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2013 Brooks Briz and Brizness, LLC.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION

I. WHERE DO YOU STAND RIGHT NOW?

II. FINDING NEW CUSTOMERS

III. MAINTAINING YOUR CUSTOMERS

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

You’re here for one reason: to learn how to attract more of the right customers and achieve peace of mind that they will faithfully return. By the end of this book, you will have more confidence, less stress and will have mastered a simple plan to attract hordes of your “ideal customers” that are crazy about you and your business. This book was predominantly written for small business owners, managers, consultants and service providers. The words alone will not do much but if you view all of the video tutorials and commit yourself to the strategies set forth then you will be able to implement action today and see results immediately. Here are the typical problems that we all face regarding customer acquisition and retention: • You are cold called or perhaps referred to a “friend of a friend” and are enticed by the big promises made by a sales representative and/or company without them truly being vested in your business relationship. • You really didn’t (or didn’t care to) understand what they [the service provider] did in the first place, but thought to yourself, “I’m willing to spend money to make money; just give me customers!” • You didn’t have sufficient information to make a decision and did not “shop” different service providers to find the best deal that would provide results for your business. • You didn’t ask specific questions geared toward guarantees and took the service provider at their word. As “everyone” knows, a 100% guarantee in marketing is “unheard of” and “simply can’t be done.”

The good news is that fixing these problems is simple. If you are serious about attracting the right types of customers more often; this guide will help you do just that. Yes, you have to put in effort, you will have to educate yourself about your options, and at the end of the day, you will have to make tough decisions. As such, the goal of this guide is to help you make decisions that are based on results. If you choose not to implement these strategies by yourself then you will learn how to obtain service providers that will show you how your customers find you, whether they are buying your products and services and if they are returning. In essence, the guessing game in effective advertising, customer relations, marketing and promotion is dead.

“You will

attract more of the right customers

and achieve peace of mind.”

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

Here are just a few things that you will take from this guide: • How to track every phone call that is made to your establishment and know which promotional pieces bring in your best customers. • Find out where hordes of your customers are (online, on handheld devices, mobile and so forth) and have the ability to present your offering to them wherever they are. • How to leverage technology efficiently to extend relationships with your community and invite them back. • How to tell tens, hundreds or even thousands of targeted customers about what you do with the click of a mouse button without sounding “salesy” and turning them off. • Know virtually anything that you want to know about your target customer’s wants and tastes without having to ask them. • How to engage in conversation with your customers in real time via text, voice and/or video. • Know exactly what your target market searches for and how to effectively communicate with them.

As such, this book and the BrooksBriz.com website is certainly not for everyone. My goal is to arm you with the right information as concisely as possible and allow you to make one or a combination of three decisions: 1. How to carry out the advertising, marketing or strategy activity by yourself. 2. How to delegate responsibility to someone else within your organization. 3. How to properly select the right person or company to do it for you. Please note that not everything that is set forth in this book will be applicable to you and your business. The methods proposed need to be continually tested and measured in order to determine their worth to you. Finally, at the bottom of most pages in this book there is a bold link to a video tutorial that will examine the subject matter in more detail. If you have additional questions, please contact me at brooks@brooksbriz.com.

WHERE DO YOU STAND RIGHT

NOW?

Are You Remarkable? Do You Genuinely Care? Your Mission and Vision

Target Fanbase 2.0 The New Word-of-Mouth

Tracking (And Its Necessity)

PART 1

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Before we talk about how you will go about finding and attracting your target customers, we will need to examine your business model as a whole. Take the time to critically ask yourself, “Is my organization actually special and worth remembering to people?” This can be tough because many of us think of our business as our baby and don’t want to think that it is anything but the most spectacular concept ever developed. It’s going to be tough to face but there is a possibility that… YOUR BABY IS UGLY! To evaluate where you stand, you will need to identify what Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Developing a USP will cause you to critically examine your overall business model, figure out what sets your business apart from the rest and develop the definitive reasons as to why you are better than your competition. The USP was originally developed by marketing legend, Rosser Reeves, who defined the USP as, “Buy this product and you will get this specific benefit.” The Glazer-Kennedy marketing group expanded upon this principle and developed the following litmus test: Why should I, your target customer, choose to do business with YOU above any, and all, other options that are available to me? It is imperative that you are able to answer this question as concisely as possible. You might believe that you already know the answer to this question but let’s examine it in further detail. For example, when asked what your USP is, you may answer by saying: “My restaurant, Fred’s, is the best restaurant option in Kalamazoo, MI, because we serve the highest quality American cuisine at the best price.” Initially, you may think that this sounds like a very good USP but, in fact, it is extremely vague and ineffective. You can instantly rattle off a number of questions about the claims that are being made: • What makes you the best restaurant option? Just because you say so?

“Buy this

product and you will get this specific

benefit.”

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

• What does the “best price” constitute? Does best mean that you offer the lowest price available in your immediate area? Do you have proof that you provide the most “value”? What does this statement literally mean to your target consumers? • What makes you better than everyone else that you compete against? What inherent advantage(s) do you have that no one else does? A great USP example is owned by Domino’s Pizza which built their pizza empire on the concept of, “Fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less -- or it's free.“ Do you see the simplicity and focus that is present here? There is no guessing or cause for confusion since the concept is so focused and concise. This is also what is known as the “Hedgehog Principle” which was originally developed by Isaiah Berlin and later expanded upon by marketer, Jim Collins. As the story goes, there is a hedgehog and a fox in the woods. The fox is a predator and is trying his best to attack the hedgehog and make the hedgehog his dinner. However, despite the fox being very smart, clever and quick and constantly inventing new methods to try and attack the hedgehog; the fox ends up fighting a losing battle. The reason why the hedgehog continued to win was simply because the hedgehog did one thing but did it very well; she coils up in a ball and exposed her quills. The hedgehog does not try to fight, bite, claw or utilize any other sort of defense mechanism; the hedgehog only does what it knows best. The point is that you need to focus your strategy around a very simple concept that you do better than anyone else. If you are trying to be “everything to everyone,” then you will flat-out lose to your competitors. In essence, as much as you would like to, you can not possibly offer the best product at the best price in the best location with the best customer service. Furthermore, you cannot possibly compete on price because there will always be someone who can enter the market and charge just a little less than you thereby stealing your customers. It is impossible to make everyone happy and therefore it is imperative that you focus on USP and delivery it to your “diehard fans” that understand, cherish and are absolutely crazy about you and your business. To find out more about the Hedgehog Principle, check out “The Hedgehog Concept” video.

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What do you want to accomplish? Look at this question from a deeper level and critically think about what it is that you want more than anything else at the end of the day. Clearly, you want to learn how to attract new customers and keep them coming back but the question is why? Take a moment and think about whether the following reasons for wanting more customers, more often apply to you: • Make more money • Spend more time with loved ones • Want the respect of your family, friends, community and peers • Want to share your passions and love for your business with other people • To lessen the stress of not knowing where your customers come from and what they value • You want safety and security for yourself and the people that matter the most to you With all of this being said, it is vital that you understand and accept the fact that your business is not all about YOU. A lot of the methodologies that will be proposed will fail miserably if you do not care about your loyal fan base and make their needs and wants paramount in your mind. It is also imperative that you accept the fact that people are sick and tired of being sold to. If you don’t understand this principle; you are going to lose in business today. Your target customers do not care about your wants; they only care about whether you are able to solve their pain, fix their problem or fill their needs. Knowing everything there is to know about Twitter, Facebook, email marketing, website optimization, video marketing and so forth will be completely useless if you don’t actually care about your fan base. Caring is the most underrated and underutilized business principle by far today.

“You want

safety and security for yourself and

the people that matter the most to

you.”

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

This may seem like common sense but take another moment to ask yourself the following questions to see if you are actually willing and able to vest yourself in your fan base: • Can you create a minimum of one hour per day to answer all of your fan base’s questions, tweets, Facebook wall posts, blog comments, video comments, local reviews and so forth? •When you are provided negative feedback from your customer base, do you look at this as necessity, an annoyance or as an opportunity to learn and improve? • Do you feel confident that you can trust someone else (whether it be a service provider or someone else within your organization) to interact directly with your consumer on your behalf? Caring and letting people know that they have a voice that you cherish and respect is the fundamental underpinning that will determine how successful you are with everything that will be proposed in this guide. If you take nothing else from this book, remember this one universal truth: “If you genuinely care and are committed to your fan base; you will build the community that will support you and your business for the rest of your life.” For more information, check out the “Retaining Customer Loyalty” video.

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

Another important piece of your customer acquisition and retention formula will be your ability to formulate and refine your mission and vision. Every single member of your organization from the CEO to your lowest level employee should be able to recite both your mission and vision in less than 30 seconds. Optimally, this also includes your vendors, fan base, community, shareholders and anyone else that impacts your organization. In essence, every person that is involved with your organization should know both how you conduct business and what your end goal is. These two aspects are often confused so let’s distinguish the two from one another. A mission is defined as the way that your company conducts business day-to-day. Put another way, your mission is the driving force that should dictate how every decision within your organization should be made. The American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) defines their mission as, “To protect and promote the interests of motorcyclists while serving the needs of its members.” Another example is the mission at BrooksBriz.com which is, “To give concise customer attraction and retention information in the most fun and effective manner possible.” In both of these examples, the missions are brief, definitive and use very precise language rather than jargon laden statements that no one understands or truly believes in. A vision is what your organization aspires to be. Whereas your mission statement dictates the day-to-day operations and decision making process, your vision statement defines your long-term plan. Again, the vision has the purpose of uniting your entire organization with a common belief as to where you are going. An example of a very concise and simple vision statement can be found through machinery giant, Caterpillar, whose vision is, “To be the global leader in customer value.” For BrooksBriz.com, our vision is, “To be the world's largest database of customer attraction and retention video tutorials.” As you can see, these vision statements exemplify the importance of being concise, to the point and void of any unnecessary adjectives, space fillers and fluff. Combined, these two simple statements will build a substantial piece of brand equity for you and provides your target customers something to believe in!

“Your

mission is the driving force that

will dictate how every decision is

made.”

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

Quick: Who is your target market? Typically, people tend to think of their “target market” as the group of people that you aim your marketing message at based on segmentations such as geographic location, age, gender, income and so forth. Pretty simple stuff, right? The problem is that the aforementioned items are not nearly enough information from which to base your marketing and promotion decisions off of! Not only do you need to know who your target people are; you also need to understand what pains them and causes them discomfort. In essence, you need to know exactly how they think, how they communicate, and ultimately, how to solve their pain and problems. Once you’ve established these two factors, it’s imperative that you focus on “your core people,” “tribe members,” diehard fans” or whatever you choose to call them. These are the people that are willing to pledge their undying allegiance to your brand. This type of fan would not even think twice about rushing into your establishment even if your offer was to try your new “99 dollar cat food soufflé” on Christmas morning at 9:00 AM. These are the type of people that you need to target and focus a majority of your energy on as they bring substantial results to your business. This is why measuring your results becomes so important so that you can decipher who your real fans are (hint: they consistently buy your stuff without complaint). Ultimately, it is up to you to create a culture that appeals to an ideal type of person and encourages a two-way conversation rather than aggressively pushing your offering to “basically anyone.” Therefore, every piece of content, engagement and interaction must follow this same formula that shows that you understand your target fanbase better than any of your competitors. If you can effectively communicate with your target fanbase and others can’t; you will win. All forms of communication via Twitter, Facebook, email, your website, brochures and so forth need to have a goal of genuinely connecting with your target fanbase. Pretty pictures might get your audience’s attention but your words and interactions with them is what will capture their attention and allow them to sell themselves on what you have to offer. Remember: build your loyal fanbase and everything else will fall into place.

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Take a moment to seriously contemplate your business model by asking yourself the following questions: • What do you believe is the best way to attract and maintain your customer base? •What method do you believe instills the most trust amongst your ideal consumers? • How do your quality customers or “targeted fans” find your business? What keeps them coming back? I don’t need to know you or your business to know that you most likely answered, give people a high-quality experience along with quality products and your business will spread through “word-of-mouth.” The good news is that “word-of-mouth” has never been stronger. In fact, this aforementioned social proof via “word-of-mouth” has gone online and transformed into what is now known as, “word-of-mouse.” In essence, your target community is now using the Internet to share their honest and unbiased viewpoints with the entire world about you and your business. Instead of looking at this as a hindrance to your business and being scared about what people might say; this is a perfect opportunity for you to get to know your target customer base better and showcase your offering. In fact, if you tackle this component properly, you no longer necessarily need a website, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertisements, billboards, television commercials and so forth. Since formal word-of-mouth has broadened its scope exponentially, you now have the ability to save a lot of money on advertising and promotion. The bottom line is that you will be able to focus on what you love and do best. Ultimately, the reason for this fundamental change is because people trust other people. Consumers no longer want to have messages pitched and shoved down their throats. As such, they now look at local sources, local review sites, their social engines, their cell phones, and of course, still talk to one another in person. This is a shift in the way that we communicate that can provide substantial gains for your business if you are willing to educate yourself about your options and able to follow through with the decisions that you make. The next chapter will cover the “New Word-of-Mouth” in more detail; hope you’re ready!

“Most

people find out about us

through ‘Word-of-Mouth.”

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

The greatest advancements in technology have now afforded us the ability to track every sort of advertising and promotional piece that we produce. As such, the days of guessing and theory in marketing are long gone. Take a moment to honestly ask yourself the following questions: • How do you drive a majority of your potential customers to your business? • How much does it cost you to attract one potential consumer to your business? • What is the likelihood that an initial visitor will visit your establishment or utilize your service within 12 hours of learning about you? How about the first 24 hours? 48 hours? • What percentage of your target customers take the action that you want them to (making a reservation, requesting a quote, ordering over the phone) when promoting your business? • Overall, how much does it cost you to make your phone ring? How much does each new customer cost you? If you were able to answer all of the questions above with absolute certainty then you are way ahead of the game. If not, never fear. That’s the very reason why you are reading this book! As it was alluded to earlier, technology and effective customer attraction and retention have fused together to the point that guessing has become obsolete. Below you will find five simple methods that will explode your results. You will now know exactly how your target customers find you, what action they take, how well each one of your ad methods is working, what your employees are saying to your target customers on the phone (if you do not talk directly to them) and more! 1. Google Analytics- This is a simple bit of code that takes five minutes to install on your website and it will

give you detailed information such as how people find your website, how long they stay on your site, what web pages that they looked at, detailed demographic information and much more.

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2. Personalized Uniform Resource Locator (PURL)- In plain English, a PURL is a specific website address that you can drive potential customers to. For example, if your primary website is bobsrestaurantnc.com, then you could set-up nearly identical sites in your local area such as bobsrestaurantraleigh.com to track specific offline marketing campaigns.

In essence, if you were to buy traffic online, start a direct mail campaign, put up a billboard or run a television commercial series; you will now have the ability to drive potential customers to a PURL that you know can only be attributed to that one specific advertising method.

3. Google Voice – Google Voice is a free service that allows you to set-up a custom phone number, have that number ring to multiple phones at one time, get transcribed voicemails in your email and much more.

The tremendous advantage for you is that you can attach your Google Voice number to any advertising campaign and measure how many phone calls that the campaign receives. For example, you could set-up two free Google Voice numbers in less than 10 minutes and test how well direct mail, radio, social networking and Yellow Pages ads all stack up against one another. Again, this is all about testing!

4. Call Fire- This is a spectacular paid service that allows you to set-up local and toll-free numbers complete with analytics. Again, having the ability to track the phone numbers that you use will allow you to identify successful ad campaigns and continually improve your offering.

5. Bit.ly- This is a free URL shortener that allows you to track the links that you create. For instance, if you wanted more people to see your special offers, it would be very difficult to tell people to go to their web browser and type in bobsrestaurantnc.com/todays-special-offers. However, with this service you will have the ability to substantially shorten this web address into a custom website address which will make the information easier for people to remember, and thus, more transferrable.

Additionally, the bit.ly service also automatically generates what is known as a QR code. A QR code is a little black and white box that people can scan with what is known as a “QR Scanner” with their computers, cell phones and handheld devices and generates specific information. For example, you could send people to a landing page with a specific offer, take them to your website, have them opt-in to your email marketing campaign and much more.

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

ATTRACTING NEW

CUSTOMERS

Get Listed Locally Local Review Optimization Maximizing Social Media

Your Website: Profit Center Why Your Site Won’t Convert

The Right Type of Traffic The Money is in Your List

RSS Explained Pay to Play?

Traditional Marketing

PART 2

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When performing a search into a search engine such as Google, Yahoo or Bing, you get three types of results: Natural/Organic- These are defined as the most relevant listings that are returned by the search engine. Paid- These are the listings that you see above and to the right of the natural results that were placed there by advertisers based on the keywords that you entered into the search engine. Local- These are the results that are labeled by a letter and correspond to a local map. These listings typically are found at the top or in the middle of the natural search results. In recent history, local results have now been integrated into natural search results as well! We’ll discuss natural and paid search results in later sections but it is important that you realize the emphasis that is being put on local search by search engines and their impact on your business. Here are the main advantages of local search and why you need to optimize these listings: • They are free to claim (though there are paid premium options such as Google Tags and Google Boost). • They are extremely easy to set-up (as long as you have all of the pertinent information about your business at your disposal). In fact, you can claim your listing on the five main directories (Google, Yahoo, Bing, DMOZ and City Search) in just a few hours if you’re willing to follow the directions given and do all of the data entry. • In many different service categories, local now outranks natural listings and the “local map” is prominently displayed above the paid listings. In order to get your local listings to perform well, these are the most critical factors that you will need to take into account: • Complete and targeted information. Search engines focus on being as relevant to the searcher as possible, and as such, it is your responsibility to hone your local listing on your most relevant customers and provide them as much pertinent information as you can.

“Local

search often outrank natural

listings and the ‘local map’ is

displayed above paid.”

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

• Obtain as many high quality reviews as you can and engage with consumers on local review sites such as Yelp, Zagat, City Search, Yahoo Local and Google Places. We’ll learn more about this later but remember that the more high quality reviews you can get, the better! • Get as many local citations as possible through sources like YellowPages, InfoUSA, Better Business Bureau, Merchant Circle and so forth. You can use a service provider such as WhiteSpark to mass submit your business to find these local citation sources and submit to them for free! • Continually respond to reviews both negative and positive and show that you are active in maintaining your reputation and engaging with consumers. As a result, other prospective customers will take notice. • Use the Get Listed tool to find out what local profiles your business has claimed by entering in your business name and zip code and Get Listed will take care of the rest.

Figure 2.1- GetListed.org

Sample Screenshot

To find out how to optimize your local listings and how to be found by your target customers, check out the “Effective Local Search Marketing (Optimizing Google Places)” video.

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

As was just talked about, reviews are the lifeblood of your online presence. Many businesses cower at the thought of being blasted on a local review site but this train of thought is unfounded because: a. You should be confident in your offering and do the right thing for people in the first place; b. Reviews reward businesses that have great offerings with better rankings; c. You have the opportunity to respond to virtually all reviews publicly or privately; d. The local review sites work with you to make sure that all reviews are factual. As you can see, obtaining local reviews and obtaining better is extremely important! Here are the main advantages that reviews have on your business: • A majority of local review sites (Yelp, Yellow Pages, City Search and so forth) are free to set-up your profile on and their citations (mentioning of your business by name) will contribute to your local search presence. • Many local review sites offer paid options for premium or enhanced listings. In essence, your listing can be placed at the top, have a special symbol or possess additional features such as coupons. According to Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers, “78% of consumers trust each other more than they trust advertising.” Basically, putting stock into methods that your target consumers actually trust is huge for your bottom line! • Establishing two-way communication with your audience will provide you with feedback, comments and information which you can base your future business decisions on. In other words, if your audience tells you that they want more or less of a particular product or service; listen and give it to them! • The ability to interact with your consumers on a public forum which other people to see. If other consumers see your business communicating with customers and your competitors do not; it shows that you really care! To see reviews in action, to find out how to maximize your visibility to your target customers over your competitors and see some of the emerging ways to promote your business locally then check out the “Optimizing Local Search” video.

“A majority of local review

sites are free to set-

up.”

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

It seems as though virtually every news and business outlet is encouraging small businesses to jump on social media and start embracing the paradigm shift in the way that people now communicate. Though there are a lot of benefits to participating in the social media space, here are just a few aspects of social media that you need to be aware of when developing your strategy: • Social media is not as conducive to quick, one time sales and is considered to be a better tool for long-term relationship building. • You are speaking on a public forum that cannot be erased or altered. If you make a glaring mistake or anger your customers; your written word will be on display for the whole world to see. Regardless, the ability to connect with your customers outside of your organization’s walls is amazing. If you do choose to embrace social media, here are a few tips on how to maximize your social presence: • Be sure to establish a presence wherever your target customers are. If you don’t know where they congregate; ask them! Do not limit yourself to the number of free profiles that you need to create and optimize; just focus on where the people are and devote yourself to contributing value to them. • Realize that social media encompasses a two-way conversation. As such, stray away from talking too much and certainly do NOT only open up mouth just to try and sell your products and services. • Develop a regular schedule where you (or the people/person that you delegate responsibility to) will observe, listen and converse regularly with your audience. Furthermore, be realistic about what you can handle! • Hire a Social Media Manager (SMM) to do all of the work for you. Make sure that you develop a plan for what you want to accomplish and structure an agreement based on results and guarantees. If you are in the Food & Beverage industry then I thoroughly recommend obtaining Interactive Hospitality as your SMM. To find out more about how big social media is becoming for business, check out the “Social Media Revolution” video.

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

There is a growing misconception that a website is a mandatory web presence tool that “you just need to have” and that having one “can’t hurt your business.” The fact of the matter is that having a company website is neither a necessity or an automatic beneficial asset. There are many other strategies outside of developing a great website and having a very poorly performing site with dated information can actually hurt you. These are the biggest mistakes that small business owners make when constructing their corporate website: • They use flash, play music and use other distractions which complicate the visitor’s ability to take action. • They put pertinent information in formats (such as .jpeg, .pdf and .ppt) that are not search engine friendly. • They do not prominently display the information that their site visitors would want and/or they have dated information that is no longer accurate, and thus, misleads the consumer. • They do not tell the visitors what action they want the site guest to take (request information, make an appointment, call their business and so forth). Knowing why websites do not function will put you way ahead of your competitors. Ultimately, an effective website allows potential customers to obtain more information and sell themselves on a certain action without you having to put forth any salesmanship. Here are some ideas on how to develop your site: • Build your site that has a very user friendly backend such as Wordpress. This way, you will be able to update your site by yourself and not have to rely on anyone else to do it for you. • Think critically about what information your potential customer wants and give it to them. Do not make them dig around or guess as to where this information is located. Make it as simple as possible for them! • Make sure that your pertinent information (menus, product offers, services) is in HTML format so that web crawlers can readily see this information and allow your site to perform better in the search engines. To learn more about optimizing your website, check out the “Improving Your Website” video.

“Think

about what information

your potential customer wants and give it to them.”

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

Without knowing anything about you or your business, there is a very good chance that your website is not effective in terms of converting web visitors into vested long-term customers. In essence, you are not giving your visitors the ability to take the action that you want them to! The good news is that rendering this problem is relatively simple. First and foremost, you must be aware of what mistakes that your competition is making and what you can learn from their blunders in order to beat them. This will quickly allow you to decide whether your web presence is “conversion ready.” Remember, you just have to be a little bit better than your competition to dominate your market. The biggest mistakes that your competition makes include: • Not knowing who their target customers are inside and out (not just demographics but rather their tastes, preferences, thought processes and so forth). • Not knowing what action they want their site visitors to take (make a reservation, join your email list, educate themselves about a future purchase and so forth). • Vital business information that will help their sites perform well on search engines cannot be read by the “search engine spiders” (which “crawl” around your site, determine where your expertise lies and report their findings back to search engines like Google) because the info is in unfriendly formats such as .jpeg’s or .pdf’s. • Relevant, highly targeted traffic is not being driven to the website’s offering. • There is no convenient option available for a web visitor to pick up the phone, send an email or reach out via social engine to contact you and take some sort of action. Now that you know what they, and perhaps you, are doing wrong; let’s develop a plan to fix these problems. The following are suggestions of how to fix the aforementioned barriers and convert long-term customers much more efficiently than your competitors:

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

• Ensure that all of your online and offline content reflects the voice, communication style and thought processes of your best customers. If you’re trying to be ultra professional or “everything to everyone” then you will lose out big time. Focus a majority of your energy on the people that take action and buy what you offer. •Have a definitive plan of what you want your web visitors to do on your site. Do you want them to pick up the phone and call you? Do you want them to join your Facebook fan page? Do you want them to buy one of your products? Make this aspect very evident and tell them! • Run a Heat Map (available through CrazyEgg) and track where people’s eyes are going on your site and what they are clicking on. This will show you where all of your vital information encouraging the site visitors to perform ideal actions needs to be. • Do extensive keyword research through a free source like the Google Keyword Tool or a paid option with premium training such as Market Samurai. Additionally, be sure to track how your site visitors are finding your website through sources such as Google Analytics. Focus your web content around these relevant terms.

Figure 2.2- A Sample Heat Map

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There is a common misconception that “any web traffic” is “good web traffic” but nothing could be further than the truth. Oftentimes, small business owners spend an extraordinary amount of time and money driving traffic online only to encounter typical pitfalls such as: • Not measuring where the traffic is coming from and why they are obtaining the traffic. •They have no idea what the intent is of the traffic that they are driving (whether their site visitors are just doing research, browsing or if they have their wallets in hand ready to buy). • They attract a bunch of tire kickers and the wrong type of customers that are looking for a short-term deal rather than a long-term relationship. A term that you may have heard of before to fix this problem is called, “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO). SEO is the process of improving your web presence so that your online properties (website, videos, blog, social engines and so forth) show up higher on the search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing and so forth) than your competitors based on specific phrases that consumers search for. For example, if a target consumer were enter the term “Anchorage, AL Chinese Restaurant” on Google and you own a Chinese restaurant in Anchorage, AL, then you would want to beat your competitors for this term. Conversely, you would not want to drive traffic that is searching for the term “Honolulu, HI Chinese Catering.” This may sound asinine but a vast majority of small business owners make this very mistake online by optimizing their website and driving traffic for irrelevant keywords. Unfortunately, many internet professionals tend to overcomplicate this process and act as though the Google algorithm (which calculates where your website appears) is a dark art. The SEO process is a lot easier than you think and it is extremely important for your online presence. Sound a little confusing? For a basic explanation of how you can improve your SEO and improve your offering today, check out this video tutorial, “How to Optimize Your Website for Search Engines.”

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The common expression, “The Money is in the List” is referring to your list of your prospective customers along with their pertinent contact information. With a great list, you will always have the ability to contact your target customers at any given point and make any offer that you deem fit to them. In essence, with a loyal list of customers, you can sell your products and services on-demand to get an influx of cash with a short email and a few clicks of a mouse button. However, if this was entirely true then spammers would be the most prominent marketers in the world. Therefore, not only is having a list part of the equation but the core differentiator is the relationship that you have with your customers on your list. In essence, if they trust, like and respect you; they will buy from you. Here are just a few hints on how to optimize your list building strategy: • Use strong headlines for your email subject that cause your target customers to want to open up your message. Think of your email subject line as a newspaper headline that would make you want to stop in your tracks and feel compelled to read the information. • The sole function of the subject line is to make your customers open up their email and read the next line. Your opening sentence should make them want to read the second sentence and so on. Strong email marketing is always straightforward and gives your customers a reason to pay attention and never lets down! • Send your email messages during optimum times and days. Typically, people read email between 6:00-8:00 AM and 5:00-8:00 PM. Additionally, weekend commitments and Mondays are typically not the best days to send your mail so try to aim for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to get your message out. • Only contact your list if you have important news, deals, coupons, are recognizing your key customers or have something else equally important to say. Their time is just as important as yours so treat it as such. To find out more about how to set-up your email marketing list, what its benefits are and how to get set-up quickly, check out, “Strategic Email Marketing Done Right.”

“Get an

influx of cash with a short email and a few clicks of a

mouse button.”

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You know those orange boxes with a little white circle in the bottom left hand corner and the two curvy lines diagonal from it that sort of looks like a satellite? Have you ever wondered why it says “subscribe” and just what “RSS” means in the first place? RSS is an abbreviation for Really Simple Syndication. Essentially, instead of consumers having to go out and look for information on their favorite blogs, new sites and websites; they can click on an “RSS” button and receive updates via an “RSS reader” or receive email updates in their inbox. In essence, this process makes obtaining information of interest much more convenient for people. An “RSS reader” is a consolidation of multiple news sources that you can read in one central location. For a consumer, the RSS reader is a nice option as consumers have all of the relevant information that they want in one central place instead of traveling to multiple sites around the web or receiving numerous emails. The reason why this is important to you and your business is because you can now reach your customers through their “RSS reader” or email inbox and instantly notify them when you have published newsworthy content. This way, you can now tell your target customers that you are running specials, have an event going on, are running a contest or have anything else going on. Furthermore, RSS is a huge advantage because it is yet another avenue to keep in contact with your target customers and keep your business on their minds. Additionally, you have simplified the process of people accessing your information by offering it directly to an RSS reader or to your target audience’s email instead of requiring them to guess when you have produced something that may be of use to them. RSS is also very valuable in terms of promoting your content and diversifies how you reach your target people. Please note that an email marketing program is more advantageous over this approach as you do not own the information that you collect (when someone subscribes via RSS) and thus are not building an asset. Additionally, through an RSS you are only able to contact your target consumers when you post new content on your site. To discover more about RSS feeds, why they’re important to your business and how to set-up your own in less than five minutes then check out, “How to Install an RSS Feed.”

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Have you ever wondered how Google makes money? Do you know how Google achieves approximately 30 billion dollars in sales a year or why the Company was valued at around 155 billion dollars in 2010? The answer is a little thing called “sponsored listings” and it accounts for nearly 90% of Google’s revenue model. The “sponsored listings” are the advertisement boxes located above and to the right of the search results that you see when you enter in a query in a search engine. Sponsored listings are unique because they can display pertinent products and services to consumers in real-time. There are, however, a lot of problems with paid advertising which is also known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. These disadvantages include:

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•Pay-per-click typically works better with quick product sales and for making immediate appointments with service providers. If your intent is to build a relationship with your prospective customers and have these customers enter into a longer sales cycle, this methodology can be far less effective that other ad methods. • After someone clicks on your PPC advertisement, if you do not have a clear “Call-to-Action” (CTA) i.e. tell your paid traffic exactly what you want them to do in under five seconds then you risk losing the customer and paying for a click. • PPC is notorious for “click fraud” which is an Internet crime where a person, automated script or computer program imitates a potential customer and repeatedly clicks on an ad to generate a charge for the click without any legitimate interest in your offering. By and large, this ad method has become dated very quickly. The bottom line is that people trust other people (via local review, search engines and social networks) more than they trust what they know to be paid ads. Additionally, PPC is very competitive, the ad method is saturated in many markets and it can be very costly. If you do choose to pursue this method then here are just a few ideas for how you can maximize your results on a PPC platform: • Put a specialized phone number in your ad that is dedicated to PPC (so that you know that this is the only place where these prospective customers could have found you). Additionally, a phone number in your ad allows for a target customer to pick up the phone and call you which can save you clicks on your advertisement, and thus, money. •Hire a web marketing firm that specializes in PPC and get an in-depth explanation of what can be expected to see if you can work out more of a pay-per-performance deal . •Use less saturated paid traffic methods available through sites such as Facebook, Bing, Yahoo and Google Boost (a form of local advertising available through Google Places). If you would like to find out more about how to make paid traffic work for your website and target tons of relevant customers at the lowest possible prices then check out, “Benefits of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising” video. BROOKSBRIZ.COM

While online marketing and the integration of Web 2.0 technologies are great strategies for effectively promoting your establishment, they are certainly not the end-all solution. If you have proven forms of offline promotion then you certainly should not be replacing these methodologies with newer age ones. What many people point out is that newer forms of marketing and media have low barriers to entry, powerful reach and low up-front costs. As such, seemingly everyone can play in this game but these tools should be a component in your ever-expanding business marketing strategy rather than the solution to all of your problems. In essence, just because local search optimization or social media happen to be the hottest new strategies around does not necessarily mean that these should be your sole focuses. Here are just a few ideas to help you get the most out of your offline strategies: • Integrate your offline campaigns with a specific website or section of your website. For example, direct the traffic from your radio, television and direct mail campaigns to three respective parts of your website and measure how many respondents you are getting, what type of action they are taking and what seem to be the most productive strategies for your business. • Set-up specific phone numbers for each one of your offline ad methods so that you are able to effectively test, measure and optimize each offline strategy. Cut the ones that don’t produce results. • Ensure that you have set realistic expectations with offline service providers about what type of results you expect. Furthermore, ask how they intend on measuring their reach and delivering on their promises. If they cannot give you definitive answers or you feel uneasy then avoid these service providers at all costs! • Ask your offline service providers about pay-for-performance packages. It is imperative that you work past the service provider’s explanation of their competitive advantages, statistics and any other information that doesn’t directly explain results. Ultimately, if you’re not getting more phone calls, reservations or appointments then who cares about their “competitive advantages” or “brand equity” that you’re building?

To learn more about how to integrate traditional marketing effectively, check out the “Online Vs Offline Marketing” video.

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MAINTAINING YOUR

CUSTOMERS

Managing Your Presence Your Contingency Plan Better Email Marketing

Killer Content High Quality Reviews

Optimizing Local Presence Better One Time Offers

Measuring Results Customer Loyalty Evaluated

Organization for Daily Action

PART 3

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Now that you understand how important it is to promote your business online and engage with your target consumers; it’s now time to develop a plan to keep this action up. Nearly every business in the world wants to “improve their web presence” and “get customers on the internet.” The difference between their business and yours is that yours is not going to fail. You have a plan and you’re not going to let a lack of information, setbacks or any other barriers that you will inevitably face get in your way. With that being said, a fundamental question remains: Who will be in charge of managing all of your social media profiles, optimizing your local search presence, building your search engine optimization and dealing with the local review sites? You might remember from before that there are three primary solutions to this question: 1. You can do it all yourself. 2. You can delegate responsibilities to other people within your organization. 3. You can hire someone else to do it for you. If you choose to do it yourself then you will have to use your time to continually learn and implement the necessary action. If you choose to delegate these responsibilities to other people within your organization then they will need to learn what to do and you will have to trust that they can handle these responsibilities. Conversely, if you intend on enlisting the services of a person or company to do this for you then you will have to incur set-up costs, monthly charges and you will have to trust that they can convert. Ultimately, this decision is a trade-off between your time, money and whether you trust others to get the job done properly. Your success will be directly proportionate to your action rather than what you may do wrong. Ultimately, there is no getting around that this requires caring about your ideal fans, taking massive action, measuring your results and challenging yourself to continually improve your offering to retain your customers. For more details on this topic, check out the “How to Manage Your Online Marketing” video.

“The

difference between

their business

and yours is that yours

will not fail.”

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You’ve made your online engagement plan but another integral part of the puzzle must be developed. What happens when something goes wrong? Clearly, the following circumstances will inevitably arise: • You will be overwhelmed with business, family commitments or other factors that will prohibit you from executing your strategy. • People in your organization will get sick, go on vacation, quit, be promoted and retire. • The company that you employ may perform inadequately, raise their prices or go out of business. So what’s your back-up plan? Many businesses come out of the gate strong and announce to the world that they are officially “part” of the technology scene. The problem is that they don’t have a strategy in place when the following occurs: • They don’t start converting immediately and see instant results. •They begin with a bad strategy and sound hyped, too “salesy,” impersonal and/or engage sporadically. • They’re not having fun engaging, listening and participating in a two-way conversation. • They’ve outsourced their content creation and engagement to non-experts. As such, it is imperative that you have a back-up plan in the event that these circumstances arise. The most logical option is to arm yourself with this information so that you will be able to step in, train someone else to take over or be educated about choosing a quality service provider if need be. The ultimate point is that you need to have a strategy in place for when setbacks occur and that you have planned for the worst case scenarios. There is no substitution for proper planning and preparedness!

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If you do not currently manage an email marketing software program or have a company doing this for you; you should consider making this a major part of your customer retention strategy immediately. Here are just a few examples why a good email marketing strategy is important to your business: • The “Ad Effectiveness Survey” commissioned by Forbes Media in Feb/March 2009 revealed that, “[E]mail and e-newsletter marketing are considered the second-most effective tool for generating conversions.” •You have your audience’s formal permission to contact them at your will for whatever reason you choose. • Costs incurred in designing, executing, testing, sending and receiving an email is up to 78% less when compared to a 5,000 target fan direct mail version. •You have the ability to extend an invitation, offer or virtually any other type of communication that you wish. •Your target fans have the ability to respond to an email immediately. Typical examples of email marketing campaigns involve a weekly newsletter, press releases, surveys, coupons, specials, exclusive offers and “Birthday Clubs.” Challenge yourself to be a little bit more creative, to listen to your ideal fans and give them exactly what they want. Consider some of the following ideas: • Give your fans an exclusive look “behind the scenes” and show them what a typical workday is like, how you prepare your products or give insight as to who the key players in your organization are. In essence, make them feel like they are truly special and an integral part of your success. • Send your fans a link to a video that thanks them for their business and recognizes their importance. • Invite your “important customers” or “VIP fans” in for special events or to try your new products. Note: this is a prime opportunity to collect high-quality reviews for your business online. More on this subject later. To learn how to set-up your own email marketing list and opt-in form, check out the “Email Marketing Done Right” video.

“Note:

this is a prime

opportunity to collect

high-quality reviews for

your business.”

BROOKSBRIZ.COM

An often overlooked aspect of having a notable online presence is the creation of high quality content that your target fans actually want . Content is defined as information and experiences that provide value for an target audience in specific contexts. We’ll examine what the major pitfalls in content creation are and then develop your plan to ensure that your business is always on the minds of your target customers. Common mistakes that small businesses make include: • Rushing through the content creation process “just to get it done.” Typically, this results in having the content turn out to be unoriginal, unstructured and full of grammatical and spelling errors. •Not following a consistent content production schedule and producing content randomly. •Not promoting the newly created content to the target audience or not having the means (RSS, email marketing or social share functions) to promote the content in the first place. •Producing content that is one dimensional and does not involve the audience.

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Conversely, great content will help improve the image of your business and is an essential element for effective online promotion. It is your duty to produce high quality content that target consumers want to read and actually seek out and/or tell others about it. Great content can help contribute to an influx of traffic, conversations about your brand, search engine rankings, and ultimately, sales. Great content typically has the following characteristics: • Promotion of the content through social channels, RSS, email marketing, syndication and so forth. • Involves the audience and asks for feedback to create a two-way conversation with the target customers. • A realistic content production schedule that is followed without fail and void of excuses. • Rich in target keywords that potential customers are actively searching. The good news is that once awesome content is created; it can continue to drive traffic for years to come. In

essence, you will consistently drive more customers and sales by committing yourself to create high quality content once. Ultimately, you’ll be collecting residual customers, and thus income, for a few hours of work. To get a better idea of how to create your own remarkable content that will cause a buzz amongst your target audience, check out the “Quality Content Production” video.

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One of the most crucial factors that businesses miss out on is the opportunity to gain their customer’s feedback and leverage this factor to attract more target fans. If you think of your business as a locomotive then your marketing would be its engine and your reviews would be the coal that fuels your engine. Here are just a few reasons why reviews are so important to your business: • People trust other people more than they trust advertisements, search engine rankings or even your website. •Reviews are a significant factor in how your business places on local sites such as Google Places and Yahoo. • You will receive honest feedback from your fan base that will tell you what you are doing right and wrong. • If an aspect of your business (product, service, facilities, employee and so forth) are continually performing poorly then you will have proof from your fanbase to make decisions to render these problems.

This is a matter of being creative, caring and listening. If you’re unwilling or unable to genuinely listen to your fan base then this strategy will not work well. In essence, it is integral take into account what your fan base is telling you and continually obtain more reviews by making the review aspect both convenient and easy for your fanbase. This all sounds great in theory but just how do you obtain all of these high quality local reviews? Here are a few ideas to help get you started: • Place links to review sites (such as Google Places, Trip Advisor and Yelp) on your website, Facebook fan page, YouTube channel and so forth. • Ask for a review in your e-mail signature file with a link to a particular review website (do not overwhelm your customers with choices) and provide a basic incentive that they actually want to do so.

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• If you believe that your target fans are tech savvy enough, embed a QR code or put a specialized website address at the bottom of your receipts or invoices. •Many local review sites (FourSquare, Google Places and GoWalla) oftentimes offer stickers or posters to the businesses that use their services for free or a very nominal fee. Get these items and put them up on your storefront or put the logos on your website with links to your reviews. • Request reviews and/or show your target fans how to leave reviews at a private event, fundraiser or customer appreciation day. Just as important as receiving these reviews is responding to them. Whether the reviews are positive or negative; it is vital to show your target fans how important their opinions are to you. The more attentive you are to your reviews; the more authority you will gain via your local presence.

Figure 3.1- A Google Places Sticker with QR Code

To discover more about how to effectively build your reviews, check out the “Obtain More Local Reviews” video.

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As you learned in the previous chapter, it is very important for you to claim your local listings and optimize them to the best of your ability. However, this is just one step in the process as leaving these engines on auto-pilot is what a vast majority of your competitors do. As such, it is up to you to continually improve, diversify and build your local presence. In fact, your local presence should be at the forefront of your promotional strategy and needs to be constantly evolving right alongside the local engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and so forth. The following are strategies that you should consider continually implementing to ensure that your offering is found over your competitors: • Be on the look-out for new or developing local citation and local review sources. Google Places revolves around location, relevance and prominence. Therefore, you might not be able to change your location but you can always update your business profile with more recent information and improve your local standing with more citations and reviews. • Ensure that your business data (including your business name, address, and phone number) is consistent across multiple sources of local business information. If not, local search engines might believe that you have duplicate listings and remove some, or even all, of your listings for not following their terms and conditions. • Establish great relationships with your local sales representatives and ask often about what specials, trends and any tips that they might have for optimizing your presence. Nearly every local search engine has inside and/or outside sales representatives that solely deal with local search issues. If you ever choose to pursue any services that they are offering; always look for guarantees, results and for your agreement to be in writing. • Set-up Google Alerts or check the “News” section of Google often to find out what emerging trends or information is released around “local search,” “Google Places” or “local search optimization.”

To learn more about the importance of continually improving your local presence, check out the “Local Search Marketing for Beginners” video.

“Google

Places revolves around

location, relevance and prominence.”

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Everyone loves getting a great deal. If you want evidence of this, just take a look at the success of a company like Groupon and the number of copycats that have emerged as a a result. As you probably know, Groupon’s business model simply consists of delivering a “one time offer” in a local consumer’s email inbox. While this is a great start, getting people in your doors is just a small part of your overall marketing strategy. As an established businessperson, you know that the real value comes from converting these people into lifetime customers. Why have these customers visit once when you can have them returning multiple times with their friends, family, colleagues and telling other people that they know? Here are just a few ways that the evolution of “daily offers” can benefit you and your business: • The number of competitors in this space has increased substantially and it has allowed for a better split percentage (Groupon is 50% for each sale whereas many of their competitors are significantly less). • You will get guaranteed customers that you wouldn’t have normally had from the “deal of the day” offer. • Google Tags is a newer “deal of the day” product that now allows you to rotate your offers regularly and diversify your product offering. • Service providers such as Homerun.com now offer more sophisticated metrics on the back-end so that you can track how many people have redeemed your offer, how much they spent when visiting you and you will be able to follow up with this customers later.

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The biggest problem with the traditional “deal of the day” model was that your business could get an influx of traffic for one day but there was no real way of tracking the guests and inviting them back into your establishment. In essence, a “one time offer” was just that; only one time. Furthermore, after your deal was “featured” you then had to hope that you could get back on the “main screen” of the service provider (most noticeably Groupon), get enough people to act on your deal and then repeatedly submit your candidacy in order in order to feature a “one time offer.” With the evolvement of the “deal of the day” model, you now have parameters in place to help you measure what consumers are coming in, what they are purchasing and whether this method is cost efficient for your business. Again, a lot of foot traffic may seem like a good thing but if you can’t keep them coming back or if you’re losing money when you utilize this strategy then what is the use? Better yet, you also have the option of offering the exact same service through your website and other online properties if you establish a lead capture box and build your own email list. In essence, if your website visitors wish to take advantage of a free product or discount; they must first give you their contact information which gives you permission to contact them again. To learn how to maximize your own “deal of the day” then check out the “How to Create a Better One Time Offer” video.

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In order to constantly attract a base of die-hard fans, it is imperative that you test, measure and analyze your current online strategy. If you choose not to continuously improve your customer retention strategy then you will end up just like your competitors; unable to get ahead. Here are the pitfalls that most businesses fall into when considering the measurement and optimization of their online presence: • They don’t include critical on-page factors such their title tags, meta description and meta tags. These items are your “on-site elements” that tell search engines what you specialize in (more on these in a moment). • They stuff the above mentioned on-page factors with broad, untargeted and/or unrelated keywords. • They do not carefully measure where their web traffic is coming from, do not know what their web visitors are looking for upon arriving and have no idea what sort of web generation strategies to continue or to drop from their overall marketing plan. • They have no goals or any sort of carefully constructed plan in which to drive more web traffic and improve their web presence. They just guess and hope for the best!

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However, being armed with this information, you will be different. You are determined to continue to build a profitable business, and thus, will not fall for these same traps! Here are just a few solutions to the aforementioned problems that you can begin to institute today: • Ensure that your on-page factors including: your title tag, meta description, meta tags and on-page keyword usage are all relevant and focused on your central strategy (ask your webmaster about these if this sounds like another language). Market Samurai is a fantastic product that comes with in-depth search engine optimization training and software that will tell you exactly what your competitors are doing and identify opportunities where you can beat them. •Install Google Analytics on your site and identify what sources your traffic comes from, find out where your target customers are located geographically, establish your target audience’s demographics, identify how long your visitors are staying on your site and much more. The more information that you have; the easier it becomes to make future business decisions. •Install Google Website Optimizer and begin testing your on-page factors such as your graphics, keyword usage, layouts and so forth. You will be able to uncover what information your visitors are interested in, what pictures work effectively and even what colors make people stay on your site. This boils down to continually testing and optimizing what is making your visitors take specific types of action and producing results for your business. • Set-up definitive goals and objectives for your online presence (and be sure to develop these with relevant sources such as your web development team, web contractors and so forth). Focus on the results that you intend on achieving. For instance, if you don’t give a hoot about building your Facebook fan presence or how many people opt-in to your email newsletter and just want reservations then focus on this factor! Concentrate on what you want and avoid any strategies that distract you from your overall wants. It may seem like this information is way over your head but it’s all actually very simple. Check out the “How to Measure Your Online Marketing” video for all of the details.

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Here are some customer acquisition and retention statistics from Flowtown, a social media marketing company, that may shock you: • It costs the average business seven times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an old customer. • Increasing customer retention rates as little as 5% can cause a 5-95% increase in overall profits. • Customer loss (attrition) rates can be as high as 50% if left alone for a five year period. This means that if you’re not actively building customer loyalty then you’re losing your customers! The problem that a lot of small business owners have is that they try to “buy their customer’s loyalty” or compete on cost rather than differentiating on culture, customer responsiveness or a quality product. Buying a customer’s long-term loyalty is very difficult and this strategy often takes the form of: 1. One Time Offers (OTO’s)- The idea behind this concept is to get an influx of traffic by offering a

substantial deal (often at a loss), getting your target customers to try your products and services and hope that they come back.

2. Customer Loyalty Rewards- This business concept encourages your customers to buy more, gain more points and redeem these points for your brand’s merchandise, coupons, giveaways and more.

3. Incentivized Customer Surveys- The theory here is to ask customers about their thoughts of your business and to provide a reward for doing so. However, administering an effective customer survey involves timing, asking the right questions and providing the right type of incentive to make this method worth your target customer’s time.

Though these are all decent methods for building customer loyalty, what is being proposed here is to compete on strategic fronts other than price and paid incentives. In essence, the objective is for your business to build a property that is unique to your business and belongs exclusively to you. BROOKSBRIZ.COM

Here are just a few ideas of how you can build customer loyalty without spending a fortune: Building Your “VIP” List- Develop a list of your top 10-25 customers (predominantly based on consumption) and contact them quarterly. Send them a small thoughtful gift, write them a hand-written thank you note and remind them how much you appreciate them. Customer Appreciation Days- Reward your top customers with an exclusive day just for them. Send out formal invitations, allow them to try your new products, introduce them to your key personnel, introduce them to one another and so forth. This strategy is all about building “community.” Multiplying Your Efforts- Encourage your staff to serve as “brand ambassadors” on your establishment’s behalf . In essence, your objective is to allow your employees to bridge deeper relationships with your customer base outside and encourage your fanbase to return to visit that same employee on top of coming back to your establishment. Please note that definitive rules and expectations should be set with your staff before implementing a strategy like this. To learn how to maximize your customer loyalty without spending boku bucks, check out the “Establishing Customer Loyalty” Video.

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You now have all of the information that you could ever need to absolutely dominate your competition by attracting a steady flow of loyal fans and knowing exactly how to keep them coming back. You’ve learned a significant amount but it will all be for nothing if you don’t stay organized and consistently carry out the critical tasks necessary for these functions to operate. A lot of your competitors may dabble in the strategies mentioned throughout this book but many of them fall flat on their faces because they don’t have a plan and they don’t stay committed. If you are not organized and do not take daily action toward the goals that you have set for yourself and your business; the more difficult that this component becomes. Think about your “Customer Acquisition and Retention” (CAR) strategy as an enjoyable part of your daily life such as sleeping or eating. If you choose not to have an organized CAR strategy then you run the risk of running into these roadblocks: • Not responding to customer questions, comments, observations and complaints. There is nothing more detrimental to your business than a complaint from an unsatisfied customer as your customer base is hundreds of times more likely to spread the news about something negative rather than positive. • Not updating your web content often enough and having a stale web presence that looks unattractive to your potential consumers. In essence, if your information is outdated and customers have preconceived expectations that you can’t deliver on; you’re risking severely alienating potential customers. •Not being able to engage in conversations going on around your business and being perceived as “uncaring” by your target customer base. • Not being able to enhance your customer service based on real feedback and interaction with your target customer base. The more that you give to your CAR strategy; the more that you will get in terms of long-term customer satisfaction!

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Luckily, there are many free tools out there that will keep you organized and on track. Here are just a few suggestions that will set you up properly: • Set-up reminders and color code all critical activities through Google calendar (or a similar free calendar system) to keep you on track. Create schedules for following up with customers, getting in touch with vendors, promotional events, social media engagement and any critical activities necessary for your success. •Sync your smartphone or handheld device (portable MP3 players and tablet PC’s) to your web-based calendar system. Note: if you have your gmail or outlook email synced then your calendar updates should appear automatically with no added effort. • Download and set-up a reminder and/or notebook system such as Evernote, Jorte or Voice Recorder applications on your smartphone or handheld device. These applications are either free or available for a nominal fee and provide added calendar functionalities such as: taking notes, setting reminders or leaving yourself voice recordings. • Keep all of your usernames and passwords in a private document (in Google Docs or via a Word Processor) or set-up the web-based application, roboform.com, to remember all of your pertinent login information. To discover more about implementing an effective calendar system that will help you get more done, check out the “How to Organize Your Marketing Activities” video.

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