On the cardboard case it told me that I could use this in three easy steps:

1. Purchase my installation code on their site.

2. Insert the CD; the software will launch automatically.

3. Enter my installation code when prompted.

Boom! How simple is that? Now apart from the fact that I’ve since incorporated, and I’m now using an accountant, both of which QuickTax couldn’t have known, if I had been in the same position as last year, chances are I simply would have followed their directions.

There are lessons in this story to be had for businesses of all kinds, though especially seasonal ones.

Lesson #1: Remember FOR Your Customer

Don’t count on your customer to remember you. Fact is, when that time comes around again next year, some other business is probably far more current in their mind. A perfect example of this is the restaurant industry. Get your clientele to give you their email address and birthday, then every month, send out a special email to all of your clients and offer them a birthday discount.

Own a flower shop? Get your customer’s anniversary dates, their wife’s birthday, etc etc. You might sound intrusive, but if presented right, this could become a selling point. Tell the guy in a panic to get some flowers that next year you can remind him (via email or phone) a few days before he’ll need them, prepare the bouquet of roses for him and even give him a small discount. All he has to do is come in, pay, and pick them up. Done for him as much as possible. Now he doesn’t even have to remember his anniversary! Well, let’s not go there.

Ok, so why not take it a step further? You could offer delivery service as well, so that not only are you remembering for your client, you’re DOING it all for him as well. All he has to do is give you his credit card once a year.

Maybe you’ve got a deli that sells seasonal items. Or a fruit stand even! Get your customer’s email addresses, and send them an update so they don’t miss the strawberry season, or the whatever. Give them a coupon they can print off and redeem right at the fruit stand for $1.00 off. Who said fruit stands can’t do more marketing than what they can fit on a piece of plywood?

Lesson #2: Make It E-A-S-Y To Buy!

Are there unnecessary steps in your sales process? Do customers get fed up half way through and leave? This probably isn’t quite as prevalent in bricks and mortar stores, because it is easy to see someone getting frustrated and help them. However, if you’ve got an online store, or a business website, do you know at what point people are saying enough is enough? Are you satisfied with your conversion rate, or are most visitors simply poking around for a few seconds and then on to the next site?

Maybe there are things you can do to streamline their experience, so that they find exactly what they’re looking for quickly, and easily.

QuickTax boiled things down to three easy steps; even the software installs itself!

How can you do the same in your business?

They mentioned survey data from Marketing Sherpa, who had surveyed over 1700 marketers. They found out that right now, marketers are tending to gravitate towards the most proven forms of marketing, those with the highest ROI (Return on Investment). That makes sense in a recessionary economy; people always want the most bang for their marketing buck, but during a recession they are far more risk averse.

The marketing method that 1700 marketers are favoring during this recession? Email.

Businesses that have their own in-house email lists report tremendous ROIs. I’ve seen statistics showing 5100% ROI ($51 return for every $1) on email marketing to house lists. That makes email a safe and secure way to continue marketing.

One of the biggest benefits of marketing to a house list is the fact that you don’t need to spend any money to find a new customer, typically one of the mostly costly marketing activities. In house lists contain current customers, people who have already bought from you and trust you. That means you’re preaching to the choir every time you send out an email, they already know you and trust you. That makes them FAR more likely to respond to your marketing messages.

The other trend that the survey identified was that email is the preferred method of lead generation and nurturing.

The benefit of email as a lead generation tactic is that you can build it like a machine, wind it up and let it loose. A good lead generation campaign can run pretty much on autopilot, capturing customers into the funnel, giving them something of value in exchange for their contact information, then following up with them with quality, valuable information and marketing messages. Over time, they’re exposed to an automated marketing sequence which draws them closer and closer to the sale. Done right, very little human involvement is necessary. That makes it very cost effective.

So email is effective for generating leads, nurturing them into sales, and then post-sale, following up on a regular (and automated!) basis to generate more sales. It’s no wonder why email marketing is the preferred method during a recession!

If you haven’t yet setup an email marketing campaign for your business, it would be worth your while to have a quick read of the free email marketing report we’ve prepared which explains how to do that.

Why not use email marketing to bust this recession, at least for your own business?

In 2008, one of the main trends was personalization. Marketers are shying away from the one size fits all approach and trying to add some customization to each message. This might be as simple as addressing the recipient by name, or it might include other information that the customer has offered. Sending out birthday emails would be a good example of this. Birthday emails have been proven to work tremendously well, especially in the restaurant industry.

If you can further segment your list, and target each sub-niche more directly, that will yield even better results. For instance, if you analyze your customer list, and discover that you’re serving mostly younger males and say, middle aged females, then it would make a great deal of sense to try to segment those two groups and market to each of them directly. You can then use totally different language and offers that would be more calculated to appeal to a recipient within that group. Add to that some name personalization, and you’ve got a better chance of success than a single mass email. 

The predictions for 2009? Increased use of email automation by small businesses. Email is already said to be one of the top marketing methods for small businesses during the holidays, and it’s value is becoming more apparent. Low cost per action, coupled with customization, coupled with automation makes for a winning combination. 

If you’re not already using email marketing in your business – it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in!!! – then you should seriously consider getting on board. Take the opportunity to get ahead of your competitors before they do the same to you! 

For more information on email marketing for small businesses, download the free report available in the right column of this page. 

Wishing you a prosperous 2009!

Run And Hide?

As a small business owner, what do you do with that information? Do you run and hide, close up shop, hide under a box and hope it all blows over? 

That’s not really an option for business owners, because for most of us, if we stop working in our business even for a day or two, the whole thing grinds to a halt, and guess what? No paycheck. 

Stay And Fight?

So we don’t have the option of running away, so why not stick around and fight? In this mini-series, you’re going to see how sticking around and fighting in the midst of a recession can be an incredible opportunity for your business. I’m going to show you how you can use recession to your advantage, and come out of it far stronger than before, and far stronger than your competition. 

Don’t Let Leads Fall Through The Cracks

Today’s strategy for dealing with recession might seem straightforward, but the reality of the matter is that most small business owners are oblivious to what they’re letting slide through their fingers. 

So don’t let leads fall through the cracks!

This means that you need to identify where you’re losing leads, and plug the holes. You need to be capturing their contact information at the point of first contact, whether that is in the store, on the phone, or on the internet. 

Once you’ve got their contact information, you need to have a plan to follow up, follow up, and follow up until they purchase something. I’m not talking about incessant nagging, I’m talking about providing value, and building a relationship. There’s a big difference. 

Automated Relationship Building

The good news is that most of the follow up work can be automated so that it won’t require any more of your time. Statistically, it takes six or seven contacts before a customer purchases. How often do you normally interact with your customer? 

By setting up automated follow up strategies, you can dramatically increase conversion ratios. I guarantee that 99% of your competitors will not be taking out the microscope during this recession to see how they can optimize their lead capture process. This will give you a big advantage. 

One example of an automated follow up strategy is an email campaign setup with an auto responder. This can be adapted to pretty much any business out there. 

Track Response For All Marketing

It is imperative to track the response of your marketing in order to find out what’s working and what isn’t. If you’re not tracking, measuring and analyzing, you don’t really have a clue where you stand. This will allow you to focus on the forms of marketing that produce a direct, measurable response, which will lead to more profits, which can be re-invested in proven forms of marketing. 

Optimize Your Sales Funnel

It sounds technical, but all this means is paying attention to that first point of contact. How do you answer the phone? How do you greet people when they walk in the door? The very words you speak can either slam the door in their face, or invite them in further. Experiment, make notes, and optimize this process. Develop a script and stick to it. 99% of your competition will never do this, thereby giving you another advantage. 

This post is the first in a series of six dealing with strategies your business can implement immediately that will cause it to prosper during this recession and positively dominate during the good times to come!

I read recently in BusinessWeek that most of Silicon Valley has listened to the popular wisdom that recession = tough times = must aggressively cut cost in order to survive. The story goes that a venture capital group made a presentation to this effect and soon it was accepted as gospel (read the story for more details). Surprise, surprise, it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and probably would have been even if the recession had miraculously evaporated. Why? Because the executives believed it, and when you believe something you take action on that belief. 

Facebook however appears to be cutting against the grain. They’re sticking with their aggressive growth targets, and are viewing the current downturn as a golden opportunity for a land grab. Their biggest competitor, MySpace, is hunkering down and expecting lower revenues this year. That takes them out of the equation, so Facebook is on the hunting trail, eager to snap up anything that will fuel its growth. They’ve even reduced revenue projections in order to take on more new members. They know that sooner or later the tough times will end, and they’re going to be sitting w-a-y ahead of the pack when that happens. 

Where The Rubber Hits The Road

So what does this have to do with you and your business? Everything. If you own a small business, you have an opportunity to be a Facebook right now. Chances are extremely high that your competitors are taking a page out of Silicon Valley’s playbook and hunkering down to weather the storm. 

The question is, are you going to do the same thing? Or are you going exploit the fresh opportunities that will be showing up because your competitors are backing out of areas?

Marketing is a prime example. Right now, your competitors may be pulling ads off the radio for next quarter, or out of the newspaper. Guess what? That makes radio or newspaper or whatever media you’re targeting more ripe for great deals. If business is hurting, time for you to get a good deal! Then with your competitors not even at the ballgame anymore, you’re free to clean up. 

So set aside some time, and consider carefully your current competition, and how they’re changing their strategy. Once you understand theirs, you can formulate yours to beat them. Good luck!

At Smart Fusion, we believe that internet marketing needs to produce trackable, measurable results that profitably impact your bottom line. This means that if you spend $500 on marketing, you should be able to see a direct return on your bottom line of $500 or more, otherwise it is isn’t worth doing, right?

As a local, Abbotsford based business, we take the time to come and visit you onsite, (assuming you’re local too!) to get a true understanding of your business needs and goals. We know that initially you started your business for a particular reason, and our goal is to help you achieve yours, through sound application of marketing principles. 

Among other services, the following is a short list of the most popular internet marketing services we offer. 

Article Marketing – A tremendous way to build credibility for your business or products, article marketing is also a good way to build backlinks to your website, helping it to place better in the search engines. 

Email Marketing - Email marketing can be successfully applied to just about any kind of business you can think of. Can’t think of how it relates to yours? Give us a call, we have ideas that will make your head spin! (In a good way =)

Search Engine Optimization - SEO is a fancy way to say “getting found when people are searching for you.” We use the latest strategies to get your website ranked in front of your competitors for keywords that count!

Video Marketing - Video is one of the most powerful mediums available for advertising. If you’re not using it in your business, you can! It can be very simple to get going, and the results can be astounding. 

If you own your own business, you can’t afford to not have a marketing strategy in place. Let us help you today!

For a free report on how internet marketing can revolutionize your offline business, enter your name and email address below.

Marketing Should Make Business Sense

Marketing is just like any other cost of doing business, you need to monitor it closely and make sure you’re getting the results you want from it. It may seem silly, but would you build a business plan around building a widget that cost $10 and selling it for $8? Nobody in their right minds would do this. 

Are Big Business Marketers Stupid?

Ironically, this happens all the time with marketing. Businesses spend thousands of dollars on TV ads, radio ads, magazine ads, everything you can think of, and precious little of it is ever tracked and measured. 

Big corporations ‘measure’ by watching for bumps in gross sales, and then attribute these to their marketing efforts. No regard is given to the myriad of other factors that could have influenced the bump. A weak competitor. A favorable news story. Unusual weather. It could be anything. 

Branding is the New Marketing… if you’re crazy rich already!

Oftentimes, for large corporations, marketing has become synonymous with branding. Huge ad campaigns are created, hoping to build the brand. Think of any of the commercials for beer companies. These ads don’t ask you to take a direct, measurable action, like “go out and buy a six pack right now” – instead they’re trying to get inside their customer’s heads, so that maybe they can influence their purchase decisions in the future. 

There are many reasons why this kind of marketing simply won’t work for small businesses, the most relevant of which is the fact that small businesses don’t have multi-million dollar marketing budgets. 

If You Don’t Want To Throw Money Away – Track It!

So therefore, with a limilted budget, everything needs to be tracked and measured! Small companies have fallen prey to playing copycat from what the larger companies do. Newspaper ads are bought, but there is no follow up to see if they produced results, and if so, how much. 

Big companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars investigating their customers. They  do psyhological analyses, they do focus groups, they do surveys and a host of other things that cost a lot of money. Then they go out and make brand-related marketing decisions. Although their ads aren’t looking for a direct response, they are targeted towards a certain marketing. This much at least the big companies have got right. 

Define Your Target

Unfortunately, most small businesses can’t define their target market in detail. Are they female or male? What age bracket? Education? Income? Conservative or Liberal? Do they use American Express or Mastercard? These things all make a difference and can be important factors in a targeted marketing campaign. However, without doing the research, putting out ads that don’t ask for a measurable, direct response, is worse than what beer companies do!

Without knowing what demographic you’re trying to appeal to, you have no idea what message you should be promoting to make them take action. Without asking for direct, measurable action (ie, clip this coupon and bring it in to the store) it is nearly impossible to track bottom line results to a specific marketing action. 

The New Paradigm

If you’re a small business owner, you need to start paying attention to where your marketing dollars are going, and which ones are coming back to you. Just like you wouldn’t sell something for below cost, you can’t afford to pay for marketing that brings in less profit than it cost you. 

Take the time to carefully analyze your current customer base. Figure out what the common characteristics are. Once you’ve built a few customer profiles, figure out how you can target these profiles directly. 

Every cent you spend on marketing should be spent with a goal in mind, and that goal should be to produce sales, or at least to generate leads that you can follow up on. If you run a newspaper ad, ask them to mention it or bring it in to the store. Have your employees track which sales came from the ad. At the end of the day, add it all up and see if it makes sense to run it again. If you made money, great! Run it again. If you didn’t, try to find out why. If you can’t think of a way to improve it, don’t do it again! Strangely, many businesses advertise because they believe they’re supposed to, even though they know it’s not working. 

The Internet – Trackable, Measurable Marketing Results

The internet has become the greatest marketing medium we’ve ever seen. Possibly the single biggest advantage the internet has over every other marketing medium is its ability to track user’s actions to a fairly high level. This means that each marketing dollar can be tracked back to a sales dollar, and the return on investment (ROI) can be accurately measured, in real time. 

I firmly believe that any bricks and mortar small business can take advantage of internet marketing strategies and use them successfully, integrated with their offline business. Marketing online doesn’t require selling online. 

We’ll talk more about that in another post, but for today, the take-away should be to re-examine all your marketing efforts to date, figure out who your target market is, and figure out what marketing makes you money, and what marketing costs you profits.