Does that seem right? Does that mean we should be a fourth of the way toward our yearly goals? Does that mean we should have a fourth of our new clients, a fourth of our revenue, and a fourth of our leads?

Well, if you are like us and asking yourself these questions (and quite possibly more), then here is some advice: if you are NOT on track, it’s NOT to late. Here is some practical thoughts that may help you make the turn.

Do what YOU do best

With that, I don’t mean your company, I mean YOU. Do what YOU do best. If you are like most business people I know, you are all trying to be everything to everyone and do everything yourself. But that is exactly how we get off course from our goals. Stop and assess what you should be doing for your company – quite possibly they are things only you can do for the company. Focus on those things and find others to do the rest.

Oh wait, that reminds me about my next point….

Find other resources / partners to help take the load off you

Can’t afford it? I know, we say that here all the time as well. But the fact of the matter is you CAN’T afford not to. If your business model is truly as strong as you believe it is, then you have to let go of some of the things that are holding you back from reaching your goals. You have to let others do the things they can do to help your company succeed and allow you to focus on the things only you can.

Now this doesn’t necessarily mean hiring. It could mean outsourcing some work to a virtual employee or company (I know a good one when it comes to marketing), or it may mean partnering with some companies to trade services or resources. Be creative and make every dollar you spend count toward reaching your goal.

Break the goals up in manageable pieces

We see many companies only make yearly goals and the numbers they stare at each day are so large they become paralyzed. Break them up. What do you want to accomplish by this time next quarter – or maybe next time this month? Keep your eye focused on a goal that is reachable (with a stretch) within a shorter period of time.

I hope these thoughts help trigger your mind to think of other things you need to consider as well. If you have other ideas to share, add them to the post by using the comment box below.

If you are struggling with your goals, your message, or your plan. Give us a call and let’s see what we can do to help you now.

Often times we take our existing relationships for granted and as a result we unintentionally neglect them – clients and/or influencers. Many of you have probably experienced this issue in some form as it commonly happens to marketing and sales people. I guess it’s because we are always asked to “get more”. Get more traffic, get more leads, get more conversions, get more sales….get more! And if we are honest with ourselves, we’re all motivated by the chase of the new. This issue can probably be chalked up to “the pursuit of something new” syndrome (yes, I just made that up but I stake claim to it – please send all royalty payments in cash).

The irony is that many times, “the pursuit of something new” actually prevents us from getting more business, and takes longer or costs us significantly more to do so. Identifying those you suspect would be good customers, targeting prospective customers and building a relationship with a new customer is many times a long and expensive journey. On average, the cost of acquiring new customers can cost 5x more than retaining current customers.

Don’t get me wrong, your sales efforts need to be balanced based on your situation – and for many that is a balance between reoccurring sales, add-on sales and new sales. However, if you only have a dollar to spend on marketing – that dollar is best spent on communicating to your existing clients. Here are a few tips on marketing to existing customers to drive sales:

1. Stay in touch
We prefer email marketing or personalized notes. Keep in touch periodically and especially on special occasions (birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, etc).

2. Show your appreciation
Demonstrate your appreciation for their relationship by sending things like a gift certificate to their favorite coffee shop or restaurant.

3. Make connections
Make a referral and send your clients business whenever possible. Connecting clients with other business that may be a referral sources is often appreciated.

4. Spend time with them
While this may be more of a sales tactic, it doesn’t have to be a sales pitch. Make sure you spend time with you clients periodically – and don’t “sell” them unless they express interest. Think relationship building, not sales.

5. Manage your reputation
Good customer service keeps customers coming back but an unhappy customer can be costly. Make sure you listening for frustrations when you do interact with customers, but also listen on social media tools. Frustrated customers will share their frustration on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN, SmallerIndiana and the like. By monitoring these tools you can response quickly an put out any fires. This is called reputation monitoring & management – if you are not doing this, contact Three Hats right away as it could be a costly mistake!

6. Share good news
When there is good news about your business or your clients business and industry, send them a quick note referencing the article.

7. Ask for feedback
Ask your customers how you are doing and if there are ways you can improve your service. This can be an informal call/email or a more formal survey.

I think of myself as pretty “handy”. I enjoy doing small projects around the house but certainly know I have limitations when it comes to building things (especially when electricity is involved!) I’m lucky to have most the tools and actually know how to use the majority of them. I have multiple hammers and have driven a few nails over my 32 years.

Most of us have at least some building tools – like a hammer, and even though most would say they can use a hammer to hang a picture, or build a flower box, few would say they could use it to build something significant like a home. That requires a set of skills and experience many of us don’t have. I learned the lesson early in life when I misused a hammer and almost knocked myself unconscious… and I still have the scar to prove it!

Email Marketing is no different – maybe no physical scaring, but if you try to do it yourself you could be putting your business in harm’s way. Email marketing uses a tool, email – which is probably even more prevalent than a hammer these days. To do email marketing right, it requires a set of skills and experience many business owners don’t have – much like building a home. Just because I know how to use a hammer, I certainly wouldn’t try to use one to build my own home. In the nearly 10 years that I’ve been a marketer, I’ve found that Email Marketing is one of the most difficult aspects of marketing. It is extremely challenging – even for professionals that do it on a regular basis.

So why do so many people believe they can do email marketing without the necessary skills and experience? Based on the numerous conversations with clients that have tried it themselves, we believe it is due to a lack of understanding. There are simply hundreds of potential points of failure with email marketing. To be blunt, even though you know how to use email, or even one of the many “self service” systems available now for email marketing, you should not do your own Email Marketing unless you are an experienced professional. Your business may not be able to recover from the proverbial scar that could be made if you make even one mistake.

If not done properly, one simple email could cost you thousands of dollars in fines, damage your brand, harm your client relations or even lose customers.

Below are just a few of the finer details that many are not aware of with Email Marketing:

Email Permission:
Did you realize that if you send a mass email to someone without their permission, you are actually breaking the law? By far the most important aspect of email marketing is the concept of permission. Businesses sending emails without the recipients “permission” is SPAM and could be in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act, which means the sender could be subject to penalties of up to $16,000 for each separate incident. Just because you’ve exchanged business cards at a networking event, doesn’t give you the legal permission you need to add that person to your email list.

And even if you have a legitimate email list, there are a number of technical qualifications you must adhere to – like including your snail mail address in the email.

Email Design:
The design of your email plays a huge role if your email is received, opened and read. Did you know that there are over 18 mainstream email systems used and that the emails you send look differently in each of these various programs? Have you ever seen your email marketing in AOL? Yahoo? Gmail? Outlook 2003? Outlook 2007? Mozilla? If I am speaking a foreign language to you right now, then you may be sending poor-looking emails to your clients and prospects without knowing it – even if you are using a reputable “self-service” system.

Email Spam filters:
Are you aware that there are 11 mainstream Spam filters and that each have different definitions as to what looks like Spam? Do you know that the wrong characters and words in your email can affect whether your recipients even receive your email? If not, you are probably wasting money on emails that aren’t even being delivered to your recipient’s inbox – let alone being read. These are things that “self-service” systems typically don’t help with either.

Email Content
Once the email is delivered in the recipient’s inbox, the next most important piece is the subject line. Do you know what makes compelling subject lines – causing people to want to open and read your email? Are you aware that if your subject line is too short or too long, fewer people will open the email? Do you understand how images work in emails between email programs? Do you know when to use images and when not to use them? Were you aware that approx 30% of email recipients don’t even know that images are disabled in their email system – meaning they are not seeing your images?

Email Measurement
Do you understand keywords, hyperlinks, landing pages and other aspects in your content that make email marketing effective and measureable? Do you know the best days and times to send your emails to your target audience to assure the greatest open rate? Do you know what audience segmentation is and how it can add to your email effectiveness?

Much like building a home, email marketing requires the necessary skills and experience. If you think email marketing can be and effective marketing tool for your business, you need to leverage a professional who has spent the time learning the “ins and outs” of this marketing tactic.

Three Hats Marketing has helped many businesses effectively use email marketing – and we can help yours as well.

We’ve got the scars to prove it!

Correct or not, it has presented an anology that has been used in business over the years and I would like to make the point we see many businesses doing this with their marketing as well.

Here is a common conversation we have with business owners.

3hats: “So tell us what marketing activities you have done in the last 6 months.”
owner: “Well I had an ad in the local coupon pack.”
3hats: “Did it work for you? What was your goal for doing it?”
owner: “I don’t know….”
3hats: “What was your reason for doing it?”
owner: “I don’t know… I guess because my competitor did it.”

Often times business owners take actions with their marketing efforts solely based upon the actions of their competitors. Why is that wrong? Well, even though you are competitors and may offer customers similar products or services, there are many more things different between your businesses. Potentially your budget, your ideal customer, your geographic target area, your capacity, your services, your profit margin on certain products or services, your business model, your business goals, your vision, etc.

Instead, we advise companies to stick to the following for their marketing activities:

Follow your goals

Understand what you are trying to accomplish with your business (as well as your marketing) and stick to it! Set goals for yourself and determine the best ways to accomplish them in the most cost effective way. Know what your competitors are doing, but try not to let that influence the decisions you are making for your business – because as we pointed out above, you may not understand why they are making those decisions and as a result, may not be the right ones for you.

Follow your audience

Make sure you know where your ideal client is looking for the type of products and services you offer, and how they like to be communicated to – then go it ‘em. Be creative in how you reach out to them. Understand under what circumstance do they have a pain you can fix with your product or service and reach them then.

Follow your plan

Almost weekly businesses are presented with new marketing opportunities and new ways to spend their money. Develop a plan and weigh each marketing tactic against that plan. Is this the best way to spend these dollars? Do I know what I can expect as a result of spending this money? Does what I expect align with my business goals?

A little bit of thought and a little bit of discipline with your marketing can go a long way to help you reach your business goals. If you would like to discuss marketing planning or evaluate some of your marketing tactics further, please give us a call.

My furnace was out. And it was 4:30 am.

I ran downstairs and the thermostat said 58 degrees and the first thing that went through my head was the cost I was about to incur by calling for heating and cooling service in the wee hours of the morning.  So I did what any man would do – I flung open the furnace door to see if I could fix it myself.  And after a few minutes of staring at the endless wires and ducts, I quickly realized that I was fooling myself to think there was anything I could do.

So I made the call.  Now earlier in the year I signed up for a service plan with a local heating and cooling company.  So my call was to them.  I knew they offered priority attention to service plan customers as well as a service call discount.  What I didn’t expect though is what happened next.

I received a call back almost immediately from the technician on call.  While on the phone I explained what was going on.  He proceeded to ask me a series of really good questions and was actually able to diagnose my problem over the phone.  He then directed me on how to fix it and save a service call.

You can assume it was a simple fix if I was able to do it, but I can’t help but to reflect on his willingness to spend 25 minutes on the phone with me at 4:30 in the morning.  When we finished the call, I told him how much I appreciated him doing that.  He certainly could have just said “I am on my way” and charged me a service call and his hourly rate.  But instead – in his words – “I just treated you like I hoped someone would treat me.”

And therefore, one overnight service technician just got his company my commitment for another year’s service plan agreement at renewal time, my “word of mouth” recommendation to everyone I meet, and a blog entry from this local marketing professional recommending Mowery Heating, Air Conditioning and Plumbing to everyone that reads his post.

You wonder what good customer service can do for your company?  Now you know.  It will always be your best marketing tactic.