Category Archives: Business Thoughts

The 7 Step Guide to Managing Negative Customer Feedback: A case study in consumer fraud, social media & the power of reviews.

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If you’ve ever been the recipient of a bad online review of your business, you may find yourself frustrated by the apparent lack of control we as entrepreneurs have over things being said about our business – especially if they’re not true.

What proactive steps can you take to protect your business, and how do you best handle a peer review gone wrong?

1. Adapt your mindset.

The worst thing you can do is tell yourself this article isn’t relevant to your business and click away.

Seriously.

We need to adapt in order to survive and thrive, and today’s consumers have more power than they’ve ever had to affect our success.
70%  of Canadians online trust consumer reviews. (BDC, 2013)
Negative sentiment can go viral, quickly – as exemplified by the Applebee’s social media nightmare – and can be very difficult to manage.
Understanding the change in buyer behaviour and accepting that it’s not going away, frees you up to take in the following information to help protect your business.

2. Get informed:

Increasingly Canadian consumers such as you and I, rely on the web to make our purchasing decisions.

social media

1. Canadians spend on average 2.5 hours a day online; on social media, watching videos, & researching products and services. ComScore, 2014
2. Nine out of 10 consumers claim to use their smartphone for pre-shopping activities BDC 2013
3. 70% of Canadians online trust consumer reviews. (BDC, 2013)
None of this is particularly surprising.
The widespread adoption of web connected smartphones is not a new phenomenon.
In fact many older and wiser of us lament the pervasive nature of these devices and their impact on social connection –  and more practically – our ability to walk down the street without literally running into people distracted by their smartphones.

social media
Beyond being a mildly irritating obstacle to efficient walking, this change in how we as a culture interact has widespread implications for today’s business owner.

The constantly connected state of today’s consumer – specifically – your customers – means your customers shape your brand’s reputation.

Customers and the public at large (reasonable and otherwise) can seriously impact your ability to acquire new customers and maintain your reputation.

3. Know that negative sentiment goes far beyond review sites:

You may have heard of “reputation management” in the context of managing reviews of your business, or even been approached by a less than integrity based business offering you positive reviews of your business, for a price.

But beyond the formal review channels, people can leave negative sentiments on your Facebook page, in response to a post on social media…and almost anywhere else on the web.

4. Start listening:

Google your business name to see what comes up. You may be surprised at the places it’s listed and what people are saying about your company.

If you are surprised, it’s a sign to implement some practices internally to start monitoring your company’s reputation.

You can either manually conduct a search regularly or implement an automated solution to alert you immediately of any new conversations about your business.

Here’s a handy list of 5 tools to help you monitor your online reputation from Social Media Examiner.

5. Address any and all reviews.

You may be tempted to ignore bad reviews or complaints, but believe it or not it makes you look worse if you don’t reply publicly.

Here are 5 tips to responding to reviews from Google My Business.

Tips for responding to reviews

Business owner responses allow you to build relationships with customers, but they’re also public. When replying to your customers, keep the following guidelines in mind:

  • Be nice and don’t get personal. This isn’t just a guideline–it’s also a good idea as a business owner. It’s difficult to win an argument with a frustrated customer, and you want to avoid burning bridges. Keep your responses useful, readable, and courteous. In addition, responses should comply with our local content policy.
  • Keep it short and sweet. Users are looking for useful and genuine responses, but they can easily be overwhelmed by a long response.
  • Thank your reviewers. Respond to happy reviewers when you have new or relevant information to share. You don’t need to thank every reviewer publicly, since each response reaches lots of customers, not just one.
  • Be a friend, not a salesperson. Your reviewers are already customers, so there’s no need to offer incentives or advertisements. Tell reviewers something new about your business, or share something they might not know from their first visit.

6. Go above & beyond:

The tone and speed of your response to a bad review is where you can really make or break your reputation.
In this CTV news clip, I was asked to comment on what appears to be a fraudulent sale of goods by a household brand.


This would never have become a news story if the response to the customer’s complaint on their facebook page hadn’t been a canned response to call their 1 800 number – where the customer didn’t get a response.
In the case studies above, with Winners & Applebees, both responses to the negative sentiment were woefully inadequate and appeared completely disingenuous.

Because customer sentiment can so powerfully and permanently affect your reputation, if you are in the wrong (like I believe Winners was ) you need to go above and beyond-
1.Get the customer’s information
2. Make an effort to get in touch with them right away.
3. Work to resolve the issue to their satisfaction
4. Once you get agreement on a solution, ask if the customer will then update their post with details on how you came through for them.
5. Going forward – work with your social media manager to create a policy for addressing unhappy customers in a way that shows you actually care.

7. Be proactive

By actively soliciting positive reviews- and incentivising your customers to do so, you can combat any negative and unfair reviews with a steady stream of positive reviews.

Copy and paste this templated email and send out to all your happy customers;  ( just replace the links with your Facebook & Google Plus page links before you send )

Dear customer,

Thank you so much for your business.

Please- tell us how we did!

Would you be so kind as to post a review for me on my Facebook page or my Google page?

I really appreciate you taking the time to give me your feedback!

Your questions answered: Can social media actually drive sales?

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social media marketingToday’s question comes from Kevin who writes, “Can social media actually drive sales?”

That’s a great question, Kevin. If you’re looking for the answer for this, too, then keep on reading.

1. Social SEO

First of all, social media absolutely does drive sales because a lot of social media sites—Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest & Linkedin— show up on Google search results.

In fact if you have social media profiles, you can search your company name on Google right now and see that not just your website, but almost all your social media properties display on that first page of Google.

In the same way, customers searching for what you sell can see your social media profiles on the first page of Google. The trick is search optimizing those social profiles properly; using keywords, hashtags and mentioning your local service area.
In this way, you get exposure to folks who are actual, qualified prospects to buy your products or services.

2. Social Proof or Implicit Endorsements

The second thing is a presence on social media, as well as building an active engaged community, acts as social proof.
Simply put, most people make their buying decisions based on what other people are doing.

By having people on your social platforms engaging with your business, you are receiving implicit endorsement from them. This behavior, along with a consistent look and feel and recently updated information shows that you’re a credible business that people can trust.

This helps buyers through the part of the sales funnel, or buyer’s journey where they’re evaluating companies to make their purchasing decision. They can then omit businesses that don’t display social proof.

3. Buy Buttons on Social

And lastly, a lot of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are now offering a “Buy Now!” button directly in the newsfeed.

You can sell products without having to make your customer leave the actual social media site. So in that way, social media definitely can drive sales. The buy now button is available through the advertising options from each platform.

Has social media helped you drive sales? Share with me in the comments below.

Sharing is caring!  If you found this valuable, please consider sharing it with your network.

3 Reasons Your Business Needs A Mobile Friendly Website

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mobile content marketingThe sight of commuters on the train, coffee drinkers in the cafe, or employees on their lunch break engrossed in their smartphones or tablets has become ubiquitous through recent years, and is a social trend that should force business owners everywhere to take their mobile content marketing seriously.

However, the single most important aspect for any business with aspirations of engaging with a mobile audience is to have a mobile friendly website that seamlessly resizes all the content to fit whatever screen it is being viewed on.

Not only are those that don’t seen as outdated by visitors, they will also find their Google rankings suffer on mobile searches too. As the internet goes mobile, failing to adapt means being left behind, and all the mobile content marketing in the world won’t help if your website is stuck in the dark ages.

What follows is why your business needs a mobile friendly website.

A mobile friendly public

The days when laptop or desktop internet usage accounted for the majority of time spent online are over, with the tipping point for mobile usage surpassing browsing on more static machines coming in early 2015.

Put simply, more people are using their phones and tablets to browse the internet than are using laptops and computers, and they expect your website to work on their devices.

Responsive websites take all of your content, be that copy or images, sliders, or even products for sale, and automatically resize it to fit the screen it is being viewed on, while menus too are adjusted to enable the user to easily navigate your site.

In truth, the average mobile device user now takes this for granted, and will only notice when it doesn’t happen, at which point they will most likely leave even your best mobile content marketing efforts unread and go elsewhere.

While the obvious benefit here is to the user with the site becoming easier and more enjoyable to navigate than the full web version when viewed on a mobile device, there is a certain search engine giant who will also like your new responsive website more than your old one.

Google responds to responsive

On April 21st, 2015, Google launched a brand new mobile algorithm that rewards responsive sites in their mobile search results.

Those searching for products and services on Google using their mobile device will get results that take into account which sites are mobile friendly, with those that aren’t finding themselves omitted from the search, no matter how good their mobile content marketing.

Google’s new algorithm looks to see whether a site’s text is readable without zooming, if the content is sized so no horizontal scrolling is required, and that links are far enough apart that the correct one can easily be tapped; all criteria that a responsive website should have no fear of fulfilling.

If you want to be rewarded for your mobile content marketing efforts, you will now need a mobile friendly website to rank in mobile Google searches.

Adjusting to fit your market

If you needed any more convincing of the need for a mobile friendly, responsive website for your business, take a look at your competitors.

The chances are they have already made the shift, meaning they have a massive advantage over you when it comes to reaching the ever growing mobile internet user demographic.

As well as providing a better user experience and being more visible on mobile Google searches, your competitors will also be saving time and money behind the scenes that can be put to use in their mobile content marketing campaign.

Before the advent of responsive design, site owners had the option of providing a mobile version of their site, although this meant paying for, maintaining, and constantly updating two separate versions of the same site. If you are still doing this, a responsive website will eliminate the need, allowing you to maintain one version of your site that will function perfectly on any device.

With more people browsing and buying on mobile devices than desktop or laptop, Google rewarding mobile friendly devices to such a degree that those without the functionality are excluded from mobile search results, and your competitors most probably already on the mobile friendly website train, can you and your mobile content marketing afford not to join them?

Check out our One minute tip on Mobile Marketing on Youtube here:

So your website has been hacked- now what? + a guide to preventing the worst case.

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Getting hacked seems like an improbable occurrence, especially for a small or micro sized local businesses.

However, in 10 years or so in this industry, I have seen it happen to a handful of Calgary and area small and medium sized business.

This is the type of email you never want to get- trust me.

This is the type of email you never want to get- trust me.

What does being hacked look like?

In one case, the website was replaced by a merry, if not loudly playing song and a cartoon that said “You’ve been hacked from Tunisia.” This was the least serious of the cases.

In another case, the website had a hidden page that was selling generic pharmaceutical products, to which the large pharma company’s trademark enforcement team responded with a serious legal letter requesting a cease and desist. We had less than 5 days to remove the code or face the consequences.

In still another case, the website became blocked by Google for having malicious content, which seriously hurt the company’s credibility, not to mention the lost traffic and stain in Google’s eyes.

In still other, more common cases, email accounts have been suspended for a day or two for sending spam, unbeknownst to the account owner.

What can I do to avoid being hacked?

Have a good password:

Although they’re absolutely harder to remember, a good password should have one uppercase character, a special character and ideally not contain any entire words. Good passwords should be hard to guess and be at least 8 characters.

Change your passwords:

Passwords should also be changed regularly, at least every few months.

You should change your email password, your administrative login password and your FTP password.

Update your website’s version and any plugins:

Because of the lack of perceived value or understanding around why updating versions of your platform and plugins are so important, many businesses don’t allocate a budget- until it’s too late.

If you have a Content management system, like wordpress, joomla or drupal, you need to regularly update your website version as well as plugin versions to avoid being compromised.

If your website is like so many, and is built using open source software like wordpress, there are new versions being released regularly. These updates are intended to fix bugs and protect against vulnerabilities that could lead to being hacked or viruses.

This follows the same logic as the updates released by your browser or the operating system on your phone.

There is actually a hidden war between hackers and technology providers going on beneath our noses. Each update is intended to provide more security and is quickly compromised.

This post isn’t intended to scare you, but to let you know that being hacked is more common than you think.

I hope this post has been informative and convinced you to put security measures in place proactively instead of reactively.

 

Embracing the Art of “Not Knowing” in Business

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in-the-unknownBusiness is a funny thing. It’s a space where knowledge, expertise, and excellence are revered more so than any other facet of our lives. We all strive to become the experts in our industries, the “thought leader.” But what happens when our know-it-all attitude becomes stale and we find ourselves bored in our work? What happens when we no longer feel challenged? It’s a dangerous position to find ourselves because when we are no longer challenged, we also lose motivation for creativity and innovation. Finding yourself in that place is certainly bad for business.

Ask yourself, what is more important – knowing or not knowing? The answer certainly isn’t black and white. Of course, when you are selling a product or service it pays to have a great amount of knowledge about that product or service. It helps maintain your reputation and your credibility that you know what you’re talking about, and that your advice can be trusted. However, we don’t need to take that to the extreme where we pretend to know everything. Products and services should always be changing, evolving, and with that so should your knowledge be ever changing and evolving. Admitting you don’t know something is a vulnerable place, but it’s also the catalyst for growth. It’s also the perfect opportunity to display your human side and be relatable – “I don’t know the answer to that, but I’ll find out for you.”

Business, learning, and growth should all go hand in hand. It should be encouraged to ask questions and challenge your existing products. Strive to make your business agile so that you and your employees can create and innovate as you go along. It is about creating a business culture that encourages what Liz Wiseman calls “The Perpetual Rookie”, which means embracing curiosity, humility, playfulness, and being deliberate in everything you do. In rookie mode, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

It’s been proven that being challenged at work increases employee satisfaction. That goes for yourself, as well. Embracing the “I don’t know” of a situation takes you back to square one, but it also will instill in you a feeling of challenge and excitement in figuring the problem out. It will also lead to greater product innovation and creativity, which I think we all can agree, is very good for business.

3 Pro Tips for Choosing your Business Domain Name

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internet marketing strategyWhatever your business or industry, choosing the right domain name for your online presence can have a big effect on your future success. While the wealth of options available to you mean there might not be one single best choice for your needs, making a bad decision can certainly hinder your efforts; your internet marketing strategy, your lead capturing, and ultimately your sales.

A good domain name should be unmistakeable and represent accurately what your company is all about, and there are certain ways to help ensure your chosen domain achieves these aims.

Once you’ve settled on what you decide to be the best domain for your business, you can even think about which others might work in your internet marketing strategy too.

Read on to find out how all this can be done.

Ease of use

Crafting the perfect internet marketing strategy, only to have it undermined by an awkward domain name, would be almost criminal in the modern business world. If you want people to remember your domain name and ensure it will always be typed in correctly, it has to be as catchy and simple as possible.

This means anything overly long should be avoided, as are aspects that can be commonly mistyped. These include double ‘L’s or ‘T’s, unnecessary points, dashes, underscores, or numerical figures.

Company initials are good for shortening long company names, easy to remember, and are very difficult to misspell. If your company’s initials are already taken, anything else you choose should be short, sweet and to the point.

Pros and .coms

For companies based in the United States, the .com domain is still the most desirable suffix for those wanting to be seen as an authority figure in their industry. Luckily, here in Canada, the .ca domain is just as recognized, and can actually be of benefit to your company image if you’re looking to serve mainly local customers.

Depending on the nature of your business, the recently released batch of new gTLDs (generic top level domains) can also help you to project the right image from the extension on your domain name. Although .gov has long been used by government sites, .edu by educational facilities and .org often used by non-profits, the options now include such evocative terms as .guru, .consulting, .world, and .ninja, extensions that are regularly played with in the world of the modern internet marketing strategy.

Smart use of any of these can result in a more memorable domain name for your business than .com ever could, meaning a little time and research before deciding on yours is highly recommended.

Domain event

If you are planning different campaigns, either as part of your internet marketing strategy or offline marketing, another tip is to create multiple domain names that include different keywords related to your business. These could be your location, your product or service, the benefit your product or service gives to your customers, or a combination of any of the above.

By registering bestpizzaincalgary.com or imhungrynow.ca, you can use them as a split test to see which yields the better results, both as part of your internet marketing strategy and on print material like flyers or distributed menus.

We’re often asked ‘what’s in a name?’ When it comes to domains, with all the options out there and the pitfalls inherent in choosing a bad one, there’s actually quite a lot. Take the time to make sure you get yours right.

To watch one of our one minute tips on this same subject, follow us on Youtube!

Expect to drop in search results if your site isn’t mobile friendly by April 21: Google

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if you haven’t been paying attention to how your customers and the general population is obsessed with their mobile devices, now is the time to start paying attention. 

If you regularly review your website statistics using tools like Google Analytics, you will have noticed that the website traffic from mobile devices has been steadily increasing to almost half, if not the majority of your website visitors.

As of 2014, mobile web usage overtook desktop usage, and to accommodate the shift in consumer behaviour, Google is laying down the law for businesses that aren’t adapting.

As of April 21st, 2015, Google announced it will start penalizing websites it’s labelled as being non mobile friendly- source Search Engine Watch- full article here

That means if you’re concerned about where your business shows up on Google search results, you need a mobile website before April 21st. 

 

What defines a mobile friendly website?

From Google Webmaster Tools- these are the 5 most desired elements of a mobile website:

 

  1. A defined viewing area (or viewport) that adjusts to the device’s screen size.
  2. Content that flows in the viewport, so that users don’t have to scroll horizontally or pinch the screen in order to see the entire page.
  3. Fonts that scale for easier reading on small screens.
  4. Easy-to-touch elements (e.g., buttons) that are well-spaced from other touch elements.
  5. Visual design and motion driven by mobile-friendly technology.

 

How do I decide if I need a mobile friendly website?

First, ask yourself if you’re concerned with displaying in google search results. If you’re not, then a mobile website likely wont be as high of a priority to companies that do have their google ranking as a priority.

Then, check your website statistics to see how many visitors are using your site on a mobile device. If the bounce rate and time spent on the website is virtually the same as desktop users, than your website is working for mobile users.

Most of the time, what we see though is a higher bounce rate and drop off than with desktop users. This is a not so subtle indicator that your website isn’t working for your mobile visitors. 

What are my options for getting a mobile friendly website?

You have 2 options to choose from. The first is a mobile responsive website which essentially resizes and configures your regular website to fit the wide range of screen sized of tablets and phones.

This is more expensive to set up as it involves “chopping up” the elements of your existing website. However, it gives a uniform look across all devices and doesn’t require any additional hosting fees.

The second is a mobile website, which offers a mobile targeted experience to users. Completely different, your mobile website offers larger navigation and a simplified version of your existing site.

The mobile site offers a better experience for mobile users, with enlarged text and menu buttons, but does have the downside of additional hosting fees.

Both options can be created for you in about a week’s time by any web development company.

You may have also heard of branded apps for your business, which are valuable as well, and are generally considered the next step after getting a mobile website for your business.

How are mobile website visitors different than desktop users?

Most often, mobile website visitors are trying to accomplish a very specific transactional goal when they come to your website.

They’re often en route, and need directions, hours and contact information readily available. So, make sure this information is easy to find.

Mobile users are typically very impatient as well. Your mobile friendly site needs to load fast to avoid users leaving right away.

They don’t need a detailed paragraphs about your companies founder or hard to use drop down menus. Think of your own experience on mobile websites to get an idea of the type of experience that would be ideal.

Some Interesting Mobile Usage Stats:

View our latest mobile website launch (on a mobile device)

If you have questions about, or need help launching a mobile website before April 21st, get in touch via the comments below, or contact us

 

 

 

 

The Effectiveness of Mobile Marketing

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mobile marketingResearch shows the effectiveness of mobile marketing

Set aside your traditional marketing channels, mobile marketing is exploding like dynamite. Reaching customers on a smartphone or other hand-held device is one of the best strategies for today’s marketers.  And mobile marketing isn’t just growing; it’s booming.  So, as a marketer you know mobile marketing is highly effective in enticing consumers to buy what you have to sell.

Marketers use mobile to reach customers quickly (in real time).  And customers use their smartphones and tablets to communicate, shop, search, travel, play, read, and discover, from dusk to dawn.

The proof that mobile usage—and mobile marketing—are surging in popularity isn’t just in knowing there are 1.4 billion smartphones in use around the world; the evidence lies in the latest research on how and why customers and marketers are crazy about their mobile devices.

Let’s look at the following statistics:

Consumers check their mobile devices 150 times a day.
Ninety percent of the time mobile users respond to text messages within 90 seconds of receiving them.
Seventy-nine percent of smartphone owners use their devices to buy products and services

How Marketers Use Mobile

Consider that customers use their smartphones and tablets to email, text, post, tweet, buy, and connect. This means that mobile is a multi-channel “product,” and that marketers can use mobile marketing in a number of ways. For example, marketers can measure what customers want in a brand.  They can advertise, post messages, and move customers to commerce sites to view their products.  Finally, they can answer customers’ questions and measure their satisfaction with a purchase.

According to a provider of multi-channel communications to some of the world’s best retail brands, 20 percent of all current mobile traffic goes to e-commerce sites.

If you’re still not convinced of the value of mobile marketing, consider that customers spent $182 billion on mobile commerce last year alone.  And that number is estimated to grow to $707 billion by 2018.

What’s more, mobile empowers marketers to create, deliver, and measure personalized marketing campaigns. “Nothing gets marketers closer to consumers than mobile,” says Greg Stuart, CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association.  “There is no other platform that is as personal and pervasive.”

The personal value of mobile-marketing campaign

Because mobile is personal, research shows that one campaign message doesn’t appeal to all consumers.  In a one-message-fits-all campaign, the marketer sends a single message to teens, seniors, business professionals, and other target groups.

For years marketers bought 30-second radio commercials and mailed brochures to millions of homes.  Research shows, however, that these campaigns may entice some but not all of the consumers reached.  Mobile marketing calls for a focus on each customer group by deploying a campaign that is deeply personal and practical.

Summary of Mobile Marketing

This article has looked at impressive research findings surrounding mobile.  The key to making mobile marketing effective is knowing that:

  • Mobile marketing must be a key strategy in your marketing plan, especially since smartphones and tablets are used to communicate, shop, search, travel, play, read, and discover;
  • Mobile is surging in popularity.  Remember, consumers spend a hundred billion dollars on mobile purchases each year;
  • Your mobile-marketing messages must be on all channels—mobile email, mobile social media, and so forth;
  • Your mobile-marketing message must be personal.  You need to craft a single message for each type of consumer group.

Make mobile marketing a part of your marketing strategy today.

The Importance of Good Pay Per Click Management

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Today we’re going to talk about best practices for Pay Per Click (PPC) management.

PPC is one of the most effective ways to generate new sales leads, if done right.

Image courtesy of Buzz Builder

Image courtesy of Buzz Builder

Pay Per Click ads are those ‘Sponsored Links’ to appear at the top of your Google search..

If you were to click on one of them though, the company behind it would have to pay Google a pre-arranged price for bringing you to their site, even if you had no interest in what they were selling.

Hence, the importance of a diligent pay per click management strategy.

Well executed, ongoing pay per click management is imperative to the success of any PPC campaign, and can be broken down into three parts.

It has to be well planned, tracked and analyzed, and constantly evolved.

Planning a campaign

Fail to prepare, you know the rest.

When done well, PPC is a powerful way to bring targeted, high converting leads to a website.

When done badly, it can lead to the ads being ignored or, worse, the hemorrhaging of a company’s funds through uninterested people such as yourself clicking on them.

Good pay per click management starts in the planning.

Keyword research is arduous, but essential. Bidding the right amount for each keyword is crucial.

Organizing keywords into different campaigns and groups helps to keep things organized.

Identifying your target audience and their search habits is critical.

Not having optimized landing pages for conversions would render the whole thing pointless.

Tracking a campaign

Pay per click management doesn’t end once the campaign is underway. In fact, it’s only just begun.

The first part of your ongoing management, tracking your traffic through a token on your landing page URL tells you which ads are working and which aren’t, and gives useful insight into who you are attracting.

Your traffic needs to be more quality than quantity.

People who are already searching for your product, who are from your target area, who stick around on your site instead of bouncing straight off, who maybe even convert to a sale, and perhaps ultimately become a repeat customer are your personal goldmine.

Constantly analyzing your traffic will help determine how close you are to striking it rich.

Evolving your PPC campaign

The second ongoing part of your pay per click management, after collating enough data, is to modify, evolve and optimize your campaign accordingly. This is done through continuous and regular analysis of the information at hand.

Once you know what keywords are working, you can push them. Any expensive keywords that aren’t converting, you can stop using. Add new ones to test in their place. If long tail keywords are bringing more success, bid for more of those. They are cheaper anyway.

If people are bouncing from your landing site, modify it. Even split testing a few different designs can prove useful.

Try using different ads to direct people to different parts of your sales funnel; an educational PDF should lead to the top, while a coupon will go directly to the sales page.

Good pay per click management

Search engines reward intelligent, well targeted campaigns by charging less per click, and only good pay per click management can take you to that stage.

Overnight success stories are years in the making, but planning, tracking and evolving your campaign will see you on the right track.