Along with our expert contributors — Melinda Emerson, Jane Applegate, and Phil Simon — we visited Diane and her team to learn about the challenges Absolutely Fabulous faces when communicating with customers. Our experts then gave Diane’s team advice on using customer communications to build relationships with customers, increase store traffic, and improve sales.

Episode #1

Episode #2

Episode #3

You can learn more about Absolutely Fabulous at: http://www.absolutelyfabulous1.com/

And if you missed our prior installments of videos from the Small Business Makeover Contest, check them out on our video page.

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And you can do it too.

If you want to be a thought-leader in your industry, you must use the HELP mantra:

• Help others
• Engage with your readers and fans
• Listen to your audience and competitors
• Promote yourself

Social media success is all about “give to get.”  You should look for ways to be helpful to you new contacts first, and then when the time is right, you can pitch your business.

This is how I launched my business. Before you do anything, you need to develop a social media strategy.

Develop your content strategy: Currency on the Internet these days is content. You must attract your niche target audience with great content. You can write blogs, produce podcasts or audio interviews, or record quick videos as signature content. As a TV producer by training, trust me when I write this: do not have videos longer than three minutes on the Internet. Less really is more. Good content solves a problem for a potential customer. You want to give them the “what” and the “why” and sell them on how you can fix it. Lead off with content — you need to start developing your content at least three months before your launch online.

Design your online brand: It doesn’t make sense to use social media if you do not have a website, or some sort of online presence. Do that first! I suggest you use your personal name in your social media profiles. People do business with people they like, know and trust. This is why you should develop a personal social media brand. Do not use your corporate logo as your social media profile picture, except for your Facebook fan page. If you are a solopreneur, use a professional head shot as your brand.

Promote and Grow Your Business!

Connect with your customers through email and social media with pbSmart Connections. Send your own email newsletters, invitations and promotions. Track your emails and see results.

Get your free 60 day trial and start promoting your business!

If you want to be a key influencer in your industry, the best way to demonstrate your expertise is through blogging and social media marketing. Just do it with purpose. Have goals and a strategy. Your website is your front door. Make sure it is ready to greet your audience with a polished online brand and snappy tagline. Craft your message for a specific customer. Don’t be afraid to use a virtual assistant to maintain your social media marketing efforts. Consistency is key in social media.

Do you have any more D’s to add to the list?

For more tips on how start or grow your small business subscribe to Melinda Emerson’s blog http://www.succeedasyourownboss.com.

What Next?

Read more great articles from Melinda Emerson and find out how pbSmart Essentials can help you better connect with your customers.

Melinda F. Emerson, known to many as SmallBizLady is one of America’s leading small business experts. As a seasoned entrepreneur, professional speaker, and small business coach, she develops audio, video and written content to fulfill her mission to end small business failure. As CEO of Quintessence Multimedia, Melinda educates entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies on subjects including small business start-up, business development and social media marketing. Forbes Magazine named her the no. 1 woman for entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. She hosts #SmallBizChat Wednesdays on Twitter 8-9pm ET for emerging entrepreneurs. She also publishes a resource blog http://www.succeedasyourownboss.com. Melinda is also the best-selling author of Become Your Own Boss in 12 months; A Month-by-Month Guide to a Business That Works.

For some, mobile marketing and commerce fall into this category. Despite the growing list of success stories, many small businesses still aren’t sure if the time is right to get into mobile.

For anyone still on the fence, Domino’s Pizza recently announced some astonishing first-quarter results  that make a compelling case to finally get into mobile.

As the article outlines, convenience and speed are everything for quick-service restaurants. Knowing their customers well, Domino’s launched a worldwide program to allow customers to order their pizzas from mobile websites and mobile apps on both Apple and Android platforms.

What they have achieved is amazing:

• Within 3 months Domino’s ipad app was generating $1million in sales each week in the U.S.
• Their Android app, which received 140,000 downloads in the first two weeks, is already generating 1% of all sales. For a worldwide franchise with sales in the billions of dollars, this is no small feat.
• Mobile orders now account for 20% of all online orders in the U.S.

As the article points out, the big lesson here is that these amazing results are primarily driven by customer demand. All that Domino’s did was act on the simplest of insights – that customers wanted a faster and more convenient way to order pizza – and customers did the rest.

Use QR codes to connect with mobile customers!

Generate a QR code, build a mobile web page and engage customers through their mobile devices. It’s easy! Get the most out of your marketing campaigns by adding a custom QR code to our NEW printed media and promotional items.

Try pbSmart Codes QR code software free today!

With mobile marketing, mobile commerce and apps well within the reach of small businesses these days, the Domino’s story begs the question: how many of your customers are waiting for you to go there too?

What about you? Does this article inspire you to take your small business into the mobile space? If you are already using mobile, what successes have you had? Please share your thoughts below.

WHAT NEXT?:

Interested in getting started with mobile marketing? Read our mobile marketing tips for small businesses.

One way to do this is by taking the time to personally thank customers – preferably right after they make a purchase or have a good experience. An example of a company that does this well is Zappos.com. Although Zappos.com is a big company, they successfully use the “small and personal” approach to boost customer retention.

Zappos.com Delivers the Personal Touch

My wife is fanatical about Zappos.com. She’s petite, so she often has difficulty finding things that fit her. As a result, she sometimes needs to call customer service with questions prior to placing her order online. This actually benefits both parties: my wife gets stuff that fits her the first time, and Zappos.com avoids extra return shipping costs.

My wife recently called the Zappos.com customer service line about a pair of “pop-top” mittens that she wanted. These trendy mittens allow her to “pop” the fingers off to use her iPhone, get a better grip on her morning tea and do other useful stuff.  She had such a great customer experience with her rep, Kristina, that the call culminated with her saying, “I love Zappos.com!”

So, what did Kristina do afterward? While most companies would chalk this order up as a “win” and move on, Kristina – probably because she was trained to do so by Zappos.com – took the time to send a hand-written thank you card. The outer envelope was personally addressed.

The front of the card was branded, but Kristina also wrote a nice message based on a specific comment that my wife made while they were on the phone. Talk about reinforcing the customer’s sense of loyalty to Zappos.

The inside of the card not only referenced her order number – which is helpful she needs it in the future – but also referenced my wife’s conversation with Kristina.

The entire communication was a “home run” in terms of further proving to my wife that Zappos.com is THE BEST place for her to shop for shoes and clothing. When she received this card, she was utterly floored. She put the card on the refrigerator for us to see on a daily basis and she also showed it to friends and family.

What Small Businesses Can Learn from Zappos.com

What Kristina did wasn’t a random act of kindness. Zappos.com recognized an opportunity to quickly reinforce great customer experiences. I’d bet that Kristina’s sales manager trained her on how and when to do this. Zappos.com probably gives all of their representatives a stack of cards and the discretion over when to send them.

Small businesses can easily do something similar and improve their own customer loyalty. It just takes a little planning and some ongoing organization to improve customer service. Here are five steps towards becoming a customer service superstar:

1. Determine who in your business should be involved. Is it just the owner, or are there other employees who are critical for building customer relationships?
2. Communicate the idea and consult your staff about a process that they feel works for them. It’s critical that your staff is willing to execute the program on a regular basis.   To help with their willingness to execute on the program, make sure it is simple for them to get their notes out to their customers.  (Did you notice the Zappos envelope had a Pitney Bowes indicia? Learn more about how pbSmartPostage^TM can help make thanking customers easy for your team.)
3. Determine the program parameters. How many customers per week do you want to thank? How many of those customers should each employee personally thank? What are the personal elements you want employees to reference in the communications? What type of communication do you want to send (i.e. thank you card, postcard or email)?
4. Monitor customer experiences and choose who gets a “thank you”. Make sure that you give your customers a reminder of how to find your business online, in case they want to post something nice on your Facebook page or tweet about your nice gesture.
5. Measure the impact that your personal thank you notes have on your customer relationships. Do customers rave about your kind notes? Are they coming back to buy more often? Are they bringing friends? Are they finding your Facebook page and sharing their love of your business with their friends? Are they saying nice things on Twitter? These are all metrics that point toward growing customer loyalty.

Send your customers thank you notes quickly and easily!

Print postage for your customer thank you notes right from your computer. Click, print, and send with pbSmartPostage, an online postage solution from Pitney Bowes!

Get started with pbSmart Postage for free!

Taking the time to personally thank your customers – even if it’s only a few customers each week – can have a huge impact on your business.

What about you? How do you thank your customers? Feel free to share your comments below.

WHAT NEXT?:

Be sure to check out “Customer Retention: Keep Customers by Growing Relationships Online” for more information on building and maintaining customer relationships.

Along with our expert contributors — Melinda Emerson, Jane Applegate, and Phil Simon — we visited the NavigatorMD team and learned about the challenges they face when communicating with prospects and customers. Our experts then gave some great advice on, amongst other topics, narrowing and communicating with a target market.

View the videos below.

Episode #1

Episode #2

Episode #3

You can learn more about the company at http://www.navigatormd.com

And if you missed the first two installments of Small Business Makeover videos, check them out here: Sweet and Simple, The English Teacher’s Friend

Want to stay up to date with customer communication tips and advice? Subscribe below:

We believe time management is a myth.  You can’t manage time.  The only things you can manage are the choices you make regarding how you will spend your time.  What you need are better TiME™ Strategies.  You need a new way of thinking about the minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months that stand before you today.  You need concrete ideas, tools, plans, actions, – the bottom line is you need a strategy to Prioritize, Organize and Simplify® your life at work and at home.

Here are three quick ideas to improve your TiME™ Strategies:

1. Prioritize – At the end of every day, take seven minutes to think about “what” you want to accomplish tomorrow.  Take the time to create a written plan of every single task you need to accomplish.  Then go one step farther and prioritize that list in order of importance.
2. Organize – Next you will need to organize exactly what steps, tools, files and people are needed for you to accomplish those important activities or tasks.   Take an additional five to seven minutes to organize your thoughts regarding “how” you will complete each activity.
3. Simplify –  Once you have prioritized “what” you want to accomplish and you have organized your thoughts for “how” you can accomplish it, – then, it is time to recognize the physical limitation that time presents every day.  Far too many small business people expect themselves to do too much and they are disappointed when they cannot complete everything on their current to-do list.

One of the most popular TiME Strategies™ is the concept of simplifying these tasks into a written 5 before 11 list.  This strategic list outlines the five highest value activities that you are committing to accomplishing before eleven o’clock each morning.

If you complete five high value activities per day in seven days you will have completed 35 activities.  If you accomplish five activities for the next ninety days you will have taken 450 powerful steps toward accomplishing your goals.

Time cannot be managed, but we each have total control over how we will choose to Prioritize, Organize and Simplify® our lives.

Specifics include: increasing daily efficiency by concentrating your focus, accomplishing more by doing less, exploring how the brain works, removing distraction and disorganization, completing unfinished tasks, creating written 90 day goals, and explaining how you can dramatically increase your daily productivity with one piece of paper.

In as little as “7 Minutes” a day you can clarify your goals, improve your time management, and create repeatable systematic processes to Prioritize, Organize and Simplify® your life at work and at home.

Please connect with us:

www.The7MinuteLife.com
http://www.facebook.com/AllysonLewis.SevenMinutes

@Allyson7Minutes

Send your customers thank you notes quickly and easily!

Print postage for your customer thank you notes right from your computer. Click, print, and send with pbSmartPostage, an online postage solution from Pitney Bowes!

Get started with pbSmart Postage for free!

No?  Then hold onto those flowers (yes she’ll appreciate them), and discover another side to moms everywhere.

The top 5 finance lessons you learned from your mother.

Mom’s Finance Lesson #1 – The Grocery List

In my mind’s eye I can still see the carefully crafted, thoroughly researched shopping list my mom would bring to the grocery store.  My sisters and I knew if we didn’t write our request on the list we wouldn’t get it.  Of course the item might still be struck from the list, but woe unto the one who tries to request an item after arriving at the grocery store.

Sounds suspiciously like a budget doesn’t it?  In my former life as a Chief Financial Officer I used essentially the same process in creating and managing the company’s budget.  As a parent now myself I realize my mom was trying to avoid spur of the moment splurges and constant nagging.  For any size business budgets keep us focused on our needs, dampening the urge to buy something just because it’s new and shiny.

Mom’s Finance Lesson #2 – Managing the Checkbook

When I was a kid (yes dirt had been invented by then, and the Model-T was old news), credit cards were not the norm.  I’m sure they existed, but as an expensive, emergency only measure.  That meant you had to have actual cash, or a positive balance in your checking account, to buy things or pay bills.  Mom had to plan ahead and be sure there would be enough money to do the grocery shopping, pay the milkman, and buy new shoes for school.

Most small businesses, particularly start-ups, operate on a cash basis.  In these economic times it can be difficult to obtain business credit.  That means cash is king, and you need to be sure you have enough cash on hand when bills come due.  Follow mom’s example in planning out your expenses versus expected revenue to keep your running smoothly.

Mom’s Finance Lesson #3 – Paying the Bills On Time, Every Time

Recently I heard someone quote Albert Einstein discussing the three ways you teach a child.  The first is by example.  The second is by example.  The third is by example.

Not only did my mother tell me that bills must be paid, she did so.  There were times my family would pass on extras to ensure that outstanding bills were met.  This was not done grudgingly, but as a matter of course.  If a person or company delivers a product or service then they deserved to be paid.

Nothing will kill your reputation faster than paying late, trying to get a bill reduced for an unjustified reason, or simply not paying.  If a legitimate reason arises, contact the company immediately and work out a payment plan.  It’s not just your credit at risk here.  Who would want to refer business to a company that shirks their fiscal responsibilities?  Not me!

Mom’s Finance Lesson #4 – Asking Why

“Mom I need these jeans.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re cool.  All my friends have them.”

“What’s wrong with the jeans you have?”

“But mom I need THESE jeans.”

“No you don’t need them.  You want them.  The answer is no.”

Wanting isn’t needing.  My mom always knew how to cut through the whitewashing and determine if I really needed something.  Businesses could do well to have this same internal discussion before investing time, energy or money into an idea.

Mom’s Finance Lesson #5 – Resistance to the World’s Best Salesperson

Who’s harder to refuse, an acquaintance pitching the latest widget, or your adorable 3 year old whose bottom lip is quivering?  Saying no repeatedly, for inexplicable reasons (to the 3 year old anyway) is a core part of a mother’s job description.  This requires developing a thick skin combined with the ability to stick to what you know is best, even when those around you get upset.  Be a mom to the “demands” of your business.

Send your customers thank you notes quickly and easily!

Print postage for your customer thank you notes right from your computer. Click, print, and send with pbSmartPostage, an online postage solution from Pitney Bowes!

Get started with pbSmart Postage for free!

Final Thoughts

What other finance lessons did you learn from your mother?  Sound off below, shout-out’s to your mom are encouraged (you’d be surprised how many are online these days).

WHAT NEXT?:

Read more of Nicole Fende’s writing on pbSmart Essentials: Better Than Cloning: Automation That Grows Small Business Profit

1. Fortify Your Home Base. Make sure your site is professional looking, and that all the links work! Have clear information on how people can hire you and complete contact details, and use a contact form. Make sure that you have three to five ways to engage potential customers once they arrive at your site. Examples: Offer them a free monthly e-newsletter, give away a free chapter download of your book or e-book, or ask them to sign up for the RSS feed of your blog.

2. Develop a Blog. Make sure that you know the search terms customers will use to find you online. Once you have this information, you should develop content that specifically addresses their needs. Create a content strategy with articles, videos and audio clips that answer questions and provide solutions. You must blog two to three times a week to be taken seriously and to stay on your customers’ minds. The more the better. Producing quality content is your best website marketing strategy.

3. Use Keywords Intelligently. It is important that you know your top 5 keywords. It is particularly important to place the words in the titles of your blog posts. They should be used throughout the website content too, but be careful not to overdo it. You want to make sure that you do not turn off your target audience or search engines by stuffing your site with unnecessary keywords.

4. Offer a Free Giveaway. You should create a special report from your signature content that you give away for free in exchange for an email address. It should be your best stuff.  You will never get a client to do business with you if you start the relationship by giving them junk.

5. Use SEO. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website in search engines via “natural” or un-paid search. Your activities boost your online brand and you drive traffic to your website.

6. Set Weekly Goals to Obtain In-bound Links. Ten to 25 links per week is a good number. List yourself in business directories, comment on blogs and send out press releases to help achieve your weekly goals. SEO optimization is highly reliant on in-bound link numbers, but quality of where the links come from is important, too.

Promote and Grow Your Business!

Connect with your customers through email and social media with pbSmart Connections. Send your own email newsletters, invitations and promotions. Track your emails and see results.

Get your free 60 day trial and start promoting your business!

7. Review Your Google Analytics. Check your analytics for your “bounce rate.” Do people leave your site quickly after they arrive? If so, why aren’t they staying? You can do a lot to draw traffic, but if they come and leave quickly, you’ve wasted all your efforts. Invest in having your Google Analytics results reviewed by a professional so that you can tweak your content strategy. Once your figure out what your audience likes, give them more over it.

8. Leverage Social Media Profiles. Take advantage of all opportunities to link your website to your social media profiles. For example, if you use LinkedIn, make sure your have pulled in your blog (if you have one) and list your website in your Twitter profile. Also, create a Facebook Fan Page with a link back to your business website.

9. Use Social Networking Sites. Choose two social networks where your customers are hanging out online. Use social media to network and push out your blog content. Use a 4:1 ratio of promoting other people’s content over your own. Remember that social media is about mutual interaction, so don’t be all about promoting your business. Share other people’s content, and they will promote yours.

10. Build Community Online. Use social media to win friends and ask and answer questions. This will help you demonstrate your thought leadership. As you build your online reputation, it becomes a valuable asset to bring in more site visitors.

Do you have another method to promote a small business website?

What Next?

Promote and Grow Your Business!

Connect with your customers through email and social media with pbSmart Connections. Send your own email newsletters, invitations and promotions. Track your emails and see results.

Get your free 60 day trial and start promoting your business!

Melinda F. Emerson, known to many as SmallBizLady is one of America’s leading small business experts. As CEO of MFE Consulting LLC, Melinda educates entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies on subjects including small business start-up, business development and social media marketing. Melinda is also the author of the national bestseller Become Your Own Boss in 12 months; A Month-by-Month Guide to a Business That Works. Melinda is not a Pitney Bowes employee, and shares her opinions on this blog as a paid contributor.

Along with our expert contributors — Melinda Emerson, Jane Applegate, and Phil Simon — we visited Tamara and learned about her communications challenges. Our experts then gave her some great advice on improving how The English Teacher’s Friend could communicate, build relationships, and transact with customers.

Episode #1

Episode #2

Episode #3

You can learn more about The English Teacher’s Friend at: http://www.englishteachersfriend.com/

And if you missed our first installment of videos from the Small Business Makeover Contest, check out that post here.

Want to stay up to date with customer communication tips and advice? Subscribe below:

While four of the top five QR code campaigns were run by large companies, the examples provide valuable lessons to help small businesses improve their QR code marketing programs.

Let’s take a look at what these top campaigns did right:

Calls to Action:  The article mentions that several of the campaigns featured clear calls to action that told customers exactly why they should scan the QR code. Placing a QR code on promotional materials without telling customers what they’ll get dramatically reduces the number of scans. A related best practice is to provide customers with a small explanation of how QR codes work, telling them where to get a QR code reader if they don’t have one yet.  At least one of the top campaigns failed to provide this information. If space permits, it’s a good idea to include these instructions to ensure that as many people as possible scan your QR code.

Mobile-Optimized Websites: Each of the five campaigns features a landing page or website that was optimized for the mobile experience. A non-optimized mobile site is a serious weak link in a QR campaign, leaving visitors unable to read your message, take advantage of your offers, or make a purchase. Fortunately, optimizing your campaign for mobile is one of the easiest best practices to follow: software like our own pbSmart™ Codes allows you to create customized, mobile-optimized websites in the same easy interface used to create your QR code.

Integration With Print, Outdoor and Event Promotions:  The examples include a wide range of media used to promote the QR code campaigns: from magazine ads, to taxicab ads, to event signage.  One of the lessons here is that QR code marketing isn’t something you have to do as a separate exercise.  QR codes can complement your traditional promotional activities and breathe new life into them to improve response rates.  QR codes also give you the unprecedented ability to assess the impact of your promotional activities.  When in the past would you have been able to directly measure responses to a magazine ad?

Planning for the Customer’s Situation:  Two of the campaigns showed thoughtful planning based on what customers were doing at the time.

• When customers are already looking at your menu, how can you make it easier for them to take the next step and place an order? QR codes, of course. The restaurant used a QR code to link from its take out menu to an easy mobile-web ordering system.
• Taxi rides are synonymous with idle downtime – how can you help customers pass the time and get a little shopping done too? The L’Oreal campaign came up with a clever answer, displaying product shots in cabs that linked to mobile shopping websites via QR codes.

The more we think about how to provide value to the customer in a given situation, the more successful our QR campaigns will be.

Scanners Become Buyers:  The overriding lesson from these examples is that QR codes aren’t just another way to engage customers in the hope that they one day visit your store.  These campaigns all featured mobile-commerce elements and proved that QR codes offer a direct link from scan to sale. Not many marketing methods offer quite the same opportunity for “instant return” from the time of exposure to conversion. And the best part is that it all these results are measurable.

With all the benefits of QR marketing, we’re sure that the Q2 of 2012 will provide more inspirational examples of QR codes in action. Stay tuned.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? Have you seen any recent examples of best practices in QR code marketing campaigns? What successes have you had? Please share your experiences below.

WHAT NEXT?

If you’re not currently using QR codes to market your small business, find out how in our free, on-demand webinar, Getting Started with QR Code Marketing, featuring Pitney Bowes marketing expert Peter Binder.