Best of Small Business – 2014, the year of the customer Posted on January 3, 2014June 1, 2016 by Nicci Troiani 2014 is the year of the customer! At least it is here at Hatchbuck, because, well, every day is about our customers! Here are some fantastic articles to start of 2014 with a goal to make your customer service top-notch. 1. 10 Ways to Rule at Customer Service — Hint: Watch out For Astroturfing by Craig Newmark This is a great, easy to-the-point list. #1 should be every businesses first rule when communicating and developing relationships with customers. http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131227145328-5062-10-ways-to-rule-at-customer-service-hint-watch-out-for-astroturfing?trk=cha-feed-art-title-207 2. New Year, Fresh Start, Happy Customers by Sarah Crumbaugh Crumbaugh makes some great tips here on how to keep your customers happy year round. Keep these in mind in all of your customer interactions! http://www.rewardsnetwork.com/blog/new-year-fresh-start-what-makes-good-customer-service/#! 3. Building World Class Customer Service by Andreas von der Heydt Love this point from von der Heydt: Customer service is not a department, it´s an attitude and everybody´s job! It needs to be at the very core of the company´s DNA. Practice it everyday. http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140102151650-175081329-building-world-class-customer-service?trk=cha-feed-art-title-207
Your 2014 Sales & Marketing Resolutions Posted on December 30, 2013 by Nicci Troiani The start of a new year is a great time to get motivated and make changes to your everyday life- which is why so many people make personal resolutions this time of year. This new year, consider making some business resolutions. Around this time of year, there are many articles put out predicting trends in business and marketing for the upcoming year, so it’s a great time to do some research and anticipate what should change with your small business for 2014. At Hatchbuck, we communicate with small business owners everyday and it seems like there are a lot of common resolutions for their marketing efforts. Here are some things that we hear our customer base wanting to improve on: 1. Create content consistently Creating content on a consistent basis amps you up for a great, planned out content marketing strategy. Many small business owners get overwhelmed at the thought of content creation (check out an article on content creation here), or have trouble doing it consistently. Keep in mind that you are an expert at your business and writing about things you know should come easily. Create a content calendar and make deadlines for when you want specific content to be done and then just stick to it. Whether it’s easiest for you to spend 10 minutes a day or a few hours in one sitting, find what works to you and stick to it. 2. Follow up with prospects better It is the norm for a small business owner to only follow up with leads that are ready to buy right now. Many times, all leads who aren’t quite ready, get tossed aside, not followed up with and probably end up buying from a competitor eventually. Prevent this by putting your “cold” leads onto drip email marketing campaigns with triggers to remind you to follow up with the lead. Sending your prospects interesting, educational information about your industry, you are making them more knowledgeable about the buying process without being a pushy salesperson. Then, when they have indicated more interest, you can follow up with them, saving yourself a ton of time. 3. Stay in touch with customers A huge advantage that small business has over the big guys is to have a personal relationship with your customer base. As you grow and spend your time focusing on sales, it gets harder and harder to stay in touch. Hatchbuckers have found that using a system that allows sending mass emails that look personal and schedule “check-in” emails can solve this issue. Some ways to stay personal are to send friendly holiday greetings. With an email marketing system, you can send to your whole database at once, but still look like you’re sending it personally. You can create it when you have time and schedule it for later. Additionally, you can create drip marketing campaigns for your customers, just to check in and make sure they’re happy. We have found a ton of tips and predictions for marketers and small business owners for the upcoming year. Here is a recent blog with some articles we liked: http://benchmarkcrm.com/blog/best-small-business-2014-marketing-sales-trends/
Best of Small Business, 2014 Marketing and Sales Trends Posted on December 27, 2013June 1, 2016 by Lindsey Stroud I don’t know about you, but this year has flown by to me. It seems like I was just sitting down to write my first blog of 2013, “4 Marketing Habits to Adopt With a New Year!” Now that the holidays are coming to an end, it’s a great time to begin thinking of your 2014 Marketing and Sales goals. To get you inspired, I’ve compiled some great articles related to sales and marketing strategy in the upcoming year. Here are my picks for articles this week relating to the 2014 Marketing and Sales Trends: “The Five: 2014 Marketing Trends“ http://www.dallasnews.com/business/small-business/20131225-the-five-2014-marketing-trends.ece – Shama Kabani, CEO of the Marketing Zen Group, highlights her five recommendations on upcoming marketing trends for small business owners. My favorite trend? Context and Relevancy take center stage. With a saturated market, it’s so important to provide the right information at the right time! “3 Key Business Marketing Trends for 2013” http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/12/2014-business-marketing-trends.html -Small Business Trends has released a short article highlighting its predictions for marketing trends in the upcoming year. Biggest surprise (IMO)? The number one prediction that video will take the cake this year over social media and mobile devices. “12 Key Sales Trends for 2014: Meet the Enlightened Seller“ http://www.brw.com.au/p/marketing/key_sales_trends_for_meet_the_enlightened_dG9M4sTAKQJ7cSm37B9KeJ – Great article highlighting emerging sales trends for 2014. It’s no surprise that consumers are now expecting to work with sales professionals who bring expertise and solutions to the table. Who else is happy that the aggressive sales person is quickly fading?! Can’t wait to see what a new year brings! Happy 2014!
Happy Holidays from Hatchbuck Posted on December 23, 2013 by Nicci Troiani This Holiday Season, Our Thoughts Turn Gratefully To Those Who Have Made Our Progress Possible. It Is In The Spirit That We Say… Thank You & Best Wishes For A Happy & Healthy Holiday! *** Holiday Hours The Hatchbuck office will be closed Wednesday December 25th (Christmas day) and Wednesday Jan.1. (New Years Day) If you need support please please reach out to our team: support@benchmarkone.com. All urgent issues will be responded to within the same day, non urgent issues will be responded the next business day. Hope you enjoy a little time off, some holiday egg nog, and we look forward to growing with you in the New Year!
Spread Holiday Cheer Through Email Posted on December 18, 2013 by Lindsey Stroud Over the past couple of months, I (as well as other marketers) have encouraged you to ramp up your marketing to drive holiday sales. Hopefully the advice has brought you a worthwhile experience during the hectic season. That aside, now is a great time to just step back from all of the sales and marketing strategy, and simply express gratitude and spread holiday cheer (no sales pitches allowed!) Here is how our Hatchbuckers are using email marketing to spread holiday cheer: STL Rent a Box – www.stlrentabox.com The Delve Group – www.delvegroup.com Syzygy Coaching – http://syzygy-co.com/ Remember to express gratitude to all of those who have helped your business along the way. It’s simple in Hatchbuck to create a short holiday email (not to mention cost efficient and extremely thoughtful). Happy Holidays! Lindsey
Gmail Image Change Affecting Your Email Opens Posted on December 16, 2013 by Nicci Troiani We get asked a lot how Hatchbuck (and other email marketing services) track email opens. To track an email open, we place a super-small, single pixel sized image into each email. Hatchbuck will track an open when this pixel is viewed (or when someone clicks on a link within the template). Gmail recently made a change in how they display email images. They will no longer ask you to “display images below.” Initially, Gmail wanted to protect it’s users, by requiring you to click to display images. Now they will be checking all images for viruses and malware ahead of time. So how will this affect your Hatchbuck opens? It depends on how many of your email list recipients use Gmail really. Since there are a LOT of Gmail users, this change should be a good one for e-mail marketers. In theory, this should make Hatchbuck more efficient in tracking unique email opens. You can check out an article on the update from Mashable here: http://mashable.com/2013/12/12/gmail-automatic-image-display/
Best of Small Business – Week of December 9, 2013 Posted on December 13, 2013June 1, 2016 by Lindsey Stroud Welcome to the end of another work week! Like many of you, I find myself constantly reading other Small Business blogs. There is a lot of great marketing and sales advice out there for Small Businesses, and I really enjoy finding it and sharing it with you all. This week I have compiled some of my favorite blogs from others trying to empower Small Business Owners. Why Your Marketing Still Sucks – http://www.bigmarketingsmallbusiness.com/2013/11/19/why-your-marketing-still-sucks/ – Great article from the blog “Big Marketing For Small Businesses.” Within this article, founder Rajan Soji talks about earning the trust of the customer with marketing vs. trying to sell them on an idea that may or may not be entirely true. Like any relationship, the first steps of successful marketing is earning trust and telling the truth. 5 Lessons They Don’t Teach You At Marketing School – http://www.getbusymedia.com/5-lessons-they-dont-teach-you-at-marketing-school/ – Within this blog article, Kevin Anderson, account director for Online Rep Management talks about the valuable lessons one more learn and adapt to within the marketing field. My favorite lesson? Everything Changes. Everything Will Change. 10 Local Business Marketing Tips You Should Read Before Breakfast – http://diymarketers.com/2013/12/10-local-business-marketing-tips-read-breakfast/– A great comprehensive overview of what a Small Business should implement in order to create a strong web presence. An excellent read for any small business just starting out or looking to refresh their current internet marketing strategies. What sales and marketing blogs are you a huge fan of? Would love to hear!
When Email Newsletters Work Posted on December 9, 2013 by Nicci Troiani How many company promotion emails and newsletters do you get daily? If your inbox looks like mine– probably A LOT. So what differentiates one from another? And what gets the recipient to open your newsletter? Or better- click through to look at products or back to your site? Here are four keys to optimize opening behavior: 1. Subject Line Your subject line needs to do two things– draw attention and explain the email content. People sometimes try to get super creative with email subject lines, which can have an adverse affect. If the reader sees a cheesy subject line, they may assume it’s promotional. Also, the subject line should tell me what I’m about to read. Assuming that your newsletter is full of content that I want to read, then the subject line should let me know that so I will open the email and get to all of that exciting content. 2. Personalize At a minimum, if you have all of your list’s first names and are using an email marketing system, use merge fields to make it seem a more personally written. Make your newsletter look less newsletter-y. Limit your images and links. If your recipients think that this letter was personally written, they are more likely to take action. 3. Get to the point! Some people love reading- just not your newsletter. Keep all sections short and link back to your site. If the reader is interested, they will click-through. This drives more traffic to your site and it gives you a track-able activity to judge how engaged your readers are by looking at the click-through rates. 4. Be Mobile- Ready! A HUGE percentage of your list will probably be reading your email on a mobile device. If it’s unreadable or hard to view, it will just be deleted. Here’s a great infographic from KissMetrics.com explaining how to optimize for mobile:
Best of Small Business Week of December 2, 2013 Posted on December 6, 2013June 1, 2016 by Nicci Troiani Happy Friday! Here are our small business article picks of the week. 1. What’s Holding You Back From Online Marketing Success? by Randy Milanovic Many of our Small Business customers want to be found online but struggle with doing so. Is one of these reasons holding you back? http://socialmediatoday.com/randy-milanovic/1965341/whats-holding-you-back-online-marketing-success#! 2. 5 Things Every Small Business Owner Should Know About Social Media by Stephanie Frasco By now, everyone knows social can be a great extension of your brand presence, but small businesses struggle with how to use it effectively. These are some great tips on how to up your social presence. http://socialmediatoday.com/stephaniefrasco/1965111/5-things-every-small-business-owner-should-know-about-social-media#! 3. 14 Customer Experience Predictions for 2014 by Jeannie Walters The customer experience is a GIANT part of what will make your business succeed or fail. We love looking at predictions and ways to make the customer experience a great one. http://www.customerthink.com/blog/14_customer_experience_predictions_for_2014#!