How to Successfully Measure Customer Satisfaction Using Sophisticated Yet Uncomplicated Tech8/13/2019 Niraj Ranjan Rout is the co-founder and CEO of Hiver, a company that helps teams manage email efficiently. As an entrepreneur, Niraj is active in writing code, solving hard tech problems, hiring and motivating people to build great products which can solve real user problems.
Determining customer satisfaction is a crucial function for companies. Retaining customers can increase profitability: according to research done by Bain & Company, increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by more than 25%. But, are businesses doing enough to encourage customer feedback? The average company only hears from 4% of its dissatisfied customers, which means most companies aren’t hearing from the large majority who aren’t complaining. Measuring customer satisfaction and collecting feedback is important, and luckily, it’s not very difficult. There is a wide range of tools available to measure your company’s customer satisfaction including emails, reviews, surveys and more. However, these tools should be used in specific ways. For example, sending a survey to a disgruntled customer will only make things worse, and a phone call will work better in this instance. Also Read: How to Use Omnichannel Marketing and Customer Engagement to Enhance Restaurant Marketing Here are the best methods for collecting customer feedback, and their specific use cases: 1. Long form-based email surveys One easy way to collect feedback is to create a survey form with a set of questions, sent via email. The best time to use this approach is when a company wants detailed inputs, such as feedback on a new feature, or suggestions to improve a product. Companies should only send surveys like this to engaged users--friendly customers or users that companies have worked closely with in the past. These are the people who are most likely to take the time to provide feedback. These surveys should not ask too many questions, because the more questions respondents are asked, the more likely respondents will “speed” through the survey. This will affect the quality and reliability of their data. These surveys should ask open-ended questions, as opposed to multiple-choice questions which can give a company answers based on their own assumptions. An example of an open-ended question could be: “What could be improved in the product?” Have respondents start the survey on a positive note, by asking what they currently like about a company’s product. 2. Short in-app surveys A company’s customers are often thinking about ways a product can work better for them. Perhaps parts of a solution are missing for their needs, or maybe the design could look a little better or maybe they have found something that is broken. More often than not, these customers don’t communicate this feedback — unless there is a big problem. That’s why it’s a good idea for companies to offer a survey to customers while they are using the product. The survey can be prompted the moment a user has finished interacting with a specific feature in the app, for example. The key is to keep this survey short. Users are in an app for a certain purpose, so companies should only make these surveys 2-3 questions at most. 3. Transactional emails These email companies can send to customers right after they’ve done something significant: filled in a form, upgraded to a new plan, and so on. Asking the right question in these emails can often garner helpful information about a customer journey. For example, businesses can ask users to rate their delivery right after they have delivered a product. Companies can send customers a quick one-liner question or a short multiple-choice question. The key is to gain insight at the right time without burdening them with too many questions. The peak-end rule indicates that sending a transactional email just after a customer has upgraded is a good idea Asking a question at that juncture would evoke positive feelings about the product and set them on the path to loyalty. Also Read: How to Bring the Customer Journey to Life? 4. Net Promoter Score Surveys A Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a technology solution which asks the simplest question a company can and should ask its customers: “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague, on a scale of 0-10?” The greatest advantage of NPS is the simplicity and ease of use. It can be set up in minutes and is easily understood by everyone in an organization. It also makes it very easy for companies to compare themselves with the NPS standard in their own industry. Once companies have collected feedback, it’s a good idea to let customers know they have been heard. By KAT THOMPSON Despite nearly 20 years of attempting to scrub Baha Men from the collective consciousness, the question of “who let the dogs out?” is especially relevant in 2019, where dog ownership in America is at an all-time high. At the end of 2016, the American Veterinary Medical Association found that nearly 58% of all American households have a dog -- the highest rate of dog ownership since the association began collecting data in 1982. And with the increase of our furry friends comes the increase of dog-related businesses -- pet costumes, dog carriers and harnesses, and of course, food. According to Forbes, dog-themed retailers are now a $72.1 billion dollar industry. And now dogs are getting in on our collective restaurant obsession. It began simply enough: bars, restaurants, and breweries opened their doors for furry friends to have a seat at the table (or at least at the outdoor patio where they can dine alongside their owners). But as the popularity of pets grew in an era where millennials prioritize having pets over kids due to the rising costs of living, many of these establishments recognized an opportunity to cater more to the dog-friendly crowds: by offering menus specifically crafted for four-legged companions. Now at dinner or dessert, Fido doesn’t have to be left out while sitting under the table -- but can instead be gnawing on his own restaurant-provided treat. One of these establishments is West-coast born chain Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar, which now has over 30 locations across California, Texas, Nevada, Colorado, Georgia, and Illinois. “In our early days at the first Lazy Dog, we had one of our guests arrive with their dog while the health inspector happened to be in the restaurant,” Lazy Dog’s chief marketing officer, John Williams, recalled. “We took the opportunity to get permission from the health department to serve the dog on the patio.” The dog-friendly patio took off, and Lazy Dog decided to incorporate a menu for the thousands of furry friends that would visit. That menu consists of grilled hamburger patties, grilled chicken, and brown rice -- all of which rings in at under $5 per plate, so your dog won’t go hungry as you dive into your own meal. For dog enthusiasts that have dessert on the mind, Sprinkles Cupcakes has a solution. At the 22 Sprinkles Cupcakes bakeries across the nation, consumers can get their pooches their very own "pupcakes" so both dog and humans can indulge in baked sweets. “When it comes to our best friends, what inspiration is more powerful than puppy-dog eyes?” posed Charles Craig, Sprinkles’ vice president of culinary. Since chocolate isn’t good for dogs, Craig dreamt up an alternative. The pupcake is sugar free and made from egg whites, buttermilk, vanilla, butter, and salt and topped with a yogurt frosting. “The pupcake allows you to share your Sprinkles moment with your whole pack.” For humans that don’t want to be confined to sweet or savory food, burger behemoth Shake Shack also offers some perks for pups in both categories. “When we opened up our first Shack in Madison Square Park, so many of our guests showed up after taking their pets to the park’s dog run that we thought it would only be good hospitality to offer something to our four-legged friends as well,” explained Mark Rosati, Shake Shack’s culinary director. From there, the Pooch-ini was born: a frozen vanilla custard that features peanut butter sauce and dog biscuits. It was such a hit -- especially the dog biscuits -- that Shake Shack partnered up with Bocce’s Bakery, a small-batch bakery that uses organic ingredients to make dog treats, to develop their ShackBurger biscuit and Bag of Bones menu item. The ingredients are all-natural and “human-grade” --they even including beef from Shack’s butcher in New York City. So even though they’re intended for your dog, you could arguably munch on them, too. (And in case you were wondering, yes, Rosati admitted to tasting every version developed himself.) Grand Central Market LA Though these large chain restaurants have found ways to cater to pooches, small ma & pop shops are opening their doors to dogs, too, and they aren’t limited to coastal enclaves. There’s Banger’s Sausage House and Beer Garden in Austin, The Watering Bowl in Denver, and Barrio in Chicago. The list goes on and on.
At Ollie’s Ice Cream + Stuff, a recently opened ice cream parlor in Brooklyn, New York, dogs and humans can get a scoop side by side. The idea came to owner Eric Kyriakopoulos upon realizing his neighborhood contained an abundance of bars and restaurants, but lacked dessert shops. As a bartender himself, Kyriakopoulos had dreams of opening up his own establishment -- but claims that ice cream kind of “fell into [his] lap” after constantly frequenting grocery stores to buy pint after pint of ice cream when craving something sweet. “I really think we were just eating ice cream all day. And then the dog angle basically came from… fostering dogs.” Kyriakopoulos, alongside his girlfriend Isabel Klee -- who is a project manager for the massively popular humans-of-New York-style platform, The Dogist -- had fostered several dogs before adopting their own rescue, Simon (who is also wildly popular in his own right and can be considered Instagram famous, with nearly 60,000 followers). “We [fostered] some that had been severely abused; one didn’t even know how to play with toys. We had a couple of dogs that didn’t even enjoy treats or peanut butter, so one day we just looked up how to do alternative snacks for dogs. I came across dog-friendly ice cream and summer treats and then we put our own spin on it.” The dog ice cream at Ollie’s clocks in at $2.50 per cup and is scooped separate from the human ice cream, so no need to worry about cross contamination -- not that there’s much to worry about because the ice cream is dairy-free and made from a blend of frozen bananas, organic peanut butter, and either pureed pumpkin or sweet potato. There are eight human flavors to choose from, too, so your dog won’t be the only one indulging. “I always wanted a dog named Ollie,” Kyriakopoulos explained, but none of the dogs he had growing up really fit the name -- nor did Simon. “When I met my girlfriend a couple years ago, she was showing me a list of names that she would want her dog to be named. And at the top of the list, Ollie was right there.” So even though Kyriakopoulos has yet to have a dog named Ollie, there’s satisfaction in knowing he’s the proud owner of Ollie’s Ice Cream + Stuff, where his frozen treats can put a smile on the faces of humans and dogs alike. Other restaurants go the extra mile by not only providing dog-specific menus, but also giving fostered mutts a shot at a permanent home. Fido’s Tap House in Tigard, Oregon, a suburb of dog-obsessed Portland, offers humans and dogs brews and bites while providing a space for rescued pups to roam free and possibly find their forever homes with one of the bar’s patrons. Dogs, brews, and food -- it’s a match made in heaven (where all dogs go) and seems like the next logical step as pet culture crosses over into the food world. This is a bar where you can have a couple drinks and take home a lifelong pet (or at least the paperwork for one) rather than a random hookup. And as more and more bars and restaurants cater to dogs and their best friends, it seems like a glimpse into the future of a trend that will continue to grow. BY ASHLEY DAVIDSON A growing chance Influencer marketing is a multibillion-dollar industry and is expected to reach between $5 billion and $10 billion in 2022. Despite all the questions around authenticity and transparency, it’s clear influencer marketing isn’t a passing fad—but rather an effective strategy to engage customers in visual and relatable ways.Influencer marketing is a multibillion-dollar industry and is expected to reach between $5 billion and $10 billion in 2022. Despite all the questions around authenticity and transparency, it’s clear influencer marketing isn’t a passing fad—but rather an effective strategy to engage customers in visual and relatable ways. Local restaurants often leverage hometown social media celebrities with a vast reach to drive more traffic to their restaurants, entice already loyal fans to come back for more, or to raise awareness around a new restaurant opening. It’s something many restaurant operators know they should be doing, but they’re not sure how to get started. While it can be time-consuming, influencer marketing can be mastered and has proven to be worth the effort for countless brands. Here are six steps to engaging social media influencers for your restaurant. Nail down the marketing idea An important first step is for operators (or a general manager, marketing manager, etc.) to identify what exactly they’re going to ask influencers to do. Ultimately, that will determine who they reach out to to participate in the campaign. In the restaurant space, we often invite influencers into the store for a menu tasting, focusing on new items or limited-time offers that we want to promote. Other times, we send them branded swag and retail items to use at home. Identify the goal and then build the marketing idea around that, then move forward identifying the influencers that will be a fit for that specific campaign. Identify the best influencers for the campaign While many larger companies and PR agencies will have access to a subscription-based influencer database such as HYPR, research conducted via Instagram and Google can go a long way. Search various hashtags on social media to see who is already posting content that is relevant to your restaurant or search Google for food bloggers in the specific city you want to target. The point is to really dig into who might make a great partner. Review the last several months of content and put yourself in their shoes. Are they likely to participate in the campaign? Does it align with the personal brand they’ve built or will it seem out of place? Also click on the “likes” and comments to see if the followers engaging with the content seem like real accounts. If the restaurant has its own social media account, pay attention to who is tagging it, as you may already have a fan of the brand that is likely to say yes when asked to be a partner. Present the partnership opportunity Many influencers will have their contact information listed on their social media profile, blog, or website, as they welcome partnership inquiries. In the initial outreach, be sure to clearly explain the marketing idea, why this particular influencer was selected to participate in the campaign, and how it relates to their readers. Emphasize that you’re open to tailoring the idea to better fit their followers, if needed, to show you have some flexibility and value the relationship. It should be mutually beneficial. Negotiate rates or exchanges Do not feel pressured to jump right into payment details and exchanges. Most times, influencers will come back with their fees or, if they’re simply a fan of the brand, offer to post in exchange for a menu tasting or gift card. Others will ask what has been budgeted for payment. Once they do, it’s then time to negotiate. Operators should work within their budget. We’ve found some influencers are willing to lower their fees if we share how much the brand can pay in addition to whatever it’s already supplying. (For example, “In addition to the menu tasting and gift card, we are able to offer an additional $200 for the partnership.”) Additionally, an influencer may be willing to lower their fees if they see an opportunity for an ongoing partnership. Ensure content is genuine One of the most important things to stress is that the influencer has creative freedom. Operators should provide as much guidance as possible, including message points or sample posts, but leave the photography and copywriting up to them. Otherwise, the influencer risks posting content that isn’t genuine and they could lose followers’ trust, which ultimately results in a lack of engagement. Have a contract
It may seem like overkill, but having a contract in place will ensure influencers don’t “dine and dash.” Every brand has likely had at least one influencer that has promised to post and then goes MIA. Or they post and then delete it a few days later. Your contract should clearly set expectations, including payment, date they need to post by, and any required hashtags or accounts they should tag. Another common clause is to include that they cannot work with a competitor for 30 days. Engage a lawyer to help develop the contract. Ashley Davidson is Senior Director, Media & Industry Relations, at Fish Consulting, a national public relations agency specializing in franchising. David Murphy Generally speaking, restaurant phone numbers you find on Yelp are the entity’s actual, real-world phone number. But there’s also a way to dial the wrong number for a restaurant, which connects you through Grubhub and allows the company to claim referral fee for anything you might then order. You’ll find this confusing setup when you pull up a particular restaurant on Yelp and tap the “Call” section on the restaurant’s page. Normally, this connects you right to the restaurant. However, if you get a pop-up that asks you whether you want to call the restaurant for “Delivery or Takeout” or “General Questions,” the confusion begins. Screenshot: David Murphy As Vice reports, each “call” button you can tap is actually a different number, a fact you can check yourself if you tap each and look at what you’re about to dial. The entry for “Delivery or Takeout” is a Grubhub-owned number, which ultimately redirects you to the restaurant in question. The “General Questions” number will take you to the actual restaurant—and, yes, you’ll still be able to place an order. You won’t be limited to questions. One of these things is not like the other. Screenshot: David Murphy Why the confusion? Because when you go through the Grubhub “Delivery or Takeout” option, Grubhub can then claim the referral and take a “marketing cut” based on your order. Are they doing any actual work? No. They just own the phone number that’s routing you to the restaurant in question. It’s a scam—one that affects your favorite restaurant more than you, since they’ll be the ones giving the cut to Yelp partner Grubhub. Here’s what a Grubhub spokesperson had to say about the setup, when asked by Vice to explain what was happening: “It is important to keep in mind that we are a marketing platform and, in almost all of these cases, the diner would not have discovered or placed an order with this restaurant without our platform. The order is the result of our marketing efforts.” Right. Grubhub isn’t even taking a commission based on a percentage of the actual phone order itself. All it can do is scan the calls to determine whether an order was placed; it then takes a commission based on the average of a restaurant’s “last six non-phone orders,” Vice describes. Does this sound like a mess? Absolutely. If you want to make sure you’re giving your favorite restaurant your full financial support, make sure you’re calling them directly. And if you’re not sure, have then confirm their phone number with you. If that’s not what you dialed, hang up and try them directly—not directly vis-à-vis Grubhub.
By Eric Danetz, global chief revenue officer, AccuWeather
The rain starts coming down in sheets, or the air reaches 100 degrees in the shade, and suddenly your customers don’t want to leave their homes. It’s a normal reaction because weather affects buying behavior. In fact, it directly affects sales for all products and services. Consider the restaurant industry, and particularly dining out. It probably comes as no surprise that fewer people go out to eat in rainy weather or when temperatures hit extreme levels. But did you know that fluctuations in precipitation and temperature significantly impact foot traffic to dining establishments as well? With a detailed understanding of the specific impacts weather will have, restaurants can more easily predict consumers’ future habits, and adjust marketing messages to create more targeted, personalized and effective ads. To quantify how the weather impacts consumer behavior specifically related to dining out, AccuWeather and Foursquare recently collaborated on a study that combined historical weather data from the companies'proprietary foot traffic panel of 13 million always-on U.S. users. The results — focused specifically on dining patterns in New York City, Atlanta and Chicago — provide restaurant marketers with actionable insights they can leverage in weather-triggered marketing campaigns that have the potential to yield significantly higher engagement and conversions. Here are some key insights from the report. The amount of precipitation—and the city—matter It’s not uncommon for rain to keep patrons away, but variations by city should be considered. According to the report, while restaurants overall saw a 2% decrease in foot traffic with light rain (less than 0.5") on average, restaurants in New York City actually experienced a 2%increase! When heavy rainfall (more than 0.5") was forecast, however, restaurants on average saw a decrease in foot traffic of 10%, but New York City establishments saw a bigger decrease of 13 percent. Heat waves bring cravings On average, restaurants experience a decrease in foot traffic on unusually hot days (over 77.9 degrees in New York City and Chicago or over 81.6 degrees in Atlanta). However, restaurants with specific cuisines actually experienced an increase in traffic on warmer days. For example, BBQ and seafood restaurants saw increases in foot traffic of 10.1 percent and 6.2 percent respectively. Not surprisingly, ice cream shops also saw a significant increase—9.6 percent—on unusually hot days as well. Knowing how patrons in certain cities will react to fluctuations in weather is invaluable information for marketers. By incorporating this information into dynamic and data-driven campaigns, restaurant marketers have the ability to create geo-targeted offers and advertisements that pinpoint potential patrons at the precise time they are deciding whether to eat in or dine out. Today, with insights like these, weather can no longer be used as an excuse for not meeting marketing or sales goals. Instead, it has become a powerful tool that sophisticated marketers use to generate real results, and significant bottom-line impacts. (Credit: Linqia )
AUTHOR Robert Williams Brief: McDonald's boosted store traffic by 23% — or 540,000 incremental visits — with a social influencer campaign aimed at raising awareness of its Halloween-themed sweepstakes. The burger chain also generated 98% positive sentiment with the effort around its "Trick.Treat.Win!" giveaway that ran Oct. 5-31, per a case study by influencer marketing company Linqia. McDonald's partnered with 20 African-American influencers between the ages of 18 and 35 during a four-week period to promote the sweepstakes. The influencers shared one long-form blog post and multiple posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Linqia then selected top-performing organic content and boosted its distribution in social and display advertising. Those posts spurred 82,400 engagements. To determine the results of the influencer campaign, Linqia partnered with location tracking firm Placed to record where people who had been exposed to an influencer post later visited a McDonald's restaurant. Insight: McDonald's last year was the most visible brand on Twitter and Instagram, per a study of user photos posted on the social media platforms. Its positive results from its social media campaign for "Trick.Treat.Win!" parlayed that brand strength and showed how influencers can cut through ad clutter, reach target audiences and shift consumer behavior. A key part of the campaign was the distribution of organic content created by influencers in social and display ads. "It's much more successful for us to take a part of our budget for the campaign and make sure we have paid social support for the influencer content," Joe Piaskowy, social engagement manager at McDonald's, said in the case study. "If we whitelist the influencer content, it does far better than us re-posting it." SPONSORED BY MANTHAN Why do restaurant marketers need a Customer Data Platform? Personalized engagement is now the standard in restaurant industry. Getting the customer data foundation right, however can be tricky. Get started with this handbook. Download Now Sponsored influencer posts tend to generate higher engagement than non-sponsored posts. That's likely because influencers put more effort into creating high-quality posts when they're sponsored and because Instagram's algorithms give higher precedence to sponsored content, per a study by analytics firm InfluencerDB. However, the firm also found that engagement rates for Instagram influencers this year fell to all-time lows as the Facebook-owned app grows crowded with sponsored posts. The engagement rate for sponsored posts fell to 2.4% in Q1 2019 from 4% three years earlier, while the rate for non-sponsored posts slid to 1.9% from 4.5% for the comparable periods, per its study. The findings suggest that marketers must be selective about which influencer posts they sponsor. The McDonald's influencer campaign for "Trick.Treat.Win!" also is notable for using the location data of mobile users to measure results. Location data play a key role in omnichannel sales with 70% of marketers using a mobile-first strategy for customer engagement, per a survey by marketing tech firm Blis. Location tracking has become controversial, with cities and states stepping up enforcement of privacy regulations. Banning the sale of location data of mobile users eliminates a source of revenue for telecommunications companies and apps that collect the information. Promotional efforts like these have helped McDonald's to boost U.S. same-store sales by 5.7% in Q2 from a year earlier, beating analyst estimates of 4.5% growth. The restaurant chain attributed the growth to successful promotions like its "2 for $5 Mix and Match" deal and positive effects from its tech-focused renovations, CNBC reported. McDonald's this year bought machine learning company Dynamic Yield, and is adding its technology to drive-thru menus to offer items based on weather and time of day. The customized options led to a jump in average check size at 700 U.S. drive-thru locations where the technology was installed, McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook said in a conference call with analysts. Rich Fury/Getty Images for Coachella Your Instagram Stories might not be as temporary as you think they are. On Wednesday, Business Insider revealed that a company you've probably never heard of has been quietly scraping millions of Instagram users' data, including saving their Stories. The revelation is a stark reminder that the things you post publicly on social networks can be misappropriated and stored by strangers indefinitely, regardless of your intentions. So what happened? Hyp3r, a marketing firm from San Francisco, has been illicitly pulling data from the Facebook-owned app and website about its users. It has "geofenced" thousands of locations around the world — bars, restaurants, hotels, stadiums, gyms, and so on — and then systematically saved all public posts from these locations, as well as information about the people posting there. This even includes Instagram Stories — a format of post for images and videos that are supposed to automatically disappear after 24 hours. Instead, they were hoovered by Hyp3r and then used to assemble intimate pictures of people's movements, their habits, and the businesses they frequent. Does this mean your Instagram Stories were affected? It's possible. But it's important to note that only Stories that were posted from and tagged with a specific location — for example, if you took a selfie and tagged your favorite restaurant — were captured by Hyp3r. The firm zeroed in on specific locations and harvested all the Instagram Stories emanating from there, but it was not tapping into the overall firehose of Stories that get shared on Instagram. And of course, this only applies to Stories that were shared publicly. If your account is set to private, you don't have to worry. Sources told Business Insider that Hyp3r sucks up in excess of 1 million Instagram posts a month. It's not clear what proportion of those are traditional posts versus Stories. On Thursday the Irish Data Protection Commission told Business Insider it was looking into the issue to determine whether any EU subjects were affected — a possibility that seems very likely, according to Business Insider's sources. What do Instagram and Hyp3r say? The data scrapping violates Instagram's policies, but Instagram didn't notice for a year (until Business Insider informed the company). Instead, it actually lauded Hyp3r as a "Facebook Marketing Partner," even as Hyp3r took advantage of a vulnerability in Instagram's systems that made accessing this data easier. Hyp3r meanwhile, has denied wrongdoing, arguing that all the data was public and legitimately accessed, and that it believes it abides by all relevant privacy laws and social network terms of service. Instagram has disagreed, accusing Hyp3r of violating its rules, and has kicked the company off its platform and issued it with a cease and desist. But Hyp3r is almost certainly not the only organization out there using technology to quietly scrape people's social networking activity and creating a detailed profiles of people. The fact that Instagram wasn't able to detect and prevent this kind of automated scrapping is an embarrassing failing on its part. In short, the revelations highlight how Instagram and Facebook are still struggling to protect users' data, more than a year after it was rocked by the Cambridge Analytica scandal. And it demonstrates that posts people make with the understanding they are ephemeral may, unbeknownst to them, be quietly collected by companies and put to uses that they never imagined. Got a tip? Contact this reporter via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (650) 636-6268 using a non-work phone, email at rprice@businessinsider.com, Telegram or WeChat at robaeprice, or Twitter DM at @robaeprice. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop. Read more: Mark Zuckerberg's personal security chief accused of sexual harassment and making racist remarks about Priscilla Chan by 2 former staffers Facebook says it 'unintentionally uploaded' 1.5 million people's email contacts without their consent Years of Mark Zuckerberg's old Facebook posts have vanished. The company says it 'mistakenly deleted' them. Car-bomb fears and stolen prototypes: Inside Facebook's efforts to protect its 80,000 workers around the globe NOW WATCH: Ivanka Trump's Instagram put her at the center of a controversy over her lavish art collection By Jeff Shuford More Content Now
Are you tired of lackluster sales? Frustrated with walk-in customers who never buy? It might be time to up your marketing game is you want to increase your small business’ sales rate. Before you start saying “But I can’t afford to advertise,” be aware, it is possible to market your small business without spending a dime on advertising. If you want help learning how to market your company for free, try the following small business marketing hacks to increase your annual sales. Become a forum lurker Forum posting is an excellent way to attract new customers to your small business. Find forums where potential customers are having online conversations (use BoardReader.com) and then become a significant part of those conversations. Make sure your bio contains a link to your small business’ website. The more helpful you are with your forum posts (don’t openly promote your business), the likelier it is forum users will check out your company. Start a small business blog Blogging is another superb way to attract potential shoppers to your small business. If you don’t want to start your blog, consider creating a custom publication on Medium.com. You can group your blog posts on a Medium publication and can potentially connect with Medium’s massive user base. While a blog on your site is incredible for SEO (search engine optimization), Medium posts often have a much greater reach. Be sure to advertise your blog posts on social media platforms for maximum distribution. YouTube for the win YouTube marketing is a must-use tool for small business owners wanting to increase sales. Using YouTube for video marketing lets you showcase your products and services to the world while boosting your SEO at the same time. Create engaging videos with your smartphone, upload your video content to YouTube, and add keywords to maximize your discovery potential. Share your YouTube videos on social media, and you’ll be surprised how quickly you start to build a video marketing audience. These are a few of many ways small business owners can promote their companies for free. You needn’t have a big budget or massive amounts of cash to spend on advertising if you want to grow your company. It would be best if you had the willingness to put in the effort, the desire to be creative, and the ability to think like a growth hacker. The more effort you put into using free marketing methods, the sooner you’ll start to attract new customers to your small business. Jeff Shuford is president of Tech From Vets, an award winning veteran-owned technology company. Tech From Vets merges NFL veterans and military veterans in the tech industry and develops innovative websites and mobile applications for their clients nationwide. Holistic marketing refers to a marketing strategy that considers the whole of a business. And all the different marketing channels as a system. Under a this approach, a business with different departments comes together. As a result, departments collaborate in interconnected marketing activities.
Holistic marketing creates a united and positive business image. So it encourages customers to purchase a business’s products or services rather than going to a competitor. Do you own a small business or are you thinking about starting one. Then this strategy can increase efficiency and provide opportunities for growth. Take a look what holistic marketing is. And decide whether your small business should use it. What is Holistic Marketing? Holistic marketing considers a business and all its parts. It sees a business as one entirety. As a result, it gives a shared aim and purpose for each activity within a business. And to everyone related to it. It thinks about a business’s place in the wider society. For example where does a business fit into the broader economy. And how does it impact the lives of its customers. Think of the human body that can only function when all parts are working together. In the same way, holistic marketing understands all the different parts of a business need to work together to operate at its optimum. Consequently, this approach drives towards the alignment of your business’s processes, services, systems and customer touch points. This creates a consistent and seamless customer experience on multiple channels. Principle Components of Holistic Marketing There are four main components within a holistic marketing model, each of which plays an important role in bringing everything together for a business. Internal Marketing Internal marketing refers to the internal management of system, the marketing department and the collaboration between the marketing department and other departments.What is Holistic Marketing? Holistic marketing considers a business and all its parts. It sees a business as one entirety. As a result, it gives a shared aim and purpose for each activity within a business. And to everyone related to it. It thinks about a business’s place in the wider society. For example where does a business fit into the broader economy. And how does it impact the lives of its customers. Think of the human body that can only function when all parts are working together. In the same way, holistic marketing understands all the different parts of a business need to work together to operate at its optimum. Consequently, this approach drives towards the alignment of your business’s processes, services, systems and customer touch points. This creates a consistent and seamless customer experience on multiple channels. Principle Components of Holistic Marketing There are four main components within a holistic marketing model, each of which plays an important role in bringing everything together for a business. Internal Marketing Internal marketing refers to the internal management of system, the marketing department and the collaboration between the marketing department and other departments. Integrated Marketing Integrated marketing involves the pricing strategy, product strategy, placing strategy, promotion strategy and communication strategy. Performance Marketing Performance marketing is focused on different business activities, such as how to sell a product, brand and customer equity, and the ethical and legal responsibilities a business and product upholds. Relationship Marketing Relationship marketing is centered on the relationship you have with your customers, employees, partners and competitors. By considering these four different principle components, holistic marketing allows you to create a comprehensive business plan that covers the whole business system. Examples of Holistic Marketing Apple is one example of a company that successfully uses holistic marketing. Everything from how the products are developed with the customer in mind, to the stores being branded in a recognizable fashion, to the customer service being extremely quick, efficient and polite, Apple could be considered a master in using this strategy. Heineken is another example of a brand that used this approach to successfully reinvent its image. Rather than focusing on the beer, Heineken centered its marketing efforts around four themes – engagement, exposure, interaction and relationships, including promoting its eco-friendly approach to brewing beer. Small Businesses and Holistic Marketing Taking a comprehensive, holistic approach to marketing that incorporates every aspect of a business and everyone in it, is all very well if you’re a globally-recognized brand with an endless marketing budget, but will this type of marketing work for your small business? The good news is that this strategy needn’t be as expensive as you think and can offer great returns on investment. Rather than solely focusing on one aspect of marketing for your business, such as giving a social media campaign a boost, holistic marketing considers everything, from improving customer service to rethinking your pricing strategy. Re-evaluating the whole of your business doesn’t need to cost the earth and can bring back good returns on investment quickly. Benefits of Holistic Marketing Creates cohesiveness Rather than presenting diverging and conflicting information in different areas of your brand, holistic marketing brings your brand effectively ‘under one roof,’ presenting greater consistency and cohesiveness for your customers, even if you’re a small business. Garners Good Results Holistic marketing makes a brand more consistent and cohesive across all aspects, marketing channels and messages. As a result, holistic marketing can help your small business get more out of its marketing efforts. All businesses possess different features which must be assessed and evaluated. It doesn’t matter how big or small they are. So, businesses need a holistic marketing approach. Include the different systems, services, processes and customer touch points. The process can prove advantageous to small businesses as well as larger companies. |
Marcus Guiliano
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March 2020
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