Successful Blog

5 Ways to Build Connections that Make Loyal Customers

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Tara Hornor

Why Using the Golden Rule in Business Works

The golden rule in business is just like the age-old standard of care: treat customers how you want to be treated. It is important that, as a business owner, you always think of your customers and what they want, like, and simply prefer above everything else.

If customers are not interested in what you have to offer and do not feel a personal connection, they will likely not return again. You can send them an email newsletter or direct mail postcards each week, but if they do not feel your “love” for them, you can still lose them as a customer. It is always easier to maintain previous customer relationships rather than gain new ones. Instead of putting yourself through this headache of losing and replacing customers, you have to constantly make connections with your current customers, especially if you want an easy road to success.

5 Ways to Build Connections that Make Loyal Customers

Whether you operate your small business from a local store or your business is operated entirely online, it is not so difficult to build connections that make loyal customers as long as you follow a few simple steps, which include

  1. Ask questions
  2. Talk about what they are interested in
  3. Listen to what customers have to say
  4. Have patience
  5. Use social media

1.) Ask Questions

Ask your customers questions — about their interests, what they like to do, and what they prefer when buying certain products or using certain services. It helps match the customer to the products that cater to their specific wants and needs. Use surveys, follow-up phone calls, or direct emails to ask them how you can improve.

2.) Talk about Them

People want to hear about themselves. You can do this throughout your marketing content. Talk about their problems that you can solve. Highlight recent positive customer experiences. Fill your pages with solutions to their problems – don’t just talk about yourself.

3.) Listen Carefully

Make sure you provide plenty of options for your customers to get in touch, in case problems occur. And just as important, when problems arise make sure you follow up and listen carefully to what happened. Acknowledge customers’ concerns and act aggressively to resolve any outstanding issues. Use a direct email address, Twitter and other social media profiles, and phone to give customers easy access to you.

4.) Be Patient

Patience is important. Avoid confrontation, even if something negative is said. Stuff happens and a patient, caring tone with a customer is critical to long-term relationship building. No matter how exasperated you are or they get, stay calm and work to resolve issues. You may turn a customer who called with an intent of burning bridges into a powerful advocate for your business simply by patiently working through issues.

5.) Use Social Media for Feedback to Build a Connection

Social media is an excellent tool for gaining feedback from your customers, which is especially ideal if you are running an online business. Through social networking sites, you can stay in touch with your customers and communicate with them on a regular basis. Your goal is to make them feel appreciated, as if they are family, so be sure to respond to the comments they leave on your profile.

How you follow the Golden Rule in your business will determine how many loyal customers you acquire. Therefore, take the time necessary to treat customers well, to listen to their feedback and complaints, and to constantly improve your process of dealing with individual customers.

These are just a few ways that you can build connections that make loyal customers. Give these five a try. They will work for you whether you operate your small business from a local store or if your business is operated entirely online.

What else do you suggest to build customer connections that last?

Author’s Bio:
Tara Hornor writes about marketing, advertising, branding, web and graphic design, and desktop publishing for PrintPlace.com a company that offers online printing for print marketing media. Find her on Twitter as @TaraHornor .

 

How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy

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Colin MacDougal

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Creating a buzz on this ultra crowded web of people, information, and brands is a challenging task. Only by forming a smart strategy and then executing it do marketers succeed.

Know Your Customers

The very first step that marketers have to focus on is consumer research before they can board the brand wagon. It is mandatory that sufficient research be conducted before even the tiniest effort of brand promotion because according to Sun Tzu, ‘Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.’ And strategies can be developed only by someone informed. Demographic and psychographic details are used to develop a customer profile.

Create a Brand

Using information from the customer analysis, focus on the creation of the three following things:

  • Brand Essence – What is the one clear, crisp idea that the brand is about? The people behind Coke have worked to promote is as a brand that represents happiness, Lux is all about star appeal, while BIC characterizes disposability. Remember, a brand’s essence is the one thing about it that can never be change.
  • Brand Values – What values that surround the brand? In addition to being a symbol of happiness, Coke also symbolizes celebration, sharing, love, friendship, familial values, etc.
  • Brand Persona – If brand essence and brand values were personified, they would create brand persona.

Customer Internet Availability

Once the branding cycle is complete, probe into the web browsing behavior of the target market. The timing, the frequency, the websites/social media they use most to interact with others, the things they like to share, the things they enjoy but do not choose to share with others, the average amount of time spent on one sitting at a social networking site, etc.

Keep an Eye on the Competition

Along with details of web browsing behavior of the target market, knowledge about what the competition is doing on the Internet is also crucial. Find out what the industry’s leaders are doing and which and how new entrants in the market have been able to attract significant audiences at different social networking sites and other online mediums.

Select Mediums

Keep in mind the selection of online media the target market uses and the different platforms used by the competition. There are two main strategies that marketers can go for – offensive or defensive. Campaigns with larger resources can afford to adopt an offensive strategy and establish their presence on online platforms that are already dominated by competitors. On the other hand, marketers may also adopt a defensive strategy by attacking the competition where it is not looking. In other words, it can establish its presence on mediums that the target market frequently uses but which haven’t been used by competitors yet.

Some of the most frequently used mediums and tactics for online marketing campaigns include application development, meta engines, online stores, PR engines, blogs, feed services such as RSS, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, social media and affiliate marketing.

Analyze Results

Having conducted the research, created a strategy, and then applied it, the last yet perhaps the most important step of the entire process is to analyze the results. Thanks to tools such as Google Analytics, the results of an online marketing campaign can be determined. The findings can be used to improve future efforts to promote a brand online.

Author’s Bio:
Colin MacDougal works with www.HostPapa.com company serving over 100,000 customers around the world. Since launching in 2006, HostPapa has offered reliable, budget-friendly, easy-to-use web solutions for small to medium-sized businesses. You can find HostPapa at http://www.facebook.com/hostpapa

5 Smart Ways to Differentiate a Successful Business

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Grant Tilus

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Did you know Americans create more than 500,000 new businesses every month? It’s true, but only 50 percent of those businesses will still be operational within five years. While the amount of new businesses every month is encouraging, our rate of failure is unfortunate and must be improved upon.

5 Smart Ways to Differentiate a Successful Business

One way you can increase your business’ chance of celebrating its five year anniversary is to differentiate your business among your industry peers. Stand out from the crowd. Use these five ways to differentiate to build a smart and successful business. Each key point provides real-world examples of what you can do to improve your business.

1. Focus on the Customer

The best and often the most successful entrepreneurs create businesses they are so passionate about they will do anything for their customers. Over time many business owners tend to lose focus and begin straying away from having the needs of their customer be a top priority. However, by maintaining a customer-centric focus you will create a positive customer experience that will allow you to build your brand all while creating a loyal base of repeat and new customers.

Example: Stuffed Giraffe Shows What Customer Service Is All About

2. Be a Social Media Juggernaut

In our digital world social media cannot be ignored by even the smallest of businesses. Focus on creating a unique social community by engaging and educating your customers about your brand in a way that’s both entertaining and helps them feel connected to your business. We all know it’s easier to keep customers rather than finding new ones; social media can help you do both.

Example: Impressive Small Business Facebook Pages You Can Learn From

3. Don’t Focus on the Competition

Every smart business owner has conducted a SWOT analysis for their business venture. Far too often business owners get caught up in the threats of competition, which causes their own business to suffer. However, by focusing on the unique opportunities your business has to offer you will help it stand out among the rest as a clear and distinguished option for your targeted customer base.

Example: Your Competition, Isn’t

4. Make It Personal

Creating personal connections is part of human nature. In the midst of creating a business we subconsciously hide our own personality, and that’s not necessarily the best thing to do. Customers need ways to connect with businesses beyond the advertisements and sales pitches. By being transparent and humanistic your customers can begin to create a relationship with your business and become more than just a customer. Tell your story and learn your customer’s story as you build your business.

Example:


Papa John Telling the Papa John Story

5. Keep Things Fresh

Changes within your target market, technology, and the economy often require your business to make adjustments. In order to stay relevant and continue building a successful business it’s important to assess and refresh your business’ activities. The businesses that are comfortable maintaining the status quo are the ones that are failing to prepare for true longevity. As a business owner you need to be asking, listening and responding to changes in the market and your customer base in order to succeed in the long term.

Example: Living Business Plans Help Businesses Flow with Future

Differentiate your business in 5 smart and social ways to build success. Use social avenues to focus on and connect with customers personally by sharing stories. Then you can let your competition worry about you.

What successes have you had with differentiating your business in smart and social ways?

Author’s Bio:
Grant Tilus is an Inbound Marketing Specialist at Rasmussen College. He creates superior content and blogs about accelerated bachelor’s degree programs, other online business school degree programs or inbound marketing best practices. Feel free to connect with Grant Tilus on Twitter and Google+.

Beach Sculpture: Man Sitting

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by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

Walking onto the beach on Friday morning we were greeted by the picture below. There have been some big storms and seas that have deposited many uprooted trees onto the sand. This one was very special as my first reaction was that there is a man with a hat. Des saw a rower in his scull!

I think it is amazing how nature presents art and visions for us.

What do you see when you look at this image?

 

Live in abundance, be the change and make a difference TODAY!

– Suzie Cheel

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

Blogging Tools of Engagement that Attract Attention

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How to blog series

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Grace Nasri

6 Tools of Engagement

There are currently billions of webpages indexed across the world today; as the number grows, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate one blog from another. The six sites below have created tools to help bloggers increase engagement, attract attention, and differentiate their blog from the rest.

1. FindTheBest’s Interactive Widgets: Adding interactive widgets to blog posts is one of the best ways to drive user engagement and increase time spent on your site. FindTheBest () a data-driven comparison engine, offers hundreds of product and service widgets to enhance posts and reviews. The interactive and customizable widgets (http://www.findthebest.com/widgets) have an added bonus of being monetizable—bloggers receive 100 percent of all affiliate revenue.

2. Visual.ly’s Infographics: Infographics have grown in popularity over the past year, partially because it’s easier for most people to consume and retain information presented in the form of an image or graphic rather that pure data or text. Visual.ly allows bloggers to create customized infographics for their blogs. Other sites like Stat Planet, Tableau and ManyEyes are starting to pop up that make it easy to build customized infographics.

3. Flickr’s Photos: Posts with photos, graphics or other illustrations not only look more enticing, but they can also drive traffic from image searches; when photos are saved with relevant keyword tags, they will show up in an image search and when a user clicks on the image, they will be taken to the affiliated blog. In addition to Flickr, sites like WikiMedia’s commons and Google’s image search are also great sites to find relevant images and graphics, but be sure that the licensing allows for republishing.

4. Pixlr’s Photo Editing Software: For bloggers who don’t have Photoshop but want tools to be able to edit their photos before posting to their blog, Pixlr’s Editor provides online photo editing tools for free.

5. Vimeo’s Videos: People consume and digest data through different formats and channels, while some are more drawn to text and data, others find video content more engaging. Sites like Vimeo make it easy to upload, share and post videos. But Vimeo isn’t the only video sharing site. Site like Blinkx, Vimeo, UStream and YouTube are some other great places to find engaging videos relevant to your blog post.

6. SpeakerText’s Video Transcription Service: Video content, while highly engaging, is not easily searchable by search engines. Video transcription services like SpeakerText specialize in transcribing the content on your video, which helps search engines index your content.

Maybe you’re using one or more of these already. Try the rest. Keep alert for tools that will raise the engagement on your blog.

What tools of engagement fuel your blog?

Author’s Bio:
Grace Nasri is the managing editor at FindTheBest, a data-driven comparison engine. Her articles have been published in The Huffington Post, Reuters, VentureBeat, The Street, Technorati, Asia Times and more. You can see a full list of her articles at GraceNasri.com and can find her on Twitter as @GraceNasri

 

Where Might You Find Business Opportunity in the Healthcare Industry ?

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cooltext443809602_strategy

Make Money in Healthcare? You need not be a Physician Anymore

The growing popularity and demand for different healthcare products and services has made healthcare industry a safe and lucrative option for most businessmen. You need not just be a physician for making money in health care.

If you study the healthcare industry, you’ll know its amazing rate of growth. Read along to know how and why you should really invest in the health industry.

What Comprises the Healthcare Industry?

Healthcare is a vast industry comprising of provision of medical products, equipment, and services. These help in protecting, extending or increasing the quality of a person’s life. The industry consists of a network of interrelated providers with various areas of expertise, all coordinated to varying degrees to keep you healthy.

According to Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS), healthcare industry can be classified into the following two categories:

  1. Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences
  2. Health care services and equipment

Healthcare industry is a complex interrelated system which encompasses different things right from stethoscope manufacturer, physician, pharmacy to medical technicians and a lot more.

Where Might You Find Business Opportunity in the Healthcare Industry?

We are living in a health-conscious society, where everything comes down to good health. There are a number of different reasons that have led to increase in healthcare expenses. Some of these reasons have been listed below:

1. Increase in awareness
According to recent researches, the most searched topic on Internet is love, which is closely followed by topics such as beauty, fitness and health. Healthcare industry is evolving rapidly, and more than being seen as a crisis, it is now being taught as a way of life. Recent researches have shown a significant increase in health care expenses, which has further boosted healthcare industry. This awareness has led to growth in sales and demand of multi-vitamin tablets, supplements, herbalife products etc.

2. Aging Population
Venerable members of our ever-increasing society are another reason that has led to increase in healthcare expenses. It has been estimated that for the next 19 years, 10,000 individuals would be turning 65 every day! This means that by 2030, the percentage of population over former retirement age would have grown from 13% to 18%. The elderly people avail medical services more frequently as compared to other people.

3. Unhealthy Lifestyles
Though there has been an increase in awareness about importance of good health, people are largely afflicted by poor lifestyle oriented diseases. There has been an increase in sedentary lifestyles and the fast food fad has led to binge-eating. Unfortunately in most developed countries like the US, 65% of adults are overweight. It has also been observed that only 31% adults exercise on a regular basis, and 50% of kids exercise enough.

The increased stress levels and other unhealthy lifestyle habits have also led to increase in risk and diagnosis of diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. With average life expectancies now approaching 80 years, the health care industry has many reasons to expand!

4. Recession-Proof Industry
Unlike other industries, the health industry remains relatively undisturbed by variations in economy. People need health care services, even during times of economic slowdown, and this industry is believed to keep growing. Such a safe and lucrative option is undoubtedly excellent for most entrepreneurs.

Where Might You Do Business in HealthCare Industry?

Increase in medical and healthcare expenses has been one change which has been constant in the past few years. The constant aspect of this change has been the continuous increase in health care expenses.

Most entrepreneurs have been working hard to find better solutions to old problems, and launch new businesses. The aging and unhealthy population in today’s world has burdened healthcare system, which has led to increased demand, expenditure and scope for businesses in heath care sector.

The consistently increasing expenses of healthcare have been identified by most entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs then later came up with franchise options along with new and innovative ways to make profit from this massive and complex health industry. Some areas emerging out from this competent healthcare industry are:

  • Health IT – Information technology is undoubtedly the backbone of health care industry in today’s world. There are innumerable entrepreneurial opportunities in health care IT field. Entrepreneurs today are working to create new programs and systems for electronic health recordings. N ew machines and innovative technologies are needed in operating rooms and doctor’s office. Ambitious entrepreneurs also look out for lucrative opportunities in fields of preventative care, nurse-care facilities, or nurse-managed clinics. As millions of dollars in incentives and a wide range of federal funding are available for solid offers in these areas, these fields are a potentially lucrative business option for serious entrepreneurs.
  • Concierge Healthcare – Another health care trend that has recently come up is the Concierge Healthcare trend. The concierge healthcare system helps most people evade long waits to get appointments or waste time in waiting rooms. Most people are willing to pay extra money for extra convenience. Doctors now provide on-call medical care, same day appointments, and even house calls. It is another lucrative business opportunity for most entrepreneurial.
  • Domestic Medical Tourism – Most insurance companies are aware that medical costs and quality of care can have some dramatic variations between various hospitals. Many entrepreneurial opportunities can open up for medical firms if they come up with competitive domestic travel programs.

    • Revolutionary changes can occur, if consumers are empowered with more choice, control and convenience.

    Make sure you start off any new health care venture only after studying the market properly and researching well.

    Author’s Bio:
    Priyanka Iyer writes about benefits of good health, herbalife products and skin care. If not writing she is busy with her books, dance classes and travel jaunts.