There’s nothing like injecting some momentum back into your marketing with some quick wins, so in this episode, I’ve got three small changes you can make in no time to your marketing and communication that can produce a big impact.
Resources
Examples to get ideas from: Shopify, McDonalds, Zappos
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Transcript
In today’s episode, we’re going to be concentrating on getting you some quick wins with three tiny tweak you can make to your marketing that have big outcomes. So stay tuned
Some days your marketing can feel like it’s just not going anywhere.
So to help you inject some momentum back into your marketing, I thought I’d give you three small things you can do fast that can have a great impact, improving how you communicate with your audience. Now, the first thing is something that’s so simple and can make all the difference to customer satisfaction for a whole lot of businesses. It’s the handwritten note. Look gone are the days that we get wads of mail in the mailbox or anything handwritten at all. So it’s special.
There’s a women’s online retailer called Birdsnest that do it really well with every purchase, they write a short personalised note saying something that reaffirms your choices of products, thanks you or just makes you feel good. Now, I want you to think, have you ever received a handwritten card in the mail from a business that you helped out or received a handwritten welcome card when you started as a new client or even at the end of a project?
How did it make you feel? Look some businesses do miss the mark when making them impersonal. But what you’ve got to keep in mind is that people will remember every time how you made them feel.
So who’s this good for? It’s good for those that are trying to build close relationships, anyone who mails or couriers products to their customers who want to be known for their great service, professional services, coaches and consultants. When you get a new client or even when you send out big reports. Even businesses like a vet surgery when a client arrives with a new pet.
Now, who wouldn’t this work for?
Look, I don’t think it would be very effective for businesses such as dentists and doctors, trades and hospitality. Getting a handwritten note from my plumber just might not have the intended effect. Okay, so we’ve talked about handwritten notes.
The next tiny tweak is all about getting more testimonials and making them so that you can use them in lots of different places, such as social media, your website, sales pages and more.
Look, it’s vital for your business to have up-to-date testimonials or reviews that you can use in your marketing to help you build trust and to provide social proof. And the easiest and most effective way is to do it now with video.
I know that you’re thinking that it’ll be all too hard, but just stay with me and I’ll explain. As you probably know, getting customers to give you testimonials or reviews is not usually easy.
Most of the time, people are really eager if you’ve done a great job for them, but they don’t ever get around to it because it’s not a high priority for them. They will, however, be quick to write one, as you know, if they’ve had a bad experience.
So let’s make it easier to showcase your happy customers.
If your business is service based and you run workshops or networking functions for your clients, bring along a videographer and find a quiet space where you can ask clients to record a testimonial. It’s not as expensive as you might think and is worthwhile if you’ve got the right audience and you make it fun, or at the very least, not scary. Now, if you’re just starting out and can’t afford a professional, then ask a friend who’s great with video to help but make sure they use a tripod so it’s not shaky and you’ve got good lighting and a small microphone if you can.
Now, for those of you who talk to clients a lot on email, there’s this really cool software that’ll make you stand out and make it really super simple for your customer or client as well.
Now, the software is called VideoAsk, and the way it works is that within an email, you send them a video of yourself asking for a testimonial and just giving them instructions. It’s really quick and easy. And then they get the choice of whether they can reply with a text email, or audio, or video response.
And it all just happens with one click of a button. So the idea here, keep it super simple and easy for them. And for anyone who’s clients or customers come into their business ask some of your favourite customers, whether they’d be happy to record an audio or video testimonial while they’re there. Put some thought into it beforehand, test it out and make sure your lighting and background are all good. And then when they arrive, you can just whip out your iPhone and you’ve got a testimonial.
One thing to remember, this is not Hollywood. You want your videos and your testimonials, whatever the way they are to be professional, but perfection isn’t required. Real life from the heart testimonials are the ones that connect the best anyway. So testimonials. We’ve done those.
The third tiny tweak for today’s episode is developing a comprehensive page of frequently asked questions that can be used in multiple places for a better customer experience and to save you time.
Look, having a document with all of your frequently asked questions and answers gives your audience all the information they need to make a buying decision. Because sometimes people skip over things on sales pages or product or service pages that they just can’t find. Frequently asked questions lay things out totally differently.
It can help to ensure that your customers expectations are in line with yours, assists with conversion, customer satisfaction as well, though your frequently asked questions, also enables your staff to share the same message time and time again, which reduces confusion and issues as well.
People get frustrated I’m sure you’ve discovered by now when they can’t find the answer that they’re looking for really easily and often they’re likely to actually just close your website if that’s where they are and go elsewhere.
I want you to think about all the times when you’ve been looking to buy a product or service and you haven’t been able to find the answers to all your questions. It’s such an easy thing for businesses to fix, yet so many don’t, which leads to lost sales and we don’t want that for you.
So after this episode, I want you to think about the questions that people ask you all the time. The questions you’d want to ask if you were in their shoes, even the types of questions you’d ask other businesses. Things like what landmarks are you near or public transport stop is closest to you. Don’t just give them your address.
Also what are your trading hours, including public holidays? Because I was really surprised over the Christmas break how many small businesses didn’t update their hours to accommodate for going on holidays. So they had people turn up and no one was there to serve them.
Now, other ones are things like is your business accessible for people with a disability? What about your covid safety protocols? They’re a lot more important than you might think.
And a list of people sorry, a list of things that people should actually bring to their appointment. Anything that’ll help set expectations, reduce obstacles to purchasing and any fear that they might have. And it’s also got to provide value to your customer, because at the end of the day, look, giving a customer the best possible experience is what will bring them back again and again.
Once you’ve written out the questions and answers that apply to your business, you can use them then on your website to quickly answer questions via email, social media, on the phone or even in person.
They’re also really good to provide a new staff member for clearer communication when you’re on-boarding them.
So there you have it, three tiny tweaks you can implement in your business in no time at all. You’ve got handwritten notes to make your customers feel good about working with you or shopping with you. We talked about making it easier for customers to give testimonials to help boost your credibility and provide social proof and also about creating a really comprehensive list of frequently asked questions to provide better customer experience and to help set expectations and save you time. So which one will you start taking action on so that you can get a quick win improving your marketing?
Look, I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Before you go, make sure you hit the subscribe button so that you don’t miss out on all the amazing tips, strategies and interviews we’ve got coming up that are going to help you take your business to the next level.
