How Can Your Business Serve Your Online Audience Better?

Many of us have had to shift our businesses recently to offer online and no contact options.  Have you come up with your plan to serve a shifting audience yet?  As the world becomes more automated, your customers will expect you to understand the apps and tools commonly used to make things like scheduling, payment, and support easy and efficient.

Scheduling

Many new and smaller businesses have grown accustomed to signing up new clients on a one-to-one basis – in-person or over the phone. The future is transitioning all of these administrative tasks online using modern apps and solutions. The key to modernizing your business and making it online-friendly is finding ways to automate tasks that are normally time-consuming and frustrating. No one enjoys playing phone tag with someone to set up an appointment. More and more individuals find that engaging in a phone conversation without an appointment is inconvenient. We don’t answer a call if we don’t know the number and we put our phones away in an attempt to be more productive. In this brave new world, investing in and setting up an online scheduler is essential for businesses wanting to efficiently and easily make appointments with leads and customers. There are lots of options available but we use YouCanBookMe.com.

Invoicing

We live in a world of online payment solutions. The days of waiting for a check to come in the mail are over. In fact, many people in the younger demographics don’t even use checks or carry cash which means an online invoicing tool is key. After all the hard work of persuading a lead to do business with you, don’t then make the process difficult by making payment inconvenient and hard to process. Whether you use Quickbooks Online for your business, have a Square or Stripe account, or use a CRM software with invoicing built-in – get familiar with a trusted tool and make payment easy and convenient for your customers.

Support

Do you have a system set-up on your website or social media to answer common questions and provide real-time support or your audience? If you find that people call 15 times a day asking about your location, setting up something on Facebook that answers that question or setting up your phone system to answer that question before transferring to you could save you time AND help you support your audience at the same time. Take some time to research options for online and phone options that could help your customer support efforts.


Another way to have more time to really focus on nurturing your leads and clients is to bring on help! Social media marketing doesn’t have to be tackled alone. Having a strategy in place for your social media postings will be key in developing relationships, staying relevant, and knowing how / what to post so you don’t run out of content.  By signing up for Quarterly Roadmap sessions, we will also cover the best ways to use ads and you’ll learn how to read reports so you aren’t wasting a ton of money. Instead, you’ll be strategic about your spending so you see results for your efforts. Contact The Social Media Advisor today to get started!

 

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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

How Can You and Your Team Develop a Commitment to Your Social Media Marketing?

Every relationship requires a commitment. If you aren’t posting consistently on social media, you are showing your audience that you aren’t committed to the relationship you have with them. You are, essentially, training your audience that you aren’t serious about your social media so they shouldn’t be either. You are also teaching the social media marketing algorithms that you aren’t seriously committed to your audience so they shouldn’t make showing your content in new or underutilized feeds a priority either.

Are you ready to commit to social media marketing this year? Here are our best tips for you, and your team, to make an impact on social in the next three months.

Creating an Editorial Calendar

It’s easy to say you are making a commitment this year to social media marketing but it’s tougher to be consistent without a plan. The key to a successful social media strategy involves creating an editorial calendar – a plan for what you will post and when you will post it.

What does an editorial calendar include?

  • What channels or platforms will you use?
  • What themes will you talk about each month? (If you have 12 topics – you have a year’s worth of content!)
  • Which days will you post content?
  • What will you post on those days?

The more detailed your editorial calendar is, the easier it will be to stay on track and create content that resonates with your audience. Some marketers just post whatever they are thinking about that day. Consistency is important, yes, but if you want your message to truly resonate with your audience – a social media marketing strategy where you know what you are talking about each month and you are clear about where what you want your audience to do will return higher results.

Providing Value

While the #1 reason for having your business on social media for you is probably sales and conversions, you must remember that the audience you are seeking is not using social to consume ads all the time. Why does your audience use social media? There are a variety of reasons but the top ones are to establish and build connection with others, consume information that’s relevant or interesting to them, and to leisurely pass the time. They aren’t there trying to find what you are offering. This means your content needs to be created based on what the audience is looking for – if you want them to consume and engage with content. What is your audience looking for? What will get their attention?

Think of your social media content as if it’s the window of a department store. The wrong display will be ignored – the consumers will pass it right by without any consideration at all. The right window display will get attention and encourage people interested in what you sell to step into the store – your virtual pages and online community!

How to Promote Your Business

The whole purpose of engaging on social media with your business is to build relationships that will potentially convert into collaborative partners or customers. Therefore, you need to spend some part of your time promoting your products or services to be effective. Balancing providing value with not becoming too promotional can feel tricky at first but we recommend following the 80/20 rule. This means that 80% of what you post should be educational, inspirational, informative, or entertaining and only 20% of your posts should be promotional. With the right social media strategy, your sales posts will meld nicely with the value-added content you are sharing the rest of the time.

Having a strategy in place for your social media postings will be key in developing relationships, staying relevant, and knowing how / what to post so you don’t run out of content.  By signing up for Quarterly Roadmap sessions, we will also cover the best ways to use ads and you’ll learn how to read reports so you aren’t wasting a ton of money. Instead, you’ll be strategic about your spending so you see results for your efforts. Contact The Social Media Advisor today to get started!

 

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

Commit to Relationship Marketing This Year

Often small businesses owners put a lot of time, attention, and focus on meeting and building relationships with new people. They don’t spend nearly enough of that energy on relationship building or retention with connections they’ve already made. 

If you want to encourage brand loyalty and stay top of mind with your current network, you’ll need a plan for that. While some people are natural connectors, it’s simple to let valuable relationship-building efforts slip through the cracks in the daily hustle of running a company.

Follow-Up Strategy

Wherever you go out and represent your brand in public, it’s likely you will meet people and establish connections. Whether it’s a cold lead, a warm prospect, a member of your target audience, or a potential collaboration partner – it’s essential that you follow up with the people you meet to stay top of mind and begin building that professional relationship. Common follow-up strategies include:

  • Bring a sharpie with you to jot down notes on the back of the business card of the individual.
  • Using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to organize your contacts and notes.
  • Create a follow-up schedule and use a spreadsheet or software to keep you on track.
  • Create a sequence of actions that ensures you touch base with each person several times. This could look like an email, a handwritten card, a phone call, or an invitation to another event. 

Building Relationships

People want to be seen and heard. Do your clients know that you ‘get them’ and that you are in their corner – rooting and cheering for them? Honestly, there are probably plenty of companies that provide similar services to yours. This means that building loyalty is important for client retention. 

Do your clients hear from you on a monthly basis via email, zoom meetings, and handwritten notes or gifts? If not, what plan do you have to keep communication open between you and your clients and to nurture the relationship you are building with them? Your marketing and business strategy is essential but so is developing a plan for client retention and nurturing your leads.

Getting to Know People

A one-size-fits-all strategy rarely works as well as business owners would like. Yes, it is simpler and less time-consuming to create a client appreciation or retention strategy for everyone on your list. However, to really make an impact with your people you need to get personal. A personal touch will go much further, and inspire more loyalty, than a non-personalized approach.

One way to personalize your efforts is to uncover your client’s love language. Why? While some people respond well to gifts, other people don’t care anything at all about receiving gifts. The same could be said of the other languages of love including words of affirmation, quality time, or acts of service. While the love languages were designed to improve romantic relationships, it’s not too large of a leap to envision how they can apply to the relationships you are creating and nurturing with your business. To find out more about the five love languages, visit this website.

Looking for a new networking group to meet people and try out your new follow-up plan? Expand your professional network and build authentic connections in a community of like-minded women.  Join us for our WEBOs Lunch and WEBOs After Hours Networking events. Open to all women entrepreneurs and business owners.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

The Current Pivot to Online Networking

If networking was a part of the marketing strategy for your small business before 2020, you’ve seen big pivots and shifts this past year as connectors scramble to keep meetings happening and maintain their relevance during a pandemic. While it’s true that online networking looks quite a bit different than connecting in-person, months of testing, creative ideas, and innovation from caring and charismatic leaders have shown us that not only do online events work – but they have their own benefits and rewards. 

Finding the Right Networking Group

If you haven’t dipped a toe into networking yet, now is a great time to start. What better way to try out new groups than from the convenience of your computer or smartphone? We encourage networkers – old and new – to visit a variety of groups that are hosting online events to see what synergies may develop. 

Follow-Up Strategy

Just like with in-person networking, it’s more effective to have a follow-up strategy devised before you attend any new meetings to ensure that you are maximizing the connections you make online and nurturing those leads into actual relationships. Make it a point to set one-to-one appointments during these meetings with both potential collaborative partners AND any individuals that fit your ideal client avatar. A goal of even one meeting with someone new can lead to great things. Having a plan and being consistent are the keys to a successful follow-up strategy.

Make Connection Easy

Everyone is busy. Make connecting with new leads and partners easy by setting up a process for future connection. Create a Zoom account and offer to host a get to know each other meeting. Make it easy for them to schedule by setting up an online scheduling tool. 

Our advice is that you make the focus of that first one-to-one meeting relationship building, collaboration, asking deeper questions, and getting to know one another. Save the sales pitch to use after a relationship has been established and nurtured (unless they ask the right questions, of course!). The goal is to make new connections, establish yourself as an authority in your field, and explore opportunities that benefit everyone.

Looking for new groups? WEBO Network provides Professional Development Trainings, Masterminds and connection building opportunities on a regular basis, in a safe, virtual environment. I’m proud to lead the Southeast Denver chapter and would love the opportunity to introduce us to some fantastic women entrepreneurs and business owners!

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

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