Avoiding customer disappointment for better ROI

Thursday, May 16, 2013

When was the last time an organisation disappointed you? 

It's probably some time ago, and it almost certainly happens less often than it used to. Not so long ago almost every interaction was focused on the business in question, but there's been a quiet customer service revolution in the past couple of decades. These days most business focus firmly on the consumer, making huge and often impressive efforts to please customers and prospects. Many even pull out all the stops and aim for 'excellence' in an attempt to 'delight' us. 

I haven't been disappointed for ages. So it was a shock to find that on-demand TV delivers regular bursts of disappointment through just being weird. It happens often: we miss a programme on telly, click through to 'on demand' and lo and behold, it isn't there. It wouldn't be so bad if there was an element of logic involved in what's put on the on-demand channels and what's left out, and when. Sometimes the latest episodes in our favourite series pop up straight away, sometimes not until the next day, sometimes never. What's going on?

As a result we tend to view on-demand TV as something intrinsically unreliable and eccentric. I don't know enough about the system to figure out whether it's Virgin, our supplier, who's being bizarre, or the channels themselves or the telly gods or whatever. But it's certainly annoying.  

There's a great deal of talk about customer satisfaction but not much written about disappointment. Loyalty towards organisations is a lot more flimsy thanreal loyalty, the kind you feel for friends, family, community and even your pets. It's well worth being aware that disappointment is a powerful thing, and can easily undo all the time and effort you've spent on pleasing people and nurturing your relationship.   

So how can you avoid annoying, alienating and putting off people who would like to buy stuff from you? Thankfully it' common sense. If in doubt, put your consumer head on - how would you feel? And how would you prefer to be treated? What would impress the hell out of you?  

• do what you say you will do, no less. If you can do more than you said you would, even better
• do it when you promised to do it, don't delay
• do it sooner than you originally promised for an even more powerful positive effect
• be human, kind, considerate and polite, both before and after-sales
• don't push people too hard - soft sells work best
• add value wherever you can
• own up to your mistakes - it's wonderfully disarming
• apologies when they're due 
• make amends as well as saying sorry
• make people feel they're important - listen to their concerns
• reply to messages and questiobns as fast as you can

Identifying your USP - what makes you the best?

Thursday, May 09, 2013

It's all very well if your business sits on its own, unique in the market with no competitors to get in your way. But if, like most of us, you operate in a crowded space, you need to stand out. You need USPs. Or at least one of the buggers. But what are they and how do you identify them? 

What is a USP?

A USP is either a unique selling point or a unique selling proposition. They both mean the same thing: they're what makes you different from every other business doing or selling the same thing as you.

Examples of USPs

You might offer free delivery when everyone else in your sector charges a king's ransom. You might be the fastest, cheapest, best quality, most entertaining, professional, amusing or colourful. The biggest, smallest or most efficient. You might have the broadest range of products or cater for a specific niche. You might offer the most or least of something, the biggest or smallest, the smelliest or most fragrant. You get the picture.   

How do you establish your business's USP?

It can be easier said than done, especially when you're neck deep in your business and can't see the wood for the trees. Here are some tips:

• take yourself off for a stroll away from your premises and let your mind wander free out of a business context. It sounds silly but being away from everyday business life helps no end. Or take a pad and pen (or your smartphone) and jot down ideas at the weekend when your head's in a different place
• ask your customers. People love being asked questions and you should get a decent response rate, enough to make your findings statistically valid - turn it into a marketing campaign and see what falls out of the bottom
• ask suppliers, partner businesses, your mum, your auntie... all kinds of input helps and it's handy getting feedback from people who wouldn't know the intricacies of your business from a hole in the ground
• see if any patterns emerge from customer testimonials
• check out what your competitor websites say and note down where you differ
• hire an independent creative marketing type to do the thinking for you and see what they come up with  

What if you don't have a USP?

If you're simply offering a 'me too' service or product, where your stuff is no different from a host of other businesses, it's worth trying to differentiate yourself in some customer-facing way or another to help capture more punter interest. What can you do to make your customers' lives easier? Can you improve your services, products, sales process, payment options, customer support, after-sales service...?  

What do you do with USPs?

In a nutshell, you promote the hell out of 'em! Marketers use USPs to hang marketing messages on, drive website content, promote, advertise and publicise their clients' businesses. You need to make sure customers and potential customers are fully aware of the ways you're different from the common herd. 

What's Chris's USP?

Chris is a proper graphic designer, not just a bod who can 'do' code. His insatiable curiosity about all things internet means he has a wealth of added extras on tap... and he does design for print, too.  

Being extraordinary in a crowded online world

Thursday, May 02, 2013

When my good friend started work in SEO six years ago all you had to do was hurl a few links at a web page, stuff it with key terms and within a matter of hours - or less if Google indexed it quickly enough - it appeared on page one of the search results pages. Just like magic! But now there's all sorts of talk about being 'extraordinary', apparently the only real way to stand out and make an impact online. 

Is it easy to be extraordinary? 

Some of us might hit extraordinary now and again if we're incredibly lucky. But it's easier said than done. If you sell something ordinary, you're pretty hard pushed to make it sound any more thrilling than it actually is. Consumers can only be so excited by bog standard household goods and the kind of services we use every day, day in, day out. It's a considerable challenge.

Black hats and SEO cowboys

Interestingly, I learned at the recent Brighton SEO conference is that it's sometimes worth your while being a black-hatted baddie. Take the payday loans arena, hated by many but often your last port of call if you happen to belong to the large and growing community of folk who can't manage any other way.  

Apparently the playing field is so incredibly competitive that payday loan providers resort to SEO techniques that are about as black hat as it gets, just to win a couple of days of exposure at the top of page one of Google. Dodgy doesn't cover it. While the things they do aren't in any way illegal they do everything search engines disapprove of most and their sites are usually burned after a day or two. But the market is so lucrative, with its loony interest rates and APRs, that it's worthwhile. They just pick themselves up, dust themselves off, create a new website and do it all over again. 

What does extraordinary mean?

It's easy for marketers to witter on about being extraordinary, exemplary and all that. But what does it actually mean in real life? It's all about the pursuit of perfection. Which means all this and more needs to be absolutely spot on, the very best it can be in an intrinsically imperfect world:

1. your on-site SEO including the pages' meta data, content, layout and use of key terms
2. the backlinks you 'attract' through being bloody brilliant... invariably easier said than done
3. the sheer breadth of your key term research, looking at every way possible to grab people's attention at search stage and rank well for a variety of long tail, fat tail, head and body terms
4. the insights you have into your prospects and customers' needs, desires and habits
5. the information you discover when mining the vast amounts of so-called 'big data' being collected about consumer behaviour
6. the quality and quantity of your social communications across numerous social networks
7. your blog, which needs to be a thing of incredible beauty, relevance, usefulness and interest
8. the look and feel of your site, which needs to be a real thing of graphic design wonder and glory, as good looking as it is practical and a pleasure to use, while loading as fast as s**t off a blanket, pardon my French
9. the level of integration between media

Online marketing takeaways from the Brighton SEO conference

Thursday, April 25, 2013

I was lucky enough to get a ticket for the annual Brighton SEO conference a couple of weeks ago. It's always an excellent event, populated with speakers who are steeped in the fine art of online marketing and site visibility with the very latest news and developments at their fingertips. 

As usual I came away with a load of notes to turn into a blog post or several. This week I'm going to look at three takeaways I found particularly interesting, being directly relevant to my work as well as jolly useful for my own DIY digital marketing efforts... and hopefully yours. 

Here they are, in no particular order. 

Database deduplication

In the olden days of offline direct marketing, before there was an interweb, we'd make sure we cleaned our databases at least once a year, removing deceased people as well as making address changes and clearing out duplicated records. Indicating that online database marketing has started to grow up, I was delighted to hear a speaker mention the D word... de-duplication. 

If your database contains more than one record of the same customer or prospect and you send them the same marketing communication more than once, you'll irritate them as well as wasting your time and money. If someone has already bought a big red thing from you, there's no point sending them a special offer for the same thing - they won't need it and they'll lose faith in you. Databases aren't static, they're living things and they need TLC to work their best for a business. 

Infographics work... but only when they're worthwhile

People have experienced some epic results from infographics, with their efforts generating multiple links and being shared between everyone and his dog. But as the infographic boom continues marketers are creating graphical representations of the oddest and often inappropriate things. Needless to say they're not exactly going viral and many don't make so much as a ripple, sinking without a trace under the crowded, murky marketing waters. 

The problem is there's no point creating an infographic unless it really is the best way to represent the information. It's no good going graphic just for the sake of it. 

As Chris'll tell you, design brilliance is at least half the battle. But if the information you're trying to represent in an infographic would be better explained in a couple of paragraphs of text or is so dull it makes you want to fall asleep, weep, gnash your teeth or throw yourself out of the kitchen window, all those graphic design skills, time and expertise are wasted.  

Tell stories to get heard

Content was high on the Brighton SEO list, no surprise when shoddy writing has resulted in the wrath of Google with thousands of websites losing their search positions through 2012-13 and no sign of it stopping.  

One speaker mentioned the need to think and speak like a customer, not a marketer, which struck a chord. No marketer works in a vacuum and every marketer is a human being. It's really important to put your consumer head on before making decisions about what, where, how and when to market your wares to your target audiences. 

Another speaker mentioned storytelling, which is what every piece of marketing is at the end of the day: a miniature story, perfect from every angle, neat and concise with a beginning, middle and end, persuasive, interesting, engaging and useful. 

Want feedback? Want people to act? Make it clear!

Thursday, April 18, 2013

It might sound obvious, but it's surprising how many small business owners forget to include calls to action on their web pages, in marketing campaigns, blog posts and even social media. 

Decades of testing direct response marketing proves messages almost always work better when you actually ask people to do something, letting them know exactly what you want them to do rather than leaving it to them to figure it out or decide.  

Calls to action in web pages

Every web page needs a call to action, even your contact us page. It makes sense to vary it for each page depending on the subject matter and contents. You might ask people to fill in a form or phone you on your contact page, email you for a quote on one page and respond to a questionnaire or send a testimonial on another. 

Calls to action in marketing materials

The same goes for marketing campaigns, whatever they might be. If you want someone to fill in a form and bung it in the post, tell them so. If you'd like people to get in touch for an informal chat, say so. If you want them to click on a link in an email marketing message, make it clear and ask nicely.  

Calls to action in blog posts

If you're writing a post about your business, a special offer, service, product or anything else business-specific, you can include a call to action with a link to somewhere else useful on your site, prompt them to get in touch and ask a question, encourage them to find out more... you get the picture. 

If you're writing opinion pieces, adding video, graphics, funnies, comments on breaking news, trending topics and so on, encourage people to leave comments. Ask them what they think. Ask them what their experiences are. Ask for advice. In other words, make the first move.   

Calls to action in social media

Social media marketing is all about interaction. Just like in any conversation, someone has to kick things off. When you actively ask people questions, seek their opinions and appeal for advice instead of just stating opinions, people are more likely to join in. 

On one hand it might seem manipulative to direct people so firmly. On the other hand people are so time-poor and busy it helps them, too. What do you think? ;-)

How to create a content calendar - Simplicity itself

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Life suddenly gets much easier when you have a content calendar to work to. Rather than constantly wracking your brains for subject matter, it's mapped out for you and you have the resources you need to hand. 

It doesn't need to be massively complicated - here's how to build one.

How to create a content calendar

First, open a spreadsheet. Split it into 12 months and populate it with everyday and business-specific events:

• New Year
• Valentine's Day
• Easter
• Bank holidays
• the solstices
• Whitsun
• Pancake Day
• St Patrick's Day
• Ramadan, Eid and the main Hindu and Jewish festivals 
• High profile sporting events
• National celebrations like jubilees and royal weddings
• your business's anniversary
• industry-specific conferences, events, exhibitions 
• new product development and launches
• VE Day, D Day and Rememberance Day
• political events like the opening and closing of parliament
• local, national and international designated days like no smoking day
• charity events like Red Nose Day
• local events like Brighton Festival and Notting Hill Carnival

Depending on your target market you might also add international holidays and events: Labour Day and Thanksgiving in the USA, Independence Day in The Ukraine, National Day in Saudi Arabia and so on. 

Now you have a skeleton: a calendar of events and happenings to inspire content throughout the year.

Keeping a resources file

Next create a file on your PC called 'content resources'. Every time you come across anything interesting, informative, entertaining or useful save it into the folder and add it to the content calendar: 

• handy websites
• online reference materials 
• videos
• tools
• advice
• breakthroughs
• breaking news
• trending topics
• funny stuff

Making every word count - DIY quality control

Thursday, April 04, 2013

The internet has removed all sorts of barriers. Unlimited mass communication is the name of the game. 

Anyone can say anything... and they do. The web is full to bursting point and there's nobody to judge the information we put online except the people who find and read it: no editors, no quality control, no fat cats holding the purse strings. As long as you have internet access, you can join in. And you don't need a huge advertising budget to reach loads of people. 

We can dream up and distribute ideas at no or low cost and nobody protects the rest of us from our ideas. Everyone has a voice - and the nature of the beast means every voice is equally valid. As such it's a situation that comes with a measure of responsibility. Like never before, we need to make everything we do count: every word, image, graphic, layout, offer, video and message.  

Since there's nobody to do it for us, it's time to apply a measure of DIY quality control, for the good of your business, the people who already buy stuff from you and anyone who might buy from you in the future. And the internet as a whole... how's that for a serious responsibility! 

Here's how to make sure everything you upload is as good as it can be.   

DIY quality control for online content   

• create a look, feel and tone of voice for your brand and stick to it
• make every sales message and argument as strong, reasonable, clear and succinct as possible
• pay close attention to spelling and grammar
• format your content so it's easy to scan and navigate 
• express yourself plainly, creatively, eloquently and elegantly
• only reveal ideas, concepts and information that are genuinely worth revealing
• make offers genuinely worth responding to
• make every web page, marketing campaign or other piece of content as beautiful, practical and functional as possible
• don't be scared to be human, warm and approachable
• create top quality, clear, relevant, inspiring images that load nice and quickly
• make video when video is the best way to get your message across, not just for the sake of it. The same goes for apps 
• insist on the best quality production values. The same goes for infographics and any other visual aspect of your content: great graphic design, quality video production and so on can make all the difference 
• tick all the on-site SEO boxes for your website and optimise off-site content properly according to search engines' requirements... which mostly means putting customers' needs first 
• entertain, inform, excite, interest and inspire people at every opportunity
• interact with customers and prospects as often as you can, answering queries and giving advice, being helpful, polite, friendly and useful
• empathise every time, thinking like a potential buyer. If you think your new piece of content is brilliant, others will probably feel the same. If you nodded off half way through reading it, think again!

Loads of visitors, no sales - what's going on?

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Your online marketing efforts might be delivering thousands of visitors. But none of them are buying. What's going on? 

First, look for clues about why people aren't buying, via your webstats. They'll show the pages people landed on, clicked through to and left on, how long they spent on each page and much more. Then go through this list of things to think about if your conversion rate is in the doldrums: 

1. is your site a nightmare to use or so old it's starting to look unprofessional? If so you'll benefit from a re-design
2. what about the navigation? If people keep getting lost they'll soon click away - is it as clear and simple as it can be?
3. how do people pay? If you're in ecommerce, the more difficult and time consuming you make the payment process the more people will abandon their shopping carts. And the more payment options you give people, the better. If you haven't already, think about adding PayPal
4. are you a jack of all trades? Niche is beautiful in the current economy and if you can tighten up your products or services and aim them squarely at the relevant target market, you might turn the tide
5. are you hard selling? If so, rein it in. There's no need and a lot of people find it rude. Lead with the consumer benefits and don't blow your own trumpet so hard you put people off
6. do you really know your target market? Is your website targeted to their preferences, needs and expectations? If not, make it so!
7. have you told people clearly and succinctly what to do next? Include a strong call to action on every page
8. is your message clear or confusing? If you can't tell, ask someone who has never used your site and doesn't work in your industry to give it a whirl and let you know if they can't make head nor tail of it
9. is it mobile-friendly? If you don't know, try it and see - more and more people are accessing the internet on tablets and phones, so make sure it displays nicely on a phone without losing functionality
10. are you attracting the wrong kind of people? Should you target your marketing efforts differently? You might be aiming your message at Managing Directors, for instance, when Financial Directors are the bunnies. Or under 30s when your core market is actually the over 50s
11. how fast does your site load? If it's as fast as s**t off a shovel, you've cracked it. If it hangs, do something about page file sizes
12. are you saying too much? It's tempting to go into the finest possible detail on every page just in case visitors don't understand everything. But it's best to prioritise sales-critical information and add the fine detail deeper in the site. Tell them the things they absolutely have to know to make a buying decision, put the rest somewhere easy to find
13. what are your images like? Do they reflect your products in all their glory or make them look less than desirable? Here's an example. If you're selling clothing, do you photograph it on a model? People like to see what clothes look like in real life. When you think about what your audience needs and give them it, you improve sales performance
14. do you wax lyrical enough about your products? An imaginative, inspiring description can make all the difference between a sale and no sale
15. do you have an interesting 'about' page? People like to buy from businesses they like and trust and an about page is a great way to generate warm feelings. If you're a small business it's better to make it friendly and human rather than cold and corporate

Online marketing news - 6 interesting bits and bobs

Thursday, March 21, 2013

There's invariably all sorts of exciting stuff going on in online marketing. Here are six snippets of news to help you stay ahead of the curve. 

Latest Panda update causes consternation

Google's Panda algorithm update seems to have hit again this week, devaluing content the search engine feels doesn't meet its ever-evolving quality standards. As a result some business's search positions are dropping dramatically, causing consternation. If your website's search positions nosedived recently, that might be why. If your positions have improved magically, you might be one of the lucky ones who has benefited from the shifting search sands. 

Internet at bursting point

We currently use IPv4 technology in Britain and it's at breaking point, with its numbering system almost at an end. But China is already rolling out IPv6, the latest internet protocol that's set to increase the space available to unimaginably vast levels, running into the trillions. Look out for news about countries running out of IPv4 space throughout this year. 

Mentioning reliable places in your site content

Apparently it's good marketing practice to mention trustworthy, reliable 'authority' websites in your site content. Not so long ago you only benefited from back-links from places like the BBC, government, education establishments Wikipedia and so on. Now search engine algorithms are sensitive enough to pick up mentions of authority sites as well as doing scarily clever stuff like knowing when your spelling and grammar are less than perfect. If it makes sense in your context, it might do you a little bit of SEO good to mention or link to information on high-profile and big brand websites.    

Hacking help from the horse's mouth

Google is offering a really handy information resource to help people whose sites have been hacked. It's called Help for Hacked Sites and includes articles and videos to help webmasters deal with spam attacks, malware and malicious code. 

Blog power proved

You'd imagine your friends and family are the most influential when you're looking for buying advice. But according to the latest Technorati Digital Influence Report, bloggers’ opinions mean more. Which just goes to show how powerful a good blog can be. If you're not doing it already, it really is time to get going. 

Social media reach in adults increases 

67% of adults who use the internet use social media sites, as revealed by the Pew Internet Project's latest social networking study. Not so long ago social networks were the territory of youth, now they're places where all sorts of demographics hang out. Does the news make social media marketing worthwhile for your business? If you haven't done the sums recently, give it another go and see.  

Choosing the right social networks for DIY marketing...

Thursday, March 14, 2013

.. and the right people to handle it for you

There are only so many hours in a day. When you run a small business you need to reserve time for marketing but it's just one of a zillion tasks. You know social media is a good idea - a couple of years of intense experimentation out there in the wild have proved its marketing value. But how do you choose which networks to concentrate on? And if you have a marketing budget, how do you find a good professional to handle SMM for you?

Google Plus is an SEO must

Amongst all sorts of other factors, Google uses social signals to help it rank and rate websites in the search results pages. More than 90% of Brits use Google so it makes logical sense to put Google Plus, the Big G's own social network, at the top of your list. 

Choose your SMM weapons carefully

You might only choose one other network or a couple more. Whatever you decide you can handle, make sure it suits your target market and is relevant to your products and services. If you don't have the time and inclination to suss it out for yourself, a good SMM expert will be able to advise which networks are the best fit for your business.  

• Pinterest is good if your products are very visual and showcasing photos of them will fulfil customers' and prospects' needs
• LinkedIn is great if you operate business-to-business, not so useful when you sell to consumers
• Twitter is excellent if you're short of time because of the 140 character limit. It's used by businesses and consumers of for fun and commerce. It's chatty and informal, less business-y than LinkedIn
• Facebook is cool if you have the time spare to update your page with juicy content every day, including photos and likes and links. It's much more visual than Twitter and it's also more time-consuming