Posts Tagged ‘customer’

Using the Internet to Leverage Business

August 2nd, 2010 by stevezog

There once was a time when it was perfectly acceptable to post a simple batch of unchanging customer reviews on your website and call it a day. But you can’t do that anymore. Well, you can, but you’d be stupid to. Seventy-two percent of online shoppers say that web reviews and ratings on company websites, forums, blogs, and so on, influence their purchase decisions more than any other factor. Thirty-nine percent of those same shoppers admit to reading eight or more reviews before making a purchase.

Given these numbers, a business would have to be extremely negligent to refuse developing more sophisticated forms of leveraging customer reviews. And SemaOnlineMarketingConference.com published an article recently that spells out just how business owners can leverage customer reviews on your website. Among their top suggestions was enable reviewers on your company website to effortlessly multi-post to Facebook, Twitter and most blogs.

PowerReviews, one of the more popular review packages available, offers a tool that enables consumers to simultaneously post a review of your product or service to your website, Facebook and Twitter as well as to blogs using WordPress, Blogger, Live Journal and Windows Live Spaces. Now that’s smart.

Of course, customer reviews can leverage your business in more ways, and a big way is for SEO results. One of the welcome side benefits of a reviews domain is higher rankings in search-engine returns. Essentially, search engines reward websites that continually provide fresh, useful content to the web with a higher ranking.

Check out the full article here.

If you need other ideas for how to leverage your business, see what advice a business coach can give you.

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Know Your Target Audience

September 2nd, 2009 by stevezog

Disney has acquired Marvel Comics for $4 billion.

Disney has acquired Marvel Comics for $4 billion.

It’s been an interesting year of buyouts so far. First, Amazon.com bought Zappos.com for $928 million.

Now, The Walt Disney Co. bought Marvel Entertainment Inc. for a whopping $4 billion. This is Disney’s largest acquisition since it acquired Pixar Animation Studios in 2006.

This move gives Disney the green light to make movies using any and all of Marvel’s characters: X-Men, Spider Man, Iron Man, Captain America and the Fantastic Four, to name a few.

Is this a good deal for Disney?

Only time will tell, but it does open an avenue for Disney to be able to appeal to boys.

Disney has long been appealing to girls with its stories of princesses, castles, handsome princes and the like, and even through current acts that include Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers.

But what do the boys have? Disney hasn’t had a big merchandise hit with young boys since 2006’s “Cars.”

In terms of regaining their target audience, Disney’s acquisition of Marvel is a great move. This will get them reacquainted with the boys in their audience – something that only happens every few years (“Cars,” “Toy Story”).

Brad Sugars, founder and CEO of ActionCOACH, knows the value of “keeping in touch” with your customer. After all, your customer is the most valuable asset to your company.

Granted, Disney was doing just fine appealing mostly to girls. But it can improve in its target segment of boys.

This makes us think – if Disney is working to make a segment of its customers happy, shouldn’t that be what everyone should be doing?

If you work at making your customers happy, this will guarantee you repeat business and referrals – two of the most profitable kinds of customers.

We can all take a hint from Disney and Brad Sugars. With business, know your customers, know what they want and how a happy customer can impact your business – for the better.

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What Recession? Continued…

August 7th, 2009 by stevezog
California's unemployment rate is on the rise.

California's unemployment rate is on the rise.

California’s unemployment rate keeps on rising…it is currently at 11.6, more than the national unemployment rate of 9.5.

More than 2 million people are unemployed in the Golden State, and according to Reuters, that number will continue to grow instead of diminish.

What would a Business Coach advise panicking businesses in California to do, as the media predicts even worse times ahead?

Brad Sugars, founder and CEO of ActionCOACH, would tell them to “master your numbers” and take a “media diet.”

Reading the newspapers every day is a perfect way to start your day on a negative note – because even the business media is anti-business these days.

Avoiding the papers and turning off the TV will help you “get rid of head trash.”

All that doom and gloom needs to be turned around into what you can do to turn your own situation around. Besides, worrying doesn’t help success come any faster.

Then, Brad would advise getting your marketing in place. What’s the quickest way to generate business? Go to your current customers. Brad always advises owners that the greatest asset of their business is their current customer base. It costs between six to eight times (or more) to acquire new customers than sell to your existing customers.

If you’re a business in California, you’ll need to focus on your numbers, and you’ll need to concentrate on existing customers and repeat business. That’s the basic model of a winning strategy.

Rather than wasting time and precious resources scrambling for new customers, go back to your existing customer base – then step-up your customer service, add value to your product and/or service line, and start a referral plan (after all – wouldn’t you rather give a $50 gift card to someone who sent you business than buy a $50 ad that may or may not pull?). Who knows? You might start getting more referrals than ever … and instead of putting effort into getting new customers, you have started to work “on” your business. Companies in California should take note!

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