they have been burned by a company they can’t contact.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyMarketing Monday - turning blog readers to newsletter subscribers
Posted by: | CommentsIf you have a lot of people reading your blog, and not many subscribing to your email newsletter, you may want to take a look at Kylie’s blog over at Tilda Virtual Services.
Kylie produces an email newsletter called Techno Update. When she knows it’s about to be sent out, she puts a post on her blog that looks a little bit like this. She lets her blog readers know her newsletter is coming an invites them to subscribe to her list.
So, in line with that, you may want to subscribe to the Business Mums Network or Business Mums Magazine email newsletter! It only takes a minute, and I’ll still be here when you get back.
Thursday Tips - Sales Emails
Posted by: | CommentsYet again, I’ve found a blog post that perfectly fits my Thursday Tips (can anyone spot a trend…).
Tash over at Word Constructions has posted a fantastic list of tips on writing your sales emails. The post ends with the advice of making sure your sales emails comply with the relevant spam laws.
So, if you’re writing sales emails, or even sales letters, check out the post on the Word Constructions blog.
Friday Five - Phone numbers
Posted by: | CommentsAs promised last week, here are five tips for your business phone number:
- Home Number - a lot of business mums start their business using their home number. This is a good option to have a landline, however it does make separating personal from business calls difficult, especially after hours.
- Dual number - many telecommunications companies have a service where you can get two numbers on the one phone line. Each number will have a different ring, depending on the number called, helping you work out which is the home number and which is a business number.
- VoIP phone - this is a cheaper option than getting a second phone line installed in your home, though you will need a fast broadband connection to run this. Even if you don’t have a fast Internet connection, a VoIP phone can be used as an answering service.
- Mobile Phone - if you have a mobile phone, this could be a good option for a phone number, though there are still some people who prefer landlines. One advantage is you can switch your phone off after hours and on weekends!
- Serviced/virtual Office - this can be expensive, however if you want a professional phone answering service, this is a good way to go as most serviced/virtual offices offer a phone answering service as well as a mail box service.
Whatever option you choose, it is vital to have some sort of phone number for clients and potential clients to contact you. If you have set office hours, make sure you turn your phone to voicemail to help you separate home from work.
