Customer satisfaction is essential to any company’s growth. When you meet or exceed a customer’s expectations, they can do wondrous things for your reputation and even give you free advertising by recommending you to others. However, if you fail to meet their expectations, you’ll likely never see them again. In fact, they might even complain about their experience on public forums, such as social media.

The value of customer satisfaction

According to Bain & Company, it costs 6 to 7 times more to find a new customer than to keep an existing one. Holding on to old customers and building customer loyalty gives you the chance to improve the bottom line drastically compared to a mindset that focuses exclusively on finding new customers.

Satisfied customers can also be fantastic brand advertisers. In the age of digital media, both complaints and compliments can go viral. A customer who takes to Twitter to speak about a poor customer experience can influence untold numbers of people who are debating whether or not to use your company. Fortunately, the same can be said for those who leave positive reviews.

Individuals who feel satisfied with the customer experience are more likely to tell friends, family, and associates about their positive experience. Since people take reviews from those they trust far more seriously than advertising, the value of customer satisfaction cannot be underestimated.

Keeping your customers happy

Customer service entails more than just what happens when a buyer makes a purchase. It encompasses their entire experience and interaction with your company. With that in mind, here are some pointers to consider:

• Keep your employees happy. They’re the face of your company. When they’re happy, they’ll make your customers happy, too.
• Undersell and over deliver. For example, if you tell a customer you’ll call them back by the end of the business day with a suggestion, try to call them back before lunch with two suggestions. Instill this same attitude in your team.
• Work to ensure customers experience helpfulness at every stage. Make sure your website is helpful and easy to use. Train customer service reps to focus on solving problems, rather than just selling. And don’t forget about customers after the sale. Instead, focus on helping them get the most from your product or service.

When customers find their expectations have been met or exceeded, they’ll often share those experiences with friends, family, and followers on social media. Make customer satisfaction a focus of your organization to help improve the bottom line and make the entire experience more enjoyable for everyone.

Integrated marketing campaigns give companies the chance to reach their potential customers on a number of different platforms. A well-orchestrated campaign branches out across several platforms to reach the target audience wherever they might be found. Not all integrated marketing campaigns are created equally, however. Here are three steps you can take to start maximizing the benefits you receive from your integrated campaigns.

Step 1: Create a specialized landing page

Your integrated marketing campaign is aimed at bringing people from a variety of platforms and sources to your company website. Rather than just bringing them to your homepage or service page, however, create a specialized landing page that will directly speak to these visitors based on what they learned about your company through the advertisement.

A quality landing page will have certain characteristics, including clear, concise information about the value the customer is receiving and an easy-to-use form to fill out to buy or sign up for something. In return for filling out the form, the customer should receive something of equitable value. Perhaps you’re running an advertising campaign for a new cleaning product. Your landing page should extol the virtues of this cleaning product, offer customers the chance to purchase it, and perhaps include a call to action that invites people to download a free ebook about efficient spring cleaning.

Step 2: Use QR codes

QR codes can be a great way to tie a traditional campaign in with the digital world. By putting QR codes on your direct mail ads, newspaper print ads, and similar pieces, you give your customers a way to connect with your landing page (described above), without having to worry about typing in web addresses or remembering your site name. Customers can scan the QR code with their smart device and get redirected automatically to your landing page.

While QR codes are fantastic, it’s important to remember that there are some people who don’t have smart devices or aren’t in a position to scan when they see your advertisement. For these people, make sure your web address is still displayed near the code.

Step 3: Tighten the campaign focus

One of the biggest risks many marketing professionals run into is the urge to reach everyone in the community. That’s not going to be possible. For you to run a successful campaign, you need a target audience — a demographic you can pinpoint and analyze to see how you can solve a problem for them.

It’s common for businesses to get a bit carried away when it comes to integrated marketing because they think of all the different people they can reach on different platforms. But just as with any other marketing campaign, try to focus on a key demographic. Use information and research about this target to see what platforms are best to reach this type of customer, then develop the integrated campaign accordingly. Tighten the campaign to help it speak directly to a particular buyer persona.

Building an integrated marketing campaign is a helpful way to get your message in front of people throughout their day. Integrated campaigns help people develop stronger associations with your brand, remember your message, and hopefully convert more readily. If you’re looking to improve your integrated campaign, consider these three factors and see what you can use to take your campaign to the next level.

If you don’t use social media personally, it can seem difficult to understand why it’s such an important aspect of digital marketing. You might be tempted to think, “Well, Facebook is the biggest of the social media platforms, so maybe I should just post everything on there in the hopes of reaching the most people.” What you need to realize, however, is that social media is not just a publication service. It’s a community.

While there is overlap, different platforms are known for attracting different people and different types of conversation. You’re not going to have much luck unless you understand the crowd each one attracts. Here’s a quick breakdown of the top four social sites — Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ — to help you get a feel for each platform and how to connect with customers on them.

Facebook
Facebook is easily the largest platform with an estimated 1.3 billion users. The site is known for being the perfect place for users to develop their individuality. You can use images, text, videos, and just about anything else you can think of. Generally keep your posts under 250 characters to keep your customers’ attention, and don’t be afraid to ask questions of your page visitors. This is the platform for making your brand seem full of personality and connecting with customers.

Twitter
Think of Twitter as a large, global conversation. There are an estimated 645 million users around the world, and the site has made the news multiple times for helping to start large social movements. It can also help your business.

Generally, you want to start your posts (tweets) early in the day and post frequently (just like a conversation). What’s challenging about Twitter is that your posts should be only 115-120 characters long (which makes it easier for others to ‘retweet’ you). Twitter is also known for the popularity of the #hashtag. Hashtags help to make your posts searchable, while connecting you with your audience. You should alternate between text-based tweets and occasional photos.

LinkedIn
This site is the more professional of the social pages. There are about 300 million users, and most of them are there for professional networking and business information. This trend is reflected in the best posting practices. Posts made before 8am and after 6pm tend to fare better than those made during the day (when most users are at work). They should also typically concern business topics. Your business page and posts should all reflect the more professional aspect of this site.

Google+
Google+ also has about 300 million users, but Google+ offers the added benefit of being connected to Google, which helps make it fantastic for local search SEO. Google likes businesses to use Google+ and has combined it with the old Google business pages. Take some time to build up your profile and cultivate reviews. This can help boost your local search results and make your business seem very appealing when it shows up on a search results page.

Content posted to this site should also be diversified between images, videos, fun content, and educational content. In terms of seriousness, Google+ tends to fall somewhere between Facebook and LinkedIn, making it a good place to connect with professional and casual users.

Social media has a considerable amount of potential in what it can offer your company. It’s a great place to connect with people and show them everything your business has to offer. Knowing the crowds who tend to gather on each platform will help you considerably as you set out to use each to its fullest potential.

The 2002 movie The Rookie focuses on Jim Morris, a high school science teacher who managed to play major league baseball long after what most athletes would consider their prime. It’s an entertaining feature and stays impressively close to the real-life story of Morris, who pitched in the major leagues from 1999 to 2000.

The audience learns at the opening of the movie that this father and high school science teacher had always loved the game of baseball. He had excelled at it during his youth, but due to various circumstances, he had to give it up before be was able to play in the big leagues.

While coaching his high school baseball team, Morris makes a bet with his team that if they can win their championship, he will try out once again for a professional team. During tryouts, he manages to amaze everyone with a fastball that falls just shy of 100 mph. This paves the way for his triumphs.

The Rookie is definitely a “feel good” movie. It’s the type of film that motivates viewers to go out and follow their own dreams, too. In addition to lifting the audience’s spirits, however, there’s a very poignant business lesson that every entrepreneur and growing business should pay attention to.

If you have the talent, there is a place for you at the table.

The digital era has made it possible for just about anyone to start a business. This has led to considerable saturation and heavy competition. It has also resulted in specialization and businesses that are able to target very specific niches.

For a new entrepreneur just beginning a new business, this can seem considerably intimidating. How does one succeed in business when there seem to be too many companies within the industry already? It’s entirely possible, provided you have the skills necessary and are ready to put in the work.

When Morris decided to pursue his dream of playing in the major leagues, he had enormous odds against him. For starters, he was significantly older than most of the other young men trying out. While they were coming to the game fresh out of high school or college, he had not played competitively himself in years. There were also numerous talented pitchers at the tryout and throughout the league. Despite these potential roadblocks, Morris had confidence that he deserved a position on the team, and he went out to earn that place. He was able to show the coaches that of all the talented pitchers available, he had something special to offer.

As a business professional, you must do the same thing. If you know you have the talent to run your business well, then focus on showing others what makes you so fantastic. There’s no industry so saturated that a talented and strategic business professional cannot become a leader. The key to success is working hard, showing determination, and having confidence in your ability. It might be hard to break into an industry that already has ample talent, but when you have the perseverance necessary, it is possible.

For those interested in starting their own business, the digital era has been a blessing. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of existing online companies can also seem intimidating. Take some inspiration from Jim Morris of The Rookie, and remember that talent and hard work can make it possible for anyone to become a leader in any industry. If you’re ready to start advertising your business, contact us today.

We’ve all heard the expression “keeping the ship afloat.” Anyone who has ever spent time on an actual ship knows that keeping a boat afloat and getting it to the intended destination is no easy task. Ships of all sizes require a considerable amount of work from everyone on board, and we in business can learn a great deal from these professionals when it comes to keeping our own companies running and moving in the right direction.

The importance of clear leadership

Ships are not democracies. A captain always leads the ship’s crew and directs activities on board. Captains have considerable experience sailing ships and know what needs to be done to make the trip a success. Their ability to see the larger picture lets them direct their subordinates. They don’t waffle in making decisions and have confidence in their abilities.

Like any good leader, however, a captain also willingly listen. Captains will take advice from their advisers in certain situations, and then balance the advice against their own experience. A good captain is able to take all of these sources of information and synthesize them to come up with the best possible solution.

As a business leader, you must be willing to do the same. Strong leaders unabashedly listen to those around them while also using their own experience and wisdom to make decisions for the benefit of the company. They don’t shy away from making firm decisions, nor are they so concerned for their own power that they neglect to listen to what others have to offer.

Dedicated workers

Ships have always required dedicated crews to keep them afloat. The ships of old required crews of men who would paddle the ship or control the sails to keep the boat moving. Crews today might man the sails or the engine rooms. No matter where the crew is working, however, they have to be prepared to give the boat 100 percent.

The employees you select for your business must also be fully dedicated to your company. You should be able to trust that their skills and experience will help them move the organization forward. Running an efficient business means not having to look over everyone’s shoulders, but instead establishing goals and having your employees work to meet you there.

Choosing a direction and sticking with it

When sailing a ship, the boat has a concrete destination. The captain and crew might have to adjust their route slightly if a storm comes up or another obstacle crosses their path, but they always know where they’re going and how they plan to get there.

Your business must have the same foresight. Successful organizations don’t set vague goals for success. Instead, they lay out concrete, measurable goals they want to achieve. When the goals of the organization are clearly laid out in front of everyone, it’s much easier for each person to know exactly what they’re supposed to do and how that fits in the broader picture.

Keeping a ship — or business — afloat requires strong leadership, a dedicated staff, and concrete goals. When you manage to keep these three ingredients in mind for your company, you’ll be well on your way to success.

The Wizard of Oz is an exciting tale that has delighted people for several generations. When young Dorothy is magically transported from her home to the magical land of Oz, she and her companions must outsmart witches and other dangers in an effort to find the famed Wizard of Oz, who they believe can help her find her way home and grant her companions gifts of their own. Upon finally finding the wizard, however, they learn that he is not some great and powerful wizard after all. Instead, he’s just an ordinary man behind a curtain, projecting his voice and image to appear to be a magical being. Still, in the end, Dorothy does learn how to get back home.

The Wizard of Oz and Business

There are two key lessons we as business leaders can learn from the wizard. In one situation, he’s an excellent example of what we should do. In the other, he does the exact opposite of what would be appropriate in the business world.

What the wizard gets right

In Oz, the wizard regularly projects his voice and opinions for all the kingdom to see. He providers personalized information for each person who visits him.

In social media, we’re often asked to be like the man behind the curtain. We must project our voice and opinions in a variety of media, communicating a sense of authority and wisdom. With all the demands of the modern business world, it can be tempting to resort to automation. There are a number of ‘tricks and cheats’ available in the social media world. From programming social responses to buying followers to automating tweets, it’s very easy for those who desire it to completely remove themselves from the actual social media process.

If we’re to learn anything from the mysterious wizard, however, it’s important to remember to always have an actual person ‘behind the curtain.’ This will allow us to engage potential leads when they arise and avoid missing opportunities to bring in new customers, which can easily happen if all our responses happen automatically and we aren’t actually monitoring the conversation.

What the wizard gets wrong

Although it’s important to remain actually present behind all our social media campaigns, we also need to be authentic. The wizard made the devastating mistake of casting himself as something he wasn’t: a powerful wizard. When those who actually needed his help (like Dorothy and her companions) turned to him, he was virtually powerless to help. If we cast ourselves as something we’re not, nothing will destroy our reputation faster than our customers realizing it. We must always be realistic about our capabilities and strengths. Play up what you can do for customers and be confident in your abilities, but don’t ever let yourself get caught in a web of lies.

What to take away

Social marketing is an important part of branding and finding new customers. It requires authenticity. That means broadcasting a solid message based on what you can do for customers and always keeping a person involved with every stage of the campaign to communicate with customers. When you stick to these two rules, you’ll have a great chance of success.

Are you ready to get a new campaign started? Come talk to us! We’d be happy to help you get started.

When it comes to search engine optimization, few topics are as popular as the use of keywords. To hear some people describe it, keywords are the secret to success; if you just use specific keywords in your text enough, people will flock to your website. But think about the last time you read something that was clearly “keyword stuffed.” It probably sounded awkward, unnatural, and a bit forced, didn’t it? You probably didn’t take the information or the website too seriously. Fortunately, it is possible to use keywords effectively to entice visitors, give them confidence they’ve found a good source of information, and still sound completely natural.

Selecting the keywords

When choosing keywords, think about the words customers are commonly searching for online. Monitor the number of searches that are done for different keywords, and then choose a few you’d like to target. These should be keywords directly related to your business, so you can use them naturally throughout your website and blog.

When selecting keywords, make the subtle distinction between keywords you and other professionals in your industry are likely to use and those your customers are likely to use. Your keywords won’t do you any good if your site ends up just attracting competitors. They’re not looking to buy from you! You want to use language and keywords that reflect your customers’ priorities and their language. This will ensure you bring the right people to your site. This is also helpful for selecting vocabulary words to use on all your marketing materials, including your outbound direct mail and newspaper advertisements.

Using the keywords appropriately

Make sure you use the keywords a few times in content. This will let your visitor know they’ve found a page with the information they were looking for. If done naturally, using the keywords in the opening paragraph can be a good practice for this reason.

Don’t use your keywords excessively, though. Generally, aim to keep the keywords in mind when you write, and use them whenever the opportunity naturally arises rather than assigning yourself the task of fitting them in as often as possible. Using this system will help you improve the flow of your writing and make it sound much more compelling and natural, rather than a trap designed to bring visitors to your website.

The reason blogging and keeping your website up-to-date are so fantastic for marketing is that both of these practices allow you to naturally incorporate keywords into your content. Keywords should be thought of as subjects that you want to write about. They’re terms your potential customers are searching for because they’re interested in learning more. Be the source of information for them, so they will turn to you as a source of authority.

Keywords can be very helpful in developing websites to attract and retain visitors. Capitalizing on their value, however, requires understanding what customers and search engines are and aren’t looking for. Keeping these guidelines in mind should help you use your keywords to your advantage. If you’re ready to take your marketing campaign to the next level, let us know. We’d be happy to help get you started!

Postseason baseball is in full swing. After six months and 162 games, only a handful of teams have earned a chance at becoming World Series champions.

Putting together a championship-quality roster is no easy task. Tryouts, trades, drafts, and injuries all play a part in the process. Teams must find the right mix of players who can bat, pitch, and field. Just as importantly, though, they must consider team chemistry, too. Is everyone playing together? Are internal rivalries or personality clashes going to get in the way of a cohesive unit? Can those clashes be overcome for the sake of success? In the end, it often takes experience to get it just right.

What businesses can learn from baseball

When you set out to select members for your own professional team — your business — you must give it as much thought as a baseball coach and general manager. Sure, you should carefully review resumes and interview candidates, but in doing so, try to avoid the temptation to simply fill a role, rather than building a team.

When you fail to evaluate a candidate for their ability to fit in with your company culture and ascribe to your company mission, it’s easy to lose your internal values. This can in turn damage employee morale and employee loyalty. When everyone is concerned with just completing a job, rather than working together as a team, people don’t feel as connected to their workplace.

Why this is dangerous

According to Bain & Company, it’s 6-7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep an old one. Building a successful business should be focused around delighting your customers, giving them reasons to return, and encouraging them to recommend you to others. Your employees are the ones who interact with these customers every day. They’re the face of the company. When you don’t take the time to develop a strong company culture that encourages employee satisfaction and a positive work environment, you end up putting up a huge roadblock for customer satisfaction.

Choosing your team

Work with your current team to develop lists of values and priorities that keep your workplace cohesive and productive. When you’re ready to make a new hire, carefully consider how the person will fit in with the rest of the organization. This will include asking them questions that relate to these specific values.

Consider having candidates speak with multiple people at the company or try performing some of the basic tasks they would do if they were hired. The better you can choose your employees, the better you’ll be at building an organization that works as a team and serves your customers with a united front. Have faith and trust in your organization, empowering your employees and making it an overall fantastic place to work and grow.

While many organizations realize their customer service will have an enormous impact on their success, they don’t realize that something as intrinsic as their hiring practices can have such a big impact. Give your company a leg up and complement your marketing efforts with a superior, service-oriented company. Get started by making sure each hire you make will be a great fit for your team. You may be surprised how much it pays off.

Imagine it’s your first day of college. You enter campus, not knowing anyone. You find your way to your dorm room and review your class schedule and campus map to try and figure out where you need to go. You listen to the chatter of hundreds, if not thousands of new classmates outside your door. The whole process can feel more than a little overwhelming. You somehow need to find new friends in this home away from home, but when not a single face looks familiar, that can be easier said than done. How do you find people you like? How do you start forming relationships?

Chances are you begin by looking for people with common interests. If you’re into fitness, that might mean spending time at the gym on your free time. If you’re into a specific sport, you might try out for a team or get involved in a recreational league. If sports aren’t your thing, you might find clubs and groups that cater to your other interests. When you find people who share your interests, you start to build the relationships that will carry you through the rest of your academic career.

How you can apply the lessons you learned in college

The same principles apply to building your customer base. When you first begin building your company, you’re like that new kid on campus. You need to find people interested enough in you and what you have to offer that they’ll want to build a relationship with you. These relationships will be the key to finding new customers.

Where to go to find your niche

The key to successful marketing is finding your niche and building potential relationships. In school, you found those people by joining clubs, participating in sports teams, and taking part in activities where you would be likely to meet others with similar ideas and interests as you. When developing a marketing plan, you need to do the same thing.

Begin by determining the type of people you want to attract. Identify key characteristics of potential customers and use that information to find them. Learn what your potential customers are interested in, what concerns them, and where they like to hang out. Social media is a fantastic tool for finding potential customers and jumping into the community.

Social media offers access to groups, trending topics, and other useful insights you can use to pinpoint your desired audience while also finding meaningful dialogue that can help you better meet the needs of your customers. Use these resources to start building relationships. Just like that lonely freshman in college, you want to begin by starting the conversation. Become a familiar face to those in the crowd. Ask people about themselves and listen to what they have to say in response. Use that information to build your value. Show these new potential customers how you can help them solve their problems.

Finding a core audience and a niche to grow your business can seem intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Think of how you handled your first weeks on campus. You focused on finding others with similar interests and started conversations to begin developing relationships with them. Many of these same tactics will also work in the business world. Focus on building relationships, and the rest will follow.

When your sales and marketing teams work together and are aligned in their goals and strategies, amazing things can happen for your organization. Studies have shown that companies with marketing teams and sales teams that work well together see as much as a 20 percent increase in annual revenue growth, and no one can afford to ignore that opportunity.

Unfortunately, obtaining that level of cooperation can be a challenge. With a few internal changes and a concentrated effort at aligning these two teams, however, it is possible to bring everyone together.

Begin by establishing definitions

Written, thought-out definitions can be your savior. They give everyone a concrete idea to look back upon and reduce the potential for miscommunication or misperceptions. Here are a few definitions that everyone in marketing and sales should agree upon.

• What is a quality lead?
• What will sales do when they receive a quality lead?
• What level of communication will be expected between the teams?
• What are the goals for each team?
• What is the process of handing off a lead from one team to the other, and when should it happen?

Once you’ve established these definitions, it will be easier to see what each group is working toward and when they’re successful. You’ll then be able to determine common goals, such as the number of leads expected from the marketing team and how the sales team will handle each opportunity.

Enhance visibility and transparency

When each team can clearly see what the other is working on and whether or not they’re reaching their goals, they’ll gain a better appreciation for the role both teams play in growing revenue for the company.

To improve visibility and transparency, communication and data are key. Like definitions, data gives concrete facts that everyone can consult and reduces the risk of misunderstandings and resentment. There are several ways to produce quality data reports:

• Analyze where leads are coming from and how each marketing source is performing.
• Have marketing team members include highlights of their interactions with leads (such as what content was downloaded), so the sales team can better capitalize on those opportunities.
• Have sales team members report their communication efforts with leads and results.

Another important measure of visibility is simply to meet together. Gather your two teams together for regular meetings to discuss goals, outcomes, shortcomings, and plans for improvement. These meetings will help to clear the air and get everyone on the same page.

If your marketing and sales teams are too big, consider having occasional meetings with everyone and regular meetings with just marketing and sales leaders. During these meetings, the data will provide you with plenty of conversation topics. Celebrate each other’s accomplishments, but if revenue goals are not being met, make sure both teams are transparent about their plans to make improvements.

Aligning your sales and marketing teams can have a wonderful impact on your bottom line, as well as the overall feelings of cooperation among your employees. With a potential 20 percent growth in revenue on the line, the effort is well worth it.